by Alexa Riley
I might have had reason, but hurting people just isn’t me. I’ve spent a big chunk of my life learning to heal, and this is something that will sit with me for a while. I make my way over to the dresser and dig through the contents. I find a pair of boxers and pull them on. I have to roll the top a million times just so they won’t fall off me. I’ve rolled them so much they don’t really help with hiding my legs like I wanted.
I dig into another drawer and find a shirt. I slide it on. Marines is written across the chest, and it hits almost to my knees, covering a lot more than my shirt did. Was Lucias a Marine? I really don’t know much about this man. When he came into the clinic, I avoided him because of the things he made me feel. He also scared me a little after the run-in I’d had with a few motorcycle guys my brother brought home.
Part of me wants to chastise myself for grouping him in with the men I’d seen with my brother, but I also need to remember Lucias had plans to hurt my brother. That he’d sent someone to break into my home, and now I’m locked in his bedroom and he keeps referring to me as his property. I want to smack him every time he says it, and I’m not sure if it’s because I like it, which makes me mad, or that I’m just mad at him for saying it.
I start searching through all his drawers looking for something to pick the lock with. I come up empty. The only things he seems to have in here are clothes, a few handguns, and his laptop. I’m oddly happy that all I find in his night stand is a handgun and not a half empty box of condoms. In fact, I don’t find any at all. Either he was telling the truth about not bringing women here, or he just doesn’t use protection.
Pushing my jealous thoughts aside, I go back to the task at hand. Opening the top drawer on his desk, I do a fist pump when I find a stack of paper tacked together with a paper clip. I straighten the clip out, go to the lock, and start picking. This is one useful skill my brother taught me.
It takes me a few tries but the lock finally turns. I open the door and see a small pregnant blonde women standing in the adjacent doorway, the same one I’d seen her poke her head out of last night. I freeze, not sure what to do.
“You’re not going to make a run for it, are you?” she asks as she rubs her baby belly.
“No?” It comes out more like a question, but I honestly don’t plan on running.
She eyes me. “I can’t go chasing you. I could hurt myself, and that would upset my husband.”
“Which one do you belong to?” I don’t know why I ask. Like it matters which one. The wrath of any of them wouldn’t be good.
“The handsome one.” She says it all dreamily, as if I’ll know which one is the handsome one. They’re all nice on the freaking eyes except for—
“You know. The one who grunts a lot and can’t be missed,” she finishes, as if reading my mind. Then it clicks together. I’d heard them talking in the hallway last night. Her husband is Savage. Definitely the last person’s wrath I’d want to suffer.
She’s so freaking tiny. I can’t even picture the two of them together, but it’s clear he put a baby inside her.
“I just wanted to check on Casper,” I tell her, hoping she’ll let me be on my way.
“I heard you shot her! Man, I bet she was mad.” She half smiles like it’s funny.
“Ah, yeah. I didn’t mean to. I…“ I stumble over my words, unsure what to make of this whole backwards conversation. “Do you know where I can find her?”
“Probably in her room. Chained to her bed with Vincent’s face between her legs if the moaning I’ve been hearing for the last hour is any indication.” She points to a door down the hallway.
“She really shouldn’t be doing that.”
The blonde starts giggling. “Nothing in this whole world can keep Vincent off Casper. He’d burn this place to the ground if someone tried.”
I just give a wan smile. How else am I supposed to respond to that? Men around here are clearly obsessed with their women. It’s oddly sweet and not something I would have expected from a motorcycle club, but a lot of what I’ve been seeing since I got here hasn’t exactly been expected.
“If you see her or this Vincent guy come up for air, will you let her know I’d like to check on her? Make sure no infection is setting in or anything,” I ask as I start to make my way down the hallway before the little blonde tells me to get back into my room.
“Yeah.” Just as I’m about to pass her, she reaches out and grabs my arm. “He’s a good guy. He won’t hurt you. They’re all bark and no bite when it comes to the women they care about.”
I just nod. Maybe she’s forgotten I’m being held hostage. I haven’t been hurt, but still.
“Vincent works for the FBI. Don’t go trying to escape. He’ll make sure no one believes a word that comes out of your mouth if you try to run to the police,” she says, dropping her hand from around my arm.
“Dirty cop.” I throw back at her, not liking her threat. I get it, but I still don’t like it.
“Vincent would do anything for Casper, and Casper loves this club. That means protecting it. If you call taking care of something you love ‘dirty’ then I guess we all are.” With that, she turns and shuts the door, leaving me alone in the hallway.
10
Lucias
By the time Savage and I get back to the clubhouse, it’s almost dawn and all I want to do is go to my room and crawl into bed with Izzy. It feels good knowing she’s there. Something I’d been wanting for months is finally at my fingertips. We found Pinch held up with some strung-out chick on the outskirts of town. He’d gone there in an attempt to hide when he got out of jail. When Savage and I kicked in the door, the little shit started begging for his life. He knew what was coming. Time was up.
We let his girl go, and she was all too eager to ditch him and make off with their stash of drugs. We let her run thinking this was the end of the line for him. We needed her to spread the word so that things got left alone and I could keep my promise to Izzy. People would think Pinch was dead.
We did manage to get in a few punches without causing too much damage. He needed some kind of retribution for all he’d done to fuck over the Ghost Riders. He was coming in as a prospect and got just enough information to sell it to the highest bidder. The kid was fucking smart. And real fucking stupid.
I crack my knuckles as we walk in, thinking about the beating he took. Cried like a bitch, but I think we got the message across. I made sure he knew that Izzy was mine and that he didn’t need to think about coming back for her anymore. I explained that the club had decided to give him a gift and he could keep his life, but if any of us so much as saw his shadow, he was going underground.
He agreed to get out of town and never come back as long as he knew his sister would be looked after. I guess some part of him deep down may have still cared for her, but not enough to put up much of a protest. Personally, I think he’d been waiting for someone to either take him out or end his situation, and he seemed ready to take the out.
“You talk to Julie?” I ask Savage as we walk into the club house.
“Yeah. She went to her mom and dad’s and got little A.J. I’m going to meet her at home since this shit’s taken care of. You cool if I head out?”
I pat him on the back as I pass him, going to my office. “Yeah, go be with your family. We’ll catch up later.”
Hearing him take off, the exhaustion pulls at me. The sun is coming up, but I’ve been up all night, and all I want to do is go upstairs and find Izzy and fall into bed with her.
I need to go into my office and check in with Scribe before I do that, so I make my way over. When I get to the closed door, I reach for the knob and before I can turn it, I hear Izzy laugh. I know that laugh because she’s given it to Ham before. She loves that damn dog, and it makes me so unreasonably jealous I could spit nails. Suddenly a rage is rolling over me and I jerk open the door, wanting to know who she’s giving her laughs to.
Izzy is on the couch in my office playing on a computer on her lap, Ham next to her
. Scribe is sitting in a chair on the other side of the room on his laptop, too. When they hear me enter, they both look up for a split second and then go back to their laptops like I’m not even here.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Just got done raiding,” Scribe says not looking up. “Do you know who you brought here? One of the best Paladin healers on Mal’Ganis. I can’t fucking believe it. We’ve been raiding all night. She’s incredible.” He looks up and winks at Izzy, making me narrow my eyes at him.
“Mal’Ganis?” I say the word, oblivious to what the fuck it means.
“Warcraft,” Izzy says, still not looking up. “You know, For the Horde!”
“I don’t care what she is. She’s not raiding nothing with you.”
I feel like I could climb over my desk and rip out his throat, so I go to do it, but I feel Izzy’s hand on my arm. She’s dressed and has her glasses on now, and I guess that means Scribe got her shit and gave it to her.
“How’d it go?” she whispers and looks to Scribe and then to me. “Everything okay?”
I see worry in her eyes and immediately I want to comfort her. All my anger melts away and I want to make her feel better. I put my hand on her cheek and nod. “Yeah. As promised. It’s taken care of.”
She releases a breath as if she’s been holding it the whole time, and I feel as if I’ve done something right. For the first time in a long time, I feel like someone is proud of me. I haven’t had that feeling since I was a Marine, and it feels pretty damn good. Running a motorcycle club is a thankless job. There’s a ton of shit to do and keep up with, and nobody is ever stopping to give you a pat on the back. It’s tiring, but I’ve got it good here, so I try to focus on that. But right now, seeing how Izzy is looking at me, it feels like for the first time I mean something to someone. Maybe it’s because she’s grateful, and maybe it’s because she feels this crazy connection that’s been running between us the past few months. Either way, I’m selfish enough to take it however I can get it.
Pulling her to me, I feel her softness melt against me, and I need more.
“Scribe, get out.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He stands, bringing his laptop with him, and he’s out of my office in point three seconds. I can’t help but laugh. I don’t think he looked up from his laptop the whole way out.
“You been up all night doing whatever shit that is with Scribe?” I feel myself get mad again, but she just smiles and nods.
“Yeah. Knox is actually pretty good.”
I hate the way she says his name, and I feel myself grinding my teeth.
“Maybe I’ll teach you how to play sometime.”
There’s a hopeful sound in her voice. She’s talking about things like there’s a future. I like it. A lot.
“You broke out of my room.” It’s a statement, not a question, but she answers anyway.
“I did. But I didn’t leave.”
Pulling her even closer, I look deep into her soft eyes. “Why not?”
Her hands come up and rest on my chest, and I feel her warmth through my T-shirt.
“I made a promise, Lucias. I’m all yours, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“Come to bed with me,” I whisper, needing to hear her say yes.
She bites her full bottom lip and then gives me what I want. The little nod is all it takes and I’m throwing her over my shoulder and carrying her up the stairs. I hear Ham following us, and I can’t help but laugh. Yeah, I’d follow her anywhere she went, too, buddy.
11
Izzy
Lucias sets me down on the edge of the bed, dropping to his knees between my legs. I have to part them to accommodate his wide frame.
“I told myself I didn’t care. I was going to take what you offered but…” He reaches out, running his thumb across my cheek, then drops his hand. He looks a little unsure of himself. It’s a look I’ve never seen on him before. In all the times he’s come into the clinic, even when I shot his date request down, he’d still just smile at me and nod, then do it all over again the next week.
“Tell me you aren’t just doing this because I saved your brother’s ass and got him out of town. Tell me you want this.”
“I want this.” The words come easily because they’re true. I’ve been fighting this for months now. Scared that this man could hurt me, not because of his lifestyle, but because of my heart. I’d put a label on him and judged. And I loved that he had no problems proving me wrong and knocking down each wall I’d put up between us.
I just can’t see how we could fit together, and maybe we won’t past tonight, but I’m taking this.
He pulls me from the bed, sliding me into his lap and making me straddle him. His mouth takes mine, and the kiss is soft and sweet as his tongue slips past my lips. It’s not what I was expecting to get from him when he pulled me from the bed like he needed me on him that instant. But the tension I feel in his body tells me that he’s holding back, and I don’t want him to.
I use one hand to grip his shirt and pull him closer, wanting no space between us. There’s been months of space between us, and I don’t want even a sliver of it there now. My other hand goes to his hair as I wiggle against him, deepening the kiss, pushing myself into him. I feel the ridge of his cock against me, and I start to move on it.
Lucias growls into my mouth as he picks me up and my back hits the bed. He comes over me, never breaking contact with my lips. I wrap my legs around him, wanting the delicious feeling of him against me.
“Fuck. Slow down, slow down,” Lucias pleads, pulling his mouth from mine and burying his face in my neck. I know he’s talking to himself, and I feel a feminine power come over me at the knowledge that I’m able to put this man on edge. I barely know what I’m doing here and he seems like he’s about to lose it. I pull at his shirt, wanting to be skin to skin, needing the contact more than my next breath.
I don’t know why he wants to slow down. I want this. Now. This has been building for months, and it’s all crashing down on me.
“Lucias, please,” I beg. Oh, how the tables have turned in the past twenty-four hours. I’ve gone from wanting to be nowhere near him to not wanting any space between us.
He grabs my hands, which were trying to rip the shirt from his body, and pins them above my head.
“Baby, you have to give me a second.”
“Frak, Lucias, we’ve had months.” I can hear the pout in my own voice, a voice coated with need.
He drops his forehead to mine, taking a few deep breaths. “How does everything that comes out of your mouth sound so fucking cute and sexy at the same time?”
I lick my lips and wiggle against him, making him do that growl thing again. I didn’t even know a man could make that kind of noise.
“I’m on edge, baby. When I got back here I was still a little hyped up, then I saw you laughing with Scribe, which made me jealous as fuck. I wanted to drag him from the room and beat the shit out of him because he made you laugh. He’s my brother and I wanted to lay him out. I didn’t give a shit.”
He lets out a ragged breath and keeps going.
“Then you’re saying shit like ‘For the Horde’ and ‘frak.’ I don’t even know what that hell it means and it’s getting me harder.”
My breath catches.
“I get you up in my room and you’re finally saying what I’ve been wanting you to say for fucking months. Months! Dreaming of this, wanting this, walking around with a hard-on I can’t seem to get to go down no matter how many times I take myself in hand. But I keep trying because it’s the only option I’ve got. Because if it isn’t you, it’s no one. I knew that from the moment I saw you.”
He wants me to calm down and go slow, but that isn’t going to help. It’s only making things worse. The more he keeps talking, the more I want him. The more I fall over the edge for him.
“And those fucking glasses. You kill me with those. I’ve been picturing you in nothing but those glasses and one of those messy hair buns
you do on the top of your head, laid out on my bed. Me pulling your hair free as I slide my cock in and out of you, making love to you.”
“You can do that. Right now, Lucias.” I want him so bad. He’s making me fall in love with him the more he talks, and I believe him. It’s not like he’s trying to get me anymore. I’m throwing myself at him and I couldn’t be more of a sure thing. He’s having to hold my hands down so I don’t attack him.
“I know, baby. That’s the thing. I want this to be perfect. I want to go slow and savor every moment of it.”
“Okay,” I agree, taking one of those deep breaths.
“Now. We’re going to strip these clothes off you and make the fantasy I’ve been having for the past two months a reality. And it starts with me tasting every inch of your body.”
12
Lucias
I pull Izzy up so she’s sitting in the middle of the bed. Reaching down, I pull off her navy-blue T-shirt that has a picture of a dog on it and reads Pugs Not Drugs. I can’t help but smile at it and then moan as I see she’s got on a soft, pink, lacy bra underneath.
The sight of her creamy skin against the pale lace has me panting. Reaching down to her waist, I pull off her shorts and see she’s wearing matching panties, too. With her hair piled up on top of her head and those dark-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, it’s all I can do not to blow a load in my pants. She looks like a cross between a naughty schoolteacher and an innocent virgin.
Putting my head in my hands I rub my eyes, and look back to her.
“How are you real?” I whisper.
She smiles ruefully, and in a sultry move spreads her legs wide. When I see the wet spot on her panties, I snap.
Diving face first into her pussy, I pick up her hips, and she flops back on the bed with a moan. I throw her legs over my shoulders and press my mouth against the pink lace. I can smell her through the material, and I can even get a hint of taste through it. Her sweet fragrance drives me past the point of control and I start to eat at her panty-covered pussy.
