Beyond Jealousy (31 page)

Cruz could give her love and all the right words, but at least Ace could give her this. His hand around her throat, his cock buried in her tight, tight ass, his mouth on her ear as he ground her clit down against Cruz's jean-clad cock. "You feel that dick? You want it inside you, don't you? One's not enough for you anymore."

She lifted one hand to his wrist, wrapped her fingers around it with a trembling moan. "Not when I can have this instead."

Ace withdrew, ignoring her groan of protest, and jerked her back, manhandling her into position until she was straddling Cruz's knees. "Open his pants," he ordered, taking back control. Here, now, there was no room for Cruz's brand of gentlemanly filth.

Rough and brutal, that was the only thing they'd never given her--and Ace didn't know if he should pray for Cruz to be a quick learner, or pray for him to never get it. As long as Cruz hovered on the wrong side of that line, they'd always need Ace.

And Rachel needed this. Her hands shook with excitement as she fought with Cruz's belt, her breath coming in short pants, and Ace slapped her hip. "Get out his cock and ask for permission to ride it."

"Please," she said eagerly as she eased the zipper down and reached into his jeans. "Let me--let me ride you--"

Ace used the hand across her throat to haul her back against his chest and slid the other down to lightly slap her clit. "That sounded like a demand to me."

"Oh, fuck." Rachel shuddered, her eyes unfocused as she looked down at Cruz. "Can I--that's what I meant. Can I ride you? I'll make it good, I swear I will."

Cruz pressed his thumb to her lips, rubbing back and forth so gently that it made his words all the more lewd. "What do you think, Ace? Am I still being too easy on her?"

"Fuck yeah." Ace rubbed his fingertips over her, reveling as her hips jerked every time he brushed her clit. "If I were you, I'd make her say,
please, Sir, shove that big manly cock into my tight, hungry pussy
. But that's not your style, and that's not what it's really about, is it, Rae?"

"I--I don't
know
." Her skin heated as she writhed between them, captive and captivated, and her next words came on a whisper that sounded like a confession. "I love it like this. When you tease me until I can't stand it anymore, and it doesn't matter what I say or how much I beg."

Because it wouldn't be submission if she could say a magic word and get exactly what she wanted. There was no trust in that, no real satisfaction. Begging was her final grasp for control, and being denied was permission to let go and float on freedom.

Cruz's gaze clashed with his, and maybe he
did
get it. His thumb slipped from Rachel's lip, and his hand traced down the center of her body until his fingers tangled with Ace's. They stroked her together, driving another whimper from her lips. "It doesn't matter," Cruz repeated, the words rough-edged and harsh. "Because you'll get what we want to give you, when we're ready for you to have it."

The tiniest question lingered under the words, and Ace answered it with his lips against Rachel's temple. "The begging's just a bonus. A hot, sexy bonus."

"Oh
God
." Her hips bucked against their hands, and she dragged in a sobbing breath. "Please, please--I need it. I need you both--"

She was past the point of grace. Ace had to help her lift her hips, but then he held her there, shaking and pleading as Cruz stroked the head of his cock over her, up to her clit and back, poised to push into her...

He waited. Looked to Ace and
held
, every muscle tight with anticipation, with the struggle it must have been to give up control, even in this tiny way.

Ace had never needed control, not the way some of the other guys did, but that didn't make it any less hot to have the two of them hovering on the edge, waiting for a release only he could give them.

He nodded, and Cruz thrust up, driving into Rachel as Ace dragged her down to meet him. She went tense, rigid, then ground against Cruz with a startled, shuddering cry.

Coming already, and hard, judging from the way Cruz's head tilted back, pleasure twisting his features. And it would have been better to drag it out, make her come around him again and again, but that was the problem with being an artist. You could bleed out every feeling inside you, splash it across the canvas in an orgy of creation, but in the end you'd still be staring at an imperfect reflection, so fixated on the flaws that you could never share in the joy of discovery.

Rachel was made of joy. She was overflowing with it, shaking as Ace spilled more lube over his hand. The bottle slipped to the floor, but he focused on stroking his cock and positioning it, savoring the way she moaned when she realized what was about to happen.

It was clumsy and a little uncoordinated, and he shuddered as he buried his first two inches in the impossible clenching heat of her ass, but
God
, you couldn't see the imperfections when you were part of the art. Everything was slick and hot and good, and he leaned over to grip the head of the chair, burying his face in her hair as he flexed his hips again. "Fucking
hell
."

"Now." Rachel's fingers brushed his cheek, and she breathed his name. "All of you."

All of him. All of his cock, surging into her, all of his control, slipping away. He couldn't even find a profane word to say, because Cruz had shifted his grip to Ace's ass, and Rachel was crushed between them, so tight and hot and wet and warm and any of those would be perfectly serviceable filth if he let them roll off his tongue with the right undertone of approval, but when he parted his lips, the only thing he could manage was another groan.

Cruz slid into the silence, driving up into Rachel with a grunt. "Do you still want more?"

"Always, love." Dreamy words, shivery and appreciative. "Everything I can get."

"Then tell him." He freed one hand to tangle in the chain swinging from her collar, twisting it tight to tilt her head back. "We both know what he likes. Filthy, dirty, hungry begging."

But she didn't beg. "The first time I saw you was in this room," she murmured softly. "You were covering my bar code from the city, and you made me forget that I was all alone."

Ace sank his hand into her hair and turned her head, just far enough to press his forehead to her temple. "You were never alone, not after that day. I took your bar code and gave you ink."

She rocked, down and back, against Cruz and then Ace. When she spoke again, her voice had gone low and husky, thick with pleasure. "You took my heart, too."

He didn't deserve it. He never had, not when she'd held it out the first time, not when he'd smashed it without noticing. He didn't deserve her now, like this, moving between him and Cruz, giving them both everything, because the sweetest, most reckless gift she'd ever given Ace was a second chance to crush her.

He couldn't promise not to hurt her, but he could promise something else, the safety net that had brought them together, the one reason he wasn't just a reckless asshole playing cruel games.

No one deserved Rachel, but Cruz came close. So Ace put his trust in him, following the other man's movements as they drove Rachel up and up, until she teetered on the edge of another orgasm, one that threatened to sweep them all away.

Ace found her ear with his lips and whispered the most important truth, the one he'd cut out his own heart to protect. "You'll never be alone again."

Cruz would keep that promise, even if Ace couldn't.

Cruz had to give Dallas O'Kane credit--for a man with a reputation for having a short fuse and zero subtlety, he had a hell of a lot of patience.

Noah had followed the tracking signal to the main warehouse the first night, but Dallas had held back. With the tracer in place, they had an opportunity the Sector Four leader couldn't pass up--the chance to make a list of every outpost, every delivery, every person or place who'd had a damn thing to do with making or taking the bootlegged liquor.

When O'Kane set out to send a message, he didn't do it by half.

Jasper finished a cigarette and crushed it beneath his boot as he stared at the unassuming building down the street. "You think this is really it? The hub?"

"That's what the travel pattern indicates." Cruz glanced up from the bag of supplies at his feet, his gaze settling on Dallas.

Their leader wasn't looking at the warehouse. He was facing in the opposite direction, studying the wide road just behind him--the road you could follow straight north to Eden's walls.

The dividing line between Sectors Four and Five.

Mad was watching Dallas, too. "Having second thoughts, boss?"

"Not many," Dallas replied, turning to face them. "If Fleming knows what's going on, this'll bring the war out into the open. If he doesn't? The bastard's got way bigger problems than me."

"He knows." Bren's flat observation was certain, sure. "Shit like this doesn't go down right under his nose without one of his enforcers rooting it out. And someone bootlegging O'Kane liquor? He'd fucking die of glee."

Dallas snorted. "If it wasn't his idea to begin with. His or that piss-face second of his."

"Beckett," Noah said, not looking up from his tablet. "Logan Beckett. The man's fucking cold. And I'm not talking cold like he gets things done. I mean he's a goddamn sociopath. He's the one who came up with the shit that makes their drugs addictive."

"Charming," Jas said sourly. "You got the blueprints yet, Lennox?"

"I'm loading them up for everyone now."

The datapad strapped to Cruz's vest vibrated, and he pulled it free and studied the schematic Noah had sent. It outlined the building's support structure. Bren had already gone over it and marked the sweet spots--the areas in the foundation where they were going to place the bags of explosives at Cruz's feet. Old-fashioned dynamite on timed charges. Blow them in the correct sequence, and the whole fucking building would fold in on itself like a house of cards.

Dallas O'Kane had patience...until he didn't. And then he burned shit to the ground.

Cruz lifted the bags, passed one to Bren, and shouldered the other. "I'm ready."

Jasper ejected the magazine from his pistol, reinserted it, and chambered a round. "We clear on the plan?"

Bren smiled, his typically perverse humor surfacing. "Yes, Dad. We're clear."

But Jas eyed him grimly. "Get in, get to the basement, and do your thing. Leave the fighting to us."

"We went over it a hundred times, McCray. We'll handle it."

"Good." Dallas dropped a hand to his holstered gun and studied them all for a silent moment. "In and out, boys. Noah will handle access. We've got five minutes to secure the building, fifteen until the charges go off. Do
not
get caught in there when this shit blows, you hear me?"

"It'd be ugly," Jasper agreed. "We're bringing the whole damn thing down. That's the message." He started for the building, and Cruz followed with the rest.

The whole night was a message--a coordinated strike against the bootleggers' hub of operations along with every outpost the tracker had led them to. The leaders probably wouldn't be around. They'd scatter, but they wouldn't be able to hide, not with Liam and Dallas working together.

Cruz just prayed they'd keep working together. For Rachel's sake.

The street was deserted, as if its usual late-night occupants had sensed trouble and scurried away to hide from it. But even hidden away, they had to be watching. Cruz could feel the eyes on him, the sensation of being watched prickling up the back of his neck.

Soon, Mac Fleming would know exactly what had happened at the edge of his sector.

The front door to the building was newer than the rest of it, probably solid-steel core. Impervious to breach and secured with an access panel, a more robust version of the one he and Bren had found on that very first shack out in the middle of nowhere. Noah studied it for several seconds before pulling a flat, black case from his back pocket.

He flipped it open to reveal a grid of small, metallic dots. They almost looked like stickers, the kind a child would play with, except Cruz was intimately familiar with their real nature and purpose. He clenched his hands into fists as Noah peeled them out of the case, one by one, and placed them at the four corners of the panel.

He stepped away even before Noah motioned them back and pressed a tiny button on the outside of the case. The dots began to glow and then exploded in a sizzling shower of sparks. The lock clicked open with a heavy
thunk
, and Jasper and Mad shoved through the door, weapons in hand.

An alarm began to ring throughout the cavernous structure, joined by the sound of raised voices and shouts of warning. Cruz ignored the noise and headed straight for his objective--an office off the left side of the main room.

The clatter of gunfire echoed behind them as Bren hurried through the dark office and kicked open the door at the back of it. He activated a small, handheld light that illuminated stairs leading down into a heavier darkness.

The basement.

Cruz waved him onward, tensed for the sound of footsteps behind them, but none came. Their training had served them well.

The sub-level of the building was a confusing warren of storage and office space. Bren moved silently through the near darkness and skirted one half-wall before coming to a stop beside a fat concrete pillar. He dropped his bag, unzipped it, and dragged out a heavy-duty drill exactly like the one Cruz had in his bag. He worked fast and steady, laying out his supplies before beginning, the way a cook might gather ingredients before tossing them all into a pot to boil.

He set the hollow carbide-tipped drill bit against the concrete, and a low buzz filled the dank air as Cruz took up his position on the other side of the pillar. Twin holes, drilled on either side, filled with three sticks of dynamite each, wired to a primer charge controlled by an electrical detonator.

It took twenty-eight seconds to drill the hole, place the dynamite, and attach the wires. By the time Cruz adhered the detonator to the concrete precisely six inches above the hole on his side of the pillar, Bren had already dragged a pre-cut roll of shielding fabric from his bag.