Jules didn’t think about the conversation with Schneider again until Tuesday afternoon when Spence called and asked if he could run an intercept. Jules looked at the several thousands of dollars’ worth of landscaping sitting in pots, and demurred. He felt guilty, like he was shirking his share of the load, but they needed to get landscaping in now so they could sod tomorrow.

 

Later, after washing the clinging Texas dust and sweat off, the decided to ride out to HNH. He smiled as he shrugged into his colors. If Rachel couldn’t be home early to see him, he would just go see her at work.

 

As he walked into He’s Not Here, he noticed that Todd and a couple of other members of the club were sitting at a table. Rachel must be loving that their clubhouse had burned down. Now there is almost always someone from Forsaken 99 in her bar. Other than himself of course.

 

“Hey babe,” Rachel said as she met his lips across the bar in a quick kiss before pulling a mug from the freezer for his regular.

 

“Since you are working tonight, I thought I would hang out here. Let me go talk to Todd a minute and then I will be right back.” He waited until Rachel handed him his beer then walked to Todd’s table.

 

“How’d the intercept go this afternoon?” he asked as a greeting.

 

“We missed them… or they didn’t show. Why?”

 

“I was just feeling a little guilty that I couldn’t go.”

 

“Jules, you ran more intercepts than anyone else. You don’t have to go on everyone. Let some of the other guys have some fun.”

 

Jules grinned. “Yeah, I know. Sunday, when I was out, Schneider pulled me over and…”

 

“That bitch again? She never quits, does she?” Todd asked.

 

“No. She’s like a fucking bulldog. Anyway, she was with a DEA agent. She said the DEA has seen a spike in drug traffic up 118.”

 

“So? Just like today, we can’t catch every one of them.”

 

“The made it sound like more than just a few missed contacts.”

 

Todd shrugged. “What do they want us to do? If the DEA would do their damn job, we wouldn’t have to do it for them.”

 

Jules snickered into his beer. “Amen to that brother. With everything happening around here, I would like to give up my second job.”

 

“Yeah… I can understand that. Getting up early every morning, then having to get it up late at night, can wear a guy thin.” Jules was still chuckling when Todd pulled his phone from his vest. “Webber.”

 

He listened a moment then killed the call and dropped it back into his pocket. “The intercept from this morning is happening now. You want to come?” Todd asked as he looked at Jules.

 

Jules looked at his barely touched beer. “Sure,” he said as he rose with the other men. “Rachel… I’m going with Todd, but will be back in a few.”

 

Rachel watched Jules rise. She desperately wanted to ask where he was going, but held her tongue. She still didn’t fully trust Todd and his miraculous transformation, but she didn’t want to put Jules on the spot and force him to defend his club to her either… especially in front of his club. It was part of his life, and she knew and accepted that.

 

“Just don’t forget to come home,” she said cheerfully.

 

“Jesus… you are just covered in pussy whip,” Todd teased Jules. “Don’t worry, I will send him home as soon as we are done, safe and sound.”

 

Even Rachel laughed at that.

 

***

 

“Black SUV headed your way,” came Spence’s voice over the earbud in Jules’s ear.

 

“Stay sharp everyone,” Todd’s voice said a moment later as the headlights appeared over the ridge. The club’s Suburban pulled across the road and the approaching SUV slowed to a stop. Another of the club’s vehicles, a black Chevy jacked up and on big tires, pulled out a side road and blocked the vehicle in.

 

Jules crept out of the ditch he had been crouching in, his AR-15 on his shoulder and at the ready as he swiftly crossed the road in a low, smooth moving, combat crouch. The driver locked the doors, but when Jules pointed his weapon at his head, he unlocked the door and let Jules open it.

 

“What do you want?” the man shouted.

 

“We just want to take a peek in your truck.”

 

“Are you the cops?”

 

“Yeah...we’re the good guys,” Jules said. “Get out of the truck. On your knees,” he said as he took him by the arm and forced him down. “Hands behind your head. Don’t do anything stupid.”

 

“Looky what we have here,” Marsh said from the back of the truck, holding a brick of cocaine where Jules could see it.

 

“Today just isn’t your lucky day, is it?”

 

“Just don’t shoot me,” the man begged.

 

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Jules said. “This time. But if I see you around here again…” He let the sentence dangle, but the press of the gun barrel against the man’s head to made his meaning clear.

 

“You’re going to let me go? You’re just going to let me drive away?”

 

“Not drive away… no. We’re keeping the truck and the drugs. You can explain it to your boss when you get back. Get up and start walking,” Jules ordered.

 

“Thank you! Thank you!” the man nearly sobbed as he stood and started backing away, afraid to turn his back on Jules.

 

“Faster!” Jules barked and put one bullet in the ground at the man’s feet, starting him running.

 

The four members of the intercept team watch the man run down the road a moment. “Damn… he should be on the Mexican Olympic Sprint Team,” Marsh said then chuckled. “I have to tell you, this beats the hell out of moving dead bodies. Much easier when then move themselves.”

 

“You got the Explorer?” Todd asked Jules, indicating that he should take the drug car back to his shop.

 

“Yeah. I got it,” he said as he chucked his weapon into the back seat. “But if the DEA starts crawling up my ass, give me a heads up, okay?”

 

Todd smiled and slapped Jules on the shoulder. “We got your back.”

 

***

 

“So that’s all there was too it?” Rachel asked as they snuggled in bed. She gotten home to find Jules napping in his chair… as usual. She thought it very sweet that he would “wait up” for her.

 

“That’s it,” he confirmed.

 

“I guess the word about your badass-ness is getting around,” she teased.

 

“I guess. I wouldn’t have thought that letting the mules go would work, but it seems to be.”

 

“I guess having a semi-auto rifle pointed at your head will make you compliant. Not to mention make you not want to have a repeat engagement.”

 

“Yeah…” Jules said as he yawned.

 

“Did Todd tell you the check finally arrived for the clubhouse?”

 

“No. It’s about damn time.”

 

“He asked me what I thought about the design for the common area. He’s putting a full bar in.”

 

“What did you think?”

 

“I think you will hurt my feelings if you start going there instead of my place.”

 

“Won’t happen,” Jules said with a smile. “HNH has something that no other bar offers.”

 

“What?” she asked as she warmed with the implied compliment, but she still wanted to hear him say it.

 

“Do I have to spell it out? You,” he said as he tickled her ass, making her squeak in surprise then giggle.

 

“Stop it,” she teased as she slapped at the hand he had left in place, tormenting her with anticipation of another tickling stroke.

 

“I thought you liked it when I made you squirm.”

 

“Not like that.”

 

“How then?”

 

“I think you know.”

 

“Like this?” he asked as he drew a finger along the back of her leg.

 

“That’s good,” she said slow and low, her wetness beginning already. Over the past two weeks, Jules had become a force of nature. She had no idea that he could be so... vibrant and alive… and it had shown in his lovemaking. Gone was the broken man, dying from the inside out, replaced by this… this… knight, this man that had walked into a hail of gunfire to save her. He was here, touching her, warming her body and soul like no man before him.

 

“How about this?” he asked as he lightly dragged his fingernails down her neck, over her breasts, and down into a soft caress of her womanhood.

 

She twitched and jerked as energy seemed to crackle from his fingertips. “Oh… god yes…” she breathed. She rolled over to face him. “Make love to me like you did after you met with Washington. Do you remember?”

 

“I remember,” he whispered as he covered her with his body, her legs going around his hips as he settled lightly onto her. He stared into her barely discernible face, the darkness of the room heightening the mood. As he lowered his lips to hers she whimpered softly, taking his lips for her own, kissing him with such abandon that his fire began to roar in an insatiable inferno, burning away his doubts and fears. He was with the woman of his dreams… and nothing could hurt him.

 

As they kissed, she felt a change come over him, some life force explode from him, surrounding her as it took her breath. She pulled him harder into the kiss, drawing him down upon her, needing to feel his weight, the touch of his flesh to hers. This was more than just sex, this was… life… the passing of energy from him to her, the sharing of something much deeper than the pleasures of the body. He broke the kiss, his breathing harsh and ragged, his bite of her neck painful, but the nip excited her more still. She dug her fingers into his back, holding him tight as he kissed and licked and bit, her heat, her need rising to a level that she could no longer contain.

 

“Just fuck me…” she whispered.

 

She forced her legs to relax, giving him room to move, to find her passage so he could enter her in a single hard thrust, their soft cries of pleasure mingling in the air. He began to move, his hips rocking in a slow hard thrusts as he probed her depths, the heat of his breath on her neck scalding hot from his pants of desire.

 

He began to drive into her harder, faster, his passions trying to take him away, her gasps of pleasure tearing at his control, flaying his reserve, and leaving him bare before her. His heart pounded as his blood rushed hot, and he began to thrust harder and faster still.

 

Rachel cried out softly as her first orgasm swept her away, pulling at his hair, dragging his lips to hers to quench her desperate thirst for their touch. She savored his kiss until he pulled back and began to pound into her, her entire body alive with motion from his driving thrusts. He was taking her with passion, letting himself go, living in the moment as the two became one.

 

He felt her tighten around him as she tumbled into her second orgasm, her fingers digging painfully hard into his back, the bite of her nails another source of pleasure, the sting telegraphing her pleasure. As she gasped, sinking back into the bed as her climax washed out of her, he paused to catch his breath and then pulled out, quickly kissing down her body as his lips move lower.

 

“No!” she cried, as he pulled out… she wanted him inside! She pulled at him, but when he continued lower, she pushed him, using her leg to force him away as she rolled after him, pushing him over onto his back before he could recover. She grabbed his cock as she took his lips with intent, kissing him, forcing her tongue into his mouth as she swung her leg over and steered him into her once more. She sat straight up and began to rock her hips, gasping at the new, intense sensations. He took her breasts into his hands, squeezing them as he pinched and twisted the nipples to the threshold pain, the searing pleasure coursing through her. Her head fell back and she planted her hands in his chest for balance as she began to rise and fall in frenetic effort.

 

He smeared her sweat with his hands, her skin aglow in the dim light of the room. Despite his fight for control, she was pushing him toward his own climax, a climax he couldn’t stop. With a groan of pure pleasure he shoved Rachel hard, pushing her off of him and onto the bed. She lay panting for a moment before rolling over onto her back.

 

“Fuck me until you come. I want to watch you come…” she whispered, wanting to see his face twist in sweet agony.

 

He moved between her legs, licking and kissing the sweat from her stomach and breasts before taking her lips. The taste of her, the feel of her warm, wet, skin beneath his lips was intoxicating. He moved in, once again slamming into her as he pushed her legs back, her cry of pleasure at his entry caused him to burn with erotic fire.

 

He began to take her, driving into her hard, fast and deep, each stroke of his passage a thrust of pleasure. She grabbed his head, holding it fast so that she could see his face. “Uh-huh… uh-huh… I’m going to come… I’m going to come…” she gasped as her pleasure rose higher, then higher still. “I want you to come…”

 

“Fuck,” he growled, her words pulling him closer to his orgasm.

 

“Oh… shit!” she cried as her own pleasure began to overwhelm her. “I’m about to come so fucking hard! Don’t stop… don’t stop… don’t you fucking stop!”

 

He pushed against the approaching maelstrom of his orgasm, but Rachel’s wail of completion as she her back arched under him was dragging him over the edge. He began to burn, every nerve alight as erotic energy poured into him from their lovemaking. He growled as every muscle stretched to the point of breaking and his face began to twist in sweet torture.

 

Her orgasm washed out of her just in time for her to see Jules’s face begin to twist into a feral sneer. “You fucking come so fucking hard,” she gasped as she watched him coil up, his eyes squinting closed as he battled the pleasure that was taking him.

 

“Come on—” she began but was interrupted as he cried out with a shudder, then drove deep into her as he twisted, his legs pumping in a slow crawling motion that slid her slowly across the bed. She held to him as he squirmed, his muscles working under his skin, crying out again as another wave of shudders passed through him.

 

As he swirled in the aftermath of his climax, he collapsed onto Rachel, still quivering in the aftershocks of one of the most intense orgasms of his life. As lay in her embrace, panting, another bone rattling quake passed through him as the titanic orgasm finally released its hold on him.

 

“Are you okay?” she whispered as she felt him relax with a long exhalation. She was inordinately pleased that she could give back some small amount the pleasure he had given her.

 

“Jules?” she asked again when he didn’t answer.

 

“Yeah… just… fuck…”

 

She smiled, his disarray immensely satisfy. “Did you come?” she teased.

 

He snickered as she baited him. “No. Did you?”

 

“Liar,” she giggled as his lips moved to hers.

 

They kissed, long, slow, and deep before he rolled to his back. As he pulled her in close he looked at the alarm, and groaned. “It’s almost four. I have to get up in two hours.” He lay still a moment. “Fuck,” he muttered as he reached for the clock and switched the alarm to the second setting, the one for eight.

 

“What?”

 

“I’m going to be late again in the morning.” He paused for a moment then yawned, sleep already wrapping him in its dark tendrils. “But was so worth it.”