by Kara Parker
Yannik had never gone down on me before and the couple of men that had come after my ex-husband had never found the act to their liking. Southern men didn’t like adventure in the bedroom, they liked comfort, a wife who cooked and cleaned and fucked them when they wanted. That was what I’d always been taught. My pleasure was second to my husband’s because I’d find pleasure with him.
What a load of shit.
“Still thinking?” Garrison smirked as he finally stood up from between my legs and wiped his mouth and chin with the back of his arm. The move should have been disgusting, but it just made another flood of heat hit me. The man gave a whole new meaning to the term “eating me out.” He’d devoured me.
I shook my head.
Garrison cocked his head and then snapped his fingers in an almost “ah ha!” moment. He left the room, and I was left to stare at a white popcorn ceiling. I tried to catch my breath, but was too tired to do even that. I had no clue how I was going to pay him back, but I’d seen enough porn and heard enough from my past girlfriends to come up with some ideas.
In a second he was back, a glass of water in his hand. I followed him with my eyes as he came close, took a sip, and then set the cup down. The bed dipped and his arm went around me again. I felt his lips on mine, parting them, and then cool water slid down my throat. I swallowed reflexively.
“Good?” Garrison asked when her pulled back, grabbed the glass and handed it to me.
I took another sip and rubbed my throat. “Very. Thank you.”
We sat there for a second as I finished the glass off. I handed it back to him and tucked a strand of hair shyly behind my head as I sat up. We hadn’t had sex yet, so I was unsure of what to do. In fact, Garrison’s briefs were still on, his dick as hard as ever. I wondered if I should suck him. Would that be proper etiquette?
I stared at the thing, wondering if I could even fit it in my mouth when he laughed gently. “I don’t expect anything, Sugar.”
“But you—”
“Did what I wanted. It was a dream tasting you. Sweet with a bite.” He licked his lips as he sat on the bed and leaned against the carved headboard. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
I love him. The words were in my head before I could stop them. That wasn’t possible. I couldn’t love Garrison, I barely knew the man. And yet, with those few words, I did. He was everything I thought I’d have, and everything I wanted.
Years ago I wouldn’t have known what to do with him, he was just larger than life. But I was too. I’d gathered battle scars, experienced the shit in life that either breaks a person or makes them, and lived. Survived. We were fitted for each other. I was soft enough for his hard edges, and he was gentle with my rough scars.
I really did love him.
I crawled toward him like an animal, I wanted him just as fiercely. “I want you.”
A smile flitted across his lips as he reached forward and grabbed me. Garrison had me on his lap, arms around my waist, fingers locked at the small of my back before I could blink. “Think you can take me.”
I swatted lightly at him but spread my thighs wide and rubbed up against him. I knew I was wet, dripping, but I didn’t care. I locked our gazes as I reached down and pulled aside his boxers to free his dick. I was careful not to touch him as he lifted up and I slid his underwear down to mid thigh. He frowned, tried to push them further to free his legs, but I moved closer, and rubbed myself along the length of him. Garrison’s eyes fluttered closed and his fingers unlocked, only to close tightly around my waist.
“Did I ever tell you…” I began as I reached down and gripped his dick, sparing a quick glance for the thing that would be inside of me in a second. I bit my lips bloody. He wasn’t very long, but very thick. I touched my middle finger to the base of his dick and measured. Garrison came to the end of my wrist, but when I tried to wrap my hand around him, my fingers couldn’t touch.
“Tell me what?” He groaned and I realized I never continued.
I lifted up, moved closer to him, and shifted his dick. Garrison’s eyes flew open as I sank down on him. “That I used to ride horses. Bucks. I worked at a ranch… In, um, Florida when we lived there. I worked at a stable and broke in horses.”
I slipped lower, slid my body down. “Chels, s-slow down.”
“W-what I learned,” I forced out as I moved my fingers to his shoulders and raked my nails across him, “was that I had to take the horse on his terms. I had to bend to him before he’d bend to me. You don’t break a horse, you break together.”
His base kissed my clit, a thick vein throbbed against the nub and I moaned low. My head fell back, neck bared. “Break me and I’ll break you. Promise… you’ll like it.”
Garrison groaned and swiveled his hips. “Too much.”
I couldn’t talk, he was filling me up too much. I started slow, building up the pace until I was slamming my hips down onto him, head thrown back, screaming like a Banshee on Halloween. Garrison was right there with me, teeth marks on my neck, hickeys across my breast and bruises in the shape of fingerprints on my hips and thighs. Gentle was what I thought sex with Garrison would be like, but it was the farthest thing from that. He was rough, male, completely taking me over and giving me not even an inch. Yet somehow I took a mile. I gave better than I got, threw myself completely into the act so that his pleasure fed mine, until all I cared about was him. Running my nails over his scalp, back, and down his chest. Licking the sweat of his skin, kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want him to breathe without me, didn’t want a single breath that wasn’t him. I wanted to monopolize Garrison. He was mine.
“That’s right, Sugar. I’m yours,” he grated out as he pulled out, flipped me on my knees, lifted my ass, and thrust back in. I arched, used my knees and toes to push back and grind on him. “Fuck. Don’t ever do this with another man. Never. I’ll kill him.”
I reached back, slammed my back into his chest, turned my head and nipped his throat. “You too. I’ll kill any bitch you sleep with.”
His laugh reverberated through me and I clenched tighter than wet leather on a hot day around him. We came together, scream for scream, mark for mark, loving threat for loving threat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three blissful weeks I spent with Garrison. We fixed up the house together, ate together, slept together. He was always there. In the mornings when I was brushing my teeth, he’d reach over for his toothbrush and brush his right behind me. Then we’d shower together, rubbing soap along each other’s bodies until he’d turn off the water, take me out, throw a towel on the floor, and screw me into the tile.
It was wonderful.
When we did make it out of the house, we met our neighbors. Ryan, surprisingly, was out next door neighbor. The biker was a light-hearted flirt who owned the only mechanic shop in town, one he inherited from his brother who died in a boating accident. Before that, Ryan had owned a small law firm in New Orleans proper.
I’d talked to Ryan, learned everything I could about him. The man was fascinating, though Garrison still didn’t like him. I couldn’t blame Garrison either, his mistrust of bikers ran deep, and I could only image the things he’d seen while tracking down Hardell or even before then when he’d been a soldier.
I paused, hand on the last packed box in the living room. Garrison and I had opened up each other, and I’d slowly been able to heal the scars on his heart. He’d told me more about his tattoo of the angel wings and names, and I told him a little about my daughter. Mixing the past with the present, because I knew I never would be able to completely separate them. Both made me into the person I was, and I couldn’t deny either.
A knock at the door paused my musing, and I wiped my dusty hands on my khaki shorts and I looped to the front door. “Forget something?” I called out before I opened it. Garrison always forgot something.
“Only a kiss, cher,” a voice answered smoothly and I rolled my eyes at Ryan’s tone. A tiger just couldn’t change its s
tripes.
I opened the door wide and grinned from ear to ear. “Well, fancy seeing you here.”
He shrugged and ran a hand through his short curls. “Thought I smelled sweet tea being brewed.”
I spun away from the door and went into the kitchen. “Liar.”
“Ah, well,” he murmured as he followed me.
I shook my head and opened the refrigerator. “Just be glad I made a fresh pitcher yesterday.”
I poured two cups and gestured for him to take a seat at the breakfast nook Garrison had made for me. “Place is coming along nicely.”
I nodded. “Garrison has really taken to fixing the place up. He’s been watching YouTube videos and taking classes at Home Depot. I woke up yesterday to find him shingling the roof at 4 am. Crazy man.”
We spoke for a while about little things, mainly Tiff the waitress. Ryan had the biggest crush on the girl and often came to me with stories about his antics. Apparently they’d been an item at one time or another, but he’d left and Tiff had married his brother. Even though Ryan’s brother had been dead for two years, the man refused to make a move.
The sun started to warm the kitchen and my stomach. I interrupted Ryan’s story about Tiff and yet another incident she had with a customer. “Are you hungry? I’m starving.”
“What do you have?”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Food that you don’t have to go home for.”
Ryan smiled and let it roll off his shoulders. “Thank ya kindly, Chelsie.”
I rolled my eyes, got up and was halfway to the cupboard when I heard a glass break. Ryan heard it too. And then the room was filling with gas, stinging my eyes and throat, making it nearly impossible to breath.
“Shit!” Ryan lunged for me but was hit. I saw three burly men come through the kitchen door with gas masks on as I collapsed to my knees coughing, choking.
A sardonic voice I recognized all too well invaded my mind a second before I fainted, “Howdy, Chelsie.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
One Week Ago
“When are you going back again?” I asked Garrison, tucking my body snug against his, my ear pressed to his strongly beating heart.
I’ve always been obsessed with clocks and time, but now it’s for a whole new reason. I don’t want him to leave. I was always scared of what would come when time ran out, but now I was afraid of what would leave when time ran out. My heart. I loved Garrison—though I was still too chicken to admit it out loud. Maybe it was because once I heard the words in the air they’d be ones I could never take back.
He shifted beneath me and pulled me tighter into the shelter of his body. “Don’t want me to go?”
The word “no” got trapped in my throat and refused to let me speak. Garrison sighed, well-aware of the scars I carried. “Let’s not think about it.”
But I didn’t want to ignore it, and I didn’t want to just leave things unsaid. What if the FBI called tomorrow and demanded him back, he couldn’t refuse. I forced myself to gather up my courage and break down the last small barrier that separated us, and I said, “I love you.”
I could almost see the wind snatch the words greedily, mockingly, as if to say, “No going back now.” Garrison was silent under me, barely moving or breathing. And then, he melted and let out a long sigh. “Thank God.”
I held still for a moment, letting his words sink in. “Thank God?” I sat up on his chest and scrunched up my face. “That’s all you're going to say?”
Laughing blue eyes met mine, as his hand reached behind my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. “I love you too, sugar.”
The moment was perfect, caressed by moonlight and warmed by our body heat. There wasn’t anything I would change. Garrison loved me, I loved him, and for all the obstacles that had been thrown in our path, his job seemed the least troublesome.
I moved back to his chest, placed my ear over his beating heart, and fell to sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I felt like my mouth was filled with cotton, my eyes were on fire, and someone had used my body as a punching bag. I opened my eyes as far as they would go and looked around the dingy basement with Seventies décor that my grandmother would have raved about. There was carpet beneath me, puke-green shag with an assortment of Seventies furniture on it. Off in one corner was a half-wall made out of cubed-glass that housed a robin’s egg blue toilet and sink.
I tried to sit up but something clicked behind me, and cool metal tightened on my wrists. I opened my mouth and coughed harshly, the scream I tried to issue lost in a torrent of hacking. It didn’t take me long to remember everything that had happened. Talking with Ryan, wishing he’d just tell Tiff that he loves her and get it over with, and then glass breaking and smoke coming at me. Someone had thrown a smoke grenade into my house!
Anger boiled in my blood, as I squinted around the room. It froze fast when I caught a glimpse of Ryan off to the side, strung up like a slab of meat. His face was a mass of blue, purple, black, and angry red. His eyes were swollen to slits, and his lips were busted to oblivion. He looked a hundred times worse than I felt.
“Seems the Southern bitch is finally awake,” a crude-voiced man sneered as he strolled down the staircase and into the basement. The stairs creaked as he descended, making me aware of the heavy boots coming closer to me. I didn’t panic because I knew that wouldn’t help me. Whatever the man was going to do, he was going to do regardless of my begging and pleading.
“Do you work for Hardell?” I thought I’d heard his voice before everything had gone black, his sarcastic ‘howdy’ hard to miss—even in the chaos.
“I don’t think you’re in any position to ask questions, Chels.”
It was one of Hardell’s men. I wanted to slap myself for not realizing that at the beginning. It was the way he said my name that solidified it.
I tried to remember his name, tried to remember everything about him, just in case I survived this encounter. Derek, Peter, Brad, Jeremy…. I ran through the names until one sounded right, one fit. “Why is that, Dave?”
“Try moving. I think you’ll find our why.”
He didn’t correct me, so I knew his name was Dave, at least that’s what I hoped… and didn’t hope. Dave was the same biker who had the crush on Lisa, but the man’s definition of the word was drastically different. He’d beaten her and nearly raped her because he’d been let loose by Hardell as punishment for my mistake. Dave was a mad dog, one I was upset to see hadn’t been put down by the FBI.
“It’s revenge then?” I asked. I didn’t have a doubt that’s what it was. Hardell and his gang were going to get even with me in the worst way they knew how. I couldn’t say I was surprised; I wasn’t. Luck was a fickle whore, one I’d known never to trust.
I closed my eyes as Dave approached me and leaned my head back on the pole I was attached to. I was going to die. My life was going to end just as I’d finally found out that I wanted to live. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
“Yes and no.” His voice sounded weird. I forced my eyes open as wide as they would go and looked at the man crouching in front of me. His skin was light and pale, probably from a Scandinavian background, but it carried a gray tint. I stared into his eyes, noticing red streaks and blue bags underneath.
He’s sick.
“Where’s Hardell?” I trusted the Devil over his dog.
“Right here,” Hardell called out with a fake southern twang that made my teeth hurt.
I watched the biker descend the creaky staircase and bit back a smile at the cane and limp he sported. If I was going to die, at least I had permanently left a scar on my murderer, so he’d never forget me.
“Hardell,” I murmured pleasantly, tilting my head.
“Chelsie,” he parroted. “How are you doing?”
I shrugged. It felt like we were back at my bar, with Hardell leaning over the polished wood with a practiced smile and pleasantries; but, I knew there was probably a gun aimed at me. Still, every second he was talking, was a seco
nd he needed me alive to respond. I would cherish my last few minutes on Earth, no matter how they were spent.
“I’ve seen better days.” I nodded to Ryan, banged up and bruised in the corner. “I know he has.”
Hardell reached the bottom of the stairs, and Dave scurried to grab a chair and position it in front of me for the man. I watched Hardell sit down heavily and knit his fingers over the cane’s snake head. I wondered if there was a knife or something hidden inside the thing.
Stupid. Of course, there is.
Hardell spared a glance at Ryan. “Casualties of war.”
“Is that what this is?” I made a show of looking around the room. “’Cause all I see is a chained, half-dead man, a tied up woman, and two men threatening them. Sad war, don’t you think?”
