Fighting for Forever

by J. B. Salsbury

  A sob rips from her throat.

  “Stop holding back from me.”

  With a gentle tug, I pull her to me. Her breasts press against my ribcage and my hard-on to her stomach. Disgust rolls in my gut at how I can be so fucking hard for a woman who’s ripping my heart from my chest.

  “Mason, I . . .” She shakes her head and her gaze drops away from mine.

  “Talk to me.” It’s all I can get out before my lips crash against hers. Hunger fuels my body as my arms wrap tightly around her. Our tongues tangle together in a cocktail of fury and possession. She groans and hitches her leg to my hip and I drive my hands to her ass, gripping hard until she whimpers. Adrenaline bursts through my veins at the satisfaction that comes with her pain. I lift her up, slamming her back against the wall while I delve deeper into her sweet mouth.

  Her heels press against my ass, her body begging for me to enter her, to take what, after tonight, will belong to another man. I growl into her mouth as anger rips through my body. She wants one last good-bye fuck, a pity party for the poor schmuck who lost the girl. I want to. My dick and the drive to punish her tell me to fuck her hard and walk away. Leave her with an ache between her legs, matching the ache she’ll leave in my chest.

  She claws at my arms. “Please, I need you.” She said herself that she uses her body as a tool, which is exactly what she’s doing now. As angry as I am, I’m incapable of using her. She’s worth more than that, even if she doesn’t realize it.

  I force my lips from hers, and her eyes pop wide with shock. Reluctantly, I unhook her legs to place her gently to the ground. I put as much distance between us as possible in the confined space.

  “I can’t do this.” I run a hand through my wet hair. “I won’t.”

  “Why?” Her voice threatens to unman me. “Will you look at me?”

  I contemplate saying no, telling her that looking at her will only remind me of all I’m about to lose. I can’t bear to see her regard me like I’m just some guy rather than her only guy.

  “Please.”

  I shake my head, but peek up at her. “What?”

  She’s covering her breasts with her arms; her lip quivers. “I love you.”

  The words hit me like a roundhouse kick to the head. “What? How . . . what?” I blink and lean closer, sure I misheard.

  “I know this is soon and sounds crazy, but I’m in love with you, Mason. The head-over-heels kind, the making-big-changes kind, the forever-and-ever kind.”

  “How drunk are you?”

  “Not drunk enough that I don’t know how I feel.”

  This is bullshit! All of it.

  My thoughts spin with confusion. “What do you want from me, Trix?” My hands shake as I step closer to her, not sure if I want to grab her into my arms or wrap my hands around her neck.

  She stands tall, confident. “I want to be a better woman for you, wake up every morning with you. I want you to wonder what kind of mother I’ll be and dream about the future we’ll have together. I want you to want to marry me, spend the rest of your life with me, and be proud to do it. That’s what I want from you.”

  A low growl rumbles in my chest. “That’s a lot to ask seeing as you just told me you’re leaving me for someone else.”

  Her gaze sinks to the floor. “I know. But there’s a lot you don’t know. If you’d give me time to explain, I think you’ll understand. I hope you’ll understand.”

  “Start fucking talking.”

  Twenty-seven

  Trix

  I take a shaky breath and wipe my eyes with the hem of the T-shirt Mason gave me to wear. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, I want so badly for him to hold me in his arms, but he’s all the way across the room. His back is to the wall, elbows on his knees, with his head in his hands.

  “It took me two years of working at Zeus’s, trying to get close enough to every biker who came in and hope beyond hope they knew something.” Every word that leaves my lips seems to deliver Mason physical pain, but he needs to know. He needs to hear it all. “When I met Hatch, he warmed up to me, and it was easy to get him talking. Found out he had ties to Northern California.”

  Mason’s eyes stay downcast, his fingers fisting in his hair.

  “When he got drunk, he was like an open book, treated me like his confessional. The things he told me . . .” I shake my head at the memory of his admission.

  No one messes with us, sunshine. Gotta guy who gets off on cuttin’ up people. Even killed a girl doin’ it.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” he mumbles beneath his breath.

  “He took off for a year, and I thought it was over—that he was dead and that everything he knows died with him—but he’s back now.”

  I wait, for something, anything. Silence thickens the air between us.

  “Say something.” I’d go to him, but his body language is screaming to be left alone.

  He rips his hands through his hair, and he spears me with an icy-blue glare. “You’re asking me to do the impossible!”

  My body jerks to touch him, but I sit back, refusing to take away the space he needs to process. “Is it? Is it impossible?”

  “To sit back while you date someone else? Someone with ties to a murderer? Yes. It’s motherfucking impossible.”

  “I don’t want him. I want you. Forever. After this is over, after I get the name of the man—”

  “And if you don’t?” He shrugs. “What then, huh? How long will you be fucking this guy before you finally give up?”

  I don’t know. Can a time limit be put on this kind of thing? I shake my head. “It took me years to get him to open up, years of living a life I hate, doing things that make me sick, knowing every day I’m disappointing my family because they think I actually like the person I’ve become.”

  Mason’s face twists in disgust. “Exactly. So why go through it? There’s no guarantee you’ll find what you’re looking for. That guy could be full of shit. Why not just walk away now? You said it yourself you were going to quit stripping. Leave this vigilante mission behind, for us.” He implores me with his eyes. “Please, do that. Walk away and I promise I’ll give you a life you’ll never regret leaving that shit behind for.”

  I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “You’re asking me to turn my back on Svetlana when I’m finally so close to figuring out who killed her.”

  “Yes. But it’s for us, for your safety. Fuck, Trix, just think about all the things that could go wrong here.”

  I blink up at him. “You’re asking me to choose you over her. If I walk away, I’ll always wonder.”

  “No, you won’t—”

  “And I’ll hate you for making me choose.”

  He flinches at my words, but understanding comes over his face.

  “My parents told me that they wanted to adopt Svetlana because she was older. Young children have a much better chance at finding a family. It took them years of legal shit and paperwork until they finally made it to Russia to pick up their little girl. When they got to the orphanage, they said she refused to go. She didn’t cry or throw a fit, but just kept saying over and over, ‘Moya sestra. Moye serdtse.’ They said she wouldn’t stop, just kept chanting it.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “My sister. My heart.” Pain slices through my chest at the memory of her words. “My dad told me I was like a growth holding on to her leg: screaming, crying, and kicking up a huge fuss. They knew then there was no way Svetlana would leave me and if they wanted her they’d have to take me too.”

  “I don’t understand why—”

  “Don’t you see? She saved me. She fought for me and refused to give up until she knew I’d be in the safest place possible, and that place was with her.”

  He shakes his head, almost as if he’s battling against my words, trying to physically push them from his ears.

  “Even in her death, she saved me.”

  His gaze jumps to mine, jaw slack.

  “Her death brought me to you.”

&n
bsp; “If you believe that, then stay with me.” He leans forward. “Don’t do this. It’s not worth it.”

  He doesn’t get it. I crawl off the bed to the floor in front of him. His eyes watch me warily as I push to sit on my knees between his open feet. “She was sliced from here”—I turn my head and run my finger from my ear to the corner of my mouth—“to here. Like they were trying to cut her jaw from her face.”

  He turns away. “Stop, I don’t—”

  “Look at me.”

  His eyes dart back to mine then follow my finger to my neck.

  “Then to here.” I trace my fingertip down the side of my breast, making X’s at my nipples. “Here.” I slide my finger down my sternum and across my stomach. “Here he criss-crossed.” Back and forth I drag my finger across my bellybutton, lower to between my legs. “All the way down.” I lower my hand until—

  He catches my wrist hard and tosses my hand away. “Fuckin’ enough! I got it.” He rubs his eyes, as if the visual is playing in his head. “So, what? You plan on seducing this man to get him to spill?”

  The simple answer is yes. It’s worked before. The right combination of liquor and my body has loosened Hatchet’s lips in the past. I know I can do it again. I have to. “It works.” My cheeks heat with shame.

  “Men aren’t that stupid.” He grimaces as if he hears the lie in his own words.

  “Women have been using their bodies to get what they want since the beginning of time.”

  He doesn’t respond.

  “I’m begging you, Mason, to let me do this for her. I’m asking you to wait for me. Please, don’t let this be good-bye.”

  “I can’t. I . . .” He drops his head back and closes his eyes. “Knowing that you’re giving your body to someone else, sharing yourself with another man, is more than I can handle, Trix.”

  “My body is just a shell. It’s—”

  “Nothing but skin and nerves. I know. You’ve made that clear.” He laces his fingers behind his neck and drops his chin. “Fuck!”

  “Except when I’m with you.” I place my hand on his knee, and when he doesn’t flinch away, I run it down the length of his thigh, scooting myself closer so that I’m between his cocked legs. “Every time, from our first kiss until now, my body has been yours. My heart, mind. God, Mase, it’s like my very soul has belonged to you since day one.” I run my palms up his bare chest to his shoulders until he finally looks at me. “You’ve seen me dance. You know what everyone else is seeing isn’t really me. Only you have seen the real me, and I need you to know that you’re the only man who ever will.”

  A long desperate sigh falls from his lips.

  “I’m in love with you, Mason. You’re the one I want. Forever.” I slide my hands to his, which are fisted at his side. “Let me prove it to you.”

  His eyebrows drop low and he cocks his head. Pushing to stand, I pull him to his feet and lead him to stand at the foot of the bed. Without a doubt in my mind, I pull off the T-shirt and let it fall to the floor.

  “I told you I was saving a part of me, a very private part of me for the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.” I sit onto the bed, and he tracks every movement with flawless concentration. “This is my commitment to you.”

  I drop to my back and take a shuddered breath as I lay myself out before him and pray he doesn’t reject me.

  He’s silent for a minute that slowly ticks into two. I squirm as his gaze glides over every inch of my body.

  And here is the deciding moment, the choice I’ve laid out before him.

  Choose me or walk away.

  Mason

  It’s so close to everything I’ve ever wanted. I have her love, her distant future, but not her loyalty. Not her body. Not her heart, at least, not completely.

  Her desire to solve her sister’s murder isn’t what shocks me most; it’s the irrational idea that she’ll be able to do it on her own. And if she thinks I’m going to sit on the sidelines twiddling my thumbs while she throws herself and her naked body in front of a man who’s not only unsafe but tied to a murderer, she’s out of her motherfucking mind.

  I put a knee to the bed between her open legs, their golden length spread out before me as a runway to the heaven that waits between them. My hands smooth over her ankles, up the thin contours of her shins to her knees. She takes a shaky breath and chews her lip.

  “Are you scared?” My voice is low and harsh.

  “Yes, only scared that you’ll take what you want and walk away.”

  What I want. Ha. It’s almost laughable. What I want is her heart, the one thing she doesn’t seem able to give until she finishes what she started. “Do you trust me?”

  “I love you. But I don’t know if you love me, and that makes this scary.”

  Ah, so she thinks I’ll take the one thing she’s saved of herself and throw her away right after. Trix, you don’t know me at all.

  Rather than set her mind at ease, I continue to run my palms up her smooth thighs, pressing them apart farther and farther with each stroke until her knees are bent and her feet are flat on the bed.

  My breath catches in my throat at the view before me: her lush little body open and practically trembling with anticipation while her chest rises and falls with quickened breath.

  I lean over her, making sure to keep my hips high. I know how badly she needs to be touched, but by the time I get my mouth between her legs, I want her begging, desperate to be reminded of what we have.

  “This”—I dip down to suck one firm nipple deep into my mouth—“and this”—I move to the other and do the same, this time clamping down with my teeth and leaving a mark—“are mine.” It’s animalistic, barbaric, but I need to mark her. I dip to the hidden cavern beneath her breast and suck the tender flesh deep into my throat. She gasps, arching into my mouth. I suck her deeper and groan when she lifts her hips to rub against my dick. With a firm grip, I press her hips to the bed and release her to find a dark purple spot where my mouth once was.

  “Tell me you’re mine.” I need to hear her confirmation.

  She nods, her lips parted with her panting breath. “All yours.”

  I move to her face and drop a kiss to her forehead. “I want your mind”—I kiss her eyelids—“your dreams.” I lick at the seam of her mouth. “No secrets between us.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Her hands fist into my hair, but I pull them free and press them above her head with one hand.

  I continue to kiss down her body, only freeing my hold on her hands when I’m at her ribcage. She keeps them high above her head as I explore the dips of her abdomen, the peaks of her hipbones, and the soft cushion of her inner thighs.

  “Beatriks,” I call up to her from my position between her legs.

  She fidgets before me; her hips jack off the bed searching for contact.

  “I want you to watch every fucking second. Don’t take your eyes off me, understand?” Fire rages through my veins, and as much as I want to please her, I want to torture her for what she’s asking of me. Push her to the brink of insanity so that she can get a sliver of an idea of how crazy she’s making me.

  She pushes up to her elbows, her eyes heavy with hunger as she pores over the view.

  “Tell me you want this.” I run my tongue along her inner thigh, moaning at the sweet scent of her skin. “Beg me for it.” I switch to the other thigh, alternating between long drags of my tongue and deep bites that leave indentations. A roar threatens to burst from my chest at marking her skin, even if only temporarily. “I can’t hear you.” It’s the last chance she’ll get because after I take this from her there will be no turning back for me.

  She whimpers as my lips inch closer to where she wants me. “I want this,” she says around a moan. “Please, I need you.”

  With that, I incline my head and take the first sweet taste of her. I groan deep in my throat at the honeyed tang of her tender flesh. Her loud gasp is followed by a low rumble of satisfaction as she rolls her hips into my mouth.


  My tongue floods with the luscious flavor so unique to Trix I can’t help but feel in this moment that it was created only for me. I nip at her most sensitive parts, alternating between short flicks of my tongue and long, deep swipes.

  Time passes and I’m completely lost to her body. Every sound, every muscle that tenses I can see and feel beneath my hands. I say a silent prayer, knowing I’m the luckiest bastard alive to have this, accepting this gift from a woman who’s held onto it for so long. And now it’s mine. She’s offered it to me along with her love, and I will hoard it as long as she’ll allow.

  “This is . . . I’m . . .” She shakes her head, unable to complete a sentence before I sense the pulsing of her impending orgasm.

  I add two fingers, and she drops back to the bed. Her back bows as she presses harder into my mouth and cries out my name.

  So fucking perfect.

  A guttural sigh rolls from what seems like her toes to her lips, and she throbs against my mouth. I lap my tongue over her, sucking and licking until her legs fall open and her muscles loosen.

  “Mase, I’m . . .” She shakes her head again.

  I move from between her legs up her body, this time allowing my weight to press down on her so she can feel the full extent of what she does to me.

  Before I kiss her, I notice a small tear escape her eye.

  Please, tell me she doesn’t regret what she’s given me. “Baby, why?”

  She wipes it away and flashes a tiny grin. “I’m fine. I just . . . I love you.”

  I dip down and place a kiss on her lips, loving the way she darts out her tongue to taste herself from my mouth. My hips flex, and she pulls her mouth from mine before lifting her leg to hook her toes into the elastic of my shorts.

  “Off.”

  Together we push my shorts down my legs, and I kick them to the floor, re-settling myself between her warm and welcoming thighs.

  I take in her face, cheeks pink, lips plump, and eyelids heavy. My fingers trace her hairline down to her jaw and over her lower lip. “You’re so beautiful, Beatriks.”