I shrugged. "It was kind of a last minute thing. I haven't known Shane very long."
The brothers exchanged a look that I couldn't interpret. Something was telling me my presence was a serious conundrum they simply couldn't figure out.
"Quit interrogating her," Shane growled as he came back in, Jon in tow. "I knew she'd be fine, and she was. That's it."
Luke raised his hands in a gesture of capitulation. "Hey, I was just curious." He grinned at Shane, a greedy expression on his face. "You owe me five thousand dollars, you know."
Shane's face went hard, his expression shuttered and angry. "Not now, Luke."
"You lost the bet. I expect you to pay up as soon as we get back States-side."
"I said not now, goddamn it."
Something told me this had something to do with me. "Shane? What's he talking about?"
Shane sighed and thumped his head back against the wall. "Thanks a bunch, jackass," he said to Luke. To me, he said, "Things are quiet outside. Let's go talk."
"Tell me now. They obviously know what you're talking about." I crossed the room to stand in front of him.
He took my hands in his, and his eyes shifted to mine and away. "Fine. I'll kill Luke later. Listen, you know how I told you, when we first met, that I'd given up women for a year?"
"Sex, you mean. You gave up sex for a year."
"Yeah. Well, that was because of a bet with Luke. He bet me five grand that I couldn't go without sex for two years." He shrugged. "Since you and I slept together, I lost the bet."
I rolled my eyes. "You told me it was because you were tired of meaningless sex. It was over a bet? That's stupid. Why would you take it? Two years is like...forever. God." I shuddered.
Luke laughed. "That's what I thought, too. Shane's always been a cocky son of a bitch, so I figured I had it in the bag. Turns out I was right."
"But...five thousand dollars? For real?" I couldn't fathom spending that kind of money on something so trivial as a bet. "Do you know how much money that is? You know that could pay off, like, a quarter of my school bill? Or half my car payment?"
Luke waved a hand. "Five grand? It's pigeon shit. That's like pennies to Shane. He makes more than that while he's taking a shit."
"What are you talking about?" Shane's condo had been nice, but not that nice. If he could spend five grand on a bet and his brother considered it 'pennies'...
Shane crossed the room in one bound and had his brother by the throat. "Shut. Up."
Luke didn't struggle. "Okay, fine. Let go, jackass. I said okay."
Shane dropped him and stormed out, not so much as looking at me. I turned to Luke, who was smoothing his shirt, looking startled and not a little confused.
"What was that about, Luke?" I asked.
Rob answered. "Shane's a private guy. If there's things he hasn't told you about himself, he's got a reason." He glared at his youngest brother. "Luke should learn when to shut the fuck up."
Rob stuck the knife he'd been playing with through the entire exchange back in its sheath on his waist.
"Shane's the best of us," Rob said, finally looking at me. "He really is. I like you, Leo. So I'll tell you something for free: you being here, with us, doing this? It's a damned big deal to Shane, even if he made it seem like it's not. It means something."
"Talk about knowing when to shut the fuck up," Luke muttered.
Rob cocked an eyebrow at Luke, an expressive gesture that seemed to be a familial trait. "You say something? I'll break you in half, pretty-boy."
Jon had been silent this entire time, but he spoke up now. "Quit squabbling. Somebody has to go talk to him, you know."
No one looked excited at the prospect. Rob nudged Luke in the shoulder with his elbow.
"Me? He's pissed off at me. If I go I'll just make it worse," Luke said.
I sighed. "You're all pussies. I'll go, then."
The men looked shocked, but didn't stop me as I left the building to find Shane. He was across the street and a few doors down, squatting in the shadows and playing with a clip of bullets. I stood beside him and waited.
"My brother has a big mouth," he said, finally.
"They're good guys. I like them." I moved so I was brushing his shoulder with my thigh. His presence took the edge of my nerves. Being out in the open like this, even at night, worried me. The last few nights had seen nearly as much fighting as the day time, although it was quiet at the moment.
"Both sides have to regroup," Shane said, guessing at the source of my unease. "It'll be quiet for a day or two. We'll move out at first light and get some real rest tomorrow."
I put my back to the closed wooden door and slid down it to sit beside him. His arm went around me, gathered me to his chest. He slid me on his lap as he sat down himself. The silence was oppressive, especially after the endless noise of the last few days.
"What was Luke talking about, Shane?"
"Does it matter? He's a loud mouth. He doesn't know when to keep things to himself."
"If it makes you this upset, then obviously it does matter," I said.
Shane sighed. "I own a couple of medical patents. I invented a few things while I was in the Corps, and it turns out the private medical corporations are willing to pay a fortune for them. I made a business out of it. I set it up to run itself, since I don't really want to bother with it."
"So that jet..."
"That really was my dad's, not mine." He sighed, his breath huffing into my hair. "It's not a big deal. It's just money."
I thought about it. There obviously was more to it, and I suspected there was a lot more to Shane than I'd suspected, but I couldn't very well expect him to just tell me every last thing about himself all at once, could I?
"As long as you're not, like, some secret serial killer or something." I turned my head up to press my lips to his. "I'm here with you. I feel like I can trust you. Your brothers obviously look up to you. Anything else is just details."
Shane shook his head. "You're crazy, you know that? I can't believe you actually came with me. You've got real balls." He thumbed my hair out of my face. "I've known lots of men who couldn't handle what you went through these last few days. I'm proud of you."
I should've been pissed off that he was proud of me, like I was a kid learning a trick or something, but it didn't come across as condescending. And I was proud of myself. It had been hellish, but I was still here, still sane. I'd have nightmares for a while, I suspected, but I could deal with that.
* * *
We spent two days in a little hovel in a village several miles from the city, eating food made by a wizened old black man and his wife, sleeping in scratchy blankets on the floor. After nearly four days of constant hell, it was heaven. On the morning of the third day, Shane woke me early, set me on the back of a donkey loaded with baskets. He walked next to me and clucked the donkey into motion. I decided to go along with it and not ask any questions; surprises could be fun. Besides, if it meant getting away from Shane's brothers and getting some alone time, I was all for it.
We plodded through the heat of the morning, chatting idly, or just traveling in companionable silence. We came to a river near midday and this is where Shane stopped us, unloading a blanket, baskets of food made by our hosts in the village, and a dusty bottle of wine.
"A picnic?" I said. "An actual picnic?"
Shane looked at me like I'd sprouted wings. "What? You've never been on a picnic before?"
I shook my head. "No. Not really. John and I went canoeing once, on the Rifle River. We stopped at a bank and had some cheese and sausage and hot, brackish water. It was awful."
Shane laughed. "Well, then, welcome to your first real picnic."
We found a spot underneath some low-hanging trees, where the heat was less intense. The food was a simple fare, some cured meat that I suspected was goat, as well as goat cheese, vegetables and locally-grown fruit. The wine was dry and warm and potent. It was the best thing I'd ever tasted, right then.
We were in the middle of nowhere, in a way that simply isn't possible in America. The river was wide and fast and deep, rushing noisily. Birds hawed overhead, and across the river was a jungle, rustling with life. The sky was wide and blue and endless. Shane and I might have been the only two people in the world.
When we finished eating, Shane loaded the leftovers back in the baskets and laid down next to me. His eyes fixed on mine, his hand drifted to rest on my stomach; it was a subtle gesture, but enough.
I felt my own need curling in my belly, a desire welling up with me to feel Shane's hand brush my naked skin.
I stood up on the blanket and unbuttoned my shirt, pulled it over my head, and then unbuckled my web belt so I could undo the pants. Fatigues weren't the sexiest clothes I'd ever worn, and there simply wasn't any way to take them off in a seductive manner. Shane's eyes gave away his lust for me, even as he held himself still, watching me disrobe.
Despite our isolated location, there was something exciting and nerve-wracking about taking my clothes off in the middle of the day, outside. When I stood above Shane in panties and a sports bra, I stopped.
"Your turn," I said.
Shane grinned and stood up, peeling off his shirt and pants in record time, and then we were both clutching each other, clad in underwear by the riverbank. His arms were hard and comforting around me, his erection bulging between us. I reached beneath his boxers and touched him, took his cock in my hand and sighed at the feel of him.
He peeled my bra off, kissing my shoulders and then my chest, and then the taut skin next to my erect nipples. He knelt down in front of me and pulled my panties down with two fingers at each hip, touching his mouth to my hips when they were bare. He pushed himself between my legs so I was standing with my feet shoulder-width apart, my hands on his shoulders.
He caressed the globes of my ass with his hands, then whisked his fingers around my hips to spread my thighs apart and covered my damp lower lips with his mouth. I gasped and my knees shook as he dipped his tongue into me, circling my hard, sensitive nub and then flicking it with the tip of his nimble, tireless tongue. He continued to lick my clit as he slipped a finger into me, one at first, grazing my entrance and gliding inside, curling around to touch my walls, then a second.
He probed and licked me until the trembling in my knees grew too much to bear, and then he caught me in his arms and lowered me to the ground. I tangled my fingers in his hair as he put his face back to me and drove me to the edge of orgasm.
I gasped when his finger, moistened with my juices, slipped out of my pussy and searched the stretch of skin behind it until he found my other opening, tight and hard. He brushed it at first, just a teasing touch, slicking it with my own moisture, and then he began to put subtle pressure on it, wiggling his finger until the opening stretched wider, little by little. I moaned at the sensation, feeling the orgasm bending and burgeoning in me. I planted my knees and lifted my hips, giving him better access.
"Do you want me, there?" I said, breathless. "Do you want to take me in the ass?"
Shane looked up at me, still working his finger deeper inside me, centimeter by centimeter. "Yes, but not yet. Not here, not now." He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow. "Do you want me to? Does this feel good?"
I could barely speak past the rising pressure inside me, but I managed to answer. "I like...I like what you're doing. But...I'm not...I'm not sure I could take you. You're so big..."
Shane chuckled as he put his mouth back to my pussy and licked again, slow upward swipes. "You could take me. Eventually. I'd be gentle, and careful."
"I know you would..." I gasped.
Just before the pressure ballooned open inside me, I took his face in my hands and pulled him up to me.
"I want you inside me," I told him. "I need you closer to me."
He lowered himself onto me, supporting himself on his forearms, kissing me. I found his cock with questing fingers and guided him in, savoring the tender slip and slide of his throbbing shaft. He breathed my name as he began a rhythm, pushing into me as slowly as he could. He was trembling with need, his body shaking above me as he controlled his strokes to be barest pressure inside me, infinitesimal nudges further into me and back out.
I held myself still as long as I could, watching him through heavy-lidded eyes. The pressure inside me was building again, having tapered off when I pulled him up to me, but now it rebuilt its momentum; Shane's strokes into me quickened as my breath came in ever more ragged gasps, and then my legs floated up of their own accord to wrap around his flexing buttocks and pull him closer, draw him into me, encouraging him to move deeper. He hadn't gone all the way in, yet, keeping himself shallow and slow.
"Harder now, Shane, please," I whispered to him, unable to summon the breath for louder speech.
"Oh, god, yes," he said, plunging deeper with each syllable, drawing the first vocalized moan from me.
He rolled with me, pulling me on top of him, circling his arms around me. I tried to sit up and lean back, but he thrust deeper every time I moved, going deeper and deeper, and I couldn't keep myself upright. All I could do was collapse my weight onto his chest and roll my hips with his, crush my core against him.
His bulk beneath me, his arms around me, his voice in my ear, speaking my name with something like reverence...I found the weight of fear retreating at his presence, the hard core of built-up terror softening.
I'd cried at the intensity of our lovemaking before, but this time it was different. My climax was a slow build, my tumble over the edge into wild abandon an inevitable fall into familiar comfort. It was like falling backward into a soft bed, the explosions within my body nurtured and furthered by Shane's relentless attention, his hands and teeth at my nipples, his lips on mine, his affection seeming to be everywhere at once and all over me as I came with him. I wept, then, when I felt him release inside me and my own rapture spiraled upward and onward, expanding into something more powerful than mere orgasm, mere physical release of hormones and contraction of muscles.
This was new, this upwelling of intensity within me, a feeling of panic growing inside me. It was all too much, too big. Even the explosion after Shane's teasing and the extended denial of orgasm wasn't like this. I couldn't contain it, couldn't hold it in. There was something spiritual in this, as if my soul had clenched and expanded and coruscated outward to find Shane's own essence and together they braided, tangled and twined into something other.
I felt Shane quaking beneath me, felt his every muscle spasm and his breath panting, felt his heart clamoring in his chest. I felt something else from him, an intangible knowledge that he'd experienced the same thing I had. He was shaken, as was I.
I was limp on top of him, his arms weighty bands across my back.
"Shane? Did you feel that too?"
He nodded his chin into my head. "I don't know what it was..."
The feeling of panic at the enormity of what I'd felt was still coursing through me. I held tight to Shane and breathed through it, but it didn't dissipate. His presence, his strength seemed to foster it, to grow it, even as he merely laid with me and recovered his breath.
I rolled off of him and into his arms, craned my neck to look at his face. His features were contorted in an effort to contain some powerful emotion.
"What is it?" I asked. "What's wrong?"
"It's not what's wrong, it's what's right." He crushed me against him, as if I might disappear and he was determined to prevent it. "I think what just happened, what we just felt, it's...that's what making love is supposed to feel like, but never has before, because it's always been just sex."
"You're scaring me." I didn't want to think about what he was suggesting. It was too much, too soon.
Great sex was one thing. And god, sex with Shane was mind-bending, earth-shaking. He'd given me sexual experiences that I hadn't known were possible, taken me to the farthest edges of ecstasy. That was awesome. And, if I was being totally honest with myself, it was part of the reason I'd come to Afri
ca with him. I'd come because I enjoyed sex with him, and because I needed a change in my life, a drastic upheaval and this was a way to do it. I came because John would have flipped out, and because everyone I knew disapproved. I did it to rebel.
But now, Shane was implying something else, suggesting there was more to our relationship, and Rob had implied something similar. I wasn't commitment-phobic, wasn't afraid of my emotions, but...it was unexpected. Not unwelcome, but surprising. I didn't know what to do with it or how to handle it. I didn't know Shane, not really. I'd only met him two weeks ago.
My emotions towards John hadn't been intense. He'd been familiar, recognizable. Being with John was comfortable. Even when we were arguing, it was familiar, a ritual we'd gone over and over dozens of times in the years we'd been together.
Shane...he was mysterious and powerful, and apparently wealthy in his own right as well as coming from a rich, influential family. He was sweet, and considerate, strong and attentive...
"Shane, I—"
I was cut off by a cell phone ringing. Shane cursed and grabbed his pants and searched his pockets until he came up with a big, blocky cell phone.
I couldn't help but laugh. "How the hell do you get cellular service way out here? We're in the middle of Sudan, for god's sake."
He chuckled. "It's a satellite phone. I get service everywhere."
He sobered when he saw the number on the screen. He answered it. "Yeah? Shit. Okay, yeah. We're on the riverbank, a couple miles east of the village. We'll be ready. Bye."
He had paled, and looked shaken. He began dressing, swiftly and efficiently. He tossed my clothes at me and I began dressing too, worried by the expression on his face.
"What is it? Who was that?"
He gathered the supplies into the baskets and re-hung them on the donkey. I helped him when I was dressed.
"It was my uncle, Geoff. A helicopter is on the way to get us right now." I heard a distant thumping, confirming what he'd said. "My dad had a heart attack."
"Oh my god, Shane...is he...did he—?"
"No, he's alive, but it's not good. They need me back in the States ASAP."
Biker Billionaire #2: The Mile High Club Page 5
