by KB Winters
I couldn’t stop moving, even through the aftershocks, even though he was growing soft. I needed more of him. I was so goddamn hungry for him that I didn’t stop until our bodies separated. “Damn Tate, that was incredible. Let’s do it again.”
He laughed. “Give me a few minutes.” A moan escaped when he shoved two fingers to replace his much thicker cock. “Still clenching, dirty girl.”
“It’s not your beautiful cock, but I’ll take it,” I panted as I rode his hand to my second orgasm. Eyes locked together, he held me captive as my hips rolled hungrily against him, the small curve of his lips pushing me until I let go, screaming and shuddering around him.
“Speaking of beautiful,” he said as I fell apart all around him, resting my face right over his heart.
In that moment, I knew Tate was going to be a whole different kind of trouble than I was used to.
Chapter 13
Tate
“And now your tattoo is officially, done.”
I smiled down at my handiwork, proud of the rich colors and shadows on her long, sexy leg.
She smiled up at me and then down at her leg, standing and pulling her long skirt to the side. She looked at the ink in the mirror, her gaze riveted on what she considered her newly beautiful leg. “I love it, Tate. You did a great job!” That smile, the one I saw in my dreams, flashed wide and happy, and somewhere in the distance warning bells sounded. But dumb fuck that I was, I ignored them and smiled back.
“That’s what I wanted to hear. That you love it.” I pulled her back flush against me, gliding my hand up her ink free thigh as I kissed her neck. “I didn’t think those legs could possibly get any sexier. Glad to see I was wrong.” She shuddered under my touch, shivered as my warm breath tickled her neck.
“Yeah well, you have been without a woman for a long time.” Deflection was something Teddy did a lot and always when it came to compliments, which was weird because she was as confident as they came. Except when it came to her scarred leg. “How much?”
I blinked, my lips still on the side of her neck, as her words sank in. “No charge. Consider it on the house.”
She shook her head and stepped out of my arms. “No way, Tate. Don’t be that guy, not right now.” She peeled a few bills from her wallet while she sent very creative curse words my way. “Three fifty should be enough. If it’s not, I expect you to let me know.”
She was so fucking beautiful, standing there with her toned arms on display as she fisted her hands at her hips. Her blue eyes blazed angrily, red hair wild and unkempt.
“Stubborn damn woman,” I muttered and reached for her, pulling her back into my arms so our bodies were pressed tight together. She was so soft and feminine, smooth and silky. I couldn’t get enough of touching her, she was so responsive. I smacked her ass and lowered my mouth to hers, a scorching kiss that left us both wide-eyed and panting. Turned on again, just like that.
“It’s one of my many charms, Golden Boy. I thought you knew.”
“Oh, I know, baby. Let me wrap that up for you or you’re going to get blood and ink everywhere. You need to keep it covered until tomorrow. And take some ibuprofen.”
She held her skirt up while I wrapped plastic wrap lightly around her leg. My fingers grazed her panties in an attempt to make her squirm. And it did.
“Tate, my leg is on fire and you want to go there?”
“Nope. I’ll let you heal. You like it?”
“I fucking love it! Thank you again.” With that mischievous smile, she waved goodbye and pushed through the glass door.
“Damn man, you’ve got it bad!” Lasso laughed and clapped me on the back, ignoring the glare I sent his way. “Not that I blame you, Golden Boy, because that is a quality woman right there. Beautiful and strong, independent and sassy. Perfect for an old fucker like you.”
I grunted a laugh at him, the way I always did when his Texas-isms got to be just a tad too country. “Glad you approve, Lasso. I can rest easily now.”
His smile brightened. “Hey, no problem man. Glad I could help you see the light.” The shop phone rang and I picked it up, still glaring at a laughing Lasso.
“GET INK’D, what can I help you with today?”
“Merry Mayhem, meet me there in twenty.” Cross said what he needed to say and ended the call, leaving me staring at the phone like it might bite. “I have to go out for a bit guys, I’m being summoned.”
Jag frowned. “Everything all right?”
I shrugged. “Hell if I know. He might want to chew me out just for being an asshole the past few weeks.”
“Months,” Lasso offered with a cough.
“Okay fine, months. Dick. Still.” Shit was fine now. I did my part at the club and even employed a few of the guys. What the fuck else did they want from me?
“Maybe don’t go in there wearing that face,” Jag offered diplomatically.
“This is my fucking face.”
Both of those fuckers laughed. “Try to look less like you want to rip someone in half, and more like you did when you were staring at your girl.”
It was on my lips to deny that Teddy was my girl. She wasn’t. We were thrown together by circumstances and mutual lust. “So you want me to ogle Cross? No thanks, he’s not my type.”
But I did take a ten-minute ride on my bike for a quick attitude adjustment. No good would come of showing up angry. I’d let Cross say what he needed to say, act appropriately, and then get back to work.
Merry Mayhem was near empty this time of day and I spotted Cross at one of the dartboards in back, a pitcher of beer on the table. He smiled as I got closer. “You came.”
“You summoned me,” I reminded him.
He frowned. “Is that how it is now? An invitation to hang out is now a summons?” His words were grave, sober and yeah I kind of felt like shit.
“I’m starting to wonder now if you still want to be a Reckless Bastard.” He looked at me, stroking several days’ growth on his chin as he assessed me. I saw every damn emotion flash in his eyes. Anger, frustration and disappointment were the clearest to see.
“I’m here, ain’t I? But that’s not enough, is it? I show up to Church and do my part in club business, but it still isn’t enough. What the fuck?”
Cross glared at me for a long moment before he turned to the board and fired out three darts, hitting two triple twenties and a bullseye. “This is us, Golden Boy. This club is our life, our family, our financial future. We do what we have to do to survive, we don’t do this shit because we feel like we have to.” He took an angry sip of his beer while I lined up my dart.
“It’s not a goddamn obligation, Cross. But being around everyone has been hard since I got out the pen.” I couldn’t really explain why it was, just that I didn’t feel as at ease with the club as I had in the past, and that shit pissed me off. Like Cross said, these guys were my brothers. My family. They had my back.
“That right there,” he pointed at me at first angry and then resigned. “That look that you get, the one that sometimes says you’re hatin’ on us. What the fuck?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him as I hit my third bullseye. “I don’t hate you or anyone else. I love the club.”
“You’ve been distant and I get that. Even though I’ve never served another man’s time, I get it. But the anger toward us, I don’t get that.”
Yeah, well, I didn’t get that shit either. “I don’t know what to tell you, Cross. I’m doing the best I can.”
“And that’s why I wanted to come and have a drink with you. I see you’re trying to get back into things, which means you want to be here. And I think I’ve figured it out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out, Cross.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Savior said we should’ve talked to you about it at the time, but I disagreed. You know those calls at the prison aren’t private unless you’re with your attorney.”
I gave a sharp nod. I knew it well. More than a couple
inmates had been caught up with their own words. “Talk to me about what?”
“About the asshole who actually murdered Ricky Tran.”
The fucker who’d died shortly after his DNA had been identified under Ricky’s nails. With him dead though, the prosecutors had suppressed the information, or tried to because we’d gotten into a scuffle earlier that same night. “What about him? He’s dead now, right?”
Cross nodded. “As soon as we got the ID on that DNA evidence we went after him, Alan Baker. No affiliation other than he fucking hated Asians. We made sure he understood the ramifications of not coming forward. He chose the alternative.”
Both of my eyebrows rose. “A round with Savior?”
His face filled with evil happiness. “Jag. Figured if he hated people of color, he might appreciate the challenge. He did, but Jag did not.” He shook his head, a wistful smile of remembrance on his face. “He didn’t want to come forward. The asshole was more afraid of what would happen to him in prison than what we’d do to him. We proved him wrong.”
I nodded at what he hadn’t said explicitly and released three more darts, barely hitting the board. Singles all around.
“I’m telling you this so you know, Golden Boy. We had your back then and we have your back now. If I thought there was any chance of him coming forward to help, I would have dumped him in front of the cop shop myself. The fucker probably would have said you worked together, so we handled it. Our way.”
I appreciated it. A lot it turned out. “Wow, man. I was ready to tell you to go fuck yourself, that I wasn’t pissed at the club, but shit, maybe I was. Thanks for letting me know, Cross.”
I didn’t know what else to say because talking about my feelings wasn’t something I did regularly—and definitely not with Cross. “You know, I am a Reckless Bastard down to my fucking bones. And I know I’ve been distant. But only because I needed to get my anger under control. If I hadn’t fought with Tran that night, I wouldn’t have ended up where I did for six fucking years.”
“And that hot model you’re dating is keeping you in bed whenever she can?” He laughed, his eyes lit with teasing as his brows waggled.
“She’s a former model,” I corrected and took a long pull of my beer, grateful the tension was gone. My body felt lighter, less weighted down now and I was able to smile. To finally relax. “And we’re not dating.” We were fucking, plain and simple. Any and everywhere we could. Hard and fast, slow and tender, long and affectionate. Every goddamn night, too.
“It’s okay if you like her,” he said easily, his gaze searing into me to make sure I understood his words. “You deserve something good after what you’ve been through. I say enjoy it.”
I was enjoying it. Too damn much, if you asked me. There was no way I could give Teddy anything a woman like that deserved in life. She’d had a shit run of things as a kid and then after, she deserved a man who would bring her flowers and do romantic shit. And we couldn’t be more than what we were. “Yeah thanks, Cross. Want to curl my hair and paint my toes next?”
He laughed. “Nope. Just had a mani-pedi with Savior.” He wiggled his fingers in my direction and we both laughed, finishing another round of beer in silence. Like men should do. But it was nice now that the distance was gone. It felt like old times.
Finally, I fucking felt like I’d left that prison for good.
Chapter 14
Teddy
The past few weeks had been relatively uneventful as far as my stalker was concerned, but that only made me worry more after Tate’s less than helpful advice about stalker behavior. Every damn time I felt my body relax and the notion of safety began to sink in, all I could think of was that this was a trap. That the moment I let my guard down was the moment I’d end up dead like one of Tate’s cellmate’s victims.
So, I stayed inside. With the exception of work, I rarely left the house anymore because my nerves were such a twisted jumble of anxiety. Even something as simple as going to Jana’s house filled my mind with images of my pregnant best friend getting caught in the crossfire, so I begged off every invitation under the guise of fatigue. Which honestly, wasn’t that far off. I was run down. Fucking exhausted.
Which was why Tate and I were curled up together on the sofa, watching a scary movie. It was the fifth or maybe even the nineteenth, in the franchise, but it was surprisingly good. And gory. Still, just hanging out with a guy and watching a movie was mundane, but completely unfamiliar territory to me. I didn’t hang out with the men I slept with, hadn’t since I realized everything they said was a lie to get more pussy. But with Tate, things were different. Maybe it was because he was easy to talk to or maybe it was just because he had no interest in impressing me, he was just Tate.
Or it could be that he fucked me so good I didn’t give a damn about anything else. Including my appearance, as evidenced by the fact I was lounging around in nothing but a pair of cotton booty shorts and a thin tank without a bra. It was the definition of comfort, something I didn’t often feel around men. Any men.
But Tate was all man and so far, I couldn’t get enough of him. Which was a bit troublesome since we weren’t dating. He was helping protect me and we were sleeping together. That was the sum total of our relationship and I was okay with that, even though things were starting to get...confusing.
I kept my gaze focused on the big ass TV where a man was begging for his life to no one in particular, but when another person appeared, I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Ass,” I told Tate when he laughed at me.
“Sorry, but it’s cute that you’re scared of a made up thing on the screen when, you know, real life.”
He was right, I was being a fool. But I enjoyed this kind of frivolous fear that went nowhere. “Have you ever had your face split into eight pieces by lasers? Because that looks like some very scary shit to me.”
“Good point,” he growled, one hand wrapped around my shoulders, his body crowding mine. His other hand, slid up and up my thigh so excruciatingly slow, my breath caught. “Don’t worry, Cover Girl, I’ll protect you.”
I rolled my eyes at his words and tried for a snort that came out more like a breathless moan as his fingertips brushed my pussy through my shorts. Then he slid a finger past my wet panties through my swollen pussy lips. His thumb moved back and forth over my clit and one long finger rubbed all around my opening, teasing me mercilessly. “Protect me?” I panted.
“I’m distracting you from your fear, don’t you know?” He chuckled lightly and finally, sweet Lord above, he stopped teasing me and slid a long finger deep, twisting and pumping until the only sounds in the room were my grunts and the sound of his finger plunging into my slickness.
“You’re so fucking wet. Your pussy is always so wet for me.”
My hips rolled against his hand and he added another finger, causing my hips to buck even harder. “Ooh, she knows what she likes, and you’re it Golden Boy.”
His deep chuckle vibrated through my body and I pulled him close, smashing our mouths together in a hot frenzied kiss that pushed me closer and closer to the edge.
“Good. I like her too,” he purred against my lips and kissed me again. It was a hard kiss, rough and raw, like he would die if he didn’t keep kissing me. Which was good, because if he stopped now I knew I would die from being too turned on.
His fingers sank deep and curved up as his mouth skidded down my neck and landed on a stiff, aching nipple. “Tate,” I moaned as he sucked harder, his fingers moving faster and faster as I barreled toward orgasm. My hand reached out to his wrist, holding it still while I moved my hips fast and hard, fucking his hand as eagerly as he fucked me with his fingers. His gaze was dark with arousal, staring at me intently, watching for signs of pleasure.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Don’t. Even. Think,” I told him and my hips moved faster and faster as the knocking grew more insistent. “Oh fuck,” I panted out when he added more pressure to my clit as the knocking grew louder. His teeth sank down into t
he soft, sensitive flesh of my nipple and that was enough to send me flying apart, clenching and pulsing around his fingers. “Damn, Tate. You do a body good.”
He laughed and kissed me hard as the knocking was now an annoying fucking pest. “Glad to be of service.”
I sighed with relief. “And I can’t wait to service you,” I told him. “As soon as we get rid of the uninvited guest.” Fixing my shorts and shirt, I gave my hair a quick finger comb as I made my way to the door and yanked it open. As soon as I saw the dark uniforms, I froze. “What is it? Did you find them?”
“No, ma’am. We’re not here about your case.”
I frowned. “Then why are you here, at ten o’clock at night?”
The older uniformed officer stepped forward. “We have a complaint of an assault against Tate Ellison.”
Arms crossed, I let out a bitter laugh. “Oh yeah, by who? And when exactly did this assault take place because I can guarantee you, he didn’t do it.” I felt Tate’s heat when he came up behind me.
“It’s fine, Teddy. I’ll go clear this up.”
“No! The last time you did the right thing, they put you in the slammer.” His lips twitched and I smacked his chest. “This isn’t fucking funny!”
“I know, but this is the easiest way to clear it up.”
“How? With you already where they want you? No!” I turned to the cops. “He has a right to know who accused him and when, or else you might end up falsifying evidence. Again.”
I waited for them to speak. Tate might want to do things their way, but I knew the power of a semi-hysterical woman on men, particularly men who pretended to be good men.
Finally, the older one with the paunch sighed. “Two nights ago, ma’am, but we can’t release the name of the accuser.”
“Whatever.” I turned to Tate. “Tell me what you need.”