“Girls.”
Ripper’s voice was low but harsh and both our heads swiveled toward him. Using his bottle of beer, he gestured between us. “Lockdown’s wearin’ on everyone, yeah?”
Tegen sighed noisily. “If by wearing on us you mean driving us all to the brink of insanity from having to watch you all drink yourselves into oblivion, belch and fart and whore it up with whatever walks by, then yes, I’m a little worn.”
Both ZZ and Ripper burst out laughing. Leaning over the bar to ruffle her hair, ZZ grinned at her. “You’re one badass little motherfucker, you know that?”
She swatted at his arm, trying to duck away from his hand. “Piss off!” she yelled, throwing a stack of bar coasters across the bar, missing ZZ by several feet.
“Danny.”
Swallowing hard, I glanced over at Ripper.
“You’re thinkin’ again,” he said quietly. “And whatever you’re thinkin’ you really ain’t likin’.”
“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m totally, completely, one hundred percent fine.”
“You’re not,” he said. “You’re readin’ into shit you shouldn’t and makin’ up all sorts of crazy inside that head of yours.”
Damn him.
“Fine,” I hissed, slapping my hand down on the bar. “You want to know what I’m thinking about, I’ll tell you. I don’t like being a secret, that’s what. I don’t like that those stupid sluts can just walk up to you, thinking they can touch you. If they knew about me, that wouldn’t happen when I was around.”
Realizing what I’d just said, and that I’d said it not so quietly in a room full of people who would undoubtedly be interested to know why I was having such a personal conversation with Ripper, I slapped my hand over my mouth and shut my eyes in dismay.
When I braved looking up again, I found the club exactly as I’d left it. No one was paying me any attention, Tegen was still yelling at ZZ, Ripper was still beside me, still leaning over the bar, still looking right at me. Smiling.
“You tryin’ to tell me you’re my old lady, Danny?”
Yes.
“No,” I whispered and watched his smile turn into a full-fledged grin.
“Liar,” he whispered back.
“I hate you.”
“Liar.”
“Now I really hate you.”
Standing up straight, he slid his empty bottle across the bar toward ZZ, using the action to lean into me. “Five minutes,” he breathed over the top of my head. “Your room.”
Then he left me sitting there, staring after him, feeling like a complete moron for freaking out.
For the next five minutes I stayed where I was, my stomach fluttering with anticipation, watching the clock on the wall. After the longest five minutes of my entire life had gone by, I slid slowly out of my seat and began navigating through the groups of people. Once I’d cleared the hallway, filled with exhilaration and anticipation, I started running to where I knew he’d be waiting. My bedroom. I don’t know how he did it—avoid the cameras, somehow knowing where to step and how to time it so his entrance to my room wouldn’t be recorded—and I didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was there in my room waiting for me and I was—
I burst through my door and nearly crashed into him. Grabbing my arm, he swung me further inside and kicked the door shut with his boot, locking it quickly.
“Why do you do this shit?” he demanded, looking me up and down as he walked me backward.
“Do what?” I asked, playing dumb.
“You know what,” he muttered, shoving me backward, already unzipping his leathers.
I scooted backward over my bed, bunching my skirt up around my waist, then quickly wiggling out of my underwear.
“Shirt off,” he growled, staring at the bared lower half of my body, slowly stroking himself. I watched him touch himself, growing harder as he continued to gaze at what I was freely offering him, turning myself on by doing so.
Once my camisole was gone, Ripper took a long, leisurely look up and down my naked body, further propelling my hormones into overdrive.
“Don’t know why you’re thinkin’ I want club ass when I got all this waitin’ on me.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I just…got jealous.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, using his body to push me onto my back again, then he was propping himself over top of me and pushing a finger up inside me. “I know.”
Moaning, I reached up, wrapped my arms around his neck, trying to pull him down to kiss me but he turned away.
“I wanna watch you,” he said softly, adding another finger.
Pure lust shot from the apex of my thighs and straight up my body, exploding in my stomach and lungs, making me shiver and clench tightly around his fingers.
The things this man made me feel just by speaking was unreal. At times I wanted to weep from the sheer sensation of never before experienced feelings that I knew had already wrecked me for any other man.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he muttered, increasing the speed of his finger thrusts.
“Are you going on the run to North Dakota?” I panted.
“No.”
“Mick said my father’s going once he gets back from New York.”
“Yeah…Danny?”
“Hmm?”
“Can we not talk about your old man right now?”
“But I was thinking…” I trailed off, breathless.
“Never good,” he muttered and added another finger.
My eyelids fluttered as I tried to stay on task.
“Eyes on me,” he growled.
“Mostly everyone is gonna be gone,” I whispered, trying to focus on his face. “So I was…oh my god…”
My orgasm hit me hard and for a moment I forgot all about what I was talking about. I’d never had an orgasm before Ripper, before that night at the lake, that hadn’t been a result of using my own hand. The difference between a self-induced orgasm and an orgasm given by a man is like comparing a rainy day and a rainstorm. Rain was a sure thing, you knew exactly what you were going to get: a clean and crisp, both sweet and refreshing experience. But rainstorms were unpredictable, they were riddled with surprises, messy and wet; they were something you had no control over.
Rainstorms brought you to your knees, soaking you in uncontrollable need, lightning flashing before your eyes while you dug your fingers deep into the earth, trying to hold on; unable to tell which was louder…the thunder roaring in your ears or the pounding of your heart.
Ripper was my rainstorm, my skin-drenching frenzy, where you couldn’t tell right from left, where all you could feel was the phenomenon exploding throughout your body, feverishly burning through you even as it pleasurably cooled.
I came back to awareness as he rolled me onto my stomach and lifted my hips.
“You were thinking?” he asked, laughing softly as he positioned himself at my entrance.
I had to work fast. He was nearly inside me and once he was moving inside me, all would be lost.
“That we could spend a couple days together at your house and—”
I cried out as he slammed inside of me and his hand slapped down across my mouth.
“Shh,” he whispered, pulling out of me only to slam back inside. I cried out again, this time the sound mostly muffled by his hand, only to end up crying out again and again as his body repeatedly met mine, harder and faster and harder still until I was screaming against his hand, another orgasm pulsing through my already over-sensitized flesh.
Flipping me over, he slid back inside of me, but before I could react, his tongue shot out, stealing all sound from my mouth and the breath from my lungs and we kissed and kissed, faster and harder, as he worked my body into a needy hysteria, leaving me begging to be sated.
…And he did just that.
Staring down at me, Ripper was growling—honest-to-god throaty growls were erupting from deep within his chest, vibrating against my breasts, and I was pretty sure it was the most wonderful sound I�
�d ever heard in my entire life—as I stared up at him feeling…
Just feeling.
I felt dizzy, drunk with need, and beautiful and wanted and alive.
I never wanted it to end.
• • •
“Goddamn,” Ripper groaned, feeling his orgasm closing in. “Good goddamn, Danielle.”
“Oh my god,” Danny panted, grinding her hips upward into him, grabbing at him, driving him fucking nuts with how crazy into him she was. “Oh my god…”
His grip on her hair and ass tightened. “Gonna…come…baby, gonna…”
Biting down on Danny’s lower lip, he swallowed her whimpers and cries as he finished hard, still thrusting.
He waited there a moment, still deep inside of her, watching her beautiful blue eyes blink up at him, her nostrils flare with heavy, needy breaths, felt the moisture of her mouth against his.
When his breathing had returned to normal, he pulled out of her, watching while her soaked pussy clenched, as everything he’d just released inside of her began sliding out onto her pink comforter. No matter how perversely narcissistic, it was hands down the hottest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.
And fucking without a condom. Fuck him, it felt so damn good, wasn’t anything he’d ever done before or been able to do with the dirty bitches who hung around the club. But with Danny he wasn’t worried; the girl was clean, an idiot with half a brain would know that, and she was on the pill. Which apparently was some big, bad secret that only she and Eva knew about and after telling him, made him promise not to spill the beans to Deuce or Cage.
Yeah. Right. That was the first thing that had gone through his head. Tell the brother and father of the bitch I’m fucking that she’s secretly on birth control.
Sure… Maybe if he had a death wish.
Rolling off her he fell onto his back beside her. “Jesus,” he muttered, staring up at the ceiling. “That was—”
“Awesome?” she suggested.
He glanced over at her and smirked.
“It is always like this?” She sighed happily, smiling at him. “So…so…sexalicious?”
He almost laughed but a wave of realization knocked him straight on his metaphorical ass. No. It wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t ever like this.
Sex had never been this goddamn good before.
“Because the other guy I—”
“No,” he growled, frowning at her. The last thing he wanted to think about was some asshat up inside what was his. “It ain’t ever like this.”
Her smile widened. “Then we got lucky,” she whispered.
Ripper stared at her, feeling all kinds of weird shit happening inside of him, shit that was going down a whole lot faster than it should be, shit that should be scaring the ever-loving crap out of him.
But it wasn’t.
“Yeah, baby,” he whispered back, pulling her into the crook of his arm. “We sure as fuck did.”
“So, can we go to your house?” she asked, kissing her way up his chest.
Threading his fingers through a handful of her hair, he closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her mouth on him. His house? His house, or rather his one-bedroom cabin in the middle of the mountains, was his sanctuary. Where he went when he couldn’t take one more second of the bullshit always surrounding the club, the constant noise, people always coming and going.
Cupping the back of her head, he kissed her hard. “We’ll talk about it later,” he muttered against her mouth as he debated on whether he wanted to fuck her doggy first and then have her ride him, or make her ride him first and then flip her onto her knees. “Got more important things to do right now and not a whole lot of time.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Uncomfortable, Deuce shifted irritably in one of the two high-back wooden chairs Preacher had in his office.
With his hands steepled in front of him, his elbows propped on top of his monstrous, archaic, wooden desk, Preacher nodded gravely. “I agree. Big Jay’s gotta go. I’ve ’bout had it with his fuckin’ games and now this shit, hittin’ the Horsemen up when I’ve been payin’ them more than enough just to let our boys cross the fuckin’ street in their territory.”
Deuce stared at him, his head not really into the conversation but instead wondering how his boys would feel about him handing them over to Preacher and consolidating both clubs. Preacher was a strong leader; he took good care of his boys and their families. He would do the same for the Horsemen.
He could leave then. Take to the road knowing Eva, his kids, and his club would all be looked after.
“I’ll kill you,” Preacher growled and his head jerked up.
“What?”
“I said, I’ll fuckin’ kill you if you hurt either of them girls of mine.”
What the fuck? How the fuck? Was the guy a fucking psychic?
“What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”
“You think I don’t know what a man looks like when he’s thinkin’ ’bout runnin’? Seen it a hundred different times on a hundred different men. Life starts takin’ its toll, they’ve seen too much shit, done too much shit, and suddenly they’re drownin’ their bullshit in booze and pussy, and their marriages are fallin’ apart, and they’re hittin’ the bottle even harder, and then they’re dippin’ into shit they shouldn’t. All they wanna do is get on their bike and hit the road, start over, or find a quiet place to curl up and die.”
Deuce didn’t say anything. He didn’t have anything to say. Preacher was dead-on and he was too goddamned tired of everything to argue with the man.
“You think I didn’t wanna run?” Preacher shook his head. “You think I wanted to raise a little girl without her mama in a club full of assholes? And after I found out what Frankie had been doin’ to my baby, right under my nose? But what fuckin’ choice did I have? The day I put this patch on…”
Preacher slapped his hand over his “Prez” patch on his cut.
“The day you put that patch on was the day you handed over your life. You ain’t just the prez, Deuce, you ain’t just runnin’ a club, leadin’ those boys. It ain’t just a responsibility.
“It’s you, brother; your club, your boys are you. You start bleedin’ and they’re all gonna bleed with you. The club comes first, you know it, I know it, every man who gets patched in knows it. Don’t matter how bad shit gets with your old lady, your girls on the side, your fuckin’ kids, you gotta keep goin’. Those boys of yours and their families, they are your family too. They ain’t just respectin’ you or lookin’ up to you, they’re countin’ on you to do right by them. You know this shit, Deuce, the club always—”
“Comes first,” he growled, interrupting Preacher. “I fuckin’ know.”
“Yeah, you know it, but preachin’ it ain’t livin’ it. Time to get back to livin’ it.”
Fuck. As much as he hated Preacher, mainly because the fucker had shot him twice, he couldn’t dispute a single word the man had said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like you any more than I liked you when I first saw you pawin’ at my underage daughter,” Preacher growled. “But for some fuckin’ reason she loves you, meanin’ I’m keepin’ my mouth shut.”
Deuce narrowed his eyes. “You call this keepin’ your mouth shut?”
Preacher shrugged. “I’m keepin’ my finger off the trigger, ain’t I?”
Jesus Christ, if Eva ever decided she hated her old man, he was going to be first in line to put this asshole in the ground. He might do it anyway, tell Eva he had no clue what happened to Preacher and for all he knew, aliens from outer space had kidnapped the slick bastard.
“You know,” Preacher continued, “me and your old man go way back. Knew him when I was just a kid. Knew your mother too, had a goddamned crush on her…and those fuckin’ dimples of hers—”
“Is there a point to this fuckin’ bullshit?” he spat. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Preacher’s crush on the mother he’d never gotten to meet.
“Yeah, asshole, and
I was gettin’ to it. Woulda gotten to it by now if you woulda kept your fuckin’ mouth shut.”
The two of them glared at each other until Preacher gave first, shaking his head and sighing.
“My point is, Reaper didn’t give a fuck about the club, didn’t give a fuck about your mother, or your brother’s mother, or any of you. All he gave a fuck about was himself and what the club or what his bitches could do for him. He wanted power and money, he used the club to get it, he wanted kids to pass the gavel to, and he used those little girls to get ’em. But when it came down to it, he ain’t never gave a fuck. And Deuce, that ain’t you. I know you got love for your boys and your family and that’s why you’re thinkin’ runnin’ is what’s best for ’em all, but I’m tellin’ you it ain’t. You leave and those boys are gonna fall apart. As for those kids you’ll be leavin’ behind, you tell me how it felt growin’ up with an old man who didn’t want ya? All you had was your little brother and when you lost Cas, then what the fuck did you have?”
Fucking shit, thinking about his old man, his mother, and his dead little brother was making it hard to breathe. Deuce rubbed the heel of his palm over his chest in a large circle.
“You had the club,” Preacher said. “And you took the mess your old man left behind and you turned that shit into a brotherhood. You tossed out the garbage, you had your boys pull their shit together, and then you started pulling in more strays then any MC I’ve ever known. Done my homework on all your boys; I know Dirty and Hawk were starvin’ on street corners before you found ’em. Know Cox was stealin’ cars for his next meal, and Ripper, seventeen, no family, didn’t know jack shit about bikes, and what’d you do? Brought them all home with you and gave ’em all a family. You leave them, you’ll be rippin’ out the rug from underneath them all and your kids won’t even have the club to fall back on. Nobody will have nothin’.”
With his arms folded across his chest, Deuce gave Preacher a half-lidded glare. “I really fuckin’ hate you,” he growled.
Unbeautifully Page 10