by Kit Rocha
His fingers had just about stopped her heart. His dick might actually send her into cardiac arrest.
And fuck, now she was rambling in her head. The orgasms had broken her.
He watched her, his expression soft. "You okay?"
"I don't know," she admitted. He was still stretched over her, warm and strong, and the gentleness in his eyes made it so easy to snuggle into him. She felt safe like this, even knowing he was eroding the foundation of her sheltered little world view. "That was...wow. It was really wow."
He ducked his head with another of those heart-melting smiles. "I didn't quite catch that. Wow, you said?"
She didn't know if her cheeks could flush any harder. She screwed her face up into a scowl and smacked his shoulder with her fist.
It bounced off.
Of course it did. A laugh sputtered out of her, ruining her attempt at severity. "Don't get smug. I hate smug men."
"You don't hate me." He rose on his knees between her thighs, all those delicious muscles flexing as he moved, and finished opening his pants.
His left hand was still wet with her arousal. She watched, entranced, as he freed his dick and wrapped his fingers around it.
The first slow stroke tugged at all those pulsing places inside her. He was magnificent, shameless, dragging his fingers over the length of his shaft, totally unconcerned by her rapt fascination.
No, not unconcerned by. That tiny tilt of his lips grew into a smile, because he loved her rapt fascination. And he was making a liar out of her.
He was so smug, and it was so hot.
Watching his face, she reached for him. He sucked in a sharp breath when her fingers bumped his, and she held his gaze as she slipped past his fingers to circle the head of his cock.
"Fuck." His head fell back and then forward, his hips rocking slightly, pushing into her grip. "Again."
Not so perfectly controlled anymore, and definitely not denying himself. Nessa slid her thumb up to repeat the movement and made a loose fist of her fingers so he could fuck into her hand.
Her fingers glided down his shaft when he thrust again, her own wetness easing the way. It was crude and intimate at the same time, and she had to watch. Her fingers looked small, wrapped as far around him as she could go. He'd more than fill that empty ache, and part of her wanted to crawl over him now and take him as deep as she could.
But he'd be so gentle. He'd reach for all that control, and she wanted this. The naked look of pleasure on his face as he thrust forward again, one hand trembling on hers and the other clenched at his side.
There was no slow build. His cock twitched in her grip, and he tightened his hand around hers until it almost hurt. "Harder."
Hypnotized, she followed his lead. Pumped her fingers up and down, not resisting when he took over the movements. A few more short, rough jerks, and he choked out her name. His jaw clenched and his eyes closed, and she wondered if she'd looked like that in the moments just before she came. Like it felt so good it hurt.
Knowing she'd helped bring him here made her head swim. She couldn't tear her gaze from his expression, not even when he came. She felt it, spurting over their joined hands, landing on her stomach—and she didn't care.
His face. His face. For one beautiful second, he was naked and unguarded—his features slack with relief, his lips parted in satisfaction.
He should always look like this. Sated. Happy.
Perfect.
He opened his eyes slowly, their depths shadowed only by lingering heat, and stared down at her.
She was broken. She had to be. Because she was sprawled on her back on a couch, half-dressed, her hand and stomach sticky because a sector leader had just jerked off all over her. And all that inappropriate tenderness was bubbling up so fast and hard her lips curved into a goofy smile before she could stop them. "Wow."
His smile matched hers. "You said that already."
"Well, it still applies." She twisted her hand to twine her fingers with his. "Plus, it sounds more romantic than you missed my tits."
That shocked a laugh out of him as he rose from the couch and righted his clothes. "You O'Kanes are foul. I like it." He disappeared into the next room, and she heard the water in the bathroom sink cut on. When he returned, he was carrying a damp hand towel.
Before she could stir herself to reach for it, he'd already settled on the couch next to her legs. That momentary lapse in control had vanished, but there was something...nice about relaxing under his gentle touch. The towel was soft, the water was warm, and he took his time, turning what could have been an awkward practicality into its own quiet pleasure.
He was taking care of her. And she didn't hate it.
"Still hungry?" he rumbled.
"Maybe a little." She squirmed upright and crossed her arms over her naked chest. "I hope I didn't throw my bra into the food."
He retrieved his shirt from the floor beside the couch and pressed the cotton into her hands. "Not quite. I think we're safe."
The shirt was huge and smelled like him. She barely managed to keep herself from rubbing it against her cheeks as she pulled it over her head. "Thanks."
"Anytime, Nessa."
It sounded sincere, and deeper than a simple shirt. It encompassed every filthy, glorious thing they'd done and would hopefully do again, and those sweet moments of tender caretaking.
It didn't sound like an expiration date.
Chapter Ten
Ryder couldn't spend one more goddamn day looking at the monitors that covered the walls of the O'Kanes' war room. It was too sterile, all data and maps, so far removed from the messy reality of what they'd seen in Sector Two that it felt disrespectful, almost cowardly, to sit in there while real shit was going down outside.
Which was why he gladly geared up when Dallas asked him along on a tour of the sector. He didn't care if it was ugly, or even dangerous. It was better than sitting in a room that increasingly felt like a prison, safely distanced from the horrors outside.
They stopped in the marketplace first. Many of the shops and carts surrounding the square had been abandoned, but there were still a fair number of people milling about, hurrying from one stand to the next.
The buzz of conversation faltered as people noticed Dallas. A handful quickly turned their backs and scurried into alleys. Even more froze in place as he passed. Some bowed their heads, and a few looked ready to drop to their knees.
Whispers rose, and Dallas ignored it all as he crossed the open space. "Good news is, most of the people who flat-out hate me are long gone."
"Just most?" Ryder's hand itched for a weapon. "Now you tell me."
Dallas winked at him. "If you only keep the people who love you around, life is boring. You get complacent."
Before Ryder could respond, Dallas gestured to their left and led him toward a stand overseen by a glaring, gray-haired woman. The shelves were stacked with the meat pies Nessa had brought him, and the smell of baking bread and spicy meat drifted from the open door behind her.
As soon as they approached, the woman balled up her fists and braced them on her hips. "Did that girl tell you about the milk?"
"The milk?" Dallas asked, both brows rising.
She scowled. "The milk. Ever since this war started, I can't find nearly enough. Do you know why I need milk?"
"I expect you plan to tell me."
She huffed. "Cheese. All these young men you're training to fight just eat and eat. They eat everything I can make. I sell out before lunch every day, and my regulars have to go someplace else."
"Well, we can't have that." Dallas pulled a few rumpled bills out of his pocket and passed them to her, then picked up a pair of paper-wrapped meat pies. "I'll tell you what, Miss Pearl. I'll get you all the milk you want. Maybe some fresh beef, too. I'll give you a real sweet deal on it."
Her wrinkled face scrunched in suspicion. "And in return?"
"You pass that deal along to the militia." Dallas handed Ryder one of the meat pies. "Just a little di
scount, so I know none of them are going hungry."
She muttered something that sounded vaguely obscene, then jerked her head in a rough nod. "If the deal's sweet enough."
Dallas grinned at her. "I'll send Hawk over to negotiate. You need anything else, you let him know, okay?"
Pearl grumbled her assent. Then, as Dallas turned to leave, she said, "O'Kane. Wait."
When they turned back, she was already bustling through the door into the small kitchen beyond. She came back with a cardboard box and thrust it out. "For Lex. Don't you steal any."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Pearl." He nodded to her and led Ryder back into the square. When they were far enough away, he rattled the box. "That woman would tell God and the Devil both everything she thought they were doing wrong, and charge them for the privilege, but Lex comes around and she's all smiles and free food."
It was a common reaction to Lex, from what Ryder had seen. "That lady of yours has everyone charmed. Even Jim was almost fond of her, and he wasn't fond of anyone."
Dallas smiled, and it was the closest Ryder had ever seen his eyes get to softening. "She's special. And she knows how to make them feel special. That's not something a lot of people get to have these days."
"No, it isn't." The bustle in the marketplace had mostly resumed, and Ryder couldn't help wondering if those initial frozen reactions weren't about Dallas personally, but about the perpetual target on his back. "Where to next?"
Dallas polished off a third of his meat pie in one bite and nodded across the square as he swallowed. "I want to check in with Stuart. He's the best leatherworker I've ever met—and the unofficial leader of the crafters. If it happens in the market, he knows about it."
Halfway to the shop he'd indicated, a plump woman with a pretty face stepped out of one of the shops and hurried toward them, a paper cup in each hand. "Here," she said, offering one drink to each of them. "Pearl should have given you something to drink."
"Pearl was busy complaining," Dallas replied with a grin. But he tucked the box for Lex under his arm and accepted the cup. "How're you doing today, Pam?"
"Good, good. Things are good. So much better now that the wall's off."
Her gaze slid to Ryder and back, as if she wanted to say something else. Dallas caught the look and tilted his head toward him. "This is Ryder. He's helping me with this beef we've got with Eden. You can say whatever you want in front of him."
She glanced at Ryder again and twisted her hands together. "It's not so much… It's just—" She exhaled in a rush and gave Dallas a pleading look. "Lou's been fretting about the fight. About not doing his part. He's been talking about going over to join up with the men Jasper's training."
"Ah." Dallas folded the paper around his food and shoved it into his pocket. Then he grasped Pam's shoulder lightly. "Jas knows about Lou's bad leg. He won't take on someone who'll just get himself killed."
"That means Lou will do something even stupider." She swallowed hard. "I thought maybe if we could help some other way, one that didn't wound his pride. He can cook, and everyone needs to eat. If you made a special request…"
"All right." Dallas squeezed her shoulder. "I'll talk to Lex. I got sector leaders in my office damn near every day, and only about three people on that compound who can serve up a meal without poisoning folks. We'll figure something out."
"Thank you." She clasped his hand for a moment, then smiled at Ryder and inclined her head. "Sorry to interrupt."
"It's fine, Pam. You have a good day."
She scurried back to the shop, and Dallas took a sip from his cup. "Fuck, that synthetic stuff Jim cooked up in Eight is close, but there's nothing like honest-to-God real coffee."
The rich scent drifting up from the cup in Ryder's hand reminded him of his mother. Jim had created the coffee replacement for her, but whenever she'd managed to find even low-quality coffee beans, it was like Christmas. She babied those bitter little gems, grinding them by hand and coaxing every bit of flavor from the grinds. She'd even tried growing it herself, but the plants died before they ever produced flowers.
She wept over the limp stems and brown leaves, and told him the story of how she'd met his father in a shop that sold nothing but coffee. There was one on every corner, she said, laughing like it was some joke only she understood.
She never drank real coffee again.
Ryder drained half of his in one searing gulp. The liquid blistered over his tongue, but he shook off the pain and squared his shoulders.
Stuart's shop turned out to be an actual shop, with racks of leather jackets and shelves stacked with pants and boots. Corsets covered one display table, deep browns and blacks decorated with lace and silver. Another table held nothing but leather wrist cuffs, some sporting silver studs and some with delicate rings.
"O'Kane!" A big man at the front of the store rose when they entered, an easy smile coming to his face. The counter in front of him was strewn with scraps of leather and tools, and the piece in front of him looked like an almost finished gun belt. "Good to see you."
"Same." Dallas shook the big man's hand. "I'm giving Ryder here a tour of the marketplace. Thought I'd check in and see how it's going."
"Shit is what it is, right?" Stuart held out his hand to Ryder. "You're the gentleman who took over Five."
"I am." The man had a strong grip, but not the purposeful knuckle-crushing he'd experienced elsewhere in the sectors.
"Right on."
Dallas picked up a bandolier and turned it over in his hands. "Is this what you're doing with that scrap leather? Noelle mentioned something about it."
"Yep." Stuart pulled up a stool and bent over his worktable again. "Anything I had bits of lying around—full-grain, bonded, you name it. Patched-together pieces of shit—don't tell anyone I made them."
Dallas gave the piece in his hand an experimental tug, then grinned. "Still quality work. And the boys will find it useful."
"It'll get the job done," Ryder agreed.
"I guess." Stuart shrugged, then tapped an awl on the scarred wooden surface of his table. "Been hearing some rumbles, O'Kane."
"Tell me."
"Folks are saying some ugly shit went down in Two. A bunch of Eden soldiers, dead as hell." He eyed Dallas sharply. "Christ knows that's not the bad part. People are also saying it wasn't us. Your men, I mean."
Dallas nodded, his expression easy. Relaxed. If Ryder hadn't been there in Two with him, he wouldn't have been able to guess the slaughter had bothered him. "It wasn't pretty, that's for sure. But us is bigger than the O'Kanes right now. Remind people that we have all the damn sectors united—and the only people who need to be scared of that are the ones who think those walls will protect them."
Stuart's craggy face split into a grin. "That was a damn good speech, O'Kane. Downright motivational. You practically write my shit for me."
So that explained how Dallas managed to not only keep an eye on his people, but speak to them, as well. The kinds of people who built their lives in the sectors didn't trust power, full stop. To them, a benevolent dictator was just as bad as a despot. It didn't matter whether the man in charge was cruel or kind, he still wielded power over your freedom, your fortunes.
Your lives.
But if an average man, one of their own, trusted Dallas enough to speak for him? That meant Dallas trusted him enough to let him, to give him that power. And that made all the difference between a dictator and a leader.
Dallas and Stuart spoke for a few more minutes, but Ryder wasn't listening. He was thinking—about power, and about community.
He didn't know the first thing about the people in Five. He knew some of the men who worked for him, and more who had volunteered to train, but he left them mostly to Hector. Truthfully, he didn't want to know them. He didn't know where to begin.
Dallas O'Kane cared about Four. About its economic well-being, the lives and livelihoods of the people in it, even the buildings. The man probably knew every stone and brick in the whole fucking sector, the
same way Dallas's mother had undoubtedly known every hill and valley of her ranch back in Texas.
It was a knowledge born of love, of legacy. Dallas was fighting this war to protect his home. Ryder was fighting it because the war was his destiny.
What would he have when it was over?
Nessa. Flashes of memory invaded his senses—the curve of her hip, her smile, the taste of spices on her tongue. Reluctantly, he locked those thoughts away. They'd agreed from the outset that their arrangement was temporary, an attraction they could both only afford to indulge in the moment, under these very specific circumstances. Changing the rules of engagement now would be dirty, beneath him.
Besides, Nessa was the heart of O'Kane's empire, the beating center of it all. Her family would need her when the war was over and it was time to rebuild. She'd never abandon them, not for the world.
"Hey." Dallas snapped his fingers in front of Ryder's face. "You got some deep thoughts you want to share?"
Was Dallas a fucking mind reader, or did he just give off that vibe on purpose? Maybe that was his game—stare at you like you'd done something wrong, and you'd trip over your own feet to admit what he didn't even know yet. "Deep thoughts, sure, but they're not for sharing."
"Uh-huh." Dallas lifted a hand in farewell to Stuart and headed for the door. "It's a good ten-minute walk to the warehouse where Jas is training fighters, so how about I tell you a story. It's a good one. Real cautionary-tale stuff."
"I can't wait."
"It's about the first time I led men into a fight." He held the door open for Ryder and followed him out into the street. Instead of returning the way they'd come, he took a sharp left down an alley so narrow, the rough stone was completely in shadow.