by Naomi West
Cherri's lips grew tight and she folded her arms across her chest. “The facts, Liv. I want to hear the facts. Where is Rosetta?”
“Cat's given Rosetta to her second-hand man,” Liv said slowly and carefully. “She living with Castor Pollux.”
There was a long silence in the room which was broken by my long, low whistle. Liv glanced over at me. Cherri was pale. “Castor Pollux is not a nice man,” I said, speaking more to Liv than to Cherri. I assumed Cherri knew enough about the Gemini Riders at this point that she knew exactly what type of a man Castor was. The authorities had been trying to bring him in for years now. No one was really sure how he'd been able to walk away scot-free when Cat was convicted, but we all knew that her imprisonment had only made an already twisted, power-hungry man even more deadly and ruthless.
“I know,” Liv said, though. She shrugged. “The girls told me all about him. Apparently he'll sometimes come down and pick up girls from around there, and they wanted to make sure I was prepared.” She grinned, showing her teeth. “They were very keen on helping out the poor new girl.”
“Hmm,” I said. I shook my head. “If Cat's given Rosetta to Castor, I can't imagine that she's going to give her back to you, whether the packages are successfully delivered or not.”
“We made a deal,” Cherri snapped, sounding agitated. She narrowed her eyes at me. “If Rosetta is in danger, it's your fault. If you had just gone along with the plan like you were supposed to, we would be done with this whole mess already and I wouldn't have to worry about this. Rosetta would be safe, and ... it's just because of you that Cat's punishing me now.”
I started to respond, but before I could, Liv interrupted me. “It has nothing to do with that,” she said. “Rosetta has apparently been with Castor for over a month now. I don't think it was ever Cat's plan to let you have your sister back, or at least, not in pristine condition.” She grimaced.
Cherri began to pace agitatedly, cussing under her breath. Finally, she spun around to face me. “I need your help to get Rosetta back.” She tossed a glance at Liv. “In return, I'll deliver the packages on my own.”
“You already agreed to that anyway,” Liv protested.
Cherri fixed her with a sneer but didn't deign to respond to that.
“All right,” I said, holding up both my hands. “All right. But we're going to have to figure out a solid plan.” We were all silent for a moment, considering that.
“We'll sleep on it,” Cherri said finally. “I have to go to work this evening anyway. I'll see what I can figure out, and then we'll go from there.”
“Take the packages with you,” I told her. “You don't need to deliver them all today, but I don't want them in here anymore. It's risky enough having Cat's men trailing me and doing their best to scare Liv.”
Cherri scowled at me and shook her head. “You'll hang on to the packages until we've freed my sister,” she said. “Otherwise, there's nothing keeping you involved in this, and no way for me to know that you won't be halfway home by morning.”
I frowned at her but had to admit that she had a point. As long as I had the packages still, I couldn't go anywhere. I watched as she walked out the door, slamming it shut behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rip
As soon as Cherri was out the door, Liv sighed and started unpinning her hairdo. “I'm exhausted,” she confessed. “Can we order room service?”
“Sure,” I said, not in any mood to go out for the evening knowing that Cat's men were probably still waiting outside for me. “What do you want?”
“Anything,” Liv said. “I want to take a shower first, though. Is that okay?”
I waved her towards the bathroom. “Go for it.”
A little while later, she came out of the bathroom looking soft and relaxed, with a towel wrapped around her. “Rip, can I borrow a teeshirt?” she asked. “I'm so sick of wearing the same clothes all day every day and then sleeping in them as well.”
I frowned over at her and patted the couch next to me. “I see no reason why you should need to put anything on,” I told her mischievously.
She giggled a little and came over to the couch, straddling my lap and pressing in close to me. “Well, it is a bit chilly in here, but maybe you can think of some other way to warm me up other than with clothing.”
I snorted and leaned in to kiss her. “I still want that blowjob,” I told her seriously.
She bit her lower lip demurely and then slid off my lap, kneeling in between my knees. Slowly, she undid the button on my jeans, and I shifted a little so that she could pull them down. My cock sprang free of my boxers, already thick and throbbing, very interested in her naked form.
She smiled and leaned in, taking just the tip of my member into her mouth, licking experimentally at it.
I groaned, unable to help myself. We had had sex a few times already, but it had always been a bit rushed and impatient. Feeling the slow way she played with my length was going to be my undoing.
She swallowed down more of my length, bringing up her other hand to cover the parts of me that her mouth couldn't reach, slowly stroking me in tandem with the movements of her soft lips. And just looking down at her, at the absolutely pornographic way she hollowed out her cheeks and worked to keep the pressure against me… There was no way I was going to last.
She smiled up at me, her eyes gone dark with lust to match mine. I realized suddenly that she was touching herself while she sucked at me, her hand slipping down between her legs and playing with her folds. And that was hot enough in itself.
“Look at you, you little slut,” I told her, wondering how she would take that. She whimpered a little, though, the feeling reverberating around my dick as she continued to swallow it down, and I took that as an invitation to continue verbally shaming her.
“You like this, don't you?” I asked. “Like being down on your knees like that, with my dick filling your needy little hole.”
Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment and she shifted around a little as though she was already close to coming. Suddenly, she pulled off me with a little pop as she broke the suction. “I need...” She trailed off, looking embarrassed, as though she wasn't sure she could ask for what she needed. “Please,” she mewled.
“Get up here,” I said roughly, catching her biceps and tugging her up and into my lap. I wasted only a moment before lining up my prick and guiding her down on to it. She moaned, her head thrown back. “Is that what you need?” I asked her. “You need my cock inside of you? Filling you up...”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Yes, I need—” She broke off with a little punched out noise as I snapped my hips up, using the edge of the coffee table to prop my feet up and leverage against.
“Is that what you need?” I asked again. “You dirty little slut, can't get through a day without riding my cock, can you?”
“Need it so bad,” she whimpered, finding purchase of her own against the back of the couch and meeting my thrusts with her own movements. She gasped as she changed the angle slightly. “Right there,” she told me. “Oh fuck, Rip. Right there, right there, right there...”
I slammed into her, still amazed by how wet she was, how desperate she was. It was so easy to meet her needs to make her climax, and I appreciated that in a woman.
As though that thought summoned it, she suddenly cried out, her fingers scrabbling against my arms. “Oh Rip!” she sobbed, her hips stuttering in an irregular rhythm. “Oh god.” She collapsed against me, burying her face against my neck.
I slowed down for a moment, not wanting to overwhelm her too much. When she moved back, though, blinking up at me, I resumed my earlier movements. I could feel my own orgasm rapidly approaching, egged on by the way she was still making these whimpery little noises, seemingly overcome with pleasure.
I leaned down to nip at her neck and she practically keened, falling even more sloppily against my chest. “Oh god,” she murmured again, her eyes slipping shut. And she was so beauti
ful like that, such the perfect complement to me.
I spilled inside her, my dick pulsing with wave after wave of pleasure. We sat there for a long moment, both of us trying to catch our breath.
“So, can I borrow a tee shirt?” Liv finally asked, pulling back so that she could grin up at me.
I snorted and slapped her ass a little. “Minx,” I told her, not for the first time. I nodded towards my bag. “Go ahead. I'm going to get in the shower.”
When I got out of the shower, Liv was curled up on the couch, some sort of chick flick on TV. I sat down on the other end of the couch and she moved over, curling into me.
“Is this okay?” she asked as she burrowed against my chest. I could tell from the hesitant tone to her voice that she half expected me to push her away, but I found I had no desire to do that. Instead, I looped my arms around her, holding her in close and reveling in her warmth. It was kind of nice, being curled up on the couch with someone. After the stress of the past week during this mission, it felt almost normal, and I appreciated that.
So I kissed the top of her head and gently stroked my hands down her back and sides. “This is perfect,” I told her honestly. “You're absolutely fine.”
At some point soon, this mission would be over and I would never see her again. I didn't want to get to close to her, knowing that, but all the same, we both deserved this moment. I relaxed a little into the couch and felt her do the same.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rip
Liv put her hands on her hips. “I'm telling you, this is the best way to do it,” she said, her eyes blazing. “The girls all told me that Castor sometimes goes through and picks up a new fling for the night, and he usually does that on Wednesdays, when he has nothing better to do with himself. It doesn't hurt to go down there and—”
“What are you going to do if he picks you up?” I snapped, putting my hands on my hips as well. “It's one thing for you to be standing on street corners and chatting with prostitutes; I can still watch you while you're doing that. But if you go along with Castor — even if you stay in his car and don't go into his house — you're basically a sitting duck. I can't keep track of you guys. And I can't help you out if you need, short of calling the police, but that's going to be bad for you as well as for Castor. There has to be some other way.”
“I think she's got a good idea,” Cherri piped in. “It's not something that he'd suspect, her just walking right into his lair.”
“Anyway, what other sorts of weaknesses does he have?” Liv argued. “You say that he's this horrible, bloodthirsty killer, right? But he's just a man. I'm sure he has a weakness for a pretty girl, and–“
“It's too risky,” I said again, my voice a mere growl this time. “I'm not going to let you—”
“You're not the boss of me,” Liv said, tossing her head a little. “Rip, we may be doing ... whatever it is that we're doing. But you can't control me. You don't get to decide what I can or cannot do. I'm telling you, this is the only way for us to get to Rosetta. Unless one of you comes up with some other bright idea, this is the plan we're going to go with.”
I scowled at her, but it was clear from her expression that she wasn't going to back down. And as much as I didn't like the plan, I didn't have a better idea. Finally, I threw my hands in the air. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”
Just because I cared about her, it didn't mean that I could…
It was Cherri who came up with the alternative plan. “What if you didn't meet him at his car?” she said, frowning thoughtfully. She glanced back and forth between the two of us, and I wondered if she was actually going to help me out. “Think about it, Rip. You're a member of the Gemini Riders. You could easily march into their headquarters, with some sort of a cover story in case you get caught in there. And Liv could go with you as your bimbo of the week, your arm candy. No one would question it.”
“But how are we going to get to Rosetta, if she's at Castor's house and we're at the Gemini Riders' headquarters?” Liv asked, rolling her eyes a little. “That totally defeats the entire plan.”
“I doubt Rosetta stays at his home when he isn't there,” Cherri said, looking as though the gears were turning in her head. She shrugged a little. “He wouldn't be able to trust her there. And anyway, he would want to show off his pet. My sister is pretty.”
“That's actually a good point,” I said, thinking it over. “I would feel better about things if we were in the headquarters, even if things started to go wrong, I could pull some strings with people I know out here, make sure that we have some sort of backup protection in case anything went wrong.”
“We'd still dress you up just the same,” Cherri said. “You could still use your sex appeal to distract Castor while Rip finds Rosetta and frees her.”
“What about the packages?” I asked Cherri, frowning a little. “Castor won't be happy, and when Castor is unhappy, he goes straight to Cat. Once Cat finds out that Rosetta's been freed, she'll suspect that you had something to do with it. It won't be safe for you to—”
“I'll deliver one of the packages before we do all of this,” Cherri said, shrugging a little. “As a sign of good faith to both you and Cat. I've already been thinking about how to do it. There's a little spot at the back of the prison yard that borders on some woods. I think I can bring the packages there and get them through this weak section of the fence. Then I could tell Cat where they were and she could go get them. That way, none of us need to worry about carrying the packages into the prison.”
“That's a good idea,” I said, nodding at her. To be honest, it didn't really sound any safer than the original plan for smuggling the packages into prison, especially because I wasn't sure how Cat was supposed to get the packages from the back fence to her bunk without being caught with contraband. But as long as that was all out of my hands, I didn't really care what she was planning. I was just ready to be done with this whole thing.
“Deliver one of the packages today, then,” Liv told Cherri. “You'll want to get your sister out as soon as possible, I know, and I'm ready to go back home and be done with this mission. I want it over.”
Cherri nodded. “So do I, if I'm being honest. And Rip, I'm sure you feel the same.”
I nodded. “I should do some research, before we storm the national headquarters, though,” I said grimly. “We need to know what sort of a place we're working with. At the very least, we need to figure out someplace to have as our meeting place. I'll head over there today and poke around a little. Maybe meet up with a friend there, if I can arrange for that, just so I can make sure things go as smoothly as possible when we go over there for real.”
“That's a good idea,” Cherri said approvingly. She frowned, though. “And what are you going to do with Liv?” she asked. “You can't be planning on just leaving her here on her own.”
I looked over at Liv, considering her for a moment. I didn't think that she was going to run, not since that day when she had called up Hollande. I think she was starting to realize that she was a part of this, whether she wanted to be or not. She certainly had been pulling her weight lately.
“You're not going anywhere, are you?” I asked her. Liv shook her head, biting a little at her lower lip.
Cherri raised an eyebrow. “Do you really believe her?” she asked, a sneer in her tone. “She could turn us all over to the authorities, and you're just going to take her word that she'll still be here when you get back?”
“Yeah, I am,” I said simply, shrugging a little. I fixed her with a challenging look. Cherri was the one to look away first.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rip
Liv was watching from the bed as I got dressed. “You're really going through with this,” she said, leaning back a little.
I couldn't help rolling my eyes at her. “Yeah, I'm really going to do this,” I said gruffly. “What else would I do? Anyway, this isn't the difficult part. That'll come when we're both in there together, trying to get Rosetta out.”
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She sighed, though, lying back on the bed and putting an arm over her face. “I don't know, I just can't shake the feeling that your going in there today is going to get back to Cat and she's going to suspect something.”
“What would she suspect?” I asked. “She's not going to think that we've suddenly teamed up with Cherri. And she's going to get the first of the packages delivered today, so that's going to be more than enough to occupy her thoughts.”
“I know,” Liv sighed. She sounded quiet and sad, though, and something about it tugged at my heartstrings.
I went over to the bed and sat down next to her, lightly placing a hand on her leg. “Hey, look at me,” I said, jostling her a little.
She removed the arm over her eyes and looked up at me. “I just am worried about you,” she said quietly. “If something happens to you...”