Cash (The Henchmen MC Book 2)

by Jessica Gadziala

  When I looked up, her eyes were glued to mine, expectant, but more importantly, open. I pulled the ice away from her skin, watching her breathing make her chest and belly expand and contract for a moment before I slowly slipped the cube into my mouth, pushing it to peek out of my lips slightly and holding it there with my tongue. Understanding and the slightest hint of uncertainty registered on her features before I grabbed her knee and slipped her leg over my shoulder. Before she would even draw a breath to object, I moved forward and ran the ice up her cleft. Her body shook so hard I thought her legs were going to give out, making me grab her hips and slam her against the wall behind her, holding her there as I teased the ice around the hood of her clit.

  A strangled whimper escaped her lips as her thighs tightened. Finally, slowly and with the barest bit of pressure, I pushed the ice cube against her clit and listened to her breath catch on a shocked moan. I slipped the ice back into my mouth, moving it to the side so my tongue could slip out and work over her in fast circles, letting the warmth on her cold clit drive her toward the brink of orgasm faster than she could have thought possible. I slipped the ice back out, pressed it against her again and listened as she cried out my name. Close. She was so close.

  Again, I cheeked the ice and pulled slightly back, smiling at the frustrated whimper she let out. “Am I overestimating my skills, Lo?” I asked, my tone not teasing. I was dead fucking serious about that shit.

  “N... no,” she ground out, her hips gyrating slightly and I let my fingers trail up her inner thigh, teasing the crease where it met her sex, but not giving her any kind of release.

  “I'm the fucking best you've ever had, aren't I?” I asked, not needing to ask. I knew I was. And it wasn't arrogance, it was just stone cold fact.

  “Yes,” she whimpered.

  “And what do you want me to call you?” I asked, my fingers tracing across her slick lips, moving up toward her clit, but not touching it.

  Her eyes flashed for a second and I saw the guarded Lo trying to put her defenses back up. In response, I pushed my thumb into her tight pussy, feeling it quiver slightly, just seconds away from tightening and pulsating as she cried through a mind-numbing orgasm.

  “B... baby...” she cried out.

  “There it is,” I agreed with a smile, slipping the ice out and pressing it against her clit. But just for a split second before I cheeked it while simultaneously slipping my thumb out of her pussy. I pushed her leg off my shoulder and stood quickly. In a sick, unfair way, enjoying the look of utter shock and unfulfilled desire on her face. “Now you know what the fuck I am capable of, what my reputation with women has afforded me. Now you want my cock, Lo,” I said with an uncharacteristic cruel smirk, “you're gonna have to ask for it. I'm done with this shit,” I said, moving past her and taking off toward my basement to tear into the punching bag until I could think clearly again.

  Because I meant what I said- I was so fucking done with that shit, with the 'one minute she wants me, the next she doesn't' shit, with the 'soft and sweet Lo making me dinner and letting me touch her sweet pussy as she cried out my name, then almost cried over the intensity turning into the guarded, snippy, she-wolf Lo with no explanation of the switch'.

  I was done.

  She wanted me? Well the ball was in her court.

  I pounded into the bag until I quieted the voice inside that was praying she picked up a racket to play.

  Because that shit just made no sense.

  Fourteen

  Lo

  The second I heard the basement door close, I let my legs give out from under me, sliding down onto the floor, knees to my chest. I wrapped my arms around my legs and tried to deep-breathe through the desire that was no longer bordering on, but had firmly landed in, pain. It hurt. It literally hurt I was so turned on.

  “Fuck,” I cursed quietly, closing my eyes tight against the memory of what I had done. I had given him what little power I had left. I had admitted he was good. I told him he was the best that I had ever had. I had said I wanted him to call me baby.

  Then he had taken that power along with what had promised to be the orgasm of a lifetime... and walked away with it.

  I expected the anger to start building, to flood my system with something familiar, something comfortable that I could latch onto, something I could wrap around myself with it's empty kind of security. But it didn't come. All I felt was the soul-crushing unfulfilled desire and a sadness that felt so deep, I could swear that I could drown in it.

  It wasn't that it was new. The sadness, it was always there buried deep, wanting to be dealt with, wanting me to acknowledge it so it would finally go away. But I never did, so it never did.

  Somehow, it felt worse than I remembered. It wasn't just a swirling, uncomfortable thing. No, it felt sore. I felt sore. I felt like every ounce of happiness, of grit and determination, of hardly won strength got ripped away and left in the wake nothing but pain. It was the kind of pain that started in your soul and heart and radiated outward until you felt it in your bones, in your muscles, in every exposed inch of skin, in every lifeless strand of hair. It was the kind of pain that made you feel like a giant open wound.

  The tears stung at the back of my eyes and I didn't bother fighting them. What was the use? What had all the fighting actually gotten me over the years?

  I felt my body jolt at those thoughts.

  “Freedom,” I told myself quietly. That was what fighting had gotten me- free. It got me a life with colleagues who were like family to me. It got me the chance to build a life that I didn't wake up into every single day wishing to die. It got me security. It got me the confidence to stand up for myself. It got me respect.

  And that, well, it was everything.

  I absolutely fucking refused to fall back into the sadness, to let it surround me until my arms were too tired to keep my head above water anymore. I wasn't that woman anymore. I was never going to be her again.

  I was going to get the fuck off of his kitchen floor, dry my eyes, get my own god damn clothes on, and take my control back.

  Fuck him and his games and his demands. Fuck him and his knee-weakening smile and his heart-pounding endearments. Fuck him and his unwanted attraction to me.

  He wanted someone to hate?

  Well... fucking... fine.

  I would give him someone to hate.

  It didn't matter. He didn't matter. Who was he anyway? Just a biker. A hard-drinking, casual-sex-having, takes-himself- too- casually, too-good-looking -for- his- own- good, child-man.

  I stifled the voice that whispered that in just a couple days, he had elicited a bigger range of emotional responses from me than any man had since I was a teenager. That could easily be explained by the fact that I just got my ass handed to me and was achy and alone without my support system behind me.

  Well, that was all about to get fixed.

  I pulled myself up off of the floor, swatting my cheeks in what I could only call disgust and stomped over to my duffle bag, hefting it up and slamming it down on the dining table. I rifled inside, pushing three more paperback romances out of the way and grabbing a pair of thick, moss green cargo pants, a bra, and a tan tank top, leaving the thick matching moss green shirt hung off the back of a chair as I slipped newly sock-clad feet into boots. Standing, I felt almost like myself again. The smarting in my ribs was enough to have me wincing when I moved too fast, but that was getting better too. Another two days, I could get back to training.

  Unable to do anything that physical, I hauled the laptop out of the bag along with the notebook and pen I stored away, and sat down to get to work. True, I couldn't be at Hailstorm, but that didn't mean I couldn't log into our systems and see what was going on, try to see if I could find any traces of Janie/Jstorm in the deep web. She liked to spend a lot of time in those murky, awful depths, looking for causes for us to champion or sometimes simply to release viruses into real scumbag's systems when she could. Always a maker of chaos an
d righter of wrongs. That was my strong, yet fragile Janie.

  One floor beneath me, the chain to the punching bag was swinging mercilessly and I felt myself nodding as I searched through the internet. Good. I was glad he was in a mood. I hoped his balls felt like they were going to explode.

  An hour later, hitting a dead end with Janie, I finally took a deep breath and typed in the name I didn't even want to think of: Damian Crane.

  His face popped up along with a couple articles. No social media accounts, not that I had been expecting any. He was never the type of man to put his personal shit out there. His last known address was still the one I was familiar with. His registered car was the silver SUV he had bought new six years before.

  Nothing, literally nothing to go on.

  “Augh!” I growled at the screen, clicking out of one of the open internet tabs, leaving me staring at a picture of Damian in his black and red jacket with medals hanging off the left side of his chest, big golden buttons down the center, white and black hat on his head, typical Marine deadness to his eyes.

  “A little... frustrated?” Cash's teasing voice asked and my head jerked up to where he was leaning in the kitchen doorway.

  Christ. How hadn't I heard him climbing up the stairs?

  He looked different. Sweaty, sure. The wetness was making his shirt cling to his chest and stomach and the long side of his hair was drenched and slicked slightly back from his face. It wasn't just the exercise-flushed skin or the sweat though. All the traces of genuine anger and confusion and challenge I had seen in his kitchen before were gone. It was the usual Cash standing in front of me- casual, easy-going, playful smirk on his lips.

  “Don't flatter yourself. It has nothing to do with you,” I said in as hollow a tone as I could muster.

  “Sure it doesn't,” he said, giving me the power of his full smile and I had to force one of my brows to lift. Unaffected, he twisted open the top of the water bottle he was holding and brought it to his lips. I did not... absolutely did not watch his Adam's apple as he swallowed. Nope. Not me. I was a strong, sexually experienced woman who did not go all ga-ga over a fucking Adam's apple. “What?” he asked, looking me up and down and waving a hand at my body, “no guns?”

  “Do you really think it would be wise for me to have a weapon on me when I'm around you?” I shot back, giving him my own smirk.

  He look down at his feet for a second, shaking his head. “I like this Lo, baby. But I think I like the vulnerable one better.”

  “There's only one of me,” I said with force behind my words. I wanted it to be true. It had to be true.

  “Honey,” he said, rounding the dining table and leaning back against it right beside my chair, “there's at least two of you. And the crazy part? I don't think anyone knows either one.”

  God, he was so right. “What? Have you been going to night classes? Psych 101? You don't know what you're talking about.”

  His smile got a little softer and his hand reached out, touching my chin gently. “I'm gonna figure you out sooner or later. Just so you know. And I'm sure you'll be pissed at me for getting under those shields, but too fuckin' bad.”

  I swallowed hard because nothing about his words suggested there was anything but determination there. “What happened to hating me?”

  His fingers stroked out over my cheek. “You know what I think?” he asked, almost as if waiting for an answer. I didn't and, well, I found myself wanting to know so I shook my head. “I think you want me to hate you. I think that's easier for you to accept. So I'm not going to do that anymore.” Oh, hell. Great. That was just great. And he wasn't done either. “I am going to give you something no one has ever given you before.”

  I didn't want to ask. I really didn't. But I couldn't help myself. “What's that?”

  “A chance.”

  Thrown, my head jerked a little, his hand falling from my face. “A chance for what?”

  “To show yourself to me.”

  I closed my eyes against the rush of warmth at his words. I wanted that. I wanted that chance. I wanted someone who gave a shit enough to be patient, to let me slowly battle my comfort zones. God, how I wanted that.

  But that person could not be Cash.

  Because Cash would eventually fuck me and be done with me like every woman who came before. Unlike them, though, I would never fully recover. And I had enough damage stitched together with sheer power of will and a hefty thread of denial.

  “That's not going to happen, Cash.” Why did my voice sound so sad?

  “Maybe... maybe not. We'll see.”

  I took a breath, shaking my head. “I'll be out of your hair as soon as my ribs feel better. Another day or two and I should be able to handle my own shit again.”

  He shrugged my comment away like it changed nothing and pushed off the table. Before I could think to react, he was standing behind me, bent over my shoulder and looking at the picture open on my laptop.

  “He looks like an asshole,” Cash said with a casual chuckle. “Did he drown a bunch of bunnies or something?” he went on, completely oblivious to how my body had tensed, how every cell in my body was poised to attack or run if he overstepped the invisible line I kept around the subject. “Who is Damian Crane, babe?”

  Fifteen

  Lo

  I remembered my wedding night with what was the genuine definition of 'bittersweet'. I was eighteen and way too young to enter into that kind of arrangement, signing my future away to the boy next door. But that being said, it was my only way out. It was the only end in sight. It was the only way to get away from my father. So six weeks after the birthday finally making me legally able to no longer be the property of one man, I walked up to the Justice of the Peace and became the property of another.

  I was young, idealistic, nose hopelessly buried in romance novels I bought at the drugstore with the money leftover from buying the groceries for the week- a thing my father allowed only because he felt they were a good way for me to learn to take care of my future husband.

  My father liked my husband because, well, he was in the Marines. That was all it took for my dad- be a brother. It didn't matter where your stance was on political issues or social beliefs. If you were a fellow Devil Dog, you were alright in his book.

  I had been a virgin, again... young and idealistic about what that meant. I had learned from my books that it would hurt, I would cry, I would bleed, but my partner would totally be able to make me break apart in ecstasy despite of all of that.

  What a bitter disappointment to get back to his, then our, apartment, have him all but rip my pretty white summer dress off of me, leaving me too shell shocked, humiliated, and insecure to ask him to take it slow. So his big hands closed over my breasts, grabbing, pinching my nipples too hard, but I didn't object. He pressed me backward through the apartment until the backs of my legs hit the bed and I fell onto it. His big body climbed over mine, his lips trailing down my neck, taking my nipples into his mouth and sucking.

  I started to feel a twinge of desire then, just a strange fluttering of need between my thighs. As if sensing it, his hand moved there and stoked through my lips, sinking a finger inside after a minute. “Wet,” he groaned against my neck and I could feel him reaching between us to undo his pants and free himself.

  The desire quickly got replaced with genuine fear as I felt the head of his dick press against me, feeling too big. But before I could even draw a breath to consider that, he was inside me, not slow and gentle, not inch by inch, one thrust and he was buried to the hilt. I let out a scream at the kind of pain I couldn't describe stabbing at the contact of our bodies.

  The only bit of relief I got was the fact that after less than a minute or two of rough thrusting (and accompanying pain), he let out a groan and came inside me.

  He was breathing into my neck as I tried to blink the tears away.

  All I could think was- it was nothing like I had read, like I had fantasized about. If that was
what sex was, I couldn't imagine why anyone wanted to do it. Let alone write books about it.

  He pushed himself up and looked down at me, giving me a white-toothed smile and the pain felt like a dull ache as I looked at him- my husband, the boy I had known since I was six years old, the man I had entrusted with my future.

  “You're mine now,” he said and I felt a flutter in my belly. It sounded like something one of my fictional heroes would say to their women- always alpha and possessive. In that moment, I felt my smile spread to match his and everything felt right in the world.

  I had no idea what the reality of belonging to Damian Crane meant. If I had, I would have waited for him to fall into a sex-lulled sleep, slipped back into my clothes, and ran like hell as far and as fast as I could.

  It was alright at first. He was demanding, at times, even more so than my father had been. But I was a wife, not a daughter. My duties were amplified. I cooked, I cleaned, I did our laundry, I paid the bills. Then at night, I would lay on my back or get onto all fours and he would fuck me. That was what it was too- fucking. We didn't have sex. We damn sure never made love. And to even say “we” was inappropriate. We didn't do anything. He fucked. I laid there. I took it. After the first two or three times, it stopped hurting. The lack of pain, however, didn't help the fact that it did nothing for me. Nothing. I was a newlywed woman who didn't know what an orgasm felt like.

  It wasn't long before the name-calling started. At first, I thought it was Damian's version of dirty talk. Bitch. Slut. Cunt. Whore. I should have known that wasn't what it was because each time he said it, I winced because I heard the malice underneath. I heard it, but I refused to acknowledge it.

  Besides, having sex that did nothing for you while being called names, well, that wasn't that bad. What was bad was when he was too lazy to fuck me. That was when I learned that the loving, passionate way women went down on their heroes in my books was going to be as far from my reality as the sex itself was. Because when Damian wanted my mouth, he wanted it hard and he wanted it deep. He wanted it so that I was gagging all over him, his cock buried in my throat, my mascara running down my face, his cum coming out of my nose. He wanted it brutal. And that was how I started to feel afterward in the bathroom as I cried silently, wiping my face, brushing my teeth, trying to swallow past the razor-blade sensation of my throat- brutalized.