Chapter 17
Aiden
My grip around my solid cock deepens as I fist myself in quick, steady pulls in my shower. All I can see is the fire in Mia’s eyes as she watched me punish Ricky in the alley, her gorgeous curves, and the want that reflects back at me every time she looks up at me through her long dark lashes.
It’s been three days since I’ve seen her, and every single one of them has ended just like this.
My hand tightens around my cock as I imagine those pouty lips coated in a deep red, leaving a crimson ring around my dick as I bottom out at the back of her throat.
Or the way her ass would look as I grip it tight, watching my cock fuck into her sweet soaking cunt over and over.
She’s crying my name, “Aiden,” begging for more.
Turning over that resolve she clings to, pleading, “Aiden, please… Fill me.”
My eyes slam shut. Wrath and a deep lust surge in my loins. I don’t want to fucking want her, and being unable to control myself is unheard of.
“Fucking little goddess…” I brace my free hand against the shower wall as I give a final jerk and come hard, spilling onto the tiled shower floor.
I take a settling breath, and when I open my eyes, I’m even more aggravated by the realization of how well and truly fucked I am. This goddamn woman has spellbound me.
* * *
The sun is setting low as I step out the back door onto my deck. I shove my phone into my pocket, ready to head to Lavish for the first time in three days. Swirling a shot of whiskey in my glass, I swallow it, allowing myself to take in the space for just a few moments.
There’s no sound out here but nature. My home is removed and rural, sitting right between two towns on the Wilmington River, and it’s the only place in the world I can truly relax.
I’m a firm believer in not shitting where you eat, so even though all my business is done in Lakeside and Savannah, this twelve-acre plot of land right on the water is thirty minutes away from it all.
The river is like glass, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky as I breathe deeply for the first time in almost a week. After days of negotiating how we’re going to find the weapons we’re short with the Titans and the Wretched Souls, I’m fucking exhausted.
I wasn’t planning to go to these meetings up north at Hilton Head with Dagger and Antonio Leonelli, the head of Boston’s Leonelli crime family.
Both of them are pricks, but Leonelli buys our guns and likes Dagger for some fucked-up reason.
I was just going to send Archer, Stone, and Raef, but after the other night, I knew I needed a few days to clear my head.
I’ve never been that close to killing a man in defense of a woman before.
If he had hit any other woman, I would have been satisfied with just breaking both of his hands, but this was different.
It took everything in my being not to split his skull wide open right there on the road just for looking at Mia.
Beating the shit out of a heavy bag when I got home and fisting my cock in the shower were the only things that untangled and slightly calmed my rage.
I wasn’t just angry at Ricky for hurting her.
I was angry with myself for wanting her.
She’s a fucking distraction, which, I’m pretty sure, is exactly why she was planted here.
I’m more convinced than ever she’s a spy for Angus Ramsey or someone else who wants a piece of my business.
I should be planning to torture her for information, so there’s no logical explanation as to why I thought about this woman the entire time I was gone.
No reason why I logged into Lavish’s security cameras just to make sure she was safe, to see what she was wearing, how she moved.
All the while remembering the sweet fucking way her skin tasted, and how her eyes heated as she came right through her fucking panties in the alley.
There’s also no logical explanation as to why I went back to my room and fisted my cock every night with the vision of that little blond goddess’s needy eyes looking up at me while I fucked her throat.
And finally, it makes no fucking sense why I haven’t given Stone the order to dig into her past, even though I’m certain she’s hiding something.
Aside from the idea that maybe I don’t want to know who she is, because if I find out she is lying, my men will want me to kill her.
And I’m not ready to rid the world of those bright blue eyes just yet.
In fact, I realize as I head inside, toss on my boots, and grab my keys, I want to see them.
Not only do I want to, I’m fucking eager, and knowing that is all it takes to make me feel like I’m losing my goddamn mind.
* * *
Lavish is swarming when I enter. I scan the space, and all of the girls look the same to me.
They’re here to work, because if we didn’t offer them a safe space, they’d strip somewhere else for less money and less respect.
If they want a safe, secure environment, they last a long time here.
If they want to whore their asses out for cash, they find somewhere else to do it.
Roz already has my approval to hire a new dancer to replace Cara, but I don’t remember her name. The only woman I can’t seem to ignore, even when I leave town, is currently wearing a tight as fuck, shimmery gold dress, and she’s serving the reason I’m here. Dagger.
It wasn’t five minutes after I got out of the shower that Roz texted, letting me know that Dagger was back in the club and that she was too short-staffed to pull Mia away from working his table. I really do need to give that woman a good raise.
I move through the club slowly, weaving through tables and people as I go, trying not to disrupt the party atmosphere as Mia’s voice hits my ears.
“All I do is serve. If you want a dance, any one of the dancers would be happy to do it for you.”
My blood pressure rises as I approach the table.
“Ah…just the man I want to talk to,” I say, pulling out an empty leather chair and taking a seat. He asked Mia dance for him?
Over my dead fucking body.
“Foxx, brother! That meeting went well. Hopefully you have some good news for me. Secure any more tools for us?” Dagger’s high as a fucking kite, and he’s openly drooling over Mia’s ass as she hands out more napkins to his buddies at the table.
It makes me want to rip his eyeballs from their fucking sockets.
But I refrain. I have bigger fish to fry.
“I do have some good news,” I tell him.
Mia looks down at me with those blue eyes. I’ve pictured them countless times over the last three days, but my memory didn’t do them justice, and they hit me so much harder now after being away.
“Can I get you something?” she asks with total indifference.
“Gentleman Jack. A double,” I tell her coolly without making eye contact.
“Scurry on. Let the big boys talk for a minute, lass. Know your place,” Dagger tells her, like the condescending prick he is.
I’m instantly full of rage the moment he speaks to her, so I definitely shouldn’t be sitting here with him as he watches her walk away.
I don’t have to turn my head to know her perfect ass is bouncing and swaying just enough to harden his puny cock under the table, and I’ve had enough.
He’ll be lucky if I don’t put a bullet in his head before the end of this conversation.
“Jared just called me.” I name the prez of the Titans through clenched teeth. “They found enough extra stock to cover your next shipment. It’ll come to you through me, but I think something needs to change in terms of the delivery route. There’s just too much heat everywhere right now.”
“I’ll tell you what, Foxx.” Dagger’s evil eyes glimmer as he thinks. “I have another way you can make it up to me.” He grins.
I flick my lighter open and closed with my left hand, as my right rests comfortably against my thigh, so I don’t put it through his face.
“And that is?” He’s really fucking testing me.
“Why don’t ya give me your new little birdie instead.
I have the perfect cage for her.” He tweaks his nose and grins, already looking for more of whatever he puts up there.
He leans in across the table. “And I already have another baby bird to play with her.” His bloodshot eyes move to mine. “Then we’ll call it even.”
Rage churns in my blood, and my last ounce of control snaps. I pull my gun and aim it right between his eyes faster than he can even fucking blink.
In turn, his two men pull their guns on me.
I don’t move. In the dark corner we’re in, this isn’t even garnering any attention over the hustle and bustle of the club, except for the table of men next to us who get up and fucking scatter.
We sit in silence for a beat, analyzing one another’s potential actions.
Par for the course with this woman. Here I am, acting before fucking thinking.
But I’ve reached my limit. I’m done with this fucking psycho looking at her, or her walking around here, just ripe and ready for the taking by someone like Dagger.
A man who wouldn’t think twice about kidnapping her when she leaves work, or even when she’s sleeping in her own bed, just because he can.
He’s a stark raving fucking lunatic, and he fixates on women like property to torture, adding them to his collection.
I fight the urge to get involved. I shouldn’t fucking care what happens to Mia.
But I need to know who sent her, and if Dagger gets to her, I may never get the information I need.
The vision of her naked in a filthy fucking cage washes over me, and this is what drives me to show him she’s off-limits.
I hold my gun inches from Dagger’s face, and the idea comes to me. I need to make her unattainable. I don’t second-guess it as I slowly pull back and re-holster, folding my hands on the table. Dagger waves at his men to do the same.
“What the fuck, brother?” he bites out, knocking back his whiskey and slamming the glass down on the table. His high is making him more reactive than he’d normally be.
Pulling a cigarette out of my cut, I light it, speaking on the exhale.
“I’m not your fucking brother. Apologies for losing my temper.
But you will not talk about Mia that way again.
” After this, no one, including him, will fucking touch her.
If anyone tries to, it will be their last day on this earth.
I lean forward. “You must not have heard, but Mia is already taken.”
Dagger starts to laugh. “Well fuck, point out the sore loser. I’ll cut his nuts off and feed them to him right fucking now.”
I take another drag, dropping my false claim without hesitation. “She belongs to me.”
Dagger’s jaw falls slack for a moment before a wide smile breaks over his face, and he scoffs, “You’re fucking shitting me. Gregor Foxx’s boy ain’t a one-woman man.”
I don’t answer him. I simply pin him with a look and a tilt of my head that tells him I’m dead fucking serious as I lean forward.
He scrubs his beard with his hand, and I can see that I came in with that information at exactly the right time. Looking at Mia now, he’s practically fucking salivating. Desperation and a sort of crazed look take over his eyes. I just made her his ultimate target.
“Lucky man you are…” he says in a grizzly tone, looking at me as if he knows I’m full of shit. “Shame,” he adds. “I had plans for her.” I can almost see the sick wheels turning.
“Don’t make me pull my gun on you again,” I warn.
“Well, here she comes. Maybe she can tell us all about how she won your black heart in such a short fucking time.” Dagger delights in the prospect of catching me in a lie, and it’s clear he’s still holding out hope for her.
I smirk at him, and as the scent of sweet floral and vanilla washes over me, I keep my eyes on him. I can’t fucking wait to kill this motherfucker the first chance I get.