HIS VIRGIN VESSEL: A Dark Bad Boy Baby Romance (War Cry MC)

by Nicole Fox

  "Keep your arms straight!" I doubted she could hear me, but she did it anyway and I launched in again, pounding my hips against her ass cheeks. My dick screamed with the need to come, but I fought against it.I was going to make Corinne come one more time that she was going to remember for the rest of her life. My strength was leaving me and I was forced to put one hand on the wall alongside Corinne's to support myself. My chest heaved against her bowed back and her wet red hair was in my face. She twisted her neck around and kissed me, biting at my lip as I fucked her as hard as I could.

  "Argh!" I screamed through gritted teeth, the effort of holding back now physically painful.

  Corinne had lost the strength in her arms and was now up against the wall, pumping her hips back at me. Like me, she was using every muscle, straining every sinew, desperate for the fulfillment that had to come simultaneously for it to be worth anything.

  As the waterfall roared beside us, we came together. Corinne's howls rang in my ears almost as loud as my own. I bellowed myself hoarse as I emptied myself into my lover.

  I wasn’tnot sure if we lost our footing at that point, if we blacked out from the sheer excruciating pleasure, or if we just collapsed from exhaustion, but down we went, over the edge and under the falls.

  I popped up first. "Cor!"

  She emerged beside me with a huge smile on her face. Our eyes met. There was so much we could have said, so many superlatives, 'incredible', 'amazing', 'the best ever', the sort of things people said after great sex. But there were no words for that. There were no words for tonight.

  We struck out for shore and then made the weary climb back to where we had left our clothes all those hours ago. We said nothing as we walked back, but held hands, comfortable in silence and in our mutual nudity.

  But when we had reached the top and were gathering our scattered clothes, I spoke. "I still think I'm right about you. And I still intend to stick by it."

  Corinne looked at me questioningly.

  "I think you should cut your dad some slack. And I'm going to do everything I can to make you accept yourself as the good girl that I think we both know you really are."

  Corinne listened silently, then strolled up to me and let her hand slide down my taut abs. "I think." Her nimble fingers encircled my sore shaft then went lower to cup my achingly painful balls. "I think your definition of good girl might not exactly agree with my father's."

  She had a point. There probably was a hypocrisy to banging her brains out then declaring that I would keep her a good girl. But I didn't feel that we had done anything wrong. Others might see it differently, of course, and I knew that what was best for her now would be never seeing me again, but tonight had been a blinding moment of beauty between two people who, but for a few twists of fate, might have been very happy together.

  How could that be wrong?

  Chapter Eleven

  Corinne

  I ought to have been exhausted, and I supposed, in a way, I was. Even though, to be honest, Asa had done most of the work, I felt as if I had run a couple of marathons back to back. But then again, I also felt exhilarated. I had crossed frontiers, done things I had never done, felt things I had scarcely believed possible, and experienced an ecstasy I had never imagined. With that came excitement and unexpected energy, banishing tiredness. I wasn't ready to go home yet.

  "We've probably got a few hours yet."

  Asa looked at me in polite horror. "I love your optimism, but I can hardly walk, let alone anything else. You've got to at least give me a chance to get the feeling back downstairs."

  "I meant we could do something else!" The night's activities had sated even my intense lust for Asa. For tonight at least. Tomorrow was another day. "Let's go for a ride."

  Asa grinned, and I wondered if he was feeling the same light-headed euphoria that I was.

  Minutes later, we were racing along the highway. I clung to Asa with a big grin on my face. "Faster!" I urged, and, as he so often had that night, Asa found another gear.

  It was hard not to make comparisons between this and our activities earlier, if only because right now I found it hard to think of anything else. Asa was in charge, and yet responding to my every whim, trying to make me happy. I made demands on him, and he pushed his powerful machine up to and beyond its limits just to satisfy my insatiable desire and make me scream in excitement. It was a wild thrill. I felt like an outlaw on the run.

  I was so caught up in this little fantasy of mine that, when I first heard the siren, I thought it must be in my imagination. It was only gradually that I realized it was real, and with that, the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

  "Hell," muttered Asa, glancing back.

  I did the same, praying as hard as I could that I would not see what I was so afraid of seeing. But, even before I could see clearly, I had a hunch that I knew what I would see. I had had one of the best nights of my life, but a girl could only be that lucky for so long before the universe felt the need to balance it out with some equally bad luck. It wasn't just any cop on our tail. It was my dad.

  "You can outrun him, right?" I asked Asa, struggling to be heard above the engine. "Bikes are faster than cars, yeah?"

  "Yeah," Asa replied through gritted teeth. "But not safer."

  He didn't have to say it. I knew what he meant. If he had been on his own, then he would have outrun them. He was happy enough to risk his own life. But he would not risk mine. The irony was that, if Dad had known who he was pursuing, he probably would have pulled back too, not wanting to put me in danger. But he was tailing a speeding bike with no idea that it was his disobedient daughter on the back. And if he caught us, then prison was the best-case scenario for Asa. Out here in the middle of nowhere, there was no telling what might happen to a biker, caught with the sheriff's daughter. Accidents happen.

  "What are we going to do?"

  "We're going to hide."

  "Where?" There was nothing to hide behind out here in the wilds.

  "We're not far from town."

  I hadn't really noticed where we were, at first too caught up in enjoying myself, then in the terror of pursuit, but I saw now he was right. At this speed, we were only minutes from town, where there were plenty of places to hide. If we were lucky, then Asa could keep his liberty, and Dad would never know that I had gone behind his back again.

  But, then again, if he knew ...

  I dismissed the thought from my mind almost as soon as it came to me. I wanted to protect Asa, but if I could avoid hurting my father, then I would. I wasn't ready to make that sacrifice just yet.

  We hit town, and I thanked God that this was a quiet town where the streets were empty at night. There were no pedestrians to avoid and no other cars to weave around. Though, of course, that also meant that Dad could stay close.

  "Where is he?" Asa asked, his eyes glued to the road.

  I glanced back, trying to keep my face hidden. "Just reaching the intersection."

  "Right."

  Without warning, Asa pulled the bike left, and we hurtled down a narrow alleyway. I bit my lip to stop myself crying out in fear. I wasn't at all sure what Asa had in mind here. Dad might not be able to follow us, but he could meet as at the far end and might even be able to cut us off, as Asa had been forced to slow down in this narrow passage.

  "Whoa!" This time I did cry out as Asa, once again, took me by surprise, turning right, not into another alleyway, but down a slope into the loading bay of a warehouse.

  "Come on.” He was off the bike as soon as it stopped.

  "Where are we?"

  "This place has been abandoned for years," Asa explained. "It's condemned as unsafe, but the town never seems to have the budget to destroy it. It's a useful one to know about."

  We ran through empty, dusty rooms, our footsteps echoing loudly.

  "Problem is," Asa continued, "that because it's a useful place to know about, I'm betting your dad does know about it. The man's no fool. Cutting through here won't buy us long, and hiding her
e, we'd just be waiting to be caught."

  "Then what's the plan?" I asked, as we emerged on the other side of the building.

  "I need a car."

  I watched as Asa snatched up a half brick from the ground and used it to smash the window of a parked car. He got in and set to work hotwiring it.

  "Can you make it home from here all right?"

  "What?" I asked, not quite understanding.

  "He'll keep chasing me. That should give you a chance to make yourself scarce. Get yourself home, and he'll be none the wiser."

  "What?"

  Asa stopped what he was doing to look at me. "Are you really not understanding what I'm saying?"

  "You think I'm going to leave you now?" I asked. After what had passed between us tonight, he surely couldn't imagine that.

  "I know you are."

  I shook my head. "The hell I am."

  The car's engine coughed into life, and Asa looked back at me. "I don't have time to argue with you on this, Corinne."

  "Good."

  "Now, get yourself hidden. I need your dad to find me, and then he can follow me while you get away."

  "No."

  I saw his expression change as worry entered it. He stopped issuing commands and spoke to me more earnestly. "Cor, if you come with me now, then that's it. I don't want to drag you into this life. I won't do it. You can't expect me to."

  "And you can't expect me to leave you to my dad. He's out for your blood, and you know it. He'd like nothing more than to get you into a high-speed chase, ending in a shoot-out. You're giving him the excuse he needs, and damn it, Asa, I don't want to see either of you hurt!"

  Asa slammed the car door but, before he could leave, I jumped in beside him.

  "Get out!"

  "No!"

  Suddenly headlights cut in on our argument. Dad had found us.

  "Get down!" Asa hissed, gunning the engine.

  But I didn't. I knew what I had to do now, however much I didn't want to do it. It was in my power to protect Asa from my dad, and, indeed, to protect Dad from him (who knew how the chase might end). All I had to do was let Dad see that I was with him.

  For a split second as the two cars passed each other, I caught sight of Dad, and one look at his face told me that he had seen me too. There was anguish in his features. It was the face of a man who knew that he had lost his daughter. It was a horrible sight and a gut-wrenching one for me to witness. It was what I had been hoping to avoid throughout this chase. I hadn't wanted to break Dad's heart.

  But I also couldn't bear to see Asa in jail, or worse. With legal means exhausted, knowing what he knew about Asa and me, I wasn't sure where Dad would draw the line. He was a man who had lived his life by the letter of the law, and that law had let him down. He had done everything right and had wound up with a daughter who had sex with thugs. When a man who has lived all his life in a box is suddenly released from that restriction, then who knows what he may do? A lifetime of repression and obedience was breaking free, as his anger at Asa peaked. All because of me.

  I didn't want to hurt either of them. I wanted to protect them both. But circumstances and bad luck had combined with my own careless stupidity to conspire against that. Only by hurting Dad could I save Asa, and the only consolation I had was that I might also be saving Dad from himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Asa

  "What in the hell did you do that for?!" I was furious. Corinne had let her father see her. More than that, she had made damn sure that he would see her. Was she trying to get me into still deeper shit than I was already in? Or, did she just hate her father so much that she was determined to give him a coronary? I didn't know, but I was not going to let her get away with it.

  Then I looked in the rearview mirror. "He's not following us."

  "Of course he's not." Corinne sounded strangely numb, certainly not happy. "He'd happily engage you in a high-speed pursuit, and, if you accidentally killed yourself, so much the better. But there's no way he's going to risk me getting hurt."

  "How does he know I won't hurt you?" I asked, still annoyed, but somewhat mollified.

  "He may not like us being together, but he knows I can take care of myself. Besides, I think he knows that you're not out to hurt me."

  That was probably true. All of it. She had saved my neck by forcing herself into the car and then letting her dad know that she was there. Still, I sat there quietly fuming. I was partly angry because she was right, and there are few things more annoying to a man used to being in charge than having some girl prove him wrong. We know it's petty, and we're not proud of it, but there it is. The other reason I was still angry was that this was not what I had wanted. I would rather have been caught and taken the full force of whatever Brian Dugas had to offer, than be in this situation. The one thing that I had set out to avoid had happened: Corinne was now part of my world, a fugitive on the run from the law. How the hell had I let this happen? Why the hell had she insisted that this happen?

  "Are you angry with me?" Corinne asked.

  "Of course I am!"

  "I saved your life!"

  "I'd have been fine," I scoffed, with more confidence than I deserved. "I've been in more police chases than I can remember, and I'm still walking. I could have lost him without you sticking your nose in."

  "I don't care how many chases you've been in. None of them were with my dad."

  Considering how much she had apparently despised her dad and her upbringing, Corinne was amazingly protective of her old man. She was a complex little package where family was concerned. There was a lot going on beneath the surface. She hadn't wanted to hurt him, but had felt torn and had sided with me, leaving her no choice but to hurt him. Maybe she was regretting that now, or, at the very least, feeling guilty about it.

  I should have been sensitive to that, but I was too angry right now. "You should have gone home when you had the chance. You've ruined your life and upset your dad, so now he's more pissed at me than ever."

  "I just thought ..."

  "That's the one thing you didn't do. How many times do I have to tell you that we can’t work? There's no future. There's nothing. And you still do something stupid like this."

  Corinne made no reply.

  I was too angry to think about what I was saying and so, finally, had the good sense to shut up. I needed to get off the road. I needed to stop running for long enough to be able to think clearly. If nothing else, Corinne's actions had made that a viable possibility. For the moment, at least, there were no police on my trail, and I had the option of finding an out-of-the-way motel and getting my plans straight.

  "I know a place where we can spend the night," I said, trying to be a little conciliatory after shouting at her and blaming her.

  "Okay." I wasn't sure if she was mad at me, or upset, or if it had just been a long night.

  It had been a good night, too, at the start. There was no getting around that. If only I had taken her straight home. If only ...

  I cut off the train of thought before it could go any further. A man can waste his life leafing through a list of regrets.

  We reached an out-of-the-way motel as the sun was beginning to rise, and I booked us into a room. The place was in the middle of nowhere and on a direct route between nowhere and nowhere else. I often thought it was only used by criminals on the run, looking for a place to hide, and the only reason the police didn't raid it on a weekly basis was because they never knew who or what they might find when they got there. Contrary to what some might say, there is loyalty amongst thieves where cops are concerned.

  As soon as we were in our room, and I had closed the door, I spoke.

  "You have to go home."

  Corinne rounded on me. "What? Are you crazy? I mean, it was a dumb idea back in town. Now it's practically suicide."

  "Your father won't hurt you."

  "Not for me, you idiot, for you! I'm the only thing keeping you safe. As long as I'm with you, you're not going to die mysteriously
during a police shoot-out."

  "That doesn't matter." I wasn't going to tell her she was wrong, because she was smarter than that. We both knew she was right, but as far as I was concerned, the time had passed for taking such things into account. It was nice that she wanted to save me. It meant a lot to me that I mattered to her (not that I would tell her that). But matters had gone in a bad direction fast. The only thing that mattered to me now was getting Corinne back to the safety of her family and trying to undo as much as possible of the bad I had done. It wouldn't be easy, but I was determined to try, and I wasn't going to let her whining stop me. I tried to master my temper. Truthfully I didn't have a lot of reason to be angry at her and, besides, shouting didn't seem to have much effect.