Bouncer (Kings of Carnage Series Book 5)

by Kim Jones

  Holy shit.

  “Bend your knees. Bring them as close to your chin as you can. Good. Now spread your legs as wide as they’ll go.” The end result leaves me wide open. When he pushes the covers off me, I can feel the air from my clit, all the way down my ass.

  His fingers trail agonizingly slow down my stomach. When he reaches my pussy, he doesn’t tease. He slides his fingers between my folds and growls.

  “Your little pussy is dripping.”

  I moan. The sound catches in my throat when he slams his middle finger inside me as deep as it will go.

  “I’m going to pound you with my fingers. Hard and fast. And when you’re right on the edge of coming, I’m going bury this finger,” he wiggles his finger inside of me, “in your ass and make you come so hard that by the time I’m finished, you’ll tell me your middle name and any-fucking-thing else I want to know.”

  As exciting as that sounds, I’m not so sure I like it. “I don’t want your finger in my ass.”

  “I don’t remember asking your permission.”

  If he says anything else, it’s drowned out by the sound of my moans as he fucks me hard with first one, then two fingers—slamming into me over and over until I’m sure I’ll bruise from the pounding of his knuckles.

  He moves to his knees and positions himself between my legs. With his other hand, he strokes my clit. Soft. Slow. Opposite of the savage way he fingers me.

  It’s not long before I’m panting. I’m so wet I’m dripping. Lubricating my virgin ass. Soaking the sheets beneath me. My climax builds. I rise higher. And higher. I’m terrified of the unknown. It feels so good. But I…can’t.

  “Stop fighting it, baby. Just let go.”

  I do and my world tilts on its axis. I come so hard my entire body convulses. Then, he does as he promised he would and another wave of euphoria rocks through me.

  I’m still pulsing with light tremors when he eases out of me. He crawls up my body and kisses me hard. Until I have to turn away to catch my breath. The bed dips. I hear water running. I feel his weight next to me. Then he’s cleaning me up.

  When he’s finished, I straighten my legs and groan as the blood circulates back through my limbs. “For fucks sake,” I whisper my body spent and my mind cloudy. “It’s Seven.”

  “What’s seven?” he asks, tugging me until I’m back in my usual spot, curled into his side.

  “My name. Apple Seven VanHolland.”

  Eighteen

  APPLE

  I wake up to someone calling my name.

  My eyes spring open and it takes me a moment to gather my surroundings.

  I’m sitting up. In bed. Bouncer sits next to me. His hand rubbing firm strokes up and down my back.

  The nightmare.

  The monsters.

  “Shit,” I breathe, scrubbing my hand over my face. Wiping away the tears on my cheeks.

  “Here. Drink this.” Bouncer places a bottle of water to my lips and I take a couple sips before grabbing the bottle and draining the entire thing.

  I don’t feel like I usually do after a nightmare. I’m not as afraid. Or as upset. I’m not sure if it’s because I went to bed sober, or because I woke up with Bouncer next to me.

  “Who is Isabelle?”

  I stiffen at the question. “Why?”

  “You kept saying her name.”

  “She’s…no one.”

  He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. “I know about keeping secrets, baby. I know how that shit can eat you alive from the inside. Tell me.”

  “That’s the thing. Right now, those secrets only hurt me. If you know them, then they’ll hurt you too. I can’t burden you with that, Bouncer.”

  He swipes his thumb beneath my eye, catching a stray tear. “You won’t. I can handle it. Let me carry some of that weight. I want to.”

  The thing is, I know he does. And it scares the shit out of me. “I need a minute,” I mutter, scrambling from the bed and shutting myself in the bathroom.

  It’s been years since I’ve thought about Isabelle. I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t too chicken shit to remember her. I’m scared of the pain that comes with her memory. But as I wash my face and brush my teeth, I find that for once, I want to think about her. To remember her. To talk about her.

  Or maybe it’s not necessarily that I want to talk about her, it’s that I want to talk to Bouncer. I want to tell him things I’ve never told anyone. I want to share my secrets. I want to know his. I want to give it all to him.

  I want to trust someone.

  I want that someone to be him.

  Because you love him.

  Yes.

  Because I love him.

  He might leave.

  He might break my heart when he goes.

  But that doesn’t change how I feel about him. And whether he ever admits it or not, he feels something for me too. Is it love? Hell, I don’t know. But it sure as shit feels like it.

  I climb back in bed and snuggle against him. His arms wrap around me and his lips find my hair. Like they have every other night we’ve spent together.

  “Isabelle was my mother,” I start, jumping straight in. “She was….” I release a breath. “She was so beautiful. Sometimes I’d just stare at her. I couldn’t wait to grow up so I could look like her. Be like her.…”

  I trail off—lost in my memories.

  “She sounds special,” Bouncer says, bringing me back.

  I focus on his finger trailing my spine. “I thought she was. And my Dad, he worshipped her. They were such a powerful couple. Both lookers. Had more money than they could spend. Dad was a CFO. Mom was a socialite. They always threw the best parties. Wore the latest styles. Lived in the nicest houses. They molded me to be just like them. I was spoiled, to say the least. I had everything I ever wanted. Except for their attention.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh. “That sounds so, cliché, doesn’t it?”

  “It really does,” Bouncer says. I can hear the smile in his voice. “So why Apple Seven?”

  “Well…Mom wanted a name no one else had. She had to stand out. Be different. More. Her daughter couldn’t very well go to school with a normal name like, fuck I don’t know, Mary? Sara? Chloe? The next year, some celebrity had a kid and named her Apple and my Mom told everyone that she named her after me.”

  He shrugs. “I can believe that. I can’t imagine more than two people on this planet naming their kid Apple.”

  “Asshole.”

  “I’m teasing. Why do you call her Isabelle in your dreams and not mom?”

  I draw circles on his chest with the tip of my finger, stalling to find the right words. “In my dreams, it’s not me calling her Isabelle. It’s my Dad. And he didn’t just say it, he screamed it. Over and over and over until I can’t think about her without hearing it.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  “For what?”

  He pulls me tighter to him. “For whatever comes next.”

  If I didn’t know before this moment, I know now…I love this man.

  “Turns out, my Dad wasn’t a good man. He embezzled millions of dollars from his company. When my Mom found out, she wasn’t concerned about her husband going to jail or me losing my father, she was too busy worrying about her image. What people would think of her. Where she would live if not on millionaire row.”

  I’m silent for so long, he has to ask the question, though I know he doesn’t want to. But I don’t think I could tell him if he didn’t. “What happened to her?”

  “On the day my dad was indicted, she ate a bottle of pills. I was watching the story on T.V. She was in her room. My Dad was with his lawyers. He’d agreed to turn himself in to avoid a public arrest. But he wanted to come home first. He found her. When I heard him screaming her name, I went to see what was wrong.”

  I swallow hard and force myself to continue. “He was at kneeling on the floor at her side. When he saw me, it was like he looked right through me. He stood. Left the room.
His office door closed. I was still staring at my mother’s lifeless body when I heard the gunshot. I thought he’d went to call the police. Instead, he blew his brains out. I was sixteen.”

  “Jesus, baby.” Bouncer lifts me to his chest.

  “He stole a lot of money. From a lot of good people. Rumors were that my mom knew about it. Thinking back, I’m not sure how she couldn’t know. They both paid the price with their lives. I benefited as much as they did from what he did, but I’m still here. And I struggle with that. Sometimes I wonder if people expected the same of me.”

  “Hey.” Bouncer sits us up so he can look me in the eye. “What they did is not your fault. You were a kid. You didn’t know.”

  I nod. “I know that. Doesn’t really help with the guilt, though. I mean, I’d never take my own life over it, but I feel like they did it and people forgave them. But they haven’t forgiven me.”

  “You don’t need their fucking forgiveness. You didn’t hurt those people. They did.”

  I offer him a weak smile. “People need someone to blame. And whether that someone is me or not, I took the fall.”

  He tucks my hair behind my ear. “How did you end up here?”

  “Well, I don’t have any family outside of my parents. And since I was sixteen, I had to have somewhere to go. So I became a ward of the state. Just so happens, I end up in a foster home with a family who was affected by my Dad’s embezzlement. As you can probably guess, that didn’t go so well.”

  “Who were they. I’ll kill them.”

  I’ll keep that in mind…

  “You’re not killing anyone. I lasted a month there before I bailed. I found my way to Georgia and made Four Points my home. And say what you will about the place and the people who live there, but they were more of a home to me than anywhere I’ve ever been.”

  He lifts a brow.

  “Except for here,” I add, finding truth in the words.

  Bouncer’s lips find mine for a brief kiss. Then he hugs me for a long time. Neither of us saying anything.

  Exhausted from my trip down memory lane, I’m nearly asleep when he moves us to lie down.

  “Wanna share your shit?” I mumble, hoping like hell he doesn’t.

  “Sure.”

  Damn.

  “For a hand-job.”

  Asshole.

  Nineteen

  BOUNCER

  All I can think about is what Apple told me. It wouldn’t make a damn to me if her parents were serial killers—that doesn’t affect how I feel.

  What does affect how I feel is the fact that her parents were such fucking cowards that they took the easy way out and left their daughter to face the music. Alone.

  I have skeletons in my own past, so I don’t make a habit of asking questions. I may do some behind the scenes shit and find out what I need to know. But looking someone in the eyes when they reveal broken parts of themselves, traumas they’ve sustained. It’s too fucking intimate.

  I don’t do intimate.

  But last night, I asked questions. I held her and felt her pain. Felt her seep into my veins. My heart.

  I feel weak. Love makes you weak.

  Is that what this is?

  I don’t understand why I question it. I know that I do.

  I wish I could say that the first time I met her crazy ass, when she sidled up beside me and said she thought she loved me, that I felt the same. But all she did then was freak me the fuck out.

  Now she makes me want to put her in my fucking pocket and keep her safe every second of every day. She makes me want to spank her ass and hold her close. I want to take care of her. I want to fuss with her every day and live inside her every night.

  I want to stay in one place with her or have her go everywhere I go.

  I want whatever she wants.

  “Prospect!” Jinx yells, breaking into my thoughts.

  We’re sitting around the table, waiting on church to start so we can go over details of Boots’ patch-out tonight. But my mind is a room away.

  I look behind me as the door opens and Quincy pokes his head in. “Yeah?”

  “Beer me.” Jinx shakes the empty can at him. Quincy leaves through the open door. “You okay? You’ve been staring a hole through the table the entire time we’ve been here.”

  I look to Jinx, uninspired to reply. This dude needs a fucking talk show. Then maybe he’ll quit worrying about asking me so many damn questions.

  “He’s got that Apple pussy on the brain,” Bash says.

  I glare at Jinx. Fucking big mouth.

  “Jinx may be the only one that says anything. That don’t mean the rest of us ain’t picked up on shit between you and Apple.” North joins in, forcing my eyes to him and away from Jinx.

  I roll my eyes at their juvenile bullshit. “Jinx felt sorry enough to take her off the streets and give her a job. Sly felt sorry enough to forego a fucking background check. But when I feel sorry for her, y’all think I’m in love.”

  Either I’m not as perceptive as I think, or I’ve done a shit job keeping my emotions to myself. It makes me wonder if Apple knows. Has she seen what they’ve seen?

  I need to tell her.

  This whole time, I’ve been forcing her to open to me. Now it’s my turn.

  Quincy chooses that moment to enter with Jinx’s beer. When he closes the door behind him, I pray this conversation is over.

  “Love? Did we say love? Aww, hell, Nomad done fell in love.” North turns my words on me.

  “That’s not what I mean, but even if it is, I wouldn’t tell you nosy bastards’ shit.”

  “Listen, Apple isn’t one to feel sorry for. Everyone here has needed a hand at one point, that’s what makes us family. We wanted her to be part of it. Hell, we’d even let you be a full-time part of it if you’d take that stick out of your ass.” Jinx says, pushing my shoulder for effect.

  The fact that they are protective of Apple both pleases and pisses me off.

  As much as I want to protect her, I won’t be with her every second. I do have a job to do. Knowing there are others that care enough to look after her in my absence feels good.

  She needs family. I think she’s found that here.

  But she’s mine.

  And I plan on telling her that.

  Tonight.

  “The Nomad looks like he might be considering sticking around for a while,” Sly puts in his two cents.

  The guys laugh. I don’t.

  “Don’t we have somewhere to be?”

  Chaos pushes his chair back, pulling his cell from his pocket. “He’s right, boys. I just got a text from the Ol’ Lady, the girls will meet us there. Let’s roll out.”

  Everyone makes their way out of the chapel to the garage. On my way through, I look around to see if I can catch sight of Apple with the girls. No luck.

  They insisted she ride with them to the strip-club where Boot’s patch-out is taking place.

  I hope Talia and the other girls made her feel welcome. Like she’s one of them.

  Because in my mind, she is.

  Twenty

  APPLE

  Ho-ly shit.

  I stare at the girl in the mirror and instantly question my sexual orientation.

  When Talia invited me to ride her and the Ol’ Ladies to Boots’ patch-out at the strip club, I was surprised. It was the first time they’d ever included me in something.

  When she asked me what I was wearing, I’d shrugged and looked down at what I had on.

  She frowned. Then smiled. Then clapped and announced that they were going to do a makeover.

  I thought it was a bit silly, but they fed me vodka while they primped me, so I’d kept my mouth shut.

  Now, looking at the final result in my private, hidden bathroom behind the bar, I’m glad I let them.

  I didn’t even know my hair would hold a curl. Or that my eyelashes could look so long. Or that the “smoky eye” was even a thing. The outfit I’m wearing is…hot. Leather pants I had to squeeze into. A leat
her jacket that is more for looks than warmth. And a dark purple corset that pushes my tits nearly to my chin. The only decision I was allowed to make was on the shoes. I chose Aspen’s black, leather knee boots instead of the heels Talia dangled in my face.

  Heels and vodka don’t mix.

  I’m all for pushing the boundaries, but I’m no fool.

  I slip out of the bathroom and am rounding the end of the bar when Jinx’s yell for a Prospect freezes me in my tracks. I shoot Quincy an apologetic look as he takes a breath and pushes open the door of the chapel.

  Not wanting Bouncer to see me in all my sexy glory just yet, I stay out of view of the open door.

  Quincy emerges and catches my eye. “Where the fuck is the Miller Lite cans?” he whispers.

  “Third cooler door on the left,” I whisper back.

  He winks. “Thanks, babe. You look good.”

  I’m mid curtsy when I hear my name coming from the chapel. Being the nosey bitch I am, I strain my ear to eavesdrop on the conversation. There’s a beat a silence then I hear Bouncer’s voice.

  “Jinx felt sorry enough to take her off the streets and give her a job. Sly felt sorry enough to forego a fucking background check. But when I feel sorry for her, y’all think I’m in love.”

  The door shuts and the conversation is muted. When a round of laughter reverberates through the wall, I look to Quincy. But he won’t meet my eyes.

  He feels…sorry for me?

  How can that one statement from one man turn a perfect day into a shit one?

  Because it wasn’t just any man who said it.

  It was the man I’m in love with.

  I feel sorry for her.

  The words play on a loop in my head as I pass the doors to the chapel. When I make it to the hall, I bump into Talia.

  “Hey! You ready?”

  “You know, I think I’m going to ride with Bouncer. I’ve never ridden on the bike before. I’m kinda excited to try. Don’t me mad, okay?”

  She dismisses my comment with a wave. “Never. I’m happy you’re riding with him.” She leans in closer. “It’s good to see him happy.”