Lights Out: Chapter 21

The thing about getting fucked hard is that it leaves you both sore and horny. It was midday Sunday, just over a day after Josh dicked me brainless in the shower, and we were back in his car headed to my place. My cousin Alec assured me the house was sparklingly clean. His crew had even gone so far as to set up my new bed – that Josh and I forgot was arriving thanks to the Brad debacle.

That bed was all I could think of right now. Every time I shifted in the passenger seat, a little pang of soreness radiated between my legs, making me think of exactly how I’d gotten so sore. I couldn’t stop picturing my hands braced on the shower wall. If I closed my eyes, I swore I could feel an echo of Josh pounding into me, hitting something deep inside that had driven my pleasure to new heights.

Then there was the second orgasm he’d given me, his dark, heated eyes staring straight into mine, the tile cold against my back as he thrust inside, filling me and stretching me so much that it felt like my body would never forget the feel of his thick cock. The man was ruining me for anyone else. He was the perfect blend of competent and domineering. And when he came, and I got to both feel and watch it happen? It brought a new closeness to our relationship that I hadn’t anticipated.

Josh threw his blinker on and pulled into the turn lane that led to my neighborhood. He’d cranked the heat up for me and Fred, and it was toasty enough in the car that he’d shoved his sleeves up to his elbows. I’d learned over the past few nights what a furnace the man was, and I loved it. There was nothing like slipping beneath cool sheets and snuggling up to my own personal heater. Even though Josh ran hot, he was a cuddler – because, of course, he was – and the last two times we’d slept together, he’d draped his heavy limbs around me and pulled me tight against him.

Being in his arms felt like the safest place in the world. Normally, I didn’t linger in bed. I had so little free time because of my job that I couldn’t bear to waste it. I usually jumped right up after my alarm woke me and started my day.

Waking up next to Josh had cured me of that. We’d lingered beneath the sheets for over an hour, talking quietly with Fred snuggled between us as we listened to Tyler moving about the apartment, making himself coffee and turning on the TV. He’d kept it quiet, but we still heard the newscasters talking about market numbers on what Josh said was Tyler’s favorite financial channel. It drove home how weird the acoustics were in their place and made me desperate to get out of there so I could have Josh all to myself.

I’d asked him again if he was serious about punishing me, and the clipped “Yes” he’d given me had both worried me and turned me on. What did he have planned? Were we talking about another vicious edging or a bit of light spanking? The possibilities had me squirming in my seat, which sent a pang of soreness through me, making me think of how I’d gotten so sore, and the torturous cycle started again.

Josh drummed his fingers over the steering wheel absentmindedly, and I almost whimpered at how it made his tattooed forearm flex. My eyes were drawn upward from it to his bicep straining against his shirt sleeve.

“Why is this light so long?” he said, almost to himself. Fred yowled in response, and Josh glanced in the rearview. “I know, bud. We’re almost there.” He shot me a grin before turning his focus back toward the light. “I told him to go before we left, but would he listen?”

I made a noncommittal sound, too distracted by his profile to talk. God, I would never get tired of looking at him. He had to know how gorgeous he was. I understood that he hid away for fear of someone saying he looked like his father, but I was betting that 99% of the stares he got in public had nothing to do with his dad and everything to do with the fact that Josh was so hot that if he pulled up next to someone and told them to get in his van, he wouldn’t even need candy to lure them. They’d take one look at him and decide that the risk of being serial murdered was worth the potential reward of getting fucked instead.

Or maybe I was trying to rationalize how easily and quickly I was falling for him. My stomach fluttered every time he looked at me. I couldn’t stop watching his mouth when he spoke, like I was trying to memorize the way his lips formed words. His body seemed to take up more space than it should, drawing me toward him like he had a gravitational field, and I was the moon he’d pulled into his orbit.

We’d been in the car for over fifteen minutes, and I hadn’t taken my eyes off him even once. I felt like I physically couldn’t do it. Nothing else was as fascinating as the man beside me. We’d just endured what should have been an incredibly traumatic experience, but all I could think about was Josh fucking me against the shower wall. Thank goodness we’d picked up the morning-after pill. Between my untrustworthy ovaries and the amount of cum I’d cleaned off my legs when we finished, doubling up on birth control felt necessary if we didn’t want to bring a little Josh into the world.

No. Do not, I told myself. You are not allowed to picture him tossing a baseball with a miniature version of himself.

The thought should have freaked me out. We’d just become official. It was way too soon to start thinking about what our kids might look like, and I didn’t even know if I wanted kids. But I wasn’t joking when I told Josh that he’d be the one with the stalker if he tried to end things. My obsession with him was growing to worrying levels. Like, I suddenly understood why he watched me at work because if I had his hacking skills, there was a hundred percent chance that I’d return the favor.

Fred yowled again as the light turned green.

Josh glanced in the rearview before stepping on the gas. “If you hold it until we get home, Daddy will buy you a new toy.”

Shit. He needed to stop saying things like that. It was making me not only want kids, but want them soon.

I leaned toward him and stroked a finger down his bicep. “And what will Mommy get?”

The steering wheel creaked in Josh’s grip. He shot me a pointed look, then glanced meaningfully at the backseat, lowering his voice. “Daddy will tell Mommy later when there aren’t delicate ears within hearing distance.”

I grinned and leaned closer. “I’m pretty sure it’s our responsibility as parents to scar our children. Builds character.”

He grunted and shifted in his seat. “Keep talking like that, and we’re going to need to triple up on contraceptives.”

I glanced down to see the outline of his erection shoved down the leg of his pants. That couldn’t be comfortable. Maybe if I unzipped his jeans and gave him a little “adjustment,” he’d feel better.

I started to reach for him, but he grabbed my wrist. “Aly,” he said, voice low with warning. “We’ll be at your house in less than a minute.”

“I can’t wait that long,” I told him, breaking his hold.

He blocked me again. “Well, you need to because there’s someone in your driveway.”

I jerked my head up. Sure enough, an unfamiliar luxury SUV was parked in front of my house. I was still banned from contacting my uncle, so I hoped it was one of my cousins come to fill me in on everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours and not an undercover cop.

Josh parked next to the large vehicle but kept the engine running.

“There’s no one inside,” I told him, peering up at the empty driver’s seat. “Must be a cousin. Those bastards better not have copied my keys and handed them out to the whole family. I don’t want to have to change my locks.”

Josh frowned at the vehicle. “The real question is, has he just been waiting here for you to come home eventually, or did he know we were on our way back?”

I shrugged. “We can touch the hood when we get out to see if it’s still hot, and then we’ll have our answer. You ready?”

Josh shook his head and gestured toward his lap. “I’m going to need a minute here. For some reason, I don’t think your mob relatives would appreciate my erection as much as you do.”

I grinned. “You might be surprised.”

Josh chuckled and reached out to tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear.

I closed my eyes and leaned into his hand. “I’ve been wondering something. Maybe you can fill me in while we wait.”

“I can try.”

I opened my eyes. “How did this all happen?”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

I gestured between us. “You and me. Did Tyler tell you he broke things off, and you decided to make your first creepy move?”

He grinned and pulled his hand away. “Tyler showed me the text you sent him.”

I gaped at him. “No, he didn’t.”

Josh nodded.

“And he didn’t recognize your tattoos in it?”

“No. You might have noticed, but my roommate is more than a little self-involved.”

I leaned back, remembering how grateful Tyler had looked to have some of Josh’s focus on me now, and it made me wonder. What if Tyler had known about Josh’s masktok account all along, and when I sent him that text, he decided to play matchmaker?

“What is it?” Josh asked. “You’ve got the same squirrelly look on your face that Fred had when he stole that piece of bacon.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said. Tyler was probably too full of himself for something so diabolical. “So what happened after he showed you the text?”

Now it was Josh’s turn to look squirrelly. “I, uh, might have spent several hours looking for you in my comments and reading everything you’d ever written.” He turned away from me, rubbing the back of his neck. “And then I decided to see if you were all talk or if you were really as into the mask thing as I am.”

“Who would have thought that a few weeks later, you’d get yourself a girlfriend out of it,” I said.

Josh turned back to me, his gaze steady on mine. “The first night I watched you at the hospital, I knew I wanted this to be more than the kinky hookup I’d planned.”

My insides went all mushy at the confession. “And there I’d been, ready to shoot you. You must have been shitting yourself when you watched me clear the house after you broke in.”

He sent me a wink. “Yeah, but they say you can tell a lot about a woman by the way she handles a gun, and I was more than –”

A loud yowl echoed through the car.

Josh and I shared a panicked look.

I unlatched my seatbelt. “Finish that sentence later. Peepants McGee sounds desperate.”

I climbed out and grabbed Fred’s carrier, careful not to jostle him too much as I dashed for my front door. There was a second litter box in my laundry room, and as soon as I got Fred’s carrier unzipped, he beelined toward it.

I followed after him into the house, wary. It smelled like bleach and the fabricated scent of pine. My hardwood floors shone like they’d been freshly polished.

How much had my cousin’s crew cleaned? Brad was mainly on the kitchen floor and then briefly carted through the living room, but he’d already been in my snowboard bag by then. From how my house sparkled, it looked like every surface had been wiped down. Out of an abundance of caution? If so, I wasn’t about to complain. It would save me from having to clean for a while.

Josh stepped inside behind me, carrying our bags and the litter box. I turned to help him, wondering where my guest was.

Josh leaned toward me and dropped his voice. “The hood was still hot. I’ll need to sweep our things and my car for a tracker later.”

Son of a bitch. What was it with all these stalkers lately? Was it me? Was I giving off some weird, come-at-me pheromone? Or was Mercury in retrograde again?

We left our things by the front door and went to find my latest home invader. Sure enough, my cousin, Junior, sat at my kitchen table, sipping coffee from a paper to-go cup. He was the spitting image of his father, short and trim with bold facial features that were more striking than handsome.

His gaze shifted from me to Josh, and he arched a dark brow. “I see you shaved and lost the glasses.”

Behind me, Josh swore.

I stepped between the men, putting Josh at my back. “What are you doing here?”

I liked it when Josh invaded my space and pushed my boundaries, but it turned out he was the exception to the rule. Anyone else doing it made me grumpy, bordering on homicidal – family included.

Junior stood, spreading his arms. “Is that any way to greet your oldest cousin?”

I eyed him, making no move to accept his offered embrace. “That depends. Did you or did you not point a gun at my boyfriend yesterday?”

He dropped his arms and had the decency to look sheepish. “It was a misunderstanding.”

“Your face is about to have a misunderstanding with my fist,” I said, stalking forward.

Or at least I tried to. I made it one step before a yank on my jacket had me crashing backward into Josh’s chest. He wrapped his arms around me like he was hugging me, but I could tell from the way his muscles tensed that this was less about affection and more about restraint.

“Let me go,” I said.

“I could, but then what kind of example would I be setting for our son if I let you beat up a family member in front of him?”

I glanced past Junior and saw Fred padding out of the laundry room toward us. “That you shouldn’t take shit from anyone, not even relatives.”

Junior frowned, looking around the room. “Your son? I didn’t know you – ” He caught sight of Fred in his periphery and turned to stare at him. His confusion deepened as he looked back at us, jerking a thumb toward Fred. “You talking about the cat?”

“Yes,” Josh said. The “duh” was silent but heavily implied.

Junior grimaced. “Cat people are so fucking weird.”

Josh’s arms stiffened.

I sighed. “What do you want, Junior?”

“We need your boyfriend.”

“For what?”

“For the same thing as before,” Junior said. “To hack Brad’s computer.”

Josh made a low noise of contemplation. “Isn’t it a bit risky to return to the house so soon after the cops were there?”

Junior nodded. “Yeah, which is why we’re not going. We got another team for stealthy shit. They’ll sneak in tonight, and you can hack it remotely.” He raised his brows at Josh. “Right?”

“It’s not that simple,” Josh said. “Is Brad’s computer password locked? How secure is his network? What kind of software does he use?”

Junior shrugged. “How the fuck should I know?”

Josh’s arms eased around me. “They’re rhetorical questions, but depending on the answers, it could slow the work and require different tools to get the job done. It’ll be faster if I’m there.”

I stiffened. “I don’t like that option.”

My cousin looked troubled as he glanced past me to Josh. “Me neither.”

Josh huffed out an unamused laugh. “Trust me when I say this isn’t how I wanted my night to go.” His arms tightened again, pulling me into him so he could press a kiss to the top of my head.

I closed my eyes and leaned back, wishing we were alone, wishing this bullshit was over so Josh and I could get on with our lives. And maybe I should have felt guilty about that or selfish – a man was dead, and all I cared about was what an inconvenience it was – but I couldn’t bring myself to drum up anything more than a mild concern that this could blow up in our faces. What better way to ensure that didn’t happen than having a world-class hacker cover our tracks?

I let out a deep breath and opened my eyes. “Josh is right. He needs to be there, and I’m going with him.”

Junior shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. This isn’t a job for a woman.”

I reared back in Josh’s arms.

Overhead, I heard my boyfriend suck in a sharp breath and then let it out with the kind of ooh noise better suited for a playground. He let go of me with one hand and held it out in front of me. “This is the part where you take your earrings out, right?” he said. “I can hold them for you while you beat his ass.”

I craned sideways to look at him. “What about not resorting to violence in front of the baby?”

Josh’s expression was stoic. “I changed my mind. Sometimes, examples must be made.”

I turned back to my cousin just as Josh’s other arm fell away from me.

Junior, to his credit, seemed to realize he’d fucked up. He held his hands out placatingly and stepped backward. “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant my dad will fucking skin me if I let you in on this.”

I took a step toward him. “I’m coming.”

He shook his head. “Aly, you can’t. I’m serious. The men on the team are rough. You shouldn’t be around them.”

Another ooh came from behind me, followed by a crunching sound. I glanced over my shoulder and found Josh staring at us with rapt attention. He’d pulled a single-serving popcorn bag out of the box of food he’d packed and was eating it with the kind of glee reserved for someone watching a Real Housewives reunion episode.

I shook my head at him, instantly deflating – which was probably his goal – and turned back to my cousin. “I work around rough people every day, Junior. I can handle myself. Find a way to make it happen because if Josh is going, I’m going.”

Junior’s face turned into a thundercloud, and for a second, he was the spitting image of his father after I’d told Nico about Brad’s body. “Fine. But you’re staying in the van.”

I nodded. I could accept that, and from the look on Junior’s face, I’d pushed him as far as he would go. “What else has been happening?”

My cousin’s expression turned cagey. “What do you mean?”

“With the whole Brad situation. Did you find his car?”

“Yes,” Junior said.

More crunching filled the room. Josh sounded like he was still enjoying the show, whereas I was starting to get annoyed again.

“And?” I said.

Junior shrugged. “And what?”

“Did you get rid of it?”

Junior rolled his eyes. “No, we left it where it was.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and ignored Josh’s poor attempt to cover his laughter. “Junior, please fill us in on what’s going on with the coverup of Brad’s death.”

The little shit grinned. “Well, since you asked nicely.” He retook his seat and took a swig of his coffee before indicating the chairs opposite him. “Please, join me.”

I tried not to grind my teeth as I sat. Beside me, Josh looked like he was having far too much fun. His eyes pinged back and forth between Junior and me like he was at a tennis match. I was beginning to think that Josh didn’t just enjoy needling me himself but took great pleasure from others giving me a hard time, too. Why? Because he was antagonistic by nature, or did he just like it when I got all riled up?

And where was the line? I hadn’t missed the moment Greg crossed it when he snapped at me in Nico’s kitchen. Josh had gone from an easy-going, loveable golden retriever to a full-blown hellhound in the blink of an eye.

Seeing him upset like that only further confirmed how different he and his father were. Instead of having cold, dead eyes, Josh’s had been a blazing inferno, the promise of retribution burning so bright that even my youngest, snarkiest cousin had realized the danger and rushed to apologize.

Junior set his coffee down and lifted his gaze to mine. “Brad’s car was a few blocks away,” he said. “We were able to get in while it was still dark without setting the alarm off. One of our guys drove it to a chop shop we own, where it’ll get broken down into parts and sold in pieces.”

I blinked, impressed. The cops would have a hell of a time trying to run that down.

Josh sat forward beside me. “Aren’t you worried about door cameras from nearby houses?”

Junior shrugged. “Not really. Brad parked in an area between streetlights so he wouldn’t be noticed, which meant our guys benefited from it, too. Given how far he went to cover his tracks coming here, I’m sure he had his mask on the second he got out of his car, so if any cameras did catch him walking by, it’d be nearly impossible to ID him. And at the end of the day, the cops would have to know Brad was in the area to subpoena people’s door cam footage.”

I nodded. “Which is why we need to get to Brad’s computer.”

Junior held up a finger. “Which is why your boyfriend needs to. You’re not leaving the van.”

I glared at him. “I know that, dipshit.”

Junior sniffed. “Uncalled for.”

Josh popped another piece of popcorn into his mouth, grinning as he chewed. “This is fun for me.”

I rolled my eyes at him and fixed my gaze on my cousin. “What about Brad’s body?”

Junior’s expression shut down. “Nope. That’s the one piece of information we don’t get to have.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Junior shrugged. “Dad has two guys who deal with this stuff that he trusts with his life.”

“You mean those goons who came and got Brad while the car was cleaned?” I asked, remembering the men who’d grabbed the body-filled bag out of Josh’s trunk and disappeared without so much as a hello. They’d been middle-aged, trim, and dressed in nondescript clothes. Nothing about them stood out – to the point that I didn’t think I could pick them out of a lineup, which was probably their aim. Get in, get out, be forgotten.

“Those are the ones,” Junior said. “Only they know what happened to Brad, but I can tell you from experience that you don’t need to worry. No one has ever found someone after those two disappeared them.”

I shifted in my seat and shared a glance with Josh. His amusement had faded, and he didn’t look pleased with this news either.

“Isn’t it better we know what happened?” I asked.

Junior shook his head. “No. This way, if the worst does come to pass, you can’t tell the cops where the body is. No body, no evidence of a murder. Pretty hard to convict on circumstantial evidence alone when you have mob lawyers representing you. They’ve gotten some of our people out of much worse charges.”

“I still don’t like it,” I said.

Junior huffed out a laugh. “You’ll get used to it.”

I highly doubted that.

He twirled his coffee absentmindedly and glanced past me, his gaze turning troubled and distant like he wasn’t seeing my house anymore but some buried memory. “And trust me when I say that sometimes you’re better off not knowing things.”

I grimaced. God only knew what he’d seen with a dad like his. As far as I knew, Nico wasn’t as bad as Josh’s, but it had to be close. Nico’s outward eccentricities and charm didn’t fool me because I’d never forget the haunted looks my parents and grandparents shared when someone brought him up. Family didn’t fear family for no reason, especially not someone like my mom, who’d feared almost nothing in life.

“Oh,” Junior said. “I almost forgot. Dad wants you to come over for dinner.”

I stiffened in my seat. “Um…no thank you?”

Junior shook his head. “You don’t have a choice, kid.”

“I absolutely do,” I told him. “And I’m not a kid.”

His expression turned to pity. “You owe him a favor, remember? His payment for all this is dinner once a month with the family.”

I turned to Josh, wide-eyed. “Am I being Gilmored right now?”

He nodded. “Yup. He’s going full Emily on you.”

Junior looked back and forth between us, confused. “The fuck are you talking about?”

I didn’t bother explaining, and I didn’t attempt another argument. If Lorelei could get through a few hours with her mother for Rory’s sake, I could get through dinner with Nico and his spawn. My uncle was bad, but Emily Gilmore made him look like a peach in comparison.

“I’ll go,” I said.

Josh cleared his throat and sent me a pointed look.

I shook my head. “Oh, no. I’m not forcing you to join my misery.”

He gripped my knee beneath the table and turned to Junior. “We’ll be there.”

I tried to tamp down my small, pleased smile and probably failed miserably.

Junior clapped his hands. “Good. If that’s settled, we need to go.”

I glanced at the clock. “It’s barely one.”

He nodded. “Yeah, but the sun sets in a few hours, and the plan is to pretend Brad’s place is the last service call of the day. We need to be there by 5:30, and now that you two are coming, we have to change some stuff around.”

I was a grown-ass woman. I would not pout about the fact that instead of having kinky sex with my boyfriend, we had to go help fix the mess we’d made.

Josh met my eyes, his sparking with amusement as he reached out and brushed my cheek with the back of his fingers. “Just remember that we’ll have the next two weeks to ourselves once we finish this.”

Junior made a gagging noise and rose from his seat. “You two are gross,” he called over his shoulder as he stomped toward the front door.

I ignored my cousin, leaning into Josh instead. He pulled me from my seat onto his lap and wrapped his big arms around me. I buried my face in his neck, breathing deeply. He smelled like laundry detergent and cheddar popcorn, and for a moment, I allowed myself to be still in his embrace, to live in this brief, perfect moment of being held by my boyfriend.

My anxiety about tonight, my greater fear over what the coming days and months would bring, I pushed aside. No matter what happened, Josh and I would face it, and maybe it was being in his arms, but despite the severity of what we’d done and the very real risk of jail time if our crimes were ever discovered, I felt like together, he and I could get through anything.