CHAPTER SEVEN
Rush
S he tastes like the good parts of sex.
Yeah, sure, all parts are good, even when it’s mediocre, but I don’t mean that.
I mean the other things. Those unexpected thrills, the soar of the orgasm, the banter that’s sometimes sex itself, those parts.
That’s how she tastes.
Like a mix of hedonism and heaven’s highs, the sin and dirt of no-holds barred fucking. The sweet moments that are singing intimacy.
She tastes like sugar with a kick.
Bourbon, that’s her taste, one heavy on the oak barrel and vanilla. One laced with honey to hide the high-octane level of alcohol. She’s the kick that’s wrapped in sweetness. And she’s jagged edged and dangerous like her fucking knife.
I suck where I bite, ingesting her moan, taking it deep inside.
Women are everywhere, I know that: they throw themselves at me all the time. And I dip in and take my fill. What man wouldn’t?
Some are class, some are cheap, some are barely worth the morsels they offer. But they’re all their own level of delicious, even the fast-food ones.
Point is, I’ve had the lot.
Almost.
Because this one? I’ve never tasted someone like her before. Like she’s the rarest thing in the entire world.
And I’m here for it.
I slip my hand down between her thighs, her ass pushing back into my erection.
Damn it feels good, soft in the right places, firm where I can hold on to.
I stroke against the front of her cotton panties, taking all the liberties. If she guts me, it might be worth it. She still has her ring… Her pussy is hot, it’s bare; I don’t feel the telltale springiness of hair, or even the stubble of fuzz.
Somehow, I stifle the groan and go lower. The little jumps and shivers from her are like a song in the air.
I want to feel her up, nudge the panties aside and slide over unadorned flesh. Shit, I just want to go the whole sixteen-year-old feel up over the fucking panties route. Which is kind of what I’m doing now, but this has more X-rated connotations because no one in this room is sixteen.
I settle on stroking her upper inner thigh, and her breathing changes.
How the fuck have I been to Bunny’s before and not done anything other than order drinks from her?
The newish thing isn’t even an excuse. I can fucking flirt my ass off in four different directions at once. I can do it like I breathe. In my sleep.
Call it my superpower.
I run my fingers of my other hand along her spine, over the tattoos and bruises on her, tattoos so fucking beautiful and almost watercolor whimsical in their delicate designs. Except for that edge of viciousness to them.
If I wasn’t busy, I’d explore them, check for shit like angels or worse, fairies. The deranged crap I’ve seen on girls before.
But it just seems darkly Victorian and about nature. I kiss a path over the black lace bird tattoo on her neck, over her still damp skin, up to her ear. “We should talk.”
“Sounds more like you’ve got a death wish, touching me like this.”
“Consider it payment?” Even as the words leave my mouth, I cringe.
I’m a badass, but I’m no Nikolai.
“For getting stabbed?”
She turns her face and the bruise on her cheek cuts deep. Fuck.
But she reaches behind, strokes my cock once more and I almost lose whatever I have of my mind.
Then there’s a little sound.
And she squeezes her hand as something pokes against my thigh.
Something sharp. Hard.
Her fucking knife’s close enough to my junk that I go still.
“Wanna let me know what you’re doing?” I ask.
Her mouth curls, those full lips would look good— I stop. There’s a time to think dirty thoughts and a time to get yourself together when a crazy chick has a ring knife close to your junk.
“Thinking of returning the favor.” She pokes me.
Jess knows what she’s doing, because it’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t pierce skin. Fuck, it doesn’t even pierce the denim.
I step back a little and flip her so her ass hits the wall and I grab her wrist, pinning it, examining the ring. “Stronger than you.” I grin. “Nice piece.”
Her other hand moves and she shoves it down my jeans and I nearly lose hold of everything that’s left of my mind.
“Nice piece,” she says. “If you like compact.”
“Depends on the size of the garage.”
“Rude.”
“Right,” I say, “back at you.”
Never in my life have I wanted to defend the size of my cock like I do now. Never in my life has anyone called it compact. I’m big. I know that.
“It’s what you do with it, fuck boy.”
“Yours or mine?”
A ghost of a smile crosses her features and honestly, I don’t even remember why I came up here.
“Nikolai wants to talk to you.” From somewhere, I scrape that from my head.
She rises, tits—now those are of size, lush, tattooed, and perfect now they’re free—brushing against me.
Jess does something surprising.
She brushes her mouth with mine.
I take it and run. Still holding her hand against the wall, I use my other to guide her mouth back and I kiss her.
I’ve wanted this since we started the flirting and our no-rules sparring match.
Oh, fuck. She’s soft and warm. She tastes sweet, a little minty from toothpaste, and she moans as her lips part and our tongues meet.
It’s a slow combustion on fast forward.
One second, I’m just kissing her and holding her arm and the next every nerve ending in me thrums with need, urgency, and I can’t get enough of her. I’m so fucking hard and she’s wrapping about me like she wants to climb me.
We kiss, the act getting deeper, darker, hotter. It’s sex with clothes on. It’s never fucking going to be enough and we attack and pull at each other. We meld and melt and then a wave of destruction crashes down and the need to own her and defile her and have her now is overwhelming.
I hit the mattress, and she hits me.
Jess is on me, straddling, and I’m hard. She’s hot and I swear she’s so wet I can feel it through her panties and my jeans.
Then she breaks the kiss. “Fuck. My side.”
“Are you—”
“Asshole.” Her eyes narrow and I almost miss her intent as she tries to hit me.
I catch her wrist and tumble us so I’m on top, straddling. I pin her hands to the bed, at the sides of her head.
“You,” she says, “tried to drug me.”
I lean in close, lips half an inch from hers. “Did drug you. Not tried.” No. Wait. I take a breath. “The doctor drugged you.”
“What? Like a drug-induced coma?”
“No, you idiot. You were a banshee and ripped your stitches. You kept on about ‘ Et tu Brutus’. I said it’s Brute , but you wouldn’t be corrected on your Shakespeare.”
“It’s the same thing.” She stops.
I go on. “So he had you on morphine or something fun that I wanted to try but Nikolai threatened me with death. The painful sort.”
Rolling off her, I lie on my back and start laughing.
She hits me in the stomach, hard.
I roll to my side and prop up with one arm and capture her hand with my other one. “Oh, man you should have seen you. Big drug eyes, talking about aliens, about how you wanted my dick. My big dick.”
She did actually say that.
“You’ve got some kind of girl hard on for Julius Caesar,” I say. “The play, not the man.”
“What did I say?”
Brutus, she kept on about Brutus, about saving him. “It was a mess of words, Jessie, a total mess.”
She snatches her hand and grabs my throat. I let her. There’s something…hot about it. “Call me Jessie again and the Castrate won’t even want you.”
“I don’t even know what that means. You’ll castrate me and take my voice box? I can’t sing.”
Her eyes turn into glitter slits.
“You ate,” I say, “sang me some Iggy Pop and the Stooges, and some dude named Nick Cave. You sounded like the Birthday Party at one point.”
“You have no idea who the Birthday Party are.”
“Old Nick Cave band. Looked it up. I’m shocked any of them lived past thirty, let alone some of them are still making music.” I laugh. “YouTube’s a gold mine.”
She seems content now. Not so much with the Shakespeare thing so I know there’s something about that play…
“The stitches are those dissolving type, I think. Not sure. They can come out in another five days.”
“And,” Jess says, “the king of Mafia wants to see me.”
I study her. She’s prettier without the heavy make up. Softer, more approachable. Or, I amend, seems to be. Because she’s one tough woman under that surface. The tough isn’t an act.
“Most people think Nikolai’s a rich benefactor,” I say. “One who makes money in a lot of different arenas. Sure, they think there’s some shade attached to him, that he’s maybe got connections. But the glittery world of the Queenstown and beyond elite love him.”
I don’t mention he fucking hates even been in that world for one second. He likes the shadows. He likes being invisible.
To be fair he likes Rose, me and Dante and I might be fighting for number two position with a fucking cat.
“Who’s Rupert the Fourth?” I ask.
That blindsides her.
“I mentioned him?”
“A number of times,” I say. “You told me after serenading me with…Nick the Stripper…that you wanted to make sure he was okay. You were anxious. Said he’d starve.”
She frowns. “I said that?”
“All that. Then you said you wanted a bird of your own for Brutus?” I shrug. “Can’t work out if you have a pet, don’t have one but want one, or if you have a prisoner called Brutus locked away somewhere. I mean, I asked. But you wouldn’t say anything else. Wouldn’t even say where you live. Although, to be fair you might not have known. All I got from you was you claimed to live in a broken down tiny castle of your own.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Me either.”
Her hands still on my throat and she’s shifted a little closer. I slip my hand under panties at her hip. And rest it there.
She moans softly.
I don’t mention it. I’m a gentleman.
Okay, I’m not. But I don’t mention it.
“Rupert?” I ask.
“Would you believe he’s a crow?”
“Shiny?” I ask, describing any and all black birds I’ve seen. “Beak so sharp it could kill, and a mean expression on his face?”
“That’s the one.”
“Yeah,” I say, wondering if the bad-tempered bird who’s taken up residence in one of the trees and spends time eyeing Dante like he’s dinner is her actual pet.
“Except he isn’t real.”
I need to talk to her, not feel her up, kiss her and try and fuck her. Talk.
“Jessie, listen.” Then I stop. “About Nikolai.”
I should warn her that he’s definitely maf—
“I know he’s mafia and rules Queenstown,” she says. “I know what he is.”
For a moment I don’t speak. Because she’s not throwing mafia around like she thinks he might have earned some of his money doing shady shit. She says it like she knows. “Only people involved in the underworld know who and what he is.”
She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she opens them, releases my throat and traces my lips with a finger.
When she looks at me, as she tries and almost succeeds at distracting me by dipping that finger into my mouth, she’s utterly guileless. And I’m instantly suspicious.
“I work at Bunny Munroe—or did as I’m probably fired—so I think you know I’m telling the truth when I say it’s a low life dive bar that’s connected. There are turfs, and I think it’s on Wilder turf.”
Jess doesn’t seem worried over her job. And she’s right. It is, more or less. Smith turf is like ours. Same with turf belonging to our allies. But not all allies are equal.
And she’s the hot bartender.
“There are gangs,” she mutters, “and Bunny’s used by them. Like I said. Or I think I said. Things are fuzzy. Because, y’know. I got fucking stabbed saving your hot, fuckable ass.”
Did…did she just call my ass fuckable? Hot, I know. Fuckable ass when it’s my ass in question? That’s something new. From a chick.
“And,” she says, continuing, “you had me high on morphine. What if I have a problem?”
“Like heroin? Illegal morphine? Oxy? Porn? Fucking dudes in the ass with a strap-on?” Her eyes light up at that and I give her my most severe look. “Gotta help a guy out, hot thing.”
“I’ll bring the strap-on, you bring the MDMA. Or your big boy pants.”
“I’m not doing drugs.” It still fucking stings from when Nikolai caught me, packed his bags and left. Those things will scar a poor young mind. He’s evil, my cousin. The fuck face. “And you’re not fucking my ass.”
“Really?” She pushes another finger in my mouth and thrusts mimicking a head job. “I bet you fuck girls in the ass all the time.” Her fingers pull free and travel slowly over my sweater. “Do you?”
This is one of her trick questions. “No. Not all the time.”
Triumph flares. And fuck, I’d like a go at all her holes. A number of times. Countless.
“Only,” I say, sure I’m digging a deep, dark hole, speaking of holes. Which I shouldn’t. “When occasion calls for it.”
“Spoken like a fuck boy.”
“Speaking of rude. That’s not nice.”
“Calling it how I see it.” Her hand rests on the buttons of my jeans and my cock lurches, an ache starting in my balls and spreading along the hard shaft. She doesn’t burrow down in my jeans to offer relief and torture, both of them exquisite things when my cock’s in a warm, female hand.
Especially hers.
“Stop thinking of getting jerked off.”
“Your hand,” I say, “is on my jeans, right at the cusp. I’m a guy. I’m going there.”
She brings it lower and traces the curve of my hard dick. “Or maybe you’re thinking of me in a strap-on as I fuck your ass.”
“No,” I say, “I’m not.”
Now I am. I can’t stop. And the idea is as about as appealing as it was the first time she put it there: not at all.
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”
I grab her hand and lick her palm then kiss it, biting the fleshy part on the heel of her thumb. “I’m gonna bypass that experience.”
“Coward.”
“Weirdo.” I let her go and get up, looking down at her as she rolls back, her illustrated tits with their light, tight nipples exposed.
Somehow I drag my eyes to her face.
“Rose said you should come down whenever today, tomorrow, next week. When you feel better. But Nikolai wants you there sooner rather than later.”
“So,” she says, sitting up with a wince and covering those hot tits with the robe, “now.”
“Now is good.”
I turn, put my hands on my hips and drag air into my lungs.
Then I turn back. The jeans and top are crumpled from where we landed on them. But they’re new and fresh and her size. According to Rose.
Who I trust.
“I’ve no idea if this is some act—”
“Getting myself stabbed?”
I shrug. “Seen it all, Jess. I don’t know if you’re just a good Samaritan bartender or have an ulterior motive. Lie to me, if you want. I’d prefer not. But…Nikolai? He’s a different beast. He will kill.”
“I guess you’ve seen that,” she says dropping the robe and pulling on the T-shirt without a bra. It’s black, so there’s that, and I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad. Then she pulls on the jeans.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I have.”
She stills at my tone. But when she turns intrigue is all that shines in her eyes.
“I’ll leave you to it, Jess.”
“D on’t fuck the girl, Rush. If you haven’t already.”
I fold my arms and glare at Nikolai as I slouch against the wet bar.
“What do you think I am?”
“I think,” he says, looking up from his computer and motioning to the wet bar as Dante lazes on the sofa, somehow managing to take up most of the room, “you think with your dick. And since you’re there, I’ll have a drink.”
Grumbling, I pour us both a drink and take his to him. I don’t need to, but it’s easier, and besides, this is the Nikolai honey. I’ll get way more from him if I bring him a drink. If I play the game. Even if he knows that’s what I’m doing.
It’s fuck face. He knows.
“What’s all this about, dude?”
Nikolai gives me a pointed look and goes back to the computer.
“Information. There’s something going on, and I don’t like things going on that affect me when I don’t sanction them.” Then he looks up. “So I’m going to question your gangbanger and if I don’t fucking like it, kill her.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He ignores the dryness of my word. Gotta love Nikolai.
“You’re not killing her.”
“Order or question?”
I think about it. “Interested. And you’re not killing her.”
He’s not killing her.
I’m not about to let him.
“I might. Unless your dick has thoughts. Has your dick got fucking thoughts?”
He’s being a definite fuck face. Maybe I can talk Rose and Dante into running off with me. We can take Jess. Maybe I can bribe her with an evil bird. I’ll be like a cross between a harem and Doolittle. No…that sounds horrible. Besides, Dante likes Nikolai. He can stay. I’ll just get Dante the second—
I stop.
“No, it doesn’t Fu—Nikolai.” I take a swallow of the whiskey.
“Good.” He doesn’t smile, just picks up his glass. “You can stay and learn. Because, technically, it’s your empire.”
“Going somewhere?”
“Maybe,” he says. “I’m sick of bullshit.”
He isn’t. He thrives on this. “I’ll stay, but it’s your empire. I just like the perks.”
“You would.”
There’s a knock at the door, and Tony steps aside, ushering Jess in.
He leaves, but I’m sure he’s just outside the door.
Her eyes skitter to me.
Everything lights up. It’s a floodlight of awareness.
And Nikolai smiles. I’m gobsmacked. It’s the kind of genuine smile I rarely see.
He’s playing but I can’t work out the end game.
“You look better, Jess,” he says. “How do you feel?”
“Better.”
He nods, the epitome of innocuousness when I know he isn’t. He’s pure poisonous viper under it all.
“I’m sure you want to get home, get back to work.” He takes a swallow of his drink, and his black eyes glint. “How long have you worked at Bunny Munroe?”
“A few months,” she says.
Jess is trying to meet him at his game but, while she’s good, I can’t even do it. Neither can Rose.
Nikolai’s a force. And he plays chess like a grandmaster.
“Do you know the owner?” he asks, all silk.
She goes still and I make a note to find out all I can when I get a chance. She doesn’t respond, just says, “Thanks for your help, but I’m going to go home now.”
She’s about to turn when he stops her.
“I don’t fucking think so,” Nikolai says.