“Brother, you make it hard to be a man.”
“I know.”
Jackal ground his teeth together, hoping the girlfriend of the bitch who had sneaked into Stump’s bedroom shoved Stump’s dick down his throat. The bastard would probably enjoy it, though.
“Where is Max tonight? He was supposed to go on a beer run when he got off.”
“He’s working tonight. He wanted to finish the bench for Lily. There’s a delivery truck going near Kentucky, and Shade’s meeting it to pick it up.”
“If it takes much longer, we’ll make him get his ass home instead of bringing the beer.” Stump started to get out of the chair. “I might as well go get it myself.”
“Max just came in the door.” Jackal saw Max was empty-handed.
Stump looked around the room before narrowing his eyes on him.
“What’s up?” Jackal said, already beginning to get up as Max came toward him. By the look on Max’s face, something was wrong.
“I passed by the area where Penni lives, and I saw cop cars. I couldn’t see what was …”
Jackal didn’t wait to listen to the rest, already running out of the clubhouse with Stump and Max a step behind him.
Jackal gunned his motor, driving toward Penni’s house. It was ten minutes away, and each minute, he told himself Max didn’t know if the cops were at her house or at someone else’s home in her neighborhood. He made it to the street before hers, the one that led to the community lake.
Dammit, to reach her condo, he had to go that way, and it was blocked off at the lake.
Jackal parked his bike, taking off toward her house. Jackal was intending to satisfy his curiosity then go back to the clubhouse when he saw the cops weren’t at Penni’s. They were down by the lake, and as he reached it, he saw detectives taking reports.
Two women were standing near a rope, blocking anyone from coming closer.
“What happened?”
An older woman turned to look at him sadly. “Someone killed several of the ducks, swans, and their babies.”
Jackal’s stomach recoiled at the thought that someone could do such a senseless act. He had to get to Penni and tell her before she found out. He didn’t see her with the rest of the bystanders.
He was walking away when he saw her crouched down by the shore of the lake, her brown top blending in with the tree she was under.
He raised the caution tape so he could slide under, and a cop tried to stop him.
“I’m with her.” Jackal pointed at Penni, and the cop let him pass.
Jackal broke into a run as he drew near. She was sobbing, trying to soothe the large bird lying limply in front of her.
“Let’s go.” He tried to pull her to her feet.
“Who would do this?” she cried out, shrugging away from his touch.
“I don’t know, but I promise I’ll find out.”
“Is the vet here yet?”
Jackal bent over the bird, seeing it was the one she had showed him the other day that had lost its mate.
“Is that him over there?” There was a man the cops were escorting under the tape.
Penni turned to look, nodding and waving the man to hurry.
He did hurry his pace when he saw her.
She moved out of the way as he examined the swan.
“Can you go to my car and bring me a cage?”
Jackal followed the vet’s directions to his van, deciding to bring two of the cages in case there were more birds that could be saved. He hurried, and it wasn’t long before he was placing the cages next to the dying bird.
He reached down and lifted Penni to her feet. This time, she didn’t resist him, burying her head in his shoulder.
The vet placed the swan in the cage. “I want to check the other birds to see if I can help. The police want me to bring the rest to my office so I can tell them how they died. Could you drive this one to my office? My partner should be there.”
“Yes,” Jackal answered. “Penni, stay here, and I’ll get your car. Where are your car keys?”
“In my house, by my front door. But my house is locked from the front. When I heard the police cars, I jumped over the back wall.
“It doesn’t matter. I have a key to your house.” Jackal took off, coming back in a matter of minutes.
Penni got in the front seat as he loaded up the cage. He didn’t think the bird would live, but he wanted to try for Penni.
As he was getting in the car, he saw the vet coming toward him with the other cage.
“I found three ducklings that need to go, too.” He shoved the other cage in the back seat.
Penni gave him the directions to the vet’s office then said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Jackal did a U-turn, driving toward the office on the other side of town.
“He’s not going to make it, is he?”
“I don’t think so, sweetheart.”
The waiting vet came out of the office as soon as they pulled into the parking lot.
Jackal tried to talk Penni into leaving, but she refused, sitting down stubbornly on one of the waiting room chairs. Therefore, Jackal sat down next to her, taking her hand in his.
Twenty minutes later, the vet came out and told them the swan had died, but the ducklings hadn’t been harmed.
“If I hadn’t been watching television, I would have heard who did it,” Penni said later as Jackal drove them back to her house.
“Babe, whoever did that was fucked up. You could have been the one hurt for trying to confront someone with that kind of anger. Whoever did that was in a killing rage, using the ducks to make them feel better.”
“That’s sick.”
“Yeah.”
“The police are taking the video tapes. I hope they catch whoever did it.”
“Me, too.”
Jackal parked her car in the driveway then walked her to her door. He opened the door to her condo, expecting her to tell him to leave, but she didn’t. Instead, she went into her kitchen to make coffee.
Jackal leaned against the refrigerator. “If you drink that, you’ll be awake all night.”
She turned off the coffee, staring down at the coffee pot. “Let me have my key back.”
Jackal turned and opened the refrigerator, taking out two waters. “No.”
“I don’t want to argue with you tonight.” Her voice broke.
“Tonight was the first time I’ve seen you cry. The last thing I want is to make your night worse, but I’m not giving the key back. I need it.”
She slammed her hands into his chest, pushing him back against the refrigerator. “You didn’t care that you fucked Raci instead of me, so why do you care about a stupid key?”
“I didn’t fuck her—”
“You touched her. I saw you. Your dick was hanging out. I might have interrupted her, but you were a second away from screwing her.”
“No, I wasn’t. If you saw my dick, you’d know I wasn’t.”
She stared him in confusion, her hands dropping from his chest.
“I couldn’t have fucked anyone with that limp dick. The only reason Raci didn’t notice was because she was trying to get information out of me.”
Penni backed up until the counter stopped her. “You touched her …” He saw the pain in her eyes.
“Yes, I touched her, knowing you would probably find out and hate me. I hated myself, but I gave an oath as a Predator, and I kept it, even though it was going to fuck up things between us. An oath isn’t easy to keep. Men have died for generations to keep them. Should I have let Ice or Max been the one to do it? Grace is dealing with her mother’s death, and Max has only been married less than a year.”
Her aghast expression answered his question.
“Using one of The Last Riders wasn’t an option,” he continued. “It was a setup to find out who was betraying the club. Should I have let Stump do it? He would have fucked her and told her what we had planned. Hennessy would have been suspicious. Cruz would have beat
en it out of her. Cade could have, but Fat Louise is pregnant. Stud could have, but if that bitch of a wife of his found out, she would’ve—”
“Jeez.” Penni shook her head, stopping him. “So you’re the go-to guy when the Predators need a dirty job done?”
“Yes.”
Penni raised her hands in the air. “What do you want me to do? Accept that you’re going to fuck a woman if Ice orders you to?”
“No. I told him I won’t do it again.” Jackal gave her a twisted smile, hiding how painful it had hurt him to make that ultimatum. “I told him no, that even if it meant I’d have to walk away from the Predators, I would.”
Penni gave him a trembling smile. “You said that?”
“Yes.”
“You said that even though you didn’t know if I would take you back?”
“Babe, there was never any doubt that you were going to take me back.”
Penni started walking around the kitchen huffily, and Jackal braced his hands on the counter.
“You’re my soul mate,” he told her.
“You think you can convince me that you believe in something I know damn well you don’t?”
“What makes you think I don’t? Who else do you think would put up with your crazy ass? You almost shot me! When haven’t I been there when you needed me? Who else were you ready to jump into bed with? Who else would I walk away from the Predators for? Not … one … woman … but you. Only you.”
Penni walked back over to him and laid her head on his chest. “I don’t know what to do.”
Jackal placed his hand on the nape of her neck, tilting her face up to his. “That’s a start. I can deal with that. What I can’t deal with is not being a part of your life.” He kissed her as he had never kissed her before. “I couldn’t fuck another woman when the only one I want to fuck is you.”
He stroked her tongue with his, pressing his flush against hers. His dick was so hard he shuddered when he ground his cock into her pussy. If she were wearing anything other than her tight jeans, Jackal didn’t think he would have been able to stop from releasing his dick to fuck her right there.
Penni began kissing him back, burrowing her hands under his T-shirt to run them across his waist then reach around to the small of his back.
Jackal lifted her onto the counter before pulling down her blouse, baring the lacy, pale blue bra. He pulled her breasts out of the cups, sinking his mouth onto one taut nipple.
“I want to fuck you so badly!” he groaned, blowing his heated breath over her wet nipple.
“I didn’t mean I was going to make up my mind tonight.” Penni circled her thighs around his hips.
“I’m not going to fuck you tonight after what happened, and I have to work for Henry tomorrow night. That gives you two days to make your mind up.”
“If I don’t, what then?”
“I’ll make it up for you.” Jackal tugged her legs down, unsnapping her jeans. He took the jeans and wispy panties off, dropping them to the floor.
She curled her hands over the countertop, licking her bottom lip. “What are you doing? You just said I had two days—”
“Helping you make up your mind.” He buried his face in her belly, tracing her belly button with his tongue. “Your body is so hot. It makes me want to do everything nasty I can think of to you.” Jackal caressed her flesh until he reached her pussy, spreading her legs wider.
“Like what?” she croaked.
“Like this.” He used his thumbs to part the lips of her pussy, sucking her clitoris into his mouth.
“Oh, God …” Penni moaned. “What else?”
He lowered himself to his knees then blew on her shiny bud. “I’m going to make your pussy cry for me.”
He licked the length of her cunt then drove his tongue into her pussy. Penni reached to the cabinets above her head.
“You taste like peach rum.”
Her moist pussy was almost pushing him to his breaking point, but he wanted this time to be all about her.
He searched for the spot she was the most sensitive. When he found it, she started whimpering.
“That’s not as good as my dick is going to feel.”
“It’s pretty good now,” she panted.
“Only pretty good?”
“You like to talk too much,” she complained, bringing her hands to his hair to push him back down.
“I thought girls like that shit.” He placed his hands on her hips so she didn’t fall off the counter.
“I’m not most girls.”
“No, you’re not.”
Jackal used his tongue to torment Penni’s pussy, sliding in and out of her then lashing her clitoris before sliding back inside. Her wetness spread, making it easier for him to slip deeper inside her pulsing muscles, driving him on, becoming drunk on her taste.
“Say my name,” Penni moaned. “Say my name,” she repeated.
“Penni …”
“Jackal … if you ever fuck around on me again, I’ll kill you,” she moaned.
He took her warning seriously. The woman didn’t do anything in half measures. She was all in … or she was away. Jackal wasn’t going to let that happen.
Her throbbing pussy was the only one he needed, the only one he couldn’t live without tasting. And right now, it was convulsing, nearly making him come as she shattered on his tongue.
When she sat on the counter like a limp doll, he pressed kisses on her belly then each of her breasts then on her waiting mouth. Then he helped her off the countertop and back into her jeans.
He shoved her panties into his back pocket.
“Give those back.”
“No. I’m going to put them in my nightstand.”
She blushed, reminded of what she had kept in her nightstand before he had destroyed it.
“Are you going to cut them up, too?” Her mouth was still wet from his kiss.
“Fuck no,” Jackal teased. “You probably don’t want to know what I’m going to do to them when I get home.” He plucked at the front of his jeans, trying to ease the material from strangling his cock.
“That’s definitely TMI.”
“You can have them back in two days.” He walked to her door. If he stayed much longer, he would be using her pussy to ease his aching cock instead of her panties.
“You can have them.”
Jackal pulled her in for one more kiss. “Lock the door after me.”
“Why? The only pervert I need to keep out is you, and you have a key.”
Jackal smacked her bottom as he went out the door, barely making it out before she slammed it behind him.
“God, I’m going to marry that woman.”
35
Penni looked up from her computer screen when she heard the office door open.
“What are you doing here?”
Grace came into the room, wearing a gorgeous dress that had her self-consciously straightening her casual top over her black pants.
“I decided to come back early.” Grace smiled at her, putting her purse on the desk catty-corner from hers.
“I told you to take the rest of the month off.”
“Dad told me to come home, that he needed to be alone.” Her smile slipped then firmed. “He’s going on a road trip. I think it will be good for him. He’s bought a motorcycle and will ride throughout the country until he decides which movie he’s going to direct next.”
Penni and Grace talked every night. The father and daughter were close, but she could understand him wanting to mourn in private without his son and daughter as witnesses.
“Since you didn’t take my offer for more time off …” Penni picked up a sheath of papers, handing them to Grace. “This is the contract for the Atlantic venue. Make sure Kaden has his own dressing room. He can’t be a diva if he doesn’t have fresh fruit, coffee, and an air purifier.”
“Ax doesn’t want a personal chef?”
“I already hired one to go on tour with us.”
“Thank God. It was a pain in
the ass when the venues’ hired cooks who didn’t make what he wanted.”
“I don’t think Genny knows how to make Sushi, but she’ll learn,” she stated confidently.
The women spent the day getting caught up on their work. Then Grace went out to get take-out for lunch. Shoving her paperwork out of the way, they sat at Penni’s desk to eat.
Grace brushed a crumb away from her expensive dress. “So, Ice said you and Jackal are a couple.”
Penni lowered a chip that she had been about to eat, taking her time before answering the question and finally giving the only she could.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Is it ten percent or fifty percent odds?”
Penni thought hard. “Uh … I don’t know. More like seventy percent sure.”
Grace frowned. “More than fifty percent? I thought you would be, like, less than ten percent.”
“That was before last night.”
“What happened last night?”
Penni didn’t answer, shoving a chip in her mouth.
“Did you have sex with him? You swore you’d never want anything to do with him.”
“No, I didn’t have sex with him, but I’m thinking about it. He’s kind of sexy.”
“Do you think he’s ten perfect—”
“What’s going on? When did you become a freaking mathematician?”
Grace looked down at her food. “If you tell, I’ll get in trouble, but Max started a bet over whether Jackal could … get you in bed,” she answered delicately.
Penni could just imagine the words Ice had used.
“Max said Jackal couldn’t get you in bed even if he had Stump’s dick.”
Wow, that must have hurt Jackal’s pride. Then another thought struck her. Had Jackal been trying to win a bet?
Penni stiffened in her chair. “Does Jackal know?” She would cut off his dick and shove it up his ass!
“No … No, he didn’t. He didn’t until this morning when Ice told him. Ice wanted to figure out whom to place his bet on. Our hot tub is on the fritz … We enjoy our hot tub,” Grace admitted, embarrassed.
“What did Jackal say?”
“He told Ice it was fifty percent.”
Penni relaxed back in her chair. She could live with that answer.
“Well?” Penni raised her brows at her.