Vendetta (WeHo Book 7)

by Sherryl Hancock

  “And why…” Savanna whispered as she shifted her hand ever so slightly, her thumb brushing over one breast, dangerously close to a nipple. “Why are you laid there hoping I’ll touch you… here…” she said as her thumb brushed over a rock-hard nipple.

  Lyric gasped and her body jumped in reaction. “Savanna…” she breathed, starting to shake her head again.

  “Don’t,” Savanna ordered. “Don’t fucking tell me again that you’re not gay…” she said, almost angry now. “Don’t try to tell me that you aren’t aching so badly right now you could come at any moment…” she said, eliciting a low moan from Lyric’s lips.

  Once again she lowered her lips to just above Lyric’s, moving her hand from Lyric’s chest to the bed beside Lyric’s head. With her other hand braced on the other side, she levered herself up slightly, causing her to press closer to Lyric. Lyric’s eyes closed as she struggled to hold onto her control.

  Savanna could see that she wasn’t going to get Lyric to admit anything, no matter what. Finally, she just figured “fuck it” and moved her body against Lyric, simulating the motion of lovemaking, her body sliding over Lyric’s as she did.

  Lyric groaned loudly and came immediately, her hands suddenly grasping desperately at Savanna’s waist, as she writhed in ecstasy. Savanna gave a shout of orgasm as well, having made herself incredibly excited in the process of trying to convince Lyric of her own desires. Combined with the sound of Lyric’s pleasure, it was more than she could stand and hold out against.

  Afterwards, they both lay breathing heavily. Savanna continued to lie over Lyric, refusing to move, lest Lyric move away. Lyric closed her eyes, starting to feel the impact of two sleepless nights and the tequila. A minute later she was asleep, as was Savanna. During the course of the night they both shifted, Lyric shifted them up onto the bed, both lying on their sides, but Savannah kept her hand on Lyric’s waist. They were both still fully clothed.

  Early the next morning, Lyric stirred. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand; it was four o’clock. She got up carefully, Savanna stirred but didn’t wake. Lyric left the room and went downstairs. As she went through the foyer, she picked up her helmet, riding jacket and used her keys locked the house back up as she left. Savanna had given her a key as a safeguard the month before.

  Pulling on her jacket, she stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out her iPod. She plugged the headphones into her ears and hit play, then put the iPod back into her pocket. She climbed onto the Suzuki GSX-R1000 and pulled on her helmet and gloves. She gunned the engine and as a new song on the iPod started, Lyric let off the clutch and took off quickly. As she drove down the road, the song “Putting Out Fire with Gasoline” played in her ears and she thought, “Yeah, pretty much…”

  It pretty much described the situation at that point. Lyric mulled over what had happened. It had literally been months since she’d been satisfied sexually. Combined with tequila, it was just a disaster waiting to happen. It didn’t make her gay. She’d always been a tomboy, and just because Savanna had made her come, it didn’t mean she was gay, it meant she’d had too much to drink and had desperately needed to get off. That’s all it meant.

  Chapter 3

  Cody felt like she was hanging on by a very thin string. In the last week, McKenna had cornered her more than once trying to engage her in conversation again. Cody had been bound and determined when she’d come back to the house that she would avoid the woman. For whatever reason, that seemed to mean that fate kept sticking her right in her face.

  One afternoon, Cody was sitting in the living room, once again observing one girl acting strangely. The girl continually kept looking around her, like she was expecting someone to jump out and grab her. Cody recognized the behavior, it had been exactly how she’d felt years before. It took every shred of self-control she had to keep herself from taking the girl out of there immediately.

  She’d followed the other dark-haired girl the day before, and found that she was indeed meeting gang members from the local Mexican gang, the M-13. From what Cody had been able to see, they were running the same ‘game’ she’d been through years before. She knew that if they were doing this there were likely to be more girls from other homes or just runaways that were being forced to do their bidding. She needed to get information and she needed to get it fast. She made a mental note to check the M-13’s dealings and recent arrests; maybe she could flip one of the members. What she knew for certain, was that she needed to shut this down soon.

  Cody had followed the girl into the kitchen, and was just turning to leave when McKenna came around the corner. Keeping her head down, Cody did her best to move around the girl without getting too close.

  “Cody?” McKenna queried. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” Cody said, nodding, and once again attempting to get out of the kitchen.

  McKenna narrowed her eyes, sensing that Cody was trying to get away from her. She felt bad, she knew that the night of the storm things had gone a little crazy. Since then she’d been trying to get Cody back into a conversation, but Cody had been very reluctant.

  “Cody, can we go talk somewhere, please?” McKenna asked.

  “Why?” Cody asked, her look purposefully confused.

  “I just feel like we left things on a bad note,” McKenna said, sounding concerned.

  Cody shrugged. “It’s fine, it’s okay.”

  “What is, Cody?” McKenna asked, trying to get under Cody’s eyes so she could get her to look at her. It wasn’t too hard to do since Cody was about four inches taller than her.

  “What is what?” Cody asked, averting her eyes from McKenna’s.

  “Jesus, Cody! Stop it!” McKenna said, finally losing her patience.

  She reached out and grabbed Cody’s hand, and dragged her into the study, shutting the doors behind them. Then she turned to look at Cody, whose head was, as always, down. McKenna looked at the girl for a long time, and waited for her to look at her. It seemed that Cody was better at this than she was.

  “For God’s sake, Cody, please look at me,” McKenna said.

  Cody dutifully lifted her head. Her eyes looked almost gold in the sunlight coming through the windows.

  “It’s not like I’m going to attack you or something,” McKenna said, her own concerns coming to bare.

  “I didn’t think you were,” Cody said, not wanting McKenna to think she was afraid of that.

  “Then why are you avoiding me?” McKenna asked.

  “I’m not,” Cody said stubbornly.

  “I’m calling bullshit on that one, Cody,” McKenna said, her gray-green eyes flashing.

  Cody couldn’t stop the grin that tugged at her lips, and McKenna saw it. Feeling a little foolish suddenly, McKenna started to grin too.

  “Now that we cleared that up,” McKenna said, rolling her eyes. “I really am sorry about the other night,” she said her tone softer.

  “Why are you sorry?” Cody heard herself ask, even as she mentally kicked herself.

  McKenna hesitated, not sure how to answer that question.

  “I guess because things got a little bit… intense,” she said.

  Cody narrowed her eyes slightly and nodded. McKenna looked back at Cody. She took in the narrowed eyes, and wondered at that. Then she found herself asking a question she never should have asked.

  “Cody, are you gay?” she asked gently, but even as the words came out of her mouth, she wanted to smack herself.

  There was a slight shift in Cody’s look, but then she nodded slowly, lowering her eyes.

  “No,” McKenna said, stepping toward Cody, not wanting the girl to feel like she was judging her, or in any way blaming her for the other night. “Please,” McKenna said, reaching out her hand to touch Cody’s cheek.

  Cody raised her eyes to McKenna again, and this time McKenna could read turmoil clearly in them.

  “God…” McKenna said, shaking her head and walking over to one of the windows. “I completely suck at this,”
she said, more to herself than to Cody.

  “At what?” Cody asked from behind her.

  “This,” she said. “Social work, trying to work with girls like you, when I obviously couldn’t say the right thing if my life depended on it.”

  “You say the right thing,” Cody said, feeling the need to ease the girl’s conscience, even if she knew she should just leave things alone.

  McKenna gave a short laugh. “Thank you for saying that Cody, but it’s not really your job to comfort me, I’m supposed to be the one comforting you…”

  Cody didn’t say anything, but went to sit down on the love seat nearby. McKenna turned and saw that she was sitting down, and moved to sit next to her.

  “Why do I feel like I always say the wrong thing around you?” McKenna asked, sounding mournful.

  Cody pressed her lips together. “You try too hard,” she said quietly.

  “With you?” McKenna asked.

  Cody nodded. “You’re a lot more natural with the other girls, I’ve heard you.”

  “So what it is about you then?” McKenna asked, again, more to herself than to Cody.

  “I make you nervous.”

  McKenna glanced at her, surprised by the statement, but then she realized that Cody was right. She nodded, looking perplexed.

  “But why?” she asked.

  Cody shrugged.

  McKenna stared back at Cody for a long minute, her mind turning over the problem. “I think you make me nervous because you remind me of my sister…”

  “Your sister?” Cody asked.

  McKenna nodded. “She was older than me by three years,” she said. “She’s the reason I wanted to get into this line of work.”

  “Why?” Cody asked, curious now.

  McKenna looked at Cody, unsure if she should really talk about it, but feeling like she needed to at least try to make sense of it to Cody. She didn’t want the girl to feel like there was something wrong with her and that was why she made McKenna nervous.

  “My sister ran away from home when she was fifteen,” McKenna said. “Our parents were a bit on the strict side and she didn’t want to play by their rules.”

  Cody nodded cringing inside, because she was afraid she now knew why McKenna had been so vehement about her not prostituting.

  “She ended up on the streets here in LA. We lived down in San Diego then.”

  “And?” Cody asked, knowing there was more.

  “And she sold her body to make money and she ended up on drugs,” McKenna said. She swallowed convulsively as the memories came back, all the worry and recriminations her parents had gone through.

  “What happened?” Cody finally asked when McKenna didn’t continue.

  McKenna took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself. She didn’t want to say the words, but she knew that Cody needed to hear it. “She ended up getting murdered by one of her johns and they never caught the person,” she said the last with a misting of tears in her eyes, which she turned her head away to hide.

  Cody grimaced, she’d known it was going to be something like that, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.

  “I’m sorry,” Cody said quietly.

  McKenna nodded, not looking at her, and Cody knew without a doubt that she was crying. Without stopping to think, Cody reached out and touched her shoulder, apparently that was the breaking point, because McKenna let out a soft sob. Cody moved to lean her head against McKenna’s back. It was the only thing she could think of to do that wouldn’t have the girl in her arms, which was really where she wanted her to be.

  She could feel McKenna’s body shaking and closed her eyes. It went against everything that she knew to let a woman cry and not do everything in her power to comfort her. Cody knew, however, that she’d be completely breaking her cover if she did, and if she was wrong about McKenna and she was actually working with the gang trafficking young girls, she’d have blown the case completely.

  When McKenna finally calmed down, she turned around, which put her right in front of Cody, their faces only inches apart. There were still tears on McKenna’s cheek and Cody did what years with Lyric had drummed into her; she reached up and wiped a tear away with her thumb. She heard McKenna suck in her breath and then she did the dumbest thing she’d done in recent history, she looked into McKenna’s eyes.

  Bam! She knew she was screwed before she even saw McKenna’s lips part. Before she stopped to engage her brain, her libido took over and had her leaning in to kiss McKenna’s lips gently. McKenna’s lips were soft, and warm and, Oh God help me… was all Cody could think, before McKenna’s lips were on hers. Cody’s hands reached out of their own volition and slid up McKenna’s arms, pulling her closer as she deepened the kiss. McKenna moaned softly against her lips and that was what broke the trance.

  What the fuck am I doing! Cody’s mind screamed. She broke the kiss and turned away. She knew it would look like she was confused, when in fact she was fighting to control her body that wanted desperately to turn right back around and ravish the woman on the love seat.

  “Oh my God, Cody…” McKenna said, shock and shame evident in her voice.

  It was more than Cody could take. She stood up and strode to the door, she didn’t care if it was completely out of character for Cody Wyatt to stride anywhere. A few moments later she was out the front door and she broke into a dead run. She ran as far and as fast as her legs would carry her, finally collapsing on the grass in a park about four miles from the group home. She lay on the grass, looking up at the sky and thinking, Fuck, fuck, fuck! McKenna was going to be the death of her short career! Stupid fucking idiot, what is fucking wrong with you? her mind kept asking her over and over again.

  Cody lay on the grass for at least two hours; it was getting dark by the time she got up. She started walking, it was fully dark by the time she made it to her motorcycle parked four miles from the house in the opposite direction. She unlocked the helmet from the bike and pulled out her iPod and headphones tucked safely inside. She plugged in her headphones and turned on the iPod. Then she pulled on the helmet and hit play. Linkin Park blared through her headphones, the song “What I’ve Done” played as she gunned the bike through the streets, hitting the freeway going over a hundred miles an hour, not caring which LAPD officers called Lyric. The words to the song blasted in her head, and she let the words push her farther and faster, gunning the bike and feeling the powerful engine leap forward.

  She got to the house at eight that night and went into her suite of rooms through the side door, so she didn’t run into her mothers. She took a shower and threw on jeans, her Harley Davidson rocker boots, and a black halter tank top that hugged her body and bared her back, showing off the six-inch long tattoo; a black treble clef surrounded by the colors of the rainbow. It was something most people never saw, but tonight she didn’t care. Taking off the chain she wore and putting her platinum band in place on her left ring finger, and slid a black and gunmetal tribal pendant onto the chain and put it back around her neck. Grabbing her black leather biker jacket on the way out, she picked up the keys to her car.

  As she opened the garage, she waited for the lights to come on. Lyric’s black Ferrari sat next to a red one, Cody’s Ferrari. Cody’s wasn’t as rare as Lyric’s, there’d only been thirty-two of the 250 GTOs. Cody’s model was a ’66 275 GTB, a bit racier, especially in the red, but definitely Cody. She and Lyric had restored it together; she loved the car almost as much as she loved the woman who’d given it to her.

  She climbed into the low-slung sports car, put the key in, and started it with a deeply satisfying rumble of power. Plugging her phone into the iPod jack, she cranked Def Leppard’s “Slang” as she backed out of the garage. The words to the song were about how she felt that night, and she wasn’t about to stop and think this one through.

  A half an hour later, she pulled up to The Club. She walked over to the girl at the valet booth, stepping up just behind her so her lips were right next to the girl’s ear.

 
; “You see that car?” she whispered seductively, pointing to her car.

  The girl nodded, her lips parted at the feel of this hot looking butch standing right behind her.

  “I love that car more than any other possession I have…” She pressed the keys into the girl’s hand, sliding her hand up her arm. “If it gets a scratch… You and I will have a problem… And we don’t want that, do we?” she asked, her voice husky.

  The girl shook her head, breathing heavily.

  “There’s a hundred in it for you, if you park it far from everyone else,” Cody said, kissing the girl’s ear. Then she turned and walked into The Club.

  The girl stood holding the keys for a full minute before she could get her pulse under control.

  Inside The Club, Cody headed straight for the bar and ordered a double shot of Herradura tequila, winking at the bartender. Taking the shot and throwing it back, she tossed a twenty and a ten on the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender handed her a Corona, knowing Cody and what she drank.

  “Thanks babe,” Cody said, smiling at the bartender.

  She turned and headed out to the patio where she could smoke. Outside she found a chair and sat sprawled, her legs out in front of her comfortably. She pulled out her cigarettes and lit one, then tossed the pack on the table, and pocketed her lighter

  “Cody?” Jet said from behind her.

  Cody dropped her head back, looking at Jet and smiling, “Hey,” she said.

  “Haven’t seen you here in a while…” Jet said, her look narrowed slightly.

  “Last time I checked, I’m still legal,” she said, grinning as she picked up her beer and took a long drink.

  Jet chuckled, moving to sit in the chair across from her.

  “Heard you got married,” Cody said.

  Jet grinned, nodding.

  “Never thought you’d get married,” Cody said, shaking her head.

  “You and me both,” Jet said, grinning.

  “Damned shame,” Cody said, shaking her head.

  “Just leaves more women for you, Cody,” Jet said, grinning at the younger girl.