by Paula Cox
Jessie didn’t exactly sleep as the cab cut through the dark night, but she found a soft space in the darkness where she could rest for a bit. She sat up straight when the cab’s wheels cut into the gravel of the road. The headlights spread across the courtyard of the old farmhouse, and she found herself staring through the front windshield at something she could only describe as a war party. There were bikes, lined up in rows, men and women in leather moving through them. Well, it looked like they had been moving, right up until a cab pulled in to the front yard.
“Uh,” the cabbie said, his tone a little higher in pitch than it had been when she’d given him directions in the first place. “Are you sure this is where you’re going?”
Jessie nodded in the backseat. “Yes,” she said. “This is the right place.” She pulled her wallet out of her purse and slipped him money for the fare, plus enough to get him back to town without too much trouble. He didn’t say anything as she got out; it would be misplaced chivalry of the worst kind, really.
She and Tex had spent plenty of time at the orchard over the last few days, but she hadn’t met all that many of the club members. She’d seen them, but she’d had the sense that Tex was keeping the slightest distance between her and them. She wasn’t even sure he was doing it on purpose. He was still protecting her, whether he meant to or not. He still wasn’t sure of her.
But that was fair; she wasn’t entirely sure of him, either.
The cab didn’t exactly peel out of the yard, but it was close enough to make her grit her teeth. And then she was standing alone in the darkness. It wasn’t pitch black; there were spotlights illuminating areas of the space in front of the barn and the house, but it wasn’t enough to give general light. Just spots of less darkness.
And they were staring at her. Which wasn’t surprising, really. She was in her tight jeans and her loose, ‘check out my boobs’ top, her high heels in her hands, her feet bare on the gravel. In the odd shadows and light, the faces blurred together and she found herself looking from one oval to another, never quite meeting eyes, looking for him. She needed him.
She heard the squeal of the screen door opening, and heard the distinctive clomp of his boots before she turned and saw him there. She heard the moment when he saw her, the slight gasp that somehow carried over the thirty feet between them. No one said anything; they just parted before her as she walked across the yard.
Tex didn’t say anything as she padded up the stairs. She stopped just in front of him, suddenly noticing that she was a good bit shorter than he was, without her heels on. Was it just a few hours ago he’d had her pressed up against the wall of her apartment, demanding she touch herself without letting her knees give way? She’d ridden his face until she’d screamed, and it had felt like heaven. And now there was this gulf between them, and his eyes were flickering away from her gaze in a way that made her hate that she’d left the house without him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, because it was all she could think to say. “I wasn’t upset. Well, I was. But not with you. It was all just too much.”
He opened his mouth, closed it again. “We have to go,” he said, not exactly to her. “We have business to take care of. You should wait here.”
“Tex—”
“You don’t want this, Jessie. You don’t want this in your head, in your hands. It changes how you sleep. It makes you different.”
She found herself staring at him much more closely. His pupils were huge, dark, lost. He was on something. She knew that look. Her stomach flipped harder. “Tex—”
“No,” he said again. “No, we have to go.” His hands landed on her shoulders, and he started to move her, gently but firmly, to the side. Then Take was there, not quite staring his boss down, but also not giving way.
“We got some time, Prez,” Take said, his voice a quiet rumble that Jessie didn’t think would carry all the way down into the yard. “Talk to the lady for a minute. Get your head on.”
Tex’s hands tightened on her upper arms, but his gaze seemed to settle and focus for the first time since she’d seen him walk out of the house. “But Mac—”
Take shook his head. “Nah. He expects you to blow straight out of here and right up to his door. Give him time to get nervous and wonder where the fuck you are.” The tall man glanced between Jessie and Tex for a moment, then offered up a crooked smile. “You two need to talk out whatever it is that’s going on before we ride. We need you with us.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jessie said, completely surprising herself. “This is about my brother. I will be there when it’s finished.”
Tex was already shaking his head. “Baby, no. This isn’t what we talked about. This is the worst possible situation, the thing we talked about as the thing you didn’t want to do. Let me take care of this. Please.”
She shook her head fiercely. “I need to see the bastard die. I watched my brother die in front of me, and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. I need to put this bastard down. I need to be there.”
“I know you can handle yourself. That’s not the problem—”
“Dammit, then what is?”
“I can’t let you get hurt again,” he said, and the words echoed maybe more than he meant them to. He stepped back, into the house, and she followed him, letting the screen door slam behind her. He let her go, turning away and walking down towards the office.
She followed him, fear and anger making a poisonous stew in her belly. “If you think I’m some delicate little flower that needs protecting—” she started, but he raised a hand and shook his head again.
“That’s not it,” he said, pushing the door to the office closed with both of them inside. He leaned against it for a moment, and then his shoulders slumped, just a little. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just…I needed to do this in here.”
She watched as he moved around the office, opened the top drawer of his desk, and then tossed her an orange bottle of pills. The prescription was in his name, and while she wasn’t familiar with the exact name of the meds, she knew what they were for. “Panic attacks?”
He nodded. “Since I got back. It’s okay most of the time, but sometimes. Sometimes it’s not. And I don’t want to set you up for the same fucking thing. I love you, Jessie. I’ve loved you most of my life, I think. I didn’t want — I don’t want — you to see the eyes of a dying man whenever you start to fall asleep.”
It was cute how completely misguided he was with his protective nonsense. Infuriating, but also cute. “What makes you think I want that for you?” She took a step forward, slowly. When he didn’t back away, she took another one. His arms came around her waist, and the heat from his body lit her up inside.
“What’s one more sin for a sinner?” His voice was cold, his laugher not quite crossing over into actual humor.
“Part of loving each other is being willing to share the pain.” His shirt left his collarbone exposed, right near his throat. She leaned forward and up and pressed her lips against the exposed flesh.
He hissed out a breath, his fingers digging into her hips, bringing her hard against the steel rod of him. “I’m going to hurt you,” he murmured, his fingers kneading her ass. “I’m going to fuck you hard if we — right now, Jessie, I don’t have anything kind in me—”
“I don’t know why you always think I’m so delicate,” she whispered, teasing his shirt up and digging her nails into the small of his back.
He groaned, his mouth open, and his hands left her hips, falling back to catch his weight on the edge of his desk. “Jessie,” he murmured, “God, baby, Jessie, oh love…”
“Tell me what you want,” she said, and then shook her head. She slid her hand between them, cupping his length in her palm as he hissed again, pressing up into her hand. “Tell me what you need.”
“I want to slam into you like a wild thing,” he said, talking to the air, not looking down or even trying to meet her eyes. “I want to know that you are raw and exposed and willing to take anything I have fo
r you.”
“You have it,” she said. She unsnapped her jeans, shoving them roughly down her hips, her panties following in short order. “Fuck me, hard as you want. Want me to beg?”
His eyes were wide. He opened his own jeans, pulling his cock free and stroking himself. “On your knees,” he said, his voice harsh in his throat.
She went down easily, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice all tease. “You’re so big. I don’t know how I’ll be able to cram all that into my mouth without gagging.”
His eyes all but rolled back in his head. She laughed quietly, but then his hand was in her hair and his cock was in her face. He was big, and she had to relax her jaw to take him all in, but she let him guide her. She braced her hands on his thighs and moved with his rhythm, coating his cock with her mouth and letting him fuck her so fast.
He was murmuring a steady stream of curses, as foul mouthed as she was for once. The hand that wasn’t in her hair was braced up on the desk, and she wondered if he would have been able to hold himself up without it. His cock was salty in her mouth as he became more and more aroused, and she swirled her tongue around the tip whenever he gave her space to pull back, feeling his thighs tremble as she found the sensitive spots below the head of him.
She felt his balls tighten up against his body, and he yanked her back, his breath fast and hard in his throat. For a moment, she thought he intended to blow his load in her face, and she didn’t mind, exactly, but wished they’d talked about it first—but instead, she found him gripping the space above his balls, breathing through the urgent need until he could relax a little again.
“Not ready yet,” he growled. “Don’t want it enough yet. Want it to hurt more.”
Her pussy was wet and eager, the engorgement in her lips making her ache and need him desperately, but this was his show. This was his fantasy. She waited, passive and quiet, on her knees, just watching.
“Get up here,” he whispered, and she did. On her feet, he didn’t speak more, just moved her body. She’d kicked off her heels when she pulled off her jeans; he found them, and slipped them back on her feet. He turned her body so her ass was matched to his hips, and then he bent her forward, putting her hands on the desk.
He slapped her ass, hard, before he entered her. It stung like mad, and she went up on her toes, her heels lifting out of the shoes, before she could settle back down. When she did, his cock was there, pressing her folds apart and sliding up into her. She wasn’t ready, not anything close, but it didn’t hurt. There was no space for him, and he had to rock into her, slow and steady, pushing farther every time. One of his hands twisted around her hair, using it like a rope to pull her head back and arch her back until she was at exactly the angle he wanted; the other reached between her thighs and found her clit. And then he began to work into her, thrusting hard at her, rutting at her, exactly like he’d said. The noises he made behind her verged on inhuman; they were pure, animalistic grunts and noise and need. He found the end of her, and she winced at the sharp sensation; he didn’t plunge quite that far again, but it cost him something. She shifted her hips, deepening the length of her body, and he groaned in relief.
His fingers came away from her clit, groping and squeezing at her breast in a way that would have been horrible at any other time, but was delicious and hot now. “How much do you like this shirt?” he asked, his voice tight with need.
“Not enough for you to worry about it,” she panted back. “Do it.”
His fist tightened and the cloth shredded, ripping down the front. He fumbled with the front catch of her bra, and then he was pounding into her as he teased her nipple, flicking and pulling and twisting. She needed more; the sensations were swirling through her, and she was desperate for release. He was close, she could feel that, but he wasn’t ready yet. She reached back and found her clit herself, bracing with just the one hand, and finding a rhythm that made her gasp and buck against him.
“Tell me when I can,” she said, and he groaned again, slapping into her so hard she cried out with the completion of every thrust. A small corner of her mind worried; could they hear her outside? Were they laughing into their hands? — and then he groaned again, locking himself deep inside of her as he panted through another peak of need.
“Not yet,” he whispered. “Please, not yet, I’m not done, wait, wait, wait…”
She found herself panting right along with him, her fingers flying over her clit as he tore at her nipple, completely full of his cock, his need, his desire. He took a deep, shuddering breath and whispered “Yes,” and she let go. It wasn’t an instantaneous release, like something out of a porn film, but she stopped trying to wait, stopped trying to hold back. She let the convulsions rock through her, and she bit her arm to keep from screaming herself hoarse.
He gathered her up as she shuddered, carrying her over to the couch. He dropped into the seat, then pulled her over him, resting his cock in her folds as she trembled against him. She shifted, taking him inside again. He murmured something about not needing to, but she covered his mouth with hers and began to ride him. It took only a few strokes before he stopped being a gentleman and went back to fucking her. His hands on her hips took over, lifting her up and slamming her back down onto him.
“You’re amazing,” he said, “you’re wonderful, I want you, I want you forever—” and then he came. Thoroughly, deeply, from his toes. He roared as he thrust up into her, hugging her hips tight against him as he held himself as deep as he could get. The sound choked off all of a sudden, his jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed shut. She could feel his cock pulsing, deep inside of her, and the wash of warmth as he shed himself.
Which was when she finally noticed that he hadn’t used a condom.
His eyes popped open at the same time, horror mixed with the aftermath of incredible lust. “It’s okay,” she said, putting her finger over his lips. “Don’t think about it right now. We’ll talk after — after tonight. Let’s finish this, and then we’ll talk.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t — I should have thought.”
“It’s okay,” she replied. “I should have, too. But, Tex, I—” she took a deep breath. She had to be sure. “I want to be with you. I love you. I don’t — when this is over, I don’t want you to go.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t cling to her like a drowning man. He just wrapped his arms around her, ever so gently, and held her. He hummed softly in her ear, a happy little sound, and held her. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this, then.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
The club roared out of the old farmhouse in a double line, Tex and Take at the head, the rest of the club snaking behind them. Having Jessie pressed against his spine, holding tight to his body felt better than he’d anticipated. She’d dressed in an old pair of his jeans, which looked absolutely awful on her, worn all the wrong way for her curves and lines, but she wouldn’t get blood on her going out clothes. And he was quite sure there would be blood on his hands before the end of the night.
He waited for the disassociation that came with that thought. The sure knowledge that he was a monster, that he had always been a monster, and that this time, once he let out the darkness, he’d lose the ability to bottle it up again. But that fear and panic didn’t come. Sure, the meds on board were helping keep his heartbeat steady, but it was the firm grasp of the woman’s hands around his waist that really let him feel sure. He had something to hold onto. That therapist the VA had sent him to twice would probably tut-tut at the idea that a man should find strength in a woman, would probably say something useless about how a man should find strength in his duty rather than people around him. After all, the people around him could choose to leave.
And maybe clinging to Jessie couldn’t be a forever solution. But for tonight, it was enough. Hearing her say she wanted him to stay close? That was enough. Because Jessie wasn’t looking to him to fix her problems—something he’d been trying to do for h
er since he’d rolled into town. She wanted to be a partner to him in this. And if she was willing to ride into hell with him to avenge her brother, if she was willing to take on nightmares and blood and gunshots, then he was sure she’d be with him for panic attacks and insecurity and whatever else was on the horizon for them.
Her hands tightened against his middle, and something warm began to blossom there, where he thought there could be only loneliness and fear for the rest of eternity. He let himself settle into the sensation and, maybe just a little, begin to believe in it.
And then they were on the highway, and he put his focus forward, calling to mind the layout of the Racketeer’s compound and planning, in as much detail as he could, what they would do once they arrived. He ran every scenario he could think of as the club tore up the pavement behind him. They were leaning on him, trusting in him, just as his men had overseas. He would lead them as best as he could.
