Beyond Forever

by Kit Rocha

  Jas was standing at a low wooden table laden with weapons, sorting through the pistols and knives. “I’m not afraid of you, Lex.”

  “A half-naked chick who doesn’t mind talking shit to a bunch of armed men?” Zan elbowed his brother, who stood next to him, grinning. “Maybe he should be afraid.”

  They weren’t just sorting through the weapons, they were loading them. Lex crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s going on?”

  Mad flipped one of the knives over in his hand. “Another bootlegger popped up.”

  Technically, anyone who wanted to set up a still nearby could do so freely. It wasn’t like Dallas had some kind of monopoly or claim on the territory, just whatever he could hold on to with muscle alone. And that was exactly what he’d been doing, squashing his competition as soon as it appeared. Matthew Stone, the leader of Sector Four, let the burgeoning turf war go on, either because it amused him, or because he didn’t give a shit.

  Sooner or later, the constant fights and raids would bite them all in the ass. “What are you planning on doing about it?”

  Jas shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He squinted at her. “Dallas is out, meeting with a supplier. Got to wait ‘til he gets back for the order, but probably the usual.”

  The usual. Which meant the boys would roll out, carefully shoot the place up, and haul back all the equipment they could carry so they could add it to Dallas’s stash. Not that he needed it, or would use it under damn near any circumstances. It was almost always subpar, not remotely close to his exacting standards. But he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  And it was causing problems. Rumors had already started to circulate about why Dallas was stealing other people’s equipment. If he was doing so damn well, he shouldn’t need it. It never seemed to occur to anyone that he didn’t need it, because why else would he take it?

  What a fucking mess.

  Jasper walked out through the back. Zan and his brother drifted after him, still grumbling about the logistics of this particular raid. Mad was headed that way, too, when Lex grabbed him by the arm.

  He turned to face her, arching one dark eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  If anyone in Four could fully grasp the importance of image, it was Mad. He came from Sector One, where their entire culture had been built on it. “I know you’ve heard people talking. This is hurting him.”

  “Maybe,” he acknowledged, crossing his arms over his chest. That eyebrow was still raised. “Do you care?”

  She shouldn’t. Dallas had been studiously avoiding her for almost a year—and when he couldn’t avoid her, he kept careful distance between them. “If he goes broke, how is he gonna pay me? Of course I care.”

  “Uh-huh.” Mad sighed and leaned against a stack of crates. “I mentioned it to him last time. The boys are tired of hauling this crappy equipment back, and even more tired of trying to find places to put it. I told him we’ll be sleeping on top of it soon, and he told me to see about buying that warehouse next to the new barracks for storage.”

  Dallas’s operation could weather some grumbling from otherwise loyal men. But there was one thing it couldn’t survive. “I overheard someone in the marketplace the other day. He said word on the street is that Dallas doesn’t shut down the new stills because of competition, or even because he wants the equipment. He said it’s because Dallas needs their liquor.”

  Mad pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s his one weakness, you know. His blind spot. He’s smart and he’s ruthless and he can be harder than fucking diamonds when he has to be. But he never forgets not having enough.”

  “Can you talk to him?”

  “He won’t hear me on this, Lex. I’m a damn prince. I didn’t have to grow up hungry, and he knows it.”

  If one of his closest men couldn’t make Dallas listen, then a woman he didn’t trust and could barely bring himself to look at didn’t stand a chance. “Well, then. Looks like we’ll have to handle this one ourselves.”

  “Lex...”

  His voice held a note of warning, but he was already wavering. Lex patted his cheek. “You gather up what we’ll need. I’ll get dressed.”

  “Are we gonna do what I think we’re gonna do?”

  As if he had to ask. “I want a sledgehammer, I think. A big one.”

  »»» § «««

  Dallas O’Kane was having a shitty night.

  After hours of haggling, the deal he’d been working on for new shipments of cheaper grain had fallen through, and he’d come home to discover that another competitor had sprung up on the edge of their territory.

  And no one could find Mad, which meant Dallas was gearing up to go out and bust some fucking heads himself. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t know—this afternoon, maybe?” Jasper shrugged. “We were getting ready in case you came back early, and Lex came in to yell at us.”

  Tension tightened his muscles, and Dallas focused on relaxing them one by one. The chances that Mad and Lex had gone off somewhere to fuck were slim—but even if they had, Dallas didn’t give a shit.

  He didn’t.

  He did not.

  “Why was she yelling?” he asked, picking up his favorite pistol.

  “Aw, hell if I know. We woke her up making too much noise, I guess.”

  “Well, if she’d taken the damn bedroom I offered her, she wouldn’t have that problem, would she?”

  The side door opened, and Lex and Mad walked in, laughing. He was carrying the biggest sledgehammer they had, and Lex had an axe over her shoulder. “Did you see the one guy?” She shook her head. “Like he couldn’t decide if we were brave or crazy?”

  “I think he pissed himself while he was running away,” Mad retorted, grinning wider than Dallas had ever seen.

  They were disheveled. Giddy. And they both smelled like liquor and sour mash.

  Oh, fucking hell. “Adrian Maddox,” he roared, his anger spiking so fast his hands were shaking. He dropped his gun to the table and curled his fingers into fists as he spun on them. “What the hell did you just do?”

  Lex stepped between them. “Nothing. If you have a problem, it’s with me.”

  It was possible to get more pissed off. Dallas covered the space between them in three long strides and wrapped his hand around the handle of the axe propped on her shoulder—just in case. “I know you’re not a fucking idiot,” he snarled. “So you couldn’t have taken on a goddamn gang of bootleggers with one man as backup.”

  “Dallas—” Mad started.

  “No.” With one flex of muscle, he jerked the axe out of Lex’s grip and embedded it three inches into the table next to them. “You,” he snarled, pointing at Mad. “I’ll deal with you later.”

  Before anyone else could argue with him, he caught Lex’s arm and dragged her toward his office.

  She let him, but when they stepped across the threshold, she yanked her arm out of his grasp. “I would have walked. You didn’t have to go caveman on me.”

  “Oh darling, you haven’t seen caveman yet.” He slammed the door behind them and leaned back against it. Having her trapped someplace she couldn’t escape slowed his racing pulse enough to let him examine her for injuries. “What the hell were you thinking? You both could have gotten killed.”

  She scoffed. “Please. They ran like scared little boys. And if they’d tried to fight?” She bent and unzipped one boot, then the other, and kicked them off. “I’ve handled bigger numbers all by my lonesome. I bet Mad has, too.”

  She straightened and unbuttoned her jeans.

  He’d seen her strip enough times to know when she was trying to make it sexy. This was practical, efficient—and a perfectly reasonable reaction to having jeans covered in mash.

  Which meant he knew exactly what they’d been doing. “Mad talked you into wrecking their shit.”

  She pinned him with an indignant glare. “Actually, it was my idea.”

  “So you think I’m being stupid
, too?”

  “No.” Her expression gentled. “But I think there are some things you need to do that you won’t. Maybe can’t.”

  Dallas closed his eyes against the tenderness on her face. Anger, he could handle. Even disdain. But softness? Sympathy?

  He was Dallas fucking O’Kane, barbarian bootlegger. He didn’t have time for soft. “You think I’m being stupid,” he repeated, not making it a question this time. “Tell me what the smart move is. Tell me why.”

  Lex sighed. “They only know what they see, O’Kane. People don’t understand that you have complicated reasons for your shit. So they assume motivations that make sense to them—like maybe you don’t smash the equipment up when you shut someone down because you’re going to finish off their run and sell their liquor as your own.”

  Dallas’s eyes flew open. “They think what?”

  “You heard me.” Lex stood there in just a T-shirt, her arms crossed over her chest. “They think you’re a fraud, and you’re giving them room to do it.”

  “That is the most ridiculous—” He bit off the words with a growl, though his anger was self-directed now. He should have guessed this was coming. The people who weren’t willing to do the work just loved to sit around and talk shit about the people who got it done. Dallas had never had time for their petty jealousies, but he should have known what they’d do as soon as he got big enough to pose a real threat.

  Most of them probably didn’t even believe it. But they would spread the rumor because it was finely honed to undercut the image he’d struggled to build. And they’d find people who would believe it. The rumors would chip at the foundation of the O’Kane mystique and seep into the cracks like water waiting for one good freeze.

  Then everything could come crumbling down.

  “So I fuck up their shit.” He watched her, wondering how a woman half his size, standing there in a T-shirt and panties, managed to loom so large. “Just smash it all to hell like I’m not just a barbarian, I’m possibly a psychopath, too.”

  A hint of a smile curved her lips. “Sounds like one hell of a deterrent to me. I wouldn’t chance setting up in O’Kane territory.”

  No, not if he played it right. Cruise through, smash their equipment to shit, scare the piss out of them. Make it clear that next time, the sledgehammers would be cracking skulls, not stills.

  “Fine.” He pinned her with a glare. “But you shouldn’t have gone out there and done it by yourself. You’re going to give me gray hair, woman.”

  “Ah, but it’ll be worth it.” Her eyes gleamed. “You’re a rich man already, Dallas. If you let me, I can make you a legend.”

  He huffed. “You know what legends get? They get their asses shut down by Matthew Stone. Our sector leader doesn’t like competition.”

  “So get rid of him.”

  She said it so casually that Dallas barked out a laugh. But his laughter died as her gaze met his, amused but deadly serious. “Shit, you’re not kidding.”

  “What? I figured that was your endgame.” She levered herself up to sit on the edge of his desk. “You do so like being in charge. What else are you gonna do?”

  It had always been there, lurking in the back of his head. The jackpot. The ultimate, out-of-reach dream. He’d never expected to come this far, this fast. To be sitting on the most profitable bar in all eight sectors, making money as quickly as he could get the liquor out of the casks.

  Lex had been a part of that. The heart of it. He’d slid into the persona she’d crafted for him like a perfectly tailored jacket he’d never realized he wanted, and it was comfortable here. Even back then, she’d seen him so clearly, she’d known exactly what he needed. Who he was.

  Dallas O’Kane, barbarian bootlegger, was an act—and he wasn’t. He was part of Dallas—the best parts of him as well as the worst. His ambition and his protective instincts. His ruthlessness and his hedonistic pleasure in life.

  He was the king of his own domain, and he kept the people who lived inside it safe. But there was a shithole sector outside his walls, and Matthew Stone took glee in playing the predators against each other, watching them wound and weaken themselves while he consolidated his position and fed off the prey.

  A noble reason. And a fucking lie.

  “You want it,” Lex whispered. “Go on. Say it out loud for once.”

  He wanted so many things. Control. Security. So much fucking money that the world could end a half-dozen more times and he’d know in his bones that the people he cared about would still be safe.

  And he wanted her. He always wanted her.

  Dallas took a step, and then another, until he was standing against the desk, his hips driving her thighs apart, so close he could feel her breath on his throat when he reached out to twine one lock of hair around his finger. “I want control. Of all of it. Of everyone.”

  Of you.

  Her eyes hardened even as her smile stayed the same, soft and vaguely amused. “You haven’t so much as spoken to me in months. What makes you think I’d let you touch me now?”

  “You’re the one who wants to make me a king,” he murmured. “Don’t you know? Kings get whatever they want.”

  She tilted her head. “Do they?”

  “Fuck yeah. Otherwise, what’s the point of all that damn work?” He slid his fingers deeper into the silky strands, twisting his fingers through them until the pressure pulled her head back. Dangerous—reckless—but he’d let himself have this one moment before he stepped back and put the necessary space between them. “Maybe if I was a king, you’d take the fucking room I prepared for you and stop sleeping on couches like you’re homeless.”

  “Doubtful.” She held his gaze as she reached out and slipped her hand under his shirt. “When you start giving me the right things, I’ll take them.”

  Her fingers were warm against his skin. Gentle—until she gave him the first bite of her nails, and his whole body shook.

  His plans to retreat shattered into dust.

  Her lips beckoned, full and red, soft and dangerous. He hadn’t kissed her that night in the hallway, and he’d regretted it every damn day since. He wanted to know how she tasted, how she yielded. If she’d let him in, or if she’d use her teeth to warn him off.

  He wanted to know everything.

  The first brush of lips was electric. His nerves sizzled and the air crackled, like he was out in a storm and lightning was about to strike. He tightened his grip on her hair and tilted his head, licking her lower lip, demanding she meet his kiss.

  She did. She opened her mouth readily, eagerly, but the moment his tongue touched hers, she bit him. It felt more like a test than a warning—Lex’s warnings came with crushed balls and blood. So he bit her back, nipping her lower lip sharply and sweeping his tongue back into her mouth when she gasped.

  She slid her arms around him, under his shirt, and raked little streaks of fire over his back as she pulled him closer. Her moan melted into a pleading noise, and he groaned and kissed her harder, knowing he had to pull back, knowing he had to put some space between them—

  He couldn’t remember why right now. But he knew it was important.

  He broke away with a rough snarl and backed up until his shoulders hit the door. Lex stayed right where she was, sprawled on his desk—eyes closed, lips swollen, face flushed.

  Waiting.

  One heartbeat. Two. Then she slid off his desk and reached for her clothes. She gathered them in silence, not even looking at him. “The room. You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”

  He blinked. “Did what?”

  “Put me in one as far away from yours as possible.”

  His head was so far from thoughts of floorplans that it took physical effort to jerk his attention to her words. “That’s stupid,” he retorted—maybe too quickly. But fuck it, he wasn’t going to admit to running away from her. “Most of the rooms near mine are shit. I thought you’d want a nice one.”

  “Sure.” She still wouldn’t look at him. “I’ll take it.” />
  It should have felt like a victory, especially if he was going to start seriously thinking about moving against Stone. Having Lex under his roof, where he knew she was safe—that would matter when the time came to fight for the sector.

  But it would have felt more like a win if he wasn’t pretty sure she was wishing she still had that axe in her hands.

  She shifted her weight from one delicate bare foot to the other. “I can’t leave when you’re standing in front of the door.”

  Good.

  No, that was the inner barbarian she’d awoken, hungry to claim and conquer. But she’d stirred something far more dangerous in him tonight—a potential king.

  And a king could take what he wanted.

  In silence, Dallas stepped aside. But when she opened the door, he caught the edge of it. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

  Did he imagine that tiny flinch? He must have, because by the time she faced him, she’d locked it all down—the vulnerability, the passion, everything he’d tasted in her kiss. “No problem. Maybe someday you’ll return the favor.”

  With that slashing comment, she jerked the door out of his hand and disappeared, leaving him bleeding from an invisible gut wound. No one else had ever been able to needle him so easily with words, much less eviscerate him with one lazy stroke.

  And that’s why you’re not supposed to touch her, you horny bastard.

  Somehow, he knew he would anyway.

  The King

  “You got another one.” Jasper hovered in the doorway, a box in one hand. “This one’s from Eight. Jim Jernigan.”

  Dallas flipped his notebook shut, hiding the list he’d been making, and jerked his head at his second-in-command. “Oh, boy. Might as well open it up. Bren checked to make sure it wasn’t a bomb, right?”

  “If the other sector leaders wanted to send you bombs, they missed their chance. Should have done it yesterday.” He set the box on Dallas’s desk and nudged it. “They have to make nice with you now. You’re one of them.”