Glacier

by Violet Blaze

  “I don't want to lie or hide anything from you, but I won't let you see what's down there.”

  “You're trying to protect me?” Serenity asks with a raised brow. I don't answer, but eventually she gives in with a sigh and leans into me. My arms seem to go around her automatically, holding her tight, pulling her close. Her nearness gives me a jolt of strength, a shot of humanity into the coolness of my soul. When she steps back, I have to grit my teeth a little. “Is it okay if I poke around upstairs?”

  “What's mine is yours,” I say, and I mean that completely. “But be careful. The floor isn't in the best of condition, and there are power tools all over the place.” My mouth quirks again—an almost smile. “Also, there are weapons in some of the closets. A lot of weapons. All of them are loaded.”

  I step back from Serenity, feeling the distance yawn and gape between us, and then I turn around, head into the kitchen, to the pantry, the trap door.

  Downstairs, Francisco Javier is waiting for me.

  However many hours later—I don't keep time when I'm downstairs—I head back up, pounding my way to the second floor and pausing, panting, covered in blood, staring down at Serenity's sleeping form on the air mattress. She's curled on her side, unbearably beautiful with her boots set aside, her bare feet pale in the moonlight.

  I squeeze my hands around the doorframe, closing my eyes against the violent surge of feeling inside of me. All of these new emotions are blessings and curses both.

  “Fuck.”

  I let go of the door and head into the room, past Serenity's sleeping form and into the one nice bathroom in the house. It's fully remodeled, fully functional. I need it to shower off all of the blood. The hot water comes quick, fueled by the new water heater I installed, and I step inside, leaning my forehead against the wall.

  Serenity's sleeping in the room that used to be my mother's, in basically the same place that my mother took her last breath. I'm not sure how to feel about that, or if I feel anything at all.

  But no, my hands are curled into fists and my jaw is clenched tight; my breath rushes in and out of my lungs as I scrub down as fast as I can, eliminating any evidence that something awful took place down in that basement.

  Francisco Javier, he's dead.

  I get out and wrap a towel around my neck, fishing my phone from the pocket of my discarded jeans, and call up Royal McBride.

  “You are in such deep fucking shite,” he says, but I'm not in the mood to play games right now.

  “Francisco's dead,” I tell him, turning and leaning my naked ass against the counter. I can't bear to look at my reflection right now.

  “And?” he asks, his voice tight, stressed, not as I imagine a newlywed should sound. I think I'm fucking up his honeymoon period.

  “I got it,” I say, this small sickening feeling of triumph burning deep down. I used to live for that, that barely there flicker of emotion. Just one look from Serenity unleashes a torrent ten times the size of this. Right now, what I'm feeling, it's a pittance. “I've got information for our FBI buddy.”

  “And the other guy?” Royal asks, and I can hear the squeaking of a mattress as he sits up.

  “The man's name is Tiago Razo,” I say, gathering my bloody clothes up and shoving them in a black plastic garbage bag. I'll burn it all later, but for now, I just tie it up and kick it in the corner. I have fresh clothes here, and I always remove my cut before I get started downstairs. “Francisco insisted quite adamantly that he'd still be in town although he had no idea where the man might be staying. He suggested we check the nicer bed and breakfasts around Trinidad. Apparently, he has a liking for the finer things in life.” My voice is almost a cold hiss when I say that; Royal's unfazed.

  “Why would the asshole hang out around here when he knows we're gunning for him?”

  “The punishment he'd receive from the Villarreal Cartel for a job left unfinished pales in comparison to anything he thinks we might do. Of course, Mr. Razo hasn't met me yet.”

  “Goddamn it, Saint.” There's another long pause here. I'm glad awkward isn't an emotion that I subscribe to. “Where's Serenity?”

  “Asleep on my air mattress,” I say and listen as Royal puts together a delightfully colorful string of curses.

  “You took Serenity to that godforsaken house?”

  “You worry about your old lady, and I'll worry about mine,” I say. Royal sighs dramatically.

  “You realize that tomorrow, this shit is going to hit the fan. We had to stop Jack from going after you, storming your place and putting a knife in you.”

  “He wouldn't have made it that far,” I say, but Royal just curses some more.

  “Fucking Christ, Saint. This is … what a goddamn mess. Go to sleep, get some rest. You'll need it for tomorrow.”

  I pause as I hear the slight rustle of the mattress.

  “I have to go,” I say and hang up before my president can get in another word.

  When I walk into the room and see Serenity, it all comes tumbling down, and I toss my towel aside, kneeling down on the edge of the mattress as she stirs.

  “Saint?”

  “I need you again,” I tell her, hating that my voice sounds so icy when I say that. Inside, I'm burning up.

  Serenity stirs and turns onto her back, noticing that I'm naked and covered in drops of scalding water. She seems to like that, reaching down to unbutton her jeans. I hook my fingers around the waistband of the denim, peeling the tight clingy fabric down her legs, tossing them aside and loving the fact that she's still wearing my jacket.

  I pause for a moment and then cover her with my body, obliterating her lips with a rough kiss. Too rough, maybe, because I taste the slightest metallic hint of blood on the back of my tongue. I don't stop, my tongue slicking against hers, sliding out to trace her mouth, tease the side of her face.

  My fingers, the ones that just committed the cruelest, most heinous of acts, slide up Serenity's inner thigh and push aside her panties, dipping into the wild warmth between her legs. I use two at first, curling them and gripping her from the inside, holding her tight as her own hand finds the aching stiffness of my shaft. Serenity grabs on with a fierce tangle of fingers, encouraging me to work my hips into her hand.

  I add another finger, opening up her swollen pink folds, using the heel of my hand to rub against her clit. Wetness soaks the fabric of her panties, moisture wicking into the soft black cotton. I want them off, but I refuse to remove my hand from her warmth.

  “Let me get these out of our way,” I whisper against her ear, reaching under the air mattress with my right hand and coming up with a knife. I keep it there for obvious reasons, but Serenity doesn't look at all afraid, lids flickering closed as I slide the blade up through the leg hole of the panties, twist it so the sharp edge is pressed against the fabric, and then pull. The thin strap snaps under the pressure and I toss the knife aside, shoving the underwear down her other hip and leaving it dangling on the creamy white expanse of her thigh.

  My hand drives harder into her cunt, rewarding me with these ragged gasps that spill from her throat, her body bearing down hard around me, muscles grabbing and holding tight. My right hand grabs Serenity's breast roughly through the fabric of her lavender tank, making her cry out in either ecstasy or pain, I'm not sure.

  Her grasp on my shaft loosens, weakens, falls away. She can't keep up as I bite her neck hard enough to leave marks, her hot juices flowing over my tattooed knuckles as I pump my fingers into her body and bring her into a violent orgasm. Her body bucks beneath me, trying to throw me off, but I don't move, holding her there as she spasms around me, muscles flickering like a butterfly's wings.

  “If that'd been my cock,” I whisper cruelly, licking up and around the curve of her ear. “Then I would've come so hard inside of you.”

  “Stop it, Saint,” Serenity says, but she sounds too breathless and giddy to actually be upset. Her blue eyes look up at me, tainted with silver moonlight, as blue as the sea on a spring day but infinite
ly more tranquil, like there's some bottomless well of patience inside of her, like she knew exactly the type of arsenal she'd need to deal with me and my bullshit.

  I slide my fingers from the heat of her body and lift them to my face, examining the shine of wetness across my knuckles, my tattoos shimmering beneath the slickness. The scent is sweet, almost intoxicating, enough to drive a lesser man to his knees. I run my hand down the lower half of my face, stick my fingers between my lips and taste the fresh brightness of her body.

  “You taste …” I say and then pause, looking down at her flushed cheeks and forehead, tiny droplets of sweat rolling across her skin. “You taste like something I really shouldn't be eating,” I finish and she reaches up, curling her nails into the skin of my arms. “Too fresh, too light, too pure.”

  I sit up and she follows after me, watching my face for something. Just like the other day in the bathroom, she knows; she can see it.

  “It'll get easier,” she tells me confidently, “the emotions. Just give them time; we'll learn to deal with them together.”

  She slides off the edge of the air mattress and onto the floor, encouraging me to turn toward her. I can feel my muscles quivering, shaking, desperate to take this to another level. But I let her keep the leash and see what she can do with it.

  Serenity pulls her shirt over her head, reaches back and unclasps her bra, running her tongue across the swollen wetness of her lower lip. Her blue eyes look up at mine.

  “This is … I'm not sure exactly if I know what I'm doing …” She trails off and scoots closer to me, reaching between her legs and making a face as she inserts a few fingers, moves them in and out for a minute, and then withdraws them. She slicks all of that moistness down my shaft, lubing me up and then rising full up on her knees. With the height of the air mattress, I'm at just the right spot for her to press her full, round breasts up against my shaft on either side

  Serenity takes a deep breath and pushes her breasts against me, sliding them up and down my cock as I let my head fall back and close my eyes for a brief moment, letting the sensations travel through my skin, chase away the icy cold of my demons.

  I feel a hot slickness flick across the head of my shaft and lift my head, glancing down to find Serenity's tongue slipping across the exposed tip of my cock. My fingers curl into the crisp white sheets covering the air mattress, fingertips digging into the rubber as I make a rough, male sound in the back of my throat. The noise seems to encourage Serenity, convincing her to move faster, her full breasts enveloping me, her mouth taking what's left.

  My muscles quiver and dance beneath my skin as I hold back, as I listen to my body express its pleasure, as I feel myself get ready to explode.

  “On the bed,” I tell her, reaching down and taking a handful of her hair. “Right now.”

  Serenity pulls back and gasps as I fling her down on the bed and cover her with my body, kissing her breasts, sucking and licking her nipples as I find her swollen pink folds with my shaft and bury my cock between them. I burrow inside, get as deep as I can with a single thrust. I feel like a beast in that moment, one that should be put down.

  I tell her that.

  “Saint,” she whispers, moaning and gasping as I get rough again, fucking her furiously, shoving her knees back and out of my way, so I can sit up and watch the movement of her body beneath me, the way her breasts sway and bounce with each thrust. Ambient light leaks in from the window above the bed, dripping starlight across her body as I take out every violent impulse I have with my cock, with the rough pressure of my fingers against her spread thighs.

  Heat soaks me, drenches me, my balls slapping against her flesh as I fuck with wild abandon and then leave over her to kiss her throat again, to bite it.

  “I'm an animal that should be put down,” I growl as I slam us together, meld us into one being, twist my ruined soul with her pure one. Maybe if my long dead heart doesn't work right, we can share hers? Or maybe I'd ruin that, too. “Put out of my fucking misery.”

  “I've got you, Saint,” she breathes as I put a hand to her throat, tilt her chin back with my thumb and trace my fingertip over the wild flutter of her pulse. “I've got you.”

  Just when I think I'm about to lose it, that I'm about to drop over the edge and do something awful, something violent and horrible, something that'll break her trust in me … she touches her hands to either side of my face and kisses me with gentle lips.

  “I trust you, Saint.”

  I come with a wild sound that tears from my throat and echoes around the empty house. My body spasms against hers, filling her with my seed as I collapse, slicking sweat across her naked body as it drips off of mine.

  Before she can say a word, I roll to the side and pull her with me, slipping my thumb into her pussy, into the mixed wetness of our fluids, using another finger to thrust into her ass. Within a minute she's coming in my arms, completely letting go, helpless and vulnerable on the bed in my little house of horrors. But happy there, too.

  “You're not miserable now, are you?” she asks after a few minutes of breathless gasping, panting, trying to remember what it's like to have two full lungs of air at the same time.

  I just stare at her as she reaches up and touches the side of my face.

  “You said you needed to be put down, out of your misery. But you're not miserable right now, are you?” I think about that for a moment, but she's right and I drop my face to her shoulder, nuzzling into her, feeling … something. Affection. Love. No, she's right, I'm not miserable, not with her.

  “You make the misery disappear,” I say. “Not forever, but for a while. It gets better every time.” I lift my head to stare into the intoxicating depths of her blue eyes. I'd drink that poison and I'd die happy. “Maybe one day it just won't fucking come back?”

  “That's a good goal,” she tells me as I burrow into her, band her in the circle of my arms and keep her tucked close. “Let's work toward that—together.”

  I hold her tight, keep her tucked close, and then later, when I get hard and the need rides over me again, I fuck her until the sun comes up.

  Serenity slides off the back of my bike and takes her helmet off, tucking it under one arm as I survey the motorcycles lined up in front of the clubhouse. Fuck. Everyone's here—everyone. Even the old-timers who usually don't bother to show up for meetings anymore.

  “Your bike should be in the shop,” I start to say and then notice the cluster of old ladies inside the café windows. Hmm. Fortunately Lyric's among them, and I know for damn sure that Serenity can handle herself. “I'll take a look at it before we leave today and then let you know how bad the damage really is.”

  “Thanks, Saint,” she says as we exchange a longing look across the back of my motorcycle. Something about her face is sad, almost resigned, but that's only because she doesn't realize exactly what I'll do to make this happen.

  I come around the front of the bike and take her face between my hands. I can't seem to stop doing that. I like the way the colors of my tattoos contrast against the paleness of her skin.

  “Any chance there'll be an iced tea waiting for me when I come out of there?”

  “You mean a cup that's half sugar and half tea? You like it awfully sweet, Saint.”

  “Apparently, I do,” I whisper, leaning down and breathing hot against her mouth. “Because that's how you taste to me—sweet.” I hiss that last word out, let it roll over my lips.

  “How am I supposed to go in there and talk to my mother when I can barely sit down I'm so sore?” she asks, and I think it's supposed to be a joke; it comes out more panicked than anything else.

  “Keep with Lyric, and don't let her put you down. Don't let anyone make you leave this compound without me.”

  “I won't,” she promises as I hear the sound of a door opening, bells tingling in the icy morning air. It's awfully fucking early for a Saturday when everyone should be tucked up at home in bed with their old ladies—myself included.

  “Serenity
Jacquie Westbrook.”

  Fauna's voice is almost as cool and detached as mine usually is.

  I let go of Serenity and glance over at her, her face frozen in a mask of hatred, eyes flashing. If she were physically capable of it, I think she'd try to kill me.

  I raise my hands palms up and out and step away with a fake smile.

  “No harm done,” I say. “I was just heading into church.” I snap that word off on the end of my tongue and pull a stick of gum from my cut pocket, putting it between my lips and heading up the stairs of the deck into the clubhouse. The only people I see are the faces of a few wary hang-arounds staring back at me as I breeze through and out the back door, into the yard and under the pergola. I open the first set of doors into the chapel's foyer, listening as I pause for a brief moment.

  Inside, everyone goes silent, the angry murmur of male voices cutting off almost entirely.

  Hm.

  I open the next set of doors and step inside with one of my signature faux smiles on my face.

  “Goddamn it, you son of a bitch!” Jack is already up and out of his chair, looking like he's seconds away from leaping across this table and trying to tear my throat out with his teeth. “I ought to cut your fucking balls off and feed 'em to you.”

  I ignore him and move down the length of the table to stand next to Royal, my usual chair at his left hand empty and waiting. We exchange a look and I realize suddenly and almost disturbingly in that moment that I actually do like him. I guess I really do have a friend in this world. What I feel for him is nothing like Serenity, of course, but I'd probably take a bullet for the British twat.

  “The atmosphere,” I say slowly, knowing I'm picking but unable to help myself, “it's like somebody died in here.”

  “FUCKING PSYCHOPATH!” Jack roars, and it takes Smoky, Mug and Dober to keep him from coming across the table at me.

  “Alright,” Royal snaps, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he surveys the massive black lacquer table and the men in cuts seated around it, “that's e-bloody-nough.” He pulls the cig out and holds it between two fingers, silver smoke curling around the darkness of his hair. “We all know why we're here, so let's deal with this shit properly.”