by April Lust
Giovanni looked at me, eyes wide. He cocked the hammer back. I closed my eyes. Go ahead, I thought to myself. Pull the fucking trigger.
But the gun never went off.
I opened my eyes after one beat too many had passed by. Giovanni had collapsed into a bloody puddle on the ground. Standing over him was Natalia. She held a brick in one hand, covered with the blood of the man at her feet.
She looked up at me. Her eyes shined in the fire. It reflected off her skin, her air. She looked like she was glowing. The air shimmered with the heat surging through it, blurring her outlines, turning her more and more angelic as the seconds ticked by.
Goddamn. I didn’t understand what she did to me. But I wasn’t done finding out.
A blur of motion to the bottom right corner of my vision broke the spell between us. Cosimo was lunging for the gun Giovanni had dropped.
Acting without thinking, I bent down and picked up the steel pole hanging out of the fire. The heated metal seared my skin instantly, but I ignored the pain. What was a little more agony when you were already as broken as I was?
Raising it over my head, I brought it crashing down on top of his skull. The pole scythed through scalp, skull, and brain, sending for a geyser of bloody fluid. Cosimo went limp.
This time, it was for good.
Natalia looked at me. I looked at her. I didn’t say a word as I stuck out my hand. She stepped forward tentatively and took it. Our fingers were slick with sweat, blood, and ash, but it didn’t matter. Beneath all that was skin. Hers and mine. Whole, for the most part. And close together. That was what mattered.
We walked out of the plant, leaning against one another for support. The heat gradually lessened as we moved away from the area where the bomb had exploded, but we could still hear the groan of melting rivets as the huge sheets of metal gave way to the greedy flames.
My throat burned with the acrid rasp of the chemicals we’d ingested. There was no way that shit was good for either of us, but as we coughed and hacked, a laugh began to bubble up. I looked at Natalia and, for some strange reason, a smile broke out over my face. The laugh took me over, growing stronger and stronger, until I had to stop and rest my hands on my knees because I was laughing so hard.
“What’s so funny?” she asked me, astonished.
It took me a long time before I was calm enough to answer. “I did it,” I finally said. “I fucking did it.”
# # #
We found a crowd of motorcycles huddled at the outskirts of the plant. I recognized the big yellow one. It was Fists’. The keys dangled from the ignition. I gave the handlebars a quick pat. Maybe, somewhere deep in the mechanical guts, a little part of him still lingered in here.
I helped Natalia onto the back of the bike. After she was settled, I swung my leg over, mounted in front of her, and put my hand on the keys.
I paused for a moment. The distant fires were no longer audible. The night around us was still. No animals moved or chirped, no cars passed by on the road. There was silence.
Then I twisted the keys and felt the thrum of the engine between my legs. Opening the clutch, I rolled back on the throttle. Gas combusted. Wheels spun.
Natalia and I took off down the road, leaving behind everything we’d ever known.
Epilogue
Natalia
Two Weeks Later
Mexico was beautiful. The sky during the days we’d been here have been nothing but the purest azure shade, stretching unbroken from the mountains in the west to the Gulf in the east. The air was like a warm kiss on my skin. No more cold Chicago winters, no more snow. I never wanted to be anywhere but here, next to the beach, where I could hear the waves whispering as they slid onto the smooth sand and back out again, over and over, like a lullaby.
I padded down the sidewalk with a bag of tacos and a cardboard container of rice and beans in my hands, dinner for two. The sun was just starting to nuzzle against the horizon. Beams of purple and bronze slinked between the low rooves of the white adobe buildings. The whole world was awash in color. I smiled, unable to help myself. It was just too damn pretty.
I made my way to the cottage at the end of the street. It looked just like the rest. The roof was thatched with straw, a palm tree in the front yard held its leafy fronds out over the small porch, and the walls were daubed with streaky white paint. It, too, was perfect.
My sandals made a shushing noise as I walked across the dry grass. I caught sight of myself in a mirror and paused. In just two weeks I looked like a new person. The bruises and scratches had faded and my once pale skin was beginning to look tan. It was an unfamiliar change but a welcome one. My hair was also lightening, the very ends of it turning from midnight black to a slightly lighter shade of brown, courtesy of the beaming Mexican sun. I hadn’t gotten it cut in a while and it was reaching nearly to the small of my back. I thought I’d keep it, though. The look was growing on me.
“Gonna stand there forever looking at yourself, or are we gonna eat?” came a gruff voice.
I jumped, startled. Nicholas was sitting on the porch looking at me with a wry smile on his face. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and I could see that he was tanning even faster than I was. The unmarked stretches of skin left between his colorful tattoos had become a rich brown. It made his eyes even more shocking than they usually were. Underneath his dark hair, they shone at me, twinkling and mysterious.
“Coming,” I trilled, taking the steps in one bound. I set the food on the rickety table the previous owners left for us on the front porch. I started to move towards the unoccupied chair on the other side of the table, but Nico snaked an arm out around my waist and pulled me towards him.
“Get over here, girl,” he growled playfully as he tugged me onto his lap.
I yelped and giggled until he swooped down and locked his lips against mine. His tongue delved between my teeth while he slid a hand underneath my neck to support my head.
I moaned softly. His taste never got old.
He broke it off but kept his face close to mine. Up close, his eyes almost consumed my whole field of vision. I could see a thousand different shades of blue surfacing and submerging like dolphins frolicking in the oceans of his irises.
“Took your sweet time coming home, didn’t ya?” he teased. He nipped at my nose.
I shrieked and jerked my head away, laughing. “Well, if I’d known you were sitting around shirtless, maybe I would have hustled a little more,” I shot back with a grin. “Then again, maybe I should make you cover up. Can’t have all these local ladies thirsting after my man.”
“I’ve been beatin’ them away with a stick since the minute you walked out the door,” he joked. “I told him over and over, ‘I love Natalia!’ but they just won’t listen. Probably ’cause they don’t speak English.”
“Mm, I can see how that would be a barrier. Wait, do me one favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Say again what you told them?”
He smiled, sun-chapped lips splitting to reveal a row of glistening white teeth. “I told them, I love Natalia.”
“Say it again.”
“I love Natalia.”
“One more time.”
He stood suddenly, hoisting me into the air by my waist like a ballerina as he bellowed at the top of his lungs, “I love Natalia!” A flock of seagulls in the palm tree out front took wing, startled by the sudden outburst.
I laughed, reveling in the words as I heard them again and again. That part would never get old, either. Nicholas started to set me back down, but as he did, his leg failed beneath him and we both went tumbling to the ground. I landed on top of him. His body absorbed the worst of my fall, but I still managed to knock my elbow against the wooden slats of the porch. Pins and needles ricocheted along my forearm.
Among all these sunshine and euphoria, it was easy to forget how little time had passed since everything we went through in Chicago. We were both trying to put it out of our minds, but sometimes our bodies refused to coo
perate. Nicholas was still battered and his left wrist was still encased in a makeshift plaster cast. The cuts riddling both of us would no doubt turn into scars that would last for a very long time. Ignoring the past was easy, but forgetting it was much harder.
I scrambled to roll onto my knees next to him. His eyes were closed but his chest was rising and falling slowly. As I stroked the side of his face, his eyes fluttered open. Thank God.
“Nico, are you all right?” I questioned anxiously.
He looked at me steadily, not saying a word for a few long seconds. Then he gently cupped my chin in his hand and pulled me towards him for a light kiss. “Never better,” he whispered.
I helped him back to his seat. He grimaced in pain and I could hear the creak of bones scraping together, but he managed to settle back in somewhat comfortably. I hovered in front of him, still worried that he reinjured his wrist or his knees.
“I’m fine,” he said roughly, not looking at me.
I grinned, though the worry lingered. He wouldn’t admit he was in pain if his whole damn body was on fire. That was just how he was, though. I was going to have to get used to it. He pulled me back onto his lap and I sat lightly, careful not to press too much of my weight against his thigh, despite how strong and capable it felt beneath me.
“Do you wanna eat?” I asked.
He leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against the curve of my bare neck. “I’m sick of tacos,” he whispered.
I pushed his chest away, annoyed. “Are you serious?” I squealed. “You were the one who said that’s what you wanted to eat!”
He lurched to his feet again, scooping me up like a bride being carried over the threshold. “I’m just hungry for something else,” he said. He lunged inside and kicked the door shut behind him.
“Oh yeah?” I retorted, barely suppressing a grin as he carried me through the small white living room and down the hall. “What might that be?”
“Hmm, lemme get a taste and decide.” Entering the bedroom, he tossed me on top of the comforter and dove on top of me. His mouth found my collarbone while his right hand slid down my hip to my inner thigh where it was exposed below the hem of my simple cotton dress.
“Oh, Nico,” I moaned as his fingers moved under my dress and began to stroke at my mound through the sheer fabric of my panties. His left hand slyly teased the straps of my dress off my shoulders and peeled back the top. Without a bra underneath, my breasts rose unheeded into the brown peak of my nipples. He shifted his mouth from one to the other and back again, suckling delicately. A delicious tremor passed through me.
I encircled my arms around his back. He was brimming with muscle, and as my palms glided down his flanks, I could feel every fiber twitch and move beneath my touch. His scent filled my nose and the gentle downward pressure of his massive bulk on top of me was like a soothing blanket.
I spread my thighs apart to let him explore further. Taking advantage of the extra room, he slid my panties to the side and ran a teasing finger from the bottom of my slit to the top, then back down again, before slowly slipping inside of me.
I clenched reflexively for a moment. He stopped, pulled back, and looked at me. “Do you trust me?” he says.
Did I? For starters, I hardly knew him. It hadn’t even been a month since I was a shivering wreck underneath the glare of spotlights, fodder for the highest bidder to use and abuse at their whim. Did I trust him? He bought me, fought for me, then came into a cell adorned with whips and chains and ravaged me.
But despite all that, the answer was an unequivocal yes.
I nodded my head. He smiled and leaned back down to kiss me hard on the mouth. Below, his fingers resumed their slow push inward. I groaned again as he started to stroke in and out of me while his thumb brushed against my clit.
He brought me to the peak of a quick climax. It was amazing how easily I responded to his touch. It took hardly any effort before I was riding his hand, thrusting hard against his strokes before tumbling over the edge and basking in the warm, suffusing glow of an orgasm.
I quickly unbuckled his jeans and pushed them down his hips. He kicked them off completely before clambering on the bed on top of me. I pushed his shoulders to encourage him to lie on his back. He let me, his head coming to rest on the pillows as I swung my leg over him and started to kiss my way down his chest.
I licked and bit between his pecs, over the peaks and valleys of his abs, until I reached his throbbing member. Nipping at the crease of his hip, I began to pull on his cock with my right hand. A slow pump up and down drew from him a low, satisfied growl. He pushed his head back into the pillows and closed his eyes.
Transferring my mouth to his tip, I licked leisurely from top to bottom, taking my time and keeping my gaze fixated on his twitching face. I loved this part, knowing I could do to him something exactly like what he did to me. As I took his head between my lips and heard the growl increase in volume, I felt a shiver between my own legs.
A steady bob of my wet mouth along his shaft while my two hands squeezed easily at the base of it added more strength to his groaning. He reached out to wind his fingers between the locks of my hair hanging around my head like a dark curtain.
I increased the speed of my sucking and grinned on the inside as his moans kept pace with every slurp. After a few minutes, he leaned forward and pulled the back of my head towards him.
His manhood was at attention as he gave me a deep kiss. Then he swung his legs off the bed and took to his feet. I lay back and let him peel the dress and panties off my body. When I was naked before him, he paused. “You’re a fucking goddess, babe,” he said without smiling. He’d never been more serious. “I knew it the second I saw you. I had to have you.”
“Is that so?” I murmured.
He nodded. “There was no way I was letting you leave that place as anyone else’s. You were mine.”
I let my knees fall open, baring myself completely to his gaze. He drank me in. I could see the flame dancing in his pupils. It scared me and excited me at the same time, every bit as much as it did the first moment I laid eyes on him.
He stooped to his knees and ran his tongue from my knee, up my thigh, to my hot center. Opening wide, he breathed heavily onto my pussy. The warm air felt incredible against my sensitive parts.
He licked at the outer lips first, warming me up for the moment when his tongue plunged in to reach farther, deeper, more. I squeezed a pillow with one hand and my breast in the other as he brushed his mouth along my opening. Tiny outbursts of sizzling sensation rippled beneath his touch. The speed of their exploding picked up as he did, keeping time with every lick, every nibble, until before I knew it I was on the threshold of coming again. This one was a little bit deeper than the last, a little more toe-curling. Moans escaped my mouth as I held onto the bed for support and let it wash over me.
“I need you,” I mumbled as it started to ebb. “I need you inside me right now.”
Nicholas stood and lined his cock up with my tunnel. I closed my eyes and waited for the sudden thrust, the dramatic filling that I was craving so badly. But it didn’t come.
I opened my eyes again and looked up to see him considering me oddly. “What is it?” I asked. Concern is replacing the heat that had just moments ago been raging in my core. “Is something wrong?”
“I want to hear you say it,” he said.
“Say what?” I asked, my brow knitted together in concern.
“You know what to say.” He didn’t blink or budge. His member wavered just inches away from me, so close to giving me everything I needed and yet so far.
I racked my brain, trying to think of what he wanted to hear. After all this time, what could be left unsaid? What needed repeating? Then it clicked. I looked at him, my eyes glistening with equal parts desire and love, as I told him exactly what he was looking for.
“I’m all yours, Nicholas,” I said. “Now and forever.”
Those were the magic words. He slid into me, and everything
was right in the world.
THE END
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More by April Lust
Forbidden: Berserkers MC
SHE’S GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT SHE DID.
I left jail with murder on my mind.
I wanted to kill the woman who’d betrayed me.
But then I came home to a brutal surprise:
She’s sleeping with my enemy.
All of a sudden, the plan changes.
Death’s too good for her.