by Rie Warren
Her tummy quivered. I flattened my palm against it.
Her hips kicked up. I reached beneath to cup her ass.
She leaned back, bracing on her arms, tipping up to my hungering mouth and licking tongue and nipping teeth.
Didn’t stop ’til she’d screamed through two more orgasms, nearly ripping my hair out by the roots.
Didn’t stop until her cunt was visibly pulsing and dripping with need.
Until she squirmed and begged, “Give me your cock.”
Watching her writhe and gasp, I smeared my wet mouth all over her shuddering tits as I stood, kicking the chair back and out of my way, because I was gonna need room to move.
I guided Shy back to sitting, right on the edge of the table.
I snapped on a condom as fast as I could, knowing I couldn’t wait to be inside her without any barrier between us.
I gripped my unforgivably hard cock at the thick base and wedged the shiny, wet head against her pussy.
Muscles all over my body tensed, seeking release in a terrifically hard hot fuck.
Just when I was about to drive into Shy, she pressed a hand against my belly.
“On the table?”
“Yeah.” I hoarsely grunted, an animal-like sound. “In the kitchen.”
I hilted inside her in one deep stroke, squeezing my eyes closed at the all-consuming thrill of riding into her. “And I’m gonna fuck you against the wall too. Maybe later.”
Shy wrapped her hands around my neck, her tits banging against my chest with each hard pump of my cock.
Her voice got lower, but her shouts ranged out faster. Timed with every long withdrawal followed by an explosive, raw thrust inside.
I held onto her with an unyielding grip, gunning up into her from my feet, my balls slamming against her ass.
“Don’t worry, Shy.” I stopped long enough to crash my lips to hers in a tongue-tangling wild suck of a kiss. “I won’t let you fall.”
“It’s too late.” She met my next lunge with a hot sigh against my mouth. “I already have.”
My thrusts intensified with a loud grunt. “Then say it.”
“I love you!”
My cock pulsed with even more blood, and my starved heart almost broke free of my chest.
My immediate response was lost as a bolt of untamed heat pulsed right through my body, and I came with a hoarse harsh moan.
I bowed forward over Shy, almost losing my grip on reality when boiling hot seed jetted out of me.
And she arched into me, bearing down with her climax—one so mighty her nails bit into my back and her teeth lanced against my shoulder.
My stomach clenched over and over, come geysering from my cock. My back shivered. My thighs quaked. My ass flexed again and again.
I swallowed. Hard.
I remembered to draw a breath into my lungs.
I kissed the damp curls at Shy’s temple and my arms shook as I held her against me.
She shivered. Softly.
She moaned a sweet little sound, her breath pelting against my chest.
She kissed me on my torso as she drew her palms up and down my back.
Rocking into her one last time, I laughed quietly.
“Say it again?” I asked.
“I love you.”
I tilted her chin up, looking into her dazzling eyes. “I love you too, Shy.” I squeezed my arms around her, curling my hand into her hair. “Goddamn, but I am so in love with you, girl.”
****
Shy’s shop quickly became a roaring success. She’d been featured in the Charleston City Paper, gotten a full page spread in The Post and Courier’s local business section, and been invited to write an online editorial for the lowcountry’s chic chick magazine, Skirt.
Her mission—the promise to donate large chunks of her profit to MUSC Children’s Hospital—as well as her fashion instincts attributed to Passion for Fashion’s overnight acclaim.
The woman made me so damn proud it was hard to keep the friggin’ stars from my eyes whenever I thought about her.
And when I was with her? I was all over her the second I laid eyes on her.
In addition to the manager and accountant she’d hired before the opening, she brought in two sales assistants but had kept the store’s hours shorter than usual. Twelve to six Monday through Saturday, and closed every Sunday except for Second Sundays on King Street when the road was closed to all but pedestrian traffic.
The I love yous we shared that first night didn’t make me a sappy sucker—not much—but yeah. The way she made me feel opened up my eyes to a whole new future. One I’d never totally believed possible before.
Pipe dreams.
And not the kind toked out of a bowl filled with weed.
They were becoming a reality, and really fucking fast. That was all down to Shy’s organizational skills. The finer details began to come together for Retribrewtion, and we were on the hunt for a location.
Shy hadn’t just made her own success and compelled me to follow a path of my own, she’d also brought Maddy back into my life. My sister hadn’t been fucking around when she said she might be looking for a job move from head of distribution at Rush Distillery.
Maddy obviously knew the business inside and out, but taking her on as my second-in-charge could cause an even more permanent fracture with the family.
I had other shit to sort out before I started hiring folks. A couple weeks after making amends with Maddy, I checked my watch. I had a very important appointment to keep. Clocking off from Chrome and Steele, I straddled my gleaming black Harley—hoping the day would end with a little afternoon delight.
If I was lucky I could seduce Shy into a hot quickie. We still had to do that fucking in public thing that had gotten her so turned on.
I tried to tame my need, remembering we were meeting up at an old warehouse down near the huge docks on Longpoint Road to decide whether the premises were suitable for my brewery.
Took me fifteen minutes to cross the busy and busier Mt. Pleasant traffic to the area that consisted of the Wando Welch Ports Authority.
The warehouse, situated near the Wando River, boasted enough space to start my brewery and expand if business took off. The area was a lifeline to shipping as well as trucking routes, eighteen-wheelers rumbling the pavement one after the other, heading inland to I-95.
In other words, the location was pretty damn near perfect.
I hopped off my bike, laid my helmet aside, and bent my head back to bask in the summer sunshine. Clear blue sky above, and only Shy’s Charger in the middle of the otherwise empty parking lot.
No sign of the realtor.
No sign of Shy either, except for her ride.
Slapping dusty leather gloves against my thigh, I strode to the roll-back door on the steel-bunker of a building. It didn’t take much elbow grease to pull one side open, but I noticed the busted keypad lock.
And wondered if I needed to call for immediate backup.
That was probably just Hunter’s fucking Mt. Pleasant’s finest Vice suspicions making me paranoid.
I had my knife, in any case.
Momentarily blinded from the hot sun, I stepped into an empty shadowy space, smelling earth and iron and the sweat of men who’d formerly worked there.
Then I heard a voice.
A muffled voice. More of a whine.
Diablo appeared from the dark depths and—I was gonna fucking kill him—he held Shy in front of him.
“Hola, muchacho.”
Stomping forward, I snarled, “Get your fucking filthy hands off her, cabron.”
He produced a gun. “You never write. You never call.” Holding the side of Shy’s face, he cranked her head toward his. “You . . . never . . . pay . . . me.”
Kill the cunt or pay him? Fuck. No brainer.
Backtrack was my middle name when he held Shy captive with a pistol pointed at her head.
“Got the money now. Just need to withdraw it.” There was no other possible choice.
“You have to let her go. Please. Jesus, Diablo. Let her go!”
“Nah. Don’t think so. She’s my leverage. Now I think I need some restitution, or is it retribution?” He waved his gun toward me. “I take it out on you”—he started pressing the trigger with audible clicks—“or her?”
“Me!” I raised my arms. Made myself a fucking clean target.
My heart bottomed out. Sweat popped out on my forehead. “Me, Diablo. I’m the one you’ve been after.”
“No! Don’t!” Shy cried out.
He smiled that snaky twist of his thin lips before turning the muzzle on Shy again.
“Seems she likes you.” My rage went viral when he wrapped his arm around her waist. “I’m taking your girl with me. Time to play hide and seek, Rush, and hope you can find me—with the money—before something bad happens to tu novia.”
I gripped the hilt of my knife, aching to release it from the sheath and thrust it through D’s throat, but I couldn’t risk it.
Not with the gun.
Not with Shy silently crying.
Not with no backup in case anything happened to me.
Diablo hauled her out the back entrance, holding her in front of him as a human shield.
“You can’t do that!” My face warped with rage and pain, I stomped after them. “FUCK! Don’t you get it? She’s sick!”
Diablo halted halfway to the Camaro he’d parked behind the building.
My stomach pitted even lower.
He spun slowly around. “Is she?”
I knew I had a harrowing expression on my face. I pushed past it to look at Shy.
She bit into her bottom lip, shaking her head.
But it was too late.
“How sick?” Diablo asked.
“Fuck you.”
“I’m gonna fuck her, jefe, if you don’t deliver the money.” He started off again, and Shy stumbled.
My worst nightmare.
Coming to life.
“Sick, si?” Foraging with his meaty hands beneath her skirt, he found it.
He found her prosthetic.
“Get the fuck away from her NOW!” I tore forward only to be brought up short when he aimed the gun up at Shy’s chest.
My sight went extreme rage-red when Diablo released her prosthetic, and he tossed away the lower half of her left leg like it was nothing more than trash.
“Even better incentive since she has no leg to stand on.” He hauled Shy along, and she had to hop to keep up with his march. “I hope you hurry, Rush.”
“SHY!” I bellowed.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Self-inflicted Wound
I BENT AT THE waist, dry-heaving over a dusty patch of concrete as Diablo tore away with Shy in the car with him.
His final threat hung in the air. “Try to follow us and I’ll cut off her other leg, guero.”
Swiping a hand across my mouth, I stared off down the road. I didn’t know where Diablo was taking Shy, and the sickening feeling in my stomach grew into a violent need to sever his head from his body.
I picked up her prosthetic, wiped it down with my bandana, took care with it as I slid it into my saddlebag.
If he hurt her, I was gonna kill him so dead his remains would be unrecognizable.
My hand shook as I pulled out my phone.
As soon as I got connected to the MC all I heard was Coletrane shouting down the line with the usual rowdy ruckus on a typical Friday afternoon in the background.
“Get me Boomer.”
“Hang on a sec. That you, Handsome? Can’t hear jackshit in here. Tail’s gettin’ ready to—”
“Get me Boomer motherfucking NOW!”
“Yeah, yeah, man. Gimme a sec.” He must’ve muffled the receiver against his shoulder, but I still heard him bellowing for Boomer.
The loud stomp of big boots on the floor was unmistakable, though. And I needed Boomer to be unshakeable because I was ready to retch again.
“What up?” Boom came on the line.
“He took Shy.” I could barely bite the words out.
My jaw had clenched so hard I probably needed new dental work.
And that was what Diablo was gonna need when I was done with him. Unless I just ripped his jaw from his skull so he had no fucking dental records from which to identify his body.
“He? Who? What the hell’s going on, Handsome.” Boomer’s voice lowered like he was trying to soothe a frightened animal.
But this animal wasn’t frightened. This animal was about to go total wild.
“Diablo! Shit. Just listen. Don’t ask.” I slammed my brain bucket on my head and straddled my bike. “Bad fuck from when I was doing the street racing, okay? When Ashe arrested me those times. He’s been trying to bribe me. I didn’t pay up. I thought I had more time!” I gripped one handlebar, crushing my eyes closed, squeezing the words out. “He knows Shy is money He fucking took her.”
“CUT THAT FUCKING MUSIC PRONTO,” Boomer shouted to whoever was in charge of tunes at the bar. “And all but officers get the fuck out. Now.”
Tears started burning the backs of my eyelids.
“Get your ass here, Handsome.” His voice roughened even more. “You okay to ride? You been hurt?”
“Not hurt. Wouldn’t care if it was me anyway. But Shy . . .” I couldn’t finish my sentence.
“How far away are you?”
“Be there in ten.”
“We’ll be waiting. And Handsome?”
“Yeah.” I swiped beneath my nose.
“Don’t even think about doing anything on your own.”
“Roger that.”
Pocketing my phone, I started my bike.
Shredding pavement on the way to the MC, I tried not to think about all the fucked up ways Diablo could harm Shy. He had a disturbingly creative side when it came to getting what he wanted. Add in the fact Shy was now hobbled and had recently recovered from an infection . . .
I made it to Retribution in record time, throwing off my helmet before I stormed inside, nearly busting the door off its hinges.
The place had been emptied of the usual hangers-on and social members.
Tail grabbed me by the shoulders as soon as I entered. “Is Shiloh okay?”
“I don’t fucking know. That’s the whole goddamn point!” I snarled, shaking out of his hold.
Yeah, the dudes were all here to help me, but my rage was off the fucking hook. And it had only been twenty minutes.
“Do you know where this Diablo shithead’s got her?” Boomer stepped in front of me.
“No.”
Tucker clapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll get her back. Just like Doc Ronnie.”
I had to blink hard when my eyes started stinging.
Maybe I needed a different sort of sting.
“Gimme a drink,” I ordered to whoever was closest to the bar.
Cole delivered my whiskey straight up, no rocks.
“He’s not an officer.” I narrowed my eyes at the tatted-up Retribution dude before downing my shot.
“I’m here for you, brother.” He refilled my glass with the bottle in his hand. “Just like I was for Brodie with Ashe.”
I looked around at those gathered: Tucker, Boomer, Cole, and Tail. All good men, and I hated getting them mixed up in this shit.
Looked like I didn’t have any other choice.
“Do you want me to reach out to Hunter and the LEOs?” Boomer asked.
“No.” All due respect to Hunter—he’d done Bo a solid in Jacksonville—but this was his backyard, and I didn’t want him getting dirty for me.
And shit was gonna get dirty once I got my hands on Diablo.
Dirt nap dirty.
“We got enough muscle here, you think? Or should I call in Bo and some of the others?” Tucker came forward.
“Nobody else needs to deal with my shit.”
“It’s about Shiloh, Handsome.”
“I know that, goddammit, but it’s my friggin’ fault.” Too keyed up to sit down, I pa
ced around the barroom.
“Start from the beginning.” Boomer folded his arms across his chest.
“The beginning? Like way fucking back when? Can’t we just do the CliffsNotes version?” I sank my second and final drink, backhanding across my mouth.
“If this asshole is from your past, then yeah, the beginning.” Taking up where Boomer left off, Tucker tweaked one side of his long mustache.
I blew out my breath in a long stream. “Goes like this. You remember seeing that house down on The Battery the day we helped Shy move? The one on the other side of her folks’?”
Tail jerked up from his slouch against the bar. “Yeah.”
“I grew up there. That’s my folks’ house.”
“What about this house now?” Tucker asked.
“It was money,” Cole explained.
“How much money?” Boomer scowled.
“Multimillions.” My jaw jumped. “Can we just fucking wrap this up quick? Because Shy’s out there, and that fuckhead took her prosthetic off her!”
“He what?” Tail gritted out.
“He took it off and threw it on the ground.” My nostrils flared.
“We’re gonna kill him.”
“Correction. I’m gonna kill him.” Frustration ramped through me. “Point is, Diablo and his street gang know where I come from. They know Shy has money of her own too. I used to run with them—”
“Run with them?” Sherlock Tucker grated on my last ounce of control.
“Run. Them. The illegal races for our Satan’s League. I was in charge.” Curling my hands behind my head, I looked up at the ceiling. “My arrest record and all that shit. So Diablo’s been bribing me.”
“For how much?” Boomer asked.
“A hundred large.”
“Jeeesus.” Tail cracked his knuckles. “That’s big change.”
“Look.” I paced back and forth like a mad bull. “None of this shit matters! I can get the money.”
“You just happen to have one hundred thousand dollars on hand?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my jaw. “Somethin’ like that.”
Coletrane whistled between his teeth.
“My folks paid me off to stay away.”
“Fucking hell, man.” Boomer shook his head.
I shrugged. Didn’t give a shit about that ancient history anymore. Shy was the only thing that mattered, and getting her back safe was paramount.