Texas Hold 'Em

by A Parker

  With that, he shoved me back onto his cock. I opened wide for him. With his fingers fisted in my hair, he held me against the wall and fucked my throat while I saw stars and let go of any lingering control I might have had. I let my senses fall away until there was nothing but his cock. I wrapped myself up in lust and fixated on the one thing I wanted.

  Him.

  Tex slowed his thrusts when his cock swelled up in my mouth. I was ready for him, but he didn’t seem like he wanted to give in yet. He loosened his hold of my hair and let me breathe. I sucked in ragged gulps of air and he guided me back up to my feet. He wiped my mouth with one hand and ran his fingers through my hair with the other.

  “Good girl,” he said, and I felt proud.

  All I wanted was to make him feel good. Right then, it was my one and only purpose. Perhaps I felt that way because there was a very good chance he would be killed by Friday night. Perhaps it was because I was falling for him.

  I didn’t indulge either thought. I let them flutter out of my mind as quickly as they’d entered.

  Tex spared me from my own consciousness trying to return by scooping me up off the floor and carrying me to his bedroom. He threw me down on the bed and stripped the rest of my clothes off me as well as his boxers. He gripped my ankles and yanked me to the edge of the bed before forcing my legs open by pressing down on the inside of my thighs so hard I thought I might wake up with bruises tomorrow. He held them down as he leaned over my pussy and pulled my clit into his mouth.

  I gasped.

  Involuntarily, my legs tried to close. He kept them open with sheer force. His muscles rippled under his skin and I wanted nothing more than for him to fill me up. Spread me open. Take me. Fuck me. Choke me. I didn’t care.

  Just use me up.

  He eased two fingers inside me. I was so swollen and wet he met no resistance. He smiled against my clit and mumbled something I couldn’t hear. My back arched. I clawed at the blankets and squirmed, but Tex held me down, his elbows now on my thighs and his hands on my hips. I bucked and his tongue slid down, swirling over my vulva, exploring the outside of my pussy while his fingers plunged deeper and deeper until I thought I might explode. Pressure built up inside me with every swirl of his tongue and thrust of his fingers. I tried to catch my breath and failed. I tried to escape and also failed.

  It was all too much.

  He gave me another finger.

  I wailed with pleasure.

  Tex suckled my clit until my eyes rolled back in my head and my breath hitched in my throat. I gripped the sheets beneath me and strained as it all became too much and the dam threatened to break.

  And then he stopped.

  My muscles gave out and I slumped back down on the mattress. He patted my pussy with a chuckle. My own juices smeared the inside of my thighs, but I hadn’t come yet. He stepped away from the bed and disappeared, leaving me panting for breath staring up at the ceiling in a daze.

  Time bled into nothingness as I lay there. The hazy afterglow of my almost-climax left me feeling pulled apart at the seams. I needed to be put back together. I needed to release the tension built up inside me, trapped between my thighs.

  So I reached down and pressed two fingers inside myself.

  I whimpered.

  A shadow fell over me. “Who said you could touch my pussy?”

  I blinked up at Tex as he hovered over me at the side of the bed.

  Delirious on my own pleasure, I smiled up at him. “Are you going to stop me?”

  His gaze fell between my legs and he watched me finger myself. For a moment, he seemed to consider letting me finish, but he thought better of it and revealed a condom pinched between two of his fingers. While I touched myself, he tore the wrapper open and rolled it on. I watched his every move as he returned to his place between my legs.

  “Do you want it?” He tapped his cock against my clit.

  I flinched. “Yes.”

  I thought he was going to string me along. I thought he was going to torture me. Instead, he filled me up. I cried out as he stretched me. He was merciless, and he silenced me with a hand over my mouth as he pulled out and drove himself back inside me.

  I moaned against his palm.

  Yes.

  He dropped low over me and replaced his hand with his mouth. He kissed me deeply. I wrapped my legs around his hips and encouraged him with my heels against his ass. His tongue fucked my mouth while his cock fucked my pussy, and I felt full and complete.

  I felt like I was his.

  He ran a hand down my side and cupped my ass. His strength surprised and delighted me when he lifted my ass off the bed with one hand, pulling my hips toward him and driving in deeper.

  It pushed me over the edge.

  I moaned his name against his lips as I came. He bowed his head and I held his face in my hands as we both gave in and let go. For a moment, everything was okay.

  We were okay.

  The fire I saw in him burned in me as pleasure coursed through my body and curled my toes. When he was done, Tex stroked my hair off my forehead and kissed me like I was a breakable thing made of glass, and in that moment, I became aware of a new truth that startled me.

  The only person who could break me was him, and if he wanted to?

  I’d let him.

  Chapter 23

  Jameson

  The guys settled into comfortable places in Grant’s shop. Mason leaned against the cabinets on the far wall beside Jackson and Brody. Abel nursed a beer while perching on an old shop stool with a peeling seat. Beside him, Gabriel sat inches off the floor on a crawler, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he rolled the crawler back and forth, back and forth.

  Abel shot him an irritated glance. “Joker, will you fucking sit still? This isn’t grade school.”

  Gabriel looked up innocently from where he rolled on his crawler. “Who shit in your cereal this morning, Snake?”

  Abel rolled his eyes to the ceiling and drank more beer. “This is serious.”

  Knox stood with both hands in the pockets of his club jacket. His bored expression suggested this was the mood Abel and Gabriel had been in all damn day.

  Nobody seemed willing to start the conversation off. We all knew why we were there, which was to talk about the plan. Not the Friday-night plan, but the bigger, higher risk plan of stopping my heart and convincing Bates I was dead.

  For the first time since I proposed the idea, I felt a flutter of nerves in my gut.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder out the bay doors of Grant’s shop. Up on the porch, Carrie sat with Suzie and Samantha. She was in the corner of one of the outdoor sofas and she’d drawn her knees all the way up to her chest. She’d had a hard time leaving the house this morning to come here. After our afternoon and night together yesterday, she’d begged me once more not to do this, but when she saw how fixed I was on the plan, she relented and agreed to tag along.

  “If I can’t talk you out of it,” she’d said, “the least I can do is be there to make sure nobody talks you into anything even dumber.”

  I’d told her to calm down and that she was clearly obsessed with me, but if she wanted to come and play my babysitter? Well, that was just fine by me.

  She’d slapped my shoulder and called me an ass.

  Currently, she had her head tilted to the side as she listened to a story Suzie was telling animatedly. Her hands moved with enthusiasm and her expressions shifted from one emotion to the other. From where I was standing, it was pretty obvious that Suzie was doing her best to keep Carrie distracted from what me and the men were talking about.

  I’d have to thank her for that later.

  “Tex.”

  I turned back to the group of men and found Jackson staring expectantly at me.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  Brody chuckled. “Crushing on the Ranger for real now, huh?”

  I rolled my shoulders. “We have more important things to talk about.”

  “She looks stressed,”
Knox said, leaning to the side to peer past me and get a look at Carrie up on Grant’s porch. “Is she getting cold feet?”

  “You mean colder feet than she already had?” I asked. “No, she can handle it.”

  Jackson pushed off the cabinets and stood with his arms crossed. “Let’s stay on subject. We have a lot to get through today. First order of business. Tex, are you sure you want to go through with this? Say your piece now. There will be no shame in changing your mind.”

  Shame? Perhaps not. At least not from my brothers. But me?

  I wasn’t one to turn my back on a chance like this.

  “I want to move ahead with the plan,” I said with finality.

  Jackson studied me quietly for a moment, and I wondered if he’d been hopeful I would back out. “So be it,” he said. “How are we going to make this work?”

  All eyes slid back to me.

  I held up both hands innocently. “Hey, boys, I’m the one getting my heart stopped. Nobody said anything about me being the master planner.”

  Brody chimed in. “The entire plan has to center around us being able to stop your heart and start it back up within that six-minute window. If we can trim it down to four? Even better. But to start, let’s focus on the main event, which is me being with you with my defibrillator.”

  Knox shifted uneasily and tugged at the front of his shirt, cooling himself down even though it wasn’t too hot of a day. “Suddenly this feels a little too real for comfort.”

  I knew what he meant. The mention of the defibrillator made me a little sweaty around the collar, too.

  Brody nodded his understanding. “It’s not going to be easy, especially considering there’s going to be a lot of activity between the last heartbeat and starting it again. Bates, or one of his associates, will have to be present to confirm it for themselves. We have no way of anticipating how long they’re going to stay with the body, or what they’ll want to do to confirm death.” The shop seemed to echo with a sharp silence after Brody said the words “the body.” My body. “We’re going to have to be prepared for anything.”

  “You mean Carrie will,” Jackson said, his tone sharp with an edge. “She’s the one who’ll have to be there because she’s the one who will communicate with Bates.” His eyes slid to me. “It won’t be one of your brothers watching your back, Tex. It’ll be the girl. Does that still feel right to you?”

  I nodded. “I trust her.”

  “You trust her enough to handle this shit in four minutes?” Abel asked.

  Gabriel nodded up at Abel. “What he said. Even if she has the best intentions, she might not be able to keep a cool head when the time comes. She might blow the whole thing wide open, and guess where you’ll be champ? Belly up with no heartbeat, that’s where.”

  Abel pointed down at Gabriel. “What he said.”

  I knew I’d be met with resistance today, but it got under my skin nevertheless. “Listen, I know I’m taking a risk. There’s no beating around the bushes about it. But it’s my risk to take. And Carrie? She has a more level head than the rest of us when shit gets real, okay? I’ve seen her in action. When the time comes, she’ll get through it.”

  And she’ll get me through it, too.

  The men grumbled, except for Mason, who nodded his agreement. “We have to move on from doubting her. Carrie is a Texas Ranger, just like Tex used to be. She has grit. Wits. She has everything she needs to do this right.”

  I nodded my thanks to the Vice President before looking around at the group. “I think we need to keep things simple. When the time comes, Carrie will reach out to Bates and tell him the job is done.” The Job referred to my murder, and the men all nodded their understand so I could continue. “She’ll send him a picture of my body on the burner phone he gave her. Like Brody said, Bates is going to want to make sure I’m really dead, so he’ll either come himself, or he’ll send someone. In order to maintain our four-to-six-minute window,” I shot Brody a glance, who held up four fingers, noting once more his preference, “we’ll have to stage the picture Carrie sends of my death when I’m still breathing. Carrie and Brody will be on site, so once they’ve stopped my heart they’ll have to stage me to make sure I match the picture exactly.”

  It felt fucking odd talking so nonchalantly about my own death like this.

  “I’m following,” Jackson said. “Continue.”

  “We can’t plan for how Bates will want to ensure Carrie has fulfilled her end of the deal. He might come to us, or he might ask her to bring me to him. Either way, we have to have Brody with us. Either he’ll have to tail us or hide somewhere on site if this all goes down at my apartment. Once Bates confirms I have no pulse, he’ll ideally leave me with Carrie. She might have to come up with something on the spot to ensure he does. As soon as he’s gone, that’s where you come back in, Brody.”

  Nobody said anything for a long stretch of time.

  Brody finally spoke. “There’s a lot of room for error.”

  Grant nodded. “What if Bates wants to tie rocks to your ankles and toss you in Pyramid Lake? Or shoot you in the head for good measure?”

  I shrugged. “Then I’ll be gone and you all will have to see things through on Friday.”

  Knox frowned. “Fuck, man.”

  “What do you guys want me to say?” I looked around at all of them. “I never said this was ideal, but it’s what we’ve got, and I for one am fucking sick of Bates running around this city like he owns it. I’m sick of getting bad news like hearing about poor Tracy getting murdered. I’m sick of William’s murder being brushed under the rug. This shit ends this week. I’ve made my peace with my part of the job. It’s time you all do too.”

  Nobody looked at me. Instead they shared uneasy glances with each other until all their attention eventually landed on Jackson, who still stood with his arms crossed at the back of his shop.

  Jackson met my eye. “If Bates wants to move your body, Carrie will have to tell him he can’t have you yet, and she’ll use your corpse to lure the rest of us out to the landfill on Friday night. If we want to bury you, we’ll have to come get you.”

  Silence permeated the shop, but I heard Jackson’s words for what they were—his approval.

  I grinned. “There it is.”

  Chapter 24

  Carrie

  My nails had been gnawed so short I couldn’t pick up the playing card face down on the outdoor coffee table. I could feel Suzie and Samantha’s eyes on me as I gave up, slid the card to the edge of the table, and picked it up that way. The tips of all my fingers were pink and angry with pain from sitting there and chewing them down to the quick while the men spoke of their plans in the garage.

  “We don’t have to play,” Suzie said, a note of concern in her voice. “I don’t think it’s been a very good distraction.”

  Somehow, my thumbnail was back at my lips and I was chewing at it.

  I put my cards down and clasped my hands together in my lap. “Maybe that would be for the best.”

  Samantha scooped up all the cards and stacked them in a neat pile before tucking them back in their box. She set them off to the side on a small table beside her that held both her and Suzie’s drinks. Suzie was nursing a beer while Sam sipped at a glass of water. Suzie had gone inside about twenty minutes ago and offered me a beer, but she hadn’t extended the offer to Sam. Instead, she brought her out the water wordlessly.

  Suzie twisted around in her chair and peered over at the shop. “Still looks like they’re pretty into their conversation. At this rate, the sun is going to go down before they settle on a plan.”

  Samantha settled deeper into her chair after fluffing the pillow at her back. “Suits me fine. Jackson has been insufferable lately. Everything he does gets on my nerves. Does that happen with you and Mason, Suzie?”

  Suzie shrugged. “Sure, from time to time. But I never really feel like I need a break from him. Your situation is different. It’s not your fault he’s annoying you.”

  I frowned.
What did that mean?

  Suzie caught me looking at her and blinked rapidly as her cheeks turned pink. “Um, I just mean my brother is a special kind of annoying, you know?”

  I shrugged. Sure. I did know. Jackson had been jumping down my throat since the first moment I showed my face around here.

  Samantha changed the subject. “It doesn’t matter. Jackson is Tex’s problem right now.”

  I wished I could disappear.

  Sam gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, babe. These guys? They do this kind of life-risking stuff all the time. It’s kind of their shtick. If one of them isn’t having a brush with death, it’s an off month. Right, Suzie?”

  “Right,” Suzie agreed quickly.

  I appreciated their efforts to make me feel better, but it wasn’t really working. I was full of regret and I couldn’t shake it. On one hand, sex with Tex yesterday had been incredible. On the other hand? It had sewn me even closer to him. In the moment, I’d been relieved of my worries, but afterward, when I felt closer to him than ever, I had to face the truth that I might lose him.

  And it would be my fault.

  How did I navigate through all those feelings? I had no fucking idea where to turn, what to think, or how to pass the minutes that somehow felt like they were flying past as well as crawling. Time felt like a bizarre construct and its walls were closing in on me.

  On us.

  “They’ll work out the details, Carrie,” Suzie said softly. “They always do. I promise.”

  Sam leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. She was dressed in loose-fitting sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt that might have been Jackson’s. “What are you thinking about right now? It’s like you’re here but you’re not here.”