Motown Breakdown (Motown Down #4) (29 page)

“Okay, Sunny,” she says wiping her nose. “Okay.”

Grabbing her, I steer her outside of the room ready to tear into her for disobeying me. The answer was simple, no. No, make that hell fucking no.
 

As pissed off as he was, I was in the red zone.  Jess was two years younger than me. When I was placed in his house of horrors, I was sixteen to her fourteen. She’d arrived two weeks ahead of me. He was a foster father (a single foster father) to four girls, five including me. I was the oldest, then there was Ashleigh, fifteen; Jessie, fourteen;  Maya, thirteen; and Shelby who was fucking ten years old.

After offing the pervert, I ran as far and fast as my feet could take me. But being a kid, I never made it out of the city and a few weeks later I chanced tracking Jess down at school. I told her I was alright, that I’d be in touch and only did through Myspace. Then some time later we had Facebook and I followed her every move. She painted her life in the image I had hoped to have for myself one day. Even though it was through pictures, I didn’t like him. Something felt off but I never imagined this… I never imagined having all of my nightmares come back to haunt me in less than twenty-four hours either.

“I fucked up,” I whisper. “You have every right to be angry with me, but of all the scenarios playing out in my head, I never saw this one coming.”

“Sun,” he says grasping my neck. Not hard, but enough to make his intentions clear.

“Please,” I ask him. I never say please, ever. “We have to help her. The shit she went through was one thing but to be trapped… to live it over and over? I can’t do nothing, Shade. I have to help her.”

“Answer me this,” he says softly. “Who had it worse, Jessica or you?”

“That doesn’t matter,” I counter.

“Answer the fucking question.”

“I suppose I did,” I reluctantly admit. “But…”

“You made it out, did something with your life. She did not. It is not your job nor mine to save the world. Removing her from her life will not solve her problem. She married a cop, Sun. You don’t think he’ll pull every resource he has to get her back? I cannot risk that kind of exposure, not for one weak woman.”

He didn’t get it. Not that I expected him to, but I wasn’t walking away from this unless I knew for certain Jess was safe. “Fine,” I argue meeting his eyes. “Then let me kill him.”

“You want me to sanction you killing a fucking cop?”

“I did not endure hell, unspeakable things, to see her back where she started. You aren’t convinced,” I challenge him. “Look,” I order him holding my wrists out. “He slit my wrists when I fought back for Jess.” Taking his hand, I maneuver his fingers over the scar on my scalp. “That was for Ashleigh,” sticking my lower lip out to show him that scar I tell him, “For Maya and this,” I say sliding my jeans down to the scar that rest on my pubic bone, “Was for Shelby.”

“What in the fuck?”

“Later I’ll show you the rest if you want to see it, but right now, either you give me the green light or I take her with me when I leave.”

“Leave?” he asks in a menacing voice I didn’t have time to appreciate. “As in leaving me?”

“To give her a shot at a fucking life? Absolutely.”

“
If
I agree to this,” he says backing me up against the wall. “Our agreement changes.”

“Deal.”

“I’m not finished,” he says rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks. “You’ll do this my way, my rules and Jessica is kept in the dark. Do you understand me?”

Grabbing him, I kiss him hard and deep wanting him to know that not only did I understand but that I was also grateful. “Fucking gorgeous,” he says looking at me.

Opening the door, I go straight to Jess and pull her into a hug. She knew me when I was a pissed off kid in the system but obviously I hadn’t changed nearly as much as I thought I had because Jess had my number. “You have to trust me, Jess,” I tell her. “No questions asked. Can you do that?”

“No!” she says jumping off the bed and flying into Shade’s chest. “You do it!” she yells. “Not her! Don’t let her do this for me again! Just sell me to someone please! You know what, I’ll go home and forget this ever happened. I can’t let you…”

Grabbing her, I push her past Shade and into the wall holding her there. “You’re going to go home, make dinner and pretend life is good, Jess. Tomorrow you’re going to go to work, smile at your co-workers and make a fucking difference. When you get home from work, the terms of your sale will be provided but you have to play it cool, can you do that?”

“You’re lying,” she whispers. “You don’t plan to sell me, you plan to – ”

“Look at me,” I order her. “I need you to play it cool, can you do that?”

“Y-yes,” she stutters. “I can do that.”

“I promise you,” I whisper for her ears only. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Without you,” she cries into my shirt. “I would have died in that house, Sunny. Promise me, you won’t get hurt. Promise me, I’ll see you again.”

“I promise,” I whisper back leaving out
what
exactly I was promising her. Kissing her forehead, I whisper, “Go.”

And she did.

With Jessica on her way home, I lock the door behind her and watch Sun stare out the window. It wasn’t my imagination when I saw her run her finger over her brand. I wasn’t hallucinating when she turned to face me and her mask of indifference fell either. She was rattled, hurting, and my guess, lost.

“What are the new terms?” she asks sitting on the bed. Over the years I’ve held meetings here, witnessed beatings here, but never brought a woman. Apparently I was waiting for her.

“We have bigger problems right now,” I say sitting next to her. Even though our knees touched, she felt so far away.

“I’ll do it,” I tell her. “I want your hands and conscious clean.”

Holding her hands out, she turns them one way then the other. “When I told you my ideas came from experience, I wasn’t pulling your dick, Shade. Since the day I was shoved into the system with my thumb in my mouth and piss in my pants, I learned how to survive. I promised the girls they would never have to be scared again. While I was off living in my head, Jess was suffering. I appreciate the offer, but I want to do it.”

“He’s a cop,” I remind her. “He also has no problem hurting a woman. He has training and he won’t take a screwdriver to the neck or a shot in the ass, Sun.”

“Then let’s stop at my place on the way home so I can grab my forty. A forty beats a twenty-two and I don’t miss.”

“You own a gun? Is it registered?” I ask but knew the answer when she gave me that look.

“Before you meet with a recruit or whatever it is you call them, you do background work.” She says this is as fact and I didn’t dispute it. “Tell me what you have on Lawrence.” So I did. Lying on her back, she runs her finger over her moon again before looking at me. “Remember what I said about good people doing bad things?”

“I do,” lying back to join her, I link our hands together to comfort her as much as myself.

“Just so you know, you’re lying next to a bad person who does good things.”

“Sun,” I murmur attempting to pull her to me.

“Let’s not forget we don’t know each other, Shade. I’ve tried being good. Keeping to myself, writing stories and righting wrongs when I see them but, it’s never enough for me. I’m no vigilante, not a fucking Good Samaritan either. But I am still, no matter how much I suppress it, a pissed off kid that feels powerless.”

“I have enough power for both of us,” I tell her. “What do you want, Sun? Right now? What is it? Blood? A struggle? Begging? Torture? I can teach you all of it.”

Straddling me, she lifts my shirt up to access my jeans. Opening them up, she frees my cock that’s been stiff since we got in the car to come here and says, “I want to fuck. Then I want to kill Lawrence.”

Taking her to her back, I strip her of her clothing then shed what’s left of my own. Pulling her by the ankles, she arches up taking my nipple into her mouth. Securing her wrists behind her back, I kiss her before I bite the column of her neck in an act of possession. Wrapping her legs around me, she pulls us down then locks her ankles. “Hours,” she growls biting my lip hard. “I’ve had you in my life a matter of hours and already I don’t think I can let you go.”

No one has ever said anything like that to me. You bet your ass no one has ever looked at me like she is either. Like she’d fight a fucking army to keep me. Christ knows I felt the same about her but couldn’t voice it, would never voice it. Instead, I spread her legs apart with my thighs and slide inside of her until I could go no further. Whether her legs were thrown over each shoulder, pushed back over her shoulders or locked around my body, I fucked her like my life depended on it. She fucked me back like hers was in the balance. For every hard thrust, she pinched and scratched begging for more.

“Your wrist,” I grate out. “Give it to me.”

Raising it up to my mouth, I seal my lips over her brand and suck. She watches me with heavy eyes and whispers, “Harder.”

Again and again, I suck while I fuck her.

Turning her on her side, I keep a hold of her wrist while I pound into her from this angle. Turning back to face me, she moans, “Do it,” and biting down on her wrist she bows beautifully while she comes. Refusing to let her come down, I continue to go at her needing more of her. In a move she’s obviously practiced, she switches our positions and in seconds impales herself on my cock. “Fuck,” I moan feeling her pussy gripping me eagerly.

“Damn right,” she says leaning forward to stick her tits in my face. Biting each nipple, she balances on her palms and rides me to a brutal orgasm in minutes. It was so swift my fucking toes curled. Calling out her name as the last blast hits me, she collapses on my chest hiding her face in my neck.

With our heavy breathing filling the silence, I knew two things: Sun had two sides; the one she wants you to see and the one she allows me to see. The second, I wanted to keep her.

We were sitting out in front of McShane’s bar off Trumbull. I have love for this place. Great beer, greasy food and always a game to watch. Right now though, I wasn’t here for fun. I was here for Lawrence. Shade went on and on about safety, knowing your surroundings and relying on your instincts. I wanted to say something bitchy like,
aren’t you a criminal?
But chose to keep my mouth shut considering when I shot Lawrence I’d be using his gun. The plan was easy, flirt with the pig, get the pig to come outside for a quick fuck and kill the bastard in the field across from the bar. It was eleven at night, with Shade watching for foot traffic, all I needed to do was get him to the building by the field.