by Jessie Cooke
“You okay?” she asked, when he’d been silent for much too long. He gave her a gentle smile and nodded.
“I’m so good right now,” he said. “And, there are so many things I want to do with you.”
Carmella gave him a soft peck on the lips and stood up. Lifting one leg so that her foot was resting next to him on the couch, she slid the strap of her sandal off her foot and then lifted it up and Maddox held the sexy stiletto while she slipped her foot out of it. She did the same with the other one, but this time before taking off the shoe, he let his hands glide up those smooth legs, underneath that skirt and almost to the hot V between her legs that his cock was aching for. Once the shoes were gone, she turned her back to him and very slowly and Oh. So. Fucking. Sexy. she slipped her skirt down over her round hips and let it fall to the floor. He was staring at her smooth brown cheeks and he took one in each hand, leaned forward, and brought the string of her black thong out from between them with his teeth. He felt her body convulse and he let one of his fingers flick up toward and between her wet lips just to coax another incredibly sexy gasp from her lips.
Maddox whimpered when she stepped out of his reach, but then he got to watch as she shimmied out of the black thong and used one of her feet to kick it across the room. Her brown eyes went to his crotch then where his cock was so full it was pressing up hard into his jeans, begging to be set free. He kicked off his boots and then stood up and let her unbutton and unzip his pants before he pushed them and his underwear down and stepped out of them. It was his turn to convulse when she grabbed his rock-hard cock with both hands and gave it a few strokes. He put one of his hands on the back of her neck and while he held her in place for another hot kiss, he let his other hand dip into the silky wet fluid between her legs. He soaked his fingers with it and then brought them up between them. His first real taste of her was with her own lips pressed against the other side of the same fingers he was licking. She was so sweet...and feeling her hot breath on him as he tasted her made his body feel like it would implode with lust.
Maddox had as much of the slow tease as he could take. He put his arms around her and picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He started to sit her on the bed but had a different idea. Instead, he sat her on top of the smooth cherry wood desk with her back to the window that faced out onto the beautiful city of New Orleans, and then he dropped to his bare knees on the carpet, pushed her thighs apart, and pressed his face against her pussy. He inhaled her first and then he took one long lick. That elicited a moan that caused his cock to twitch, so he took another, and another. His licks became harder and faster and Carmella’s fingers were twisted up in his brown locks, tugging at them and at the same time pushing his face in deeper. He sucked on her clit and made her cry out, he slipped his tongue in and out of her, deeper and faster each time until she was both begging him to keep going and asking him to stop. He didn’t stop until he’d pushed her completely over the edge. The orgasm slammed into her so hard that she rocked her body back and forth as she came, whimpering and whispering his name.
While she was still quivering from head to toe, he lifted her up gently again and laid her on her back on the bed. Leaving her there, he took a condom out of the drawer where he’d put them the night before and slipped it on while she watched through slotted eyelids. When he went back over to the bed, he leaned down and kissed her and then he rolled her over so that she was on her stomach. As soon as she felt him climb up behind her, she lifted up on her knees and arched her back. With one hand on her hip and the other fisted up in her hair, Maddox entered her. She was drenched and sliding into her felt like being on the stairway to heaven...it was good so far, but he knew it would only get better.
Maddox wasn’t in the mood for taking his time, so as soon as her body opened up to him, he began to pull out and slam back into her, listening to the slap of her round ass against his hips each time that he did. The harder he fucked her, the more excited she got, moving her hips in a way that set a rhythm between them. He felt one of her hands reach down between them and she found his swollen sac and massaged it with her soft fingers until he couldn’t possibly hold back a second longer. His orgasm the night before had rocked the world...but this one was so incredibly strong that Maddox thought the entire universe had to feel it. It was like being hit by a meteor, only wishing that, just seconds later, it would happen again.
9
Maddox was still in the throes of the afterglow from making love with Carmella when he was back on his bike and driving through the streets of the French Quarter. He’d gotten a call from Le Singe, Blackheart’s VP, asking him to come out to the clubhouse right then. Le Singe didn’t give him any more information than that, and if Maddox was being honest, he was glad the man hadn’t tried. His ears were becoming more accustomed to the Cajun language, but there were still some of them that seemed to be speaking a completely different language other than English, and Le Singe was at the top of that list. The first time Maddox met him the man spoke for fifteen minutes straight and all Maddox got out of the conversation was the “You get me?” he threw in at the end. Maddox had nodded at the time, not wanting to insult the other man, but it had sounded to his ears like Le Singe was sucking on a peanut butter sandwich as he spoke.
The clubhouse was still lit up after midnight like it was the middle of the day and Maddox parked his bike at the end of a long row of Harleys. The door to the clubhouse was guarded by two young prospects, but they must have been told to look out for him because they simply stepped out of his way and let him go inside. As soon as Maddox was in, he understood why they’d called him. A young man who vaguely fit the description of Brigette’s “boyfriend” was tied to a chair with his hands behind his back, and blood was dripping off his bottom lip. One of his eyes was blackened also and he had a knot at his left temple. He was also almost naked; a pair of black boxer briefs were the only thing other than a couple of tattoos on his arms that adorned his body. When Maddox walked in, the young man pulled his head up and Maddox could see the fear in his green eyes. Blackheart, his executives, and several other Jokers were gathered around him and the one they called Chance was standing the closest with a gun in his hand.
“Hey,” Maddox said, calmly. “What’s going on?”
Blackheart’s blue eyes scrutinized Maddox’s face for several long seconds. The MC president was trying hard to trust him, but Maddox could see...and understand...that trust was not yet complete. Blackheart was probably pissed off at his VP for reaching out to Maddox as well, but he’d let Le Singe deal with that one. “We went to ask him some questions but he wanted to be difficult, so we brought him here.”
“Difficult?” the young man said, wincing at the pain caused by moving his bloody lips. “I was dead asleep and these fuckers pulled me out of bed and assaulted me. Please tell me you’re a cop or something.”
Maddox smiled at the kid. “Nope, sorry, not a cop.” The kid muttered something under his breath as Blackheart said:
“Had you just answered our questions you might still be sleeping peacefully in your bed.”
“I did answer you! I don’t fucking know anything!” When he snapped at their president almost every man in the room shifted their weight so they were ready to pounce on the half-naked man. Maddox knew what that kind of loyalty felt like. He’d never been an MC president, but he had been the leader of his regiment when working Special Ops and those men had been willing to die for him. Unfortunately, some of them had. Chance, the young man who looked like he should be adorning the cover of a Teen Beat magazine, instead of wearing a leather kutte, pressed the gun he was holding into the side of the tied-up man’s head and said:
“Respect, asshole.”
Randy Barger looked terrified and Maddox couldn’t say he blamed him. These guys probably wouldn’t think twice about burying him in the swamp if it turned out he had something to do with Brigette’s disappearance. “Randy?” Randy raised his head and the thick, strawberry blond hair fell out of his gr
een eyes as he looked at Maddox. “That’s your name, right? Randy Barger?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure you can understand, Randy, that these men are all on edge because it’s been over a week since Brigette went missing, and so far we don’t have a clue what’s happened to her.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he said, “but I didn’t have anything to do with it, I swear. I don’t know what they want from me! I’ve told them everything I know. I didn’t see her or talk to her that day and I don’t know where she might have went, or who she might have seen. What the fuck else do they want from me?”
Blackheart was still calmly staring at the bound man and Maddox was coming to realize that a calm, cool, collected Blackheart was much more dangerous than the anxious man he’d spoken to that first day. Out of the corner of his eye Maddox could see Le Singe, and he understood at a glance why the VP had called him. Blackheart was a rational human being most of the time from what Maddox had heard about him, but this situation was different. This was his little sister and Blackheart didn’t see any problem with destroying anyone that might get in the way of him finding her...safely. Rationality was out the window.
“Blackheart,” Maddox said. “A word alone, please?”
Blackheart looked up at him and nodded. He stood up and communicated something to his VP with a glance before turning and walking toward his office. Maddox followed him. As soon as they were behind the closed door Blackheart said, “I’m sorry Le Singe disturbed you, we have this under control. You’re welcome to go back to your hotel...”
“If I can interrupt for a second?” Maddox asked, cautiously. Blackheart stared at him, coolly, for what seemed like a long time and then finally nodded again. Hoping the president would take his lead, Maddox sat down. Blackheart perched himself on one corner of his desk, almost perfectly lining up his dark head with the head of the monster gator on the wall behind him. Maddox couldn’t help but think about what a powerful picture that was. “Blackheart, you asked me here because you were smart enough to know that you’re too close to this situation to handle things...” Maddox was trying to phrase things so that Blackheart understood how serious things were, but didn’t take offense, or see him as being disrespectful. He knew enough about the MC culture to know that respect and loyalty were everything. “You are too close to it to see things clearly. I get that. If it were my sister I’d probably want to put a bullet in the head of anyone I thought knew anything and wasn’t telling me...but you and I both know, Blackheart, that you getting arrested is not going to help Brigette, or anyone else right now. If this guy goes back and tells the cops that you kidnapped him...” Blackheart snorted and without saying a word Maddox realized the club president already believed there would be no way Randy would, or could, talk to anyone when this was over. “Blackheart, the cops are investigating this too. But if they found out about Randy, the cops would too and soon. When they go looking to talk to Randy, and they can’t find him, who do you think they’ll come looking for next?”
“The cops don’t worry me,” he said, not with some kind of false bravado but as a simple matter of fact. “What does worry me is that my sister has been missing for over a week and no one has any leads. I appreciate that you came out here to help me, I do. And I know that my VP called Maz in the first place and called you again tonight because he’s worried that I’m going to do something irrational...and maybe he’s right. But so far, rational is not working, is it?”
Maddox worked a lot of missing persons cases since starting his own business with his silent partner six years earlier. He’d found out early on that the first forty-eight hours after someone goes missing were crucial, and usually after forty-eight hours you were no longer looking for a missing person, you were looking for a body. He also knew Blackheart was smart enough to know all that himself, but close enough that his emotions were clouding his judgment all the way around.
“I hear you,” Maddox said. “But I’ve only been here for a little over twenty-four hours. I wish I were a miracle worker and I’d found your sister already...but I’m not, and I haven’t, so I understand your frustration. But Blackheart, as well as you know this city, you haven’t found her either. My presence here is about looking under different rocks than the ones you’ve already turned over and doing it in a way so that when all of this is over, you and your club are still standing as well.”
“So I’m supposed to just sit idly by while you turn over rocks?”
“Yes,” Maddox said, knowing that wasn’t the response Blackheart was looking for. “Because if you don’t, then bringing me here was worthless. If you’d like me to leave, and leave this to you, I will. But if I stay, Blackheart, I’m going to need your word that nothing like this will happen again.”
Blackheart’s blue eyes were the coldest thing Maddox had ever felt. He knew the president wanted to tell him to go back to California and fuck himself. But the man was more than emotional, he was smart. Maddox had a feeling that the safety of his family would be the only thing Blackheart would ever allow to overrule his own better judgment. He half expected the president to tell him to leave anyway though, so he was a little surprised when Blackheart said, “I’ll give you until the end of this week, but then I take this back, and I do it my way.”
“Fair enough,” Maddox said. “Can I talk to the young man out there, alone?”
“He’s yours,” Blackheart said, and then in a no-nonsense tone he added, “For the rest of the week, anyway.”
Maddox met Chance and Gabriel at the older home where they had found Randy Barger. They’d driven him back in one of the club’s vans and dropped him off, and not gently. Maddox had to help him up out of the front yard and into the house, thankful he had a lot of trees in his front yard and no close neighbors. That probably boded well for the Jokers, with a lack of witnesses to his “abduction.” Now, Maddox just had to convince him to not talk to the police about what had happened, and since he’d already woke up his friend Dale and asked him to dig up whatever he could on the young man, he was hoping by the time the sun came up, he’d have some leverage to make that happen if he needed it. Everyone had skeletons, it was always just a matter of finding where they’d been buried.
“Those fuckers are crazy!” Randy ranted as he dabbed at his swollen lips with a gauze pad that he’d saturated in peroxide and held a bag of frozen peas on his eye with the other hand. “I never really got why Brigette was so paranoid about her brother finding out about us, before tonight, at least. I mean, she’s nearly thirty years old, for Christ’s sake, does he expect them to all die virgins?”
“You have sisters, Randy?”
“Yes, and I don’t expect them to be nuns.”
“I don’t understand completely isolating them either, but I also think maybe we have to understand that in the business Blackheart is in, he sees the very worst of human nature. I’m sure it makes him worry about his family more than, say, you or I might. The bottom line here is that no matter what any of us think of how anyone runs or relates to their own family is a moot point. There’s nothing more personal, and the way to change any of that is from within. The rest of us have the right or ability to walk away if we disagree with it. But let’s concentrate on the fact right now that Brigette simply went out for pastries one morning and disappeared off the face of the earth. If that were one of your sisters, wouldn’t you do anything humanly possible to find her?”
“Of course, and I would be willing to help them as much as I can where Brigette was concerned too, had they just asked and not come in here like a bunch of Neanderthals, threatening me and pulling me out of bed in the middle of the night. This is why I haven’t come forward already. Brigette told me he was crazy and under no circumstances should I ever admit that we’re seeing each other when it came to her brother and his crazy Joker crew.”
“Well, we’re past that point now. We know you and Brigette had a relationship, so how about you tell me when the last time you saw her was?”
“W
hy should I? I mean, you’re helping those crazy fuckers. Why shouldn’t I just go to the police and let them interrogate me, and while I’m there, I can tell them about the home invasion and the kidnapping.”
“Sure,” Maddox said, reaching behind him for the door. “You can do that.” He pulled the door open and said, “I just hope you know for sure that’s what Brigette would want you to do...and I hope you understand that even if a handful of Jokers went to jail over this for what I can only guess would be a short time...there are another twenty-five or thirty of them you might run into on the streets every so often...”
“Fuck. Fine. I’m the one who was violated here and now I’m getting threatened.”
“I’m not threatening you,” Maddox said. “I just want you to be damned sure what you’re getting into.”
Randy sighed. “Sit down,” he said. “Please. I’ll get us a beer and we can talk. But just so you’re not disappointed, I honestly don’t know what happened to Brigette.”
Maddox closed the door and said, “I believe you, but sometimes we remember things that in our minds seem insignificant when they’re really not. Sometimes just talking it out aloud can stir up memories you might not think are important.” Randy nodded, albeit reluctantly. Once he was back with the two cold bottles of beer, they both sat down and Maddox said, “Let’s start with the last time you saw her, when was that?”
“The night before she went missing. She was here. We had dinner, watched a movie...nothing was out of the ordinary from any other night.”
“Do you live here alone, Randy?”
“Yes.”
“You own or rent?”
“I’m buying it. I’ve been here almost ten years now, ever since I got out of college and moved back to New Orleans.”
“So...you pay rent on this house every month and yet you and Brigette stay at the hotel in the Quarter once, twice, sometimes three times a week. That’s got to get pretty steep. Money must not be an issue for you.”