Clear (Storm's Soldiers MC Book 3) (3 page)

I ticked her head up by the chin, and she granted me a peek of her smile. It was such a delicate thing I held in my hands. What a fool I would have been to let it break.

We kissed softly and that made us start kissing roughly. In a flash, the pure warmth flushed out of my mind, replaced by naked hunger. I grabbed firm handfuls of that supple rear and hoisted her onto me. Her arms curved behind my back and I realized that she had missed me deeply in this way too. Her mouth twisted around mine, and she tried to move her tongue in deeper and deeper, as if she wanted it to become a part of me.

I was having none of it. Instead of popping up the stairs, I went up a step, then dropped her firm onto the creaking hardwood. She mouthed surprise, but my hands were already at work hoisting her tight pink shirt up and over her arms.

She had on a satin red bra.

Like hell, she wanted to talk. I rushed it off her and took giant mouthfuls of her breasts. God were they juicy.

She squealed above me, but cut herself off. “We’re in the open.”

I stopped suckling her nipples enough to ask, “Anyone around to hear?”

“No.”

I swirled my tongue around her teats until she squealed and sank back into the stairs. I kissed my way down her flesh and swooped in under her skirt. In the warm darkness, I shoved aside her panties and got to work on her pleasure. Her juices already ran slick from her, and I lapped them up faithfully, relishing the familiar taste.

Her nails scritched uselessly against wood and she started to squirm. I flicked my tongue back and forth, determined and focused. There was no where else I would rather be. My work paid off with a glass-shattering wail that broke through her lips and covered my face in a wash of wetness.

My pants came off after that. I turned her around on her knees and entered her from behind. We bucked over and over against the steps, our bodies perfectly aligned to transfer my force to her. Watching all her dark flesh before me, I thickened inside her until every inch was perfect pleasure. I flooded her with me, and then she bucked and broke against me, too.

I took my weathered princess up to her bed. Our clothes came off in full and we lay into each other, skin on skin. After some sweet friction, our movements became more urgent and I entered her once more. The night passed with several instances of that, and by dawn we lay more tired than awake.

I stroked her rich, dark hair, and smiled as her beautiful eyes tried to stay open.

“Apology accepted?” I asked.

“Apology? I’m gonna have to call the cops on you for what you did to my body.”

“Seems fair.” I wrapped my arms around her. “Let’s get some rest, and I’ll help you out with that.”

“You better help,” she muttered, eyes already shut. “Cause you’re my man now.”

If there were a better idea to drift off to, I didn’t think I’d ever hear it.

CHAPTER THREE

Meagan

Even before it happened, I knew I’d done well. My graded paper made its way back around to me, and my eyes landed on that red ‘A.’

Nothing more than what I expect,
Prof. Greene had written.

It was a small note, but it made me feel fuzzier than a lot of other praise that I’d gotten. Good things came to me. That’s just how my life was now, and I could accept that.

Faith was frowning at her paper as she walked outside, as if the grade’s mind might change at seeing her so upset.

“I thought you didn’t care about this class?” I asked. “A ‘C’ is passing.”

“I dunno,” she muttered. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me. Maybe I’m just hoping I can follow you to Emory.”

I hugged her. “Oh come, that’s not gonna be for another few months, and we’ll still hang out after that.”

“People always say that.”

“Really? This situation has happened to you that often?”

She waggled out of my hug. “You know what I mean. We’ll drift into different lanes. You got your awesome school back. You’re with the doctor again.”

My rubber soles squealed to a stop. “What? I ain’t with Rico. Where’d you get that idea?”

She shrugged her broad shoulders. “You said you’re going back to Emory. I figured it had to do with him.”

I laughed without a single ounce of funny. “Hell, no am I going back to that guy. I told you he grabbed me right?”
“Yeah, but I…so what, how are you going back?”

“That’s what I came
here
to do, girl.” I play-smacked the back of her head. “That’s why I’m still here another semester.”

We started heading out again. “So Rico’s still a prick?” she asked, and I nodded solemnly. “Is he still bothering you?”

I smiled wickedly to myself. “No. I let him know that his messages were being forwarded to Vaughn and he stopped cold. I guess there were things he didn’t want my boyfriend to hear.”

“Nice.”

Aubrey met us at the waterless fountain in the plaza outside. “Bite to eat?”

I checked the time. “Sure.”

Darryl had sent me a text during class:
Free to hang out after dinner if you’re looking for something to do.

We rounded out of the plaza to the streets of downtown Atlanta. As we walked along the storefronts, Aubrey and Faith yammering at each other, I texted my brother back:
Shouldn’t you have a girlfriend to attend to?

The phone buzzed right away:
I’m holding out for the sweetest berry of all.

Ugh. I could barely type:
Don’t talk about my roommate like that.

Bzzz:
You’re the one who asked about my love life. Guess that means you’re spending the night on yours?

I pocketed the phone. We’d talked yesterday. He knew the answer well enough.

“Here again?” Faith asked as Aubrey pulled into a Mexican place.

“I like my my food like I like my men,” Aubrey said. “Fiery and consistent.”

“I can tell you one thing that wasn’t consistent after my last visit.”

“Dude, you’re so gross. Just lay off the hot sauce.”

I hesitated in the doorway, but Aubrey beckoned me in. “She’s lying. It’s really good. Tell her it tasted good.”

Faith sighed to the heavens. “It’s fine.”

The food was more than fine. We ate and talked in between wiping the sweat off our brows. I finally told them about the last meeting - my final meeting - with Rico. I even told them the whole story.

“He yelled ‘spic’ out loud?” Faith asked.

The conversations around us screeched to a halt. Or maybe that was just my heart. “Sweet jesus,” I whisper-yelled at her. “Did you forget where we are?”

“Oh, sorry,” she leaned in. “He actually said ‘spic’ to Rico?”

My stomach recoiled every time I heard the word. I knew Faith didn’t mean anything by it - heck, she’d dated Latino guys - but she just could never understand the way a word like that could make you feel. Neither of them could, really.

“Yeah, he told him off,” I said. “I didn’t talk to him for days after that.”

“Seems like the sort of guy who would say that,” Faith mumbled through a mouth of refried beans. “Didn’t his jacket say SS or something?”

“SS? He’s dating Meagan. How in the world could he be a racist?”

They both looked at me and I just shuffled my shoulders apologetically. “He’s not racist,” I said. “Not that I can see anyway.”

“Well, what he said worked right?” Faith asked. “RIco knows not to mess with you with a guy like that around.”

“I guess…”

I didn’t want to press it in front of this audience. I just let them simmer the air with their own stories and we laughed our way to empty plates. The food really was good. I wondered if maybe I could bring Vaughn here as an eye-opener.

No, I’d seen him eat a burrito. What was I thinking? Why did I have the urge to keep poking a fresh wound? Things were fine between us now. The rest would heal with time.

The city glowed warm at noon when we went back out - a ray of light to break up the usual winter chill. People were out for walks, moms were pushing strollers and single girls were walking shaggy little dogs. I smiled at the sights and we took our time getting around to the student parking lots. Aubrey lived nearby on West Peachtree St, but Faith was giving her a ride anyway.

We passed by the giant student tackboard and stopped to check it out.

“You ever heard this band SpeechSwirls?” Faith asked, reading off a purple and black poster. “They’re having a free concert Saturday night.”

“What do they play?” Aubrey asked. “Actually never mind, I already hate their name.”

I drifted over ads for tutoring and placards for the new theater club production. I landed on a stark black and red sheet of paper. There was just a large cross with winged ends filling most of it. It felt familiar.

Below, a line of bold font screamed:
Who will stand for white culture? Will you?

A giant white hand pointed out at the screen, with a date advertised. To be honest, the whole thing was more tacky than offensive. Was that really supposed to convince anyone?

I looked at the cross again and remembered with a dip in my stomach where I’d seen it: on Vaughn’s thick round shoulders.

“What’s that?” Aubrey asked, quickly reading. “The hell? Stand for white culture? What student group is that?”

“It’s not a student group,” I said. “It’s supremacists.”

Just supremacists, I reminded myself. Not necessarily Vaughn or his people. There must be other groups. But how many of these rallies were there around? I’d barely heard of any.

I checked the date again. It was this saturday in Centennial Park.

“Come on,” Faith said, tugging at my shirt. “What, you gonna go to that thing?”

“I might.”

“Uhh…don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think it’s for you.”

“The park is public space. There’s gonna be a lot of black folk around whether they want them there or not.”

Faith looked at Aubrey. “Well, I don’t think either of us would feel comfortable around some racist rally.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t ask you to come.”

This was a personal thing anyway. I wanted to see what grievances drove them to be who they were. Vaughn might not believe in the stuff, but I wanted to see what his family thought. Or at least people who were like his family.

We split up at the parking lot, and I went back home. I tried to get some stuff done before I had to head off to the night shift at the bar, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about the rally. I did some searches on white nationalism to see what wikipedia had to say. It turned out there was no unifying philosophy, just a grabbag of whatever petty nonsense a group held against the world.

I shared my findings with Marissa during my shift at the Volcano, but she wasn’t too interested. “People have to find problems always,” she said. “Or they get bored.”

“Why not just get drunk then?” I asked, looking out at our clientele.

“Cause they’re pendejos. Why are you looking this stuff up anyway? You have some self-hatred thing that I don’t know about.”

“No, no, just kinda curious what a 21st century racist looks like.”

“Old, fat and ugly, I think.”

Actually I was well aware what such a man might look like. And sound like and taste and smell like. Also, feel like. Vaughn’s club buddies would look like him, right? It’s just their ideas that would be different.

Hopefully.

I finished my shift and headed back home. I had a porchfront visitor waiting.

“Hey there, stranger,” he said, rising like a hulking white ghost from the shadows.

I’d seen his profile and heard his voice, but I still couldn’t help from jumping as he moved. “Jesus, Vaughn. Why you being all theatrical?”

“I just love to make you move,” he said, pinning me to the door with a kiss. All the sharp edges the day had left in my brain melted off, leaving only smooth longing.

We snuck in. Tara would be asleep by now. Vaughn ticked his head at the stairs and whispered, “Ready to make the floorboards sing?”

“No,” I hissed, even as my undergarments went wet at the memory of our reunion sex. “We’ve gotta be quiet. She’s got a big performance review tomorrow.”

His mouth curled up in a wicked smile. “Well I’ve got one for you coming up tonight.”

He led my hand to his crotch where a long thick measuring stick had sprung against the fabric. I half laughed at his cheesy line, half gasped. I stroked him in that moonlit foyer a bit, loving the way his lean face cast shadows as my little hand made its way up and down.

His face bowed over mine, our foreheads nudged against each other. His jagged breaths washed down over me, drowning me under his rich scent. It was like the oil and leather had seeped into his very sweat. The smell got me fired up and set me loose all at once.

I tipped my head up and landed a gentle kiss on his lips. He pressed down brusquely. His powerful arm scooped me around by the small of my back, pinning me in place. I stroked him harder and his tongue darted into my mouth, the first part of him starting to invade me. My brain clouded with lust, but I found the boldness to exhale words into his ears: “Not here. Tara.”