by Nina Levine
“Yes,” I answered.
Scott raked his hand through his hair. “Fuck, Blade, this is a fucking risky plan.”
I gave him a hard stare. “Do you think I got where I am today without risk? You can keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll likely still be pissing in the wind in a year’s time. I know what I’d rather fucking do.”
Griff looked at Scott. “He’s got a point. I’m sick to fucking death of the way the club is now.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” Scott agreed.
“Thank fuck,” I muttered.
***
I walked into Layla’s bar with a ready-to-go hard-on just after four that afternoon. Usually that was a quiet time for her, but it was just my fucking luck that wasn’t the case today. Based on the number of customers vying for her attention, she’d be at least an hour away from taking care of my dick. And that was as long as no new customers arrived.
Fuck.
She saw me and nodded her head towards my table, holding a glass up with a questioning look.
I nodded back to indicate I wanted a drink and took a seat at the table in the corner. It was the table I’d occupied every time I visited her bar over the last year, so she referred to it as my table these days.
I watched as she, Sharon and Jess handled the customers. It seemed Sharon was a good addition to the team, and Layla seemed happy with her. My hope was still that Sharon would walk away from Marcus. Mind you, we’d be taking care of that problem for her soon enough.
Fifteen minutes later, Layla brought me a drink. I admired her body as she walked towards me. She knew I loved her in a skirt and she didn’t disappoint today. The tiniest scrap of denim covered her ass, and her tits were barely encased in a tight singlet top. When she placed my drink in front of me, I grabbed her wrist to stop her.
Heat flashed in her eyes as she looked down at me. “Hey, baby,” she murmured as she placed her free hand on my cheek.
“That skirt doesn’t cover much,” I said.
I let her wrist go and moved my hand to her leg. Her eyes widened when I ran my hand up her inner leg under her skirt. She stepped closer to me, and when my fingers pushed her panties to the side, she sucked in a breath.
“Donovan,” she moaned, “I have to get back to work, baby.”
I ignored her and pushed a finger inside her pussy while I savoured the way she bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut while I did it. My other hand moved to her ass so I could tilt her forward, closer to me.
“Layla!” Jess called from the bar.
Her eyes flew open, and she stepped away from me. “Fuck,” she muttered. “You’re turning me into a fucking hussy, Donovan Brookes. Letting you finger me in fucking public.”
I stood and roughly pulled her to me. “Baby, if I wanted to fuck you in public, there’d be nothing you could do to stop me,” I growled before I crushed my lips to hers in a rough kiss.
Her lips were swollen by the time I was finished with her, and she had that glazed look in her eyes that told me she was mine.
Mine.
I let her go, turned her around, and smacked her on the ass as I rasped in her ear, “Hurry those customers along. I’ve got a dick as hard as fucking steel that needs taking care of.”
She returned to her customers, and I downed the scotch she’d given me. As I did so, I recalled Merrick’s words from earlier. I didn’t give a fuck how hung up on Layla I was, this was the fucking happiest I’d been in years.
Chapter Twenty-One
Layla
“Oh...god...” I moaned as I rode Donovan’s cock. I’d waited all night for this, and he didn’t disappoint.
“Baby, you gonna cut to the chase soon?” He sat on the bed cross-legged while I sat in his lap. It had to be one of my favourite positions. His impatient tone, though, was not a favourite of mine.
I opened my eyes and glared at him. “What the hell?”
He smirked. “You’ve been teasing the fuck out of me all night. I just want you to screw me and put me out of my misery.”
“I am fucking screwing you.”
His eyes flared with desire. “You need to hurry the fuck up because I’ve been aching to get my mouth on your pussy all day.”
Shit, my pussy loved his dirty talk. “Well, why didn’t you do that first?”
He moved his face closer to mine and growled, “Because you were dead-set on taking charge tonight and I didn’t want to ruin your party.”
I grinned at him as I squeezed his dick with my pussy. “You’re such a thoughtful man, aren’t you?”
“Too fucking thoughtful sometimes,” he muttered.
I ran my fingernails down his back and enjoyed the hiss that came from his mouth and the way his hands gripped my ass harder. “Okay, baby, let’s pick the pace up,” I whispered in his ear.
He made a face as if he was thanking God and murmured, “I’m all yours, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart.
My lips found his and I deepened our kiss while I fucked him harder and we rode out our release. After hours of build-up to this orgasm, it gripped me hard and we came together. I screamed out Donovan’s name and after he’d come, he moved his mouth to my neck and marked me there.
When he lifted his head, his eyes held his need, and he said, “My turn now.”
“Baby, I hate to break this to you, but we need to take a breather in-between, otherwise you might send me and my pussy insane from all the pleasure.”
He raised his brows. “Really? And what do I get in return?”
I grinned, loving the playful nature he didn’t show too often. Nibbling along his bottom lip, I murmured, “Sex anywhere, any way you want it tomorrow.”
“Fuck,” he said. “How the hell can a man say no to that?”
“He can’t.”
Smacking my ass, he said, “Okay, get off. I need a drink to deal with this setback.”
I crawled off him and settled myself against the headboard so I could watch him move. His muscles never failed to turn me on. I could stare at them all day. Being the woman he’d chosen to share them with made me very happy.
When he returned five minutes later, he had a bottle of scotch and two glasses from downstairs with him.
“You stealing from my bar, baby?” I asked. “Cause if you are, I’ll have to think of ways to punish you.”
His nostrils flared and his breathing picked up. His face was a wild mask of desire as he growled, “If anyone’s doing the punishing, it’ll be me, sweetheart.”
Oh, fuck.
My powerful man had no idea how much he affected me.
Everything about him affected me.
His words.
His body.
His beautiful soul.
Everything.
We stayed in that moment for a while.
Eyes never leaving each other.
Our breathing all over the place from the desire surrounding us.
Donovan eventually broke the spell and poured our drinks. He passed me mine, and surprised me with a change in conversation. “Who’s Julian?”
Shit, a name I hadn’t heard in forever.
A man I hadn’t thought of in nearly as long.
A person I didn’t want to think of.
My heart rate picked up as the memories flooded my mind. I gulped my scotch and turned my gaze back to Donovan. “Julian was a motherfucker I should have known better than to get involved with.” I gulped more scotch. Fuck, I hated dredging up memories.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his concerned eyes focused on mine. I loved the way he looked at me when he was worried about me. Sometimes, his eyes could be so soft for such a hard man. “Tell me about him,” he murmured.
I tipped the rest of the scotch down my throat, took a deep breath, and shared the darkest moment of my life with him.
“After Annie and I left home, we had nowhere to go, so we had to stay with friends for awhile. I had no work experience at all. I mean, I never had to work while I was at school because m
y parents gave me whatever I wanted. So, I struggled to find a job, which meant we couldn’t afford rent. Like I said, some friends did let us stay but we wore out our welcome eventually and ended up living on the streets. I met Julian at a café one day when I was applying for a job, and he took us under his wing and helped us get back on our feet. He found me a job with a bartender friend of his and he gave us a place to stay.” I stopped to take a breath and put my glass out for a refill.
Donovan filled my glass again before saying, “I’m not gonna like this story, am I?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He poured himself another drink and drank half of it straight away. “Fuck.” His features had hardened, and I wished we’d never started this conversation.
“We eventually started something. To me, it was just sex, not a relationship. Julian was the third guy I’d ever slept with and he showed me a whole other world of sex. He liked it rough, and I discovered I did, too, so we were a good match. Julian made it clear he wanted to keep sleeping with other women, and I had no issues with that. I was young and wanted to see what was out there. I thought him sleeping around meant I could, too. Turns out I was wrong.” I stopped again to drink some more scotch. My chest had tightened and a chill ran through me thinking about this. I raised my eyes to Donovan’s and let the care I found there help me get the rest of the words out. “He’d been getting rougher with the sex, inflicting a lot of pain, and I had started to pull away a little. I can handle rough, but only when there’s some emotion involved. With Julian, there was nothing. It was just fucking and pain while he got off. One night, I was at work and a guy I’d never met flirted with me. Julian saw it, and when we got home, he let me know just how unhappy he was that another guy had shown interest in me.” My voice caught in my throat. “He beat me so badly I ended up in hospital for days . . . He tried to kill me, but Annie saved me . . . she hit him over the head with the baseball bat he kept in his bedroom and got me out of there.” My heart beat fast in my chest and my mind swam with the bad memories. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and pretend none of this was true. I’d never told anyone this story; Annie was the only person who knew about this.
Donovan moved fast. He shifted to take me in his arms, and I let him hold me.
I needed that.
I needed him.
He didn’t say anything, and I needed that, too; the silence where our actions spoke louder than anything either of us could say.
We simply clung to each other.
Eventually, he moved us so I lay in his arms. And then he whispered, “There’s a lot of bad shit in this world, sweetheart, but you’ve got me now. I won’t let anyone or any-fucking-thing get to you again.”
I spread my arm across his chest and let my hand curl all the way around and under his side. Holding him tight, I whispered back, “Thank fuck you like crappy little bars in the backstreets . . . thank fuck you found me.”
***
We fell asleep, and I woke up a while later to his hand on my pussy, his mouth on mine. Before I was even fully awake, my instincts took over, and I opened my mouth and my legs to let him take whatever he wanted.
He can have anything he wants.
His leg shifted over mine and pushed it further apart from my other one at the same time that his hand slid from my pussy to cup my ass. He lifted my ass slightly off the bed and demanded to know, “Your pussy ready for my mouth?”
Oh, god, I was more than ready.
“Yes,” I managed to get out.
He let me go, moving down my body until his head was situated between my legs. It was still dark, and I couldn’t see his face clearly, but I could see his hunger.
My man needs me.
I shut my eyes and held onto the sheets as he flicked his tongue against my clit.
Fuck.
He used his tongue to get me wet, and then he pushed it inside me while he brought his finger to my clit. Rubbing me with his finger and exploring me with his tongue, he brought me close to orgasm, and then he backed off, pulling his face away from me.
Fuck.
I reached down to grab his hair, showing him how desperate I was for his mouth.
He placed his hand on my stomach, splaying his fingers out before roughly dragging his hand down to hold my pussy. “Jesus,” he murmured. “I can’t fucking get enough of you, baby.”
I moved my hand to cover his hand on my pussy, and our eyes met as I said, “I can’t get enough of you, either.”
My eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, and I watched as he stared at me with heat. “Fuck,” he said, before shifting our hands off me, and lowering his mouth back to me.
He gave me his tongue and his teeth, and, this time, brought me to orgasm. As the sensations shot through me, my heart constricted, and I knew this was the moment. The moment my feelings for Donovan took the leap off the cliff: a leap of complete faith that this man would hold my heart in his hands and cherish it forever.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Layla
“Layla, we need to go,” Donovan said in his impatient voice.
My head snapped up from what I was doing, and I glared at him. “Don’t use that voice on me.”
His brows quirked. “Which voice?”
“Your hurry-the-fuck-up voice,” I muttered, and looked back down at the table where I was in the middle of fighting with plastic wrap to cover the salads I’d made. Plastic wrap and I were not friends, and I was just about to throw it out of the fucking window.
Donovan moved towards me and stilled my hand by placing his over it. His warm breath whispered across my cheek when he murmured, “Let me do it.”
I turned my head slightly to look into his eyes. “How do you manage to piss me off and then make it all better in the space of two minutes?”
His lips brushed mine. “Just talented, I guess.”
I shook my head at his cockiness. “Okay, Mr Talented, hurry up, because we’re already running late and I don’t want to annoy your sister.”
He finished wrapping the salads. “Something tells me Madison is gonna love you regardless,” he said as he picked up both the salads.
“How do you figure that?”
As he began ushering me down the stairs to go to the car, he said, “My sister has been giving me grief for a while to start dating again. So you should probably expect an interrogation.”
I followed him to his car and waited while he opened the door for me. “Oh, God.”
His hand rested on my arm, stopping me. “Are you worried about this?”
There was no point lying to him, even though I would have preferred not to be this open so soon in our relationship. “Not worried so much as feeling a little anxious.” I held back the rest, hoping he’d let me off.
“Why?”
My eyes struggled to meet his, but he cupped my cheek and tilted my face up so I had no option but to look him in the eye. “I want your family to like me, and I’ve never had that feeling before. I’ve never given a shit if people liked me, so I’m a little rattled by it.”
His eyes glazed with the desire for me that was never far away. When he spoke, his voice had that growly tone to it I liked, but at the same time, there was softness there. “It means something to you that my family likes you?”
Butterflies fluttered in my tummy. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Fuck, you’re something else,” he murmured. “They’re gonna like you, and if they don’t, I couldn’t give a fuck.”
“Thank you.”
He kissed me and then asked, “We good now?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
He settled me in my seat, put the salads on my lap, and then drove us to Madison’s house. It was a good twenty-minute drive, and when we pulled up outside her home, I’d completely calmed down. Donovan’s words had eased my nerves, and I was glad I’d been honest with him.
I fell in love with Madison’s home the minute I saw it from the outside. A brick lowset, she’d landscaped the front yard with lots
of colourful flowers and a water feature. I sucked at identifying flowers, so I had no clue what kind they were, but there was such a mix of colours it reminded me of a beautiful painting. It turned out she loved colour. She’d filled her home with it: on the walls, in the decorations and with more flowers scattered throughout. I got the impression Madison loved decorating.
We walked through her home, down the hallway and ended up in her kitchen. Donovan placed the salads on the counter and smiled at Madison who was getting steaks ready for the barbeque. It wasn’t often he smiled, so I knew straight away they were pretty close.
“Blade!” She greeted him by flinging her arms around him in a welcoming hug.
I watched in interest as he let her hug him. His arms didn’t go around her but he did place his hands to her arms and hold her there. Donovan didn’t seem to be a touchy-feely man. Except where I was concerned, and then it seemed he had no problem with touching me in any way he chose.
Madison let him go and turned her attention to me. Her face lit up with delight before she pulled me into a hug, too. “I’m so glad you could come today, Layla. Blade’s been very quiet about you, so I know nothing about how the two of you met.” She let me go and gave her brother a dirty look.
Donovan scowled and turned to look at J who was walking towards us. Jerking his chin at him, he said, “J.”
J gave him a chin lift in return and said, “Blade.” He moved into Madison’s space and slipped his arm around her waist. She sunk into him, nestling her head against his chest, placing her hand on his stomach. I noticed the ring on her finger: J was her husband.
“J, this is Layla, Blade’s girlfriend,” Madison introduced me.
Girlfriend.
“We’ve met,” J said, flashing me a breathtaking smile. His smile was enough to melt the panties off any woman in close proximity.
I returned his smile. “Hi, J.”
Before anyone could say anything else, another guy came down the hallway towards us. Jesus, another fucking panty-melting dude. This guy didn’t look so friendly, though.
“Scott,” Madison greeted him quietly. She gave him a questioning look and when he shook his head, she asked, “She’s not coming, is she?”