SWNOVELS Sinners Consumed: Chapter 15
quiet, save for the whir of mechanical Christmas decorations and the storm battering the floor-to-ceiling windows in the entryway.
“Come in!” Rory calls when I knock.
I poke my head around her bedroom door and am greeted by her tipsy grin and her fluffy dog. “Please tell me you’ve come to join the sleepover?”
I glance at the bed, where long, black hair snakes across a cream pillow. Somewhere under the covers, a small lump is snoring. “Have you swapped your husband out for Tayce?”
She flashes me a guilty smile. “He’s not feeling too well, so he’s been banished to a guest room. I thought it might be the turkey, but everyone except you and I ate it, right? And they’re all fine.”
I study her big, innocent eyes. Either she’s the best liar I’ve ever met, or she just so happened to choose the perfect day to become a vegetarian too.
“Uh-huh,” I say dryly. “Maybe it was the humiliation of dressing up as an elf. How did you convince him to do that, by the way?”
She smiles knowingly. “I was financially motivated.”
I laugh. “Anyway, I brought you a gift.”
Her eyes light up at the Rolex dangling by its strap between my thumb and forefinger. “Is that Cas’s watch?”
“Yep. Thought you might like it after he told you a bag of frozen vegetables and a self-service bar isn’t a replacement for a full catering service on Christmas day.”
“He’s such a snob. As if I was going to make my staff work Christmas day—they have families too, you know?” She swipes the watch from me and holds it up to the light. “I love it.”
Then she drops it in the half-drunk white wine spritzer on her dresser.
“Do you have everything you need?”
I stare at the bubbles engulfing the six-figure timepiece, distracted. “Uh, yeah. I mean, no. Do you have any pajamas?” I skim an eye down her lithe frame. “Ones that might fit me?”
The storm came out of nowhere, power-washing all the fake snow off the windows. Rafe got word that the waters are too choppy to head back to the yacht on the shuttle, so we’re staying here tonight.
We can’t go home, Queenie, Rafe said. His use of home fizzled in my chest and burned a hole there.
Rory tosses me an oversized T-shirt. “Be nice to it; it’s my fave.”
I unravel the fabric and read the logo: The Washington State Birdwatchers Association.
I catch Rory’s eye and she grins. “Proud member since I was five.”
We say our goodnights, and I pad down the hall with my new sleepwear slung over my arm. At the end of it, soft light seeps out from underneath the door of our bedroom for the night. Every step I take toward it, my heart beats a little faster, knowing the sight behind it will leave me breathless.
Rafe’s lying on the bed in nothing but ink and black boxers. He has one arm behind his head, and the way his bicep flexes makes me want to sink my teeth into it again.
He regards me with lazy amusement. “Hey, cutie.”
Despite the blush heating my cheeks, I roll my eyes. “Trying out new nicknames?” He rakes his teeth over his smirk and nods. “How about Doom Card? Or, The Unlucky Charm?”
His gaze sparks. “Not very catchy. I’ll stick to Queenie, I think.”
I flip him off and disappear inside the en-suite. Although I’ve had the perfect day, dread washes over me. It’s been coming in unexpected waves ever since Rafe explained why he calls me Queenie.
The Queen of Hearts. The red-haired lady that’ll bring him to his knees. It’s an odd mixture of guilt and frustration that haunts me, and the irony isn’t lost on me, either.
My fingers find my necklace. I run the pendant up and down the chain, watching it wink at me in the mirror. Maybe I’m lucky because I’m unlucky to others. The more I ponder it, the more it makes sense. I start fires. I steal wallets, watches, or anything I can get my sticky fingers on. If I choose you as a mark, you’re bound to have a stroke of bad luck, simply because of what I plan to do to you.
Feeling feverish, I splash my face with icy water and try to wash the thought away. Fuck other men; I don’t care about them, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t care about Rafe.
I get washed, brush my teeth, and slip on Rory’s shirt. When I step back into the bedroom, Rafe rolls onto his side to face me, eyes narrowing on the logo.
“That better not belong to another man,” he says quietly.
“It belongs to your sister-in-law, actually.”
He screws up his nose. “Even worse. You better take that off before I fuck you.”
I throw a discarded cushion at his head. He catches it in one hand. “Who said we’ll be fucking tonight?” Though, watching his abs tense as he slides the cushion behind his head, I know it’s inevitable.
He treats me to a lop-sided grin, tone all silk and syrup. “What’s the alternative? Talk about our feelings?”
Enjoying the heat of his stare as I stroll across the room, I play into my nonchalance. “No, but we can talk about something else. Like, why Tor Visconti showed up earlier, and why you punched him.”
He’s barely listening, as he’s too busy watching me bend over as I put my folded clothes on the armchair in the corner. “Family drama. Boring.” He lunges off the bed, swiping for my legs. “Come here.”
Maybe it’s the vodka slowing him down, but for once, I manage to step out of his reach in time. “Nico said you got him good.”
“I did,” he says carelessly. “Now come here.”
Stopping at the foot of the bed, I lift my gaze to his. It’s dark and irritated, the look of a king not used to being denied what he wants.
Smirking, I stoop to pick up all my gifts and drop them on the bed. “Let’s go through what everyone got me for Christmas, shall we?” I say sweetly.
His stare blisters. “No. Also, everyone kept thanking me for presents I’d never heard of. Did Laurie go all-out this year, or did you put both our names on all your gift tags?”
“Both our names.” I flash him my most angelic smile. “Seemed only fair, considering I paid for them on your Amex, sugar daddy.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “I bought your neighbor, who’s said three words to me in his entire life, a round-trip to Toronto to watch the Maple Leaves play. How charming of me.”
“Speaking of Matt, you see the welcome mat he got me?” I slide it out and hold it up. “It’s a pun, just like his.”
Rafe reads off the slogan. “Hi, I’m Penny. I just make cents.” He grimaces. “That’s fucking awful. It’s not coming home with us.”
I falter. There it is again. Home. The word that sounds too permanent for my heart to cope with.
Our eyes clash, his searching mine with mild confusion. “It’ll come home with me,” I say quietly.
For a second, he doesn’t understand. Then I see the realization harden his jaw and boil down to indifference just as quickly. “Ah, yes. I forgot you typically live in a crack den with a busted building door,” he says dryly.
I say nothing.
With a slow exhale, he drops back to the pillows, locking his hands behind his head. “Go on then, show me the rest.”
I do. I show him the Van Cleef necklace Rory and Angelo got me. The personalized Blackjack set from Nico, and the Charlotte Tilbury makeup hamper from Tayce.
He barely glances at the presents, choosing to stare at me with a soft expression for the whole show instead. “Lovely,” he says when I’m finished. “Now come here, or I’ll wake the whole house up dragging you here.”
But I’m not listening. There’s another gift sitting at the bottom of my bag, one I’d forgotten all about. Not one I received, but one I was of two minds about giving.
Discomfort nips at my edges. I do a shitty job of hiding it, though, because Rafe’s brow deepens. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing—”
But his eyes are already on the bag. This time, he’s faster, and he grabs it from me before I can stop him.
He pulls out the gift. Flips over the tag and glances up at me. “This is for me?”
“Yeah but—”
“From you?”
My cheeks grow hot. “No, from baby Jesus himself,” I snap back. “It’s nothing though, just a stupid little—”
“Why are you trying to hide it? Is it going to blow up when I open it?”
I glare at him. “No, but I wish I’d thought of that.”
He tears off the paper and holds my gift up to the light. A pair of puke-green socks covered in four-leaf clovers. When his gaze comes to mine, I can’t read the expression behind it, and it makes me feel even more uncomfortable.
“They’re just socks,” I mutter, shifting my weight from foot-to-foot. “Lucky socks, maybe. I know you probably get a rash from just looking at polyester, and I know I’ve probably made you hate four-leaf-clovers, but…”
My explanation melts off. The gesture is sweet, and it hangs in the air just as sickly. Truth is, I bought them from a dollar store on the high street when rowing in one of those waves of dread. I thought maybe if he has lucky socks, like I have a lucky necklace, it might stop me ruining his life anymore.
I realize I just said that aloud.
He stares at me. It’s so loud outside, with the rain beating on the windows like we’ve done something to piss it off, but in this bedroom, you could hear a pin drop.
Rafe places the socks on the bedside table. “Come here.”
This time the command isn’t lit up with lust, and I’m compelled to obey it. Numb, I crawl onto the bed and lie in the crook of his arm. He props himself up on his elbow and stares down at me, blocking all the light above him.
“You think these lucky socks will work?” he murmurs, running a finger over the pendant of my necklace.
“Maybe,” I whisper, choked. Hopefully.
He flicks a glance at my eyes. Searches them. “When did you buy your necklace?”
“I didn’t; it was given to me.”
“By your mama?”
I laugh. Yeah, right. “Someone’s mama, probably. But not mine.”
“Why did she give it to you?”
Our eyes lock and he stares at me patiently. I squirm under his body heat, not wanting to bring up that memory, not on Christmas day. Not now. But when I go to sit up, Rafe pushes me back down, holding me on the bed with his hand on my hip.
“Tell me.”
I focus on the patterned ceiling and sigh. “No offense, but men in casinos are assholes.” He doesn’t laugh but waits for me to continue. “Growing up at the Visconti Grand, all the patrons thought I was lucky.”
Now, he smirks. “Nico told me you used to charge them a dollar to blow on their dice.” His knuckle skims my cheek. “Why don’t I remember you?”
Instead of making a joke about how fucking old he is, I swallow and keep going. I know if I stop, I’ll never get it out. “I didn’t charge at first. I used to be a lucky charm for free, until one night, one of the regulars hoisted me onto his lap at the roulette wheel. He was drunk; I could smell the whiskey on his breath.” I glare at him. “Another reason I fucking hate whiskey. Anyway, he was being reckless. Bet everything he had on black, and because I’d always been so lucky for him before, he thought he couldn’t lose.” I swallow. “My mama was the croupier for that table that night. He’d convinced her to let me blow on the ball and even drop it onto the wheel, although it was completely against the Grand’s rules. It spun and spun and as it slowed, I remember his grip on my hip growing heavier.”
My stare slides up to Rafe’s. His jaw ticks, and in the shadows he looks demonic. “What did it land on,” he asks calmly, though not calm at all.
“Zero” I whisper. We stare at each other, and I let out a shaky breath. Fuck, I hate this memory. I’ve never told it to anyone, not even the hotline. If Rafe wasn’t so warm, if his arm under my head wasn’t so solid, I wouldn’t be telling him either. “I knew I was in trouble; I could feel it. I jumped off his lap and ran out into the alleyway. Seconds later, he followed me out.” My laugh is bitter and tastes of self-deprecation. “He was the first man to trap me in an alley; Martin O’Hare was the second.”
“And he’ll be the fucking last,” Rafe growls, raking a hand through his hair, glaring out at the storm.
I bring his attention back to me by stroking the head of his serpent tattoo. “It was then I learned that when you can no longer serve a man, they turn their back on you. Or worse, they turn on you. He was angry and wanted to teach me a lesson. His hands tried to go places they should never go on a ten-year-old’s body. You know, up my dress…”
The emotion clotting my throat cuts my story short. Rafe breathes out, dropping his forehead to mine. “Fuck, Pen.”
But I keep going. Now it feels like I have to. “He didn’t get very far, thankfully, because a woman appeared from nowhere. I think she was just stepping outside for a cigarette, but her presence was enough to scare him off. She was wearing the nicest dress, and the alleyway was filthy but she didn’t care. She sat down beside me and pulled me into her arms. Let me cry there for as long as I needed to.” Fuck, to this day, I still remember her scent. It was warm and welcoming. She smelled like white picket fences and freshly cut flowers and Sunday dinners around the kitchen table. Everything I’d never had. “When my tears had dried, she took this necklace off her own neck and fastened it around mine.” My fingers fly to it, bringing the memory to life. “She told me it kept her lucky, and now it would keep me lucky too. At first, I refused—because what if she wasn’t lucky without the necklace anymore? What if she suddenly started losing in the casino? But what she said next has stuck with me forever. ‘Luck is believing you’re lucky. This will just give you a little boost when you forget it.’”
Rafe’s silent, mind simmering and swinging between sadness and violence. Now that my worst childhood memory has left my mouth, it feels like it grew claws and is scraping my skin raw.
“Say something,” I grit out.
Eventually, his large palm engulfs my jaw. “I’ll kill him,” he says tonelessly, and then the bed dips and I’m cold. He stands at the end of it, scooping up his slacks. He takes a deep breath, glaring at the wall. “I’ll find him, and I’ll kill him.” He pauses. “Slowly.”
“Rafe—”
“Nico will know who he is. Maybe that bastard Tor, too. The Grand has security everywhere. I know it was a decade ago but—”
“He’s dead,” I blurt out, sitting up on my elbows.
His pauses, lifting his eyes to mine. “What?”
I curl my hand around my necklace. “Less than a week later, he was staring back at me on the obituary page in The Devil’s Coast Herald. That was the first time I realized that, yes, I am truly lucky.” I shrug. “I’ve believed it ever since.”
It feels like he stands there forever, slacks in one hand, phone in the other. When his cell screen grows dark, he tosses it on the side table and drops to his haunches beside me.
“Fuck,” is all he says.
“Fuck,” I repeat in agreement.
He shakes his head, a grimace on his lips. “I have to take a walk or something. I’m too pissed off to sleep now.”
I roll onto my knees, looking up at him. “Then we won’t sleep.”
His gaze falls to mine, softening. “I’m sorry, baby.”
“I’m sorry too.”
His jaw ticks. “Don’t you dare say sorry.” He shifts over to me, gripping my hair and nuzzling his face in my neck. “You’re not a girl that says sorry.”
“Not even for buying you ugly socks?”
His laugh tickles my skin, and somehow it lightens the mood a few shades. “They are fucking ugly.”
“Will you wear them?”
“If you want me to.” He pulls away, expression darkening again. “I didn’t realize we were doing presents.”
I laugh at the ridiculousness of his statement. “Uh, that’s fine. I guess your black Amex, your six-figure Breitling, and the shit-ton of cash you paid me to shake my ass in your face will have to do.”
He watches my hand slide down his chest, tensing when I run a finger across the waistband of his boxers. “Or…I’ll take this.”
He searches my expression. “Are you sure?”
I consider this for all of half a second. Truth is, I feel like a weight has been removed from my shoulders, now that I’ve shared my secret. I want to chase this high with something that makes me feel even better.
“What’s the alternative?” I snap his waistband and it slaps back to his stomach with a loud thawp. “Talk about our feelings?”
His eyes narrow, dropping to my lips. “You think you’re funny, huh?” he growls, pinning me down on the bed. “My Christmas present to you is that I’m going to fuck you so hard you—”
I fake a yawn and put my hand on his face. “Boring. I’ve got ten of them. Did you keep the receipt?”
He hisses something about me being a cheeky bitch, then his hands catch mine, and he holds my wrists above my head. As he studies my face, something dark glints in his eye. Self-preservation makes me attempt to twist out of his grip.
His glare heats as he runs a languid path down my chest, stopping at the hemline of Rory’s shirt. He swallows. “I’ll fuck you soft, then.”
“What?”
As I sit up in protest, he takes the chance to slide the shirt over my head, tosses it in the corner of the room, and comes down on his side. “Shh,” he murmurs, tracing the dip where my waist meets my hip. “Lie down and relax.”
I’m not quiet because I’m compliant, but because I’m suddenly too stunned to speak. Slowly, he releases his grip on my wrists and slides his shoulder under my head, so I’m lying in the crook of his arm.
My body is cloaked in his warm shadow; bathed in the intensity of his stare. He watches my breasts rise and fall for a few moments before grazing a knuckle between them.
A shudder rocks my core, my nipples tightening in anticipation. “Look at you,” he rasps. “You’re so perfect, Queenie.” We both watch his hand as it glides over the curve of my stomach. “Every single inch of you. Perfection.”
“I—”
My objection melts into a moan when his hot mouth latches onto my breast. He sucks slowly, gently, giving me so little of his tongue that all my muscles clench for more of it. Eyes lifting to mine, he grazes his bottom lip up my breasts to my collarbone, where he gives the pendant of my necklace a small kiss. “No talking. Just relax and let me worship you.” His eyes flick to mine again, a heated desperation behind them. “Please.”
I’m rigid, confusion and confliction freezing my bones. This is too nice. It doesn’t sit right with words like temporary and for now. But then he peels my panties down my thighs, and I watch as his hand disappears between them.
And with every butterfly wing brush against my clit, I start to thaw.
Rafe studies me with an intensity that makes me feel more than naked. He watches his hand play with my pussy; watches my expression when he slides his index finger inside me and presses against my sweet spot.
“Good girl,” he whispers against my mouth when I moan. “Let me hear it again.”
My blood sizzles like cold water on a hot skillet. My nerves thrum in places I didn’t know existed. I’m consumed by ink and cashmere, and, with every satin word spoken against my clammy skin, it gets harder and harder to breathe.
“Come for me, beautiful girl,” he murmurs, working my clit to a low, slow rhythm.
As his head dips to kiss my pendant again, an explosion erupts in my core, spreading outward, down to my toes and up to my fingertips.
My orgasm is violent to his calm. Desperate to his composed. He holds my head to his chest as I ride it. His heartbeat against my cheek is the first thing I hear when my senses come back to me. It’s strong and steady, reliable like the ever-present tick of a clock.
He lowers me gently to the pillow. Follows his thumb as he swipes it over my wet bottom lip.
“My Queen of Hearts,” he rasps in fascination, more to himself than to me. “My beautiful demise.”
Time seems to slow, like it doesn’t want to rush to the end either. I feel broken. I guess all that ice was holding me together. We lie like this for what feels like hours, my ragged breathing mingling with the roar of the storm.
And then another sound, this one imagined, scratches down my spine. The scrape of metal; the clanging of a lock. The snap of a trap around my ankle.
Panic grips me instantly. My hand shoots out to grab Rafe’s bicep.
“What game are we playing now?” I breathe.
His gaze is everything I don’t want it to be.
“The game of make-believe, Queenie.”