by Jamie Begley
“No, I’m just trying to understand what you see in him.” Jackal let go of the pull down bar to take off his T-shirt.
Penni stopped the treadmill. “Why? So you can make fun of me?”
Jackal raised up from the bench, his hands going to the bars of the treadmill. His taut body had her eyes dropping to his tattoos. There was a grim reaper on his chest with a web of strands leading out of his billowing cowl. The scythe led to his shoulder then down the side of his arm. On his other arm was a skull with a red bandana covering the eyes.
“Why would I make fun of you? Because you’re wasting your time on a man who doesn’t have a problem finding a woman to warm his bed?”
“So?” Rigidly, she stared back at him.
“Believe me, Train isn’t shy. If he wanted you, he wouldn’t give a fuck who your brother was or whether they were friends or not. If you’re not in his bed, it’s because he doesn’t want you there.”
Penni used her shoulder to push him away. “When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it! You don’t know shit about Train.”
“And neither do you. That’s not a red flag to you? That if he wanted you, he would have made a move a long time ago?”
“Quit saying that!” Penni lunged at Jackal, pushing him backward, his words lacerating her pride.
He took a step to get his balance, and she vindictively pushed him again, smiling when he toppled onto the couch next to the treadmill.
Penni spun and turned to go upstairs.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Penni found herself pulled backward onto Jackal’s lap. “You don’t get to be mad at me when I’m telling you the fucking truth.”
“I can be mad if I want to. Train and I are none of your business!”
“What business?”
Jackal’s sarcastic laugh had Penni’s temper rising to a boiling point. She had never lost control of her rage to the degree where all she wanted to do was strike out at him.
Instead of trying to break his hold, she leaned back against his chest, turning her head so she could bite his shoulder.
Sickened by what she had just done, she tried to jump up, but Jackal used her movement to bend her over his knee.
“You did that, knowing I wouldn’t bite you back.”
“I’m sorry.” Penni’s temper’s cooled, ashamed of herself.
“The next time you bite me, bitch, I’m going to give you a bite you’ll never forget.”
“Don’t call me a bitch!” Her demand ended with a yowl of pain as Jackal’s hand came down on her bottom. She was wearing a pair of workout shorts and a thin T-shirt, but he didn’t care that the material was thin and flimsy or that she could feel the scalding heat of his palm on her butt.
“Calling you a bitch doesn’t give it justice. That was for flicking me off.”
Penni had known that incident when they had first seen each other had irritated him.
Another smack landed on her bottom. “That was for you telling Ice to tell me to go fuck myself.”
She had known that one had stung.
Penni quickly smothered her chuckle when Jackal’s hand returned to continue her punishment. He recounted her other offenses, which she lost count of due to the pain that was radiating from her sore butt.
“That was for leaving Casey’s lingerie party before I could show up.”
“What? Have you lost your mind?” How was she supposed to know he had wanted to give her a ride home? Thank God she had left before he had arrived. She had been drunk off her ass and had eaten too many of her own brownies. To say that he would have been laid that night would have been an understatement.
Penni’s thoughts came back to the present with another whack of his hand.
“Then you stood me up and almost killed me with those bees and the dogs …”
The son of a bitch had already spanked her for that one. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten over it.
“Okay, okay. I’m a terrible person.” She tensed her buttocks, waiting for his spanking to continue. When it didn’t, she looked over her shoulder to see Jackal staring down at his hand on her bottom. He was now massaging her buttocks.
“Does it hurt?”
“If I don’t answer, are you going to start spanking me again?”
“No.”
“No, it doesn’t hurt.” Penni slipped out of his grasp, sliding to the floor between his thighs. “My butt has hardened to spankings.”
“Who in the hell spanked you?”
Unconsciously, she placed her hands on his thighs. “My mama. I stayed in trouble when I was a little girl. She told me it’s a miracle she had any hair left. I got out of the house five times before I was four. The last time, I was at a dangerous intersection when she found me. I would climb anything I could. One time, I went so high up a tree she had to call the fire department. I set the house on fire when I was three.”
“She should have watched you better.”
Penni shook her head. “I was terrible. I admit it. I was a little hyper. That was probably why Shade brought his friends over whenever he came to visit. They could help keep an eye on me. My mother would spend most of the time trying to catch up on her sleep.”
“Your father didn’t help watch you?”
“Oh, yes, but when I tried to show him I was old enough to dry my own hair, Mama didn’t trust him anymore.”
“What was wrong with that?”
“I was standing in the bathtub and had grabbed the blow-dryer when he had reached for a towel. I nearly electrocuted my dad and myself, but he managed to jerk it out from the plug.”
Jackal leaned back on the couch, laughing.
Desire flooded through her body, and Penni clenched her thighs together as she knelt on the floor.
Penni giggled, and Jackal leaned forward, covering her mouth with his. Her mind was screaming at her to jerk away, run up the steps, but the urge to respond defeated her common sense.
Pressing into him, she felt her breasts tauten under her thin T-shirt.
Reality became just the two of them as Penni felt the passion she had hoped to find in the men she had dated in the past. They had all been different walks of life, but Jackal walked his own road. He didn’t cater to her, yet he had made no effort to hide he was attracted to her. Every time he was near, his eyes would appraise her from head to toe, showing he liked what he saw.
She liked what she saw, too. His body would make any woman drool. If he hadn’t been such an asshole, she would have found it difficult not to take him on a twirl and find out where their chemistry led. The only thing that had stopped her was, again, he was an asshole, and the gleam in his eyes had warned her he might be too much to handle.
Her parents had told her that she had never felt fear the way other children did, and it was the truth. She still had that. But where Jackal was concerned, her self-preservation had kicked in.
He circled his hand behind her neck, pulling her more securely against him as he leaned back against the couch until she was across him. Penni circled his shoulders, moaning as he fucked her mouth with his tongue. Her pussy ground down on his dick as she felt it harden beneath her.
Jackal raised his hips up, bringing his hands to her hips and pushing her down on him harder. Then, straightening, Jackal moved his mouth down her skin as he tugged her shirt down. The delicate bra she had on was brushed away, leaving her nipple exposed.
“Fuck me.”
Penni couldn’t tell if it was an expression or a demand. It took her everything not to echo his feelings.
Jackal licked the tip of her breast until she clenched the hair that brushed against her breast. When he touched her, it made her feel invincible, drowning out all the warnings she had never had trouble following before.
“Don’t tease me.” His tormenting lips were torturing her nipple, grazing the tip without taking it in his mouth.
“I’m trying to make it good for you.”
Penni could feel his back shake. He was laughing at her when she was on fire? When she wa
s done with him, laughing would be the last thing on his mind.
She had parts of his body she wanted to explore. The fleeting glimpses had spurred her on.
Penni went to his chest, sucking his nipple into her mouth.
“What did I tell you about biting me?” Jackal’s husky growl had her licking the hard nub before moving down to his waist. His abs had been driving Penni to investigate his ridges and dents until she was forced to stop by the top his jeans. “Don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Penni lifted up only long enough to unsnap his jeans.
Jackal rubbed his thumb over her nipple as she peeled down his jeans and tugged down his underwear. She was gifted with sight of his cock.
Another woman would have hesitated at the amount of piercings on his cock, but Penni had never been afraid of the unknown.
Her lips brushed the head of his cock, feeling the metal hit her teeth.
“If you bite me—”
“A man with that many piercings isn’t afraid of a little pain.”
After licking the length of his shaft back to the head, she sucked harder on him, determined to savor every minute she had him under her control. Penni wanted to taste him again and again. Each taste brought him deeper into her mouth.
Jackal gripped the arm of the couch as she covered his cock with her mouth again. Each time she lowered and raised her mouth, she tried to take him deeper, using the same rhythm he had used to tongue-fuck her. Penni had always learned by imitation, and her memory didn’t fail her now.
She spread Jackal’s jeans wider so she could reach the shaft of his cock, massaging his tightening balls.
“Move … I’m going to come.”
Penni tightened her lips around the head as he came, his body tautening as he bucked, driving him farther into her mouth.
She lifted her mouth off him when he stopped moving, and then Penni found herself sitting on his lap with Jackal trying to tug her shorts down.
She jumped to her feet, pulling her T-shirt down.
“Get back here.”
Penni shook her head, trying to calm her speeding heart. “I need to go. Lily has company coming in.”
Practically running to the stairs, she almost tripped over the first step.
“Sit your ass down on my dick. The only company you’re going to see is when I shove my dick up your pussy.”
Penni wanted to snap at him but couldn’t. Shade was standing at the top of the steps, about to come down.
“Sex Piston and her crew showed up early. Lily wanted me to tell you when you didn’t answer your text.”
Penni couldn’t remember where she had left her cell phone.
“Thanks.” She bounded up the steps two at a time as Shade moved away from the door.
Avoiding his eyes, she walked by him, pacing her steps, not wanting Shade to think she was running away.
“Coming?” she asked him.
“No, I usually hide out when they show up.”
Penni hesitated, worried that Shade and Jackal would have a confrontation. Jackal wouldn’t back down from a confrontation with her brother in the angry mood he was in.
“Go on. Lily’s waiting.”
Penni escaped. Jackal was on his own. She had her own problems, trying to push away the image of when he had climaxed.
She had never intended to go so far with Jackal, yet one touch of his slick flesh had her wanting more. It had become a compulsion, driving her to do something she had never performed on another man.
She wasn’t escaping because she had been embarrassed. Shade had been at the door and hadn’t seen anything. She had felt uncomfortable facing Jackal after the sexually-charged atmosphere had heightened, reaching a point that, if she had stayed there much longer, there was no doubt she wouldn’t have left the basement a virgin.
Train might not be attracted to her, but Jackal was.
Penni consoled herself. It wasn’t like she had any feelings for the man other than his body that she couldn’t keep from watching or the way he kissed that was like a shot to her needy libido. She was a red-blooded woman and had only hormones to blame.
“Damn.” The way he had looked when he had climaxed had aroused her never before she felt kitten instincts that had made her want to purr. The idea of Jackal being a scratching post had her gigging. A girl knew she was in trouble when she began seeing a man as catnip.
24
What the fuck just happened?
Jackal stood, closing his jeans and wanting to smash the workout machine against the wall. He’d had every intention of fucking Penni. When she had told him that she would know if Train was her soul mate when she made love to him, Jackal had known the only way to get her to care about him was in the bedroom.
That was why none of the men she had dated had lasted. A man could only handle so much of staring at her mouth and tight, little body before it drove him to lose reason.
Jackal wasn’t a betting man, but he would bet many of her dates had ended with the men having cold showers or in another woman’s pussy.
“Viper wants to talk to you and Hennessy in his bedroom. Hennessy is already there.”
When Shade’s face remained stoic, Jackal’s frustration got the best of him.
“You have something to get off your chest?” Jackal snapped.
“What should I say?”
“I know that camera at the door outside saw Penni and me fooling around.” Jackal had scoped out the clubhouse when he had arrived. There were cameras and alarms at every entrance, and the door to the outside of the basement was equipped with an alarm. That was how The Last Riders had kept Hennessy from escaping. Cruz and the other men would have been able to pack Hennessy downstairs, but Shade and Razer would have easily intercepted anyone who happened to make it through the door’s alarms. Viper had made sure the members were both protected and prepared.
“If you saw the camera, then you could see Viper turned it down toward the door.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“What do you want me to say? Penni’s an adult; she’s always kept her head on shoulders when it comes to men.”
“Because she’s got her sight on Train, and it wouldn’t help anything to jeopardize your friendship.”
“Is that what you think? You don’t know shit about Train. If he wanted Penni, our friendship wouldn’t matter. He’s flown countless missions, some which he fought on the ground after his helicopter crashed. If Train wanted Penni, I would be honored to accept him into my family.”
“Even though one of those crashes was his fault and killed six members in his crew?”
“If the government believed he was responsible for that crash, why would they hire him for a job overseas?”
“Train’s going overseas?”
“He leaves in two weeks.”
“Does Penni know?”
“No, it’s on a need to know basis. I’m sure you’ll tell her now.”
“You cold-blooded bastard, you should have told her. You know how she feels about him.”
“I’d think you would be happy Train is leaving.”
He was, and he wasn’t. He wanted Penni alone without her constantly looking for Train. He wanted her to choose him because she wanted him.
“So you want me to do your dirty work for you?”
“Other than being worried about Train being safe, why should she care? Why would she be so upset since you are together now?”
Shade was nobody’s fool.
“Does someone ever get over their first love?”
“Train wasn’t Penni first love.” Who in the hell was, then?
Jackal clenched his teeth. The woman better not have let another man touch her. He’d knock the—
“Train was a crush. If she really wanted him, nothing would stop her. If you are in a relationship with Penni, you’re the one who needs to be careful. A man who gets Penni is going to be getting more than they bargained for. And don’t think I don’t know you’re hiding y
our true colors from her. You’re a hot-headed son of a bitch. When she loosens her temper, she can be a handful, but make fucking sure, now that you’re in a relationship with her, your true colors don’t show, or you’ll be dealing me.”
“I’ve been dealing with her temper since I met her. Penni’s going to be a part of my life whether you like it or not.”
Shade shrugged. “I’m just giving you a warning. Whether you take it or not is up to you.”
“Since we’re all friendly and shit, I’ll give you my own warning: she’s going to be my property. If you interfere, I’ll take that as a sign of aggression against me and the Predators.”
“I don’t see any of your brothers backing you right now,” Shade mocked.
If he weren’t Penni’s brother, his snide comment would be the last sentence out of his mouth for the two months it took until his jaw healed. But he was, and Jackal had learned that, whenever Penni felt Shade or The Last Riders had been threatened, it took her a while to get over it.
“My brothers are exactly where I need them to be.”
“I’m sure King was glad to see some friends from home.”
Jackal didn’t deny that several of the Predators were watching The Last Riders. Ice might not be in Treepoint, but he wouldn’t leave Jackal without someone who could be there within minutes if he called.
“If we’re done shooting the shit, I’m going to see what Viper wants. Trying to argue with you is like trying to watch paint dry. It takes all day.”
Shade waved his hand toward the stairs, letting him go first. Jackal didn’t hesitate. If Shade attacked a man, he would do it facing him, not from his back.
Jackal knocked before entering Viper’s bedroom. Cash, Knox, Lucky, and Hennessy were in the room. The man whose presence surprised him was Ice.
Ice held out his hand and the brothers shook before taking the chairs surrounding the couch on the opposite side of the bed.
“Glad to see you,” Jackal said, taking a seat on the couch with Ice sitting next to him. “I didn’t think I would see you for a few more days.”
“Oceane died. Grace wants to stay with her father and brother. I was in the way, so I decided to get this business finished.” Ice’s expression was somber. Jackal knew how close Grace was to her parents.
