It fucking grated me that Piper looked so damn calm. All of them did.
I wasn’t even breathing right.
Piper met my eyes and kinda sighed.
“You gonna waste our time here?” he said. “Make me talk you down from doin’ somethin’ you really don’t wanna do and you’re just gonna regret?”
“Why? ’Cause now you’re the good conscience fairy?”
“I don’t give a fuck about your conscience. But you take this any further, my brother loses a good man on his crew. Your woman loses her bodyguard. And for what? Him?” He glanced at Sanchuk. “That right there is a man who knew the consequences of his actions before he took them, and so do you. So I’m askin’ you. You think this is worth it? Worth losing her over?”
I rubbed a hand over my face. He was talking sense, and I really fucking didn’t like it. He was also talking bullshit. He didn’t give a fuck about me and Summer riding off into the sunset together any more than he cared about my conscience.
He just wanted me to leave him in this room with the dirty little enemy rat who’d burrowed up into his territory.
“Walk away,” Piper said evenly, “and I promise you, I will take care of it.”
“Like you took care of it last time.”
“Last time, he slipped your man, not mine.”
I looked at the five bikers standing in front of me.
Piper walked over to me and I let him take the shiv from my hand. I also let him get in my face. “This isn’t your scene, Sterling.” His words were forceful, but oddly sympathetic. “Take. Off.”
And finally, I backed down. The adrenalin dump was already making me shaky.
I felt sick.
Because Piper was right. I didn’t belong in this situation. I was different than them. I couldn’t follow through with anything worse than I’d already done here.
And that meant the Kings still had a part to play in this whether I liked it or not.
I needed them. Even though I didn’t want to.
Maddox picked up his drill. I saw one of Piper’s guys, wearing gloves, wiping my prints from the remote.
Then Maddox said, “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
He basically removed me from the room… as Sanchuk begged us not to leave. He wanted to negotiate. He’d promise never to come near Summer. He’d give up every Bloody Bastard he knew and his mama too if we’d just stay and talk.
But Piper was right. He was a man who knew the consequences of every bad decision he’d ever made, and he’d made a hell of a lot of them.
That wasn’t on me.
I still felt fucking sick.
The door shut behind us like a bad omen.
I did not like the way we were leaving this. But I couldn’t see it ending any other way.
I followed Maddox out to his van, and along the way, I texted Andre.
Me: Where are you?
Andre: At the club. What’s the situation?
Me: Neutralized. I’ll talk to Brody and Naveen.
Me: Take Summer home. Now. Wait for me there.
Andre: What do I tell her?
Me: Tell her it’s not negotiable.
We got into the van, and I said, “Take me to Summer’s.”
“You good?” Maddox asked me. Like we were suddenly girlfriends, and he was gonna offer to let me pour out my feelings over a bucket of ice cream.
“Just drive,” I growled. I clawed my hand through my hair and tried to get a hold of myself.
My hands were still shaking from the adrenaline dump. My pulse hammered in my throat.
I felt queasy as shit, and I never got queasy. My chest fucking hurt as my heart pumped with life, with violence, with passion.
For her.
I knew now how very personal this was. All of it. I wasn’t acting as a bodyguard tonight.
I was acting as an enraged boyfriend.
And all of it was for her. Tailing Sanchuk here and pulling a power drill on him, threatening to torture him, beating the shit out of him?
Leaving the Kings to take care of him?
That was all personal.
Because I was in love with Summer Sorensen.
And you did not fuck with a woman I loved.
Chapter Thirty-One
Summer
It was almost two in the morning when Ronan came home.
I’d come straight home with Andre after the nightclub, skipping out on a thousand Halloween afterparties, like Andre, and Brody, basically ordered me to. On Ronan’s behalf, apparently.
And Andre wouldn’t even tell me where Ronan was.
He’ll be in touch with you as soon as he can.
That’s all he’d say. Easygoing, jovial Andre was suddenly a man of few words, just like his boss.
So. Fucking. Annoying.
And yes, I was aware that I was covering my worry with anger.
As soon as we’d gotten home, I’d headed up to my bedroom and took a shower, washed off all my Halloween makeup and hair spray and glitter, and slipped into a nightgown. Then I sat down on my bed, leaving a lamp on.
Andre had advised me to try to get some sleep. But that was just code for let the men take care of it. If I was asleep, less chance I’d be peppering him with questions he wasn’t gonna answer.
There was no way in hell that I was going to sleep while Ronan was out there, who-the-hell-knew-where, though.
While I waited, I checked my phone a thousand times.
When I finally heard a vehicle pull into the driveway and looked out my bedroom window to see Maddox’s work van, and Ronan got out, I was so deeply relieved and so angry, I felt mildly ill.
But then the anger won out. Obviously, he was fine. He just took off, for whatever reason, and wouldn’t tell me why.
I knew Brody had tried to reach him, too. But all Brody told me was, He’s taking care of something. He’ll let us know more when he can.
More let-the-men-take-care-of-it-and-don’t-ask-questions bullshit.
This was unacceptable to me.
I heard Ronan downstairs, speaking with Andre, and then I heard Andre leave. I sat on my bed fuming, and wondering, and waiting.
When Ronan finally came up the stairs, he did it slow, and my stomach started to sink.
Either everything was perfectly fine, so he was in no hurry… or everything was so far from fine he was avoiding facing me.
When he walked into my bedroom, quietly, like he was trying not to wake me, I got up. He went straight into the bathroom before I could even get a look at his face, without looking in my direction.
I followed him in there. He was at the sink, washing his hands.
“Where the hell have you been?” I demanded. “Brody’s up, waiting to hear from you…” I trailed off, all my spitfire dying in a puff of smoke and fear when I saw his face.
His light-brown eyes met mine in the mirror. “I talked to Brody,” he said gruffly. “It’s taken care of. You can go back to bed.” Then he looked down again.
Fucking what?
Fuck that.
I walked right up behind him, maybe to make him look at me… but then I saw the blood in the sink. The pinkish water washing down the drain.
He was washing off blood.
His knuckles were bloody, swollen and scraped.
I watched as he finished washing his hands and shut the water off. I waited while he dried his hands on a towel, but then enough was enough. I took him by his enormous shoulders and turned him around to face me.
Heavy. He looked so heavy. He wasn’t smiling, but that wasn’t new. He just didn’t look like the man who’d left me at the club tonight. That man was relaxed and having a good night, even while he was on duty.
The man in front of me had been to hell and back in a very short time.
“Ronan,” I breathed. “What happened?”
There were a couple of tiny blood splatters on his throat, and I peeled open his shirt collar to look. There was no other blood that I could see, anywhere. I pushed
his head back so I could inspect the specks of dried blood among the stubble on his throat. But I didn’t see any cuts.
I met his eyes.
He said nothing. He just looked back at me from under heavy eyelids… like he was waiting for me to make whatever this was worse for him.
I wasn’t going to do that.
I didn’t even know what this was, but I wasn’t going to do that.
I reached for a wad of tissues, dampened them with some water, and wiped the blood off his neck. “Whose blood is this?” I asked him, as calmly as I could.
He didn’t answer me.
I tossed the bloody tissues in the toilet and flushed them. When I turned back to Ronan, he was unbuttoning his shirt. It was black, and I really couldn’t tell if there was more blood on it. His knuckles didn’t appear to be bleeding anymore, but his hands were pretty beaten up.
He walked out of the bathroom and I followed him.
I watched as he peeled off his shirt. Then he started undoing his belt.
I reached to do it for him, pushing his hands gently away. I slipped off his jeans, then his socks, his underwear, and when he was naked in front of me, I inspected every inch of him to make sure he was whole and unscathed. I walked all the way around him, and he sighed a little. I trailed my fingers around his body as I went, and goosebumps broke out across his skin.
“I’m fine, Summer,” he muttered, in a low, guarded voice.
When I reached his front and looked at his face, I could see it. He was not fine.
“Baby…” I said, taking his face in my hands.
His eyes skipped away from mine. “I can’t, sweetheart.” His voice was rough and barely a whisper. But I heard him.
Whatever this was, he wanted away from it right now.
So I kissed him.
If he wasn’t going to talk to me now, if he couldn’t talk to me… I just wanted to make whatever was weighing on him a little lighter. I could take some of that weight and help him carry it.
He’d come to me. He’d come home to me and gotten undressed.
I was his safety, just as he was mine.
So I nudged his mouth open and licked my tongue along his lip, melting into the taste of him. My body softened against his. I gave myself to him, so he knew I wasn’t angry with him.
Hell yes, if he’d done something I should be angry about, we’d fight that out tomorrow.
He knew as much.
But tonight, and every day, I had nothing but love for the man standing in front of me, angry or not. I needed him to know that right now.
He started kissing me back, hesitantly at first, like he wasn’t sure I wanted this… this darkness in him. I could feel his need and his struggle to control himself, to hold himself back. I could taste it as he pushed in closer and dug his tongue deeper. As his hands closed on my waist and his fingers bit into me.
“Yes,” I murmured against his lips, as he pushed me back toward the bed.
I felt the heat of his body, the stiff warmth of his erection pressing into my nightgown. I could feel his urgency as he pushed me back onto the bed and crawled over me, and I clung to him, pulling him down with me.
He pushed up my nightgown with his strong hands. I fucking loved those hands. Warm, sure, a little rough. Squeezing… taking.
He squeezed my naked breast and I moaned into his mouth. Then his hand moved down, between my legs, and he slid his fingers over my pussy. I spread my legs, whimpering as he stroked my opening. We kissed roughly, deeply as he grabbed his cock and slicked my wetness over his head; I felt him do it, his battered knuckles brushing me. Then he notched his cock into my opening.
I cocked my hips toward him, wanting him inside.
He broke our kiss on a groan and shoved into me, slamming me down on the bed.
I moaned.
He grabbed my wrists and fell on top of me, and he fucked me, hard. I wrapped my legs up around his waist to take him deeper, and he buried his face in my neck as he pounded into me. His teeth bit a gentle path along my neck, sending shivers down my spine. But there was nothing gentle about his thrusts, the pounding of his hips against me, his hands on my wrists, holding me down.
I could feel his pain, his hunger, his desperation for this with every touch, every thrust.
And I just wanted him to give it all to me.
“Give it to me,” I rasped, and he drove in deeper, harder, grunting with each thrust. “More…” I gasped.
He let my wrists go and reached an arm under my hips, hiking me up against him. His pelvis slammed against mine, hitting my clit and setting off fireworks.
“Oh fuck…” I gasped. “I’m gonna come… if you don’t… slow down…”
He answered that by grabbing my hips with both hands and fucking me faster. His cock battered into me, again and again, and the pleasure spiked down my back, erupting as it tore me inside-out. I screamed, my pussy clamping down on his dick.
He folded over me, murmuring his pleasure in my ear, licking my neck… and fucking me, slowly but hard, through my orgasm.
I lay panting and just trying to find enough breath to recover, when he pulled out and flipped me over by my hips.
He pushed me down on the bed, grabbing my hair in a fistful at the base of my neck. He tugged my head back and gently bit my throat as he entered me. He tipped my hips back to meet his thrusts with one strong hand, and I took him. Hard, fast, he pounded into me.
“Yessss,” I hissed, barely able to keep up with the sensations. My body was lit up with the pleasure, drunk on the ecstasy of the orgasm that was still fading. And I wanted all of it, so fucking bad.
I wanted to make him feel good.
I always wanted to make people feel good. But I wanted it with Ronan the most. I wanted to make this man feel things he’d never felt before.
This was how I knew. I knew that I loved him.
And the harder he fucked me… the more he lost his rhythm and tightened his grip on my hip and my hair… the rougher his breathing got and the more he growled and swore as he held me down and fucked me—like I was the one ravaging him—the more drunk on it I got.
My head was spinning.
“Yes… Ronan… fuck me…”
Then he came, his body stiffening over mine. His hips swiveled into me with a few final jerks. I felt him explode, that deep, primal pulse as he released into me, as his body was wracked with the pleasure.
“Fuck… sweetheart…” he growled.
He released my hair and his big hands smoothed over my hips. He gripped them tight and pushed into me again, and again, his thrusts gentling, his cock still spasming.
I softened beneath him, giving out. Exhausted, emotionally and physically.
When he was finally sated, he pulled out and shifted to the side. I rolled onto my back and he settled next to me, heaving a heavy sigh.
I tossed my arm over my eyes. The lamp wasn’t bright, but right now it was way too bright, and I didn’t have the energy to turn it off.
“What a fucking night,” I sighed.
The bed moved a little as Ronan hissed out a breath, and I peeked at him from under my arm. His big body lay sprawled next to mine, glistening with sweat. He was smirking, just a little.
“Did you just laugh?” I said.
He sighed.
Then his hand found mine and he entwined our fingers. I remembered how rough his hands had looked, and tried not to squeeze.
“You know,” I told him, “you can try to stop this.”
“What?”
“You can try… but it’s too late for me,” I confessed, and damn, did it make me feel vulnerable. But I removed my arm from my eyes and looked at him. “I already love you, Ronan.”
“I don’t want to stop this,” he said in a low voice. Then he leaned in and kissed me gently, his luscious lips dragging over mine. “Fuck, I love you, Summer.”
My heart tore right open and angels sang. But I just whispered, “You better,” and smiled at him softly.
; If I could just not cry, we’d make it through this night okay.
He groaned a little. “I’ve been fucking scared that I can’t protect you like this.” He fell back on the bed and rubbed his face. “With my emotions involved.”
“That’s bullshit.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Why?”
“You don’t have to do it all. You’re my hero, Ronan. Let me be clear about that. But you’re only one man. You’re not actually superhuman. When we’re out on a date, it’s okay to have someone else watch our backs. You can have help. You don’t have to give up one or the other… being my bodyguard or being my man.”
He studied me. “Is that so?”
“Yes. It is.”
“Then maybe you realize that you don’t have to give up one or the other.”
“Meaning?”
“Your independence and strength don’t have to be sacrificed just because you need someone to watch your back.”
“I can’t believe you turned that around on me. But you are right.” I kissed his shoulder. “I can be a strong woman who needs a strong man.”
“Sweetheart, you already are. Maybe you just choose to stop fighting it.”
“And maybe you stop fighting whatever it is you’re still wrestling with,” I pushed back.
“Like what?” he asked, cautiously.
I blew out a breath. Yup. I supposed we were doing this.
Now was as good a time as any.
“You’ve said things, Ronan, that make me wonder…” I considered how to put it. “I know you’d go to great lengths to protect someone. Especially someone you care about. But… that scares me a little. I don’t want you to go too far, or get hurt.”
“I’d never do anything that would come back to hurt you. I promise you that. You don’t have to worry.” He sighed heavily. “Besides, I’ve been down that road before. It’s not good.”
“What do you mean?”
He seemed to hesitate.
“Please. Tell me,” I said softly.
So he did.
“Okay. I mentioned to you that I had a client with an abusive ex…”
Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 44
