CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jess
H is motorbike does purr. It’s gorgeous and it’s no hobby bike. I can tell by the smoothness of the grips that would fit his hands, gloved or ungloved. By how they’re worn, probably gloved.
The black and chrome beast’s a panther on wheels, and it hugs the road like its cold butter. It’s so responsive that I’m half turned on by the bike, as well as him as he sits behind me.
There’s a place on the outskirts of Queenstown, a lookout, I guess, but one that isn’t really known about, because all the times I’ve been there, I haven’t seen anyone else. Maybe because it takes a while to reach it and teens are impatient creatures.
I don’t know, I don’t care, but I take us there.
For many reasons.
If by chance Brutus got away for any amount of time, he’d have hidden something here.
It’s a pretty night.
Me. And Rush. Alone.
Actually, I don’t know if it’s the smartest or stupidest idea I’ve had.
But when I reach the clearing, I park, push down the kickstand, pull off my helmet, and go to get off.
His helmet hits the grass as his arm slides around my waist. “Where are you going, Jessie?”
“Let go,” I say, trying to scoot free.
His other hand comes up to smooth over my thigh and it feels good.
Everything about him always feels good. I lean back, knowing I should be getting myself free of his touch. Instead, I wiggle back a little and he’s hard.
Rush pulls me in firmer against him. The heat is furnace hot and rising against my ass and back and my pussy tingles.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m being the clingy girl, Jessie.”
I bite down on a laugh. “You’re the girl?”
“I’m not scared of labels, Jessie. I’ll do what it takes to get what I want.” His breath is warm against my ear. “You don’t cling, but I think you want to.”
“You don’t know a thing.”
“I do, I know lots of things,” he says, “Like you’re used to ruling your little corner of the world, taking control over what you can so you don’t get swallowed by things. You’re scared shitless of losing yourself if you lose control. But baby bunny, you’ll never get lost if you’re with me, I won’t let you. I’ll be here, holding you. Like a girl if that’s what you want.”
I close my eyes as his words slide down into my blood. “Not true.”
“Your voice says differently.”
He melts me down into something I don’t recognize.
“You’re hearing things.” Still I don’t move.
“There you go, reaching for control. So I’ll give you that illusion of control, by clinging to you.”
“Like a girl.”
Rush laughs and the rumble moves through me, making me warmer.
“Isn’t that what you want?” He nuzzles me. “What gets you hot? Having me at your mercy?”
It does. It should. But he’s only offering me an illusion. And I like all the games he plays, even though I shouldn’t.
I want him to be cruel, to take me hard. To use me, make me beg. To fight.
That humiliation gets me off.
A mix of real and play. A way to get out unscathed.
Like he promised.
But Rush plays dirty, he peels me open and I hate it. He leaves me naked, vulnerable, bleeding.
“Should I cut off your balls?” I ask.
He bites my ear, then sucks on the lobe, earrings and all. “You’d love that. Actually, I’m shocked you haven’t tried to put me in a pretty taffeta party dress.”
“Taffeta? Who are you?”
“Do I look like I know about fucking girly materials.”
The word yes plays through me, because he’d know how to buy beautiful things for a woman, sensuous material—not taffeta—or something that pleases him like the floral number he put me in.
I try to picture him in lipstick and his mama’s clothes, but can’t. I just don’t think he’s that. However…
No, he’d never let me.
“So you just want my balls?”
“In a jar.”
“Glad they’re of use to you.”
“I’m not trying to emasculate you.” I’ll pull free. Soon.
“Didn’t say you were, just…I make you out of control, and being dominant is your way of taking the control.”
“No,” I whisper, hating he’s hitting a truth I didn’t know about. “I am a Domme, a top.”
He starts moving his hand up and kissing the side of my throat, scrambling my thoughts, turning my emotions to mush.
Rush strokes my pussy through the leggings I’m wearing, and I immediately know they’re the wrong things to have worn. But then again, nothing’s right with him. I could wear a chastity belt, and it would be on the floor in seconds with him around.
But there’s something about the thin, fitted material as he uses it to stroke my clit that just makes it so wrong and feel so good.
The fires build, rise, threaten to explode when he stops and whispers, “No, you’re not. You’re a switch, and we don’t fit any profile you’ve got in that pretty head.”
“What are you?”
“Rush fucking Rhodes.”
And he drops his hands. I get off the bike, my legs shaking, and my eyes go to the big tree.
I know immediately Jack hasn’t been here. The earth at the bottom hasn’t been disturbed and there’s no black ribbon hanging from the branch.
So why do I want to go and check, rip back the earth and find the lockbox?
“Something wrong?” he asks, because this guy always sees too much.
“Go play with your hobby bike, fuck boy.”
“See? You’re fucking scared of softness. You want this.” He pushes me.
I glare, the needs inside really waking up. “Don’t. Push.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“You’ll find out.”
He laughs again and erotic anger bubbles. “Is something wrong?”
“You, fuck boy.” I say those words again, hoping to rile him.
He grips my hair and pulls me back. I stumble and fall, a thrill rushing through me as the hard yank on my hair keeps me upright.
“What was that, whore?” His eyes glitter, and there’s something so compelling about the carnal monster looking at me, as well as the man with the curiosity shining bright.
“Fuck. Boy.”
The glitter jumps into shining blackness and he opens the storage box on the back and pulls out some bungee cords. He pulls me around so I’m facing him and then he smiles. It’s not a smile of warmth or friendliness or even fuck boy seduction. It’s not even Rush seduction that I’m used to.
It throbs in me, that smile, and excitement runs wild.
“Whore.”
His gaze rakes over me as he takes hold of my chin and urges me up, where he drops a kiss on my lips.
“Except you’re not,” he says.
“Stop twisting things.”
“Cunt? Bitch? Would you like one of those?”
I glare, heat pulsating in my veins. “Do you have the balls for it?”
“Baby, you know I’ve got the balls.”
“Then do it.”
He leans in. “Part of the fun and one of the rules, little switch, is I’m in control and I’ll do what I want when I want. And right now, I’m thinking.”
He pushes me and spins me back so I half land on the bike, and he’s pulled my jacket off I realize. Fine. If we’re gonna fuck, I don’t need it on.
But before I can right myself, he grabs my hands, uses the cords and ties them, the grips locking on one another.
He then lets me go and I push up, trying to get my hands free, as the lights from the city spread far below and the headlights give some reprieve from the night. But it’s still dark and he’s in the shadows.
“Why here?” he asks.
“I like the spot.”
There’s a flash of white teeth. “It took us almost half an hour to get here, Jessie. On your knees.”
“No.”
He still doesn’t move, but the air does. It shifts from night and cool to warm and thick and tense. I drag in a breath.
Then I sink to my knees.
I’m not obeying. It’s not the urge to bend to his whim and will beating at me like wings that makes me do it.
No.
It’s curiosity.
He doesn’t help as I go down, landing hard, and the jolt of pain is like a drug that hits.
The hiss of his zip fills the air, and he pulls out his thick cock. He’s still hard and he slowly strokes it. “Why here?”
“I like the spot.”
He sighs, straightens and jerks his cock in front of my face, in the light spilling from the headlights, I can see how he massages a small spot, just under the head of his dick. Is that sensitive? Or is it one of those places that early on is too much and stops that heat that leads to orgasm from taking over.
My mouth salivates at the thought of trying it out. With my fingers. Or my tongue as I suck on the tip before—
“Jessie?”
What do I tell him? The urge for confession beats in me, even though I can’t, even though I’m in the wrong place in all the ways, and truth will only get me dead. Or worse. Him.
Not that I care.
But whatever crimes the Wilders have committed isn’t against me or my brother. Or even the Ten64s.
Rush…
I swallow. “I used to come here with my brother before…”
“Before what?”
I’m jealous of that hand working him. “Before I landed him in trouble.”
“You did?”
It’s a lie, but it’ll do. The actual schematics don’t matter, and I try to ignore how my mouth waters.
“Yes,” I say.
He pushes his cock into my mouth and I’m ashamed that I gobble it down, licking and sucking as I go, trying that spot. He shudders, his cock pulsating, his hand gripping my hair hard.
Sensitive then.
I want to suck him off, have him make me swallow every drop of his jizz. I want—
Rush pulls free and goes back to working his now wet cock.
“I’m an old hand with trouble,” he mutters thickly. “Tell me about it.”
Christ, why can’t I look away from his beautiful dick? “Not your fight.”
“It could be if you let it.”
“There’s no fight,” I whisper.
“Liar. The truth helps you, pretty Jess.”
He shoves his cock back into my mouth, stretching me and pushing down the back of my throat. Rush groans and my pussy throbs, even as my head grows light. He hammers in, small, short bursts that don’t let me breathe, that make me want to come.
Then he pulls out and I’m drooling, It’s dripping down my face and I can’t clean it. When I try to raise my hands to do so he just gives me a dead-eyed stare and I drop my hands.
I gulp in huge lungfuls of air.
“What trouble?”
My head spins. I can’t… “What?”
“You said you got him in trouble, Jess. What trouble?”
“I told you.”
He drags me up and pulls my T-shirt over my head to wrap it about my tied hands, and my heart beats hard with need. He then flicks open my bra and pulls that down, too.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he says, coming in and biting and pulling on my nipples, the sharp stings of pain so good, so full of pleasure my knees tremble. “Pity you’re such a liar.”
“I’m not.”
He hooks his thumbs in my leggings and pulls them down, taking my underwear with them. “I’m going to get you the nastiest lingerie imaginable, and the prettiest, too. I’m a man of many tastes, all of them good, but diverse. Maybe I’ll have depraved sex with you, fuck you hard while making you eat out a girl. I’ll pick her—”
“Like hell you will. Touch that girl and I’ll kill you.”
“Okay, you can pick her. I’ll fuck you both.” He kisses me hard, tongue pushing into my mouth to fight with mine and I kiss him back harder, wanting to hurt him over a hypothetical, but too caught in the deliciousness of his mouth, too lost in the pleasure to do so.
“Ass.”
“I’ll do that in pretty pale peach panties, treat you like a whore while you look like a princess. And when I have you in the latex crotchless panties? Treat you like the delicate creature you are inside.”
“You’re sick in the head.”
“Yeah, but you want both, don’t you? And you haven’t even thought about dominating me once.”
“You’re pathetic.”
“I’ll fuck you into submission, seduce you. Now, talk to me. Why are you sneaking about the mansion? What do you want?”
“To find out about you.”
He goes down in front of me, pulling the lips of my pussy apart and then he tongues me, and I groan low. It’s so good, he’s just lapping at me, not trying to make me come, not even trying to seduce me.
He doesn’t have to.
His tongue’s working the devil’s magic, anyway.
Rush pushes two fingers in me, curling them to rub my G-spot and I shudder, knees almost giving way. He lifts his mouth, looks at me. “Who for?”
“M-me.”
But he stops altogether and rises, going to the storage box and pulling out a package. He opens it, pulling the plastic off and my eyes widen.
“You…”
It’s a hammer. A small hammer, sleek, covered in silicon except for the head and claw, it’s one of those small pieces to add to an emergency toolbox…or a killer’s dream kit essentials. Or a pervert’s.
He holds it up. It’s maybe as long as his cock. I try to speak again.
“You…”
“What about me?” he asks as he turns me and pushes me stomach-first over the saddle of the motorbike.
He runs the hammer down my bare back.
“Tell me again.”
“Th-That I wanted to know about you?” I’m having trouble keeping my thoughts straight, all the lies, because everything in me beats with anticipation. My pussy throbs with what he might do.
“No, the trouble your brother got in.” What did I say to him? Oh, fuck, he’s playing with my pussy and my asshole. I try and drag my thoughts back. Did I say Jack got into trouble or I got him in trouble?
“Tell me.”
He starts finger fucking me, and I almost lose even those thoughts. I gasp as he manages to hit all the right places, making me tremble on the brink.
“H-He got into trouble with a gang, but he wants to be there. But because of that, I hear things. And that’s how I know about—”
I stop as he pulls his fingers free and runs the silicone over my ass, then pushes my feet apart, the leggings at my ankles pulling tight.
“About what?” he asks, starting working to work the hammer into me, handle first.
I moan. “What are you doing?”
“Fucking you with a makeshift dildo.”
Even though I know, I ask. “The hammer?”
“It’s new. Hasn’t ever been taken out of the package.” Then he sticks a finger in my ass and I almost explode. “Now finish your sentence, what trouble?”
I can barely think, especially when he presses into my ass with his cock, relentless until he’s balls deep.
I talk a good game, but I’ve never been double penetrated. Not like this. And a cock in my pussy and one in my mouth doesn’t count.
This is different.
It’s sweet in the weirdest way, and it’s so lewd. He’s fucking me with his tool and an actual one. He starts to work himself and it in and out at a slow, deep pace that has me moaning, reeling from a full-on assault of feelings and sensations, and I come. Pleasure swells and bursts everywhere.
He rides it out, upping his pace as if nothing happened at all.
“What fucking trouble, Jessie?”
“Gangs. That’s how I know there are more gangs than there seem. That’s all.” I want to cry because I’m lying. I’m telling a partial truth. I don’t want to talk about any of this at all. “I just…keep out of it…”
“Sounds—oh fuck.” His free hand grips my hip as he pushes the small hammer in deeper. I was wrong earlier about its dimensions. It’s definitely not as long as his cock. It’s thinner, too, but when the claw hits my clit I come again. It’s so filthy and wrong. “Sounds—like—you…you know more.”
And then he stops talking, and starts taking my ass hard and fast.
It’s the dirt I want. The salacious.
“I bet you love that hammer, don’t you? I wish I had a fat vibrating fucking dildo for your cunt. I’d jam it up there and turn it on high and we’d both come hard. Oh, fuck, you’re even tighter like this. I could pound this sweet ass all the time and never get sick of it.”
I come again, and this time, it’s humungous. It sweeps every cell of my body, and I shake and spasm and he groans, coming, too.
His cock twitches in my ass, and the pulsations set off a second mini quake, the heat and gush of his cum something I’m going to savor.
This is what I want, what I crave. Dirt and filth and all the degrading things he can do to me.
It’s the only way I can ever give in to being submissive to him. And I’m—
“Jess…” Rush whispers my name as he eases the hammer out and drops it with a thump back where he got it. He kisses me, all along my damp nape, over my ears, my jaw. He kisses my bare back, and then he ruins it all. “That was amazing. You’re fucking amazing. So unbelievably perfect.”
He ruins it by making me start to fall apart.
He ruins it by making me soft and wanting to cry.
“Don’t,” I say.
“But Jess,” he whispers, “I don’t know why you lie.”
I go still as he pulls out, drops to his knees and kisses my pussy, licking me clean with his tongue, sucking my lips and making me shudder out a weak orgasm.
Then he pulls my pants up and eases my tits into the cups of my bra before fastening it. Finally, he puts the T-shirt back in place.
He doesn’t, however, untie my hands.
I turn and he’s moved to look at the city. “I believe what you say about your brother. And the gangs. But fuck, you were upset the other night. I’m not Nikolai. He’d have every drop of information out of you by now.
“You’re after something, for someone. My guess is the gang, the Ten64. Why? I don’t fucking know. If it’s to get your brother’s freedom, why the fuck haven’t you asked? We’d help. I’d help. Shit, we’ve got Lucy fucking Smith on our side. The Smith Family notoriously keep out of shit, stay invisible, but they’re on our side. Not to mention most of Queenstown. So why haven’t you asked?”
I swallow. “There’s nothing to ask.”
He turns, disappointment on his face. And he comes to me, taking mine, angling it to his.
He fucking kisses me, soft and sweet, and it’s heartbreaking, bu tthere’s no option but to kiss him back because these kisses cleanse and make me want to fly.
And I know he’s right. If I’d been smart, I’d have lied differently, told them, got my brother out and we could have ridden off, away from this fucking city.
Or…maybe I’d have gotten Jack dead because the Ten64 don’t care. If they can’t have something, they’ll burn it. This is new, striking out to take a piece of something already claimed, but I’ve seen their work. It’s how Jack got caught up, really. Me, too, by proxy. You align with them or die.
Or even worse, if I told the truth, I might get both Jack and Rush killed. Or just Rush.
I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t—I’m trapped in the worst way.
“So,” I ask, “doesn’t that show I’m not lying?”
“Maybe,” he says.
“Rush, I…”
“What?” He comes over to me and starts to undo my hands, rubbing where the straps bit, kissing my fingers, my wrists.
“I…I don’t want to like you, but I do.”
“I shouldn’t like you, but I do as well,” he says. “You can trust me.”
“I don’t think you should trust me.”
“Nah,” he says, taking me to look out at the city. He sits, taking me with him, and wraps around me. I don’t have the energy to fight. “You should always trust the tricky ones. It’s more interesting that way.”
“You don’t know me.” I rest my hands on his thighs as I sit between them, drinking in his heat. My body throbs with latent pleasure.
“Sure, I do. We’re a lot alike.”
“You grew up with luxury.”
“We don’t have parents.”
“I grew up in the system. Our mother was more interested in putting out and getting high than her kids, and we were taken. I think she died. I don’t know or care. She didn’t care about us. And I worry I didn’t do enough to help Jack.” I stop. That’s more than I’ve told anyone about my past. And something cracks open.
“I think she used sex to pay for drugs, or good times. I don’t…I don’t feel for her. She wanted it, we held her back. A neighbor called someone in when her boyfriend or pimp tried to beat up Jack, and we were taken into the system. Jack got the brunt of it all because he was younger, and a boy, but the moment I was sixteen, we took off and…that’s that.”
“To this day, Nikolai won’t tell me what Rose’s sperm donor—her words—did to my parents. Finnegan killed them, but it must have been bad, really bad. I have pictures but don’t really remember them, not like I do Nikolai. There are blurs of mom and dad, but the one in sharp focus who permeates my memories is Nikolai.”
I try to think of something to say, but words don’t come, so I just rub my face against his arm and squeeze his hand.
“I shot a guy who wanted to trade me to Finnegan when I was nine. Killed him. And… Nikolai made me face it, made me face everything. He’s the one I know and remember.”
His cousin has really been like a father to him. His love soaks his words. Even in the hard times, he had Nikolai. Like Jack had me. The difference is, I ended up letting him down, letting him get into trouble.
“Jack only had me.”
“You’re his Nikolai.”
“I’m really not. I’m not that good at protection.” I try to harden myself. “But you had a roof.”
“I was lucky I had Nikolai. And Jack’s lucky he has you.” Then he kisses my cheek. “Shit, I’m not even really called Rush. My real name’s Beckett, but to protect me Nikolai made it seem like I wasn’t Beckett. I was Rush, and now that’s who I am.”
This bad motherfucker, Nikolai, loves him.
I don’t point out the differences again, I just enjoy the warmth because he’s not about to let me go.
“How do you know Jack wasn’t here?”
I sigh. “We have a signal, and if it’s not there, then he didn’t come up here.”
“Was he meant to leave you something?”
“I like this spot, and no. But it’s always worth a look.”
“Or he’s in trouble?”
“Jack’s always in trouble.”
He tells me some funny stories about growing up with Nikolai, and I slide into them like they’re my skin, my stories, but really I’m just tired, depleted.
“That sex,” Rush says, “was for you.”
“And then you ruined it by turning it into something else.”
I can feel him smile against me. “I had to, I like the soft moments. And I don’t think there have been enough of them in your life.”
“Maybe I don’t want them.”
“You need them.”
I both love and hate him holding me and in that moment. I pull free, pushing up to my feet. I can’t get that comfortable with him. It’s dangerous.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
He gets up. “You’re on your own the next few days,” he says. “I got a lot of work to do.” Rush hands me my jacket and helmet, and it’s clear he’s taking us back. He puts on his helmet and waits for me to get on behind him.
“Think about trusting me with the truth,” he says.
“I’m telling the truth.”
He just turns the key in the ignition and revs the engine.
And I know he doesn’t believe me.
R ush really is busy, and I’m alone, the most pampered maybe prisoner in the world. But there’s something in the air as extra people come in to clean under Mia’s watchful eye, and I’m aware I’m being watched, so I don’t search.
After all, Nikolai Wilder’s not leaving incriminating evidence around.
But the Ten64 are sick of waiting.
It’s been long enough, bitch . I glare at the text on the second day after the ride.
And I lie. Info’s in a safe. It’s locked.
Do something.
The big man, I type, is dangerous. But I can crack the nephew, given time.
2 days or Jack’s no more .
I start to shake.
A weakness with them. And the Smiths. 2 days, bitch.
Shit. I don’t know what to do. I’m cold, deep down. The texts are shorter, meaner in an indefinable way and the Ten64 are stupid enough to start something if they think it’s the only way.
Wilder is armed, but is he able to take on the chaos of this gang? They don’t play by the rules, and they’re fine if things are lawless, as long as they reap power and money.
And the Smith—
I stop.
Lucy Smith likes Rush. She texts him. And he’s the kind of guy women everywhere go soft for. Maybe if I can sell her on the idea he’s in trouble, the Smith’s will step in and then… Then in the melee I can get my brother and Rush will—will be okay. Smith and Wilder against the Ten64 and it doesn’t look like I’m to blame?
I’m clutching at straws but they’re all I have…
I head up to Rush’s room and go through receipts that lie in a pile on his dresser.
“Yes…” The receipts from a few days ago, a bar in the business district, and the amount’s so small it’s got to mean something. Like a cover for a meeting.
I grab the keys in his room for his bike, and head down to the garage. There, I whistle at the red corvette and the Stingray.
I’m betting the guards will let me out, so I put on the helmet and gun the bike’s engine, heading down the drive to the gates, which open. Like fucking magic.
It’s probably more Trojan than gift horse, but I take it and head to that bar in the business district.
L ucy’s prettier, deadlier in person. She leans on her desk, looking up at me, having listened to what I had to say.
And she nods. “So let me get this straight, this gang took the bar, and are using it as some prime location to take control of the money flow?”
“I don’t know if that’s—”
“I do. Bunny Munroe sits close to ports and other outlets for smuggling. It’s meant to be neutral.” Her gaze flicks over me.
“It’s your territory. You can stop them.” I look at her. “I know they want to own Queenstown. They want real power. If they topple Rush—”
She snorts.
“You mean Nikolai. Babe, he’s not Mr. Cuddles. He’s a brutal man. Touch what’s his and everyone will die. I know because I’m the same. What’s mine is mine and no one fucks with that. They won’t get to us.”
“But they could get to Rush…”
“And?” But she’s interested, she’s sitting up, not moving and I swallow hard.
It’s all a bluff, it’s flimsy and it’s all I have.
“They’re chaos. They don’t play by rules. They need to be stopped, and if you and Wilder and your affiliates go on the attack—”
“To save Rush Rhodes?”
“Yes.”
“Nikolai Wilder’s family.”
I will my hands not to bunch. “They won’t stop there.”
“Sure,” Lucy says, “but what’s to stop me using you as bait?”
“Me.”
I turn.
Rush.