Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3)

by Susan Fanetti

  She was lying on her stomach at his side, the cover slanted over her back and hip, her hair fanned out in a dark, wavy mass.

  His cock was extremely happy to find her there.

  But he needed to think. So he closed his eyes again and lay still, ignoring the complaints of his body. At least now he knew why he was sore, because damn. They’d done some Olympian kind of fucking.

  And now she was his girl? Just like that? He needed to think.

  In this head, he turned over the events of the night before. Just a typical Friday night. He’d been in a foul mood most of the day, and he’d almost bailed on the party and just gone to his folks’ house to crash there in the quiet. His dad had left just before nine, as had become his custom over the past year or so.

  He’d been sitting there at the bar, watching the crowd, trying to decide if he had really come to the point in his life where he was leaving a party at nine on a Friday night. Because that would have been a depressing state of affairs.

  There had been some new girls, but for the first time in a long time, the thought of playing the seduction game with a nineteen-year-old just made him feel tired. And old. Also a depressing state of affairs. But then Tina had slunk up and handed him a fresh beer. She was still fairly new but had been around long enough, and consistently enough, to be considered under their protection, on the roster.

  He’d decided that what he needed was a simple, straightforward, uncomplicated fuck.

  Then Pilar had stormed into the Hall, and those adjectives had become meaningless. Nothing about what had happened after that was simple, straightforward, uncomplicated.

  And now she was his girl.

  He opened his eyes. She hadn’t moved, and he fought the urge to reach out and sink his fingers into that wild hair.

  She was his girl. Did he want that?

  After a couple of aborted attempts at relationships, each of which ending dramatically, with the woman he loved, or thought he could love, deciding he was a monster and running as fast as she could from him, Connor had put some effort into building a life that didn’t require that kind of connection. Allie, the woman he’d actually loved, had really loved…fuck. She’d left in the middle of the Perro bullshit. The club had had to threaten her. She hadn’t known much; Connor was of the mind that club women should not ask questions. But she’d known enough to know that a threat to go to the cops would get a rise out of him. He and his father had forcibly moved her away and threatened her family to keep her quiet.

  That was the kind of man he was. The kind of man who would threaten a woman’s family to keep his own safe.

  But Pilar insisted that she knew him, knew his life. That she understood. And that was the thing: he wanted her to understand. He wanted to believe that she could. He couldn’t get her out of his head.

  So now the question: did he want to lay himself open like that again? For this woman?

  She was demanding and argumentative. She had a troublesome family, a troublesome history. She was strong and smart. She was funny. She was cynical, but she believed in heroes. She fucking was a hero. She was hotheaded. She was gorgeous. She wanted to be hurt, overtaken, but she was proud of her own strength. She was fucking complicated, a puzzle through and through, from the wavy hair on her head to the little, horseshoe-shaped birthmark on her ankle.

  She was his bottom that came on like a top.

  She was his girl. No—she was his woman.

  Did he want that?

  Yeah, he did.

  He scooted closer and put his arm around her. She stirred, moaned quietly, and then rolled to her side, pulling his arm more tightly. Curled around her in that way, Connor felt relaxed and cozy. He felt trusted.

  So he ignored his swollen cock. He closed his eyes, tucked his head against his woman’s shoulder, and went back to sleep.

  ~oOo~

  He woke again in the middle of an intensely erotic dream, so vivid that his body was moving, and even after he woke, he could feel the touch of soft hands on his cock.

  No…no…that was no dream. Pilar had turned to face him and had been jacking him off in his sleep.

  Oh, Christ, he was close. He groaned and clutched her shoulder.

  “Hey.” Her voice was sultry and smiling. “Finally. I thought you were gonna come and never even wake up.”

  She didn’t need to know how close that was to true. He smiled and brushed her hair back from her face. “This is assault, you know—taking advantage of me while I sleep.”

  “You want me to stop?” The sincerity of her question was compromised by the way her hands clenched and pulled.

  “No, no,” he groaned. “Assault away.”

  Shifting, she pushed him to lie on his back, and then she moved downward on the bed. When she took his cock into her mouth, sucking him down, he reached up and grabbed the pillow, taking handfuls on either side of his head.

  Just as he thought he was going to go, she backed off and attended to his balls instead, laving them with her tongue, sucking each one fully into her mouth. His muscles twitched and contracted as though an electric charge had been applied, and he could feel his sack tighten against her tongue. He couldn’t take this.

  “Baby, come on.”

  “You want to come?”

  What did she think? “Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Come on.”

  He wasn’t going to come unless she was on his cock directly. Even as a kid, he’d never had wet dreams. He’d had crazily erotic dreams and woken up feeling like he was having a dick hernia or something, but he’d always had to jack off to get relief. So while she was down there smiling up at him, lightly licking his balls, all she was doing was making him absolutely fucking crazy.

  “How bad do you want it?”

  He lifted his head off the pillow. “What the fuck?”

  She grinned, seemingly unaffected by his distress. “Beg for it.”

  “What?” Even to him, his voice sounded almost panicky. What was her game?

  “Say please.”

  Oh. Sure, yeah, okay. Whatever. “Please. Please, baby.”

  Her grin was utterly debauched. She shifted again, moving over to kneel between his legs. Hovering over him, she pressed her tits together around his cock and rocked back and forth, bending her head to suck and lick at his tip as she jacked him off with her tits.

  It wasn’t the first time a woman had gotten him off that way. There had been a club girl a while back, Ember, who’d been known for it. But there was something about seeing Pilar like that that…Shit-Christ-Fuck-GOD. He came explosively, his back arching, but she moved with him, stayed on him, finishing him completely.

  When he relaxed, she smiled up at him, a drop of his semen at the corner of her pretty mouth. And that was the hottest thing he’d ever seen in his life.

  Then her tongue darted out and lapped it up, and THAT was the hottest thing he’d ever seen in his life. He was already hard again.

  When she noticed that, she cocked an eyebrow at him.

  He sat up, grabbed her, rolled them over, and fucked the absolute shit out of her.

  ~oOo~

  They were lazing together after that, catching her breath, when Pilar said, “We didn’t use a condom.”

  Connor rose up on an elbow and looked down at her. “Damn.” She was right. He never forgot a condom, but he had this time. It hadn’t even occurred to him. He should at least have noticed the different feel, but he’d missed that completely. It had been a raw, fast, hard, mindless fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “It’s cool, don’t panic.” she said, brushing her fingers over the furrows in his brow. “I’ll go by the pharmacy on my way home. But we should talk about health. Do you get tested? I do—it’s a thing with my job, because we come in contact with bodily fluids. I’m clean. How about you? You’ve stuck your dick all over town, so please tell me you get tested.”

  He felt defensive and insulted. “I always use a condom.”

  “Not always, you don’t.” Pilar pushed him back and sat up. “Jesus, Co
nnor. Seriously? You don’t get tested?”

  “The girls here do. And I wrap up.”

  “You don’t just fuck the ‘girls here,’ whatever that means, though. And we just now didn’t use a condom. God! I can’t believe I just gave you head!”

  Now she really was insulting him. He got up off the bed and turned to glare down at her. “I’m not fucking dirty! This is the only time since the last time I had a serious thing that I haven’t wrapped up. And it’s not like I’ve been slamming every skank in the Inland Empire. Jesus Christ!”

  She stood up, too, and they stared at each other across the bed. They were both naked; Connor felt naked in more than just his body. What the hell was happening here?

  But then Pilar took a deep breath. “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be mean. I’m just freaking out a little now. I don’t forget the condom.”

  “Like I said, neither do I.” He gave her a wary look; he felt wary.

  “Will you get tested? Please?”

  “Will you get on some other kind of birth control? The Pill or something?”

  “Yeah. That’s a good idea.” She smiled. “I wish I’d been paying more attention—I bet you felt amazing without the condom.”

  He was still mad, but he couldn’t help it: he smiled, too. “How’d we miss that?”

  Sweeping her hands down the length of her naked torso, over her firm tits, her sculpted belly, her tight hips, Pilar answered, “I guess you’re just that hot for this bod.”

  Indeed he was, and his anger evaporated. He grabbed his stiffening cock. “And you for this one.”

  They stared at each other, touching themselves, and the bed between them seemed to take on a magnetic pull. But then Pilar shook her head. “I can’t go again. I need a break. Like food and water.”

  Laughing, Connor checked the clock on his dresser. “It’s 10:30. There’s probably breakfast out there. But there are probably still passed-out bodies, too.”

  “If there’s coffee and maybe a piece of bread, it’ll feel like Thanksgiving.” She tipped her head to the side and gave him a hooded look. “Then a shower after?”

  “You’re on. I’ll scrub you up good.”

  ~oOo~

  Surprisingly, the Hall was fairly empty. Jesse and Tina were sleeping on a sofa in a mostly-naked heap, and Fargo was passed out alone in a chair. Keanu, the most recent patch, was awake, playing a video game with the sound low. Empty bottles and full ashtrays lay everywhere, but for a Saturday morning, it didn’t look too bad.

  Connor had noticed this happening: the Horde were settling down. Of fourteen patched members, six—Hoosier, Bart, Diaz, J.R., Muse, and Demon—had old ladies, and he hadn’t known any of them to stray. Well, J.R. and Diaz made use of the run rule—what happened on a run stayed on the run—but that didn’t count. Those men tended to leave most parties early and sober. And he guessed he was joining their ranks—though it was too soon to be sure. That cut the available Horde in half.

  Pilar looked around as they came into the Hall, but she didn’t seem more than vaguely curious. He turned and led her straight into the kitchen, where there was hot coffee, some kind of muffins cooling in trays, and the sizzle of bacon frying.

  His mother ran the clubhouse and the women on the roster. He’d never really bothered to understand how and why women were available to the members. He knew that there were women who were considered part of the club, ‘on the roster,’ as they called it, and he knew who they were, mainly because somebody always had some gossip when a new girl joined. They were fair game for the men. Most of them had jobs, but they had responsibilities here, too: in addition to putting out exclusively for the Horde, they cooked meals and cleaned the clubhouse, dorm and all. They weren’t paid. They got club protection and a place to be, and that was it.

  This morning, Marie, who was kind of his mother’s assistant manager, and Sharon were in the kitchen. Sharon was a friend of Tina’s, and she gave Pilar a nasty look. Connor stopped and stared at her until she met his eyes. Her look went from nasty to nervous, and then her eyes shifted away. Good.

  “Hey, Connor,” Marie said, looking over her shoulder from the stove. “Hungry?” She didn’t address Pilar; she wouldn’t unless Connor made it clear he wanted her to.

  “Yeah. Smells great. Marie, this is Pilar.” To Pilar he said, “Help yourself to breakfast, baby.”

  Marie and Sharon both stopped and gaped. Then Marie recovered and gave Pilar a smile. “Hi. We have a big vat of great coffee, the muffins are fresh blueberry or cinnamon crinkle. And there’s OJ in the fridge. Bacon’s up if you like it floppy. Couple more minutes for crisp.”

  “Uh, thanks. Thanks.” Pilar turned to Connor. He got the sense that she wasn’t comfortable talking to the girls. “Coffee, I guess. Mugs?”

  He squeezed her hand and let it go. “I’ll hook you up. Grab a muffin and have a seat.” As he headed to the coffee pot, he nodded at the big island, one side of which was lined with stools.

  While they ate and drank, not doing much talking, Trick came into the room, dressed in baggy track pants and nothing else. He rubbed his hand over the blond scruff on his head, which was growing out a little. Wouldn’t be able to call him Velcro-head much longer. “Morning.”

  “Hey. You sleep here alone last night?”

  “Nah. Just sent her home. She was trying us out last night.”

  “And you’re the one gave her the tour?”

  “Fuck you, man. Chicks dig me.”

  “I can see that,” Pilar interjected. “You’ve got the brainy-hot thing going. And a real nice ottermode look. And the ink and piercings are cool.” Trick had a pierced ear and a pierced nipple, the freak. Pilar squinted, and Connor was about to protest that she was looking too fucking hard, but then she sat back. “Some of the ink looks like etchings from old books.”

  Trick grinned. “They are. Most people don’t see that.”

  “They’re cool. I’m Cordero, by the way.”

  “Cordero?”

  “Last name. Most people I know use it.”

  Connor turned and looked hard at her. Should he have introduced her to the girls as Cordero? The name thing confused him. Even something small like what to call her was complicated.

  Holding out his tattooed hand, Trick said, “Well, good to know you, Cordero. I’m Trick. I’ve seen you around, at The Deck.” As they shook, he turned to Connor. “Will we be seeing her around here more?”

  He fought to keep a stupid grin off his face. “Think so.”

  “Well, goddamn.”

  ~oOo~

  A few days later, Connor led Pilar into the Horde weight room. He’d made sure that the Hall was empty. Most of the guys were working one job or another, and he’d sent the Prospects off on a bullshit errand. He did not want an audience while this chick, his woman, with that body, got sweaty in tiny workout clothes.

  Because all she wore to work out in were tight little shorts and one of those sport bra things.

  After spending that Saturday together, mainly fucking and resting, and an errand to CVS, they hadn’t seen each other since. She’d worked two days, and the other two days, the Horde had been on a run to Oakland for La Zorra.

  He’d used one of his days home alone to do what she’d asked—to get tested. Though he’d been sure he was fine, it had been a strange thing to wait even a day for the proof. Being tested pried open the door to a question he’d never bothered to consider before. But he was clean, as he’d known he would be.

  And Pilar was going on the Pill. A few more days, and he would be paying better attention when he fucked her naked.

  Her job was yet another complication. Besides not seeing her enough, now that his dick had a leash, all their talk about forgetting the condom, and emergency contraception, and the Pill had caused him to realize that a pregnant firefighter—hell, a firefighter mom—was problematic. For him, at least.

  Now that he was in, he was in. And if they did stick, he wanted kids. No way he was bringing that u
p yet, though. For now, he was just glad to have some time with her.

  After he won this silly bet and proved to her that a strong woman was awesome, but a strong man was stronger, he was going to spend the rest of the day in bed with her, using up the rest of his condoms. Because he wouldn’t see her again until she was, as he’d joked to her, childproofed.

  He’d asked Trick to be in the weight room with them, because, according to Pilar, they needed an impartial witness. Like she didn’t trust him. He felt like he should be insulted that she was so sure his best friend wouldn’t be on his side, but she was right—he’d be impartial.