Motown Showdown (14 page)

“I was going to say be careful,” and he was full of shit, grinding his jaw while he did it. “You armed?”

Giving him the
are you fucking serious
look I open my jacket to show proof of a 9 mm holstered on either side. Then I turn pulling up my thermal to show him the sub compact .45 on my back. For bragging rights, I hefted up my yoga pants to show him a .38 on my right ankle and finally the taser on the left.

“What, no knife?” Rome asks joking.

Reaching into my sports bra, I produce my Benchmade 8600 Auto Bedlam blade and snap it open. “Are we done?”

“How do you move around?” Kandace asks looking me over.

“I’m used to it,” I shrug. “When I’m not armed I feel naked.”

“I bet!” she laughs opening the door for me.

“Camo,” Gage calls and I turn. “Come here.”

Walking over he grabs me, kisses me, and whispers, “The two most important women in my life are walking out that door, I expect them both to use caution.”

Leaning in to meet his ear I whisper back, “I’ll protect her with my life.” Then I break away pulling Kandace out of the house behind me.

Strapped in and cruising she says, “He’s too protective.”

“He loves you.”

“That he does,” she smiles. “Where’s your place?”

Giving her directions we make small talk until we get there. Having her stay in the car while I check that the location is secure before bringing her in, she looks ready to burst with excitement. Signaling her in, she hits the steps finding herself in my makeshift living room. “You said you lived in a loft.”

“Uh, I do.”

“This isn’t a loft,” she says spinning in a circle. “This is a huge room inside of a warehouse!”

“Hence the word loft,” I tell her smiling.

“You’re loaded.”

“Fully,” I wink at her then grab two San Pellegrinos (Blood orange because yum) tossing her one. While she walks around, I check my computers and monitors for traffic finding none. Even the wire was silent which made sense, but I wasn’t used to quiet. This was both good and bad, but I’d decide what to do next later. At present, she was standing in front of my bulletin board or as Bobo calls it, my ode to Gadget.

“Um Camo?” she asks looking over her shoulder. “This is self-explanatory,” she motions to his photos. “This, I’m not so sure about. Are these targets?”

“Those on the left are past targets,” I explain. “By that, I mean dead. Those on the right are threats.”

“There’s a lot of threats.”

“Look to the left again, Kandace,” I encourage. She’s smart, super smart. She looks, cocks her head, thinks it over and nods. “Oh.”

“Not one of those people are worthy of your air or consideration, I promise you.”

“I believe you,” she says walking toward me. “Wow, you’ve been busy over the years.”

“Never a dull moment.”

“Did you keep track of the ones you killed for my brother?”

Reaching under the table, I hand it to her. “Here.” Holding the book in one hand and her drink in the other, she asks while smirking, “You made a scrapbook?”

“Sometimes I feel creative and I even bedazzled a few pages. But mostly it’s a reminder.”

“Of?”

“How much I love your brother.”

“He’s lucky,” she says softly. “Lucky like I am with Rome.” Seeing my in, I take it.

“Have a seat,” I suggest taking one myself. Personally the sectional I snagged from Pottery Barn might be the world’s most perfect sofa and worth every penny.
A lot of pennies
…

“I just thought of something,” she says sipping her drink. “Damn, that is good. Anyway, it occurred to me that I made a career of saving lives, and you made a career of taking them.” Wondering where this was going, I stayed silent. I wanted Kandace to love me like I loved her but if my choice of career is a roadblock that would suck. “I’m not judging you,” she says quickly. “I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to let evil die on my table, but my oath prevented it. Some people are better off dead,” she trails off.

“Rome told me about Michelle,” I admit. “And he showed me your video, A+ by the way.”

“I wanted to kill her,” she growls. “Roughing her up wasn’t enough.”

“She took from you,” I say urging her on. “She also did it without any repercussions, fuck; she was even praised for it. How’s Rome dealing?”

“Ugh,” she says setting her drink down. “He said he made peace with it, wants to move on with his life with me but…”

“But?”

“It fucks with him, knowing she’s out there doing whatever destroyers of life do. She’s not sorry, Camo. But I have to believe that one-day karma will fuck her in the ass.”

Holding back my laugh at the visual, I nodded, getting it. Karma would be fucking her in the ass, soon (without lube). “I’m sorry you both went through that,” I tell her standing up and grabbing my bag. “I believe in karma and that she’ll have her day.”

“God, I hope so,” she says standing also. “I will say this, if that bitch ever wound up on my table, I’d say fuck the oath and let her suffer.”

You kill for those you love
bangs around in my brain, but I ignore it.
Vengeance is mine
on replay too.

“Ready?” I ask slinging my bag over my shoulder.

“Thanks for letting me get that out.”

“Anytime,” I smile setting the alarm on our way out.

“Wait,” she says holding the door open. “Didn’t you need to grab some things?”

“I’m good, I got what I came for.”

As far as games went, I fucking rocked out with my lady cock out. Kandace and Roman were about to have their lives changed…for the better.

She was in Atlanta; I had nothing lined up.

I couldn’t sleep and almost like she sensed it, she called me. We joked for a bit, talking about a whole lot of nothing but then she asked me, “Does it ever fuck with you?”

“Yeah,” No use in lying, it did fuck with me on occasion. “You?”

“No.”

“Not ever?”

“No,” she says quietly. “Not ever.” For some reason that surprised me. Camo was funny, sweet and caring. How could it not fuck with her?

“If we didn’t do it, imagine what would happen if that evil spread?” she says just as quietly. She was working, I could tell, she was never not working. “Evil came to my door and stole from me. As long as I’m breathing, I can’t, I won’t, let evil win.” And then she hung up.

Following Rome to the basement, I grab a flashlight and pretend to give a shit about water heaters. I know dick about home improvement, and when I said as much, he snorts, “Then Gadget is a dumb nickname.”

“It’s a call name and it’s in reference to weapons, not Martha Stewart.”

“I think you mean Tim Allen,” he laughs.

“Who the fuck ever.”

“Relax,” he says looking at the flame underneath it. “They’ll be fine.”

“I wanted to see her place,” I mumble feeling left out.

“Then ask her,” he says standing back up.

“You’ve been with my sister a few weeks asshole, don’t act like you got it all figured out.”

Leveling me with a look that doesn’t faze me, he tosses his flashlight on the bench, and I follow suit. “I’ve been in love with her for ten God damn years,” he snaps. “I’m all about not missing any more opportunities to get shit settled. If I have something to say, I say it, and she does the same. I’ll never have it figured it, but it doesn’t stop me from trying.”

He had a point, but I wasn’t going to inflate his ego, so I turned to go upstairs. “There is nothing wrong with your water heater,” I point out. “I don’t like liars.”

“I wasn’t lying, I was distracting, she wanted girl time with Kandace so fucking relax. And fuck you, it could have been broke that’s why I was checking it.”

“Is it different with Kandace?” I ask subtly.

Catching my meaning, he relaxes handing me a bottle of water. “She makes sense to me,” he says with a smile. “Always did, even when she was giving me shit. She never bullshits me, she gives me space or crowds me if she feels I need it. Had my back when everyone else’s turned and did that when I deserved it least.”

“Because she loves you.”

“Yeah and I’ll tell you one thing, brother, you don’t let go of a woman like that. She’s my second chance, my shot at happiness.”

That got me thinking about all the times I shut Camo out when she was trying to warn me, yelled at her when she called me out and dangled women I didn’t even want in front of her face. “Speaking of shots,” I say changing the subject. “You need range time.”

“She’s taking me tomorrow,” he grins.

When they pull safely in the driveway and get out laughing, I let go of the breath I was holding. “Told ya,” Rome says slapping me on the back.

“Holy shit!” Kandace says waving her hands around. “You guys have to see her place! She owns an entire building, and it’s gorgeous! It’s like NASA but with plush furniture! The windows are bulletproof!”

Shrugging it off, she comes over to me and curls into my side after dropping her bag. “Where do you live, Gage?” she asks pinching my ass. “If you have a home I’ve never seen it,” she says getting quiet. No doubt she’s thinking I didn’t want her to see it because where I went she followed, but that wasn’t the case.

“Hotels, beauty,” I say softly. “You know better.”

“Right,” she smiles tightening her arms around me.

“We’re taking off,” I tell them both and waste no time getting her out of there.

Now that we’re back at our temporary place, I wanted to ask her about her place and when she’d take me to see it. But when she came up behind me and ran her hands up my back I changed my mind. “I want you,” she says trailing her nails down my back. Reaching behind me to keep her close I let her explore me. Her hands were chilled, and it felt good on my heated skin. Slipping around to the front she found both of my nipples and squeezed.

“Again,” I order her closing my eyes. “Harder,” I moan when she adds a twist. My next demand was going to be that she jack me, but she didn’t need to be told, she already knew.

Sliding her tits down my back for a better reach she sinks her hands in past my underwear and gets a loose hold of my dick. With her face pressed against my lower back and her hands in my pants, I anchor my own arms above my head to watch. “Your dick doesn’t disappoint,” she says working it from behind. Never have I had a woman at my back jacking me off. Looking down at her fist working me was hot.

“Nothing better than your pussy,” I grunt out. Hand jobs serve a purpose, to get a guy’s attention, get him worked up but when she does it, it was more. I wanted my come on her hands, all over body, covering her.

Picking up speed and tightening her grip she adjusts herself behind me and asks, “Where do you want me?”

Bringing my hands back down to remove hers, I turn us facing and pick her up and into my arms. She’s small, so malleable. I could fling her around like a rag doll and never run out of breath. Setting her on top of the piano I spread her legs and was pissed she had those fucking tight pants on. Reaching for her waist I start pulling and while I do that she starts removing her weapons. If there was anything hotter, I haven’t seen it. Bare from the waist down she sits up on her elbows and watches me lean down to eat her pussy. In no time, she was bucking and swearing at me to stop, give her more and then she got religious.

Oh God this, God damn that.

Then as she was coming she did the best thing…she said
my
name.

Pulling her off the piano and tossing her over my shoulder I push the door to the bedroom open not giving a shit who slept in that bed. The sheets were clean, it had pillows and now it held her. “You’ve got two choices,” I say pulling her toward me by the ankles. “On your knees or---”

With a squeal, she gets up on her knees and raises her ass in the air shutting me right up. Scrubbing my hand over my face I just look. And look and---

“Are we going to fuck or are you mentally preparing your grocery list?” she asks wiggling to get my attention.

“If that list has pussy on it then yes,” I say moving in behind her then shoving her face down I growl, “Now shut up.”

She laughs at my attempt at humor, but it died in her throat when I surged forward. Grabbing her hips, I wasted no time going deep and hard. Watching her grip the comforter in her little fists, moaning her pleasure, never once telling me to slow down, had me going at her even harder.

Of all the times to start reflecting on my life, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Because as I spanked her ass, dug my fingers in, pulled her hair and fucked her ruthlessly, she fucking
purred
.

Her olive skin took my black cock and right then I wanted those six years back. To do right by her, get to know her, let her get to know me. I wanted the randoms of my past erased, hers too. So when she arched her back to come, I yanked her head back hard to get access to her mouth.

“Who do you belong to?” I ask her wrapping her hair around my fist.

“To you,” she moans. “It’s always been you.”

Damn straight it was
, but I couldn’t say shit because I was too busy coming like a geyser to speak. When she fell forward, I went with her. When she curled into me, I held on tighter. When we both fell asleep, my dick was still buried deep, I wished it could always be like this yet knowing it wouldn’t. As much as I wanted her, if I kept her, I’d ruin her.