Shelter From The Storm (The Bare Bones MC Book 6) Page 14

  So after losing her husband several times over and in more ways than one, she’d apparently taken up residence in the dead guy’s home?

  I couldn’t wrap my head around the entire thing. A bunch more google hits had Travis McShane defending various scumbags around town, hang gliding off some cliffs, going to fundraisers for societies against child abuse and for the arts, and even guest DJing on the local radio station. It seemed he was a regular member of society until the Kightlinger incident.

  And he’d given me his real name.

  My tired, half-drunk brain couldn’t put these pieces together. Too soon it was time to board the plane for Phoenix and I had to put the phone in airplane mode again. If Randy Blankenship had pinged my location, I wouldn’t be there for long.

  I kept sighing heavily as I looked out the window at the rising sun. The guy next to me must’ve thought I was in mourning or coming down off some drugs. I wasn’t really shocked that Fox had been married. He was too big of a catch not to be. A hunky DA who defended the indigent and looked suave as hell in a tux? Of course he was married. I was relieved, though, there was no mention of any children.

  And it was evident he’d loved Lola passionately to challenge this Kightlinger to a duel. Kightlinger was a fellow attorney in private practice downtown. I judged from satellite mapping his Taos home that he defended the rich. His website said he specialized in criminal, tax, and insurance law.

  Travis McShane could’ve just as easily been killed in the duel. It wasn’t like he stalked the guy or laid in wait and ambushed him. Picked him off with a sniper rifle from a distant bluff. Then I realized that I was defending Travis McShane in my head. He’d run, after all. Then again, who’d want to serve prison time for shooting some asshole who was boinking his wife?

  I wearily dragged my carry-on bag as I exited the plane. I’d have to take a taxi or Uber back to Pure and Easy, where Randy was probably waiting with handcuffs. Oh, fuck it. Let him. I was weary of the entire thing. I started figuring I must’ve done something really horrible to Ortelio Jones in a past life. Maybe I was a Wild West gunman who robbed his fucking bank. That’s what I was thinking when I stepped into the gate and looked for the Ground Transportation sign.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  I gasped as someone took me by the elbow, using it to steer me.

  “Just keep walking and do as I say.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FOX

  “Just keep walking and do as I say.”

  I didn’t realize I might frighten Pippa. But I was angry. Pissed off to all hell.

  Against all common sense and logic, she’d flagrantly violated the terms of her agreement with WITSEC just to go and have a chat with her sister in Oklahoma City.

  She yanked her arm from me, fear and fire in her eyes. In that split second, she was making a decision to stay or run. I guess once she saw it was me, she decided to stay, and I took her elbow again, more gently this time.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To short term parking.”

  “No, I mean after that.”

  I rattled her a little as we marched past coffee shops and newsstands. “I got a hotel nearby. I want you to get upstairs and get into my fucking room.”

  She didn’t say much for a long time after that. She filed right along with me, though, not protesting. We were on the moving walkway when I dared let go of her arm. We stood facing each other while other passengers sashayed right on through between us. We didn’t blink, as though we were in a staring contest.

  She cracked first. “I understand you’re mad.”

  “Mad doesn’t begin to describe it.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I realize I took a big risk going to Oklahoma City to see Shelda.”

  “A big risk? You blew it, plain and simple.” I had to look away, I was so angry. Yet I was relieved at the same time she’d come back. She could’ve blended into the woodwork in Oklahoma, just like I had, giving herself a new name without the benefit of WITSEC. “You’re fucking lucky I was there to intercept Blankenship before he reported you as AWOL.”

  Her face was awash with hope. “Oh! So he’s not going to report me in violation?”

  I made my face a cement mask. “Who knows? What you did was unforgiveable, Pippa. Visiting a forbidden person. You put both of yourselves at risk, going into the danger zone like that. You jeopardized the safety of both you and your sister.” I didn’t want to show all my cards just yet. Let her dangle in uncertainty awhile, the way she’d left me to swing in the breeze.

  “I know. I know, Fox. I just couldn’t stay away any longer, not knowing. Not knowing how Shelda was doing, whether or not my dog was safe with her, everything. I just suddenly had to see someone from my past.”

  I had to soften a bit at that. I missed my brother like all hell, and I’d left behind many good friends in Taos, too. Yet the second I set foot in Trent’s hospice, the cops would be all over me. As it was, I’d had to create an elaborate offshore back door just to wire him the money.

  When we came to the end of the moving sidewalk, I took her elbow again. She stumbled a little getting off the thing, although I’d slung her bag over my other arm. I had to smile inside. She was wearing the cowboy boots she wasn’t used to. They weren’t broken in yet.

  “Blankenship is so pissed at your security breach, he’s not sure whether he’ll report you yet.”

  “Where is he? Did he go back to Houston?”

  “He’s still in Pure and Easy,” I admitted, “getting more pissed off by the hour.”

  She dared to ask, “Then why are we going to a hotel?” But her voice was meek.

  Looking down at her, I snorted. “Because you’re under my supervision and care and you do what I say.”

  “Does Randy know that?”

  “Yes he does,” I truthfully said. I’d offered to Blankenship to ride to Phoenix, where we knew she was landing after tracing her credit card activity. It was strange working with a fed, using their tracking software, but Blankenship was so occupied with Pippa he hadn’t asked me any questions about myself. I’d vowed to bring her back to P and E safe and sound, and he’d promised not to violate her. But I didn’t want her to know that just yet. “Someone trashed your apartment while we were in Winnemucca.”

  “What? Oh my God. Was it that monster with the gold teeth?”

  “I assume so. I couldn’t hide that from Blankenship either, since he had a key to your apartment. I managed to convince him that threat had been…eliminated.”

  “Has it? Been eliminated?”

  I looked down at her as I frog-marched her to the doors that led outside. “Yes. You can be sure of that.”

  I thought I saw a tiny smile flutter at the corners of her mouth. I was gratified that she was pleased. “Oh. You saw it with your own eyes?”

  “With my very own scope.” I tried not to brag, normally, but it was actually imperative that Pippa know I’d ensured her safety, up close and personal.

  Of course we didn’t talk on the short ride to the airport hotel. When I parked my bike in the lot, I slung her bag over my shoulder again, figuring she’d want to freshen up. Yet my demeanor was cold and domineering. “Get the fuck upstairs.”

  She looked up from under her lashes. “Yes, sir.”

  I let her take a shower. That fit in perfectly with a scene I hadn’t been able to enact for years now. I waited outside the closed bathroom door, feeling almost like an evil stalker, until I decided she had towel-dried her hair and all that basic stuff. Then I barged on in and grabbed her once more by the elbow.

  “That’s it. You’re coming with me, woman.”

  “What?” she squealed. Unprepared, the towel she’d wrapped around her torso fell to the floor. All the better.

  “This way.” Turning her, I tossed her on her face onto the bed, kneeling behind her. It was easy to zip tie her wrists together at the small of her back. Lust surged through me when I humped my erection against her bare ass. “
I’ve heard you’ve been bad. Very, very bad.”

  “Fox!” she squealed. She thrashed her shoulders violently from side to side. “What the fuck? Are you turning me over to Blankenship? Have you been lying to me?”

  Cupping the back of her neck in my palm, I pressed her to the mattress. “I want none of your shit, woman. You’re going to compensate me for the hell you’ve put me through.”

  Her voice was muffled by the mattress. “Hell I’ve put you through? What about you, Travis McShane of Taos, New Mexico? You fucking plug Ben Kightlinger in a fucking duel, and you run?”

  I turned to stone, but only for a brief second. I was trained in dealing with split-second changes in attitude and atmosphere. She wouldn’t throw me.

  “I’m not denying that,” I growled, and yanked her to her feet with one hand round the back of her neck, the other round her forearm. “I’m not explaining myself to a girl who needs to prove to me that she’s very, very sorry.” And I pressed her to her knees by the side of the bed.

  Cradling her skull in my palm, I rubbed her face to my bulging crotch. She didn’t resist that. My penis was already close to erupting after weeks of wanting her. I’d done nothing but pleasure her, maybe too afraid to feel such exquisite torture myself. But it had backfired on me. Denying myself had only heightened my senses. When Pippa opened her lips and began mouthing my glans, I nearly lost it. Fuck me dry. After all she’d been through, the woman had game. She knew where I was going with this scene.

  I figured she’d googled me, knowing about Kightlinger and all. “What I did didn’t endanger anyone else’s safety.” I tried to sound normal as she gummed my pulsing hard-on. “I took care of a threat to my own safety…and that of my wife.” Or so I’d thought. Little did I know Kightlinger had been banging my willing wife for a year before I found out.

  She drew back a fraction of an inch. “Take it out, Fox. I want to taste your cock.”

  Well. That wasn’t in the game plan. Yet how could I deny her? My fingers swiftly undid the heavy belt buckle. “I want you to please me, woman. I didn’t bring you up here so you could sleep. I brought you up here to use you as a tool of my own pleasure.”

  She bounced up and down. Her little tits jiggled enticingly, and I had to reach down to fondle one. “Oh, please, Fox. Please. Use me as a fucking tool. Use me. Please.”

  I hadn’t anticipated such enthusiasm. I was going to play the abduction game, but what did you do if your “victim” was willing? I took my cock out from my boxer briefs. Because I held her back by her shoulder, it throbbed in midair, heavy, thick, veined. Almost shiny in its tumescence. Pippa literally licked her lips, not taking her eyes off it. “Maybe if you do a good job we’ll let you keep your cannabusiness. If you suck me good enough, we won’t report you back to WITSEC. Come on, little sister.” My other hand waggled my cock in front of her face, stroked it lovingly. I took the droplet of pre-ejaculate that glistened at the tip and massaged the head. Carefully, though. I was so hot I was on the very verge of coming. “Take my big dick into your mouth and suck me good.”

  She bowed and ducked away from my pressing hand. And, truth be told, I didn’t have much resistance in me to hold out. I let her sink my cock down her throat.

  Ah. Heaven. It was like my cock was made for her warm, eager mouth. Pippa hoovered away with such enthusiasm I felt the jizz surge up the underside of my cock immediately. She sure knew how to use that tongue, and I hardly needed to give voice to my lusty urgings.

  But it gave a sexy edge to the scene, looking down at the small-boned woman gulping my long, thick cock. “That’s it. Suck my dick, girl. Use your tongue. I know you know how. Don’t act like you’ve never—ah.” Again, I had to press her back from me, my hand against her forehead this time. Being seated so deeply in her hot little mouth was proving to be too much for me. She was turning the tables on me, topping from the bottom, turning out to be such an eager little wench.

  She bounced more rapidly up and down this time. I realized with a shock she was rubbing her labia against her heel. And I thought I was the depraved one! “Noooo, Fox. Come back. I want your cock,” she whined.

  I panted to bring the heat down, keeping my penis just an inch from her hungry mouth. “No. Wait. We need a safeword. We need—”

  “Oh, screw it.” She dove in for the kill, swallowing my cock like it was a sword.

  I knew I was a goner. I unbuckled my chaps to give myself more freedom. They fell to my knees as I just let her work her magic.

  This time I was speechless. I threw my head back and allowed myself to be carried away by a vortex of passion. There was much more to that little woman at my feet than met the eye. Not only was she sassy, bold, a firecracker—she was an energetic cocksucker too. She suckled me right down to the root of my prick and back out again to tickle my slit with her tantalizing tongue. Each time she speared my cock down her throat I thought I’d come, and just in time she’d back off, laving the head lovingly with the flat of her tongue.

  “Pippa—God, I—Pippa—agh!”

  All at once I erupted inside her hot mouth. Wave after wave of ecstasy washed over me, the delicious spasms in my groin forcing the ejaculate out, flowing over Pippa’s tonsils. I pumped that little woman full of jizz, and she seemed to be gulping every last drop. A plane roared overhead, shaking the walls of the room as it approached, then wailing off in a Doppler effect as it departed. I found myself panting so heavily I nearly hyperventilated, still draining into Pippa’s throat.

  She detached with a loud smack. “Mm!” she declared. “You know, if you untie my hands, I could hold your big, beautiful cock. I could hold it up, and get underneath your balls, and—”

  “Enough!” I said, back in command now. Sliding my hands through her underarms, I yanked her to her feet, tossing her back on the bed. She crossed her ankles as she leaned back on her bound hands, glancing coyly at me. “Now listen! We got to get one thing fucking straight.”

  “I’m listening, master,” she said with a glint in her eye.

  I stuffed my half-erect cock away, buckled up the giant silver buckle. “No more leaving town.”

  “Aye aye.”

  “And another. You’re staying with me at Lytton’s until this whole mess blows over.”

  She suppressed a giggle. “Blows over.”

  I frowned. It was hard to look dignified when adjusting chaps around your crotch. “It’ll be convenient for you anyway, being close to your bud and breakfast.”

  She nodded. “Bud and breakfast.”

  “And we have to agree.” Whipping out a jackknife from its holster around my waist, I sat on the bed next to her and cut her ties. “Never, under any circumstances, can any Boner know about your past. You being Flavia Brooks, the Joneses, none of that. You’re strictly Pippa Lofting from San Francisco, running from an abusive ex.”

  “Oh, I agree,” she said wholeheartedly. Once her hand was freed, it went to the back of my neck, my Ezekiel tattoo. “Let me see the whole thing. I’ve never seen you without your shirt on.”

  I obliged, tossing the muscle tank onto a pillow. Her fingers roamed the ink. “I might have to let a few Boners know about my past to make a show of trust. But your past? Never.”

  “Can you tell me? Was Kightlinger sleeping with your wife?”

  I snorted. “Why do people use such a silly euphemism? ‘Sleeping with.’ It sounds like they had a play date. Try fucking. Yes, I found out after I killed him that he’d been fucking my wife the whole time, a year maybe, and I hadn’t bought a clue. I had challenged him to a gunfight to protect her honor. I even gave each of us an equal chance, with two impartial guys acting as seconds to make sure there was no cheating. I got him fair and square. It would’ve been nice to walk away from it with no charges, sure. But when I found a bunch of cheesy love letters on Lola’s laptop dating back a year, that’s when I ran. Mostly away from her. Suddenly I wasn’t so willing to go to jail for decades over what was essentially a cuckold situation. When I thought I was d
efending her honor? Sure. When I was just being a chump? Not so much.”

  “I can understand that. But why pick such a profession? Isn’t that kind of like ‘out of the fire, into the frying pan’?”

  “Yes and no. My asshole dad who’d pressed me to be a lawyer had started asking me to work for the Avilars. I kept resisting, but he kept threatening me with vague scenarios, what might occur to me if I didn’t help them launder money. So when I ran, I decided to work for his rivals, the Joneses. Rebelling against your father, don’t you know. I went down to Nogales, got the lay of the land, educated myself about their doings. I ran a few Avilars off the road and…did away with them in the desert. Then I emailed Jones the coordinates of where to find their truck of tomato cans packed in with pounds of coke.”

  “Sounds like your interview went well.”

  “Yes.” I lifted some strands of hair from her eyes. “But you know what, Pippa? I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m getting out of the narco biz. It’s true, Jones ordered me to hit you. But once I heard your story, there was no way I could bring myself to. Just no way. I wanted to hang around you, to get to know more of your story, because people can’t dislike anyone whose story they know.”

  “Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness.” She was reading my back. “That’s you, all right, Fox. What will you do if you stop being a sicario?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. The director at the raptor rescue said his assistant was moving to Peru or some such shit. Was thinking of applying.” The idea of “applying” for a new job was so foreign to me. I hadn’t applied for anything since I’d worked at a Harley dealership in law school.

  Pippa uttered the question that was really at the bottom of it all. “And how will you, uh, quit the Joneses?” Her fingers lay dormant on my shoulder. She’d scooted close so her incredibly soft tits pressed against my back.