HEARTLESS

by Storm, Franca

  I watch with bated breath, as the corner of his mouth curls up. “Mind-blowing, huh?” he finally says. Relief fills me. He bought it.

  “Always, baby,” I say, flashing him a sultry smile. “It’s been too long.”

  “Damn straight. Gonna make up for lost time.” He adjusts my weight in his arms and squeezes my butt in a bruising grip. “Can’t wait to punish this sweet ass.”

  A shiver of excitement runs through me. I can’t wait either.

  Chapter 2

  ~Smiter~

  Forget that Mona Lisa shit and whatever else is in the running. I got my masterpiece right here. Who woulda thought it? It shouldn’t be possible for a jaded guy like me to find a woman who can give me a run for my money, set fire to my blood, and make me feel alive again. Not after everything I’ve seen and done.

  But it turns out there is one.

  Halle Belmont.

  I take a step back from her, checking out my work.

  Goddamn. She’s something.

  Her sexy ass is a nice shade of deep pink. Raw with my handprints marking her soft skin. I know how to deal out a good spanking and Halle knows how to take it. A sheen of sweat covers her back, her forehead. She’s naked, panting and squirming ˈround on the chair that she’s sitting on backwards, clutching its steel back real tight. I grin as I watch her grind her pussy into the seat, tryinˈ to cause enough friction to get herself off, cuz I’ve left her right on the edge. I didn’t take it as far as I usually do. Didn’t let her come. Yeah, she can come just from a spanking. My spankings anyway.

  “You learned your lesson now, Hal?”

  “Yes! I really have!”

  I step back to her. “What you ain’t gonna be doing no more?”

  “I’m not going to take the dangerous route home.”

  “What else?”

  “I’ll cover up if I’m walking alone really late at night.”

  “Shouldn’t be walking alone at all.”

  “Yes! Yes, I know! I promise.”

  “Yeah?” I press her, enjoying her desperation. It’s a major turn-on.

  “I swear it! Now, just fuck me, will you? Make me fucking come, Smiter!”

  There’s the feisty side of her coming out to play, the part of her that always fights me for control every time we get down ‘n’ dirty. Makes for some intense shit between us. Ain’t nothing better.

  “You can let go of the chair now. Turn ˈround.”

  She does as I tell her real fast, ˈtil she’s sitting on it the right way. I see her wince as she shifts on it.

  “Your ass giving you a nice burn, sweetheart?”

  She grins at me. “Yeah.”

  “Getting you hot, ain’t it?” I know it fucking is. Hal likes a bite of pain with her pleasure.

  She nods. Her gaze burns into mine as she tells me, “I want more.”

  I turn from her and walk to one of her bedside tables next to her massive four-poster bed. It’s where she keeps the supplies I bought for us. I open the bottom drawer and grab a few things.

  “When are you gonna take your jeans off? I want to see your dick.”

  “Dunno.”

  “Smiter!” she whines.

  “My call, Hal.”

  “I know,” she grumbles.

  “The way you like it, ain’t it?”

  I kneel down in front of her. Right away, her hands go to my naked chest and she starts feeling up my pecs, my abs. “Mmm… yeah. I like the way we do it. And I like these,” she says, lightly pulling at my nipple hoops.

  I press my hand to her chest, pushing her back. “Uh uh. Relax. Spread your legs wide. Show me that pretty pussy.”

  She opens ˈem

  I take one of the black, silk scarves and tie it ˈround her left ankle and the chair leg. I do the same with the right. I get to my feet and walk behind her. “Hands behind your back,” I command. She obeys me right away again and I tie ˈem to the back of the chair. “All right. Try to move, sweetheart.”

  She tries, but there ain’t much give. Good.

  “Any of ˈem too tight?” I ask. Gotta make sure. Don’t wanna hurt her. Not like that.

  She shakes her head.

  I kneel down in front of her again. She gasps as I grab her thighs real sudden, squeezing ˈem in a harsh grip. I rake my fingernails up and down ˈem, lightly scratching over her soft flesh.

  I rise up to a crouching position and suck her left nipple into my mouth, suckling it gently. She moans and squirms in the chair. I do the same to the right one, ˈtil it’s hard and standing to attention like the other. I reach ˈround on the floor and snatch up the other things I took outta the drawer. Wooden laundry pegs. They work perfect as mild clamps. Ain’t too tight, or too loose. I cup her left tit and attach one to it.

  “Ah!” she shrieks.

  I attach the second one. And then I start shifting between flicking her nipples softly with my tongue, or hard with my finger. One’s soothing and another’s intensifying the pain. I mix up the rhythm, so she don’t know which one she’s gonna get. Puts her right on the edge.

  I drag my fingers through her pussy. Soaking wet. Dripping down her thighs.

  I shove my index finger inside her. She screams from the shock and bucks wildly in the chair. I pull out real slow, teasing her. She whimpers, all desperate and needy.

  I hold my finger in front of her face. “Clean it.”

  She opens her mouth and sucks it into her mouth. She’s got some major suction. Every time she’s sucked my cock, it’s been mind-blowing.

  I pull my finger outta her mouth once she’s cleaned off every drop and then settle myself between her legs. I spread her pussy lips apart with both hands, opening her up for me. The more open she is, the more sensitive it’s gonna make her.

  I lean in and lick the length of her pussy.

  She screams at the top of her lungs as I clean her with my tongue. I dip inside her, thrusting deep. I pull out slow and drench her pussy in her own juices. She can’t move, can’t stop what I’m doing to her. She’s just gotta take it. Fucking love having her at my mercy. It has my dick straining against my jeans.

  Reaching up with one hand, I start flicking her nipples. One at a time. Hard.

  “Ah! It’s too much! Ah!”

  “Let it go.”

  I make sure she don’t got a choice, as I go to town on her pussy, fucking her with my tongue, torturing her clit with hard and fast flicks, sucking hard and nipping.

  “Ah! Yes! Smiter! Yes!” she screams, as her orgasm hits her. She bucks in the chair wildly, fighting against her restraints to try to ride my tongue.

  Before she gets the chance to come down from it, I pull a condom packet outta the back pocket of my jeans. I rip it open with my teeth, jerk my jeans down and pull my cock out. Takes me barely a second to roll the condom on.

  And then I’m straddling her and thrusting balls deep inside her.

  It has another orgasm ripping through her.

  I hold on tight to the chair, as I pound into her hard, jerking it across the floor with each brutal thrust.

  I been worked up since I saw her in that alley a couple of hours ago, so it don’t take long ˈtil I’m coming inside her. Long enough by most guy’s standards, but not mine. I got a lot of self-control. We been fooling ˈround for two hours and I’ve kept it together all that time.

  I pull out and climb off the chair. I gently pull the pegs off her nipples and free her from the scarves.

  And then I take off into the bathroom to deal with condom. It’s down the hall at the other end of her condo, right by the front door, but it don’t take me more than two minutes before I’m walking back into the bedroom.

  She’s already covered up in her white, fluffy bathrobe and sitting on the edge of the bed. Her gaze darts to mine. She don’t look happy. “So, I’ll see you around then, right?”

  “Yeah.” I start snatching my clothes up off the floor.

  “At the club birthday party for Rox in a few days, I guess.”

&n
bsp; What? I freeze for a second. Talk about a shock to the system. “You were invited to that?”

  Her eyes narrow. Yeah, my tone was a bit harsh.

  “I’m one of Rox’s best friends. Of course, I was invited,” she snaps back at me.

  “Right, yeah,” I manage in a way softer tone, looking to smooth it over real quick, after my near-fuck up there. “I’ll see you there then.”

  I’ve just fixed my boxers and jeans when she says something that I been dreading for months now.

  “Is this all it’s ever going to be between us?”

  Fuck it to hell and back. I shoulda got dressed faster.

  Last time we had this kinda talk, we got into a hell of a fight. It was up at Ax and Rox’s wedding, months ago. I made sure I didn’t make that same mistake at Runner’s wedding a few weeks back. She’s real hard to resist though, so I ended up fucking her. But, I made sure I stayed outta her way for the rest of the reception, cuz weddings bring out all that relationshit stuff in women. It’s the last thing I want.

  But now… here it is again. It keeps coming back ˈround.

  I pull my t-shirt on over my head and then snatch up my cut and shrug it on. “What you want me to say, Hal? We’re friends, ain’t we?”

  “Friends with benefits.”

  “Fine, yeah. We’re friends who fuck sometimes.”

  “We don’t just fuck, Smiter.”

  “What?”

  “There are feelings here. You care.” I move to say something, but she cuts me off, sliding off the bed and approaching me. “Don’t deny it. You did it again tonight in the alley.”

  “Did what?”

  “Acted like my protector.”

  “Any man woulda done that. Made sure you got home all right. You’re reading into shit.”

  She flinches. A pang of guilt hits me, cuz I’m being a dick. But I can’t have her thinking nothing else, or things are gonna get outta control between us. It’s gonna push us into some sorta relationship and I ain’t ready for that. Gotta shut it down and being harsh is the only way I know to do that, to get through to her. Woman’s fucking stubborn and determined ˈbout everything.

  “Fine,” she mutters.

  “Fine?”

  She huffs and brushes past me, heading for the bedroom door.

  “Where you going?”

  “To take a shower. I want you gone by the time I’m done.”

  “Halle, wait.”

  “There’s nothing to wait for.” She’s outta the bedroom and walking down the hall in the next second.

  “Fuck,” I mutter.

  Don’t want her upset. She’s right, though. We ain’t just fuck buddies. It ain’t all cold and just ˈbout screwing ˈround. There’s something more here. It was possible to ignore at the start. But now we been doing this for months, it’s becoming real hard, especially for her. It’s why I kept away for the last few weeks. I figured some space woulda fixed all that and we could go back to just fucking without nothing else being attached to it. No feelings. No expectations. No wanting more.

  But it didn’t work.

  As soon as I saw her standing there in that alley, I realized how fucking happy I was to see her again and how much I’d missed her.

  I gotta cut this off now. We’re both getting in too deep.

  Can’t let that happen.

  Can’t risk it.

  Can’t be with Halle.

  Can’t offer her no more than a good fuck.

  I don’t got nothing more in me to give. Thought she got that. Laid it all out to her a while back and she’d been fine with it. She didn’t want no strings neither.

  But now something’s changed in her.

  And, cuz of that, I gotta end it.

  Chapter 3

  ~Smiter~

  The room is stone-cold silent.

  It’s the kinda silence that falls right after you pull the trigger and put somebody to ground. When that harsh reality hits you, the weight of what you’ve done. Ripped some fucker’s life away from ˈem and taken on a burden that ain’t gonna leave you. Don’t matter how tough and hardened you are, it stays with you, no matter what. But sometimes, in our world, it can’t be avoided.

  And after what Ax has just revealed, it’s looking like I might be needing to take on another one of ˈem burdens.

  If the rumors are true.

  “Smiter? You still with us, brother?”

  I jerk my head up at the sound of Ax’s voice.

  He’s sitting forward in an armchair opposite the couch I’m lounging on. His eyes are burning into mine. His thick, dark hair’s a wild mess, like he’s been shoving his hands through it over and over. His eyes are bloodshot too, like he ain’t had enough sleep. He looks majorly on edge. Ain’t surprised. In general, being the President of Black Thorns MC ain’t no walk in the park. But when shit hits the fan and we got a crisis on our hands, all bets are off.

  “I’m here,” I tell him.

  I see him exchange a look with Dealer. The guy’s real hard to read. He don’t show no reaction. That ain’t no accident. He plays things real close to his chest. Years of experience under his belt. He used to be Prez of Thorns years back. Now he’s our clean-up guy. Ax goes to him for advice on difficult situations sometimes too. He’s also his wife, Rox’s, old man. Rox used to run the City of Brockford, working protection for businesses here. When she married Ax, she gave all that up and handed it over to Dealer. The problem is, unlike in her case, he’s supposed to be dead, so he can’t be high-profile like she was. He can only work things on the down low, so there ain’t enough of a visible deterrent in Brockford to keep the scumbags at bay no more.

  Looking at him, you’d swear he was still stereotypical club, just missing the cut and patches now. He’s decked out in hard riding leather that’s seen better days. I can even make out a bullet hole in the right arm of his jacket. The guy’s got some serious money, so he could easily afford to upgrade. Ax pays him good coin to cleanup for us and I know he’s got a lot of other lucrative, illegal shit going on too. Contracts. Down ‘n’ dirty stuff that the club don’t wanna know ˈbout now we’re supposed to be legit. We’re sitting in the living room of Dealer’s swanky mansion on the outskirts of Brockford right now, surrounded by some pricey shit. All of us look way outta place sprawled out on his antique furniture, drinking his expensive hard liquor. It’s weird as fuck. Yeah, the guy’s loaded, but for guys like us, it ain’t ˈbout appearances. Worn in leather’s like a second skin to hardcore riders like us. We don’t trade it for nothing.

  “Skinner. Malcolm Kent. Jase Wilkes. Eddie Torvin,” Ax mutters, scrubbing a hand over the rough stubble on his chin.

  I nod. “This city’s a magnet for scum like ˈem.”

  “Worse thing for it was Roxana stepping down,” Dealer comments.

  Damn. Why’d he put that out there? It’s true, but saying it in front of Ax is foolish. Everybody knows how he feels ˈbout it. I tense right up, as Ax jerks his head at him, his jaw tightening, and his eyes sparking with that familiar fury all us club members know from him too well. Here comes that fucking temper. Batten down the goddamn hatches.

  Even Dealer, stoic as he always is, reacts to it, choking on his sip of whiskey when he sees that look in Ax’s eyes, and shifting all nervous in his chair. Yeah, dumbass, you woke the beast.

  “She ain’t coming back in, you feel me?” Ax snaps.

  “Just making a comment,” Dealer says, holding up a hand, like a white flag.

  “Yeah? Try keeping your comments useful, instead of talking ˈbout shit that ain’t never gonna happen. Or, you and me are gonna have a problem. You feel me?”

  Ax is on edge all right. Getting heavy handed with Dealer? Holy shit.

  I know where it’s really coming from. It ain’t just ˈ'bout a rumor of another threat coming the club’s way. It’s the connection to me. He’s worried ˈbout what it’ll do to me, if the rumors turn out to be true ˈbout the identity of the latest fucker threatening Brockford and Thorns. He’d p
robably rather have Skinner rising from the dead. One of the worst things for a club is the Sergeant-at-Arms going off the rails. And that’s exactly what he thinks is gonna go down. Thinks I’m gonna lose it, cuz of what this asshole did, what he took from me. Everything.

  “Yeah,” Dealer says, blowing out a breath. “We’re good here, Ax. Chill, all right?”

  Ax grunts and turns to me. “We don’t know for sure that it’s him yet, Smiter.”

  “Rumor are all pointing to him, ain’t they?”

  “Just rumors.”

  “No smoke without fire in our world,” I remind him.

  “Look, even if it is him, I’m gonna take point on it.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t want you nowhere near it.”

  “How you gonna handle that and your Prez duties?” Dealer cuts in.

  Ax keeps his eyes trained on me. “I’ve been Sergeant -at-Arms before. Know how it works.”

  “Why don’t you let Runner take it?” Dealer suggests.

  Ax shakes his head. “He put in a request a while back. No more dangerous jobs.”

  “Wife put her foot down, huh?”

  “Don’t knock it. It’s good for him. She is. Calmed him right down.”

  “All right,” Dealer relents, realizing Ax ain’t gonna back down. He slumps back against his armchair and takes a swig from his whiskey glass.

  “Smiter, you on board?” Ax asks.

  I start shaking my head, but before I can even open my mouth to explain, he shoots to his feet.

  Great, here come the barked orders.

  He’s ˈbout to lay into me, when rushed footsteps sound down the hall outside the closed living room door.

  The door flies open a second later and Runner bursts on through.

  He gives us all a greeting chin lift, then rounds the couch and slumps down beside me, kicking his feet up on the coffee table with a heavy sigh.

  “Sorry, I’m late. Carter kept Sarah up all night, so I been with him letting her sleep for a bit.”

  “Hey, fucker,” Dealer growls.

  Runner turns his head to him and smiles. “Hey.”

  “Your feet!” Dealer yells, pointing at his muddied boots dirtying the expensive table.