“A nurse,” she said, and couldn’t believe the way her heart was hammering. What big hands he had. Hands bigger than Aidan’s; hands that could choke –
“A naughty nurse,” he said with a deep chuckle, fingertip flirting with the plunging white neckline of her costume. Before she could say anything, he slipped his whole big hand into her uniform and palmed her naked breast.
She gasped, and he misread it.
“Did you miss me?” he whispered, breath stirring her hair as he got even closer. His fingers tightened, digging into her flesh. “I’ve been dreaming about these, sweetheart. You gonna let me see in a minute?”
She dampened her lips. “I…”
“Hey,” a voice said just behind Candy.
She knew that voice too: Carter.
Candyman pulled back a fraction, but his hand stayed in her top as he turned his head slowly, with put-on boredom, toward the younger member.
Jazz bit her lip in surprise when she caught sight of Carter’s face. He looked absolutely murderous. While that wasn’t much of a threat to someone as big as Candy, it was still impressive in its own right, his level of aggression.
“Can I help you with something?” Candy asked.
Carter kicked his chin up, bold and stupid and wonderfully brave, Jazz thought. “Don’t mess with Jasmine tonight.”
Candy laughed. “Did nobody ever teach you how to wait your turn? News flash, kid, you’re on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to pussy privilege.”
“This isn’t about your goddamn totem pole,” Carter said. “Jazz isn’t interested in being pawed at, and you’re gonna respect her and back the fuck off.”
Candy stared in open disbelief, then glanced over at Jazz…then he noticed her expression, and the way she couldn’t stop trembling.
She felt tears sting her eyes. “Please…” she whispered, and wasn’t sure what she meant. She was a jumble of nerves and anxieties, and she hated it.
“Get your hand off her,” Carter hissed.
Candy withdrew his hand, but didn’t move. The look he sent to Carter was a clear warning, one anyone else would have backed down from.
Be careful, baby, Jasmine wanted to tell him. He’ll hurt you bad. But she couldn’t speak, could only watch.
“Are you trying to make her your woman?” Candy asked, an edge creeping into his voice.
“No. I’m looking out for her, and all you have to do is look at her and know she’s upset.”
Candy looked back at her, indecision edging in on his anger. “I’ll back off,” he said, “only if she wants me to. I ain’t ever gonna force anyone. Is that what you want, babe? Do you want me to back off?”
Did she want it? Even when she was tired, or a little bit sick, or just not in the mood, she never refused a brother. She knew her place; she understood that the use of this clubhouse and the safety it provided was dependent upon her cooperation.
But she nodded. Yes, she wanted him to back off. She couldn’t stand the idea.
Candy looked as shocked as she felt. But, true to his word, be withdrew from her with one last searching look. You sure? it said. And she knew that if she let him go now, he’d never show favor toward her again.
But again, she nodded. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, but Candy was already moving away.
Tears filled her eyes, blurred her vision.
Carter took Candy’s place, leaning over her, face harsh with concern.
“I don’t understand why this is happening,” she said, brokenly. Was this it? Had her lifestyle finally caught up to her and she was cracking? “I never….”
“Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her along after him. Through the shifting crowd of bodies in the common room, the pulsing music, the smell of sweaty bodies and spilled liquor. Out the front door, where wood smoke filled her lungs and the night wrapped around her with cold relief. Carter skirted the outdoor crowd and led her around the side of the building, to the shadowy side of the clubhouse, where the club trucks, vans, and ratty old cars were parked. The security lights were cut off by the roofline, and only a dim glow enabled them to see, everything soft-edged and gentle. The party noise was a dim murmur.
Jasmine took her first deep breath of the night, a ragged sound catching in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, pressing her cold hands to her face. “I don’t know why I’m being like this.”
“Jazz.” Carter touched her carefully on the shoulder. “Hey, take a deep breath, it’s alright.”
She shook her head. It wasn’t, it really wasn’t.
“You were traumatized, and that takes time to get over.”
She didn’t want to cry, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. “You’re sweet, bless your heart, but you don’t get it.” How could a pretty blonde baby boy have any idea what would happen to her if she was no longer welcome within the club?
She heard him exhale, a tired sound. “Yeah, actually, I think I do.”
Her eyes sprang open in surprise when she felt his arms go around her. She stiffened…and then relaxed against his solid chest as he stroked her back. His heartbeat thudded beneath her ear. He was hugging her. Actually hugging her. No man in her entire life had ever hugged her. And here was this sweet thing, young enough to be her son, and he was holding her in his arms and telling her it would be alright.
It was the sweetest thing she’d ever experienced.
Slowly, the shivering eased. Then her breathing evened out. The cold numbness was replaced with a spreading warmth, one that began to take shape in her mind, coalescing physically in secret places.
It was easy to forget, in the aftermath of her trauma, that before Aidan entered the scene, things had been going very right that evening in the dorm. She hadn’t put much thought toward Carter Michaels before that, but she should have, because he had been magnificent. He had–
Time to stop thinking so much.
Jazz braced her hands on his chest and pulled back, tilted her head back so she could see his face. It was a beautiful face, a little sharper and more masculine than Tango’s; it belonged on a fancy cologne add, the scented kind that slid out of glossy magazine pages.
His clear blue eyes searched her face, still concerned, but a little curious too.
Because she wanted to, and she’d always been bad at resisting impulses, Jazz reached up to trace one fingertip down the ridge of his nose. His mouth twitched like it tickled. She moved down, edged his lips with her red fingernail, teased at the pale stubble on his chin.
He grinned and he had dimples. “I’m not like Candyman, but I’m not made out of stone either, baby.”
He liked it, then, her touch. It was stirring things in him.
Good. Things were stirring in her too.
She let her hand fall, played with the zippered edge of his cut. “When we…” she started, and watched his eyes flare. She smiled. “You liked it?”
“I loved it.” His hand tightened at the small of her back, pulled her hips in close so she could feel that he was loving the idea of it happening again.
“I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said quietly.
“Does it look like I care? You’re gorgeous.”
Jazz stretched up and kissed him.
It went wild fast, and suddenly it wasn’t a kiss, but a tussle, their hands grasping desperately at one another. Carter picked her up and set her on the hood of the old Cadillac behind them, bundled up her short white skirt and found her bare, hot and wet beneath. She loved the little growl in his throat when he touched her, the hard grasp of his hands on her thighs as he spread them. She worked his jeans open in a few deft moves and then he was inside her, filling her up and making her neck weak. They both made sounds, gasping breaths against one another’s lips as he slid home.
Jazz wrapped her legs around his waist and lay back, opening herself up to his deep thrusts. God, she couldn’t remember sex ever feeling so necessary. She thought she’d die if he stopped.
She tore at the buttons of her unif
orm and spread the halves, bared her breasts to him. “Touch me,” she pleaded, and he did. And she watched the stars as he fucked her.
~*~
Tango watched Carter lead Jazz from inside the clubhouse, and he didn’t mean to follow, but somehow he set his beer down and did just that. He found a dark spot behind one of the trucks and watched, unseen, as Jazz shook with fright and Carter comforted her, hugged her. Had he ever done that himself? Touched her in that innocent way? He didn’t remember. There were so many ways in which he’d failed her.
He watched the hug go on and on. Watched Jazz finally pull back, watched the smiles; private smiles, traded between two people who didn’t know they had an audience. Watched them kiss. Watched them move to the hood of the car.
He braced a hand against the tailgate in front of him, suddenly lightheaded. And he watched, raw and confused, as Carter took Jazz right there under the black, star-studded sky.
He’d lost her, he knew, and his heart ached to see the evidence before him.
But his cock knew nothing of emotion, and it wanted only to be stroked, as Jazz opened her buttons and the moonlight silvered her breasts. He wanted sex. Damn it, he always wanted sex.
He felt the fast rush of breath against his ear a fraction of a second before a crisp English voice said, “How wanton you people are.”
Panic flared and died in an instant, as Tango registered the lean body pressed up behind him, recognized the presence, the faint scent of cologne, the voice, above all. He turned his head and caught a glimpse of Ian dressed all in black, hair tucked beneath a black beanie, his long pale hand resting on the tailgate alongside his own.
“What are you doing here?” He didn’t have the energy to be angry.
“You didn’t think I wouldn’t want to come to a Halloween party, did you?” Ian asked with a whispered, breathy laugh. “My feelings are still quite hurt, you know, because you refused to invite me.”
“How did you get on the property?”
“Do you think a fence is going to stop me?”
Tango sighed. “You have to leave.”
“And miss the show?”
Tango’s eyes went back to the action. Jazz was murmuring, moaning, hips straining against Carter’s.
“As I was saying,” Ian said, “you bikers aren’t at all particular about where, when, how, or with whom you get it. Interesting choice for you, I’d say.” He feigned pensive. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d prefer exhibitionism after–”
“Shut up.”
“That’s the girl you favor, isn’t it?” Ian asked. “Lovely breasts, though obviously not real.”
“Ian, I swear to God–”
“Have you given her up?” A note of seriousness this time, all joking aside. A quiet, graceful desperation. “Are you ready to leave here and come away with me?”
Ian, so arrogant and brilliant…and so utterly stupid. Tango didn’t stay because of Jazz. This was his brotherhood, his home – this was the thing that had not only made him a man, but enabled him to be one, when the rest of his life would have turned him to a sexless object.
He wanted to say all of this aloud, but the words echoed only in his head, as Ian’s hand landed on his stomach. A familiar, deft hand, ducking beneath his shirt, slipping into the gapped waistband of his jeans, traveling down and finding the true heart of him.
“You don’t eat enough, darling,” Ian whispered, which was stupid given his own thinness. “I’m worried about you.”
Tango wanted to protest, but the hand on his cock prevented any rational thought.
“Watch them,” Ian urged. “Watch them, if that’s what you need.”
So he did, and he thought he and Jasmine came at the same time, at the hands of lovers more skilled than either of them.
~*~
Candy was leaning against one of the support pillars beneath the pavilion when Mercy returned to the clubhouse. Mercy joined him, bracing the other side of the steel column and digging out a fresh cigarette.
“Get anything useful?” Candy asked.
“Yeah, plenty.” He frowned. “Didn’t get to even touch him, though. Apparently, I’ve got a reputation. And he was a total pussy stoolpigeon.”
Candy chuckled. “I think just about anybody would turn into a pussy stoolpigeon if he knew your reputation.”
“Maybe. I guess it’s a good thing,” Mercy said, then grinned. “Man, I’m a legend.”
They both laughed over that.
Then Candy sobered. “How’d Colin do?”
“Nervous a little, I think. But he was all ready to hold the guy’s hand down if I’d needed to take a finger.”
A quick grimace. “If anybody’d be able to stand what you do, it’d have to be your brother.”
Half-brother, Mercy thought, but didn’t voice it. He was getting tired of making the distinction. “Fox says he’s got an eye for your sis.”
Candy snorted. “Oh yeah. Big time.”
“And we’re happy about this?”
“We are. If a Lécuyer attaches himself to a woman you care about, you don’t fight it,” he said with feeling, glancing over. “He’s been a help to her. I’m tempted to patch him in just for that.”
“He’s a dog, you know.”
“Maybe he was. He’s not now. If we start holding grudges for past behavior, we’ll have an in-house shootout.” Candy softened the words with a quick grin, but the meaning was clear: Men could gain focus, and clearly, Colin had done just that.
“I just don’t trust him,” Mercy admitted.
“That’s because you’re related to him.”
Ghost arrived, cutting off further brother contemplation. “How’d it go?”
Mercy gave him the quick rundown.
“Good. We’ll cut him loose in the morning and send him back to his boss with a message.” He clapped Mercy on the shoulder affectionately. “Good job.”
“Does that mean I can clock out for the night?” Mercy asked.
Ghost rolled his eyes, making a face that indicated he knew exactly what he had on his mind. “Yeah. You’re done.”
“Sweet.” Mercy shoved away from the post with a quick palm-to-palm bro handshake for Candy.
“Don’t break my daughter,” Ghost warned.
“Never do.”
Inside, the party was beginning to wind down a little, brothers ensconced in corners with girls and drinks, the raucous early energy dimming. He spotted Emmie perched sideways on Walsh’s lap, both of them talking to Shane. Maggie was keeping Nell company at the bar. But a quick scan proved Ava wasn’t around.
She knew, his sharp fillette.
He went to the bar, snagged a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red, and headed down the hall to his favorite dorm.
The lights were on low, and he took a moment, after the door was shut, to lean back against it and drink the scene in with his eyes.
Ava was wearing lingerie he’d never seen before, black and lacey. She sat leaned back against the headboard, one knee pulled up, the other long leg extended at an alluring angle. She was reading a book, a tattered paperback, chewing unconsciously at her lower lip. She was two dueling portraits, one of sex, the other of total innocence. She’d waited up for him…and she’d gotten bored waiting and decided to read.
He chuckled and that caught her attention. Her eyes widened and she snapped the book shut, tossed it onto the nightstand. “Hi.” Her smile fell short of suggestive…was brilliant and sweet instead.
He wanted to tackle her. Instead, he said, “Where are the boys?”
“Sleeping next door, I just checked on them. Out like little lights.” Her eyes tracked up and down his body, glittering with want.
He loved the burn of waiting, the way holding back turned his blood to molten metal. He unscrewed the cap on the Johnnie Walker, took a generous sip and prowled slowly toward the bed. “Is that a new getup?”
She nodded and moved up onto her knees. “Do you like it?”
“Uh-huh.”
S
he came closer, until she was at the end of the bed, right in front of him. Close enough for him to see the hard points of her nipples through the lace.
Mercy offered her the bottle and she took a small swallow before bending down to set it on the floor. When she straightened, she said, “You know it’s killing you to just stand there.”
“I like a little delayed gratification now and then.”
“Hmm. Okay.” She reached behind her for the clasp of her bra…
And laughed when he pounced on her.
~*~
Even if he hated her mother, and hadn’t put much effort into supporting the life she’d led before him, Ghost always held a secret kind of pride that he’d married a classy girl. Even at sixteen, Maggie had been laced with manners and Southern grace. He’d known right away that his mother would have loved her.
That classy girl had grown into a classy woman, and she liked wine; champagne with raspberries. But when she was pissed off, or feeling like a biker’s wife, she hit the Jack.
Ghost approached his old lady’s stool at the bar, watched the pretty line of her throat ripple as she swallowed down the last amber drops in her tumbler. He braced a hand on the bar top and leaned in close to her. “Can I buy you another, beautiful?” he asked, a little surprised by the playful note in his voice. He hadn’t been much of a romantic in…ever.
She set her glass down slowly, and turned to him, hazel eyes bright with repressed anger. “I don’t know. My husband might not like that. He’s kind of an asshole.”
Oh hell. He sighed. “Baby, that was just goofing off.”
“Excuse me?” Her voice stayed level and calm, but her eyes flashed. “No. You instigated and then won a fistfight with your son with an intent to humiliate him. You don’t know how to goof off, Kenny. And this feud you’re maintaining with Aidan is selfish and stupid.”
“Selfish? I’m being selfish?”
“Completely.” She pushed her glass away, slid off her stool, and marched down the back hallway, boot heels clicking.
Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) Page 24