by Ace Gray
“Again?” he asked against my lips.
I didn’t answer, I just shoved at his shoulder, rolling him, and slithered beneath the comforter. Bert’s hip muscles pointed directly at his dick, like Google Maps had dumbed down directions for me. I licked up the underside of his shaft then took only the mushroomed tip of his head in my mouth. Using my lips, I worked up and down, adding the roll of my tongue on the extra sensitive spot just beneath his head. He swore and fisted into the sheets beside his hips.
And after I worked up and down in mini movements, I swallowed him whole.
“Jordan,” he cried out my name—well, not really mine, but—and bucked his hips up to meet me.
I gagged but let my tongue curl around him. I pressed as deep as I could manage, then he rocked his hips up to take advantage. My hands slid up his thighs until I reached the apex, one hand went to his balls and the other to his shaft. He sucked in a wild breath just in time for me to hear the slam of the front door. I almost choked for a whole different reason.
Someone was coming or going and there was a momentary stab in my chest. What if it was Danger? What if I couldn’t…? My throat closed on Bert and my whole body seized. That wasn’t an option. Not here, not now.
“My turn.” Bert took the opportunity to turn me over and slid off the mattress in one smooth move.
The comforter disappeared with him and only his ruffled hair reappeared between my thighs. He grazed his fingers down one calf then the other before sliding my legs onto his wide shoulders. He ran his tongue up one side of me but when he came to my clit, he stopped, only to start from the other side and slide up. My hips writhed beneath his hands, trying to feel more of his tongue and less all at the same time.
He darted in and out of me before tracing a similar path just inside my slit. But then he pushed into me and stayed. He coaxed my hips to move, to use his tongue, and I did until he had to pull his glasses off because of the heated fog building between us. When he latched onto my clit, I cried out and let my eyes roll back in my head.
Bert used his fingers to gently spread me open then feasted on me as if I was a meal. My knees turned in on him and I dug into his shoulders. He growled just before he nipped at my inner thigh and returned to eating me.
It was a euphoric bliss, his mouth on me. I wasn’t building so much as I was turning to a puddle of goo. He was taking away my bones and replacing them with nothing but sensation, one lap or swirl at a time.
“I need you.”
I was seeing Technicolor when Bert stopped and murmured into my most intimate bits.
“All of you.”
I gasped, breathy as I nodded. He pulled my body and I tumbled to the comforter piled on the floor before he grabbed me. We were a mess of legs and hands and kisses, as much as blobby orgasmic goo can be legs and hands and kisses anyways. I melted even more when he pressed into me again.
And me, along with all the cares, worries, strife—the revenge—evaporated into nothing. Nothing but Bert.
“You deserve someone better,” Jessie’s voice echoed off my inner thighs.
“There’s no one better.” I combed my hands through his hair then not-so-subtly pulled him back to my clit.
“Somewhere out there, there’s a guy whose world will revolve around you.” He sighed and slumped against my inner thigh.
“Yours does.” I ran my thumb along his brow where I could reach.
“As much as I’d like that, the crew got me first.” He lifted his fingers and traced my slick sex, over and over, like a pattern he wanted to remember.
“I’ll share if it means I get you.” I captured his finger and sat up, swiftly bringing his long pointer into my mouth for a slow suck and a quick nip.
He smiled, a shy, crooked thing then took my cheeks in his hands. “Promise me,” he said softly.
“Promise you what?” I asked when he didn’t add more.
“Just promise me.”
“Okay.” I nodded in his hands then leaned forward to kiss his nose. “I promise.”
“When he comes, you’ll let me go.”
I gasped as I shot up. Or tried to anyway. A down blanket made a burrito around me, and Bert’s arms and legs were the toppings. I managed to shrug him off and unwind some of the blanket before I sat up and wiped the sweat off my brow with a heavy sigh.
Bert reached out for me where I’d been sleeping with him on the floor. His hands seemed to grab and flex for me now that I wasn’t filling them. I leaned down and brushed the hair out of his beautiful face.
Jessie had broken my heart the night I’d been dreaming of, but now, remembering those words, I knew he’d been trying to piece me back together the only way he knew how. I needed to move on, just like he’d wanted.
Was this still the only way I knew how?
I slipped from the covers and slid on a shirt along with the gloves I’d kept stashed in my purse. I grabbed the USB thingy and tiptoed the same trail as last time to Danger’s room. A deep breath filled my lungs and stayed trapped as I pressed against the door.
Mercifully, Danger wasn’t the owner of the footsteps that had come or gone. Disturbing as little as I possibly could, I logged onto his computer with the keystrokes Dantè had taught me. I loaded it to the site too, then with a few simple commands, a red status bar started progressing across the screen. I strained to listen for the slightest peep but only heard the ghost of Jessie’s words.
The bomp bomp of the computer finishing broke my thoughts. And with the status bar turned fully green, the list—or whatever was in its place—uploaded, I took the device and turned my back on the computer.
When I returned to Bert, sleeping peacefully, still reaching for me, I decided I was turning away from the vengeance too.
Engines idled and rumbled like caged animals snarling in the night, and I was their keeper. The man who would tame the beast.
“God, I love that sound.” I threw my head back and took a big whiff of diesel.
“Not too shabby.” Row smiled warmly in my direction.
Row and I circled a particularly appealing engine as we made our way down the row of hoods held up by single spindles.
“I need a new intake system,” I said eyeing the set up in front of me. “I could use a hand next weekend?”
“Yeah. Sure.” Row waved his hand nonchalantly but shadow covered his face. I couldn’t tell if it was from the streetlights or what.
“I mean, if you have plans…”
“No. It’ll be cool.” He looked up and smiled at me and for a moment he looked like…
I shook my head and shoved the notion that Dantè was curled beneath the hood aside. It was just shadows. A trick of my guilty mind.
I shook my head again and straightened up. We kept walking the row of competitor’s cars but my mind wandered to prison. The rows and rows of tiny cells. Tiny cells that had been the only home Dantè knew the past few years. Because of us. Because of me. I’d wanted this life, whatever the cost.
Was it worth it?
“Heya, Rousse.” A driver I recognized but didn’t know by name slithered out from between the cars. “Whaddaya think?” He crossed his arms as he leaned against the side of his car and jerked his head toward the open hood.
“Looking nice man. New engine?” I asked to be polite, noticing the sheen of that bright silver box.
“Yeah, just finished building it myself. I’m Tye,” he introduced himself to Row when he showed interest in the machine beside me.
“Row.” He nodded then fixated back on the engine.
“Oh, the hotshot from last time.” Tye’s eyes swept from me to Row, appraising this new talent in our small pool.
“Just like the feeling of flying, man. That’s all.”
“No way.” Tye laughed. “I saw the way you drive. You have gasoline in your veins.”
I didn’t know if it was my earlier thoughts of Dantè or the glisten of hero worship in Tye’s gaze that had jealousy churning in my stomach.
“He w
as pretty good.” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. Row twisted up to shoot me an eyebrow. “I mean, you’re pretty good.” I shrugged.
Row squinched his face but his bushy mustache turned up with a smirk as he stood and turned. “I’ll be back at the car.” He waved without looking back as he strode purposefully away.
“Reminds me of the good ole days,” Tye said as he watched Row go.
“What?” I snap.
“Remember Dantè Rogue a few years ago.”
“Don’t say his name.” I reached for Tye’s throat, pushing him against the metal of his car frame as his eyes went wide.
He gagged and sputtered then submitted beneath my hand.
“Hey, hey, hey.” A few of the organizers appeared out of nowhere to separate us.
“Sorry,” I mumbled as I released Tye and watched him slide down the contours of his car. “But don’t come at me with that shit,” I emphasized as I walked away.
I rolled my shoulders and clenched my fists as I skulked back toward my car. I kicked a stone from the trampled field back toward my slot, thinking about Dantè as I went. Had I ruined everything or righted it?
“You all right?” Row asked as he let his hood drop.
I just grunted in response.
“Checked out under your hood too.” He nodded toward my set up, and since I couldn’t kick the distraction of my past, I slammed my hood and rounded to the driver’s seat. I had a checklist I always followed, a routine, but just this once, I could forego it. I could trust Row.
“You two, up next,” a voice announced as its owner banged first on Row’s hood, then on mine.
I pulled out first, noticing a bit of a rumble and catch to the engine. My brows bunched up as I tried to stare through the dashboard and into the engine block. It stuttered again, and for a split second, I thought about backing out. But then Row pulled up next to me on the line. Competition roared in my veins, complementing the engine purring again beneath my fingers.
The lights started to flip. Red, red, yellow, yellow. The countdown stirred up the excitement in my veins and I revved my engine. I shot one glance over to the car beside me. Row shot me a look. A look I recognized, and this time it wasn’t the ghost of Dantè Rogue.
Every race, every time we found ourselves here, Dantè would shoot me a smile. A pure, beautiful, friendly smile. It was the epitome of not caring about the outcome, about the bond we shared there at the line. It was one of those things that I loved and hated about him.
It was the one he wore now.
I saw the moment he realized. The moment he saw me instead of Row. For a split second, I felt bad. Forfeiting was on the tip of my tongue. The same cautious conscious that I’d felt right before sending Max with the list was back. Knowing what would happen to him next…
But then the light turned green and the jealousy that had always motivated Rousse sent him shooting off the line. For a split second, I thought about staying put and watching things unfold, but knowing how that would look sent me racing after.
He was almost to the finish line when it happened. The gear I’d loosened fell to the pavement behind him, and the belt I’d almost severed snapped out into my lane. I swerved to avoid it right about when I assumed he pumped on the breaks and found them failing too.
Mine worked just fine as I mashed them to the floor, sending my car drifting. I came to a stop just in time to see him approach the curve. But with his power steering laying in the middle of the concrete, try was all he could do.
Try and fail.
The pavement arced but Rousse’s silver car ran straight. The abandoned metal bleachers and lookout tower on the far edge of the track were like a magnet. His out of control car collected chain link and barbed wire as he barreled toward it. He clipped a fallen log, sending the car sideways. All too quickly, he clipped another log, and the car left the ground in a gruesome but spectacular fashion then started rolling side over side toward the bleachers. Flipping fucking fast.
I slammed against the seatbelt still across my chest, then ripped it as I shot out of my car. The metallic crunch and crush became its own type of screech, ringing in my ears and rattling my insides, until his car came to rest upside down.
My mouth hung wide open, and I felt like my body had locked liked that. I’d known something like this would happen, but seeing it…
His faint screams for help barely reached me as I twisted back toward the starting line. They should have been coming. An Ambulance should be too. Instead, I saw scuttling figures but no lights. No one running for us.
A guttural scream, louder than the other ones snapped my attention back toward Rousse’s mangled car. Small flame lapped at the underside of the carriage.
In that moment, he wasn’t the man that had wronged me. Ruined me. He was just my friend. The kid with the scraped knees that Danger and Diego left behind. The kid that was desperate to keep up.
I started running for him before I made the conscious decision to do so. I started sucking in the fumes of gasoline and burnt rubber as I sprinted closer and closer. I didn’t know what I would do when I got there but I couldn’t stand and watch him…Die. And if someone didn’t do something, Rousse was going to die.
The roar of flames igniting to hell’s inferno in a small mushroom was my only warning that fire was engulfing the fuel lines. The small sounds of forewarning gave instinct and instinct alone a chance to pull me up short. My arms shot up to shield myself from the explosion as even my heart came to a stop.
I was bathed in the uncomfortable heat of too-close open flame and went to step back but then a pitiful and pained cry rooted me. My arms shifted, trying to filter out some of the light and decipher what was happening.
“Please,” Rousse begged from behind the chaos, and I could tell just by his tone how tenuous his grasp was on life was.
Again, I didn’t make the decision to scramble around the trunk of the car to the driver’s side where Rousse would be pinned.
“Shit,” I swore simply at the amount of blood covering Rousse’s face, let alone the fire lapping at his skin.
“Dantè,” he choked out.
“Is it just your seatbelt or are you pinned?” I ignored my name and the truth it laid between us as I bent down to try and get a better glimpse.
“Dantè,” he wheezed louder, “stop.”
I sat back a hair and eyed him.
“I’m sorry,” he managed.
“Don’t.” I shoved his words aside and my arms into the open window to try and find out the answer to my question on my own.
“No, you don’t.” He fought against me as best he could, shoving at my hands and then at my chest. He cried out in pain when he twisted too far. “I will not let you pull me out of here.”
“Well I don’t give a fuck what you want,” I snarled as pushed past his weakening attempts and started working on his seatbelt.
“I should die for what we did for you.”
“I thought the same thing,” I muttered as I finally got him free.
Gravity dropped him into a pile on the upturned roof of his car. He screamed again then full body sobs overtook him as he tried to push away from me and back into the fire. I pushed into the car after him, sucking in a lungful of smoke that almost suffocated me. Panic seized my throat a moment later. Panic for me and my life. Rousse too.
I wouldn’t give up though. I hooked my hands under his limp shoulders and got a good enough hold to pull him out of the door.
As soon as he was out of the car, I saw the true brutality his body had suffered. He had burns and bloodied rips along the whole of his legs. His left one appeared as though denim had melted into his flesh. His right one had the flicker of flame still alive on it. I ripped off my shirt and shuffled to extinguish the flame. Rousse sobbed with each and every one of my movements.
“Stop, Dantè. Stop, please.” He digressed into full-fledged tears.
“No.”
I studied him again, taking inventory of what I needed to d
o first, then scanned the horizon for anyone on the way. Finally, cars seemed to be heading our way. Lights flashed way off in the distance.
“I was jealous,” he moaned. “And I’m sorry. Danger took that and twisted it into something wicked. Diego made me feel like one of them when I agreed. I got lost, Dantè. LOST!” he screamed as he reached for my chest and clawed his hands against my bare skin.
I knew. I knew all of those things and I had long before this night. But hearing them. Hearing my friend say them…It was its own brand of salve on my weary soul. Something I hadn’t known I desperately wanted to hear. I hadn’t become wicked the way Priest had wanted me to. Not really. My heart was still my own. Maybe that was why Mercy still spoke the language that soothed and caressed the warped and atrophied coal of my heart.
“What am I supposed to do with that Rousse? I lost everything.” I shoved his hands from my body and he collapsed in my lap, shivering to the point of convulsions from shock. “You took it from me.” And here, tonight, I wanted it back. Not vengeance, but that life.
“You should have let me die,” he whimpered.
“I hate myself a little for not letting you.” I answered so sharp that my hacking cough from the smoke came back.
“You were always better than us.” He looked up with those eyes I remembered from each of those dejected memories. The ones I got when I took his side. Came to his rescue.
“I never wanted to be…” I choked on memory, emotion. On everything this moment meant. “I just wanted a family. I would have died for you.”
“We knew,” he answered, his eyes fluttering shut. “We knew and we took advantage of it.”
“All four of you…”
“No.” He reached for me again.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Mercy didn’t know. Are you kidding me?” He managed a smile even as he wheezed in my lap. “She would have done far worse than this to us if she ever found out.”
My world tilted on its axis and I felt as if it was slipping out from under me. What I’d known, what I’d been so sure of and fed my hatred on, wasn’t completely true. I could have gone back to her.
