Inked: a Dark Bad Boy Romance

by Paula Cox

  Below his mouth, his two fingers gently slip inside of me. I barely register they’re there until I feel the friction of them sweeping in and out of me with the same veracity of his tongue. I pull my fingers into the weave of the carpet, forcing myself to hold on. Wave after wave flows over me, forcing the center of my body to move with it. It’s as if I am floating and falling all at the same time.

  Then finally, a crash—hard and violent, I erupt. There’s tension and relief all in one long, perfect moment until it fades softly back into my body. Mack comes up from his place between my legs, licking his lips with a self-satisfied, smug look. He opens his mouth to speak, but I can’t stand to hear his voice. Using all the energy I can, I grab him by the neck to spin him down and around towards where I lay. We flip until I’m on top of him, my legs pinning him in place, my hands holding him back from wrestling me away. If he could do that to me, I could certainly do it to him.

  From behind, I unbuckle those jeans. My eyes stare daggers into him the whole time until the job is done. I release him for only seconds so that he can pull them down the rest of the way. Lowering myself to him, he opens his mouth to a kiss, but I don’t waste time. My drenched pussy eases its way on down to his hips, gliding past his cock so that it hangs sticks itself up against my pubic bone.

  Mack uses the back of his arms to watch me take hold of him. Massaging up and down the length of his cock, I compare it to the size of my own pussy. How I ever fit a man this size in my tiny body is beyond me, but I’m eager to try again. He hardens under my grip. The moans he releases tell me that it’s just about time.

  “Let me fuck you,” he says, his voice thick with anticipation. A hand moves to my bare side, ready to push me back down to the carpet.

  I move that hand up and over the roundness of my breast, towards my neck, and then to my lips. Sucking gently for a second, I pull it away to position it back around the underside of my tit. “No,” I reply. “This time, I’m taking you.”

  I rock forward so that my hips place themselves so all he has to do is push himself into me. He growls and I curl back with his cock pushing past my folds and into the cavern of my body. Again, I feel that instant unfurling and peeling, but this time, it isn’t him controlling it. For the right balance, I place my hand on his chest, covering a tattoo of a black and gray Celtic cross, and my thighs begin to pump around his hips. In circles I move around and up the line of his shaft.

  Mack follows me, moving the opposite direction to up that feeling of tension. I can tell he wants more from me. A simple, naked lap dance around his pole isn’t going to do. Hoisting myself to a squat, I begin lifting myself off of him, just enough that I am centimeters away from flying off, but I manage to control myself. I’ve never done it this way, never felt the strange sensation of letting go enough to feel as if you could lose it all with one wrong move.

  My body bounces quicker, diving him in and out of me. I feel his legs come up, his knees resting on my back. I place my legs around the back of his thighs while he continues digging himself into me, unceasing despite our loud, husky breathing. I can barely hold on. I let out a scream I didn’t even know was in me as I push forward and off of him.

  Collapsed on his chest, I feel the sticky-sweet cum drip along the curve of my thigh. I bite down on his skin, not caring for if I hurt him. My only orgasm is seconds away, spilling itself onto him. When I finally have the courage and the strength to look up at him, he’s smiling. It’s not smug or wicked. He’s not scowling or smirking either. This is the first, genuine, full smile I have ever seen him make.

  It’s contagious like a burst shooting through my heart up until my lips. I fall back on his chest savoring these small and big moments, hiding my blushing face in his skin. When I come up for air, I look around the cabin for the first time. Still dark, I can manage to make out the outline of a couch covered in a deep red blanket. For the first time, I notice just how cold I am. The rain had chilled me to the bone, but making love to Mack had brought my body over the coals.

  “Should we move?” I ask, my head pointing in the direction of the couch. “I’m guessing it isn’t comfortable to be on your back on this ground.” I push myself up to seating, my arms naturally dangling over my exposed breasts. I’m tempted to grab from the pile of clothes resting at our feet, but he pulls me back in so that I rest on my side in the crook of his long, muscular arm.

  “No. We shouldn’t,” he says matter-of-fact. “We should stay down here and do that again. If you give me about five minutes to restock the juices, I could get going again… especially if you ride me like that.” He strokes my cheek with playful fingers. I listen to the sound of his heartbeat firm against his chest.

  “While that’s tempting,” I say as I pick myself up again, “I am more worried about getting hypothermia from laying out by the door of this drafty place. Any idea on how to turn on the heat or…”

  Mack stands and walks towards the end of the black room. I hear a few clicks and then a small woosh. The smell of gas fills the air followed by a blue, red, and orange spark. A fireplace I had no idea was there turns itself on. The room sparkles in a soft, yellow and gold glow. I stand quietly and move towards the old country style couch closest to the hearth.

  “That’s so much better,” I say as I hold my hands out toward the fire. “It reminds me of my mom. There were a lot of nights she couldn’t afford to run the heat. Thank goodness we had a fireplace at our old home for those days. We used to sleep on the couch, feet to feet, under piles of blankets.”

  I don’t know where that came from—I don’t usually open up about my past like this. I hated to be a pity case. Even Riley never knew the extent of the poverty I grew up in. Putting up that bubble around me always felt necessary. But tonight, it seems to be sliding off.

  “I get ya. Growing up, my dad wasn’t around much. He was always doing club stuff. He was a runner, so he pulled a ton of night shifts. While the club tried to provide for the few guys that had kids, it was the mom’s job to make sure the kid was taken care of. When she died, I had to fend for myself until I was old enough to learn to ride. I had to take care of my sister too, make sure she went to culinary school and did good for herself.”

  Between the two of us, the feeling of loss is unavoidable. He’s as broken as I am, covered in the scars of our past.

  After a long pause where neither of us acknowledges the other, he moves to sit next to me, scooting my legs up and over his knees. With a stiff lip, he continues, “But that’s changed with me in charge of the club. I didn’t want any of the kids brought up in the Dragons to have to go without. It’s hell to have to be their sons and daughters, but they don’t go hungry anymore. They don’t have to put their own fires together when the heat gets turned off.”

  “I-I didn’t know that,” I admit, trying to push aside all of the judgments I had made about the Dragons and Mack as the leader. For me, those guys were just a part of the gang. They were total thugs that never went home, never rested, never fell in love and had kids. I bite my tongue as I say it out loud, “I just assumed that guys like you weren’t into the whole… you know…”

  “Marriage? Babies? Vacations to Disneyland? Yeah. We do that stuff to. It’s a little bit of light to make up for the dark shit that goes on in our lives. Hell, at Christmas, I play Santa and pass out gifts.”

  “You’re kidding me,” I say flatly.

  He looks at me, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah. I’m screwing with you, but we do have a family party. There are usually hookers there, but it’s pretty PG before nine.”

  “What a family man you are, Mack.”

  He turns his head away from me suddenly, his eyes plastered to the brick facade of the fireplace. Quietly, he says to himself, “I want to be.”

  “You what?” I know exactly what he said, but it makes no sense to me. Mack-types aren’t ones to dream of the whole white picket fence, American dream.

  “I want to get married, have kids, settle down. I’ll never not be a Dra
gon. I plan on doing this until someone forces me into retirement or manages to take me down from my throne. But in the meantime, I want that bullshit life with the kids and the dog.” He turns back to me as he asks, “Do you? Do you want that?”

  My heart skips a beat. This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about it. A girl like me with a background like mine doesn’t get these chances often. We’re usually rejects, the ones guys forget to marry. It’s not like I’ve lived a conventional life that gets me brought home to most moms, and dating Riley was a completely mental trip. But there are days when I stay up late dreaming of what I would name my daughter or what suburb I’d move into.

  “Yeah,” I admit. “I really do want that.”

  Mack reaches towards my hand as he asks, “Would you want that with a guy like me?”

  My world spins completely off its axis.

  CHAPTER 15

  Dammit. What in the hell did I just do? Anna’s staring at me as if I told her I was an axe-wielding murderer. Her lips are slightly parted and she studies me with those doe eyes. I am obviously moving in too fast for her.

  But after all the shit that just went down, all the chaos and bloodshed, I’ve realized something tonight. I would do anything for this girl.

  I have never thought that about any person in my entire life. I was raised to believe that a man kept his eye on himself and his house second. He protected his interests and kept anything that could break him at bay. It was like I was telling Anna minutes ago. My dad wasn’t even present in my life until I proved I was of some value to him. That’s not to say that he wasn’t a good father or that he did anything wrong. It was how he was raised and how he saw all the other men around him do it too.

  However, I know that’s wrong now. How he treated my mama, as if she didn’t exist, is beyond me. I was always softer when she died because I was the one in complete control of my sister’s destiny, and I worked hard to make sure she got everything that she wanted with what little I could give her. That to me was love—something I could never put into words. And I stupidly thought that what my dad was doing for my mama was the same. He put food on the table and made sure there was money for clothes for school. He came home every once in a while and checked in on us too.

  Now, I see there’s a difference in caring for someone and feeling for someone. Kissing Anna, her wet body leaning into my bare chest and her warm face pressed into my skin, was a revelation. I love Anna. I love her differently than I do my sister or my mama. I love her in a way that is completely separate from the motorcycle in the back of the van I always call my ‘baby.’ I love her beyond compare of the club.

  And the question I asked her, about her having a life with me, is real. I want to know—no, I need to know if she feels the same way as I do. Her silence is writing pages of that answer, penning down some doom and gloom I’m not ready to hear. She may not be there yet, especially after watching me kill those bikers on the road and messing up her old boyfriend, but I would wait for those words for a million years.

  When she speaks, she looks down at her fingers which twist in knots in her hands. Softly, she clears her throat and says, “Mack… what are you asking me?”

  I turn my body so that I’m staring her down, towering over her. “I’m asking if you could be with a guy like me. And I’m not talking just for a few weeks while we track down your ex and make sure you’re out of the woods with this shit. I am talking about waking up every morning next to me and maybe even getting married. Could you do that with a guy like me?”

  “A guy like you or you, yourself?”

  “Me. I’m asking if you love me.”

  More stunned silence. This time, from both of us. Even in my mind, saying the ‘L’ word is like climbing Mount Everest. Every part of my body is resisting those emotions. My mind fights back, wanting to take it back as quick as it left my mouth. I can’t stand to see her just staring at me like this—like a two-headed dragon.

  “Anna,” I say, but she’s already there. Her finger presses to my lips as she leans herself in towards me. I can taste her sweet breath on my prickled skin, the pull of her body to mine is impossible to resist.

  She whispers as her lips touch mine. “Mack, I love you. I don’t know when it happened, but I love you. But there’s…”

  “Riley.” I finish her sentence with such certainty that she pulls back. Her eyes fall with the heavy look of shame. He’s the last person either of us want to bring up right now, but his name weighs heavy on us, and it has since we first kissed back in my office. He’s the reason we’re together and the reason why we can’t be together.

  I ask the obvious question first. “Do you still have feelings for him?”

  “It’s hard not to, Mack. We were together for so long, and when we broke it off, it wasn’t easy. He made me feel as if I was nothing without him when we were dating. The only way I could be a real person is if he protected me and told me what I needed to do. And then, when I broke it off with him, I felt like nothing because he came at me and attacked everything I cared about. He was making that prophecy come true.”

  “But you know that isn’t true, Anna. You are something. You are something to me. I want you to understand that. What do I need to do?”

  “I know it’s hard to understand, Mack, but it’s not about you. It’s all me. I’m scared that this is going to happen again. Riley was perfect when we started dating. He was the one person who accepted me as I was, even with all my quirks. And then he changed so quickly that I didn’t have time to realize that it wasn’t supposed to be like that. I can’t let that happen again…”

  In my mind, I know she’s not comparing me to Riley or even saying that I would be like him, but it’s hard to avoid those thoughts. She’s scared. That’s easy to see. I can’t blame her. She’s got a psycho ex willing to do and risk just about anything to make sure he gets his revenge on her. And then, she’s got me. We started out as business partners and over the last forty-eight hours, we’ve evolved into something way more serious when we couldn’t fight those feelings anymore. What is she supposed to trust or believe? How can I make her see?

  I take her hand again, placing it up against my heart, hoping she can feel what I feel. “Anna, I get it. So, I’m going to make you a deal. Give me a chance. Just let me try to do this right for once. We don’t have to talk about futures anymore or even say that ‘L’ word again if you don’t want to. In return, I’ll give you all the time and space you need to figure this shit out, because I promise you that you’re worth riding and fighting for.”

  A smile escapes those red lips with the hint of lipstick still smeared on them. She bats her eyelashes as those fair cheeks blush and bloom pink as spring flowers. I hold out my hand to her, making it official. “You gotta shake on it,” I say as I laugh, trying to lighten the stiff mood.

  “This means I can break this promise though if things go south. You gotta let me have an out clause that means you won’t come track me down with your club and all the ammo in the back of that van. I don’t know if I can convince another motorcycle club president to save me again.” Anna takes my hand and pulls me closer to her. I slide to the center of the couch to scoop her back on my lap. Our lips meet in the middle, softly sliding across the other.

  She only pulls away when she hears the unmistakable bang. And then another. “Mack! It’s Zeke! You didn’t call so I…”

  “Dammit,” I mutter, remembering my promise to contact him before five p.m. that we were at least safe and on our way to the cabin. I can’t even guess what time it is now with the rain still battering the skies outside. I look down for Anna, but she’s already gone collecting her wet clothes from the entranceway. She looks back at me with an annoyed, awkward look as she slips into one of the cabin’s bedrooms just off the living room hallway.

  I grab my pants from the same pile, throwing them on as I call back, “Give me a minute, Zeke. I’m coming.”

  “What the fuck happened out there, Mack? The police scanners were ta
lking about 5 dead riders out in the rain. Looks as if it was a hit and run and they’re saying it’s a big vehicle. They found white paint on a roadside too, and by the look of the cargo van, I can put the clues together faster than they can.” He pushes past me and into the living room. I’m instantly aware that the smell of sex that is unavoidable where we stand. I shouldn’t be ashamed. It’s more that I’m pissed I’m giving Anna’s secret away.

  I quickly debrief Zeke on the situation with the cyclists and the gunshots fired. I tell him about the carnage the van left behind and the broken tire the detectives will probably find when the rain stops. “We gotta ditch the van,” I say. “It’s like you said, they’ll know to look for a white, large vehicle that is driving on a spare or dented rim. How long do you think it’s going to take them to look back on the highway cameras from shots of the license plate? Can we call in a favor with the ID guy to get us a new tag for a van or should we sink it?”