CROWS MC SET-TO LOAD

by Bloom, Cassandra

  I ran my hand over my neck, sighing deeply as I looked at the three. While I had wanted to stay mad, I couldn’t. Not knowing that we were one step closer to the end goal.

  Hopefully, at least, I reminded myself.

  I sighed, glancing back as Mia continued to sleep. Deciding that I wasn’t going to be getting any sleep anytime soon, I slid out of the bed and moved towards the kitchen. I started the coffee pot and began to make breakfast. It had been a crazy few days, and I decided that Mia and I had earned a break for the day. I pulled out my smartphone, opening up the internet and began to search for things to do.

  “Mm, something smells good,” Mia said groggily as she stepped out of the room, only wearing a long t-shirt.

  I smirked at the sight, standing up and moving towards her. I moved my hands to her waist and leaned down, kissing her softly. She responded nearly instantly and before things got too far, I slid away, promising that there would be plenty of time later for fun. She smiled up at me and tilted her head towards the kitchen.

  “Are you making breakfast?” she asked.

  “If I am?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Then you are definitely the best boyfriend, ever,” she said, laughing softly as she stepped into the dining area, seeing my phone still sitting on the table.

  “I’ve got a few things on there of what we can do today. I figured I’d spare you another surprise date and let you pick,” I said as I moved back into the kitchen, finishing the eggs and bacon up.

  I watched her as she looked through my phone, swiping through the site I had picked that had offered a list of things to do. As I finished the food, I made us each a plate and joined her at the dining room table, offering her a plate. She took it happily and began to eat, continuing to look through the site.

  “Is the site helping at all?” I asked as I began to eat.

  She absently plucked a slice of bacon from her plate, biting into it as she continued to look through the list. I wondered for a minute if she hadn’t heard me when she slid the phone back towards me, pointing.

  “This,” she said. “This is what I want to do.”

  I glanced down at what was on the screen and grinned. She’d picked out a nearby amusement park that I hadn’t gone to since I was a teenager. I wondered if I’d still be able to handle the rides like I used to but pushed that thought away. I wanted to do this with Mia, wanted to give her a good time. This wasn’t just for fun, we needed the distraction from the shop too.

  “I’m going to call Danny and Candy, see if they want to join,” I said.

  “Really?” she asked, glancing up. “What about our date?”

  “There will be plenty of opportunities for dates in the future,” I said, shrugging my right shoulder. “Besides the more the merrier, right?”

  ****

  Within an hour, we were with Danny and Candy at the park, waiting in line for one the amusement park’s newest roller coasters. I frowned, feeling my stomach growing queasy from just the sight. The park boasted that along with being one of the tallest rides in the nation, it also went from zero-to-sixty within seconds. I glanced back at Mia, who was staring at me with concern and offered her a reassuring smile.

  “Just nerves,” I said.

  As we finally got buckled in, I took a deep breath, reminding myself that if I could handle the speed of my bike, I’d be fine. Then again, my bike didn’t go upside-down. I also had control of my bike… this wasn’t helping. The employees who’d helped make sure the restraints had been properly set gave a thumbs up to the operator, who returned the gesture as he hit a button.

  And then we were off.

  As the coaster began to grow in speed, my stomach twisted and at the first drop, my mouth had opened wide as I let loose the longest, rapid wave of obscenities I had ever let out. To my dismay, Danny, Candy, and Mia had all begun to laugh as the ride continued, apparently finding my reaction to the ride more amusing than the ride itself.

  After that ride, we continued through the park, the three seeming only to pick out the most extreme rides. I continued, glad that I was handling the other rides better as we continued through the park. By the early afternoon, we’d done most the coasters and were having lunch before we hit the waterpark. I was glad to see how happy Mia and the others were and smiled in return, feeling happy as well.

  This had been the perfect distraction for all of us, it seemed.

  ****

  “Today was perfect, Jace!” Mia said as we stepped out of the elevator into our condo.

  “It really was,” I said in agreement. “Even with you three teaming up against me.”

  “We were not teaming up against you!” Mia said as she fought not to laugh.

  “Don’t even try and deny it!” I said, smiling in return.

  “Alright, but to be fair, your reaction was hilarious!” she said, pouting out her lower lip.

  “Fair enough,” I said as I moved my hands to her waist and pulled her close.

  “Today was really fun though and I’m glad you invited Danny and Candy,” Mia said as she wrapped her own arms around my waist.

  “So, should we continue where we’d left off earlier?” I said, smiling wickedly.

  She glanced up at me and I moved down, capturing her lips in mine. Deciding I didn’t want to wait any longer, I slid my arms lower and lifted her up. She gasped and then settled in my grip. I smiled, glad that she was so comfortable with me carrying her and headed towards the bedroom.

  “I like you carrying me,” she said, her voice sultry from desire.

  “I like carrying you too,” I said, leaning down and capturing her lips in mine.

  As we reached the bed, I set her gently down and moved over on top of her. She shivered in pleasure as I began to kiss her again. The day had been perfect and now it was time for me to show her the perfect night. As I continued to kiss her, I slid her shirt off, throwing it across the room. She watched, her face beaming with pleasure as I kissed down her throat, making my way to her creamy breasts. She was so fucking beautiful, and I was addicted to her taste.

  “Oh! Jace,” she whispered, holding me tight.

  “You taste so fucking good,” I said as I wrapped my lips around one of her nipples, sucking it into my mouth.

  I continued on her breasts until she was shaking with pleasure. I grinned, knowing just how she liked to be touch and began to work my way down her torso towards her pants. I slid them off along with her panties and ran my hand over the juncture between her legs. She was so fucking beautiful everywhere.

  “Jace, don’t make me wait! Please,” she said as she arched up, begging me.

  “Just one orgasm beforehand, okay?” I said, grinning wickedly down at her.

  She glanced up, her lower lip coming out in a mock-pout and then I slid my fingers inside her. I watched her eyes glaze over as she leaned back and grinned, loving the sight of her in pleasure. I could feel myself hardening instantly at the sight. I leaned back down, capturing her nipple once again in my mouth as I continued to finger her, feeling her clenching on me as I did. I knew she was close, felt how she clenched on me and the sounds of her soft moans escaping her parted lips.

  “Come for me,” I said, ordering her to give me the first of many orgasms.

  I watched in pleasure as she began to undulate beneath me, riding out her orgasm as she rocked her hips against my fingers. Not wanting to make her wait, or myself, any longer, I removed my fingers, replacing them with my cock and slid home. She cried out in pleasure, another orgasm hitting her as I began to thrust inside her. I groaned, loving how right it felt inside, loving how she fit me so perfectly.

  “Mm! So fucking good,” I said, groaning as I continued to push inside of her.

  “Jace! It feels so amazing!” she said, panting around her cries of ecstasy.

  I moved from her breasts, kissing up her neck to her mouth, capturing the last of her cries of ecstasy. As I kissed her, I could feel my own release growing and I began to move harder inside
her. She lifted her hands, holding my shoulders tightly and I could feel she was growing close again.

  “Gonna cum,” I said against her mouth.

  “Do it! Come with me,” she replied, panting in ecstasy.

  We both began to lose ourselves in our release. My mind became blank as I kissed her harder, filling her up as I did. I felt her body undulate beneath me and was lost in the sensation. As we both began to come down from our pleasure, I slid out, moving to lay beside her. I smiled at her face, her cheeks flushed from her orgasms.

  “That was incredible,” she said.

  “Isn’t it always?” I said, teasing her.

  She glanced over at me and smiled. I wrapped one of my arms around her, holding her against me. I knew that tomorrow we’d have to go back to business. While we had all needed the distraction, it definitely was dangerous to take too many breaks.

  “You wanna watch a movie?” she asked, nuzzling against my chest.

  “Now?” I said, glancing down at her and raised an eyebrow.

  “Why not? I’m not exactly tired yet,” Mia said as she glanced down, seeming embarrassed at the confession.

  I understood, I wasn’t tired either. A part of me felt that this was the last relaxing night we’d be able to have and I didn’t want to ruin it with going to sleep too early. Deciding she was right, I stood and went over to my movie collection.

  “What do you want to watch?” I asked.

  “Something cheesy,” she said, calling back to me.

  I nodded, looking through the list and found a weird knock-off movie to Fast & the Furious that Danny had gotten for me. I’d never even opened the packaging as it had been a gag gift last Christmas. Deciding that it seemed like the perfect cheesy movie to have on the background, I opened it and put it into the DVD player. I glanced up at the sounds of popping and saw that Mia had begun to make a bowl of popcorn. I grinned and slumped down into the couch, getting the menu up as I did.

  “What’s this?” she asked as she slid in next to me, holding the popcorn bowl out to me.

  “Some weird b-flick racing movie,” I said as I accepted a handful of popcorn, stuffing it into my mouth.

  “Is it supposed to look this much like Fast & the Furious?” she asked, glancing over at me.

  “I think so,” I said as I shrugged. “Is this okay?”

  “Sure,” she said as she leaned her head on my shoulder.

  As the movie began, we both fell into a comfortable silence with only the sounds of the ridiculous movie and us chewing popcorn were heard. I could feel Mia wanted to say something but I didn’t want to press whatever it was that was holding her back. I began to wonder if she’d say anything at all when, finally, she spoke up.

  “I don’t know why it’s always got to be a race,” she said, glancing up at me.

  “Because that’s what life is,” I said, wishing I had another answer for her.

  “But don’t any of those guys ever think to just, like, stop?” she shot, “You know, let all that chaos and nonsense just go zipping by?”

  “Stopping lets the people chasing you catch up,” I shot back with a smirk.

  “They’re gonna catch up anyway, aren’t they?” she pointed out, rolling her eyes. “Otherwise there’d be no end. Then it’s always a matter of waiting.”

  I said nothing, only stared at her expectantly and fed myself another handful of popcorn.

  Seeming to think my silence was a surrender to a point she was making—not to say that she wasn’t making some decent points—Mia grinned and nodded triumphantly. “So why not just stop when the time’s right—when they’re not right behind you, I mean—and just get on to the waiting?”

  At this the classic music-lover in me couldn’t resist, and, before I’d even mentally committed to saying it, I heard myself almost sing, “The waiting’s the hardest part.”

  The “argument,” if it could ever really have been called that in the first place, ended there. Mia, still grinning, scooped up her own handful of popcorn and, though her mouth was already open—apparently to begin laughing prematurely at her planned antics—she threw the clusters at me. Predicting this, I opened my own mouth, attempting to catch at least one of the delicious projectiles in mid-flight and…

  Failing to catch a single one.

  “You suck!” Mia said, laughing even harder.

  I sighed and shrugged, retrieving my own weaponized snacks and lazily tossing them at her, aiming mostly for her cleavage as I did. “I’ve been known to, yes,” I offered with a chuckle of my own.

  We both paused at that and considered the potential meaning behind those words.

  “And they call me the ‘whore,’” she jabbed, retrieving some of the cleavage-corn and popping it into her mouth.

  I laughed and shrugged, capturing a few kernels from between her breasts and feeding them to myself, as well. “You don’t think I got this rich from honest, gang-related work, do you?”

  And then we were laughing again.

  In the background, working desperately to be heard over the sound of our combined cackles, the movie—and its admittedly cheesy chase sequence—droned on.

  TWELVE

  ~MIA~

  Jace was running, and it was a sight that I felt I could watch forever.

  Except he wasn’t running towards me. No, it was nothing like the old romance movies. There were no sandy beaches or crowded city streets; neither preventing the two lovers from closing the distance in a visually spectacular, slow-motion sequence that ended with them in each other’s arms. No, we were in a room, claustrophobic and… wrong, and we weren’t alone.

  No, we weren’t alone.

  And it was our very, very unwelcome company that Jace was running at. It was a desperate sprint, filled with all the dire need that I supposed I longed to see him wielding in a similar sprint towards me, but where I’d want to see love there was, instead, an overflowing torrent of hate.

  Jace passes me by, crashes into Mack, and my brother’s groping hands are knocked from my breasts.

  My breasts…

  God! My own brother—my flesh-and-blood!—had just been molesting me right in front of Jace!

  I feel like puking; feel like screaming; feel like—

  You’re not ready to think those thoughts, Mia. Not ready. Not ready. Not…

  “We die together then, like Romeo and—”

  That was what Mack was supposed to say—how I remembered this happening the first time, at least—but what he says, seeming to stare past Jace even as he’s being attacked and gaze straight into my soul, is, “Don’t pretend you didn’t love it, sis. You’re just steaming ‘cause I didn’t pay you for it!”

  Wrong…

  All wrong!

  But then Jace is beating him, his fists moving as a blur. Like the vampires in one of my novels, he’s no longer moving at a speed that my all-too-human eyes can perceive; he’s a superpowered hero—my own personal motorcycle-riding superhero!—and he’s using all of that strength and power to pummel my sick, perverted brother into a sniveling pile of snot!

  But Mack still grins, still laughs, and still says such awful, ugly things to me.

  It’s as if he doesn’t even notice Jace; as if he doesn’t even notice that he’s being beaten bloody and raw.

  Then, seeming to finally notice the fight he’s presently in the middle of losing, he swings his leering gaze on Jace and he’s…

  Thrown to the ground?

  Jace… is knocked down?

  That can’t be—

  But there’s not time to question—no time to worry—and suddenly I feel the weight of power, true power, waiting in my hands.

  You’re not ready, Mia. You’re not—

  No! I snap at my own doubtful thoughts, knowing what needs to be done. I have to be ready!

  FOR JACE!

  And then I use that power.

  My hands buck, go numb, and then feel hot.

  My hands…

  Covered…

  A cr
imson stain forever etched on my skin…

  I glance down the dark corridor, immediately recognizing where I am. I’d only been here once before, yet it feels like I’ve been here all my life; like I’ve never left.

  I don’t want to relive this.

  I don’t want to be here.

  I don’t want to…

  But “want” has never been a dictating factor of my life.

  Since when did what Mia Chobavich wanted make any difference?

  I can feel my brain screaming at me to turn around even as my body moves forward.

  Always moving forward.

  I take a deep breath as I continue down the dark hallway, seeming more to follow the motions—my instincts knowing the way the same way my lungs know how to breathe—than actually following any sense of direction. My breaths have grown heavy with fear and my entire body seems to boil under a sheen of sweat. Dread swims around my stomach like a hungry piranha, biting at whatever it can get a hold of.

  I hate this so much.

  Where is Jace?

  I want—Damn! There’s that word again!—him here with me so badly.

  But… want.

  I’d laugh if I could summon breath enough to do so.

  I can hear the sound of breathing up ahead and I continue forward, once again seeming to be called to this place.

  To the night where my nightmares, my new nightmare, began.

  Just me, my brother, and a gun…

  A cramped room that replaces an old basement.

  One dead body, this one much, much fresher, replaces another, old and abandoned.

  Two deaths, sure, but the newest one a death by my own hands.

  And—damn me!—I couldn’t bring myself to mourn or to even feel regret or guilt.

  Was it really my fault though?

  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t planned to kill him, right? Even so, the death still has an effect on me. I continue down the hall, wondering just how long this hall goes. A part of me wonders if I was actually thinking that now or then. But aren’t the two one in the same right now? Right? Confusion intertwines with my fear and creates an all new breed of chaos in my mind as I continue down the last few steps before I face a whole new sense of fear.