“The one with the dick,” I murmur, gazing down at his erection. “If you loved me you would have fucked me twice already.”
Dino grunts. “You don’t play fair.”
“And I never will.”
We laugh until the head of his cock disappears inside me. After sighing in unison, we quickly find a hard, fast rhythm. Dino doesn’t stop when I come or even when he comes. He never seems to go soft. He only flips me over and slides back inside my body. Not that I’m complaining about the man’s stamina.
By the time Dino relaxes next to me, seeming satisfied for the time being, I’m an orgasmic puddle.
“Yeah, I’m that good,” he says, resting his cheek against my breast.
“Your hips are like a machine.”
Dino grins up at me as he rolls to his stomach and kisses the fullness under my breast.
“Rafael wants the job done,” Dino says.
“Don’t you?”
“Sure. Now that you admit loving me, we can go anywhere.”
“So, do we storm Black’s hideout or smoke him out? The cabin is accessible by one road, and he’ll be waiting for us. If we go in with guns blazing, it’ll be a little difficult to make his death look like a suicide or accidental.”
“What if we don’t kill Black?” Dino asks in a voice muffled by his lips against my waist.
“Except that’s the job.”
“No, the job is to return Common Bend to Johansson. We can do that without taking out the top guy. With him hiding in the woods, the assumption is we’re gunning for him. Why not flip the script?”
“I’m not seeing how.”
“His power comes from his lackeys. We’ve wiped out his main meth lab and made him look weak. If we take out a few more of his loyal deputies, he’ll lose the power to do much more than follow orders.”
I smile at his devious expression. “You still have that one deputy’s gun.”
“A murder-suicide would make everything nice and tidy. One of his guys got his balls blown off, but Black never let the info hit the papers. Hayes killed another, and again the story stayed quiet. If we take out two more deputies, Black would be scared. If Johansson gives him the chance to walk away, the asshole will take it.”
“Is that a suitable solution for Cooper?”
“If we kill Black, he’ll still have to worry about the deputies. This way, Black hides the mess we’ve made since he doesn’t need the heat. When he walks away to save his ass, Johansson can install a new sheriff who can get rid of the rest of Black’s loyalists.”
I watch Dino kiss and nibble at the flesh around my belly button. “I like the plan, but what if it makes us look like we couldn’t get to Black and chickened out?”
“I don’t give a shit what anything looks like. If Johansson told us to come into town and whack the sheriff the first damn day, Black would be dead, and we’d be back in Houston. Of course, if he did that you wouldn’t have had the time to fall head over heels in love with me.”
“So true.”
“After we finish here, we’ll visit your mom.”
“Or we can return to Houston and hang out for a while.”
“Why put it off?”
“I’m not sure I’m ready. You know how you walked away from your life after your father died? My dad dying made me ditch my life in Salem. We weren’t even close, but something changed in me, and I blamed Mom. I’m not sure I can stop blaming her.”
“What did she do?” Dino asks, taking my hand.
“Nothing that caused his death.”
“How did he die?”
“He was helping an asshole move, and another asshole came over and argued with the first asshole. The first asshole pulled a gun on the second asshole. There was a struggle over the gun between the two assholes. Each one got shot and lived. My father got what he thought was a flesh wound, but he died. That was my dad in a nutshell. The sucker who gets killed while assholes live for-fucking-ever.”
“I’m sorry. He sounds like a nice guy, though.”
Thinking of my dumpy, sweet dad, I wish I’d known him better. “Yeah, and being nice got him nothing. No woman to love him. Overlooked at work. Used by everyone he met. Mom wasn’t the first or the last. His death wasn’t her fault, but I couldn’t look at her afterward. She is exactly the kind of person who brings bullshit down on others.”
“Are you having second thoughts about visiting her?”
“No, but I don’t want to be a nutter when I see her.”
“What are you afraid will happen?”
“I’ll scream or cry or try to strangle her. Just do something wild and then I’ll feel like I need therapy, and I don't want any fucking therapy. All of my girlfriends go to therapy, and that’s great for them, but I’m not doing it.”
“After you scream or cry or strangle her, you just go on with your life. It doesn’t have to mean anything besides you faced a fear.”
Tightening my grip on his hand, I ask, “And you’ll be there with me?”
“Most definitely. I’ll cover my ears if you scream. I’ll wipe your tears if you cry. I’ll hide the body if you strangle her. I’m not going anywhere.”