Playing Dirty: Windy City Kink, Book 3 (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Paige gripped the back of the chair and watched Raff. It seemed like he was struggling with something. She found herself wishing she could help him, whatever it was. She didn’t like seeing him like that, and not because he was scary in this mood, but because she felt he was…hurting.

Was that nuts?

She was the one who’d been hurt, rebuffed when he so clearly hadn’t wanted to talk about himself and his business. Or his friend that he’d started out with—who now owned strip clubs—and why they weren’t in business together for long.

Yes, she was curious, but she was even more interested in knowing why he didn’t want to share that stuff.

“I was in a gang.”

She blinked, her eyes flicking up to his face. His thin-lipped, tight-jawed face. She said nothing, waiting for him to go on.

“I grew up in a shitty neighborhood. As in, really shitty. My dad left when I was six, and my little sister was three. I don’t even remember him. My mom was left with two little kids. She tried hard, but we had nothing.”

She listened. She’d already heard that he’d made something of himself from a crappy start in life, so this wasn’t shocking.

“It would’ve been a miracle if I
hadn’t
got pulled into gangbanging,” he continued, his voice low. “It’s hard to describe the pull of it, when you have nothing at home, no family, a mom who’s too exhausted from trying to keep a roof over your heads to give a shit what you do. I felt like I fit in with the bangers. I was willing to do whatever it took to be part of that.” He met her eyes and the stark expression on his face had her breath shuddering in her chest. “I did things that will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Sweet zombie Jesus. What had he done? She lifted a hand to her throat.

“You get why I didn’t want to talk about this?”

She nodded, her hand pressed to the base of her throat. “I do, Raff. But you’re obviously not the same person you were then.”

His face still drawn into austere lines, he said, “I still do whatever it takes to get what I want. You gotta know that about me.”

She slowly inflated her lungs. Was he talking about…her? “That’s not a big surprise to me, Raff.”

She thought she saw his lips twitch. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to sit down…and talk more?”

“I’d rather chew glass,” he muttered. “But okay, yeah.”

They both moved to the couch. He paused to flick on the fireplace, and the warmth and light was welcome in the dim room.

“I won’t judge you,” she said softly as they sat, each of them shifting so they faced one another on the couch.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But you’re already afraid of me. Afraid to trust me. This isn’t gonna help.”

She bit her lip. “Maybe it will.”

His forehead creased and he shook his head. How could she tell him that the fact he would share that part of himself with her, that he would open up and take that risk, was making her go all soft and warm inside?

He leaned into the back of the couch. The fire spread golden light over him, gleaming off his dark hair, making his face look even more rugged in light and shadows. “I never graduated from high school.”

She nodded. Again, not something that would make her hate him. Obviously he was an extremely intelligent man.

“I did get my GED,” he continued. “Years later. To prove to myself I could do it. Would’ve liked to go to college, but…” he shrugged, “…that ship had sailed. Finn and I dropped out of school and thought we could do okay in the gang. We did drug deliveries and other errands. We beat people up when they didn’t pay for their shit.”

Her chest clenched but she tried to keep her face expressionless.

“I told you this wasn’t going to help the fact that you’re afraid.” He searched her face with his eyes. “I spoke the truth, Paige, when I said I’d never hurt you.”

She nodded.

“I was happy in that life,” he said, eyebrows slanting down as if he now couldn’t believe it. “I had a ‘family’. Finn was like my brother. I was eighteen years old and I had money and I liked it. I’d never had that before. I liked that it could buy me things, nice things—clothes, watches, a sweet ride. Also chicks. But most of all I liked it because it gave me power. Which was also something I’d never had in my life.”

She sensed he was going somewhere with this and again waited patiently.

“I was eighteen, my sister was fifteen. I didn’t want her in the Cobras. Even though I was happy. Somehow, I wanted better for her, a normal life, something clean and good. Because that was her…clean and good and sweet. She was smart. And she could sing. At school, one of the music teachers took a liking to her, started mentoring her. Swear to God, Paige, Larissa was gonna be famous one day.”

Uh-oh. Her heart started a slow descent. She kept her gaze fixed on his face.

“She was at the park one day, hanging out with friends. Took a bullet. Drive-by. Word on the street was that it was an initiation for the Pirates. That was one of our rival gangs.” His voice had gone harsh and dry. “Just hanging out, having fun. Innocent. She did nothing wrong.” His words squeezed tight and she couldn’t stop herself from sliding along the couch closer to him to put her arms around him. “They shot her. Killed her. Instantly. Took off. They never got caught by the cops.”

“Did you know…who did it?”

“Pretty good idea. Fuckwads couldn’t keep their mouths shut about it. Nothing I could do, or I’d be dead myself. It hit the news. National news, even. Everybody was all up in arms about it, calling for more police action, more efforts to get rid of gangs. It was bad. And you know what?”

She moved her head slowly from side to side, her arms tightening on him.

“Nobody gave a shit that my sister had died. It was a fucking
life
, an innocent fucking life. She had so much to live for. Nobody gave a fuck that I was goddamn devastated. Of course, I couldn’t let on that I was fucked up by that. You show one
second
of weakness, you’re dead.”

She burrowed in closer and his arms came around her too, holding her close, his hand on the back of her head tense but gentle.

“I wanted out. I didn’t know how to get out. Sometimes you
can’t
get out. When you know too much.”

“But you did. Didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Fuck. I had help. After Larissa’s death, the cops amped up their anti-gang efforts. One of the cops came and talked to me and my mom.” She felt him swallow hard. “It was Dutch.”

Dutch. The man he said he boxed with.

“Dutch got to me. It was good timing, but also he was just…good. Good at his job. He’d seen a lot of shit. He really wanted to help and he could see that I genuinely wanted something different. He knew what I had to do. We talked about strategies and how to do it. I had some money, not a lot, but I decided to use it to buy a house. It was something I thought I could do—fix it up and sell it. I convinced Finn to chip in and help. He liked making money too. I didn’t tell him this was my way out. Not at first.

“I started getting real busy, working on the house. I wasn’t taking calls from some of the boys. I made excuses. Lots of excuses. Dutch helped me. A lot. Finn and I made good coin off the sale of that house. I needed it, as an excuse as much as anything. We bought another one, and then another one. Then I told him the truth—I was getting out.”

Her body tensed.

“Finn’s like my brother,” he said quietly. “He didn’t rat my ass out. He helped me. He covered for me. He got why I wanted out. He knew how enraged I was about Larissa. I was done with that shit. So. Fucking. Done.” His head went back and his eyes closed, pain etched on his face.

“You did it, Raff.”

He gave a choked laugh. “Yeah. But you know what they say. ‘You can take the boy outta the hood, but you can’t take the hood outta the boy’.”

She chuckled too. “Really? That’s a thing?”

“Yeah.” He lifted his head and his arms tightened around her. “Like I said, I have some rough edges. I’ve done shit that’ll stay with me for the rest of my life. There are things I learned from that life that are hard to get past.”

Her chest swelled with an aching warmth. She buried her face in his neck, breathed in his singular scent—spicy, warm male. She let her fingers slip into his hair and play there. For long moments they sat there in the firelight, saying nothing, just breathing. And feeling.

She didn’t know the things Raff had done, but she could imagine. Or maybe she couldn’t. And maybe it was better if there were some things she didn’t know, much as she’d wanted him to open up. But the fact that he’d taken this risk, that he’d told her so much, made her want to hold him and pet him and make him feel better. Nobody could ever change the past, of course. She couldn’t make it go away. But she could show him that telling her hadn’t scared her off, as he’d apparently feared. His telling her had made her feel closer to him.

Which she did not want. But at that moment, what she wanted was squeezed out by what she felt.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “About your sister. So sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Me too.”

“What about your mom?”

“She died a few years ago. Cancer. It happened fast. I’d bought her a new house in a nice neighborhood, nice things. She saw what I’d accomplished, but I don’t know if she ever believed I’d done it legally.”

“But you did do it legally. Right?”

“See? Even you find that hard to believe.”

“That’s not true!”

“I’m clean,” he said. “Not squeaky. I’ll admit to bending some rules. Playing dirty. But legal. I promised that to Dutch.”

She didn’t entirely like the sound of that, but she believed Raff that he’d wanted out of a criminal lifestyle. He wouldn’t have gone back to that, even if it meant making tons of money, she didn’t think.

“I’m sorry about your mom too. So you have no family left?”

“Dutch,” he said immediately. “He’s my family. Him and Marie, his wife.”

“That’s good.”

“And I do still see Finn sometimes. I don’t condone what he does, but I’ve helped him out with some of his properties. Some people didn’t like that, but I owe him huge for helping me make that break. It could’ve been different. He chose a different path. He’s been successful too, just not the way I wanted to be.”

Well, strip clubs weren’t exactly wholesome and squeaky clean, but not the worst thing in the world.

Her heart ached for Raff, for the boy he’d been, so desperate for belonging that he’d turned to criminals. That he’d done things he regretted. That he’d lost his sister like that, so senselessly. And Paige understood that, despite his success, he still felt that stain inside him.

She pressed her lips to his neck in a long, gentle kiss, then opened her mouth on him and stroked her tongue over his flesh. His body immediately tightened, his chest expanding on an inhalation. She rubbed her nose there, beneath his ear, caught his earlobe between her lips, then kissed his jaw. He slowly turned his face into hers until their mouths touched.

“Paige,” he whispered against her lips.

“Yeah.”

They kissed. Their mouths met fully, opening to each other. Her neck arched to deepen the connection. Their tongues slid together, tasting each other’s mouths.

He shifted her off his lap so her legs were across his thighs, his hands on her hips, then her waist, and he tipped her back onto the padded armrest of the couch and pressed down onto her. She wound her arms around his neck, and he kissed her again, the heavy weight of his body pushing her down with sweet pressure.

“Paige,” he whispered again, kissing his way over her cheek. He licked her ear, sucked gently on the side of her neck, ran his tongue along her collarbone. His breath came in scalding surges against her skin. A shiver worked over her body. “I’ll be careful with you.”

His tongue explored her mouth persistently, dizzyingly, deliciously. A hard ache of desire formed down low inside her and she pushed her pelvis up into his big body with desperate excitement. He stretched out more fully over her, his elbows digging into the sofa cushions, his hands now framing her head and holding her there for his mouth and the silky stroke of his tongue.

She was melting in sensation, drunk on the scent of his skin and the taste of his mouth, her body going soft and liquid beneath him. His whiskers scraped the skin of her cheeks and jaw, further dazzling her senses. Every nerve ending in her body sparked and quivered.

His mouth rubbed her lips, his tongue licking at her upper lip, then her lower. She needed his tongue inside, and she sucked at it, making a groan rumble in his chest, an almost savage sound. It thrilled her to the very marrow of her bones.

For a moment he pushed up and looked down at her, his wet lips gleaming in the firelight, his hair messy from her fingers, eyes heavy lidded and carnal. She stared back at him with excited fascination, soft heat washing down through her.

“Mine,” he growled. “All night. For the rest of the weekend.”

He demanded submission. She knew that of him—she’d known it all along, which was why she’d resisted. She couldn’t resist anymore. She knew it was weak of her, but she wanted to give in. She’d been burned before and she knew she was playing with fire again—hot, dangerous, exciting fire. And so when she whispered “yes”, it was a relief to surrender, to turn herself over to his care.

She saw something flare in his dark eyes before he closed them again and sealed his mouth back over hers. She held on to his big shoulders, reveling in the strength and power of his body. Her breasts ached and she arched into his chest, lifting her pussy against the hard bulge of his erection. Excitement curled tighter inside her. She wanted to touch him everywhere. She craved the feel of his skin under her hands, against her body, skin to skin.

“Gonna make you feel so good,” Raff whispered against her ear, more delicious shivers sliding down her skin. “Christ, I’ve wanted this. Wanna lick you all over. Taste your sweet pussy. Then I’m gonna fuck you. Repeatedly. And you’re gonna come hard.”

Her pussy squeezed in a frantic pinch of need, liquid heat gathering between her thighs, and a moan leaked from her mouth.

“But first I want to see you. Every pretty inch of you.” He rose up above her—on his knees, straddling her, the couch barely wide enough—and began to work the long T-shirt dress up her body. It had already ridden to her thighs, now he pushed it up over her hips, his eyes hot on her as he revealed her body. First, he saw her panties, thong panties with a silvery-gray mesh and lace triangle linked with silvery satin ribbons. He paused, hands gripping the bunched-up fabric of her dress.