She was burning for him. Bridget pushed Ghost’s chest with her hands until he moved like she wanted, lying back on the kitchen floor with her straddling him. As she moved down to unbuckle his pants and jeans, Ghost whipped his own shirt off and watched her with hungry, lustful eyes.
“Fuck, baby,” he said. His hands washed over her head and hair.
Bridget gave him a wicked half-smile as she pulled his jeans and boxers off his legs. His huge cock sprung up from his body, pink and hard as diamond, precum already dripping from the tip. Bridget licked her lips and wrapped her mouth around his cock, and the sound Ghost made was almost as satisfying as the taste of him on her tongue. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, taking in every second of her exquisite torture as she slowly sucked his length, her tongue twisting around his shaft and over the silky head. Ghost’s fingers tangled in her hair and encouraged her rhythm while she groaned against the skin of his cock.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” came his heated voice.
Bridget sucked his length a few more times before she moved up his body with her mouth, licking and biting, until her hips were parallel with his. She didn’t give him any warning before she threw her leg over his. The pink head of his cock quivered against her pussy, and in one fluid motion, Bridget sank down on top of it and felt every thick inch impale her. She didn’t even want to use a condom; she wanted nothing between them this time. She trusted Ghost, and knew he trusted her as well.
Ghost cried out her name, and all she could do was moan desperately at the feel of the hardness she could barely fit inside of her. Bridget wanted to fuck him slow and sweet, but the cock inside her was too incredible, and she couldn’t stop driving herself down hard on it. Every thrust felt like ecstasy as Ghost’s hands groped blindly at her body. His left hand sank down between her legs to rub her clit as she bounced on top of him, and Bridget howled.
“Oh, fuck, Ghost, you’re gonna make me cum so hard,” she pleaded.
“Bridget,” he said breathlessly. He gripped her hips and thrust up into her, helping her rhythm along, until they were both wracked with waves of pleasure, shuddering against each other on the kitchen floor.
Bridget lay on top of Ghost’s chest, both of them covered in sweat and breathing hard. Ghost pulled her up until she was close enough to kiss, and he did so sweetly, deeply, and slowly. He wrapped her in his arms and cuddled her next to him.
After some minutes of enjoying the silence, Bridget said, “I think I have a plan.”
Ghost’s eyes widened and he smiled. “Did my dick enhance your tactical prowess? Oh my God, I knew this day would come.”
Bridget laughed and almost argued, but instead she just tilted her head and shrugged. “I guess I can’t say it didn’t…”
“You’re amazing. I’m amazing. Let’s hear this amazing plan.”
“You’re right about confronting Cary, and Toby isn’t responsible for any of this, so we should try to keep him as much out of the way as possible.”
“Agreed.”
“So I want to try something else.”
“Are you gonna tell me what that something is? I’m dying here!” He groaned and rolled on his back dramatically.
Bridget leaned over him and rubbed his chest. She hovered over his lips. “Do you trust me?”
Ghost watched her for a second, curious. He kissed her. “Yeah, I do. I just let you fuck me bareback, didn’t I?”
She grinned wickedly back him and winked. “Then get dressed. The plan starts right now.”
~ FOURTEEN ~
Bridget
Bridget had heard it from dudes before—“Sure, babe, I trust you!”—and so rarely did they back it up. Whether it was jealousy from another guy, or insecurity at the way Bridget handled everything in her life without necessarily needing a man, trust only seemed to go as far as their weakest foundational pillar. Then, like a sandcastle at high tide, it washed away under the pressure of their own bullshit feelings.
But Ghost didn’t question her, not once as they got dressed and loaded up in Bridget’s car. She drove, and asked Ghost to look up the address for the Cary estate on his smartphone as they backed out of the driveway.
“You should probably take your cut off, too. No reason to get your club in trouble if this goes wrong,” she suggested.
As he shrugged the leather vest off his gorgeous broad shoulders, Ghost said, “I love it when you order me around.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Don’t tell the guys, though, they’ll like hearing it too much.” He leaned over and grabbed her face for a deep kiss as she paused to change gears and head out. He looked down at his phone and made a few movements. “Okay, it’s about ten minutes from here. It will be faster if you take the highway.”
The estate was nestled on the feet of the softly sloping hills where the mountain corridor ran at its narrowest, and the rushing Spoke River made the soil verdant and the vegetation lush. The best farmland in the area was here, and so were some of the mansions of the richest families. Windows down, the warming spring air was full of fragrance as Bridget followed the highway to the narrows and took the winding country road at Ghost’s direction.
“Eww,” said Ghost as they rolled up on the estate. “1980s faux Italian Renaissance with a squared-off sandstone wall? Good God, I thought this guy was supposed to be some high-rolling success.”
It was an ugly set-up, but Bridget had to give Ghost an incredulous look and a laugh anyway. “Bit of an architecture buff, are we?”
“Hey, a man’s gotta be able to communicate his tastes,” said Ghost with a wink. “But this… this is a monstrosity. Look at that wrought iron on the balcony; it completely clashes with the spackle finish on that wall.”
“I didn’t realize the Carys had been successful this long,” said Bridget. It was hard to see anything above the sandstone privacy wall except the second floor of the villa-style mansion. They passed by the closed front gate and she got a glimpse of the finely manicured lawn, but no one was outside. Bridget pulled the car down the road a bit and parked facing the estate before she turned the engine off.
“Is this a stakeout?” said Ghost excitedly. “Ooh, should we make a bet how long until we’re naked in the back seat?”
She giggled and slapped his leg. “This is serious business, c’mon.”
“Are we waiting for something specific?” he said with eyes on the house.
“For someone to leave who isn’t Mr. Cary,” said Bridget.
It took less than an hour. The gate swung slowly open and out pulled a topaz-colored luxury sedan with a woman at the helm who was not Mrs. Cary. Bridget had met the woman several times, and so this was most likely one of the family’s housekeepers. Bridget twisted the key in the ignition and, after giving the car enough space, pulled after it onto the country road and followed.
The housekeeper drove into town and toward one of the more upscale shopping centers, where the natural food store was always bustling with local health nuts and rich people who could afford their produce organic. Cars and people moved in a continuous stream around the parking lot. Bridget carefully found a parking spot while Ghost kept an eye on the sedan.
“There,” he said once she was parked. He pointed out a short Latina woman in her early forties who was calmly adjusting her beautiful leather purse as she headed into the store. “That’s her.”
Bridget got a good look at the pattern of her outfit before she disappeared inside. She looked at Ghost. “Okay, I’m going to go talk to her.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I think this will go better if I’m alone. A woman approaching her is a lot less intimidating without you around,” she said.
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” he said. “How about if I tail you, just in case? I’ll keep my distance and let you do your thing. I just don’t want to be out here holding my dick if things go wrong.”
Bridget smiled. She wanted to gush emotions all over him at that moment, but in
stead she just kissed him again. “Deal. Watch my six.”
“I want you to know that this is seriously the hottest date I’ve ever been on,” said Ghost against her lips. “Afterwards, how about we make it a perfect day and you sit on my lap in your cutest undies while I clean my guns?”
Bridget laughed and kissed him again. “I think we can make that happen.”
“Fuck yes.”
Bridget hopped out of her car and headed into the store, dodging carts and people and wheeling around food displays. She tried to look casual as she wandered around the aisles until she spotted the Cary’s housekeeper in her high-waist seafoam slacks and powder blue blouse. She scanned the aisles carefully, purse in the child seat, glancing back to a paper list in her hand every few moments before she threw something in the cart. Bridget gave a quick look around; she could feel his eyes on her, but she couldn’t see where Ghost was watching her from. Even though she wasn’t expecting trouble from the housekeeper, somehow Bridget did feel better knowing he was out there.
Before she could lose her nerve, Bridget walked down the aisle and straight up to the woman. The housekeeper didn’t notice her right away, but when she looked over, her face went blank like she was surprised, or worried.
“Hi,” said Bridget.
The woman looked around, as if checking to see if Bridget was speaking to her. “Hello,” she answered carefully.
“Look, you don’t know me,” said Bridget. “But you work for the Cary family, right?”
The woman thought a moment before she gave one silent nod. Her eyes darted around to every passing shopper.
“I’m not trying to get you into trouble,” said Bridget, speaking softly and taking a few steps closer. “But I know what’s happening in the house. I’ve seen the marks on Toby.”
The housekeeper went white. Her jaw fell open. “No, please,” she said with a thick accent.
“Stephen Cary is beating them, isn’t he?” said Bridget. Anger started to rise in her gut. “He’s beating his wife and child on a regular basis.”
“No, miss, I am not speaking to you about private things!” said the housekeeper with a firm shake of her head. “This is inappropriate! No.” She tried to wheel her cart around Bridget with her eyes down, but Bridget impulsively put a boot on the bottom rack and slammed her hands down on the cart. The housekeeper gasped.
“You have to help me,” said Bridget. “I’m not going to sit by and watch Toby get hurt or killed. Please, give me something, anything that I can use to get him some help and get him the hell out of there.”
“Let go!” said the housekeeper, wrenching the cart. She was searching the aisles now with frightened desperation, leaving Bridget to wonder if she had somehow spotted Ghost in the crowd.
“Please,” begged Bridget. “Don’t you want to help him? You have to care about him!”
“This is none of your business!” said the housekeeper. A crowd was starting to get curious as the confrontation escalated. She picked up her big beige purse with a huff and left her cart, contents and all, swerving around Bridget in a quick-footed hurry for the exit.
Bridget followed on her heels as the housekeeper walked right out to the lot without looking for traffic. She heard the blare of a horn and ignored it. “Don’t walk away from me! This is a child we’re talking about; you can’t just ignore what he’s going through!”
The housekeeper only quickened her pace back for the sedan. Bridget broke into a jog, trying to catch up and stop her from getting into the car, when a huge man in a fine tailored suit got out of a big black town car parked two spots down from the housekeeper’s sedan. Bridget came to a skidding halt; the man was staring right at her, a white earpiece dangling from his right ear and down his neck.
The housekeeper’s expression told Bridget she both recognized and feared the man. She stared at Bridget for just a moment before she ducked into her car and fired up the engine.
It had been a long time since Bridget’s lizard brain lit up like it was lighting up now. But the way the huge man in the suit was coming around from the driver’s side of the car, everything about it was flashing red lights of danger. She stood frozen there in the parking lot with cheery, oblivious people moving around her. She and the man almost existed in their own world, staring at each other, and about to have a whole different kind of conversation than the people around them.
As her fists clenched, she saw the distinguishing bulge of his suit coat that told her he was armed. The look on his face as he came closer chilled her to her core, knowing he had a deadly weapon on him.
Pieces began to fall into place. She realized this was Cary’s security detail, trailing the housekeeper. Neither she nor Ghost had noticed them, and now here he was to do his job, and protect the Cary family secrets. Rage quickly bubbled up to replace the fear in Bridget’s gut.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she yelled at the man in the suit.
Whatever he was expecting out of her, it wasn’t that, and he took an actual pause in his walk.
“You’re gonna get the fuck out of that car and come up to intimidate an unarmed woman who is trying to save a child from a wife-beating psychopath?” she said loudly, taking two hard steps forward toward the security guard.
He frowned in angry surprise, but he wasn’t scared of her. And why should he be, with a foot of height and probably a hundred pounds of weight on her, even without the gun? He could kill her in a heartbeat and probably find some legal loophole to slide right through when he did it, courtesy of his rich, amoral boss.
Bridget was playing with fire. But she couldn’t stop herself. All she could see was the bruise on Toby’s arm, and that soft, sad look in his eyes. She could still hear his quiet crying in her head at night.
“You fucking coward,” she spit at him. “Do they seriously pay you enough to let you sleep at night, knowing what you’re protecting?”
“You got a fucking mouth on you, bitch,” said the guard in a deep, ugly voice. He wasn’t stopping his advance on her—in fact, there was a shine in his eye that told Bridget he was actually excited for it. His big hands reached out toward her, fearless of the lot of eyewitnesses.
Bridget used her self-defense training to toss his hands away and shove the security guard hard, away from her space, but even with her regular exercise, his weight was like pushing a boat away from a dock. He stumbled back three hard steps, gasping like he was out of breath. His face turned beet red, anger boiling in his eyes. He straightened up and advanced.
She took a side stance and braced for his attack, hoping she would stay conscious.
From behind her right shoulder, a bag of artisan ciabatta rolls flew through the air at the security guard. They made hard impact on his face and spilled out of the brown paper bag, dusting his fine suit with flour on their way down to the ground. The guard hollered and sputtered curses.
“Objection, your honor!” yelled Ghost from somewhere behind her.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the guard without risking her safety, not until Ghost came stalking up to stand between her and the enemy, shoulders square. She had never seen someone who looked both utterly relaxed and ready for a fight.
Bridget pushed up against his back. “Nice timing.”
“I got caught up at the samples counter.”
“I can handle this,” she said, only half-believing it. It was her mess, regardless, and she intended to clean it up.
“Well, baby, you know I’m fond of you, and the way you charge into danger gets me hard as a rock, but you’ve already kind of made things worse here. And making things worse is my job. So why don’t you step back and let me have some fun now?” He turned and gave her a wink.
Bridget obliged. She stepped back from Ghost as the security guard found his footing and laid eyes on his newest annoying enemy.
“This is way closer to a fair fight, anyhow,” said Ghost, rolling his shoulders.
“Stay back, punk!” the security guard leveled a meaty finger at him.
“This isn’t your concern!”
“Oh, come now, I think it’s everyone’s concern when some meathead in a monkey suit starts menacing women at the local hipster super mart. American values haven’t declined that much, have they?”
The men were sizing each other up, and cars had stopped, unable to pass by them safely. Shoppers watched from a distance, hiding behind parked vehicles and shopping carts. Some were already on cell phones and taking pictures.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” said the guard.
“Now, I get the mercenary impulse, I really do. We all have to do bad jobs for money—not this bad, I mean, you’re kind of a real dick for it. But you need to get back in your fancy car and run home to your boss,” said Ghost. “Before I decide I really want to have some fun.”
Vindication: A Motorcycle Club Romance Page 13
