Just like he’d felt for the past two days since he left her at her doorstep, but it was stronger. It was animal and wild and frightening because it was unknown. He thought of that kiss, how it hadn’t harmed him. How he hadn’t died at all. No, he’d actually enjoyed it. He wanted to kiss her again.
She kept looking at him and her eyes changed, darkening. A shadow passed over them. “You know, I’m not stupid. I might have led a pretty normal life before now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know about things. Or that I’m naïve.”
She has no idea. No fucking idea. Percy crossed his arms. His leather jacket creaked with the movement as it strained over his biceps and over his chest. He’d bought the thing, or stolen it, he couldn’t actually remember, long before he’d come to Mexico. He’d bulked up since then and even though it was tight, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it out.
“Did you come here to talk about that?”
“No,” she admitted, ducking her head prettily for a second, but then her eyes swept back to his face. She stared at him like she actually saw him. Like she wanted to know him. His secrets, his truths, his lies, his past. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m stupid. You carry a knife in your boot. You drive a bike. You have nightmares that would frighten the devil himself. You’re in Mexico. You live here…”
“So?” He shrugged, but it wasn’t as casual as he wanted it to be. His stomach changed from that hollowed out feeling to a tight clenched up knot.
“You don’t have to hide from me, Percy. I don’t care what your past was. I’ll be gone in a few days.”
“So you wanted what? One last hard fuck first? Maybe the first of your life? Certainly the first with someone like me.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No. Well- yes. But not just that. I- I think you need this too.”
That knot tightened violently in his stomach. “Oh, you think so?” His hands went to the zipper of his jacket. He undid it slowly and peeled it off, revealing the dark t-shirt underneath and the black ink that scrolled up and down both of his arms. They weren’t good tattoos. They were shitty, the home kind done in someone’s basement, or, in reality, done in the backroom of the garage that served as their home base for their shitty little gang. A gang that kept him off the streets and kept him alive.
Her eyes flew to the ink and widened. “I…”
“So now you see me. Really, see me.” He ripped his t-shirt off in one swift motion. He pulled it over his head so hard his ears stung from the force of it. He let her have a good look at his torso. Muscled, hard, inked with a huge angel. That one was good at least. He’d got it done after leaving the gang. Forced the guy to do it in three days, back to back to back. It didn’t matter that it hurt. He ate up the pain. He lived on it back then.
Shanna’s eyes fixed on a jagged scar that extended from his abdomen all the way, nearly to his throat. It wasn’t visible from above his clothes, but barely. Yes, look at it. Look at what my life has been. He didn’t know why he was doing it. He’d never once showed himself to anyone, but his brothers. They were just like him. They understood. They’d lived lives of hell before they found the gang. As bad as it was stealing cars and bikes and all the other shit they did, it wasn’t as bad as where they’d come from.
He couldn’t stop there. He needed her to see all of it, every single scar, or leave. Leave and leave him alone. Stop haunting him. Get out of his damn mind.
She let out a pained gasp when she saw his back. It was covered in scars. Those were compliments of his father. Though he’d had his back inked as well, also done in back to back sittings as soon as he got to Mexico, the scars were livid under the ink. He’d gone to eight different places before he found an artist who would cover that shit up. They’d done the best they could. He had a picture of it on his phone, the finished product. He hadn’t seen his own back in a long fucking time, until that photo. The ink was an improvement. A slight improvement.
He turned back at Shanna and the pity on her face angered him. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” he hissed. “Don’t feel anything at all. I am no one to you. Get your clothes on and leave. Call a cab and go back to that little beach house. Go swim and sunbathe and drink too much tequila and take someone else home, if you really need to. It just- it can’t be me.”
She surprised him, his sweet little good girl, his angel. Twin lines appeared on her brow when she frowned and her eyes flashed with fire. Her jaw set as hard as her lips. “Why not?”
“Why not?” he snarled. “Why not what?”
“Why not you?”
“I think that’s fairly obvious,” he let out a snort of derision before he bent at the waist and grabbed up his t-shit. He rammed it on just as angrily as he’d ripped it off.
Shanna scrambled off the bed. “What if it isn’t?” Her eyes implored him, begged him, but he had no idea what she truly wanted.
He froze and watched warily as she came to stand right in front of him. He was right. Without her massive heels, she was only a few inches taller, nearly level. Percy froze when her hand descended to his arm. She set it there lightly, like the touch of air, as though she sensed that he could barely stand the contact.
She finally turned her eyes to his face and he couldn’t look away. “Percy,” she said softly, but it was like her voice boomed through the room. “When you kissed me, I felt you tremble.”
He wanted to deny it. Shrug her away. Insist that she leave. No I don’t. I don’t want that at all. What he wanted was to crush her to him. Kiss her breathless. Figure out if that first one had been a mistake or not. He needed to know if it was a mistake or not.
His arm tightened around Shanna’s back and he pulled her into him. He wasn’t gentle and neither was she. Her hands scrabbled at his neck, pulling his face to hers. She was ready for him. When their mouths met, it was brutal, white hot, fire. He ate at her mouth, nipped her lips and she nipped him back, tangled their tongues together, consumed her, let her bruise him back.
And when he pulled away, it was just like the first time. He was trembling. Shaking. Breathless. Helpless. He thought for a second he might weep again. He’d never cried as an adult. He’d cried as a child, the day his mother died and not once after. He’d needed his strength every single day after. Tears were a weakness he couldn’t afford. That day on his bike, he’d found his cheeks wet and he’d amazed himself.
“Make love to me, Percy,” Shanna whispered in his ear. Her arms remained locked at his neck and the warmth of her hands burned right into him, warming him. That warmth spread right to the middle of his chest.
Love. He didn’t know the meaning of the word. Love was a fucked up word that didn’t apply to him. It had no place in his life. But he couldn’t deny her. Just because all he could do was fuck her, didn’t mean she had to know the difference.
Chapter 10
Sweet But Not Gentle
Shanna
One minute she was standing there kissing Percy and the next she was propelled backward onto his bed. He fell on top of her, hard, nearly crushing her. She didn’t care. Fuck, she liked the way the breath rushed out of her lungs, the way he took her completely by surprise, how he didn’t worry about being gentle.
His knee fell in between her thighs and she spread her legs, eager to have him there, the thick solidness of his body. She writhed against him, letting loose everything she’d kept pent up for the past few days.
Percy’s head bent and he suckled her breast right through her bra. It was just a scrap of lace, hardly a bra at all. Her nipples were already hard and aching, but his mouth made them even harder. He suckled her so fiercely she cried out. It was painful, the way he rolled his tongue over her nipple, the force of his lips. And then he bit her, gently, but not sweetly.
She cried out next to his ear. One hand locked on his shoulder and she curled her fingers into his t-shirt, surprised at how soft it was. Her other hand reached up and smoothed through his short hair. It was also so much softer than she ever could have known.
&nbs
p; Percy took her other breast into his mouth, paying it equal attention. He ate it desperately, like a man possessed. It was painful, but those twinges of pain were mixed with the most erotic pleasure she’d ever known. It was amazing, how two opposite sensations could merge and end up being so fucking incredible.
He left her aching breast when her nipple was so hard it felt like stone. His mouth, hot, talented, glorious, trailed kisses down over the flat plains of her stomach, over the swell of her hips, down to the juncture of her thighs.
He’d shifted away, removing his knee. He replaced that emptiness with his mouth. Lord, it was as amazing as the first time she’d felt him there and she wasn’t even drunk. She might have had a shot of tequila before she left the guest house, for some courage, but that was it. The rest of it was straight up molten desire.
“Fuck, you’re just as wet as you were before,” Percy said thickly. He reached up and nearly ripped her panties away. He tore them down her leg and she kicked them away, leaving them around the ankle of the other. He dove into her, pushing his tongue through her folds right to her tight entrance. He didn’t hesitate to delve inside. She mewled and arched up, bucked into his face, trying to take him furniture inside. He pulled away instead, just enough to pierce her with his blue eyes. “I love the taste of your cunt.”
The heavy ache in Shanna’s stomach intensified. Him and his dirty words. His eyes. I knew they’d be blue. She remembered thinking about that at the bar. They were blue, that kind of blue that is absolutely piercing, the kind that almost didn’t look real, like they could be color contacts, but she knew they weren’t.
“What do you want, Shanna?” he growled. “I want you to tell me.”
She squirmed as his tongue played over her entrance and gasped as he found her clit. “I don’t know,” she panted. “I just want you. Inside of me.”
“Inside of you?” Percy pulled his face away and she wanted to beg him to bring it back. She was so fucking wet she was actually cold without the warmth of his mouth against her. “Just how would you like me inside of you?”
“Bare,” she said without thinking. “I’m on the pill.”
In the light of the lamp, which hadn’t been turned off, his eyes flashed. He let out a low groan. She had the feeling he hadn’t actually meant to make the sound.
“Fuck, Shanna. I didn’t mean- I meant, what position.”
“Oh.” Her face heated. Her entire body heated. Not just because she was embarrassed, which she was, but also because her mind whirled, thinking of a hundred positions she’d liked to be fucked in.
“Just like this. You on top of me.”
Percy smiled slowly, a real smile that caught her off guard. “So vanilla, my good girl.”
“It’s not vanilla,” she protested. “I won’t just lay here and let you pound away on me. I’ll wrap my legs around your waist and-”
He slowly shook his head. His eyes changed, became shadowed. She was sure it wasn’t just a trick of the light. “No. No, I’ll turn you around. I’ll fuck you from behind, where you can feel me enter you, nice and slow and deep. Where you can watch my cock slide into your beautiful waxed pussy.”
She shivered violently. She wanted to ask him how he could talk like that without being the least bit embarrassed, but she swallowed back the words. She’d just appear more naïve than he already thought she was. Does he really think I’ve never been fucked from behind before? She had. But she’d never enjoyed it. Maybe that was the difference. She knew that she’d gladly roll onto all fours and take him. She knew that she’d beg for him to do it. And she’d enjoy it. Every single second of it.
That was the difference. With Bill, it got the point that he’d actually ask her for sex in the morning and give her the day to get herself prepped for it. As in mentally psyched. She’d spend most of the day dreading it and the other half coming to terms with it. She’d let him do it, usually on top. She’d lay there and pretend to be into it, make the right little moans and motions with her hips, but really she was just hoping like hell he’d hurry up and finish.
“You’re overthinking this,” Percy said smoothly. The shadows never left his eyes.
“No I’m not,” she protested. She maneuvered one of her hands between them. Her palm landed on the bulge in his jeans. “Let me touch you first. Let me take you into my mouth.”
“No,” he hissed, too quickly. He looked away, but not before she saw a flash of panic in his eyes. He stiffened and so did she. He masked whatever it was he felt quickly, smoothly, like a true professional. His hand descended to her thigh and he plunged a finger inside of her. “Does this feel good?” he purred next to her ear.
“Of course,” she panted. “But why can’t I touch you?”
“This isn’t about me,” he said smoothly.
“I want it to be about you.”
“It will be about me when I’m buried balls deep inside of your sweet slit.”
Fuck me. The image of it in her head was so erotic, she could have come. Her inner muscles clenched hard around his finger and Percy sighed in satisfaction.
“You like that. I can tell. You like thinking about me, thick and deep inside of you.”
“I’ve thought of nothing else for the past two days,” she admitted. “So will you just fucking do it already, before I die?”
“Die?” he chuckled, but it was a practiced sound. “Do you know that the French call an orgasm a mini death? So yes, you’ll die. Over and over and over again.”
Oh lord. Is there anything he can say that isn’t a straight up fucking turn on? Percy’s language, as much as what his hand was currently doing to her, nearly brought her there. She was so close, so of course he chose to slip his finger out of her at that exact moment.
“Turn around,” he ordered. “Get on your hands and knees.”
“What if I want to watch you undress?”
“No. I want you to close your eyes. Close your eyes until you feel me sliding into you and then, then and only then, can you watch.”
She’d craved this. She’d wanted it. Him commanding her. She’d fanaticized about it, but for some reason, it felt off. Her hand ached to touch him. Her mouth watered when she thought of tasting him. She’d never really enjoyed giving head before, but with Percy… god, she’d do almost anything for the opportunity.
One of her friends once told her that she was with the wrong person if she wasn’t enjoying sex. She’d passed that off, since almost everyone else did her best to assure her that sex was what you made it, that she was the one in charge of how she felt, or like her mother said, that it wasn’t what marriage was really about anyway. She’d nearly believed them and they were wrong. They’d been so very wrong. That one opinion, her friend’s, was right. She’d been dead fucking right.
“I…” she opened her mouth to protest, to tell him that she knew something wasn’t quite right, but no sound came out. She stared up into Percy’s face, into the darkness of his eyes. Her body went rigid as she recalled those scars on his back, the one on his chest. The ink, some of it crude and obviously done at home, maybe not even with a tattoo machine. She thought of that wicked blade he’d pulled out of his boot. What kind of life has he led? Certainly not a happy one. You don’t get scars like that…
He doesn’t like to be touched. The realization rocked her. It made sense. The scars. The nightmares. The way he was so practiced at giving pleasure, at talking dirty… that detracted from himself. If he was busy enough giving pleasure, then he didn’t have to receive it. That first kiss they’d shared, really felt like the first. It was the first time anyone kissed her and she felt it down to the tips of her toes. Was it the first time for Percy too? Really the first?
She gave herself a mental shake. She was probably overthinking things. Letting her thoughts get away from her.
“Are you going to do as I asked you?” Percy asked smoothly, a shade of darkness in his tone that hadn’t been there before. “Are you going to turn around and close your eyes and let me tak
e you up to the fucking clouds?”
No. I want you to take me to whatever hell you’re living. I’ll fight for you. I’d fight your demons. I’d go to battle for you. Whoa. Okay. She wasn’t even drunk and there she was, splayed open for a damn stranger, thinking that she could actually make a difference in his life. I don’t even know him. I’m here for a couple days and I’ll never see him again.
Shanna sank her top teeth deep into her bottom lip. She wanted to weep for him, but she didn’t dare. Later. When I’m alone. She’d let the tears fall later, for his ruined back, for his darkness, for the way she ached for him. Has anyone else seen his back? She very much doubted it. Why did he choose to show me?
“Shanna?” Percy growled. “Maybe you need more persuasion.” His hand tightened on her thigh before she could even think about moving.
She stared up into those crystal blue eyes of his. Eyes that were so dark blue they looked black in the lamplight.
“No,” she panted. “What I need is your dick. Right. Now.” She nearly smiled when he seemed taken aback at her language. Two can play at that game.
He shifted away from her, let her turn over and face the wall. He might be a stranger, but I do care. I care about him too much. She closed her eyes, like he’d said. She didn’t want to hurt him. Stranger or not, he meant something to her. Far more than he should. I’m not letting him go. Even if she went home in a few days as planned, she’d find a way. She’d find a way to help him.
Chapter 11
A Stone Heart
Percy
He knew. He could tell the exact second that Shanna thought she could save him. She was like the rest of women who looked at him and sensed something deeply wrong and horribly broken. She’s not like the rest at all. He’d removed his shirt and shown her. Gave her a glimpse inside of his life, inside his black soul and hard as a stone heart. He’d shown her, when he’d never shown another woman. She’s not like the rest at all.
Percy: A Motorcycle Club Romance (Lonely Rider MC Book 1) Page 6