Page 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S aint…

I woke up sideways in an unfamiliar bed with a warm, shapely body tucked into my side and half draped over mine. Which was strange, given that as my hand glided down the back of the woman against me, it was to discover she had clothes on. I looked down my body, and yep, I was fully clothed too.

What the fuck? I thought.

She sucked in a sharp breath at the movement of my head and shot up, pressing a hand flat against my cut. Brilliant green eyes framed in dark bangs and longer tendrils at the sides met my own, and I almost felt my breath stolen from my lungs at how beautiful she looked, even sleep-mussed and fucked-up first thing in the morning.

I coughed and damned if my mouth didn’t taste like dog shit smelled. I sat up quickly, coughing some more, and tried to spare her a blast of my rancid morning breath right in her pretty face.

“You, okay?” she asked dubiously.

“Yeah,” I grated out, clearing my throat. “How the fuck did I end up here?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I was sound asleep when you cop knocked at my door at like three a.m., trying to talk me out of doing this.”

I turned, looked at her, and said, “Yeah, well, it’s stupid on your part.”

She grinned and wrinkled her nose in that cute, impish way of hers, a sparkle of mischief in her eyes. “Guess I’m more like my brother than y’all want to admit,” she said.

“You got a damn toothbrush?” I demanded.

“By the bathroom sink,” she said, and I got up and staggered that way.

I loaded the brush with paste, stuck it in my mouth, and heard her scoff incredulously behind me.

My hands on the counter to keep my big ass up, I twisted enough to stare blearily back at her, mumbling around the brush in my mouth, “Weren’t complaining when I had my mouth all up in yours last night. If it bothers you that much, I’ll buy you a new one.” Shit was coming back to me, just slow.

Her response was to roll her eyes and flop back down on the bed.

I turned back to the mirror and finished up with a good brushing to get the taste of hungover ass out of my mouth.

When I finished, I straightened up and turned back around to find she was right where I’d left her, her back against the bed, her green eyes staring without seeing the water-stained ceiling of this shithole motel. I felt my cock stir in my jeans and wondered, briefly, how far she would let me take it.

I let my eyes wander her body encased in its tight-fitting sleep set, her breasts heavy and all-natural under the straining tank, her legs slightly parted, and that thin strip of cotton of the crotch of her boy short panties, the only thing between me and what I so desired.

I took steps over the disgusting floor, my boots sticking, as I undid my belt and thought to myself, if this doesn’t work to deter her, nothing will.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her head coming up at the rattle and snick of the leather sliding through the buckle.

“Fucking you,” I answered succinctly. I gripped her panties at the hips, and she rose her ass up off the bed for me to shuck the garment out of my way, and, well, that hadn’t gone according to plan.

“Can’t rape the willing,” she argued with a wicked smile, and my cock just got all the harder for her sass.

I gripped her by the throat and slammed her back down onto the bed with one hand. She let out a throaty moan and writhed beneath me as I worked to find purchase with my cock in my other hand against her body. She was slick, hot, wet, and wanting – and shit , that really hadn’t been according to plan. This woman was my kind of freak.

I thrust into her. She let out a cry that I choked off by tightening my hold on her throat, just to the point it would start to hinder her blood flow and breathing, but definitely not to the point that it would choke her off or cause any damage.

I was just playing here. Granted, it was a dangerous game, but I was just playing, nonetheless.

“What you gonna do?” I demanded, thrusting up in her savagely until I bottomed out. She definitely writhed at that one, but it was a lot less wanting and a little more trying to take what I was dishing. “When they throw you down on a table, and they each take their fuckin’ turns with you?” I finished my thought and tried not to lose my hard-on at the mental image of the Brethren pulling a train on her. But it was precisely what could happen if she smarted off to the wrong guy at the wrong time, going in there as anybody’s meat.

“Mm, take it like a fuckin’ good girl,” she answered as I drove into her. Fucking son of a bitch – not the answer that I wanted, but precisely the answer I fuckin’ needed .

“Yeah, and when you got one of ‘em in that sweet cunt of yours, another at your back door, and one shoving into your mouth, and it ain’t nothing but hands and cocks using your holes until they bleed, what then?” I demanded.

“I’ll survive,” she answered breathily. “I’ll survive and come back to you.”

Something wrenched and twisted in my chest, or maybe it was my gut, at the look in her eyes as she looked up at me, inside her, legs parted, hand on her throat, and perfect… perfect iron will and trust mixing in those eyes of hers as she looked at me.

“I’m prepared to fuck one of them or all of them, if I have to Saint, but - mmm ,” she moaned and writhed on my dick. “I’ll pretend it’s you and that it’s this if that’s what you want to hear. I’ll take every inch of their small dicks if it gets me closer to fucking them all up for what they did to my brother. I’ll take every inch of yours like this a thousand times over, though – just because, Goddamn , you feel fucking good. ”

I took my hand off her throat and put it on the bed by her head, bending over her and kissing her just as fiercely as I vaguely remember having done the night before with a shit ton of liquid courage on board.

She wrapped her hands in my ponytail and kissed me back with a delectable edge of violence. Before long, she pulled my head back, tore her mouth from mine, and breathily demanded, “Harder! You gonna fuck me, or make love to me?”

I slapped her on her outer thigh. The smack was loud in the small space, made better by the peal of wild laughter that came from her, her wild giggles music to my ears. I couldn’t help myself. I smirked.

“Haven’t decided yet, little one,” I declared. “Just let me find my rhythm,” I said. I rotated my hips, giving it a bit of a back-and-forth on my next thrust up inside her, and she gasped and then moaned.

Most dudes failed to realize there was an art in loving a woman, even an art to fucking one properly. A nice guy will always finish last – hopefully after he’s satisfied his woman multiple times. I aimed to fuck Velina Young until she felt it with every step later on. I wanted her to remember this every time she went to do anything in the next day or two.

Mostly, I just wanted her coming back for more at this point, and I couldn’t help but think to myself, fuck if I’ve really lost the fuckin’ plot here.

This was Louie’s sister . Granted, we hadn’t known a damn thing about her, let alone that she’d even existed until she’d shown up at the club, but the more she talked, the more she walked the walk, the hotter I’d found her, and the more I thought about her, the more that she’d turned into a fucking obsession. Then my drunk fucking ass had shown up here and pounded on doors until I’d found her.

Now she was writhing under me, around me, her nails biting into my exposed ass cheek, pulling me deeper inside her, and I wondered who had ensnared who?

Who really had the fuckin’ power here? Because one night with her in my arms, without even so much as anything beyond a few kisses, and I was losing my motherfucking mind over her.

“Oh, God! Yes! Please! ” she begged, and I could tell she was getting close. I grunted, picking her up by her hips, my fingers curving under her ass, and I pulled her down onto me as much as I thrust forward, giving a wiggle back and forth every time I had myself buried to my root inside her, brushing over that spot with intention, and it paid off.

With a sharp, piercing wail, she came apart underneath me, her body at once going limp before seizing up as her tight pussy squeezed and pulled at my cock in silent begging for me to fill her demanding little cunt with my cum.

Shit, I didn’t know if she was on any type of birth control, and I wasn’t quite ready to be a daddy yet.

I pulled out, probably not even close to the nick of time, but it was better than filling her up with my baby gravy on the first fuck without that discussion.

Instead, I shoved her tank top up over those big bouncing tits of hers, letting them spill out from the bottom hem of her shirt, and shot gleaming jets of pearly cum onto her stomach and between them. She arched, taking every bit of it on her milky skin, and I felt a deep satisfaction at the sight.

“Good girl.” The words of praise fell unbidden from my lips, and I watched hers curve into an almost shy smile.

Hmm…

She turned her head, blushing furiously, and put the backs of her fingers against her lips to hide that smile from me. I didn’t like that.

“Drop your hand,” I ordered, and she did, but the smile disappeared, replaced with wide-eyed surprise.

I got out from between her legs and flopped down beside her, propping my head in my hands. She lay on her back, my spunk cooling on her body, and those green eyes of hers held wonder but also questioning. I traced patterns on her skin through the beautiful mess I’d made of her.

“I hope you’re on some kind of birth control,” I said a minute later.

“I am,” she said. “I hope you’re clean.” I snorted.

“Fuck you,” I said, laughing. “I am, but fuck you.”

“Fuck you, too!” she said, grinning, and we sort of collapsed into some giggles.

“That was nice,” she said a moment later, and the shyness was back in her tone.

I glanced up to her face, which was guarded, and nodded against my hand.

“Yeah, it was,” I agreed. I put my hand flat in the mess on her skin, slid it down to her ribs, and gave her a little shove.

“Go take a piss, get cleaned up. We’ve got shit to do today. Places to go, people to see.”

“Like where?” she asked. “Like who? ”

“Get cleaned up, and I’ll tell you,” I told her.

She rolled her eyes and got up, turning into the smaller room that just housed the toilet and a bathtub and shower combo common to these cheap motel setups.

“You can talk to me while I do this,” she said as I listened to her pee.

I tucked myself back into my pants and zipped and buttoned up, working my belt back into place.

“Just hurry it up. Find some sturdy clothes – jeans and boots preferably. You’re gonna need ‘em.”

“We going for a ride?” she asked.

“And into the swamp, later tonight,” I answered.

“The swamp? What for?”

“LaCroix wants you to see the Bayou Baroness,” which is what we called her – but she was much more than that.

Rumor had it, she was some kind of many-time adjacent descendant somehow related to the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans herself, Marie Laveau. I didn’t know if I put any stock into that bullshit. I didn’t even know if Laveau had any kids who survived the times to have any kids of their own – but that wasn’t what was said.

It was said she was descended from some brother’s kid, a nephew or niece or something of Laveau.

You know, I’d lived in New Orleans my whole life, saw, and heard a lot of weird shit in that time – but Voodoo? The actual closed practice religion? I and anyone with any goddamned sense in these parts avoided that shit like it was the plague. All but LaCroix, but no one ever accused him of having any sense.

He didn’t practice, but he believed in all that occult bullshit, and me? I had to admit, there was some veracity to it, but anytime I was around it, I crossed my damn self and took my ass on into confession shortly thereafter.

The Bayou Baroness creeped me the fuck out. Said she could commune with the dead – had some kind of a pact with the death deities – and not just the Baron Samedi, but other ones, too, from other faiths.

It didn’t make much sense to me, to be honest. Said she was some kind of a solo practitioner, but of what, I wasn’t certain. Whatever it was, though? It worked for her, and any time we’d had an encounter with her and received her blessing, shit had gone pretty okay. Anytime she warned us, we heeded that warning.

The one time the one who hadn’t? Well, let’s just say, she’d been right on that, too.

“I’m going out for a smoke,” I said sometime after the toilet flushed and the shower had started up.

“Those things will kill you,” she called out from under the shower spray, and I huffed a laugh.

“Not fast enough some days,” I muttered.

I went out the room’s door and stepped up to the railing. She was on the second floor of three or four. I fished out my smokes from my jacket pocket and lit one, sucking in a drag and holding it for a moment, blowing a smoke ring into the shadow of the building, the sun coming up behind it as it was.

It wasn’t early, but it wasn’t late, either. At least not by my reckoning.

She was going to do this, she needed to do it right. She wanted to be tarted up, that was on her, but I was definitely going to make sure that if she got onto one of those chuckleheads’ bikes, she was going to do it as safely as possible without going too far out of pocket.

I didn’t want to put her in full-on chaps and leather. She didn’t know enough about the life to walk into that den of vipers looking the part. She couldn’t talk the talk and would stick out like a sore thumb, looking the part without the smarts or wisdom to back it up. We’re talking a plethora of red flags that would just get her killed, probably after a whole lot of hurt.

To that end, I had a mind toward denim. A jacket at least, some sturdy jeans, and those boots of hers did just fine.

When she opened the door, and I turned, she looked like liquid fire, bold in her boots, jeans, and a rust-colored tank top, ribbed like the first one she’d shown up at the club in.

“So, what’s the plan?” she asked. She stepped up beside me, leaning against the railing and running a towel over her hair. I’d suspected right about the red dye over her brunette – the white motel-issue towel coming away pink where the water from her locks saturated it.

“Hit a couple thrift stores and find you a sturdy denim jacket.”

“Yeah?” she asked, eyebrows going up.

“Yeah, to start with,” I said, taking another drag.

“Sounds… fun,” she came back with, and I barked a laugh.

“Yeah, not my idea of a good time either,” I shot back, flicking my butt out over the parking lot down below.

“Oh, I wasn’t being sarcastic,” she told me. “I love thrifting.”

“Yeah?” I raised an eyebrow at that.

“I take pictures,” she said. “I thrift old fancy frames and refinish them for the photos.”

“No shit?” I asked.

“No shit,” she said.

“Fuckin’ A.” I jerked my head out over the lot and said, “Just waitin’ on you, princess.”

It was her turn to bark a laugh, and she followed it with a giggling, “Fuck you.”

I couldn’t help but smile.