Beautiful Survivors Read online

  “Neither do I,” she says, pausing at a door marked Ice and Vending and holding her palm out for the hotel key card. I pass it over and she taps it on the lock, waiting for the green light to blink before she opens it and lets us both in. “He's dark, Maddox. And not just in the way that we can all be sometimes, wrapped up in spirits and shadows.” Merit sighs. “I mean, he's really dark. I think he even scares me a little bit.”

  “You could kick his ass if you wanted to,” I say, squinting at the vending machine and tracing my fingers down the braille on the sides. I can't read that shit yet, but one day I might have to. One day I might have to give up color and smiles and the gentle movement of the ocean against the beach for raised dots beneath my fingertips.

  I exhale sharply and start feeding the machine.

  “I know,” she says, and the sound of her voice encourages me to turn all the way around to look at her. If I stare straight ahead, everything's as clear to me as it always was. I'm not asking to be superhuman here; I just want to keep whatever it is I've got left. “He acted like a dick at school last week, so I kneed him in the balls.”

  “What'd he do?” I ask, going stiff as Merit reaches down and grabs the soda from the vending machine for me. When she tries to hand it over, I tuck my fingers in my jeans and lean back, giving her a sharp look. “What'd he do, Mer?”

  “Doesn't matter,” she says, setting the soda on the ice machine. “I took care of it, Mad. Look, you don't have to worry about me so much.” She points to the bruises on her face, the swollen eyelids, the slit lip that I was kissing just a few short hours ago. “I'm pretty goddamn good at taking care of myself.”

  “Doesn't stop me from wanting to protect you,” I tell her, shivering as she lays her palms on my chest. The warmth from her skin seeps straight through, burning me, scalding me, marking me in a way that I know will ruin me for any other woman.

  “You're still thinking about it,” she says. It's not a question.

  We both know what she's talking about.

  There's a long moment of silence before Merit speaks again.

  “Maddox,” she says, heart pounding in her throat. I can see it from here. I lift one of my hands up and brush my thumb lightly across her bruised neck, teasing the beating thump of her pulse with my fingertip. “Last week, after I found out I was being sent to the Kennedys …” Merit takes a deep breath, pauses, exhales. She wants to tell me something, but it's not coming out.

  For whatever reason, I find myself terrified to find out what it is, slipping my other hand up to her face and teasing along the length of her jaw with my thumbs. Before she can force herself to say the words, I lean in and press my mouth to hers, tasting her lips with slow, careful flicks of my tongue.

  I can't even fucking believe that I'm doing it either.

  After wanting her all this time, of telling myself it could never work, that I'd destroy the family, that she wasn't interested, that she deserves better than a man who'll be blind by age forty … I'm kissing Merit Burden the way I've always dreamed of.

  Her hands slide down the front of my shirt and fumble with the button on my jeans, shocking the hell out of me.

  “Merit,” I whisper, but I don't stop her. I should, but I'm too weak to make that move, to deny myself something I've wanted since I was fifteen. Her hand slips inside my jeans and finds the hardened ridge of my cock, fingers stroking along the length, gripping me hard at the base.

  I grit my teeth as she works me, our mouths pressed tight together, tongues twirling. My right hand drops to grip her breast through the thin white fabric of the t-shirt, kneading the soft flesh and feeling the hardness of her pebbled nipple against my palm.

  “Here,” she says after a moment, pressing something against my chest. When I reach down to grab it, at first I think it's one of those stupid little pill packages from the front desk. Only … it's not.

  It's a condom.

  “What the hell is this?” I ask, a thousand emotions flickering through me all at once. I'm excited, but I'm also nervous as hell. Where did she get this? Was she planning this all along? Or is this a spur of the moment thing because of what happened last night?

  “You know,” she says, breathing hard, looking up at me with dilated pupils and lips swollen from kissing. The bruises on her face don't make her any less beautiful. In fact, they highlight her strength, prove that this girl, she's a fucking fighter. “It goes on your dick, Mad.”

  “I know where it goes,” I tell her as I finger the package and meet her gaze. “But are you sure about this?”

  “Positive,” she tells me, and there's something about the strength in that one word that convinces me.

  I'm so going to regret this later, aren't I? I think, but that doesn't stop me from tearing the package open and sliding the lubricated latex down the length of my shaft.

  Merit's already pushing down the loose pajama pants she switched into when we got to the hotel, and even though I've seen her naked more times than I can count … this time I really let myself enjoy it.

  Lifting her up by the hips, I set her on the edge of the ice machine and say a silent thank you to whoever loaded it up with the Out of Service sign. Now at least I don't have to feel so guilty about getting it dirty.

  I settle between Merit's thighs and kiss my way down the side of her neck, digging my fingers into the silky blonde strands of her hair and breathing in the sweet herbal scent of her shampoo. She gets so upset about her hair now, how short it is. But fuck, for me, it's just as nice. I can't get enough of it—touching it, smelling it, seeing it.

  “One more time,” I whisper against her ear, pulling her closer to me with my left hand on her hip. “Tell me one more time that you're ready and we can do this.”

  “I'm ready,” she says, and then I'm sliding inside of her, inch by inch, nice and slow. The expression on her face is one that I commit to memory, burn into the recesses of my brain. If one day I do go blind, I know that this is a moment I'll be able to look back on and see with sharpened clarity.

  I keep one hand on the back of Merit's head, kissing her as I bury my body deep into her warmth, my pelvis cradled in her hips. Everywhere she touches me, her skin fucking burns. That sensation, like flames licking against my skin, it encourages me to move faster, harder. I'm worried about hurting her—as far as I know, Merit's still a virgin—but she seems to like it, encouraging me by arcing her hips forward, kissing me harder, deeper, faster.

  The ice machine rocks a little, but we both ignore it, moving our bodies together in this wild dance that makes me feel like maybe I'm not so crazy for thinking of her the way I do, like she's the woman I was meant to be with.

  When I'm with Merit, I feel like a man instead of a lost little boy with nobody and nothing. She makes me feel fucking whole inside.

  “Harder, faster,” she pants, and then we're both groaning and moving together, taking our bodies to that breaking point and letting them crash together with frantic lips and scrambling hands, warm heat and shudders. I feel Merit come around me, her body tightening on mine, squeezing me, drawing out a release of my own.

  Afterward, we just stand there for a long time, trying to catch our breath. It's only when we hear footsteps in the hallway outside that we scramble apart and try to put ourselves back together.

  I drop the used condom in the trash can about three seconds before a woman walks in to use the vending machine, and the two of us slip out.

  “Merit,” I say as she starts down the hallway, fixing her hair and glancing over at me. I can't read the expression on her face and that scares the crap out of me. “Are you okay?”

  “Maddox,” she says, a slight warning in her voice. “You're doing it again, trying to protect me. I promise you: I'm fine.” Looking at her right now, after what we just did together, she looks like a completely different person, like her eyes are shining and her lips are fuller, like there's something sitting on her lips that she wants to say but can't. Or won't. “Why don't you put on those boxers I stole from Gunner last year and wear them like swim trunks. We can head down to the pool. I figure if we're here, we might as well use it. Then … we can talk.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I say as she starts walking again … and then stops suddenly, staring at something through the glass windows that lead into the fitness center. It takes me a moment to figure out what she's looking at. The windows are tinted and the angle of the TV makes it really hard for me to focus … “Maddox,” Merit whispers, taking a step back and slamming into me.

  I grab her and hold her close as I squint to read the words next to a picture of a smiling man in a business suit, his arm around a tall blonde with tan skin and a smile as fake as her press on nails.

  I recognize her right away: that's Jenna-Marie Kennedy.

  And the words on the ticker …

  “You can hold me now, Maddox,” Merit whispers, her voice trembling as she leans back against me. “You can protect me now, okay?”

  But looking at this … I have no fucking clue how I'm going to keep her safe this time.

  The words flash by three, four, five times before I really register what they're saying.

  Man Slain by Foster Daughter in his Los Gatos Home Last Night: Police Continue the Search for the Seventeen Year Old Fugitive.

  “He's dead, Mad,” Merit whispers as my heart thunders in my chest and I tighten the band of my arms around her. At this point, it's all that I can do. But I will figure this out. There's no way in hell I'm going to lose her. No fucking way—I'd rather die. “He's dead … and I killed him.”

  Forbidden love shouldn't feel so good.

  Sometimes, the only way to go forward, is to take a few, careful steps back..

  Angsty Second Chance Football Romance.

  .

  "Can one of these five rockstars fill the hole in my heart? Or will I stay broken forever?"

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  About the Author

  C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn't mind - especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.

  She hates tapioca pudding, loves to binge on cheesy horror movies, and is a slave to many cats. When she's not vacuuming fur off of her couch, C.M. can be found with her nose buried in a book or her eyes glued to a computer screen. She's the author of over fifty novels - romance, new adult, fantasy, and young adult included. Please, come and join her inside her crazy. There's a heck of a lot to do there.

  Oh, and Caitlin loves to chat (incessantly), so feel free to e-mail her, send her a Facebook message, or put up smoke signals. She's already looking forward to it.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Signup for my Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Back Matter Stepbrother Inked Cover

  Tasting Never Cover

  Kicked Cover

  Groupie Cover

  Keep Up With The Fun

  More Books By C.M. Stunich

  About the Author

 

 

 

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