Dirty Deeds

by Lauren Landish

Her voice is a whisper, but there’s steel in it, her bravery shining through, even in the face of a problem she never imagined she’d face. “Shane? What are we going to do?”

  I squeeze her tighter and kiss her temple softly. “Right now, we’re going to sleep. We’ll figure out the next step this afternoon.”

  She sighs softly, and in moments, I feel her relax, drifting to sleep. I lie awake, though, mentally running through every scenario, every possible outcome, the risks of each making me tense.

  We’re going to have to trust someone, but if we choose wrong, it’ll likely be the death of both of us.

  Chapter 17

  Maggie

  In what’s starting to feel habitual, I wake up curled against Shane’s side, my leg slung over his and my head nestled on his chest and shoulder. It feels right, comfortable. Safe. I snuggle in deeper, and he stirs, pulling me tight and lifting my hand to his mouth to lightly kiss my fingertips. “Morning, Angel. Well, evening, I guess.”

  I lower my hand to rub his chest. “What are we thinking today? Drive all night, eat crap food, and then sexercise ourselves to sleep?”

  Shane cups my chin in his hand, lifting it toward him. “Sounds like fun, but we’ll have to see. First, a kiss. Second, we need to hit the road. We slept in, so just a kiss.”

  He winks at me. I know a kiss between us could easily turn passionate and keep us in this bed all night, but we likely do need to get a move on. I don’t know if Shane’s burner phone could be tracked, but sitting around probably isn’t the best idea.

  I scoot up the bed slightly to reach him with puckered lips, but he pulls me astride him in one quick swoop instead. I gasp, laughing a little. “Whoa . . . hey! You said a quick kiss.”

  My center brushes against his washboard abs, and I can’t help but circle my hips a little, the warm prodding of his morning wood standing proud behind me giving me naughty thoughts, even if it is late afternoon. “This does not feel like a quick kiss.”

  Shane mock-growls, pressing his hips up into me and adding to the sensation as his stiffy nestles between my cheeks and we both hum happily. “I didn’t say quick. I said a kiss.”

  He’s teasing, but the gravel in his voice sends jolts to my core. I swirl my hips again, letting him feel the heat and wetness he’s building in me, and the tingle runs up my body to make me whimper. Shane grabs behind my neck, pulling me down to meet his mouth in a punishing kiss, his tongue licking along the seam of my lips, demanding entry.

  With a moan, I grant him access, twisting my tongue with his, needing more. Forget the time. Forget the miles we need to roll. Fifty miles or whatever aren’t going to make a huge difference. What is going to make a difference is the huge hardness pressing against my butt that I need inside me again. I lift my hips, trying to impale myself on his dick, but he stills my movements with strong hands on my thighs.

  Breaking our kiss, he looks up, his chest heaving in the space between us. “Fuck, Angel. You’re killing me. We really do need to leave. Tonight, I promise.”

  I whimper, hips pumping in the air as I try to push back. I can nearly feel the heat of his head against my lips. “We can be fast.”

  His dick jumps at my words, the tip touching my soaked lips, and we both groan. “Shane.”

  I’m pleading, something I would swear I’d never do, but right now, I need him filling me more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  With a growled curse, he pulls me down hard, sliding into my wet core easily and pumping fast and deep. “You want my cock, Maggie?” he asks in between each hard thrust. “We’re in fucking danger. You get that, right? But all you want is my cock, isn’t it?”

  I throw my head back, my nails digging into his chest leaving little half-moons where I grab for purchase. I drop my hips in time with him, our bodies meeting in slaps that shake me to the very center of my body. “God, yes. Shane, fill me up. I want it.”

  I want it . . . and I want so much more. I know we’re not being logical, and I’m normally a very safe girl.

  But any concerns I might have are obliterated as Shane smacks my ass hard, the sound ringing out in the quiet room. “Such a bad girl. I said a kiss and look what you’ve done to me, Angel. I can’t help but give you everything you want.”

  I cry out, the thickness inside me and the heat on my ass getting me so close to the edge. “I love being bad. With you. For you. You just feel so good inside me . . .”

  The honesty in my words make Shane surge even harder, thicker. He thrusts powerfully, slamming deep in my core and I cry out. “Ahhh . . . Yesss . . .”

  Shane groans. “That’s it. Show me how your good girl pussy can take me like a bad girl. My bad girl.”

  It doesn’t take long, my cries mixing with Shane’s continued dirty words until I scream, clamping down around his hips. “I’m coming . . . God . . . Shane!”

  Shane jackhammers into me, holding my hips still and forcing me to take his punishing thrusts as I spasm in his hands, the waves washing over me. “That’s right, come on my cock. Squeeze that tight pussy and milk me. I’ll give you everything you want.”

  I tense my muscles in time to his strokes, and he groans, losing the rhythm as I feel his hot cum filling me. I take over, slowly rolling my hips up and down to take him, coating him with a mixture of our orgasms and pulling every last drop from him as he shudders. It’s warm, intense, and I feel emotions bubbling up inside me even as I feel the first drop of his cum squeeze out of my pussy to roll back down his shaft.

  I lean forward, pressing our chests together, and Shane surprises me with another smack, to my other cheek this time. I wail in surprise, my muscles clenching against him once more.

  Shane chuckles darkly, his eyes sparkling. “Mmm, I’ll have to remember how tightly you squeeze me when I spank you, but we really do need to go.”

  I grin down at him, happy I got my way and knowing he got his way too. I give him a soft kiss, stroking his face and nodding. “Okay, let me rinse off and we’ll go.”

  He grabs a handful of my mess of hair. “Oh, no, Angel. Bad girls don’t have time to take a shower. You’re gonna ride in that car all night, feeling me between your legs, knowing that cum you so desperately wanted is deep inside you. That you’re marked by me.”

  He runs his thumb along my neck, and though I haven’t looked in a mirror since our session last night, I can feel that there’s a heck of a hickie glowing on the pale skin there. It makes me tingly inside, proud that he wanted such a visible sign of what we did.

  I smirk, running my fingertips along the claw marks on his chest, knowing I’m not the only one marked. “All right, Bad Boy. But then that goes for you too. You’re gonna have my scent all over you tonight too.”

  He grins, wiggling his hips and sending another little tingle through me. “Maggie, I would happily smell like your sugar anytime you’ll let me.”

  The sweetness of the moment is short-lived because as we head out to the car in the golden setting light, I see a familiar face heading our way. Pulling hard on Shane’s hand, I point. “Shane, that’s the hitman.”

  Shane follows my finger, seeing the large guy who has already spotted us. We duck and try to make our way through the cars in the lot, shuffle-running toward ours as fast as we can.

  No luck, though, as the window in the car next to us shatters violently. “Get down!” Shane yells, shoving me to the ground. The rough pebbles bite against my palms and against my cheek, but that’s nothing compared to the fright racing through my body as I scramble behind a tire, hoping I’ve got enough to protect me.

  Seeing that I’m listening, Shane pulls a gun out of his waistband at his back. What the ‘fridgerator? I didn’t even know he had a gun! Has he been carrying that thing this entire time and I just didn’t notice?

  Popping his head up from between the cars, Shane aims toward the hitman and fires, his shot much louder than the first. Shane fires off three more shots and I hear glass breaking again. “C’mon!” Shane growls, grabbing my hand and pul
ling me up, placing it on his waistband at his back, right where the gun had been.

  He starts to walk carefully but quickly, leading me toward our silver sedan as his head stays on a swivel, scanning in the direction of where he shot. Pffzt . . . pffzt . . . two shots whizz by us from behind, more air whooshing than a bang, and somewhere in my head, I realize the hitman has a silencer on his gun while Shane’s is ringing loudly as he fires back again.

  We sprint, reaching the car in a second that feels like an eternity. Shane yanks the passenger door open and shoves me in, still looking for the hitman. “Stay down.”

  It’s silent for a few seconds that feels like forever, until the driver’s door opens and I see Shane again. I start to sit up when I hear the pffzt sound once again and Shane grunts. “Fuckfuckfuck.”

  “What happened?” I ask, but Shane just slams his door, jamming the keys in the ignition before peeling out.

  From the floorboard, I stare at Shane, who seems angry, but in control, nowhere near the basketcase-in-shock that I currently am. “Shane?”

  His eyes cut from the rearview mirror to the road in front of him twice more before he looks down at me. “You okay? Are you hit?”

  I shake my head, wanting to get up but afraid to move from my protected little hole. “No. I’m okay, but what—”

  He takes a turn fast, throwing me toward the door, and then another, throwing me forward into the seat, where I plant my hands. His eyes flick their circle again, rearview mirror, front windshield, then me. “You can get in your seat now. Buckle up.”

  I quickly do as he says, immediately looking out the side mirror behind us. “Is he following us?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not right now, at least. But we need to ditch this car.”

  I’ve been undercover for stories before and have experienced a lot of stuff, but nothing like this. I feel like I’m in a freakin’ action movie, like somewhere along the way, I got mixed up in something way above my pay grade. But I refuse to be the too stupid to live girl who always ends up dead or causing the hero to die because she’s running around like a chicken with her head cut off, panicking at every turn.

  I take a deep breath, letting my brain click into the reality my life has become. On the run from the mob, with a hitman chasing us down. Heck, I think I’ve even seen this movie before. The joke falls flat, even in my own brain. With another breath, I realize . . . okay, I can do this.

  “Ditch the car? That means we need another one. Do you happen to have another one hidden around here?”

  I say it without humor, totally serious and honestly curious considering I don’t know how well-prepared Shane was for all this, but Shane laughs bitterly. “No. Don’t have another handily stashed unfortunately.”

  “Okay, we need a shopping center,” I reply, thinking quickly back to a stakeout I did once for a story. “An old one where the security won’t have been updated. We can steal a car from the lot and not be caught on camera.”

  Shane looks at me, lifting an eyebrow. “Done this before, have you? Got a juvenile record you don’t like to tell people about?”

  “No, but it stands to reason,” I reply, trying to sound nonchalant about it. I look up and down the streets around us. We’re not on the highway but close enough that there are plenty of little strip malls nearby. “There. Turn around.”

  Shane hangs a U-ey in the street, turning where I indicate, and we pull into the parking lot of a strip mall that looks like it might be on its last legs. There’s a bail bonds shop, a Greyhound bus station, a tattoo parlor, a pizza delivery place, and four empty storefronts that look like gaps in teeth. Down the street, I see a newer, fancier looking mall that’s probably the reason for this mall’s downfall.

  He drives across the back row, parking the sedan and turning to me. “Okay, the blue truck beside you,” he says, nodding toward a twenty-year-old Dodge that’s got a ‘For Sale’ sign in one window but not too much dirt otherwise. “I’ll come around, bump it, and then you’re going from this car, through the driver seat of the truck to the passenger side. Put your backpack on and I’ll take the duffel bag. Got it?”

  I nod.

  Shane gets out, and I see a smear of dark wetness on the seat where he was sitting. If it was a white seat, I’m sure it’d be red. Oh, my gosh, he’s hit, and he didn’t say anything. Anger and fear war in my gut, but I know that leaving his blood here is a bad idea, especially so visible to anyone passing by the car. I reach over, wiping it off with the sleeve of my shirt. It’s not much, but at least it turns into a sort of icky streak that’ll dry to a dark black soon enough.

  Shane knocks once on the window, and I open the door, hopping into the truck. Thankfully, the truck has a bench seat and I slide over easily, buckling up as he does the same. He leans over, hissing only slightly under his breath as he fiddles around with the wires for a moment while I try to keep myself unseen.

  “Come on, you son of a bitch,” Shane grunts, and a moment later, the engine turns over. It’s sluggish at first before catching, and Shane sits up, letting out a hum of satisfaction, but there’s a hint of pain mixed in from the movement. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  It’s a little surprising when we pull out of the lot casually, not speeding to draw attention, and merge back with traffic. After a little bit, I reach up and grab the ‘For Sale’ tag and toss it in the back.

  “Thanks,” Shane grunts, his tone reminding me of his security guard grumpiness. I can feel my body calming, the adrenaline starting to wear off, and suddenly I’m feeling like a nap.

  But I know Shane’s hurt, and I force myself to pay attention. As soon as we’re on the highway, I turn to him, crossing my arms over my chest. “You’re hit. How bad is it?”

  He looks at me, then turns his attention back to the road, his lips tight as he speaks. “Just a flesh wound. Bullet nicked me. I’m fine.”

  I give him an appraising look, then shake my head. “Don’t lie to me, Shane. I can see it on your face. We’re in deep trouble here. If you’re hurt, we need to address that first.”

  Shane reaches over, weaving his fingers into my hair, holding my head in his palm and looking over with affection. “I’m okay. But I need to report in. See if Chucky has found out anything new, because the hitman tracking us shouldn’t have been fucking news. Also, I need to know if the hitman is cleaning up loose ends on his own, or if someone sent him after us.”

  “What’s the chances of each?” I ask, and Shane shrugs.

  “About fifty-fifty. But whether the hitman is using his own network to find us or one of the bosses, the result is the same. We’re the loose end he’s hunting. But if one of the families is helping him, we’d know who the risk is and who the safety might be. Then we could decide if we should try to outrun this, lay low, or maybe even go back. Hopefully, Chucky will have some intel.”

  Chapter 18

  Shane

  I pull over at a large truck stop, parking in the middle of the lot mixed in with the other cars, knowing they’ll disguise the truck a bit since there’s a chance it’s been reported stolen by now. Best guess, the truck was put out there by one of the workers at the strip mall, and if so, they’ll notice as soon as they get off shift.

  Maggie digs in my duffel, handing me the burner phone. I remind myself to buy a new SIM card for it, but one or two more calls shouldn’t be a problem. I turn it on, and before I can even speed-dial Chucky, it rings, and I recognize his number on the display.

  Shit, that’s not good. I answer, putting it on speaker and staying silent as we always do as he jumps in. “Shane? You okay?”

  “Yeah, Chucky. Fine and fucking dandy, except for the hitman who took us by surprise at the fucking motel,” I reply, holding a finger up for Maggie to stay silent. “What the fuck’s going on?”

  Chucky hisses through the phone, sounding upset. “Yeah, I’ve been watching for you to turn the damn phone back on so I could warn you. Got word earlier today that he’s looking for your girl because she saw his fac
e. Loose ends, you know. He wants to disappear.”

  I reach across and take Maggie’s hand, her face remarkably stoic for having confirmation that she’s on a hitman’s shit list. “Well, he found us already. Got a few shots off, hit me too. Took a nick to the left bicep, but nothing serious. Meghan’s fine.”

  Chucky’s voice drops to a whisper, and I can hear him lean into his mic, the wheeze unmistakable. “We need to talk about her, Shane. Your girl is in some deep shit, not just with the hit.”

  Maggie pales slightly, squeezing my hand, and Chucky continues. “You had me check out all the employees at Petals, and I did. I checked out Meghan Postland and she was clean. But when the shit hit the fan, I ran a wider search, and found a Maggie Postland . . .”

  Maggie suddenly yanks her hand back, her knees pulling to her chest in a position I know all too well and was happy to see go.

  She’s mouthing, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” silently, and I can see the fear in her eyes. This isn’t good.

  My voice is hard as I answer Chucky. “What about Maggie Postland?”

  I hear a few clicks, like he’s typing on his end, and then he reads. “Maggie Postland, 289 Westminster Drive, Apartment 175.”

  I nod my head, knowing that’s where I’d taken Maggie the night I drove her home. This is nothing new. “Yeah, and . . .?”

  “She works for The Daily Spot, Shane. That online tabloid rag that reports on celebrities and shit.”

  Still hoping I’m wrong about where this is going, even as Maggie’s head falls and she hugs her knees, I sigh. “You sure? I’m not saying it might not be Meghan, but maybe she answers their phones or something? She told me she’d done some office work before.”

  Chucky makes a tsking noise, and I can imagine him leaning back and giving me a sarcastic look. “I’m looking at her articles, Shane. She’s a reporter. She was the one who sprang that expose on the basketball player. And if I know, they might know—all of them. Dominick, Sal, the hitman.”