by Jodi Linton
He pressed his lips to her bare back. “Not even a kiss good-bye?”
She tossed a look over her shoulder. “Who said this was good-bye?”
“You,” he growled against her body. “With this whole fucked-up move you have going on here. I told you I was in it for the long haul. So why, Em? Why now?”
Her throat grew tight. “What do you want me to say? That I’m scared? Scared that you and I won’t work?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Well, that’s a start.” Muscled thighs brushed her backside. “But I can see in your eyes that it’s a far cry from the truth.”
They exchanged a knowing look, and in that moment she decided to go for broke and lay all her tormented thoughts on the line. “Why do you want to help me? Why throw everything away, including your badge, just to secure yourself some tail?” She stood, letting the sheet slip from her body. “I’m a killer. I run a motorcycle club comprised of a bunch of hardened criminals. I don’t do brunch with my girlfriends or think about upgrading my kitchen appliances.” Her breath shuddered past her lips. “So why stick your neck out when I have a gut feeling your mother wouldn’t appreciate breaking bread with a bad girl who has blood on her hands?”
The bed creaked. Strong hands grabbed her by the wrists, and then Cade spun her around to face him. Standing in the middle of his bedroom with their bodies fused together, she looked up into his eyes, and everything that led to this moment flashed beneath his stormy gaze. They might be toxic for each other, but she was addicted to him, and nothing in her power, not even pulling the old walk of shame, would drive them apart. He leaned forward and touched her neck; the small smile tugging at his mouth sent a shiver through her.
“You think I haven’t killed? Watched men die at the hand of my gun. The two of us aren’t that different, babe. As much as you want to believe you’re not fucking worth some happiness, I’m here to shoot those doubts down.” Somehow in the heat of things he’d backed her up against the wall. His hips thrust into hers, and the hard length of his arousal found where she needed him the most. “I understand the damn consequences when it comes to helping you follow through with your plan, but the good far outweighs the bad.” He pressed at her core again, and again, until she collapsed into his chest. “Don’t ever question my loyalty, Em. We’re in this together. Two people seeking their own happily ever after the best way they see fit. I’m in this for you.”
She struggled against his muscled chest, feeling the pressure of his weight securing her to the wall. “Why? I’m not worth shit. Not worth you ruining your life over me. Possibly losing your life.”
He hissed out a curse under his breath; the length of his erection, thick and hard, nudged into her stomach. “Don’t tell me you’re worth nothing. You’re worth everything. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make you believe that.”
With a shaky breath, Em rubbed her body against his. “But I care about you too much to see you get hurt, Cade.” Their gazes locked. “It’s too risky. We’re a risk.”
“Yeah, a risk. You’re a risk that’s fucking worth me putting everything on the line for.” The response came out as if the word was some dirty little secret between them. Cade leaned in closer, capturing her chin in a firm grasp. “Jesus, Em. Can’t you see I care about you? Please trust me to do the right thing. I can make you happy. We can make this work. That’s all I’m asking. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Heat flashed beneath those warm brown eyes, searing a path directly toward her heart. This screwed-up relationship they had was so fucking real. He was real. Even if both of them were grasping at straws until the house of cards came crashing down on them, she had no intentions of bailing on the overly controlling cop barricading her with just his chest. She needed him to understand how much he meant to her. How much she trusted him to make this relationship work between them. Even if it might only have hours left.
Lowering the hand he’d just released, Em slowly danced her fingers down his tattooed chest, practically dying on the spot at his deep controlled breathing sucking up all the oxygen between them. She rolled onto the balls of her feet and gently touched her lips to his neck.
“Let’s get one thing straight here. If I didn’t trust you, nothing you said or did would have gotten me to ride off into the sunset on the back of your Harley.” She rolled forward, hips moving in tune with his. “I mean, not a goddamn thing. You want my trust, Jackson? Well, this is me trusting you. What more do you need to hear? You need me to give you the Sinners’ royal treatment. Fine. I’ll drop to my knees for you. Only you.”
Cade strummed a thumb under her chin, and when she gasped, a small smile ghosted across his mouth. He moved to her side, sweeping some hair behind an ear before his teeth nipped harshly at her neck as he whispered, “I wasted so much time running from this.” His fingers brushed across her lips. “You’re all I need. Always, Em. Never doubt my need for you.”
Warmth blossomed in her belly, and her nipples hardened from the erotic friction between their bodies. He smiled, self-satisfied, while dishing out another bump and grind. Tension snapped like a twig as Em stared back at the desperation pooling behind his golden irises. Cade needed to hear the words to understand and witness her total surrender. And hell, Em ached to lose control. She’d carried the weight of others way too long, and right now this beautiful man before her was willingly offering an escape. She wrapped both hands around his waist, pulling his ripped body up against hers. “You want to understand what it means to get a Sinners’ royal treatment?” Em crooked her finger at him. “Listen and listen good, Cade. Until you come on my tongue, you’ll be mine,” she said, eyes lowering on the hard length surging between his thighs. “Well, you and your cock. You game, Detective?”
He placed both his hands on her hips and grinned. “Do I have a choice, Ms. President?”
She lifted an eyebrow, keeping her gaze steady on him, and soaked in the image of the man willing to play along with the flirtatious game she’d thrown down.
“None at all, I guess? I knew you’d drive a hard bargain.” His wide shoulders shifted as he pushed his cock at her hand. “My cock and I are game.”
Excitement and anticipation pulled at her core.
Em shoved him into the wall. Hard. “You’re in my hands, now.” She rolled onto the balls of her feet and pressed an openmouthed kiss at his neck. “Which means, I’ll be making all the fucking decisions.”
When she dropped to the floor her knees burned from the pressure of the hard surface, and yet Em concluded there was nowhere else she would’ve rather been than bringing Cade Jackson to his knees.
She made a show of licking her lips, capturing Cade’s ridged abdominal muscles in her peripheral vision. “Hands at your side, bad boy,” she said, wrapping her fingers around his cock and slowly stroking him from base to head. She darted her tongue out, anxiously awaiting the taste of him. “Enjoying the idea of having my mouth slide up and down your cock, are you?”
He growled as the head of his erection slowly slid past her lips, but she pulled back, strumming only her thumb across his tip. “Ruin me, babe. Make it so damn good, I won’t ever be able to think straight again.”
She rocked forward on her knees and tenderly kissed the chiseled dip in his pelvis. “Does this get you off?” He groaned. Holy hell, she loved the sound of his deep voice. She dragged her tongue lower, kissing and licking his thick shaft until her lips brushed underneath his tightly drawn, heavy balls. “This seems to be a good spot. What do you think, Detective? Is it as good for you as it is for me?”
“If you’re trying to break me, Em, then you’re succeeding.” The strangled acknowledgment mowed through her. Very slowly, he swerved his hips forward, rotating them in precise circles, over and over, pushing against the seam of her mouth. “Trying to make me beg? I’ll drop to my knees right now if I get to feel your mouth wrapped around my cock.”
Pressing a smile into his wide, muscled thigh, she whispered on another kiss, “Or do you prefer m
y mouth here?”
“Yes. I need it, babe.” He thrust. “Goddamn, I need you everywhere.”
Em loved that she’d elicited such an intimate reaction from him. A flood of desire bled through her, and she didn’t skip a beat, swirling her tongue lightly across the head of his cock. With a path of well-placed kisses down his length, she drew him in and out of her mouth as she wet his shaft, working him farther between her lips. His fierce panting, accompanied by the pumping of his muscled abs against her forehead, made her need to claim Cade as her own. This moment is no one else’s. It belonged to them. Only them. Crazed with the longing to see him come undone, Em stroked her hand up and down his rigid length, feeling drunk on his taste, his smell, the very idea of him. She wanted it all. She wanted him.
His hips bucked forward, and she heard the sound of his palm smack the wall. “Fuck. Goddamn that wicked mouth of yours.” He tried to pump deeper into her mouth, but she used her hand to hold him back, running her mouth up his length until his purply veined head pressed at her parted lips once more. “Let me see how deep I can go. It feels so good to fuck that mouth of yours.” Cade stroked his hand through her hair. “But you know that. You always knew exactly what you were doing to me, right? And now I’m asking. No, begging.”
She gently squeezed his cock. “Since you asked so nicely…”
“Fuck, fuck.” His cock shook in her hand. “Feels so damn good, babe.”
“Deeper?” Her eyes flew to his. “I know you want it deeper in my mouth. Say it, Cade.”
A tortured hiss fell from his lips. “Take all of me. Every fucking hard inch so I won’t ever think of anything else but your mouth on my cock.”
Em peered up at him and hungrily drew his entire length into her mouth. His thighs trembled against her cheeks as he slowly leaned in, tightening his hold on her face—hard—as if he felt the same damn need to own her. Her heart bashed against her chest from the sight of Cade losing control—all for her. His brown eyes stayed fixed on her as she pulled him deeper and deeper into her mouth, sinking so far back his balls pressed hotly at her chin. Satisfaction ripped through her entire body when the first sputter of cum fell on her tongue.
“Suck me faster, faster.” Parting her lips wider, Em took his entire length to the back of her throat. “Jesus…you make me come so hard.”
She licked and swirled his head—the move she’d just learned drove him insane—and wrapped her lips snuggly around him.
“I can’t bear to think you aren’t enjoying this, too. Work your pretty little clit for me, Em. Think about the way my cock would fill you so damn tight. So fucking tight you’d come all over me.”
Skimming her fingers down her belly, she lowered a hand between her thighs, feeling the wetness their illicit act had created. She slipped two fingers inside and began to strum the sensitive nub. A burst of hot desire built up inside her just as his salty warmth began to coat her mouth.
With her lips smothered in his arousal, she milked him dry as her whole body went numb with pleasure. She looked up and swiped a thumb along her bottom lip, catching the last remains of him.
Rough, sandpapered fingers stroked tenderly beneath her chin. “Jesus Christ, I think you’ve made me an Em Connors addict for the rest of my life,” he rasped.
“That was my plan all along. I thought you knew I wanted to ruin us both, to make sure I always remembered what it means to be your girl.”
His nostrils flared as he leaned into the wall and growled. “Damn right you’re my girl. And just think, we’re only getting warmed up, babe. Lot’s more where that came from. Lot’s more.”
She ran a hand up his thigh. “And here I considered you useful when you bent me over a Harley inside my own damn garage.”
A grin worked into the corners of his sexy mouth. “You better believe it.” Then he pounced and pulled their naked bodies together. “I love the feel of you in my arms. Feels so damn right,” he said, brushing her lips with his.
“It better.” She laughed into his neck. “Otherwise you and I have a major problem, Detective.”
“Say that again.”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“I like having you call me detective.” He pushed his arousal at her core. “Very much.”
“Someone’s carrying a big stick.” Em threw her head back, giggling. “They teach you how to use it during the detective debriefing workshop?”
“Maybe I should teach the cute little biker chick in my arms a lesson,” Cade growled against her lips. “Fuck her into confessing how she makes all the good boys insane.” His mouth descended on hers before she could snap back with a reply.
As the bad-boy cop whispered sweet promises in her ear, Em knew she’d been ruined for any other man. She’d fallen madly in love with Cade.
Chapter Sixteen
She’d intoxicated him, and there was no turning back now.
Cade stared at the locked bathroom door. So much had changed since he and Em had left Throttle and ended up in his trailer. A place he could now claim to hold some of the best damn experiences of his life. Even though Em had him floating on cloud nine, the loud buzzing of his phone had set him on edge. When she said she wanted to shower and clean up before breakfast, he had checked the screen and saw Chief Roland flash so brightly it felt as if he’d been socked in the gut.
The police chief was a problem he didn’t particularly want to acknowledge. Still, he understood that if he kept ignoring the guy things would only escalate.
So at the sound of the bathroom lock clicking, Cade scooped up his phone and a cigarette on his way out the front door. With the smoke clamped between his lips, he dialed the chief to get the shitty conversation over with so he could crawl back in bed with the sexy woman occupying his thoughts.
“Thought my best detective was dead by the way you’ve been ignoring my calls,” Roland said.
Cade took another drag as he raked a disgruntled hand through his hair. “Say your piece, Roland. I’m not much of a morning person, and you’re wasting precious beauty rest.”
“Always got to be the jokester, huh, Jackson?”
“Or you’re just a fucking pain in my ass.” He shifted against the porch banister. “Take your pick.”
“Give me something, Jackson. Something that tells me you’ve been doing your job,” the chief of police demanded. “Can you do that for me, asshole?”
He should’ve seen that comment coming. Cade brought his voice down to a whisper and pressed the phone to his ear. “As far as I can tell, she doesn’t know anything more than we do about Wes’s murder. Wouldn’t it be better for me to feel her out some more than scare her by bringing in more heat?”
Roland snorted. “Just come on down to the station and make sure to bring the Victoria’s Secret model with you. Once we get her in an investigation room, I’ll be judge of that.”
Like hell he’d simply hand Em over to the custody of the Houston Police Department. First thing they’d do would be to try to pin her with drug charges so they could keep her overnight and question her about Wes’s murder, and Cade wouldn’t stand by and allow the good old boys in blue to screw over the woman he loved.
Heck, she was the freaking love of his life.
Puffing on his smoke, he paced the wooden porch. “Let me put it this way, if you lay a hand on Em before I’m able to find any solid evidence, you’ll be one sorry prick.”
“Holy hell.” The boss man chuckled over the line. “You are one sorry son of a bitch. I knew you wouldn’t be able to keep it in your pants, but never thought you’d go all soft on me and fall in love.” Roland paused. “Love can fuck up the best of us. Remember Wes? Too bad. Either we fake your arrest at the clubhouse or you and her walk freely into the station. Your choice, Cade. But I’m giving you two days tops. Understand?”
Hot rage festered into an urgency to protect Em, even from the likes of the chief of police. No way would Roland get by calling her some one-night bang. She was so much more. She was caring, loy
al, and tough as nails. Struggling to gain some perspective, he tightly gripped the porch railing and took a long satisfying drag, forcing himself to respond professionally. “I need a refresher course, Roland. Exactly how would that go again?”
“All I need to do is put an APB out for the both of you and wait. I’m giving you a small window to save your ass,” Roland answered. “You really want to throw all your hard work away because some hot criminal got under your skin?”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be holding my breath to see me anytime soon,” he said gruffly, and disconnected the call, knowing if he’d carried on any longer his temper would’ve gotten the best of him.
He clamped the cigarette tighter between his lips. Heat barreled down the back of his throat as he sucked in and blew out smoke. Roland might not know his exact location, but the man wouldn’t stop until he’d sniffed out every damn lead. The chief expected Em on the department’s doorstep in two days, and if Cade intended on keeping her well hidden, that meant she’d need to lay low. And not attend the dope exchange set up between the Sinners and Vipers. She would consider that entirely out of the question. Stubborn and strong-willed were two of her most endearing traits, and the same traits that seemed to get her in hot water. Still, he had to figure out a way to keep Em protected and buy them more time before the cops tracked down their whereabouts.
Maybe he could stash her away in some remote cabin? Drive her across the border? He needed someplace to keep her safe until he hashed out a better plan, found the killer, or rationalized with Roland about her involvement.
Protecting Em was top priority. He could bring the bad guys down at the dope exchange, and her help wouldn’t be needed.
I can make her see my side. I have to.
When he pushed open the front door, he stalled midstep at the sight of Em barefoot, wearing one of his T-shirts, and holding a tub of ice cream. Her legs dangled off the kitchen island, and her chipped red toenails swayed in tune to the muted radio. It took every ounce of his self-control not to run to her and scoop her up into his arms. He wanted to parade her around and shout that she was the one, so every other guy knew they should move along. The hot lady in leather was taken. She was his.
