But she didn't jump out at me.
I went into the container in question.
It was a room.
About three months before, Lo had come upon a homeless vet on the street and had invited him to Hailstorm. But he had issues with the barracks so she had set him up a room in his own container. It wasn't much, just a twin bed and a nightstand and trunk to put his stuff in.
Unfortunately, Mike was severely unhappy and took off to go live back on the streets.
Lo still wasn't over it. She had her people looking for him everywhere.
"Lo?" I called, the container dark except the small LED sconce right inside the door.
"No baby," a voice that was decidedly not Lo's called.
My belly dropped and fluttered at the same time, a strange combination that had me going back a step on an indrawn breath.
My back slammed into someone else.
I turned my head to see Lo standing there.
She flicked on a light and pushed me forward, going back a step into the hallway and slowly closing the door with a smile.
I turned back and found him standing there.
"Duke?"
EIGHTEEN
Penny
"Did you know that Lo is a hopeless romantic?" he asked, oddly, head tipped to the side, focusing solely on my face.
Meanwhile I was drinking him in.
Every single inch of him.
He looked tired.
His hair was tied back, a couple strands had fallen free and he tucked them behind his ears. I had a sudden, almost overwhelming urge to go over there and free the rest of it, run my fingers through it.
"I have seen her with a bunch of smutty books," I agreed, leaving out the fact that I had borrowed one on my third day at Hailstorm and had maybe become the slightest bit addicted. Okay, totally addicted. I may or may not have been reading one every single day.
What can I say? I needed some distraction.
"So when Reign finally agreed to let me leave the compound for a bit and I showed up here just to be able to share some coffee with you or some shit, Lo decided that wasn't good enough. She apparently had a spare room. And she called and convinced Reign to give me the night."
"I get you for the whole night?" I asked, feeling my heart swell up and trying to push it back down in case I misunderstood.
His smile went up slow and sweet.
"It won't be nearly enough," he allowed. "But it's more than we have had in far too long." He watched me for a second. "You gonna come over here and say hi or what?"
Just like that, my feet came unstuck.
And I freaking flew at him.
I hit him bodily, his arms going around me and lifting me up off my feet, crushing my body to his so tight that my air got caught in my chest. His arms were still around my shoulders and hips, worried about my back.
"I'm not so delicate anymore," I said against his chest.
"See those guns you got now," he agreed and I could hear a smile in his voice as his hand went to squeeze my bicep. "Gonna be kicking my ass soon."
I giggled. Actually... giggled at that.
"Yeah, try calling me a nerd now," I said, with a grin. "But that's not what I meant," I said, pulling back slightly so I could look up at him. "My stitches came out a while ago."
The reaction was a mixed one. At first, I saw happiness. But if I wasn't mistaken, it was followed a bit by disappointment. And I guess, in a way, telling him that reminded him how long it had been since we had seen each other.
"Oh yeah? Let me see," he said, arms loosening.
My lips tipped up into what I figured was a saucy smile. "You know... I think you're just trying to get me naked."
"Fuck yeah, I am," he said, grinning down at me as his hands slid up and down the center of my back, making me shiver a little at the unfamiliarity of it.
His hands went lower, gathering the first inch or so of my tee and pulling it up.
"Arms up," he demanded and I rose my hands over my head, letting him pull the material free. He threw it somewhere behind me, hands going to my shoulders and turning me. I felt his finger trace the whole letter gently, almost reverently.
"It's getting better," I said, not sure what was going on in his mind, but worrying it was guilt again. "Summer has some scar stuff she used on her back to fade her scars. She thinks mine will fade to a barely noticeable pink."
His fingers traced the line in the center, making me shiver before his hands splayed my ribs and pulled me back against his chest. I took a deep breath that rushed out of me a second later when his hands closed over my breasts, his thumbs moving over the hardening nipples until they were straining.
"Fucking missed you," he rumbled, voice getting deep with desire. His fingers took my nipples and squeezed, making me let out a moan. "Yeah, missed that too. I can hear your fucking moaning every time I try to sleep at night." I leaned back into him, closing my eyes, letting his words wash over me. "Been half-fucking-hard every moment of the day thinking about getting my fingers and tongue and cock back in that sweet pussy of yours. And you know what?" he asked, his warm breath moving my hair.
"What?"
"I bet you've been wet thinking about it too." He paused for a second. "Let's see, shall we?" he asked and his hands moved down my stomach and under my pants and panties faster than I could draw in a breath, his hand cupping my sex as he let out a low growl. "Fucking drenched. I knew it."
His thumb moved up to work my clit as his middle finger slid inside me, chasing away any chance of rational thought as my body finally got what it had been craving since I walked out of that fallout shelter weeks before.
"Alright, these are in the way," he said a moment later, his thumb leaving my clit and his finger sliding out of me. His hands left my panties and went to the waistbands of my pants and panties and pulled them down. I stepped out of them and he turned me. "Much better."
"Not quite," I disagreed, my hands moving out to grab the hem of his shirt and dragging it up. Me being short and him being a giant, I could only get it to his elbows before he had to take over.
But that was fine because my greedy hands were moving over his chest and stomach, quickly undoing his pants and yanking them down. His cock was already thick and straining and my hand reached out to stroke him once as I moved to lower down in front of him. Only to have Duke's hand reach down, twist my hair around his hand, and pull me back up.
"Nuh uh," he said, giving me a wicked look.
"Why not?"
His hand released my hair and grabbed my hips, pulling him with me toward the bed where he sat down, pulling me to straddle his waist. "Because I'm hungry," he said, eyes dancing. "And I know just what I have a taste for," he added, moving down onto the mattress, grabbing me under my thighs, and dragging my body upward over his chest and then shoulders and then...
"Duke..." I started to object, more than mildly embarrassed at the idea of actually sitting on his face. Hell, just even thinking the words sitting on his face made my cheeks heat more than they ever had before.
"Shh," he said, yanking me up the last couple of inches, then pressing my hips down.
His tongue slid up my cleft, making my legs shake almost violently as I slammed my hands up against the wall to make sure I didn't drop my hips down too far.
Duke made a rumbling "mmm" sound that made my belly flutter hard and my sex clench even harder as his tongue moved up and found my clit, curving his tongue to cup it then slowly moving upward over it.
Really, it didn't take long for the insecurity and embarrassment to disappear as the need for release overcame all objections. Truly, without even thinking, my hips started rocking against his expert tongue, driving myself up faster as the tightening inside reached painful levels just seconds before my body exploded into an orgasm that had me crying out loudly, the sound echoing back at me in the hollow space.
I collapsed forward instead of down, my forearms planted on the wall as I struggled to catch my breath for a long second b
efore my brain kicked in and I realized I was still all spread-eagle over his face and dropped down on my butt beside his head.
"I like that position," he informed me, turning his head on the mattress to nip into the flesh on the side of my ass. "You fucking lost control completely. Let's see if we can have an encore of that," he suggested, curling up, getting onto his knees on the mattress the right way, then grabbing my knees and pulling me down onto my back.
He planted his forearms on the sides of me and lowered his hard body down on my much softer one, making me do another full body shiver, liking more than I could have realized was possible the feeling of a man on top of me. The feeling of Duke on top of me.
His head lowered, finding my neck and moving over it with kisses and the tip of his tongue, going down the column of my throat, then finding my nipple and working over it until my back was completely arched off the mattress. Then going across my chest to do the same torment to the other.
Then his lips found mine, hard and hungry and uninhibited, still tasting of me and my legs clenched the sides of his body hard at that realization.
His cock was hard and heavy against me.
If he inched it just the slightest bit...
Then, as if reading the thought, he did. His cock pressed hard against my cleft, resting there for a long minute, just building pressure. Then his hips started rocking slightly and his cock was stroking up and down me, the head hitting my clit with each stroke.
I knew need then.
I thought I understood it before, the urge to have a man inside you.
But this was more, stronger, almost completely overwhelming, a clawing, painful thing.
I whimpered against his mouth as my hips rocked into his.
He pushed up, balancing on one arm as he reached toward the nightstand. My head turned to see a condom already sitting there and, despite the frantic screaming of my sex, I felt my lips turn up. "Thinking ahead, huh?" I asked as he smiled too, pushing up and sitting back on his heels to protect us.
He was over me again in a few seconds and when his cock shifted, this time it didn't do so to rub against my cleft. The head pressed against me, but didn't penetrate. His eyes were intense on me, reading every nuance.
But I couldn't wait any longer.
My hands slid down the hard muscles of his back, grabbing his ass, and pulling hard until I felt him finally slide inside me.
I let out a long, low moan as he planted deep, my legs going up to wrap around his lower back as he started rocking.
Soft. Sweet.
I liked that about him.
I liked that a man as rough and strong as him could be so loving and gentle.
That being said, I needed more.
"Harder," I demanded, my hips rocking up into him as my hands dug hard into his shoulders.
"Like this?" he asked, yanking back so hard that my legs fell, then slamming into me just as hard.
"Oh my... God," I groaned.
He pulled back out again, pausing. "Is that a yes?" he asked, smirk in place, eyes dancing.
"Yes," I gasped and he slammed into me again, hard enough that my entire body moved up the bed, my head slamming into the headboard hard.
His body curled slightly, one hand going behind my head, a buffer against the apparently inevitable slamming there as his body thrust into mine harder than I had ever had before.
And I loved every second of it.
Then he pushed up, pausing inside me, making me let out a none-too-subtle objection that he chuckled at.
He pushed back onto his knees, reaching down and wrapping his arms around my thighs and dragging them straight up in the air, settling both legs on one of his shoulders, holding them there with one arm as his other pressed down hard on my lower stomach, making me acutely aware of every hard inch of him inside me.
"Now let's see how loud I can make you scream," he said, thrusting into me just as hard as before, but the new position making me take him deeper, feel his movements more intensely. Until my hands were digging bloody scratches into his thighs and every inch of me was taut as a bow, waiting for the inevitable Earth-shattering orgasm
His arm released my ankles and slid between my thighs, working over my clit as his own grunts and growls got louder, more uncontrolled, as he himself started to lose control.
"That's it," he said as my sex clamped down hard on his cock as he thrust. "That's it, baby. Come for me."
And I did.
Never before had I truly understood the term 'screaming orgasm' until that moment.
Because there was no other way to describe it. I screamed. His name. And my body just... shattered in a way that was so intensely satisfying that it almost hurt.
Duke kept thrusting through half of my orgasm before planting deep and growling out my name, making another small wave wash over me.
The second my sex stopped clenching, my body seemed to lose control of itself. Because I was trembling hard, every inch of my body too overwhelmed to process the excess sensations and chemicals coursing through my system at once.
Duke pulled out of me, depositing the condom with no ceremony into the garbage beside the bed, and dropping down beside me on his side, reaching out and dragging me against him. His arms wrapped me up tight, his chin on the top of my head.
"Aftershocks," he mumbled as they kept moving through me.
Aftershocks.
What an appropriate term.
"Breathe, Penny," he said softly and I realized he was right, I was holding my breath. I let it out slowly and took a long, deep breath in, realizing it was slowing the shaking so I focused on doing it over and over again, uncomfortable with the way I couldn't seem to control my body.
"Well," he said when the shaking finally stopped and my arm went around him, pulling him even tighter. "Mission accomplished, huh? Can't get more out of control than that."
I smiled, turning my head and kissing the center of his chest. "You lost control too," I said, my voice a little dreamy as my overworked body started drifting toward sleep.
"Yep," he agreed, squeezing me tight. "First time for everything."
My heart squeezed at that, knowing it really meant something when you gave over control to another person. Because I had never done it myself before Duke. I hadn't even realized it until then. I had always thought I put my best effort into relationships. But maybe that was the problem. It shouldn't have to be worked on. At least not in the beginning. If you have to talk yourself into it, if there are reservations and control, then, well, it wasn't really love, was it? Love was one of the uncontrollable forces of the universe. That was the awfulness of it, the ever-present chance that you felt it for the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong place.
But it was also the beauty of it.
It wasn't a choice.
"What's this?" he asked, bringing me out of my thought and I felt his finger running up a mostly healed four-inch cut down my thigh.
"Oh. Lo likes to train with knives sometimes." I paused, smiling a little. "I'm kind of a badass now," I declared, feeling my cheeks heat, but glad I said it anyway.
"No 'kind of' about it," he said, giving me another squeeze as he rolled onto his back, pulling me onto his chest.
"And I'm officially a member of the girls club. But I still need to meet, um, Alex and... Elsie and Amy."
"Alex is a riot. Got that dry, sarcastic humor. She gives Breaker a run for his fucking money even after all these years. She likes to fight just for the fuck of it. She contracts with both The Henchmen and Hailstorm so we see her a lot. Elsie and Amy are more fringe girls club members. And they're also the most 'normal' of the members. They grew up in average families. Well, Elsie was rich as Midas, but normal. You'll like them."
I had an almost overwhelming need for that to be true. And it wasn't for Duke's sake either. It wasn't that I wanted to get along with his friends' women. I genuinely liked feeling like I belonged. It was easier with the girls club because they had all gone through some crazy st
uff that average people couldn't understand. We could commiserate on that. And we could also commiserate on what it is like to live the unconventional lives we led.
"Lo said that if I keep going with training, that she might get me certified to teach the teen self-defense classes at the gym," I said, my voice a little low, unsure about how that sounded.
I knew it was soon. I had just started training. But Lo claimed I was picking it up fast.
"Do you have some hairspray fetish?" she had asked me one afternoon, both of us covered in sweat, sitting on the ground, drinking out of water bottles.
"What?" I'd asked, shaking my head.
"You've only worked in hair salons. Is that a thing or just what you know and what you feel qualified for?"
"Um the latter, I guess," I admitted, a little embarrassed that I hadn't tried to make something else out of my life.
And then she told me about the possibility to be a self-defense instructor. The second she suggested it, I had an unmistakable feeling of rightness inside me. First, because I genuinely loved training. Second, because I was never a fan of my old jobs. And third, because it would be nice to teach somewhat advanced self-defense maneuvers to young girls in the hopes that it could protect them from finding themselves in the situation I had. Or worse.
But I still felt strange about it.
I knew I didn't exactly scream "badass self-defense instructor" when you saw me. And I still had a lot of work to do on being vocally commanding. But training had toughened me, raised me up, given me back parts of myself I hadn't realized I had lost along the lines. Maybe as early as childhood in a society that told me I was supposed to be good, soft, quiet, undemanding, and passive.
Weaker.
But I wasn't weak anymore.
"That's fucking awesome," Duke said automatically, not so much as a hesitation, like it never even occurred to him that I wasn't capable.
God.
God.
I had never, aside from my grandmother, had someone in my life who simply believed in me.
It might have been the best feeling in the world.
My heart squeezed again.
Duke (The Henchmen MC Book 5) Page 20
