"Holy fuck." Skunk stood inside the living room, staring at the wall. "What the fuck is all this shit? You've fucking lost it."
"I told you not to come here," I said through gritted teeth. The only reason I tolerated Skunk was because of our history. We'd been friends for a long time, and yeah, he'd been checking on me when things were shitty. I knew he thought all of this meant I'd finally gone over the edge.
What he didn't understand was that this was the most clarity I'd felt in a long time. I could see what I had to do. I had purpose - one that didn't involve beating the shit out of someone.
"Seriously, Hammer," Skunk said, walking along the wall, in the empty space where I'd moved the sofa to the other side of the room. His fingers traced the length of the huge map that covered the expanse of the wall. "If you tell me that all these pins and shit have to do with some kind of government conspiracy or something, I swear to God, I will fucking bring you to the looney bin right now."
"It's not," I said. "It's something private." I hadn't told the club anything, despite what I'd told Meia about the club backing me. Fuck, I didn't know if they would. I was only just out of retirement; sure, there was some kind of tie to them, because I was a brother, but not the kind of tie that would bring them into some of my personal shit. Especially when that personal shit involved a guy like Aston.
And my paranoia had started taking over. I guess I was jaded from all the shit that went down with Mad Dog, but I sure as shit didn't blindly trust the club. The club worked for Benicio, and Benicio was a smuggler, plain and simple. It wasn't exactly far-fetched to think he might be smuggling people, not just things. And if he was, he could have any kind of tie to Aston.
This was the kind of shit I thought about, the kind of shit that had been keeping me up at night all week, as I tried to work through what I could do to help Meia.
But I was grateful for it. It was a hell of a lot better than thinking about what a shit father I had been and how it was my fault my wife was dead.
"Hammer," Skunk said. "We've been friends a long time. I've seen you crazy before. What the fuck kind of private shit is this?"
"It's nothing," I said.
"Don't look like nothing," Skunk said. "Definitely looks like something."
"I'm looking for someone, okay? Christ, leave it the fuck alone."
Skunk peered closer at one of the pins on the wall. One of twenty-three. Each pin marked a possible location where Meia's son might be held, based on what I'd gathered on Aston. Possible, shit. There were an infinite number of possible locations. I didn't know why I'd thought hacking Aston would magically give me a location for Ben.
I'd promised something to Meia, and I was severely doubting my ability to deliver on that promise. And if I couldn't....I didn't want to think about what she was going through, knowing her son was in Aston's hands. What she had been going through for years, being forced to be with the monster who had taken him. If Ben was killed...well, fuck, I knew how it felt to have the one thing you loved taken from you, and to feel like it was your own damn fault.
It would fucking destroy her.
"Does this have to do with April?" Skunk asked.
I felt my fists clenched by my side. "Not a fucking thing," I said. "I'm trying to help someone."
Skunk looked at me, disbelief etched on his face. He thought I was close to putting tin foil on the windows and ranting about how I'd figured out who was the second gunman on the grassy knoll. I could see it in his eyes. "Fuck, man, I don't know," he said, shaking his head.
"Why the hell are you here, Skunk?"
"Want to see if you want to get in a fight next Saturday," Skunk said. "If you're feeling up to it." He nodded at me, referring to whether or not I'd healed from the last fight, but I saw him glance at the wall and knew he was really talking about whether I was a paranoid wing nut who needed a straightjacket.
"Yeah," I said. "What the hell? I'll do it." I agreed, but I wasn't sure I was feeling it. I was starting to feel like I'd lost the drive to fight, at least in that sense.
I looked past Skunk to the map on the wall. Especially since I was going to need a lot of fight in me to find Ben.
I opened the door, and her eyes lit up, brightening her face. It was so different from the first few times I'd seen her. There was a glimmer of something there now. Happiness? Hope? I wasn't sure.
"You were careful, coming here?" she asked, walking straight toward me and collapsing against my chest. I felt my pulse start to slow as I held her her, calming down from the fear she wouldn't show up. All week, she'd been walking at night while she talked to me on her throwaway cell phone, while she stole moments away from the reach of Aston. She thought I was at home, and I didn't disabuse her of that notion. But I wasn't. I was following her, keeping my distance, making sure she wasn't being tracked by Aston's men. Once, I saw them, tailing her for a few minutes, but they turned back as she walked in her workout clothes, assuming that's all she was doing. Aston seemed fairly unconcerned about Meia's whereabouts, I supposed since he had the ultimate form of coercion in her son.
He hadn't called for Meia since we'd met. Since before we'd met. I assumed the last time had been the time he left the bruise under her eye, the one that was nearly completely faded now, entirely covered by the makeup she wore.
I knew he would call for her again, and the thought of it made my blood boil. I knew she had no choice in the matter. I knew she hated him. But the thought of his hands on her, touching her like he owned her...I couldn't fucking tolerate the thought of it.
"I was careful," I said. "Aston hasn't asked for you?"
She shook her head. "Hammer," she said. "You know he will. And there's nothing I can do to change that fact."
"The thought of him touching you..." I was too angry to speak, my voice trailing off into nothing.
"Hey. You're hurting me." Meia wriggled under my grasp, and I became aware of how tightly I was holding onto her shoulders.
"Shit, Meia." I immediately let go of her, and she stepped back. "Fuck, I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry."
"I don't know, Hammer," she said, glancing at the door. "I don't think this is such a good idea, you and I."
"Fuck. Meia, I wouldn't do anything to hurt you. It's not who I am."
She smiled, but the expression was grim. "You forget, I've seen you lose control before. I've seen you beat a man into the ground."
"It was a fight. In the ring," I protested, a gnawing feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
"Yes, but you weren't in control then," she said. "Do you think you're in control now?"
"I'm in control, Meia," I said. But did I really believe that, or was that just another lie I was telling myself, deluding myself with the thought that I could stay in control when it came to her? How could I think I was in control when I was following Meia to make sure she was safe, spending every waking moment sifting through Aston's internet footprint, my living room covered in the clues to Ben's whereabouts?
I hadn’t told her any of that. She didn’t know. So some part of me knew it was too much, suspected she would think I was crazy. A reasonable person would think that.
I just couldn’t stop.
So what the hell made me think that I was no longer preoccupied by my dark impulses? Maybe I was just an unpredictable shithead, someone who might hurt her.
I shook my head, as if I could shake away the thoughts. “I am in control.” I repeated the words slowly, not sure if I was trying to convince her or myself.
“Hammer,” she said. “If you are not in control, if you can’t handle the fact that Aston owns me, you could cost me everything.”
“I know that, Meia,” I said. “Don’t you think I know that? I just…don’t want to think about him laying a hand on you.”
Her eyes flashed anger, and she stepped closer to me now, this tiny bundle of fire. “He doesn’t own me, not really, not where it matters. And you shouldn’t talk like you own me, either, Hammer.” She pointed her finger at my ch
est, and I grabbed her wrist, pulled her against my growing hardness.
“I’m more worried that you’re going to be the one who owns me,” I said.
He hovered for a moment, his lips close to mine, and I felt my breath catch in my throat as something stirred in my core. I had just gotten done telling this man he didn’t own me, but the only thing I could think about was what it would be like to be possessed by someone...not the way Aston possessed me, but the way I imagined it could be.
I’d had a hint of that the last time Hammer and I were together.
Hammer made a sound under his breath, gravely and guttural, and pressed his lips to mine, sending arousal coursing through my body. His touch was like electricity, like no one had ever touched me before.
All of the hell I’d been through, the men I’d been forced to be with...I’d never come to associate sex with anything other than pain and humiliation. But with Hammer, it was anything but that. Not that it was rainbows and sunshine. I didn’t know how to not disconnect during sex, to stay within my body, to not enter some other headspace. But the last time, at least, my body had seemed to sense that it was not a predator touching me.
It made me hope that someday I might be normal. Maybe I could even love someone.
Hammer’s hands were up under my shirt, touching my breasts through my bra, and my nipples immediately hardened under his palms. I moaned, and he muted the sound with his mouth as I pressed my body to his, reveling in the hardness I felt against me.
“Please,” I said. It came out, not something I expected, to be practically begging a man to sleep with me. But desire coursed through my body, and I didn’t want to think about anything else except Hammer’s hands on me. I wanted him to touch me like he did last time, to make it so that his touch was what I felt, the imprint of his hands on my body when I closed my eyes at night. Not Aston’s. Not anyone else’s. I wanted him to erase the pain I’d endured, to make it so that I forgot what others had done...at least for a while.
“You sure you want me?” Hammer asked, pausing for a moment.
“You don’t have to ask me every time,” I whispered, sliding my hands up under his shirt, feeling his hard muscles tense under my fingertips.
Hammer groaned as I ran my fingers over his nipple. “Of course I fucking do,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I won’t get tired of hearing you say it.”
“Say what?” I couldn’t think. I slid my hands down his tight stomach, started to undo the buckle on his pants.
“You saying you want me,” he said.
“Well, then, let me say it again." I slid my hands further up under his t-shirt, and he pulled his leather cut from his shoulders, looking at me and grinning. "I want you."
He kissed me full on the mouth, then pulled back. "I'm going to take this off, and then I'll give you what you want." He walked across the room, hanging his leather cut on the chair. He looked at me from where he stood, and winked. "You better get those clothes off, or I'm going to rip them off you."
"Is that a promise?" I asked, not bothering to hide the smile that crossed my face. I started to pull my t-shirt over my head, then stopped, teasing him. "Now I'm not sure I want to take them off."
I watched as Hammer stripped off his clothes and stood there naked in front of me, his cock erect. I felt a thrill rush through my body, looking at him, followed by the familiar twinge of fear I couldn't quite shake.
"What's wrong?" Hammer crossed the room quickly, taking my hands in his, and I felt my shirt drop to my sides.
"Nothing," I said, and then, in response to his skeptical look, "I - this, whatever this is between us - I want it to be easy, but it's not. I like it. I mean, I really like it, a lot. But it's - there are so many things in my past. In my present, I mean..."
"I know I don't know everything about your past," Hammer said. "But I know about how shit from the past can affect the present. If there's one thing I learned from April's death, it's to live in the moment, because I don't know what the fuck is going to happen in the future."
Living in the moment was something I was an expert at avoiding. I had trained myself to exist by fading into memories of the past- back when I was a child, or when I still had Ben with me- or by fantasizing about the future. Anything to escape the pain of the present moments in my life, the ones that I couldn't bear to face.
Except for this. Except for him. I wanted to be here for this, to experience these moments. I wanted to drag them out, to savor them, emblazon them in my memory. I wanted to save them, so that these would be memories I could draw on later. These memories would be what kept me alive the next time Aston called for me.
The thought sent a shiver up my spine.
Hammer's voice broke through my thoughts. "If you're not comfortable, just say the word and I'll back off."
"I'm -" I started, struggling to put it into words, to figure out how to tell him I was intermittently uncomfortable, triggered by little things- a smell, a look, the memory of something. "I'm comfortable right now."
"Are you comfortable if I do this?" Hammer asked, kissing me just below my ear.
"Mmm, yeah," I said. "That's not too bad."
"Not too bad, huh?" he asked. "What about if I slip this off?" Without waiting for me to respond, he pulled my t-shirt over my head.
"That's okay."
"And what about this?" He unhooked my bra, and I drew in my breath as my nipples hardened in the air conditioned hotel room. "Is this comfortable?"
Hammer trailed his finger down the front of my chest and over the tops of my breasts. I ached for his mouth on me, just like before, but he seemed intent on tormenting me. I reached for his cock, erect and begging for my attention, but he pushed my hand away. "Huh-huh," he said. "I asked you a question. Comfortable?"
"Yes," I said softly as he traced light circles around my areola and then my nipple. My panties began to dampen in response to his touch, and I was suddenly acutely aware of the empty aching between my legs. My body remembered him and what he had done to me last time.
"And now?" He left a trail of kisses down my chest to my cleavage, then flicked his tongue lightly over the end of my nipple, teasing me more. I arched my back, willing him to take my breast in his mouth, to suck me like he'd done before. But he didn't. Instead, he smiled, and unbuttoned my pants, kneeling at my feet as he stripped them from my legs and tossed them on the floor with the other clothes.
He ran his hands up my thighs, his thumbs pressed against my inner thighs as he tormented me further.
"I'm comfortable, Hammer," I said. "It's all comfortable. I want you."
"That's good to hear," he said. "But I want you to be more than just comfortable." He kissed one of my inner thighs, and it took everything I had not to push my pussy into his face, I wanted him so badly.
But he didn't kneel between my legs and lick me like he did last time. Instead, he slipped off my panties and tossed them to the side with the pants, then rose to his feet, chuckling when I let out a disappointed groan. "I know," he said. "You're comfortable, right?"
I nodded, biting my bottom lip. Comfortable was no longer the right word. Overwrought was a better one. I wanted to feel him inside me, to have him ride me until I couldn't think about anything else except him. "Hammer," I said, wrapping my hand around the base of his shaft. This time, he didn't stop me. Instead, I listened to his breath grow more shallow as I began to stroke him, my hand moving up and down his length in measured rhythm.
"Yes," he said.
"All the stuff that's happened," I said. "I want you to take it away. I know you can't, but I want to pretend. I want you to make me think about what's happening right now. In the moment. I want to forget everything else, even if it's only for a moment."
Hammer groaned, and I wasn't sure if it was because of what I said or what I was doing with my hand. I knew it wasn't a long-term solution to anything, but I wanted him to take me away, to obliterate everything around me, all the shit I had to worry about, so that the only thing I could thin
k about was him and I. Right now.
"Is that really what you want?" he asked.
"It's really what I want," I said, my heart racing. I wanted complete annihilation.
"Fuck," he said, his voice raspy. He turned to grab a condom, and rolled it onto his length, then paused. "You want me to be gentle, go easy with you?"
My heart raced, and before I could second-guess myself, I said, "No."
"I want to hear you say it," he said.
He wanted to hear me say it? I suddenly felt bold. I'd say it, all right. "I don't want gentle. I don't want to be coddled or handled with kid gloves."
"Oh, hell," he said, his voice a growl. Before I could react, he stepped toward me and slipped his hands under my ass, lifting me up off the ground like I was nothing. "You want this," he said, more of a statement of fact than a question, and I felt the tip of his cock against my entrance.
I didn't have time to respond before he slid me onto his length, impaling me with his cock. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, more than acutely aware of the fact that I was so wet, that there was no pain. Just the opposite. It was like he had flipped a switch in my body, turned on my body's ability to respond with pleasure instead of only pain and horror. Every nerve ending was on fire, burning with desire for him.
It was the same act, his entering me, yet it was as different from the other men as it could possibly be.
"Comfortable?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. I didn't move on him, just let him hold me there, satisfied with the way he filled me. Satisfied was something foreign to me when it came to sex.
"Are you going to just hold me like this forever?"
"I can if you want me to," he said, grinning.
"I like it," I whispered.
Hands still under my ass, he leaned forward and kissed me. Devoured me was more like it. His mouth connected with mine, and any ability I'd had to keep my thoughts clear was immediately and entirely destroyed. He didn't move me, but his cock twitched inside me, sending an immediate, visceral response through my body. I moaned, even while his mouth covered mine.
Breaking Hammer (Motorcycle Club Romance) (Inferno Motorcycle Club Book 3) Page 15
