Jagger whipped out his hand and yanked me to him. My breasts were smashed against his chest, his hand a vise on my arm, bruising me. “Please you?” He dropped the cigar and gripped the back of my neck. “Let me show you how I want to please you.”
His mouth landed on mine. Heat and need and want blasted through me, through the bare skin of his palm on my neck. His tongue invaded my mouth. He tasted of cigar and Jagger. And I knew in that moment he had been part of my dreams. All of my dreams. Jagger, top enforcer to the OMW, had been inside my dreams, my sex dreams. He knew what I wanted. How to please me.He knew me.And I knewhim. And on some level, neither of us cared if we were more tightly bound as long as we could have this.
My arms went around his shoulders. His tongue plundered my mouth. His hands gripped my ass and he hauled me up against him. His need was hard and huge against my lower belly. I raised my legs, wrapped them around his waist.
Bloody damndamndamn.Iwantedthis man. His beard abraded my face. He tasted of sex and cigar and . . . beer. He tasted ofbeer. I swirled my tongue around his. Sucked it into my mouth. I moaned deep into him, feeling the vibration of need against my core.
“Hey, you two,” Cupcake said, her voice intruding on . . .this. “You’re attracting a crowd. Unless you want to put on a free sex show, you should stopnow.”
“Get a room,” a strange voice shouted.
I pushed back from Jagger. “Stop,” I whispered, gasping.
“No,” he whispered back, one hand sliding around front and up under my skirt. Electric heat shot through me.
“Stop,” I begged.
“I’ll stop, but this ain’t over, Little Girl. I’ll have you or die trying.”
???
I rested my arm across my eyes, trying to shut out the headache that was returning, driven by Cupcake’s insistent voice. “Jagger is hot. He’s like chocolate sex on a stick, melting in the summer heat. If he was any hotter, he’d melt the ground he was standing on. That man would do anything for you, girl. You got to stop being such a—”
“Stop.” I did not want to hear what Cupcake thought of me. Life was too short for that kind of condemnation.
“I will not stop. We need that man for our nest.”
I dropped my arm, turned my head, and looked at my thrall. Or . . . my not-thrall.
Cupcake was wearing pajamas, her blonde hair up in a sprout tail atop her head. Her face was set in a mulish expression. “We need him. We need him to find an earthmover and help get the Simba out of the mud. He survived the Battle of Mobile. The Simbas were the only weapons that survived the battle. Jagger survived, ergo he was in a Simba, so he probably knows how to drive one.”
“Ergo?” I asked, my mind on her deeper meanings, things I had thought myself.
“It’s a good word. Ask your Berger if you got no education,” she said, sounding a little mean.
“I know what it means. And yes, we do need him.” I needed and wanted him in the worst ways possible. But not while sharing a room with Cupcake and the cats. No. Never. “Before he left the scrapyard, I put him to work,” I said, knowing the headache wasn’t going to be babied. “Just a few suggestions, things he might want to do. They took, even if getting away from me decreased their effectiveness. He’s halfway to becoming my new Harlan.”
“He’d make a good Harlan. He’d make a better nest-mate.”
I had planted memories of a meeting and discussion in Jagger’s brain, though the person I intended him to remember was my fake boss, a burly macho man, not the girly accountant named Heather. I’d given Harlan’s contact list to Jagger and told him there was a traitor to the OMW in it. That person likely had access to contacts in the Gov. and was making alliances with the MS Angels. Jagger had said it had to be a cell of people, not just one. Before he rode away, he’d said he’d be breaking bones and busting teeth to find the traitors. That was an enforcer’s job. But I hadn’t intended my suggestions to steal his sleep and make him less effective. Or to make him think about me twenty-four seven. Or link our sex dreams.
“I’m right. You know it.” Cupcake said.
I closed my eyes and didn’t respond to her comments, saying instead, “I’ll have to go after the MS Angels’ leadership eventually, as soon as Jagger gets intel on the traitor cell in the Gov. and in the OMW. But first we rescue the Simba. Then we rescue Evelyn and kill Clarisse.”
I didn’t add,and in between, rescue women in the log cabin in the hills. Cupcake hadn’t seen the women, and she had bad memories she had never shared. No need to stimulate them. But . . . Yeah. I was going on a rescue mission of my own.
A Simba would come in handy for that. Someone in the Gov. had made an alliance with the bloody bedamned MS Angels. And one cell of Angels was led by a queen, like me. Every time I thought about that I got cold chills. When Cupcake started to reply I said, “I have a headache. Wake me in half an hour. Then we’ll go for supper.”
“We should ask Jagger.”
“We’re not asking Jagger. We’re doing girl’s night out, remember?”
“He’s hot. I’ll take him if you don’t want him. But I saw how you kissed Mr. Sex on a Stick. Youwanthim.”
“Half an hour,” I sighed and let myself ease into sleep.
???
