by SE Jakes
“Yes, sir,” Linc said, without a trace of irony.
Mercy nodded. “I’ve got church tonight. You can’t leave the compound without my okay.”
“Don’t you mean your permission?” And there was his old friend, sarcasm.
But Mercy seemed . . . almost amused. “If you want to call it that, feel free to. Again, no leaving without my okay and at least two Havoc members with you at all times. And Rush? He doesn’t count.”
“Now you’re in charge of him too?”
Mercy just gave him a small, know-it-all smile.
“I know what you do now. You’re an enforcer.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Does it bother you?”
“It’s what I was born to do,” Mercy told him. “For Havoc. I never wanted to do it for Heathens. Now come on—I made dinner.”
Linc was surprised Mercy had admitted that much. He followed Mercy into the kitchen and sat at the table. Mercy put a big bowl of pasta in front of him and Linc realized how hungry he actually was. He took a bite of the pasta and fuck, it was good. He’d almost forgotten what a good cook Mercy was. It reminded Linc of all the late-night meals they’d shared before . . .
He shook his head so he didn’t have to complete that memory, put the fork down. “Why now?”
“Because everyone knows who I am. Even the Heathens who are left know. And I owe it to Havoc—and to you—to stop hiding.”
“So I’m an obligation.”
“I don’t mean it like that. Not the way you’re thinking.”
“Okay, sure. So am I supposed to just stay in the house and wait to feel better?”
“No, you’re going to work.”
“Right. Because I owe you money.”
“The last time you came, Linc? Who were you thinking about?” Mercy asked, and Linc’s cheeks flushed, even as he looked away. “That’s what I thought.”
“Don’t get cocky, Mercy. I didn’t give you an answer.”
“Yeah, you did, baby. Because I heard you before. That was my goddamn name you called out when you came all over the tiles.”
“Fuck.” Linc shook his head.
“Tell me what you were imagining me doing to you.”
“No.” Linc’s voice was a rough whisper.
“Was I sucking you off? Fucking you? Were you over my lap?”
Linc made a strangled sound in his throat. “Why? Because it makes you hard thinking about it? Do you think about me when you’re jacking off, Mercy?”
“Every goddamned time,” Mercy promised.
Linc moved toward Mercy, suddenly fucking furious—with Mercy, with himself, with everything. He yanked Mercy toward him and kissed him, an angry, unforgiving kiss . . . and Mercy matched his anger and gave it right back to him in spades. Mercy held Linc in place, his hands twisting in Linc’s hair, and Linc had never felt so unbroken in his life.
He pulled away first, knowing he couldn’t take this further right now. And even though he was breathing fast, cheeks hot, staring up at Mercy, he was pleased with his version of getting in the last word.
Mercy left, warning that he wouldn’t be gone long. Linc paced around the house, thought about taking his stuff out of the drawers and putting it back into his bag just to piss Mercy off and ultimately decided against it. Not enough bang for his buck.
So he called Rush, who groaned. “You’re not asking me to sneak you out of here already, are you?”
“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?” Linc demanded.
“Jesus Christ, Ryker’s going to kill me.”
“Just don’t wear anything of his so he can’t track you,” Linc instructed. “Pull behind the garage here so I can get into the trunk.”
“The trunk? You’re not allowed off Havoc at all?”
“Nope,” Linc said happily. “And it’s a stupid rule, made to be broken.”
“We’ve already broken so many rules. How is it still so much fun?”
“Because it always is.”
“Fine,” Rush bit out. “But they’re on their way home from church—Ryker just texted me.”
“Tomorrow night, then.”
“The trunk’s never going to work.”
“The woods, then—north side of the compound. It’s the least populated area and there’s only a natural barrier. You can leave and pull along the road and I’ll come through the woods.”
Rush breathed out a sigh. “This is ridiculous. Maybe if you just asked Mercy—”
“Like you used to ask Ryker?” Linc shot back.
“Fucker. Tomorrow night,” Rush promised before hanging up. And that was a good thing because several minutes later, Mercy’s footsteps were headed up the stairs. Linc was half under the covers, staring out the window, his back to Mercy. He heard the slide of Mercy’s clothing hit the ground and felt the bed dip next to him.
He waited, tense, to see if any part of Mercy would touch him . . . and he wasn’t sure if he was more relieved that it didn’t happen . . . or more angry.
There would be no sneaking out that night—not with Mercy lying next to him in the dark.
Lying there, not touching him. Fuck, this was too hard. Harder than he’d thought. There was also the fear of having a nightmare. He needed a better plan than never sleeping again.
He shifted and yanked the covers higher over him.
Mercy sighed. “Why don’t you just get some sleep?”
“How do you know I’m not?” Linc demanded.
“Because you’re making me seasick.”
The times they’d spent together in bed hadn’t involved much sleeping on either of their parts. What would happen if he jerked himself off? Would Mercy know? Stop him . . . join him?
You’re not ready. For any of this.
Next to him, Mercy sighed again. “Touch your cock, Linc.”
Linc’s breath caught. He blinked hard and stared into the dark.
“Are you going to ignore what I’m telling you? Was a time I’d tell you to touch your cock that you listened. Unless you suddenly don’t want pleasure anymore.”
Linc blinked back tears of relief and let his hand slide down his abdomen and into his sweats. He wasn’t wearing underwear, so it was easy to free his cock and then palm it. “Okay,” he whispered.
“Stroke yourself—slowly,” Mercy told him. “Touch your balls with your free hand. Roll them.”
Linc did what Mercy asked without thinking.
“Use a finger—press it against your slit,” Mercy instructed. Linc did so and hissed out a breath at his own intrusion. “You’re wet, right, baby?”
“Yes,” Linc managed.
“Taste yourself.” Linc brought his finger to his mouth, the salty flavor strong on his tongue. “Keep stroking—faster now. I’m not giving you long to come. If you miss out, you’ll sleep with that hard on all night.”
Fuck. Linc began to stroke in earnest, wondering if Mercy would really punish him.
He closed his eyes and realized it was too dark and they flew open. He stopped stroking.
As if Mercy knew, he said, “Baby, keep going. Pretend we’re in the alley behind Bertha’s. I’ve got you pressed against the wall, and I’m holding your cock . . . and we’re not alone out there.”
Linc could picture that—although most people in the alleyway were otherwise occupied, there was definitely voyeurism happening.
“Are you with me, Linc?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what’s happening.”
Linc stroked his hard cock faster, his words blurring together. “You’re not blocking me with your body . . . you’re standing to the side so anyone can watch. And you’re going to make me come.”
“Your cock’s dripping now. And you’re loving that people are watching. You don’t know if I’m going to turn you over and fuck you when you’re done, or if I’m going to call someone over to do the job.”
“Fuck.” Linc’s hips surged off the bed as if Mercy’s words were touching him. Hi
s balls tightened and ropes of come shot across his belly and chest as he moaned softly.
“Good boy, Linc,” Mercy told him softly.
In his postorgasmic haze, Linc felt the bed shift as Mercy got up. And then Linc felt his belly and chest and hand and cock being cleaned by a warm, wet cloth rasping over his skin. Mercy’s touch.
Linc’s eyes met his in the dark and, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he smiled at Mercy.
Linc walked warily into the bail bonds shop. It was just before nine in the morning, and Mercy flipped the sign and didn’t relock the door behind them.
“You’re carrying?” he asked Linc, who nodded. “Good. So am I. So’s Tug.” He pointed across the street to where Tug sat, outside the restaurant at one of the tables, and Tug waved back.
“Great. Where’s my brother? In sniper position on the roof?” Linc muttered, and when Mercy barely glanced at him, Linc was out the door, looking up at the roof. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Mercy was dragging him back inside. “Don’t give away his position. And it’s not Bram—it’s Shaman, okay?”
“I don’t know Shaman, so no, it’s not okay. None of this is. Fuck.” Linc shoved Mercy away from him. “If I need this much protection to work here, I might as well have just stayed back at Havoc. Or at the damned lake.”
“Where you’d just go stir-crazy and eventually do something stupid,” Mercy countered. “Like tequila.”
“Tequila is never stupid,” Linc deadpanned.
“You think we don’t know what you and Rush were planning? Sneaking through the woods and getting into the trunk of Rush’s car once you hit the road?”
Linc stood stock-still. It’d been a good plan, dammit, and now it was all wasted. Havoc would probably put up a fortified wall in that spot. “Now you’re spying on me? And with Rush’s help?”
Mercy swore. “Rush knew nothing about it.”
“Bullshit.” And now Linc had no one to trust, not in the sense that all his private thoughts wouldn’t be blasted throughout Havoc. “I know I’m weak. I don’t need to be made to feel weaker, okay?”
“You think this is about you being weak?”
“That’s exactly what this is about.” Linc stuffed his hands into his pockets. “You know what? Just show me what to do.”
Mercy looked suspicious at his sudden compliance, but he also looked guilty as fuck, which was what Linc counted on. “You’ve been in here before, albeit on the other side of the counter. But you know the drill. We either get a call or a walk-in. Someone’s in jail and needs bail money. We have them fill out the forms, do a background and bank check to make sure they’re good for what they say they’re good for. And then we post the bond.”
“Got it.”
“Really? You’re that quick of a study?”
“It’s not rocket science.” Linc paused, then asked hopefully. “What happens if they skip?”
“Then I go look for them.”
“Right. So I’m just sitting here, doing the paperwork.” Linc shook his head and wondered if it would take days or hours for him to go crazy.
Hours. Definitely hours, Linc decided after filing his twentieth bond form. He rubbed his temples. His body ached from sitting in one place for so long, because he didn’t even have to get up to file.
Mercy was at his goddamned elbow on the phone. Across the street, Tug was also on the phone and who the hell knew what Shaman was doing? But Linc? He knew what he was going to do.
He mouthed, Bathroom, to Mercy, who waved him off . . . and then Linc went down the hall, closed the bathroom door but remained outside of it, disabled the alarm on the back door in three seconds flat and went outside. In the lot behind the shop sat several cars, one of whose was Tug’s. Linc hot-wired it and went out the other entrance to the lot, and wondered why they didn’t have anyone at the back of the lot.
Too late, he realized they had . . . and that person was in the back seat of the car he was driving. “I’m not stopping,” he said now. “And fuck you.”
“Hey, this wasn’t my idea. Trust me.” Rush sighed.
“You sold me out.”
“You think I knew they were listening to us? My fucking ass is sore as hell from the chewing out I got from Ryker.”
Linc snorted. “Are you turning me in? Because otherwise, it’s going to get even sorer.”
Rush hopped over into the front seat. “Take a right up ahead.”
Rush steered him into the Hangmen’s clubhouse, where Noah was waiting. With Tequila. Linc was never more grateful for the promise of bad decisions sure to follow.
“About fucking time they let you out,” he said as he hugged Linc.
“‘Let me out’ isn’t exactly what happened,” Linc told him.
“Don’t tell me anything they can torture out of me,” Noah said. He was dating Casey’s daughter, and Casey was the president of Hangmen. Noah wasn’t prospecting, but he was working with the Hangmen, and with Jethro. “Come on—I’m working on something you’ll appreciate.”
They followed Noah into the back of the garage, where he’d carved out a space to work on his own designs, which included restoring a cherry-red, vintage 1979 Porsche 911.
“She’s gorgeous,” Rush murmured, running a hand over the hood, and Linc smiled at the look on his friend’s face. He’d never met anyone who’d been so into cars as Rush was. “Exploding clutch?”
“Been driving me crazy,” Noah told him and soon, he and Rush were under the hood, talking grease monkey, and Linc hoisted himself up on the workbench to oversee the process, beer in hand, radio blasting . . . and he could almost pretend that everything was just fine. At least for a while.
When Casey came in, Linc wondered if this was the end of his merry excursion, if the Hangmen’s president had been called to send him and Rush back on home, complete with escorts. But Casey said hi to Rush and ambled easily over to where Linc sat, grabbing himself a beer before settling in on the high bench next to him.
“How’s it going, Linc?” Casey’s voice was deep. Smoky. He was a sexy fucker, all ginger-haired, strong-jawed, goatee-wearing. He was also heavily tattooed, tall and lanky, but still well-built; he was bisexual, never married, and he’d raised his daughter as a single dad.
“It’s going,” was all Linc could manage.
Casey had hit on Rush—and helped him through a difficult time when things weren’t going well with Ryker—but he’d never screwed with their relationship once it had been established.
Now, Casey snorted at his answer. “Heard you’ve been claimed.”
“Is there anyone in the free world who hasn’t?” Linc couldn’t keep the edge of pissed-off-edness out of his voice. “Like I’m wearing a goddamned brand.”
When he glanced over at Casey, he saw understanding in the man’s expression. “You really don’t want that brand?”
Linc shifted. “I’d like a fucking choice.” Christ, was there truth serum in this goddamned beer? “Forget it. I figure you’ll report this back to him.”
“Got a smart mouth. I like it,” Casey told him. Linc settled his gaze on the man’s dark-green eyes. “Need a new place to stay, babe? Got plenty of room here.”
As much as he liked the idea, Linc knew that would cost him. “That’s kind of like going from the frying pan into the fire, right?”
Casey grinned. “Slow burn can be fun with the right person.”
“I can’t deny that.” Linc accepted another beer from him.
“Offer stands for as long as it’s needed,” Casey said, before moving their conversation onto cars and Harleys and the like, spinning easily, and Linc didn’t feel uncomfortable.
After half an hour, Rush and Noah emerged from under the hood, Casey went to do whatever it was Casey did when he wasn’t flirting and running things, and Linc had another beer and a couple of shots and felt his energy kick up several notches.
Together, he and his friends could do a lot of damage—which to them usually st
arted out with the words, We should go out tonight.
“We should go out tonight,” Linc told them now.
“Why do you do this to yourself?” Rush asked and Noah snorted.
Linc shrugged. “Because I’m complicated.”
“I’m complicated. Layered, even,” Rush argued.
“You just want to steal cars and get laid.”
Rush considered that. “I can’t argue with that assessment.”
“I know.”
“Did you ever stop to think that you purposely complicate? So you don’t need to get close?”
“Okay, Freud, I’ve had enough.” He glanced at Noah. “You in?”
“Of course. I’ll even drive. Where’re we headed?”
“Bertha’s,” Linc said firmly. “They’ll catch up with us eventually. Might as well have some fun.”
“Yeah, they’re here, just like you said,” Tug told Mercy now. “I’m waiting outside.”
“I figured Linc would have more fun if he thought there was some evade and escape happening,” Mercy told him from where he still sat in the bonds shop.
“Did you figure on them continuing their E&E party by easing on down the road to Bertha’s?” Tug asked.
And no, he hadn’t counted on Linc going to Bertha’s afterward, but Linc, being Linc, had to push it to whatever limit there was . . . and then inch it just over that final line of limits. Because he could.
“In other news, I didn’t see any Heathens—or their spies—anywhere near the shop,” Tug continued. “Shaman didn’t either.”
“They’re regrouping—don’t let their quiet fool you,” Mercy told them seriously.
“Trust me—we’re not letting our guard down. Not for a second,” Tug assured him. “But Mercy . . . eventually . . .”
“Linc’s going to need to get back to doing Linc things without all the backup. I know.” Mercy shook his head. “He’s not ready yet. He thinks he is. But . . .”
“But you’ll know exactly when that is?” Tug asked hesitatingly. “This is going to result in war between you two. You know that, right?”
“I’m counting on it.”