"OK."
Liam reached for the condom and the lube, watching Ace's eyes the whole time. God, how he'd wanted to do this forever, but Ace had resisted so much, that Liam had dropped it. He liked to bottom of course, he actually loved it, but he was a switch. He might have preferred bottoming, but he ached to top sometimes, too. If Ace was open to this, then it was going to introduce a whole new dynamic and vibe into things... and Liam was breathless with excitement at that thought. Even if Ace topped ninety percent of the time, Liam was thrilled to get that ten percent.
He rolled the condom on, then rubbed on copious amounts of lubricant. Then slowly, he turned Ace over on his stomach, and covered that large, strong body with his slimmer one. God, to be the one on top at last, to be the one in total control... what a difference it made. Liam was hard and ready – but this wasn't about him.
Ace shut his eyes, tried to keep breathing. This was going to hurt, and he knew it, but he still wanted to try. He knew that Liam had wanted this, and Ace was done with denying Liam things that would make him happy. For Liam, Ace was ready to pull the stars out of the night sky if he asked, so he could sure as hell take his cock.
Liam's slippery finger was working Ace's ass now, and he tensed. Right away, the fingers stilled.
"Relax," Liam murmured. "Unclench, babe."
"Easier said than done," Ace said, aiming for humor. "How?"
"Breathe." Liam's finger slid between Ace's cheeks. "Just breathe and let me in."
Ace breathed, sucked in more air, breathed again. And the third time that he exhaled, Liam slipped the tip of his finger inside Ace's ass, just slipped it on in as easy as you please. Ace tensed again, and all that did was trap Liam's finger in place.
"Oh, Christ," Ace mumbled into the pillow that he was clutching like a life preserver. "Ahhhhh."
"Breathe," Liam reminded him, kissing his back. "Open up."
Slowly, over ten painstaking minutes, Ace got the hang of it. He kept breathing, and every time he exhaled, Liam slid in just a bit more. Then he added a second finger. Then he started to move in and out, side to side, and that was when Ace's breathing changed completely. Got faster and more shallow, and he started to lift his hips off the bed to give some relief to his aching cock.
"Sweetheart," Ace rasped. "I – I want you. All of you. Now."
"Topping from the bottom," Liam said. "Lucky for you, I find it hot."
"Oh," Ace gasped as Liam gave him one last, hard deep thrust with his thumb. "Oh, fuck..."
"Ready?"
Ace nodded, then gasped as Liam slid inside his ass. He stopped, letting Ace get used to the sensation, kissed Ace's neck and shoulders until he was limp under Liam.
"Move, baby," Ace grunted. "Please."
"With pleasure."
Liam's hips moved in small, deep circles, grinding Ace's cock into the bed with every stroke. Ace groaned, his ass burning and painful, but the pressure on his front too delicious to want to have end. It was the rarest combination of pleasure and pain that he'd ever known, and even as Liam sped up, stetching him wider than he ever thought possible, Ace begged for more. Needed more.
Liam lowered his lips to Ace's ear. "Jerk yourself off, babe. Cum with me."
Without even a single thought of protest, Ace managed to somehow get his hand between his body and the bed. It was a tight fit, but he did it because if he didn't, he'd die on the spot. His cock was screaming to be touched, and touched roughly, so Ace gave it what it wanted.
He lifted his hips just enough to make room for his hand, and he started to jerk off, just as Liam had told him to do. Every push of Liam's hips pushed his cock deeper into his hand, deeper into the soft mattress, and soon, Ace knew it was all going to be too much. He started to move under Liam, to move in time with the thrusts, to move with the rhythm of Liam's harsh grunts... and then Ace came. He threw his head back, arched his back, and came into his hand, came longer than he'd ever cum before. Totally spent, he dropped his head to the bed, barely feeling Liam still hot and hard inside him.
"Now me," Liam muttered in his ear. "Fuck, Ace... you feel amazing. I've wanted to have you like this for so long – and it was worth waiting for. I want you to feel me cum in your ass, babe. Feel all of me."
"Yes," Ace mumbled. "Yes. I trust you, Liam. I fucking trust you. Cum inside me."
With a cry, Liam stiffened above him, his hips held in place, his arms shaking. Ace felt his cock throbbing deep and long, pushing up against something that sent bolts of pleasure through him again. He winced at that, the pleasure almost too intense, and then Liam pulled out carefully, taking his time, dropping tiny kisses on Ace's shoulders as he did.
"Ace?" Liam rolled off the condom, tossed it in the trash. "How are you feeling?"
"Ummmm." Ace managed to lift his head from the mangled pillow. "Good. Great, actually."
"It hurt?"
"Yeah, but... it wasn't a bad hurt."
"I know what you mean," Liam said. "It's not like anything else, is it?"
"No." Ace turned over, saw the massive stain on the mattress below him. "Man. You want to be the one to ask the mahem squad downstairs for some clean sheets?"
"Nope." Liam stretched out beside Ace. "You made the mess, so you can do it."
"They like you better."
"True."
"Actually, though." Ace thought about just how much noise they'd been making for the whole of that day, thought about the military training that demanded discipline and organization and cleanliness of King's Crew. "I'll bet you anything that there are clean sheets already sitting outside in the hallway."
Liam struggled to a sitting position. "Shut the front door."
"Nope." Ace grinned. "Wanna bet?"
"Bet what?"
"Bet another round with me on top that they already brought us new sheets."
"So, if I win, I get to top again?"
"Yep."
"You're on, sexy." Liam nodded at the door. "Go see."
Ace clambered out of bed, and Liam watched in total appreciation as that amazing man went over to the door, opened it, stood there for a second. He bent, stood, turned.
In his hand was a stack of clean, crisp white sheets. On his face was a massive smirk.
Liam laughed aloud. "Really?"
"Really." Ace shut the door, returned to the bed, his cock already lengthening. "Your ass is mine, baby. Turn over.
And – without too much regret – Liam did.
Chapter Eleven
Lilly walked up the path to Kevin’s house, determined that this was the night… tonight she was telling the man that she loved the truth about her past, her present – and her future. Hopefully, a future with him.
She balanced the bag of takeaway sushi and the bottle of white wine on her hip as she fumbled with the house keys. If Kevin was able to forgive her all her lies, and accept her job and the risks that it brought, then King would arrange to have his tech guy put a world-class security system on Kevin’s house. No more keys: everything would be codes and fingerprint- and retina-scanned, and there would be cameras and alarms. It was always a shock at first, Lilly knew, but she hoped that Kevin would see the need, and understand it, even if it took him a while to like it.
She entered the house and shut the door, set down the food and wine on the table, and called out, “Babe? You home?”
No answer, so she listened hard as she kicked off her snow boots. No sound of the shower, no music, no movement. His car was out front, so maybe he’d gone to the corner store for milk? She knew they’d used the last of it in their coffees that morning.
Lilly walked into the kitchen, flicked on the light. Saw it immediately.
The bottle of wine crashed to the floor, shattering into hundreds of pieces, soaking her dress pants and leaving small, oozing cuts on her stockinged feet. The bag followed, and the plastic container burst open, spilling rice and raw fish everywhere. Not that she felt or saw any of it.
“Oh, my God,” Lilly whispered. “Oh, my God.�
��
At that exact second, the phone on the counter next to Kevin’s dismembered hand rang. She jumped, gave a tiny scream of shock, then she found her legs. Keeping her eyes averted from the large, shapely hand that had touched her so tenderly in the shower just that morning, she picked up the phone, numbly noticing that the number was unlisted.
“Welcome home, bitch,” the male voice hissed in her ear. “Have we got your attention?”
“Where’s Kevin?” she managed to choke out. “What have you done to him, you fucking son-of-a-bitch?”
“Besides cut off his hand? Nothing much.” A pause. “That may remain the case, but it depends on you.”
“Who are you, asshole?” she asked, though she thought she knew. “Are you… are you with the Fallen Angels?”
“None of your fucking business who I am,” the man snarled. “And if you ask me again, I’ll make you listen to your boyfriend being beaten by at least four guys. Is that what you want?”
“Please,” Lilly said, as the panic finally began to mount. “Please… please don’t hurt him anymore.”
“Then you do what I say.”
“Anything.” Despite herself, Lilly looked at the hand, felt her stomach lurch. She closed her eyes and fought down the bile rising in her throat. It was a massive effort to drop the enraged tone, and turn polite and welcoming, but she knew it had to be done. “What do you want?”
“We want to know where Ace Fucking Cuddy is.”
She exhaled, hard, not even remotely surprised. “I – I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“No! No. I really don’t know.”
“Bullshit. You work for Matt Kingston, so you know where he hides people.”
“I know where the safe houses are, of course,” Lilly babbled, starting to lose her cool. “I mean… we all do, right? But King hasn’t told me where Ace is hidden, not specifically. I can give you – I can tell you the addresses of the places I know, and you can –”
“Fuck, no.” The man was coldly contemptuous. “We’re not running all over the goddamn state like headless chickens. That’s too much work, and you know we’d be wasting time, and anyway, your boyfriend can’t wait. He needs medical attention pretty damn quick. Believe me.”
“So…” Lilly shook her head. “So…”
“So,” the man said, in a voice that clearly thought she was a fucking moron. “You find out.”
“But –”
“Wow, you’re really fucking dim, aren’t you?” the man said. “Let me make it easy for you, OK? You find out, or we send you your boyfriend’s head in a box. You choose.”
“No! Don’t! Please!” Lilly cried. “Please don’t do anything else to him… he has nothing to do with this.”
“Bitch, we know that, and we really don’t care.”
She fell silent then. Yeah, she knew they didn’t care; she knew they were the kind of men who’d hurt anyone – innocent people, bystanders, kids, elderly parents – if they thought doing so would get them what they wanted.
Oh, God, Kevin. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
“I’ll – I’ll find out,” Lilly said, numb now. “I’ll find out somehow.”
“By noon tomorrow.”
“Yes. By noon tomorrow.”
“You going to tell King?”
“No!” she exclaimed, even as a small part of her resolved to do just that, started plotting and planning. “No!”
“You’ll forgive me if I say that I’m not about to trust your word.”
“So…”
“Take the SIM card out of your phone, cut it into four pieces. Then smash your cell phone on the floor.”
“What? I –”
“Do it.”
Lilly did as he said, making sure to use a hammer from Kevin’s toolbox for good measure. As requested, she took a picture of the destroyed card and the smashed phone on the burner phone camera, sent it to the man.
“Good,” he growled. “Now… see the earpiece?”
Lilly glanced down at the counter, surprised. She actually hadn’t noticed it, but seeing as it was clear plastic, that wasn’t a shock. Also, considering what was sitting right next to it; she’d been distracted.
“Yes,” she said.
“You put it in now,” the man ordered. “You put it in, you leave it open, you leave it in. You sleep with it in, you shower with it in, you shit with it in. You stay the fuck away from the home phone, and from your laptop. You go to your bedroom now, and you fucking stay there. Keep the TV off, and no music. I’ll hear everything and if you take the earpiece out, or if I think for even one second that you’re trying to signal for help, Loverboy is dead. It’ll be as slow and painful and terrible as you can possibly imagine… and I’ll make sure you hear every second of it.”
“Understood.”
“Now put it in.”
With a sense of falling, Lilly inserted the tiny earpiece.
“I can hear your breathing, cunt,” the man said, amused. “I can practically hear your heartbeat.”
She bit back a retort. Being mouthy would only hurt Kevin, so she just stayed silent. Years and years of training were suddenly useless; she was at the mercy of a monster.
“I’ll be listening when you talk to King tomorrow, and I’ll know when you’ve gotten him to tell you where Cuddy is,” the man continued. “After I know where to find that traitor, I’ll text you on this phone, telling you where to find your boyfriend. You come in person, bitch. No cops, no King’s Men, no ambulance. You come and get him yourself, you drive him to the hospital yourself. Clear?”
“Yes. Clear.”
“Good. Noon tomorrow.”
He abruptly disconnected, and Lilly set the phone down with trembling hands. She knew that he was still on the other end of the earpiece, though, and the nausea rose again at the thought that this monster (maybe Nails? Maybe Joker?) was listening to her right that second.
Her stomach wrenched, twisted, turned, and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to hold it down this time. She shut her eyes to avoid seeing the hand on the counter, then leaned over the kitchen sink. Lilly vomited, shook and sobbed, threw up some more.
“Not feeling so good, cunt?” The taunting hiss in her ear startled her, and she gasped. “Feeling a wee bit sick?”
“I – I –” She threw up again, hating his chuckle of obvious enjoyment. “I’m OK.”
“Yeah, you sound it.”
And so began the longest night of Lilly’s life – a night that would bring no sleep and no reprieve and definitely no forgiveness, but plenty of self-hatred. Self-hatred in goddamn spades.
My fault. My fault. Why didn’t I come clean sooner? Why didn’t I tell King that I was involved with someone that I’d compromise the Men for?
Why didn’t I protect the man that I love?
All my fault.
**
The next morning, Lilly walked into King’s Garage, nervously pulling her long blonde hair over her ear. The voice on the other end had been pretty quiet that morning, but she knew that he was there. She heard him clearing his throat, heard muffled conversations in the background. She strained to make out words, to make out anything, but to no avail.
God, she hoped that Kevin was still alive.
“Lilly!”
Startled beyond measure, she jumped, spun in mid-air, gave a half-scream. Knox stood in the doorway with two steaming cups of coffee in his hands, and watched all of this with bewildered shock.
“Hey,” Knox said, dark eyes concerned. “What’s up?”
“N – nothing,” she stammered. “You just took me by surprise.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” She forced a smile on her face. “I was distracted. Didn’t hear you behind me.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” he said a bit dubiously, extending a
cup. “Coffee?”
“Oh, yeah.” She took it, hoping that he didn’t notice her shaking hands. “Thanks.”
“You got it. King wants us in the conference room in two minutes.”
“Sure thing,” she said, forcing an upbeat note into her voice. “Be right there.”
Knox nodded, headed into the backroom of the garage which served as the King’s Men meeting space. Lilly watched him go, wishing that she could signal him somehow. Maybe she could write something on a pad of paper, show it to King and Knox? They wouldn’t give anything away, she was pretty sure of it.
And yet – and yet… she knew that there would be some minuscule reaction. Some change in breathing, some tone or note in the men’s voices, some slight pause in the flow of conversation. Something, something. None of it would be noticeable… unless you were listening for it.
And the man in her ear was listening; she knew that with every fibre of her being.
Unless I can get them a message outside the conference space? Maybe I can write King a note now, leave it somewhere obvious, like next to the coffee machine, give him and Knox time to be able to act natural?
“Thinking about how to tell King?” the man muttered. “Thinking about a note? A message written on your hand?”
“No!” she exclaimed. A few of King’s mechanics glanced her way, puzzled. She gave them a smile, then barrelled into the ladies’ room, which was mercifully empty. She lowered her voice. “No. I’m just – I’m getting ready.”
“Sure you are. Maybe you need a quick reminder what’s at risk here?”
“No,” Lilly whispered, her heart juddering to a stop. “No.”
“Too late, bitch.”
Suddenly, Kevin’s screams were in her ear. Lilly gasped, doubled over, wrenched the earpiece from her ear. What was happening? What were they doing to him? Image after image flashed in front of her eyes, every one worse than the one before, and she held her breath, helpless and furious. It went on and on, and she heard a high-pitched, whining sound that froze her blood in her veins.
Is that… a machine?
The screaming and whining stopped now, and she jammed the earpiece in again. “Kevin?”
Extreme Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 7) Page 14