Reno headed toward his room to do what he had been doing for way too long. He went to drink and sex the woman he loved off his mind. But goddammit, if the same shit didn’t start for him all over again. A few minutes into having a random woman in his bed, the only thing Reno could think about was Claire, the only thing he wanted was Claire. He was about two minutes into what should have been a good time when he felt himself pulling away. Reno felt his body tense with the shock of disappointment. Redoubling his efforts, he closed his eyes and willed himself not to think about Claire.
But it was no use.
Even with all that booze and reefer raging through his system, Reno felt it. Maybe his dick couldn’t tell the difference, but what was left of his heart sure as hell could.
Revenge-fucking was definitely the wrong way to go.
Time to put his pride aside, man up, and go get his woman.
But as luck would have it, as always seemed to be the case with him and her, fate stepped in and Claire found Reno first.
CHAPTER 11
I was feeling it.
And the it was happy. I went out into the starry night smiling, the keys to the Jeep jingling in my pocket.
It had been a good night. I had spent some time talking with Dolly, then I had caught up with my sister and together we went and delivered Pinky’s birthday present to her. Raine and I had searched high and low for just the right gift for the woman who meant so much to us. We finally found the perfect present in a small antique store in the valley. We bought Pinky an intricately engraved antique locket. The delicate clasp opened to reveal two miniature pictures. One was of Raine and me from that long ago summer that we had spent at the lake, and the other was of Willow.
Pinky loved it and put it on right away.
Seeing the locket around Pinky’s neck made me feel like I had finally come full circle. For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful. I couldn’t remember the last time that I had felt that—like I had a fighting chance at normal. Like I had a plan.
I was still feeling that when I walked toward the kitchen house and saw Reno’s bike parked with all the others.
So he was back.
Reno had been gone for months.
I sighed. Just like with everything else in my life, I had avoided thinking about him.
Reno and me.
A year ago, when I had walked out of Willows Point rehab and had seen Reno leaning against the car waiting, I knew that the gods were messing with me.
Totally messing with me.
I had just spent the previous four weeks of my life explaining and examining bad boys, and exorcising them from my mind, and I had not been even five minutes out of that serious gray building. Not even five minutes out of that place of repentance, resolve, and “God grant me” prayers, when he stood before me. A beacon of black leather and badass.
Not even five minutes out.
And I tried. Lord knows, I tried to stay away from Reno McCabe.
But he did not try to stay away from me.
I had spent my first few months at the compound navigating the choppy waters of recovery and resolve. I had been determined to find my way through to the other side of the shark-infested waters of addiction. And there Reno had stood shining out, right smack in the middle of it all. A big, bad lighthouse of temptation, beckoning me forward, calling me closer, and illuminating the way.
After a whole lot of stops and gos and I can’ts and I won’ts and a bunch of I really, really need to waits, we had gotten to that place.
Reno and I.
And it had been a beautiful thing. Full of light and lust and full-on everything goes, no-holds-barred hot.
The first time I was in his bed, I had turned to him out of pure exhaustion, lust, and need. I had not let myself think beyond that. He had been all hands and mouth and lots and lots of hard. And it had been incredible. God, the man paid attention. I could not get enough of his hot, hard body.
In the months that followed, it had gotten even better. Jesus. That man wore me out. When I was with him, when I felt his body slip into mine, I forgot everything. Being close to him, touched by him, kissed by him just made everything better. Being with Reno made me forget all the fear and the pain and the violence that haunted my dreams.
That’s what he had meant to me at first.
Then slowly things began to change. To change because Reno changed them. He was so loving when we were together. Caring and gentle. Patient. Reno was everything I needed and nothing I had expected. Turns out that despite the leather and the gun and the outlaw tendencies, Reno wasn’t the kind of guy that my therapist, Dolores, had warned me to stay away from.
I started to look at him differently, and to need him in a way that I had never needed anyone before. I never felt completely whole unless I was with him.
And that scared me.
And not just a little.
Then came the night when I took a chance. At first I only meant to tell him a little bit about my past. He had a plate of cookies on his nightstand that Pinky had made for him. Taking a bite of one of those cookies had brought back a flood of memories for me. Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to. I told him everything there was to tell about myself. My childhood, my years with Jamie, my time in rehab. I told him about it all.
Everything.
Well, almost everything.
I knew that night would change things for us. I knew that it could be the beginning of something pretty wonderful. Feeling that, I fell asleep in his arms. Despite all the full-on hot we had been having, I had never spent a whole night with him.
Until that night.
And then, when the morning came, I had left his bed while he was sleeping.
Which, honestly, did not seem to me the big, huge, insulting deal that it had obviously been to him.
I had needed a minute. I had needed a minute to gather the courage it took for me to acknowledge the love that I felt for this man.
This badass biker who I knew I probably shouldn’t love.
But who I had grown to love.
And did love. A lot.
But that minute, those few friggin’ tick tocks, had been too much for Reno.
And when I thought about it, I guess I didn’t blame him.
I got that, for Reno, me leaving his bed the way I did meant something different to him than it did to me.
And in a very big way.
I got it. I just got it a little too late.
And now after months and months of being gone, Reno was back.
Because I was feeling happy, hopeful, and excited about my future, I let myself feel optimistic about what that could mean.
Silly me.
CHAPTER 12
I snatched a bottle of wine off the bar as I made my way to the kitchen house. I had looked for Reno outside in the sea of black leather, but I hadn’t seen him. Thinking that he must be at the house, I headed in that direction.
“Hey, Claire.” Pipe was somehow standing in front of me.
“Hey, Pipe.” I nodded absently to him.
“Where to?” He wasn’t moving.
“Where to?” I repeated, confused by the question.
“Yeah. Where you heading, sweetheart?”
I didn’t really know Pipe all that well. He had been out to the lake house a couple of times to do some repair work on the deck. Aside from a vague wave in my direction, he had pretty much left me alone, and I had pretty much returned the favor. Except for tonight. Tonight he was standing in my way.
“I thought I’d head down to Reno’s room. I heard that he’s back, and I haven’t seen him in a while.”
Which, by the way, is absolutely none of your business, I thought to myself.
Pipe nodded. He took me in slowly from head to toe. As far as I was concerned, his gaze lingered much too long on my breasts.
“Brother’s a lucky man.” Pipe smirked. “But as far as I know, you ain’t been invited, Claire.”
Really?
&
nbsp; “Far as I know, I don’t answer to you, Pipe.” I narrowed my eyes at him.
Pipe stood about six feet three. Looking at him now, it crossed my mind that the members of the Hells Saints seemed born and bred to it. Really, they were all as big as redwoods.
Pipe was blond, blue eyed, and square jawed. His tousled hair was worn short and was made lighter in parts by the sun. His lips were naturally full and he was clean shaven. He was the only brother who didn’t have any tattoos. Not even one. A fact that even I found kind of strange. Pipe had underwear-model good looks, but there was a hardness in his eyes that I did not trust. He was definitely drool material for just about every woman with a pulse. But I really had never bothered to look at him long enough to see him that way. Now that I took the time, I still wasn’t interested.
“Just looking out for the club, little girl,” Pipe came back at me.
I made myself ignore the little girl part.
“Yeah, how’s that?” I asked.
“Lots of strange tail hanging around tonight. Brothers’ rooms are by invitation only. You know that.”
“I look like strange tail to you, Pipe?”
He was still standing in front of me in a way that didn’t make sense.
Yeah, Pipe standing in front of me in an effort to keep me from going to Reno’s room made no sense at all.
Unless . . .
“Get out of my way, Pipe,” I said quietly.
“Probably not a good idea, babe.” Pipe remained where he was, blocking my way.
“Are you seriously going to make me find a way to go through you?” I asked him.
“I might enjoy that.” He smirked.
I put my hands on my hips and held my ground. He chuckled heartily, but when I nudged past him again, he moved out of the way.
“Tell him I tried to keep you outta there,” he yelled after me.
Without turning around, I flipped Pipe the middle finger.
His laughter followed me down the hallway.
Feeling oddly compelled, I walked toward Reno’s room. Then, having reached it, my brain waged a battle with my heart. Both of them were wreaking havoc on my already-heightened senses.
I gave myself a minute to think this through.
Self-preservation was screaming at me not to knock on Reno’s door. Every instinct I had was telling me that opening that door would be bad for me, bad for him, and bad for any chance we had toward working things out for the better. The more I thought about it, the more I knew that for lots of reasons, this was a very bad idea.
I turned and moved to walk away. Just as I did, a very drunk Saint came careening toward me with an equally drunk blonde squealing with delight at being hoisted over his shoulder. She rode ass-up with her stilettos waving dangerously in the air. I had to flatten myself quickly against the door to avoid having my eye poked out.
Unfortunately, at that exact moment, they slammed into me. The door to Reno’s room swung open under the forced, quick pressure. The two lovebirds managed to right themselves again and move on, only to leave me to stumble hard and headlong into the very bad idea.
CHAPTER 13
It took a second for my eyes to adjust, and then what I saw made me feel sick. I inhaled sharply, trying to catch my breath, but that only made it worse. The stench of Jack Daniels, reefer, and cheap perfume hit me like a bucketful of cold, dirty water.
Moonlight cast an eerie glow on the large broken-winged angel tattooed on Reno’s back. The hard muscles of Reno’s denim-covered ass moved rhythmically to the squeals of the loudly orgasmic woman in his bed. Hypnotized, I watched as long, blood-red fingernails clawed their way into Reno’s back. A pair of six-inch heels pointed straight up into the air.
“What the fuck?” Reno snarled. Reaching for the piece he had laid down on the nightstand, he twisted his body to seek out the intrusion.
I needed to get out of there.
Fast.
As I turned to hurry back out the door, the wine bottle slipped through my sweaty palms. Falling hard, it shattered all over the floor. Crimson-coated shards of glass pierced me like fine needles.
I felt that sting everywhere.
“Christ, Claire.” Reno pulled himself off the woman and rolled over onto his side. “Is that you?”
Paralyzed now, I stood stupidly in the dark doorway. I was covered in glass, cheap merlot, and shattered pride.
“What’s going on?” the redhead on the bed called out. She looked from Reno to me and pouted. She didn’t bother to cover herself.
Reno didn’t even glance her way.
He left the bed and he started to walk toward me, as the bulge in the front of his unbuttoned jeans cried out in protest.
“What are you doing in here, Claire?” Reno was closer now, and the smell of Jack Daniels came off him in waves.
I shook my head and started to back out the door. Humiliation had a dark hold on me, and it squeezed at my chest.
Reno just kept on coming at me.
I moved away from him until I felt the wall press hard and unyielding against my back. There I stood helplessly as Reno moved in on me.
With one quick sweep he settled himself between my legs and put his hands on either side of my head. In less than a minute, Reno had caged me in. Tight.
“Claire, what are you doing in here?” He drew so close I could feel his breath on my lips.
“I heard you were back,” I managed to squeak out. My knees were suddenly jelly and my heart was doing this thing where it would beat fast and then stop dead, before it picked up that rapid pace again. I thought I might be dying.
His beautiful amber eyes melted into mine. His long deep caramel-colored hair fell over his face.
“Yeah, baby. I’m back. But that still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing in my room,” he said.
The shadows covered us and beams of moonlight danced on the darkened room behind us.
“I . . . I . . . I wanted . . . I wanted to . . .” I tried with all I had to fight my way back from the brink.
Jesus.
Like some dark sorcerer’s spell, the sound of his voice held me hypnotized.
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away. Reno pressed me deeper in the shadowed corner alcove. Darkness and light swirled like jeweled pieces of kaleidoscope glass around us.
My words were stuck between worlds.
“What, baby? You wanted what? Tell me what you want, Claire.” His hips, hard and inviting, pushed against my core.
“I . . . I . . . wanted to say . . . uh . . .” My mind went blank.
His thumb brushed my lips.
“You wanted to say what, Claire?”
Then his eyes left mine and moved to my mouth. Reno’s hand moved leisurely past the hollow of my throat, down to my breast. The back of his hand skimmed lightly up and down over me.
“What is it that you came in here to say, baby?”
Oh, God, his other hand was moving to the back of my neck, cupping it. Holding it tight.
“I came to say . . .”
Reno’s heated gaze paralyzed me. He tweaked my nipple.
Oh, my God.
I tried again.
“Just came to say hello, Reno,” I finished lamely.
Reno let out a deep feral sigh.
“Hello there, Claire.” His tongue moved over his lower lip, like he was getting ready to eat.
Then he leaned in until the side of his cheek touched mine, and as he ran his fingers up and down the back of my neck, he whispered into my hair, “What took you so long?”
When his mouth dropped to just below the curve of my ear and he softly sucked on the lobe, I felt a shot of moisture soak through to my panties.
“Reno, you’ve been drinking.” I fought to keep myself steady.
“Yeah, baby, I have. I’ve been whoring too. Been drinking and whoring you off my mind for too long now.” His forehead touched mine, then I felt his whole body sigh against me.
Oh, boy.
M
y knees turned to jelly and my mouth went dry. On its own, my tongue reached out and wet my lips. When Reno touched the tip of his tongue to mine, I flooded. Again. I felt my nipples swell and push against the soft lace of my bra, as if reaching toward him. In a soft whimper, I found my breath. The heat of his amber eyes turned my own into a sea of liquid blue. I began to crest on a long, high wave. In answer, Reno hardened and ground into me. He felt the want in me. How could he not? Every cell in my body was crying out to him.
His hands buried themselves deeper into my hair. As he captured the soft masses in his big rough palms he tugged on the long strands and pulled my head back.
Then Reno’s mouth touched me everywhere.
I came undone.
I arched toward him as I felt his soft lingering kisses rain all over me. The rough stubble of his jawline chafed deliciously against the curve of my cheek. Traces of wet cascaded down my neck, then back up again. Reno’s mouth enveloped me in a salty sea of smoothness. Gently probing, I felt his warm mouth press against mine. His tongue parted my lips until it was moving inside, pushing and thrusting.
Long. Hard. Deep.
My whole being emptied then and filled with a kind of time and space where only the two of us existed. I was more aware of Reno than I had ever been of anything in my life. He was a part of me, and I was a part of him. The darkening of his hooded eyes, the scruffy stubble on his hard jaw, the thin scar that hit his cheek midcenter, there was nothing I did not see, nothing I did not want. Nothing I would not give.
I groaned against his mouth as I felt his tongue leave mine, disappointment sending shockwaves through to my soul. Then it was back, gliding over my lips. When he bit and tugged on my lower lip, I pulsed and tightened. I moved into him then. Rubbing against him, trying to ease the pain of wanting him. I was like a cat, caught in the rhapsody and confusion of that first heat.
Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) Page 5
