HAWK (Lords of Carnage MC)

by Daphne Loveling

  When there’s nothing left underneath the sink, he gets on all fours and leans in. “No jokes about plumber’s ass,” he says, his tone mock-serious.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I say. I’m relieved that the tension from a few seconds ago seems to be gone. Luckily, Hawk definitely does not have plumber’s butt. He does have… quite a nice butt, though. I stand awkwardly behind him as he works, trying not to notice just how nice it is. Unfortunately, having him there with his back to me gives me plenty of time to really get a good look at his sculpted, powerful body. He reaches toward the sink with one arm, and his gray T-shirt rides up just a bit, exposing a line of tanned skin at his waist. Even with just that little bit exposed, I can easily see how muscled his back is. A flash of color gives me just a glimpse of intricate tattoos on his torso. I find myself wondering what they look like. Whether they ripple with his muscles when he moves.

  Whether they follow the curves of his tapered waist.

  How far down the tattoos go.

  What it would feel like to touch his hard abs, and slide my fingers against the heat of his skin…

  “So, you live here with your grandma?” Hawk asks, his voice echoing slightly under the sink.

  With a jolt, my traitorous mind registers that he just asked me a question.

  “Um, yes. Well, in the carriage house behind the main house.” I point out the kitchen window, even though he can’t see me. “I’ve been here for almost six months now.”

  “That explains why I never saw you before Ghost and Jenna’s wedding,” he observes. “You sticking around for good?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “At first I was just here temporarily, but I’m doing pretty well with my photography here, so I might stay for a while and see how it goes.”

  Hawk doesn’t say anything in reply. For a few moments, there’s silence between us.

  “So, how do you know Lourdes?” I ask then, a little too brightly. My voice comes out slightly strangled-sounding, but Hawk doesn’t seem to notice.

  “Her dad and my dad were good friends when I was a little kid,” he tells me. “Before Dad moved away. And her younger sister was in my grade at school.” He pulls himself out of the opening and looks at his hand, which is slightly wet. “I think her parents were sort of hoping that Lulu’s sister and I would end up together, for a while.”

  “Oh.”

  So, Lourdes’s sister dated Hawk in high school? Or maybe her parents just wanted them to date? Ridiculously, I find myself hoping it’s the latter. For God’s sake, Sam, you can’t be jealous. Don’t be an idiot.

  And I’m not jealous. Not really, I mean. But after all, you’d have to be blind not to see how um, attractive Hawk is. I’m sure he doesn’t have any trouble getting attention from women. It’s probably what makes him so damn cocky, I think crossly.

  So yeah, I’m not jealous. Just maybe a little irritated that he probably has the same mesmerizing effect on most women that he seems to be having on me.

  It’s not fair, really.

  Suppressing a frustrated sigh, I try to pull myself back and just appreciate his beauty objectively. Like a sculpture, or something.

  A hot sculpture.

  “It looks like this is a pretty easy fix,” Hawk says, interrupting my thoughts. He pulls himself out of the space and looks at me. “I just need to shut off the water and replace the gasket.”

  Hawk finds the valve to shut off the water, and I show him out to the garage where the tools are kept. He chooses what he needs and we come back into the kitchen. Part of me wants to ask him to show me what he’s doing: it pisses me off that I don’t know how to do something as useful as this. But the thought of being that close to him makes me nervous, so I don’t.

  I let him work for a while in silence, admiring the way the muscles in his arms flex as he wields the wrench.

  “Thank you for doing this,” I say lamely.

  “No problem,” he says, glancing up at me. “I told you, I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”

  A few more moments pass.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Shoot.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Kaden. McCullough.”

  I turn the sounds over in my mind.

  “Why do they call you Hawk, then?”

  He stops what he’s doing for a moment and looks at me. His eyes are dark, unreadable. “Hawks are predators,” he says simply. “ Once they have a target in sight, nothing stops them.”

  I swallow nervously. “Oh,” I say again.

  I don’t know what kind of target he means. But I’m a little frightened of him right now.

  And also a little turned on.

  “Okay. Go turn on the water,” Hawk murmurs, breaking into my thoughts. I do as I’m told, then come back into the kitchen. He runs the faucet for a minute or so, and grabs a dry towel from the counter to check whether there’s still a drip.

  “I think we’re good,” he says finally, pulling himself up and getting to his feet.

  “Thanks again,” I murmur as I watch him take his leather vest and pull it on over his shirt. “What do I owe you for the part?”

  He snorts softly. “Nothing. It hardly cost anything.” Looking down at the pile of stuff on the floor, he murmurs, “I’ll help you put this back.”

  “No,” I interrupt him. “I’ll get it. You’ve been so helpful already. Your work is done here.”

  He nods. “Okay.”

  An awkward silence grows between us as I just stand there looking at him. I should just thank him and walk him to the front door. But I can’t seem to move, or talk, with his eyes on mine. A second passes, and then another. My face flushes hot, from embarrassment or desire I’m not sure. His eyes seem to darken, and it feels like he’s getting closer to me even though he hasn’t moved a step. Finally, I manage to drag my eyes away from his, and turn my head toward the front door.

  “Well,” I begin, my voice strangely hoarse. “I guess I…”

  At that moment, the sound of the side door opening off the porte-cochère cuts me off. A few seconds later, Gram’s voice calls out.

  “Lourdes?”

  “I, uh, think she’s upstairs,” I call back. My eyes flicker to Hawk.

  “This should be interesting,” he murmurs.

  Gram appears in the entryway to the kitchen. “Samantha,” she begins, and then she stops short.

  “Who is this person?” she says icily, staring at Hawk. Her eyes go not to his face, but to his tattoos and leather vest.

  “This is, um, Hawk,” I say lamely. “He just fixed the sink for us.”

  Gram’s face is a mask of displeasure. “Why didn’t you bring in one of our normal plumbers?”

  Because no one wants to work for you. “No one was available. So Hawk generously offered to help us out of a bind.” I give Gram a pleading look. “Wasn’t that nice of him?”

  Gram sniffs. “Well, I certainly hope you didn’t leave him alone. I don’t want to find out later that anything’s missing from the house.”

  I’m mortified. “Oh, my God, Gram!”

  But Hawk actually looks amused.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Jennings,” he replies. “Your décor doesn’t really match mine. There’s not a lot here I can coordinate with human skulls and pentagrams.”

  Gram gives him a sour look, like she can’t figure out if he’s serious. Finally, she seems to decide that he’s making fun of her.

  “Please leave my house,” she says simply, and turns away.

  “No worries,” he says easily. “You have a nice day, now.”

  “I’m so sorry about Gram,” I babble as I follow him out. “I mean, it’s not surprising that’s how she reacted, but it was completely out of line.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s not exactly the first time an old lady has pulled her handbag closer when she saw me walk by.” We reach the front door and he pushes it open. “I’ll see you,” he says simply.

  As he str
ides down the walk, I watch him go, a low ebb of something like longing in my stomach.

  I turn back inside and put everything back under the sink, getting angrier by the second at my grandmother. When I’m done, I go looking for her, and eventually find her in the sitting room.

  “Gram, that was so rude of you!” I fume. “He fixed the sink for free. You ought to be grateful.”

  “I’d be grateful if you didn’t bring thugs into my house, Samantha,” Gram scowls.

  “If it wasn’t for that thug, I would have had to fix the sink myself. Every single person I called this morning said they were booked up.” I look her in the eye. “And you know what? I don’t think they actually were booked up. I think they just didn’t want to work for you, Gram.”

  Her eyes narrow in anger, but I’m not done.

  “Not everyone exists to bow to your wishes, you know,” I inform her. “Hawk did something legitimately nice for us. The very least you could have done was thank him for the favor, and not insult him. You called him a thug, but he acted with more class than you did.”

  And then, because I’m afraid what else will come out of my mouth if I continue to stand there, I turn on my heel and walk out the back door toward the carriage house.

  I go inside and slam the door, my emotions rioting inside me. I’m fuming at my grandmother and embarrassed at what Hawk must think of her. And of me.

  Every time I think I’ve figured Hawk out — every time I think I’ve got his number — he does something to knock me off balance. He’s infuriatingly cocky and crass. The first time I met him, he said filthy things, and seemed to enjoy making me angry. Even when he saved me from potentially injuring myself at Jenna’s wedding, he had to ruin it by acting like a pig afterward. And then, just when he managed to get my body to respond to him even though I was trying like hell to resist him, he dropped me like I was on fire and walked away.

  So why, after all that, did he volunteer to come fix Gram’s kitchen sink? He took time out of his day to help me when I needed it. And what’s more, it didn’t even seem like he expected anything in return.

  I feel like there’s more to Hawk than I first thought. But damned if I can figure out what it is.

  Sighing, I shake my head and resolve to put him out of my head. I’m walking into my little kitchen to get a glass of water when there’s a light rap on my front door. Oh great. Gram’s sent Lourdes to bring me back for another tongue lashing. I almost don’t answer, but then realize I don’t want to put Lourdes in the middle of anything by refusing to go over. Not bothering to look out the window, I turn the knob and yank the door open.

  Standing on the other side is Hawk.

  “I told you I’d see you,” he growls, taking a step toward me.

  11

  Hawk

  I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here.

  No, that’s not true. I know exactly what I’m doing here. But I’m a fucking idiot for doing it.

  Samantha’s look of surprise when she opens the door should snap me out of it. I should make some excuse, like I left something inside her grandmother’s house, and let her go look for it so I can get my shit together and leave.

  But after an hour of being alone with Samantha, any resolve I possessed just flew out the goddamn window. It started when I offered to come over and fix her sink for her, and she bit that damn lower lip of hers as she tried to decide whether to let me. I spent the whole time in her grandmother’s kitchen battling a raging hard-on and trying to act like I was just doing all this out of the goodness of my heart.

  I almost even had myself convinced.

  I take a step toward her. For just a second, her eyes flicker, and I think that maybe I’ve read her wrong — that she hasn’t been sending me signals the whole damn time I’ve been here. But then, her lips part, just a little, and I see her chest rise as she takes in a quick, shallow breath.

  Even if she doesn’t know it yet, her body’s waiting for me.

  The hard-on I’ve been fighting throbs against my zipper as I take another step, crossing the threshold. She takes a small step back, but it’s not to get away from me. It’s to let me in.

  My hand comes up to fist in her hair. Her eyes flutter, half-closing. Her head tilts back, and my mouth comes down on hers.

  God. She tastes sweet. Her lips are soft and pliant, opening to mine without complaint. My tongue finds hers, and she moans into my mouth softly. Her arms twine around my neck, her body molding to mine. It’s like a goddamn explosion has gone off inside me. I want everything at once — I want her every way I can think of, and I can think of a lot of ways.

  I kick the door closed and walk her backward, one hand still in her hair and the other pulling her hard against me. Blindly, because I’ve never been here before, I press her against what turns out to be a heavy dining room table. It moves slightly against our weight. I think about laying her down on it and taking her, and instantly my cock is hard as a steel pipe.

  Up until now, the only thing on my mind is getting off — because even though I’ve been trying as hard as I can to put Samantha out of my mind for the last week, that doesn’t mean I haven’t jacked off thinking about her more times than I can count. But then I slide my hand up under her shirt and my thumb brushes against her nipple, and Samantha throws back her head and moans. And in that instant, something shifts, and all I want to do is hear that sound again. I want to hear her whisper my name. I want to hear her beg. I want to feel her shudder against me as she comes.

  My mouth crashes down on hers again, devouring her, as my hand reaches behind her and undoes her bra. I push under it and graze my thumb against her nipple again, swallowing her whimper. I pinch, and my cock tightens even more when she reaches up to grip my arms. Her hips writhe against me.

  I push Samantha back so she’s lying on the table, her legs gripping around my waist. She moans again, angling her hips so that my hardness is pressed against her softness. She’s just as turned on as I am, and I can’t wait to send her over the fucking edge. Sliding her shirt up, I bend down and take one breast into my mouth, sucking and biting at the taut bud as she squirms and cries out. Her hands fly to my head, clutching at my hair. I continue to tease and suck at her, my hips bucking almost involuntarily against her hot center. I hear a crash as one of the dining room chairs topples over. Samantha’s breath hitches in her throat.

  A soft but persistent knock on the door threads its way through the silence after the crash.

  “Shit!” Samantha hisses.

  “What?” My mouth is traveling down the soft skin of her stomach toward the promised land, and I’m not about to stop now. But Samantha pushes my head away from her and scoots herself into a sitting position on the table.

  “It’s Lourdes,” she whispers. “I know it. Gram’s sent her over here to get me.”

  “So ignore her,” I murmur, nipping at her neck.

  “I can’t,” she protests. “You don’t know Gram. She’ll come over here herself if I don’t go.”

  Samantha pulls down her shirt and runs a hand through her tousled hair to smooth it. “Hide,” she orders me, and scrambles off the table to go answer the door.

  I move behind a large pillar off to one side of the room, feeling like a jackass. I hear Samantha open the door, then Lulu’s voice. Samantha tells her she’ll be there in a minute, and the door closes again.

  “I have to go,” she says when she comes back to where I’m hiding. She looks at me then, like she wants to say something else, but in the end she just turns and heads out the door toward the main house.

  I’m left standing in the middle of the room, my cock painfully hard, with nothing but the memory of Samantha’s soft skin under my hands.

  I feel like I’m emerging from a moment of temporary insanity. My mind had taken a complete leave of absence as soon as I’d decided to go back to Samantha’s carriage house instead of just taking off on my bike. Standing here, it’s almost like I just woke from a coma or something. I look around at th
e tasteful and expensive furnishings — no doubt chosen by Samantha’s grandmother — and wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.

  Remembering why I walked away from her at Ghost’s wedding in the first place, I start for the front door. I should get out of here before Samantha gets back. This was a stupid fuck up. I should have known better than to tempt fate by agreeing to fix her grandma’s goddamn sink. I’m smarter than that. Or at least I thought I was.

  But as my hand goes to the knob, I hesitate. She’ll be back soon, probably. And if the last few minutes are any indication, she wants me as much as I want her. My cock throbs in my jeans at the thought of what was about to happen. I know it still can. All I have to do is sit down on that overstuffed couch and wait.

  But somehow, waiting seems too much like admitting — to myself and to Samantha — that she’s different. She’s someone I want more than just a quick lay from. And I swore to myself I wouldn’t let myself get involved. Not with anyone, and least of all with someone who could end up fucking with my head.

  Wanting is dangerous, I tell myself again. Turning the knob, I let myself out and shut the door behind me.

  12

  Hawk

  Instead of driving back to my place, I head in the direction of the clubhouse. I need some distraction right now. Hopefully in the form of some strong booze — and if I can get my head into it, some easy pussy.

  But even as I think this, I know I won’t be sinking my cock into one of the club girls tonight. Just the thought of it feels depressing as shit.

  “Goddamnit!” I roar into the wind, my hands curling around the grips as though I could crush them. I’m sick of this fucking shit. I’m sick of being a goddamn sap. I haven’t given a shit about any woman in years, and I’m not about to start now.

  Furiously, I throttle the bike and blow past the clubhouse onto the open highway. I know If I go to the club right now, I won’t be happy until I’ve picked a fight with one of the brothers and punched somebody. I need to calm down before get there.