The Darkest Flame

by Christina Lee

  “Maybe,” I said, not yet willing to share my suspicions. “I’ll ask around.”

  “You do that. Let me know what you find,” he said. “Tell Vaughn he’s welcome to stay at the compound for the night.”

  Vaughn was pacing in his kitchen like a caged animal as if ready to be on the defensive, but still listening intently to our conversation.

  “It’s too late to have him drive up there.” I walked over to Vaughn and placed my hand on his shoulder. After he startled, he seemed to sag into my touch. “My guest room’s a mess, so I’ll have him sleep on my couch.”

  Vaughn stared at me, mouth agape, and I raised my eyebrows to tell him there’d be no discussion. Though he kept his composure, the gratitude was apparent in his eyes. I didn’t want him to feel alone right now. Because I’d felt that way too many times to count. It helped to know that somebody had your back.

  “Okay, keep me posted,” Mal said.

  “Will do,” I said, squeezing Vaughn’s shoulder and then dropping my hand.

  “And Smoke?” Mal said. “You need to keep tabs on him until we figure this out.”

  As if I wasn’t already overly involved in this man’s life.

  Mal took a deep breath. “We consider him one of our own.”

  “Will do. And Prez?” I said, thinking about Vaughn’s bedroom, which would be rancid by morning. “Let’s get the cleaning service out here to scour this place top to bottom first thing in the morning?”

  “That bad?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  I clicked the End button and turned to Vaughn. “Get your things. You’re coming with me.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Pretty bossy tonight, aren’t you?”

  I looked over his shoulder to his makeshift bed on the couch. “You’re not sleeping here. Not tonight.”

  He stared hard at me for a long moment and finally nodded. “Thanks.”

  He slid on his boots and grabbed his keys. Before he left, he filled that small paw print water bowl in the kitchen. He had been the vulnerable one tonight, the guy whose place had been broken into. Yet he still made sure to take care of those cats. Just like he took care of his regulars at the bar. And took care of me, when I had come calling the other day.

  We didn’t talk on the way down to our bikes, each of us lost in our own heads. I looked around the neighborhood and kept my eyes peeled as we left. I couldn’t help the sinking feeling that this might’ve had something to do with me.

  When we got to my place, I directed Vaughn to pull inside the garage next to my bike. Felix’s Chevelle, which he’d helped build from the ground up, was parked in the other spot, next to my workbench.

  Vaughn eyed it appreciatively. “Cool ride.”

  “Felix’s pride and joy.”

  He was still out on patrol, but I’d already sent him a text about Vaughn staying upstairs with me. Fuck the couch. I could see the fatigue and frustration in Vaughn’s posture. I wanted him in my bed.

  After I locked the door behind him, he looked around my apartment. “Nice.”

  “You think so?” I said, to make conversation and rid myself of the sudden case of nerves. “Thanks.”

  I had never been one for decorating. I just got myself decent furniture and kept my place clean. But right then, it mattered what Vaughn thought of how I lived. Why it mattered so much, I didn’t know.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked as Vaughn toed off his shoes and carefully placed his keys on my coffee table, as if mindful of nicking it.

  “No, I’m good,” he said as he sat down on the black leather cushion. “Your couch looks comfy. I’m just gonna crash if that’s okay with you.”

  My eyebrows lifted to my hairline. “Seriously?”

  His fingers absently traced over the curve of one of the pillows. “What?”

  “I know what I told Mal, but I wouldn’t make you sleep on my couch.”

  He bit his lip. “I thought maybe you…”

  His words stalled as I stalked over to him and bent down to his eye level.

  “You thought wrong,” I rumbled. “And you had a hard night, so I’m okay if all you want to do is sleep.”

  He grasped my cheek and then tightened his fingers against my hairline. “What I want to do is forget.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Smoke

  I panted from the close contact, the heat of his hand, the turmoil in his eyes. “I can help you with that, too.”

  And then my mouth collided with his, our tongues flicking and winding around one another, as I attempted to rein in my unsteady pulse. I urged his shoulders back on the couch and sank down on top, my hardness grinding against his.

  My hands curved his hips and then dug beneath to grasp at his ass. I squeezed the perfect roundness as he thrust his hips upward, driving me wild. It felt so damn perfect to be next to him again, to have him in my space this time. If he wanted to lose himself in me, I’d be more than glad to assist.

  I lifted my chest just enough to tear his T-shirt over his head. My lips drifted over his throat and collarbone, tasting his salty skin, and then downward to swipe my tongue across his pec. His nipples were like unblemished pennies, and they swelled from my lips and teeth licking and biting them. He moaned and writhed, his mouth lifting to suck hungrily at my neck.

  “Fuck,” I said, groaning and squirming out of his hold even though it felt so good. “You can’t leave a mark.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” Vaughn snapped but then pulled away and practically ripped my shirt over my shoulders. He threw it to the floor and then attacked my collarbone instead. “I want you to remember whose mouth was on you.”

  “Believe me,” I practically whimpered from the roughness of his chin dragging across my skin. “I won’t ever forget.”

  His widened eyes darted up to mine, and I stared back, unashamed of what I’d confessed. Because right then and there, he was the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on.

  I sat back on my heels, catching my runaway breaths and gazing at the hard planes of his flawless torso. How his hipbones protruded above the curve of his abdominal muscles and his perfect copper nipples were glossy from my mouth.

  I reached for his hands to yank him up and led him down the hall to my bedroom. Before he could get a good look around, I shoved him against the door and devoured his lips again, my tongue swiping across that jagged scar more than once. His fingers raked through my hair while I pinned my groin to his. I had never wanted to be inside somebody more than in that moment.

  He fumbled to unsnap the button on my pants. I did the same with his, and we turned toward my bed. The thought of fucking the horrible night out of his head transformed into uncontrollable need.

  I wrenched his zipper open and yanked his pants partway down his hips. As soon as I saw that tight ass peeking from beneath the material, I flipped him over and pushed his hips firmly to the bed. The denim was cutting into the top of his thighs, but I was already kneeling on the floor behind him and parting his cheeks, my finger trailing his crease.

  “Ah, fuck,” he said, struggling against me. “What the hell?”

  “Sorry, couldn’t wait,” I said, looking at that perfect tan hole. My cock thickened in my pants. “I need to taste this ass and then ram my dick so hard inside of you, you’ll be walking funny for days.”

  “Holy fuck. You get me so damn cranked up,” he grunted. “You keep talking like that and I’ll spurt all over your sheets.”

  “You’ll come when I say you’re ready,” I rumbled and then licked a trail across his lower back. Vaughn shuddered and ground his feet into the carpet, seeking purchase.

  “Suppose this is a side to you I haven’t seen.” His eyes darkened and his gaze turned feral as he glanced back at me.

  “Maybe so. Guess you’ll find out.” I could tell he was used to being in charge, but he wouldn’t be with me. Not this time. Though I’d admit it turned me way the hell on to imagine what it might be like with him in control. The other night
might’ve been a sample when I’d come to his place so dejected.

  But tonight. Tonight he needed me to tell him what to do and to take him to that blissed out place.

  I dragged his jeans the rest of the way down and tossed them aside. “Now shut the hell up so I can get my tongue inside you.”

  His gasp was followed by a long moan as I ripped open his cheeks and shoved my tongue at his puckered furrow. I delivered long licks up and down and then circled around his channel while unintelligible words fell from his lips.

  “Goddamn, such a perfect little hole,” I said, niggling the edge of my thumb there. Never in my life had I wanted to get inside another man like this. I wanted to devour every single inch of him. And that’s exactly what I did with my lips and tongue until he was shivering with raw desire.

  He fisted the blankets with a savage grip, thrust out his ass, and growled like some ferocious animal, all because I was making him crazy. I fucking loved it.

  The skin around his hole was slick and softened from my mouth, and I blew a cool breath across the crease.

  “Uuuuhhh, what the hell are you doing to me?” he grunted, his thighs trembling. “Can’t take much more. Need…need to feel you inside me. Need it so bad.”

  His hips were grinding into the sheets, and I was leaking so damn bad I needed release. With one hand I unzipped my jeans and pushed them down my hips before I nutted right inside my pants.

  “My tongue first,” I grunted, and he groaned, smashing his face into the pillow. I pressed the tip against his hole, nudging it inside until I could get deeper. He cried out.

  “Yeah, that’s it,” I said, giving him a short breather. “I love tasting you from the inside.”

  I added a finger alongside my tongue and stretched him wider as his ass muscles clenched and quivered against my jaw.

  “I can’t…oh fuck, I can’t…” His balls slapped my chin as he thrust backward. They were firm and engorged, and I could feel my own sac prickling and lifting.

  Another minute more and my mouth released him. He sagged into the mattress and muttered at the loss of fullness there. “Gonna fuck you now,” I said.

  “About damn time,” he growled, looking back at me. His lips were plump and plum-stained and his eyes were practically slits, so glazed over with lust.

  “You telling me you didn’t like that?” I slapped his ass and he practically whimpered.

  “I fucking loved it,” he said as I rolled a condom over my length and applied the lube generously, so close to coming from my own hand.

  I sank down on top of him, feeling his damp skin and kissing his musky neck. I needed to feel his body next to mine. Dragging his jaw back for a steamy kiss, I lined up my cock to his hole.

  Biting down hard on his shoulder, I nudged inside him. He moaned and swore and clenched his cheeks as he attempted to adjust to my girth.

  I lost my breath as spikes of pleasure rushed straight to my groin. I couldn’t move. He felt so fucking unbelievable. The room appeared to slant and waver as sweat pooled along my hairline.

  “Oh fuck,” Vaughn choked out. I gripped his hips, attempting to harness the bolt of lightening that shot through me as I pressed forward.

  Electric heat licked over my skin, and I looked down at my cock buried halfway inside him. I didn’t want to come too quickly, because hell if I knew whether I’d get this chance with him again. And I wanted to. Fuck, I wanted to.

  I slung my arm around his chest and anchored him to me, groaning into his shoulder. It felt so intimate right then and he must’ve felt it, too, because his hand slid across the length of my arm and interlocked with mine. My chest felt strangely tight as he squeezed my fingers.

  It was fucked up for sure how I was feeling about this man. Like I needed to possess all of him. Needed him to know, at least for tonight, that he was mine.

  “Vaughn.” My other hand slinked down to grasp at his hip, and I began pumping with long smooth strokes. “You feel that? You feel how deep I am inside you?”

  “Fuck yeah, I feel you,” he bit out through clenched teeth. My hand moved from his hip to tangle in Vaughn’s hair. “It’s goddamn amazing.”

  My thighs thrust forward in powerful strides as we moved in unison for several long moments. The only sound in the room was our breaths and grunts and gasps.

  “You want more of this cock?” I said in his ear, biting and licking the skin beneath. “You want more of me?”

  “Yeah,” he said, almost in a sob. “I need more, goddammit.”

  My fingers rounded his thigh, and I seized hold of his cock. I slicked my thumb over the layer of pre-come that had pooled on his head and pumped him firmly. His fingers settled over mine as we pleasured him together.

  “I’m so damn close,” he whispered, his head falling to my shoulder, his labored breaths bursting toward the ceiling. “Please. I need you to fuck me harder.”

  At those words, I released him, and his forearm sank down on the bed while he continued yanking on his own length. His ass looked perfectly laid out in front of me, my cock buried deep inside.

  I let out a loud growl like some damn gorilla claiming the jungle. My jungle. I was all raw nerves and sensation, and I rammed him with a ferocity I didn’t even know I possessed.

  I floated onto some other kind of plane. I heard Vaughn announce that he was coming, and I felt his guttural release as long spirals of semen gushed all over my sheets.

  But I was somewhere in a different universe. “So good, so good, it’s never been so—”

  A cry wrenched from my throat as my back arched and stiffened and I unloaded inside of him. Hot seed continued propelling from me as I gasped and shook, my cock seeming to contract involuntarily.

  I sagged on top and panted heavily into his neck. My arms encircled him as I slowly regained my capacity to breathe.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Smoke

  We lay in a heap of our own sweat and come, our bodies relaxing by varying degrees. Vaughn looked thoroughly fucked, and I didn’t want to admit to myself that I had never had better than him.

  Finally, I got up to throw away my condom and wet a washcloth. I wiped him down as he lay on his side, nearly comatose. I gently kissed his lips as he smiled lazily, running his thumb along the scruff on my chin. I would remember that sated and sexy grin on my worst days.

  I slid behind him on the sheets and then scooted forward to drape my arm over his hip. It felt so fucking good to have him in my bed.

  My eyes closed, and I was just about to drift off to sleep when he prodded my arm. “What’s up?” I mumbled.

  “Why did you seem so freaked inside my bedroom tonight?” he asked in a groggy voice.

  My shoulders stiffened. “Because of the condoms and shit that fucker had thrown around.”

  “Nah, man, it was more than that,” he said, and I wondered whether it was worth it to lie to him. He knew something was up. He was good at reading my body language. Was always good at it. “You seriously looked spooked.”

  I rushed my fingers through my hair. “Fuck. Listen, it looked familiar to me.”

  He rolled over to study me. “What did?”

  His eyes were boring into mine and I had to glance elsewhere. “The scene…the setup.”

  He grasped my jaw, forcing my gaze to his. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It…I think…it might’ve been my ex, okay?” I shot straight up, suddenly enraged and remorseful over what I’d confessed. Even the idea of it was unbelievable. My feet landed on the cool floor, and I headed to the hallway.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, following me into the kitchen, where I pulled out a water bottle and gulped practically the entire thing down. “What ex?”

  I handed him some water. As he cracked it open, I sagged against the counter, which cooled my heated skin. “I had a secret relationship with one of the Asylum. Guy by the name of Jake.”

  His gaze snapped up to mine. “Jake the Snake?”

 
I cringed over the nickname, which actually fit him well. Apparently he was first given the moniker because of what he was housing down below, but later it came to mean how he dealt with club business. “So you’ve heard of him?”

  “Yeah, man. Not much,” he said, after gulping water. “But enough to know he’s hardcore.”

  “Well, now you know why I think it might be him,” I said, wiping my mouth against my forearm. “He would…leave his mark after he’d do a job. He thought it was funny. Like a dominance kind of thing.”

  Vaughn recoiled from me and headed back to the bedroom. I watched his tight ass all the way down my hallway as I followed him.

  “Did anybody find out?” he asked after he sank back down in bed and pulled the sheet to his waist. His eyes were weary and red-rimmed. “About the two of you?”

  “Hell no,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so. We kept it private. We were careful. The guys thought he was showing me the ropes.”

  There was something there in his eyes that I couldn’t quiet identify. Anger about the topic of conversation, sure, but also maybe a hint of possessiveness, and I liked seeing it. He was entirely different from Jake, who was arrogant and a loose cannon.

  “He the one who broke it off?” he asked, his jaw ticking.

  “No,” I said, sitting back and getting comfortable in the bed. I wanted to pull him to me, but I could tell he was keeping his distance. Like he didn’t know what to make of this. So I figured I should give him the whole story and allow him to decide some things for himself. “He was really into me. He’s also the person who administered my first shot of heroin. Talked me into it. But in the end, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.”

  “Sounds like a real winner,” he said, not even attempting to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

  I nodded. “It was the beginning of the end for me. I think he liked the sex when I was high.”

  “Fuck, man,” Vaughn said. “That’s some crazy shit.”

  “Yeah,” I said, practically shivering from the memory of being so strung out most days I couldn’t even function. “By the time Mal rescued me, I was a fucking mess. Not much of a relationship when you’re constantly high.”