by Wild, Nikki
“You want to touch it, darling?” He teased, undulating his torso slightly, torturing me. “It doesn't hurt anymore.”
“Sit your ass back down and stop showin' off,” I said quickly, looking away so he couldn't see the burn in my cheeks. He laughed, but he did as I suggested, and soon we were sitting side-by-side again, just like ten years before, shooting the shit and having a grand old time.
And then there was her.
Cross
Of all the nights for this bitch to get jealous, why'd she pick this one?
It wasn't like she hadn't seen me with other women before. Maybe it was because she saw how easy it was, for Bex and I. Sure, it seemed that other people had noticed. Specifically, Dutch. He'd even sent over some drinks for us. Was he playin' matchmaker? I hoped not. For one, I didn't need it. For another, what the hell was our Prez doing givin' two shits about where I whet my whistle? Seemed a bit beneath him. Maybe it was Sylvia's doing. Anyway, I enjoyed the drinks. I was enjoying everything. Until Tiff came around.
“Cross,” her voice cut across the bar like a Ginsu knife through paper. “Baaaaaby.”
No, I thought, rolling my eyes and turning away. Not tonight, Tiff, not fuckin' tonight...
But she was no mind-reader. And even if she was, I don't think she would have taken my word for it and stayed away. I dared a glance at Bex. She was damn near laughing. Eyebrows up to her hairline and pretty lips twitchin'.
“Baaaaaby,” she said, leaning in to whisper the word through her shit-eating grin, a perfect mockery of Tiff's cotton candy voice.
Tiff was cotton candy. So blonde you couldn't look at her on a sunny day, eyebrows painted on, and lips always smothered in enough pink shit to leave a mark on every cheek, glass, napkin, or dick they landed on. Twig-skinny, but with a rack like you wouldn't believe. It was a wonder she didn't topple over from being so top-heavy. And she was one of the only girls around here I fucked more than once or twice. By my standards, Tiff was damn near girlfriend status.
I don't know why I kept screwing her, to be honest. Maybe just because she seemed so damn keen on me. She was always around, always wound up at my side. I'm sure a lot of the time, it was just the convenience. I didn't have to spit much game to get with one of our lollipops, but with Tiff, I could be blind, deaf, and mute and she'd still ride me until the sun came up. And she was ruthless, which I kind of admired. A real ball-crusher when she wanted to be.
“Tiff,” I said as she slid her arm around me, pointedly angling herself between Bex and I. “This is Bex. Bex and I are having a private conversation.”
Tiff threw her blonde hair over her shoulder as she turned her mega-watt smile on Bex, who returned it with a healthy dose of amusement and disbelief.
“Charmed,” Tiff said.
“Likewise,” Bex said, eyes rapt as Tiff tried to crawl onto my lap; when that failed, she tried to move my arm around her waist. I wasn't budging.
“Cross,” Tiff said, turning around and throwing her arms around my neck, lips pouting. “I was hoping you might be alone tonight...”
“Well, I'm not,” I said; I put my hands on her waist then, but only to shove her away. “Tough luck.”
“Since when are you so mean, baby?” Tiff was acting offended; I knew better. She was pissed. Someone was going to get the worst of her tonight. I didn't care, as long as it wasn't Bex or me.
“Since someone doesn't know when to fuckin' leave a man be,” I said.
“Aw, come on now, Cross,” Bex suddenly chimed in. “Tiff can have a drink with us, at least. Don't need to push her away like a sack of potatoes.”
Tiff turned back to Bex again, eyes glinting angry.
“Thanks, doll,” she said, all venom and spite. “Cross is one of the good ones, but sometimes he forgets his manners.”
“Oh, I know,” Bex said, looking straight past Tiff, right at me, that damn smile on her face. She was enjoying this. “You'd be surprised how much I know about Cross.”
For once, Tiff was speechless. But only for a minute. That pink-as-shit grin spread wide, she leaned towards the bar and ordered a vodka. Then she turned back to Bex.
“Is that so? I've never seen you around before.”
“Well, I've been out of the scene for a while,” Bex said, cool as ice under Tiff's burning stare. “But Cross and I go way back. In fact, I'm probably one of the few people under forty who can tell you why they call him Cross...”
No. No. She wouldn't. She couldn't. She knew how much I hated that fucking story, she couldn't possibly think that...
“Oh? Really? Do tell, girlfriend,” Tiff said, a challenge in every word. Shit. I'd told Tiff – everyone who asked, in fact – that my nickname came from the cross tattooed on my ribs, my first after the obligatory Dead Crusaders ink across my chest. It was a replica of my mother's heirloom crucifix, the one thing I had left of her. It made me seem like a mama's boy, sure, but it was better than the truth.
“Well, when Cross here was born, he was pretty cute, except for one thing,” Bex said. “He was cross-eyed. Like, permanently. He was always looking at his nose, or up at his forehead. Up until he was five years old, and his pa got enough money to get him corrective surgery. Poor kid could barely see six feet in front of him, he couldn't walk straight. They had these glasses made up for him, and he had special eye drops, but his little eyes just wouldn't go straight. You should ask Grinder to show you some pictures. It's really fuckin' cute. I think he carries one in his wallet, doesn't he, Cross?”
I could have killed her. She had no damn right tellin' that story. And sittin' there with that smile on her face. Lookin' cute while she told it.
“No shit,” Tiff said, voice shrill as she turned to me. “Is that true, Cross? I thought you said...”
“It's true alright,” Bex answered for me. “He doesn't like to tell it 'cause he's embarrassed. But I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. Really, the pictures are adorable. And he didn't turn out so bad, now did he?”
She winked at me. She winked at me. I couldn't tell whether I wanted to throttle her or bend her over. Maybe both.
“No, he turned out just fine,” Tiff said, laughing and throwing her arms around me again. I didn't waste a single second before pushing her off.
“Tiff, why don't you get out of here before I think of something Bex wouldn't want anyone to know.”
“I'd like to stick around for that,” Tiff said.
“I'm sure you would,” Bex said, sliding back in her chair, crossing her legs, smiling like a king gloating over his spoils. “But you can't touch me, Cross DuFrane.”
Now, that's where she was dead wrong. In that moment, I decided that if there was one thing I was gonna do in this world, it was touch Bex Carter again. If Tiffany wasn't standing between us, I might have grabbed her right then and there. But I could wait, too. By the end of the night, I'd have Bex screaming my name.
Bex
Once Cross got rid of the Barbie doll, we kept talking like she'd never been there at all. What business was it of mine, what he did with other women? He was a brother, and he behaved like it. I couldn't fault him. Though now that I was back, things would be different. Especially with me doing my damndest to get close to him, or face the consequences.
The night grew long, and the talk grew heavy.
“I watched her kill herself,” I found myself saying, well past 1am.
“She'd been killing herself for years.”
“Yeah, but before that, there were other people to take care of her.” I sighed. “In Helena, it was just me. Just us.”
“She wasn't a bad woman,” Cross suggested, softly.
“No,” I agreed. “She wasn't bad at all. Just one of the doomed. She wasn't a good mother, though. But that didn't make her a bad person.”
“When she died, you didn't...”
His words seemed to fall off the edge of a cliff, and he turned his full attention to the whiskey in his hands.
“No,” I said, knowing what he want
ed to ask. “I didn't.”
“Why?”
He wanted to know why I didn't just come back, then. Come back to Cutter, where I still had something akin to family. Where my father's blood still meant I was owed something. Where Cross was.
“Because it was too late,” I said. “And I was too tired. And I thought I could have something better. In Arkansas. With...with him.”
Cross winced, visibly, and drained his glass in a gulp. My hand moved of its own accord, covering one of his, looking tiny and fragile in comparison, his knuckles rough with scabs and scars.
“I was wrong, Cross,” I said, calling his eyes to mine, wanting to see them shine. Not for Dutch, but for me. “I was wrong. I should have come back. Alright? I made a mistake. Don't go holdin' it against me.”
“'Course not,” he said, wiping everything away with one patented, devil-may-care, Cross DuFrane grin. “None of my business, anyway. You're back now, ain't you?”
“Yeah,” I said, lips spreading in a smile of my own while my stomach sank to the bottom of the Missouri River. “I'm back now.”
After that, we seemed to run out of things to say. And soon enough, I was stumbling up from my stool with Cross' hand on my lower back, steadying me. Dutch set me up with a room in the clubhouse, and we made our way across the street, the night sticky and wet with rain that wouldn't come for another few days. Even the streetlights looked like they were hanging heavy from the weight of all that water.
Into the clubhouse, where a few men were still drinking their fill at the bar, and up the stairs to the long hallway where bedrooms were set up for brothers who needed a bed to fuck or pass out in, and special guests, like me. It wasn’t the Ritz-Carlton, and I thought ahead enough to bring my own sheets. But with my head spinning from booze and my body pounding from Cross' hand on my back, I could have slept soundly on a hay bale.
“This one?” Cross asked, pointing to the door I stopped in front of.
“Yeah,” I said. “This one.”
“So it'll be good night then, yeah?”
“Yeah, good night.”
We lingered. I leaned against the door. He watched me. I watched him watching me and I liked it. The way his eyes rolled down my body like water down a crack in a rock. The way his eyes were so familiar, and pretty as glass-blown, cat's-eye marbles. My fingers wondered what his hair would feel like, because last I'd seen him, he hadn't had any to speak of.
“You don't look like you're ready to say good night,” he noted with a smirk.
“Neither do you,” I shot back, then my lips took on a life of their own: “you gonna do somethin' about it?”
I could almost count the inches as they disappeared between us. Even without Dutch's threats, I wouldn't have resisted. It was magnetic. His arm curled around my waist, his hand grabbing the top of my ass, squeezing it. His smell filled me: whiskey, smoke, and leather. Raw, pounding lust, circulating in the air between us – or what little air was left between us.
“Those are fightin' words,” he growled, lowering his lips towards mine. I put my hand on his chest, knowing the words that lay under his shirt, feeling them in my bones. Feeling his pulse. Hard and fast. Just like my own. I could feel the blood running from my head down to my pussy, everything between my legs suddenly throbbing. His lips inched closer. They were pale pink, ringed with the shadow of a beard. I closed my eyes, remembered the sensation of his stubble on my skin, on my neck, brushing rough against my cheek...
“Come on, Bex,” he whispered, lips so close they almost touch mine. “Give up. This time, I win.”
And he did. I knew, he knew it, the birds and the bees knew it. I'd surrendered the minute his hands landed on me. When I licked my lips, I could taste his, and my fate was sealed.
His lips met mine, his tongue ready to probe and tease my own. After so long, I wanted to savor this, wanted to swim in it, remember every detail of his taste, the warm landscape of his mouth. I was melting in his arms, he squeezed my ass harder, relentlessly owning my body.
Somehow, he managed to get my thighs to part, and shoved his knee between them, grinding up until I was spread across his thigh. I moaned, and he swallowed the sound. One hand moved to my hair, clenching a handful of it, tugging gently, then harder. My lips left the warmth of his as he wrenched my head back on my neck, mouth moving down my jawline.
His hand slipped against my shirt, pushing it up, meeting my bare flesh, ice melting against fire. My hips, renegade traitors, ground against his thigh, needing the friction against my clit. I could feel my panties get damp, then drenched, as he responded in kind, kissing the exposed flesh of my neck as his thigh rubbed against my clit. My nipples were tight and hard, my skin fevered and flushed.
He was hard behind his denim, I could feel him, and I could remember what every inch of that hard cock felt like. His hand shot up, under my shirt, finding my breast and clutching it, just like he knew I needed. Rough fingers teased and tugged my nipple, his thigh still driving me wild between my legs, his lips never leaving my skin.
“How wet are you, Bex?” he asked after an eternity.
“Mmm, uffff,” I answered, blinded and mindless at his will.
“Is that so?” His voice teased as his hand moved down, making quick work of my button and zipper, diving down the front of my pants and finding my wet delta.
“Cross!” I could finally form words again – or a word, at least – as he plunged two fingers inside of me, his thumb finding my clit and rolling it. I found myself grinding down against his palm, lowering myself against his fingers, driving him to the places I needed him most. He bit at my ear, whispered until the heat of his words made me whimper.
“No one ever fucked you like this, did they, Bex? You're gonna come for me, right now, and show me how much you missed me...”
His fingers moved faster and faster inside me, curling forward, hitting my g-spot. He had to cover my mouth with his to stop me from screaming as my orgasm burst through me, thrusting his tongue against my own even as his fingers held me in ecstatic bliss. His thumb, rolling over my clit, claimed unknown pleasures from deep in my body, his arms catching me when I thought I would collapse from sensation. My pussy clenched around his fingers, flooding his palm, all the evidence he'd ever need that my body was still his to play with.
Only when I was gasping for air and pulling away did he release me, dragging his fingers from my jeans and bringing them to his lips. I stumbled back, watching in a stupor, as he licked my juices.
“You still taste like sweet cream,” he said. “Next time, you're gonna come in my mouth. And then again, and again, on my cock.”
“Next time,” I breathed, unable to fathom the meaning of those two words together. “Next time?”
Could I bear a 'next time'? Did I have a choice? His smile – and Dutch's ever-present voice in my head – said no.
“Yeah, Bex,” he said, turning away. “Next time. 'Cause if you think I'm done with you, you're dead wrong.”
Well, from the look in his eyes when he said it and the swagger in his walk as he left the room, no one could fault me for believing him.
Cross
Strollin' into Church the day after leaving Bex in a tizzy, I felt like Billy Pilgrim, like my past and present and future were all mixed up, but I was happy. Which was, roughly, a lot better than most of the guys seemed to feel, judging on their red eyes. Everyone seemed to have taken Bex's homecoming as an excuse to get properly wild. Not that we needed an excuse anyway, but it never hurt to have one.
Dutch was already waiting for us at the head of the room, Blade on his right. I took my place standing off to the side, ready to get the boys back in line if it came to that. It usually didn't, but any roomful of hungover rogues should be considered armed and ready to blow. There were thirty-two patched members of the Dead Crusaders at that time, and those four prospects. We weren’t a big club, but we were strong as hell, and that made up for what we lacked in numbers.
Porky was our secretary, and Fle
et was our treasurer. Both were older members, no longer able to ride with the young bloods but still able to contribute to the club in their own ways. Porky read through last meeting's minutes, called for any old business, and handed everything off to Fleet, who went over the prevalent details of dues and funds. Then, it was time for new business, with Dutch rising to take the floor.
He was still fixated on the lack of new prospects, and he made it the first issue on the agenda, imploring each and every brother to do his part in seeking out new hopefuls. The Dead Crusaders were strong, powerful, wealthy, and fierce. There was no reason we shouldn't be pulling prospects from across the city. Unless they were all gravitating towards the Blackhawks; and if that was the case, it was time to figure out why.
Well, that didn't quite sit easy with me, and I could tell by the grimace on Blade's face that he didn't like the sound of it, either. The Blackhawks were not a group we ought to be looking into, period. We left them alone – totally alone – and they left us alone. We liked to pretend they didn't even exist. If “figuring out” why the Blackhawks were pulling more prospects than us involved treading on their toes, it wouldn't be pretty. But surely Dutch knew that. Even better than Blade or I.
Moving on, we covered some more boring shit; a charity run comin' up (we weren't all bad, after all), the need for more strippers at Peach's Gentleman's Club, the new shops down on Gay Street that ought to know where they stood with us (namely, that they better respect us and not go callin' the cops if they saw anything goin' down). And then the subject turned to something I found extremely interesting.
“Now, most of ya will have noticed, lil' Bex Carter is in town.”
“Not so little anymore!” Eagle hooted. I clenched my fists and grit through the laughter.
“Hell no,” Dutch answered, gracing the boys with a smile. “But in case you forgot it, her daddy died for our sins. We owe him the honor of not defiling his baby girl, unless she wants to be defiled.”