Puck: Alpha One Security Book 4 Read online

  “Makes sense.”

  “I did a lot of other gnarly shit to get drug money, though. Lots of stealing, scams, and begging. It was an ugly time.”

  “That’s personal and revealing,” I said, “but not sexual . . . about sex, but not sexual.”

  “What I consider my first time, my first voluntary time, was after I got clean. He was a lot like me, recovering addict, homeless, trying to pick himself up and restart his life. Older than me by a few years, really sweet guy. Perfect kind of guy for my first time after everything I’d been through. It was hard to find privacy in a shelter, but we managed it, and it was . . . nice, but underwhelming.”

  “After what’d you experienced, I’d imagine it’d be hard to . . . want that, I guess.”

  She nodded. “You’d be right. I wanted to be normal. I didn’t want what Craig had done to define me anymore, or to hold me back. And Paul . . . he made it easy for me to get past my hang-ups. I thought maybe he and I would have something, you know? Like we could lean on each other as we worked on staying clean and figuring out how to start life over.”

  “I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  She nodded. “But then he vanished. I threw myself into focusing on the SATs and scholarships and college applications. And then, a few days before I left for Harvard, I ran into him. He was using again. I could see it, feel it, smell it. He was strung out and desperate for another hit. I don’t think he even recognized me. And that was sort of the final mental turning point for me, seeing Paul like that. High, crazy, desperate, dirty, so fucked up he didn’t even recognize me. I realized then that I’d never, ever, fucking ever go back to that.”

  “And you haven’t.”

  She shook her head. “I barely even drink. The idea of losing myself to anything scares me. Even being drunk feels like something I could get hooked on and then somehow I’d be back out on the street. I know it’s silly or stupid, but even if I let myself drink regularly, I have this fear that I’ll become an alcoholic. Having known plenty of those, I know how ugly it can be, how completely you can lose yourself to it, and I just . . . I refuse.”

  I withdrew my hand from her leg and put it around her shoulders, drew her closer against me. “Not silly, babe. Not at all. My old man was an alcoholic, and that shit will rule you and it will ruin you, if you let it. I’ve lived a hard life, I don’t mind admitting. But I’m very much aware of the fact that Pops was a drunk, and I won’t let myself go there either. I’m careful about it. I take regular hiatuses from drinking, just to prove to myself, I guess, that I’m in control, that I don’t need booze to have a good time.”

  “I’m glad you understand.” Colbie rested her head on my shoulder, and even though this conversation hadn’t gone how I’d meant it to, I felt like this was better, somehow.

  I wanted the trade of revealing sexual stories to be hot, to fan the sparks between us into something more. I meant it to make things between us sizzle even more, give me an edge. That backfired, it became some kind of intensely personal, emotionally packed moment of revelation. I just told her shit I’d never told anyone, shit I’d never admitted even to myself.

  “So, who was your best?” I asked, in the interest of trying to regain the sparks.

  “Alex Caldwell. The TA of my first Russian class. His mom was Russian, like had moved to the States while she was pregnant with Alex. She ended up marrying some American dude when Alex was two, which was how he had an American last name, but he’d grown up speaking Russian and English, since his stepdad learned Russian so he could talk to Alex’s mom better.”

  I smirked at her. “Okay. And . . .?”

  Colbie rolled her eyes at me. “There’s nothing lascivious about the story. We dated for six months, and he was great in bed. Alex was the one who showed me what sex could really be, I guess you could say. He was my TA, but we made a rule that we’d never talk about the class, and he’d grade my papers like anyone else’s, and I’d never get any kind of special treatment. And then the class ended, and that stopped being something we had to worry about.”

  “Why’d you break up with him?”

  “Oh, he graduated, got a job in Los Angeles, and that was that. I was sad about it for a few months, but I’d never really been in love with him, and I knew he hadn’t been in love with me either. We had good sex together; we got along, had fun, but when he landed the job there was no question of how it was going to go. It wasn’t, like, painful, you know? It wasn’t some big drama, do I stay for Colbie, or do I move for the really great job I just got? Nah, it was just one of those things that happens in life, and we both knew it.”

  “What made the sex so good?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “He paid attention to me, figured out what I liked. And it didn’t hurt that he had—” she broke off, blushing a little.

  “A big cock?”

  Colbie nodded. “It was very nice, yes.”

  “Very nice,” I echoed. “Did he make you go crazy in bed? Did he make you come so hard you fainted?”

  She rolled her eyes at me. “No, Puck.”

  “You say that like I’m asking stupid questions.”

  “You are.”

  I leaned in and bit her earlobe, lowered my voice to a whisper. “See, I don’t think I am. Best sex ever should make you absolutely crazy.”

  “Like you and Maya?” she asked.

  I nodded. “We’d finish, and I’d just laugh, because it was so fucking crazy. Every single time I was like, whoa, holy shit.”

  Colbie frowned at me. “So if I’ve never fainted from an orgasm, if I’ve never gone whoa, holy shit, then I’m not doing it right?”

  I shook my head. “Not what I’m saying. But you should experience that at least once.”

  “And you can show that to me, can you?” she asked, skepticism rife in her voice. “Crazy, make-me-faint sex?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And what if I have sex with you on the promise of earth-shattering, life-changing sex, and you don’t deliver?”

  I smirked at her. “Colbie, babe . . . it feels like you doubt me.”

  She stared up at me, and her expression was difficult to read. “You’re promising an awful lot, Puck. Dozens of orgasms, orgasms so intense I faint, sex so good I go crazy. You’re building this up a whole hell of a lot, and I’m skeptical of anything that sounds too good to be true.” She wrapped an index finger in the end of my beard and tugged on it again. “Call me cynical, but I’m wary of someone promising me the things you’re claiming you can do.”

  “You raise a valid point.”

  She quirked an eyebrow at me. “But?”

  I shrugged and shook my head. “But nothing. It’s a valid point. You’re absolutely right to be cynical and skeptical.”

  She laughed. “You’re not helping your case, Puck.”

  I touched her knee, traced up the inside of her thigh a few inches, and she shivered, tensed. “I barely touch you, and you shiver. You like the way I touch you, and you want more.” I murmured this to her. “You want to know what my fingers will feel like touching your pussy. You want to feel my face between your thighs. The way you tense and catch your breath when all I’m doing is whispering to you and touching your leg . . . when I get my mouth on you, you’ll lose your fucking mind, Colbie. You know you will. You already can’t breathe, and all I’m doing is talking about it. You can imagine it, can’t you?”

  She was frozen in place, not breathing; her thighs clamped down around my hand, arresting my upward progress under her skirt. “Yes, Puck.”

  “Yes, what, Colbie?”

  “I can imagine it.”

  “And you want it, don’t you?”

  “Hell yeah.”

  I teased the outer shell of her ear with my tongue. “What else do you want?”

  “You.”

  “Me, how?”

  “Naked.”

  “And?”

  She shook her head. “And . . . everything.”

  I laughed, a low rumble. “Yo
u want me naked . . . on top of you?” I brushed my lips against her ear. “You want me to tie you up so can’t escape and eat you out until you’re begging me to fuck you? You want me tied up, wearing a cock ring, so you can ride me and fuck me and not let me come until you’re ready? You want to feel my cock sliding down your throat? You want to feel me come all over your tits?”

  “That’d be a start,” she answered, a little breathless.

  I laughed again, genuinely surprised by her response. “A start, she says.”

  “Yeah, a start. You got more?”

  Her thighs loosened, and I slid my touch a little higher. “I got plenty more,” I murmured. “Enough to keep you coming for days.”

  “Promises, promises.” My phone rang, a short shrill chirp, surprising me. She nudged me. “You better answer.”

  “Oh. Right.” I lifted the headset to my ear and answered it. “Ivar.”

  “The first vehicle is two minutes from your location.” A brief pause. “I would get my hand out of that woman’s skirt and be ready for action, if I were you.”

  I jerked my hand away from Colbie and stood up, searching. “You’ve got eyes on us.”

  “I would not survive very long if I went blindly into situations.” His laugh was disconcerting. “I have been observing you attempting to woo that woman for some time.”

  “It ain’t an attempt if I succeed, now is it?”

  “I suppose not. Now, if you please, attend to the job at hand.”

  “I’m attending, bro, I’m attending.”

  “Then you are aware of the four men approaching on foot from the east?”

  I pivoted, scanning, and found the men he was talking about—on foot on the sidewalk across the street, less than a hundred yards away, each with a pistol out, eyes fixed on me. “Now I am.”

  “Do you wish to dispose of them, or should I?”

  “Let’s split the fun,” I suggested. “You silenced?”

  “Of course.”

  I put the phone on speaker and set it down, went to one knee, pistol in both hands. “First to take down two wins.”

  “Stakes?”

  “Bottle of Pappy Van Winkle.”

  Ivar chuckled. “Very well. Begin on three. One . . . two . . . three.”

  The moment he said three, I squeezed the trigger, felt the pistol jerk and my ears rang with the report, and I watched the rear-most man jerk backward, his head flying back on his shoulders. At the same moment, the one in front collapsed abruptly, a hole blossoming his forehead. I was already pulling aim on the next man forward, but he already had a hole between his eyes, and the third a split second later. In my defense, I’d already fired twice, and my bullets hit them each a fraction of a second after Ivar’s.

  “Goddammit,” I growled. I picked up the phone and clicked off speaker. “Anselm wasn’t kidding about you.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That you made him seem like a cute little puppy or something.”

  Ivar laughed. “He was being modest. It would be an unnerving thing indeed to be on Anselm’s bad side.”

  “No shit.” I stood up, chuckling. “Three to one. Guess I owe you a bottle of Pappy.”

  “I will take you up on that. I have a taste for American whiskey.”

  “Ever have Pappy?”

  “Nein, I have not. Surprisingly difficult to get in Europe.”

  “Hell, that shit is hard to get in America.”

  “The truck is arriving. Load the first group onto it, the larger group of women. The driver will greet you by name. If he does not, shoot him.”

  “Roger that,” I said.

  “I will be with the second truck, arriving in five minutes.”

  “See you in five, in that case,” I said, as the truck squealed to a halt at the curb.

  “Jawohl.”

  The truck was a huge, two-ton, ex-military transport truck, painted black. I jogged over, pistol still in hand, halting a couple feet away as the driver threw open the door and hopped down.

  “Puck Lawson,” the driver said, extending his hand toward me.

  “That’s me,” I answered, shaking his hand.

  “Lars.” He eyed the group of women sitting in the park, huddled in separate groups, looking scared and worried. “Let’s load them, ja?”

  I waved them over, and slowly, gradually, hesitantly, they approached me in twos and threes. I glanced at Colbie, gestured for her to join me. I addressed the gathering group. “How many of you speak English?”

  Only three women raised their hands.

  “Can you communicate with any of the others?” I asked.

  One of them nodded, pointing at another cluster of four women. “They speak Portuguese,” she said, in a thick Spanish accent, “and I know a little.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal. This guy is a friend. He’s going to take all of you somewhere safe.”

  “Where?” the one who’d spoken up asked.

  I shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “Then how do we know is he a friend?” she pressed.

  “Because he works for someone I trust.”

  “What is happen to us?” she asked.

  “They’re going to help you in any way they can,” I said. “If possible, they’ll help you go back home, or if that’s not possible, they’ll help make you as safe and comfortable as possible.”

  Colbie repeated it in Chinese and Russian, but there were still two groups who didn’t seem to understand any of it, a trio of women who looked to my admittedly inexpert eyes to be from India, and another two from the Middle East somewhere. The two groups watched as the other women voluntarily climbed into the back of the truck, which seemed to communicate well enough that whatever was happening, it wasn’t something bad.

  There were sirens off in the distance, which weren’t necessarily about us, but considering the number of dead bodies in the immediate vicinity, I felt it safe to assume they were headed toward our location.

  The women were all aboard the truck, and the driver lowered the flaps, fastened them, and climbed into the cab. The diesel engine groaned and rattled, and the truck pulled away, and then it was just the five women and me.

  An older model Range Rover halted at the curb where the truck had been, and a man exited from the driver’s side. He was not what I was expecting—I’d been expecting a younger guy, based on his voice. This man was past forty, had blond-brown hair parted to one side, wore a drab, ill-fitting brown suit without a tie, thick, round glasses, and had an unkempt goatee. He was the kind of man absolutely no one would give a second glance to or thought about. Which, I supposed, watching him approach me, would serve his purposes well.

  He clapped me on the shoulder, and we shook hands. “I am Ivar. You are Puck.” He glanced at the women. “The rest of the introductions shall have to wait. I do not have an interest in dealing with the local authorities.”

  “Me neither.”

  He glanced past me at the man we’d taken hostage, sitting with his back against the tree, knees drawn up, looking green around the gills. “Who is he?”

  I shrugged. “He surrendered. I couldn’t just—”

  Ivar reached into his suit coat, withdrew a compact 9mm, fired once, and replaced it, the whole thing done as casually as anyone else might swat a fly. “Loose ends kill you.” He gestured at the Rover. “Shall we?”

  I blinked at the now-dead guy, a neat round hole directly between his eyebrows, and nodded. “Let’s get this shitshow on the road.”

  6: No Foolin’

  I’d seen some crazy stuff in my life. As a homeless person, especially in New York, you saw some crazy-ass shit go down. People wearing all sorts of goofy nonsense, fights, murders—I saw a group of guys trying to steal a grand piano; I saw a guy in full clown costume running from three policemen, cackling; I saw drunk people fucking in alleys on a regular basis; I watched a guy get caught cheating and then get chased mostly naked down the street by both women. Point was, I’d seen death, and I’d known violence.


  What Puck was capable of . . . was different. He was frighteningly good at it, made it look easy, effortless. Yet he was articulate, and surprisingly open with me, and seemed in touch with his emotions. He was an enigma. Like, if I’d met him on the street or at the bar, I probably wouldn’t have thought about him twice. I mean, he just wasn’t my type. I wasn’t sure I had a type, but if I did, Puck wasn’t it. The guys I’d dated mostly fit into a mold: a few inches taller than me, clean-cut, well dressed, well educated. And I hadn’t dated any one of them for more than a couple months, because they were all fucking boring. Nice, easy to talk to, decent in bed—and boring.

  Or at least, if I compared them to Puck, that was how they seemed now. I mean, he was anything but boring. He was a natural storyteller, and he was educated, obviously, but he cursed like a sailor, and the clothes he wore were . . . um, interesting. That shirt? I used to panhandle outside a bar that hosted a lot of heavy metal bands, and I got to know a few of the regular patrons, most of whom wore shirts like Puck’s, which was the only reason I knew what all that angry red lettering was supposed to say. And his build? He was the exact opposite of the guys I usually dated. They were tall, sleek, elegant, and Puck was . . . not. Decidedly not. He called those kinds of men pussies, I surmised. They never took me anywhere that could have even possibly led to physical violence, but if we’d ended up in some kind of situation, looking back . . . I’d have been the one to jump into a fight before most of those guys. I could walk down the darkest, scariest street anywhere in the world, and if Puck was with me, I’d feel perfectly safe.

  With those guys, conversation never went anywhere deep. We talked about movies, or books, or social issues, or mutual friends, or business, and we never really got to anything deep or personal. I mean, we talked about important political issues, but it never got personal. I never told any of them about my parents or what Craig did, and I sure as hell never discussed my heroin addiction. I had the feeling none of them would understand, and I knew several of them would have cut all association with me had they known.