by Paula Cox
She rocked her hips, seating the tip of his dick inside of her. His mouth opened in a deep, wordless sound that pulled her wide open. “This okay?”
“You’re amazing,” he murmured, and his head ducked low again, kissing the space between her breasts and lifting up her nipples so he could roll them between his teeth. She ground down into him, taking his thick cock in one easy stroke. She let the chair support her back, giving her body a soft arch, and enough room to look down and see where they were joined. “Good goddamn,” he breathed, and then he bent over her, thrusting into her as clung to him, rolling with him.
The vapor-lock in her brain eased, and she went with him, driving down onto him, meeting his pounding hips until the need inside of her burst into an all-white explosion of sensation. She felt her body tighten around him, squeezing him as she took him so deep inside of her it danced the edge of pain. He groaned and bit down on her shoulder hard. She thought he’d follow her, but in one quick move, he lifted her free of him and finished himself by hand in a few quick strokes. He pulled his t-shirt down and caught the spray as he moaned quietly, his forehead resting on her shoulder.
“Sorry,” he murmured, turning his face to gently press his lips against her neck as he stroked out the aftershocks from his cock. “I thought—it’s not you—”
“I get it,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and snuggled him against her, not even caring if he left stains on her skirt. She could get it cleaned. Truthfully, if she hadn’t been completely twisted up with lust, she probably wouldn’t have even suggested it. She was not, historically, a woman who made rash decisions, and deciding to ditch condoms was a conversation to be had with all clothes firmly in place, far away from a bedroom. And definitely after she’d been dating someone for more than a week.
“Just so long as you know,” he said. “It’s not you. It’s—some of the guys I knew, growing up, they had kids in every town they’d stayed in for more than a month. And I won’t be that guy. I always promised myself. If I have kids, I’m going to raise them right. I’m going to be there for them.” What she could hear, even though he didn’t say the words, was that he wanted to be there for his kids in a way his parents hadn’t ever been, not really.
“So you want kids?” was the dumbass thing that unfortunately spilled out of her lips. She clapped her hand over her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. He hadn’t even noticed that he’d declared his love for her, there was absolutely no way they needed to have this conversation right now.
He looked up, the lust clearing out of his eyes and replaced with that same soft humor. “Don’t you?”
It was an odd way to phrase the question, and it felt distinctly off to her. She frowned. “I haven’t really decided one way or the other,” she said. “I don’t particularly think of myself as a mother-in-training, like some women I know, but I also like hanging around with kids. But the idea of having one at home, all the time?” It took a minute to find enough breath to say the thing that she’d never actually admitted out loud, not even to the therapist. “I already had to work through the loss of my big brother. My hero. The idea of having a kid, of making myself vulnerable to that kind of loss again? It kind of makes me want to throw up. I don’t know if I could handle it. I don’t know if I want to handle it.”
“Yeah, I get that,” he said. “I don’t have really strong feelings either way. Just, if I do have them, I’m going to be a father to them.”
“I like that as a goal,” she said. And then she needed the subject to change before she started to cry. “So, what have you found out about Danny? About the man who killed him?”
Everything about Tex’s demeanor shifted. He stood up, moving back from her, and stripping off his scrubs and t-shirt with a total efficiency of movement that was cold and clean. “This is going to be complicated,” Tex said. Even his tone had changed. When had he developed that cold edge? He hadn’t had that, the first few times they’d talked about Danny and investigating the murder. “I still think you shouldn’t be involved in any of this.”
A number of things clicked together, all at once. “This has something to do with Vanessa, doesn’t it? She’s involved in some way.” The fury that had been bubbling way down low got bigger, hotter.
But Tex was shaking his head. “No. At least, not directly. But—Jessie, we’ve talked about how I need to go about this.”
As he reached for a clean pair of scrub pants and a t-shirt from a drawer, tossing the dirty items into a basket in the corner, Jessie tried not to get distracted by the rippling musculature of his back. She could see scratches she’d left in his shoulder blades the previous evening. She hadn’t managed to break his skin, thank goodness, but he had red marks running along his spine. Down, girl, seriously. And then the flex of his ass as he bent to step into his pants. Men were always stereotyped as oh so horny, but damn if she wasn’t ready to go all over again.
“This isn’t going to be like some cop show, where I wear a wire one time and we turn a tape over to the one magically clean DA in a corrupt town, and all the bad people disappear. There’s a chance there could be blood shed before this is over.”
She stood up, letting her skirt fall back down over her thighs, and moved forward to wrap her arms around his waist, curling into his back. He didn’t melt into her like he usually did, and when she tried to sway with him, he held still as a statue. “We’ve talked through this, Tex. I get it. I understand. I’m ready for whatever comes.”
He turned around, and his eyes were so cold that her stomach flipped over. He rarely talked about what it had been like being a soldier, or the things that had caused him to find running a motorcycle club to be more appealing than a typical civilian life. She didn’t ask him to. If she’d been through all those things, she wasn’t sure she’d ever want to talk about it either. But she had also never seen that dark side of him. Not until now. “What if I have to take Vanessa to bed to get information I need? How would you feel about that?”
Like I was going to vomit on your shoes. Christ. “It wouldn’t be my favorite thing to hear.”
“What if I came home covered in blood and told you to get on my bike because we had to run? What if I told you that you couldn’t ever speak to your mother again, because it would put her in danger?” He shook his head. “Li, if I can do this without you, it’d be safer. Maybe for both of us.”
She stepped back from him, only realizing then that he hadn’t taken her in his arms when he’d turned to her. “You don’t trust me.”
The cold façade cracked just a fraction. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying.” There was no reason for crying. She scrubbed at her eyes, determined not to cry any more today. “You think that there’s some arbitrary limit to how far I’ll go to avenge my brother’s death.” She jabbed a finger straight into Tex’s left pectoral. He winced. It was almost certainly because of her long nails, but she let herself believe that it was because of her formidable strength. “You don’t know the first goddamn thing about me. You trust me to fuck, but not to actually be of use.” She shook her head, pushing him back when he tried to step closer to her. “No, damnit. No. You don’t get to keep me on the outside edges of everything. I’m not going to be your—your bait or your fucktoy or your whatever you want while you run around playing assassin and private detective by turns.”
She was panting. When had she started panting? He grabbed her waist and pulled her close, but it was Jessie who initiated the kiss. It was bruising and cruel, all teeth and tongue and angry pressure, but it felt like the safest thing she’d ever experienced.
“Take me home,” she hissed into his mouth. “Take me home, right the fuck now, and fuck me like you mean it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Chapter Sixteen
All the way back to Jessie’s little cottage on the outside of town, Tex argued with himself. To tell her the whole scheme, or to hide it from her? To trust her with the
plan he’d cooked up with Eddie, or let her stay innocent. Let her stay safe. He had to believe there could be an end to the madness that had plagued him since he was a teenager, and his best friend in the world had been killed. He had to believe that there was a life after this for him. Without that, what the fuck was the point?
Jessie’s hands were tight on his belly, molding herself to his body on the back of his bike like a second skin. He loved it. He loved her. Thank God she hadn’t noticed when he’d slipped up and whispered those words while she was wrapping herself around his erect cock. That would have been awkward. He’d been carrying a torch forever, but he’d definitely understood that her own feelings towards him were much more ambivalent. And with good reason. He’d disappeared out of her life, and in some ways, he was the only person who might have understood what she was going through. And there had been no excuse. He could have kept in touch with her. He just hadn’t.
So the obvious solution was to make it up to her now. But how? Bring her in or keep her out?
He couldn’t think when all the blood that was running through his brain was pounding in his cock. It was a good thing she only lived a short drive from Castello’s sad excuse for a downtown. He’d come like a volcano just a half hour ago, and he was ready to go all over again. Only this time, it wouldn’t be his hand and his t-shirt that caught his spill.
He’d kept things pretty tame with Jessie so far. They’d had a lot of delicate sex in bed. It had alternated between incredibly passionate and incredibly loving, but it had been really…well, Hollywood. Rolling around in the covers, candles, shit like that. Which was great, a lot of the time, and God knew he’d been spanking himself to romantic fantasies of her since he was a kid—his all-time favorite involved a bubble bath—but that wasn’t all there was to sex. Not for him.
He wasn’t sure if Jessie could keep up with that side of him. He wanted to find out, now. If she couldn’t, that was fine, he’d figure out another way to get that release, but right now, he wanted more.
He parked the bike behind her house. He wasn’t riding his custom; he’d actually left it down in Los Angeles with the main body of the club. Much like his multi-colored topknot with the shaved sides, it made him too obvious, too easy to distinguish. He didn’t miss the bike all that much, but he missed his hair. When this shit was done, he’d see about growing it back. He could imagine Jessie running her fingers through it, getting a good handhold to grind his face into her pussy. Yeah, that would be good.
She dismounted from the bike and then hesitated. Her pupils were wide and she was panting, her chest rising and falling in such tempting ways. “Get inside,” he said.
He thought she might scurry, but she lifted an eyebrow, turned slowly on one three inch heel, and sashayed her way in the back door, putting plenty of sway into her hips as she went. How had he lived his adult life without this woman?
He followed her, and barely made it in the door before he caught her wrist, spun her around, and pushed her up against the wall. She cried out, the sound half pain and half something much more interested. “Have you ever had a safe word before?”
She shook her head, didn’t speak.
“What’s your favorite vegetable?”
Two fast blinks. She looked like she was trying to get her brain into gear through an urgent need to have someone stroking her body towards climax. He was willing to be that person. “Uh. Broccoli.”
“Okay. You say broccoli, I stop what I’m doing. We talk. We talk about stop entirely, or go no further, or change some detail, or whatever, okay?”
“Yes.” She was so glazed.
He wouldn’t push her hard this time. They’d have a more intense conversation about how things felt, what she liked. After he’d given her a taste. “Good. I’m glad you understand. I like it when you’re a good little bitch.” He caught both her narrow wrists in one hand and pushed them up above her head. Her eyes flared with anger at the curse, but she didn’t stop him. “You don’t like being called a bitch, do you?”
“No,” she said.
“But you’re my bitch, aren’t you?” With his free hand, he traced a firm line down her neck to her breast and her nipple, so hard he worried it might slice through the fabric of her shirt.
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were half closed, her body arching into his hand. He flicked the nipple hard with his thumb and forefinger, and she gasped. Even through her blouse and the flimsy little stretchy lace bras she loved, it had to hurt a little.
“I asked you a question.”
He could see her pulling herself together. “What—” she cleared her throat. “What does it mean, if I’m your—bitch.” She didn’t like the word, and stumbled over it, but there was something in the way it twisted up in her mouth. The dirty talk was winding her up, making her hot. He’d thought that might be a way to make her burn.
“It means I give you what you want.” He flicked her nipple again, and this time she gasped, her hips thrusting up at the empty air. “But only when you’ve earned it.” He leaned down and bit her nipple through the cloth. She cried out, going wild against his pinning hands. Jesus, he loved this. He loved how she was aching and arching and twisting, but not actually trying to get away. He loved how fierce he could be with all that cloth in the way. Give her the feeling of being so very naughty without actually causing her any pain.
And suddenly, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He’d brought a few different things over to the house along with his spare shirts and jeans. He hadn’t meant to move in, he’d meant to keep going back to Polanco’s to sleep, but she was so hot first thing in the morning, and the opportunity to screw her in the shower was so tempting. The guys all snickered behind their hands and made jokes about him being domesticated, but no one actually cared.
“Stay here,” he said. “Exactly like this.”
“Even my arms?”
“Even them.”
Her eyes looked a little confused, but she nodded. And then he realized the perfect amendment.
“Unless, of course, you want to touch yourself.” Her nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply. “But you have to stay standing.”
It would be interesting, he thought as he walked away, to see which she chose. Stay there, tormented and uncomfortable, or stroke herself in an unfamiliar position.
He went to the bedroom, collected the things he needed out of the drawer that Jessie had cleared for him, and stripped. Naked, he walked back to where she was waiting for him.
She was still leaning up against the wall, and she looked like a fallen angel, her skirt hiked up to her waist, her fingers buried in her pussy, frustrated little whimpers coming from her throat as she struggled to stay on her feet and find the right spot to fuck.
“You are a pretty picture,” he said, and she looked up at him, her eyes glazed with frustration and need. He stroked himself almost idly as he walked toward her. Her eyes were locked on his cock, and she probably thought that was what she was going to get. Fucked up against a wall was definitely fun, but not after a day he’d already spent on his feet. “Know what this is?” he waggled the hand that held a narrow glass toy with a wide flange at the bottom.
Her fingers slowed, and she swallowed hard. Her cheeks might have flared red, if she wasn’t already flushed from the sex. “Um. I think that’s a butt plug.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to put this in your ass. And then we’re going to see how that feels for you. And then we’re going to see what we do next.” He didn’t ask her if that was okay, but he gave her space to use the word if she wanted to. And he watched her, too. She swallowed hard, and her chest started to heave again. Her fingers were moving faster between the lips of her pussy, and if he kept watching that, he was going to come all over her floor, which was absolutely not the plan.
“First,” he said, “I need to open you up a little bit.” He stepped into her, letting his erection bump her hip, and she made a needy little keening noise that shot straight to his balls. “H
ands back above your head,” he commanded, and she listened.
He thrust two fingers into her pussy, and she was so wide open that there was no resistance, even in this position. When his hand was good and wet with her natural fluids, he drew back, and ran the toy between the lips of her slit, drawing out a low, keening moan as the cold material pressed against her clit.
“I’m going to play with your ass,” he said, keeping his voice light, even conversational. “I’m going to go slow, but it’s up to you to tell me if you’re enjoying yourself, or if I’m going too fast, or if you need something else from me. Normally, I’d tell you that I won’t stop until you say the safeword, but for today, I think we’ll ease into it. What do you think?”
“Yes,” Jessie murmured, her hips shifting along the glass shaft a little faster, desperate to build up enough friction to find release.
“Good,” he said. He pressed in close to her, his bare erection settling against the soft curve of her hip as he reached around with her fingers. The puckered opening of her ass was soft, which surprised him; he wasn’t sure this bit of play would even get off the ground this first time. But when he traced the delicate flesh with his soaked fingers, she groaned and tilted her hips, eagerly reaching for him. “Have you really never let anyone do this before?”
