by Violet Blaze
“Sir?” he asked, but I wasn't done.
“Tell 'em everything and then text me something—I don't care what it is—to give me a heads-up. Can you do that for me, Cecil?” I slipped another bundle of cash into his pocket. Cecil was a proud man, but he had a wife with terminal cancer and a lot of bills to take care of. He could use the money, and I was happy to give it to him.
“Is everything okay?” he asked me, his voice sharp with years of authority.
I just smiled tightly.
“I sure as shit hope so,” I told him, but in my heart I knew this wasn't over.
No, it was just getting started.
#
Adelaide took some food to her sister and then sat back down on the sofa, decimating a sandwich, several slices of pizza, and a whole box of hot wings. I watched her eat, nursing another beer, keeping my damn mouth shut for a change.
“This … TSR group, they're like a secret society or something?”
“Not like a secret society, Adelaide, these people are global elites. TSR is the very definition of a secret society.”
“And you—Dash Dante Buchanan, son of a criminal and a thief—are a member of this club?”
“I am a fucking billionaire, Adelaide,” I said, trying not to get frustrated. She had every right to be hostile with me, didn't she? But goddamn it if my leg wasn't killing me. I stared at her tattoos instead of her face; I just couldn't look at her angry expression dead on right now. “Money is everything to these assholes, and my dad, he performs tasks that most of them are too scared or to smart to risk. So, sure, I'm in, but I'm not really one of them. That's why we needed to be so careful tonight.”
“You're talking about the show we put on?” she said, her voice strong and steady, not at all ashamed.
“Exactly that.”
I looked up and our eyes met again. I felt that same electric thrill go through me, that excitement, this twisting clench to my insides that I was not used to feeling around a woman. I'd had plenty of 'em, too, enough to recognize the difference.
“Why are you a member of a group that sells women for rich assholes to enslave and rape?”
“My father sponsored my membership. I didn't know what any of that shit was about. He paid our way in and before I knew it, I was getting a tattoo and standing in the middle of one of their fucking weird ass sex parties. I didn't know about the Block until much, much later. Last night was my first time attending; I barely got in.”
Adelaide and I kept staring at each and I scooted forward on the couch to get a better look at her.
“I came to get you,” I told her and she scoffed, turning away and resting her hand on the purple and black Ruger on her lap.
“After I tried to kill you?”
“You didn't try all that hard, did you? If you had, I'd have been dead, wouldn't I?”
“Probably.”
“What are you doing anyway, running around and trying to clean up the club's messes? I thought you wanted to be an astronaut.” I smiled when I said that, but Adelaide didn't smile back.
“I've changed a lot since I was nine, Dash.”
“So have I,” I said and the room went quiet.
“When will it be safe for us to leave?” Adelaide asked, and I sighed.
“A while.” I looked up again and caught her with her eyes closed, face drawn and tight. “If you and Layla leave now, and TSR catches wind of it, we're all up shit creek without a paddle. They will kill me, and if you're real lucky, they'll kill you, too. Worst case scenario, you end up back in the auction or working the winner's lounge as a permanent employee of the Block.”
“There were other girls there, Dash,” Adelaide said, opening her eyes and finding me staring at her again. “There was a girl in a pink dress … the Auctioneer shot her for making a scene. There was a girl named Kelly from Wisconsin. She grew up on a dairy farm.”
My mouth tightened I shook my head, my elbows resting on my knees, my hands clasped together. My turn to close my eyes and take in a deep breath.
“I'm going back there, Dash,” Adelaide said quietly, her voice firm and her expression resolute.
“Are you insane?” I asked, looking at her again. “You think we'll get lucky a second time? Sugar, you go back there and that's the end of the road for you—for me, too, come to think of it.”
“I can't leave those girls.”
“You can't do a goddamn thing for any of them.”
“Yes, I can. Dash, I've … had a long sixteen years since I last you. I have certain skills …”
“So I noticed. You're strong; you're good with knives; I bet you can aim that gun real good. So what? These men own most of the wealth in the world. They have guards, secret police forces, some of them even have small armies at their disposals.”
“But not in there,” Adelaide said, picking up her gun and shoving the blanket off of her lap. She set it down on the side table next to the sofa and brushed the crumbs off the purple wifebeater I gave her to wear. It was too big, flashing the soft round curves of her breasts through the armholes when she moved. But she'd refused to eat until she was stripped of the lingerie from the Block, shoving it all into my trash can with a raging force that almost made me believe she could save all those women. “There's too much competition between them, Dash. There are security guards, but only a few and mostly because of the women. None of those rich assholes expect anything from each other. They're too scared of armies and machine guns and money wars. What they don't expect is to get stung by a bee. They think too big, Dash.”
“You don't know anything about them,” I said, getting angry although I couldn't for the fuckin' life o' me figure out why. I'd done right by this girl and got her out of there, so what else was there between us? Nothing, that's what. Only … it felt like a hell of a lot more than that.
“I know enough. I've been around men just like that my whole life—only they were leather cuts instead of suits. I hate to tell you this Dash, but men are all the same. It's always about power and money—always. The Weeping Bones might operate on a different scale, but it's the same concept. They see what they want to see and as long as what they see is themselves getting what they want, they don't look too hard into it.”
I stood up from the couch and looked down at her.
“You're plumb crazy if you really think you can do a damn thing about TSR.”
Adelaide stood up, too, and I was pleased as fucking punch to see that she was as tall a woman as I'd ever seen. Almost six feet, I'd guess.
“Power and money on different scales, Dash. But these men, they're all on the same scale. This isn't an impossible task. You can't fight fire with fire.”
“You've been through a lot today,” I started, but she clenched her teeth and squeezed her hands into fists. “Fuck, Adelaide, I can't let you do this.”
“What do you care?” she snapped, taking a step back, turning away from me and running her fingers through her hair. The baggy sweats slipped down her hips a little, flashing me the smooth line of her ass, the curve of her back, a strong tan line just above the waistband.
Jesus fuck.
“Why? Because believe it or not I actually give a shit what happens to you. You think I'd have risked my life today if I didn't care? All I want to do is make music, Adelaide. I don't need any of this bullshit messing up what I've got goin' on with the band. I've finally got a life for myself that has nothing to do with my dad and I'm not screwing that up.”
“Fine. Where do you want Layla and me to sleep?”
I just stared at her and then shook my head.
“No, a bucking bronco does not just give up that easily.”
“Who said I've given up? If you're not willing to help, then I'll do this on my own. Consider whatever strange obligation you felt toward me as fulfilled. I'll stay here as long as you think it's prudent to keep them from getting suspicious then I'm taking my sister home, and I'll find my own way.”
“You said you were a bartender?” I asked her
as I moved up closer, close enough that I could smell the shampoo on her hair, the slightest hint of sweat, of sex. She still smelled like me from earlier. “You think those skills will come in handy when it comes to killing people?”
“Dash, when I was sixteen,” Adelaide starts, turning around to face me, her curvy body draped in my clothes, begging me to put my hands on those generous hips of hers, “my dad asked me to hit on this older guy outside a bar in Los Angeles. Drove me all the way from Ridgecrest just to find this man and flirt with him a little. I was so thrilled my dad was giving me any attention at all that I didn't question it, just hopped on the back of his bike and headed south with a smile on my face. You know what happened? The man invited me back to his place and I followed, just like my father told me to. But guess what? He and the boys got their stakeout interrupted and ended up in a bloody brawl with the man's club. I was all alone in his apartment, and this guy was drunk and horny and—”
Adelaide stopped talking and ran her palms down her face.
“I grabbed the only weapon I had on me—a little switchblade that Maverick had given me”—her voice broke again, but she sucked in a breath and kept going—“Dash, I severed his brachial artery and axillary nerve right in half. He started cursing at me, took a swing, and then stumbled about a dozen steps before he collapsed. I just stood there above him while he bled out on his kitchen floor. It only took him a few minutes to die.”
“Jesus, Adelaide, that—”
“I've killed three dozen people since then, Dash. That's about one every three months since I was sixteen—most of them drug dealers or rapists or thugs. The club pays me in cash. Hell, they even gave me a nickname.”
Well, shoot.
What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?
“How much they pay you to kill me?” I asked, trying not to get angry, but feeling that warm feeling of rage roll right over me like a storm cloud.
“Definitely not five million dollars,” she whispered and then she started to move around the couch and away. “Should I get Layla out of your bed? We can sleep on the couches.”
“Adelaide,” I said again and she paused, turning back to look at me with hazel-gold eyes and thick ripe lips, gently parted and panting. “Why save your virginity all this time just to give it to me?”
“I … have no idea,” she whispered, and then she was putting her fingers to her temples. “I've been avoiding sex for years because I … I'm messed up, Dash. I liked weird things, fucked-up things.”
“Like the things we did on the roof? In the auction house?”
My heart was pounding and my cock was rock solid.
I had to have her, damn it.
I just had to.
“I don't even know you,” she said, but I didn't let her get very far, curling my fingers around her tattooed right arm and pulling her back.
“Maybe not, but there musta been some reason you decided to fuck me instead of kill me, right?”
“Wow,” Adelaide scoffed, but she didn't pull her arm from my grip, and I curled my fingers a little tighter. My hand was wrapped around a tattooed cluster of dark purple grapes, the ink rich and vibrant, the fruit ripe and shiny. “You cut right to the chase, don't you, Dash Buchanan?”
“I just don't want to see this experience shatter something that's already broken.”
“Broken?” Adelaide asks, turning fully to look at me. “I am not broken.”
“That isn't what I said,” I told her, taking hold of her other arm, my fingers pale against the swirling vibrancy of her ink. On this bicep, there was a tight bunch of purple verbena, their silky smooth petals dotted with drops of inked moisture. As I watched, a real droplet of sweat slid down her painted skin and made me like my lips.
I lifted my gaze back to hers and found her mouth parted, those hard eyes softening just a bit.
“I think I'm damaged, Dash,” she told me, matter of factly, like she'd gone and thought real hard about it all. “I shouldn't want this, but I do.”
“Want what?” I asked, lifting my hand up to cup the side of her face. My thumb traced across her ripe mouth as I leaned in slowly and put my forehead to hers. I had no idea who Adelaide Vaughn had become since she'd changed from a wild tomboy to a sultry goddess with purple hair, but I didn't much care in that moment.
“You,” she said, as I kissed her and took her hips in my hands, angling us back so that she was sitting on the back of the leather sofa. There must've been something in the air that night because when my mouth covered hers, I felt like a man reborn, like all the women I'd ever fucked were just practice for this one girl.
My fingers curled beneath the waistband of the sweats, dragging them down and away as Adelaide dropped her hands to the couch and watched me, her breath rapid and heavy, her skin glistening with sweat.
I took her borrowed top off next, tossing it aside along with the black button-up.
We were chest to chest, skin to skin, as I tilted her head back with my hand and kissed the exposed expanse of her throat. My mind flickered with images of her wrists and ankles tied, that silky dress pushed up around her hips, and I made a rough sound of need.
Adelaide responded to it by unbuttoning my slacks and pushing them out of the way, guiding my cock to the hot slickness between her thighs.
I yanked her head back just before I slid in, making her meet my eyes, seeing the desire and the surrender in her gaze. I mighta smiled if I wasn't so damn sure it would scare her off. Adelaide Vaughn was a strong woman, angry and unpredictable but desperate for something more—exactly the kind of girl I'd been looking for for a long damn time.
I just wasn't quite sure that she knew what it was that she really wanted.
My grip stayed firm in her hair as I slowly pushed my hips forward, filling her, watching her breath catch and her tongue wet her lower lip. She watched me as I looked down at her, sheathing myself in that tight warmth, her body gripping mine like a glove.
Adelaide Vaughn gave herself to me in that moment in a way that five million dollars and an auction block could never do. That was all bullshit and pain and force; this was real.
I moved my hands to her hips, tilted her pelvis up and felt her lock her ankles behind my back. Her arms came around my neck, the soft press of her breasts against my chest at odds with the hard points of her nipples. We moved together for a long time, slow and steady, Adelaide's eyes fluttering closed, her body relaxing in my arms.
When I picked her up and carried her to the couch, she was limp and pliant, almost liquid in my arms. I mounted her against the leather, fucking her slowly until she pressed her mouth to my neck and cried out, coming hard around me, the faintest brush of tears in her eyes. I continued to thrust into her, bringing myself to own conclusion, and by the time I was done, she'd brushed that wetness aside like it was never there. Her face was dry, her breathing slowly coming under control.
There was an indeterminable amount of time where we just laid there and looked at each other.
Adelaide Vaughn and me … our romance was going to be as dangerous as it was spectacular, as fierce as it was unexpected.
This wild breath of heat between us was about to catch fire and burn.
It was dark outside when I next lifted my head, the smell of cigarette smoke twisted into the faint brush of an evening breeze as I sat up on Dash Buchanan's house and tried to clear the cobwebs from my head. That's why I hated to sleep so much; I always felt groggy and disoriented after.
I rubbed my eyes and yawned, resting my face in my palms for a moment. Truthfully, it was probably a blessing that I'd slept to much. Those drugs had done a number on me, messed me up worse than any drinking binge I'd ever been on. My skull felt like it was barely attached to my neck, like a balloon on a string, liable to snap off and disappear into the inky night sky.
Somebody—Dash, I assumed—had covered me with the black and red striped blanket, but I was still naked.
Fuck.
I closed my eyes against a rush of stra
nge emotions and tried not to think too hard about Dash's body on top of mine, his shaft moving tenderly inside of me. Compared to the rest of yesterday's nightmare, making love to some random guy was not at the top of my list of things to think about.
My oldest brother was dead; my sister and I had been kidnapped; my family was probably panicking. To top all of that off, I'd just been infused with this … this raging vendetta against the Block and all of the people in it. I couldn't just go on with my life and forget the faces of those scared, lost girls. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I even tried.
Standing up, I wrapped the blanket around my body and made my way around the back of the couch, slipping into the sweats and tank that Dash had stripped off of me last night.
I checked the time on the clock above the stone. Ten o'clock. And I'd probably fallen asleep around … say, five, so seventeen hours of sleep. It seemed fair considering I'd had zero sleep the night before, been auctioned off to a room full of sick soulless pigs, and now found myself standing in an apartment belonging to the son of the man that had betrayed my entire family.
Yeah, seventeen hours was more than fair.
“How long have you been up?” I asked Dash as I stepped out onto the patio and found him sitting in this gorgeous black metal chair, welded into the shape of a tree, its long bare limbs twisted into a comfortable looking seat with a high back.
“'bout an hour or so,” he said, pushing an unopened bottle of beer in my direction. His gaze when he looked up at me was full of heat and promise, an impossible set of emotions for me to unpack. I glanced away and took the drink, glad to see a twist off cap. I set the small piece of metal on the black bistro table and downed almost half of it in a single gulp.
I took a few steps forward and leaned on the balcony railing, staring out at the Strip, downtown, the mountains. I could see the Luxor's Sky Beam—this brilliant column of blue light—shooting straight up to the stars. It was the strongest beam of light in the word, topping the pyramid shaped hotel and casino down below.
