by Kit Rocha
For a heartbeat, Noah wondered if he'd pushed too far. Fleming had always been insecure about the power he'd inherited from his father--especially compared to a self-made man like Dallas. But Noah needed him angry.
Vengeful.
He took a step back--calculated, because he couldn't fake fear or respect, but he could show retreat. "I'm just saying O'Kane is strong. We both know it. But maybe I could do something to change that."
That quickly, Fleming's ire faded, replaced by a satisfied smile. "If O'Kane's so dangerous, playing him could be deadly. You prepared for that?"
Ego would be this bastard's downfall. Smiling, Noah tweaked it. Buttered him up. "As dangerous as walking in here to make demands?"
"That remains to be seen." But Fleming gestured to the chair across the wide desk from him. "Have a seat and tell me what you have in mind."
Chapter Ten
Emma hurt, so she did what she always did. She threw herself into her art.
She'd already designed three sheets of flash and had moved on to yet another new back piece for Ace--one he'd let her ink this time, maybe--when the bell on the door jingled. But whoever it was also knocked, so she dropped her pen and leaned around the partition. "Come back in a few--"
Noah.
He stood there, so stern and silent, but the blankness in his gaze that had scared her on that first night was gone. He looked sad and a little nervous, but he looked alive. A person instead of a ghost.
It hit her in the chest, the uncertainty clouding his features, and she had to swallow hard just to speak. "Did you figure it out?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But I started using my head, so maybe there's still hope."
"Yeah?" She leaned over the back of the tattoo chair--guarded, this time. Slow, because tumbling headfirst after Noah Lennox had gotten her hurt already.
"Yeah." He took a deep breath and exhaled, and she knew she wasn't going to like the words that came next. "I went to see Mac Fleming."
By some miracle, she kept her breathing and expression even. "Did you tell him I said hi?"
Noah didn't smile, didn't flinch. "I told him Dallas O'Kane marked you to control me. And he believed it, because it's what he was planning to do."
"Okay. So you're--what, now? Working for Fleming again?"
Noah shoved a hand through his hair. "That's what he thinks. I convinced him I'd help him take down Dallas in exchange for leaving the two of us alone."
And instead, he'd be working the other side of the fence--handing Dallas intel on Fleming's operations and plays, no doubt. "Good for you."
"It wasn't hard. I just had to tell him the truth." Noah lowered his voice to a rough whisper. "I told him I've always wanted you."
She had to physically keep herself from covering her ears, so maybe she was a child, after all. "Stop. Please."
"Em--" He clenched his hands. "I'm not asking for anything. Not forgiveness, not a chance. I just needed to say it, because you were right. I decided what was best for you and did it, over and over again, and I pretended it was all selfless because I didn't want to be the guy who wanted you and bought you and got to keep you."
He should have been asking for forgiveness, because she'd promised him more than her heart. She'd promised him this, the moment where even if he hurt her, he could fix it by understanding.
She gripped the back of the tattoo chair. "For four years, Noah, I blamed myself for Cib's death. And now, here I am, with all of his mistakes slapping me in the face. I can barely wrap my head around it."
"Do you have questions?"
Only one really mattered--the same one she'd asked Lex. Only Noah would know it all, the truth, not just rumor filtered from sector to sector. "Tell me what he said."
Noah didn't have to think, or struggle to remember. He closed his eyes, and the words had the too-quick cadence of recitation. "He said he was in some trouble, that he'd gotten rolled on a sector run and needed cash. He said that he'd seen the way I look at you, and that you really, really liked me. That you might even love me. He said I could have you--forever--for five thousand dollars."
It didn't sound real, delivered in that carefully detached tone. "Five thousand," she echoed. What had to be going on in your mind to put a price on a human life in the first place, much less your baby sister's?
"I don't know what he was playing at," Noah said softly. "He knew I wouldn't let him sell you to one of Fleming's men, so maybe the bidding was just a bluff. Maybe he just didn't know how to ask for help, and I was trying so hard to do the right thing that I couldn't hear him screaming for it."
And maybe by then Cib had been so desperate for a short-term fix to his very deadly problems that the ends had justified the means. "I don't know what to think. Part of me feels like I should hate him, but I don't." She was pissed, sure, but even the heat of that emotion paled next to her insurmountable sadness.
"I'm sorry, Em. That it happened, that I didn't tell you..." He met her gaze, held it. "You were young and scared, and that seemed like a good enough reason to protect you from the truth. But you're not either of those things anymore. You're a woman, you're tough, and you deserve everything."
Every word battered at the fragile walls she'd constructed, threatening to rip them down. "Do I deserve a partner? Someone who'll stand beside me and help me, not try to shield me from everything? Because that's that I want, Noah. It's all I ever wanted."
The hope in his eyes was almost painful. "Even if I'm still tangled up with Fleming? Spying for Dallas isn't going to be easy or safe."
"I'm an O'Kane," she answered simply. If he didn't get it by now, he might not. Ever.
But Noah nodded, as if that was all the response he'd wanted. "And I'm yours. Not because you need me, but because I need you. A woman who has my back."
But she couldn't resist challenging the words. "Not because you feel responsible for me? Or worse, sorry for me?"
Noah laughed, rusty and a little wild. "Guilt you can lay on me, sunshine, but pity? No. Most people in this world have sadder stories than yours, with no O'Kane family to dust them off and hug it better. And the best I could have done for you?" He waved a hand, taking in the art studio. "Nothing like this. You found your home without me, and it's a damn good one."
Tears stung her eyes and hung thick in her throat. "I still want you here, though," she admitted softly. "If you want to share it with me."
He took two steps and jerked to an abrupt stop, his hands shaking until he gripped his belt, as if to hide it. "I want you. Here or in Three, I don't give a fuck, as long as you're there. At my back and in my bed."
"Because you love me." The same eager hope burning in his eyes laced her words, too, and she didn't give a damn. She wanted him to know, wanted the world to know. "Say it."
He reached past her and plucked up one of the blue tracing markers from her desk. He jerked the top off with his teeth and offered it to her. "You say it for me. In ink."
Emma stared down at his outstretched arm for a few frozen moments, then glided the marker over his forearm, slowly forming her name in swooping, trembling lines. "You love me," she repeated.
"I love you." He held out his other arm, offering his body as her canvas. "I'm yours."
Her breath seized in her lungs.
This time, she drew a heart--but not bound, like the one she'd inked on his chest. Free, unfettered, ringed with block letters that again spelled out her name. "I can keep going, but I'll need more skin."
He moved fast, catching the hem of his shirt and hauling it over his head. "You can have anything you want."
"Anything?"
"Name it, sunshine."
She pressed the marker into his hand and tugged her own shirt over her head.
His throat worked as he swallowed. "I'm not as good an artist as you are."
"I don't care." She framed his face with her hands, skating her fingertips lightly over the scruff on his jaw. She'd memorized his face already, every line, and she'd do it all over again--a h
undred times, a thousand. "Mark me, Noah."
His gaze swept down to settle on the bare stretch of skin along her collarbone, and the tip of the marker tickled as he wrote his name in careful letters. After a moment's hesitation he added two more words.
Noah Lennox loves me.
Warmth slipped through her veins and turned to heat at his proximity. "Did you mean it? That you'd say it with ink?"
"Yes." He tossed aside the marker and traced the words he'd written with his fingertip. "That's what O'Kanes do, isn't it?"
The need pounding through her exploded, obliterating the last of her self-control. She kissed him, but it wasn't enough. He'd never understand how deep and how hard she loved him, not from a kiss, so she raked her nails over his skin as she dragged him closer.
She couldn't bear to break contact, not even to speak, so she whispered against his lips. "You're staying with me?"
"I'm yours," he said again, but his fingers had wound their way into her hair, twisting tight. "If you're not ready to be mine, I'll wait."
The thought was unbearable. "No--now."
He groaned and kissed her again, licking her lips until she parted them. He was still methodical, still determined, but the hungry edge in his kiss was so close to the surface.
It wouldn't take much to shatter his self-control, and Emma wanted it more than breathing. His belt clicked under her fingers, and she tugged at the ends of his open belt until his hips ground against hers and he hissed out a breath.
"Now?" He gripped her hips and lifted her up. "Christ, Emma, I swear I didn't come here just to get my dick in you..."
Too goddamn bad, because it was all she could think about now. "Tell me." Her voice was almost embarrassingly low, husky. "Tell me what you want. The truth."
He shuddered. "I want to watch you come riding my cock."
The tattoo chair was right behind them. Emma flipped up the arms to get them out of the way and pushed Noah down onto the black vinyl. She watched him as she kicked off her shoes and tugged her jeans open with one hand, riveted by the sight of his muscles flexing as he unzipped his pants.
He had his cock out by the time she was naked, but when he hauled her astride his lap, he didn't drive into her. He held her hips to his, his shaft grinding against her pussy, and licked a hot path down her throat. "Touch yourself. Your tits. Please."
"My--" The words dissipated as he rocked his hips, and the head of his cock nudged her clit. The intensity of the slick glide--somehow lazy and desperate, all at once--stole her voice.
So she moved instead, cupping her breasts for him. His tongue swept out, hot and wet, circling her nipple. Then he sucked it into his mouth, and his hands kept clutching, kept moving, rolling her against him, urging her to rub her clit along his shaft.
The chair rocked with them, and Emma shivered. "Noah--"
"Now?" He tightened his grip, lifting her. "Is this what you want?"
"Please." She didn't have to memorize him anymore, or lock this moment into her brain forever, because he was hers.
He shifted until his cock was poised at her entrance, and then he let gravity pull her down. Even though she was inescapably turned on, impossibly wet, he still filled her with an aching stretch that left her trembling on the edge.
His head thumped against the seat, and he closed his eyes and gripped her hips. "Christ, don't move. You feel too fucking good."
"Not even like this?" Emma braced her toes on the floor and eased up until only the head of his cock remained inside her, and she pressed her thumb between his lips as she hovered over him.
Growling, he closed his teeth, trapping her hand as his thumb slid through her folds. His eyes popped open, blatant challenge in his gaze as he circled and stroked, working toward her clit.
The contact shot up her spine like a shock, and Emma shuddered. The liquid heat gathering in her lower body flared, making her legs shake as his thumb circled again. The heat didn't subside, just swept over her in a sudden, sharp orgasm, the kind that came and went in a heartbeat, left you trembling.
She drove down against him, crying out as her clenching muscles gave way to the sheer size of him. He bit off a curse, thrusting up into her, harder, deeper, and his voice broke through the blood pounding in her ears. "Fuck yes, I love it when you come all over me. Let me feel it. Let me feel you."
There was no hiding her pleasure from him, even if she'd wanted to. Instead, she embraced it, winding her arms around his neck as another wave of ecstasy gripped her. "Don't stop, Noah."
"Never. Never." He dragged her to meet his next thrust, crashing their bodies together. "You can mark every inch of me."
She already had, years ago, in ways no one could see but that were just as real, just as permanent. There was no part of him he hadn't yielded to her, heart and soul, past and future.
Fantasy and truth.
They moved faster, their bodies picking up the pace as they strove for the peak. It had never been so important to Emma to tip over it together, two people locked together as one.
She clutched his shoulders, her hands slipping on his damp skin until she dug her fingernails in for purchase, eliciting a hiss that turned into a groan. "With me," she panted. "Come with me--"
He kissed her, moaning her name against her lips as the first shudders took him, and Emma let go, let the pulsing of his body inside hers drag her over the edge too. She rode him through their orgasms, blinded to anything in the whole fucking world that wasn't Noah.
Finally, he stilled beneath her, and she came to rest--her forehead to his cheek, his heart pounding against her chest.
"Fucking hell." He smoothed her hair back with shaking fingers before turning to kiss her cheek. "All those years wasted, when I could have been loving you."
The answer was easy, obvious. "You were."
He choked on a laugh and coaxed her head back, urging her to meet his eyes. "Fine, then. All those wasted years, I could have been being loved."
"You were that, too." Her smile faded. "I always knew, Noah. Sometimes, I tried to tell myself you were just being nice to Cib's little sister, but when you talked to me... On some level, I knew better."
"You were a smart, sweet girl." He kissed the corner of her mouth, teasing her with flicks of his tongue and nips until she smiled again. "But you're a filthy-hot, tough, amazing woman. You're a partner. My partner."
"It won't be easy." Then again, things worth having never were.
Noah laughed against her mouth, and it was the first time in so many years that she'd heard him laugh, really laugh, all joy and no shadows. "Fuck easy. I want wild. I want you."
Laughter, love, and a lover who didn't need to be her savior, didn't need her helpless and at his mercy. Everything she'd ever wanted, in the one man she'd always craved.
Emma tucked her face into the hollow of his shoulder and smiled. "Then you have me."
Before You Leave Sector Four
Interested in more books in the BEYOND series? Series order:
Book #1: Beyond Shame (October 2012)
Book #2: Beyond Control (March 2013)
Book #3: Beyond Pain (August 2013)
Novella #3.5: Beyond Temptation (In the anthology Marked, February 2014)
Book #4: Beyond Jealousy (Spring 2014)
Book #5: Beyond Addiction (Fall 2014)
Book #6: Beyond Innocence (2015)
Book #7: Beyond Ruin (2015)
Beyond Shame, Beyond Control, and Beyond Pain are now available in a discounted bundle.
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Not ready to leave Sector Four? Turn the page for a preview of wha
t's next for the O'Kanes...
Beyond Shame by Kit Rocha
All Noelle Cunningham has ever wanted is a life beyond--beyond the walls of Eden, where only the righteous are allowed to remain, and beyond her stiflingly restrictive existence as a councilman's daughter. But only ruins lie outside the City, remnants of a society destroyed by solar storms decades earlier.
The sectors surrounding Eden house the corrupt, the criminal--men like Jasper McCray, bootlegger and cage fighter. Jas clawed his way up from nothing to stand at the right hand of Sector Four's ruthless leader, and he'll defend the O'Kane gang with his life. But no fight ever prepared him for the exiled City girl who falls at his feet.
Her innocence is undeniable, but so is their intense sexual attraction, and soon they're crossing every boundary Noelle barely knew she had. But if she wants to belong to Jas, she'll have to open herself to a dangerous world of sex, lust and violence. A world where passion is power, and freedom is found in submission.
The process, as Rachel explained it, was simple--drink a shot, then celebrate with the other O'Kanes gathered around the makeshift bar. Eight shots, eight passes around the cheering crowd.
The liquor ranged from the really cheap moonshine apparently favored in the other sectors to an exquisite, high-end single malt whiskey--which explained how Dallas could afford to throw pre-Flare artwork at Lex like it was nothing.
The whiskey burned smooth all the way down, worth every penny Dallas charged, and Noelle barely had time to lift the empty glass triumphantly above her head before someone dragged her into the crowd. Lips landed on her cheek. Someone else swept her into a hug. The redheaded stranger from Dallas's party snatched her away from Amira and planted a kiss right on her lips before passing her on to the next person in the circle with a grin.
So it went, all the way around the circle. Kisses, hugs, a few pats on the shoulder and one or two on the hip, but all fond and good-natured instead of lascivious. Ace got her last and sent her back to Rachel with a swat on the ass.