by Heather Long
Mouth open to his ravaging claim, I dug my fingers into his neck. All I could taste was him. Somehow, it seemed unfair that he didn’t even have morning breath, and at the same time, I was so grateful for it. The rub of my breasts to his chest sent a wave of pure lust through me.
I might regret my next move later because I hadn’t stretched, but I wrapped my legs around his hips and arched my own. At the first brush of his cock to my cunt, I swiveled and then sank down on him.
“Fuck.” He growled the word into the kiss, and I swore his fingers tightened in my hair. The rush of power that accompanied the thickness of him filling my sensitive flesh lit me up.
Still gripping my hair, he pulled back enough to look at me, even as I rotated and rocked my hips, riding him slow and steady so I could savor the feel of that piercing and every nerve it stroked.
“You’re a goddamn dream,” he told me in a voice so thick with emotion, it threatened to wrest control away from me, but I dug my nails into his shoulders as I moved. The curl and tightening of my abs let me writhe up before I sank back down. Each thrust pushed him a little deeper.
A vein throbbed in his forehead, and his topaz eyes darkened. He never once released my hair as he began to work his palm up and down my back. When he reached my ass and squeezed one cheek, I replied in kind by clamping down on his dick until we both hissed.
“You want to fuck me, Dove?”
A throaty laugh escaped me at the temptation in his voice. Or maybe it was the temptation of his voice. Every syllable that escaped him was like liquid sex, and it just made me want him all that much more. Rocking my hips, I controlled the pace of his thrusts. It was a hell of a workout, but I was here for it, even if it left me shaking and trembling.
Who knew when I’d get another chance like this? Honestly, I was surprised it had lasted this long. Not that I had any idea how long we slept, but maybe my other keepers knew where I was and didn’t care.
Based on Jasper’s behavior around Doc, I doubted it. The thought of both of them had me clenching down around Vaughn even tighter. His grunt matched my own moan. “I thought I already was,” I whispered, this time teasing my nails against his scalp. I loved how he hadn’t let go of my hair and how his fingers dug into my ass. The tease of one finger against the rim of my anus suggested he had other ideas in mind.
What would those piercings feel like in my ass?
That sent another gush of warmth through me, and I began to add a full twist to every thrust. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and then he gave me a ferocious grin before he turned and walked us out of the bathroom. Every step he took just drove him deeper into me, and then he set me down on the bed. The pull of his hand forced my body to arch, only instead of following me down, he remained upright.
Oh fuck, someone wanted control.
“I can do this upside down, you know,” I taunted as I let go of him to press my hands over my head to the covers. Pushing upward, I elongated my body, but I kept my legs wrapped around his hips.
“Fuck me,” he whispered in a ragged breath.
“I want to,” I promised, and I made good on my word. It was a little like the flexing of my hips and abs that I needed to do to climb the silks. The blood rushed to my head as I kept control of our pace, and every deep brush of his piercing seemed to only heighten the sensation.
I was right there—riding the edge. I could come so easily, but I wanted to make him lose it.
“So fucking beautiful,” he whispered and spread one of those huge, colorful hands over my abdomen and then down to my breasts.
He palmed one, then the other. The touches rough, yet infinitely gentle. The first pinch proved a stark bite against the easier motions, and the shock of it radiated through my system.
“You said I could do whatever I wanted to you,” he said, this time covering both breasts, one with each hand. The only thing connecting us and keeping up the rhythm was my legs and hips. The burn added an edge to the pleasure that the sharp twists of his fingers on my nipples only heightened. Fuck, the sting. I wanted the sting. I wanted the punishing force of his cock.
“Yes,” I confirmed. “How do you want me?”
It was like I took some kind of leash off of him, one I hadn’t even been aware he had. My shoulders hit the bed, and he unlocked my legs only to push my feet up to either side of me. I folded almost perfectly in half. The stretch on my hamstrings added a delicious flare to the fire already consuming me.
“Oh, fuck me, Dove.” He pushed out each word like a bullet. One hand firm against one of my calves, he braced the other next to the bed and took over the punishing pace of his thrusts. At this angle, there was no escape, I felt him fucking everywhere.
I twisted back and forth, almost desperate to escape, and at the same time, I wanted more. I swore I screamed his name at one point, and that only had him adjusting his angle as he dragged my ass right to the edge of the bed. The cool air brushed against my bruised and swollen cunt, then he pushed back in with a firm thrust, and I came apart.
The cries left my throat sore as I bucked and twisted to the brutal rhythm he set, and at the same time, I fought to match it, even in this wildly vulnerable position.
“More,” I begged. What was it about him that reduced me to begging every single time? I didn’t have to ask more than once. He released my legs and straightened. When he pulled out of me, I wanted to whimper at the loss.
The angry flush to his cock just made it all that much more attractive as it glistened.
“Turn over,” he ordered, and I all but scrambled to flip over onto my hands and knees. “This foot forward.”
The challenge of sliding my right leg forward until my foot was parallel with my hand and side by side added a fresh burn to the stretch of my body.
“Have you ever had your ass fucked before, Dove?” His thumb teased the rim as I held my position. My breath came in explosive pants, even as I fought to calm it. Breath control meant I could last longer.
We could.
“You can if you want, but I don’t know how easy those piercings will go in.”
“That wasn’t my question,” he scolded, and the heavy slap of his hand landing against one ass cheek sent flames to consume me. “I know my piercing is your first. Have you ever had your ass fucked?”
He was killing the mood. I didn’t want to discuss this. “Yes,” I told him. “Can we get back to the rest of the fucking please?” I tacked the please as an afterthought. Then he rubbed the sting from my ass and lined up his cock with my cunt.
“Dove, yes, you can have anything you want. Just don’t lie to me. If someone hurt you, we’ll go slow. I promised you no more pain and I meant it.” The words sparked traitorous tears. One escaped while the others clogged up my throat. He fucked into me like a man on a mission, and the orgasms he’d been edging struck me like an avalanche.
I swore I squirted a little as he pounded my cunt. The world darkened around the edges, and then I came harder than I ever had, my body straining back to him as I clamped down. He came with me on that one, the hot release turning my system molten.
It wasn’t until he eased my leg down and rolled me over, cradling me to his chest, that I realized I was crying. Thank fuck he couldn’t see my face. It was bad enough he could feel my trembling. The shakes seemed to come from my very core. He wrapped those strong arms around me and pressed his lips right to my ear.
I barely understood a word coming out of his mouth, only that soft croon that made me want to trust him. That beckoned to me to hold onto him, and I did. I dug my nails into his forearms. From my bruised and quaking cunt to my swollen nipples, to my mind rocking under the weight of letting him in.
What the hell was I doing? Fucking was fine, getting some release after all these weeks, I deserved that. But he was getting in too deep. The fact he’d gotten the negative relationship to anal. That conjured a loneliness I kept locked away, barricaded behind a dozen locked doors.
The press of his lips to my throat comforted
me. So did the strength in his arms and the gentle sweep of his hands. Even as he eased out of me, I shuddered. When I tried to turn my face away, he rolled on top of me and cradled my face in his huge hands. “Dove, did I hurt you?”
“No,” I said, and it came out a little more jagged and snotty than I liked. I sucked in a breath and then swallowed the tears. “You felt good.”
With only the light from the bathroom and the television, his face was a contrast of light and dark. Shadows and lines. Fierce and devoted.
Devoted.
Where the fuck had that word come from?
Kidnapper, remember, Emersyn?
Right.
I sniffed and then ran my foot up the back of his thigh, wresting my control back to where it belonged. Years of discipline, breath control, and need dried up the tears and chased away the shaking.
Confusion flashed across Vaughn’s face.
“Don’t flatter yourself too much, Falcon,” I teased, using his predatory bird name. I needed that emotional distance. “You fuck real well and I’m going to feel you for days. But don’t confuse fucking for a key to me.”
His frown deepened, and then he kissed me. It was every bit the punishment I craved. Even the flash of copper where one of us cut our lip on our teeth, and I honestly couldn’t have said who it was.
“Don’t talk about yourself or this like it meant nothing,” he warned in a low voice. “You can wrestle with it and try to lock it away. You can even be private and not want to discuss it. But don’t dismiss me and don’t ever dismiss yourself.” Then he levered himself off me and vanished into the bathroom so abruptly, the loss was profound.
Regret left an acrid and bitter aftertaste in my mouth.
Rolling onto my side and away from the bathroom, I stared almost sightlessly at the television.
I was working my way through what I should say when the news came back from commercial, and I stared at myself on the screen with the headline Missing Heiress below the picture.
All the blood drained from my face when he came on the screen to declare how much my family missed me and how they were now offering a reward in the hundreds of thousands for any leads that would bring me home safely.
I’d sooner die.
The door to Vaughn’s room burst open a split second later, and I scrambled backward like it was the cops coming for me.
No. No.
They couldn’t have found me that fast.
Chapter 24
Vaughn
Before…
“Where are you going?” Jasper demanded as I headed for the fridge. I’d tell him, but that might involve an actual conversation with the dictatorial jackass, and in my current mood, that wouldn’t end well.
For either of us.
So I pretended I didn’t hear him and stalked inside. Dove should never have seen the interior of this place. She shouldn’t have seen the bastard we had stashed in here. She shouldn’t have been anywhere those fucks could have attacked her.
The 19 Diamond we had sitting on ice wasn’t even a fully-blooded member. He wouldn’t be either. No, he and his friends had been on their way to make their cut by ambushing someone on our territory. Get in. Get out.
What unfortunate fucking luck for them they’d chosen our Dove.
Meeks showing up here was just the icing on the fucking cake. Liam and Rome would make sure their guys left. Not sure what the fuck Liam was doing here anyway, other than trying to piss Jasper off. The door didn’t slam behind me as I stepped inside the shithole. It fucking reeked. They didn’t make enough bleach to get rid of this smell. We might very well have to torch the interior, not that it would do us much good.
It’d probably burn the whole warehouse down.
I didn’t make it to the second door before Jasper gripped my shoulder.
“Hawk,” Kellan damn near sighed, and I shook off Jasper’s grip before I faced him. He’d just cut Meeks’ fucking finger off and sent them out of here, tail between their legs. “Let it go.”
“No, I want to know what the fuck he’s doing.”
Locking gazes with Kellan, I read the plea in his eyes. He wanted me to let this go and let him handle it. Do what he’d always been doing which was de-escalate, redirect, or run interference. I cut a look to where Jasper glared at me. There was a crescent-shaped impression in his neck.
Crescent-shaped like a fingernail.
I narrowed my eyes. He’d kicked everyone out of the studio we’d all fucking helped put together. Then he’d gone in there to watch her. She was right.
He was never letting her go.
“Jasper, for fuck’s sake,” Kellan dragged out. “Come on. We have enough problems, we do not need to be fighting each other.”
“When are you telling Raptor?” Yeah, I was done with this particular discussion, and Kellan’s gaze jumped from Jasper to me. I ignored the demand in them. He didn’t want this fight. He’d been avoiding it for fucking weeks now, and we’d all let him.
I had let him.
“Leave him out of this,” Jasper said, his heated tone cooling rapidly. The flashfire in his eyes went to ice, and his jaw tensed. “I’ve got this handled.”
“Oh,” I said slowly. “Do you? Because from where I’m standing, you’re making this shit up as you go along. Let’s see, we’ve got Eric fucking Arlington strung up to a wall in there, bleeding and healing up another set of broken ribs. Not sure if he’s still shitting himself. But I do know if you bring Doc in to patch him up again, he’s probably going to go postal on your ass.”
Kellan groaned.
“Then let’s talk about the little 19 Diamond fuck we’re wasting time with. He has no answers. You know it. I know it. We’re not bothering Eric with questions because we’re taking a pound or ten of flesh. Fine. But the 19 Diamond, cut him loose or cut his throat, I don’t care which. We do not need more trouble from them. Oh, and let’s not forget fucking Meeks out there. ’Cause that’s trouble just waiting to come at us again. He is not going to let that finger go.”
Arms folded and eyes hooded, Jasper didn’t back down. “He’ll live, and if they move fast enough, they’ll be able to reattach it. Killing him would have taken us right to a full-scale war.”
“Bloody skirmishes are so much better when Dove’s involved though, right? Something else to keep her locked down from.”
I felt more than heard Kellan’s deep sigh. Jasper took a swing. We were always a half-step away from violence. It wasn’t the first time one of us went for the other, and it wouldn’t be the last. I caught his fist, absorbing the impact as it crashed into my palm. There’d been just enough force behind the blow to tell me he was more annoyed than he was furious. But the fury was there.
He hated to be questioned.
And normally, I wouldn’t question.
I locked my hand around his fist and caught the second fist as he let it fly. In pure strength, I had him. He knew it. I knew it. Still, he tried to bum rush it, and his knee crashed into the side of my thigh. If I hadn’t twisted at the right moment, he’d have slammed my balls into my throat.
“Bad move,” I scolded him and wrenched his arms outward. He hissed. He had a bad elbow from an injury when we were kids. It had taken me and Raptor weeks to get even for Jasper. For the longest time, we didn’t think it would heal right. It had fucked up his idea of a baseball career.
Broken kneecaps had been delivered in warning and to extract the price in blood. You hurt us. We would hurt you back twice as hard. Eventually, we didn’t just stop at wounds.
Taking advantage of Jasper’s wince, I seized his throat and slammed him back into the desk. A minute later, Kellan’s gun was pressed against my shoulder. At that angle, he wouldn’t hurt Jasper. He’d fuck me up for a while though.
“Let him go, Vaughn.”
“We need to talk this shit out,” I countered. “And I didn’t fucking start it.”
“I know you didn’t,” he agreed. “But this isn’t how we’re ending it. We have enough prob
lems. The three of us cannot be fucking fighting.”
Jasper didn’t say a word and neither of us looked away. The coldness in his eyes reminded me just how fucking dead my soul was. “When are you sending her home?” Because that was what it came down to.
“I’ll decide when.”
“When?” I snapped, because that answer wasn’t going to fucking fly with me.
“When she’s safe.”
“We have that fucker right in there…”
Jasper slid a look at Kellan, and I growled. Letting him go, I withdrew a couple of steps. A fist slammed into my jaw and rocked my head to the side. Blood filled my mouth, but I didn’t hesitate. I just reacted. My fist crashed into Jasper’s face, and his ass went down. I caught him before he slammed into the ground. This time, I wrenched his good arm behind him and slammed him face down into the table.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Kellan’s aggravated growl bounced off the walls.
“I decide,” Jasper snarled, undeterred by his position. “Not you. Not Kellan. Not fucking Rome or Freddie. Me. Her safety comes before everything else.”
There was one person’s decision he didn’t get to bypass. Except he had been. Ever since we got her here, he’d avoided talking to Raptor. I contemplated just knocking Jasper’s ass out. “You come for me again,” I warned a heartbeat before I released him, “make it count, because you won’t get another chance.”
Kellan shot me a look as I headed for the door to the storage room.
“Vaughn…”
“No,” I told him. “He can clean up his own fucking messes. He’s got her here, pinned in a cage, and she had her hands on his neck.”
The minute the words left my lips, Kellan focused his whole attention on Jasper, who was straightening. Blood flowed from his nose and his lip. Not waiting, Kellan fisted part of Jasper’s shirt and looked at his neck. “What the fuck…?”
“Stay out of it.” Jasper shoved him off, and for the first time in years, the three of us stood on our own sides, at odds. Kellan’s gun rested in his hand next to his thigh and pointed at the floor. Jasper swiped at the blood on his face with a pair of takeout napkins from the desk, and I cracked my knuckles. There was blood on my shirt.