Jack & Coke (The Uncertain Saints Book 2) (9 page)

I knew he trained his body hard to make up for what he saw as his shortcomings.

He was a good man, but he didn’t seem to have a grasp on how to deal with women.

Something I realized moments after walking across the entire damn bar to get to them.

Annie had a cup of something clear in her hand that resembled Vodka.

“What kind of name is Apple?” Annie asked as I walked up to where they were sitting.

Drew’s back went up.

“It’s the kind of name that my momma gave me, and I never questioned it,” Drew semi-snapped. “She taught me that it was what was at the core of a man that counted. Not a name.”

That’d been somewhat of a sore subject with our newest prospect. The boys teased him relentlessly about his name, and coming from men, it wasn’t anywhere near the same as it was coming from a woman.

A drunk woman, at that.

I hid a smile as I looked down, studying what Annie was wearing.

She had on low riding black jeans that barely covered her curvaceous ass.

A white and black striped shirt

“They should call you Core when you become a member. That sounds a lot more masculine,” Annie continued, unaware of the pot she was stirring.

I came up behind her, and I knew the moment she realized someone was behind her because goose bumps started to pop up all over her arms and exposed back.

“Who’s behind me, Core?” Annie asked with deceptive calm.

The newly christened ‘Core’ turned his head slightly, nodding at me in acknowledgement, then he disappeared without another word.

“You shouldn’t tease a man about his name. It’s not nice,” I told her, caging her in with both of my hands against the table at her side.

She stiffened impossibly more.

“Why are you here getting drunk? Who told you about this place?” I asked, leaning down so my mouth ran along the back of her shoulder.

She shivered.

“I h-heard about it from Lenore,” she whispered.

I smiled against her skin.

“What else did she tell you about this place?” I asked carefully.

I opened my mouth against her skin, and whatever words she was about to assault my ears with, drifted off the tip of her tongue as if they’d never been.

“Mig,” she breathed.

“I’ve missed you,” I told her.

She wouldn’t remember that admission in the morning, so that’s why I felt free to say what I did next.

“And you need to be careful. I have enemies. I make new enemies every day. But as much as I love you, I’ll never expose you to the ugliness of my world. It doesn’t matter how much you beg me. There’ll never be any time that I’ll ever be right for you. It breaks my heart to say this, but you deserve everything. The moon and the fuckin’ stars combined. I wish with everything that I am that I could give that to you, but I can’t. I’m a street fighter who started to use his fists from ten years of age, and I only got worse from there. Your beauty doesn’t belong in my dark world,” I whispered into her ear. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t protect you with my life…and take you out of situations that I know you aren’t safe in.”

She sniffled, and my heart ached even more to know that I caused her to cry.

However, she got up on her own volition, grabbed her keys, and started to walk out the door.

Fuck the fucking fuckers before the fucking motherfuckers fuck you.

-Text from Annie to Mig

Mig

Atticus’ eyes narrowed on Annie before his gaze snapped back up to me.

He must’ve read the situation, because he didn’t say a word as I walked out the door just as quickly as I’d arrived.

Once outside, Apple caught up with me.

He didn’t stay by my side, but he stayed close enough that if I needed anything I wouldn’t need to yell.

Wolf was still on his bike, gauging the situation.

Annie’s sniffles were making my stomach cramp, but she didn’t say a single word.

Not even when I led her to my bike.

“Are you okay to ride behind me, or do I need to drive your car home?” I asked.

She finally turned to me, and the look on her face had the breath leaving my body.

God, she looked broken.

And I’d done that to her.

I’d given her the green light, just to rip it away from her at the first sign of trouble.

But I wouldn’t budge from this.

At least, that was what I told myself as I helped her onto the back of the bike, mounted in front of her, and rode away.

She didn’t hold on to me on the first half of the way to her home.

The only thing that was touching were the insides of her knees around my hips.

And I found that I didn’t like that.

Really.

But did I have a right to care about that when I didn’t plan to go there with her?

No.

Was I rational when it came to Annie.

Hell no.

I took a corner a little tighter than I usually would, forcing her to wrap her hands around my waist.

She squeaked and scooted forward where she was exactly where I wanted her, and I was finally able to take a deep breath since Drew had called me nearly an hour before.

When I pulled into Annie’s store, I waved at Wolf and Drew as they accelerated past me.

Tonight was my night to watch Annie, anyway.

So I’d drop her off, tuck her in like the guy I should be, and watch from the shadows until my relief came.

“Where’s your bag?” I asked her.

“Upstairs. I brought my key and driver’s license, though,” she answered, getting off and walking to her door.

I followed her, stopping just behind her when she got to the door and unlocked the lock.

What I noticed she didn’t do, however, was unarm her alarm.

“You know the point of that alarm, right?” I asked, leaning against the doorjamb.

She shrugged. “Sure do.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What, you want to get your place broken into? You want another two by four to the head?”

She leaned forward into my space, giving me a clear view of the tops of her breasts.

“I fail to see how having an alarm would keep me safe from two by fours,” she sneered.

I flicked my eyes up to hers, not knowing what to say to her logical words.

I took a deliberate step back until she could easily close the door.

She didn’t.

And I had to force myself not to take another step forward.

“Make sure you arm it from now on,” I growled.

She sighed.

“The number is like, a million numbers long. It’s hard to remember,” she admitted.

I took a step towards her alarm.

“You have the number written down?” I asked.

She nodded, walking to the small kitchen table that was in the middle of the back room, pulling her massive bag off the cluttered mess.

She walked back over, digging into her purse until she unearthed a piece of paper, then handed the bag to me.

I was slightly amazed at how heavy the bag was.

I’m talking nearly twenty-five pounds.

How could any woman find that comfortable to carry?

“What do you have in here?” I asked, watching her punch in the buttons
. “Rocks?”

She typed the last number and pointed to it.

“There,” she said. “You have thirty seconds to leave before it starts freaking out.”

I snorted, then started to mess with the system info, holding my hands out for the slip of paper.

She gave it to me, and I punched the numbers in one more time before changing the code completely.

“There,” I said. “Now it’s easy.”

She raised her eyebrow at me in question.

“It’s the numbers of your birthdate, followed by mine,” I informed her.

She rolled her eyes.

That’d been a funny experience.

We’d learned that our birthdays were on the same day, but I had nine years on her.

She’d teased me of robbing the cradle, and I’d informed her that she’d like my type of cradle robbing.

“Will you hand me a pen out of that bag so I can write it down on another piece of paper just in case?” She asked.

I reached blindly into the bag, freezing when I felt the unmistakable feel of a firearm.

I pulled the cold metal gun out slowly, raising it up so I could get a good look at it.

“Since when did you start carrying a firearm?” I asked.

She shrugged.

“When I got out of the hospital,” she answered, turning her back on me.

I closed the door, very intrigued to know the answer as to why she felt the need to carry one.

“Do you know how to shoot this?” I asked, holding up the .40 caliber pistol for her inspection.

“Ish,” she wiggled her hand as she made her way to the coffee pot.

I gritted my teeth.

“You don’t know how to shoot it?” I asked with incredulity.

She turned to look at me, noticing the tone that my voice had taken.

“I know how. I just don’t know if I could actually shoot anyone,” she explained.

I growled low in my throat, handing the gun back to her.

“Show me how to unload it,” I instructed her.

She took the gun, and I could immediately tell she didn’t use it anywhere near as much as she should if she’d planned on carrying it for protection.

She bit her lip, pulling the plump softness in between her teeth.

I watched, cock straining to attention, as she slowly expelled the magazine from the gun, then jacked the bullet from it.

The bullet that was in the chamber hit the floor, and she bent down slowly to pick it up.

I used her inattention to snatch the gun away from her, followed shortly by the clip, loading it and having it ready to fire in less than six seconds.

“Now what?” I asked.

She glared.

“I didn’t know I needed to prepare to have you take it from me,” she snapped.

I laughed.

“No guy who wants your gun is going to tell you he’s about to take it,” I informed her dryly.

She pursed her lips, crossing her arms over her ample chest and glared.

With one last look, I handed her the gun and left without another word.

This would be one long night.

I was going to die.

Like really, seriously going to die if I had to listen to one more minute of this torture.

I was fucked.

Well and truly fucked.

I’d had the inside of Annie’s place wired when she’d moved out of her old house and into the back of her store.

So that meant I not only had a visual but also an ear into what happened in Annie’s place.

I don’t really know how I’d done it, but when I’d gone to the app to make sure everything was working, like I always did at least once a day, I’d seen something I shouldn’t have ever seen.

Annie’s naked body.

I’d flinched the moment I saw her, hastily trying to close out of the screen, and in my haste, I’d dropped my phone and shattered the screen.

But the audio on it still worked, which was why I was now staring up at Annie’s window, watching the silhouette of her body, and listening to her masturbate to my name.

At first I wasn’t sure what she was doing.

I could hear drawers open and close.

The squeaky boards of her floor as she walked across them.

Then the light in the window had turned on.

I’d watched with rapt attention through the curtains, made sheer by the light, as she’d walked to the bed, lifted her leg to place on the edge, and then proceeded to masturbate.

The sounds of her breathing had picked up.

Her cries of pleasure tore through me, making my eyes cross as I gathered my willpower around me and held onto my bike’s handlebars for dear life.

Now we were on minute thirteen of masturbation, and my eyes widened as she pulled out a monster of a dildo.

She was helpful by holding it up to the light for me to see, working it over one breast, then the other.

Then she brought it up to her mouth, licked it up and down, then proceeded to lower her hand and run the massive thing up and down the lips of her sex.

Most of it was only my imagination since I couldn’t see everything.

I only assumed that was what she was doing, but it wasn’t rocket science.

And when she no longer kept the back and forth movement, but switched to the up and down movement, I knew she’d inserted the dildo into her pussy.

Knew it with the same sureness that the sun would rise in the morning.

Her head fell back, and her locks of hair cascaded down her back in rolling waves.

Her free hand lifted, and she plucked at her nipple.

Her breathing hitched, and she started to chant my name like a war cry.

“Mig! Oh, God. Yes, Mig!” She keened.

Even if I hadn’t had my phone’s audio stuck on, I would’ve still heard those cries.

And had she screamed anybody else’s name in that moment, I would’ve burst through her backdoor, walked into her room, and then fucked the ever loving hell out of her to inspire her to use only my name from then on.

And then her orgasm was upon her, and she collapsed onto the bed face first.

The only thing I could make out then was her heart shaped ass.

And the only image I could conjure up was my cock lining up with her soft entrance, surging inside, and claiming what should be mine.

The only thing that saved her was the trill of my phone.

I pressed on the screen where my answer button used to reside, and was thankful when the phone immediately stopped ringing, indicating I’d answered the call.

“Yeah?” I grunted.

Griffin’s tone didn’t sound at all happy.

“Found the ex-husband.”

I nodded. “Okay? Where is he?”

“He’s dead,” Griffin confirmed.

I sighed, rotating my neck to try to alleviate some of my tension that’d just built due to Annie’s little show.

“Fuckin’ perfect. I’ll see you as soon as I can get someone here. Where am I meeting you?”

Yeah, this was going to be a long,
long
night.

Somewhere out there there’s a tall guy with tattoos, a beard and muscles that likes cuddling as much as I do.