Counter To My Intelligence (The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC Book 7)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “I’ve been fine, thanks,” I said. “How’s work?”

  My mother worked as a float nurse at the hospital in Shreveport.

  She’d been a nurse there for nearly thirty years.

  She and my dad met there in fact.

  My dad had been hit by a drunk driver, and he’d been in the hospital with a broken femur.

  My mother had been his nurse during his hospital stay, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  “It’s good,” my mother said distractedly.

  “How’s dad?” I asked, trying to get her eyes off Silas.

  My brows furrowed.

  My mother was staring at Silas with worry.

  For some unknown reason, I wanted to step in front of Silas to block my mother’s eyes from him.

  It was jealousy.

  I was jealous!

  Of my mother!

  My mother obviously had some sort of relationship with Silas, the man I was sleeping with, and it was beginning to really rankle and unnerve me to know that she clearly knew him better than I did.

  “He’s fine,” she said, finally looking at me. “He’s busy at work.” She turned away from me once again. “How’s your daughter, Silas? Is she doing well?”

  Ok, so she also knew his whole family.

  Wonderful.

  “She’s good. Her husband got into a little trouble a week ago during a SWAT op. But he’s fine. She’s worrying over him like any good woman would,” Silas said around bites of his sandwich.

  I really didn’t have much of an appetite any more, and I couldn’t handle watching this familiar, comfortable interaction between Silas and my mother any longer.

  I put the sandwich down, minus the four bites I’d taken, placing it on to Silas’ plate.

  “I gotta use the restroom,” I lied. “Be back.”

  Belly got up when I did, and I was so grateful I could have kissed her.

  Maybe she could feel my anger and confusion over the situation, this clearly unmistakable friendship that my mother and Silas somehow shared.

  I didn’t understand whatever it was that was going on between them, and I wasn’t happy about it at all.

  This meant I didn’t plan on coming back after I finished supposedly using the bathroom.

  Silas and my mother didn’t stop talking as Belly and I left, and something about that enraged me.

  They acted like they had a relationship!

  And it wasn’t normal.

  My dad was a territorial man. A very territorial man.

  When I was sixteen, my mother had innocently smiled at another man, and my father had flipped way the freak out.

  So given that fact, a fact that my mother was very well aware of about my father, what in the ever lovin’ hell was going on between her and Silas?

  I walked down the street to the high school, remembering seeing volunteers disappear and reappear out of the gym doors, a gym that was completely separate from the falling down building surrounding it.

  That’s where I assumed the restrooms everyone was using were located.

  I was right.

  According to the man sitting on the brick wall outside, I’d made the right call.

  “Bathroom?” I asked him.

  He nodded. “Walk in and take a left. It’ll take you right where you need to go. Just follow the line.”

  Great. Just what I needed right then, a line.

  But alas, that was the way it was, so just like a good girl, I went to stand in line waiting for my turn.

  “All yours,” the woman that had been in front of me said.

  We’d been chatting while we waited about how crazy the weather had been since the first of the year.

  Something I hadn’t witnessed for myself until about a month ago.

  The weathermen predicted this unusual weather pattern would continue for at least another ten days.

  I didn’t think I’d seen the sun shining in well over a week, yet I’d still managed to get sun burned, even through the clouds.

  Once I was done in the bathroom, I picked up Belly’s leash from where I’d hooked it onto the stall’s door and headed over to the sink.

  There wasn’t any soap left, and I grimaced as I used water only.

  “Gross,” I muttered as I walked out, wiping my hands on my shorts seeing as there were no paper towels either.

  I smiled in mutual commiseration at the women waiting in the line and continued on my way, Belly at my side.

  Wiping all other thoughts of my mother and Silas from my mind, I got right back into the thick of things, thoughts focused solely on finding more people.

  Hopefully – preferably – alive.

  And Silas could suck it.

  Chapter 12

  I may look calm, but in my head we’ve already made use of the table. The wall. And the bed, three times.

  - Sawyer’s secret thoughts

  Sawyer

  Sixteen hours later, I was fairly certain that I couldn’t feel my toes.

  My legs hurt so bad that I honestly thought I was going to die as soon as my back hit the bed.

  And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  Silas was mad at me.

  Me!

  What the hell had I done to him?

  When he’d spent more time speaking with my mother during that fifteen minutes of barbeque, I realized something.

  My mom and Silas had some sort of relationship.

  And not only did it piss me off, since my mother was married, but it pissed me off because Silas was now with me, and he hadn’t said a word to me about him having a relationship with my mother.

  “Who was the man you were talking to this morning?” Silas asked again.

  Apparently, I’d spent too much time with the old guy for his comfort.

  I had a thing for him, not every old guy on the planet.

  Not that Silas was old, or that he looked old, but Silas didn’t see it that way.

  “I already told you I don’t know his name,” I said with annoyance. “He helped me lift crap off of people. He said goodbye this evening. That was it. We didn’t exchange names or anything.”

  “With a hug?” He half snarled under his breath.

  Was he jealous?

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. To tell you the truth, the last twenty-four hours are kind of a blur.”

  So on top of having sex with Silas throughout the night, I spent a very long, hot and physically exhausting day, as well as the whole night and into the early morning hours, on my feet, handling Belly, as we searched through the aftermath of the tornado for victims and survivors.

  I was lucky to be sitting upright now and not slumped over, face in my pancakes.

  Silas might have had something to say to that, but Zack interrupted us with his exclamation of excitement.

  “Lookie here, girlie! You made the front page,” Zack laughed, tossing the paper down in front of me.

  I smiled as I looked at it.

  It was of Belly and me walking around the grounds of the high school.

  It’d only been taken about eight hours ago. I was surprised they’d gotten it into the paper so fast.

  “Look, this is the guy I was telling you helped me get that old woman out,” I said, pushing the paper down toward Silas.

  Silas caught it and brought the picture up to look at it better.

  I smiled and turned back to Zack, who was sitting in the booth in front of me.

  We were at a diner eating breakfast.

  It had been well over twenty-four hours since I’d last slept, and despite the tiredness I understandably felt, I was still invigorated.

  I actually felt alive for the first time in eight long years.

  Doing something important, helping people in need, had made me feel like I was a half decent person. It was the closest I’d felt to my pre-accident self since the moment of impact.

  “Motherfucker,” Silas growl
ed. “Goddamn motherfucking son of a bitch!”

  I blinked at his use of so much profanity.

  “Silas, what’s wrong?” I asked, turning to find him standing, anger flowing off of him in waves that were nearly visible.

  My question bought us the attention of everybody at the surrounding tables, including the members of his club.

  “I gotta go,” I heard him say, and then, without another word to me, he turned and practically prowled straight out of the diner’s front door.

  “What the heck was that all about?” Zack asked.

  I picked up the newspaper that he’d been so intently staring at, almost as if it were a ball of venomous snakes, and looked at the picture once again.

  Was it the man?

  Was he the reason Silas had gotten so upset?

  The man had seemed sweet to me.

  He’d helped me nearly all day long.

  What the hell?

  ***

  I woke to a body sliding into bed behind me.

  Silas.

  Silas was here.

  My bleary eyes cracked slightly open, and I turned to look at the alarm clock.

  I’d been sleeping for nine straight hours, but it felt like I’d only been asleep for one.

  I could barely keep my eyes open as Silas worked one of his arms underneath my head and wrapped the other around my waist to pull me into his chest.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him sleepily, punctuating my question with a yawn.

  “Shhh,” he said. “We’ll talk about it when we get up.”

  I took him at his word and let my eyes drift back shut.

  But I didn’t immediately fall back to sleep.

  Pressed into Silas’ chest, I could feel the tension in Silas’ shoulders, in his arm that was locked tightly, almost stiffly, around me.

  I could feel the pounding of his heart on my back, too.

  Fighting the pull of sleep, I opened my eyes and frowned down at him.

  There wasn’t a lot of light in the room, just what was coming from the alarm clock and the display of DVD player.

  “What’s wrong, Silas?” I asked again.

  This time he didn’t try to deny me.

  Instead, he tried to distract me.

  His mouth found mine, and I sensed his desperation.

  “I can’t do it again. I can’t,” he said between kisses.

  “Silas,” I said as best as I could with his mouth against mine, getting worried now.

  But his hands, those skillful, beautiful, busy hands of his started to work their way down my body.

  One stopped at my nipple, plucking it lightly.

  The other went down between my legs while his talented mouth trailed across my cheek, down my neck and over my chest to ravage my breasts.

  I could sense his worry in the way he shoved his hips between my legs, kneeing them apart as he fell in between them.

  But his mouth, which hadn’t stopped working, suddenly reversed its journey to return to my mouth.

  He somehow managed to pull his cock out, open a condom and smooth it down his length, and then he was right there, shoving his way in to me.

  He cupped my face tenderly when his mouth met mine, his tongue stroking along my lips as they parted.

  I gasped into his mouth at his body’s abrupt entry into mine, lifting my hips to meet each thrust of his cock.

  My heels dug into the bed as I tried in vain to get closer to him, but not succeeding at all.

  “Goddammit,” he growled, the vibration of his voice rattling his chest.

  I placed my hand over the back of his head.

  The other looped around his neck as I held on tightly.

  But just as quickly, he pulled out of me and flipped me over to my stomach.

  The suddenness of it caused me to be disoriented for a long moment, but the same couldn’t be said for Silas.

  He shoved himself roughly back inside of me, so deeply that he bottomed out.

  My eyes crossed as pain flashed through me, followed quickly by ecstasy.

  He was out of control, and I found that I liked it.

  This Silas was different from in control Silas.

  I felt more with this Silas.

  I could tell his emotions were walking a thin line between desperation and lust.

  He was trying to outrun some demon that I had no clue about.

  The only thing I could do was hold on for the ride.

  Something I did by curling my fingers into the sheets.

  “Touch your pussy,” he ordered.

  Well, more like growled.

  It was so sexy.

  Closing my eyes and dropping down so my cheek was pressed against the mattress, I snaked a hand between my legs and touched my clit.

  But I continued down until I could feel him slamming in and out of me.

  Feel the stretching that my pussy did for his big cock.

  I felt the wetness there, gathering around my entrance, and used it to lube up my fingers.

  Gliding them back to my clit, I started to work it frantically.

  I had a feeling that if I didn’t get myself there quickly, he’d be going without me.

  My suspicions were proven correct when, moments later, he hissed as his cock started to jerk inside of me.

  I moaned when he pulled out unexpectedly, yanking the condom off with a sharp snap. He drove three fingers into me as I continued to work my clit, helping me to chase the orgasm that was nearly upon me. And help it did.

  I felt the hot spurts of his seed hitting my ass and my back and coupled with the feeling of his calloused hand moving over my skin, what I was sure would be an epic orgasm was tightening in my belly.

  The taboo feeling of it all – picturing him working himself to orgasm behind me and the way he rubbed his cum into my skin – really turned me on. Silas’ hand stopped its movement across my back, and I moaned into my pillow as he continued to work his fingers in and out of me.

  All of these sensations collided together shooting me straight into fucking orbit as I came harder than I ever have before, harder than I even knew a person could!

  My eyes closed as they rolled back in their sockets, and my pussy clenched tightly around his fingers.

  I bit into the pillow to hold back a scream would have woke the neighbors but instead I managed to muffle into a moan, all while Silas continued to pump his thick fingers into me prolonging my orgasm.

  My stomach clenched so hard that I had to have pulled a muscle, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it until my orgasm began to slowly recede.

  My breathing came out in ragged gasps as I collapsed onto my belly. Blood pounded in my ears and little bursts of light flashed behind my closed lids. I had no idea something like what I’d just experienced was even possible!

  Silas’ fingers stayed planted inside of me as he lay down at my side, pressing his lips against my temple. It was several long minutes before my breathing began to calm and the aftershocks stopped convulsing through me.

  “Although that was fucking fantastic,” I told him, panting slightly. “I still want to know what garnered that reaction.”

  He was silent for so long that I was positive he wouldn’t answer me, but he surprised the hell out of me when he started to explain.

  “That man that was beside you all day, the one that gave you a fucking hug. That man was the man that ruined my life. He destroyed me and everything I’d ever hoped I could be. And he did it with a fucking smile on his face,” Silas said emotionlessly.

  I started to sit up, but Silas shoved his fingers harder inside of me.

  “Stay there,” he ordered darkly.

  Given his tone, I felt it prudent to listen to him.

  “Who was he?” I asked. “Why’s he so bad?”

  “I gotta start from the beginning if you’re going to understand,” he said softly. “And it’s not pretty.”

  �
�Tell me,” I urged, trying my hardest not to grind down on him.

  He held his fingers perfectly still, but the entire thing was distracting as hell.

  “When I was eighteen, I was recruited out of the military by the CIA,” he said without preamble.

  I froze.

  He was in the fucking CIA?

  Wasn’t that for people…not like him?

  Silas was pretty high profile kind of guy. Weren’t CIA agents supposed to be ghost-like people that no one ever saw?

  When I didn’t say anything, mostly because I couldn’t stop my mind from whirling in surprise, he continued.

  “They recruited me away from the military, the moment I finished basic training. I was a crack shot with a bad attitude. Joined the Marines, but I had a hard on for ignoring anything type of authority figure. I was on the verge of being kicked out, probably just a meeting with my commanding officer away from it, when I was approached by someone. His name was Rotund Rosenthal,” he continued.

  My head was spinning trying to process everything he was telling me.

  He was recruited for the CIA at eighteen? For real?

  An eighteen year old had no clue what they wanted to do with their life.

  Let alone to be thrown into that kind of a situation.

  “Okay, but if that’s the case, where does that guy from today fit in?” I asked.

  “The summer I met Sam’s mother, Leslie, was when I first began my infiltration into a MC that was known for chain-raping women, filming it and selling the videos. They also had a lucrative stable,” Silas said, but I interrupted him.

  “What’s a stable?” I asked.

  He laughed slightly.

  “A stable of prostitutes. They also did some coke dealing on the side. The first time I saw Leslie was the day that they normally did the grabs. She’d been in the sights of one of my ‘brothers’ when I claimed her. I didn’t know what else to do. Goddamn mission and all that shit didn’t care about a few casualties. They were looking at the bigger picture. So, I did what I had to do, only they wanted to film me taking her the first time as my initiation into the club. That was my test. I passed with flying colors,” he snarled.