by Zoe Hill
An argument flares in Poppy’s eyes as I finish my explanation. Seeing it, I do what any sensible man should do. I turn to face the bed, then lower Poppy onto the mattress. Her eyes widen when I start to strip off her clothing.
Once she’s naked, I kick off my shoes and climb over her.
With my arms on either side of her head, I force myself to look past the damage from Seb’s attack and at the stunning woman beneath the injuries. He almost took her from me this morning, then Harrison was able to touch her this evening. Both times, I was close to powerless to stop them, yet together, we made it through.
We make a good team.
With that reminder lodged firmly in my head, I brush her hair off her face and run my finger from her forehead over her nose and down her chin to stop at the notch between her collarbones.
“You’re so beautiful that it hurts my eyes.” The smile that lifts her lips makes me feel like a million dollars. “Every time you look at me like that, I’m scared it’s going to be the last time. I’m not good with people. I’m going to do something that makes you run.”
Nipping at my chin with sharp teeth, Poppy shakes her head. “It’s impossible. There’s nothing you can do that’ll scare me off.”
“What if this.” I lift her hand and press it against my cheek. “Wears off? What if I get worse and you can’t touch me? What if you touch me when I’m not expecting it, and I lash out at you? You’re not being smart by choosing me. Forget Trigger, I’m dangerous.”
Her deep-brown eyes are filled with an emotion that I identify as the same one bubbling within me. Poppy pushes against my chest. Shocked, I move back to give her the space she needs to leave, all the while readying myself for her rejection, only to find myself shoved onto my back. She straddles my waist, completely comfortable in her nakedness. Her perfect breasts jiggle above me every time she moves. I palm them with my hands. She responds by lifting the bottom of my Henley and running her fingertips on the skin directly above my waistband.
Poppy’s light touch sends a bolt of arousal rushing through me. It settles in my dick. I harden in an instant, swallowing back a groan when she keeps drawing her fingers back and forth over my abdomen.
“What if I can’t have sex with you without craving pain?” She turns my arguments back at me. “What if I can’t give you kids if you eventually want them? What if my idiot brothers do something that pisses you off to the point where you leave?”
“None of that matters,’ I announce in a rush.
“I feel the same way. You’re not the only one with worries here... I’m in over my head too.”
Her frank assessment hangs in the air until Poppy unzips my pants and pushes her hand inside. Grinding my teeth, I growl when she cups my cock and gently squeezes. My final reservation spills from my lips. “What if you can’t love me the way I am?”
“Too late, Sabra,” Poppy declares. “I’m already in love with you.”
Before I can fully grasp what she said, the wicked woman sitting on top of me pulls my dick free and slides down my body. She engulfs me with her warm, wet mouth. Stroking from the base, she works my cock with her hand. Up and down, she moves her hand to meet her lips, so she can cover the length she can’t quite swallow. A shudder runs down my spine and I thrust my hips to match her pace. When Poppy seals her lips tight around my length to increase the suction, my eyes roll back in my head. Each time she returns her lips to the head of my cock, she swirls her tongue around the top and flattens her tongue against the ridge in the crown of my dick.
It’s a strange combination of torture and pleasure. An unearthly moan fills the room. I press my lips together when I realize that I’m the one making the sound. Poppy slides her lips off my length with a pop. “Do you want me to finish you?”
“Yes. No.” Making up my mind, I lift her body off mine, setting her down onto the mattress on the other side of me. “Just hold that thought.”
Scrabbling to my feet, I strip out of my clothes. Crawling back onto the bed within half a minute, I push Poppy onto her back, then hold her in place with one hand on her chest when she tries to sit back up. Kneeling between her legs, I push her thighs open and dip low to taste her. She tastes as good as I remember, so I lick her again. And again. And once more for luck.
“Holy... God.”
“I’ll take that as a yes?”
Lifting her head to look at me, Poppy gazes down at me with glassy eyes. “That’s a hell yes.”
This time, I’m determined to take my time. When I licked her in my suite last night, I was acting on instinct. Tonight, I want everything I do to her to be well thought out and deliberate.
I work her over with my tongue until her hips are jerking. Flattening my tongue against her clit, I push two fingers inside her wetness. She grips me tight, spasming a little when I lave her sensitive bud faster and harder.
Fingernails digging into my hair, Poppy screams. “Yes. Like that. Just... like. That.”
I do as I’m told, maintaining the exact speed and intensity with my tongue. The way she moves when I pump my fingers inside her makes my dick hard as a rock. I thrust against the mattress to ease the ache. It doesn’t help... if anything, it makes it worse. When Poppy’s internal muscles start to grip my fingers tighter, then loosen, I push them inside her faster.
She detonates around me, closing her legs around my head and grinding her pussy against my face. “Oh, my... Spenser. Yes. Yes. Oh... Sabra.”
When her spasms decrease, I pull my fingers free of her beautiful body. Her scent draws me in, so I lick her wetness until she’s writhing against the mattress again. Reaching down to touch my cock, I fist my length and pump my hand up and down.
I want to be inside her. So bad.
Can I do this without my skin burning?
What if I lose control and hurt her?
“We don’t have to do that. Not tonight. Not ever, if you don’t want to.”
“But I want to.”
Poppy groans when I push the tip of my tongue into her pussy. Letting go of my dick, I concentrate on bringing her back to the cusp of an orgasm. She moans when I push three fingers into her wet warmth. My dick throbs and I find myself surging forward before I’ve made a conscious decision. One hand holding her leg around my hip and the other touching her flushed face, I look Poppy right in the eyes. She nods and I begin pushing my length inside her.
Soothing her furrowed brow with kisses, I moan as her tight heat accepts my hard length. When I pause to luxuriate in the feeling of Poppy holding me within her body, my eyes droop shut, and I find myself getting lost in the past.
“I—can’t.” My words are strangled. “I’m... it’s.”
Poppy takes hold of the other side of my face and forces me to look her in the eyes again. I lift my eyelids and meet her soft melted-chocolate gaze. She kisses me. I hold still, grinding my teeth as I fight back the burning.
“It’s me. Just me. I’m not going to hurt you. If you want to stop, then that’s your choice. I’m going to love you either way.”
“Fuck,” I groan.
“Count, Sabra. One. Two. Three.” I thrust inside her on each new number. My voice joins hers as we move together, “Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.” Lifting her hips and arching her back, Poppy screams, “Thirteen,” and I find myself shouting it with her.
I lose myself, shrugging off the past, and pounding into her without hesitation. Everything she just said is exactly what I needed to hear. Acceptance and love. It’s a potent mix when it comes from someone you love in return.
When Poppy drops her hands to my ass, pushing me deeper into her heat, all pretense that I’ll ever be able to walk away from her flies out of my head, and I declare, “Fucking love you, Zricha.”
“I know,” Poppy gasps when I thrust harder. Hands pressed flat against the mattress on either side of her waist, I drive myself in and out of her tightness. “God. Sabra. I’m going to come again.”
She drops her hand betw
een her legs and rubs her clit. I lower my lips to her nipples and draw the engorged flesh into my mouth. Her walls start to pulse around my cock as I move within her. Her tight heat builds into ecstasy at the base of my spine. Every ounce of lust that’s pounding through me centers on my dick. Poppy surrounds me. She envelopes my senses in a way that makes her the nucleus of my world.
Her scent. Her skin. Her voice. Her soul.
The light. The soft. The good. The right.
She is everything.
“Fuck, yes!” I shout as I recognize the initial signs of a climax building within me.
One hand clutching at my back while she uses the other to get herself off, Poppy’s walls grip me tight for a few seconds before her body freezes. In the next heartbeat, she moves again. The spasmodic jerk of her hips, the feeling of her pussy milking me, it all combines to send me crashing over into the abyss. Punching the pillow next to Poppy’s head, I grind out a curse, then slump over her trembling body as my release is reached.
My full weight is on her, yet she wraps her legs and arms around me and hugs me tight. I smother her hair with kisses until I regain enough control of my twitching limbs to move off her. Rolling onto my back, I pull Poppy onto my chest and hold her close.
“That was...” I begin, then trail off.
Wracking my brain, I fail to find the right word to fully encompass what just happened.
“Mind-blowing?” Poppy asks.
“Yes... and so much more.”
I dip my chin to my chest and peer at her. Her hair is a knotty mess, and her mouth is red from my kisses, yet she manages to look more beautiful than she ever has. The life in her eyes and the languid relaxation in her limbs fills me with pride.
“I love you.” I try the words on for size and find them fitting. “Is that crazy?”
“No. I feel it too.” Grinning, Poppy wriggles along my body, then pushes herself up on one arm. I arch an eyebrow when she lays a fingertip on my forehead for a heartbeat before she runs her finger between my eyes, over my nose, and down my chin to the base of my throat. She places a small kiss against my throat, then lies back down.
Snuggling with her cheek pressed against my heart, Poppy sighs.
“What?” I try to sit up so I can see her face.
She pushes me back down, then swings a leg over my waist and sits up. With the same regal bearing as a queen, Poppy stares down at me with a quizzical look in her eyes. Again, I move to sit up. Giggling, she stops me once more. Of course, if I really wanted to move her I could, but now that I can see she’s being playful, I’m happy to play along to see where she’s going with this game.
Linking our fingers together, Poppy presses my hands above my head and leans down low. Her breasts swing in my face, but she remains just out of reach. She kisses the end of my nose, then sits upright and looks down at me again.
“Ask me why I’m staring,” she orders with a smile.
I roll my eyes. “Why are you staring, Zricha?”
“I’m cataloging your flaws,” she quips.
I take hold of her waist and toss her onto her back. Grinning, I lower my body over hers and nip at her neck with my teeth. My cock hardens as Poppy arches beneath me. Her breathing speeds up and she hooks her leg around my waist so she can rub herself against my throbbing dick.
“I’ll have you know that I’m the biggest catch in the city,” I tell her as I press my hardness against her.
Fully erect again, I’m raring to fuck the precious woman panting beneath me into oblivion.
Laughing, Poppy nips my chin with sharp teeth, and then she corrects me. “Not anymore. You’re all mine.”
“Damn right.” I push my length inside her welcoming heat. “All yours.”
As we move together, my broken pieces meld with hers until we’re one, and I thank my lucky stars for the chance to find my salvation. It took a long time, too many years of pain and loneliness, for me to reconnect with the girl who gave me a small taste of trust and acceptance as a boy.
I almost don’t believe that it’s happened, but I’m finally at peace with the fact that my past can’t be changed. Every bleak moment I spent in agony was worth it. The bad times and the moments that drove me to seek out death were another step closer to her.
What’s done can’t be undone.
It doesn’t need to be.
Because I’d stumble my way through the dark days a dozen times over as long as they brought me back to my Zricha.
EPILOGUE
“When you finally find the one against all odds, you give him your best and let the magic of the world carry the rest.” ~E. Mellyberry~
POPPY
One year later
People like to believe that love fixes everything.
It doesn’t.
Acceptance does.
I’ve always loved my parents. My sister. My brother’s, even Chester—although you’ll have to drag me barefoot over hot coals to get me to admit that to him. Bella. Renee Clearwater. I spent my life surrounded by love and it fixed nothing.
Not even Spenser’s love was able to fix me.
With the love of a strong man as my base, I found the courage to acknowledge that my past couldn’t be altered. My future, no matter how carefully I planned and how softly I tread, would always be uncertain. The present was all I had.
Once I accepted that, I discovered that I didn’t need fixing after all.
That’s how I found my voice again. It’s why I choose to embrace every day as my last and ensure that every decision I make is as good as it can be with the information I possess at the time. It’s the only thing keeping me sane when our lives occasionally devolve into chaos and we’re forced to fight the immorality that threatens our safety.
Acceptance is the key to my happiness.
Well, acceptance, and a good fuck at the end of the day.
“I’d hoped that the insta-lust would’ve worn off by now. It’s beginning to get creepy,” Bella jokes. Shaking my head out the clouds, I grin when I realize that I’ve been staring at Spenser. My best friend pushes a fresh beer toward me, then she leans down and whispers, “Let me know when you need me to create a diversion.”
Running my tongue over my top teeth, I contemplate her offer while I search Spenser’s face for clues. After I’ve made my decision, I press a kiss on her cheek. “It’s not quite time.”
“Well, if I had to guess,” she quips, glancing at Spenser. I follow her gaze over to my man. “I’d say it won’t be long. Drink up, chipmunk. You’re about to be picked up by a random stranger.”
“Very funny,” I drawl.
Bella laughs. “I thought so.”
“I told you that in confidence.”
“And I remain supremely confident that I’ve only told Chester,” she wisecracks. “Pillow talk is privileged information. He won’t tell anyone.”
Slapping her arm, I shake my head, then lean back with my elbows pressed against the top of the table and survey the room. The bar is filled with people. The DJ is playing the right music to keep the mood high. Spenser is coping with the crowd for now. Three of my brothers are acting as a wall of muscle that separates my man from the crowd that’s gathered to celebrate my dad’s birthday tonight while Chester concentrates on devouring my friend from across the bar with his hungry gaze.
One look at her and I can see that she’s sticking to her plan to play it coy. Chester continues to avoid committing to anything more than friends with benefits, but I know she’ll end up in his bed tonight, and he’ll call her daily when she heads back to New York for work.
On the surface, everything seems perfect.
Bubbling beneath the façade, our problems threaten to spill over and infect our peace.
I miss Ollie. I miss my job. I miss the ignorance I once had to the real evil that controls the world.
I fear for the day that it all comes to a head.
The Samaritan’s Soldiers MC and their allies versus the Coalition and its tentacles of corruption an
d greed.
Despite his parents’ best efforts at faking his death, the Coalition continues to hunt for Spenser. We live our lives in hiding, rarely venturing out of the compound because we know that Roman has eyes everywhere. The other men with seats at the table are working hard to usurp his position without him noticing until it’s too late, but he’s proving a worthy foe. His sons have established themselves in the political spectrum and they continue to do his bidding while Stirling does his best to secretly undermine them.
Untangling the web that Roman has woven during his thirty-five-year tenure at the top of the Coalition has turned into a full-time job for Spenser. While he delegates most of the killing to Axel Zidane, I’m aware that he sometimes finds it hard to take a back seat.
Thankfully, we’ve developed a new routine to help him cope.
The murder of Roman Averell’s secret son was the catalyst for a lot of changes within our country, the full of extent of which we will probably never know until they rear up and bite us.
Another motorcycle club moved in to take over Harrison’s sex trafficking routes. The Samaritan’s Soldiers continue to fight the good fight, although it seems to get harder every day as abuse rates rise. My brother was forced deeper into the Coalition. He hasn’t been heard from in months, and I catch my mom praying every now and then for his safe return. For a woman who disavowed God when she learned what Harrison was doing to me, returning to her faith is a monumental step.
I only hope that it brings him back to us soon.
Seb hasn’t been heard from since the day Spenser shot him in my apartment. Our current working theory is that he is the mastermind behind the new motorcycle club in Connecticut. The Internal Affairs detective who fraudulently suspended me turned out to be a member of the Coalition. Known in the underground as Rebel, she disappeared around the same time as Seb did.
I hope that it’s a coincidence and not a symptom of a larger conspiracy.
Bella’s sister died in suspicious circumstances after an affair with Gareth Averell, leaving behind a motherless little girl whose father refuses to acknowledge or provide for her. With assistance from her older brother, my best friend does her best to look after her niece.