No, instead, he was pulling me around the building, dragging me down this large alley sort of thing between what was obviously a new addition to the building and the part of the other, older addition to a building that had obviously been a mechanic shop at one time.
"What are..." I started, hearing an odd thud. Even as I looked to try to find the source, my glass was pulled from my hand and dropped, creating another thud.
But I didn't get a chance to look down and see the glasses spilling their contents onto the dry summer grass.
Because one moment, his arm was still around my shoulders, the next, I was pressed up against a wall, his arms caging me in beside my shoulders.
"I'm doing this," he said, just a split second before his lips crashed down on mine.
And I swear, I swear on what very little faith I had in any kind of goodness in the world, the contact was an electrical current through my body. It sparked where his lips claimed mine- hot, undeniable. Then it fired through my veins, making everything inside feel hot, borderline burning. And the current shot a white hot spark between my legs, so intense that they felt shaky, making my hands claw at the sides of his cut, fingers digging in, holding on for dear life as his tongue parted my lips and moved inside to claim mine.
There was a throaty, whimpering noise that barely sounded like me. It was pure need, desperation. And while they were emotions I was all-too familiar with, I had never heard the sounds coming out of me, always having been someone who had a lot of pride and therefore didn't like to show that kind of vulnerability to anyone- not even someone I was sleeping with.
In response, completely wiping away any niggling insecurity I might have felt in making the sound in the first place, Niro made a deep, growling rumble noise from somewhere buried in his chest. And the vibration of it caused absolute chaos through my system as my hands left his cut and slipped under. They slid down slightly to slip under the material of his wifebeater and landed on his hot skin, the muscles hard and delicious beneath, begging me to feel more. So I went ahead and slid up his firm ab muscles then around his sides to his back.
Shameless, my hands were.
Greedy too, as my fingers found smoothness, knowing they were scars, and unable to do anything but stroke over them.
He made that noise again as he grabbed my lower lip between his teeth, biting hard, as his hand moved from the wall and slid down my back, grabbing my ass firmly through my dress, and dragging my softer body against his harder one.
And I mean hard.
His heavy jean material was hardly managing to contain his straining cock.
As if knowing exactly how wanton I was that minute, his hand slipped slightly from my ass so that it was hauling up my thigh, then ground himself against me.
My mouth tore from his, an almost pained cry escaping my lips as my head angled up, looking into the dark, star-riddled sky. Taking the opportunity, the delicious scrape of his scruff burned across the column of my neck. If I thought that was intoxicating, though, it was nothing compared to his lips closing in on that sensitive flesh and sucking gently. Not enough to create a mark, but enough to make me seriously reconsider if I had ever been truly turned on before in my life. Because nothing, literally nothing, had ever come close to this.
So when he released my ass, grabbing my hip, and slamming me back against the unyielding wall, and his hand started bunching up my floor length skirt, I didn't even consider thinking it over, making the 'smart' decision.
I just let him expose my skin to the humid night air.
I just let his other hand hold up the whole of my maxi skirt as his other whispered up my thigh.
My head slammed back into the wall as his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, a strange heaviness taking over my chest and lower stomach.
I finally understood the term- clawing need.
Because that was how it felt. It felt like being ripped apart with the desire for something that you needed as much as your next breath.
And as his teeth bit into my neck, his fingers pressed against my panties, making an almost shrill moan escape me as my head slammed forward, burying into his neck.
He didn't pause.
He didn't ask if it was alright.
Because, quite frankly, he didn't need to.
Everything in my reaction was giving him permission to move his hand up, to slide under the waistband of my panties, and to stroke his fingers up my slick heat.
"Mmm," he growled against my ear as his thumb found my clit, causing that somewhat shaky sensation in my thigh muscles to become actual quivering that made my arms slide up his back and hold on hard to his shoulders, sure that they might give out at any moment. "Fuck yeah, you better hold on tight, pet. This is about to get a fuckuva lot better." With that, his thumb pressed my clit, and two fingers slid down and thrust inside me, causing the seemingly inevitable muscle failure in my thighs, leaving me clinging to him.
This in no way hindered him as he pressed me harder against the wall and finger fucked me rougher than I knew it was possible to, the thrusts unrelenting and hard as his thumb remained a constant presence on my clit.
Then, just as the fog of desire started to clear, allowing a tiny sliver of doubt to sashay in, as if he somehow even sensed the transition, his fingers stopped thrusting, curled inside me, and started raking over my G-spot with the exact perfect pressure.
It was all of maybe four strokes before the orgasm completely crashed through my system, breaking apart everything inside as I cried out into his neck, fingers digging into his shoulders, my entire body seeming to do a strange, out of control shaking thing for a long minute as the waves washed through me.
I came back down slowly. His fingers slid out of me, pulling my skirt back down. As for me, well, I maybe clung to him for a long time, face buried in his neck, hands still digging into his flesh. My heart was a hummingbird's wings. My air felt compressed in my chest, making each indrawn breath labored, almost painful.
And it was right about then that the common sense and sanity I had been seeking when I stopped at the gates came crashing back into my system, making me uncomfortably aware of what I had just done.
I got fingered by a man whose name I didn't know.
Who I had only met all of an hour before.
Who was a gun-running biker.
Who wouldn't remember me in a day.
Oh, God.
Had I truly sunk so low?
And, I mean, I thought I knew low. I had been at rock bottom for a long while, almost comfortable with the fact that there was no further to sink. Then a goddamn trap door opened beneath me and let me slip just a little further down.
Lovely.
Just great.
Well, at the very least I could do away with one small bit of the shame I was feeling.
I pulled slightly back, finding him waiting for me to look at him, those sexy, dark eyes of his still heavy-lidded in his own unattended to desire. I almost lost my nerve. Hell, I almost wanted to reach between us and give him a hint of what he gave me.
But I shook my head slightly and opened my mouth to finally, finally ask his name.
That was when we weren't alone anymore.
"Hey!" a male voice yelled from the mouth of the alley, making Niro's brow raise as he released me enough to turn, slipping an arm around my lower back, and facing the voice.
"Fuck off," Niro said, voice almost bored-sounding, but firm.
And had the man standing there not been so drunk that he was a little wobbly, he might have taken the threat in it.
"Naw, man. I've been looking for you everywhere."
There was a deep exhale from Niro as he released me, making me do a horrifying stumble without the support, something I was sure he didn't see as he was already moving toward the end of the alley.
As for me, well, I wasn't feeling overly comfortable being in a dead-end alley with two biker-type guys blocking me in, so I followed his path and slipped behind him to the side just as he
was almost toe-to-toe with the drunk guy who, I realized now that we were closer, didn't have a biker cut on.
"And why's that?" Niro asked, voice stupidly sexy even to my orgasm-sated system.
"I heard you were the tough guy," the drunk guy slurred. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his skin flushed with however much booze was in his system.
"Alright," Niro invited further explanation.
"Yeah, well, I'm here to show you that you're not going to have that title for much long..."
He lost the rest of his sentence because, in a move that was almost too fast for my eyes to catch, Niro half-turned back, curled a fist, cocked his arm, and slammed it into the drunk's face. But alcohol being a numbing thing, the drunk guy didn't back down like he maybe should have considering one punch knocked him into the wall and would have knocked him down otherwise. No, instead, he charged Niro.
And then all I saw was red.
Literally.
Red blood flying everywhere.
It was right about that moment as well that a crowd started to form, half and mostly-drunk men cheering on the utter bloodbath Niro was creating.
Me? I was perfectly fine with cinematic gore. I didn't so much as blanch when I saw movie blood. But, well, I got light-headed when I stubbed my toe once and tore my toenail off. I wasn't good with real life blood.
On top of that, I wasn't exactly comfortable with masculine violence. I mean, really, was there any woman who was? It always made your belly wobble, made you genuinely fear that that anger might shift and turn and find a new target. You.
Then the whipped cream and cherry placed above all of that was the fact that I just let that fearsome beast of a man finger fuck me in an alley.
Which needed to be a five-dollar wine-soaked memory in about one hour.
So I did the only smart, prudent, me-like thing- I freaking ran.
And I didn't look back.
THREE
Kennedy- 6 days later
"Earth to Kenny," the slightly effeminate voice called from behind me, making my entire body jerk, and the scissors I had been pulling out of cleaning solution clatter to the floor.
It was one of those days. The 'nothing can seem to go right' days. My phone charger died while my phone was on it the night before, so my alarm didn't go off, making me wake up almost forty minutes late. And of course it couldn't be one of those mornings when you woke up and your hair was doing that endearing bed-sexy thing. No, it was a rat's nest, so I had to take the time to wash and style it. Time which I obviously did not have given that I woke up late. But my job demanded I didn't show up looking like crap. Then I got to work, finding Benny waiting out front for me, looking apologetic already, and I knew it was a pile-on day.
Turned out that the back window had a brick through it from some asshole teen or something. Which, well, wasn't a huge deal once we cleaned up the glass and sealed it. There would be no new window for a long time since I couldn't afford it, but it was in the stock room, so it didn't matter.
It was just one thing on the long list of bad stuff happening that particular morning.
See, me, I owned a salon.
That was a truly generous word for my business.
The room itself was all of ten by ten. We had two chairs for cutting, a nail station, and a pedicure chair. That left a small aisle down the center that Benny and I were constantly brushing shoulders through all day. Back when I first opened, I had had just enough money to make it how I wanted it, so the floor was a deep gray as was the back wall you faced when you came in, the chairs, both nail stations, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and the very small reception area beside the door. The remaining walls were a vivid pink, giving the whole place an incredibly girly and welcoming feel.
It felt like coming home when I walked inside.
And, usually, it was comforting enough to take some of my usual stress away for the eight to twelve hours I was there every day of the week.
Benny joined my team about three months after I opened when I realized my somewhat small, but loyal, customer base was growing, and I needed help.
He was maybe the only friend I had in the world, and I felt no small amount of guilt that I could no longer offer him the raise I had promised when I first hired him. It was something he waved off (and truly meant) because he made crazy tips given that he was the most personable and charismatic person anyone had ever met. But I still felt bad about it.
"Sorry, one of those days," I said, shaking my head, catching the motion in one of the scalloped mirrors on the wall. I wasn't looking great. I couldn't blame the waking up late, either. I just wasn't sleeping properly, wasn't eating properly, and was pretty much living on caffeine and the ever-present buzz to the system that was stress. I was losing weight, and my under-eye bruises were getting so dark that my makeup wasn't really covering it anymore.
"Yeah, sweets, you've been having a lot of those lately." Benny wasn't one for sugarcoating things. Not even to customers. I once caught him spinning a girl in her chair, cocking a hip, and flat-out telling her that her boyfriend was a shithead and she should dump him.
He was tall and lean, always dressed in impeccably fitting clothes be they jeans and a button-up or a full-on outfit. His hair was slightly long on top, black, and styled. His eyes were the warmest shade of green I had ever seen, and he was quick with a smile.
"I know, Benny. I'm sor..."
"Oh, enough with the apologizing," he said, rolling his eyes. "I wasn't criticizing you. I'm just saying, you need to find a way to loosen up a bit, get rid of some of that stress. You're going to implode at this rate."
Benny knew the whole story, the ugly details. This was because Benny had been directly impacted by it all. He was, therefore, always trying to cheer me up, help me out in his slick little ways.
He brought me coffee in the morning. He packed lunches for both of us because he said he had 'leftovers,' even though it was painfully clear he had bought the damn food for us. He offered to do my highlights for me. He painted my nails.
But that was about as far as I would let it go, no matter how much he offered to help in other ways.
"Another year," I said, putting the scissors back in the solution, and dropping down in the chair. "I just need one more year of this and things should be better."
"Honey, you won't last another month at this rate."
He wasn't wrong.
It had been a long, impossible road for longer than I cared to admit. And lately, for some reason, it was really weighing me down. I felt heavy. My footsteps felt weighted.
"I just..." I started, only to be cut off by the sound of the bell on the door, surprising me since we didn't have any clients for another hour.
"I just need to make a damn appointment."
"Do it on your fucking phone like a normal person."
"No," I gasped, drawing Benny's attention, brows drawing together, as I felt my heart skip into overdrive.
Because... no.
No freaking way.
"We were walking past for chrissakes," the female voice said, and I could almost hear the eye-roll she was giving him. "It takes a lot of effort to keep up this color," she added.
"Hi!" Benny said after big-eyeing me in a very 'what the fuck is wrong with you' kind of way, beaming at the couple behind me.
Couple.
Because why else would they be walking by together, right?
Niro was a part of a couple.
And he had finger fucked me in an alley at a biker compound.
Good lord.
Apparently, the floor underneath the trap door I fell in was weak, and I dropped through and into a shit-filled cesspool.
I could add 'other woman' to the long list of bad stuff that had happened that year.
"Welcome to Kennedy's Beauty."
Why, oh, why did I have to name my salon after myself?
I stiffened in my seat, trying to mentally remind myself that Kennedy wasn't exactly a strange name. It might not have been
super popular, but it wasn't rare either. There could totally be two women named Kennedy in Navesink Bank.
"Can I help you set up an appointment to keep that violet as stunning as it already is?" Benny asked, walking past me toward the desk where I was vaguely aware of him walking her through the appointment process over the whooshing sound of my blood through my ears.
And then hands clamped down on the armrests to my sides, a body folding forward, warm breath on my ear. "Did you think I wouldn't know it was you, pet?"
Oh, God.
Great.
Just lovely.
He was going to be inappropriate right there in front of his girl, and it was going to be a scene, and that would just be the whipped cream on the shitpie of my year.
"Don't," I heard escape my lips, not being aware I was going to say it until it was out of me, the sound pleading, but still steely.
"Don't what?" he asked, leaning closer, his chest brushing the back of my shoulders, his lips almost touching my ear. "Don't tell you I was more than a little disappointed that you didn't stick around so I could get a taste? Because I fucking was."
"Alright, all set," the woman called, making me stiffen all the more, something I didn't know was possible because I already felt like my spine was reinforced by steel.
"But now I know where to find you," he added, leaning the slightest bit down, and planting a hard kiss right underneath my ear, before standing, and walking out.
Holy crap.
Holy crap.
I had barely had a second for that thought to form before I felt my chair whipped to the side, forcing me to face my own reflection. I found my cheeks a bit heated, my eyes way too heavy-lidded.
I also found Benny standing there with a brow raise, hands on the back of my seat.
"Spill."
I swallowed hard, looking for the will to lie. I couldn't find it, so I tried to evade. "Spill what?"
"Oh, yeah, okay," he scoffed, shaking his head. "Because it is commonplace for a Henchmen to walk his sexy bad boy ass in here, get all up in your personal space, and kiss your neck. That happens everyday in this hot pink vagina-colored salon."
Pagan (The Henchmen MC Book 8) Page 3
