Shadow & Soul (The Night Horde SoCal Book 2)

by Susan Fanetti

  Once they were inside, he locked the door. The wailing tones of Irish music filtered through the walls and gave a strange, rustic aura to the room. Faith was already shrugging out of her clothes. Her hair was loose and swung across her back as she took her jacket off. Following an impulse, he caught the long, dark fall in his hand and tugged her backward, to him.

  She gasped and arched against him. It was the most forceful he thought he’d even been with her, excepting when he lost control, and he was on the brink of apologizing when she grabbed his other hand and pulled it around her.

  Demon felt different. This night was different. For the first time, there was nothing over them—not the guilt and shame of the time before, not the awkwardness of reunion of their night in Venice Beach, not the need to be mindful of Tucker sleeping nearby. Not his past or his fear of what she would think if she knew. She knew, and she still loved him, still wanted him.

  It was just them. The din of revelry around them served as insulation. In this room, they were in their own world.

  And to think he’d almost talked her out of coming back here.

  He pushed his hand up under her top, over the smooth, firm skin of her belly and up to her breast. Her bra was satiny, without padding, and he could feel her nipple pebble under his fingertips. He curled over her, tugging her head to the side by the hair he still had wrapped around his hand, and he pressed his mouth to her neck. She smelled like Faith, something spicy and warm, but so subtle his nose had to be almost touching her skin to be full of her scent.

  She reached back, between them, and grabbed his cock through his jeans, squeezing and rubbing until a groan wrenched out of his throat, and he clutched her tightly, feeling his control start to fray. He took a step toward the bed, needing them to get naked and horizontal, but she made an agile little twist and came out of his hold to stand before him. He let loose of her hair, and it fell over her shoulder in a silken swath.

  With her eyes on his, she lifted her top up and over her head, and he saw that her bra was satin, and hot pink. She took that off and stood topless, her hands on her hips. She stopped there, as if she were waiting, and he grinned and took his kutte off, hanging it behind him on the door. His flannel shirt and t-shirt he dropped to the floor. As he bent to untie his boots, Faith stepped up to him and put her hands on his shoulders, asking him without words to stop.

  Her hands slid down over his arms, tracing every contour of muscle, all the elaborate lines of his ink, and then came back up. When they returned to his chest, she moved over every inch, stopping to draw her fingers over the lines of his old kanji. He put his hand to her neck and let his thumb rest on her identical ink.

  She already bore his mark, he realized. She had for years. That understanding was so potent, his nerves flared and made his hips rock. Her eyes lifted to his, and she smiled.

  “I love you so much.”

  Words were still hard for him at times like this, even sound itself was, and it seemed like that would always be the case. So he bent down instead and kissed her, letting his tongue tell her this way instead that they shared that love. As their mouths moved together, her hands continued their gentle exploration, downward over his ribs and belly until they arrived at his waistband.

  She had his belt and jeans open and was pushing everything off his hips before he registered what she was up to. He caught hold of her elbows as she was kneeling down.

  “Faith.”

  She stopped and stood up again, her eyes steady on his. “I love you, Michael. This isn’t about jealousy. It’s about making this a loving thing for you. I want this, and I want you to have it the way it should be.”

  It made his heart pound erratically. He’d gotten head before, plenty of times. It was different, though, when it was a club girl, just a physical thing, something she had come up to him and offered. He didn’t know why that had never really stirred up his demons. Maybe because his heart had never been in it. Even with Kota, even when he’d thought they were real.

  He wanted Faith kept far away from anything ugly about him.

  But this didn’t have to be ugly. He knew in his head that was true. Maybe he could do this. Feeling his cock lose its rigor, he swallowed. “Not on your knees.”

  “Fair enough.” She smiled brightly. “You better strip, then, handsome, and lie down.” Stepping back, she bent over and unzipped one of her boots. Demon paused and watched the way her pert little tits plumped in that position. His cock filled back out, and then some. With a brisk shake of his head to regain some focus, he rid himself of his own boots and the remainder of his clothes, and then he lay down on the narrow double bed.

  Faith let her clothes fall where they would and then joined him on the bed, on her knees at his side. She loomed over him, her hair a curtain around her face, and placed one hand lightly in the middle of his chest. “Relax, baby,” she purred. “I love you.” As she straddled him, she bent down and kissed him. Just as he began to put the rest of it out of his head and focus just on her, the way her tongue felt and her lips tasted, the cool caress of her hair, the hot touch of her hands, she pulled away and began to kiss her way down his body—his neck, his shoulder, his chest.

  Nerves caught him, and he wrapped his hands around her slender arms. “Faith, wait.”

  She looked up and then leaned forward, returning to let her face hover over his. “It’s okay, Michael. Let me love you this way.”

  “I don’t want…I don’t want to come in your mouth”—a memory hit him—“or all over you. I hated when I did that.”

  Instead of backing off, or getting frustrated, she smiled. “Then don’t come. Hold off until you’re inside me the way you want to come.”

  The combination of her sultry voice and the idea in her words made him groan, and he nodded. He didn’t know how long he could go before he wasn’t in charge anymore, but he took a breath and let go of her arms, and she continued her journey downward.

  Unwilling to see her take him into her mouth, he kept his head on the pillow and his eyes closed. So he jumped a little when he first felt her mouth—that mouth he knew so well, he loved so much, her full, soft lips—on his cock. She kissed his tip, then licked it, flicking her tongue sharply over the sensitive underside until his body was a mass of twitches and spasms. And then she took him deep.

  Oh, Christ, she was good at it. He didn’t want to see her bobbing up and down on him like…like…he couldn’t even think it, but he knew he didn’t want that image of her, so he squeezed his eyes shut. But her tongue moved, and her lips, and she sucked just exactly right, and he could feel the climax charging toward him. Fuck, it was good.

  A thought crawled out of the dark: she must have done this a lot to have become so good. He hated that thought. Hated it with a black violence that frayed his control. Without his permission, his hands grabbed her head, tangling in her hair, and he raised his head and opened his eyes, feeling…feeling…heedless and intense.

  She was looking at him when he opened his eyes, and she lifted up and smiled, her mouth wet. “Okay?” When he didn’t answer, she moved up his body until they were face to face. His hands in her hair followed along. “Michael. Okay?”

  He nodded, though he didn’t know if he was.

  “Can I keep going?”

  He shook his head.

  Her frown was brief and slight, and then she resettled across his hips and reached between her legs to hold him steady. She sat down on him, taking him into her in the way that he really wanted. Then she put her hands around his wrists and pulled his hands from her hair, setting them instead on her breasts.

  This, he could watch—his hands on her breasts, the way her nipples hardened and swelled with this touch, the way her back bowed when his thumbs flicked over the tight points, the muscles in her stomach rolling as she rocked and swiveled her hips on him—all of that he wanted burned into his brain.

  The face she made as she began to come—she wasn’t surprised by it any longer. Now, she saw it approaching, and he cou
ld see it when she did. She bit her lip in concentration, and her attention left him. He loved that, so much, to watch her know that ecstasy was on its way and to go out to meet it. The sight both elevated his own pleasure and gave him the power to hold it off. He could wait forever to be sure she caught her bliss.

  And then he recognized that he wasn’t going to lose control. Not this time. He dropped a hand to her clit and massaged it in tandem with his other hand still on her breast, and she cried out and sped up dramatically, riding him hard. He could feel his finish right there, waiting impatiently, tensing the muscles of his abdomen. But it was waiting. He was always able to get her over before he lost control, but this was different. This was a calm, a lack of fight. He was completely here, in this moment with her, and that was a first. No guilt, no shame, no awkwardness, no watchfulness. No beast.

  He would let her go down on him again. He could get right with that. He could be normal. He felt that now.

  She came, her body tightening to rigidity, squeezing him to the point of pain. While she was still in the throes, he sat up and rolled them over. Taking charge, he adjusted their bodies so he could bend down and take a breast in his mouth as he drove into her, bringing her again to release. This time, she dragged her nails across his back.

  Only then did he let himself complete, and the orgasm was more intense than he’d ever felt before. It sapped him of everything, and when it was finally over, he collapsed bonelessly at Faith’s side.

  “Holy shit, Michael,” she panted. “That was…”

  His face was buried in the pillow, and he didn’t have the energy to move. But he spoke anyway. “Good?”

  “Amazing.” She patted his leg, which was still lying over her. “I love you.”

  He felt pleased and content. “Love you, too.”

  ~oOo~

  They never joined the party. They found the energy for two more goes, though Faith didn’t attempt to give him head again, and he didn’t bring it up. Inside her was the place he really wanted to be, his arms around her, her body around him. When they could simply go no more, they curled up together in the damp sheets and slept.

  It was still dark when they were awakened by the sharp, explosive sounds that Demon knew instantly as automatic gunfire. He leapt out of bed, yanked on his jeans, and shoved his feet into his boots, not bothering to tie them. From a drawer in the small bureau, he grabbed his spare Sig and checked the magazine.

  “Michael!” Faith was still in bed, her eyes wide. They’d fallen asleep without even turning out the light.

  “Stay here. Don’t leave this room until a patch comes for you!” Without waiting for her agreement, he grabbed his kutte off the door and left the room, turning the lock as he closed the door.

  He ran out to the Hall, shrugging his kutte on over his bare chest. It was late—he had no sense of the exact time—and most of the partygoers had left or gone back to the dorm. Only the people who had passed out were still there—and the men, dressed much like Demon, who had come running at the sound of gunfire.

  The gunmen were gone. They’d come in, shot up the Hall and then run. Broken glass was everywhere. Men were moaning; women were crying. Demon focused and tried to make sense. Blood. Glass. The reek of booze.

  Peaches was draped face-first over the bar, dripping blood onto a barstool. One of the girls—Ember, it was Ember, fuck, she’d been around forever—was sprawled on her back near the door, one leg bent oddly behind her.

  P.B. on a leather chair, his head back. What was left of his head.

  A girl with her head in his lap, bleeding into a pool on the front of his jeans.

  Double A, one of the Missouri patches here on loan, was struggling to his feet, his leg bleeding. He’d already been shot in that leg once before, last fall. He was helping Coco up. His jeans were open and his dick out.

  Connor, Hoosier, Sherlock, Lakota, and Trick were all on their feet and armed, in various stages of undress. Lakota was bleeding heavily from a wound in his bicep. Fargo and Keanu were on their feet, too, seemingly unharmed, standing together near the kitchen, looking stunned.

  Hoosier came forward from the front door, his jeans open, his bare chest covered in iron grey hair. He was dangling a large, black rubber rat from his fingers by its tail. The Dirty Rats’ calling card.

  “Prez?” Demon wasn’t sure exactly what to ask.

  “I need a head count, right the fuck now.”

  Demon scanned the carnage, trying to get a bead on anyone he loved unaccounted for. J.R., Diaz, and Muse all had old ladies. They’d probably gone home. Ronin never stayed late. Bart had stayed home all night with his family. Jesse…where was Jesse? And the other Missouri patch—Nolan. He was just a kid. Where was he?

  As if in answer to the question Demon had only thought, Nolan came up from the dorm, barefoot and shirtless, but armed. “What the fuck?”

  And then, in the far corner of the room, Sid, Muse’s old lady, struggled to her feet. Her clothes were soaked with blood.

  “Sid!” Demon leapt forward over the broken glass and senseless bodies until he could grab her. She only stared at him, her eyes blank.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked, shaking her as lightly as his beast would allow.

  She shook her head and looked down, her face shifting into a look like confused despair.

  Muse was on the floor at their feet.

  “FUCK! MUSE!” Demon nearly threw Sid to the side, but he kept enough grip on himself to hand her off to Connor, who’d come up behind them. Then Demon dropped to his knees.

  Muse had been shot in the gut; his shirt was nothing but a pool of red. “Oh, fuck, Muse! Fuck, no!” When Demon pulled him over, he groaned, his eyes fluttering.

  “Sid,” he rasped. “Where’s…”

  That shook Sid from her fugue, and she fell to her knees at Demon’s side. “I’m here. I’m okay. Oh, God. Muse, please be okay.”

  His face was white and shiny, making the dark of his beard stand out in relief. His lips were a terrible shade of grey. But he smiled. “I’m okay, hon. I’m okay.” He groaned again. “Fucking hurts, though.”

  The sound of sirens filled the room, and Demon looked back at his President.

  He waved that fucking rubber toy in the air. “Connor, Sherlock, Trick. Take this piece of shit thing and pay our respects to the Rats. Get out now before our company gets here.”

  Demon stood. “I go, Prez. I go, too.”

  Hoosier shook his head. “Deme, no. This’ll be dirty.”

  He knew. God, he knew. But his best friend was lying at his feet, maybe dying. P.B. was dead. Peaches. They’d come in and shot up their home. His only home. He would be careful and try to stay out of law’s reach, but he couldn’t stay clean, not for this.

  “I go.”

  Hoosier stared at him while the sirens got louder. Then he nodded and threw the rubber rat at him. “Get rid of this thing on your way. I want no link between them and us.”

  “I hear. Faith is back in my room. I told her to stay until a patch got her.”

  Hoosier nodded. “I got her. You guys get lost. Out the back. Grab what you need on the way, but move it right now. And call Ronin in with you. He was out of here early. I’ll track down everybody else. Nolan—you and the Prospects, help our wounded.”

  ~oOo~

  On their way out the back, they grabbed t-shirts and weapons, enough to get them clear of the clubhouse. They rolled out low and dark and followed Connor to their locker at a twenty-four-hour storage place just outside of town. Ronin caught up with them there.

  They moved carpets and boxes until they got to their stash of weapons and explosives, purchased a few months ago, when they made the call to return to the outlaw life.

  Sherlock squatted next to a couple of lockers filled with components for explosives. “I’ve got shit pre-rigged and waiting to be armed. We can blow the fuckers out of the galaxy.”

  “No,” Connor said. “Can’t look like retaliation. That’s a straight line back to the c
lubhouse.”

  “Unless it looks like the same hit.”

  Connor turned to Trick. “Go on.”

  “Can we turn this on the Castillos some way? So law looks their way, thinks they hit us both, but the players know we handled our shit?

  “AKs, then,” Demon said. “Strafe ‘em with AKs, like they did us. And cut the head off that fucking rubber rat, leave it for them. Cartels like cutting off heads.”

  Connor looked around. “Anybody touch that thing without gloves?”

  “Yeah,” Demon said. “Me and Hooj.”

  “Then that’s out.”

  Sherlock grinned. “Not quite.” He reached back for a garbage sack and rooted through it, pulling out a whole sealed bag of rubber rats.