by A. J. Downey
I asked her, and she wouldn’t speak on it. The resounding silence telling me everything I needed to know.
“Sounds to me like Abuela needs to be taken down a few pegs.”
“I honestly think things could be so much better for the people if she were but by the same token… what if it’s better the devil you know?”
I nodded slowly, the wheels turning in my head.
Far be it from me to tell another man how to live his life. That wasn’t exactly what this life was about… but maybe there was a way in all of this to have our cake and eat it too. Make life just a little better for those that needed it and bring a little street justice to those that deserved it.
We talked, me and my girl. The afternoon sun lazing on its downhill slide toward the horizon.
It was one of those magic times where time slowed significantly and it was just her and I, the rest of the world a light and distant buzz of activity around us – simply white noise. Eventually, that white noise broke through in the form of some whooping and hollering down the way toward the water.
Marisol and I sat up, a troupe of hippie-looking street kids gathered down below setting up a big ol’ speaker and unrolling tapestries full of charred equipment. Fans, swords, balls at the ends of chains, and I smiled.
“Looks like we came on the right day,” I said.
“Who are they?” Marisol asked, shading her eyes with her hand despite the sunglasses perched atop her hair.
“Fire spinners,” I answered. “Come on down, let’s get closer.”
“Okay.”
And that’s how we spent the rest of our evening, watching the local fire spinners and performers practice, the thrum of electronic and industrial dance music pulsing through our bodies as the sun set.
It was a good way to end the day and I felt closer than ever to my girl. Like she had finally let me in.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Marisol…
The next few days were quiet. Maverick didn’t bring up my uncle or Abuela, but we did talk about Mateo. He told me to fix up the other room for my brother, gave me his credit card and told me to order what I needed to for my little brother.
I stood frozen to the spot, my heart filling to bursting for this rough and wild man in front of me.
Just like that, he held out the small rectangle of plastic to me and with it, everything my heart had ever desired. A home. My brother. A life away from the orchards of Eastern Washington and my corrupt grandmother. He held out everything I had ever wanted, and I took it, throwing my arms around him and kissing him soundly. My desire for him unmatched in that moment.
“Okay,” he said, laughing between fierce kisses. “Okay, I’ve got to go. Use the laptop on my desk, I’ll see you when I get home.”
“Okay,” I breathed and then, there I was standing in the room that would be my brother’s trying to decide what to do with it. There were endless possibilities but a lot of work yet to be done before I could get to them.
When Mav came through the kitchen door, it was to find me somewhat frazzled and exhausted, primer freckling my face and the bandana I used to cover my hair as I stirred some fresh made pico de gallo in a bowl at the cutting board.
“Smells good,” he said, shrugging out of his jacket and cut, hanging them on the back of one of the kitchen chairs at the counter. He slid up onto the same seat at the same time I slid some Juanita’s chips and the fresh pico across the counter at him.
“It’s gonna be a bit before the main course is ready,” I told him, checking its progress in the oven. “Thought you might want a snack when you got in.”
“Mm.” He crunched through one of the tortilla chips loaded with fresh vegetables. “Mm-hm!” He nodded appreciatively.
“Trying something American,” I said. “Figured you might be getting a little tired of Mexican every night.”
He chuckled, chewing slowly, and swallowing his bite before asking, “What have you got going on in there?”
“Just a chicken,” I said with a shrug. “Looked up a recipe online. Figured some baked chicken and a salad with some chips and salsa sounded light and healthy – well, all except maybe the chips part.”
Mav laughed and nodded. “Sounds good, babe. Sounds really good.”
“Awesome,” I said with a smile. I set out a couple of plates and moved around the kitchen getting various things ready for the bird to come out of the oven. The salad was already made and waiting. I’d done that along with the salsa.
“So, how much progress you make?” he asked, and I smiled and answered, “Not enough. I have the primer on the walls and ceiling – still trying to decide what to do with the rest. I haven’t spent any money yet.”
“I ain’t worried about it. You need help, you just holler.”
“I was thinking about painting it in his favorite soccer team’s colors. He loves fútbol, just like our dad.”
“Nice.” Maverick nodded.
“You seriously don’t care what I do to your house?” I asked and stared at him across the kitchen island.
“Our house,” he corrected with a shrug.
“You’re serious…”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Uh, you barely know me?”
“I know enough about you,” he said. “I know enough to know that you and me? We’re a good fit.”
I blushed at the intense look he gave me, the double entendre stark.
I cleared my throat and finished dinner without a word. Maverick kept checking his phone, but when I asked, wouldn’t tell me why. I shrugged it off. It was probably club business and I didn’t need to know.
“Leave them for later,” he said when I started the dishes after we’d finished our meal and I frowned.
“Abuela would have my ass if I left a sink full of dirty dishes after a meal,” I said with a dark laugh.
“Yeah, well, that bitch ain’t here to tell you what to do, now is she?” he asked, and I smiled and shook my head.
“No, but just because she is a bitch doesn’t mean all of her lessons were bad ones,” I countered.
“True enough,” he said with a nod and sighed.
“I’ll leave them for now,” I murmured, and he smiled at me, reaching out to cup my cheek, smoothing a thumb over my skin and the way he looked at me? It was as if I were a work of art.
I lived sometimes for the way he looked at me. Especially when it was like that.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, huh?” he murmured gently, and I bit my bottom lip to contain my smile.
“You just want to get me naked,” I said playfully, and he grinned.
“Fuck yeah, I do.”
I left the damn dishes for later.
He took me into the bathroom, and we showered together. Long, the water hot, the foreplay steamy as we took care of each other, reverently washing the other’s body while kissing slowly. I took his hard length in my hand, stroking him surely, his moan soft and sensual amid the rainfall from his showerhead.
I wouldn’t be denied. I wanted to make him feel good, and so I went to my knees and took him into my mouth, looking up the lean muscled length of his torso into those deep blue indigo eyes of his while I made love to him with my mouth.
The velvet length of him was hot, like steel against my tongue which I tantalized him with so softly, sucking on him like a popsicle on a hot sunny day.
I loved the look in his eyes, the way his lips slightly parted, the way he threw back his head, his fists knotted at his sides to keep from grabbing my head. The way he held himself in check but just barely.
God, all of it – everything about him was super fucking hot and I wanted so badly for him to be mine and only mine. I just didn’t know how that worked in his world…
“God, baby, get up here,” he demanded gasping, and I let his dick fall from my lips with an audible pop.
He reached down and hauled me to my feet, crushing his mouth over mine. I wrapped my arms around his shoulder
s and pressed my body tight to his as the gentle rainfall of his showerhead soaked us, and I couldn’t think of anyplace I would rather be.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he growled, and I smiled, nipping the side of his neck lightly.
“Take me to bed,” I ordered deviously, and he grinned.
“Thought you’d never ask.”
“Cute how you think I’m asking,” I said, gasping myself when he kissed the side of my neck.
He gave me a slap on my ass, and I yipped, laughing, and let him lead me into the bedroom.
The playfulness between us quickly gave way to a sudden and fierce ardor. Mouths clashed, hands gripped, arms pulling each other tightly into the curve and shelter of the other. Warm skin still damp from the shower, bodies pressing tight. It was different this time, mostly because I wholly gave myself over to it.
By now, I could trust that Maverick had nothing but the best of intentions where I was concerned and I wanted so desperately to know what it felt like to… to really be loved, that I was willing to lie to myself and believe that he did.
Eres estúpida, I thought savagely to myself. Of course, he loves you! What man does what he is doing for you that doesn’t love the woman he does these things for?
He’d also as good as said he loved me, too… or rather he’d said “I’m beginning to love you.” That was the same thing, though, right?
I didn’t know, but what I did know was that I was feeling it too. This deep desire to always be near him and not just because of what he was doing for me. He treated me better than I had ever been treated before. He treated me like his queen, but not like a trophy girl on his arm.
He asked questions, wanted my opinion, in fact – he was asking me more frequently on my perspective on things I wasn’t entirely sure I should know… things that should have been under the umbrella of ‘club business.’
I didn’t mind, though. In fact, I preferred not to be kept in the dark. I was a big girl, I could handle it, and I was determined to prove it every day if I had to by listening and by keeping my mouth shut.
Of course, with the way Maverick was laying me down in the center of his bed, and with how he kissed his way down my body, his gaze intense, his intentions clear, I wouldn’t be keeping my mouth shut very much longer. Then again, I think he preferred it when I got loud in the bedroom.
His mouth was warm, wet, and soft, his tongue against my clit sending a pleasurable fission of energy throughout my body. I gripped his sable soft hair in my hands and pulled his mouth tight against my pussy, moaning loudly, that moan interrupted by a short cry as he introduced fingers inside of me.
He knew just the spot, how to play me like a fiddle. I arched for him, loosening my hold on his hair so I wouldn’t hurt him as he moaned in satisfaction against my body, excited to be there. Like he’d found his ultimate happy place between my thighs.
I cannot impress what a pure, unadulterated, joy the sounds he made brought to me, both on an intellectual and a physical plane. The vibrations of his voice through his lips sent sparks of light flitting through me. The pads of his fingertips teasing inside me created a growing weight, a warmth in my pussy that almost, almost mimicked the sensation of a full bladder.
I’d learned, though, that if I just relaxed and let it happen, that he could do amazing things with my body and that growing warmth.
“Oh, yes!” I cried breathy. “Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Oh, God!”
I jolted, body rocking against his mouth, fists relocating to grip the sheets to either side of my hips, holding on for dear life as the orgasm rocked me to my core. Gasping, screaming, body writhing with the pleasure as he leaned up and I felt a gush of wetness between my thighs, around his invading fingers.
“That’s my girl,” he said happily, a lazy, self-satisfied, and smug grin turning up the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop,” I begged, bucking my hips against his hand.
“Shhh, relax, baby. Just relax, I ain’t gonna quit. You just lie there and feel good.”
He pulled me all the way thorough one orgasm, out the other side, then kept teasing me all through the resulting tremors to slowly start building me up again for more.
“I need you,” I whispered, eyes heavy lidded with passion.
“You want my cock?” he asked, and I smiled.
“I need your cock,” I countered, and his smile grew. He reached for a condom on the bedside table, pulling his fingers out of me, and I shivered. It was always so fucking hot watching him roll the rubber down his thick shaft, watching him make himself ready to claim me body first, then soul…
He walked up the bed on his knees and lifted one of my legs, pressing my calf to his shoulder, stroking his cock between us, pressing a reverent kiss to my leg, his lips warm and silky. The juxtaposition of his gentle touches and the savagery with which he shoved his cock inside my wet and waiting cunt left me arching off the bed and crying out in surprise.
He seated himself deep inside me, balls deep, body pressed tight to mine, hugging my leg with both of his arms, grinding against me, touching off a firestorm of sensations and emotions within me.
“That’s it,” he murmured encouragingly. “That’s it.”
I gasped, massaging my own breasts for his lustful gaze, and let the world, my troubles, and everything else that clung to me at every other time completely fall away.
The only other time I felt this free was when I rode with Maverick on his bike and this? Having him inside me, looking at me like that? It was far better than any wind therapy out there.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maverick…
My phone rang in the middle of the night, and it was Dahlia’s ringtone. I frowned, stirring as the song played and Marisol wiggled her spectacular ass against my soft cock, quickly giving me a semi. I put a hand to her hip to stop her from moving and groped for my phone on the nightstand.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I asked in greeting. Dahlia and I hadn’t spoken since our fight over Marisol at the club a couple of weeks before.
“Mav?” Dahlia’s voice was weak, out of sorts. She sounded dazed and confused.
“Mallory,” I said using her given name, “What’s wrong?” I sat up and listened to her groan slightly on the other end of the line.
“Can you come get me?” she asked, and I threw the blankets off, Marisol sitting up sharply.
“Where you at, baby?”
I waved Marisol down when she sat up sharply scowling.
“Mav, can you come get me?” she repeated and said, “Something’s wrong. I don’t… I don’t feel right.”
“You just hang on, Mal, I’ll be right there. Just hang on, for me. I’ll track your phone.” I handed the phone to Marisol who looked both alarmed and suddenly eager to help.
“Keep her talking,” I said and she nodded putting the phone to her ear.
“Hello?” she said, then a pause. “He’s getting dressed right now, he said to talk to you.” Another pause and then, “That’s fine, you don’t have to talk to me, you just need to stay on the line. Do you know where you are?”
Marisol took it like a champ, talking to my best friend who was clearly being her bitchy self on the other end of the line while I put on clothes, scooped up my burner and put out a mass text to the guys.
Tic-Tac, Glass Jaw, and Dump Truck answered. I picked Tic-Tac and Dump Truck to get their asses up and meet up with me, texting them the coordinates my regular phone was spitting out as to where Mallory was at.
As my best friend, I knew what a pain in the ass she could be, and it frustrated me that we were at odds over Marisol, but there was a reason Mal was my platonic hetero life mate. Reasons I wish I could put into words, but there just weren’t any.
Marisol, to her credit, helped me help my best friend without complaint, at least for right now.
“Tell her we’re on our way and let me get hooked up,” I said, and Marisol nodded.
“Yeah, honey. He’s on his way,
just a few more seconds and I’ll give you back to him. Just hold on a minute. Yeah,” she rolled her eyes, “I know I’m the last bitch you want to talk to but right now, I’m the bitch trying to help you out so spare me for the moment, yeah?”
I pressed the button on my Bluetooth, and it connected and suddenly my bestie was in my ear, “It’s not that I don’t like you, no… it’s just that you’re a fucking child.”
“I’ll let you tell her that the next time you see her and I’m not helping you out if she tries to kick your ass, now hang tight. I’m on my way.”
Marisol handed me my phone and got up on her knees to press a quick kiss to my lips.
“Be careful,” my woman, my queen, intoned, and I nodded.
“Mav, where are you?” Mallory asked and she sounded like she was slipping.
“Mal, baby, stay awake,” I ordered and hauled ass to get to where she was.
I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but when I got to the coordinates, I was determined to find out. Tic-Tac and I had met up on the road, and when we pulled up, Dump Truck was already there – efficient bastard. That’s one of the things I liked about him the most.
“Okay, we’re here,” I said into the phone. “We’re here, baby, you just need to tell me where you are.”
“Third floor, apartment 3B.”
“3B!” I called for the benefit of the other two and pointed at a doorway that looked like it led to some stairs up. We were in Pioneer Square, and nobody but some seriously rich motherfuckers lived here. The building was not only a historic one, since the viaduct had come down, but they now possessed multi-million-dollar views as a result.
“What the fuck she got herself into?” Dump Truck growled and I knew he was only half-pissed at Dahlia, the rest of his ire stemming from the need to haul his big, half crippled ass up three floors worth of stairs.
“Dunno,” Tic-Tac answered for me. “Whatever it is, fucker’s gonna wish he’d never been born.” To punctuate his statement, he threw down his fist, the steel collapsible baton he held in it telescoping out to its full length.
