by Anne Malcom
“You gotta stop lookin’ at me like that,” he growled, rounding the kitchen island.
I put down my spoon just in time for him to snatch my hips and yank my body to his. “And why, pray tell, do I need to stop looking at you like that?” I asked, my voice husky. “It seems it’s got you right where I want you.”
His hands tightened at my hips, dancing to the point of pain. Because he did that now that he knew I could handle it, knew I liked it.
And I didn’t just like it.
I loved it.
“If it’s wrapped around your little finger, then yeah, babe, I’m right where you want me,” he murmured against my mouth.
I smiled, my heart beat increasing with his proximity, his hardness pressing against me. “No way could anyone wrap my big, bad, scary, all-powerful biker around their little finger,” I whispered.
His fingers clutched my chin so I met his eyes. “You’re not anyone, babe,” he said, his voice thick.
The words curled around my heart, settling there, warming it. That’s what this ice-cold, menacing man was doing to me, warming places I’d been sure would be frozen solid forever.
“But you can’t wrap me around your finger right now,” he said, leaning back, breaking the moment and turning off the stove.
I folded my arms, a little pissed, and hurt, but still turned on. So the folding was mostly to communicate the pissed part, and partly to hide the turned-on part.
Gage’s eyes went to my chest, flaring with desire, the corner of his mouth turning up in his version of a smile.
He totally had my number.
“The club is having a party. And you’re not luring me into that sweet, hot cunt of yours,” he rasped.
My stomach dipped.
A lot.
“Well, not yet at least,” he continued, folding his own arms, splaying his legs and pretty much dripping sex all over my kitchen floor. “I’ll be takin’ it before the night is out,” he promised. “Maybe even before we go, if we’re quick.”
“I’ll be quick,” I blurted, my desperate need for him speaking before my brain had time to catch up and realize how pathetic I sounded.
Instead of putting him off, my words made his eyes darken more, the corner of his lip twitching again. “I know you will, baby,” he growled. “Can’t promise I will be when I know how hungry that pussy is for my cock.”
My knees trembled.
“You’re fuckin’ looking at me like that again,” he accused.
I bit my lip. “Well, you’re the one who has control over the sex god thing. I’m just a mere mortal. My reactions cannot be held against me.”
I was in his arms again before I could even finish my sentence, his hand cupping my chin. “Will, there’s no fuckin’ way you’re a mere mortal.” He brushed my hair from my face, eyes reverent. “Nothing but a fuckin’ angel can tempt a devil.”
I moved my hand up to brush the scars on his arms—I had made a point to touch the ruined skin often, hoping it would speak its secrets to me. “You’re not a devil.”
“How do you know that?” He shuttered his eyes, as he did when things got a little too close to those demons he wore on his sleeve yet hid in his soul.
“Because I love you,” I whispered, uttering the words that had been stuck in the back of my throat for weeks. It was terrifying, letting them out. But I had to. “And devils can’t be loved. Only men can. And you’re my man.”
He froze, the hand playing with tendrils of my hair pausing in midair. Never did I think there would be a time when I’d strike Gage immobile. The only inkling that he hadn’t turned into a very lifelike statue was the hot breath on my face and the way his eyes moved over me, as if he was memorizing me.
“But baby, I am a devil,” he said finally, his voice rough. Rough enough to cut through my soul with the burn of an unreturned ‘I love you.’ I tried not to let the sting get to me. I knew Gage was different than any other human being on this planet. Knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
But it was going to be worth it.
I smiled and reached up to stroke his face. “Well, then you’re the exception to the rule, and you’re my devil and my man.”
The hands at my hips tightened and I was in the air, my skirt pushed up and the cold counter kissing my exposed thighs. Gage had spread my legs and was standing between them, his denim-clad hardness pressing into the perfect spot at the apex between my thighs.
I hissed out a harsh breath, his hand grasping my neck, yanking my mouth to his, while the other plunged right inside me. I cried out into his mouth at the exquisite intrusion, and the expert way he knew how to move within me—fluid, perfect.
His fingers left me, and the rustling of his jeans told me exactly what he was doing. “My angel,” he murmured, pausing at my entrance for a sliver of a second, his eyes on me, before he surged in.
Then the world ended, and Gage fucked me in the ruins.
“So we’re going to the club party,” he said after cleaning me up, setting me down on unsteady feet and rolling my skirt down tenderly, like he hadn’t just fucked me hard, fast and brutal on my kitchen island.
I blinked at him, trying to make sure my knees were steady and my mind was clear before I replied.
“I know it’s not the good guy play,” he continued, watching me. “I shouldn’t be bringing you further into this world, tarring you with its brush. But fuck, I’m not the good guy. And I want to bring you in further. I’m selfish, and fuck do I know it. But I want you in my life. I fuckin’ need you in it. Even if you don’t belong.”
His last words smashed out whatever calmness his previous ones had settled in my chest.
“I don’t belong,” I whispered.
His eyes narrowed. “No, fuck, Lauren—”
I held up my hand and stepped out of the way as he tried to snatch me into his arms again. “Seriously?” I hissed, rounding the counter so it was between us. “After everything between us, after everything I’ve told you about myself, shown you about myself, you seriously think I don’t belong?” I yelled.
He was watching me, face blank, guarded, as it always was when we weren’t having sex. “Lauren—” he tried again.
“No!” I screamed. “No more talking and weaving words that distract me. It’s Lauren’s turn now, and yes, I’m quite aware that I’m referring to myself in the third person, but that’s how freaking pissed I am right now!”
His mouth twitched, and I hated how sexy I found it. “You’re cute as fuck when you’re angry, baby.”
I let out a little scream. Both at him for saying the words and myself for finding them so freaking sexy.
“Well, hands inside the ride, buddy, because I’m about to get fucking adorable,” I hissed.
I stomped around the kitchen, forgetting about my need to have a large slab of furniture between us, advancing on him and jabbing at his chest. “You do not get to tell me the one place you consider home, with the people you consider family, is somewhere I don’t belong,” I shouted.
The smile left his face, his body going taut.
I ignored it. “I do not deserve to fall in love with you and then have you slap me in the face with shit like that, Gage. It’s cruel.” My words seemed to actually hit him, and I battled to stop that from affecting me.
I had to continue with this. My anger was a physical, living thing.
“Crueler than you trying to scare me with blood and murder and that darkness you think I can’t handle. Crueler than you feeling like you have to hold back with me because you think I’m a delicate flower.” I glared at him. “Newsflash—the world has already stomped on this flower, shredded it. You’re not so high and mighty that you’re the first person to show me how ugly things can get. The problem is you’re so focused on that that you don’t realize how fucking beautiful I find all your ugliness. You’re too busy telling me I don’t belong. And if that continues, you’ll do what you’re so sure you’re already doing.” I yanked my shaking hand back, Gage still froze
n. “You’ll destroy me,” I whispered.
Then I turned on my heel and stomped off, pausing to snatch my purse off the table. And ignoring the fact that I had no idea where the freaking heck I was going.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I whispered to the wind when a heat kissed my back. I didn’t turn as I spoke. Didn’t need to, because I knew it was Gage. His scent—cigarette smoke nearly absent now—pressed into the wind like my words.
I expected him to snatch me into his arms, force me to face him physically like he normally did, but he didn’t. He sank down on the slightly damp grass beside me and stared at the hunk of rock that stared harder than even him.
Only the dead could stare harder than the Devil.
“Told you, babe, I know shit about people,” he murmured, eyes forward, voice gravel. “You’re not people.” He paused. “Didn’t think there would be many places you’d go. Thought about where I’d go. And I come here.”
His words made me jerk my gaze to his beautiful profile. “You come here?”
He nodded once.
“Is there anyone… here for you?” I asked gently, despite my pain and anger, hoping I would finally get a little bit of his pain so I wasn’t drowning in my own.
His body stiffened for a millisecond. “Nah, Will,” he all but whispered. “No one here for me but you.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“But then why do you come here?”
He waited a moment. “’Cause sometimes you need the company of the dead,” he said. “Like to look at the tombstones. Used to be a comfort to me, knowin’ my name would be on one one day.”
I flinched at his words. The way he spoke, it was like death would be a relief.
“I’d walk around here for hours, countin’,” he continued.
I blinked. “Counting?”
That time he did turn and face me. He reached forward to gently push my glasses up my face, since they’d dropped slightly down my nose. The gesture was so tender it hurt. Even when Gage was being gentle, there was pain.
“Counting the seconds left in the day. In my life,” he replied. “The seconds until I’d be here, buried under.” He nodded to the grass where my brother’s skeleton lay.
“You were counting down the seconds until you died?” I whispered, my voice breaking.
He nodded once. “Don’t count when I’m with you.”
My heart didn’t miss a beat then. It freaking stopped.
“You belong, baby,” he growled, snatching my chin in his hands. “Me sayin’ otherwise was me tryin’ to be the good guy. Remembered I’m not that guy. And I remembered that you’re not the good girl the world thinks you are either.” His eyes darkened. “So you belong.”
Tears streamed down my face.
“I lost a half of myself when he died,” I whispered, shifting my eyes from Gage to the slab of rock that held a handful of words supposed to immortalize my brother. “What is a twin without the other half of them? What is a person with only half of their soul?”
He surged forward, gripping my hips, eyes on mine. “I know what it is, because I don’t have anything left of mine, Will.” His hand moved to cup my cheek. “Or I didn’t think I did. Till you. You’ve got enough soul for both of us. That makes you not just half a person. That makes you fuckin’ everything.” His hand tightened almost to the point of pain. “Everything.”
I was nervous as Gage unclipped my helmet and laid it on the seat of the bike. We were in the parking lot of the Sons of Templar compound. The last time I was there I’d been shouting about having Gage arrested. I’d been doing that in front of Gage’s brothers.
I knew they didn’t hold it against me, because Brock and Amy had been around to my place for dinner.
I didn’t ask, of course. Amy just informed me.
“I don’t cook, but I’ll bring great wine.” There was a pause. “Shit, you don’t drink wine. I’ll bring something else great. If you don’t want to cook, or can’t, like me, I’ll order takeout.”
“I can cook,” I told her, not at all insulted at her inviting herself and her handsome husband over to the loft I’d pretty much barred from the world. No, I was excited.
“Great, I’ll see you tomorrow night, then.”
And then she hung up.
It was the best night ever. Conversation was easy. Natural. Laughter filled the loft that had been silent. Warmth that couldn’t be mimicked by any heating system burst from the walls.
So it wasn’t as if I was being thrust into the lion’s den. That had already happened the night I got onto the back of Gage’s bike.
Voices and music carried over the parking lot.
This was different. This was a club party. This was me being firmly tattooed into this world. And I wanted that. More than anything.
Gage cupped my face. “Been a big day for my girl,” he murmured, searching my eyes.
We’d come straight from the cemetery.
“We can get right back on the bike, go home and I can fuck you till you pass out?” he offered.
My thighs quivered and I swallowed my desire. “No, Gage. I want to.”
His eyes lightened and he laid his mouth on mine. Brutal, and like we weren’t in the middle of the parking lot.
“But hold that thought,” I whispered against his mouth. “I’m not adverse to getting fucked till I pass out… later.”
Darkness floated in his eyes. “Oh you will, babe. That’s a promise.”
Then he slung his arm around my shoulders, yanked me to him and walked us to the party.
“Why don’t we ever go to your place?” I asked, my head in Gage’s lap, peering up from the page of the book I was doing a very good job at pretending to read.
We were naked.
I’d spent hours tracing the design on his chest, his ‘safe’ area. My fingertips could brush down his arms sometimes, when his eyes weren’t full of shadows. They might even clutch them during sex—no, during fucking—because at that point, pain had become just as important as pleasure for us. Ever since I’d showed him that I wanted depraved and dark and not romantic and soulful, he’d shown me all sorts of depravity.
All of which I loved.
We were exploring each other’s capacity for pleasure as well as our capacity for pain.
Gage was a man without limits, both inside and outside of the bedroom.
Well, almost.
Those scarred arms were a hard limit.
But we were working on it.
After him literally holding his breath as I’d trailed the map of pain etched into his skin, I gave him respite by looking at the artistry of pain on top of it.
“Why the gates of Hell?” I asked, tracing around the hooded skeleton.
His body, still taut from my fingers on his arms, tightened even more. “Because, Will, despite what Shakespeare said, Hell isn’t empty. It’s full, too many damned souls and not enough real estate,” he murmured. “And maybe that’s why all the devils are here.” His arms tightened around me. “Present company included.”
I glanced up. “You really think you’re a devil?”
“Awkward, I was talking about you,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes, smiling slightly. He chose the strangest and most inopportune—some might say inappropriate—times to inject his dark humor into situations. Mostly when those situations got a little too close to his exposed nerves.
But I was getting bolder, stronger, more willing to risk brushing against them, causing us both pain.
“We’ve all got our demons, Gage,” I whispered. “I just learned to live in a distorted harmony with mine.” My eyes never left his. “You chose to become yours.”
He stiffened as he had when my fingers had been tracing his scars. Because my words were doing the same.
He didn’t speak for the longest time. Long enough that I’d resigned myself to the fact that this was just another time when Gage spoke with his silence.
“You looked at my demons, saw me without my ma
sk, and somehow you fell in love with the beast instead of the man,” he rasped. “What made you stay was the very thing I thought would chase you away.”
I glanced up, tears prickling behind my eyes at the emotion rattling in his tone. “Nothing is going to chase me away.”
He didn’t meet my gaze. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
And he hadn’t let me respond to that troubling statement. Instead he fucked me into silence. Into oblivion.
For the time being.
And then we landed on the sofa, with Gage’s ‘naked’ edict fully in place. I’d thought in theory that such a thing would be uncomfortable. That I’d be crippled with anxiety about those dimpled spots on my thighs, that little pooch in my stomach that never went away. The way my breasts had started to drop, just slightly, almost magically when I’d turned thirty.
Wrong.
Those little insecurities still whispered at me, but Gage’s gaze, his worship, quietened them, much like he did my demons. And I quickly found the benefit to the edict when he bent me over the kitchen counter, slamming into me while slapping a wooden spoon hard and fast against my ass.
The spot stung with every move.
And it was glorious.
“Why don’t we go to my place?” Gage repeated my question, hands running lazily through my hair. Where I had a book, he did not. I knew he loved to read, because I remembered his shelves at the club, and his intense perusal of my own collection. He’d run his eyes over it for at least a solid fifteen minutes. He didn’t touch a book, just looked at the spines. And only a true book lover knew the joy that merely looking at the weathered spines of classics and favorites could provide. A book lover also knew that you could tell a lot about a person by their collection.
But he wasn’t reading. He was just sitting, running his hands through my hair. He was a man content with just sitting. I asked him about it, and he said it was a new thing.
“Because I don’t count when I’m sitting with you. And I like to bathe in those little moments, those pockets of peace a man like me has been starved of.”