"Wanted you the second I set eyes on you, babe. Hailstorm would have been able to take better care of you, but I wanted you there in my bed."
"You showed an impressive amount of self-control then," I said, my smile a little saucy because I could feel him getting hard against my stomach and my own body came alive in response, my breasts getting heavy, my nipples hardening, my sex tightening.
"Yeah, crazy thing though..." he said, lips turned up at one side.
"What's that?"
"I guess I ran through all of it."
"All of what?"
"My self-control."
"Oh," I said, smiling. "Well, I think I'm okay with that."
"Good. 'Cause while you were sleeping, I came up with a position to try."
"Oh, really?" I asked as he slowly rolled me onto my side, holding me there when I went to move.
"Yep," he said, going onto his knees and reaching for the condoms on the bed. He slipped one on and moved toward me.
He grabbed the ankle of the top leg, cocking it up at an angle as he moved in, his legs straddling my one until I felt his hardness press against where I needed him most. He grabbed the ankle of my cocked leg, taking it and wrapping it around his lower back as he pressed inside me.
"Oh my G..." I started, head falling backward on a groan.
"Yeah, thought this would be a winner," he said with a cocky smile as one of his hands stayed on my thigh, helping me hold it up so my muscles didn't cramp. The other moved up my belly to roll my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.
He started moving then, slow, languidly, completely unhurried. His eyes were on mine, intense. A muscle ticked in his jaw, the only indication that he was holding onto his control as his pace continued- slow, sweet, so intimate that I finally truly understood the term 'making love'. I had spent my life cringing at the phrase, but I suddenly felt the sting of tears at the backs of my eyes at experiencing it.
I blinked hard, uncomfortable with the rush of emotion. "Duke, harder," I demanded, my hand reaching out and landing on the side of his thigh.
"No," he said, shaking his head.
"No?" I asked, surprised as he just kept rocking inside me, making a slow orgasm build, my muscles grabbing him hard with each thrust and withdraw.
"No. I gave you hard already. I'm giving you sweet now." And as if to prove a point, his fingers on my nipple softened, brushing over it soft as a feather and my sex clenched hard in return. "You like it. You're just afraid of it," he said, somehow reading the situation perfectly.
"Duke, please..." I said, trying to thrust down into him, but the position wouldn't allow it.
"Like the sound of you begging, baby. But it isn't going to work this time."
I knew there was no use.
I took a deep breath and tried to lock down the emotions, while trying to relax at the same time.
And, well, it obviously didn't work.
"Penny, stop fighting it babe," he demanded, leaning forward, angling his body closer to mine, making me take him even deeper. I whimpered and he nodded. "There you go. That's it. Just let go for me," he demanded and I did. I let it go. "Fuck yeah," he said, taking a deep breath as my sex got tighter and tighter, signaling the inevitable. "Give it to me, baby," he demanded as his cock rocked deep, making my air get caught in my chest as the orgasm rolled through me as slow and deep and overwhelming as the entire experience had been.
The tears stung again and I was too preoccupied to fight them, two slipping out the corners of my eyes and sliding down my temples as Duke planted deep and came on a hiss.
His hand dropped my thigh and moved up to wipe one of the tears away, not saying anything and I was more thankful for that silence than anything before.
Because there was no way to explain it.
I didn't even understand it myself.
The best way I could describe it was it wasn't like sex I had had before, bodies satisfying bodies.
It felt... meaningful.
Maybe that was silly and sentimental and old-timey, but that was how it felt.
His body curled, his hands planted beside my shoulders, and he leaned down to kiss me, hard and deep but undemanding as if sensing I had already given him all I had.
My entire body felt like it was humming when the sharp, shrill sound of his cell made us both start. He pulled back, looking down at me with regret as he let out a slow exhale.
"So it begins," he said, leaning down to give me a quick kiss again before pushing up, pressing back, and taking his feet. He fetched his pants and dug out his cell. "Reign," he said, moving off toward the bathroom to, I imagined, get rid of the condom.
I rushed to grab for my shirt, slipping it on and fetching my panties. I had my feet in when he walked back in, leaning back against the doorjamb, watching me as I pulled them into place then moved to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Yeah. Right. What time is it now?" Whatever Reign must have answered made his face fall slightly, his gaze falling to the floor as his hand went up to run through his hair in frustration. "Yeah. Got it. We'll be ready."
With that, he hung up, and moved toward where his pants were on the floor, dragging them up.
"Is every..." I started to ask, then stopped myself. Of course everything wasn't okay. He had just lost a ton of men. "Are you alright?"
He reached for his shirt, bunched it up, and paused. "Bruno didn't make it to the hospital," he said, grief plain in his voice.
"I'm so sorry about your men," I said, genuinely meaning it.
He shrugged a little and pulled on his shirt.
"Cops are all the fuck over the compound trying to figure shit out. Hell, at this point, we almost welcome them if they could tell us who the fuck is doing this. Doubt they'll find shit that will trace back to anything though."
I nodded, understanding the frustration. I swallowed hard. "Did Wolf..." I started.
His eyes went pained. "He was in surgery for six hours. He hasn't woken up yet. Janie isn't handling it well. She won't leave his side."
I wouldn't have either.
"Do we need to leave?" I asked, looking around the floor for my pants.
He nodded. "Eventually. We have a little bit. Let's see if I can scrounge up something decent to eat," he said, moving over to the storage shelves.
"I can wait until..." Until Hailstorm? My stomach twisted at realizing we were running out of time.
"You've got to be starving," he said as if he wasn't. But if I had walked in on a massacre, I doubted I would ever be hungry again.
Figuring he needed something to do to occupy him, I let him look around for food as I grabbed my pants and made my way to the bathroom.
He was right. It was nothing to write home about. But the composting toilet wasn't as weird as I had been expecting and the silver tub thing actually looked deep enough to take a decent bath in. When I reached for the tap, I was almost surprised when clean water readily came out. There was a dressing mirror propped up against the wall and I knelt down in front of it to finger-comb my hair into some semblance of order then squeezed toothpaste onto my finger and scrubbed my mouth. Then I scrubbed off what was left of that pancake makeup.
My reflection showed me a little different than I had been a few days before. The bruises had faded to mostly a yellow and green. But my face looked a tad thinner and the bags under my eyes showed not that I had been lacking sleep, but had been stressed beyond anything I had ever known before.
Curious, I reached for my shirt and pulled it off, turning away from the mirror and looking over my shoulder to check out how bad the cuts were.
It was the first time I saw them.
It was the first time I saw that they weren't just random slices.
They were three big lines, two vertical ones running parallel but on the far ends of my back and then one horizontal line connecting them.
An H.
I had an H carved into my back.
It wasn't really any kind of leap to know it was a Henchmen H.
<
br /> I guess they really had been trying to send a message.
And I would be scarred with it forever.
No wonder Duke felt so much guilt about it.
"I'd ask if you fell in but that's not possible in that toilet," Duke called, tone a bit lighter and I found myself wondering if it was for show, for me. It probably was.
I reached for my shirt and pulled it back on, going to the door and opening it.
"I have an H carved into my back," I said, tone as bland as I could make it, hoping he didn't take it as an accusation.
His eyes went a little sad and he nodded tightly. "Yeah."
"You could have told me. I could handle it."
"Didn't want you to hate me or us for it."
I shook my head. "I don't hate you. I don't even hate whoever did it. It's weird. But I'll get used to it. It's not like I go shirtless all the time," I added, trying to lighten the mood.
His lips curved up at one side, devilish again. "If it was up to me, you'd be shirtless all the fuckin' time."
"I would cause quite the scandal at Hailstorm, I think."
He exhaled hard. "When I get you out of there, I am getting you into a bed, naked, and not letting you out of it for a week."
"Mmm," I said a little dreamily as I moved to press into his chest. "I'm all for that plan."
"Careful," he said, but he was smiling. "Keep that shit up and the Hailstorm guys will be walking in on me fucking you."
"The door is barred," I said with a grin that he returned.
"Greedy," he said, grabbing the back of my neck and lowering his head to mine to claim my lips for a short minute. It wasn't enough, but it was all I was going to get. "Alright, come on. We have lukewarm soup to consume."
With that, we did.
I was maybe a tad bit impressed by the fact that he had somehow rigged a little fire in a little container thing he found and heated the soup up over it. I was pretty sure I could screw up making a fire with a stack of matchsticks and a pile of kindling. But he managed it with some kind of striker stick thing and pieces of newspaper.
We sat down on the floor and ate in silence. Canned soup was canned soup and it didn't really need to be commented on. Besides, we were both lost in our own thoughts of what was to come. Me, what life at Hailstorm would mean around a bunch of strangers. As well as how long I would be stuck there and when my life could find some hint of normal again.
Duke, well, I could only imagine where his thoughts were. With his fallen friends, with the idea of a target on his and what was left of his loved ones' backs, how to find the person responsible, and how to protect themselves until they did.
I found my stomach wobbly and didn't feel like eating, but I finished anyway and moved my bowl to the side. The second I did, I felt Duke shift and grab my hips, pulling me against his chest, his legs on either side of mine. I pressed my shoulders into him, protecting my back but allowing me to lean into him. His arms folded across my belly and squeezed me tight.
"Can't give you a timeframe for this shit because I don't have one."
"I know."
"Reign is gonna bring a burner for you though so I can get in touch with you when I have time. Probably won't be often, but if and when I can."
"Thank you," I said, glad to have a connection, even if it was just an electronic connection, to him.
"Hailstorm isn't as intimidating as it sounds. Okay, I lied. It is. But they do a lot of cool shit there. Lo will probably make you learn some self-defense and Summer might teach you about guns. It will pass the time."
I wasn't exactly a fan of guns, but even I had to admit that, given the course my life had veered into, it might be some solid knowledge to attain.
"And they have cable and shit so you can watch your nerdy Doctor Who crap."
"Shut up," I laughed, smiling big as his arms squeezed me again.
But then there was a loud rapping at the door, making me jump and making Duke sigh.
"Time's up," he said, squeezing me once more, planting a kiss on the top of my head, then releasing me to stand. He was halfway up the stairs before I got on my feet. I slipped into my shoes as Reign's voice called through the door.
"Out in the open here, Duke."
With that, Duke pulled the bar and the doors swung open, bringing Reign and Duke back down the stairs. From my angle, I could see the feet of others in the doorway, but they didn't come in.
"Babe," Reign said, nodding his head at me. "Holding up alright?"
"I'm fine," I said immediately.
"No woman is ever fine, but given the situation, I'll let that slide. Here," he said, pulling a cell out of his pocket and handing it to me. "It already has Duke's number programmed. Along with mine, Cash's, and Repo's. Just covering our bases," he added when I stiffened. He turned to Duke. "Lo sent four of her people to escort her back to Hailstorm. We have to be at the compound."
"But isn't that..." I started to object, then shut my mouth. It wasn't my place to tell them it wasn't safe there. They knew that better than anyone.
"Don't worry. We have reinforcements," Reign said, but wouldn't elaborate. "We got to get moving. Say goodbye to your woman," he said to Duke then ran back up the stairs.
Duke crossed over to me, hands cupping my face like I was something precious, his dark eyes watching me intensely, like he was trying to memorize me.
"Just putting shit on pause. We will pick up right where we left off when this is all settled."
"I know," I said but there was a sinking feeling in my stomach, like we were saying goodbye for good. With the way The Henchmen were dropping, there was a fair chance that we were.
"Alright, give me a kiss to hold me over," he demanded and just continued to cup my face, waiting for me to go up on my toes and do just that.
So I did.
And I kissed him with everything I had until we were both breathless, until I was swaying on my feet, and until, eventually, Reign made a coughing noise and we hesitantly broke apart.
"I have to go first," he said, dropping my face. "I'll see you as soon as I can," he said, then turned and took the stairs two at a time.
He didn't look back and I had a feeling it was because he knew he would storm back down if he did.
I watched him until he disappeared.
From outside, I could vaguely hear car doors slam and drive away.
It was another couple of minutes before one of the voices from above called down the stairs.
"Alright, hon, we got to get moving," he said, leaning down to look down the stairs. "I'm Malcolm. I work for Lo."
I nodded tightly at that and slowly took the stairs.
Then I was flanked by four people I had never known before who were dressed like they'd take a bullet for me. I was shuffled into an SUV.
Then I was driven to Hailstorm.
SIXTEEN
Duke
I couldn't look back.
If I looked back, I might have had a thought I never thought before: fuck brotherhood. And I would have jogged back down, got my woman, got her the fuck out of Navesink Bank and somewhere safe and started over.
But that wasn't an option.
My brothers needed me more than Penny did right now.
There was nowhere safer in the world for her than Hailstorm. There was no way Reign and Repo would have sent their women and kids there if it wasn't secure.
The ones who weren't safe were the rest of us.
And we needed that shit to stop.
So I was in a SUV with Reign on the way back to the compound where what was left of us were meeting.
Me. Reign. Cash. Repo. Renny.
That was it.
And, God willing, Wolf eventually.
"First things first, we are going to have a meeting while Lo's guys look over the place. Then we need to sit and talk about how to make the compound secure. This is fucking bullshit that we are being picked off on our own grounds. For fuck's sake, they got inside."
I nodded, trying to keep my hea
d on the task as we pulled in through the gates and had them shut behind us by Lo's guys.
There was no mistaking most of her people. While she employed people of varying skills and backgrounds, the training her people went through up on the hill gave all of them who hadn't already come from military backgrounds, a military carriage. It was in the perfect posture, the watchful eyes, the confident way they moved around. It also didn't hurt that they all seemed most comfortable in some sort of utility pants and fitted tees.
And there were at least a dozen of them floating around.
"If this many guys are here, who the fuck is at..."
"The women are fine," Reign cut me off. "Think I'd let her send all these people here if I didn't know enough would be behind to watch over our people?" he asked and he was right.
We got out of the SUV and I made my way inside as Reign got held up with one of Lo's guys.
I walked into the main room to find Renny sitting on the couch. If the smallness of his eyes and the dark circles beneath were any indication, he hadn't slept. That, added onto the fact that he had been the one to stay behind to deal with the death everywhere around him and the police after that and then, I imagined, the cleaning up since there wasn't any blood anywhere anymore, yeah... he wasn't in the best of moods.
And Renny in one of his shit moods, he was a real fuck.
I knew that from personal experience.
Back when we were probates, the fuck had sniffed something off about me and my history story. Then he had dug and dug and dug and dug until he found the kind of dirt he was looking for. I didn't know much about his family, but I knew they all kinds of fucked him up to make him so obsessed with finding answers and then using someone's past against them. He liked to stick his finger in wounds just to see if you screamed.
I had walked outside to do my rounds one night to find a giant Confederate flag with a swastika in the center hanging on the fence. When I walked up, he did a Nazi salute, eyes vacant and said, "I just had an interesting conversation with your father."
Duke (The Henchmen MC Book 5) Page 17