by Vivian Ward
And there it was; that angel on my shoulder who always in constant turmoil with the devil on my other shoulder. I put my head in my hands and slowly shook it as I let his words echo in my mind. My dad was a smart man, and he always had everyone’s best interest in mind.
“Anita, somebody’s coming back for that stuff, whether it be Gage or someone worse.”
That was all it took; to be reminded of the dangers that lurked on our private property. The property that our house was on, where Bentley slept.
I looked up at him. “I’ll do it. I’ll go talk to him tonight, after work.”
I could tell I shocked him when he leaned back in his chair, and the whites of his eyes grew large. “What made you come around so fast? Normally, you’re so hard-headed and stubborn, just like your mother,” he added a playful wink.
“Bentley. All I want is my baby to be safe. We can worry about playing house later, but right now I want to make sure he’s safe. Those bombs were no joke, and I’m worried what else is out there that we didn’t find.”
“That’s a good girl,” he walked around my desk and patted my shoulder. “Just don’t make any more babies when you two….reunite.”
Chapter 4: Gage
We’d only been in town for a few days and weren’t any closer to finding Bethany than when we had first arrived. Mask must have been onto us that we were tracking them because Henry wasn’t coming up with any new information at all, and he was the best in the field. It was no secret what he could do behind a keyboard; everyone knew his name because of what he had done.
Our boss hired Henry after he hacked his company’s top-notch security system.
Mr. Sanders had the most up-to-date computer software that was available, and it was guaranteed uncrackable from the private I.T. team that had built it specifically for his business model. They were right until Henry stumbled across it.
He’s always loved the challenge of hacking systems that were allegedly unhackable; it was a game for him. When Mr. Sanders’ team of experts tracked it back to Henry, he didn’t want to press charges and send him to jail. Instead, he brought him on as his head of cyber security and put him to use—for both business and pleasure.
Sparkles—as I’d taken to calling the woman in the dress from the lobby—was a nice warm hole for me to get my dick wet while I was trying to get Anita out of my head. She didn’t mean anything to me, but damn if she didn’t feel good.
I was surprised by how tight she was given her mind-blowing performances between the sheets. Anytime she asked me about my past, I grabbed a fistful of hair and shoved my tongue into her mouth while my fingers slipped inside her wet pussy; it usually shut her up for the rest of the night.
But tonight? I needed a drink. With the way boss man was breathing down our necks, I needed to forget about shit for a minute; blow off some steam. I’d barely left the hotel room since I was avoiding Anita; and besides, I had Sparkles to bust a few loads into and didn’t have a reason to leave unless it was for booze.
My biggest problem? Aside from not locating the boss’s daughter? Anita. Even though I had succeeded in avoiding her since I saw her my first night in town, she had me all twisted up inside.
I’ve never been the flowers and hearts kind of guy, so when I left, I wasn’t about to start flirting over the phone hundreds of miles away while I was in Westerville, California. I did what I always do and fucked things up. Maybe I should have called her, or hell, maybe just sent her an email or something.
But I didn’t do either. I walked away with my tail between my legs and fucked the first cunt that I could find, trying to get over it.
The best thing I could do for the both of us was get her out of my head for good. She wanted roses and romance, and I was on the damn hunt for a predator who slung pussy more than he dished out drugs. I’ve always been in trouble my whole life and for once, it felt nice to be on the other side of the fence, especially if it meant not dealing with my feelings.
Then I saw her face and those perfectly thick, delicious curves and remembered how I used to grab onto them while I rode her. Seeing her, but not having her was like a heroin addict looking at his goods and not slamming his veins full of dope. As much as I wanted her, it fucking killed me to walk away from her.
We stepped inside the bar and ordered our drinks while we worked out our next plan of action. With the way Mask moved around and had unlimited access to credit cards and cash, there was no telling where they could be.
Hell, for all we knew, they were in another country by now. I hoped I was wrong for Mr. Sanders’ sake. I didn’t want to be the one to cause his death by telling him his daughter had been lost in a human trafficking ring.
Shit must have been taking its toll on Henry too because he was hammering down drinks just as fast as I was. I’d never seen him keep up with me, and by 9:00, he was toasted.
I ordered a cab and slid a hundred toward the bartender and said, “Keep the change” as I dragged him out of the bar. It wouldn’t be long before he’d pass out, and I was too fucked up to carry his ass into the hotel room and put him to bed.
When the cab dropped us off, we staggered through the hotel lobby, making our way to our room where Henry plopped down on the couch in the living area while I took a leak in the bathroom. I was zipping up my pants when I heard a knock on the door.
“Hey, baby,” Sparkles said, walking past me. “I saw you and your friend walking through the lobby while I was getting some ice.”
I shut the door, turning to watch her ass wiggle across the room as I stood near the doorway. She was wearing a strapless top with a pair of booty shorts that showed off the bottom of her ass cheeks.
“Oh yeah?” my lips turned into a knowing smile; it was no secret that she was putting on a little show for me, and I was willing to play along.
She stood next to the bed where she spread her legs wide and planted one of her feet on the mattress. “Yeah,” she grabbed a handful of ice cubes. “Cuz it’s hot in here.”
She grabbed the top of her blouse and yanked it down, allowing her tits to spill right out of it. Her nipples hardened as she rubbed the ice cubes all over her breasts and the melted ice made her skin glisten in the light of the room.
“But it’s not the only thing that’s hot,” she hissed, grabbing more ice cubes from the bucket.
This was the hottest show I’d ever seen. Mesmerized by her actions, my eyes stayed glued to her as the bulge in my pants continued to grow, straining behind the zipper in my pants. I could already feel my balls beginning to ache, throbbing for release.
Her hand slipped down the front of her shorts, still holding the ice cubes, and her mouth formed the perfect ‘O’ as her eyes lit up and she tossed her head back with a laugh.
When she pulled her hand out of her shorts, she opened it, showing me her palm; the ice was gone. Grinning at me, she nodded toward her crotch.
“Hope that doesn’t make your cock too cold,” she sucked the melted ice off her fingers.
Fucking shit! She’d pushed all of them inside of her. The material of my jeans pulled taut against my throbbing cock, straining to get out. I was going to lose my damned mind if I didn’t bust a load inside her soon.
Grabbing her shoulders, I threw her down onto the mattress and gripped her wrists.
“You like teasing me, baby?” I growled in her ear as I bit along her neck. “That’s not nice. You know what I do to teases like you?”
Letting go of her wrists, I reached down and yanked off her shorts in one swift motion, leaving her wet pussy completely exposed before me. My dick jerked at the thought of entering her.
As horny as I was, I kicked off my shoes and pulled my pants down around my knees before I plunged my cock deep inside of her.
The side of her face pressed into the pillow as the weight of my body pushed her into the mattress, and my hips went into auto-pilot.
Her fingernails dug into my shoulders, tearing and burning my skin as she raked them down my back. Fuc
king her faster, my balls tightened as she groaned and called out my name.
I heard a rapping noise, and I didn’t know if it was the headboard beating into the wall or if it were the neighbors telling us to keep it down, but I didn’t care.
I picked up my pace and pistoned in and out of her with lightning speed as I felt her pussy grip my cock while her eyes rolled the back of her head, moaning and panting.
“That’s it, baby, let me feel you cum,” I grunted, burying myself deeper.
She tilted her hips just right, making her feel tighter than before, and I fucking lost it. With a few more hard pumps, I came into the condom and collapsed next to her, panting for air.
“Damn,” she said, scooting next to me in bed, resting her head on my chest. “You need to drink more often.”
Looking down at her, smiling, I said, “I might just do that, and you need to bring ice with you more often.”
Out of nowhere, the door swung open and slammed against the wall.
“What the fuck?” Anita said, her mouth gaping open. “Oh hell no!” she turned to walk out.
Jumping off the bed, I ripped the sheet away from Sparkles and chased after her. I had already let her get away once; it wasn’t happening twice.
“Anita, wait,” I grabbed her arm, spinning her around. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
Her eyes seared into me, burning me a thousand times over. I felt the pain in her eyes; she didn’t have to say a word.
Damn it, Gage. Why do you always have to fuck things up?
I hated myself and blamed myself for everything. What kind of a heartless bastard hurts a sweet girl like Anita? The answer? An evil bastard like me, that’s who.
Henry swayed behind me, bumping into me.
“I let her in,” his words slurred. “She knocked, and I knew who she was.”
Fucking dipshit.
She started to leave again, but I wouldn’t let go of her. My hand was still gripped around her arm. “Why are you here?”
Her watery eyes looked into mine, and the pit of my stomach dropped. Something wasn’t right; everything was wrong. Everything, from my end to hers. This wasn’t all about Sparkles and me. There was more to it.
“I needed your help,” she whispered, refusing to look at me a moment longer.
“Baby, who is she?” Sparkles walked out of the bedroom with her clothes on.
It didn’t matter if she was dressed or not. She still looked like a two-dollar hooker.
“Get out,” I said, my eyes fixated on Anita, who was wiggling her arm away from me. She was crazy if she thought she could escape my death grip.
“But baby, I just—”
“Get out!” I snarled at her.
“I can see your busy,” Anita said, struggling harder to get away.
Sparkles grabbed her purse off the table and slid past us on her way out the door.
“Tell me what’s going on, Anita. I know there’s something wrong.”
She stood in the doorway, tears streaming down her face. I was the world’s biggest piece of shit, but I was going to make it up to her; somehow.
Chapter 5: Anita
My heart plummeted, and my knees failed me when I saw him with that whore and tried to get the hell away from him. I couldn’t believe his drunken friend let me in knowing that he was in there fucking the brains out of that girl.
Why would he do that?
I tried not to look at him when he grabbed a hold of me wearing nothing except a white sheet, but it hung loosely off of his perfectly sculpted abs and toned waist. It was impossible not to stare at him.
His whole body was teasing me, taunting me to take it all in but I refused to take a peek of the large swell in the sheet between his legs.
He blew it. Not only had he left and stayed gone for almost two years, but he was also a drinking, whoring asshole.
And now he was trying to act innocent like he did nothing wrong, but it didn’t change the fact that we still needed his help. I had to talk to him.
“Come inside,” he closed the door. “I’m going to throw some clothes back on.”
“Don’t tell me that was your girlfriend,” I snorted, sitting on the couch.
“You’re shitting me?” he laughed. “That girl is nothing to me, just a whore to blow off some steam.”
“Yeah, I bet she blows all right.”
I knew it was cold, but I didn’t care. He was the one who decided to walk out of my life, and then decided to lose my number.
“You’re a piece of work! Do you know that Anita?” he pulled on his pants. “Maybe I wouldn’t have had to turn to her if you wouldn’t have given me the cold shoulder when I saw you the other night. Do you even care that was my first night back in town? Maybe we could have reignited that old flame between us, but you decided to shut it down. Not me.”
Ouch. Another slap in the face, and it stung.
We had both made mistakes and were equally guilty. I lied and hid his son from him, and he was dirty. Tainted. But that wasn’t all my fault—was it?
“You’re right. I never cared about you, and I sent you into the arms of that whore, right?”
“For Christ’s sake, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he sat next to me, kicking his friend out of the room.
I knew that I had to tell him about what was going on around the property, but aside from that, the rest of it was up in the air. I knew deep down that he was flawed, he wasn’t father material, much less husband material. The way things stood, we were both too damaged, too hurt.
But I would do everything I could to protect my son and keep him safe while protecting my own heart. I knew I could do it as long as I held onto my good senses. All I had to do was tell him about what my dad and I had discovered, and the rest would work itself out. It had to, right?
I took a deep breath and slowly shook my head as I told him about expanding the car lot and how we had stumbled across our findings in the woods. He listened in utter silence as his jaw hung open and shook his head in disbelief.
“And this was all on your property?”
“Yeah. I can show you where most of it is, but you should be able to find it by following the path that we walked in the woods because we spray painted several trees to be cut down.” He nodded, “But we can’t do anything with this stuff on our property.”
I wanted to ask him if he knew about any of it, but I was scared. What if he did? What would I do then? Or what if I knew too much? Would he even tell me?
“What else is wrong?” he asked, reaching into his mini fridge to grab out a bottle of water.
“Nothing.”
The corners of his mouth turned down, and he shook his head. He knew that I was lying. I couldn’t help it; I’d never been good at lying.
“Do you know anything about this stuff? Are you connected to it?”
“What? How would I know what the hell is buried on your property?”
He seemed shocked by my question, and I immediately regretted asking him as soon as the words left my mouth.
“It’s just that you came back, and then we found this stuff, and it all looked freshly buried. I don’t know, it just kind of made sense.”
“Look, Anita, we both know that I’ve not always been on the up and up, but burying explosives and bombs on private property? That’s out of my league and not my style at all, but it’s nice to know that’s what you think about me,” he sneered.
“I don’t know,” I eyed him. “You’ve always done what you’ve wanted. Why would now be any different than the past?”
“That’s not fair,” he leaned in, invading my personal space. “I’ve never had parents who gave a shit, I never got good grades, my teachers never praised me. Everything I’ve ever had, I got by busting my ass for it, Anita. It was great that you had all that shit growing up, but not everyone’s that lucky. I had to leave to better myself.”
I didn’t know what to believe anymore. Even though all of that was true, and it was a great spee
ch, it didn’t excuse his behavior.
It didn’t excuse his actions, and I didn’t forgive him for anything; not for leaving and not for being absent. We both had cell phones; he could have called me at any time. He was the one with the new number; I’d had the same ten digits for six years.
“I still don’t know why you’re here or where you’ve been.”
“Do you ever think some things are just better left alone?” his eyes burned into me, and his words cut me. He didn’t want to tell me anything. “I’ve been working private security,” he finally said, satisfying my curiosity just enough to make me stop asking questions.
“When can you come over?”
“I’ll be there in the morning—late morning,” he added after looking toward where his friend was passed out.
I stood and walked toward the door, thinking about the woman who he had kicked out of the room.
I bet she’s waiting around, waiting for me to leave.
“You need anything else?” he asked as I lingered in the doorway.
“No, and when you come in the morning or afternoon, I’ll be in the office at the dealership.”
As he walked me down the hotel corridor, I wondered what things would be like if I had never gotten pregnant. Would I care that he had another woman in bed? Would I care where he had been or what he had been doing?
That was when it hit me, and I realized that there was nothing but emptiness between us. We used to have a connection; lust, love and infatuation all rolled up into one.
There was once a time when neither of us could have kept our hands off each other, and nobody could stop us from being together, but now? Things felt more like an awkward favor.
I was asking him to help me, help my family, and offering nothing in return. But I knew Gage, and he would want something for repayment. After all, he was the one who taught me that nothing in life is free, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he felt bad about deserting me—and unknowingly, Bentley—and he was helping me out as a favor, a payback.