Crave Page 7

  I hold my hands up as a sign of resignation and take that step back. Lady said ‘no’ and clearly means it, for now.

  But soon she’ll say ‘yes’, and then I’m going to feast on her until she can’t take it any longer. And I’ll start all over again and screw her until she’s nothing but a rag doll in my arms. If she’s lucky, I might stop, but I certainly love to eat a well-pounded pussy.

  “You’re doing it again. Stop thinking about having sex with me, because it’s not going to happen.” She crosses her legs and her thighs tighten in the smallest, most discreet movements, and then quickly release. Like hell it’s not going to happen. I bet she’s dripping for me right now.

  But I won’t push it any more. Well, for now at least.

  “I came in here to talk to you,” I start, trying to defuse the false anger she’s projecting.

  “But you attacked me instead.”

  “Which you wanted too. I just made the first move.”

  “Ass,” she murmurs and looks away, confirmation enough to me that I’m right.

  “You have to stay in here.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “You’re not my father.”

  “Clearly not. I’m trying to protect you, and he couldn’t give a shit about you.”

  There’s an audible gasp and I think this is one of those times I probably shouldn’t have said what’s on my mind. But hey, I did anyway.

  “Could you muster just the smallest amount of compassion?” she asks as she sits and puts her elbows on her knees, dropping her head into her hands.

  “Why the hell wouldn’t I tell it like it is?”

  “Really? After all the crap you’ve seen me go through, you still can’t shut your damned mouth just once?”

  “Darlin’, it sucks you got fucked over, well not yet, but soon, I hope.” Her eyes fly to mine and there’s genuine hatred this time. Her orbs are filled with angry tears and any moment she’s going to start the water works again.

  “Just once,” she pleads with me.

  I take a huge breath and step closer to Nix; I sit beside her on the bed and reach out to put an arm around her shoulders. She tenses at the contact but slowly relaxes.

  She stays still for a moment. No tears, no smart-mouthed responses. Nothing, just a room filled with a comfortable silence.

  Phoenix slowly leans into me until her head is on my shoulder and I’ve got both my arms wrapped around her, protecting her against anything that might hurt her.

  “Can you stay in here, please?” I add the please as an afterthought, hoping she doesn’t question me.

  “Why?” Yeah, like the ‘please’ worked.

  “Someone’s coming here and I don’t want him to see you.”

  “Why?” she asks, lifting her head from my shoulder so her intense big blue eyes can stare at me.

  “Because he’s not a man you should ever know.”

  “Would he hurt me?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Will he hurt you?”

  That question takes me by surprise, and I don’t really know how to answer it. I’ve never really thought about it, or cared.

  “Probably,” I say, because unfortunately, it’s most likely the truth.

  “Then I’ll stay in the room, and no one will even know I’m here.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  I go to stand and leave, but her hand is closed tight around my shirt.

  She pulls me down to her and before I know what she’s doing, she gives me a gentle, girly kiss on the lips. No tongue, just a closed mouth kiss. Damn it.

  “Thank you,” she says as she lets go, freeing me to leave.

  But I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here with her, and protect her from the evil of Cain.

  Grit: Chapter 11

  Standing behind the bar, I grab a bottle of Jack, a shot glass and twist the top off it. Fuck it, I should just swig it straight from the bottle, but with Cain, I need to keep my cool.

  Sarge walks over, and sits on one of the bar stools opposite me.

  I don’t ask, simply grab another shot glass and put it beside mine. Filling the glasses up, I give one to Sarge and give him a small nod.

  We down them in unison and go for seconds, then thirds, in complete silence.

  “J,” Sarge says as he eyes the bottle again.

  I hand it over the bar, but take my shot glass away, clearly telling him I won’t drink any more.

  “You don’t want this, do you?” Sarge asks me. I narrow my eyes and look at the bottle. “Cain,” he clarifies.

  I look over my shoulder toward my room and then back to Sarge. “Something’s going on and I don’t like the direction.”

  “Hmmm,” Sarge gives me his normal grumble.

  The club house door swings open and Sandy walks in, looking quite sheepish and apologetic. She walks up to the bar area and lowers her gaze, “J, can we talk?” she says in her meekest voice.

  “Not now, Sandy, maybe later.”

  “Please?” she begs, eyes brimming with tears.

  Oh shit, here comes the damned water works again.

  “Sarge,” I say as I take a deep breath. Sarge gets up and leaves, allowing Sandy and me to talk privately.

  “Drink?” I ask as she sits on the stool Sarge just vacated.

  “No. I just wanted to say that…” She composes herself and straightens her back, “I’m sorry for what I did and said yesterday.”

  “Alright.” Good. Done and dusted.

  “I just thought,” Oh come on. Shut up, Sandy. “…maybe you and I could end up together. But now I know that’s not going to happen.”

  “Fine.” I turn to walk out of the bar and toward the meeting room.

  “I should apologize to the new girl too. I was feeling lonely and I thought we had a connection.” For the love of God, shut the hell up. “But now I know how it’s always just been sex and nothing more.”

  “Yep.” I try to move away, again.

  “I’m just lonely.”

  “Listen, go to confessional or something ‘cause I’m not cut out for this.”

  Sandy’s eyes drop to the bar top and her shoulders droop down, too.

  Why the hell am I plagued with uncooperative chicks?

  “I understand. I just wanted to say sorry to you and to the new girl. Where is she? I’ll apologize.”

  No way, I don’t want her to know where Nix is, especially if Cain comes in and Sandy starts shooting her mouth off.

  “I took her back to a motel last night.”

  “Oh, right,” she says and lets out a huge breath. “I’ll catch up with her next time.” Sandy hops off the stool and comes to give me a hug.

  I awkwardly pat her on the back, then dislodge her clamped arms from around my waist and push her away. “Don’t worry about it. Just don’t do it again.” I feel like I’m scolding a schoolgirl.

  “I won’t. If you want me to suck you off later, just let me know.” Sandy is certainly a sixty-six percent girl.

  “I’ll be fine, thanks.” I walk away from her and into the meeting room before she can pout or distract me any longer.

  Sarge is sitting in his usual spot and looking outside through the huge window that overlooks the shed and the yard.

  “What’s on your mind, Sarge?” I ask as I sit at the head of the table.

  “Cain,” he answers, grimly. I don’t think I’ve seen Sarge look so…lost.

  “What about him?”

  “Something feels off.”

  “Yeah I got that feeling too, like we’re just about to step straight into a mine field.”

  “Hmmm.”

  He sits back in his chair, steeples his fingers together, and brings them to his mouth.

  “You got any thoughts on this?”

  “Just smells like shit.”

  “I agree.” I tap my forefinger and middle finger on the table, trying to make sense of all that’s going on.

  All the main pieces t
o this jigsaw puzzle are missing, so I can’t even try and make out what’s happening.

  “J,” Aaron comes to the door and stands beneath the arch.

  “Yeah.” I swing around and see his urgency.

  “Cain’s here,” he announces. I get up and walk through the clubhouse to the driveway. One of the prospects has opened the gate to let Cain’s huge black Range Rover SUV into the yard.

  Cain gets out of the back seat, dressed in his usual black suit and dark sunglasses. He adjusts one of his cuff links and looks to the side, then to me.

  “My friend,” he says as he steps forward and extends his hand to shake mine.

  “Cain,” I reply, shaking his hand.

  “Let’s go inside.” He claps a hand to my back and I turn to lead the way into the clubhouse.

  When we get inside, Sandy is behind the bar. The moment she lays her eyes on Cain, her face reddens and she fucking giggles.

  “Hello, my beautiful girl,” Cain suavely says to her.

  “Hello, Sir. Could I get you a drink?” she asks, flustered and flushed.

  Cain’s eyes widen and he takes a step closer to Sandy and runs the back of his hand down her rosy cheek. “Whatever you’re pouring, beautiful.”

  Sandy’s cute youthfulness and her blushing cheeks are certainly going to attract a man like Cain. He prefers his girls in their early twenties, although he’s closer to his late forties.

  She pours him a drink. He lifts the glass to his lips and throws it back while maintaining eye contact with her.

  “Thank you…” He waits for her name.

  “Sandy,” she gushes and flutters her eyelids at him.

  Yep, sixty-six percent.

  “Maybe you’ll be around when I finish talking with Jaeger.” He’s extending her an invitation for sex.

  “I think I can hang around.”

  He leans toward her and whispers something in her ear while he skims his hand softly down her arm. A big smile plays on her lips and she lowers her head, obviously embarrassed by what he’s saying to her.

  “Yes, Sir,” she says as she moves straight past both of us and out the front door.

  “Come, we have things to talk about,” Cain says as he falls into step beside me.

  “What was that about?” I ask and point my thumb behind me toward the door.

  “Oh, I told her I want to fuck her and if she wants it to go wait for me in the car. Tell me, Jaeger, does she like being fucked in that tight little ass of hers?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. It’s not my business what she likes or doesn’t.

  “No matter. I’ll find out soon enough.” He stops talking as we enter the meeting room, “Sarge, how are you?” Cain asks as he extends his hand to Sarge to shake.

  “Hmmm,” Sarge responds and looks away from Cain, essentially telling Cain to shove his hand up his ass. Typical Sarge greeting.

  “Ha, nothing’s changed. You want your VP in here for this?” Cain looks around for Aaron.

  “Nope. Just you and me.” And with that Sarge stands and leaves, closing the door behind him.

  I gesture to Cain to sit and I take my chair too.

  “What business you here for today?” I ask as I lean back in my chair and cross one leg over the other.

  “You got that land?”

  “Securing it tomorrow.”

  “Ward?”

  “Died. Car ran off the road and hit a tree, killing him instantly.”

  “The girl?”

  How did he know he had a daughter and not a son?

  “What girl?” I test him.

  “Dillon, the daughter. Where is she?”

  I shrug my shoulders and curve my mouth down at the ends, showing him I have no idea. “Didn’t know he had a daughter. Thought he had a son. Dillon, he told me the kid’s name is.”

  “Yeah, fucked up how he called her Dillon. But she’s a sweet piece of ass, and someone who can be useful to me.”

  “How?” I ask, wanting to know what he‘s after, although I have a feeling he’s playing his cards very close to his chest. He ignores me.

  “Anyway, I want to cook out there.”

  “No.”

  “Hunters transport from there to here, fifty kilo a week for sixty a week.”

  “We aren’t drug mules.”

  “Eighty a week,” Cain counters as he adjusts his tie.

  “I’ll take it to the table, but I don’t think we’ll agree.”

  Cain sinks further into his seat and entwines his fingers together.

  “Tell me, how would the club survive without running guns?” he asks smoothly as he stares at me, expressionless.

  “We wouldn’t.”

  “Good, so take it back to the table and see what your members say.” He stands and puts both his hands on the table, “but be sure to mention you’ll lose the guns if you don’t agree to the farm and the transportation.” He turns and walks out the door.

  Fuck me.

  Can this shit get any worse?

  Cain leaves the club house, and I hear the roar of his V8 engine come to life and drive away.

  Sarge is the first to come back in and looks over at me. “That bad?”

  “Worse,” I answer and shake my head.

  One by one the members arrive, and I sit in the meeting room waiting for them. Over an hour later we’re all sitting around the table.

  Aaron pulls a pack of smokes out and lights one. “What happened?”

  “Cain wants to use Freedom Run to cook, and us to transport between there and here. Fifty kilos a week for eighty a week.”

  Murmurs are heard all around the table.

  “That’s a fair amount,” Aaron says, the first to speak.

  “There’s something else,” I start. All eyes are on me, “If we say ‘no’, we lose the guns.”

  A collective “fuck” is heard around the entire table.

  “We lose the guns, we close shop,” Dark says from the other end of the table.

  “He’ll screw us over,” Sarge asserts but says nothing else.

  “We can find another supplier to run guns for,” I add in, hoping the table doesn’t play into Cain’s threats.

  For over two hours we all talk about Cain’s offer.

  But we remain at deadlock with six for and six against.

  “Let’s take a break,” I suggest as I stand and stretch my back. “Meet back here in an hour.”

  All the members do the same thing and mumble agreement.

  I head down to my room and find Phoenix curled up on her side, with her hands beneath her face, asleep on my bed. Her knees are pulled up together and she’s lying in a fetal position, perfectly still on the same side of the bed she was on last night.

  I take my boots off and mold my body around hers, my knees behind hers, my front to her back. When I drape my arm over her hips, she wiggles back and lets out a soft moan.

  “Nice,” she sighs as she links our fingers together.

  I know she’s asleep, ‘cause she’d be yelling and cussing at me if she was awake and I tried touching her like this.

  My body harmonizes with hers and before I know it, my eyes are drifting closed.

  “I’m gonna fucking kill him!” I hear someone shout, rousing me from my sleep. Did I just dream that?

  I open my eyes and look around, Phoenix is still asleep next to me, but she must have turned because her head is on my chest and her arm is draped over my waist.

  “Dead motherfucker!” Sarge is yelling about killing someone. “What the hell!” I hear a door slam, and this wakes Phoenix.

  “Hey,” I say as I kiss her forehead.

  “What’s happening?” she asks groggily.

  “I’m not sure. Stay here. I’ll go check it out.”

  “I’ll come, ‘cause I’m hungry.”

  We get out of bed, I put my boots back on and I walk out of the room toward the bar area while Phoenix goes to the bathroom.

  There on the sofa is a bloody and battered Sandy. Her
face is swollen, her clothes are torn and there’s blood coagulated around her mouth, still fresh.

  Sarge drapes a blanket around her shoulders and I look over her entire body. She’s covered in fresh blue bruises and she’s sobbing uncontrollably on the sofa. Jason and Lion stand back near the kitchen area with their hands in their pockets and the other members are starting to come back in.

  “Sandy,” I say as I take a step toward her.

  “Don’t,” she sobs.

  “Hey, can I get something to…what the hell?” Phoenix cries when she sees Sandy.

  Immediately she flies toward her and kneels in front of her.

  “What happened?” Phoenix asks as she puts a gentle hand on Sandy’s leg.

  “It w-was m-my fault,” Sandy tries to stammer out.

  “What happened?” Phoenix hisses again, this time in the direction of the male standing closest to Sandy, who happens to be Sarge.

  Sarge throws his hands up in surrender, strangely backing down from Phoenix’s wrath.

  I can tell she’s beyond pissed. She’s shaking and mad as hell.

  “It wasn’t h-him,” Sandy cries. “It w-was Sir.” She bursts into tears and buries her face into her hands.

  I notice a few of her fingernails have been ripped off, her wrists and ankles are bloody where she was tied or cuffed, and there are scratch marks all over her arms.

  Cain did this.

  And although Sandy is just a club whore, no woman deserves to be raped.

  “Meeting room. Now,” I snap at everyone. “Can you help her?” I ask Nix.

  “I think she needs a hospital.”

  “NO! N-no hospital,” Sandy whimpers.

  “It’s okay, we’ll figure this out.” Phoenix comforts her. “Go,” she says and flicks her hand to me, dismissing me.

  Fucking Cain did this to one of my girls. He laid an unwelcome hand on someone who clearly did not want this.

  No one touches my girls like that.

  Not even Cain.

  Grit: Chapter 12

  Phoenix

  “Hey,” I say to the girl as she sobs almost uncontrollably on the sofa.

  She lifts her head from where it’s leaning on her drawn-up legs, and her eyes hold so much pain and sadness as she vacantly stares at me.