Reaper's Property (17 page)

Horse stood up and reached across the
butcher block and pulled me over to him. He kissed me, hard, shutting me up. A
dish fell to the floor and shattered, but he just maintained his assault on my
mouth, falling back into his chair, pulling me down onto his lap and arranging
my legs on either side of his hips. He kept kissing me as he rubbed his hands
up and down my back, soothing me. Finally he stopped, and I stared into his
eyes, emotionally exhausted.

“You can’t do this,” he said.

“What?” I whispered.

“Freak out over stuff you can’t control.”

“So I’m just supposed to do nothing and
wait for my brother to get killed by these really bad guys? That’s assuming you
don’t kill him first, right?”

“No, you’re supposed to take care of
yourself and keep safe, so that if your brother pulls his shit together he’ll
have a sister alive to celebrate with,” he replied, his voice serious. “And in
the meantime you can keep busy taking care of me. Cook, clean, all that crap.
I’ll watch your back and maybe we’ll get through this without everything
blowing up in our faces, okay?”

“Cook and clean. Are you serious?”

He sighed, shaking his head, sighing.

“Fuck if I know what women do all day,” he
said, shrugging. “Figure it out, keep yourself busy doing something else then.
You can start by hitting up the clinic today, get on the Pill, get tested. Only
a couple of rules. Don’t call your brother, don’t disappear on me, and keep
wearing tank tops like this one, because I really like what they do for your
boobs.”

He leaned forward, kissing me at the base
of my throat, then sliding his nose down the front of that tank, nuzzling my
cleavage. I softened against him, hating how easily he could distract me, but
my body didn’t care one bit. It liked the idea of going for a ride. He was
right, I needed to get on some birth control asap—not to mention get tested for
STDs.
Thanks again, Gary.
If I did have something, I guess Horse’d be
out of luck, because we’d swapped a hell of a lot of fluids in the past
forty-eight hours.

“Most women work all day, Horse,” I
murmured as his hand grabbed my butt, tilting my pelvis into the
always-impressive erection he seemed to have permanently installed in his jeans.
Was the man even human? “They have jobs or take care of kids, which is a job
all by itself. I’d go crazy stuck here alone, and I get the impression that
sooner or later you’re going to have to do some work yourself.”

“Today,” he murmured, reaching up and
pulling down my tank and bra, freeing my breast. His warm breath teased my
nipple and I squirmed, trying to think.

“What?”

“Today. I need to get back to work today,”
he said right before he sucked my nipple deep into his mouth. Oh damn, that
felt good. Every tug of his lips shot fire through my body, tightening things
between my legs. I felt my hips start to rock against his, thinking there was
far too much clothing between us. I wanted to forget about this whole
situation—an orgasm or two would go a long way toward making that happen. The
world lurched as Horse picked me up, walking me into the living room. Then I
was on the couch, sliding out of my pants. About two seconds later he had his
cock out, grabbed my hips and lined the head up with my slit before shoving it
straight into me without a word.

Holy fuck I needed that, even though I was
sore and swollen.

The weight of his lower body pressed me
back into the couch as his arms braced on either side of me. He took long, slow
strokes, steady and relentless. I wrapped my legs around his waist, wondering
if I’d gone crazy. So many things happening, yet he only had to touch me and I
lost myself in him again and again. This wasn’t like any sex we’d had before.
It wasn’t fast, it wasn’t hard and it wasn’t urgent. It was relentless,
however. Every time he hit bottom, every time he stretched me open, sliding his
cock along my clit, I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. I wanted him
to go faster, pound me hard so I’d fall over the edge and get the relief my
body needed. Fuck out my frustration in general.

I reached down, urging him to go faster. He
ignored me, pumping at his own speed, the corner of his mouth turning up as I
glared at him.

“You still pissed at me for last night,
babe?” Horse asked. “You wanna fight about it? Now’s a great time. I’m in a
pretty good mood, probably agree with anything you say.”

“You’re insane,” I muttered, straining up
toward him. Dammit, I needed to come. He must too. If he was any harder he’d
start popping blood vessels, the bastard, yet he just smirked at me and went
even slower.

“Maybe,” he replied, grinning openly at me
now. “But I’m the bastard fucking you and pretty much your only hope of getting
off, so you might want to stop trying to kill me with those eyes of yours.”

“Jerk.”

“Hot piece of ass.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I was referring to myself,” he replied,
thrusting deep before stopping. He grabbed one of my hands, then the other,
pinning them on either side of my head as I squirmed.

“Just do it!” I demanded. He dropped his
mouth down, taking mine in a long, slow kiss. I tried to thrust my tongue into
his mouth, wiggling against him. I wanted more and I wanted it now. He pulled
back, and now his face wore a definite smirk.

“Do what?”

“You know,” I gritted.

“I’m confused,” he replied. “I think you
need to explain to me. Otherwise I might just give up and go away.”

I closed my mouth and squeezed my inner
muscles around his dick as tight as I could, gloating when he stiffened and
groaned. I let go and then started squeezing him in a slow and steady rhythm.
Two could play this game.

“Fuck, Marie,” he moaned, then pushed my
hands down deep into the couch as he lifted himself, finally thrusting into me
like I needed. I still couldn’t move much, but that didn’t matter because the
games were over. Now he hit me with deep strokes, each one more forceful than
the last. I felt my muscles growing tight as I lifted my hips to meet his. Oh
damn… I was close—so incredibly close. He pushed my hands together over my
head, imprisoning them as he hammered home. I hovered right at the edge then
slipped over, screaming out my orgasm.

I have no idea how long it was before Horse
came, because I was floating in my own little world. He collapsed on top of me,
managing to keep enough of his weight to one side that he didn’t crush me. Our
breathing slowed. Then he leaned up on one elbow, sliding me so we lay
face-to-face.

If I’d spent a million years trying to
guess his next move, I still wouldn’t have seen it coming.

“Why don’t you go down to the community
college and pick up an application,” he said. That broke right through my
post-coital haze.

“Why would I do that?”

“You’re here. You’re not going anywhere any
time soon, and you need something to do. You told me you want to go to school,
so look into going to school.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said, shaking my
head. Horse’s reality and mine were two very different things. Why were we even
having this conversation, let alone right now? “I can’t just go to college.”

“Why not?”

“Well it costs a lot of money, for one
thing,” I snapped. “And right now I’m worth a total of eleven hundred bucks if
I’m lucky. You have to do tests, you have to apply and get accepted and even
then you have to… I don’t know, you have to do all kinds of stuff. And my
brother’s in big trouble, I don’t have time for school…” I ran out of steam at
that point, so I glared at him instead. He kept changing things on me and I
couldn’t keep up.

“You can’t do anything about Jeff,” he said
firmly. “But the rest? You gotta do that shit to get into school, start doing
it. Go down there, see what it takes. Get the papers and fill them out. It’s
not gonna happen if you sit around listing all the reasons it can’t.”

“What part of ‘I don’t have any money’ did
you not get?”

“What part of ‘I’ll give you money if you
need it’ did you not get?”

“Horse, that’s crazy.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“You’re here, Marie, and I know you like to
earn your own way. But—and don’t get pissed when I say this—you don’t have the
skills to make good money, which means any job you get is going to be minimum
wage, despite the fact that you’re smart and hardworking and could do just
about anything if you had the chance. But you won’t have a chance without some
education, so you might as well start now.”

He trailed his hand down along my body as
he spoke, fingers tracing my curves, pulling my hips closer into his. I shook
my head, wondering if I’d lost my mind. Jeff might get killed, I’d just had
mind-blowing couch sex with his potential killer and now I was supposed to apply
for college.

Just like that.

“You’re serious? You want me to go to
school?”

“Why not?” he challenged. “So long as you
take care of shit around here, I’m fine with it. Might want to move on that
whole divorce thing too while you’re at it. Club’s got a lawyer, I’ll set up an
appointment for you. I can pretty much guarantee your ex won’t put up a fight.”

He smiled when he said it—not a nice smile.

“Okay, I’ll go check it out,” I said
slowly. “This is weird, you get that? You kidnapping me, holding me hostage and
then sending me to school? This isn’t how things like this usually work.”

Horse grinned at me, eyes lazy and
satisfied.

“Just roll with it,” he whispered. “And
keep doing whatever exercises you do to make your cunt squeeze like that. They
got a college degree for that?”

“You’re a pig,” I whispered back. “You know
that, right?”

“So far bein’ a pig works for me, babe,” he
said. “Gotta go now. Check out the college. Hit the clinic and get some pills.
Don’t call your brother. Cook something fuckin’ great for dinner and don’t wear
any panties. That’s all I ask.”

With that he pushed himself up off the
couch. I watched him pull up his pants, stunned and bemused. He walked out the
front door. I heard his bike roar to life and then I was on my own.

That whole cooking
dinner/no panties thing didn’t quite work out.

My trip to Coeur d’Alene was great. I
didn’t really know my way around, but it wasn’t hard to find downtown. It was
right next to the great big giant lake that gave the place its name, sort of a
“once you drive into the water you’ve gone too far” kind of situation. I
stopped off and bought a cup of coffee and a bagel at a little coffee shop
right down on Sherman Avenue, the main strip through town. The waitress there
helped me find the college campus—surprisingly, just a few blocks away, also on
the lake. I ended up walking there along a broad, paved trail that had a beach
on one side and a really pretty park on the other. Everywhere I looked there
were kids running around and having a good time, punctuated by painstakingly
casual groups of teens in tiny swimsuits trolling with their friends. Just
offshore, a seaplane took off from the water. Farther along I saw someone
parasailing.

The trail took me into a residential
neighborhood and then I started seeing college buildings. From there it was
easy to find the admissions office. I talked with a lady for close to an hour
and left with a handful of brochures.

On the walk back I saw a bank, so I went
and checked my balance on their ATM. Exactly $1,146.24 total. Seeing my balance
felt good, and I got out $200 in cash, just in case. Horse said he’d give me
money, but I hadn’t given up on finding a way to earn my own. It might be okay
to play house with him for a while, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think I should
count on him. I couldn’t define what we had, and I couldn’t afford to fool
myself about my situation. I was a still-married woman held as collateral by a
motorcycle club for her brother’s debt.

I might have to leave town in a hurry at
some point.

I finished up by visiting the women’s
clinic and got a prescription, reminding myself I was way too early in my cycle
to seriously worry about a pregnancy. That seemed like enough for one day, so I
headed home to start dinner. Horse hadn’t said what time he’d be back but I
didn’t want to call and ask. That would be a little too real or something.
Playing house scared me.

There were two strange cars in the driveway
when I pulled up—a small, red convertible and a classic Mustang, beautifully
restored. I parked my little car next to them, wondering who I would be dealing
with now. No sign of Horse’s bike, and he hadn’t mentioned someone coming to
visit either. I pushed through the front door to find four strange women
sitting in the living room, laughing and drinking beer. All of them had that
biker chick vibe going on—not slutty, but definitely not shy about showing some
skin. They smiled and started coming toward me. Thankfully, Darcy walked in
from the back of the house, carrying a tray with a bowl of chips and some dip
on it.

“Marie! I’m so glad you’re back, we weren’t
sure how long you’d be!” she said, setting down the tray on the coffee table
and pulling me into her arms. It was a little overwhelming but it felt good
too. Then she let me go and turned me toward the other women, who’d collected
around us.

“Girls, this is Marie,” Darcy said,
wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “She’s Horse’s property now, think I
filled you in on that. Marie, this is Cookie, Maggs, Dancer and Em.”

I smiled uncertainly at the women as they
crowded forward, most of them hugging me and kissing my cheek. They ranged in
age from Em, a young girl who looked strangely familiar to me and had to be in
her early twenties, to Darcy and Maggs, both of whom were probably in their
forties.

“Come on,” said Cookie, taking my arm and
pulling me toward the couch. Dancer grabbed my purse and hung it on a hook by
the door. Maggs handed me a beer and they settled like a flock of birds,
watching me. Awkward… I couldn’t even remember all their names, let alone think
of anything to say.