Her chest rose and fell slowly under her baggy T-shirt. “And now... I need to move on.”
Yeah, she knew how to wield that fucking knife. “Feel nothin’ for me, Jem?”
Her mouth opened and a rush of air escaped. “Sure. I have no doubt you’ll be a great dad. You are a great dad already, Chris. You’ll be fine without me.”
“Not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. But that’s my answer.”
“Won’t admit that your heart’s beatin’ so hard right now I can see it poundin’ in your throat. Wanna feel that with my mouth, my tongue, Jem. Want to spread you wide on my bed and bury my face between your thighs. Wanna taste you. Kiss you. Make you come like you did that night in the rain, against the wall in the shed. Wanna give you new memories to chase out the old.”
“You think you can do that,” she breathed.
He shifted even closer, keeping her hand trapped against his chest. “Know I can. But you gotta give me that chance. You need to remember the good times. With your real family, not Ox and Trixie. In your aunt and uncle’s home, not at the warehouse. The time you had with Walt. With Lottie. With your brother and cousin. And now here with me. With Dyna. Here you’re surrounded by family who will love and protect you better than Ox and Trixie or any of the Originals ever fuckin’ did.”
“I don’t do casual.”
She kept looking for a goddamn excuse to push him away. To protect herself.
“Nobody said shit about casual.”
“It can’t be anything more.”
“The fuck it can’t. You just won’t let it.”
“Not won’t, Chris. Can’t.”
“Bull-fuckin-shit. Jem, you’re strong as fuck. You ain’t scared of shit.”
“I’m scared of this.”
“Yeah, well... you ain’t the only one. But I wanna try. Just need you to try, too.”
“I’m not sure what you’re asking of me.”
She fucking knew. But he’d give her that. For now. “Just give me a chance ‘til you get a job offer. That’s all I’m askin’.”
“Judge...”
Fuck Judge. He managed to bite that back. “Ain’t gonna tell him shit. What we do’s our fuckin’ business. This way when,” if, “you go, there won’t be any shit from them. We go on livin’ our life like it never happened.” Lies. “No harm. No foul.” More lies. He squeezed her hand. “Now, I’m done askin’, now you gotta answer.”
Silence stretched between them. And he waited. He wouldn’t say anything else. It had to be her decision on where they took it from here.
Though, for fuck’s sake, the wait was killing him.
She didn’t avoid his gaze, she kept her eyes locked on his. And he heard a clock ticking loudly in his head.
Tick... tick... tick...
Five seconds. Ten seconds. Thirty seconds.
If she turned him away, he was done. He never begged a woman for shit. He never would again. He wanted Jemma but he also wanted to keep his fucking pride. If she said no, she would damage it, but he’d live.
He had a baby girl to take care of, to provide for, he’d concentrate on that. Dyna would become the center of his fucking world.
His sole purpose for moving forward.
For being better. For doing better.
For staying out of jail. For getting the fuck up and going to work every day. For keeping patch whores out of his bed. For staying out of fights.
For no longer taking advantage of an innocent virgin. Especially one who didn’t know any better. Who got caught up in a moment that created a lifetime obligation.
He’d promise his daughter he could be better for her. But if it was up to him, if she let it, he’d do it for Jemma, too.
They both belonged to him. His to protect, his to care for.
His.
A pressure built in his chest and caused an ache only Jemma could cure.
Tick... tick... tick...
One minute...
He couldn’t take much more.
She deflated before his eyes. The air releasing from a balloon. All the tension held within her shoulders disappeared.
She continued to stare at him but said nothing.
“Say somethin’, Jem.” Fuckin’ anythin’, just put me out of my fuckin’ misery.
“I...”
He hung on that one single fucking letter.
“I...”
Jesus fuck.
“I’ll give it to you until I leave.”
He blinked. What? He wanted it so badly, he imagined it, right? “What?”
“Until I leave. You have until then.”
In truth, he wasn’t expecting her to agree. He expected her to fight it until the very end. She was Ox’s daughter, she had his stubborn blood running through her veins.
But she was giving him a chance, which to him meant he got his chance to convince her to stay. That’s what he wanted. He just wanted her to give him that opportunity.
Now he had it, he couldn’t fuck it up.
Chapter Eighteen
The bell above the door jingled when Teddy held it open for her. Jemma maneuvered the stroller out onto the sidewalk in front of Manes on Main. The hairdresser with a flair for the dramatic followed her out.
“Goodbye, girlfriend.” He leaned in with a smile to air kiss both of her cheeks. He then did the same to Dyna, causing the baby to release a happy gurgle. “Bye, munchkin. So damn cute. She’s making my ovaries explode.”
Jemma laughed. Teddy was a trip and she’d had a blast the whole time she sat in his salon chair for her cut and blow out. He even gave her a few makeup pointers for her interview tomorrow.
The man was a town treasure, that was for sure.
She promised him that if she got the job in Williamsport, she’d become a permanent client. That got him wiggling his tush, doing a twirl and pretending to throw glitter up in the air.
He’d been great with Dyna, too. Very patient and understanding when Jemma had to take a quick break to give the baby a bottle.
And burp her.
And change her diaper.
But now with a fresh cut and style, Jemma was ready to slay her interview.
She pointed the stroller toward the municipal lot which was located across Main Street and two blocks down. She took her time walking back to the Volvo, enjoying the July sun on her face and the warmth in her bones. The light summer breeze helped keep it from being a sweltering day.
She smiled down at Dyna in her Future Biker Babe short-sleeved onesie.
Jemma had not only fallen for the baby girl in the stroller, but for the baby’s father.
The last couple of mornings, waking up with Cage wrapped around her, proved it. The uncontrollable heat between them the last couple of nights proved it, too.
Sex had never been like that with any of her previous partners or boyfriends. Even though she’d had some spectacular sex before, with Cage, it was on another level.
It could only be chalked up to the crazy, unexplainable connection they shared.
The weirdness she didn’t understand.
After fucking against the wall in the shed, she had run into the trailer to escape what they did, escape him, escape how that sex made her feel.
Which was scared.
Scared it would make her fall even deeper for Cage and she wouldn’t be able to leave.
But he flayed himself open, made himself vulnerable, something she never expected a man, and a biker, like Cage to do. That speared her right in the heart. And the feelings for the man she’d been shoving down came bubbling back up.
As scared as she was to say yes, she found she couldn’t say no.
Alfred Lord Tennyson once said, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Jemma looked at their situation as the poet did.
Cage knew she was leaving, he accepted it, so what could it hurt to give them both what they wanted? For whatever time left she had in Manning Grove, she’d allow herself to have Cage and for him t
o have her.
And, damn, did he know how to take what he wanted...
As soon as she’d agreed, he grabbed the baby monitor off the counter bar and tossed it at her without warning. As she instinctively caught it, he rushed over and knocked the wind out of her when he threw her over his shoulder. She muffled her squeal as he barreled into her room only a few steps away.
He fell to the bed with her and, on his hands and knees, caged her beneath him. His longish hair fell free and curtained his face.
“Your ribs!” she scolded.
“They’re fine.” He gave her a panty-melting, crooked grin. “We’re fuckin’ in here, then sleepin’ in my bed after.”
His growled demands caused fire to flicker all the way to her very core. “I can sleep in my own bed.”
Did she want to sleep in his bed next to him? Yes.
But did she still need to protect herself? Also yes.
“Fuck that. Takin’ the time you’re givin’ me and makin’ the most of it.”
He smothered her response with a long, deep, toe-curling kiss. By the time he was done, she’d forgotten what they’d been talking about.
Now on the sidewalk, she gasped softly as the memory overtook her. Her breathing shallowed, her pussy clenched, her fingers tightly clutched the stroller’s handles in an attempt to keep herself grounded in the here and now.
It became impossible.
Lost in that night, she came to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk and let that memory sweep her away.
The way he claimed her lips. How he controlled her breathing, her heartbeat, with every single touch, with every kiss, with every stroke of his tongue.
He yanked her old T-shirt over her head and tossed it behind him. After peeling her panties down her legs, he stood and removed his own briefs.
She rose onto her elbows to watch him, his cock long and hard, flexing within his own fingers as he stared at her naked on the bed, and fisted himself slowly.
His blue eyes had darkened but remained readable.
Very, very readable.
She knew exactly what he wanted. She didn’t bother to hide exactly what she wanted, either.
If they were only going to share a short time together, no games could be played. He was right. They needed to make the most of it.
“Show me,” was all he had to say to cause her flesh to goosebump.
Their eyes held for a long moment as he stood naked at the end of her bed. She tucked two pillows under her shoulders so she could watch him. The same way he watched her.
She slowly dragged the soles of her feet along the bedspread until her knees were bent.
He held her eyes until she separated her legs. Then he honed in on her center, where her arousal began to build. She didn’t need to touch herself to find how slick she’d become, but she did it anyway.
She drew a finger through her folds, from the bottom to the top, only brushing lightly over her hard, swollen clit.
Her breath stuttered as she remembered how intense the orgasm was when they were in the shed and wondered if this time it would be the same. Or would it be even better since they were in an actual bed with more freedom to move?
“Again,” came from him. Thick, coarse.
His chest pumped at the same pace as his fist. The overhead light caught the gleam of the bead of precum clinging to the very tip and she waited for it to fall like a spider from its web.
His cum was already deep inside here, what she couldn’t wash away. That thought shouldn’t turn her on, but it did. That thought should worry her, but it didn’t.
Even on birth control, the only time she’d had sex without a condom was if the relationship lasted longer than six months.
Their time together had only been six weeks. And most of that time, they simply existed in the same space for the same reason.
His daughter.
But the idea of him spilling inside her again, filling her with his cum, had her touching herself more frantically and with purpose. No longer as a tease, but a means to an end.
The small of her back bowed off the bed as she slipped two fingers inside, coating them with her own natural lubricant as she worked them in and out. When a noise caught at the back of his throat, her eyes flicked up from where he pumped his fist.
His eyelids were heavy, his lips parted, his nostrils flared just slightly. “Wanna watch you come, then I’m gonna taste it before I make you come again.”
She forced her eyes to remain open and on his, even though her head rolled back as she worked her fingers all the way in, all the way out.
She slipped her other hand over her chest, her breasts, her peaked nipples and down her belly until she reached her target.
Her clit.
With two fingers pumping inside her, she used two more to stimulate her sensitive hard nub. When his tongue swept over his lower lip, she imagined the fingers circling and pressing were his tongue instead.
She only hoped he’d be able to hold out, so she could feel it for real.
“Jem.” Her name came out like a lion’s deep huff. Maybe a warning he was at his limits. “Come for me.”
With him watching her touch herself, with him touching himself, too, it wouldn’t take much longer.
She tried to swallow, but her throat seized. The pressure in her lower belly increased. And then it overwhelmed her.
Starting at her toes, the climax worked its way up her legs to land in her center and rock her as she came. Her cry filled the space between them.
Then he filled that space with him.
Before the aftershocks of her orgasm were even over, he slowly climbed back on the bed, trailing his fingers from her toes, up her calves, over her knees, and inside her thighs. He paused before touching her center and she caught herself panting in anticipation as she moved her hands away.
Giving herself over to him.
He dipped his head, his warm breath sweeping over her swollen, sensitized flesh.
“Please...”
She was surprised to find that came from her. She rarely begged anyone for anything, especially when it came to sex. But she was dying for his touch. To feel his mouth on her.
Many nights she imagined what that would feel like and now she would know.
If he’d hurry up.
“Chris...”
She glanced down her body and his head was low enough between her thighs she could only see the upper part of his nose and his eyes. He watched her, waiting.
“You want me to beg.” Again, a surprise.
“What do you want, Jem? Tell me.” The raspiness of his voice was like the brush of sandpaper along her heated skin.
“Make me come.” She made it more of a demand than an ask. She was stubborn like that.
“You just did.”
“You make me come.”
“With my mouth or my dick?”
“Both,” she breathed. Oh God yes, both.
The tip of his tongue flicked out and touched her clit so softly, it was like butterfly wings flapping gently against her.
She groaned. He was such a tease.
That was okay. She’d get him back. Maybe not tonight, but in the near future.
Before she left.
They still had days, if not a couple of weeks or so to explore each other’s every inch, every desire, every sexual need.
Her thoughts floated away when he was no longer gentle.
He ravaged her pussy with his mouth. Licking, sucking, fucking. With his lips, his fingers, his tongue.
Every time her eyelids would drift close so she could simply concentrate on what he was doing, she forced them back open to see him watching her.
Studying her reactions.
Reading her body.
Learning.
He was very fucking observant.
That was good.
And it could be bad.
Great for sex.
Not so great for protecting herself. To prevent the fall that could wound her. B
reak her heart.
He sucked each labia into his mouth and when he was done tasting those, he stroked the tip of his tongue up the slit and drove his fingers inside. Planting his lips on her clit, he sucked hard and stayed with her when her hips bucked wildly.
Then he stopped.
Simply stopped before she reached the precipice.
He shifted slightly, releasing her clit, slipping his two long fingers from inside her. He dipped his pinky, instead.
What was he doing? Why was he doing that?
A pinky wasn’t enough for her to orgasm.
Was he trying to torture her?
Seconds later the pinky was gone from her pussy and pressed to a place she wasn’t expecting.
No...
No one had done this to her before. No one ever asked or dared.
He wasn’t asking.
He was daring.
His order to “relax” came muffled. Because his mouth was full. Of her.
Her hips jerked when his two fingers resumed their place inside her and his skilled mouth clamped onto her clit once more.
He worked her up again, slowly drawing those fingers in and out while his mouth did its magic. Driving her toward her destination on a one-way ticket.
Every plunge was a step closer to the abyss, where she went willingly, wanting to take that leap, to completely free fall.
He worked his pinky, pressing, circling, urging her to let him in.
“Chris,” she groaned.
He pressed harder. Biding his time. Waiting for her to unlock that door.
To invite him inside.
Whatever he was doing...
She couldn’t take anymore.
She wanted him.
Everywhere.
She forced herself to relax and hissed out a, “Yes.”
He took his time, almost too slowly, breaking the plane with the tip of his pinky. Working it, stimulating all the nerves found in that area.
Oh God, it felt different, but good. She wanted more.
“Please...”
He sank his pinky in to the middle joint and she gasped. It was nothing like what his cock would feel like in the same area. She knew to accept him there like that would take time. And effort.
But, holy hell...
Finally, he was completely inside her. Two fingers deep in her pussy and the other in her ass.
Blood & Bones: Cage (Blood Fury MC Book 5) Page 25