Riding Dirty

by Danika Fox

  Crush pulled my back against his chest, whispering into my ear, telling me over and over how I was a good girl before he unraveled as well. He sank his teeth into my neck and shoulder, stifling a low, grating groan as he spilled inside my core, pushing up and in, trying to bury himself as deep as he could as he emptied all his frustration, all his fear, into me.

  My chest rose and fell with every labored breath as the two of us finally separated from one another, our bodies glimmering with sweat, the blankets a tangled mess at our feet.

  My head was still spinning, every inch of me tingling with the fervent afterglow. I licked my lips, finding them dry as I turned to look at Crush, lying on his back, his body splayed beside me the way I’d imagine one of the models for those Greek statues would look after a wild night. I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Goddamn,” I sighed, resting my head on his shoulder. “I didn’t know just how much I needed that until just now.”

  Crush gave a faint chuckle, though I could tell by the look in his eyes that something was keeping him from really enjoying the glorious aftermath of what we’d just done.

  “We should clean up,” he whispered after a few moments of silence—silence that killed my buzz faster than anything else could have. “I’ll go grab us some towels.”

  My stomach knotted as I watched him walk, still naked, into the bathroom. I was annoyed that despite how much I wanted to, I couldn’t appreciate his more intimate features. His lukewarm reaction to what we’d done had put me in a sour mood.

  He came back with two towels as I started getting up from the bed. I took one of them and pushed past him to get back into the bathroom and the clothes I’d left within. I cleaned myself and put my panties back on, every second that passed only making my rage more potent, bringing it closer to the surface.

  I was fucking incredible, I thought petulantly. I at least deserve a, “Holy shit, that was amazing, Chrissy!” But all I get is some stoic bullshit?

  Logically, I didn’t know what the problem was. This had been a one-and-done scenario. I’d wanted to take some control over my life and all that was happening in it. I wanted to piss off my dad and get fucking the badass biker out of my system.

  But emotionally, I was hurt. And when I was in pain, I tended to get pissed.

  I pushed open the bathroom door, towel over my shoulder. Crush was already dressed, which—despite my knowing that he would be—only made me angrier.

  I threw the towel down on the ground and turned to face him, heat rising up the back of my neck.

  “Crush—”

  But that was the only word I managed to say before the window behind him exploded.

  Out of instinct I hit the floor, taking cover behind the bed as glass shattered across the floor.

  “Come out of there with your hands up. Both of you,” a shout came from outside

  “Chrissy, go out through the bathroom window, now!” Crush shouted as he scrambled for his gun. He pulled a clip out of his jacket, loaded it, and pointed it at the smashed-in window. “I’ll be right behind you!”

  I stopped for a moment, watching as he ducked back for cover behind the bed. It was frightening how natural he seemed, so ready to fight for his life at a moment’s notice, as though time for him was standing still.

  Then I scrambled back into the bathroom, my heart pounding as I pushed with all my might against the bathroom window. Every second that passed made me flinch, as though at any moment I’d hear the rattle of gunfire.

  With one final heave, I finally managed to shove the window open, tearing paint from the sill as I pushed it up just enough to give me enough space to get by.

  Crush was shouting obscenities out the window, trying to draw them in. That felt like my cue to get my ass in gear, but a pang in my chest kept me rooted to the spot for just a moment, afraid that the moment my back turned, I’d hear Crush’s final scream as he tried to protect me.

  Suddenly I could move again, hoisting myself up and through the window with all of my might. I tumbled forward, falling directly onto my half-naked ass as my body flipped itself in an overcorrection. The now familiar feeling of adrenaline was pumping through my veins.

  Blinking, I gently raised my hand to touch the spot where I’d smacked my head against the ground, looking at the blood on my fingertips before the entire world began to swim and melt into a kaleidoscope of color. I felt like I was falling—falling into a hole from which there was no escape, hearing only the distant sound of Crush’s voice calling my name.

  “Chrissy…!”

  16

  Crush

  My head pulsed with every beat of my heart, my tongue felt like it was three sizes too big, and most importantly, there was a black bag over my head.

  With every breath I took, I could feel the fabric conforming to my lips, trying to follow the air I inhaled and then puffing away from me with every exhale. I could tell that there was a light on somewhere in the room, but I could only get the faintest hint of it, as well as the hum of electricity.

  I tried to move my hands, only to meet with a cold resistance. I knew that feeling more than I’d like to admit—these were handcuffs. Wherever the hell I was, they weren’t playing around with shit like zip-ties or rope. No, they sprang for the real deal, and that narrowed down the kind people I might be dealing with and gave me something to ponder while I wished in vain for a hairpin.

  I was sitting on a hard, metal chair that was fastened to the floor—the kind that cops usually kept in their interrogation rooms. But when the hell did cops start drugging people they were planning to bring in for questioning? No, this wasn’t the local PD. If these jackasses were any kind of law enforcement, I was betting on federal. But this seemed shady even for the FBI, and this kind of shit certainly wouldn’t fly in any court of law. It felt like the more I started to deduce, the more questions seemed to come along with it.

  And even if I managed to get out of the cuffs, I have no idea where I’m going, I thought, leaning forward until I hit the hard edge of a solid surface—a table, maybe. More and more, I was sure that this was some kind of interrogation room, and that wasn’t the sort of shit that Russian mobsters kept on standby—they were more the kind who would beat the shit out of you in a back alley for information before they put one through your head.

  Might be best to stay put for right now and see what happens. If they wanted me dead, they wouldn’t have bothered cuffing me to a chair.

  So I waited, listening for even the slightest hint that someone was about to collect me or question me, or whatever the hell they were planning to do. It was the wait more than anything that had me on edge… and thinking about what they were planning to do to Chrissy.

  The last thing I could remember before I blacked out was Chrissy crumpling to the ground outside the bathroom window in nothing but her panties… and the man in all-black combat gear who smashed up upside the head with a blackjack, his face hidden behind a matching balaclava. I was down before I could even think to defend myself. I could only hope that she was in at least a similar situation as me, kept somewhere safe, if restrained. One thing was for sure; if they had decided to keep me alive, then I had to guess that Chrissy was still breathing—after all, between a biker and a mafia princess, I could only imagine she’d be more valuable alive than I was…

  With no frame of reference it was hard to tell how long I was sitting there, but by the time my head had stopped hurting I heard the sound of a doorknob being turned and the soft tapping of soles on a concrete floor. Someone had finally come for me, I can only hope they weren’t planning to execute me.

  “Wakey, wakey, sunshine,” said a voice from beyond the veil of black fabric before someone yanked it off my head. I felt some strange sense of déjà vu as I heard this voice, like I’d heard it somewhere before—somewhere recently.

  Two shapeless black shadows stood before me, partially blocking the sting of the lights. I shut my eyes tight in an attempt to give myself time to adjust, drawing a few derisi
ve chuckles from the men standing across from me.

  “They always forget to shut their eyes when the hood comes off,” one of them said to the other, who gave an amused grunt in response. “I mean, that’s just common sense, right?”

  “I don’t think he’s got any,” the familiar voice said, “I mean, he was just fucking Nicky’s little girl—how much common sense could he really have?”

  “You see the sweet tits on that one? Can’t say I blame him.”

  I opened my eyes just a bit, letting the light filter through until I was finally able to stare at the two bastards who were grinning at me from across the metal table. It was right then that I finally knew where I’d heard that voice before, and suddenly I felt like I was back in the strip club, looking at the Hawaiian-shirt jackass who’d bumped into me—the same guy I’d seen at the hotel while Chrissy was making her phone call.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked, sounding like I’d just got done gargling rocks. “Where am I?”

  “No,” the once-Hawaiian-shirted man said, shaking his head, “you don’t get to ask questions. We didn’t bring you here to have a conversation. We brought you here to deliver a message.”

  Both men sat down in a pair of chairs opposite me, the one I didn’t recognize dropping a thick file down with a thud. In the top left of the file was a white label with the word “FALCONE” typed in bold, along with a string of letters and numbers that I could only assume was some kind of case designation.

  “This is Agent Smith,” Hawaiian-shirt said, shoving his thumb in the direction of his friend. “I’m Agent Donaldson. And you’re conspiring to move drug money across state lines.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, my brow furrowing as Donaldson locked eyes with me. “The Hounds of Hell don’t deal with illegal drugs.”

  Both agents gave me a smile that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. Then Agent Smith steepled his fingers as his partner continued to speak.

  “Sure, it might not be illegal on your home turf,” the agent said, his tone smug, “and buying things with money you earned from it would be fine, so long as you didn’t take it into another state—y’see weed’s still illegal where the federal government is concerned, and that means that transporting any money that’s made directly in conjunction with its sale across state lines is a federal offence. Which means that the moment one red cent crosses that border to, say, repay an investor for their generous contribution to starting a dispensary with your biker buddies, you’ll be thrown into a federal prison faster than you can even say, ‘I’m a piece of shit.’”

  My stomach grew taut as the agent went on about just how he planned to screw me. I knew what he was doing, he wanted to make sure I knew that if I didn’t play their game--whatever game that happened to be--I would be completely fucked.

  “All right,” I said, still straining against the handcuffs. “You made you point, but we’ve got no plans on taking that money over state lines. We’ve got chapters in twenty states. We’re gonna keep things clean.”

  “And what about your friend, Nicky Falcone?” Smith asked. “The guy whose daughter you were just giving it to?”

  “Fuck you,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes at the two of them. “What about Falcone?”

  “Well, you see, Don Falcone’s not quite so good at keeping things above the table. You take his money, and you’ll be part of a RICO case. And that’s not even his biggest problem.”

  “He’s got a traitor in his little family,” Donaldson said, pulling the file in front of him and flipping it open. Inside were a collection of photos and typed reports, including what looked like some transcripts from phone calls. “And as much as people like Falcone are a stain on this great nation of ours, He’s better than the alternative.”

  “The devil you know, and all that shit,” Smith added, taking out his phone and fiddling with it.

  “We know that you and your new girlfriend have been getting into some trouble with the Russians,” Donaldson continued, “and since we’re both on the same side of this, we thought we’d offer a little bit of help.”

  “By knocking me on my ass and cuffing me to a chair?” I asked.

  “The enemy of my enemy—” Smith started to say before Donaldson cut him off.

  “Every seen this guy?” he asked, shoving a glossy surveillance picture of a man wearing an all-black suit, a thick beard covering his jaw. I recognized him immediately.

  “He was in the penthouse,” I said. “He was leading the assholes who tried to kill us.”

  “That man is named Sergei,” Donaldson said, “and he’s a captain in the Russian mob. Kind of a dick, if I’m being honest. Specializes in human trafficking. A real piece of shit.”

  I took a moment to memorize his face, putting a name to the grade-A fuck who’d almost shot me. In general, I liked to be on a first name basis with people who wanted me dead.

  “And what does he want with me and Chrissy?” I asked. “Is this because of what happened at the club?”

  “Sergei has a bigger game in mind, one that involves your girlfriend’s daddy and everything he holds dear. That club was just the start. We’re talking about a war here.”

  “What the hell do the Russians want with Falcone?” I asked, “If they take him out, then they’ll have to deal with all of the other families. It’s insane.”

  “Maybe it would be,” Smith said, “if they were only planning on taking out Falcone.”

  “They’re thinking a little bigger,” Donaldson continued. “Sergei doesn’t want to get rid of the Italians. Don Falcone’s made it more than clear that he won’t have any human trafficking in his territory, but if Don Falcone was replaced…”

  I stared, bewildered. “Then what the hell is he playing at? If he’s not trying to take over, then—”

  “Little Nicky’s got a traitor in his organization,” Smith replied, plucking a photo out of the folder and pushing it across the table toward me. This photo had Sergei in it like the other one, but also had someone else, someone I could make out very clearly.

  “Caputo,” I said, less of a question and more of a confirmation of what I felt I already knew. “That piece of shit.”

  “We’ve got a wire up on Falcone. That’s how we know that the second you got off the phone with dear old daddy, he called up Caputo and told him to collect his daughter. You’re one lucky son of a bitch, because we got to your little love nest before he did.”

  “Why would Falcone tell Caputo where I was holed up?” I asked indignantly.

  “They go way back, shit-for-brains. They’re family. You’re just some asshole with a leather jacket. Hell, Falcone probably thinks you’re the one trying to off his daughter,” Smith laughed. “If he knew what you two were doing up there, he might kill you himself…”

  “Anyway, Lonnie’s not too happy with how he’s been treated,” Donaldson went on. “And unlike Nicky, Caputo doesn’t give a shit if a few girls get shipped in and out of Vegas—so long as he gets his cut. The Russians don’t want a war. They couldn’t afford it, and Sergei wouldn’t have the rest of his brothers behind him if someone like your friend Carliogne came looking for blood. So he wants to put someone more friendly at the head of the Falcone family. He gets what he wants, and Caputo gets a little bit richer.”

  “So why tell me all of this?” I said with a shrug. “I’ve already told Don Falcone about what I thought of Caputo, and he told me to go fuck myself. How is me knowing the whole story going to make this any more believable?”

  “Because you didn’t have any proof,” Smith said, reaching down just out of my view beneath the table. He dropped another—much smaller—file down on the table. “We’re giving you everything you need. You just need to hand it over to Falcone.”

  “And you two couldn’t have done this shit yourselves—or, y’know, arrested Sergei and Caputo?”

  “As much as we love to be informed,” Donaldson said, “we like to keep our hands clean and our faces off the radar. That�
��s how the CIA works its magic.”

  “CIA?” I replied, shaking my head.

  “What, you think we’re a couple of Feds? We’ve got bigger fish to fry, asshole.”

  “Which is why we’re only give you the information to out Caputo. We’ve got other plans for Sergei.”

  “Right. ‘Cause he’ll be so fuckin’ pleased to hear the CIA is involved in his personal matters,” I muttered. “What the hell am I supposed to say about this shit, huh? That I bought the pics off eBay?”

  “What you say is totally up to you,” Donaldson said mildly. “Mr. Falcone knows where he stands a little better than you could ever know.”

  “And this is… to borrow one of their stupid fucking lines, an offer you can’t refuse,” Smith remarked, giving another snort of amusement. “So… do we have an understanding?”

  I stared at the two men, then down at the file currently set between us. If their little plan worked and Falcone actually believed anything that was in there, then I could put an end to all of this with as little mess as possible. Shit, I could be back with the Hounds of Hell by the end of the week.

  But where did that leave me and Chrissy?

  I leaned back in my chair. The only answer I could come up with right then was that it left us in circumstances that would be way more favorable than our current ones were.

  “I don’t see what other choice I have,” I said at last. “What about the girl?”

  “You win the fucking lottery and all you can think about is Falcone’s daughter?” Donaldson laughed. “We gave her a little something to help her sleep. She’s gonna wake up with one hell of a headache. Might be a good idea to keep our little talk on a needs-to-know basis when she comes-to.”

  Goddamn, was I beginning to regret ever setting foot in Earthly Delights.

  17

  Chrissy

  I felt like I was floating on a cloud, held aloft by a soft, warm pressure against my back. I was sure I would sink down into whatever was beneath me at any moment, that I would be suffocated pleasantly within it.