Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  For a second, two seconds, three, four, five, neither of them moved or spoke. Pilar’s heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her jaw.

  “I don’t like to lose,” he spoke low, his head looming over hers. His voice was little more than a growl.

  “I know. Me, either.”

  “You said you didn’t want this.”

  “I know. I was wrong.”

  She could feel tension leaving him slowly; she could see it—his hand relaxed just slightly on the door. “The life I lead…I break the law every fucking day. My life is violent. I am violent. I end plenty of days washing blood away. People I love have been hurt because of what we do. You could get hurt. This life is the wild side.”

  Pilar resisted the urge to lean her head on the door in pure relief. She wasn’t sure there was even a name for the emotion that was swirling through her veins. It wasn’t love; it couldn’t possibly be love already. But it was the thing that eventually became love, whatever that was.

  “I know, Connor. I know who you are.”

  He laughed bitterly and bent down, his mouth right at her ear. “No, you don’t. You can’t know who I am unless you’re in my life. But don’t you fucking tell me you want in and think you can say that and then leave any time, when you decide you were wrong. Don’t jerk me around like that.”

  She turned and leaned back on the wall next to the door. “I’m telling you I know. I grew up on the wild side. We haven’t even started, so I can’t tell you it’s forever right this second. Maybe you won’t want it to be forever. Maybe I won’t. But can’t we even try? If we end, it won’t be because I ran away in fear. Your life doesn’t scare me. I know what you do—more than most. And I know you could get hurt or killed.”

  He was staring down at her with such intensity that her face felt warm. She put a hand on his bare chest, over his heart, and he blinked, once, slowly, and then the heat of his gaze was even stronger.

  She had more to say, though. “Does my life scare you? Every shift is a night I’m away from home. Every day I clock in could be the day I never go home again. Can you handle that?”

  As an answer, he kissed her.

  His mouth came down and covered hers ferociously, and his hand left the door and snagged hold of her hair. His beard strafed her lips, chin, cheeks. He leaned in, onto her, and devoured her.

  And oh shit, it felt good.

  Reeling from the surge and swirl of too many emotions, Pilar at first simply let him kiss her. She couldn’t catch up—but then she did. Her hand was still on his chest; she pushed it up over his shoulder and around to grasp at the back of his head

  Her other hand she slid into his jeans, loving the sound he made as her palm skimmed his hip and then his ass. He rocked his hips, pressing his erection on her belly, and deepened the kiss, forcing her tongue to twist and curl with his.

  And then he broke away, panting. “You work tomorrow?”

  “No,” she gasped. “I go in at seven Sunday morning for a twenty-four.”

  “Thank fucking Christ. Stay here tonight.”

  So excited she almost shouted YES, she caught herself just before the word left her lips. “I can’t”—before she could finish, he pushed away, his forehead creasing angrily, but her hand was caught in his jeans, so he didn’t get far. “Wait. I can’t just fuck you. I’m already feeling…involved. I can’t do fuck buddies with you. Are we more than that?”

  He cocked his head, the anger leaving his face again. “Isn’t that why you came here?”

  “Yeah. But you confuse me. I need to be clear. Are we serious now?”

  “I confuse you?” He laughed and brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek; it was a little tender from Tina’s fist, but not bad, and his touch was light. She thought maybe this sweep of his fingers was the first simply gentle touch they’d had. “Cordero, I’m in fucking knots. Yeah. We’re serious.”

  “Exclusive, then. Just you and me. No more girls.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “No more handsy firefighters, either.”

  She actually stomped her foot. “Fuck! I don’t fuck Moore. We never have. We tried once and it was just weird, like macking on a sibling. He is no threat to you.”

  “Well, that’s true. I could tear that bastard into quarters.” She hit his chest in frustration, and he laughed. “Okay, I get it.” He reached for her belt buckle and started undoing her jeans. “So nobody else. Exclusive. And you’re away half the week. Awesome.”

  As he started to pull her jeans off her hips, she grabbed his hand. “You can deal with that, right?”

  “Can I stop by for a fuck on a fire engine? Saw that in an old movie once—up on the hoses.”

  Fucking Backdraft. “No, we are not going to fuck on an engine.”

  “That’s not your kink, either, huh?”

  “No.” He was focused on her jeans again, so she lifted his chin and made him look her in the eyes. “My kink is I like to be hurt a little.”

  He went still. “What?”

  “Relax. Nothing crazy. I don’t want to get beat up or bruised or cut or whatever. But you already know I like it rough. I like hard touch, especially when I’ve got bad shit in my head—it’s why I tried to get you to fight me that night in the storeroom. I like to be moved around. I also like to be tied up and…well, I have some toys I like when I am.”

  “That hurt you.”

  “That are hard touch.” Shit, was that the thing he couldn’t deal with? “It’s nothing I need. Just something I like.”

  He shook his head. “Everybody needs to fuck the way they like. Especially if you need it to come off bad feelings.”

  She stood straight, ready to pull her jeans up. Her stomach lurched in the tempest of emotions she’d been sailing through all night. “Is that too much for you?”

  “No.” He answered right away, but not like he was jumping the gun; that was something. “I just never…I saw vibrators in your drawer. I’ve used those on women before. That’s about it.” He pulled her hands from her jeans. “But I’m a quick study.”

  With that, he pulled her jeans and panties down to her ankles and knelt at her feet. With her jeans binding her, she couldn’t spread her legs, but that didn’t stop him. He circled his hands around her knees and pulled, getting her to unlock them. Then he grasped her hips and leaned forward, sliding his tongue between her folds, over her clit and then back again.

  “Fuck, Cordero, you taste sweet.”

  “Pilar. Call me Pilar.”

  He looked up. “What? I thought you wanted me to—”

  With a shake of her head, she stopped his words. “Not anymore.”

  “You are one confusing chick. But okay. Pilar it is. Again.” He grinned. “I like it, by the way. It’s sexy.” Before she could respond, he leaned back in and went to work.

  He had no trouble locating her clit and stayed right on it, flicking the tip of his tongue and dragging its flat surface over that small knot of nerves again and again, varying the touch in ways she couldn’t predict. She shot up like a bullet to the brink, and then he perched her there, kept her on the precipice, his fingers digging into her hips, his beard rasping over her thighs, her mound. She trembled there for an eternity, until her body was literally trembling. And then, with a chuckle, he stopped playing around and got her off. He flicked his tongue firmly over her clit, with fierce determination, until she thought she might die, and then the release finally came.

  She grabbed hold of his head as sparks of pure pleasure fired her body. She could hear her moans and squeals—oh God, there were squeals; she’d be embarrassed about that later—resound in the room. She rarely made noise when she came; she tended to get quiet. She must have had a lot of pent-up need. Well, hell yeah, she did. She hadn’t been fucked in two weeks!

  As she settled, she expected him to stop. She needed him to stop. But he didn’t. He kept going, paying the same dedicated, forceful attention to that tiny, painfully over-stimulated cluster. His hands were clenched so
tightly around her hips that they ached. Too much. Too much. Oh shit, too much.

  But she didn’t stop him. Because she knew this thing, how it would play out, what the discomfort she was feeling now, the way her body tried of its own will to escape him, rocking back against his tightening hold, what it all would lead to. So she held on to his head and let him continue.

  The pain really was, for those first moments, nearly unbearable. But then it wasn’t. And immediately after the pain was gone, an orgasm twice as intense as the first landed on her like an anvil.

  She howled, a feral, insane sound. And this time, when her body had completely escaped her control and she collapsed on him in a spasming heap, he stood and kissed her again, filling her head with her own taste and scent.

  Then he picked her up and dropped her on the bed in another heap.

  He stripped, laying his kutte over the chair she’d been sitting in earlier. When he came naked back to the bed, she hadn’t moved. She was too exhausted. It was possible that she hadn’t even had a thought.

  So, still without saying a word, he stripped her, pulling off her boots and socks, her jeans and underwear, her top and bra. She lay and let him move her. When he rolled her to her belly and pulled her hips up high, she pushed her knees under, presenting her ass to him.

  He left her to go to his dresser. With her head on the bed, she watched him dig out a condom and roll it on. When he returned, he squatted at the side of the bed, face to face with her. “You have to tell me what you don’t want. I’ve never thought about how to do something like this. I’m just making this up as I go.”

  “I’ll tell you. But you know what to do. Just…go hard.”

  “You have a whatever—safe word or something?”

  She laughed into the covers. “How about ‘stop.’”

  He laughed, too. “The old standard. Right.” As he got up, he kissed her shoulder. Then he went to the end of the bed, leaned over and grabbed her wrists. He pulled them behind her and crossed them on the small of her back. She could feel him wrap one of his big hands around both her wrists.

  “Oh, yes,” she gasped. “Yeah, this is good.”

  She heard his chuckle as he pushed his cock over her totally exposed pussy, letting it brush up and down a few times. “You are fucking amazing, Pilar.”

  With that, he pushed into her—one motion, balls deep. He was big, and balls deep for him was really fucking deep. Pilar gasped and clenched around him, and he made that growly sound again, deep in his chest. Then, with his free hand, he reached out and grabbed her hair.

  Holding her like that, one hand restraining her arms, the other pulling her head sharply back by her hair, he began to thrust. And he went for it from the first thrust.

  He drove into her again and again, so hard she had to close her eyes, because the sight of the room bouncing around made her woozy. The room was alive with sound: the slap of skin as their bodies slammed together, the wet suck of his cock moving in and out of her grasping pussy, his wild, vicious grunts every time he landed deep, her rough gasps echoing his.

  Her scalp ached where he had hold of her hair. Her hands tingled from his punishing grip, and her shoulders protested the way they were wrenched back. She could still feel the impressions of his fingers on her hips.

  And oh, God, oh fuck, oh sweet Jesus, it was so motherfucking good.

  “Connor, fuck—fuck—” she wanted to say something to let him know how fantastic he felt, but she couldn’t think enough words.

  He froze. “Okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she gasped. ‘I didn’t say stop. God, keep going.”

  His laugh sounded strained and desperate. “Fuckin’ hell, baby. You got me crazy.” He released her hair and pushed her shoulders to the bed as he began again, moving even faster now.

  When Pilar came, she felt it in every joint and muscle, one huge clench and release that had her chewing on the bunched covers. She felt her juices running freely from her, through her folds, down her legs.

  “Thank fuck! Jesus God, you’re tight when you come!” With that, Connor came. She felt him arching back, his hips pressing against her, his cock as deep as it could possibly go.

  When he was finished, he let her hands go and pulled slowly out of her. As he disposed of the condom, Pilar rolled to her back and stretched out, rubbing her wrists and rolling her shoulders.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked as he sat on the bed at her side.

  “Only in the good ways.” She smiled and brushed her hand over his thickly muscled thigh. “You have a fantastic body.”

  He laughed and sat back against the wall at the head of the bed. “Thanks. You know what I think of yours.”

  “We should work out together sometime. Do you run?”

  “Only if somebody’s chasing me. I lift. Do some core shit, knock the heavy bag around some.”

  “No cardio?”

  With a grin and a shrug, he answered, “People chase me often enough.”

  She laughed outright. When she raked her hand through her hair, he caught a hank of it before it fell back, and watched as it coiled around his finger. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that—that, in fact, had probably truly been the first way he’d ever touched her with real gentleness. “I’d like to watch you lift.”

  He met her eyes. “Likewise. We got a weight room here. Nice and close to this bed. For after.”

  “You’re on. Not tonight, though.”

  “No, not tonight. I’m not letting you out of this room or anywhere near clothes until breakfast. But soon.”

  “You can show me how many pull-ups you can do.” She raised an arm and bent it in a flex, tightening her muscles.

  He wrapped his hand around it. “Nice. But I can do more than you.” He flexed his huge arm, thick as her thigh.

  “Care to wager?”

  He rolled over on top of her and propped on his elbows. Those biceps swelled on either side of her. “Stakes?”

  She thought for a few seconds. “If I win, you have to do karaoke at The Deck. In that Karaoke Idol thing at the end of the month”

  “What?” His eyes went wide.

  “Scared? Not a lot of confidence in yourself, I guess.”

  “Fuck you. You’re on. But if I win, we fuck on the fire engine.”

  She shook her head. “We really can’t, Connor. In that movie, remember, a call came in while they were up there? They played it funny, but it’s actually really bad. It could slow the line down, get somebody killed.”

  “Okay, okay, hero.” He kissed her, pressing soft, light kisses to her lips, her jaw, her throat. “If I win…you have to…do that karaoke idol thing at The Deck.”

  That deserved a slap, so she whacked his shoulder. “Lame.”

  “Wait. I wasn’t done. You have to do that song about touching yourself.”

  “What?”

  “You know, that old thing, ‘When I think about you…’” He sang the line—in a nice, smooth baritone.

  “The Divinyls? No fucking way. How do you even know that song? I can’t imagine it’s your genre.”

  “My mom liked it when I was a kid. She used to sing it around the house. When I understood it, I was retroactively traumatized.” Full of gentle touches now, he brushed her nose with his. “Scared? Don’t think you can beat me?”

  “If I have to sing that one, then so do you.”

  “Ah-ah-ah. I already agreed to your terms. You didn’t specify, so I get to pick. If you lose, you have to sing that one. To my brothers.”

  “Jerk.” But she was smiling as she said it. She was happier and more relaxed in this moment than she’d been in a while.

  “You could just concede the point.”

  “No way. I’ll take your bet, because I’m gonna win.”

  “We’ll, see, baby. We’ll see.”

  She could feel that he was hard again. Bringing her knees up along his hips, she whispered, “Show me something else right now.”

  He shifted until his lips hovered o
ver a nipple. “I can show you that all night.”

  That confidence, at least, was not misplaced.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When Connor woke the next morning, he experienced an unfamiliar sense of disorientation. And he was sore, too—his thighs and back particularly. He opened his eyes carefully, trying to figure out where he was and what had happened.

  He was in his own room. So why was his whole body on alert? What the hell?

  And then his brain woke up. Fuck—Cordero. Pilar.