“Oh, well, I thought you might have all forgotten since you seem to be making plans for me without involving me in the decision-making process.”
Sarcasm dually noted.
Instead of taking offense, there’s a round of snickers coming from the rest of the men.
“Nic, you good to ride on the back of my bike?”
She sucks in a breath. “Yeah—yes, I’m good.”
“Okay, so I’m gonna find us a hotel. Text you boys the location.”
“Right.” Sarge is the first to answer.
The brothers break—the Lords and Sarge head out to shop at Walmart while Nic and I search out a hotel. We drive around, eventually riding up on a Marriott. With my arm slung around Nic’s shoulder, we walk inside. She stays plastered to my side while I book us the one empty suite they have left. The woman behind the desk gives Nic a thoroughly disgusted look.
“We’ve been on a bike. You ever ride for hours on the back of a bike?” I snap at the woman, highly irritated.
“N-No,” she replies, stumbling over the word and dropping her eyes to look at the desk instead of me.
“Yeah, that’s why we stopped here, to clean up and rest. Heading for the coast.”
“It should be beautiful this time of year.” She finishes with checking us in, still deliberately not glancing over to Nic even once more. She hands me back my credit card along with the keycard.
The suite is like a damn apartment, a luxury apartment. A cherrywood dining table sits point of pride when we enter. Beyond that, there’s a sofa and chairs. Stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. Cherrywood cabinets there, too. The suite even has a stone fireplace, for Christ’s sake. It’s fucking sweet up in here.
After shooting off a quick text to Sarge, I lead Nic into the master bedroom, the space mostly taken up by a king size bed with pillows and comforter fluffy enough to swallow us up whole. A night under those covers and we might never find our way out again.
Damn, the ideas that run through my head at seeing that bed. They’ll have to remain just ideas for now. She’s not ready for more. I lead her through the room and into the master bath. There, the hotel has provided even more fluff, this time in the form of a white robe hanging on a hook on the back of the door and white towels on the shelves.
“Shower, baby. Take as long as you need. When you’re done, we’ll talk.”
“Sure.” She halfheartedly smiles. Uh, no way in hell does she get away with a halfhearted smile like she thinks I want her to shower because I’m judging her.
I rush at her, taking that mouth like it’s my God-given right to do so. “For you, baby. I don’t give a fuck if your clothes are dirty. I’m just fucking ecstatic to have you back. This is for you.”
“Vlad,” she whispers with tears in her eyes.
“Throw those clothes away. You won’t be wearing them again.” One more kiss and I leave her to it. I stay any longer and she won’t be showering alone, which probably isn’t a good idea, seeing as we’re about to be inundated with a roomful of bikers.
The men show while she’s cleaning up, bringing in bags with the changes of clothing, and good goddamn, Blood even picked her out undergarments. The other bags have food, enough for a few days because unbeknownst to Nic, the brothers and I decided she should stay hidden for a few days, but we need to get the clubhouse in order before she goes there.
She walks out of the bedroom wrapped in that fluffy white robe and her hair twisted up in a towel on top of her head. My whole body tenses seeing her like this around all these men. It’s innocent and she’s more covered now than when she was fully clothed, but there’s something intimate about her in the robe. It means she was naked moments ago and I know she’s naked underneath it. These men, save Sarge and Boetcher, all have bitches and Sarge would never betray me. I assume neither would Boetch. The problem is I’ve seen that body naked. I know her gasps and mewls when I touch her just the right way. I don’t need other men fantasizing about what it’s like.
Before going to her, I snag the bag with the clothing from the counter then move the few steps over to tag her hand in mine. When she smiles at me, I’m unable to help myself, and bend in to press my lips to hers. Swear to God, she sighs.
“Nic,” I grumble. “Do me a favor, go put these pajamas on.”
“Call me ‘baby,’” she whispers.
“Sure, baby. Do me that favor then I’ll feed you.”
She digs through the bag as she walks to the bedroom and I hear a soft, “Ooh, these are cute.” Then the woman turns back around to face the room. “Wait, how did you know my size?”
“You gonna hate me if I tell you?” Blood asks.
“It depends on your answer, but considering you rescued me today and I’m so damn glad to be here, safe in this room with you all, probably not.”
“Fair enough,” he says, splaying his hand palm up in a way meant to say ‘keep calm.’ It’s the kind of gesture that if he’d done it to his own woman, she’d so have severed his balls from his body for having the nerve to do it in the first place. Since she’s not his woman, Nic doesn’t charge him, but waits him out. “So I’ll tell you Nic, not a man here isn’t familiar with all the sizes of a woman.” She scowls, just as I would about thinking of her with another man, but she’s also smart enough to know that none of us were wet behind the ears when she and their women met us. “But Hero and Sarge were the most helpful,” he finishes, throwing his brother under the bus. When she laughs instead of coming back with a smart comment, it cements for me just how damn lucky I am to have her in my life.
Nic is only gone a few minutes, joining us again in a more appropriate spaghetti strap tank top. I think they call the color robin’s egg blue. And she’s wearing a pair of cotton, drawstring pants that fall to her shins. They’re that same blue, green and white vertical striped. It’s not meant to turn me on, but shit, the woman still looks hot.
“Take a seat, baby. I’ll feed you.” I’m a goddamn miracle worker to get those words out when I can’t take my eyes off her and all I want to do is hold her, reassuring myself that she’s safe.
As the woman passes by me on her way to the sofa, she brushes her finger along my jaw. The little minx knows exactly what she’s doing. I push through though, closing my eyes to take a quick breath and clear my head, then I walk to the kitchen to fix her a plate.
For a quick meal, they bought these huge readymade subs and bags of chips. “What do you want to drink?” I ask her. “Water, soda, milk? I can make coffee or tea.”
She eyes the six-pack resting on the counter next to my hands, one of several the brothers bought. “Am I not allowed a beer? Because an ice-cold brew would go down smooth about now.”
“Of course you are.” I twist the cap off. Whatever Nic wants, Nic gets. I just never thought she’d want to imbibe just now, given all she’s been through. “You can have anything you want.” Then I walk her over a plate with the sandwich, chips, and a pickle, handing her the beer. “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer soup or something?”
“Vlad,” she says calmly, placatingly. “I’m not sick. I can eat a sandwich. I can drink a beer. Is there a reason you’re acting so weird now?”
“Fuck.” I drop down into the spot next to her. “I didn’t protect you. There was serious club shit and I had to have my brothers’ backs.”
“I get that.”
“But I needed to get to you. And—”
“Stop.” She cuts me off. “I’m glad to have your protection, but I’m not helpless. I rescued myself.”
Blood drops down on the chair across from us, his plate in hand. “How did you get away?”
Nic takes a long pull from her bottle. She swallows and then that sexy half-smile moves over her lips. “I kicked his ass,” she says.
I choke on the drink I’d just taken while hearing gasps of “Whoa” and “Dude” and “Fuck me” from the other men in the room, and I lean over to kiss my woman.
20
Nicola
There are
two more bedrooms with double beds and the sofa pulls out into a bed. The brothers have decided to stay the night tonight using the beers they’d consumed and because they all could use the rest as their excuse, but I think they want to make sure I stay safe if Rage or more of his cronies come sniffing around. I’m not sure how they’d find me, but a girl could do worse than having a roomful of sexy biker looking out for her.
Vlad walks me into the master bedroom once the beer is gone. When I lie down on the bed, I assume that the sexy biker will join me, but no. He leaves me to take a shower of his own.
Now, as the sound of cascading water ceases, my mouth begins to water as an anticipatory twinge begins to move through all my most sensitive parts.
And then, my dream appears in the doorway, the only light coming from the fixtures in the bathroom behind him as he wipes down his skin, missing some of the glistening droplets. An urge overtakes me, the urge to lick them off.
If I told myself of three years ago that there would be a time when I’d want to be here with a man. In a bed, waiting for the naked slide of his body next to mine. Myself of then would call me a fucking liar, yet as I lie staring at him, unremorseful about doing so, turned on my side using the pillow and my hand to prop up my head in order to properly ogle him, those are the exact thoughts going through my head and all parts lower.
He stands in the doorway longer than I want him to. He doesn’t want to push me, to make me feel forced to give of myself in any way. The man has an expressive face and his thoughts are written all over it.
Okay, so it’s up to me.
Slowly, and without breaking eye contact, I slip the capri pants off along with my panties, exposing my lower body to him. The need he shows me, such vulnerability for a man like Vlad. I almost can’t take it.
Instead, I shimmy the tank over my head, tossing it to the chair in the corner.
“Nic—baby,” he mutters.
“I can’t make myself any more available. I need your participation unless you want to stand there watching me get myself off, which, honestly, won’t be as good for me.”
He smiles that sexy, shit-stirring grin and stalks over to me, putting a knee to the bed. The heat of him consumes me as he moves over top of me—a fireball of flesh.
Because I can, my hands begin to roam, my fingers paying special attention to the hard, slick plains of skin pulled taut over thick muscle, kneading it to loosen him up. He needs to know how much I want this. They gave me ibuprofen at the police station and then I redosed about an hour ago. I’m feeling good for now. Sure, the pain will come back in a while but I have to make this connection with him tonight. Otherwise, I fear his guilt will get the better of him. This is important to me.
Vlad presses his lips to mine, covering them, milking the most sensual kiss from me, the kiss he wants to give me. A kiss like this could cause a girl to orgasm all on its own. A moan the likes of which I’ve never heard from myself rips from my throat and down his because he refuses to pull back from the kiss until he’s good and ready. I know he’s finally ready when he begins to trail his hot mouth down my body causing these luscious tremors along my skin.
My chest heaves as he pulls an achingly hard nipple into his mouth and gives it a good tug with his teeth. It’s too much to take. “Vlad,” I gasp his name, feeling more turned on than I think one woman has the right to be. Another tug and I know I’m aroused enough for an army of women.
“Fuck me,” he says, beginning to trace more kisses over the swells of my breasts and down a sensitive line of dips and valleys leading past my stomach and lower until he reaches my sex. “This for me?” he asks while running a finger through the droplets of moisture.
“All for you,” I manage to eke out. “If you want it.” Then, so help me, he growls deep, guttural, sensual and begins his wonderous exploration of my most sensitive area, driving me crazy with his teeth and tongue, nipping and sucking me to the brink of orgasm.
“Shit, baby, a man doesn’t need food he’s got you to feast on.” His dirty talk does things to me—beautifully glorious things that could only have been thought up by the devil himself.
His tongue zeros in on my center and my hips attempt to shoot off the bed, but his hand keeps them in place, keeping me exactly where he wants me as he continues to lavish his affections on me. More licking, more sucking, more nibbling—my body becomes this transformer sparking and ready to blow.
Then it happens, that spark becomes a body-wide blackout. The kind where I have no voice to even call out his name because all circuits have shut down. My heart. My lungs. Any necessary muscle functions.
Whoa.
Before I have the chance to come down, he sits up, slitting the now-drenched lips of my sex with the thick head of his engorged length. I move my legs wider for him to fit between them and he glides in, bending my knees up the deeper he goes.
This position allows him to reach universes abound and when he starts to pump his hips, dimensions unknown. The way we move together makes me feel like we were made to move like this together.
His strong mouth assails mine again, capturing every whimper. My left leg goes up over his shoulder and he shifts his body to hit a brand-new spot. I squeeze my eyes shut, immersing myself in the sounds of our bodies joining and the pleasure that brings, the feel of skin grinding against skin, and the sweet, sweet musk of our lovemaking. He continues to give me it all until both our breaths become labored and I lose my mind coming the hardest I’ve ever come, a freight train barreling down the track, gripping those muscles around him.
“Oh, fuck,” he grumbles, pulling out only seconds before he unloads all over my thighs and stomach. “No condom.”
I laugh as my chest heaves honeyed air. Probably not my smartest move, but that was amazing. As good as it was the first time between us, this time danced circles around that time. My body shakes from the comedown. He rolls onto his back, scooping me against his side with one arm but draping the other to cover his face.
“Are you okay?” I ask, now worried because he won’t let me look at him.
“Never fucking better, baby.” His breathy words touch my soul.
“I’m falling for you,” I admit. Here, in the dark, feels like the right time to tell him.
“You’re moving in with me.”
I’m moving in with him? His response makes me smile. But what about my girls? The ones they took in Texas, the future ones who still need me?
“What about—”
“Nic. You think I’m ever letting you go, you’d better think again, woman. I know your work. Now you have the backing of the club behind you. Can’t go back to the safehouse in Texas, it’s been compromised. We’ll set one up here.”
If I had a voice and it wasn’t the middle of the night, and we weren’t in a hotel, I’d shout the roof off. Instead, I smile as my breathing slows back to normal.
We lie quietly. For a moment, I assume he’s fallen asleep until he gives my shoulders a squeeze. “What are you thinking about?”
“What’s your name?” I ask.
He chuckles. “What?”
“Your name. I know your mother didn’t name you ‘Vlad.’ So what did she call you?”
“Typically, ‘little bastard.’ Well, that wasn’t her term of endearment, but her boyfriends’.”
“Ha ha! Come on. You know my name. What’s yours?”
“It’s Daniel. Daniel Waite. You’re one of the very few people to know this about me. Use it wisely.”
“Use it wisely? Like when I’m ready to tell you that I love you for the first time, do you want me to say, ‘I love you, Vlad’ or ‘I love you, Daniel Waite’?”
He doesn’t respond in words, he responds by rolling over, trapping me underneath him and kissing me the way only he could ever kiss me. We fall asleep holding one another. I wake alone in the bed, bright light peeking around the edges of the curtain.
I stretch, blissfully sore in all the right places. Sex shouldn’t be this good. I’m glad it is, m
ake no mind, but it should be illegal to light a woman’s naughty bits up to the point they explode.
That’s what I’m thinking about when he walks into the bedroom from the bathroom, showered and fully dressed, ending a call. “Caitlin’s coming to check you out.”
“I don’t need—”
“Save it, woman,” he says, putting his hand up to stop me. “She’s coming. You were already my woman, but things changed for us last night. I need this. I need to know you’re really okay, and you’re going to give this to me. You trust Caitlin. I trust Caitlin.”
What can I do? “Okay,” I agree softly. “I’ll see Caitlin.”
Up until the smell of bacon frying permeates the room, I’d forgotten about our guests. If embarrassment had a face, it would be mine.
Vlad, clearly not picking up on this personal version of the end of the world, cocks his head, showing me a mouthful of straight, white teeth. “The men are staying for breakfast before heading home.”
“Do you think they heard us?” I sort of whisper-yell at the terribly sexy man, making it hard to stay embarrassed when just looking at him turns me on so completely.
“Don’t give a fuck if they did. But, baby, they’re bikers. Hearing couples fucking doesn’t mean the same for them as for most others.”
“It means something to me. Especially last night. Last night…” I trail off. He gathers me into his arms, holding me, our bodies pressed together. Last night means something to me. All the times with Vlad have meant something, but last night means everything.
“Why don’t you shower and then come out with us?” he says. His words caress my soul the way they’re almost strangled with emotion. Good to know I’m not alone in believing that what happened between us last night was kind of huge.
I nod and press up to kiss him before making for the bathroom. With the smell of frying bacon making my mouth water, the shower goes unsurprisingly quick and I dress even faster in the clothing they brought me yesterday—a drapey white T-shirt with feminine folds and black leggings.
The men—it’s the middle of summer in Kentucky—well, I guess now Tennessee, and they want to keep me covered.
Devil's Advocate: Vlad (The Bedlam Horde MC Book 1) Page 16