by A. J. Downey
“I’m fine, but I woke up and you weren’t in bed.”
I raised my arm and she padded out barefoot, looking so small and beautiful with her hunched shoulders in her thin nightgown and that beautiful fringed shawl. She looked like an angel or a pixie, something mythical, fantastical. She tucked herself into my side and looked up at me with those jewel-bright eyes, curiosity on her face and I felt nothing but gratitude to my brother Driller for having just set my ass straight.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked softly.
“Callin’ Driller,” I said, and rubbed her arm up and down through the thin shawl, even though it was warm as fuck out here and there was no way she could be cold.
“What for?” she asked.
“Advice.”
“About what?”
“You, WITSEC, the shit Yale had to say.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she said resolutely, and I smiled.
“You don’t have to,” I said.
“I don’t?”
“Nope.”
She raised her eyebrows and stared at me until I gave in and let out a gusty sigh and took her into my arms more completely. A motorcycle revved and we both stiffened, our heads turning in the direction of the street. It had to be a block or more over and the sound faded as the rider ranged out into the city, but it wasn’t until the sound disappeared completely that either of us relaxed.
“We’re gonna be doing that, probably, the rest of our lives together,” I said, a little sadly.
“A small price to pay,” she murmured.
“You really want this?” I asked, and she put her hand on my chest, her long hair tickling the backs of my hands as she looked into my eyes and I held her close.
“I want you and if this is the price I have to pay? Well, it’s a small price in my book. You make me happy, and I don’t think I’ve ever really been happy before…”
God, that was fucking heartbreaking.
“…and now that I have it, now that I have you, I’m not about to let go so easily.”
I smiled and huffed a slight laugh, impressed with her, proud of her. I lowered my forehead to hers and said, “Okay, then, we’re doing this.”
“Hell, yeah, we are.”
I smiled and said, “Let’s go back inside.”
“In a little bit,” she whispered quietly. “This is so nice, just standing out here, with you.”
I held her tight and she rested her head on my shoulder.
“I love you,” she murmured.
“I love you, too,” I whispered and she heaved such a satisfied, such a complete sigh it was like the whole universe just snapped into place. A clarity came over me, and I just prayed for the best, that the universe would finally cut this woman a fucking break, because she needed one.
It was around eleven o’clock the next morning when the burner rang. When I answered, it was Driller with barely-suppressed excitement in his voice. He blurted it out before I could even say ‘What’s up?’
“Guilty.”
“You’re shitting me?” I felt it like a bolt of lightning from the sky, the electric feelings from the top of my head, tingling down my face, all the way down and out through my toes.
“Nope, guilty on all fuckin’ counts.”
“Everleigh!” I called and she came out of the bathroom.
“What?” she asked, alarmed.
“You did it, baby. Guilty on all counts.”
“You’re joking,” she demanded, stunned.
I heard Driller laugh on the phone and he said, “About a lot of things, but not this one.”
I relayed what he said, but Everleigh didn’t laugh, she just sank to the foot of the neatly-made bed we weren’t using and folded her hands in her lap. She stared out at nothing, her mind turning so fast all she could really do was stare blankly as her emotions caught up with her and her eyes began to brim with tears.
“I gotta go,” I told Driller.
“Yeah, I’ll be by later.”
“K, thanks.”
I ended the call and tossed the phone carelessly on the unkempt bed she and I had occupied just a little bit ago, trying and failing to sleep, talking in hushed tones most of the night about life, about what she wanted, about what I wanted, and about how to possibly get there when all this shit was over.
I knelt in front of my girl and pushed her hair out of her face while she reeled from the news. Relief, fear, hope, anxiety, disbelief, all chased through her eyes, across her fair features one after the other, round and round, and I waited, my hands cradling her face, just waiting for her to land.
“Is it over?” she asked, a tear dripping from the end of her nose.
I shook my head and told her the truth. “No, but this part of it is. We’ve cleared the first hurdle.”
She met my eyes with hers and a determination, a commitment passed between us. I nodded and whispered, “We’re gonna see this through. Together.”
She nodded and lunged forward, capturing my mouth with hers and it was the sweetest fucking kiss, so full of hope, so full of promise, so full of everything that there should be between lovers and partners.
“Make love to me,” she whispered, and there wasn’t a question mark anywhere in there.
“You got it, babe,” I growled back, and I fell into her arms, put my body on her, her thighs parting, her legs wrapping around my hips, and I knew what heaven was. I knew that no matter where we were, no matter what we faced, we were each other’s home.
27
Everleigh…
I clung to him, our mouths tangling, my hands in his hair, holding it back from his eyes even as he held mine back from mine. I wrapped my legs around his hips as he lay atop me, caging me with his strong, tattooed arms, his mouth hot against mine, his cock straining against his jeans, pressed firmly to the soaked, thin cotton of my panties where my skirt rode up.
His hands traveled down my body, over my stretched cotton tank, hitching up my skirt even higher, as my hands smoothed over the heated skin of his back. He groaned into my mouth when I skirted my fingertips along his waistband around front, finding his button already undone, my impatient fingers scrambling to lower his zipper.
He was trying to draw my panties down over my hips and I kept trying to raise them off the bed, but his body kept me pinned. We were being counterproductive in our passion and finally I muttered against his kiss, “Just tear them.”
He laughed darkly, the humor ending in a heated growl as he gripped the hip of my panties between both fists to either side of the seam and pulled.
He did likewise with the opposite side and dragged the ruined cotton out from between my legs even as I delved my hand into the front of his pants and gripped him with a firm hand, stroking him between us gently, needing, dying for a deeper touch.
“Make love to me,” I begged in a sensual whisper and he shoved his pants down around his thighs to free himself, pushed my skirt up out of his way once again, and gave me exactly what I wanted.
He slid into me, balls-deep on the first thrust and I cried out, arching over the bedspread, thrusting my tits at him in offering. He pulled my tank top down, freeing one, and immediately covered the nipple with his mouth, bending nearly double to do it.
The feel of his mouth on me, his cock buried deep inside of me, was electric. A low hum of pleasure swept through my body as he worked my nipple with lips, teeth, and tongue. His hips acted in counterpoint, thrusting as much as he could the way we were positioned, which was to say just enough to go deeper. It was just enough to send my pussy throbbing around him as the pressure built, the pleasure of his touch filling me like a cup, the liquid quicksilver of sensation rising impossibly fast, so impossibly quick that there was no avoiding being overfilled.
I gripped him, tensing my pelvic floor muscles around him, and he relinquished my nipple, arching up with a sound so animalistic it made me smile in a feral glee as we pushed each other, pulled each other along that razor’s edge of pleasure so fine it was
almost painful.
“Harder,” I begged, “higher!”
He knew what I meant as we pushed each other closer and closer, higher and higher, towards the satisfaction we both desired, we both craved.
“Oh, God, Everleigh…” he moaned and my name, on his lips, in that way, was sweeter than any music, was more beautiful to me than any sound I’d ever heard before.
“Oh my god, yes…” I gasped, and spread my legs wider for him. He hooked an arm beneath my knee and laid one of my legs along his shoulder, folding me practically in half, eliciting a deep moan from me as he drove himself just that much deeper inside me, turning his head, laying a kiss, a soft bite, along the side of my calf.
“Come for me, babe, let me hear you,” he murmured and I moaned, the sound disappearing into a breathy sigh as he eased his thumb between us, putting an even pressure against my clit, slicking it through my wetness and drawing torturous circles over it.
I gasped, I whined, I bucked against him to no avail, as he brought me closer and closer to that ultimate goal of orgasm. I tightened up on him harder and he hissed out between gritted teeth, his thrusting becoming more difficult as he found it harder to draw back. He shoved forward, balls-deep and I crashed against the mattress, my breath rushing out of me in a deep cry, softening the sound as I lost all control of my finer motor skills and simply shuddered beneath the weight of him, pinning me down.
God, I loved him.
I let myself drown in the warm river of glow he’d immersed me in and just drifted, holding him to me as he lay atop me. Both of us drifted together, even though in reality, we were still in the cheap motel room, lying on top of the bedspread of the bed we hadn’t been using. Well, until now.
“You slay me in all the best ways,” he whispered into my ear when our breathing allowed it.
“Mmm.” I didn’t have words, just hummed in satisfaction to let him know I’d heard him and cuddled him close to me.
He sighed and chuckled and it was the happiest sound I think I’d ever heard any man make, and it pleased me to no end that it had been made because of me.
We went to King’s sentencing. Both of us sat behind the prosecution’s desk, front row, our fingers locked, our palms pressed together.
I swallowed hard and stared at King’s profile as he stood up and received his sentence, and breathed a silent sigh of relief when it was ‘Life’. Granted, there was a possibility of parole, but not for at least twenty years. He looked pissed, leaned in to listen to his attorney whisper something in his ear, then turned and cast the most sinister look in my direction.
Narcos’ hand tightened around mine, but I gave King nothing except my best blank look. I was terrified, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that.
We stood, went through the motions of the court, and King and his cohorts were led out of the courtroom. I instantly felt a tension I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying ease out of my shoulders. Yale turned and gave us a simple nod, his eyes shrouded with an unreadable look in them, his jaw tightly clenched.
We left the courtroom, Narcos hanging onto my hand and letting me out of the bench and into the aisle ahead of him, Driller right behind him.
When we reached the hall, I turned to them both and asked, “Now what?”
“You’re a dead bitch!” Rebel grated, as he stepped out the courtroom behind us.
“Did you hear him threaten her?” Driller asked, amused.
“I surely did,” Narcos said.
I watched silent, tongue-tied, as Narcos and Driller bantered back and forth, running circles around Rebel, who was trying to claim freedom of speech and hide behind the constitution. They were buying time, waiting for more of the Knights of Crescentia to make it to the door.
I stepped aside, relinquishing my hold on Narcos’ hand when Driller stepped in to put Rebel up against the wall. Yale squeezed out of the doorway and stepped in front of me, putting a hand behind himself, and against me, to both keep track of me and to keep me from interfering as one of the Knights of Crescentia swung on Narcos.
I yipped and jumped when the brawl started, but it was all part of the plan. My presence here today was designed to provoke them, and it worked like a charm. Yale pressed me back, standing with a superior and smug look as bailiffs stepped in and more Indigo City police arrived to break up the fight.
In the end, Narcos boasted a split lip, Driller a bruised cheek and both of them displayed the biggest shit-eating grins. I smiled and Narcos held out a hand, the knuckles scraped and bleeding, and I took it gently.
“Go on, get out of here,” Driller said good-naturedly with a wink. “I got this. Meet you at the 10-13 in a few hours.”
Narcos nodded. “Appreciate it,” he said, and Driller laughed.
“I think you’ve earned a break.”
We followed Yale down back hallways to the service elevators where he punched the ‘Down’ button.
“That went better than I expected,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Totally,” Narcos agreed.
“But, do you think it will work?” I asked softly.
“Without King’s brains, yeah. One of them will give up the cop feeding the club information. All these fuckers will be tied up for at least the next few months.”
Yale chimed in. “For assault, assaulting an officer, threatening a witness, resisting arrest, and whatever else I can come up with. And I can get pretty creative. It’s bought you time. Not sure how much, but you can at least breathe and get settled however you’d like.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, grateful.
He nodded, “You’re sure you can’t be talked into –“
“No,” I said quickly, and Narcos and I exchanged a look. He spoke for us both when he said, “Whatever happens, we’ll meet it head-on. The both of us.”
“Together,” I said softly.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open.
Yale shook his head, a smile on his face as he stepped out.
“Go on, get out of here. I’ll see you later at the 10-13.”
“Thanks, man,” Narcos nodded.
When the doors slid shut, we looked at each other and burst into a fit of giggles and shared grins.
“I can’t wait to take you home,” he said.
“I can’t wait to see where you live,” I responded.
He shook his head and said, “It’s a shitty, cheap-ass studio, babe. I don’t want you getting used to it. I want to buy us a house.”
I blinked at him in surprise.
“You’re serious.”
“As a heart attack. I want a fresh start, a new beginning for the both of us.”
He touched my cheek and gently tweaked his thumb against it in the barest whisper of a touch and I blushed like I was brand new. He smiled, and just before we could kiss, the elevator jolted to a stop.
I had this horrifying image of the doors opening and something awful being on the other side, simply because it was my luck and I was just so happy right now. Surely the universe needed to send a gunman, or an accident, or something our way to ruin it.
The doors opened without incident and I breathed a subtle sigh of relief and followed him out into the garage.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened to us on the way to wherever he was taking me, either. I dared to let hope peek out from behind the typical rainclouds of my general melancholy and attempted to curb my negative thinking.
I held myself tightly to his back as we turned into an alley in the heart of the city’s old town and hopped off when he went to back it into a line of others against the building.
“How far do we have to go?” I asked and he smiled and got off his bike.
“We’re here, just right around the corner.”
He took my hand, and we went into the bar-and-grill just around the alleyway’s corner to a round of applause and rowdy cheers and whistling. I laughed and tucked myself against Narcos’ chest, beneath one of his massive arms, as the rest of his tr
ue club, the Indigo Knights stepped forward to meet us.
It was overwhelming, but fantastic, positive, glowing, and wonderful at the same time.
28
Narcos…
“Hey, man. She looks like she’s doing awesome,” I leaned back against the bar and looked over. Driller stepped up next to me, Yale breaking off from him and going straight for his Aly Cat.
I cast my eyes in the direction of Everleigh, sitting among the rest of the club’s women. She was smiling, genuinely smiling, but she wasn’t talking, just listening, finding her own way, nodding along while the other ladies chatted.
“Yeah, she’s doing great,” I said.
“Taking her to your place tonight?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Cool, cool.”
I tore my eyes off my girl and gave my friend some side-eye while I swigged my beer.
“Spill it,” I ordered, and Driller bowed his head and laughed a little.
“Nothing, man. I’m happy for you, that’s all.”
“Buuut...” I lead off.
“No ‘But’, it’s just – “
I laughed, “Motherfucker, ‘It’s just’ is the same exact thing as a ‘But.’”
He laughed too, and said, “It is not!”
“Okay, whatever, it’s just what, then?”
“It’s just things are changing,” he said with a shrug, and I handed him my beer. He took a drink and handed it back.
“The more things change,” I said, looking back at Everleigh who smiled at me from across the room, the warm glow of happiness in her eyes. I found myself smiling, too, when I finished, “The more they stay the same.”
I looked back at Driller, who was searching my face, his expression too solemn for my liking. I took a swig of my beer and passed it back to him, and waved him off when he took a drink and tried to hand it back. He needed it a fuck of a lot more than I did, and I could always get another.
He nodded slowly, and I watched him work out my meaning for himself. He finally sighed and still looked unhappy.
“Move in with us,” I said. “When I get us a house. Be our roomie.”