Their Queenpin (The Ridge MC #6)

Chapter 10Rafe

Chapter Ten

Rafe

Driving back to Vegas seemed nearly impossible with the cockstand I still had going on in my jeans. That should’ve been impossible, but with the smell of Adelina in my nose, the thing wouldn’t stand down.

Flashes of Adelina naked on the sand and her body bowed between Graff and me as she came undone kept flashing in my mind’s eye. And holy shit, I never dreamed an orgasm could be so much more than a physical release.

Sitting with her feet in my lap and leaning back into Graff’s embrace, she slid a hand down the arm I had wrapped around her knees.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she said.

The memories of us in the hot springs brought a smile to my lips. One I never wanted to erase.

“They’re . . . indecent,” I said.

“Hmmm, yummy.” She stretched, arching her back like a cat in the sun, the arch of her foot fitting over my cock. “Tell me.”

I palmed her foot. “If you don’t stop that, I’m going to pull the car over and show you.”

Adelina giggled, the sound making my heart thud. While the flashes of her naked and curvy body bared under the sun drove me mad, I needed the images to go dark before any other unwelcome reels started creeping in. My stupid, broken mind wouldn’t relent, jumbling all the good and bad into a mess.

So, I tuned in to duty, my task at hand. I needed to focus on making sure we got back safely. The MC needed all the men it could muster.

As did Sas.

Adelina had been right. She and I had become fully part of the club. I didn’t know how this group-romance thing, or sex or whatever it was, would work out, but I planned to do everything in my power to give it space to grow.

Adelina’s body stretched between us did nothing to banish visions, though. The curves of her hips under my hands and Graff’s replayed in my mind—the moment I’d buried myself to the hilt. Damn, it had felt like coming home. She had always been my anchor, and finally sinking my cock into her had fulfilled every longing I’d known.

All the disdain I’d suffered from her Nonna Petra didn’t matter. All the violence I had witnessed and participated in beside Ivo Parisi and later with Massimo... none of it mattered when I was alone with Adelina and Graff, and soon enough, Sas.

Despite our duties to the club, I wasn’t ready to go back to Vegas yet. I wanted this perfect day to last, so I took the next exit.

Adelina arched a brow at me. “No Vegas?”

“Not yet.” I glanced left as I came to a stop and then veered the truck to our right, back toward Lake Mead, but on the Vegas side of the dam.

She didn’t question me further, but questions stirred behind her curious eyes.

“No questions, mia cara.” I didn’t even know how to explain my desperate need to be alone with her.

Or them.

Graff, who I was starting to see as an extension of Adelina, remained quiet and contemplative. His arm rested around her shoulders, but he stared out the window, tapping his fingers on the closed sketchbook in his lap. I wondered if he kept replaying the images like I did, but I didn’t want to shatter our comfortable silence.

After a couple minutes, I took another right and then followed a winding dirt road into a valley between two steep cliffs. Far enough from any passers-by, but another spot where I’d always been able to get away from La Famiglia when necessary. I cut the engine, and while the ruddy dust my truck had kicked up settled, we just waited.

Tension curled around my neck, strangling me, when it should be relaxed after what the three of us had shared at the hot springs.

I fucking craved more of it. Of Adelina and Graff.

And I don’t think I would’ve minded having Sas there, giving commands and moving us like pawns in his game. Graff was easy to share Adelina with, but I would have a lot to learn with Sas. Somehow, though, curiosity settled over me. How freeing, I mused, to have another person calling out the next move. No thoughts necessary. No plans.

Only feeling.

“Why are we here?” Adelina sat up and looked out the window as though searching for something magical. All there was desert for miles, maybe a few animals, but no people.

I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out my gun. “Time for your next lesson.”

Adelina dropped her mouth in an O, and Graff gave a curt nod. Then, he threw open the passenger door like he had been expecting this stop. I didn’t know how, because it had been impromptu for me, but perhaps we were all doing that same-wavelength thing.

“I’m all for shooting something right now.” Graff climbed out of the truck, pulled his piece from his back, and slipped in a magazine.

Our girl turned to me, drawing her eyebrows together. “Why now?”

I ground my teeth as I considered the heist we were planning. If it were under Massimo’s orders alone, I would gladly refuse, but Wilde had put his neck on the line by asking my brother for help. If I was truly committing to the MC, I had to stand behind the Prez.

“I’ll be gone,” I said. “Tracking diamonds or some shit.”

“Graff will be with me.” She flicked her gaze to him. “Right?”

I shook my head. “With Sas locked up, Graff, Wilde, and Teller will go as reps for the MC.”

“But you’re the MC too, that’s four of us to the three men Papà’s sending,” said Adelina. “The Don’s not one to give us the upper hand like that.”

“No. He’s not.” I stared through the dusty windshield. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “ I am the middle ground.”

Graff strolled ahead of the truck, perhaps scoping out a place that would be good for target practice. Or he wanted to give us privacy, or maybe he trained the scene into his memory for a landscape piece he would paint later. The drama of the cliffs here certainly warranted capture.

“Soooo...” Adelina lifted her chin, inhaling like she now understood, and then she confirmed, “He’s still considering you one of his made men.”

I left that hanging because it was too heavy with the truth. “We may not always be by your side, tesoro.”

My jaw snapped shut as sounds and images and other sensations started to flicker through the back of my mind. I flinched as though the bomb were exploding right outside the truck.

“Rafe,” Adelina whispered, but I’d drifted back to the desert a million miles away.

The Kevlar vest weighed down my shoulders and the scent of unwashed soldiers cloyed in my nose, erasing the berry and coconut blend of Adelina’s shampoo and sunscreen. The weight of the pistol in my hand transformed to an M4 Carbine, heavy in my grip.

Somehow, I found my voice, trying to view her as a soldier rather than a lover I needed to protect. “You need to have enough skills to protect yourself without me or Graff or Sas around.”

“I don’t want to do this without you.” Sadness cracked her voice as she placed her hand on my cheek and turned me to face her. “Any of you.”

I blinked rapidly at her, clearing the haze that’d settled over my vision. My lungs expanded reflexively, drawing air deeply into my body as I forced myself out of my past and into my present.

To her.

“Stay here with me, Rafe. I can’t do this alone.” The fearful look on her face shredded me, but this was our reality.

“You won’t have a choice.” I reached for the door handle.

I wouldn’t leave her here without knowing she could hit a target if she had to. Angel was in Vegas with his ol’ lady, Lanie, and we’d asked the Warden to come to out too. She would have others in the MC around her, but I didn’t know either of them. The only ones I trusted would either be with me or sitting in jail.

This situation sucked ass, but I was going to make damn sure she was armed.

The dangerous part, though, she had that one in the bag. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

I slipped out of the truck, and Adelina crawled after me to the edge of the seat.

Her fingers grazed the back of my cut, which was too snug to me after being in the heat and my old truck with terrible AC. I shouldn’t lie to myself; it was Adelina that made me so warm. I went to the fucking Middle East and still hadn’t escaped her. Now—in another fucking desert—she still clawed at me.

She surrounded me, trapped me, held me hostage. She had me caught in her field of gravity, but I didn’t want to be free.

Adelina began, “Rafaele?—”

“No, tesoro.” I rounded on her.

She rocked back, snapping her lips shut. It would only be a second before she railed at me, so I turned on my heel, stalking away before we ended up in a full-blown argument.

“Don’t walk away from me!” Adelina jumped out of the truck and slammed the door.

She was still some distance behind me, but her boots stomped loudly across the rocky sand in my wake. Fortunately, with her short legs, she would have trouble keeping up with my long strides.

As I approached the spot Graff had found for target practice, he glanced between me and Adelina over my shoulder. His raised brows told me exactly how much I was fucking things up right now. Couldn’t he play martyr this time and throw himself between us? Distract her?

He read my silent plea, but he refused, holding up his hands and standing off to the side. Resigned, I threw a look over my shoulder.

Adelina had her gaze narrowed on me. When she’d been a kid, she’d always been happy around me, so I rarely had to deal with her legendary tantrums. And being away with the military, I missed most of her teenage mood swings. This storm she had brewing now was fueled with emotion, and I understood. All our emotions were running high, but shit happened.

Plans went awry. People died. Missions failed. I had seen it too many times in the Middle East and had too much blood on my hands. I wouldn’t add hers to the mix.

With Adelina still yelling at me—drowned out by the blood rushing past my ears—I raised my gun and pulled the trigger.

BOOM! The first gunshot was always the worst.

I pulled the trigger again and again, until the booms turned to pops, and then clicks. Every one of them numbed by the adrenaline rushing through system.

Graff handed me another magazine, and I aimed at a can sitting on a rock. My shot blew it back but left its brother sitting untouched.

The bullets ripped through the rock and sand, and if someone stood there, their body would be riddled with my ammo. Their blood everywhere. Their body rippled and torn open; flesh splayed apart. The vultures wouldn’t care about the sound when they smelled death.

Lowering the gun, I checked the number of bullets remaining and then held it out to Adelina, who stood only a few feet away. I had apparently managed to silence the fire in her with my gunfire. But she hadn’t let the topic drop yet.

“Your turn,” I said, motioning her over.

She’d shot with me before, on the first day I’d kissed her. Then, it had taken her time to grow comfortable with it—because she found no purpose in using a gun—but she now stood a few feet away, reaching for the gun like she would rip it from my hand.

She raised it, aiming for the can next to the one I had slaughtered.

“The safety isn’t on,” I began, but she squeezed the trigger.

How quickly she’d aimed and fired seemed impossible. The first two shots went wide, but then, the red can went flying. Booms and pops rang out, ricocheting around the canyon. The echoes rumbled like thunder. She continued to pull the trigger, like I had, even after the magazine was empty.

“More.” For the first time, her demand sounded less like a petulant child and more like the queen she was becoming before my eyes.

“There are more ammo in the truck,” I said, taking the gun from her.

I’d expected her hand to tremble like it had last time, but all the shit she’d been through over the last few days and weeks must’ve hardened her.

She turned to Graff, holding out her hand expectantly, but he didn’t hand over his gun.

“I want to shoot,” she said to him like it was an order.

“I see that.” He squinted to where the bullets had landed in the sandy mound behind the rock where the cans had been. “But your aim is shit.”

“I hit the fucking can, didn’t I?” Adelina crossed her arms, and I winced at how much she sounded like Sas.

“I’m not letting you fire my gun just to let out your frustration,” said Graff. “We’re not wasting more bullets.”

“Then what the hell are we doing here?” said Adelina, planting both fists on her hips.

“You need to learn control. Aim is critical, even when angry,” said Graff. “If you’re ever in a situation with multiple targets, you have to think straight. And focus.”

He flicked his gaze to me like I would help, but I left him hanging mid-argument with Adelina. He was right, and I normally would never be so careless with a gun, but I’d gotten wrapped up in the jumble of my past and present and the fact that I was certainly going to have to leave Adelina soon.

Also that I was going to have to put on a mask with my brother to make him believe I was still one of his made men.

I wasn’t.

Never would I be his man again.

The whole of me belonged to Adelina, but I had to make certain we got ourselves out of this shitshow alive.

I went back to my truck for more bullets. Adelina and Graff carried on behind me, but by the time I came back, reloading my gun, Graff had won over. He stood behind Adelina with his feet spread wide, a position that brought him closer to her height. Her small curvy body nestled into his muscled and tatted form. He had his arms lined up with hers, teaching her how to aim better.

Adelina peeked over his arm at me. “What else do you have in your truck?”

I drew my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”

“Bottles, cans, you know,” she listed. “Shit to aim at.”

I made another trip to my truck and returned. By the time I made it back with a garbage bag full of plastic bottles and cans, Adelina had calmed down. She melted into Graff, allowing him to embrace her from behind.

I placed the targets again, and we returned to practice. Adelina got slightly better, and Graff and I showed off a little. He hit one of the cans and then I shot it out of the air.

“Let me try that.” Adelina held out her hand for my gun.

“You’re not that good,” Graff challenged.

“Let’s see,” she said, daring him to fire again.

“Have it your way. Ready?” He aimed.

“Yup.” She lifted my gun.

Graff fired.

She closed one eye and squeezed the trigger. The can popped up into the air from Graff’s shot, but then fell to the ground, unscathed by a second bullet.

Graff smirked. “Told you.”

“Again,” she ordered.

Her second shot went wide too, and I stepped up behind her, not bothering to hide my hard-on as I pressed my front into her back.

“You have to anticipate how the target will move,” I said, desperately trying not to focus on my already weeping cock.

Adelina wiggled her ass and glanced over her shoulder, her eyes like molten chocolate. “Mmmm. What can?”

I pinched her side, and she squealed.

“Didn’t you listen to Graff?” I asked. “Focus even if there are distractions.”

“Right.” She licked her lips, and my knees went weak.

The memory of her mouth around my cock gripped me, and now I was the one getting distracted.

“Are you hungry?” I growled in her ear.

“Famished.”

Graff cleared his throat.

Fuck. I had to focus too. “Tell you what... knock the can out of the air and I’ll let you taste.”

“Let me, eh?”

Yeah, I didn’t know where that came from either, and it sounded very Sas, but I bit down and gritted out, “Yes. Let you.”

“Are we fucking or shooting?” asked Graff. “Cuz I’m up for either.”

“Shooting,” I said. Then to Adelina, “Watch the can and aim about a foot above it.”

She nestled her ass against my cock, and as hard as ignoring it was, I tried.

“Eyes on the sights, tesoro. Graff, fire.”

He pulled the trigger, and as soon as the can leaped off the rock, I raised the gun so she could follow my aim. At just the right height, I pulled her finger and the trigger all at once.

BOOM!

The can flipped to the side and rebounded off the cliff face. Adelina let out a delighted shriek.

“Your turn.” I let go of her hands, placing mine on her hips to keep my dick against her ass, where he wanted so badly to be.

“Rafe,” she admonished.

“Distractions, tesoro.”

“Graff,” I prompted, and he fired.

Adelina repeated the shot I made and grazed the can. She did a little dance against me, and I groaned.

She placed the gun on a rock next to where we stood and turned to me with a smirk. “Dinner time.”