Iron & Bone (Lock & Key #3) (25 page)

“Feed me some more. I’m starving.”

“Jill? Tell me.”

“Please.” Her fingers flexed and curled into fists at her sides. “Not now. Not now.”

“Jillee?” I gently cupped a breast. “You can tell me anything, baby. Anything.”

Her head sank back against the table. “The jerk who took me years ago. I don’t even want to say his name.”

I closed my eyes.
Mole.
The fucker who’d kidnapped Jill and kept her tied up on a motel bed for two days. The fucker whose body I had destroyed and gotten rid of. If I had known then that I’d be feeling this mess of emotions that I was feeling for Jill right now, I would’ve taken more time and much more pleasure in dealing with his corpse.

“Boner—”

“Nobody will ever hurt you again. I promise you,” I breathed against her warm skin before planting gentle kisses over the white bumpy scars. “You hear me, Firefly? I want you to forget that fucker and every goddamn evil thing he did to you.”

“I don’t want to forget.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Her hand came to my beard, her fingers running through it. “The details have dulled over the years, and I don’t dwell on them like I used to. But I do remember that there is such a hell out there. It makes the good in my life so much sharper and in focus. Becca, Rae and Tania, Grace and her baby. And you. You’re so clear to me. And I want you all to stay that way.”

There it was again. That strength, that shining vitality that would blow me away each and every time she wielded it like a lightsaber in a dark galaxy.

A slight smile swept over her gorgeous lips. “Either feed me or fuck me until Rae comes home from the movies. She might get tired and come home early, and before she does, I want
you
to come inside me.”

I stared at her as the endless possibilities, the anticipation, were eating me up. I’d won the lottery and couldn’t decide how to spend my winnings.

“Help me up.”

I scooped her off the table and set her down on her feet. Her hair was mussed, her eyes dewy, lips red and swollen.

I can’t wait. No fucking way.

I turned her in my arms and leaned her forward. I grabbed one thigh and propped it up on the table, opening her up to me.

Fuck, what a sight.

Her cunt inviting me in, her full ass curving before me. My brain cells popped as I ran my fingers through her wet heat.

“Bone?” she whimpered.

“Need you now, Firefly. Right the fuck now.” I squeezed the soft flesh of her ass. “Like this.”

She only let out another whimper, her back and shoulders relaxing, her fingers curling around the edge of the table. “God, yes…”

I undid my jeans and shoved them down my hips. I grabbed her hair and pulled her head to the side, nipping and nuzzling her damp skin. Goose bumps spread over her shoulders and her arms. I held my cock steady against her slit, my heart pounding through my chest, and I slid inside her wetness.

She let out a low moan, her forehead sinking on the table. I dug my fingers into her hips, slowly pulling out and rocking back inside her even deeper. My cock throbbed in approval.

“I went and got tested. Got the all-clear to go bare.” My brain cells bended and waved like flags obeying the force of the wind. “Oh shit, Jill. Shit, I can feel you on me, babe. So good, so fucking good.” I thrust into her tightness, an epic explosion building inside me.

Her breathing grew quick and choppy, her palms gripping the table. Her ass had me in a trance as I plowed into her, over and over again, watching my cock thrust in and out of that pussy, watching that pussy sucking me in. My pulse fired like a thousand rockets going off, one by one.

I drilled deeper, and she pushed back against me, shuddering in my hands. I couldn’t hold back any longer.

Sweetest fucking torture ever.

Everything faded. Everything melted away, except for this—me moving inside her, her all over me, taking me in and moaning for more, the table shaking and rocking, her cries getting louder. I exploded, my cum bursting inside Jill. I held her gorgeous body on mine, her sweat a sheen of gold on her pale back.

I leaned forward and licked a trail up her salty spine, my hands finding her incredible tits. “Which way to your room?” I pinched a nipple.

“Wh-what?”

I was a man on a mission.

A Fuck Mission.

A Come Until You Can Come No More Mission.

“Your room.”

She let out a groan—or was it a laugh? “I don’t think I can walk.”

“Walking ain’t required.”

I pulled out of her and grinned as she sank down on the table with a moan, her arms bent at her sides. I yanked up my jeans and lifted her in my arms. Her eyes met mine. Her lips fell open. Innocence and satisfied woman all in one.

Yeah, I was on a Melt with Jill Mission.

“Last room on the right,” she said, her hand wrapping around my neck, as I carried her down the hallway. “Bone, when you licked me in the kitchen that time, I almost…” she whispered, out of breath. “Could you do that again?”

A Make Jill Beg for Mercy Mission.

“I’m gonna lick you all over, Firefly.”

I kicked her fucking door open.

“
WHAT DO YOU GOT FOR US, BUTLER
?” Jump ran a hand through his silvery-black beard. The Jump signal for,
Let’s hear your spiel. This had better be good.

All eyes in the meeting room turned to Butler.

Butler planted his hands on the great table. “The Calderas Group that Catch told us about is based in Denver. Salvadoran mob parading around as a Latin American import-export business—coffee, wines. They play it real highbrow, but they’re actually far from that.”

“What does that mean?” Jump’s eyes narrowed.

“They’re gangbangers from way back in the eighties.”

“No shit,” muttered Kicker.

“They got tired of being told what to do by the white-collared dons in town and of being pushed around by every new gang on the block, and there were many. In the mid-‘90s, they got their shit organized. They managed to control the low-level crap—robberies, assaults, murders—that had gotten them unwanted attention and their members in jail,” said Butler.

“They’ve risen above where they started, which was the gutter. Under the radar of their fancy big-money legit enterprise—the Calderas Group—they’ve managed to retain their ties with one major player from Mexico. Which means, they’re still heavy into crack, cocaine, weapons, like they used to be in their youth but doing it now wearing suits and ties and hanging out in better restaurants and clubs.”

After I’d left Denver, I hadn’t stepped foot there again, avoiding it at all costs. In my early years as a Jack, I’d told our then prez that there were warrants for my arrest, that I couldn’t chance it, which was partly true.

My fingers pressed into the smooth surface of the table. “Which gang from Denver in the eighties?”

Butler leaned back in his chair. “The Executioners.”

My eyes lifted to his.

“Did you know them?” he asked.

“I knew who they were, yeah,” I managed.

“They got control of choice routes out of the old country through New Mexico to Colorado. But since Colorado legalized marijuana, the Feds have been raiding pot businesses all over the state, so the Executioners or the Calderas Group has taken some hits over the years. They’re looking to shift their reach, and it looks like the Broken Blades snagged their attention in little ole Nebraska.”

I reached for a smoke and lit up. “The Blades have that old underground warehouse and meth factory somewhere in the boonies in their territory. Everyone’s had their eyes on it. Why not them?”

“Good point,” said Butler. “Plus, with the Blades making our life difficult in Colorado and down through Texas, if this Calderas Group works with the Blades, and they use that warehouse and factory as a new hub of operations, they’ll have us by the balls—as in, slicing our
cojones
clean off on our Southern routes.”

“Which will, of course, make them think they can take more and more and more as they go,” added Kicker.

I stopped listening. The weight of centuries old failures still stuck in my chest, still crushing. That burn sliced right through me again after all these years. A warning.

“You got a plan?” Kicker asked Butler.

Jump grimaced, making a smacking noise with his lips, his gaze bearing down on Butler. “Why don’t you go ask your friend Finger all about it? If we’re gonna move ahead on this new cooperation with them, no better time than the present. Get organized with the Flames, and keep watch on the Blades and that Calderas Group. ’Cause if those spics come up with some sort of formal agreement with the Blades, we’ve got to be ready.”

The fucking plague was in the next village, spreading its poison, and it was only a matter of time until it arrived at our gates.

MINDY GLARED AT ME
from her stool at the bar at Pete’s Tavern in town. Even though she was with a sexy blond guy in pressed jeans and a Western-style shirt, who slid a huge pink cocktail in front of her, her sour scrutiny remained on me.

Here we go.

It was nothing I hadn’t seen before, nothing I hadn’t dealt with before, but I hated it.

Boner handed me a tall glass of a berry colored beverage with a wedge of lime. “How’s that?” He sat in the chair next to me.

“Looks great. What is it?

“Cranberry and club soda with lime.”

“Oh, yum. Thank you.”

He grinned and brushed the side of my face with his lips as I sipped on my surprise drink.

Lenore and Tricky sat close together across from us at a table talking and laughing. They’d been seeing each other off and on for a while now. Older woman, younger man.

You rock, Lenore!

Grace and Lock hustled over and settled into the two remaining chairs.

“We didn’t miss Allen’s first set, did we?” asked Grace, hanging her handbag from her chair.

“No, but you cut it close,” replied Lenore, sipping on her beer. “What happened?”

Lock’s smug grin was our answer, and we all laughed.

Grace blushed. “Can I help it if I’m married to a demanding, bossy man?”

Lock let out a deep laugh. “I’m the demanding one?” Grace shoved at his chest.

It was great to be out on a couples’ evening to hear local musicians at the town watering hole. However, Mindy continuing to glare at me was not only deflating my buzz but also twisting the knot in my stomach that had formed with Catch’s phone call.