Still, it hadn’t stopped me from retorting, “With this body, I thee worship,” and satisfaction had filled me to see that gleam in his eyes once more. A gleam that had chills running up and down my spine, that made me think of the mess he’d left me in this morning.
He’d reached up, cupped my cheek, and with his thumb against my bottom lip, he’d murmured, “Be careful what you promise. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”
I’d never know what made me do it, but I let my tongue flutter out to rub over the tip of his thumb. An expletive escaped him, bursting free from him like it was beyond his control, but it didn’t make him move back, didn’t make him drop his hand.
The promise in his eyes told me that the second this apartment was empty, I’d be a married woman in all the ways the law required.
Maybe that sense of security gave me the balls to do it, to whisper, “You have no reason to believe me, Brennan, no reason whatsoever. You’ve been a gentleman, and you’ve gone above and beyond whatever my mother could possibly have expected, but...” I’d sucked in a breath. “I’ll do my best to be a good wife to you. To make you not regret what you’re doing. To change this ‘mess’ into something good, great, even.”
His mouth curved into a smile that might have been cynical, but equally, might have been genuine. “Don’t worry, Camille. I’ll lead the way.”
As I promised myself to him, and as he did the same to me, with a man called Tinker overseeing the vows, those words haunted me.
‘I’ll lead the way.’
He was bossy, dominant. A little too like my father. By reputation, I knew he was quick to temper, and was aware that he was even quicker to commit violence. But he’d been kind to Victoria this morning. He’d been patient as the hours passed and she watched cartoons on the TV, little sniffles escaping her every now and then that I knew came not from grief but from a selfish concern for herself—who could blame her?
But she didn’t have to worry.
I’d protect her, and I knew, now, that Brennan would too.
I’d seen his relief when she’d said that she wanted to live with Inessa, which had told me one very important thing—he’d have let her live here if she’d wished it.
Which led me to another important fact—family really was everything to him.
And that meant I had to become family. Not just in name, but in deed.
I’d find out over the upcoming weeks if being married to him was enough to join that lofty group, or if it required something else of me, but it gave me hope.
Brennan might seem like my father on the surface, but he wasn’t in the ways that mattered.
Thank God.
When Victoria got a text from Inessa telling her she was back in the city, that seemed to be the trigger for a mass exodus.
Eoghan and Brennan must have discussed the situation at some point because the second she received that text, his crew got to their feet, and Brennan informed me, “Forrest will drop off Victoria at Eoghan’s apartment.” Then, to Victoria, he’d said, “Eoghan will introduce you to a new guard. It’s down to you if you want him or Forrest.”
Victoria blinked. “I get a choice?”
Brennan’s smile was soft, but somehow all the more dangerous because of it. “The Irish do things differently.”
She bit her lip, sending a cautious look Forrest’s way. “Do you mind, Forrest?”
“Nah.” He’d winked. “Driving you around the place will be fun.”
“Will it?” Her eyes rounded. “I only go to school. That’s not fun.”
Brennan snorted. “Let’s keep it that way.” He raised a hand. “Meet Eoghan’s guy first. We want you to be comfortable.”
Her eyes turned into silver pennies, and I got it. Comfort, choice... these were like curse words for us. Neither was an option. We got what we were given and we were grateful for it.
“Thank you, Brennan,” Victoria said, but it wasn’t parroted. Words trotted out of politeness. There was a heartfelt gratitude to them, and it made me realize that somehow, amid the weeds growing in my father’s household, he’d managed to cultivate a hothouse flower.
Victoria, now she was free of his poison, would be the best of all of us.
After some flustered goodbyes, awkward congratulations and bewildered, grief-stricken smiles, I’d watched her get into the elevator and had stayed there until the doors closed on us both.
That was when Brennan asked me, “Why are things strained between you?”
I turned around and found him leaning against the door to the living room.
My husband.
It had happened so fast, so much faster than I had imagined, and in circumstances a thousand times deadlier than I could have foreseen.
Mama had somehow predicted that her daughters would need a man like this, would need a protector and a guardian, and she’d tied him to us. She’d had no way of knowing that he’d be honorable enough to respect that promise, but her faith hadn’t been wasted.
That was why I told him the truth.
I’d never lie to him. I’d do what I could to be the perfect wife in thanks for what he’d done for me.
“Because I left.”
He arched a brow. “That’s it? Older siblings often leave.”
My smile was sad. “I cut myself off entirely.”
“Inessa knew where you were. Eoghan told me as much.”
“It comes as no surprise that Father had my whereabouts investigated.” I pulled a face. “It’s why I went where I did.”
“From one wolf’s lair to another?”
I hummed. “Truthfully, if he’d wanted me back, nothing would have stopped him… I didn’t go to the MC for a long time.”
“No?” He folded his arms across his chest. “What changed?”
“Poverty,” I told him shortly. “It sucks.”
“That it does.”
I sniffed. “As if you even know what it feels like to be poor.” I raised my hands, encompassing the massive apartment that was as big as my father’s mansion, just in the sky instead of on the ground.
“I can imagine.”
“You can’t. Not knowing where the next cent is going to come from, working so hard you cry yourself to sleep at night from exhaustion, but even though you spend every hour you’re awake working, it’s never enough.” I grimaced at the memories. “I did it for four years—”
“So long?”
I nodded. “Better that than the life Father wanted for me.” I tipped my chin up. “I’d gone to quite a few parties at the MC over the years, but only to check things out. I knew, if Father ever sniffed around, I had to look as though I was one of them, but Nyx...” I cleared my throat, trying not to show the pain that speared me in two at just thinking of him. “...he’s the MC’s Enforcer, well, he was back then—”
“I know who he is,” Brennan rumbled.
“He’s very protective of women. You could dance naked on the snooker table and every court and jury in the land might tell you that you deserved to be attacked, but on his watch, you were safe. I went to two other clubhouses while I was with the Sinners, and I saw how they treated the women, like they were animals.” I shook my head. “I was fortunate.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“Maybe,” I conceded.
“What made you turn to them in the end?”
“A roommate who ran off with her boyfriend and that month’s rent, then a further two late payments. I was on my ass. I could either go back to Father or I could try something new.”
“You say that like it was a different recipe for cookies.”
“Maybe it was. You think in those four years I had much of a life?” I sneered at him. “I was working every moment I had awake. When I...” I straightened my shoulders, ready and waiting for him to mock me or, worse, to call me a liar. “When I went to the MC, I was a virgin.”
For a moment, I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. His expression of bland interest didn’t
change until something flared in his eyes. “They should be shot.”
Surprise had me flinching. “Why?”
“Passing around a virgin—no wonder you’re frigid at first.”
“Ouch,” I bit off.
He wafted a hand. “You make chalk look slick, Camille. There’s no denying it. You have issues with sex.”
“I don’t,” I denied.
“You’re an ex-clubwhore. You’re used to spreading them for any two-bit fucking biker—”
I growled at that. “Whether or not that was how I spent the past few years, they were my choice. For the first time in my life, I was free.” I didn’t tell the prim bastard that that wasn’t how I’d spent my years at the clubhouse. For over eighteen months, I’d been Nyx’s girl, which meant I was hands’ off.
“Nobody is free,” Brennan countered. “And lying on your back and spreading your legs to pay for your rent isn’t what I call free. Sounds more like prostitution.”
“Thinking of getting an annulment?” I snapped, but the second I dropped the words, I regretted them. I clapped a hand to my mouth, wishing them back, dreading his answer because why wouldn’t he say no when he thought I’d gone through a chapter of bikers faster than Chlamydia?
Fire danced in his eyes, which was ironic because shadows seemed to crawl over his face. It sounded like something from a nightmare, but instead, that darkness called to me.
I was used to the dark.
The light was what frightened me.
He strode forward, not stopping when he met me, pushing me backward, further and further until I bumped into the nearest wall. He collided with me, his body against mine, his hardness against the little softness on my frame. My hands automatically went up to stop him, to push him away, but he was like a Mack truck. Intent on one thing, and one thing only.
Making a point.
He grabbed my hands but before he could raise them high, I threaded my fingers through his. It derailed him, my acceptance of his desires flashing him out of his mood for a split second before he lifted our joined hands and pinned me to the wall, binding me in place for the fourth time since we’d met.
We all had our kinks, was this his?
He bowed his head and, in my ear, whispered, “You’re many things, Camille, but destined to be a clubwhore? No.” He pulled back to glower at me. “That you could degrade yourself like that fucks me up, and I have no right to feel that way. You should mean shit to me. You’re a duty, a favor called in. This entire thing should mean nothing, and yet, the fact that you slice your palms angers me like nothing else. That you spread your legs for a battalion of bikers to make rent makes me want to kill your father, and makes me pissed at you because you took that opportunity away from me.
“You’re okay with marrying a man your mother screwed because you’re desperate, and that pisses me off too.” His mouth curved up into a mean snarl, but before he could carry on slaying me with his words, his cell phone rang, vibrating between us in a way that had me jerking with surprise because it was low down against my pelvis.
He noticed.
Of course.
“Keep your hands above your head,” he commanded, his snarl transforming into a smirk as he reached down to get his phone.
He proceeded to stun the hell out of me by sliding his hand over my hip and snagging the skirt of my dress, tugging it higher so skin could touch skin.
My gaze was glued to his as he pressed the phone between my legs, over the second pair of his briefs I wore, and slotted the thin device along the length of my pussy.
For whatever reason, the caller didn’t give up, if anything, they refused because the pulsing of the vibrations carried on for just long enough to get me wet. For that delicious twinge in my belly to stir to life, for my pussy to contract around the emptiness inside it. All the while, we stayed locked together, our eyes tangled, until the ringing stopped.
I thought he’d move away, pull back, ring whoever it was that found it important enough to stay on the line for that long, but he didn’t. He angled the phone so just the corner was pressed against my clit, after he used that handy split seam to slide his fingers through the gap and to find their way to my slit.
He thrust two thick fingers into me without even testing if I was ready, and though I was wet, the act had me surging onto my tiptoes and my pussy clenching down around him.
“Your mouth tells me one thing,” he snarled into my ear, just as the phone started to ring again and that goddamn pulsation recommenced, “but this cunt tells me another. There’s no way in fuck you’ve serviced an MC.”
“I-I—” I sputtered wordlessly, my head rocking back against the wall as the thick fullness of his fingers combined with the vibrations that seemed to be even more powerful now he’d angled the phone directly on my clit had me gasping for air.
“Y-You?” he mocked, so hatefully I wanted to slap him, but I didn’t.
Couldn’t.
He was being a jerk but, God help me, this felt so good. Too good to spoil, to let the glimmer of an orgasm in the distance go to waste.
Shamefully, I lifted my leg, hooking it on his and curling my foot around his calf so I could arch my hips. The moment I did, the relief was exquisite, and he knew, because he pulled out, then thrust into me with three fingers.
He scissored them open and closed for a second, then started to thrust into me in time to the pulses. The phone stopped and started again, and within thirty seconds, I wasn’t just climbing the way toward an orgasm, I was there.
A hoarse shout escaped me, one loaded with my surprise and my glee as I rocked into him as fast as he thrust into me, riding the waves of pleasure as they hit me square in the face.
Gasping, I pushed my forehead against his chest, dragging it from side to side as he carried on, raking his fingers down the front wall of my cunt, hitting some secret spot that had a scream splitting my ears as I cried out, howling with the pleasure/pain that had me reaching around, my fingers digging into his back as he bombarded me with the most acute ecstasy I’d ever experienced in my life.
When his cell rang off for the final time, I was left a panting mess in his arms. Unsure of what to expect, and my brain fried, I let him prop me up. Then, I heard the dull thud of the device colliding with the carpet and groaned when his hand grabbed me by the hair and he dragged my head back so there was no hiding from him.
No evading that gimlet stare that was starting to make me feel as if he could see into my very soul.
How did he know me so little and know me so well at the same time?
And what would he come to learn after we spent years together?
Before fear could overcome me, he tightened his grip on my hair, tugging so that I felt the pain of it, then simultaneously withdrew his fingers from my still-twitching pussy. I knew what he wanted, so I opened my mouth to give it to him.
The shadows retreated for a second, just a second, as he looked at my lips, stared at them and the round ‘O’ I made before I took his offering, sliding my tongue around the digits to lick them clean, before they returned full blast when he murmured, “You could have walked away, but it’s too late now. For both of us.”
Why did he keep on saying that? Was it a taunt?
I half expected him to leave me there, with that dire warning ringing in my ears, but he didn’t. Still with his hold on my hair, he forced me to turn around, and I complied, pressing my hands flat to the wall and resting my forehead against it too when he let go of me and moved to shape my ass with those hard fingers of his.
The tips bit into the meager curves, hard enough to bruise before he started dragging my skirt all the way up, not stopping until it was around my waist, then he pulled my borrowed underwear down, using his foot to slide them to the floor, leaving me naked from the butt down.
Brennan shoved one leg between mine, slipped his fingers around my stomach and hauling me back into him. “Grind down on my leg.”
I blinked at the wall. “I’ll get your pants dirt
y.”
“I can afford another pair of pants,” he growled, before his hand arched downwards, pressing against my pubic bone in a way that did strange things to my insides.
Doing as he asked, I swayed my hips from side to side, trying to grind on him like he wanted, and while it didn’t rub my clit at all, it made me incredibly aware of just how wet I was. Of how pleasure could exist without a peak.
Groaning when he reached up to palm one of my breasts, I listened as he whispered in my ear, his breath brushing my earlobe as he communicated with me in what I was coming to learn was one of his most favorite ways, “You’re not going to come like this. You’re just going to be hyper aware of that pussy. It isn’t greedy right now. If anything, it’s been starved and doesn’t recognize what it needs. But soon, when it gets a sniff of my hands or my dick or my mouth, it’s going to get hungry. You’re going to be desperate for my dick, Camille. Absolutely fucking desperate for it.”
My eyelids fluttered at his words. “Why do you want that?”
“Because that way I’ll erase every other son of a bitch who’s been inside you.” He nipped on my earlobe. “That phone call will have been important. All my calls are. But I shoved it aside, for you.” He squeezed on my nipple. “I’ll have to go out soon. I want you to make an appointment with a clinic.”
Hurt washed through me, extinguishing some of the liquid pleasure I’d felt in my core. “W-Why? I already showed you my clean bill of health.”
“Because I want you on birth control. I’m not ready for you to have my kids yet.”
Was that a compliment or an insult?
Wasn’t I good enough now that he supposedly knew how many guys I’d fucked?
He bit down on my earlobe, harder than before, harder than ever. “Unfurl those fucking hands of yours.”
I hadn’t even realized I’d done that. Unaware of the gesture that was second nature to me, I blinked and found my hands were, in fact, curled into tight fists that I’d rested against the wall. Carefully doing as he asked, and trying not to moan as I did so because I didn’t want to anger an already pissed off beast, I whispered, “You said you wanted children.”
Filthy Sex: The Five Points’ Mob Collection: Four Page 19
