I already had all my things together. Emily didn’t waste time scraping together the bare necessities for a night away. While she packed the last things, I pulled out my phone and opened the contacts list. I hovered my thumb over Taylor’s number, but ended up putting the phone back again.
I felt terrible about the fight we’d had. The truth was he’d nailed me—front and center—with that little slice of truth about me not being his dad. And he was right, too. I wasn’t. I wasn’t there to raise him anymore. But I was there to protect him. He had no idea that this was more selfish than anything else; I wasn’t doing this to save him. I was doing it to save me. I needed him around, and if anything happened to him, I would never forgive myself.
I would talk to him after everything was over though. We could sort it out when I didn’t feel like every important person in my life was in danger. We could do it when I could breathe again.
“Are you ready?” I asked when Emily came to the living room with a bag in hand.
“I’m ready,” she said. Her voice was small, so she sounded less than ready, but she had a determined look on her face that spelled out “Let’s do this”—and I knew how she got through all the emergencies at the hospital.
This may not be the same kind of trauma she usually dealt with, but she could deal.
We got in her car. I drove. I started it up and pointed the car toward the edge of the city. We slid through the black of night with only the soft hum of the engine between us. Neither of us spoke. It was depressing to discuss the situation we were in, and it seemed petty to talk about trivial things. The silence was heavy, and it pressed between us like a wedge until we were so far away from each other, locked in our own thoughts, it was difficult to imagine we were in the same car.
When we were outside of town I turned into a driveway that had no markings, and it curled around a handful of trees before it reached a three-story, Tudor-style house. There were cars in the parking lot, some lights in some of the windows, and a tattered sign hanging above the door that read Rose Inn.
“How did you know this was here?” Emily asked as we walked up to the hotel. I shrugged.
“I know everything that’s important to my bounty hunting business,” I said. It was true, but that wasn’t how I knew it. The Rose Inn was a place that our family used to come to just to get away for a weekend. It was the kind of place that had regular visitors and people knew about it only by word of mouth. The people who came here were the kind that knew the value of it, and not the prices.
It was the kind of place that only the right people would know about, which meant that it was perfect.
I walked up to the front desk. It was manned by a woman I didn’t recognize. I used to know all the staff.
“I’d like a room with a double bed, please,” I said. I produced cash enough to cover the charges, and I was the one that carried Emily’s bag up to the bedroom.
When I unlocked the bedroom door I was transported back in time to when us boys were still kids and we used to think coming here was the biggest adventure. The wooden floors were the same—hollowed out with years of use—and the bed was wooden and looked like it had lasted a century. The room was slightly modernized by an electric alarm on the nightstand and a flat screen television against the wall, but the nostalgia that hung in the corners was original and hand crafted.
“This place is beautiful,” Emily breathed. I looked at her as she lay back on the bed and thought maybe, just maybe new, better memories could be made here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Emily
I didn’t know how Daniel knew all these places and all these people. The owners knew him even though the manager—someone new, he said—didn’t. We were welcomed as old friends, not guests, and when we were finally given our key card, the room was the furthest one in the old house. It was a big room and with a large bathroom that gave me the idea this had been the original master suite of the house.
It was kitted out with pine floors, a brown wooden bed, and beige curtains that matched the orange and brown bedding and décor.
There was a beige mohair rug on the floor, and when we switched on the lights, it wasn’t a ceiling light but the two bedside lamps that switched on. The lighting was dim so that it had a romantic feel to it, and the room was cozy despite its size.
“This is really nice,” I said, putting my bag on the bed and turning in a circle, taking it in.
“It is,” Daniel said, and I had the feeling he hadn’t been in this room before. Until now he’d known exactly where to go, so I assumed he’d been around.
I switched on the bathroom light and stepped inside. It had his and hers basins with mirrors against the wall that were polished to gleam as if they were brand new. A wall blocked off the back of the bathroom, and when I looked around it I gasped.
One of those waterfall showers was installed in the ceiling, and the whole back part of the bathroom consisted of tiles and a drain in the middle so that you could walk through the shower from either side.
Everything was tiled in small marble tiles and finished off with brown granite. It was so fancy it didn’t fit the room or the outside of the house at all.
“Now that’s what I call a shower,” Daniel said, walking in behind me. He nodded, looking satisfied, and then turned to me. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I shrugged. I didn’t know what I was. My feelings were a mess. I felt like I was in shock about Sarah and what was happening. My life had been very predictable for so many years, and now the whole scene felt like it was part of a different life altogether.
I was here in a hotel room, with a biker I’d only met a short while ago, and we were headed out to find a friend who had been kidnapped. It sounded like the plotline to an action movie.
“We’ll get her back,” Daniel said, and he didn’t have to tell me that it was a promise. The resolve in his voice did it for him. I nodded and walked back to the bedroom. I was still wearing the dress and shoes that I picked out for the bar’s opening, and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. I needed to get out of it and into something that made sense. Something that was more like me.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Daniel said, poking his head out of the bathroom. I nodded at him. He hesitated a moment and then cleared his throat. “Do you want to shower with me?”
It was a question I could say no to. It was up to me. The inflection in his voice and the no-pressure look in his eyes said more than any words could. And half of me wanted to curl up under the covers and hide away from the world and what my life had become. But I couldn’t run away from what was happening, and Daniel was being sweet about it all.
And he looked so hot in his clothes tonight, really making an effort and getting out of his leathers…even if everything had blown up in our faces.
“Okay,” I said, and he smiled. He disappeared back into the bathroom, and a moment later I heard the shower water running. I unzipped the dress at the back and wiggled out of it, letting it drop to the floor. I got rid of my underwear and walked naked toward the bathroom. I closed the door behind me once I was inside. Daniel looked up from the tap where he was trying to regulate the water and froze.
His eyes slid up and down my body, slowly, taking in what was in front of him. He swore on the exhale, but it wasn’t obscene. It was a compliment, somehow.
He came toward me, and as he did, he started taking his clothes off. He peeled the shirt off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor. The pants went, his underwear, his socks, and he was naked by the time he reached me.
He was already getting hard, the tip glistening. When he leaned in to kiss me, the length of him pressed again my stomach—and I shuddered. The kiss was deep and sensual, despite how naked we were, how alone. He had his hands on both my cheek, and he held me as if I was delicate.
When he finally broke the kiss, he looked at my eyes—not my breasts—and took my hand. He led me to the shower and stepped backward under the waterfall that came out of the ceiling. I followed him.
The hot water fell on my hair, seeping through. It ran down my skin and goose bumps spread over my body as it got accustomed to the temperature. Daniel rubbed his hands over my shoulders, down my arms and back up. The water ran over his skin, too, so that he glistened in the lighting. I saw the contours of his muscles as they moved under his skin.
He stepped into me again and I was aware of my breasts pushing against his chest. His arms wrapped around my body, pulling me into him until we were skin on skin, both our bodies touching all the way down to our thighs.
He turned me under the spray of the shower so that my back was against the wall. I lifted my arms to put them around his neck, but he slid his hands over my arms, moving them up until my arms were raised above my head. He held onto my wrists with one hand, keeping me in that position, and slid his other hand down my body.
He massaged my breasts, rubbed the nipple, and pinched it until it was erect. He held my breast in his hand and took the nipple in his mouth and worked his tongue in a circle around me until I was gasping and moaning and writhing against the wall. I was wet, slick between my legs, wanting his sex, and he was set on driving me crazy.
And I wanted it. I wanted him. God, I wanted him.
He kept at it with his mouth on my nipple, but let go with his hand. He slid it down over my stomach, my hip, and then between my legs. He pushed two fingers into my slit and spread my wetness so that everything was slick and slippery. I moaned when he slid over my clit. He kept at it for a while, his other hand still holding my wrists in place.
I was at his mercy, and I loved it.
He pushed two fingers into me and slowly started pumping, mimicking the in and out of sex. The friction drove me wild with lust, and I squirmed against the wall. I was desperate to have him inside of me.
He knew it, but he was going to draw it out.
He stopped touching me, and I complained, moaning in protest. He let go of my wrists and put both hands on my shoulders. With a gentle push, he told me where he wanted me to go, and I did it. I didn’t want to say no.
I knelt down in front of him. His cock was thick and hard in front of my face, veins straining against the skin and the head swollen and purple. I took him in my mouth, wrapping my fingers around his shaft. The sensation of having him in my mouth while the water poured over my face was exotic. I could still breathe but the water gave the illusion that it would be harder and I was surrounded by the spray. He tasted salty on my lips, and that combined with the hot water was erotic, the taste of heat and sex riling me up so much more.
I moved my head back and forth, meeting my lips with my thumb and forefinger as I curled my hands in a fist around his base. With my other hand, I cupped his balls and massaged them carefully, moving in the same rhythm as my mouth was sliding up and down his shaft.
Daniel groaned. I glanced up at him, making big eyes. I felt his cock twitch and knew he liked what he saw. He rolled his eyes back and closed them, tipped his head back and groaned with parted lips. I focused on what was in my mouth and what I was doing to him.
At some point, it was too much for him. He didn’t come—was far from it—but the sexual heat and the hot water and my mouth burning on his skin was too much. He bunched my hair in a fist that didn’t hurt and urged me to stand up. When I was on my feet and looking into his eyes, his pupils were dilated, and his face had an animalistic lust to it. Water ran over his face, dripped off the tip of his nose, and made a stream over his lips.
There wasn’t a lot more time to study his features or to think about what came next. Daniel let his hormones take over. He pushed me back just hard enough that it was wild, not painful, and my back hit the wall behind me. His body was against mine the moment my back touched the cold tiles and I gasped. The contrast between the cold behind me and the heat in front of me was huge.
Daniel lifted my one leg with his hand and ground himself against my pubic bone. His chest was against mine, head in my neck. He took the skin between his teeth and sawed his jaw side to side, scraping his teeth against my skin. The teasing didn’t last very long; I didn’t know who he was torturing more, him or me. He bent down just enough to wrap an arm around my other thigh, and then he picked me up so that I was balanced between his two arms and the wall at my back.
My legs were on either side of his body, his cock was between his legs and the tip was close to my entrance. His eyes were on mine when he lowered me slowly, angling himself so that he was more or less where he should be. When he lowered me enough, my body did the rest to guide him home, and then he was inside of me.
I cried out. The bathroom around us started steaming up. Daniel held me up with sheer strength, his body and his hold pinning me against the wall. He started moving his hips, pushing in and pulling out, holding me up so that he could slide in and out without much of a struggle. My hips ground against the tiles behind me, but I didn’t care.
The sex was fucking fantastic. If I was going to feel it in the morning, so be it.
Daniel pushed me close to the edge of an orgasm and only kept me there for the shortest time before he pushed me over. I gasped, my body releasing into that powerful wave, and then I cried out. I wrapped my legs around him body and locked my ankles behind his ass as my muscles clamped down on him, contracting and releasing in waves. My breath was erratic, my mouth open by his ear and my hands curled into his wet hair.
He’d slowed down for me so that I could keep up, and when the wave was over, he slowly let me down until my legs touched the ground. He pulled back until he slipped out. My body protested a little, but it wasn’t over. I balanced on wobbly legs as he turned me around so that my front was against the cold tiles now, his hot body against my back. He slid his hands over my body, down my side, cupping my ass, worshipping what he saw.
I closed my eyes. His hands were on my hips, the fingertips curling into my skin. He pulled me back so that my feet moved slightly, and I kept myself outright with my palms flat on the tiles in front of me.
He guided himself into me with his hands, finding my entrance with his fingers first before replacing it with his cock. The angle was a little wrong, but then he pulled another time on my hips and I bent forward even more so that I was standing and he was inside me from behind.
He pushed all the way into me, and then pulled out and repeated the motion, hammering into me. He wasn’t taking it slow now. He went harder and deeper and faster, and I moaned and gasped at the speed and intensity.
It wasn’t long before Daniel released inside of me, pulsating, pumping thick cum into my body, claiming me over and over again.
And then it was finished, and he paused a second before he pulled out. He turned me around and pulled me close to him so that we were both completely immersed in the shower water that came out of the ceiling. He held my body against his. I felt his heart thundering in his chest, the rate of it matching my own. His breathing was quick, but his arms were sure, and I put my head on his chest. I closed my eyes, and we just stood there, gasping for air through the rivulets of water, feeling each other in different ways than just sex.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He hesitated a moment. I didn’t want to push him. I was curious, and it sounded important.
“Can you see yourself with me long term?”
I opened my eyes. A moment later, I picked my head up off his chest and looked at him. Long term? I would lie if I hadn’t thought about it. But I was surprised that he’d asked. I nodded. “I can,” I said.
“But?”
I wondered how he knew there was a “but.” “Without the danger,” I said. I could be with him. Daniel was thoughtful and caring and everything that I would describe as an alpha male. I liked being with him. I liked it when he took control. But I couldn’t deal with all the near deaths. “I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want to have to worry about it all the time.”
He nodded but didn’t speak. He was quiet for so
long I thought the conversation might be over. How had he received what I’d said? Had he’d taken it as some sort of rejection? I wouldn’t even know. He wasn’t talking.
“Talk to me,” I said. I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt. Thank goodness. I needed him to tell me what was on his mind because the start of this conversation was driving me crazy, but I didn’t want him to think that my happiness depended in any way on what he had to say about it all.
Daniel took a deep breath and stepped away from me, taking the new soap from the container against the wall and unwrapping it. He threw the wrapper just far enough so that it wasn’t under the spray of the water. He looked down at the soap, turning it around and around in his hands.
“I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you,” he said softly. His eyes were still on the soap. I wanted to touch his face, but I was scared that if I reached out I would break the spell and he would close down on me again. Instead of touching him or saying something, I kept quiet and waited for him to keep talking. He did, eventually. “I didn’t think I would make it this far, to be honest. It’s not really the kind of lifestyle that’s aimed at growing old, you know?”
BENT AT THE ALTAR Page 18
