by Nicole James
He pins me with his eyes. “I got us a motel room. Last one they had.”
I freeze. “Oh.”
“You got a problem with that?”
I swallow. Do I? “No,” I squeak out like a mouse and turn my eyes to the windshield, a million thoughts racing through my mind. Will there be one bed or two? Will we have sex? I panic as another thought pops in my head. Which panties did I slip on this morning? For the life of me, I can’t remember. I almost want to pull my waistband out and peek. My hand itches on my thigh. I rub my palm across it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Are we going to do it? Do I want to do it? Do I really have it in me to resist him if he makes a move on me? Do I want him to make a move on me? I finally drag in a slow breath.
“You okay?”
My gaze darts to him. He’s watching me closely. “I’m fine. How are you?”
“What happened in there? You usually stay longer.”
I shake my head and stare out the passenger window. I can’t even concentrate on my fucking father right now. How can he be thinking about my father right now? We may be having sex soon. I start deep breathing again. Fuck, I can’t have a panic attack. I’ve never had one before, but maybe they run in the family. My mother’s had quite a few.
All too soon he’s turning the truck into a motel. It’s one with exterior doors so we won’t have to troop through the lobby. He pulls around to the end and parks, and then lifts a finger off the steering wheel to point. “This one’s ours. We got lucky. It’s on the first floor at least.”
I wouldn’t say the motel is a dump; it looks about mid-grade on the quality scale, but it’s not a national chain, at least not one I recognize.
He shuts the truck off and looks over at me. “You ready?”
I nod and put my hand on the door. The minute I step out, my shoe sinks into the standing water. The parking lot is indeed starting to flood. I dash up under the second story walkway, out of the downpour, and meet him at the door.
“Ow wee,” he yells out, shaking the rain off his head and sliding the card in the lock. He has to yank on the handle a couple of times before it opens. I stare at the number on the door—sixteen—and suddenly that’s how old I feel.
We enter, and the room is frigid, the AC blasting from the old unit under the window. There is indeed just one queen bed.
He sees that I stare at it but ignores the issue and moves to crank on the heat.
I slip off my wet shoes and rub my hands on the flannel sleeves of his shirt, grateful that at least I’m dry.
When Gypsy is through adjusting the heat, he moves to the desk and picks up a pizza delivery menu. “You hungry?”
I jump at the chance to delay what is probably the inevitable. “Sure. Pizza would be great. You think they’re delivering in this storm?”
“Let’s find out.” He pulls his phone out and makes the call while I wander into the bathroom. Not because I need to, but just to get some privacy from him for a minute while I try to keep my internal freak-out at bay. Once the door is closed between us, I make a face and stare at the ceiling, mouthing all kinds of swear words. I finally breathe deep and tell my reflection to calm the fuck down. He’s just a guy.
Yeah, just a guy that gave you the best sex of your life and is currently and probably will always be a DK. And not just any DK, but a DK in your father’s chapter. Fuck, shut up!
I breathe again and remind myself that I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. But that’s the problem… My body is all too willing, and I’m the one I have to worry about, not Gypsy. He might make a play for me, but he’d never do a thing if I didn’t consent. That I know I don’t have to worry about.
I wash my hands and splash water on my face. I grab a towel and pat my cheeks dry, then stare at my reflection, breathing into the terry fabric. I’m being silly. He may not want to make a play for me, and if he doesn’t, this whole internal argument I’m having with myself will be moot. Because it’s for certain I won’t be the one coming on to him.
Somewhere deep in my brain a little voice whispers, “You so sure about that?”
When I can’t stay in the bathroom any longer, I turn off the water and walk out.
He’s lying on the bed, the remote in his hand, flipping through the channels. He looks over at me. “Got us a large with everything and a liter of cola. Place is right down the street. Should be here in half an hour.”
“Oh, good. Thanks.” I tuck my leg under me and sit next to him on the mattress. “What are you watching?”
“Trying to find the weather. See if this is going to clear up anytime soon.” He stops on a local channel. The radar shows that it isn’t slowing until sometime in the middle of the night. “Guess we’re stuck here.”
“Guess so.”
“Anybody you need to call?” he asks.
I shake my head. “You?”
“Nope.”
“These rides down here… Am I keeping you from club stuff?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I’ve been working around it.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“My mom told me the club is different now with new people. Is that true?”
He shrugs. “We ran off a few guys when Rusty took over. The vibe is different now that your dad and some of them are gone, no denyin’ that.”
“For the better?”
He meets my gaze. “Yeah. For the better. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“Got anything else you’re wonderin’ about?”
Yes, if sex with him would ever be as good as I remember it. But that’s not what I say. Instead I ask, “Tell me why you owe my mother a favor.”
He exhales deeply and stares at me. “Why do you wanna know?”
It’s my turn to shrug. “She’s not the kind of person who does many nice things for people and not the kind who makes them feel like they owe her a favor in return. I’m curious.”
He crosses his arms and looks at the ceiling, and I’m sure he’s done with the conversation. But then he starts to talk.
“It was years ago… hell, probably a decade or more. Back when your old man ran things. I was still just a prospect. There were two of us at the time. The club treated prospects like crap, back then especially. Ran us ragged, berated us, beat on us. We were less than dogs in their eyes. I was working my tail off. I was exhausted all the time, and I just felt I was failing everyone around me, like I was failing the club, failing the other prospect.”
I frown. “Why would you say you were failing the other prospect? What was your responsibility to him?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
He’s got a faraway look in his eyes, and I can tell that in his mind, he’s back in the past.
“And?”
“His last name was Dirks, but everybody called him Dirt. The guys were really hard on him. As bad as they were on me, he took the brunt. He was just a kid, barely eighteen. One night most of the brothers had gone home, and it was only Dirt, the club’s VP, and me. Dirt made a mistake. That night when he was exhausted and too slow to get Rat his beer, the man put Dirt’s hand in the chest style cooler they had behind the bar and slammed the metal top down on it. Broke a bunch of bones. Mangled it good. I was close by and could hear the crunch. Dirt screamed. Hell, who wouldn’t have? But Rat didn’t like that and dunked his head in the dishwater in the nearby sink. Held him under so long the kid drowned.
“I stood there, not ten feet away and didn’t stop him. I did nothing, just stared, stricken in place, my eyes moving from Rat’s evil face to that water, until the bubbles stopped rising and the kid went slack.
“Rat just let go, and Dirt slumped to the floor.”
“What happened?”
“He kicked his dead body and told me to get rid of it.”
“Oh my God.”
“Ain’t gonna tell you the rest of what I did, but the next day, I was in the clubhouse, in the back kitchen. The place was empty. At least I thought it was. I sat there, thinking
about what happened to that poor kid and how I’d done nothing. I pulled out my gun and looked at it and saw a way out. It’d be so easy to just eat a bullet. Belle talked me out of it that night.”
“How?” I find it surprising that my mother was the one who saved him.
“I didn’t hear her come in, but when I glanced up, Belle was standing in the doorway. I guess I had tears in my eyes. I just know she knew immediately what I was planning.”
“What did she do?”
“Told me nothing was worth that, that I had so much to live for, and if I didn’t want to be a DK, I should just leave. Just get on my bike and go.”
“Guess it worked. You’re still here.”
“She made me breakfast, and we talked some more. Then Growler came in and told me to go wash his bike, so I did.”
“She never told anyone?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
“And you stayed.”
“Two days later, they took a vote and I got my colors. I’ve never known if that had to do with Rat buying my silence or Belle putting that idea in Growler’s head.”
“Maybe a little of both,” I say.
“Maybe.”
“After all that, you still wanted to be one of them.” It wasn’t a question, but he answered it anyway.
“By then I was in so deep. I’d already done the worst part; my colors were the payoff. Hard to walk away at that point.”
“So they bought your soul.”
He shakes his head. “Maybe I didn’t have one to buy.”
“Don’t say that.”
He looks at me for the first time since he started talking. “You’re probably right to stay clear of us.”
Suddenly I don’t feel like I want to stay clear of him. He could never be as vile as some of the others. He watches me, and my skin heats.
“You’re so damn pretty, Tess,” he says quietly.
I drag in a breath, filling my lungs with his intoxicating scent. My gaze travels over his face, settling on his mouth, and I realize I want to kiss him. I may have even leaned in.
“We stay in here all night, you know what’s gonna happen, don’t you?” he asks, laying it out on the table.
I give him a barely perceptible nod, my eyes still on his mouth.
He doesn’t wait for me to kiss him; he leans in and takes my mouth in a scorching kiss, and I fall to the bed as he pushes me down.
There’s a banging on the door. Gypsy breaks our kiss and glances toward it. “Give me a minute.” He pays for the pizza, drops it on the desk, and then returns to the bed. He stands at the foot and looks down at me. There’s hunger in his eyes, but it’s not for food.
“You want to eat now or later?”
“Later,” I whisper.
That’s all he needs to hear to begin stripping out of his clothes. I’m suddenly shy and reach back and flick the bedside lamp off, leaving the room in dusky shadows.
There’s a boom of thunder, and I jump. Frantic now, I undo my jeans and pull them off, then the flannel shirt. Before I can get the rest, an arm hooks around my belly pulling me to the mattress.
Gypsy moves over me, his warm, muscled chest pressing against my breasts and stomach.
His mouth closes over mine, and I lose all train of thought. There’s nothing but his mouth, his warm body, and the way his hand strokes down my side. He slips it under me to flick the hook of my bra, and he tosses it to the floor.
He wastes no time touching my breasts, taking one in his big palm and squeezing, then guiding my taught, eager nipple to his mouth.
I moan at the first touch of his wet mouth. The heat covers me and then he sucks, and I arch my back, throwing my head back. “Oh, yes.”
I lift a foot and run the sole down the back of his leg, urging him on. He rolls to his side, lifts his head, and gazes down at my panties. He slides one palm along my quivering belly, dipping right under the elastic edge to cup my hot, wet pussy. A second later a finger slips inside me, and I suck in a sharp breath.
His thumb swirls in a circle until my clit is revealed, and then he gives it all his attention.
I stroke my hand over his shoulders and thread my fingers up into the hair at the nape of his neck. I pull his attention from watching himself play with my pussy, and his eyes lock with mine.
He twists and gives me a kiss, but he will not be deterred and slides down my body to settle between my thighs.
“Can’t tell you how many nights I’ve lied in bed, jerking off to the memory of your sweet pussy clenching down on my dick and your release coating it.”
At his words, my breathing shallows and my skin flushes, those images flashing before my mind’s eye. I undulate on the bed, and he smiles, his eyes dark on me right before he gives me that first sweet lick of his tongue. The erotic brush of his close-cut beard skates along my inner thighs and sends jolts of bliss shooting through my belly straight to my clit.
He zeros in on it and sucks, and my hips lift off the bed. He settles in for a good long stay between my thighs, licking and sucking and lapping up my rush of release until I’m writhing under him.
He glances up and locks eyes with me. “I could stay right here all day, baby. Watch you come again and again and be content.”
His thumbs take up where his mouth leaves off, and I’m panting, climbing closer and closer to the summit.
“Pinch your nipples,” he orders and I do. The sharp zing of pain is just enough to push me right over the edge, and I cry out. He sucks hard, sharpening the orgasm. I moan long and low. He doesn’t give me a moment before he’s up on his knees, pushing my thighs apart, taking his erection in his hand and plunging inside my slick heat.
Oh, God. It makes everything intensify, and I moan again. He grabs my ass and lifts me up until its just my shoulders on the mattress, then he pounds into me, wild and relentless, as if he hasn’t had sex in weeks, months, years.
“Just as good as I remember,” he grunts. “Never had another woman this good. Never, baby.”
He pounds into me, and there’s something about the way he takes me, the way he takes control of my body that has me wanting more, wanting everything he has to give. I want to give him anything he wants. Totally submit to him.
He’s quick to ramp up, and he’s soon telling me he’s close. He shifts, moving over me, his hands on the bed near my face, looming over me as he continues to thrust into me. He dips his head, and his mouth covers mine for just a moment, then his body goes rock solid, and he comes long and hard before collapsing on top of me.
I revel in the feel of the weight of his body on me. It’s comforting and arousing at the same time, and I don’t ever want him to move.
I stroke the skin of his back, tracing light patterns down his spine, tracing the indentations of the dimples at the base, and then gliding down over the globes of his ass.
He groans, then lifts his head and begins sucking on my neck. His mouth eventually moves down to my breasts, and he lavishes my nipples with endless attention that lasts so long I feel his dick begin to expand again. My body can’t help but give in to the urge to clamp down around it, hard.
He groans and demands, “Again. Don’t stop.”
I give him what he wants, and his mouth gets more urgent until he begins to thrust in and out of me with long, slow strokes. My body responds, my hips lifting to meet each one. He pulls back, flips me over and yanks my ass up in the air, driving right back inside me so deep that I moan, my face pressed to the mattress.
At this angle he hits that sweet spot with every long stroke and soon my hands are fisting in the cotton sheets.
“More,” I plead softly.
“Gonna give you more, babe.”
“Don’t stop.”
“Not stoppin’. I’ll fuck you as long as you want it, angel. I’ll give you anything you want. My mouth, my fingers, my dick.”
“Touch me,” I say.
He reaches around and finds my clit. “There, baby? That what you want?”
>
“God, yes.”
He works those magic circles while his dick works that internal magic spot and soon I’m thrashing, gasping, and begging. “Please, please. Yes.”
“Come for me, Tess.”
Two more strokes and I do, shattering into a million sparkling pieces that fall from the sky like fireworks trailing to the ground.
He locks his hands tight around my hip bones and hauls me back for his final thrust, then he too, explodes in orgasm.
Gypsy falls to the mattress, sweating and breathing hard. I turn into him, and he pulls me close. I feel safe cuddled against his side. I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like to have him in my bed every night, to have this blissful feeling every time I come home, and he takes me in his arms. It’s a dream I know I can’t have. Whatever this is, it’s only temporary. That’s all it can ever be, because it’s all I’ll allow it to be. The risk to my heart loving a man like him is too great. I’ve vowed I’ll never let myself fall for someone so wrong for me. Still, I’ll take what I can get and enjoy the moment while it lasts.
I rest my head on his shoulder and absently trace a finger over a tattoo as his fingertips stroke gently down my spine. I hate that he’s a DK. I hate that he might someday be where my father is. I can’t stop myself from bringing it up. “It’s so depressing in that prison. I would hate for you to end up there.”
“Don’t plan on it, honey.”
“Promise?” I lift my head to look at him. Even if I can’t have a man like him in my life, I still want him to find happiness. I’m afraid for him—afraid he’s only got tragedy ahead of him.
He dips his chin to peer at me, smiling. “Cross my heart.”
I drop my head to his shoulder, settling in and changing the subject to something safer. “Growler had another visitor today.” I feel his body tense, and he frowns.
“Yeah? Who?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Some woman. I passed her as I was leaving.”
“How do you know she was there for Growler?”
“The guard came to our table and told him he had another visitor. There was no one else in the waiting room when I left. Had to be her. Besides, she was dressed like a biker.”
“How so?”