by Zoey Parker
“Emma.” The strangled sound of that one word made her clutch around him.
“Don’t stop,” she gasped.
His body twitched, taking on that uneven rhythm of a man too close to the end to have anything resembling control. Rough hands raked over her tingling body as he struggled to make it last just a little more.
He cursed, over and over again, his voice jagged with desperation. A moment later he cried out and filled her.
# # #
The pullout bed was small with Kellan in it, but Emma couldn’t bring herself to mind. At some point they had turned on the lights, and all she could see was his long legged form laid out against the rumpled sea of her bed sheets. It looked good.
“Relaxed yet?” he asked.
“Getting there.” She smirked. She was tucked into the muscular curve of one tattooed arm.
He lay back, stretching his free arm back over his head. She watched his stomach do a fascinating dance with the moment. “All right, you just let me know when you are ready for round two. I’ll see what I can do about the rest of your tightly wound body.”
She laughed and shook her head. Her finger traced along the collarbone, and then down the center of his chest. The light brought out the colors of his tattoos. Most of them were dark ink, grayscale works of art forever imprinted on his skin, but a few had vibrant color in them.
“Did you know, in Russia, the tattoos that convicts and criminals have are basically their record? They mark what crimes they have committed on themselves like a body résumé.”
He raised one brow at her while her finger trailed over the largest one on his chest. It was just Beasts, spelled out in Old English script. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the line work involved, like ink-driven poetry.
“Arkaday Bronnikov made a big study of it between the 1960s and the 1980s. He wanted to understand exactly why criminals liked to tattoo themselves. What it was about ink on the skin that marked a person as other.” She squirmed into a half sitting position, pillowing her head on the palm of one hand while the other continued the trek across his body.
Her eyes flicked up to his face. His eyes were closed but his lips were curled into a gentle smile. The locks of dark hair had more curl to them than they’d had before, probably from all the sweating. She reached up and brushed it out of his face.
He glanced down at her. “Did he figure out why?” He lifted his head up so his eyes could follow her fingers as she spelled out the name of the club that had affected her life since childhood.
“Well, he didn’t, but a few sociologists have proposed that it goes back to warrior cultures. Many societies in which the warrior, or hunter or whatever name you want to use, was exalted using their scars to tell a story. Over time they added ink to wounds to make the scars last longer. Over time needles and ink replaced this. Their best warriors used this as a kind of bragging.”
“Yeah, I can tell you that criminals totally love to brag.” His gentle smile turned into a wide grin.
She smirked and sat up completely, tucking her legs close to her body. She leaned over him, her form still clad in red satin. “Can you tell me that criminals see themselves as warriors?”
He seemed to really think about it. Emma liked that. Her finger moved from the marking at the top of his chest to the larger picture on his arm, an attractive woman with flowing hair straddling some bike parts. At least she assumed they were bike parts.
“I do,” he admitted with a small hint of pride. “Most of the club does. Hey, I thought you were into, like, animal science. Why are you studying tattoos and criminals?”
Her gaze flicked up to his face. Her lip quirked up to one side. “Really? I mean, how weird that a girl who grew up around a criminal subculture might be interested in understanding it.”
“You could have just asked.” He patted his chest. “We would have answered.”
She shrugged. Her gaze slid away to focus on a completely uninteresting fold in the sheet. “Yeah, well. That would have taken me admitting that I didn’t know to begin with, that I didn’t pay attention, and I would have hated that. I like showing off what I know, not what I don’t.”
“You like to brag, too.” He poked a finger to her belly.
“I am my father’s daughter.” She sighed. “No matter how hard I tried not to be.”
He patted her hip. “Tell me about the Russian dude with the tattoo fetish. Archie…Bro…something”
“Arkaday Bronnikov.” She laughed. It was amazing how Kellan did that. She could have broken, she could have let herself become blanketed in her own self-doubt at her family, but he gave her a way to feel better, a way to talk. “He didn’t have a fetish, he had an interest.”
“Sounds the same to me.”
“Remind me to explain the difference between interests and fetishes later.” She smiled and waggled her brows.
“Man, you know, it’s kinda hot when you talk all this shit.” His hands went from her hips upwards to pull the satin fabric up. He revealed the creamy flesh in slow inches.
She watched him as he kept pushing the fabric farther and farther up her body. Her arms lifted above her head and the fabric came with it. The breeze was cool on her nipples.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“What?” She tried to sound as innocent as possible.
“You have a tattoo?” His grin was brilliant. “Are you serious?”
She rolled her eyes, dipping her head as her cheeks flamed with a blush. “I am my father’s daughter.”
“What is it?” He drew his finger over the patch of skin beneath her breasts, marked with the single snake twined around a rod. A simple V over the middle of it.
“The Rod of Ascelpius.”
“Is that, like, a medicine thing?”
“Yeah, I mean, okay most people know the caduceus, which has two snakes, rather than the single one. It is a common symbol of the people who take the Hippocratic oath and all that. You see it all over medical facilities and similar places. The rod and the snake are associated with an ancient Greek god of healing and medicine. The dual snake, with the wings and all that, was made for the US Medical Core, and got really popular, despite the fact that this is the more historically correct version.”
“Why?” he asked. He put a single arm around her back and pulled her unto his lap. He was still soft, the loose satiny skin of his masculinity pressed against her still damp folds.
“Smart people make mistakes, too.”
He grinned and sat up, placing a single kiss along the tattoo. “I like it”
She wiggled, and she could feel how much he liked it. He was beginning to swell against her. “Oh really?”
“Tell me more.” He kissed a line beneath her breasts, his lips trailing beneath the heavy swell. “Keep talking. I like the way you talk about all that smart shit.”
“Tell you more about what?” She gasped as his tongue darted out to caress along her breast. “Tattoos?”
“Mm-hmmm,” he purred, his teeth grazing along the tender flesh. “Tell me more.”
She did. Between kisses and licks along the bottoms of her breasts she gasped out symbolism and criminology, but her eyes fluttered back when his mouth wrapped around her taut nipple. Her hips rolled against him instinctively. He suckled at her, one strong arm wrapping around her back as she bucked.
“Kellan.”
Her hands sank into his dark locks of hair. They were curls of obsidian against her fingers, wrapping languidly around the digits. His lips suckled until her flesh puckered with the movement. A tingle started somewhere between her breast and his lips, arching along her skin with potent pleasure. The moment the pleasure edged into too much, he released her nipple.
He went from one breast to the other, back and forth, back and forth until she was dizzy with need.
“God, Kellan.”
“What?”
“You are so damn good at this.”
“Am I?” His eyes flickered with masculine pleasure.
She tightened her fingers in his hair and he gave a hiss. It wasn’t a painful one. She tugged again and his head fell back. “You know you are.”
“You are a kinky lady.”
“You like it.”
“Let me show you how much.”
He rolled her over onto her back and pressed his shaft to her opening. He was already hard; she felt the weight of it against her thigh. She made a low sound as his mouth went to her neck. It was not a soft or gentle tasting of skin, but the dragging of teeth down tender flesh.
“Oh yes,” she whispered.
He sat up, and she watched the long line of his flat stomach as he pumped the first inch of himself into her. He circled his hips, stirring her open. His hands wrapped over the curves of her thighs, parting her legs until her knees touched the bed. She felt exposed, and open in a way that went beyond the physical.
She ran her tongue over her lips, watching him shift between her thighs, skillfully keeping that blunt tip of himself rooted inside.
“Goddamn, you are pretty,” he whispered, starring down at her. She felt an unexpected blush rise to her cheeks. He circled his hips again and it sent sparks humming through her.
“Kellan?”
“Yeah?”
“Ravage me.” She pumped her hips towards him. “Make me forget the world.”
He gave a grunt of satisfaction and shoved himself into her.
Had she been unprepared it would have hurt, but her body was so pliant for his that all she felt was the sharp edge of rough pleasure. Her hands dug into the sheets and his fingers dug into her flesh. Kellan held her completely still as he did it again. With the lights on, she could see every hypnotic play of his body as he pumped himself into her.
“Like that?”
“Oh!” she gasped. “Do it again.”
He did. She felt him drive himself against the primal part of her need. She had always thought of roughness as inelegant and unnecessary, but she had been wrong.
His eyes glittered down at her as his hips picked up speed. The wet slap of their bodies echoed off the walls. She could feel each individual finger on her legs, keeping her open. A dull ache bloomed beneath his touch. There would be bruises in the morning, but she didn’t care. She felt wild and reckless, and she wanted to be taken past the point of thought.
“More,” she gasped. “Kellan, give me more.”
He fell on top of her, releasing her legs and mating his mouth to hers. His tongue plunged between her lips even as he plunged between her thighs. Her arms wrapped around his back and she clutched at him, her nails digging into his shoulders.
A layer of sweat formed where their bodies touched. It was a tantric full body mating that made her mind spin. They slipped against one another with every raw movement. There was no practiced, careful rhythm as there had been the first time, just a desperate need to feel one another. It rode the edge of too much and yet not quite enough. Emma dug her nails in hard. He tore his mouth away from hers and let loose a wild sound that drove her crazy.
“Harder,” she demanded. “Damn you, Kellan, harder.”
He pulled out of her, and she whimpered. He grabbed one hip and rolled her to her belly, lifting her backside into the air. He slipped along her cleft, once, twice, and then he was back inside of her. Her nails dug into the sheets as his hand slid up the sweat soaked line of her back. It cupped her shoulder, holding her against the mattress.
“Yes! Just like that, Kellan, just like that.”
“So beautiful,” he groaned as he levered into her over and over again.
Her body bounced, jerked with the movement, and she loved it. She could feel him pushing, pounding into the deepest parts of her body. Her orgasm came on her without warning. There was no steady, glorious build, just a wild, desperate breaking. It was blissful, unbearable, and liberating. She didn’t care, sinking into the tempest of her ecstasy as the unchecked pulse of their lovemaking crashed around them.
When it was over she slid against the sheets. Someone had left claw marks in them. Emma was only dimly aware that it was her. When she poked at them in the pleasant lethargy of afterglow he smirked.
“I think you did the same thing to my back.”
She glanced down at him. “Did I?”
He rolled over and showed her the ragged red marks that went from his shoulders down to the middle of his back.
“Oh my god, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare.” He wrapped an arm around her middle and hauled her down to him. His lips were gentle when he pressed them to hers, but firm. “I liked it.”
She smiled, and bumped her forehead against his. “Perv.”
He shrugged and settled back against the ruin of her bed. “There are worse things I could be.”
“True enough.” She settled against him, tossing one leg over his hip. There was an ache in the movement that told her she was definitely going to be bruises.
“Your mind all settled yet?”
She thought about it for a moment, then laid a kiss on his shoulder. “Yeah, I think it is.”
“Good, because I think I’ve only got one or two left in me tonight, and if you need more than that, I might have to wave a flag.”
“Poor you.”
He kissed her again. “No, no, poor you.”
Chapter 11
Kellan’s life was marked with one mistake after another. More often than not he just rolled away from them and forgot about it. He couldn’t do that here, not with Emma. That sweet little college girl hadn’t just given him a night of passion. It had turned into a three-week marathon of naked bodies and sweating flesh.
“Will you tell me about your dad?” she asked, crawling into bed one night. She was wearing one of his t-shirts and nothing else. Her hair was still mussed from their most recent bed-destroying session.
He stiffened. “What?”
“I was just thinking about my dad.”
“Emma, if after all the things we just did you are thinking about your dad, I’m gonna have to say you need to see someone.”
She laughed and shoved at his naked side with a cold foot.
He winced and grabbed it, pulling it away from his skin. “Jesus! Did you soak those in ice water?”
“I’m cold.” Her voice was soft.
He sighed and pulled the blanket around her. A very bored Rocco jumped up to add his own body heat.
She reached down and petted the beast. “You’ve stolen my dog.”
“I did not.” She turned that dazzling smile on him. “He just knows good people when he sees them. And don’t think I don’t know what you are doing.”
“What am I doing?” He wrapped an arm around her. “Man, you are cold.”
“I told you.” She hunkered down next to him. She smelled like toothpaste and rain. “And you are trying to change the subject. Tell me about your dad.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because you kinda stole mine.” She didn’t sound angry when she said it. Had she been angry, he might have been able to snap back at her, or ignore the question altogether.
He tucked the blanket tighter around them both. “He was a mean damn drunk.”
“That couldn’t have been all he was.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” She shifted her body against his and snuggled into the curve of his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his naked skin. “Because my dad was a mean damn drunk, but he was also a good person. So your dad had to be more than that.”
He could have argued it, but it wouldn’t have much mattered. Mac had been mean, especially when he didn’t get his way, and he liked his liquor as much as the next man, at least until he started chemo. It wasn’t the same, but he got what she was saying.
“Yeah, all right. He came from a poor family and thought the military was the only place for him. At least that’s what he said. He also had a habit of lying about who he was and where he came from, but that’s what he said most often, so I think it’s tr
ue.”
“So he was in the military?”
“I think he was, he could shoot like he was. He liked to shoot things. One of the things he used to do was take me out hunting. He said it was important I learn how to hunt. I couldn’t tell you why, but it seemed pretty damn important to him.”
“Oh?”