by Tina Donahue
Brushing his lips over her cheek, Jake continued.
Lea bit back a moan at his teasing strokes. For a long moment, she regarded Toby, knowing how whorish she must look, enjoying it. This was what she craved…unrestrained passion with no regret. This was what he would give her before their time together ended.
Averse to thinking about their farewell, Lea delivered herself to whatever Jake willed, her lids sinking down. In the relative dark, she drifted, transformed from a woman on the run to a sensual creature made for a man’s cock, mouth, hands.
Jake’s used her well.
Her body weakened and tensed, uncertain of its direction, her climax edging near only to slide away. Time slowed to a crawl. Sounds faded. She smelled of her own need and Jake’s cum, the scents rich and musky.
They sent her over the edge.
On a bawdy cry, Lea came, gasping, then swallowing, only to gasp once more.
Jake continued to rub her.
Noooo. She couldn’t take it, her body was too sensitive, her nerves strung tight. Bringing down her other arm, she wrapped her fingers around his thick wrists. “Stop.”
“No.”
“Please.”
Jake continued, brushing his fingertips over her nub. She tried to fight him, but he was far too strong. Within minutes, she’d climaxed again.
Panting, Lea swallowed, her head hanging down. Jake pulled his fingers from her and moved back. She tried to open her eyes to see what he was doing, where he was going but could not. Her lids were too heavy. Her body too spent.
Her knees started to give out, her only plan to sink to the floor and rest.
“No,” Jake said, not allowing it.
Already he’d moved in front of her. The sounds he made told her he’d dropped to his knees. “Put your hand on my shoulder.”
Blindly, she obeyed, still breathing hard.
As she used him for support, Jake untied her running shoes, directing Lea to lift one foot, then the other as he removed the shoes and her socks. He next guided her to step out of her jeans and panties.
She heard the denim falling to her side.
Back on his feet, Jake pulled her into him, his cock pressing against her cunt, the shaft rigid and thick.
Lea knew there would be no denying him now. He was a man who would take his pleasure, using her for as long as he chose. The thought thrilled. She lifted her face to his.
Jake swooped down, kissing her deeply.
She groaned around his tongue, her hands grasping his biceps. More moisture seeped from her pussy, her body preparing for his intimate invasion, wanting him inside.
Finished with their kiss, he eased back, his fingertips trailing down her cheek and over her bottom lip.
The gesture was so unexpected and tender, Lea’s throat tightened with emotion. Giving him a smile, she smoothed his errant locks.
“Don’t leave me,” Lea whispered before she knew she would.
Something flashed across his face. Surprise? Bewilderment? Concern? Quickly, Jake pushed his emotions aside and kissed her again, fiercer this time.
When Lea was breathless, he tore his mouth free of hers. With his arm around her waist, he led her to one of the sofas, no more than two feet from Toby. At an angle where the man would miss nothing of what would surely transpire…Jake taking her, fucking her raw until they were both satisfied, her cunt stinging, his cock sore.
Lea’s heart snagged on a beat, then pumped violently at the wantonness of her thoughts. They were no match for reality.
“On your knees,” Jake ordered, steel in his words. “Your arms on the sofa. Spread your legs wide, arch your back and lift your ass.”
Lea pictured herself in the position he demanded. The image stole all of her of strength, not allowing her to remain standing even if she’d wanted. She sank to the floor, all too aware of Jake and Toby watching her. The sofa was low and she was tall, which made this the ideal location for Jake to take her. Assuming the stance she knew he and Toby craved, she lifted her ass, presenting it to them, her openings exposed, defenseless against their use.
Neither man moved.
Seconds ticked by. Warm air brushed against her damp pussy, heightening her nudity. Heat rushed to her chest, throat and face, stinging her skin. Lea dug her fingers into the sofa’s buttery leather. She wanted to look over, to see what they were doing, to tell them to fill her for God’s sake, but did not.
She sensed they’d enjoy her complete submission more. She certainly did.
More time dragged by. Lea waited, the pulse points in her temples pounding, her mouth going dry, her limbs growing heavy.
The floorboards creaked beneath a man’s weight.
Jake’s.
Lea heard his naked feet slapping the floor. Apparently, he hadn’t given Toby permission to enjoy her. Unless Toby hadn’t yet decided to cross that line.
Her fingers pressed into the leather. He would, dammit. She wouldn’t allow him to disappoint her.
“Wider,” Jake ordered, his hands on her buttocks, spreading her cheeks.
Forcing down a swallow, Lea spread her legs a bit more, no part of her hidden from him.
Leisurely, Jake explored her, trailing his fingers down the seam between her cheeks, tracing the tight ring of her anus, continuing his journey to her cunt, slippery with her juices, her clit hard with unfulfilled need.
Gulping air, Lea turned her face to the side.
Past her curtain of hair, she saw Toby’s strained expression. It wasn’t a surprise, nor was the way he stared at Jake bathing the head of his cock in her moisture, running the crown up and down the full length of her cleft.
Lea imagined what she looked like to Toby. Naked. Displayed. Available. The brazen picture pulled a moan from her.
Toby’s attention shot to her face, then returned quickly to her ass. Both her openings.
With one hand gripping her hip, Jake probed her pussy with the tip of his cock. The pressure was slight but stirring. Currents of sensation swept through her channel, tightening her inner muscles.
That hardly deterred Jake.
With one assured and powerful thrust, he entered Lea, his rigid cock tunneling through her hot, wet sheath, demanding entry, that her body shelter his.
A rough groan spilled from her lips at Jake’s shaft stretching her cunt to the limit of its endurance. Her opening stung slightly.
Lea welcomed it. Encouraged it. She wanted Jake to fuck her senseless. To make her forget what awaited her in the future. To stave off her grief at what she’d have to leave behind.
Teeth clenched, she refused to think about anything bad, wanting only this.
Jake held nothing back, pumping into her with unbridled lust, his balls smacking her ass.
She lifted it so he could penetrate even deeper, as far as a man could go. In acknowledgment, surely in compensation, he slipped his hand between her legs, his fingers brushing her clit.
The combination of his cock’s exquisite pressure and the unrelenting movement of his hand undid Lea, tensing her body, bringing her climax closer, closer.
She fought it, wanting to drag the act out forever.
All too quickly, she lost.
Alternately gulping air and crying out, she was unable to stop the intense shudders racking her body. Lea’s pussy clutched Jake’s cock as he continued to drive himself into her, enduring for minutes, long past her climax before his bellows signaled his release.
Beneath it, Lea heard Toby’s footfalls.
She expected him to come closer, to take his turn before she had a chance to recover.
His shoes tapped against the hardwood, the sounds receding as he moved away from her and Jake in the direction of the kitchen.
Chapter Six
In a back office, Cubrero sat next to the manager of The Second Circle, long closed for the evening. The burly young man looked wary, sweat glistening on his forehead and bristly upper lip. Smelling of too much designer cologne and fear, he pulled nervously on his cigarette.
His taste for street drugs—coke to get high, weed to relax—had made him vulnerable to whatever his supplier wanted.
Not that Cubrero had ever acted in that low-level capacity. Nor did the young man know who he really was. To him, Cubrero might have been one of the cartel’s middlemen or a trusted lieutenant or simply an enforcer.
He twisted his pocketknife slowly in his hand, its blade glinting in the office’s hard light.
While the manager watched the weapon, Cubrero regarded the recording of Lea’s performance tonight as SiNN. Sultry Latin music accompanied her graceful descent to the stage where she remained at her partner’s feet, arms around his muscular thigh, her face lifted to his.
In the chairs nearest her, Cubrero saw himself. His head was bent to his cellphone, but he’d never stopped watching her body or what he could see of her face.
A new angle replaced the old, the camera sweeping the crowd, those men behind the chairs.
Cubrero leaned forward. Pointing his weapon’s blade at the monitor, he ordered, “Slow it down.”
The manager moved so quickly, he knocked over his coffee cup. Murky liquid rolled over the papers on his desk. He froze at the mess.
“Now,” Cubrero snapped.
“I am. I am.” He slowed the recording’s speed until it moved frame by frame.
“Point out the ones who aren’t regulars,” Cubrero instructed. “Make certain you’re correct.”
The young man’s attention dropped to the knife, no longer pointed toward the screen, but at his gut. Sucking in a breath, he brought his smoke back to his lips, his hand trembling.
Cubrero leaned back in his folding chair, concentrating on both the manager and the recording.
“Him,” the young man said, his thick finger tapping the screen.
The individual in question appeared to be in college, surely no more than twenty-one. Too youthful, too powerless to have convinced Lea to go with him or to have had the audacity to end her call. Cubrero made no comment, his lengthening silence saying he wasn’t pleased.
Adjusting his bulk, the manager leaned closer to the screen and pointed to the next face. “I’ve never seen him here before.”
To Cubrero, this one dressed like a banker or a lawyer. Decidedly middle-aged, he was out of shape, his corpulent body disqualifying him as a candidate for law enforcement. He was also alone, not commenting to or noticing the men flanking him.
Cubrero recalled Danielle’s words before he’d killed her. That Lea had been interested in two men tonight, not one.
“Who else?” he demanded, his impatience growing.
The manager’s gaze jerked to the knife. Cubrero stroked the blade slowly with his thumb, far preferring this weapon to a revolver or pistol equipped with a silencer. Each was a quiet killer, but there was something so intimate about a knife. A man could feel its steel sinking into his victim’s flesh, gutting him, releasing the warm gush of blood as—
His thoughts paused at what he saw on the monitor. “There,” he said, staring at two men in the back.
Both were tall, one looking to be in his early or mid-thirties, the other slightly younger. The dark man had longish hair, coppery skin and what appeared to be Native American features, while the other was blond and clean-cut. Given their proximity to each other, they appeared to be together.
“Stop the tape,” he ordered.
As it came to a halt, freezing on the two, Cubrero recalled what he’d heard on the other end of the line when he’d called Lea.
“What are you doing?” a deep male voice had asked.
Shifting his attention from one to the other, Cubrero tried to match the sound to them, thinking it fit the dark one.
“Have you seen these two before?” he asked.
The manager pulled on his cigarette, not noticing the ashes that fell to his tailored slacks. He glanced from Cubrero’s weapon to the recording. Blowing out a mouthful of smoke, he spoke cautiously, “No.”
Cubrero couldn’t remember having seen them at the beginning of the tape. Had they come into the show after it started, let in by the bouncers who’d been loitering outside the door? Had they asked one of those men about Lea, learning that she’d decided to leave before her last performance?
“Did any of the customers ask about SiNN tonight? Did your men mention that to you?”
“Lots of guys ask about her and LuST and—” He stopped at Cubrero’s hard stare. “No one said anything to me.”
“Start the recording again, run it at its slowest speed.”
The manager complied.
Just as Cubrero had suspected, the two men weren’t in the audience at the beginning of the show. They’d come into the room later. Immediately, the dark one had stared at Lea’s performance. The blond did too, but only after he’d scanned the patrons as though he was searching for someone.
Me?
No doubt. They’d been here tonight to tell Lea of her father’s murder, warning her that she was next, then took her into protective custody to prevent it.
A flush of heat rose to Cubrero’s chest and throat, his temper building at how they’d outmaneuvered him, though not for long.
He regarded the dark one who watched Lea with more than a bit of lust on his face, while the blond wore a look of concern. Because it wasn’t protocol for his partner to want a woman they were supposed to protect?
Cubrero studied their clothing, searching for a hint of the weapons they surely carried.
“Print a copy of this frame,” he ordered, pointing his knife at the screen.
“I’m not certain how to do that.”
Cubrero’s fingers fisted around his weapon.
“I’ll figure it out,” the manager said quickly, all hesitation and excuses gone. “Let me turn on the printer.”
Its hum filled the silence along with his nervous throat clearing.
Enjoying the man’s fear, Cubrero considered who in law enforcement would be able to help him identify the men, no doubt Phoenix detectives or U.S. Marshals. With what he paid his informants—with what they knew he’d do to them and their families if opposed—he’d soon know everything. His hands would be on Lea’s body and then around her throat. Just as gutting a man was so very personal, strangling a woman also satisfied.
He pictured Lea staring at him in helpless horror, knowing her life was about to end. Content with his fantasy, Cubrero waited for the manager to print out the recording’s frame.
Tentatively, the young man came around his desk, holding out a sheaf of papers. “Here you go. I made several copies.”
Standing, Cubrero took them, regarding the picture’s quality. Not the best, but it would have to do. Without comment, he laid them on a filing cabinet next to a copy of Penthouse, dog-eared from so much use.
“I could do them in black and white too, if you want,” the manager offered.
“No.” He grabbed the young man’s wrist.
“Hey! What are you—”
Cubrero twisted the fool’s arm, interrupting his protest, using surprise and rage to force his hand down to the desk. With one brutal slice of his knife’s highly sharpened blade, Cubrero cut through flesh and cartilage, then with a hard twist separated the bones of the thumb, severing it.
The manager’s eyes rounded in disbelief, his mouth hanging open for a scream that hadn’t yet come, the pain still seconds away.
Long before the agony arrived, Cubrero’s free hand was around the young man’s throat, keeping him from making any sound.
“You tell no one about my visit tonight,” he warned. “You tell no one what I asked.” He dug his fingers into the young man’s fleshy neck to assure that he was listening and understood.
The manager choked out an anguished groan. His bulky body shivered. Tears filled his eyes.
Savoring the terror he saw, Cubrero continued softly, “You say one word, I’ll return for your other thumb and your balls. I won’t kill you. I’ll just make you wish you were dead.”
He
released him and stepped back, not wanting to get blood on his suit. The young man crumpled to the floor, curling into a fetal position, cradling his injured hand to his chest.
Spearing the severed thumb with his knife, Cubrero grabbed his copies and left the cramped office, indifferent to the man’s pained howl.
Hunched in front of his laptop, Toby heard footfalls coming toward the kitchen.
His fingers stalled on the keyboard.
Abruptly, the steps stopped. Lea’s muffled voice drifted toward this room, followed by Jake’s, their conversation too muted for Toby to understand.
Shit. A mixture of anticipation and dread, hunger and annoyance ran through him, the stew of emotions making Toby hot, then cold, then hot once more.
Was Lea coming in here to invite him to join her and Jake or to challenge him as she had in the front room?
Toby frowned at the memory, cursing himself for wanting her. It was nuts. He knew that. And Jake sure as fuck did too.
That hadn’t stopped him from stripping her bare or driving his cock into her cunt with a right she’d given him.
Quicker than he would have liked, Toby remembered Lea on her knees in front of the sofa, her body bent in submission, her hair fanned out over her shoulders and back. He recalled the mole on her right forearm and the one just above her buttocks. Her cheeks were deliciously rounded, her skin smooth and flawless with youth. With her legs parted, she’d displayed her body shamelessly, showing him her naked cunt.
Wanting him to see it.
Damn her.
Damn you for wanting what you shouldn’t have.
He swallowed at his memory of her female flesh, flushed with arousal, plump with need, her opening so wet and inviting. So fucking tight and warm. Like a voyeur, he hadn’t been able to look away. He’d stared at Jake’s rigid cock disappearing into her bit by bit. He’d listened to Lea’s throaty moans, no doubt at the pressure of Jake’s size. Had that excited her? Is that what she wanted from a man—raw, rough sex with no degree of tenderness?
She hadn’t complained. When their bodies had finally touched and Jake had buried all of himself inside of her, Toby forgot to breathe.
