by Susan Stoker
* * *
Dude was completely focused on the building in front of him. His Shy was there, he could instinctively feel it. The set up was perfect. The stairwell door in the alley had been propped open with a small rock in the doorjamb. The door wasn’t able to latch because of the small obstruction. It was where Alicia and Javier had to have entered.
Dude turned to Benny and Cookie. “I’m going down there alone.”
“No you aren’t,” Benny immediately returned.
“Look, we all know what we’re going to find down there and I’m the only one who can get her out of it.”
“No, you aren’t, Dude,” Cookie argued. “We’re a team, and you’re wasting fucking time. Wolf has it under control up here. We’re going down there with you and we’ll figure out how to save her. Now shut the hell up and move your ass.”
Cookie was right. They didn’t have any time to spare. Dude turned on his heel and headed down the stairs. The three men turned the corner and stopped dead. Dude had been right. Cheyenne was there, but she was in deep trouble. They all were.
Cheyenne thought she heard something, but didn’t bother to turn her head away from the screen. She wanted to stay in the moment, to remember watching as her friends were saved. Suddenly she felt a hand on her cheek. No, she felt Faulkner’s hand on her cheek. She’d recognize that scarred and rough touch anywhere. Was she dreaming?
“Shy, I’m here.”
Cheyenne forced her eyes away from the screen and looked up. It was Faulkner. And Hunter. And Kason. Oh shit.
“No. Just go, seriously. Please. Just go.”
“We’ve been here before, Shy. Just let me help you. I’ll get you out of this.”
“No, Faulkner, you can’t. This isn’t like last time.”
“The hell it isn’t. I’m not letting you go, Shy. You’re mine. You said it. I take care of what’s mine. Remember?”
Cheyenne couldn’t hold back the sob. She looked over at Kason and Hunter and whispered, “Please, he can’t this time, take him and go.”
“Fuck no, Cheyenne, he’s not leaving and neither are we,” Cookie said harshly, his eyes roving over her body, trying to come up with a plan of action.
“Cheyenne, the others are evacuating the building. They’re getting everyone out and away. We’ll just get this shit off you and Dude will take care of whatever’s underneath and we’ll get you out too.”
Bizarrely, Cheyenne didn’t react to this statement, she simply turned back to Faulkner and asked in a weirdly monotone voice, “How long has it been since you rescued Summer and Alabama?”
Dude looked down at his watch, then back into Cheyenne’s eyes. “About six hours.”
“They said eight hours. It’s probably been about seven by now. There’s no way you can figure all this out in an hour.”
“Bullshit, Shy. An hour’s a piece of cake. Hell, I thought I’d only have minutes. Trust me.”
“I do, Faulkner, I do, but…”
“No. No buts. You do or you don’t. Period, Shy.”
Cheyenne looked deep into Faulkner’s eyes. She tried not to think about being blown to bits, to think about him being blown to bits right next to her. He hadn’t asked for much from her, only her submission and along with that, her trust. She trusted him to take care of her sexually, she trusted that he’d never willingly hurt her, she had to trust him here too. This was what he did.
“I trust you and I love you.”
Cheyenne watched as Faulkner closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them again, there was determination shining in them. He pressed his lips together then told her, “When I get you home, you’re going to pay for waiting until now to give me the words, Shy.”
When she opened her mouth, he waved her off, completely focused on what he had to do again. “Tell me what’s under this tape. Tell me everything you can.”
“There are three bombs as far as I know. One between my knees, one at my belly, and one on my chest. They were ticking before they strapped them to me. I can’t feel my arm. Javier dislocated my shoulder before they taped me up.”
Blocking out her comment about her shoulder for a moment, Dude asked, “Which one did they wrap up first? And can you breathe all right? Anything else wrong I need to know about before I start?”
“They started with my feet. I couldn’t kick them if they were taped together. They immobilized me and started from my feet and worked their way up. And yes, I can breathe okay.” Cheyenne paused a moment then said softly, “I’m scared, Faulkner.”
“Me too, Shy, me too,” Dude said unexpectedly, “But I swear, I’m getting you out of this.”
“I know you are. Don’t worry about hurting me. I can take it. Do whatever you need to in order to get the tape off and these damn bombs disarmed.”
“There’s no need for you to hurt, Cheyenne,” Cookie said, pulling something out of his pack. “Dude, I have some morphine here.”
“Do it,” Dude didn’t even hesitate. He knew he was going to have to hurt Shy, and he wanted to make sure he kept it to a minimum.
“Oh fuck, Faulkner, you know what those kinds of drugs do to me.”
Dude smiled for the first time in hours. He quickly leaned down and kissed Shy’s duct taped forehead and looked her in the eyes. “I don’t give a fuck what comes out of your mouth, baby, as long as you’re alive and breathing.”
“Cheyenne, I’m going to have to inject this into your thigh. I can’t see exactly where it’s going in, so I apologize in advance for causing you any pain.”
“Hunter, it’s gonna hurt a lot more to be blown to pieces, so I don’t give a damn about where you stick me, just shut up and do it already.”
Benny chuckled at the crankiness of her voice as Cookie quickly inserted the needle through the duct tape around her thigh.
Still looking into Faulkner’s eyes, Cheyenne told him, “Don’t wait, get it done.”
As much as he wanted to wait until the morphine took effect, Cheyenne was right, he didn’t have the luxury of waiting.
“Benny, come up here to her head, don’t touch the tape around her head that can come off later. Start on her chest. Be extremely careful. Don’t touch the device at all. Loosen up what you can. Cookie, do the same starting at her hips. I’m going to start down here. Remove only what’s necessary to get to the devices, nothing else.”
The three men got to work.
Dude pulled out his K-bar knife, as the others did the same, and sliced at the tape around Cheyenne’s ankles. He had to actually saw through the material because there was so much of it. Alicia and Javier had spent some time wrapping her. They hadn’t wanted her to be able to get out of there easily. Hell, they hadn’t wanted her to get out at all.
At last Dude freed her ankles. Once they were separated it was easier for him to cut through the tape holding her legs together.
He finally got to the explosive device between her knees. He took precious time to free as much tape from above and below the device as he could.
“Faulkner, the last time you were between my legs like this, you ordered me not to come, I don’t think that’ll be an issue right now.”
Dude couldn’t help but smile. Jesus, he couldn’t believe how the filter of Cheyenne’s words turned itself off when she had some drugs in her system. “Shy…” he started to warn her, but she interrupted him.
“No, I know. I know you like to boss me around and you know I love it. I’m just saying, you don’t have to tell me to hold back. I’m not going to. I swear.”
At Cookie’s choked laughter, Dude explained to his friends. “It’s the drugs, she says whatever she’s thinking, with no filters.”
“Obviously,” Cookie observed, still smiling.
“Faulkner?” Cheyenne asked, sounding completely out of it.
“Yes, Shy?” Dude didn’t look up from what between her legs.
“I do love you, you know. I was trying to figure out when to tell you, but the longer I waited, the harder it was to find the
best time. I was going to make you dinner one night, but forgot I had to work, and besides I’m a shitty cook. Then I was going to tell you when you had me on my knees for you, but that didn’t seem right either, and besides it wasn’t as if I could really talk with my mouth full anyway. Then I was going to wait until you untied me that one night…God that was hot…but anyway, I fell asleep too soon. It didn’t seem right to just blurt it out…but I do. I love you so much. You’re everything I ever wanted in a guy. In my guy. I never knew I wanted to submit, but you make it so easy. I-I-I don’t know what I’ll do if you decide you don’t want me anymore.”
Dude paused for a fraction, he had to respond to the pain he heard in her voice. “Shy…”
“No! I know, I’m probably fucking this up somehow. I feel like I’m floating, but I just, I’d do anything for you. You have to know. I’ll even leave you alone if you want me to. It might kill me, but I’ll do it.”
“I’m not letting you go, Shy.”
“Oh. Okay. Good. ‘Cos I like you holding me.”
Dude shook his head and concentrated on the device again. “Fuck,” he said quietly. “Cookie, Benny, stop. They’ve connected the three bombs to each other. I can’t disarm this one without disarming the others at the same time.”
Never one to let an opportunity to rub something in go by, Cookie said, “Looks like you needed both of us here after all, didn’t you?”
“Fucker,” Dude said lightly, knowing Cookie was right. There was no way he could disarm all three bombs at the same time. He needed both his teammates there.
“Hunter?”
“Yeah, Cheyenne?”
“How’s Fiona? I bet she was really worried. And she didn’t see Javier did she? I don’t want her freaked out. I know she’s still dealing with those assholes from Mexico kidnapping her. Not that Javier got her, but still. I’m worried about her. I miss her. We didn’t get to finish our shots…”
“She’s okay, Cheyenne, don’t worry about her.”
“Yeah, all right, she has you. I’ll try not to. But I’ve never had best friends before. That’s what friends do, they worry about each other.”
There was silence as the three men continued to try to remove enough tape to safely get to the bombs underneath. Every time they had to peel some of the tape away from her skin they cringed. The red blotches underneath the tape looked bad.
“Okay, the first two are uncovered, how’re you doing up there Benny?” Dude asked urgently. Time was ticking away. Too much time. He wasn’t going to get a second chance.
“Almost done, Dude.”
“Kason…I like that name. Why do you go by Benny?”
Benny opened his mouth, but Cookie answered before he could.
“He earned his nickname fair and square, Cheyenne. No matter if he says differently.”
“Oooooooh, I sense a good story there,” Cheyenne slurred. “Can you see my arm guys? Is it still attached? I can’t feel it at all. That can’t be good can it? Faulkner?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“Aren’t you going to say it back?”
“Yeah, when you’re out of this fucking building and I have you safe in my arms in my bed and you’ve just come for me three times and I’m sure you’ll never be in this kind of fucked up situation again.”
“Uh, Faulkner?”
“What?” Dude’s voice was all business. As much as he loved Cheyenne, he was trying to concentrate.
“That was a lot of swear words, but I can’t wait.”
Dude blew out a breath, but didn’t answer her.
“Okay guys, here’s what I need you to do. See that little red wire running under the device? On the count of three you need to pull it out. Pull it as hard as you can. It has to pop out. We have to do it at the same time. If we don’t, they’ll all go off.”
“Oh God, don’t. Please don’t.” Cheyenne said suddenly, she started squirming under them, and Benny put both hands on her shoulders to try to keep her still. Dude hadn’t been sure she was understanding what they were doing, but with her words he knew she did. She knew exactly. “Just leave it, fuck. Don’t. Kason, Hunter, just go, take Faulkner with you. Don’t.” She started trembling hard.
Dude checked his watch. He had time, barely, but he had time. He moved up to Cheyenne’s line of vision. He sandwiched her head between his hands and leaned down to her.
“Cheyenne, stop it.”
She stopped moving, but he saw tears falling from her eyes for the first time since they’d arrived. She’d been so strong, but when it got too real, she finally broke.
“I can’t. I want to touch you, Faulkner, and I can’t. I’ve never been so scared in my life, not for me, but for you. I can’t be the reason Fiona loses her man. I can’t be the reason Benny never meets the woman who’s out there waiting for him to protect her. I can’t be the reason you die. If I die, it’ll be okay, you’ll find someone else, but I can’t kill you. Please, Faulkner, please.”
Dude could feel his heart breaking. He leaned down and kissed the tears falling from her right eye, then did the same on the left side.
“Shy, I’ll never find anyone else. Ever. You’re it. Period. Done. End of story. I’ve waited for you my entire life. If I have to go a day without tasting what flavor lip shit you’ve put on, I won’t survive. If I can’t see you night after night stretched out on my bed, waiting for me to come to you and do whatever I want, if I can’t feel you surrounding me, squeezing me, my life isn’t worth living.” Dude’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I love you, Shy. We’re in this together. Okay?”
“You don’t ask me stuff, Faulkner.”
“Sorry.” Dude held back the chuckle. She was so fucking cute even covered in tape. “I love you, Shy. We’re in this together.”
Cheyenne sniffed. “Can you please wipe my nose? I can’t get to it and I can’t stand feeling snot run down my face.”
Dude smiled and used his sleeve to wipe the errant tears off her face then to clear the fluid away from her face that had leaked out of her nose.
“Can I please disarm this fucking bomb and get us out of here now?”
Cheyenne nodded.
Dude leaned down one more time and kissed her lips. “Hang in there, this is almost done.”
He moved back down her body to the device between her knees.
“Is Summer okay? I mean Alicia and Javier left the camera thingy for me to watch. I think they were wanting me to have to watch you guys get blown up or something, but you’re way too smart for that aren’t you? Anyway, I heard Alicia…”
“On the count of three. One…”
“…shoot. Twice! And she told me she shot Summer, and I wasn’t sure if she was dead or not, but I saw you guys carry her out and she was holding on to Sam, so I thought she looked okay and you guys weren’t freaking out or anything. But it was awful. Is she…”
“Two…”
“…okay? I mean it couldn’t have been fun to have been kidnapped, again. Fuckers. And Caroline? Is she okay? I mean it had to have sucked to have been sitting in Aces and to find out we were missing. Where are Fiona and Caroline? Is someone watching…”
“Three!”
“…them because Alicia and Javier know who they are and are still out there. They’re planning on flying out of the country. Did you guys know that? They told me…stupid jerks, so you should be sure…”
“Cheyenne.”
“…to track them down before they get out of the country. Can we steal them back if they go to Mexico? I can never remember all the rules about that sort of thing. I want to go out again with the girls. Next week. No tomorrow. We didn’t get…”
“Cheyenne.”
“…to finish our girl’s night out and that was the first girls night out I’ve ever had. I was having fun dammit. It’s not fair. It wasn’t our fault stupid people had to go and ruin it…”
Cheyenne’s words were suddenly cut off. She looked up to see
Faulkner kneeling by her side and saw Kason and Hunter standing above her.
“It’s over, Shy.”
“You turned the bombs off?”
Dude smiled at her wording. “Yeah, we turned them off.”
“Can we go home now, Faulkner? I want to sleep for a million hours in your bed. With you. Naked. Preferably with you inside me.”
“Soon. First I need to get you to the hospital.”
“But Faulkner, I don’t wanna go to the hospital. I just want to be with you.”
“You’ll be with me, Shy. I’m not leaving your side and I want to see anyone try to peel me away.”
“Okay then, but soon? You’ll take me to bed?”
“Yes, Shy. Soon.”
Looking up at Hunter and Kason, and seeing the broad grins on their faces, Cheyenne demanded, “What’s so funny? I don’t think there’s anything funny about any of this.” Her eyes went back to Faulkner. “Tell them to stop laughing.”
“You’re so fucking cute, Shy.”
“No, I’m not,” she retorted immediately. “I haven’t been able to put on my lip balm in hours, my lips don’t taste like anything, and I want to make sure they always taste like something different so you want to keep kissing me. I’m covered in fucking tape, again, but this time I know it’s gonna hurt like hell when they take it off. I have no idea how they’re going to get it out of my hair without cutting it all fucking off. I can’t feel my arm and I’m afraid they’re going to have to cut that off too. I’m just so tired of being scared and now I’m going to cry again and I still can’t wipe my own snot off my face.”
Dude leaned down and lifted Cheyenne into his arms. “Wipe your snot on me, Shy, I can handle it. I swear to Christ you aren’t going to feel anything when they take the tape off, they aren’t going to cut your hair off and you’ll still have your arm when you wake up.”
Dude felt Cheyenne nod against his shoulder where she’d buried her head and then wiped her face on his shirt, obviously taking him at his word and wiping her face on him to stop her snot from running down her face. He smiled.