by Jamie Begley
There was a time to reason, and then there was time to run. Now was the time to run.
Ginny hopped up from the bed, but before she could move a centimeter, Gavin reached his palm out to shove her back onto the bed. Finding herself on her back, Ginny didn’t miss a beat, rolling onto her stomach and bringing her knees up to begin crawling over the mattress in the direction that was closest to the bathroom. If she could make it there, she could lock the door and reason with him from the other side.
The jerk let her make it halfway before she felt a loop of leather snag her ankle. Astounded, Ginny turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. “Gavin—”
A huff of air escaped her when he tightened his hand on the leather belt and gave a firm jerk, pulling her knees out from under her. With her fingers, she tried to hold onto the bed as he inexorably reeled her toward him, causing her dress to roll upward as she was tugged across the mattress.
“We should talk ….” Desperate, Ginny tried to reason with him while being flipped over onto her back.
“You had all the time last night and this morning to talk.”
Her awkward attempt to straighten her dress to a more modest covering was hampered by Gavin leaning over her, and it became more imperative to maintain a safe distance from him.
“I should have told you. I screwed up. Umph.”
Another huff of air escaped her when Gavin grabbed her upper arms, moving her higher up on the bed, and moving his massive body along with hers.
She brought her hands to his chest to push him away and was relieved when he raised up to sit on his knees between her splayed thighs, giving her breathing room.
“And you’re angry.”
“Angry doesn’t begin to describe how I feel.”
The man above her was as unapproachable as the first day she talked to him when he was working on his bike. There was no hint of warmth or understanding on his face.
She frowned up at him when he reached over and started taking her shoes off, throwing them onto the floor.
“Do you know how terrified I was when I read your letter, and the FBI told me you had already left Treepoint?”
“No.” Ginny moistened her dry lips.
“I drove like a madman to get to your house, only for Silas to tell me you were coming here, to an island owned by a man who wants to see you dead.”
If his intention was to make her regret the decisions she had made, he was achieving his goal.
“I’m so sorry.”
“As bad as I took the letter, it didn’t come close to how awful Trudy reacted.”
Ginny turned her head on satin comforter, looking away from him. “Don’t …,” she pleaded.
“She fucking started crying and screaming, Ginny. Your pregnant sister fucking loves you, and you fucking put me first instead of her in your lamebrained scheme.”
She swiveled her head back to shout up at him. “I did what I had to do! What I should have done before, if I had been brave enough. I knew Trudy would be hurt when she found out what I had done, but I also know she has Dalton, Sex Piston, Killyama, Fat Louise, and Crazy Bitch, who will make sure she and the baby are okay.”
“What about your brothers?”
“My brothers did fine without me for years after I was taken away. They’ll be hurt, but they will move forward … just as they did before.”
“What about me? Did you think I would just go on my merry way?”
She had to close her eyes tightly to prevent herself from crying. “Truthfully, yes.” Lifting her lashes, she held back the hurt she felt when he walked away without telling her about Taylor. “You don’t need me any more than Trudy does. You have Viper, The Last Riders, and Taylor. I saved you from having to come back to tell me you and she are together again. I was never going to be more than second-best to you, anyway. And,” she sighed, releasing the last of her anger, “I’m kind of tired of being in that position. That’s all I’ve ever been since I was three.”
“What in the hell does that mean?”
“I was working for the club when Viper and The Last Riders believed you were dead. Did you know I wasn’t even allowed to touch your jacket when it was hanging in the closet? You weren’t an afterthought, even years after you were gone.
“Did you know your father became a drunk and was constantly in fights at Mick’s? Viper would bring him into the diner a couple times a week just to make sure he was eating, and they would do nothing but talk about you, missing you, and how they would do things differently. They might have been surviving without you, yet each of them clung to their memories to still connect with you, as if you were still a part of their lives. Neither of them were willing to let you go entirely and to move on without you. You might not have been visibly present, yet you were there.
“The few times I was able to see Trudy, I had to pretend we were just casual acquaintances. The same with Sex Piston, Fat Louise, Killyama, and Crazy Bitch. We’d sneak around to hang out in a Lexington in hotel room. When I went back to Treepoint, and they returned to their families, do you think I was a blip on their radars?
“I love my brothers, but they have always had each other. My presence, or absence, has never made a difference in any of their lives, unlike you with Ton, Viper, and The Last Riders. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because I was never there. I’m expendable. If I disappeared off the face of the Earth, I would be missed, but never to the extent you were. I’m tired of being invisible, to only being there when it’s safe or if that person makes the effort, because I’m the one who initiated the contact. It’s painful to just take up space in their lives and not be a part of the whole picture. I refuse to deny Trudy being my sister any longer, and I’ll be damned if I have to pass my niece or nephew on the street and pretend I’m not their aunt. I need to be seen.”
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t prevent the tears from welling up in her eyes. “I just can’t do it anymore. Please try to understand, Gavin. As much as I love everyone in my life, I just can’t do it anymore. When I was singing with Mouth2Mouth, there wasn’t a night that I didn’t go out and think “Is someone going to recognize me? Will this be the moment Allerton finds me?” Every time I spoke with Hammer about contacting the FBI, he kept putting me off because I couldn’t remember what I had taken or where I put it. You just gave me the excuse to do what I needed to do.”
“Thanks,” he said snidely.
Gavin started unbuttoning the front of her dress, exposing the light-cream-colored bra she wore underneath.
“What are you doing?” Ginny asked before she sniffed hard to clear her stuffy nose, intent on not breaking down in tears after baring her soul.
“I’m about to show you that you’re not invisible.”
“I don’t want to have sex when you’re angry with me.” Ginny pulled the two parts of her dress back together to rebutton it. However, Gavin relentlessly lifted her and pulled it out from under her, leaving her in her bra and panties.
“Ginny, I’m so far beyond angry that it’s not even in the ballpark of what I’m feeling.”
“Then I definitely don’t want to have sex.”
“Good, I don’t either,” he said stonily.
If he didn’t want to have sex, then why was he removing her clothes? Realization dawned on her when Ginny felt the belt being removed from her foot. Not liking the expression on his face, self-preservation kicked in and she tried to wiggle out from underneath him.
“Nope, you have a lesson to learn, and you’re not getting off this bed until you learn it.”
Unwisely, Ginny gave him a haughty tilt of her head to jut her chin out at him. “I really don’t appreciate this caveman tactic.”
She was given a second of satisfaction when Gavin leveraged his body to the side—until she found herself face-planted in the mattress as he flipped her over.
Turning her head to the side, she saw his hand come up. “You wouldn’t dar—”
The smart smac
k to her bottom proved he would.
The thin material of her panties didn’t provide any protection as she remained frozen in amazement that he had actually spanked her.
“Oh, hell no ….” Ginny started to get to her knees, only to feel another hard smack on her bottom.
“You try to get up, I’m only going to give you more,” he warned.
She screeched at him, “My daddy never even had the nerve to—”
“Yeah, well, he should have,” he replied, spanking her again.
Red-hot pain flamed across her bottom.
“This is so childish! I will not be treated like this!”
Were the smacks getting harder? she wondered as another steak of fire lit upon on her ass.
“Did you yell at Silas when he spanked you for being on the roof?”
Another whack of his palm landed for her stubborn silence.
“Did you?”
“No,” she mumbled. Pride gone out the door after the stinging in her bottom became more pronounced.
“Why not?” Gavin raised his palm from her bottom, keeping it poised in the air as he waited for her answer.
“I scared him.”
The palm came down again, and Ginny let his hand connect two more times before turning to curl against his knees.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Giving a ragged groan, he lifted her to hold her alongside him. Ginny felt the rough texture of his breath against her throat.
“Gavin, do you like me?”
“I’m still deciding.”
Her lips curled up in a smile. At least it wasn’t a flat-out no. “I think you like me a little.” She wanted to wrap her arms around his sides, but she kept her arms pressed between them, not wanting to ruin the tender moment by making him nauseous.
Loving Gavin did have its drawbacks, but damn, when he let his guard down, however small, it was like discovering a whole new universe.
“I’d like you a whole lot better if you quit dragging me into your lamebrained schemes.”
“They aren’t lamebrained,” she denied, rubbing her cheek against his. “They are carefully thought out.”
“Really?” Gavin pulled her away from him to give her a small shake. “If the hot cornbread fucking messes you have dragged me into, not once, not twice, but three times now, have been carefully thought out, then I won’t live to see what the fuck you get into when you’re flying by the seat of you pants.”
“You’re back to not liking me again, aren’t you?” she asked dolefully.
“Ginny, I’m being serious.”
“I know you are.” Pulling herself out of his arms fully, she laid back down on the bed on her stomach. Then she reached behind herself to lightly spank her bottom, trying to lighten the mood. “Go ahead. I won’t stop you. I deserve it.”
Gavin frowned down at her, his eyes going half-mast while his expression turned icy. Then, twisting himself off the bed, he removed his pants and shoes.
Recognizing she was clearly out of her depths, Ginny took a gulp of air and started to roll from the bed. A hand on the small of her back prevented her from doing so.
“Oh no, you don’t. Clearly, you haven’t learned your lesson. Silas must have worn your ass out to keep you off the roof.”
A spurt of relief poured through her when he flipped her onto her back.
Women who found it sexually exciting to be spanked was a mystery to her. Obviously, they had never been spanked by Gavin, or they had masochistic tendencies and needed counseling.
“Luckily for you, I never really believed corporal punishment works, especially when someone really wants to deny someone’s authority over them.”
Ginny really didn’t like the direction Gavin was heading. “No one is the boss of me.”
Gavin stared at her sternly. “I beg to differ.”
Yeah, she really didn’t like where this was going.
“Especially where your safety is concerned. You can be cute all day if you want to be, but when you think of placing yourself in front of me because you think I can’t deal with the repercussions, then woman, you’re barking up the wrong fucking tree.”
Gavin moved to the end of the bed while keeping his hand on her abdomen to keep her in place.
“Gavin …” Her eyes widened when he got to his knees on the carpet, then started pulling her along the mattress toward him. “What are you doing?”
“Like I said, I’m not a fan of corporal punishment. Using pain to teach a lesson has proven ineffective. Studies have proven something else works better.”
“Like what?”
“Pleasure. Have you ever heard the saying that too much of a good thing can be painful?”
Ginny frowned. “You mean the old saying: too much of a good thing can be bad.”
Gavin gave her a smile that had her toes curling in fear. “No. I meant painful.”
Chapter Ten
“There are different levels of pain,” Reaper began his lesson. “Level one is cause—how you brought the pain on yourself.”
“The pain on my bottom was caused by your hand. Cause and effect. You mean like that?”
“My soul mate would fight to stay with me,” Reaper continued his lesson as if she hadn’t spoken, pulling Ginny’s panties off before placing a leg over each of his shoulders, effectively baring her pussy to him, “because she would know how badly it would hurt me to lose her.” Throwing her own words back at her, he slid his hands to her hips, lifting her pussy to his mouth. “You fought for me to recognize we’re soul mates. Then the day after I do, you desert me, leaving me to find out you aren’t the woman I believed you to be.” He moved his mouth to the side of her thigh, trailing his tongue upward. Reaper could feel her muscles trembling under his touch.
“I didn’t do it to hurt you … I did it so you could have the life you wanted with Taylor,” she gasped out when he blew on the curly hairs shielding the pink flesh he wanted to part to allow him access to the glistening fruit that was hidden beneath. “Two weeks ago, you wanted to die because you couldn’t have the life you wanted with her.”
Pressing her clit between his lips, he gently bit down, holding her still when Ginny would have twisted away. He scooted closer to the bed, releasing her clit to slide his tongue through the crease between her thigh and pelvis.
“Every time someone tries to make life easier for me, it goes to shit. I’m not a fucking cat or dog who needs someone to watch out for them. I’ve spent the better part of my life proving myself to Viper. I’ll be damned if I spend the last part proving myself to you or anyone else.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to me!” Ginny tried to sit up, but Reaper moved his mouth back to her pussy and took her labia into his mouth.
“Stay still,” he ordered, and she froze beneath his touch.
“You wouldn’t hurt me.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Sliding his tongue between her petals, Reaper laved her opening before going to her other petal to lightly bite down. “But there are different levels of pain. Some pain can be sweet ….” Releasing her labia, he tenderly licked the petal before sliding his mouth over her opening to the other and then he bit down again. Holding the pressure for a scant minute, he then repeated the motion until it became harder to hold Ginny still. “Which brings me to level two—awareness.”
After the tenth time, he started stroking his tongue inside of her, each time going higher before retreating to one of her petals.
The night before, when they’d had sex, he had gone slow, aware it was her first time. Today, he had no such hesitation, raising her desire to a fever pitch without allowing her the climax she was straining to reach.
“Gavin ….”
“Level three—acceptance.”
She was no longer trying to twist away from his mouth, instead arching her hips higher to press her pussy against his mouth harder. Each time she did, he teasingly pulled away to press kisses along her thighs, only resuming when she laid still.
Losing track of time, Reaper was unaware of the room growing darker until he lifted his head when he felt Ginny quivering, showing she was about to come. Using his thumb, he pressed down on her clitoris, stopping her climax cold.
“Gavin … please!” she wailed, her hands falling to her sides to hit the mattress.
“How bad do you want to come?” he taunted.
“I get the message. I won’t put myself in danger again!”
“That’s good, but that’s not the lesson I’m trying to teach you.” Releasing her clitoris, he rose, ignoring stiff muscles as he leaned over her to place a hand on each side of her head.
“I’ll never let you be the boss of me”—Ginny reached up to cup his cheeks softly, her touch having him turning his face—“any more than I would expect to be your boss. I do promise never to assume what is better or easier for you ever again. Will that work?”
Reaper let her turn his head to face her again. “Are you being sincere, or are you just jerking my chain?”
“I’m being sincere with you.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because I think you might like me more than a little.”
He leaned onto his forearms and settled more of his weight on her. “I’m going to have to take your word for it then.” He groaned into her neck.
“Why?”
He felt her laughing under his chest.
“Because my dick is about to break in two if I don’t fuck you.”
Ginny’s thighs came up to circle his hips, positioning her opening so all he had to do was thrust inside. “Wild man, I’ve learned my lesson good enough for today. What more do you want?”
Nudging his cock to her entrance, Reaper bit back another groan as he easily slipped inside her warm passage. “There are two more levels I was going to teach you.”
“You don’t want to overload me on my first lesson, do you?” she pleaded.
“I want you, all of you—Ginny and Evangeline.”
“You’ve always had both. I never hid the important parts of me from you. I wasn’t able to.” She sprayed her fingers out on his cheeks to touch his ears. “I’m glad you’re wearing my present.”