“Wait! Wait!” The urgency in Melissa’s voice stops him and he looks at her, confused. “I’m having a good time! I’m not ready to go back yet.” Her voice is small and he has to move closer to her to hear over the noise of the bar.
Hawk gives her frustrated look. “I can’t keep kissing you here in front of everyone when all I want to do is lay you out over the pool table and do everything I’ve been thinking about since I saw you last night.” His voice is low and full of tension, but not from anger, from keeping himself in check. “So I’m taking you home.”
Melissa feels a small burst of pride at knowing how much she’s turned him on and then frustration at the idea of him ending the night like this. “I don’t want to go home.”
Hawk huffs out an impatient sigh, but he keeps a lid on his temper. “Then where do you wanna go, Melissa?”
She swallows hard, feeling her heartbeat quicken as she says the words. “Your place.”
Hawk looks at her like he thinks he might have misheard and takes a step closer towards her. “You’re sure? I need you to be sure, Melissa, because once we’re alone…Dammit, I just can’t control myself around you.”
Melissa smiles and pulls his head down, kissing him with everything that she has, telling him just how sure she is with her tongue.
“Is that a yes?” He seems to hold his breath, waiting for her answer.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She barely gets the last word out before he’s pulled her through the door and he’s marching towards his bike. When he hands her the helmet, she sees that he’s as turned on as she is and she gives herself a little internal fist pump. “How far is your place from here? Twenty minutes?” It seems like an eternity and she doesn’t want to wait.
The look he gives her tells her he knows exactly how she feels. “I’ll do it in ten.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
They make their way up to Hawk’s apartment through the body shop, barely able to keep their hands off of each other. It’s only when Melissa walks through the door and crosses the threshold into his space that what she’s about to do actually hits her. She’s never slept with a guy the day after meeting him. She wasn’t a prude but she tended to date men before sleeping with them. But Hawk was different. He wasn’t like any guy she’d ever met before.
She hears the door close behind her and swallows hard, suddenly nervous. She shivers as Hawk’s fingers trail along the exposed skin of her back, making it hard to remember what she had in her head.
“What are you thinking?” He whispers the words against her ear, his arms enveloping her from behind and pulling her against his hard body. In his whisper she senses the plea please don’t say you’ve made a mistake.
“I’m thinking I don’t usually jump into bed with men I’ve just met.” Her words come out breathy, like she can’t quite get them out. His hardness against her lower back is making it difficult to think about anything else.
“Glad to hear it.” His voice is husky and he chuckles lightly as he turns her around to face him.
She starts to say something but Hawk places his index finger over her lips, gently. Her tongue flicks out and she licks the soft pad of his digit, watching as his pupils dilate. He pulls her towards him, kissing her hard, demanding she give him everything she has and she willingly does. He pushes his hips against hers, making it clear exactly what he wants and she leans against him, grinding right back against him, telling him she wants the same thing.
He feathers kisses from the corner of her mouth and down her neck and she gives him access as he sends the best kind of shivers down her spine. She moans as she feels his fingers skim underneath her tank top and stroke her back. She reaches for the snap of his jeans and, as if he was waiting for her signal, Hawk pulls her tank top up and over her head, only stepping away from her long enough to get it off. Melissa sends up a little prayer of thanks to the Underwear Gods for persuading her to go for a matching blue set that seems to do the trick for Hawk.
“You’re so fucking pretty.” He looks at her in open admiration and dips his head to kiss the tops of her breasts, his fingers rubbing over her hard nipples underneath the lace. She breathes in sharply as he pushes the cups of her bra down and takes one nipple in his mouth and then the other. He teases the buds, pulling on them, grazing them with his teeth until she’s squirming in her panties.
“Hawk.” His name is a plea on her lips and he smiles wickedly up at her. He knows exactly what he’s doing: driving her crazy.
She skims her fingers down to the hem of his snug t-shirt and pushes it up over his toned, muscular torso, pushing it over his head, desperate to be skin to skin with him. He reaches behind her and unclasps her bra, crushing her to him as he kisses the sensitive spot behind her ear, making her breathe in sharply. She runs her fingers down his muscular back as he traces his hot mouth over breasts.
She fumbles for his jeans again, but he twists out of reach, smiling at her frustration and reaches for her own jeans, pulling them down in one smooth motion and helping her step out of them. He guides her towards the bed that takes up the corner of the room and pushes her gently down onto it.
Melissa leans back, looking up at Hawk with something close to awe. He unbuttons his jeans and steps out of them, not taking his eyes off of Melissa the entire time. He looks down at her with unabashed admiration and he nudges open her thighs with his leg, kneeling down between her, his fingers massaging her thighs. Her legs tremble as he touches her and she bites her lip in anticipation. His fingers find their way to the edges of her panties, trailing softly over her mound, down to the heat between her thighs. She moans, raising up her hips and begging him to really touch her, for something more than this feathery contact that is driving her mad. He watches her as he slips his hand into her panties, and strokes her slick lips, making her moan.
“You’re so wet, Melissa. So soft.” He watches her as he teases her with his fingers, making her breath come in short, swift gasps.
He smiles sexily at her and pulls off her panties, leaving her completely naked. She expects to feel self-conscious, sprawled out across the bed of a man she barely knows, but the way that he’s looking at her chases any sense of awkwardness away. Knowing that a man like Hawk wants her has to be the best aphrodisiac out there.
“Hawk, please.” She whispers the words, begging him for more as heat in her pussy spreads out across her body.
“Not yet, baby. I want to see you come first.” Hawk’s thumb finds her clit and swirls a circle around it, inserting two digits inside of her at the same time and making her sit up straight and cry out. But he must know that it’s a good cry from the look on her face as he moves his fingers inside of her, stroking her and stoking the fire within her.
“Come for me, beautiful.” His voice is barely a whisper but it’s enough to spur her on and her hips buck as she rides his fingers, taking her to her climax. She cries out his name as she falls apart.
“I want you so badly, Mel.” Hawk’s voice brings her back to the moment and she watches him lazily, as he steps out of his back briefs, freeing his straining erection. He reaches down, pulling out a condom from his jeans pocket. She tries not to wonder at the fact that she’s clearly been such a foregone conclusion.
He rips the packet with his teeth and makes a frustrated sound as he goes to put it on. Melissa sits up, shuffling towards him. “Let me.” She watches his pupils dilate as she takes him in her hand and rolls the condom down his length.
“You’re killing me, Mel.” He stills her hands as they stroke his hardness. “I want you.”
She only nods, not trusting herself to be able to speak. Hawk pushes her down gently back onto the bed and gazes down at her. He moves over her, positioning himself right at her entrance. She lifts her hips, rubbing her pussy against the tip of his cock. He leans down, nipping at her lips and licking them open. He catches her mouth with a deep kiss that leaves her tingling all the way down to her toes.
His tongue tangles with hers and he moves his hips, pl
unging into her, sheathing himself completely inside her with one stroke. Melissa lets out a strangled moan against his mouth as he fills her up. He sets a rhythm, moving inside of her slowly at first and then picking up the pace. She wraps her legs around his hips, pulling him closer and moving in time with him. The combination of the hardness of his body against hers, the intensely male scent of him and the dampness of his skin from his exertions, makes all her nerve endings crackle. She clenches her pussy around him, making him groan and she bites back another moan before it escapes her.
“’Mel.” There’s a world of need in that one word.
“D…I’m close…please.” She pants the words out as their bodies join together in the most intimate and perfect way.
Hawk pumps inside of her and she cries out as she shatters into a million pieces around him. He plunges into her again, growling her name and she screams his name as she comes again, hard, leaving her body trembling. Hawk collapses on top of her, supporting himself on his elbows so he doesn’t crush her and they both breathe heavily for he next few seconds.
As consciousness starts to seep back into her mind, she rakes her fingers through his hair and he looks down at her sleepily, smiling, satisfied. She knows exactly how he feels. Her muscles feel heavy in the best possible way and she doesn’t have any desire to move. She wants to stay as they are forever. She’d never known that sex could be like this. But then, it wasn’t just sex. It was mind-blowing, amazing, the best sex of her life. It was passionate and intense, but there was something going on there beyond the physical. She’d felt it in the way he kissed her, the way he touched her and she felt it now in the way that he was looking at her.
When he moves out of her, she feels immediately empty, but only for a moment. He rolls onto his back and pulls her towards him, laying her against his chest with her head against his shoulder, her hand splaying out over his pecs. She wonders what this means for the story she’s supposed to be writing, what it means for her, but she thinks she already knows. She’d known the moment Hawk had come to her side at the bar the night before.
“Do you always think so loudly?” His voice is a low rumble in his throat and she feels the vibrations against the hand on her chest.
She smiles sleepily and looks up at him, his dark eyes closed as he tries to drop off to sleep.
“Don’t overanalyze this.” Hawk seems to read her thoughts and it’s not a little disconcerting. “Just get some sleep. I’m going to be waking you up soon to do that again.”
She giggles against his chest and, for once, she does as she’s told. Her body is so exhausted it forces her mind to be quiet and she doesn’t think about how she’s drifting off to sleep in the arms of a man that she is supposed to betray for the sake of her career.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next few days pass in a whirlwind for Melissa. Being with Hawk isn’t just about being with him; it means being part of the club lifestyle. The Kings accept her in a way she never could have imagined. She’d grown up as an only child and, now, she has more brothers than she can shake a stick at. It’s not hard to understand the appeal of being a King. Hell, even she and Felicia are getting along.
That said, Melissa isn’t blind to the less-than-legal side of the club. There’s no way of avoiding it. She and Hawk have spent every night together since that first explosive time at his place. It’s clear trust doesn’t come easily to him, but slowly he’s opened up to her about what he does for the club. He’s had to slip out of bed at odd times, summoned by a message on his cell. His main role as a prospect is to be an escort runner; he’d explained that he rides at the head of protection details for any shipments that the club is running. Melissa knows shipment is code for guns or drugs. But she tries not to think about that part.
The other Kings haven’t stopped championing Hawk to her, as if they needed to sell him to her, but she was already sold.
“He’s tough as nails.”
“That kid’s got some serious smarts on him.”
“He’s the best prospect we’ve ever had. That kid’ll be running the club someday.”
Although Hawk isn’t a fully-fledged member of the club, the other men treat him with a respect they don’t afford to just anyone. It’s clear they’re grooming him for greatness. One night, she’d asked him if he would ever leave the Kings. He’d seemed shocked at her question and she’d instantly regretted asking it.
“It’s the only thing I’ve ever really wanted. My whole life has been focused on becoming a King. It’s the only thing I know, the only thing I can be sure of.” He’d said the words so simply, so sincerely that Melissa was left in no doubt. The club is a part of Hawk as much as Hawk is a part of the club. His words had stung a little, that the club would always be the biggest part of his life, that it would be more important to him than anything else, even her. She’d spent a couple of sleepless nights tossing and turning after that conversation, trying to figure out where the hell that left her and her story. But she had already made her decision.
Bright and early on Friday morning she finds herself outside DeVry’s office. It’s hard to believe it has only been a week since he gave her the assignment. It feels like so much time has passed since then. The last time she was there, Hawk hadn’t been in her life, the Kings hadn’t been in her life, and, now, it’s hard to imagine her life without them.
“He said you could go straight in, honey.” Olivia’s kind voice cuts through Melissa’s musings and she nods her thanks at the older woman.
She takes a deep breath and opens the door, steeling herself for the conversation she’s been dreading. DeVry is sitting behind his enormous desk, his eyes red, his suit jacket discarded, with more than a few days’ worth of stubble on his cheeks. He looks worse than he did the last time she’d seen him and absently Melissa wonders how much longer he’s going to be sleeping in his office.
“What have you got for me, Potter?” He doesn’t look at her as he asks the question, searching through a stack of papers on his desk. It doesn’t seem like he got the memo that paper was becoming obsolete.
Melissa takes a deep breath, drawing on her reserves of calm that Clay has taught her to cultivate like a good martial arts fighter. “Nothing.”
DeVry stops what he’s doing and slowly looks at her, as if he thinks that he’s misunderstood. “Say again.”
She straightens her back in her chair, refusing to be cowed. “I can’t write the article on the Kings that you want.”
He leans back against his chair, surveying her with narrowed eyes. “You didn’t get any information? I thought you’d found a way in to the gang.”
Melissa curses herself for the update she’d sent him the morning after meeting Hawk. She’d been so keen to convince herself that all she wanted was to write a good story that she’d told DeVry about finding an ‘in’ to the Kings. “I was wrong.” She swallows the bitter pill. “You want me to write an exposé that paints these men as monsters. I can’t do that.”
DeVry looks at her with pity. “You know that these men are criminals? They’re not Care Bears; they’re an outlaw biker gang!”
Melissa shakes her head. She just can’t see them that way. “I’ve gotten to know them; they’re good people. You said yourself that they keep the violence contained, away from populated areas. I can’t write something that’ll make them out to be the enemy, just to sell more newspapers. You and I both know that whatever I write will just bring more heat down on them from ATF, the Feds, and God knows who else. I can’t do that to them.”
DeVry raises an eyebrow at her. “Them or him?”
Melissa looks at him, her eyes wide. “How do you know about that?”
DeVry just shrugs laconically. “Just a lucky guess.” Melissa doesn’t believe him but she doesn’t get a chance to tell him so. “If you can’t write the story then you can’t write it. We’ll have to figure something else out.” His tone is calm and reasonable, two words that Melissa would never have used to describe her Editor.
“So, we’re good here?” She can’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Sure.” He shrugs like he couldn’t care less. “There’s a new skating rink opening, some kids charity thing. I want you to cover it, Olivia will give you the details.” From a groundbreaking exposé that could kick-start her career to a puff piece that only the soccer moms will read in one fell swoop. DeVry waves her away, dismissing her, and Melissa can’t help but wonder if she’s just committed career suicide.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She has some time to kill before she heads to the rink for her punishment piece, as she’s realized this new assignment is, so she goes to the body shop. It’s time to come clean with Hawk. Melissa had been dreading this even more than her conversation with DeVry. She knows he’ll be angry that she lied to him, but she has to get it off of her chest. She can’t take the guilt.
But as soon as she walks into the shop and sees Hawk’s smiling face she chickens out. He looks at her like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen and she can’t bear to do anything that would change his mind. He kisses her thoroughly, his fingers in her hair. Before, she’d been embarrassed by the Kings’ very public displays of affection with their wives and girlfriends, but it was one of the many things that she was getting used to.
CARSON_Satan’s Ravens MC Page 29