by Zoey Parker
“Fuck.”
“That mouth of yours is really going to get you into trouble.” He chuckled, easing his way out of me just as slowly as he’d entered me. “The only time I want to hear that word come out of that pretty mouth of yours is when I’m fucking you. Any other time and I may just wash your mouth out with soap.”
A full force thrust and he was back inside of me, completely knocking the wind out of me. I pulled my knees back, enjoying him rolling his eyes back at the tightness this caused for him. “Fine. Fine.” I agreed to make him start moving again.
“You like the idea of me punishing you, don’t you?” He slid away from me again, and I wanted to cross my eyes and scream from the frustration. “Tell me.”
“I do, Michael. I like you in control.” It wasn’t a lie. “Please, now will you fuck me?”
He braced himself up on his arms, his biceps tightening and his eyes darkening. He thrust fiercely, making me cry out from the sudden fullness. “Say it again. Now or I stop.”
If he made good on his threat, I’d probably cry like a baby. “I love you in control. I love it,” I said with wide eyes, clamping my arms around him. “Please. Now, Michael.”
“You beg so nicely; next time, I think I’ll make you do it on your knees.” Arching his spine, he slid out of me to the very tip of his cock. I whined, afraid he was leaving me again, but he slammed forward. Without missing a beat, he continued the torture, pulling out and slamming forward again and again until I squealed with frustration. “Fuck, you’re so tight, so fucking hot.” He finally stopped tormenting me and thrust hard in again and again.
I pressed my feet against the bed, matching his thrusts with my own hips, trying to quicken his pace. But Michael never moved faster than he wanted, and when he gave me a warning pinch to my hip, I followed his lead.
“Please. Please.” I’d never begged for anything until Michael had put his hands on me only a day ago. Since then, I couldn’t seem to stop begging him.
Pressing his lips to mine, he cut off the sound of my moaning. His tongue delved into my mouth, exploring everywhere and driving me even closer to my end. When he released me, he stared down into my eyes, his hot breath moving quickly over my cheeks. The burn of my ass barely noticeable anymore, I moved along with him, trying to drag him to the same place I was.
His hands moved to my hips, pinning me down. Leaning down, he took my nipple into his mouth, his hot tongue circling my nipple.
“Oh!” I cried out.
“Come for me, babe. You’re so close, I can feel it. God, your pussy feels so good around my cock.”
As though my body had been waiting to hear him say the words, my orgasm swept through me, rocking my body hard.
My thighs clamped down around his waist, crying out with each new wave of pleasure as it crashed into me. His own eyes rolled, and his hips bucked two more times before he stilled over me, lost in his own release. A low growl escaped him as I floated back down from my own orgasm.
“God damn.” His head rested on my shoulder. “If we had done this in high school, I would have killed anyone who came near you.” Meant as a joke, but said with an undercurrent of such seriousness, I felt compelled to kiss his bare shoulder.
“If we had done this in high school, I probably would have done more to track you down after you left.” Not that I could have done more, other than hiring a private detective.
After kissing my forehead once more, he slid backwards. The sensation made me want to pull him back in, but he was already off the bed and walking to the door. I let myself admire his ass while he walked. Firm, muscular, just like the rest of him.
I listened as the water turned on in the adjoining bathroom and slid off the bed while he was gone. I slid my shirt back down over my body. I pulled my jeans back up and stuffed my bra and panties into the back pockets.
I wanted to climb into his bed, to snuggle against him while slept like we had the night before. But one phrase kept me from doing so, kept me from giving into the intimacy the moment suggested.
While you’re mine.
Chapter 14
Michael
Fuck. The innocent girl I knew, the one who blushed when I tried stealing a kiss at her locker, had been replaced by a confident woman who responded to every touch with an electrifying heat.
When I carried her up to my bedroom I hadn’t fully formulated my plan, but I knew I was going to spank her, though I knew that was going to happen regardless of her behavior. For only a brief moment did I fear she would choose to walk out of the room instead of taking what I offered, but I knew her body better than she did. Her fingers rubbed together at her side, a nervous trait that told me she was going to do something she didn’t really want, or wasn’t sure she wanted to. I’d seen her to it a few dozen times in school when she needed to give a presentation in a class. As soon as I saw her fingers start moving, I knew she’d be bent over the bed in no time. She just needed her brain to catch up to her body.
I finished tossing the condom in the trash, grabbed a towel for her and headed back to my room. Empty.
Her clothes were gone, and the door to my room was open. Annoyed, I jammed my legs into my jeans and went in search for her. Didn’t we just talk about this? Well, I supposed I hadn’t told her to stay put, but it damn well was implied!
“Lauren!” I called down the stairwell. Nothing. I ran down the carpeted steps, checking the living room and kitchen. Both empty. She wouldn’t have been stupid enough to try to hail a cab at that time of night. It was nearing midnight and cabs didn’t run too often in my area.
Her backpack was gone from the kitchen, but I noticed her phone lying on the kitchen island. Either she left it behind, or she was still in the house. Deciding to check the upstairs bathroom, I took the stairs two at a time, each second of searching for her only compounding my annoyance.
When I reached the top of the staircase I noticed a thin beam of light coming from beneath the guest bedroom door. As I approached it, I heard a soft humming. I slowly turned the handle and pushed the door open just enough to peek inside. Lauren lay on the bed in her t-shirt. Her jeans and underwear were neatly folded in a pile on the nightstand beside her. Her nose was buried in a textbook while she laid on her stomach reading, her feet swaying above her to the music playing on the clock radio. Her head bounced right then left, then right again as the tempo picked up and she started singing along.
The sight reminded me of a simpler time. When I would watch her study in much the same fashion. I pushed the door open the rest of the way and leaned against the doorjamb, waiting for her to realize I’d found her. I examined her as though I’d not seen her before. The curves of her chin and nose were soft, gentle. Her legs were strong, but still held the feminine curves I loved so much. One red welt peaked out from under shirt across her ass and my stomach twisted. She left before I could be sure her ass was okay. After a few more minutes of my staring at her, I cleared my throat.
Her feet stilling in the air, and she slowly turned her head to look over her shoulder at me. Damn, she was beautiful. “Hey.” I walked over to the bed. Pushing her legs over, I sat down. “You left this downstairs.” I dropped her phone on the opened textbook.
“Thanks.” She forced a small smile.
“I need to look at your ass.” I reached for the hem of her shirt but she yanked away. “Lauren, I just want to be sure you’re okay.” After searching my expression for a silent moment, she nodded and rolled back onto her stomach. My fingers traced the welt. The other four strokes hadn’t left a mark; those red lines were nearly all faded, but one welt stood up off her skin. When I touched it, she sucked in her breath. “I’m sorry, babe. I would have taken care of this right away, but you left before I could.” Examining it more, I was relieved the skin hadn’t broken at all. It would probably bruise a bit, but wouldn’t last more than a day or two.
I pulled her shirt back down and let her roll back over to face me. “I thought you’d like your room back.” She sat up,
scooting against the headboard.
“Why would I want that?” I climbed over her and lay beside her, resting my head on her thighs. Her hand sunk into my hair, running her fingers along my scalp. “I want you in my bed, Lauren. That’s where you belong.” I kept my voice even. No need to scare her.
“I needed to get some reading done.”
I was sure she did have something to work on for school, but that had nothing to do with her leaving my bedroom. She could have brought that book into my bed.
“If I look up and that lip of yours is sucked into your mouth, I’m going to kiss you until you can’t breathe, and then I’m going to ask you to repeat the first expectation I gave you tonight.” Before she could react, I rolled over and looked up at her. Sure enough that corner of her lip was stuck behind her teeth. I laughed and pulled her down to kiss me. “Now. What was the first expectation?”
“Always be honest,” she whispered.
“So tell me the truth. Why’d you move in here?”
She looked down at me, her lips parted as she took slow breaths. “I…once this is all done, and you finally admit I’m safe, you’ll leave again, and I don’t want it to hurt like it did all those years ago.”
Her words cut me as easily as any kitchen knife would have. “Lauren, I never meant to hurt you, that’s not why I left.”
“Then why? Tell me. What made you stay away from me? Why wouldn’t you let me see you, and why run away when you got out? I tried to find you, looked for you everywhere. A few of your old friends told me to back off, that if I couldn’t find you it was because you didn’t want to be found, but I kept looking.”
Picturing a younger version of this woman before me searching the streets of Chicago, going to my old haunts alone just to find me, turned my stomach. “Lauren—”
“No holding back. You said you expected me not to keep things from you, but here you are doing it to me.” Her eyes hardened as she stared down at me.
“Fine.” I sat up and hopped off the bed. If I were going to tell her everything she wanted to know, I couldn’t do it with her touching me. Not even casually. “When I got sent away, all I could think about was who the hell was going to watch over you. For weeks, I made calls to my friends, making them check up on you, making sure Chad and that bastard of a stepdad stayed away from you. You coming out to see me was a dumb thing to do. You had to take that bus all the way there; it wasn’t safe. I figured if I didn’t see you, you wouldn’t take the chance again.”
“You didn’t want me on the bus?” She looked at me like I had grown a second head.
I ignored the question. “When I got out, I got picked up by a biker club. Predators. They took me in, gave me an apartment and I worked with them on cars and shit. First just doing rebuilds, regular maintenance that short of crap. But then the president, he wanted me to do some special projects. Before I knew it, I was stealing cars, stripping them, and selling off the parts.” I didn’t look at her, I just kept leaning against the dresser with my hands stuffed in my jeans. “The pay was awesome, I got girls whenever I wanted, everything was going fine. In my second year with the club, he put me in charge of a small crew. I got to call the shots, what cars we took, where we sold the parts, everything. I just had to report back to him with results. The pay got better, the girls were chasing me down, so I kept going. Fast and hard. My life was the fucking club. But I got fucking cocky, stole the wrong car and got busted. Right back to jail they sent my ass, only I wasn’t a minor anymore and they sent me to prison. Spent a year locked up.”
“Michael.” The small voice nearly chewed me up. I didn’t want or need her pity. The decisions were mine and I lived by them. Good or bad, it was my life and I wasn’t going to apologize for any of it.
“When I got out that time, I wanted out of the car shit. But Prez wouldn’t let me out of it, said he needed me to keep running the crew ’cause he was getting too much heat from the cops. See, the club runs an actual garage, completely legit, but he runs his illegal shit through there, too. The cops have turned his garage over a few times looking for the auto theft shit, but they never find it. Prez is too clever for that. Officer Bixby helps keep the cops off my ass as long as I stay clear of the club. He was the detective on my case, trying to pin as many auto thefts on me as possible.”
I ran my hand over my face. “After a few dozen hours of questioning me, he realized I wasn’t going to give him shit, and Prez would sooner see me dead than let me hand over any information. Bixby looked out for me. Put me on the straight and narrow. He stopped looking, dropped his investigation and made me give him my word I wouldn’t lift another car for the club again.”
“I’m guessing your president didn’t like that idea.”
“No, he didn’t. Sent a few guys after me in prison to be sure I kept my mouth shut. After I sent one of those assholes to the medical ward, he backed off. Finally convinced I wasn’t going to flip on him. But he didn’t like that I wouldn’t run his crew when I got back. Said it was either that or turn in my leather. Now, I fucking loved that club. The guys, they were my fucking brothers, but he didn’t give me a choice. I wasn’t going back to prison for him. Fuck, the guy I laid out came at me with a fucking shiv. The asshole had sent someone to kill me, then wondered why the fuck I wouldn’t run his shit anymore.” I felt the anger brewing again, and took a deep breath.
She didn’t say anything. She crawled down the length of the bed and stepped off, moving to stand in front of me. I watched her hands touch the tattoo on my chest. A large dagger with P written on the handle. “Is that what this is? Your club tattoo?” Her fingers traced the edges of the daggers crossing below the knight’s helmet.
“Yeah. The one on my back, too.” Across my shoulders was the full emblem of the club. Having not been thrown out of the club, they’d let me keep my ink, so long as I didn’t wear my leathers. Just another way of Mick showing his power, but still hoping I’d come back to the club.
“That guy you had babysitting me tonight, Tony? He has this on his arm.” She looked up at me, those soft big eyes of hers. After what I told her, she should be disgusted with me. Instead she pressed her lips to my tattoo, as if she could ease away the pain that part of my life caused.
“Yeah. He’s still active, but doesn’t run the auto shit. A few of my guys are still in the club, but they work on the outside. Staying clear of Mick’s bullshit.”
“So you stayed away to protect me?”
Among other things, but I wasn’t about to start spilling my feelings all over the place. “You didn’t need to be a part of the shit I was doing.”
“What if I weren’t so innocent?” She moved her gaze from mine when she asked her question. Her hands dropped from my chest. “If I weren’t the naïve little girl you thought I was, would that have made a difference? Would it now?”
I pushed away from the dresser, standing at full height. That girl was hiding something from me. “What do you mean?”
“It’s just a question.”
“If you were doing shit you weren’t supposed to be doing? Yeah, I woulda hauled your ass to the side and taken care of it. But you weren’t, right?” I didn’t mean to sound so angry, but I kept my eyes on her for years after I left. She’d been completely on the straight and narrow, but the look in her eye at that moment suggested she wasn’t the innocent girl I left behind.
“Why can’t I stay at my place? And why does this cop I mentioned make you nervous?”
I took a deep breath, better to pull off the Band-Aid with one yank. “That guy last night, the one who jumped you? He was a club member. I went to see Mick today, turns out he’s been asked as a favor to convince you to turn down that internship. Said as long as you do, nothing else happens.”
“The car accident?”
“He didn’t know anything about that. I’m guessing the guy came to him after the car accident didn’t work to scare you off. Your apartment isn’t safe for you right now. Not until I figure out who this guy is who’s aski
ng for favors. I might need to pull a few favors of my own, but until I do that, you stay with me. In my house. In my bed. Got it?”
She nodded, and I couldn’t keep myself from kissing those lips when they were so damn close to me. “Yeah, I got it,” she whispered when I pulled away.
“Tomorrow I want you to tell me about this internship. Why the hell is it so important that you not have it, and why does that asshat at school want it so bad.” I swooped down and hoisted her into my arms. “Right now, I want to take you back to my bed and get you good and tired before I tuck you in.”
“My book.” She pointed to the text that laid open on the pillows.