Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Bliss.

  Plus, whenever she was so compliant, as much of a turn on as it was, sometimes it pissed me off. I wasn’t her uncle. I preferred her struggles sometimes, because I wasn’t sure if I’d earned her compliancy. Then, she’d grumble, and my world would right itself once more.

  So when I pulled away, and she pouted, my lips twitched, and my annoyance fled.

  Corruption was sweet.

  She slumped forward, then rolled onto her back, that skin of hers like goddamn gold against the lavender comforter. I took a second to appreciate the view, then decided I needed more than a second. Fuck the water.

  Ducking down, I grabbed my jeans from the floor, then found my cell in the pocket. I took a picture of her, then grumbled, “Spread your legs.” She obeyed, but her eyes were glued to me as I shuffled around the foot of the bed for the best view. Taking a shot, I murmured, “Stick your fingers inside your cunt. Show me how messy you are down there.”

  Again, she obeyed, but her back rippled, arching her tits up and rocking her hips down as the order flushed her with pleasure.

  Such a dominant little bitch in her real life but so eager to obey when that front door was closed.

  Humming, I took a couple more shots, before I dropped my cell on the bed where it bounced then I grabbed her feet, dragged her down the sheets as she squealed in surprise and hauled her into my arms.

  I was a little scrawny by comparison to most of the brothers who all looked like they’d been eating steroid-laced spinach, but I was strong. I had to be. My job involved hauling dead bodies around and massive vats of chemicals to destroy evidence. What about that sounded lightweight? But when she was in my arms, she was safe, secure. I wasn’t sure if that was an oxymoron or not.

  I was no one’s idea of a safe harbor, but I’d never hurt Indy. Every fucker else, sure. But Indy, no. She’d wormed her way into my affection, burrowing deeper than that in all honesty. So deep I didn’t know what the fuck to do about it.

  Rubbing my lips against her temple as she settled into the crook of my arms, I padded through to the bathroom. I placed her beside the toilet then murmured, “Go pee.”

  She heaved a sigh, her eyes mutinous for the first time, and I merely arched a brow and boomed the order, “Pee.”

  “Can’t you give me some privacy?”

  “No such thing as privacy between you and me,” I reminded her calmly. “And for arguing, I’m gonna stand here and fucking watch you wipe when I’d have gotten into the bath before.”

  She grimaced but plopped down onto the seat and did her business. Her gaze was on my knees, but I watched her bowed head, seeing the awkwardness as it took her a while before she reached for the paper I already had in my hands and that I gave her.

  When she was done, I flushed the toilet before I reached for her hand and said, “Bath time for dirty Indy.”

  Her nose crinkled. “We’re both as dirty as the other.”

  My lips twitched. “Yeah, but I don’t get a boner cleaning myself up.”

  She grinned at that, her eyes sparkling with glee as I helped her step into the tub. She waited, because she knew how shit rolled now—it hadn’t taken long, either. We’d only been exploring this side of things for the past couple weeks, but she knew that I’d treat her like a lady anywhere but when we were playing—and I climbed in behind, then guided her down so that she was sitting between my legs, her back against my chest.

  Hissing when I reached down and pulled her legs apart, she muttered, “God, I’m sore.”

  I hummed, unsurprised. Her back and knees would ache in the morning too from the way I’d had her posed.

  Rubbing the tendons either side of her cunt with my hands, I let her wriggle around for a minute before I barked, “Stay still, Indy. I don’t want to get another boner just yet.”

  She snorted. “Is it my fault you’re always hard around me?”

  “Such a fucking brat,” I groused, one hand snapping up to grab her by the throat and pin her against me. She didn’t struggle and stopped wriggling as I muttered, “You working up to another punishment, Indy?”

  Her eyelids fluttered. “N-No.”

  “Then let me tend to you, hmm?” My voice was softer, and she sighed, before she buried her face in my inked throat and stayed there.

  Content now she was still, pleased she sought solace in me, I carried on with my ministrations, rubbing her there, then rubbing along her thighs to her knees, manipulating her legs like she was a rag doll. Midway, I turned off the faucet with my foot, but the heat of the water worked into her bones, gradually making her limper in my hold.

  It was to her detriment that her lack of appreciation of aftercare made me more intent in giving it to her. I was always careful with subs in the aftermath because it could fuck with their heads if you didn’t tend to them after, once you’d messed with their minds. But Indy didn’t like it.

  She didn’t want any tenderness from me.

  Which, quite naturally, made me give her my brand of it twice as much.

  I viewed Indy like a rancher viewed a fractious horse that had cost him a million bucks and that he couldn’t get a fucking saddle on. Difference was, I could fuck Indy into letting me saddle her. Not that I was into pony play, but the analogy still worked.

  When she was limp in my arms, her breath hot against my throat, her forehead sticky with sweat, I smiled.

  There was an irony to the fact that she hated being touched, and me? I loved touching my subs. Loved smothering them in me. Loved being smothered in them.

  She’d learn.

  There were more ways than one to skin a cat, and Indy’d learn that soon enough.

  Eight

  Indy

  After our bath, Cruz had rubbed me down then, in his usual way of hauling me around like I weighed less than a bag of flour, carried me to the bed where he’d massaged me from head to toe, humming as he did so.

  Though he’d gone to a lot of effort to take away the ache, the next morning I still had to dose myself up with Ibuprofen because my back was hurting like a bastard.

  The massage had been nice.

  And Google had already told me which song he’d been humming—that Cruz was a closet dance fan came as a surprise. I figured I could hold that against him if he decided to ever share a nude pic of me. If the Sinners knew he liked the DJ, Martin Solveig, I figured that would be my payback.

  The thought had me smiling though because I knew Cruz would never do that. He was too intrinsically private. Too shielded. Plus, like any decent killer, he kept trophies. I accepted that, mostly because I was surrounded by murderers.

  Death was stock in trade for the careers my brothers had decided to take.

  As for myself, death wasn't as terrifying for me as it was for many. I actually liked it, had ever since good old Uncle Kevin had perished at my brother’s hands, and it wasn’t as if I was an innocent. I had blood on my hands too. Blood shed in self-defense didn't stop it from staining.

  “Do you know how creepy it is when you smile like that?”

  I cut Giulia a glance. “Creepy? I’m touched.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re so like your brother sometimes it’s nuts.”

  “He’s nuts.”

  “You are too.” She smirked at me from over the packet of information I’d had Frankie, my regular piercer, send me and which I’d printed off.

  Frankie did me a favor by coming in once a week to take care of the appointments I had for piercings, but before they met, there’d be a shit ton of stuff for Giulia to learn before she could even think of starting an apprenticeship.

  I grunted, then kicking my boots up onto the sofa as she spun around on the desk chair where David usually had his ass planted, asked, “I’m surprised Nyx isn’t in here, giving me shit about the piercing gig.”

  Giulia snorted. “Indy, I know you haven’t seen your brother’s dick, and if I saw Hawk’s, I know I’d be just as squeamish, but babe, if anything, Nyx is grateful I’m gonna be piercing.
”

  My nose crinkled. “I’ve heard rumors that there ain’t enough space on there for a fucking pinhead, never mind anything else.”

  A laugh escaped her, but her eyes gleamed with her true amusement. “Always room for one more.” She winked at me when I groaned. “Mostly I think he’s grateful. If anything, he’ll owe you one. He knew I was going to go stir crazy at the compound.”

  “Imagine that… you not being so cock drunk that you weren’t happy just to eat, breathe, and shit the club,” I scoffed as I started flipping through the designs I had coming up the rest of the day.

  “I know, right? I even talked to him about Quin.”

  Her voice had softened at the mention of my baby bro’s name, and warmth filled me as I peered over the papers at her. “You did that for me?”

  “Yeah. Course. I’ve been working on him for a while.” She sucked her lip between her teeth. “I know it might seem like family doesn’t mean much to me—”

  I blinked at her. “Because you’re not unhappy your abusive father is dead and because your brother was a douche who ran off with his stepmom?”

  “Don’t forget he’s potentially a dangerous douche who maybe killed my abusive father.” Her nose crinkled. “I mean, he didn’t technically abuse me.” She pulled a face. “I guess what I mean, he wasn’t like… you know, Kevin.”

  Inside, I cringed, but outwardly, I just said, “Thank fuck for that.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “I shouldn’t compare, I guess.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, because we’re all about the technicalities in this world.”

  She smirked at me. “You’re right. He hurt us all. My brothers were a lot more forgiving, though.”

  “Idiots. Abuse is abuse, Giulia. There’s no measure or set of scales that defines how bad it was and if we deserve to be screwed up over it.”

  “I guess so,” she murmured, her tone musing. “Nuts that I think that way, huh?”

  “No. Every woman does it. It’s inbuilt in us. Hey, he only fingered me—that’s not rape, is it? Hey, he only forced me to suck his cock, I guess I’m lucky he didn’t penetrate me.” I clucked my tongue. “Messed. The. Fuck. Up.”

  “Society sucks.”

  “Sure does,” I agreed. “Dog was abusive to your mom, wasn’t he?”

  “She was abusive right back.”

  That had me grinning, even if, distantly, I could remember seeing Dog sporting bruises when I was younger. “Why doesn’t it surprise me that your mom would be like that?”

  Giulia sighed. “She used to be a lot of things. Then she changed. Got together with this secondhand car dealer and he turned her into a real Stepford wife.”

  “That's why you threw caution to the wind and hooked up with Nyx?”

  “Nah. I did that because he’s my soul mate.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly that I knew she didn’t doubt her words. As for me, her statement had me sitting up which, of course, made my back ache. “You believe in soul mates?”

  “Not until Nyx,” she assured me, a small smile playing on her mouth.

  “What makes you think you’re… that?”

  “Because I get him and he gets me. I know what he is and I love him anyway, and I know he feels the same way.”

  I pursed my lips. “Is that what love is?”

  “Sounds like the start of a power ballad,” she teased, and while her eyes were dancing, her voice turned serious as she said, “Acceptance is a pretty powerful motivator when there’s a lot about you that many people couldn’t accept.”

  Huh.

  I frowned at that, but slowly sank back against the sofa. Then, because it felt too much like a goddamn shrink’s couch and I’d been on enough of those for a lifetime, I sat up, straightened out, and murmured, “I’m glad you’ve found him. At least you’ll stop him from losing it fully.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe we’ll just ride into the darkness together.” She heaved a soft sigh. “Fitting with a name like his.”

  Snorting, I murmured, “His name hasn’t got anything to do with the darkness.”

  She arched a brow at me. “No?”

  “You know Nyx was a female goddess, don’t you?”

  “Well, I mean, I haven’t wiki-fucking-pedia’d his road name, Indy.”

  I grinned at her. “We got a dog when Quin was born. Best fucking dog ever. Calling her a pet would be doing her a disservice.”

  Her eyes flared wide. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Giulia, why would I shit you,” I joked, “when it’ll put Nyx in the hot seat?”

  She snickered. “No way. Your dog was called Nyx?”

  “Nuh huh, our epic dog was called Nyx. She was a black lab. I swear to fuck, though, she was Cujo reincarnate.” My lips formed a smile that was, in no way, forced. “I miss the shit out of her every day.”

  “Really?”

  “Truly. She was that cool. All the council know, of course.” I shrugged. “They grew up with us so they know, but it tells you how great she was that they don’t give him shit for the name.”

  Giulia blinked at me. “I can’t believe I’m only finding this out now.”

  “Perks of working with your sister-in-law.”

  Her eyes flickered with warmth. “Yeah. I’m starting to see that.” She picked up the papers again, then wafted them at me. “Thanks for this, Indy.”

  “No worries. So, Frankie will be in on Friday, but by then, I need you to have read all that shit there.” I cleared my throat. “It’s from the Association of Professional Piercers. It’s groundwork for what you need to know. You’re lucky Frankie’s studio is an APP member or we couldn’t do this.” I winked at her. “It’s good to know people who know people.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I can see that. I also saw that I’ll need to register for some classes.” She hummed under her breath. “I’ll get that arranged within the next couple of months. Where is Frankie’s studio?”

  “The city. She travels this way for me. We came up together in a tattoo parlor in Nawlins. She’s solid. There’ll come a point where you’ll need to travel to gain some full-time experience or the hours you need to practice will take a fucking lifetime for you to earn. Not sure my brother will appreciate that.”

  Giulia hitched her shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll come with.”

  I heard the surety, the one-hundred-percent confidence in her voice, and truthfully, I was a little jealous.

  Before her, Nyx wouldn’t have left the compound for any other reason than a run. I knew he’d traveled all over the States for the club, and while, when he was younger and he’d been into extreme sports that had seen him leave the country, he was pretty much a home bird.

  I didn’t doubt either that Nyx would commute to the city for Giulia. That was what she meant to him. My brother, who didn’t like being inconvenienced, would deal with it for his woman.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe they were soul mates.

  In more ways than one if the rumors around the clubhouse were true. Maybe, in the future, I’d ask her if she really had helped him hunt… today wasn’t that day, though.

  “You coming to the clubhouse tonight to see Stone?” Giulia asked, evidently unaware that I was having a ‘come to Jesus’ moment.

  “I was supposed to, but not anymore. I have some late appointments. You’ll need to get used to that too,” I said with a snort. “Crazy fucking hours.”

  “I can deal with that. It’s not like I don’t live that now.”

  The heavy throb of straight pipes made the windowpanes rattle, and if that wasn’t a large enough clue that Nyx was heading our way, or at least one of the Sinners, then I wasn’t as smart as I believed.

  Giulia perked up at the noise which I thought was pretty fucking sweet, and a few minutes later when Nyx made an appearance, she leaped to her feet and launched herself at him. He laughed, then grabbed her by the ass and hauled her tighter into him. When he started groping her, I rolled my eyes and returned my att
ention to my designs.

  After Giulia had been thoroughly kissed, a whisper of sensation had me looking up. I gulped when I saw Cruz was standing there, silent as ever. Licking my lips, like I could taste what we’d done last night, his soft smile was in no way soft—at least, not to someone else. He was a hard man, but I’d been raised with a hard man, had grown up surrounded by them. I knew how to sense someone’s tender side, even if I didn’t always want to see it.

  Something about him had wormed its way into my defenses, and I’d admit that I was getting to the point where I was looking forward to seeing him.

  Talk about a miracle.

  Unbidden, I moved my legs restlessly, and his gaze dropped down, those enigmatic eyes of his tracing the slight motion that made me hyper aware of the area between my thighs.

  He’d watched me slide into these shorts this morning. Knew I wasn’t wearing panties. He’d fastened my bra for me before he’d watched me put on my shirt.

  I’d say he was a voyeur, but it went deeper than that. He didn’t just get a kick out of watching, he loved obliterating the walls I routinely constructed. Not just against him, but against all men.

  Shit, most women too.

  Only one person, aside from Cruz, knew about Kevin, and that was Stone, and she knew the palatable truth. I’d never told her the extent of Kevin’s abuse. Had given her a white-washed version, and she thought I was an insomniac because I had nightmares that revolved around Carly.

  I didn’t.

  My nightmares were—

  My throat turned thick as the past invaded my present.

  Like it usually fucking did.

  “Indy.”

  His voice was calm. Enough that it didn’t disturb Nyx and Giulia’s make-out session at the front of my fucking tattoo parlor, but firm enough that it jolted me from ancient history.

  I blinked. “Cruz.”

  I didn’t reach for him, he didn’t reach for me. So why did it feel like we were back in the bath? Him tending to me, grounding me?