Isaac and Show diffused the situation between Lilli and the blonde, and then Isaac dragged said blonde off. Everybody else sat, but Show stayed on his feet, watching. Havoc waited until Isaac got back, and then he said good night and walked back to the motel.
He went straight to her door. It was early yet—fuck, even the kids had still been at the restaurant—and she wasn’t really sick. He knocked.
She opened the door, and this time the slider was engaged. That hurt his feelings—which surprised him.
“What, Hav? And don’t tell me I know.”
“Need to talk.”
“I don’t.” She leaned back, preparing to shut the door, and he put his hand on it, holding it open.
“I’m…I’m”—he couldn’t apologize. The word just wouldn’t come out of his mouth. “You gotta cut me some slack here, honey. I don’t know what I did wrong.”
“That’s fucked up, Hav.”
“Yeah, I’m gettin’ that. You gonna let me in?”
“Get your hand off the door.”
“You gonna let me in?”
“I can’t if you don’t let me close the fucking door.”
Oh, right. The slider. He stepped back, and she closed the door. There was a pause of quite a few seconds, and he thought she’d just hoodwinked him, but then the door opened. Dressed in nothing but a long t-shirt that went almost down to her knees, like a nightgown or something, she walked backwards all the way to the other side of the room, putting the bed between them, as she had last night. He thought that was pretty unfair.
“Not gonna hurt you, Cory.”
“You have a hard time with the word no.”
Maybe that was true. He’d never bothered with chicks who would tell him no. To anything. He paid attention and picked the ones who were known to be game, and when he fucked a new one, he played it cool until everybody had her figured out.
“I don’t get why you said no. You were so hot for it.”
She laughed—one syllable, no humor. “You have the sexual maturity of a thirteen-year-old boy.”
“Fuck you. You gonna explain, so somebody immature like me can understand, or not?”
“I think you are hot. I spent a lot of today thinking about last night. That makes me hot.”
Thinking about her thinking about the night before, as he had been, getting turned on, maybe sitting right there next to him in the damn wineries, getting wet—that was scalding hot. He felt like he’d fucked up a real opportunity.
But she wasn’t done talking.
“Being yanked across the grounds of a winery in the middle of the day and shoved into a corner to get fucked while a hundred strangers watch? No, that’s not hot. Not to me. Being forced after I say no? Not. Hot. I don’t care what my body was doing.” She put her finger to her mouth. “These are the lips that matter.”
“I liked that you were fighting me.” He probably shouldn’t admit that, but the words were already out.
“Jesus. That’s a problem.”
“I’m not gonna hurt you, Cory. I…I like you. And I don’t get off on hurting women.”
Again that fucking breathy bark of a laugh. He hated that sound.
“You don’t trust me.”
“Why should I, Hav? More than not, you’ve tried to force me to do what you want.”
Okay, enough of this. Not even twenty-four hours, and she was trying to make him her bitch. He crossed the room and grabbed her arms—making an effort to hold her in place but not hurt her. Her eyes were on his, flashing and furious, maybe a little scared, but he could see it—he could fucking smell it—it did turn her on when he was like this. It had last night, too—gotten her so wet her juices ran down her thighs and all over him. Fuck, that had been amazing.
“Tell me to fucking go, then, and I’ll stay away. But I’m not always gonna ask. I’m not. I got no idea what we’re doing, but whatever it is, it’s not just on your terms. No fucking way. I’m not a hearts and flowers guy. That’s what you want, then I’ll go and let you look for him. But if you don’t tell me to go right here and now, then you’re mine.”
Her chest was heaving, every inhale bringing her collarbones into stark relief. “What does that mean, I’m yours?”
He didn’t even know. Those words had surprised the hell out of him. But he knew this: “I don’t beg.”
“Do you listen?”
“I’ll try. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“That’s not good enough. That scares me.”
It was all he had. And he was through talking. “Decide, Cory. Now.”
She pushed against his grip on her arms, her eyes still flashing fire at him. She was going to tell him to go.
“Fuck you.” She shrugged him off, and he released her, feeling an unfamiliar and profoundly unpleasant weight in his chest.
Then she grabbed the neck of his kutte in her fists and pulled him down to kiss him. For a second, he was crippled with confusion and just let her. And then he understood, and he took that shit over.
Grabbing the t-shirt she was wearing and pulling it up, he wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her off the floor. Done resisting, she looped her arms around his neck and opened her mouth wider, giving him everything he wanted. But her tongue tangled with his, and her hands gripped his head. She wasn’t giving up the fight. She was giving him the fight.
Fucking Christ, that was hotter than any of it. That’s what he wanted.
The bed was right there, but he carried her forward until she hit the wall. He wanted to have her against a fucking wall. He leaned in to hold her there and then pushed a hand between them, undoing his jeans and pulling himself free. Her sweet, hot, wet pussy was right there—no underwear, just her—and he pushed in deep, feeling her lush heat surrounding him. It was so much more intense than he remembered from just hours before.
She tore her mouth from his. “Hav, STOP!”
Motherfucker! Goddamn it! No sonofabitching WAY.
“What?!”
“Condom,” she gasped. “You need a condom.”
Oh, fuck. Not once ever in his life had he been unwrapped inside a woman, not even for a second. He never forgot that shit. Ever. No amount of drunk, no amount of wasted, no amount of horny had ever caused him to forget to wrap up.
He pulled out fast and set her on her feet. “Fuck. Sorry.” He fumbled in his pocket for a condom. His hands felt stupid, because his brain was still stuck on how absolutely unbelievable it had felt to be inside her without anything between them. And she wasn’t making anything easier; her hands were under his shirt, her fingers scratching at his belly, making him shiver and twitch.
At last, he got himself covered and, feeling hotter than he could remember, he grabbed her and put her back on the wall, filling her full as fast as he could. He wasn’t sure how much control he had; all the confusing shit of the past few hours had his head all turned around, and now he was all tangled up with her, inside and out, and she was breathing in his ear, making these fantastic little moans every time he went deep.
“Tell me you want it.”
She stiffened a little and didn’t answer. He thrust harder, bringing a harsh gasp from her.
“Tell me.”
“I do. I do.”
“What d’you want?”
Again, she didn’t answer. Mustering all the control he had left, he stopped moving. When she whimpered and moved her hips, he forced them to be still. She whimpered again. Then the only sound in the room was the steam-powered chug of their laboring breaths.
“Fuck me. God, I want you to fuck me.”
“My girl.” He let go, having at her as hard as he could, as hard as he needed to, until she bit down on his shoulder, shrieking into his kutte, and he unleashed the last part of himself, with what he could only think of as a howl, the muscles in his throat straining so hard they ached.
~oOo~
Again, he sat up in the bed and watched her sleep. Again, she’d moved away from him early in the night, to sleep on he
r own at the other side of the bed. He’d been glad of it last night, glad not to have her all clingy and cuddly all fucking night, but now he wasn’t so sure.
He didn’t understand the crazy way everything he’d thought about what he wanted was scrambling all of a sudden. He didn’t understand how he could constantly want to touch her, even after he’d fucked her silly—they’d fucked each other silly—again and again. He didn’t understand the weird, heavy feeling he got when she was scared of him, when she backed away from him.
He didn’t understand.
He lay back down, slid over to her side of the bed, and pulled her close. He felt calmer then.
He didn’t understand that, either.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You should take it, Cory. All you’re doing is pissing him off, and I don’t even want it. That job is a pain in the ass.”
Bonnie picked at the bear claw on her plate. Cory and Bonnie had taken to having coffee and pastries a couple of times a week, after Nolan got off to the school bus. They took turns hosting; today, Bonnie was sitting at Cory’s little table.
“You’ve been there since the beginning, though. It just feels like he’s giving it to me because we’re…doing whatever we’re doing.”
“Fucking, hon. The word is fucking.”
“That’s not what I meant.” When Bonnie gave her an oh please look, Cory continued, “Yes, we’re fucking. But I don’t know what to call why we’re fucking.”
“Because he’s a big, hot hunk of man meat?”
“Bonnie, come on!”
Her friend pushed her pastry away and leaned forward. “Okay, look. So, yeah, knowing Havoc, he’d never give the job to a woman, except that he’s all into you. But you know wine better than anybody else there. You’ll be better at it than he is. You’ll be better at it than I would be. And Jesus, it’ll be nicer to work there without his nasty-ass attitude and all the comments about whatever. Tits.”
“He really is a caveman, isn’t he?”
“He’s not even that evolved. What came before cavemen? Like, dinosaurs. He’s a brontosaurus or something like that.”
Yeah, he was. But she liked it. A lot. Most of the time, at least. They’d been back from Hemsburg for two weeks, and by all signs, he was all in. He didn’t stay over every night, but most of them. Cory had talked to Nolan as soon as they’d gotten back. She’d been worried. As much as he liked Havoc, his father was the only man Cory had ever been with, and she wasn’t sure how he would take the intimate presence of another man in their lives.
But he’d just grinned and said, “Finally!”
Since then, Havoc was over a lot. He was still spending as much time with Nolan as he had been—maybe more. And Cory felt better about the time Nolan was spending at the clubhouse. Not great, but better.
Havoc had spent four or five nights out of each of the past two weeks in her bed. It was nice to wake up to him. It was nice to go to bed with him. And sweet mercy, the sex. She’d made up for all those years of drought with a deluge. At night, when Nolan was at the other end of the house, Havoc was almost sweet, understanding the need to be quiet and not traumatize the teen. But he’d taken to stopping by in the middle of the day, while Nolan was at school and before she went to work, and then—well, she’d discovered she liked some things she’d never have guessed she liked.
But Bonnie was right. Havoc was getting pissed. He’d offered her the job of managing Valhalla Vin about a week ago, and she hadn’t accepted it yet. She’d turned him down three times, and now she was supposedly thinking about it—but she’d only told him that to cool him down a little. Still, she hadn’t seen him at all in the two days since then, so she wasn’t sure he was all that cooled down.
The idea of the job made her uncomfortable—she’d only been working there a little more than four months. She had exactly zero experience managing anything. She wasn’t such a splendid success at managing her own life. She was sure he was giving her this job because of what she was to him. Whatever that was.
There were other concerns, too. It would be a lot more hours—which was good, money-wise, but she’d probably have to give up the few gigs she had. And she didn’t want to lose Bonnie’s friendship because she’d leapfrogged her way to a position as her superior by sleeping with the boss. But now Bonnie was encouraging her to take it.
“Take the job, Cory. Everybody wins. And you could use the money.”
“I’ll think about it.”
~oOo~
Cory was in the living room, practicing a new piece for the gig she had that night, when she heard Havoc ride up. And when he showed up in the middle of the day—not an unusual occurrence—he was here for one thing in particular. Smiling, she got up and went to the bathroom for a quick little check in the mirror before she went to meet him.
He just came in these days without knocking, and that was okay by her. He never called or texted to say he was coming over, either, and that was a little bit less okay, but she was getting used to it. She’d mentioned once that a call would be nice, and his response was, “You doing something you don’t want me to see?”
If he hadn’t been grinning when he’d said it, she might have thought it a red flag for a bit too much possessiveness, but she took it instead for typical Havoc snark. And he continued not to call first. Also typical. If it was possessiveness, it was ironic, since he was the one constantly surrounded by willing women he’d fucked repeatedly and routinely for years, and she wasn’t feeling overly possessive. Not overly. She didn’t think. She wasn’t dropping by the clubhouse unannounced, anyway. Or at all.
She hadn’t seen him for a couple of days—not since the last time he’d pushed her to take the manager job, when she’d finally said she’d think about it. And she had been. It was a big step, though, one that she felt unequal to and undeserving of. Even Havoc’s demand and Bonnie’s encouragement hadn’t succeeded yet in persuading her that it was the right thing.
There was a lot she could screw up in a job like that. And if she screwed up the job, what else would that screw up? It scared her. That was the real truth of why she hadn’t said yes.
He was still taking his gloves off when he came through the front door. Cory expected him to grab her, as he usually did, but instead he stopped right in front of her and just stared down into her face.
“Tired of fuckin’ around with this. Time to decide.”
“Hav…”
“No. Fuck this shit, Cory. What is there to think about?” He put his gloves into a pocket of his kutte and wrapped his hands around her arms, just above her elbows.
“I’d probably have to give up my gigs in Rolla and Sullivan. Maybe the one in Worden, too. That’s all of them.”
“Christ. Who the fuck cares?”
“What? Me! I care. My music is important.”
“Get real. How much do you make a week from that—playing at those little dives and that thing you do online? Huh? How much?”
A few hundred dollars. On a good week. “Fuck you.”
He grinned—it was a smug, nasty grin, and she hated it. “It’s not a job, honey. It’s a hobby.”
“Oh, fuck you. Seriously.” Knowing how much fuck you sucked as an argument just pissed her off more. She shrugged and pulled, trying to get loose from him, but he simply clamped down harder and got a gleam in his eye. But this wasn’t foreplay. She was legitimately furious. “Get off me.”
“No. You’re gonna listen. Playing guitar in the corner of a bar, making that little jewelry you make—none of that is making you a living. When you didn’t have any other kind of work, when you could just do that, did it make a living then? No. You flit around, not doing anything serious. Hobbies don’t pay the rent, honey.”
He was sounding far too much like her sister, and her brother-in-law, and every other bastard who’d ever tried to tell her how to live her life, and she discovered a whole new dimension of anger. Instead of trying to pull her arms free, she hit him in the chest with both hands, as hard a
s his constraining grip would allow. “FUCK YOU. LET ME GO.”
He didn’t, but it wasn’t foreplay for him anymore, either. His face went dark, and he pulled her hard to his chest. She used the opportunity to hit him under his chin with the heel of her hand. She wanted loose, and she wanted the son of a bitch out. She did not need him thinking he could dictate her life. Bossing her around in bed did not give him license to run her damn life.
“Calm down, you little bitch, and do it now. I’m not backing off, and I’m not fuckin’ apologizin’ for saying what’s true. It’s true, and you fuckin’ know it.”
She hit him in the chin again—it was all she could reach—and she heard his teeth crash together. That gave her some satisfaction.
But then he spun her hard, pulling her back against his chest and locking his arms around hers. When she tried to kick him, even though she was barefoot, he brought one of his legs around and locked her down that way, too. She was effectively immobilized, but she was going to explode with rage.
Through clenched teeth, he gritted in her ear, “You are pushing me far, woman. You need to chill the fuck out, and now, or I don’t know what. I like a fight, but you are just pissin’ me off right now.”
“Fuck you!”
“Listen to yourself. You don’t even have anything real to say. You know I’m right. That’s why you’re so mad.”
She almost said fuck you again, but had the presence of mind to realize how laughable it would be. So she fumed silently. He was right. She knew he was right. She didn’t even know why she hadn’t tried harder to make a go of her music. She’d never been very aggressive about promoting herself. She’d never done the banging on doors thing; she’d never gone back and tried to change somebody’s mind after a rejection. She’d never really fought for it. She had no idea why.
Maybe Linz was right. Maybe she did have ‘success issues.’ Or maybe what she had was failure issues. Maybe that was the real gate between her and the job Havoc wanted her to take. She was afraid she’d fail. In fact, she knew that was true.
Oh, but she hated to let him know he might be right. Especially now, with him forcing her into stillness, shutting her down. She did not want to give in.
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