What Love Sounds Like

by Dixie Lynn Dwyer

  “What’s this shit I’m hearing?” she questioned.

  “Looks like we need to pull back and close shop for a bit.”

  “I’m not doing that. I have half a dozen places going strong and paying top dollar.”

  “Yeah, well, the shit we all got isn’t as strong. It’s been watered down somehow. Four women remembered enough of what happened to them to incriminate several people, including Carlos.”

  “Carlos?”

  “Yeah, Texas Rangers picked him up this morning.”

  “Shit.”

  “Be smart. I’m pulling out and getting the shit shopped someplace for safety. I’ll pull it back in when the air clears.”

  “Okay, we’ll do the same then. This is going to be a big hit to our wallets.”

  “Better than spending life in prison.”

  She ended the call and was so angry. She needed something good to happen. Something positive. As she looked toward the table where Ivy sat with all the men she felt such jealousy and anger. That little twit was a nobody. She didn’t even wear makeup, just some light mascara and lip gloss. The men were eating her up alive with their eyes. That was when she saw her friends arrive. The girls from Harper’s. She glanced at Jake and Crespy and hoped they pulled this off. She needed some evidence, some way of making Johnny hate Ivy. Patience, Madison needed to have some patience. It would all work out accordingly.

  Ivy was having a blast with everyone. She even sang a song on stage with the band and that got people she didn’t even know buying her and her friends drinks.

  “We’re going to be so drunk,” Leeann said.

  “Not me. I can’t stand to wake up like that,” Ivy said and took a sip from the one drink she kept most of the night.

  When she finished it off Jake brought her another one, and her friends too as his friends joined them. She noticed that Cherise was a bit tipsier than usual, and she was leaning into the guy she just met. He was holding her close and smiling like a man about to get lucky.

  She felt the hand on the back of her neck. Crespy tilted her head up toward him and she felt a little funny. She blinked.

  “You feeling okay? Maybe you need some air?” he asked her and stroked her jaw. She looked toward Cherise and Leeann as well as Faith and they were laughing and holding on to the guys they were with.

  “No, she’s good. Have another sip,” Jake said to her and brought her glass to her lips. It was pretty full. She had three sips of it. Small ones and felt funny.

  She raised her hand up. “No. I don’t feel right. Cherise?” she said and went to move when Crespy wrapped her up in his arms, gripped her hair and head and began kissing her. She grabbed on to his arms and he plunged his tongue into her mouth. She realized slowly, like her thought process wasn’t clear, that he was kissing her. She forced her mind to clear. And she pulled back and decked him in the nose. He fell to the ground and Jake grabbed her.

  “It’s okay. Slow down. Holy shit, I’ve never seen a reaction like this,” he said to her and he kissed her next. She had to use some defense moves on him and when she did he released her. A kick to his balls and then an uppercut to his jaw and as he turned back at her and punched her in the side, she lost her breath and threw a right hook at his nose, breaking it.

  The room finally stopped spinning. A headache began but then she noticed the guys with her friends kissing them, lowering their tops and feeling them up right there. Her friends suddenly seemed to realize what was happening, but Cherise was really out of it. “We need to get out of here. Get off of her now or I’ll call the cops,” she threatened the men. They immediately walked away. The place was so crowded where they stood. She needed to get them toward security.

  “Are you guys okay? Tell me what you’re feeling. I think we need to call the cops,” she said to them.

  “No, oh God, this is crazy,” Leeann said and held her head.

  “I think someone drugged us. Maybe even Jake and Crespy and those guys,” she said and looked around for them. Of course they were gone.

  “Let’s get out of here. Please, Ivy, let’s just leave,” Faith said and it seemed to Ivy that Leeann and Faith weren’t as affected by the drug or maybe they only had a little bit in their drinks. Cherise, however, was definitely still on something.

  “Let’s go. Now,” she said and then she spotted Jeb Perkins and Alex Weathersen, who lived in Cherry Hill and who she knew well. “Jeb, Alex, oh God, I’m so glad that you’re here. Someone drugged us, and Cherise seems to be the worst off.”

  “What?” Jeb asked and he reached for Cherise. She was smiling and then held on to him.

  “Shit. We can’t make a scene here. We got nothing right now,” Alex said to him.

  “Okay, listen, we’re going to go out of here with you and get her help. We’re working a case and it isn’t exactly going great,” Jeb told her.

  “Okay. Whatever you think,” she said to him.

  “Come on,” Alex said and they all headed out.

  Ivy’s cell phone rang and she saw that it was Johnny.

  “It’s Johnny,” she said and answered it.

  “Good, tell him we’re on our way and for him to get to the medical office,” Jeb said.

  “Johhny, Oh God I—”

  “I can’t believe you were making out with them. Jake and Crespy, after what we shared. You were the one who was worried about us loving you, not cheating on you and that’s what you’re doing there at Black Jack!” Johnny screamed at her.

  “What?” she asked and tears filled her eyes and then began to fall. “No, Johnny, that isn’t what happened.”

  “I don’t want to hear your lies and bullshit. You’re too immature to be in a ménage relationship, that’s obvious.” He ended the call.

  She sobbed. “What the hell is going on?” Jeb asked as he drove Cherise’s car. Alex drove the vehicle he and Jeb came in.

  “He thinks I was cheating on him. Someone must have taken a picture or something or seen when Jake and Crespy grabbed me and kissed me.”

  “What?” Jeb asked.

  “Madison,” Leeann said as she held her head.

  “That bitch.”

  “Let me call him and you can explain when we get there,” Jeb said and she listened as he called Johnny and then he called Kenny. “Get to the medical center. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  As Jeb helped Cherise into the medical facility Johnny and his brothers were there and her brothers, too. “What the fuck is going on?” Keller demanded to know. Immediately Jeb began to explain. Johnny, Bronc, Angus, and Keller stared at her with anger in their eyes.

  “I didn’t cheat on you guys,” she said as tears fell and her brothers, Jeb and Alex, took care of Cherise, Leeann, and Faith.

  “We saw the fucking pictures with their tongues down your throat,” Keller yelled at her.

  “Oh yeah, and who sent you those pictures, huh?” she screamed at them.

  “Madison,” Angus said.

  “Thank you. For trusting and believing that manipulating bitch and not me,” she said.

  “The pictures. You can’t lie about those pictures,” Bronc said to her.

  “I’m not going to lie. They grabbed me one after the next and forcibly kissed me because I drank some of the tainted drink they gave us.”

  “You were drugged, too? You look fine,” Angus said.

  “Maybe you should have seen what happened after they kissed me then,” she said and hid her knuckles that were split and bleeding, as well as the pain and bruising on her rib and side from Jake’s punches. She turned away. “How is she?”

  “You all should get some IV fluids going. I don’t know what they gave you but Cherise is the worst. She’s hallucinating,” Johnny said.

  The door to the office opened and numerous undercover officers arrived. Jeb and Alex went to them and explained the situation.

  “You guys are wrong,” Faith said to them as she lay on the examining table and held her head. “She saved us. She fought Jake an
d Crespy, and then the guys around us. She got us out of there,” she said to them.

  “Forget it, Faith. Forget it. Johnny would rather believe Madison,” she said and more tears fell as she walked down the hallway to the bathroom.

  She pulled off her jacket, and then lifted her shirt. Her knuckles were so swollen and cracked. Her side was bruised and looked nasty and when she inhaled, it hurt. She looked at herself in the mirror. What am I doing? I lose the only men I ever loved and all because of that bitch, Madison. She set this up with Crespy and Jake. She had to have.

  The door pushed open and Keller was there. She went to move her top and he saw her knuckles. “You’re hurt?” he asked.

  “Go away,” she said to him.

  He slid his arm around her waist. “Leeann and Faith told us what happened. They told us about the guys, and how you were out of it for a few minutes too but that you didn’t drink as much.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Johnny and you believe those pictures. You believe I cheated on you when I didn’t. In fact, find Jake and Crespy and you’ll see their fucking noses.” She raised her voice at him and shoved him away. She turned on the faucet.

  The door opened again and Angus and Bronc were there. She tried running water over her hands and it burned and ached. “You need Johnny to look at this,” Keller said to her and he slid his arm around her waist.

  She cried out. “Ouch.” She tightened up.

  “What the fuck? You’re hurt elsewhere, too?” Angus asked.

  “My side,” she said and tears fell.

  Bronc and Keller lifted her top. “What the fuck happened?”

  “I had to get them away from my friends, to get Jake and Crespy away from me,” she said.

  “Jesus,” Keller stated and gently pulled her into his arms. “We didn’t know it was a setup. We saw the pictures, and Madison’s comment about how we were being made fools of. It hit us hard.”

  “We were fucking insanely jealous. We’re going to find those dicks and they will suffer,” Angus said.

  “I’d check with Jeb and Alex. They’re working a case and it sounds like all those men are part of it, or at least got the drugs from someone in Black Jack. They spoke to Mike and Jacoby. They’re on board to find out who and to help stop it. They were talking on the phone as they drove us here,” Ivy said to them.

  “You could have been raped,” Bronc said to Ivy. “They could have taken you out of there and brought you some place.”

  “And you, Bronc, would have thought I wanted to be there with them because of those pictures,” she replied, feeling hurt.

  “I’m sorry, baby. We just reacted. They were so clear.”

  “Planned well, but he’s going down and so is Madison.”

  “Madison will never change.”

  “Let’s get you checked out, too, and see what the next steps are,” Angus said and they walked her out of the room and to one of the other examination tables.

  “This is a fucking mess, but it’s opened up some new leads. Mike and Jacoby are letting our guys look at surveillance videos from the bar and the rest of the place now. We hope to see some kind of exchange starting from earlier this evening,” Jeb told Ivy’s brothers and the Shelton men. “We’re working with the detectives from Benter and another area. These four women wound up in the hospital a couple of days ago, but the drugs given to them didn’t wipe out their memory. The detectives think the product might have been watered down somehow,” Jeb explained.

  “We can’t find Jake or Crespy anywhere, and Mike just called me. Seems the bartender, Jeff, just took off without telling anyone. I think that’s our connection,” Alex said and they started to talk to the other detectives and more information was discovered, including looking into a connection between Madison, Jeff, and the three clubs that were in question where incidents occurred.

  “Do you think Madison is part of this?” Angus asked.

  “It isn’t looking good for her, and Jacoby and Mike said she was friends with Jeff and spoke to him all the time. They noticed tonight she spoke to him, seemed upset and took a heated phone call,” Alex added.

  “We’re on top of it. Looks like she hit an ATM and disappeared,” one of the detectives said to them.

  “I can’t believe this shit. Madison could have gotten them all raped and even killed. I hope they find that bitch. I hope they connect her to this drug dealing,” Bronc said and then Johnny walked over to Ivy.

  “X-rays show nothing broken so I think you have bruised ribs,” he said to her and then reached for her hand. She tightened up and he felt like a dick. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have just reacted the way I did. The pictures looked so real, and they did kiss you. I was jealous, hurt and—”

  “Forget it. It’s over. You know the truth. I forgive you for assuming the worst,” she said and smirked.

  He scrunched his eyebrows together and lowered closer. “Your ass is going to be nice and pink by the time I’m through with your punishment.”

  “I’ll be the one handing out punishments, considering that you all believed pictures form that wench.” He sealed his lips, and she raised both eyebrows at him.

  “We’ll see, sweetheart. Now the hand,” he said and took it gently into his and began to clean it up and wrap it.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny. This was a nightmare.”

  He held her gaze. “I’m sorry, too. I’ll feel a lot better once we’re home in bed, making love to you.”

  “Hmm, can I do that, Doc? Bruised ribs and all?”

  “I’ll bend you over the bed, make sure your ribs are fine before I thrust into you.”

  “Oh God, can we leave right now?” she asked and he chuckled.

  “Let’s check on Cherise. She is going to need a little babysitting tonight,” he told her and helped her up. She teetered a moment. “Easy, baby. Drink some more water. You’re lucky you only had a few sips of the tainted drink. I want to be sure it’s all out of your system,” he said and cupped her cheek then pressed his lips to hers. She had a feeling everything would be okay. As long as she was with her men, it was fine.

  As she got down she looked toward where Cherise was and her brothers watching over her.

  “She shouldn’t be alone. The drugs could take hours to pass through her system, but flushing it the way we have been seems to be working. She’s more coherent. The date rape drug puts you into a separate state of mind. You can’t decipher between what is fake or real, and when it wears off, you don’t remember a thing,” Johnny told them.

  “We’ll take care of her,” Kenny said and Ivy held on to Keller’s arm.

  “We’ll get Faith and Leeann home,” Alex said and Ivy hugged them goodnight and then she hugged Cherise goodnight as her men walked her out of the medical building. Johnny would be home as soon as he could leave.

  “Oh please. Please, I need it,” Ivy begged as her men tortured her. They stripped her naked, laid her over the edge of the bed, palms flat, cheek against the sheets, her ass in the air, thighs wide and her ribs wrapped.

  Smack.

  Smack.

  She jerked and moaned.

  “Never letting you out of our sights, you understand us?” Angus asked and massaged where he spanked.