Blood in the Water (Kairos)

by Catherine Johnson

  “I can re-dress it.” She said, walking into the bathroom.

  He still shook his head.

  “You’re going to what? Just watch me in the shower?” She asked, puzzled.

  “Yes. Yes I am.” He affirmed with a grin.

  “Pervert.” She shot back.

  Paul laughed, a joyful sound that she hadn’t thought to hear this day. “Didn’t your daddy teach you that name callin’ was wrong?”

  “My daddy was in jail ‘til I was in the fourth grade, but I remember my mama tellin’ me that Peepin’ Toms never saw anythin’ good.”

  “Oh I’m goin’ to see somethin’ good, beauty. No doubt.” He wasn’t smiling any more and the heat in his tone made things clench low in her body.

  Paul had perched on the side of the bath and was showing no signs of moving. Ashleigh ran the water until it was several shades too hot and angled the showerhead so that it would miss the top of her head and hit her shoulders instead. Her hair was still in the messy topknot that she’d twisted it into that morning; years seemed to have passed since then. Determinedly ignoring Paul, she stripped quickly and stepped under the spray. She longed for a leisurely soak under the steaming stream, but the water at the clubhouse wouldn’t stay hot enough long enough for that with so many bodies making demands on the supply.

  She grabbed the bar of plain soap that was left as standard in all the rooms and began to scrub. She wasn’t remotely interested in putting on any sort of show at first; she concentrated on scouring the day and the blood off her. She almost forgot that Paul was watching her, catching the curtain slightly to one side so that he could see her. She paid no attention to him until the water ran clear. Her body was clean by that point, but she ran the soap over her breasts and belly and slipped her fingers between her thighs, playfully tantalizing.

  Paul leaned in, almost dousing himself, and grabbed her arm so that he could tug her out of the bath. She giggled at his haste as she tripped onto the floor. Paul snagged a towel and held it out for her. She stepped into it and he tucked it around her, enfolding her in both is arms and the towel. He kissed her until she wasn’t sure whether the air or the thin material had dried more of her skin.

  “Lie down. Go on.” Ashleigh let Paul tug the damp towel from her and lay down on the bed as he instructed.

  She was stretching out on her back when he made a turning motion with his fingers, so she flipped onto her stomach, resting her cheek on her folded hands. There was a pause, then she felt the bed dip as he climbed onto it. She felt the warm weight of him as he straddled the top of her thighs and she realized that in the pause he had stripped naked. When his fingertips dug into the muscles of her shoulders she cried out. He worked through knots that she’d thought the steaming water had eased, down her spine and over her ass and back up until she was a relaxed puddle of flesh.

  She might have been half asleep, hypnotized by the workings of his hands, when he shifted and then she felt his fingers pushing between her legs. He dragged them upwards, running them along her cleft. He repeated the action over and over until she was swollen and wet and writhing with the desire to touch him in return.

  He climbed off her and she felt the mattress shift as he left the bed. She took the opportunity to turn over and saw him fishing in his discarded clothing. He returned with the little foil packet he’d been looking for. Standing proud and rampant at the end of the bed he rolled the condom onto his swollen cock before circling her ankles with his fingers and pulled her legs apart. She couldn’t remain still, twisting against his grip, as the cool air met her molten core.

  He moved with a sinuous grace that someone so large had no right to possess as he crawled between her thighs and up over her body. He held still, the burning heat of the head of his cock barely touching her entrance. Ashleigh wanted to move, wanted to grind against him, wanted to stir in any way that would bring that steel shaft into her, into the place that needed it so frantically. But he had cradled her face in his gentle palms and locked her gaze with his own. She knew without being told what he wanted and she held still, never breaking eye contact as he pushed his body into hers, inch by agonizing inch. Only when he was almost fully sheathed within her did she cant her hips to bring him that bit further.

  He thrust once, hard and deep, and it seemed as though the spell was broken, or maybe simply the essence of it changed. They were surging, striving against each other, with each other, seeking... something. It was an affirmation, of life, of everything they felt for each other. It was a visceral celebration of survival. They were savage in their need. Each bite and scratch left evidence of their existence on each other’s bodies. Over and over he filled her more than she could have imagined was possible.

  She was moaning continuously, heedless of who could hear. Then he shifted his hips, changed his angle slightly and she was screaming, her body pulsing, her hands, legs and pussy pulling him into her, through her, holding him tight. He was still pushing against her grasp, skin sliding against skin. He came with a fierce yell and collapsed onto her. They didn’t move until the air cooling the sweat on their skin became uncomfortable. Exhausted, they fumbled their way under the rumpled covers of the bed and there, tucked into Paul’s body, safe and replete, Ashleigh slept.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Paul almost woke in the very early hours, when the clubhouse was the closest to silent and still that it ever got. Dawn had not quite dared to extend her reach to the world yet. Ashleigh was still nestled against his body, the curve of her spine tight against his chest. His limbs were still languid with sleep and the lingering pleasure of their intense fuck. He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tighter still against him, consumed by the impossible need to hide her away and keep her safe, his mind still not quite free of the tangles of a dream and the memories of the previous day.

  He was hard, a natural reaction to being warm and cozy and enveloped as he was in the scent of this woman and of their sex. Her smooth skin was soft against him, and his cock twitched against her ass, as if seeking her core, until it ached. He nuzzled the back of her neck, trying only to breath deeper of her and not intending to wake her, but his hot breath had registered through her dreaming mind and she stirred, shifting in the cocoon of his body and pressing her ass back unconsciously against his rampant hard-on.

  He interlaced his fingers with hers as their clasped hands rested against her stomach and she moved again, just slightly. It was enough and too much. He brought their intertwined hands up and stretched their arms out, effectively rolling Ashleigh onto her stomach as he slid over her back. She might have wakened, or simply responded to her altered position, but she brought one knee up to the level of her waist, which granted Paul all the access his half-conscious body needed.

  His cock slid easily into the delectable wet heat of her pussy. He moved in a rhythm powered by instinct, gliding up and over her skin; a visceral and primitive claiming of his mate. Ashleigh moaned into the pillow as he felt the first spasms rolling through that silken flesh, her body weeping around his. His cock pulsed and ripples of pleasure spilled out through his body as they shuddered to their climax together. Paul slipped back into a dreamless oblivion, still buried deep and tight in Ashleigh’s body.

  ~o0o~

  Paul woke to bright, new sunlight streaming into the room past the inadequate defenses of the thin curtains. His first complete thought was that Ashleigh was safe, sheltered beneath his body, snuggled into the warmth of the covers. Memories of the previous day rolled through his mind. He rolled onto his back and threw a forearm over his eyes to block out the coming day. The fundraiser had been barely controlled happy anarchy, until it had been ripped apart by the hail of semi-automatic fire. He’d been standing with Samuel, wise-cracking about Moira’s iron-fisted organization of the chaos, when rattling death had started to pierce the peace. He’d seen the bullets shearing through everything in their path and sweeping towards them. Half a heartbeat after he’d registered Moira hitting the ground, having tripped ove
r a power lead in her surprise, he’d shoved Samuel into the grass without a second thought. He hadn’t even felt the bullet that had skimmed his arm until the burning pain had struggled through the adrenaline tsunami much later.

  He’d seen before the damage that a spray of bullets from such innocuous-looking guns could do, but this was so much worse. The bullets weren’t tearing through denim and leather, through world-weary skin, in the name of retaliation or self-preservation; they defiled innocent skin and bone, children as well as adults in a sickening sweep of the Reaper’s scythe.

  He hadn’t even questioned the instinct that had driven him to save the very man he’d been sent to kill. He wouldn’t even have been on that field at that moment in time if he hadn’t agreed to end Samuel Carter’s life. He could have let the bullets take the man. No one would have been any the wiser about his nefarious involvement and he would have been able to return to the Rabid Dogs, and he would have been able to keep Ashleigh, he could have had it all. Except that it wouldn’t have been what he wanted. He wanted more than the woman who was currently rolling over and cuddling up to him. He wanted the Priests, he wanted to be a part of their family and he wanted Samuel at the head of that family. Paul knew that no matter what, he would put his life on the line to ensure the safety of this family that had adopted him and welcomed him with open arms.

  Paul had rarely felt fear or panic in even the most difficult situations he’d had to face during his life riding as a one-percenter; and he’d certainly never felt anything like the abject terror that had stretched out icy fingers behind his rib cage until he’d seen with his own eyes that Ashleigh was safe and whole. He’d been astounded by the strength of that emotion, having come to the conclusion long ago that it was unlikely he was capable of it. Following on the heels of that black dread and the consuming relief of finding her alive had been overwhelming pride. She was a vet, not an ER medic or an EMT or anything like that, but she’d stepped up and treated their wounded like a combat-hardened veteran. If Morse survived it would be due to her quick actions. Fletch probably owed her his life too.

  But there were people who would not be waking up with this new dawn, people that no one could have saved. Knowing that opened a pit of wrath deep inside Paul. Someone had come into his town and brought death and destruction with them.

  And that fury had been fuelled by a phone call from that fucking bastard. At least Paul knew for sure now that someone had their hand up Jimmy’s ass, and now he knew who it was. “It wouldn’t do for your lady to be in the wrong place at the wrong time again now, would it?” Those had been the cunt’s exact words. Spike Pierce, president of the Satan’s Tail MC had fucking called him to tell him what Jimmy didn’t have the balls to, that they were watching and that their patience was wearing thin, very thin.

  He didn’t think the shooting had been Jimmy or even Spike’s call. It was crazy outrageous and that didn’t fit with either man’s M.O. No, they were all about the up close and personal; he knew that better than most. They’d sent him in to the heart of the MC to turn assassin, and they’d threatened someone close to him to goad him into action. That Spike had referred to the shooting at all proved nothing more than that he’d watched the news. No, Paul was certain that the Mexicans were behind the massacre at the park. Arrogant fools who left decapitated heads in the middle of the street were the kind of people who would think nothing of hurling several hundred bullets into a crowd of families and children.

  His only thought now was how to keep safe those things that had come to mean so much to him, the Priests, Samuel, Ashleigh. He was running out of time, alright, not just to extricate himself, but to make sure that the bastards who would hurt those he loved went down and stayed the fuck down. Fuck anyone else who thought he owed them anything. Shit like this always came out; it would cost him his life if Samuel found out, and it was almost inevitable that he would at some point, but up until that point Paul was planning to risk his life in the defense of people who’d shown him that he was more than the dust left by his past.

  He felt tension run through Ashleigh’s body as she came fully awake. Her hair had come loose from its ties last night while they’d been fucking and it now tumbled, glorious and golden, over her shoulders and his arm.

  “Mornin’, beauty.”

  “Mornin’.” She mumbled back. She stretched out, almost purring, like a goddamn silky cat. He hoped she didn’t have any immediate plans to get out of bed, because he had some very immediate plans to get his cock inside that heavenly pussy again.

  She stretched again, this time her fingertips grazed, very deliberately, over the trail of hair under his navel. His cock had already been standing at attention. Now it fucking saluted her with a bob.

  “I had the best dream.”

  “Really? Me too.” He’d dreamt of fucking her. It was insane, like he’d never be sated when it came to her.

  “What was yours about?”

  “I’m guessing the same thing yours was, beauty.” He hissed the words because those inquisitive fingers had just wrapped around his iron shaft.

  “Mmmmmm.” And then she was shuffling down the bed along his body, her destination unmistakable.

  “Oh... Oh... Oh yes, beauty!” He could barely do more than pant out sounds that might have been words as she took him into her mouth and sucked him in as far as she could.

  She was good at this, very good. He didn’t want to think about where she’d gotten the practice. Oh sweet baby Jesus that thing with her tongue, fuck! That prissy bastard had not deserved this woman. He’d known it before, now he was fucking etched-in-stone certain. That thought fired the compulsion to stake his claim on her. That smug, pompous ass would never get his hands on this bounty again. Regardless of whether he and Ashleigh made it as a couple, he would cut pretty boy’s hands off at the wrist before he had the chance of touching something so magnificent that he’d so callously thrown away.

  Between curling his fingers into the golden silk of her hair and a squeeze of her shoulder, he got her to look up at him. “I need to be inside you, beauty. Get up here.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Don’t start that, beauty. That’s a can of worms right there.”

  She smiled enigmatically and made to lower herself onto his cock. “Hey. Hey! You’re getting ahead of yourself, beauty!”

  Paul almost fell out of the bed in his haste to get to his wallet. Armed with the little foil packet, he climbed back into the bed and sat flush against the headboard. Ashleigh plucked the foil square from his fingers and made a quick job of working the condom down his length. When she straddled him and took his throbbing length in her fist, he stopped her.

  “No. Turn ‘round.”

  He could see the puzzlement in her face, but she did as he asked. It took a few moments of confusion since he wasn’t voicing exactly what he wanted her to do and she was obviously imagining some other scenario, but they got where he wanted to be in the end.

  Paul remained propped against the headboard. He managed to position Ashleigh with her back to his chest, her body almost completely cradled in his. His legs were bent and open in front of him, like he’d been about to cross his ankles and not gotten that far. Ashleigh’s position was almost exactly the same. He took her arms by the wrists and hooked her hands behind his neck, exposing her body completely; then he got hold of her hips lifted her, positioned her over his cock and lowered her onto his shaft.

  “Oh fuck, beauty. You’re so wet. I fuckin’ love that.”

  They began to move, slowly, rocking together rather than thrusting. Paul let one hand roam over both breasts, making sure that her nipples were hard and proud and then plucking them over and over and over. His other hand delved between her swollen folds. He ran his fingertips over her flesh and over himself. With his cock buried deep, so deep in her body and his hands working magic over her most sensitive areas of skin, it wasn’t long before she was coming, her fingers spasming over his scalp. She craned her neck back to offer her m
outh and he took it greedily. The steady pulsing contractions of her sheath carried him with her on the wave of rapture. He buried the cries of his own orgasm in her hair.

  They stayed like that, joined in the most intimate way, whispering random nothings, laughing softly and stroking gently. He was still encompassed completely inside her and he did not want to move, ever.

  There was a knock at the door, three sharp raps. Ashleigh blushed and snagged the blanket to pull it over them. Paul thought it might have been embarrassment at being naked except for the blanket, and almost caught in the act; until the handle twisted and her father walked into the room. Oh yeah, that fucking phone call had distracted him last night and he hadn’t locked the fucking door; and of course she’d recognized the knock and had known who’d be walking in. No wonder she was beet red. Samuel, however, seemed pretty unfazed to find his daughter in bed with one of the newest members of his MC. Paul had a feeling that his life was currently resting on the fact that the blanket was thick enough to disguise the multitude of very wonderful sins that had just happened beneath it.

  “When you two are quite finished, there’s some business needs takin’ care of.”