Excuse The Obscene

It’s funny how time works. I hadn’t realized that, up until now, I’d been dragging myself through every shitty day and every shitty circumstance that got thrown our way. What had only been a few days felt like long, nerve-racking months. But up here, at Big Bear with Zacky, days flew by in what felt like hours.

“One. More. Day.” Zacky said, punctuating each word with a kiss to my stomach as he crawled up from underneath the sheets.

“That’s what you said yesterday.” I bit back a moan as his mouth landed on my breast. “And the day before that.”

Our two day trip to Big Bear had turned into three days. Then four. And now Zacky was using his seductive charms to turn it into five. If he kept waking me up like this we’d spend the rest of our lives in this cabin.

I ran my hands up Zacky’s biceps before flipping us over and straddling his hips.

“One more day.” I leaned down and nipped at his jaw. “But tomorrow we go back for real. No more hiding me from Slade.”

Before my lips could go any further Zacky grabbed my arms and sat me up in his lap before shooting me a confused look.

“You figured me out.”

By the third morning when Zacky was being extra persistent about staying, I had realized why.

“Days ago.” I said with a smile, running my fingers through his hair.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

I just shrugged. Swimming, sex, water skiing, sex, breakfast in bed, lounging on a boat, elaborate dinners, relaxing in the Jacuzzi, sex. “I was having too much fun to want to go back anyway.”

“Then let’s keep having fun.” Zacky hauled me down to him and pressed his lips against mine. “We can rent this cabin for weeks.”

Tempting. But no.

“We could – but the guys need you.”

And Emilee needed me. Spending time alone with Zacky was doing wonders for my psyche but I still couldn’t shake the need to check on Matt Berry’s orphaned little girl.

Zacky sighed before swinging me up in his arms and climbing out of the bed.

“Well if this is going to be our last day, let’s make it a fucking fantastic one.” Zacky said, carrying me to the bathroom that adjoined to the bedroom which accounted for the entire upper floor. Downstairs there was a small kitchen, a living area, and the aforementioned Jacuzzi that we had defiled again and again.

We took a shower together, getting pretty dirty before we got clean. After we dried each other off, Zacky lifted me up again, walking back out to the bedroom and dumped me on the bed.

“So what do you wanna do today?” Zacky asked, climbing on top of me and running his lips lightly across my breasts.

“You mean aside from this?” I asked, gripping his hair in my hands and pressing his face harder against my breasts. I had no patience for Zacky’s light and playful teases.

I felt him laugh against my chest before taking my right nipple in his mouth and suddenly nobody was laughing anymore. His hands slid down between my legs and sensation slashed my nerves. A moan ripped from my throat before I even had time to process it.

Zacky lifted his lips from my chest, smirking up at me as he ran his mouth down my belly, leaving tiny crescents from his teeth scattered across my stomach. He placed a kiss on each hipbone before spreading my legs, placing one after the other over his shoulders, opening me to his eyes and touch. He inhaled me, rumbled like a lion maddened at the scent of his female in heat, then blew a gust of acute sensation over my quivering flesh. My hips bucked, my last “please” morphing into a squeal. It became a shriek when he pumped two fingers into me, in a slow, slow glide. My gasping mouth widened as his tongue joined in, licked from where his fingers were buried inside me upward, circling my bud until I heard my voice sobbing pleas again. His lips locked on my core. I bucked, pressed my burning flesh to his mouth, opening myself fully to his double sensual assault, bewilderment shooting through me as each glide and graze and pull and thrust sent hotter pierces racing through me. Moments later I was convulsing, pleasure slamming through me in desperate surges.

“I will never get enough of you.” Zacky whispered against my thigh.

“I know the feeling.” I gasped, trying to slow down my racing heart and regain my breath.

The tingles racing through my skin had only begun to slow down when suddenly Zacky was on me – in me. And it didn’t matter that I’d just come down from an explosive high, in seconds he had me mindlessly pumping my hips up at him, begging for more. He withdrew then plunged, then again and again, riding my ecstasy, not letting it subside, building the pressure inside me again as he took my lips, thrust inside my mouth with his tongue, simulating the powerful thrusts of our hips against each other. This time I screamed with the first crashing chord of the climax, my muscles squeezing the hardness and girth pistoning satisfaction into me, convulsing around it. Zacky rose above me, muscles taught, eyes dark, face seizing with the pleasure of possessing me. Then he threw his head back and roared as every muscle in his body locked, thrusting into me one last time before going lax and collapsing on me.

I wrapped my arms around him, liking the feel of our sweaty skin clinging to each other, loving the weight of him covering me like a security blanket.

It was a few moments before Zacky broke the silence.

“You know we’ll have to take another shower now right.” He pointed out with a smug look on his face.

I laughed and ran my fingers up and down his back, happy to stay just like this for a while longer.

Zacky was poised to say something when a rustle outside in the trees made him pause. Anyone else would have brushed the slight noise off as an animal but in our line of work you learned to train your ear to the distinct sound of creeping footsteps. We exchanged a quick look that said we’d both heard the noise.

Zacky climbed off of me and out of the bed. He pulled on a pair of jeans before walking to the small window and peeking out.

“Nothing.” Zacky turned to me and said.

But before we could brush it off as simple paranoia, the sound of the door creaking open floated upstairs.

And just like that, any thought of it being paranoia went out the window. Zacky had chosen a relatively remote cabin that left us mostly in solitude and even if someone from the main lodge was coming over to check on us they certainly wouldn’t need to be sneaking in like a fucking cat burglar.

In a flash Zacky had yanked his bag out of the closet and pulled a gun out.

“You brought a gun on vacation?” I whispered, quickly reaching for my clothes and pulling them on.

“I bring a gun everywhere.” He muttered back, twisting a silencer onto the tip of his pistol.

By now we could clearly hear someone moving around downstairs. I watched Zacky check his bullets and couldn’t help but think how the last thing we needed was for him to shoot a common thief. Whoever it was, was making their way up the steps now.

Zacky stood beside the door while I glanced around for something to use as a weapon. Unlike Zacky, I wasn’t packing revolvers and ammunition for our getaway trip.

Before my eyes could even complete a full sweep of the room, the door flew open full force knocking Zacky back for a second. And a second was all it took for a shot to be fired. I dropped to the floor instinctively as the bullet whizzed by me and hit the nightstand. Half a second later I heard the ping of Zacky’s silenced pistol and the subsequent thud of a body dropping to the floor.

“Toni.” Zacky breathed my name, leaping over the bed and landing beside me. Pulling me towards him, he ran his hands up and down searching for a wound.

“I’m fine.” I said, standing up with Zack by my side.

“So we can rule out common thief.” I spoke, looking down at the Caucasian, mid-thirties, male bleeding out on the rug at the foot of the bed with a glock in his hand.

And then in the blink of an eye we were moving again. Zacky riffled through the guy’s pockets, pulling out a wallet and cellphone before pocketing both in his jeans. While he was doing this, I wrapped my hand in a shirt and pried the gun from the guy’s hand, wrapping it up in the shirt. Zacky lifted the body and carried it out of the room. I dropped to the floor and rolled up the bloody area rug, shoving the shirt covered gun inside it before following behind him.

When we were both downstairs, Zacky nodded towards the car keys and then at me.

“Get the trunk open and case the area.”

I propped the rolled up rug against the wall before grabbing the keys and sprinting outside. I shot a quick sweeping look around the surrounding forest area before running to the car parked in the driveway and revving it up. Climbing out again, I threw the trunk open before looking around one more time and running back inside.

Zacky walked out with the shooter still slung over his shoulder and dropped him in the trunk of the car, shoving him back before taking the area rug from me and shoving that in too. He shut the trunk and locked the car before we both went back inside.

We worked in silence as Zacky went to wash the blood off of him while I haphazardly packed our bags. I picked up Zacky’s pistol that he had dropped on the floor in a rush to get to me and carefully concealed it in the compartment I had seen him pull it out from.

I was on the floor scrubbing up the trickles of blood that had missed the rug and landed on the floor when Zacky re-entered the room. Tugging on a shirt, he looked at me in silent question.

I nodded, letting him know that everything was good to go and we got the fuck out of there fast.

The two hour car ride back to Huntington was filled with stony silence and I could tell Zacky was thinking the same questions I was.

Who the fuck was that and how did he know where we were?

It was obvious that the shooter had something to do with Slade but if he wanted to see Zacky dead so much than why did he not come here to do the job himself? And why send an amateur at that? This shooter had no finesse or skill, bursting into the cabin with all that noise and firing blind shots at the bed as if expecting that we’d just be sleeping in waiting for him to kill us.

I could tell Zacky was itching to get in contact with the guys but in an attempt to make sure we had the serene and secluded time away he’d promised, he left our phones at home along with the number for the lodge we were staying at and strict instructions for Brian to only call in the case of an extreme emergency.

Zacky was moving at pace so fast that his car probably wasn’t fit to be on the highway right now. He zipped around other cars that got in his way and just kept racing forward. I felt my heart drop into my stomach a few times but we made it home in record time.

We’d barely stepped through the front door when Brian was on us. Before he could say anything, Zacky cut him off – explaining what had happened early in the day while we all walked to the lounge where the guys and Val were all sitting looking either very distressed or very pissed off.

“That’s what I was trying to reach you about this morning. Called the lodge but they said you’d already checked out.” Brian explained gruffly.

Zacky shot him an expectant look and waited for him to explain.

“Slade put a hit out. Drew found out this morning through his connection.”

I felt my heart lurch to a stop before racing again, ten times faster than it had when Zacky was flying down the highway. The motherfucker had put a price on Zacky’s head. That meant more were coming. And they would keep coming. My hand tightening on Zacky’s arm until I could feel my nails breaking the skin.

“50k.” Drew choked out, looking almost animalistic in his anger. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wandered why Drew looked so enraged. I mean he got along well enough with Zacky but not so much that he’d be losing his mind over the idea of someone putting a hit out on him.

“Just like the fucker to have people do his dirty work. $50,000? Is that all I’m worth these days?” Zacky asked with a raised eyebrow.

Everyone in the room stayed silent and the tension seemed to grow tenfold.

“The hit wasn’t on you.” Matt spoke, breaking the silence.

And then suddenly everyone’s eyes were on me. My heart lifted out of my stomach and I turned to look at Zacky. His body had gone rigid and his eyes so dark that everyone in the room seemed to step back a little.

“Are. You. Sure?” Zacky growled out, his voice dropping lower with each word – danger clearly radiating off of him.

“Fucking positive.” Drew rumbled, and I understood now why he was so furious. “Knox called me this morning with the info.” He said, speaking directly to me now. “He thought my mysterious partner might be interested.”

I couldn’t help but let out a dark chuckle at the irony of it.

“He wanted to hire me to kill…me.”

Apparently Zacky didn’t find the same ironic humor in this that I did because he hauled me over his shoulder and stormed upstairs to our bedroom before dropping me on the bed.

“You’re not leaving this house.” Zacky growled at me and I could tell it was taking all of his control to keep his fury locked in.

For the second time that day, the image of Emilee crept into my mind. I had to check on her – had to see for myself that she was okay and in good hands. I couldn’t do that if I was locked away in this house like a prisoner.

“Zacky, I can’t just stop living my life and hide away here because some asshole –” I didn’t get the chance to finish before Zacky was in my face, his eyes even darker up close.

“Watch what you say to me right now, Toni. I am in a very critical condition. I’m a breath away from locking you up in the basement away from all windows and doors. Don’t push me.”

I sucked in a breath but before I could respond, Brian threw the door open and Zacky turned away from me to talk to him.

“Start setting up a fucking security detail to patrol the house. I want eyes on every fucking window, door and crack in the fucking walls. Make sure the security system is up to date. Seal this place up like fucking Fort Knox and don’t come back ‘til it’s done.”

Brian only nodded before turning to leave the room again. Once he was gone I decided to give negotiating with Zacky one last try.

“What if I take bodyguards with me whenever I leave the house?”

“Let it go Toni,” he growled. “I’m not letting you out of my sight or out of this house so your obsession with Matt Berry’s kid is going to have to wait until I figure out a way to keep you fucking safe!”

I paused and looked at Zacky who was still seething. So he knew about my little mission to find out what exactly happened to the screaming girl I could still picture so clearly in my head.

“You figured me out.” I said, using Zacky’s words from earlier when I had revealed that I knew he was pushing to stay in Big Bear to keep me away from Slade. Not that that had worked out so well anyway.

“Days ago.” He mimicked my response from earlier in the day.

My mind went back to that morning when everything had seemed so perfect. It already felt like so long ago when it had been just a few hours. Time was already starting to drag. Our relaxation time had run out and the days were starting to seem long again.