Page 103 of Bourbon & Blood

She was on her back now, her legs up along my chest, her ankles crossed over one of my shoulders. I hugged her thighs and rolled my hips, driving into her at a slightly more sedate pace, feeling every feeling, snatching at that spark that was just there, just out of reach. I stared into her soulful gray eyes, like mist in the morning, the darkness receding in her gaze as she looked up at me.

The softness returned to her smile as she moaned and her head turned, as though she were listening to the finest music, and I realized that for her; she was. She was listening tome, to the sounds I made as I drove into her sweet wet heat and I felt as though some of the darkness left my soul – fleeing in front of her returning light, scrambling back and away as though afraid of being burned by the awful goodness she represented.

I smiled down at her, and her smile grew for me. I closed my eyes and let everything go for just a little while, gasping, crying out softly, as I spilled inside her snug little pussy, filling the condom I wore, and cursing that I wasn’t in a position to be skin on skin with her.

Not yet…

…butoh, someday I would.

* * *

I joltedawake a little while later, the night still dark outside the glass of her bedroom window. I looked down, unsure what’d dragged me from my sleep, and found my little Alina awake. Her head was on my shoulder, her great-grandmother’s ring plucked from where it’d rested on my chest. She was turning it in her fingers, her silvery eyes unfocused and vacant as she played with the ring absently, her thoughts a million miles away from here, from me, from now…

“You alright, cher?” I asked her and she startled.

“Mm?” She dragged her head off my shoulder and pushed herself up so she could look at me, searching my face, in the vague light from the streetlights down below her window.

“Asked if you were alright,” I repeated gently when it was clear she didn’t know what I’d asked.

“Mm, I’m fine,” she lied, and I reached up to trace some of her fiery copper hair back behind one of her cute little ears.

“No lies, baby girl,” I told her and she smiled, and the smile held sadness.

“I just wish I could be there,” she murmured.

“Be where?” I asked, and I had a feeling.

“Be there when you kill them,” she said.

“Oh, no, cher…” I shook my head a little and smoothed a hand over her hair, stroking a thumb along her pale cheek. “I know you wish that now, but you don’t need to see what I’m gonna do to the likes of these assholes. That’s not for you to see. That kind of ugly is for me an’ me only, baby.”

She nodded and she said, “I just want them to hurt. I want them to be afraid and to see the end coming and—” her voice broke on a sob. “I want them to feel like Maya did.”

I smiled then and thought to myselfif only you knew how hard your girl fought.I swallowed hard and said, “I don’t think your girl was as scared as you think at the end, cher. I think she was pissed. She fought like a goddamn wildcat. I think you should know that.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Hex had a candid chat with the doc over in St. Mary’s Parish before we left,” I answered. “Got a few of the details – not a lot, but that was definitely the one that stuck out. Maya didnotgo quietly, my love. She fought and fought hard and made the bastard work for it.”

She settled down against me and sighed out, asking me, “Did you mean that just now?”

“Mean what?” I asked, frowning. “About Maya? ‘Course I did.”

“No, the other thing,” she said.

I kissed her forehead and said, “Gon’ have to help me out here, cher. I don’t think I catch your meaning. Just what you trying to get at?”

She pushed herself up and searched my face in the diffuse light and brought her lips to mine, kissing me softly, once, twice, a third time and smiled.

“You did mean it if you don’t even realize you said it,” she said and settled back down with a sigh that sounded nothing short of contented.

I chuckled, and said, “Well alright, then. I still don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.” And I didn’t.

She gave me a squeeze and said, “You don’t have to, just know that it makes me happy.”

“You’re baffling sometimes, woman,” I said.

She yawned and said, “Right back at you.”

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