by Violet Blaze
Adelaide put up a token resistance, closing her lips for a split second and then parting them like a flower in bloom, letting my tongue in, tilting her head back to give me better access. I kissed her and bled on her and ground my erection against her body, felt her own respond to my touch. Still, when I reached down to slide a hand beneath her shirt, I kept the other on her wrists.
I was not about to go and get myself stabbed again, no sir.
Adelaide gave me control of the kiss, but she didn't melt or disappear into it. She met my mouth with a heated frenzy and an untapped need that I'd never seen before in a single other woman—and I'd had buckets of 'em.
My right hand slid up and found her lacy bra, my thumb slipping across the erect point of her nipple. The ensuing groan that escaped from her throat was nothing short of a violent sob, a release that rocked me to my core. I pulled the lace away from the full roundness of her breast, popped it right over the underwire and took it in my hand, feeling her stiffen up beneath me. But she didn't stop kissing and neither did I.
“I think you'd quite like it if I bent you over my lap and smacked that ass.”
“Is that what you think?” she whispered, breathing hard against my mouth as I teased her nipple with my fingers, kneading the soft flesh of her breast with my hand. I wasn't gentle about it either. This bitch had just stabbed me for Christ's sake, so there wasn't going to be a damn gentle thing about this. “You're a fool, and so is your dad. He's a walking dead man.”
“Yeah, well, I've known that for quite some time,” I said as I slid my fingers down her side and unbuttoned those silky leather pants of hers. They were so tight, I could barely even grasp how I was going to get them off without letting her go. “Tell me something I don't know, princess, like why the fuck you're carrying three knives in your boot?”
“Who said I was carrying three?” Adelaide asked, and then she pulled her leg up like a fucking gymnast and kicked me so hard in the chest that my grip on her wrists loosened, and she managed to get a hand free, stealing out the last shimmering blade from her purple boots.
I managed to use gravity to my advantage, recapturing her wrists and slamming her into the ground before she cut my balls off with the damn thing. The knife fell harmlessly to the roof's surface as we both panted and stared at one another for several long seconds.
I'd be a goddamn fool to fuck this girl.
But I was going to do it anyway, wasn't I?
I slid my good arm underneath Adelaide's heaving body, her breath coming in frantic bursts as I curled my fingers around the waistband of her leather pants and jerked them down, sliding them right over the round curve of her ass. She kicked her own boots off behind my back and then lifted her hips so I could get the pants down her thighs. When she lifted her knee to her chest this time, it was to give me better access to tearing the fucking things off her left leg.
No words passed between us as I unbuttoned my jeans and shoved the denim down my hips, freeing the aching length of my shaft with a slew of curses. This girl fucked me up good; I was gonna be hurtin' in the morning, that's for damn sure.
Adelaide spread her knees wide, giving me an uninterrupted view of the perfect pinkness of her pussy, wet and glistening and ready for me. I glanced back up at her face with its smeared lipstick and released her wrists, just to see what she'd do. Her fingers curled in my purple wifebeater and pulled my mouth back to hers, this frenzied wild heat breaking between us in a rush.
I mounted her then with a hard, quick thrust, her sudden gasp filling my mouth as I kissed her every bit as quick and rough as I fucked her. Our tongues tangled and her stiff muscled body relaxed beneath me, knees falling apart, liquid in my arms. Liquid, too, between the thighs, slick and hot and begging for more from my body.
Triumph.
That's what I felt when I was inside of her.
Pure triumph.
“Dash,” she breathed out as she lifted her hips to mine, encouraged me deeper, harder, faster. There was blood all the fuck over both of us now, but there ain't nothin' to be done about it until we were finished. “I …”
I kissed the words from her mouth as she dug her fingers into my ass, panting and gasping with wild bursts of breath, the look on her face this strange mix of pleasure and frustration, like she was mad as hell but rising up to the pearly gates of heaven. I didn't know what to make of it nor did I much care. At this point, all we could do was ride this thing all the way through.
My hips met hers, grinding her bare ass into the rough ground as I tore my shirt over my head and tossed it aside, my mother's silver cross hanging between as I shoved up the pair of double tanks covering Adelaide's breasts. I freed the right one same way I did the left and then captured the stiff pink peak with my mouth, sucking and teasing it into the hot heat of my mouth.
The cries that escaped her throat were vicious and ragged, almost pained.
She transferred her hands from my ass to my hair, pressing my face against her, the muscles inside her cunt rippling around me, begging me to finish up in that wet heat. Adelaide herself was twice as frantic, clawing at my scalp, dropping her head back and encouraging me to kiss my way up her throat. I sucked and bit her flesh, teasing a dozen hickeys into existence as she groaned and writhed beneath me.
The dizziness I felt from the blood loss was making everything sparkle, turning this fuck fest into the weirdest, but sharpest experience I'd ever had in my damn life. Adelaide Vaughn was everything in that moment, the whole fucking world, and one of the few women on the planet I should not have been laying a finger on.
There was a good chance I might die for this.
The girl had four brothers and a father that my own pa had screwed straight up the ass, left 'em high and dry and made himself a billionaire for the trouble.
This was all bad news.
Yet, I didn't stop.
I fucked that girl into the roof of the Hard Sell and sent her over the edge with her nails clawing down my back, digging more bloody gouges into a body she'd already done gone and fucked up.
Adelaide Vaughn came around me with a gasping scream, a cry that echoed around the empty desert air, her body soft and pliant beneath mine, giving in, letting me tame that sass right outta her—and loving it.
At the last second, I moved to pull out—like a damn fool I wasn't wearing a fucking condom—but her ankles were still locked around me and she was shuddering and shaking with the aftereffects of her orgasm. This girl, this daughter of the Weeping Bones Motorcycle Club, she held me tight while I blew my seed into her with a few rough angry thrusts.
And the cursing that came along with it … woulda made a damn sailor blush.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” Adelaide was whispering as I rolled off and collapsed with a groan into a puddle of my own blood. Would you look at that: fucked a girl into singing hymns while I was bleeding out. Do I get a medal for that shit?
“Ain't no Jesus around here, sugar, just the devil himself.”
Adelaide scrambled to her feet, stumbling, covered in my blood.
She yanked her pants back up, slid that curvy body into the leather as I struggled to sit up and found myself with a knife at my neck.
“If you tell anyone about this, I'll come back and kill you,” she told me and then she was up and taking off down the stairwell. With a curse and a groan, I forced my aching body to its feet and yanked my pants into place, moving after her and into the apartment, grabbing my gun on the way out.
I chased Adelaide Vaughn, and I wasn't quite sure why. I was bleeding everywhere and my head was spinning a million miles an hour. But I wasn't going to shoot a woman in the back. Hell, I wasn't going to shoot a woman at all. After her I went anyway, my Browning in hand, slick with blood from my fist.
She went straight down the alley, away from the front entrance of the Hard Sell, and into the arms of a pair of men waiting at the end of it.
I skidded to a stop in the gravel, my blood-weak body stumbling and slamming hard into the cinder b
lock wall on my left. I expected it was her brothers at first, come to send me down to see my grandaddy in hell, but then I blinked and saw that they were wearing suits.
Fucking suits.
Expensive suits, too.
“Get your fucking hands off of me!” Adelaide screamed, the silver knife flashing and slicing a bright gash down the front of one man's chest. I pushed off the wall and closed the distance between us, a shot ringing out from the spot where I'd just been standing.
A quick glance to my right, and I found a man I vaguely recognized as Adelaide's brother, Maverick, the Vice President of the Weeping Bones Motorcycle Club.
Son of a bitch.
He didn't see the men in suits dragging his sister into the waiting car. All he heard was her screaming and all he saw was me standing there with a gun in my hand.
“I don't want any fucking trouble,” I told him, but I knew trouble was exactly what I was going to get. Maverick raised his weapon and took careful aim at me, clearly intending to finish what his little sister had started. I couldn't outrun a bullet—no man could—but I lifted my Browning and tried to take the first shot.
I never got a chance to pull that trigger.
One of the suited assholes was already firing, unloading six shots into Maverick Vaughn's chest before he could get even one off.
All I could do was stand there and watch him die, pink blood misting in the lights from the bar.
“Mave!” Adelaide screamed, suddenly right in front of me, her eyes wide and wild, her voice rough and damaged. The men in suits were right behind her, but there were more of 'em now. At first I thought they might be working for dear old dad, but then one of them came at me, fists swinging. I managed to avoid the first hit; the second found its mark and I felt my knees give out.
All of that blood loss was finally catchin' up with me.
I lifted my Browning and shot the man in the face, but not before his partner clocked me in the head with his own gun.
And then, nothing but fucking blackness and the fading sound of Adelaide Vaughn's screams.
“Where the fuck is she?” I roared when I stormed into my dad's office and slammed the door behind me. The old man was sitting at his desk, his dark hair slicked back across his balding head. His thick beard was going gray, but all it did was make him look dignified in that fancy suit o' his. Worked great to convince other rich assholes that he was more than a thief and a crook, some redneck douche that had charmed his way into my poor mama's bed.
“Where the hell is who, Dash? For Christ's sake, Son, calm down.”
“You know exactly what I'm talking about, old man,” I said as I put my palms flat on his desk and tried to breathe through the dizziness and nausea. I'd woken up about an hour ago in my apartment with Liv and a few men from the bar around me, askin' if I wanted to go to the hospital.
Liv'd bandaged me up and made me something to eat, but fuck if I was going to go to a hospital and try to to explain that some nutty girl from my childhood had just stabbed me—or that I'd shot a man dead in an alley.
Neither his body nor Maverick's was there when I went out to check.
Liv had told me some of the guys had taken a friend out back to puke and found me lyin' there in a puddle of blood.
Well, shit.
“Where is Adelaide Vaughn?” I asked and my father's brows went up. But I saw it—the slight smile hovering on his face. And this from the man who used to sell his food stamps for pennies on the dollar and then use that cash to buy booze and hookers while I went hungry. Oh, yeah, and then he used to fuck those hookers while I sat in the bathroom with my fingers in my ears and cried for my mama.
“Adelaide Vaughn,” my dad said with a laugh that scared the ever livin' shit outta me. He could put the devil in a demon, that man. “What do you care about Adelaide Vaughn?”
“Your fucking men showed up in suits and dragged her ass away from the Hard Sell, that's why! Jesus Christ.” I paced in a circle and ran my shaking hand through my hair. Didn't know why I cared so damn much. The bitch had tried to kill me, and then her brother had tried to kill me, but … fuck. I was an idiot, that's about all there was to say about that. “I want to know what you've gone and done with her.”
“They cleaned up your mess, didn't they, boy? And you owe me. I'm a man down since you shot one of my guys in the face. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“My mess? My fuckin' mess?! Old Man, you are happy as a pig in mud when you're causing trouble, aren't you? This whole thing is your fault. You stole from a bunch of outlaws. Now, I ain't got any idea how you managed to escape the noose for so long, but your time's coming. I shouldn't have had to shoot that man. I wasn't a part of any of this.”
“Well, you are now, aren't ya?”
My father stood up from behind the desk with a crooked smile curving its way through his beard. All his scratcher tats and prison ink were covered up by a suit that cost twice what my bike was worth. On his sun wrinkled hands were too many rings to count, a sea of jewels to show off how damn rich he was, how big a man he'd made of hisself with somebody else's money.
“Where the fuck is Adelaide?” I snarled, and I wasn't gettin' ready to ask again.
Next time, it'd be my fist in his face.
“She's on the Block, Son. Her and her stupid sister. I'm sick and tired of the Vaughns breathing down my neck. Now I got the means to take care of that problem for good.”
I gritted my teeth so hard, I felt like my jaw might be cracking in half.
Fuck.
Fucking fuck.
“Where are they now?” I asked, but the old man was done with me, sitting down behind his desk and focusing his attention on his laptop. I coulda beat the crap out of him, but then I knew he'd make damn sure I never saw Adelaide Vaughn again.
Not that it should've mattered, right?
I shouldn't have given a single fuck what happened to her.
But I did.
A boy never forgets his first kiss, now does he?
I woke up lying in a pool of tears, my memories scrambled and confusing, my body sore all over, an unfamiliar ache between my thighs that I tried my hardest to forget about.
Maverick.
Dash shot Maverick.
Maverick was dead.
I sat up slowly, blinking away darkness for more darkness. Wherever I was, the air was thick and musty and smelt like mildew, and the floor was rough pavement with a small inset drain. My head was throbbing and there was the faintest taste of chemicals in my mouth, but I swallowed my way past it, crawling as far forward as the space would allow.
My fingers met with chain-link that I traced up about three feet to a similarly covered roof.
Where the fuck am I? I wondered as I listened carefully in the silence for some clue as to my whereabouts. That's when I heard the crying: I could've recognized that sound anywhere.
It was my sister.
“Layla,” I whispered, my voice rough and my throat burning with whatever drug those assholes had used on me to knock me out. “Honey, it's me.”
“Adelaide?” she asked, her voice screechy and broken. “It's you, isn't it? Please say it's you.”
“It's me,” I said, trying to project my voice into the darkness. I could almost swear I smelled the strong scent of dog when I took a deep breath. “Where are you?”
“In … I think it's a cage, Adelaide,” she said on the tail end of a sob. “I'm in a cage.”
I took another breath, even though the air was thick and gross and stale.
“I'm in cage, too,” another voice said, giving me the chills. It was high, feminine, completely unfamiliar to me, but just as sad, just as scared.
I sat back on my ass, still wearing my leather pants, my tank. My jacket and the Lady Lilac were back in Dash's place. Like a complete idiot, I'd left them there when I'd taken off running down the alley. If I hadn't done that, if I'd … if I'd just slit that man's throat like I was supposed to, Maverick would still be alive.
Putting my fist against my lips, I bit back a sob. Layla didn't need to know about Maverick, not when she was so scared, when I was so scared. For the life of me I couldn't fathom where we were or what we were doing here. The men that'd kidnapped me had been wearing suits, driving an expensive car. If we were dealing with one of the Weeping Bones' rivals, things would not have gone down like this.
The Buchanans. It had to be. Who else would have the money to hire goons in Armani suits?
And I'd fucked Dash. I'd fucked him, given him my virginity on a dirty rooftop in Las Vegas.
I'd lost my fucking mind.
I kicked the door of the cage with my boot, making the chain-link rattle.
“I have half a mind to tame your ass.”
I'd let him do it, too, and I'd loved it.
Now look where that had gotten me.
“Adelaide?” Layla asked. “What's going on?”
“Nothing,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong and steady. I might've been the younger of the two of us, but Layla was about as sheltered as a club daughter could get. Sure, she'd seen some messed up shit, but she'd barely had to lift a finger her whole life for anything. Mom did everything at home; Dad and his club kept us safe outside of it. “I'm right here, and I'm going to get us out of here.”
“I'm scared,” Layla said and I heard a whimper from the opposite direction, from the other girl.
“What's your name?” I asked, to try and keep the other two busy while my mind whirred with possibilities. Those suits … if they did belong to the Buchanans, why had they attacked Dash? He'd literally shot one of them right in the face while I watched.
Like he'd done to Maverick.
I crawled to the corner of the cage and tried to throw up as quietly as I could.
“Kelly,” the girl said as I puked up the fruity taste of the One-Night Stand and the burn of Scotch. It was awful, so goddamn awful. And I had no way to wash my mouth out.