Cruz : A Dark MC Romance (A Dark and Dirty Sinners’ MC Book 5)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Someday, and it would be soon, I’d change that.

  Until Indy, I hadn’t understood that a woman, sometimes, would make herself purposely ugly.

  To reflect what she felt inside.

  That this gorgeous creature might ever feel that way messed with my head, and I liked logic far too much to be happy about how illogical she made me.

  Truth was, Indy and me should never have been anything other than fuck buddies.

  But she’d flipped my switch. Tripped my trigger. Something I could never have envisaged her doing.

  In the past, I’d liked my permanent subs soft.

  Delicate.

  A sub I fucked could be independent, but I liked them dependent.

  Indy was strong. Hard.

  Only on the inside was she fragile.

  My thoughts came to a crashing halt because they were getting me nowhere. I knew all this already, but whenever I watched her slip to her knees, it took my breath away.

  This woman wasn’t supposed to kneel for any man.

  Yet she did for me.

  That was some heady stuff.

  I strode out of the shadows of her small living room and toward the doorway where she was kneeling. With each step I took, she tensed, and I knew why.

  This was not a comfortable position for her.

  Every time I did this, I half-expected it’d be the last time she’d allow it, and I dreaded it even as I kept on prodding the beast. It was like when you had a canker sore and couldn’t stop running your tongue over it, prodding it and making it hurt worse. Human nature, sure, but it meant that every time with her could be the last, and it made her more precious to me than she probably knew.

  My boots thudded against the stripped wooden floor as I wandered through the apartment toward her, passing the esthetic that came as another surprise. You looked at her and you saw a rebel. Tats everywhere beneath a facade that screamed tomboy. This place was girly. All furry rugs and shit on console tables. A million photo frames, plants here and there, small ornaments that represented something to her. She was the kind of woman who, before she slept, had to take about a dozen throw pillows off her bed, and had a dozen more furry ones on her sofa.

  I slipped my hand over her hair when I reached her and, carefully, tugged on her ponytail, drawing her head back so that she was looking right where I wanted her to—my eyes.

  When our gazes collided, I felt something inside me settle.

  A truth.

  A recognition that was undeniable.

  I was pretty sure she felt it too, because her gaze shuttered, and she tried to drop her chin, but my hold on her hair prevented that maneuver.

  Exactly why I’d done it.

  “What’s going on? You didn’t text,” she rumbled, her voice low and wary as she looked up at me.

  “Bad day,” was all I said, but I let go of her hair and stroked my fingers over her silky smooth locks.

  “Gonna take it out on my ass?”

  Any other woman would have said that mockingly. Indy? I almost felt the need.

  I’d known a lot of women in my life, known plenty of subs, but something about Indy spoke to me. Called out to me in a way I’d never known before.

  She needed me in a way no other ever had, and I responded to that in ways that weren’t necessarily the wisest.

  I was rougher with her than I ought to be because she responded. If she didn’t, I’d back off, but under my attentions, she was like a flower blossoming in the sunlight.

  I fought my inclinations, tempering them, but when I let loose, and she did too? It messed with my head so that I felt like I was the one in fucking subspace and not just her.

  “You been a good girl today?” I asked softly, letting my fingers slip around and down her cheek to her chin, which I tipped up to maintain eye contact.

  “Never,” she said with a smirk, and her gaze lit with a hot flash of fire that reminded me of the whip of lightning through a clear sky.

  I tapped her bottom lip once, then before she even had the chance to shriek out in surprise, I shoved her face down to the floor, pinned her there by the nape, and with her butt arching up and out, spanked her there.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Three times.

  A set on each cheek.

  Then I backed off.

  At least four feet away and I studied her prone form.

  She was the most interesting sub I’d ever come across. At first, she didn’t like to be touched. She had to warm up to that. Then, when she was ‘warm,’ it was like a heat wave took over her.

  It was that heat wave which kept me coming back for more. Though I was working on getting her used to touch, not just for sex but for aftercare, every time she didn’t outright evade me was a victory I claimed as my own.

  I didn’t like complications. Didn’t like difficult women. One of the reasons I’d fallen into the Dom culture back in college was because my studies had overtaken my life and I needed release with, what I’d stupidly believed, were easy lays that let me take full control, let me unleash myself whenever I was in the zone. Only as I grew older and wiser, did I realize I was a prick.

  Subs were submissive. Biddable. Slaves. I could treat them however I wanted. Get off and go. Be selfish because they didn't need anything from me, just wanted me to top them…

  All of it bullshit.

  The belief that subs were easy was a fallacy, because they were anything but.

  I’d been a fucker back then, but I wasn’t anymore. One of the main reasons I hadn’t had a sub in years was because I’d realized I didn't deserve one. I’d had no right to label myself a Dom back in the day, so I’d walked away. Now, with Indy, she was changing my life in ways she didn’t even know.

  These kinds of relationships were incredibly complicated. So bogged down with minutiae that there was nothing easy about them at all. So it’d been a relief to stop when I’d gone vanilla. Most of the clubwhores liked to be spanked—hell, they got off on anything that meant they had center stage for a little while so I got to be rough with them, and it ticked all my boxes.

  It was only when I’d come to learn what Indy needed, that I realized she was perfect for me in ways I hadn’t even known mattered, and where the desire to dominate her morphed into being. I hadn’t regretted a thing this far.

  But today, with this shit with my mom going down, I did a little. Not because I didn’t get a thrill out of seeing Indy like this, but because I’d been around long enough to know when a storm was coming. Indy had already been through too much, and I didn’t want her to be tainted by me because tainted she’d be. Just by proxy.

  Thoughts like those weren’t why I was here, though.

  I hadn’t seen her in a few nights so I knew she’d have slept like shit.

  That was, I realized, when you knew you cared about someone. When their fucking sleep mattered more than you getting your rocks off.

  Dropping into a squat a few feet from her, I repeated, “Were you a good girl, Indy?” because I wanted a genuine answer, one that wasn’t dosed with more sarcasm than cinnamon sugar on a churro.

  She was quiet for a second, like she always was once I’d taken things down a notch or two. With her sarcasm fading into a distant memory, it was a reminder of why I’d taken to greeting her this way, mostly because the Indy that the rest of the world saw wasn’t the real Indy. It was an act.

  A show.

  I didn’t want that bullshit between us.

  If I was going to do this, if I was going to be this and if I was going to taint her, then it had to be real. No lies. Only the truth would do.

  As she shed off that second skin she wore for protection, her back remained perfectly still. I’d love to strip her off, see her prostrate on the floor with her tits smashing into her armpits with the pressure of the pose, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. If I’d warned her I was here, after sneaking in while David was using the bathroom and she was inking someone, using the key she’d begrudgingly given me
to get out in the morning so I could leave for work before her, then she could have prepared… That was the advantage of her working and living in the same building. She could have stripped the second she hit the private area, then walked up the stairs to her apartment.

  Next time…

  And Christ, there had to be a next time because as I sat here, watching her, sweet fuck, I needed it as much as she did.

  “It was a good day and a bad day,” she said at long last.

  I never could tell if my silence worked on her, or if it took her that long to cast off that other Indy.

  “Why?”

  “Stone came in. She had her brand inked on. I worked on Steel’s back piece. He has her name tatted on him. It’s old.” She swallowed. “Really old.”

  I arched a brow at that. “For as long as he’s been pushing her away, I guess?”

  She hummed. “It’s funny…”

  “What is?”

  “Stone’s real name is Pierre.”

  My brow furrowed. “Isn’t that a guy’s name?”

  “Yeah, well, that’s Stone’s Ma for you. Dumb bitch.”

  “Wait…” My lips twitched. “So Steel’s been walking around with a guy’s name inked on his back for a decade?”

  “Pretty much.” She smiled, and her head shifted slightly so she could see me better. It didn’t work, but I liked that she tried. Enough that I got to my feet, moved closer so she could see me from her position, and I didn’t just crouch down, I crossed my legs at the ankle and got comfortable by placing my hands flat to the ground and leaning back.

  “You made it butch?”

  “It was pretty plain before,” she murmured. “I was really just refreshing it. The lines were getting blurry.”

  “When Stone and Steel got together, you told me you’d already designed her brand—did she like it?”

  Her smile made another appearance. “She did.”

  “I’m glad,” I told her simply.

  “Giulia came in too. She wants more ink. We talked about her working for me for a while.”

  “Really? She has work at the clubhouse though.”

  She sniffed. “Relying on you fuckers for money will put her in the poorhouse.”

  “If poorhouses still existed,” I pointed out. “We’re not exactly living in a Charles Dickens’ book.”

  Indy rolled her eyes. “You’re probably the only biker in that clubhouse who knows who Dickens is.”

  I snorted. “You have met your brother, right? And Rex and Maverick? They’re clever—”

  Huffing, she muttered, “I know, I know. Just saying, is all. There are different kinds of clever. Rex could wage a world war and win but talking about British literature, even just mentioning it, would turn him cross-eyed.”

  “Watch the sass or your butt will sting some more,” I said calmly.

  Her nose crinkled, but said butt wiggled, making me smile at the sight. Even if she didn't want a spanking, that ass of hers did.

  She’d get it too. Just not as a welcome home.

  “What’s she going to do at Indiana Ink?” I queried, curious, and wondering if Nyx knew his woman and his sister had plans that they definitely hadn’t asked the club about.

  “Help David out at first.” She grunted, then like she was telling me a secret worthy of the Secret Service, admitted, “But I’ve been thinking about bringing a full-time piercer into the studio.”

  A cough escaped me. “Giulia? You want her as a piercer? Is she trained?”

  “No, she isn’t trained for anything, and I’d like to change that. I’ll invest in her if I can tie her to the studio, and considering she suggested it, I figured she’d probably get a kick out of it. She’s sadistic enough by nature.”

  “Exactly what you want in a fucking piercer.”

  She grinned, and it did something to me, something to my goddamn insides to see that smile. “True, dat.”

  “She can pierce your nipples when you think she’s ready,” I said softly, and my tone had her tensing.

  “Who said I was piercing them?”

  “Me? I’ve been thinking about it for a while. Just never liked the idea of another dude seeing your tits.”

  A shaky breath escaped her. “C-Cruz?”

  I hummed.

  “You have no say over my body.”

  “I have full say over your body,” I returned, my voice calm.

  “I don’t belong to you.”

  “You do.” I arched a brow. “You haven’t moved a fucking muscle,” I told her softly, watching as she registered that. Even though she didn’t like my words, she still stayed right where I’d left her.

  Head turned to the side, cheek touching the hall rug. Back sloping to the high angle of her ass in the air, knees on the ground, feet tucked together.

  She licked her lips, but other than that, still didn’t move. “What’s happening? This is too much.”

  I reached over and stroked my hands through her hair, bunching it together and letting it fall over her shoulder so it was out of the way. “I know it is. I don’t think either of us intended it to go this far, did we?”

  Her eyes were glued to mine. “No.”

  I carried on stroking her hair, trying to calm her. “By the time you’ll let Giulia anywhere near your tits, we’ll be ready to process things then, won’t we?”

  She blinked. “Y-Yeah, I guess.” My smile had her swallowing. “Why?”

  “Why, what?”

  “Why are you investing so much time and effort in me?”

  The words took me aback. Whatever I’d expected her to say, it sure as fuck wasn’t that, and they had anger rippling through me. Anger that a fucking angel like this one could think that sort of shit about herself.

  “Because you’re not worth my time and effort?” Me? A fucking one-percenter biker, whose mom was a psychotic FBI agent, and who I was betraying to save the family I really cared about—my club.

  I cleaned up corpses for the MC, deleted the evidence so that no shit would fall back on us. I was the Grim Reaper. Too dirty to lick her fucking boots, and she was asking me that?

  Because I was angry at her lack of self-worth, the desire to punish her was a strong one. It hit me hard, how much I wanted her to see herself for what she was, but I couldn’t achieve that through castigation. It required trust.

  She had to trust me, had to have faith in me, to believe anything I had to say.

  She was right—that took time and effort. Time and effort I wouldn’t necessarily give to a fuck buddy, but I had to face the facts.

  I’d never have fucked her in the first place if being a fuck buddy was all I wanted.

  Nyx was psychotic enough to kill kid fuckers for a hobby. Did that sound like the kind of twisted bastard I needed hammering on my door because I was messing with his sister?

  Nope.

  I’d been all in from the start, and I just hadn’t fucking realized it.

  My response to her interested me, enough that I knew I’d be exploring it later, when she was sleeping or I was home, and I murmured, “When you trust me, I’ll tell you why.”

  She frowned. “That’s a non-answer if ever I heard one.”

  I smiled at her. “It’s all the answer you’re going to get. Now, by the sounds of it, you had a good day. What went wrong?”

  “Laura came in. It was really tough.” She winced. “She screamed twice.”

  “Christ.” I blew out a breath, well acquainted with the name of the stubborn woman who bore thick mastectomy scars that Indy was working on covering up through torturous sessions that had both women sweating bullets.

  Pro, fucking, bono.

  And she asked why she was worth my time and effort?

  Goddamn that kid fucker uncle of hers.

  If Nyx hadn’t already jammed his hunting rifle so the cartridge blew back on itself, exploding Kevin’s head clean off his shoulders, I’d have had to come up with some twisted ways to get rid of the sick son of a bitch.

  Ways that
involved acid.

  Lots, and lots of acid. In fact, more acid than alkali just to really burn the fucker.

  “Yeah,” she whispered softly. “It was intense. Messed with my head. But it was okay when Steel and Stone came in. They cheered me up.”

  “I’m glad. Sounds like you were good.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  I arched a brow. “Why weren’t you?”

  “I used my vibrator this morning.”

  I didn’t have to see my smile in the mirror to know it was one thing and one thing only—unholy.

  She registered it too and did the wise thing.

  Gulped.

  Indy

  There was something strange about what I had going on with Cruz.

  I didn’t have to tell him the truth but somehow, I always ended up doing exactly that.

  It was weird. Especially when he usually slapped the shit out of my ass or came up with different ways to mess with my head in the aftermath of such an admission, but I never felt as good as when I told him the truth.

  If I was a Catholic, I’d say it was absolution and that nothing felt better than a cleaner soul.

  But Cruz was the last person anyone should ever expect absolution from. Sweet Jesus, the rumor was he disposed of the bodies for the MC. I mean, I could have asked, but even if I did, what was he going to say?

  ‘Yeah, I chop up corpses and feed them to the pigs for my brothers. You got a problem with that?’

  Not exactly the kind of conversation people in a… shit. What were we?

  In a relationship?

  Still fuck buddies?

  He thought he had the right to say what went down with my nipples.

  I was sitting in my hallway with my cheek kissing the floor because of him, for God’s sake.

  Nothing about this was normal.

  Nothing had ever made me feel better than being with him, either.

  That had to mean something, didn’t it?

  His smile in the face of my admission had me gnawing on my lip. I recognized that smile—it usually led to me climaxing.

  His hand smoothed over my nape, down the length of my spine, over my ass and straight between my legs which I, quite generously, spread slightly so he could get access to the goods.