Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6) (12 page)

Now she relaxed, melting into my arms. Her little tits were plastered to my obliques, and her syrupy drawl became more languid, more drawn out. Her eyes were half-lidded, as though a tranquilizer had suddenly kicked in. “Through the scientists in Mexico City, he was introduced to these cartel guys because he wanted drugs. He wanted to sell drugs, but mostly Russ wanted to
take
drugs. He took so much he couldn’t account for it, and that’s when he told them to take me.”

“Did
you
ever sell any drugs?”

Her eyes popped open, but with an effort. “Good gracious, Ignatius, no! I’ve never snorted a single line of anything! Doesn’t agree with me. Russ told them I knew all about making meth, which was bullshit, but I learned. I’m a quick learner.”

I believed her. I speared my fingers through her satiny hair, scratching her behind the ears like a cat. “Now I want to believe you didn’t have anything to do with selling stem cell research to Mexicans.”

There was that slight pause, the shift of the eyes away from my face. “I had something to do with
creating
the research. That was my project.” Now she was able to look at me again. “But Russ’ deal, that was his and his alone. He told me what he was doing and I guess I could’ve done more to stop him. But I was in love…”

I cradled her skull in my palm. I believed her. I’d done some moronic things in the name of love, myself. It was love that had gotten me exiled from New Mexico. Idiotic, blind, foolish, irrational love. I kissed Pippa.

I parted my lips over hers and sucked. Instantly she flung her arms around my neck. She was so short she needed to thread her fingers together and practically swing from me like a little monkey. Lust surged through my groin with how artlessly adorable she was from head to toe.

I kissed her as if it would erase all my past mistakes in love. Lola’s existence would be wiped off the face of the planet if I just replaced her with Pippa. Sliding my hands around her ass, I easily lifted her, precariously setting her on the Ikea desk. She wobbled, grabbing the edge as though she didn’t trust the flimsy desk either. I was lapping at the bottom of her tongue, feeling virile, potent, filled to the brim with testosterone. Her fragile womanliness made me whole. I slipped four fingertips inside her damp panties, swiping them against her swollen clit.

She gasped in my mouth. She grabbed a little handful of my hair to pull me away from her. Her eyes were round with surprise, as though no one had ever diddled her button before. But all she said was, “Is your hair really red?”

I swiped my fingertips across her clit faster, faster. Her eyes slid shut again but I still answered her. I leaned over and spoke against her exposed throat. “Yes. I tried dying it brown at first, but it became a hassle.” I took a big biting suck from her velvety flesh. “Carrying around hair color when you’re on a job isn’t practical.”

She tried to laugh, but she was too busy concentrating on coming. I could tell by the way her eyeballs moved back and forth under her eyelids, like a person during REM sleep. I swished my fingers like I was tinkling little bells, like a grand pianist building up to a massive, gorgeous crescendo.

I leaned over her, detached, avidly watching this fascinating buildup. Her chest flushed as a tidal wave of hormones swept over her. Her mouth started making shapes as if she was uttering indistinct curses. Her cunt was so wet I felt juice drip down my fingers.

I didn’t want to stop to grab the Ben Wa balls from my pocket.

PIPPA

I
felt like Rapunzel finally let out of her boring, poisonous tower.

I was letting my hair down, I was rolling in the mud with the pigs! It was a gloriously freeing feeling, wrapping my thighs around Fox’s muscular ones, parting my legs, allowing a man to pleasure me for the first time in…well, years. Russ had never bothered making me come. I wasn’t sure he even knew where a clitoris was.

Fox nailed it right on the head, his slippery fingers playing a smooth glissando against my hypersensitive core. I wasn’t even embarrassed that I was obviously, plainly slippery enough that he didn’t need any lube. And just the idea that he was interested in me enough to make me come, that helped lift me to the heights of delight.

I’ll be honest—one of the first things I did when arriving in Pure and Easy was find the sex toy store. Orgasms are important to me for mental and physical health. I need to keep those Kegels strong, you know! But just knowing that my thighs were open for this lusty, red-blooded bastard, well, that was enough to send me over the edge.

Every muscle in my body clenched and a weird, disembodied “Agh!” bounced between the four walls of my living room. Then my brain shut down as wave after wave of delicious rapture flowed over me.

He didn’t stop. He knew just the right rhythm and pressure to apply to keep me in that blissful plateau. He even growled some sexy encouraging words.

“That’s it, my girl. Come for me. See what I made you do. Oh God, you’re lovely. You’re like a beautiful flower blossoming. Come. Come. Come. Keep coming.”

Fox Isherwood held my very well-being in his hand, and then he did something that made me gasp loudly. He inserted something round and cold into my pussy. He shoved them up there with two fingers, still rubbing my clitoris with his thumb. I was so shocked I raised my torso on my elbows. I had to frantically brush a couple of books onto the floor like someone in a nighttime TV drama.

I rolled my hips around like they were on ball bearings. In a way, they were. I wanted to feel the two balls inside me roll together. I was still coming, Fox tickling my clit with a feathery touch now. “What’s that?”

He grinned. “Ben Wa balls.”

I grinned too. “What do they do?”

“Keep you excited all day.”

“But there are no nerve endings inside of the vaginal canal.” My practical scientific nature came out, even though I was leaning there with this man’s enormous erection bulging his jeans just inches from my pussy.

“Try it,” he advised, and stood up straight.

I grinned crookedly. Orgasmic shocks still shot through my pelvis, but without his fingers to stimulate me, all I could do was clasp and unclasp the balls with my muscles.

His eyes were riveted to my cunt. “I can see you working them,” he said with wonder, then suddenly dropped to his knees.

“
No! Stop! No! I’m not kidding! No!”
I couldn’t fucking
take
any more!

Fox was lapping away at my clit like a shepherd slaking his thirst with a giant milk bucket. What was he doing? He knew I was over-sensitive just after an orgasm and—

“Ah.” He smacked his lips with appreciation, then stood again. His long, fat penis pulsated inside his jeans, and he absentmindedly rubbed his pectoral underneath his loose tank top. Then it was like a bubble popped over his head. He snapped back to reality. “Oh! I knew there was a reason I came here. Everyone is going on this Winnemucca run day after tomorrow. Would you like to ride two up on my Panhead with me? It’s about a twelve hour ride.”

What the fuck?
Was this a date? I knew it was strictly sex between us, but I at least wanted to make sure that he was going to stick around awhile. Not leave me in the lurch, at least as far as sex went.

I pulled my skirt down and sat primly on the edge of the desk. “Winnemucca? Isn’t that in Nevada?”

He went to the window again and peeked through the curtains. “Yeah. Have you been to a motorcycle rally before?”

“Can’t say as I have. Chemists don’t usually participate in wild things like that.”

Fox looked at me and grinned. “From the sounds of things, you
do
. Were you with the Coast Guard?”

“No, I was a contractor on a very long contract. The fucker who screwed me over was a Lieutenant Commander. Do you plan on sticking around Pure and Easy for a while?”

He nodded. “I get it. You don’t want to ride the pussy pad of some Johnny-come-lately. I’ll be around. I just got a new assignment, so I’ll be here.”

I nodded. “I have a new idea for a cannabusiness. I didn’t dare run it by my handler, the guy who just left.”

Fox perked up. “Oh? That was your WITSEC handler?” This seemed to make him extremely happy. “What’s your idea?”

“A bud and breakfast. There’s an abandoned hotel up Mormon Mountain, you might have seen it when going up to Leaves of Grass. It’s been empty since the ’06 real estate crash. Cannabis friendly lodging is a huge industry now.”

“Also illegal in the eyes of the feds.”

“Yeah, but when’s the last time you heard them
doing
anything about it?”

“Uh, yesterday? I’m just saying watch what you’re doing, Pippa. I don’t want you jeopardizing your cover here. I’ve got mine. You’ve got yours. We each have a stake in not blowing each other’s cover.”

“Yeah, but I know nothing about your real story.” I stood, wiggling my hips to rotate the balls inside me. The effect was very mild. More like you just wanted to keep squeezing your Kegels to prevent the balls from rolling out. But I could see where becoming aware of them at all moments would enhance your arousal.

He pointed at the ground. “This
is
my real story. I abandoned all that when I left New Mexico. I still wire money to my brother from an offshore account, but I want even him to have plausible deniability, so there’s no way for him to find me. I’m sorry I couldn’t find your sister.”

“No, I understand. I can’t expect you to go clear around New Mexico to get a message to her. Tobias is on it. He might be able to send a message electronically so no one is in danger.”

He came closer. “Now, I don’t want you to run off doing anything stupid.”

I changed the subject. “Oh, that’s Maddie calling me.”

Fox read a text of his own while I answered my call.

“Pippa!” Maddie’s voice was full of urgency, and she wasted no time on niceties. “Some guy came into the tux rental store looking for you. Emily thought it was funny, you know? I mean, you barely know anyone in Pure and Easy since running from that horrible ex-husband of yours in San Francisco. She thought maybe he was your ex.”

“What did he look like?”

“Well, for one thing, he was black. For another, he was as huge as a football player. And his jaw seemed to be falling apart, like Jaws in
James Bond
.”

I knew for certain I knew
no one
like that, so my first thought went to the Jones cartel. My heart thudded once, twice, then proceeded to rapidly zoom. Was I having a panic attack? “That’s definitely not my ex. Maybe someone he sent.” That fit in with the bullshit story I’d been telling everyone about wanting to start a new life away from an abusive husband. “What did Emily tell him?”

“Well, she was skeptical, so she said you quit and she didn’t know where you went. Then he fucking went behind the counter and grabbed her by the throat. You know, like he was going to strangle her.”

“
What?
Oh God, Maddie, I’m
so
sorry! It’s obviously some goon my ex-husband Russ sent. Is Emily all right? How’d she get rid of him?” Fox was listening avidly to me now, too. Had his text been about the same thing?

“She finally screamed that she was going to call the owner of her store, and the guy vanished. She got his license number off his Corvette so Tobias is running it, but we doubt he’ll come up with anything.”

“Probably stolen plates. Where is Emily now?”

“We’re at my house. I went down and got her. She’s a nervous wreck as you can imagine.”

“Okay, I’ll be right over. Poor Emily. I’m so fucking sorry.”

When I hung up, Fox said, “Let me guess. Some giant African American bruiser went by the tux rental place.”

I was confused. “How’d you know?”

“A guy with a terrible dental plan?”

“Yes, his was riddled with holes.”

He nodded. “That’s from doing too much—or any, really—Krokodil. It eats away bone and muscle. They call it ‘cannibal heroin.’”

“But who the fuck
is
he? He was looking for
me
.”

“He’s apparently an independent contractor name of Phil Din.” He gestured with his phone. “I was wondering too because I saw him watching us shoot archery the other day.”

“Right. Just watching us in the open, completely obvious.”

“Santiago Slayer knows him. Says he’s a real nasty customer, a vile son of a bitch, not pleasant like we are.”

“It must be the cartel coming to kill me before I can testify.” My brain felt like a giant eraser had been rubbed on it as I mindlessly walked to my small fridge and grabbed a beer. Going back, I took another one to hand Fox, but he declined. “Do you know the Jones cartel? Ortelio Jones? He’s the head of it. You must have run across them in your hitman business.”

“I’ve heard of them, yes. Listen, I want you to stay with Maddie and Ford. I’ve got a job to do out near Show Low, so I’ve got to take Wolf with me. But first I’m going to follow you up to Maddie’s. You should be safe while you’re at work since you’ve got a guard on the door at the dispensary, but take no chances. You’re coming to Nevada with me, right?”

“Oh hell
yes
, especially now. Fox, if some fellow hitman is coming to get me, I should tell my handler.”