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Up in Smoke, Page 23

T. M. Frazier


  even further as his pupils dilate. His lingering gaze rakes me over from my feet to my breasts and back down to the space between my thighs. He licks his full bottom lip.

  My stomach flips. My will to fight him off doesn’t waiver, but my body isn’t getting the message. My core clenches again. I turn back around to face the tile, digging my teeth into my lower lip until I taste my own blood.

  His chest presses against my back, and his hardness pulses between my legs, rubbing against my inner thighs. He squirts some shampoo in his hand, working it into my hair. He tilts my head back and rinses my hair, then slides his slick and soapy hand down my body.

  I’m breathing rapidly now. Short, quick breaths I can’t control. There’s a deep rumble in his throat. His hand travels lower and lower on my stomach until it’s between my legs, and he’s working his thumb over my swollen nub, sending sparks of need, pangs of pleasure, and a wave of self-hatred, surging within my battered body and bruised soul.

  “What…what are you doing?” I ask, seeing flashes of white hot lust behind my closed eyes.

  “More questions…” his voice a hearty amused rasp. His fingers circle my clit while he continues to rock his hard cock between my legs. The pressure building is so strong it borders on painful.

  Tears leak from my eyes. I’m so fucking mad at myself for being turned on. For Smoke being right. I’m so wet. He feels it. There’s no way he can’t feel it.

  He leans in close. I’m stone still except for the tremors gripping my body. He licks the tear off my cheek and groans. He dips the tip of his finger inside of me, and I tighten around the intrusion. It’s a foreign sensation. Strange. It feels both wrong and right. Pleasurable and painful. “Your tight little pussy is weeping too. I wonder if its tears taste the same.”

  I look over my shoulder as he withdraws his finger and sucks it into his mouth. He groans. “Fear or desire. They both taste real fuckin’ good to me.”

  He places his hand back between my legs. When I try to squeeze my thighs together to keep him out, he parts them with his knee on a grunt and begins circling my clit again. This time harder. Faster.

  I’m staying as still as I can, but when I feel something begin to happen inside my body. The sparks he ignited within me all crashing together. I can’t hold back. My face scrunches as I try to fight the orgasm fighting its way out, but it’s no use. I can’t fight it. It’s too fucking strong. I’m so fucking close.

  I arch my back without thinking, pressing my ass against him, begging for more. For what I need to push me over the edge.

  Smoke hisses. “Oh, what I could do to this beautiful little pussy.”

  The pleasure builds and builds as he strokes me harder. Faster. I’m about to come all over his fingers when the feeling is lost.

  I spin around.

  Smoke is gone.

  I can’t see through the steam so I shut off the spray and wipe the water from my eyes only to see Smoke toweling off in front of the sink on the other side of the bathroom.

  The only proof I have of what just happened between us was real is his cock. Erect. Thick. Huge. The purplish swollen head bobs against his abs, jutting out over the top of the towel he wraps around his waist.

  “What…what just happened?” I stammer, leaning back against the wall for support.

  Smoke steps forward, and when I go to jerk back, he reaches out and pinches my nipple painfully hard. I yelp and leap back, slipping on the tile, falling on my ass, taking the shower curtain down with me.

  Smoke rips the curtain off my head and glares down at me with a triumphant grin on his evil beautiful face. “What just happened was called punishment and you got off easy. Next time, I’ll split that tight pussy in two with my fucking cock.”

  He goes to leave but stops. “You want pain?” he asks. “I’ll give it to you. You want pleasure? Now, that’s something you’re gonna have to earn.”

  He leaves, slamming the door behind him.

  I release a shaky exhale.

  I’d hoped the rest of my time with Smoke would be tolerable, but there’s no fucking way that’s going to happen. Not now. Not with my skin crawling with need. I’m losing my mind. About where I am. About what this is all about. About this beautiful horrible evil man.

  I feel like I’ve already been split in two.

  What Smoke did to me was far more than a punishment.

  It was pure fucking torture.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Trouble ain’tnothing new for me. I’ve been in trouble before. With the law. With women. With the men I’ve done jobs for. Name the trouble, and I guaran-fuckin’-tee I’ve been mixed up in it a time or twenty.

  Frankie Helburn is a whole new level of trouble.

  One my gut, my brain, and my cock can’t quite fuckin’ agree on.

  Her fucking brazenness. Her audacity. The way she challenges me. Stands up to me like I couldn’t crush her with a single blow.

  Then, there’s the way she looks at me like she wants to claw my fucking eyes out.

  God fucking damn it.

  I’m hard just thinking about it.

  She was so wet I could feel it leaking from her even though we were in the shower. How fucking sweet she tasted.

  How she was hiding that tiny waist, full tits, and epic ass underneath that baggy school girl uniform is a mystery. Now that I’ve seen her curves in all their glory, I can’t ever unsee them.

  Even battered and bruised the bitch was beautiful and I don’t think I’ve ever thought about a bitch as being beautiful before. Hot? Sure. Sexy? Sure. Stacked? Sure. Down to fuck? Sure.

  Beautiful?

  Just Frankie.

  I left Frankie alone in the bedroom un-cuffed so she can get dressed. Ain’t no way she’s escaping again. I’ve taken care of that pet door and bolted it shut.

  I’m on the porch waiting for the babysitter Preppy texted and told me would be here shortly. I expect he sent his kid brother who’s been working with him for a while now, or one of Bear’s prospects from the Lawless MC.

  That’s not who shows up.

  A familiar high-pitched sound starts in the distance, and my swollen cock and Frankie are temporarily forgotten. The sound is coming from a small motor. One I’ve worked on before. A wheeze more than a roar. It grows louder and louder, and I know who’s coming long before the baby blue Vespa pulls up the dirt path and parks with a dramatic skid in the middle of the grass.

  “Fuck,” I swear, shrugging on my cut.

  I light a smoke and walk out to greet someone I never thought I’d see again. Someone I’ve made a mission out of avoiding. My one-time partner and friend.

  Rage.

  Rage sets down her kick stand and removes her pink helmet revealing her trademark long blond hair pulled into a tight ponytail. She smooths it down with the palm of her hands.

  Rage looks like a typical teenage girl. That’s how she gets away with being a stone-cold killer for hire. Most men can’t see past her tight body and pretty face.

  Until it’s too fucking late.

  Rage spots me and doesn’t smile, doesn’t react. She grabs her duffle bag from the storage compartment below the seat and drapes it over her shoulders. She walks up to me with her hands on the strap. Her shirt is tight and pink and says BITCH PLEASE across her tits.

  “Nice shirt, princess,” I say.

  She shrugs. “Well, they didn’t have one that said STEP BACK OR DIE so I went with this one.”

  “Good call.” I stub out my cigarette.

  “Surprised to see me?” Rage asks.

  “Understatement,” I reply. “Why you here?”

  “Where’s my ward?” Rage asks, peeking around my shoulder and ignoring my question.

  “Changing,” I say. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “Now or NEVER?” she asks with a smile I know to be fake because I’ve seen her practice it in the mirror a million times.

  I shrug. “Can’t say.”

  The guilt I’ve felt sin
ce the night we parted ways has never left and standing in front of her now the whole shit-show of that night hits me in the fucking gut, and I want to puke and shoot someone all at the same time. “Didn’t think Preppy would send you of all people. Thought I’d get a Lawless prospect.”

  Rage narrows her eyes at me. “First off, you of all people know that no one SENDS me anywhere. Second, he didn’t send me. He was sending his brother, but I volunteered instead. And third…” she reaches into her duffle bag and pulls out what appears to be a small version of a biker’s cut and shrugs it on. “I am one of the Lawless.”

  Rage spins around to show off the cut and sure enough, the back has the Lawless MC logo. The front has a patch that would normally hold a title like Sergeant at Arms but hers reads Don’t Label Me.

  “Cute,” I say, amused as all hell. “Can’t say I’m surprised though. Only you can get a fucking MC to make you a member. What brought this on? Thought you didn’t like tying yourself to any one group.”

  Rage follows me up to the house. “You mean besides the threats of violence against them if they didn’t let me in?”

  “Yeah, besides that.”

  She stops on the porch and circles around to face me. “You.”

  “Me?” I take a drag of my smoke.

  She exhales and shakes her head. “Smoke, you were my mentor. My dahli-fucking-lama. You were my only connection to humanity before you inserted Nolan into my life because you knew I needed him and others around me. I didn’t understand it until him.” She lowers her voice. “You and I were a team, and then you left. I wanted another team. I needed to belong again.”

  “Thought you didn’t have feelings,” I say, the pain in my gut growing.

  “You of all people know that’s not true. It’s me who didn’t know it, but you showed me. And then you LEFT me.”

  She pokes her little index finger into my chest.

  I look away and stub out my smoke on the railing, lighting another one. “We don’t gotta do this right now.”

  “We do! You left me. I didn’t realize it then, but I realize it now. You were like my brother. You were family. Then, you left.”

  “What a fucking brother I was. I left because…” I lower my voice, unable to say the fucking words. “You know why I left.”

  “No, I don’t,” Rage says, shaking her head and setting her duffle bag down on the porch.

  “I raped you, Rage,” I say, my chest burning with anger toward myself. Bile rising in my throat. “While your man was forced to watch. You didn’t deserve that. Nolan didn’t deserve to watch that.”

  Rage’s small hands grab hold of my cut. She’s the only person in the world that can get away with this shit. Any other man would be missing that hand by now.

  “Look at me!” She yells, yanking on my cut. I look down into her blue eyes. “Smoke! There was NO RAPE! That shit-bag forced us to have sex at gunpoint. That’s not rape, and if it is, then, I raped you, too. ‘Cause this isn’t all on you. You can’t take all the blame.”

  “It’s different for you!” I shout, raising my voice above hers.

  “Why? Why is it different for me?” she challenges, releasing my cut and jutting out a hip. Her head cocked to the side.

  “Because you zoned out. I saw that look in your eyes you used to get when you would wash the world around you away and crawled inside your own head. You weren’t there. I…I got hard. I fucking came for Christ’s sake!”

  Rage rolls her eyes and shrugs. “Eh, different strokes for different folks. I once read about a guy who can only come with a gun to his head. Nobody’s screaming rape at the lady holding it. That’s biology, asshole. What else you got? ‘Cause that excuse is as weak as nonalcoholic beer. I AIN’T BUYING IT.”

  Rage smiles and this time it’s genuine.

  “What the fuck do you know about biology?” I ask, feeling the mood lighten around us. She doesn’t blame me. Don’t mean I can’t blame myself, but maybe I don’t have to fucking hate myself so much.

  Not about this anyway.

  “Besides being a germ expert, as you know, I am also a college graduate now.”

  “You went to college?” I look at her with disbelief. “In a year and a half?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “More like a half an hour. Just for enough time to threaten the dean into giving me a degree. It’s real pretty, too. I framed it. It’s hanging in my room at the MC. Come by. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

  I chuckle. “Same old Rage,” I say, then reconsider my words. “Yet not the same ole Rage.”

  Rage stills. “Don’t move, okay? I’m gonna try something,” she whispers, taking a step toward me.

  I shift my feet. Rage is unpredictable, but she’s still Rage, and I trust her even though I know I shouldn’t. “Okay, but what are…”

  “I said don’t move!”

  I’m stone still as her tiny arms wrap around my waist, and she leans her head against me. I’m so much bigger that her head only comes to the bottom of my ribs.

  “Thank you for helping me all those years ago,” she says. “Thank you for being my friend when I didn’t know what a friend was supposed to be. Thank you for setting me up with Nolan although you did it in the weirdest way possible. Thank you for knowing I needed him before I knew I needed him. Just, thank you, Smoke.”

  “I…” I sputter, not knowing what to say. I feel myself soften, and before I know it, I’m placing one of my hands over her tiny head. I kiss the top of her hair.

  “It’s all done. It’s over!” Rage announces, pulling away and clapping her hands together. “Now, let’s kill something and string its intestines up like Christmas lights.” The crazed look in her eyes returns, the one I’ve known and loved since the first time I saw her when she was sixteen years old.

  “Yep, same ole, Rage.” I chuckle. “You got all this feelings shit down pat, don’t ya?”

  Her shoulders drop. “Yeah, but it’s exhausting. There are so many layers of feelings, and sometimes, I just want to blow shit up and forget about it all, but…it’s worth it. Nolan’s worth it.” Rage points at me. “You’re worth it.”

  “Thanks for coming, princess,” I tell her. I mean it.

  “You’re very fucking welcome. This place isn’t nearly as gross as I thought it would be, so that’s a plus. Now, what the fuck do you have going on here, and please, please, please, can I do something involving knife play to whoever you have tied up back there?”

  I think about how much to tell Rage.

  “All of it. Tell me all of it,” she says knowingly. She skips into the house and props herself up on the kitchen counter. I shake my head and follow her inside.

  I grab a bottle of whiskey from the table and take a long pull. “You remember Morgan?”

  Rage nods. “Yeah, the brunette. Walked in on you banging her one day. I liked her. Great tits. No over the top moaning. Seemed clean.”

  Clean to Rage means a lot since she’s a germaphobe and OCD and a lot of other things I don’t know the specific terms for.