by Paula Cox
I stay quiet. I want to tell her that I believe her, that I know she’ll never touch drugs again, but it’s difficult to believe. Patrick brings the damp towel to Dawn’s forehead and holds it there, smiling sadly at her. For a moment he’s not a tough-as-hell biker, but a bedside nurse.
“Keep thinking like that,” he says.
As we watch, Dawn brings her hand up and touches Patrick’s hand, pressing the towel harder against her forehead. It could be just that she wants to feel the towel with more force, or it could be that she wants to feel Patrick’s hand against hers. I don’t know. But either way, if it helps her get through this, then I’m happy with it.
“Do you want us to take over?” Killian says.
Even now, when all I should be thinking about is Dawn, Dawn’s recovery, making my sister better, my mind strays to the way Killian dominated Lucca, the way he completely and easily put him in his place, the way he defended me. I feel like I need to cross my legs to stop the fidgeting, like when you’re on a long trip and need to pee badly. My clit feels bigger, hotter, a point of pleasure which can’t be ignored. With a considerable effort, I bring myself back to the present.
“It’s your shift,” Patrick says. “We’ve got Gunny and Declan here tomorrow, haven’t we?”
Killian nods, walking into the room. “Go and rest, brother,” he says. “Hope and I will stay here for a while.”
When Patrick takes his hand away, Dawn flinches. “Will you come back?” she whispers.
Patrick nods seriously. “Tonight, after I’ve showered and rested, I’ll be back. I promise.”
She nods quickly.
“Thank you,” I call after Patrick.
I take the damp cloth and sit beside Dawn, holding it as Patrick held it.
“He’s a good man,” Dawn says.
“When he wants to be,” Killian mutters.
For the next three or four hours we sit with Dawn, rubbing down her skin with damp towels, feeding her sugary food, making her take pain medication and anti-allergy medication, helping her ride the warped rollercoaster off addiction and into sobriety.
Then, when the room is dark and lit only by lamplight, Dawn falls asleep, her body a tight ball, her knees drawn to her chest. Patrick appears at the door, freshly shaved and showered. “I’ll sit with her,” he says. “You two can go.”
As quietly as we can, Killian and I rise to our feet and creep to the door. I give Patrick a quick hug. “Thank you so much,” I whisper.
He shrugs, uncomfortable, and then walks toward the bed. “It’s not a chore,” he says. “Feels good to do something good, you know?”
Killian stops at the door and looks back at his older brother. I think he’s going to say something, but then he paces from the room. After a moment, I follow him.
I sit on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and Killian sits next to me.
“Thank you,” I say into the silence.
“For what?” He turns his head.
I smile at him, shaking my head. “Where do I start, Killian? Thank you for buying my paintings. Thank you for giving me more money than I have a clue what to do with. Thank you for helping my sister. Thank you for standing up to Lucca. Thank you for all of it.”
Killian shrugs. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
“Not all men would do that. You know, people think the Satan’s Martyrs are animals. But you’re not an animal, are you?”
“I guess that depends what you mean by an animal,” he says, voice low, staring at a mounted bear’s head but not seeing it at all.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Even seeing him serious like this, pensive, makes me horny. He just makes me horny. His muscular body, his wounded eyes, his vulnerable-yet-strong demeanor which shouts out for somebody to take care of him.
“I had a girlfriend, once,” he says. “Nothing serious. Not like us. We weren’t close like we are, I mean. There wasn’t this . . .” Connection—it hangs in the air, but he doesn’t say it. “Anyway,” he goes on, “she was on the back of my bike. I was taking her home. She lived about eighty miles out of the Cove, and I didn’t want to spend the night with her. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but it wasn’t like us . . . I’m repeating myself, damn.”
He takes a deep breath. When he lets it out, it’s shaky, drawn.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “You can tell me anything, Killian. You don’t have to be nervous around me.”
He nods, as though my words give him strength. “Okay, so I’m riding her out of town. Goddamn, some asshole left a rock in the road. It was dark. I wasn’t paying close enough attention. When I say rock, I mean a big-ass rock. A boulder. It was twice the size of a bike helmet. I smash straight into this rock and the bike tips over. I thought I was flying for a moment. I couldn’t believe that I’d crashed. Me, crash? It seemed ridiculous. No, I was flying. Then I landed on my shoulder, cracking it, and slid about one hundred feet down the road. I was wearing my jacket, so apart from a few breaks and fractures, I was alright.
“But she . . . Her arms were grazed to hell, grazed so bad the flesh underneath showed through. They gave her morphine in the hospital, and she got a taste for it. Morphine is basically heroin. That’s what one of the doctors told me. It’s a medical type of heroin. Opium. She was never the same after that. Even after her wounds healed, she couldn’t kick the stuff. It destroyed her. It made her into a different person. Drugs, I just can’t . . .” He shivers. “Drugs,” he repeats. “Goddamn drugs. I despise them, really fucking despise them.”
I shrug off the blanket and move up on the couch, and then wrap my arms around him and lean up so that my mouth is close to his ear. “It’s not your fault,” I say. “Don’t blame yourself. Trust me, I know enough about blaming yourself to know where it leads you. Nowhere, that’s the truth. It leads you nowhere and gives you a whole lot of pain.”
He lets his head fall back on the couch. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “You’re right. It’s just always haunted me. Like that,” and he clicks his fingers, “a person goes from a decent person to a bag of shaking bones, begging for their next hit.”
“I know, I know, it’s messed up.” I reach down for his leg, wondering if this is the time—and then killing the thought. All evening I haven’t stopped being horny. And for some reason now he’s opened up to me, I’m hornier. I grab his thigh, high up, near his cock. He takes a deep breath, and his cock gets hard; I can see it clearly through his pants.
That’s it. I’m gone. My pussy cries out to me, begs me not to wait any longer.
“Come with me,” I whisper. “I’ll make you feel better, Killian. I’ll make you feel so much better.”
Our bedroom contains a dresser, a bedside table, a watercolor of a bear stalking through a forest, and a large king size bed with pristine clean sheets. My only interest right now is the bed. I place my hands on Killian’s chest and push him backwards into the room, kicking the door closed with my foot. I’m wild with lust, panting with it. I want him to know how badly I want him, how much I appreciate everything he’s done, everything he’s given. Not just money, but himself. He’s let me look inside of him, and for what he says that’s a rare thing for him.
I push him until the back of his knees hit the mattress. He falls back. And then I snap my hands up and unbutton his jeans, quickly, hungry.
“Damn, Hope,” he says. “You really are—”
His cock springs free, his huge, thick cock. His intimidating cock. A cock bigger than any I’ve seen, or any I’m likely to see. A real man’s cock. It springs up, rock-hard.
I grab the base of it in my hand. My hand looks tiny when I grab it, it’s so big. He cuts off his words and groans with pleasure. This pushes me on. His satisfied groans make my pussy go tight, ache, tingle. My pussy responds to his moans of pleasure, urges me forward. I rub his cock up and down, from base to tip, and then I lean forward and take the tip in my mouth.
It’s huge and I have to
open my mouth very, very wide. So wide that my jaws ache. But I don’t let that stop me. I force my mouth open and take the tip of him inside of me, licking it, all while rubbing the base. He reaches down and touches the back of my head.
“Oh, fuck,” he moans, as I go up and down, up and down, like I’m bobbing for apples.
I push my mouth down as far as it will go and feel his cock hit the back of my throat. The sound of my choking fills the room, but so does the sound of Killian’s moaning, so I don’t care. I push down farther, until his cock slides into my throat, and then I pull away, spit and pre-come spilling from my lips.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Killian pants. “You’re a sexy whore, Hope. You’re a dirty whore.”
“I am,” I moan, and then take his cock in my mouth again.
I move my mouth up and down, up and down, and rub his base so fast that he must have friction burns. But he moans louder, longer, and in his moans he seems to forget his depression and regret.
“I’m going to come in your fucking mouth,” he growls.
“Mm-mm,” I moan, nodding my head as I suck him. “Mm-mmmm.”
I go quicker, push my mouth down so far that his cock fills me completely, sliding into my throat and choking me. As I pull away, I move my hand furiously up and down, wanking him and feeling the impressive hardness of his cock. And then—
“Oh, damn,” he grunts, holding the back of my head on his cock. “Swallow it,” he says.
His cock pulses, seems to lurch, and then come shoots out of him and into my mouth, warm, salty come. I have never been a fan of the taste—who has?—but with Killian I don’t mind it. Because it’s him I’m doing this for. His cock begins to wilt in my mouth. I swallow his come, every drop, as he moans, as his fingers grow weaker on the back of my head.
Then I stand up and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
He smiles sleepily up at me.
“No way,” I grin back.
I throw myself on the bed. “It’s my turn now, Mr. Biker.”
His sleepy smile turns into a wolfish grin. “A pretty lady who knows what she wants,” he says.
Then he slides to the floor and reaches up, grabs the waistband of my jeans, and yanks them away. My underwear comes away at the same time, revealing my pussy. “You have a perfect fucking cunt,” he breathes, staring at it.
Then he pushes his face in between my legs, grabbing my thighs with his strong hands. I close my legs around his head. He licks my clit quickly, a snake’s tongue flickering back and forth, as his hands dig deep into my flesh.
His tongue is an expert’s tongue. No fumbling, no searching. He goes straight to my point of pleasure and uses it, makes it hot and sore, but sore in a sweet way. He licks faster, harder, with more pressure. All I can do is squeeze his face into me and ride the wave of pleasure. Moans pour out of me, high-pitched, helpless moans. I throw myself into the euphoria, this bad boy biker between my legs, making me scream.
And then I let my head fall back, close my eyes, and see red. Just red. Red sheets of pleasure. “Ah, ah, fuck, yes, fuck, Killian, yes.”
He licks me faster. My clit sparks, and the spark becomes an explosion, and soon my clit is blazing with his tongue. Blazing and seeing red, his shadow of a beard tickling my lips, his biker’s hands, callused, gripping my thigh.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
I close my legs tighter, and then it comes. Like a tidal wave, it comes. Spilling out of me.
My body contorts like a woman possessed, I dig my fingernails into the bed sheets, I throw my head back and let out a scream as the orgasm pulses through me, as I come and come and come.
Then it passes, and I’m exhausted.
Killian climbs into bed with me, wraps his arms around me, and in a matter of minutes we’re both asleep, buried deep into each other.
Chapter Sixteen
Killian
I wake in the middle of the night, Hope’s body draped over mine, to the sound of my phone vibrating from the bedside table. I want to ignore it, to sink into Hope and pretend that nothing else exists, but if nothing else, I’m still the leader of the Satan’s Martyrs.
I reach across and pick it up. I have a text from Gunny: One of the men just told me they saw Patrick meeting with The Headsmen the day before last. He was meeting with the leader. I know what you’re going to say, Boss. And yeah, they’re sure it was him. One hundred percent sure.
I put the phone back down on the bedside table and rub my eyes. This makes my life damn difficult. Patrick, meeting with another bike club? Why? For what reason? Is he planning something? The thought makes me sick. The thought makes me want to march through the house and slap him around. The thought makes me want to throw him in the damn lake. But I’m also aware that he’s helping Dawn, and going in there right now hot-handed might not be the best approach.
And there’s the selfish reason, too. I want to spend time with Hope. We have a day off from detox watch tomorrow. We don’t have a shift. I want to be with Hope without having to worry about anything else. Maybe that makes me a bad man. Maybe that makes me a bad leader. I don’t know. All I know is I want to be with Hope for a day, just a day when I don’t have to worry about stuff like this, just a day when we can be a man and his woman.
So I push it from my mind for the time being and wrap my arm around her, bring her close to me. She moans, nuzzles into my chest, and I feel a big-ass fool’s grin spread across my face.
Things are complicated, sure, but right now they couldn’t be simpler.
Just close my eyes, hold my woman, and sleep.
Since we don’t have to watch Dawn today, I decide to take Hope out to a cabin right in the center of the Darkwood, the most secluded spot I can think of. It’s a Numb safehouse—we rent it from an old man who’s known the Satan’s Martyrs for a long time—where members hide if there’s a crosshair on their back, but right now it’s not being used. When I tell her, she just smiles and nods, in that elfish way of hers. Her eyes tell me: I want to be alone, too.
We saddle up and ride out way to the cabin, her arms wrapped around mine. I’m beginning to get used to having her arms wrapped around me like that; it’s beginning to feel right, to feel like the way things should be. It’s mad. Tell me a few weeks ago I’d feel this way about a woman, I’d laugh. But men change, I guess. Women have that power.
The cabin is a rectangle of wood, ivy creeping up the walls and across the roof, the door a small cottage’s door I have to crouch through.
The inside of the cabin is simple, with a kitchen adjoined to the living room, and two bedrooms off to one side, through small wooden doors. The bathroom is at the end of the hall. Blankets are draped over the furniture and the walls are bare and wooden, making it feel like we’re in some fantasy cottage—like we’ve gone back in time.
As soon as we’re in the cabin, I forget about Patrick. Or maybe I force myself to forget about him, to forget about what I know. Whatever it is, he’s gone from my mind and I focus on Hope.
“This is rustic,” she smiles.
“Rustic, yeah.” I nod and drop the bag, which contains a few items of food, two bottles of whiskey, and our clothes, on the couch. “I think that’s the word for it.”
It is a mild autumn day and Hope wears a short dress, cutting just short of her underwear, which drives me crazy. Her legs are begging to be squeezed. Her breasts are barely contained in the dress, pushing outward, until all I can think about is grabbing her, taking her.
“I know that look,” she says, looking up at me cutely from beneath her eyelashes, like she’s scared and horny all at once.
“Do you?” I breathe, closing the distance between us. I reach up and grab her leg, just shy of her pussy, and squeeze hard. Not nearly as hard as I can, but hard enough to make her wince.
She gazes up at me vulnerably. “You’re a bad man,” she pouts, but her voice is thick with lust.
“I am,” I agree.
Then I spin her around, push her upper back so she b
ends over, and yank down her underwear. She supports herself by holding onto the back of the couch, her fingers gripping the top. Then she pushes her ass out, opening her pussy. I can’t stop myself. My cock is already iron-hard, ready to burst, ready to implode if I don’t do something.
I pull down my jeans just enough, and then I grab her big, beautiful ass cheeks and thrust my cock inside of her.
We sit on the couch, both of us naked and sweating, holding glasses of whiskey.
Hope takes a sip and then her face contorts. “How do people just drink this?” she coughs, wiping her lips. We’re both butt-naked. She turns to me, smiling. “How many times was that?” she asks.
“No idea,” I smile. “Four, five? Are you as sore as I am?”