Drina balked at that. “If that’s love, I’d rather live the rest of my life without it.”
Chapter Eleven
All the lights were on upstairs. Four men paraded around the club, asking questions, demanding answers. When they didn’t hear what they wanted from those they felt could answer them, a fatal shot was fired. So far they’d killed four men and one woman, a woman who looked very similar to Drina.
“We have to do something,” Coco said, staring at Brandon. “We can’t just hide!”
“The authorities have been called. If we go up there now, it’s suicide!” Brandon raked his fingers through his hair.
“Do you think they thought that woman was me?” Drina stood in front of the large screen, pale and trembling.
Zak glanced at Kurt and then as if he read his mind and knew what he was thinking, he went to her, comforting her, assuring her it was all right. “Of course they didn’t think she was you. Are you kidding me? She didn’t hold a candle to you.”
Brandon was still on text, communicating with the Jackson brothers. A long green message rolled over his screen and Brandon read aloud. “‘Feds have been called. You guys aren’t going to see locals up there. We spoke to Kane Cartwell and Joshua McKay. They’re working to make sure something happens up there soon. Right now. Lay low. That’s all I can tell you. Better cut communications, too, in the event they have any of your cell phone numbers.’”
“Holy fuck. He’s right.” Liam shoved his hand in his pocket and turned off his cell phone.
Everyone else did the same, frantically trying to power down their phones.
“We’re too late,” Zak said, clutching Drina’s upper arm as he moved around her and pointed at the screen.
They stood there watching in absolute disbelief as one of the perpetrators screamed obscenities and pointed downstairs. Zak slowly inched forward, acting as if it pained him to turn up the volume.
“They’re still here,” one of them said.
“Drina’s sister is here. Her phone is in this building!”
Drina gasped. Her mouth fell open and a whimper tumbled from her lips. She backed away from the screen, apparently unable to comprehend what was happening then.
“Calm down,” Zak said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “We got this but we need our women calm. Understand?”
“Our women?” Brandon mouthed to Kurt who only shrugged.
Kurt could’ve called that one from the starting gate anyway. He’d been right beside Zak when he first spotted Drina and he’d never seen anything quite like it. They were drawn to one another like some sort of extraterrestrial force. Incredible is what it was. It was insanely absurd but sort of sexy, too, just watching the two of them together.
There wasn’t a question in Kurt’s mind. They were destined to be together.
“Find the club owner,” said a burly fellow with a Jersey accent. “Find him and tell him we want their suite number and their security code.”
Brandon kept his eyes trained on the scene unfolding before them. “The owner can’t help them. No one has the security code except the suite owners. That’s the allure of these suites and why this private club has been named one of the best in recent lifestyle magazines. Security and privacy have been the driving force behind this club’s business.”
“On the chance there’s a way for them to get in here, we need to be ready.” Zak went to a gun safe that took up the entire coat closet. A few minutes later, he opened it with the combination.
As if they’d practiced and rehearsed there as much as they had at home, Liam, Brandon, Coco, and Kurt lined up and caught guns and boxes of ammunition. Standing side by side a few minutes later with cocked guns and weapons draping their bodies, the Blaziers and Coco were ready for anything.
Drina, who hadn’t been offered a firearm, went to the safe and chose her own weapon.
“You don’t have to do this,” Coco told her as she stood beside her.
“I know I don’t have to. But like you, I’m my father’s daughter. And apparently Daddy left us no other choice but to fight for one another.”
* * * *
It was four in the morning before the Feds stormed the scene. Their enemies had just located the hidden stairs which was underneath one of the tiles in the floor, but they hadn’t had time to trigger the release which would’ve allowed them entrance to the hallways.
Zak and Kurt turned on their phones at the same time. Both screens lit up with numerous messages which they read to the others. Brianna and her men had decided to leave town for a few days. Gemma was with them. Nory was safe. They’d spoken to the Cartwells. Kane and Joshua were responsible for the raid at Paddles and Picnics. Still, due to the “toys” they kept in their private suite, they might want to stay underground until midmorning, particularly since someone else could be out there watching for them. Cartwell had it handled with the Feds. They wouldn’t be looking for them there.
“Not exactly how I meant to spend my first night with Drina,” Zak said, smiling at the sleeping beauty curled up on the leather sofa an hour after they received news from the outside.
Kurt stroked his chin. “You know if you don’t rush things, if you let things happen as they should, you might be surprised what you could build with that one.”
“Don’t coach me, big brother. I know what I’m doing here.” He tiptoed over to the sofa and gently peeled her fingers away from the weapon she was holding. After he placed it in the gun safe, he nodded at Coco and said, “How can these women go to sleep with loaded guns in their hands?”
Kurt remembered something his mother had once told him. “She’s an angel born without wings with lethal blood running through her veins and a devil’s heart pumping its random beats inside her. Will she be heaven sent or hell bound? No one really knows, but either way, it is our duty to hold on to her and love her.”
“What did you say?” Brandon’s head popped up from an armrest where he’d been relaxing.
“Something Mom told me a long time ago.”
“I heard you, but why would you say that now?”
Kurt eyed the gorgeous woman with raven hair and skin so white and flawless that she looked like the very angel his mother had once described. “She may have her father’s blood in her veins, but she isn’t like him, Brandon. We shouldn’t put a gun in her hand. And we should never ask her to fight for herself when we should take up arms and fight for her. You’ve trained her and that’s obvious. Mother would be so very proud, but I don’t want my woman with a gun in her hand and a baby on her hip.”
“What are you talking about?” Brandon leaned forward with his legs splayed, his hands gripping the armrests.
“Mom.” He fondly remembered his mother in her later years, writing about a past no one could’ve seen let alone understood, but he remembered everything as if it were yesterday. He recalled how she was before she became this driven writer, dying to tell her story even if those tales were penned in deception and disguised as fiction. “You’re the oldest now and you’re telling me you don’t remember Mom with a gun in hand and one of the younger ones beside her or attached to her hip?”
“Sometimes a man has to choose whether or not he wants to rehash the past or let rabid dogs lie.” Brandon’s eyes were misty and Kurt was glad to see those watery eyes. It proved him wrong on one count. Brandon still had a heart somewhere underneath his tough exterior. Maybe his heart wasn’t as black as Kurt had once feared. He could hope anyway.
At the very least, he’d called their mother out as she was—at least how she was before she was ill and bedridden. She’d been a vulture in business, a rabid dog. She was aggressive, restless, and practically foaming at the mouth for the big score, the huge payday.
The last two years of her life, she was a mother, seeking forgiveness from a higher power and those close to her and leaning on Coco for one reason more than any other. She wanted Coco to carry on with her work but to what degree is what concerned Kurt. How much did Coc
o really know? How much had his mother taught her and how much had she learned from her?
As he and Brandon discussed the recent past, he couldn’t help but think of the future. As Geraldine Blazier’s sons, would they carry on the family tradition, making the big money the old-fashioned and illegal way or would they better themselves, learn from their mother’s mistakes, protect themselves from the heartache and death that surely followed those in their line of work?
He had almost slipped off to sleep when Brandon said, “I don’t want this for us.”
Liam shifted his upper body, obvious in his attempt to find a comfortable position. “None of us do.”
“When we get out of here tomorrow, we start making a way for a better future. I don’t want to dodge bullets the rest of my life and have to wonder if we’re running from our enemies or running from theirs.” Brandon looked at Coco as if he would do anything in his power to protect her. “Whatever it takes.” He took a moment to study each brother, nodding slightly before he moved on to the next one. “We go legal because it’s the right thing to do and because it could save the people we care about.”
“We’ll do it,” Zak said, never dragging his gaze away from Drina.
“I already told you I’m out,” Kurt said.
“Leaving the gun business behind will be easier than you think, Brandon.” Liam threw a cushion behind his head. “We’ll work cattle by day and lay down at night with a clear conscience. That’s better than what we’ve had and far more than what Mom and Nate enjoyed.”
“I don’t know about all that, but I know one thing—I’m not spending my life behind bars while the people I love are fighting a war we didn’t cause with people we don’t know. We’re not paying for the sins of our mother. The people we love aren’t going to die with bullet holes in their flesh.” His face softened. “Those we love will one day meet the perfect demise. They’ll die in their sleep of old age, surrounded by those they love.”
Chapter Twelve
At some point during the night, Coco had stumbled to the master bedroom and fallen in bed as if she were drunk and delusional. In fact, she had been exhausted. As she’d dozed off, it had occurred to her that she’d fallen asleep right after Brandon had said the locals were on the scene and the Cartwells had advised them to stay where they were for the night.
She’d always felt particularly safe there at the club. Part of the reason was due to the fact the club’s suite access and privacy doors were on lockdown by codes only known and used by the suite owners. The other part was because the only windows in the whole apartment were those overlooking the scenic cliffs. She could go outside completely naked and scream her bloody head off and no one would see her. If someone heard her it would be by freak chance.
Sometimes she wondered if she should just break down and ask Brandon to let her stay there for a while, enjoy the peace and serenity found there and perhaps work on his mother’s books, the stories she wanted told sometime soon. She’d promised Geraldine that much and she owed her that, if nothing else.
The apartment was still quiet when she slipped out of bed and took the comforter with her to the balcony. The sun was gradually coming up over the horizon. She curled up on the cushioned lounger and watched as several birds soared from the other side of the cliffs, taking flight in a symbolic manner. Perhaps they were going out to meet the new day or maybe they were fleeing while they still could, fearing her presence there represented danger.
She sighed at the thought, wrapped the blanket tighter around her and breathed in the morning air, appreciating the cool, crisp wind whipping around her. This was a new day, a new beginning, a day that would start in an unusual manner and she could feel it in her bones.
Perhaps that’s why the birds flocked together and flew away. She’d invaded their space or perhaps they realized she was a new hunter rising, a new predator in a big world full of smaller prey.
She shook off the thought and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to be like her father. She didn’t even want to be Geraldine Blazier’s protégé but as the tips of the mountaintops became slightly orange at the highest peaks, she realized what the day ahead represented.
Bold and bloody choices—decisions she didn’t want to make but choices that were there all the same.
“I thought you might be out here,” Liam said, handing her a bottle of orange juice. “I checked the date on it.”
“Thank you,” she said, unscrewing the lid. “We usually keep everything freshly stocked here.”
He smiled and an uncomfortable silence followed. After a few sips she said, “I take it everything was quiet through the night?”
“As far as I know.” He stuffed his hands in his slacks and it was then that she noticed the shimmer of his polyester pants. More than the style and type of clothing he wore, she couldn’t help but notice the thick bulge snuggled between his thighs.
She inhaled deeply, breathing in the undeniable smell of aroused male, the spicy rich cologne he’d worn the night before still scenting his skin and making him all the more appealing. She sensed his excitement in the way he smelled, in the way he looked at her with lust in his eyes.
To add to the noticeable factors, his length was easily seen under the thin layer of his leather knock-off choice. Like every other Blazier she’d seen or experienced so far, Liam’s length ran halfway down his upper thigh and he sported a long rigid cock. And she wanted him. She wanted that closeness and longed to wrap herself in his arms and just hang on to the intimacy for a little while.
The reasons, she believed, were a mix of emotions Liam had long since stirred inside her, but more than anything else it was his goodness. Liam was a wonderful man, a descent person, and she wanted to know what pure goodness felt like.
“Are you cold?”
Obviously he was about to make this very easy for her. She nodded, scooted up and tilted her head at the space behind her then.
His eyes flashed with heavy-lidded lust, the kind of lust a woman could read appropriately because she’d seen it, experienced it, and been on the receiving end of desire as well.
As soon as he sat behind her, she scooted against him and rested the back of her head on his shoulder. He seemed uneasy at first, as if he didn’t know exactly how to approach then. Seconds passed. Minutes.
Finally, he wrapped his arms around her and rested his forearms right under her breasts. “Is that better?” He was testing the waters then.
She was used to that. Trials and continual tests. Sometimes she felt as if her life had been a series of both.
“Much better,” she whispered, pushing her hips against his rigid cock, feeling that pulse from his shaft, the quick twitching of his dick at her bottom. “Are you better?”
“No, Coco,” he whispered at her ear. “Not yet.” The hunger was there, laced in his voice like a tightly strewn dose of pure masculine need.
“What can I do to make you better?” She tilted her head to her shoulder and he was there, right there waiting.
He tucked his finger under her chin and lifted her mouth to his. He then introduced the sweetest of kisses, the kind of kisses a woman remembered, longed to have, longed to keep, the kind of kisses that made a woman’s knees tremble, her hands shake.
She was indulging, loving the attention, the way he didn’t seem to rush her, didn’t seem to concern himself with the fact that at any given point they could be interrupted. Someone could stop them.
He clasped his hands under her breasts then and shifted them back and forth, rubbing her fullness, raking over her hardened nipples, arousing her with every touch. His cock lengthened, stretched out for her and in that moment, she was his.
She could’ve predicted the immediate future. Even before he asked, even before he made the next move, she’d already reached the decision.
The day had finally arrived when she would take what Liam had often offered without regret, without questioning who might find out or who might care.
She cared. She cared about
Liam and he cared for her as well.
Brandon had dismissed her. He’d refused to share her willingly as a sub so he’d freed her and in essence, freed himself as well.
She now had opportunity. She could explore these feelings she had trapped inside her body, confined to her mind beside the fantasies that had always intrigued her.
“Make love to me, Liam,” she whispered, feeling him tighten behind her.
Instead of waiting for him to move first, she faced him. Pulling up the dress she’d worn to the club the night before, she unsnapped her convenience panties, a design Brandon had special ordered for moments like these, when positioning was an advantage if clothing didn’t present obstacles. If he later walked out and caught them, he’d likely find a certain level of amusement in the lingerie he’d once called out as practical.
Liam’s breath was hot and heavy at her ear. He held the side of her head to his mouth, telling her how much he wanted her, how he’d longed for her, dreamt of this moment, needed her, and the sentiments continued.
She unzipped him, pushed her hand in his boxers and grabbed hold of the hot block of manly flesh. His shape was unusual in that he was square and wide at the top, wide at the base and smooth and thick in the center length. She was now dying to feel him pressing inside her, fucking her, taking her in the manner in which he’d said he’d wanted to take her for far longer than he could remember.
“God bless, you’re killing me here,” he whispered, his mouth crashing down on hers then.
“Oh Liam,” she whispered, pulling back and lifting her breasts against his face, realizing the design she wore was too tight to give him access but turned on all the same as his tongue whipped across the fullness of her chest and she slid down on his cock.
Sexual Expression [Contemporary Cowboys 2] (Siren Publishing LoveEdge) Page 9
