At Any Cost (15 page)

He pulled out nearly to the crown and drove deep. Livy arched up to meet him and a moan formed on her lips. Nick cupped the back of her neck with one hand while the other braced the bulk of his weight beside them. “Look at me, Livy. I want to see your face while I fuck you.”

A rush of delicious heat flooded her. The things he said to her . . . Hot, passionate, commanding, but never crude. Never cruel. Nick sparked an unquenchable fire inside her. How would she ever be able to go back to her life the way it had been after this? After she'd had a taste of what it felt like to feel true passion and abandon.

Nick's breath came hard as he moved over her. His chest heaved, brushing the points of Livy's nipples with each powerful thrust. He filled her completely, stretched her, and still it wasn't enough. “Harder, Nick.”

She gripped his shoulders. Her nails dug into his flesh and Nick groaned. He thrust as deep as he could go, grinding against her with each forward shove of his hips. Livy gasped at the sensation. She rolled up to meet him and the delicious friction of her clit as it brushed against Nick's shaft began the slow build that pushed her closer to the precipice of release. She wanted him to fuck her until she had no choice but to leap in a freefall over the edge.

“You feel so good, Livy.” Nick's breath was hot in her ear and she shuddered. “So tight. So wet.
Fuck
. I can't get deep enough. Can't go hard enough. I need more.”

Livy opened her legs wider as though that would help either of them. She knew exactly how Nick felt and the insatiable need that swept them up had no remedy. Like an endless vacuum it would continue to suck them further and further into this wild whirlwind of want and sensation until they went mad from it. Relationships like this were reckless. Dangerous. Destructive. Yet, Livy ran headlong into it, more than ready to accept her own ruination.

“Don't stop, Nick. I need it
all
.”

Her words seemed only to excite him more. His answering moan was part pleasure, part pain, and one hundred percent desperation. His muscles tensed and Livy might as well have been surrounded by stone. Her hands wandered from his shoulders, over his collarbone and the hills of his pecs. She found his hard, flat nipples with her palms and Nick groaned louder as she teased them for a moment before taking each between her fingers and pinching lightly.

“Again.” The word barely made sense but Livy understood the barked command. She pinched again, harder this time, and Nick shuddered. “Fuck!” he barked through a huff of breath. “That feels so good.”

Neither one of them was thinking clearly now. Their brains hazed by lust, all they could do was groan, moan, and
feel
. Nick released his grip on the back of her neck to seize her leg. He hoisted it up, resting the bend of her knee in the crook of his arm. It opened her more fully to him and he let out a long, slow sigh that conveyed his relief. His cock was a steel rod encased in slippery satin as it glided in and out of her. Her clit throbbed against his shaft and lower, his sac slapped against her flesh with every powerful thrust. There was nothing sweet or gentle about the way they fucked. It was dirty, messy, and urgent. That didn't mean it was emotionless, though. Livy felt so much that she thought her chest might explode from the excess of emotion.

He pounded into her without mercy. His breath sawed in and out of his chest and ended on low groans that sent a jolt of excitement through Livy's bloodstream.
So close
. Her body once again coiled in on itself, curling and straining until she could do nothing but clamp her jaw shut and ride it out. Nick's pace increased and his frenzied thrusts, the sound of skin meeting skin, and their mingled grunts of breath sent Livy into a sensory overload that pushed her over the edge of release into a spiral of pleasure that left her dizzy and shaken.

The orgasm hit her with the force of an explosion. A sound of surprise burst from her lips as she came. Stars twinkled in her vision and waves of pulsing sensation thrummed from her clit outward through her core in powerful contractions. Nick followed her over the edge with a shout. His body went taut and his thrusts became wild and disjointed. Chills broke out over his skin as he came and Livy caressed from the ridges of his stomach, up his chest, and over his arms.

“Livy,” Nick moaned against her sweat-dampened skin as he came. “God, Livy. Oh my God.”

She knew exactly how he felt.
Welcome to ruination
.

Chapter Sixteen

“It's her. No fucking doubt.”

Joel leaned back in his chair as he regarded Shorty. “You sure?”

He gave a sharp nod of his head.

Joel had been looking for that little bitch for four goddamned years. So far she'd managed to fly under the radar. Could he actually have gotten lucky enough to have found her in some backwoods town in the middle of Idaho? Most of the time, Joel couldn't trust any of these lousy SOBs to do anything without fucking up somehow. He trusted Shorty, though. They'd been riding together from the very beginning. Shorty might not have ever met Kari in person, but he'd seen a picture of her. Shorty should have been able to pick her out of a crowd. If anyone was going to find Kari, it was him.

“What'd she say to you?”

“Not a whole lot. Bitch doesn't get out much, that's for fucking sure. I scoured that damned town looking for her. Was getting ready to pull out the next morning and decided to hit the bar to play some pool and get a drink. She showed up with some tough son of a bitch who fought like a goddamned Navy SEAL.”

“Cop?”

Shorty shrugged. “Could be. Maybe ex-military. Hard to tell. He could have been one of those fitness junkies that studies tae kwon do because he thinks it'll get him laid. Doesn't matter how tough he thinks he is, though. A bullet's gonna kill him just the same.”

Joel snorted. “You think he knows who she is?”

Another shrug. “He called her Livy. My guess is he's trying to get a little pussy. He thought I was coming on to her and that's when he got pissy.”

It took Shorty a week to track her down in a town that wasn't anything more than a blip on the radar. If Joel had to guess, the second she caught wind that someone was asking about her, she'd split. It was a good call for him to play it cool. But how long would Joel have to hang out in the town before he got a glimpse of her? He wasn't about to go back to jail and it had been almost four years since he'd poked his head out of his hole. All because of that stupid fucking twat.

After he got his ledger back, he was going to make her
suffer
.

“How many guys could we get into town without anyone getting suspicious?”

Shorty leaned back in his chair. He scrubbed a hand across his face as he contemplated. “Handful. No patches.”

No shit
. Like Joel would bite himself in the ass by flashing his Black Death patch anywhere outside of the clubhouse. “Law enforcement?”

“County and city,” Shorty replied. “Nothing big. The sorts of guys who deal with traffic stops and underage parties. I doubt they handle anything too hard-core.”

“Good.” Big cities had SWAT, staties, FBI, and most annoying, marshals. Joel wanted to stay as far from those man-hunting sons of bitches as possible. “You get a bead on where she lives?”

Shorty smirked. “Think so. After her boyfriend tried to act like a tough guy, they left and I followed them to a cabin about five miles out of town. No neighbors as far as I could tell. Looks like the houses out there don't get a lot of use.”

Fucking perfect. No one to hear the bitch scream. “We'll lay low for a week or so. Let things cool off again before we head back.” Lucky for Joel, Kari had worked hard to live an isolated life. No one would even miss her when she was gone. As for the boyfriend . . . Like Shorty said, tough guy or not, ain't nobody going to survive a bullet to the head.

“Reach out to Sawyer's crew in SoCal. Let them know that we'll be ready to roll in a few weeks.” It wasn't only Joel who'd suffered because of what Kari had done. The entire club felt the pinch. When word got out that someone had swiped his ledger, none of Joel's usual business contacts would touch him. Until they could be assured that their own identities and dealings with the Black Death were still secret, their operations had been effectively shut down. Not for much longer, though.

“Whaddya think she's up to?” Shorty asked.

Joel gave him a questioning glance.

“She didn't go to the cops, she's not using it to get a piece of the action. Far as I can tell, she's just sitting on it. Why?”

“Insurance. She thinks I'll leave her alone as long as she stays hidden.”

Shorty snorted. “Stupid.”

If there hadn't been enough information—and names—in that ledger to put a fuck-ton of his associates in jail, Joel might have left well enough alone. He had to give her credit where it was due: She wasn't a snitch. That wasn't going to save her life, though. She knew too much and Joel didn't like to be jerked around.

“Tell ya what,” Shorty began. “There's a hell of a lot of guys who'll be glad we're going back to work.”

Not a damned one of the guys in their charter was interested in going legit. They were good at running guns and drugs for the cartels. It paid better than some fucking nine-to-five at a garage or lumberyard somewhere and it gave them the power and clout they all craved. Joel had been at the top of his game when Kari ran off with his ledger. His pride had taken a serious hit.

She couldn't be allowed to simply walk away. Not when his reputation was on the line.

“What do you want me to tell Sawyer?” Shorty asked. “You know he'll want some assurances.”

Short of delivering her head to the SoCal crew in a cardboard box, there wasn't much Joel could offer aside from his word. He wasn't interested in taking her alive. When he found her, the bitch was going to die. Likewise, he wasn't going to fuck himself over by carting her rotting corpse across three states for the benefit of the cartel.

“Tell him the ledger is safe. And that all of the loose ends are about to be tied up. Tell him he'll get photographic proof that she's dead.”

“Mendoza might want more than photographic proof.” The head of the cartel was a violent son of a bitch who chopped off heads and left the bodies in mass graves. And he was as nervous as a March fucking hare.

“I'll deal with Mendoza.” Joel knew for a fact that no one ran the cartel's heroin better than the Black Death. Joel just needed to make sure that he made a very convincing case to the drug lord that his identity was still safe.

“All of this is well and good, brother,” Shorty said. “But it don't mean shit if we don't get to Idaho and tie up those loose ends. We need to play this close to the hip. From what I've seen, that bastard with Kari could hold his own. He might not have been anyone to worry about, but what if he is?”

Joel had already considered the possibility. It didn't matter if he was one man or one hundred. A stupid small-town chump looking to impress his old lady, or a highly trained Special Ops SEAL ready to defend her to the death. This might be his only chance to get his ledger back and make sure Kari didn't make any trouble for him in the future. Joel had been hiding from the law for far too long and that ledger was going to buy him a one-way ticket to Mexico and financial security.

“We'll handle it,” Joel said after a moment. “Get everything together for the trip. Five of us will roll up there. You, me, Cochran, Teddy, and Bo. The smaller the group, the better. No one else knows, got it?”

“You sure you want to go?” Shorty asked. “It might not be safe.”

Maybe not, but Joel wouldn't be satisfied until he saw the whites of her eyes. Or the look of fear on her face as he choked the life out of her. “I'm sure. Get your ass in gear. I want us on the road in four days.”

“Can do.”

Finally, Joel was going to get what he'd been after for the past four years. And nothing was going to stand in his way of getting it.

* * *

Livy dipped a slice of bread in the French toast batter and let it soak for a moment before transferring it to a frying pan. She'd been wearing a perma-grin ever since she woke up in Nick's arms a little over an hour ago. After their latest round of mind-blowing sex, they'd drifted back off to sleep and for the second time in four years, Livy had slept like the dead, never once waking at the slightest sound or to check and make sure the windows were all still locked.

It wasn't lost on her that both of those wonderful nights of sleep had happened while Nick slept beside her. She'd never known that sort of peace. Not even when she was a kid. That knowledge shook Livy to her foundation.

“Do you want one egg or two?” she called toward the living room. It was easier to focus on the
now
rather than all of the things that weighed her down. She chose to bask in the afterglow of the pleasure Nick had given her instead of worry that she'd never find a man who made her feel as safe as he did. The faint smell of wood smoke filled the cabin and Livy smiled. Thanks to Nick's superior fire-building skills, the house would be warm and toasty in no time.

“Three!” Nick called back.

“Three?” she asked with a laugh. Her man was hungry.
Her
man? No. Livy couldn't allow herself to think of Nick like that. He wasn't hers. He'd be going home soon and Livy would be looking for a new town to settle down in. All she could do was enjoy the time she had with him. After all, it would be over far too soon.

“Three!” Nick confirmed. The sound of his footsteps echoed through the house before he poked his head into the kitchen. “Five slices of French toast, and a half a pound of bacon, too.” He paused. “Better make that a pound.”

He leaned over her and placed a kiss on her neck. Livy shivered from the contact and her nipples hardened. It was absolutely crazy that an innocent kiss could have such a visceral effect on her. But damn, she liked the way he made her feel.

Livy turned to give him a skeptical look. “You seem hungry, Nick. Did you work up an appetite?”

He leaned in and bit down gently on her neck. Livy let out a squeal of delight. “You know I did,” he growled next to her ear. His hand reached down to cup one cheek of her ass through the long T-shirt that hung past her thighs. “If there's no bacon, I can think of something else I could eat.”

His heated innuendo brought a flush to Livy's cheeks. “I don't know that there's a lot of nutritional value in
that
.”

Nick chuckled. The deep timbre of his voice rippled over Livy's skin. “Believe me, it's
all
I need to keep me going.”

He was killing her with the sexy talk. Nick reached for the hem of her T-shirt and dragged it up over her bare ass. He squeezed one cheek and Livy moaned. “You're going to make me burn breakfast,” she murmured.

“I don't care,” Nick said as he nipped at her throat again. “As long as you take your clothes off, I'll eat burned bacon, black French toast, rock-hard eggs. Better yet, how about you lie down on the table and I'll eat breakfast off your naked body?”

Nick could almost make her come with nothing more than a few naughty words. Any other time the prospect of having someone use her stomach as a serving platter would have turned her off. But when Nick said it in his gruff, dark voice, Livy found herself eager to have him lick the syrup out of her belly button.

Nick didn't pull away. Instead he wrapped his arms around Livy's waist and placed a quick kiss on her head. The domesticity of the moment choked the air from her lungs as she scraped a slice of French toast out of the pan and transferred it to a plate.

“Naked dining has its merits,” she said after a quiet moment. “But if I'm going to be laid out on the table as the buffet, I think it's only fair that you're naked too.”

“I can make that happen.” His hands wandered up her torso to cup her breasts through the thin cotton fabric. “Now, lose the T-shirt.”

Jesus, she was tempted. She wasn't interested in a visit from the fire department, however, and Livy had no doubt that once the clothes came off, the last thing on her mind would be the eggs she left frying in the pan.

“Behave or I'll sic Frank Junior on you,” Livy warned. “Now, how do you want your eggs?”

“One on each of your ass cheeks,” Nick replied.

“You asked for three.”

“Save the other one for your puss—”

Livy turned before he could finish his sentence. Her scandalized gasp coaxed a wide smile to Nick's face and all Livy could do was stare. It was downright criminal for a man to be so drop-dead gorgeous. Especially first thing in the morning with less than a few hours' sleep under his belt.

He kissed her, long and hard.

When Nick finally pulled away, Livy was light-headed and giddy. Drunk from the taste of him, his close proximity, and clean, masculine scent. Their gazes locked for a moment and Livy found it hard to turn away. As though Nick were the moon and Livy were nothing more than the tide that did his bidding.

The sound of her phone ringing from the dining room sent her stomach rocketing up into her throat. The ringtone was a special one, reserved solely for her mom and they weren't due to talk again for another few weeks. If she was calling now, there must have been an emergency. What was wrong? Was she sick again? Hurt? Livy swallowed. Worse?

“Are you going to answer that?” Nick's brow quirked and a half smile curved his full lips. “Or are you still contemplating my egg request?”

“No. I . . . uh.” Livy's heart hammered in her chest and her mouth went dry. “Um.” She never let calls from her mom go to voice mail. Not when it would make her worry. But answering when Livy had put such strict guidelines in place to protect her anonymity was dangerous as well. She thought of how safe she'd felt in Nick's arms the way she'd trusted him in dark hours of the night. “It's my mom.” The words were difficult to speak. Livy had to push them past her lips. “I need to get that.”