Run (Run Duet #1)

by S. E. Chardou

  “Heavy hitters, huh? Your family doesn’t have mob ties, do they?”

  I laughed out loud. “How would that be possible when my mother is half French Creole and half Irish and unlike you, my father is a hundred percent Irish. Hell, I’ve got more Irish blood running in my veins than you do, you half-Commie bastard.” I glanced over at him and stuck my tongue out at him. “Besides, most of the people in my family are back in Belfast. I have a couple aunts and uncles who live in Omagh but they moved there after the infamous bombing. They’re just hard working, blue-collar people. I’m not gonna lie and say that some of them aren’t as rotten as my dad because they are. They’re ordinary decent criminals—they’ve accepted Northern Ireland will always be part of the UK, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, they sell drugs, participate in human trafficking, et cetera. You can understand why I obviously don’t want to talk about them.”

  “Well, I’ll give you this much—you inherited their sharp fucking tongue. Calling me a half-Commie bastard like I wished for this kind of shit in my life.”

  “Yeah, I know you didn’t wish for any of this but then again, neither did I, Shaw. But it’s the one damn reason that gives you a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Povikov isn’t going to kill you or even harm you but the skanky ass gash you happen to be with who used to strip at his club is fair game. With me, he doesn’t have anything to lose. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time. If they find us—especially in Mexico—I’m dead anyway. I’m just delaying the inevitable, don’t you see?”

  “Fuck, Liv!” He was quiet before he balled a fist and beat the steering wheel. “What do you want from me, huh? Where do you want to go? I thought we agreed on Baja California . . .”

  “That’s the point—we didn’t. I may have agreed at first but the more I think about it, I think we should split up. You take this vehicle and I’ll buy one in Louisiana. That way if we get any more tails on us, you can make it. I’m not the one who’s on parole and at least if you’re alone, the border patrol won’t assume we are Bonnie and Clyde in the making. I’ll meet you there—even if I decide not stay there and want to go somewhere else.”

  “You’d leave me? Just like that?”

  Argh! This man was driving me crazy. Even in that husky, sex-filled voice, I could still hear the same little boy afraid of being abandoned by me more than his own brother.

  “Pull the car to the side—”

  “But New Orleans—”

  “—will still be there when we arrive.”

  Shaw pulled the car over and allowed the engine to idle as he put it in park.

  I reached over and held his hands in my face. “Who ever said I was leaving you? They’re after me—we’ve established that. Two vehicles are better than one, and you know I can take care of myself.”

  He pulled me on his lap and took possession of my lips with is own, his tongue thrusting into my mouth as he ground against my jeans-clad sex with his hard, jeans-clad cock. “How much time are we talking about us being apart?”

  “A week tops. We’ve got our burner phones and you can text me anytime you want.”

  “Why now?” he murmured as he licked my neck’s pulse point before he kissed further down.

  “I’m not sure this car doesn’t have a tracker. I know it didn’t before because my cousin checked it when we were in Brooklyn but we had a tail in Nashville and they could’ve installed something. We’ll never know until we get to New Orleans and have it checked out.”

  Shaw obviously wasn’t listening to me as he somehow managed to pull off my jeans, undo his own and slide them down over his narrow hips.

  “Damn it, I’m serious! Do you really want to be caught on the side of the road in Mississippi fornicating? They’d probably throw us both in jail for lewd acts in public or something.”

  He stared into my eyes, and I swear I’d do anything just to see those crystal blue irises light up. “Does it look like I’m giving any fucks about what I’m about to do, Liv?”

  I shook my head slowly as he ripped my lace thong off and placed me right on his cock where I slid down easily as if I was being impaled. “Damn, give a girl some warning.”

  “I did,” he whispered before he began to thrust inside of me as my hands steadied me by being pushed against the roof of the car. He leaned back in his seat, and pumped inside of me as he rubbed my clit with his thumb. “Fuck, you’re so beautiful and you’d know I’d do anything to keep you, right?”

  I moaned out loud as I gyrated my hips against his thick dick, and kept up with his action due to all my years as an exotic dancer, and a naturally athletic body. Although I wondered how long it would last if he kept up his infamous sex drive with me alone.

  What the fuck was I talking about? I’d Lorena Bobbitt his dick in a heartbeat if he cheated on me so I’d just have to make sure my man was always satisfied all by my lonesome.

  “You don’t plan to leave me, do you?” He still fucked me but he’d slowed his strokes down as he rubbed my clit in a rounded motion that wouldn’t have me last much more longer.

  I rolled my eyes as I looked at the ceiling. “What are you talking about, baby? Where’s my hot alpha male with sexy crystal blue eyes and the most gorgeous cock I have ever seen?”

  He grabbed my chin with several fingers on the hand that wasn’t stroking my clit. “Don’t throw my own words back at me, Liv. I asked you a simple question. You know how many bitches I’ve sworn on the Virgin Mary for? And guess how many fucks I give for lying to them? Zero, just like the Chris Brown song. So don’t try to snow me over.”

  This was the most uncomfortable conversation I’d had in a long time. Mostly because his unsheathed cock was inside me, and he stroked my clit at the same pace as he fucked me. I was so close but he’d purposely slowed down. We were wasting too much time on the side of the road in a Bumfuck state I really didn’t wanna get caught fucking my boyfriend on the side of the road.

  “No, sweetie,” I began as I devoured his lips and slipped my tongue easily in his mouth as he took over. His passion was like being too close to a lit flame. It was hot, all-consuming, and eventually it would sweep me into its inferno.

  I knew what he was afraid of: karma. He’d screwed with so many women’s heads over the years, since he was fourteen, he thought I might do the same thing he’d done to all those broken hearts left in his wake.

  Unfortunately, I wasn’t that type of woman. I had my own secrets and to be honest, that’s why I needed us to get away from Boston and Povikov as quickly as possible. Sure, I’d saved my vaginal virginity for him but you couldn’t work in an exotic club and not have clients that offered more than most people made in a month for something extra. So I took the money and didn’t feel bad about it. But if Povikov told him about all the shit he had on me, would he still feel the same about his sweet, perfect Liv?

  Of course not. Like so many men, he was a misogynist. It didn’t matter that he’d fucked enough women to fill a football stadium but I was his precious Madonna—the closest you could get to Mary, Mother of God. He’d be sickened by what I’d done. We both knew it so answering his question wasn’t quite easy to answer. In the end, he might fuck me over instead.

  Playing my cards close to the chest had nothing to do with whether I’d leave him. I loved Shaw—even for all his fucked-upness, he was mine. His kisses were like poetry and the way he handled my body was like a symphony. Why would I want to leave him? Ever?

  “Liv?” he asked again but I took over and began slide up and down his shaft as if I was half-mad. I had to fucking come and he was delaying the evitable and adding time it would take for us to get to New Orleans.

  It wasn’t a simple question; the real one he wanted to ask me was could he handle the fact that in some ways, I’d been as big of a whore as he had been? Where his was accepted, mine wasn’t. Would he glance at me with those clear blue eyes, disgust in his face and feel like he’d taken the chance that his dick might fall off after fucking me bare?

 
Don’t get it twisted, I always used protection and I’d had my annual gynecologist appointment after I quit Povikov’s club the day before I graduated from Boston University. I’d made enough and could support myself until I decided what I wanted to do with my life.

  Povikov would love to open his mouth and tell him about the whore he was shacked up with, how I was lower than nothing, and he could get a woman just as beautiful—if not more—for him from the mother country and she would be a certified virgin. They could make their babies, eat caviar, and drink expensive champagne while Shaw climbed the ranks in his father’s organization.

  “Where are you?”

  I glanced down at Shaw and gyrated against him with a small smile. “I’m here, baby. I’ve been here the whole time.”

  He stared into my eyes as he brought me to a much-needed orgasm. My kegel muscles squeezed around his dick and he flooded me with his own cum as he thrust into me several more times.

  Shaw leaned over into the backseat as I maneuvered myself off his lap, and sat back down in my own seat while cupping my sex. Otherwise, I’d have a mess on the leather seat that was currently being collected in my hands. He grabbed the shirt he’d worn earlier that day and gave it to me. I placed it between my thighs, grabbed the jumbo pack of baby wipes I’d bought in Nashville at a quick trip to the grocery store and handed him one while I used several to clean my hand and my vagina.

  Afterwards, I slipped back into my jeans—sans panties—and arranged them until I was comfortable in them.

  Shaw handed me his wet wipe. I grabbed it and rolled down the window, throwing them out of the car.

  “You shouldn’t litter,” he said to me though he sounded anywhere but here.

  “Yeah, I know but I’m not going to hold on to our bodily fluids in soiled baby wipes until we get to a gas station and there’s no designated garbage bag.” I chanced a turn toward him but he’d lit a Camel, and had begun driving again on the highway, his current speed seventy and climbing. “Fine, I’ll donate some money to this stretch of the highway or to the highway patrol in this great state of Mississippi.”

  Shaw dragged on his cigarette, exhaled moments later and glared at me. “You know, you’re not that great of a liar, baby. Stick to what you’re good at.”

  What the fuck was that supposed to mean? I wouldn’t dignify him with a response as I folded my arms against my chest. Regardless what happened between us it was going to be a long ride the rest of the way to New Orleans.

  I didn’t want to think about the silence that could have been cut with a knife the rest of our trip to New Orleans.

  Liv wasn’t that huge of an enigma to me—I’d changed her diaper when I was three and she was two for God’s sake. I also knew the usual suspects when she was trying to keep something from me.

  For two years while I was at Walpole, I had no idea she was strippin’ to make ends meet. Usually her own conscious wore down on her and she ended up tellin’ me what I wanted to know but that wasn’t the point.

  This time, she was scared.

  Of what, though?

  She must have thought I was an idiot. I had been to enough strip clubs, including the one she’d formally been employed by. It was one of the reasons why I was so angry when I found out she worked there, I knocked out an Aryan Guerilla Brotherhood guy and almost started a race riot since the Black American Legion and the United Mayan Nation joined in. Not only that but the Russians and the Irish—who refused to belong to the Aryans despite being white due to protection they mostly received by the amount of Irish-American guards while the Russians paid off the guards to keep others away from the Bratva. No one would have fucked with the Russians in Walpole anyway; the moment an inmate saw those two stars on their backs, they usually turned and walked the opposite direction. I had to earn my two by beating the Aryan to death that resulted in me spending a week in solitary confinement.

  The man I’d always thought was my father patted me on my back. “You’re part of the two most powerful groups in prison, son. Use it to your benefit.”

  “Did Mom . . . ever tell you?”

  He laughed out loud as he dragged on a cigarette. We walked the yard, just the two of us. “Fuck no. Povikov called me . . . it was one of the rare times I was out of prison for more than eighteen months. I was so angry I blew up one of his Russian clubs. There were a couple of casualties but he made me pay. A few days later, I was pulled over by the cops and they found a kilo of cocaine in my car. Weren’t mine—I didn’t have that kind of money and The Baker never trusted me after three strikes at Walpole. Didn’t matter. Still got twenty years to life with eligibility for parole in 2020.”

  I could still remember that conversation like it was yesterday. The same as the visit I received from my real father the day I was released from Walpole.

  “What do you plan on doing now? You can go back to slingin’ small quantities of dope like the niggers and the rest of those lousy, downtrodden micks you hang with or . . . you can move up in my organization. You’ve got your stars, you’re my son—I want you to have the life that the rest of my family lives. But . . . you have to get rid of that whore.” Povikov glanced at me with cold, icy blue-gray eyes.

  “Liv isn’t a whore, Papa—”

  “Do you want to see the footage, son? Of her naked with your brothers—one with a cock in her ass while the other she sucks off. Hell I even fucked her in the ass since she refused to give up her vaginal virginity. She said it was someone special. Not that I give a shit . . . a hole is a hole. She is not wife material—”

  “Listen, she did what she had to do and I’m the last one to judge her. I’ve fucked so many women it’s disgusting. She always stood by my side because she knew how much I loved her. More than any woman I have ever been with. Papa, I’m in love with her—if anyone is better, it’s her. She’s superior to me in every way I can think of. She has a degree from Boston University and now, she’s being pursued by high profile companies. She could never be on my level. Not even if she gave a million blowjobs and let you all pull a train on her ass. I won’t give her up for anything, not even to have all the money and power of ‘officially’ becoming a Povikov. Take it or leave it, Pops.”

  Though I should have been afraid of this man, I wasn’t. For all his talk about micks and niggers, his mistress was a well-dressed, drop-dead gorgeous mixed woman who acted as his “liaison.” She was half-Russian through her mother’s side and half-British of Jamaican descent on her dad’s side. He couldn’t imagine what she had gone through growing up in Russia but Povikov had saved her. They had two children together though both were under the age of ten and he kept her well taken care though out of sight if Yelena was anywhere near.

  Povikov had confessed to me that he loved my mother very much and even tried to get her to run away with him. He was so love drunk by her he would have said anything. However, my mother being the proud Irish woman she was wouldn’t even entertain a proposal to a man by the likes of him. She looked right through him, and still ended up marrying the man I would think was my father for most of my life.

  If that was the conflict Liv was worried about—and I’d bet dollars to donuts that was what had her all on edge and bothered—then she had nothing to fear.

  I had been in love with the woman since I was old enough to know what love was. There was no one else for me. If she’d ended up a crack whore or hooked on Oxy, I would have still been with her because her body was just a shell of a soul that was pure, honest, and good. She had my heart wrapped in her hands for so long, I’d stopped remembering when it beat just to keep me alive. Now it beat for her, and I would do anything I had to do if it meant I’d never lose her.

  We arrived in New Orleans late in the evening, too late to do anything but check into La Pavillon Hotel in the French quarter, peel our clothes off and go to sleep. I slept in the buff and so did Liv. She hadn’t really spoken to me except in yes and no answers for the past four hours. This shit had to end now.

  “What’s going
on with you? I mean one minute you’re fine and the next, I feel like I’m fuckin’ persona non grata here. Did I do something?”

  She turned toward me in bed. It wasn’t completely dark from all the people still having fun outside while we’d curled up like a couple of old biddies who’d decided ten o’clock was a great time to go to sleep.

  “Everything doesn’t have to do with you, Shaw. I’m just thinkin’, that’s all. I made it this far and I just might lose everything before we get to our destination. You know how heartbreaking that would be for me?”

  His crystal blue eyes seemed to glow as they stared into mine. “Yeah, I do but we can’t keep doin’ this to one another. Let’s not allow communication—or lack of—tear us apart. I want to know what you’re thinkin’ about. If it’s got anything to do with what you did at Povikov’s high-end meat market, just forget it. He told me the day I got out of prison that I could work for the family but I would have to dump you.”

  Her breath hitched before she started breathing faster, riding the edge of a panic attack that would no doubt seize her at any moment. “Surely . . . he didn’t . . . he didn’t tell you . . . everything. You wouldn’t be here. I know you, Shaw.”

  I grabbed her wrists and pulled her toward me. “No, you only think you do. And yes, he told me everything. The anal sex, the trains, pretty much how he humiliated and degraded you along with his kids to prove you were a whore and not capable of my love and affection.”

  I sighed and let go of her wrists before I wrapped my arms around her body. “Liv, they could have done all that and more yet do you see me goin’ anywhere? If it makes you feel better, I’m not big on anal sex. Not with a man or a woman. I like my sex simple. Eating you out, you giving me a blowjob and fucking your sweet, tight pussy. I might slip a couple of fingers up your ass but it’s not really a place I want my dick to enter.”

  She kissed my nose, “And why is that, Mr. Shaughnessy—or have you changed your last name to Povikov?”