by Jessie Cooke
Angel understood his shame; she was feeling it herself in spades. “You made a terrible mistake. We all did. You said that she would have been strong enough to stand up to her family and you weren’t. Fine, we all have our strengths and standing up to family is not one of ours. But your strength is your heart. You have more heart than anyone else I know. Just show her your heart, David. Don’t just tell her you’re sorry, show her. You’re going to have to regain her trust, but I’m confident that you can do it.”
He looked down at her. “Now you’re encouraging me to go after her?”
“I’m encouraging you to follow your heart. I’m sorry that I was part of your hurting her. I will apologize to Kat myself…but I hate seeing you like this. If Katrina Brown is going to be what it takes to make you happy, then don’t give up.”
David put his arm around her and pulled her in for a hug. “It’s fucking freezing out here.” Angel laughed.
“First, I told you that. Second, hanging out with that woman has been detrimental to your vocabulary.”
“Maybe it’s spending so much time here, with all these bikers.” She conceded that it could be either. “Go back inside where it’s warm. I’m going to go see if I can get Kat to leave the hospital and get some rest. I’ll stay with Dillon.”
“Okay, but you make sure you get enough rest too,” she told him as he stood up and pulled her to her feet. “Hey…can you do me a favor, on the DL?”
He raised an eyebrow. “On the DL from your husband?”
“Yeah, for now. Can you run a spreadsheet for me on all the reported stolen vehicles on the Southside for the past few months?”
David chuckled. “You could probably just go out to the shop and make a list.”
“Ha, you’re hilarious. Will you do it for me?”
“Sure. I took a few days off so I could be there for Kat while Dillon’s in the hospital. It looks bad; I think he’s dying. But as soon as I get back to the station, I’ll see what I can do. Can I ask why Dax shouldn’t know about this?”
“You can ask.”
He rolled his eyes and kissed her on the cheek. “Get inside before you freeze.”
“Night, David. I’m sorry.”
“I know. Me too. Love you, sis.”
“Love you too.” Angel waited until he stepped down off the porch and headed for his car before going back inside. It was going to take more than a glass of wine to help her get over the feelings she had about what she’d done to Kat. Impulsivity wasn’t usually one of Angel’s faults…unless she thought someone was messing with her family.
David stopped and got Chinese food on his way back to the hospital. If he knew Kat, she probably still hadn’t eaten anything. When he got there, he sent her a text message. She either ignored it, or her phone was off. He was about to call the nurses’ station when Gunner Davis walked in. “Hey, David, what’s up?” Gunner was carrying a pizza and a large soda.
“Is that for Kat?”
“Yup.”
“Does she know you’re bringing it in?”
“Yup.”
“Do me a favor?” Gunner raised an eyebrow. It was so weird to David sometimes to look at Gunner’s face with his dark skin and hair and see his brother-in-law looking back at him. Dax was so fair-skinned and his hair was so light that you wouldn’t think you’d be able to see it…but they could be twins if not for the pigmentation.
“What kind of favor?”
“Text Kat and tell her the food is here, and leave.”
“Damn, what did I do to you?” Gunner laughed.
“You’re okay,” David said with a grin. “Stubborn woman problems.”
“Well, hell, I know about that one first-hand.” Gunner’s old lady Tammy was probably the most stubborn woman David knew outside of Kat, so he knew Gunner would sympathize. “Alright, but if she’s pissed at me, you have to run backup. Hurricane Katrina ain’t nothing to mess with.”
David chuckled, “You’re telling me.”
Gunner put the pizza and soda down and sent Kat a text. When David heard the reply ding in two seconds, he was a little bit hurt. “She’ll be right out. Good luck.”
“Thanks,” David said, “I’ll need it.”
Gunner took off and about two minutes later, Kat walked into the room. She narrowed her eyes at David and looked around. An elderly couple, a middle-aged man, and two women sat along one wall and David sat by the other, pizza and Chinese food in front of him. “Where’s Gunner?”
“He got a call…”
“Bullshit. You’re a terrible liar. I’m too fucking hungry to care.” She went over where he was and sat down. As she opened the pizza box she said, “He brought Chinese food too?”
“No, I brought that.”
“Figures. I hate Chinese food.”
He laughed. “Now who’s lying? It’s your favorite.”
“Tastes change.”
He took a deep breath and asked the Lord for patience with this woman. “How’s Dillon?” Kat took a long drink of the soda and another bite of pizza. She made David wait until she swallowed before saying:
“The same. He wakes up and talks crazy and then goes back into a deep sleep.”
“I’m sorry. Are you going to go home and get some rest?”
“Nah, I’m okay.”
“Kat, you passed out today. You need to take care of yourself.”
She stuffed the rest of the piece of pizza in her mouth and picked up another one. After washing that bite down, she said, “I can sleep in his room. I don’t like leaving him alone. It takes forty minutes to get here from the bar.”
“My apartment is only five minutes. I’ll stay here and you can go there and sleep. I’ll call you if there’s any changes.”
Kat narrowed her eyes at him again. She always looked like a predator about to pounce when she did that. “You think kissing my ass will make me forgive you?”
He shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you.”
“What’s that?” He had to wait for her to finish another piece of pizza before she said,
“I’ll go sleep at your place if you’ll stay here with Dillon tomorrow. I have a red-eye flight to California in the morning and I’ll be back in the evening.”
“Why do you have to go to California?”
“Are we married now? You need to know all my business?”
Rolling his eyes, he said, “Fine. Deal. You go get some rest.”
“If you’re going to be here all day tomorrow, you’ll need sleep too. I’ll use your shower and sleep on your couch. They can call me if anything happens since I’ll be close by.”
“You can have the bed.”
“Keep kissing ass, it’s not working.” She was being sarcastic, but not mean. It was working…or something was.
“I have to keep trying,” he said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because I love you.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Why? It’s true.”
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
David laughed. “Okay.”
“You know you want it.”
He laughed again and ran his eyes over her body. “Yeah, I do. But you don’t want me and you need your rest, so we’ll leave it at that.”
She snorted, ate another piece of pizza, and finished the soda. “I’m going to let them know I’m leaving and look in on Dillon one more time. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Okay.” David stood up and started gathering up the Chinese food. Kat got as far as the door and turned around and said,
“Bring that disgusting Chinese food, just in case.” David was shaking his head at her and laughing as she went out the door.
29
Kat stood underneath the spray in David’s shower, letting the warm water wash over her aching muscles. It had been storming when they left the hospital, but she’d been stubborn enough not to accept David’s offer of a ride in his car. She’d ridden
her bike and by the time she got to his apartment, she was soaked to the skin. The warm water massaging her body now felt better than anything she’d felt all week…except for David, of course. She cursed herself for thinking about that. When she agreed to go to his apartment and sleep, she’d promised herself that no matter what, sleep was all she was going to do. But standing naked in the shower that was three feet from the room where he slept at night was doing things to her body. Or maybe it was just being anywhere near him that did things to her…or maybe, she was just fucking horny. She would think that she’d be too tired to even think about that…and she probably would be, if it were anyone but David. It didn’t help that he kept apologizing and telling her that he loved her. She’d been weak that night at the ranch and she’d given in, knowing she shouldn’t, and she’d woken up disappointed again. Her heart could only take so much.
She finished her shower and toweled off. David had given her a big shirt to wear to bed and he’d taken her clothes to put in the wash. She accused him of kissing ass, but the truth was, that was just David. Back when they were together it was hard for her to believe how kind and thoughtful he was sometimes. When she was mad at him it made her ten times angrier for him to be so nice, though. Sometimes she wanted him to fight back. Sometimes she needed him to tell her that she was being unreasonable.
She finished dressing and used his comb to brush her long hair. She pulled it back into a ponytail before going back out into the bedroom. She found David, sitting on the edge of the bed in the dark. He stood up as soon as he saw her and said, “I just wanted to see if you needed anything before you went to bed.”
“Nope. I’ll eat that crap you brought to the hospital for breakfast.” He laughed and she said, “Why don’t you ever tell me what a bitch I am?” The look on his face told her that the question had caught him off-guard.
“You want me to call you a bitch?”
She walked over and sat down on the bed. “No, I mean, it’s not about the word. Why don’t you ever fight back?”
He sat back down next to her and said, “I don’t like to fight. Why do you always want to fight?”
“Sometimes, you have to.”
“And sometimes, you can solve your problems by talking things out, rationally.”
She groaned and lay back on the bed with her eyes closed. The room was illuminated by a strike of lightning outside the window and she jumped a little at the sound of the thunder as it rolled by. She jerked open her eyes, and David was looking at her like he was starving and she was the only thing on the menu. She tried to hide her shudder by sitting back up right at the same time. “I tried that…once,” she said.
David frowned, obviously getting what she was talking about. “Okay, here’s this then…why didn’t you call me? Why drive bleeding and cramping all the way into town…alone? Why do you have to do every fucking thing alone?”
“There ya go, that’s better, throwing that ‘F’ word…” That was as much as she got out before David grabbed her and covered her mouth with his. She struggled, for about half a second, but she knew it was no use. She wanted him and she’d deal with the fallout tomorrow. If David wanted to take out his angst fucking her, instead of arguing with her, that was his business. He was rough, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her up in his lap. His lips and his tongue were hungrily devouring her mouth as his hands roamed her body, underneath her shirt where she was completely nude. He grabbed the cheeks of her ass and surprised her by standing up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders and kept kissing him as he walked her around the bed to the desk by the window. Another bolt of lightning flashed as he set her down on top of it. He pulled out of the kiss, but Kat pressed her lips into his neck, kissing and sucking on it and loving the way she could feel the gooseflesh on his skin against her tongue.
With one hand, David grabbed the top of her shirt…his shirt…and ripped it open. She’d never seen this primal side of him and it was turning her on like crazy. He pulled away from her lips and put his own on one of her breasts. He licked the nipple and rolled it around on his tongue before blowing his hot breath on it and causing her body to convulse. He moved over to the other one and did the same, only this time he used his teeth to scrape along the side of her rock-hard nipple. She had her hands in his hair, pushing his face into her chest as he licked and bit and suckled. Her pussy was drenched and the next time the lightning flashed he looked up at her and she saw the lust and the hunger there…the passion that he didn’t waste on arguments.
Kat reached for his pants but he pulled away from her and dropped down to his knees. Pushing her legs apart roughly, he buried his face in the folds of her drenched pussy. He slipped his hands underneath her and held her up off the desk as his tongue licked her from one end to the other and back again. Kat was moaning even before his teeth found her clit. She had her fingers wrapped up in his hair and she was pulling and tugging at it, torn between wanting more and being on the verge of not being able to take it. She’d never had a man eat her pussy so violently—it was hot. The fact that it was David made it even hotter. He scraped his teeth along the side of her engorged clit, and she cried out and threw her head back as a massive orgasm tore through her body. David didn’t stop. He kept licking and sucking until the only moisture left on her pussy and thighs was his saliva. When he finally lowered her butt back down to the desk, she was panting and shaking, and while she struggled to catch her breath, David was stripping off his clothes. The lightning was her best friend as it lit up the sky behind her and illuminated his gorgeous body. The exhaustion she’d felt only minutes before was replaced with adrenaline that came from her powerful need to touch him.
She slid off the desk and advanced toward him, taking his now bare cock in her hand. He groaned when she touched him and his breathing became ragged as she stroked up and down the shaft with her hand. She leaned in and kissed his hard chest and then let her tongue come out and slide down his body, across his abs and down to the treasure she was holding in her hand. Dropping to her knees she licked the head of his cock, delighting in the way he moaned and ran his fingers through her hair as she did. He tugged at the band holding her hair back and wrapped his fists up in the long, dark strands as she slipped her lips over the head of his throbbing cock and took the rest of it into her mouth.
“Fuck, Kat…” He began to move his hips as she sucked and licked and he fucked her mouth. The fact that he was taking what he wanted from her was turning her on more than anything. She tipped her head back and he held onto her hair tighter and moved his hips faster, hitting the back of her throat with each thrust. She could feel him on the verge of coming, but she didn’t stop. If he wanted to come in her mouth, she was going to let him. She was going to let him have whatever he wanted tonight. Tomorrow might be different, but tonight she was all his. He was grunting and groaning before finally putting one of his hands on her forehead and pushing her back. The way he was looking down at her was pure predator and Kat was more than happy to be his prey. He lifted her up and turned so that he could drop her down on the bed and then he flipped her over so that she was face down on the bed. Without words, he urged her up to her knees and just when she thought he was going to press his cock into her, she felt his tongue instead. He was down on his knees again at the edge of the bed and his tongue was buried up inside of her. She pressed back into his face and wiggled her hips as his tongue invaded her most private spaces and his hand came up to find a hard nipple and pinch and twist and pull on it. Kat was on the verge of screaming when he used the other hand and shoved two fingers up inside of her. She kept moving her hips while he worked them in and out of her, and she did scream when the second orgasm shook her to her core.
David flipped her over again and this time, looking directly into her eyes, he did put his cock in her. She was so wet that he slid right in and he didn’t stop until he felt resistance. He pushed her further back on the bed and put his knees on either side of her. Sitting upright on
them, he lifted her legs up and put them on his shoulders. Each thrust of his hips buried his cock in her as deeply as he could possibly get and he moaned as Kat whimpered and writhed on the mattress underneath him. She was holding onto his shoulders and digging her fingernails into his skin when he leaned down and kissed her, hard again, just as she felt him explode inside of her. He kept pumping in and out of her as he came, never taking his sexy eyes off her face. Her legs were both asleep by the time he finished and lowered them back down to the bed. She didn’t care. At that moment, he could have cut them off to get them out of his way and she would have let him.
David pulled out of her and collapsed down next to her on the bed. He lay there, gasping for breath, and Kat lay next to him, wondering, what next? This was the part she hated. With other men, she’d mastered the art of rolling out of bed, getting dressed, and riding away on her Harley. But this was David and everything about him…about being with him…was different. She thought about their night at the ranch, and that feeling of hurt and embarrassment when she woke up alone filled her chest again. Impulsively, she started to roll away from him and toward the edge of the bed, but his big arms stopped her and he pulled her up against him, backwards. With his mouth next to her ear he said, “Please let me hold you.” Kat didn’t resist. She settled into him, blaming it on being too tired to fight. Whatever it took to get her through the night.
30
Kat got off the plane in California at eight a.m. She’d left Boston at five a.m. It was a six-hour flight and she’d slept most of it. She hadn’t slept much the night before, despite how tired she’d been. Most of the night she’d lain awake, watching David sleep. She finally drifted off around two in the morning and he woke her up at four to take her to the airport. He’d had her clothes dry and ready for her to put on and her coffee fixed, and he’d even fixed her a waffle. Her stomach was too nervous to eat, but she appreciated the effort. The ride to the airport had been a quiet one, but before she left to go through the security check, David had hugged her and whispered in her ear, “I don’t care if it pisses you off, I love you, Kat. Be safe.” She hadn’t said it back. David was the last person she’d said it to, but that had been five years ago and even if she was feeling it, she wasn’t sure she was capable of saying the words. She’d thanked him for the ride instead and made him promise to call her if anything happened with Dillon.
