by Wilde, Kati
He comes quietly. Deep inside, I feel the heavy pulse of his release and I hold him tight, loving his weight as he settles over me. Loving the thickness of his cock still lodged in my pussy and how wet he made me. Loving the sweat on our skin and the raggedness of his breath when he buries his face against my neck.
The sweat has almost dried when he finally pulls away. Swiftly he tugs the rope free from the headboard and rips open the leather cuffs, then scoops up his jeans and heads for the bathroom, dragging off the condom. I hear the sink run and he returns, wearing his jeans and zipping his fly.
His empty gaze slides over me. “I’ll make us something to eat,” he says gruffly.
My heart pounding, I watch his broad back retreat through my bedroom door, then fall against my pillows and stare up at the ceiling. All this time, I thought Jack Hayden didn’t give a shit about me. But now I think he does.
I think he cares more than I ever imagined.
Chapter Six
I clean up in the bathroom, then pull on Jack’s long-sleeved shirt. The hem falls to my upper thighs and covers everything important so I don’t bother with underwear before heading to the kitchen.
But I take my time getting there. Each step is heavy and slow, as if weighed by the questions crowding into my head. So what if Jack cares—what does that mean? Maybe nothing. Or maybe Gunner and Stone were right and he meant to have my back all this time.
That doesn’t mean I was wrong. Tossing up shields to protect me can tear me down. If I can’t show I’m capable of defending myself the brothers would have no reason to think I can stand strong at their backs.
And maybe none of it means anything. Maybe there’s no wrong, no right. But it still matters.
Jack’s standing at the stove, facing away from me as I enter the kitchen. I don’t wait for him to turn before asking, “Did you mean to tear me down yesterday at the ring? Or every other time you supposedly had my back?”
His spine stiffens but his reply is deep and even. “Intentions don’t matter if you’re hurting someone. You can’t intend to shoot a man and hit a little kid, then claim that what you meant to do matters more than what you did. So if you felt I was tearing you down, Lily, then I was tearing you down.”
He’s right. Except that the person doing the hurting doesn’t get to decide if intentions matter. The person who’s been hurt decides.
And if he didn’t mean to, that changes everything, too. Exactly how, I don’t know yet. But I want to find out.
I move toward the stove. “So you didn’t realize you were tearing me down, but you didn’t wonder why I was always so angry with you?”
The long muscles in his back flex when he shrugs. “A lot of people are uneasy with me. Sometimes that pisses them off. If it pisses them off long enough, they start to hate me for it.”
He’s so used to people hating him that he just assumed I did, too? Jesus.
“Maybe they wouldn’t be uneasy if you didn’t sneak into their houses.”
“Maybe.” He glances over at me when I join him beside the stove. “But I think they’d be uneasy, anyway.”
“I’m not uneasy.”
His dark gaze searches my face as if trying to figure out exactly what that means. “And you’re not angry now?”
“I guess not. Even though you broke into my house, reconnoitered, and found out my stove has a grill.” With thick fillets already sizzling over it. “Steaks?”
Nice cuts that had been wrapped in butcher paper, not picked up at the supermarket.
He smiles and shoots me a wry look. “I ate at that damn Bamboo Bowl every day for almost two years, hoping it would help them stay afloat. Now I want some meat.”
Hell, yeah. I grin but my amusement fades as his words sink in. He ate there every day for two years…so he could win a bet that would let him spend a single night with me.
My chest tightens. Jack’s smile vanishes and his jaw hardens, as if he’s realizing what he’s given away.
He looks to the grill again. “How do you like yours?”
Raw and dirty. “Rare and with a lot of pepper. Do you want your shirt back?”
“There’s no point.” He turns toward me, gripping the counter on either side of my hips. “You’ve already seen me naked.”
But he doesn’t mean his skin. My breath catches as I look up into his eyes again. They’re flat, but not empty—though I still can’t read them.
And I don’t know how much to push now. Not too much. Because I think that’s why he wanted the blindfold. Not to conceal his tattoos or his scars, but because he couldn’t conceal what I ended up seeing in his eyes. He’s probably not used to being exposed, and he’s already retreated. I don’t want him to go any further.
“I just thought you might get splattered.” I flatten my hand against a solid pectoral. Warm skin, steely muscle, and I don’t ever want to stop touching him. He’s built like a freaking god. “Blistering those sexy abs would be a damn shame.”
“I don’t care about my abs,” he says gruffly. “But that’s why I zipped my jeans.”
God, yes. I laugh and slide my forefinger down the middle of his chest. The illustrations and script on the left side of his body stop exactly in the center of his torso, like a canvas cut in half. “Why only one side?”
“The left side is what hurts. The other side is what feels good.”
“Jesus, Jack,” I whisper. That means he’s covered in hurt and he’s only got the Riders’ emblem on the right side. And the biggest hurt, right over his heart, are the words Mom and Pop written in the mouth of a big flaming demon. Thorns twist around the demon’s horns, their sharp points drawn as if they’re piercing Jack’s skin, inked blood dripping and spelling another name. Jaime.
A man’s name? A woman’s? “Your first girlfriend?”
“My brother.”
The roughness of his voice starts an ache in my throat, so I trace the faint scar running from his right shoulder down to his collarbone. A knife wound. He’s taken a bullet in his side and another blade tore through his right pectoral. A soldier’s wounds, but he’s seen combat in closer quarters than I ever have. Bullets, shrapnel wounds—usually the enemy is at a distance. The ones who wield knives aren’t.
My gaze lifts to his. “You don’t need tattoos on your good side when these scars are here.”
He smiles again. God, I could get used to seeing that. “Want a drink?”
“Always. You, too? I’ve got—”
“I’ve brought some.”
He grabs two short glasses off the counter—wet glasses, and I realize that he had to wash them. Shit. My sink full of dishes. My face heats and a glance confirms there are clean plates in the strainer, at least.
My gaze swings back to Jack as he pulls a liquor bottle from his pack. Widow Jane. Though a little too pricey to drink that often, it’s my favorite bourbon.
Somehow I’m not surprised he knows that.
“Thanks.” I accept the glass he pours and watch him turn the steaks. “So that bottle isn’t lube after all.”
“No.” Though I was hoping to see his grin again, his jaw has hardened, and he glances at me before he says, “Why did you change your mind?”
“About what?”
“About tonight. You were fighting me. Then you decided not to.”
Because everything changed. But I’m not any more accustomed to laying out my feelings than he is, so I simply say, “I realized I might have been operating with faulty info. And you know me—I don’t do anything halfway. I’m either all in against you or all in with you.” I sip the bourbon, letting it roll over my tongue, loving the burn. “That’s the first thing my dad ever taught me, actually. ‘Go full throttle or don’t bother going.’ So that’s what I did.”
I know I didn’t answer him, not the way he probably wanted. His gaze searches my face as if looking for a more complete response, but he doesn’t ask what the faulty info was. He only says, “It’s a good lesson.”
“Yeah.” My
smile is bitter. “It’s also the only one he taught me that was worth anything. What was your first?”
He doesn’t even stop to think about it. “‘Take what you get and don’t ask for more.’ I don’t remember if I learned it at my mom’s table or from my pop’s fists. But they taught me the same thing.”
“That’s a pretty shitty lesson.”
His expression is bleak. “It gets me through.”
I wonder if it does. Taking another sip, I step closer as he turns to the grill again and transfers the steaks onto a plate, then covers them with foil. My hand curls up over his shoulder, gently holding him in place so the he doesn’t face me again too fast.
There are more demons on his back. More writing, too, most of it in Arabic or Farsi. Because of something that happened while he was in the service? If so, these illustrations don’t just show what hurts him, but also what haunts him.
And the central demarcation is different. It runs down his spine, but it’s not in a razor-straight line as it is in the front. Another illustration crosses over from left to right between his shoulder blades. A flower, with six curling petals—
A lily. Jack’s body stiffens as my fingers trace the stem.
I can hardly breathe. “Does this hurt or feel good?”
His voice is hoarse. “Both.”
“Why?”
He doesn’t answer. And I’ve already seen him naked, but maybe this is something that would force him to dig beneath his skin. At least the roots and bulb are on the good side. The flowering petals are, too. Only the stem crosses over into the side that hurts him.
So mostly good, not painful. Just like everything within me now. But I don’t understand what’s happening here. He could have covered this up, just like he covered what I saw in his eyes. Instead he leaves the lily exposed. Maybe he really thinks it doesn’t matter—that I’ve already seen what’s lurking beneath, so this doesn’t tell me anything new.
Except that I don’t know what I’ve seen. Everything seems tilted, as if I’m peering through thick eyeglasses. Even the way Jack turns to look at me. Like I’m suddenly brand new to him, too.
As if he’s trying to figure out a Lily who doesn’t hate him. As if he can’t figure out why I wouldn’t.
I step back and set my glass on the counter. “I’m yours for the night. Yet you eat me out and fuck me senseless and then feed me. Why don’t you have me on my knees sucking your cock?”
“The bet’s about what I do to you. Not what you do to me.” Despite his response, new tension seems to tighten his shoulders and his gaze drops to my lips, as if he’s suddenly thinking of my mouth wrapped around his dick.
Suddenly I’m thinking of it, too. “You could ask for it.”
“No.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Your parents taught you well.”
Take what you get and don’t ask for more.
That bleakness returns to his gaze. “Yes.”
Jack didn’t ask the night I fought Valentine, either. Instead he wanted to know if I was offering a hate fuck…so that he could take what he was given.
“What if I offer?”
Gaze dangerously focused, he pushes away from the counter. “Are you?”
“The steaks have to rest, right?”
“Yes.” His eyes gleam a little as he stops in front of me.
God, I love having his big body so close. “How long? They’re pretty thick.”
“Five more minutes.”
“So what do you think?” I hook my forefinger around his belt loop and tug him even closer. “Can I make you come again in five minutes?”
“No.”
His answer throws me. I blink up at him. “Did you just say no?”
Strong hands catch my arms. “I just remembered that you refused to come against my mouth.” He tugs the too-long sleeves down over my hands and knots the ends together. Tying me. “So I’m going to eat my dessert early.”
Oh, God, yes. But I keep it cool as he backs me toward the breakfast table. “And you think you can make me come in five minutes?”
“Don’t much care how fast.” He hefts me up onto the small table and takes a seat between my legs. “The longer it takes the wetter your pussy gets and the better— You’re not wearing any fucking panties under my shirt.”
Grinning, I set my bare feet on his shoulders. “Nope.”
“Christ.” He leans in and my heels slide down his back, my knees hooking over his wide shoulders. His voice deepens. “Don’t you fight me now, Lily.”
I won’t. This is the one thing I’m not going to fight. My breath shudders when his warm breath whispers over my pussy. “God. Just go hard at my clit. And— Oh, fuck, yes.”
He goes hard. So hard. And just right, his fingers sinking into me, his tongue merciless, and all of it loud and wet and rough, and I don’t know if it’s one minute or ten before I’m coming with Jack sucking on my clit and my hips jerking uncontrollably, my voice hoarse from crying his name. My pussy’s still clenching when he flips me onto my stomach, scattering magazines across the table. He rips open a condom and impales my cunt with a single deep thrust. I cry out, my fingers curling inside the knotted sleeves, then he lifts my knee up onto the table, holding me open and slamming into me again, deeper, harder. His big hands pin my hips and he fucks me relentlessly, skin slapping skin and all of it louder and wetter and rougher, and so good. I can’t catch my breath. His hand shoves between my legs and he pinches my clit and I didn’t think I could come again but now every hard surge into my pussy brings me closer and closer, until I’m chanting his name with every stroke of his cock, need twisting to a frantic pitch.
His teeth clamp down on my shoulder and I break, my body rigid, crying out in agonized release. Grunting, Jack fucks hard into my pussy again before his body stiffens. His thick shaft pumps convulsively inside me.
“God.” I lay sweating, with my cheek flat against the table, my pussy stuffed with his cock and my arousal sliding wetly down my inner thighs. “So good.”
Those few breathless words are all I have left. Jack chuckles and presses his lips to my shoulder, his chest heaving against my back, then he groans and pulls out.
And I have more left, after all. I pivot back and fall to my knees, my hands trapped within my sleeves. Jack stills, his long fingers curled around his shaft, stripping off the condom. His cock is still rigid.
“Take off the rubber,” I tell him hoarsely.
He drags it off and I swiftly lick the cum dripping from the broad crown before swallowing as much of his length as I can. His body curls in like I’ve sucker punched him, the chiseled muscles of his abdomen tensing, his fingers sliding into my hair as if to pull me away. But he doesn’t, and I suck hard, knowing that it’s too much, that he just came and he’s too sensitive, that each stroke of my tongue will be as much agony as pleasure. Still he takes what I give him. I’d like to give him more.
But I ease back, and grin when Jack collapses into the chair behind him. I rise and straddle his lap, then kiss his smiling mouth.
I could definitely get used to this.
• • •
The steaks are amazing. We’re quiet as we eat but the silence isn’t full of tension, just hungry appreciation for a damn fine cut of meat. But even though my mouth’s all in, my stomach isn’t big enough to eat the whole thing, and I slide my plate over to Jack for him to finish if he wants it.
I start picking at my salad. “Have you had a chance to contact Creek yet?”
“No. I’m hoping he’s pushing Croc to be the one who comes after me.”
“He probably won’t come alone. He’s not the enforcer.”
“I’ll work it out.”
“And find out why he’s here without exposing him?”
Jack nods and stabs my steak, dropping it onto his plate.
I reach for the bourbon and splash more into my glass. “You saw the patches he’s wearing? If he’s spent time in prison, if he’s killed for the club, he’s gone under prett
y deep. That takes years. So he must be after something big. There’s nothing that big around here.”
“It’s best if it stays that way.”
Amen to that. My gaze slides down his heavy shoulder, watching the flex of his biceps as he cuts the steak. The club’s emblem inks his skin, wings of flame and wheels of steel. The one good thing.
“How’d you end up with the Riders?” I know Saxon sponsored him about eight years ago—back when my dad was still the prez. “Did you know Saxon in the service?”
Jack shakes his head. “He shared a cell with my brother.”
While doing time for manslaughter. “What was your brother in for?”
“Selling prescription meds.” He pauses briefly, his gaze on the knife cutting through his steak. “He wouldn’t have made it in prison. So I asked Saxon to look out for him.”
He asked Saxon? No. Jack doesn’t ask. I roll the bourbon over my tongue and study him. “So what you really said was that you’d kill him if anything happened to your brother.”
Jack glances up at me, amusement lighting his eyes. “I did.”
“And that made you best buds?” Close enough that Saxon appointed Jack as his vice president five years ago. During the recent merger with the Titans, Saxon appointed a new veep from that club, and made Jack a warlord, instead—which makes him Saxon’s right hand man. He answers only to the prez. “Your brother must have gotten through all right.”
“He got out alive.” His shrug suggests all right is relative. “After I left the service, I came by Pine Valley to thank Saxon for looking out for Jaime. He told me to stay and ride with the club. I did.”
“So you knew my dad.”
“I did.”
For a second I wonder what Jack thought of him, but I don’t really want to know. My dad could be a charming motherfucker and Jack might have liked him. I stab at a piece of lettuce. “How’d you know about Portland?”
He sets his knife down and sits back. “The boss heard you rode up every couple of months. We knew you didn’t have any family up there and he worried someone was holding something over your head. So he sent me up after you.”