Mouth open, his jaw moved, lips forming her name over and over, tongue dipping out to glide across his bottom lip. He righted his head, eyes opening and focusing immediately on her face, an expression of satisfaction coming over him at whatever he saw there.
“Kiss me, beautiful.” He pursed his lips in an example of what he wanted, and she obliged, dipping low to press her mouth to his. “Goddamn,” he muttered, the movement of his lips sexy as hell before he distracted her by gliding his tongue in a slow dance against hers. “Fuckin’ me like that. Takin’ my cock. Lettin’ me have you.” Each phrase was punctuated with another deep kiss as they caught their breath. “Gonna hafta—” He growled and kissed her hard, the biting edges of his teeth and brutal thrust of his tongue making her gasp into his mouth. “Keep you.”
His hand slipped up her back and cradled the back of her neck, a hold he used to bring her down so she was lying on top of him, head tucked underneath his chin while his other arm wrapped around her waist. “I should move,” she told him, surprised when her protest stirred another slow thrust of his scarcely softened cock into her. “Stop,” she scolded, but knew it held no heat when he chuckled, the rumbling movement of his chest comforting.
“Like you right where you’re at, woman. You try to move now, I’ma smack that ass.” His arm gave her a squeeze she welcomed, granting silent permission to relax in place. “Lemme bliss out for another couple of minutes, Tee. This right here? This is fuckin’ worth everything.”
She rested on him while he stroked and petted her back and side, the movements coming slower with each pass.
“It’s nearly the best part of everything.” She spoke quietly, listening to his unhurried, even breaths in and out. Regular and steady, the sound was as comforting as those of waves against a beach. His grip on her waist eased, his hand coming to rest on her bent knee at his hip. “Just being.” The heaviness of his breathing deepened, sound coarsening as he drifted to sleep.
Once he was well and truly at rest, she slipped off him, careful to hold the condom in place on his soft cock until she’d disengaged. Rooting around in the adjoining bathroom, she uncovered a washcloth and soap, using them to clean herself before going back to stand next to the bed. Hitch lay on his back, head angled so one cheek was against the pillowcase. His good arm had wrapped across his chest, hand tucked on top of the bandages she was glad to see unstained with blood. At least their ill-advised activities hadn’t broken open his wound.
She thoroughly wiped him down, impersonally holding his penis as she did so, lifting his scrotum to gently swipe at the sweat she knew would have collected on his perineum. When he groaned and arched into her touch, she glanced up to see a tortured expression on his face, tiny lines fanning from the corners of his tightly closed eyes. His lip lifted, and she prepared for a shout or expletive, but what ground from his mouth wasn’t that. Just her name, spoken in a broken plea, “Talia.”
Discarding the cloth in the bathroom, she studied herself in the mirror. Tousled hair, lips red and roughened from his beard, love bites dotting her dusky skin—she looked well fucked. Then she remembered how she had felt in his arms, nestled against his chest. Cherished by a proud man willing to take a more passive role than he was clearly accustomed to if it meant they could be together for another minute.
She flipped off the light, padding through the darkness to climb back into bed with Hitch.
Her heart leaped when he reached for her without fully waking, curling around her protectively, ever the bossy man, ordering her to “Sleep” with a gruff word before he relaxed into her.
She complied, dozing off with his welcome weight pinning her to the mattress.
Paradise Found
Hitch
I woke slowly, drifting up from the deep sleep that had held me in its grip for hours. There was this immense sense of peace in my chest. Not something I was accustomed to, and I spent a few brain cells trying to sort it out before the heat of a body next to mine registered. Talia. I’d know her scent or the feel of her anywhere. She was not beside me. I’d sprawled out over her until the woman lay plastered to the bed.
Thoughts of the previous night swept through my head. They provided a vivid stop-action film of our activities that had my cock soaking up the memories like a sponge, fattening and uncoiling from where it rested against the small of Talia’s back.
When I tried to shift to the side, the aftermath of the other events came crashing back in, reminding me I’d very nearly been dead at one point in the past couple of days.
Still, it was worth it to hear my angel’s voice. “Hitch?” Soft and sleepy, she asked, “You okay?”
“Yeah, baby.” I rested against her, teasing flawless skin with my teeth, then pressed a kiss there. “With you here? I’m fuckin’ great. Tip-top.” My chest aborted a cough before it made it to a full-fledged hack, while the resulting sharp movements made me hiss and groan. “Fuck, Jesus. What the hell?”
“You were shot,” Talia helpfully reminded me, rolling out from underneath me. Hair in a tangle around her head, clasped fists curled beneath her chin, she offered a wry look. “And stabbed.”
“And beaten.” I couldn’t argue with her assessment. “Still sucks. I woke up with plans for ya. All the plans.” The stitches in my arm pulled when I lifted my hand, and I ignored the pinch of pain, counting it necessary if it meant I got to touch her.
“So many plans?” Lips lifting unevenly, she gave me a twisted grin as she pressed into the caress. “All the plans?”
“Yeah, baby, all those motherfuckin’ plans.” The apple of her cheek fit my hand, just like her body had fit mine last night. We were matched in every way, and my resolve from the preceding day returned. “I’m keepin’ you. You know that, right?”
Talia rolled her lips between her teeth, biting down for a moment. “I live here in Adkins.”
“So? That’s not some magical barrier to me keepin’ you, babe. That’s a tiny wrinkle, not a shut and locked door. You like livin’ here? Grew up here? Wanna stay here where you’re close to your brother?” She gave the tiniest of nods to each question, answering each individually. “You wanna ’xplore this with me?” Another nod, larger than the others. “Wanna keep me around?” I got a grin and a solid dip of her chin to her neck, lashes fluttering to hide her eyes. “Then I’ll sort my shit and figure out what it means for me.”
Her gaze darted to my face, dancing between my eyes as I gave her a minute to consider what it all meant. It didn’t take long before she was rolling her lips again, biting them nervously.
“What, Talia?” I shoved my other hand underneath her head, cradling her face between my palms as I drew her closer. Our noses brushed, and the heat of her breath swept over me as I asked again, “What’s goin’ on in that noggin, beautiful? I’m not a man to wait around. When I want something, I take it. I want you. Means a change in my life, I’m down with it. It’d be worth anything to wake up to you like this every fuckin’ day. Bottom of my heart, I mean that.”
Trembling lips parted, and the flash of her tongue peeked out. Then she rocked my world.
“I could love you.”
“Oh, baby,” I ground out, pressing her face to my throat while I buried myself in her hair. After a moment, I shoved up on an elbow and stared down at her. “If you’re gonna give me all that beauty inside you all at once, I’m gonna overdose on the sweet. You could love me?” She nodded, and I busted her lips free from her teeth, taking her mouth in a deep, wet slide, drinking my fill from her. When I broke the kiss, she blinked up at me with an expression fast becoming my favorite. Love-drunk and aroused looked gorgeous on her.
“Every day I’ll work to be worthy.” Her lashes drifted to touch her cheeks, and I saw the muscles in her throat tighten as she swallowed hard. What I was saying meant something to her, a deep and profound emotion playing across her features when she opened her eyes to stare up into my face. “I wanna be worthy. Wanna be everything for you.”
Talia lifted to me
et my mouth, and I chased her lips until she was panting and writhing and my dick was hard enough to pound nails.
A knock at the door had me groaning as I whipped my head around to glare at the blameless surface.
“Yeah?”
“You still alive in there, Hitch?” Twisted’s voice came through the wood, concern and amusement constant bedfellows in his tone. “Brother, it’s time we hit the road. Gonna hafta say goodbye to the pretty chickie.”
Another voice joined his. “Talia Rosalie, are you in there?”
Talia groaned and covered her face with both hands.
“Jesus, Sparks,” I called out, pulling Talia closer, puffing up when she buried her face against my chest. I’ll protect her against anything comin’ our way. “Wanna back the fuck off my woman?”
There was silence, and when Talia drew back, I found myself smiling down at her shocked expression. “You misplace the knowledge that I’m keepin’ you?” She shook her head in a slow side-to-side arc. “By definition that makes you my woman.”
“That’s my brother.”
“So? Right now, him and my national president are both”—I raised my voice to project to our visitors—“unwelcome as fuck, pullin’ this shit.” Laughter from the hallway told me my words weren’t taken the wrong way, giving me freedom to push a little more. In the sternest voice I could muster from around my grin, I ordered them, “Go. Away.”
“Talk in fifteen,” Twisted insisted, and I had to grunt in annoyance at the proof my president and friend was an asshole determined to cockblock me this morning. “You get me, Hitch?”
“Oh yeah. I fuckin’ get you, boss.” Ignoring the sounds of leave-taking from behind the door, I dragged my thumb across Talia’s lips, reiterating the important part of what he’d said. “Fifteen.”
Adjusting my position along her side, I held her in place when Talia would have pulled away. “Hitch, we’ve got to get up.”
“I’ve got—” I kissed her, softly in the beginning, ramping up into a scorching joining of lips and breath, pushing until she had that dazed expression on her face again. “Fifteen minutes to teach you what’s going to happen every morning from here on out.” Forehead fitted against hers, I brushed the tips of our noses together.
No longer banished to no man’s land, I’d somehow found myself in a paradise I could hold on to.
“Keepin’ you,” I reminded her.
“Lettin’ you,” she rejoined, and I smiled against her lips.
“Fuck yeah.”
***
Talia
She was straightening her treatment room, itemizing the various replacement supplies she needed Ewell to pick up, when she heard shouts coming from the clubhouse office. The words were indistinct at first, but when she stuck her head out the door, everything came clear.
Hitch was having the conversation he’d promised Twisted and Ewell, but it didn’t sound as if it were going in a direction any of them were pleased with.
“No. Fucking no.” That was Hitch, followed by indistinct murmuring from Ewell.
“Yes, you fuckin’ will.” Even from the few times she’d heard him speaking, Twisted’s voice was unmistakable. “Just because we’ve neutralized one pit of vipers don’t mean we’ve killed the nest. Even bodiless heads can still bite and poison a person. We need you, brother.”
“You don’t fuckin’ understand, man. I’m not leaving her behind.”
Talia’s heart skipped a beat, pain curling deep behind her breasts.
“I’m not letting you put her at risk. Not happening.” Ewell’s bellow shook the windows in their frames. “Your shit is not sorted, man. Unsorted shit can seep, and I’ve got enough challenges keeping just my shit away from my baby sister. Don’t add yours, man.”
“Take a breath, darlin’.”
Talia whirled, straightening as she stared at Rampage. He’d come up the hallway behind her and was looking at her with sad understanding in his gaze.
“He’s going to have to leave, isn’t he?” She already knew the answer to her own question, because officer or not, club members didn’t buck their president. If Ewell said something when acting as Sparks, his men would break themselves in half to make it happen. Hitch couldn’t be anything except the same kind of man. Loyal to a fault. “If it’s what Twisted wants, he won’t have a choice.”
“Never saw the man act like he does around you.”
Talia shook her head, blinking as she tried to make sense of what Rampage had told her. “What?”
“Hitch. Never seen him like this. You’re under his skin, pretty lady. If you’re worried about him making a return trip to see you, I’d say it’s pretty much a given.” Arms out, he took a step towards her, and Talia backed into her treatment room. Rampage herded her farther inside, then leaned forwards and gripped the doorknob. He closed the door on his final words. “Man’s a goner for you. He’s given you something he never gave anyone else. Not even Trammer. You gonna keep it safe?”
There was a click, and then she was alone with the blameless blank surface of the door staring back at her. “Keep it safe” twined around inside her head with what Hitch had told her last night, then reminded her this morning: “keepin’ you.” What Rampage was asking should have been just an expanded version of the other, but it felt like so much more.
A thudding impact against the wall in front of her rocked Talia back on her heels. She watched as the surface shivered; then the door was ripped open and Hitch stood there. A fresh bruise spread along his jaw, and she saw the restlessly clenching knuckles of one hand were shredded. A commotion rolled up the hallway to where he stood, but he didn’t look back at the noises, kept his eyes on her as he stepped towards where she waited, crowding close, heat from his body spreading along her front.
“Talia.” That was it, just her name, but somehow she understood everything he tried to convey.
“It’s okay.” She pressed her palm against his chest—not to hold him back, which would have been impossible—but to remind herself of the most important thing in all their story so far. The rapid beat of his heart soothed her, letting her successfully blink the tears away. He’s alive. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Fuck.” The growled word split the air around them, raining pain down on her skin until she shivered in his arms. “It’ll just be a little while.”
She turned her face and offered him her lips, something he took her up on immediately. Hitch fit his mouth against hers, sipping delicately with tiny kisses, each a bare press and release that lit her on fire from within but did nothing to assuage the blaze. On his next pass, she darted her tongue out to swipe at his lips, undoing some of his control, because he groaned into her mouth. The taste of Hitch flooded through her as he stroked against her tongue, licking and nibbling.
“I’ll be waiting.” She held tight to her promise. “I’ll be here.”
Take the Fight to Them
Hitch
Arguably the hardest thing I’d ever done was climbing on my bike and riding away, watching my woman dwindle to nothing in my rearview. She’d said all the right things, and I’d watched closely enough to ensure it wasn’t an act. In the end, my national president had won the day because my ass was on my bike, in a column behind him, and she wasn’t with me.
All the things he and Ragman had said made sense; they just burned painfully to hear. We were at war. No way to get around that statement, because our hit on their clubhouse might not have been the opening salvo, but it for sure wasn’t the final one, either.
The cartel sponsoring the piece-of-shit club that’d been built on the bones of old ruins hadn’t backed down. Last night, while I’d been sleeping with Talia—hours after we cleared the vipers from that fucking clubhouse across the state—we’d received a clear message in the delivery of the head of one of our own.
It wasn’t a member I knew well, but I knew him. He was what we referred to as fodder. Not a strategist to help mold policy or events, not an out-front leader, or even a behind
-the-scenes mover-and-shaker—he’d been the kind of man who’d stand firmly shoulder to shoulder with his brothers. The ones who held the line, lending strength to the men next to them, and the next. The note found in his mouth had been not a taunt, but a threat, stating: “You did this. Every member bears responsibility.”
Ragman had tipped the scales for me this morning, making his play in a way he knew I wouldn’t turn down.
“Cartel’s already dropped a list, man.”
I pinned him in place with my gaze, because I knew exactly what he meant by those few words. The Mexican drug cartels had migrated to social media nearly as fast as the jihadists, utilizing the pervasive nature of the software platforms as a way to get into everyone’s pocket. Nearly every enemy and friend had smartphones, and nearly all those phones had one platform or another.
“You wanna share the names on that list, Rags?” A list meant a death sentence for every single person recorded. It was being put on notice, told to get affairs in order, because as far as the cartel was concerned, you were already pushing up daisies. “Anyone we know?”
“Your name might have shown up on a few.” Ragman didn’t shift his gaze away from me, even when Twisted made a pained noise. “Along with every other officer the IMC fields. Officers—and their families. But as of right now, it appears the Jailbreakers have coasted under the radar. Our goal is to keep it that way.”
What he hadn’t said, hadn’t needed to put to words, was the fact that if the role Sparks and his Jailbreakers had played in our retaliation landed them in the cartel’s rumor mill, anyone and everyone attached to them would be in danger. Including my Talia.
So, when I was told to pack my shit and get, I first found Talia and talked, finding her surprisingly easy to convince. That in itself was suspect at first, and I imagined it was her giving me an out, which pissed me right the fuck off.
No Man's Land: A Rebel Wayfarers MC & Incoherent MC Crossover Novel Page 6