Beyond Pain

by Kit Rocha

  The door crashed open, and Jimmy--the taller of the Griffen brothers--walked in. His scowl was evident even behind his thick mustache and unruly beard, and it deepened when he caught sight of the bound, unconscious man on the floor. "And just who the fuck are you?"

  The answer was calm, unwavering. "I'm Bren."

  "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

  "Probably not yet," Bren allowed. "But this sector belongs to Dallas O'Kane now, so you'll be seeing a lot of me."

  Jimmy reached toward the small of his back, where a pistol butt stuck out of his pants. "Or maybe O'Kane's about to be seeing a lot less of you."

  "Maybe." Bren curled his fingers around the edge of the wooden lid. "What's in the crate, Griffen?"

  Six had to bite her lip on a swell of wholly inappropriate laughter as Jimmy flung one hand toward Bren, his entire body tensed in sudden, visceral terror. "Don't!"

  Bren grinned. "Worried I'm gonna blow that mangy beard off your face?"

  "You crazy motherfucker." The man's hand clenched behind his back, his knuckles brushing the gun. "You wouldn't--"

  "Don't move!" a second voice screeched from just inside the door. Will, the other brother.

  For a split second, everything was silence. Then the sound of a shotgun round being chambered spurred Bren into a flurry of motion. He grabbed Jimmy by his beard and spun him around in front of him as the shot exploded, peppering the room.

  The man screamed, and Bren shoved him forward before the other man could pump the slide and prepare another round. As the brothers collided, Bren snatched the shotgun and swung it around like a club, aiming for the knees.

  The blow took them both down. Bren lifted the shotgun, pressed a button near the stock, and worked the pump repeatedly. Unspent shells went flying, and he dropped the gun.

  The clatter of it hitting the floor faded, leaving only the pained groans of the Griffen brothers--and Six's hoarse exhalation as she let out the breath she'd been holding.

  A handful of seconds. That was all it had taken Bren to take down two armed men.

  He was magnificent. And he was hers.

  He plucked the pistol from the back of the taller brother's pants and unloaded it as well. "I'm not trying to smash you guys up. I'm not even trying to take your business. But shit doesn't go down here until you run it by O'Kane. That's how it's gonna be."

  Jimmy hissed out a pained, irritated breath, but he was smarter than his brother. He held both hands away from his body in clear surrender. "We'll pay his cut. We ain't stupid."

  "It's not just the money. He knows what you do before you do it."

  "Fuck, how are we s'posed to tell him? No one knows who the hell's in charge over here."

  Bren shrugged. "For now, you talk to me."

  Pride seemed to choke both brothers, but they were subdued enough that Six quietly sheathed her knife. By the time it was nestled safely in her boot again, Jimmy was forcing out an awkward-sounding request. "Can we move the rest of what we've got?"

  "Get up." Bren waited until they complied before continuing. "Watch who you sell to, and keep it clean. That's what Dallas wants."

  "And a cut," Will interjected with a sour frown.

  The taller--smarter--man shut his brother up with an elbow in the rib. "What if we need to find you? How do we get in touch?"

  "I'll be at the club." Bren didn't glance in Six's direction, but he drifted until he stood in front of the boxes. "Run on down there. Have a good time, and I'll be along."

  His body blocked most of her view of the brothers as they groaned their way out the door, but there were worse sights than denim hugging Bren's ass and the strong expanse of his shoulders. Her body was still cranked, oblivious to the fact that danger had passed.

  Or maybe it hadn't. Those two dumb fucks were about to disappear, and then it'd just be her and Bren and the taste of violence in the air, and maybe that was a thousand times more dangerous.

  She really was a goddamn pervert.

  The door slammed shut, but Bren didn't move. "Are you okay?"

  His body looked as tense as hers felt liquid. She eased into the open, taking nearly silent steps that wouldn't fool him. She knew from experience that he heard everything. "I'm fine. You weren't gonna let anything happen to me."

  "That doesn't make it pleasant for you."

  "That bullshit was nothing. It used to be my life every damn day." Reaching out, she grazed the tense line of his shoulder. "Until you."

  He whipped around, eyes blazing, and caught her wrist.

  Bloodlust, pure and simple. The same unspent adrenaline burning her veins was surging through his, too. He was a predator who'd checked his killing blow and sent his prey scurrying toward freedom. It wasn't hard to read the need in his eyes, the longing to turn all that adrenaline toward a different kind of hunt, the kind that would end with her over the table, begging to come on his cock.

  She could stop it in a heartbeat, with fear or hesitation or even a whispered word. But the words that slipped past her suddenly numb lips weren't hesitant. "Watching you beat people down gets me hot. It makes me wet."

  His eyes darkened, and he slid his other hand into her hair. "Here? With bullets and casings all over the floor?"

  She traced a hand down to palm his growing erection. "This is what I'm used to. Screwing in a dirty warehouse after someone has tried to kill me. A safe bed's a little intimidating."

  A quick breath escaped him, along with a soft noise that sounded like a swallowed groan. Then he backed her against the wall and lifted her arms over her head. "Keep them there."

  A clear order. Before she had a chance to either agree or argue, he licked her lower lip. Nothing more obscene than that, except that it took forever for him to trace his tongue from one side of her lip to the other, and she was panting by the time he ran his hands down her sides to tease under the hem of her shirt.

  He left them there, his fingers warm on the bare skin of her waist, as he tilted his head, nudged her lips apart, and kept licking. Deeper. Wetter. He was exploring her, tasting her, priming her for his touch in a way that made her squirm.

  Fucking was comprehensible. Fucking was neat and fast and clean, even when it was messy. This was something else.

  Seduction.

  Then he kissed her. Really kissed her, their lips fused and his tongue gliding over hers, and she couldn't keep her arms helplessly above her head. Not when need had turned so frantic, so sharp.

  She grabbed the back of his head, terrified that he'd try to pull away and rob her of the way her body pulsed with each clash of tongue. She was hungry, starving for this feeling, the giddy wanting she hadn't felt in years.

  His hands tightened, relaxed. Moved to the button on her borrowed leather pants.

  Nervous tension sizzled up her spine, the full weight of what she was about to do smashing down hard on its heels. She was using Bren, pouncing on this fracture in his self-control, dragging him down into the dirt with her. He'd probably feel bad for fucking her like this, against a rough wall in the rubble of Sector Three. He still thought she deserved something better. Softer.

  Poor bastard. She barely deserved this.

  It wouldn't stop her from taking it, though. His fingertips brushed her bare abdomen, and she fought a groan as she groped for his belt buckle. The sooner he was in her, the sooner she could stop thinking about anything but sex and how good he felt, and God, she knew it'd be good, so good she might even get off afterwards--

  He closed his fingers on her wrists and held her gaze as he guided her arms back up against the wall. "Keep them there," he said again, whisper-soft, then jerked down her zipper and slipped his hand into her pants.

  Warm, blunt fingers slid over her pussy, and the shock of it would have driven her head back if she could have looked away. No one had ever watched her like this before, not this close, not with one hand in her pants, stroking and parting, coaxing throbbing pleasure to life.

  "Shh." The gentle, questing pressure of his fi
ngers never wavered, even as he leaned in to nuzzle her cheek. "Let me."

  That was when she realized he wasn't going to fuck her.

  Whimpering, she closed her eyes and twisted her head, distracted by the heat of his breath on her skin. "What the hell, Donnelly, just get in me."

  "Yes, ma'am." He shifted her higher, the muscles in his arm flexing against her stomach. He cupped her pussy, and he exhaled against her cheek as he curled two fingers inside her.

  "Bren--" She couldn't get enough air to say more. All her stupid obsession with the strength and grace and size of his hands, and she'd never imagined this, how huge his fingers would feel, sparking a stretching discomfort only to soothe it with gentle friction.

  "Don't." He pressed deeper, the heel of his hand rocking against her clit. "Don't try to stop me."

  She'd never let another person get her off. Hell, most of the time she faked it for their benefit, taking the quiet comfort of physical closeness and saving the vulnerability of release for when she was alone. Even when she came riding a man's dick, it was her fingers on her clit getting the job done, her choice to get there or not.

  Even if she wanted to come for Bren, she didn't know if she could. Her arms trembled with tension as she fisted her hands and fought the urge to reach for him. The warmth between her thighs was still building, still shocking her with peaks that curled her toes and quiet lulls that let her breathe.

  It wasn't desperate, not yet, but she could taste the edge coming--and knew frustration would inevitably follow. "I could help," she offered shakily as her hips jerked without her permission, slave to the rhythm of his thrusting fingers.

  His teeth closed in a warning nip at the corner of her mouth.

  Groaning, she squeezed her eyes shut and dropped both hands to his shoulders, clutching at him as if that could ground her, but the hard flex of muscle as he rocked his hand only made it worse. Closing her eyes didn't even help, because she could see him painted across the backs of her eyelids, fierce and determined and doomed to disappointment when she couldn't relax enough to give him what he clearly wanted.

  His fingers slowed. "Breathe."

  She didn't realize she hadn't been, but a whimper rushed out of her as she trembled through a quick exhalation. "I'm trying."

  "Then don't." He was panting now, his breath blowing hot on her cheek. "Just feel it." He twisted his wrist, and his fingers inside her, until his thumb brushed her clit in a slick circle.

  A hoarse cry rose in her throat, and she pressed her open mouth to his skin to muffle it. But that only brought the taste of him into her, and she wanted so much more because she'd been so, so wrong. Nothing about Sector Three could dirty him. He'd kick aside the rubble and build something beautiful out of it.

  Her hips twitched, writhing beyond her control as he brought her higher. More slowly this time, pumping his fingers with the rhythm of her body and adding those dizzying touches to her clit when her nails dug into his shoulders. The tortured rasp of his breath seized her chest tight, a wordless reminder of his self-control even as he stripped hers away.

  She was safe. Every second he denied himself to focus on her branded that truth more deeply into her flesh, until her limbs were liquid and she barely felt them as she lifted her hands back above her head, opened her eyes, and whispered his name.

  He held her gaze, his eyes locked with hers. "I'm going to do this again," he rasped. "Lay you out where there isn't any damn part of you I can't taste. That's what I want. You."

  She came. It could have been the words or the final commanding flick of his thumb--she didn't know and didn't care. The orgasm hit her in stages, as if sheer relief traveled the fastest, so fast she was panting with it by the time the pleasure hit her and seized her lungs.

  She couldn't cry out. She couldn't look away. She could only come, helpless for terrifying moments as her body contracted around Bren's broad fingers and she couldn't think past how good he felt inside her.

  Bren groaned, the sound muffled as he covered her mouth with his. She'd never been kissed like this, so hungry and raw, but she couldn't fall into it because his fingers were still moving, stroking, coaxing little aftershocks of sensation back to roaring life, and she finally had to bite his lower lip with a groan. "Too much," she whispered. "I can't--"

  His arm shook, but after a moment, he stopped and pulled his hand away. He kept his mouth on hers, open and hot. "You can. Someday, you will."

  A threat wrapped in seductive promise, and she shivered. "Why? Why did you--?" Her words were clumsy, tripping over her tongue. "You could have fucked me. I wanted it, I promise."

  "I know." He ground the length of his erection against her hip.

  So needy, but he wasn't demanding now, which made it easier to offer. "Tell me what you want."

  He shook his head and smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "We have to go."

  It didn't make any fucking sense, not with his dick pressed against her, so hard she almost hurt in sympathy. And yet he'd wasted all those minutes getting her off when he could have been pounding out his own frustration.

  He could be pounding it out now, instead of tucking the tangled strands of her hair behind her ears with a gentleness that made her legs wobble again. "I think you're a little crazy, Bren."

  He chuckled, barely a laugh at all, but it still crinkled his eyes at the corners. "I thought you figured that out the night you met me."

  Laughing, she let her forehead drop to rest against his chin. "You were the only one who made any sense at all. And it was nice to have someone treat me like a threat again."

  "The very best kind."

  Her lips stayed curved into a smile. "The kind you have to gag? And really, Donnelly, who goes around prepared to gag someone?"

  "When you run with the O'Kanes, it's best to be prepared for anything."

  Maybe he'd been ready for anything, but nothing could have prepared her for this moment in a broken-down warehouse, reminders of Trent scattered across the floor but stripped of their power as her body hummed in remembered pleasure and her heart beat its way into her throat.

  Nothing could have prepared her for him.

  Bren had never seen a sorrier group of people in his life.

  He nodded to the men clustered around one end of the bar. Their rough clothes suggested dirty work, but not what kind. "What about them?"

  Six barely glanced up from the whetstone she was using to sharpen her boot knife. "That's Ed's crew. They scavenge, mostly. If you're suicidal, you can tunnel under some of the ruins on the edge of the blast zone and get lucky. Or dead. Ed's brother and half their guys died in a cave-in a couple years back, but he keeps trying."

  "Interesting." Ed could probably get his hands on some damn good shit--if he managed to stay alive. "Anyone else I should know about?"

  "The blonde on stage?" She nodded toward the thin rectangular block that thrust out between the tables. Calling it a stage was generous, but it had a pole on one end that was currently occupied by a nervous-looking dancer dodging gropes. She was young, with bright pink stripes standing out in her platinum ponytail, and Six watched her twist around the pole before continuing. "She should be managing this place. She's got some kinda perfect memory or something, and she can do math in her head. Any math. I kept telling Trent to let her handle the paperwork, but he said tits like that were wasted anywhere but the stage."

  "He would say something like that." The man had had no appreciation for proper resource appropriation.

  Six shifted, her thigh pressing against his. "He was stupid. This sector's a mess, but it doesn't have to be as bad as it is. He had to crush anyone successful before they could threaten him, though."

  Which meant the place had always been limited by Trent's dubious abilities. "Who else?"

  Her gaze drifted over the crowd before snagging on the table straight across from them, one equally hidden in shadows. "Word must have traveled," she said quietly. "Scarlet's here."

  All Bren caught was a flash of w
hite hair, the glint of metal. "Scarlet?"

  Six gripped the edge of the table. "Riff plays in her band, so he pretty much answers to her. She's got a lot of pull."

  "Then why wasn't she at the meeting with Dallas?"

  "Didn't see the point. She's not big on answering to men." Six exhaled and resumed her slow strokes across the whetstone. "And I still didn't know Dallas that well. I wasn't sure if he'd have to take her down a few pegs, just to prove he could."

  "Yeah." Except Lex probably wouldn't have ended up stabbing tables at the Broken Circle if a woman had accompanied the men. "How does Cain feel about her? He seems to be firmly rooted in some fairly archaic notion of proper gender roles."

  "Cain..." Six's jaw clenched. "Honestly, I don't fucking know. But considering what he thinks about me, it can't be good."

  "Well, he'll have to wise up if he wants to make it in this brave new world." Bren rose and nodded to the other table. "Shall we?"

  The white hair turned out to be a bleach job, pale bangs flowing over the rest of Scarlet's deep black hair. A plume of smoke curled up from her lips, and she watched their approach silently.

  Bren nodded to an empty chair. "May I?"

  "Nice manners." She shrugged one shoulder. "What's up, Six?"

  "Scarlet." Six spun a chair and straddled it, folding her arms across the back. "How's the band?"

  "Not practicing for shit, not lately. Things are in a shambles." She eyed Bren. "I guess you're here to fix that, huh?"

  "Depends."

  "On?"

  He mimicked her one-shouldered shrug. "If I can figure out where to start."

  "He's solid," Six said, her voice raw. "I know my word doesn't go far, but give him a chance."

  The woman's gaze hardened, but her words were gentle. "You sure?"

  "Give him a chance."

  "I am." Scarlet gestured to the table. "What does this look like? We're talking."

  Six's lips twitched. "Yeah? Well, he's about as talkative as you are. But since you both stick to saying what's important without any bullshit, you'll get along fine."