by Lana Grayson
Rose grew up begging for me to listen and protect and love her, as if I didn’t think of her as the piece of my heart beating outside of my body. I never thought I could love as much as I loved that girl, and I hated myself for letting her go that long without realizing it.
She didn’t want me.
I ruined her.
Keep’s hand trembled more than it should. It’d either punch through the wall or shatter to pieces, depending on how quick the drugs wore off. He didn’t swear. His own brand of dispassionate indifference struck harder than if he hauled off and hit me.
“Pixie’s empty,” he said. “Rose and Thorne stay at his house. Reaper won’t notice if you spend the night. I’ll keep the guys out of the suites.”
“I’ll find somewhere on my own.”
“Temple ain’t getting into Pixie.” Keep nodded to Martini. “Make him follow. I’ll hide his bike in the warehouse and call Gold to, uh, help clean up here.”
Martini tugged on my arm. The darkness under her eyes wasn’t just where Goliath beat her senseless. She was exhausted.
But she still reassured me.
I caused Rose misery and destroyed myself in the secret. And now? My only salvation limped on busted knees and winced against the welts that thrashed her skin.
Martini was my second chance. I was supposed to keep her safe.
And Jesus Christ, I was so goddamned in love with her that the thought of anyone hurting her was more painful than a blade in my side.
Keep delivered us to Pixie, but the club abandoned my old room. The converted spaces above the bar served the officers, but not traitors. My brother snuck us into Thorne’s suite, talking only to Martini as whatever withdrawal kicking his ass suddenly twisted his temper.
Or maybe he was sober and his anger was legit. I hadn’t just lied to Rose. I never told Keep.
My brother, my best goddamned friend, was too heavy into binges and too often in trouble when Becky called me up, pregnant and inconvenienced. Keep wasn’t able to help himself then, and bailing his ass from juvy was a waste of time. So I didn’t tell him. Or the MC. Or anyone.
Except my father.
The man I trusted to raise her.
Martini sat on the edge of Thorne’s bed, the same place I damned Rose when she drew The Coup’s attention and needed the protection of a warlord, not her brother.
Father.
God. Admitting it was the truth, but it didn’t sound right. I paced. A ragged breath dragged through my body and suffocated me in frustration.
“How did it happen?” Martini asked.
I snorted. “You know damn well how accidents happen.”
“Was Rose an accident?”
“I was seventeen years old and on my way to jail. She’s the very definition of an accident.”
“And now? Do you still feel that way?”
I gritted my teeth. “Yes.”
Martini flinched. “Really?”
I waved over the room, over Pixie, over everything that was Anathema. She wouldn’t understand all it encompassed. That was fine. Neither did I anymore.
“Look at the life she’s had. The shit she dealt with. The fucking scars she has. She’s in fucking therapy because it’s easier for her to talk to a goddamned stranger than it was to tell me. She was more afraid of my reaction than of what Dad did to her.”
“But she’s Rose.” Martini’s simple declaration defeated my choking rage. “She’s your...yours. She’s upset. She’s not sure how to react to that bombshell.” She shrugged. “I don’t think you do either.”
“What the hell do I matter? I fucked everything up.”
“She’s okay, Brew.”
“I wasn’t in love with her mother. I hardly even knew Becky. She was a quick fling. Hell, I had to pay her off so she didn’t get an abortion. I asked my parents to take the baby while I was in jail. I thought they’d be better for her than me. I was a convicted felon and a clueless kid. I trusted them.”
“You had no idea what Blade would do to her.”
“My mother loved her, but she was like Keep. She self-medicated and reached for a needle when the world got too real and little girls cried too much.” I tangled my hands in my hair. I wished I crushed my skull. “I didn’t meet Rose until she was four. She was probably broken by then.”
“You didn’t break her.”
“Then she broke me.”
Martini’s words were too gentle. “She would have done that anyway.”
I avoided looking at her. My breathing strained my chest. “Did I break you?”
She tried to hide the pain. Nothing I could do about it. Not now. But she offered me a sweetness and treated me to the truth.
“I’m a bit shaken,” she said. “Probably stirred too. But I don’t crack.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“I know.”
Thorne covered his old room with Anathema decals and memorabilia. The scarred demon stared at me from the shadows. Once, I lived with those demons. I rode in a formation of utter arrogance. Money was made, women bent over, and every rational person in earshot of our thundering bikes cleared out before Anathema bloodied the streets.
I didn’t belong here anymore.
I wasn’t sure I belonged anywhere.
Martini shifted. Her gaze also fell to the emblems on the walls, the faded print on the blanket tossed over the bed. Everything Anathema. Everything that used to bleed into my skin now leeched out. Nothing to stop it. Nothing to hide it.
“I’m sorry, Brew.” Martini picked at the blanket, those silver eyes dulled with her own sorrow. “I didn’t mean to just show up, but the thought of you getting hurt...”
“You saved my life.”
Her eyebrow perked. “It was Rose who attacked him like a rabid dog.”
“I taught her how to fight.”
“Of course you did.” She looked away. “God, I was so worried you had died. I couldn’t imagine…”
“I’m not dead.”
“You probably think this is another trick. Or that I’m manipulating you.”
Of all the shit I didn’t want to deal with, Martini’s apology topped the list. I didn’t deserve her apology. Not when I needed to earn her forgiveness.
“Stop,” I said. “Doesn’t matter now.”
“It does.” She held my gaze. “Because it’s true. I did manipulate you. When you hauled me on your bike to take me to Kingdom, I panicked. But I saw your sadness. Something was eating away at your soul, and I capitalized on it to keep me safe, not to help you.”
“Darling—”
“I wanted to get out of Sacrilege. I wanted to run from Kingdom.” She flushed. “I wanted to give into you because...it’s what I did with dangerous men.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I swear, I was gonna run with you, Brew. I was gonna help you and be with you and share…” She groaned. “I’m not the type of girl who makes love. What we did...wasn’t that. It was more. It meant more.”
“Martini.”
“Maybe I started out I was using you to save my ass, but not now.”
“Stop apologizing.”
“When Goliath grabbed me—”
“Jesus Christ. I can’t listen to this.”
“—I thought I could just pretend and let it happen. Because I did it before. I survived before.”
Martini wasn’t the sadist in the room, but she tore me to pieces and left me begging for a mercy that would never come. I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to think about it. I missed the chance to save her from a hell she didn’t deserve.
Again.
“It wasn’t Goliath that terrified me,” she said. “It was Temple. The bounty. The thought that you were going home only to walk into a trap. I had to find you. Even if you hated me.”
“What the hell do you want with me?”
Those silver eyes shimmered. “I want you to stop blaming yourself.”
“How?”
&n
bsp; “It wasn’t you who hurt me.”
“I wasn’t there to stop it.”
“But you’re here now.” The hardness in her voice cracked. She wielded confidence like armor, but it shattered the longer she hesitated. She stared at me as if I would ever dare to resist the shimmer of silver in her eyes. “Right?”
I didn’t waste any fucking words, not when I already wasted enough time.
I took her in my arms, crushed her against my chest, and claimed what was mine without the lash of guilt or the sting of shame. Her arms wove around my neck. She pulled closer, pressing her every curve into my embrace, just like when I tasted her, possessed her, and tortured myself with thoughts too dark for the beautiful goddess delivering me the pleasure of her gifted body.
Her kiss whimpered over my lips, and every muscle in my body tensed at the soft, delicate sound. She clung to me, groaning as my hand snaked to her hair, reflexively pinning her.
Holding her. Owning her.
It was the only way I knew to take a woman.
It was the only way she knew how to be taken.
The desires we tempted destroyed us for the rest of the world. The last time she gave herself, I fought every goddamned urge I had to seize what belonged to me. Martini hadn’t possessed an ounce of control that night.
Everything I fought, I battled against my own crippled courage.
Everything I wanted, I bargained against my healing confidence.
Every pleasure I earned, I stole from my lost, broken, and lonely body.
Martini thought she could make a deal with the devil and choose her own terms, but my needs didn’t get negotiated. I didn’t hold her down. I didn’t tie her hands. Her own lust bound her. Sealed her against me. Offered me everything I hunted and nothing I dared to take while my thoughts swirled in the darkness and guilt.
Not anymore.
I wove my hand over her back. Her flinch rent my mind and fired my blood in murderous rage.
She was hurt.
He hurt her.
I still didn’t know how bad. Martini shook her head, still kissing me, brushing her lips over my chin, my cheek, my neck.
“I’m okay.” She melted, healing more from my touch than any care to her bruises. “I just need you.”
“Let me see.”
Her whisper wavered. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“Let me see.”
“Promise me.”
I stilled. “Promise what?”
“You left with only two words from Rose.” She brushed a hand along my cheek. “Crossed the country for your vengeance without thinking of the danger.”
“I had to.”
“Promise me you won’t go after Goliath. Stay with me. Run with me. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen. Not to me, not to you.” I cupped her chin. “I swear it.”
The words forged a heat in both of us. Martini dropped her gaze as I pulled her shirt over her head. Her arms moved stiff, but she didn’t cover herself.
The bruises marked her back, thick and dark. Her creamy skin blushed, but the angry violence stole the innocent flush and destroyed it under the evidence of another man’s cruelty. A few cuts healed over her ribs. A streak of darkness disappeared under her jeans.
A handprint.
His handprint.
Martini’s whisper called to me before my mind descended into a primal rage and lost itself within a broken thirst for blood.
“They’re only bruises,” she said. “I’m still whole.”
“Never should have happened.”
Martini unhooked her bra. The material fell away. She reached for my hand, gently lowering my palm over her heart, over a part of her so pure and soft the vile markings didn’t destroy her beauty.
“You can take away the pain.”
“I’m the one dealing the pain, Darling.”
“And I’ve only ever asked for pain.” Her simple admission nearly dropped me to my knees. “Tonight, I only want you.”
“I’m not strong enough to deny my urges.”
Martini’s smile would tempt the second fall of man. “But I’m strong enough to enjoy them.”
Too many layers of clothing separated us. I stalked closer to her, and the devious amusement sparked from her to me. She retreated to the bed, her eyes locked on mine. I didn’t look away as I imagined every last impure and vicious thing I’d do to her.
She shivered and imagined it too.
The war waged in my mind for so long, I forgot what conquest felt like, only the struggle of repressing my need and denying my body the possession of another. Martini crawled over the bed, waiting for me to unbuckle her jeans. The denim molded to her curves, peeling over the smooth enticement of her legs. Inch by inch, she was exposed to me, each stolen layer casting a wave of goose bumps that tickled her skin and prickled the raspberry delight of her nipples. They waited for my hands, my mouth, my teeth.
She wore panties. I destroyed them, ripping the black cotton from her body in a fit of impatience. She shuddered, lying on the bed to reveal everything she hid to me.
She wanted me to see.
I didn’t have to move her. Her legs parted, and the soft caress of her thighs promised me a delight I hadn’t the pleasure of claiming yet. She grinned, but she didn’t hide. With other girls, I needed to bat away shy hands and untwist crossed legs. They liked it, but they hid behind modesty and defiance.
Martini offered, and my reward would make her scream my name so loud everyone in the valley would know I was alive.
I pulled her hips to the end of the bed and spread her legs over my shoulders. The vulgarity of the act tortured my already hardened cock, and Martini’s soft coo blinded me to everything but the soft wetness awaiting my tempted tongue.
Every evil had assaulted her. Every nightmare had come true.
Tonight it changed.
Tonight, she belonged to me. For now and forever.
“Oh, my God.”
Those were the only words I’d let her say. No more excuses. No more teasing. No more fear or apologies. Just gasped encouragement. Whispered astonishment. She breathed a crippling passion that tasted of cream and melted both of us into the pleasure of the other.
Each stroke of my tongue lashed her. Every lap, every suckle of her willingly offered slit tossed her against the bed. She gripped the blankets like I threatened her and tensed as if she prepared for a blow that didn’t come.
“Never...” She shuddered the words. “No one...”
“No one ever tasted you?” My voice edged into a possessive warning that flexed her hips under me.
“No.”
“Why?”
Martini arched, begging for the return of my lips where she needed it most. “Wasn’t about me.”
She was in for a long fucking night.
“Darling, watching you squirm is the reason I’m doing this.” I nipped her clit. She bucked, but I pinned her against the bed. “I’m gonna eat you. I’m gonna fuck you. And, by morning, you ain’t gonna be thinking about anything but me.”
“You don’t have to do this. I’m ready for you. I’ve been since I first met you, Brew.”
“I know.” I dragged her body to my lips. “That’s why I’m going to enjoy every goddamned inch of you.”
She arched as my tongue laced against her. Her cry choked in surprise. She reached for me.
None of that.
I gripped her wrist and pinned it across her stomach. Her body convulsed again, weighed heavy by the pressure of my hold and the frantic, fighting spasms forcing her into a delirium before I even took what I needed from her.
And that was fine.
That was what I wanted.
No woman was ever worth so much attention. No one deserved the flick of my tongue or the promise of my pleasure. No one responded so attentively, so desperately, to just the tease of my lips against her folds or the thrust of my finger into a tightness that belonged to me. I owned her, and her every haunt
ed memory of pain and heartache would crumble in the presence of my ultimate protection.
She begged me. So many women had before, but only she whispered my name so sweetly. Only Martini asked with more than just their words. Her body quivered and shook, wetted and clenched. She didn’t fight against the hold of my hands. She moved with mine, accepting my embrace, begging for nothing more than to feel the entirety of my weight against her.
“Brew—” She couldn’t breathe. The pleasure stole her voice and wrapped her tighter than any bindings. I knew how to loosen them. Pity I wouldn’t. “Please.”
“Please, what?” The interruption to my feast was unwelcomed. “Want me, Darling?”
“God damn, more than anything.”
“You sure?”
“You really are cruel.”
My turn to smirk. “I think I’m being pretty damn generous.”
Her silver eyes dilated, staring, but unable to focus against the twisting of my fingers deep inside her tight core, a softness she offered but I had yet to fully take.
I would claim it tonight. The way a man was meant to claim a woman.
“So good it hurts,” she whispered.
She didn’t apologize for wanting that pain. She hadn’t felt my hand slap her ass or the grip of my hands in her hair. I could do it. I could punish her and ravish her and bring her to the brink only to kick her over the edge and laugh as she clawed from her own besotted anguish.
But I didn’t need to.
Submission wasn’t forged with the swipe of a hand.
And authority wasn’t an urge born in blood and polluted by a last name.
Dominance was a man tasting his woman, drowning in her pleasure, and growling for air as her legs pushed back and his need overwhelmed them both.
Martini stiffened as I climbed over her. Not out of fear. Not because of any pain from her injuries. Her gaze asked to touch me. Her fingers gripped over my biceps, tracing the thick lines of warning ink that should have told her to run before I devoured everything she was and conquered her for my own.
“Christ, Brew,” she whispered. “I think I’m in love with you.”
I positioned over her, my cock poised within a part of her begging for capture.
“I don’t just think it.” I thrust in her waiting, aching, burning slit with a single stroke, taking what she offered and earning the rest with her gasped surprise. “I know I love you.”