“I want chips and dip too. And a cherry soda. And a blueberry muffin.”
“A muffin?” I snapped. “Where am I gonna get a fucking muffin?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. But I want one, and you owe me for being an asshole.”
I blew out a derisive breath then started up the engine and drove around to the drive-thru for the burger place. I ordered Rogue a veggie burger with extra fries and mayonnaise then got myself a burger before driving the van over to the convenience store.
“You’ll have to untie me,” Rogue announced. “I can’t eat with my hands all tied up.”
I gave her a blank look. “You’ll manage.”
“Okay then.” She opened the box of fries and instantly sent a bunch falling to the floor. “Woopsie.” She dropped a few more.
“Oh for fuck’s sake.” I leaned over, untying the rope. “There, better?”
“The cuffs are the main issue.” She batted her lashes.
I made sure the van was locked up tight then took off the cuffs and watched her closely.
Rogue tucked into her burger while I devoured mine in three bites, then I locked her back up in the cuffs and headed into the store to get her fucking snacks. Why was I even agreeing to this? She didn’t need snacks. She had a burger. But I needed a piss anyway, so whatever.
When I returned to the van, I found her blasting Blood // Water by Grandson, her eyes closed and her head bobbing to the furious beat. A couple of manbun dickwads in their convertible douche-mobile beside the van were watching her, and as one of them started making a blowjob gesture, sticking his tongue in his cheek and the other laughed loudly, I dropped the bag of snacks onto the hood of the van and casually strode over to them.
“Wait, man-” the first cried as I slammed my fist into his face and broke his nose. The second tried to scramble out over the backseats and I caught him by his belt as he made it to the ground, kicking his legs out from under him and slamming his face into the side of his car and denting the metal. He wailed and I strode away, grabbing the snacks and climbing back into the van.
Rogue’s eyes popped open as the song came to an end and I dumped the bag in her lap.
“Can I have my cuffs off again for eating?” she asked sweetly. “I’m hardly gonna dive out of a moving vehicle even if I could get the door open.”
I grunted, unlocking them once more before I took off down the road, casually wiping the flecks of blood off of my knuckles onto my jeans. Rogue didn’t notice as she tucked into her chips and dips. I’d even gotten her the damn muffin from the bakery.
“You want one?” she asked, offering a chip under my nose piled high with sour cream. I devoured it in one bite and licked her fingers clean of dip, making a sexy little gasp escape her.
“Careful where you put that dip. Wherever it goes, my tongue will follow,” I warned.
“I’ll be sure to put it on a hobo’s asshole at the next rest stop then,” she said smoothly and a laugh tumbled from my chest. Fucking beautiful bitch.
I drove us north for miles while Rogue made a playlist and acted like we were kids out on an adventure again. She even had a wistful look in her eyes when we started driving through a forest on the outskirts of Sterling, the moonlight bleeding through the trees and painting it all silver. While she watched the world, I stole glances at her, wondering what those ocean blue eyes had seen in all the years we’d been apart. Heat Waves by Glass Animals started up through the speakers and the lyrics were all too close to the truth right then.
“Would you rather be reincarnated as an owl or a goose?” Rogue rounded on me suddenly, catching me staring and my head snapped around to look at the road.
“An owl,” I answered easily.
“Because of your owl ears?” She flicked my ear and I batted her hand away.
“I do not have owl ears,” I growled. “Owls don’t even have ears.”
“They have huuuuge ears,” she countered. “They’re just under a load of feathers.”
“Are you saying I have big ears?” I shot at her.
“Not as big as an owl’s, I suppose,” she mused.
“So I guess you’d be a goose on account of your goose feet,” I said, fighting a grin.
“I do not have goose feet!” she laughed.
“You do, and you honk,” I said.
“I don’t honk,” she belly laughed and accidentally knocked her muffin flying toward the footwell. My hand shot out on instinct and I caught it in my fist.
“Woah, you saved my muffin,” she cooed.
“I guess it’s mine now then.” I brought it to my lips and took a vicious bite out of it and Rogue gasped, diving at me in fury as she tried to wrestle it out of my grip while I fought to get the rest of it in my mouth.
“You muffin stealing bastard,” she hissed, biting my hand as she tried to make me let go of it. Her palm landed right on my cock and I cursed, the muffin falling from my fingers into the footwell between my legs and she dropped down to grab it, her hand still firmly crushing my junk.
“Rogue,” I grunted, grabbing a fistful of her hair. She was still a nutcase over food apparently. “Either put that hand to good use on my cock or remove it,” I snapped, trying to grab her wrist as I watched the road.
“Got it,” she said excitedly as her hand slipped off of my dick. Her head snapped up and smacked into the steering wheel, sending her face-planting into my crotch and I laughed, shoving her head down in revenge.
“You’re so hungry for my cock, it’s embarrassing,” I said, rubbing her face against my jeans and my dick got overexcited as I started getting hard.
“You thucking prick, let me up”, she said, her voice muffled against my zipper.
“What was that, beautiful?” I taunted, my fingers tightening in her hair. “Are you whispering sweet nothings to my cock?”
She managed to get her hand between my legs and somehow pinched my fucking balls.
The van swerved as I let go of her with a curse and she flew back into her seat, tucking into her muffin as I got the vehicle under control.
“Why does everyone talk about confident people having big balls?” Rogue mused. “Balls are the most vulnerable thing on a man’s body. You know what’s really powerful? A vag. They push freaking babies out of them. And sure, you can kick a girl in the vag, but it won’t cripple her. One kick to a ball though and bam, you’re out of the game, dude. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“True,” I agreed.
“Do you think we’ll be friends when you come back as an owl and I’m a goose?” she asked, changing the conversation as swiftly as a turning wind. “Do you think we’ll get a do-over?”
I clucked my tongue, my mood darkening. “I’m not coming back, beautiful. If I do, I’ll keep telling the world to get fucked until it offers me oblivion.”
She fell quiet for a long moment and I felt her eyes on me, peeling back the layers of my flesh as she hunted for the reason why I’d said that. Rogue was a pretty little indulgence for now, a flash of colour in my endlessly grey world. But her being here didn’t change things. My life was set on one course. Once the Harlequins were dead, I’d fill my revolver with rounds and rig my usual game of roulette in favour of death. There was no other purpose for me anymore. I didn’t want this life as much as it didn’t want me. And when I examined it close enough, even the rays of sunlight in my youth had always been on a time limit.
I just wished I’d been able to see the timer running down back then so I could have made more out of each moment, tasted the sea salt on my lips a little longer, laughed fuller and harder, taken more photos, captured more of the sweetness to help counter the bitterness that had been coming. I knew regrets were pointless, but I had them all the same. I guess you never realise how bright the day is until the rain comes.
“What happened to you in prison, Maverick?” Rogue asked just as I parked up at the edge of a track in the woods and pulled the parking brake.
“We’re here,” I announced, ignori
ng her question and stepping straight out of the van so I didn’t have to meet her probing gaze.
I walked around to her side, opening the door, grabbing the handcuffs from the footwell and tucking them into my pocket. I took her hand as I drew her out of the van onto the dark road, glancing about for any sign of movement around us.
I shut the door and pushed her up against it, crowding her in close as I stared down at my little unicorn and drove my hips against hers. “If you’re going to run, do it now. I need this job to go smoothly and I can’t babysit you through it. That means you’re free, no chains. But you do as I say, when I say it. If you can’t do that then go.” I stepped back, gesturing for her to take off into the trees and disappear forever. But she stayed right where she was and I wasn’t sure either of us really knew why she did it. It definitely wasn’t to make things up to me. Maybe it was to do with the connection we’d always had and the time when we’d been each other’s ride or die.
“If the sun rises tomorrow, we’ll watch it together,” I spoke the words we’d always said to each other whenever we were out causing mischief into the night. I had them inked along my collarbone now, but you’d only find them if you looked hard enough.
Her lips parted at those words and heat began to rise in my body, my heart started to pound and all I could do for two seconds was stare at her mouth and imagine what she tasted like. Our breaths washed together and the silence of the night pressed in. It was just us here, alone, miles and miles away from Sunset Cove, where we’d wished we could be when we were sixteen years old. If I’d just taken her and run, would we be together now, living the life we’d always dreamed of?
I forced myself to pull away, striding to the van door and tugging it open, grabbing out a bag and slinging it over my shoulder. Then I took the gun from the back of my waistband, clicked the safety off and handed it to Rogue. I had too many regrets, and I’d spent endless hours in prison thinking over how things could have been different. But the past was like sand turned to glass; there was no undoing it.
“Shoot me now or forever hold your peace.” I stood before her in the dark and she pointed the gun right at my heart. “You’ll wanna aim a little higher, beautiful. There’s nothing there to pull the trigger on.”
She rolled her eyes and lowered the gun, gesturing for me to lead the way ahead. I turned and marched up the dirt track into the woods while Rogue stayed hot on my heels. It was half a mile’s walk to my planned location and I checked the GPS on my phone a couple of times when we had to head off the track and carve a path through the trees.
I tapped out a message to the leader of the men I’d hired for this job. They were already here, in position and waiting on my signal, ready to unleash a blaze of fire and blood on The Dead Dogs.
We reached a tall wire fence and I dropped the pack from my shoulder, taking out some bolt cutters and making a way through. I picked up my bag and ducked through first, checking the area before beckoning Rogue after me. All was quiet, but the sound of a river came from up ahead as we kept walking. I crouched down as we reached the top of a hill and gazed into the valley below.
Huge red shipping containers were lined up on a concrete compound surrounded by armed guards. A large boat was bobbing on the river beyond them and floodlights lit up the area.
I pulled Rogue down to the ground with me and opened up my bag, setting up the sniper rifle and placing it in its stand on the ground.
“Stay low,” I growled at Rogue as I lay down and moved into position, the gun resting against my shoulder as I gazed down the scope.
“What are you, a fucking mercenary?” she hissed at me.
“Nope, I’m just an asshole with big balls – sorry, a big vag.”
She snorted, lying down close beside me, her arm brushing mine and making my skin prickle with rising hairs.
“What’s the plan?” she whispered.
“My men are waiting on the river,” I murmured, setting my gaze on the boat. “How good’s your aim?” I asked.
“Perfect,” she said and I leaned back from the scope, taking a flare gun from my bag and sending a message to my men with my phone.
“When I tell you to, shoot a flare at the boat,” I said.
“What if I miss?” she hissed.
“Then we’re dead,” I said with a shrug.
“No pressure then,” she muttered and I chuckled a little manically, looking back down the scope, my gaze fixed on the boat as my men climbed onto it in the dark, just shadows moving across the deck and dousing the whole thing in gasoline.
“Ready, beautiful?” I murmured as my men got off the boat and dropped back into the water.
“Ready,” she whispered, a note of excitement in her voice.
I lined up my scope on my first victim who was closest to the boat, my pulse thumping harder at the coming chaos.
“Light her up,” I commanded and Rogue fired the flare.
It shot out over the compound and a shout of alarm went up as it cascaded through the sky in a stream of red sparks. And while it fell towards its fiery death, I pulled the trigger. The bullet cut through the air and the first man’s skull shattered the same moment the flare hit the boat, lighting it up in a burning blaze of hellfire.
A grin pulled at my mouth as my men poured out of the water, shooting at The Dead Dogs while I picked them off like sitting ducks. They dropped like flies as they scrambled to try and make sense of what was happening, but it was far too late already. Between my sniper rifle and the men on the ground, they didn’t stand a chance and blood coloured the concrete red as bullets cut through the air and men’s screams reached up to the sky.
My heart thundered in my chest and my breaths came heavier as I got off on the absolute bloody mayhem unfolding before me.
As the fight spread across the compound, I swung my rifle around, hunting down one of the men among my own, my gaze sharpening on him as he stabbed and stabbed a man on the ground beneath him. My finger kissed the trigger and my upper lip peeled back as I pulled it. He was thrown backwards to the ground dead, no one around to see him fall. Rogue gasped as she realised what I’d done and I moved to kneel, packing up my rifle and stuffing it into the bag before putting it on my back.
“Come on,” I growled, shoving to my feet.
“Why’d you do that?” she demanded, grabbing my arm as I started down the hill towards the complex, taking a knife from my hip. “Rick?” she snapped, but I ignored her, upping my pace as I fixed my gaze on the final Dead Dogs still standing.
Before I made it to the compound, I shoved Rogue up against a tree, grabbing her wrist and locking it in a cuff.
“Hey!” she barked just before I locked the other end to a branch above her head. “Wait!”
I dumped my bag at her feet, grabbing her throat and slamming my mouth to hers, figuring if I was about to die, I’d at least have gotten the taste of her I’d been craving my whole life. She tasted like sunshine and the thousands of days lost between us. It was only a few seconds and our mouths were only crushed together like kids who didn’t know how to do it right, but it was the most delicious kiss I’d ever had, and probably ever would have again.
I pulled away as she spit curses at me and I ran out into the light, racing across the concrete and slamming my knife into a Dead Dog’s back, bringing him to his knees. I swiped my blade across his throat to finish him and relished the bloodlust coursing through my veins, Rogue Easton’s unicorn taste on my lips and an urgent fire in my belly which matched the rising flames on the boat.
I hurried around the closest shipping container, finding myself eye to eye with the barrel of a gun. I knocked it aside just as it went off, the bang echoing through my head before I stabbed my knife into my enemy’s chest. He died with a wail and I yanked my blade free, leaping over him as the heat of the fire washed across my skin, warming me right down to my frozen heart.
I rounded another corner and grabbed a guy by the back of the head, slamming his face into a container before driving
my knife into the back of his neck. He died at my feet and a few of my hired men nodded to me as they finished off a couple more guys.
Silence fell, the screams lost to the wind and the fight officially won. I wiped blood from my cheek and sought out the leader of this little unit I’d hand-picked to help me tonight.
Colten was a cruel bastard with a constantly sneering face. Ex-army, six-foot-fuck-knew and eyes as dark as sin.
“Bring the boats up the river,” I commanded. “I want these containers emptied out in less than thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Colten said, saluting me with a smirk. Blood stained his trousers and he drove his knife into a guy twitching on the floor, doing it slow and making the pain last as long as he could.
When he’d had his men bring the boats up the river and the containers were cracked open, I helped load the kilos and kilos of cocaine onto them. It was heavy work, but I relished the strain on my muscles and the heat coursing under my flesh. I soon shed my shirt and tucked it into the back of my pants as I worked, my eyes occasionally flicking to the trees where I’d left Rogue. She didn’t call out again, but I kept thinking about the fact that I should have gagged her. I may have been the boss here, but these men weren’t part of my gang. And I didn’t know how far my authority would extend with someone like Colten.
I did a quick headcount of the men as I helped carry another crate of cocaine onto one of the boats, my heart jack-hammering when I didn’t spot the ex-army asshole anywhere.
I whistled at a guy near me, making him take over from me and jogging away through the compound. I just needed to check, just make sure…
My heart thrashed and panic clawed its way up the inside of my skin as I ran into the woods, a dark, male laugh reaching me from within the trees.
No, fuck, no.
I readied my blade, my heart beating frantically. I’d brought her here. I’d put her at risk. It was my responsibility if something happened to her.
“Who left this pretty thing all tied up and ready for me? Guess it’s my lucky day,” Colten purred and venom poured into my blood.
I made it around the tree, finding Colten there with one hand over Rogue’s mouth and the other unbuckling his pants. The world slowed and I saw nothing but rage, a liquid black death seeping through my veins and turning me into the darkest of monsters I could be.
Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2) Page 6