by Blair Grey
“Hey, sexy,” he said immediately when I picked up. I had to laugh at the mischievous note to his voice. I had a feeling I knew exactly why he was calling.
“I would have expected you to come by the bar tonight,” I told him.
“And risk distracting you?” Braxton asked. “Nah. For the sake of the other patrons, I figured I’d let you concentrate.” He paused. “But I was also thinking that maybe I could come on over to your place now.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, my blood already running hot at the thought of it. It didn’t help that he was practically purring the words. He knew exactly how to play me.
“I’m already hard,” Braxton confessed, his voice dripping with lust. “And all I can think about is how much I want your hands on me right now.”
“My hands or my mouth?” I asked teasingly, and I smirked when I heard his sharp intake of breath. Oh, he was so going to get it. “I’m just leaving work right now, but I’ll be home in a few minutes,” I said, “and you’re welcome to join me.”
I hung up before this could go too far. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be too keyed up to drive over there. And although there was certainly some appeal to finger-fucking myself in the car with him on the other end of the line, the idea of having him over to my house again and letting him work me over himself was infinitely preferable.
Especially given the sight that greeted me when I got to my car. I stared at the driver’s side window. It was totally busted, a huge and jagged hole in the glass. This wasn’t a bad part of town, and it wasn’t like I left much of anything in the car. Besides, it didn’t look like anyone had tried to actually get in the car. They had just busted the window. A warning, more than anything else.
I didn’t know who did this, but I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I remembered what Candice had said about Darren planning something. Just because I hadn’t seen him around the bar lately, it didn’t mean that he had given up on me. Or that he wasn’t stalking me.
No, I didn’t know for sure who had broken my window, but I definitely had an idea. Now that question was, what did I do about it? For now, I used the snow brush to wipe most of the glass off my seat, laid down some paper bags that were in the back of the car for when I did my grocery shopping, and got in my car to drive home. Braxton would be waiting for me after all.
13
Braxton
I had done my best to stay away from Sunshine for a few nights, not wanting to seem like I was too desperate to see Mia. With most women, I wouldn’t have been quite so worried, but Mia had been so quick to let me know that she wasn’t looking for a relationship that I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea of what I was looking for.
Better to wait until Friday and then booty-call her, I’d decided. So that was just what I had done.
I pulled up in front of Mia’s house, smiling when I saw the lights were already on. I had given her a little extra time to get home, just long enough to make sure that she was there before me. Again, I didn’t want to seem too eager.
I parked my bike and strode past her car and up to the front door. But I paused, noting the way the light glinted off the broken glass in the driver’s side window. Someone had busted her window, and it didn’t look like it had been an accident.
Immediately, I headed for the front door, concern pulsing through my body. Had something happened to Mia? She had sounded fine on the phone, but maybe this was new. Maybe this had happened just in the time since we had hung up with each other. It didn’t seem totally likely, but then again, it didn’t seem totally likely that she would have the kind of enemies who would bust her windows either.
I couldn’t help thinking about the Mambas. Was there a chance that we hadn’t gotten all of them? That one or more of them were here in Las Cruces? That they had decided that the best way to attack me was to go after Mia?
That was ridiculous, though. I doubted they would have followed me across the country. If they were still trying to wreak havoc and take over territory, they wouldn’t pick one of the strongest MC branches in the country to mess with. They would be back in Sarasota, and they would be Neil’s problem still.
That was not to mention the fact that Mia and I weren’t dating. We had barely even interacted outside of the bar. No one could know that we were sleeping together already. No, this was nothing to do with me or Red Eyes.
But what could it possibly be?
I knocked on the door and waited with bated breath for her to answer. I guess maybe I was still worried about her, still imagining her opening the door with, I don’t know, a split lip and a shiner or something like that. But when she pulled the door open, she looked totally normal, like nothing was wrong.
Maybe this was recent recent. Could someone have busted the window now, with the car parked in the driveway? Maybe she didn’t even know about it yet.
I frowned, taking a step to the side. “Your window’s seen better days,” I said, gesturing.
Mia sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to have to get that fixed,” she said.
“Do you know who did it?” I asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I came out of the bar, and it was like that.” She shrugged. “It’s probably some stupid thing. They thought I might have left some cash in the center console or something. Or else they meant to do that to someone else, and they got the wrong car.”
My brow furrowed as I stared at her. She sounded almost too casual about the whole thing, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had a feeling that there was something that she wasn’t telling me. Maybe she had been there and seen who it was, and she was still scared or something? Like they might do something worse to her if she tried to turn them in?
But she didn’t look scared. She didn’t even look upset. She really just looked resigned. I didn’t know what to do with that.
“Come on, come inside,” Mia said, grabbing my hand and tugging me inside. She shut the door behind me, the movement gentle but firm. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I gave a mental shrug. “I’ll get it fixed next week,” she said. “But for tonight, I just want to spend time with you.”
I smiled and bent down to kiss her, but she ducked away. “Hold that thought,” she said.
I took a step back, wondering if I had misread something in the situation. If she hadn’t realized that this was a booty call. She grinned at me. “I want to, don’t get me wrong,” she said. “But I just worked a long Friday shift at the bar, and I’m starving. I don’t want to do what we did last time and forget to eat before we climb in bed together.”
I laughed and let her lead the way to the kitchen. “Fine, fine,” I said, keeping my hands off her. “But I don’t think we forgot to eat last time, so much as realized there were better things that we could be doing.”
Mia laughed as well. “You’re right,” she agreed. “But either way, I need to eat something this time. I made some cream of chicken soup in the crockpot while I was at work, and I was going to make some grilled cheese sandwiches to go with it. You want some?”
“That sounds great actually,” I said, still curious about her cooking. And as with the uneaten shrimp tacos, this smelled pretty damned delicious.
We sat together at the kitchen table. “Oh wow, this is really good,” I said in surprise after taking my first bite of the soup.
Mia laughed. “You sound so shocked,” she said. “What, you didn’t think I could actually cook?”
“It’s not that; it’s just really good. What did you do, go to school to study culinary arts?”
“Economics actually,” Mia said, still looking amused at my surprise.
“So then is this a family recipe?” I asked.
Mia made a face. “I don’t have any family,” she said dismissively.
“Oh,” I said in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.” I frowned, wanting to question it. But it wasn’t like I could just come out and ask what had happened. Fortunately, she continued without my having to be the asshole who asked.
<
br /> “My parents died when I was young,” she explained. “I’m not upset about it. It’s old news now. But I never knew them. And I definitely didn’t learn how to cook from my mom or anything like that.”
Again, I had the feeling that there was more to the story than that, more than what she was telling me. But I didn’t want to press the issue. I just wanted to enjoy the night with her. So I let it lie.
“Well, you’re really good. Even if you didn’t study cooking, you might want to consider a career shift.”
Mia shook her head, grinning at me. “Nah, I love working at Sunshine,” she said. “Candice is the best boss. She really cares about us, you know? She looks out for us.”
“Sounds like Ray,” I said. And inwardly, I was trying to put together the pieces. I guessed that if Ray was like a father to me, even before I knew that he was actually my father, maybe Candice filled some similar role for Mia. I knew that Candice wasn’t that much older than Mia, but she had a few years on her at least, and Candice just came across as being a lot more put together and family oriented than the free-spirited Mia.
“What about you?” Mia asked. “Did you go to college?”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “That stuff wasn’t for me.”
“That stuff?” Mia echoed, sounding amused.
“Books, learning, all of that.” I shrugged. “I’ve done a bit of trade stuff. Just dabbling mostly. I know how to take a motorcycle apart and put it back together. But Landon was always the smart one out of the two of us.” I’d always enjoyed working with my hands, and I definitely still liked to tinker with things in my spare time. But it wasn’t anything major. Nothing to get her excited about.
For the first time, I actually felt sort of embarrassed by my lack of real hobbies and knowledge. Mia might work as just a bartender, but I could tell that she was a hell of a lot smarter than she let on. She deserved someone better than me, probably.
Not that we were in a relationship, I reminded myself. She probably didn’t care about the IQ of the dude that she was just sleeping with. I started to feel a little better.
“Did Landon go to college?” Mia asked. Then, she grimaced. “Sorry. We don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to. I know it’s probably hard since you’re still dealing with getting into the rhythm of life without him.”
“I don’t mind,” I said, shrugging. “To be honest, it’s kind of nice to talk about him. The club is being really careful not to mention him, and it makes it feel like he’s, I don’t know, died or something.” I paused. “But no, Landon never went to college either. I guess we just sort of didn’t know what we wanted to do with our lives, and then Ray took us under his wing and we joined Red Eyes and never looked back.”
That was an overly simplified version of how things had been, but she probably didn’t need all the details anyway. And that was one thing I didn’t really like talking about, was our transition from our final foster family into those weeks on the streets and then into life with Ray and Red Eyes. I’d always been lucky to have Landon there at my side, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that Ray had really saved both of us. I shuddered to think of what we might have become if it weren’t for him and the club.
“What kinds of things do you do for Red Eyes anyway?” Mia asked curiously. “Am I allowed to ask?”
“Of course you can ask,” I told her. “You can always ask. Just doesn’t mean that I’m going to answer.” I grinned at her. "But in this case, I can tell you. Landon and I are enforcers, which means basically that we’re the rule-keepers. If anyone isn’t paying up, we’re the guys who go and make sure that they pay up. But a lot of what he and I have always done is travel to other states to make sure that our alliances are solid.”
“Alliances for what?” Mia asked.
“In case anyone tries to move in on our territory, mostly. So like with the Unknowns…” I trailed off and shook my head. “I don’t really want to hash out all the details of it. But yeah, just put it that way. If someone was going to try to take over our territory, it would be good for us to have some allies. Especially right now when our personal chapter of the MC is so weak. We’ve had too many members leave lately.”
“Fair enough,” Mia said.
We finished the rest of our meal in companionable silence. I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off her, and I was glad to see that she was still staring at me too. But where I was looking hungrily at her, already fast-forwarding to later in the evening, she was looking speculatively at me, like I was some puzzle that she was trying to figure out.
Whatever it was she was thinking, though, she didn’t tell me any of it. Instead, she eventually got up and collected the dishes, bringing them over to the sink. And as though that was some kind of signal, I got up as well, coming up behind her as she was filling the bowls with water to soak.
I pressed up against her, sure that she could feel how hard I was, my length nestled between the cheeks of her behind as I leaned into her warm body.
Sure enough, I could hear the way her breath hitched. She turned in my arms, her lips already questing mine. I kissed her passionately, half expecting her to pull away and lead me upstairs again. But this time, as her fingers found their way under my shirt, she seemed content to stay here in the kitchen.
I lifted her up onto the counter, pulling her into another filthy kiss as I reached over and shut the water off.
14
Mia
I had to admit; there was something particularly sexy about kissing Braxton from my position up on the countertop. It totally changed the height differential between the two of us, putting me a good couple inches higher than I would normally be. But not only did it make it easier for me to reach his mouth, but it also made him easier to get a hand up between my legs, underneath my short skirt.
I moaned as his fingers toyed with the damp fabric of my panties. I caught his wrist with my own hand, pushing his fingers into my still clothed cleft. He smiled against my lips, thumbing at my clit through the flimsy material. As thin as the material was, though, it still felt like too much of a barrier between us. I ached for skin on skin contact. I ached for something more.
I lifted up my skirt and hooked my thumbs in my waistband, shimmying until I could get the panties out from under me. I let them drop to the kitchen floor, feeling sexy and a little bit naughty as Braxton grinned up at me. Then, he bent at the waist and put his mouth on my velvety, newly revealed skin.
His tongue plunged inside of me, and even though it had neither the girth nor the length of his cock, the movement still made me gasp. I ran my hands through his messy hair, making it even more tousled. My head fell back against the cabinets as I panted for air.
He slid his fingers inside of me as well, using them to touch those sensitive spots in my center that his tongue couldn’t reach. Meanwhile, his tongue moved along my needy pussy until he laved at my clit, sending an explosion of pleasure shooting through me.
And still, I wanted more.
I groaned as he pulled away from me. He smiled, catching my hands and tugging me off the counter. “Come on,” he said. “To bed with you.” He tugged me toward the stairs, swatting my bare ass as I walked upstairs in front of him.
In my bedroom, we both quickly stripped down to bare skin before climbing into bed together. He settled in between my legs, dragging his tip along my wet folds, not giving me the satisfaction of pushing inside of me just yet. I trembled, biting my lip to keep from begging desperately for him to take me. He knew how badly I needed him; I shouldn’t have to beg.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Braxton was thrusting into me in earnest, his rod burning inside of me like a smoking gun. He swiveled his hips back and forth, making sure I felt just how full I was, just how perfectly he fit inside of me. It wasn’t long before I was crying out on every thrust, the sounds punched out of me. I was so close to coming; I just needed something more, something I wasn’t even fully aware of.
Braxton cupped my cheek i
n his palm, his touch curiously gentle, a tender counterpoint to the uncontrolled passion of his thrusts. He lightly stroked my cheekbone and then brought his lips down to mine, questing, questioning, still so strangely soft. It was like he was trying to make me a promise, to tell me that I was safe with him and that I could trust him.
I didn’t trust him yet, not entirely, but I was starting to trust him more and more as I got to know him better. He might be a player, but he wasn’t out to break my heart. Or at least, it didn’t seem that way.
With that thought in mind, and with his dick pulsing inside of me, I spilled over the edge, spiraling out toward the far reaches of pleasure and passion, places that I could never even have dreamed existed. I sobbed as I came, my walls clenching again and again until finally, spent, I collapsed against the bed with his weight on top of me.
He lay there for a moment, and I didn’t complain even though it was hard to breathe with his weight on top of my chest. It was comforting to have him there. I absently traced my hands over his broad back, nuzzling into his throat.
Finally, he rolled away from me, but he pulled me into his arms almost immediately, curling his body protectively around mine. He stroked my hair and lightly kissed my temple. “I’m going to start watching your car,” he told me, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “While you’re at work. I’ll make sure that no one messes with it again.”
I laughed, more surprised than anything else. “You don’t have to do that,” I told him. “Like I said, I’m really not worried about it. Is it frustrating? Sure. But it was probably just some stupid kids. They won’t be back.”
I had a feeling that there was more to it than that, but if I had been loath to tell him about Darren’s possible involvement earlier when he had first asked about the window, I was even more unlikely to tell him about it now. What could I say? Oh yeah, it was probably my crazy ex trying to send me some sort of a message.