Chapter Fourteen
Blaze
I had money, but I didn’t really feel like getting tipsy at a beer tent. Especially if I was paying for May and his girlfriends, or whatever those two qualified as. Nakarii was cuddling up to May, his hand anchored to her ass like he thought she might bolt at any moment, and they were whispering at each other so closely I was surprised they hadn’t swapped spit yet. Lucia, on the other hand, was loudly rambling about one topic and the next. I’d tuned out somewhere between her bitching about the absence of Patron on the beer tent menu, and her opinion of the carnie fellow with the gauged ears and dreadlocks. Apparently, she could tell from a hundred-yard glance that his shoes were knock offs, whatever the fuck that meant.
“Damn,” Lucia drawled, bobbing her head, and fluffing her hair as she started scanning the distance. The distinct sound of a motorcycle engine came into focus. It didn’t let off, either.
“Alright then,” Nakarii let go of May. She slapped her hands together and rubbed her palms like she was about to pounce on something.
“What the fuck…?” I laughed.
“Play stupid if you want. I know big dick energy when I hear it.” She purred before prowling toward the sound.
“Whoa…” Someone yelled in the distance.
A few people shrieked and the thin crowd parted like a biblical sea, the engine becoming deafening just before the driver let off. I had just enough time to see the blur before it slid toward me broadways.
I sucked in a wild breath, and had just enough time to shift, snap my eyes shut, and brace for impact.
“Fucking show off,” Nakarii scoffed.
I opened my eyes and realized the bike was idling in front of me. I slowly followed the feminine boot up a shapely, jean-clad leg. When I saw the texture on the wine-colored undershirt, my brain clicked, and my attention snapped to Marchella’s face.
May’s laughter was full of approval, it sounded like it started in his soul before it finally climbed out of him. “Come on, you two, Blaze has business.”
“Is– Is that my bike?” I finally managed.
“Your bike. Your bitch.” May cackled, slapping me in the back so hard my teeth clicked.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ!” Lucia spat, I could hear the eyeroll in her tone before she turned and sauntered off.
His blow snapped me out of it alright, enough I spotted the two uniforms jogging our way from across the fairgrounds.
“Shit.” I shoved her back and slid onto the bike.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Maybe that I wasn’t willing to spend another night in a cell? Who knows?
Whatever came over me, I hit it. She grabbed my waist like she’d been riding her whole life and I fish-tailed it through the crowd. It sounded like we’d left a flock of savages behind us, but it was only May hooping and hollering.
I didn’t know where I was going, I really didn’t. One block passed as swiftly as the next. I let off a little at the stop signs, enough to see if anything was coming, but I never really came to a stop. An old man barked at us from his front porch. I really couldn’t even say what it was he yelled, something about children or a park.
When I came to the T that meant the highway, I had no choice, I had to let off the throttle. I couldn’t hear sirens, but I really didn’t want to take any chances. Even more, I didn’t want to take chances with her.
Fuck!
I had a girl on the back of this damn thing, and I was driving like my father, as my mom was so fond of saying. My mother hated it when I rode, it was half the battle of us coming to fetch the bike to begin with. She was terrified I’d wreck. Terrified I’d like it too much and live by it like he had.
“I’m sorry,” I managed, over the roar of the engine.
“For what?” She laughed and pressed a kiss behind my ear.
“I shouldn’t have driven like that,” I called back, pulling onto the highway.
She made an amused huff and nipped at my earlobe. When she did, I heard the sirens drawing closer. I hadn’t even heard them until then.
“You’re cute. I knocked the cobwebs off of it before I picked you up. It will clear a century, and if you don’t mean to find out how that feels then you better park.”
My heart hammered and I let off just long enough to look for a turn off. I’d have taken a dirt road if one had presented itself, I really didn’t care. Those sirens weren’t fading. I was afraid they’d come into view any second.
Her hand slid over my crotch and the other slid under my shirt. I was so distracted I missed a turn off hidden by a tree line.
“Fuck,” I hissed, reaching down to steady her hand.
I opened my mouth to tell her to calm down, and the blue-and-red glinted across the mirror.
“Goddamn it,” I growled.
“Shh,” she soothed near my ear, her hand tightened at my crotch, “do it.”
My heart was racing, my pulse was drumming in my ears. I couldn’t hear the sirens. I knew they were blaring. I could see the cop car shooting toward us. The fucker saw us. There was no mistaking it, but the only thing that broke the sound of my pulse drumming was her.
That voice. The plea lingering in it. The way she held me like I was all she had left, that hand pinned over my chest. I wondered if she could feel my heart hammering in there as clearly as I knew she could feel how bricked I was. I’d never felt adrenaline like that. I was a breath away from cuffs and another case, and a stroke away from coming in my fucking pants.
All because of her!
“Don’t stop, Blaze,” she breathlessly begged, digging the edge of her nails into my chest like she expected to be torn away from me at any moment.
She pressed a kiss to the back part of my neck, and in that moment, I knew– The only thing I’d let them have was our bodies. I couldn’t watch them put cuffs on that girl and there was no way I could convince them she hadn’t been the one driving like a bat out of hell through that carnival.
“Hold on!” I barked, and let the fucking thing go.
The speedometer climbed higher and higher.
I’d never taken anything to a hundred miles an hour before, a century , as Marchella had called it. Yes, I drove fast. Yes, I did stunts, but it was on a fucking track. I’d never run from the law before! I needed to focus, but damned if she hadn’t started to move her hand around. I gripped her fingers in warning. I couldn’t keep hold of her, though.
Doing a hundred was all fine and dandy, but the cop car would go faster, and it would have friends soon. My mother was a law enforcement officer, even if she was federal, I knew how shit worked.
Marchella started plucking at the top of my pants. Her nails lightly scratched at my lower abdomen as she struggled to get the button undone. I’d just mounted a hill, and I knew all bets were going to be off in a minute.
The corn was high, but the cop would see a path if I made one through it. I knew he’d see a path, but what fucking choice did I have? I let off the throttle and slowed as much as I dared. When the squad car topped the hill, I took us into the corn.
Marchella stopped fighting my jeans and started slapping at the stalks that were beating off of us from both directions.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screamed.
“Me? You chose to pick a police chase in the middle of the sticks.” I reminded her, but who knew what she heard over the constant swish and whap of the corn, the sirens, and the roar of that bike. I could see a tree line starting to our left. I had no idea how dense it was, but I knew a helicopter wouldn’t be able to see us inside there.
I was mentally preparing myself to make a random turn in such conditions when a path suddenly appeared beside us. I slowed, and was about to hook around, when another presented. I had no idea what the fuck it was, but I followed the damn thing until it broke into a man-made crop circle. The center of which sprouted a nice patch of sunflowers.
“Who the fuck plants sunflowers in the middle of their cornfield?” Marchella yelled.
I laughed, having figured it out the moment I came across the sunflowers, “Hunters. They’re making sure they have a good bird season.”
I followed the tree line for a while, but dusk had fallen, and I could plainly see the police car back where I’d left it. There weren’t any other signs of lights or authority approaching, but I didn’t take any chances. I dipped in the woods the first chance I got.
“What the fuck are you doing?” She laughed, giving me a squeeze.
“If he called a helicopter, I don’t want them to find us.”
“‘If he–‘” She laughed, “You’re so fucking cute. Blaze...stop the fucking bike.”
I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but she tapped my leg, and I slowed to a stop.
“Listen to me.” She reached around and tried to take my jaw.
I didn’t have any argument; I faced her willingly and tried to steal a kiss. Her mouth molded to mine, and I got lost in her for a moment.
When the kiss broke, she smiled, “I know Atlanta is a big place and all, but this is Swanwick. The only time they have a helicopter is if somebody’s child goes missing. They’ll pay somebody to take a helicopter up and an infrared thing or whatever to search the field, otherwise…”
She shrugged.
“We didn’t kill anyone. We didn’t take anything. Nobody cares enough to keep lookin’. We got away.” She looked around and laughed before popping me on the shoulder, “Did you really just drive me through a cornfield and into a fucking forest…?”
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. Was that really the highlight of what had just occurred in her mind?
My dick was still twitching in my pants, all but doing a dance in hopes of winning back her attention and favor and she was worried about a little side path?
“Did you really just try to dry fuck me while we were fleeing and eluding?”
Marchella pressed into me and slid up my back, laughter trickling from her in that sweet-sounding way as she did so. She dismounted in a sleek, feline fashion and prowled a few steps, keeping her back to me.
“What are you doing?” I blurted out.
Rather than answer me, she reached to her waist and grabbed the bottom of that ribbed, wine-colored undershirt, sliding it up her back. I was so busy staring at the tattoo scrawled across her lower back, that I didn’t realize she wasn’t wearing anything else for a second.
My gaze shifted, from the large, cursive letters that spelled out princess, to her bare shoulders and my breath caught. I dismounted without a word, but she hadn’t faced me, and I didn’t rush toward her.
“You’re the only one who ever looked at me like that, without seeing this first.” Her voice was soft, but there wasn’t anything competing with it except the crickets.
“The way I hear it there ain’t been many men lookin’ at you.” I huffed with amusement, recalling the guy who was missing his thumbs.
I took her finding her voice as some sign she was comfortable and slowly started toward her a few steps.
The forest floor sounded so loud beneath my boots.
“Yeah?” She turned her head, and I stopped in my tracks. “I’m not sure what you heard. I just know I like you, because I know you see me and not Makaveli’s daughter or Mackie’s sister. You see me.”
The mention of her brother and father was a sobering slap in the face. As soon as it hit me, she turned to face me, naked from the waist up and I was lust drunk all over again.
Her blonde hair was wild, and wind tangled. Her eyes were glistening with adrenaline and emotion, bidding me closer. She didn’t have any tan lines, the only paleness about her perky, little titties, were the bone-colored nipple rings she was wearing. They were like tiny half-moons, or horns.
I reached to sweep her hair aside, and she flinched, drawing her arm up like she meant to hide her chest from me. I reached behind her head with the opposite hand and fisted her hair, kissing her until she forgot about her modesty and allowed me to bare that shoulder.
“You’ve got the perfect mouthful, and they're pierced so prettily,” I whispered before nipping her lip.
I hadn’t realized she’d snaked her hand up the backside of my shirt, until she grazed her nails down my shoulder. She brought her hand out and caressed over the fabric until she was on her toes and clutching the back of my shoulder.
“Then get on your knees and prove it.”
I tugged her hair like I’d found insult in her words, but there was no hiding my smile as I kissed my way down her throat. I pushed her back against a tree and lowered my head to lap at the top of her chest. I gripped her ass with both hands and grazed my teeth over the top of her nipple, without really catching the nub.
Marchella caressed my hair, tangling her fingers needily. An amused sound lodged in my throat, and I flicked my tongue over her piercing. It was smooth and not as sharp on the ends as it looked, so I drew it into my mouth and latched on aggressively. One of her hands gripped my shoulder, the other tangled in my hair.
I ran my tongue around her nipple as I slowly let it dislodge until that piercing was all that was holding her captive to my lips.
“Blaze,” She sounded slightly panicked, and panting.
I let go and pressed a firm kiss beneath the modest curve of her breast and started a trail of nips and kisses to the other side of her chest. While I sucked and tormented that nipple, I undid her pants and slid them down her hips.
She gripped my hair and gasped at times while I sprinkled kisses down her belly and finally got around to planting my face against her pussy, like I’d been waiting my whole life to breathe its sacred scent. Both of her hands were in my hair, tugging and grabbing until my scalp burned. I shucked her pants off one leg, but before I could free the other, she threw the first over my shoulder and started to face-fuck me like she really was a damn princess.
I made a surprised mumble against her slick lips when they shamelessly ground over my mouth only for her clit to lodge against my upper lip. That was when the real demands began.
I’d been with girls in college, but they were never this bold and aggressive where oral sex was concerned. Most were timid, they tried to hide their noises, or demand the lights be dimmed. Marchella was staring down at me, impatiently jerking me about in a search for the perfect angle. She wasn’t satisfied until both my mouth and eyes were locked on her.
I let her grind and bite at her lower lip in frustration for a moment, just to see how far she’d go. It was a performance that would be etched into my mind forever, her huffing and gripping, grinding, and cursing.
Enough was enough, though. I shot my tongue over her clit and started to snake it around, striking at her swollen nub like we were in the battle of a lifetime. She locked her knee behind me and started to writhe, giving in to a predictable grind. I latched onto her, washing her with the spit of my mouth and sucking juice and saliva away in a greedy pulsing pattern.
Her whole body started to shake, and she clung to my hair so tightly I was sure I’d have bald spots. Every tug to my scalp went straight to my dick. I was rabid for her, twisting my face side to side and all but bathing in her pussy liquor once she stopped writhing and was merely huffing and hissing on top of me.
I nudged at her clit with my nose and ran my tongue up her seam.
“Blaze,” She stressed my name like I’d taken her to the edge of screaming it.
“Yes?” I whispered to her pussy.
“Nobody’s ever done that before…” She sounded so vulnerable.
I clutched her ass and French kissed her pussy, slow and savoring. I was certain she was complimenting my skills, and half convinced she meant the thumbless fuck didn’t eat pussy, until she clarified in the next breath, “No one has ever saved me before. No one has ever stood up for me. No one has ever stood up to him…”
I looked up and realized her cheeks were streaming with tears.
I scrambled to get off my knees, grabbing her waist, shoulders, and finally taking her face in my hands.
“Hey,” I demanded her attention, even if my voice was nothing more than a harsh whisper.
Her eyes widened and my blood turned cold. She had thick armor, but now that it was off, there was no denying that someone had put fear into her.
“You’re a fucking baddie, alright? You saved yourself. You hopped on and rode that bitch instead of tearing through the carnival crowd on foot. You made that choice.” I reminded her.
She smiled and tried to avert her gaze, but I swiped her tears, and planted my lips to her forehead. I held her there for a moment until her hands returned to my waist.
“I don’t know what the fuck this is, March. I don’t know why I feel the way that I do about you, but–” I stared into those big, blue eyes, and any fool could see the terrified creature looking back at me.
It made my words catch. I didn’t want to fill her head with bullshit. I wanted to fill her with truths, and hope that she felt the same comfort and anchor in me that I’d found in her.
“It’s been like what, two days?” I squinted at her and teased my fingertips up and down her jaw. “This shit is crazy. It’s real, and it’s fuckin’ crazy. I have no business speaking with you like this, but, girl, you should know that I’ll never not be in your corner. You don’t have to face anything or anyone alone anymore. And I’ll never not stand up to Makaveli. He’s loud. That impresses fear in some people, I get it. Loud might be unpredictable. It might be crazy. That ain’t the case with Mak though. The mob took his sister. They killed his mother and when it came to retrieving Trista, it was Oak who stepped up. Oak’s dad killed the head of the Valentino mafia while Makaveli played house with his new wife. Hey, his sister came home. I can see how small-town folk might equate that into meaning he must have really shown the mob— but you and I know the truth, right? The truth that kept me away for nearly eighteen years.”
She swallowed hard, but didn’t say anything.
“I meant what I told him. I want you. Not in the forest. Not on the run or just for right now. I want you to be mine, Marchella. Fuck Makaveli. You’re my princess now.”