by Zahra Girard
“What does that mean?”
“It means hold on,” he says, and then he turns, pulls a knife from his pocket, and begins cutting the couch apart, disassembling the upholstery of each mildewy cushion to make several crude blankets. He spreads one upon the floor, sets the others to the side, and then he strips.
“Crash? What the fuck are you doing?”
“What I have to. I refuse to die in this fucking cabin with you. I’ve spent enough time on camping trips with Blaze to know the basics of survival and, in a situation like this, the best way to transfer body heat is through skin to skin contact. So, you will strip down, you will put your body against mine, and we will cover ourselves in these moldy fucking couch covers and all of our clothes, and we will ride this shit out until morning.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
He gives me a crooked smile. “It’s not nothing we haven’t done before. Come on, Violet, strip down and join me.”
I turn away and do it, getting myself down to bare skin, and then I slide under our improvised blanket pile until I feel myself against him. The whole time I tell myself it’s purely for survival, and that motivation — and the thought of making it through this mess so I can see Kendra and Josie again — is what keeps me from running out into the night and taking my chances with certain death. But just barely.
He covers us both and puts his arm around me, pulling me until my back is against his chest and my ass against his dick.
“How long?” I say.
“How long? Well, I’ve never been much of a shrinker in the cold. Never had no complaints, either,” he says. “So I’m about as long as usual.”
“I mean how long until morning, you ass.”
“Probably five, maybe six hours till sun up. Probably an hour or two after that before it’ll be warm enough that we won’t freeze our asses off the second we go outside.”
“Great. Just great. So I’m stuck here with you for an eternity.”
“You didn’t seem to mind being in this position just the other night.”
“Well, that was before my life went from being a nightmare to whatever is worse than a fucking nightmare. Please, let’s stop talking. I just want to get this over with, get my friend back, and get as far away from you as possible.”
“Agreed.”
We both go quiet. I fume beneath the blankets, hating being here, hating being close to him, yet, deep inside, appreciating more than I want to admit how good it feels to have his arms around me. It’s a weakness, it has to be, wanting to be so close to a man like him.
And I’m sure he feels the same way about me. He’s said it as much on so many occasions. What we have right now is only until our business is done, until I’m no longer able to hold over him the busted truck and its illegal cargo.
Silence drags on for what feels like hours. Though in this frozen hell, who knows what crooked course time travels.
And, try as I might to lay silent in his arms until the sun rises, I can’t. Maybe it’s the location — his touch, his embrace, his heat — that overwhelms my sensibilities, but I can’t keep my emotions from coming to the surface.
“You want to know why I hate it so much when you keep talking about how everything is ‘just business?’”
He doesn’t answer.
“My ex-husband and I met on the job. We both worked in the same field and, when we started dating, Edgar was my supervisor. But by the time we got married, they had promoted me to his level. And a year into our marriage, I was his supervisor. And the further I advanced, the less he could handle it. Every little triumph, he would try to claim credit for it — that it all circled back to him, to his ego, his accomplishments. When I left and started this bar with Kendra, it was ours. Hers and mine. Something we built, that was beholden to no one else, that exists purely as a representation of our hard work and success. And through it, I’ve built not only a feeling of accomplishment, but I’ve gained friends and family. It’s my life, Crash.”
I pause, my breath fogging in the freezing air of the cabin, and I wipe away the tears at the corners of my eyes. “And it is being ripped apart by Switchblade and his friends. And every time you talk about how what we’re doing to save my friend is just some business transaction — auto repairs in exchange for your help — you fucking debase it. You devalue it. And you want to know why it hurts so bad? It’s because I like you so fucking much. I let you get close — closer than any man in years — and you stab me right in the fucking heart.”
I stop. Sniff, wipe away more tears, and wait for the recriminations I know are just around the corner. How dare I try to personalize this mess? How dare I try to make this anything other than business?
“You’re right,” he croaks.
His voice is this raw, primal thing, cut with emotion, wrenched from a throat ravaged by savage cold and exhaustion.
“You’re right,” he says again. “And you want to know why I keep talking about business? Because I can feel myself slipping. My loyalty belongs to my club and anyone who’s questioned it — even Rosa — I’ve let go. They’re my family, my brothers, my sisters, and I love them and I’d die for them. From the second I woke up in your bed, spent a morning around your table feeling so at peace and enjoying far more than is right the company of you and that Speed Demon, Josie, I realized just how good of a thing you’ve built and I knew I was sunk.”
He pulls me closer. Heat blooms in my cheeks and my chest. My lips curl and suddenly I’m smiling.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re the strongest temptation I’ve ever met. You make me think the thoughts I don’t know I can fight. But I am not a good man, Violet. I would only be trouble for you. And who I am belongs to the club. Yet, no matter how much I remind myself of that fact, I can still feel you in my heart.”
I turn. We’re face to face, my lips so close to his that the urge to kiss him raises a profound ache in my chest.
I look into his eyes and I can see the struggle there. The urgent and intense need at war with his loyalty. He’s a man on a mission, one that means so much to his family, and that conflicts with everything he feels for me.
He isn’t trying to demean me; he wants me and he wants to be a part of my life so much that he doesn’t know how to act.
So much of me knows I shouldn’t kiss him, then. It would be a mistake. Consigning myself I should turn away, ride out the remaining hours until daylight in painful silence, but I can’t help myself.
I lean that last half inch forward.
He meets me the rest of the way.
A moan of deep, irresistible need comes from me the second our lips touch; this is a kiss I’ve been wanting for years, from a man who wants me for something above and beyond just sex, but for who I am and what I’ve made of myself.
Thoughts of cold, of frustration, of fear, they all pass from my mind as I give myself over to the sole purpose of experiencing every bit of him.
I shiver beneath his touch, fingertips that run down my back to cup my ass and pull my hips to him. His cock hardens against me and he reaches down, taking his cock and guiding the head to the opening of my pussy. I grind against him, the sensation of his hard heat against the bud of my clit driving me wild.
“You make me crazy, you know that?” I whisper while I suck the lobe of his ear between my lips and give it a firm nibble.
He moans in answer and thrusts his hips forward, making me shiver as the firm promise of his cock grinds against my pussy.
Wet, slick and shaking with desire, I move from his ear to his neck, kissing him, running my hands over his body, cupping his muscular ass, pulling him as tight against me as I can while I rub my pussy against his cock.
Back and forth, I grind on him, each time bringing myself to the very edge of sliding his dick inside me, and yet each time pulling back from the edge. He’s panting as I tease him, and I am, too, the tingling climax that I feel growing between my legs is irresistible.
I’
m going to come just from grinding on him like some horny teenager.
That thought crosses my mind and is gone just as quickly, chased away by a more urgent need. Grinding isn’t enough. If I’m going to use his cock, I’m going to use his cock.
Grabbing it by the base, I take his cock and rub the head against my clit. Bliss and heat makes my toes clench and my eyes roll back in my head.
“I hope you don’t mind if I use your cock,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer. Can’t answer, except to moan while I rub his cock and the pre-cum dripping from it all over my pussy. Stroking myself harder, faster, while tension and need build inside me until, in one perfect moment, I toss my head back and shiver as an orgasm wracks my tired body.
“Fuck, I love your dick,” I gasp.
He’s still twitching in my hands, and my fingers are slick with him.
And I want more.
I crawl under the blankets, taking him deep in my throat, swallowing until I reach the base of his stiff dick. It’s heaven. Heaven that fills my throat and forces me to rise, gasping for air, only to swallow him again with heart-pounding abandon.
“God damn, Violet. God fucking damn,” he moans.
And then he shifts.
Ever so slightly. His hands take hold of my hips and move me into position, pulling me close enough that his eager tongue can reach my dripping wet pussy.
One lick is enough to make me start as the intensity of pleasure rocks my body.
“Careful,” I whisper. “I’m still sensitive.”
“You taste too fucking good,” is his reply, followed by another caress of his tongue that makes me pop his cock out of my mouth and moan with desire. He is out to ruin me, and it’s ruin that I cannot wait to experience.
A minute is all it takes for me to break again, with my pussy grinding against his face, my hips writhing and bucking in primal lust.
I’m a wreck when he’s done. A twitchy, shaky wreck who can think about nothing more than climbing on top of his dick. If only I could work my limbs.
“Fuck me, Crash. I want you inside of me. Now.”
He throws me onto my back, effortlessly, and I only have time to let out a low moan as he thrusts deep inside me.
“You feel so goddamn good, Violet.”
I writhe beneath him. My tits bouncing and my hips rocking with each thrust. I can’t get enough of him, every time he enters me, I want him deeper, and every second he withdraws, I spend the split-second aching for him to fill me again.
It’s sex unlike any I’ve ever had, feeling so close to a man who, in so many ways, excites every one of my emotions and makes my body feel good beyond belief.
I lock my legs behind him. Pull him even closer, driven by the need to take him as deep as I can.
His eyes widen.
Whatever he intends to say dies on his lips and, with one last thrust, he climaxes, releasing deep inside me.
I hold him there, against me.
And realize that I’ve never been this close with any man in my entire life. While his words, about temptation, about right and wrong, about the danger represent for each other, echo in my thoughts. I don’t sleep easy.
Chapter Sixteen
Crash
“I see smoke.”
I open my eyes and find she’s dressed already. Decked out in her freshly dried clothes and standing at the door, munching on a granola bar. There are bags under her eyes, her hair is a mess, and her cheeks are an impossibly bright shade of pink, but she’s never looked more beautiful; because she’s smiling, and there’s a hope and excitement in her voice that’s been sorely missing these last few days.
“Smoke?”
“From one cabin on the other side of the valley. It has to be her. Come on, get dressed, we need to go now.”
I dress fast, but not fast enough for her. She’s nearly a hundred meters away by the time I finish zipping up my coat and charge out into the forest after her, with a half-eaten granola bar in my mouth and my panting breath turning to froze fog in the air. She nearly runs through the heavy snow, sending icy clouds in her wake as she races forward, heading toward the rising column of smoke in the distance. And not once does her pace slacken. For the half an hour we take to cross the valley through the shin-high snow, she is unrelenting. Victory is in sight, and Violet Cassidy will not be deterred.
In a small clearing, less than a football field’s length away from the cabin, she stops. Holds up one hand as a warning, like she’s some military scout, and then proceeds at a slow creep the rest of the distance.
I use the change in pace to reach into my cut and pull my gun from its holster. It’s always best to be prepared.
The cabin sits in another clearing, which we reach after sneaking through a copse of pines thicker than Rusty’s beard. Violet stops and drops on her haunches, sneaking forward and around to get a better view at the cabin. This building is in much better condition than the one we spent the night in; a squat building constructed from rough timber, with a strong roof, a thick chimney that looks like it’s connected to a heavy duty fireplace — which must mean the inside is comfortably warm, I think enviously, and I’ll bet they have a better breakfast than a fucking granola bar — and we circle it, keeping to the cover of the forest, as we scout it out.
“Oh no,” Violet whispers, stopping and pointing to a window. Through the frosted glass, I see Kendra. She’s tied to a chair, gagged, and blood covers her forehead and mats her hair.
I suck in a sharp breath. These assholes are working her over. Switchblade has a sick way of expressing his obsession. It will feel so good to put this menace down.
I reach over and put my hand on her shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. “We will get her out.”
Another figure enters our field of view. Switchblade, and he looms over Kendra, shouting something in her face and punctuating his tirade by ramming his fist into her gut.
Violet surges in my grip, and I turn and put both hands on her, holding her still.
And it’s a good thing, too. The front door to the cabin opens and three other Death’s Disciples emerge to take up guard duty, each holding steaming coffees in one hand and assault rifles in the other.
Son of a bitch, these motherfuckers are armed to the teeth. And they have fucking coffee. Motherfuckers.
Then Switchblade strikes Kendra again. And his namesake knife comes out, and he runs the flat of the blade across her face with a loving caress. My stomach twists as I watch Kendra twist and howl beneath his torture. I hardly know her, but that doesn’t matter — whatever kind of sicko Switchblade is, he needs to be put down like a rabid animal. No one treats a woman like that and lives.
“Easy, babe. Easy,” I say, turning away from the window and wrapping my arms around her. “I know it hurts, but we can’t go charging in there.’
“That’s my friend, Crash. And he is torturing her.”
“I know. It hurts me, too. Hurts me to see that maniac hurt Josie’s mom and the best friend of the woman I care about. But if we go in there now, we are all going to die. They’ve got enough firepower to blow us the fuck to hell and back. We gotta be smart about this, Vi.”
She looks at me with wounded eyes. It doesn’t matter that I’m speaking sense; I don’t have to feel the heartache of watching my best friend get tortured.
But this is my job. Keep things business.
That’s how I’ve always done things.
And if I stop now, we’ll all be dead.
Then Violet’s eyes widen. Her mouth opens to cry out. Behind me, Switchblade must be doing something worse, something that I’m grateful I don’t witness.
But Vi looks like she’s going to scream. And I can’t have that.
I put my hands over her mouth and squeeze, cutting that pained scream short.
“I don’t care how much it hurts or what you think you saw, you cannot scream. One noise and we are dead. Do you understand me? Nod if you do.”
She tries to nod. It’s hard with
my hands over her mouth, but she manages.
When I release my grip, she pulls me tight, a hug that so close it pops my back. And she sobs, silent agony against my chest.
“You good to move?” I whisper.
“No. I don’t want to leave her.”
“We’ll do her no good here, just waiting to get found by those Death’s Disciples. You need to check your fucking emotions and come back to reality. At least for a little while.”
“How can you be so fucking heartless?” Her voice is pain personified.
“Because it’s my job to be. You open yourself up to emotions, you’re just asking to get hurt. Or worse. Now, come on, we need to get out of here.”
She stares death at me — a pained, frustrated death — but she does as I tell her and follows me as I backtrack, heading back toward the spot where we were to meet up with Blaze yesterday.
We make it maybe five minutes down the trail when she stops.
When she breaks.
And, though I’ve told myself repeatedly that emotional investment is dangerous, I can’t help myself.
I hold her.
I break those promises I’ve made to myself. To dedicate myself to business and loyalty to the club above everything.
And I listen to her cries, comfort her as she suffers the heartrending pain of leaving her friend behind to face a monster alone. Though it’s the only option, it doesn’t make it any easier. Then I find the words; words I shouldn’t speak, but words that my heart forces from my reluctant lips.
“Violet, I don’t care what it takes. Even if it costs me my life. I promise you, I’m going to get Kendra back. Because I don’t think you understand just how much I care about you.”
There’s more I want to say, but I stop myself, because I know the second I say those three words that sit on the tip of my tongue that I’ll be in trouble. But, even though I don’t say them, the look that Violet gives me seals the deal; I’m so wrong for her, I’m dangerous and sure to break her world apart if we stay together, and if I care for her, I’ll get as far away from her as I can the second this is over.