by Alexa Rynn
I heard more banging from downstairs.
“Trigger,” I said softly. “I can hear them. I think they’re about to break out. What do I…?” I felt my voice catch in my throat and I reminded myself to not let him know I was crying now. “What should I do?”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” And then the line went dead.
***
Trigger burst through the door ten minutes later and I jumped up, startled. I was holding the guns tight against my chest, scared to let them go anywhere. He was by my side within seconds, taking them from me. He wrapped his arms around me slowly, pulling me closer to him. “It’s okay… it’s okay… I’m here now.”
I let myself get lost in his arms, let myself soak in his power and protection.
After a few seconds, he pulled back, smoothing my hair down and taking my face in his hands. “You okay?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
More banging came from underneath us.
Trigger rolled his eyes and looked around the house for the first time now that he knew I was okay. His eyes grew wide with anger, taking in all the damage that the two men had caused to his house. “They did this?”
I nodded. “To pretty much every room in the house.”
Trigger took off toward the basement, taking the steps down two at a time. He dodged toward the closet, practically running toward the door.
“Wait,” I said, running after him as quick as I could but still struggling to catch up to his pace. “You don’t know who they are or what they have in there or…”
Trigger took the chair that was against the door and threw it against the wall. It smashed into a few thick pieces. He swung the door open and yanked the guy I didn’t shoot at out in one quick motion.
He threw him on the floor and kicked him a few times in the stomach. “Good morning you bitch ass pussy,” Trigger yelled, kicking him over and over again.
The guy screamed out in pain and Trigger left him on the floor, turning his attention back toward the other guy in the closet. He held his leg in his hand; towels dripping in blood were wrapped around it.
Trigger looked at me now, eyes wide. “You shot him!”
I started to sweat because I was so nervous. “I told you I did!”
“No! You told me you shot at him. You didn’t tell him me you actually shot him!”
“He was going to shoot me if I didn’t shoot him!”
Trigger’s eyes grew wide with anger. He turned his gaze back toward the guy who I shot. “YOU TRIED TO SHOOT HER?” He walked over to him, yanking him off the ground and pushing him up against the wall in the pantry. The guy cried out in pain. “You think you can come into my home, try to rob me, and try to shoot someone I care about like it’s no big deal? Did you really think nothing was going to happen to you? Do you even know who I am?”
The guy looked at him with fear in his eyes for a second. And then a small smile came across his lips, and an evil almost smug looks came into his eyes. “I know exactly who you are, and Big Tony sends his love.”
Trigger paused for a second, not breaking his gaze from the guy. Then he took his fist and smacked him one time in the face, causing the guy to fall to the ground with a loud thud. He walked back out of the closet, annoyance on his face, and dragged the other guy back into the closet, slamming the door shut behind them.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out, dialing someone.
“Are you calling the police?” I asked.
Trigger laughed at the idea. “No, I’m calling my brothers.”
“I really don’t-“
“Link,” Trigger said into the phone, cutting me off. “You need to get here and now… Big Tony is back in town.”
PART THREE
LACEY
All I could think about was the blood, all of it. It was everywhere. All over the kitchen floor and cabinets. Stained on the perfectly white walls. And me. All over me. If anyone walked into the madness that was in front of me right now they would call the cops first and ask questions last. They would lock me up and throw away the key, no one was going to believe some bitch from the inner city.
Self-defense? That shit meant nothing when you were poor.
Link was on the phone right away, calling in favors and getting people down there. I wanted to leave, to just run away and go home, never looking back but I know I couldn’t. A real woman didn’t run away from her mistakes. A real woman didn’t run away from a real ass situation that was only going down because of her. No, a real woman stuck around when shit got hard and handled her business.
And I may have thought I was a dumb bitch for getting into the situation I was in but I was still a real bitch, too. And that meant I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I looked down at my blood stained work outfit and my sweaty skin covered in bloodstains. What a mess this all was.
Link ended the call he was on and turned his attention back toward me. “Lacey.” His voice was softer than I had ever heard it, filled with sympathy. “Come on.” He took my hand and pulled me after him down the hall toward the employee bathrooms on the other side of the building.
Link had believed my version of what happened right away, never doubting my story, or questioning me on what exactly the man who busted in had said or done to me. I thought it was pretty clear to him from my state that I wasn’t fucking around, that I had no reason to lie about what the fuck had gone down in this restaurant tonight.
He led me into the bathroom and dropped my hand to turn on one of the small showers that lined the wall. He reached under the sink and pulled out some shampoo and soap, leaving them on the small shelf that stood next to the shower. I had seen these showers a bunch of times but had never used them. I had never heard of any employee using them and certainly never imaged that I would be.
Link walked back over to me, slowly. I studied his intense face, letting his eyes wash over me as he studied my body, taking me in inch by inch. He reached up slowly and popped the buttons on my blouse open one by one until it fell down from my body and landed on the floor. His hands traveled to the top of the waistband on my skirt and slipped it off my body and down on the floor so that I was left standing in front of him in just my bra and panties.
He ran his strong hands up and down my stomach, never lifting his gaze from mine. His hands reached around the back of me and unhooked my bra, pulling it off of me and tossing it on the floor. He traced the tip of his fingers around my boobs, working them further inward toward my nipples, a shiver shot up and down my body.
He pulled his shirt over his head with ease, revealing his perfectly ripped abs. My throat caught at his beauty and he slowly dropped his pants so that we were both standing in just our undergarments. He pushed my hair away from my face and then he leaned down, kissing me softly on the lips.
It was tender and intimate, not hungry or filled with power and dominance. It was a simple kiss. He wasn’t trying to control me; he was trying to take care of me. He broke our taste, resting his head on top of my forehead as we both breathed softly into one another. After a second, he took my hand, leading me toward the running shower.
He pulled the shower curtain back, allowing the steam to burst out into the rest of the room. He slipped his boxers off and then my panties a second later. He led me into the shower slowly, setting my body under the shower gently so that hot water could run over me.
He let me get wet for a second and then grabbed a wash cloth from the shelf, putting some soap on it. Then he set to work cleaning me up. He was gentle, scrubbing the blood off of my body slowly, careful to not miss a drop. He even helped me wash my hair, shampooing it softly.
After he was done we just stood there with the water dripping down over our bodies, studying one another. It amazed me how perfect he was even up close, he wasn’t like a model that only looked good in print and then when you saw them in person you knew it was some fancy camera work that did the trick. No, Link Ford was just straight up good looking in any light or any angle o
r any position. It wasn’t the trick of the camera that did it; it was just his natural light.
He pulled me closer to him, letting his skin press into mine with ease as he nuzzled himself into my neck. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
Normally the words might have made me blush, especially coming from Link Ford but I found it hard to concentrate on anything else. considering what I had just done, considering what had just gone down back there minutes before.
“I can’t believe I killed him,” I said softly. “I didn’t even know you could kill someone by only stabbing them a few times, it was only a few times, and it was so fast.”
Link sighed. “You can kill someone by only stabbing them once or twice, you just have to know the right places to hit.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that him knowing something like that should scare me, but it didn’t. I wasn’t scared of him because I was too dependent on him in that moment. He was my protector, my safety.
“It all happened so fast, too fast,” I whispered. “That man had a family, he had people that care about him and I just took that away from them. Whoever he is to them is just never going to come home again and I did that to them. Me! It’s on me.”
Link scrunched his perfect face up in agony and confusion as I spoke. “Hey, no, that’s not on you. That’s on him. What did you do? You got up and went to work this morning. You did what you were supposed to do and some guy comes bursting in, wanting to kill you. You didn’t take shit from anyone, he took himself away from them, all you did was defend yourself.” He paused, taking me in again as the water hit my eyes and ran down my face. “I don’t want you blaming yourself. Okay?”
I didn’t say anything; not even bothering to try and stop the hot water that was dripping into my eyes and mouth. What was the point? I could barely feel anything at that point anyway, I felt like I had stepped out of my body and everything was happening to me without my permission or knowledge. I felt like this night was happening to anyone else but me. There was no way I had just stabbed some man to death in the kitchen of the place I worked at. That type of shit didn’t happen to me. I was a smarter person than that.
“Hey,” Link said softly, kissing me again. “This isn’t on you. Do you understand me?”
I looked up and him and saw the concern in his eyes burning through me and I could see how much he believed what he was saying to me. I could see how much he didn’t blame me for anything that went down that night and how bad he didn’t want me to blame me either.
I nodded. “Okay.”
I wasn’t sure I actually believed it but I felt better than I did a few seconds ago. Link had a way of letting his power and sureness of himself and his actions travel through you, tricking you into thinking that they were your own thoughts and feelings. Great leaders had a way of doing that and Link was definitely a great leader.
Damn he looked so good with the water dripping through his hair and down his perfect face and then covering his toned muscles. It was hard to concentrate being so close to someone that perfect and concentrate on anything else besides how sexy they were, besides how beautiful they were.
He pushed his lips against mine and I returned the favor, allowing my tongue to slip into his mouth while the water rained down on top of us. He pushed me back against the wall, controlling my mouth with his as he rubbed his hands up and down my body. I rolled my fingers up and down his perfect stomach, thinking about how many other women wished they could touch Link Ford’s stomach.
And there I was, actually doing it.
My hand drifted down further to his big cock. It was already rock hard and I ran my fingers up and down the scope of it, doing my best to fit the entire thing in my hand, but I was pretty sure I would fail because it was so huge.
I got a rush when I realized how quickly I could make him get turned on.
His thick lips were still wrapped up in mine, letting me taste him as much as I wanted. It was different than anything we had ever done before. We had made out before, we had fucked before, but this was softer, not hungry or rapid, just calm and natural. He didn’t want to dominate me and control me in this moment even though he knew that he could. He just wanted to fuck me softly while he took care of me, while he showed me everything was going to be okay. It was like he knew how much I needed that right then, how much I wanted that right then.
His hands slipped down my stomach and started to rub my hips softly back and forth and then he slipped his fingers underneath the back of my legs and propped my body up against the wall, wrapping my legs around his solid body. I kissed him deeper, taking in his taste with anticipation of what was coming. He was an addictive man, and I could see in that moment just how much these women must chase him around out here, not taking no for an answer at just the thought of being with him. And as much as I hated to think about it, I understood it, because I was slowly becoming one of them. I was slowly starting to become more and more consumed by Link Ford.
I opened my legs a little wider and slowly inserted his huge cock inside of me. Link broke our embrace, moaning as he felt my tightness spreading around his huge cock. He slowly worked it deeper and deeper inside of me and then thrust his cock in and out a few times while he watched my face.
I moaned, letting him pound his big dick in my pussy back and forth, my back hit against the shower with each of his movements. After a few minutes he slowed down and started making out with me again, his tongue teasing me as it slid in and out and back and forth in my mouth.
I ground my hips back and forth across his dick as he held me tight over him. Working his hugeness inside of me, letting it get me off. I moaned loudly, my back against the wall, my legs still wrapped tight around him. The whole thing was so sexy.
“Link,” I moaned his name loudly, wanting him to understand how good he felt inside of, wanting him to know how good he was fucking me inside of this shower.
“I know,” Link panted in his heavy and dark sexy voice. “I know.”
It was like he could read my thoughts. It was like he knew exactly what I needed to hear and when. It was like he knew exactly what I needed to feel and when. He pounded harder and harder into me. God, he was so good. Fucking Link was like a drug that I never wanted to give up. It was like an addiction that I couldn’t wait to get my next fix of. One that I would only be able to give up with the help of professionals, something I would need to go away to rehab to try and ever really be cured from.
He banged himself into me harder, rotating back and forth between pounding me out fast and then slow. I couldn’t take it anymore and he grinned as I came all over him in the shower with the water dripping down around the two of us.
A second later he gasped and then I felt him explode all over the inside of me, unable to hold back any longer the way I hadn’t been able to a second before. The look on his face was exactly the way I felt inside. Like all my problems had faded away back somewhere to the back of my mind and all I cared about was being there in that moment with him, unable to see much further into anything else besides him.
I unwrapped myself around him slowly, not really wanting to let him go. We let the water drip down on top of the two of us, wiping us clean. He leaned down and kissed me again, harder this time, like he wanted me to know that I was his. And in that moment, I actually felt like maybe it was true.
“You okay?” he asked me for about the 10th time since he found me only an hour earlier.
This time, when I answered I meant my answer more than before. “No, but I will be.”
“That’s my girl,” he said, a half-smile on his lips. “I’ll get you some clean clothes, just give me a second,” he told me. He squeezed my hand then opened the shower curtain, drying himself off and starting to get dressed. I stayed where I was, letting the water drip down and wash over me. A few seconds later I heard the door open to the bathroom and Link walked out.
Once he was gone I let out a deep breath I hadn’t even realized I was holding down
inside of me. I was getting in way too deep with Link Ford. And the worst part was that I liked it. I liked it too much.
I swear you would think Link was a part of the FBI or something with the amount of brothers that showed up within a half hour of him making a few phone calls. All ready to handle his business and do whatever he needed them to at his very command. That’s all I could think about as I stood in the middle of the kitchen watching everyone spring into action around him.
Suddenly, the MC made sense to me.
This was what the brotherhood was all about.
Being there for each other no matter what; they were a family.
Two brothers were kneeled down, scrubbing the blood out of the floor. A few more were busy on the other side of the room, getting the blood off the walls. None of them said much to me. I think they were kind of shocked to see a girl involved in the type of shit that was going down. They kept raising their eyes at one another and shooting each other looks.
But I knew none of them would check Link on it, unless maybe they wanted to get smacked in the face. Link had remained calm and collected ever since we got out of the shower, never raising his voice even when all his brothers arrived. Instead, simply telling them what to get to work on.
I looked down at his oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants he had given me that he must have had in his car. I wrapped my arms closer around myself, taking in his scent. I wanted to ask why he would drive around with a change of clothes in his car at all times, right down to a pair of socks. But I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know the answer. Plus, I knew better.
The back door to the restaurant swung open, pulling me out of my thoughts. I immediately felt myself starting to get nervous when I realized it was Link’s brothers. They looked just like him, maybe a little younger, but still just as good looking. The same sexy skin tone, deep brown eyes, tall frame, and perfect bodies. I recognized both of them immediately, able to tell them apart easily. Everyone knew who the Ford brothers were, even if they didn’t know who you were. I had never talked to either of them before and had no idea what to expect.