Run (Run Duet #1) (14 page)

C
lub Nouveau was everything Shaw promised and more.

It was extremely modern, sporting an all glass building with a VIP lounge, and high tech small chrome tables with seating up to four. There were also chrome and leather sofas as well as a DJ and a huge dance floor.

When we walked in, a remix of “Close” was playing and there were plenty of women with skimpy clothing and six-inch heels. I suddenly felt terribly underdressed but Shaw pulled my hand and led us up to the VIP room.

“Wow, how much did that cost?” I asked him above the music playing at full volume in the club.

“Five hundred dollars but I didn’t want you to feel out of place—”

“I should have gone back to our suite so I could change into something more appropriate.”

A waiter brought a bucket of champagne and Shaw instructed him to start a tab. “I like the way you look just fine so there was no reason for you to change. I know what you look like nude—it’s these other men in here I don’t want gettin’ any suspicions about my girl.”

I laughed out loud as he popped the bottle of Cristal and filled both our flutes. “You are aware I used to flash my naked ass in front of lots of men. They might as well have known my name, address and social security number because they definitely knew every inch of my body.”

He picked up his fluted champagne glass and I did the same. “That’s not you anymore, sweetheart. I’m here and I will always be here. You won’t ever have to degrade yourself like that again. Now that you belong to me, I’m gonna go fully caveman on your ass and tell you I won’t allow you to do that shit. Your body is for my eyes only—you got me?”

I smiled before we toasted and I drank from my champagne. It was so smooth I ended up finishing it in three swallows. “So that’s what the fuss is all about. Mmm, that’s delicious.”

“For four hundred bucks a bottle it better well be. You how much they mark shit up at clubs. This is a two hundred dollar bottle of champagne but we’re paying double thanks to the . . . ambience of having it here with music and watching people gyrate on the dance floor.”

A remix of “Back To Sleep” blended from another song and I stood up. “Can I have this dance?”

“Yep, and the best part is, we don’t have to go all the way back down to the dance floor.” Shaw led me through the VIP section and there was a small replica of the dance floor below. Several couples were already dancing but there was plenty of space.

He took me into his arms, his hands around my waist as I wrapped my arms around his neck and settled my head on his shoulder.

The song lyrics were explicit and dirty yet the song had me buzzing from head to toe. I wonder how it would be to wake up in Shaw’s arms and have him fuck me back to sleep. That was definitely something we hadn’t tried yet but I intended to make up for all the lost time when I got back to our hotel room.

The song ended and blended into a remix of “Wildfire.” That’s how I felt right now because everywhere he touched me, my body felt warmth spread until it all gathered in my nether regions. My clit slowly throbbed to the beat of the music, and the small lace thong I’d chosen was soaked.

How the hell did he do that by just being pressed to me? To be honest, I wasn’t the only one feeling the intense heat between us. His cock was hard as a rock.

“I didn’t tell you about the special velvet curtained rooms, did I?” Shaw inquired with bright blue eyes that looked like rare diamonds. “We can sneak off and do . . . whatever.”

“Yeah but I left my handbag at our table—”

“It’s not called the VIP area for nothin’. All these people you see have capital to burn. Plus, there’s cameras everywhere up here . . . except in the VIP rooms.”

I took his hand as he led me inside one that was open and he closed the curtain behind us. It was sterile looking with frosted glass, a chrome and leather sofa along with a small chrome table.

As I sat down on the sofa, the smell of fresh lemon and mint assaulted my nose from whatever cleansers they used after a VIP room had been “occupied.” If this club was anything, they were certainly thorough.

Shaw sat beside me and slowly rolled up my shirt before he pushed my lace bra under my full breasts. My nipples were standing on end. I expected him to use his tongue but his fingers played with them as his mouth assaulted mine and I fell into a deep abyss of pleasure.

The way his tongue explored my mouth, we both dueled for power though in the end, I’d let him win—I would always
allow
him to win. I might have had a smart mouth but in the bedroom—metaphorically and literally speaking—he took control, and I didn’t mind at all. I loved him, and the fact that we’d been friends our whole lives before we were lovers meant I could get away with quips of sarcasm, and unleashing the Callahan short-fuse he’d dubbed “Hurricane Liv,” but he knew me well enough to know that I couldn’t stay upset for long over anything.

It just wasn’t in my nature.

I’d let it fester for all of thirty minutes at the most, spew out the most ugly word vomit I could think of to hurt someone, and then just like that it was gone. I was okay because I
refused
to be meek like my mother.

Lily—Tyrone and Shannon’s mother and my aunt—had always been the stronger of the two. That’s why when both her kids were legally adults, she and their father left to live in Marseilles, France.

“What are you thinking about?” Shaw whispered in my ear before he bit the lobe. “You should be right here with me.”

“I am.” I gazed into those gorgeous blue eyes of his while he stared back at me.

“Goddamn. If you aren’t the most ethereal creature God created then there isn’t one. You’re the only reason why I believe ya know. It’s because if he didn’t wave a wand and have you love a fuck up like me then there is no way you’d be mine.”

“You’re not a fuck up. We covet what we see everyday, and in our neighborhood, that was quick money earned and acquired by illegal means forcefully upheld and taken through violence.” I stroked his platinum-dyed hair that was starting to grow back already, and held his head to my naked breasts.

“Then why aren’t you a fuck up? Your dad has spent almost as much time in prison as mine has and yet, you’re fully adjusted—”

“No, I’m not,” I interrupted in a small voice. “You know what I did at that club Povikov owns. They fucked me up if I wasn’t already, and I’ll never feel like that sweet innocent girl you took with you to the party for my high school graduation. Somewhere along the line of pleasure and pain, I began to like it. The deviant side of me—I try to keep hidden but it’s there. I don’t want you to ever think of me as anything but that little girl who followed you, and fell hopelessly in love with you.”

“If there’s something that you want, tell me now. Like I said, I’m not exactly Prince Charming.”

“Fuck me in the ass.” I kissed him afterward, feeling his soft lips pressed against mine.

“Dry? That shit’s gonna hurt.”

“Use my vaginal fluids as lubricant. I’ll suck you off to get your dick wet.”

I spread my legs even though I was still in my jeans as Shaw stood up and faced me. He undid the button and unzipped his jeans. I pulled them downward only to discover he had been rockin’ his jeans all day commando.
No wonder his ass looked so particularly scrumptious today
, I deduced.

This took me back in time when I was dancing for money and would do just about anything for a ten thousand dollar tip. If Shaw knew I’d tucked away a half million dollars working at that club, he’d flip. That didn’t mean there hadn’t been incidents. Not of the sexually transmitted diseases kind but other not so pleasant moments in my life. Like the first time Povikov forced himself on me. It was then I realized he wasn’t Jewish, and he wasn’t who he said he was because he wasn’t circumcised. But his son, Shaw, had inherited the long, thick cock gene.

The man tore my asshole apart so bad I needed stitches and was forced to stay off my feet for two weeks. The thought of not being able to work had me in a tizzy but I felt a little bit better when Povikov delivered white roses and inside, a stack of hundred dollar bills, which amounted to fifty thousand dollars in cash, greeted me. My hospital bill had been taken care of as well and since I signed in as a Jane Doe, no one would ever see it come up on my medical file.

Due to the banking regulations, depositing all that money and the rest had been slow at best. I made weekly deposits of five thousand here, seven thousand there, never going above the ten thousand dollar limit the government had in place. Plus I had a business account and a registered LLC so the bank tended to look the other way or suggest I put half the money in my two accounts and the rest in my savings account. It took no time for my FICO score to rise well over eight hundred and then, the credit cards came. I only chose four and canceled the rest. I didn’t want to extend myself too much.

I thought about this as I deep-throated Shaw and he clutched my hair as if it were a lifeline. “Fuck, babe, that’s not humanly possible. You can’t have—”

“Impossible for most women but I can.” I looked at his dick, erect as a piece of silk-covered steel and turned around to let my jeans fall down into a pool by my feet before I got back on the sofa and faced the wall.

He couldn’t help himself as he sucked my clit and made it harder as he slid two fingers inside of me and applied it over my asshole. He licked my tight sphincter before he spit on it and inserted a finger inside.

“You’re not going to get shit on and I want you to be the first man I love inside that forbidden place. Where are your balls, Carrick?” I teased, knowing he hated when someone used his Christian name as opposed to his nickname.

He slammed his cock inside of my asshole then and I moaned as he began to pump inside me. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”

“It’s called surgery,” I murmured under my breath as he continued to slide in and out of me at a healthy pace.

“I’m not gonna last long. I can feel you gripping your walls in your pussy and staring at your hard clit is wanting me to eat you out again.”

I laughed and enjoyed the friction of our bodies together.

Anal sex was definitely an acquired taste but when you became hooked, it could be just as good as vaginal sex. I rubbed my clit as he continued to piston his cock inside me. The way he held my waist and tensed up, I knew he didn’t have long to go.

I sped up the pace of stroking my clit and came hard, my breath all but leaving my body while no new oxygen was entering. Shaw clutched my hips and stroked three times before he seized up. He pulled out and redid his pants as he lay against my back, his heart beating thunderously in his chest.

“Fuck, I gotta say . . . that was way too intense. We’ll have to save that for special occasions. Ain’t no way you’re ever gonna turn me from wanting your pussy all the time. It’s so sweet, wet, warm and tight. I can’t give that up.” His hand drew down my back before a trail of kisses followed.

He finally helped me to my feet and I pulled my jeans back on—thong included. Unlike him, going commando wasn’t my usual style.

“Let’s finish up our champagne, pay the tab and get the hell out of here. I want you back in a nice warm bed.”

We opened the velvet curtains and that was when we spotted Boris and Yuri—I’d nicknamed them that but I had no idea what their real names were nor did I care. Seriously, they looked like such a cliché from a bad Guy Ritchie film, their tailing us had become a laughing gag until it wasn’t.

At this point, I had zero fucks to give about the whole situation, and just wanted them dead and gone.

Shaw removed his nine-millimeter and dug out a silencer from one of his pockets. The music was so loud there was no way the gun shot would be heard over it, especially with a silencer. He aimed and shot Boris directly in the head while Yuri kept his gaze steady on me.

Before he could get a good shot, the Russian beast was all over me. I kneed him the balls and grabbed a hold of his meaty head, my fingers digging into his eyeballs and pushing them as far back as I could before the blood began to seep down his face and on my clothes.

Shaw physically pulled him off of me, and stabbed him in the back of the neck with a sharp knife. Once it came through his jugular, he pulled it out and let the guy drop to the floor.

“No witnesses—no one to report back to Povikov.” He winked at me.

I stood on shaky legs though he helped me off the floor, left the money on the table for a tip and we both ran down the stairs and out of the club. Some ditz must have seen their bodies because she began screaming her head off as did one of her friends.

New Orleans was no longer an option—we had no choice but to push ourselves until we were out of harm’s way, and out of the state of Louisiana.

M
y first worry was Liv. I knew she was tough and could take care of herself but as she pointed out in the car just a day before, they weren’t after me, they were after her. As long as Povikov had a target on the back of the woman I loved, she’d never be okay. If something happened to her, I wouldn’t blame my biological sperm donor either—it would be on me because I was too selfish to see the overall plan.

Truth was I didn’t want to ever be away from her but the best-laid plans of mice and men, and every other cliché popped in my brain. I had to let her go at least for a while, and that would be the hardest part. We weren’t just lust mates who craved one another’s bodies but soul mates—as much as I didn’t want to believe in that mystical bullshit. Yet, I couldn’t deny she was the other half of me just like I was the other half of her, and I couldn’t protect a fucking corpse.

The New Orleans Police Department vehicles were heading to the scene of the crime but we were speed walking in the opposite direction. I’d made up my mind and no way would she fight me on this.

“Where are we going, babe? Back to the hotel?” she asked as she kept up with me while not breathing any harder than her usual.

“No. We’re going back to the garage. You’re gonna get in your car and haul ass to Nevada where your family can protect you. I have to divert them somehow so I’m gonna go down to Mexico . . . through Texas—”

Liv squeezed my hand with hers closest to mine. “Fuck no! I told you to go through California.”

“Nope, that’s drawing them too close to you and you know me better than that babe. I would never do anything to put you in harm’s way. You get on the freeway and you don’t stop until you have to get gas. Then you get back on the highway again and gun it till you get to your Aunt Bronaugh’s.”

A tear slid from her eye as she smirked at me. “I thought you hated bikers.”

“If she’s married to the head honcho and they can do something about Povikov then they have my undying loyalty. I would rather be skinned alive than to see you hurt or worse, murdered over somethin’ that’s my fault.”

We’d made it to her Explorer. She unlocked the driver’s door but sort of stood there, staring at me with those gorgeous violet-blue eyes with the green crescent circling her dilated pupils.

“This was all supposed to be theoretical, Shaw,” Liv began, “I never wanted us to part. Come with me. Just forget about everything and climb in with me. They’ll give you protection like they will me!”

I paced a bit, her height not that much of a difference as she slightly glanced up at me. Her five-feet-seven to my six-feet-four. “I didn’t get it at first but the more I think about this whole fucked up situation, I’m starting to think Povikov planned it all along. He didn’t want me to have anyone but him to depend on, and he never took you seriously. No matter how much I conveyed that we were Alpha and Omega—where I end is where you begin—he thought it was some puppy love crush. He could never understand how my feelings ran so deep for a ‘whore.’”

My fingers wrapped around her face and held her closely. “You were never a whore to me, no matter what you did, Liv. Everything you have been through in your life was out of survival and a will to succeed and make something of yourself. Shit, baby, I can’t even say the same thing. I did most of the crap I did just ‘cause I could. That’s what separates your innocence, beauty, mind and spirit from mine that is corrupt, black, empty and unworthy.”

I kissed her as hard as I could before I let her go. “If this is the end, and we never see each other again then I know I did the best I could your you. You’ll always be my girl, Liv. If I don’t make it outta this shit-storm alive, you promise me you will. Be happy, find a man worthy of you and have lots of babies but save a boy you can name Carrick after me, okay?”

Liv’s tears ran down her face as she shook her head. “Get in the goddamn SUV, Shaw. I’m not leaving here without you! That’s my final fucking answer so stop all this bullshit about death and me being happy with someone else.” She grabbed my hands and squeezed them tightly. “Don’t you know the only man that has ever made me smile and brightened my day was you? I can’t be without you and Povikov can’t win—that fake-ass Russian parading himself as a Jew doesn’t deserve to win! He did so much . . . so much but I didn’t want you to hate your father.”

I kissed her forehead softly. “You didn’t make me hate my sperm donor, Liv. Everything he did made me hate him, including tryin’ to murder my woman.” The embrace between us was automatic. “Go. I won’t stop until I get vengeance. He doesn’t know shit about me. The same blood might run through our veins but I won’t stop until that son of a bitch has received his comeuppance, you understand?”

She viciously wiped her tears away and stepped into the Explorer. I didn’t leave the parking lot until she paid her fee and was heading toward I-10 West that would take her all the way to her destination.

I didn’t have to cry to show how much I missed her already but my heart felt heavy. I was the one who did the cleanup, including checking us out of our hotel, grabbing the few items we both left behind and running to where the Charger was parked. I threw the plastic clothes bag filled with more soiled clothes in the trunk, stuck the money and the coke under the spare tire that was well hidden, and changed into another shirt since my current was soaked with sweat and fear.

This time, a Deftones tee-shirt was slipped over head, and I closed the trunk before getting into the driver’s seat. I started the car, backed out and slowly drove out of the garage after paying my fee. It was then I saw a plastic bag on the seat. I picked it up and examined it before I opened it to find crisp, new bills, all with Benjamin’s ugly face on them in Technicolor.

There was a note and it was from no other person than my love.

Hey, I knew you wouldn’t take the money so I had to sucker punch you somehow. Throw the drugs away—the last thing you need is a long stretch in a Texas
or
Mexican prison—the wrath of God couldn’t stop me from hunting you down. This should be enough to keep you going until we see each other again because we will, believe me. If I have to drag your ass back from Mexico, I will but save me a Margarita to enjoy before we get on the road.

Liv

My first thought was catching up with her on the I-10 since I would have to take it to get to Texas but then I thought about it, and slowly shook my head.

We’d see each other again and that was enough for me.

For now.