by Franca Storm
“BETTER?”
I smiled at Slade.
He sat on a stool beside me at the bar inside the Steel Titans clubhouse, a first-aid kit open on the bar top.
“Much,” I told him, eyeing the bandage he’d fixed around my arm. He’d also applied antiseptic, as well as a numbing agent to take the sting away from the wound.
He ran his hands over it lightly, grimacing.
“Slade, it’s nothing. Definitely not in the grand scheme of things.”
His eyes roamed over me, taking every inch of me in. It wasn’t sexual, though. No, he was studying me, checking me over. His gaze fixed on the stitches beside my eye. “He did that?”
I shrugged it off. “Again, nothing. I’m fine. Compared to you, especially,” I pointed out, frowning at his beat-up state.
“He do anything else to you?”
I tensed automatically at the question. I didn’t like being seen as a victim in any way. It made me feel powerless, like I had no control over what happened to me.
But I also knew Slade. He wouldn’t drop it. It was probably eating him alive, not knowing. “He wanted to, but he didn’t.” I’d turned the situation around pretty damn fast, agreeing to work for him, before he’d gone any further down that road. “He thinks I have a thing for bikers.”
“He knew about us,” he realized.
“He knew about a hell of a lot. You. Ricky. The Jackals. My humanitarian side. He’d had Ricky under surveillance for a long time, bugged his phone, the whole deal. He wasn’t above using any of it to get what he wanted.”
Slade sighed heavily and took a long swig from his glass of whiskey. “This is the last time, all right? For the both of us. Getting hurt like this, risking our lives… no more after this is dealt with.”
I gave a nod of acknowledgement. “Freeman’s invasive research into Shadow has burned me several times over.” I leaned against the bar wearily. “And, even if it hadn’t, I already told you that I’m ready to leave that life behind.”
He chugged more of his whiskey, until he’d drained the glass. “You gonna come with me?”
I didn’t miss the fact that he wasn’t looking me in the eye, or that he was staring aimlessly at the empty glass, his right hand clenching it so tightly I was worried it might shatter under the strain. The fingers of his other hand tapped at the worn oak of the bar top.
I smiled to myself. The almighty, impenetrable, unshakeable Slade Mitchell was nervous.
“That’s it?” I couldn’t help teasing.
He put the glass down and finally graced me with his eye contact. A grin spread over his face as he realized I was kidding around, and taking the edge off the situation and the weight of the ask at the same time. He shifted on his stool and reached out. Taking my hands in his, he spoke, “Once this is over, I’m walking. Going to ground. I always thought I’d be doing it alone. But, this thing with us… it’s made that impossible. I don’t want to let you go. Fuck, I don’t know if I even could.” He gave my hands a squeeze. “So, darlin’, I gotta know… do you want to come with me, leave all this behind, and find peace with me?”
He was laying his heart on the line, being vulnerable, laying everything bare and open.
It was surreal experiencing something like that from a man like him. Just as I had, he’d spent so much of his life being hard, tough, and closed off. But he clearly didn’t want to waste another moment of his life doing that. And neither did I.
“Yes.”
“Yeah?” he pressed, his eyes burning into mine.
“I don’t want to let you go either. So, yes, I’m coming with you when you go.”
His whole face lit up and it offered a glimpse into the man he had been before the brutal world he’d gotten caught up in had stamped it out of him.
He kissed the top of my head, hugged me tight, then slapped his hands down on the bar. “Well, that’s something worth celebrating, ain’t it?”
I laughed. Happy Slade was a confounding sight to behold. “Definitely.”
He called out to the prospect who’d been keeping to himself in the back, giving us privacy, just like the rest of the club seemed to be doing, because there was nobody around in the bar or lounge area at all. It was late. Perhaps they were all down for the night.
The guy walked out and came up to us behind the bar, a fresh bottle of whiskey already clutched in his hands. He knew well what his President liked. He grabbed another glass, because I hadn’t touched a drop yet. I’d been too thirsty, opting for a couple of orange juices instead. It was weird for me, but I’d just put it down to the long ride and the long night as a whole.
“Thanks, Wyatt,” Slade said.
“Anytime, Prez.”
Slade slid a glass to me and snatched up his own, as the prospect left the bottle, then started wiping down the rest of the counter, and tidying up.
“By the way, you should know that I don’t have a thing for bikers, just you.”
“Real glad to hear it, darlin’.”
He raised his glass and I followed suit.
A glint in his eye, he made a toast, “To finding peace.”
We clinked glasses.
Bringing the glass to my lips, I went to take my first sip when a sudden wave of nausea took me over. My stomach had been turning on the ride up here. In fact, it had been off since I’d woken up at Freeman’s penthouse. Maybe it had something to do with the sedative he’d given me. Those kinds of things could be hell on the gut.
I tried to stave it off, but it wouldn’t go away this time.
Before I could do a thing, I lost control, lurching over my stool, and vomiting all over the floor. It was violent and brutal, leaving me gasping for breath. I could hear Slade calling to me, then a bucket being placed in the firing zone.
When it finally stopped, and I managed to catch my breath, I straightened on my stool to find Slade eyeing me worriedly.
“Darlin’, you okay?” he asked, rubbing my back gently.
“It’s just been a rough few days.”
Right away, I saw that he wasn’t buying that. “Nah, I’m gonna call our club doc to come check you over.”
“No, it’s not necessary.”
“Willa.”
I shook my head and slid off the stool. “I’m going to freshen up and take a shower. Am I good to head up to your room, or do I need a security card, or something?”
“I’ll walk you up, make sure you get there okay.”
Before I could say much else about it, Slade was wrapping his arm around me and leading me away from the bar, and into the inner sanctum of the Steel Titans clubhouse.
“I feel so special,” I jested, as we stepped into the back corridor.
He gave me a gentle squeeze. “Special don’t even cover it.”
That had me smiling like a lovesick fool, warmth taking me over, as I relaxed into him, and let him lead me toward his room.
I could get used to this relaxed, upbeat facet of our togetherness.
It was a big departure from what the two of us had always been used to.
And I was enjoying every moment of it.
***
I sighed contentedly.
“A shower can make all the difference, yeah?” Slade said, reading me well as I walked back into his bedroom. His eyes roamed over me, my hair still slightly damp, just a white cotton bath towel covering me.
“A shower. Toothpaste. A hairbrush. They all feel like luxuries after a rough mission.”
“Preaching to the choir,” Slade agreed. He gestured at my arm, which he’d saran-wrapped to protect the bandage from the shower water. “Here, let me get rid of that now.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got it. You don’t need to.”
“I know I don’t need to. Hell, you don’t need nobody’s help, woman. But I like… taking care of you.”
Aww. “Is that right?” I teased, perching on the foot of the bed beside him.
He reached out gently and grasped my arm, getting to work on the saran wrap. �
�Yeah, it is. That gonna be an issue for you?”
As I watched him take off the wrap methodically and carefully, I pondered his question for a few moments. “I thought it might, but it doesn’t. It works with the way we are together. It’s mutual in our case.” I grinned. “Plus, I know you respect the hell out of what I do. You’ve seen my power up close and it doesn’t threaten you. Rather, it gets you off, and it’s one of the things you enjoy about me.”
“Good,” he said, planting a soft kiss on my bandage, then releasing my arm. He balled the wrap up, then tossed it into a garbage can across the room. He rose from the bed and stripped off his tee, laying it over a nearby chair. “And, just for the record, the way you are does a hell of a lot more than just give me a hard-on. It calls to me, darlin’, like nothing else, nobody else.”
“Slade,” I choked out, his sweet, earnest confession hitting me down deep. I rose to my feet and stepped into him, placing my hands on his bare chest. “I feel the same way about you.”
His eyes flamed.
His arms were around me in the next moment, pulling me tight to him, as his mouth descended on mine, taking me in an intensely passionate kiss. I gasped at the raw emotion infecting the both of us, the weight of it all pouring into the kiss.
The next thing I knew, he was ripping the towel from my body in one powerful tug. He gathered me into his arms and climbed onto the bed, straddling me, his big, muscular body covering mine.
Frantic with the need building, everything only exacerbated by our forced time apart, I grabbed the belt of his jeans and hastily undid it. I popped his fly and slid my hand inside, grasping his raging cock. A guttural groan came from him, sending a spark of desire right through me.
But then he broke our kiss and stilled my hand on his cock. He propped himself up with the other as he gazed down at me, concern filling his sexy amber eyes.
“Slade?” I questioned.
“You’re sure you’re up for this?”
“Of course. Why?”
“Just… you ain’t at your best, ain’t well.”
“I told you I’m fine.”
“Willa.”
I stroked my fingers over his cheek and he turned into my touch, wanting it, needing it just as much as I did. “I’m good to go. I want to. I want you. I need to feel you all over me, baby.”
My words relit that fire in him and the ravenous powerhouse that was Slade Mitchell as a lover surged back into being.
His mouth crashed down on mine once more and he descended upon me.
Yes!
***
“Deeper.”
I could barely get the word out, it came out as little more than a choke.
On my hands and knees on his bed with my ass in the air, I was drowning in the pleasure of Slade’s erotic torment.
It was our third round of the night and he was still going strong, insatiable with his need for me. Hell, he wasn’t alone there.
His tongue unleashed an onslaught on my pussy, while he also treated me to another realm of pleasure as his finger teased my asshole.
“Nah,” he said, briefly coming up for air and whispering huskily in my ear. “That ain’t gonna be enough for you, darlin’.”
I shivered with anticipation, wondering what he was planning.
A moment later, I felt the added thickness of another one of his fingers joining the party. He stretched me slowly, excruciatingly slowly, making me desperate to feel more, to experience every drop of new pleasure from the anal play he was treating me to.
I couldn’t contain myself another second, begging, “Please, baby. Fuck me.”
He chuckled darkly. “Yeah. Yeah, darlin’.”
He eased his fingers out of my ass. Before I could protest the loss, he spread my cheeks apart, exposing me and holding me at his mercy.
I jolted in surprise as I felt the wet, warmth of his tongue circling my asshole, rimming gently. My pussy clenched at the foreign, delectable sensation of such a sensitive area being tended to.
The soft, easy style didn’t last long. Before I knew it, Slade was snarling and losing it, his lips and teeth coming into play as he delivered on his erotic promise a while back, eating my ass. I fisted my hands in the sheets as he drove me out of my mind, evoking sensations that I’d never felt before. “Slade,” I moaned.
He growled, then thrust his tongue inside me, fucking my ass with it.
“Yes! More! More!”
His fingers dug into my ass and his tongue left me.
He shifted his weight and I mewled as I felt his cock rimming me. “Ready?” he asked, his voice hoarse and so so needy, reflecting just how I felt.
“Yes,” I told him, then hung my head in submission. In that moment, I didn’t care about my begging, about the balance of power between us, none of that. All I wanted, all I needed was to feel him fuck me with that big, thick monster cock of his. I was out of my mind with the thought of it alone.
Moisture seeped into my ass and I moaned at the sensation, realizing he was applying lube.
And then it happened.
The head of his cock breached me.
“Push back against me,” he breathed in my ear, as he slid his hand under me and played with my clit, rubbing rough and wild, and making my body vibrate with the intensity.
I followed his lead and eased back, working hard to relax, and to accept the invasion.
Inch by inch, I felt his cock easing deeper inside me. I gritted my teeth at the initial burn.
A pinch to my clit had me coming suddenly.
I’d been so worked up for so long that I just snapped, pleasure surging through me.
Slade took advantage of it and drove the rest of the way inside my ass.
That just sparked another flood of pleasure and as he began sawing in and out of me, I lost it, slamming back against him, forcing him deeper, harder.
“Jesus,” he growled, one hand grasping my hip hard and the other fisting in my hair and jerking my head back. “Look at me as I fuck your sweet ass.”
Our eyes met and the dirty look in his as he reamed my ass with his cock, driving me out of my mind, and owning me so completely, had another orgasm slamming into me.
“Fuck,” he grunted as I bucked wildly on his cock.
He grabbed my waist and shifted us into a sitting position, his arms wrapped tightly around me as I sat on his cock. He rolled his hips, driving even deeper inside me. One of his hands drifted down to my pussy. I tried to push it away, my clit being so oversensitive from my recent orgasms, but he wouldn’t let me.
He wrapped his free arm around me, holding me captive against him. “Relax and take it,” he breathed in my ear. “Feel my fingers teasing your dripping wet pussy. Feel my big, fat cock stretching your tight little ass wide, before I fill it with my hot cum.”
“God, yes,” I cried, throwing my head back against his chest, as he picked up his pace, fucking me hard, wild, and mercilessly.
Suddenly, he thrust three fingers into my pussy, shocking me.
It sparked another orgasm, making me scream out at the top of my lungs and shudder wildly in his arms.
He grunted, stilling, just before I felt him come in my ass.
He collapsed back on the bed, taking me with him. “Damn,” he said, brushing my sweat-drenched hair out of the way to take in the blissed-out look all over my face.
“Down and dirty really works for us.”
He chuckled, knowing just as well as I did, that even that was a hell of an understatement.
Although a lot was changing for the both of us, I couldn’t imagine that going that route.
Neither of us would let it.
28
~Slade~
“HE WEREN’T THERE?”
“No,” Van confirmed, shifting in one of the chairs in front of my desk, looking real uncomfortable just talking about it. “That’s why I couldn’t get through to him on the phone. There’s no way he would’ve passed up the chance to give me shit. He’s not at the helm of the c
ompany right now. Apparently, he’s sick, holed up at some safehouse getting round-the-clock care. Don’t know the details. What I do know is that his second is now running the show.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “That slimy piece of shit, Noah Powell.”
“Did you see her?” Cole asked.
“Nah,” Van said, shaking his head. “Bree wasn’t around. There was a real expensive wedding ring on Powell’s finger though. He made damn sure I noticed it.”
“I’m sorry, brother,” Cole said.
Mason folded his arms across his chest, telling him, “It’s best she wasn’t there. Easier.”
“None of it is ever going to be easy,” Van murmured.
I never thought it would be for him. He’d tried, but he just couldn’t shake Brianna Rockford. She had a hell of a hold on him and she’d burned him real bad. She’d let her old man rule her and broken things off with Van in favor of marrying Powell via some fucked-up arranged marriage shit Tony had pushed on her.
Van straightened in his chair, getting back down to business, and telling us, “The good news is, Powell’s pissed at Freeman’s plan. Actually, he’s really fucking insulted by it, and he’s going to work with us not only to push back Freeman and his guys, but to take him the hell down too.”
“Jeez, that’s some major hatred,” Liam commented.
“Yeah, well, these guys don’t take well to being insulted, to some little upstart thinking he can come in and take what they’ve spent years building. Especially with Powell, who licked Tony’s boots for an age, before he was finally given some power. He’s also going to reach out to his contacts and try to get some intel on that commander that Willa wants to bend to our way of thinking.”
“That could take a long time,” Liam pointed out. “They don’t exactly run in the same circles.”
“I’m working on decrypting Nolan’s files,” Mason told us.
“I could go down there and beat it out of him,” Tank offered.
“No one is touching Nolan all the while he’s at his stronghold,” Liam said. He eyed me, asking, “Slade?”
I sat forward in my chair and clasped my hands on the desktop as I looked out at the boys. “Van, get me Powell’s number. We’re in this together, then I want him to damn well show it. I want some of his manpower up here protecting Warlow’s borders, just in case. Mason, ease up on security protocol and let Willa in there with you. She’s got some mad research skills. She’ll get us that name and more. Van, once you get me that number, I want you and several of the prospects with eyes on Freeman. I want to know where he’s at every second of the goddamn day from here on out. He’s gonna be distracted trying to search out Willa and figuring out a way to get at Nolan that won’t expose him. Liam, you and me are gonna work a plan to move on Freeman and put him down for good once the militia ain’t an issue.”