by Levine, Nina
“What are you two discussing?” Mum demanded to know. She was way past her alcohol limit for the night and was veering into smashed territory.
“I think this party is over, Mum.”
“Yeah, me too,” Tatum said. I could always count on her to take my back.
Mum pouted. “We were just getting to know Hyde.”
Dad stood and motioned for Mum to follow suit. “Plenty of time for that, Angela.”
I packed up some pizza for them to take home and did my best to get them all out the door. I was as desperate to be alone with Hyde as he was. Dad, however, had other plans.
As he and Mum made it to the front door, he turned and looked at Hyde. The way he looked at him told me that whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to lead to anything good. “What’s your surname, Hyde?”
“Dad,” I warned, but I knew it was futile. He’d been hanging for this conversation since he arrived back with pizza. I was surprised he managed to wait this long for it.
Hyde’s gaze remained steady on Dad. “McVeigh.”
“Your mother named you Hyde?”
“No.”
Dad planted his feet wide and crossed his arms. “You this cagey with everyone?”
Oh good Lord.
“Colin—” Mum started, in the same warning tone I’d used, but Hyde cut her off.
“Yeah, it’s a practice I’ve learnt over the years so that people can’t fuck me over. You and I get to know each other better, it’ll be a different story.”
Dad took that in. He seemed less than impressed, but my father wasn’t stupid. He knew when to push the point and when to back off. “You start spending time with my daughter, we’re going to be revisiting that a lot sooner than you might think.”
Hyde surprised me when he nodded and said, “Agreed.”
Dad grunted in response but didn’t say anything else. The two of them simply stood there sizing each other up. It was a waste of time in my opinion, and I wasn’t even sure why Hyde bothered. It wasn’t like he and I were pursuing anything other than hot sex.
It took my family another ten minutes to leave. After I had closed the front door behind them, Hyde spun me around and pinned me against it. Not wasting a second, he reached for the bottom of my shirt and slipped a hand under. “I like your family, sugar, but the last hour was fucking painful. My dick is so damn hard for you that we’re gonna have to skip getting clean in the shower.”
I pressed myself against him, desperate for the same thing. “I’m on board with that.” Gripping his shirt, I pushed it up and over his head. Dropping it to the floor, I let my eyes fall to his chest. “Seriously, it’s a sin how hot you are.” Placing my hands on his muscles, I said, “This is like perfection.”
A growl rumbled from deep inside him right before his lips came to mine. Kissing me with force, he took my breath away. No man had ever kissed me the way Hyde did. I felt his kisses deep in my toes; they reached every nerve ending I had and scorched me with their heat.
Remembering his earlier declaration that when he kissed me I didn’t get to end it, I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back until I was panting for breath.
By the time he’d had his fill, he’d removed all my clothes except my bra and panties. When he was done with my mouth, he moved down my body slowly until he found my breasts. Another growl came from him. I would never get enough of the hot-as-fuck noises he made. He was the kind of man who made it clear the effect I had on him and how much he liked it.
Threading my fingers through his hair, I arched my back and said, “I really like what you’re doing—like, really like it—but I’m so ready to have that mouth of yours on my pussy.”
Another sexy growl from him. He then angled his head so he could find my eyes. With hands still firmly on my breasts, he watched me while taking my nipple into his mouth. After sucking it for a moment, he asked, “How wet are you for me?”
He drove me insane by dragging this out. Taking hold of his face, I pulled his mouth back up to mine and kissed him. “You need to stop making me wait for you and find out for yourself how wet I am.”
His eyes darkened and he spun me around to face the door. Before I had a chance to keep up with him, he had my hands flat against the door above my head, my legs spread and my body pressed against the door. Grinding himself against my ass, he rasped, “I’m in control here, sugar. You do what I say. Not the other way around. And I’ll taste your cunt when I’m ready.”
I bit my lip and closed my eyes for a beat, enjoying the way his bossiness made my whole body tingle with excitement. A man who took charge during sex. Finally.
His hands gripped my waist and he crouched behind me. Hooking his fingers over the top of my panties, he ripped them down. I stepped out of them and waited with anticipation for his next move. I assumed it would be to finally give my pussy the attention she needed, but he had other ideas.
Standing, he unhooked my bra and removed it. Turning me back around, our eyes met again, his full of heat. Unzipping his jeans, he said, “I want your hand around my cock.”
The man was talking my language.
I reached into his pants and did as he’d ordered. Hyde’s cock was fucking huge. The biggest I’d ever had. The only thing that would have improved it was a piercing. But he was so damn talented at using it, that I’d even deal with no piercing if he was my man.
His eyes closed as he dropped his head back while I pumped him. “Fuck, Monroe, you can do that any day of the week you want to.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but his phone rang.
Worst timing ever. His phone had a habit of interrupting me getting what I wanted.
“Fuck,” he muttered, reaching into his back pocket for his phone. Checking caller ID, he gave me an apologetic look. “I’ve gotta get this.”
I nodded and let his dick go, but his free hand moved straight to mine and held it in place, letting me know I should keep going. With his eyes firmly on mine, he answered the phone. “King, what’s up?”
They had a short conversation. I couldn’t follow it because they seemed to talk in the shortest sentences known to mankind, sprinkled with a good dose of grunts in between. I would never understand how men could get their point across with so few words, but Hyde ended the call with a clear understanding of what he had to do.
“I’ve gotta go, so this is gonna be quick,” he said, surprising me. I’d figured we were done for the night. I was all down for quick; I just needed cock.
He grabbed a condom from his wallet. Once he had it in place, he spun me again so my back was to him. He thrust inside me a moment later, hard enough that I ended up slammed against the door.
Holding my hips firmly, he pounded into me with a determination I loved. Hyde took charge and made shit happen, and I was one happy woman with his style of fucking. There was no talking, no fumbling, and no hesitation. He went after what he wanted, and he did it with a relentless force that had so far delivered a mind-blowing orgasm.
Even today, when he had to do it quickly, he didn’t disappoint. And again, by the time he was finished, I wasn’t sure my legs would be able to hold me up for much longer.
After he came, his body rested against mine for a minute, his hands moving around to cup my breasts. “Jesus, Roe, this pussy of yours gets me off like nothing else.” He trailed kisses down the back of my neck and along my shoulder, his teeth nipping my skin as he went.
Roe.
I loved the sound of that coming from him. I wasn’t sure why it made me feel so good, and I reminded myself not to get attached. But damn, it felt personal. It felt like we’d taken a step beyond where we were before he fucked me. And while I liked that, it was probably just that my nickname had fallen from his lips in the heat of the moment.
Pulling out of me, he let his hands roam down my body from my breasts to my hips to my ass. I turned to find him reaching for his shirt. He picked my clothes up too and passed them to me. Again, his gesture made me feel good.
Stop it, Monroe.
It’s just sex.
Dropping a kiss on my lips, he said, “I’ll get rid of this condom.”
I dressed while he was gone, and headed back into my kitchen to find a drink. I needed one after that. After I’d let my feelings start wandering to places they shouldn’t.
He met me in the kitchen, his hands all over me again. With one last kiss, he said, “I’ll call you.”
I drank some of my drink, my tummy alive with butterflies. “We need to stop this now, Hyde.”
“No.”
All my mixed emotions about him collided. Irrational anger resulted. “Why do you always get to decide things?”
“Why are you fighting this?”
“What is this?” I threw back.
“It’s exactly what you like, sugar. Dirty fucking sex.”
“That’s what you want.”
“You don’t?”
“I told you last time this was a one-time thing. I don’t want casual sex.”
His eyes narrowed at me. “You want more?”
And there was the rub. “I don’t know what I want.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “You’re making this hard to follow.”
“Okay, let’s forget what I want for a minute. You told me you don’t date, so we’re an incompatible match anyway.”
He stepped closer to me, his hand curling around my neck. “You need to stop overthinking this. And stop figuring that you have me worked out.” He kissed me one last time. “Like I said, I’ll call.”
I stood in shock as he walked out. Yet again, he’d told me how things were going to go down between us, and I’d let him. And he still hadn’t confirmed he wanted more than sex. His vague “stop figuring you have me worked out” was such bullshit. It gave me nothing more than I already had. And fuck, I still wasn’t sure what I wanted.
But really, I was sure.
I wanted a whole lot more sex with Hyde. I just didn’t want to admit that I also wanted to spend more time with him.
Chapter 20
Hyde
Monroe was distracting me and she wasn’t even anywhere near me. I couldn’t get her out of my head. And that was a dangerous distraction to have when Storm was in the middle of shit.
Salvatore Ricci had turned out to be a dead end. He didn’t have anything to do with Jacko’s death and had proved it to us. That left us with a few other options, but getting to the bottom of it all was proving hard to do. King’s call tonight had been in regards to the guy Fox had put us onto. He’d been found dead with a message delivered to King afterwards.
“You’ve taken what’s mine, now I will take what’s yours.” King’s wild eyes came to mine as he waved the piece of paper sent to him in a box with the guy’s head. “What the fuck does this even mean?”
I had no idea either. It made no sense to me that this guy’s head had been sent to us. We’d had nothing to do with him until recently. And it made even less sense as to what King had supposedly taken from whoever was behind all this.
Bronze stepped forward. King had called him, Devil, Nitro, Kick and me in to deal with this. “You definitely don’t know this guy?” He indicated to the head in the box. “Not even from years ago?”
King scrubbed his face. “I’m almost one-hundred-fucking-percent sure I’ve never had anything to do with him.”
“And he gave you no leads when you saw him?”
Nitro shook his head. “Nothing. Hyde made sure he was in enough pain to speak if he had anything worth sharing, but he didn’t.”
Bronze nodded. “I don’t need specifics.” It was the warning he often gave us when we were about to cross one of his self-imposed boundaries. I didn’t know why he bothered. Simply working with us the way he did crossed enough lines to ensure his imprisonment if his colleagues ever discovered his corruption.
“I want to know everything about him,” King said to Bronze, indicating he wanted Bronze to look into him.
Bronze exhaled a frustrated breath. “I’m stretched, King. You’ve got me investigating three other guys. I’m trying to get through a huge workload at work, and I’m trying to evade Ryland, which is starting to prove difficult. Something’s gotta give if you want me to look into this.”
King frowned. “Why the fuck is Ryland on you?”
Bronze shrugged. “Got no fucking idea. I’ve either searched something or asked the wrong person something, and it’s triggered his interest in me. He’s been sniffing around for days, asking me all kinds of shit about Storm. I need to lay low.”
King met my gaze again. “We need to deal with Ryland.”
“Take him out of the equation?” I asked to confirm I’d understood where he was going with this.
Bronze held his hand up. “No. Let me look into him.”
“What will that achieve?” I asked, not following.
“There’ll be some dirt there. I just need to find it and then use it to get him to back off.”
This whole fucking situation was doing my head in. I’d had little sleep this week. That, on top of dealing with this shit, caused me to lose my patience with Bronze. “I’m about fucking done with pussy-fucking-footing around this, Bronze. I say we remove Ryland once and for all. And as for these three other Italians, why the fuck are we being so damn careful with them? Just fucking eliminate all of them.”
“Fuck, Hyde,” Devil said, “Who twisted your panties today?”
I shot daggers at him. “It’s starting to feel like Storm has lost their edge. We need to mark our fucking territory and make it clear again that you don’t fuck with us.”
“Yeah, but we can’t just go fucking pissing over whoever we want,” Nitro warned. “That shit will give us more issues than we have now.”
I needed a fucking drink. “Fuck it,” I muttered, and turned to head into the clubhouse bar.
“Where the fuck are you going?” King demanded.
“I’m getting a drink. Maybe when I get back you assholes will have come to your senses.”
I stalked out of the office and down the hallway to the bar, ignoring the shit they called out to me as I went. The minute I hit the bar, I decided it wasn’t the best idea. Being Friday night, members packed the room, and they were loud as fuck. A headache had kicked in while listening to everything King said, which meant the combination of music blaring from the speakers and drunken antics was like walking into hell.
Kree watched me with a wary eye. Smart woman. “Whisky?”
I nodded. “Why are you here? I didn’t think you worked nights anymore.”
“I don’t usually, but we were short staffed, so I came in.” She poured my drink and handed it to me. “Why do you look like you could murder someone?”
I poured some of the whisky down my throat. “Because I could.”
An argument broke out between two club members next to me at the bar. Within moments, fists were involved, and the few empty glasses on the bar top went flying, smashing onto the ground.
“For fuck’s sake!” I roared and moved to break them apart. I managed to do that, but in the process, ended up with a fist in my eye. That infuriated me more than I already was, and I retaliated with a fist to his fucking face, knocking him to the floor.
I glared at him as I picked up my drink. “Next time you wanna fight, take that shit outside.” I downed the rest of my whisky and shoved the empty glass at Kree. “I’ll have another,” I barked.
She arched a brow. “You want to try that again?”
“Not particularly.”
“I’m not making you another until you speak to me like a civil human being, Hyde.”
Fucking hell. “Make me a fucking drink, Kree, or else you and I are gonna have words about your employment here.”
“Hyde.” King’s ominous voice came from behind me.
I faced him, shoulders squared. “Have you come to your senses?”
Distaste clung to his words when he ordered, “My office. Now.”
We watched each other, silently wagi
ng war. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence for us. One minute united, the next going to battle with each other. It never lasted long, but over the last few months, tensions had simmered to boiling point. I did my best to reel my shit in, but when my mind snapped like it had tonight, my efforts were futile.
When I didn’t budge, he repeated himself in the quiet, menacing voice that signalled he’d also reached his limit. I managed to come to my senses enough to heed his warning. When we arrived at his office, he kicked everyone out and closed the door behind us.
“If you were anyone else, I’d tell you to get the fuck out of the clubhouse for the way you spoke to Kree.”
“You’re fucking joking, right?”
“No.”
“Who the fuck is Kree to you, King? I’ve watched the way you are with her. I’ve never seen you like it with any other woman here.”
“That’s not fucking important here. Your—”
I cut him off. “You’ve never cared about this shit before. Why the change all of a sudden?”
“Fuck!” He slammed his hand down on the desk and then paced the width of the office in silence for a few moments. Finally, he stopped and looked at me. The torment I saw in his eyes was enough to make me stop. Something else was going on here.
“What?”
“The club is in danger, and I can’t fucking figure out who is behind it. I can’t fucking stop it. And I can’t fucking make sure everyone is safe.” He paused for a moment. I’d never seen King in this state before. He lived and breathed power, not this bewilderment. “The only thing I seem to have any control over at the moment is the club.” He jabbed a finger in the air at me. “I fucking need you behind me, brother. Not pissing all over club members and staff. Not losing that fucking temper of yours all the damn time. Go home, get yourself together, and when I see you next, I don’t wanna see any of this bullshit. It’s done. I’m not fucking putting up with it anymore.”
He was right. I was smart enough to acknowledge that.
I nodded, but said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say to that. King wasn’t looking for promises; he never was. The only thing he was interested in were actions that produced results.