by A. J. Downey
“I like it,” he said truthfully.
I smiled, “Can we please finish what we started in the workshop?” I asked. He grinned.
“Absolutely.”
Chapter 21
Red-XIII…
Her request made me instantly hard the rest of the way. I’d be lying if I said the sight of all that smooth skin, of her sitting up in my bed, sheet grasped coyly to her chest, hadn’t gotten me at least halfway there already. God damn she was gorgeous and god damn, did I ever want to be inside her.
I stripped my shirt over my head, grasping it at the back and pulling it off in one fell movement. Her eyes shone, traveling over my shoulders and chest with a liquid heat, dimming for a second when she reached the stain of a bruise in the center of my chest.
“Dani,” I said softly and her eyes snapped to mine, the smile I gave her reigniting the warm fire, the need in her expression. I stripped the rest of the way in record time and when I came to the bed she reached for me, the sheet dropping to pool in her lap. She knelt up and met me in my descent, our mouths meeting in the middle, the kiss everything it had been in the workshop and more. She molded her soft, almost too thin body to the front of mine, her arms twining around my neck and shoulders, and I put a knee on the edge of the bed. She scooted back and I went with her until we were both just kneeling on the mattress, kissing, taking our time. The heat between us increasing to a steady boil.
I broke my mouth from hers and lay on my back, and without missing a beat she straddled my hips, her upper body dipping low so our mouths could meet once more. I smoothed my hands over all that damned satiny-smooth skin of hers and as we kissed, unconsciously rocked my hips, sliding my shaft against her hot, slick lips. Dani broke our kiss with a frustrated cry and pushed herself up.
“Condom?” she asked, breathless.
“Fuck no,” I growled, and she didn’t argue. She rose up on her knees and reached for me, guiding me into her body. She lowered herself agonizingly slow, until I caught her wincing. I put my hands on her hips and gripped her firmly.
“Stop,” I told her gently, “You feel fucking amazing, Babe. You ain’t got to take it all. I told you that.”
We locked gazes, her cornflower blue eyes something to really behold; wide, and so big and beautiful. She wiggled her hips and I sucked in a deep breath and with the sweetest, purest smile, she rolled them just right. Fuck, man, I knew I was damned. Damned to want her and only her for the rest of my fucking life, and I would gladly go straight to hell for her. I let my head fall back to the pillow and I moaned. Good Christ she felt incredible! Hot, wet, velvet heat, so pure, so sweet, clenching tight, her beautiful pussy gripping my dick as she drew off me, milking me for everything I was worth.
Dani collapsed forward, her hands on my chest, down low where there was no bruising. She looked down at me, her black hair loose and tousled around her face, in a wash down her back, cloaking her shoulders. She looked like some sort of Goddess, like the Goddess of crows, made flesh. Something mythical and fantastic, and she had me so damned firmly under her spell.
She loved me hard, she was all in and it was amazing. Still, it was hard not to notice the fine trembling in her lithe frame. She was getting tired so I swept my hands up her body, cradling her before I put some of my strength to use. With a wild and surprised cry from my girl, I spun her, putting her beneath me. While her riding me was fucking beautiful to watch and felt incredibly good, it just wasn’t going to put me over the edge.
The sudden movement on my part had hurt more than I’d like to admit. I guess I wasn’t fully healed yet, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t care. I pulled out of her and she gave me a dirty look. I laughed.
“Turn on your stomach for me?” I asked.
With a look like she was about to mutiny if she didn’t get me back inside she complied, getting up on her knees. I shook my head and guided her with gentle hands into the position I wanted, her on her stomach, flat on her stomach, legs together. I nudged them apart, my hands on her ass, just enough to get myself situated and, with a triumphant smile, slipped back into her warm and welcome body.
Dani cried out and I bowed my head. I loved this position. I was so long I could do it easily but it kept me from going too deep, still it felt like she took all of me this way. Her soft thighs stroking my shaft near the base when I thrust. The head of my cock and a decent amount of my length buried and getting the attention that would get me off inside her. Bonus? I seemed to be stroking right over her g-spot, because the feral sounds of passion pouring from her throat damn sure told me I was hitting all the right buttons.
I kneaded her delectable ass with my hands, my eyes roving the artwork inked onto her back and I had the random thought that I was glad she’d chosen this design. I really didn’t think I would ever get tired of looking at it. It was really beautiful.
“Oh God! Thirteen, I’m gonna come!” she cried, her voice high and breathy, and I smiled. Oh God, indeed. She jerked, her beautiful cunt putting a stranglehold on the head of my dick before her pounding orgasm swept me into a damned frenzy of one of my own. I shouted and buried myself deep before coming myself, glad that her orgasm riding her would ease things.
“Mmm!” She jerked beneath me and I pulled back a bit.
“You all right?” I asked breathlessly.
She hummed in satisfied pleasure and nodded. Her face turned to the side so she could breath, her eyes were closed and her expression was pure, relaxed bliss. I smiled and braced myself on the bed, leaning over her. I drew back my hips and withdrew from her body and she shuddered, moaning out in pleasure.
It made me laugh, a slightly prideful sound, and I leaned down and kissed the back of her shoulder that bore no ink.
“Like that?” I asked her softly, a whisper against her warmth. She nodded, completely wordless and boneless beneath me. I pressed soft kisses to every bit of her soft skin while the dew of sweat cooled on our bodies. She giggled and jerked a bit when I made it to the back of her knee. I spent some time there and her giggles quickly turned to moans and groans of approval.
Shit, my turnaround this go around was fucking amazing. I was getting hard again already.
“You good to go some more so long as you don’t got to move?” I asked her.
She nodded, her arms tucked beneath her, hands holding her hair back from her face. So fucking trusting, so fucking beautiful. I smiled and kissed my way to her foot. I planted a kiss to one sole and then the other, and kissed and licked and nipped my way back up the other leg. Dani’s eyes were closed, her face serene as she relished the little touches and the attention I lavished on her, and I loved that.
My girl wasn’t much of a talker during sex, which was fine by me. Her reactions were more than enough, fucking priceless, such a turn on. I straddled the back of her thighs and pressed into her slowly. She pressed back onto my cock, her hips rising subtly off the bed, and she moaned. The sound went straight to my blood, and I closed my eyes. I took her much slower this time, took my time, loved her more gently until both of us came with much less intensity, sure, but for what felt like much longer.
I was spent. My girl was spent. There just wasn’t any more room for a round three in there. We’d loved one another just that thoroughly.
Chapter 22
Dani…
They’d pulled Thirteen into a room in the back near the media room the next morning after breakfast. They called it the council chamber. I pretty much assumed that was the equivalent to the Suicide Kings and their war room. I drifted out to the shop and picked up where I’d left off on Revelator’s wedding set for his woman, when a slight flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye made me turn. I damn near came out of my skin.
“Sorry.” Reaver looked apologetic and, as silently as he’d entered, glided over to the chair that Thirteen had occupied while I worked. I watched him, the ring I was crafting forgotten in my fingers.
“Got bored.” He lifted a shoulder in an inelegant shrug. I blinked.
“How are you still alive?” I blurted.
He crooked a grin and bowed his head, smoothing his hair down in front. He looked at me.
“What do you think?” I frowned.
“If I had any idea, I wouldn’t be asking.”
“Touché, fair enough.” He nodded and then looked at me, “It was pretty stupid, actually. I got married, but no one that was there bothered to tell the EMT’s my name. They looked at my driver’s license and checked me in to the hospital under the name on it.” He made a distasteful face.
“Dragon and Doc talked about it, Doc issued a phony death cert in my old name and they kept it quiet. Used my ‘death’,” he put the word death in air quotes with his fingers, “as leverage, both to get the girls to agree to go to ground and in hopes that if The Suicide Kings believed I was dead that they might back off.” He twisted his lip wryly.
“Yeah not going to happen, you’re going to have to kill them all,” I said succinctly.
He got a wicked gleam to his bright blue eyes and a slow grin curled his lips, “With pleasure,” he stated dryly and I felt the first fingers of icy dread tick down my spine. He must have read it in my posture, seen it on my face, because his smile got a little broader.
“I thought you were one of their cabinet, why aren’t you in there?” I asked in a bid to change the subject. He shrugged.
“Had to make everyone believe. I didn’t mind giving it up, it never really suited me anyhow. Especially now that there’s Hayden.” He slipped his phone out of a pocket, and showed me a picture. She was small against his front, head tipped back as he kissed her. The photo tastefully black and white. They were surrounded by glass and metal but I couldn’t tell where they were. It didn’t take a PhD to see that they were completely and madly in love with each other.
“She still doesn’t know,” he said softly and withdrew the phone. “I want this over more that I can say. She’s down south, being looked after, safe, but every day away from her…” he shook his head.
“When you meet the right woman it stops the rage and the pain, and she’s the right woman for me. I don’t know that she’ll take me back after this one.” He slipped off the chair and stretched, his white tee riding up, the edge of a long pink scar riding over his ribs and down towards his stomach on his left side. He lifted his shirt so I could see.
It was bad, the scar tissue puckered where the bullet had gone in, two long scars radiating out from the site and a couple of more puncture looking scars higher up between ribs. Likely from chest tubes or something.
“How is your recovery?”
“Doc says I’m real fucking lucky. Should do just fine. Almost out the other side of this thing. Ready to get back in it.”
“Why’d you come out here?” I asked.
“You hit the nail on the head. I want you to like me. That, and I promised to give you this back.” He held up the switchblade he’d taken back from me after giving it to me the night I’d come here. His eyes were clear and cold as a winter’s sky, and nothing but a wasteland of frozen tundra peered out of them. No emotion, just nothing there. Like a wolf would look at you. I bravely reached out and plucked it from his long fingers.
“I keep my word, Rocket. You can count on us here,” he said softly. I nodded mutely and took a shuddering breath, a little overcome with emotion. I hit the switch and the blade snapped free, flakes of dried blood sifting to my workbench. Pig’s blood. Tears of relief flooded my eyes and I sniffed. I looked up to Reaver’s emotionless eyes and said the only thing I could, even though it didn’t even begin to cover it.
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” His eyes thawed, warming back up into human temperature, and he put a hand on my shoulder.
“Almost over,” he said, and I nodded, the ‘I promise’ hanging in the air between us.
“Can’t wait for you to meet the rest of the girls,” he said with a smile, and the thought earned a smile from me in return.
“I wonder what they’re like…”
He laughed and started telling stories, the heaviness dissipating with every word spoken, the fear diminishing with every laugh shared. It’s where Thirteen found me, laughing at something Reaver had said, and I was struck by something I’d heard the VP say.
“Do you always make friends this way?” I asked.
Reaver gave me a cheeky smile and bounced his eyebrows a few times, which made me laugh again. I was finding that he was quite the character.
Hours later I held Thirteen’s hand while Revelator and Trigger sat across from me, showing me how their tattoo guns went together and how far the needles penetrated the skin. Doc, who was wearing his cut for the first time that I could remember, looked on. He had an ‘in memory of’ patch with his woman’s initials sewn where an old patch used to reside, the edges of the leather slightly raw to either side of the newer patch, which was narrower but taller than where the old one had resided.
Doc pushed off the wall and sighed, “I got a better idea. Ain’t no way she’s going to make it through this without panicking… I can see it in her eyes.” I looked up at Doc and swallowed hard.
“I’ll make it. I have to. I want it off, gone, hidden or whatever… I really want to do this,” I said. Doc gave me a sad little smile.
“I know you do. Let me hook you up to an IV to keep you hydrated,” he sighed before adding, “Now, I can’t put you under, but I can give you a pretty good case of the feel goods and push some fuck-it-all. By the time the boys get going you won’t give two shits what’s going on.”
I blinked, I had thought about taking one of the Xanex he’d given me before anything started but this had other possibilities. I nodded finally. I mean, he was a doctor, a real one. What could be safer?
“Good deal, thanks Doc.” Thirteen smiled at the older brother and Doc nodded.
“Sweet, let’s do this.” Rev grinned at me, the chip in his front tooth making it positively endearing.
“Where you doing this?” Doc asked.
“Thirteen’s room, that way we can leave her to sleep. We’ll get as far as we can, don’t want to traumatize the skin too much in one go, but we should at least get the outline in, maybe some shading.” Trigger nodded, his ever present e-cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.
We went back to Thirteen’s room. Thirteen put fresh, clean sheets on the bed and Rev turned his head this way and that, finally shaking it.
“Great for after but we’re going to need the massage table.” They set about making preparations and I sat, Thirteen holding my head and shoulders while I shook, face buried in his chest as Doc started an IV in my arm. I really, really hated needles. I’d bounced so nervously when he’d drawn my blood it was ridiculous, and this was no exception. He introduced things to the line and pretty soon the world had gone hazy and I truthfully don’t remember too much after that except rhythmic buzzing, cool air against my skin, and an ever-growing sting to my back like somebody had gone and slapped the worst sunburn I had ever had in my life.
True to Doc’s word, I was so high I simply didn’t care about any of it.
Chapter 23
Red-XII…
Reaver caught my eye from the doorway and lifted his chin. He was dressed and ready to head out. I nodded and held up a finger and he nodded, his eyes coolly sweeping the back of my girl. She had a sheet hiding her from the hips down and Rev was bent over the low-riding massage table from his perch on a chair beside it, brow furrowed deep in concentration. He had a small tray table set up next to him with all his inks and guns and shit as he worked the image stenciled on Dani. She was going to be miserable in the morning. Uncomfortable as hell while she healed.
I knelt by her head and smoothed her hair back from her face. I whispered that I loved her in her ear and kissed her cheek. Trigger nodded and Disney echoed the sentiment. They would take care of her while I had to go out. I shrugged into my jacket and cut, still a little stiff, my shoulder not quite there yet, but Doc and I were already rehab
bing it. The slug had a shit ton of its momentum stopped and hadn’t gone deep at all. Really it was just a damned flesh wound. Stitches were out already.
Reave and I passed Doc sitting at the club’s bar reading one of his woman’s books. We each clapped him on the back as we passed and he said, “Be careful.”
“As careful as a virgin on her wedding night!” Reave called over his shoulder, and Doc snorted.
We mounted our bikes outside and strapped on our helmets. The deep night air was comfortable, warmer than it had been in a while, just this side of chilly. Still, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, the stars were out, the roads dry and clear, and it was just about as perfect as it could get when it came to riding.
“Ready?” I grunted.
“I been ready, let’s bury this.”
I kick-started my bike and he hit the switch to start his and we rode out, along the highway, deep into East County and into the heart of Suicide Kings territory. Neither one of us had the intention of dying for real tonight. Nope. We were the reapers this time.
We pulled up and backed into an alley a good distance from The Suicide Kings’ club. We only had to wait an hour or two before Flyer came stumbling out the back.
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner,” Reaver breathed. I looked over at him like he was fucking nuts, but he just plain wasn’t home. He leaned over his handle bars watching the man the way most people watch a fascinating insect. I shrugged, more to myself than anything. To each their own.
You didn’t hear it, but rather saw it. One second Flyer is standing there trying to keep his feet under him, and the next second there’s this puff. Almost like he let out a breath of that vapor shit that was popular nowadays, and then he just keeled over.
“That’s our cue,” I sang out under my breath and Reave and I dismounted our bikes. I checked my guns and, satisfied they were ready to go, checked with Reave. He shrugged his shoulders and I rolled my eyes.
