“So far, so good,” I smiled up at him. I parted my thighs, reaching down between my legs and hiking my skirt up.
He looked away.
“You’re playing hard to get?” I mused.
“I told you, I don’t want to fuck you,” he replied.
“Yes, you did say that,” I said, standing up. I pulled my blouse over my head, revealing my bare breasts, but he still refused to look. I laughed and walked around behind him, pressing my bare nipples into his back and whispering in his ear.
“You want to fuck the pretty girl in the basement, though, don’t you?” I whispered, my lips pressing against his ear. I reached around, grabbing his cock and squeezing. It twitched. “You kissed her like you owned her, Bullet. Like she was already yours. I saw how hard your cock was. I saw the look in your eye when you saw her breasts.” His cock began to swell in my hand and I knew I had him. “I saw her wrap her thighs around you. She wanted you too, didn’t she?”
His breathing increased and the skin on the back of his neck reddened. I squeezed his cock harder and he gasped for air.
“That’s it, Bullet,” I whispered. “Just pretend I’m her. Show me what you’d do to her. You were going to taste her, weren’t you?”
“Stop,” he growled, his cock fully hard now, his voice thick with lust.
“No, I won’t,” I said, thoroughly enjoying the show. He had it bad for her. Maybe that was a good thing. I kept stroking him, using my other hand to cradle his balls as I licked the side of his neck. He twitched in my hand, swollen and hot. “After you tasted her, what were you going to do then, Bullet?”
I stroked faster, his breathing picking up.
“Were you going to part her thighs? Step between them and slide yourself inside? Then what?”
“Please,” he begged, his lips parting, his head rolling back.
“Please what, Bullet? Do you want to fuck her? Do you want to slam inside of her, fill her up with your hard cock? Do you want to feel her quivering around you? Make her moan and feel her writhe under your weight?”
“Mona, please,” he growled. He could have stopped me. He could have stepped out of my grip. But he didn’t. He pushed his cock into my hand, begging me to stop while his body told me to keep going.
I stepped in front of him, my bare breasts brushing against his thighs as I sank to my knees, my hand still gripping him tightly while I stroked him rhythmically.
“Sure you don’t want to fuck me, Bullet?” I whispered, right before I let go.
He growled, a deep, guttural sound that ripped through him violently. He reached down, gripping his cock in his fist and finishing himself off, exploding as I laughed and laughed.
He stepped away, blinking, dazed, shaking his head.
“Oh, Bullet,” I said through my laughter. “You’ve got it bad for her, huh? I guess you’ll do, after all.”
“You’re a real bitch, you know that lady?” he asked, his eyes flashing with anger. I watched him wrestle his clothes back on, my eyes sparkling with glee.
Maybe things would fall into place after all.
“You can go fuck Eve now,” I said, winking at him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BULLET
Humiliated, angry, and embarrassed, I returned to the basement unable to look Libby in the eye.
“What happened?”
I shook my head, “That woman’s fucking insane!”
“Did they hurt you?” she asked, her voice full of worry as she looked me up and down.
“No,” I muttered, looking for the leftover whiskey. I grabbed the bottle and chugged it all down as fast as I could, chasing down the memories of the last hour right along with it. With any luck, my brain would show me a little bit of mercy and block all that shit out.
“How’s Slade?” I asked, walking into the bedroom. “Oh, Jesus…” Libby had wiped away some of the blood and the extent of his wounds were more visible. He looked half-dead, most of his face swollen and bruised.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” she said. I could feel her looking at me, wondering, waiting for an answer that I wasn’t about to give up. “I cleaned him up as much as possible. Surprisingly, I found a first aid kit in the bathroom.” She’d bandaged his larger wounds as best she could. “I think his leg is broken and I don’t know what to do about that. He’s breathing. His heart is beating. But he’s unconscious.”
I checked to make sure he wasn’t bleeding profusely from anywhere else and then stepped back, thinking about where to go from here.
“I don’t know what else to do for him right now.”
“Me, either,” she whispered. She walked over and put her hand on my arm, her touch searing through the cotton of my t-shirt like a flame. I pulled away quickly, walking into the other room.
“Is there any more booze?” I growled.
“I still have some,” she said, her voice quiet. She walked into her bedroom and brought the glass back out, handing it to me, her eyes impAliceng me.
The eyes I couldn’t look at.
I felt like shit.
I felt so wrong and dirty and I hadn’t even done anything.
I should have shoved Mona away. I should have…fuck, I don’t know what the hell I should have done. She practically held me at gunpoint. Christ, she basically hypnotized me, making me think about Libby, and yet….
I was so fucking confused.
“Bullet, are you okay?” Libby asked again.
“Yep,” I replied curtly, downing the rest of the whiskey in her glass. The warmth was just what I needed.
And a shower.
“I gotta piss,” I growled, storming into the bathroom and shutting the door quickly, leaving her alone in the kitchen, her eyes full of confusion.
I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the man staring back at me.
“What now, asshole?” I murmured to my reflection.
‘Man up,’ he replied. ‘Just do whatever you have to do to get out of this.’
“Right,” I sighed and turned on the water in the shower. “Man up, Bullet.”
I stripped off my clothes and stepped under the hot water, washing away Mona’s touch, washing away the shame and embarrassment, willing the very memory of it to disappear down the drain.
Ten minutes and an inner pep talk later, I’d done a good job of shaking it off. I stepped out of the bathroom with a clearer head and a fierce determination to get us out of this mess in the fastest and safest way possible. I’d have to deal with my feelings about all this shit later.
I checked on Slade, who was still passed out but breathing steadily. His bandages were holding up and Libby had covered him with a couple of blankets. Reaching down, I touched his forehead, saying a little prayer before I turned and walked out of the room.
Libby was sitting at the table with dinner spread out in front of her — a spread of fried chicken and mashed potatoes and green beans. A couple of red plastic glasses filled to the brim with whiskey. Her smile was almost as big as her face.
“Zane brought all this down,” she said.
“Great,” I nodded, looking over at her. Her smile made me weak in the knees and I realized I hadn’t really looked at her since I’d returned from the hell upstairs. Now that I allowed myself to meet her gaze, her shining eyes were healing, cleansing. My heart swelled as I gazed over at her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“You’re absolutely beautiful, Libby. Do you know that?” I whispered.
She blushed and her eyes sparkled with pleasure.
“Thank you,” she murmured, running a hand through silky mane. “Now, stop looking at me like that, or I’ll never be able to eat.”
I chuckled, nodding in agreement. “After dinner, then.”
She laughed, her bubbling laughter like music to my soul.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, the whiskey hitting the spot. I said a silent thank you to Zane for bringing it down because holy shit did I need it
.
That poor dude, I thought. Having to put up with a woman like Mona all the time? Catering to her every whim? Enduring her constant lunacy, raving about the end of the world and her diabolical plans? Not to mention, standing guard outside her bedroom door and having to listen while she does whatever crazy shit she did in there. There was no telling what torture she put him through. If what I went through was any indication, then I felt extreme pity for that sad fuck.
I brought the glass to my lips, wondering how much liquor that man consumed on his own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
RIOT
Slade’s crooked grin stared back at me from my computer screen. I’d spent the last hour making a missing person’s poster. With still no sign of either of them, I figured it was time to get their faces out there into the public eye. I preferred doing things privately, searching on our own without calling in the cops. Maybe that was the wrong thing to do in this instance. But as soon as we realized Slade and Bullet were missing, we fell into our usual methods.
We banded together and used our collective talents to find our guys.
Only this time, it wasn’t working. Not yet anyway.
I was questioning myself. Questioning my loyalty to Slade. My skills as an investigator. Hell, I was questioning my every move, to be honest with you.
Combing through dozens of images of Slade didn’t help.
I felt guilty I hadn’t found him by now. He’d saved my ass countless times. I owed him.
I owed him my fucking life.
All day, I’d been bombarded with memories of our time together. We’d had so many adventures together, it was impossible to bundle them up into one little package — they came to me in short bursts. A conversation, a look he’d give me, or one of the many outrageous moments I could recall of him being a jackass.
A crazy, wild, lovable jackass…
The fact that he’d survived all of his own craziness was enough to keep me hopeful he was still alive.
One memory kept coming back to me, a beautiful summer night in our early twenties, when we’d first joined up with the Gods, and Slade was being especially obnoxious. It was Doc’s birthday. I missed that old coot something fierce.
“Watch this!”
I rolled my eyes at Slade. He’d never completely grown up and was still begging anyone around to watch his latest stunt. The clubhouse was crawling with guests and kids and dogs and it was getting late, which meant things were becoming extra rowdy. Everyone was drunk as they possibly could get and beautiful, scantily-clad women were running around everywhere, the booze was still flowing freely, the bonfire was roaring, music was blaring and Slade was in his element.
He’d jumped on his bike an hour ago and was now doing wheelies up and down the gravel driveway, screaming with glee like a madman. I shook my head, watching him as he almost lost his balance, his back wheel catching under him. He righted himself and winked at me as he drove by.
“Boy, you better not hurt yourself!” Doc yelled from the front porch. “I don’t wanna spend my birthday patching your fool ass up!”
Doc was our beloved club doctor and resident old guy. If one of us got hurt, a trip to the hospital was rare. Doc, an ex-Army medic, knew how to take care of us just fine. He might have grumbled about it a little, but it was all done with love.
Of course, I didn’t blame him one bit about not wanting to work on his birthday.
Slade jumped off his bike finally, just long enough to grab another bottle of whiskey and flirt with a group of girls, who seemed perfectly fine with the attention he was giving them. I walked away for a few minutes to piss, and by the time I’d returned, the crazy fool had somehow persuaded five of the chicks to lie down in the road side by side, so that he could jump over them on his bike.
“You’re fucking crazy! You can’t do that, you dumbass, you’ll hurt someone!”
“No way, dude! I saw this shit on Jackass the other night. I got this, trust me,” he flashed me that stupid, crooked, confident grin and I wanted to punch him in the face.
“Slade, don’t…” I warned.
Of course, he ignored me. He always did.
Once that idiot got something in his craw, he didn’t let go.
Little by little, all the guests got wind of what was going on and they lined the driveway like it was the fucking Indy-500 they were getting ready to watch.
“Doc, you need to stop this,” I said, looking to him for help. His eyes were blazed and he was ten sheets to the wind.
“You know there’s no stopping that asshole,” he slurred.
He was drunk, but he was right. There was no stopping him. I shouldn’t even try.
I watched with dread as one by one, the five girls lay side by side on the ground. Slade had already built a little ramp last year, so he drug it out from behind the clubhouse and put it next to them.
“Someone’s gonna die,” I said to Ryder, who’d walked up next to me silently.
“Ain’t gonna be me,” he said.
“Yeah, me either,” I replied. “I don’t think I can watch this.”
“It’s like a train wreck, ain’t it?” he asked. “Can’t look away.”
He was right. My boots stayed put and I took a deep breath as Slade got in position and revved up his bike about a hundred feet away from the girls lying in the road. I looked at them and they were giggling with joy, completely oblivious to the danger they were putting themselves in.
I took a swig off the bottle I was holding, then handed it to Ryder.
“This is gonna be so fucking bad,” I muttered.
“What are you gonna do?” He slurred, almost as drunk as Slade and Doc. I took the bottle back from him and took another drink. Maybe I just needed to lighten up and catch up to them. Shit, I wanted to have fun, too, I just didn’t wanna see anyone die at the same time.
“Ready!” Slade had recruited Cherry to hold up an old bandana and call out for him. Slade nodded and she continued. “Set!”
“Oh, fuck,” I growled, my stomach in knots.
“Go!” Cherry threw the bandana in the air and Slade hit the throttle, spinning out and taking off.
The crowd grew eerily silent as he grew closer to the girls, who were now quivering and squealing with fear and not exactly laying perfectly still. Slade’s back tire slipped on a rock and he swiftly leaned over to catch himself.
“For fuck’s suck!” I muttered as he grew even closer to the girls. I gripped the bottle of Jack in my hand harder.
Slade was twenty feet away when someone’s black lab came trotting across the driveway right in front of him. Slade could have kept going. He would have hurt the dog, probably. But maybe not. But he didn’t keep going.
He hit the brakes so hard, he went flying over the handlebars, ass over tea kettle. I’d never seen someone fly up in the air so high. It was like he’d sprouted wings and he must’ve been airborne at least a good five seconds.
But then he landed and it was all over.
It wasn’t pretty. The girls screeched, the crowd screamed, the dog yelped, even though it hadn’t been touched. The bike was on the ground, the tires spinning, smoke and dirt rising in a hazy, brown cloud around it.
And then there was Slade.
Crumpled up where he’d landed in the gravel after bouncing a few times, his arm was twisted like a pretzel over his head. His front tooth was missing and he had a cut along his face about five inches long, which was bleeding profusely, the white bubbly fat in his cheek exposed.
It was the gnarliest injuries I’d seen him inflict on himself up to then. Doc and Ryder and I surrounded him.
“Slade!” I called. He lay motionless, staring up at us unblinking, before breaking out into a crooked, bloody grin.
“I think I’m good, man,” he said, grimacing. “How’s the dog?”
“You motherfucker!” Doc shouted, looking him over carefully. “I told you I didn’t want to spend my birthday patching your ugly ass up! Now, look at you! And I’m bombed!�
�
“Sorry, Doc,” Slade said, looking generally concerned. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”
“Goddammit, Slade,” he muttered, helping him up. The crowd parted as we half-carried him into the clubhouse.
Slade spent the next hour profusely apologizing to Doc.
“I really thought I’d make it, Doc. I’m so sorry I ruined your birthday,” he said, as Doc stitched up his cheek under the kitchen light.
“Whatever, dude,” Doc said, his voice kind and gruff, all at the same time. “I’m old, I’ve had plenty of fun in my time.”
“Gettin’ old ain’t no reason to stop having fun, Doc,” Slade said.
Doc laughed, his laughter bubbling up from his belly like he was a joyful Santa. “You’re right about that, son.”
An hour later, Slade and Doc joined the party again. Slade limped right over to two of the girls that he’d convinced to lie down and die for him earlier. He snaked his arms around their shoulders and whispered in their ears. They glanced over at Doc and giggled and nodded.
Slade let them go, watching with his newly toothless grin, as they approached Doc and led him back to the bedroom.
“You’re a good dude, you fuckin’ careless idiot,” I said to Slade.
“I love you, too, man,” he replied, laughing like a loon.
It was that laughter I missed now. I could just hear him, see his face, see that stupid heartbreaking smile.
I guess that’s how I knew. That he was still alive, I mean.
Slade was too goddamned charming to die by someone else’s hand.
And he was too tough to die from an accident.
He was still alive, without a doubt.
It was up to me to find him, or die trying.
I printed off the posters and stuffed them in a bag, ready for tomorrow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
LIBBY
CAGED: GODS OF CHAOS (BOOK TEN) (Gods of Chaos MC 10) Page 12