I realized now, as the orgasm-fog cleared away, that I never had any hope of keeping it purely professional with Jace. He was in my head from the moment I saw him, and everything he did was helping him force his way into my heart too.
*****
I could have happily fallen asleep in Jace’s arms after that, but when he’d said we were going to do everything he wanted all night, he meant it. It was almost three o’clock in the morning by the time he’d had his way with me to his satisfaction.
Afterwards, my legs wouldn’t immediately work, so he carried me to the bathroom. He set me down in the shower, with seven showerheads blasting us with warm relaxing water. Jace cleaned me from head to toe with shower gel that smelled a lot like the oils from AquaVell.
By the time he’d done that, I was able to return the favor, exploring his body with slow awe, feeling every scar and muscle at my own pace, without having his hard dick bending my mind to distraction at the same time. He was a work of art, and he was right. Some pieces of art were more OK than others.
After the shower, instead of returning to the same room we’d just been in, he carried me to another bedroom as if I was light as a feather. This was much more extensively furnished, and I guessed this must be the real master bedroom.
He put me in bed, then turned out the light before joining me. I cuddled up to him, and after a pause as if he was unsure of himself for the first time, he cuddled me back.
I took a deep breath and sighed. So exhausted, happy and satisfied, I nuzzled into him even closer and was halfway to drifting off to sleep when Jace spoke in the darkness.
“I never tracked down my parents,” he said.
“Hmmm?”
“To answer your question. I never tracked down my parents.”
“Why not?”
“Because they died in a car crash when I was five, maybe six. I was in the car with them.”
Chapter 18
Jace
The Ex Machina Motorcycle Club headquarters was built like a post-apocalyptic fortress. I let them run their drugs through the city with almost zero regulations, other than fair competition from my guys, so I knew, with the kind of money that was flowing through their hands, they could have done a lot better.
Yet, they seemed to like it like this, walls made from mismatched pieces of corrugated iron, barbed wire everywhere. That was their style.
The only thing they’d really changed since I first made my deal with them was an upgrade of weapons. The men manning the walls up there by the spotlights weren’t doing it with pipes, chains and second-hand six-shooters anymore. Now they had machine guns.
Normally I wouldn’t come here, but a day like this demanded my presence. Their availability as an on-call mobile army, separate from my own operations, was too valuable an asset to lose.
Two Ex Machina members escorted me across the courtyard. We walked past a bonfire where a big group sat around drinking beer, barely avoiding breaking into brawls, and semi-ignoring the biker-chick getting finger-banged not quite outside its circle of light.
Some of them stared at me with open hostility. They could fuckin’ try it if they wanted.
One building, obviously designed by the same architect responsible for the outer walls, was rattling and shaking so loudly that it was impossible to tell what kind of music was causing it. Smoke and lights poured out of the gaps in the walls, and mingled with the night air. Weed, grease and burning rubber.
Another building was filled with bikes in various states of being dismantled and rebuilt. Sparks flew from grinders and welding masks stared at blindingly bright lights as they made whatever modifications they wanted.
This was what a motorcycle club did after getting caught in a surprise attack by a well-armed enemy. My enemy.
I wasn’t being led to either of those buildings though. I had a meeting with “Iron” Jim Morrins, the man in charge here, and I was heading towards the door with guards posted.
One of them reached back and banged on the door with his fist without saying a word to us. Somebody on the inside unlocked it before swinging it open on hinges that screamed. Jim had three people talking to him at once, and there was a map on his desk. They all shut up when they saw I had arrived.
“Barlow,” he said.
His face was neutral behind that long greying beard, but he didn’t extend his hand to me, so I didn’t extend mine to him. This would have been a lot easier without his subordinates in the room.
“Iron” Jim was looking a little less iron these days, but I knew under that gut was muscle almost hard enough to break your hand on, because he wouldn’t do business with me until we’d fought. For a guy in his fifties, he gave a pretty fuckin’ good account of himself.
“Jim. How much worse is it than I’ve heard on the news?”