by A. J. Downey
I’d fallen quiet, exhausted, but his voice, his words gave me strength.
“You are fixing it,” I said softly, “Just by being here, by holding me, you are fixing it.” I settled against his body, tired, so tired. Mentally, especially emotionally, and even physically to a certain extent. The tattoo on my back having long since dried, the skin pulling taut and in dire need of attention, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave the shelter of his arms. At least not yet.
A soft knock at the door had me glancing in that direction. Blue and Cell stood by. Cell covered in dirt and Blue with a pot of moisturizer in his hands. I tried for a smile in their direction but it came out a wan, miserable thing and I gave up the effort rather quickly.
“Dani, you okay to have your back looked at?” Thirteen asked.
“Do you have to let me go?” I asked in return. Blue shook his head and pointed at himself.
“Nah Babe, not as long as you let Blue have a look, put something on it…” Duracell leaned against the door and gave me a crooked grin. I nodded against Thirteen’s neck and with a little maneuvering we got my back exposed, keeping the towel covering everything else vital to me.
Blue knelt by the side of the bed and I jumped despite how gentle and careful the first touch of his fingers were. The moisturizer he spread thick on my skin was deliciously cool and welcome. My skin was thirsty for it. Once done, he capped the pot and set it on the bedside table.
“Church in twenty, you want I should see if you can get a pass?” Duracell asked from the door way.
“Yeah Man, thanks.” Blue smiled and nodded and the two men left, shutting the door behind them. Thirteen and I were alone again, only this time there was no one to pass by the open bedroom door. It was simply he and I.
“Kay Baby, let’s get better settled.”
We wound up with Thirteen on his back, my body draped over his, my back laden with the greasy ointment open to the air and off the sheets. I rested my ear on the center of his chest, which was still marred by discoloration, the skin almost permanently stained in a way from where he’d been shot. Thirteen assured me it no longer hurt and seemed quite content with the arrangement of our bodies. One of his hands palmed the back of my head and he pinched the tense muscles at the base of my skull with forefinger and thumb, massaging the tension away. His other hand palming the outside of my thigh.
I lay with my eyes closed, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart, the ebb and flow of its beat reminding me of a time when I was a girl on a distant shore, holding a shell to my ear at my grandfather’s urging to hear the ocean waves. It had been stormy, and we’d stood in a shop that sold the shells… I had longed to return to the sea on a calm sunny day pretty much ever since.
“Thirteen?” I asked quietly.
“Yeah, Honey?” His hand stroked absently up and down the outside of my leg and I sighed out, relaxing that much further under his touch.
“Dani, what is it Babe?” he asked softly, voice tinted with concern.
“Do you think we could go? Just get away from here for a day, maybe two?” I asked softly.
“Where would you want to go, Babe? I’d take you anywhere,” he said without hesitation.
“The ocean. I’ve always wanted to see the ocean.”
“Well, hell that’s an easy enough wish to grant, Chica.” Thirteen’s hands tightened on me but I didn’t startle very hard, he’d relaxed me too much for that. I shifted my head enough to peer in the doorway. Dragon’s dark and shaggy head poked just past the door.
“Was coming to tell you, club decision, we leave for Florida end of next week to get the girls. Guys want to leave tomorrow but we got some things to attend to if you catch my drift.” Dragon gave Thirteen a meaningful look. I shifted my gaze to the man who held me in his arms, his eyes the color of that storm swept sea from long ago.
“Understood.” Thirteen’s response was short and clipped. I heard the door thunk softly closed behind us.
“What does he mean?” I asked quietly.
“Disappear that many people in that short amount of time, it’s bound to be noticed. We can’t go taking off right away as a group. It will look suspicious Baby. Gotta do some communicating down south, move careful.”
I pushed myself up off Thirteen’s chest just enough to lean forward and press my lips to his. I kissed him, a slow lingering kiss, before I pressed my forehead to his.
“What was that for, Baby?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“For being what I need,” I murmured.
“Always,” the promise slipped from his lips unbidden and his hand slipped from the back of my neck, withdrew from my hair so that he could graze my cheek with gentle fingertips.
“I got you, Babe. I’ve always got you.” I nodded and kissed him gently again, neither of us really in the mood to take it beyond that.
I lay my head back on his chest as the light from the window crept across the room with the movement of the sun. When next I woke I was still cradled against Thirteen, just differently than I’d been before. The room was dark and close, Thirteen warm and a comfort at my back where he spooned me carefully.
“You okay, Babe?” he asked, sucking in a tremulous breath, his voice thick with sleep. He pressed a gentle kiss to the back of my shoulder and I stopped nodding my head, realizing he couldn’t see it.
“Yes,” I replied softly, “I’m not sure why I woke up.”
“Hmm,” he kissed the back of my shoulder again and I relaxed, closing my eyes. He trailed fire with his lips from the outside of my shoulder in, towards my neck, his lips resting gently against my pulse point as he took a moment to breathe me in and - oh God was that simple action incredibly erotic?
“Back need lotion?” he asked and I rested against him, bringing our nude bodies carefully together. My back to his front.
“After…” I murmured.
“After what, Babe?”
“After you make love to me, please?”
“Dani, Baby, you ain’t never gotta ask for me to do that,” he growled into my ear lightly and nipped my ear lobe.
I needed this. I needed him to touch me, to kiss me, to do something just, life affirming with me after… No. I resolutely pushed the thought from my mind, rolling so that I faced him and so that we could kiss properly. His mouth was hot against mine and his hands gentle as he traced my curves, smoothing gently over my skin in a warm, elegant caress that you just wouldn’t expect from Thirteen’s rough, daily appearance.
He palmed the outside of my thigh and kept me on my side, mindful of the fresh tattoo on my back. He kissed me deeply, igniting the blood in my veins with a burning passion that built slowly but evenly between us.
I let my fingers do the walking, touching every inch of his body that I could reach, gliding the tips across his heated flesh, too warm from our recent sleep. Thirteen groaned, his hard length trapped between us, rubbing against my stomach as he rolled his hips in an unconscious thrusting. His mouth claimed mine and he drew my lower body tight against his, one of his hands gripping my ass in that possessive way that spoke louder than any words he’d spoken that I. Was. His.
His to love, his to drive wild, his to protect and to cherish, and I wanted all of those things. With him, with this man, with Thirteen. I communicated these things with every kiss, every touch, nuzzling his neck, nipping him lightly over that spot that drove him to gasping like it did me. I reached a gentle hand between us and stroked his cock. I marveled every time I held him at how he seemingly went on just forever and this time was no exception.
“God, Dani, Baby you’re killing me!” Thirteen gasped out, I smiled in the dark of the room and guided him to my wet but still not quite ready entrance. He was a tight fit when I was ready for him, after he’d made me come a time or two, but without that prep, he was simply huge. Just this side of absolutely too much. I didn’t care. I wanted, needed to be close to him. To have him hold me, to have him inside me.
Thirteen hissed out as he sank into me
, and I bit my lower lip. He edged his way in a little at a time, agonizingly slow until he bottomed out inside my body and had me gasping, my forehead dropping to his shoulder, a desperate moan escaping my lips. He felt incredibly good and I needed that, I needed him to be the one to make me feel alive, the way he had been the only one to ever make me fly.
“Mmm God, yes, deeper a little bit deeper, please!?” I begged him and he groaned, and obliged me, oh-so-careful, oh-so-gentle, and I loved that he was. Thirteen, the only man to ever be afraid to hurt me.
“Baby, you tell me when, you tell me when you need me to stop…” he held me close, my leg riding high over his hip as he pressed his hard, extreme length into my waiting body. I felt my pussy throb around him in welcome and listened to his sharp exhale as it did it. I clenched my muscles around his invading cock and he gasped, pausing.
“Dani, you okay, Honey?” he asked me, breath warm against my neck.
“Mmm don’t stop!” I gasped and I heard him chuckle. He captured my lips in the dark and kissed me deeply. He gave a tiny thrust and I moaned into his mouth. I felt so full, so complete with him inside me and it was beautiful.
Thirteen broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to mine, “Baby you got me, all of me…” My heart melted at the sentiment in his voice and I begged him to keep going; he chuckled again, low and deep.
“Dani Baby, you aren’t hearing me. I’ve gone as far as I can go. You’ve got all of me.” His meaning clicked home and I wiggled my hips a bit. God! He felt like he was all the way in my stomach! I loved it.
“Good, yes, mmm! Please move,” I begged and I could hear him smile as he did what I asked, withdrawing slowly to surge back in. I held tightly to him as he moved, gently, firmly, and with purpose. The sure, calm strokes stoked the fire between us. It wasn’t going to get us there, wasn’t going to get us off, but it was going to build us all the way up to that point and keep us there.
Thirteen had me wrapped around his little finger, if only he would continue to move. Feral, wanton sounds poured from my mouth. Great gasps of pleasure with just a hint of my voice to them crept out into the room as his hands held me fast. As my man cradled me, safely in the curve of his body, and drove me wild, up and out among the stars.
I arched at one point as he stroked that deepest, most secret part of me and he took advantage of the motion, capturing one of my nipples with his mouth. Heat fizzled along a connected arc between my breast and my cunt as the feelings Thirteen evoked intensified, became rich with the added sensation and intensity. I was beyond wet by this point. His cock sliding easily, my body open and inviting to his touch, wanting, craving just that little bit more.
I gazed down my body, into his eyes, dark with desire, fierce with his protective possession of me. I was claimed, and for the first time ever I was glad for it. I wanted it to be that way. I was happy to be Thirteen’s girl, his woman because I had chosen to belong to him. He growled and buried himself as deep as he could go once more and it nearly brought me. I gasped, head thrown back, and rode his body. He nipped the sensitive peak of my breast with his teeth, even as his fingertips grazed the even more sensitive one between my thighs, at the apex of my sex.
He broke his mouth from my tit and growled, “Look at me, Baby, I want you to look me in the eye when I make you come. I want to see you come apart for me.” I tipped my head downward and gave him what he wanted, the room growing light with the coming dawn as he captured my other nipple between his teeth, teasing the delicate flesh with his tongue. He slicked his fingers in my juices, coating them before teasing my clit with a feather light touch. I gave a deep, throaty moan and felt myself tighten around him.
It was awkward, the position he held, but he managed to keep the pressure on, his thrusts short but so very deep, thumb on that secret pearl, teeth carefully locked on my breast, and the sensations he wrought building, sending me higher and higher. Finally, with a hard spasm of my cunt around him, I flew apart with a wild devastated cry. My whole body shattered and Thirteen hummed his satisfied approval into my breast, which just set my body to rolling away on another shock of orgasm.
I shuddered in his embrace and he held me to him, waiting for my body to piece itself back together. Smiling like the Cheshire cat the whole time. He kissed my lips, these short, chaste little kisses while my chest heaved against his as I gasped like a landed fish.
“Hang on, Baby, I’m not done,” he murmured. With a hand on my ass and the other cradling the back of my head, he flexed his hips and thrust, and I swear my eyes rolled back into my head.
“Oh God!” I gasped out and Thirteen smiled even wider, completely in control of himself and his faculties, for which I was slightly jealous.
“Nope, just me Baby, just me,” he whispered and kissed me, picking up the pace and intensity of his thrusts.
I held onto him, lovingly, my hands sweeping over his damp skin, following the contours of muscle and bone as he rode me, and I loved it. I loved him. So much, so deeply. What he did to me, my body, I lost my breath just as quickly as I’d earned it back and I didn’t care. My voice, high and bright, spilled from my lips, punctuating every thrust.
“Oh yeah, Baby, come for me a second time, there you go, yes yes yes yes yes!” I came, my core throbbing unevenly around him, so hard and so soon after my last orgasm that my vision faded for a moment. I was vaguely aware of Thirteen jolting inside me, his cock twitching in counterpoint to my cunt as he came just a moment behind me.
He pulled me tight up against his body and even through his pleasure, was mindful of the tattoo, rolling us so he was on his back and I was draped artfully over his chest and body. He kissed the side of my neck and blew some of my hair up out of his mouth. I languidly gathered the mass and pulled it behind my neck, over my opposite shoulder, so he didn’t have it in his face.
“Thanks.” He kissed my shoulder to punctuate his statement but I had no voice to offer him in return. He’d stolen it, robbed me of my faculties so completely all I could give him was a long, satisfied sigh. I closed my eyes and lay on him, listening as our uneven breath evened out as we both slowly came back to earth from our trip up into the stratosphere.
“I love you, Dani,” he whispered before peppering my shoulder and neck with tiny, satisfied kisses. I cuddled into him tighter and wiggled my hips a bit, biting my lip. He was still inside me and the movement sent off little aftershocks. He sucked in a sharp breath and I smiled, good to know I had some sort of effect, too.
“I love you, too,” I breathed and kissed him gently.
We lay wrapped up in each other for the longest time, the light strengthening in the room from the high window, chasing back the shadows. Just like with every touch, every kiss and every smile, Thirteen chased back the shadows crowding my heart. I pushed off his chest, and it forced him deeper, which wasn’t painful at all given he was only half erect. I bit down on my bottom lip and rolled my hips, riding him, and was pleased to see his eyes roll back in his head, his well-formed chest hitching with a surprised intake of breath.
I closed my eyes and just felt him, his palms, warm against my hips, smoothing up my body to cradle the weight of my breasts. Thumbs caressing the nipples, but oh my god, the sensation of being one with him overrode everything else and I never, ever wanted to be parted from these moments. I wanted them, so many more of them… the problem for me was going to be what came attached.
I gazed down at Thirteen as I made love to him and tried very hard not to think about the MC, the complications that being part of such an organization brought, and how my life still lay in ruins around me because of one. I didn’t want to deal with any of that right now but at the same time, there wasn’t any ignoring it. Thirteen was who he was, and he was a brother of The Sacred Hearts Motorcycle Club.
I closed my eyes and cried out but still, even at a time like this, that small voice in the back of my mind asked me, can you really handle it? After yesterday? After everything? Can you, Dani?
I didn’t have
an answer for it. Not one. I didn’t know if or when I would. I didn’t want to think about it, I didn’t know what to do, and so for now I did the only thing I could. I made love to the man who’d saved me. I made love to the man who I’d saved and I tried valiantly to thrust all other thoughts, cares, worries, and anxieties aside so that when I kissed him, it held no taste of regret and it wouldn’t taste like goodbye. Because I really didn’t want what we had to be over. I just didn’t know what to do.
Chapter 29
Red-XIII…
Four hours. Dani and I made love for four straight fucking hours, no pun intended; the morning after Griz’s head got blown off right next to her. She was amazing. This sultry siren, beautiful and graceful, and I half worried because there were times I would catch this glint in her eyes like she was about to cry and that killed me. I would give anything to make it better, to have the words or the touch to smooth that pain she was harboring away, but I didn’t. There was no magic fix for this. Just time, and a very real need to get her to talk, to tell me what she had going on in that pretty little head of hers.
We showered after our marathon sex. It was kind of required after how messy it got, not that I was complaining! Far from it, but I tell you what, both of us were sore and probably wouldn’t be going there again for a day or two. It was after the shower, as I applied the topical ointment to her tat, that I tried to broach the topic with her…
“Hey.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes focusing, they’d been distant for quite some time as she stared into space, thinking.
“What are you thinking about so hard in there?” I asked softly.
“I…” she swallowed convulsively and I felt my stomach drop. Oh shit, this was serious. Like, really serious. I felt a prickling rush over my skin as I tensed, waiting for it. Knowing that I wasn’t going to like what I was going to hear; but even delivering bad news, Dani was fearless and honest and, fuck, she was gorgeous.
