City Of Sin: A Mafia & MC Romance Collection

by K. J. Dahlen

  They were a powder-keg and I’d just supplied the match.

  It wasn’t enough. One hand on her throat, Top was too enthralled with Star to notice or care about anything else. He watched her wiggle desperately. His other hand dragged down her stomach to her skirt.

  Damn. Looks like I’m going to need a sacrificial lamb.

  I pulled aside one of the terrified employees. Stockier than rest of the other girls, the redhead I grabbed was the shift leader, and was more or less just a bartender.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, going through the motions.

  “Britney.”

  “Pretty wild huh, Britney?” I nodded, in feigned disbelief.

  “Oh my God, yes! This is crazy!” Britney was terrified. I could tell that she’d never seen any fights like this before. She was still new to the position. I didn’t remember seeing her last time we were here. That wasn’t surprising; Muse had a high turnover rate for her employees.

  Bren was far from the only person buried out behind the parking lot.

  “Not much you can do, Britney. Sure as hell can’t call the cops, and Muse is asleep by now. If you wake her up because you can’t handle what’s going on, you’ll probably become one of the regular employees.” Regulars had to do all sorts of nasty jobs. I let the implications soak into her.

  “Fuck! Jesus!” Britney arched her drawn-on eyebrows and gasped. “What do we do?”

  “You see that big guy over there?” I pointed. “His name’s Top. He’s the chapter president and is your best bet at stopping this before they destroy the place.”

  “I—I don’t know.” She was on the verge of breaking down.

  I pulled her down as a half-full mug sailed over our heads and smashed into the top shelf of liqueur behind the bar. Glass and expensive booze sprayed out in a wide arc coating everything. Britney screamed.

  “You’re in charge, Britney.” I took her by the shoulders. “BE in charge. You can do this.”

  Britney’s worry was apparent, but her desire not to end up like the rest of the girls was strong enough to push through. She swallowed, nodded to me, and went to talk with Top. Plead with, more likely.

  “You!” I called out to the other startled bartender, a brunette who was cowering on the floor covered in liquor and broken glass. I remembered her from one of our previous trips here. She wasn’t as rattled as Britney; she was just trying to keep her head down and wait for this to blow over. “Get me an extra work shirt. I need a pair of pants too.” I looked the girl over. She had a slight enough build for what I had in mind. “Something in your size.”

  The brunette bartender hurried off, slipping out the side door into the hotel proper.

  Britney was having trouble getting Top to even acknowledge her. He’d been drinking for a while and was too riled up to notice the timid bartender. She wasn’t going to be able to do it…

  I snatched up a nearby glass and hurled it against the wall, just above Top’s head. Britney screamed and dropped to the floor. Top scanned the room, but couldn’t place the thrower. I grabbed another mug and was filling it at one of the taps across the bar, innocently watching the chaos unfold.

  Finally, pants around his ankles and cock at full attention, Top looked around and realized how badly everything went to hell. Top was murderously angry, but he had an obligation to all of us, and to Muse. This brawl had gone too far and he needed it ended now. It would take him a little while to de-fuck the place. He let Star go, pulled up his pants, and waded into the middle of the fight.

  Now bikers were the ones flying through the air.

  Gasping for air from the strangling and shaking from the attempted rape, Star took advantage of the distraction to roll off the table she’d been forced onto.

  The brunette had returned a minute later with two handfuls of clothing. I skirted around the outside of the brawl and brought them to Star, who was a sobbing mess.

  Even bitter defiance has its limits.

  I’d killed, blackmailed, threatened, maimed, but rape… I gritted my teeth.

  Rape was just too far.

  Disgust and guilt gripped me when I looked down at the wreck Star had become. Lying there naked, she looked so fragile. The harsh, flickering, neon-blue Budweiser sign on the window next to Star dulled all the new bruises and gave her skin a waxy, sickly look. She looked like she’d just come off a mortuary slab.

  “Put these on.” I tossed her the clothes.

  Betrayed, she looked up at me through watery eyes, dripping with skepticism.

  I tried to keep the growing pangs of remorse and empathy from my face. “Hate me later.” I turned my back to let her get dressed, not in privacy—it was far too late for that, but at least without one more person looking at her. “You don’t want to be here when he comes back.”

  Regardless of how she felt about me, this point hit home and Star dressed as quickly as she could.

  Fewer bodies flew now as Top bellowed commands. The bar’s chaos was winding down; soon Top would quell the riot. We couldn’t wait any longer. Time was up when I could see Top start to look around.

  Star needed to be a ghost. Now!

  I picked up her glasses, which was becoming a habit I wasn’t thrilled with, then I grabbed her by her shirt and led her out of the bar.

  When we were safely through the breezeway that divided the bar from the hotel, I handed her glasses back, and placed a room key in her hand. She’d be relatively safe if she hid in my room, at least for the night. “Room 203,” I said, before turning back to the bar.

  “W-why are you helping m-me?” Star warbled in air and choked on it. She was on the brink of really losing her shit.

  I couldn’t answer. Honestly, I didn’t know why I was helping her either. Not really. I had illusions about being some bullshit hero.

  “I don’t understand you! You save me just to watch me suffer? Do you get off on my pain? Is that it, you sadistic fuck?” Star scolded me with hushed tones, obviously worried about drawing any more attention.

  I still couldn’t face her.

  When she shoved me, I whirled around and grabbed her. I had to squeeze her arms to stop her from throwing punches at me.

  “Please just tell me if I can trust you. I need this, please, just tell me? I can’t handle this!” She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

  The hallway we were in was dark; rain had started to fall against the windows. Gentle crashes of a distant storm echoed across the empty plains. Our world inside this hallway was still. If I had something to say, this was the perfect time to say it. “This world is fucked, fast and rough. I am cancer. I am death’s handshake. In my wake, I leave only ruin,” I softly growled at her. “No, you can’t trust me.”

  Her face started to fall, but I was able to turn away in time to be spared most of it. She was right to hate me. To fear me. The further from me she got, the better off she’d probably be, even if that meant dead.

  I walked back into the bar.

  Top had it mostly wrapped up now. I helped him pull the last of the thrashing drunks off each other. He yelled for a bit, but he understood why all this went down. The grieving process is as fucked and stupid as we were. I helped clean off the bar, and had the mortified bartenders slide everyone who was still standing, another round.

  There was so much blood, beer and debris that it looked more like a war zone than a bar.

  “I’m not looking forward to explainin’ this to Muse. I’ll wake up with my balls on her shelf.” Top chuckled.

  “Heh, yeah. Hell of a night,” Skank piped up. “Just give those big black tits of hers a good motorboatin’ and she’ll forgive you.”

  “Before or after the entirety of the gas station score?” I offered, masking the repulsion I felt about this evening.

  Everyone laughed.

  For the rest of the night, every time Top would look around for Star, I reeled him back in with a story, question or joke, all the while feeding him shots. After a few, no one was sober. Top was asleep o
n the bar, and the ones who could walk had stumbled off to their rooms. We all had hell to pay for the destruction, but that was tomorrow’s problem.

  For now, my goal was to get as obliterated as possible and forget everything about this shitty day.

  The night had wound down and I was still horny as fuck from Star’s bar dance. I was about to find a backroom and rub one out when I spotted the junkie blonde from earlier staring off at nothing in a booth. I think she was trying to use her phone, but was way past the point of concentration. She’d disappeared a while ago to the shooting gallery, and came back on a wicked nod.

  Fucking junkies.

  I was pretty sloppy drunk when I walked the blonde into the hotel and couldn’t remember what the fuck happened to my keys. She told me her room number and we went there instead. For some reason, her key wouldn’t unlock, so I put my shoulder into it. We crashed through her door and into the dark, hallway lit room, we were undressing before we hit the ground.

  She plastered me with clumsy drunken kisses that I tolerated to a point. I didn’t bother sliding her panties off, just flicked them to the side, and unceremoniously rammed my middle two fingers into her.

  We weren’t making love. This was just ugly, necessary sex.

  “Unh,” she grunted. Her pussy was warm and slick enough. With ease, I slid in a third and curled my digits.

  She moaned now, still too softly.

  I wanted this girl to scream. I needed it.

  A forth finger slid in, which made her grunt. “Fuck!”

  Now for the first time since we started, her eyes fully opened. Her arms slid impotently behind her, mashing roughly against the wall as she struggled to prop herself up.

  My fingers pushed her sidewalls farther apart and slithered back and forth in a beckoning motion. My thing wasn’t violence for the sake of violence like some of the other guys, or drugs. I didn’t do yoga, or talk about my feelings. I wasn’t a child at heart and I’ve never held a stress ball. Hell, I wasn’t even much of a drinker, tonight excluded for obvious reasons.

  The blonde gave me a full scream, first of many.

  This. My cock hardened at the sound of her voice hitting a higher pitch. This was how I grieved.

  The blonde’s ass slapped down onto the TV mounted cabinet, my fingers still inside her. I pulsed, tensed and felt her scream vibrate through her pussy. It was loud enough to wake the neighbors. That wasn’t good enough. I was in a ruinous mood and needed more.

  When she stammered for more, I pulled out completely. I wiped my hand off on her stomach and just stood there until she begged.

  “Pleasepleaseplease.” The blonde crumbled forward on top of me. I pulled back farther and she followed. I hit the bed and let it swallow me. Something large shifted off the mattress and fell. I didn’t have the time to check what it was before the blonde landed on me.

  “Not a lollipop...” It took a second to register her muffled words, with her mouth stuffed full of my cock. She was energetic, but still wasn’t very good. Sloppy and loose, she didn’t squeeze the shaft hard enough or make any kind of suction.

  I had to stop her and flip her onto her back.

  The girl just could not suck dick.

  “Fuck me. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!” She squirmed and clawed for me, trying to pull me in like I was another fix for her.

  That was fine. I didn’t care what I was to her. I didn’t even know her name.

  Star.

  NO. Fuck. I pushed the name out of my head, kneeling before the blonde. Cock in hand rubbing back and forth. I was still slick from the bad blowjob. There was no easing in when I thrust into the blonde. She existed here in this moment to please me that was all. I rammed hard enough to crack her pelvis and I neither of us barely felt anything.

  The girl beneath me groaned vacantly, but my head was elsewhere.

  My eyes mashed shut, I could still see Star crawling toward me across the bar. Thoughts of Star sprouted in my mind like weeds. I couldn’t tear them out fast enough. Every dull thrust into this blonde made the dream of Star feel more vivid. I hated that my body yearned for her.

  Star was a lost cause, I’d have to let go of whatever hang up I had with the girl.

  I opened my eyes to find the street light that filtered into the room through the sheer curtains glinting off a pair of ovals on metal frames. How’d I miss that before?

  It was a pair of glasses. Glasses that looked a lot like Star’s… I must have been drunker than I thought.

  I flipped the blonde over, grabbed her hips and pushed her face into the comforter. I squeezed harder into her thighs to get a better handle for what was basically masturbation with a hand the size of an entire woman. It wasn’t working. None of this was. I felt my cock starting to go soft. I wasn’t enjoying myself and wasn’t going to get off.

  What am I doing?

  I couldn’t even fuck to console myself. I was coming apart at the seams and all I could think of was a girl I shouldn’t be with and couldn’t save. Is this what life was now without Bren?

  “Who’re you?” the blonde asked distractedly.

  A silhouette rose on the other side of the bed, and snatched the glasses off the counter. I couldn’t see any details, but I could feel the flood of emotions coming off the slender form.

  “Nobody,” came a woman’s voice, cracked and broken, overflowing with disdain and sorrow, before she bolted for the still open hallway door.

  “Star?” I asked, not sure if I said the word or just thought it.

  Whose room was I in?

  3

  Star

  Tears streaked down my face as I ran down the halls and out an emergency exit. I walked through the parking lot in a daze hoping the driving rain would wash Top’s filthy fingerprints off my body.

  Hoping it would wash me away entirely…

  The Crowne Rock Hotel’s bright and welcoming entrance, with its green down-lit, shale-based columned awning and bubbling, front water fountain was a stark contrast to The Burning Pig’s harsh flood lights, flickering red neon and oil-stained biker’s lot. It gave the already the dark night a surreal quality that was even more unnerving.

  Stumbling through the front parking lot toward the one-lane road that presumably attached this miserable place to the rest of the world, I weighed what few options I had.

  I was shocked at how easily I’d made it outside into the driving rain. I could walk away right now. This was a hotel, I reminded myself, not a prison.

  Both directions were inky black with occasional lightning strikes sparking up distant patches of nothingness, miles away. The Burning Pig was the lone island in a sea of limitless flatland.

  Of course, no one was going to stop me.

  There was nowhere to go.

  Had I died? Was this Hell? If so, then Remy was a demon sent to torment me.

  An overwhelming wave of crushing hopelessness brought me to my knees, course pavement bit hard into my rain soaked skin. I didn’t flinch at the pain and at some point, I’d stopped crying. I had no tears left.

  With no real hope of escaping on foot, thoughts of everything but Remy drained away with the rain. Remy’s haunted eyes and ruggedly stern face burned into my memory. I hadn’t been able to shake what he told me. “

  “No,” his deep voice echoed in my heart with each crash of distant thunder. “You can’t trust me.”

  How could a man say and do such different things?

  When he saved me from Top, I let myself hope for the first time since all this started. The concern for me when he helped me out of that booth was real. I know it was. No one ever had to save me before.

  But did he save me, though?

  It was his fault I was even here!

  No. It was really all Todd’s fault for killing Remy’s brother. I now felt glad Todd was dead. Truly. I’d watch him die again if I could.

  Oh my god, was that really me? What was I becoming? I started to hyperventilate.

  “No! I’m a good person.” My voice was n
early drowned out completely by the storm. “My name is Star Keller. I’m from a small house on Golfview Drive in Manchester, New Hampshire. I grew up near the Merrimack River. I like to read indie graphic novels and watch the CW.”

  I needed to say it out loud, but hearing them, the words felt empty. Less and less real, like I was grasping at smoke. A definite, frightening hardness had crept into me since I’d arrived here.

  Or maybe it was always inside me, waiting to be let out.

  “I’m me. I’m the same me that I’ve always been…” I fought to hold onto what I’d always known about myself, but again he invaded my thoughts and derailed my affirmations. I exhaled impotent frustration. “Why can’t I hate you, Remy?”

  He was the kind of guy who could save me from being raped, then fuck a prostitute right in front of me? He didn’t make any sense and it was driving me crazy! I screamed as loud and long as I could on that cold, desolate highway. In a civilized world someone would’ve ran out to ask me if I was hurt.

  No one came.

  Stupid girl. This wasn’t the normal world. No one gave a damn here for a lost girl. I wasn’t a person anymore. I was a liability that had to be dealt with. I put my head down and found more tears.

  When I finally had the courage to walk back inside, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t think straight. I found an open door, a broom closet apparently, and collapsed. Blessed sleep ambushed me, but thoughts of Remy chased me into dreams. There was no escape from him…

  My fitful dreams were mostly just flashes and scenes than anything substantial. I was back on his bike. Remy’s hands tightened on the handlebars forcing his muscles to slide like pistons beneath his scarred, sun-worn skin. Blazing light from the burning gas station cast dark shadows in the rigid lines along his torso and arms.

  His strong hands pulled me back onto his motorcycle when I fell. I could almost feel those same hands squeezing my hips. I was burning up. Remy’s animalistic nature making me lose control.