There’s pity in Pike’s sleepy eyes, and I can’t take it. I kick off the blankets. “I may be smart and have a good memory and like books and numbers, and I’ve gone through some terrible shit, but don’t you ever mistake me for a pushover or someone waiting to be rescued. You don’t have to pity me or feel sorry for me. I got myself into this shit, and somehow, I’ll get myself out.”
Pike raises his eyebrows. “Trust me. Of all the thoughts I’ve had about you, I’ve never pitied you or felt sorry for you. Not once.”
“Then, why are you looking at me like that?” I shout.
“I was wondering why you ran out when you saw that family at the bar,” he says. His calm demeanor as he props himself up on his elbow only irritates me more.
I shrug. “I miss my family.”
“Why did you leave them in the first place?” he asks, as if it’s as simple as that. “Why did they go into hiding and you didn’t?”
I laugh and answer honestly. “It’s complicated, but I didn’t have a choice.”
He stares at me silently as if he understands when he has no fucking clue what I’ve been through or why. “I know how that feels,” he offers, and the look in his eyes tells me he’s sincere.
I rest my chin on my knees again. “I can’t imagine what you think of me,” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “The crazy girl who talks to her family even though they aren’t here. The one who won’t tell you answers you so desperately need.” I look to the ceiling and sigh. “The funny thing is that I understand. If I were you, I’d hate me, too. So, don’t look at me with pity because I don’t deserve your pity.”
Pike sits up, resting his elbows on his knees. The blanket falls further, revealing the crease between the globes of his ass and the deep V low on his waist. I avert my eyes back to the ceiling, so he doesn’t catch me staring.
“You think I pity you? I don’t fucking pity you, but I understand. I’ve done shit that I’ve had to do even though it was the wrong thing. Even though people got hurt.” He shakes his head like he can’t believe he has to explain this to me. His gaze rakes over my body. “I’ve thought about you a lot, Mic. Yeah, about the bullshit you’re putting me through, but about other things, too.” His gaze heats and so does my body. “About how your lips felt against mine when I kissed you. About how they would feel elsewhere on my body. About how you would taste, everywhere. About how I could make you scream my fucking name and forget everything else. Even if just for a little while. But have no doubt, Mic. Of all the thoughts I’ve had about you, never once have I thought you were a fucking pushover.”
After a lifetime of being mistaken for demure and shy because my passions lay elsewhere than in the company of others, this is the most erotic and sexually-charged thing anyone has ever said to me. So much so I tremble right down to where an ache begins to grow between my legs.
Attraction is the least logical feeling because it’s not a feeling. It’s a compulsion, but whatever it is, I’m compelled to want to be with Pike. To touch him and have him touch me. To explore each other further than his lips on mine. To feel him, his skin against mine.
I swallow hard as my heart begins to beat faster as my fantasy takes over my reality.
The truth is that I believe Pike, and in a way, he may not know everything, but he understands me more than anyone has before. That understanding that we share is probably what’s kept me alive, as well as the cause for the awareness prickling at my body like a thousand tiny needles bringing each nerve-ending to life.
I draw up my knees to my chest, but it only awakens an aching between my legs. I feel hot. Too hot. My skin is tight. I’m struggling to keep my shit together, and every time I think I’ve calmed myself, my thoughts stray to Pike, and the feeling starts all over again, ten times stronger than before.
Pike’s eyes darken, his lids growing hooded as if he knows exactly what I’m feeling. I need to do something because my body is on fire, and my mind is a mess. I can’t think clearly, and if there’s anything I hate more, it’s that.
“What are you’re doing to me?” Pike asks, moving closer until he’s right beside me, his chest brushing my shoulder. I flush at the feel of the warmth of his hard chest against my skin and let out an audible gasp.
“I can’t,” I start, feeling my entire body redden. “We…we can’t.”
He takes hold of my knee, tugging my legs apart, gazing down between them as if I’m a feast and he’s been starved his entire life. I gasp.
“I can help you,” he offers. “Let me help you.”
I start to protest, but he trails his fingertips along my inner thigh, and I realize I don’t want to protest. I want this. I want him. It’s sick and makes no sense but it’s the truth.
I’m only wearing a pair of cotton panties and one of Pike’s oversized white tee-shirts, and from the looks of it, he’s wearing nothing at all. “You want to come so badly, don’t you,” he says, massaging my inner thigh. The ache is now an all-out invasion of my senses. A low roar of anticipation is building within me. Consuming me.
“Yes,” I breath as his fingers graze where I want him to touch me the most.
Then, his touch is gone. My eyes meet his.
“Say it,” he insists, his voice thick and rough with his own need. “Tell me Mic. Do you want me to make you come?”
Yes, yes, that’s all I fucking want. Fuck everything else.
I nod.
“Tell me. Tell me that you want me to make you come,” he teases, but the desire in his eyes isn’t a joke. It’s raw and fierce, and it sends a shock of need through my body, causing my nipples to harden against the soft fabric of my shirt. “I want to hear you say it.”
“I…I want you to make me come,” I manage to say, feeling both embarrassed and relieved.
Pike’s smile so wicked I almost regret my admission. “Oh, Mic, what did you get yourself into?” And with those words barely out of his mouth, his lips are on mine. He rolls us so that he’s on top, settled between my legs, his fingers tangled in my hair and his mouth plundering mine like he’s a thief, stealing every second of the kiss as if I wasn’t already giving it to him willingly.
One hand cups my ass and lifts it off the bed. His hard cock rubs against my brutally swollen clit through my panties, and I moan at the sensation and he groans, the sound making me open my eyes and look up at this man whose usually very controlled, but now, with his hair mussed and that look in his burning eyes, he seems wild, like a caged animal just set free.
He strokes me again. An assault to my senses. Over and over his hard shaft thrusts against me until I’m lifting my hips on my own accord, trying to take what I need, what I can’t seem to find on my own. “Oh, no, not yet,” Pike teases, pausing his movements.
“This is a different kind of torture,” I groan.
“You don’t know shit about torture…yet,” he says, lowering himself down on my body until his face is level with the most intimate parts of me, spread open for full view. He inhales deeply, and I don’t have time to be embarrassed by what he’s just done because his mouth is on me, lightly at first, just a kiss as if he were kissing my lips. His tongue circles my clit, and he sucks ever so lightly on the sensitive flesh. He finds a pattern that makes me gasp and moan. Circling, sucking and releasing until I’m panting like an animal.
“You know what I hate about you the most?” he suddenly asks, staring up at me from between my legs.
I shake my head as I try to catch my breath, not able to wrap my head around what’s happening, never mind what he’s asking. My entire body is thrumming with need, wanting for more.
He raises up on his knees, covering my body once again with his. He traces his fingers from my collar bone between my breasts, circling my belly button.
His voice is still rough but somehow softer around the edges. “What I hate about you most…” his eyes meet mine. “Is that I don’t hate you at all.” Pike brushes a hair from my face. “You belong to me,” he says, as if it’s a fact
I should already know. His gaze is heated and determined. His bare chest rising and falling with each angry breath. “You have since that first night.”
The idea that I belong to anyone heats my blood. I’ve spent too much time pretending to be a part of people I hate. “I’m not one of your possessions from the pawn shop. You didn’t buy me, and I’m not something that got left behind.”
He quirks a brow. “Aren’t you?”
I realize the irony in what I’d just said. I was left behind.
“You know it’s not the same,” I say, snapping my teeth at his lips as he tries to come closer for another kiss.
He pins my arms down, and his face is inches from mine. “You’re not an object to me. You’re not a possession, but I own you in a way I’ve never wanted to own something before. I don’t want you on display or on my shelves for others to look at. To touch. And I sure as shit don’t want to sell you to someone else.”
“Then, what do you want from me?” I ask, hating the tears that threaten to fall from my eyes.
He grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Fuck, Mic, I want you.”
He’s stripping me bare, and I don’t just mean my just clothes. But as one layer comes and then another so do my inhibitions, and when he pulls me against his chest and we’re warm skin against warm skin, I realize I’ve never felt more free than I do right now, fully exposed to Pike, naked in his arms.
“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he groans.
It’s the adrenaline, I tell myself, that has the air shifting all around us. I don’t have time to ask who or what is happening because the second my lips part to speak, Pike descends on me, covering my lips with his.
I don’t know if we’re fighting or kissing, but it’s aggressive and passionate. Our tongues warring with one another. I moan into his mouth.
“What are we doing?” I ask, breathlessly.
“I don’t fucking know,” Pike answers, pressing his lips to mine once more. He grinds his shaft where I need it most, and I see stars. I lift my hips, seeking more of a connection. Lifting me so that I’m straddling him, his massive cock jutting between us. I grind down against him as his lips suck and kiss my neck and jaw. “Whatever it is. It feels so fucking good. You feel so fucking good, Mic.”
Our eyes meet.
I have no doubt that if our lust were flammable, the slightest spark would burn us both alive.
He flips me over, pressing my chest to the mattress. He kneads my ass with his fingers, rubbing his cock between my ass cheeks.
I groan and arch my ass toward him, but he’s gone. Only cool air licks my skin. His fingers dig into my shoulder, and the air shifts around us from lust to something much more sinister. I still, knowing exactly what he’s found.
Shit. Shit Shit.
“What the fuck is this?” he grates flipping me over to face him. He hovers above me with both hands on the mattress beside my head.
“It’s nothing. It’s…” But I know it’s too late. I know I’ve been found out. My lust-addled brain lapsed for one second and showed him everything I’d been working so damned hard to conceal. It’s over now. There’s no going back from this. Whatever Pike and I just started, will never be finished.
“It’s a fucking brand,” he says through gritted teeth. He pushes off the bed and stands at the edge, his erection is thick and hard despite the anger in his voice and the tension in his shoulders.
I grab for the t-shirt and toss it back over my head.
“Fuck this. Fuck you. I can’t…” Pike doesn’t finish his thought. He shakes his head and tugs on his jeans. I want to explain. I want to tell him everything, but the words don’t come. I feel the gap between us widening, the connection we shared severing as he turns and walks to the door. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob. “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” Rearing back, he slams his fist through the wall with an angry roar tearing from his chorded throat that I can I feel as if I were the one screaming.
My spine jumps as the door slams shut, leaving me alone while the storm continues raging outside and a new kind of torturous pain weaving its way through what’s left of my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pike
“You awake, sleepy head?” Nine asks, staring down at me.
Great, for the fucking second time, I had the fucking dream. What a way to start out the fucking day. Oh, that and remembering the fucking brand I discovered on Mickey’s shoulder.
I shift to a sitting position and rub my eyes, my back aches from sleeping on the cot in my office. There’s a pool of sweat on the cot, and more of it that drips down my back, but it’s expected since the A/C doesn’t run without power.
It’s been years since I’ve had that dream. A memory of the first time in my life I ever felt betrayed. After that moment, my entire life has been governed by one fucking rule.
Don’t let your guard down.
It was either the attempt to gain Mickey’s trust that did me in, or if it was more primal, my body responding to the overwhelming desire that’s been building for Mickey over the past few weeks, but somewhere I’d let my guard down and I’d let her in. Enough so that when I saw the mark on her shoulder, I felt more than anger.
I was…hurt.
Which is ridiculous since there’s no reason for me to feel hurt. It was eventually going to come down to this moment whether I saw the mark or not, but still, I wasn’t prepared for the boulder dropped on my chest at the sight of the Four branded into her fucking skin like a fucking farm animal.
Nine leans against my desk. “The hurricane’s over. Your shingles are a little fucked, and a tree fell into one of the warehouse panels, but other than that, you made it through better than most of the fuckers in this town. I almost didn’t make it through with all of the flooding. The roads are fucked, too. Trees and power lines are down everywhere. Preppy told me that King’s house is a shit show, so consider yourself lucky.”
When I don’t answer, Nine looks me over, twisting his lips. “No offense, dude, but you look like shit. What the fuck has been going on over here? Where’s Mickey?” He looks around my empty office and through the hall to equally empty pawn shop.
“Everything fucking happened here,” I grumble, pushing my hair back on my head.. “Mickey is upstairs, probably sewing my sheets into hoods.”
“Uh, care to elaborate? Or is she just really into crafting now?”
I blow out a long breath, light a cigarette and tell him everything.
When I finish, Nine just stands there looking like he’s been electrocuted. “Mickey? Mickey’s a fucking racist?” He sits on the edge of my desk and lights a joint, taking a deep drag.
“It appears so.” I take a hit of the joint he hands me and pass it back. “Of all of the fucking degenerates in this town, she has to be a part of the fucking Fourth Reich. The worst of them all. Their hatred doesn’t come from business dealings gone wrong or for protection, but from ignorance. The worst kind of criminal is an ignorant one.”
“Here here, brother. I wholly agree.”
Thorne walks in and slams down a Styrofoam tray on my desk. Coffee splashes out from the top of the four cups, splattering on my lap. I wipe it off my jeans with my hand.
Thorne makes no effort to help me clean it up or apologize. Instead, she stands with her shoulders back and places her hands on her hips. Her belly ring charm sways with the motion. It’s purple and sparkly and says fuck you. “She’s not a fucking racist, you morons.”
“Why hello to you, too,” I mutter, removing the least messy coffee from the tray. “How did you fare in the storm? We’re okay, thanks for fucking asking.”
She shrugs. “I’m alive. My apartment is on the third floor, so we’re all good. But I wanted to come and check on you, and it turns out you look worse than the fucking roads do.” She takes a sip of her own coffee in reusable mug that says I HATE YOU. Thorne apparently has a theme today. “So, where was I?” she puts a finger to the corner of her lips. “Oh yeah, now I remember,” she slam
s her palms on my desk, rattling the coffee once again. “Mickey isn’t a racist.”
“The brand on her shoulder says otherwise,” I offer, wishing the weed would work faster so I could bury my confusion in my high instead of trying to find answers to questions that don’t make any fucking sense. “Besides, how would you fucking know?”
Thorne juts out her chin. “My grandfather was a Grand Dragon in the Klan.”
Nine sprays his coffee all over the floor. “Excuse me? Como say the fuck WHAT?”
Thorne rolls her eyes. “So dramatic,” she says, lowering herself in her chair. She pulls out her phone, and her thumbs fly over the screen. “Thankfully, the cell tower is still up. Ah, here we go.” She turns the screen to me, pointing to a picture of a man wearing a Klan robe and white witch-like hat. The standard uniform of ignorance. “This was him. My Popop. Loved us and hated pretty much everyone else.”
“So, your grandfather was a piece of shit, and that somehow doesn’t make Mickey a piece of shit?” Nine questions.
She rolls her eyes. “I grew up with the language of hate. The words. The propaganda. The feelings they try to instill in you. Hate is something that’s taught. It’s not something we instinctually have toward others. There wasn’t one-word Mickey spoke or action she took to make me believe she’s racist. I pick up on those things and trust me, she didn’t exhibit a single one of them. I was brought up and taught hate, but it never sunk in. I loved my Popop, but I never believed what he did. Not for one second. I think Mickey’s the same. She may wear the mark, but that’s exactly what it is. Just a mark. Something on the surface that only goes skin deep. Like a tattoo in Chinese letters that you think says love and light but really says ham sandwich.”
Nine laughs. “So what you’re saying is, just because she has ham sandwich tattooed on her body, doesn’t mean she loves ham sandwiches.” He scratches his head. “But everyone loves ham sandwiches. It’s a proven fact. Science and shit. Mickey would know. I’ll ask her.”
Pike: The Pawn Duet, Book One Page 16
