Better When He's Brave

by Jay Crownover

  She was going to be my downfall. She was going to be my corruption and my vice. She was going to be my addiction and my compulsion and I was still going to fall headlong into her knowing the landing was going to be rough for both of us.

  I kissed her hard on the mouth. A sharp, biting kiss, but I didn’t linger. I could get lost in kissing her and the way she met me bite for bite, let me lick her and nibble on her like she was a sweet treat. She let me kiss her until neither of us could breathe, until it hurt us both, and I loved it. I loved that she just let me have at her with no hesitation and no fear, but that wasn’t what I wanted this time around. She was always giving; this time it was my turn. Just me and her and all that I could give to her. All that I wanted to give to her.

  I made a place for myself between her legs and started to work my way down her body. I kissed her on her throat and felt her heart thump against my lips. I kissed her in the center of her chest and watched as the simple touch of lips made both of her velvety nipples peak. I moved over to suck on each tip. Made love to each point with my lips and my tongue until she was writhing underneath me and digging her fingernails into my skin. I left her nipples wet and glistening and moved down so that I could lick across the flat plane of her stomach. It shivered and pebbled up in pleasure as I continued my way down. She gasped just a tiny bit when I dipped the tip of my tongue in the little indent of her belly button and she whispered my name when I got to the apex of her already damp folds. Her legs shifted restlessly on either side of me and I grasped her knees and pushed her legs open wider and I moved to kneel before on her the floor.

  Shiny. Pretty. Secret. Forbidden. Elusive. Mysterious. She was all the things that had led men to break the rules I’d followed since the beginning of time and she was laid out before me like a banquet fit for the gods. This was supposed to be about giving not taking, but when she looked at me with those midnight-blue eyes over her heaving chest, there was no way to deny I was getting just as much as I was giving. The equality of it, the rightness of it, settled around me in a way that was startlingly comfortable. It was like this was exactly how it was supposed to be between two people and I had never experienced anything like it.

  I wanted to touch her but I wanted to taste her more. The way she glistened beckoned me closer. I leaned into her, used the pad of my thumb to rub over her slippery folds, and found that little nub that was bundled tight with nerves and desire. The first swipe of my tongue across it had her arching her back up off the bed. The second had her pulling at me frantically and tossing her head from side to side. Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was breathing like she had just run a marathon. She looked turned on and hot as hell as she moved in time with the stroke of my tongue across her most sensitive parts.

  I added the scrape of teeth and shifted so I could add a finger or two to the equation. She bent her legs up next to my head and dug her heels into the edge of the mattress. Her inner muscles were grasping at me, pulling at me, and it made my own arousal pound inside of me. I could feel her winding up, feel the way she got tighter and more liquid the more I worked on her. I could happily bury my face between her legs for days on end, but I wanted her to come, wanted to watch her go over. I lifted my gaze up and groaned into her, which made her bark out my name.

  Her eyes were open now and she was watching me. A bright pink was riding high in her cheeks and spread across her chest. She had her hands on her tits and she was rubbing her fingers lightly over the raised tips. Fuck, was she perfect, so perfect. Her eyes were nearly black with druglike passion and I could see her teetering on the edge of her orgasm. So beautiful, and she tasted that way across my tongue and felt that way across my fingers.

  I added a little pressure and another finger, and that was it. She practically levitated into my mouth and her wash of desire consumed me. As she shivered and quaked around me I pulled back just enough to brush a kiss across the inside of her thigh. I needed to shave still, so I left a trail of moisture wherever my mouth touched her. I thought it was sexy as hell.

  I leaned to the side until I could get hold of my wallet, thanking the Lord for small favors that I had listened to that nagging voice that told me I was going to need more than one condom if I was going to be around her. I dug the sucker out and handed it over to her while she looked up at me with hazy eyes and a flushed face. I bent down and kissed her how I really wanted to, with lots of tongue and no give. She didn’t waste any time grabbing hold of my straining erection and maneuvering it so that she could roll the condom down the rigid length. My eyes crossed a little when she snuck her hands between my legs and gave my sensitive and tightly drawn sac a playful squeeze. She didn’t have limits and I think that was my favorite thing about her.

  I put my hands around the base of her head and used my thumbs to tilt her head back as far as her position and the bed would allow. I bent my head so I could nibble on the taut arch of her throat and nudged her legs out of my way so I could slide inside of her welcoming heat. Even through the latex she scorched me. So hot. So wet. So greedy, as her inner muscles pulled me farther and farther in. Everything inside me was clawing at me to drive home, to bury myself as deep as I could go and assuage the need hammering at my insides. This was supposed to be about her, about showing her this was something, maybe not something more, but something nonetheless. I had finesse goddammit, and I would use it even if it felt like it was going to strangle me.

  Her hands slipped up my back and then wrapped around my shoulders. She brought her long legs up on either side of me and then I felt the bite of her heels in my ass, urging me closer and closer. Without a thought I let my teeth sink harder into her tender skin and she moaned in response.

  “Titus, move!” It wasn’t a sigh or a sweet nothing, it was an order, and it was fucking hotter than anything had ever been.

  She arched against me, clamped down on me, and moved against the sharp edge of my teeth. Her fingernails scratched against my back and the burn of it was enough for the reins to slip. I grunted and did what she commanded. I moved.

  I pulled her legs up even higher and plowed into her. There was no finesse. There was no care. There was no elegance or romance . . . there was only me taking her and her letting me have her over and over again.

  It was sweaty. It was aggressive. It was noisy and almost brutal in the way our hands grabbed, the way our bodies fought to get closer and take more. It was the single best sexual experience I had ever had in my life.

  I forgot that my face was covered in stubble and it tore her soft skin up as I ate at her neck and her mouth over and over again. I got a hand between us and captured one of her nipples between my thumb and forefinger and pinched until she called out as pleasure turned to pain. I would’ve apologized, but I felt the way she liked it as pleasure coated the surface of my cock as it moved in and out of her at a fevered pace. It was so good. Everything about her, everything about doing this with her, was so unbelievably good and it was going to turn me inside out. I felt it racing up my spine. I felt burning in my balls. I felt it as my dick drove harder and deeper with every thrust.

  “More. I want more.”

  Her voice cracked and that was it for me. I couldn’t give her the more that she wanted, but I could give her this.

  I lifted her hips up and pounded into her hard enough that our pelvises banged together in an almost painful way. I sank my teeth into her lower lip and sucked on it hard. That was all it took to shove her over again. She screamed my name into my lips and I felt her body flutter and spasm around me. I was close myself, so as soon as those dark blue eyes locked on mine and shined up at me with pleasure and completion, I let go. It all raced out of me and rushed into her, and like she had done since she came crashing back into my life, she caught it all without a complaint.

  I collapsed on top of her, breathing heavy and covered in sex and sweat. I panted into her throat as she glided her hands up and down my back. I felt boneless. I felt weightless. I felt like all that mattered in this moment was me and
her, which is exactly why I couldn’t give her more. She already had too much.

  “This has to be good enough for now.” I said the words but I could hear they lacked the strength they needed to make my point.

  “For now. Let’s get cleaned up so you can go see your brother.”

  I muttered an agreement and rolled off of her so she could get up. I didn’t want to tell her now was all the time we might have if I couldn’t get a handle on Roark before he got a handle on me.

  Chapter 11

  Reeve

  THERE WAS A TANGIBLE shift between the two of us as we raced across town in his badass car. It went beyond sex. It went beyond wanting what we shouldn’t. There was a simple acceptance now that it wasn’t “him” and “me,” it was “us,” whether that was good or bad. We were finally in it together no matter what the outcome might be. We were a team.

  The engine roared in my ears and so did the fact that any legal deal I had with the feds was gone, considering they were closing the Novak case and they no longer needed me. Titus laid it out for me in bare bones terms, and I knew good and well that meant I could be looking at jail time if I didn’t manage to help him bring in Conner. My purpose had been served and I was of no use anymore, at least as it applied to the feds and Novak’s crew. The feds thought the same thing Titus did. Conner would come for me and that would be the only chance anyone had to snatch him up. I had no intention of letting Conner go anywhere without a bullet in his head, so that meant I was going to royally screw up any chance I had of skating out of all of this without seeing the inside of a cell.

  I didn’t say anything to Titus while he tried to tell me it would all work out once he had Conner on lockdown. He tried to tell me that I was the one risking my neck and that even the straitlaced feds had to know that came with some give and take. I just muttered a noncommittal response and thought about the Glock that was sitting heavy and loaded in the purse at my feet. Everything came with give and take, and when I was done taking it would be well past time that I gave something up. If that something had to be my freedom¸ then so be it. It was a price I was willing to pay after setting everything back to rights.

  Once we got to the hospital I thought we would just go our separate ways since Bax was still in intensive care and Keelyn was on another floor in general recovery, but surprisingly Titus wanted me to walk with him to his brother’s room. I was hesitant because I knew Dovie and Race were floating around and I didn’t want any kind of ugly confrontation. I mean, before I was sleeping with Titus I was sleeping with Conner, and Conner was the reason Bax had nearly died. If the situation were reversed I would have had a lot to say on the subject myself. However, as Titus clasped my hand in his and pulled me along behind him as our shoes squeaked obnoxiously on the linoleum floor, I didn’t really have the right words to object, so I just followed him silently.

  Bax’s room was easy to spot. There were two armed police officers standing on either side of the door and a rumpled redhead pacing back and forth in front of them. Dovie looked haggard and worn out. She had purple shadows set deep under each green eye and her typically creamy pallor was splotchy and red. She looked a mess and agitated as we approached her. Her gaze flew up to Titus and without a word he dropped my hand and scooped her up in a rib-cracking hug. Immediately giant sobs started to shake her lithe body. Titus made soothing noises and stroked one of his big hands up and down her back. It made my heart swell just a little. He was always there to take care of everyone else, always. He had to put the beast away and be the guy that fixed everything so often that it was no wonder that when his own monster got loose he had no idea what to do with it.

  “He can’t even talk and he told me to leave. He told me he doesn’t want me here.” Dovie’s voice sounded like she was dying. Like everything she had ever loved had just been taken away from her. She was shaking so hard it was a wonder she didn’t break apart. “I kept telling him how ridiculous that is. I’m wherever he is, but he just kept telling me to go. How can words hurt so much when they aren’t even spoken?”

  Titus swore and then set her away from him so he could put his hands on her shoulders. “You look like hell. He can see how much you’re hurting, and he can’t do anything about it. It’s no different from when he got arrested after Novak got shot and he refused to see you. He’s trying to keep you from suffering with him. Have one of these officers take you home. Take a shower. Get something to eat and then come back and ignore whatever idiotic thing he’s trying to tell you. He wants you here. He needs you here and you both know it.”

  She blinked her watery eyes and took a deep breath. “He almost died, Titus, and the person that almost killed him is his brother!”

  I saw Titus dip his head in acknowledgment. “I know. But he didn’t die and that’s what matters, okay? As for Roark, just because they share half of the same blood doesn’t make them brothers. You leave him to me.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and then visibly collected herself. When she opened her eyes back up they were dry and there was no longer a tremble in her lips. “Okay.”

  The big cop bent forward and placed a tender kiss on the center of her forehead and it almost had me melting into the floor. He was so good with his own. They were unbelievably lucky to have him. Titus gave her a lopsided grin and moved around her to reach for the door. “Maybe he’s just cranky since he can’t smoke with his jaw wired shut. Bax without a fix is a total nightmare.”

  Dovie rallied enough to smile back at him. “Maybe it’ll force him to quit.”

  Titus chuckled and told her drily as he disappeared into the darkened room, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Once the big man was gone from the hallway, her eyes landed on me. She had every right to hate me. She had every right not to trust me. But Dovie, being Dovie, just looked at me with a contemplative expression on her face as she took a step toward me.

  “You need to be good to him, Reeve. I don’t know what is going on between the two of you, but I’m telling you right now if you hurt him, betray him in any way, you won’t have to worry about the boys. You’ll have to worry about me.”

  A chill raced up my spine because it wasn’t a threat. She was just laying it out there as a statement of fact. If I screwed Titus over she was going to make me hurt. I didn’t doubt her. You didn’t keep a guy like Bax or survive in this life successfully without knowing how to get down and dirty.

  I gulped a little bit and shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “He needs someone to care for him. All day, every day, all he does is give himself to everyone else.”

  She lifted a coppery eyebrow at me. “Are you that someone? You’re going to care for him? Weren’t you screwing the guy that killed my dad and just tried to kill my man? Did you care for him too?”

  I wasn’t scared of the truth, so I told her flatly, “I thought Conner was someone else, and yes, the man that I thought he was I cared for.”

  She snorted at me. “Who did you think he was?”

  I sighed. Admitting how wrong I had been, how easily I had been suckered in by a façade, was still hard for me. I was supposed to have more street smarts than that. “I thought he was enough like Titus that I could fall for him and make it work. I thought he was a good man, but he isn’t. He’s great at being who you need him to be, but it’s all a lie. As for being the someone to care for Titus, for now it’s me.” Because he couldn’t talk about more, and until he could, this would have to be enough.

  She sighed back at me and lifted her hands up to rub them over her obviously tired face. “No one is like Titus. No one is that strong, that secure, that hard. He is his own law and his own army. Bax is never going to like you being anywhere near his brother. He won’t ever trust you.”

  “I know that, but I’m sure Race didn’t like Shane being near you and eventually he had to come to terms with it. Shane doesn’t have to trust me as long as his brother does. Right now Titus and I need each other, so no matter what anyone else thinks or feels, we are a package deal
.”

  She considered me silently before giving me a tight nod that had her tangled red locks falling forward.

  “I’ve got my hands full with my own stubborn and dangerous man. I don’t have it in me to worry about what another one is doing. Titus knows what you’re capable of, so if he’s still willing to dive neck-deep into the mire with you, who am I to question it? You should know that if you cross him, though, he has it in him to be just as bad, just as wicked, as Bax. He’s not all good guy. He hides it well but there is bad in there.”

  “I know.” I stepped around her. “He doesn’t try and keep his bad hidden from me. Probably because he knows I won’t ever judge him for it.” I had more than my fair share of bad fueling me every single day, so why would I bat an eye at Titus having shades of it come to life within him from time to time? Dovie just nodded at me and we walked our separate ways.

  It took me a minute to find Keelyn’s room, and when I did I was surprised to find her sitting up on the edge of her bed, fully dressed and looking like she was about to head out shopping or to run errands. It wasn’t until I called her name and she turned to look at me that I saw her arm was in a sling and she had a thick bandage peeking out of the collar of her loose-fitting top.

  “Hey. You’re already up and about?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.

  She blinked her wide gray eyes at me then slowly nodded her head. “I’m declaring myself well enough to leave. You actually have perfect timing. You can help me get downstairs, where the cab I called is waiting.”

  I frowned at her and put my hands on my hips. “So you aren’t actually cleared to go anywhere?” Now that she was facing me I could see she had a really gray cast to her normally flawless skin. Her mouth was also pinched in a grimace of pain.

  “The doctor thinks I should stay for a few more days, but I need to get out of here. I made them discharge me.”