by Lydia Pax
She raised the hammer again. “Swearing is for people who aren’t tied up. Am I tied up, Mr. Damage?”
“Ah, Jesus! Okay. Okay. Whatever you want to know.” He was crying now. “Whatever you want to know. J-just leave my last one to me. Just leave it alone.”
“Tell us about the stashes,” she said. “Where are they hidden?”
“Oh god,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew someone was gonna fucking put the screws to me on this. I knew they were. I never even wanted to know about it. Goddammit. I can't tell you. Rattler...he'll kill me.”
There was real fear in his eyes—fear that was all-encompassing. But it was in a wrestling match with his fear of Helen and what she would do.
“Mr. Damage, do you think that I'm bluffing?”
“No. N-no, Jesus, it's just...he'll rip me to shreds.”
“And so will I,” said Helen, raising the hammer again. “Tell me about the stashes.”
His eyes went to one side and he let out an exasperated breath. “Shit, I mean, you already know most of it, don’t you?”
“Know most of what?” asked Helen.
“The deal!” His voice grated on the stones of his throat. “The fucking deal. It’s been in the works for weeks now. They only let me in on it a week ago, and that was ‘cause they needed my cousin to make the connection. Who told you mooks about it?”
Beretta could see that she was tempted to tell him that Damage just did. But she held back.
“What do you know about it?” she asked. “Tell us everything.”
“Rattler’s getting anxious. All his money in too many places. Anxious about you guys. Anxious about the Furnace moving in. He doesn’t want you cocksuckers—ahh, sorry, sorry.” Helen lowered the hammer. “Doesn’t want you people, any people, just popping in on some understaffed stash house. So he’s pulling it all in. And then, in a week, he’s moving it off, up North somewhere.”
“North?”
“Yeah. He’s got somebody he knows up there in Wyoming. Gonna launder it all for him, put it in a bank account. Take care of him, the whole deal.”
“Where’s he holding it all now?”
“I don’t know.”
She raised the hammer again.
“J-J-J-Jesus Christ, I don’t know! I-I-I don’t know! I swear to God, I don’t know where. All I know is that it’s somewhere he feels safe. Probably the steelworks. Place is like a fortress. He never leaves there himself. I figure he'd want it close at hand.”
Helen stepped back out from the light and looked over at Ace. He nodded.
“I think we have everything we need, Mr. Damage,” she said. She turned up the morphine drip. He’d be out in seconds. “Thank you for cooperating. We’ll put you back together now.”
Chapter 15
Minutes passed, and Damage’s delirium faded into unconsciousness. Helen's mood was rather buoyed by the satisfaction of a job well done and no one hurt.
“All right,” said Locke. “You want me to do him, boss?”
He had a knife in his hand.
Why does he have a knife in his hand?
“Wait, what?” Helen’s voice was pained. “Don’t kill him.”
She began to move around the bed, placing herself between Locke and Damage.
“You think there’s something else he knows?” asked Ace.
“No. No, he told us everything. So that means...”
“That means he’s got no more use to us anymore,” said Ace. “So we get rid of him.”
“But he cooperated,” said Helen. “I mean he told us what we wanted to know. We can’t just kill him when he’s doing what we want him to do.”
“You tortured him, Helen,” said Beretta. “That’s the only reason he told us what we wanted to know.”
“I didn’t harm a hair on his head.”
Beretta thumbed at Damage. “He don’t know that, does he?”
“He’s helpless,” said Helen. “He can’t fight back.”
They all looked at each other and shrugged. “Good,” said Locke. “We already fought him.”
“You don’t like it, honey, step outside.” There was actual sympathy in Ace's eyes. “But this is the way it’s gotta be.”
Beretta took her by the shoulder.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her outside.
It surprised her that Beretta and Ace actually agreed on something. They were always butting heads over the smallest of things—who left the room first, who rode their bike in what position. Their quibbling was beneath them, she felt. The problem was they were too much alike—stubborn, smart, and tough—and both of them thrived on action.
Beretta especially. His ease of taking control made her heart race and she ached, even when she didn't want to ache at all, to know what it would be like to feel his control working on her again.
The night air was cool—much cooler than it was inside. She pushed her body into Beretta’s. There was, through the window, the sound of a series of soft rustlings. A chill went through her, and she knew the job had been done inside. It was silent and quick. There was that, at least.
More mercy than Damage had shown his children; more mercy than he had shown the women he had cut up. He was an awful man, and yet even so, killing him did not sit right with her.
“You don’t like it, do you?” said Beretta. “What we had to do.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You didn’t have to do it.”
The parking lot was empty. About thirty yards away, cars smoked by on the highway. The neon sign of the motel flickered and buzzed above them, and in the distance they could hear the hum of the motel's third-rate hot tub as it powered on close to the pool.
“Yes, we did,” said Beretta. “He would have talked. To everyone he could, he would have talked. And then we’d be right up shit creek. He would have told everyone he knew every last thing he remembered. They would have moved the stash. Maybe Rattler would have burned it all just to keep us from getting our hands on it. Crazy fuck.” He shook his head. “You’re not by yourself anymore, babe. You’re in a pack, and we gotta look out for each other.”
“A pack?” she laughed. “Am I a fucking wolf now?” She shook her head. “I barely know you. Everything I did know about you seems...wrong now. Everything I liked about you. It's all twisted up now, knowing that you're this kind of person.”
“You knew that all along. You knew what the Wrecking Crew was. You knew it, and you liked it.”
Her breath caught, and try as she might, she could not come up with a counter-argument to that.
“I don't know you,” she said again. “I don't know any of you. It's crazy to think I'm on your side.”
“But you are,” he said, taking her by the hips.
Her thighs, hips, were between his. Again, she could feel the raging hardness of his erection.
Jesus fuck, was he ever not hard?
She remembered, very clearly, that he usually was. Beretta could go for days; he had exhausted her physically and then only made her want more.
“You're with us, now. And you're my old lady. And you know me. You know how I am. You know what I want.”
He pulled her in tighter to his body. His warmth flowed through her. Every part of him felt so strong and sure, and it felt good to let him lead—to just follow his example.
His lips came down to her ear, strong fingers stroking her chin and cheek. “You kept up with me. Not a lot of women can do that. But you can. That means something.”
She looked up at him. Goddammit, why was he such a contradiction? Hot and cold with him. One moment he wanted nothing to do with her. The next, all he could think of was fucking her.
It was a lot like the way she felt about him. It was like there was just something the both of them weren't realizing, weren't owning up to, keeping them doubting and re-doubting forever.
She pushed away from his grip, her thoughts flying. She wanted to fall into him; she wanted to run away forever.
“I didn’t hurt him,” she
said, pulling her head down with her hands. “Didn’t touch him for a second. I had it all figured out. He just thought he was being tortured. I had it...I had it all figured out.”
“This is the kind of men we are, girl,” said Beretta. “Don’t forget it. Not for a second. None of us will. If there's a threat, we have to remove it.”
Maybe that was so.
“You really would have done it, wouldn’t you?”
“Kill him? That’s done.”
“No.” She looked up at him now. “Kill me. You really would have.”
“Me? Personally?” Beretta shrugged and put his hands on her hips again. The touch was calming. “I would have opted out. I’ve put my time in for shit like that. But one of us would have, yeah.”
“I had thought...I knew you were serious, but there was a part of me that thought it was all talk.”
His hands dug into her hips more. Her flesh was receptive to everything he did, and though she hated herself for it, she could not stop how good he felt.
“When it comes to me, nothing is ever ‘just talk,’ babe.”
She turned and put her hands on his chest, looking up into his eyes. They burned down straight to the core of her. She could look at them for hours; she couldn’t bear to look into them for more than a few seconds.
“Come with me,” he said.
“What?”
But he didn’t answer, just tugging her along. In a few moments, they were alone in their room again. He pulled her against him and kissed her.
“I want you,” he said.
Before entering the room with him, she had been tired. Worn out, really, by the episode she’d just suffered through. It felt like time for a twenty-hour nap.
But the second she was alone with him, everything changed. It was like all the chemistry between them, now trapped in a room, was able to double, triple its potency.
In the kiss, her lips parted easily, her tongue sliding across his. He was strong, and he was tough, and he was everything that was wrong in her life but he was also right there, and nothing felt as important as that.
He was nothing but danger, but at the same time, she knew that so long as she was with him, nothing bad would happen.
Hands slipped across her body, sliding down her ass and squeezing hard, lifting her up into his body. He was so strong. With no effort at all, he lifted her up and pushed her against the wall, crushing her breasts against his massive chest. Her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, wanting him closer, tighter, pulling him into her body with everything she had.
“Yes,” she whispered. She had no idea what she consented to—she just wanted to give it all to him. He could do anything he wanted to her. She wanted to be his property in that moment, wanted to be his old lady, wanted to be owned by him totally. He was so hot, so built, so right, and all she wanted was to melt into him.
For several long minutes, he pressed her against the wall still, kissing her madly, their lips locking and re-locking, both of them breathing hard. Their chests heaving, their hands ripping at each other’s clothes. His erection pushed forward, insistent, and she could feel it as it rubbed against the bottom of her thighs, her rear, her waist.
Everything about him was animalistic. Primal. Bestial. He whipped her down on the bed, eliciting a squeal of half-fear, half-excitement, and all-desire. In seconds, he ripped off her scrubs and threw them to the side. Moments later, her panties followed—ripped into pieces by his grip.
Another time, another place, she might have cared about their cost, about replacing them, but all she could think then was how she wanted him to rip through her soul the same way he ripped apart her clothes.
Her crotch was bare to him now. She was wet there and getting wetter. His eyes grew wide with desire as he noticed this, fingers teasing around her edges and sampling her moistness. He took off his shirt and vest, revealing the incredible expanse of his scarred, inked torso. Everything was dense, chiseled. The dark patterns of ink swarmed around his muscles, forming intricate patterns over his scar tissue.
She could see his erection pushing hard through his jeans. Every part of it was huge. When he pulled off his pants, her heart did back flips.
God, he was just as big as she remembered. If anything, her memory had made him smaller. Seeing it again was like being exposed to food after months of starving—she felt like her brain was drooling.
Nothing sounded better to her, at that moment, than being entered by this musclebound behemoth of a man.
He would, she knew, fuck her until she didn’t know what day it was. Her body writhed on the bed, crotch lurching forward, beckoning him to come to her. To come into her.
Closing the distance, though, Beretta sunk his head down and kissed up and down her thighs, soft and wet. His lips circled around her center, coming closer and closer until—
“Oh fuck!” she moaned.
His tongue slid across her clitoris, sending shivers of pleasure through her body. Her hips bucked upwards to meet him, and one hand slid up underneath her ass, gripping her tight as he continued to push his mouth into her.
He licked her so beautifully, so right. Quickly he found a rhythm—a series of fast, gentle licks followed by a few long, slow ones, accenting around her button. Then it would all start again, driving her crazy, pushing her right at the edge.
He'd never licked her before—not in the entire time that they had their too-brief fling. Always they went straight to full fucking, and it wasn't like she had any complaints.
That is, until now. Now that she knew what she had been missing. He was amazing at it, sensational. Every lick took her higher and higher into the stratosphere.
And then she saw what he was doing as he licked her—what his free hand was doing, the one that wasn't imparting his animal strength on her body.
He stroked himself. Stroked his big, long cock, urgent and excited, as he pleasured her with his mouth. Her heart, already beating so fast, felt like it was going to explode.
God, that made it all somehow so much hotter. Spikes of arousal powered through her system, knowing that eating her out turned him on so much that he had to stroke his cock. It wasn't some liability, something he was doing out of obligation. It turned him on to do it.
“Oh god,” she moaned. “Oh...oh, god, I'm so close...”
His rhythm picked up now—the same pattern, fast and slow licks, but their frequency increased. Her orgasm was arriving soon. Seeing Beretta, muscles so ripped, body so thick and huge, overcome with lust just from tasting her made her overwhelmed in turn. The thought of that centered in her brain, filling up her every last sensation with hot blinding light.
She thought of those brilliant abs of his flexing and re-flexing as he bucked his hips, fucking his hand while he licked her even faster.
“Yes,” she cried, releasing. “Yes!”
Pleasure shot through her body and she bucked beneath Beretta's body. Her entire form was taken with bliss, hot and sweet, unraveling like a whirlwind from her core out to her toes. She clutched at Beretta and gasped with sweet surprise as his hot seed sprayed against her skin. It landed on her thighs, her belly, coating her in his warmth. It felt so good to feel his masculine product like that, dripping down her flesh. Marking her.
Making her his property. Claiming her.
He was nothing but danger.
But right then, she didn't care.
Trembling, quivering still, she wrapped herself around him and let herself, just this once, feel totally and completely safe.
Chapter 16
Afterward, she wrapped herself around his body. Like a boa constrictor, getting tighter and tighter by the second. It didn’t bother him. She wasn’t strong enough to start actually constricting his movement, his breath. And Beretta understood why she held him so tight, besides. It wasn’t just affection—though he knew there was plenty of that.
The biggest part of it, he suspected, was that he was the only ship in the storm, and the storm was getting bigger all the tim
e.
“I thought you were going to fuck me,” she whispered in his ear.
Certainly the thought had crossed his mind, and certainly he goddamn wanted to. If he really put in the effort, he could be hard again in just a matter of minutes. He'd done it before—getting hard only minutes after coming.
But then that would make this coupling even more real than it was, and it was already more real than it should be.
He didn't want her to think that this was permanent, that it was anything more than a way to let off some stress. If he fucked her, though, there was no way she would think he wasn't serious because there was no way he wouldn't be serious.
And he couldn't be serious. Not about her. She wasn't part of the plan.
He searched around the bed for a moment, grabbing the bag of candy she had given him earlier. Taking one of the little bars, he broke it half and slid on piece into her mouth. Watching her gorgeous lips slide over the chocolate—and then the hot little moan that followed—was worth not having a full bar for himself.
“Time enough for that later.”
Her fingers danced across the hardness of his chest. “You could have.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ll do anything I like to you, girl. You’re my property.”
Before, she might have slapped him for saying that. Now she drew into him deeper. He’d made her come, and she wasn’t soon to forget it. Beretta liked having that power over her. He liked it too much, and it scared him.
“Besides,” he said. “It excites me plenty just to eat you out.”
“Well then I’ll take advantage,” she said. “As much as you can take.”
“We’ll see who taps out first,” he said.
They were quiet for a long while, both of them dozing. But deep in the night, Helen began to stir. He could tell that she wanted to say something to him; he just didn’t know what it might be.
It was dumb, doing this. All he’d wanted was a quick tug on the release valve, a way to ease the pressure. He didn’t want anymore than that. And he hoped to god she didn’t either. This was a relief, for both of them. But to think that they could ever have anything more was insane.