Текст книги "Rogue Stallion"

Автор книги: Carmen Faye

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 6 страниц)

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons–living or dead–is entirely coincidental.

Rogue Stallion copyright @ 2014 by Carmen Faye. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

CHAPTER ONE

Cole pulled his bike into his drive, clicking the garage door opener attached to his handlebars and watched blankly as the door began to ascend. The Lowrider purred, sounding good. He would take it in for a tune tomorrow anyway. He just completed a run down to St. Louis, out to Kansas City, then up to Des Moines. This completed the schedule, so back to Chicago he rode. To date, that was the longest planned ride of his experience and he loved the journey, but he was glad to be home. He missed Nicole more than he could stand and spent an embarrassing amount of time talking to her on the cellphone.

Nicole came bouncing out of the house, running up to meet him with a smile on her lips and sex in her hungry eyes. She squeaked with glee and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him across his face and then narrowing down to his lips.

"Holy shit I missed you, baby!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "I'm so glad you are back. Are you back? Do you have to go anywhere else tonight?"

"All done. Let me get the bike into the garage and check her over. Then I'll come inside."

She nodded happily, "I'll get dinner started and some beers out."

"Make mine a Coke. I need the caffeine," he requested.

"I visited with Angie today and she gave me a bit of crystal. Want some? Wake you up?" she asked. While she was terrified of heroin, Nicole knew how to manage her crystal intake. Hell, they gave this shit to kids for ADD. All she had to do was be careful with the amount and to keep herself properly hydrated.

"It will wake me up and put my dick in the dirt. Can't maintain erections on that stuff, but I'll give you good pillow talk," he offered.

"Never mind. I don't know anything about crystal. Haven't seen any for years in fact. Not even sure what it is, now that I think about it. So, a Coke? Cause I am very horny, lover. I have no idea what the fuck you did to me, but for a gal who use to think she thought about sex all the time, I'm seriously thinking about sex all the time," she pouted. "Only now it is all about how I'm not getting any because my lover is in fucking St. Louis."

"So, you did a bit of that crystal I take it," Cole decided.

Nicole bit her lip, "I'll get dinner."

"Good idea."

She tossed her hair into a shower of gold as she spun and skipped back toward the front door. Cole watched her with warm amusement and then he pulled the bike inside, hitting the switch to close the door behind him. He checked the bike over – oil, air, belt, and tires. Then he leaned back against his tool bench and let exhaustion fall down on him. It was a good and profitable trip, but perhaps not the thing for him. Still, he made more money this week than he ever made in the same amount of time while doing something he loved to do.

His eyes suddenly focused and he realized that he had been dozing. "Might as well do some crystal. Not going to be much use to her anyway," he muttered, and went out the side door, and into the back door of the house, walking a tired but content stride through the kitchen looking for his lover.

She was at the front door and from her posture he could tell she was seriously scared.

"I called him, Antonio. I made it very clear." She was saying.

Cole then heard a professionally calm voice say, "Yes, I was there. It was quite amusing, Nicole, but unfortunately there is no out. You have a client tonight, in three hours. We need to get you there. Brian is your new driver; he’s in the car and this is Davis, who will be your bodyguard. We are very concerned about you right now. You are not making healthy decisions. So we are taking on a bodyguard's expense to ensure that you are safe, even from yourself. Now, do you have things you would like us to gather up for you?"

Cole knew Antonio and Davis. Brian, he dearly hoped wasn't a Chrome Horsemen, or this was going to get ugly and very difficult to explain. Antonio was the most dangerous. He was brutal and as skilled in close quarter combat as they come. His history boasted over thirty years of serious experience and when a man is an enforcer for the mob for thirty years, you don't take him lightly. He is a man who made it a habit to stay alive while making other men dead.

Davis was a monster. He was nearly as tall as Cole's six-four, but outweighed Cole by at least sixty pounds. Cole didn't know him well, but he had the reputation of being a knife man. So far, no one noticed him in the house and he made sure they wouldn't by changing his course as he came up behind Nicole, drawing his weapon.

They weren't going to take no for an answer, so he wasn't going to bother asking the question. Against a superior enemy, which he was, ambush is an acceptable and effective tactic. He just reached the position he wanted to be in when Nicole shouted "No! Don't touch me!"

"This is will hurt if you do not come," Antonio told her in his eerie calm voice.

Cole located the position of Antonio’s voice on the other side of the door and fired at mid-height three times, then adjusted his aim to near the door jam area, across the portal, where he figured the bodyguard would be and sent four rapid shots into the wall, blowing apart the jam and splintering just about everything in the area.

Then he grabbed Nicole by her shoulder and spun her hard, sending her back into the house and flying for the couch while keeping his aim on the door area as he did. He heard her thump into the couch cushions just as the door was slammed, sending it flying on its hinges to crash into the entry wall, but by that time Cole was pulling the trigger. He fired, adjusting his aim as information presented itself.

The first face he saw was Davis, who had his gun out, but was looking the other direction – a fatal mistake. Cole calmly fired two slugs into Davis’ head, then swiftly adjusted his aim again as he spun on his knees, going as low as he was able to without losing balance while pulling the trigger on Antonio four times, going for center mass.

Cole's gun clicked empty, but instead of going for the extra clip in his jacket, he hurtled it at the surprised Antonio's face while sprinting forward as fast as he could. Cole caught the corpse of Davis as it slid down the doorjamb and removed Davis' gun from his dead hand in time to see another man running up the walk outside from the waiting limo. The new man had a gun in each hand. Keeping the stunned and dying Antonio between himself and the other man, Cole called out, "Horseman!"

The man stopped. "Chrome Horsemen?"

"Yes!" Cole replied making sure the man heard him. But staying out of direct line of fire.

"Cole? Shit! Is that you, Cole?"

"Yes! I don't want to kill you man, but I will. I'm in no gaming mood."

The man put his guns away and lifted his hands, "No, not between brothers man. What do you need?"

"I need to get to the clubhouse, fast. Myself and one other. And I need you not to know where we went. You're going to catch flack for this, Brian."

"Not from anyone important," Brian told him. "I'll make some calls, get riders to meet us on the way. I would advise moving now and not taking anything with you except what you need for survival. We'll buy everything else. Get on your bike and ride. I'll follow in the limo."

"Got it," Cole agreed, very relieved.

He didn't know Brian by name, but he recognized him now. He was one of the new guys, just came in to patch-holder status less than three months ago. That Brian was on the security teams list already strongly suggested he had hardcore experience and top of the line training. Cole was happy not to have gone up against a man with credentials obviously much better than his own, especially in a fair fight.

Antonio collapsed.

Cole looked down at him and saw no life in the enforcer's eyes. "Fucking tough son-of-a-bitch," Cole hissed and put Davis' .45 under his belt in the front of his pants, then retrieved his own weapon and reloaded.

Nicole was watching with wide eyes as Cole went through the house, pulling out three more guns from various hiding places and eight more clips. He tossed Nicole's jacket to her, "Still have your stash here?"

She nodded, but didn't speak.

"Get it, now. Move!"

His voice drove her out of the couch and sent her flying down the hall. She came back with a black backpack, shrugging it on over her leather jacket. "I don't know… I don't know what to do," she gasped.

"I do," he told her. "Do what I say. Don't hesitate."

She nodded.

"They don't want you dead. They want you back. So we are fairly safe right now. They still don't know about me and that gives me two edges."

Nicole blinked, "What was the first edge?"

"I want them dead."

"Oh, okay," she muttered with a nod of her head, her eyes still showing how much shock she was in. There was no time for comforting, though. Other men could be showing up or waiting in ambush and cops were on the way.

"We're leaving. Cops will be on the way. Anything you need? Anything you can't live without?"

"Laptop," she sputtered.

"Grab it and put it in the saddlebags. Move!" he ordered.

Nicole ran for his office, returning with a laptop bag while stuffing in power cords. "I'm ready."

"Head for the back door. Don't stop or slow down. Go straight into the garage and get your laptop into the saddlebags. Let's move."

She didn't run this time, but she moved fast and sure. Cole felt a sweet pride in his girl right now. She wasn't bundled up into a ball of hysteria on the couch and she wasn't freaking out on him, or asking a lot of questions that start with why and are meaningless most of the time.

Cole played back what he heard and what he did, searching for anything that seemed out of place. He recalled Nicole saying that she had called Gabriel. Well, that was how they found her. Simple thing – caller ID. Obviously Nicole needed some education. Serious education on basic survival skills and it wouldn’t hurt to show her how to fire a weapon.

Cole nodded to this deficiency and mentally noted the tasks as urgent. Following close behind her, ready to knock her to the ground at the first whisper of trouble, they left the back door and moved fast into the garage.

As soon as she had her laptop in his bag, Cole fired up the Lowrider and clicked the garage door opener. Then he went into a crouch, taking Nicole's hand and pulled her to the side of the garage while he drew one of his pistols.

Nicole squatted down low behind him. They searched the street together. Seeing nothing and trusting that Brian was on the ball out there, he pulled Nicole back to the bike and they got on while pulling on helmets. Cole clicked the garage door as he cleared the threshold and revved his engine to warn Brian they were coming out. Then he released the clutch and thundered out of the garage.

Brian was in the road and held up his hand. Cole pulled over to him. He was probably thirty with deep red hair and looked about as Irish as anyone could. "You're fairly safe,” Brian told Cole. “We were the only crew sent after your girl here with orders that she was not to be harmed in any way that would show a bruise or keep her from working tonight. They really thought this was going to be a simple snatch and grab. They even had me waiting in the car like an asshole while they were gunned down."

"Better them…" Cole muttered.

"Agreed. Nice work, by the way. I have their wallets and phones, and two guns off the corpses. Davis was carrying an ankle. Now, head straight for the boulevard. Take it to the club. Riders are on their way to follow you in, but there's honestly no one coming."

"Thanks. I owe you," Cole told him.

"No, I owe you for shouting out, rather than just cutting me down," Brian laughed. "Ride safe. I'm behind you."

Cole nodded and then eased the Lowrider down his street, heading straight for the boulevard as instructed. Riders were on their way. The Horsemen looked after their own.

Unfortunately, Nicole wasn't one of their own and the Horsemen had a good, profitable alliance with Gabriel's stable. That connection was through Antonio, who Cole just gunned down as fast and hard as he could, along with Davis – and who knew what connections Davis had or who was going to be pissed off about his death come morning.

"Not good," he muttered and put his hand down on Nicole's thigh. "But worth it."

CHAPTER TWO

When Nicole Bower saw the first pack of five Chrome Horsemen pass by them on the boulevard, speeding in the other direction, it sent a thrill through her. She looked over her shoulder and saw them making an illegal U-turn, then roaring even faster to catch up to her and Cole. It was like real Wild West stuff with the Calvary and everything.

She didn’t even know these men, but that didn’t seem to matter to them. They were here to back-up Cole, simply because he said he was in trouble and they came hunting for that trouble with guns and grim faces.

After three more blocks, however, she said to herself, "This is getting ridiculous," because there were over forty riders around them now, all armed, and none of them joking. Riders shot their bikes forward, up the side of the pack, to come to rest in the middle of intersections, to block traffic for the rest of the pack.

When she looked down crossing roads, she often saw three of four bikers running down the side streets while keeping up with them. These men were called "outriders." Cole had explained them to her during pillow talk the day she officially moved in with him and asked him about is work with the club.

"Outriders," Cole had told her, "and that was my first real job with the club’s security service, follow or pace the main pack or convoy."

They were kept back for two reasons. The first was to give an attacker a false idea of how many men are guarding the convoy. The second was that in case of an attack, they would be the ones who are going to engage the attackers and hunt them down.

The men riding in the main pack only have one goal: to see that the package makes it safely to where it is going. If an attack came, the pack sped up to escape the area, only returning fire if it will help them get the package get out of the danger zone.

That was their job and their only job. While the pack is doing this, the outriders come in from behind and from the sides, assessing the situation as they do and focus on the attackers themselves with the intent of killing them."

He explained this in as few words as possible, but that didn't stop Nicole from thinking just how dangerous everything was. When she told him that, he just laughed.

"Riding as fast as you can into the middle of a gun fight to go after the people firing the guns at you is dangerous, yes. But you eventually get good at it." he assured her.

She had grinned at him, "Don't make fun. This is all new to me."

"That's not going to be true for long," he told her and then brought her to him and kissed her until her toes curled up with rioting pleasures.

By the time they made it to the clubhouse, Nicole had lost track, but was sure there were at least fifty riders in the main pack and one limo. Brian, the man who would have been her new driver if Antonio and Davis were successful in kidnapping her earlier, remained right behind them in the limo that used to be her car.

The bar they pulled into the parking lot of was the clubhouse for the Horsemen, called Abbey's. They pulled in surrounded by armed men and thundering engines. As soon as they were parked, Brian beeped the horn of the limo and continued down the boulevard with a parting wave out the window as he guided the long car into light evening traffic.

The sound of all the engines and watching the large group of men fanning out, guarding them as Cole took her by the hand toward the club was calming, almost soothing. Gabriel wasn't going to be able to get her here. Not a chance. But, of course, she couldn't just stay here.

"What's the plan now?" she asked as Cole took her hand and gently pulled her through the front doors of the club.

"World domination. But then, that's always the plan…there is no other plan. However, what we are going to do right now is to talk to Big Jim, the president of the Horsemen. We'll have a clearer idea of what we can do and what we should do after that. My first instinct is to ride over there right now while your pimp Gabriel still believes you’ll back in his stable within an hour or so. Just ride right now and kill him. Get this over with. And I would, too, in a heartbeat if…"

"If what, Cole?"

"Well, we have agreements with Gabriel and a profitable partnership. Big Jim would not enjoy the news that I just went over there and killed one of our regular customers – well, without his permission anyway."

"How would he feel about Gabriel killing you?"

"He would seek retribution, but that may not come in the eye for an eye way."

Odds are, they'd probably work out some concessions on Gabriel's businesses or cite a cash value to cover the cost to the club for no longer having me as a resource.

Most of the time, things like this were handled with cash and plenty of it. No one wanted to go to war and everyone likes cash, so it was normally the preferred method to put the guns away and get back to business.

She listened, then nodded her understanding, and asked, "So, how much are we talking here?"

"For my death? Probably one to three hundred grand would be asked and then negotiated down to nearly half that much. I'm a patch-holder of the club – they couldn't let my murder slide, but they wouldn't want a war over it either.

"For you? To put an end to any claim he believes he has on you? Over a half million, I'm sure. You are obviously a profit center on Gabriel's accounting ledger; you are all black ink. He will be claiming damages, not merely the loss of a resource."

Once they were inside of the doors, she noticed only eight men in the whole building. All of them had a gun in hand as they watched the streets outside of the window. Two of them waved to Cole, who waved back as he guided her toward the bar.

"What will Big Jim say?" she asked as more men began filing into the bar. Most of them were silent, even brooding, but a handful were on adrenaline rushes, talking and joking loudly against the quiet place. Music wasn't even playing right now. Maybe they turned it off when they announced that Cole needed help and forgot to turn it back on.

"That's going to be hard to guess, baby. Yep, kind of hard," he told her and squeezed her ass in his large hand as she got up on the barstool, "Been wanting to do that for almost a week now."

She wiggled a little, "We could jump into the ladies’ room for a quickie. Doesn't look like many ladies are here right now."

"Oh, wow," he sighed with restrained desire, "don't tempt me with that right now. We really have to see Jim right away." Cole asked the man behind the bar to give him a notepad and pen.

He wrote a brief request to see Jim, adding that he and Nicole would remain in the bar for at least three hours before using the hotel directly across the street. "That's our hotel," Cole explained to her. The Horsemen used it as a makeshift safe house. Cole wouldn't need to register or show ID there, or anything else. As far as the manager and employees over there would be concerned, the couple didn't exist and the room they were staying in would be logged as empty."

CHAPTER THREE

Nicole watched as the bartender took Cole's folded note and set two longnecks down in front of them. She reached for hers right away. Her nerves were shot, she was confused, and very scared. Just a while ago, Cole killed Antonio and Davis! Right in front of her! They were dead! "What makes your president's mind so muddy on this?"

Cole took a drink from his bottle while shaking his head slightly. Setting the bottle back down, he told her, "Not muddy. He's not a confusing man. Not at all. Generally, you can bet your paychecks on which way he's going to look at things, but I can't call this one right now."

"Why not?"

"Big Jim is, beyond a doubt, fully committed to the club, to its safety and its profits. You might believe that every president should be, but in the real world, this isn't the case at all. But for Jim, it is. All of his decisions, plans, and decrees are directly related to one or all of those areas. So, it is not Jim that is confusing; it’s the situation." Cole turned to her, "If it was just me and, for some reason, Gabriel was after me like this, sending men to kidnap me into indentured servitude, Big Jim would kill him. Literally. I'm a member of the club. A rider. A patch-holder. That kind of shit is not tolerated at all."

"But it isn't just you and I'm not a member," she put it together.

"Exactly, and you used to work for him, and he may not simply trust on face value that you left with your hands clean. Walking in, not knowing you, he has to consider the possibility that Gabriel has a valid reason to be after you like this. I have to admit, I didn't think Gabriel’s men would get this aggressive with you. I really didn't. But maybe when you called them and let them know where you were, it was too tempting of an idea."

"I never said where I was!" she protested.

"I believe you, but you forgot about Caller ID. He got my home number when you called from my home phone. It was just a matter of researching the number after that to bring them to my doorstep and to you.”

She looked blankly and then her eyes widened, "Oh, shit. What a fucking idiot I am," she groaned. "I'm so sorry, Cole! Fuck, I didn't think about that at all."

"Why would you? You haven't been on the run from people with serious resources looking for you before, but it tells me we need to spend some time discussing survival basics and teaching you some tricks to avoid this in the future." Then he lifted an eyebrow, "Why did you use my phone instead of your cellphone?"

"The cellphone was in the bedroom and I wanted to make the call before I lost my nerve, and I felt the long walk back there would give me enough time to do that."

"What did you tell him?"

"That I was never coming back and, even if he did find me, if he was looking for me, I wouldn't do the show again, not willingly. I said it was over and to leave me alone."

Both of Cole's eyebrows lifted this time and he nodded his head thoughtfully, "What did Gabriel say to that?"

She picked up her bottle again and motioned to the bartender for another, "I don't know. I lost my nerve and hung up on him after that."

He put his hand on her thigh and rubbed it with deep and soothing care, "Not to worry. In the future, it might be wise to refrain from calling him at all. Honestly, that's just going to make things worse at this point. Like I told you at the house, I know what to do. I'm good at situations like this and if you can trust me, we'll be fine."

She nodded and then finished her beer, "I trust you. I really do."

He studied her face, "I truly believe that you care about me and that you want to me with me, and there was no way you could fake the orgasms that you have, but it is all right if you don't fully trust me yet. Trust takes time and it is generally stronger the longer you wait to buy in."

She met his gaze with understanding, but a smile of humor, "Are you forgetting that we share each other's memories? Our thoughts and even our feelings? My empathy level with you is… well…it's shocking; that's what it is. I can feel the level of arousal you are at when we are having sex. Hell, I can feel you are uncomfortable in that area right now. I really wish you would at least let me suck you off. Seriously. I want to. I love sucking your cock, which brings up another reason I can trust you," she added, nodding her head with certainty. "You have a beautiful cock. Any man with a cock like yours has to be trustworthy. It would simply be unfair if you were an asshole with a cock like that. Talk about mixed signals from the universe. Shit."

"Glad you like it," Cole told her. "I've been working on it all my life."

"Well, stop and let me take care of it. Seriously," she told him as she slid gracefully off her stool. "I'll whisper in the bartender's ear that we'll be in there and slip him a hundred, asking him to knock on the door if Big Jim summons us. And I'll use every trick I know to get you off fast. Come on," she said, pulling at his arm. He looked bewildered and she told him, "Cole, I don't like performing sexual acts all that much, but I love doing them for you. I really do and you have been without for what? Five days now? Six?"

He slowly allowed her to pull him from the stool and stood up to his full height, "That's not exactly a long time," he pointed out.

"Not when sex isn't on your mind and you have other entertainments to work on, sure. But my money is on your last few days being filled with strong desires and loneliness just like mine were, and you should take advantage of this moment of downtime we have since, with the variables, you don't have a clue what we are doing next."

"We might just be going across the street," he offered.

"Which would be fine with me and if you knew that for a fact, I would agree that this could wait. But you don't. We may be riding south, Cole, all the way to Florida or heading north to some place Jim wants us to hide while he gets this worked out. Or another attack could happen, or…"

Cole lifted both hands up with his palms facing her, "All right, cease fire. I'll go. Willingly even."

She smiled broadly a sense of glee pouring out of her, "That's the first time in my life that I've had a boyfriend/girlfriend argument and won. We should have champagne or something with dinner to celebrate."

"If we aren't hiding in a boxcar waiting for the train to take us to New Orleans, I agree," he said and reached down to take her ass in his hand, "You aren't exactly a fair fighter, by the way."

"I'll go whisper in his ear. I’ll be right back," she laughed and then hurried over to the man behind the bar.

The bartender, whose name she discovered was Hank, didn't even flinch when she explained the instructions and where they would be, which from experience, didn't surprise her at all. Bartenders tended to be well experienced in the actions of humanity and this one worked at a club owned by an outlaw biker group.

As she walked back to Cole, she looked around. There was still only a smattering of people in the bar; most of the group remained outside, talking while their eyes remained on alert. Was there really something they could be worried about at this point?

She didn't know, but she wanted to know. After she took care of Cole, she would ask him about it. After. She also noticed that she was the only woman in the place, which was a good thing, until her logical mind gave her a reason for this. "They were sent home. The men are still on alert and so the women remain safe in their homes," she murmured. "There is something to worry about," she decided.

"Hank will let us know if Jim calls for you while we are in there, so come on, don't waste time," she informed Cole when she was in discrete talking distance while taking his hand and pulling to get him started.

She was amazed that he felt so shy about doing this. The men she was used to, the ones who taught her this little trick, often asked her to arrange someplace out of the way for a quickie.

Well, not all of them had this urge. Max didn't, but most of her regulars did.

She thought Cole would get off on it, but maybe it was embarrassing for him to share private space in a public area. Once she got him inside with the door closed, she pushed him up until his back was against the wall. Then leaned into him, pressing herself into the top of his abs.

"Thanks," she told him as she found his buckle and began the manual actions needed to get his cock out.

This was another skill she practiced and perfected – buying a mannequin and practicing with her eyes closed as she listened to the evening stock exchange commentary on the radio. It was a good skill to have in intimate moments, so she didn’t risk breaking the mood by fumbling around, especially with all the effort she put into creating those “moments.”

"For what?" he said, very amused. "I'm the one getting the blowjob. Do you expect me to do you after or something?"

She grinned. She couldn't remember the last time someone did that for her. It was long ago; that was for sure. Clients didn't do that, at least hers didn't, and she never had a lover who did. Jorge, her last long term boyfriend, thought it was a disgusting thought, but then Jorge found most of the world disgusting or insulting.

"Like I said, Cole, I really enjoy doing this for you," she told him, still watching his eyes as she unclasped his pants and searched for the zipper hook.

"Do you?" he asked, "Did you … before?"

She shrugged and looked down, found the zipper hook, and released the zipper. "No, not really. I didn't really enjoy any of it. It was a job and I like doing things right, or at least, not wrong. The job was sometimes interesting, sometimes humorous, and often a challenge. But, no, Cole, it was never enjoyable to me. If you want to know about that part of my life, then we'll talk, all right? But, after," she told him.

"You don't have–"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I should talk about it with you. A huge part of what I am was forged during those years. Not saying I'm proud of what I did, but I am proud of who I am, and I don't want to have huge parts of me hidden from you. I want to be with you. You. Not just your body, or the bedroom." She shrugged, "Besides, you'll get deja vus about that time of my life sooner or later, and we'll have to discuss it then."