by Franca Storm
His hand slid into my hair and he gave me some reassuring strokes. “I’ve got you.”
His other hand left my back and slid down to my pussy, playing with my clit and trying to distract me from the burning, stretching sensation with an overabundance of pleasure. The man had magic fingers and it didn’t take long before I was hurtling toward another mind-blowing orgasm.
“Slade!” I cried. “Move! Now! Fuck me!”
I cried out at the delicious sensation as he started to move, sliding in and out of me, stretching me, rubbing against so many nerve-endings, I didn’t know which way was up. He swiveled his hips and flicked my clit at the same time, and it was my undoing. Ecstasy slammed into me and I bucked beneath him as my orgasm tore through me.
Snarling, he ripped me off the desk and carried me across the room.
He spun me around, slammed me against the wall, then jackhammered into me, as I rode my orgasm. Instead of coming down from it, his fierce fucking drove me higher and higher, and I tasted another climax, then another. I could feel his eyes on me, watching me intensely as I came over and over again.
He pushed tighter against me, his big, muscular body covering mine, as he continued fucking me like an animal, panting, cursing, and pumping his hips wildly.
I’d never felt so consumed, so completely overrun by passion, or any one person.
He was owning me.
It was the most freeing thing I’d ever experienced.
I never wanted it to end.
But when I heard him grunt, then felt him losing his rhythm, I knew the moment was almost done.
Sure enough, he growled primally and jerked against me, as he tasted release too.
He buried his face in my shoulder as he fought to catch his breath and come down from the intensity.
When he finally eased out of me and lowered me back to the floor, I sank against the wall, completely spent.
Our eyes locked.
I stared at him, stunned.
He stared back at me with the same look on his face.
Shit.
Fuck him out of my system?
Not likely. Not after that.
I’d miscalculated.
Big time.
13
~Slade~
IT’D BEEN AGES.
Decades had gone by, actually, since I’d last shared a bed with a woman.
Sure, I’d screwed around, but I never brought nobody to my room at the clubhouse, never let them get nowhere near my bed or nothing. That would’ve sent the wrong message, especially to the types of women who hung out at the clubhouse looking for a dick to ride. They’d never let it go if I opened anything up like that and a ton of drama would explode all over the place. Besides, I didn’t want nobody in my personal space.
But now there was this.
I stared at the sexy, naked beauty sleeping beside me.
Willa was sprawled out on her front, her soft, blonde hair fanned out all over, her face smushed into the pillows. She was tangled in the sheets, half her body uncovered, just like her sweet little ass that was on full display, along with her right thigh and tits. She squirmed around a lot in the night. So much that she’d woken me up about three times.
I shook my head to myself. It weren’t just the regular kind of moving around in the night like them people who tossed and turned just because. Nah, she’d been crying out in her sleep. It was trauma. She was haunted. Her job was brutal to begin with, then, after what she’d told me about her takedown of The Jackals, it took it to a whole other level.
She was real good at putting on a front, holding up an impenetrable wall. But the more time we spent together, the more cracks I was seeing all over the place. It seemed like she was coming to the end, just like I was. She needed out. Problem was, she was a stubborn thing, and that was getting in the way of her even admitting it to herself, let alone, to anybody else.
I hadn’t wanted to care, but I did. And after last night… fuck… all bets were off.
I hadn’t taken our fucking to that brutal, dark place I’d always done with anybody else. I hadn’t wanted to. She brought out something else in me, something I hadn’t yet managed to wrap my head around. I’d wanted to savor the connection with her, learn every inch of her, slow down and just feel with her.
All the times in the past when I’d gone the other route with the club whores and all that, it’d been an outlet for my grief and guilt. I delivered those punishing kinds of fucks as a way of onloading all my sins and shit.
But, with Willa, she was full of the same, so I hadn’t needed to. It had been about sharing it, I figured. I’d never experienced anything like last night before. Not with any other woman, not even with my late wife. Willa had been a wild thing, all raw passion and need. She’d struck a balance of power between us that I’d never thought possible for me. It hadn’t been clean-cut like I was used to, with me doing all the dominating and the woman being submissive all the way. Willa had risen to the challenge, she’d wanted it hard and dirty, and she’d taken as much as she’d wanted, then given back the rest.
She was gonna be sore today. That first time in her office hadn’t been the end of it. Afterward, I’d headed back into the kitchen to scarf down the sandwich I’d made earlier. But she’d basically jumped me. I’d ended up coming all over her back, because neither of us had had a condom on us. I always kept a supply in the inner pocket of my leather jacket, which I’d left back in her office after the first time we’d gotten it on. Then we’d headed to the shower together. That had led to the third round with some doggy style pounding against the shower wall. She had the tightest pussy I’d ever had the good fortune of fucking, and I was a lot to take. Going three times back-to-back wasn’t gonna go unnoticed by her.
An idea came to me. I’d go run her a hot bath to help her out with it. I rolled to my other side, then went to toss the covers off myself, but just those slight movements startled Willa awake.
Startled was actually an understatement.
The next thing I knew, her weight was slamming into me.
In a split second, she was straddling me, pinning me down, with a blade to my throat.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Willa,” I spoke calmly, knowing any aggression or freak out on my end would just antagonize an already volatile situation. “It’s Slade.”
I gazed into her unfocused, bleary eyes, seeing that she was out of it, not fully awake or aware of her surroundings. The instinct to react and disarm her with a couple of quick moves was roaring through me, but I pushed it down. If I went that route, I’d have to hurt her. The woman was definitely under my skin, because even the idea of doing that made me sick to my stomach.
She blinked hard a couple of times.
Her eyes focused.
“Oh my God!” she cried, pulling the blade away, then scrambling off me. I heard the blade clatter to her nightstand, the threat over and done with.
I sat up, finding her sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over, her face held in her hands as she rocked back and forth muttering incoherently to herself.
“It’s all right,” I said, taking a seat beside her and reaching out cautiously and laying my hand on her shoulder.
She dropped her hands from her face and looked at me. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I’m not used to—”
“I get it. Like I said, it’s all good.”
“I almost slit your throat.”
I grinned. “Don’t flatter yourself, darlin’.”
“Slade.”
I wrapped my arm around her and gave her a squeeze. “Come on, there’s humor to be found here, yeah?”
I managed to get a small smile out of her. “Dark humor, maybe,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Well, I like a little darkness.”
Her eyes shone at me echoing her words to me from that night we’d first come here. She turned her body toward me, pulling from my hold in the process. Looking at me intently, she told me, “You’re not as dark as yo
u think you are.”
I shrugged. “I am what the world needs me to be, right?”
“I hear you there.” She scrubbed her hand over her face. “Shit,” she muttered to herself, then shook it off and shot to her feet. She paced for a few moments, then her gaze darted to the alarm clock on her bedside table. “Jeez, nine in the morning?”
Yeah, that was late for her. Every morning I’d been here, she’d been up and about at five without fail.
“You needed the rest,” I told her, walking to the dresser over on the other side of the room and pulling out a pair of boxers, then a t-shirt. “Last night was a lot,” I said, pulling the boxers on. I walked back to the bed and tossed the t-shirt to her. At the look of surprise all over her face, I explained, “Last night’s gonna be repeating itself any second now, if you don’t put that shirt on.”
The woman was so comfortable in her own skin, with her body, that she hadn’t noticed that she was completely naked. “You really can’t control your dick better than that?” She grinned slyly as she toyed with putting it on. “Or, am I the one controlling your dick now?”
So, the soft, sweet side of her had taken a backseat again then.
Luckily for her, I knew better now, so I wasn’t gonna rise to it and give it back to her ten times over. It was a defense mechanism, a well-honed one. When things got too real or uncomfortable, she got nasty. “Sure you wanna challenge me like that right now? A marathon of fucking with me ain’t easy to begin with. It’d been a long time since you’d had a cock anywhere near that sweet pussy of yours. So, I know you’re feeling it. Plus, you ain’t hiding that limp as well as you think.”
Challenge and defiance flickered in her eyes for a few moments. But then it died out and she pulled on my t-shirt.
I got a little more than I’d bargained for when I took in the sight of her wearing it. It hadn’t exactly but the kibosh on the desire that’d been burning like a wildfire for her all the while her sexy-as-fuck naked body had been on full display. An intense wave of possessiveness rolled through me. Jesus.
“What happened last night?”
“We fucked for hours on end.”
“I know that. I mean, with you. You weren’t the brutal, punishing force you’re known for being. I mean, the whole dirty thing held up very well, but the rest… that was another story. You held back.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I wouldn’t call it holding back. Things just went a different way. I didn’t feel like taking it to that other place.”
“Why not?”
“Because of you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Me?”
“You’re different.”
“Different?”
Frustration whirred inside me. Too many questions! I didn’t want her psychoanalyzing me. It weren’t about my worry of somebody getting too close. Not anymore. Not with her. It was the fact that I didn’t know the answers yet. Something had shifted in me last night, because of her. “Forget it,” I said, pushing off the wall and heading to my phone on the nightstand over on my side of the bed.
“We’re not finished talking, Slade. Don’t you turn your back to me!”
“Chill,” I told her as I snatched up my phone and sent Deviant a quick text to check in and make sure everything was still good with the club.
“I don’t chill.”
I put my phone back down and gave her my full attention again. “That’s a big part of your problem.”
She slapped her hands to her hips. “Problem? I didn’t know I had a problem.”
Sighing, I slumped down on the edge of the bed and got real with her, “The shit we do, the disturbing and down ‘n’ dirty things, the ability to be able to touch the dark like that… it’s got an expiration date.”
She started shaking her head, but I held up my hand. “Hear me out.” Looking her right in the eye, I went on, “Keeping up with the hyper-vigilance, the need to be one step ahead, standing at a distance from everybody, delving into the dark, committing fucked-up acts in the name of survival and protection, handling the stress and intensity, being at your best twenty-four-seven… it’s a hell of a heavy burden to bear.”
“It’s a good thing I work out as hard as I do then.”
There was humor in her words, but the look on her face told a different story. She was affected and she was worried. She knew I was right. I could see it all over her.
“It ain’t a matter of strength. It’s time. The wear down of it all. You know you’ve hit it when cracks start to show. Things start coming back on you, things you’d been able to keep at bay before or just damn well ignore. They start haunting you. Then, you start slipping up, making mistakes, no matter how good you’ve always been. For me, it’s been the Strikers MC takedown where I broke from the plan and endangered my own boys, letting myself get stabbed by Gabriel Clarkson, the clusterfuck of my attempted hit on Adrian Nolan. The same thing’s happening to you now. You’re starting to feel it. You’re having nightmares about it all. You’re tired, the kind that no amount of sleep can fix. You’re on the same track, coming up right behind me.” With a heavy sigh, I rose from the bed and walked to her. “This job we’re doing together should be your last one. You gotta get out, Willa. Best to go out while you’re still on top. Otherwise, you’ll end up just being a shell. Like me.”
I went to reach out to her, but she jerked back out of my reach. “Unbelievable,” she muttered. Her gaze hardened. “Just because we fucked around, doesn’t mean you have any right whatsoever to comment on, interfere with, or pass judgments on my life.”
Yeah, I’d gotten to her, all right. It was classic lashing out. If that was what it took to make her realize the brutal truth, it would be worth it. I didn’t want her ending up like me. She still had a chance.
She ran her fingers through her hair and glared at me. “I’m aware that guys like you, club guys, think that taking a woman to your bed and sleeping with them more than once means you’ve made some sort of claim on them, that they suddenly become your property and whatever other sexist bullshit you guys believe in. But it is bullshit and it certainly won’t fly with me.”
“That’s some crazy-ass oversimplification.”
“So, it’s not true then?”
“Not exactly. Your facts are skewed. And, for the record, I don’t think I’ve claimed you. But we did make a connection. You wanna deny that?”
I saw her move to do just that. No fucking way. Not happening.
Stepping up to her, I got right in her space, my voice a low growl as I said, “The way I remember it, I owned you last night, darlin’. That tight fucking pussy of yours, every goddamn inch of your body. And you gave it all right back to me too. Couldn’t get enough.”
Heat flared between us.
I heard her breathing quicken.
A blush painted her cheeks.
She was right there with me, her reaction confirming that she’d felt it just as much as I had.
But then it was gone, just like it’d never been and she stepped back, putting distance between us. “It was just some good sex.”
“Yeah? That’s it?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “That’s it.”
Lies. With a shake of my head, I turned away and headed for the bedroom door.
“Where are you going? Don’t go off sulking. We need to figure out our strategies to deal with Freeman and Nolan.”
I stopped short just before the door. She was pushing and fucking pushing. Blowing me off then bringing that lashing tongue of hers out again after my warning about her disrespect last night.
“Keep your emotions in check, all right, Slade? We’ve got more important things to deal with.”
That was it!
With a snarl, I spun around and stormed back to her. “You need to get a grip before it bites you in the ass. You think you’re above it all, you ain’t. You want proof, this is it.” I grasped her arms and gestured to the scarring there. “You let the situation get to you, get personal.
Emotion overtook logic. You were reckless, your typical cautiousness falling to the wayside. This was your slipup. It won’t be the only one. Trust me on that.”
She jerked from my hold and seethed, “Maybe you’re another.”
I jolted.
Fuck. That was brutal.
Vicious.
Ruthless.
I didn’t even know where the hell to take that.
So, I didn’t.
I just turned away without a word and walked the fuck out.
14
~Willa~
I’D MISSED THE MARK.
Again.
I cringed as I examined the three stationary targets secured to the tree trunks in the distance. They were all mostly still intact. I’d unloaded two rounds from my Beretta, yet they had barely taken a direct hit, let alone anything resembling a kill shot.
“Shit,” I groused, as I put the safety back on, then shoved my gun into the holster at my right hip.
I was off my game.
And it was the worst time for it.
I was supposed to be gearing up for a battle on two fronts. Yet, here I was having a ridiculous amount of trouble just trying to take down a bunch of fixed targets.
Fucking Slade. It was him. I’d kidded myself into believing that giving into the sexual tension between us and screwing him would have killed it completely.
Instead, it’d made everything worse.
It was because the connection between us wasn’t only borne from sexual need and desire. It was soul deep, on a level, and boasting an intensity, that I’d never come close to experiencing before. Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell to do about it, or with it. So, I’d lashed out. Brutally.
The look on Slade’s face just before he’d bolted from the room had cut right through me.
I’d heard the front door slam and I’d worried that I hadn’t just driven him from the room, but away from the safehouse as well. I’d thought he’d decided to take off. Fortunately, good sense had won out for him this time and he’d just gone for a walk through the surrounding forest, keeping close enough to the property line that I knew he wasn’t taking off, just taking a breather. I knew all of that, because I’d taken precautions. There was no such thing as paranoia or over-preparedness in my line of work. It was survival, plain and simple.
