by Leah Wilde
“Yes,” she called out, encouraging me. “Oh God, yes, Gage. Give it to me, baby. Fuck me.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from this mild mannered university researcher, this mousy little woman who lived her life in dusty libraries across the world. She grabbed my waist and held me against her, rocking her hips against me, driving my erection ever deeper inside her.
“I’m going to come again,” she panted, rocking harder and harder, faster and faster, until I could feel her ecstasy erupting all around me. She tilted her head and arched her back as a cry of pleasure ripped itself from her throat.
I grabbed her hips and shoved myself deep inside her a few more times, holding back until the last possible moment, when I pulled out and finished myself off on the hairless mound of flesh above her slit. She looked down, watching as each drop spilled from my head onto her skin.
“Give it all to me, Gage,” she coaxed me breathlessly as I emptied myself just below her soft white belly.
After I finished, I grabbed some tissues from the bathroom attached to my room and wiped my spilled seed off her mound. I tossed the tissue on the wooden floor and lay down next to her, kissing her shoulder and gripping her hand, our fingers intertwining and locking together.
“What were we fighting about?” I asked with a grin on my face.
She looked up at me with affection still in her deep, gentle green eyes. She stroked my cheek. “I don’t know, but it’s not important now.” She rolled over onto her side and backed up to me, pulling my arm around her. “Just hold me,” she said.
And I did. I held her little body against mine, protecting her from the hard reality that waited for both of us outside that door. I closed my eyes and breathed in the inviting smell of her shampoo, and I tried to ignore the fact that we were just making things harder on ourselves by continuing to sleep together. At this point, anything that happened would just be complicated by our actions and emotions.
For a moment, though, none of that mattered, and I was able to drift off next to Julia, the one woman able to break through my walls.
Chapter 16
Julia
As Gage’s breath slowed and his heart calmed behind me, I couldn’t help but think I’d just made things worse by sleeping with him again. I couldn’t get a handle on him. Here was this big tough outlaw biker who talked a big game and wanted everyone to be afraid of him. But he turned to putty in my hands. I wasn’t complaining, though. It felt good to be desired, especially by someone as passionate as Gage.
Confident that he was asleep, I slid out from underneath his arm and started grabbing my clothes. I stood up next to the bed as I dressed and looked at his naked body. He was an example of male perfection. His body was a work of art, a living sculpture, each muscle painstakingly detailed by the masterful hands that crafted him.
I could still feel his masterful hands on my body as I pulled my jeans up from the floor and slid my bra on over where he’d gripped my breasts. I pulled my tank top down over my head. He hadn’t budged. I ran my hands through my hair, which had fallen from its ponytail during sex. I thought about looking for the tie I’d used to hold it up but figured it was probably underneath the beautiful man sleeping peacefully in the bed. And the last thing I wanted to do was to disturb him.
I crept out of the room, carefully watching my step on the floor to be sure hardwood didn’t creak under my weight. I unlocked the door as quietly as I could and slipped out of the room, into the hallway. Once there, I released my breath and started walking at my normal pace, heading downstairs to the basement.
I wasn’t feeling any better about what Gage and his men had done to Dimitri, but I felt it wasn’t my place to argue with it. I was there to do a job, and that job did not include policing the actions of the members of Kings of Hell. My sole responsibility was to get information from him.
I still hadn’t said anything to Gage about what Dimitri had actually told me that morning. I didn’t know if I would until I had more to tell him. My silence weighed on me, though. I knew if he found out what I was keeping from him before I had more to tell him, it wouldn’t look good. It would only confirm his suspicions that I was holding out on him. But the thing was I really wasn’t. I just didn’t have enough information for it to amount to anything.
When I walked into the dark room in the basement, I could see immediately that Dimitri was feeling better. He sat upright and even smiled at me as I entered the room.
“Welcome back, Dr. Danvers,” he greeted me. “I’m glad to see you didn’t leave.”
“No, I didn’t leave.” I pulled the empty chair back and sat down across from him. “Gage can be very persuasive when he wants to be,” I added.
His face lit up with revelation. “You fucked him!” He tilted his head back and cackled. “You had sex with Gage!”
My cheeks flared as I blushed, giving myself away. “I don’t think that has anything to do with our conversation,” I told him, struggling to find the right words. I didn’t want to come right out and tell him he was right.
“So, how does it feel to be another notch on his bedpost?” he teased. “Though I must say you don’t really fit in with the women I’ve seen on Gage’s arm before.”
“I’m not here to talk about that,” I told him, trying to change the subject. “I want to talk about you.”
“And I want to talk about Gage getting a piece of that sweet little tart you’ve got there,” he said, lewdly eyeing me.
I was painfully aware I didn’t look like any of the girls I’d seen with the other guys. I didn’t need Dimitri, or anyone else for that matter, to remind me. They all looked their part, with the tattoos, the leather, dark clothes, dark hair, and their dark eyes. They all had hardened faces, as if they’d seen things out there on the street, even though I was sure many of them were just putting up a front so the right bad boy would find them attractive. I knew that wasn’t me.
I didn’t have any tattoos. I didn’t dye my hair black or red so it would look right with me on the back of a motorcycle. I didn’t wear leather, and other than a few tank tops and evening dresses, I didn’t have a lot of black in my wardrobe. Most of my clothes were picked out with my job in mind, which also didn’t require a whole lot of makeup either. I didn’t have to pretty myself up for work, so long as I just kept it professional.
Dimitri shook his head. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “You’ll be out of the picture soon enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him. He seemed to know a lot about Gage’s love life. I wondered just how much history these two actually had.
“Just that you don’t mean anything to him. I’ve seen it, Dr. Danvers. He’s just using sex to make you work for him. That’s all. He’s going to get what he wants out of you and toss you aside when he’s done,” he said nonchalantly.
“I think we need to talk more about what you told me earlier,” I urged him. “I need to know more about Ivan’s big drug deal.”
Dimitri leaned forward as far as he could with the ropes tied around his chest. “Listen to me very carefully, Dr. Danvers,” he said, dropping the taunting tone from his voice. “You need to leave. You need to get away from Gage Noll. As far away as you can,” he warned in a serious tone.
“You’ve tried to convince me to help you escape before,” I replied. “How is this any different?” I sat back and crossed my arms, wondering how he would respond to me.
“If you are letting him pull you in that close, your life could be in danger.”
He didn’t have his normal, confrontational look in his eyes. His voice didn’t have its usual defiant tone. Still, I felt like anything he said could just be a ploy to get me out of the way.
I laughed, trying to sound dismissive. “Why should I listen to anything you have to say, Dimitri? You know that if you get me out of the way, no one else will try to actually make you talk. And furthermore, they’ll just beat the shit out of you instead of trying to listen. I’m your only chance out of
here as far as I see it.” It was my turn to use some leverage.
“Your life may depend on listening to me,” he said plainly.
I conceded, rolling my eyes. “Fine, Dimitri. Please enlighten me. How does my life depend on listening to you?” I finally asked him.
“First, tell me, can you imagine Gage with an actual girlfriend?” he asked.
I tried to imagine it, and I was sure there had to have been someone at one point in his life who’d managed to get inside, past the walls he put up around himself.
Dimitri laughed. “I can see you struggling to conjure up the image of Gage with a girlfriend, a permanent girl by his side.”
I permitted myself to laugh with him. “Yeah, he’s not exactly the boyfriend type, you know?”
“Oh, I know. But let me assure you, it happened. He had a girlfriend a while back. I’ve only seen him with one, though. All the other girls just came and went, but it was pretty obvious this one girl was it.”
“Why are you telling me this, Dimitri?” I was beginning to feel like he was just pulling my leg.
“You need to know what happened to her.”
My heart sank. This wasn’t fun anymore. I wanted to get up and leave, but I was glued to my seat. I was in too deep, in too many ways, to just get up and walk out at this point. “What happened?” I asked cautiously, knowing that I didn’t want to hear the answer. Not really. I already knew enough.
“There was a deal. Ivan wasn’t part of it, so I wasn’t there. But there was a deal that went south in a big way, and he ended up putting her in harm’s way so that he could get out. He killed her to save himself and make the whole thing look like an accident.”
I sat and stared at the Russian after he told me the story about Gage’s girlfriend. I was quiet, stunned, floored by what he’d just told me.
“Your boyfriend up there, the one giving you the best sex you’ve ever had? He’s a killer, Dr. Danvers. He is a murderer, and he’s only keeping you around so that when shit goes south for him again, he has another human shield to hide behind,” Dimitri insisted.
“No.” I shook my head, unable to believe what he was telling me. Unwilling to believe it. “No, you’re wrong,” I told him. I stood up, pushing my chair back behind me, and I pointed my finger at him. “I’m going to prove you wrong.”
“Why don’t you go up there and ask him?” he challenged me. “See what he has to say for himself, Dr. Danvers.” His confident, smug tone had returned. He was pleased with himself for shaking my foundation. That was reason enough not to trust him right there.
“What was her name?” I asked him.
“What? What do you mean what was her name? Do you think I got that close to Gage?” He laughed, a deep, mocking laugh. “I didn’t care for her name, no more than Gage cared for her life. Go, Dr. Danvers. Go ask your boyfriend about his ex-girlfriend. Come back after you get your answer. If you still trust the man, I will tell you everything you want to know.”
I didn’t know what to believe anymore. It seemed like every time I went to talk to Dimitri, he told me something else disturbing and disappointing about Gage. But every time I went to see Gage about it, he turned it around and made me feel better about being aligned with him and the Kings of Hell. I didn’t know what to do.
I did know one thing, though. The longer I stayed in, the deeper I got. The deeper I got, the more I wanted out, but the harder it was going to be when the time came to finally step away. I wondered what it was going to take to make me finally walk away from him.
He’d been dishonest about what I was doing and why I was there. He’d been dishonest about how he was treating Dimitri. And according to Dimitri, once he told me everything, we’d both be dead. Now, he was telling me that no matter what, I was in danger for sleeping with Gage. I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to believe that he was capable of giving up my life to save his own.
I closed the door to the basement room behind me and walked across the pit underneath the mechanic bays above me. I took the stairs, my legs weak and shaky beneath me. By the time I made it to the ground floor, I could barely stand.
For a brief moment, I considered running. As always, the shop doors were open, and no one seemed to be around. I could have left on foot and walked somewhere safe to call one of my coworkers. I could’ve claimed that I had been held captive by Gage at the Kings of Hell headquarters.
I couldn’t run, though. Gage had me. I felt like I owed him the benefit of the doubt. He’d been taking care of me over the last few days. I wasn’t locked away like Dimitri downstairs. He treated me like part of the team. And, beyond all of those other reasons, I couldn’t shake my attraction to him. God help me, I wanted that brutish beast of a man, and I wanted to believe that he was genuinely a good man underneath his rough exterior.
Then why was I shaking so much? I had to admit to myself that I was afraid Dimitri might have been right. I knew Gage had a violent past. Hell, his current situation was pretty violent, and there was probably more violence to come. I just had to trust that there were limits.
Chapter 17
Gage was still lying in bed when I walked back into the room where’d we slept together. I couldn’t believe I’d just slept with a potential murderer. What the hell was I doing with my life? What was I doing here with this motorcycle gang? I was throwing everything away by sleeping with him, but God, his body was so delicious, and he pleased me in ways no one else had. He was so full of himself, but he knew exactly what to do to my body to get me off time and time again.
I knelt down next to the bed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Gage,” I said lightly. “Gage, wake up.”
He rolled away from me, mumbling incoherently in his sleep. There was no way he was a murderer, I thought. I wanted to climb into the bed with him and wake him with my naked body rubbing against his, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself get pulled further into this mess.
I walked around to the other side and tried a little harder to wake him this time. “Gage,” I said in a louder, firmer voice. “Gage, wake up. We need to talk.”
“Huh?” He shot up in the bed and looked around the room frantically, with panic briefly contorting his features. The muscles in his arms and chest tensed up, and I lost my will to confront him. I wanted to touch him with my fingertips and with my lips.
“It’s just me,” I told him.
He looked at me, then back at the bed. A goofy grin came across his face as he realized he was sitting on the bed naked. He ran a hand through his wavy dark hair, pushing it back in place from where it had fallen around his face. “How long was I out?”
“Not long,” I assured him with a smile.
“Well, I take it you went down to see Dimitri again,” he said, looking me up and down.
“I did, and that’s what I need to talk to you about,” I admitted, sitting down next to him. I couldn’t hide the dread in my voice, and he heard it.
“This sounds pretty serious,” he said as he turned and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He brushed my hair aside and kissed my neck.
I wanted to give in again. I wanted to let him take me right there on the bed, a second time today, but I couldn’t. I pushed him back gently and stood up. “This is serious, Gage,” I told him, turning to face him.
“Okay.” He looked confused, and I knew he had no idea what Dimitri could have told me.
“I have something serious to ask you,” I said, bracing myself for what I was about to say. Saying it would make it real, and regardless of his response, the doubt would be there.
“You have been talking to Dimitri, haven’t you?” The uncertainty and confusion in his face began turning to concern bordering on anger.
“Yes, Dimitri and I have talked about some things.” I tried to keep my voice level and even, though I was felt like I was going to fall apart before I could force myself to say anything to him.
He grabbed his clothes and started getting dressed.
“Well, what did Dimitri
have to say today?” Gage sat back down after pulling on his jeans. His massive chest disappeared behind his white t-shirt.
I took a deep breath. It was now or never. I knew that once I opened my mouth, there would be no turning back. Whatever was happening between us would probably end, and Dimitri had probably just bought himself another beat down with what he told me.
“Tell me about your last girlfriend.”
I could have slapped him from the look on his face. He sat back, slack-jawed, completely blindsided by my question. He rubbed the stubble forming along his jawline as the initial shock faded.
“Why do you want to know about her?” he asked cautiously, obviously trying to get me to tell him what I already knew.
