by Laura Day
The pressure built between them and she molded it with her hands, with her hips pressing into him, with the increasing movements of her tongue against his. She kissed the stubble on his jaw, nipped his earlobe with her teeth, and then came back to his mouth again, finding him breathing faster, his pupils wide and dark. “Danni, Danni, Danni,” he murmured against her skin. “Are you sure? I know last night was just because he was somewhere else, we don’t have to--I just wanted to see you.”
CHAPTER NINE
What blew Derek’s mind was that he was telling the utter truth. It had been exhausting to sit with Walt in the waiting room for hours, just holding on to see if they could actually go in and see the boy. Alex. His name was Alex, but Walt called him 'the boy' so often and 'Alex' so rarely that it felt weird to call him by his name, even in his own head. Alex had not been practicing clean living, was the way Walt had phrased it, and he’d gotten Hepatitis. Didn't bother to deal with the treatment. And now, they weren’t sure whether or not the boy was going to make it at all.
“It’s not your fault,” Derek had said, over and over. “You aren’t responsible for the choices that he made. You weren’t even here.”
“I could have been here,” Walt had said, and Derek hadn’t had a counter for that. “I should have been here.”
They’d sat in silence after each go-round. The doctors had eventually let them in to see Alex, and Derek had never seen anyone in real life hooked up to that many machines, skin so very highlighter yellow, and still alive. Walt had stood still, watching him, for a bit, and then turned and walked out of the room. Derek had followed him back out to the waiting room and studied a painting on the wall until Walt’s mouth stopped working and his eyes stopped glistening. “Go see your woman,” Walt had said.
“She’s not--”
Walt had turned a gaze on Derek that would have peeled the paint off the walls of his soul, if he still believed in souls. “Go,” he’d said. “Indulge an old man.”
And so he had. So he had.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I want this.” She kissed him again, and then drew back. “Don’t you? It’s okay if you’re too wiped out, we can just--” and she cut herself off. Just go to bed and cuddle? Hold her while they slept? That wasn’t supposed to be on the menu. If she didn’t want Cole to know that she was screwing someone, she sure as hell didn’t want him to know that a random guy was spending the night. But the idea of walking out of his warm arms and lying down in her cold bed alone made her stomach twist.
He laughed quietly. “No, I very much want this. I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
She pressed against him again, and watched his eyes flutter closed as she pressed against his growing hardness. “I’m already uncomfortable. I’m asking you to make it better.”
His eyes opened again, and that banked heat was back, controlled and contained, but present. He lifted her up easily, and she buried her squeak of surprise in his neck as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her to the bedroom easily, shutting the door quietly behind him before tossing her on the bed. She laughed as she bounced, and then he was over her, pressing a finger into her lips.
“I noticed last night,” he said, as he turned his attention to her neck, “that you’re something of a screamer. And of course we can’t let that happen tonight.”
“No,” she sighed, lifting her hips as his fingers went to the waistband of her stretchy pants.
“You’ll have to be very, very quiet.”
“Yes.” She helped him lift off his own t-shirt, then sat up so he could pull hers off as well. He still had his jeans on, kneeling on the floor at the foot of her bed, and he tugged her up so that she stood before him. Wetness and heat moved through her, dampening her darkest curls and making her knees weak.
“What that means, of course, is that if you make a sound,” his finger parted her curls, pressing softly up against her most intimate flesh, “even a single moan, I’m going to have to stop. Understand?”
She hadn’t known how very wet she was until his finger slid over her, parting her lower lips and circling her clit. She nodded her agreement, and then almost ruined everything right away as he brought her hips forward to his mouth and licked into her, swirling his tongue over her, drinking her down. Her knees would have given out if not for his hands on her hips, supporting her, and she clamped her lips together and tried to focus on breathing.
He teased her with his tongue, opening her, caressing her, delving into her. She held still as much as she could, but her hips were possessed, sliding against his tongue and driving her further towards him. He responded eagerly, picking up speed and intensity, nipping up at her clit as his fingers entered her, not far, just enough to give her something to move against. Ripples of energy sparkled through her hips, her thighs, her entire being, and she felt it circling down into her, channeling her down into a pinpoint of energy that was going to burst and sprinkle the known universe with stars. But the explosion was a fingertip distance away, and Danni couldn’t quite relax enough to reach it.
Her knees buckled, and he guided her into his lap, kissing at her belly, her breasts, and her mouth as she tumbled to him. He tasted of her, and of him, as he kissed her, urgent and intense.
“Please tell me,” he said, “that I’m remembering right, and there’s one more condom?”
“What would you do if I told you that there wasn’t?”
He slid his fingers between them again, and she was full of him, gasping and driving herself down onto his hand, the orgasm that had been fingertips away suddenly swamping her. “This,” he murmured as he fucked her, “as many times as you wanted.”
“And you?” she gasped, the waves washing through her as she tightened around his hand, “What would you--for you?”
“This,” he said, slipping a third finger inside of her as she bit into his shoulder to keep from screaming. “As many times as you wanted.”
She woke up when the mattress shifted. It was still dark outside; when Danni jabbed at her phone, the display read 2:37. She rolled over, enjoying the slide of cotton over her skin, and looked at Derek, pulling on his jeans in the dark. “Sneaking out in the middle of the night?”
He turned around, smiling in the dark. He leaned down on the bed, stroking a finger down her cheek and kissing her lightly. “Hi,” he said. “I didn’t want to wake you up.”
The pit of her stomach ran cold. “Oh no? Why not?”
He sighed and caught her chin in his hand, moving until her eyes met his. “I’m not going to just disappear, Danni. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I’m not going to just vanish.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what Cole’s father said, too. You see him around?”
Something in his eyes slammed shut. “I was trying to do you a favor,” he said, “Clear out so that you didn’t have to explain something awkward to your kid in the morning. But hey, if you want to treat me like a dirtbag, we can do that instead.”
“Who are you, anyway,” she asked, an icy rage freezing her, from her toes to her eyes. The top of her head felt squeezed, tight and hard. “Who are you to breeze into my life, upset everything I have going on, act like you’re God’s own gift to me?”
“I’m no one,” he said, his voice so quiet that she almost didn’t hear him. “I’m no one at all.” His mouth bore down on hers, suddenly, hard and almost vicious. His tongue pressed her mouth open, and one hand caught both of hers, pressing her hands down into the mattress. She moaned softly, a fresh wave of heat roiling through her, pushing the anger away. She wanted to get rid of him before he screwed things up, but she wanted to take the way he made her feel and wear it like a winter coat.
He stopped, laying a finger across her lips with his free hand. “I thought I said for you to be quiet.”
She could feel him, hard and ready against her thigh, and she was incredibly grateful that they’d found other ways to enjoy themselves earlier, and that last condom was still in the n
ightstand. She nodded, her eyes locked on his.
“How hard can I be, Danni?” He bit at her nipple, dragging it in his teeth in a way that should have hurt, that should have been too much, but instead made her gasp and arch beneath him. The tip of him brushed against her, and she choked back the urge to pull him forward. “How much can I put you through? How much do you want me to pinch and pull and spank?”
“If it’s too much, I’ll say. Please.” He bit at her again, and she had to stifle the noises in her throat.
“You don’t know me,” he said, his fingers digging into her flesh, his weight pressing her down into the mattress. He fumbled for the condom, and she wanted to beg him to let her help, to let her use her mouth to put it on, to do anything for him, anything if he’d make her come again. “You don’t know a goddamn thing about me.” He sheathed himself in her, and groaned openly into her shoulder, hovering there for a moment before he ground into her, slowly and deliberately, making her hips rise up against him. Everywhere he touched was hard, pain, sensory overload, and she loved it, loved the way he was taking her, molding her, making this part of her belong to him, showing her a longing she’d never even known that she had. “Don’t act like I’m like your ex, or like the asshole you blew when he rode through town, or like anyone else. You don’t know me. Jesus, woman, how do you feel so gorgeous around me?”
He released her hands, and brought his to her hips, pulling her tight against him as he rolled into her, shaking and trembling. She clung to his shoulders, quivering, sensing his rage was at something she didn’t really understand, a voracious and wild thing, like a third lover in her small bed.
“You think we’re all the same, that no one cares, and that you should use us before you get used. Except you’re better than that. You hear me? You and me both, we’re better than that.” His words broke up as he neared his peak, his rhythm stuttering, pressing deeply into her with each thrust. “Give it a chance. Feel me. Feel this. Feel us. See what happens if you feel.” His rhythm slowed suddenly, and he brought his forehead to hers so that she couldn’t look away. “I’m here with you, Danni. I don’t know what happens next, I don’t know if I’ll stay or go, but I’m not...I’m not going to disappear. If I go, I’ll say so. You won’t wonder where I went, wonder if you’ll ever see me again.”
Her head was swirling through a million emotions. Fear, need, wonder, anger, all spilling into a melting pot of white-hot flame that made her throat close. She set her nails on his shoulder blades and then dug them in hard, watching his eyes roll back as he started to tremble. He muttered a string of curses, his hips shifting into shallow, deep thrusts. Danni took the chance to drive her hips up into his, reaching up for that perfect spot that made her gasp and want to scream. He moved with her, reaching urgently for what they both needed, and when they came, it was one after another, though she couldn’t remember later who came first.
He sagged against her, thoroughly worn out in a way she hadn’t seen from him yet. She stroked his back, hearing the muffled sounds,the quiet sobs he hid in her pillow and her shoulder, and softly soothing him.
“Sorry,” he said, after a while. “That was...intense.”
The right answer came to her easily. “Intense can be good.”
He pushed himself down to the side, watching her carefully. “Was it this time?”
She nodded, and satisfied her urge to touch him by reaching out and running her hands over his still sweaty skin.
“I still should go,” he said. “I know you don’t want to confuse your son--Cole--and I don’t want to put you in an awkward situation.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, and took a very deep breath. “But maybe you could meet us for dinner. If you’re going to be in town for a few weeks, and all.”
He was so still that she worried he was frozen. “Are you sure?” he said, finally. “I’m not looking to pressure you or force you into anything.”
“I’m not going to introduce you as my fiancé or something, not even my boyfriend. Just a friend who’s in town. And if you don’t want to, that’s fine. I just...I’m not going so far as to say you’re right, but maybe you’re not entirely wrong.”
He kissed her again, then, as kind and soft and patient as he’d been at the beginning of the evening. “Are you working today?”
She shook her head.
“Do you have plans? Or can I come back once you’ve gotten Cole off to school?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and he laughed. “Not what I meant. I--if you’re going to introduce me to your family, you should meet mine.”
CHAPTER TEN
Derek pulled the door shut behind himself, and waited to hear the lock snick shut before he left. What had gone through his head, confessing all of that to her as he drilled into her, hurting her, then sobbing on her shoulder like some sort of...whatever? Whoever. And then suggesting that she meet his family? Calling the club his family wasn’t inaccurate. They were certainly the only people on the face of the planet who cared if he lived or died, but what would she think of that? And exactly when had he become this guy who cared what a woman thought of how he lived his life? Two days ago, Walt had been teasing him about how he was going to love ‘em and leave ‘em yet again, and now he was playing house and agreeing when she wanted to introduce him to her kid. She was hot, her ass was tight, and she had a sort of kindness in her eyes that he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen before, but was that enough? Could he give up the road for that?
He knew what Walt would say, but that wasn’t enough either. Not really. He had to make his own choices. Even if he made the wrong ones.
***
Danni listened until she heard Derek’s heavy boots making their way down the hallway. What had possessed her to suggest that they have dinner with Cole, or agree to meet his motorhead friends? One motorcycle club was like another. She’d meet a bunch of junkie criminals, be horrified, and run from him. Maybe that was why she did it, though. To get herself over him.
He was amazing in bed, completely wonderful, but that didn’t make this okay. At all.
And yet the idea of calling it all off made her guts twist up in agony. She didn’t want to be with him, but didn’t want to be without him.
She headed into the kitchen to make coffee. Whatever happened, this was likely to be a really long day.
***
Cole was tearing through his morning cereal and toast, and Sarah was wrapping herself around a cup of black coffee when she finally spoke up. “Are you going to tell Kenny?”
Danni glanced back. “What?”
“About my being able to cook. Are you going to tell him?”
Danni sighed and stared into the yogurt in her bowl as if it held the answer. “I’m not going to tell him, no, but I’m not going to treat it like a state secret, either. And I really want you to think about doing something more with yourself.”
Sarah snorted into her coffee. “What, like you are?”
Danni’s eyes flicked from her friend to Cole and back again. “I don’t know what you mean.” She glared at Sarah, but she could see the fear in her friend’s eyes, and suspected that Sarah would do just about anything to end this conversation.
“I can’t believe you’re taking up with another biker, Danni. Didn’t you learn anything the first time?”
Cole hadn’t looked up from his breakfast, but she could practically see his ears listening, he was so interested in their conversation. After all, Danni and Aunt Sarah practically never fought in front of him.
“I learned to be careful,” Danni said, and heard the words for the first time. “And maybe I’ve been a little bit too careful. Maybe there’s something to be said for throwing caution to the wind, every once in a while.”
Sarah’s eyes were narrowed, and she swirled her coffee in its half empty cup. “You think I should tell him.”
“Kenny? I don’t think it would hurt. You could pick up a few shifts in the kitchen, maybe make enough money to take some classes at the culinary institute, or just
learn how to cook in a diner. But you wouldn’t be waitressing until your knees and your back and your body just dies from it all.”
Sarah’s eyes were locked on her coffee, but her mind was somewhere else. “Can you imagine me, in a big kitchen, barking orders at everyone?”
Danni nodded. “I really can.”
“With your white coat,” Cole added.