Arsen

by Kathryn Thomas

  “No family. I’m working my ass off and yet I can’t catch a break. If I don’t get out of there, I’m going to die broke and alone. I want to do something with my life, and the first step of that is to get out of Gallup.”

  Bobbi nodded. She understood that completely. Her dad wanted her to get married and start a family. That was a woman’s role. Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. Well fuck that! She stood and smiled down at Sierra. “Come on, lunch will be up in a few minutes.”

  Sierra rose and followed Bobbi to the tables where burgers were being passed out. She sat down next to Colt but stared at the table, her face hard. She couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t give her a break. She sat silent, listening to the banter around her as the crew shared the details of the run the previous night. As they talked about finding the gun inside the safe, she had an idea.

  Chapter Nine

  “Colt, may I speak to you a moment? Alone?” Sierra asked after lunch.

  “We’ll leave as soon as it cools off a little. It’s too damned hot to be riding now.”

  “No. Not that.” She tugged at his arm, pulling him to a couple of chairs tucked away in the corner. “I have an idea.”

  He grinned at her. “Okay. You want to do it here in front of everyone? Put on a show?” he teased.

  She glared at him. “I’m serious. I have an idea that could make you a lot of money.”

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  Again that condescending tone and she reeled in her annoyance. “Uh-uh. If I tell you, I get to go. Or I at least get a cut for telling you the idea. Deal?”

  Colt looked at her and could tell she was serious. “I don’t want to run another operation so close to the last one.”

  “Why? You ran two back to back.”

  “The Bishop deal was in a different state and had been planned for months. I didn’t expect the take to be that big. We don’t need to run another operation right now.”

  Sierra fumed, but this was her only chance. “This could be another big take. Just the two of us. Think of the size of the cut.”

  Colt watched her a moment. “Okay. Tell me your idea. If we go for it, we’ll talk about getting you a cut.”

  She thought it over and decided that this was probably the best deal she could get. “Okay. Wednesday is the end of the month. The armored truck delivers cash to the store on Mondays. Because it will be end of the month, the cash delivery will be larger than normal because Candill’s will have to have enough on hand to cover payroll and social security checks both.”

  “You want to knock over an armored car?”

  “Yeah! Why not? I know about when the truck arrives.”

  Colt chuckled. “Sierra, while it’s a good idea with the money and all, robbing an armored car is almost as hard, if not harder, than robbing a bank. Those things are built tough. Before we pry that thing open they will have called for help and the entire fucking state police will be on our ass.”

  “Can’t you knock out their radio somehow? Can’t you buy something that will blow up the truck?”

  Colt chuckled again. “You watch too much television. No, I can’t just go buy a missile to blow up an armored car.”

  Sierra thought furiously, trying to figure out how to salvage the plan. She didn’t think robbing the truck would be easy, but she didn’t think Colt would just give up on the idea without at least thinking about it.

  “On the other hand,” he said thinking out loud. “What if we didn’t actually rob the car?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if we robbed the place after the car dropped off the money.”

  “Yeah! We could be waiting there when it arrives and take one of the guards hostage. Make them open the door!”

  Colt shook his head. “No. Too dangerous. I don’t want to kill anyone, but if we hit the place after the truck left, that would be a much softer target. Not as much money but a lot less risk. Do you know when the truck arrives?”

  “Yeah! Between ten and ten-thirty every Monday.”

  “What is the usual drop?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but I know the store takes on a lot more cash than we need so we can cash payroll and social security checks.”

  Colt rubbed his chin. “We might can do this, but Gallup is a problem. We were just there. Even though they don’t know who we are, four or five guys riding up on bikes is going to put everyone on edge. Not to mention everyone will recognize you. Hmm…” he buzzed, thinking it over.

  “How about Lead Top? They have the mine nearby. They probably get more money than Gallup.”

  “Do you know what time the truck arrives there?”

  “No, but it’s about an hour’s drive from Gallup to Lead Top, isn’t it? I know the truck stops at Lead Top just before Gallup.”

  Colt thought about it. It might work, but he needed to think about it some more. It would have to be a small operation. All towns in the area are going to be alert to a group of bikers riding into town. But two people, one bike, no colors? That might work. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “We’ll do it?” she asked hopefully.

  “Let me think, okay?”

  She bounded to her feet and kissed him quickly on the lips. “Don’t take too long. Tomorrow’s Monday.”

  “Why does she get to go?” a woman snarled. “She’s not even part of the club!”

  “It was her idea. We have to keep this operation tight and under the radar. It’s going to be a two-man operation to not attract attention.

  “She gets a cut?” a man asked.

  “If she goes, she does,” Colt said. “Standard cut, just like anyone else.”

  “This is bullshit!” a second woman sneered. “Why can’t you get one of your pets to do it?”

  “Watch your fucking mouth,” Bobbi hissed, “before I kick your ass.”

  The woman backed off, but Sierra could tell she wasn’t happy. “This is still bullshit. Why can’t you pick a member of the club?”

  “It was her idea.”

  “So the fuck what?”

  “You come up with an idea and I’ll take you along. Until then, shut up.”

  “I gave you an idea a while back, but it wasn’t good enough for you,” a third woman said. “Just because we’re not part of your little inner circle doesn’t mean you can cut us out!”

  “Hitting a drug mule is stupid! I told you that then. You must have a fucking death wish. The cartel will come in and kill us all.”

  “Not if we kill the mules so they don’t know who did it!”

  “I’m not killing anybody if I don’t have to! You want to hit the fucking cartel, you do it without me. Just let me know when you are going to do it so I can turn in my colors and get the fuck out before the war starts. This plan is low risk and high reward.”

  “You still didn’t say why you can’t pick a member of the club,” the first woman spoke again. Sierra tried to remember her name, but couldn’t.

  “I could, but it was her idea. She deserves a cut. You want to cut it three ways and leave Sierra here, that’s fine with me.”

  “I can go for that,” Sierra added, trying to make peace. Her cut would be smaller but she wouldn’t be breaking the law either.

  “I bet you would,” the woman sneered. The entire club was looking at each other. “This is fucking bullshit, Colt,” the first woman to complain said. “I challenge her for the right to go.”

  “No. She’s not a member of the club so you can’t do that,” Colt said, shaking his head. “We’re going to run this one operation then I’m taking her Reno.

  “If she gets to run one of your operations, then she has to follow our rules,” Paul said, speaking for the first time. “All our rules. She either accepts the challenge from Minx or she doesn’t go. You can’t pick and choose which rules you follow.”

  Colt shook his head. “Can you handle a gun, Minx? Sierra can.”

  “She can’t, but I can,” another woman said. “I also challenge her for the r
ight to go.”

  Colt pursed his lips in frustration. He expected the pushback, but this was getting out of hand.

  “Bullshit!” Minx called. “I challenged her first!”

  Sierra watched the women argue among themselves a moment. She could feel her moment slipping away from her. “What does a challenge mean?” she whispered to Colt.

  “It means Minx wants to take your place and go with me. That bastard Paul backed her up. I think we should call the whole thing off.”

  “No! What’s the challenge?”

  “You get to pick.”

  “I accept!” Sierra said loudly. That brought the argument to a stop. “I accept Minx’s challenge.”

  “Sierra, what are you doing?” Colt hissed.

  “I’m going on this heist. It was my idea and nobody is taking it away from me,” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  Paul smiled. “The challenge has been accepted. As the challenged, Sierra, you get to pick how you will defend.”

  Sierra thought for a moment. She’d been working a register for a while and was pretty quick with math. “First one to add a column of numbers and get the correct answer.”

  There was a moment of silence before the entire room burst into laughter. “Sorry, sweet cakes,” Minx sneered. “It doesn’t work that way. It’s either fuck or fight.”

  “Give us a minute,” Colt said, pulling Sierra away. “Goddamnit, do you know what you’ve done? Now you are going to have to face Minx. You can choose, but you are going to have to either beat the shit out of her or out fuck her. Can you fight?”

  Sierra felt like she was going to puke. “No. Not really.”

  “Just as well. She’s pretty fucking tough. So sex it is.” Colt paused as he thought furiously. “Okay, challenge her, last to come. She’s pretty quick off the mark. I think you can out last her.”

  “No…” Sierra moaned. “Will it be in front of everyone? I can’t!”

  “Then you are going to have to back down and let her take you place. There is nothing I can do since you accepted her challenge.”

  “I can’t!”

  “Okay. Come on. Decline and I will take you to Reno.” He turned and led her back to the waiting group. “Sierra didn’t know what she was saying,” Colt began. “So she—”

  Sierra felt her world slipping away. So close! I was so fucking close! “Chose vibrators!” she called loudly, cutting Colt off. “Vibrators, last one to come!” The group stared at her in silence and she began to sweat.

  “The challenge has been accepted,” Paul said with a nasty grin as he looked at Sierra. “You want to accept the challenge now or do you need some time to get ready?”

  She thought furiously, trying to think of all the angles. “Now,” she said. She hadn’t been satisfied last night, but she didn’t want Minx to have a chance to sneak away and take the edge off either.

  A murmur rippled through the crowd. “Okay!” Paul said, slapping his hands together and rubbing them in excitement. “Somebody round up a couple of vibrators. There are probably some around here.” The group chuckled and a couple of women broke away from the crowd and headed into the back of the building. “To make this fair, I think we need someone to help the ladies out, don’t you?” he asked the crowd. “Colt, you take Sierra, Hammer, Minx. Don’t hold back on them boys. Ladies,” he said, gesturing to the pad where Monica and Skye were fucking and fighting when she arrived.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Colt murmured as he escorted Sierra onto the pad.

  “So do I,” she whispered. She was so nervous she could barely stand, but she had to have the money.

  “You think you can take me, you bitch?” Minx snarled as she and another man stepped onto the pad with them. “You have no idea what you are getting yourself into.”

  Minx was older and, though sexy as hell, Sierra could tell she’d been well used throughout her life. “No, maybe not. But I know I can out fuck a dried up whore like you.” Watching Minx turn red in the face was enough to take the edge off her nerves.

  Minx stripped completely down before flopping to the mat, but Sierra removed only her pants and panties. A woman returned with a couple of bullet shaped vibrators, one a sleek silver and another an iridescent red. “I cleaned them both with alcohol,” she said, then paused as she smiled coldly at Sierra. “I put fresh batteries in yours.”

  “Relax,” Colt whispered as he knelt down beside Sierra. “It’s just you and me here, okay? You can take her, I know you can. Remember the first night how you held on at the edge? I want you to remember that night. You can take her easily.” He kissed her softly on the lips. “Don’t come until I tell you to, okay?”

  Sierra nodded as Colt softly stroked her with the silver bullet.

  “Begin!” Paul called, and immediately the crowd began to cheer.

  Colt turned the vibrator on and touched it to her. It was as if she’d been touched with a cattle prod, erotic energy poured into her in a wave unlike any she’d experienced before. Colt saw Sierra jerk the moment the humming, buzzing, toy touched her, gasping as she closed her eyes and tucking her chin hard into her chest. She was propped up on her elbows and he could sense the tension in her body immediately. If only I had given her some relief last night.

  The strong money was running against Sierra, but she was holding on. Minx was squirming and moaning, and her color was high, but so was Sierra’s and she was sweating profusely. “Don’t come,” Colt whispered softly. “Fight it! Don’t come until I tell you.”

  Sierra was in agony. She needed to come so badly. She kept thinking of the money, thinking of her parents and how hard and unfair her life had been, thinking of anything to keep her orgasm at bay. She heard the woman next to her moan, long and loud, and she hoped she was near because she wasn’t going to be able to last much longer.

  Sierra began to pant and thrust her hips, her hand grabbing his and pulling the toy harder into her. He took a moment to glance at his watch and smiled. Eight minutes in and neither woman had come yet. Minx must have gotten the shit fucked out of her last night because the few times he’d bedded her she was coming like a hydrant by now.

  Sierra knew she’d lost. She was going to come any moment, her body burning in pleasure. She twisted her breast painfully hard, trying to drive the orgasm away, but the sting only served to bring it closer.

  Minx began to thrust at the vibrator, Hammer pressing it hard into her clit as she began to moan softly, a long continuous sound of pleasure until it suddenly rose in volume as she pushed frantically at Hammer’s hand, rolling onto her side and tucking her hands between her legs and squeezing tight.

  “Come,” Colt whispered into Sierra’s ear as Minx gasped and panted on her side.

  She heard him, but she continued to fight the pleasure, wanting to not just win, but dominate, to prove to everyone watching them that she was a good as they were or better. She’d never had a toy used on her before, and she wanted to fight until she was overwhelmed with pleasure, to feel the heat of release burn through her against her will. She no longer cared who was watching, only that Colt was here with her, pleasuring her as she’d never been pleasured before. She could feel his breath on her neck and she turned her face toward him, pulling his lips to hers.

  Colt kissed her, long, slow and deep, until Sierra’s back arched as she groaned, her kiss becoming desperate in its intensity. She moaned softly into his mouth as they devoured each other, until with a long sigh she relaxed.

  “I won?” she asked softly as Colt pulled back from the kiss, the toy buzzing softly in his hand but no longer torturing her with pleasure. She’d never felt so relaxed, but slowly the murmur of excited voices began to penetrate her awareness.

  “Easily.”

  She smiled as she looked into Colt’s eyes. “I get to go?”

  “You do.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as her eyes closed and a satisfied smile formed on her lips. “Take that, you bitch,” she murmure
d softly as she fell back onto the mat to catch her breath.

  Chapter Ten

  After her win, she’d taken a shower before she and Colt covered, refined, then recovered their plan in a near endless loop. She’d been ignored by everyone save the seven members of Colt’s crew. They had all congratulated her on her victory, teasing Colt that he had his work cut out for him if he planned to satisfy Sierra. But the teasing was taken as intended and Sierra felt closer to these eight men and women after only a couple of days than she did anyone else she knew. They treated her with a benign indifference that she took as respect, as if she were no different than they were. She was no longer Sierra Mora, a struggling young woman who parents had been sent back to Mexico and was easily taken advantage of, but Sierra Mora, a woman who knew what she wanted and made efforts to get it.