Devil's Mark

by Megan Crane

  He wore nothing but a pair of jeans and all that sudden sunshine, and he took Holly’s breath away.

  She knew he was beautiful, of course. Everyone knew he was beautiful. But there was Uptown in all his clothes, sauntering around in the world and causing whiplash wherever he went, and then there was this. This was art. A man chiseled into muscle and bone, bathed in buttery light that made him look like poured honey, with dark, intent eyes and that impossible mouth she’d tasted and tested and lost herself in.

  In the light, she could see his tattoos a lot better. He was covered in them. They scrolled over one whole side of his body, a burst of color and texture against his skin. There were words mixed with epic, etched dragons and other mythical creatures, woven into curls and flourishes. He was art himself and he wore more art, and she wanted to know the story of every single mark. She wanted to taste every last one of them.

  The things she wanted to know about him, that she thought she might die if she didn’t learn, seemed to fill her then. It made her feel precarious and needy. Or maybe that was just him, the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, so lethal and sexy that she could still feel him between her legs. She was already wet.

  Or she was still wet. She couldn’t tell.

  What was clear to her as she gazed at him was that it was entirely possible she’d gone and fallen in love with this man. That completely, that fast. Like every cliché of every virgin ever, too dumb to know that sex to a man like him was just sex. A reflex. Like working out, only naked.

  Holly chanted those things to herself, but it didn’t help. It didn’t change her greedy, hopeless heart. She still looked at him and felt…wonder. Pure, bright wonder.

  She moved toward him, feeling hushed and awed, and that didn’t change when she was closer. When she could see the red nicks of her nails on his hard belly and higher up, on his granite shoulders. When she could really feel the glittering way he looked at her. Through her. As if he could read her far more easily than she could read him.

  His vast flat-screen TV was on, some documentary-style program playing, but she didn’t look at it. She could seem to see only him.

  When she’d made it as far as the coffee table built from old crates, he sat forward, swiping his T-shirt from the floor and tossing it to her. Holly was surprised she caught it, not because she didn’t know how to catch things, but because her fingers felt as nerveless and silly as the rest of her.

  She held the T-shirt where she’d caught it, right there against her belly, and tried not to stare at him like a slack-jawed yokel. It was difficult, because that was exactly how she felt. Worse, she was sure he knew it.

  Uptown lifted his chin. She interpreted that to mean he wanted her to put the shirt on, so she did. It was thin and soft from years of wear. And it, too, smelled like him. Like leather and something spicier. It made her nipples pull taut and all those twinge-y places between her legs light up all over again.

  Holly decided not to wait for another order. She pulled her hair through the collar of the T-shirt as she skirted the coffee table, then climbed on the soft leather couch beside him, pulling her legs up beneath her as she sat.

  Uptown eyed her for what seemed like a very long time, and Holly didn’t have to be an expert in the postcoital behavior of men to get that he was not exactly looking at her with awe and need. Or any of that wonder that was making her heart feel four sizes too big.

  “Did I not do it right?” she asked.

  She was mostly kidding. Being provocative. She’d been there, after all. She’d felt it when he’d come, groaning out her name like that. Like it was a promise he meant to keep. His chest had been pressed against hers and his heart had been a sledgehammer, and she’d assumed that meant what her own wildly beating heart had meant.

  But once she said it out loud, here in the middle of this strangely taut early morning, she wished she hadn’t. She felt herself get red and hot the longer he kept that shrewd, considering stare of his trained on her.

  “You don’t think you did it wrong. You came at least five times.” It wasn’t a question. He knew exactly how many times he’d made her come, she was quite sure. Still, Holly couldn’t bring herself to answer him. “You looking for compliments?”

  “Well.” She cleared her throat. It didn’t need clearing, and stalling was making his unsmiling mouth look all the more grim. “Yes. Obviously. Some of us have never done that before. A little ‘good job, Holly’ wouldn’t exactly go amiss.”

  “Here’s the trouble with you, princess.” And Uptown did not sound particularly complimentary. Or friendly, for that matter. “You’re so busy trying on different personalities that you don’t know what the hell is right or wrong or just plain stupid.”

  If that stung a bit, Holly had no intention of letting him see it.

  “Like the way you smile all the time in public, you mean?” she asked, fighting to keep her tone even and smooth and unbothered. “And then in private are about the least smiley person I’ve ever met?”

  “I can charm the pants off anyone,” he said, his voice a gritty sort of drawl. “Are you really arguing that?”

  Holly was not arguing that. Given her current lack of anything resembling pants.

  “I hate to disappoint you,” she said carefully, and that dug at her a little bit because she’d said it without thinking, but it was true, “but I’m not really much of an actress. I can be polite to people I don’t like, of course, but that’s not putting on personalities to see if they fit. That’s just good, old-fashioned manners.”

  “You don’t know how to inhale unless you’re putting on some kind of act,” he retorted, and she tensed—but it was that strangely determined glitter in his dark chocolate gaze that was getting to her, not his too precise, too deliberate words. “First you were the town’s favorite saint. The prom queen in her chastity belt. Now this.” Another jerk of his chin, taking her in, sitting there naked under his T-shirt. “Your rebellious phase. All over my cock.”

  It cost her a bit to keep a thread of laughter in her voice then, but she managed it. However little she felt like laughing at the moment, with him looking at her like that. “So that’s a yes, I did do it wrong? You could have just said so.”

  “This is real life.” His voice was much harder than before. And it hadn’t been all that soft to start. “There’s real danger. Wake up, Snow White. I’m an outlaw and I didn’t come after you by accident. Your daddy is dirty and it’s going to get him in worse trouble than he’s already in, believe me. You’re in a world of shit, babe. Why don’t you get that?”

  Holly recognized that his words were intended as a slap. They should have hurt her. Set her back, anyway. Knocked her flat.

  But maybe the trouble was that she was too inexperienced to pick up on all the ways she was meant to be ashamed. Maybe if she had more context, last night would seem like the manipulative, deliberate revenge sex he seemed to be claiming it was. Instead of what it had been to her. Wonderful. Life altering. Worth whatever she had to pay in the way of a lost reputation or parental disappointment, it was so over-the-top amazing. Not just the orgasms. But all of it. Touching him. Being so close to him she now knew how his body worked. She’d felt the play of his muscles, inside and out. And she was sure she’d glimpsed his emotions, too, no matter what he might say now to the contrary.

  The bottom line was, she just didn’t believe him. She didn’t think the way he looked at her had anything to do with her father, and she believed even less that Benny Chambless had been what Uptown had been thinking about while he’d kissed her, taken her, or shouted out her name.

  “I get it,” she agreed after a moment. She wanted to reach across the space between them. She wanted to put her hands on him the way she had last night, as much to make herself feel better as to soothe him in some way. She settled for doing neither of those things, and stared down at his chest with all those fascinating tattoos instead. “But I think maybe you should rethink your revenge sex plan. It wasn’t exactly as t
raumatic as you seem to think.” She blinked. “Is it even possible to have a traumatic orgasm?”

  He scowled at her. “It’s time to start taking this seriously,” he told her, his voice hard. “There are brothers in the club way less accommodating than I am. You don’t want them all over you.”

  “Do you?”

  His eyes glittered harder and his jaw got tight, but he didn’t answer her. And again, maybe she was as naive as Katelyn had accused her of being, or the name “Snow White” suggested, but Holly kind of thought that was an answer in itself.

  “Get dressed,” he told her. “I have shit to do that doesn’t involve babysitting an accident waiting to happen.”

  But Holly had not waited twenty-two years to have sex only to have a little sex. Uptown might really be done with her. She didn’t want to accept that, but she couldn’t deny it was very likely true, no matter what her goofy heart seemed to think. She knew how these things generally went. She did live in the world, after all. But that only meant that before he scraped her off and went back to his busty biker bitches, she needed to take this opportunity to learn. Everything.

  She slid off the couch and onto her knees before she could think better of it, then shifted closer to him, finding her way between his outstretched legs and propping herself up with her hands on his thick, corded thighs. He tensed beneath her, and his face got that dangerously narrow look to it, but she noticed he didn’t push her off him.

  “What”—and there was a muscle in his jaw going nuts that she found mesmerizing—“the fuck are you doing?”

  “You told me you were going to teach me to use my mouth,” she said, and she was trying to be playful. But there was huskiness in her throat. In her voice. In her whole, entire body, and she wasn’t ready to pretend otherwise. Not yet. “Is that the stuff you have to do?”

  —

  If it was a fight, Holly won it.

  Uptown taught her how to handle that massive cock of his, just as she’d asked. How to love it a little with her hands, then take it in her mouth. He taught her suction and rhythm. He taught her how to worry that little ridge on the underside of the plump head with her tongue, how to keep from using her teeth and then, when it was time, he taught her how to drink him down, every last drop.

  And Holly discovered that she loved every second of the lesson.

  Then he hauled her into the shower and pinned her to the wall, where he washed her off and then ate her pussy until she was a sodden, sobbing mess inside and out and he was hard again.

  Uptown carried her to the bed again then, and taught her a few important new positions before he got serious, flipped her beneath him, and pounded them both straight into oblivion.

  Last night hadn’t been an anomaly, it turned out. He really was that good. Sex really, truly was that terrific. At least with him.

  The day turned ominous while they were recovering from that last round, crashed out in that wide bed of his with nothing but the murmurs of the bayou outside his windows to distract them. She traced his tattoos with her fingertips. He played with her hair. And it seemed to her that all that wonder, all that hushed awe, was working in him as much as it was in her.

  Then again, it was entirely possible she was just being naive. How would she know? She bit her lip and kept her comments to herself.

  The ride back in from the bayou was through the darkening skies and rising winds of a coming storm, which added a certain electric kick to things. It was exhilarating. Holly hung on to him and let her head tip back as they raced down one road after another, and it really did feel like flying.

  Whatever happened next, she told herself, trying to prepare for the worst, she had this. A long, lonely country road on the back of his bike, hurtling straight for the thunder. Full on and unafraid. More living in a single loud, fast ride than she’d done in her previous twenty-two years put together. Some people lived their whole lives like that, she was well aware, locked down and scared and small. But she didn’t intend to be one of them.

  After Uptown, she didn’t think she could.

  He roared up her father’s driveway again, coming to a stop in the same way he had the day before. Loud and bold and unapologetic. Daring someone to have a problem with it, if she had to guess. Uptown hadn’t talked much since they’d finally crawled out of his bed and taken a second, less thrilling shower. His mouth had been in that same hard line since he’d toweled off, and she could see at a glance that it hadn’t softened during the long ride back into town.

  She thought of what Katelyn had said about sleeping with the club president. Digger likes to sample the new girls before they get too jaded on all that biker cock. As if it was assumed that once you slept with one Devil’s Keeper, you slept with them all. Maybe that was the usual progression. Again, how would she know? She knew only that she would not be doing that.

  Holly made herself let go of him, though she didn’t want to. She forced herself to climb off the back of his bike and then she curved her lips in one of those polite smiles she’d mentioned to him earlier while she handed over her helmet. She wasn’t pretending anything, like being happy when she wasn’t, she assured herself. She just wasn’t prepared to show him all those emotions surging around inside of her, making her want things she knew she shouldn’t dare ask for.

  There were no witnesses on the front porch this time. Uptown studied her for a moment, and Holly had to bite her lip to keep from asking what he saw. Or what he was looking for, for that matter.

  “Was that revenge sex?” she asked, maybe a little too brightly.

  She didn’t mean to say anything. It was like it leaped from her mouth, and then there it was, spinning around and around between them.

  Uptown looked incredulous.

  “I don’t have any context,” she continued when it seemed he wasn’t going to answer her. And then she couldn’t seem to hold anything back anyway. She stopped trying. “I want to know how to think about what happened last night.”

  “You don’t know how to think? That fancy college education really didn’t do a whole lot for you, princess.”

  “Was it a club initiation thing? Is it now expected that I practice all the things you taught me on all your friends? Like, out in that warehouse of yours?” She thought about that for a second as a hard, glittering thing grew more pronounced in his eyes and his mouth looked nothing short of wholly grim. Her curse was that she found that no less beautiful. “Do you watch while it happens? While I, ah, perform?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Something occurred to her, and she leaned a little closer to where he sat, still straddling his bike.

  “Does having sex with you make me a slut?” she asked, unable to keep the suppressed excitement out of her voice. Well. Maybe it wasn’t so suppressed. “Am I a biker slut now? Can it happen overnight?”

  “You’re not a slut, you’re not auditioning to be a groupie, and you’re not fucking touching anyone else,” he gritted out at her, dark temper stamped all over his face and in that scratch in his voice, too.

  Holly eyed him like she thought he might explode. Because he looked like that was imminent. “I thought that was the deal. I thought that was what you were talking about earlier when you told me I was in a world of shit.”

  He looked as pissed as he did incredulous.

  “Are you out of your mind? You should be walking bowlegged today, not planning to fuck your way through the clubhouse.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to do it. I asked if it was expected.”

  She watched as his whole body seemed to tense up, like a fist. He muttered something that sounded like a curse, brutal and filthy.

  “What the hell are you doing to me?” he asked.

  But even though he turned and looked at her as he said that, swinging off his bike while he did, Holly got the distinct impression he wasn’t speaking to her. Not really.

  He stood there before her for a moment, his gorgeous face hard and that intriguing muscle alive in his jaw again. He reache
d over and slid his hand up over her cheek, the way she’d done to him last night. But his hand was bigger. Harder. And his thumb was so close to her mouth.

  She couldn’t be the only one who was remembering when he’d thrust it between her lips last night. His dark eyes kindled with that same flame that had seared her all night long, though his mouth stayed in its hard line.

  “I don’t want you fucking anyone but me.”

  It was little more than a growl. It wasn’t a request and it wasn’t in any way nice. It was another one of his orders. And still, it made Holly feel warm. Giddy, even. Everywhere.

  But she’d grown up in this town. And the fact that he’d been with one woman behind the church that afternoon and another one when she’d pretended not to see him in the local diner that same evening way back when had stuck with her.

  “Who do you get to fuck?” she asked.

  He shook his head at that, a different light gleaming in his gaze. His mouth seemed to get tighter even as it curved. Slightly. Very slightly. Still, she felt it like a new caress.

  “I haven’t touched another woman since you walked into Dumb Gator’s that first night,” he told her, his voice low and something a lot like pissed. “You want to put a collar around my dick?”

  She blinked at that. “Uh, no. Is that a club thing? It doesn’t sound fun at all.”

  And Holly couldn’t possibly have described the look on his face then. It was somewhere between tortured and amused, as if he couldn’t decide which way to go. Or as if he was stuck there in both.

  “It’s not a club thing,” he said, as if it hurt him.

  His hand tightened against her cheek, then he dropped it. Instantly, she missed the heat of his palm against her skin. The cool wind that announced the coming storm was tossing her hair around and she caught it into a messy spiral, trying to do something with her hands so she wouldn’t throw herself at him.