by Cat Porter
“Right, okay.”
Tania swiftly stepped back and firmly shut the door in one move, bolting the chain lock with a shaky hand, her lips parted. She pressed her palms against the door.
I moved to her. “You did good, Tania. Real good,” I whispered, wrapping my arm around her waist. She fell into me, inhaling deeply. I rubbed a hand down her back. “You okay?”
She nodded. “He didn’t look like any police detective. He looked like an underground—”
“Bet he’s from Med,” came Serena’s voice.
Tania and I turned around. Serena stood by the bed. “We can’t stay here much longer.”
Tania grabbed the bottle from my hands and took a swig. “Hold on.” She picked up the room phone and dialed. “Hi, I’m in room 110, and a man was just here, saying he was a police detective looking for a—” Her eyebrows lifted. “Oh, he is a local officer?” She glanced at me as she gnawed on her lip. “Oh, okay, I wasn’t sure. Good to hear. I’m glad I called you then. Thanks.”
Tania put the phone back on the receiver. “He really is a cop. Front desk lady said he’s one of the local boys. She’s known him since he was in diapers.”
Serena let out a deep breath and dropped herself on the edge of the bed.
I took the bottle from Tania and drank. “We got to get a plan together.”
“Aren’t you taking Serena with you to wherever in Nebraska?” Tania asked, taking the bottle from me and passing it to Serena.
“No, I can’t. She’s got to lay low for a while. I was hoping this guy I know here in South Dakota was going to help, but it didn’t work out that way. Can’t trust nobody.”
“You can trust me,” said Tania.
“You’ve been great, Tania. Don’t know what we would’ve done without you. But I can’t get you more involved than you already are.”
She sat up on the bed, leaning on one arm. “Serena could come with me to Chicago. I’m staying with a friend there for a few days, but I’ve got money saved up and have a lead on an apartment, and I’m planning on moving in real soon. Serena could stay with me until things cool down.”
Serena blinked. “Tania, that’s—”
“That’s a real good idea and a real generous offer,” I said. “Tania’s got a point. No one knows we know each other. But you can’t ever tell anybody about us, Tania. Not your ma or your sister or your brother or a boyfriend. Not even your best friend. Nobody. You get that?”
“I can keep a secret. I want you two to be safe. That’s what’s important. Safe and alive.”
Serena put a hand on her arm. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“All right then. Chicago it is. You good with that?” I asked Serena. The thought of her so far away from me twisted my insides, but it was the best solution, and it would be temporary.
Temporary.
“I’m good with that,” she replied quietly.
My beeper went off, and I glanced at it where it lay on the small table by the door. Los Angeles area code. Fuck, Kwik was checking in, and I was supposed to be on my way to that pickup in Sioux City. Luckily, it wasn’t too far from where we were, but I needed to contact Kwik, claim bike problems and get to Sioux City as soon as possible.
I turned the beeper over. “Don’t worry about money, I’ll send you whatever you need. I’ll find ways to keep in touch. You just need to expect it.”
Serena’s lips tipped up. “Sounds like a plan.”
“I got to go make some phone calls,” I said. “So Tania, how’s all this risk-taking feel now?”
A slow smile broke over her mouth. “Like the best fucking rush ever.”
16
“They call you Finger now?” Serena asked, her voice just above a whisper.
I turned on the motel bed and took her in. The lamplight created a golden glow over her. Her eyes were full and round. “Yeah. I earned my patch in a big way.”
A serious look passed over her face as her hand stroked over my chest, lingering there, sending shivers skittering over my flesh, my pulse charging like a generator kicking in under storm conditions. She planted light kisses on my pecs, gentle, revering, almost timid. She bit her lip, the side of her face sinking into my arm.
This was our first time together, alone, like normal people, a normal couple. But there didn’t seem to be much normal about us. Yet here we were together, and here she was, mine, and I was so fucking grateful.
My heartbeat hammered like I was a boy about to kiss his first girl—a girl he really liked and didn’t think he’d ever have. A girl whose light touch drove me just as crazy with lust and emotion as her mouth around my cock once had. This was different, though. Right now, these heady looks, light but sizzling touches of hers over my skin were pulling me under. This was more, more in a way that I couldn’t explain, but my body knew. I knew.
I kissed the side of her face, my hand at her jaw, my lips trailing to the edge of hers, and her mouth opened to mine. Her warm hand slid around my neck, the caramel taste of the whiskey still on her tongue. She made a soft noise in the back of her throat, her hips rising, and I crushed her body with my own.
Yeah, we both knew.
I pulled back, my thumb rubbing over her full lower lip. “I love being with you, here, like this, free and in the light. I like seeing you when we touch. Seeing your body with my eyes, not just my hands.”
“Me too.” A slow smile lit her face. She pulled my head down to hers and kissed me, a more insistent kiss, her one leg wrapping over mine, pressing.
Tania was taking a bath. A long, long bath, with her ear plugs in and her Sony Discman on. I could hear faint strains of the music through the closed bathroom door. She was a good kid and smart on the uptake. She was giving us some private time without being asked.
“I’m sorry for what they did to you.” Serena’s warm breath fanned my skin as her fingers traced over the grooves on my face. “I’m sorry for helping them. For—”
“Stop. You got nothing to be sorry for. Sometimes I forget, you know. But then I pass a mirror or a window and see my reflection. I notice that look people give me. It’s a split second of horror, a mental and physical freeze. They look away real fast, they back off.”
She took my right hand in hers and brought it to her mouth, and I hissed in a breath as her tongue danced over the nub of where my middle finger used to be.
I grit my teeth at the sensation springing over the stub. “You kissing my claws?”
“These hands aren’t claws. They hold me, carry me. They fight for me and make my dreams come true in hell and high water. These hands are beautiful and strong.” She ripped off her T-shirt and placed my hands on her breasts. My skin heated at the feel of her tits, at the sight of them covered with my large damaged paws. She raked her nails over them. “And they’re mine.”
My heartbeat grew louder at her words. That deep, sensual tone of her voice that was just for me, ticked off a time bomb deep inside me that I didn’t even know was there.
Her fingers went to my lips, stroked down my chest, my middle. Tucking her hands under the waistband of my boxer briefs, she tugged them down, and I flexed my hips so we could get them off. My head twisted back, my hips shifted, and both our gazes fell to her hand working my already rock hard cock.
My breath jammed in my lungs. “Serena.” I closed my eyes, letting out a grunt. I buried my face in her throat, nuzzling her warm skin. “It ain’t the same anymore. It hurts now.”
Her hand stopped moving. “Your dick?”
I put my hand over hers and brought it back to my cock. “I start coming and expect the chop, the pain, it just hangs over me. I come jerking off, but I don’t get in there anymore, just can’t. Can’t let go.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” Her hand stroked firmly under mine. “Don’t I understand?” A knowing smirk passed over her face.
Clean, clean, we’re both clean now, aren’t we?
“I know exactly what you’re talking about. I learned to shut it off,” she said, her voice low.
“I don’t want you shut off with me,” I said. “What they did to you isn’t what we do. Different…” I struggled to find the right words.
“I don’t want to be shut off anymore, and definitely not with you,” she breathed, her warm fingers opening over my cock once more, stroking.
In her hand my need grew ferocious. That familiar pressure cast its net over me, pulling, pulling…
I winced.
“What is it? Did I—”
I swallowed down the knot in my throat. “It starts burning with a hint of fear. The one time I’m supposed to be letting loose, I can’t.”
“I helped them do that to you,” she whispered, pulling back from me.
“No.” I grabbed onto her hands. “You’re the only one who understands. You were there. You were in all of that hell with me. You know.” I kissed her, my throat thick, my breath all fisted up in a knot. “I need you. Only you.”
“Justin—”
“You.”
“Let me change it for you.” She put my hands over her tits again, and my pulse hammered. Her small nipples were as hard as tiny stones against my skin.
“You’re so beautiful,” my voice quaked, like my rattling insides. Her face softened, a hint of a surprised, shy smile lighting up those incredible eyes.
Wild magic. All of it for me.
I’d never said nice things to a girl before. Never spoke during sex. To say what? Yeah, like that. Harder. Open more. But now I wanted to, I wanted to make Serena happy, make her smile with pleasure which made me lighter and warmer inside. I wanted to fill her with my tumbling thoughts, my crazy feelings. I couldn’t stop it.
Why should I?
I gently cupped a silky soft breast, and she whimpered and moved under my exploring touch. She leaned back, bringing my head closer to her breasts, offering her body to me.
“You don’t have to do anything. I know you think you do, but you don’t,” I whispered. “If you don’t want to, if you don’t want me—”
“Oh, Justin…” Her hands dug into my hair. “I feel and I want, and I want you. I want to be with you, make things better for you, and I want you to make things better for me. I want so much, so badly.”
“You want to live,” I whispered. I want to live too.
“Yes, yes…” She planted kisses on my forehead. “And I want you to feel good again.”
“We got plenty of time for that.”
“Do we? Really? We might only have tonight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What if they find us? What if Tania turns out to be a psycho serial killer and murders us in our sleep with some lethal injections she’s got stashed in her bag? What if aliens land in South Dakota tonight and take over the world?”
I laughed, and she stroked my cock again.
“Oh fuck, Serena...” I slid my forehead against hers, my grip on her shoulders real tight. Overwhelmed.
“Let me have you. Please let me have you,” she murmured.
She slid down alongside me and took me in her mouth, and I let out a long hiss of air. It’d been so long, so long since I hadn’t dreaded being touched by a woman. So long since I’d wanted to come. Since Serena in that hellhole dungeon.
I was fucking coming tonight. I was unraveling.
“Serena...”
She sucked on me, her head moving between my legs. I pulled her new dark hair out of the way, and she moaned as I wound it tightly in my grip.
“Fuck yes, yes.” My insides roared, my every muscle was on fire straining with need. I wanted nothing more than to come at her will, to come the way she wanted me to. To spill myself inside her, and feel her take all of me in.
My heart pounded as my hips moved against her on some wild, animal instinct. There was no thinking now, only giving in, giving over. The swell of heat and excitement roared in my veins, only it tore at me, ripping. That familiar panic edged around my heart like a steel cage. The blade was at the ready, the spill of my blood.
A black fog filled my eyes. My skin was covered in a film of sweat, my neck twisted, my eyes jammed shut. “Stop. Stop.” I pulled back, and so did she. “I can’t. I start and then, there’s the knife and the—”
“Shh.” Her hand smoothed across my hot face. “Concentrate on my voice, on my body around you. Listen to me and take me. It’s just you and me here in this bed. You and me.”
She was saying it to herself as much as to me.
I swallowed hard. “Yeah, you and me.”
She turned on the bed and spread her legs. “Kiss me.”
I didn’t need to be convinced. I sank my mouth between her legs and relished the taste of her musky arousal that I knew so well. A narcotic filling my veins. I lapped at her slick flesh, taking in every detail, every throb and shudder and cry of her body. Thread by thread, ounce by ounce, I let go of that red-stained terror, the anxiety unchaining me, the shroud of pain lifting a few degrees more and more, fading.
Yes. Yes. This is better, so much better. Making her fly for me.
She moved underneath me, her hands tugging roughly on my hair, her eyes on me. She spoke to me in a steady stream of urgent words. Words of encouragement, words of lust. I focused on her voice and let it wrap around me and hold me.
I wanted more of her. I wanted her to explode for me, on me. Sliding my index finger inside her, I rubbed at her inner wall. A few years back one of the girls at the club had showed me how. Hitting the G-spot, she’d told me, was worth every ounce of effort and not enough men bothered. I wanted to bother for Serena. I wanted to shower her with gold and silver and diamonds, dazzle her, give her everything she’d never had. Give her a fuck of worship and adoration.
I churned my hand, forgetting I didn’t have a middle finger to slide inside her and give her a more intense experience. I gnashed my teeth together, doing battle with those same dark villains that I dueled with every fucking day. Inadequacy, resentment. Anger. Even here, in bed with the woman I craved, they wouldn’t leave me the hell alone.
That phantom ache sprinted over my chopped knuckle, reminding me.
Focus.
My muscles relaxed as I settled into a rhythm, my breathing easier with every moan that escaped her mouth. She cried out, once, twice, her back arching, body stiffening. A prickle raced over my scalp. That cry wasn’t from pleasure. No, I damn well knew the difference.
That was pain.
My heart clutched, and I stopped, rising up, bringing my face to hers. “Serena? What is it? You okay?”
“Please, please, keep going. Don’t stop.” She bit at her lip, her face turning away from mine, her arms taut against my shoulders, her jaw stiff like she was holding back being sick.
“Am I doing something wrong? You don’t like it? Tell me—”
“No! No, it’s not you,” she bit out.
My chest constricted. “What the fuck they do to you?”
“Please, please, Justin.” Her fingers touched my rigid jaw as if persuading it to ease. “Please...”
“What did those fuckers do to you?” I ground my forehead into hers, her tears wetting my lips.
“Justin—”
“Tell me!”
Her legs pressed together against mine. “He had me do a train the night before they left for San Diego, so I wouldn’t forget my place at the club.”
My heart flew up my throat and jammed there.“Fuck! Fuck!”
“And Jan—”
“Jan? The girl you s
hot? Whose car we took?”
“Yeah, she’s his new favorite. He had her pick the order of the men.”
“Jesus.” My grip on her flesh tightened.
“Don’t say another word.” Her hand swept my hair from my face. “Please.”
“How about, I’m real glad you fucking shot her.”
A weak smile flickered across her face. “Me too.” Her legs pressed around mine. “Keep going, Justin. I want to feel you inside me.”
“You’re all bruised inside, then you rode all day. I’m not ... I can’t...Shit.”
“I don’t care. I want you, I want you inside me. I want you to make it all go away.”
“Baby, you need to heal.”
“It’s you I need. You—”
“You’ll get better. You will. This will all get better. Not right away, but soon.”
“Wait. Let me talk. Let me say whatever I want. I haven’t been able to do that in years.”
I brushed her lips with mine. “You say and do whatever the hell you want, baby. You’re out of there. You’re free.”
“I’m free, but I can’t do what I want right now which is have sex with you. I’m free, but I feel trapped and I don’t want to be trapped.”
“What they did to you was a violent assault, not sex, not any kind of sex. That was a power trip, a form of torture. It has nothing to do with you, with what you want, how you feel, who you are, all right?”
She hiccuped, short breaths heating my shoulder. “I don’t want to be broken.”
I held her close. “You’re not broken, you’re not. And from now on, you’ll always be free. I promise you.” More tears came. Silent at first, then real weeping. She emptied herself. I’d bet good money she hadn’t cried in years. I murmured into her hair, losing myself in the warmth of her skin, her body clinging to mine.
The bathroom door slowly opened and the light switched off. Muffled footsteps. “Is everything okay?” Tania whispered. “Am I—Should I—”
“No.” I pushed my hair from my face as I sat up. “Her ex fucked with her, and ...”
