His hand fell to his cock and he stroked himself, though god knew, he didn’t need to. He was so fucking hard that it hurt. He ground his teeth against the feel of his own hand. Even right through the damn condom he felt it all.
He felt how slick she was and the heat of her entrance. He felt Carrie’s entire body tense as soon as she felt him there. He waited, only because he wanted to be damn sure it was what she wanted to. She shifted her hips, pushing, grinding, begging and pleading him in a silent erotic dance of arousal. Her arms tightened around his neck and she pulled herself into him.
“Carrie,” Her name came out more like a sob.
He pushed inside of her, joining them. Fuck, she was so tight. So tight and glorious, like nothing he’d ever felt in his life or would feel again. Sean kept his face buried in her hair. He wanted to remember that scent forever.
She moaned when he filled her. Her inner muscles clenched tight around him. She rubbed against him, taking all of him, slamming her hips in time with his. When he pulled his face away from hers, he found her head thrown back, her eyes closed, her lips pursed in ecstasy. Seeing her pleasure, watching her rapture, it was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen in his life.
Their skin on skin reaction was doing something to him. Something to his whole damn body and mind and heart, so he concentrated on doing what he was doing. Filling her, thrusting harder, bringing her to a screaming climax.
It came a few seconds later. One final grind of her hips sent her shattering, falling, crying out his name. A name that wasn’t truly his. Her fingernails bit into his shoulder and her hips bucked wildly. He let her ride it out, he let her take and have her pleasure before he allowed himself his. It took a massive effort to hold himself back. Her body worked his hard. He’d never wanted to come so badly in his fucking life, but he let her have every single second of pleasure before he finished.
He came in a hard, hot burst, deep inside of her. It was a long time, as in fucking years, before he finally came down from the full body high he was riding.
When he slowly untangled them and set Carrie back down on the floor, she looked up at him with awe in her dark eyes. And then, just as quickly, hers filled up with tears. She moved fast, far faster than he was prepared to deal with, and began gathering up her clothes.
“What are- what- what are you doing?” Sean stammered. He stood there, naked, looking like an idiot, he knew, but he couldn’t force himself to actually move.
Carrie didn’t look up at him until she’d gathered up her clothes and thrown them on. Her movements were rough and jerky and when she finally raised her head and met his gaze, it nearly broke him to see the tear tracks staining her cheeks.
“I have to go,” she choked. “I just can’t- I can’t stay. I thought I could. I thought I could do this and- and be alright with- with letting you go, but I can’t. I just can’t.”
She doesn’t know who I am. She needs to stay away from me. Every single time I see her, I could be putting her in danger.
Sean wanted to break down and tell her everything. He wanted it more than anything in his life. He wanted it, but he couldn’t do it and that drove him crazy. It drove him wild and made him want to break down and weep like a baby right in front of her.
Carrie walked to the door. He knew she was going to leave, even before she flung it open. He knew he was going to do nothing to stop her, because he could do nothing at all.
She left, she left just like that. With him standing there, his entire existence in tatters. She’d pulled her own heart out in the process. He could tell. He wasn’t blaming her for any of it, when he shouldn’t have started it in the first place. She didn’t need to be messed up with him. He would only ruin her life.
So he didn’t call her back. He didn’t rush out after her. He let her go.
They’d had their one last time.
And it felt more like a dream, a dream he wanted to keep living in, but knew he couldn’t, than ever.
Chapter 16
No Attachments
Sean
He knew he wasn’t in it to stay. He wasn’t in Miami to make it his home. He doubted that word, home, could apply anywhere in the world. Not while he was running. And he was always going to be running. He’d made one simple rule for himself and he couldn’t even follow it. No attachments. For their safety, not for his.
After Carrie left him, threw on her clothes while her cheeks glistened with tears and disappeared into the moonlight, he thought of a hundred different ways to reach out to her. He didn’t know her number. He didn’t know where she lived. That didn’t matter. She still picked up her dad every single day from work. Even if she didn’t, he had other resources. The guys. The fact that he knew her name. If he could find her, anyone could find her.
That thought alone kept him from going to her. From wrapping her up in his arms and telling her everything and promising to protect her. In her mind, it was clearly done. She’d meant what she said when she said one last time.
Even if it killed him, he’d honor that. He’d honor it to keep her safe. Because he cared about her. Damn it, he cared about her more than anyone he’d cared about. Ever. He cared about her more than he’d ever cared about another person, his family excluded. It didn’t even make sense to him. She’d literally just walked into his life and she was already entrenched in that part of him he doubted even existed anymore. Another man might call it a heart. Sean didn’t know what the fuck to call it.
Sean cursed into the silent garage. He’d stayed late to finish a car he hadn’t quite managed to concentrate on during work hours. He didn’t mind spending the extra unpaid hours. What the fuck else do I have to do with my time? Two weeks. Had it really been two weeks since he’d last seen Carrie? The days dragged by in a slow, painful haze, but at the same time, it seemed like just the night before he’d watched her beautiful dark eyes raining down her face, watched her back, shoulders bent, head down, retreating out of his life.
The distant rumble of a bike in the background caught Sean’s attention. He was always tuned for that sound, the low growl, the put and sputter of exhaust. He heard bikes rush by the shop a hundred times a day at least, but every single time he paused and held his breath and waited until it was over.
The rumble grew louder. Two bikes, he realized. Not one. Two. He paused, breath captured in his lungs. He waited. A minute passed. The sound grew louder. He was alone. Alone in the garage. The bay was still up to allow fresh air to pass through since it was stifling in the shop otherwise. Stupid. So fucking stupid.
Heart pounding wildly, irrationally, Sean scrambled out from under the lift. He raced around to his station and picked up the first thing he could think of. A hammer. For good measure, he also found a tire iron. There. If he had to do battle, that would sustain him. It won’t fucking sustain me at all.
He waited, sure he was being ridiculous. The bikes would pass by. The street that ran by the garage was busy. No one was coming for him. No one could have found him.
Sean stared through the open door anyway. His stomach felt like someone had taken it apart, jammed a bunch of glass, barbed wire, and rusty nails inside and sewed it back up. Bile rose in the back of his throat and sweat trickled down his face and back. He was already soaked from the heat of the day and the always over-warm shop, but those beads of sweat were different. They were ice fucking cold.
Just when he was sure the noise of the bikes would pass, would fade into the distance, it grew louder. He froze as his worst nightmare turned into reality. He spotted them well before they saw him. Jack and Percy. Their real names, not their gang names. They weren’t sporting their colors, just a set of leather jackets and stained jeans, shit kickers on their feet, chains hanging from their back pockets. They pulled their bikes, the same bikes they’d driven the entire time Sean knew the guys, into the parking lot. They parked them there, as if they were paying a fucking social call.
Sean could do nothing. He remained frozen. He knew if they’d come to kill him, he’d
die there. In the damn shop he didn’t even like. In a puddle of his own blood next to a domestic rusty sedan with a bumper sticker that read, Bacon Is Life.
There’s no way. There’s no fucking way I’m going down like this. Sean shook his head against the rising tide of hopelessness. He wouldn’t let it happen. He wouldn’t let them dust him off in the damn shop where Carrie would know what happened. Where she’d find out he died a violent death. He wouldn’t go that way. He wouldn’t do that to her. Worse, if Jack and Percy had found him already, they probably knew about Carrie. The thought turned his blood to ice. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. He’d die protecting her.
“Well, well.” Percy sauntered up to the open door.
The fact that the guy’s name was Percy set him up for a bad start in life. He’d dealt with a lifetime of abuse before he left home at fourteen. The streets were preferable to being beaten and molested by his own father. He wasn’t a big man. He barely topped five six, if that. He had a slight build, greasy black hair and an even greasier black beard. It was patchy and spotty, betraying the fact that the guy probably wasn’t more than twenty.
“Look who we found.” Jack joined the party a minute later.
Jack was one of those strange guys who was actually quite handsome. As in, handsome enough for photographs or the red carpet or some shit like that. He had flashing blue eyes, the facial features of a heartthrob, short cropped blonde hair, even bronzed skin and an athletic build that matched his towering height. He was the kind of guy that women were instantly drawn to. He wasn’t a nice guy, but people wouldn’t have guessed just by looking at him. He’d used his magnetic charm and good looks to his advantage over the years. Jack was a hell of a success when it came to moving product.
Sean gripped both makeshift weapons in his hands. He couldn’t actually imagine using them on either guy, but he’d do what it fucking took to stay alive.
“What are you doing here?” he ground out. His voice didn’t waver, but his hand, the one holding the hammer, did.
Jack shook his head. “As if you don’t already know. You didn’t think you could just run away from us and we wouldn’t come looking?”
“Slim Rick was pissed. He hired people. People to find you.” Percy started to whistle, low and obnoxious and as off tune as he always did. The guy was creepy and unpredictable in a way that made everyone’s skin crawl.
Sean’s skin did more than crawl. His entire body turned to stone. Even if the guys attacked him, he didn’t know if he’d physically be able to raise a hand in his defense.
“You can’t just leave like you did, Sean. We all swear an oath. An oath to be loyal.” Jack crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. If he had a toothpick to pick his overly white teeth, it would have completed his image perfectly.
“You took off. No one gets out like that,” Percy added. The look on his face, a look he tried very hard to hide, said that he half respected the hell out of Sean for even trying.
Sean found an ounce of encouragement in that and it gave him the courage to speak out. He didn’t drop his weapons, even though the guys who used to be close as his brothers, didn’t look like they were packing heat. So they weren’t going to drop him with a bullet. That didn’t mean anything. Sean knew from experience that Jack probably had a knife in his boot and Percy could fuck someone up with his fists and do worse damage than any bullet ever could.
“We all wanted out. Every single one of us. At one time or other. It got bad. Real bad. You both know what I’m talking about. Slim Rick used to be a leader. He used to be a half decent guy. We really were like a family. I got in because I loved bikes. I wanted to work on bikes. I didn’t get in to deal product. I didn’t get in to fuck up people’s lives and take their loved ones through that shit and I sure as hell didn’t get in to work under a mad man who snorts so much fucking blow every single day he doesn’t know what is happening half the time.”
“Oh Rick knows what’s going on,” Jack said smoothly. Those cold blue eyes of his flashed. There was no mistaking the menace there. “He knows better than all of us.”
“He doesn’t. He’s not the same person since he got hooked. He puts half his profits up his nose and we have to pick up the slack.”
“There’s no we in that statement,” Percy sneered. “You never moved product. You never sold it, you never messed with it. That was our job. You were content just to pass off the shit we stole. And you were real fucking good at it too. No one could tell they were the same bike after you were done with it. We miss that, Sean. I miss having a good mechanic around. I miss having someone to paint my bike whatever color under the fucking sun I choose. I miss watching you work your magic.”
“Fuck off, Percy. I left because we all need to get out. Slim Rick doesn’t give a fuck about us. He might have before, but not now. He very well might know what’s going on, but he’s out of control. We weren’t a family anymore. He is losing his fucking mind. It makes him do things to people… things they don’t deserve. He beat the piss out of Rodney for dropping a bike over in the shop. It wasn’t even his fault. Beat him within an inch of his life. That’s not fucking normal. I didn’t sign up to walk on egg shells and fear for my life because a guy who used to be a decent man underneath it all is now so fucking coked out of his mind he can’t even function.”
“He functions. Found you, didn’t he?” Jack glanced around the garage. He let out a low whistle. “Nice digs. Found a job real easy even without a fancy certificate, did you? You always were a fucking genius, just like Percy said. The master of the mechanics. That’s what your name should have been. Master.”
“Jesus,” Sean muttered. “Why don’t you guys just fucking do what you came here to do. Or at least, you come fucking try.” He raised the hammer in the air for good measure. He couldn’t imagine actually doing harm with it. The sickening blow of it sinking into a skull or caving in a face. That never had been his thing. He’d steered well away from whatever violence was perpetrated by the gang over the years.
Percy laughed. He let out a loud bellow that bounced eerily around the garage. It made the hair on the back of Sean’s arms stand on end.
“Oh my god, Peter, did you really think we came here for that?”
“What else am I supposed to fucking think?” He didn’t lower the hammer an inch.
Neither Jack or Percy moved. They didn’t bat an eye. They knew he might have very well followed through if they attacked, but they weren’t in a hurry. Which meant maybe they weren’t fucking there to murder him or if they were, they were going to enjoy it.
Percy spat out a thin string of spittle. It hit the dirty concrete floor and oozed there in the sunlight. The bile was back, big time, in Sean’s throat.
“Peter, Peter, Peter…” Jack sang his name out in a sing song voice. His grin was absolutely chilling. “It’s true that we might have been told we needed to come teach you a lesson. Drag you back to Detroit with us after. Since we left on our bikes though, we don’t actually know how we’re going to go through with that.”
“It might also be true that Slim Rick is a fucking maniac. I’ve had enough fuckers in my past to know when one’s coming on. I don’t need another ruling my future. I joined up for a family. A place to stay. A fucking brotherhood that had my back. I didn’t join to break people’s limbs or watch kid’s mothers die of coke overdoses. I didn’t sign up so that families could lose everything to someone that puts everything they have up their nose. Didn’t fucking want it. I have no problem stealing bikes. Bikes, cars, whatever else. But the drugs… it’s out of control.”
Sean blew out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. His lungs burned and his heart beat furiously. That cold sweat kept right on trickling down his spine. “So why are you really here?”
“We came to give you a warning. It’s only going to be a matter of days before Slim Rick shows up here. He’s not on a bike. He’s bringing something worse. We were here to detain you. Find you and make sure you
didn’t have a chance to run.”
“But you’re not going to?”
“Not exactly.” Percy leered at him and though the guy was trying, it appeared, to be helpful, it was terrifying.
“If I was you, I’d get out of town,” Jack echoed. “We might be doing the same soon enough. Soon, but not yet.”
“I… if I leave, he’s going to find me again. At what point do you stop running?”
Percy let out another string of spittle. “I was wondering that myself. For when the time comes.” He raised one dark brow. A scar cut through it, jagged and white. For as long as Sean knew the guy, he’d had it. Probably a present from his alcoholic father.
Jack leered at him, his beautiful face masking a dark, wretched interior. “One thing is for sure, you better leave and you better leave fast. And if I was you, I’d take that pretty little brunette and her kid with you.”
Chapter 17
Running
Carrie
The low rumble of a bike interrupted their dinner, which was already late and already half cold. As usual, Jennie threw a fit right before they sat down to eat. As a result, their spaghetti and meatballs were a wee bit chilled.
Carrie’s dad had been about to pick up his fork, but at the sound, which was clearly coming from their driveway, his head whipped up.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” He slammed down his fork and shoved his chair back from the table.
As astounded as she was, Carrie shoved her chair back faster. She stood before her dad managed to get to his feet. Jennie, because she had impeccable timing, started to howl in her bouncy seat right by the table.
“I’ll deal with it,” she said quickly. “Can you pick Jennie up for me?” She took off before her mystified father had a chance to answer her.
She ran to the front door, a full-on sprint that caused a dramatic skid out right at the door. She whipped it open, shocked to find Sean standing there on the step. She’d heard the bike, but she hadn’t dared to hope it was actually him. He didn’t even know where she lived, after all.
Hard and Dirty: Bad Boy MC Romance Page 8