by A. J. Downey
I put my arms around her, holding her as tightly as she clutched at me and laying a reverent kiss against her bare shoulder I asked, “Is that a yes?”
She didn’t answer with words, simply drew back, placing her hand to my cheek, and her lips to mine in a kiss that tasted of hope and gratitude.
It was enough for me.
Our fate sealed with that kiss for all time.
Commitment never tasted so fucking good.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marisol…
It was a strange sort of love Maverick offered me. A fierce love, an unwavering one, a love so deep it resonated in chambers of my heart I hadn’t known existed before now.
I was fully immersed, fully indoctrinated with my commitment to him and it not only felt so right it felt so incredibly good.
He helped me out of the bath, drying me thoroughly with warmed towels, leading me to the bedroom, both of us settling atop the covers as he let down my hair and spent the better part of an hour brushing it for me, brushing it dry where it’d gotten wet before tucking us both in and laying us down to sleep.
We kissed, and though we had kissed probably a thousand times before, this was new, this was different. Because there was no denying it now.
I loved him.
I had lost my heart to his debonair smile and his careful hands and I didn’t care to ever have it back. He could keep it. He had done so much to earn it, and as I fell asleep in his arms with him pressing the occasional reverent kiss to my forehead that night, I found broken bits of my spirit mended.
He had given me so much in the last week in recognizing my pain, in acknowledging my bravery and in trusting me with his secrets, his way of life. He had given me everything I could want, had handed me respect and worth, and his devotion as though it were nothing and I felt as though there was no debt here but I simultaneously felt forever indebted.
I looked forward to a lifetime of sensual give and take with this man, but first? First there was something I needed to do… for myself.
“Zaychik.” Maverick scowled at me, for the first time ever, darkly.
I swallowed hard, as every set of eyes around the chapel’s table fixated on me as I shut the door tightly behind me.
“I want to go with you,” I said and looks were exchanged.
“That’s not how that works,” Tic-Tac said dismissively, looking to Maverick to throw my ass out.
I swallowed hard and would not be deterred.
“Hear me out…” I plead and those eyes that’d been fixated on me exchanged looks.
“All in favor?” Mav intoned and he raised his hand. The majority of the table raised theirs, the few hands that didn’t go up – Tic-Tac’s, Derry’s, and Major’s simply raised eyebrows or shrugged accepting that they’d been clearly outvoted and not looking too terribly upset about it. Their curiosity likely getting the better of them just a little too late.
“Well, go on, say your piece, girl.” Glass Jaw leaned back in his boardroom chair.
“I want to go with you on this run. Mateo won’t go with you otherwise and Abuela will put up a fight… but if I go, I think I can mitigate the damage from the family drama which I’m so sorry I feel like I’ve dragged you all into.”
“You have an idea,” Maverick said, and I nodded. He knew my face so well and I didn’t bother to hide it from him.
“I have an idea…” I said and nodded.
“Well, let’s hear it,” Derry said, and his smug look said he didn’t think whatever was going to come out of my mouth was going to be worth it.
“I propose a coup,” I murmured.
That got their attention.
“Do what now?” Major asked.
“Look, I know Abuela. She raised me. She’s my grandmother – and I know that she would rather burn the whole world for her only remaining son than admit he did anything wrong. Believe me, I’ve lived it for years now.” I swallowed hard and pressed on.
“She will hurt every single one of those people in my village, cut them off from their medicine, just to get back at me and think she’s getting back at you somehow. Now, I know you can just turn around and sell it elsewhere, but a lot of the people under her thumb are just scared of her. It’s easier to placate her crazy than stand up to her.”
“You got someone in mind to take her place?” Maverick asked.
I nodded.
“Julio Sanchez,” I said. “He’s fair, he’s got the leadership ability, the only thing that he has going against him is that he’s young.”
“How young?” Glass Jaw demanded.
“My age young,” I said. “But between him and the doctor, the people will listen.”
The men around the table all exchanged a look and Maverick met my gaze with a cool and appraising one of his own. I swallowed hard, but a subtle shift in his expression, the way his eyes flashed; I knew what came next wasn’t how he felt. Not truly. I understood, though. It needed to be said…
“Right, now get the fuck out – and don’t you ever barge in here like this again.” Maverick gave me a pointed look and he meant every single one of the next words that fell from his lips. “You won’t like the consequences if you do, and neither will I.”
I nodded and went out, unfriendly gazes from various points around the table causing me to itch between my shoulder blades. Shutting the door firmly behind me, I slipped across the hall to Maverick’s office to wait for him there.
It was a long wait, but not excruciating. I mean, I didn’t think I was in trouble, per se… I didn’t get that vibe from him, although by the looks on the rest of the guys’ faces, I’d definitely overstepped.
The more the second hand clicked its way around the clockface, the more apprehensive I became. Finally, I heard the door across the hall open. I straightened, standing tall as I waited for him to open the door and step through. I listened to the low, grumbling voices, the creak of leather, and the shuffle of booted feet out in the hall as they moved down the hallway toward the barroom.
Finally, the door opened, and Maverick stepped through, shutting it tightly behind him. He turned to me and his expression softened from its stormy neutrality it’d held as he’d come through into something else entirely. Something that spoke of love and sorrow in equal measure.
“What?” I asked, barely breathing.
“What you just did.” He shook his head slightly.
“I know,” I murmured. “I’m sorry, it’s just—”
“Just nothing,” he said sharply, but not unkindly. Just a mark that it was his turn to speak and for me to listen.
“You have to answer for it, but it’s not in me to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” I asked. “I thought you guys didn’t do that.”
“Not as a general rule, but, babe… what you just did…”
I pursed my lips and nodded and said softly, “I understand. You do what you have to. To keep their trust, right?”
He nodded slowly and smiled gently, “You know,” he said. “You understand.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry… I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“It’s for your own good, Zaychik. It’s for your own safety.”
“I don’t understand that,” I said and threw up my hands, rolling my eyes. “I already say ‘yes’ Maverick. I want to stay with you, I am in this with you… I don’t understand why you all shut us out.”
“Us?” he asked, stepping up to me, putting his hands on my hips, looking down into my eyes.
“Law enforcement?” he asked gently. “Bad enough one or more of us get locked up, but what could happen to you?” He shook his head. “We want you free. We need you to be able to come see us, to keep us going should it come to that.”
“I see,” I uttered and I did. He smoothed his hands around to my ass and pulled me into him. I put my arms around his waist and looked up into his eyes which were suddenly smiling, twinkling with mischief. “So, what happens now?” I asked.
“Now?” he whispered against my li
ps.
“Yeah?” I dared not breathe.
“Now I fuck you over that desk, make you scream, and make those fuckers believe I pulled you back into line.”
“I don’t see how that’s a punishment,” I murmured, the warmth of my own breath fanning back across my lips with his close proximity, his warm, kissable mouth a mere hairs breadth from mine, the ache of desire a deep and fractured one as I held out and waited… waited to see what he would do.
“I’m going to lay you across that desk,” he whispered, “and fuck you rough.” He pecked my lips, a quick light kiss. “Make you scream my name as you come around my cock,” he whispered in my ear, capturing my earlobe lightly, sending a tingling wash of sensation down the side of my neck, his warm breath soft but loud in my ear as I shivered with anticipation.
“Still doesn’t sound like a punishment,” I whispered.
“That’s the point,” he whispered, his hands sliding up into the back of my hair. “It’s not supposed to sound like a punishment… to you.”
Ah. Clever man.
“Oh, I see…” I shuddered as he made a fist in the back of my hair, my scalp pulling tight while the rest of my body felt like it went loose, turning to JELL-O under his touch. I gasped as he attacked the side of my neck with his mouth, the stubble around his lips and along his cheek a rough contrast to the slick velvet of his tongue against my skin.
I gasped and he pulled me in tight against his body, and from the outside I imagined it would look like a vampire lover pulling his victim into an embrace – darkly beautiful, sensational, erotic, and sensual. He worked the erogenous zone at the side of my neck and I felt a warm, tingling rush between my thighs.
I stood on shaky legs, pressing my thighs together as he worked his mouth expertly across my collarbone, his hand still in my hair, tugging, his other hand smoothing around from my ass to the front of my body where he made quick work of my jeans.
Savagely, he stripped me, ordering me to do what he couldn’t reach with his one hand, the other he left tangled in my long hair, refusing to let me get away, controlling my movements in such a way that just made me wetter and want him more.
He was as good as his word, laying me back across his desk, stepping between my thighs, shoving himself inside of me whether I was ready or not but God, he had me turned on and so, so wet. I was more than ready, wrapping my legs around him, begging him wordlessly with savage little pants and my pleading gaze for him to fuck me the way I liked, begging him to take me, make me his, and he smiled with this feral grin that should have scared me but didn’t. He shoved into me all the way, balls deep, and I yowled with pleasure which to the ear of someone who wasn’t in the room could be interpreted in many different ways.
His second hand joined the first in the back of my long tresses and he pulled my head all the way back, the stinging pain in my scalp a delicious and beautiful counterpoint to the pleasure mounting between my thighs as he used my hair for leverage to pull himself that much further inside of me.
He fucked me with a punishing rhythm and I loved it. Hot tears slicked down my temples in a beautiful catharsis, my eyes watering from the pain in my scalp even as the sensation lent to the building orgasm between us. My pussy throbbed and felt so full, the weight of him pressing me into the desk speaking to the frightened part of my soul that I was his and that he had me, that nothing and no one would get past him, that all I needed to do was submit, give myself over to the pain and the pleasure would follow and I did as he silently asked.
I arched my back as he drove into me, painting the walls of his office with the cries he wrought from me and gave into his deepest, darkest desires and I reveled in it.
I did precisely what he said I would earlier. I screamed his name as I came and wondered at how remarkably well our mutual darkness fit together, roiled and danced together, and how exquisite the sex became as a result.
Querido Dios, this man turned me the fuck on, and by the cheer that went up out in the barroom, I think we sold it.
“Good girl,” Maverick whispered in my ear, kissing my jaw just beneath it. “That’s my good girl.”
Christ, he knew just what to say to make my heart melt.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maverick…
“What’d you do to him?” I asked and Fen spit on the ground.
“You really wanna know?” he asked.
“I really wanna know,” I said firmly.
We stood outside the Smuggler’s Inn smoking a joint, passing it back and forth between hits, talking with our breaths held like a couple of teenagers. It would be laughable if the subject matter weren’t so damn serious.
“Beat him, fucked his shit up but good. Broke every one of his damn fingers he touched her with, stomped his nuts, cut him up – little things. Don’t worry, he wasn’t gonna bleed out or nothin’. No dying slow. Not for what he’d done.”
“Then what?” I asked after taking a hit of my own, chest burning from the long inhale, from holding the smoke as tight muscles eased and the euphoric body high from the Indica strain swirled through my veins.
It was some good shit.
“Put his ass in a fifty-five-gallon drum, filled it about halfway with diesel, and sealed him in.”
“Oof.” I shook my head and didn’t feel one iota sorry for the son of a bitch. “That’ll leave you screaming,” I said.
Fenris nodded. “Any luck, he’ll die that way, yeah. Not about to go back and check if he has or not.”
“It’s been more than a few days; I reckon he’s done.”
“Sure as fuck’s never gonna be found,” Fenris said. I nodded and put a hand to my man’s shoulder and gripped it.
“I owe you one,” I said.
“You don’t owe me shit. Just one more rapist piece of shit the world ain’t gotta contend with anymore.”
I nodded again.
“You sure this is a good idea, poking the bear?” he asked.
I snorted. “Bitch has no power anymore. Lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas and I ain’t about it. It’s time for a new world order out that way.”
“You and Marisol? It the real deal?” he asked somewhat skeptically.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Yeah it is.”
“Never thought I’d see that day,” he said, shaking his head incredulously. “Definitely didn’t see you ending up with the likes of her—”
“Mexican?” I asked, curious.
He snorted this time. “Nah, young. I always pictured you with someone your own age or even older.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I gotta give it to her, though. She’s got big brass balls for being such a little lady.”
“She’s got big fuckin’ balls period going through the shit she’s been through and still being brave enough to get on the back of my bike like that,” I said.
“She’s smart,” he said, nodding.
“She’s clever, I’ll give her that,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t smarts that put her with me, it was desperation.”
“Yeah, but it’s more than desperation that’s kept her with you and a hell of a lot of smarts that’s let her navigate the life like she’s been.”
“Some of that’s been luck,” I said.
He nodded. “Smirk on your face says you’re being modest, you fucker.”
I laughed and nodded, stubbing out the last of the fragrant joint and said, “Gonna be interesting tomorrow.”
“Yes. It. Is,” he agreed.
I was looking forward to it.
The next day brought me back to my girl. She met us in Monroe in Little Bird’s rig. Little Bird had driven her and would be riding back with D.T. as our party split in two. I had her drive behind us, a sort of de facto crash truck.
We had to get the changes in place before the new guard for the Eastern Washington chapter showed up, so it was now or never to put her plan in action.
“You ready for this?” I asked and she nodded grimly.
I cupped her cheek
and kissed her fiercely, pouring every ounce of pride I had into it, hoping she would feel it, because right now I highly doubt she’d believe anything complimentary. She had her moods when it came to that. Sometimes she was doing just fine, and others? Well, others the marks left by her upbringing showed like welts across her very soul. You could see it in her eyes.
Today, now, was one of those times but I had every faith that she’d pull herself up by the bootstraps for the task that lay ahead.
“Let’s go get your brother,” I murmured and that made her smile. She nodded softly and I held the door open to Little Bird’s rig. She slipped into the seat and then her seatbelt, clicking it home as I shut the door.
“Let’s roll out!” I called and everyone quit fucking around and mounted up.
It was good riding weather and a long-ass fucking ride. As always, the whole little fruit grower’s village turned out to greet us, only this time there would be a change of plans.
We rolled up, shut off our motors and I looked up at Abuela who sat her fat ass on her lawn chair throne up on her sagging front porch in her imperious way. The woman had looked down her nose at people her whole life and now? Now it was time to take her down a few pegs.
“Doctor.” I nodded to the clinic doc who stood nearby, smirking when greeting him first caused Abuela’s nostrils to flare in indignation.
“You brought her back,” Abuela said with disdain as Marisol came up beside me on foot. “We don’t want her.”
“Well, you can’t have her,” I said matter-of-factly, putting an arm around my girl’s waist. “In fact, so long as you’re running the show, I think we’re done here.”
Abuela scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“Disrespect my man again,” Marisol growled at her, “see what happens.”
“Seems to me you been running the show a bit too long around here,” I called out. “That ends now.”
Abuela looked apoplectic, her face growing crimson, a vein standing out on her forehead. She fired off in Spanish at Marisol and Marisol’s grip tightened around my shoulders. I tightened my hand on my girl’s hip to let her know I was with her.
