Athena's Raid: Book Two Perdition MC (19 page)

The desert was unbelievable, and she was glad he’d ordered them each one, otherwise she’d have been hard pressed to share. By the time she’d finished hers and was in the process of sucking the last bit of the fudge like torte from her spoon, Raid was watching her with a heavy lidded look of lust. “What?” He licked his lips and looked up, swallowing loud enough that she could hear it across the table. “Just enjoying the show. You, suckin that spoon the way you-“ Tandy came back with a drink refill, thankfully interrupting the rest of Raid’s gravelly spoken sentence, “All done?” She took one last swipe of the chocolate off the plate with her finger before letting it go, and once Tandy was gone, Raid slid his plate towards her with a lascivious smile, spoon already full of the torte. “Suck it,”

She shook her head at him, but she wasn’t going to turn down the extra desert. Especially not this one, because it was bad ass. Seriously, the most delicious thing she’d ever had, chocolate wise, “Didn’t you bring me here to talk about something?” He cleared his throat and folded his hands on the table, but he kept getting distracted every time she slipped the spoon into her mouth. “Does this count as foreplay for you?” She finally asked, and a grin bust over his features, making him way sexier than any man really had a right to be. “Little bit, yeah.” Her brows bounced up, and she licked the final bit of chocolate from the spoon and set it down on the plate with a soft clink. “Good to know. Quit stalling.”

“Stalling?”

He tried to look innocent, but there was just no way that was ever going to fly. He couldn’t have pulled off innocent, even if he was two years old. He’d always be way to sexy, way to handsome, way to wicked to ever get there. “Raid, just tell me. Whatever it is, I’ll deal.” The arousal ebbed from his expression, and he sighed, pushing their drinks and empty plates out of the way, reached across the table and curled his hands over hers. Basically telling her to brace, without saying she’d need to. “There was a note. Took a picture of it before the cops pulled it in as evidence. It was a mess, probably because he used his left hand, thinking if he got asked for a handwriting sample, it wouldn’t match and they’d dismiss him as a suspect.”

She nodded, pretty sure there wouldn’t be a whole lot of evidence, and if there was any, Denny could just claim it had gotten there when he’d come over to investigate the bogus domestic call. “What did it say?” He looked like he was trying to decide whether or not he was going to tell her, but in the end he did, and it chilled her to the bone. “Your guardian angel, won’t always be watching over you.”

THIRTY

She’d been thrown off after dinner, but once they got back to the compound, she’d been ravenous for a taste of him. He figured if that got her mind off of soon to be Dickless Denny, who the hell was he to stop her? But despite wearing him out, despite being snuggled up alongside him, safe in his arms, she was still awake. Her fingers were still moving softly around and around, tracing the edges of the wax seal inked into his skin. “You don’t have to be scared, baby. After what he did at our place, we’ve got eyes on him at all times. He won’t get within ten miles of you without us knowing.” He could just make out her features in the light of the full moon that shone down through his window, the flash of her eyes when she tilted her head back to rest on his shoulder. “I’m not scared of Denny. Beat his ass with a baseball bat, remember?”

He chuffed a laugh, stroking his fingertips up and down her spine, across her shoulders, twisting at an awkward angle just to steal a kiss, picturing her tiny little self, going after a guy twice her size with a bat. Made his dick hard and his lips curl in a proud grin. “I do. So what’s wrong? Aside from the bed sucking,” He was a snob now, she’d turned him into a mattress snob. “It does suck. And I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

She sighed and sat up, pushing her hair over her shoulder while she drew her knees up and rested her chin on them. Then her cheek when she turned her head to look down at him, then shifted to put her chin in her hand, elbow on her knees. Like she was so keyed up that she couldn’t keep still, and didn’t know how to sit to get comfortable. “I didn’t think anything of it until a little while ago. He was drunk, the autopsy report said his blood alcohol level was .10, which honestly for him was nothing. He left my place, walked down the stairs straight, didn’t fumble his keys or weave or anything. When the phone rang a few hours later, I didn’t recognize the number, almost didn’t pick it up. Thinking it would be another gross mouth breathing session. But it wasn’t.”

She was talking about her uncle’s accident. About the night he died. Fuck. “The night I was driving back from Tahoe, got one of those untraceable, heavy mouth breathing calls? I knew it was him, Denny. He said that to me, first time he ever did anything except huff and puff into the phone.” He sat up, rubbing his hands up and down her arms, touching a kiss to her shoulder, wincing a little when she sniffled. “Said what, baby?”

“Your guardian angel, won’t always be watching over you.”

A chill scraped up his spine at her whisper, and he felt her skin prickle up, felt the splash of a tear on his arm and took her back down to wrap himself around her while they started to fall a little faster. “My uncle was gone three weeks later. Rosie too.” It wasn’t a stretch to imagine someone like Dickless committing a murder. Wasn’t a stretch to imagine that a guy who had two DUI’s on his record and pushing the edge of a third, wouldn’t get a thorough investigation done on his car accident, especially with a BAC over the legal limit. Wasn’t a stretch, because he hadn’t even looked that deep, but he would now. He’d pick that fuckin case apart with a microscope. “What’d you mean, that you’ve got eyes on him at all times?” He pressed a dozen kisses to her face and held her close, “Gotta house full of prospects doin nothing to earn their keep. Got a few in the apartment next to his to track his movements, tracking his car through the traffic cameras. Few other things I’d rather not mention, in case anyone asks.”

“The legit-ish, side of the business?”

“Mm hm.”

“Raid?”

“Hm?”

“I know you’re a bad ass guy who knows how to handle his shit, I know I’m being paranoid. But do me a favor, please?”

“Anything,”

“He killed my uncle, and my dog, and made it look like an accident. Please don’t underestimate him because he’s not special. He’s smart enough where it counts, and I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

Laying in the spill of moonlight, he stared at the wall, his cheek pillowed on her soft hair, feeling her tears sliding down his chest slowly. Rage was a hot burn, just below the surface of his skin, warring with the breath stealing sensation of being ass over fuckin ears in love. He drew a deep breath in, the smell of seven years gone, of PineSol, and the soul soothing scent of rosewood and geranium. Athena had foregone wearing any other scent, or washing with any other flavor of stuff she made. At the end of the day, after being saturated in the green, earthy, sometimes downright pungent scents of her shop, she would wash it all away and slather on her rosewood and geranium lotion, smiling at him in the mirror of her girly vanity while he watched. The vanity mirror Dickless Denny had shattered. “Trust me, Athena. I’m not going to do anything to risk this. We’ll get him, one way or another, but not in a way that’s going to cost me you.”

He tipped her head back so he could see the sparkle of her eyes in the moonlight. “I promise, I won’t underestimate him. I love you,” She sniffled, curling her hands on his chest, over the tattoo on his skin, trying to make herself smile, make him smile. “More than Cruncher loves me at breakfast time?” He brushed his lips over the tip of her nose, neither of them speaking louder than a murmur, “More than anything.”

“I love you too.”

“More than Cruncher loves me when I feed him people food?”

He could hear the dog’s tags tinkle, a loud snorf following his question, meaning that Cruncher had woken up either to the sound of his name, or the mention of the contraband people food. “I wondered why he races up to you like you’re his long lost boyfriend. It’s bribery.” He grinned at the growl in her tone, but after a quick tickle to her side, and a gorgeous squeal that accompanied her writhing and rubbing her tits all over him, she admitted with only a slight pout, “Yes, Raid. More than anything.”

THIRTY ONE

The prospects had done a really good job cleaning up the house. A really good job, but the smell of gasoline lingered in the bedroom, despite the mattress and the carpet having been replaced. The spot where their white leather lounge had been was glaringly empty, it wouldn’t be gone unless it had been destroyed, and the thought of that made her lips wobble. Even though it was replaceable, it made tears well to see the empty space. She sucked it up, trying to pin point the source of the gas smell, needing it gone. It was the drapes, and she got on finding someone to replace them, immediately. But the second Raid had stepped outside onto the porch to take a phone call, suddenly the cozy little house seemed like an Iron Maiden. Closing in on her and crushing her with spikes that injected an irrational feeling of fear deep into her psyche.

She loved the barn like place, loved the decore, loved the yard outside, but Denny had taken the safety, the feeling of home and sanctuary away from her and made her feel like he’d pissed all over the place and left a lingering stench of his presence, every nook and cranny a reminder that he’d walked right in and destroyed everything. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of him, per say, just the ability he had to walk in, totally unseen, unpunished and undetected, and walk right back out.

She did not, in any way shape or form blame Raid, or any of the other guys who’d repeatedly apologized to her for not taking better care to protect her. They were busy, she knew that, when she’d asked, Roar had very easily offered up an explanation on what they were working on. The entire club, was working on finding the actual person who’d murdered two of their own. Susan and Pike. She felt like that took some precedence over her issue, but that’s not how they saw it.

Despite the fact that it was her ex, and her problem, the entire club, Perdition, down to the newest prospect moping the floors as a way to get his foot in the door, took it as a personal insult. Like Denny had walked through the gates of the compound, and taken a shit on the front porch. Nasa, the biggest white guy she’d ever seen in her life, seven feet of pure, Viking throwback bad ass, had towered over her with his tattooed arms rippling and fire flashing in his icy blue eyes and assured her, ‘he was going to put his boot so far up Denny’s ass, every time the fucker swallowed he could taste shoe leather on his tongue.’

Despite the fury of that growl, and how big the guy was, she had fallen instantly in sisterly crush with him. She’d been unable to stop herself from giving the guy, who looked like no computer nerd she’d ever met, a hug. Her face had hit him just above his navel, and it had been like hugging a solid block of concrete that smelled faintly of pear jellybeans. She’d gone out to the closest store after that and brought him back a three pound bag of pear jellybeans and a case of Red Bull. The rest of the guys had gotten home made cookies the next day. “Babe? What’s with that face?”

She whirled around in shock, pressing her hand to her chest while she white knuckled the hold she still had on Cruncher’s leash. She blew out an unsteady breath and made to answer, but Raid’s jaw clenched, he swiped his finger over the screen of his phone and put it to his ear. “Top? You were right. Need a new place. Can you text me that list? Thanks.” He hung up, tucked his phone away and opened the front door for her to walk back out. “Raid, it’s okay, we don’t have to get a new place. I just-“

“Athena, get your sweet ass in the truck before I spank it.”

They spent the rest of the day driving around to different properties. Until he turned into the driveway of a place sitting on five acres, four of them taken up by fresh tilled soil. There were ten raised stone garden beds around a gorgeous pool, a giant oak tree with the remnants of an old swing on a thick branch that faced all that beautiful space. It was a barndominium with a luscious open floor plan, a gorgeous kitchen, twenty foot ceilings, a master bed and bath of her dreams, a dog trot pool house that could be converted into his and hers workspaces…not to mention an electric fence that surrounded the entire perimeter attached to a state of the art alarm system.

It was like a dream come true, situated halfway between the nursery and the compound, private, but not completely cut off from the world. It was perfect. She’d rolled her lips together to stop herself from demanding to have the place, to put the money she had left after the sale of her house and after the move, down to buy it. Whatever it cost. She should have controlled herself better, because when she turned around, Raid was signing some kind of document and the realtor had a huge grin on her face. “Raid-“ Her voice came out a hoarse croak, and she clung to his hand with both of hers while her heart pounded, “My finance guy will get in touch with you this afternoon. I want to be in here by the end of the week.”