Choke

’You’re not done yet? You haven’t fucked my life up enough?’ As that tiny venomous whirlwind stormed into his space Cam was tempted to throw his head back and curse up at the sky. If he’d believed in any sort of higher power there might’ve been some point to doing it, but any tiny breath of belief he might’ve had vanished when his dad had sat him down on that boat to explain what he was.

Cameron bit his tongue, staring at Lucky with disappointment etched into his face. God might not’ve been dictating it all from some sort of lofty seat up there, but there were plenty down here who’d do it for him. Queueing up behind the desperate asshole who’d shot him in that alleyway to complete the job he’d started fucking up his life – his relationship. It should’ve been a shock that Lucky had turned up to do it again. One fucking word in her ear about what had happened and she’d probably already been curling her fists, ready to try and put him on his knees again.

He hadn’t lied to her. When he’d sworn he wouldn’t hurt Cat by coming back, he’d meant every fucking word of it. If it had come to it he’d have laid down his life in that ridiculous lobby, taking another bullet to the heart, letting Ray tear his throat out if it meant that he didn’t set a hand on Catia. Failing to do it had gutted him more than Lucky could – and fuck was she gonna try.

Maybe he should’ve spread his arms in the air, let her have it at, but what sort of masochstic fool would that’ve made him? One who admitted his mistakes to the one person who would make him miserable about it for an eternity. Cam sniffed, lifting the bottle to take another belt of it before Lucky got in his face. He didn’t get the damn chance though. The ’sure looks like it to me’ was knocked out of his mouth with the crack of one of those bony hands. ”Fuck!” he roared. He could taste blood in his mouth, the tender skin of the inside of his cheek tearing on the sharp edge of his teeth. The lingering alcohol in his mouth stung for the seconds it took the abraded skin to heal.

Temper flared, adding a golden glow to his dark eyes for just a moment as he brought his head back on. Cam’s teeth bared, the hand still clutching the bottle coming up to ward her off – the temptation might end up there, cause lord knew there were times when he wished Lucky would get a taste of her own medicine, but he wouldn’t swing at the mother of a young child. ”I didn’t have the balls?” Cam choked out a burst of laughter, twisting his hand to show her the smears of blood still darkening his knuckles. Ray’s blood, the ache already wiped from his knuckles because of what he was. ”You think I invited him here? It was meant to be over, she was supposed to be safe now.” Only he had brought the past with him and he’d regret it as long as he breathed.

The little voice in the back of his head had whispered that it would’ve been worse if he hadn’t been there. Continuing to hide hundreds of miles from here with his tail between his legs would’ve left the path to Cat wide open for Ray. Cam’s nose wrinkled as he shook his head at her. ”You’re touched if you think my friends ever would’ve tried to go after her.” The blame did lay at his shuffling feet though, even if he’d stepped in to try and stop it.

He could’ve fought over the bottle, but he let it go, watching Lucky take a gulp from it without a damn flicker of reaction. She handed it back quick enough and he took a gulp from it, blinking away the heat of the rum as he swiped the back of his hand over his mouth. ”What do you think would’ve happened to her if I hadn’t been there to recognise him? You think Grey Maddox would’ve stepped in to save her? Or how about you? Why aren’t you with her now, making up for my fuck up? She kick you out?” Maybe Maddox had, since he’d been so quick to suggest that he go home. Cool off. Cam chuckled low, taking another gulp. By now he was probably muttering in Cat’s ear. Look at all the trouble he brings with him. It’s not worth this, he’s not worth it. All of them with those poisonous little whispers, just as bad as the ones that had already been rolling through his head sending him stalking around in here like an animal in a cage.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 810

It hadn’t been hate at first sight – not on his part at least – but God it was hate now. Lucky was like gasoline on an open flame, searing the edges of his self-control so he wanted to let all that heat straight out at her. She knew how to get under his skin, to where the wounds were to dig her fingers in. The same way Ray had.

He wasn’t a fucking trained psychologist, he’d been a talker, that was all that had qualified him for the job. Maybe he’d overshared, used the give-and-take too much with Ray. Left himself wide open for all the rage that Ray hadn’t been able to bleed off while he’d been trapped there – while they’d both been sealed within that metal shell. Little crumbs for Ray to follow, the one target for him to seek out as payback for all those months of listening, of trying to help, but recommending he didn’t get sprung in the end. Ray had sat there, stewing in that anger until finally he’d made that crossing of the river and had followed the trail down to Virginia. Jealousy stinking up the opulent foyer until he’d been ready to choke on it.

Cam scowled at Lucky as she smacked his hand away. He puffed out a breath that felt like it would steam out of him (the storybooks might not’ve painted phoenixes the same way they did dragons, but work him up enough and the effect was the same). Lines carved deep into his forehead, sprung up around his eyes as he narrowed them and then dragged his gaze away, squeezing his lids shut like he could blink away all of that heat – if only it was that fucking easy. ”Too close to your Team Edward fantasies huh?” As though he knew what fucking glowed in those books. This wasn’t easy for him. Luckily for Lucky – the thought barely got a curl of his lip out of him – she only had to deal with being able to dig into people’s heads, she didn’t light up like a fucking roman candle when she got pissed off and her control started to slip. She hadn’t come back from the dead in what was basically a prison, cut off from the people she loved, unable to do anything to explain while they’d grieved for her.

Did she not think he’d been torn up in that lobby? Ray’s claws hadn’t sliced into him, but they might as well have, paving the way for Lucky to finish the job now. ”Friends? If I had my way he’d have still been there,” Cam cackled until the sound broke off, like it had been torn out of his throat. ”I’m not gonna deny that he wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t for me. Unlike some, I can take the blame for how I screwed up.” That blame sat anvil heavy on his chest, stealing the air from his lungs.

Dark eyes narrowed, the scowl cutting deep as she looked back at him. The two of them standing in the middle of his fucking garage, while Cat was back at the hotel being comforted by somebody else. Cam shifted his weight, bracing himself as Lucky stepped back in. She hissed, the sound slithering over his skin, grating on raw nerves until he wanted to rip the sound out of the air. ”She wanted you there and you walked for your kid…” Tilting his head, Cam smiled sourly as he looked past Lucky and gestured. ”You drop that bomb on your kid and yet you’re not with her. You’re here trying to tear me a new one. You’re touched, you know that?” He rapped his finger tips against the side of his head, his frown only deepening with her dropping the word evil. Maddox … Cat’s friend … the guy who’d gotten her through the death of her fiancé.

Did he want Catia there with him instead of here? No. He wanted her in his arms, to whisper the apologies he hadn’t been able to give before into her hair. She deserved that, but Maddox had ordered him out. Give her space, I’ll take care of her. A hint that he couldn’t, probably borne of the same wave of condemnation that Lucky had been riding since the moment he’d seen her in the street.

The rum wasn’t enough. The other bottles in the house weren’t enough to wash it away. Alcohol shouldn’t have been a crutch, but he’d fallen back on the familiar, on the human, like it would somehow change something in him and take them back to where they’d been.

Cam numbly let go of the bottle staring at Lucky’s mouth as it pressed against the bottle top, shutting her up in a way that only gave short lived relief. He ducked his head slightly, drawing in and letting out long breaths that did nothing but stirred the heat in the pit of his stomach. Screaming, kicking things until they broke, swinging his fists into the wall – they were gonna nothing to change the self-loathing, the anger. Neither would she. Mutely, he took the bottle from her, but the pass over was fumbled this time. Her knuckles brushed down his arm, tiny hard nubs that just sent shocks through already seared nerves. He took the bottle, muscles in his jaw jumping like he could feel the brush of Lucky’s gaze over them. The what? stayed locked in his throat, washed away on a long swallow of rum that almost came right back up in a hot rush.

Her hand trailed back up, leaving goose flesh in its wake until it was all cut off by the sudden bite of her nails. ”Hey!” His voice was a sharp snap that did nothing to stop her. ”Always getting your claws in,” Cameron muttered. The bottle bumbled against his hip as her other hand slid over him. With anybody else – with Cat - the touch would’ve been affectionate, a segue to something more, something tender. Lucky wouldn’t have known what the fucking word meant. With her everything was a fight, little needling bites of pain, like her nails in his arm, pressure increasing until you either cracked and you walked. He hadn’t cheered out loud when Catia finally had, packing up her things to leave with him instead of remaining chained to that fucking house like Cinderella shackled to her ugly sisters.

Lucky’s voice was soft when it emerged this time. Irreverence whispered, leaving him shaking his head like he could escape it. If it had been Catia’s touch, he would’ve pulled her in, tried to erase Ray’s touch with the tender brush of his own fingers. It wasn’t though. While Maddox stayed with her, he was stuck with her bitch of a younger sister. ”It’s never enough for you,” he growled, the words breaking the dam. Cam gripped one of those slender biceps, turning them both around. He shoved her back with it, a hoarse cry of frustration ripping out of him again as he pressed in towards her, fumbling the bottle onto the roof of the car before he bracketed her with his hands on its roof. ”Why? Why can’t you just let her be happy? Why can’t you leave us to be happy instead of trying to tear it all apart? Why have you gotta be such a bitch?” Because that was who Lucky was, right down bone deep. He peeled one of his hands off the car roof, wrapping it around the slender column of her throat – oh she knew he couldn’t do it, couldn’t squeeze to finally choke those words off for good. He wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t Ray.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 1286

The sting in his knuckles refused to last. It hadn’t always been like that. In high school there’d been a heavy bag and like every other kid in that school he’d taken his swings at it. Stepping back minutes later, arms limp as noodles, his breath bellowing out as he’d pumped his hands up in the air like he was Rocky – only Rocky didn’t spend the rest of the day sucking on his knuckles because he didn’t have a fucking clue how to really do it. Seconds after he’d been pulled off of Ray, the surface pain had gone, all of it retreating back below the surface to burn in his heart, in his conscience. The blood had been all that had remained of that mess in the hotel and with Lucky pressed in close, he couldn’t even see that.

Like pins and needles that wouldn’t fucking stop, the prickle in his conscience remained. Cameron could feel it, like the bite of Lucky’s nails in his biceps, fed by her. Was she gonna crow to Catia when he started to crack and admitted that he’d had a hand in Ray ending up there, in her getting hurt? Oh, he wouldn’t put it past her. Those lips that were too soft for such a sour creature would purse and curl at the corners, spitting her poison into Cat’s ear to make sure that this was the last nail in their relationship. Lucky would do what death hadn’t been able to.

On him. All of this was on him and she’d give him no chance to forget it. The guilt did what Lucky’s claws hadn’t been able to. It welled up like lava inside of him, eating up common sense and any sort of sobriety he was clinging to. He had to shut her up, to stop that smug voice from spitting the poison in his ear. Gritting his teeth against it, Cam shoved her back against his car. He could duck his head, cover his ears, but she’d still be hissing it. A snake in the nest of the lives they were trying to rebuild here.

His chest heaved with the air he tried to drag in – it was doing nothing to cool the heat, just stoking it instead, like bellows attached to his temper, to something deeper and hotter in the pit of his stomach. Cam felt the twitch roll through him at the sound he wrung out of her. Now she was whimpering? His eyes stung as he laughed at the sound. ”Now you’re gonna go quiet?” he asked, his voice barely a hiss between clamped teeth. Oh, she’d never manage it for long. This was Lucky, she wasn’t capable of biting her tongue and that was the fucking problem, wasn’t it? He was incapable of blocking out the sound of her voice.

She was so much smaller than him. That tiny frame surprisingly firm against him – he should’ve known there’d never been anything soft about her. The scoff that rolled out of her was like sandpaper over his skin, he wanted – needed – it to stop. His own was hoarse, a crack of sound that did nothing to drown her voice out. Cam pulled against the grip she got on his wrist, like that would change anything. ”No? Then why the hell are you here? Why’d you have to come and rub it all in? She’s…” His argument cut off, shattering like the bottle would’ve done if he kept a grip on it. Tiny shards of glass peppering his throat, leaving the words stoppered up there tasting of blood.

Cameron paused for a second, staring down at her, frowning. Cat had been happy he was back. They weren’t back to where they’d been but the love they’d had for one another hadn’t vanished with his death. They were working their way back… His breathing shortened, his chest rising and falling faster, pressed against hers as his fingers tightened. ”What’s between me and her’s got nothing to do with you. Keep yourself out of it!” The order snapped out hard, taking what was left holding his temper back with it.

The growl rolled out from deep within his chest. His other hand falling to grip at her hip. He should’ve been pushing her away, not dragging her closer to him like her finding out where all that heat had rushed to would send her running away from him. Lucky was always looking to push boundaries, what the fuck would she do when one pushed back? Cam hissed out a breath when she didn’t, her fingers scraping at him instead, tugging, pulling him in against her until it felt like there wasn’t room to breathe.

Do it.

His fingers tightened on that delicate column of skin and muscle, feeling the ridges of cartilage of her throat. One squeeze, one rush of heat and he’d never have to hear a word out of her again. Cat would be devastated. Lucille … It wouldn’t be a cell for his own protection then, it would be his punishment for doing the unthinkable. He …

It tore out of him louder this time, a holler that had colour flushing back up into his face. Cam’s fingers grazed her throat as her head fell back, feeling her pulse as they skimmed over hot skin. Gripping her shoulder, he rolled her around, throwing that tiny form forward across the hood of the car. ”Shut up!” He snapped, fumbling at her waist, tearing at what was between them until there was nothing, but the heat that felt like it was burning him alive from the inside out. She’d fucking deserve it if she walked away burnt, Lucky had brought all of this on herself. And so had he. ”I don’t want to hear another fucking word out of your mouth. It’s been running too long and it’s not gonna work. None of it’s ever gonna get back what you had.” He wasn’t talking to himself. This was clearing the rubble littered ground of his life, leaving open air for what he was going to have with Catia to grow unhindered. Cam gripped at her hips, dragging her back, whiting out his vision as he finally took control and let that heat explode through the core of both of them.

Tagged: LUCKY CHRISTMAS * Word Count: 1051