On the Edge of Love (Mama's Brood Book 1) (17 page)

“Think we can skip the grocery store?” he asked as the line meandered.

“Yeah. Do you eat Mexican food?”

“Pass through Mexico all the time,” he said, pushing the cart forward. She threw him a perplexed look, then shook her head.

The clerk had the television waiting for them at the checkout station. Zeus paid. Sabrina mumbled something about men who refused to grow up as the cashier set the games and console in the cart with the television. As they walked to the car, Zeus determined Kragen’s men weren’t interested in taking Sabrina or confronting him. They were simply there to keep eyes on things. Report her moves to Kragen.

“Where do you live?” she asked when they were leaving Emeryville and headed back to Oakland.

“Lots of places. Got a place not far from here, maybe take you there sometime. If you don’t like it, I got a place in France, a place in Guatemala, and a houseboat on the bayou down in Louisiana.” Women were impressed with men who had property. If she was impressed, she’d be more enthusiastic about having sex with him. When she remained silent, he was forced to ask, “Which one do you want to see?”

She gave him one of those assessing glances. Like he was crazy or something.

“Uhh. I don’t believe I’ll be seeing
any
of them. But thanks for the invitation.”

He rubbed his palms over his head. It was bullshit having to work so hard to get laid. “Most women find out I own a home and they’re trying to move in within the week. You find out I’ve got lots of homes and you don’t even want to visit. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m okay with where I live.”

Her apartment was more suitable for raising chickens, it was so cooped up.

“Okay, I can get a place in Oakland,” he said. He could make the sacrifice. He’d just have to make sure he found a spot where there was only limited contact with people.

“Why would you want to buy a house in Oakland?”

“So you can stay in it. When I come to town, I’ll be at home instead of a guest at your place.”

The way she worried her lip with her thumb, he believed she was considering it. Then she shrugged. “My place is good for me. Randy’s there. My stuff, meager as it may be to your cultured sensibilities, is there. It’s my home.”

Goddamn it! He resisted strangling the steering wheel and instead imagined a blade dancing in front of him, just beyond the windshield. That helped him refrain from saying or doing anything
antisocial
. He would buy a place in Oakland, she would live in it, and whenever he came through town he would stop there and he would fuck her for as long as he liked; then he would move on. It was perfect…unless the sex was bad. Then the whole deal was scrapped.

Huhn. They needed to have sex soon to be sure.

“Zeus, did you ever think you were meant to do something different with your life?”

“No.”

“You always knew you’d grow up to kill people?”

“No, but that’s not what I am meant to do. I kill to survive or because I get paid to go into dangerous situations. Killing is what I need to do to get the job done, and I get paid damn good money for it. What I am
meant
to do is wield the blade. I’ve known since I picked up my first knife at three and nearly cut my hand off with it.” He held out his hand so she could see the still-visible scar.

“For normal people that would have been a sign to stay away from knives,” she said. “Don’t you ever wonder what a regular kind of life would be like?”

“Do you?”

She turned to look out the window. “Before all this Kragen madness, my life was the closest thing to regular it’s ever been. In the past all I needed was shelter and someone who said they cared for me. I had that with my last ex. But I also managed to allow in all the shit from my childhood I never wanted to exist again. Violence, shady people you couldn’t trust always coming around, people using and selling drugs, irrational jealousy. Did I say violence?” she asked, looking over at him with a sardonic smile.

“Is he dead?”

“My ex-boyfriend?”

He nodded.

“To me he is.”

“You were together in New Orleans?”

“Thank God, no. He was before New Orleans.”

“What’s his name?” he tried to ask the question carelessly, as if he were asking for the time.

She laughed. Her real laugh. The one that made his insides vibrate. “Do I look stupid enough to answer that question?”

He held up his hands and shrugged in an if-the-shoe-fits way.

“That’s so wrong,” she said before giving him directions to the Mexican restaurant.

Chapter Eight

The Pacific Coast home was made for nature lovers. Which, in all honesty, Maxim was not. The front of the house held the large living room, with windows that brought the surrounding trees and vegetation up to the very door. The floor-to-ceiling windows and French doors at the rear of the room led to a balcony that overlooked the ocean from at least thirty feet above. When he was here, he was forced to bear witness to Earth’s exhibitionist nature.

The setting sun, a dying orb that no longer held the energy to fight off the mist rolling inland with ghostly vengeance, hung low on the horizon. Tumultuous waves crashed against the mountain of stone beneath the home, sounding as if a battle for dominance was taking place.

Despite the setting, this house was his haven. As open as it was to the world, it had hidden depths, places where shadows swallowed screams and tears, where blood never stained reality, where humanity was merely a notion. Yet, despite the temptations inherent in the unseen places of his home,
he
never became a monster driven by them. Just the opposite really. He made it his mission to treat all his guests with the utmost care and regard.

Footsteps approached from behind. He glanced over his shoulder to see Reed step up beside him, handing his cell phone to Maxim as he also took in the ocean’s violence.

“There’s news,” Reed said.

Lifting the phone to his ear, Maxim felt a flush spread over his skin so intensely it bordered on sexual. He pulled the belt of his robe tighter around his waist as he cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder.

“Do you have her?” he asked, because really it was all that mattered. The woman waiting for him below could be nothing more than what she was, a release, a distraction. His life would only have its balance again when Sabrina was nestled safely in his arms.

The delay in response let him know he was not going to get the reply he desired. Again. “Speak.”

“She’s got protection,” Eddie said. “We can get her, but it may cause more noise than we want. She’s got this big fucking guy leading her around like a rag doll. Won’t let her out of his sight. And whoever he is, wherever she found him, he has the smell of a professional.”

“Do you think he’s the one who left the photo?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. He doesn’t seem the type to taunt. Looks humorless. I’ll upload a few pics, and maybe Reed will be able to identify him.”

“Do you think he can be paid off?”

There was a pause. “All things are possible,” Eddie said. “But anyone who approaches better be ready to battle. If you want me to, Boss, I’m ready.”

Maxim tempered his rage. This man, this bodyguard had the unfortunate idea he could keep Sabrina away from him? Maxim would not allow
any
man to interfere with what lay between him and Sabrina.

“No negotiation, Eddie. Get rid of him.”

“Will do, Boss.”

There was another pregnant pause.

“What?” Maxim snapped.

A frustrated hiss of breath met his question. “This chick is hot—and I don’t mean looks. She’s got cops squatting out in front of her house, and they ain’t slackers. They seem to accept the big guy’s place at the woman’s side. Could be he’s her man, and we just didn’t—”

“He’s not her man.”

“Course not. But I’m just saying, the way he touches her don’t fall in the realm of what’s professional. The cops haven’t questioned him or approached him since they got here. Makes me think they’ve already checked him out, accepted his place in the woman’s life, professional or not.”

The woman’s name is Sabrina
, he wanted to correct. His. His only pure thing in this world, who was to be respected and worshipped as avidly as any goddess. Yet some ham-fisted thug thought he could interfere with what they had created. She was his. Meant solely for him. Now that he’d found her, Maxim would dedicate every moment to letting Sabrina know she was his as much as he was hers. He would let the world know.

“Has a police report been filed?” he asked Reed.

“More than likely. Our guy at OPD is off today. I put a call in to him. He’ll be on shift first thing in the morning and give us what he knows as soon as possible.”

“Eddie,” Maxim said, feeling impatient. He needed to go downstairs soon. “Continue to watch, observe, and when the opportunity is right, take her. You get a bonus if you go through the guard to do so.” He inhaled and counted backward from twenty. It was his burden to contain the emotions that sprang up when he imagined another man touching Sabrina, stroking her, fucking her.

It wasn’t rational, was probably even more foolish, but
he
wanted to do it, be the one to torture the bodyguard, make him realize and repent his mistake on broken knees as he begged Maxim to take his life.

The image tempered Maxim’s anger. “Eddie, new deal. I’ll give your men a bonus if they have to put him down and a bonus times three if they are able to subdue him and save him for me to take care of. I want you to do what you need to do to keep the police busy.”

“Bonus times three?” Eddie asked.

“Times three.”

“We’ll get it taken care of, Boss.”

“I have faith you will,” Maxim said before disconnecting.

“You plan to bring the bodyguard here,” Reed noted. “I must ask—”

“I know it’s an impulsive decision, but he touched her. That can’t go without punishment. He needs to learn a lesson before dying. Never touch my woman and think you can survive.”

“You do realize—”

“I do.”

Reed nodded and slipped the cell phone Maxim returned to him back into his pocket. Walking across the sparsely furnished living room, Reed sat at the sturdy cherrywood table in the dining room. Maxim walked up as Reed laid his tablet on the table. Reed pulled up the photos Eddie had sent over.

“That’s the guard?”

“Yes, sir.”

Not one to be impressed with another man’s physical presentation, Maxim could appreciate qualities in this one. Of indeterminate racial origin, the male in the picture had cold metal-gray eyes and an inflexible jawline. He was large, taller than Eddie, but where Eddie’s muscles were bulky, this man’s were thick and tight. He had a menacing, predatory look about him. If circumstances had been different, Maxim wouldn’t have hesitated about hiring Sabrina’s guardian for his special team, just for the intimidation factor alone. Circumstances being what they were, however, demanded the man’s death.

The next photo to dominate the screen made his heart fumble around in his chest. It was Sabrina, badly bruised, beautiful, and nestled in the false safety of the big man’s arm.

Maxim walked away from the table. He would not put his fist through Reed’s beloved tablet. He would put it in the woman waiting for him in his basement bedroom. From experience he knew she would scream with release and pleasure.

Stepping through the hidden passageway that led down the stairs, he unknotted the belt of his gray silk robe and let it slide off his body as he made his way down the hall to the bedroom. He was already hard with anticipation when he unbolted the door and opened it to find the woman bolted to the wall, conscious and in sore need of his attentions if her body, trembling with desire, was any indication. She was not nearly as bruised as Sabrina had been in the photo, but if she was to be Sabrina’s temporary stand-in, he would have to make do. The substitutes loved his rough treatment. Always, they enjoyed the violence and the pain, liked the way it increased the intensity of their fucking.

He walked to her and unchained her from the wall before walking to the bed and laying her upon it, face forward.

“Please don’t hurt me again. I’ll do whatever you want,” she whispered.

Maxim’s fingers skimmed the mocha-brown skin from the back of her ankles, up her calves and thighs, and rested as they cupped the mound of her rounded ass. He stroked and kneaded until he could feel her trembles of desire increase. He loved how she allowed him to worship her body. His dick compelled him to take her from behind. He climbed onto the bed and straddled her, the tip of his dick pressing slightly against the seam of her ass. She trembled more violently and sobbed.

“Soon,” he promised, finding he liked her in this position.

Reed had done well.

* * * *

Sabrina and Randy watched in dazed disbelief as Zeus and Bride ate with silent determination. They fed with the kind of rapt focus of people who’d been starved most of their lives, yet she had witnessed Zeus eat the very large meal Mama had provided this morning.

Randy, who shared the futon with her while Zeus and Bride sat on the floor in front of the table they were eating on, leaned over and whispered, “Bree, I’m not sure it’s safe to reach for my food. Will you pass it to me?”

Sabrina knew Randy wasn’t a coward, nor was he one to run from a fight. She frowned at him and shook her head. She was only halfway certain Zeus wouldn’t bite her hand off, but with Bride she was far less so. Zeus growled when Randy reached for his still-untouched beer.

Hell no, she thought, folding her hands on her thighs. She definitely wasn’t hazarding a limb for Mexican food she could go right down the street for, even if her small living room table was full of food. Zeus had told her to order everything
she
liked, and with the way he had eaten earlier, she hadn’t limited herself. There were only four of them, but she’d ordered four super steak burritos, two super carnitas burritos, each the thickness and nearly the length of her forearm. She’d asked for two orders of chicken quesadillas, two enchilada orders, a large serving of pico de gallo, two orders of homemade tortillas, and just in case, chips and guacamole.