by V. Theia
He was thinking all sorts of shit that wasn’t good.
Pregnant was top of his list, even though she said she never fucked the guy.
“Okay, here goes.” She said again.
“Poppy, just spit it out.”
“Iwasengagedtwomoretimesbeforethis.”
Her run on words flooded out of her lips too fast for his ears to pick up.
It couldn’t be what he thought she said. “Say again.”
Trepidation coated her green irises and color highlighted her cheeks as she fiddled with the neck of his shirt, her skinny fingers scraping his already too hot skin because she was sitting on his dick. “I was engaged twice before I was engaged to Ronnie.”
Not pregnant then.
Texas exhaled. He didn’t mind kids, but he had a problem fucking a woman who had a kid in her belly that wasn’t his. It would feel too much like a home invasion.
“To different fellas or Ronnie?”
She snorted and put her forehead to his shoulder. “Three separate engagements and three men.” She lifted her head and shyly peered at him through the curtain of her hair. He moved it back and held his fingers to her soft cheek. “Do you think I’m a giant floozy? Did your attraction disappear?”
He smirked from one corner of his lips. “Gorgeous tramp.”
“Tait,” she huffed, slapping his arm.
“That’s some engagement ring collection, Poppy.”
“They just happened.”
“You just fell into being engaged to three guys?” Amused, he couldn’t help teasing her. He could give a fuck what she did in the past, it didn’t affect how his dick was reacting to her squirming one bit. The only thing he was concerned about was if she’s going to scrape this new guy off or she’s just currently mad at him and will change her mind once she sees him.
“I mean, the first one was on my eighteenth birthday, he asked me in front of all my family, how could I say no? And the next one was a few years later, after that first one didn’t work out…obviously.” Her cheeks were still flame hot and Texas was chewing the inside of his cheek to stop from grinning.
He was starting to feel for poor fucking Ronnie.
“How did the second one ask?”
“On Daddy’s yacht.”
“In front of everyone?”
“No, but he’d asked daddy’s blessing.”
“You love these guys?”
She bit her lip and shook her head from side to side.
“Little girl, I hate to break it to you, but you’re either addicted to wedding cake or you’re unable to tell anyone no.”
She groaned and laid her head on his shoulder again, keeping it there this time until he tangled a hand in the back of her hair. He figured if she was perched on his hurting dick, then he could put a hand on her too.
“So the little socialite has a wild past. I think my attraction is worse.” He grunted.
It wasn’t a lie.
At least he knew he wouldn’t be breaking her or shocking her with what he wanted to do.
“Not so wild.” She muffled and lifted her head. Doing that nervous lip biting thing again.
Jesus, more secrets?
He didn’t know an Astor as good as her would have skeletons in her closet.
“I mean… I haven’t..”
“Haven’t what?”
“I was engaged, that part is true, Tait. But I haven’t done the other stuff.”
“Down the aisle and smashing wedding cake into each other’s mouths you mean? Kind of glad you don’t have three marriages, baby.”
“No. I mean yes, that too.” Red. She turned very red and then blurted. “All the sex. I’ve never done it with them. With anyone, Tait. I’m waiting for marriage, the real kind, where I know it’s right.”
Oh.
Shit.
His brain computed what she was saying.
All the while his poor unused dick was waiting not so patiently to be tagged in.
He didn’t know how to break the virginal news to him.
So Texas didn’t.
He just lowered his forehead to hers and groaned.
FIFTEEN
“Keep your friends close and your enemies at arm’s length.” – Texas
Texas wasn’t so gentlemanly that he put Poppy to bed that night without kissing the savage hell out of her first.
They made out like teens on his couch until he thought he might seriously combust out of his skin, leaving shards of Texas shaped bones all over the living room.
Only when she started whimpering and popping her hips on his groin did he dump her on his bed and leave her there so he could take a cold shower and beat off until he felt okay again.
He also wasn’t dumb enough to stick around the following morning to face her.
Coward.
She was saving her body for when she married.
That was a game changer and not a game he was throwing his hat in the ring for.
He liked the hell out of her, really. So much.
He’d never felt attraction this big before.
He wanted to grab her in, maul his mouth against the side of her neck until she cried out for more and then he wanted to do a whole lot of dirty things he wondered how shocked she’d be with. Starting by sliding his hand into her panties.
Yeah, Texas got the hell out of his apartment well before 6 am.
He went for his usual run.
Now he’d told Snake of the Russian’s presence over by the distillery, he didn’t bother stopping when he saw a few buses parked outside.
Lady luck was not on his side after he stopped for a takeout coffee at the diner when he nearly plowed into Capone coming out.
He stepped back to let him exit first and came up short with the sneer on the other guy’s face.
“Yeah, really good to see you too, Capone. I’m fine, thanks for asking.”
Sipping his own coffee, Capone just stared and walked down to his bike.
Texas felt the hit and stepped into the diner, pushing it from his head.
Deserved, he had to keep telling himself.
He seriously had to get out of this town.
On the slow walk back to his apartment, his head in the misery clouds, he didn’t see the black Mercedes pulling in slowly besides him until he cranked his head to the side and saw Grigori peering out of the back passenger window at him.
What. The. Fuck.
“If you’re lost, I don’t have directions for you.” He snapped and went on walking.
The car followed at a snail’s pace.
“You have some altercation with your comrade back there.”
Texas ignored the man.
“I hear on the grapevine; things are not so well in the Renegade Souls. Not for you, my friend. Had I known you were capable of selling out to the authorities, you and I could have been close friends.”
That little statement had Texas’ head almost spinning off his neck when he came to a halt and stared at the guy who was smirking back like he’d hit the jackpot.
Whoever his spies were in town, meant Grigori had some idea of what he’d done and Texas had no fucks to give.
Even without the Souls, he would loathe a man like him.
“Why the hell are you still even here, man? There’s nothing here for you. Go to New York, LA, Timbuktu. Denver is taken.”
Grigori smirked and lowered the window further.
“Perhaps I want what I am told I cannot have. It’s a terrible affliction, is it not, Mr. Hunt? We yearn for power like it is a drug. We yearn to belong, da?”
He didn’t grow up with a man like his father and not recognize when someone was trying to appeal to his weak spots.
Staring, he said nothing because he had not one word to say to the likes of the Russian. What did he think, because he was out of the Souls that he’d be a turncoat?
He felt a blast of anger start to burn behind his eyes.
Fuck that noise.
“We could be beneficial to eac
h other, Mr. Hunt. Da? Get in, we discuss.”
Again, he ignored the man and crossed over the street, to listen to the sound of the man laughing, “Ah, soon then, my friend. We have much to converse and help each other.”
Not fucking likely, man.
Not at all.
Because of the confrontation with Capone and then the crap with Grigori, he about took the door off when he stormed into his place and scared the color out of Poppy’s face.
It didn’t stop his mood from violently raging either when he banged doors and stomped around as he got ready for the day.
“What’s up your butt, moody biker?”
She was hovering behind him, bringing her good girl sweet smell with her, making him crazy, making him hard, making him want to climb on his bike and get the hell out of there.
He owned his place outright; she could live there rent free if she wanted to.
She didn’t need a protector. Certainly not a guy who only wanted to peel her out of her clothes and taste what was beneath.
He ached to find redemption in her tight little body.
Why then as soon as he put the thought into his head did a growl of refusal gurgle up his windpipe?
“Not moody,” he answered finally when she didn’t stop her hovering even when he moved around the kitchen filling the water jug in the fridge.
“You look pretty moody. Is it me? Have I outstayed my welcome? Should I pack my grocery bag and hit the bricks?”
Coming out of her well cultured mouth, those words made him grin against his better judgement and yeah, his bad mood lessened some.
“You’d be back within five minutes, it’s cold out.”
“Fine, I’ll stay until the spring, the summer at the latest.” He didn’t mistake her muttering a date under her breath that was twenty years from now.
It only put more fire in places that had no right to get fucking hot.
It didn’t help that she came up behind him and wrapped both of her arms around his waist and rested her face into his spine.
He about vibrated out of his skeleton with how good it felt.
* * *
“Why are you so angry, Tait?”
She felt his sigh through his back.
“Had another run in with Capone.”
Because he didn’t shove her away, she went right on holding him, loving how solidly he felt against her body. He was seriously ripped in all the places a man should be ripped. She’d seen his belly and chest bare, all those lovely bumps and valleys that headed into the waist of his sweatpants.
“And?” It was like pulling blood from a turnip to get words out of him that wasn’t a grunt. She asked while she nuzzled her nose into his back, smelling his clean masculine fragrance.
All her boyfriends, and there’d been a fair few, that included the fiancés, all used expensive colognes that made them smell like cheap hookers.
That was her whole problem. She never once spoke up about anything.
About the clothes her mom advised her to wear.
Or how to carry herself at parties.
Who to date.
What to drink.
All three engagement parties were organized and Poppy didn’t have one say in any of them.
It made her a weak woman and she didn’t want to be her anymore.
She wanted to be the type of woman who pushed someone to talk when she saw they had a problem, to be the woman who would hug a gorgeous man around his waist and feel him trembling.
“Tait?”
“Friends I respected, worked alongside every single day turned their backs on me just like that, I get they’re angry…he treated me like dirt. Like we haven’t had each other’s backs for years, or that I wasn’t there for him all those times he was too drunk to drive home and I carried his ass over the door because he was grieving. Then I stayed to make sure he didn’t puke and choke to death.”
He was hurt and she felt it through his croaked voice so she hugged him tighter.
“You already said you deserved it.”
He grunted. “Yeah.” and walked around the kitchen, grabbing things out of the fridge, all with Poppy attached to his spine like a grasping sloth.
He didn’t say one word about letting him go.
“So you’re angrier at yourself then you are at them?”
He rumbled a noise she took for confirmation.
“What are you doing to fix it?”
That’s when she let him go and came around to face him standing at the island.
His head shot up and he pinned her with a stare sharp enough to strip paint. She didn’t wither. Sometimes the truth was hard to face.
She’d had to do her own facing recently and some things were not pretty to look at or admit. Especially if it meant admitting you were wrong. Admitting that she was weak and a pushover was not easy to have in her mind, but she’d said those words and vowed to change.
“You obviously miss your friends, so fix it.”
“It’s not as easy as that. I fucked up; I did something unforgivable.”
“Did you...murder someone?”
He snorted and started chopping lettuce like a professional sous chef.
She was mesmerized with his dexterous hands and the veins standing up out of his skin on the back of them. “Murder in my world is not unforgivable, little girl.”
It’s not? Wow. That would be for her to unpack in another conversation.
Bikers really were terrifying.
She hated to admit it, but she was kind of glad he wasn’t around them, thus putting her around them too. Just seeing them in the bar and the bakery caused her bones to quake with slight fear.
They were a different breed of men, that’s for sure.
Men who classed murder as no big deal.
“Then what did you do?”
“I broke trust. Loyalty.”
“And for that they’re no longer your friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it for the right reasons? Or were you being spiteful.”
Leaning against the counter, she could read every regretful emotion on his face which gave her the answer already.
“Mal wanted to bring down every MC, just to fuck with me. I fed him information on other clubs just so he’d leave my club alone. It was my fucked up logic, the only thing I felt I could do. I did this knowing I was keeping it from the boys, knowing that at any moment Mal could get them into trouble. The club…the patched brothers who sit around the table, don’t keep secrets, none that could hurt the club. I kept those secrets.”
“That giant dickhead,” she burst out. “I knew your brother was a piece of work, but that’s awful. He should want you to be happy.”
“Yeah, well. Right reasons or not, babe. I fucked up by not taking it to my boys right away.”
“Then earn their trust back. It’s never too late, you’re still alive so it’s not too late, Tait.”
She thought she was getting through to him when he let go of an inhale. He sort of let his head hang low.
But then she said. “You’re a good man, Tait.”
And his whole demeanor changed.
From the tightening of his spine, to the grasp of his hand as he discarded the knife before turning around on her and piercing Poppy with a stare hard enough to put fear and lust in equal measure through her entire body.
The next thing she knew, he’d moved swiftly and hauled her up into his strong arms, taking long strides through the loft, he fell on the couch, him on top of her.
Poppy was hardly able to catch a breath, what with Tait shocking the bejesus out of her like that. She didn’t know she was clinging to his shirt front as his deep-set eyes searched her face.
Funny that she’d never been in this position before with any guy.
They’d never been moved to carry her across a room and climb on top of her.
Nor did they look at her in the intense way Tait was gazing down at her.
Like he could just slurp her up and leave
nothing behind.
It was so baffling now to Poppy that she’d been through three engagements and never felt this tummy fizzling with excitement and longing.
Inching her fingers up to his neck, she felt the bristles on the side of his jaw and he lay there, letting her explore him.
“What did you do for Christmas, Tait?”
“What?”
“Christmas, you know the holiday that just went by? Trees, Santa Claus and eggnog. What did you do for it?”
“Nothing. I worked on a farm, grabbed dinner and drank some.”
Oh, her heart.
Right there she decided, no matter what happened, she would not let him spend another Christmas alone working and drinking.
Her hands reached up to cup both his cheeks.
His breath sucked in when she moved a thumb against the soft part of his lips.
“What do you need from me, Poppy?”
Oh, wow. He was going to make her use her big girl words and ask, wasn’t he?
Him lying on top of her felt amazing, she couldn’t see how much better it could get, but there was something she wanted … ached for it, actually.
“I want your mouth on mine.”
“Want a kiss?”
She nodded, almost frantically, her cheeks stained in heat as arousal slithered through her lower half and tried to curl invisible hands around Tait’s much bigger body.
“Yes, a kiss, please.”
“She says fucking please.” he groaned and lowered his head to brush their lips together.
Warm on warm, even that melted her.
And that was before he tempted her lips open by using the tip of his tongue.
She opened and he came inside.
His kiss was otherworldly. It was planets and solar systems colliding and newly discovered wildlife. It was popcorn and carnivals and brand new shoes and it was the most definitive moment of her life as the first flush of arousal overtook her.
It was everything amazing and she moaned as he deepened, used his tongue around hers in a way that left her no choice but to go where he led, she loved where he was taking her.
Just that fast, his taste became a drug that pushed endorphins through her veins and she got her hands all over him. Chest, face, hair. Her legs wound around his.