by Sophia Gray
Lucas stepped forward, feeling the need to put his fist into something, but Clay kicked up the stand and tore out of the drive, making a large U-turn in his lawn on his way out. Lucas stood still, watching the bike and its rider take off down the street, until he could only hear a soft purr of the engine and no longer make out his brake lights.
A leaf crunched behind him, reminding him of Josephine’s presence. He took several deep breaths, not wanting to mix his anger with Clay’s overhanded play with his irritation and disappointment at Josephine’s inability to listen to one simple order, an order given for her safety. If Clay hadn’t been there to just talk, if things had gone south, what the hell would have happened to her? She could have gotten hurt in the crossfire.
“Lucas?”
He closed his eyes and took one last steadying breath before turning to face her. “I told you to stay inside.” Her eyes widened at his tone—dark and low, but at least he wasn’t bellowing. He wanted to scream at her, to grab her and shake her, but he managed to keep himself in check.
“I know.” She nodded. “But what did he want? That guy? He was at the clubhouse tonight. He looked mad.”
“And if he was? What would you have done? Did you think coming out here would help, making my attention turn from him to you?” She didn’t understand the danger, he tried to remind himself of that fact. But she would now. “That was Clay. The president of Iron Rebels. He’s not a nice guy.” Even he heard the contempt dripping from his words as he spoke. “If you see him again, you get away. You lock yourself in the house and call me.” He took a step toward her, trusting himself more with each breath that he could contain his anger.
“Why would he hurt me? I have nothing to do with your club.” For such an intelligent woman, she didn’t understand such a simple concept.
“He knows that you’re my old lady, that you have my baby in your belly. That makes you an easy way to get to me if he wanted to.” He stopped walking when he finally reached her, towering over her.
Wide, dark eyes met his as she looked up at him. Confused and maybe a little afraid, she reached out and touched his chest, laying her hands flat against his kutte. “If my being here is so dangerous, then take me home.” Her voice hardened.
The last thing he would do was take her home. “No.” He grabbed a hold of one hand and pulled her back toward the house. “You’ll stay here tonight, like I said already.” She didn’t pull back, but she didn’t make the short walk easy on him either.
“Lucas.” She finally yanked free once they were inside and he had kicked the door shut, bolting it before turning on her. She glared back at him. Not more than five feet away from him and standing more than a head shorter than him, the little slip of a woman was giving him as heated of a look as he threw at her. “I just wanted to see what was going on,” she said by way of explaining away her disobedience.
“When I tell you to stay put, you stay put. If I tell you to do something, anything, you do it because it’s what will keep you safe. I don’t give you orders just because I like hearing myself speak.” The heat in his voice couldn’t be helped.
Her defiance continued as she narrowed her eyes at him. “I am not some child for you to order about!”
She stomped her foot, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. She’d actually stomped her foot at him. It was almost too comical for him to keep his anger. Almost. “You’re not having a very good night, are you, Josephine?” He relaxed his shoulders, reminding himself that she wasn’t built for the world he lived in. He needed to coax her into it.
Her eyes softened, and her shoulders dropped. “I didn’t mean to piss you off. I’m just not used to standing on the sidelines.”
“I get that.” He closed the gap between them, cupping her face with both of his hands. The light from the kitchen illuminated her face, giving her a soft glow. “But when I tell you to stay inside, you have to do it. You can’t second guess me.”
“Because I’m just a woman?”
He heard the irritation laced with her tone, and he wanted to smile, but it wasn’t time for that. The little hellcat needed to understand the way it was. “Do you have a gun?” he asked her.
“W-what? No.”
“Do you have some martial arts training you haven’t told me about?” He let her go when she tried to wiggle free from his grasp.
“That has nothing to do with anything.” She shook her head, but he could already see her mind working. She could see his point, see where he was taking the conversation, and now she’d try to derail him. “I’m sorry if I’m not some doormat for you to wipe your feet on.” A fight. She wanted to fight instead of admit that she’d been wrong. Well, too bad for her.
“You don’t have a gun, you can’t fight with your hands, and I’m going to assume you haven’t strapped some knife to your body in the last half hour, so you don’t have that either. What exactly were you going to do if Clay proved to be dangerous? Did you think you’d ask him nicely to go? Did you think that you standing there would frighten him off?” He crossed his arms over his chest.
She was almost there, but she still mentally fought him off.
“I’m going to take your silence as a no. So, if you being there wouldn’t have helped at all but would have given him something to use against me, do you think staying in the house was a better option? Or do you still think going out there, taking away my concentration from him, and giving him a new target was the better choice?”
Her throat worked as she swallowed, her hands began to fidget at her sides, and she worried at the corner of her bottom lip. But still she said nothing.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Josephine.” He would outwait her, even if it took all night. She would understand the consequences her actions could have had. She would finally get the idea that she needed to listen to him. He was trying to keep her safe, not locked up like some simpleminded woman.
“If I had a gun, would me being out there have helped?” Her chin rose an inch. Defiant as ever.
“Do you know how to fire one?”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I’m not going to play a game of hypotheticals with you, Josephine. Answer the question.” She looked so damn frustrated it took all of his strength not to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. She needed soothing but not until she admitted she’d been foolish.
Her eyes were the first sign of her wavering resolve; they slipped from his gaze down to his chest. Hands pumping at her sides, she seemed to be taking it all in and whirling it around her mind. With a heavy sigh, he knew she’d finally come to the end. “I shouldn’t have gone out there.” A small victory, but not quite done. “My being out there made the situation worse, gave him something to use against you, and you’re right, if he had done something toward you or me, I had no way of defending either of us.”
“Because you’re a woman?” He didn’t need to push that button, but he wanted to see where she was in that thought process. Some members kept their women in line because they didn’t hold them in very high esteem, but Lucas wasn’t one of them. Sure, he willingly used their warm bodies when they were offered, but he never believed that was all a woman was good for. His mother had raised him better than that.
“No. Because I had no idea what I was walking into.” Her eyes finally made their way back up to his. “But if you think for one fucking second that I will just bend to you because you’re the guy, because you wear that fucking kutte, you have some serious disappointment coming your way!” Her pointed finger jabbed him in the chest.
Easily, he caught that finger and held it flat against him. “No, you’ll bend because I’m your man. I’ll keep you safe because you’re my woman. I won’t ever treat you like some stupid girl, but if I tell you to stay put, you will goddamn stay put.” His voice hardened. She needed to understand, because with Clay’s little field trip to his house, that meant shit wasn’t going to go easily. If the club didn’t decide to let the Iron Rebels take th
eir route, they would be going to war.
“Cutter spanks Cherry when he’s mad at her.” Her words were blurted out seconds before a deep red blush captured her entire face. Of all the things he thought she might say to him after his statement of possession, that was not even on his radar.
Chapter 11
What the hell had she just said? Her mind must have spun out of orbit. Did she just imply that he should do that to her? Would she let him, could she let him do that? She had put herself and him in danger by not listening, by assuming she would be able to take control of a situation she had no idea of how to handle. She swallowed hard, feeling her cheeks heat up with her embarrassment.
“Does he?” His dark eyes twinkled as he gave her one of his devilishly grins. Was he thinking about it? “Cutter’s always been into that sort of thing.” He shrugged indifferently. “I have an entirely different way of handling these situations, though.”
Her throat thickened under his steady gaze. She could almost hear his brain working, thinking up some sort of punishment to fit her crime. How quickly she lost her temper when he looked at her with such heat, such desire in those damn eyes.
“Maybe I should go?” The suggestion was weak, given in a high-pitched squeak that made his smile get even broader.
“Maybe you should hightail that ass of yours to the bedroom and get out of that dress.” He let go of her finger, removing the warmth of his touch and pointed to the stairs. “Get going. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Her eyes darted to the stairs, then back to him. She should just go, move up the stairs and do what he said. But since when did she just follow orders easily? “What are you going to do?”
His exasperated sigh could have parted her hair if she was a step closer to him. She opted not to push him. Whatever it was he had planned, she figured it wasn’t something too horrible. After all, he just admitted he didn’t use spanking. She’d have to ask Cherry if that was something most of the bikers did. She’d also need to take a few minutes and figure out why her brain was so fixated on that one topic.
“Josephine, go upstairs.” He bent and straightened his finger twice, indicating she get moving. Seeing the possessive way he looked at her and recognizing the hunger in his eyes, she moved her feet until she was practically flying up the stairs.
His bedroom had quickly become her favorite room in the house since she’d been seeing him. The entire house was decorated simply but with as masculine elegance, as she figured was appropriate for a biker, but his bedroom was different. He indulged in a king-size bed with a mattress that resembled a cloud more than cotton fibers and springs. She slept more soundly wrapped in his dark purple comforter, burrowed into the softness of his bed, than she ever did on her full-size, decade-old mattress at home.
Once in the room, she poked her head out into the hallway, trying to hear him. Footsteps faded away from the stairs, and she heard him talking. He made a phone call and had effectively removed her ability to overhear it.
Josephine sat on the edge of the bed with her own phone in-hand. She hadn’t talked with her mother after work. The home health worker Lucas hired to take care of her was doing a great job and freeing up some of Josephine’s time. She was able to work her normal schedule without her mother having to miss out on any treatments, giving Josephine peace of mind.
Deciding against calling her mother, she plugged her phone into the charger Lucas left for her on, what was now, her side of the bed. It amazed her how quickly things had changed between them. She hadn’t moved in, and she still thought it was too soon for that, no matter what Lucas continued to insist on, but he’d made room for her in his home. Along with the phone charger on the nightstand, he’d cleared out a drawer in the bathroom for her and stocked his fridge with some of her favorite foods—the ones he didn’t argue with her about her eating.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs and heard him clicking off his call. Her dress was still on. Shit. With agility she didn’t think she possessed, she managed to shimmy out of the dress and toss it to the far corner of the room just as he pushed the door completely open and stepped inside. The dress slipped off the chair onto the floor, but she hoped he didn’t notice, not when she was standing in his room wearing only her purple lace panties.
“No bra?” He quirked an eyebrow. Usually, she wouldn’t be able to go braless, but the dress she’d worn had built-in cups.
“Nope.” Her arms swung at her sides, suddenly uncomfortable with him standing fully clothed in the room.
He pulled off his kutte, draping it on the dresser. Both hands gripped his shirt, pulling it upwards and over his head, showing off the rippling muscles of his abdomen with his movements. With a quick shake of his head, his hair laid flat again, and he dropped his shirt onto the leather vest. Standing before her in only his jeans being held up by a thick, black leather belt, he closed the gap between them.
Her hands instinctively went to his chest, feeling the strength of him beneath her fingers, but he trapped them against his chest. “Not yet, babe.” He hooked both thumbs into the flimsy elastic of her panties and knelt before her as he dragged them down to her ankles. “Step out,” he ordered, and she saw no reason to deny him.
His eyes burned a trail up her legs as they traveled the length of her body until his gaze settled on her face. “Put your hands behind her head. Yes, like that. Good girl. See, you can listen.” He rested his hands on her thighs. “Now, spread these legs for me.” He tapped the inside of her thighs until she walked her feet far enough apart for whatever he had planned. She licked her lips after her quickened breath dried them beyond comfortable.
The warmth of his bare shoulders pressing against her legs as he moved closer to her sex, spread up her body, setting every nerve fiber on alert. Without moving his eyes from hers, his thumbs pried apart her lips, already wet with need for his touch. “You are going to stay completely still. Do you understand, Josephine? If you move, if you break position, I’m going to stop. And you aren’t going to want that. Got it?” His eyes narrowed as he gave her the rules of his little game. She nodded, unable to think properly, given the circumstances. He didn’t look very convinced that she would be able to make it through, but she was determined. She could do it; she could do exactly as he said.
And then his tongue touched her clit and all reasoning flew from her mind. He chuckled. “Not even one second!” He pressed the pad of his thumb to her clit, rolling it in circles as he looked back up at her. “Let’s try again. No jerking, no stepping away, and no closing these fucking sexy legs.”
“Okay, Lucas. I won’t. I promise.” She sounded desperate, even to her own ears. Desperate with need and lust, but she didn’t really care. All she wanted, all she thought about at that moment, was his mouth on her womanhood.
The tip of his tongue nudged her swollen clit, and she closed her eyes, willing herself to stay put. This was a lesson—stay where he told her. Got it. Lesson learned. She just wanted more of him, all of him…if he would just put more pressure on her. And then he did, and she clenched her eyes closed to keep her body still. His lips enclosed her clit and he sucked her hard, two fingers thrusting inside of her, stretching her as he moved them.
She groaned, wanting to bend, to step closer and entangle her fingers in his hair, but she managed to hold back. He would stop if she moved. That was his promise to her, and she did not want that. She would cry if he stopped the torment he was putting her through.
Over and over again his fingers thrust upward into her, curling just enough while his tongue and his teeth continued to tease and torment her clit.
The sharp bite followed by soothing licks sent her body spiraling into his control. She laced her fingers behind her neck, hoping that would keep them obediently in place. Her feet rooted to the carpeting of his bedroom floor, she arched her pelvis toward his mouth, letting her body beg him for more of everything he gave her.
He chuckled, which sent a new vibration through her wet folds and her taut, now more t
ender, clit. “Greedy girl.” He toyed with her clit again, circling it with his tongue but never putting the right amount of pressure she needed. So close to the finish, she could almost see the fireworks getting ready to explode.
“Please, Lucas…please.” Her thighs shook, trembling at her arousal, at her need for her release, but he only shook his head.
“Nope. Not until I say. Because who controls this?” He pulled his mouth away and cupped her pussy, leaving his fingers still nestled inside her. “Who, Josephine?”
A strand of hair fell in front of her face as she looked down at him, but she didn’t move her hands to brush it away. She remained complacent in her position. “You, Lucas. You do.” Her admission was barely above a whisper as she tried to contain all of the sensations he was creating with his fingers.
“Good. Now you’re getting it.” He pulled his fingers free and sat back on his heels. Keeping their gazes locked, he licked his fingers, one by one, grinning as he took in her taste. “Fucking delicious.” He patted her hip. “On the bed. No, don’t take your hands down.” He remained where he was, kneeling on the floor, as she willed her body to move to the bed. It amazed her that her legs weren’t wobbly with the intense session of his tongue only a moment before.
