by Blair Grey
I whistled under my breath as I drove into her neighborhood. She lived in a nice part of town. Tree-lined streets and everything. I didn’t even know Las Cruces had streets that looked this nice. She’d clearly done well for herself.
I felt a strange surge of pride inside of me, but I pushed it aside. I didn’t have any right to be feeling proud of Leila. Everything she had done, she had worked for. I had seen some of that work firsthand, and I knew that she was smart and talented, and that she gave herself one hundred and ten percent to whatever project was put in front of her. Really, this was no surprise.
I started to feel, for the first time, like maybe I didn’t belong here. I was college educated, sure. But I was still a thug for a motorcycle club. She deserved someone a lot better than me.
I wished I could take that observation and do something about it. Maybe turn the car around, stand her up, never see her again. Or maybe do as Will had done and get myself out of the club. But that wasn’t the kind of man I was. If nothing else, I had commitments, and I was going to see them through.
I swallowed hard and parked the car in front of her place, drumming my fingertips against the edge of the steering wheel. Then, I headed for her front door.
I knocked and waited for a few minutes before Leila answered. When she did, it was a moment before I could speak.
“You like it?” she asked, smoothing her hands down the dress, looking absolutely nervous.
I put a finger under her chin, turning her face up toward mine. “You look beautiful,” I told her seriously. “You always do.”
She blushed, biting her lower lip. “Thanks,” she said. She cocked her head to the side, surveying me for the first time. “I thought I told you to dress casually,” she said, her voice accusing.
I laughed and shrugged. “When I was growing up, someone once told me that even if a woman tells you to dress casually, if it’s a date, you have to dress to impress.”
“You don’t have to impress me,” Leila said, trailing her fingers down the soft sleeve of my button-down. She shook her head and smiled crookedly at me. “You look nice, though. Consider me impressed.”
I laughed and leaned in to kiss her. I hadn’t planned to do it, and I didn’t want to scare her off. But she leaned into the kiss for just a second before I pulled away. She gave me another of those adorably shy smiles. “Shall we?”
She directed me to a little hole-in-the-wall place. Inside, it was all warm colors, vinyl booths, and exposed brick walls. She clearly knew everyone working there, and she greeted them all between the time we entered and the time we ordered. We sat at a two-person booth in the back, one across from the other, and I smiled at her. “You’re like a local celebrity,” I said.
Leila laughed, looking relaxed for the first time since she had opened the door. “I’ve been coming here forever,” she said. “It’s right down the block from where I lived my junior year of college.”
“Did you go here?” I asked in surprise. I snapped my fingers. “You know, I thought you looked familiar. When did you graduate?”
“Well, I got my undergrad, gosh, eight years ago now?” Leila laughed and shook her head. “It’s still hard to believe it was that long ago.”
“Hey, I did, too!” I said in surprise. “We must have had some of the same classes.”
Leila raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s not like you studied medicine,” she pointed out.
“No, but it’s not that big of a school,” I reminded her. “And we would have had the same core requirements and everything.” I paused. “It’s weird to think that I might have met you and don’t remember it, though.”
“I would have remembered, if I had met you,” Leila said, her eyes twinkling.
“Oh, you would have?” I asked, just as amused.
“Those tattoos would be hard to forget,” Leila said, reaching out and tracing the lines along my left arm. She shook her head. “I know you think I didn’t make the right decision, but you were great at the fundraiser. You did really well with the kids, at least. Their parents, well… Don’t worry about them.”
“The parents were the ones donating the money, though,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, and it’s not like anyone turned and walked off just because they saw you there at the table,” Leila reminded me.
“True,” I said, laughing. “That would have been a little awkward to explain to their kiddos, probably.”
“You were really good with Gavin, too,” Leila mused, her voice quiet.
We were getting dangerously close to those serious topics again. I was half-tempted to start the conversation, to ask her if she wanted to have kids one day, and how many kids she wanted. If she wanted sons like Gavin or if she was holding out hope for daughters.
But this was only our second date, and I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. Besides, that raised certain issues of its own. Did I want to have kids? I had never really thought about it. I didn’t really spend that much time around kids. But sure, maybe I wanted kids someday.
The trouble was with the MC. I knew that any kids I had would be brought up into the same life I had been brought up into. And even though I didn’t regret any of the decisions I’d made in my life, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that. Especially not if the peaceful lull was over—if it was time to start fighting for our territory again. It would be like raising a kid just to send him off to war.
It wouldn’t be fair to the kid, but it wasn’t like there was any way I could avoid it. I was part of Red Eyes for life, whether I wanted things to change or not. We couldn’t all do what Will had done.
Even if I wanted to. And the truth was, as much as I hated certain aspects of life within the MC, there were other things that I wouldn’t trade for the world.
I steered the topic away from kids and onto something less weighty. Hobbies, that was a good one. “So what do you do when you’re not being Superwoman?” I asked.
Leila laughed. “What do you mean?”
“Come on; I saw you yesterday at the event,” I told her, shaking my head. “You’re amazing. And you’re amazing at the hospital, too.”
She smirked at me. “At least, I am when I don’t have non-injured liars taking up all my time.”
I snorted. “You liked that,” I said airily.
“I did, actually,” Leila admitted. “I was surprised that you wanted to go on a date with me that badly.”
I stared at her for a moment, wondering at this self-deprecation. I shook my head. “You’ve been hanging around the wrong guys if you don’t realize how datable you are,” I told her.
“I don’t hang around that many guys,” Leila said, sounding coy again.
We chatted for the rest of the meal, and it was just easy with her. I didn’t feel like I was struggling to come up with topics of conversation, except for the few times when I was so blindsided by what she said that all I could do was sit there and stare at her for a long moment in surprise.
Suddenly, I couldn’t help realizing just how much I wanted to keep doing this. To keep dating her. Hell, I’d even help out at more of her fundraisers, if that was what it took. I wanted to make this work in a way that I had never felt with any relationship I’d had in the past. And although I thought that that should probably worry me, I felt strangely at peace with things.
I drove her home, a smile on my face even though I expected that as soon as I dropped her off, that would be the end of our evening together. I was already wondering when I could see her again and planning different dates in my mind. I wanted to take her everywhere. Now that I knew we’d gone to the same college together, I wanted to take her on one of those retro dates, back to all of my favorite places. Something like that.
I had a feeling we had more in common than I had initially assumed.
Leila paused before getting out of the car, glancing over at me. “Did you want to come in for a drink?” she finally asked.
She looked so sweet and innocent sitting there in that flattering red dress of
hers, her hands folded demurely in her lap. I couldn’t help remembering how the date had ended the previous weekend, in a rush of passion, with her spread out beneath me on the couch.
I couldn’t believe we hadn’t even made it to the bedroom.
I didn’t regret sleeping with her, of course. Nor could I say that I didn’t want to sleep with her again now. I’d felt those zings of lust shoot through me throughout the date, not least when she’d been tracing the tattoos on my arm, her fingers moving tantalizingly slowly across my skin. But I remembered the way she had left the previous week, and I didn’t want to see her upset like that again. And I definitely didn’t want her to stop talking to me again. So I hesitated.
“Just for a drink?” I asked her, arching an eyebrow at her.
Leila flushed a little, looking away from me. “I don’t know,” she said softly.
Could I do that? Could I go inside for just a drink and trust myself to keep my hands off her? But when she looked back at me, that pleading look in her eyes, I knew I had to. She would be just as upset if I cut the date short because I didn’t think I could control myself. And I wasn’t an animal. I should be able to control myself.
No matter how used I was to just taking what I wanted, to act on my impulses, it was exactly the kind of thing that got me into trouble with Ray. Maybe this was good practice for me.
I nodded slowly, shutting off the car. “All right,” I said.
I followed her inside, but it turned out that I couldn’t keep my hands off her after all. There was just something about the gentle curve of her neck as she poured out the drinks, something about being there in her house, when she hadn’t even wanted me to know where she lived before.
I moved toward her as though drawn by some magnetic force.
It started out innocently enough; I brushed away some of the baby hairs at the nape of her neck, softly pressing kisses against the sensitive skin there. I could feel the way she tensed, hear the way she drew in a sharp breath. She set the bottle of liquor down hard on the counter, her body falling back against mine.
“Is this okay?” I murmured against her skin.
She turned in my arms, her lips desperately searching out mine, moving softly against my own hot skin. We made out for a long moment, and I couldn’t keep my hands from trailing down her body. It felt like there was too much material between the two of us. I wanted nothing more than to slide my fingertips across her skin.
But I still wasn’t sure. Last time, she had seemed so into everything, and then it had been almost as though I had pressured her. I didn’t want her to feel like that again.
I pulled away, looking seriously down at her. “If you don’t want to…” I trailed off, clearing my throat. “We don’t have to do this.”
“I want this,” she promised me, pulling me into another scorching kiss. Her tongue pressed into my mouth, sliding against mine and making us both groan in unison. I pulled her closer against me, reminded not for the first time that she wasn’t in heels for this date. And as sexy as it had been to see her in heels, she fit so perfectly against me like this.
“I want to do this right this time,” she suddenly gasped out, pulling away from me. She caught my hand in hers, tugging me urgently along to the bedroom.
I grinned and took her in my arms again, quickly working to get her out of that dress so I could spread her out against the sheets.
22
Leila
Saturday
There was something in me that insisted I shouldn’t be going to bed with Marcus again. It had been wrong after our last date, and it was wrong again after this date. He seemed like a great guy. But there was no denying that he was caught up in the kinds of things I didn’t want to get tangled up in. I still didn’t know what had brought him to the ER that first time he’d been in there, but it couldn’t have been anything good.
I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off him, though. I shouldn’t have suggested a date to begin with, but I hadn’t been able to help the fact that I wanted to see him again. And when he’d come to the hospital looking for me, I hadn’t been able to ignore that. And then seeing him the previous day, both with the crowds of people who showed up at the fundraiser as well as, specifically, with Gavin and Rachel…
I just couldn’t help myself. Like Rachel had figured out, I really liked this guy.
I was getting in over my head, and I had a hard time even caring that I was doing so; that was the truth of it. Now, I had him here in my bedroom with me, and I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off him, even though I felt like I was just walking into a trap.
He had charisma; I had to give him that. But there was a lot more to it than that.
He pushed me gently down on the bed, still staring at me with that too-serious look in his eyes as his fingers hovered at the buttons of his shirt. At least, the ones that I hadn’t managed to undo myself as he got me out of my dress. As it was, I could see half of his chest already, peeking out from behind the material. I couldn’t wait to see the rest of him, and I felt impatient.
My fingers slipped between my legs, playing across my sensitive nub. Marcus snorted. “I was going to ask if you were sure, just one last time,” he said, climbing onto the bed and grabbing my wrists, pinning my arms out to the sides so I couldn’t toy with myself any more. “But I guess that’s all the answer I need. Minx.”
He bent down to kiss me again, and I twisted beneath him, trying to get some sort of friction between my legs. But he continued to evade me, and I subsided, forcing myself to concentrate on the burning feel of his lips against mine. But all that did was make lust pool even hotter in my core, until I was desperate to at least feel some skin on skin contact.
I turned my face to the side. “Please,” I said, pouting up at him as he pulled back.
He laughed and rolled away from me, standing up and stripping out of his clothes, dropping them into a careless pile on the floor. His eyes were on me the whole time, darkened with lust. I couldn’t help but shiver in anticipation.
He covered my body with his again, kissing his way along my skin. But I could feel a certain level of impatience in him as well, evident in the way that his hips continued to press against mine, his manhood hard against my belly.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I reached down between us, grasping his thick length and guiding him toward my slit. He gazed down at me as he pressed inside, moving inch by slow inch. My own eyes fluttered closed.
There was a pause between each hard thrust so that I never knew when to expect the next one. And over the course of the next couple of minutes, I absolutely fell apart beneath him. He started to pick up the pace, and I clung to him, dragging my fingernails down his back and watching as he groaned, his head thrown back.
I knew I wasn’t going to last for much longer; I could feel the tension in my whole body, the prickly heat that came with each new thrust. He got a hand between us and repeated my actions from earlier, stroking lightly over my nub, giving me just that little bit of extra stimulation, just what I needed.
I came hard, crying out his name, totally coming undone against the sheets. And he came at the same time, pulsing hotly inside of me as he gasped and pressed his forehead against my collarbone.
We lay flat on our backs, staring up at the ceiling. For a moment, I considered what to do next. Last week, it had been so easy, at this point, just to get up and leave. And what’s more, I had felt like I had to leave. I’d already started to regret what we had done.
I didn’t know if it was the bed or what, but this time, I didn’t feel like I regretted it. I wanted Marcus here. I liked him, and whatever else he might be tangled up in, I trusted him with me. I didn’t think he would hurt me, not on purpose.
What’s more, I was starting to realize I might be developing serious feelings for him. I couldn’t help it. He was sexy, he was sweet, and he just charmed me, in a way that I had never been charmed before. I liked that when he put his mind to something, he wouldn’t take no for an an
swer. He would do everything in his power to get what he wanted.
Even if it meant hanging out around one of the fundraisers that I had helped organize, chatting with the kids and their parents.
“What are you smiling about?” Marcus asked, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close.
I shook my head, trying to bury the smile against his chest. But it was too late now anyway; he had already seen it. “I’m just happy,” I finally said, honestly.
“Good,” Marcus murmured. There was something in his voice that I wanted to examine, some hint of feelings of his own, maybe? But my mind felt pleasantly like mush, and I was having a hard time concentrating on things like that.
I lost myself in the feeling of Marcus’s warm, calloused hands running down my spine, stroking me into total relaxation. Finally, he stirred, though, pulling regretfully away from me. I swallowed hard, reminded that no matter how much I was starting to like him, he wasn’t the type of guy to be in a relationship with me. Sure, we might date, but we both knew the end goal for the evening was this.
I had set things up that way, the previous week.
I spent a moment kicking myself for being such a slut the previous week. If I had just held out, maybe I could have ensured that our relationship would develop into something more. But now, it was just about sex. It was only ever going to be just about sex.
It was my own fault.
“Hey,” Marcus said suddenly, cupping my cheek in his palm. He brushed away a tear I hadn’t realized had fallen. “What’s wrong?”
I shrugged, rolling away from him. “I don’t want you to go,” I admitted, curling up into a tight ball.
Marcus laughed, sounding incredulous, and then curled his own body around mine, his soothing touches meeting my skin once more. “Then I won’t go,” he said, as though it was just that simple.
I shook my head. “No, I mean, I know that the relationship we have is—”
“Leila,” Marcus interrupted, and I turned to face him again. He stroked his fingers along my cheek again, looking seriously into my eyes. “I was going to ask if you wanted me to leave. You know, since you can’t just stalk out of here this time.” He paused. “I mean, I suppose you could, but it would be kind of awkward since it’s your place.” He continued to stare at me for a long moment. “I don’t particularly want to leave.”