CLAIMED BY THE BAD BOY: A Dark Bad Boy Romance (Bloody Saints MC)

by Zoey Parker

  They both waited in silence for a couple of minutes, but those minutes were filled with tension.

  Darren placed a hand out and reached for some of the cards she’d left on the table. Even though she’d tried to re-arrange the deck and keep the game intact, she hadn’t really done the best job of it. And when she noticed that Darren was staring at her, her hand had shaken and the cards in her hand had fallen back on top of the piles.

  He grabbed those, looking up and flashing her a sly smile. She thought he was going to place them where they belonged, turning this into some weird game of two-person solitaire.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he moved the cards he was now holding in his right hand so that they were all in his left. She noted that he held them between his index finger and his thumb, in the hollow there; it was a weird way to hold onto something, and it made her like him all the more, even though she definitely didn’t have any kind of feelings for him. It reminded her of being a child and holding a pencil the wrong way, and getting callouses from writing. She glanced at his fingers, checking to see if he had any there. He did.

  She imagined him pressing his fingers inside her pussy, and a flash of heat overtook her entire body. She prayed he wouldn’t notice. And he didn’t, thank God. He was still holding onto the cards.

  Once those few cards were safely secured in his left hand, he started picking the cards up from the table. He did this with his right hand, and the entire process looked awkward. It didn’t help that this, too, was actually going on in silence.

  She didn’t know what he wanted to do, but she was going to go with it. His left hand was starting to get full of cards, but so was his right. He poked at a loose card with the one free finger he had on his right hand, the tip of his finger scraping against the material of the card as he failed to pick it up.

  And so Victoria decided to be merciful. She grabbed the card. But that was too nice, and she wanted to know exactly what had been going on earlier today – and where he’d been when he was leaving her here by herself. She didn’t hear the front door open, so presumably he must’ve stayed inside the house. But you could see everything except for the bedrooms from where she was sitting, and she hadn’t heard either of those doors open either.

  So where could he have gone? She wagered that he’d been gone, and that she'd been sitting here all alone, for at least an hour. She didn’t know what he could’ve been doing. Maybe he’d been in the bathroom the entire time, but that was unlikely too.

  But she wasn’t going to ask. That’d show too much interest, probably, and she bet that she could figure it out herself if he didn’t just say. Darren was too secretive, though, and they were too similar, so they just sat there adjusting cards in silence.

  Victoria picked up as many as she could, much to Darren’s chagrin. Even though he was grateful for the help, Victoria didn’t know what he needed them for and was probably just holding onto them to make him frustrated. No, that was definitely what she was doing. And it was working – she looked over her shoulder and saw him set his jaw into a tighter line than it usually was when he was calm.

  She was about to go back to the table when it happened. She saw it before he moved, and she congratulated herself on her self-awareness. And to think she thought that her brain was turning to mush around this man.

  Darren brought his arm out towards her, trying to take the small stack of cards she’d amassed. There were 52 cards in the deck; Darren had more than her, and, if she had to guess, Victoria only had maybe 15 cards. The other 37 were with Darren, and he wanted what she was holding. She’d invited him to play a game earlier – was this going to be it?

  She raised her hand out of his reach. He was taller, though, and bigger; his arms were longer than hers and could reach farther. She had to press her body even further against the couch to try to get away from him, holding her arm up so he couldn’t reach the cards. But he kept getting closer and closer to her, and eventually there was no more space for her to go.

  Her back hit the arm of the couch, but she still tried to move. It was futile. Darren must not have realized what had happened, though, because he kept going and –

  His chest was against hers.

  She pushed a hand against his muscles. If he asked, though she doubted he would bother, she was trying to push him away from her. But she wasn’t. She was actually just touching him for the sake of touching him, and even through the fabric of his shirt she could feel the hard muscles rippling across his chest.

  She tried to suppress the urge to pull away the fabric and feel his bare skin.

  He looked at her, and they made eye contact. Neither of them smirked, or smiled, or laughed. It was just a moment of intense staring, their eyes locked in on each other's as Victoria thought about…

  What was she thinking about? She was starting to lose track of everything besides him and the fact that she was stuck here. And the longer she was left in this place, the more she was starting to just focus on Darren. This was unacceptable. She couldn’t deal with this.

  But he was still on top of her, and her hand was still on his chest. She couldn’t focus on anything else. She didn’t want to focus on anything else. But there was only so much time before he said something about it.

  She thought about squirming for a second before she did it. She wiggled, trying to adjust herself. And promptly felt something hard press against her thigh. She blinked, realizing what she’d done. She was pushing herself closer to him. And the way she was wriggling herself against him in an attempt to get away was only pushing her towards his cock.

  She froze for a second, feeling it hard and hot against her. She wanted to stay there and just feel the way his body pressed against hers. While she still didn’t know that much about him and what she did know about him pissed her off, there was still something so right about the way he was lying here above her.

  She put her other hand on his chest and pushed him away, firmly. He didn’t move much. He was way bigger than her and weighed more, and the force of her hands did little but leave a small indent on his shirt. The indent disappeared in an instant, though, and she was still stuck here.

  But she didn’t have to be.

  The words came out with no small difficulty.

  “Get off of me,” she said. She didn’t want him off of her, but she had a part to play. And the cards that were in her hand had landed on the floor, and she just knew she was going to have to be the one to clean them up later. She imagined a card getting stuck under the couch, and her having to crawl around on the floor getting all dusty…but then, she’d been wearing the same clothing since she’d arrived her. She was probably filthy and smelly already.

  A pang of embarrassment flashed through her. Darren had just gotten out of the shower and here she was beneath him, getting him all gross.

  As soon as the embarrassment hit her, it left. She had no reason to be ashamed. Besides, it’s not like he hadn’t had worse. And this whole situation was his fault anyway.

  It was interesting to watch the look that flitted across his face, though: Darren’s eyes showed a flash of something she barely recognized as surprise, and then that emotion was quickly replaced by his familiar mask of arrogance. She had to wonder how fake it was.

  She didn’t ask.

  He lifted himself so he was just slightly above her before he got off. She looked at his arms, seeing the muscles in them standing out more prominently as he held himself up over her body. She loved the sight of it, but she knew it had to end.

  It felt like almost no time at all when he was on her, but he was gone too soon. He pushed himself up with his arms, drawing himself back. Then he just pushed himself backwards using the muscles in his legs and his butt, and he sat facing her on the opposite end of the couch.

  “What are you staring at me like that for?” He cocked his head to the side, watching her.

  She wanted to say nothing, but the habit of just letting him walk all over her with his words was too much. So she s
ettled on saying, “Because you took too long to get off of me when I asked you to.”

  “It's not like you didn’t like it.” He winked at her, and she slapped him on the arm. It was true, but it didn’t change the fact that she hated that.

  “Whatever,” she rolled her eyes, trying to subdue the feelings she could sense rising up in her chest. “You dropped those cards.”

  His eyes went to the pile of cards strewn around on the floor, but he didn’t seem to care much. It irritated Victoria that they were there, and it irritated her more that Darren didn’t mind.

  Sullivan“Let me get those for you, Your Highness.”

  Her thought process ended as soon as Darren’s words cut through the fog in her head, and he jumped up off of the couch in a quick act of melodrama. She was almost worried that the way he twirled his body would make him hit the coffee table, but then she wiped away that worry too. She couldn’t keep worrying about this guy, and he didn’t even know she did it. There was no point to it.

  He got over to the pile of cards, kneeling down. He glanced at her as he reached for them. She stayed on the couch and did nothing.

  Darren frowned. “You're just going to let me do this by myself?” The way he said it was almost convincing. His eyes were wide and puppy like, in the saddest expression he could muster; the lines of his mouth were held so that nothing he did could be misread as any kind of smile.

  And it almost worked on her. Almost.

  She nodded, telling him that no, she wouldn’t be helping him pick stuff up. Part of her wanted to, sure. But the rest of her knew that he could do it on his own, and he was a pain in the ass anyway. It wouldn’t hurt him to put in a little effort.

  Another thought came into her head, and she wondered what it’d be like to grab some of those cards from him and tease him. But that would just get her back into the situation they'd just been in a few seconds before, with him on top of her and her pushed back into the couch cushions.

  “Really?” His mouth twitched up in the barest hint of a smirk.

  “Yeah.” She took a second, pretending that she was reconsidering everything that’d just happened. But she knew what she wanted, and she still wondered why he was gone earlier. What had he even been doing while she was sitting here waiting for him? Not that she was waiting. “So.” She paused, rolling her tongue around in her mouth for a second before forcing herself to stop. “Is this the part where you come clean to me about everything you’ve been doing?”

  For a second, Darren really, really considered it. But he didn’t get a chance to say anything. The look on his face must’ve had too much shock in it.

  “What?” Victoria moved, adjusting herself so she was sitting straight up and looking at him. One of her hands went to her left hip, one part comfort and one part sass. “You act like it's too much to handle.”

  She thought she’d caught him off-guard, but she hadn’t. It took him less than a few seconds to recover, and then he was grinning.

  “I can't believe you,” he said, his voice low in his throat.

  He shook his head, rising from his kneeling position on the floor. He had all the fallen cards in his hands now, and he walked with purpose back to the couch. This time when he picked a spot, he set himself down closer beside her. And this time, she didn’t move away.

  He pressed the cards down hard against the table. She could feel the heat of his thigh pressed against hers, but she didn’t push away from him. There was a reason to stay beside him, and that reason just might be that he’d tell her more about what was going on. With Darren, being secretive was an art, or so it seemed.

  She watched him move the cards. After he set them down in one initial pile, he took the time to grab each card and place it flat down in a straight line. Victoria couldn’t see what each card was supposed to be, and Darren couldn’t either. This definitely wasn’t a game of solitaire, though, and Victoria watched him, wondering what exactly he was supposed to be doing.

  Then, once he’d carefully arranged all of the cards he’d just placed down, he picked them all back up again. He flipped the cards through his hands, shuffling them. What he’d been doing by laying the cards down must have been some kind of weird shuffle, and maybe now he was going to pass them to her.

  He placed a card down flat in front of her. Then he did the same for himself. He continued doing this until they both had seven cards laid out in front of them, and then he put the stack of remaining cards in the center between the two of them.

  So it was a game.

  He turned to her, holding his stack of cards in his hand with a smile. “I have a proposition for you.”

  This was going to be good. She was in the middle of reaching for her own cards when she froze, wondering.

  He gestured with his head, encouraging her to take the cards.

  She waited.

  And waited.

  And waited for an explanation.

  When none was forthcoming, she decided to just take the bait and ask, “What?” She hated that she did it, because it was obviously what he wanted. As soon as that word was out in the air, he reached over.

  She didn’t even have time to freeze in surprise. He gripped her by the shoulder, his touch light and shocking and firm. And then he ran his hand down her arm, moving it in closer to her torso. His hand grazed her side, moving closer to her stomach.

  She thought that maybe he’d go so far as to touch her between her thighs, and she wasn’t sure if she should tell him to stop. She didn’t want him to stop. But, much to her dismay, he did. He pulled his fingers down to her stomach, past the skin there, and grabbed the fabric. Then he gave it a small tug, smiling at her, and his fingers fell away from her body.

  She felt her breath catch in her throat. She was going to make some kind of joke about him wanting something sexual from her, but maybe it wasn’t a joke after all.

  She looked at him, biting her lower lip without thinking about it. She felt her legs start to shake again, and she imagined his fingers digging into her hips. His hands should’ve gone so much lower when they’d touched her, but they hadn’t. She tried to quit thinking about what it would be like to have his fingernails drag across her skin, but she couldn’t.

  She looked at his hands. His fingernails were short and orderly. She couldn’t let herself imagine them sliding into her. That wouldn’t be good. Sure, she was in a bad situation and he might be a bad boy, and she might’ve been seen as a bad girl for working at a bar. Being a slutty bartender and all that. But really…

  She finally broke the silence. “Earlier. In the bathroom…”

  Darren didn’t look at her. He was focused on the cards in his hands. She could tell that he was still focusing on her, though, even though he was trying to pretend to be disinterested.

  He shuffled them a little more, saying: “You didn’t take offense to it.”

  All the shuffling he was doing was unnecessary. But she just let what he said hang there before he started saying some more. Darren liked to try to press her into asking about things, but she wasn’t going to put herself through that embarrassment. But why was it embarrassment?

  “It sounds like it might be fun to play a little game,” he paused. “Doesn't it?”

  She nodded, unsure of what to say. What was making her so shy? She turned her head so she was looking him in the eyes. She didn’t know when it had happened, but she’d been looking just under his chin, trying everything she could to avoid his stare.

  “Say it.”

  “It does.”

  “That wasn't as full of emotion as I was looking for,” he teased, but then he looked at her, and actually saw her.

  Victoria's face was flushing, and she kept biting her mouth. She refused to look at him full on. The few times she did, her eyes darted away from his after just a moment. She was aroused. She had to be. And so this was going to be much easier.

  “Have you ever heard of a game called Snap?” He picked up a couple more of the cards from the big stack between t
hem, giving them each an equal handful to add to their own piles. “Here. Take these. It’ll be more fun if the game goes on longer.”

  He wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t know what it was. At the same time, though, part of him wondered how she couldn’t know. She was the type of a girl to work in that bar, after all. And even so young. Just being a bartender and a woman meant nothing, but it usually implied something. And it implied even more things when the bar she worked at was frequented by a club, especially one as big as his.

  Victoria took a second to think. “Is it kind of like poker?” It had to be. A lot of games were based off of it, anyway, but she hadn’t really heard of anything called Snap.

  “Sort of.” He laughed, making his voice go a little bit lower before he spoke again. “Except for there's stripping.”