Grounds for Divorce

by Helena Maeve

  He smelled of engine grease and metal, the night like a shroud around them, headlights splashing their shadows onto the tarmac.

  “What do you need?” Booker gritted out thickly.

  Kayla let out a shuddering breath. “I—I don’t know.” Shame gripped her. What was she doing, throwing herself at a man like Booker? She had a boyfriend. Zach would chew her ass for this when he found out.

  And he would find out. Secrets didn’t stay buried in this town.

  Booker slid an arm around her waist and spun her around.

  Kayla gasped as she slammed her hands against the warm hood, humiliation morphing into sudden, selfish want. “What are you doing?”

  Booker hauled her up with one hand in her hair, all trace of hesitation gone, and cupped Kayla’s pussy with the other. His hot breaths fanned against her cheek.

  “What do you need?”

  Kayla couldn’t think, her mouth a desert, eagerness ballooning in her belly. It was at once a relief and a surprise to feel Booker scrabble to insinuate his hand into her pajama bottoms.

  “Fuck, look at you… So wet.”

  He filled her with a thick finger, easily parting her inner lips. They were outside, in full view of the clubhouse and the road beyond. Anyone alerted by the noise could happen upon them.

  Apprehension only made the pleasure sweeter.

  There was little room for Kayla to rock her hips down, but that didn’t keep her from trying. She craved this. She had come to Booker just for this—his skillful touch, no matter how complicated once the flurry of lust washed away, unlocked something at her core. Pandora’s Box refused to be shut again.

  Kayla bucked in his arms, riding his fingers like the slut she was. Moans built in her throat despite her best efforts to smother them.

  Booker raked his teeth over the slope of her neck, a warning she couldn’t seem to process. She only knew she wanted more.

  “Please,” Kayla bit out, softer and more plaintive than she wanted to be. Zach always took a little prompting, a little groveling. She saw no reason why Booker would be any different.

  “Shut up,” he shot back.

  Kayla flinched, heat rushing to her face. “I don’t—”

  He abruptly released his grip on her and covered her mouth with a warm palm instead. “If you can’t be quiet, I’ll gag you.”

  A flash of dread flared in Kayla’s chest. He wouldn’t…would he?

  She wasn’t sure. She didn’t know much about Booker or the caliber of his threats. What she did know was that his hand was spurring her toward the edge and she wasn’t going to last much longer if he kept that up.

  “You close?” Booker grunted, husky and rough.

  Kayla nodded shakily, trapped between his shoulder and the press of his fingers over her mouth. She was teetering on the brink, sopping folds splayed wide in the palm of his hand. Each burst of friction triggered another spike of pleasure. She didn’t know how much more she could take.

  “Yeah? Reckon you deserve to come?”

  She had kept Booker at arm’s length for a week, always avoiding him when he came by the Grounds, always wary that Zach would tell her to go with him again. She was too much of a coward to explain why she’d given him the slip in the first place. It wasn’t fear.

  It was nothing so simple.

  Breaths knifing in and out of her lungs, Kayla shook her head. Her eyes stung with bitter tears. She didn’t deserve her orgasm no matter how desperately she might have craved it. She hadn’t earned it.

  Booker must’ve agreed, because in the next moment he was retrieving his hands and pushing her down to the hood of the Mercedes. He could have slammed her down if he wanted to hurt her for real. His callowness was perfectly controlled.

  It took Kayla a moment to realize that he was yanking her pants down, and by then it was too late to stop. She darted a glance over her shoulder, enough for a brief glimpse of Booker rolling a condom onto his rock-hard dick. He didn’t give her any warning before he thrust into her.

  Kayla rose up on tiptoes, her thighs shaking with the sudden, delicious stretch. She groped for purchase on the shiny chassis, but there was none to be found. Booker seized her hips in a merciless grip, arresting her movements before she could retreat.

  He wasn’t going to let her drive this. He wasn’t about to make her do all the work.

  Kayla bit her fist to smother a cry. She was too far gone to resist. She came within a couple of hard thrusts, the sound of skin slapping skin ringing in her ears as Booker fucked her to completion.

  Tremors lashed her in agonizing, delightful waves. She resisted the urge to scream, much less plead, for Booker to slow down. Her patience was rewarded a moment later. Booker climaxed with a shuddering moan, digging his fingertips into her flanks as he buried his cock deep into her pulsing sex.

  Little tooth-sized dents marred Kayla’s knuckles when she pried her fist out of her mouth. They didn’t ache half as much as her heart once Booker eased out, wincing, and stripped off the condom.

  Kayla followed the movement of Booker’s arm as he pitched it into the underbrush. She didn’t care to see where it landed.

  Without the frenzy of desire to numb her senses, she felt suddenly exposed. What kind of woman fucked strangers in parking lots?

  Booker zipped up nonchalantly, as though he did this all the time. The headlights cast shadows into the hollows of his collarbones, over the delectable curve of his biceps. It was enough to make Kayla want to reach out and touch. She curbed the instinct.

  “You okay to drive home?”

  Kayla nodded. She pulled up her pants. The worst thing was feeling the delicious throb of afterglow between her legs and knowing that this was the last time. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t go back to—that.

  “Do you want to stay?” Booker wondered.

  “Is that allowed?”

  He smirked with half a mouth. Pleasure had softened his features, the scar on his cheek notwithstanding. “Kayla. Do you want to stay?”

  Home was a warm shower and the privacy of a good cry where no one would hear. It was an empty house and a cold bed, the knowledge that tomorrow she had to face Zach and tell him they were through.

  Kayla filled her lungs with breath. “Yes.”

  She tilted up her chin when Booker framed her face with his big hands and kissed her lips. It lacked the flavor of a goodbye.

  Chapter Five

  For a pack of outlaw drunks, Booker’s brothers were exceptionally early risers. Kayla froze in the clubhouse doorway when she saw them. They were a motley bunch, as young and old as they were scarred and rough, most of them in various states of dishevelment. Some still had sloe-eyed women draped across their laps.

  They saw her, too, in her borrowed, baggy T-shirt and unlaced sneakers, legs bare to mid-thigh.

  Kayla considered retreating back to bed and telling Booker she hadn’t been able to work the coffeemaker when one of the men spoke up.

  “You’re Book’s girl, right?” He was fair and freckled, with a lopsided jaw.

  “And you’re…” Kayla searched her memory. “Nolan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You were itching to rearrange Zach’s face a few days ago.”

  Nolan leaned back in his seat, smirking. “Offer’s still on the table. Book up yet?”

  “Depends on your definition of up,” Kayla answered over her shoulder. There was no real kitchen in the clubhouse, but the coffeemaker was behind the bar, the pot sweating with condensation.

  She heard the screech of chair legs before she noticed Nolan shambling over to lean against the counter, his meaty arms folded across his chest.

  “He takes it black, two sugars.”

  Kayla hesitated. A joke or a lie? Maybe just an olive branch? She flashed Nolan an uncertain smile. “Thanks…” It didn’t take much rummaging through the cupboards to find two clean mugs. She fixed up Booker’s coffee before she did her own—no sugar, no milk. She needed the caffeine injection to be as
rousing as possible.

  Nolan was still watching her when she turned.

  “You have something to say, say it,” Kayla challenged.

  For a long, tenuous beat, she feared Nolan might take her up on the offer. He had a head on her in height and arms laddered with ink. He could probably flatten her with a blow. Instead, he shrugged, peeling his lips back into a smirk.

  “It’s Kayla, right?”

  She turned in the doorway. “What’s it to you?”

  “Just curious. Tell Book we’re seein’ the colonel off in an hour.”

  “He doesn’t know?” Kayla asked, frowning.

  Nolan shook his head, his gaze never leaving hers. “Think he might lose track of time.” Thanks to you.

  It didn’t need to be said. Kayla spun around, willing the flare of discord in her chest to sputter and die. Whatever Nolan thought of her privately couldn’t be worse of what other men had called her to her face.

  She shammed a smile as she nudged open the bedroom door.

  Booker flashed her a drowsy grin. “Hey, babe.”

  “Morning.” Kayla placed both steaming mugs on the bedside table, between his cell phone and the stack of paperbacks she had only briefly glimpsed last night. Booker didn’t need to pull her into his arms this time. She was already straddling his hips before he’d hooked his hands around her thin wrists. “Ran into your buddies out front.”

  “Yeah?” Booker dipped his head to kiss her sternum.

  “Nolan said to let you know they’re seeing the colonel off.”

  You didn’t mention he was leaving. The urge to press him with questions shot through her like a spike of adrenaline. Kayla pushed it back down again. Booker didn’t owe her explanations. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.

  They didn’t have any relationship.

  He fell back against the mattress, sighing. “Fuck. Forgot about that.”

  “Nolan said you might.”

  “Nolan,” Booker ruled with a fierce look, “needs to shut his mouth.”

  Kayla snorted and slid to the mattress, reaching over Booker’s chest to grab her cup. “Or you’ll shut him up…same way you did me?” The memory of his hands on her lived on in the bruises on her hips, the sweet tingling ache between her legs. She was too sore for another round and would’ve told Booker as much if he’d asked. So far, nothing.

  He seemed content to lie there, sprawled naked with a half-hard dick in his hand, and drink his coffee. His silence was impossible to decipher.

  “I didn’t mean…” Kayla started awkwardly. “Last night was good.”

  “I know.”

  “If I talk too much—”

  “You don’t,” Booker said, abrupt but not cruel. He sat up slowly, headboard creaking when he leaned his broad shoulders against the wooden frame.

  Kayla slanted a quick, measuring glance at his profile. “I’m not trying to piss you off.”

  “Is that what Zach tells you?”

  The timid blush of morning became a sudden, blinding glare. Kayla’s throat clamped shut. She didn’t want to talk about other men with Booker—that way lay jealousy and broken furniture. Sawdust in her hair.

  Booker sighed when she didn’t answer. “Why do you need Zach?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He doesn’t earn. He doesn’t do the books. I didn’t see bouncers at the Grounds, but I’m guessing there must be some lurking around to protect the girls… So why do you need him?”

  Kayla weighed her answer. She knew better than to get involved in this kind of mutinous talk. Booker could be testing her allegiance. She knew he wasn’t just a pretty face. Those patches on his kutte were an effective resume.

  “Zach’s the one who deals with the colonel,” she said in the end, settling on something vague and innocuous that wouldn’t hurt her too badly if it got back to her employer.

  Booker scoffed. “That’s not a reason.”

  “The Hounds don’t do business with women—not if they can help it. Something to do with their old ladies laying down the law or threatening to walk…” Kayla hadn’t kept in touch with any of her old clients. She didn’t have the details. “Colonel put Zach in charge. And Zach hired me.”

  “To run his back office work while the Hounds do his financing,” Booker finished for her, cup raised halfway to his lips. “Seems like we’d both benefit from cutting out the middleman.”

  His self-assurance had turned her on last night, but it was galling now—another reminder that she was here first and foremost as a form of collateral. Frustration soured all remnants of post-coital bliss. “Is this how you operate?”

  “What?”

  “Come into a man’s house, sabotage his deals? Christ, if the colonel finds out—”

  Booker caught one of her hands in his. “The colonel ain’t in charge anymore, babe.” His lips were dry and soft on her knuckles. “I am.”

  “You’re staying?”

  “Didn’t you see the Hackby patch?” he asked, gesturing to the kutte that hung from the back of a swivel chair. Cerberus slobbered on the back, straining out of its studded collars. “I transferred. Colonel passed the torch…”

  Kayla tried not to let her relief show. The colonel wasn’t gone yet. Nolan had said they had another hour. That was plenty of time to poison Booker’s heart against her. It seemed like the sort of parting gift the colonel might think appropriate. He had every reason to want to hurt Booker—the usurper who had finally forced him off his throne and out of town.

  “I thought that was just…a matter of speaking,” she confessed.

  Booker grazed her fingers with his thumb. “We’re pretty literal folks.”

  “So I’m learning.”

  “For instance,” Booker went on, lips peeling back into a slow grin, “when I say I want you in my bed, I don’t mean for sleeping.” The coffee mug hit the bedside table with a dull clink.

  Despite the dread still swarming in her breast, Kayla couldn’t resist grinning back. “Oh yeah? I don’t remember you saying that at all—”

  “Kayla.” Booker slid a hand up her bare leg, pushing up the cheap cotton tee.

  “Hmm?”

  “You talk too much.”

  Kayla made a show of sucking her lips into her mouth, but then a better thought came to her. She took one last sip of coffee, the bitter blend sinking in her belly like a gut-punch, and set aside the cup. She shuffled down the mattress under Booker’s guarded gaze. He didn’t stop her when she walked her fingertips up his inner thighs, nor spur her along as she took him in hand.

  His eyes only fluttered shut once Kayla leaned in and traced the length of his cock with her tongue.

  She had always been a fan of blowjobs, ever since she’d discovered that she could make a man whine and whimper, bring them right to the edge and ease them back. She knew, as soon as Booker gathered her hair in a fist and pulled her down again, that the choice wasn’t going to be hers today.

  A moan spilled from Booker’s lips, pleasantly harsh, when she suckled his balls into her mouth. She’d had men who perfumed their junk and men who shaved everything below the chin, and none of them had turned her on like the taste of Booker’s skin or the heft of his dick in her hand. Kayla relaxed gradually into the pull-push motion of his hold, letting him guide her where he wanted her most.

  “How’s your gag reflex?” he asked, voice strangled with effort.

  Kayla glanced up and nodded. Yeah, she could take him. He was thick enough to force her jaw wide open, but she could take him as deep as he wanted. She raked her tongue along the underside of his length, breathing through her nose as Booker clenched his fingers in her hair.

  His cock scraped the roof of her mouth, nudging into the back of her throat with blunt pressure. Kayla didn’t fight it. She’d panicked before, with men far less endowed than Booker. Somehow, she was convinced he’d pull out before she started to choke.

  He didn’t disappoint.

  “Fuck, baby…” Booker grabbed her
by the arm and hoisted her to him, tight-laced tension ratcheting up a notch as he slammed their lips together.

  Kayla could barely respond. She felt feverish, maybe even a little drunk. Her body ached for him in a very real way, but she wanted to finish this, she wanted him to know—

  Booker pulled her back with a hand on her cheek. His eyes were like two dark beads, hypnotic. His voice was an order and a plea when he rasped, “Make me come.”

  Wild horses couldn’t have stopped her. Kayla wrapped a fist around the base of his cock and filled her mouth with the taste, the silky-smooth texture of his pre-cum. She couldn’t work him to completion with her throat—not at this angle, not if she couldn’t pull back—but she knew how to coax out his release with her tongue swirling around the sensitive, slick head.

  Booker cupped the back of her neck, thumbing at her jaw. She heard his sudden intake of breath as though from very far away, didn’t realize it was a warning until heat shot onto her tongue, bitter and salty—a deeper flavor than the taste of his skin but not so different as to be unpleasant.

  Kayla stroked and licked at him until his climax had subsided. She knew she’d made a hash job of cleaning him up. She didn’t have the patience for more. Need pulsing at her core, she stripped off her shirt and crawled on top of Booker. She couldn’t resist pressing a hand to her wet pussy. She’d barely managed a handful of frenzied strokes before Booker flipped them over, parting her legs with his knees.

  “Did I say you could touch yourself, you little slut?”

  He closed a hand around her neck in not so subtle warning. He didn’t need to squeeze down—he didn’t have to remind her that he held her life in the palm of his hand.

  Kayla’s breath caught, her cunt clenching with an aching, pleasurable twinge.

  She sobbed as she tore her hands away from her cunt, inner muscles contracting around that unbearable void. “Please…”

  Ink flexing on ripped arms, Booker seized her wrist in a firm grip.

  Panic shot through Kayla at the thought that he’d abort her efforts entirely, pleas already surging to her lips, when Booker crammed her slick fingers into his mouth, licking between and around her digits as though he couldn’t resist the taste of her. He was no less forceful in maneuvering her hand back between her legs.