Take Me Harder

by Jackie Ashenden

  He hit stop and put his hand back on the wheel. “No. I didn’t tell them a thing.” Hell, he hadn’t even said goodbye properly. But since that would have alerted them to the fact that he was off to do something pretty fucking serious, he’d decided not to.

  Not that he was afraid they’d come after him—he knew by now that was never going to happen. But still, he didn’t want to leave anything to chance. The last thing either he or Ava needed was Quinn and Zane trying to stop them or bursting in on some misguided rescue attempt.

  Anyway, if he didn’t come back, they’d find out soon enough what he’d been doing, and by then he’d either be dead or in jail. He didn’t know how to say goodbye anyway and especially not after that earlier interaction with Quinn. It wasn’t like he could just tell them the truth.

  You could, you fucking coward.

  But what would be the point? Oh, hey, by the way, I’m not really your brother, only your half brother. Yeah, Mom got it on with a skip and I’m his kid. Sucks, huh?

  Ava shifted in her seat and he tried not to look at the long, pale length of her beautifully toned and delicious legs, or the flash of pale skin at her stomach that her top left bare. Christ, she looked hot. He couldn’t get over it.

  Her body in that skirt and top thingy was incredible, all long and athletic. Her hair was amazing with all those bouncy curls, and the gold eyeshadow and thick black mascara she’d applied made her eyes look almost otherworldly.

  She didn’t look like the wholesome girl he’d had naked on her knees the day before. Or the serious cop who’d strode into Sugar Daddy’s like she owned the place that first night.

  She looked like someone else, someone different, and even though he liked it very much, there was something missing: her freckles. Her makeup covered them up completely, and that he didn’t much like.

  “I should have left Dad a note,” she said quietly. “I meant to, but…I wasn’t sure what to say.”

  “You don’t need to write him a note. You’ll be back before he is.”

  She glanced at him. “If we get out of this.”

  “We will,” he said with utter certainty. Because if he was going to make sure of one thing, it was that she would. No one was touching her except him.

  You shouldn’t have agreed to this, you selfish prick.

  No, he knew that. But it was too late now. She was here and they were doing it, and hell, why shouldn’t she? As she’d told him back in her kitchen, it was about her mother, and yes, he did know how important that was to her.

  She shifted in her seat again, as if she was uncomfortable. “Why are you doing this, Rush? You said you had some business of your own you wanted to handle.”

  He kept his gaze on the highway ahead of him. “I do. But I’m not telling you about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  She was silent a moment, then she said, “When I told you that I was your friend, I meant it. You helped me back when I was a kid, and I don’t know that I ever told you how much that meant to me. But…it meant a lot, especially given Dad wasn’t much of a talker.” She paused, and he wished she wouldn’t keep saying things that made him feel so messed up, but she apparently couldn’t read minds and kept on talking. “I guess I’m telling you this because I’d like to think I could do the same for you. Be someone you could talk to. I mean…you used to tell me stuff.”

  “That was then, honey,” he said roughly, a tight feeling creeping into his chest. “And things are different now. You’re not a goddamn kid anymore.”

  “Well, I know that. But do you?”

  “Of course I know that. Jesus, you think I would have gotten you to suck me off if I hadn’t?”

  “So treat me like an adult, then.” Her voice softened. “Talk to me, Rush.”

  He gripped the steering wheel, staring hard at the long straight highway unrolling before them, his chest aching. Not wanting to tell her because he hated the thought of anyone knowing, and especially her for some inexplicable reason.

  Oh, come on. Stop being such a whiny, crybaby bitch. So your father is a scumbag criminal, big deal. Anyway, isn’t that better than being related to a broken-down alcoholic who didn’t give a fuck about you?

  Yeah, well, that was true. The fact that he hadn’t turned out to be related to old Joe had been a blessing. A fucking blessing.

  His knuckles tightened on the wheel. “Okay, if you want to know, I’ll tell you. But you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else. Especially not my brothers, understand?”

  “Of course I won’t tell anyone.” There was no hesitation in her response, and when he flashed her a glance, her face was utterly serious.

  I take everything that’s important seriously, she’d said. Did that mean he was one of the people she cared about? One of the people who was important to her?

  The ache in his chest deepened, and he didn’t like it. Because he didn’t want to be important to her. That wasn’t the point of this thing. He just wanted to get face-to-face with the fucker who’d hurt his mom and deal out some damage. And if he got to fuck Ava as well, then that was just a nice little extra.

  So what did it matter what she thought of him? It didn’t. He had to remember Rush’s first rule: don’t give a fuck.

  He tried to relax the tension in his shoulders. “You were too young to have met my mom.”

  “I suppose so. When did she die?”

  “When I was twelve.” He stopped, the tension gathering between his shoulder blades no matter how hard he tried not to let it. “Anyway,” he said, forcing himself to go on, “I found out something just before she passed. She told me that that…years ago, she’d been seduced by a skip my dad had brought in.”

  Ava was frowning at him again, but he didn’t look at her. He didn’t want to see what kind of expression was in her eyes. “Oh, no. Rush…”

  “You know what’s even crazier?” His voice was sounding weird now, all rough and with a slightly manic edge. “She got pregnant. Had a fucking affair with the guy and ended up having his baby.”

  Ava had gone very still. “Rush…”

  “Dunno why she wouldn’t get rid of it. I know Dad wanted her to, but she told me she couldn’t do that. That it wasn’t the baby’s fault and it deserved a chance like every other kid.”

  She fell silent.

  “Jesus,” he said, feeling a manic grin start to turn his mouth. “It’s a fucking joke, right? And you want to know the punch line?” He stared hard at the highway and the lights from the other traffic. “You’re looking at him.”

  Ava said nothing.

  His shoulders felt stiff, like there was a spring right in the middle of his back that someone had wound tight. And he wanted to move, to stop the car, leap out the door, and head off into the dark. Just run and keep on running until he reached the next state.

  “He’s there, isn’t he?” Ava said, after what felt like forever, her voice curiously expressionless. “The man who slept with your mother.”

  The man who slept with your mother. Not your father. For some reason the distinction made that spring feel a little less tightly wound. As if she somehow understood. Though he couldn’t see how she would when he didn’t understand himself. There were so many complicated emotions surrounding it and he couldn’t untangle them all.

  “Yes.” The word came out clipped and harsh. “He’s there.”

  “And what do you want from him?”

  “What do you think? I want him to confess what he did. And then I want to make him pay.”

  There was another silence, tense and heavy, the only sound the noise of the truck’s engine.

  Then, very slowly, Ava reached out a hand and put it on his thigh.

  It wasn’t sexual and, knowing Ava, she’d probably meant it to be comforting. But he didn’t want comfort, no fucking way, not now. Not when the simple pressure of her hand made him catch his breath and his cock harden almost instantly.

  Ah, Chri
st. What a predicable fuck he was.

  “Don’t,” he said curtly.

  “Don’t what?” She sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “Don’t touch me. Not unless you want to lose your virginity in the backseat of my truck.” Jesus, he must be crazy. First time ever he’d told a woman to take her hand off him.

  There was a long silence.

  She didn’t remove her hand.

  “Ava,” he growled. “I’m not fucking kidding.”

  Still her hand didn’t move, the light pressure of her fingertips on his thigh maddening. “Neither am I,” she said quietly. “You know what I want, Rush. I can’t believe you didn’t do it yesterday.”

  He couldn’t either. But he’d just walked out, leaving her on her knees on the kitchen floor. And he didn’t even know why. Only that she’d blown his mind and he’d had to get out, get some distance.

  Except it wasn’t distance he wanted, not right now. And neither, it appeared, did she.

  They’d moved beyond the city limits now, the flatness of the vast Texas plains all around them. It was dark and there were very few houses.

  There was a road coming up on his left, and before he could think twice, he’d pulled off the highway and driven down it a short way before stopping the car at the curb beneath the sheltering darkness of a tree.

  A streetlight not far away gave everything a yellow, sodium glow, the cab of the truck silent. Ava was quiet, her hand still on his thigh, but he could feel her tension in the air around them. Her head was turned toward him, her face shadowed.

  “Last chance,” he said softly, even though it was too late now and it had been too late from the moment he’d opened his mouth and told her his goddamn secret.

  Not that it mattered. He had nothing but eight years in prison for something he hadn’t even done. Eight years in prison that, no matter what he’d blustered to Quinn earlier, he’d given freely to impress a man who wasn’t even related to him.

  He wasn’t a Redmond and he had no codes, no loyalty.

  He was going to take whatever the fuck he wanted.

  She kept very, very still.

  He reached for her.

  —

  Rush’s hands were hard on her hips as he gripped them and hauled her across the bench seat of the truck, settling her on his lap with her facing him, the steering wheel at her back.

  She’d been expecting it, but still the suddenness of the movement had shocked her.

  Well, he warned you. You should have moved your hand then, shouldn’t you?

  But she hadn’t wanted to. He’d given her his secret, treating her as the friend she’d wanted to be, and so she’d wanted to give him comfort. Because this hurt him, a lot.

  She hadn’t known what to say, and she hated feeling ineffectual. Every comforting phrase she could think of sounded so trite in the face of that one explosive fact; he hadn’t been his father’s son and hadn’t even known until he was a teenager.

  So she’d put her hand on his thigh, because she’d had to do something. Show him that she sympathized and no, she had no idea what he was going through, but she was here. He wasn’t alone.

  She hadn’t intended for him to see that as sexual but…When he’d said he’d take her in the back of his truck, she suddenly understood what she really wanted to give him. The same thing she’d given him yesterday: herself.

  His body was insanely hot, his thighs rock hard beneath her. That silly little white skirt she’d squeezed herself into had ridden up almost to her waist and with her legs spread, her knees digging into the seat of the truck on either side of his thighs, her hips were canted at an angle that pushed her sex right up against the zipper of his jeans.

  She shivered as he gave a slow flex of his hips, the firm ridge of his cock nudging her clit.

  He was leaning back against the seat, his hands gripping her, watching her with half-closed eyes. The strange intensity that she’d sensed seething around him earlier had gone, his gaze now full of the same lazy heat as when she’d given him that blow job the day before.

  “You ready for this?” he asked in that hot, dark drawl, moving his hips again, giving her another nudge that sent an electric shock snaking down her back and shivers prickling everywhere. “Little virgin ready to be fucked in my truck?”

  She sucked in a breath, the rough eroticism of the words winding something tight inside her even tighter. No, she’d never imagined she’d lose her virginity in a truck on a public street in the dark, but who cared about that when it was with the man she’d secretly always wanted?

  She wished she could have said something equally erotic or shocking back to him, but she couldn’t think. She could barely even speak. The hard heat of his body was doing things to her and the scent of him, fresh laundry and the heady musk that was all Rush, was making it difficult to string sentences together, let alone try to be clever. So all she said was “Yes,” in a hoarse voice that didn’t sound like hers.

  He moved one hand under her skirt, his fingers sliding up her bare thigh and trailing fire, till it rested just at the top of her thigh where it met her hip. Then she felt the pad of his thumb brush over the front of her panties, pressing lightly.

  A lightning strike of sensation burst through her, sharp and bright, making her breath catch harshly in the silence of the truck’s cab. His eyes glittered from underneath his half-closed lids, the brilliant color lost in the glow of the streetlights.

  “People could see us,” he murmured. “Anyone just walking along could come by and see you riding my cock like a cowgirl.” He moved his thumb again, a gentle brushing back and forth over the front of her panties, and she trembled. Something was uncurling inside her, something delicious, and she wanted to lift her hips against that teasing thumb. Wanted to press against it.

  “You like that, huh?” His voice rolled over her, smooth and hot, like dark honey. “Tell me you like it, little girl. Tell me you like me stroking your pussy and I might make you come before I fuck you.”

  Ava lifted her hands to his chest, pushing her palms against the firm wall of muscle, loving his dirty talk. “I l-like it.” She shivered again as his thumb slid across her panties again.

  “Give me the words, honey. All the words.” His touch paused on her clit, not pushing down, just resting lightly. Heat spread out in a prickling wash over her skin, making her feel desperate.

  She tried to lift her hips, to deepen the pressure, but he gave a soft laugh, moving his touch away from her. “Sneaky. Pretty fucking sneaky. But you’re not going to get what you want until I hear the words. So keep still and give them to me.”

  The air in the cab seemed thin, like she was standing on the very top of a mountain, and it made her feel dizzy. The words. He wanted the words. “I like you s-stroking me,” she said.

  “That’s not all of them and you know it.” His thumb gave another pass, maddeningly close to where she wanted it and yet not close enough. “Say the dirty word, honey. I want to hear it.”

  The dirty word…“I like you stroking my p-pussy.” Her voice shook, which was annoying, and saying it made her cheeks heat with sudden and unexpected embarrassment—ridiculous considering her position and what he was doing to her.

  His beautiful mouth curled in the dim light. “There now. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “Please, Rush…” She couldn’t help the plea that escaped. “Please…just keep doing that.”

  “Keep doing what?” His thumb pressed down gently, and another bright strike of pleasure arced through her. “You mean this?” His maddening thumb shifted again, this time sliding down the front of her panties, tracing a line straight down her sex. “Or maybe this?” And pausing again at the entrance of her body, pressing through the cotton, the tip pushing inside just a little, teasing her.

  She tilted her hips forward then back, trying to find the angle that would give her the most friction, but he kept moving his thumb, stroking up and pressing harder, then easing back. Her panties were getting damp, she coul
d feel it, and the shivers gripping her were getting worse.

  She let out a frustrated noise as his touch retreated once again, his gaze hooded as he watched her, his movements controlled. His features seemed sharper in the shadows of the cab, his cheekbones and the lines of nose and jaw stronger and more pronounced. Mysterious, dangerous. Not the man who used to give her milk and cookies in the kitchen, who’d paid attention to her, who’d listened to her the way no one else had listened to her after her mother had died.

  She’d absorbed his attention then like a flower absorbs the sun, hungry for it, blossoming under its warmth. The smiles she’d managed to get from him had lit her up for days, and she hadn’t been able to wait until her father visited his dad again so that she could see him, talk to him again.

  That wasn’t the man who watched her now, who toyed lazily with her. This man was different, a threat to her in way she didn’t really understand. But she knew that. She’d known it the moment she’d laid eyes on him in Sugar Daddy’s. And she also knew, with an instinct that went bone deep, that if she let him take her now, he would possess her more completely than anyone ever would or could.

  It was a scary thought. And yet it was like this had gotten beyond her, had become bigger than she was in some way. There was a hunger inside her that didn’t want to be denied, that wanted to be set free.

  A hunger that desperately wanted him.

  His gaze dipped as he eased her skirt up around her waist, baring her. “White panties,” he said in a rough drawl. “Jesus, you’ve got no idea how fucking hot that is.” His hand shifted again, his thumb stroking over and over the material, finding the hard bud of her clit and circling gently, making her shake like a leaf. “I could just sit here and look at you all night, play with you like this.” His gaze lifted to hers. “Would you like that, honey? Would you like me playing with you? Stroking your pussy and making you purr?”

  She was panting now, her hips moving like they had a mind of their own, searching for the teasing touch of his thumb, wanting it. “More,” she said thickly. “Please.”