CUT (New Adult Dark Romance)

by Cheri, Ann

  I stared as Jude stood up, walking round the table cooly, flashing murder eyes once again.

  “I save your ass and this is how you fucking repay me?”

  “Put the guns down,” Marcus said, waving an arm at the table. Half the men were already aiming a piece at Jude. Black was nose to nose with him, standing up slowly.

  “I was going to thank you, Jude, but now I see what a fucking mistake I made bringing you in. You’re nothing but a hothead who likes to beat his wife. You fucking got off on icing those Kings, didn’t you? Maybe you made the right move this time, but I don’t need a loose fucking cannon running around my business. Take off the jacket, Jude.”

  “You want it? You take it,” Jude seethed. “Those fucks wanted to cut your throat and it was all you could do to kiss their asses for it. How many names on this table got there because of the motherfucking Kings?” The room was buzzing with electricity as Marcus stepped up to Jude.

  “I’m not gonna ask you again, Jude.”

  “If you won’t fucking call a vote, I will,” Jude said, reaching down and grabbing the Gavel. “I call a vote of no confidence in Marcus Black, all in favor of fucking removing say I,”

  The whole room went quiet. Acre was the first to speak up.

  “Black has saved my ass too many times to count, Jude.”

  Fists started hammering the table. A cacophony of sound was filling the room.

  “You know the rules, Black. You taught them to me them yourself. Fight for your position in this club, and you fight to keep it.”

  The men crashed together violently. Sometimes, a fight can be structured. I’d seen enough of them to know the slow circling, the jabbing, each participant looking for an edge. This was different. Jude dove into Marcus in a grappling match, arms and legs and clawing and kicking as they pummeled each other in wild abandon. The men had stepped up from their table, moving for a better view, but I was front and center looking at the two warriors locked in a death embrace. I could sense it in the men around me. There was a certain honor in the heat of battle. A blood debt was owed, and a blood debt was paid. Jude seemed possessed, screaming like a banshee as he tore into Marcus. Black took it just as well as he dished it. Just like that, in a hail of blows, it was all over.

  Both men fell apart, blood and sweat pouring from battered bodies. There was no winner here, only pain. Jude crawled away, forcing himself to his feet even as Marcus lifted himself to a knee, sporting a long cut across his forehead. I watched as Jude pulled his jacket off his shoulders, throwing it on the ground. Somebody moved to stop him as he stepped through the crowd, but Acre held him back.

  “You bleed coming in, you bleed going out. Don’t fucking touch him.”

  Jude wasn’t moving. Black was slowly getting to his feet, wiping the blood from his lip.

  “Get the fuck out of this place,” Marcus said quietly. “Or I’ll throw you out.”

  “You’d need a few of your friends,” Jude spat back. Neither man seemed ready to hold up to their bluster.

  “I’ve got plenty of those.”

  The men were closing in on Jude now, oppressive, but they stepped aside as Jude started toward the doorway, letting him through.

  “Come on Kattlyn, we’re fucking leaving,” Jude said, reaching down to grab me on his way past. I found myself being dragged toward the door, away from the men. I looked back, the room spinning. Marcus was on his feet now, following us, his boots smashing into the floor again as he approached. My body went along with Jude’s pull, but my mind was screaming out. I knew what would happen. Away from here, Jude would take it all out on me… Fear rose out of every pore of my body.

  “NO” I shouted, ripping my hand from his! “I’m not going with you. You’ll hurt me… You’ll kill me.”

  Jude stared at me in shock, one foot in and one foot out of the office. I panted, barely out of his reach.

  “You don’t fucking tell me no. You don’t EVER tell me no.”

  Jude moved forward into the room again disregarding the men inside. His fist came up, swinging down into my side and crushing my bruised ribs. Acre stepped forward from the side to come to my aid. I screamed out as Jude’s hand wrapped round my wrist.

  “Back the fuck off, I’m leaving with my woman.”

  Jude’s head swiveled, realizing someone very important was missing from the group of bikers. He looked left in time to lock eyes with Marcus Black’s fist as he crashed into him. His arm swung round too late to block it as Black followed through in a series of devastating blows. Jude fell backward, his hand releasing me as Black’s boot connected hard with his knee, causing him to crash to the floor. My stomach turned as I fell away, but Acre’s rough hands caught me in midair.

  “Don’t look,” Acre said as I fell into him. I stared at the door, at Jude.

  “Get out of this fucking building. Get out of this fucking city. Think you need to hit women to feel like a big man? I want you to fucking crawl out of here. If I ever see your face again I’ll blow it the fuck off and send you straight to hell.”

  Jude started crawling, Black’s foot crashing down into his side. Something about his movements said more than any words could. He was hurt, but more than that, he was angry. Jude was murderously angry.

  “Leave your shit. Leave your car. That’s mine now,” Marcus shouted after him, adding insult to injury. He stared out as Jude stopped in the middle of the floor. There was a moment of silence, his body shaking, but he didn’t say a word. He kept right on walking.

  “Meeting’s over. I need to make a few calls. Get your asses out on the streets, if the Kings want to come visit I want to know before they’re knocking on the door.”

  Marcus walked toward the back of the meeting room, pulling a key out and opening a door that led off into a separate interior space. Acre let me go, my knees shaking as I stood in front of the men.

  “You’d better go after him,” Acre said, his face stern.

  “I already told you, I’m not going with Jude.”

  “I’m not talking about Jude.”

  I looked up, the door Marcus walked through was still cracked open.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Oh yes you do. I’d be in there before someone else claims you. That asshole’s gonna hunt you down if you leave here, and if you want our protection, you know how to get it. You’d look fucking good on my cock you little kitty kat, but I’m not the one you need to be winning over.”

  “But…”

  “No buts. Your man isn’t a Rampant anymore. Only two kinds of ladies are allowed in this clubhouse, and you don’t look like a whore.”

  The rest of the men were staring, as if a gang of jackals had started circling their prey. I stepped through them, heading for the door… Hoots and hollers followed me, a band of brothers trying to cope with grief and loss in the only way they could.

  “Tonight, we drink for Marlo,” Acre shouted behind me. I trembled inside and out. The men left me alone in the room, and I stood there almost twenty minutes before finally reaching for the door.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

  The door clicked shut behind me, and Black rose from his leather chair, walking across the room and drawing the deadbolt and chains to secure the door. I could feel the warmth of his body as he stepped back around me, his eyes inspecting me like a prized possession. I watched as he finished wiping away the blood from his face with a wet cloth, dropping it in a small sink.

  “Thank you, Marcus…”

  “For what sweetheart?”

  “For stopping him…”

  Black stared at me, breathing heavily, his body still rippling beneath his clothing.

  “Come here,” Black said, his eyes deep pools of icy blue.

  I didn’t answer, and Black didn’t seem interested in waiting. He reached out, grabbing my wrist much like Jude had. The difference was, Marcus’s hand was gentler. Insistent, firm, but not aiming to inflict pain. It was a
strange feeling, and I found myself whimpering as my body grew hot beneath his touch.

  “No,” I whispered, trying to draw my hand away. Black leaned in, sweeping me up by my waist and pulling my body into his. He carried me across the room toward the darkened areas near the corner. My heart raced. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Jude was gone, Black was here, my body was confused with emotions both excited and terrified. Before I knew it, his hand had swept upward brushing against the painful lines I’d drawn on my arm, the skin still healing.

  “I knew it the minute I first saw you…”

  His voice was soft on my ear, breath warm against my cheek.

  “I don’t understand,” I replied, trying to hide my pain as he squeezed my arm.

  “You’re like me… You’re damaged.”

  The words slapped me upside the face almost as hard as a hand would have. Without warning, he pulled his jacket off, tearing his undershirt free and exposing his body. I found myself staring, but it wasn’t his impressive physique that had me captivated.

  It was the lines. Old scars, thin and tanned. They ran down his arm, remnants of old memories. Almost faded enough to forget, but still with him. How long had it been since he put a knife to his skin? A year? Two?

  “You don’t deserve what’s happening to you. You can beat this.”

  Somehow, I took strength in his words. I’d always been damaged. Looking for the next thrill, seeking out the next dangerous moment. I lived my life in the fear and the excitement that being damaged brought me…

  “I’m not what you think I am,” I whispered, hesitant. Black stayed close, breathing deeply.

  “You’re hurt,” I said, looking at the gash on his forehead. It wasn’t as bad as I’d thought, and it had already stopped bleeding, but it was definitely going to add another scar to his face. Another line to join all the others, only this one wasn’t self inflicted... My fingertip reached up, touching a few of the lines that traveled across his shoulder.

  “I’m fine,” Black replied, moving in closer. His lips pressed against the skin of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine.

  “You’re the least perfect creature I’ve ever seen, and I want you more than fucking life.”

  “We can’t do this…” I said, my voice shaking.

  “I know you want to.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  I pulled away from his grasp, my heart racing even as wicked desire filled my mind. I didn’t want Black to wait… I wanted him to take me. I wanted him to fuck me right here and take away all the pain. I wanted him to make me forget Jude ever existed, to teach me to forget about the damage I’d inflicted. If only he knew how I really felt. If only he knew how much I’d needed him from the moment I first saw him…

  I tried to turn from him and hide my desire, but he used my movement against me, spinning my body and folding me over the side of a tall bed that was hidden away in the corner of the space. I made a soft whimper as he pressed my face against the blankets, the heat of his flesh held against me like a burning torch.

  I wanted to buck against him, to push him off, but where I expected the roughness of Jude’s fists, I met only with tender firmness of Marcus’s touch. His hands ran up my sides, holding me, guiding me, but not hurting me. My body quivered as his hand trailed up along the side of my ribcage, reaching beneath me along the silken blouse to cup my bra-free breast.

  There are moments where you lose control of your body, where every ounce of you wants something despite all rhyme or reason. Feeling Marcus against me, his heat, his strength… Pleasure radiated out from my core.

  “You saved me,” I whispered, no longer fighting him. “But Jude will come back.”

  Black pulled away, leaving me silent against the bed.

  “And now I’m just as fucking bad as he is…” Black said, a sound of pain in his voice. “I’m sorry Kat. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

  I stared back at him, my eyes pleading in ways my body couldn’t. Black stood silhouetted in the space between light and dark. His body was muscular but roughly hewn, like a masterpiece carved from rock and left unfinished. I watched the rise and fall of his chest, marveled at the way his jaw sat ever so square, gazed at the lines now so evident down each of his arms.

  “I’m not like this sweetheart… You’re bringing something out in me I haven’t felt in a long time. I had to fight myself to leave your room that first night you showed up in my fucking club. You’re in my head. You should run away from here. Run away and never come back because I don’t think I can control myself around you. I don’t want you mixed up in this shit.”

  There it was, the pain in his eyes I knew so well. I’d seen it in my own, day in, day out.

  “What happened to you Marcus?”

  Black collapsed backward against a wall, holding himself upright as I moved to sit on the bed.

  “My old man happened. Started this little fight club, beat my mother, beat me, started bringing drugs into the warehouse. Man was an asshole. Never even got the chance to step to him, he crashed a car on the westside and the men sent him out like some kind of fucking war hero.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Don’t be sorry, that asshole deserved worse.”

  “I meant, I’m sorry for you. Is that why you…” I asked, looking at his arm. He seemed to draw away into his own skin.

  “No. The reason for that is even worse, sweetheart.”

  “Black…”

  “Yes?”

  “Come here…”

  He sat there as my body quivered with need. Every square inch of my skin was crying out for his heat against it. Black stepped away from the wall, tentatively, slowly, as he crossed the room.

  “Breathe for me,” I whispered as I reached out and grabbed his hips, pulling him closer. He towered over my petite body, his hulking mass every bit as fearsome as Jude ever was. Without so much as a whisper I stood before him, my fingertips running over his shoulders. The scars were deep. I could feel each of them like rings in a tree trunk. They were a history of pain, a journal of horror. I let y hands slide downward, running them forward across his chest and down his rippling abs. My eyes traced from his chin and followed my fingertips.

  Desire, slick and hot, was coursing through my body and propelling my touch. Somehow, I’d lost myself. I wasn’t Kattlyn, I wasn’t the damaged little girl who thought love should hurt… The bad girl inside me was taking over. It knew what I wanted and it knew how to get it.

  I leaned in and he bent downward, his lips crashing onto mine as I fell into his heavenly embrace. We tasted and grabbed and gripped and lost everything about ourselves in that moment. His hands drew upward, throwing my blouse up and over my arms, freeing my breasts as his hands ran across them with the tender firmness I was starting to truly appreciate. I moaned into his lips, our tongues dancing.

  “Kattlyn, sweetheart, I…”

  Black tried to pull away again, but I pressed myself into him harder.

  “Don’t talk. We don’t need words for this.”

  “I don’t want you to get involved.”

  “It’s ok… I want this,” I whispered.

  “God fucking damn you’re beautiful,” he said, his own hands sweeping over the fresh lines on my arm. “You’re too fucking beautiful to deserve this.”

  Our moves were frantically alive and fierce as we grappled with each other, stripping away the clothes between us and falling into the bed. Heat rose as he drove kisses down my neck and breasts, stopping to draw one of my pert nipples into his mouth, suckling lightly before continuing down my stomach toward the center of my heat. He only paused briefly at the top of my thigh, taking a moment to kiss the three deep white lines I’d put there so many years ago. They were my first. Amateur. Carved with a dull knife and jaggedly ugly. Somehow, black seemed to know exactly what they meant…

  But he didn’t stop there.

  “Oh yes,” I gasped as his tongue found it’s way to my folds. He was insistent, drivin
g between and separating my core as his impossibly soft tongue drew upward, tasting me, drinking me, attacking my hidden nub with wild abandon. My brain melted, hands wrapping themselves into Black’s hair and pulling him into my core. I sucked in my breath, rolling hips against his face as my world crashed over with pleasure and desire. It had never been like this before. Never a focus on my pleasure, only on how I could serve and how much pain I would need to inflict on myself to forget. I lost track of time as Black wrote love letters to my folds, tracing each and every line with his tongue, drawing me between his lips as the strongest orgasm of my life wracked my body.

  Black shifted his weight, sliding upward, his lips tracing more kisses up and over my breasts and around to my neck as our bodies melted together. I reached down, desperate to guide him. His icy blue gaze met my eyes as my fingertips wrapped round him, drawing a gasp of surprise from my lips.