Red Hot

by K. A. Merikan

  Loki hummed around Red Jack’s cock and squeezed the base with his hand. His soft, tousled hair was setting Red Jack’s stomach on fire as the suction became wetter and more intense. That was what dreams were made of. But before Red Jack could enjoy his blow job to the fullest, Loki let the cock drop out of his mouth and moved even lower on the mattress. He briefly sucked on the sac and dove even lower, trailing his tongue behind the balls.

  Red Jack’s breath quickened, and the high made him lightheaded. He supposed this was where all the petting had to be going. Red Jack gave Loki’s hair a few more strokes before rolling over to his stomach without a word. Nothing seemed appropriate to say, but Loki’s presence felt so right and natural he wasn’t even that stressed. Or maybe it was the line he’d snorted earlier.

  Loki gasped, but his hands slowly moved up and down over the backs of Red Jack’s thighs. Every time they reached closer to Red Jack’s ass, heat rose in Red Jack’s face, but when Loki finally squeezed Red Jack’s buttocks, it felt nothing like all the times he’d grabbed Red Jack while they fucked. This wasn’t just about pushing Red Jack deeper in.

  Red Jack arched his back and rubbed his face against the mattress with his heart beating out of tune, its rhythm all messed up like a mix tape no one would listen to. Loki’s tongue slipping shallowly into his crack was like warm honey poured all over Red Jack’s heart. He barely suppressed a moan, gripping the covers as Loki slowly spread him farther. His thighs parted on their own, inviting the wet touch.

  It felt different to the invasion Red Jack had been expecting. Like it wasn’t just about Loki sticking his dick in a tight hole and fucking it until he came. More like Loki caressing him, the way he had before when he kissed and licked Red Jack all over. Red Jack stiffened slightly when Loki pulled his buttocks apart, but that tongue gliding around his opening, rolling over the sensitive flesh, was just too good to worry about anything. Besides, it wasn’t like Red Jack hadn’t done that to countless girls. And to Loki. He’d showered, and there was nothing to be worried about. He’d chill and let go for once.

  Red Jack supposed fucking couldn’t be that bad if Loki was like a bitch in heat about it. He smiled into the mattress and groaned when Loki drilled the tip of his tongue into Red Jack’s hole.

  But even through the haze of dope and arousal, he sensed something was off when a yellowish light was added to the dim illumination in the basement. He looked up toward the trapdoor.

  “Fuck!”

  Chapter 29

  Loki stiffened when Jack’s skin changed color in the warm light coming from above. The low squeak of the trapdoor made a rift down Loki’s spine, and he rolled away, pulling the blanket over Jack’s back. He couldn’t get to his jeans quick enough.

  “Who’s there?” he yelled, trying to fish his mind for a possible explanation of why they were lying naked on a single mattress. With coke lines on the Playstation and money covering the bedding.

  Jack became a tumble of blanket and pants as he struggled to get himself organized. “Get the fuck out!” he yelled to whoever was coming, but the intruder had already dropped to the cement floor.

  Loki froze with his pants still unzipped when Monster’s steel-colored gaze met his own. The oval, handsome face was as expressionless as at the times Monster had accompanied Jack to kill Ted and Brian. He gave Loki a brief nod and glanced at Jack, who was still struggling with his clothes like a cat caught in a yute bag.

  “Too late for that,” said Monster, and Loki couldn’t breathe when he noticed the huge gun at Monster’s side.

  “We’re on drugs,” he tried weakly.

  Jack stood in front of Loki as soon as he’d pulled on his pants. “Really? They just fucking send you to do the dirty work?” He pushed on Monster’s chest, disregarding the gun. “Did that bitch Paxton pay the club an early visit? I didn’t rat on the club! I deserve a fucking vote!”

  Loki’s mind stalled and repeated those words on loop until their meaning finally sank in. He pulled Jack back with a force he didn’t knew he had. “What?”

  Monster watched them, the only change in his expression being a tiny twitch of an eyebrow.

  Jack pushed Loki back and punched Monster’s chest. “Oh! So you already voted? Did that bitch even tell you she tried to blackmail me, or did she just come round to tell the Nails I’m a fag?” His face was red and he was barely catching any breath as he pushed Monster again. “You, stay out of this!” he hissed to Loki.

  Loki took a wheezing breath and rushed between Jack and Monster. His mind was in chaos, but the one thing he knew was that he needed to keep Jack alive. He couldn’t let him be hurt now.

  “You two are friends, I know that! We could just leave... no one will know you found us,” he pleaded, with his stomach clenched to the size of a peanut.

  Jack reached out to push Monster again, but Loki kept him in place. “The only way I’m leaving the club is feet forward. I’ve earned those patches!”

  Monster squinted. “Paxton’s blackmailing you?”

  Loki slouched against Jack’s powerful chest, unsure what it meant yet, but so far, Monster hadn’t drawn his weapon, and that had to mean something.

  Jack swallowed. “Of course she wouldn’t mention that during her visit, would she? Fucking cunt!”

  Monster shook his head. “What the fuck are you on about? I’m here to get Loki,” he said without sparing Loki himself the smallest of glances.

  “M-me?” Loki bit his lip, and his heart sped up like a sprinter approaching the finish line. Would this be it? Was this his end?

  “You out of your fucking mind?” Jack grabbed Monster’s shirt and pushed him on the wall. “He isn’t going anywhere with you. This is club business! He has nothing to do with this!”

  Monster glared at Jack’s fist. “Some guy wants to speak to him. Let go of my fucking shirt.”

  Loki blinked. “Who?”

  Monster shrugged. “Just this average Joe. Dark hair. Glasses...”

  “Richard,” muttered Loki.

  Jack let go of Monster and took a step back, going white this time. “What?”

  Loki shifted uncomfortably. “It sounds like Richard.”

  Monster adjusted his shirt. “Can I take him, brother?” he asked, seemingly unfazed by having been a witness to a rim job.

  Jack put his hands on his nape, looking lost with his eyes bloodshot and wide. “I… Paxton didn’t come?”

  Monster groaned and shook his head in disapproval. “You should have told us. Can’t let a cop hold one of our own by the balls.”

  “So... you’re not gonna hurt Jack?” asked Loki, slowly zipping up his jeans. Any erection he’d had was just a distant memory.

  “What was I gonna say? Paxton has video of me fucking Loki. That would not fly with Borg or Viper. Or even Glock…” Jack looked away, deflated.

  Monster sighed. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing with your life? At this rate, your property is gonna end up looking for a new keeper.”

  Loki’s face went aflame, and blood beat in his ears as the tattoo on his naked back burned. Fuck. The bastard had seen it.

  “You’re so fucking smart, aren’t you?” Jack shot Monster a glare. “Shit happens! How was I supposed to know there was police coming? And my property is none of your business!”

  “Calm down.” Monster walked up to a stack of soda cans and opened one. “I don’t care who you fuck.”

  Jack ran his fingers through his hair and plopped down to the mattress. “I still like girls…”

  “Again, I don’t care.” Monster drank some of the soda and cast a glance at the money scattered everywhere. “Did you win the lottery?”

  Jack groaned and hid his face in his hands. “No, I just figured I’m not gonna get to use it if I’m dead anyway.”

  “I could use a new car.”

  “Wait, what’s going on?” asked Loki, finally putting on his shirt. He gravitated toward Jack, angrier with each step. “You thought you were going to die, and you did
n’t tell me?”

  Jack grabbed a handful of banknotes and threw them at Monster. “Here! And no, I didn’t tell you. What’s the point of you worrying. I wanted you to have a happy day.”

  Loki threw his arms to the sides. Even his gums started throbbing with the anger that suddenly exploded in his chest. “And what then? I’d find you dead? What the fuck?! Are you an idiot?”

  Jack gave Loki a grim look. “I doubt you’d find my body.”

  Loki pulled back his hand and kicked the mattress. “And I’d think you left me? Fucking great!”

  “No… I’d leave you money and shit…” Jack licked the tattoo on the inside of his lip. His secret.

  Loki shook his head and massaged his eyeballs to get rid of the sudden tingling. “I don’t need money. I’m dying, remember?”

  Jack took a deep breath. “I can’t take back that video. Paxton’s gonna come to the clubhouse, and I’ll be dead anyway, so at least you’d get a comfortable few months. What am I supposed to do? I can’t rat on the club. Not that I’d even want to. The Nails are my life. Even beyond the money. There’s nothing else out there for me when you leave me.”

  Loki sat down next to him and quickly pulled Jack’s head on his shoulder, hugging him as hard as he could. He didn’t even know what to say to that.

  “Jack’s not dying,” said Monster from his place by the soda tower.

  Loki couldn’t help a sniff and pushed his nose into Jack’s hair. “You’re not dying,” he repeated, though his heart was a led block pulling him to the floor.

  Jack looked up to Monster. “Yeah, like Borg is gonna let this fly.”

  Monster sipped more soda. “Borg doesn’t need to know.”

  “We can’t kill Paxton. Another pig sniffed us out, and I don’t know who has the damn vid.”

  Monster squeezed the can and dumped it to the floor. “Red, you didn’t let them dispose of me when everyone thought I was the rat. I’m not gonna let you die either,” he said calmly, stepping closer. He looked like a weird knight/cyborg hybrid.

  Jack’s nostrils flared. He looked up, reached out for Monster's hand, and got pulled up. "Thanks. She gave me forty-eight hours, so we still have something like twenty to fix this shit. Somehow."

  Loki exhaled and grabbed Jack’s hand as his legs refused to move. He couldn’t believe Jack wanted to just disappear out of his life, just leave him now, at the very end, without even trying to stay.

  “Maybe let’s get this Richard bullshit sorted out first, so it’s out of the way? The nerve of that guy, to come to the club… Seriously.” Jack shook his head and helped Loki up but quickly pulled his hand away.

  Monster nodded. “Twenty hours is plenty. We’ll take my car.”

  Jack snorted as he put on his T-shirt and jacket. “You came in the rape van?”

  Monster frowned at him, walking up to the ladder. “It’s a murder van.”

  Loki cleared his throat and looked at his feet, trying not to let his confusion and anger show. He must have looked lost, because Jack was quick to fill him in.

  “Once, I heard this chick screaming and crying inside, so I, like, burst in there to save her from God-knows-what was going on there, and there he was, pouring wax over her pussy.”

  Loki flinched, but Monster only rolled his eyes and climbed upstairs. “Ladies have their needs.”

  Jack looked up to make sure Monster was gone and gave Loki a quick kiss before climbing up as well.

  “You dick,” whispered Loki, following him. “Should have told me.”

  He didn’t get an answer though. Jack took two guns, his vest, and they were out the door in silence.

  The car really looked like a ‘rape van’. Old, slightly rusty on one side, and without any windows at the back. It was the same car they’d used to deal with Ted, and Loki wondered whether the bloodstains were still there. He sat in the foldable seat in the back and looked toward Jack, who climbed in after him and sat in the seat next to Loki. Now at least they could talk without a witness.

  “Promise me that whatever happens, you’ll stay out of harm’s way,” Jack whispered as Monster started the car.

  Loki grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Nothing’s gonna happen. You’re staying with me,” he uttered, weaker than he intended. The thought of losing Jack, of Jack dying and disappearing in some unmarked grave nauseated him. He shuddered, hit by a new thought that squashed his insides like a monster truck. “It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t come after you...”

  Jack sighed and nudged him with his thumb. “That’s what I get for hanging out with a crazy stalker.” He was making it sound like a joke, but Jack getting murdered wasn’t funny in any way.

  Loki squeezed Jack’s hand tighter, looking at him in the near-darkness, with light touching the edges of his beard and one brilliantly blue eye. He couldn’t breathe. “It’s all my fault. I’m dying anyway, and I still made you love me. I’m such a selfish prick...”

  Jack looked at their shoes, and the hint of smile was gone. “It was your bucket list wish…”

  “But it’s your life. I had no right, even if I thought you were a douchebag. And now I’m gonna leave you, and you’re gonna be alone again, and I still want you to miss me, even if it’s wrong,” whispered Loki, pushing his face against Jack’s shoulder. His eyes were already watering, and it was no use trying to stop them.

  “And I will…” Jack stroked Loki’s hair in the most gentle way. “But at least I would have felt the big L, right?”

  “You’d have been happier without that.” Loki shuddered against Jack, inhaling the familiar, musky scent of his lover’s skin. “I thought you’d kill me that night when I shot you. You should have done that. You should have drowned me in the ocean. I’m practically dead anyway, and now I’m dragging you with me into the grave. You don’t deserve this...”

  “It’s too late now. If I survive, I’ll be a good Nail. I’ll have a heart of stone.” Jack pressed a kiss to Loki’s temple.

  Loki gritted his teeth and hugged him as hard as he could when his heart imploded into a black hole that sucked in all the joy he’d felt that last day. “I love you so much. I really do. I’m sorry, Jack.”

  “I love you too.” It was just a whisper into Loki’s hair, but Loki had never heard words more sincere. He exhaled, melting further into the strong body next to his.

  “I never loved anyone else but you. Remember that.”

  “Even Richard?” Jack tried to tease him, but ended up sounding choked up.

  Loki shook his head. “No one. You’re the only one that was ever worth it.”

  They drove in silence, holding on to each other, and the van stopped all too soon. Jack took a deep breath. “It’s gonna be all right.” But even he didn’t seem to believe it.

  Loki squeezed his hand for the last time and slowly got up, unwilling to have Monster see them together again. The backdoor opened, and they climbed outside. They weren’t inside the walls of the clubhouse but in the parking lot behind the club-owned garage.

  None of them said a thing, and the silence of the usually busy clubhouse was eerie like the setting of a slasher horror. Loki watched shadows dance on the ground as they moved without any artificial light to aid them. Monster opened a backdoor and then led them down a corridor that Loki had never seen before, which was lit by a few naked LEDs. The carpet on the floor stank of cigarettes and grime, but he kept a reasonable distance from Jack, even though it felt like Richard was bait to lead them here. He stifled a gasp when Viper emerged from one of the rooms, but the VP just nodded at Jack and walked off, busy typing something on his phone.

  Jack must have felt the same tension, because he instantly curled his hands into fists. They went on, all the way up a set of cement stairs, and to a room locked with two keys. When Monster let them in, the first thing Loki saw was Richard’s wide-open eyes.

  He adjusted his glasses and got up from the beat-up sofa that Loki vaguely recognized. The trashy pattern was something he’d seen already
. He cleared his throat as Monster closed the door behind them.

  “Oh, God! Loki. I was so worried. You stopped answering the phone, I was so scared for you.” Richard took a quick glance over Loki’s shoulder and hid his trembling fingers.

  Loki scowled. And this was really what the big scare was about? Why he didn’t get to cover bucket list item ten? “What do you want? I told you I’m not interested.”

  “Y—yes, me neither, I mean… Can we talk in private?” Richard eyed Jack again.

  “No,” was all he got from Jack.

  Loki flinched, wondering what Jack thought about Loki dating someone like Richard, someone who didn’t even want Loki back. He shook his head.

  “You heard him.”

  “Maybe take a seat then?” Richard gave Loki a tense smile and a single drop of sweat formed on his forehead.

  Loki frowned, looked at the sofa that Richard was sitting on, and it all came back to him. The pattern on the couch was definitely something he’d seen before. In a picture at Jack’s home. “That’s where you had your birthday foursome.”

  “Um… excuse me?” Richard uttered, playing with his sweaty fingers.

  Jack groaned behind Loki. “Get to the fucking point, Richard. And you,” he poked Loki’s spine, “stop distracting him. Yes, I had it here, fucking hell.”

  Loki shrugged, still nervous about this whole thing. What the fuck did Richard want from him now? “All I’m saying is that he’s sitting on jizz and pussy juice.”

  “There’s jizz and pussy juice everywhere in this clubhouse!” Jack raised his voice, and Loki felt guilty for agitating him, but when Richard finally spoke, the whole world stopped moving.

  “You don’t have cancer,” he blurted out.

  Each heartbeat seemed to pull Loki’s body inside out as he looked into Richard’s eyes. His lips trembled, his hands balled into fists. “What the fuck’s wrong with you? I’m not gonna come back to you, you piece of shit!” growled Loki, blindly charging at Richard. That was just too low.

  Richard screamed and jumped over the backrest, to the other side of the sofa. “No! No! It’s true!”