by Nicole Snow
The crowd exploded. Firefly moved in, pulling me to his chest. His tight arms around my waist were just about the only thing stopping me from passing out.
“Kiss me, baby girl,” he whispered in my ear. “Meant every fuckin' word I just said here, Cora. This is about protecting you, yeah, but it's more than that. Don't expect you to understand. Don't care if you ever do. You're mine now, babe. Forever.”
Too much. Too soon. Too crazy.
No mistake. This was CRAZY!
I tried to claw him, to scream, but I couldn't do anything when the bass started blasting through the club. Honey-Bee chirped happily above us, shouting down congratulations, showering us in huge handfuls of cheap feathers like snow.
His lips moved up my neck. Rage, confusion, and desire wrestled like snakes inside me, making my skin crawl until I swooned.
He held me, kept me from collapsing. Our eyes locked, and those dark, blue seas in his face held a thousand wild promises.
I didn't know what to do. Didn't know if I'd step out of here without having a heart attack.
Then the gorgeous lunatic pulled me toward him, burying his lips against mine. I sank into his kiss and bit him. Hard.
Firefly never took his mouth off mine until he decided it was finally time to move. Not even when I tasted his blood.
* * * *
Eventually, the delirium on stage swept me away. At first, I thought I'd passed out, and he'd carried me to the small, dingy church just outside Knoxville. But then, if I was unconscious, I couldn't have ridden with him on his bike, draped around him like a ragdoll, clinging tight to him through the sharp turns he took on those high mountain roads.
“This wasn't the way I wanted this shit to go down, darlin'. It'll have to do. Ain't no time to throw you in lily white and invite all your friends and family. It'll be a small ceremony. We'll make up for it in all the years to come. Do bigger bashes when we renew our vows.”
“You're...you're out of your mind,” I whispered, trying not to stumble as he led me up the steps.
I was still woozy from the ride in. My brain temporarily shut down, processing the latest trauma.
God. How could he do this to me?
Nothing about this made sense. Well, maybe the part about keeping me safe, but did it really take this to do it? Marriage?
Talk about extreme. Irrational. Ridiculous!
And just when I'd started to like him, too.
Firefly gave the old double doors a hard shove, and we stepped inside. I did a double take when I saw Skin and Meg standing near the altar, alongside an old, wiry looking preacher man with silver hair and owlish spectacles.
“You two knew?” I hissed at Meg as he dragged me down the aisle.
“Just found out. Skin said the ceremony needs witnesses to be official...sorry, Cora. I'm just trying to help.” She lowered her eyes, shooting her lover a sharp look that said it all. Are you sure about this?
Skin embraced his woman, pulled her tight to his chest. Right now, she was the only one being comforted in this freak show.
“It's gonna be okay, babe,” he whispered softly, before he looked up at me. “Gonna be all right for you, too, Cora. Nobody wanted it to get this real, but we've gotta keep you safe. Firefly won't let anything bad happen to you. He promised.”
We stopped next to the altar, and the two men shared a vicious look. Firefly took my hand, held it to his lips, and kissed it. I felt the scar I'd left from the harsh love bite, and tasting his blood in my mouth.
“Everybody ready?” Preacher man asked, his voice as soft and out of place as everything else here. He didn't even flinch when he looked at me, smiled, and saw the sickening look on my face.
Jesus, he looked official, too. I wondered what drove him to do this kind of favor for the club.
“Babe, don't fight it,” Firefly said, pulling me into his warm embrace. “Hold on. This'll all be over before you can...what the fuck?”
I head-butted him. My face sank into his warm, powerful chest, igniting a whole new storm of emotions I couldn't begin to handle.
Nothing in my life was going down like I'd planned it.
But this...this weird, sudden, terrifying joke of a wedding tore away the shielding on my heart. All the pain and humiliation I'd suffered came pouring out. Inhaling his rich, masculine scent made me want to stay there forever. Die there, if I had to.
Even now, it calmed me. Even when I hated him. I should've put up a fight, gone out kicking and screaming and shouting, but what little I'd had left died on the Ruby Heel's bright stage.
He'd decided I was going to be his old lady, his fucking wife, and there wasn't a single thing I could do about it.
“Wait.” The word dropped out of his mouth like a hammer hitting concrete, and everything else stopped, including the crappy organ music flowing through the speakers.
“Brother?” Skin sounded so unsure.
I looked up, and saw Firefly's attention shift from him to me. “You're confused as shit right now, aren't you? Fuck yeah, you are, and you've got every damned right to be. I swore a promise to the club before we got all this in motion. Told the man standing here I'd do whatever the hell it took to keep you safe. I thought you'd be on the same page.”
My eyes were prisoners in his. He leaned in, licked his lips, and whispered words that gutted me.
“I'm sorry, darlin'. I fucked up.”
His beautiful blue eyes softened, mirroring the change in his energy from hot and excited to melancholy. Suddenly, my sympathy swelled for him – so insane and unexpected I wanted to scream.
“Wedding's off. For today. We'll settle this shit when you're good and ready, Cora,” he said, stopping to put his warm, firm lips on my forehead. “Skin, you let the brothers know it's done, without a hitch. She's still getting my brand and wearing my ring, but we're stopping just short of making this shit legal. I gotta do what's right for everybody here.”
Meg sighed. I saw her out of the corner of my eye, tugging on Skin's hand, a soft smile pulling at her cheeks.
“Good,” Skin growled. “I'd have stopped this shit myself with the way she's acting. You're taking a wife, Firefly, not a slave.”
“What? You think I don't fuckin' know that? Why the hell you think I'm putting a hold on the only shit I ever wanted?”
“For fuck's sake, brother, that's exactly what I'm saying. You don't need a lecture from me. You're a good man.” Skin bowed his head just slightly, a respectful gesture I never would've imagined coming from these rough, hard men in leather.
They shook hands, before Firefly turned his attention back to me, pulling me deeper into his embrace, big as the southern sky. His arms held me tighter than before, solid like oak.
My heart swelled. He'd sounded so serious, so loving. He'd surprised me for the millionth time today, and I wasn't going to be able to handle any more.
Preacher man shuffled awkwardly behind us, coughing into his hand. “I'll keep the papers in my office, just in case anybody decides to change their mind.”
“No need,” Firefly told him.
For just a split second, I regretted the fact that we weren't going through with it. Then he shook me awake, cupping my chin in his hand, and tilting my face up to meet his eyes.
“Darlin', you look at me, and listen good. Far as you and everybody else knows, we're hitched. I announced it at the Heel because the Torches have got spies all over town. They need to know you're mine. They need to get pissed about it, so they'll roll right into the hell we've planned for 'em.”
“Firefly, I –“
“I ain't done yet,” he growled, moving his face closer to mine, until I could feel his hot breath on my lips. “I meant every fuckin' thing I said back there. Everything I told you tonight. I want you to be mine, dammit, but not like this. This wedding's on hold. Doesn't change the fact that I'm making you my old lady tonight.”
My heart stopped. I gasped. His hand snaked down my back, grabbed my ass, and jerked me into him, turning me into a but
tery, knee-shaking mess.
“You've got about twenty minutes to decide how you wanna wear my ink. We're going to get you branded. Right now.” He brushed his lips against mine, teasing me until it hurt. “This is the place to take God as my witness for everything I'm telling you next. Make no mistake, Cora, you are mine. Get used to it. There's no taking it back. Second my name goes on your skin, I own your sweet ass, plus every other inch of you, darlin'. Mine tonight, 'til the end of fuckin' time.”
Oh, God. His words hit me like dark biker poetry, rough and conflicted as everything I felt for him, igniting a hundred more raw emotions.
I wasn't looking at a man anymore, or feeling him. He was a human tornado, conquering me with his eyes, telling me with nothing more than a long, hard glance that this was real. All of it.
Just like a raging storm, he'd pick me up, fling me around, and fuck me with those huge, feral muscles until I was bruised and dripping wet.
Love? Hate? I didn't know the meaning anymore.
That wicked, mysterious place where they met was Firefly incarnate, and he vowed to make me feel every mad inch of him.
I actually bit my bottom lip as he took my hand and spun me around, pulling me toward the church doors.
Skin whispered a few words to the preacher man, something about how he'd better not breathe a word of this to anybody. Nothing except the lie we'd all been told to say.
We were married.
Back on Firefly's bike, I hugged him tighter, breathing the warm night air hanging down over the city from the Great Smokies.
No, I hadn't been ready for a flash wedding ceremony. Daddy wanted something beautiful for me, long ago, and I did, too. But I wasn't fighting him on the old lady thing.
A delicious tingle pulled at my nipples, firing between my legs. Whenever I thought about him owning me with ink before he claimed my ass, I shuddered, and held on tighter.
We tore through the backstreets, his bike kicking up puddles of rain settling on the streets. My heart raced faster, and that savage pulse between my legs quickened when I saw the glowing red sign.
SKULL'S INK, it said in neon, with a smaller sign beneath it. NO F*CKIN' CRYBABIES ALLOWED!
“Last stop before we hit my sis' place,” he said, drinking me in with his eyes. “Let's make the most of it. Fuck if these fingers aren't itching like hell to put my name all over you.”
“Don't know about all over me,” I said, sticking out my tongue. “One spot. That's all I need to make it official, right?”
“Yeah, darlin',” he said. “That's the goal. Long as I see my name stamped on your ass, you're getting fucked 'til you can't even walk. Promise.”
Holy Shit. I shivered, the anticipation building like a fever.
We walked into the deserted shop. I'd expected an artist to come out and do the work, some freaky man with dark shapes scrawled on him from head to toe.
“Sit down,” Firefly said, gesturing to the nearest bench in the back. He jerked on the lamp overhead, aiming it.
“No way. You're a tattoo artist too?”
He just smiled, laying out his tools. “Pants off, babe. We'll talk it over as we go. You'll be more relaxed than usual because you've already had my hands all over your ass.”
However true, that didn't stop me from blushing like a prom girl as I dropped my khakis. On the table, his rough hand snatched at my waistband, ripping my panties down.
I heard him breathe deep, taking in my scent, everything I couldn't hide from how hot and wet and conflicted I'd been for at least the last hour.
“Fuck. You're lucky I learned a thing or two about discipline with Uncle Sam, alongside these inks. Otherwise, I'd be slamming into you hard and deep, right the fuck here. You'd be out before we even got started.”
His hand touched the small of my back, swept downward, zipping over my bare ass cheeks. Arching my back, I sucked in a breath, held it, and let it steam out my lips.
“Soon, baby girl. Keep that fire hot. Hold it just for me.” He leaned down, numbing my ass with one hand, pouring hot breath into my ear. “Quicker we get this over with, quicker you get this dick inside you. This ain't officially our honeymoon, but I'm fucking you like it is.”
Then his hand slapped my ass, making a clap so loud and harsh I jerked on the leather bench. “Ah! Did you really need to do that to check if I'm numb?”
He chuckled. “Nah. It'll be a few days before I can give you a proper spanking after this shit, and I know you're gonna mouth off sooner or later. Preemptive strike.”
Asshole. I buried my face in the leather underneath me, the only thing I could do to hide my smile.
* * * *
By the time he'd finished, I was out of my mind with pure desire. No, no, that didn't begin to describe it, and neither did all the other euphemisms for dying because I wasn't getting fucked this instant.
Dripping wet. Horny-as-hell. Heat.
They all plucked my nerves. Painted my skin soft, wet, and full of goosebumps.
My own reflection seemed foreign when the mirror twirled in front of me, then angled down so I could see my butt.
“Good?” he growled. “Looks pretty fuckin' amazing from where I'm standing, but it's your ass, darlin'.”
I looked into the mirror. A winged skull with pistols smoking on both sides lay on my upper ass cheek. A proper tramp stamp.
Everything I thought I'd never have on my body, and yet, it seemed right. So strange, wonderful, and wild I couldn't stop smiling.
The text inscribed on the skull's forehead in flaming, tapered black said it all. PROPERTY OF FIREFLY, DEADLY PISTOLS MC, TENNESSEE.
“Wow. You've got some serious talent,” I said, sliding off the bench so I could finally pull up my panties. “I like it.”
“Fuck yeah, you do. Had a feeling you've been wanting to wear my name since the first night I got my hands all over you, babe.”
I stared at the ground, searching for my khakis, saying nothing. He knew me too damned well for his own good.
For some reason, I thought about his time in the service, trying to imagine this big, savage bastard as a soldier. He'd had his share of names, numbers, and tags throughout his life. He'd turned them over for a patch, and a road name, not so different from the transformation happening to me.
It's proof stung gently on my butt cheek as I fastened my belt. He was cleaning up, putting his tools away and pivoting the lamp, when he caught me staring.
“What've you got going in that pretty head?” he asked, giving the bench I'd just lain on a quick wipe.
It needed it, too. I'd laid there for what seemed like a small eternity while he did his work, shaking and sweating, slick between my legs.
I tried to take my mind off it. I walked up to him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and followed his huge bulk as he rose to full height.
“What's your name? I only know you as Firefly. That can't be your real name.”
“Huck,” he said. “Huck Davis. Ma was a real sucker for Mark Twain.”
Huck. Huck?!
I burst out laughing. Wracking my brain to remember the stories I'd read when I was a kid, I came back with all the hijinks and good humor from a simpler time.
Surprise aside, it fit him. Just like a glove.
“Fucking shit,” he growled. “You'd better believe Firefly's the name that I wear proudly. Far as we're concerned, that's the one you're gonna keep calling me, baby.”
“No, no, it isn't that.” I squeezed his shoulder, swept it up, letting my hand wander across his cheek, feeling his rough dark stubble. “I like it. I like it a lot, Huck. You shouldn't be ashamed. It's a wonderful name. It tells me something about the good man behind all the leather and skulls.”
“Yeah, well,” he grunted, collecting his words. “You'd better keep that shit to yourself, unless we're behind closed doors. Don't give a damn what you say when it's just me, you, and a surface for fucking. You can call me fuckin' Shakespeare for all I care, once I'm up inside you, Cora.”
H
e pushed the small cart with his tattoo tools away, rounded the bench to my side, and jerked me into his arms. We kissed while his hands roamed my back. He fingered the loops around my belt in my khakis, teasing one hand on the upper edge of my ass, so close to the new brand he'd stamped on me.
The tingling sensation teasing me all evening sparked into an open fire. I pinched my thighs together, struggling to contain the heat between my legs.
Fighting for control, and failing.
Just burning, burning, burning.
“Fuck,” he growled into my mouth, refusing to pull his lips away. “Gonna teach you to suck cock good now that you're mine. You'll love it, yeah?”
Yeah. I moaned into his mouth, doing a terrible job of hiding just how hot it made me.
Just thinking about gliding up and down his long, hard, wild length with my tongue, taking him in my mouth, almost caused me to lose it on the spot.
Firefly's hand caressed up, taking my breast in one hand. He squeezed it hard through my shirt and bra, begging me to throw my clothes off again.
I squirmed against him, pushing my hips on his, forcing my pussy to feel his rock hard bulge against my belly. I swore it was about to tear through his pants, and then he'd flip me around, slam me against the leather bench, and own me all the ways we both wanted.
But he stopped. I blinked, opened my eyes, struggling to see through the lust clouding my vision.
“What?”
“That ring,” he growled, grabbing my hand. His eyes had caught it while we kissed, when I'd moved my hand across his face. “Take it off now, babe. We only needed you wearing it as a prop at the Heel, so we could make everybody believe.”
Ouch. My heart sank. For some reason, it hurt.
I knew damned well that it shouldn't. Didn't change the painful reality.
Stepping away from him, I held my hand to my chest, gazing at the small golden loop he'd given me. Our eyes met across the small space between us.
“No,” I said, forming a fist. “Let me wear it, Huck. I want to. I know it seems insane after the way I acted earlier tonight, but it was all so sudden, so crazy, being forced into something like this.”
