by Ivy Black
“Fuck me, Hadley,” he whispers. “Fuck me harder.”
I do as he asks and thrust myself up and down on him, shrieking with rapture as he impales me with his staff. Our bodies roll together sinuously, in time with one another. His moans mingle with my cries of ecstasy blending in a perfect harmony. And when he grips my neck tighter, I scream as my body constricts. I cum hard as I writhe on top of him, my every nerve ending feeling like it’s on fire.
My breathing is ragged and hoarse, and I’m still shaking when Milo pushes me off his lap and forces me down onto the couch on my belly. He climbs up on top of me and drives his cock into me from behind. My eyes widen, a gasp of surprise erupts from my mouth as he starts driving himself hard into my pussy.
Milo grabs hold of my wrists and pins me down as he thrusts his cock into me with a force that reverberates through my entire body. The keening wails that float out of my mouth as he fucks me is stuttering and high-pitched, my body gripped by intense sensations. He fills me up so completely, there’s a slight pinch of pain as he plunges his staff into me so hard. But that pinch of pain only serves to make the pleasure that follows more intense and more amazing.
Milo’s voice is strained, his breath ragged and labored. His grip on my wrists tightens, and I feel his body tensing up. I cry out his name as I feel him swelling inside of me and know he’s close. I squeeze his cock with my inner muscles, making myself even tighter and he gasps, his rhythm broken.
As he drives himself into me once more, he pushes his cock as deep as he’s able, hitting that spot that touches off an explosion deep within me. I bury my face into the couch cushion and scream as my orgasm washes over me, powerful and fathomless. I shake and writhe pinned beneath him.
As I cum, I feel Milo’s cock throbbing, and a moment later, he bursts, the feeling of his seed flooding me only heightening my own orgasm. We both cum together, our bodies seeming to be moving of their own volition as we ride out the currents of our mutual ecstasy together.
And when those waves begin to taper off and our breathing begins to slow, Milo rolls off me, flopping onto his back as I curl up beside him, laying my head on his chest. We lay in silence for several long moments as the electric currents of our climax crackle across our skin before slowly fading.
I plant a gentle kiss on his flat, taut stomach and nuzzle closer to him. Milo wraps his arm around me and gently runs his fingers through my hair.
“It could really be different this time, couldn’t it?” I murmur.
“It could,” he replies. “I’m not saying everything would be perfect, but it could be different. I’m different.”
“I’m scared, Milo.”
“So am I. But sometimes, if you want something great, you have to roll the dice,” he replies. “I’m not pressuring you though, Had. Take your time. Think things out.”
I open my mouth to reply but close it again without speaking. The thing about rolling the dice is that sometimes you roll a seven—and sometimes, you crap out. I’ve crapped out enough in my life and I’m not really jazzed about the idea of doing it again.
Chapter Twenty
Nitro
I was up before the sun this morning, regretfully slipping out of bed and leaving Hadley there sleeping. There’s nothing I would have liked more than staying in bed with her all day long, ordering in, and watching movies. It sounds like an ideal day to me. But it was not to be. There are things I put in motion that I need to follow through with if we’re going to bring this problem with our mystery hijackers to an end.
I pour some coffee into a thermos and pack some food into a small cooler. I have no idea how long I’m going to be out there or whether I’ll have time to stop. It’s better to be prepared.
“Hey, you left me.”
I look up to see Hadley leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. Her hair is tousled, sticking out in a thousand directions from sleep. She’s wearing nothing but one of my T-shirts and a pair of panties, looking absolutely adorable and incredibly sexy all at the same time.
“Yeah, sorry. I have to get an early start today,” I say.
“What’s going on?”
I pour her a cup of coffee and dress it how she likes then hand it over to her. She accepts it with a grateful smile.
“I brought our prospect Blake in on what’s going on, and he’s helping me with something today,” I say.
“Is that wise? Bringing him in?”
I nod. “I trust the kid. He’s good people.”
She looks at me with an expression of surprise on her face. “You trust him?” she asks. “I never thought I’d hear those words come out of your mouth.”
“Hey, I trust you.”
“It’s easy to trust somebody you’re sleeping with,” she replies then adopts an expression of faux shock. “You’re not sleeping with this prospect, are you?”
I laugh. “Kiss my ass.”
“Come back to bed, and we’ll see if we can work something out.”
I chuckle. “I absolutely wish I could,” I say. “But I’ve got to follow through with some things today.”
“What kind of trouble are you getting up to today?”
“Turns out Blake’s great with electronics and he put together a surveillance package, and we’re going to tail Grease,” I tell her. “See what we can dig up on this guy. Tensions are starting to build with the Warriors and if we don’t figure this out soon, things could blow up. I’d like to avoid that if at all possible.”
“I’d like you to avoid that too,” she says. “But what is it you think you’re onto today?”
“We’ve been tracking his phone. He put in a call to that same burner number again,” I say. “We’re not sure who was on the other end of the line, but they’re meeting today. I want to be there to see who he’s talking to and hear what they’re talking about.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t sound dangerous at all,” she says, her voice a bit tight.
“It’ll be fine.”
“So you say.”
I walk over to Hadley and pull her to me. I embrace her tightly and feel the emotions washing over me as she melts against me. Things between us have been going good since she came back into my life—maybe too good. There’s a part of me that’s afraid it’s nothing more than a house of cards that’s going to come tumbling down with the slightest puff of a breeze.
Thinking negatively or anticipating the worst is one of those things I’m trying to work on. Back in the day, I’d get into a spiral of thinking the worst, and it would drag me down into the darkness. One of the things my shrink is helping me do is to not automatically go worst-case scenario in my head. She’s helping teach me some tools to combat that and be a little more... positive.
I’ll never be one of those happy-go-lucky, blindly optimistic types. That’s just something I, and everybody in my life, have to learn to accept about me. But I have been learning to not be the dark cloud hanging over everybody’s heads all the time. And I have to say, not being Mr. Gloom and Doom twenty-four seven has been a nice change of pace.
“What are we doing here?” I ask.
She raises her head and meets my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“This. Us,” I say. “Is there a possibility of this working between us again?”
Hadley gnaws on her bottom lip, and I can see she’s as unsure about it all as I am right now. I know I shouldn’t have asked the question. I told her there isn’t any pressure to put a label on whatever this is—and there isn’t. But she knows where I am with this, and I’d kind of just like to get a glimpse of where her mind is at.
“I-I don’t know right now, Milo. I mean, I’ve been enjoying what’s been happening. I’ve been enjoying that we’re getting as close as we’ve gotten,” she says. “I just don’t know where I’m at with all of this right now. I’m not ready to put any kind of a label—”
“It’s all right. It was a stupid question for me to ask,” I say. “I’m just enjoying
having you back in my life right now, Had. We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing, and we’ll see how it all plays out. No pressure. I’m sorry I even asked that question.”
She gives me a soft smile. “Don’t be sorry. I think I’d probably be upset if you didn’t ask,” she says. “That you did tells me this all means something to you. This isn’t just a sex thing.”
I shrug and give her a sly grin. “I mean, I’d be lyin’ if I said the sex wasn’t a pretty motivating factor.”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Such a pig.”
“Guilty as charged.”
There’s a moment of silence between us as we both take a sip of our coffee and let the hornet’s nest of emotions that I kicked up between us settle down a bit. It was a stupid thing to ask. I love having her in my life, and I really love how close we’ve gotten again. We seem to be falling into some of our old routines, and I like it. There are a lot of things that feel exactly the same but, there are also other things that feel entirely new and different.
So if I don’t want to fuck this all up and drive her out of my life again, I need to accept it for what it is right now and let the rest unfold naturally. Especially because I want to believe it’s headed in the right direction.
“Well, I should hit the road. I have to pick up the kid,” I say.
“Okay. Be safe,” she says and gives me a peck on the lips. “You better come home to me tonight.”
“Aww. You’re worried about me,” I say. “That’s sweet.”
“Of course, I’m worried about you. It’s your turn to cook tonight,” she says with a wink, making me laugh.
***
“You all right?” I ask.
Blake nods. “Yeah, I’m good. Why? Do I not seem all right?”
“You’re a little jittery, man,” I reply pointing to the knee he’s been bouncing since the moment he got into my car.
“I had a couple of espressos this morning,” he tells me. “That was one early damn wake-up call.”
“How many espressos?”
“Four? Five?”
“Jesus,” I mutter and shake my head. “Just do me a favor and try to calm down.”
He chuckles. “I’ll do my best.”
We’re sitting in a car parked a little way down the street from Grease’s place, waiting for him to make an appearance. He’s meeting this mystery man in less than an hour, so he should be coming out any minute.
“What did you do in the Corps anyway?” I ask.
“Intelligence,” he replies. “I worked with electronic monitoring mostly.”
“See any action?”
A shadow crosses his face and that’s about all the answer I need. Just because he worked in Intel doesn’t mean he didn’t see some shit. A Marine is a Marine, regardless of what your job is. And if there’s one thing Marines all do—and do well—it’s pick up a weapon and fight.
“I saw some, yeah. I remember there was one time, I was stationed in an outpost that got hit. These fuckers just came out of the blue in the middle of the night,” he said, his voice sounding as haunted as his expression is. “It was a nasty fight. They hit us hard, but we gave it back to them in spades. We took some losses, but they lost more. They paid a price and got nothing.”
“Way to go, Marine.”
“Hoorah.”
“Here he comes.”
We watch as Grease comes out of his house and mounts up. He fires up his bike with a rough, throaty growl and then he’s on the road. I’m behind the wheel of a ten-year-old Honda—it’s my discrete draw-no-attention vehicle. I keep it for times when I can’t afford to stand out. It’s a vehicle I don’t drive often just because I don’t want anybody associating it with me, and I only drive it when I need to keep a low profile—like today.
I have no idea if Grease has ever seen this car before but I don’t think he has. Because if he has then this is going to be one big bust. I’ll have tipped my hand that I’m onto him. And if that happens, he’ll scale back his operation, or end it altogether, denying me the proof I need to end this shitshow that’s going on.
That in and of itself wouldn’t be bad. At least we’d stop getting our shipments jacked. But I wouldn’t be able to make the case against him, and we’d be stuck with a traitor among us. We’d be stuck with somebody who sold us out for his own benefit. Prophet would never take his patch if I can’t prove Grease is the mole. And more than anything, I want the mole stripped of his patch and driven out of the club altogether.
“You really think he’s in on it?” Blake asks.
“I think he’s worth taking a harder look at.”
“I just can’t believe we’ve got somebody working against us,” he says.
“Yeah, that makes two of us.”
I follow him at a discrete distance through town, not driving provocatively. Not doing anything to draw his attention or spook him. We get on the highway and head east—out into some of the unincorporated territory. I’m hanging back so far I’m having a hard time seeing him.
“You got your toys ready?” I ask. “I can’t risk speeding up, but I don’t want to lose him.”
Blake opens a laptop and boots it up. A map grid comes up, and he taps in a few keys. I don’t want to take my eyes off the road lest I lose him completely, but I’m curious. Blake’s pretty confident the tracker he slipped onto the bike is going to work, but I’m not big on electronics—mostly because I don’t understand them. Bombs and explosives, I understand well. But when it comes to doing the computer work, I’m absolutely lost.
“He’s getting off at Exit eighty-seven-A,” Blake reports.
We hit the exit a minute later and take it. I follow the directions Blake is calling out, and it leads us on a winding road. Unlike the unincorporated lands where we meet the Warriors where it’s all dry, scrubby land, this stretch is lush with forest land all around us. It’s good. It’ll provide us cover.
“He’s stopped moving,” Blake reports.
“Where is he?”
“There’s a small road coming up in a couple of hundred yards on our right. That’s where he turned.”
“What’s back there?” I ask.
Blake taps a few more keys on his laptop then pauses. “Looks like... a plant nursery,” he replies, sounding confused.
“A what?”
“A plant nursery,” he replies. “There’s a bunch of greenhouses and a lot of other outbuildings. It’s a private business.”
“Huh,” I say.
“Any chance he’s just getting some flowers for his house?”
I roll my eyes. “No. Find us a place to discretely pull off the road,” I say. “We’ll hump it through the forest.”
“Copy that,” he replies. “Looks like there’s a turnout about a hundred yards from the road. We should be able to hump straight through and stay in dense forest the whole way.”
I nod and a few moments later, find the turnout. I pull in and kill the engine then hop out quickly. Blake and I both pull our packs out of my trunk and strap up. I clip my holster to my belt then pull my flannel over it to cover. Blake does the same. I lock up my car and lead Blake out into the forest.
He flashes some hand signals as we step into the dim light of the woods, showing me which way to go. I nod as we hike through the undergrowth, doing our best to move silently. As we go, I keep my eyes peeled for any electronic surveillance equipment. I don’t see any but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there.
It’s about half a mile in from the road when we reach the edge of the tree line and even from there, I can smell the pungent odor of fertilizer. We hunker down behind a thick screen of bushes, and I pull some equipment out of my pack. I lean forward, gently pushing a few of the branches aside, and put the field glasses with the anti-glare lenses to my eyes. Blake does the same.
I scan the grounds of Merrick’s Green Thumb. Like Blake said, there’s a bunch of greenhouses and some other outbuildings. I guess he was righ
t about this being a private business.
“There,” Blake says. “Eleven o’clock.”
I cut my eyes to where he indicated and see Grease’s bike. Standing about twenty yards from it is the man himself. He’s standing with a man I’ve never seen before. The newcomer is just shy of six feet with platinum blond hair. He’s trim and fit. Strong. He has the look of ex-military but something tells me he never actually served—though I get the feeling he wants people to think he did.
“He’s militia. One of these anti-government survivalist groups,” I say. “I’d bet a million bucks on it.”
“That’s what I was thinking too.”
Blake pulls a long, thin rod with a pistol grip attached to it and lays it on the branches of the bush we’re sheltering behind. Next, he pulls out two listening cans on wires attached to the unit in his pack and hands me one.
“Parabolic mic,” he says.
“Nice toy.”
“I’ve got the best ones.”
He smiles as I press the cushioned headphone to my ear. He reaches back into his pack and starts twisting the dials on his unit.
“Good,” I say. “Right there. You recording?”
“You know I am,” he says with a grin.
Blake pulls his hand out and presses the other can to his ear, and we can hear Grease and his buddy clear as day.
“Why am I here?” Grease asks.
“I wanted a face-to-face,” the militiaman replies. “I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”
“I told you, I don’t know when the next drop is coming,” Grease says.
“You better find out, man. I gave you a pretty healthy advance on that intel,” replies the blond guy.
“Bro, I already paid that debt. You got two shipments out of that twenty grand. You want more, you pay more.”
The blond guy laughs and shakes his head. “Greed. That’s what’s wrong with this country. Pure, unbridled greed.”
Grease shrugs. “It’s called capitalism, bro. I’ve got goods you want. To get those goods, you gotta pay for ’em.”
