The Dragon (G.O.N.Y. - Double Dragon) (25 page)

Behind her, Ramsey released a soft sigh but his breathing never changed. He slept on.

She was lucky. She should stop, go to sleep and pretend she hadn’t just molested him in his sleep. She did it again, and again, whimpering as he grew thicker, longer. A hand suddenly gripped her hip, holding her steady, and Jezebel groaned, shame and lust filling her to the brim.

“Jez?” Ramsey rasped.

Maybe she could just pretend she was asleep.

The dim end table light flicked on. Before she could close her eyes, he flipped her to her back. Staring into his confused face, she whimpered. “I’m sorry. Just go back to sleep.”

“Jez,” he breathed, and then his fingers were sliding down her belly, dragging soft sighs and moans from her as they moved to their destination. Her panties stretched as his fingers slid along her sex, tracing, feeling,
knowing
. Ramsey groaned, and leaned into her neck. “You’re drenched…”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered miserably.  

Ramsey chuckled against her neck. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to be horny. I just am!”

Another chuckle, this one hoarse, and his lips began to toy with her neck. When his tongue dragged across her skin, she gasped and moaned his name. “Ramsey, I…”

“What?” he murmured, lifting his head to look down at her. “You what, baby?”

“Please.”

She saw his smirk. “Please what?”

“Please touch me,” she moaned. It was becoming almost painful. “Please don’t tease me.”

His smirk faded, his expression becoming so intense she felt a slight fission of fear before that disappeared in the face of stark, unadulterated need.

“Jezebel,” Ramsey began, removing his fingers from her soaked panties. “We have to be careful.”

“We’ll go slow.” She heard the desperation in her own voice and would have been embarrassed were she capable of it at the moment. “Please just fuck me.”

He was kneeling between her legs not seconds later, sliding her panties from her body and pulling her t-shirt over her head. He looked at her hungrily before moving away. Confused, Jezebel was about to protest when his arm pushed under her and he lifted her onto his body. He sat up and pulled her tender nipple into his mouth, moaning as she began to rub against his rigid sex. As he took the other, she shifted and tried to impale herself, but failed. She whined her frustration, and Ramsey released her nipple with a pained smile.

He lay back onto the bed, gripped her hips and smiled up at her. “Take me, Jez.” As she eagerly pushed herself up to do so, he added, “Take your cock.”

His entry was smooth, eased by the slickness of her channel, and she would have continued until he was buried to the hilt if he hadn’t gripped her hips tight, preventing her from doing so. As she lifted away, Jezebel moaned. This was what she needed, what she’d craved for so many nights. She sank down again, and this time he allowed her to take more before gripping her hips again and forcing her to lift away. They played his game over and over until finally, Jezebel felt her clit press to his hard pelvis. She tossed her head back, placed her palms against his hard stomach, and rubbed back and forth.

Beneath her, Ramsey groaned, stroking the sides of her belly before palming her ass. “Tell me how you feel, baby.”

“Good…oh God, Ramsey.” She lifted away and took him deep again, bouncing as she found her rhythm. “You feel so good.”

He nodded. “Any pain?”

She shook her head. Just mind-boggling pleasure. His hands slid to her breasts and he cupped them, squeezing lightly before toying with her swollen nipples. “I love your breasts, the darkness of your nipples.” Jezebel ground herself against him again and he tossed his head back. “Fuck…baby.” Inching her hands up, she laid them against his shoulders as she tried to lean forward. She wanted to kiss him, feel his tongue in her mouth as she came. Her belly made it uncomfortable and Jezebel moaned her frustration.

Ramsey sat up slowly and she released a sigh of relief as his lips caught hers. Twining her arms around his neck, she used her knees as leverage, rocking up and down, grinding down against him and lifting away. As her thrusts grew wilder, her moans more hedonistic, Ramsey was right there, urging her on, slapping her ass, gripping it, pulling her cheeks apart, and making her come.

Her orgasm almost robbed her of her air, sneaking up on her and tossing her head first into the abyss. She didn’t know how much time passed but she remembered him stroking her back, remaining still, allowing her to have her moment.

When he laid her back on the bed and pulled the covers around her, Jezebel sighed and smiled. Jesus, she’d needed that. Behind her, the bed shifted and Ramsey’s naked buttocks were suddenly in her sights. They were bronzed, muscular, and nicely rounded. She smirked. What a glorious ass.

She must have said it aloud because he turned to her. “Thank you. I’m fond of yours as well.”

Jezebel didn’t need to see her face to know she blushed. After everything she’d done to him, her face flushed and her eyes lowered as she caught sight of his long, thick cock standing at attention. “You didn’t come?” The heat infusion came again. She
really
needed to stop blushing. She wasn’t a virgin, nor was this the first time she’d seen Ramsey Stone naked.

He looked down and smirked. “Tonight was for you.”

Before she could answer, he slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.

***

If not for the fact that he was being “cautious,” his swollen sex would be buried to the hilt in Jezebel’s body as he rode her to a second orgasm and his own release. Instead, said appendage was in his fist as he stroked it to what he hoped would be a quick release. Closing his eyes, he pictured Jezebel’s face as she came, her heavy, dark-tipped breasts bouncing as she rode him, how she ground herself against him to get the most pleasure…

He groaned.

Soft hands brushed his buttocks and Ramsey turned. Large brown eyes stared up at him. Reaching up, Jezebel slid her hands into his hair and pulled his head down. His hands were on her ass as soon as her tongue traced his lips, pulling her against him as she stroked into his mouth. She pushed him back with a little smile, and removed his hands from her buttocks. As he watched, turned on and confused, she moved to the toilet and put the seat down.

“Sit.” When he only stared at her in surprise, she grinned. “Now.”

As if controlled by something other than his brain, his legs moved forward and he sat, bringing him eye level with her belly, her soft curls. Leaning forward, he pressed a lingering kiss to her navel. She stroked his hair before firmly pulling him away. His mouth grew dry when she sank to her knees.

“Jezebel, you don’t have to…”

Her long fingers closed around him as she licked her lips. “Be quiet, Ramsey.”

“Baby…”

“Ssh.” It was breathed across his sensitive head. He jerked in her hand. “This is for you.”

In the next instant, her full lips opened and she took him in. Ramsey felt his muscles uncoil, his thoughts honed in on her wet mouth, her soft, slightly rough tongue, and how fucking good it felt. He slid a hand into her thick hair as his head fell back, his eyes closed. He could feel everything, hear everything. Her soft sounds as she sucked him as deep as she could, her little moans as it turned her on.

He opened his eyes moments later to find her eyes on his as she took him deep. One hand cupped her breast, her fingers swirling around her already budded nipple. She was beautiful, this woman, the mother of his future children, the woman who held his heart in her delicate fist as surely as she held him now.

His balls tightened. He lost it.

"A
 
mother's love
 
for her child is like
 
nothing
 
else...It knows no law, no pity.”

―Agatha Christie (Redux)

As if waking up naked in Ramsey’s arms hadn’t been awkward enough, Jezebel had to face Dr. Chen later that afternoon. Apparently, her bed partner had called for an impromptu checkup and the good doctor, ever at his beck and call, arrived to do just that. After close to an hour of exams, including uncomfortable probes and more embarrassing than usual questions, Dr. Chen smiled, repeated her findings to the anxious male hovering in the corner, and left them alone.

Jezebel found herself in the bathroom soon after. She contemplated a bath, but decided against the hassle, and instead settled for a long shower. Although she wanted to hold onto her outrage, she knew Ramsey had only called the doctor because he was worried. She’d been worried too, but when no symptoms of the last bleeding had manifested, had lost most of it.  

She stepped from the bathroom clad in a bathrobe and expecting to find Ramsey gone. Instead, seated at the edge of the bed they’d been intimate on last night, he seemed to be waiting for her. Jezebel moved to her closet and walked inside. She heard him behind her but didn’t hesitate to shed her robe as she stepped in front of her underwear drawer. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen every inch of her body naked.

Before she could slip on the unflattering gray panties, he was pulling her against him. His hold was loose enough to break. His bronzed hands barely rested along her belly as they enclosed it in a circle.

“What are you doing?” she muttered.

Ramsey didn’t answer for long moments. His lips brushed her shoulders when he finally spoke, “Holding you.”

“Why?” Her voice was high-pitched, a testament to her shot nerves. She could handle sex, fucking, but this was romantic, the touch of a lover, a husband.

“I like holding you.” He sighed and gently turned her, until they were looking into the full-length mirror in the corner. It shouldn’t be erotic, her naked and pregnant in front of a man who was a jacket away from wearing a work suit, but it was. As she watched, his lips lowered to her shoulder once more before they brushed her neck. “You like when I hold you.”

Jezebel swallowed. “Why are you doing this, Ramsey?”

He stared at her in the mirror. “Doing what? Loving you?”

“Yes!” she hissed, reaching down to grab his hands. Spinning to face him, she continued, “I’m not your girlfriend or your wife.”

“No.”

“So stop.” She moved away and quickly slid the panties on. She found a bra and put it on in record time as well.

“Stop what, Jezebel?”

“Stop treating me like…” She trailed off and waved her hands around to indicate them. “Like
this
.”

“Like this?” Ramsey repeated, his voice going a bit cool. “Like I love you?”

She ignored that last part. “Like we have a future outside of this baby.”

“We don’t?”

Jezebel glared at him as she pulled on clean stretch-waist pants. “You know we don’t.”

“Because of what I am?”

“Because of
who
you are!” She approached him. “I’m not built for this life. I don’t want to be your…your
Dragoness.”
A dark brow lifted and his lips seemed to quirk before she snapped, “There are no benefits to it, just death.” She glowered at him. “I want my business back. I want to go to sleep at night, knowing that some gangster won’t break into my house and try to hurt me, my baby,
my family
.”

“Jezebel―”

“I’m not done!” she hissed. “I want to be with a man who doesn’t kill people, regardless of whether it’s to protect his family or just to make blood money. I don’t want to worry about whether my husband is coming home at night because his profession is illegal and dangerous. I don’t want to be embarrassed when his activities catch up with him and the federal government bursts into my home in the middle of the night to arrest him on criminal charges.” Jezebel inhaled once, twice, and tried to force the tears from her eyes. She wasn’t a crier damn it! Pesky pregnancy hormones! “I want to take my child to the park without worrying that someone is going to hurt him. I want to take my child on play-dates without fearing that one of the parents will kidnap him, ransom him, or kill him because of you.” Her words were coming haltingly now, her vision blurred as she tried to speak above the tears.

Was she being unrealistic? Possibly. Ramsey Stone’s child would never be able to have a truly normal life and as its mother, neither would she, but she could hope.

Jezebel was too weak to resist as he pulled her into his arms. “I want my life back!” She cried onto his shirt, hoping it was expensive so she could ruin it like he’d ruined her life. “I want it back, Ramsey!”

He didn’t answer and she was fine crying on him. When she finally pulled herself together, his voice was in her ear. “I’ll give you your life back, baby, if it’s the last thing I do.”

She froze and lifted her head. What did that mean? She asked him.

“It means you’ll have your life back,” he replied easily. “You’ll have your company, your walks in the park with our baby, your play dates, your safety,
everything
.”

Something in his face scared her, although he wasn’t looking at her any particular way to bring out the reaction.

“I don’t want you hurt in the process…”

The curving of his lips told her she wasn’t going to like his next comment. “You’re worried about me, Jez?”

She scowled and pulled from him. As she walked back to her clothes, she tossed over her shoulder, “I just want my life back.”

Jezebel was pulling a light sweater over her head when his response came, soft and low, “I want that too.”

***

Ramsey walked into his office with a determination he hadn’t felt in years.

He was The Dragon. There was nothing he could change about that. It simply was. But that didn’t mean he had to be involved in the type of lifestyle he’d been indulging for the past few months. He hadn’t wanted it to begin with and although she hadn’t quite stated it that way, Jezebel had just given him a choice. He smiled. She probably didn’t even realize what she’d done.

It was clear to anyone with eyes that Jezebel loved him. She just didn’t like his lifestyle and regardless of how she felt about him, she wouldn’t accept it. Jezebel wasn’t one of those women to compromise her morals for a man, even if she loved him as much as he loved her.

So, his lifestyle needed to change.

He’d begun the change in operations when his grandfather died and left him an inheritance that was so dirty, so grime-stained, Ramsey had felt unclean the first time he’d understood the enormity of Kang Jae Seong’s business. His grandfather’s power and wealth had been paved by the bodies of not only gangsters, but women, young girls, innocent families. The old man might have been his “father” in place of the one who died, but he had not been a good man. Ramsey didn’t try to change that fact.

His first dealings had been with the surviving heads of families, Chang Chul-Moo and Kwan Min-Ho. There they’d set forth “rules” that would allow them each to thrive while staying, for the most part, out of each other’s way. Now that Chang was as good as dead, he’d need to tread carefully with the new head’s rise. It would likely be Chang’s son-in-law, whom Ramsey had met briefly in his time as Dragon. He hadn’t been considered important before as Chang’s immediate heir had been Kim. He’d need to meet with the man. After that, he’d have to push for the faster end to the Double Dragon’s involvement in the weapons trade. The traders would push back, as the market for illegal weapons was quite large in South Korea, but he’d given them enough years. It was time to bring it to an end. And then there was the money laundering. That would take a few years but Ramsey knew what he was doing in that area, and it was as legitimate as most business enterprises so he’d do what was needed before “selling” the businesses.

Ramsey was behind his desk when he realized he wasn’t alone. Before he could find the culprit, his gun was out and pointed in the direction.

“You were distracted,” Vince stated from where he lounged by the bar. “If I was an enemy, you’d be dead.”

He acknowledged the fact. “What is it?”

His cousin seemed to scowl at him before he shrugged and stood. “I found something.” In his hand was a DVD disk inside a clear jacket.

“About the rat?”

Vince nodded once.

“Who is it?”

The hesitation made Ramsey go cold. Vince wouldn’t hesitate unless it was someone close to him. He steeled himself and resigned to it. “Who?”

His cousin moved around Ramsey’s desk, regret so palpable in his features, Ramsey briefly wondered if he should hold off, wait a few minutes, and have a drink first? He couldn’t. Whoever it was had put Jezebel and his child in harm’s way. No matter the relation, he would pay with his life.

“I watched the videos for the past few weeks and found nothing. I even outsourced them to a few of my people, and found nothing. This week, I went further back, months, then years and I discovered something that made me…suspicious.”

“Get to the point, Vince.”

With a nod, Vince moved around him to his desktop. He quickly placed the DVD into its drive, tapped a key on Ramsey’s keyboard, and waited for the monitor to come to life. As it asked for Ramsey’s password, Vince looked to Ramsey, who glared at him, before finally tapping the eight keys to access the computer.

The video file popped up and Vince clicked on it. “This compilation was taken from the last four years.”

Ramsey didn’t know he was holding his breath until his lungs began to burn. He inhaled deep and waited for the video to begin. As soon as it started, his heart stopped.

“Bastian.” His voice didn’t sound like him. It sounded soft, weak.

“I checked it numerous times, Ram. Almost every trip he made to Gwangju in the past four years, he visited the security room.” Vince’s voice was laced with anger.

“What did he do inside?”

“Talked with security,” Vince continued. “I checked to see if there was any one security personnel he always visited but they’re random. It didn’t matter who was in the security room watching the monitors, he still stopped in.”

“Is there another explanation?”

“Another explanation?”

“Was he fucking security guards?” The security force was male, but Ramsey would accept that his brother was gay or bisexual faster than he wanted to accept what he’d need to do if Vince was right.

Vince exhaled and shook his head. “There’s more, Ramsey.”

Ramsey ran a hand over his face. Fucking Bastian. Hannah would be heartbroken. One son was a rat, the other a killer. The thought sent Ramsey back to New York, on that beautiful August day when Austin Leeds ran over his niece…

He was already shaking his head as he asked, “Did he have anything to do with Lily’s murder?”

When Vince didn’t deny it, Ramsey leaned against the table for support and demanded, “Speak!”

“After I watched the tapes, I removed his laptop from his room and hacked it.”

“What did you find?”

“He knows code, Ramsey, well enough to hack a computer or a phone and reroute an IP address. Based on what I discovered, he’s on my level.”

Ramsey was already shaking his head. That wasn’t possible. Vince had been a computer genius from a young age and had gone to MIT to hone his skill. Vince’s level was
excellent
and
exceptional.
His brother didn’t know code. He hadn’t gone to school for it and he’d always done average in Computer Science. He wasn’t some sort of numerical genius. Bastian had barely made it out of business school.

“It’s not him.”

“I hacked his email as well,” Vince forged on. “I found three disabled ghost accounts and several contacts, including Thomas Klause.”

Disbelief gave way to anger. Tom Klause was the FBI Assistant Director of the New York Office, and had been on Ramsey’s tail for years. When they’d launched their investigation into him in 2007, Klause had been a field agent with political aspirations, but when the investigation went left, and Ramsey began demanding jobs, Klause had moved up the ranks.

“Was he our mole in New York?” Pat had been in talks with the FBI but it was possible that there were more.

“It’s possible.” Vince shook his head. “I found evidence of contact between them, emails that were wiped from the computer, countless back and forth communications. I’m still working on pulling the emails off of the server. I might have to send the laptop to a friend.”

“Where’s the laptop?”

“Delilah was asking for a laptop. I told Hannah she needed to borrow it for a few days.”

Ramsey nodded. He’d heard enough. “Where is he now?”

“In the gym.”

“Get him here.”