Quietly, I unlock the bathroom and sneak to the front door, cracking it open only enough to see what’s going on. What’s going on is a whole lot of grappling and punches being thrown. Where’s the gun?
As Vlad pulls back his arm to let fly a punch, I see a face I really never wanted to see again. Chit. The only thing I can think is that he followed us up here from the hospital, staying back enough to keep us from seeing him.
But how did Chit get the jump on Vlad, seeing as Vlad is bigger and stronger? I know he’s smarter. As I search out Vlad’s gun, I get a look at the extra bike, which makes sense now. There’s a third man out here somewhere. Scanning the grounds before I make myself known is when I find the third man and he looks dead, slumped on the ground and unfortunately, I gasp a little louder than necessary because I didn’t expect to see a dead guy.
Vlad spins around. “I told you to stay put.”
I know he did, but I’ve finally met a man I think I can have a future with and I’m not okay with letting him fight my battles for me. I’m not helpless. Chit takes Vlad’s lack of concentration on their fight to go after my man, drawing a knife—a fucking knife.
“Vlad!” I shout as I charge into the fray. My shout gets him to look back at Chit, see the knife, and suck in his stomach enough for the tip of the blade to only snag his shirt. I scream using my warrior cry, which I probably shouldn’t have used because it gives him the chance to avoid the brunt of my swing, which only manages to clip his jaw. I meant to knock him out. He gets pissed but doesn’t go down. What he does is turn that knife on me.
He brings the blade up, but I block it with the pan. The eerie ping is a major wakeup call. “Ready to die, bitch?” His words rumble through me as he lunges at me again. Chit grabs at the pan while thrusting the blade for a third time. There’s a bang like a car backfiring or… like a gun going off. It’s just like in a movie the way Chit realizes he’s been shot. He drops his knife, touches his hand to the blood spiderwebbing through his shirt, drops to his knees, and then falls forward, gurgling out a few final liquidy breaths before he dies.
Vlad stands over him, gun still in hand. I’m unable to move. Then, taking in both Vlad and the dead man, I launch myself into the very alive man’s arms, wrapping my legs around his waist as I press kisses to his face while desperately trying to rip his shirt over his head. He carries me, one hand kneading my ass while with the other, he keeps my head positioned to where he wants me, using his teeth and tongue to devour my kisses.
My lungs grow tight. He won’t let us up for air, not until my back hits the bed. He doesn’t even close the front door. Finally, he tears his mouth from mine, leaving my chest heaving. “Tell me you want this,” he orders. “Tell me this is okay.”
“I want this.”
Mouth pressed to mine again, he rips my T-shirt up over the swells of my breasts. “I want to see you.”
“Yes,” I answer and he wastes no time with removing the shirt up and over my head, tossed to the floor. With one hand, he unclasps my bra and peels it from my body, tossing that too.
“Goddamn, baby. You’re beautiful.”
I feel beautiful. Here. In his arms, I feel so beautiful. “Shirt,” I say. His shirt becomes nothing but a memory. It’s frantic the way we go from clothed to naked. Yet despite the frenetic energy, he manages to ask before doing anything. And I approve of everything.
“No, no, no…” I cry when he pulls away. I want him back. His lips, his hands. I watch the way his sinewy muscles stretch as he reaches for his jeans. The next instant, he’s got a condom packet in his hand. The instant after that, he tears it open between his teeth, then his hand drops to roll it on his engorged length.
“You want my cock, baby?” he teases.
“Yes.”
“Take it. It’s yours.” It’s mine. It’s all mine if I want it, and I sure as hell want it. The first time in years I’ve wanted the feel of a man between my legs. The vision of him beneath me is too good to ignore and I strive to make it happen, flipping us until his back lies flat against the mattress. Looking down at his dazed eyes and kiss-swollen lips, I straddle his hips, position myself, and sink down, transporting myself to a lust universe. The stretch of him burns beautifully. I feel him everywhere. It takes me a moment to adjust to having him there. The sensation, the lustful energy thrumming through my entire body, I feel the need to move.
His hands on my hips, Vlad thrusts up as I rock and grind down. Over and over. My back arches. I brace my hands behind me on his thighs. I… It’s… Nothing has ever felt like this in my life. The rapid beating of my heart pushes faster. Breaths become harder to take in, harder to exhale.
He drags his hand down my sensitized skin from my hip to press his thumb to the center of my sex. My eyes shoot open. I drop my mouth open, needing to scream. Needing to release some of our tectonic energy before I explode, but no sound comes out. Eyes fixed on our connection, he gives me one thrust too many and the tremors begin. Huge. Monumental. I register a 10.5 magnitude orgasm rippling through me. I come hard enough to cause rock slides, to bring down buildings, to know without a shadow of doubt that no other man could make me feel this level of good.
“Can… I flip us?” he asks.
I nod, smiling and feeling loose as he rolls us once more, hitching my thigh around his ass. One of my arms holds him, the other I use as a brace to keep me from hitting the headboard as his thrusts become wild and I see it in his eyes, the peace and contentment a moment before he finds his release.
It’s beautiful. Sex can be beautiful. My throat constricts and my eyes water with that realization. Vlad gave that to me. For the rest of my life, Vlad will be the man who showed me its beauty. I know I could fall in love with this man.
When he comes down from his high, he presses his forehead to mine first, then drags his nose down my cheek to finally press his lips tenderly to mine. “What the hell have you done to me?” he asks as I watch his dark eyes search my face.
Since I don’t know how to answer him, I keep silent and continue to try to catch my breath. With one more kiss, he pushes up, pulling out of me. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t move from that spot.”
I chuckle. “I won’t.” And that’s no lie. I couldn’t move right now if I tried. He rolls off the opposite side of the bed and I get to get a better look at his gorgeously tight backside when he walks over to shut the front door before pivoting to head for the bathroom.
A minute later, I hear the toilet flush. Whoever built this place gave it upgrades. A well for water and a septic system that leads to a septic field farther down the property. I guess even hunters want conveniences when they can get them. He joins me in the bed again, only moving me enough to pull the covers back and over us. He curls me onto his chest in order to wrap his arm around my shoulder and presses a kiss to the crown of my head.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Better than I’ve been in years.” That’s the most honest answer I’ve ever given.
“What you saw today, baby…”
“There are two dead men in your front yard,” I say. His body tenses next to mine, but I’m not done. “Two men tried to take you from me and I’ve only just gotten you. They aren’t the first dead men I’ve seen.”
“I know, baby,” he says, sounding sad.
“I would’ve killed him if I’d gotten the chance.”
“Know that too.”
“He wouldn’t have been the first.”
“Nic.” His arm squeezes tighter.
“No. You need to know—you deserve to know the kind of woman I am.”
“And what kind of woman is that? The kind who fights for her life? The kind who sees a friend in trouble and puts her life on the line to help get her out? Or are you the kind of woman who has her man’s back no matter they’re new, no matter the circumstances? Do you seriously think you’d be anything more than a fuck to me if you weren’t the kind of woman that you are?”
“We’ll have to build a firepit and burn the ashes. Oh, and you’ll need to dismantle their bikes to—” I say, but Vlad presses his finger to my lips.
“The world’s gonna find its way inside here soon enough. Give me an hour. That’s all I’m asking, just an hour to hold you and relive what you’ve just given me. Do you realize you’re the first woman to make me want to hold her after sex?” I can’t deny the happy jig my insides dance from hearing those words. Two men are dead after at least one of them tried to kill us both and I’m happier than I’ve been in a long-ass time.
“I can give you that, but before I do, I have to visit the loo. Sorry.”
I need that time to clean up and clear my head because what he doesn’t realize is that in my life, the entire world could shift in an hour. And that thought scares me to death.
11
Vlad
What the hell am I doing? Nic and I lie together, her phenomenal body pressed next to mine from shoulder to feet. The day or my cock, or probably both, wore her out and she begins to drift off to sleep. I continue to hold her until her breaths even out and on a soft moan, she shifts, rolling away, allowing me to snatch my arm back without waking her.
I sit on the edge of the bed, hunched over, elbows to knees, my hands raking through her hair while I watch her for a few more minutes. All the shit she’s been through in her life, she deserves a man who can treat her with those kid gloves that I don’t know if I can give her. What kind of man fucks a woman who’s been through what she’s been through, knowing her past? I look at her and dammit, I want to take care of her, but what do I know about taking care of a woman aside from in the bedroom? She wants orgasms, I can give her those till her heart’s content.
What do I know about relationships? Never knew my dad. Every guy my mom ever took to her bed beat the shit out of her. My older sister got knocked up at sixteen by a damn twenty-two-year-old punk who swore the kid wasn’t his and bailed before the paternity test results came in to prove what we all knew. I’m a felon who got locked up at fifteen, released at nineteen, and has spent the past eleven years fucking my way through every pussy I could sink my dick in.
There’s this pull in my chest. It actually hurts to keep looking at her. There’re two dead bodies outside that need to be taken care of. While she sleeps, I gather up stones for a firepit, then find brush to get a fire going, and while that builds in intensity, I walk around the back of the house to grab the gas can for the generator. Chit gets doused with gasoline and I dump his sorry ass on the flames, which rocket into the air once the highly flammable accelerant catches.
The appearance of Bart bothers me the most. He’s one of the brothers who got away during our raid on the farmhouse with the Lords. What the hell was Chit doing with Bart? How did he know how to get a hold of him? I suppose he could’ve called the bastard. But the appearance of Bart means that Chit would’ve had to follow us up to the property without me hearing him, then meet up with Bart for them to try and take us out.
I throw his doused body on the fire, too, watching it go up in yellow-orange flames. And while he’s still recognizable as a man, I spit on him. Adding the accelerant makes the flames burn hotter. Though even with the hotter temperature, the men don’t incinerate the way I want them to.
Unsure of what to do now, I pace around the firepit and decide to douse the fire. Quietly, I walk back inside the house, making sure Nic is still sleeping, then find the mop bucket and fill that up with water. I haul it outside, pouring the entire five gallons onto the flames to put them out.
There’s only one other thing I can think to do with the bodies. Carrying the bucket back inside, I deposit it back by the mop and then grab one of the flat sheets that’d been draped over the furniture before the girls moved in. I lay it flat on the ground outside. Bart’s body sears my fingers where I touch it forcing me to drop him. I didn’t think about how hot the bodies would still be. Hot pads. There’re hot pads in the kitchen. After yet another trip inside the cabin, I’m able to pull first Bart then Chit onto the sheet. I use the rocks from the firepit to weigh down the bodies and wrap them like a sausage casing with the sheet’s hang over, tying off the ends.
Then I drag the bundle down the property to the septic pool, rolling it in. With the weight of the rocks, it sinks. And that’s that. Once I disassemble the bikes for parts, there won’t be a trace left of those assholes. For now, I roll each bike behind the cabin to not be seen from the driveway and toss another sheet over them until I can get to work.
With Nic still inside sleeping, I sit on the picnic table outside to clear my head. Even then I only get out one clear breath before my phone buzzes with Sarge’s name flashing on the screen.
I swipe to answer it. “Everything good?”
“Don’t know.”
Fucking what now? “Talk to me.”
“Walked out of Greer’s room to get coffee and thought I saw Bart sniffing around. He was always trying to climb his way up Rage’s asshole and he wasn’t among the downed brothers.”
“I know. He’s dead now. Bart and Chit tried to get the drop on me and Nic up here at the cabin.”
“Anyone hurt?” he asks, his voice sharp.
“No, but it led to me fucking Nic.”
Christ—Sarge chuckles into the line. Chuckles.
“What’s funny?” I bite out.
And make no mistake, I hear the shrug through his voice. “She’ll be good for you. I’m happy for you, brother.”
“Good for me? How do you know it wasn’t just a fuck?”
“Please. I know you, and you aren’t the kind of man to sound so remorseful about fucking a woman like Nic without it meaning more.”
“I don’t know if I can give her more,” I admit.
“Oh, you can and you will. It’ll just take you a little time to figure how to go about it.”
“You’re an asshole.”
He chuckles harder. “Yeah, I’m an asshole asking if you need help with the bodies.”
“Nah, but thanks, brother. I got that taken care of. You think Bart was in contact with Rage, then?”
“He’d have to be. Chit shows from Tennessee and Bart shows up here at the hospital. That’s no coincidence.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I figured that. Was hoping to be wrong. Listen, I’m on my way down. Call the boys, tell ’em to meet at the hospital. I need a quick meeting.”
“On it. See you in a few.”
Before leaving, I pen a quick note for Nic, watching her sleep a few more minutes, lock the door behind me, and head down the mountain.
The cabin being closer to Middlesboro than Bentley, I reach the hospital before the rest of the brothers, but I’m not ready to go inside and deal with Sarge yet. I can’t believe I admitted to fucking Nic. I can’t believe he got what it means so quickly. Worse than that, I can’t believe it means what it means in the first place. Blood still has men out hunting down leads as to who compromised the safehouse in Texas, but it should be me doing it because Nic is mine, but I’m too busy dealing with Rage and this new level of bullshit. How did life get so messed-up?
What I need is to get shitfaced—shitfaced until I pass out. Since that’s not going to happen any time soon, considering I have women to keep safe, I decide I need to quit being a pussy and walk inside the hospital. I call Sarge to find out what floor he’s on, taking the elevator up to the proper floor and see him standing half in, half out of Greer’s room waiting for me.
She’s awake when I go inside to check on her, but she looks like shit. “How you doing, Bam-Bam?” I ask, reaching over to pat her foot, but stop with my hand in the air, not wanting to touch her if she doesn’t give me permission.
“Seems like a good idea you don’t,” Sarge says, baffling me.
“What, brother?”
“You don’t need to touch her when you’ve got one of your own already.”
I whip my head to take in my best fr
iend. His posture is rigid, his muscles tight. His hands are in fists at his side and holy fuck, the man has the hots for Greer. Shit.
“You’ve got an old lady?” Greer asks low. She hardly has a voice.
“Ah—yeah. I’ll let you talk to Nic about that one.”
“Seriously?” she asks and I can’t help the smile tipping up at the corner of my mouth. “You got one for him”—she tips her head in Sarge’s direction—“so Sergeant Pepper here can quit being a pain in my ass?”
“Never been near your ass, woman,” he says dryly. “But I was given a mission. Until that mission changes, you’re stuck with me.”
“Has the mission changed?” she asks me, her eyes openly imploring me to say yes.
“You need a guard. He’s the best.”
She rolls her eyes at me and as I turn my snicker away from her, Sarge reaches in his pocket to grab his phone.
“Brothers are here. We’ll meet in the waiting room. I don’t want to be too far from Little Miss Sunshine over there.” He turns to Greer. “Behave. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll await your return on tenterhooks.” Despite being as sick as she is, the woman’s not going easy on him.
The brothers are making their way down the hall toward the waiting room as we exit Greer’s room, walking over to join them. Our group gets plenty of side-eyes and I pick up on the nervous energy spreading out in a thick coat over the other people on the floor. Six Horde in one room does that. They have no idea we’re trying not to be the same club any longer. It’ll take time for the people to trust us.
There’s a middle-aged woman in the waiting room pouring herself a cup of coffee when we enter it. She looks up and her eyes go huge as she takes us all in, then she scuttles out with her gaze trained on the floor, avoiding eye contact.
Once we’re alone, I give it all to my brothers.
“Wait, wait, wait…” Reap stops me. “You’re saying you have an old lady? You?”
Devil's Advocate: Vlad (The Bedlam Horde MC Book 1) Page 9
