Rough Justice

by Sarah Castille

  “How about you, Jill? Did you—?” She turned to Jill, but cut herself off when Jill’s eyes teared and she looked away.

  “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” Arianne reached out and squeezed Jill’s hand. Tanya leaned in, scooting closer.

  “She just can’t talk about it. Jagger found her beat up in an alley outside a bar one night. Took her to the hospital, but she wouldn’t go in ’cause she had no insurance. He got the club doctor to look after her and found out she had no place to go and no one to look after her.” Tanya put an arm around Jill’s shoulders. “So, here she is. Our little stray.”

  Jill laughed and wiped away a tear. “I’m not a stray.”

  “You looked like one that night he brought you in.” Tanya winked, and the tension between them eased. Arianne smiled. The Jacks’ sweet butts were constantly in-fighting, trying to show each other up. But Tanya and Jill clearly had a close friendship, one that warmed Arianne’s heart.

  Gunner showed up with a van full of women, and they all headed inside to join the party. Arianne had never socialized with the Black Jacks, never chatted with the house mamas or sweet butts, never been accepted as a member of the club. But the Sinner’s Tribe welcomed her as one of their own. Gunner introduced her around as the “girl who saved Bandit’s ass,” T-Rex kept her glass refilled, and Wheels shadowed her wherever she went.

  Not that she needed a minder. As far as the Sinners were concerned, she belonged to Jagger, and that was enough to ensure they kept their distance. So she wasn’t pinched or petted or stroked. No one joked with her or made suggestive remarks. Wheels even urged her to put on his hoodie when she stripped down to a T-shirt because of the heat. Having had no respect in the Jacks’ clubhouse, she found their deference stifling, and she almost wished someone would slap her ass just so she wouldn’t feel like a pariah.

  Still, she’d never really felt like she had a family after her mother died. Certainly not with the Jacks and not with Viper and Jeff. The bonds of brotherhood that held the Sinners together meant they were never alone. They were there for each other through thick and thin. “Club first” meant brothers first.

  And that was the problem.

  Although the Sinners were a different breed of biker than the Jacks, in their attitude toward women, they were all the same. Women were house mamas, sweet butts, hood rats, lays, or old ladies. Not equals. And when she had imagined her life outside Conundrum, equality had always been part of her dream.

  FOURTEEN

  Do as you say or walk away.

  An angel in the darkness.

  Jagger slowed his steps as he approached the clubhouse, his resolve to release Arianne from his claim waning when he saw her on the porch.

  Leaning against a pillar at the top of the steps, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, Max’s head in her lap, she hadn’t noticed his approach. From his vantage point in the shadows, he could see her face clearly in the moonlight, soft, unguarded, vulnerable.

  Arianne without the armor. So beautiful, he was transfixed, an agony of desire coursing through his body.

  Ever alert, Max looked up and Jagger was sure the damn dog smiled when she stroked his head. He couldn’t begrudge Max her touch, but his hackles rose just the same. Until that moment, he had never realized how desperately he longed for that easy intimacy—the unguarded softness she tried so desperately to hide.

  Gravel crunched under his feet as he drew near, barely audible as The Sheepdogs’ “Feeling Good” blasted through the windows. The party was going strong. So why was Arianne outside?

  Her head lifted and her lips pressed together as he approached. He could almost see the walls slamming into place, her vulnerability hidden behind an iron fortress.

  “You’re back.”

  He sat down beside her. “You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll get cold.”

  “Max is keeping me warm, and I’m partied out. I should have paced myself. I didn’t realize the Sinner celebration would go on all night.”

  “An ice house for a clubhouse. And justice is always worth celebrating.”

  “I thought I was the price for your clubhouse.”

  The skin on the back of his neck prickled in warning. “You’re the price for Cole. A life for a life.”

  “So you have my life,” she said, her voice deceptively mild. “What are you planning to do with it?” She toyed with a piece of paper in her hand—the paper Bunny had given her. It was everything he could do not to snatch it from her hand.

  Jagger’s pulse kicked up a notch. Give him a shoot-out or a fistfight any day, but trying to figure out where she was going with this conversation was like walking through a maze of thorns. She didn’t seem angry or resigned, merely curious.

  “Treasure it.” He lifted her hand and kissed her palm. He should tell her now he wasn’t going to do anything except let her go, but selfish bastard that he was, he couldn’t do it. Arianne was no victim. And knowing she would never go down without a fight just made him want her even more.

  “Is that your way of being evasive?” She leaned over and ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, then dipped it into his mouth. His cock stiffened and he fisted her hair. Fuck. He wanted her so bad, he didn’t know if he could actually let her go.

  “Only when there is a question for which there is no right answer.” He ran his thumb back and forth over her knuckles, his anxiety fading as her warmth seeped into his palm.

  “My mother used to do that,” she said. “Usually when we were watching TV or just hanging out and she was thinking about something. I always found it soothing, although I think she did it to soothe herself.”

  He drank in the tidbit of information about her life, adding it to the puzzle, wondering if he would ever be able to fill in the rest. He wanted to know everything about her, from the first thing she remembered until the day they met.

  “I don’t remember much of my mother.” He squeezed her hand needing her touch as he dredged up long-buried memories. “She walked out on us when I was seven. My father was an army man. Strict. Cold. Disciplined. My mom was the opposite. She was warm and passionate about the arts. She loved to sing and dance. My father cared for her deeply but he never let her see it, and I think one day it became too much. She packed her bag, kissed me on the cheek, and walked away. I never saw or heard from her again.”

  Arianne’s faced creased in sympathy. “I know what it’s like to grow up without a mom, but I can’t imagine what you went through when she left you like that.”

  He gritted his teeth against the pain of that loss, the bewilderment of a seven-year-old boy who had lost his mother, believing every day she was going to come home, thinking he was to blame and wishing there was something he could do to bring her back.

  So goddamn helpless. Never again.

  “My dad eased up on me after that.” He let go a ragged breath. “Made an effort to spend time with me because there was no one else. Didn’t keep me from getting into trouble, though. I think he worried for my entire adolescence.”

  “Viper didn’t give a damn about us so long as we were available to run his drugs across town or entertain his guests, hack into computer databases and wheedle information out of people who didn’t want to give it up.”

  “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  “Not if I’m gone.”

  Jagger closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against her temple, inhaling the scent of her hair, wildflowers and autumn leaves. He didn’t want to think about her gone. He wanted her to stay. Not by force, but by choice. He wanted her to want him the way he wanted her, with a fierce inexplicable desire that consumed him.

  “You aren’t leaving.” He covered her hand with his, crushing the paper into her palm.

  “Because you claimed me?”

  “Because I want you.”

  He could feel her smile, her cheek lifting, brushing against his. “You want me?”

  With a light tap, he dislodged Max, then pulled Arianne onto his
lap facing him, her knees astride his hips. “You’re all I thought about when I was out riding.”

  “Why do you want me?”

  His arms slid around her and he pulled her close—so close, his erection ground against her hips in a pleasure-pain that almost sent him over the edge. “You make me feel calm, grounded. You make me laugh. You have courage, strength, and determination like no one I have ever met. You let nothing stand in the way of what you want. You frustrate the hell out me, and irritate me beyond belief. You aren’t afraid to challenge me, but you have the political savvy to know when not to do it. You’re a kick-ass mechanic, a fine shooter, and a hell of a pool player. And the sass that comes out of your mouth…”

  Arianne blushed. “I thought you were going to say you liked my tits or my ass. You are a biker, after all.”

  He cupped her soft breast in his palm and bit back a groan. “I like all of you, sweetheart: your curves, your beautiful face, your smile, and especially your hair.” He twined his hand through her silken waves and tugged her head back, baring her throat to his hungry mouth.

  She moaned, arched under his touch, rocking against him until he thought he’d go mad if he couldn’t get under her clothes, touch her, feel her against him, around him. God, he wanted her so badly, he fucking ached everywhere, inside and out. He’d never known want like this, lust driving him out of his mind.

  “I want you,” she whispered. “I want this. Not because I’m yours, but because you’re mine. Even if it’s just for tonight.”

  He didn’t want to hear about “just tonight.” He wanted to hear that she cared about him, that she trusted him to protect her, and that she wanted to stay. But later. Because goddamnit, after hearing she wanted him, if he didn’t have her now, he would explode.

  With his free hand he unclipped her bra and shoved up her clothes, baring her to his sight. A whimper escaped her lips as he tugged harder on her hair, pulling her head back making her arch for him, offering up her breasts for his licking pleasure.

  A door slammed. Laughter carried through a window. Jagger growled low in his throat. “We’d better stop.”

  * * *

  Stop? No stop. Bad stop. Whether it was the remnants of fear that something had happened to him, or the pent-up frustration of being denied, she wanted him so badly she burned inside. Leaning closer, brushing her lips over his, she murmured, “I thought I made myself clear. I want you. Here. Now.”

  He hesitated then cupped her breast and ran his thumb over her nipple. “Then stop talking, ’cause I’m going to take that sweet mouth of yours, and then I’m going to give you what you want.”

  She tilted her head and looked up into his eyes, as dark and stormy as the ocean. “My Jagger’s back.”

  “I never left.”

  Arianne laughed and reached for her shirt, then paused. “What if someone comes out?”

  “I’ll shoot them.”

  “So romantic. I’ve always wanted to have sex on a porch with a man who said he’d shoot anyone who interrupts us.”

  A fierce groan broke from his chest. “This isn’t about romance. It’s about me putting my hands, my mouth, and my cock everywhere on or in your beautiful body and fucking you until I’m so deep you forget your own name.”

  “You sure know how to make a girl wet.” She tongued his ear, delighting when his entire body tensed and his arms became steel cords around her. “You know what would make me wetter? My hands. My mouth. Your cock.”

  A raw, guttural groan tore from his throat. “Sweetheart, do not—and I repeat, do not—dirty talk me, because, Christ, I won’t be able to hold back.”

  A thrill of fear shot through her veins, but she didn’t heed the warning in the rapid beat of the pulse in his throat, or the demanding kisses that scattered her thoughts. Intoxicated by his scent of leather and soap, the promise of hard muscles rippling beneath his thin cotton T-shirt, she slid her hands around his waist and lifted his shirt, her fingers tracing over the taut lines and ridges of his magnificent torso.

  Muscles wracked, he shuddered beneath her touch, but when her thumbs brushed over his nipples, Jagger ripped the shirt and cut over his head.

  “Fuck.” He buried his face in her neck and his hoarse exhalations fanned her desire.

  “Yes.” She smoothed her hands over his rock-hard biceps, her body heating at the raw power simmering beneath his skin. “Here. Now. On the porch. In the dark. Where anyone could see us. And I want to hear more things you’re going to do to me. I want to hear more things that make me wet.”

  Jagger’s muscles tensed beneath her palms and he rasped out his words. “Not slow and easy. Not this time. Need you too much. Gonna rip off your clothes, pull you onto my lap, go deep and hard, and watch you ride me until you’re begging to come.”

  Arousal streamed through her veins like molten lava. She boldly slid her hand over his fly and stroked along the steel of his erection. “I like that talk. Maybe you should have a reward.”

  He didn’t lose control. Instead, he took it, crushing her to him, his tongue invading her mouth, possessing, demanding, leaving nothing untouched.

  “I wanted you from the moment I saw you.” Still holding her head back, he slid his lips over her throat and down to the crescent of her breasts.

  “I wanted you when you ran from me.”

  She tensed as he cupped her left breast in his palm, and then his mouth, hot, wet, and wicked was on her nipple, and her brain fuzzed with lust.

  “I wanted you when there was a knife at your throat and you showed more courage than most of the men I know.”

  She whimpered as he licked and sucked, drawing her nipple into a hard peak before he turned to torture the other one. And although she ached to touch him, run her hands over the broad expanse of his back, undo his belt and hold the promise she’d felt beneath her palm, she let him take the lead. She’d pushed him as far as he would go. A man like Jagger needed to be in control, and she had the power to give it to him.

  “Damn it, Arianne. Every time I see you, I want you. Every time you smile, you take my breath away. Every time you laugh, all I can think about is how to make you laugh again.”

  And, oh God, did he take control. Helpless in a way she’d never been before, Arianne succumbed to Jagger’s touch. Her knees trembled when he undid her jeans and then helped her to her feet so he could pull them over her hips. With a soft exhale, he traced his finger up the sensitive skin of her inner thigh to the edge of her lacy pink panties.

  “Never would have thought I’d see these under your leathers.” He ran his finger inside the soft elastic edging. “Makes me fucking hot to think you’re hiding a soft, girly side.”

  She leaned up to lick his Adam’s apple and shuddered as his taste burst across her tongue, salt and sweat and the essence of him. “I’m hiding something else.” She guided his hand up to the top of her panties, tracing his finger along the edge of elastic, just above her mound.

  Jagger gave a satisfied grunt and eased her legs apart. “Open for me, sweetheart.”

  Heart pounding, she did as he asked, following the firm press of his hands on her inner thighs until he grunted in satisfaction. But when he cupped the curve of her sex, she couldn’t hold back a moan.

  “So fucking hot.” With a firm touch, he shoved her panties aside and slid his thick finger along her soaked folds, then thrust it into her throbbing center. Her inner walls clenched around him and it was all she could do to stay standing.

  Need him now.

  Hand dropping to Jagger’s belt, Arianne managed to get the buckle undone before he shook his head and pulled away, leaving her bereft.

  “That’s the only thing stopping me from taking you right now. Hard and fast. One hand in your hair so I can watch your back arch and your beautiful breasts riding high, and one hand on your hip so I can fuck you so deep and hard you won’t be able to leave my bed after we’re done. I wanna pleasure you slow, sweetheart. I wanna watch you come. But if you go any further, that’s just no
t gonna happen.”

  Without taking her gaze off his, Arianne ripped open his fly.

  Good as his word, there was no more foreplay. He swung her up in his arms and carried her to the shadowed corner of the porch, then settled her on the edge of the cedar patio table. And with one quick motion, he shoved his jeans over his hips.

  Arianne’s mouth went dry as his erection, engorged and heavy, strained for her touch. Impulses warred within her. She wanted to grip him hard and run her tongue along his length. She wanted him to thrust his shaft inside her, soothing the ache in her sex. She wanted to take him into her mouth, wrap her lips around him and suck until he lost control.

  Focus.

  She stroked down and then up, watching him thicken in her hand as she bent her head and licked her lips.

  “Christ, sweetheart.” He groaned as he fumbled in his pocket. “Gimme a break.”

  “I hope you’re reaching for a condom.” Her words came out in a throaty rasp. “I only carry them when I’m trawling the bars, looking for a good time.”

  Jagger glared. “No. Just. No. Don’t—”

  Arianne laughed lightly and drew him closer. “Just teasing.”

  His lips curved into a sly smile and he slid another finger through her wetness and then up and around her throbbing nub. Arianne moaned and tilted her hips, trying to get more of the pleasure he offered, but Jagger just grinned and pulled away.

  “Just teasing.”

  “Beast.” Arianne slapped at his chest and Jagger grabbed her wrist, trapping her hand against his tat. “Next time, I’m gonna restrain you. Hold you down so you can do nothing but feel me, take the pleasure I want to give.”

  Fear and arousal blended into a cocktail of desire so potent, she could no longer keep hold of the threads of rational thought. A soft moan escaped her lips, and Jagger’s eyes darkened.

  “Maybe I’ll do it now.” He released her hand and tugged off his belt with a sharp crack. “Hands over your head.”

  Memories assailed her. Leo whipping off his belt, kneeling astride her on the bed as he wound the cold leather around her wrists … Adrenaline spiked through her veins and she threw up her hands in a warding gesture, her voice rising in pitch. “No.”