by Marata Eros
“Why does this sound like another Dear John blow-off?” His tone is mild, but his eyes are hard with anger. “Because I gotta say, Rose—I threw down for you. Me and the brothers, we broke into a rival MC's holding. We took a woman they were having their way with. An unclaimed woman. We had no rights. No place to stand. Just our wits. My need”—his eyes float away from mine, his voice going low—“to see you safe. That was all.” His gaze returns to mine like molten mercury.
I feel condemned by him. Like I owe Noose my freedom from the rapists.
I do owe him my gratitude. But I can't—I won't be bullied into some kind of sexual exploration based on my relief.
If there's one thing Anna's death taught me, it’s that things are not what they seem. Noose seems like he rescued me because he cares. But maybe that's just a smokescreen for being with a novelty. It's no big secret that Noose isn't with girls like me.
He's with girls who look like what I look like now. A slut. Easy.
Noose is waiting for words. I give them to him. “I-I am always going to be grateful. You saved me from a fate worse than death.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. There are some things that can make you wish you were dead. I'm feeling like that thing with you and Drake…” He shakes his head.
I notice he doesn't call it a rape.
His eyes come back to mine, wounding me with their intensity. “That would've been one of them.”
I hang my head. “Probably.”
“No probably, baby. Definitely.”
I blow out a frustrated exhale. “Anyway…” I thread my fingers together between us, “I need some space. I need time to get my head around what happened. I need to see Charlie—my parents. I need to figure out what to do at the hearing.”
I pant just thinking about Tuesday. About seeing Drake again.
“Hey—hey.” His hands palm my face, and I sink my cheek into the caress. “Diablo isn't gonna hurt you anymore. We'll figure this thing out together.”
No we won't. “I'm sorry, Noose. But I can't be a part of a motorcycle gang.”
His hand falls from my face, and their absence is a small death. My breath hitches as he stands.
“I'd go to the ground for you, Rose Christo.”
“I know,” I whisper. “But I can't have that from a man. You saved me.” I blink back scalding tears. “I get that. And we have wicked chemistry.”
His eyebrows hike. “At least you admit you want to fuck me.”
A laugh shoots out of me like a bullet. The problem is, it sounds a little hysterical. “Yeah,” I say, self-consciously crossing my arms in front of my body, “I guess that's one way to put it.”
Noose studies me. I feel like a bug. “But you wouldn't put it like that, would ya, Rose?” He flings his powerful arms wide, muscles slicing the air like knives. “You'd call it chemistry or some fancy shit like that?”
My silence is acquiescence.
He moves to me, almost too fast for me to track. I'm in his arms, and he's jerked me up to my knees. One hand cups my sex, and the other grinds the back of my head into his face.
Our lips crash together. Mashing. Tongues twining.
“Mine,” he growls, and with the barest tension, squeezes the part of me Drake just molested.
But it's nothing but pure desire that uncoils through my body at Noose's touch.
Hot. Dangerous.
Noose lifts his lips, and I suck in a breath before the next assault. “You're mine, Rose. You were mine before I met you. You're mine now. You just don't know it.”
I search his eyes. There's not a part of him that doesn't mean every word.
But I didn't survive the last four years because someone owns me or because an outlaw or a gang member can protect me.
I survived because of love and devotion. I overcame for something bigger than me. Charlie.
I don't know if a man like Noose has that element as part of his makeup.
Noose slides a finger over the material of the dress, driving it between my wet folds, and my head tips back.
His lips plant themselves on my throat, licking and kissing until his hand moves to my upper back and his face is between my breasts, diving into the cleavage. He buries his face between them.
“Fuck, you're hot,” his finger moves back and forth. The material of my dress between his finger and my wet flesh creates friction.
“Ah!” I gurgle intelligibly, my fingers diving into the slicked-back hair on his head. I pull. Hard.
He moans underneath my touch, hair coming loose from the tight band, and I hang on.
My hips start working against his finger. I grind down as he moves up and licks between my breasts.
“Noose,” I say, so close to coming that my vision curls at the corners where the colors gray out.
“Come, Rose.”
His erotic command brings me screaming into his mouth as he covers my lips with his own, and my pussy spasms, clenching on nothing, pulsing for Noose's cock.
Tears run down my face. I have never wanted something more for myself than I want this man.
He is everything that is wrong.
Noose feels so right, my need like its own agony.
As the last pulse drives out of me, I fall back against the bed, legs spread.
Noose's eyes peg my sex, his expression hungry.
His huge erection causes his jeans to look painted on. “I know those fuckers about raped you.” His eyes bore holes through me. “I'm sorry, Rose. I know—I get it. You're not ready.”
Noose takes a ragged breath. “But if you don't close your legs this minute, I'm going to climb on top of you and plant my prick so deep, it'll never come out.”
My heart slaps against my rib cage.
His pulse beats at the hollow of his broad throat. “Tell me to leave, Rose. I'll go. I'll give you space.”
I want him to fuck me into the ground. “Leave, Noose.”
He takes a final look at my pussy, adjusts his cock with an awkward shove, and walks out the door.
I lie there and cry, thinking about what-ifs.
9
Noose
My cock is its own zip code of agony, trying to dig its way out of my jeans and get back to that sweet piece of Rose.
Leaving Rose's wet perfect pussy is a tally on the side of the hardest shit I've not done.
Holy righteous fuck.
I begin to stalk through the club then whirl around and stab a finger at the prospect outside Rose's door. “Don't fucking move.”
His eyes go round with tasteable fear, and I pivot, adjusting my junk again. Damn. I’m gonna need ten cold showers to get over this set of blue balls.
More like blue cannons.
Snare moves up beside me. “Noose.”
I whip a palm up. “Not now. I gotta go jack off.”
His eyebrows pop, and a laugh cracks out of him. “What? You just saved your girl, and—there's no place for how fucked up that is.”
Yeah. I turn and point to my pillar of a dick. “I can't be around her without wanting to bang her. Circumstance apparently isn't relevant. And”—I lower my voice to a sinister whisper—“she needs fucking time, bro.” I feel my eyebrows jerk to my hairline.
Snare's expression is pained. “Ah. Ouch.”
I grab my package. “I'm dying. I laid my shit out on the fucking line, got her off like a freight train…” My words die as I yank my hair back into a tie.
Fuck this.
Crystal comes walking by, and I practically run to the room I use when I stay at the club.
“Noose!” Snare calls out. I ignore him.
Crystal's heels spike after me. Tap, tap, tap.
I close the door behind me, and she opens it, kicking it closed behind her.
Don't need this noise.
“Let me take this away, Noose.”
I set my hands on my hips, trying to steady my breathing.
Crystal's finger taps my shoulder. I turn and face her. Large eyes gaze up at me.
/> My cock throbs.
Rose doesn't want you, man. She says she doesn't need someone to protect her.
I made a fool out of myself. I charged in there like I was her fucking old man—like she'd already said yes twice to being my property.
Rose hasn't said dick. I'd been speculating a fantasy so hard, I'd believed it.
Crystal takes in my silence, slinking forward.
I say nothing. I look at the top of her head, imagining Rose’s honey strands instead of the chalked-out blond in front of me.
“Just let me take it all away, baby.”
Slowly, so slowly, she unzips my jeans, and I can hear the sigh of relief my cock makes when it springs free of the tight denim.
My head falls back, and her wet mouth sinks over the tip.
My cock twitches. I'm so ready to blow from being on edge all this time. I barely notice anything. Noise, atmosphere—nothing.
I grip her head and ram it down my prick. I don't spare Crystal anything.
She wants to get me off? Relieve me of what feels like a gallon of cum? Fine.
I move her head up and down my length, tip to root, jerking her back up to the swollen head. Down.
“Noose!” she gasps.
“Take it, Crystal, or leave.”
She does.
Her hands cup my balls, and I make a sound of pure release. I stiffen. My back hurts, my toes curl inside my boots, and I pour my seed into her mouth, her lips slammed to the base of me.
Crystal thrashes, pushing at me, and I finally release her.
“God! You fucker! I couldn't fucking breathe.” She falls back on her ass, her slutty short dress revealing her no-panty status.
My eyelids are drooping. I'm beyond fucking exhausted. “Sounds like you're breathing okay to me.”
Crystal wipes the back of her hand over her swollen pouty mouth, coming away with semen and saliva.
Her gaze is flat and mean. “You're not very grateful, Noose.”
I roll my eyes, jacking my limp noodle back in place, and zip up. “You volunteered to be the cum dumpster, and I filled you. But ya bitch about it?”
I walk over to the dresser that has smokes and rifle around inside the empty pack. Finally, I find one. Just one. I jerk the single cig out and stuff it into my mouth. I grab the lighter just as it skitters across the surface, away from my rummaging fingers. I slap my palm over the red plastic and scoop it from the top, lighting and inhaling in one move.
I blow a ring then send a second one directly after the first. They are two together, one smaller inside the first.
Some shit just comes together, even if it’s simple.
“Noose!”
Crystal's still there. I feel like this is on replay or some shit.
I stride to the door. “I'm not looking for property, Crystal.” I jerk my jaw at the door.
Ash falls like gray snowflakes, dusting my boots. I kick it off.
Her voice stops me cold, my hand tight on the knob.
“That's not what I heard.”
My head slowly turns, eyes narrowing on Crystal.
I take a drag on the cig. “What are you saying?”
“I'm saying,” she says, clearly loving having center stage, “that the word in the club is Noose is hot for some prissy banker.”
Fuck. “I don't want anybody.” A small lie.
Crystal's smirk is a hell of a lot more sure than I like. “I talked to her.”
A red veil of rage descends over my eyes, and a wave of lightheadedness washes over me. “You. What?” I bellow.
“I talked to Rose.” She says her name like it’s a joke. “Told her that you and I were a thing. Not to waste her time. She's no sweet butt or old-lady material anyway, Noose. Saved her big time.”
I feel my eyes cross. The cig drops from my fingertips. I want to choke her. My fingers shake.
I suck an inhale like I'm drowning. “Where the fuck do you get off talking to Rose?”
Crystal's eyes bug. “Listen, I know you're a good guy. You went and helped her out with Chaos. I get that. But now she can go home and back to her perfect little civvie existence with all the rest of the ninety-nine percent.” She shrugs. Crystal logic.
I clear my throat. A lot of what Crystal says makes sense—for someone who gives a fuck about logic. But logic departed a long time ago. I'm thinking with my cock. I'm thinking with a part of me I didn't know I had.
Crystal telling me shit I already know just pisses me off.
“I gave her some clothes, and she split.”
“You!? What?” I do touch her then, jerking her to me. I clamp her shoulders, holding her still. “Listen to me, you whoring bitch—I never wanted anything permanent. But that girl? The girl you just kicked out of here by telling her fucking lies from your small brain? I want her.” I shake her.
Her teeth click, and I release her. Not gonna lay hands on a woman.
I grit my teeth. No matter how much she deserves it.
Crystal looks at me like I'm a piece of dogshit on the bottom of her stiletto. “If this Rose is so fucking important, what are you doing here, letting me suck you off, swallow you down—when you could be with little Miss Perfect? Huh? Why don't you ask yourself that, Noose? Look in the fucking mirror really hard and think about if you're walking the talk.”
Crystal turns and sashays out the room with a soft click of the door.
I kick the door with my boot, almost putting my foot through the wood.
Fuck!
I jerk open the door, and it flies into the wall behind it.
I stride across the club, ignoring everything, and go straight to the room where we patch everyone up.
The prospect is gone.
I open the door.
So is Rose.
All I can smell is her perfume… and her pussy. But maybe that's wishful thinking.
*
“Where'd she go?”
Wring answers, “Let the prospect take her.” He shrugs.
“Fuck.”
Wring's look is hard. “Noose, you threw down for her in front of the club. She's been through hell. We've got a prospect following her. Diablo is licking his many wounds. Lay low—let her have space.”
That's Wring. Temperance. Even out in the field, out of the three of us, he was the voice of reason.
Too bad I'm so fucking unreasonable about now. “Why would she just leave?”
“Heard the sweet butt had a chat with her.”
I nod. “Yeah.” I give my tied hair a vicious cinch.
Wring is an inch shorter than I am, and he’s lean. He works on his physique with martial arts. He's all Zen and shit. Whatever works.
He shrugs. “The sweet butt's got a point, Noose. This girl doesn't belong in our world. She's been impacted by the MC—in the worst goddamned way. But Crystal, she's in-house tail. She knows what our needs are, doesn't get in the way, takes the cream, and keeps her mouth shut.” Wring suddenly grins. “Except when compelled not to.”
I look skyward. The ceiling greets my gaze. I take deep breaths, trying to calm my shit down so that I don't go blasting after Rose and beg to talk to her.
Beg to fuck her.
Only a bastard would want to fuck a girl who'd been through what Rose just survived.
Feel like I should raise my hand. “So I should just give up? Let her go. Let that fucker Diablo circle her and the kid like a shark?”
“Listen, man, I got your back. But I gotta say, this is bigger than Rose Christo. We fucked with Chaos. There's going to be retribution. Rose is the least of the club's worries now. We stood behind you. We stand behind you now.” Wring's pale eyebrows shoot up, waiting for a reply from me.
I grunt.
“If she were your old lady—legit, not a pipedream—we protect our property. But she doesn't act like an old lady. She acts like a scared girl who was glad as fuck to scoot her ass out of here first opportunity.”
I shake my head. “God damn.”
“You're not going
to listen to reason?” Wring doesn't look like the rest of us. We're all knotters. Wring, Lariat, and me. He understands me. We've gone shoulder to shoulder. He's pale, Aryan-nation white. But he's the most even-handed, none-prejudicial human being I've ever known.
His words strike me like fists. They're spot-on, as usual.
“Are you going to listen?” he repeats.
My exhale is a raw strip of air. “Nope.”
Wring stills for a couple of heartbeats. “Didn't think you would, brother.”
I'm consistent as fuck. “So what's the plan?” I ask him.
“The prospect has your girl.”
I love how Wring switches gears. He was testing me. Seeing how gone I am for Rose. If she's worth it.
I don't have to tell him. Actions speak louder than words.
Mine are screaming.
10
Rose
The tears on my face dry as I stare at the door from where Noose stormed through.
I notice the scratchiness of the dress first and grimace. I want it off. How do I get different clothes?
Where is my phone?
I feel a disconnect like a mudslide inside my head. From myself. From my life. From everything I thought was solid.
It's not solid. Everything is in motion.
Arguing comes from outside the door. I hear a few choice curse words from a woman, then the owner of said voice bursts into the room.
I hop off the couch that sits beside an examining table. Medical equipment is neatly shelved and labeled. I've already looked at everything.
The woman who stands before me huffing in anger is like a bleached-blond tornado.
A biker guys stands outside the door, looking young and uncertain. “Don't fuck with this chick. She's Noose's.”
I shoot him my best dirty look. “I am not anyone's.”
This causes Angry Girl to smile like the cat that just swallowed the canary.
The guy shuts the door. Coward.
I turn my attention back to the woman.
I'd thought my blue dress was the sluttiest thing ever made.
No.
Her hair is a blond so light, it's almost white. Dark-brown roots hold court at her hairline and run about four inches to meet all that pale hair.