by Rie Warren
“To own me? Like all the other men.” My words whispered across his cheek to end at his ear.
“No.” He craned back, glowering.
“Are you always so . . . monosyllabic?”
“Yes.”
Laughter bubbled up, and I smoothed my fingertips from his frown to his jaw.
Killian chuckled in a self-deprecating tone. He took my hand and pressed my palm to his cheek.
“I’ve also been called a real cheerful bastard, but that was definitely sarcasm with a hint of truth.”
I laughed again. “I can imagine.”
Pulling my hand down to his thigh, he squinted at me. He seemed to be searching for something inside my soul as I sat beside him on the edge of my bed, both of us fully clothed.
Heat spread, chills rose.
I touched the knuckles of his nearest hand, and he opened his palm to me.
“I don’t like you paying to see me.” I slipped my fingers through his, the aftershocks of the simple caress running up my spine and down to my . . . my pussy.
“Not any way around that, is there?”
The mood shifted abruptly, but I wanted the closeness back.
I slid nearer to him until my breasts brushed his arm.
He didn’t recoil. Instead his eyes darted to mine then dropped to my mouth.
“Do you want to kiss me?” I shivered in anticipation.
“More than you could possibly imagine.” His gruff tone throbbed with deep desire.
Chapter Five
SLADE
SKIMMING MY FINGERS UP Grace’s arm to her shoulder, from her shoulder to the nape of her neck, I caressed her silky skin. I dipped my head, watching at the last moment as she parted her lips.
Our mouths brushed together, softly.
A groan I didn’t recognize tumbled from my chest.
I kept stroking the back of her neck. I kept plucking moist kisses from her lips.
I kept hoping she wouldn’t turn away from me.
Like liquid fire, her tongue slid out followed by a feminine moan. I drew her tongue into my mouth, curling mine around hers before leading the way back to the satiny heat of her lips.
I barely touched Grace—just my mouth on hers, my hand at the nape of her neck—but I wanted so goddamn much more.
Changing the angle of our kiss, I dove deeper between her lush lips. Bolts of need lanced through me, and I ached to crush her against my body. To pull her into my lap so I could grind my swollen cock against her cunt.
She melted into me, molten hot and with the curves of a goddess. She twined her fingers in my hair and nibbled at my bottom lip before delving back for more.
Wracked with dangerous greed for her, I tore my mouth from hers.
I stopped that kiss because I knew if I didn’t I’d do something I’d regret.
I’d do her.
I’d use her.
I didn’t want my first time with Grace to be like that.
Jesus. My first time.
With Grace.
Unless I paid for her, there wasn’t gonna be one.
So fucking screwed.
A pink blush crested her cheeks, and her full lips looked kiss-bitten.
I wrenched my gaze from the seductive sight of her.
Driving fingers through my hair, I admitted, “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“Ha!” She laughed wryly. “I don’t think you can take advantage of a whore.”
“You and I both know that ain’t true.” Jaw clenched, I pointed a finger at her. “And I told you . . . don’t you ever call yourself that again.”
New sadness entered the depths of her hazel eyes, but she agreed, “Okay.”
I enclosed her palm in mine. “I need to tell you about what went down at that Nazi shithole, Grace.”
Her head notched stubbornly away from me, but she didn’t yank her hand from mine.
“Look, I know you’re the Grace, okay?” I shrugged. “I just do. And I’d think you’d want to know what happened to the other women. Not just Mercy.”
Softer now, she said, “Okay.”
“Mercy made us go back, you know? After the overdose . . . we almost lost her. We got real damn close to losing her more than once that night.”
Grace didn’t say anything.
“After she came to, she made us go back to the Lair. To get the rest of you women. And those dogs, Pit and Bull.” I stopped, gaging Grace’s expression.
She moved not a single muscle.
“We got everyone out, but you were gone. Mercy almost lost her shit when we told her we didn’t find you.”
Grace still stoically hid any reaction.
“She said you’re a survivor, Grace.” My thumb skimmed over her knuckles. “We got the women set up at a kind of safe house in the city, the rest of us were staying at Angel’s mamere’s place on the bayou to keep Mercy out of harm’s way. Almost backfired though, because that skank-bag Ned and the rest of the skinheads found out. They found us.”
She swallowed quickly.
“They attacked, but on account of them being such fucking ignoramuses—”
I stopped because Grace snorted.
“They didn’t get very far. We killed a few of ’em—Vernon among the dead. And the rest of those fascists are locked up for two lifetimes. Ricky and Ned included. The women are in WITSEC.”
Turning to face me finally, Grace looked at me with a fierce and triumphant glint in her eyes.
“Except for Mercy, because she’s with us. With Angel. Oh, and the dogs.”
I watched as Grace tried not to smile.
She was one tough cookie, I’d give her that.
Disengaging our fingers, I stood. I shrugged on my jacket, collected my flask, and popped it into my inside pocket.
Grace stood too, and when she did, one of those sexy slits in her dress widened enough to give me a good glimpse of tawny thigh.
I followed the skin nearly up to her hip.
Then I swallowed hard.
“I think I better go now. You’re too damn much of a temptation, and I’m not really a gentleman.”
“What if I told you I was faking it during the kiss earlier?” Flirtation made her voice sultrier.
I grinned. “I’d say you’re a goddamn liar.”
She closed the space between us, peered up at me with those beguiling eyes, and placed her hand on my chest.
My heart boom-boomed in response to her proximity.
Lifting up onto her tiptoes, she pressed a warm, soft, lust-spiraling kiss on my lips. “Good night, Killian.”
“Be safe, Grace.”
****
I continued to hide everything from the Blood Legion dudes and Mercy. Considering I was a tight-lipped motherfucker, keeping the secret wasn’t hard. But I still felt like a shit-heel about my subterfuge.
I continued to see Grace at least once a week, twice if I could manage it.
I followed Mistress Bunny’s new guidelines. Apparently I wasn’t on the approved visitor’s list on Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday. I’d become used to her flamboyant outfits—more feathers and more glitz and more wildly colored wigs each time—and her obvious overtures. But that one specific request—other than the demand I had to pay out beaucoup bucks to see Grace—sparked suspicions inside me.
Who was Grace busy with those nights?
And why was that such a secret?
Between Grace and me there were no more kisses. It was just too risky. Too much like torture trying to keep my hands to myself if I ever tasted her again.
But, fuck, I wanted to.
Wanted her naked.
Wanted her riding me.
Wanted her wanting me.
Yeah, so definitely no more kissing happening.
After one frustrating visit when she’d been wearing some goddamn scant thing that draped just strategically enough around her voluptuous body to make me wanna rip the whole thing to shreds to get to her ripe flesh, I raced up to my room at Thunder Road and
did not beat off.
I did the fucking goddamn cold shower thing again.
The noise in the bar downstairs pounded through my head, and I should’ve probably gone down to lend a hand, but I just could not motherfucking face it.
Once I got my cock under control, I picked up my phone and hit a familiar contact.
“Holy shit,” Bo answered. “It lives.”
Captain Bo Maverick, former USMC.
“You always thought you were funny,” I slung back at my brother-in-arms.
“No I didn’t. I thought I was a maudlin motherfucker.”
“Yeah. That too.”
“Now you’ve taken up the reins on that delightful nickname.”
I chuckled low in my throat. “Fuck you too, buddy.”
Bo and I had been through hell and back . . . and to hell again at least one or two more times. The horrifying ten days of extreme torture in Afghan-land I could definitely blame my super mild case of PTSD on. Those days, we’d hung on by the skin of our teeth. Being made to stand for hours under the scorching desert sun wearing open wounds instead of a single strip of clothing. Open wounds made oozy and fiery when our captors threw salt on the deep cuts and lash marks.
Bo and I were the only ones to survive.
Tough times.
Bad times.
The rare good time during our deployments.
We were brothers in a way that cut deeper than a blood bond.
“To what do I owe the honor of this call?” Bo asked, and I could guaran-damn-tee he was smirking.
“Jeeesus Christ. You taking elocution lessons or something? I’d have thought your gym would be taking up most of your time. Oh hey”—I ripped on him some more—“did you take Kinkaid up on those male stripper lessons?”
“Fuck you.”
“Fine. I take back the elocution thing. But not the stripper thing” I chuckled, wandering onto the balcony where a rare crisp night bit into my skin. “I was just calling to catch up with Veronica.” I injected all the sweetness in my soul into my voice when I said his wife’s name, which wasn’t actually that much sweetness.
“Screw you. All you do is hit on my wife. I can’t believe you named your blade after her.”
“Because of the Krav Maga she does,” I pelted back.
“Right. Spill the shit already. Why are you really calling?”
I knew I could trust Bo to keep his mouth shut. I knew I could give him the whole SITREP.
I filled him in on the Grace snafu, an ass-sucking situation that was taking up my waking hours including every single sleepless night.
And all Bo did was say very somberly, “You’re thinking about Helai. This Grace of yours reminds you of her.”
Helai. My not-so-Afghan-sweetheart, and her sons.
After Bo and I had been saved from the Taliban, we’d been shipped to Germany until we were stable enough to make it stateside for serious recuperation. It was two months before I’d been given the all clear.
And when I returned to the Sandbox . . . nothing remained of Helai’s village. Not a single hut or scrap of fucking cloth. The place had been razed to the ground, presumably by one of the warlord factions.
No sign of Helai.
Everyone presumed dead.
There was no coming back from that.
Bo was the only one who knew the real story. The whole story.
And the fragged-up aftermath.
“I don’t know if this is about Helai anymore. Maybe I’ve given up her ghost.” Quickly rolling a smoke out of loose tobacco, I lit up.
“And found a new one.”
“What the fuck are you accusing me of, Bo? Falling in love with lost causes or something? Just so I don’t have to actually commit?” I inhaled and exhaled, about to gnaw through the whole cigarette.
“Dude. Have you been drinking my wife’s Kool-Aid?”
I snorted. “You could say I think too much.”
“And talk too little.”
“All I damn do with Grace is talk.”
“So, what’s the plan of attack?” Bo asked.
I leaned back in my chair and stacked my feet on the iron balustrade. “Gotta get her out of there. Want her to be free.”
“That, my man, is not a plan. That’s a fucking fortune cookie or something.”
“Yeah. You’re right. I’m gonna find out who owns the place, and what’s being held over Grace’s head. Then kill them all.”
“Worked for me and Veronica.”
“I remember that specific Charlie Foxtrot. Trust me.”
“Hey, Slade?” Bo’s voice dropped. “You fucking call me if you need me, oorah?”
“Oorah.”
****
So I started drilling down with my good buddy, the Internet. I began the search with the most public face of the brothel, Mistress Bunny. She even had her own website—no great shock there.
Of course, Grace Delahunt didn’t have a digital footprint. For all intents and purposes, she didn’t even exist. I wondered if that were true for the other women prostituted out by whoever owned the premises.
But back to Bunny, her website showed a calendar of upcoming events she’d star in, a booking widget, and her current day job as hostess at The House of Midnight.
Fucking bingo.
I’d had no specific name to investigate before. I mean, there certainly wasn’t a giant awning outside the bordello boasting Get Your Rocks Off Here. And judging from Mistress Bunny’s website, The House of Midnight could’ve been as innocuous a business as a theater.
But I knew differently.
I plugged in the official name, pulled up the business license and property tax information. Hell, I didn’t even need Justice’s hacker-style skillset to figure this shit out—the fellow jarhead that had joined Storm’s special-ops team would be so proud of me.
The records I uncovered detailed Finnegan Holdings, Ltd.
Two steps later, and I knew one Roark Finnegan owned and operated the holdings company, ran the brothel, and had to be the one making Grace’s life a living hell.
I scanned through his business pedigree and glared at his headshot.
Fucking red-haired leprechaun fuck.
Then I made the biggest goddamn discovery of all.
Roark Rat-bait Finnegan was running for motherfucking mayor of New Orleans.
Jesus Christ.
If he condoned the purchase and sale of sex slave workers, that whole side of the operation had to be underground, right? Or had politics gotten completely sleazy?
Aww hell. Of course they had. Who the fuck was I kidding?
Christ, he probably entertained other halfwit politicians at the bordello. I bet everyone turned a blind eye to the illegal dealings of sex trafficking.
Fuck. It was one thing putting the screws—and our guns and our blades—to a ragtag bunch of racist neo-Nazis.
Bringing down a revered public figure, successful businessman, and aspiring politician was a whole other breed of mind-fuck and messy complications.
Especially since Grace adamantly refused my help.
I considered just waltzing my ass down to the business address for Finnegan Holdings. But that would be a rash move.
I had to keep the intel to myself.
I still didn’t know why Grace went along with this coercion, and she was the most important thing in all of this.
****
I was tossing a few supplies into the saddlebags on my V-Rod the next morning when Sol ambled outside with two steaming cups of coffee.
He passed one to me. “Where you be going?”
“None of your business.” I smiled to soften the gruff words.
He shrugged, scratching through the white stubble on his chin—a patch he must’ve missed when he’d shaved. The white of his hair was always a shock next to the gleaming black of his skin.
And ’course he was usually ready with a smile, had been grinning ever since Angel had set him up with new dentures.
“Fine, fine. But
I be findin’ out one way or t’other.”
The old man was a bit of a soothsayer. The first time he’d seen Mercy, he called her a fantôme. A ghost. As if he could see into her future, or even her past.
I wondered what he’d say of Grace.
“I like to keep my secrets right where they are.” I blew across my coffee then took a scalding sip. “Locked away in a very dark closet.”
“Dem haints you carry ’round g’on get free soon, Slade.”
I sure fucking hoped so. Because the burden of keeping airtight was wearing down on me.
Angel stepped outside.
He glanced at my stuffed saddlebags then back at me.
He raised a blond brow in my direction, which was the full extent of the Blood Legion president’s interrogation.
But then Saint joined us.
Followed by Revenge.
Everyone nursing hot mugs of java on the cool November morning.
“We havin’ church outside today?” Saint asked.
“What’s the congregation about?” Revenge stalked over and lifted the flap on one of my leather bags.
I shoved him away, buckling the bag tight.
“There’s no congregation.” I slid my aviators in place and handed my mug back to Sol. “And we don’t have chapel either. I’m just going on a little run.”
Telling lies was a professional ability, but I didn’t much enjoy feeding a bunch of shit to my friends.
“Want company?” Saint’s clunky silver rings glinted in the sunlight when he scrubbed his fingers across his sharp-edged goatee.
“If it’s you offering then definitely not.”
He looked offended for just a moment while I straddled my bike then slid on my brain bucket.
“What crawled up his ass and laid eggs?” Revenge asked the others.
“That’s more like your ass, Revenge,” Angel riffed.
“He’s just being his usual cheery self,” Saint concluded.
“Is he takin’ like a mental health day though?” Revenge groused. “Can I get one of those?”
“No. Now go open Tit for Tat before we start losing daylight,” Angel fired off, using his big boss tone.
“Dude, it’s ten in the a.m.”
“Exactly. And you fucks would stand around here all day gossiping like a bunch of chicks over cocktails.”