Corrupted: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Blacktop Sinners MC)

by Kathryn Thomas

  She smiled back at him as he poured her a glass of white wine and handed it to her before sitting down next as well. Holding her glass up, Tess waited for him to pour his own and match her toast. “To an unexpected night. This is sweet. I have to admit I’ve lived here since I was a kid, and no one’s ever done something this romantic for me.”

  “Don’t say anything until you have my sandwiches. If I’m rusty on cooking and give you food poisoning, then I’ll feel pretty shitty.”

  She rolled her eyes and bit into a PB&J first, her eyes widening with shock at the pleasant jolt of honey hidden at its center. “That’s amazing. I never would have thought to add that other stuff!”

  He sat a little taller at that and opened the chips, bringing a few to his mouth afterwards. “It’s a quick trick to jazz it up. Same thing gets boring day in and day out; you find different ways to make it better. Cinnamon can help a little, but honey’s best. Uh, once I tried some cloves, and that was a huge mistake. Puked for an hour after.”

  Her eyes widened at that even as she continued to chew on her sandwich. “Every day? I guess your brothers or sisters had the veto power over what was bought at the grocery store?”

  Derek shrugged and set the bag down. “I was in foster care as a kid, never found the right match. Been in a ton of homes all over a few counties, even out by Charlotte. Some places, man, they wouldn’t have anything but baking soda in the pantry, but at least most had bread and peanut butter. I’m sort of an expert on every brand’s merits from Peter Pan to Skippy. I could be a PB&J sommelier.”

  His tone was light as he joked, but the hunch of his shoulders told Tess that foster care hadn’t been a picnic for him either.

  Taking his hand in hers, she regarded him with wide, earnest eyes. “I was in foster care too. My brother, Jason, and I got moved to different homes, but when I was eight and he was six we got placed out here. We thought we’d won the lottery with the Everharts: room in the country, a new dog, actually nice big sister. I kept waiting for five years for them to send us back or turn out to be serial killers. There had to be some catch after four years plus of terrible luck, you know?”

  Derek nodded and squeezed her hand back. When he turned to her, she couldn’t keep herself from falling deeply into his azure eyes. “You’re one of those lucky ones, huh? That’s actually really awesome. Let me tell you, you didn’t miss anything with the other families. I think I test drove all of them. I wasn’t sad to turn eighteen, not one bit.”

  She chewed her bottom lip a little, unsure of what to say next. “I’m sorry. I know exactly how lonely that is. If Jason hadn’t been with me, I’d have gone crazy being passed around until my mom and dad adopted me.”

  “Sounds like you’re lucky to have a brother.”

  Tess nodded and forced herself to keep her answer in the present tense. There was no point to bring it up. She’d learned from hard experience that she couldn’t lead a first date with personal tragedy. Besides, as much as she liked Derek, Jason was private, and talking about him in the past tense, just like with stepping into his room, made his death too painfully real.

  Even if it was.

  “I am. He’s great. But you must have turned out mostly okay. Sure, you seem to have a death wish on a bike---”

  “I maintain that you don’t knock it until you try it, blondie,” he sing-songed while winking at her. “You talk about that freedom and how you love to see it vicariously.”

  “Huh?”

  “That chick flick movie? Thelma and Louise, right?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed, blushing and glad he couldn’t see her cheeks go crimson in the night. “But they die by jumping a gorge because the law is winning, has the upper hand. It’s a tragedy about how no one listened. Sure, I mean, who hasn’t wanted to chuck it all in a car and run to Mexico when life sucks? It’s still different than wanting to hop on death on wheels.”

  “For someone who’s never ridden, you sure have a lot of stereotypes. I’ve been on my bike every day for ten years, never wiped out.”

  “You did a few days ago, and you were just ungodly lucky that you didn’t end up with a split skull or brain damage,” she countered, her voice shriller than she wanted. “I just…you’ll never get me on one of those.”

  “Maybe, but maybe I can find another way to let you relax. I know your job has to be stress incarnate, I get that. You’re literally on that line between life and death. Sometimes steam has to come out.”

  “That’s a luxury that I don’t have,” she admitted, draining her glass. “Sometimes I feel if I even relaxed a little that, I don’t know, maybe I’d fly apart completely.”

  Those beautiful blue eyes studied her and, for an instant, she felt like a work of modern art, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her yet. She hoped he wanted to keep giving her a chance, messed up as she was. “Then baby steps to relaxing.”

  “Like what?”

  “Late night mountain top picnics. Maybe making love under the stars,” he purred.

  That thought made her flush again and left her clit already throbbing for release. Damn, was that man reading her mind? He couldn’t have suggested a more yummy idea if he really were a telepath.

  “I’d like that,” she finished, pushing her food away and loosening her shrug so that it fell off of her shoulders. “But I feel I don’t even know the most basic things about you.”

  His eyes darted to the side for a bit, as if it were his turn to feel her scrutiny. Maybe it was. “You know my blood type, which is more than I ever did. You know that I seize the moment and take what I want,” he said, accenting his point by kissing her shoulder, his teeth teasing and tickling her collarbone. “You know that I had a shitty childhood and, truly, just how bleak things can get like that.”

  “What do you even do?”

  He hesitated then, and maybe she should have pressed more, but she wasn’t being completely truthful either. She was hiding her losses, and maybe he was embarrassed that he had a job that wasn’t very good or, in this economy, lacked one completely. “I’m in security. It’s not mall cop pathetic, but it’s harder to talk about sometimes. I guess after fending for myself in the system, some of that protective instinct sticks with you.”

  She nodded, thinking of the times before the Everharts where she’d shielded her brother from the wrath of drunk foster parents or of nights, too, where food was lean. Leaning across the distance between them, she kissed him, her lips mingling with his, teasing him with all their skill. Blinking back at him, adding a coquettish allure she didn’t know she could play to, Tess added, “I know exactly how you feel, but let’s make a deal, just for tonight.”

  “What’s that?” He asked, a grin so wide playing on his lips that it practically split his whole face.

  She smiled back and pressed both palms to an impossibly broad chest. He felt and seemed like a mountain man. His beard was trimmed close, but he had the breadth on him to take down whole bears. Almost. And for tonight, he could be all hers, only hers.

  “Let’s not ask questions anymore. For tonight? Let’s just ride to Mexico.”

  “I think I’d like that,” he said, his voice a low rumble that made her clit pound harder. He scooted over to her and pushed her tendrils over her shoulders so that he could get at her zipper. “May I, Tess?”

  She nodded and let out a long breath as he unzipped her dress. Shimmying out from it, she leaned back on the blanket, smirking back at him as he moved the food to the grass. “Ants will get in that, you know. It doesn’t matter that it’s so late.”

  “Fuck the sandwiches. I have bigger priorities,” he said, licking his lips. “God, you’re beautiful.”

  She ducked her eyes away at that. She’d had a few relationships in her time, nothing more than a passing one night stand in five years, and even if that’s what she was promising for herself tonight, most of her was tired of that. If she weren’t so damn broken, Tess would have loved to have a real relationship with Derek, to be able to give her
heart to him. She’d worry about the loss later.

  She was an expert at that.

  Now? Now she had tonight.

  Prostrate before him, she ran her hands over the thin lace of her bra, her fingers not at all the ones she wanted on her nipples, but her need spiraling so fast that they hardened at her touch. Mewling a little, she arched her neck and glared up at him. “I’m ready for you, so wet for you. Whatever you want, I’m ready.”

  Derek said nothing at first but stood and started to strip. It didn’t take him long, and she was amused at how he fumbled a bit with his shoes. Maybe he wasn’t completely the suave biker tonight any more than she was the expert sex kitten. What was a bit of role play and bravado between lovers anyway? As his clothes fell to the ground, her mouth watered at the sight before her. The moonlight was bright in the sky and fell over the planes of his abs. She counted an eight pack, something lean and tempting that put Brad Pitt’s from her former favorite film to shame. But that was nothing compared to the breadth of his shoulders, the bulk of his form. Somehow, he was even bigger and more imposing without clothing at all, as if it had all been used to conceal the wild man underneath.

  Tess’s eyes moved lower, and she licked her lips at his erection, springing free in the light and arcing forward from a thatch of dark brown curls.

  Derek stalked toward her, steps deliberate and heavy on the grass. Leaning over her, he ground into her a little already, his dick tickling her hip bone. “You’re so beautiful, like an angel, an answer to everything I ever wanted.”

  She swallowed and smiled back at him.

  Be confident, channel your inner Marilyn Monroe. You can do this, Tess.

  Just one night.

  “Please need you. Make lo…fuck me,” she said, trying to bury her feelings. It was hormones, nothing more. She hadn’t felt this draw to anyone before, but she had to play it cool. She just needed to feel him, have him plunge deep inside of her.

  “I’d love to,” he said, and, with that, he reached behind her, and she worked with him as he unhooked her bra and tossed it aside. “My, my, blondie, what perfect tits you have.”

  She grinned. “The better for you to suck them, big bad wolf.”

  Derek obliged and started to flick his tongue with surprising speed over her right nipple while his left hand kneaded her breast. Tess bucked against him, enjoying the heft of him just barely kept aloft above her by his elbows and knees. She shuddered as he switched from flicking to laving over her breast with his tongue. Tess moaned and ground into him, torn between loving the feel of his tongue on her and wishing she had more of him to complete her.

  “Oh God!”

  “Not hardly, blondie,” he drawled before kissing his way down her torso, leaving her breasts but spreading feather light caresses of his lips over her stomach.

  He paid close attention as well to her belly button, licking circles around it and she writhed under his ministrations, wild and almost feral with need. Her panties were soaked by now, the thin lace no match for the passion and need causing her juices to drip forth from her. Derek teased his way over her hips, grazing against her skin with the prickly promise of his beard and she wondered why she’d ever dated clean shaven men. The goosebumps his touch elicited left her lost to sensation, her skin highly sensitized.

  He paused, and she wanted to scream, to beg, to do anything to calm the fire burning in her, to squelch the need throbbing deep in her core.

  “Hey!”

  He smirked and reached over to grab his jeans, pulling out a foil packet. “Don’t worry, just being safe, Tess. I’m as eager as you are, promise,” Derek finished, kissing her lips quickly before shredding the foil and rolling the latex with practiced skill over his cock. Reaching lower, he traced a large forefinger over her slit and she shuddered under him, every part of her reacting at the slightest touch, the fire going from bonfire to four alarm blaze in just that moment.

  “Never said, though, that I’d play fair,” he finished, shredding her panties and tossing them aside after he peeled the remains from her.

  Under normal circumstances, Tess would have snarked that those were thirty dollars from Victoria’s Secret and nurses weren’t made of money. Right now, though? Well, right now she agreed that they were only getting in the damn way.

  Spreading her legs and readying herself for him, Tess smiled up at Derek and stroked her nails over his back, enjoying digging in a bit and making him wince under her touch. It was a bit of way to mark him, to scratch him and leave the slightest bite. After all, he was hers too, and she just wanted to prove this had happened, to hope he’d remember those scratches fondly even if tomorrow only held awkward goodbyes.

  Derek teased her channel at first, just running the head of his dick over her wet and ready labia, easing the tip just a bit inside of her. Every time he did it, her clit throbbed harder, erupting in a tattoo that would surely drive her mad if he didn’t stop teasing.

  “Please,” she begged, not even recognizing her own voice, not when it was tinged with need so deeply. “I need you.”

  He kissed her lips and plunged into her at the same time, easing in balls deep into her, filling her with his impressive girth before starting to rock back and forth. She clung to him and matched his rhythm, her hips rising up eagerly to meet his own. Her blood was on fire, but it was no longer a raging blaze consuming whole forests. No. It was passion gone nova, a full explosion consuming every nerve within her. He hit her most sensitive spot, and her climax came, feeling like it shattered from the inside out, that she was a star who was flaming out to nothingness and consumed by everything.

  Maybe for a moment she was.

  She laid trembling beneath him, lost in sensation when he came a few moments later, his own spasms turning her on even more fiercely. He finished and slipped out of her, leaning up against her on the blanket and brining her into his arms. Derek held her so tightly. It didn’t hurt, but she could feel his own need in it too, as if his own need was as deep as her own. He clung to her as if she were a life raft in the middle of the Pacific, and she burrowed into him, relieved to be in strong arms for just one night.

  Chapter Twelve

  “So,” Tess said, grinning back at him. “Did I surprise you or what?”

  Derek licked his lips at the exquisite sight before him. Tess. Tess with her creamy thighs exposed under the edge of his old t-shirt. Tess with a stack of thick pancakes piled up onto two plates on the kitchen table.

  Well, they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, but he’d like a little of all she was offering, in all honesty.

  “Are you on the menu, too?”

  “Right now? It’s blueberry pancakes and some whipped cream, but we can certainly put the latter to creative use this morning,” she purred, grinning back at him. “I’ve always wanted to try so many things,” she finished, sitting down at the table and digging into her stack with gusto.

  Derek whistled. He appreciated a woman with a hearty appetite. In his experience, it meant she was a girl that didn’t have pretention. Following her lead, he dug into his own plate. “Besides breakfast and an encore, what else do you have in mind, blondie?” he asked, biting into the pancake and moaning a little. The fact that she’d been able to scrape up the ingredients of his wasteland of his kitchen impressed him even further.

  Tess was gifted.

  “Does it have to be too agenda-based? We fuck a little, eat a little, just relax. I can’t think of a better thing to do on a lazy Saturday.”

  “Sounds like a deal to me,” he said, munching quietly for a moment, still turning over in his head how to ask her about the lost and found of the hospital without sounding like he had an agenda. He had less than forty-eight hours to get Spike’s blade back to him, but as dire as it was, he didn’t want Tess to realize that, in part, he was using her for information. He certainly didn’t want to be, but he wasn’t sure he had a choice either. After all, in his years of life, he’d certainly gotten used to breathing. However, h
e shouldn’t have worried about him being the one to make it awkward, not exactly.

  She started in with her own questions.

  “You said security, right?”

  He nodded but avoided the intense hazel gaze trying to pry more details from him. “In a fashion, yup.”

  “Not a regular cop or a mall cop.”

  “God never. I’m not ‘serve and protect’ or Paul Blart type.”

  She eyed him and blushed. “Nah, you’d scare some preteen perp to death before he even thought of stealing something from Spencer’s. I think most mall cops have to be over sixty by some weird, reverse psychology state law. Hmm, maybe warehouse surveillance? I heard there was this huge shootout a few days ago in the warehouse district north of town. You hear anything about that?”

  Derek swallowed so hard he almost choked. As it was, he had to guzzle down a lot of milk to get the last bits of pancake down his gullet. “Nope,” he struggled out. “I’m not that type either. What does it really matter?”