“We’ve got plenty of them,” he nodded. Gesturing to the rack behind him, he murmured: “What do you fancy? A semi-automatic? Revolver?”
Then he turned back to me, and narrowed his eyes.
“This for you? Or a present for your boyfriend? I picked up a Ruger Blackhawk the other day that’s fuckin’ beautiful.”
I rolled my eyes. That was a slick way to ask whether or not I had a boyfriend.
“It’s for me.” I peered at the rack. “How about that one?”
The guy turned to look where I was pointing – and then reached back to pull the small, black revolver off the rack.
“Smith & Wesson Bodyguard,” he nodded, handing the gun over to me. It was cold and heavy in my hands. “Good choice for a lady. Five shots, chambered for a .38 special, and there’s no hammer to get snagged on your clothing.”
I was barely listening. I was feeling the weight of the little gun in my hands – wrapping my fingers around the plastic grip, to feel how well I could hold it.
“It’s perfect,” I breathed. “How much?” Looking up, I added: “I’ll need a box of bullets, too.”
“Hold your horses, sweetheart,” the guy flashed his yellow teeth at me. “The gun’s three hundred bucks. Box of cartridges will be fifty. You still want it?”
I was already peeling off the twenties from the stack I’d dumped on the counter.
“Great,” the bald man took that as my answer. “I’ll need your driver’s license for the background check, and you can pick it up in ten days, when I’ve run your…”
“Ten days?” I interrupted him. “I need it now.”
The guy looked up at me, eyes wide.
“Hey, sorry, honey. That’s the law. 240 hour waiting period.”
I stared at the bald-headed man with silent fury. He was wearing a name-badge on his t-shirt that declared his name was “Buck.”
“Tell you what, Buck,” I slid the pile of twenties over to him. “Three hundred fifty for the gun. The rest to give it to me now.”
Buck whistled through his teeth, staring down at the pile of cash. There was an extra four hundred and fifty dollars there, and I could almost see the money signs lighting up in his eyes.
But, after pursing his lips for a second, Buck looked back up at me, and sighed: “Sorry, honey. No can do. I could lose my license if they found out.”
“They’re not going to find out.” I pushed the money towards him again. “Come on. Cut me a break.”
This time, his smile faded.
“Sweetheart,” Buck growled. “When you see somebody in such a goddamned hurry to buy a gun, there’s normally a reason for it. And if you go out and do something stupid with that revolver, I don’t want the cops trawling back here three days later, finding out I was the one who sold it to you without the waiting period.”
I balled my small hands into fists. Dammit.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“Geeze, you’re really serious, aren’t you?”
The look I shot back at him confirmed that.
For a moment, Buck was silent. He stared at me, and this time it wasn’t because he thought my tits looked pretty.
He was measuring me up, and I could see he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the conclusions he was coming to.
But the way he wet his lips with his tongue suggested he was tempted to take me up on my offer.
“Okay, sweetheart,” carefully, Buck reached over and took the Smith & Wesson from my hands. “I can’t let you have this little baby. It’s registered to my store, and if you do anything dumb with it, the cops will be up my ass faster than you can blink.”
My shoulders slumped as I watched him reverently place that beautiful little gun back on the rack behind him.
“But,” he murmured, turning back to face me, “maybe we can work something out.”
Buck’s eyes flashed back and forth – scanning the empty room to make sure we were alone.
Sucking his breath in through his teeth, he whispered: “Go and lock the front door, and flip the open sign around.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“Go on,” Buck urged me. “You want me to help you out? Or what?”
“Yes,” I nodded, already half-way across the gloomy storefront. As I flipped the latch on the steel door, and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED, I repeated to him: “Yes. I really do.”
“Okay.”
Buck didn’t sound excited when he said that. He sounded nervous – and that made the butterflies in my own stomach start churning.
He stepped out from behind the counter, and nodded his head towards a back door marked: “Staff Only.”
“C’mon,” he gestured. “Follow me.”
For a second, I wondered just what the fuck I was doing. I was locked in a seedy pawn shop – about to go into the back room, no less – with an aging, overweight man who looked like Jack Black and Kyle Gass of Tenacious D had managed to produce an even more slovenly love-child together.
But I only wondered that for a second.
Then I stopped thinking, and followed him.
The door to the back room swung open, and Buck led me into a darkened office out back. There were posters of topless girls hanging on the wall, empty beer bottles littering the desk, and a flickering computer monitor in the corner that showed, on it’s grainy screen, in addition to naming his pawn shop after Porn Hub, he was also an avid follower of theirs.
Those butterflies in my stomach started doing cartwheels.
“Okay,” oblivious to my worries, Buck kicked aside the chair behind his desk, and bent down underneath it. “Let’s see what I’ve got for you.”
I peered over Buck’s shoulder, and saw he was twirling the knob of an old, wrought iron safe. With a creak, the door opened, and the balding man reached in to pull out a drawer from inside.
There were plastic baggies of jewelry, what looked like a jar of pills, and three or four handguns piled up in the plastic drawer – and as I stood there, watching, Buck grabbed one of them and thumped it onto the desk.
The drawer went back into the safe. The door slammed shut.
“So,” Buck explained, as he straightened up with a groan. “Sometimes I have folks come in here with something to pawn, but I know it’s hot.”
He dropped his bulk into the office chair, and spun around to face me.
“Sometimes its stolen jewelry. Sometimes it’s drugs. Sometimes it’s a gun that I know isn’t legal. It’s stolen, or was used in a crime, or something.”
He slid the gun across the desk, towards me. It was a stubby little black handgun, weathered and scuffed.
“Hi-Point .380 ACP,” Buck explained, looking up. “Some crackhead brought it in, and only God knows where he got it from, or what it’s been used for.”
He picked up the gun, and pulled back the slide with a sleek-sounding click. When he dry-fired it by pulling the trigger, I actually jumped.
“I mean, it ain’t legal – but a gun’s a gun. I gave him fifty bucks for it – because I knew one day I’d come across somebody who needed one badly enough.”
With the unloaded gun pointed vaguely in my direction, Buck looked up at me and murmured: “Is that you?”
I stared at the ugly gun in his hand.
It was a world away from the sleek and deadly-looking revolver I’d held in the store out front – but it was still a gun.
“I’ll give you fifty bucks for it,” I nodded. “And I’ll buy a box of ammo, too…”
“Hold up, honey,” Buck smiled menacingly, swinging from side to side in that creaking office chair. “I wasn’t offering it to you for fifty bucks.”
“Whatever,” I snapped back. “You saw how much money I had in my purse. Name your price. Whatever I’ve got, I’ll give it to you.”
The menacing smile on Buck’s face widened.
“I could get into a lot of trouble for selling this to you,” he slid the semi-automatic across the desk towards me.
“If you go out and do something naughty with it…”
There was an unseemly edge to the way he said the word ‘naughty’… Like he was implying I was planning something cute and sexy and playful – running around in my underwear, maybe…
…when in fact I was planning to shoot two motherfuckers dead with it.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” I growled, reaching for the gun. “My lips are sealed.”
As soon as I reached for the gun, Buck snatched it out of reach.
I snarled at him, as he spun playfully around in his chair.
“I mean it,” Buck murmured back, finally spinning all the way around to face me again. “If you go out and, I dunno…”
He licked his lips.
“…killed somebody with this gun. Well, I could be charged with accessory, or worse.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” I reached for the gun, and he yanked it out of reach, “whatever happens, I’ll never tell them I got it from you.”
“Ha!” Buck had a shit-eating grin on his face, and I was close to adding him to the list of people I wanted to shoot when I looked at it. “I wish I could believe that.”
I was done fucking around with this asshole. I put my hands on my hips and snarled: “Are you going to sell me that goddamn gun or not?”
Buck’s shit-eating grin just widened.
“Tell you what, sweetheart,” he purred, squaring that revolving office chair around to face me. “How about you show me how much you really need that gun.”
I gulped, my mouth suddenly dry.
“You give me that pile of money you showed me from your purse,” Buck continued, winking at me. “All of it.”
That much I could deal with. It was only money, after all.
“And then,” Buck continued…
Only, he didn’t continue.
Instead, he snaked his hand down his rotund belly, and started unbuckling his belt.
I stood there, knees shaking, as I watched this balding pawnbroker unbuckle his belt, and yank open his jeans.
I felt butterflies churn in my stomach, as I watched him pull out his half-hard cock.
“You give me all that money,” Buck was purring now, stroking his dick to full erection, “and you get on your knees and suck my cock.”
I gulped again, and my mouth was so dry it was almost painful.
“You want this gun so fucking bad? You fucking prove it.”
Aww, shit.
I stood there, watching him stroke his stubby cock.
A whirlwind of emotions swept through me. Disgust. Anger. Frustration…
…shit, maybe a little arousal. Maybe I’d let myself get programmed that way, after all those months with the Knuckleheads… I saw a cock, and the programming inside my head mentally prepared me for the task ahead…
…only, I wasn’t mentally prepared any more. Not since Mason…
I stood there, and looked at Buck as he leered up at me, stroking his straining cock.
“C’mon,” he grinned, gesturing towards his cock. “Show me how bad you want it, sweetheart…”
Fuck.
I did want it. I wanted that gun so fucking badly. I wanted to finally give my father the justice he deserved. I wanted to unload that stubby little semi-automatic into those two crooked cops who’d murdered him…
But was I willing to do this?
“Don’t look at me like that,” Buck growled, stroking his cock. It was thick, and veiny, and looked as swollen and angry as I felt. “Don’t pretend you haven’t wrapped those pretty lips around your fair share of these…”
And the worst part? I had.
Over the last few months? Fuck, I couldn’t remember how many cocks I’d sucked. How many loads of cum I’d swallowed…
I’d just been like an obedient sex-robot. Doing whatever I had to, just to survive.
And I knew I should be feeling like that now. Nothing had changed. Did five minutes on my knees really mean that much, in the grand scheme of things?
But then I thought of Mason.
Oh, fuck.
I remember his handsome face. Those crisp blue eyes. The taste of his lips on mine…
Shit, the taste of his big, beautiful cock in my mouth.
Mason had ruined everything.
If it wasn’t for him, I’d be on my knees right now, giving Buck a blowjob he’d remember for the rest of his life. I’d have coaxed a big, thick load of cum from his balls in less time than it took to boil an egg, and swallowed it down with practiced efficiency…
But that was then.
“Come on,” Buck snarled. “I can’t keep the goddamn shop shut all day.”
I stared at his swollen cock, and swallowed for the third time…
I could do this.
Shit, how many times had I done it before?
Slowly, I stepped forward, and sunk to my knees between Buck’s spread-eagled thighs.
“That’s my girl,” Buck grinned, as he watched me kneeling in front of him. “Show me how badly you need it.”
I squeezed shut my eyes, and tried to switch my emotions off.
How many times had I been in this situation before?
How many seedy roadside bars had I been in this exact situation in? And how many time had I licked my lips, and opened my mouth, and just got on with the task at hand?
Five minutes. Maybe less, given how good I was with my lips and tongue.
That’s all it would take to have Buck spurting into the back of my mouth, and me swallowing like the obedient little slut I’d programmed myself to be.
“That’s it,” Buck reached over and stroked my hair. “That’s a good little girl…”
My hands were trembling as I reached up, and curled them around the shaft of his straining cock.
“Oh, fuuuuck!” Buck threw his head back, and groaned at the sensation of my fingers on his dick.
His cock throbbed in my hands as I stroked it up and down. He was quivering with need…
“Come on,” the balding pawnbroker groaned. “Let me feel your mouth on it…”
I opened my mouth, and tried to lean forward. I tried with all my might to do what had to be done…
But then I suddenly saw a vision of Mason pop into my head… I suddenly remembered the taste of his cock in my mouth, as he’d laid back on the bed, with me kneeling between his legs…
My nostrils flooded with the scent of Buck’s crotch – so gamey and rank, compared to Mason’s musky, masculine scent.
Fuck.
Suddenly, I couldn’t do it anymore.
“No…”
I let go of Buck’s cock like it was red-hot, and staggered back from between his legs.
“What the fuck?”
Scrambling to my feet, I stumbled back against the door.
“I-I can’t do this,” I stammered, struggling to find the door handle. “I can’t… can’t…”
Buck opened his mouth to speak, but I didn’t let him.
“I-I’m sorry…” I didn’t know what the fuck I was apologizing for. “I’m sorry… I just can’t…”
And then I shouldered open the door, and staggered into the storefront of Pawn Hub.
“Wait!” Pants around his ankles, Buck reared up from the office chair and waddled after me. “Honey! Wait up! Don’t go!”
But I’d already gone…
I’d unlocked the heavy, steel door to the pawn shop, and shoved it open with all my might.
Staggering into the bright, hot California sun, I shielded my eyes and ran blindly out across the street.
It wasn’t smart. I could have got hit by a car, or a truck. Hell, what with the bright sun and the tears streaming down my face, I couldn’t see a goddamn thing…
But it wasn’t a truck that hit me – although it might as well have been.
As I went staggering across the street, I suddenly collided with something big, hard and heavy – only as soon as I thumped into it, the mysterious obstacle literally embraced me…
>
Big, strong arms wrapped around me – crushing me to a hot, hard chest.
I breathed in a lungful of warm, familiar, manly scent, and I knew what had happened even before I looked up…
I’d run head-first, right into Mason Stone – and he’d wrapped his arms around me like he was never going to let me go.
Hot tears rolling down my face, I felt my cheeks burn…
“M-Mason?” I stammered, looking up into his handsome face. “H-how did you find me?”
And that was when I was pulled roughly from my lover’s embrace, and I felt his strong fingers digging painfully into my arms.
Yanking me away from him, Mason glowered into my eyes with an anger I’d never seen from him before.
“Because this is the only pawn shop in town, Christi,” the handsome biker growled, “and I know exactly why you came here…”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mason
When I was a little kid, I remember my father scolding me for playing on the roof of our barn.
“I swear to God, kid,” he’d yell. “If you hurt yourself, I’m gonna wallop you so hard.”
It was that weird protective anger – that you want to hurt somebody for letting themselves get hurt.
And that’s exactly what I was feeling, as I dug my fingers into Christi’s slender arms, and roared at her in the middle of that dusty street.
“Jesus, what were you thinking?” I barked at her. “You could just roll up to a pawn shop and buy a gun? Just so you could do what those fucking FBI agents couldn’t?”
Christi’s eyes looked as wide as the wheels on my Harley, and were welling up with tears.
“Y-you’re hurting me, Mason,” she sobbed.
And fuck, I realized I was. I was so goddamned worried about her, I’d sunk my fingers into her like they were talons, and was shaking her back and forth like a cocktail shaker.
“I-I’m sorry,” I loosened my grip. “I was just so goddamned worried about you.” Looking back and forth across the street, I realized we were about to start holding up traffic – so I quickly hustled her off the asphalt.
We ducked into the shade on the sidewalk, and I growled at her: “The FBI agents thought you’d gone running back to Coyle. They gave me an hour to find you…”
Christi’s astonishment had faded, and anger replaced the tears.
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