“Alright, as you wish,” he said, finally moving to touch me.
I gasped as fingers slid inside me and my body began to climax. I gasped, still in shock at how easily he’d just made me come. I didn’t think I would ever get used to just how much power he had over my body. And I didn’t mind that one bit. I moaned, watching as he began to move, his eyes on mine as he watched me come to his touch.
“You are so fucking sexy,” he said, his voice rough with lust.
“Jace,” I panted. “I need you inside me. Right now!”
“Alright,” he said, seeming to not be able to wait any longer either.
I watched him move to the nightstand and slipped a condom of the drawer. I shivered, desperate to have him inside me. I had been on birth control and a part of me promised that the next time we had sex, I’d tell him. I wanted to feel him inside me fully, no condoms, no nothing. But right now, I couldn’t wait. I needed him too badly to even speak.
“Ready?” he asked, moving his cock to my entrance.
“Hurry,” I asked, my voice pleading him to continue.
He didn’t need any more assurance. Within seconds, he was buried to the hilt inside me. I cried out, my second orgasm undoing me as I fell back against the bed. He didn’t stop this time, didn’t wait for me to finish coming. He began to move, his thrusts wild with the passion we both felt. I let him move, crying out in pleasure as he moved like a wild animal over me. I gasped, arching back in bliss as he continued to pick up the pace, seeming to be possessed.
The pleasure was almost unbearable.
I could feel myself coming undone from just how wild he was.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to last much longer, my body was growing weak from just how much exertion it was taking. But I didn’t have to worry much longer. I watched Jace’s face twist in raw passion and I could tell he was close.
“Gonna cum,” he said through gritted teeth.
“M-me too,” I more gasped than said.
Another orgasm swept through me. My body fell back, weakening from just how intense this all was. I shivered, watching as Jace groaned, arching back as he began to release inside me. The two of us got lost in our releases and before long, we both fell back, panting hard. I turned on the bed, smiling up at him, my body tingling from the pleasure still.
“That was amazing,” I said, grinning.
“It was,” he said, smiling back and turning towards me. “I think it’ll always be that intense with us.”
“Yeah?” I asked, chuckling softly. “That both elates and terrifies me.”
“Why does it terrify you?” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“Because! You’ve got some wicked power over me and I don’t know if my brain will be able to handle how many orgasms I have when you touch me,” I said, pouting playfully.
“I think somehow you’ll manage,” he said, leaning forward and kissing my forehead.
“I appreciate your faith,” I said, giggling and leaned in more, snuggling against his chest. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said as he wrapped his arms around me.
I was back where I belonged finally. Wrapped in Jace’s arms, I felt safe and secure. With him by my side, I knew nothing could go wrong. As I began to fall asleep, I ignored the small part of me that screamed just how wrong I was. How much wrong could happen, even with Jace by my side.
I fell asleep feeling both elated and terrified for what was to come.
TWELVE
~JACE~
A part of me—I liked to believe it was Logic, but who could be sure anymore—still hated the idea of leaving Mia the next morning. Having finally come back around from such an awful episode, and having all of the information out on the table, made the process of turning my back to her unbearable. On the one hand, there was the rekindled affection; it was almost physically painful to pull apart what had been so recently and tightly reknit. On the other, while knowing that the Carrion Crew was hunting for Mia—and outright gunning for me—was bad enough, there was the added deterrent of Mack to consider; that slimy-tongued fuck! Bad enough to have to leave your lover after such a rocky trial—and one we scaled and royally made our bitch, I might add—but to also have such a rising degree of danger added to the mix? Yeah, a part of me—quite a great deal of me, in fact—aggressively, morbidly, and violently loathed the idea of leaving Mia alone while I went out to handle Crow business.
Especially after how we’d woken up.
I remembered waking up the morning after Halloween as a kid, the taste of the previous night’s bounty still rich and haunting on my tongue, and just craving another sweet hit of chocolatey goodness before hauling off to school. In a sort of ironic, perverted moment of nostalgia, waking up with the linger of Mia’s love on my taste buds, I couldn’t help but want more.
The kid in me likes the salty-sweet tingle, I mused to myself, remembering the old commercial, but the grownup in me just can’t get enough of that pussy!
Admittedly, I had partaken—how could I not?—but the whole ordeal was more of an appetizer that had me more hungry for a meal that I knew I wouldn’t get to eat.
It was almost enough to get me to U-turn the chopper and go back for a second helping. Somehow, by some strange miracle, I’d managed to wake up, turn from temptation, and go through the motions of getting ready, holding back as I kissed Mia goodbye, and getting out and onto the road. But, ironically enough, it had been the process of being around Mia that made it possible to leave her—to be physically around her was to understand how important it was to go out and ensure her protection—and now that I was putting miles between us it was getting harder to solidify in my mind just why I wasn’t still there.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. They neglect to mention how distance makes the brain grow dumber.
Or how pussy makes slaves of us all.
Two thoughts came to me at that moment, both earning their own respective chuckles:
The first was the likelihood that Danny—self-proclaimed “fag” and slave to nothing but his work—would probably loom a statement like that over me and, no doubt, every other straight man until the day he finally dropped.
The second, admittedly more tongue-in-cheek—pun definitely intended, I thought on—was that I had a new idea for a potato chip flavor.
Now I just gotta figure out how to ring up those jerkoffs at Lays, I told myself, starting to laugh once more.
****
I was halfway to Danny’s when I noticed the sky beginning to darken. This didn’t surprise me, the forecast had predicted a chance of showers and the bubbly cartoon clouds blocking out a jagged cartoon sun made it obvious to even a child what to expect, but there was still something ominous and unnerving to it. Good intentions and good humor had defined most of my morning—had driven me out this far with nary a song in my heart, if I should be so bold and fruity—but they’d only go so far, it turned out. Going through life like a stick of gum—bold and fruity, I thought again to myself—was, apparently, a good way to ensure your good mood got chewed up.
And now’s the part where the world spits me out, right?
I didn’t want to take the growing cloud coverage as a bad omen. I didn’t want to wave adios to my good mood, to my good intentions, or to my good humor; but if I didn’t wave them off it seemed I’d be turning my back on them rudely as they left. I didn’t want to think that something as random and inconsequential as the weather could mean anything more than nature was taking its course; other than that the world, regardless of the Crows and the Carrions and regardless of me and Mia and the rest of the goings-on of the city, was moving on as it always had.
I didn’t want these things, but, my brain being the awesome and cooperative machine that it was, didn’t give a fuck.
I caught myself whispering Mia’s name, and as I did I cranked the handle and brought the needle abruptly to the triple digits.
Speed. Speed was key. The world, its clouds, and every little thing
scuttling about its surface was more a slave to time than any straight man could be to pussy. Speed was a factor of time; a body in motion and all that jazz. Maybe if I moved faster—maybe if I kept on moving faster—time would slow, perhaps even be polite enough to stop, and I could finish everything—finish all of this—and be back home, back with Mia, before I’d even left her in the first place.
I couldn’t say with any rationality that I truly believed that…
But a man can dream.
Satisfied by that, I only drove faster.
From pussy-flavored potato chips to racing time itself, I thought with a groan as an unfortunate fly splattered against my cheek, stinging me and killing it. Jason, I think you may be insane.
I was laughing again, but a part of me— I liked to believe it was Logic, but who could be sure anymore—was saddened to realize there was no real humor in it.
****
“Didn’t expect to see ya so soon,” Danny said, turning to face me as I walked into the office.
I was still wiping fly guts off my cheek.
“Good to see you too,” I muttered.
“Get things settled with yer lady?” he asked, ignoring my mood.
I gave him a look, realized there was no way he could know what I was thinking—what I was feeling—and just as quickly wiped it off my face.
“I did,” I admitted. “Better than settled,” I went on, hoping to convey the illogical urgency I was starting to feel. “We’re so good now that I’m sort of uneasy being away from her. So can we get a move on?”
“That’s fair,” Danny said with a nod, turning to some printouts he had waiting beside him. As he handed them over, he did me the favor of summarizing their contents: “Couple of my guys were on the case, as it was. But it was a guy I ‘visit’ on Wednesdays that came through; inside guy”—he paused to chuckle at his own joke—“who works as a guard at the pen.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. “You’re fucking a prison guard? And for that he’s willing to share information?” I asked, disbelieving.
Danny outright laughed at that. “He wishes I’d give him that honor. No, boy, I let a prison guard suck my dick on Wednesdays. And ya can bet yer virgin keister that once he’s done swallowing he lets spill with just ‘bout anything I’ve got to ask.”
“You got beer-flavored spunk or something?” I asked, amazed.
I was met with a shrug. “That or bacon,” Danny answered with absolute sincerity. “Lord knows I eat enough of it. Anyway…” he drawled, nodding towards the paperwork, “he let spill that a certain someone—one Malcolm ‘Mack’ Chobavich, who was one hell of a submissive little prison bitch from the sounds of things—was suddenly and, quote, ‘inexplicably released due to some filing errors in the courts.’”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” I groaned. “And, what, they just happened to discover the error now?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, kid,” Danny held his hands up, palms-out. “Or the messenger’s cocksucker, in this case.”
“This got something to do with the Crew?” I demanded.
Danny was already nodding as he folded his massive arms over his barrel chest and said, “Informant with the DA’s office says some money ‘might have’ exchanged hands behind closed doors.”
“Another guy lucky enough to suck your dick?” I asked noncommittally.
“Nah,” he shrugged the question off. “Just a poker buddy. The game, I mean, not—well, you get it. Anyway, he said he thought we might’ve had something to do with that little exchange. Care to guess why?”
I wiped my face and shook my head. “Stab in the dark:” I said with a groan, “they recognized a few former Crow members?”
“And ‘Bingo’ was his name-o,” Danny said, only half-singing the words.
“So the Crew sprang Mia’s brother,” I said what we’d already established aloud, testing the sound of it and deciding I really didn’t like it. I shook my head, confused. “Why on earth would they do that? The whole reason Mia was hooking for them in the first place was to keep him from getting offed by them. Why would they go through all the trouble of getting him out if the one thing that was keeping him alive ran off?”
“See, I was thinking the same thing,” Danny said with an appreciative nod. “And it got me thinking. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Mack had outright paid off all his debts, right? Would it be fair to say that the Crew would no longer be gunning for him?”
“Presumably, sure,” I said, nodding.
He mirrored my nod with one of his own. “Right, one might even say they’d be square. Now let’s say that Mack had only sort of paid off his debts, what then?”
I frowned. “I’m not sure I’m following,” I confessed.
Danny sighed and leaned against the desk. “Consider this: Mack’s dug himself in deep with the Crew, an’ now he’s bein’ hauled off to the pig pen. Shit’s bad in there, sure, but it’s a lot worse out here, where the Crew is, an’ it could be downright fatal in there if he doesn’t do something to take the boot off his neck. So what if he made them some sort of offer? What if he gave them, not money—not exactly—but the means to make it? It’d take a lot of that heat off of him, wouldn’t it?”
My frown deepened into a scowl.
Danny nodded, seeing I was catching on. “So what would happen if that money-maker high-tailed it? The Crew’s come to see that, yeah, it works as a money-maker, and, worse yet, it’s startin’ to drag a bunch of other money-makers out of their pockets, as well. Worse yet, that money-maker’s bangin’ the head of their enemies, for all they know that money-maker’s makin’ money for us now.” Danny shrugged and shook his head for effect, saying, “They dunno that love’s a factor—prolly don’t give a rat’s piss-stained nutsack, either—but they do know that Mack’s bargaining chip has given them the slip. So what better way to get it back…” he trailed off then, staring at me.
I was shaking with rage. “Then to spring the motherfucker who gave it to them in the first place,” I finished for him.
Danny nodded, but there was no joy in it.
“So you think that Mack gave the Carrion Crew Mia? That he’s out there trying to get her back to cover his own ass?” I pressed on.
“Which makes more sense:” Danny offered with a groan, “that that’s the case… or that Mack managed to slip free on a legit technicality, decided to stick around, and has just randomly decided to fuck with ya two jus’ for fun?”
“Fuck,” I said.
“Fuck,” Danny agreed.
I sat down on the couch that waited along the side wall for just this sort of “I need to sit down”-moment. My vision blacked out as I dropped my face into my hands. I violently rubbed eyes with the heels of my palms, finding the hot pain exquisite. Freeing my left hand, I smacked myself in the temple—once, twice, and finally three times—and then, throwing my head back, roared in rage at the ceiling.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
Danny watched all this, sympathetic but passive; he waited through my outburst. I appreciated him all the more for it.
It made perfect sense: send Mack to collect. Either he managed and the Crew had regained their asset without having to spend any of their own time or money to do it or they finally got to off Mack for all that he owed them.
And then they’d start investing their own time and money to regaining their asset; to getting Mia back.
Desperation.
The name of the game was “Desperation.”
The Crew was desperate. Mack was desperate.
And now I was desperate.
The problem, of course, was that I had an unfair advantage in this game.
The Crew? They got sloppy when they got desperate.
Mack? He got stupid when he got desperate.
But me? I got mean. I got crazy. I got vulgar and violent, and I got even. When Jason Presley got desperate, people got hurt. Mack had gotten me desperate for all the wrong reasons when he’d fed me all that bullshit about Mia, an
d she’d gotten hurt for it.
Now the target was set on a new target, a far more deserving one, and—oh yeah!—I was gonna get all sorts of crazy, vulgar, and violent; I was gonna get very, very even.
Because if I didn’t—if I failed; (if you’re not fast enough)—then Mia would be dragged into an even worse hell than before, I’d be dead, and the Crow’s would be left wounded and exposed to—
“Stop those thoughts right there,” Danny said and I was surprised to see that he was standing over me, his hands on my shoulders.
“Stop?” I croaked.
“I can tell what ye’re thinkin,’” Danny said, squeezing my shoulders tighter. “This ain’t yer fault and neither was Anne’s death. Ya gotta stop blamin’ yerself.”
“And if I fail again?” I asked.
“Ya didn’t fail nobody, Jace,” Danny shook me slightly. “Get that through that thick skull o’ yers. Ain’t nobody blamin’ ya fer what happened.”
“Nobody is left to,” I said, shooting him a glare. “Except me. And I blame myself every day.”
“Ya think this is what Mia needs?” Danny asked.
I stopped.
The guilt that grew at the reminder of Mia seemed to bring me back. I shook my head and leaned against Danny, clenching my eyes shut. Why did it have to be so hard? Why was everything so ass backwards?
“It’ll be alright, ye’ll see,” Danny said, patting my back.
“You getting sentimental on me now?” I asked, feeling a halfhearted smile on my face.
“When the time calls fer it.”
I nodded, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves. It didn’t seem fair. I finally felt that I was on the right track. That the Crows were doing what they could with the Carrion crew. That Mia and I were back together.
Things had seemed so good again.
Then everything came crashing down.
I had to stop Mack. Had to find him no matter the cost.
“What ya plannin’ there, Chase?” Danny asked, ironically using the nickname the rest of the Crows knew me by.
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