Preacher Read online

  “I’m proud of what I did and who I helped, even though I don’t like to think about it too much. There were so many nights where we would wake up to the sound of guns and then, in the morning, the victims of the violence would show up at the camp. Do you know how many times I treated toddlers with bullet wounds?” I look at him through glassy eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know how bad the world can be, Preacher. And don’t think I’m going to stop trying to help you because I’m scared of the consequences. Of course I’m scared, but I believe in helping you even more. I care about you.”

  His arms wrap around me and he pulls me tight to his chest. A shaky sigh escapes me and I press my cheek to his muscular body and shut my eyes and listen to his breathing. It’s something calming and steady that I can focus on. All I can hear — all I want to hear — is the sound of his breathing and the sound of his heartbeat.

  “You’re too fucking good for me, Jessica, you know that?”

  I look up to him, shocked by how sincere he sounds. “You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for.”

  He kisses me. It’s not a hard kiss, it’s not a ‘fuck me’ kiss. It’s slower than that. Gentler. Comforting. There’s an intimacy in that action that runs deeper than sex. He breaks the kiss reluctantly.

  I return it. I lean forward and kiss him just as slow and with just as much feeling. My lips feel like they’re tingling as they touch his and my hands quiver with excitement.

  “You’re taking a big risk,” he says. “I appreciate it. More than you know. You’re an incredible woman, and your father would be so damn proud of the kind of woman you turned into. But you still need to be careful. I don’t want to lose you.”

  I sit up and press my lip to his and put my hands on his cheeks. His stubble is scratchy beneath my fingertips. I shut my eyes and put my forehead to his and hold it there. With my eyes closed, I just listen and savor the feeling of being so close to him. Slowly, our breathing synchs. In and out, we breathe like one.

  After a time, I open my eyes and kiss him again.

  “I don’t want to lose you, either.”

  “I don’t plan on dying any time soon.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I say, shaking my head.

  “Tell me.”

  “It took me a long time to get over losing my dad. I was angry for so long. It didn’t help that my mom didn’t want to talk about it — she was a great mother, but my dad was a subject that was off limits. She preferred denial. In some ways, I think her holding on to her pain was her way of holding on to a piece of my dad. I used to have all these revenge fantasies about what I would do if I found the person who actually shot my dad. They were these intricate, dark, twisted things that I never told anyone about. Until I got to college.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “What happened then?”

  “My classload wasn’t easy. I was overworking myself because I knew — and I’d known for years — that I wanted to do nursing, and now that I had the opportunity to actually study it, I wanted to make it happen as fast as I could. But I was wearing myself out and it was showing. I was a mess. My psych professor, Mr. Bernard — he was a sweet old man — suggested I go talk to a counselor because I looked like someone who was just a bad nights sleep away from turning into a monster out of Night of the Living Dead. My first session, everything just spilled out. I didn’t even plan on talking about it, it just came out because I had been keeping it inside all these years and, suddenly, I had someone who wanted to listen and help me. I ended up going to therapist the rest of my time in college.”

  He stiffens a little. “Are you saying I need therapy?”

  “No. I’m saying even if you lose someone close to you, that’s no reason for you to lose yourself. Don’t let the good man inside you die, even if the worst happens.”

  He continues to look at me, like he’s working out some ponderous question, before he smiles and puts his arms around me. Whatever he’s decided, it must be good, because there’s energy and intensity in the way he wraps me up again and puts his lips to mine. “You’re too damn good for me, Jessica.”

  He kisses me again, with heat, this time. It’s long and deep and makes my fingers and toes tingle and makes my thoughts flutter like butterfly wings.

  There’s something about how he says it that, even though he’s kissing me in a way that scrambles my thoughts and would be so easy to utterly give in to, I can’t get over. It’s like he’s seeing things in black and white: I’m good, he’s bad, and there’s no room for crossing over. I can’t let him think that.

  “Preacher?” I say, and I push him back and look at him cautiously.

  “Hmm?” He says, eyebrow raised.

  “I’m not kidding. I don’t want to lose you in all this.”

  “You’re not going to lose me. I promise. I care about you in a way I haven’t felt in a long time,” He says, right before he stands and lifts me from my spot on the couch. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on tight as he carries me to the bedroom.

  My apartment’s small, and it only takes seconds before he has me tossed flat on my back on my futon. The boards creak as I land on them and he climbs on top of me. My whole body feels alive with electricity, sensitive to every sensation, every touch of his fingertips, every brush of his scruff against my cheeks as he kisses me, every heated breath against my neck. I shut my eyes and lose myself in the sensory bliss of being with him.

  He’s so strong, and so good at what I know he wants to do, that it would be so easy to just give myself over to him and enjoy every fist-clenching second, but I want more than that.

  There’s a phrase that’s been sticking with me ever since I heard him say it: I’m too good for him.

  I lift my arms above my head and he pulls my shirt away, losing himself between my breasts. I let him kiss me and tease me for a while before I pull his head away and grin at him playfully.

  “Let me show you what this ‘good girl’ can do,” I say.

  His only response is to raise an eyebrow, but he doesn’t fight when I push him up and then onto his back. It’s my turn to take his shit off, it’s my turn to run my hands across his chest, enjoying the feeling of strength and power that’s built into his sculpted body.

  It’s my turn to work free the buttons of his jeans and pull them down. His cock is straining against the confines of his boxer-briefs. Just the sight of the outline of his cock is enough to spark the heat between my legs into full-blooded desire. I bite my lip and push aside the thoughts of just riding him right now, and remind myself that I want to play with him. I want to see what his face looks like when he’s the one who has to do nothing but lie back and do everything they can to hold on against the rising tide of ecstasy inside them.

  I kiss around the outline of his cock, teasing it with my lips and the tips of my fingers, until the front of his briefs are damp with precum and his breathing turns deep and heavy.

  I kiss his thighs, I kiss his lower abs, I do everything to tease him until he can hardly take anymore.

  Twice, he tries to reach down and take his cock out. Twice, he tries to pull my head down onto his waiting dick.

  Twice, I shove his hands away.

  “Stay,” I say. “Let this good girl show you what she’s got.”

  Twice, he growls something incomprehensible and I give a satisfied grin as he barely obeys.

  He wants it so bad he can’t even stand it.

  When I think he’s so close to the edge that anything more will break him, I pull his cock free and take him into my mouth. The sound that escapes his lips is so deep and raw that it makes my panties wet.

  I look up at him and take in the expression on his face. He’s lost in the pleasure I’m giving him, and all I see is unfiltered lust and his unquenchable desire for what I can do to him and what he wants to do to me.

  I love it.

  I run my tongue along the length of his shaft. It’s thick and pulses against even the slightest pressure. He is so close that I know I could
release him with just a bit of work from my hand and my mouth, but I take my time.

  When he finally reaches his climax, I want it to feel like he’s never felt before.

  I swallow him again, deep, enough to fill my throat and gag me, but I fight down that reflex and enjoy how thick and solid he is.

  It makes him groan like an animal in heat.

  “You are incredible,” he gasps.

  I pull back and lazily stroke his cock while I innocently smile up at him. “I thought I was just a good girl.”

  “Whatever the fuck you want to be, just keep doing it.”

  I swallow him again, feeling his girth in my throat and drawing from him a moan deeper and more pronounced than I’ve heard before. He is so close, I can feel precum flowing down the back of my throat and his balls tensing between my fingertips as his cock prepares to unload.

  When he seems about to release, I take him out of my mouth and slap his cock. Gentle, but firm. It does what I want: quiet his orgasm and prolong the time I can spend with his lovely cock.

  He shakes and tries to sit up, startled.

  “Something wrong?” I say.

  “I’m warning you, don’t try that again.”

  I grin at him like a good girl should. A good girl that is soaking wet and aching to ride his cock. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  I’d let him answer, but, he loses the ability to speak when I swallow his cock again. He’s even harder than before, and, try as I might, I gag on his cock this time.

  He groans, rocking his hips forward, thrusting deeper into my throat and grabbing me by the back of my head to hold me in place.

  I let him use me.

  I’m a good girl, after all.

  He thrusts deeper and I let him take me until it seems like he’s about to burst. Then I pull free and take him out of my mouth hand slap his cock once more.

  “I warned you,” he says.

  “I know.”

  I yelp in delight as he sits up and seizes me, stripping off my clothes, tossing me onto my back like I’m some kind of rag-doll, and climbing between my legs. He doesn’t hesitate and he’s not gentle as he fills me, and I twitch and shudder at the first sensations of his cock sliding into me. It’s overwhelming euphoria.

  My eyes roll back into my head as he fucks me so hard the futon beneath me cries out for mercy and I’m half afraid, in my blissed-out mind that the damn thing is going to break underneath us. Even then, I doubt that’d slow him down, and the only thing that would change about how hard he’s fucking me is that I’d be on the floor instead of this futon.

  “Was this part of your plan?” he growls as he makes my body shake with each thrust. “Is this what you wanted?”

  “Yes,” I gasp.

  I’m not able to say more than that. Ecstasy shakes me to my core and my body stiffens and tightens around him as I orgasm. And he keeps going, not slowing down in the slightest, which overwhelms ever one of my sensitive nerves and turns me into a quivering mess beneath him.

  I see a smile on his lips.

  He likes wrecking me.

  I like it, too.

  I slip my legs together behind his back, clenching them and pulling him deeper into me while I rock my hips to match the rhythm of his thrusts. I want to feel him complete, I want that closeness that only happens when he’s let every part of him go and the only thing he’s capable of doing afterward is lying beside me, with a sheen of sweat on his muscular body and his hands lazily caressing me.

  It doesn’t take long to get him there. It comes over him like a wave, a groan and a tightening in his breath and extra force in his thrust as he pushes deeper into me, driven by the primal need to take me to my core.

  I dig my nails into him and put my lips to his ear. “Give it to me.”

  He does.

  I like that, too.

  When he’s finished, he takes his time pulling out of me. Slow, gentle, he lies down next to me and I wrap myself around him and press my body to his. I put my head on his chest, while he idly kisses my hair and I fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat.

  I might be a good person — he certainly seems intent on saying that — but I want to remind him that’s not all I am. And I want to show him what he has to come back to. As I feel another kiss gently brush my forehead, I smile.

  I think I’ve done it.

  * * * * *

  It’s after midnight when he wakes me up. All it takes is a gentle touch on my hip and the heated whisper of my name.

  The street outside has quieted, the music’s stopped and the only thing I can hear are a few over-loud drunk conversations from club-goers stumbling their way home.

  I open one eye and look at him. He’s this blurry, imposing figure half sitting up beside me.

  “What is it?” I mumble.

  “I’m going out,” he says, sitting up on the edge of the bed. He’s not looking at me; his eyes are staring out the window, far off into the distance.

  I open my other eye and sit up. “What?”

  “I can’t let you be the only one sticking your neck out. I can’t let you risk yourself like that. I need to go out and rattle some cages and see what turns up.”

  I reach over and take hold of him by the forearm. I want to pull him back into bed with me and hold him until he falls asleep and gives up this crazy idea. “I don’t think you should.”

  “I’m not going to sit around and wait until my family turns up in the hospital. If they even turn up at all. They’ve done too much for me to allow that to happen.”

  I sigh. I can feel my stomach sinking inside me. This is a bad idea and I wish I could stop him. But I could, even if I tried. Deep inside, I understand him — if my dad or my mom was just missing, I’d risk everything to find them. Heck, I’m risking a lot just to find a memory of my father.

  “There’s a spare key in the silverware drawer,” I say at last.

  He grunts. “Thanks.”

  I squeeze his arm again. “Just come back to me, Preacher.”

  He puts his hand over mine. “I promise.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Preacher

  It’s three in the morning. The time of night when any biker with a pair is either deep in the bottle or deep in a piece of ass. Either way, it’s the perfect time for me to make my move.

  I’m outside Choppers. It’s a Jackal-friendly bar, though it ain’t their clubhouse. The lot is packed with bikes, Harleys, mostly, but there are a few classic Indians, old-styled bikes from the late 40’s and 50’s.

  One of them catches my eye. It’s an old Indian Chief with a classic Post WWII design, probably from 1947 or 1948. It’s painted deep red, with two leather saddlebags, and the whole thing shines like a dream, reflecting the light of the two dim streetlamps in the parking lot.

  I fucking whistle as I look it over. It is beautiful, and it kills me that a Jackal probably owns this damn thing. Any man with a classic bike like this deserves a pat on the back.

  I keep to the shadows outside, with my eyes on the front door and the alleyway just off the parking lot. The only things to keep me company are a few mosquitoes and the occasional whirr of a passing car.

  It’s not long before I get what I’ve been waiting for.

  The door opens and a heavyset man who’s just a few pounds away from being really fat comes out and makes a beeline right for the alley, his pudgy fingers fumbling with his belt and his face flushed with alcohol.

  I let him start in on his business before I creep up behind him.

  “Hey,” I say, tapping him on the shoulder.

  “What?” He turns, takes one look at me and his expression turns to drunken, confused fear.

  Which is probably the result of my fist crashing into his face.

  It staggers him.

  The man doesn’t know what to do with himself. Dick out, pissing left and right, he’s too fucking confused to fight. Instead of blocking my next punch, he lowers his hands to protect his dick. Not that there’s much ther
e to protect.

  My second punch catches him square on the jaw, his arms go stiff and I watch his eyes roll back in his head. Knockout.

  I’m not too proud of knocking out a fat man with his dick out. Still, it feels good putting a little pain to a Jackal.

  He hits the ground, hard, cock out and still pissing himself.

  I step around the stream of urine and hit him a few more times, relishing the snap and the sensation of my knuckles cracking into his fat face.

  This feels fucking good.

  I knock him so hard his head bounces off the pavement and then I plant a foot over his fleshy throat. I keep my foot there and kneel down to slap him awake. It takes a few second, but, eventually, his eyelids flutter open.

  He’s still pissing himself. How much did this son of a bitch drink?

  “What the fuck?” He manages to garble out.

  I press my foot down harder and raise my finger to my lips. “You’re going to be very fucking quiet and you’re only going to speak when spoken too, got it?”

  “Do you know who the fuck I am?” He gasps.

  I look at his name patch. “Yeah. You’re Tomahawk.”

  “I’m a fucking Bloody Jackal is what I am. And you’re a fucking dead man.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel like a dead man. I feel more like the man who’s kicking your ass,” I say. I step down harder on his throat to shut him up. His face goes a painful shade of purple. “Tell me something, Tomahawk: is that your Indian Chief out there?”

  He nods, but doesn’t say anything. Probably because I’m crushing his vocal cords.

  “It’s a nice bike. Good work, man.”

  He mouths the words ‘thanks’ and squirms a little and tries to grab hold of my leg and wrench it off his throat.

  I punch him in the face until he stops with his bullshit.

  “Listen, Tomahawk, I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to cooperate. The quicker you cooperate, the less you’ll get the shit kicked out of you and the sooner I can go on my way, alright”