by Mia Ford
Butch gave me a puzzled look.
“The night you saw her in the hallway.”
That dense look just got more puzzled.
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “In her bathrobe.”
“Oh right. Yeah. That was strange.”
“Strange enough,” I said, “to warrant investigation. I want you to get Archie to check out her apartment. See if he finds anything unusual.”
“Like what?”
“If I knew that,” I snapped, “I wouldn’t want him to check it out. Tell him to look for letters, papers, check her computer, look through her books, check her calendars, ransack her drawers and cupboards. I don’t know. Something has changed her lately.”
“She has new locks, boss. She changes them like every month.”
“Huh. See what I mean?”
Butch nodded, but he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.
“I can handle that. You get up on the fire escape tonight and break that AC unit.” Butch opened his mouth. “Don’t ask me how. Do I look like a fucking HVAC tech? You figure it out, but do it quietly.” I pulled a pad from my desk drawer. “I’ll leave a work order here, and tomorrow you have Carmen go fix it when Hannah complains.”
Butch opened his mouth, but I put up my hand.
“Believe me, she’ll complain. When he comes back down, tell him to give you the keys. You book down to the hardware store and make a set.”
“Carmen won’t like that.”
“Carmen can’t support five kids from El Salvador. You tell him they’re my orders, and he’ll do what he’s told. Call Archie tonight and set things up. Now get out of here. I need to think.”
Butch rose from his chair.
“Have him look everywhere in that fucking room. I mean everywhere. But he needs to put things back the way he found them. I can’t have her knowing we’ve been there. She’s my goddamn sister, and she thinks she has privacy.”
“Sure, boss.”
“And get some ice on that nose. You look like crayons melted all over your face.”
When the door closed behind him, I thought about Danny O’Shea. Once I knew what Hannah might be hiding, and I had her back in control, I’d figure out what O’Shea meant to my life.
An asset or danger?
I hadn’t decided yet, but I could deal with either one.
Both could be good for business.
Chapter Twelve: Danny
Hannah had been sending me glances all day, the kinds of glances that made a man think of things other than work, other than taking an actual breath.
Surrounded by pussy all day long, willing pussy at that, and all I could think about was the dark-haired beauty behind the bar, so near, yet so far. She might as well have been Rapunzel in that tower, dark instead of blonde, a dusky princess waiting to start her life, waiting for her savior.
That man could be me, but I couldn’t reach her unless she opened up that magical pass-through on the bar and let me inside.
I’d gotten used to her watching me surreptitiously. Today, though, those stares were more overt, as though something brewed in that mysterious mind of hers and I had taken a prime spot in her thoughts. I didn’t mind it, but it did spark fantasies and make my cock think something might actually happen. We were both going to be so disappointed if those fantasies turned out to be a bust.
Charity noticed the extra glances. At one point in the afternoon she made a point of snagging my attention and drawing me to one of the tables as she bussed it.
“You need to stop what you’re doing,” Charity said, glancing toward the bar. “Whatever it is.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing going on.”
“Sure,” Charity said, dropping several bottles into the tub. “You keep saying that, Danny, and maybe someone will believe it. Me, I see the looks, and I’m just saying if you want to stay healthy, you’ll leave it alone.”
“You mean Hannah,” I said.
“Yes, I mean Hannah,” she whispered furiously. “Richie decides who Hannah sees. He steers men in her direction, and she chooses.”
“Does Hannah know that?”
“I don’t know what Hannah knows. I just know Richie decides what he wants for his little sister, and he doesn’t want you.”
“Hannah can make her own choices,” I pointed out.
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong, Danny, and if you keep this up, you’re going to find out just how wrong you are.” She put her hand on mine. “Come on, Danny, be smart. We don’t want to lose you around here.”
“You’re not going to lose me.”
“If you don’t stop looking at her like that, we will.” She grabbed her tub and vanished toward the kitchen.
Richie had already warned me away from Hannah, but for some reason, now that Charity had made my survival her mission, that warning took on another proportion. I could have written off her concern to jealousy since I’d chosen Hannah over her, but I thought it was more than. She seemed to like Hannah, and she seemed to like me, and Charity was an okay girl.
Carmen was okay too. He had come in and out of the bar a few times, showing Hannah paperwork, gathering keys. Carmen was a good guy, and obviously Hannah liked him. She spoke to him with kindness, and when she offered him a soft drink, he gratefully sank onto a stool and drank it slowly. Something about the guy seemed down today, though I guess when you’re a handyman trapped working for a guy like Richie, it gave you plenty to be down about. Still, seeing a sober man slumped over the bar with his head hanging like a doomed man’s cast a pall over the place, despite the cranked-up music and catcalls.
Six o’clock rolled around, and Steve sauntered into the place to the dangerous rhythm of “Bad to the Bone,” the chain on his wallet swinging and his Mohawk swaying with each step. That song suited him to a T, and I almost laughed, but something about the comparison made me a bit queasy.
Time for a mental switch. Easy, casual went out the window as I pulled my head away from its fantasies of an Italian princess spread on luxurious sheets, waiting for me to make her wildest dreams come true. I pulled out the tough bouncer, ready to ward off problems.
Hannah spoke to Steve for a few minutes, which was their usual routine. Hannah usually made sure most of the regulars’ tabs were paid when she left, but inevitably there were a few holdovers, most often out-of-towners who’d just arrived and planned to stay for the nighttime vibe. So there was always a bit unfinished business to be discussed between shifts. She grabbed her purse and keys and stood there for a few minutes with her head down, her tits rising and falling as she seemingly trying to gather courage for something. Curious, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She looked ambivalent, a look I’d never seen on Hannah before.
Finally, she raised her face, and her gaze locked right on me. She gestured, a small flick of her hand indicating she wanted me to come to her. Confused, but somehow excited, I snapped one quick look to the stage perimeter to be sure things were cool and then moved toward the bar.
I met her at the pass-through.
She licked her luscious lips as I waited for whatever she needed to say. Maybe one of the girls needed extra attention tonight. That happened sometimes when Hannah got a strange vibe or one of the girls had gotten bizarre messages on Facebook.
She shocked me when she said, “We have an hour. Follow me.”
Holy fuck.
She pushed through the door into the dark hallway, where only one dim overhead lamp spread a small pool of light. I followed. I still had no way of knowing what this meant, but my cock seemed to understand perfectly. It pressed against my zipper with a force I hadn’t felt in months, hard, pulsing.
When we arrived at the stairs, she reached behind and took my hand. The warm slide of her fingers into mine sent an unexpected burst of heat through my body. I hadn’t held a woman’s hand in years, and that small gesture brought memories flashing through my head. Movies. Picnics. Carnivals. Dances. Making out in cars and basements. Foot
ball games. Cheerleaders. My first crush. My first blowjob. My first fuck. My first love. All of it met and merged like lightning strikes between our hands.
Emotions, some I’d thought long gone, erupted. Happiness. Friendship. Hope.
It was innocent. Trusting. Sublime.
I squeezed her hand and followed her like a lamb to the slaughter. Richie and Butch could have been waiting behind that closed door at the top of the stairs to tear my head from my shoulders and I would have still followed just to hold that dainty hand.
She keyed three separate locks, and then we were inside.
No Richie. No Butch. Just a girl whose perfume smelled like a flower garden in spring.
She stared up at me like the world’s most precious gift.
And I was thinking weird thoughts like the world’s biggest sap, but I couldn’t help it. She did something to me.
She closed the door, leaned back, and then grabbed fistfuls of my shirt.
It was the only invitation I needed.
I grabbed her arms, yanked her against me, and slammed my mouth over hers. She lifted onto her toes to press harder. My tongue swept inside her mouth, finding warmth and an unbelievable sweetness. My hands found her ass and lifted, and she wrapped her legs around my waist instinctively. Pressing her tight against the door, I reveled in the sensations of her soft willing flesh smashed against the hardness of my own. My mouth roamed from her lips to her ear and down the column of her throat. Her head fell back, granting me more access, and I nipped and sucked at every exposed inch, cupping her face and holding her still as I pressed kisses against her pulse and her chin.
I needed, though, to feel skin. I pressed her harder in place then yanked her red blouse over her head, revealing a lacy cotton bra that, in any other moment, I might have taken the time to admire. I couldn’t stop. I slipped my hands behind her, undid the clasp, and let the bra drop to the floor, staring as sweet plump tits spilled out. Lifting her higher, I clamped my mouth over one tight nipple and suckled. Her moans made my cock harden further, and precum dampened my pants.
My tongue toyed with the taut nipple, swirling around it and then sucking and drawing it out between my lips. She raked her fingers through my hair, clutching my head and drawing me closer, her legs tightening around my waist as she rubbed her pussy against me, creating friction. The smell of her arousal spiked through the air, musky, sweet, compelling. Her skin was pure fire, and the taste of her tits, her mouth, her flesh made me hard as a fucking hammer. I could have pounded nails, but my cock had other ideas. We were going to pound her.
Chapter Thirteen: Hannah
It was risky. I knew it, he knew it, and still I’d been compelled to do this. If we were never going to be in the same place at the same time again, I needed to know what had happened between us and what, if any, kind of future existed for us. I wanted a future. I wanted out of this place. I wanted Danny O’Shea. I didn’t care where he’d come from, who he really was, or what he was looking for in life. I hoped he’d been looking for me.
I thought he, somehow, saw the real me, the one buried beneath the Hannah who ran the bar, the Hannah who had a bastard for a brother, the Hannah who was been trapped in the South Side with no way out. If he could see the real me, I had to know for sure.
The man did something to me. My pussy clenched, my tits swelled, my clit throbbed any time I caught a glance of him. When he smiled or winked or—God help me—even looked in my direction, my heart soared with a kind of happiness I hadn’t felt in my entire adult life, and very seldom in my childhood.
Now he was here in my arms. His hair felt like silk, his body like a redwood, his cock, which pulsed against my ass, like a steel rod.
I clutched his head between my hands as though he were the only thing holding me to earth, yet in his arms, I felt like a soaring bird, free to fly, free to strive for things I’d long wanted but never had the strength to take. I would take this. I would take him.
His lips caught at my nipple again, sucking, pulling, threatening to steal my willpower and judgment. I gave them willingly. Each touch of his lips sent a fire through my veins, burning, flashing bright all the way to the aching bud between my thighs. His hands clutched my ass, kneading and tugging me against him so hard and close there wasn’t a breath of air between our bodies.
We’d yet to say a word, but our bodies had said so many things over the last week I didn’t think words were even necessary. Pure want. Pure need. Pure pleasure.
Danny pushed a hand between us, and his thumb found my clit. That tiny bit of pressure rocketed through me so fast that my entire body shuddered in his grasp. The sensation snaked up my spine and set my brain on fire. I pressed harder against him, and he began to rub, the friction through my boy shorts and panties sparking an orgasm within moments. I quaked and clutched him tighter, my moans sounding weak and helpless, but I felt anything but weak and helpless. I felt powerful, alive, yearning for more.
I cried out, and his mouth covered mine. Even with the rhythmic thump of the music beneath our feet and through the barrier of the door, somehow, he knew that small sound could trigger an alarm in someone who might overhear. I was grateful for his kiss, for his caution.
As the orgasm abated, I slumped against him, and he took that as a signal. His hand left my ass, and the sweet sigh of a zipper being pulled met my ears. He slid his fingers inside my shorts and panties and pulled the material to the side and then rammed his long, hard cock into my pussy in one stroke. I was so wet it slid inside easily all the way to the hilt. So hard. So strong. So thick and long. I had only one thought. Mine.
The pressure of that pulsing cock nearly made me swoon as it filled me, seeming to swell within me to stroke every inch of my aching flesh. The glide and slide of his hot skin against my even hotter flesh felt like heaven, the smooth velvety shaft rubbing over my G-spot and causing an ache to spiral through my pelvis. I tilted my hips slightly and ground my clit against his body, a signal to move.
He began to pump, his lips locked on my throat, sucking and licking and then pressing open-mouthed kisses on my pulse. His cock pounded into me with the strength of a battering ram, and like a plundered door, I opened and accepted everything he had to give. Danny made soft sounds as his cock mercilessly rammed into my cunt. Juices dripped between my legs, and my orgasm began to build. The combination of his cock rubbing my G-spot and my clit burning against his clothing brought my senses to overload. Heat curled through my body, and sweat began to pool between my tits. Danny lifted me slightly and licked the salty sweat from my skin, drawing soft flesh into his mouth and tonguing it and flicking my nipples again and again until the very touch of his tongue took me to delirious heights.
I ran my hands over his strong shoulders and down his chest, finally snatching his T-shirt and yanking it over his head. I touched his muscles for the first time, hard mounds of flesh that rippled and flexed beneath my fingers. I squeezed and stroked, feeling the smooth, firm skin and dark swirls of hair, longing to touch my mouth to every inch of him. My fingers slid over the tats covering his arms and his massive chest, dark, somewhat primal spirals that seemed to breathe with a life of their own.
My cunt clenched down on his cock, and his breathing hitched. He latched onto my nipple and bit me softly and then rammed into me one last time. His body shuddered, and mine followed, both of us quaking against the door, holding on to one another like lifelines. His cock pulsed within me, and my pussy spasmed, over and over, holding his body tightly within mine as though I could hold him to me forever with my grip.
He pumped a few more times, and small quivers snaked through my pussy, my clit still aching. I rubbed it quickly against him, sending more flutters through my pelvis to shock me into another small orgasm. Then I cupped his face. I lifted it from my tits and kissed him. Softly. Tenderly. Like a lover.
He stared at me for a long moment, those dark eyes glittering with both desire and satiation. His gaze went from my eyes to my lips and came back to my eyes.
<
br /> “We should talk,” he said.
“I guess we should.”
He pulled away gently, the loss of his cock a void I couldn’t fill on my own. He lowered me to the floor and, like a gentleman, righted my shorts and reached for my shirt. I shook my head. I liked the way he stared at me, as though my body held secrets he longed to unlock. If he asked, I’d give him the key.
I’d probably give him anything.
Chapter Fourteen: Danny
I’d known she was beautiful. Every day I’d been lucky enough to stare at the olive skin, the raven hair that spilled over her shoulders in soft waves, the ocean-blue eyes that sparkled when she chatted with her customers and flashed when she argued with Butch. But now I saw more. Those large tits topped with luscious pink nipples, that juicy cunt that had held my cock like a vise, squeezing me until all I could think of was her, and this rocking bod, which glowed with health and vitality, her skin smooth and unblemished. All of it created a beautiful image, that most wondrous of creatures—a perfect woman.
But inside of that perfect woman was a girl I barely knew. A real one, beyond the bartender, beyond the sister, beyond the boss. I’d caught glimpses of her when she glanced at me. I’d heard her when she giggled at something a customer said. I’d watched her as she gave out gestures of kindness like candy to children. This was the Hannah I wanted to see more of. This was the Hannah I thought just might change my life.
I cupped my hand against her cheek, and she cuddled her face into my palm.
“Why today?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Why not today?”
“The Hannah I know doesn’t do spontaneous. I think you planned this, you little minx.”
She blushed a bit, so pretty on her, and then smiled. “I guess you know me too well.”
“Not nearly well enough,” I said, “but we can fix that.”
She sighed, a heavy sigh that filled her chest and then deflated like a balloon. I lifted her face up to mine and kissed her softly on the lips.