Dangerous (Nomad Outlaws Trilogy Book 2)

by Tory Richards

  Somehow, he hadn't got the message.

  After Melvin had treated him he'd taken me back to our room and we'd fucked ourselves into exhaustion. It had been good, so good. And then, hours later, Jace had made love to me, for the first time. He'd worshiped my body in a way that felt as if he were memorizing every inch of me. Tenderly, lovingly, taking his time, his hands and mouth had explored every curve and valley, giving me more pleasure than I could handle, before he finally took me to heaven and back.

  In that moment I had been convinced that he loved me, too.

  But that had been nearly a week ago, and Jace had grown more distant with each passing day.

  Two days after the secretive run the club had gone on, there'd been a funeral for Tiger, Roy, and Dober. It had been a huge service. Members and their families from Maine and Massachusetts had come to pay their respects. Some of the men who had come for the run had remained until after the funeral. Once the coffins had been lowered into the ground, everyone had returned to the club and partied in honor of the three men who had lost their lives. It had lasted for nearly two days, with highs and lows to celebrate their lives and untimely endings, until finally it had quieted down and the out of state members and their families had returned home.

  Lockdown had ended the day before. Almost a week had passed with no word or retaliation from the Destroyers, Marie had explained, which basically confirmed my thoughts that the late night run had had something to do with them. It was safe to return to the campgrounds if we wanted to. Some had left right away, but since Jim and Casey were still at the compound I'd decided to wait, too. She'd made great progress, and I was so happy to see her acting like her old self again.

  Jim had surprised her one morning by riding to camp and picking up Samson. I'd worried that seeing him would be a trigger for Casey that would take her back to that day, but happy tears had fallen down her cheeks when she'd seen Samson hop out of the car that Jim had borrowed. Losing a leg hadn't stopped the dog from running directly to Casey and throwing himself at her with tail-wagging enthusiasm. He looked healthy. His leg was still bandaged, but it looked clean, which revealed that Karla and Barbara had been taking good care of him. My worries had been for nothing, and I'd mouthed a thank you to Jim when he'd glanced my way.

  I didn't know what to do about Jace and the situation between us. He hadn't touched me in days. In fact, he'd stopped coming to our room at night to sleep, and that left me to wonder about where he was sleeping. I was afraid to ask, afraid to go to the bar and see the victory smirk on CC's face that would reveal that she'd finally gotten him into her bed. Just thinking that he could be sleeping with her, fucking her, crushed me. So I'd kept busy by spending time with Casey, Marie, and Rosa, while pretending that nothing was wrong and that I wasn't slowly dying inside.

  "Are you sure you don't want to go with us?" Marie and Rosa were returning to camp with their men, and they wanted me to go back with them. "I know something’s happened between you and Jace…" Her voice trailed off, and I knew that she was waiting for me to fill in the blanks.

  "Something. I just don't know what," I admitted truthfully. "We were good one minute, and then after that everything stopped. He doesn't touch me, he doesn't come to our room at night, and he's been short tempered with me the few times that I've run into him."

  Her brows came together in a frown, as if she were in deep thought. "You know, honey, these men are complex. They keep too much of themselves inside, and when they don't, they don't quite know how to express their feelings. Maybe he's scared."

  I knew that Marie was trying to help, but the thought of Jace being scared about something caused a snort of laughter to escape me. "Thanks for trying to help, but there's no way Jace is afraid of anything."

  She shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Our men are over the top alphas, they thrive on danger. I'm talking about what's inside. Maybe he's going through something and he's just not dealing with it very well."

  "Like being done with me and deciding that avoiding me is better than confronting me?"

  "I . . . ah . . . um,"

  It was obvious that she didn't know what to say. She zipped up the duffle bag she'd been packing, exhaled a deep breath, and finally said, "Men are assholes, honey. I went through months of hell before Reaper finally woke up and admitted that he loved me. We connected sexually right from the beginning, but he had his heart and his emotions locked up so tight that I had to do something drastic to get him to see the light."

  We were both smiling. "What did you do?" I asked with genuine interest.

  Marie didn't hesitate. "I pulled a gun on him and threatened to shoot him."

  "You didn't!" I laughed, trying to visualize her threatening a man as big and scary as Reaper.

  "I did!" she laughed just as hard. "At first he didn't know what to do, but once he got over the shock, a man like Reaper wasn't about to let a woman get the best of him."

  "What happened?"

  "He charged me like an angry bear, growling and everything. To show him that I wasn't playing, I fired the gun. Obviously I made sure that I didn't hit him. By the time he got his hands on me he was out of control with rage. He stripped me bare and blistered my ass for daring to pull a gun at him."

  I was shaking my head with disbelief. "And?" I just knew that there had to be more.

  "Oh, there's an and, girl. I bit down hard on his thigh. He roared, and retaliated by biting me on the ass. I squirmed off his lap onto the floor, and the next thing I knew we were rolling around, trying to subdue each other. But one thing led to another, and soon his anger turned to lust and we ended up, well, you know. It was the best angry sex I'd ever had."

  "And then he confessed that he loved you?"

  Marie nodded. "Not at first. We talked. Once we were satiated and too exhausted to move we talked. Turned out that he thought I already knew that he loved me just by the way he was treating me. He didn't understand my need to hear the words."

  My laugh had nothing to do with humor. "Jace has never had a problem telling me exactly what he wants in our relationship." I met Marie's eyes. "Or what I could and couldn't expect from him."

  She released a heavy sigh. "I don't know, honey, I wish I did. I saw something good between you and Jace. The way he looks at you . . . "she paused, and then shrugged."I would have sworn that he felt something for you, something stronger than sex."

  I'd thought so, too. But maybe I had imagined it because I'd wanted it so badly. "He's going to be leaving soon." I thought about the job he'd taken that was going to take him back to New Mexico. He and Moody didn't seem to be in any hurry to get to it. I'd passed Moody in the hallway more than once with a different woman each time, and as we'd made eye-contact I could have sworn that there was regret in his.

  "You should talk to him before he goes. Don't let Jace walk out of your life without knowing what's happened to cause this change in him. It may not be what you want to hear, but at least you can stop wondering about it."

  I nodded, silently agreeing with Marie. She picked up her bag, and together we headed toward the door. When we entered the main room of the clubhouse Jace was there, playing pool with Moody, Tucker, and Fury. His back was to us as he lined up for a shot. I hesitated at the door. Marie paused with me, her gaze taking in the same scene.

  "Talk to him, honey," she insisted, giving me a little nudge.

  "I will."

  She continued toward the entrance door, and I unhurriedly walked toward the pool table.

  Marie was right. I had to know what I'd done, if anything, to cause Jace to ignore me so suddenly. I plastered a smile on my face, determined to remain strong. As I neared the table I met Fury's eyes. He was waiting for his turn, leaning against the wall. His welcoming smile did nothing to soothe the nervousness I felt.

  "Jace?"

  He looked sideways where I'd come to a stop, his expression the same as it had been for the last few days--hard and unfeeling. "Yeah?" His tone sounded slightly annoyed that I'd interru
pted his game. "What's up?"

  "Can we talk?"

  "Not in the talking mood."

  "Please? It won't take long."

  "So talk," he said coldly, taking another shot.

  I looked around at the others, reading their mixed expressions--remorse, embarrassment--they clearly felt sorry for me, and when my eyes met theirs they lowered their gazes to the floor. Had Jace said something to them?

  I took a breath. "Can we go somewhere private?"

  He stopped and looked directly at me, a frown between his brows. His eyes were sharp enough to cut glass, moving lazily down my body and back up again in an insulting onceover that made me feel dirty. I tried not to squirm as heat filled my cheeks. The smile I was trying to keep on my face felt as if it were frozen there. I'd never seen Jace look at me like that before, as if I were one of the club whores and he was deciding if I was worth his time.

  "Whatever you have to say can be said here in front of my brothers."

  I was wearing a sleeveless summer top that fell to my waist and buttoned up the bodice. I'd left the first two buttons undone, and his eyes dropped from mine to where my cleavage was exposed.

  Damn, he wasn't making this easy for me. I tried to think of words that wouldn't reveal too much to the others that were present. "I wanted to ask you what's, ah, going on. With us." I felt the tip of my ears burning. "Have I done something to‒"

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop right there, darlin'. You haven't done anything wrong. In fact--" his eyes ran over me again, vulgarly, "you're the best fuck I've had."

  Ohmygod! I couldn't believe that he'd said that, and in front of his brothers. My whole body heated with humiliation. I could barely look at anyone, much less say anything. My tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth.

  "You knew the day was coming when it would end." He sounded so normal, so unaffected, while inside I was slowly dying.

  I thought about the last time that we'd been together, and how he'd made slow, thorough love to me. He'd felt something, I was sure of it. No one could act that well. I was having a hard time believing what he was saying. Thank God his brothers all dropped their pool sticks and rushed away, leaving Jace and me alone.

  "What are you saying exactly?" I asked softly once there was no one around to hear. Tears smarted in my eyes, but I quickly blinked them away.

  And then he said the words that destroyed me. "You and me are done."

  You and me are done. You and me are done.

  His words kept repeating in my head as I tried to make sense of them. "I . . . I'm confused, Jace. The last time we were together, you made love to me, as if you . . . felt something for me. I wasn't just imagining it. It was more than just fucking. I‒"

  His frown grew, making his expression seem fierce. "Is that what this is about? The fact that I didn't fuck you like a club whore? You think because I took my time sucking your tits and sticking my dick inside your cunt that it meant something?"

  I felt sick inside. "Why are you doing this, Jace?" I felt my bottom lip quivering with hurt. "This isn’t you. Something happened‒"

  "Nothing happened, darlin', I just realized that it was time to end it between us before you started to think that we were going somewhere. Apparently I waited too late. I never wanted to hurt you, Luna." His last comment rang true.

  The tears finally spilled from my eyes, and in that second I hated Jace. He was being cruel on purpose. Yes, I had known that it would end eventually, but his actions and the way that he'd treated me that morning had given me hope. False hope apparently. As his eyes remained glued to mine, I thought that I saw a tiny flare of regret in his, but it was so fleeting I convinced myself that I had imagined it.

  "I'm sorry if I left you with a memory you misunderstood. Will it make you feel any better if I take you out back and fuck you like a club whore?"

  I gasped as if he'd slapped me, and then I slapped him across the face as hard as I could, putting everything I had in me in an attempt to hurt him as much as he was hurting me. When he continued to stand there unmoving, like a stone statue, barely blinking in response to my attack, I raised my hand to deliver his cheek another slap.

  This time he moved. As quickly as a striking snake he grasped my wrist in mid-air, his expression calling to mind a wild animal, his eyes glittering and seeing too much, his nostrils flared in a savage expression under the clear imprint of my handprint. He leaned down into my face and gritted between his teeth, "You don't want me to leave you with the memory of how I really treat women."

  "Fuck you, Jace!" I nearly spat in his face. "You're a fucking coward!" I realized instantly that I'd gone too far, but I was beyond caring. The room had gone eerily quiet, and I found myself looking around to see that some of his brothers were within hearing distance and had stopped what they'd been doing.

  The sound that came out of Jace was frighteningly primal. His hand nearly crushed the bones of my wrist, and with a sharp movement he pivoted on his heel and jerked me behind him. I was too upset and overwhelmed to question where he was taking me. Tears were flowing down my cheeks unchecked, my vision was blurred, and the emotional state that I was in had sapped my strength. I stumbled along behind him until panic set in and I realized what his intentions were.

  "Stop!" I demanded, trying to pull free. "Jace, stop!" He pulled me outside and through the yard toward a workshop. I hadn't been in it before, but I knew it was where the club members worked on their bikes when they needed maintenance.

  The bay doors were down, and I thought he was leading me towards the door, but he continued around the building to the back. When we got there he pushed me up against the wall, unconcerned about how rough he was being with me. His hands immediately went to his pants, and my eyes bulged when I saw his erection. My gaze flew back up to his. He couldn't be serious!

  "Why are you acting like this?"

  He ignored me. "This is where I'd usually tell the club whore to drop to her knees and suck me off, but I want inside your pussy. I'm glad you're wearing a skirt. Now get those panties off."

  I was in shock as I stared at Jace as if I'd never seen him before. I could only shake my head at his demand, frozen against the wall and barely breathing.

  "No? Fine with me." He opened his pants and stepped forward before taking out his cock.

  I braced myself for what he was about to do. It didn't take him long to reach beneath my skirt and tear my panties from me. "Jace, don't do this," I pleaded. "Please." I hated the tears that were running down my face. "Talk to me," I said, using his own words against him.

  Again, he ignored me, and then in the next instant he picked me up and impaled me. I cried out, and Jace stilled for just a minute, letting my body adjust to his brutal possession. The dark, heated glare in his eyes held mine captive.

  "Damn you!" he hissed between his teeth. "I told you there was no room in my life for someone like you!" He was angry now, but it felt as if it wasn't me that he was angry at.

  "This isn't you!" I whispered brokenly, unwilling to accept that this cold, indifferent man was the same one that I loved. "This isn't you…" I sobbed, closing my eyes when he began to pound into me.

  "I didn't want to leave you like this," he ground out, thrusting in and out of me so rapidly that I couldn't catch my breath. "Left you alone. Stopped fucking you. But you didn't get the hint that we were done."

  "Why should you care then?" I threw at him recklessly. "If I mean nothing to you?" He stiffened and then stilled, his cock buried deep inside me, hot and pulsing. I felt my muscles clench around him, felt the slight quivering of his thighs that he couldn't hide. Even angry sex with Jace turned me on, and I hated myself for being so weak. He had total control of my heart and body. "I love you." There, I'd said it. For what it was worth. At least now he would know what he’d lost.

  "No," he growled savagely, shaking his head. He pulled out of me and swung me around until my breasts were flattened against the wall. His hands were rough against my hips when he pulled my ass out and entered
me from behind. "No!" he said again with more conviction. He began to fuck me like a mad man, grunting with each plunge, his warm breath stirring the hair at my neck. "You don't fucking love me!"

  There was nothing I could do but let him fuck his anger and denial out on me. He owned my body, and I felt how wet I was where our bodies were joined. Jace's heavy balls slapped against the back of my thighs so hard that it left little stings against my flesh. There was nothing tender or caring about his possession, this was a man intent on one thing only--his own pleasure, in the most raw and brutal way. If his goal had been for me to take the hint that we were over, he was successful.

  His movements were out of control, his hands gripping me so hard that I knew I would have bruises. "I love you. I love you. I…love…you…" I chanted in time with his thrusts, determined to make him hear it, if not acknowledge it. "No matter what you do to me, I…love…you."

  His growl vibrated through my body, and his movements picked up speed. I began to grunt with every thrust of his cock entering my body, some thrusts so powerful that I ended up on my toes. I knew when he was coming, I felt the change in his body. His hands tightened against my hips, his breathing grew harsher, and I felt his cock swelling just before he erupted against my cervix. He bit down on my shoulder with a savage groan, releasing ropes of cum inside of me as his whole body convulsed uncontrollably.

  Gradually his movements slowed, and so did his breathing. When he pulled out of me I felt his seed running down my thighs. I remained facing the wall. I couldn't bring myself to face Jace. I didn't want to see his rejection, and I didn't want him to see the devastation on my wet face. I had hoped that halfway through his cold possession he would have realized that he did feel something for me. The fact that he hadn't kissed me, touched me, or given me any pleasure in return said a lot. I suddenly felt sorry for the club whores if this was how the men treated them.