Chapter 9 #2
He looked like a giant with the overhead light haloing his head and casting his face in shadows. “You’re an idiot if you think I’m not attracted to ya that way.” His voice was soft and low.
Before she could reply, he pulled her forward until she plowed into him. Which was sort of like plowing into a wall of solid concrete.
She uttered a quick oof before he caught her chin, angled her head up, and…didn’t slam his mouth over the top of hers.
He stopped with his lips a hair’s breadth away.
Her heart stuttered. Her lungs burned. Her nostrils flared because his breath was hot and sweet. It smelled like strawberry scones.
“What’s happening right now?” she whispered against his lips, aware of every place their bodies touched. His thighs were hard against hers. Her nipples brushed the unyielding expanse of his chest. And his fingers on her chin were callused and warm without being rough.
“Don’t know if I can be gentle.” His voice sounded like he’d sent it through the garbage disposal. “I’m starvin’ for ya. I’ve been starvin’ for ya. Everything in me wants to devour you whole.”
Some of her old gumption, her old moxie, returned. It’s what gave her the courage to whisper, “Do it.”
That’s all the consent he needed. He slammed his mouth over hers like a man whose life depended on him tasting her.
And taste her, he did.
His lips were firm and demanding. His tongue was confident and searching.
It was the kind of kiss that left her with no recourse but to hold on tight. So her fingers gripped his biceps. Her nails bit into his tough flesh as passion, lust, and an aching longing blasted through her in a series of explosions that left her breathless.
Mindless.
Helpless.
His hand fell from her face then, and she whimpered at the loss of his touch. Then she moaned in victory when his arms came around her in a crushing vice as he lifted her off her feet. She automatically wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her hands spearing into his hair.
It was as soft as it looked.
And warm, so very warm as she pulled him tighter. Ever tighter.
She wanted to cry with victory at the proof that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. She’d never felt more complete than she did right then, right there, in his arms. And for the first time in months—maybe years—she didn’t feel broken. She felt chosen and—
“That woman will fuck the hair clean off your balls.”
Sabrina blinked open her eyes and groaned at the pain pounding in her temples, the bite of the zip ties at her wrists and ankles, and the awful crick in her neck that made it feel fractured.
The blood on her cheek had dried to a crust. And hours without water had scorched her throat like someone had poured in gasoline and struck a match.
She wanted to go back to sleep. Go back to the delicious dream that was part memory and part fantasy and all escape from her current reality.
Hew had come to her room after her first trip to Red Delilah’s. She had teased him about the brunette and the pastries.
But that’s where things had ended.
The instant she’d stepped next to him in the doorway, the instant he’d loomed above her and his wonderful body heat had wrapped around her, she’d lost her nerve.
There’d been no flirty walk of her fingers up his chest. No suggestive invitation in her eyes or on her tongue.
She’d simply punched his arm and said something inane before scurrying off down the stairs like a complete chickenshit.
“How would you know?” The brusque voice pulled her from her thoughts. Her regrets.
Three of the Banshee’s four men gathered around a rusting metal table. It was piled high with weapons that looked like they belonged on a battlefield.
The musky smell of gun oil hung in the air. It mixed with a slightly more chemical tang, and she was reminded of the time she followed Hew to the outbuilding where the Black Knights kept their arsenal.
She’d been overwhelmed by the sight of so much death-dealing machinery then. She was overwhelmed by the sight of so much death-dealing machinery now.
The difference was BKI’s arsenal had made her feel safe. This one made her feel like prey.
“I know because I’ve been there. Done that.” The blond man smirked.
“When?” demanded the short guy with the pug nose and the mean eyes.
“After we celebrated the Idaho job. She was knee-deep in Jose Cuervo and all over me outside the bar.”
“Bullshit,” Pug-nose snapped. “She’d fuck Diesel if she was gonna fuck anyone besides Hummer.”
“Far as I can figure,” the blond mused, “she refuses to fuck Diesel because he has a bad habit of putting his conquests in the hospital. And she refuses to fuck you because you’d have to stand on tiptoe to get the tip in.”
The short man pointed a thick, blunt finger at the blond. “Ever heard that old wives’ tale about a man’s short stature being a sure sign he’s packing serious heat in his pants? You know, ’cause all his growth hormones went to his dick?”
The blond guffawed. “You made that up.”
“I’ll show you.”
“I swear to god, Kurt, you whip that thing out and I’ll use it for target practice.”
The short man—Kurt apparently—grinned. The sight sent a shiver down Sabrina’s spine.
“I get it.” Kurt clicked his tongue. “They say comparison is the thief of joy.”
Whatever Blondie’s response was, Sabrina missed it. She got distracted by the very obvious noises coming from the little room at the far end of the space.
It was walled off from the rest of the open floor—the old manager’s office, maybe?—but the door that had once kept the area private had fallen off its hinges. Now, it simply leaned against the outer wall, partially covering its old doorframe, partially leaving the entrance wide open.
Through the breach, she heard the slap, slap, slap of flesh meeting flesh. It was a sickly rhythm. Primal. Cruel. Her brain rejected the sounds even as her ears betrayed her and picked up a man’s animalistic grunts and a woman’s moans of encouragement.
Dear god. In the middle of all this filth, the Banshee and the one they call Hummer are fucking.
Bile burned up Sabrina’s throat to sit bitterly on the back of her tongue.
Her revulsion must’ve been apparent because Kurt, the little troll, sauntered over and gripped her shoulder. She could feel the imprint of all five of his fingers, and his touch made her skin want to crawl off her body.
“You like the sound of that?” His nasally voice was wet with glee as he rubbed the bulge behind his zipper. “I can oblige you with some of the same.”
“Cut it out,” Blondie snapped, still checking weapons. “We’re supposed to be getting ready.”
“We’re ready.” Kurt stepped closer to Sabrina, his crotch inches from her face. “Why should Black Widow and Hummer get to have all the fun?”
Black Widow…
So that’s what they call the Banshee.
Perfect name, Sabrina decided. The platinum blonde used sex as a weapon, and Sabrina figured she’d also happily eat these men alive.
“Come on,” Kurt wheedled. “Look at her. A beaut. Shouldn’t we show her a good time… one last time?”
Sabrina wanted to use the only weapon she had at her disposal—her teeth—to rip off Kurt’s dick. But she knew the denim of his dark jeans would save him. She’d bruise him at best. And that simply wasn’t enough.
“Don’t you want to give her a go, Diesel?” Kurt cajoled. “Don’t you think you deserve to get some since that bitch”—he hitched his chin toward the small room where the sounds of sex grew louder, more frenzied—“won’t give you your fair share?”
Sabrina’s heart came to a screeching stop when the man who’d punched her and twisted her breast, the man dubbed Diesel, turned his crystalline eyes on her. They were as blue as an iceberg. And just as cold.
She wanted to shrink away from the brutality she recognized in him. But if he saw her fear, he’d feast on it like the monster he was.
Instead, she shoved it deep and met his chilling gaze head-on. Forcing herself not to be the first one to blink.
“Now, we’re talking,” Kurt chuckled. “I love a woman with some fight in her. Come on, boys. Let’s fuck every hole she’s got.”
He was still rubbing, rubbing, rubbing.
She could see his erection getting firmer, standing taller behind his fly. The sight made her stomach roil and made those old demons rise out of hell to scratch at her heart until she was bleeding out on the inside.
She knew the depravity of men like these. Knew how much pleasure they took in a woman’s helplessness and pain. But this time, she wasn’t going down without a fight. This time, she was going to get in her licks.
“You talk pretty big for being such a small fraction of a man,” she growled at Kurt.
The muscles of her stomach trembled. But not with fear. With fury. A hot, searing fury that made her flex her hands against her zip ties.
Her fingers ached for a weapon.
Or a throat.
Kurt stopped rubbing to stare at her. The acidic hate in his eyes scoured her brain like a chemical burn. But she just lifted her chin, pulled back her lips, and gave him her best sneer of disgust.
“You bitch.” He grabbed her jaw in a painful grip. “I’m going to fuck your ass bloody—”
She braced herself, her spine locking tight and her vision tunneling.
He’ll have to unbind me to do it. Be ready. Use your teeth. Use your nails. Use everything that—
“Kurt!” Black Widow’s voice boomed across the hollow space, and the mean little man immediately dropped Sabrina’s jaw. “I thought my instructions were clear!”
Black Widow walked toward them, adjusting the zipper on her top without hurry, her red lace bra still on proud display. Hummer trailed after her, zipping his pants and looking as self-satisfied as a man strolling away from a good meal.
“What’s good for the goose is good for the ganders,” Kurt muttered petulantly.
“Aw, poor baby.” Black Widow pretended to pout. “Did it make your little dick hard to hear mommy and daddy going at it?” She wiggled her pinky finger as if to indicate the size of Kurt’s penis. “Do you need to go into the office and give yourself a hand so you can feel better and get back to work?”