Shane shrugged a big shoulder. “No one has any word on him. We know there were several casualties among his men, but no one knows or no one is talking about Lex's whereabouts.”
“So we got shit,” I said, throwing back my whiskey and handing the glass back to the waitress who brought it over, giving her a weak imitation of the smile I would normally give her, being all tits, ass, and long hair. She was so lush and, normally, I'd have been minutes away from burying deep in her pussy, no matter what was going on with the club. What the fuck was wrong with me?
“That about sums it up,” Chaz agreed, giving me a 'what can 'ya do' shrug.
“You'll keep us in the loop if you come up with anything?”
Chaz nodded.
“Tell Reign that Lea is dragging my ass to whatever dinner party shit Summer has planned.”
“Another fuckin' dinner party?” I asked, flat out grinning. “After the shitstorm that was her last one?” Shane sighed and I laughed. “You know, I never thought I'd see the day that two of the biggest dogs in town would be led around by their balls by some women.”
“Should be happy,” Shane said, smiling. “Got yourself less competition now. Just three of these fucks,” he said, waving at his brothers. “And... who? Breaker and Shooter?”
I laughed at that until Repo cleared his throat. “Break and Shoot took off last night.”
My smile died and I turned to Repo, eyes questioning. “What?”
“Shredder told me Rick told him that he saw them at Paine's shop, looking like they were sayin' goodbye then taking off with some dark-haired chick with a busted face.”
“And you were sitting on this shit because?” I asked, feeling anger, strange and unsettling, build up inside.
“You can't honestly fucking think Break or Shoot would be in on this,” Repo reasoned.
He was right. On a normal day, I would never think they would meddle in our, let alone everyone's, shit. Breaker and Shooter were contract muscle. They did jobs for whoever paid the right price. Breaker, well, he was good at breaking people. Shooter, well, was good at shooting. They were tight as brothers and generally kept to themselves business-wise. I'd shared more than a few nights of debauchery with Shooter- drinking too much, taking bets on which one of us would land the hottest chick in the room. I didn't know Breaker well, but Reign did. They were friends, as much as anyone outside of the club could be our friends. That being said, them taking off in the middle of the night when bombs were going off? That didn't sit right.
“Wasn't Breaker,” Eli, the quietest, but also the most lethal of the brothers, spoke up confidently. “He's a hands-on kinda guy.” His eyes met mine and held. “People recognize their own kind,” he explained, looking down at his hands for a second. “You told me that Lex was beaten to death in an alley, then yeah, you can point at Breaker. But placing bombs? Too impersonal. Not his style.”
“I'll get in contact, feel things out,” I said, starting to feel bone-deep tired. There was fucking too much going on with the bombs, the accusations, whatever the fuck was going on with Lo... all of it. It needed to get it all the fuck sorted out so things could go back to normal- drinking, and riding, and women.
We walked back out to the car a few minutes later, Repo taking my glare with a defiant chin raise. “Think next time you share information with me before sending me in there and making me look dumb, yeah?”
He stopped at the passenger side of the car, arms spread out over the roof. “Don't blame me for you dropping the ball. There's bombs and you take off the next day and no one sees you for hours?”
“Careful, kid,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek, trying to keep my head on straight. I was tired, I was confused, and I was in no position to get into a fight with one of the men, especially considering that he was absolutely fucking right. I should have been at the club. I should have been there setting things to right the second I knew there was a bombing, not fucking around at Hailstorm. I should have been gathering information, not undressing Lo.
“Ain't calling you out,” he said, holding up his hands. “Just pointing some shit out before someone else starts saying them in less of a brotherly way.”
“Cut me some slack this week, Repo. Got a lot of shit I'm dealing with.” With that, and no further explanation, I drove us back to the compound. I showed my face for a while, talking to the members hanging around, making sure no one could say I wasn't there for them.
Finally, around dinner time, I got back in Lo's car and went back to my place to find her still passed out. So I ordered food and waited.
She must have woken up startled by the unfamiliar surroundings, flying up, forgetting about her ribs. The cry she let out had me running up the stairs, stalling outside the door to give her a second to pull herself together. If there was one thing Lo had in spades, aside from the best rack I had ever seen, it was pride. She would never forgive me for seeing her when she was upset.
Watching her slowly lift up my tee and bunch it under her tits... fuck, fuck me. I tried to keep my eyes down, to focus only on the nasty bruises across her ribs. But, well, I was a man after all and she had the fucking perfect body- long, strong legs, flat belly, flare of hips, and she had her hands just high enough for me to see the soft underside of her perfect tits. It took every damn bit of self-control I had to not let my fingers brush there.
She followed me downstairs a few minutes later, wearing nothing but my oversize tee and those black panties with the pink lace trim.
“I got a bit of everything,” I said, unable to let any silence hang for too long. I was used to different types of women- women who liked to talk and bitch and fill the silences. Lo seemed perfectly content to not say anything at all and I wondered if that was just how she was- guarded, private, introspective or if it was from spending so much time around her men at Hailstorm.
She reached into the brown bag, pulling out white take-away containers, opening the tops, and setting them in the middle of the table. I watched as she took a plate and loaded up, feeling myself grin when she took enough to feed two growing teenage boys.
“What's your poison, Lo?” I asked, moving into the kitchen for drinks.
“Beer is fine if your taste is as good as your brother's,” she said and I watched as she stared down at the dining table for a minute before deciding to move over to the living room and plopped herself down on the couch, reaching for the remote, making herself at home.
I gave her beer, made my plate, and sat down next to her, looking at the survivalist show she picked off of on-demand. “So are you going to tell me what favor you are calling in?”
“I want to talk to Reign,” she said, staring pointedly at the TV.
“Honey,” I said, sitting up and placing my plate on the coffee table, “I'm the one who got you somewhere safe, got you some medicine, let you sleep, wrapped you up, and fed you. You don't think you can tell me why I needed to do all that?”
“Cash it's...”
“Lo,” I cut her off, shaking my head.
She sighed, putting her plate down, almost all eaten. She probably would have finished it if I hadn't distracted her. She took a breath before she turned to me. “Cash, I run a survivalist camp full of ex military who are really, really good at killing people in various ways. I didn't get to where I am today without making a shitton of enemies. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes, they pop up and create trouble.”
“So that's all you're going to give me?”
“It's all I have to give. I was in my safe house. It was dark. I have a general description and the direction he took off in. The gang that runs that street are looking for him too.”
“Seriously? I mean I know you keep a lot of shitty company, Lo, but a street gang?”
“They bought me medical supplies,” she defended. “And they said if they got their hands on him, he'd be identifiable by dental records only.”
“So that's why you keep the company of scum? Because they ca
n do dirty work for you?”
Her eyes narrowed at me. “I can do my own fucking dirty work, Cash.”
I didn't doubt that and I didn't know why I was choosing that moment to pick a fight with her. She was hurt, physically but also her pride. I was being a fucking dick for no good reason. It didn't matter what I thought about how she operated her business. All that mattered was she was bloody and bruised and asking me for help.
“You give me a description, I'll put some feelers out, okay?”
Her chest deflated as she realized I was giving in. “Okay.”
“How bad you hurting? You want more pills?”
“After this show,” she said, sitting back casually and cradling her beer in her hands.
After the show, I shook two more pills into her hand then let her make her way up the stairs again. I tucked her into the bed and waited for her to fall asleep before I slid in behind her. I could have slept down on the couch, but I was trying really hard to convince myself that what I was doing was for her benefit- she'd have me close in case she needed anything in the middle of the night, or if she woke up in pain.
But the truth was, I just wanted to be close for my own reasons, reasons I didn't understand, and reasons I didn't plan on analyzing.
I just climbed in the empty side of the bed, curled up, and waited for sleep to claim me.
It was sometime in the middle of the night when I heard it: whimpering. I slowly surfaced, unsure what the sound was, still drowsy. As my eyes opened and I focused on the back of Lo, curled up away from me, awareness snapped me up.
“Honey?” I asked, my voice raspy from sleep. She didn't respond, just made more crying sounds. I reached out, grabbing her shoulder gently and pulling her back until she was flat on her back and I was on my side looking down at her. She was sleeping, dreaming. There were tears on her cheeks and her lips were trembling. “Baby, wake up,” I said, my voice a little louder. My hand moved out, stroking her hair out of her face. The second my fingers touched her, her body stilled its writhing.
My hand drifted down the side of her neck, stroking the soft skin, down her arm, her side, over the bandages covering her ribs. Soon, the whimpering cries turned into muffled groans and I couldn't stop myself from touching her- over her bruised jaw, down the center of her chest, up the side of her leg.
Slowly, her eyes fluttered open and her brown eyes found mine in the dark.
“Cash?”
Ten
Lo
I was used to the nightmares. I couldn't remember the last time I had a night of completely dreamless sleep. I'd simply seen too many things, been through too much shit to be granted the serenity of a restful night. I accepted that as part of my life, as penance for the dark shit I had been involved in.
I woke up slowly, my skin feeling oddly tingly, my chest feeling tight. I felt the pulsating need between my thighs as the final hold of sleep let go and realized with a blinding kind of clarity that I was turned on. I was turned on in a bed that wasn't my own.
My eyes fluttered open to see the dark outline of a male body half-propped up over mine. It was then I felt a hand brushing across the very lowest point of my belly, toying with the waistband of my panties, his fingers brushing the exposed few inches beneath my bandages.
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
Cash was touching me.
“Cash?” I heard my voice ask, low and airless.
“You were crying,” he said back, just as quietly.
“Cash what...”
“You were crying and when I touched you, you stopped.”
Wow. Okay. I sucked in a breath, trying to calm the growing sense of need. “I'm not crying anymore.”
His head shifted up and there was just enough moonlight slanting through the blinds for me to see his gaze was on my face. “Are you going to make me stop?”
Oh, god. I didn't want him to stop. But he needed to. Right?
“This is a bad...”
“Do you want me to stop, Lo?” he asked, his voice getting deeper and I felt it turn my insides to mush. “Don't analyze it, just answer. Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” I said before I could stop myself. Then, again before I could stop it, I started, “Cash, everything hurt...”
“Not gonna' fuck you, babe,” he said, with a little bit of regret in his voice. “But I promise that, in a few minutes, you won't be feeling any pain.”
Well then. I kind of owed it to myself to get pain-free, right? At least, that was what I was going to choose to believe.
“Okay,” I said, my breathing already shallow and fast and he wasn't even touching me anymore.
His body shifted slightly, lifting up, as his fingers whispered across the soft skin of my inner thighs. I felt my legs falling open, giving him more access, practically begging him to shift his touch upward and touch me where I really needed it. But his touch remained almost chaste, gentle, moving up to the lace of my panties around my thighs, then back down to my knees, then back up again.
Desire made every nerve ending feel overly sensitive, poised to respond to the barest of caresses. The material of my panties was wet and my hips were shifting around in frustration.
“Cash...” I whimpered. The end of his name caught on a hitch in my breath when his hand shifted and pressed down hard between my legs.
“Soaked,” he said on a growl, his fingers shifting so his thumb pressed down on my clit, moving over it with slow, hard pressure side to side. My hand flew out, landing on his shoulder and digging my fingers in.
His thumb moved to start circling over the sensitive point and my ragged breathing turned to quiet groans as he drove me painfully slowly upward, promising oblivion but taking his sweet time to deliver. “Oh, oh,” I moaned, feeling myself start to crest. “No!” I cried out loudly as his hand moved away just in time.
“Shh,” he shushed me, sounding amused. “I'm not done with you yet,” he promised and I felt my pussy clench hard in anticipation.
I felt his weight shift, my eyes still unable to adjust to the darkness. “What are you...” I started and trailed off when his body settled and I felt his mouth close over my cleft through my panties. “Oh my god,” I moaned, my hand slapping down on the top of his head, taking in the strange sensation of peach fuzz on one side and soft, long hair on the other. I sank my fingers into the long strands, twisting, and holding on as his tongue moved out and stroked the wet material over my too-sensitive clit.
His hand shifted to move between us and pulled my panties to the side to expose me and I didn't even get a chance to suck in a breath before I felt his tongue slide up my slick cleft and start lavishing over my clit. My orgasm built faster that time, my entire body tense, poised for the release. His other hand moved upward and I felt his finger slide inside me, slow, burying deep, stroking in and out until my moans became choked gasping, then curling upward and stroking over my G-spot.
My climax left me in a suspended nothingness for a long moment before it finally broke through my system- a deep, fast pulsating around his finger as my thighs shook. My cry cut through the night as the waves kept coming, as his tongue and finger prolonged my release.
“Oh my god,” I gasped as the aftershocks made my body tremble slightly.
Cash moved away slowly, pulling out of me, and pushing my panties back into place. His body shifted back to my side and he reached to pull the covers back over my body.
“Sleep honey.”
“Cash...” I started, not sure what I wanted to say, but knowing what just happened changed things and that meant we should probably discuss it.
“Sleep,” he said again, moving over toward the far end of the bed and stretching out, leaving me little choice but to do what I was told.
–
I woke up in the early morning out of habit, and thanks to the fact that I spent almost the entire day before sleeping. My ribs objected to movement, but the stabbing was more of a dull ache and
I realized maybe they were bruised and not cracked after all.
I went into the bathroom and went through my morning rituals until I felt mostly human again. Looking at my reflection, I took a deep breath. “What the fuck did you do?” I asked myself on a whisper. If I let myself think about it, I could still practically feel his tongue on me. So... yeah... I needed to not think about it.
It was stupid to think it mattered. I was a grown ass woman. Hooking up was hooking up. Sex was sex. That was the end of it. Lord knew, he had enough casual sex in his day for it to mean literally nothing that he had his face buried between my thighs just a few hours before.
The smell of coffee was the only thing that finally dragged me down the stairs and into the kitchen to where Cash was casually sitting on top of his counter in faded jeans and a white tee. A coffee cup was poised on his knee as he clicked away at his cell phone.
“Can I grab a cup?” I asked, moving toward the coffee machine where he had already set out a spare cup, a sugar bowl, and a spoon.
“Yeah honey.”
Oh, hell. He needed to stop calling me the cutesy names. I swear the word landed with a flutter in my nether-regions. The effect was strong enough to stop me mid-grab for the coffee pot.
“Sleep well?” he asked, as if it was perfectly normal for us to have conversations over coffee.
“Yeah. Those pills really throw you for a loop,” I said, pouring my coffee, and turning to make my way out of the kitchen.
“Figured we would head up to Hailstorm today,” he said, making my heart fly up into my throat and my body whirl around to face him, effectively spilling a third of my coffee onto the floor.
“Shit,” I cursed, shaking the hot coffee off my hand.
“I got it,” he said, hopping off the counter, somehow doing so without spilling any of his coffee, of course. He came toward me, paper towels at the ready and lowered himself down the floor at my feet. I knew I needed to take a step back, put some space between us, but my brain couldn't seem to get the message to my legs. Then, done scrubbing, his head cocked up to look at me and a devilish grin spread on his lips, making his face way too god damn handsome. “I like this position,” he said, one of his hands moving up toward the hem of my tee and inching it up.
Cash (The Henchmen MC Book 2) Page 7
