by Mara McBain
Kicking at her, he spun her limp body to face him. Flinging the flogger aside, he snatched up a stiff riding crop and plied it viciously across her heavy breasts. Her head snapped up, eyes flaring wide. Her painted lips stretched in agony around the ball gag. The crystal light fixture rocked dangerously as she kicked, squealing behind the gag.
Interest revived, Rocco struck viciously, unmindful of where the blows fell as she jiggled desperately. A sadistic grin curved his lips as a lucky strike found her shaved pussy. Her tortured scream left little doubt she didn’t consider it as lucky.
Her kicks left her vulnerable as he targeted her tender regions, regaling in her pain. His cock throbbed. One rosy nipple split, blood trickling down her pale skin. He lashed at the other until it wept as well. Her anguish was an aphrodisiac.
Releasing the chains, he let her tumble to the floor. His fist wound in her pale locks, and he yanked her up to fling her over the back of the couch. He was on her before she could move. Pinning her effortlessly, he fumbled for a moment with his zipper. Frustration added to his brutal nature, and when he freed himself, he took pleasure in wringing another scream from the battered whore, splitting her tight asshole with a single thrust.
Pounding into her, he reached up to release the gag. He wanted to hear the bitch scream unchecked. He got his wish as he twisted her bloody nipples. She bucked franticly under his rutting hips. Trailing a hand down her arched back, he scraped short nails over the welts that covered her pale skin. Her shrieks and tormented struggles spurred him on. Slamming into her writhing body viciously, his own back bowed and his lips parted in a victorious howl as release ripped from him at last.
When he could breathe again, Rocco slid from her body, staggering backward to lean heavily against the wall. It took another minute or two to assure his legs would support him. Straightening, he crossed to the door. The wide-eyed youngster on guard there instead of Chelios brought Eva’s betrayal back to the forefront, erasing the ease he had just found. His lip curled.
“Get her the fuck out of here.”
Spinning on his heel, he didn’t wait to see if his orders were carried out. Knowing sleep would elude him in his current state, he started the shower. He let his head fall forward as the powerful jets pounded his weary body. What was it about Eva that fired his blood like no other? His need for her bordered on obsession and made him weak. A roar of anger bounced off the tiles as he threw his head back, fury lighting his dark eyes. It was a weakness he fully planned on eradicating.
Chapter ~ 13
Every eye in the place locked on her before the cheery bell heralding her arrival stilled its jangle. Self-consciously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Eva took a seat on one of the plastic chairs in the waiting area. Trying not to fidget on the hard fuchsia seat, she picked up a dog-eared magazine and idly flipped through it. She had found a cute dress at a second hand store for a little bit of nothing, so had decided to treat herself to a trim before the party.
Hearing the murmur of her name, she looked up in surprise. She met Becca’s narrowed gaze as the blonde whispered in her client’s ear. The older woman turned to stare as well, and Eva couldn’t help noting a resemblance in her pinched features. Blowing out a soft breath, Eva turned back to the magazine’s celebrity gossip and prayed the other beautician finished up first. Luck was not on her side. Sometimes she suspected that God just liked to see her squirm.
“So I hear you’re fucking my son.”
Eva’s head whipped up. Hands on her hips, thin lips set around a cigarette, the redhead’s demeanor was anything but welcoming. Could this brash woman really be Mox’s birth mother? Wetting her lips, Eva cocked her head to the side.
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t play cute with me. Becca already told me that you’re living with Miles. Are you fucking more than one man?”
“I don’t know a Miles, but I am living with Mox Brawer,” Eva said, a little steel creeping into her tone at the woman’s insult.
“I don’t care what that Brawer bitch told you. I gave birth to him and his name is Miles Sampson!”
“Rhys said he had it legally changed.”
The voluptuous redhead swung around, and she narrowed her eyes at Becca.
“I don’t give a damn what her pretty little whelp told you. You picked the wrong dick to pant over. My Miles is twice the man Rhys Brawer will ever be. My Miles is truly his father’s son. Rhys looks nothing like Zeke.”
Becca backed away from the woman’s scornful fury, hands raised in placation. Rolling her eyes when the older woman turned back to Eva, she twirled her finger beside her head in the universal sign for crazy.
“Why don’t you take a seat in the chair here and tell me what you would like to do today?”
Eva shook her head. There was no way in hell she was letting Becca near her with scissors after their run in at the apartment. After getting a look at Flo’s teased eighties do, it looked like she’d dodged a bullet.
“I’ve changed my mind. Maybe I’ll come back another time,” she said, shouldering her purse.
Flo put out an arm as Eva tried to skirt around her.
“I think you and I should get to know one another if you’re going to be shacking up with my baby. Don’t you?”
“I guess that would be up to Mox.”
“It’s a woman’s place to keep families together. We’re supposed to be the nurturers.”
Eva’s lips twisted in disbelief. How could the woman even talk about nurturing after the way she’d treated Mox. “I’m not going to cultivate something that Mox doesn’t want.”
“He’s a man. He doesn’t know what he wants until we tell him.”
“You don’t know Mox very well if you think he doesn’t know what he wants. Now, excuse me.”
“Do you think my son would approve of you talking to his mother like that?” Flo asked, stepping in front of her this time.
Eva blew out her breath in frustration.
“Ginny and I have a wonderful relationship, and seeing as she’s the woman he thinks of as his mother, I’m not too worried about it,” she said sweetly. Shouldering past Flo at last, she yanked open the door.
“You’re going to regret this.”
“I already regret coming in here. Have a lovely day, ladies.”
Putting the last layer of cheese on the lasagna, Eva wiped her hands on the towel over her shoulder and glanced at the clock. Her stomach churned. She’d been replaying the scene in the beauty shop since she’d left, and she still wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing. It was one thing for Mox to verbally disown his mother. It was another for her to be disrespectful to the woman.
What if she’d misunderstood their relationship? The older woman had seemed pretty sure of herself when she’d warned her of regrets. What if his mother was at Handlebars and Hotrods right now, telling Mox that she had been rude to her? Ginny had thought nothing of stopping there to jack Mox up for leaving Eva alone without transportation, phone, or money. What was to stop Flo from stopping by to plead her case?
She rubbed at the knot in her stomach. There was nothing she could do until Mox got home. She wasn’t about to run down to the shop and bother him while he was working. Slicing the Italian bread down the center, she laid it open and reached for the garlic spread. Right now, all she could do was trust that Mox’s father was right and that there wasn’t much a woman couldn’t suck or fuck her way out of.
The smell of garlic assailed him the moment he opened the outside door. Grinning, Mox took the stairs two and three at a time. He loved coming home to a home-cooked meal and a hot woman. It was almost like growing up to be Zeke.
Closing the inside door behind him, he shrugged out of his coat and dropped onto the bench to remove his boots. The gas fireplace was lit, and its extra warmth was welcome after a frigid day with the bay doors open.
“Hey, handsome.”
Words froze in his throat when he looked up. Eva was peeking around the corner, her eyes sparkling,
dimples out in full force. Dark hair spilled over the pale shoulder that was visible. He swallowed as his gaze skimmed down her bare torso and the silky expanse of shapely leg.
Kicking his boots off, he lunged at her. She spun and ran. He couldn’t hold back a laugh as he chased her cute, heart-shaped ass down the hall, listening to her giggles. The bed groaned in protest as he tackled her. Rolling her underneath him, he silenced her giggles with a possessive kiss. Her arms went around his neck, fingers stroking his nape in encouragement. Their lips clashed violently. A little voice in his ear wondered what she had done this time, but the rest of him didn’t care.
Swiping water droplets from his smooth scalp, Mox followed Eva’s sultry voice to the kitchen. He grinned, watching her groove across the kitchen, singing into the salad tongs. Damn she was beautiful.
“Did the shower help?” she asked, a blush flooding her cheeks as she spotted him.
“I hope you don’t need hot water anytime soon, but yeah.”
“And here I thought I’d warmed you up,” Eva said, coming over to wrap her arms around his waist for a squeeze.
“You were definitely hot,” he said, groping her ass and grinding her against him. “How’d you know that Rhys wasn’t coming up with me?”
“I heard your Harley and watched you come around the corner, so I figured we had at least enough time to make it to the bedroom.”
“Smart woman. Why don’t you tell me about your day?” Mox asked, a smile playing at his lips.
Eva made a little face and slipped from his grasp to check on the lasagna.
“I stopped into the beauty shop uptown today.”
“And you ran into Becca.”
“How did you ever guess?”
Mox snorted. “I see you were smart enough not to let the crazy bitch cut your hair.”
Eva shook her head, turning her focus to filling their plates. Frowning, Mox watched her. Something was still bothering her.
“That smells great. I’ve never seen lasagna made with the white sauce.”
“I first tried it with Alfredo sauce because a friend didn’t like tomatoes, and it went over well.”
“All this and brains too,” Mox said, skimming his hands down her sides.
Eva leaned back against him. A sigh lifted her shoulders and he waited for the full truth.
“I met your mom today.”
Mox closed his eyes. So it wasn’t what Eva had done, but rather Flo. Would he ever escape the bitch? If she fucked this up for him, he would wring her scrawny neck. “What did she do?” he asked flatly.
“She introduced herself by informing me that she’d heard I was fucking her son. Between that and calling you Miles, she answered my confusion by asking how many men I was sleeping with.”
Mox turned her into his arms. “Jesus. I’m sorry, baby.”
“I don’t know how well I handled it. I was caught off guard and wasn’t prepared to deal with her,” Eva admitted.
“You shouldn’t have to deal with the crazy bitch.”
“It’s a little on the scary side when even Becca thinks she’s crazy. Funny thing is, watching them while she was getting her hair done I thought maybe she was Becca’s mom.”
Mox let out a rueful chuckle. “They’re a lot more alike than you know.”
“She suggested that we get to know one another better.”
“Oh, I’m sure it was a little stronger than a suggestion.”
“She went as far as saying that it is a woman’s place to keep family together.”
“She doesn’t know a damn thing about family.”
“Look, I’m sorry if I wasn’t real nice to her, but even the little I know about how she treated you as a child is enough to make me want to rip her heart out,” Eva said into his chest.
Giving her a squeeze, Mox shrugged. “If that’s what you’re worrying about, don’t. She’s not worth it.”
“Do you have any sort of a relationship with her?”
“She’s been trying more since it came out that Zeke’s my father. She just wants an in with Zeke and to hurt Ginny. If anything, I have less respect for her than I did before. I mean, seriously, how does a woman not have a clue who the father of her kid is?”
“I don’t know, baby. Looking at the two of you, I wonder how no one saw it.”
“If you saw her husband, Miles, that she tried to pin me on, you’d be even more confused.”
“That bad, huh?”
“About five-eight and a buck fifty soaked in cheap whiskey,” Mox said with a snort.
“So I take it Miles is your given name, and Mox is a nickname?”
“Was my given name. I had it legally changed when I took the last name Brawer. Since I was ditching the drunk’s last name, I just figured his first should go too. Mox was the name Zeke gave me when I first started hanging out there and what everyone calls me, so it seemed right.”
“Where did he get Mox?” Eva asked, her forehead scrunching in confusion. She looked up as his chest shook with laughter under her fingers.
“He was actually calling me dumb ox, but when he mutters it under his breath, it sounds like Mox.”
Eva’s mouth opened and closed, like a dozen different condolences were trying to tumble out. As sweet as she was, Mox couldn’t hold back a chuckle.
“That doesn’t—didn’t—bother you?” she asked, biting her lip.
“Why should it? He wasn’t trying to be mean. That’s just Zeke.”
“Male bonding is obviously beyond me,” she said, shaking her head and turning back to their plates. “What do you want to drink?”
“You like wine?”
“I like cheap, fruity wine.”
“You’re in luck. So does Ginny,” he said, pulling a bottle out of the countertop rack.
“I bet Ginny has more expensive taste than I do,” Eva said with a giggle.
“You’d be surprised. The way she puts a bottle away, she can’t be too picky.”
Eva smacked his arm. “Like she’s some sort of wino.”
“Nah, she’s just not much of a beer drinker, so we give her a hard time for her snooty booze.” Mox chuckled, pouring the wine. “With the price of beer lately, she’ll be harassing us soon.”
Digging into his lasagna, he watched her out of the corner of his eye. She was pushing food around her plate, working her bottom lip over with her teeth.
“I told you not to worry about it,” he mumbled around a mouthful.
Eva blushed, lowering her head. “I didn’t realize I was that obvious” she said, picking at her food.
“Is that what the seduction scene was about?” He chuckled at her little shrug. “I’m not complaining. I’d be happy to let you think I’m pissed off more often if I get to come home to that.”
She kicked him lightly under the table. It only served to amuse him more.
“Are you always this easy going?”
“Pretty much.”
She shook her head at him.
“Why walk around being a miserable hard ass? Most of the time, the only one you’re making miserable is yourself.”
“I don’t know. A lot of guys seem to think they have to keep up appearances or maintain their reputation.”
“The guys that walk around with a chip on their shoulder, running their mouth, aren’t legitimate tough guys. On the inside they’re scared little boys, and they’re afraid if they give people half a second, they’ll be recognized for what they are.”
“But you’re the real deal,” Eva said. It wasn’t a question.
“I can hold my own with most, but there’s always someone bigger and badder,” Mox admitted with another shrug. “A lot of times it’s easier to diffuse the situation with a joke.”
“You don’t worry it makes you look weak?”
“Do I look weak to you?”
“Good point,” she said, her eyes running over his natural bulk. She giggled as he shoved a piece of garlic bread in his mouth and flexed for her. “If you keep eating like th
at you’re going to need to hit the gym, big boy.”
“It’s winter. Everyone puts an extra layer on. I’ll lose it in the summer when I start running again.”
“I was just kidding.”
“I’m not. I have a reason to look good now. I have to keep my hot old lady happy.”
“Old lady?”
“Don’t get your panties in a knot. Old lady is a compliment.”
“Part of your biker lingo I can see, but a compliment?”
“An old lady is a wife or a serious girlfriend. It has nothing to do with age. You’re my old lady. That means you’re under my protection and that messing with you would be like messing with my bike.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m as important as your Harley?”
“Let a man try straddling either one of you and see,” Mox answered with a wink.
Eva burst into laughter. “You are an absolute pig!”
“We prefer hog,” he said with a straight face.
“I’m sure you do. Give me your trough, porky, and I’ll refill it.”
Mox grinned as she snatched his plate and walked into the kitchen. Damn, he loved her sass. It meant that she was starting to trust him, and reminded him of Gin. He sobered, thinking about Flo. She was a manipulative bitch and could be downright malicious when she didn’t get her own way. Her run-ins with Ginny were legendary. Ginny knew what Flo was and didn’t hesitate to get nasty, but Eva was afraid of hurting him.
She started singing again and he glanced her way. Besides Ginny and Zeke taking him in, Eva was the best damn thing that had ever happened to him. He wasn’t about to let Flo, or anyone else, fuck it up. Eva blew him a kiss and he smiled back. Running a hand over the top of his head, he nodded to himself, decision made. He’d say something to Ginny, and then he’d have an overdue talk with the bitch. Flo was going to stay away from Eva, one way or another.
Chapter ~ 14
A bitter wind whipped off the canal, whistling up the dark alley. Eva pressed close to Mox’s back, drawing warmth and assurance. She could hear the low throb of bass through the brick walls, and her heart pounded in response. Rounding the corner at the bottom, he stopped before imposing steel doors. Eva hung back, wishing desperately to be back in their cozy apartment.
