Michelle grinned, a little thrill of excitement sparkling in her chest. “Robin Hoods and Marians.”
She had work to do, and oh, that was scary, but it was wonderful, too.
Knoxville
Fifty-Eight
“This whole line of storefronts is empty right now,” Ghost said, gesturing with the end of his cigarette toward Bell Bar – the favorite public watering hole of the Knoxville Dogs for years now, Albie knew – which was boarded over with plywood, along with the three next shops along the sidewalk to its right. The club had just bought Bell Bar – it would be club-owned, now, and Ghost had been looking smug about it the last couple weeks; construction had just started on the remodel – and the struggling, neighboring businesses. “The old café is gonna be Mags’ – but don’t tell her yet, it’s gonna be a surprise.” He smiled to himself, proud as punch. “But the one next to it I don’t have slotted for anything yet. It’s yours if you want it.”
Albie turned to him, startled. “Mine? Why?”
Ghost glanced toward him, brows lifted as he took another drag off his cigarette. “You still need a place to make furniture, right?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Truth told, he hadn’t so much as opened his sketchbook since arriving back in town. Between spending time with Axelle, and settling back in with the Tennessee chapter’s day-to-day business – gun shipments to coordinate, and runs to execute – he hadn’t thought much about table legs and chair upholstery.
He felt a twinge of guilt, now. He’d shipped over his remaining stock from London when he first moved, including a dozen or so half-finished projects. They were all in a storage unit in the Dartmoor property’s self-store business now, waiting for him. Neglected.
He’d zoned out a bit, he realized, and snapped back to the present moment to be greeted by Ghost’s lone raised brow of question; it was an expression that always managed to look mocking, even when Albie didn’t think the man was trying to be so.
“You interested?”
It would be good to get back to work. To open a Maude’s here in the States. A place where he could channel all his restless, irrational genetic predisposition to violence and knavery into something productive, creative, and beautiful. (He should also stop being such a lovelorn fool who turned up on his girlfriend’s doorstep every evening. It could start to look pathetic.)
“Yeah. Very much so.” He even felt the quick skip of something like real excitement in his chest. “How much is rent?”
Ghost shrugged and glanced away again. “Reasonable. We’ll work it out.” He studied the line of closed shops, the evidence of the club taking an active role right in the heart of the city, on a main thoroughfare, where all the civilian public could see it. His smile was small, private, infinitely pleased. “We’re moving up in the world.”
“Yeah,” Albie agreed. But he’d learned a long time ago that with great standing came great challenges. Luis hadn’t been the first, and wouldn’t be the last. And was still out there, somewhere…
He suppressed a shudder, and walked to his bike, leaving Ghost to his dreams of grandeur.
~*~
“Here, I packed some up for you to take home.” Kristin turned away from her new kitchen counter and held out a small, square glass container with a red rubber lid. “Or, well, back to the clubhouse. Which is your home, I guess. So.”
It was obvious she wanted him to take the offering, so he did, the heat of the pasta they’d just eaten for dinner leaching through the glass and into his hands. This was something that made her smile, he learned, feeding him, and even if smiling was still a strange and new practice for him, he liked when his sister did it. Knew it meant that she was happy, and Kris deserved to be happy more than anyone.
There’d been a faint line of tension between her brows when she first turned, but now that he held the leftovers it had vanished, and her smile had widened, become truer. “Just preheat the oven to three-fifty, take the top off, and let it bake for about twenty minutes. You could microwave it, but the noodles will get soggy.”
“Okay.” He had no idea how to preheat an oven, but figured someone at the clubhouse did. He could ask Chanel, and then Boomer could glare at him some more. “Thank you,” he remembered to say, belatedly, and she beamed.
He headed for the door, and she followed. “Where’s Roman?” he asked.
Kristin paused in the act of opening the front door. He didn’t use to ask questions; Reese supposed it was an adjustment for both of them.
“He’ll be by later.” Her voice didn’t manage to be unbothered.
“After I’m gone.”
“Well…”
“He’s afraid of me.” Reese felt a pulse of satisfaction. Of all the new emotions and sensations in his life, satisfaction was the one whose exact parameters he found most slippery.
“No!” Kris said, face flushing. “No. He’s not afraid. He’s just…”
Best not to say what he was, probably. Reese didn’t disapprove of him – Roman had been the one to get them out of Colorado, after all, the one to finally convince Kris to take the risk of running from Badger – but he thought his sister could do better. Would be safer and better cared-for with someone a little less…Roman. With someone like Mercy, but Mercy was married, and so Reese supposed they all had to settle for third-best.
Kris sighed. “Goodnight, Reese. Thank you for coming.”
She was always thanking him for coming; for letting her feed him.
He nodded, and left. Stowed his leftovers carefully in one of his bike’s saddlebags and pulled out of the apartment complex.
He passed Roman on the road, and received a little wave that he didn’t return. The slight gave him another bit of satisfaction, no less slippery.
It was a strange thing, to be out on the road after dark, and for the reason to have been innocent. Dinner at his sister’s house: a normal thing for so many – for all the people he passed on the sidewalks, and in their cars trundling through the heart of the city, behind the big, well-lit windows of restaurants. People went shopping, and they had dinner, and they went to movies, and they moved about in these benign, unimportant, but to them, deeply fulfilling circles of which he’d never been a part. Before the Lean Dogs, if he’d been out after dark on his bike, he was on his way to or from an op; covered in fresh grease paint, or cooling blood, most times, with hands that smelled of cordite.
The clubhouse gate at Dartmoor was open, lights burning in the windows. He parked his bike, and carried his glass square of now-cold pasta inside, stowed it in the fridge alongside packages of meat and a number of similar glass containers. Should he label his? So no one else ate it? He decided he didn’t really care – it didn’t matter what he put in his body so long as it gave him the necessary fuel – and it was more the act of Kris providing for him than the food itself that was important.
The lights were still on in the common room, but he didn’t find the crowd he’d expected. Usually Boomer and Deacon were playing pool, or watching something loud and incomprehensible on TV. They’d been watching lots of boxing matches lately, and Reese found them boring because both parties usually survived the ordeal.
It wasn’t late, and he could have picked up the remote and flicked through the channels until he found something worth watching; nature documentaries were his favorite. He liked gathering knowledge. But someone might come out to see what the noise was about, and then they’d want to talk, and, honestly, he’d used up his allotment of language on his sister tonight. The idea of small talk left his skin itching. So he headed for his dorm with a mind toward reading one of the books Mercy had lent him. He found The Iliad particularly fascinating. Achilles was…
Reese halted half-across the threshold of his dorm room. His private dorm room, that he didn’t have to share with anyone. He felt a bit like he’d walked straight into a wall, caught totally off guard. His mind went blank, all thoughts of Kris, and normal routines, and reading abandoning him.
His private room was not empty.
Tenny stood slouched back against the dresser.
And a woman he’d never met before sat on the end of his bed, legs crossed, playing idly with a curling strand of her golden hair.
This is my room, he thought, a faint protest he was too shocked to voice.
Tenny chuckled. “Told you,” he said to the woman, and then she chuckled, too, a low, throaty sound that sent goosebumps shivering down the middle of Reese’s back.
He gave himself a mental shake and conducted a fast threat assessment. Tenny – while hated and, as Aidan would say, a douchebag – couldn’t really be considered a threat, not at this point. The woman – he did a basic visual scan, head to toe – wore a dress too tight to conceal any weapons. Her shoes were open-toed, high-heeled things, so no knives stuck down there. She could have slipped something small into her cleavage – which was, he noted, very deep and exaggerated. And there was something of malice in her smile as her red-painted lips parted.
His hand settled on the gun he wore at his hip, hidden beneath his jacket.
“Oh, bollocks,” Tenny swore, and shoved off the dresser, came to stand in front of him. “No, no, no, stand down, soldier.” Standing like this, he blocked the woman from view – had presented his back to her, so either he was being stupid and reckless again, like in Texas, or she truly wasn’t a threat.
To be honest, Reese had no idea why he’d even thought that, only that his skin was too tight, and dread was tickling at the back of his mind, and he could tell something was going to happen – something bad.
“Reese,” Tenny said, and his voice had changed. Less crisp, less commanding – more like a real person voice. Without all the usual mockery. He wasn’t even sneering, his expression strangely soft and open. “Shut the door, and I’ll explain.”
Reese hesitated long enough that Tenny sighed and stepped around him to shut it himself. The woman on the bed had leaned back, weight supported on one arm, one high-heeled foot idly swinging back and forth. She watched them like a predator.
Tenny returned, and put both hands on Reese’s shoulders, tipped his chin down – he was only a fraction taller – and locked gazes with him. He no longer wore bandages at his throat, and his wound had healed up, no longer a stroke risk, but the scar was an ugly, puckered, discolored thing. Fox had suggested he get a tattoo to cover it, but Tenny had fingered it almost fondly and said no.
“Okay,” he said now, “I want – just for a little while – for you to stop thinking like an operative. Okay? This isn’t a mission. This is a human thing.” He stepped to the side, but kept one hand on his shoulder, the touch oddly grounding. “This is Stephanie.”
The woman lifted a hand and waved at him with a rippling waggle of her fingertips. Winked.
“She’s gonna teach you how to do something fun for a change.”
Reese turned his head and sought Tenny’s gaze. “Fun?”
The grin he got in returned intensified the tight itchiness of his skin. “Sex, dummy. She’s gonna deflower you.”
“I…” His mind went very blank again.
The woman – Stephanie – sat upright and then stood with a grace he found surprising, given the height of her heels. She walked toward them, exaggerated steps that set her hips rolling and pulled her already tight dress even tighter over her breasts. Probably there was nothing between them. Probably nothing at all except a shadow, a deep shadow–
Warm breath across his face. He snatched his gaze up, and she was standing right in front of him, smiling in that predatory way, chuckling again. She lifted a hand – red painted nails, reaching toward him, a threat, Tenny’s fingers closing brutally tight on his shoulder in a warning, a restraint – and skimmed the edge of one nail along his jaw. He clenched his teeth together in response, and she must have felt it, because her smile widened an impossible fraction as she trailed that feather-light touch all the way down to his chin, and then slid it up so she had one fingertip pressed to the center of his lower lip.
“Look at those blue eyes,” she murmured. “You’re cute as hell, honey.” She cast a fleeting glance toward Tenny. “You sure he’s a virgin?”
“Of course. Look at him shaking.”
He was shaking, though he didn’t mean to be. He flashed hot and then cold; his lungs ached, like when he had to hold his breath. And in his belly – oh, in his belly was that low gathering pit of heat and pressure, like when he woke hard in the mornings, and touched himself just to get rid of that difficult state. It always felt good – put little sparks behind his eyes – but it was more relief than any sort of fun. He couldn’t walk or work or function if he was hard, so he alleviated the situation in the quickest, most efficient way and went about his business.
He could feel the blood rushing to his cock now. Up close, Stephanie smelled of flowers, and warm skin, and her lips were very full and red, and his cock was plumping, pressing at the confines of his jeans, and Tenny wanted him to have sex with this woman, and he’d never, had no idea…
Tenny’s hand closed on the back of his neck and squeezed, bracing rather than punishing.
“It’s alright, honey,” Stephanie said. “I’ll take real good care of you.” She pulled her hand away, leaned in, and pressed her lips to his.
Kissed him. That’s what this was: kissing.
With his eyes open, her face was blurry this close up, but he could see the dark fans of her lashes against her cheeks, knew that she had closed her own eyes. Her lips were soft, and slick, and plump against his – which were wind-chapped and closed tight.
Tenny squeezed his neck again. Something went and hot settled at the bow of his top lip – her tongue, he realized – and pressed for entry. His mouth opened, and her tongue slipped inside, a slow, sinuous flicker against his teeth.
Breath and lips at his ear. Tenny: “Relax.” Voice still low and soothing. “Unclench your jaw and open your mouth.”
It was easier to follow orders than to think, so he complied, and then Stephanie’s tongue was sliding against his own, and she tasted strongly of mint, and she was making a little humming sound, her lips vibrating against his, and–
He couldn’t breathe.
Stephanie pulled back, chuckling again. Pressed her hand flat to his stomach, scratching at him lightly with her nails through his shirt. “You nervous, baby?”
He couldn’t have described nervous at the moment. Couldn’t even speak. Every drop of blood was rushing south and he didn’t even understand why. He’d liked her tongue in his mouth, though. That had been…good.
“We’ll have to work on making him a better kisser,” Tenny said. “You wanna give him a little taste of something else?”
Stephanie grinned and tossed her hair – so gold, and gleaming, and coconut-scented – over her shoulder and said, “Sure.” Then she went down to her knees on the carpet.
Reese twitched forward, not sure if he was meant to pull her up, or push her away, or simply flee, but Tenny’s hand was still on his neck, pinching again, holding him in place. Stephanie pushed up his shirt and scratched at the bare skin of his stomach, the trail of pair hair below his navel, and Tenny gripped his chin with his other hand and turned his head so they faced one another.
He was very close, their noses almost touching.
Stephanie unfastened his belt, and then his jeans. The rasp of the zipper going down seemed terribly loud in the muffled quiet of the dorm room. It helped, having his pants open, eased some of the pressure on his swollen cock – but it tightened his belly with nerves, too. No one ever looked at him there, not like this, not on their knees, not smiling and wearing lipstick, and–
“Breathe,” Tenny said, and kissed him.
It felt both similar and different than Stephanie’s kiss. Tenny’s lips weren’t as full, nor so smooth, but his mouth and tongue were hot, and wet, and he pushed in faster, more forcefully, until Reese could only suck in a breath through his nostrils and open for him, push back with his own tongue out of instinct.
A hand that
was not his own reached inside his boxers and drew out his cock, aching now, already dripping, and gripped it, gave it a few slow strokes from root to tip.
And Ten kept kissing him. It was rough; it was a battle, at first, and Reese could feel his hands closing into fists. He was shaking. The hand on his cock felt – felt wonderful. And the tangling of tongues was–
Tenny slanted his head, and curled the tip of his tongue behind Reese’s top teeth, then pulled back, plucked at his lower lip with both of his own, and he understood, then. It wasn’t a fight – not a true duel. It was like sparring. Give and take. And Tenny was pushing and retreating – was teaching him, showing him the way.
Reese softened his mouth, gave ground, and Tenny pulled back with a breathed-out little laugh. “Good.” Leaned in again, and this time it was his mouth opening, his invitation, sucking on Reese’s tongue.
Stephanie kept stroking him, and then he felt the press of wet heat on the underside of his shaft.
He pulled back from Tenny with an involuntary gasp. Tenny’s mouth was wet, now, shiny, and pink.
“Watch,” he urged, and Reese – head strangely heavy – glanced down to where Stephanie knelt.
She held his cock steady in one hand, and as he stared, dumbfounded, she pressed a kiss to the leaking head. Then parted her lips and took the whole head into her mouth.
He’d seen women do this to men before. In Colorado; even here, when one of the Lean Bitches had hustled Deacon into a corner at a party. He’d seen the way Deacon had winced, and bit his lip like he was in pain; he hadn’t imagined that it would feel like this. That the sensation would be heightened by watching her take more and more of him until the curls of pale hair at his base were tickling her nose.
Tenny shifted so he stood behind him. Wrapped a stabilizing arm around him, across his chest, and rested his chin on Reese’s shoulder. “Ease off or he’ll come,” he said, and Reese realized he was talking to Stephanie when she pulled back, letting his spit-shiny cock slip out of her mouth. She circled the base with her hand and squeezed.
Lone Star (Dartmoor Book 7) Page 52