Zane (Inked Brotherhood Book 3)

by Jo Raven

  “I know what you need,” he whispers as he pumps his fingers in and out, ratcheting up the pressure inside me. “Move with me. Ride my hand. Come for me.”

  “Oh God.” My hips roll. I can’t believe I’m about to come like this, standing, braced against the wall of his living room. My body is a roaring rollercoaster of pleasure, the pressure mounting to the point of pain, and something inside me uncoils.

  I sob as the pleasure takes me apart, shatters me to a thousand pieces. My knees buckle, but he’s there, holding me up, his arm around my waist—crushing me to him so that I can feel how excited he is. He groans, and I clench again, gasping with aftershocks.

  “That was so hot,” he whispers, and I can hear the sound of a foil crinkling.

  That’s it, I think, my thoughts still hazy. He’ll enter me here and now, fuck me against the wall, and strangely the thought excites me, although a tiny voice in my head whispers that it’s probably how he fucks all those girls in bars and clubs. That now I’m turning into one more anonymous fuck for him, faceless. Run-of-the-mill.

  But as if reading my mind, he whispers in my ear, “There’s no one like you.” He shifts behind me. “I know you, too. Your scent. Your taste. Your hair. The moth on your back.”

  His hand nudges my legs apart, lifting my ass, and I squirm uneasily. “I trust you,” I whisper. “But I still want to see you. I want to see your face when you come.” And Jesus, I’ve never said things like that to anyone before. Never felt things like that.

  He says nothing, and my eyes sting. Then something large and thick slides over my seam. His cock sends delicious tremors through me as it strokes me on the outside. I want him inside me.

  Then he pushes into me, breaching me. “Hold on tight,” he whispers, and I bend my head, pressing my hands into the wall, as he plunges into me all the way. His thick length fills me up completely.

  I cry out.

  Pain. Pleasure. Pain. Pleasure.

  I’m going mad, my body shaking as I try to separate the sensations, but they keep mixing, confusing me.

  “Hold still,” he says and thrusts inside me, again and again, erasing the pain, turning it into mind-numbing pleasure.

  “I’ll fall,” I choke out, my muscles locking and quivering, my arms shaking.

  “You won’t.” His arm around my waist tightens. “I’ve got you.”

  Small explosions start in my core, ripples spreading, rolling over me, rising into waves, cresting and crashing.

  “Zane!” I come hard, the pleasure burning a fiery path up my spine.

  “That’s it,” he whispers, thrusting inside me, prolonging my orgasm. “Fly and let me catch you.”

  It does feel like flying. It’s as if my body is a cloud of shiny particles, hanging in dark space, the only sound my heartbeat and my ragged breathing. My head swims.

  His thrusts slow down. His arm around my waist tightens.

  “Zane?” He’s still fully hard. He still hasn’t come, and I expect him to start moving again. Find his pleasure.

  But he stills completely, the only movement the throbbing and twitching of his thick cock inside me.

  “Fucking hell,” he mutters.

  “What is it?” I want to turn, but he’s holding me so tightly pressed to his chest that I’m effectively immobilized. The haze is lifting off my mind, and several scenarios flash through my head. He realized he forgot to put on the condom. He’s caught in a flashback and doesn’t know who I am. He pulled a muscle in his back and can’t move. He got a cramp.

  Shut up, mind.

  Slowly Zane starts to pull out of me, and I moan at the friction inside, where I’m still super sensitive.

  Pain and pleasure. That could be the definition of what I have with Zane.

  When he’s finally out, he releases me, and I slump against the wall. I turn to face him, at long last, and find him standing there, hands fisted at his sides, his hard-on still sheathed in a condom.

  He glances down at it, then up at me, and his eyes are wide. “I… I need…” He makes a choking sound at the back of his throat, and worry turns my insides into ice.

  “What, Zane?”

  “Dammit. I need to see you, too.” He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. “See your face.”

  He stalks closer to me, cups my cheeks, his gaze dark with desire. Then he grabs my hips and starts walking me backward—toward his bedroom.

  My eyes blur. I stumble, and he catches me, always catches me when I’m about to fall. He lifts me, holds me up. I should be scared by the way I feel—this raw emotion filling my chest from side to side—but my heart feels strangely light.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zane

  I walk her backward into my bedroom, trying not to think too hard about what I’m doing. I mean, fuck, I had her exactly where I wanted her, where I’ve been trying to get her from the start. My way. How I’ve always done it in the dimly lit backrooms of bars, in toilet stalls, with chicks whose names I never knew.

  And I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go through with it. Couldn’t finish it.

  Dakota bumps into the doorframe, and I steady her, wrenching my thoughts to the here and now. She’s staring at me, those large blue eyes round and brimming with questions, one strap of her white dress off her shoulder, almost baring the sexy mound of her breast.

  My dick hardens more, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to groan out loud. I steer her toward my bed and push her down. I press my knee between her legs, and lean over her, touching her perfect lips, taking in every detail of her pretty face.

  I missed her. God, how I missed her during this weekend from hell. I want to map her body, draw it, cover it with my designs. Cover it with my body, my essence. Mark her as mine. I want to touch, and taste, and smell, and I want to push into her, spill into her.

  Make her mine.

  Christ, I can’t keep my head above the water anymore. I feel like I’m on a train that’s gone off the rails. Too fast. I’ve never done this before, this… relationship stuff. If this is what it is. Shit, I’m so out of my damn depth here.

  Then she reaches between us, wraps her small hand around my dick, and holy crap, I don’t care if I die tonight. My hips jerk, my stomach muscles tighten, all air leaves my lungs, and all I can think of is hammering into her.

  She shifts beneath me, parting her legs more, so she can press up. She’s naked under her dress, her panties gone, and I lift the soft fabric to see her, really look at her for the first time. I was right, she’s shaved, smooth and beautiful, open for me, her clit like a pearl inside an oyster, waiting for me to touch it, roll it between my fingers.

  Fuck, this girl is breathtaking. I trail my hand down her neck, over her breasts, watching her nipples pebble. I lift the dress higher and caress her flat stomach. I dip my thumb into her cute bellybutton, then continue the journey down.

  She moans when I touch her clit. She’s so wet from coming twice, and her slickness sends a jolt of painful need down my balls.

  Fuck.

  My fingers dip inside her, and she tightens around me immediately. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply her scent of arousal—salty caramel and smoke.

  Now. Yeah. Observing her face, seeing how her lovely features shift with every move of my fingers inside her, I know I can’t wait any longer. I pull out my fingers and grab my dick, positioning it at her opening and sinking into her heat in one slow thrust.

  Pressure is building fast behind my balls, so fast I can hardly breathe as I rock in and out of her, my thrusts going faster and faster. Her lips part, her brows lift as if in surprise. Don’t know why, but then she tightens around my cock like a fist, and her back bows right off the bed.

  She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and as her orgasm rips through her, I reach for her face, stroke her cheek.

  And cry out as pleasure crashes through me, taking over me. My body seizes with it, my lungs compress until I can’t breathe. Holy shit, I come so hard I see stars and comet
s, and the whole fucking galaxy.

  She’s at the center of it all, filling my vision until I can’t see anything else. Goddammit, I’m in love. I’ve fallen for her, and I’m in too deep.

  I should know better. Should keep to Zane’s Law. Never let anyone close because they’ll leave or die.

  Yeah. Too fucking late for that now.

  ***

  I’m lost in a dream memory of pain and terror, hands pawing me, voices screaming my name, when something breaks through. The dream shatters, and I groan, caught on the cusp between insanity and reality.

  Where am I? What happened? Why can’t I move?

  My teeth are grinding together, and I’m wrapped around something warm and soft. I blink crummy eyes and wait for my blurry vision to sharpen. I hope I haven’t done anything stupid while dreaming, because last night…

  Last night I was with Dakota. And she’s right here, curled in my arms. She has her back to me, the deathmoth tattoo barely visible in the gray light of dawn seeping through the window. I study the sweet curve of her shoulder, the pale expanse of her neck.

  Then she tenses, curls up tighter. A whimper escapes her.

  So this is what woke me up. Bad dream? I frown in the half-light, not sure what to do on this end of it, not being the one having the nightmare.

  Sometimes, back when I lived with Emma and had bad dreams, she’d wake me up and stroke my arm until I could breathe again.

  Uncharted territory.

  I reach up and cup Dakota’s shoulder, then stroke her arm. “Shh, it’s okay,” I whisper. “You’re okay. I promise.”

  She whimpers again, then jerks and twists around. Before I realize what’s going on, she’s turning in my arms, clutching me around the neck, nestling close.

  Shocked into stillness, I don’t move as she rests her head on my chest, her soft hair tickling. After a small eternity, she settles, and I wrap my arms around her again.

  Cuddling. On my bed. With a chick.

  Must be the end of the world. I wait for darkness to set in. For an earthquake to hit or a bomb to go off, calamity to strike, and take us both down.

  Nothing happens.

  I relax a little, and thread my fingers through her hair. “Are you okay?”

  She nods. “Nightmare.”

  “What about?”

  She swallows hard. I can feel her throat move. “Falling.”

  I tense. “Why are you so afraid of falling?”

  She says nothing.

  “Go back to sleep,” I whisper.

  “Don’t want to.” She sounds like a petulant child, and I smile in spite of myself. “Tell me about you.”

  “My life’s not a fairytale.”

  “Never said it was. I’m also building my folder on you, you know.”

  “You are?” There’s a pleasant catch in my chest, like a kiss at my very center. Oh, fuck. And the worst part is that I want to tell her. The whole sad story of my past. All that fucks up with my head. All I’ve lost and may still lose. “What do you wanna know?”

  “Why your cock is pierced,” she says.

  I choke on laughter. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting this. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” She nods gravely and looks down at my crotch. I’m naked, and, oh shit, I’m getting hard under her gaze. Her hand moves to the stud in my nipple, toying with it, and sensation tears through me, shooting straight into my dick, so that it tightens and rises against my stomach. “Tell me,” she says.

  No clue what she’s talking about. Fuck.

  “About the Jacob’s Ladder,” she goes on, still toying with the damn piercing. “Why did you put it in? Does it feel good when you have sex?”

  “I, uh…” Her hand trails down my chest to my cock, and how the hell am I supposed to think like this? “Yeah.”

  “So is that why you did it?”

  “No. Dakota… Oh shit.” Her hand now toys with the Jacob’s Ladder, tiny tugs and taps that make my body arch.

  “It must have hurt.”

  “Yeah. But I’m used to it.”

  Her hand pauses. “You like the pain.”

  My hips move restlessly. “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  Christ. “Sometimes I need it. Not much. Just a little.”

  “Is that why you cut your arms?”

  Oh hell. I clench my jaw and throw an arm over my face. Of course she noticed. “Yeah. I used to. Have you ever done it?”

  She doesn’t answer my question. Instead she asks another. “What about drinking?”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you often get drunk off your ass?”

  I shrug. My cock throbs in her hand. “Sometimes. Don’t need it when you’re here.” And ain’t that crazy?

  “Good.”

  Her hand clenches around my dick, and a long moan leaves my throat. “Christ, you’re killing me.”

  “How do the piercings feel when you get a blow job?” She moves down my body and licks the tip of my cock as if it’s her favorite cherry popsicle.

  “Ugh.” My mouth won’t work. My brain is exploding. Am I supposed to answer?

  “I guess we’ll find out,” she says and swallows my cock, taking it deep.

  Shit, so fucking good. She sucks on me, swirls her hot tongue on the underside, then pulls up licking the head and the small slit there. She takes me deeper again, her tongue playing with my piercings, and my hips come off the mattress.

  Oh yeah, baby. Damn. I won’t last five seconds. My balls lift and tighten, my dick swells and throbs in time to my racing heartbeat.

  I’m not in control, I realize. I’ve given it up to her. And she’s taking care of me. I reach down, stroke her hair off her face, and she winks at me. Her mouth curves into a smile, wrapped as it is around my cock, and my vision grays.

  I distantly hear myself groan, see my hips lift and jerk. Feel the cum shoot from my balls out my dick, burning me with pleasure. Feel like I’m falling, or flying, or hovering in space.

  When it’s over, after what feels like ages have passed and the world has resumed spinning, I lie there, panting like a lizard on a hot rock, my body boneless and heavy.

  Dakota is kneeling on the bed, eyeing me. I have to say something. Anything.

  “That was…” I lick my dry lips. “That was fucking awesome.”

  And I mean it. Never felt anything like it.

  “Because of the piercings?” She sits there, totally naked, sexy as fuck, and she’s asking me this?

  “Hell no. That was all you, babe.”

  She cocks her head to the side, smiling again. “Babe?”

  Oh shit. Slipping again. Me, giving cute pet names to my girl?

  And there it is. My girl. Girlfriend. Lover. Friend.

  “Come here.” I reach for her, and she crawls up to curl in the crook of my arm. She tilts up her face, and I kiss her, powerless to resist.

  “Come here, babe,” she mutters on my lips, and I laugh.

  Can’t count how many times she has made me laugh in these last days. More than I have in months.

  “My babe,” I whisper, and she captures my lips in another kiss.

  I’m still flying high. It’s warm and bright up here, and I don’t wanna look down. Those alarm bells? Let them ring inside my head. I don’t care.

  I’ll take my chances.

  ***

  It’s Wednesday, and work at Damage Control is slow. One of my customers calls to cancel, and I go out for a smoke. I send Dakota a text, asking how she’s doing, but get no reply. She was busy with a graphics project when I left home this morning.

  Home. Yeah, it’s starting to feel like home now, more than ever. The thought of finding another roommate is impossible. I want to ask her to move in with me. Maybe tonight, after dinner.

  If I manage to keep my hands off her long enough to keep my brain functioning.

  Smirking, I shove the cell in my back pocket. So okay, a tiny twinge of fear still jabs into my insides. I’m still out of my d
epth, still floundering, but Dakota doesn’t seem to mind. She laughs, pokes me in the ribs, tickles me, then kisses me and fixes everything in my world.

  She’s like magic glue. Pretty, sexy, crazy super glue that keeps me together when I think I’ll break down or lose it.

  I’ll buy her a fridge just for her popsicles. I’ll buy her lollipops so that her lips always taste like strawberry candy. I’ll…

  Fuck. I snort to myself and shake my head. I throw my cigarette stub to the sidewalk and step on it, then turn to go back inside, when my cell beeps with a message. Grinning, I pull it out.

  But it’s not from Dakota. It’s from Matt. An icy feeling grips my stomach. Good news? No way. I open and read it. It’s short and just asks if I can talk.

  I’m still staring at it, trying to gather the courage to call him, when the door of the shop swings open, and Rafe steps out.

  “Hey.” He ambles over to me, hands in his pockets. “Got a minute?”

  Can’t find my voice. Mind still caught on the message. Maybe it is good news. Why the hell not? Why does my mind have to go directly to the bad? Maybe Emma is better. Maybe there’s been a miracle. Medical miracles happen all the time.

  “Z-man?” Rafe is watching me, eyes narrowed.

  “What?”

  “Relax, man. The guys and I just want to ask if you could talk to Dylan.”

  “Talk?” I can’t form a coherent sentence. My mind feels torn into ribbons. My thoughts are threadbare.

  “Yeah, talk to him. Ask him what is wrong. He won’t talk to us, but he’ll talk to you. You know that.”

  I look down at my cell. I have to call Matt. No choice. “Okay.”

  “Good.” Rafe nods, still giving me a suspicious look. “You all right?”

  I press my lips together and shake my head.

  “Zane—”

  “Not now, fucker.”

  “But you—”

  “Not now, dammit.”

  Rafe scowls. “I’ve been asking for months, dammit. We look after each other. You said—”

  “Fuck what I said. Fuck everyone.” My blood burns. My chest is tight. “I can’t look after anyone. So why don’t you fuck the hell off.”