CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rush
S he’s halfway down the wall and my cooler than cool questions about the conversation I just overheard evaporate with the bounce of her phone off my forehead. It clatters to the floor.
“Ow! God fucking damn it, Jessie.”
“Rush?”
“You don’t throw phones at men you know.”
“I do when they break into my place. What is wrong with you?”
I cross the room, ignoring the fact I came from her tiny bedroom, and I help her up. She swats me away.
“Me?” Her hiss is up there with Dante’s best. “What about you?”
“I’m perfect.”
“Deluded.”
“Please. Jessie, you want me. The fact I could get your jeans—”
Her growl cuts me off, and that pretty face twists into anger. She holds her hand up and that sharp little knife pops into view, sending a dark thrill racing through me.
“These jeans are too big. Is that how you get your thrills?” Jess stalks up to me, and shoves me with her other hand.
I’m getting fucking sick of being shoved around, but Nikolai put me on her case, I made sure the guards were scarce so she could get out of there.
I added a car she could steal not far from the entrance to our property.
Of course, she found a bike and stole that instead.
Then she went to Bunny’s where it sure as shit looked like bad fucking people were in charge—my spy’s words, not mine. I’ve been here, waiting, looking for…I don’t know what. A big arrow that says ‘secrets here’?
She doesn’t have much. At least, not that I could find without ripping the place apart.
Nikolai would have, but… I can’t.
I’m not soft, I just don’t think she’s getting paid for information. Just like I don’t think Jess’s that kind of criminal to keep hidden evidence. If she’s a criminal.
“I prefer the lady to get her thrills.”
“I prefer not to be manhandled,” she shoots back.
“You’d like a woman? Damn did I read the situation wrong.”
That earns another low growl, and she steps a little closer.
Jess Carabella likes control. Maybe the way Nikolai does. But I dismiss the thought immediately. Nikolai needs it, thrives on it. Control helps him drive the family business, it helps him avoid as many mistakes as possible. It’s so deeply rooted in him I doubt he’ll leave his place at the head of the family.
For Rose, yes. For Rose he’d do anything. But Rose has plans, and she’s growing into her own kind of mafia queen.
Jess is chaos. She’s driven by other forces. Family? That feels right. But I’m betting that for her control feels good because it’s a power, a weapon, and I’m hoping she doesn’t see it’s a weapon that can be used against her.
I know she stormed into Bunny Munroe and was ordered out, thanks to my spy.
“A woman would be preferable to you.” Her eyes are all fuck me and fuck you in all the ways. She wants me and she wants to push every one of my buttons.
And, very possibly, see me bleed.
“You say those words, but your eyes choose me. And I bet that sweet little clit chooses me, too.”
She lunges at me with that knife ring. I grab her hand and pull her in tight like we’re dancing.
Fuck, she fits perfectly, her body sweet and soft, those fucking tits a taunt against me.
“A woman, asswipe, who has a bigger dick than yours.”
“Are we talking strap-on or a—”
She shoves and I go down, tumbling her with me, keeping that knife out of the way. “Fuck boy.”
“That all you got?”
We’re both breathing hard, and it’s got nothing to do with the fall and everything to do with the close proximity.
“I knocked you down,” she says. “You want more?”
I curl my hand in the short strands of her bottle red hair and pull her in close, our lips a whisper from each other. She’s on me and I’m hard. “I let you do it.”
“Liar.”
“Am I?” Holding that hand out of the way I flip us so I’m on top, and I rub my erection against her cunt. “And do you?”
She doesn’t answer and the tension shifts, grows tight. I lower my head, taking my time, letting her know my intent.
Our lips touch and for a moment hers are stiff, shaking, like she’s fighting off the inevitable.
I fucking love the fight with her. In her. Between us. All of it.
Her lips part and she raises up as I sink down into the kiss. It’s hot, wild, a promise of things to come, heat and sex and ecstasy.
Jessie turns, breaking the kiss.
“Get off me,” she whispers. “I’m not a substitute.”
I frown. “What are you on about?” Gently, I turn her face to me.
Her eyes glitter. “I won’t be any kind of substitute for your fantasies. Not any of those boring girls you fuck, and not Rose.”
I stare at her and take her in. She’s being serious, but I don’t even know where the fuck this just came from. I’m meant to be getting info from her, not making out with her, not thinking of fucking her. Which to be fair, is something I’ve been thinking about since I started talking to her at the bar the night I got jumped.
“Rose? Rose?” I ask. “Rose is… You think I want Rose?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Me?” I roll off her and get to my feet and then I hold out my hand.
She ignores it and gets up, rubbing her side, the knife hidden once more.
I push a hand through my hair.
“Are you an idiot? I mean…Rose? I don’t want her, I’m not fucking Nikolai. Rose is my buddy, that’s it. I’ve never wanted her. She’s pretty, she’s quality, she’s exactly what he wants. But I don’t want her.”
“I’m not quality? You like to play in the dirt?”
Her words hit me in all the wrong ways, and some of the right. I stalk across her apartment.
“Are you jealous?”
“No. Why would I be? I don’t want either of them.”
“I didn’t ask if you wanted them, Jessie.”
“You think I want you?”
“Yeah, I think you do.” I stop, taking her in. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is I walked out of my prison.”
“You weren’t a prisoner.”
Well, not exactly. Thing is, I need to watch her… I don’t know what’s going on, but I need to get her talking.
I push the sex part from my head for a moment.
Jess walked into Bunny’s after leaving the mansion. And she walked out again. One reason I like Bunny’s is no one gets into your business. They don’t talk. So why, when my spy asked the bartender what was up with the hot chick, he was told she no longer worked there.
That’s a lot from Bunny’s to a stranger.
Are they hanging her out to dry?
“Of course I was a prisoner. You’re here, you broke in to drag me back, didn’t you?”
I frown. “The door wasn’t locked. I locked it behind me. And before you say a thing, if one of our people came to check, they wouldn’t have left it open.”
“You would say that.”
“Just like I’m going to point out your things, including your keys, were at Bunny’s. Until Tony got them back. So anyone could have used them,” I say.
She snaps straight and pushes past me, not into the bedroom, but the bathroom, and she goes into the cupboard beneath the sink, reaching up under there on her knees.
Of all the things I expect her to pull out—whip, handcuffs, gun—I don’t expect a plastic-wrapped bag.
With a flick of annoyance at me standing, watching, she hugs it to her. “If I asked you to go away, would you?”
“Would you?”
She sighs heavily, the air redolent with fries and my stomach growls. That earns another hard look from Jess.
“I’m hungry.”
“You’re rich, go eat rich person food.”
“Maybe,” I say, leaning against the wall as she checks the seal on the bag, “I like peasant food. And peasants.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re not appealing, at all.”
“You basically humped me earlier today when my fingers were rubbing that sweet cunt toward orgasm.”
“Desperation.”
“Me, too.”
A genuine smile breaks a moment on her face.
“If someone was in here,” she says, getting up, “someone other than you, then I need to know who.”
“I’ll put a sign up outside. That’ll get them.”
Jess pushes past me. The place is a postage stamp and it takes her no time to reach the bedroom. “Fuck.”
“Found the photo?” I go to her, hands raised. “Before you accuse, I didn’t do it. Found it like that. Who was in the frame?”
She’s turning a cheap silver frame with the photo of a woman and two kids in it over in her hands. Someone took the time to scratch out the woman’s face.
“No idea,” she says. “It was in the frame in the thrift store when I got it for a dollar. It’s… It’s nothing.”
Nothing is something.
“Even though it’s nothing, you should come with me.”
“I don’t want to go back to being a prisoner.”
Fuck, if we’d trashed the place to get her to come back—something Nikolai wouldn’t do but I might think of—it wouldn’t be small. The reason Nikolai let her go is simple. He wanted to see where she went. I figured if I could convince her to come back, we could watch her, let her think she could go when she wanted.
So I push it.
“If we wanted you as a prisoner, do you think you’d have walked? I talked Nikolai into letting you go now, before you fully recovered, if you wanted.”
Jess presses her lips together. “And why would you do that? Why come in here?”
“Because I sent someone into Bunny’s to see if you’d been seen. I might want to see you, you know.”
“Flattery gets you squat, Rush.” But her eyes drop to the cheap frame. She looks around; drawers are open, the bed wrecked.
“Either you’re a mess or someone went through here.”
She’s silent a long time. “For helping you.”
“Tell you what, we’ll get out of here, I’ll put you up, a hotel room or one of our apartments. Payback for helping me.”
This feels way too easy, like she wants to get back into the mansion but needs to pretend to fight it.
Whatever’s going on needs a softer touch to get to the truth. I’m that, Rose is that. Nikolai? Not even remotely.
And Rose…
Jess doesn’t want to fuck Rose.
She wants to fuck me.
I can use it. Show Nikolai I’m not the fuck up.
“You can put me up?” she asks.
“Yep.”
There’s a whole beat or two in that silence between us, a whole few seconds where I think she’s going to say no.
But she nods.
“Okay. Just give me ten.”
M y tongue’s having problems staying in my mouth.
The bar resides downstairs of one of the smaller luxury apartment complexes we own, located in the trendy, expensive part of Queenstown. One I’m well known for bringing my hot dates to.
Jess is armored up. Her black dress is low cut, long sleeved and ends about an inch above mid-thigh. Her make up’s thick, the cat eyes enough to rival even Dante, and every pierced hole in her ears is covered in silver, from the tip down to the lobe.
She has on leather and silver cuffs and bracelets, and a few more rings. Her lips are blood red, and her pixie is punked out.
Her feet are in motorcycle boots and a leather jacket with Lady M is slung on the back of her seat as she leans on the bar. And…
Her thick thigh highs might be socks and I’m wondering if she has on panties.
The look she gives me is the kind of lethal that makes my cock ache.
Armor, pure and simple.
I fucking love it.
Never thought someone like her would rev the motors in me like she does. I’ve appreciated punk chicks, biker chicks, hardball downright killer chicks. But I’ve never wanted one the way I want Jess.
I want to peel off her armor and lick the sweetness beneath. Dine on her.
And I’m ashamed to admit I peeked in the sealed bag when she got ready. Photos, trinkets. Birth certificates for her and her brother. Social security cards. And a burner phone with a bunch of SIMs.
The bag holds the treasures of someone who has nothing, and I just sealed it up and put it back. I’m not letting her know I looked.
Because, yeah, I’m ashamed. Those things have nothing to do with me. They’re beyond private.
“How much longer?” she asks.
“For what?”
The flashing look she gives burns. “Your people to go through my stuff I handed over.”
“Jessie, I watched you pack, unless you’re a master spy with secrets sewn into your underwear, I don’t think they’re going to find much.” I cheers my drink against her empty one. “They’re making sure it’s safe for you, that’s all.”
“And you? Looking in the bag?”
I go still.
“They weren’t in the same order, I know.” Her gaze hits severely. “So are they now doing a deep dive on the birth certificates? The bottle-cap painting? The two superhero plastic rings?”
“No.” I take a sip. “No one’s doing that.”
We look at each other and I brazen it out.
“Then why so long?”
“They’re making sure the place I’m taking you to is safe, like I said.”
“So you took me here?” she asks. “To a bar where I don’t fit in?”
“I like this bar.”
“You would.”
“You fit in.”
She totally doesn’t. She’s exotic in here, she pulls the eye. She’s real.
“What’s your plan?” she asks. “Other than show me off to your people?”
“That sounds more like a death wish than a plan.” I shift a little closer to her, breathing her in. “You don’t strike me as the type to tolerate being made the star of a one-woman parade.”
She moves so her tits brush against me, and I put a hand on her waist. “I’m not your type, apart from the fact that I’m a woman.”
Really, she’s right and wrong. Sure, she’s female and I fucking love females, the way they taste and smell and feel and the things they can do to my cock.
But not all females. The reputation she’s painting for me isn’t me. I’m no saint, but I’m also not a one man fucking machine.
As for her not being my type…
She just might be.
In some ways.
She’s fucking smart and a survivor—that’s in the things she does—from her walking out of the compound to stealing the bike to dressing like we’ve got an evening planned in some punk palace of sin instead of me moving her somewhere safe.
Girl has an agenda, one I can’t see. Yet. But I feel it, sneaky and full of dark undercurrents, and the outfit is to both pull me in and push me away. That’s fucking fire to me.
Jessie’s everything all at once, and I can’t shake the feeling she came with me a little too easily. That Jess is someone who never takes breaks in her stride. never lets those poison-dipped feathers get ruffled.
After all, she stabbed a guy for me.
Staged fight or not, I don’t think getting stabbed was part of it.
Nikolai’s way more suspicious than me.
I’m not saying she’s pure, I’m saying she’s got reasons.
And she’d probably stab me if she wanted to. At least, she’d attempt to.
“You’re female,” I say, “and you’ve got more traps and mines than a war. I usually prefer peace. But as for type, I don’t know, we might fit. What do you say?”
Her fingers tangle in the cashmere of my sweater as the pop music of the minute bounces from the speakers and most of the good-looking crowd nod along. I pick up my drink. I sip the agave.
“That you’re a maniac.”
I need to cool my jets, so I go back to that damn silver frame. Maybe here she’ll talk a little more. A crowd feels…safe.
“Who was in the photo, Jess?”
“I told you—”
“Who,” I say, putting my drink down and easing her in closer to me, my fingers grazing her lower back, the small swell of her ass, “was it meant to be?”
“Jack, me and our mom.” She looks up. “We didn’t know her, but the story we tell is that’s our happy family. We both have one. And if someone’s gonna do something, it’ll be to that. The other stuff? I keep it hidden. We don’t have anything exposed to the world except the photo in a frame. And Jack—my brother—came up with some signals with the photo to let the other know things, like the tilt or if it’s upside down or face down, or…whatever.
“That was then and this is…this is different. We’re not in the system and Jack’s off with a motorcycle club. But someone hurt the one thing they thought might be important. The only thing that looks of importance.”
“Convoluted.”
She shrugs. “Not if you have nothing and gangs and thugs run rife through the world you inhabit. I told you that they were asking about Rhodes and Wilder, and then you take me and—”
“Who?” I pull her in close, like lovers. “You have to know?”
“I told you before I got stabbed. Rumors.”
“What kind of rumors?”
“Vague ones, or I’d have told you. I don’t want to be on the bad side of Nikolai Wilder.”
My pocket buzzes, and I slide it out and look. “Your place is ready. C’mon, princess of the night.”
With that, I take her hand, hauling her through the crowd and out into the street. I unlock the door and take her into the stairwell, and then I push a button and the elevator dings and opens.
When it dings at the fourth floor, we get out and I usher her into the apartment.
Jess stares. “Exactly how rich are you?”
“Very,” I say with a shrug as she puts her jacket down. She goes to her bag, checks it, and then does a whirlwind tour.
There are two bedrooms, the huge living room, a balcony, the open kitchen and two bathrooms. There’s even a laundry. I’ve used this place for hook ups that can’t wait, but I don’t tell her that. I’m looking at my phone when she comes back up to me.
“Should I trust you, Rush?”
“Of course,” I say. “Look at me. I’m totally trustworthy.”
“Are you?” She suddenly pushes me into the wall and leans on my chest. “Because back at your gigantic mansion you felt me up, you got my jeans half off and almost gave me an orgasm and then…you took it away.” Her eyes narrow. “Not exactly trustworthy, is it?”
“I was being” —untrustworthy— “a gentleman.”
“A gentleman would finish what he started. Unless you’re all rumor and no substance.”
Before I can argue she puts a tie around my throat. Silk. One of Nikolai’s old ones from when he’d stay in the city. She ties it badly and then winds the ends around her hand and tugs it tight.
“Hey!” I push fingers between the silk and my throat to stop her choking me, and I stumble as she steps back. “Let me go.”
Jess tilts her head to one side. “No.”
Then with her free hand she pulls her skirt up.
I stumble hard, falling to my knees.
Oh fuck. Jess is wearing black lace underwear. Crotchless lace underwear.
“You had those on the entire time?”
They’re cheap, tacky and quite possibly the most exquisite panties I’ve ever seen.
I think they’re the panties of my dreams.
Her pussy’s way prettier than I thought. Waxed, and on display. Glistening with arousal. Tight. Pink. Her mons is tattooed like so much of her, pretty tiny butterflies. And her little clit is right fucking there, basically begging me to suck it.
Jess leans against the wall and spreads her legs, then she dips a finger lightly into her cunt.
She tugs the tie and I hurry closer on my knees.
I could get out of this in seconds. I could have her trussed up and be fucking her hard. But there’s something fucking hot about this, that she wants me enough to force me to my knees in front of the only altar I’ll ever worship at. Call me the Pope of Pussy.
Fuck. Me.
She wipes her finger slowly over my lips. Then pushes that digit in.
Double fuck me.
She tastes so sweet, a touch of salt. I need more, and it takes all I am not to move.
“I think I like you here on your knees, Rush. And I think you need to come closer and eat me out.”
Her words are fucking aphrodisiacs, hanging in the air, shining bright, and I move forward on my knees, mouth watering as her sweet cunt calls me. I nudge her thighs further apart, settling so her legs are pushing into my shoulders, and my prize is right there.
I lick her, along the edges of the panties, the dichotomy of the rough lace and the warm silk of her skin is heaven. Christ, she tastes even better when drinking at the source and I lap her, tracing all the lines and creases of her outer and inner lips, slowly making my way on every upward sweep, to her clit.
Her legs are shaking as a moan breaks free. She tugs me closer and I’ve dropped my hand. I don’t care if she chokes me. All I care about is her heat, that sweet nectar, the way she responds to my tongue, lips, teeth.
Finally, I close in on the prize.
Her clit is perfect. I suck, running my tongue over it, letting my teeth graze lightly, and I feel the thrumming beats of a tiny orgasm. I suck harder, pushing her, and this time, I use my hands, gliding up her thighs until I hit pay dirt, her ass and her cunt. I push a finger into both and she shrieks as her legs shake and the spasms of a big orgasm hit her.
But I’m not nearly done. I use my strength and push her into the wall, and though she fights, I hold her there. The captor turned captive.
Now, I start to thrust in her pussy, that tight, wet hot canal, and up her ass that’s even tighter.
Her clit and pussy pulse and she almost falls, but I have her, pinned. Mine. I bite a little harder, up the suction and I keep hitting her deep.
She’s speaking but it’s nonsense. Her hands are in my hair, at first trying to drag me away and then pushing me into her.
Then, she cries out as a huge orgasm crashes into her and her reaction almost topples me to the floor. I slow, pulling my fingers from her as I lick around her sensitive clit, then down to lap up all her juices.
When I ease her down, she crumples.
“Oh my God,” she whispers. “You are dangerous.”
I pull her in and kiss her hard. “No. That’s you.”
I take off the tie and wrap it around her wrists, holding them above her head as I lie on top of her. “I could fuck you now.”
With those words I push in against her. I’m aching. I need her mouth, her cunt. Her ass. I need that release.
But all I do is look at her, tear marks are black tracks down her face from where she must have cried when she came. I’ve never in my life seen anyone or anything as beautiful as her.
“I won’t.”
I roll off her and release her hands, getting to my feet. Her face is flush, but her expression remains blank, like she’s forcing her thoughts to stay put.
“I’m guessing you want me to suck your cock?” she asks.
“Absolutely. But not now. Not here.”
“I think you should go.”
“The picture. I keep coming back to that damn picture,” I say as I take a breath. “You can stay, or I can take you somewhere else. But if someone did that, then someone wants to hurt you.”
I see the crack in her stone fa?ade, the slightest drop of her lips in a frown and crease of her brow.
Oh fuck, I’ve hit on it. The right approach.
“You helped me so someone is now after you,” I say, a little too eagerly. “We owe you, Jessie.”
“No—”
“Yes.”
“You think I’m in danger?” she asks, voice shaking.
I shrug. “Don’t you?”
“I can look after myself.”
“But you don’t have to. Come and stay at the mansion, it’s safer than here. You’ll be able to leave when you want, and I can keep you safe.”
“I don’t know,” she says.
She wants to be safe, I can feel it. And if she has connections or information, her trust is important.
“Come back with me, Jessie.”
And I hold out my hand.