Riding Dirty (11 page)

“Fuck!” she yelled, throwing her head back, riding him into liberty. “Bronson! Oh, God, Bronson! Yes!”

Bronson surrendered himself to the urgent rocking tempo until he felt Rowan’s entire body seize and quiver in a shattering orgasm, another jet of lubricating warmth flowing from her loins and bathing him in refreshed desire. He’d never experienced this gushing before and shouted in pleasure.

“Damn girl,” he moaned, filling his hands with her hips and tilting her in to an embrace, drinking in her shuddering ecstasy. “That’s so hot when you come. Yes come all over me, come! You’re gorgeous.”

Bronson tucked and rolled Rowan under him to recover his dominance. Renewing the steady rhythm of thrusts, this time he allowed himself the freedom of timing out his own pleasure. Rowan felt the shift and trembled at the ruinous masculinity that overpowered her. She clung beneath him, the buttery caress of her naked body triggering chills in Bronson as he drove inside her again and again, quickening his pace, relishing the simplicity of ramming in and out on top of this beautiful, sweet woman. Time folded in on itself and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

He didn’t know how long he fucked her. An hour? A day? He could have gone on and on without tiring, lost in it. The yielding bounty of her flesh satiated and instigated his hunger in a violent cycle, urging him toward oblivion. She wrecked him, inspired him.

“Oh baby,” he groaned. “You’re going to make me come. I’m gonna come. So good, Rowan.”

Too soon his ragged breath and sheen of sweat matched Rowan’s and he was shaking against her generosity. Rowan stared up at him in wonder, smiling. She threaded her fingers through his hair, clamped her body tighter around him. It felt like his dick was crashing up almost through her skull, cauterizing her.

“Come, baby,” she whispered. Let him. Let him fuck her. Let him come.

She reached up and stroked his face, his neck and his back with her hands, framed his driving hips, let him fuck her. Let him have her. Fuck! She held nothing back, opening her whole body to him, unable to mask the delight she felt and the power she had over him now.

“Come, Bronson, come.”

“Oh God Rowan,” he groaned, “I’m going to—”

He couldn’t even say it. The fusion of ecstasy pulverized him, sweeping him to another planet. White heat exploded across his eyes and for a moment there was nothing but him and her, their point of connection, their bodies one. Clarity. Buzz. Skin.

They collapsed and gasped together, twisting with aftershocks, their pulses resisting the return to normal and galloping together. Bronson had very nearly passed out, every limb heavy and hung over from pleasure. He didn’t have the heart to pull his cock out of Rowan.

“Bronson?”
“Hm?”

“I’m glad,” she breathed. “My first time…I’m glad it’s you.”

A smiting ache shot through his chest. She was so vulnerable, so real, and what had happened between them actually meant something to her. Something like a lump formed in Bronson’s throat, and something like tears burned at the corners of his eyes, but he managed to bury the treacherous feelings. For now, a kiss seemed to be the only answer Rowan needed, and with a shuddering sigh of contentment they settled to watch the desert horizon turn gold.

Naked and ravaged in the desert with their plans stretching ahead, it was the closest either of them had come to peace.

“Peace?” Dolce rubbed his face angrily as if he could wake himself up from this nightmarish situation. “This isn’t peace boss, it’s bullshit! We don’t have a ceasefire with the mob. We’ve crossed that line by running Bronson’s sting and it’s just a matter of time until they put two and two together. How long you think before the Auditores catch on, and then what? We’ll have Cosmo’s zamboner so far up our asses that his cum will ooze out of my good eye.”

Cosmo Auditore. Called Skinny on the streets for both his physique and his uncanny ability to squeeze out power for himself and pain for his enemies, he was resilient, sneaky, and mean. Ruthlessly seizing control of the Miami-based Auditore family from his grandfather, Cosmo had moved his crime family to what he calculated would be a more profitable town. Las Vegas had it all—drugs, sex, guns, gambling. It was gangster’s paradise. Cosmo had vision and, worse, muscle. The Auditore brothers had been running legal casinos for years in absentia, but now made their franchise a front operation and mercilessly restructured the businesses, pushing for a drug and sex monopoly in the most high-traffic street in the country.

Of course Cosmo had not arrived in a vacuum, and his plan could only work by pummeling the powers that be. From the moment of his permanent relocation two years ago, Cosmo had molested and attacked the biker community without a single night’s reprieve. His main strategy in seizing prime Vegas power was the relentlessness of the blitz. It came like a punch in the gut the very moment Cosmo’s Gulfstream 550 roared onto the landing strip at McCarran Airport, as his agents enacted surgical assassination strikes against who he deduced to be his most significant threats. Assassinating the Demons motorcycle club president had worked; the Coyotes had lost their Vice President. A botched attempt on Axle’s life had cost Dolce an eye, and it had all happened within the same hour. History had changed, and Vegas had become mob territory once more after years of independence.

The violent backlash of resistance that resulted from Cosmo’s un-neighborly arrival provoked mayhem and chaos throughout the criminal circles of Vegas in an epic, vicious scramble for control. Drug dealers were found dead in alleys, stores of cocaine and heroin spread in the desert. Even their customers had been targeted; Dolce remembered with a shudder walking in on a junkie massacre that left ten corpses on their hands.

Realizing the desperate seriousness of the situation, the biker gangs that customarily fought each other for dominance in Vegas and the outlying territories shifted their money streams and funneled their collective energies into more guns and drugs, all in an attempt to force Cosmo back out to Miami. It hadn’t worked. He’d acquired more casinos, more guns, more men. Axle knew there had to be a snitch within the biker community, but no one had ever solved the riddle of just who would be so spineless. With frustrating accuracy, Cosmo had somehow located and raided almost all the Ruiners’ safe-houses and storage facilities. No matter how many times they shuffled the map, Cosmo seemed to be one step ahead.

Over time, with a bigger bankroll and infinite patience for his cause, the bastard had prevailed. Eventually the Coyotes had been pushed west, then the Ruiners south. For two years now every day had been a fucking struggle. The Ruiners had competed with Cosmo for control of the drug circuit on the strip, the suburbs. Axle himself had sat down with Cosmo twice to draw borderlines and surrender terms for the two organizations during their bloody recent history. When Cosmo’s goons had caught Bronson dealing in a casino they followed him home and blew up the Ruiners’ gun storage. The Ruiners still hadn’t bounced back from that cluster-fuck. Maybe they never would.

Bronson had been leased to the mob as a sort of collateral against the Ruiners crossing their boundaries again. One false move, and he was dead. One false move, and the Ruiners were back in the shitter. To protect the club, Axle had accepted the exchange and unfavorable peace terms. The Ruiners limped along, hobbled and punished. Cosmo had them by the balls, and Dolce knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cosmo’s vengeance for a breach of agreement would be the end of the Ruiners.

Losing was bad enough, but this was suicide.

“Fuck,” Dolce spat, searching for a way to express to Axle his concerns. “We’ll probably bump into Skinny at a blackjack table one night, and how do you think that conversation’s gonna go? ‘Oh, hi, nice to see you too sunshine, shall we share a fucking cocktail before I suck your wop salami for you? Or would you prefer I just shoot my dick off for you and hand it over on a platter, since I’m already effectively castrated?’”

Axle Derian calmly reached for his socket wrench, tightening the undercarriage of his Harley StreetGlide and maintaining a neutral face. His treasurer obviously needed to blow off some steam, and Axle hadn’t stayed at the top of the food chain for over thirty years by being impatient. Especially in topsy-turvy times, he believed that leadership was at least half listening. Though he was now a greybeard and getting older and crankier every second, Derian still rode in the Iron Butt Rally every two years, completing 1,000 miles a day for eleven days in a row. He could still ride, so he could still lead. Retirement wasn’t going to happen any time soon. The brethren of the Ruiners respected their President as well as feared him, and in turn, he kept his door and his ears open.

Loyalty was a two-way street, and in the rough and tumble world of the outlaw biker club, Axel had learned that loyalty was not a fixed commodity but rather an unpredictable tide constantly in flux. He had seen stunning betrayals and shocking acts of courage. It was important to him to keep the lines of communication open, to know what those in his inner circle were thinking and to use all that data to make the best possible decisions. It was part of what family was, but even more, it was part of survival. Derian had always possessed a knack for blowing the smoke away and hearing between the words, and today what he heard was problematic.

Dolce and Bronson had always knocked heads, and not just about club business. Even before that whole ugly situation with Lola, there was a personality clash never quite buried. Two alpha males in the same turf pissing in each other’s corners, neither one content to live and let live. Bronson had been distancing himself lately, since his assignment with the Italians. He’d been…elsewhere, in his thoughts and proximity. Axle knew something was up in Bronson’s head, but trusted him enough to let it alone for now. Dolce, on the other hand, could never let matters lie. It had never come to blows before, but Dolce was at a boiling point. Axle’s wheels were turning, calculating the best response to mollify this hothead and maintain the status quo.

Encouraged by Axle’s silence, Dolce brought out the big guns, his best logic. “We’re not even making any money from this, Ax. The club gets zilch until that broad gets her human pate. This is insanity. I feel like I am actually going insane. This is not good business. We’d be better off with the AK-47s in our hands attacking the strip in broad daylight. At least if we iced a few jamooks and got back to honest bloodshed, we could move the merch, keep the Coyotes and their money locked in. I can’t handle this pansy-ass sneaking around. Just because this dame has perky tits and Ramsey’s got a boner for her, we’re supposed drop everything that makes sense? Are we a motorcycle club or a fucking hallmark movie? I didn’t patch in to do charity work.”

“No,” rumbled Axle, his head and trunk obscured under the raised bike rack. “You patched in to be a part of the tribe. Family thinks beyond the individual’s itchy feet and chills the fuck out when the bigger picture is at play.”

“What big picture?” Dolce knew his tone was pushing it, but he couldn’t help himself. “I didn’t vote for this, I don’t like it. All week I’ve done what you asked. I’ve trotted along like a good dog, I didn’t shit on any carpets, I protected that bimbo and all that Robin Hood shit, and Axle, no cash?! We raked in, what, a hundred grand already, and it all goes to
her
? I mean, what the hell are we doing?”

Dolce lowered his voice confidentially, emphasizing each word to try to convey his seriousness and give his opinion the weight of numbers. “Three months, Ax, and the club accounts are at zero. For the record, Rex is pissed too. You gotta talk to him about it, he can put it better than I can. Look, it made sense to sell to the Coyotes. That was a big fucking operation, it was worth tangoing with the Auditore brothers until we got busted, and even then we coulda kept it going. We could get it going again now! We just gotta pull our heads out of Ramsey’s ass. Let me and Rex have a chance to put this thing to sleep and get back to selling the guns.” Dolce leaned over the Harley, swept by the fervor of his convictions. “Let me talk to T-Bone,” he pleaded. “Give me the green light. I could have us operational again, pres. Some bullets might fly, sure, but we’re heading that direction no matter what next step we take. Why wait? You think Ramsey’s extending peace? Hell no. All he’s doing is making damn sure our pockets’ll be empty when all guinea hell breaks loose.”

Axle rolled himself out from under his bike and sat up, wiping black greasy hands on his do-rag. He sighed and cocked an eyebrow at his talkative subordinate. Repeating himself was getting tiresome. How many times did Dolce need to be told to get back in his place, do his job?

“You done?”

Dolce shrugged, straightened his vest, and let the last jittery nervous energy leave his body. He looked the Ruiners’ president in the eye with the defiance of a rebellious teenager, anarchy bubbling under the surface. “Yeah boss. I’m done.”

Axle nodded, considered. With precision and attention he cleaned his tools and laid them back in their case until he came to his needle nose pliers. “You know something Dolce?” Axle’s voice was soft and calm, distracting from the hard gleam in his eye. “I don’t even carry any other kind of pliers anymore. These babies pull through for most everything. They get in and out of tight spaces and pack a grip that don’t give up.”

Dolce gritted his teeth. “Great. Here comes the fucking metaphor.”

Axle held the pliers under Dolce’s chin, his face menacing. “If I were going to extract your brain from your head, sure I could use a sledgehammer. But there would be evidence—your broken skull, for example. Now if I used my pliers here instead, I could reach in and pull your brain through your nose and no one would ever know the difference. Least of all, you. What does this fucking metaphor mean? Any guesses?”

Dolce shook his head and stared at the floor.

Axle smiled, and put his clean pliers back in the toolbox. “I know blood is coming, Dolce, I know it’s only a matter of time. Until that happens, I want to insult the Auditore brothers. I want our name whispered in their casinos and their money in our coffers. I want retaliation for last spring and I don’t care if they realize it’s happening or not. That’s not the point. The point is that by the time they try to scratch the itch, I’ve already got them by the balls. That is the beauty of Bronson’s idea. It’s a win-win situation, which happens to be my favorite kind. We voted. Majority rules. Do your fucking job, leave the thinking to me, and shut up for now. And, Dolce, you’ll be there ringside on Saturday. This bullshit fight the Auditores have arranged for Ramsey is going to be the beginning of the end. I can feel it. We’re putting all we got on Bronson. Make the withdrawal, and place the bet.”

Axle watched Dolce as the younger man nodded, fuming. He knew as he watched his treasurer leave that he had only temporarily postponed the time bomb. But it would go off, soon enough. All he could do for now was nod commandingly at the Prospect sweeping the floor.

“Follow him,” rumbled Axle. “I got a feeling they may need an extra pair of fists tonight.”

“Yes sir, ” said the Prospect, dropping his broom.