by Ashley Hall
"You're sure?" she pressed.
I forced myself not to look away, to not give any clue that I was lying. Of course, she would want to be reassured. Of course, she wouldn't easily trust me. I took a deep breath. "We broke up because of what I do. My missions. I've never killed anyone except for pedophiles. My vengeance. I…" Now I couldn't help glancing away. "I don't expect you to understand or to accept it…"
"Good, because while I might now understand where you're coming from, I can't accept you going around killing people. Shadow that's just—"
"I don't need a lecture." I reached for the pitcher of beer. Only enough for a half a glass remained.
She yanked it out of my hand. "We aren't done talking about this."
"I know." I sighed. If we were going to try and see what might be between us, it was better she knew about my missions, all of it. But telling her the truth, the whole truth could be reason enough for her to break my heart all over again.
Was I really willing to do this, to let her back into my life and maybe my heart? There hadn't been another woman after she left, that I had wanted as much I had wanted her.
Okay, so yeah, the night she'd left me, I had sought out the company of a woman. Even brought her to a hotel room. But I couldn't get it up. I couldn't stop thinking about Allie. She hadn't been able to accept me, all of me. She had learned my deepest, darkest secrets and rejected me because of it. Her love, our love, hadn't been strong enough to overcome it. I was devastated and heartbroken. After I kicked the woman out—I don’t even remember her name—I swore off women.
But seeing Allie—now Sky—made me realize I wasn't a loner. Not when it came to her. And I didn't want to be.
I wanted her.
God help me, I wanted her. Even if she might be the end of me.
Chapter Nine
Shadow
My gaze sought hers.
She yanked out the chair and sat down across from me.
"You don't believe me," I said, un-fucking-believably desperate.
"I don't know what to believe." She rubbed a hand over her face.
"I… I know I haven't made any of this easy on you."
Her lips quirked, but she didn't really smile, and her eyes were so sad. "None of this is easy. Not even a little. I… I feel like I'm drowning."
"Guess I better take CPR lessons."
A startled giggle burst out of her, and she winced. "I do, though. I mean…"
"I know. You've been through so much already. You don't need more crap from me."
"No, I don't." She brushed her hair from her shoulder. It looked so damn sexy, but I knew she wasn't trying to be, and that made it even hotter.
"Tell me how I can help." I reached across the table and grabbed her hand, my thumb rubbing across her knuckles.
"Right now, I just need to get on my feet. Find some stability."
"You can stay here."
Her lips twisted into the tiniest of smiles. "You mean if I sleep with you every night."
I grinned. "Doesn't only have to be at nighttime." I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh, really?" She shook her head but she was laughing, and I joined in. "I would appreciate having a place to stay. Until I get settled."
"Settled? You can settle right here."
"Maybe… If we work out. Regardless, I need to be able to find work, and I'll need more clothes and… Where are my clothes? I assume I lived here when we were together—"
"Yes."
"But then I moved out. I must have taken everything with me. Where did I go? I didn't make it to Marie." She bit her lower lip. "So she wouldn't know, and I doubt I would've told you."
"You didn't. You just… you just left." It still made me feel bitter to remember it.
"Well, at least I know my name, my old name. Allie…" Sky bit her lower lip. "Am I… was I Allie Haymaker? Or is Marie married?"
"She's married. Your name is Allie Moreno. We might be able to try and learn what you were up to."
"By putting your investigative skills to good use for once."
"Har, har, har. Yeah, I'll look into it for you."
"When?" she asked pointedly.
Just holding her hand was enough to make me even harder, and it was becoming extremely difficult to concentrate on our conversation with a hard-on. "Whenever you want."
But not right now. Please, not right this second.
"I'm hungry," she said.
"So am I." From the way I was staring at her, she had to know I wasn't talking about food.
Her blush proved that. "I…"
"I want to promise you something. I won't ever change who I am, but I'll help you become whoever you want to be. If you want to become Allie again, or if you want to reinvent yourself as Sky, whatever you want. I'll help."
"Hmm. And here I thought you might be promising that we won't have sex unless I wanted to."
"What about what I want?" My voice was growing raspier.
"What about you," she mused. Was she purposely ignoring my desperate innuendos? "Just who are you?"
I opened my mouth. What could I say that would not scare her off? I didn't want to keep lying to her, but now that I was willing to have her back in my life, I desperately didn't want to screw things up again.
"You're a big, bad, sexy biker." She squeezed my hand. "You might have killed someone…" The smile quickly dying on her face "someones… But you aren't a killer."
God, she was naïve, but that only made me want her all the more. There was an innocence to this new Sky that Allie had too, just not as much.
"A big, bad, sexy biker," I repeated. I glanced down at my lap. "Big all right. Bad, oh yeah. Sexy…"
"Mmm." She was back to grinning again.
"I can be your big, bad, sexy anything," I said hoarsely.
"I like the sound of that."
Why the hell was she sitting across from me instead of on my lap? Or on my cock?
"Come here," I growled.
She hesitated, something flashing in her eyes and she released my hand.
"What is it?" I asked, my heart sinking, my cock straining, ready to explode, needing to be free of its confines so it could be trapped inside of her.
"You're telling me the truth?" She absentmindedly stroked the beer glass she'd taken from me. Damn it all, she had to know what she was doing to me, didn't she? I mean, she couldn't be doing that accidentally. Just thinking about her hand doing that to my cock had a drop of pre-cum leaking out and I had to stifle a groan.
"What do you need from me to convince you?" I asked. Trying to adjust myself wasn't helping. Damn it all, it was only making me hornier.
"I just… trust isn't something I can put in a person right now," she said softly, her hand now moving up and down the glass slowly.
I tore my gaze away from her hand to her face. She looked so forlorn and sad that I had to try and get her to smile or laugh again. "I get that, but you can't live in a bubble. You have to let people in."
"You mean I have to let you in." She bit her lower lip.
"Not necessarily me." I winced but added, "There's your sister."
"Why didn't you tell me about her?"
I just stared at her. "I'm sure she had wonderful things to tell you about me," I finally ventured after an uneasy silence grew between us.
"True. No love there."
More silence. I couldn't believe she had said the word "love." Yeah, so it hadn't been referred to me but still, she'd said it in my presence. It had been so long since she'd last said, "I love you." Would she ever tell me that again? Would I ever return it?
Again, I had to break the silence. "You came back."
To me hung in the air between us, unspoken but still heard.
"I did," she said evenly, lifting her chin almost in defiance. Damn, she wasn’t going to give me an inch.
"Why?"
"I think I'm a fool," she whispered, her bravado vanishing just as soon as it had appeared.
How could I respond to
that? I couldn't agree with her and if I disagreed, she might think I was lying, and then she'd wonder if I was lying about why we had broken up—which I was.
"I shouldn't have left you there."
"No, you shouldn't have." She was staring at the table now, her hand releasing the glass and dropping it onto her lap. "But I think I know why you did. I left you before. You were trying to push me away so I wouldn't hurt you again. Am I right?"
I gaped at her. "Yeah…" Hell, she should be a psychiatrist. Was I really that easy to read?
"Before, did you trust me with your secret, or did I find out about it on my own?" she pressed, still trying to puzzle out her past—our past.
I forced myself to calm down. This was important. She needed reassurances, and I didn't want to press her too quickly. The last thing I wanted was for her to not give me a chance, for her to not be willing to stick by my side. When she'd left me the first time, I felt like she did right now, like I was drowning. Maybe, together, we could keep each other afloat.
"You found out on your own," I said evenly.
She nodded. "I figured that was the case. Is that why you…" Sky bit her lower lip, and the sight of her vulnerability sent a jolt of pleasure straight to my cock. "That's why you showed me; took me along."
"I didn't want to make the same mistake twice."
Her large eyes captured my gaze. "You don't think maybe easing me into it might've been better?"
"To be honest…" And, yeah, I really was going to be honest here, for whatever good it might do me. "I wanted to push you away. You really hurt me when you left. I… I might not have gone through as much as hell as you went through, but it was my own personal hell, and… Seeing you again just made everything worse for me."
"You were afraid to let me back in. That I would hurt you again."
Wordlessly, I swallowed hard and nodded. I wasn't big on expressing my feelings. I was normally a doer not a thinker. When you had such a horrific past, you couldn't dare let your mind wander because then you might remember and nothing good ever came of that. I was a man of action. Why else would I sleep with her right away and then take her out on a mission?
My cock stirred in my pants. A man of action all right.
Sky was appraising me. What was she thinking? Did she think I was a crazy, messed up guy who wasn’t worth a second chance? Her opinion mattered to me.
Hooked. I was hooked already. One night, and I wanted her to be mine again. Despite everything.
"You wanted to push me away, but now you don't."
"When I left you there, I was still hurting, but when I returned here, alone, you were all I could think about. I… We're…" The words wouldn't come out right.
"We're connected, aren't we?" She held out her hand.
I reached for her hand, as if she was my lifeline. "Yes. And seeing you walk in here, returning to me—"
"I had nowhere else to go," she said composedly.
"So you didn't come back for me?"
"Well… maybe for your dick." She grinned mischievously while her cheeks stained a bright pink.
"I can handle that."
For now.
We both stood, and I started to walk around the table to her when she put her hand up and said, "I don't know."
"About?"
"Any of this. Being here, you, my life…"
"Right now, for this moment, do you have to have all the answers?"
Tears shimmered in her eyes, but they didn't fall. I slowly walked towards her. She tilted her head up, eyes closed, and my lips descended on hers. I normally wasn't what you consider a gentle lover, but this kiss was almost tender.
Without another word, I led her upstairs. We held hands, no desperation in our steps, no giggling or sly looks. This was different. Something was going on between us, but hell if I knew what it was.
She pushed my door open and walked into my room, not even turning back, just expecting me to follow. After releasing our hands, she lay down on the bed, eyes closed. Her brown hair partially covered her face; she looked like an angel.
Not wanting to disturb her, I sat down beside her, not touching her. Just looking at her, taking it all in, from her beautiful face to the soft curves of her breasts, down past her hips to her shapely legs.
Her eyes opened, and that angelic face grinned back at me recklessly, wildly, seductively.
"I can't believe you haven't undressed me yet," she said, rolling onto her side toward me.
"Maybe I was hoping for a striptease."
"Without any music?"
"I can put on some music for you." I started to sit up.
She touched my chest. "Shadow…"
"Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't try to remember yesterday. Just live in the moment. Just be here with me…" I nuzzled my nose against hers. "On my bed…" I tilted her chin up. "In my arms…" I hovered my lips above hers. "Kissing—"
Her lips touched mine, frantic, desperate and filled with a longing I echoed. Her hands wound in my hair, pulling me closer, and I loved how she was trying to take control. Our tongues dueled, the kiss deepening, and someone was moaning. Her, me, both of us, who knew? All that mattered was that she was in my arms, and we were kissing, and I was going to claim her body for my own.
Chapter Ten
Shadow
I could kiss her for hours, but we were definitely wearing too many clothes. Reluctantly, I broke off the both of us breathless. How long we were kissing, I couldn’t be sure. With her, minutes seemed like hours.
My hands reached for her top, but she stopped me, standing. "You asked for a striptease, didn't you?"
My cock needed some release and soon! My balls were starting to ache. But, yes, oh fuck yes, did I want her to strip for me.
"Yes," I said, but the word came out a moan.
She glanced around, obviously looking for a music source. My room was sparse—bed, nightstand, bureau, and closet. I didn't have a desk, so I kept my computer on my nightstand. I usually did my investigative work in the field, but when I needed to do research on my laptop, I did it in bed, more times than not. Definitely not my favorite use of my bed, though.
I unlocked my laptop, so she could play some music. "I heard a song on the radio on the ride back here," she murmured, hanging half off the bed to type.
Her ass, partially lifted from the bed and still in those tiny little shorts, was just begging to be pinched. I couldn’t resist.
She jerked and grinned at me, pushing my hand away. "You're so bad."
"I know."
This was almost relaxing, in a way, to take our time like this, to not rush or hurry up and race to the finish. It felt comfortable. It felt… right.
Just then, music started to play, and I recognized Beyoncé’s voice immediately, singing about how much she wanted to show her appreciation to her man.
Sky hopped off of the bed and turned around to face me. There was a look about her, of fierce determination. Last night, when we were together, it was about me having dominance. She wanted to take some of that back.
Fuck. Me.
She didn't start to strip right away. Oh, no, she began to dance to the sultry beat, wiggling her ass, arching her back, pushing out her tits, making my hands itch to touch her, caress her, to tease her in those certain places only I knew, until she screamed my name.
With skill, as if she had done this a thousand times before, she lifted and removed her top. She twirled it around her head a few times, toying with me, her hips still swaying, and I was mesmerized. Yeah, she needed some more meat on her bones, but she was still amazingly hot, and mine, all mine.
Her shirt landed on my lap. My cock was pressing against my zipper, and I reached down, beneath the shirt, and unzipped myself, not once taking my eyes from her. She was back to dancing again, running her hands up her body, over the swell of her breasts and back down. Teasing me.
She turned her back to me, and while looking over her shoulder at me began to wiggle out of her tiny denim shorts. They fell to t
he floor, revealing her black panties. I was dying to know how damp they were, how wet she was for me. I grabbed my covers to keep myself on the bed, watching, waiting, when all I wanted to do was rip the rest of her clothes off and bury myself deep into her folds. Damn, this was one hell of a striptease.
Parading around in just her white bra and black panties, Sky was every man’s fantasy. I remembered the way she had sucked me off last night, I felt my dick pulse and a drop of pre-cum squeezed out.