“Jack,” she whispered, gripping the door, knuckles fading to white as she stared down at my boot.
“Like the way you say my name, Sunshine,” I ground out, placing my hand on the doorknob and throwing my weight into it as it fell open and she stumbled back. Her gasp excited me, the perfect O her lips formed had my dick stirring to life and encouraged me to keep at her. I kicked the door closed with the heel of my boot. For every step I took, she took one away from me. I took two long strides toward her, caging her in once her back hit the wall.
“Don’t,” she ordered, her voice struggling to sound stern. “You come any closer and I will scream,” she said, through clenched teeth as she brushed away the tendrils of hair that fell into her eyes.
My lips quirked, “That’s the plan, baby,” I bit my lip and shook my head, drowning in visions of Reina throwing her head back and screaming out for me to fuck her hard. Her tongue sneaked out of her mouth, running along the seam her perfect lips. My dick liked that subtle move—liked it a lot. I reached down, cupped my erection through my jeans and moaned, never tearing my eyes from hers.
“You’re disgusting,” she hissed, her eyes narrowing, dipping to my crotch before snapping back to my face. Something snapped in those brown eyes of hers, something so fucking amazing to watch—like life was reborn in them in that second. She pushed off the wall, closing the distance between us, and poked her finger into my hard chest.
“I get you’re this badass biker who throws his weight around and gets people to follow your every command, but you don’t get to come into my home and demand shit from me. I can’t control who comes into the diner but I have a say in who comes into my apartment and into my life—you don’t make the cut…Bulldog,” she whispered. My road name sounding as if it was venom on her tongue.
I thought I was a goner when she called my God given name, but hearing my road name come from her mouth took everything to another level. Nothing else seemed to exist other than this woman before me and the unexplainable need to have her say my name over and over again.
“There you go riding on that high horse of yours again. Why don’t you do us both a favor and step off? I promise I’ll give you something better to ride,” I suggested, crossing my arms against my chest.
She glanced down, those electric eyes of hers zeroing in on my dick and then again she lifted them to mine, her lips curled in disgust.
“I’m not interested.”
I laughed, leaning in, feeling her breath on my lips. “Liar.”
I reached out, my fingertips tracing the length of her neck, twitching and begging to wrap around her neck and give her a little squeeze. Just a little one. Tiny. Miniscule.
I cupped the back of her neck, jerked her head back and forced her to look at me.
“Bet the house that pussy of yours is drenched for me,” I growled.
“I saw you,” she blurted, reaching behind her to brush away my hand but I tightened my grip on her. “I went to that place, that despicable warehouse of yours and I saw you,” she stressed her last word, driving the stake deep through the skin, slicing through the demented exterior of my resolve.
She wrenched my fingers from her neck and took a retreating step backward.
“I convinced myself that I owed you an apology, that, maybe I had misjudged you. But I was on point the other night—actually, I wasn’t,” she corrected herself, shaking her head. “I thought you were just this guy who ran in the wrong circles but you’re much worse. I’m sure people gravitate to you, people who crave the high you give with your dirty mouth and your filthy ways. I’m not one of those people,” she sneered, glancing toward the door. “Now, I believe I’ve made myself perfectly clear so if you would just see yourself out we could forget you ever walked into Dee’s diner and that our paths ever crossed.”
She swallowed, took a deep breath and her hands trembled as she turned around to walk into her tiny kitchen, dismissing me.
No one dismissed Jack Parrish. No one. Certainly not some pretty little blonde with a golden cunt and a smart mouth.
She thought she knew me? Thought ten minutes in my compound gave her insight into who I was—she had no fucking idea. I’d make her head spin with what the last thirty-eight years on this earth consisted of for Jack Parrish. Then and only then, could this bitch judge me.
I stalked into her kitchen and watched her throw dishes into her sink, her hands still shaking.
“You don’t know me,” I ground out, causing her to turn around startled.
“I thought I asked you to leave,” she whispered, taking a deep breath as she gripped the edge of the counter and stared at me.
“I grew up with a mother who fucking hated me. I spent my teenage years running around doing fucked up shit, just to get her attention. It didn’t matter if it was negative attention or that it made her hate me more, all I knew was she noticed me whenever I did the bad shit. I got high on it, kept doing it, all the while trying to keep her interested in me. And then she and my father died because all the bad shit caught up with me and landed me in trouble. On their way to bail my ass out they were killed in a car crash.”
She stared at me quietly and for some reason I looked into her eyes and kept going, introducing her to the real Jack Parrish, leaving myself bare for her judgements.
“I had responsibilities I needed to take care of…got my girl pregnant, married her, and she gave me my daughter and my son. The club, those men, they became my family, provided me a way to take care of my responsibilities, to give my family a good life. Connie was never about the club life,” I said, cocking my head and staring at her. “Like you, the ugliness blinded her and she was too jaded to see the brotherhood. Lost her and thought I lost a part of myself but realized I never truly would feel loss until I held my lifeless baby boy in my arms in the middle of the street with my little girl sobbing at the curb. I prayed to any fucking God that would listen to a no good bastard like me. I prayed for a miracle that would breathe life back into the two-year old that I had lost and had died on my watch.”
“You ever lose somebody, Reina?” I questioned, stepping toward her, high on that scared look that reappeared in her eyes. “Ever lose someone you created? Someone you loved more than anything? I doubt it, because a bitch like you wouldn’t survive it. It changes you. I was fucked from birth, but losing my son, fucked me harder. And that glimpse of the Satan’s Knight’s you saw tonight, that family you frowned upon, they pulled me out of the darkness before it consumed me and swallowed me whole. They are the reason I’m standing here in front of you because I would have taken purchase next to my son, right there in the cold earth for all of eternity, beside the boy I created,” I growled with a ragged breath. “So bitch, don’t look at me with those judgmental eyes because you wouldn’t survive all the shit I have.”
“You think you know me? You think you have me all figured out? You don’t know a goddamn thing. I know loss, maybe not as deeply as you. I never lost a child, never had one to lose, but I lost myself,” she cried, tears escaping from the corners of her eyes. “I survived,” she shouted through her tears. “I survived,” she repeated, this time the words a whisper. She wiped angrily at the tears that stained her cheeks but the words that came next were soft. “And I learned that surviving is worse than dying. It’s hell in its purest form.”
Her words twisted inside me and for the first time in thirteen years someone got it, someone got me. Her words were my truth.
I realized then, Reina, the woman I barely knew, knew me.
There were no words left to say. She had said them all.
It took my mind a moment to catch up to my body as I stalked toward her. The fear in her eyes vanished, replaced with a dull ache I know reflected in my own eyes.
I glanced at the counter dusted in flour and cluttered with dirty dishes. Spotting a mixing bowl, I leaned over and saw the remnants of the cherry filling and remembered the pie she had baked for me. Bringing my eyes back to her, I watched as she studied my eve
ry move, eyes glued to my hands as I lifted the bowl, holding it between us. I shifted it to one of my palms and scraped my thumb around the inside of the bowl, scooping leftover filling onto the pad of my finger.
Our eyes lifted simultaneously, glued to one another’s, uncertainty and anticipation pouring from our irises.
“You made me cherry pie,” I spoke huskily. “Really wanted a taste.”
She swallowed hard, visibly pushing down the lump lodged in her throat.
“Gonna have that taste now,” I warned, lifting my thumb and smearing the cherry filling across her mouth. Her lips were soft as they parted—just barely, a soft gasp escaping past them as my thumb worked back and forth. She lifted her hand to my wrist and pulled it away from her mouth. I sensed the change in tides, saw the storm roll over in her eyes and knew she was about to push me away—but before she did, I took that fucking taste I came here for.
My mouth crashed over hers, my tongue lapping at her lips, licking all the filling off her. Reina remained perfectly still, holding my wrist as my lips slowly worked hers. I was drunk…and not on cherry pie but on sunshine. My sunshine.
“Fucking delicious,” I grunted, before I took her lower lip between my teeth. Just a nibble.
Just a taste.
She moaned.
And that was it.
I snatched my hand from her grip, cupped her face in my hands and kissed her like I had nothing, nothing but her. It was ferocious, it was primal, it was everything. When she parted her lips and beckoned me into her light I lost control like I never had before.
I devoured her. The faint hint of cherries assaulting my taste buds as I gripped her hips and hoisted her up against me, her legs wrapping around my waist. Reina came alive in my arms, her hands moving up my back and into my hair, tugging at the short strands. I spun around, her fingers clawing at my scalp as I slammed her onto the small wooden table. I tore my mouth from hers, placed my palms on her knees and spread her wide, stepping between her legs.
She panted, eyes wide, and reached for my leather jacket, fisting it in her hands bringing me back to her. High on life, high on feeling, high on sunshine, I gave her what she needed, what we both needed as I took her mouth again. My fingers worked the button of her jeans, cursing against her mouth as I peeled the denim down her legs. She lifted her hips so I could maneuver her jeans over her round ass. God, she had a fucking body that made men like me drop to their knees, begging to be at her mercy.
I managed to get one pant leg down and left the other halfway up her leg while I worked my zipper. My cock throbbed, my balls ached, and the need to pound into that forbidden pussy consumed me. I palmed the white lace that covered the part of her I craved most before tearing it to the side, exposing the sweetest Hell I’d ever know. My fingers grazed the pink flesh, slick and all mine.
“Jack,” she cried out, her hands clutching onto my shoulders, pulling me toward her. I stared into her eyes as I lifted my hand to my mouth and licked her essence off the tips of my fingers.
Fucking nirvana.
I wanted to bury my face between her thighs, maybe camp out there for a week but my cock couldn’t handle much more. I grabbed my erection, groaning as I stroked it, the head glistening as I swiped the drops of my release that had escaped, squeezing myself to get it all out before I slammed into her. I didn’t have a condom and wasn’t about to pass up my chance to have that cunt around me. I looked at the fluid on my fingers, then back to Reina and I wiped my fingers along her pussy. Her breath hitched letting me know she was aware of exactly what I was doing. My fingers glided over her pulsing flesh, branding her Property of Parrish.
Her mouth opened, about to spew some bullshit I probably didn’t want to hear so I silenced her with my mouth and shoved my dick deep inside her tight cunt.
Holy fucking hell, her pussy was like a vice around my dick and I had to work her, thrust by thrust, stretching her to fit me. I had lived a lot of life, lived hard and fucked harder. But fucking Reina, balls deep inside of her, was like nothing else I had ever known. She arched for me, meeting each stroke of my cock, inviting me deeper inside her warmth.
I pulled back, the need to watch her so strong it gave me the will to tear my mouth from hers. Her eyes closed and she arched her back as I pounded mercilessly inside of her. I was staring at her, memorizing her features, photocopying them to my memory so when I lay my head down at night I had something to replace the demons that haunted my dreams.
Reaching down between us I stroked her clit, softly at first, then felt her ride my hand and cock, desperate for the friction.
I’ll give you what you need as long as you keep giving me your sunshine.
She went off like a firecracker, her body igniting and convulsing as she found her light. The sweetest pussy I ever had, gripped me as she came all over my dick. My eyes rolled, and I pushed my hips and thrust my dick into her once, twice…then shouted her name as I pulled out just in time. My release spurting out, painting her exposed skin.
Covered in Parrish, branded by the Bulldog, Reina became my sunshine.
We were both fucked.
I stared at her long and hard as I pulled my jeans up, zipping the fly but not doing the button to give my swollen dick some relief. Her legs dropped off the table, and she bent over struggling with her jeans, looking at everything and anything other than me.
“Reina,” I started.
She reached for a dishtowel, wiping me from her before she pulled her pants up her legs. She turned around, her eyes blazing with fury and threw the dishtowel at me.
“You can leave now,” she said.
And there she went dismissing me again.
“Guess I was wrong ‘bout you,” I spat, baiting her, hoping to get her to turn around and look me in the eye. But I failed. Staring at her back angered me even more than the silence she offered me. “My dick ain’t straight-laced, and that pussy was still dripping,” I bit out, using my words as my weapon.
Her head bowed, her shoulders slumped and still she didn’t turn around to look at me.
Shunted, I cursed Reina and stalked out of her apartment, slamming the door behind me.
I shouldn’t be bothered. I got what I came here for. I got my taste of sunshine.
Chapter Ten
I stepped out of the shower, wrapping the towel around my body and leaned forward to wipe the steam from the mirror. I stared at the image reflected in the mirror and pondered the last twenty-four hours. The soft flush on my cheeks, a reminder of Jack and the sensations he evoked inside of me.
I went to bed last night, the scent of his cologne lingering on my skin, allowing me to hold onto the memory of feeling him inside of me. I don’t know what came over me, what possessed me to give myself to him. After, seeing him at his clubhouse and fleeing I never in a million years imagined he’d end up at my doorstep or between my legs.
He opened himself up, laid his secrets before me, causing my heart to ache for the loss he endured. He made me feel. Just as he had the night on his bike. Then he battered me with his words, making me feel some more, opening the gates of anger. Finally, he ended his assault on my feelings with the sensations of him, deep and alive inside of me. Any way you slice it, Jack broke my resolve, tore through my walls and made me feel. A simple ride on the back of his bike, his own heartbreak, his accusing words, his body, I felt it all.
It was a beautiful thing, realizing I was capable of more than just existing. But as beautiful as it was it was also alarming. I wasn’t willing to rely on a man to put the pieces of my life back together. No man, and certainly not one that went by the name of Bulldog.
I believe that people come into your life for a reason and Jack stormed into mine, breathing life into my soul. But with life he brought disgust. His crude ways and filthy mouth, the arrogance that radiated from him, it was all despicable. And yet, it was those three things that drew me to him, the three things that inebriated my self-control and allowed me to give in to him.
The towel
fell from my body and I slowly turned to my side lifting my arms above my head, my eyes fell upon the scars that marred my skin. The puckered flesh that ran along the underside of my arm down my hip. I had been so consumed with Jack that I didn’t remember the scars. Looking at them now, seeing all their ugliness, I felt a sense of relief that he hadn’t seen them. They were mine, my pain, my demons to carry, and I wasn’t ready to share them—especially not with him.
I reached for the tube of Mederma, squeezed the ointment into my hand and foolishly applied it to my skin as I did every day. They’d never fade—but one could hope couldn’t they? When the time came, if the time ever came, that I found someone I was willing to share this piece of myself with, maybe the scars would disappear.
I finished my routine, brushed my teeth and slipped my robe on before padding into the bedroom. I glanced at the clothes that lined my closet; they were split in half, depicting the two versions of Reina DeCarlo that lived within me. The flashy, edgy clothes of a girl who loved life versus the unflattering, baggy clothes of a girl hiding behind the threads, running away from life.
It’s funny how something as superficial as clothes used to make me happy. Actually, it’s not funny at all and just sad. Sad that a girl who worked hard as a paralegal, needed her boyfriend to sign for a car loan since her own credit was shot. A consequence of blowing every paycheck on fancy shoes and designer suits, suits that were donated to goodwill after the fire.
I sometimes wonder what Danny saw in me. I get I was a pretty girl, sexy even, sitting at the bar sipping a cosmopolitan. I had seen him a couple of times, always sitting alone at the other end of the bar. He always chose the most well-polished women to take home with him. Then one night he chose me.
I know the look I was selling that particular evening, the sexy career girl look, and Danny bought right into it. I just never understood why he didn’t demand a refund after a while.
The Tempted Series: Collectors Edition Page 66
