“Fuck. Fuck. Come on, Leah, it’s okay.”
He pulled on her again, this time more gently, and he led her around the side of the building, through a gate, into the yard. Through the bleary wash of her tears, she saw that he was leading her to an empty picnic table. He picked her up and sat her on the table. Her tailbone wasn’t happy with that, but it could join the rest of her with its complaints.
She couldn’t stop crying. When she thought of how stupid and childish crying was, it made her cry more. Finally, Max wrapped his arms around her and pushed her head to his chest. “It’s okay, Leah. It’s okay.”
At least he was finally getting her name right. When she could make words, she asked, “Why don’t you remember me?” She was whining, but she didn’t care.
His hand stroked her hair like he was comforting a little kid. “I do remember you. But you know, I’m a lot older, and I haven’t lived at home for a long time. I never knew you that well.” His voice sounded like he was talking to a little kid. He thought she was a little kid.
“No! I’m not just The Preacher’s Daughter! Why don’t you remember us?”
His hand stopped, and he leaned back, lifting her face so he could look her in the eye. “What?” He brushed her cheek, wiping wetness across her skin.
At the touch of his fingers, her tears abated, and she was left with sniffles. “Why don’t you remember having sex with me?”
It was night, and late. The weirdly bright glare of the parking lot lights cast stark shadows and turned colors into eerie alternate versions of themselves. And Leah’s eyes weren’t focusing all that well. But she was pretty sure Max had gone pale.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” His tone was no longer gentle or soothing. “We never fucked.”
Leah felt utterly humiliated and idiotic. If she could have wished herself back home right then, she would’ve happily blinked away. But he had to remember. Just remember. It was all she wanted. To be memorable. “We did. There was…it was a rave last month. In a barn. And you picked me up and we…”
“Sparkle fairy?”
See ya, sparkle fairy. Her memory echoed with the words. Flush with relief, she nodded.
He grabbed her head in his hands and kissed her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bubblegum.
Holy shit, she tasted of bubblegum.
The stickysweet taste engulfed Gunner’s tongue, the scent filled his nose, and the memory of that night in the barn exploded his brain. It wasn’t even a taste he’d particularly liked, not before, but now, sweet mother of fucks, he wanted it on his tongue forever. The candied memory of that rave had been rolling around in his head like a loose ball bearing ever since it had happened, but now it had true sensual, tactile presence. Now, he was kissing his little sparkle fairy again, tasting her, smelling her, and his cock shot straight out, so fast and hard that it hurt.
He grunted and winced—and remembered that this was Reverend Campbell’s kid’s mouth he was spelunking. How the fuck old was she?
Unable to let her go completely, irrationally afraid that she’d fade away and take his memory with her if his hands weren’t holding her, he forced his lips to peel off of hers.
She blinked up at him, her eyes wide. The harsh gleam of the sodium arc lights glinted in them.
“How the fuck old are you?” He hadn’t intended to be harsh, but the words came out brusquely, forced through his tight throat.
Her forehead wrinkled at the bite in his tone. “Twent—” She took a breath. “Nineteen. I’m nineteen.”
It sounded like she’d meant to lie and changed her mind. It sounded like she’d told him her true age, and it seemed to jive with his sketchy memory of the little girl in the pretty Sunday dresses while he’d been in high school. Hair bows. He remembered her wearing big hair bows. Christ.
Nineteen was young. Really young. Probably inappropriately young. But not illegally young. And fuck, the US of A had taught Gunner how to kill people when he was younger than that. She wasn’t out-of-bounds young. If she was, in fact, nineteen.
“Don’t fucking be lying to me.”
Her jaw still cradled in his hands, she shook her head. “I’m not. Do you remember me now?”
Fuck, did he remember. Not her face; even now, her face was just a glow in his memory of that night. But he remembered that mouth. He remembered the fit of his lips over hers. He remembered bubblegum.
“I do. I’m sorry. I was rolling pretty hard that night. Did I hurt you?”
That was possible. His recollection was of something…gentle. Calm. Something sweeter than flavored lip gloss. But gentle wasn’t really a thing he did, as a rule. So it was possible he’d hurt her, that he’d been too rough while he was rolling so far above it all that he hadn’t realized she’d had a fucking face.
“No! It was…it was good.” She made a weird little flinch. “You were good. I was high, too. I didn’t know who you were then, either. But you were good.”
She grabbed his t-shirt in her hands, wadding up the cotton in her fists, and pulled, trying to draw him closer. He bent his head, obliging her, dropping his hands to her hips, and she brushed her face over his beard, one cheek and then the other, using him to caress herself. She hooked her feet on the backs of his knees, and he remembered that she was naked under her tiny black dress, nothing but some pale curls for cover. A natural blonde, she was.
She put her mouth on his, and that bubblegum taste—a little fainter now, but still potent—wrapped around his whole body. He snugged her up in his arms and kissed her again, more tenderly this time. That calm he remembered settled into his fibers. What was it about her that made him feel so quiet?
In his hold, her body was both perfectly soft and fully active. She’d surrendered to him and was following his lead with enthusiasm. He knew she’d willingly go wherever he wanted to take her.
That wasn’t unusual for Gunner. Most of the sweetbutts fucked however the patches wanted them, and only a few made any kind of suggestion of their own preferences—and those few were veterans of the clubhouse, confident of the security of their place there.
Except when he was with Evelyn, the women Gunner fucked did what he wanted and didn’t resist—unless he was too hyped up. But he tried to stay away from them in that case. And he went to Evelyn when she needed to work out her frustrations. That always bought him some calm in his brain bank.
He blinked and flinched back, feeling a sudden jolt in his head. He didn’t want Evvie in there right now.
What did he want? Did he mean to fuck the little girl from church? Again?
Yes, he did. Because Leah felt different in his arms. He felt different holding her—a different kind of calm than he had with Evelyn. That was exhaustion more than anything. This was—it was respite.
She wasn’t simply compliant. She wasn’t simply willing. She wanted him. Him. Even that night in the barn, he’d felt that—like he hadn’t simply been a warm body to touch. When he’d picked her up and her body had coiled around his, he’d felt like they’d belonged together. Like they’d fit—and not just their bodies.
He’d told himself that was crazy, that it had just been the Molly, making everything shiny and good, but here she was, in his arms again, no Molly, and he felt the same thing.
With a teenaged girl from home. What the fuck.
She whimpered and drew herself closer, scooting so that she could wrap her legs completely around his. He felt her boots hook together on the back of his legs. The heat of her, the wet heat of her, warmed the front of his thighs.
“Don’t stop,” she whined. “Please don’t stop.”
Remembering the way she’d fallen, the sight of her sprawled on the sidewalk, her pussy on display, and her patent lack of awareness of that fact, Gunner forced himself to wise up and do the right thing. No matter how it felt to hold her, she was not some sweetbutt who knew she swam with sharks. She was a naïve little girl in water over her head.
He took hold of her head again
, resting it on his palms, sliding his fingers into her hair. “You’re drunk, Leah.”
He wasn’t the picture of sobriety himself, but between the two of them, his head was the more level—which, come to think of it, was a fairly unusual occurrence, him being the most rational person in the room. Or the parking lot.
“I’m not. I mean, I was, and I’m still a little buzzed, but I know what I’m doing. I’m not being stupid. I’m not.”
She let go of his shirt and made a show of touching her index fingers to her nose, alternating left and right. Her nose was straight but a little too wide for her face, separating her pretty eyes just a fraction too much for classic beauty. But she was adorable as hell.
When she kept booping herself, he laughed and caught her hands in his. “You made your point. Sorta. What is it you want? Why’d you come here?”
“Is that from when you punched your truck?” She was looking down at the splint brace on his hand.
“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I’m sorry about your brother. I’m sorry it still makes you sad.”
Fuck. The gut twist he always felt when he thought of Martin, the sensation of taking a step and finding nothing under his feet, made all his muscles clench at once. He tried to let go of her hands, but she closed her fingers around his and held on, and he let her.
“I don’t want to talk about that. Answer my question. What do you want?”
“I…I just…wanted you to remember me.”
Those few words dug deep into Gunner’s chest. They’d been said in a voice unbearably vulnerable and young, and he knew that there was no possible way a girl like her should spend time with a guy like him, in a place like this.
He was crazy and erratic and a constant fuckup who needed to get hurt to keep his head straight. He was an outlaw. He was almost a decade older than she was.
Leah had a wild side, obviously, but he could look right at her and see she wasn’t really wild. She was the good girl she was supposed to be. Whatever she was doing in the dark, at raves and biker parties, and whatever else she did, it wasn’t what she wanted. Somehow, he knew that was true. She didn’t belong in the dark.
And the dark was where he lived.
No way she belonged anywhere near him.
But she was still wrapped around him, and he felt right. He felt calm.
“I remember you.”
“Please don’t make me go.”
“What do you want, Leah? I need you to tell me. I don’t want to guess.”
She smiled, and Gunner thought it was the first time he’d seen that pretty mouth turned up. It made her look younger. “I want to stay with you. I want…I want to be with you.” The smile trembled and faded, and she gave her head a little shake. “Just tonight, I mean. Just…please don’t make me go.”
She was laying herself out before him. Trusting him completely. Why the fuck would she do that?
He couldn’t tell her no. She’d managed to make sending her home the dick move here.
“I want you to stay.” He closed her tightly in his arms. When he brought his mouth to hers, she was ready, open, anticipating the kiss, and her tongue met his at once. From that moment of connection, Gunner knew that this was foreplay. He wanted her to stay, she wanted to stay, and he was going to fuck her. Leah arched in his arms and lifted her hips, offering herself, moaning each time his tongue brushed hers. Her hands were in his hair, her fingers snagging in the unruly mop of it.
Her constant, rhythmic moans seemed surprised, each one lifting to a new, higher note at its end, and her body vibrated in his hold. But he knew she knew this, understood what was happening. She was naïve, she was absolutely naïve, but she wasn’t inexperienced. She’d come up on him in the barn, not the other way around.
Finally set loose, need rocketed through Gunner’s body and mind, making it difficult for him to consider those odd little moans, or to think about where they were, or how young she was, or anything but how she felt on him.
He was going to fuck her right here in the parking lot, and she was going to let him.
As their mouths clashed wildly, Gunner brought his unhurt hand between her legs, sliding his fingers up the inside of her bare thigh until he reached the velvety heat at the top. Oh fuck, he could feel how wet she was before he’d even touched her folds. His hips rocked eagerly at the thought of getting up in there.
But as soon as he touched her—she was dripping, so fucking slick he could die—she jumped, with such force that her body moved backward on the picnic table and her legs came loose from around him.
“Wait! Wait!” she gasped.
Bewildered, Gunner shook sense back into his head and took a halting breath. He knew she’d felt that before. He’d been there before. His unhurt hand was his dumb one; had he been too rough? Already?
“Did I hurt you?”
She looked up and gave him a shaky smile, nothing like the one before. “No. I don’t know…it’s just…I don’t…I…I never…I…” A hard shake of her head stopped the jumble of words. “You didn’t hurt me. But do you have any E?”
“You want to do this rolling?” She nodded, and his feelings took a direct hit. “Are you sure you want this? To fuck me, I mean.”
“Gosh, yes.”
Gosh. The girl he was planning to penetrate had just said the word gosh. A teenaged preacher’s daughter who didn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. And she needed to be high to fuck him. What kind of deviant, piece-of-shit fuckwad was he, anyway?
“Leah…”
“Please don’t say no.”
Fucking hell, he was so confused. What was the right thing? It couldn’t be fucking her, right? The thing he actually wanted was never the right thing. But look at her. Telling her no would hurt her; that truth was bright as a flare in the night sky. He’d already made her cry once. How could doing it again be right?
In the absence of a clear answer, Gunner went with the easy one. The one that got them both what they wanted. “There’s Molly inside. C’mon.” He swung his arm around her and lifted her off the table, setting her feet on the ground.
~oOo~
The vibe in the clubhouse had shifted from its party-hearty, let’s-get-wild, full-volume hard-rock anthem stage to its fucking wasted, fucking horny, moderate-volume country ballad stage. Eight Ball had either blitzed out for the night or found himself another bunny to butt-fuck; Gunner didn’t see him around. For the most part, people were draped over the furniture, alone, in pairs, or, in a couple of instances, in groups, either passed out or getting it on. A few stragglers were still talking and drinking, and Delaney and Mo were dancing over by the juke, two old lovers hanging on each other, swaying to Bonnie Raitt.
Leah’s head swiveled back and forth, taking in the change in the room, obviously surprised. It had been moving in this direction when he’d taken her outside, but the music had still been loud and rowdy then. That tended to change the way the room appeared, for some reason.
Gunner left her standing outside the door of the chapel while he went in and unlocked the supply locker. In addition to office supplies, a stack of plain canvas duffels, and a scatter of other weird shit, there was a shelf of the club’s recreational drugs. They didn’t keep much on hand, and they didn’t keep it for long. The club had a good relationship with the Tulsa Chief of Police and the Tulsa County Sheriff, but there was no point making light of that relationship or risking Joe Fed coming in and ringing them all up for possession with intent. But when they were having a party like this one, Griffin made sure they had a good buffet of favors: a bag of ‘shrooms, a sheet of acid tabs, some good weed and rolling papers, and a baggie of Molly.
Quite a dent had been made in the weed and, surprisingly, the acid. Gunner wondered how many among that mass of wiped out people in the party room were watching the music move.
The Molly seemed to be untouched. Fifty mil tablets. Gunner took out a single pill, thinking he’d give Leah a low dose and abstain himself. Then, holdin
g all those pretty pills, he couldn’t. He wanted it, especially if she was going to roll. Taking three fifties for himself, he plucked a tissue from the box on top of the trophy case nearby and wrapped the pills in it. Stuffing the little bundle into his pocket, he locked up the locker and went back outside.
Leah was standing exactly as he’d left her, watching Simon get blown by Kymber and Allie, who were both naked. His head was thrown back on the sofa, and he had a hand on one tit of each girl, pulling their nipples like he thought they might make him a bucket of milk.
Feeling protective of Leah’s innocent baby blues, forgetting that she was a girl who’d at least once jumped on a seeming stranger and fucked him breathless, Gunner put himself between her and the view of the party room. He took her hand and led her upstairs.
Twist (The Brazen Bulls MC Book 2) Page 9
