by Christa Wick
Opening the grocery bag, my eyes landed first on a bottle of water. I pulled that out, cracked the seal and took a long drink before returning to the bag. My stomach sank at the next two items to draw my attention—a brow pencil, a box of hair dye, and a pair of scissors. A deep brown, I knew the dye couldn’t be for Callan. He already had dark hair.
“It has to be done, Avery.”
I looked up to find that he had finished painting the bike and was standing over me as I stared blankly into the grocery bag. Bending down, he grabbed a second water bottle and two packs of tuna and crackers. He took the bag from me, tossing it behind him so that it landed next to the bike. Sitting next to me, he opened one of the tuna tins and handed it to me.
“Stop staring at the bag and eat,” he ordered.
I dipped a cracker into the meat and brought it to my numb lips.
“Baby, I could dye your hair vomit green and cut it an inch short and you would still be so beautiful it makes my body hurt.” Placing a finger against my hand, he gently guided the cracker into my mouth. “So stop worrying about how you’re going to look and get some fuel in you.”
I crushed the cracker inside my mouth then swallowed, shaking my head as I did so. “It’s not about vanity.”
His mouth quirked to one side, but he didn’t ask me why I didn’t want my hair cut or dyed. He probably knew my answer might change his mind.
Tears sprang to my eyes. I pushed the rest of my food at him.
Grumbling something about a crying woman, Callan pulled me into his arms. “Okay, tell me what it’s about.”
“No, it’s stupid.” I tried to wiggle off his lap but he wouldn’t let me.
“If it’s making you cry, I want to know.” He gathered my hair around one side of my neck. Kissing one cheek, he tenderly wiped a tear from the other side of my face.
Melting into his arms, I wrapped my own around his shoulders as I angled my face upward in search of his mouth. I couldn’t believe he actually wanted to know why I was crying instead of trying to bully me into stopping. Not that Callan was a jerk, just that I couldn’t recall ever seeing a man react to a woman’s tears with anything other than derision or violence.
My father had backhanded my mother the times he caught her crying, the old cliché falling from his lips without fail.
I’ll give you something to cry about, bitch.
That wasn’t Callan. In between kisses, he coaxed me into telling him. “Come on, baby girl. Why does the idea make you sad?”
“Mama would brush my hair, sometimes for hours.” I buried my face against his neck to hide from his watchful eyes. “It was the only way she would touch me, and just my hair. If she wanted me to move, she would use the brush to guide me.”
It sounded awful, like maybe my own mother thought I was contaminated, but I couldn’t think of it that way. “She would tell me stories when she brushed my hair—about a fairy princess trapped in the mortal world and that the only way the princess could visit her people was with magic potions that put her to sleep.”
Callan smoothed his hand up and down my back, the soft, repetitive gesture hypnotically calming me. “She was an alcoholic, your mom?”
I nodded, my tears lubricating the skin of his neck. “She said every time the princess visited fairyland, she tried to find a way to go back forever and bring her half-human daughter with her. But the other fairies said humans are beasts and wouldn’t allow it. So the princess had to stay in the human world because she couldn’t leave her daughter behind.”
“But then the magic potions killed her, didn’t they?” Callan asked gently.
I sobbed into his jacket. Yes. The potions had killed the princess and they had done it slowly. In the end, she left her daughter alone in the mortal world anyway.
Callan opened up a small space between us. Cupping my chin, he made me look at him. Slowly, he kissed the tears that kept falling and then my mouth, both of our lips salty. Taking a second, he stripped his jacket off and placed it on the ground, then guided me onto my back.
He kept kissing me, everything soft and slow. I moved against him, the direction and thrust of my hips becoming more obvious as my arousal grew. One hand wrapped in my hair, Callan pushed his other hand beneath the band of my jeans and panties. He didn’t stop kissing me as his fingers parted my labia and began to stroke my clit.
With the gap between my jeans and my flesh almost nonexistent, he had to keep his strokes short. I whimpered, wanting both of us naked and to have Callan thrusting into me.
“Come for me, baby.” He bit my bottom lip, his finger and thumb pinching my clit between hard rubs.
As if his words alone could command my orgasm, I began jerking beneath him. He kept rubbing and pinching until I went limp. Then he brought his hand up to cup my face.
“I’m not trying to take you to fairyland, Avery.” He ran his thumb against my lower lip. The scent of my juices on his flesh coaxed a fresh burst of cream from my pussy. “I’m trying to keep you alive.”
I blinked slowly then nodded. Right then, my mind was a million miles away from the bag with its dye, brow pencil, and scissors. Callan had just wrung one hell of a climax from me and I wanted to return the favor.
I palmed his cock, my cheeks coloring as I asked, “What about you?”
Laughing, he shook his head at me and eased onto his knees. “One thing is for certain. You’ll always blush like a redhead, baby.”
He stood and retrieved the bag. “We’ll worry about me later. Right now, let’s get your hair short enough you can cover all of it with the helmet.”
Pouting because I didn’t have his cock in me, I sat up and wiggled out of my jacket then brought the length of my hair behind my back. Returning to sit behind me, Callan took the first few snips.
I felt the weight of almost a foot of hair fall away from my head, the loss momentarily making me dizzy.
“We’ll dye it at the hotel tonight.” He placed the hair he had just cut in my lap and kissed me on the cheek. “This way, with the helmet, the clerk won’t see you come in as a redhead and leave as a brunette.”
“Okay,” I whispered and started fashioning the cut hair into a braid. “Are we still heading toward DC?”
“Yeah, I want to hit Cumberland,” he agreed, more severed hair falling around my shoulders as he continued working the scissors. “Then decide where we go from there.”
“Isn’t that where Lincoln is?” Lincoln had allegedly killed their brother Boone as part of a gun trafficking operation across state lines and I knew Cumberland had a federal prison.
“Yeah.” The answer came as little more than a grunt. “He didn’t kill Boone.”
“I know.”
The scissors stopped moving. I turned to look at Callan. He cocked one brow at me until I repeated what I had just said.
“I know," I told him. "It’s enough for me that you believe. We can find the proof together.”
“Fuck if I haven’t tried.” He pushed the blades of the scissors into the ground then started to dust the loose hair from my shoulders with his hand. “I wouldn’t have become a member of the Steel Tide if it wasn’t for trying to find proof and keep Lincoln and dad safe in prison.”
He must have seen the question lurking in my gaze because I didn’t understand what he was saying. I only knew a little about their dad’s case. He had owned a custom bike shop and had founded the Steel Tide for local motorcycle enthusiasts, including Big Red. When the Feds brought charges against him, they claimed the shop was fencing stolen bikes and shipping drugs inside legitimate orders. Big Red, as the shop’s assistant manager, had been indicted, too, but the charges didn’t stick—not after a prosecution witness pinned it all on Dylan Tilley.
“It’s complicated,” he continued. “Lincoln and Boone were already club members when dad was convicted. I know they suspected Big Red of using dad as a shield and they couldn’t dig around his business if they left the club. Plus, Red told them he knew people in prison who would make s
ure no one messed with dad if they stayed in the club and helped with certain club business.”
“And if they didn’t?” I asked.
“Red never threatened that his jailhouse friends would hurt my father,” Callan answered. “But the implication was there. And it wasn’t anything illegal that he wanted them to do. Even when dad was in charge, the Steel Tide provided security details for truckers and a few events as a way to pay for the hangout. That’s all Red gave them to do.”
His gaze dropped between us as his cheeks started to heat. “Not at all like what he ordered me to do. I had two protection costs instead of the one Boone and Lincoln were splitting.”
His words hung in the air like a confession. I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I don’t care what you’ve done,” I said right before I kissed him.
10
Callan
Avery stood in the bathroom of the Charlottesville hotel room we had rented for the night. Dressed only in a t-shirt and panties, she held the scissors in her hand, trying to salvage something fashionable from the hatchet job I’d done out in the woods. A dark chestnut with auburn highlights replaced the deep red she could naturally claim.
She turned to find me staring at her. Her bright blue eyes, always beautiful, contrasted starkly with her new hair color. My dick swelled with appreciation. The redhead of my fantasies had always had an innocent quality to her. Maybe it was knowing just how snugly Avery fit around my cock or that she liked to dig her nails in my back when she came, but the brunette in front of me had a smokier, deeper sex appeal.
“How does it look?”
For the first time since I showed up at her father’s house, she seemed to be studying my face for some kind of lie. I would have laughed at the idea, but it took me a few seconds to even catch my breath.
“A little punk rock,” I answered.
Her shoulders lifted in a lazy shrug before she dropped the scissors onto the sink. “Punk works.”
It was a La Femme Nikita kind of punk, dangerous because of the laser-like blue gaze. My cock crept a few more inches up my stomach as I waited impatiently while she bagged any evidence that she had dyed or cut her hair in the bathroom.
The wait became more than I could handle. I beckoned her with a growl.
“Baby, come here.”
She looked at me, her gaze wide and her lips parting in what I hoped was arousal. Even with the attack that morning weighing on my mind, Avery’s presence had kept me in a near constant state of need.
“Come here,” I repeated when a few seconds passed and she hadn’t moved a step closer.
I studied her face as she obeyed, her pace slow and seemingly hesitant. I wondered if she still wanted me or if the violence I had almost committed that morning had finally sunk in, making her think I was no better than the men we were running from.
Certainly I’d acted like an ass before we reached the park. And that was before I’d literally cut one of her last, and clearly fondest, links to her mother. But she had climaxed at the end of my fingers, cupped my dick and offered herself to me on the forest floor. I still ached from putting aside my need. Maybe if I had fucked her then, she wouldn’t be so slow to approach me at this moment.
Coming to a stop between my spread legs, Avery placed a hand on each of my shoulders. Her body shook and I couldn’t surmise why. I mashed my lips, wondering once more if she now feared me. I looked into her blue eyes.
Something dark skittered across her gaze.
“You’re shaking,” I said.
She closed her eyes long enough to bob her head a few times in acknowledgment.
“Why?” I asked.
“You wanted to get rid of me yesterday, even before that Disciple showed up.” Her mouth quivered in a way that simultaneously pulled at my cock and squeezed something deep inside my chest.
“You wanted me to be safe,” she continued.
“And then I told you that you’re never getting rid of me, baby.”
Was she afraid I had changed my mind or was she hoping I had? I shook my head, my frustration grinding at me almost as hard as the blood pulsing through my cock. I didn’t really know how to deal with a woman like Avery. She wasn’t like the chicks who hung out at the Steel Tide's clubhouse or Freya’s bar, their pussies available to any cock that wanted to fill them. Even after all the things I had done to Avery the night before, she had fucking blushed when she palmed my jeans-covered dick out in the woods.
I didn’t know how much of the gentle suitor I had in me, if at all.
“Spread your legs,” I growled.
A surprised gasp escaped her but she complied. Her nails dug into my shoulders as I pushed the gusset of her panties to one side. My chest tight with need and the possibility of her rejecting me, I slid a finger between her labia.
Wet—just how I wanted her.
I licked my lips, the beastly part of my brain wanting to consume every last inch of her.
“Baby, sometimes I’m going to want to fuck you. Nothing sweet about it.” I looked up to find her blue eyes innocent once more. “Like right now. I want to boss this hot little pussy until you scream for mercy. I want to fuck you so hard you’re nothing but mindless whimpers and a tight, wet hole.”
The tremble that had gripped her before returned full force. Her knees would have knocked together if my hand hadn’t kept her legs separated. The shaking drew my attention to her face and the lips she kept wetting with her tongue. She absolutely couldn’t control the energy running through her right then.
But I could.
I pushed three fingers into Avery, my free hand knotting the bottom hem of her t-shirt to keep her trapped in front of me. Her nipples pushed against the fabric, each hard bud swollen bigger than I could imagine. I nipped at one through the material as my hand fucked deeper into her pussy.
“I will kill anyone who tries to take you away from me,” I warned.
She pressed her breasts closer to my face. Her arms wrapped around my head as if she would smother me to her chest. The shaking hadn’t stopped and I knew it wouldn’t until I made her come a few times.
I freed my head from her embrace and stared hard into the blue eyes.
“I will maim any man who so much as thinks he can touch you. Your body and everything that comes with it is mine.”
It was a crap way to tell her I loved her, but I didn’t know any other way to say it. I half didn’t want to admit the sentiment to myself. Everyone I loved was either dead or in prison. And I had failed them, losing the protection the Steel Tide offered without finding the evidence to free Lincoln and my father or avenge Boone’s death.
I couldn’t tolerate the idea of ever letting Avery down. And—if I loved her—it seemed likely I would do just that.
“Tell me you understand, baby.” I tugged hard at her clit, wanting to hurt her just a little for the way she had my guts all twisted into thick knots that would never come untied. “Tell me.”
“I’m yours,” she said, her voice cracking down the center of her reply.
“All of you,” I growled.
“Yes,” she whispered. “All of me.”
I couldn’t take any more of the sweet trembling or the way her pussy wept from my touch. I pushed her stomach-first onto the mattress, one hand pressing down on her back to keep her in place while the other freed my cock.
With her panties pushed to the side, I entered her hard and fast from behind. “You’re going to come for me when I fuck you like this.”
“Yes.”
The way the moan escaped her as a hiss, I knew she was just as aroused as I was. My cock sluiced through her, her pussy making wet, sucking sounds as I pounded deeper. I had told her last night she would be riding sore. This time I would make certain that every bounce in the road tomorrow made her achy and wet.
“My pussy.” I chewed at her throat, my hand forcing its way between her body and the mattress to rub roughly against her clit. “My sweet, tight pussy, op
en and ready when I want it.”
She whimpered, her ass and thigh muscles working to ride my cock.
“Tell me, Avery,” I demanded, my hips lifting and pressing so that my cock traveled a long, hard line inside her.
“Your pussy,” she gasped.
She had one cheek pressed against the mattress and her eyes rolled up. Her sex danced around my cock, squeezing and sucking, her interior so lubricated it slurped with her need to come.
“Your pussy, just yours,” she cried again. “Coming no matter how you take me...”
My chest felt like she’d just stuck her fist through it. I pressed harder against her back, my strokes delivered quicker and more fiercely even as my lips traveled gently against her throat. “That’s right, baby. I want your pussy to be in heat for me. But I promise you that I’ll earn your desire.”
Her bottom lip quivered. The muscles deep inside her coiled around my shaft, the contractions running so strongly through them I felt like she had her fingers wrapped around me and was tugging the shaft and head with sharp jerks.
Our breathing spiraled out of control, the raspy whispers we spoke in drowned out by the wet slap of my flesh against hers. Her fingers clawed at the bedding. Her knees came up, the way they were spread giving her just enough leverage that she could push against me, her ass moving in a tight bounce.
Raw, sensual, I couldn’t believe I had Avery beneath me, her body humbled as I slammed roughly into her. A convulsion rippled through her, starting at her waist, rattling her chest, then shaking her shoulders violently.
I spilled into her, my hips freezing but my hands gripping her sweet ass to wildly pull and push her the length of my dick. Her pussy kept squeezing, the contractions coming so close together it was one constant vise sucking at my cock. Another long spurt left me and then I pulled from her, dragging her into my arms as I collapsed onto the bed.
I woke with the flavor of Avery still on my lips. The lingering taste of her juices made me hungry for more. With her exhausted body cradled in my arms, I slid one hand beneath the blanket that covered us. Gently, I probed between her labia. Her body heat had kept liquid the cream we spilled into and against one another through the night. I rubbed some of it along her clit, my body tense as she slowly became alert to what I was doing.