Pagan (The Henchmen MC Book 8)

by Jessica Gadziala

  I didn't have to look up, but I did anyway.

  He didn't look like he was going to fight. He was in a tee, jeans, boots, and his leather cut, still scruffy, still hauntingly good looking.

  The second my eyes found his, my drink was taken and met the surface of the coffee table.

  Then, in a move so slick it almost seemed practiced, his hand planted at my hip then slowly whispered downward until it slid under my knee, then the other, snagging them, and dragging them over both his legs. His arm snaked around my shoulders, pulling me the rest of the way until my whole side was against his chest, his arm an oddly reassuring weight, anchoring me to him.

  His heat radiated through his clothes, warming my very exposed body in the short dress, the AC cranking in the room. And, well, there may have been a slight (okay, intense) shiver at the warmth.

  The corresponding rumbling noise in Pagan's chest warmed me all the more, but in a much more sexual way. That was literally all it took. Just a noise from him and I was already getting way too turned on by a practical stranger. That being said, with the sex dreams being so realistic for over a week, it didn't exactly feel like he was such a stranger anymore.

  "You can stomach Taxi Driver, but Hex is too much for you?"

  I smiled at that, acknowledging the hypocrisy. "It's different when it's cinematic I guess. I love action movies, but if I get a paper cut, I'm feeling woozy. Don't worry," I went on when he stayed silent, lips twitching a bit. "Cyrus already warned me to stay away from the ring when you're in it."

  "Probably good advice," he agreed, his free hand leaving my thigh where I swear I felt suddenly branded, and moving upward to stroke my hair behind my ear, making me glad I chose to wear it down despite the heat outside.

  Feeling uncomfortable with his dark, penetrating gaze, I swallowed hard, waving a hand toward the table. "Thanks for the drink."

  He completely ignored that. "What are you doing after this?"

  "Um, it's a Monday night," I said, smiling a little. Wasn't it obvious that I would be going to bed so I could get up for work the next day? Then again, he didn't live that normal kind of lifestyle. "You know for normal people, meaning not cage-fighting arms-dealing bikers, we need to get to sleep at what is called a 'reasonable hour' so we can get up in the morning to go to this place called 'work'."

  "You own the place. Make an executive decision."

  "It's not that easy."

  "No?" he asked, lips tipped up ever so slightly at one side, his eyes mischievous.

  But before I could realize his intention, his hand slid from my face, down my neck, arm, the side of my breast which seemed to get immediately heavier, then settling at my hip. Almost the second that that hand stopped, the other hand moved toward the center of my back, grabbed a handful of my hair, and yanked back hard until my mouth opened on a silent gasp.

  And, well, he took that opportunity.

  I had never been one for PDA, and it was something I didn't think I would ever be comfortable with. But the second his lips claimed mine, the entire world fell away. There were no people, no sounds, no nothing but the two of us, his lips searing into mine, his hands digging in perhaps too hard into my hip, yanking at my hair, my heartbeat slamming in my chest, his stubble scraping over my skin, the overpowering pulsating need between my thighs.

  Maybe I wouldn't be going home and sleeping.

  That was the last fully conscious thought I had before his tongue moved inside and claimed mine.

  His hand released my hair, using his arm to pull me even closer, making me almost on his lap, my top half twisted toward him so my breasts were crushed to his chest, my nipples straining and, seeing as all I had was a shelf bra that hid very little, I knew he was very aware of. His fingers drifted to my knee again, grabbing, and yanking it toward him.

  I couldn't tell you how long it went on.

  It could have been minutes or days or half a lifetime.

  Even so, it could still somehow never be enough.

  But before I could let him do something truly obscene to me, there was a clearing of a male voice that seemed to have the same impact to my system as a bucket of ice water as I sprang away from Pagan. Before my eyes could even clear from the sudden motion, I was yanking at the bottom of my dress to make sure it was covering enough of me, and self-consciously flattening my hair.

  "You're up," the man in the suit who said our drinks were on Pagan said, standing there a few feet away. "And if you fuck her after your fight, it better the fuck not be on my desk again. Or I will show your ass why the fuck my ass doesn't go in that ring."

  Those were his parting words as I sat there, heart racing, mind following, need still a clawing thing low in my belly.

  "Was that a threat?" I asked, brows drawn together.

  "Let's just say I'm a fucking animal both in the ring and in the sack. Ross Ward is another beast entirely."

  Then with that, Pagan was gone as well, leaving me there to try to slow my breathing and look around, wondering who might have overseen our little makeout session.

  "I love me some kissing," Benny said, walking up from behind me with a new round of drinks. "But I don't think I have ever kissed for an hour straight."

  An hour.

  An hour?

  Jesus.

  No wonder I was so squirrelly.

  "I should expect you late tomorrow, yes?" he asked, eyes dancing, lips teasing, as he handed me my drink in hands that were actually a little shaky. Which was incredibly embarrassing since I knew Benny saw if his chuckle was anything to go by. "You have beard burn something fierce right now," he informed me as I drained my drink and raised my hands to touch my cheeks that did feel hot, but I figured it was a flush. But when my fingers touched, it was unmistakably sensitive.

  "Great," I grumbled, nodding when one of the passing waitresses took my newest glass and asked if I wanted another round. Which, in turn, made me realize that another (or the same) waitress must have popped by during our makeoutathon to get rid of my other glass.

  What was wrong with me?

  "Kenny, just go home with him," Benny said, shrugging. "I haven't seen you so into someone in, well, ever. If you don't get him out of your system, you're not going to be any good at work tomorrow all sexually frustrated either."

  He wasn't exactly wrong.

  But as I sat there, hearing the fight going on across the room, the reaction from the crowd, and my own heartbeat whooshing in my ears, I had a strange, niggling little feeling that there was no getting him out of my system.

  Then, seeing as that was crazy talk, even for internal monolog, I had another two rounds until that inner voice shut the hell up about asinine ideas of a more than physical connection with Pagan.

  I didn't see him again right after his fight.

  In fact, my buzz was pretty much wearing off when he finally emerged from some back room with the man Benny informed me he had been in a fight with, both of them looking freshly showered and changed and patched-up. Patched-up because each of them looked like they got into fights with a gorilla and lost. Pagan had a four-inch gash from the edge of his eye to the middle of his cheek which he had pushed together with butterfly stitches, a busted lip, ripped open knuckles, and a nasty bruise on the left side of his jaw. The other guy, Slate, had an eye almost swollen shut, a similarly busted lip, and was walking half to the side, seeming to favor his ribs.

  Why did people sign up happily to get their asses kicked? I was pretty sure that no matter how many explanations about adrenaline or whatever they could give me would never actually help me understand.

  "Slate, Kennedy," Pagan said, dropping down on the very small couch, dragging me up on his lap so Benny wasn't crushed. "And Benny," he added. "This is Slate, the guy whose ass I just kicked."

  "He sounds all big and bad right now," Slate said, smiling down at me. "But two fights ago, his ass had to go get his fingers splinted, ribs wrapped, and a cut near his eye glued."

  "Well, I have a man and fluffy baby at home
waiting for me," Benny declared, dropping money on the table for the waitress who had been taking care of us. "I will see you... when you get in."

  "Wait, no," I objected, trying to jolt up, but Pagan's hands were around me. "You're my ride."

  "Honey," Benny said, giving me a lopsided smile. "I think your ride is the man you are currently sitting on right now. Be nice to my girl," Benny warned before moving away.

  And leaving me at Pagan's mercy.

  Right where I wanted, but was terrified, to be.

  EIGHT

  Kennedy

  Not being a casual sex type of girl, I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to say, or do, from that point on. Truly, it was about as awkward as I had been when I lost my virginity at the ripe old age of eighteen to someone much more experienced than me, making me feel mumbling and bumbling and wholly unsexy.

  Slate pulled up a chair and got himself a round as I tried to pull off of Pagan and sit down on the free side of the couch, but the arm around me only tightened.

  "Relax, pet," he mumbled when Slate launched into some line of conversation I was too distracted to follow along with.

  Was I really going to do it?

  Was I going to go home with a man I barely knew who beat people and sold guns for a living?

  Was I going to have sex with a man whose last name I didn't even know?

  If I were only listening to my body, the answer was a resounding yes.

  But could such decisions really just be made by the body? I mean, I guess they could. So long as the brain was present enough to demand protection and you had pocket money to catch a ride home if things felt wonky.

  But was I the kind of woman who...

  "You got nice hands, Kennedy," Pagan said oddly, making me jerk back, realizing how zoned out I had been when his hand closed over top of mine, making me realize how long I had been staring at my own, "but they're not that fucking interesting."

  His hands were though.

  They were the kind of hands that told a story. Each and every one of the white, pink, and red scars there was evident of something, some form of trauma, some memory he had.

  Feeling weird about romanticizing the man's freaking hands, I looked up to find Slate already gone somehow. When I turned back to Pagan, his lips were twitching.

  "He tried to talk to you twice before he gave up."

  Ugh.

  I was not usually so bad at social graces.

  I never stared at my own damn hands when someone tried to engage me in conversation.

  "Kennedy," he said, his voice a strange mix of firm and gentle that didn't quite seem to suit him, making my attention snap to his slightly damaged, but no less sexy, face.

  "Yeah?"

  "If this is a no," he said, gesturing between us, "then it's a no. I'll take you home. Or I'll call you a cab. I'm cool with a lot of fucked up shit, but a woman giving herself an ulcer over whether she wants to slum it with me is not one of those things. First, it bruises my pride a little," he said, giving me a small grin, both of us knowing his pride could withstand a freaking earthquake. "Second, I'm not the kind of man who is going to convince you to sleep with me. You want to, or you don't want to. It's as simple as that."

  "There's nothing simple about it," I admitted, surprising myself a little.

  "I get you're the relationship kind of girl, pet. But I think it's pretty fucking obvious that I am not the relationship kind of man. I'm not offering you that. But if what has you hung up is because you've never fucked a guy once and never saw him again, I'm open to the idea of fucking you anytime you need a solid dicking."

  I snorted at that, completely caught off-guard. "Wow. That was eloquent."

  "Regular fucking Hemingway over here," he agreed, reaching out and giving my hair a little tug. "Besides, I don't think I could do to you all the things I want to do to you in one night anyway."

  He wanted to be... fuck buddies?

  Was that what he was offering me?

  Somehow, my mind didn't rebel quite as hard against that as it did the one-night stand thing.

  "You want to just... have casual sex with each other whenever the mood strikes?" I asked, wanting to clarify.

  "The mood is gonna strike often. So clear your fucking calendar."

  There was a weird little thrill inside at that, my body fully on board. And my mind, well, it was holding the grab bar, wanting reassurances from the conductor before it boarded.

  Sex talk was, in my experience, almost never comfortable. The safe sex talk or the hard limits talk or the exclusivity talk. All necessary, but awkward.

  The latter was the one that had my belly in knots as I swallowed hard and forced the words to come out, knowing they were going to trip all over themselves, but wanting to be clear.

  "I get that your lifestyle is, ah, a bit loose on the sexual moral thing. And that's fine and all. Your choices are your choices, but I don't, um, share. And I understand if that is a deal..."

  "You want to be the only one riding my dick," he cut me off, lips twitching as my mouth fell slightly open, still not quite accustomed to his particular type of bluntness.

  "I, ah, yeah. That's sort of what I was trying to..."

  "Can't say I have ever, fucking ever, been a man for exclusivity. But if that's what you need to give this a shot, I'm willing to give it a try."

  "No, ah, what are they called..."

  "Clubwhores," he supplied easily. "Trust me, pet, that's no fucking loss. So, we're good? Got that shit out of the way."

  "That 'shit' being my conditions," I said with a smile. "Um, I guess."

  "Alright, out with it," he said, leaning back, brow raised.

  "Out with what?"

  "There's another condition or two in there. Out with it."

  "Obviously we would need to use..."

  His somewhat loud snort cut me off. "I've never fucked without a condom. Anything else?"

  I was pretty sure I couldn't really demand after sex cuddle sessions to make me feel less weird about it. It was pretty standard in normal relationships, but this wasn't normal, and it wasn't a relationship.

  "I guess that's it. Oh, well, we can't really... go back to my place," I said, absolutely horrified at the idea of anyone seeing how I lived. Hell, even Benny had been forbidden from going inside.

  "Old man a filthy eavesdropper?"

  Not really. "Something like that," I lied, looking down at his chin because I knew my eyes tended to give me away.

  "Well, I have a room at the compound and my own place."

  The compound. Which meant every single one of them would know that we slept together and would see me doing my sort of walk of shame later that night or early in the morning?

  Yeah, that didn't sound the least bit tempting.

  "Your place?"

  "Yep," he agreed, standing suddenly, making me let out a very uncool squeal since I was still on his lap. But his hand was still around me, and he let me get my feet before he dropped an arm around my shoulders, the action very possessive and I found myself really liking it as he led me through the crowds of people still around then out the doors to the lot. "Hope bikes don't freak you out," he said as he led me toward a line of them, likely all belonging to his brothers.

  "My dad had a bike. I think I was all of five the first time he took me out on it," I admitted, then winced slightly.

  My dad wasn't my most favorite of topics. The memories I had of him were all amazing, fun, loving, exciting. But those memories ended right at ten when one night, he just decided to never come home. Which led my mother into both a deep depression because she lost the man she loved, but also into dire financial straits. While we had always been somewhat low-income even with my father around to help provide, when he disappeared, I became a little too familiar with the sensation of hunger, and we were the state-assistance kind of needy.

  My mother had never been able to pull herself back out of that, not on her own. I aged up and started paying my own way and she remarried and let
someone else take some of the burden off of her shoulders.

  I couldn't blame her, but it also taught me how much I wanted to be my own woman, stand on my own two feet, never have anything that a man could point at and say 'if it weren't for me, you would never have that.'

  So I busted my ass.

  I did everything right.

  I scrimped. I saved. I went to cosmetology school. I scrimped and saved some more and opened my business.

  All was going to plan until...

  "Kennedy, you getting on or are you following me on foot?" Pagan asked, making me realize he had already dropped down on his bike and was holding out a helmet toward me.

  I inwardly cringed at the idea of sweaty helmet hair, but pulled it on and clipped the buckle as I moved to the side of the bike, realizing for the first time how dresses and motorcycles really weren't the best of ideas. Namely, because I couldn't get on without flashing him.

  I made a spinning motion with my finger that made him chuckle. "I plan on peeling those panties off with my fucking teeth, but sure, save your modesty," he said, turning forward, still shaking his head at me as I climbed on.

  It had been a while, obviously.

  And being on a bike with a family member was completely different than being on a bike with a man you were interested in.

  It was a hell of a lot more intimate than I realized as the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thighs met the rough material of his jeans, as my crotch pressed right up against him, as my breasts crushed to his back when my hands went around him.

  It was practically foreplay, and he wasn't technically even touching me.

  "Tighter, pet," he instructed as the bike roared to life.

  My thighs tightened on his as my arms squeezed harder as well, my belly tightening for the inevitable pitching feeling I would get when he pulled off.

  Then we were off.

  Slowly at first, through the main area of Navesink Bank. I felt my brows draw together as we reached city limits and he kept going, taking a side street that I knew from experience led toward the beach.

  Pagan lived near the beach?