It wasn’t much of a choice to make really.
I would be hoofing it.
I threw my bag into my back seat, knowing it would only get wet and heavy and slow me down. Then I got out of the car, barely taking a second to lock it before I started running. The rain was frigid and unrelenting. Soaked took on a whole new meaning as I rounded my way out of the industrial part of town. The wind was another nemesis, trying its best to slow me down, to throw me up against every building I passed. But it was okay. It wasn’t that far. I would be fine.
Just fine.
The sound of a motorcycle closing in on me had my stomach clenching hard and my heart lodging itself up into my throat. When it rumbled beside me, it took everything I had not to scream prematurely. But I swallowed it back and looked over and, well, it wasn’t who I thought.
No.
But I suddenly very much understood why Fee told me the local biker gang was good looking.
Because, holy hell.
Tall, dark, and dangerous. That was how you described a man like him. Handsome went without saying.
“Babe…” he said, shaking his head at me. “You really thought a hurricane was a good time for a run?” he asked, lips tipping up and I wasn’t exactly unaffected.
“I was at work. My car died. I don’t live far from here.” I had no idea why I gave him all that information; it just slipped out.
Habit, maybe.
“My name is Reign,” he said, moving to gesture behind him. “Won’t be a luxury ride, but I can get you home faster.”
I paused, hemming and hawing the idea of getting home faster as well as the safety level of a bike in that kind of weather and the fact that I knew it was probably not a good idea to take a ride from a complete stranger.
Then, out of nowhere, a giant truck pulled up beside Reign’s bike. The engine stayed on and the door opened and slammed shut and I had a very strong feeling of ‘this is what you get when you talk to strange men’, sure they were about to snatch me, throw me in the back of that truck, and sell me into some freaking human trafficking ring or some shit.
It happened all the time.
I’d seen the news stories.
That was my worry for about two whole seconds before I saw Shane freaking Mallick round the front of the truck and look between us. “Reign, all due respect, fuck off,” he said to the biker, a warning clear in his voice.
But it obviously fell on unconcerned ears because Reign’s lips tipped up into a devilish little smirk, his light green eyes dancing slightly. “That’s the way it is, huh?” he asked, glancing over at Shane.
“That’s the way it is,” Shane agreed.
“Sure Mark would agree with that?” Reign went on.
To that, despite everything about Shane seeming tense, borderline angry, his lips split into a wicked smile. “You sure you wanna go there, Reign?”
“Ah, I think there’s been enough blood spilled today,” Reign said, then turned to give me a melt-your-panties once-over. “Shame,” he said to me, then looked to Shane again. “Don’t fuck it up.”
“That a threat?”
“Just saying’. Shouldn’t go to waste.”
With that, he pulled away and we stood there for a tense second watching him disappear as the rain poured down our faces. “Let’s go,” Shane said unexpectedly, making me jump.
“Ah, thanks but no thanks.”
I really, really didn’t need to be anywhere near him right then. Or ever again. I had spent the week trying to convince myself that it was no big deal. It was just sex. Sex was sex unless both parties wanted it to be more. I didn’t. Or, at least, that was what I was telling myself. The sex was great. I had been expecting it to be pretty spectacular, but it seemed to surpass my expectations. And my body, ready for a feast after the famine, had been demanding more ever since. But that couldn’t be.
So staying away from Shane was my best bet.
Getting into a car with him would be a very, very bad idea.
“Jesus Christ, Lea, it’s crazy out here. Get in the fucking truck and let me take you home.”
“Don’t,” I snapped when he stalked over to me and went to reach for my arm. “I said leave, Shane. I’m fine.”
“Don’t be a pain in the…”
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I snapped, pushing into his chest, annoyed at him not because he was going to call me a pain in the ass, but because I was feeling a bit used and a lot rejected, no matter how wrong it was for me to feel that way. And, well, I got pissy when I felt that way.
“Christ, woman, you need some anger management classes,” he said, lips twitching.
“I don’t need anger management. I need you to stop pissing me off!” I snapped, moving to shove at him again only to find my wrist snagged. He used it to quickly pull me toward his truck. He yanked the door open, grabbed my hips, and tossed me inside.
“Stay,” he said, slamming the door and rounding the hood to the driver’s side. “Put your seatbelt on or I’ll do it for you,” he said, cranking up the heat.
“I don’t know what your problem…” I started, snapping my belt and turning to face him, throwing some of my sopping hair over my shoulder.
“My problem is you’re being too stubborn to accept some help when you need it. So sit there, shut it, and let me help you.” With that, he snapped his own belt and put the car in drive.
Again, not in the direction of my apartment.
“I really don’t recommend kidnapping me right now,” I said, crossing my arms and staring at his profile.
“You can’t go back to that shithole in this weather,” he said, not bothering to look at me.
“That shithole is where I live. And a place you own, if you remember.”
“Yeah, and it could very likely blow over or catch fire tonight. So you’re not going there.”
“You don’t get to make that decision for me.”
“I already did.”
“Shane…”
“No, Lea.”
“Listen, I’m really not the kind of woman you can go all alpha-asshole on.”
The truck pulled to a stop outside an old warehouse and Shane cut the engine. “Baby, I’m not going to force you to do shit. I live here,” he said, gesturing toward the warehouse. “Come up. Get changed into something dry. Get some coffee. Or, go right ahead and go on foot. It’s about three times the distance now and shit just seems to keep getting crazier out here. But that’s your choice.”
He opened his door, jumped down, and slammed it.
And as I watched a garbage can fly across the street, throwing trash everywhere, yeah, I really didn’t think it would be smart to go on foot.
On a very exaggerated, long-suffering sigh, I reached for my door and yanked it open. Shane paused at the end of the outside staircase that was something more than a fire escape, but only because none of the parts folded up, waiting for me. Like he didn’t have even the tiniest doubt that I would do anything but follow.
“Slippery metal stairs, really?” I asked, raising my voice because the wind was at the point where it was making it hard to hear.
“We could go through the stairs from the first floor, but they’re half-rotten and I’m pretty sure there is an entire rat ecosystem going on down there.”
“Lovely,” I drawled as I stopped right in front of him. “What?” I asked when he just stood there.
“Go on.”
“Why do I have to go first?”
“Because I want to watch your ass,” he said with an eye roll. “To make sure you don’t fall. Now, go.”
A little thrown by both the remark and the good, old-fashioned manners, I hesitated until he reached out and gave me a tiny little push. With that, I climbed, both hands grabbing the railings on either side as I looked down to watch my feet on the slippery grates.
“Right here,” Shane said, reaching out and slinging an arm around my hips, stopping me. He stuck a key into a lock and pushed the door open, then scooted inside. “Hold up,” he said,
letting his arm fall and moving away form me, leaving me to try to force my eyes to adjust to the complete darkness so I could get an idea of where I was standing. If the bottom floor had rotten stairs and a rat infestation, I didn’t exactly have high hopes for this floor.
I could hear Shane shuffling around for a second, cursing as he rammed into something. Then a small lantern flickered on, illuminating a good ten feet around Shane who was standing in a kitchen that was cut off from the rest of the space by an L-shaped counter with what looked to be slate countertops. “Literal hurricane lamps,” he said, sounding amused. “My mother’s housewarming gift,” he explained, picking up the glass container with an enclosed flame and sloshing red oil in the bottom. “She was convinced every house should have one or two. I was really hoping it was the one God damn time in my life that she was wrong about something.” He paused in front of me, the shadow the light was casting on his face making the hollows of his cheeks look deeper, his eyes brighter. It was a way too appealing combination. “Want to get changed into something dry?”
Something of his? That was likely to smell like him? God, no.
But there really wasn’t much of a choice. “Yeah.”
“Alright, you hold this. I’ll go find you something.” He handed me the lamp and moved a couple feet away. Part of me wanted to follow so I could see more of the space, but I didn’t want to drop any more water all over so I stayed put as I heard him open and close a couple dresser drawers. “My pants will never fit you so you’re going commando on that front,” he informed me as he handed me a warm, dry shirt of some sort. “To your left,” he told me and I turned to look for a door.
And there was one.
That much was true.
What there wasn’t… was actual walls.
“Um, Shane…”
“Yeah?” he asked, having turned and started to walk away.
“Your bathroom has no walls.”
“Yeah, I haven’t gotten around to that yet.”
“I’m not getting changed in a room with no walls.” Or peeing for that matter, but I wasn’t about to say that.
“Turn off the lamp.”
“Ah, yeah, still not doing it.”
He turned back and I could just barely make out the smile he was giving me. “Alright,” he said, going somewhere and coming back a moment later with what looked like sheets. “It’s pitch black in here so I can’t hammer up any walls for you. But I can give you a small amount of privacy.” With that, he went ahead and hung the sheets. “Go ahead,” he said once he was done. “There are towels in the linen closet.”
“Wait,” I said, turning back with a smile. “You have a linen closet but no walls?”
“I needed somewhere to put the towels,” he shrugged as if that explained everything. Man logic.
“Okay then,” I said, going in and closing the door.
I put the lamp down on the sink vanity and the space was small enough to be completely washed in light when I turned the flame up. It was literally completely finished except for the walls. The floors were tiled in a deep gray with a matching grout. The sink was a deep and an unusual for a bathroom rectangle shape. I had a sneaking suspicion it was that way because he might have needed somewhere to throw blood-stained clothes while he showered before he brought them to the laundry. A toilet, well, was a toilet. The shower, though. Yeah. A part of me really wanted to step inside and warm up. It was deep set, the kind you walked into, not stepped into. There were three shower heads on the three full walls, tiled to match the floor.
I resisted the urge and went to the linen cabinet to grab a towel, using it to squeeze some of the excess water out of my hair before stripping out of my drenched clothes. I piled them up and tossed them into the shower, not knowing what else to do with them, then dried off my body. I reached for the shirt that Shane handed me and slid into the dark blue material with Chaz’s bar emblem on the front. Shane, being the giant wall of muscle he was, had clothes that, while I was tall, still swam on me. It landed maybe mid-thigh and made me hyper-aware of the fact that I no longer had panties on. But it was what it was. It was warm and dry and I would just make sure I didn’t flash him.
I hung up the towel on the edge of the linen cabinet door, grabbed the lamp, and headed out. Shane was rummaging around from the direction of the kitchen and I moved toward the noise to find him with a tiny LED camping lantern propped up on the counter as he piled what looked like half the contents of the fridge onto the counter.
“You cook?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
“Hey, baby. Put that lantern up over here, would you?” he asked, gesturing toward the counter beside the stove. I did, then crossed my arms over my chest, feeling weird that I no longer had anywhere to put them. “I can throw some food together. Basic life skills, my mother called it when she herded us all into the kitchen to throw shit together until it tasted palatable. I can also do my own laundry and clean my house,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Miracle,” I acknowledged, knowing more than a fair share of grown ass men who couldn’t claim half as much.
“Here, you go here,” he said, turning to me suddenly and sinking his hands into my hips, hauling me up and placing me on the counter. “Keep me company while I chop.”
I carefully crossed my legs and, because his focus was elsewhere, took a good long look at him. He had changed too, but only into a pair of heavy sweatpants that he had slung dangerously low on his hips, showing me his broad back where I found a giant Mallick family coat of arms
It was a big piece that took up his entire back left shoulder. The shield had a large tree across it, the roots thick and deep. The supporters were giant red feathers that matched the phoenix crest on top. The Mallick name was in bold font beneath. Above the phoenix’s head was the family motto: Vis nescia vinci.
“Vis necia vinci,” I said, not even aware I was going to until it was out of my mouth.
“A power ignorant of defeat,” Shane supplied, not so much as hesitating as he just chop, chop, chopped away.
“What are you making?” I asked, feeling my stomach start to grumble.
“Stew. One of the easiest things not to fuck up,” he informed me.
“What can I do to help?” I asked.
“Sit there and keep me company,” he said again with a shrug.
With that, we fell into a silence that seemed oddly companionable to the sound of the wind gusting and the rain pelting the windows and the far off, but not too far off, sounds of sirens and car alarms.
I hadn’t even been aware that Shane had finished chopping or that he had moved until I felt his stomach press into my knees. My head snapped up as he kept pressing to the point where I was either going to seriously hurt his very nice abs or open my legs around him. I chose the latter and the material of his pants rubbed intimately against my inner thighs. “What are you doing?”
His lips quirked up at one side and his hands slowly slid up my inner thighs before sinking into my hipbones.
“What are you doing?” I repeated, already knowing the answer, but trying to at least attempt to pretend like I wasn’t dying for it too.
“Well, not much to do with the power out,” he said with a wicked smirk as one of his hands slid to the center of my belly and moved a path upward until it planted between my breasts with firm pressure, pushing me backward until I was flat against the counter. The second I was, his body curled over mine and I expected him to kiss me, but his head ducked at the last moment and his mouth closed around my nipple through the material of the tee, sucking hard and making me arch up into the sensation on a throaty moan. His tongue moved out, circling the hardening bud and soaking the material. My thighs clamped around the sides of his body and his teeth bit into my nipple hard, making me both yelp and groan somehow simultaneously. His head moved across my chest to give my other nipple the same attentive torment.
He released me a second later and I had no idea what he intended, his fingers mov
ing lazily up and down my thighs. But then his body shifted and his tongue was sliding unexpectedly up my slit and claiming my clit, rolling his tongue over it, making my entire body do a hard shiver. “Oh my God,” I groaned, my hand slamming down on the back of his neck, sifting into his soft hair, holding him against me.
See, Shane was good for a fuck. But if there was one thing I had learned in life, it was that most guys could fuck. Many guys could by sheer fumbling accident make you come from oral, but it was a rare breed of man who was truly skilled at it. Shane, yeah, he was in a league his own. His tongue teased in circles, then switched to side-to-side strokes. And just when I was sure I would come, he pulled back, running his tongue downward and pulsed it against the opening to my body before moving back up again and sucking on my clit hard enough to drag out what could only be called a scream. He pulled back, not allowing the orgasm, as his hands went under my knees and coaxed my legs over his shoulders. Then I felt them sinking into my hips, hard, almost bruising.
A second later, I understood why, because he started moving. Which meant that I started moving too. His fingers moved to cross over my lower back as it left the counter, holding me tight to him as he took his feet.
He. Took. His. Feet.
Meaning he had me sitting on his shoulders while his face was still buried in my pussy, his tongue still moving over me effortlessly as he started moving through his kitchen. Even with his arms as an anchor, I felt unsteady, leaning slightly over his head, wrapping my arms around the back of his neck.
My back slammed against a wall and Shane’s hands left my back to hold me under my thighs, the wall and his strength giving me all the security I needed as I released his neck, holding him gently by the head as he drove me higher, intensified by the unique position, by his strength, by his improvisation.
“Shane, I…” I moaned, fingers curling into his head in a way that was likely painful, but every inch of me felt tight, poised, ready for the crash.
His lips closed around my clit and hummed his approval and I just… shattered.
My body shook; my breath got caught; I cried out his name.
I was barely aware of moving again until I felt myself flying through the air, making my heart shoot up into my throat for a second until my back bounced on the soft mattress of his bed, catching me off-guard, making me laugh.
Shane (The Mallick Brothers Book 1) Page 12