by J. C. Allen
Most especially when the unarmed human was able to wrangle the bear with ease.
Her cheeks puffed as her neck bulged, but, undeterred, she just kept on sinking and swallowing… sinking and swallowing…
And sinking and swallowing.
I arched back, moving my hands through her silky hair. I groaned, glancing down at her. Without pausing in her efforts, she looked back up at me; her beautiful eyes burning into my own with an expression of lust and conquest. I just hoped that my eyes had had a similar effect on her before. It was almost enough to throw me over the edge then and there.
Then, dwelling too long on that thought, “almost” became something more.
And, once again, my ego got put in its place—not that the rest of me was complaining in any way.
A man’s climax, like the loss of one’s grip on a heavy weight, was a constant slave to the awareness surrounding it—the moment one thought “I can’t hold on” it was already too late. I tried to stammer out a warning, but my breath was gone from me.
Just like I with her, however, Eve could tell I was close without the benefit of my saying so. She could sense it and could feelit. Our bodies had formed a communication all of their own, and I fucking loved it.
I arched back, crying out in pleasure as my release slammed through me. I could feel her drinking me. I shivered, that much more rewarded by the thought as by the sensation.
It.
Was.
Incredible!
I’d never felt so much pleasure from a blowjob before Eve. With her, everything felt more amplified, even the smallest touches nearly undid me with her. It was so fucking amazing!
I finished, spent, and fell back, panting. Eve slid back beside me, looking satisfied by her accomplishment, my taste, or both. I glanced over at her, smirking. She smiled back, and I leaned in to kiss her.
Life could not have been more perfect then. These types of moment, the post-coital ones, were sometimes better than the actual sex itself. It was a moment in which nothing from the outside mattered. I was looking at Eve’s eyes, the gateway to her soul, and seeing her true self. These moments made me believe more than anything those words that I’d first uttered to her a few weeks ago.
I love you.
I love you so much.
I—
And then my phone began to ring.
“Fuck…” I sighed, turning away from Eve to glance at the screen that had lit up from the bedside counter.
“It’s Roost,” I said, groaning with effort—both physical and emotional—to roll out of bed. “I gotta take this.”
Eve, though seeming to resent the timing just as much as me, didn’t protest. She had just as much invested with the Savage Saviors now as I did. My business was as much hers.
While I did resent the phone call for interrupting my morning with Eve, I knew there was still a lot that had to be done. Along with things being great with Eve and I, the Saviors had never been stronger too. I had become the leader I should’ve been from the beginning. Better late than never.
I slid out of bed, grabbing my phone off the nightstand as I did. Pressing the “answer” button, I moved the phone to my ear, hearing the chatter and movement of work in the background at the shop. It was the kind of sound I enjoyed hearing… when I wasn’t trying to have an emotionally intimate moment with my girlfriend.
“What’s up, Roost? This better be important,” I said, not masking my annoyance at being interrupted.
“Well, ain’t’cha a charmer, an’ a good mornin’ to ya, too, dick cheese,” Roost said, adding a mocking tone to his voice.
“Let’s just say I was having a good morning before your ugly mug showed up on my phone,” I said.
“Alright, boys,” Eve called out loudly enough to be heard from both ends. “Quit your bickering and get down to business!”
I gave her a prideful look, and she paused to revel in my admiration before she slid from the bed and sauntered towards the bathroom, swaying her hips teasingly at me as she went. God. Fucking. Damn!
The sound of Roost’s laughter cut through as I tried my best to turn away from Eve as she slipped away into the bathroom. The sight of her swaying, naked ass nearly undid me again. I promised myself there’d be plenty of time for that—all of that—later and finally forced myself to turn away.
Away from sex. Away from emotional conversations. Away from… well, not away from Eve, but away from thinking of Eve.
I groaned, running my hand over my face as the last of Roost’s laughter died out.
“So, what’s going on?” I asked, switching to business mode.
“Well, we might’a found some clues to what the Falcons’ got in the works,” Roost said. “Not anythin’ too big—we don’t think so, at least—but… well, I jes’ can’t be certain. Maybe yer gonna think it’s big. Figured it was better to have ya check it out, jes’ to be sure.”
“Alright, I’ll be right there,” I said, knowing that neither of us liked doing business over the phone.
“Great, bring Eve, too. I wanna know her thoughts on this too,” Roost said before hanging up.
Wait, bring Eve? Why?
Then again, last time I left her here, we went on another wild good chase to get her.
But still, to request her thoughts and not just have her there for security reasons?
Sighing, I set my phone down and worked to wipe the last of the sleep from my face. My head was buzzing with the demands of a new day while I still had post-orgasmic tingles from a morning blowjob. Oh, the perks and drawbacks of having a girlfriend as both sexy to look at and as good in bed as Eve was.
I laughed at the thought.
“What’s funny?” Eve asked, stepping out of the bathroom.
I jumped, startled, and glanced back at her. I resented the sight of the robe she’d since slipped into. But it’s for the best… I think.
“Nothing,” I said, admiring the small bit of cleavage I could make out. “Just a grown man giggling at his own good fortune.”
“Trust me,” she said in a professional tone, “no man is too grown up to giggle. So what’s up? What happened with Matty?”
“Well,” I said as I pulled myself up and moved towards the dresser to pick out my clothes. “Roost said he might have found something concerning the Black Falcons. Said he’s not sure, though, and wants us to come down to the shop to check it out.”
“Us? As in you and me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Guess so,” I nodded. “After all, if I gotta be the king of the Savage Saviors then it’s only fair that you be their queen, right? You don’t mind that, do you?”
“Not at all,” she smiled. “I want to help you out however I can.”
“Good,” I said, going over to kiss her. I pressed my lips onto hers gently before pulling back with a smirk. “Plus, I can’t have your pretty face getting captured again. I may have nine lives, but I think I’ve used six of them already.”
“Oh please, says the man who had to have me rescue him twice from death.”
At least.
“Touche,” I said, beginning to slip into a pair of jeans and catching myself getting excited at the sudden awareness that Eve would have to once more get naked, even if only momentarily, in order to get dressed, as well. “Alright. Now that that’s that, let’s not keep Roost waiting, shall we?”
“Agreed,” Eve said, slipping her robe off.
I hate to say I did this, but I actually turned away from the sight. Not because I would have disliked it, but the opposite—I would have liked it too much. My dick would have sprung right back to life, I would have completely forgotten about Roost’s phone call, and then I’d be putting the state of the club behind schedule… all for an extra quickie that I knew wouldn’t be as much of a quickie as this one.
The one thing it did that I didn’t like, however, was it forced me to think about how entailed Eve had become in the club. It was easy to just call her the queen to my king, the first lady to my presid
ent, the duchess to my duke, but in reality, I hated that I had helped lift her out of the slums of the Black Falcons, only to put her back in the line of fire with them. In fact, not only had I done that, I’d put her in an even riskier spot—at least at her day job, she didn’t face the risk of drive-by shootouts.
But, as leaving her at my place last time had shown, even that wasn’t safe. The only surefire way to keep her safe was to keep her in my line of sight or, at the very least, in sight of trusted Savior members. It just reeked of being too possessing, but the alternative was somehow even worse.
Someday, babe. Someday, you’re going to be able to walk through the mall with nothing more than single dads and divorced losers gawking at you instead of criminal assholes who want to rape you.
Someday.
Eve came out to the kitchen, dressed in jeans, a tight red top, and athletic boots. She was both sexy as hell and combat-ready.
Why the hell you thinking of her in terms of being combat ready?
“Let’s go,” she said, all statement and no question.
I kissed her, took her hand, and led her down the elevator and to my motorcycle.
The drive to the shop was quick.
Too quick.
I hated how fast it was over. Trips that had once felt so novel, so new, and so exhilarating had just gone back to being part of the daily grind and the daily adventure. I hated it.
I decided after all this was over, Eve and I would go on a road trip. I had always loved riding, but when Eve was with me, it was a whole new feeling. She affected me with everything. In such a short amount of time she had changed everything, and I loved her all the greater for it.
But until we solved a certain bird issue in town, we weren’t going to be driving any further than Samsville.
“I wonder what Roost found,” Eve said as we dismounted from the bike.
“He didn’t seem that confident in what he found,” I replied, heading in and nodding to a few Saviors members working on shipment. “But I guess we’ll just have to see. Didn’t sound too worried, but you never really know in these spots.”
As I made my way into the office with Eve beside me, I was greeted by several other members of the Saviors. I was astonished at just how much things had changed.
After the incident with Tyler, I had taken my role as the leader of the Saviors a lot more seriously. I didn’t want to see any further abandonments in the group, and though I knew there was always the risk of dropouts and traitors in times of war and violence, I swore I’d live up to the standard set by my father to better take care of it.
I was happily surprised to see that my efforts had made a difference. Productivity had never been higher, and with the lack of activity from the Falcons, the Saviors had never been stronger. I knew I couldn’t take all the credit, but it felt good to be the leader that my dad would’ve wanted me to be.
No one had left since Tyler. Morale, despite the deaths at the neighborhood, seemed quite high. The worst it ever got was when someone complained about not getting the meat lovers pizza at the memorial at the shop afterward, and that just drew laughs instead of anger and fights.
Truly, things were looking good at the shop.
Which means we’re probably about to see something ugly from Roost.
“Look who finally showed up,” Roost said, a large smile on his face as he stood up. “Ya made it in, big boss! Why, ya barely slept past noon!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving a dismissive hand at him and his sarcasm. “So, what’s this business you’ve found? How bad is it?”
“Like I said over the phone, numb-nuts, I’m not sure,” Roost said, pulling out a tall stack of papers. “Ya think I make shit up to see yer ugly mug?”
“All that?” I asked, feeling dread begin to fill my stomach.
Something told me this wasn’t good news.
“Yep,” Roost said, all sarcasm and joking vanishing.
From the grim expression on Roost’s face, I suddenly didn’t want to know what was on those papers. A not-so-small part of me wanted to turn, run, and never look back. I wasn’t going to, of course, but…
Three weeks, I thought. All we got was three weeks…
I should’ve remembered that Roost liked to undersell things on the phone to get me to the office. God, fucking, damnit.
I shook my head subtly, stopping those thoughts from snaking their way back inside. I had to be strong, not just for me anymore. For Eve, for Roost, for all of the Saviors. No more “small part of me.” I had to be all in.
“Might as well lay it out, it ain’t good,” Roost said. “I won’t sugarcoat it, but… but it might lead to somethin’. I just don’t know yet. Eve, ya might not wanna look at this part. It… it ain’t pretty.”
“I’ll be fine,” Eve said.
I spotted a look of stoic determination on her face. She wanted to be strong for me as well. Queen of the Savage Saviors. Certainly playing the part.
I took her hand in mine, giving it a gentle squeeze as I gave a nod to Roost. Roost slid the papers down in front of us. My eyes went wide at the sight.
The pages were print-outs of pictures. While the quality of the shots might have been decent to begin with, the process of printing them had given them a grainy, almost dated look. It made the grisly depictions a little easier to stomach, but not by much.
Page after page of pixelated dead bodies stared with blank, distant eyes. Though it was hard to tell, it looked like every one of them had been gunned down. A few obvious headshots were shown, but others had to be studied a moment longer to spot the gunshot wounds. In a few cases, the only hint that we weren’t looking at a sleeping person was the pool of red they were lying in.
Despite the cause of death, though, there didn’t seem to be much of a connection between the pages; the locations, the nature of the bodies, and even the timestamps on the pictures varied.
“What are we looking at exactly?” I asked.
“Well, all these guys are… well, were members of the Black Falcons,” Roost said. “Now, I can tell ya that this ain’t our handiwork—not ‘less one of our boys decided to go rogue on us, but I don’t think that’s the case—so that means…”
“Who else would take them out?” Eve said. “There’s not a third club out here, is there?”
“That’s what we’re tryin’ ta figure out,” Roost said, scratching his head. “But, truth be told, we got nothin.’ No third club. Nothin.’”
I looked back down at the photos, trying to find any other hint among them. I looked at the people to see if I recognized any former Saviors, but the pictures were too blurry, and even the ones I did recognize didn’t have any commonality amongst rank, history, or anything that would suggest a trend.
“Eve has a good point, though. Do we have any reason to suspect a third party?” I asked. “Some vigilante effort that might be targeting the Falcons for some personal reason?”
Roost shrugged. “Them boys in the Falcons pissed off a lotof folks, sure, but there aren’t many out there with balls big enough to go around gunning ‘em down. And, not to brag on their behalf or nothin,’ but it ain’t like the Black Falcons would jus’ sit around an’ let their boys get iced like thatwithout striking back.”
I nodded slowly, seeing the truth in that assessment.
And then another truth hit me.
Sure, there couldbe somebody angry enough with the Black Falcons for any number of reasons to go out and try something, but tryingwas probably the best anybody could hope to achieve. Assuming somebody even managed to take out a couple of their members, the resulting backlash would put a quick end to them. Judging from the pictures, from the sheer number of dead bodies I was looking at, the Falcons weren’t working to stop whoever was doing it.
Only one person would be free to mow down mass numbers of the Falcons without any sort of retaliation to show for it.
The namesake of the club.
“Could Falcon have done this?” I asked.
Roo
st only shrugged. I felt sure that this was his way of deferring to me rather than saying he didn’t know—only a suicidal fool would have acted this way, but even then, a suicidal fool would not have produced this many murders. Only someone above getting murdered by the Black Falcons… only someone in charge could do that.
But then…
“But why would he take out his own men?” I thought aloud, shaking my head. “Some sort of message? To his own team? To us?”
“Pretty fucked-up message, ya ask me,” Roost said.
“Is there any connection to where the bodies were found?” Eve asked, pointing to three of the photos. “These three seem to be in the same area.”
“There’s eleven bodies—well, eleven that we found, at least—an,’ of them, they was scattered across three primary locations,” Roost explained, pulling out another sheet of paper. This one showed a map of the city with a few points marked in sloppy circles. “But when we went to the locations, we couldn’t find anything.”
“Went to?” I said. “Weren’t we already there?”
Roost shook his head.
“Then how did you get these pictures?” Eve asked.
“Sent to us,” Roost said, folding his arms. “Emailed. Encrypted sender. Untraceable. Ya have better luck hackin’ that NSA place than ya will figurin’ out this shit.”
“Emailed?” I said, shaking my head. So it’s a message to us, then.
Well, that’s great. Three weeks is what we got. Back to the ground.
“Sort of cements that ‘sending a message’-theory,” Eve said.
“Were all of these just sent to you recently?” I asked, glancing down at the map.
“Nope,” Roost began. “We got the first email almost a week ago. Went to check it out, found nothin.’ Then we got another email, same response, same effect. Then it happened a third time—didn’t bother to send a search party this time; just decided to call you about it.”
Roost almost never failed me. But almost didn’t mean never. And right now, I was feeling a little slighted and disappointed.
“Why wasn’t I told about the first email?” I demanded, looking up.