He took the stairs casually two at a time to match my run.
"I mean I took one of your pocketknives out of your pantry and put it in my boot. And when I fell... I handed it off to Shoot."
Breaker stopped at the top landing, blocking my way, looking down at me. "Say again?"
I felt myself shrug. "I figured if he got himself into a situation... it would be good for him to have... something."
"He's good with a knife," Breaker said, looking over my shoulder. "Almost as good as he is with a gun."
"And with a name like Shooter, I imagine that is pretty good."
To this, he nodded. "You may have just saved his life, Alex," he said, his blue eyes soft.
"It was the least I could do seeing as he was ready to give his life up for me," I said, moving upward so he had to step back for me to walk past. It was starting to feel claustrophobic in the warehouse. I needed to get out. Get away. Breaker led me out to the car, opening my door for me, when I finally blurted out something I had been wondering since he said it. "Why would you send Shooter's dad scotch?"
Breaker snorted, his eyes warming a little. "Shoot's dad is a boozer. Always has been. Mean fuck when he drinks. Which is all the time. Used to beat the shit out of Shoot. As soon as he could afford it, he started sending his old man cases of expensive scotch every month."
"Why?"
"It's just his own little 'fuck you' to him I guess. Knows the bastard would want to turn it down, but he can't 'cause he's an alcoholic, so he drinks it all. Gives Shoot some kind of sick satisfaction."
"I like Shooter," I said, getting into the seat and looking over at Breaker who was just standing there, holding the door open, his face a blank mask. "You'll get him back, Breaker."
A muscle twitched in his jaw as he slammed the door and made his way around the truck.
The entire ride back to his house was in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Which we probably should have been sharing. Comparing notes about what happened. See if we both picked up on the same strangeness of the whole encounter.
If Lex knew what I was doing, why was he having Breaker keep me? Why wasn't I in the fallout shelter in the woods getting all kinds of tortured? Why was I being given more time to do more damage? It made no sense whatsoever.
The rocks crunched under the tires of the truck, snapping me out of my thoughts as his house came into view.
Breaker got silently out of the truck and made his way up to the door, leaving me to follow behind him.
He needed to snap out of it. Hell, if anything, shouldn't he be happy I wasn't like... seizing and foaming out the mouth right about then? Hello... we should have been celebrating the fact that I was able to breathe another day. But, no, he was being all sulky because he had to put a hand on me.
Granted, my jaw was killing me, but I wasn't telling him that.
Sometime halfway into the ride, the adrenaline slipped away, taking with it whatever was keeping me blissfully unaware of pain. The throbbing came back stronger. Anytime I tried to open my mouth, it sent a shooting pain up my mandible and into my temple.
But still. It wasn't something to be all broken up about.
Breaker went in and went right to his liquor cabinet, taking out two glasses, and pouring into one. He raised the second one to me and I shook my head. I wasn't much of a drinker. And I definitely didn't drink whiskey straight from the bottle.
"I'm gonna go... get cleaned up," I said instead, needing to get out of the dusty clothes, needing to wash the whole experience away. And also, needing to give Breaker a few more minutes to get himself back together.
I showered, changed back into the tee Breaker had given me earlier, then stopped to check out the damage to my face.
It was darkening. A bluish-purple four inch mark at the line just above my jawbone. With any luck, it wouldn't get much worse. He was already going to have a hard enough time looking at me.
I walked back out to find him sitting on the couch, the TV on low and his gaze was fixed on it, but he was looking through it. He had a rocks glass on his thigh, his hand wrapped around it, it's amber liquid half-filling it.
With a sigh, I made my way toward the living room, picking up his laptop as I passed and sitting down beside him.
There was still no response on the post so I set to work adding some more details, reports, making an even clearer image of Lex and his dealings.
Then I moved the laptop back onto the coffee table, still open, and turned to Breaker. He was still staring at the TV.
I reached over, taking the glass out of his hand and he let me, then put it back on the coffee table.
Then, before I could think better of it, I moved across him, putting one knee on either side of his hips, then pressing my chest against his, my face resting under his chin.
I took a deep breath, breathing him in. The crisp, clean soap from his shower, the woodsy scent of his laundry detergent, and just... him.
"Alex..."
"Shut up," I said softly, letting one of my arms wrap around the back of his neck. "We both lived through a meeting with Lex. If that isn't a reason to hug, then I don't know what is. And I mean... I haven't hugged anyone in years so just shut up and let me do it, okay?"
His chest jumped slightly against me and I knew he was chuckling silently. A few seconds later, one of his arms wrapped around my hips and pulled me tighter.
"I'm sorry I hit you," he said, his deep voice so full of regret that I felt my face nuzzle further into his neck, his beard tickling my cheek in the process.
I turned my face slightly, pressing my lips against his pulse. "Make it up to me," I suggested, biting into my lower lip, hoping he took the bait or I was pretty sure I would die of mortification.
Breaker's hand slid up my spine then slipped into my hair, curling into it slightly, and using it to pull me backward. I moved back and looked down to find him watching me with a raised brow. "Make it up to you?"
"Yep," I said, nodding, praying like hell my cheeks didn't break out into a blush. That would seriously kill the whole 'being in charge' vibe I was attempting.
"And how do you propose I do that?" he asked, giving me one of those eye-smiles of his.
"Use your imagination," I suggested, planting both my hands on his chest, enjoying the strong muscles beneath my palms.
"Imagination?" he asked, brow raising. "Why use that when I can use this?" he asked. Then before I could see his hand moving, it was between us, his finger tracing up my slick cleft and working firm, slow circles over my clit.
My entire body convulsed once, hard, at the contact as a strangled whimper forced its way out of my throat.
I swallowed hard, watching the satisfied smirk settle on his face. "I thought I was the one who was supposed to make the first move."
"Doll, you planted your sweet little ass on my lap wearin' just my t-shirt and no panties. I consider that a first move."
I couldn't argue with that logic.
Besides, his fingers were causing all kinds of chaos between my thighs. His finger changed pace or direction every time I felt the coiling inside tighten, threaten to unleash. On the fourth time of him sensing the release and pulling away, my fist slammed down hard on his shoulder. "Damn it," I growled, sucking air into my lungs.
"More fun this way," he said, shrugging, a smile tugging at his lips.
"For you maybe," I said, lowering my eyes at him.
"You got complaints 'bout how I handle business?" he asked, sounding way too conceited for his own good.
"At this mome... fuck," I cried out, his finger sliding down and thrusting inside me, curling and scraping across the top wall, making my legs jump reflexively. "Oh, my God," I choked, my hips raising up off of him slightly, giving him more access as his finger kept up it's unrelenting exploration of my g-spot.
"What were you saying?" he asked, his voice a low grumbling sound.
"No... nothing," I said, my breathing coming out fast and shallow.
"Didn't think so," he said, watchin
g my face as he drove me up. And I was going up. And it was strange and foreign and so consuming I felt like I was going to explode if I ever made it to the top. My hips started moving of their own intuition, stoking my desire and Breaker made a growling sound in his throat. "That's it, ride it. Come for me, baby," he urged, his thumb pressing down on my clit.
I wasn't wrong.
It was like an explosion.
Every muscle tensed. Every nerve ending fired. My breath hitched, hissing out his name as my sex pulsated hard around his finger in a seemingly endless wave. His finger kept working me through the whole thing, dragging it out until I wavered forward and collapsed against him.
His hand pressed in between my shoulder blades, holding me to him as I shivered through the aftershocks.
"Deep breaths, doll," he said quietly as I struggled to calm down the erratic strobe-like pull of my breath. "Christ, you come that hard from my fingers... just think of what it will be like when it's my tongue or my cock."
Some sort of sound escaped me, half moan, half objection.
I honestly couldn't even think of such a thing. I was barely holding it together from that orgasm. I couldn't imagine another one.
I was set.
For the night.
Or month.
Or my entire lifetime.
Yeah, it was that good.
"Did I make it up to you?"
"Make what up to me?"
"I'll take that as a yes," he chuckled, his hands moving to grab my ass, holding it hard. "Come on," he said, moving to stand, holding me to him by my butt, "let's get you some food."
"Food?" I asked pushing back from his neck to look at him as he walked to the kitchen, dropping me down on the counter, and taking a step back.
He smiled, pressing his hips into my knees until my legs parted around his body. "Yeah, doll. Food. I'm going to feed you and then I am going to fuck you until you can't walk right for a week."
Well then.
ELEVEN
Alex
He worked silently for a while, chopping potatoes and throwing them into a pan with garlic and olive oil and dropping a steak into the broiler. I watched on in a sort of fascinated wonder. For one, because I had absolutely no culinary skills in the least (unless cooking ramen counted. Which I'm pretty sure it didn't). And also because it was borderline amusing to see someone like Breaker- a huge, hulking mass of muscle and testosterone doing something that didn't involve general murder and mayhem.
"Tell me why you want to take down Lex," he said abruptly, his body half turned to mine as he stood at the stove, mixing the potatoes as they sizzled.
Maybe it was the bone-deep tiredness that was setting in. Or the weird weighty and satisfied post-orgasm drunkenness, but I didn't even think of not answering or hedging around the issue.
"He's the reason my mother killed herself when I was sixteen."
Breaker dropped the wooden spoon into the pan and turned fully to look at me. "What?"
It had been such an ever-present part of my life for so long that it barely even occurred to me anymore that it was a shocking thing to know. But there was Breaker, the biggest, baddest guy I had ever met looking positively stricken at the news.
I felt my shoulder shrug a little, pushing the image of her in that bathtub out of the way. "Let's just say that once upon a time, Lex got his hands on my mother. And she never really recovered. She was always really fragile. Physically and emotionally. I never understood why until I found her after school that day. She took a bottle of painkillers, got herself all dressed up, and laid down in the tub."
"Alex..." his voice broke in, a strange raspy whisper.
"It was then that I found the note. Which was really more of a six page letter, backs and fronts, explaining what happened to her."
"What happened to her?" he asked, staying where he was as if maybe sensing my need for space.
It wasn't a story I shared. Not fully. I had given tidbits to Glenn when he offered to help me, greatly editing out the gory details. But I didn't want to do that this time. I wanted to purge it all. Maybe because of the way Breaker lived, I thought he would understand. Or because of his quiet strength, I thought he could handle the grim reality. But whatever the reason, I let it spill.
"My mom was like I was after her death, in and out of foster care. But she went in when she was eight. Her parents were heavy into drugs and she was taken away. When she was sixteen, she was staying in a group home. And so was Lex Keith."
At this, Breaker's arm shot out to turn off the stove, his brow raising. I guessed Lex's history of being in the system wasn't widely known.
"And, believe it or not, they became friends. My mom," I said, running a hand through my half-dry hair, "was really beautiful. Like... she could have been a model if she had a different life. Maybe that's what drew him to her. Or maybe it was her softness. She was always way too nice for her own good. From what I could tell though, they were only friends. He was like a big brother or mentor to her, helping her get through the system. Who knows... maybe back then, Lex wasn't the monster he turned out to be. From her story, he was nothing but good to her."
"Until," Breaker prompted, knowing the ball was about to drop.
"Until she was twenty. Lex had been long gone from her life for like three years. She had found a job at a diner, had a little apartment. She was trying to get her life together. Then one night, in walks Lex. Older. More sure of himself. And he walked right up to her and pulled her out of the diner, told her she'd never have to work again. She was going to go with him and he was going to take care of her." I shook my head, looking out the darkened window. "As you can imagine, Lex's idea of taking care of someone was warped."
"Alex, you don't have to..."
"He took her back to his house and he beat and he raped her," I went on, needing to get it out. "Not just that night. Every night. For years."
"Jesus Christ."
"Like I said, she was soft and sweet. And when he wasn't abusing her, he was providing for her. So she was kind of trapped. Then he was you know... slowly rising up in the ranks and I guess that stress made him more and more vicious until one night, he beat her nearly unconscious and she went to the hospital and got help. There was a detective who really went out of his way for her, got her away, got her a safe place, helped her try to get her life back on track."
"Lex just... left her alone?"
"I think he just couldn't find her. She kept her head low. Eventually, I think he moved on to other targets. Since she never filed charges, I guess he figured she wasn't worth any more of his time."
"She held on for sixteen years?" Breaker asked, brows drawing together.
"Maybe it was for me. A selfish part of me wants to believe that. That she was trying to take care of me until I was old enough to take care of myself. It could have been a part of it. Because she was doing okay. Not great. She had trouble keeping jobs and making normal connections, but she smiled and laughed. Maybe not daily. But she did it and it wasn't forced. She sang to me. We had nothing, but we had each other and in a lot of ways, it was enough. Anyway I think... I think there was something that triggered her reaction that day. She was unstable, up and down with her moods, leaning more toward paranoia than depression, always terrified about something happening to me... but she wasn't suicidal. I was at school so I don't know what she did that day. She wasn't working. Maybe she was going to an interview or something. I think she saw him. I think that's why she did it. She saw him, she was worried he would come after her. Come after me because of her. She couldn't live through that again. I understand why she did it."
"Oh, doll," he said, shaking his head, coming toward me until he was standing between my legs again, his big hands going around my back and crushing me to him.
It was different than the hug earlier. The one I had given him, awkwardly putting an arm around his shoulders. This was full contact. This was bodies touching everywhere. This was him lending me some of his strength. And I just... melted into
it.
Who would have thought that something as tame and workaday as a hug could feel so good?
I took a deep breath, breathing him in, then slowly inched my way back, feeling uncomfortable. Something was passing between us. I didn't know what it was, but some pure, primal instinct told me to shut it down.
"So are you feeding me or what?" I asked, attempting a small laugh.
Breaker looked down at me, his brows drawn together for a moment before he stepped away.
He turned the potatoes back on and peeked in on the steak. "So that's why you want to take down Lex. For your mother."
"That's how it started, yeah. But it didn't take long for me to realize he has been doing this for a long time to a lot of different women. Some he let live. Many he killed. He killed my mother too in a way. It just took him close to twenty years to do it. They all deserve a little vengeance."
"And you are planning on doing it how? Through a computer screen?"
I chose to ignore the hint of condescension in his tone and shrugged. "You'd be surprised what you can find out from behind a screen. Like no matter what business meeting he has going on, no matter how important the people he is meeting with, he will take three cigarette breaks. Alone. You pinpoint the right location and let the right people know where it is and when they would have a clear shot..."
To this, he grunted and gave me some chin lift thing that I didn't know quite how to interpret.
"You can also figure out the locations of all of his little torture camps. He and two men behind a closed and soundproof door. Also a good opportunity to catch him unaware. You could also find out who is in his pockets and who isn't." "Like the Mallicks. You knew they weren't in his pockets. That's why you put your stuff in a locker in Shane's gym."
"Exactly. I mean I could have gone to the Henchmen or those survivalist freaks up on the hill..."
"Hailstorm," Breaker said, looking over his shoulder at me. "Why didn't you?"
"Well because the Henchmen look like they'd be all too happy to blow my head off if I tried to even get a meeting. And Hailstorm, well, I mean... you have to seen that place?" I asked, thinking of the recycled storage containers they lived in powered by solar and protected by a huge fence, armed guards, and trained dogs.
Savages Series Boxed Set Page 10
