Storm (Bad Boys of X-Ops #3)

by Rie Warren

  My chair thunked to the floor. “Are you shitting me? Holy Christ, Blaize. You have no competition. No matter how many women—or who they were—I had sex with before.”

  Her gaze lowered to her hands cupped around the beer bottle. “I’m sorry. I’m out of sorts. Maybe I should’ve sent someone else with you.”

  I wrapped a hand around her wrist and slowly brought her palm to my lips. “No. You shouldn’t have. You know you’ve had me panting after you for the better part of a year and a half. Trust me when I tell you I don’t want anyone but you.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good thing though. This.” Her hand wandered from my mouth to my cheek to my neck. “You. Me.”

  Her skin felt smooth against the dark stubble on my throat.

  “Only one way to find out.” I rose from my seat.

  “What’s that?”

  “Dance with me.”

  “That’s how you’re going to decide if we’re compatible?” She laughed freely, following behind me.

  “Nah. Already know the answer to that.” Spinning her into my arms, I caught her tight and hard and fast against me.

  My hips moved, my lips lowered, and I breathed in her scent as her breath hitched and her body responded.

  “Just want to feel you with me.”

  The music pumped out from the players on stage, at times fast and hard, at others slow and sultry.

  The way Blaize moved her body was nothing short of sex.

  Hips winding back and forth. Her arms lifted around my neck. Her breasts brushing my chest. Her breath on my neck, my chin, my lips.

  Her ass sinking to my groin, pulsing against my cock when I spun her in my arms. Her eyelids drifting closed.

  Grinding. Touching. Almost kissing.

  My mouth against her ear.

  My hands on her ass, clutching her. Clasping her shoulders to draw her back.

  Swaying. Kissing. Moving together in a sensuous rhythm.

  Working up the heat between us that would not be cooled by anything but hot sex between the sheets.

  “So this is the real Nash LaFontaine?” Flirting with me, Blaize twined her hands around my shoulders, undulating closer.

  “Depends. Do you like it?” My palms skimmed up the outside of her thighs beneath her dress.

  “You’re not really a domineering prick?”

  “Have my moments.” I chuckled against her hair.

  “And you’re not really shy around the ladies.” Her head dipped back.

  “Doesn’t look like it.” Hitting her with a wolfish grin, I lifted her in my arms.

  I carried her from Jack’s Place with my mouth hungering over hers.

  “Soignez vous-autres! Y’all watch your step out there.” Simone’s smile met her eyes as she wished us well.

  ****

  “You know what I want tonight, Blaize?” I asked later.

  We were back at the Thunder Road Bar, up in our room. We’d gotten ready for bed—taking turns doing the toothbrushing thing. Of course we’d both checked our weapons, had them on standby, in case of a midnight raid.

  She’d changed into a nightie that was almost as pretty as the dress she’d worn. It was soft looking and light pink, and it hugged her body like living flesh.

  “I can hazard a guess,” she answered, pretending not to watch while I unbuttoned my shirt and shrugged it from my shoulders.

  I gave a slight laugh, toeing off my boots, pulling down my socks, and unbuttoning my jeans. “No. Not that.”

  Pushing the jeans from my hips and down my thighs—revealing the commando status underneath—I heard Blaize’s choked sound.

  “You’re saying you don’t want to fuck me?” Clear disbelief colored her tone.

  I tossed the ball of clothes onto a chair. Housekeeping. Meh. Never my strong suit. When I straightened in front of her, my cock fully erect, her gaze swept down, lingered for a heartbeat I felt like a thump in my shaft rising from the thick black pubes circling the base.

  “I find that hard to believe given your status,” she said.

  “This is a given when you’re concerned.” I briefly caressed a hand down the rigid length, stopping when my fingertips hit my ballsack. “But I’m not asking to fuck you tonight. In fact, when it happens, I think it’s you who’s gonna be begging me.”

  “Egotistical.” Her chin slanted up.

  Her bright blue eyes flashed.

  But her nipples—sweet smudges of color inside the pink nighty—swelled and hardened.

  I took a step closer, brushing against her with my chest. Loving the fact the top of her head only came to my chin and the way her coppery hair whispered against my whiskers.

  My cock came into contact with her belly, and her breath pelted faster against my neck.

  “Just statin’ what I believe to be a fact.”

  She harrumphed.

  I dragged my hands up her bare arms. “And yes, I do want to fuck you very, very badly. But what I want more is for you to come to bed and sleep in my arms without me having to wait for you to fall asleep in some gawdawful uncomfortable position in the chair or the bath before I carry you to bed.”

  Pressing a knuckle beneath her chin, I lifted her gaze to mine. “I want you willing. I want you wanting too.”

  “Is that all?”

  “And maybe a goodnight kiss.” I smirked before leaving her standing in the middle of the room.

  After pulling back the covers, I settled in bed and patted the place beside me.

  She swayed on over and slid inside.

  “A kiss is the price if you want to sleep with me.” I rolled half on top of her.

  “You are absolutely impossible.”

  “Kiss,” I repeated, watching her eyes sparkle vividly.

  Sifting her fingers through my hair, she moved her head sideways and dove up to meet my mouth.

  Blaize. Blaize. Blaize.

  She kissed passionately. Hungrily. Greedily.

  Her tongue encountered mine between our parted lips and she sucked on it, clung to it, drew it into her mouth. Pressing me closer, she gripped my hair then whispered her fingers through it.

  I teased her tongue back with mine, into my mouth where I played a wicked wet game of tapping and retreating until she crashed completely against me. I held her with both hands on her ass, crushing the nighty and her flesh beneath in my palms.

  I attacked her almost viciously.

  Victoriously.

  Voraciously.

  I rubbed against her with my whole body like a big wild cat, prowling and preying on her.

  Blaize drew back with a hiss of breath. A low murmur of a moan.

  A sigh of my name.

  Lifting my head to look at her—needy, her body slowly writhing, her legs slightly scissoring—I was having second thoughts about not fucking her.

  One kiss. And what a kiss it was.

  I rolled to my side and planted her right against me.

  “Mm. You’re so smooth.” I rubbed my legs against hers, licking and nuzzling the side of her neck.

  “And your legs are hairy.” She bent one leg around mine, drawing us closer together.

  “Yep. My chest too. I think you like it. Means I’m all man.” My hand tunneled beneath the hair at the back of her neck, and I clasped her to me.

  “Never would’ve taken you for a cuddler, Storm.”

  “Me either. That a bad thing?”

  “I don’t usually share a bed with a man for more than a few hours at a time.” The words she spoke came out moist against my shoulder.

  “Should I be jealous about that or smug?”

  “Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll take the smug route.”

  I chuckled, squeezing her rump in both hands.

  “Thanks for the date.” Playing with the hair on my chest, Blaize pressed a kiss to an old scar I could barely remember getting.

  “I was thinking we should make it a regular thing.”

  “As in after this job is over?” She peeked up at me, he
r full sensual features open and relaxed.

  “Hell yeah.”

  “I think we should see if we make it out of this cesspool alive first.”

  “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, cher.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Freak Show

  THE NEXT NIGHT THE Blood Legion hit the streets in full MC regalia. The prez, me, Kouto, Burn, Angel and a good two dozen others, wearing our colors bearing the gory skeleton face, and straddling our customized Harleys.

  Our brigade of bandits was a familiar enough sight to make some people scurry for cover, others to lift their fists in the air as we roared past, and still others to spit at us with their middle fingers raised.

  The honeys, the road hummers, and the ladies who were hangers on—ladies in waiting to get laid by any Legion road warrior looking to blow his lusty load—were ordered to stay locked down in the Thunder Road saloon.

  That included Blaize.

  Tonight could prove nothing short of risky business.

  Speaking of Blaize, after our fun-loving time on the town the night before followed by the hot sweet bedding down, she was back to being doubly pissed off at me.

  Not my fault she’d gotten her fuckhot little leather skirt in a twist that time.

  What happened was . . .

  Turned out Nikki wasn’t the only babe interested in me.

  I’d been minding my own damn business, taking a load off at the bar after helping Solomon change the fuel tank for his barbeque set up. Drinking a whisky, nothing more, when the cute barmaid decided to make a move.

  I knew she’d been eyeing me up since the first night. Didn’t really think such a little thing would have the balls to outright make a play for me knowing I’d already given one of the regular women and my old lover—Nikki—the old heave-ho.

  What cute-looking Kat lacked in overall size she made up for in a big bouncy rack, an innocent face, café au lait brown eyes.

  And some serious sex moves.

  Don’t look at me like that.

  I hadn’t taken her up on anything she was offering, with her tongue trailing along my neck and her lips whispering hot promises in my ear. I’d placed my hands as far away from her curvy body as I could as soon as she’d rounded the bar and hustled up to me.

  Didn’t stop her from rubbing up against me like a purring kitty or from slipping her hand into the front of my leathers where she found something that interested her even more.

  And that didn’t stop all the other noontime Legion drinkers from placing bets as fast as cash could exchange hands.

  I’d been just about to firmly turn her down when . . .

  Everything came to a screeching halt as Blaize entered the room, took one bead on the situation, and began her clitter-clatter high-heeled stalking toward Kat and me.

  Silence reigned until she stopped beside us. “I think I best make it clear for all present company. Nash LaFontaine is my man.”

  Well, Kat wasn’t ready to take that challenge lying down.

  Probably a lot of other things she’d happily take lying down, though, as just evidenced.

  The ensuing minute and a half had me praying for Kat’s soul in heaven, because Blaize hauled the smaller woman around and well away from her pawing posture all over my body. She went gritty street fighter all over Kat, but I could tell she wasn’t trying to cause real damage, just prove a point.

  One I liked, actually.

  Although Blaize hadn’t pulled any of the moves I knew she was capable of—those that would expose her as someone well versed in martial arts—she’d won by a landslide.

  More money furiously filtered between hands.

  Other babes had entered the room until it was filled to capacity.

  Cathouse?

  Shoot.

  More like a chicken coop with all the clucking goin’ on up in there.

  When all was said and done, I knew enough to sit the fuck still and calmly sip my drink.

  I’d kept my peripheral vision on Blaize, though, when she’d marched up to Burn who’d collected all the cash for the bets.

  “And I’ll take that money, thank you very fucking much,” Blaize said in a murderous tone.

  With my hand cautiously on the butt of my pistol, I’d watched the man with the half-melted face hand over the cash with a small nod of his head.

  Blaize swept out without so much as a backward glance at me.

  Like it had been my entire fault.

  If you asked me, her little show of bitch’tude meant she’d earned her MC old lady stripes.

  If you asked Blaize, you’d probably get an entirely different earful.

  I hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye to her before this latest run. The woman needed a time out, and that was exactly what she was getting.

  I had other matters to worry about as our bikes thundered to a darker, seedier side of the French Quarter. If Venom insisted on the whole goddamn MC crew for a simple dope-and-cash trade, the customers had to be ten thousand kinds of shady.

  Then there was the matter of this Killian Slade, possibly a silent killer, whom I hadn’t had a chance to speak to yet. And I wasn’t altogether sure I should.

  He was somewhere in the back of the pack when we parked outside another bar that—like Jack’s Place—wasn’t on the sightseeing tour, but for entirely different reasons.

  The White Lair had all the curb appeal of a skinhead’s armpit. Fucking swastikas decorated the bullet-riddled flag hanging out front of the dirt-brown bar down near Esplanade.

  Wonderful. A high-profile coke delivery to the white supremacist revolution.

  “Really nice company we’re keepin’ these days.” I hung my helmet on my handlebar.

  “This here’s the cocaine pipeline to Tenn-tucky. They pay up on time, and money talks. Those Cubano cunts in Miami kept coming up with wetback excuses.” Venom’s bald head shined beneath the one working streetlight. “Why? You going PC on me?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” I stepped beside him, my favorite shotgun held at my side.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “But . . .” I leaned closer. “What about Kouto. You know, with these patrons being not down with people of non-Caucasian races and all?”

  “Don’t worry ’bout me, boug. I put the special hoodoo on them.” Kouto wore a snaky grin, his gris-gris charm, and the big fucking machete on his hip.

  With a nod, Venom motioned me and six others to flank him, leaving the rest of the pack taking point outside.

  One step inside the shithole filled with Aryan Nation shitkickers, and this was another situation that smelled really fucking rank.

  Wasn’t just because the place reeked of redneck BO, either.

  Apparently they hadn’t received the memo that real men used deodorant, too. Or maybe they just hadn’t been able to read it.

  All around ranged a variety of T-shirt-and-camo-and-ball-cap-wearing geezers with dip wadding their mouths, their teeth yellow-stained, their buck knives swinging at their hips.

  Not that I was casting judgments or anything.

  “Well, how-do, Mister Venom.” A brawny fucker with yet one more swastika inked on the front of his neck stepped forward. “We got some fine bourbon imported from the verry footheels of KAN-tucky if y’all wanna stop for a drink or two. See you brought the whole crew this time.”

  “Howdy, Dewayne. I think I’ll take you up on that offer, if you don’t mind.” The pair shook hands, after said Dewayne spat a brown puddle onto the floor at his feet.

  It was a pretty extreme scene when Venom was the one with the high-class etiquette.

  Jesus.

  Glasses were passed out, but they came up short.

  “Wash that tin cup y’always carry around wid ya, Miller.” Dewayne started pouring. “You can give it to the nee-gra here. Sure he won’t mind a little backwash with his backwater bourbon.”

  Kouto accepted the cup and placed it on the table by his side untouched.

  “Don’t you teach
your houseboy no manners, Venom?” Dewayne asked, his eyes a little too cray-cray for my liking.

  “He’s my sergeant at arms. Not the hired help.” Venom took a stiff drink, placing himself just slightly in front of Kouto.

  “Not talkin’ about the hired help. Slaves is what they still should oughtta be.”

  “Well, the times have changed.” That Venom . . . always with the philosophy.

  “And what about him?” Dewayne pointed a finger at me.

  I dipped my glass toward the deranged trailer trash.

  “Storm. My VP. Just back from a furlough, let’s say.”

  “I don’t like all these new folks.” He came closer to me.

  And damn, but his mouth—not to mention the entire White Lair and all its occupants—needed fumigating.

  My trigger finger was getting just a little bit twitchy.

  I smiled pleasantly. “What’d you boys drive down here to the great state of Louisiana? ATVs?”

  Dewayne reacted with a tightening of his jaw. “He’s funny. Don’t you think he’s funny, Miller?”

  Turning to his sidekick who’d returned behind the bar, I said, “And let me guess . . . you’re named after the beer? Yep”—I scanned the foul-smelling room—“definitely the high life.”

  Kouto’s laugh was a deep chuckle beside me.

  “We gonna make the trade or what?” Venom finished his bourbon and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  The natives were getting restless . . .

  “Yeah. Sure.” Dewayne turned on his feet, lumbering toward the bar.

  In profile he looked like a bullfrog. Or a bulldog. Possibly a mutant cross between the two.

  He leaned against the bar. “Hand me the case, Miller.”

  Miller didn’t hand over a case of cash as expected in return for the coke we’d brought to exchange.

  Instead he drew out a double-barreled sawed-off and pulled the trigger.

  The loud blast sent us scattering as shell shot slammed into the wall behind our collective asses.

  The signal brought the rest of Legion running inside, guns drawn. A hair’s breadth of shock rippled around while we silently took each other’s measure.

  “Hold up, Fast Draw McGraw!” Dewayne shouted at Miller.

  Miller slavered at the mouth, getting ready to pump out another round. “You said no coloreds!”