Black (Thor Book 1)
Page 6
“Ronnie,” I said sternly. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“One for the road?”
I surprised myself when I started laughing and calmed down enough to shake my head and mumble something about fresh air.
It was the end of the summer, but still warm through the evenings, so I didn’t need a jacket on top of my short, wide skirt and thin shirt. It felt good to get away for a little while and stand at the far end of the compound to lean my arms on the fence and watch the outline of the mountains against the dark sky.
“Hey,” a deep voice said, and then I had a hand on each side of my arms, and Black behind me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said and twisted around to look at him.
I didn’t step out of his loose embrace, and as I leaned back against the fence, he slowly slid his arm around me. Then his other hand was in my hair.
“Cassandra,” he murmured. “Gonna kiss you now, babe.”
“Yeah,” I repeated and watched his face soften.
Then his mouth was on mine.
It wasn’t the hard, deep kiss he’d given me on the side of the road when a police officer watched us in his mirrors. His lips were soft, and then his tongue slid inside.
I moved my hands in under his tee and felt his grip tighten around my neck to tilt my head further back. We kissed, and it felt lazy and sweet, and slowly, a soft burn spread through me. My breath hitched, and his hand slid down to settle on my hip.
“Come here,” he murmured and pulled me in behind the house at the end, which I knew was his.
There was a bench there, and he sat down, pulling at me until I straddled him.
“Baby,” he said. “Give me that mouth again.”
There was a smile playing at his lips, but his eyes had darkened, and I felt his hard crotch against mine.
And then we kissed again, and he slid his hands up my thighs and around to hold my ass and grind it against him. I held on to his strong shoulders and let him rock me in a way that rubbed my clit over his jeans, making me burn for more.
One for the road, Ronnie had said, and there wasn’t anything else on my mind right then. I was leaving, but tomorrow was another day, so I’d deal with it when it hit me and live in this moment when everything in me shivered with the need to get my hands on him. When all I could think about was getting closer to him.
“Black,” I murmured, and moved back a little on his lap.
I held his gaze while I unbuttoned his jeans, and he shifted slightly when I pulled them down. He’d eschewed briefs, and I pulled his cock out.
It should feel naughty to do what we did, right there in the open where anyone could come walking but I didn’t care. The pulse beat heavily between my legs, and I looked down at him. He was long and wide and rock hard, and not freakishly enormous, but yeah. Bigger than I’d expected.
My eyes flew to his and he must have seen my surprise because he grinned crookedly and shrugged.
“Babe,” he murmured but exhaled hoarsely when I started stroking him. “Yeah,” he added on another exhale, and tilted his head back as he groaned softly.
His hands moved over my hip, and then he ripped the side of my lace panties open and pulled them away. Before I could react, he slid a hand over my pussy and a long finger inside.
I gasped but kept moving my hands, and he used his free hand to slowly open my shirt and push my bra down until he could take a nipple into his mouth. We kept stroking each other until we were both breathing heavily, and then he moved my hands aside, put two strong hands on my behind and lifted me up.
“Put me inside, Cassandra,” he whispered. “God, babe. Gotta have you.”
I did what he asked, and slowly, he pushed me down on his hard cock. When I had all of him in me, he held me still, and we looked at each other.
“Good?” he asked.
“God, yes,” I breathed out.
I wanted to start moving my hips in a way that would make me explode, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Slow and easy,” he breathed into my mouth. “So sweet, baby.”
He set the pace, and I followed while we kissed.
The burn was building, and I couldn’t hold back a soft whimper. It would hit me, and I started moving faster.
“Fuck,” Black grunted. “Fuck, yes.”
He used one hand to help me move and started bucking his hips as our pace increased and became almost desperate.
I opened my mouth when it washed over me, but he quickly used his free hand to push my head down and took the sounds I made into his mouth. He growled deeply while I came, and the vibrations slid down my throat to set off another long shiver. Then he suddenly yanked me off him and burrowed his face against my breasts, groaning hoarsely. I felt his hand move behind me when he came with an outdrawn rumbled, “Cassandra.”
We held on to each other, and I wasn’t sure if I should say something but was also too sated to care and let my mouth move over his neck instead.
“Thank you,” I mumbled finally.
He’d given me the best fucking fantastic sex in my entire life, on a bench outside his home with the mountains behind us. I straightened and watched his soft face and the way the skin crinkled around his eyes.
He pulled my head down and kissed me gently.
I closed my eyes and kissed him back, trying my best to forget that I was leaving the next day.
***
Black
Black watched Cas walk away and wanted to get up on his bike and go with them.
He wouldn’t, but he wanted to.
They had talked the night before, and he knew she had to leave.
“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter,” she said. “Desi is in a program for gifted kids, and it’s her last year. I can’t pull her out of it. She so is clever, Black, and I can’t. I have to go.”
What the hell was he supposed to say? He wanted to roar at her but he couldn’t.
And he also couldn’t leave.
“Dad is getting older,” he said with a sigh. “I have to run the garage, Cas. We have three employees, and they are good guys, but they can’t run the thing. And they have families. There aren’t a lot of jobs up here.”
She’d leaned her forehead against his, and he felt her swallow.
“Roddy seems tired,” she murmured.
“He’s getting older.”
“He doesn’t seem like a tired kind of man,” she said, and he felt a shot of unease settle in his gut. “He should see a doctor.”
“Yeah.”
Shit. He’d always thought Roderick Hagen would live for-fucking-ever, but he wouldn’t.
“Talk to him?”
He nodded, and she raised her head to look at him.
“So, Cas, you have to go, and I can’t leave,” he murmured.
“I know.”
He could go down to her on weekends and whatever, and she could visit. They could find a way. Could he do that? A long-fucking-distance relationship?
He hadn’t wanted a relationship at all, and least of all with someone like Cassandra Davis.
“You should...” she paused and swallowed. “We had this night, Black. Later... we’ll just see, okay?”
Maybe she didn’t want to have a relationship either?
“I’m not going to mope around here, waiting for you,” he heard himself say.
“I know,” she said with a small smile that looked sad.
Black shook off his thoughts and watched Cas hug his parents.
Right.
Fuck it.
He’d call her in a few days.
They could find a way.
“Bye, Black,” a small voice said quietly next to him.
“Bye, Desiree,” he said. “See you around, kiddo.”
“Absolutely,” she quipped.
“It’ll be good to get home,” he said. “You must miss your dad.”
“I’ll miss you guys a lot, but yeah,” she grinned, “It’ll be good to go home, and I do miss Dad.”
Cassandra called out for Desi to come and say goodbye, and the girl picked her backpack up.
“You didn’t know? We live in the same house,” she said over her shoulder, and everything inside him stilled.
In the same house.
Cassandra was still married to Desi’s father.
She waved at him, but all he could give her was a curt nod.
She’d thanked him for helping her daughter by fucking his brains out, and now she would go home to her husband and move on with her life.
Then she drove away, and he stood there watching her car disappear.
BETWEEN
Chapter Six
Moving on
Black
Black pulled out and snapped his briefs in place with an impatient sound. The music wasn’t loud, but it was raw, and the wailing guitar cut through him.
“She’s all yours,” he grunted, and another man moved around the woman who grinned and slowly slid her hands up her torso to cup her breasts.
Jesus. Several couples were fucking on couches and on the thick rugs, and the sounds blended with the sound of that damned guitar. He should be hard as a rock and happily pumping away, coming and making the women around him feel good.
“Something wrong?” Doug Hanes, president of the Wolves MC, asked.
“Just thirsty,” Black lied and reached for a beer.
Doug watched him for a beat but reached for a beer too, and they drank in silence.
“Who is she?” Doug asked calmly.
Black clenched his jaw and looked away.
Just saying her name in this room felt like a betrayal, and it wasn’t. Cas was back in C-Springs with her husband and daughter and lived her fucking middle-class life with her big house and big family and fancy job.
She’d given him her thanks for what he had done and disappeared down the road in a cloud of dust. All he’d ended up with was the best orgasm of his life and a goddamned email. It had been short and impersonal, sharing that they’d arrived home safely, Desi had given her statement to the police, and they were not sure what to do over the weekend but going for a ride in the mountains seemed like the best option.
He hadn’t answered because he hadn’t known what to say. Congratulations? I’m happy for you? He wasn’t fucking happy for her, and he was furious that she’d left.
Cas had given him an explanation which was only part of the truth, and that pissed him off. She’d sounded honest about why she had to leave, and he’d believed her, which pissed him off even more, so he hadn’t replied and instead spent a few weeks being angry with just about everyone. When there had been enough complaints to the president of Thor MC, his dad sent him off on a job by the border, and when he came back in the same unhappy state of mind, another one down in Wyoming.
Then Doug called and invited him to one of their parties.
It had seemed like a good idea to go, but it wasn’t. He’d had his dick in three different women since he got there and had yet to come.
“No one,” he stalled when Doug kept watching him.
“Huh.”
“Fucking shit,” Black muttered and looked over at the couch where one of the women crooked her finger and beckoned him to her.
“Close your eyes,” the man next to him said quietly.
Black turned to look into Doug’s eyes, and the pain he saw surprised him. He knew the man had lost his wife several years earlier, but they all thought he was handling it well. That he was fine. Doug’s pain must be buried deep for it to still be there even after all these years.
“What?” Black asked, not sure he wanted to hear the explanation.
“It helps if you close your eyes. Don’t touch her, close your eyes, and let go.” Doug smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. “It helps, that’s all.”
“Not fair to the woman,” Black murmured.
“The women here all have their own stories. Look around, Black. Some of them close their eyes too.”
They did, and Black took a deep pull of beer to swallow the bitter taste in his mouth. He hadn’t noticed before. He’d liked the setting and the feeling of togetherness. The unashamed fucking fun and games. He liked women and liked coming even more, and it had been a good place to be.
“Ah, don’t look like that,” Doug said. “What we do here is mostly because sex is good, and we all like the dirty little thing we got going. All I’m saying is that sometimes… We’re not twenty-something, so we all carry baggage, and sometimes that history catches up with us.” He shrugged. “So, we close our eyes for a while, until we find firm ground again.”
“Huh,” Black said because it was all he could come up with.
More than six months had passed since she left. Exactly one week since he last saw her.
Cassandra.
The second her name swept through his brain, he knew he wasn’t going to close his eyes and come with his dick inside another woman.
Not this night.
He’d give it some more time, but he would work her out from that corner in his mind where she’d settled.
He just needed some more time.
As he walked off toward the room they’d put him up in, his phone buzzed.
It was a message from his twin, and Black started running immediately.
“You gotta come home, brother. Dad’s sick.”
***
Cassandra
“That was fantastic, Cassandra.”
It had been anything but, which was something I wasn’t going to tell him.
I had faked my orgasm and wouldn’t tell him that either.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Joe was a nice man. He was handsome, kept in shape by going to the gym several times each week, had grown up kids and a good job. Fantastic house and a condo up in Breck where he went skiing and hiking. We laughed together when we had dinner, and now we’d had sex.
He wasn’t even bad at that. His dick was not small or limp, and he knew how to use his fingers and mouth.
This was all on me.
I was such a mess to lay there on my back with another man’s mouth between my legs, trying to find that spark, that burning sensation to take me over the edge… and all I could see behind my closed lids was Black’s narrow face, soft and relaxed as he grinned up at me.
Our eyes had met while I waited for Desi to get in the car, and his had been hard. At a distance, they seemed almost angry, and during the long hours on the road back to Colorado, I’d made myself believe that it was because he was unhappy that we left.
I’d sent him an email after a few days, which had required a ridiculous effort to compose, and I’d stared at it for half an hour before I clicked send. I hoped I didn’t come off as clingy, and whiny, or desperate. I felt a little of each but thought I’d managed to be casual when I added the little tidbit about going riding, hoping he’d offer to come for a visit and ride with us. Or let me ride him.
He didn’t answer.
I’d waited for days, and then weeks, and then I gave up. He’d gotten what he wanted, a quick fuck. One for the road, like Ronnie had called it. I knew he’d enjoyed what we did, but when he didn’t answer my email and didn’t call, I also knew that he didn’t want an encore.
Because he didn’t want me.
I’d started dating around Christmas and hadn’t liked it. Then I met Joe, and I felt awkward at first, but he was persistent, and such a nice man, so I went on a second date. And a third. And now I’d slept with him.
It felt like a betrayal, and I cursed myself for feeling like that when it wasn’t.
“Joe,” I said slowly and got up to start putting my clothes back on. “We need to talk.”
“Shit,” he said, and when I was dressed and about to try to let him down gently, he raised a hand. “You don’t have to say anything. I know, Cassandra.”
“Know what?”
“What?” I breathed out.
Was I that transparent?
“It was a mistake for us to sleep together this soon, but I wanted you, and I thought…” He shrugged and gave me a crooked grin. “I guess I wanted it a little too much to wait.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You’re a good man. You’ll find someone else.”
“I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
“No,” I said, and he narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready.”
“I’ll wait.”
I shook my head and reached for my purse.
“Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t.”
We said awkward goodbyes, during which he reiterated his vow to wait, and I kept telling him to find someone else.
My phone buzzed when I walked toward my car and it hurt to see the name on the display, but I opened the message from Sissy anyway.
“Fucking shit, Cas. You were right, Dad’s sick. Call me.”
NOW
Chapter Seven
Return
Cassandra
I stopped on that outlook where I’d met Thor MC the first time. Where Roddy had ordered me to drive to their place in the middle of the group, and Black had kissed me.
Was I doing the right thing, coming back to Rogan?
Sheriff White had made a deal, so the case hadn’t gone to trial, but he’d still go to prison for a large number of years. Desi hadn’t had to testify, and media had been circling our home for a while, but that had died down, and life had gone back to normal. More or less, at least. I’d gone back to work after a long and uncomfortable discussion with my boss who had been less than happy about me disappearing like I did. It had helped that my head receptionist had shared that I ran such a tight ship everything had moved smoothly in my absence, no one had even noticed I was gone, and they all wanted me back. It had also helped when I showed a picture of Desi and what she’d looked like that first day, so I still had my job.
The weekend before I started working again, Desi and I went up to Denver to meet with the couple who had helped us on that parking lot outside Target. I’d talked to their daughter while I was still in Rogan and had asked her what I could do to thank them, and she’d told me they wouldn’t want anything but if I really insisted, they both liked red wine. I brought a case of the best Italian red I could get my hands on and spent forty-five minutes convincing them to accept it.