by Marata Eros
Gripping her upper arms, I haul her toward me. “I know bad when I see it and could smell that numb nuts Tommy a mile away. They won’t quit until you do something to get him out. They killed the only witness. They’re putting the squeeze on you so you’ll recant or do whatever lawyer shit you can do.”
“There’s no recanting, Lariat. It’s the witness’s testimony, and he’s gone.”
Dead.
I shake my head, dismissing the obvious shit. The shit somebody can see. “Then they have another angle. Maybe they’ll manipulate you onto their side.”
Her beautiful eyes narrow, and I instantly want her again. Right here. Right now.
Not just for a night.
I swallow against the raw emotion and stuff that shit deep inside. “Lay low. Don’t make a bull’s-eye outta yourself. Fuck court.”
Angel wrenches her arms away from me. “Forget court, huh?” She shakes her head in clear disbelief. “There’s no forgetting court.”
“Is your life worth it?”
She can’t take back the pause or the shadow that slides through her eyes.
“Is it?” I yell.
She startles and looks down. “No,” she whispers.
“Glad we figured that shit out.”
I walk back to her, grab her hand, and begin towing her back to the truck.
“What?” she sputters.
I jerk my chin toward the cab. “Hop in. I’ll get ya home.”
She resists.
I turn, giving a chuckle of disbelief. “Listen, you’re not driving that mauled tin can. Ya can’t, even if you want to.”
We look at the trashed compact car.
“It’s a smart car,” she mutters.
I chuckle. “Uh-huh. Lookinʼ pretty dumb from where I stand.”
Angel doesn’t say anything; she just gets in and slams the door.
Chapter 7
Angel
I hug my body and think about my day, car and my face—all ruined.
Well, except for the horizontal workout I did with Lariat. That part was salvageable..
I slide a glance his way.
Strong hands grip the wheel of the beat-up truck we’re riding in as he smoothly maneuvers through Meridian Valley Country Club. Hands wield the truck expertly, hands that were tender and thorough on my body just hours ago.
I release the hold on my body and point to a cream-colored, low-slung, 1950s ranch-style house. “That’s it.”
Lariat doesn’t say anything as he tightly parks the car along the curb.
“You could’ve parked in the drive.” It’s not as though I have a car to park there.
Tears tighten my throat for the second time today, and I twist my fingers together, trying like hell to keep the wetness at bay.
“Truck leaks oil like a sieve. Don’t want to dirty up your pretty driveway.”
I swing my face to his, my eyes narrowing to slits.
A vague smile hangs on his full lips. There’s something about the things he says. They sound as though he has a chip on his shoulder, and I’m the cause.
Lariat sure didn’t have a chip last night when he fucked me. I was just fine then.
I turn my body toward his, ready for a fight, or just ready. Gooseflesh creeps over my body, a solid precursor to rage. “What exactly is your problem?” I bite out.
His black eyebrows hike. “Problem?” He has the nerve to look vaguely puzzled.
“Yes. You want to fight? You don’t like where I live or what I represent to you? Fine. We fucked it out last night. So you like me enough for that.”
Fresh ruddy color creeps up his strong neck. And I know I’m poking the snake.
I don’t care at all.
Springing up on my knees, I get in his face, my voice vibrating with stress, hurt, and fear. My ribs protest my moving, forgetting they’re hurt, and I ignore the pain. “Just because you have issues, doesn’t mean you need to shit all over me!”
I sit back down, swivel, and pop the door latch. I drop out of the cab of the truck. Then I notice I have bare feet, and it’s October. I wince. Whatever.
I hike my purse from the floorboard and stomp to my front door without bothering to shut the passenger side of the truck. I just want to be away from Lariat and his condemnation.
The keys in my hand jingle noisily as I turn them in the lock and shove the door open.
Jerk!
I go to slam the door closed, but Lariat’s palm slaps it open. The solid wood bangs against the wall, and I back away from him. The keys are still plugged into the lock and jangle from the violent motion.
His face is contained thunder. “Don’t walk away from me, Angel.”
“Pfft!” I whistle through my teeth. “You don’t own me. It was one night. And I’m grateful that you charged in and stopped Tommy from hurting me further. But you and I”—I whip a finger between us—“we don’t work. You’re pissed about who I am and can’t get past it long enough to stop slinging shit at me like a hyper monkey. Loved what you do for me in the sack, but it’s not enough. Let’s just call it good.” I clench my jaw.
Lariat strides forward without a word and grabs me.
I gasp, dumping my purse on the floor. My lipstick, tampons, and other stuff roll out.
Lariat’s fingers sink into my hair, and he tips my head back with a near-painful hold. He searches my eyes, and his gaze travels to my mouth a heartbeat before his lips crash against mine.
I groan inside his mouth. Our tongues twine and lash in a near-frenzy.
He sweeps me up, and my legs go automatically around his torso.
Lariat sucks his lips off mine. His eyes flick to the door and notice it’s open. He turns, kicking it shut.
“What—” I try before he whips his head back and his lips latch onto my mouth again.
Coming up for air, he grates, “Bedroom.”
I shake my head, and he drives me against the wall instead. The only thing saving me from being hurt is one of his large hands bracing me before impact, while the other cups my ass.
My skirt is hiked once again, panties long gone. His upper body pins me as his hand dives between us. Then his jeans drop to his ankles.
Sans underwear, his cock finds my wet opening and dives in with a single thrust.
We scream together, and I lock my thighs tighter around his hips, arms clinging to his neck.
His thrusting is powerful, and my back slides against the wall. Something glass falls beside us, and Lariat buries his face in the crook of my neck. “Love how you feel,” he rumbles.
I go even wetter, if possible, my arousal starting to moisten my inner thighs around his pumping cock.
I widen around his pounding, and he digs deeper, spearing my center, holding nothing back. This isn’t tender. It’s intense, frantic.
Just what I need.
The orgasm takes me by surprise, sneaking up and attacking me.
I pulse around Lariat’s huge cock in great sucking waves. He cries out as if he’s in pain, escaping my body and slamming his thickness back in with a final deep rock, sheathing himself tightly inside of me and spurting his seed deep.
I lean against his shoulder, panting, spent, exhausted.
I broke my own rule. Twice now. What have I done?
I roll my head to the side, feeling his thumping heartbeat. His skin warms mine as he pins me against the wall.
Lariat slowly pulls his face away, and we look at each other, still connected, though he’s softening inside me. “Don’t know what the fuck just happened,” he admits in a vaguely dazed voice.
We just had sex. Again. That’s what happened.
He flat palms my sweaty hair out of my face. His voice goes low. “Did I hurt you?”
I shake my head but can’t speak. I clear my throat and try again. “No.”
We stare at each other. He smiles first, and then we’re grinning. “You are incredible, Angel.”
He deserves truth. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Not bad, huh?” His eyes hood, and Lariat leans close, doing something with his hips. My pussy gives a single, happy pulse as he slips out.
“Maybe amazing,” I reluctantly admit, my voice breathy.
He smirks, but it’s not one of those flinty types he shoots around like marbles. It’s soft, thoughtful, as his eyes hover over my face.
Carefully, he sets me on my feet and lowers to his knees. The position puts him directly in front of my vagina.
I blink.
He tugs and carefully rolls my skirt down, smoothing the tight material over my hips. He lays his head against the fabric, his cheek over the top of my pubic bone. Wrapping his arms around my ass, he hikes me, and I fall over his shoulder.
“What!” I shout against his back, but laughter is in there too.
“Gonna clean you up,” he announces. Something inside me eases, hearing him sounding soft—lighter.
Lariat finds the bathroom and drags me down the front of him. He’s so much taller that I have to crane my neck to look at him—a first. With his boots on, he is nearly six feet six, I would say. He’s a monster of a man.
He’s a man I think I’m taming. Because make no mistake—Lariat is wild, caged.
I see it in his eyes. Some of what he’s lived and done slides through eyes so dark I can’t make out the pupil, even in the bright light cast by the bathroom fixture.
He reaches over and uses a type of braille to turn on the faucet for the shower, never taking those ebony eyes off mine.
I hear the water come on, and the drops make a hissing sound as they come into contact with the tumbled travertine basin.
I raise my arms above my head, and he takes my shirt off. Expert fingers remove my bra, and his head dips low. He takes first one nipple into his mouth then moves on to the other, lathing and sucking with his tongue.
My pussy tingles, and even as sore as I am, I want him inside me again.
I thread my hands through his short hair but have nothing to hold on to. My eyelids slide open, and he’s gazing at me as though he wants to memorize my face.
“Get in,” he says, indicating the shower with a hike of his chin.
I unzip my skirt and let the fabric pool at my feet in a circle of black. I step out of the middle and into the shower. Water hits every mark made by Tommy, and I suck in a sharp breath.
Lariat’s hand is there in an instant, easing down my side. He tickles me, and my lips curl into a smile as I laugh.
“Tickles,” I say.
His face is so solemn, it steals my laughter as he takes his hand back through the opening of my shower.
The glass block obscures him for a moment then reveals him before me again. He’s so broad that he moves through the opening of the shower sideways then faces me dead-on. Though he’s dark-complexioned, he does not have a lot of body hair. He has more than a five o’clock shadow peppering his square jaw, offsetting the inky short hair on his head.
We stare at each other, and he blinks, chasing the water away from his eyes with a hard flick of his head. “Come ʼere.”
I walk to him, and our fingers lace. He turns my wrists under and pulls me against him. I lay my face between the strong planes of his chest.
With agonizing slowness, he unwinds the fingers of our hands and runs his palm down my spine.
I shiver, and he holds me tighter as he backs me up into the water.
We don’t speak as he lathers his hands with a bar of soap he grabs off the shelf. Lariat carefully runs his hands over every part of me, even the injuries. I can’t help but make little noises of pain as even his lightest touch still hurts those tender areas.
Lariat’s eyes skate to mine, darkening with anger.
“I could kick his ass again.”
I believe him, because the look in his eyes is crystal clear.
“Actually”—his hand palms my waist—“I could do more.”
Murder.
His eyes meet mine, and I witness that lethal potential but don’t comment.
Lariat misses none of my body, his hands sliding tenderly over my female parts. I kick one foot up on his shoulder as he kneels before me and washes the bottoms of my feet.
I lean back against the tile, palms flat on either side of my body. As his mouth finds my center, I cry out. His cleaning of me is foreplay I didn’t invite, but I love it.
I’ve never had this, whatever it is.
If someone asked me what our interlude was in this moment, the thing we’re doing in the shower, I would say it was intimacy.
That realization speeds my heart, spilling anxiety into me like tea into a cup.
But I don’t pull away as his index finger glides deep inside and his tongue laps and sucks at my clit.
I moan, and my hands move to his head, pressing him deeper against me. When his thumb once again finds my back opening, I’m ready and bear down on those seeking digits.
I explode around him, and a scream lodges in my throat.
I would have fallen if Lariat didn’t catch me. A masculine chuckle of satisfaction wakes me from my daze.
“God, I love the way you look right now.” Lariat kisses me softly on the lips.
He smells of sex, soap, and me, and it’s hot—hotter than anything.
Dangerous.
“How do I look?” I murmur, softly touching his face.
He allows it but I notice a slight tightening of his eyes.
Lariat’s back to guarded. “Happy,” he answers in barely more than a whisper.
He walks us to the bedroom. “And how does that make you feel, Shane Dreyfus?” I ask softly.
Lariat lays me down on my bed, naked and mainly dry.
He prowls up beside me, running a hand from shin to shoulder, tucking my wet hair behind my ear. “Like I want to do it all again.”
So God help me, we do.
Chapter 8
Lariat
I think my spine is digesting itself. That, and I don’t want to leave Angel.
I’ve got it bad, inside of a goddamned day.
That’s how I know I have to get the fuck out of here. I’m so bent on getting inside her, I didn’t even check her house out first.
I left the fucking keys stuck in the lock.
Smooth, Lariat. Way to go.
Angel is asleep in my arms, her naked skin like porcelain against my naturally darker flesh. Her face is tucked against my shoulder, and inky lashes fan across her upper cheekbone, right where a large bruise spreads from the impact of a fist.
Just looking at that mar against her perfect skin makes my heartbeats pile up. I want to fuck Tommy up. Again.
Or anyone who would touch her.
I brush a single strand of hair off her temple, and she stirs but doesn’t wake.
My smile is slight as I remember her lips on my cock, the way she made me come from my toenails. Again.
The possibility that I’m a cum machine occurs. I must manufacture the shit constantly. I lay a fist against my lips to keep the laugh in.
Angel moves fitfully, a little whimper coming out. I tuck her in tighter, and a slender arm extracts from between us, draping elegantly over my torso. A foreign emotion wells inside me, tightening my chest and hurting my fucking brain. It makes my teeth ache.
I want to wrap her in my protection—a girl I’ve fucked three times in the space of a day.
The thought sobers my lovestruck ass.
Carefully, I move out from underneath her arm and slide out of the sack. I gaze at her, naked and perfect.
I have to implement some self-preservation.
I scrub a hand over my skull trim. My exhale is exhausted. But I can’t sleep. I wanted to look at Angel worse than I wanted shut-eye.
She slept, though. And I looked over the small abrasions and larger bruises on her body. I tried to be careful of her while we were sexing each other up. But Angel spurs a man on with her noises and sounds of pleasure. There’s nothing I like more than hearing and seeing a chick get off. Nothing.
&nb
sp; Unfortunately, I’ve liked it best of all with Angel.
I glance around her digs. Nice. Of course her space is nice in the high-end of Meridian Valley Country Club. The area is a long-time fancy gated community in Kent. It’s a place that a young Shane Dreyfus would have loved to live inside. My old man did the best he could. Mom died when I was young, so all I had was Mini’s dad and my own. And Mini.
Then Mini’s dad died. We assumed Mini couldn’t handle shit and got outta dodge, so to speak.
But now I know different because of Angel.
Life is funny that way. I find my cousin and this woman all at the same time.
The last twenty-four hours have turned my emotional baggage upside down. Forget about the suitcase of shit I’ve been lugging around for fucking years; it’s the entire closet now. And it’s ransacked.
Angel has made me feel, and that’s why I have to establish some distance.
I back out of the room and softly shut the bedroom door. Turning, I grab my shit off the floor then hop into my jeans, dancing on one foot to put them on.
My eyes discover one sock on the back of the sofa, and I stifle a laugh. My shitkickers sit by the door on their sides like forgotten sentinels.
Jesus, what an idiot I am.
I get those on, tear on my T-shirt inside out, grab my cut off the back of the couch, and shrug it on.
I scoop the truck keys off the floor with my fist then open the front door and extract the house keys from the lock. I back up inside the house, lock the door from the inside, and quietly hang the keys on the key hook job I spot on the wall.
I silently shut the door, check that it’s locked, and nod to myself as I walk toward the truck.
When I’m almost there, I turn and survey the house. The nice rambler probably has a walk-out basement. The stucco finish suggests it was maybe built in the 60s.
I pat the interior pocket of my cut, realize I gave up smoking four years ago when I separated, and heave a sigh. I park my ass against the truck, crossing my feet at the ankles, and take in Angel’s place.
I hate leaving her alone, naked and vulnerable.
Maybe when I hand over that bail money tomorrow, I can con Noose into getting over here and doing some preliminary security detail.
Of course, that means admitting to him that I give a shit about something. And we’re not on great terms. We could be if I just had it out with him.