Vendetta Road

by Christine Feehan

  His mouth left hers and trailed fire over her chin and down her throat. Deliberately, taking a chance, he dragged the front of her dress down to find the curves of her tits. He planned on apologizing later. After all, he’d been so far gone he wasn’t thinking straight. The trouble was, it was the truth.

  Her soft curves were fuller than he’d thought. So beautiful. Round and high. Jutting toward the heat of his mouth, wanting freedom. He bent his head and took the left one deep into his mouth, tongue flattening her nipple to the roof of his mouth. Stroking caresses.

  Soleil’s head fell back, her tit pushing deeper, as if she were feeding herself to him. Her hands came up, one under her breast, the other at the back of his head, holding him there. It was hot. It was sexy. He heard himself groan, and it shocked him. He stroked over and over with his tongue, suckling, and then, his cock pulsing in time to his heart, dared to use the edge of his teeth. Carefully. Almost gently. An exquisite torture.

  She groaned, and both his heart and his cock jumped. She was beyond perfection. Beyond anything he could have conjured up on his darkest night, when he was so in need, he didn’t think he could make it one more second let alone through the long night.

  Abruptly, before it was too late for both of them, he pulled back, using his crystalline blue eyes unashamedly. “I’m so sorry, Soleil. I’ve never lost it like that before in my life.” He poured sincerity into his voice, although for the first time he was telling the truth.

  Very gently he pulled the top of her dress up. “Really, baby, I’m sorry. Must be the fuckin’ liquor and the fact that you kiss like sin.”

  She touched his face, a barely there whisper of her fingers across his mouth. His heart stuttered in his chest. “You weren’t the only one, Ice. I lost it too.”

  He could fall in love with her right there in the fucking ladies’ room of the bar. “I’ll be right outside.” Getting her another drink. Making sure his plan was carried out step by step. Losing her wasn’t an option.

  He stepped back out of the room, giving her privacy and his body a reprieve. The moment the door closed with Soleil inside, his brothers crowded around him.

  * * *

  Soleil knew she was going to burn in hell forever. This was so wrong. It didn’t matter that he was trying to seduce her. It didn’t even matter why she’d come to the biker bar in the first place. She’d come and she’d chosen to stay. That had been her choice, and she’d stayed because of Ice. She wanted him to seduce her. She wanted to have a night of pure, perfect, tipsy sex with a gorgeous biker like Ice. But more than anything, she wanted to keep him.

  She wanted to keep his friends, who thought they were so cleverly helping him with his plan. The hand-off of glasses was almost cute. The bumps to bring him closer to her. The way they chose the music so he could dance with her. They really were like a family, trying to help their brother get what he wanted. She loved that he wanted her.

  Ice had almost managed to make her forget what had made her run from the hotel and her life. She hated her life. She really hated Winston. She detested who she’d become over the years. It wasn’t who she was inside. She was this girl. The one in the bar, plying the gorgeous man with drinks, just as he was doing to her, in the hopes of getting her way.

  What were the real chances of riding off into the sunset on the back of his bike, far from her life? Probably zero. She rubbed her temples and looked at herself in the mirror. If she really did seduce him into marriage, how would she keep him? She clearly wasn’t all that interesting. She didn’t have anything but money to offer him, and he was a biker. He liked being free. Sex? He probably got that on the daily. It wasn’t even ethical. Moral. What was she thinking? Was she really that desperate?

  The answer was yes. She was so damn tired of being alone. Of hotels. Of silence. Or disgusting, vile people like Winston, and now she was actually thinking of becoming one and tricking Ice into marriage. It wasn’t like trapping him. He had a choice, but not if he was drunk. Her conscience wasn’t going to let her do it. That had always been her problem. She wanted to be a bad girl, but there was always that moment when she weighed whether she should do something against whether she wanted to do it.

  It had been so hot when Ice had touched her on the dance floor, rubbing the cheeks of her bottom, and then in the doorway of the ladies’ room, pulling down the top of her dress. She almost wanted someone to see. It was just hot. He’d been so frantic, as if he couldn’t resist her. As if her body were so incredibly seductive, he had to have her right there, right in front of the world to show them she belonged to him. She loved that. She’d always wanted that. Craved it. She wanted to show the world he belonged to her. He was everything she’d ever wanted, and all she had to do was work it a little. Finesse a bit. Flirt. Drink.

  She rubbed at her temples, wishing her life had been different. Wishing just once she had the chance to do things over, to do them differently. Winston wanted her dead. He was going to kill her. Sooner or later it would happen. She hadn’t had a chance to live her life at all. To be herself. To laugh and be ridiculous, to ride off with the hottest man in the bar. To do one single thing she’d dreamt or fantasized of doing. She was going to die, and it was going to be ugly, and she was going to do that with all kinds of regrets. She was tired of always doing what was right; it hadn’t gotten her anywhere.

  She had no one to turn to. This could very well be her last chance to have anything that remotely resembled anything she wanted. She found tears running down her face and wiped them away. She didn’t deserve to cry, not when she even contemplated for one moment the idea of matching Ice drink for drink, knowing she wouldn’t be drunk, seducing him and trying to get a ring on his finger. She’d lost her mind. She was as bad as Winston.

  * * *

  “You sure about this?” Maestro asked. “She’s a fuckin’ innocent, Ice. She isn’t like Breezy, who grew up in the life, or even Anya, who grew up in a shelter and bartended rough crowds. Blythe knew what she was gettin’ into. This girl . . . she’s like some sort of—” He broke off, shaking his head. “She doesn’t belong, brother.”

  “She belongs with me,” Ice said as they made their way back to the game room. “She absolutely belongs with me. She’s scared out of her fuckin’ mind. Someone’s hurt her, and they’re still after her. She needs protection.”

  “We can give her protection, Ice,” Keys reminded. “Without seducing her. Or gettin’ her drunk. She needs it, she’s a woman, we’ll give it.”

  Ice shook his head. “You’re not hearin’ what I’m sayin’.”

  “A woman like that, Ice, you take her on like this, there’s no goin’ back,” Maestro reiterated. “You’ll end up watchin’ over her for the rest of your life. No more women. No more women in the plural. She’ll be your only. Hell, she doesn’t even get that she’s sexier than hell. She walked into a place like this wearin’ that dress and lookin’ like a fuckin’ angel. Everywhere you go, someone is going to be challengin’ you for her.”

  There were nods all the way around. Ice shrugged. His hand closed into a tight fist. “I have no problem with giving up other women. I was fuckin’ tired of tellin’ my cock to cooperate. Woman goes down on me, the damn thing won’t work until I tell it to. With her, my cock is going to stand up all on his own. Fuckin’ happy to see her. To feel her.”

  “We all got that problem, Ice. You don’t take on a woman like that just to put a little steel in your dick,” Keys pointed out.

  “You don’t get it, it isn’t about my cock, it’s about feelin’ something. Actually being alive. She makes me feel alive.”

  “Fuck her, then, Ice,” Player said. “But you tie yourself to her and she tries to walk when she finds out we aren’t the band of merry men she thinks we are, or that you’re not Mr. Nice Guy, you’re going to really lose your shit.”

  “I wouldn’t let her leave,” Ice said. “She makes that commitment, she’s mine
. All in. She doesn’t get to walk.”

  “She won’t understand the consequences,” Absinthe said. “You know she won’t. She’s probably walked away from everything difficult she’s ever run into. She’s got money. Anyone can see that.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she understands or not. There’s a code we live by. She takes me on, she lives with the code,” Ice said. His voice turned hard. Dripped with glacier cold. His eyes had gone hard like twin blue diamonds. He meant what he said.

  “It’s a trap,” Maestro said. “You’re fuckin’ putting that girl in a trap and she doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting free.”

  “Now you’re beginnin’ to understand,” Ice said. “She’s mine, and I’m not givin’ her up, so give up arguin’. You all know me when I make up my mind. If I don’t have this woman, I don’t exist anymore. That’s the fuckin’ bottom line.”

  There was a small silence. “I think Ice just put it on the line,” Code said. “What do you need, brother?”

  Maestro shook his head. “I hope you know what you’re doin’, brother, but you need help, we’re here for you. Call the shots. We’ll back your play.”

  Ice was grateful to his brothers. He knew they would back him when he laid it out for them, although he doubted if they realized he meant every word. He tended to use humor to throw anyone off from knowing he was at the very end of his rope.

  He had nightmares and woke in a sweat. He often couldn’t find a reason to walk out of his room. He always volunteered for the most dangerous position on any job they ran, a part of him hoping he wouldn’t come back from it. He just couldn’t feel a thing anymore, not anything worthwhile. At least not until his little princess had walked through the door.

  Maestro called it exactly the way it was. Soleil was too innocent for their world. She wasn’t like Reaper’s old lady, or Steele’s. Even Blythe had knowledge of bikers and knew every single member of Torpedo Ink was an assassin. Soleil thought they were all sweet. She was surrounded by a pack of vicious wolves and she thought they were sweet. If there was one woman in the world who needed protection, it was his woman. And she was going to get it.

  “Code, I need to know whatever you can get on her between now and midnight.”

  “You lift her wallet?”

  Ice nodded and slid it into Code’s hands. It was very slim, a buttery leather that must have cost more than the boots he wore. He slid his thumb over it as he handed it off. Just touching it inexplicably made him want her more.

  “She’s so far out of our class, Ice,” Code said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Ice nodded.

  “You make certain she isn’t just a challenge.” Code slid the wallet under his shirt, those too-old eyes staring straight into Ice’s.

  “She’s no challenge, Code. If she was a real mark, I’d have her in bed already.” That was the truth, and all of them knew it. “After you get her information, set her up for me. I want it all to happen tonight. Get the paperwork done and make it legit. No backing out. No wiggle room for her. I want her tied to me completely.”

  His brothers shook their heads, but Code nodded, and he was gone, sliding to a corner of the bar where he could get the Internet and do just as Ice asked.

  “Need someone to get her a drink. A screaming orgasm. Want to keep those comin’ until I got this locked down.”

  “I’ve got it for you,” Mechanic volunteered. He followed Code out of the game room.

  “Need cameras in here shut down. And no one gets in but one of ours,” Ice continued.

  He’d been listening, and the water was running in the restroom. She’d be back any minute. “Need her wallet back as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll tell Mechanic to bring it with the drink,” Maestro said, “And then I’ll guard the door.” He gave a good impression of a smile—a shark’s smile. “No one will get in.”

  “Thanks.” Ice knew his brothers and they would come through for him, no matter how crazy they thought he was acting.

  Soleil came out of the restroom, looking more beautiful than ever. Like an angel. Her skin looked so soft it was an invitation to touch. Her eyes were large, that deep, unbelievable dark chocolate, but more, the color no one would believe if he tried to describe it to them. Her lashes were long and thick, a dark brown that looked black until one got up close. They framed her eyes, giving a man all sorts of needs when he looked at them. Her nose was straight, a little princess nose.

  She was born to look fresh and young and way too innocent. The kind of innocent most men wanted immediately to corrupt—or at least he did. He would never tire of looking at her. Every time he did, the ideas that came into his head were dirty, erotic and not for the innocent, yet he knew he was going to try every single one of those scenarios with her.

  He could still taste her in his mouth. Feel her nipple on his tongue. That soft, soft mound that was so full and round and perfect for a man like him. He was a breast man. He loved looking at tits, but now that he had found perfection with her very sweet ass, he planned on being very attentive.

  Ice held out his hand to her. Soleil didn’t even hesitate. Her eyes were shining, her perfect bow of a mouth smiling, and when she moved into him, she did so all the way, her body sliding up along his.

  “I’ve been holding the pool table for us,” he said. His lips brushed her ear. He felt the shiver go through her. “What do you want to bet? It has to be interesting, not money.”

  Her lashes fluttered. “I don’t know, what sounds good to you?”

  “You win, you call the bet. I win, I get your panties.”

  Mechanic set two drinks on the slim side table just below a rack of cues. Soleil eyed them warily. “What’s that? I don’t usually change drinks midstream. I don’t want a hangover.”

  “You won’t get one, and I know you’ll love this drink. It’s a screaming orgasm.”

  Soleil rolled her eyes. “Seriously, Ice? There’s no such thing. That’s a myth. Someone named a drink after a myth.”

  His eyebrow shot up and he stepped into her, crowding her until he knew she felt the heat rolling off his body. Until he felt every breath she drew into her lungs.

  “Baby, I won’t even need my cock in you to make you scream when you come for me.” He stared straight into her eyes when he told her the fuckin’ truth, because it was important she know he meant it. “First game I win, I get your panties. The second I win, I make you scream.”

  * * *

  Soleil stared up into his crystal blue eyes, excitement coursing through her. Heat rushed through her veins. He was the one suggesting bets. More alcohol. Did that make her responsible? Or him? He was definitely set on seducing her. And his friends were all in on it, helping him. She loved that, loved that they were willing to do anything for their brother. A part of her recognized that she could be in a dangerous situation, but Ice was too focused on her, and she believed him when he’d told her he didn’t share.

  He made her forget everything but the excitement of being with him. She needed to forget. She wanted this one night. It wasn’t forever, but she didn’t have that long. She had this one night, and she was taking it and this amazing, gorgeous, sexy man. She might burn in hell for the things she was going to do this night, but she didn’t care. Looking at him, she was certain every single thing would be worth it.

  FIVE

  Soleil’s face flushed, that beautiful rose Ice knew he was going to enjoy seeing all over her body when he had her laid out with his mouth between her legs.

  Her chin went up. “You think I’m not up to the challenge? You aren’t going to win.”

  He flashed her a grin. “Princess, win or lose, I’m still going to count myself a winner. You in?”

  “All the way,” she declared.

  He was going to burn in hell for this, but he’d already had a place reserved in the hottest inferno, so he took her fing
ers, brought them to his mouth, brushed a kiss into the center of her palm, and then put her screaming orgasm into her hand. He took his as well.

  “What’s in it?” she asked, bringing the glass to her nose to cautiously sniff it.

  He took a drink, leaned in and kissed her, sharing the taste of Baileys, vodka and Kahlúa with her. He couldn’t stop his hand from curling possessively around the nape of her neck. The moment they kissed, there was an explosion. Her match to his dynamite. They both went up fast, her mouth moving under his, following his lead, tongue sliding along his, catching every tiny taste left of the drink in his mouth. It was sensual. Erotic. It was the hottest kiss he’d ever had, and he didn’t want it to end.

  He thought he was playing her. Seducing her. That was the play, but it felt all too real, and he’d never had real. He’d never felt anything at all when he was kissing. He had no idea that one touch could ignite a firestorm that roared and burned through him, leaving him craving more, needing it until her kisses were more important than breathing.

  She was supposed to fall in love with him. That was the ultimate goal. His life was an illusion, nothing more. He didn’t exist anymore. There was no Ice. There was a killer, and she would be living with that. In return for her love, he would take excellent care of her. And he would have this . . .

  The rush that was beyond anything he’d known. The innocence of her to corrupt and protect. If he played his cards right, if he was careful and saw to every detail, this would work. It had to, now that he had a small taste of what it could be like with her. He would have a semblance of a life, and that was all someone as fucked up as he was could ever ask for.