Shakedown

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  One second I was in my seat with all of my clothes on, and the next I was pantless, on his side of the car, and Bruno’s cock was out and between us.

  I blinked at the speed in which he’d divested me of my clothes, then couldn’t help the small smile that tilted up the corner of my lip at the need I saw written all over his face.

  “You’re sure about the no-condom thing?” he asked, his massive hand wrapping around his impressive cock and squeezing.

  He squeezed it so hard, in fact, that I winced.

  The tip of his cock turned an angry purple color, and I caught his wrist up in mine and yanked his hand off of his poor abused penis.

  “Be nice to it,” I ordered jokingly. “I want to be able to use it.”

  The car slowed, and I had a moment of ‘oh shit’ but saw that a small possum had entered the roadway we’d been driving alone on for an hour.

  Once the possum moved, the car sped back up.

  When I turned around, it was to see Bruno’s eyes wide and him shaking his head.

  “We should really…”

  I was thankful I was a small girl.

  Mostly because before he could say ‘we should stop’ I was moving forward and placing his cock at my entrance.

  Between his finished sentence of ‘should’ and then ‘stop’ I had him sheathed inside of me.

  He hissed out a breath, his eyes closing and his hands going to either side of my hips and clenching slightly.

  I groaned at the feeling of utter fullness.

  “You feel like…” I couldn’t find the correct word for what I was feeling.

  “Mine,” Bruno finished for me, his eyes opening to blaze out at me. “You feel like mine.”

  Then he started to pull me down onto him.

  Over and over until I wasn’t sure where we were, what I was doing, or what I was feeling.

  I’d never, not ever, thought that sex could be like this.

  So mind-numbingly perfect.

  So life changing.

  So… everything.

  There just weren’t enough words in the English language that could reveal everything that I was feeling in that second.

  Or, if there were, I just couldn’t articulate them.

  So I stayed silent, kept my eyes closed, and rode Bruno like my favorite horse.

  Over and over he filled and emptied me. My thighs were screaming, I was fairly sure that I was going to have a permanent imprint of the window button on my shin, and I couldn’t catch a full breath.

  But the things that were happening inside of me? Well, it felt like dying might just be worth it.

  Even the sound of the police siren couldn’t stop the orgasm that slammed through me.

  I threw my head back and cried out, my entire being feeling like it was launched into space.

  My fingers clenched on Bruno’s shoulders, nails digging in helplessly, as my orgasm claimed me.

  Or maybe it was Bruno’s orgasm. I mean, technically, I wouldn’t be having an orgasm at all without him.

  So yeah, I was going to give credit where credit was due.

  A series of grunts left Bruno’s lips, and I knew that he’d followed right behind me.

  It was only as I was opening my eyes to stare into Bruno’s clenched shut ones that I realized that the police siren I’d heard earlier hadn’t been a figment of my imagination after all.

  Mostly because when I looked out my window, there was a police car with lights on right next to said window.

  Oh, and we were stopped.

  At some point, Bruno had pulled us over, not the car.

  And the police officer in his police cruiser was looking at us like he was gobsmacked.

  As if he’d never walked up on two people fucking in a car before.

  I turned away from the police officer who was now getting out of his cruiser, and then looked seriously at Bruno.

  There was a knock at our window, and I couldn’t stop myself from throwing my body into his arms.

  He caught me with a grunt.

  “Hey, B?” I whispered against his throat.

  “Yeah?” he all but croaked.

  “What do you think of self-driving cars now?” I asked cheekily.

  He paused, his hand halfway up the length of my spine, and said, “I’m sold.”

  CHAPTER 19

  A good way to get out of a conversation is to take off one of your socks and hand it to them.

  -Introvert’s guide to survival

  BELLE

  We ended up in Reno, Nevada.

  I wasn’t sure what was here, but the city itself ended up being rather nice.

  After dealing with the cop who chose to find humor in the situation instead of getting pissed and giving us a ticket, we drove on.

  This time, Bruno drove the rest of the way and didn’t do the autopilot thing at all.

  When we arrived at the house, the first thing Bruno did was stretch an extension cord out to the car and plug ‘the bastard’ in.

  While he did that, I went to the nearest coffee shop that was a hop and a skip away from our rental, called Hunt, and allowed him to take control of my computer and send out everything I needed sent out.

  “All done,” Hunt said. “Now, tell me more about you and Bruno.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Bruno and I are Bruno and I.” I paused when I watched the man in question walk into the coffee shop. “Gotta go. Thanks for sending that info for me.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t thank me too much. I’m going to read the one about the highlander. It looked really good, and I’ve always liked time travel books.”

  Before I could tell him that he couldn’t, he hung up, leaving me rolling my eyes as Bruno walked up.

  “What’s that look for?” he asked curiously.

  “Hunt just told me his fee for sending my books for me was him getting to read one about a highlander. The only problem is that I’ve signed a contract that expressly prohibits me from sharing any information about it, the book itself, or anything related to the book. This is a big contract with a publisher, so it’s making me a little antsy,” I told him.

  He took a seat and then gestured toward my laptop.

  “I had an idea when you were walking here. Do you mind if I use that?” he asked.

  I pushed it toward him and watched as he once again called Hunt back and asked him to get him a secure connection.

  He did and Bruno was off.

  “So I was thinking while you were taking a nap earlier, about the man in the van. The first van that I interacted with,” he murmured. “And it was when you were walking away that I finally figured out the connection to the man. He’s the spitting fucking image.”

  I had no clue what he was talking about.

  At least, I didn’t until he turned the computer to show me.

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “That’s the governor,” I said stupidly.

  Bruno winced. “I know.”

  My mouth fell open. “Are you trying to tell me that the governor of the damn state has something to do with this child trafficking ring?”

  Bruno looked sick to his stomach as he pulled out his phone.

  “Hunt,” he said into the silence. “Look at the computer. Tell me what you think of it.”

  There was a long pause and then Bruno said, “The man that was driving the first van that got away. Looked like an older version of this guy.”

  “He was on the television at the gas pump this morning,” I murmured as I thought back to how Bruno would’ve come up with this correlation between the two men. “The governor. He’s running for reelection.”

  A grim look crossed Bruno’s face. “We know.”

  I shivered at the look on his face.

  He wasn’t very happy with that fact, either.

  Stomach tumbling, I gathered up my coffee and pastry, no longer having an appetite whatsoever, and walked toward the trash can.

  I smiled at the young barista when she noticed me throwing away my food.
“It’s not you. It’s me. I thought that I wanted a pastry and coffee, but my stomach is all nerves.” I looked over my shoulder at Bruno.

  The barista looked in the same direction, and she drew in a deep breath.

  “Where did he come from?” she whispered. “Wowza.”

  I wondered how she could miss a man the size of Bruno coming in the door. But then I got to thinking about how it was likely nobody was as aware of the man like I was.

  If Bruno didn’t want to be seen, he wasn’t.

  I’d noticed it with other people, too.

  Like today with the gas station attendant. He must’ve missed Bruno coming inside, because when we were checking out, Bruno had walked up and placed his stuff on the counter. As he did, the attendant had reached for something under the counter as if he thought he might need it.

  “He walked in the door like I did about twenty minutes behind me,” I told her, not trying to sound pissy but coming off that way anyway.

  The barista’s eyes came to me, and she winced. “He your man?”

  I stared her down as the words came from my lips. “Of course, he’s my man. Who else’s would he be?”

  I meant it as ‘there was nobody else in the damn building’ not ‘nobody else could handle him but me.’

  She could take it whatever way she wanted.

  I didn’t care.

  Turning my back on her, I headed back to the table where Bruno was now sitting and staring at me as I walked back toward him.

  I frowned. “What?”

  He shook his head, gathered up the computer, then jerked his chin toward the side door that led out into the back patio area.

  “Let’s go that way,” he said. “I don’t want to be predictable and come out the front way just in case.”

  We would have to jump over the short fence, I’d learned.

  How did I learn that?

  When we got back there, Bruno handed me the computer and then easily hopped it to the other side.

  Then, without a strain or a grunt leaving his lips, he wrapped his massive hands around my waist, his fingertips nearly spanning me from back to front, and then lifted me.

  I went up, had a sense of ‘I’m flying’ and was put down just as fast.

  I blinked at him, a smile forming on my face.

  “Do you think you can lift me up again?” I asked him.

  He frowned. “Yeah.”

  I placed the computer onto the coffee table, then lifted my arms in the universal sign of ‘lift me up.’

  He did, again not even straining, and hoisted me up in the air as if I weighed no more than a feather.

  “Now what?” he asked curiously.

  “Now spin me!” I snickered.

  He rolled his eyes, but ultimately did what I wanted for a few seconds before placing me back down onto my feet.

  I hit with a thud, laughing the whole way down.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I haven’t been picked up like that since Daniella came along.”

  “Daniella?” he asked.

  I tilted my head. “My sister. You don’t know everything about me?”

  He shrugged. “I had no reason to know everything about you. So I’m assuming she’s your younger sister.”

  “You would assume correctly,” I confirmed. “There’s Bourne and Booth,” I took his hand in mine as we started walking. “They’re twins. Then there’s Priscilla. Garrett, Heath. Me. Then Daniella, the baby. There was another pregnancy between Priscilla and Heath, then me and Daniella, but my mom miscarried.”

  “That sucks,” he grumbled, his hand squeezing mine lightly as he steered us toward the house he’d rented.

  The place where it was located was downright cute. The neighborhood was nice, clean and tidy. The shops matched the cute houses.

  And there was quite a bit of pedestrian life/foot traffic, making it a quaint little area of Reno.

  I had a feeling that Bruno knew exactly what he was getting when he came here, too.

  “It sucks,” I confirmed. “But it’s also life. When my mom delivered my little sister, there was a moment in time where they considered more kids. But then my mom got a uterine infection after the birth, and they suggested having a full hysterectomy.”

  “That really fuckin’ sucks,” he said. “How many more would they have had had that not happened?” He paused. “You’re all Catholic? Don’t believe in birth control?”

  He looked at me accusingly.

  “We are. And, yes, I’m on birth control. I-I don’t know. I just… I don’t want kids before it’s time. I’ll welcome all that I can have once the time comes, but I want to make sure that it’s the right time. If that makes any sense whatsoever?” I blabbered.

  His lips twitched. “When I was in prison, I shared a cell with a man that had seventeen kids, all with the same woman. They had each one naturally. All single births. In between kid fourteen and fifteen, he’d lost his job. Between sixteen and seventeen, his eldest tried to rob a liquor store because they couldn’t feed them all. Old man took the hit to save the kid from that life. They made it two and a half years without having any kids—the biggest gap between any kids. The moment that he was out, he got her pregnant with the eighteenth.”

  “Wow,” I paused. “That’s a lot of kids.”

  He snorted. “Shit ton of them. They had to break them up into groups to come visit him at the prison. He got out, got another job, and he’s been keeping his nose clean, having more kids, every time I check on him.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why do I get the feeling that you’ve kept an eye on him on purpose?”

  “Because I offered his two eldest kids a job the moment I was out and able to do so. They both work at the strip club in Kilgore that Lynn owns,” he explained. “He’s a good guy. All of his kids are, too.”

  “These kids you offered jobs. Were they girl kids or boy kids?” I wondered.

  He burst out laughing. “Both big, strapping boys. Boys that can protect the girls that work there. They keep the place in line now that I’m not making it in as much as I used to.”

  “Why aren’t you?” I asked curiously.

  At this point he was leading us up the stairs to the rental.

  Before he answered, he walked inside, pointed to a spot on the floor, and said, “Stay there. I’ll be back.”

  I stayed, wondering what he would do if I’d moved.

  I decided to try that particular move when it wasn’t my life that was on the line.

  When he got back a few minutes later he answered with, “I’m not there because I’m doing more work with Lynn. Illegal work that I try to keep out of the legal establishments.”

  I tilted my head and stared at him curiously. “What kind of illegal work?”

  He looked at me thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Your dad is a cop.”

  My brows rose. “Yeah.”

  “Your brothers are cops,” he continued.

  I rolled my eyes. “So that means that you don’t want to tell me because you think that I might snitch?”

  He sighed. “I don’t want to put you into a position where you might have to. If you know what I do, or don’t do for that matter, then you won’t have to tell someone—like your dad, or that Jarome guy. Or Dremmel—that I was or wasn’t bad. You wouldn’t have to give me an alibi knowing that I did something illegal to require it.”

  “This time you didn’t do anything illegal,” I pointed out.

  “No,” he agreed. “But next time? When I beat the shit out of some meth head because he has some information I might need that would advance a case I’m looking into, I don’t want you to have to experience that.”

  “Does that happen often?” I wondered.

  He gestured for me to head with him to the kitchen, then walked to the fridge where he pulled a set of menus from beneath a rather large ‘I LOVE NEW YORK’ magnet.

  “Italian, Mexican, American, or Chinese?” he asked.

  “Mexican,” I answered instantly. “Unless it has
less than four and a half stars. Then Italian.”

  He looked at me curiously. “How would I know if it has less than four and a half stars?”

  I grabbed my phone out of the purse that he’d so graciously brought in for me, disregarded the multitude of text messages from various people, and then went to my search app.

  “What’s the name of the place?” I asked.

  He read it off to me, then tossed the menu on the counter before hoisting himself up to wait for me to give him my verdict.

  “They have really good ratings,” I said. “Except for one recently from a mother who was asked to leave because her child was being loud.”

  Bruno snorted. “What’s wrong with that?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nothing. Unless you want to piss off every single household that has children. I mean, it’s not like she can choose whether or not her kid stays quiet while out to eat.”

  Bruno rolled his eyes. “Or, it could make all us childless people who hate going out to restaurants with screaming kids happier. I know that I’d pay more money to go to an establishment that doesn’t allow screaming kids to be there.”

  I snorted. “Do you not like kids?”

  “I like some kids.” He hesitated. “And I’m sure that I’ll like my own.”

  “You’re sure you’ll like your own.” I grinned with amusement. “Yeah, but what happens if you don’t?”

  “Then I guess I’d have to get used to them, because they wouldn’t be going anywhere.” He shrugged. “Yes or no on the Mexican food?”

  “Yes,” I said as I walked toward him, reaching for the menu that was next to his thigh.

  His very hard, very large thigh that he had one hand resting on as he leaned back against the cabinets behind him.

  I licked my lips as I pulled the paper closer to me, causing him to growl.

  I glanced up at him. “What?”

  He pulled me close until I was between his splayed thighs.

  “When you bite your lip, it makes me want to do it, too,” he grumbled.

  I smiled as I glanced down at the menu.

  “I want two chicken enchiladas with sour cream sauce, rice and beans. White queso. Chips and hot sauce. Oh, and an order of flour tortillas.” I paused. “And whatever kind of dessert they have.”