Flirting so openly was exciting, and doing it from the stage was new.
When the set was over, I walked back over to the table, but I wasn’t sure whether I was the predator or the prey. I felt like I was stalking toward him, but the heat in his eyes as he watched my approach made me feel like he was the one driving us forward.
As soon as I was near enough to the table, he caught my hand and yanked me into his lap. “Are you ready to get out of here?”
I looped my arms around his neck. “Depends on where you want to take me.”
“Bed.”
The sheer bluntness of it made me laugh in joy. I stood and snatched my helmet off the chair beside him. “Hell, yes.”
He’d barely stood when his phone rang. I wanted to tell him to ignore it; I wanted to grab it and yell at whoever it was to go away, but I saw the look on his face when he glanced down. It was an expression I recognized without the next words he said.
“Club business.”
I motioned toward it. “Go on. I’ll keep.”
He walked away and answered. I didn’t point out that he didn’t need to walk away to take work calls. I had been overhearing club secrets and business as long as my memories went back, far longer than he had, but the flat truth was that I wasn’t his old lady—or an active Wolf’s daughter—so he was right to walk away. I sat and listened to the music that was playing in the club while the band was on break. It wasn’t what I’d prefer, but it was far from bad.
When Alamo returned to the table, he looked like he expected me to be angry, and I had to wonder if whatever woman he had in his life who’d left clothes behind wasn’t good with the club. It wasn’t unheard of. Both Aubrey and her grandmother had been willing to give up on the men they loved because they didn’t like that aspect of the Southern Wolves. Admittedly, Mrs. Evans still loved Echo despite the fact they had been apart for years, and eventually she’d found a way to be with him but not be his old lady officially. In their case, it was simply time. They’d waited for years. With Killer, he’d left the club more or less so Aubrey would be with him. I wasn’t like them.
“Hey,” I said lightly.
Alamo looked at me.
“If you need, we can do a rain check on the rest of my plans,” I said. “You’re not getting out of giving the kisses I’m expecting, but if you have work tonight, that comes first.”
The smile he rewarded me with proved that I hadn’t misunderstood his worries. “You’d be fine with that?”
“My dad was a Wolf. My uncle is a Wolf.” I kept my voice pitched low as I spoke. “If I had been a son, I expect I’d have been wearing club colors years ago. The club was my family way before you came strolling into Tennessee. They’ll be my family if you leave. It’s no big thing if you need to go to work.”
“There you go again, holding everything out like it’s easy,” Alamo said in a deceptively calm tone.
I could hear history in those words, and even without the details, I understood what he was really asking was the same question I’d have to ask any man I thought about keeping: Do you accept that sometimes the Southern Wolves come before you? I was okay with that. I always had been.
This didn’t mean that I wanted to be a woman he kept or that I was sure I wanted to keep him. So I didn’t say anything for a moment. There wasn’t anything I was sure I could say truthfully. We’d spent half a day together, and I was interested in more. I already knew I liked the look of him, and I’d had enough conversations with him in groups that it stung that he hadn’t wanted more. Now I realized that he had but had been stymied by club rules, I wanted to get lost with him for a few days and see what this could be.
“We might not even suit.” I softened the word with a smile, but I had to put it out there.
He picked me up, supporting me with his hands holding my ass, and kissed me—not a polite kiss meant for public, but an assault on my senses.
My legs wrapped around his waist, and my arms twined around his neck. I returned as good as I got, tongues dueling as we both tried to dominate the other. It wasn’t until I heard applause that I pulled back.
“It looks like Miss Ellen’s beau liked her singing too,” the singer quipped as they took the stage again. “Maybe you ought to take him out of here before you set the house on fire, Ellen.”
Alamo looked at me as he lowered me to the ground. “I need to go out, but if you wanted to wait in my bed, it would be more than enough reason to hurry home.”
“Safely, though,” I amended.
He smiled widely. “Darlin’, I’m always safe. Just need to go deal with a thing, but it’s nothing to fret over.”
I’d seen that same glimmer in Killer’s eyes when he had worked for Echo. The job in question was one that would involve violence. Back when we were kids, Killer had always said that a fight left him wired to the point that all he wanted was to follow it with a fuck. From the barely restrained excitement in Alamo’s eyes, I suspected he felt much the same.
As a kid, I was more than a little disgusted by the idea of violence leading to sex—both because I didn’t get the correlation and because I didn’t much want to think about Killer doing that. Now, however, I got it, and I wasn’t complaining about the adrenaline rush being redirected to something I’d benefit from, since it was Alamo who would be with me.
The ride home continued to be an exercise in flirtation. As with the rest of our day, it was obviously flirting with the intent to deliver. He gripped my legs or stroked my calves when we stopped at lights, and after the third light, I told him, “Two can play.”
He didn’t reply, but conversation was a challenge on the back of a bike.
More important, it was unnecessary. I slid my hands down his sides until I reached the bottom of his shirt. I felt him tense under my touch, so I waited, letting it drag out, extending the moment until my own patience expired.
Then slowly I eased my fingertips under the material. The skin under the pads of my fingers was newly free to explore, and there was something delicious about doing so while we were on his Harley. I’d never been an exhibitionist, but touching him as I had over the day so far was making me rethink that.
At the next light, he glanced back at said, “Payback’s a bitch, Ellen.”
“Are you telling me to stop?” I asked lightly. My hand dropped lower, not moving now, simply resting between his legs.
He arched forward slightly. “Not at all. Just warning you that if you’re going to tease, I don’t want any complaints later.”
Far from complaining, I wanted to make him promise to deliver on that threat. I tightened my legs on either side of him and stroked my fingers down the seam of his jeans. “I’m not teasing. I have every intention to follow through.”
He said nothing, so I continued the gentle motion of my hand until he slowed down the bike and ordered, “Stop, darlin’. There’s a limit to what I can handle and still ride safely, and you’ve already passed it.”
I felt as powerful in that moment as I had earlier onstage. It was good to be wanted, and even better to be wanted by him.
By the time we reached his house, my own desire had surpassed anything reasonable, but work didn’t wait for such things. Alamo left me there inside his house with a kiss that promised everything else, and a quiet word of trust.
“I have no secrets I won’t tell you if you ask, Ellen. Nothing like Bluebeard’s wives hidden away in trunks. No rooms in my house are forbidden. Just be here when I get home.”
“I will,” I said.
A few hours later, though, I wasn’t sure where to wait. It felt presumptuous to be in his bedroom, but I didn’t want to sleep in the guest room and accidentally give the impression that I’d changed my mind. My hope was that he’d be back before sleep overcame me, but the few hours of rest the night before were starting to catch up to me. I changed into his sweatshirt, curled up on top of the covers in the guest room, and took a nap.
Chapter 22
I WOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE BE
DROOM DOOR OPENING. For a moment I wasn’t sure where I was or why, but the outline in the doorway brought it all back. I was at Alamo’s house, in his guest room, and he was back.
He was also walking back out of the room.
“Stop,” I said, sounding more asleep than awake.
“Ellen?”
“You shouldn’t leave,” I muttered, still blinking away the sleep. “I just napped, and . . .” My words drifted away as I tried to clear my mind. “I’m here. You’re here.”
“Is that a proposition?”
“Oh, hell, yes.” I started to sit up so I could get out of bed and go toward him.
Before I could do so, he was at the edge of the bed. He scooped me up and walked out of the room, holding me aloft like I weighed nothing. I was fairly certain that carrying me like that was impossible. No one ever had before. Alamo held me effortlessly and walked to his bedroom.
I’d glimpsed it earlier, all simple lines and practical furniture. I hadn’t lingered, though, feeling like it was an invasion of his privacy despite his parting words.
He lowered me to the mattress and looked down at me. “I’ve pictured you here.”
It was no longer sleep that was tangling my ability to form words. It was him, the way he looked at me and the sheer unabashed lust in his expression. I swallowed, trying to think of something to say that didn’t sound foolish.
“Do you know what I imagined, darlin’?”
I shook my head.
“Do you want to know?” His hands were on my bare legs, sliding up higher and higher.
This time I knew the right answer. “Yes,” I said.
His fingers stopped at the edge of my panties, just as mine had done with his shirt earlier when we were on the bike. Unlike him, I wasn’t trapped by circumstances. I held his gaze as I reached down and shimmied out of them, leaving only a shirt as a barrier between us.
He said nothing as he stared at me. It felt right to be silent then, only bodies and feelings between us. I wasn’t so self-assured that baring my self was something I could do lightly, but any doubts I had faded as he drew a sharp breath.
In the next moment he had hands on my hips and was pulling me to him. There was something more intimate in this act, in the trust it took to let anyone near that most sensitive part of me, but I didn’t feel the trepidation I’d felt when anyone else tried it. Alamo licked me and let out a guttural noise that made me feel like I was the sexiest woman in the world. He was everything a woman could want in a man, and he was worshipping my body.
Within moments, I knew that I’d been right about him: his careful, deliberate attention was heaven. If not for his grip on my hips, I would be arched halfway off the bed, but he held me steady as he drove me higher and higher. When I reached that blissful peak, he was still there, holding me to his mouth and driving me back up to nirvana.
My entire body shook with the force of my pleasure by the time he released me.
“Payback, darlin’,” he murmured as he pulled me up to rest on his chest.
Then I drifted back to sleep in his arms.
THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up confused. It took me a moment to realize that I was in Alamo’s house again, but not the guest room. I was in Alamo’s bed, and he was holding me tightly.
I wouldn’t have taken him for a cuddler, but I’d ended up with my head cushioned on his chest while I slept. He had an arm tight around my waist, holding me there. It was restful without being entrapping . . . at least it had been until I realized that I was nearly naked and in his bed. All the wanting that I’d been ignoring washed over me like the river escaping its banks after a heavy rain.
I splayed my hand out across his stomach and marveled at his taut muscles.
“If I play possum, will you keep going?” he asked in a low voice.
“Pants off.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He complied with a smile.
There was no need to waste more words when actions would serve us both far better. I wanted to explore, had wanted to do so since not long after we met, and now we were here. I slid my hand lower, dragging the edge of my thumbnail over his bare skin just hard enough to test his reaction.
Alamo’s quiet murmur of appreciation made me smile. That was one of the things I appreciated about bikers: they usually appreciated both rough and gentle. As my hand wrapped around his cock, he parted his legs wider—granting me access and simultaneously pushing my leg back so he could touch me.
“Tell me what you like, darlin’.” His fingers slid into already wet folds.
“Right now? Harder.” My strokes sped. “Faster.”
In barely more than a moment, he’d matched my pace.
The only sounds for several minutes were groans and breathing.
Soon I was grinding down on his fingers, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t want just his hand. I wanted everything.
“Condom,” I half asked, half ordered.
“Drawer” was his only reply.
It wasn’t a battle of wills, not truly, but I saw the edge of it there. I opened the drawer, pulled out the packet, and looked at him.
“Am I still to be playing possum then?” he teased.
I grinned, tore the packet open, and in moves that were far more practiced than I’d usually admit to the first time with someone, I sheathed him.
He watched me with nothing but approval.
I threw my leg over him. For a moment I braced myself on my knees and looked down at him. There was a beautifully challenging expression on his face, and I knew that he wasn’t going to let me keep control much longer. I wanted that, the fight for who was driving.
I waited, gaze locked, hovering over him. I lowered myself until we were touching, until it would take only a breath to be exactly where we both wanted to be, until it was a matter of which one of us moved.
And as soon as his hands came up to grip my hips, I slammed down just as he surged up. I let out a small animal noise at the perfection. We fit like he’d been custom made for my body.
He closed his eyes and groaned. In that moment, it was the most beautiful sound I could ever remember hearing.
When he opened his eyes, he ordered, “Take off the shirt.”
“Gladly,” I said. I wasn’t as confident in my body as some women, but the way Alamo looked at me gave me all the self-confidence I needed. When I stripped off my shirt and he looked at me like I was a gift, I wanted to preen. To him, I was beautiful. To him, I was mesmerizing. I saw it in the way he stared. It was better than any rush I’d ever felt.
“Fucking perfect,” he murmured.
And I felt like I was. Naked atop a gorgeous biker who was thrusting up into me like there was a prize for delivering the fastest, hardest orgasm of my life, I felt like I was a goddess.
When he followed that orgasm with several more, including the sort of leisurely sex that could be easily called making love, I was revising my stance and declaring him a god. Nothing had ever been this good, and despite my urge to keep my heart locked away, I was fairly sure he already had the key—and if he didn’t, I’d tell him where to find it if he could make me feel this good regularly.
Chapter 23
I WAS STILL GRINNING WHEN ALAMO DROPPED ME OFF ON campus. My happiness didn’t fade by the time class was over either. It wasn’t simply that I’d ended my dry spell or even that I’d been with the man who’d been filling my mind when I let myself relax. It was that we clicked. There was something almost magical when two people fit so well.
“Did something happen?” Aubrey asked. She had waited for me after class.
I started at her question. I never quite bought into the idea that people could tell by looking if a person had recently been . . . satisfied. On the other hand, I still felt like I was doing an imitation of the Cheshire cat. I was happy. Casually I asked, “Like what?”
She shrugged and peered at me as if she could find clues. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she wasn’t going to have any luck with intimidation. Between my
mother and Echo, I’d had “the look” from the best. Aubrey was a sweetie, but she wasn’t intimidating—at least not to me.
After a moment or two of trying to stare me down, she said, “You tell me. Noah took off when I said I was waiting for you. I know you two have had your issues, but I thought you were getting along.”
I was so startled by her remarks that I simply blinked at her. My mind was so full of what had happened with Alamo that I’d set aside the other bits. The conflict with Noah wasn’t forgotten, but it wasn’t at the top of my mind. I considered not getting into it, but she’d been indoctrinated enough between her job at Wolves & Whiskey and dating Killer that I figured I could—and should—be blunt. “Noah told everyone I was under his protection. Idiot boy is the last president’s kid and liable to be the next in line now that Killer’s left. People think . . .” I looked at her to be sure she realized exactly what conclusion they would arrive at.
Aubrey’s lips parted on a sound of surprise so low that I heard nothing. I saw it, however, and was glad that she wasn’t offended. I’d hate to lose her friendship, but I knew that she counted Noah as a friend too. I felt horrible a heartbeat later when she thought about what she knew, what she’d seen when Noah had been with her at the same time as I was.
“You’re not, though. Together with Noah, I mean . . . Right? When he and I were flirting, when he kissed me—”
“No.” I cut her off before she could let that wave of guilt pull her under. She’d done nothing wrong. “What Noah Dash and I had ended before you moved here.”
“How much before?” she asked softly as we walked through the hall toward the exit of the building.
“Enough that you can take your worry and guilt and shelve it,” I assured her. I had become very fond of Aubrey over the months that I’d known her, but she was a little too sweet sometimes. It was probably for the best that Killer was walking away from the club. This life wasn’t going to suit a woman like her, especially because Killer was far from fringe. He’d been in the thick of everything, and that would mean either lying to her or asking her to change. I was proud of him for choosing to be the one who made changes.
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