Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V

by Downey, A. J.

  He was in the shower, behind the opaque curtain and so before I lost my nerve I slipped my sweater over my head, shivering in the cool air of the bathroom. Warm steam puffed out from behind the curtain as I let the rest of my clothes fall and after quickly rearranging my hair with the basket and stick to twist it all up off my neck rather than only half up the way I’d had it before, I boldly and bravely pulled back the curtain and stepped into the bath, before I could lose my nerve.

  “Hey Sugar,” Zander smiled appreciatively and leaned back into the shower’s spray, water coating his chest and running down his body, magnifying the delicate black script along his ribs.

  “Hi,” I said softly.

  “C’mere,” he reached for me and I gladly went into his arms, our lips found each other and we kissed slowly and sweetly. He was so warm and I pressed my body to his, his hands roaming freely over my skin causing me to heat up from the inside. He turned me in the close space, so that the water hit my back and I gasped into his mouth. It was hot, just this side of being too hot. I squirmed in his arms and he chuckled low and base and the sound thrummed through me turning my gasp into a sultry moan I didn’t even know I had in me.

  The sound that emitted from my throat had Zander pressing my body even closer to his. He palmed the outside of my thigh and pressed me back against the shower wall. His kiss becoming an urgent and wild thing. He broke the kiss, chest heaving with desire and pressed his forehead to my chest, just below the hollow of my throat. I smoothed my hands up his solid physique and buried my fingers in the thick wet hair at the back of his head, tugging gently. He tipped his head back, his chocolate caramel eyes darker somehow with the base things he wanted to do to me.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked softly.

  “Nothing, Sugar. I just want you. Want to love you, but shower sex, as awesome as it is on TV, is just about completely impractical.” I laughed and he smiled.

  “So take me to the bedroom,” I said and he blinked as if he hadn’t expected me to suggest such a thing and truthfully I surprised myself with it too.

  “Oh I intend to, but first…” he picked up a bar of Dove soap and I smiled. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Same soap I use,” I murmured.

  “Gotta take care of your skin when you’re inked or the tats start lookin’ like hell,” he soaped up his hands and glided them over my skin. I sighed out, my eyes slipping shut.

  “Pun intended?” I asked trailing a finger down his fiery arm.

  He chuckled, “No, but it was a pretty good one,” and then we were silent as I grew relaxed under his soap slicked palms gliding over my skin. He washed every inch of me and almost, by default, himself with how he pressed our bodies together. I gasped when he slipped his hand between my legs, teasing at the sensitive folds, paying extra attention to the top of my sex.

  He let me return the favor, let me wash him and explore him just as thoroughly with my fingers while the water slowly began to grow tepid. We were both fairly pruned, fingertips wrinkled by the time we finished our explorations and he shut off the tap. He snatched a towel off of the bar outside the curtain and gathered me to him, drying me gently and wrapping me in the thick terrycloth-like material. He wrapped another towel down low around his hips and his hands on mine, turned my back to his front and guided me out through the shiny metal equipment, across the hall and into his room.

  He shut the door behind him, batted my bag to the floor and tugged the towel away from me, letting it fall to the floor. I shivered in the cool bedroom’s air and he pulled my body tight against his, backing me up against the foot of the bed. I tugged the tucked corner of his towel while we kissed and let it fall to the floor, wrapping my hand around the burning hard length of him. He sighed out against my mouth and thrust me back by the hips, I tripped over the end of the bed and secure it was behind me let myself fall.

  I tingled, down there, hungry for his touch, for him to fill me out and kiss me and move above me like before. He stood over me with a dark grin taking hold of his lips as he looked me over and instead of dread, which I had felt a time or two when Grinder had looked at me so when I was fully clothed, I felt nothing but want and need and a fine burning desire for Zander.

  “Make yourself comfortable, Red,” he commanded in a low and even voice. I put my palms against the mattress and pulled myself back, up towards the head of the bed. Zander watched me, so carefully, a hunger in his gaze that my body matched. He devoured me with his eyes and fisted his erection, stroking himself slowly. It was probably one of the most erotic things I had ever seen even though admittedly I hadn’t seen much, just imagined plenty when I was alone in my bed late at night when the rest of the world was sleeping.

  “God I love it when you look at me like that!” his voice was low and impassioned but what he said, it made me smile.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like I’m some kind of wonder, makes me feel like a fucking super hero or something.”

  He crawled up the bed, over me, and I willingly parted my legs so he could get between them. He pulled open the drawer on the nearest bedside table and brought out a foil packet tucking it beneath the pillow. He kissed me and pulled the stick from my hair and the basket from it, setting them both off to the side. He combed his blunt fingers through my hair until it uncoiled and hung more naturally.

  “God, you’re fuckin’ beautiful!” he exclaimed and kissed across my jaw, finding that spot on the side of my neck, the one that made me break out in a pleasurable wash of tingles over every inch of my skin. His big hands roamed my body as freely as his mouth as he kissed down my chest. I loved the silky soft feel of his hair which was already almost dry as I wound my fingers through it. He took one of my nipples into his hot, wet mouth, grasping it lightly between his teeth as he sucked, teasing me with his tongue. I arched beneath him, a deep ache starting between my thighs, my body growing needy and way past moist.

  His fingertips grazed my mound and my legs jerked from the still, as yet, unfamiliar touch. His body was in the way of my ability to snap them closed which filled me with yet more heat. He tipped his head and I met his eyes as he continued to tease my breast with his mouth. Whatever he saw on my face must have reassured him because he broke the suction he had on my nipple and moved to give the other equal attention, his fingertips lightly grazing over my vulva in a feather light touch that had me moaning.

  I let my head fall back to the pillows and I couldn’t help but writhe at all of these beautiful, new, and enticing sensations he was eliciting from my body. He took his mouth from my other breast and kissed his way down my body, firmly palming my sex, his hand rubbing broad strokes over it, a press and grinding motion that was driving me wild. He stopped his mouth just above the line of my pubic hair and checked on me with his eyes.

  I had no idea what he intended to do, but at this point, I would let him do anything he wanted, anything at all. He stroked my folds one more time and with a glance in my direction plunged one of his fingers inside of me. I cried out and he smiled against my skin, stroking the digit in and out of me in a fluid glide. It felt amazing, his hands on me. The other he stroked across my stomach in a firm caress before stretching the skin. Cool air caressed my nether region and before I knew what was happening his hot mouth licked over that sensitive bundle of nerves before he sucked the delicate nub of tissue into his mouth.

  My body went wild. A fine burning, shining wave of pleasure sweeping over me and through me. My back arching off the bed, my hands fisting in the covers by my hips. Zander used the hand on my stomach to hold me down, his arm a bar across my hipbones as he pressed me flat, working me expertly with his mouth and fingers until white starbursts went off at the edges of my vision, ever expanding towards the center until I was drowning in light and sensation and gasping desperately as I tried to writhe beneath him.

  My vision came back in stages and I trembled as Zander carefully climbed my body. He propped his chin in his hand, his elbow resting against the be
d over my left shoulder, his other hand lightly stroking up and down the skin of my arm. I shivered and wanted to slap the smug look off his face but I couldn’t form words let alone move. He had effectively rendered me a useless puddle of Mandy in the center of his big bed.

  “How you doing Red?” he asked, his voice low and teasing.

  “Good,” I answered faintly and I could feel the ludicrous grin overtake my face. Zander laughed.

  “Mind if I join you?” he asked.

  I felt myself frown and reading my puzzlement clearly he lifted his body slightly from mine and free hand drifting down between us, slicked his erection up and down between my folds, teasing the head of it against my clit. I moaned, head falling back, eyes slipping shut and I heard him smile.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” I heard the crinkle and tear of plastic as he retrieved and tore open the condom. A brief moment went by and I opened my eyes and met his so very serious expression as he eased his way carefully inside me. I cried out, my voice an alien thing, the sound emanating from my lips a full, throaty and sultry moan and something belonging entirely to a wanton sex goddess, not little Mandy Price, the well behaved Pastor’s daughter.

  I loved that. In fact, I loved it so much, I twined my legs around Zander’s lean hips, my arms going around his neck and looking deep into his eyes, I captured my lower lip between my teeth and moaned, arching my hips to meet his careful thrusts. His eyes widened and he groaned and it was such a sexy sound, all deep and full and like a man on the brink and he thrust harder which didn’t hurt, it didn’t hurt at all, in fact it did just the opposite.

  I gasped, “Oh yes!” and Zander growled, a deep and base and supremely satisfied sound.

  “Tell me how much you like it…” he demanded and I smiled, no coyness no shyness.

  “I love it!” I cried and arched into him and I thought this rhythm was intense, but it had nothing on what he did next. He drew back and surged into me so deeply, so powerfully and set a punishing cadence. So hard, so fast that each thrust was punctuated with the sharp report of our flesh coming together in a heated slap. I felt things low in my body tighten and by instinct alone I squeezed down on him.

  “Oh shit!” he cried but it wasn’t alarming, not in the slightest, the expletive a surprised happy sound instead.

  “Christ you feel so fucking good!” he growled and that was it, my world blanked out again behind those white hot flashes of light that were burning me up from the inside out with pure shining pleasure, so intense that I swore our bodies blurred together and we melded into one being.

  “I love this!” I gasped out when I could finally find my voice again. Zander chuckled and kissed my shoulder, a hot press of lips against my freckled skin.

  “I love you,” he murmured and I stared at the ceiling, blinking… completely unsure of what to say back. His proclamation having caught me completely off guard.

  Chapter 13

  Revelator…

  I switched on the bedside lamp. Red lay flat on her back, eyes fixed on my ceiling, a myriad of emotions chasing one after the other, after the other, across her pale face. Too soon, but also too late to take it back. Not that I wanted to. I kissed her shoulder, planting soft kisses to her skin while she processed.

  “I… I don’t…” she always stuttered when she was uncomfortable.

  “Shh, don’t expect nothin’ from you Red. Sorry I just blurted it out like that but at the same time, I’m not. You been on my mind and in my heart, under my skin since the first day I saw you.” She searched my face, a fine wrinkle of concentration between her sweeping golden-red brows.

  “It’s a foreign concept,” she admitted finally and swallowed hard and I could see how much the honest comment cost her. She was so used to having to hide how she felt and I knew how that went.

  “My old man was a piece of work too Baby. Takes time to work through that shit. You ain’t hurtin’ my feelings none.” I smoothed some of her fiery curls back from her face and I could see something in her eyes ease.

  “I’ll be right back, get us cleaned up, don’t you go away,” I kissed the tip of her nose, a quick peck.

  She laughed softly and the tension between us eased. “Like I could walk if I – oooh!” her head fell back and her back arched a little thrusting those perfect tits up at me like a god damned offering as I pulled myself out of her hot, wet, grasping cunt. She was fucking perfection and I suddenly had no desire to leave the room, even for just for a second. Nope, instead I found myself discarding the used condom; replacing it with a fresh one, only to slip right back in her and drive her right up and over the moon all over again.

  I made her come at least twice more, maybe three times, I couldn’t quite be sure before taking my satisfaction myself. When I came back with a warm, damp cloth to clean us up, she looked at me with this baffled wonder.

  “What?” I asked her.

  “I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to walk again after that,” she commented dryly.

  I laughed and pulled the blankets out from under her, she yipped in surprise and I fell into bed beside her and covered us up. She snuggled into my side, her head on my chest, looking down our covered bodies. I couldn’t see her face but the way she relaxed against me, satiated and spent was all I really needed to know.

  “Zander?” her voice was soft in the dim room.

  “Yeah Sugar?”

  “Is it all right that I don’t know how to feel?” she murmured quietly and her voice sounded brittle, like she was on the verge of tears but I knew better. If I looked, her eyes would be dry. Crystal clear and as perfect as ever.

  “Babe, you’ve had a lot of emotionally heavy shit happen to you in the last couple of days. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that you don’t know how to feel,” I kissed the top of her hair. Poor girl was probably all mixed up and inside out from all of this.

  “I can’t tell you I love you, not yet, but I can say I’ve never felt the way you make me feel.”

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “Safe, and loved. I think I’m falling in love with you, I’m just not quite there yet.” Her words made me smile.

  “Fair enough, I’m just going to keep tryin’ over here, so do me a favor and just let me know when you get there okay?” she snorted and laughed a little and I chuckled too.

  “You can be so full of yourself! But deal,” she laughed.

  “You gotta work tomorrow?” I asked.

  “You know what? No. I worked on Monday and I think I’ve earned a three day weekend,” she murmured.

  “Atta girl,” I said and gave her a little squeeze. She yawned. “Sleep Babe, you’ve earned a nap.”

  “Mmm, I’m hungry though,” I blinked. Shit, yeah, we hadn’t eaten since lunch.

  “Got some shit in the kitchen. You pack your robe?” she nodded.

  We got up and I gave her one of my tee shirts that was a little big even on me. She put her robe over it but, damn, the sight of her nude, in nothing but my shirt had me wanting to bend her over the counter and fuck her from behind. So far I’d made love to her, and we’d only done missionary, but I had every intention of introducing her to every position in the Kama Sutra and then some. I also intended to find out her take on some downright dirty, porn worthy sex in the near future. There was so much shit for us to do that if she didn’t like something, I could find plenty of things that she did.

  I made us a couple of sandwiches and kissed her until she was languid in my arms and I could go for a round three. Instead I let her go and we ate in front of the fire, which I added wood to. We talked until late and I told her things about growing up, shit I hadn’t ever told anyone else, and she told me some shit that I packed away in my angry box to fuel me in my next fight. If I couldn’t beat the fuck out of her dad, I’d let loose on the poor bastard I was up against in the ring. Not that I felt too sorry for him. Word was he was an up and comer on the underground fights circuit and a Suicide King. It’d be my pleasure to take him apart at this poin
t, even if it was only because he chose the wrong set of colors to sport on his back.

  Mandy coiled around me in the dark when we finally went to bed and dropped off almost immediately into sleep. With her warm, silky smooth nude body tucked close to mine I wasn’t far behind her. Poor girl was emotionally and mentally exhausted because I managed to get up, go through my morning workout routine, shower and eat and she didn’t so much as move from the position I’d left her in. I wanted her to sleep. I had no designs on the day other than to spend it with her. So I figured I could fix her whatever she wanted when she woke up.

  I stood in the doorway of my bedroom. The morning light, gray and watered down by the rain and cloud cover outside the house, didn’t do my girl much justice but hell, she was beautiful in any light. She lay on her stomach, one arm and the long line of her back down to one hip exposed. I smiled to myself and went into the smallest of the houses’ four bedrooms which I used as my art space.

  I pulled the marker case out, off its shelf from the underside of my drawing table and unzipped it. Like every color of Sharpie permanent marker known to man was lined up neatly inside. I used them for clients that were unsure about a tat. If I had time, I’d draw an approximation on ‘em and let ‘em wear it for a day or two to decide if it was a permanent decision they wanted to make. I couldn’t resist breaking them out when I had such a beautiful canvas laying in the next room. I just wanted to play for a little while and you could scrub ‘em off early if you wanted to, just took some soap and a little determination.