by Lena Pierce
“Your brother left me instructions to deal with you,” he says. “I guess you’re dealt with now, eh?”
“Deal with me,” I mutter. I walk around the room, pretending not to be worried about being back here. “Like I’m some sort of errand. You think he’d remember that we grew up together, just once in a while.”
“Well, okay.” He shrugs. “I don’t know anything about that family shit.” He looks me up and down in that way he’s been doing since we met. It’s like he’s appraising me. And the crazy part is that I like it when he looks at me like that. My pussy tingles; my belly gets warm. I get horny just by knowing that him looking at me makes him horny. “Your brother gave you to me to protect, but we’ve gotta go over some ground rules.”
I swallow nervously. The way he says ground rules has an edge to it I shouldn’t like: shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself. Tingles move up my arms. Goose pimples prickle the back of my neck. I remember how it felt to be bent over his knee, utterly at his mercy, and though I know that that isn’t me, I feel otherwise. I feel like I want to do that again and again and again. I want to be that girl just one more moment.
“Did you hear me?” He walks right up to me. “Are you listening?”
“Yes,” I whisper, voice trembling. “I heard you.”
“And what do you think about it?”
I look up into his face. “Rules are good,” I murmur.
He smiles, laughs quietly. “Well, you might not like this one so much. Here’s the rule, Meghan: you are mine, you belong to me, and you do any damn thing I want you to. If I come in here at four in the morning and want to fuck you, you put on the best performance of your life. If I want to drill that cute little fuckin’ mouth, you fall to your knees and get ready. If I want to watch you dance naked around this room until the sun rises, then you’ll dance for me. You.” He places his hand on my shoulder. “Are.” He places his other hand around my waist. “Mine.”
He pulls me toward him.
Chapter Eleven
Meghan
He looks down at me, moving his hand from my hip to my ass. He rubs it softly. I feel his cock pressing through his denim, right into my belly. He’s so big and strong and rock-hard for me. I try and think of a way that I can escape him, but I can’t and I’m not sure if I want to anyway. I’m still aching from last night but as he smooths his hand over my ass, my body responds despite me. My pussy aches and gets tight, wet, wetter. My head swims.
Then he lets me go and takes a step back, leaving me flushed and panting. “You get to have the best of both worlds, Meghan. You get fucked like a whore but you can keep the moral high ground and pretend you’re above it all. You get to do what you want and keep your righteousness.”
“Righteousness,” I repeat, shaking my head. “You’re such a cynical man, Dirk.”
“Maybe I am.” He shrugs. “But you know the rules now, so I don’t need to hang around shooting the shit.”
He turns away from me as though I am nothing, the same way a man turns away from a tool he’ll know will be there when he turns back. A mini rebellion riots within me at the sting of it, the absolute disregard of it. I’m not somebody he can just turn away from, not after all that’s happened between us. He’s trying to pretend that I’m nothing to him, that I am as powerless as a child. But I see through it.
“Wait,” I whisper, kicking my shoes off and padding over to him. I stand on my tiptoes and stare into his eyes when he turns around. “You’re going, just like that?”
I see it in his eyes, the way they flicker over me: he’s hesitating. I have him, or at least a part of him. I don’t stop to question why that’s so important to me. “Really?” I go on, when he just stares. “You’re going to grab me like that and then just leave? You really are an asshole, aren’t you?”
“I’m flattered that I can get to you so much.”
“Get to me?” Now it’s my turn to turn away, which I do with a flourish. I’m painfully aware of his eyes on me, following every movement, much more than I have ever been with other men. The floor may as well be a catwalk when I pace over to bed and lean forward. I pretend to adjust the pillows but really I’m sticking my ass out at him, tempting him. “I don’t care what you do,” I say when I’m sure I’ve got him riled up.
“Sure you don’t,” he mutters.
I turn on him as he approaches. “Don’t you have business to take care of, biker man?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I do.”
I meet him in the middle, kissing him before he can kiss me. He may be in charge, but that doesn’t mean I can’t reclaim some small sense of power. I kiss him hard, the same way he kisses me, and then place my hands on his shoulders and lift myself up. He has no choice but to catch me. I wrap my legs around his hips and kiss him even harder, taking in every breath of him, moaning louder and louder each moment, gasping with the pleasure. I grind my hips up and down, rubbing my groin against his cock.
Then both of us are scrambling to take our clothes off, our eyes locked together. He very well may be in charge, but right now, in this moment, neither of us are. We are both captive to this feeling—it’s almost a smell in the air—that takes us, sweeps us up, sweeps us together. He stands naked before me, cock hard. I leap on him again and this time he whirls and shoves me up against the wall. I feel his cock between my legs, clumsily stroking my clit and my thighs as we kiss violently.
Then everything pauses, he reaches down, and his cock slides up inside of me. I sit down heavily on it, taking every inch of him in stinging pleasure. His cock crushes against the hot, sweet spot inside of me, the spot that’s so much more present with Dirk than it has ever been before. I used to believe that the spot was a myth, but not anymore. Pleasure-filled flares fire from it, all around my body.
The fear, too, spurs the pleasure on. There’s an energy around this clubhouse that infected me the moment I walked in here. The close violence, kept at a safe distance in the store, is oppressive here. It crushes into me at the same time that Dirk crushes me against the wall. The fear and the pleasure mix into a dangerous cocktail. I grip onto his shoulders and throw myself up and down, up and down, riding him madly. I tilt my hips, directing the angle of the fucking, and he grabs my ass cheeks in handfuls and wrenches me down as he thrusts up. Both of us fall into the rhythm of the fucking, panting and spitting and occasionally kissing if our lips happen to meet in the fray.
Then I squeeze my legs around his hips, holding on as if I might float away. The orgasm starts small, a bare whisper inside of me, but then the whisper becomes a scream I cannot ignore. My pussy goes tight; my everything goes tight. I seize up, trying to hold onto pleasure that’s always just out of my reach. Then, and then—It explodes outward, causing me to gyrate madly. My ass flattens against the door and I knock my head, but I don’t care. I ride him like crazy, sitting down over and over as the orgasm empties onto his rock-hard cock. I squirt on him twice and then a third time, the feeling of danger propelling it all forward. This is bad; I come harder. This is dangerous; I come harder. This is crazy! I come way, way harder.
Then Dirk carries me to the bed and throws me down. He closes my legs and comes at me from the side, so that my knees are tucked almost into my breasts and he has a full view of my ass and pussy. He’s going just as crazy now as I did and I’m right there with him, my hands clawing onto his strong arms, pulling him into me.
“Fuck,” he growls. “Fuck, fuck.”
“Do it,” I whisper. “Come, Dirk. Come.”
“Fuck!” he snarls, thrusting into me one final time.
We stay like that, frozen, for a long time. After a while we meet eyes and he smiles—a small smile—and slides aside. I think about nestling into him. Maybe he’ll hold me this time. But he stands up and gets dressed just like he did last night. I do the same, pulling my jeans onto my throbbing thighs.
“I’ll have someone bring by fresh clothes and some food,” he says, not looking at me. He stands with one hand on the door, purpos
efully staring at the wall. “Your cell phone was at the apartment, yeah?”
“Burned up,” I confirm, wishing it was not so, “with the rest of my life.”
“Okay.” He nods shortly. “I’ll be by …” He seems to remember himself. “I’ll be by whenever I want to. S’you later.”
He unlocks the door, leaves, and then locks it from the other side. Two padlocks, so he can lock me in or lock himself in.
Two padlocks so we can play his maddening games.
Chapter Twelve
Dirk
I go from Meghan’s room down the hallway, take a right, go through the bar, and then walk across the bar to the room at the back. I knock, hoping he’s in. I don’t want to force the man to see his sister, but it is damn strange that he arranged for me to protect her and bring her here and he isn’t even gonna go and say hello. I shouldn’t give a damn about that, of course, but today it seems like giving a damn about things I ought not to give a damn about is on my agenda.
“Yes?” Jackson says at my knock.
“It’s me,” I say.
“All right.”
I walk into the office to find him red-eyed and fidgety. It’s clear he hasn’t slept, if the four empty coffee mugs on his desk are any indication. The office is a mess, with a pallet made up on the couch and dirty clothes crumpled in the corner. A half-lit cigarette smolders in the glass ashtray. “Sit down.” He waves a hand at the stool opposite his giant, comfy, throne-like chair. A stool and a throne; that’s the way Jackson does it, reminding us that we’re beneath him. “What is it?” he asks, sitting up and taking the cigarette from the ashtray. He smokes it down to the filter and then tosses it back in the tray. “Is she misbehaving?”
“No, sir,” I say. I shouldn’t, but—“With all due respect, sir, is something wrong? You look like you haven’t slept.”
He places his hands on the desk and sits straight up, narrowing his eyes at me. “I fail to see how that has anything to do with you, Dirk.”
I hold my hands up. “Fair enough, sir. It’s just that you’re the leader of the club and if you’re in trouble, the club’s in trouble. But right, sir, fair enough.”
“I haven’t slept,” he says after a moment. “It’s true.”
“Meghan?” I ask.
“What?” He looks blankly at me.
“Has thinking about Meghan been keeping you—”
“What? No. What the hell’s gotten into you, Dirk? Meghan! Why the fuck would thinking about her keep me awake, I’d like to know. No—yes, Meghan. Is she all settled in now, Dirk?”
“As settled in as she can be, sir. I was wondering if you’d want to go and see her.”
“Why?” he barks. “Is there a problem? Because it sounds to me like she’s doing fine, just fine, and there’s nothing I need to worry about. Why do I have to get involved, huh? It’s none of my business. I’ve put my best man on it, haven’t I? What the fuck else am I supposed to do? Babysit her? Well—answer me, dammit!”
I hold my hands up in a sign of peace. “Okay, sir. I didn’t mean to cause a problem.” My teeth are on edge. No man talked to me like that in the army. Folks knew better. And no man talks to me like that in the club, either. Except for Jackson, always talking like I’m his lackey and I’ve gotta do whatever he says. The messed-up part is it’s true.
“You shouldn’t talk about a man’s family,” he goes on in a chiding tone of voice. “How would you feel, Dirk, if I brought up your past?” He raises an eyebrow.
“There isn’t much there, sir.” I shrug.
“Oh.” He creases his forehead but it’s all a charade. He’s a terrible actor. He melodramatically shuffles papers around on his desk, muttering, “Oh, I thought there was something … let me think. About a man named Aryo and a big loud bang?” He thumps his fist down on the table on the last word, grinning maliciously at me. He’s taking great pleasure in this, I can tell. “Or did I misread the report?”
“I don’t know how you got your hands on the report, sir.” My teeth are gritted now. I spit the words out between my tight lips. “The army’s normally very strict about that sort of thing.”
“The army.” He makes a scoffing noise. “You were a spy, Dirk, a full-fledged fuckin’ spy. You weren’t some grunt, like you try’n make out. No, no damn way, you were some James-Bond-level spy motherfucker.”
“That’s not exactly right, sir. I was in the army, but in their intelligence-gathering unit. Just like I told you.”
“What about Aryo?”
I stiffen. “What about him, sir?”
“How do you think the brothers would feel if they learnt that one of our tops guys let his brother overseas get blown up by a—what’d’y’call’it? An IED.”
“It’s more complicated than that, sir.” Part of me wants to leap across the table and grab the back of his head and smash it into the table until he shuts his goddamn mouth. But I have to remember where I am and who he is. Asshole or not, he’s the boss right now. “I can’t go into the details but it isn’t like the report says.”
“The report says that you knew that there’d be an attack but let your informant walk into the bar anyway.”
“He wanted to!” I snarl, forgetting myself. Jackson sits back, mouth falling open. I tell myself to stop but I’m already going on. “We were working on trying to catch this higher-up in the Taliban and Aryo happened to know the fella. He walked into the bar of his own free will, knowing all the risks. The reason the report don’t mention that is that the army ain’t exactly gonna mention allowing one of their informants to blow himself up.”
“Right.” He leans back. “You can spin it however you want, Dirk. Just know that I have this.” He grins at me.
“I don’t like being threatened, sir.”
“I don’t like looking over my shoulder!” Jackson cries. “Now I know I can trust you.”
I sigh. “You could trust me before.”
“You’re different. You’re not like the other men. You keep a distance.”
“I’m loyal to the club, sir. I’ve never once disobeyed an order.”
“But do you feel it?” He thumped the patch on his breast pocket. “In here.”
“I do my job, sir.” I nod shortly. “I’d like to leave that conversation there.” I take a long breath and stare into his eyes, suppressing the hatred I feel. He’s paranoid. He’s on-edge. A paranoid and on-edge man will do all sorts of ridiculous things. “You were talking about your sister,” I remind him.
“Oh, yes.” He snaps his fingers. When he goes on it’s like he’s forgotten all about that little scene. I endeavor to do the same, though I can’t shake the feeling that Jackson has just shown me what he really is. “Now that we have Meghan safely stowed away, we know that she can never be used against me by those Broken Sinner bastards. It’s not above that Badger Burnes motherfucker to kidnap my sister and use her as ransom, and then I have to give him half our territory because I’ll look like an asshole otherwise!” He shakes his head at the foolishness of the world. “But we have her now. That’s the most important part. I want you to keep her safe, Dirk. Do whatever it takes. Whatever it takes.” He levels his gaze at me. “Don’t let the fact that she’s my sister stop you from doing what needs to be done to keep her loyal, do you understand me?”
Is he giving me permission—fuck that, encouragement—do fuck his sister? “Yes, sir,” I say vaguely.
He nods, as though we’ve just agreed on something sacred, and then leans forward on the desk. “So we know that the Broken Sinners firebombed the store.”
“No, sir, actually we don’t.” I sit up now and rest my fists on the edge of the desk. “We haven’t been by the store, or received a note from them, or been in contact with the fire department. Unless you’ve done all that?”
“Do we need to?” He laughs bitterly. “Who else would try and kill my sister?”
“There are lots of crazy, angry people in this neighborhood, sir. It could’ve been any one of them.”
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“Ha!” He slaps his hands together. “Next you’ll tell me it was a floating gingerbread man or some fuckin’ shit!” He slaps his hands together again. “Any fool with half an eye can see that this was the Broken Sinners, Dirk; we don’t need to waste time on that front. I heard Badger say he was coming after this club. I heard it with my own ears two months ago at Meghan’s store.”
