Ember's Burn: A Steel Demons MC Novel

by Annelise Reynolds

  “Don’t talk like that, don’t fucking think like that.” He shook my shoulders before crushing my lips with his. Like that day at the restaurant, I felt myself yield to him.

  Before Price took me, I was thinking about trying to trust and letting go of my fears for Titan. That, in and of itself, was huge. I watched how he was with Phoenix, how he was with his brothers. Then, that night happened, and everything changed. I couldn’t sit there and watch him with those women, and Phoenix gave me the out I wanted with that text. If I had paid more attention and not been so desperate to get out of there, I’d have realized it didn’t add up to the scene in the living room I had witnessed not even an hour before.

  However, I pushed him away, and he did exactly as I said I wanted him to do. He moved on to the women at the club. They were willing to meet his needs and I wasn't. I'd been pushing him away since Phoenix and Grit took their trip to Amarillo.

  I was sitting on the front porch, my feet propped up on the rail, the rocking chair leaned back, and my eyes open, looking at the stars. Being from the city where stars are drowned out by the lights, it was amazing to just sit and listen to the crickets and frogs and watch the stars shimmering like glitter in the sky.

  The sound of a motorcycle was coming toward me. I didn't have to look, I knew who it was, and I knew what he wanted. Me.

  Titan and I were in a kind of holding pattern. Well, I was. He was pretty open about looking at and watching me. I'd watch him, study him, but the moment his eyes turned toward me, I'd look away. I watched how he was with Phoenix, like an older brother. I watched how he treated the men he called his brothers. Loyalty ran deep within the group of men. I had no doubt in my mind that they would protect each other, no matter what.

  “What are you doing here, Titan?” I asked, not looking at him directly but out of the corner of my eye, as he climbed the stairs.

  He didn't answer me right away. Instead, he took the chair beside me and sat down, his pose mirrored mine, leaning back with his feet on the rail. After a few minutes of him watching the sky and me watching him, he finally spoke. “You know why I'm here.”

  I did. Phoenix and Grit were away, and he was making the move that he'd been wanting to make. I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me. Lust. Want. Desire. Need. “I can't be what you need.”

  “Honey, you have no clue what I need.”

  “I'm not your honey.”

  I turned from his smug-ass little smile and ignored his presence as much as I possibly could. He didn't talk, he didn't fill the silence that settled around us with idle conversation. He just sat there, his confidence and strength radiating off him. Something I faked but never really felt. For whatever reason, being alone beside Titan didn't send me into a panic that being alone with other men did, and his overbearing, cocky strength seemed to boost my own confidence and sense of calm.

  All these thoughts swirled in my head as we sat in silence. At some point, I drifted to sleep, and I didn't wake up until he was lifting me into his arms. “I won't trust you,” I whispered, as he sat me down on the floor beside my bedroom door.

  “You already do. You just need to wrap your head around it.” He kissed me, and I automatically responded to it. I melted against him and returned it. When I felt my back against a wall, I panicked. I pushed him away. I would have slapped him, but he caught my wrist. “I don't know everything that happened in your past, McKenzie, but I do know, here and now, you were kissing me back. You don't fear me because, if you did, you never would have let me sit on the porch with you for the last hour and a half, you wouldn’t have drifted off to sleep in my presence, you wouldn't have let me carry you upstairs, you wouldn’t have let me kiss you, or kissed me back, and you damn sure wouldn't have tried to slap me if you at all thought I would hurt you. You're playing games, McKenzie.”

  “No, I don't want this. Go back to the women that live at your clubhouse. I’ve heard the rumors of what goes on there. You have no need for an extra lay.”

  “No, I don't. I could go back there and fuck every one of the girls back to back as my brothers watched on, and you know what? Every damn person there would enjoy the show and line up behind me to have their turn. I’m here, McKenzie, because I want to be. I want more with you than a quick fuck or easy lay.”

  “I'm not looking for more, Titan. I'm not looking for anything with you. Go back to the girls there. Go back to fucking in the open with all eyes on your business… That's the life you want, not the life I want.”

  “You don't want a life at all, McKenzie, you want to hide.” He turned and walked away. His thundering footsteps taking him farther away from me, and proving me right once more – men can’t be trusted.

  I didn’t sleep that night. It was my own fault, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him and ask him to come back. In my apartment back home, I had four locks on the door – two of which were deadbolts. Even with that, I put a table behind the door when I went to bed at night. Here, there was only one deadbolt, and the windows, while they had locks, were vulnerable because there was access from the lower floor. I ended up moving my bed in front of the bedroom door, but sleep still wouldn’t come.

  Images of Titan with different women flitted through my mind when I’d fall asleep. It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning, when I was about to get up, that I finally fell into an exhausted sleep.

  I didn’t hear my phone go off, I didn’t hear the knocking on the front door. When I heard a pounding on my bedroom door, and felt the door hit the bed, I sprang up. I couldn’t help the scream that tore from my throat. I must have only been half awake because in my mind, I was in hell again, and the monster was on the other side of that door. It took a few minutes, but finally Titan’s voice penetrated my foggy mind. He was talking to me, telling me it was ok, that he was there. He pushed against the door and slid the bed little by little. I stood frozen against the wall. When the door was cracked enough for him to see in, he looked at me. “You ok?”

  I drew in a deep breath to steady myself and put my indifferent mask back in place. “I was until you started pounding on my bedroom door.”

  “Get dressed, McKenzie, and move your bed away from the goddamn door.” Like the night before, he walked down the stairs angry.

  I moved the bed back to its place and made my way to the bathroom. I felt the panic rising inside of me. He had no clue how that messed with my head. My breaths were choppy and coming out fast. I stood in front of the mirror and looked myself in the eyes. Every breathing technique I’d ever heard of, I tried in order to keep that panic at bay and to keep it from consuming me.

  It took over an hour to get myself under control. The threads that were holding me together for so long were fraying, and I didn’t know how much longer I could hold on. When I finally went downstairs, I found Titan in the kitchen. He had made coffee and breakfast, and another one of those threads frayed just a little bit further.

  As Titan kissed me, I felt myself breaking inside, the more I broke, the more I responded to him, the more I didn’t care about anything outside of him. My past didn’t exist, I was just me. He calmed me, excited me, frustrated me, melted me, consumed me, and scared me. Everything about Titan made me feel, and it had been so long since I felt anything except pain and fear.

  I felt myself letting go, the last vestige of control slipping away from me as the kiss grew deeper. The illusion I’d lived with for so long, the one I needed in order to survive, totally stripped away, and there I remained raw, exposed, vulnerable, and for the first time, free.

  I felt her melting in my arms. When she responded and stroked my tongue with her own, I groaned. It was different than the times before because she was taking part in the kiss, accepting and exploring, seeking. I pulled away and rested my forehead against hers, dragging in deep breaths, trying to get my body under control, but my battle was futile.

  “If you want to stop, now’s the time to do it, McKenzie.” I waited for her response. I willed
her to say yes, but I was leaving it in her hands.

  Her eyes closed and I could see her hesitation. I was about to pull back, to give myself much needed space to calm down. My cock was ready for a willing woman, but all it would be getting was another hand job in the shower. I was so focused on calming my body, I almost missed her whispered, “Yes.” Almost.

  I kissed her again, barely banking my hunger for her, but I was afraid if I moved too fast, she would put a stop to it, and despite my words, if she said stop, I'd stop no matter what. She'd been hurt enough. Even if it killed me, I'd back off if she said the word.

  When McKenzie moved closer to me, I lifted her against my chest and headed toward the stairs. In her room, I put her down beside the bed, making sure her body slid against mine as I lowered her. “Help me forget, Jason.”

  Her soft statement took the last of my control away. I claimed her lips again and pulled the belt to her robe loose. The tank top and short shorts she wore beneath was every man’s fantasy. Her lush breasts were rising and falling rapidly. I could see the tightened peaks beneath the thin top.

  “I’m going to take off your shirt.” I waited for her to nod before I started sliding it up. I threw the tank on the chair and looked my fill at her gorgeous breasts.

  I hadn't noticed the scars around her nipples before, but I noticed them now. They were old, faint after years of healing. The new, fresh scar from her recent surgery distracted from those much smaller ones, but they were there, clearly from being bitten hard. I pushed the fury that rose in my chest, afraid if she saw it she would shy away. I cupped her breast gently and ran my thumb over the tight peak.

  “I need my mouth on these tits, sweetheart.” I felt her go rigid in my arms, no doubt from the memory that left her scarred. “McKenzie, if at any point you want me to stop, that's all you have to say. Do you understand me?”

  She swallowed hard. I could feel her fear in her trembling body, but she nodded her permission. I guided her to sit on the edge of the bed and got on my knees. Her full globes were at the right level for me to give them the attention they, she, deserved. My head lowered to her chest, and I kissed the new scar that marred her flesh. Then I moved to the smaller scars around her puckered nipples, kissing them, licking them. I felt her shudder in my arms and heard her breath catch in her throat. With every flick of my tongue, I hoped that I was soothing away the memories, the years of torment and hell she’d been through, and replacing them with the memories of us, here and now, in this moment.

  Her eyes were on me when I looked up at her. They were barely open as she watched my every move. I swirled my tongue around, then sucked the tender bud into my mouth. Her eyes slid closed and a moan purred low in her throat. Her hands were fisted into the bedding beneath her. I leaned forward, subtly pushing her body back with mine. She followed the unspoken command and laid back on the bed. I trailed kisses across her chest and gave the same attention to her other breast, then ran her nipple across the front of my teeth. She hissed in response.

  When her hips arched up, begging for more, I trailed my mouth downward, kissing her ribs that had been broken by Price. I dipped my tongue around her belly button and nipped the tender flesh with a gentle bite. I looked up her body toward her face. Her breasts rising and falling with each of her rapid breaths. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth slightly parted and a look of pure pleasure and awe on her beautiful face.

  “These shorts are in the way, honey. I need to see all of you, be inside you. You doing ok, sweetheart?” She opened her green eyes and looked at me before nodding, granting me silent permission. “I need the words, McKenzie.”

  Her voice was thick with need and desire, but there was also a trace of fear and uncertainty that flashed in her eyes, as she whispered the one word I needed to hear, “Yes.”

  I felt like I was drowning in sensation, only it wasn’t pain, but blissful ecstasy. I felt warm, like I was burning from the inside out. My core tightened and fluttered, flooding my pussy with want and need.

  Titan watched me, our eyes holding as he removed my shorts and panties. He didn’t break eye contact as he lowered his mouth toward my wet folds. His fingers were gentle as he parted my swollen, sensitive flesh. When his tongue slid over my clit, I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore.

  Time seemed to slow down as he sent pleasure like I’ve never known coursing through my body. I couldn’t seem to lie still or get close enough to his mouth. I moved my feet to the bed and pushed my hips up toward him. His hands moved to my ass and held me tightly to his mouth as he continued to lap at my pussy. He groaned, and the vibration sent me closer to orgasm.

  “Jason.” I writhed beneath him as he worked me higher and higher. When his finger slid deep within me, my body clamped down around the sweet intrusion.

  “Mmmmm, damn, sweetheart. I can’t wait until you do that on my cock.” I came at his words. My walls clamping and releasing around that thick digit as pleasure ripped through me in shuddering waves, but I wanted more. He moved over me, his clothes were gone and the heat from his body seeped into mine. I felt a tinge of fear, but he must’ve seen it. “Look at me, McKenzie.” I met his heated, blue gaze. “It's me, I got you.”

  He held me, keeping me in the present, refusing to let me slip into the past. “Jason,” I gasped, as the thick head of his cock pushed against me. He stilled, his jaw clenched as he waited for my body to relax and open to him.

  “Let me in, McKenzie,” he groaned, his eyes closed like he was in pain, holding back. With his words, I knew he was talking about more than just sex, and for the first time ever I wanted to let someone all the way in. My body adjusted around his as I relaxed and his girth stretched and filled me completely.

  “It doesn't hurt.” I moved my hips a little in awe, and Jason groaned.

  “No, sweetheart, sex should never be painful or hurt outside the realm of pleasure.” With that, he drew his hips back and pushed into me again. His length dragging against the inside walls of my pussy. Every stroke was slow and measured as he let me get used to the feel of him moving inside me. Like when he was devouring me with his mouth, my body took over, and I met his next thrust down with an upward thrust of my own. After that, he sped up and I responded in kind. The rhythm was fast and desperate. It wasn't long before I came around him. Squeezing him, the spasms rocked me.

  “Jason.” He pushed back onto his knees and grasped my hips, pulling them onto his waist and off the bed. I saw his body joining with mine as he continued to move in and out of me. The sight was erotic and beautiful. He wanted me to see him, us, together, joined.

  I felt another orgasm coiling within me. When he moved his thumb to my clit, I had no choice but to muffle my scream into the pillow. I felt him pull free of me and groan as he spent on my belly. It seemed like he wouldn't stop coming.

  Titan sat back, still kneeling between my legs as he caught his breath. “Next time, I'm going to cum in you. You need to get on birth control, honey.”

  I pushed up on my elbows and looked at the cocky man in front of me. “You're pretty confident this is going to happen again, Titan. You shouldn't assume so much of yourself.”

  “What happened to Jason?”

  “What?” I shrugged.

  “When I was deep inside you, I was Jason, now I'm back to being Titan.” I knew I had called him by his name, it just seemed more appropriate when we were having sex, so I told him so. His grin just got bigger and more, cocky. “So, I'm only Jason in bed?” He crawled up my body and took my lips in a passion-filled kiss. “I guess when I want to hear my name on your lips, I'll just have to make you scream it.”

  We made love several more times before I fell into an exhausted heap on his chest. I was safe, for the first time in my life my bedroom door wasn't locked and nothing kept it from opening, but I didn't care. It was then I realized that Titan was my anchor. He kept me from drowning. “Did you mean it?” he asked as he ran his fingers through my sweat-dampened hair.

 
“Mean what?” I hedged.

  He rolled me over beneath him and looked me in the eye. “Don't play, McKenzie, you know damn well what I'm asking.”

  “Yes, I do, and yes, I meant it. If I get the chance to take my revenge, I will – consequences be damned. They’re alive and could be doing the same shit to someone else that they did to me.”

  “I'm working on it, McKenzie. Will you trust me to let me handle this?”

  Do I trust him? Yes, more than I thought possible, but would I let him or anyone else run the risk of going to jail or dying to get revenge on my behalf? No.

  I had to end this. I had to make sure they could never hurt me or anyone else again, so I lied, “Yes.”

  I finally have her, she is mine. McKenzie lay in my arms asleep. She didn't wake up or stir from nightmares, her sleep was peaceful.

  My phone vibrated on the nightstand. “Yeah?” I listened as Hack spoke on the other end of the line.

  “I found something. The fucking bastards never thought they'd get caught.”

  “Hold on.” I moved slowly away from McKenzie, not wanting to disturb her. I grabbed my briefs and headed downstairs. The first floor was dark, except for the glow from the outside lights. “Talk to me.”

  “I found records in Price’s safe that connects underground money being funneled from Richards’ campaign. I also found that the money was put back into Richards’ pocket, and you'll never believe the link.”

  “What?”

  “McKenzie’s old boss. He cleaned the money through his restaurant and his other business ventures.”

  “Christ, you make it sound like the fucking mob.”

  “Not quite, but the boss is beginning to go in that direction. It looks like there are ties between the owner and the Irish mob.”

  “Do you think McKenzie had any clue?”

  “Not from what I can tell.” Hack took a deep breath. “Titan, there’s more.”