Risk It All (Risqué #2)

by Scarlett Finn

  ‘You’ve been sitting on this for a year,’ he said, his body remained forward-facing, but his eyes sloped around to her. ‘How the fuck can you stand to look at any of us?’

  ‘I’ve had a year,’ she said with a feeble shrug. ‘At first I was shocked and I did want to blame Ruger, but every time I let myself get into that destructive thought pattern I… I realised that the only way I could’ve kept myself out of it was to never have anything to do with you again. Except, I wouldn’t change our past, Blase.’

  Shifting closer, she squeezed her fingers in-between his on the wheel. ‘I went through what I did because I meant so much to you and once you strip away everything else, I love that, I want to mean something to you.’

  ‘You do,’ he said, twisting and bringing his hand to her face. ‘You do mean something to me. I love you.’

  ‘I’m pissed that Ruger hid this from all of you for so long,’ she said. ‘We could have been prepared for what could come hunting for us if we’d just known that it was a possibility. But more than that, I don’t like how you’ve been ostracized and he’s just stood back and let that happen.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be pointing that out to him,’ he said, still stroking her face.

  ‘I’m surprised at how well Colt took the news.’

  ‘I told him about the… I told him what happened to you first,’ Blase said.

  ‘That I was raped,’ she said. ‘You can say it aloud.’

  ‘I don’t like to… I don’t want to remind you and I don’t want to remind myself.’

  ‘Lyssa is right, it helps to say it out loud. We’re not going to let him, to let them, have any control over us anymore.’ With that said, she pulled his hand down from her face and took it to her lap. ‘We could go somewhere and park for a while if you want…’

  Her coy school-girl act earned her a smile and he breathed out a laugh. ‘Most of the places we used to do that are condos and shopping malls now.’

  ‘We’ll just have to find some new places to make out then.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d trust myself.’

  ‘I trust you,’ she said. ‘And we did ok last night, didn’t we?’ She had been so preoccupied with her own issues that she hadn’t considered whether or not Blaser had enjoyed himself.

  ‘Last night was incredible, right up until I woke up alone.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Why did you run out on me?’

  ‘You promised never to break the law, and you did. What you did last night could have ruined your life and everything that you worked for. And you did it because I was in trouble. If I’m bad for you, I’m not staying.’

  ‘Colt understands… I think. I told him about the rape and about Ruger. I think those were enough to shock him into shutting up, so in for a penny, I told him about Rafe and about what went down last night. He knows everything, there’s nothing that can come back and bite us on the ass now.’

  ‘I don’t get why he was so understanding. Colt used to be so…’

  ‘Lyssa has chilled him out a bit,’ Blaser said. ‘And we’ve seen some shit together recently that… that not only proves that what you said about Ruger is true but also taught him that sometimes rules need to be broken to protect the people we love.’

  ‘But he hates me.’

  ‘It was never about you,’ Blaser said. ‘He didn’t want me to fuck up and you know what, he was right. A lot of what I did when I was a kid was showing off, I did want to impress you and I did want to keep Gary happy so that he wouldn’t cause trouble in our relationship.’

  Ivy and Dax passed the truck to go upstairs and back into their apartment. ‘Dax was with you last night,’ Bri said, looking at the couple’s front door. ‘Does Ivy know what happened?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Blaser said. ‘But she wasn’t there. Dax left her at home… and she was supposed to make sure that you didn’t come near the club.’

  ‘You’re really on an honesty kick, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want you to walk away again and I don’t plan on giving you any excuses.’

  New, responsible Blaser was refreshing. He’d never shied from telling her that he loved her, but he’d always thought that he knew best and had a habit of taking control of every situation, just like Gary did. While Blaser’s antics last night were an up to date example of that, he hadn’t been so forthcoming in the past with details.

  ‘What did happen last night?’

  ‘Dax is a fighter,’ Blaser said. ‘He’s been part of the bareknuckle circuit since he was a kid. I provided the location and he provided the event. We went to Rafe’s this morning to give him his money and tell him to back the fuck off.’

  ‘And will he?’

  ‘I think so,’ Blaser said, creeping satisfaction took over his expression. ‘Rafe knows what went down in Risqué last night, he knows who Dax is now and what kind of contacts he has. The last thing he wants to do is piss off a professional fighter who has influence over others.’

  ‘How do you know that Rafe knows what happened?’

  ‘The guy who attacked you was there,’ Blaser said. ‘He was with Marshall and they were skulking around.’

  ‘The man who attacked me was with Marshall?’ she said, falling back into her seat. ‘Why would they be together? Marshall is supposed to… he told Gary that he’d look after me.’

  ‘I thought Marshall had ratted me out to you when I came home to find you in my place last night.’

  She shook her head. ‘I haven’t spoken to Marshall. I just knew that something was up and when you closed the club – that was too suspicious.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just show up at the club?’

  ‘Because I had no idea what was happening,’ she said. ‘You could’ve had some private poker game going on or something and walking into the middle of that and throwing a fit wouldn’t have benefited either of us.’

  ‘Smart thinking.’

  ‘If there’s one thing I’m used to it’s crooks. I’ve been around enough of them in my life, my father is one, my brother, and my lover too.’

  ‘I’m retired,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘Turns out that I’m not as turned on by being bad as I used to be.’

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Because if we’re going to make this work then I need to know that all of that is behind us.’

  ‘Promise,’ he said, leaning over the centre console to kiss her.

  ‘Except parking,’ she said, taking her hands to his chest. ‘That’s one illegal activity I approve of.’

  ‘Good.’

  This kiss was longer and his tongue edged into her mouth. When she responded and coiled her arms around him, he took hold of her waist to pull her forward then wrapped her in his arms. The awkward angle made her spine ache, but she didn’t care, the kiss was good enough to soothe all of her pain.

  ‘I’d suggest taking this into the back seat,’ she said. ‘But it’s a bit public around here.’

  ‘Can we go inside?’ he asked and she nodded.

  He released her and came around the truck to open her door for her, his parents had taught him good manners and as silent as his father usually was, the Warner boys had certainly learned how to be gentleman so he brought her out of the truck and locked it up. Their twined fingers remained together, there was nothing awkward or inappropriate about their link now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With linked hands they went into his apartment and as soon as the door was closed he tried to move into the kitchen, but she dropped her purse, kept his hand and didn’t let him choose their destination. Leading him into the bedroom she slipped off her shoes and cosied up to him, coaxing him toward the bed. She caught his tee-shirt and let her fingers find their way up over his abs.

  ‘Do you have time for this?’ she asked. Usually he spent all of his time working and afternoon delight, well evening delight, wasn’t often scheduled as far as she was aware.

  ‘I told you I’d shoehorn in an hour if you needed me to,’ he s
aid with a grin that made her laugh.

  Being together was different now that everything was out in the open. Last night sort of felt like a goodbye to her, like it was her last chance to be intimate with the man she loved. If she thought that she was going to ruin his life, if she really was a bad influence, then she would’ve walked away to give him the best shot at keeping his legitimate future together – and not going back to jail.

  With everything now out in the open and the indication that Colt was going to accept them being together a weight was lifted.

  Sitting on the bed, she wriggled back and reached up to pull him down over her. He kept his arms locked so that he remained high above her, but the way they’d fallen meant their legs alternated, giving her a solid thigh to push her pelvis up against; a stimulator to grind her core into.

  ‘Do you want to be on top?’ he asked. The joy of a few moments ago had given way to serious concern and that irritated her as much as it impressed her.

  ‘Just kiss me, Love. If I need to switch then we’ll switch,’ she said. ‘But I want to feel you, the weight of you on me. I’ve missed having your body protecting mine.’

  Glad that he trusted her, Bri sighed when he bent his arms to bring his lips to hers again. The urgency that had been missing last night began to build as soon as their kiss took hold. Thoughts of therapy and family faded away. The need of her body took over, so lifting his tee-shirt she made him remove it, breaking their kiss for only a moment.

  Her hands moved over the hot flesh he had revealed, and she imagined kissing every part of him, touching his chest she thought about how the unyielding muscles would taste and how he would react to her tormenting him with her mouth.

  His hand skimmed down her hip to her leg, curling his fingers beneath her thigh he elevated the limb to pull it around his hip, and pushing his groin down into the soft heat of her body she clenched. There was no fear in feeling the erect length of him nudging and massaging itself at the tingling apex of her thighs.

  Want was all that consumed her, and parting her legs further she began to meet each of his caresses with her own. Tempted to encourage progression to the next level, Bri didn’t want to take too much control of this union for fear that Blaser would assume that she was uncomfortable. Showing him that she had trust in him was important.

  His mouth advanced south and when he began to kiss her breasts through the fabric of her dress she whimpered and arched up, trying to urge him to remove the fabric from between them. But he didn’t, and her breasts weren’t his destination, they were merely in the way of the path he wanted to travel.

  Gathering her skirt, he continued to kiss her body through her dress until he reached her lower abdomen. Pulling her dress up over her hips, he exposed her belly and kissed down her left hip to her pubic bone then back up the diagonal formed by her other hip.

  ‘Blase,’ she whined.

  He caught the elastic of her underwear in his teeth and dragged it down as far as he could. He kissed his way across to the other hip and pulled down the other side, spending time kissing the sensitised skin he’d just exposed. The tingling groove where her leg met her body was on blazing alert, he knew just how to torture her; the trigger spot was just the same as he’d learned when they were young. Letting his lips just meet her body and no more, he blew out a light breath that made her spine bend, trying to urge herself nearer to those tormenting lips.

  Provoking another whimper, Blaser buried his head against her, then lifted to pull off her panties. She’d thought he would look at her, maybe smile to offer reassurance, but he was too fixated on the glistening pink flesh he’d just exposed with the removal of her underwear that he tossed away.

  Coming down on her again, he lifted her legs over his shoulders and licked the length of her slit then sucked on her clit and flickered the tip with his tongue. If he kept pampering her like he was with that salacious tongue of his, then they wouldn’t need an hour, this would be over in just a few seconds.

  Curling his arms around her thighs to hold them over his shoulders, he planted his hands on her hips to keep them still enough for him to feast. And feast was exactly what he did, nibbling her creases, he licked her clit, increasing the pace of his tongue until she was panting out. Her dress was loose enough to allow her to move it up out of the way to fondle her own breasts as he sucked her into him again.

  Yelping at the strength of his mouth the spike of pleasure made her body try to leap away, but he was too strong and she was held there to let him deliver the last of the climax that clenched in her chest and stuck in her throat.

  It was so powerful that her eyes began to water and her hips bucked despite the steadying pressure of his hands. He let her pelvis rise and fall and he stimulated her each time she came into contact with his mouth. All she could do was hold her breath and ride the endorphins pumping through her body.

  Once the wave crested, she flopped down, spent and exhausted though she’d done nothing to cause such lethargy. Blaser’s arms fell away and she reached out for him, forcing herself to sit up and grab his wrist.

  ‘Come here,’ she said, yanking his body down on hers. ‘I’m spent.’ She wasn’t sure how they could ever follow that.

  Blaser rolled to his side, holding them together and she began to psyche herself up for the next showing. The pounding on the front door made them both sit up.

  ‘Who is that?’ she asked. Her heart hadn’t regained its regular pace yet, but it ratcheted up at the urgency held in that knock.

  ‘No idea,’ Blaser said.

  She watched him get up and leave the room, smiling when she realised that he was actually still wearing his boots. Fumbling to pull down her dress, she didn’t bother seeking out her underwear, just went after Blaser to discover who had interrupted their evening.

  Her smile and memory of what they’d just shared fled when she got to the hallway. Blaser lifted his hands like in surrender and backed away from the front door. Her brother, Gary, came in holding a gun out in front of him, aiming it right at Blaser’s heart.

  ‘Gary!’ she screamed, running toward him, but he didn’t take his eyes away from Blaser.

  ‘Get in the car,’ Gary shouted at her, walking into the apartment, forcing Blaser to walk backwards. The door stayed open, but she had no intention of using it.

  ‘No!’ she replied and ran over to try and get in front of Blaser, but he caught her and kept an arm in front of her, holding her back with strength she couldn’t fight against. ‘Gary! Stop it! What are you doing?’

  ‘Saving you from this prick. Didn’t you hear me the first time, Warner?’ Gary demanded of Blaser. ‘I told you to keep away from my sister, didn’t I?’

  ‘I came to him,’ Bri said, beseeching her brother. ‘Put the gun down, Gar! I love him, I want to be with him!’

  ‘Get your ass in the car, Bri!’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You get your ass out there now or I’m going to aim lower this time!’

  Gary wouldn’t listen to reason because he’d come here with one thing on his mind. And just like Blaser used to be, Gary thought that he knew better than everyone else. Her brother was a control freak, she’d always thought that his arrogance came from a place of love; that he wanted to take care of her because their parents hadn’t. But now she wasn’t so sure that it was about her at all.

  Anger burned in Gary’s eyes and although she couldn’t see Blaser’s expression, Bri knew he didn’t return that anger. Any anger that Blaser had towards Gary was for what he had done to her and those he cared about.

  She didn’t know how Gary had got here, or why he wasn’t in jail anymore, but his actions now proved that he had no fear of going back.

  ‘I should’ve got rid of you when I had the chance,’ Gary said. ‘Get in the car, Bri! You don’t need to see this.’

  Gary was going to pull the trigger and it didn’t matter a damn what she did about it. Talking him down wasn’t going to be a possibility, her brother had never listened to her.
Bri’s gaze darted around the room as she tried to come up with options, except none presented themselves. Blaser and Gary carried on their stare out.

  Shoving away Blaser’s arm, she backed off and ran for the door. Blaser might think that she was following Gary’s orders and leaving him to his fate, but she wasn’t. Running up the stairs, she began to batter on Ivy’s door, not giving a damn if she brought out all of the neighbours in the process.

  Ivy opened the door and Bri grabbed hold of her. ‘Where’s Dax?’

  ‘Inside,’ Ivy said. Bri appreciated Ivy gripping her arms because she needed the extra support.

  ‘He’s got a gun, he’s going to kill him!’

  ‘What? Who?’ Ivy asked. ‘Where are you—‘

  ‘Downstairs! Please! Where’s Dax?’

  Ivy was shoved aside and in that move Bri was taken with her, Dax muscled them both out of the way and was immediately on his way down the stairs.

  ‘It’s ok,’ Ivy said, pulling Bri forward into a hug.

  Bri sobbed and clung to her newest friend, overwhelmed by the shock and adrenaline of what she’d just witnessed: her love held at gunpoint by her only family. The blast of a gunshot startled them both and together, hand in hand, they ran down the stairs to find out who had been on the receiving end of that projectile.

  Praying it wasn’t Blaser, she felt the tightening grip of Ivy’s hand and knew she may have just caused the demise of Ivy’s love too. Bri would never forgive herself if an innocent man was hurt because of her actions.

  The door wasn’t closed, but it swung on its hinges, so the women shoved it aside to take in the scene. There was no blood. Dax was on the floor, holding Gary down by the throat and Blaser was on his feet, a few feet from where she’d left him.

  The singular focus on Dax’s expression was fixated on the man he held on the floor with little effort. Pressure of knuckle and thumb was all he needed to subdue the man who had arrived with the gun. Searching the space, Bri saw the gun now under the kitchen table, obviously having skittered away from her brother. A hole in an upper kitchen cabinet door revealed where the shot had gone.