Rush: A MacKenzie Family Novella (The MacKenzie Family)

by Robin Covington

  “Shut the fuck up, Paulo. I don’t even know what you’re saying and I don’t care.” He leaned in close, making sure his prisoner could see his gun at all times. “My friends and I are here to discuss where Figueroa has the girl stashed.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man sputtered, trying his best to keep the tremor out of his voice. Rush gave him kudos for the effort. It wasn’t easy to maintain your dignity when you were outnumbered. But he just couldn’t deal with the lying. He stood, grabbed Paulo’s face, and shoved his gun back inside his mouth. Rush ignored Livvy’s gasp and plowed forward.

  “I don’t have time to go through this whole song and dance. You want to pretend you don’t know and I’m going to have to spend hours getting you to tell me, and the only result will be that you will tell me and then spend days in the hospital while they repair the damage I will do to your face and your mouth and the internal organs you can spare. Believe me, I know how to do it all and I know how to keep a man alive and in as much pain as he can stand without passing out.” He leaned in close and made sure Paulo saw only him in his line of sight. “So, why don’t you keep your teeth and your spleen and tell me?”

  He removed the gun and Paulo spat at him. Rush jumped back out of range but backhanded his prisoner at the same time. Blood poured from Paulo’s nose and he groaned in pain.

  Rush grabbed his face and forced him to look at him. “Listen, you slimy motherfucker. If you don’t tell me where she is being held, I deposit you at Figueroa’s doorstep and tell him that you offered the details on the Linchky deal to me for a price.”

  Rush really had no idea the full extent of the deal, but it had been one of the most recent dealings Elena had found on the hard drive between Hickman, Figueroa, and Guzzi. The widening of Paulo’s eyes and his immediate sniveling and crying told him he’d hit pay dirt.

  “He’ll kill me if you do that,” Paulo whined, his body shaking with his terror. Rush didn’t blame him. Figueroa was not a nice guy to his friends, and his enemies were constantly disappearing. Rumors were that he had a guy on payroll who did nothing but make sure you begged for death at the end.

  “Well, then tell me where the girl is and he’ll never find out from me that you told. I’ll get her back and make sure there’s no connection between us.”

  Yeah, he was making a deal with a minion of the devil but his soul was already beyond saving, so what did it matter? Brant wasn’t happy. He could tell by the shadow on his expression but that’s why he’d brought him in. To do the dirtiest of the dirty work. At the end of all this, MacKenzie would have enough to send to whatever authority they wanted and make the world a better place.

  Paulo stared at him and Rush could almost see the little hamsters in his head running at breakneck speed. He waited, knowing the silence would help raise Paulo’s panic and bring him to the right decision faster. He knew the minute they’d won when Paulo’s eyes cast downward, defeat weighing on his frame like lead.

  “She’s in a cabin I own in western Maryland,” he said, his voice low and filled to the brim with fear.

  “Good boy.” Rush stood and patted him on the head, looking at Brant with a grim smile. “We found her, now let’s go get her.”

  Chapter Ten

  The dream was really good.

  It was their honeymoon. Four days in the little casita in Mexico. Sand. Waves. Sun. Very little clothing in or out of the bedroom. His smile. Atticus wearing a full-on grin. As rare as pearls in an oyster.

  Olivia stretched out on the couch, grabbing the throw as it slid off her body. The steady pump of the air conditioning had chilled the air and goose bumps rose on the skin exposed by her sundress. She rubbed lightly at her arms and blinked away the heavy cast of sleep on her eyelids.

  The team had returned from Club D, armed with all the information they needed and formulated a plan into the wee hours. Using satellite technology and plats of the land and plans for the cabin hacked off various servers, they figured out how they would get in and get Katrina out. It had been exhausting to watch them argue every point, calculate distance and ammunition and plans B, C, and D just in case Plan A didn’t work. They discussed the contingency for casualties and agreed that anyone injured would be left behind if it hindered getting the little girl out safely.

  It had been a long, silent moment where her heart had stopped as everyone agreed, their mouths set in thin, grim lines. It had scared the living shit out of her.

  Paulo was being held at his home by another member of the team and would be until the mission was done. And then they’d all settled in to catch a couple hours of sleep before they headed out before dawn, hoping to catch the kidnappers when they would least expect it.

  A glance at the clock told her it was three in the morning and another look around displayed the various bodies crashed around the room. Jade Jax was draped across the other couch, an arm covering her eyes. Brant was lying on his back on the rug, arms crossed on his chest like Dracula. The other three men brought here as part of the rescue team were lying on the floor, soft snores rising up from their prone bodies. There was no sign of Elena but there was another couch in Atticus’s office.

  Atticus. Where was he?

  She sat up, scanning the room. His all-too-familiar bulk was nowhere to be found. Olivia eased off the couch, shivering a little at the slight chill of air against the bare skin of her legs and shoulders in the sundress. Rubbing her hands over her arms, she moved around the side of the sofa and allowed her eyes to adjust to the dark as she scanned the room. Walking over to the stairs leading to the basement, she zeroed in her ears to pick up any sounds of him from below.

  Nothing.

  Turning, she peered out onto the deck and saw him. Or at least the top of his head over the back of a chair on the deck, the silhouette of his hand lowering a cigar from his mouth. The moon was high behind him, shining into the room and casting a silvery cast to his dark hair.

  Olivia moved forward, her steps silent as she tiptoed across the hardwood floor. The door slid open on a soft hiss, the brush of her skirt mimicking the sound when she eased through and stepped out onto the deck. The door closed behind her as she saw his head cock to the right in silent inquiry.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, scanning his features and trying to figure out his mood.

  “Just trying to get shit straight…” He pointed at his temple. “…up here.”

  Oh. She was intruding on his time to prepare for what he had to do tonight. She moved to go back inside but his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, holding her in place.

  “You don’t need to leave.” A couple of long beats passed before he whispered, “Stay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  All she got was a solid tug in his direction and she followed it, standing beside the lounger where he was stretched out. He looked up at her and the dark, silver-tinged depths of his eyes drew her in and spurned her to act on impulse. In a flash she’d swung a leg over and lowered herself over his legs, straddling his body. Her form blocked the moonlight from directly exposing his expression but she was close enough to see him clearly.

  He looked tired already. The lines on the edges of his eyes and mouth were deeper than usual. She reached up and pushed his hair back from his face.

  “You should be sleeping.”

  “I slept for about an hour. That’s about all I get the night before a mission.”

  “Are you worried?” she asked, even though it was likely a stupid question.

  “I’d be crazy if I wasn’t.” His eyes were glued onto her face, scanning her as if he was trying to memorize how she looked. “I sit and think about shit. Organize my gun safe. Recite the Greek alphabet.”

  “I always wondered…” Olivia thought back to the several times he’d gone out on deployment when they were together. She’d had to wait and wonder and fill in the blanks with her own imagination. “You never said anything.”

  He lifted the cigar to his mouth and drew on it. The s
ilence wasn’t uncomfortable but she sure as hell didn’t know how to fill it. So she waited to see what he would do.

  “You don’t want to know what’s in my head.”

  “I think…” She hesitated but decided to take the plunge anyway. If this was too much, she’d be gone tomorrow and wouldn’t have to face down her embarrassment for long. “I think I do want to know. I always did.”

  He placed the cigar down on the table, balanced on the edge so that the ashes fell onto the deck. When he turned back to face her, his hands came up to cup her face.

  “When are you going to stop slumming?” That took her back and she tried to flinch away, but he held her close. “What in the hell were you thinking getting involved with somebody like me?”

  “As opposed to a man with a title? A castle? A trust fund?”

  “Yeah. A guy like that.”

  She shrugged, debating on telling him the truth or just blowing it off with a joke or half-truth. But the fact that they’d never been honest with each other was what drove her batshit crazy about their past. Would they have had a chance if they hadn’t kept all the secrets? If she’d told him from the beginning about her alter ego and if he’d told her…anything.

  “You needed me. Not my money or my title or my connections…you just needed Livvy.”

  He stared at her for a few moments longer and then pulled her down, kissing her with soft brushes of his lips against her own. His stubble was rough against her flesh as his long hair tickled the bare skin of her arms. Her disappointment at his non-answer was fading with the increased pressure of the kiss, the sweep of his tongue inside.

  And then he pulled back and pressed kisses along her jaw, ending with a gentle bite of her earlobe before he whispered, “The Navy gave me purpose but you gave me peace.”

  “I what? I did?”

  “I’ve done so many horrible things. Awful things. Things I did for the right reasons but that doesn’t mean they don’t stay in my head.” He pressed a kiss on her neck, nuzzling into her hair and then sighing on a deep exhale. His voice was roughened to gravel with his memories and the pain of all of them. She felt it like rough stones rubbed against her skin. She felt raw and could only imagine the damage they’d done to him after all these years. Inside him. “Just being around you made it stop. Turned off the constant replay.”

  “Are they in your head now?” she asked, her heart aching with the pain in his voice. Atticus never talked about this, never let her have any glimpse of what he carried with him. She’d known it was there, read the unknown stories in the lines on his face and the muttered anger of his nightmares. But he’d never really let her in. “Are they?”

  “Turn them off, Livvy. I need to get my shit together to go save Katrina and I need some peace.”

  It wasn’t “I love you”—he’d never said those words to her—but it was close enough that her chest clenched in reaction.

  She couldn’t refuse. Would never refuse him. Olivia leaned forward and kissed his right cheek, then his left and finally pressed a sweet one against his mouth.

  Her breath caught as he hooked a finger under the strap of her sundress and drew it down and over her shoulder, following its progress with the slide of his lips along her skin. He nipped and licked and sucked, leaving a wet trail that made her shiver in the slight chill of the early morning.

  The shiver turned to fire racing along her veins when he drew a nipple into his mouth and pulled on it with a slow, sensual draw. She bowed back and offered her breast to him, silently begging him to take her deeper as she reached up to lower the other strap, exposing her entire torso to his touch.

  Atticus took her invitation and roamed her body with his hands, the rough callouses on them dragging along some of her more sensitive spots and leaving behind sharp, tingling pleasure. He transferred his attention to her other breast, cupping it and scraping lightly against her nipple with his tongue.

  “Are you getting wet for me, Livvy?” he asked, his words vibrating against her flesh. “I need to slide into your hot pussy and forget for a while. Only you…for a while.”

  Livvy could do this. She loved him, of course she could. Leaning in to kiss him, mimicking his earlier path as she trailed her own path of nips and licks along his jaw, burrowing under his hair to give his earlobe a bite and swirl of her tongue.

  “I want you to fuck me out here. If the people inside your apartment wake up, they’ll see us. Your neighbors could see us.” She wove her fingers into his hair and pulled his head back, forcing him to look at her, the need building in her with each word. She’d missed this between them, missed being with a man who understood her deepest, darkest desires. To be seen as she was taken, to be touched by multiple partners and still want her for himself. She’d missed it, no other partner quite meeting her in the same place. They accommodated and dabbled a toe in the lifestyle but never embraced it like she had with this man. “I need it tonight, Atticus. Please.”

  In answer he stood, taking her with him, and she held on as her world tilted on its axis. He took several paces away from the lounger and placed her on her feet, keeping his large hands on her shoulders until she was steadied.

  When he saw that she was okay, he stepped back and ordered, “Take off everything.”

  Chapter Eleven

  He was so fucking lucky.

  Rush licked his lips as Livvy did what he demanded, letting the dress slide to the floor at her feet and then easing her thong down her thighs and letting it fall to the ground as well. She stepped out of the pile and waited for him to give her the next direction.

  He loved it when she was pliant, obedient. Rush wasn’t a full-on dominant but when the mood struck them both, he loved to run the sexual show between them, and it made his cock hard as steel when she did as she was told.

  Tonight he needed the edge of control. The past forty-eight hours had been one long test of his patience and ability to keep his shit together. To have the life of Katrina laid at his feet and to be forced to confront his never-ending obsession with his ex-wife had left him floundering and more edgy than usual.

  And now with a mission just a couple of hours from happening, he craved an escape. And he couldn’t think of a better way to escape than by burying himself inside Livvy.

  Rush reached down and unfastened his belt, sliding the leather through the loops and dropping it to the ground with a soft thud and jangle of the buckle. Livvy’s eyes tracked his movements as he unbuttoned the fly of his jeans and shoved them down just enough to allow his hard dick to spring free, sitting tight against his belly.

  “Bend over the table,” he said, jutting his chin toward the long dining table positioned in the middle of the deck. He watched as she did as she was told, bracing her body on her elbows and spreading her legs to give him a glimpse of the wet slick of her sex. “Don’t move.”

  He glanced around the patio, the span of windows from the neighboring buildings. Some were lit in this early morning and her position would be in the perfect spot for them to be seen. His skin burned with the idea of it.

  Rush reached into his back pocket and took out a condom, ripping the packet open and rolling it down his length. He took two steps forward and eased up behind her, running a hand lightly down her back and side, caressing the tight globe of her ass. Livvy shivered, a long slow one that undulated up and down her body, and he followed its path with his eyes, admiring the play of her sleek muscles under her skin.

  “Keep your hands here,” he directed as he ran his own down the length of her arms from her shoulder to her fingers. Grasping them, he eased them forward, bending her farther over at the waist, not flat against the tabletop, leaving space for him to feel the sway of her breasts as he fucked her. “Good girl.”

  Rush straightened, taking a deep breath as he shoved his jeans down a little farther, the chill of the night touching the exposed skin at the top of his ass. He moved between her legs and shoved them apart a little wider and then took himself in hand, easing his cock into her
hot depths until he was fully seated.

  “Oh my God, Atticus,” Livvy gasped out, reaching behind her with her left hand to drag him even closer. Her nails dug into his thigh and he hissed with the sting he felt through the denim.

  “I told you to keep them here.” He grabbed her wrist and moved her hand back in place in front of her, pressing down lightly to make his point. “Hang onto the table while I fuck you, Livvy. I need you tonight.”

  She nodded, letting out a groan of frustration when he pulled almost all the way out. He looked down, gritting his teeth at the vision of him disappearing inside her once again, the sensation of her heat along his length. In and out, slowly and with control that caused sweat to run down his bare chest and his muscles to bunch with the effort, he maintained his pace until she panted under him.

  “I’m going to…oh, fuck,” Livvy said, her voice loud in the stillness of the early morning. “Oh, fuck…God save…”

  She clenched around him with her orgasm and he picked up the rhythm, draping himself over her back as he pounded into her from behind. He braced himself with his left hand on the table, wrapping the other around her torso, cupping her breast in his palm. His thumb rubbed across the nipple, loving the press of the hard, pebbled flesh against his skin.

  Rush leaned into her neck, nudging aside the damp fall of her hair to kiss her along her shoulder, punctuating harder thrusts with a bite that raised red marks on her pale skin. She pushed back into him, riding his cock now just as much as he was fucking into her. He wanted to wrap himself up in her, to crawl inside her and stay forever or as close to that time that people like him got.

  He found himself talking, murmuring nonsense against her flesh. He knew he should shut the hell up but he couldn’t have if his life depended on it. “It’s never been like this with anyone else. I want everyone to wake up and see us, to know that you’re fucking mine. Mine.”