by Lana Grayson
But I needed a word from her before I’d finally collapse at her feet.
A yes.
A vow.
A promise.
A single breath of truth that whispered the same feelings I felt for her. Feelings she refused to admit.
Why did we still deny each other? I caused our rift, but she fed it.
Lyn woke. She caught me staring at her. I braced for the rage of a jungle cat. Instead, she stretched like a kitten.
I had no idea what to do when she wasn’t mad at me. What to say. How to handle the instincts I had and the desires I ignored.
“How’d you score this apartment?” A safe topic. “It’d take a lot of laps to get this place.”
“Just one,” she said. “I called him Daddy.”
I’d kill the fucker. Lyn felt me tense. She arched an eyebrow.
“Have some respect for me. My father left me a trust fund.”
Oh. “Really?”
“Hart isn’t a stage name.” She wavered as she attempted to sit up. I offered her a steady hand. She seized it. Didn’t let go. “My family owns half the Valley.”
“Holy shit.” I counted the car dealerships and factories, opera houses and little parkettes with the Hart name on them. “So…why do you…”
“Strip? I have my reasons. Most of them stem from when I was sixteen and decided I knew better than my father.” Her voice hardened. “I still do. But then I was looking for fun, liked the bad boys, and exploited a very profitable talent.” She strengthened as she woke. “Besides, I like it.”
So did the men who came to Sorceress. “You like the attention?”
She would have kicked me from the bed if she had the strength. “The power. Thanks though.”
“You have plenty of both.”
Her eyes darkened, green—like a fistful of hundred dollar bills. “Yeah, well. After tonight I’ll be lucky if I have a place to dance.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Where have I heard that before?” She folded her fingers through mine. “Here’s some free advice, Luke. Stop making promises and start looking after yourself.”
“I was trying.”
“It was stupid of you to kidnap Rose,” she said.
Hindsight was a bitch. “I didn’t think Temple would find us. And I didn’t know Brew-fucking-Darnell was her real father.”
Lyn raised her eyebrows. “Surprise, surprise. Just another complication.”
A complication made worse by her secrets. I didn’t let her shift off the bed. I offered the bottle of water and aspirin. She eagerly drank and took the pain-killers with a murmur of gratitude.
“I’m sending a message to Temple as soon as I get back,” I said. “I’m telling them I killed Blade.”
The bottle tipped over, and water spilled on her carpets. Lyn didn’t care. She stared at me, lips puffed in a gasp.
“Are you insane?”
“It’ll keep them focused on me and off the MCs.”
“Luke, stop.”
She reached for me, brushing her fingers over my hands, my arms. She grazed my cheek as if it were the last time she’d ever touch me.
It probably was.
“You can’t fix this,” she said. “The clubs are at war. You have to leave. Go someplace safe and get away from Temple.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
She tried to rise. I didn’t let her. Her balance wobbled, and she plunked onto the bed. I thought she’d fight.
But her hand found mine again.
“I have twenty girls contracted to Sorceress,” she said. “If I go, what happens to them? I’m their only safe place to dance in the Valley. I gotta take care of them...” I recognized the crushing defeat, the way she shut down when I got too close. “That’s why this is so hard.”
“Don’t fucking say it.”
“We can’t do this. You can’t be here.”
Like I hadn’t heard it before. Every time we had a chance to ignite the passion, she stuffed out the embers before anything kindled. “Why the fuck are we fighting this?”
“Because we have no choice.”
“You could choose me for once. Let yourself be happy.” I pulled her close. She permitted me, and that was a mistake both of us made. “You aren’t in a cut, Lyn. It doesn’t matter.”
“I can’t side with The Coup.”
“You’re siding with me.”
“And that’s worse to them.” She breathed a pained word, a frustration I longed to kiss from her. “The instant I pick you, I lose all protection at Sorceress.”
“Then let it go.”
“Sorceress is my life.”
“Then how can you ask me to run and leave The Coup?”
“Because that club is your death.”
I held her gaze—impossibly green and nearly intimidating in its strength. “I’m not going to die, not if I think there’s a chance on this earth you might finally tell me yes.”
“I’d lie if it kept you alive.”
“And what would happen if you told me the truth?”
Her voice finally cracked. “We’d both be damned.”
“Then it’s worth that hell.”
My lips crashed against hers, stealing her moan and biting to hear it again. She pulled me closer.
And this time, I wasn’t letting her get away.
“Fuck, I almost lost you.” I broke the kiss only to drop her to the bed. Her hair fanned out in bright waves, and her chest rose in shattering breaths. “You might have died...”
She met my kiss with the same force. “I wasn’t the one with the gun to my head.”
“I saw that truck crash.” I shuddered through the brush of her fingers over my arms. Too many layers separated us. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Her hips arched as her mile long legs wrapped me up, sinking me closer to her. “Even now?”
She had a talent for clearing a man’s mind. Pure heat radiated from her body—a simmering burn that promised every pleasure we’d denied each other for too long. I pressed my hips against hers.
I once had that heat for a few seconds—the best fleeting moments of my life.
I was an idiot for ever leaving her. For giving that up.
For ruining everything.
“Luke…” If it were possible, her sultry voice seduced more than her curves. She breathed my name, purred the sound, demanded that I steal the words with a kiss and deliver more than promises. She took my hands, guiding me to the hem of her shirt. “Don’t make me do all the work.”
“But it’s your specialty.”
“This isn’t a show.” Lyn tugged the halter from her body, revealing inch after inch of creamy, pale skin. She hesitated as the material teased her breasts, tempting me with only the delicious swell of the underside. “If you want a dance, you better be willing to pay. If you want me? You better be prepared to beg…and I might take a lot of convincing.”
The shirt slipped off. A man would go to hell and back for a chance to see those tits. I lost my soul as she took my hand and kneaded my fingers against the heavy swell.
I wasn’t a man who begged.
Not for mercy, not for a woman.
She wanted me to convince her to spread her legs? Hell. When I was done with her, she’d never close them to me again.
Lyn got off on the tease. She danced. She pouted. She denied.
About time she suffered the consequences.
For the past year I lusted after that damn vixen. Now I’d punish her for every minute I lost, second she wasted, and moment of absolute pleasure that went untasted.
Her tits were real, tempting, and more sensitive that she’d ever admit. Just a lick sent her trembling. A touch coo’ed my name. And a suck of that hardened nipple?
Her legs tightened around me. That perfect manicure dug into my back.
I bit as hard as she clawed, and that only got her off more. Her nipple clenched between my teeth, teased with the flick of my tongue and
the ravenous desperation for finally lapping that breast, squeezing that softness, and earning that cry.
I gripped her. She loved it. I bit her. She arched into my mouth.
I moved lower.
She rasped a fearless order. “More.”
Chivalry wasn’t dead. I swept a woman off her feet just to get her ankles over her head.
Lyn’s pants might have been glued on. I’d have ripped through the denim just to get at the goods inside. She shimmied her hips, dancing as I tore the material over those glorious hips and off her ankles.
A black thong.
Like she was trying to be subtle.
Like she wasn’t the classiest and the sluttiest and the most perfect fucking woman without hiding that slick pussy from me. She teased the silk thong with a gentle stroke of her fingers between her legs.
“You want this?” She whispered, her eyebrow arched.
“Like you don’t want to give it.”
Lyn wiggled her hips. “Better say please.”
“Better take a breath now—you’re about to lose it.”
“Only if you promise your name is the last word on my lips.”
Her smirk twisted, and my dick flexed with it. This goddamned woman would kill me before I had a chance to give her my cock, heart, and soul.
I ripped the thong off.
She pouted. “That’s expensive lingerie.”
I didn’t give a damn, and neither would she once I was finished. If I ever finished.
Now that I had my chance to get at her, I’d never come up for air.
That bare pussy wetted for me and me alone. I gripped her hips and dove into paradise.
For as hard, cold, and aggressive as Jocelyn Hart pretended to be, the true Lyn existed to please. Soft trembling petals. Hot fucking folds. Timid and tight little offering. She tasted of cream and pretended she didn't own the sweetest damn cunt I ever licked.
She hid it for too long.
She’d never hide it again.
It wasn’t worth teasing, not when her suckable clit peeked between the softness and begged for a tongue to wrap around that sensitive nub. My lips enveloped her.
Suckled.
Clasped.
Tugged.
Lyn grabbed for me, her hand slapping my shoulders in a quick and furious ecstasy that shocked that quivering core into slickening for my tongue. I dipped inside her.
Honey. Pure honey. The sweetest, most exhilarating cream waited for me to lap up every proof of her desire just to create more. Lyn rolled her hips. Wanted me deeper.
That I could do.
“One orgasm wasn’t enough, Lyn,” I said. “Not nearly enough. I’m not stopping until you come on my mouth, my fingers, my cock…”
She gasped. “Better not stop.”
She’d regret that. I licked my finger and pushed against her entrance. That slick pussy teased so many men, offered too much confidence, and kept her alive when a lesser woman would have earned a quick punishment.
All it needed was a good fuck, and she’d be mine.
She clasped my finger, dragging me into the softness of her heat. Pure sin. She clenched against me in threat. She’d either rip my cock off or squeeze me into the greatest oblivion.
She humped against my fingers and dragged a sweet wetness across my lips. Like she thought she could use me. Like she thought she was in control.
For once in her life, Lyn was going to submit. She’d love every goddamned second while I tongued her to a peak and sucked her clit. I’d forever memorize every quiver of her body.
I guided my finger inside. Every lick of her slit and promised invasion blazed her body in a pink flush so damn innocent I forgot how many men saw her naked.
Imagined her like this.
Wanted to taste her. Touch her.
Possess her.
And she’d be mine instead.
“Luke…please…” Her fingers clutched the bed, me, her own body. “Don’t you dare make me beg.”
“You don’t gotta beg.” My lips enveloped all of her, savoring every flex of her hips and promise of cream. “Just realize there’s more where this came from.”
“Luke—”
My finger plunged within her. “So…”
“Oh God.”
My tongue stroked her clit, teasing the nub into a swollen tremor. “Much…”
“I’m gonna…”
My finger withdrew only to be replaced by my tongue. I forced inside her, licking, nipping, dragging my tongue against her tightness just to earn her final gasp.
I bit her clit.
“More.”
Lyn exploded, her voice shrilling into a trembling moan so sexy I gripped my cock through my jeans.
I thought she’d crash against the bed. Fall back, legs spread, breasts rising and falling in crashing breaths as she panted my name, my praise, her satisfaction.
But Lyn wasn’t like most women.
She dove at me, energized and enraptured by the orgasm. She demanded my shirt and pants, and I unhooked the button on the denim before she clawed my cock off. The zipper pressed down. Like a viper, her hand snaked over my chest, my abs, down to the pressure bulging in my pants.
I prayed for a kiss.
Hoped she wouldn’t use fangs.
The woman existed in absolute seduction. She bent downward, falling to her hands and knees as her ass raised into the air and her head bowed right before my cock. Her lips wetted from our kiss, but that pink tongue slipped out and invited every last tease.
“Trust me?” She whispered.
“Depends.”
“You’re gonna like what I do.”
Already did. “I’m ready to go, Princess. Turn around.”
She wagged a coy finger, her lips pressing into my jeans just to feel the obvious bulge.
“First, I’m going to lick you. Then I’m going to suck you. Then I’m going to drain every last drop of cum from you.”
“Sounds good, but it’s not what I want.”
“You think you’re off the hook after that?” Her eyebrow arched.
Chastised. I almost apologized.
Almost.
“You have a lot of work to do today.” Her tongue darted along my shaft through the jeans. I’d explode before she even sucked me. “Up to the challenge?”
God-fucking-damn this woman.
“Better live up to this fairy-tale, Knight. I expect many, many happily-ever-afters—”
My cock popped out of the jeans. Her lips grazed the head.
And the ringing of her phone tensed us both into panic.
She dove off the bed, immediately arming herself with a gun that had rested under the pillow where she slept.
Jesus fuck, I didn’t even know she was armed.
The ringing didn’t stop, but she dropped the weapon to the bed. I wished I calmed down as easily. My heart raged. I emptied the clip from the gun.
She checked the ID. Swore. Again and again. The color drained from her cheeks.
“Pixie’s number,” she said. “Goddamn it.”
“Let it ring.”
“Might be Thorne.”
“Ignore him.”
I expected a fight, a profanity, a quick order for me to shove it. I got none of it.
Instead I saw a Lyn I didn’t recognize.
Confidence shredded, courage waning.
And every bruise on her body darkening as the moments passed and her shivers turned from warmed promise to chills.
That fuzzy pink robe was tossed on a rack by the door to her bathroom. I buttoned my pants and retrieved it for her. It didn’t stop her trembling, but at least it covered the bruises.
I’d remember them.
Every last one.
“Gotta answer it. I…I gotta go.” Lyn stood, brushing the hair from her face even when the locks tucked neatly behind her ear. “We can’t—”
“Don’t.” I sat her on the bed. “Don’t say it.”
“Luke, this was a mistake.”
Jesus Christ. “This isn’t a mistake. What I feel for you—”
“Is going to get us both killed. God, you can’t be here. Thorne’s gonna send guys to check up on me. Someone could see you.”
“Someone could see you with me.”
The edge returned, a snake coiled to strike. “Don’t you throw that in my face. People might have been hurt. If I’m here fucking the traitor—”
“Yeah.” I grabbed my cut. “I get it.”
“Luke.”
“Just answer me this.” I adjusted my vest. She stared at the patch, the word President emblazed on the leather. “After all this time. After what we’ve said, did. What we are. What am I to you?”
“Don’t make me answer that. You know damn well what you mean to me.”
“Fuck if I do. You know how I feel. I’d do anything for you.”
“Except leave. Except save yourself. Except stay alive.”
“I told you once. If I had reason to stay alive, I’d find a way. So you tell me. Do I got a reason?”
“Don’t you put it on me.”
“It’s always been on you, Lyn. Tell me what the fuck you see with us. Am I a friend? Am I a man you’re gonna fucking love?”
“Luke—”
“Or am I just the goddamned traitor?”
Lyn’s silence answered the question. Told me all I wanted to hear. All we’d ever have.
“I fucking hope Anathema is worth it to you,” I said.
“It wasn’t to you.”
“Yeah, except I know what I lost.” I turned, leaving her to mistaken loyalty and every regret that came with it. “I have no second chances. No excuses. No mercy. But I thought I had you. That almost made this mistake bearable.”
Her voice trembled. “It wasn’t my mistake.”
“No,” I said. “But this one is.”
I slammed the door to the penthouse and ignored every crushing bullshit emotion threatening to suffocate me in misery and remorse.
I was used to breaking her heart from a distance.
But when she was in arm’s reach. When I destroyed anything we might have had?
I was close enough to see her tears.
And I became the only asshole who ever made Jocelyn Hart cry.