by Marie James
He chuckles and rolls me against his chest. “I know.”
It’s not long before I begin to shiver and a headache knocks behind my eyes. I don’t have to say a word. He reaches down and pulls the sheet over our bodies.
“Subspace is pretty fucking awesome, but the drop can be rough.” His finger tickles the skin on my back, but the sensation for some reason is less than comforting. I push his hand away expecting him to be upset, but he replaces it with a harder, more comforting pressure. “I never imagined you’d respond like that. I can’t wait to take you to the edge.”
I pull my head from his chest and glare at him.
“The edge? I think I crashed over it.”
“No, baby. You didn’t even get close.” He chuckles when my eyes widen at his words.
Chapter 26
Dominic
“Are you okay?” Her head only shifts an inch or so on my chest. “Use the words, Mak.”
“My whole body is humming. I’ve never felt anything like it.” I feel her lips spread into a smile. “I didn’t know it could be like this.”
It’s usually not. I keep the thought locked tight in my head.
“Baby? Is that something you call all of us girls?” My body doesn’t respond, but my brain is scrambling for the right thing to say.
I haven’t called anyone that in almost two decades. I have no idea why it comes so easy with you.
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just easier some days.”
Her demeanor changes, only marginally and the subtlety of it makes me hate myself. The finger tracing the ridges on my stomach stills, her breathing hitches, and after a long moment of silence, I feel a tear roll down my side.
“Easier than remembering our names, I guess.” The distant tone of her voice guts me, but rather than comfort her like my mind is telling me to do, I ignore the statement. “I understand.”
“You don’t, trust me.” She wouldn’t have a clue.
“I found your photo album. I know I can’t be her, the wife you loved that died.”
I stiffen, even after the betrayal and the heartache, I’d never wish death on Karen, my heart wouldn’t allow for it. “She’s not dead,” I mutter. “We divorced.”
“Divorced?” Disbelief fills her voice, and I know why. Those pictures are filled with happiness and ignorant bliss. “Why do you keep it?”
I ponder that for a long minute. I hate what needs to be said, but that doesn’t keep them inside. “It’s a reminder that true love doesn’t exist. It cautions me against falling for anyone’s bullshit.”
Karen was my first everything until she decided it wasn’t enough. That’s not on Makayla, it’s on me, but the warning is always there.
She remains silent, letting my words sink in and how they correlate in our current situation. I hope she understands. I’d rather her read between the lines than actually having to say the words out loud. My brain, mouth, and body are all on different wavelengths, and I know I’ll fuck that conversation up. Eventually, I shift her off of my chest, check to make sure she’s okay one last time and disappear into the bathroom.
She’s getting too attached. Fuck, I’m getting too attached. Even knowing that and knowing I need to put an end to whatever this is that’s building between us, I’m still agitated when I open the door into the bedroom and find my bed empty.
Crawling into bed without bothering to put on clothes, I lay, wide awake and staring into the darkness long after I realize she isn’t just in the guest bedroom getting cleaned up. I spend countless hours tossing and turning in a bed I’d found comfort in just last week. I only sleep in bursts, much like I did in Tennessee.
Kincaid, Kid, and Snatch left before discussing or making solid plans about what needs to happen with the bullshit going on with Grinder and the Renegades. I know he wants to do that without Mak around. I make mental plans to head over there first thing in the morning. The sooner we can get to the bottom of that mess, the sooner I can get her on her way.
***
I wince when I roll over in bed, finding the sun barely shining around the black-out curtains in my room. I haven’t had a worse night of sleep in as long as I can remember, but I refuse to examine it for what it actually is.
After another long shower, letting the hot water attempt to work out the soreness in my muscles, I head to the kitchen to make coffee. In my own house, I walk as quietly as possible as to not bother Makayla, when in actuality I want to bang on her door, so she’ll join me in the kitchen. I also have a pressing urge to apologize for last night, to explain that I do things with her I haven’t felt comfortable doing to anyone in a long time, including using a pet name and letting her sleep on my chest. Those confessions, however, will come with a slew of questions I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to answer, at least not with the response she probably wants to hear.
She never shows her gorgeous face, so I disappear outside and down the dock. The ducks ignore me just like they do every morning. I don’t feed them often because it’s a bitch to drag the water hose all the way down here to spray off the shit they leave behind after they’ve been congregating. I had Kid down here shortly after I discharged after finding out the reason I had such a mess was because he and Khloe had been hanging out down here. He lugged that heavy ass hose all the way down and back with a smile on his face.
I remember those days. The ones that were never long enough, never enough touching, kissing, promising. Not a thing in the world I wouldn’t do for Karen. All she had to do was ask or even hint at needing something, and if it was in my power, it was hers. It wasn’t until after a few nights of binge drinking and deep reflection that I realized just how one sided the relationship had always been. I was blind to it until my eyes met the sight of her fucking another man in my house.
Eventually, as the sun is rising in the sky, I head back into the house. Passing by the hallway into the kitchen, I see her coming out of my bedroom.
“Looking for me?” She stiffens, and I notice the way her clothes are disheveled and her hair is a mess. Before she even says a word I know what happened last night.
“I, umm.” She points over her shoulder at my closed bedroom door.
“You slept in the panic room again.” She nods softly.
She had to have gone in there while I was in the shower. Knowing she didn’t have time to shower before locking herself in makes my cock grow in my jeans. I resist the need to pull her against me and drink in the smell of me still on her skin. I turn and walk my coffee cup back to the kitchen.
I hear her follow behind, keeping her distance, giving me what I told her in context clues last night. My fingers ache in my gripped fists at her obeying so well. It makes me want to reward her with orgasms while at the same time punishing her with a series of slaps on the ass for not clinging to me the second she saw me.
I hate not being in control, and she’s challenged every bit of mine since the day she arrived.
“I’m heading to the clubhouse,” I tell her shifting away from the counter as she reaches for the coffee pot. “I want you to go. I think you’ll be safer there.”
“You want me to stay there?”
“Yes.” I need you out of my house, out of arm’s reach.
“Will you be staying there also?”
“No. They have some renovations going on and only one empty room.”
“I want to be where you are,” she confesses.
Fuck, why does hearing that make my heart pound harder?
“Can you stay there with me?” Her blue eyes find mine, once again filled with the same fear that was in them when I left to help Bri.
“That’s not such a good idea,” I say turning my attention from her piercing gaze to the sink to rinse my coffee cup.
“Listen,” she says turning her body so one hip is leaning against the counter and she’s facing me. “I don’t have any grandiose ideas about what’s going on between us. I’m fully aware we’re just having a little fun until Grinder is dealt with.”
/> Hearing it from her mouth, the words I’ve been struggling to say myself, sit heavy between us. Her face is emotionless, showing none of the emotions I must have read wrong. She wants to be protected, kept safe, not loved like most girls her age dream of, not the way I’d misinterpreted the way she clung to me last night.
She sighs when I don’t respond.
“Even if we’re both there, it doesn’t mean the sex has to continue, Dom.” She turns again to make her cup of coffee. “I’m sure there are other girls there you want to get to since I’ve kept you away so long.”
Just the thought of choosing one of the club girls over Makayla makes me sick to my stomach. You don’t settle for sherbet when you can have the option of the creamiest, most delicious ice cream in the world.
The mental reminder of how sweet her pussy is sets my mouth to watering, as if I’m in the desert again and the only thing that will quench my thirst is the delicate honey between her thighs.
“Get packed,” I grumble. “I’ll do the same.”
I may like to engage in mild forms of torture with the women at the end of a crop, but masochism isn’t my thing. Staying here and needing to be inside of her, knowing she’s miles away seems like it would be the worst kind of agony.
Chapter 27
Makayla
I feel weird trailing behind him to his room. He turns with a questioning look when I cross over the threshold into his room a few seconds behind him.
Full of embarrassment, I open the bottom drawer of his dresser and pull out the clothes he bought for me. I set the arm-full on the bed, and before I can ask, he pulls a small suitcase out of the closet and sets it down beside them. I pack what I’m not going to wear today and begin to pull my t-shirt over my head.
“Change in the bathroom,” he insists. “I don’t have time to fuck you before we leave.”
Without a word, I carry my clothes into the bathroom, eyeing the shower with the longing of a girl who’s never used one with that many jets before.
Instead of changing, I strip naked and turn on the shower. I may never have a chance like this again, and there’s no way I’m walking out of here without this experience again.
My head rolls on my shoulders as glorious hot water pounds my back from the jets on the wall.
“Fuck, that’s good,” I moan.
I take as long as possible, only soaping up and washing after my fingers have begun to prune, hoping he’ll join me and fuck me against the wall. Sadly, he stays gone. I dry off, twisting my wet hair into a pile on the top of my head and get dressed.
I smile into the mirror, the bright bulbs highlight each and every bruise on my neck. I want him to see them. I want him to remember giving them to me. For the first time in my life, I wear my marks with pride, knowing they were earned through passion and not malice.
My suitcase is gone from the bed. I carry my dirty clothes with me and find Dom standing near the door leading into the garage, eyes focused on his phone. I’m reminded for the first time since he came home yesterday that I haven’t bothered to think of the burner phone and the handgun since.
I turn back around, heading to the panic room to retrieve them.
“What have you forgotten?” he asks. “You were in the shower for over an hour, Mak. We need to hit the road.”
“The phone. The gun,” I answer wondering what in the hell is so urgent that we need to rush getting out of here. I push down the thought that he’s eager to get to the clubhouse for the reprieve from me and the company of the other women there.
“You don’t need them. Let’s go.” He never makes eye contact with me as he opens the door, holding it open for me to pass through it.
I don’t argue about leaving them here. If he’s going to stay at the clubhouse, I won’t need them because he’s there to protect me.
Opening the back door of a dark tinted SUV, he waves me inside. “Take your hair down before we get there,” he orders.
I nod knowing I’m not going to listen to him. He doesn’t get to fuck me against the wall of the panic room within a minute of laying his eyes on me, choke me to orgasm, and then turn around and pretend it didn’t happen.
“I’m not worried about Renegades lurking around, but I don’t want to take any chances.” His eyes find mine in the rear view mirror ten minutes later as we drive through town.
I acknowledge him with a quick nod.
“I don’t want any trouble there,” he continues unprompted. “Not with Griffin and Em about to have two more babies there.”
I want to be petty and childish and ask him to just forget about helping me. Tell him to drop me off at the nearest bus station. I’m afraid he’d actually do it and then I’d have to ask him for money for a bus ticket.
Once on the Cerberus property, we pull into one of the buildings beside the clubhouse, not getting out until the garage door has sealed us inside.
He doesn’t look at my neck again until we empty through another door inside the clubhouse after walking down the long tunnel. Before he can give further direction about it that I’d only ignore, Khloe and Kid walk up to us like some impromptu welcoming committee.
“Hey,” Khloe says. “Great to see you again.”
I should be mad at her, but for some reason, the girl just exudes warmth and kindness. It’s not her fault for being honest with Kid when he happened to ask the right questions.
“Oh gosh,” she gasps, eyes zeroed in on the marks I’ve put on display. “Makayla, what happened? Those weren’t there the other day.”
Dom likes to choke me when we fuck.
Kid grabs her hands and pulls her against him whispering something in her ear, while Dom shifts uncomfortably beside me. Her eyes trail over my neck again, only this time her gaze is heated. I don’t know what Kid is telling her, but the look on her face is making me hot. Khloe nods, and in a flash both of them are gone, disappearing into a room down the hall.
“I told you to take your hair down,” Dom hisses before another woman comes sauntering up.
It’s clear she only has eyes for Dom with the way she’s running her tongue over her bottom lip as she approaches. Funnily, Dom takes a step closer to me, his hand settling on my lower back. It’s only then that she notices me standing beside him. Her face falls, eyes wrinkle at the corners for a split second before she catches herself.
“Hey, Dom.” She’s beautiful, closer to Dominic’s age, and full of self-confidence I can only hope for in this lifetime. I’m intimidated immediately.
“Bri,” he replies with curtness.
Bri? The one he spent two days with in Tennessee?
Forget intimidated, now I just feel hopeless.
“She’s young,” she whispers purposefully loud enough for me to hear as she walks by and closes herself into another room.
“She wasn’t supposed to be here,” he mutters as he directs us to a room down the other end of the hall.
I try, I really do, but I can’t keep my mouth closed.
“Guess I know where you’ll be tonight,” I say without looking in his direction.
I hear my suitcase and the duffel bag he carried drop to the ground, and in the next breath, I’m pinned against the wall with his hard thigh between my legs.
“I’ll be wherever the fuck I want to be.” His hot breath ghosts over my face and neck as he leans in closer to my ear. “And that’s going to be buried in that sweet little pussy of yours.”
I’m gasping, aching, and reaching for him when he takes a step back. I follow his eyes to the open door to see a very pregnant woman standing there gawking at us like we’re aliens.
“I heard a crash,” she explains.
Dom doesn’t say a word, just gives her a quick kiss on the cheek and walks out of the room.
“I’m Emmalyn,” she says offering her hand. “Em.”
I shake it. “Makayla. Mak.”
She takes a step back and bends to get the duffel and suitcase off the floor.
I stop her. “Let me get tha
t.”
“I’m pregnant, not helpless.”
I grin at her fiery personality. “Don’t need your water breaking on the floor. I hear this is the only open room.”
“It is,” she answers. “I had to come meet the girl Kincaid believes has finally seeped inside of Dominic.”
I shake my head, rejecting her words. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Is he planning to sleep in here with you?” The sparkle in her eye tells me she already knows the answer.
I shrug. “I guess since it’s the only room.” I open the suitcase Dom provided for me on the bed and start taking clothes out and putting them in the small dresser. “He could also be down the hall with Bri.”
Her laugh startles me, and I drop the socks and panties from the top of my clothing pile. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m not jealous or anything,” I tell her taking the pile of Dom’s clothes from her hands. “She can have him.”
I know how vindictive club girls can be, and I have no interest in getting in between that gorgeous woman and a man I’ve known less than a week.
“He doesn’t want her.” I put his clothes in a different drawer and reach back to her for his zipped leather bathroom bag. “I think he has his sights set on someone else, anyway.”
I ignore her words even though they make me wish and hope for things I have no business even imagining.
“Come on,” she says from the doorway. “Everybody is in the living room.”
Instinct tells me to stay in the room, but Dom is out there, and he’s the one I want to be around, the one I feel safest with. I follow her out of the room, back down the hall and turn left. Talking, laughing, and all around cheer greets us when we walk into the room.
Kincaid is off of the couch and in front of Em before she can sit down on her own. He guides her to the spot he’d just vacated and helps her lower to the couch. She rolls her eyes but takes his help. I can only imagine he’s been hovering for a while. With a protective hand on her stomach, he begins nuzzling against her neck, bringing a smile so sweet to her face I look away feeling as if I’m intruding on a private moment.
