Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
JENSEN
Neither of us talk about the Crisco again.
The next afternoon, I go into town to track the periphery of the Caudill estate and start to build a real plan. It’s not the same one Matthew Caudill lived in when I was in Kentucky. It’s bigger, more secure. Everything about the Caudills is more imposing than I anticipated.
That presents a problem.
I’ve done my fair share of breaking and entering, but this is different.
The Caudill house is more of a compound.
The fences are iron, and every corner is equipped with cameras.
The only advantage I have on my side is that Leland Caudill won’t recognize me, so there’s a chance I can infiltrate.
That would be the easiest thing—maneuver my way into his security team and slip Landis out.
But that kind of plan will take time and money.
I have the latter, but on the former, we’re running low.
The hills are on lockdown with Caudill soldiers.
They’re easy to spot. He employs them under the guise of a security company, so they all wear the uniforms. Brothers wasn’t exaggerating when he said their family is growing more powerful.
Around noon, I do a loop of the surrounding neighborhoods, and I see them, planted here and there.
A car sits on the curb too long. An SUV repeats the same pattern twice.
Men stand on the sidewalk with the faint outline of a bulletproof vest under their uniform shirts.
It’s all there in plain sight.
But nobody looks. Nobody wants to see.
“Take me with you,” Della begs as I’m strapping my gun to my thigh and fastening my shoulder holsters.
“No,” I say.
She comes close, eyes big. “Please. I don’t want to just sit in this house all the time.”
“You wanted my help,” I say gently. “Let me work.”
This would be a lot easier if I had Jack, or maybe the boys from Sovereign Mountain. But I don’t. I’m on my own.
This is my test, I think. Brothers, in all his biblical literacy, would call it my forty days in the desert. I call it figuring some shit out, but it’s all the same thing in the end.
Either way, I’ll have some sons of bitches in body bags, and she’ll have her kid back.
And then, maybe, I get to keep her.
“Please, Jensen,” she whispers, taking me by the front of my shirt just as I’m walking out the door to leave. “I can help. I lived there for five years.”
I pause, looking at her face, knowing she’s right. She’s been less uppity with me since I fucked her on the kitchen floor. Not less sassy, though—I think that’s there for good. But somewhere in the pain and Crisco, we established a new level of respect.
“Beg a little harder, baby, and I might come,” I say.
“God, you’re just the worst,” she snaps.
My dick is hard, riding up on my zipper uncomfortably.
I study her perfect face, the curve of her lower lip, down to her t-shirt, to her jeans.
Her shirt shows a little bit of her belly, and between that and her waistband, sits a hint of pink lace.
There’s a subtle eroticism about her, even when she’s not trying. It drives me fucking wild.
It’s no wonder Leland did everything he could to get and keep her.
“I’m serious,” I say.
Her brow arches.
“Go bend over the table,” I say. “You want to go? Pay up for it.”
“You’re such an asshole,” she breathes.
I lean in, taking the braid falling down her back and wrapping it once around my knuckles.
“You can always say no,” I say, mouth almost on hers. “But you won’t.”
Her jaw works. Her arousal is subtle. It’s in the deepening of her breath. The faint flush on her neck. The little rise of her nipples tightening beneath her shirt. Between her thighs, I know she’s wet.
“Bend over the table and take your jeans down,” I say quietly.
She goes, turning her back to me. My dick throbs as she undoes the front of her jeans. Her thumbs hook in the belt loops. I ache as she hesitates.
“Go on,” I order.
She drags them down to the middle of her thighs, ass wriggling. She’s wearing a pale pink thong riding up the curve of her hips. Slowly, she bends, spreading her ass as she lays her cheek against the table top.
I’m so desperate. I want to fuck, taste, hurt this woman to please her, make her come from all the dirty things I do to her perfect body.
I go to her and lean over her body, sliding my groin up against her ass. Fuck, that feels good. My head goes blank as I grind my zipper on her, running my left hand to the nape of her neck.
She wants it.
I lift her t-shirt up over her head and unfasten her bra, pushing them away.
She whimpers as I trace down her spine, pushing back.
There’s a wet spot from her cunt on the front of my pants.
I can smell it; sweet, laced with pheromones and Della.
It’s a scent that makes me want to do reckless things.
Like call her mine.
Or find Leland this afternoon, look him in the eyes, tell him I just fucked his wife in the ass, and then put a bullet in his head.
If only it were that simple.
When I wrap her braid around my knuckles again, she moans and arches her back.
I peel her panties down. Her pussy is a little swollen, glistening with arousal.
I run my thumb briefly over it—I don’t want it to be too wet.
Then, I spread her open and circle her asshole, where I fucked her last. She’s beautiful there. Tight, responsive.
“You tell me to stop if you need to,” I rasp.
She nods. Then, she gasps as I push my thumb into her, mostly dry. Her muscles tighten, fighting me, but I keep going until I’m inside.
“Fuck,” she breathes, pupils wide.
One handed, I unzip my pants and free my cock.
It’s so hard, I don’t have to guide it to her soaked entrance.
But she’s so fucking tight, I have to brace myself on my free hand and push to get inside.
Her cunt is slippery, wrapping around my cock, pulling me deeper as I push myself up against her ass.
The muscles around my thumb are so tight, it hurts.
Good. I like it when we hurt together.
“I want you to answer me when I speak, alright?” I breathe.
She nods, biting her lip. “Yes.”
My hips pull back and surge. “Good fucking girl.”
My thumb presses down, firmly and gently, until I feel it against my cock. She writhes, nails digging into the table, scratching into the peeling wood. My eyes fall above her head as I withdraw and thrust back inside. The knot of wood stares back at me.
This time, it doesn’t feel dark.
No, I like this. I love the rawness of mutual pain. I like giving and taking.
I just needed to be given a choice.
And Della gave me that.
Here I am, in the place I never wanted to return to, and I think I’m healing. Or I’m so fucking close, I can taste it. She makes me the man I could have been. The man I want to be.
I close my eyes, sinking over her. I push my thumb in deeper, hearing her soft moan in response, and take her nice and slow. Feeling her from the inside with my cock and my touch. Reveling in how she takes it, how she eats my darkness and turns it into something beautiful.
My orgasm comes in a wave, and I empty myself into her bare.
She lets me. For a woman with her past, with a child from a man she hates, it feels like the greatest gift to take this risk together. I know she’s on the shot, but she has to think about that tiny chance when I spill my cum inside her.
“Tell me how it feels,” I murmur into the nape of her neck.
“How what feels?” she gasps.
Sliding my finger from her ass, I rut my hips, pushing it all deeper. “Having my cum inside you.”
She bites her lip, suddenly shy.
“Tell me, baby,” I urge.
“I don’t know,” she breathes out. “It feels so good.”
She knows, but she’s not ready to tell me, and that bothers me. Maybe it shouldn’t. We don’t know each other that well. That bothers me too. For what I feel when I look at her, we should have been married for fucking years.
That makes me a little angry.
I pull out and flip her on her back. Her breasts heave, nipples hard.
I run my tongue down between her naked breasts to her soft, wet cunt.
Sinking to my knees, I bury my face in it.
I love everything about her body. I like that I can still taste her for hours afterwards, how I still smell her, or I think I do, the next day.
She arches, pushing her pussy up, riding it on my mustache. Goddamn, I’m rock hard again. Little whimpers spill from her lips. I eat her out like I have something to prove. A sick part of me gets intense satisfaction from the fact that I’m the first man to make her come.
She comes for me, dripping down my neck.
She never came for him.
I lift my head, long enough to slide my finger into her cunt.
The muscles throb, pulling me deep. She’s velvety hot, so fucking tight.
I find her g-spot and stroke it, up and down.
Then, I tap it lightly until she undulates her hips.
They lift off the table. Then, they start to coil.
I lower my mouth to her clit and pull it between my teeth, keeping even pressure as I stroke it with my tongue.
She likes a little pain, like such a good girl.
My cum drips out of her, around my fingers. She’s writhing, trembling. Then, she comes, and wetness releases over my hand, hitting me in the face, the chin.
Take me down, is the only thought in my head. Take me down to the river between your legs and wash away all the shit I can’t carry anymore.
But I can’t say any of that out loud.
So, I keep steady and let her writhe and grind on my face until she’s done. Her body goes limp slowly, then all at once. Dazed, I slip my fingers from her and lick her clean, flicking her clit to make her wince. Then, I get up, tuck myself into my pants, and fasten my belt.
“Fine,” I say. “You can come.”
We fix our clothes, and I lock up the house. Then, I put her in the truck like she’s mine or something. There’s a warning in the back of my head about taking her from the gorge, but I understand why she wants to. That’s her choice, she’s a big girl and she knows the risks.
I just don’t like it.
The thought that something could happen to her under my watch makes my pulse go hard.
We enter the neighborhood in the periphery of the Caudill estate.
Everything seems normal. It’s being patrolled, but their security is subtle today.
All I see is the flash of a black SUV turning a corner and heading towards the front gate.
Della sees it too, and a ripple of tension goes through her body.
I turn the truck, making a wide circle to get to the west side of the fence. There’s an exit there for shipping and delivery. It’s the biggest weakness in this fortress.
“Do you know the schedule for when shit gets delivered here?” I ask.
“What kind of shit?”
“Anything.”
She leans forward, scanning the pointed tips of the fence. “All I paid attention to was food. That came every Saturday morning from a place in Lexington around nine.”
“What’s the company?”
She bites her lip, watching as the gate comes into view. “Maybella Catering, I think.”
“Okay, that’s a possible way in,” I say.
The hair on the back of my neck prickles. Pumping the brakes, I flick my gaze between the mirrors. Beside me, she’s staring up at the house in the distance with wide eyes. Her son is inside. I know her heart must be breaking that she can’t just walk in.
I check the rearview mirror. A flash of silver comes around the corner, and I let up on the brakes, rolling down the street to the stop sign just beyond the gate.
A silver SUV cruises past the gate. Hand steady, I take a right turn. I can’t tell what these motherfuckers are doing, but it kind of seems like they’re following us. It’s hard to tell.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
I check the rearview mirror. “Might have company.”
She whips around to look out the back. “The SUV?”
I nod, taking a left turn into an alley and coming out on the connecting road to the state route. It leads over the river, down through some swamplands and back out towards Byway. There’s nothing out here, no reason for anybody to be on my ass.
“They turned too,” she whispers.
I should have left her home. Keeping my voice steady, I increase pressure on the gas until we’re moving at almost seventy. This is a little out of my wheelhouse. I’m used to working outside the law in a wild, wild west kind of way, on horseback, revolver in hand. But a car chase? That’s new for me.
“Turn around, baby,” I say. “Keep your head up on that headrest.”
She obeys, throat bobbing. “Are we okay?” she whispers.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” I say. “Just sit tight, keep your seatbelt on. Okay?”
She nods, breathing hard. “Okay.”
“Good girl,” I say without meaning to.
One hand on the wheel, I reach beneath the seat and take my semi-automatic pistol out. She glances down at it and bites her lip, but she doesn’t speak.
We’re driving over the narrow bridge, the river laid out on either side. The cliff faces to the left and right are brown and dry from the summer heat. It’s making the trees sparse, not ideal coverage. Up ahead, there’s a curve, where I’ll have to make a choice where we’re going.
What’s the best place to fight back?
Or can I get away if we have enough road?
At the last second, I make the executive decision and whip the car to the left, heading into the swampland.
The tires wail, and I grab her shoulder a second too late.
Della flops to the side, throwing her arm up to keep from hitting the door.
I have my foot on the floor, squealing the tires.
We burst forward, engine screaming in protest. The trees thin, and there’s nothing around us but pale water and rushes.
Behind us, the SUV turns.
And goes faster.
Fuck.
“Jensen,” she whispers. “Are you sure this is alright?”
We both know it isn’t.
“We’re fine,” I say evenly. “I’m handling it. Just put your head down if you hear bullets.”
“Jensen—”
“Della, you hear me?”
“Alright, I do.”
She sinks back, hands shaking. I glance over my shoulder, forcing myself to stop being terrified something will happen to her and start coming up with a plan. I don’t think I can outrun these motherfuckers. But if I can get to higher ground, I can stop and pick them off before they reach us.
One thing I know for certain: I’m a pretty fucking good shot. Brothers Boyd made sure of that.