by Nia Farrell
“When Mama finds out you left me until last, you are going to be in so much trouble!” Rose teased.
“I hated to wake you,” he said, looking down where they were still joined. Realizing just how much he enjoyed the feel of her petal soft skin beneath his fingers, he released her wrists, slapped his thighs, and stood, putting a little distance between them.
She was Mad Dog’s sister and under the protection of the entire fucking Avenging Angels MC, for Christ’s sake. Doubly off limits, or he’d be risking the wrath of God.
“But you’re up now,” he said, “and we’ve got work to do. When we’re done putting away groceries, if you want, we can watch something a little lighter. Be a good girl for me, and I’ll let you pick.”
“A good girl, huh?” Rose angled her head, studying him with a wisdom far beyond her years. “I can do that, Sir,” she said. If she intended a gentle tease, she failed. There was a new light in her eyes, an earnestness that made him uncomfortably aware of how natural that honorific sounded falling from her lips. The only thing more perfect would be to have her say it while kneeling at his feet. From everything he was seeing, she might just be open to the idea.
Rose reached for the plate that he’d brought in and obediently finished her apple while he watched, her supple lips wrapping around each piece before biting, her pink tongue reaching out to catch the juice, her finger swiping a bit of cashew butter that had escaped. She licked it off the pad of her finger, while he watched with more interest than was wise. The little tease caught him looking, wrapped her lips around her finger, and sucked it deep into her mouth, her dancing green eyes daring him to say something.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” he snapped, heading that way before he turned her over his knee and gave her the spanking that she was asking for.
Brat.
While he waited, he rinsed the dishes that he’d used and put them in the dishwasher, adding Rose’s plate when she carried it back and starting it up.
Michael motioned to the boxes of groceries stacked along one wall. “I thought I could hold the box or hand them to you, while you put them on the shelves.”
“It will be easier if we pre-sort,” she told him. “Mom started throwing things in and clearing shelves. It’s hard telling what all’s in each box until we empty it. The kitchen counters and island will work for sorting. Empty at least three boxes, then we can put groups of things back in. Meats, soups, vegetables, fruits. Sauces and toppings. Pasta, rice, and noodles. Cooking and baking supplies. Bottled water, canned juices, and drinks. Snacks, too. If I know my mom, there’ll be popcorn for movies and butter-flavored salt, to keep the real butter for baking and cooking.”
“She sent a bunch of that, too. I unloaded the cooler first and put everything away. Once the fresh milk is gone, we have powdered. I don’t know how many blocks of butter she packed, but it looked like enough to supply a breakfast café. You could move part of it to the freezer, if you think it needs it.”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” she said slowly. “We don’t know how long we’ll be here. Have you heard anything?”
“No, and we likely won’t until tonight. I did let them know that we’d gotten here, safe and sound. Given the circumstances, I think it’s better if we wait for them to call us, rather than try to call them. We have no way of knowing what they’re doing. If it’s something important, they don’t need distracted.”
For the next hour, they sorted, stacked, and stocked the pantry shelves. Rose was methodical, detail oriented, and single-minded—not easily swayed when she had her mind set on something. Baker that she was, she wanted less beer and more flour stored in the fridge to keep it free of weevils. Same thing with the extra rice, pasta, and noodles. It made sense, but he held off doing it this soon. Otherwise, he’d have to remember to replace the bottles as he used them and rotate stock, putting the room-temp beer behind bottles that were chilled and ready to drink.
But she agreed that putting the lighter packages of noodles on the pantry’s top shelf made more sense than having them by the sauces.
Rose handed him the packages, and he put them away. The top shelf was out of her reach, but it was no problem for him, standing nine inches taller than her five-feet-six-inch frame. When they were done, he reminded her of the movies that he’d brought.
“Let me get cleaned up,” she said. “We should have time to watch one, then hit the leftover barbeque and baked beans for supper. Maybe add some mac and cheese to it, if that’s okay.”
He’d graduated from box mixes to a four-cheese gourmet version, but he didn’t tell her that. “Sure,” he said. “If that’s what sounds good to you.”
She didn’t take long in the shower. Twenty minutes and she was back, dressed in a pair of curve-hugging yoga pants and a thin white T-shirt that clung to the swells of her better than B-cup breasts.
Her black bra contrasted with her ivory skin and showed all too clearly through the shirt’s knit fabric.
Michael approached his films the way that Rose treated her groceries. He’d put them in a series of folders, categorized by type. Open the folder, and the titles were listed by the computer alphabetically. When a film crossed genres and he didn’t remember which folder it was in, he could search by title or the last names of two stars. It was his system, and it worked.
Except when it didn’t. Rose saw the “Sexy” folder and looked no further. He’d promised that she could choose the next movie, and what did she pick?
Secretary.
Fuck.
Chapter Six
“We can’t watch that.”
Michael’s words were a red flag to Rose. She’d had to beg him for a beer. He acted like she’d never had one in her nineteen-year-old life. Worse, he was acting like he regretted being holed up with her.
She’d be damned if she’d let him renege on his offer.
Rose crossed her arms and arched a brow. “And why not?”
“For one thing, it’s in Japanese. With no subtitles.”
“Really? That’s so cool! But you know Japanese, right? You can tell me what’s going on.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I am not doing voice-over narration. Pick something else.”
“No, I want this,” she said, easily getting it started. Her brother Luke played movies the same way in his room at the clubhouse. “And if you won’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll just have to read faces and body language, and tell you what I think is happening.”
“Fuck.” He said it beneath his breath, like she couldn’t hear him this close. Michael was hugging the far end of the sofa, determined to maintain his distance and pretend that he wasn’t aware of this electricity humming between them.
She’d noticed before all this that he was an attractive man. She’d have to be blind not to, with that dark Irish coloring of his, thick black hair, a sinful brush of lashes framing his brilliant blue eyes, and the short scruff of beard that he wore that was so irresistible on men. Trouble was, she was totally off his radar, like he had mental blinders that kept him from noticing her. She had remained on the periphery of his vision, always out of focus…
Until now.
And he didn’t like it. It was unsettling. Disturbing. Something that he couldn’t control, and his Dominant nature found that unacceptable. Well, too bad. He wasn’t her Sir—not yet, anyway. He was just going to have to deal with it.
She didn’t tell him that she’d seen the movie before. It had been a while, so she couldn’t remember everything that happened. Let him think it was her first time. It would serve him right for shutting her out.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed, watching the opening sequence. “She must not be wearing lipstick, or she’d ruin that page she just pulled out of the typewriter. And then she’d get spanked for it. Maybe she wants spanked for it. No, she needs her other hand free for the coffee. Ah, I see. Interesting office wear. After this movie, do you think businesses started addressing spreader bars in their dress code?”
Michael rubbed
his face and said nothing.
“She’s leaving home. Just graduated and her dad’s sending her off into the world alone. No, someone’s picking her up. A wedding? And that’s her gay best friend. She doesn’t like the older guy hugging her. What’s that stuff? Wait. She’s a cutter? No shit. But she stops herself. Good girl.”
She kept it up, getting some of it right, telling some of it wrong. Michael didn’t seem to appreciate that she thought the spanking scene was fucking hot, or like listening to the extended argument she had with herself, whether or not there was penetration. “He’s probably just dry humping her,” she decided. “He seems the type, to deny a girl her pleasure.”
“She’s being punished,” Michael growled. “She hasn’t earned his cock or an orgasm.”
Rose was feeling reckless after her second beer. “And what the hell does it take to earn a fucking cock? The woman has done whatever he asked, from dumpster diving to crawling. I’d say she’s more than earned it.”
“When she’s not being punished, yeah. I suppose you’re right. But not now. Anything else waits.”
She drained her bottle and pointed it at him like an accusing finger. “You know, women get tired of waiting, same as men. He’ll be lucky if she stays. A woman with that kind of devotion who gets kicks from his kink? We’re a rare breed, Michael, but then, I guess you know that, right? No steady girlfriend. No permanent sub. Still banging that housesitter of yours? Heidi? Brunhilde?”
“Gretchen,” he snapped, glowering. “Her name is Gretchen, and that’s none of your fucking business. How much have you had to drink?”
She stopped to think. “Dos,” she deliberately slurred and held up two fingers and a thumb. “See? You’re not the only one who knows a foreign language. Yo hablo español.”
Michael tsked and shook his head. “Well, that’s two too many, princess. No more today, if that’s all the better you can handle it.”
Rose sat up straight. “I can handle it,” she argued, pinning Michael with her gaze. “I can handle a lot of things.” Keeping her eyes on him, she wagged a finger at the movie they were watching. “I bet I could handle his kink. I bet I could handle your kink.”
Michael crossed his arms and smirked at her. “Oh, really? You think you can handle me? Little girl, you have no idea.”
Rose cringed. “Don’t call me that! I’m not a little girl. I’m fucking nineteen years old, Crash! When are you gonna stop treating me like a child and see that I’m all grown up?”
“When you stop fucking acting like one.”
Michael leveled that look—the one that commanded respect, demanded obedience, while every fiber of her being was daring her to disobey.
Clutching her empty bottle to her chest, she gave him her own incredulous look and shook her head in disbelief. “You,” she grated, “are so fucking clueless. You have no idea. None!” She rolled her eyes and barked a harsh laugh. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Screw this. Screw you!”
Rose shot out of her seat and started walking.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Michael said, his voice filled with displeasure.
“The kitchen,” she snapped, refusing to look at him. “I’m going to throw away my trash.”
“That will wait until I goddamn say so,” he said tightly, rising from his seat and stalking towards her. “Fucking lot of nerve you’ve got, after everything I’ve done for you. You think you can disrespect me like that and fucking walk away? Think again, little girl. You tease me, you rouse the beast. You say you can handle kink. Let’s start with a spanking. See how hot you think it is when it’s your ass on fire.”
Rose shivered. Michael took the beer bottle from her fingers and tossed it on the sofa. He eyed the rounded end, then her. “Bend over it. Now!”
Oh, God.
She draped herself over the end of the sofa, putting her hands on the seat cushion, bracing herself on straightened arms, preparing herself for what was coming. When nothing came, she looked over her shoulder to find Michael staring at her ass. Her T-shirt had ridden up, and her yoga pants had no panty lines.
Before she could chicken out, she reached behind her, hooked her thumbs in her waistband, and slid her pants to the middle of her thighs. Reaching, she put her palms on the sofa cushion and waited for him to begin.
He stepped closer. Covering one ass cheek with his large, capable hand, he tested it, mapping the contours, flexing his fingers, feeling the tone of her muscles, and judging resiliency.
The first spank smarted. She grimaced but otherwise did not react. The second blow fell hard enough to make her breath catch in her chest. More strikes, on both sides, quicker, harder, working up to the flurry of them that they had watched.
By the time they finished, Rose was a sobbing mess and Michael had a raging hard on.
He made her stretch out on the sofa while he went for ice. He brought back two quart-sized plastic zip bags filled with cubes and put one on each of her ass cheeks. Sitting on the coffee table end nearest her head, he looked more concerned than smug.
She supposed she should be grateful that he wasn’t gloating, or rubbing in how he’d made her weep. She never cried, dammit. At least, not where people could see her. And she’d blubbered like a baby for Michael.
Rose shivered, feeling chilled all over.
“Cold?” he asked, actually sounding concerned.
“Yeah.” Teeth chattering, Rose tucked her arms underneath her.
Michael left again, and brought back a summer-weight blanket that he draped over her. “The chill—it’s normal. Sub drop,” he said. “Endorphins get released during a session, and sub drop can happen when your body’s processing everything.”
Rose heaved a sigh. “So I get sub drop but no subspace. Great. Just great.”
“Look on the bright side. You handled the first of his kink. But there’s a lot more than spanking in that movie. I’m not sure that you’re up for it—physically, emotionally, psychologically—after what you’ve been through.”
Rose turned her head to the side and looked at Michael. “I made up my mind going in that, whatever happened, they wouldn’t touch my soul. And they didn’t. They haven’t. I’m good.”
“Are you?” Michael angled his head, his brilliant blue eyes quietly assessing. “Tell me about it, and I’ll be the judge. Nothing more’s going to happen until I know what I’m dealing with. I need to avoid or anticipate triggers. Surely you haven’t forgotten earlier.”
“No,” she said softly. “I just—it’s nothing that I can’t handle. Krissy got the worst of it. Reaper was saving me for Sig.”
“But you heard her. You were there when they dragged her off and when they brought her back. You know, people get PTSD from seeing things, not just experiencing them first hand. It fucks with your mind, and you won’t even know it until you’re huddled on the floor or frozen in place, or you find yourself hiding or fighting to get away. So tell me,” he said.
All things considered, he was the safest person to talk to. Her family would really be out for blood if they heard how she’d been treated. Maybe if she told Michael, she could let it go and move on.
And so she did. She told him about working late, being at Angel Ink when the Demons broke in. “They found my ID, knew who I was, and called Reaper to see what to do with me. They took me to the safehouse and held me for him. They stuck me in the basement with a bucket in the corner for when I had to go. Fed me when they remembered I was down there. Finally let me shower after the third day of using a slop pail with no toilet tissue. My clothes were nasty. They let me wash them when I did their laundry. I was upstairs when the news came on about the Blackwater Demons in Minnesota.”
Michael pinned her with his gaze. “Back the fuck up. They let you shower and wash your clothes. Did they give you something to wear while you were doing laundry?”
“No. I wore the bathsheet around me that I’d dried off with…after the shower….” She felt the crimson tide rise in her cheeks, remembering h
ow they’d watched. What they’d done….
One look at Michael’s face, and she could tell that he knew something had happened. He knew. But how much should she tell him?
“What happened in the shower, Rose? Before, during, and after. All of it,” he added meaningfully. He wanted the truth. He wouldn’t settle for less.
“There was this one Demon—Bull—who kept tempting me with bathroom time if I’d flash my tits. I never would. But the third day, I was told to take a shower. It wasn’t an option. The four of them, um, made me keep the door open so they could watch. They…they jacked off while I washed…and shot their loads on me when they finished. I, um, made sure that I was rinsed clean, that everything was gone, before getting out. But they never touched me. They were saving me for Reaper.”
Goddamn pervs. They deserved to die.
“And Reaper saved you for Sig. Tell me about Reaper. What happened when he came?”
There went her blush again. There was no hiding it, with that pale Irish skin of hers. “They had me take another shower, to get myself prepped for him. Reaper likes his cunts shaved, and I was told to…I had to…anyway, I put my clothes back on and went back to the basement.
“I heard them come. Reaper and the others who rode in with him were upstairs for a while. I guess they were filling the rest in on what was going on in Minnesota and talking club business. They kept me downstairs, until Mojo—their Sergeant—came for me. He took me upstairs to a second floor bedroom and left me with Reaper.”
She bit her lip. Michael’s jaw ticked.
“And what happened then, Rose? What the hell happened with Reaper?”
Chapter Seven
“Rose?”
Michael waited, and waited. Each passing second wound him tighter and tighter. By the time she finally answered him, he could feel the blood pulsing in his veins.
“He had me take off my shirt,” she croaked, cheeks burning with shame. “He wanted me to take off my bra, too, but I—I couldn’t do it. I told Reaper that I’ve never been with anyone. He, um, used a finger to check me, to make sure I was telling the truth.” Her lips formed the parody of a smile. “He was actually kind of pissed that I was. Anyway, Reaper decided to save me for Sig and ordered his men to pick up another “party favor”—a girl with experience who could handle them. I went back to the basement, and they came back with Krissy.”
