“You like that?”  His tongue flicks my earlobe.

“Yes,” I say with what little breath I have.

He moves my hair aside and kisses the back of my neck, then the center of my back. I feel his warmth moving away as his lips make a trail down to my lower back and over my butt.

The bed moves as he shifts behind me.  I feel his head slip between my legs and press into the pillow between them.  I look down just as he looks up and, in the low light, I see his black eyes sparkle.  The fire in them is enough to make me flush all over.

He never takes his eyes off mine as he, from the back, winds his hands around the tops of my legs and pulls me down onto his mouth.

The first touch of his tongue is like lightning.  Heat gushes through my core and lands in a puddle against his lips as they move over me.

“Ride me,” he growls, his voice thick with desire.  As if to encourage me, he thrusts his tongue deep inside me.

With his hands on my legs, he urges me into motion.  In and out, his tongue moves within me.  Back and forth I move on his tongue, rocking on my knees, sliding over his face.  His lips and face stimulate all parts of me at once and it’s nearly more than I can bear.

My breath comes in quick bursts.  My fingernails dig into the wood of the headboard.  My hips rise and fall over his mouth.  My pulse races out of control.

Faster and harder I grind against him.  When I hear his moan, it flips open the floodgates of pleasure and my world flies apart on the tip of his tongue.

He holds me to him as I close my eyes and give in to the spasms that wrack my body.  Before the contractions fade into blissful nothingness, I feel Cash move.  Within seconds I feel him behind me.  I feel his fingers probing me, gliding in and out of me.  And then I feel something bigger.

His first quick thrust takes my breath.  With a groan, he pulls out and slams into me again, renewing my orgasm.

Wave after wave, I feel my body squeezing tightly around him.  I’m so full, so very, very full.  I feel him everywhere, like he’s penetrating all the way into my chest.  Over and over, he withdraws his length and then drives it back into me, seating himself more deeply each time.

“Take it all, baby,” he says through gritted teeth.  The words are so hungry, so erotic I cry out.

His rhythm increases and so does his breathing.  I know what’s coming.  I know he’s coming.

His body stiffens and he growls with the first pulse of his climax.  He pounds into me in short strokes as he leans forward and twists one hand into my hair and buries his teeth in the skin of my shoulder. It doesn’t hurt, doesn’t break the skin; it only enhances the pleasure that’s already flooding my body.

And just like that, I’m exploding all over again.  Coming apart.  Wrapped in Cash’s arms.  Holding him within my body.

Within my heart.

Within my soul.

CHAPTER SIX

Cash

Sundays are big visiting days at prisons.  It’s always sad to see the number of families sitting at the separated tables.  Kids talking to fathers they barely know.  Wives talking to husbands they barely see.  Lives lived in a way that’s barely human.  In a place like this, it’s easy to see that all mistakes, large and small, have consequences.  The larger the mistake, the heftier the consequence. I just hope nothing I’ve done or have to do in the immediate future land me in here. I think I’d rather be dead.

On autopilot, I go through the familiar motions of getting in to visit my father.  I’m sitting behind the glass, my hands folded on the table in front of me, when they bring him in.  Although I’m not aware of wearing any particularly telling expression, something I’m doing alerts my father.

He gets right to the point the instant he picks up the black phone on the wall.  “What happened?”

I meet his concerned eyes, eyes just a shade or two lighter than mine, and I shake my head once, casually reaching up to tap my right ear with my fingertip.  He watches me intently for several long seconds.  I know he’s processing it all and that contingency plans are being formulated as we speak.  Or don’t speak, as it were.

Finally, he nods.  Just once, a short, curt bob of his head.  He understands. I can see it in his eyes.

“Nothing happened.  It’s just been a long weekend.  Work’s been busy.”

The conversation drifts to mundane topics, nothing that would be totally out of the ordinary for one of my visits.  We catch up on people and events and daily real life things, nothing worthy of any extra attention.  I’m hoping it’s just enough to lull any listeners into a lazy state of boredom.

Finally, Dad steers the conversation back to the most important thing.  But, crafty guy that he is, he does it in such a way that it doesn’t seem obvious.  At least I hope it doesn’t.

“So how’d that fishing trip go?  Catch anything?”

I don’t fish.  Nash did, but I never have.  Dad knows that.  And that’s how I know that we’re not really talking about fishing.

“Nah, it was a no-go. Ended up spending the weekend hiding out.  You know, to work.”

He nods slowly, meaningfully. I know he picked up on my use of the term “hiding out.”

“It can be dangerous.  To work too much.”

“Yeah, I know it can be,” I say, nodding for emphasis.  Still he watches me closely.  It’s like we’re carrying on a much deeper conversation without saying a word.

“Gonna have to hand over some of the important duties to someone else I think.”  I hope he understands what I’m really going to have to hand over.

“Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, Cash.  Things don’t always turn out like we want.  Or like we plan.  Sometimes, you just have to go with it and do what you think is best.  It’s all about surviving this life.”

“I feel like my hands are tied.”

He nods again.  “Well, giving up everything can have a whole different set of consequences.  Do you have a Plan B?”

I shake my head, raising my hand helplessly.  “No, but I’m open for suggestions.  I’ve still got time.  Just not much.  The club’s in trouble.”  He scratches his chin, still watching me.  “Anything you can think of that might help?  Anything else I can do?”

“You’re so damned stubborn,” he murmurs. “You had to go all in, didn’t you?  With that club.  And risk someday going down with the ship.”

Before Dad got arrested, he didn’t want me to have the books, didn’t want me involved. I convinced him that not only would they provide us with some leverage, but that they would also keep me safe.  As long as Dad’s employers knew the books were…somewhere, they could never risk making a move until they confirmed who had them or where they were.

Only now they’ve confirmed the who.

“That’s what I’m trying to avoid.  Thought you might have some advice.  You’re a pretty smart old man, after all.”  I say this with a grin, a loving one.  And Dad recognizes it. I see it in his eyes, all the affection I have for him reflected there.