Tempered Steel (Steel Riders MC Book 2)

by Carmen Faye

  She shook her head a little and said, “Well, when you do that, it feels like such an intimate invasion that your mind goes blank, and it can only attempt to deal with the fact that this stranger apparently know your secrets.”

  “Hmm, I’ve never heard it described that way before,” he told her.

  “That’s because you always explain it afterward and take away the initial shock, and then all the wonder and awe can come to the surface. But initially, it is close to an adrenaline-inducing event, which adds to the fun after the trick is explained, but it is not so fun as it is going on.”

  She turned and looked up at him. “I’ll bet if you composed something like a ten-item list, instead of three or four, by the time you got done, a man would be at your throat and most women would be in tears.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Have you ever had someone ask you to do it again, on themselves?” she asked, settling back into the water.

  “No,” he said softly. “On other people, yes. Most do, in fact, but never repeats for themselves.”

  “If it really is fun, people generally enjoy repeat experiences,” she pointed out. “You know, like having sex with you. Definitely looking for another repeat performance — tonight, after dinner, in fact.”

  Hank seemed to take that much harder than she meant it, because he brewed about it all through dinner — which was a shame, because dinner was fantastic. The roast was perfect, and so were the potatoes, carrots, and onions he had prepared. He also added some asparagus sticks, steamed to perfection, and she aww’d and made happy sounds through most of the meal.

  “This is so unfair,” she declared. “This is so good, and now I’ve eaten way too much!”

  “I’m glad you liked it,” he replied, picking up her plate and heading for the sink.

  “But now I’m stuffed! I can’t have sex, especially with you — monkey-sex man — when I’m stuffed!” she complained.

  “Sounds like a perfect reason for a walk, then,” he offered.

  “More like a waddle, but that sounds good right now,” she admitted. “Let me help you with the dishes.”

  They cleaned up the kitchen and put away the food together, working in concert without hesitations or collisions. She wondered if Hank noticed this sort of trivial yet miraculous kitchen dance they were performing so naturally.

  She caught sight of Hank pulling a gun with a leather clip holster from an end table drawer in the living room. He clipped it to the back of his belt before shrugging on a jacket. She ran upstairs, pulled on pants and boots, and then grabbed her leather jacket before hurrying back down.

  About twenty yards down the trail, she looked around and decided, “This is dark.”

  “Not out at night much, are you?” he chided.

  “Not without the bike and my headlight beam. This is seriously dark, though. I can’t see my feet, for crying out loud,” she declared. “Any particular reason you brought the gun?”

  “Well, yes, because it’s dark and all kinds of nasty things come out when it’s seriously dark.”

  “Do not,” she said, “start with the ghost stories. I swear I’ll claw a hole through your chest if you start with the ghost stories.”

  “Well, not all of the weird things around here are ghost stories. A few zombies have crashed around here for years.”

  “I’m not kidding, Hank. There will be blood and gore, and I’ll leave you in a dying heap on the road as I scream like a little girl all the way back to your house.”

  “Naw,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “You can barely see it from here. You’ll probably wind up lost in the bog.”

  “Bog? There’s a bog in Lakeside?”

  “Bog, wallow, slough, pretty much all the same thing, aren’t they? Anyway, go panicking around and the will-o’-the-wisps will have you for sure.”

  “Hank, I’m warning you,” she said behind the fingers of both of her hands as she pressed them to her mouth.

  “Oh, well, will-o’-the-wisps aren’t ghosts. No, far from it. They’re kind of like lights that float around. Pretty, even. But in the black like this, they like to put themselves in tree stands, and when you are panicked, it looks like they are the lit window of a house, or perhaps a street light up ahead. But as you make your way toward them, the will-o’-the-wisps move farther back into the woods, drawing you deeper in. By the time you calm down enough to realize what’s happening, you’re fucking lost…”

  He didn’t say anything else for several steps, seeming not to care about finishing. She glanced up at him a few times, encouraging him to keep going. Finally she said, “Well? What the fuck happens then?”

  “Oh, I thought that was obvious. They getcha!” he growled, and he tickled her sides with surprising accuracy.

  “You motherfucker!” she raged about ten steps ahead of him, having bolted that far screaming in terror before she knew what he was doing.

  “Remember, dear, don’t panic,” he warned.

  “Panic? Panic? I don’t feel panicked! I feel fucking homicidal!”

  “Good. You’ll probably make it past the zombies on the way back home, then. Just so long as your aren’t panicked,” he said in a rather unconcerned voice.

  “Oooo, I will get you for this, Mr. Park, you can be sure of that,” she growled up at him as she fell back into step beside him.

  He seemed to have no end of “other-than-ghost” stories to relate for the entire walk. Zombies, trolls, bog lights, faeries, an assortment of vampire types — they had her whole back crawling with a hair-raising sensation by the time they were back to the house, which she ran to from about fifty feet out — as soon as she was sure it wasn’t a will-o’-the-wisp trick and there wasn’t a zombie on the porch.

  “I suppose,” she said as he came in the door, “that you’d be wanting sex now. Well, that shit ain’t happening, Mr. Park. Bloody fucking hell! You’re shameless!”

  “Have I told you about the haunts we have around here? Some up by your place.”

  “No,” she whimpered, her hands coming up to cover her mouth again. “And don’t. Please?”

  “Then get your sexy ass up those stairs and be naked in bed before I get there, or you’ll never sleep a wink in these parts again,” he said in a low guttural voice.

  “Meep!” she squealed, and ran up the stairs.

  She was naked, but she was also up to her nose covered in sheets and blankets. Blankets were safe. Everyone knew blankets were safe. Only outside of the blanket could any ghoul or ghost get you.

  She had much too good of an imagination. That was the terror of ghost stories.

  Her visual skills were off the charts. She could look at those fold-up patterns and tell you exactly what it would look like if it were folded up, no problem. She was on the money every time. She aced those intelligence tests so high that she could have received a military scholarship and been an officer right now. However, she could also create a world around her with perfectly understandable physics which not only allowed the possibility of will-o’-the-wisps, but which allowed her to see them right now outside the window. She could even hear them.

  When Hank came into the room, turned out the light, and slipped into bed with her, all her trembling vanished under his soothing hands.

  “You are a very mean man,” she said flatly. “That stuff really does scare me, and not in a fun way. Not at all. It won’t even be funny to me tomorrow. I’m too visual. It’s real. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

  “Never a Girl Scout, then, huh?”

  “I quit after my first camp out, and everyone, including the leaders, told ghost stories. I had night terrors for weeks after that.”

  “Sorry, I thought you were just being girly.”

  “Maybe I am, but I was surprised with your observation skills that you couldn’t see that I was really getting scared.”

  He kissed her and she pressed against him, reaching down to take his cock in her hand and stroke him. He was already incredibly hard.


  “I thought you didn’t want sex?” he asked as she continued to stroke him and purr in her throat.

  “Must have been the fear talking,” she offered.

  His hand went down to her thighs, and then parted them to find her very ready and willing. When his fingers found her nub, she groaned into his chest, nipping and licking at his nipple.

  After several minutes of this mutual enticement between them, he entered her with two fingers, spreading her apart, and driving them as deep as they could go.

  “Oh yes, yes, just like that,” she moaned, nodding her head against him. She squeezed his cock harder as she stroked, though it was like trying to squeeze a stone harder. “Take me, Hank, or make me come. I’m so fucking turned on right now.”

  Shifting his weight, he lowered his mouth to her breasts and began to fuck her with his fingers much harder, driving his hand into the flesh of her pussy. Her hips bucked and lifted in response.

  “Oh shit, that’s going to do it,” she groaned, her head pressing back into the pillow as her back arched, lifting her breasts to his mouth as he suckled her.

  When he added his third finger, she gasped at the escalation of sensual stimulation this produced. It wasn’t like a new plateau, it was like a whole new mountain. He remained merciless with the amount of energy he poured into her.

  Her hips began bucking wildly now, with sporadic bursts of sensation which were unpredictable. They just happened, and she wasn’t aware of the voltage of them until her hips were already in the air.

  She knew she could get off like this, but she also knew it wasn’t going to be like his cock. She wasn’t going to feel it building up and rushing across her. It was probably going to be like these bursts that had the muscles of her thighs and abs tense with anticipation, and then violently assaulted by pre-orgasm voltage.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she panted with quick breaths, only stopping to let out a growling shriek of surprise when a burst thrashed through her. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh fucking god!”

  With the speed his hand was fucking her, and with the width of three of his thick fingers, in and out no longer had sensual distinction. Her pussy was overstimulated. Any stimulation just added to the storm. She quit pulling at her free nipple and reached down, found her nub, and rubbed herself hard and fast, and for a moment it was like even that was just more, not distinctive.

  Then her whole body burst and clenched up, pulling her unyielding strength into a ball from head to knees. “God!— Fucking god!” Then her legs convulsed, slamming her heels back into the mattress, driving her hips into the air, and just as suddenly the voltage of the orgasm curled her back up, and then she was driving again to thrash in the air. The convulsions were fast, powerful, and the idea that she was somehow being electrocuted filled her astonished mind.

  Suddenly Hank’s hand was gone, and the abrupt emptiness had her hips and ass fucking the air wildly, trying to find it again as she rolled to her side and quaked. Her body jerked and spasmed as if there were exposed live wires in her, popping and snapping.

  Unexpectedly, she found herself on her knees. At the same moment, she realized that she was forgetting to breathe. She sucked in great gulps of air, giving no further thought to her position until Hank’s cock entered her with one hard thrust from behind, and her head snapped up off the mattress as she wailed a silent scream of pure bliss and agony.

  Hank’s hand grabbed a fistful of her hair. He pulled her back and up onto her hands, and then further up, holding her fast in the air and fucking her with alarming power. She had never felt this controlled, this fucking used, before. The orgasms were violent and strong. She was fucking getting off on this savage caveman ravaging — not only getting off, but begging to be taken harder.

  His climax was an experience of utter domination. His left hand grabbed her whole breast and squeezed, he pulled her back even further, bending her like a bow, and hammered into her with beastly thrusts.

  Completely helpless, completely used. This was what early women felt like when their Neanderthal men took them and fucked them.

  God, why did she love this so fucking much?

  He let her go. Just opened his hands and let her fall. And she did fall, straight into the mattress, her head hitting the pillow like a stone. She panted and clawed ineffectively at the mattress with weak fingers, her ass still in the air, with no idea what she was expecting. It was over. He was done with her. Discarded.

  His arms came around her and pulled her into him so they were spooning.

  Oh yeah, this is why I love that so much.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was late in the afternoon, just getting dark, on Wednesday when Cynthia left Daphne in the mothering care of Sally — the Sally who was married to sexy James the Dark — and headed for home.

  She rode with a stress-reducing purpose, letting the bike drift a little in the lane and not rushing to get home. The sky was clear and deep blue. Spring was everywhere, and life, or rather, being alive, was a good thing.

  She pulled into her drive and parked her Lowrider by the porch. She gave a glance toward Hank’s place across the road, but she decided to get a shower, possibly something to eat, and then call Hank. He had said he had a busy day today, anyway. Perhaps it would be best to give him until seven at least.

  Tomorrow, though, he was back into it, whatever it was.

  From what she had gathered so far, it had something to do with the Ruiz cartel, and maybe even Orlin himself. She figured that Knight was the one pulling the strings and Hank was working as perhaps a freelancer, rather than a patch holder of the Riders. Secrecy, even from the Riders, was paramount.

  Something had to give with this secrecy stuff soon, though, because the rumors out there were festering until everyone was convinced they were facts. Nearly everyone who came by to give condolences to Daphne were already convinced that Hank had been the trigger man. When Cyn told these men that he was with her, she got the sideways glance that said, “Sure dear, sure. Bet you would say anything as long as he kept dickin’ ya.”

  “I swear to Christ, the next motherfucker that gives me that look.… No! I’m not going to wait that long,” she decided as she toweled off.

  She put on blue jeans that weren’t as tight as normal and a thermal shirt under a black Harley shirt. Then boots. Not girly boots, but stomp-a-mud-hole-in-him boots. She pulled her hair back into a severe ponytail, and then she put on her knife. Anyone who knew her would say she was looking for a fight, and she was.

  Grabbing her jacket and keys, she headed for the door, eyes filled with visions of how she was going to do this, when the door burst in just as she was going to reach for it. Three men came in at her hard and fast.

  Reflexively, she palm-heeled the first man in the nose, smashing it so it sprayed blood, and used his momentum to throw him back behind her. He landed on the coffee table, smashing it to the floor. The second man grabbed her shoulder, and she grabbed his finger in return, yanking it back hard until she heard the crack of joints coming undone.

  A hard fist hit her in the jaw and sent her reeling backward. Then the third man shoulder tackled her into the couch. She tried going for her knife, but it was too late. His weight and momentum jammed her into the corner of the couch, squishing her shoulders together and limiting her movements. He came down on her thighs with most of his lower body, pinning them to the seat bench of the couch.

  The flash of a steel blade caught her attention. Unable to do anything, she watched it slash toward her throat. She felt it cut, but not deep.

  The man looked at her. He was Mexican, thick and very powerful. His eyes were a dead, dull black. They were the eyes of a killer, someone who killed as easily as they put on socks in the morning, and some weeks, just as often.

  “Now puta, you and me are going to talk,” he told her, his voice calm and heavily accented. “After that, I am going to kill you.”

  Her eyes went wide with horror.

  “Yes,
puta, you die tonight,” he told her with exaggerated nods of assurance. “But there are many ways to die. Such as a bullet in the back of the head. Not so bad. You probably don’t even feel it, really. You’re just dead. No pain. Just dead.”

  He let that sink in for a moment.

  “Of course, there is also death by rape, and torture, where you beg me to kill you instead of going through it again, but I say no, I shake my head sadly, and then I do it all over to you again, and again, and again, until you die.