What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 4)

by Selena Kitt

  “If you don’t give me back that drink, you’ll be getting something in your stomach, and it won’t be food.” Hands on her hips, she took what she hoped was a menacing step forward.

  Two Step laughed, but his smile faded when Val handed her another glass.

  “Her hand was empty,” Val said with a shrug. “This is a party.”

  As if on cue, someone turned up the music, and Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter” blasted through the speakers.

  “Christ.” Two Step spun away with a speed that belied his heavy frame, shouting as he stalked toward the sound system. “Who’s responsible for the noise pollution? Where’s my metal?”

  “Thanks.” Marcy clinked glasses with Val. “Sometimes he gets a tad overprotective.” She’d never told Val what Two Step had seen that day he’d come to check on her after Preston left, although Val was pretty open-minded. Some secrets were better left buried.

  They spent an hour catching up with the fighters. Tara and Lou had become a couple. Silvia and Stan had broken up. A few of the guys had new jobs, and some had been laid off. The Jackal was getting a divorce and wanted to know good pickup places. Val suggested he come by the sporting goods shop and hang out in aisle six, where she’d seen a couple making out beneath the cups. Marcy jabbed her in the side with her elbow, but Val was laughing too hard to care.

  When the sun went down, Two Step turned on the outdoor lights and set up a makeshift fight ring. He offered a bottle of his best bourbon to anyone who could take him down. No takers. Two bottles?

  “Make it whiskey and I’m in.”

  Marcy sucked in a sharp breath at the sound of Jax’s voice, then stiffened when he came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I heard it’s your favorite drink.” His voice was a low murmur in her ear, sending ripples of pleasure down her spine.

  “You’re going to fight Two Step?” Marcy shot him an incredulous glance over her shoulder. He was so close she could feel the heat from his body, smell the intoxicating scent of his cologne.

  “No one else wants to do it.”

  “Doesn’t that tell you something?” She had to fight the urge to brush her lips over his cheek. “They’re fighters. They see Two Step every day, and they won’t get in the ring with him.”

  “Tells me if I want to win, I’d better get moving.” His hand slid down her arm, warm on her cool skin, and he gave her elbow a squeeze before joining Two Step in the makeshift ring.

  “Oh. My. God.” Val fanned herself with her hand. “That was seriously hot. He is so into you. Lookit him over there getting all ready to do the primal male thing and prove himself to you. Too bad it’s gonna be so painful to watch. Two Step will crush him like a bug.”

  Marcy was looking. In fact, she couldn’t look away. She’d thought he’d decided the training wasn’t going to work after he’d cut their practice short earlier this evening. Maybe he’d had a change of heart.

  Her pulse kicked up a notch when Jax and Two Step stripped off their shirts. God, he was breathtaking, all taut pecs and a six-pack for real. Although they wouldn’t be doing many moves in their jeans. She indulged herself for a moment, imagining stripping off his jeans, sliding her hands over that tight ass, sinking to her knees, and taking him in her mouth.

  “Uh … hello.” Val jabbed her in the side. “You keep looking at him like that and he’s gonna think you want to eat him up.”

  “I do.”

  What the fuck was he doing?

  Jax leaned forward, hands on his knees, drawing in a deep breath. When he’d been fighting full time, he’d been a middleweight, at least eighty pounds lighter than Two Step. And although he’d stayed in shape and kept up his skills, he was no match for a heavier fighter in his prime. Already every part of his body ached, and he doubted he’d make it out of bed in the morning if he even made it out of the ring. And they’d only been fighting for a few minutes. But when he’d walked into the yard and spotted Marcy in that little black dress, her hair fanned out across her back, Two Step calling out his challenge, something in him had snapped. He wanted to show her he wasn’t just a coach. He was a fighter, too.

  “Tapping out?” Arms folded, Two Step grinned from the corner of the ring.

  Bastard wasn’t even winded.

  Jax mustered all the bravado he could, given the screaming pain in his ribs. “Giving you time to come to your senses.”

  Two Step chuckled. “I got nothing to prove.” He looked over Jax’s shoulder at Marcy, standing at the edge of the ring. “You do.”

  He straightened, biting back the flush of humiliation at being so easily read. “That’s not—”

  “Looks like you’re ready to keep going.” Two Step lunged forward, sweeping Jax’s leg from under him. He hit the grass and rolled before Two Step could get his back, then jumped to his feet. Unbelievably, Two Step was wide open. Jax hit him with a right cross followed by a left hook, and Two Step went down hard.

  “Fuck.” Jax bent down beside him. “What’s going on? I didn’t hit you that hard.”

  Two Step tapped the grass, indicating he was conceding the fight to Jax, then rubbed his jaw. “You owe me, brother. Big-time.”

  “You threw the fight for me?” He helped Two Step to his feet as the fighters around them cheered.

  Two Step’s gaze flicked to Marcy and then back to Jax. “Not for you. For my baby girl. Told you. We’re a family here. We look out for each other. Can’t have her thinking she’s hooking up with a guy who can’t hold his own in a fight.”

  “We’re not—”

  “You’d better be.” Two Step’s eyes narrowed as Marcy joined them in the ring. “Or else you owe me a fight.”

  Jax thought she’d go to Two Step first. After all, he’d supposedly taken two hits that had knocked him to the ground. But it was Jax she spoke to first.

  “Congratulations. No one’s ever taken Two Step down.” She traced a finger over his bicep, and all his blood rushed to his groin.

  “For a while there, I thought you were in trouble.” Her finger lingered on his skin, and with adrenaline still coursing through his veins after the fight, it was everything he could do to keep his hands by his sides. “I thought you were … just a coach.”

  He didn’t want to lie. “Marcy, I…”

  Two Step cleared his throat and drew a warning finger across his neck, mafia-style, drawing Marcy’s attention.

  “You okay?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “All good. Just didn’t see that one coming.”

  “Indeed.”

  Jax shot Two Step a questioning look. He couldn’t tell if Marcy knew or not, and if she did, what she thought of Two Step’s performance. She was very difficult to read. But then, so was he.

  Two Step just shrugged and gestured at the makeshift bar on a picnic table in the corner. “Your prize is over there. Make sure she eats between shots, otherwise she gets a bit crazy.”

  “Two Step!”

  He widened his eyes in mock surprise at her outburst. “What? Have you forgotten the beach barbeque last year when you decided to go swimming naked outta bounds? Or the time you decided to drag race with Susie down that country lane behind Stan’s place? Or how ’bout that time you told the cops—”

  “Enough.” She blushed and pressed her lips together. Jax’s stomach tightened. He wanted to be the one to put that flush in her cheeks, and now that he suspected they might share a kink, he could think of a dozen ways to put it there, none of them involving words.

  “Sounds like you lead an exciting life.” Jax pressed a hand against her lower back and led her toward the picnic table. Despite his best intentions, he couldn’t help curling his fingers into the curve of her narrow waist. His cock stiffened, and he dropped his hand. Fuck. Maybe showing up tonight wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Authority issues.” She laughed lightly and chatted with a fighter at the bar who procured the promised bottles, one for each of them, giving Jax a wink after Marcy had turned away.

/>   “Name’s Lou. Heard about you coming to help us out. Good fight … I think.”

  Jax gritted his teeth. “I didn’t really…”

  Lou cut him off with a laugh. “It’s how we do things here. We got each other’s backs. You’ve been at lots of clubs. I’m sure it’s the same.”

  “Actually, it isn’t,” Jax said. “A lot of clubs I’ve worked at have been highly competitive, everyone looking out for themselves, because ultimately it’s one person and not the team in the ring. But this club”—he looked around at the crowd spread across every inch of Two Step’s lawn—“is a real team. This kind of support can make the difference between a mediocre fighter and a great one.”

  “Family.” Lou smiled. “We’re a family. Not just a team.”

  Jax nodded. Excelsior was the kind of club he had trained in when he had first started fighting: small enough to be supportive, but big enough to attract good quality fighters and coaches. His disenchantment with the fight world had started only after he’d joined a larger, more competitive club. Now, as he looked around at the Excelsior “family,” he wondered if that kind of support would have made a difference, not only when he’d lost his mother and sister, but also when he’d suffered the knock-out punch that ended his career.

  “Hey, you okay?” Marcy slipped her hand around his arm, and his moment of melancholy dissolved in a rush of heat that shot straight to his groin.

  “Yeah.” He nodded at the open bottle in her hand. “Drinking it straight, I see. No glass for you.”

  Marcy laughed and his chest tightened. “I was about to pour when I saw you with Lou. You looked kinda lost in thought for a second.”

  He raised an eyebrow to hide his discomfort at being caught out. “I was wondering what was taking you so long with the drinks.”

  Warm and throaty, her laugh did strange things to his stomach. He reached out and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering on the soft curve of her jaw, and in that moment, something changed in the air between them. Marcy’s eyes darkened, and she licked her lips, that lovely blush spreading across her cheeks.

  “You want to take this bottle to my place?”

  Jax didn’t even try to dissemble. Didn’t waste a moment wondering if this was the right thing to do. If the looks they were getting from Marcy’s teammates were anything to go by, he already had the Club Excelsior stamp of approval.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Six

  His arms were around her before she had even closed the front door.

  Pulling her into his body, Jax groaned and covered her lips with his. Hot and hungry, his tongue swept into her mouth, leaving no inch untouched, a promise of what was to come.

  “Jax. Wait.” She tried to pull away. “Let me close the door.”

  Without releasing her, he shifted position, backing her against the door, stopping only when it closed with a loud bang.

  Marcy grimaced. “The neighbors aren’t going to like that.”

  “They’re not going to like listening to you scream with pleasure, either.” Jax nuzzled her neck. “And that’s what’s going to happen next.”

  “Someone is overly confident in his abilities.” She fought to repress a smile as she met his half-lidded gaze.

  “Realistic.”

  Marcy melted. She’d never been with a man as confident as Jax. Or as sexual. Everything about him, from the way he moved his body to the husky timbre of his voice, to the firm, unyielding press of his lips, suggested he wasn’t lying. And, oh god, she was dying to find out if that was true.

  Her words came out in a whisper. “Show me.”

  But his hands were already at her hips, tugging up her dress as he deepened the kiss. Almost frantic with need, Marcy yanked open his belt and worked the buttons of his fly, her fingers trembling with an urgency she didn’t understand. Sure, it had been a while since she’d been with a guy, but she wasn’t desperate. And it wasn’t like he was about to cut and run like Preston. He didn’t know anything about her secret desires, and he never would.

  “Fuck.” Jax slammed her against the door and slid his fingers along the edge of her panties. “You got any sentimental attachment to these?”

  “No.” She brushed her lips over the stubble on his jaw, shuddering at the tiny burst of pain.

  Jax tore her panties away with one firm tug, and her breath caught in her throat. Even when Preston had agreed to give her kink a try for one night, sex had never been like this. Raw, wild, uninhibited. She had a feeling if she growled and bit Jax, he would bite her back. Her mouth watered at the thought, and for a moment, the words danced on the tip of her tongue. Bite me. Hurt me. Spank me. Whip me. But years of suppressing her desires made her hold them back.

  Swallowing hard, she shoved his jeans down his thighs, then freed his erection from his boxers. His cock, thick and hard, bounced in her direction, and she wrapped her fingers around him and squeezed. Jax groaned and covered her hand with his own, tightening her fingers around his shaft.

  “Condom. Back pocket.”

  With her free hand, Marcy reached around and found the condom. “Convenient.”

  “I aim to please.”

  She gave him one last hard stroke, then released him to open the condom. “And please you do.”

  He threaded his hand through her hair, tightening his grip as she rolled the condom over his erection. A burst of pleasure-pain shot straight to her clit, and she bit back a moan. He seemed to know what she liked without her telling him. Maybe he would see into the darkest recesses of her heart and make her dreams come true.

  She’d only just finished unrolling the condom when Jax cupped her ass and lifted her against his hips, bracing her against the wall as he commenced a full-on assault with his mouth. Forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, and lips. Nothing was left untouched. His hand cupped her breast, squeezing through the cotton of her dress, his thumb gliding back and forth until her nipple peaked beneath her bra. She wanted his hands on her skin, his lips and teeth on her nipple, but with the zipper at her back and his cock prodding at her entrance, she wasn’t prepared to wait.

  “I want you inside me. Now.” With her arms around his neck, she levered herself up. Jax pulled back and slid one hand between her thighs and over the curve of her sex.

  “Who’s in charge?”

  Who’s in charge? Did he know how long she’d yearned to hear those words? To have someone who knew what he was doing take control? To give herself over in trust? Was Jax the kind of man who could dominate in bed, or was he just playing around?

  Swallowing hard, she said, “You.”

  He gave a satisfied grunt and pressed his lips against her ear. “Yes, that’s right. Me. You do what I say when I say, and you get only what I want to give.”

  Marcy shuddered, and her pussy slicked with heat at his tone: firm, commanding, unyielding. No, Jax wasn’t playing around, and she held her breath, waiting for more.

  “Are you ready for me?” He stroked along her soaked folds, then pressed one finger deep inside her. A low guttural groan was the only answer she could give as he withdrew.

  “Good girl.” Jax’s fingers curled into her ass, and he lifted her, then slammed her down hard over his cock.

  Marcy gasped. Oh god. So big. So thick. His shaft pressed against her inner walls, and she felt at once unbearably stretched and deliciously full. But before she could adjust to his size, he lifted her and slammed her down again. This time, it was all pleasure. So much pleasure moisture flooded her sex, and she tightened around him.

  “Fuck, yes.” He lifted her again, sliding her up against the cool wood surface, the head of his cock teasing her entrance. And then he thrust in deep and hard, yanking her down until he was in so deep the tip of his cock hit her cervix. Marcy clutched at his shoulders and moaned.

  “Take it.” His voice dropped to a husky growl as he lifted her and pulled her down again. “Open for me and take it all until there isn’t an inch of your pussy I haven’t touched. I w
ant you, Marcy. I want you to be utterly and completely mine.”

  And then he was hammering into her, using her momentum and the thrust of her hips to drive deeper, thrust harder, sending her desire spiraling out of control.

  “Don’t stop, Jax. Don’t stop.”

  He stopped, his cock buried deep inside her, his chest heaving, slicked in sweat. “Who’s in charge?”

  She panted the words, the ache in her pussy overshadowing her fear that what was so arousing to her was only a game to him. “You are.”

  “That means I decide if we stop.”

  She gritted her teeth and nodded. If he didn’t move in the next thirty seconds, she was going to kill him.

  “Say it.” His quiet command sent her pulse racing.

  “You decide if we stop.”

  He studied her for a long moment, then pulled out in one long, slow movement, until the head of his cock rested just inside her slit, enough to tease but not enough to satisfy. A whine escaped her lips, and she rocked against him.

  “Shhh, I’ll take care of you.” Bracing her against the wall, he slid one hand between them and spread her moisture up and around her clit, his thumb circling closer and closer but never touching where she needed it most. When every muscle in her body had tightened, her need to climax so great she was prepared to beg, he thrust into her hard and fast, then pinched her clit between his thumb and forefinger, sending her tumbling over the edge before she could catch her breath.

  Marcy screamed into his shoulder as pleasure crashed through her in thunderous waves, rippling out to her fingers and toes, fuzzing her brain until she tasted the tang of blood and realized she’d bitten him.

  But if he noticed, he gave no sign. Instead, he pounded into her, drawing out the last waves of her orgasm. Jax stiffened inside her and came with a shout, his fingers digging into her ass.

  Heart thudding, Marcy sagged against Jax’s chest and inhaled the scents of sweat and sex and the sharp, fresh tang of his cologne. If this was the only time, she wanted to remember everything. Every touch. Every taste. Every sound. Every scent. And the sheer blissful feeling of letting someone else take control.