Reaper's Property (23 page)

I shook my head, closing my eyes and
turning away from him. His body felt good on mine, strong and safe like always.
I felt his penis harden and his hips flexed, almost involuntarily. The achingly
familiar chemistry between us came to life and my nipples tightened as my legs
shifted restlessly. He started kissing me near my ear, sucking and licking his
way down my neck toward my breast, sending tendrils of sensation racing through
me. When he sucked my nipple into his mouth I cried out, then reached down and
grabbed his hair, pulling him away.

“I can’t do this right now,” I whispered.
He sighed and rolled over next to me.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, his
voice firm. I looked over at him, panicked. In addition to everything else,
could he read my mind or something? How did he know what I’d found out? Was he
monitoring my phone?

“Serena is an old friend,” he said. “I’ve
known her for years. We’ve slept together, I won’t lie to you about that, but
nothing was happening between us tonight. We were just joking around.”

My eyes opened wider as I processed what
he’d said. Serena. The woman on the couch. I felt hysterical laughter bubbling
up in my throat and I swallowed it down painfully. This was a good thing, I
realized. I could use this as an excuse to be angry with him. He expected it,
he deserved it, and he wouldn’t have to know that my mind was way too full of
visions of him killing Afghani children to give a flying fuck about him and
Serena.

“You promised,” I said, letting the tears
I’d been holding back well up in my eyes. Might as well let them out while I
had an excuse. They started falling and I gulped. “You promised that you
wouldn’t be with those other women, the night we decided to give this a shot.
You lied to me.”

“I haven’t been with any other women,”
Horse said, his voice a mixture of frustration and something else I couldn’t
identify. “I was talking to an old friend. She’s got someone else in her life
and I’ve got you. I was just killing time, waiting until it got late enough for
me to leave and come back up to you.”

“Can we not talk about this right now?” I
asked, trying to roll away from him. He held me, taking my chin and making me
look at him.

“Fight with me all you want, babe,” he
said. “But you don’t turn away from me. Let’s talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk,” I whispered,
feeling panic rise again. He searched my face, mouth hardening.

“Is there something else?” he asked. “Have
you heard from your brother? Tell me. I’m here for you, Marie.”

Shit.

“Let me check my email,” I said quickly. I
pulled away from him and started to get up, but he stopped me, getting up and
digging my phone out of my jeans pocket himself.

“Here,” he said, handing it to me. I turned
it on and clicked on the email app—the one linked to my main account. There it
was, the fake message Jeff had promised.

“He wrote,” I said.

“Read it to me.”

“He says,
‘So sorry about all this, sis.
I got your message about coming in and talking to the Reapers. I’m not sure I
can do that. No offense, but I’m pretty sure they’re planning to kill me. Talk
to them, find out if they’re willing to make a deal and get back to me. I love
you. Jeff’
That’s all of it.”

“About what I expected,” Horse said slowly,
climbing back into bed. “I’m not surprised he doesn’t trust us. He’s scared and
he should be. Odds are good he’s not gonna survive this. But there’s a huge
difference between staying in bed with the Jacks or trying to make peace with
us. He needs to wrap his head around that.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked, afraid to
hear the answer.

Horse rolled onto his side and propped his
head up on one elbow looking down at me.

“You,” he said.

“Me?”

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Horse said,
reaching over and tracing the curve of my cheek. “The Jacks will. No question
of it. He should know that.”

“You said they were trying to take me back
to him,” I said softly. “He’s trying to save me.”

“The Jacks will get you if they can, but
their record with women isn’t too good. Three years ago Deke had a niece,
Gracie, get in trouble with them. His old lady’s sister’s kid. No connection to
the club, other than that. She decided to go to school down in California and
turns out she wasn’t far from a Jacks charter. Started dating a guy who seemed
nice enough, but he was one of their hangarounds. Apparently she mentioned her
uncle was in the Reapers at some point. She went to a party with him and they
raped her. All of them. One big fucking train, nearly killed her. They finished
her off by carving ‘DJ’ on her forehead. Dumped her by the side of the road.
Sent Deke a picture afterward taken with her own phone.”

I swallowed, feeling sick. Then I thought
about the woman on the second floor, and wondered if she’d finished with those
men yet. What if she wanted to stop halfway through? Would they let her?

“What about downstairs?” I asked, mouth
getting away from my brain. “What makes that any different?”

Horse cocked his head.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a woman downstairs, I saw her in a
room with a bunch of guys on the second floor. They were taking turns…”

“Fuck…” Horse muttered, dropping onto his
back and running his hands through his hair. “What else is gonna fall to shit
tonight? I’m sorry you saw that, babe. I didn’t think about that at all. Shit.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Are they
going to hurt her?”

“No!” he said, sitting up and looking down
at me. “Shit, no, I can’t believe you have to ask that. We’re not a bunch of
rapists, Marie. Shit. If she’s in there, she chose to be there. Fuck if I know
why, but women do it all the time. It’s a thing with some of the sweet butts,
like counting coup or something. I can’t exactly defend it as upstanding
behavior, but that’s nothing like what they did to Gracie. They tore her up so
bad, I can’t even explain it. She’ll never have kids. She tried to kill herself
twice before they got her into some kind of psychiatric facility. Damn.”

He looked so genuinely upset that I
believed him.

“How often does it happen?” I asked softly.
“What else goes on at your parties?”

“All kinds of shit happens at parties,”
Horse said, sighing heavily. “But that’s really none of your business. It’s
wilder tonight because there’s blood in the air, that’s all. Nobody’s getting
hurt and nobody’s here against their will. That’s all you need to know.”

“Have you done it?”

He shook his head, although whether he was
denying it or just making it clear I couldn’t expect an answer, I couldn’t
tell.

“Are we really gonna do this?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Dig up everything either of us has ever
done? I thought we were over that. I’m not a saint, babe, and I’ve never
pretended to be. But I promised you that I wouldn’t cheat on you and I haven’t.
I won’t. I trust that you won’t either. Isn’t that good enough?”

I nodded, wondering if killing children
fell under the category of “not being a saint”.

“You need to write back to Jeff,” he said
abruptly. “The faster we work through this the better.”

I nodded and grabbed my phone. It took
about three minutes to type out the message, which he read over before hitting
send. It was simple enough—I asked Jeff to call me and told him I was safe with
the Reapers but that the Jacks were dangerous. I was afraid of them.

I set the phone down on the little bedside
table. Horse reached over, pulling me to him, kissing me as his fingers reached
between my legs. I resisted at first, turning my head away, tensing. He just
rubbed up and down, slowly and steadily, as he leaned over and started on my breasts.
He licked at them, sucking my nipples in and then flicking his tongue until I
twisted against him, wanting more even though I despised myself for it.

Jeff claimed the man was a murderer. Yet
when Horse hooked two of his fingers deep inside me I crumbled, spreading my
legs and mewling for more, pumping my hips against his fingers. He slid farther
down the bed, taking my knees and pushing them up and over his shoulders as his
mouth covered my clit. Horse had the tongue of a devil, sliding around my little
nub, alternating between teasing it and fluttering, then moving to suck just
strong enough to almost hurt me but not quite. The entire time he worked me
over inside until I twisted and moaned against him, hovering on the edge of
climax.

That’s when he stuck his finger in my ass.

He’d been doing this more and more and
while I found it startling, I also enjoyed it. In fact, he’d been sticking in
two and even three fingers, stretching me and shaping me, usually while he
played my clit. Other times he’d put me on my hands and knees, thrusting into
me from behind with his cock in my pussy and his fingers in my ass. I knew he
wanted anal sex. Sometimes he rubbed the head of his cock against my opening,
pressing lightly. He’d always been incredibly careful, but I hadn’t let him
stick it in me. To be honest, our sex life was so great I didn’t think it
needed much in the way of improvement, and his size scared me a little.

But there was something different that
night. Looking back, I wonder if he sensed just how wrong things were, despite
my attempts to reassure him. He worked me over hard with his tongue, making me
come three times, leaving me limp and quivering, every muscle in my body loose
and pliant. I wasn’t thinking about Jeff or the party or anything other than
the sense of completion and sensual satisfaction he gave me. That’s when Horse
rolled me onto my stomach, then lifted my hips and pushed a pillow under them.
I stayed limp as his hands spread my cheeks, and he pressed lightly against my
opening with his finger. It slipped in easily.

“I want this,” he said softly, leaning over
and kissing me between the shoulder blades. “I need to own you. All of you.
Make you scream and realize that you belong to me and I belong to you and
nothing else matters. I can’t let you slip away from me, babe.”

A second finger joined the first and I
wiggled my hips a little, feeling the stretch and the pressure. He guided his
penis into my vagina, sliding in and out, the position perfect for reaching the
spongy spot on my inner front wall. His fingers mirrored his penis, rubbing me
and stretching me from behind. Then he pulled his fingers out and something
cool and wet dripped into my opening. His fingers rubbed the lube in deep,
warming it, and then he pulled his cock free from my body. He fumbled for a
minute and I heard the tear of a condom wrapper.

I stiffened as he placed the head against
my rear. I was afraid it would hurt, but he shushed me softly and rubbed the
small of my back until I relaxed again. Then he started pushing in very, very
slowly. It stretched and pinched, but not nearly as much as I’d imagined it
would. It was more pressure than anything else, a strange kind of fullness I’d
caught hints of from his fingers. Every few seconds he’d stop, giving me time
to grow used to the feeling of him deep inside me. Then he’d push a little
more.

He had to be about halfway in when his hand
reached down under the pillow to find my clit. After all he’d done to me, I was
incredibly sensitive and he seemed to know that, because he used a light touch
to rub it in circles, pushing deeper into my ass until I felt the muscles of
his stomach against my bottom. I flexed, trying to accustom myself to this new
intruder, and he groaned sharply. I felt him jerk inside me, and I squeezed again.

“Holy shit,” Horse muttered, starting to
rub my clit more quickly. “You’re gonna kill me, babe.”

I sighed and then moaned as he started
pulling out, which caused a whole new flood of feeling. That started the slow
glide of his cock in and out of my ass. It hurt at first, but it didn’t hurt
badly and that little bit of pain was all mixed up with the incredible
sensations building in my lower body. He was rock-hard inside me and every time
I squeezed him he took his revenge by dragging his rough finger across the
swollen tip of my clit.

The torture was mutual.

After an eternity of easing the way, he
started moving more quickly in me. Not fast, mind you. He still took care, but
this was definitely pumping action, not a slow glide. I found myself twisting
under him, seeking my own relief as his fingers played me expertly. My need
wound tighter and tighter and I thrust my butt back at him, ready and waiting
to go over the edge a final time. Sensing this, he pressed my clit down hard as
he seated himself deep within. That tipped me over the edge and shivers swept
through me, along with sweet, shuddering relief. He groaned hard and leaned
down, biting my shoulder as his cock surged deep inside, held captive by my
clenching ass. That’s when he blew, gasping and panting against my back.

He lay on top of me for several minutes,
cock slowly shrinking down, which was a very strange feeling. Then he pulled
out and went into the bathroom. I heard the sink running and the toilet flush
before he came out and climbed back into the bed. He pulled me into his arms
and I lay against him like a limp doll, spent and sore and completely
satisfied.

“That was incredible, Marie,” he whispered,
kissing me deeply. I hardly had the energy to kiss him back and he pulled away,
chuckling softly. “Sleep, babe.”

I tucked into him, body exhausted, thought
processes long shut down. Sleep was instant and dreamless.

A phone rang in the early morning darkness.
I grunted, pushing at Horse. It kept ringing and finally he moved, reaching
over and grabbing it. I whimpered because he’d pulled the covers off me,
letting in tendrils of hateful cold.

“Yeah?” he answered, voice rough and
gravelly. He listened for a moment, and then I felt the air in the room change.