by Fox, Logan
He would keep this little game going till the end. Right. To. The. End.
“Yes,” Veronica breathed. “Fuck me hard.”
She held onto the top of the fender, pushing her rump out and spreading her legs.
Perfect.
He wove a hand in her hair, ripped her head back, and thrust violently into her.
She let out a breathless sound, her entire body stiffening as she clamped over his dick; fighting him like a wounded animal fought its prey.
But the second she’d got into his car, her fate had been sealed. Fuck — perhaps even the instant she’d looked up and made eye contact with him through the drizzle.
He throbbed inside her, his dick relishing her hot, wet walls gripping him. He eased out and forced his way back in. This wrenched another gasp from her.
Kane used his other hand to cup her ass, stroking his thumb over the dark smudge that was her tattoo. Their bodies were nothing but smudges themselves, this deep in the shadows.
Pain spiked through his head. Kane squeezed his eyes shut, gripping hard onto Veronica as the floor became spongy. The dark became all encompassing—surrounding him, suffocating him, invading him. He tried to hold on, to keep himself here, to stay conscious.
As always, it was a futile struggle.
* * *
Simon opened his eyes to a dark parking lot.
He’d always loved the dark’s welcoming embrace, the way it shrouded everything—the good, the bad… the evil. Once his eyes adjusted, an image emerged: Veronica, spread eagled against the hood, her back to him.
His fingers worked Veronica’s wetness over her clit, and he rubbed her hard enough to draw a gasp from her. Her legs shifted wider still, and her back arched as she let out a moan.
“Come on, sugar,” Simon murmured, leaning against her so she would feel his cock. “Tell me how bad you want it.”
“So bad,” she said in a tight voice. “I want it so bad.”
“You sure you can handle it?”
A breathless, “Yes!”
“No shit,” Simon said, gripping his length in a fist as he dragged his tip along Veronica’s cunt. “You’re a fucking whore. This is what you do.”
Veronica stiffened at that. When he sank an inch inside her, she melted again.
She shouldn’t have dismissed him.
Maybe before, but not now.
Simon grabbed her throat and wrenched her up, but he kept a hand on her lower back so her hips were flush with the hood.
The angle must have been uncomfortable; Veronica began to struggle.
So he forced his cock deeper until there was no more space inside her.
It felt good. But not great. Great would come in a few minutes.
Fuck — with her in this darkness, it might even be spectacular.
Simon thrust again before she had time to gasp. Veronica pushed into him to speed up his thrusts, but he had her trapped between the fender and his hips. Her body was as rigid as his cock, and his stone-carved muscles. If she wanted freedom, she’d have to fight for it. It wouldn’t help, but it would make this more fun.
He squeezed her throat, drawing an unsteady sound from her. Panic, or pleasure? She writhed under him, her hands going for her clit to force a climax.
Simon snagged her wrists and gripped them against her lower back. He fucked her harder, tightening his hand around her neck until her pulse races under his thumb.
“Sorry, sugar, but I don’t care if you come or not. This is all about me.”
Veronica let out a strained mewl.
Simon gave an inch of room between his hips and hers. Now, when he fucked her, she slammed into the hood every time. Her mewls became gasps of pain.
That must have been when she realized she wasn’t fucking the guy in the Jeep with the cheesy smile anymore.
That idiot fucked like a pansy.
Simon fucked like a man.
“Please—” came her breathless plea.
“Begging ain’t gonna help,” Simon said, grunting out the words as he gave more room. Now she thumped into the hood that shock wave slamming into him and bringing him even closer to climax.
He gripped her wrists, her bones grating together.
So delicate.
So brittle.
Leaning over her, he caught the strap of her dress in his teeth, wrenching it off her shoulder to bare her skin. Her breast popped out, but he’d have to release one of his hands if he wanted to grab it.
Instead, he grazed his teeth over her shoulder.
There was another smudge of ink on her skin, right beside her spine. A butterfly, a swallow - fuck knew.
He was getting closer, almost ready to burst. But Veronica was drying up down there, her pleasure annihilated by panic, terror, fear.
His hand clenched her throat.
She stiffened, her breath rattling through a constricted windpipe.
He broke her skin with his teeth. Warm, coppery blood gushed into his mouth. He captured a mouthful, drew back, and let it dribble from his lips.
It splashed on his cock, warm and wet as her arousal had been.
She lasted about four minutes, give or take. Struggling, kicking, trying to scream.
He took chunks out of her until blood streamed down her back and between her ass cheeks. Constant lubrication. The metallic scent made his balls contract and his cock throbbed in warning.
His timing was just right; she was dead when he came.
Her now cold blood coated him as he pounded into her a last time.
And no, it wasn’t the same.
It was better.
It was spectacular.
1
Boyo
Present Day
A deluge of ice water hauled Kane from the desperate void of sleep. He spluttered, shaking his head as he blew water from his nose.
“Mornin’, ye fucker,” came a distinctly Irish voice. “Had enough of ya beauty sleep, then?”
Kane squeezed water from his eyes with a hard blink and focused blearily on Will.
Warehouse. Early morning. What little light filtered through the small, grimy windows close to the roof was sickly pale. Water dripped from his wet clothes to the floor. The moisture intensified the dusty smell of the place turning a stuffy attic into a damp basement.
“You finally get a hold of your boss?” Kane asked in a voice tainted with loathing.
Will grimaced at him, but the expression slid away when a swathe of light cut through the dusty air.
Footsteps reverberated through the solemn warehouse. It did a damn fine job of making him feel insignificant. A man made of lesser stuff than him would be quaking in his boots.
Except, he didn’t have boots. They’d left him only his boxers, now torn in a few places.
Questions weren’t encouraged. Demanding answers even less so.
He ran his tongue along his teeth — at least the hole where his tooth had been knocked out had stopped bleeding.
What a shitty way to die.
The footsteps resolved into a silhouette. Kane squinted to make out a face, but his eyes were still adjusting to the change in light.
“All right, boyo?” a rich voice enthused. The man’s accent was as thick as Will’s. “I trust Will’s been treating ya as badly as could be expected?”
“La Sombra won’t like this,” Kane said, trying to discern what he could of the man towering over him.
“What makes you think I give a fuck about what she wants?” The man laughed; a soft, mirthless sound. “Twice, she’s broken our agreement.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Kane asked.
“I’m the guy who’s got you tied up in this chair.” The man surged forward, striking Kane on the jaw with a brutal uppercut. “But you will call me King.”
Pain speared through Kane’s head as blood poured into his mouth. He spat it out, blinking hard to clear his vision of the stars plaguing it.
Jesus, he wasn’t sure who’d win an arm wrestling match between this g
uy and Finn.
“Now,” King said, as he began walking around the chair. “Where is she?”
Kane spat out more blood. “No one knows where she stays.”
“How d’ya get a hold of her?”
“She leaves messages for me.”
“No phone? No internet?”
“Nope.” Kane gave a shrug. “She keeps off the grid.”
“And when is she expecting a message from you?”
“She’s not.”
King came to the front, ducking his head to make eye contact with Kane. The light shifted over his face, affording Kane a view of silver hair and a cruel mouth.
“How come?” King asked.
“She sent me to deliver a message. I’ve done my job.”
“You weren’t meant to report back?”
“Nope.”
Apparently unimpressed with this answer, King gave him a casual back hand that rattled his teeth together and flung his head hard to the side.
His jaw clenched as he fought through the pain. Mercy… Ronan King had less patience than Will.
“You know something,” Ronan said. “Something I can use to find her. I’ll keep asking till ya remember.”
Asking seemed a code word for fucking up. Kane received another backhand, this one sending him facing the other direction.
He could already feel the flesh on his face swelling. Exhaustion weighed heavy on him.
Would King kill him if he proved useless? Or would he eventually relent and set him free, hoping he’d high tail it back to Cora?
He didn’t know where she was. Ronan couldn’t be able to beat something out of him he didn’t know.
“You’re oddly quiet,” Ronan continued. “Nothing ta share?”
King drew back his hand.
“Wait!”
It wasn’t the pain. He welcomed pain — it reminded him he was still alive. It was when he stopped feeling pain that he knew something was wrong.
“Please… just…” He shook his head, trying to will away the headache swarming inside his skull. “I don’t know where she is, truly,” Kane snapped, when the shape of Will came closer as if Ronan had sent him a signal Kane had missed. His headache multiplied, like it always did. Thinking became impossible. He struggled internally, trying his best to keep focus. To keep hold of himself. Not to slip away.
But the pain was too much. The pathetic remnants of his conscious mind didn’t feel worth the effort. Like a drowning man, resigning himself to pounding waves, he let go.
For a moment, those bars of dusty light glowed like angels were about to use them as runways. The silhouette of King became a cut out to the netherworld — one where demons and spirits teemed like a nest of insects. He could feel the threat of violence oozing from King’s soul.
He only had one card. If he played it, and King’s hand was better, then he was fucked. If he didn’t play it, he was just as fucked.
After sharing the same air as the infamous Ronan King, he’d never live it down if the man killed him before he could turn him in to the DEA.
If he played his part right… he could get at King when he wasn’t paying attention. When he focused on something — or someone — else.
Like Eleodora Rivera.
He had told her she’d be safe from the feds. But that had been then. This was now. And Ronan wasn’t the feds. He was competition. Kane could bag one of the biggest players in the Irish mafia. That young thing wouldn’t get in his way.
No one would get in his way.
“I know how to find her,” he belted out.
A change came over Ronan. An alertness. “Why the sudden change of heart?” Ronan murmured, his head cocking to one side.
Kane smiled wide and shivered as warm electricity coursed over his skin. “I’d like to see her again. One last time.”
* * *
Ronan King gazed out the window at rain-smeared architecture as his limousine took the corner. Mallhaven’s industrial area looked like something out of the eighteen-hundreds; squat, brick buildings covered in long-dulled extrusions and tiny windows.
Something troubled him about the encounter he’d just had with the chancer who called himself Kane. It wasn’t the intel he’d provided — that felt genuine — but the man himself.
Ronan didn’t give himself over to fancies often, if ever, but their conversation had been more a chess match than an interrogation.
“Should I get Gaffer on the phone?” Owen asked.
Ronan turned his attention to the seat opposite him. Rawny looking Owen Morrison peered back without the least hesitation, his emerald eyes shadowed by dark brows.
“And tell him what?” Ronan heard how clipped his voice sounded and shrugged his shoulders to release the tension building up in them. “I don’t even know if we can find her yet.”
Owen gave a slight nod as if he’d been expecting the answer.
“Besides…” Ronan turned back to the window. “The next call Gaffer’s expecting is the one where I tell him I have his gear. Anything else will annoy the living shit out of him.”
And Gaffer would make Ronan’s life a misery. The current mob boss of Fool’s Gold County was a hard fucker to please, especially if you’d failed him before. Twice, if you counted the fact that Ronan’s wife still wasn’t plugged. It was the woman’s only fucking job, and she couldn’t even get that right.
He snorted to himself and rubbed at the bridge of his nose with his thumb.
This Rivera woman had fucked him bad. The heroin Javier Martin had agreed had meant to secure Ronan’s position in the mob… and the unspoken promise that he’d succeed Gaffer when the old man’s time was up.
Now none of that seemed possible anymore. Hell, if he didn’t get heroin to fill up the void left behind in Kansas when their last supply line was axed by the feds, then he’d be booted from Mallhaven. Possibly even exiled back to Ireland if Gaffer was in a sour enough mood.
“Besides,” Ronan went on, “I’d just be doin’ a number on him. You said she ain’t got any heroin.”
“But you know someone who does.”
Ronan frowned at Owen. Then his face smoothed. “Benecio,” he murmured, sliding his thumb down the bridge of his nose before pinching his lip. “You think he’d speak to her?”
“She’s Mexican, isn’t she?” Owen adjusted the collar of his shirt. The man always seemed more at home in a single-breasted Belgravia than he did jeans, but he wore either equally well. Ronan’s navy Tom Ford hung as if it had been tailored for him… which it had.
“But a woman,” Ronan said, exhaling softly.
Another tiny shrug from Owen. “It’s worth a shot, sir.”
“You gotta track ‘er down first. You’ve got till the end of the day.”
Owen gave a smug smile. “If it can be done, I’ll have it done before midday.”
“Always such a cocky motherfucker, aren’t you?” Ronan said through a laugh. “If your mother could see you now.”
Owen’s face darkened. They’d both attended the Catholic Reform School in Dublin. Owen’s mother had driven him mad as a box of frogs until he’d begged Ronan to find him a job in America so he could get the fuck out of her house. Not that Owen begged. The man had enough pride for all of South Dublin. But Ronan had long ago learned to read Owen — and the plea had been as blatant as if he’d been on his knees.
He’d been but a soldier back then, but already Gaffer had taken notice of him. He had just enough leeway in the North Side Gang to get Owen and his brother Will a spot in the gang. It was only natural that, as soon as Ronan had moved up and moved to Mallhaven, Owen and Will had followed.
But fuck it if Owen didn’t hate to be reminded of those days in Dublin. Despite everything though, he knew Owen would be the first to buy a plane ticket back to Ireland for the funeral when his mother pegged.
He’d make sure he was first in line to spit on her grave.
“I’ll find her,” Owen said as if intent on changing the subject.
; “Long as she’s useful.” Ronan met Owen’s eyes. “I don’t want to go through all that effort just to have ta kill ‘er.”
2
Just Not Flowers
Lars looked up from his phone at a muffled sound. He slid his phone back into his pocket — his tweet about the series he was binge watching could wait — and got to his feet.
He was technically on guard duty; old habits died hard. But it was less ‘patrolling the grounds’ and more making sure one of them — him or Milo or Bailey - were awake and moving around Swan Manor. Tonight, it was his turn, which meant he’d be napping most of the day tomorrow. The other two seemed fine without sleep, but he needed his goddamn beauty rest.
Lars found the source of the noise in Swan Manor’s extensive kitchen. He leaned against the entryway, crossing his arms over his chest. “Did Milo fuck up the schedule? I thought it was my turn to babysit the house tonight?”
Bailey twitched as if he hadn’t expected Lars’s voice and then gave a half shrug without turning to him. He was making an epic sandwich.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Bailey said, dumping a pound of ham on the kitchen’s island. The pale marble counter top glowed under the kitchen’s overhead lights.
“At the rate this is going,” Lars said, pushing away from the entrance with his shoulder, “we should switch you permanently to night watch.”
Bailey let out a rueful chuckle, but it didn’t have much heart in it. “You want?” he asked, using a knife to point at a mini French loaf artfully arranged on the island in case anyone was in need of a quick panini.
“Sure, why not?” Lars slid onto a kitchen stools, watching as Bailey prepared them both a ham and mustard sub.
They were halfway through their subs before either of them spoke again.
“So, you gonna tell me what’s bothering you?” Lars asked, getting off his stool to grab a glass of milk from the mirror-finish refrigerator.
Bailey paused mid-bite and then tore off a mouthful of sandwich without replying. Lars poured him a glass of milk too, but didn’t return to his seat. Instead, he leaned with his hip against the island, sipping at his glass until Bailey had no choice but to look up at him.