Black (Thor Book 1)

by Mia Malone

  He stumbled but started laughing.

  “Cassandra,” he said with a sigh. “He could, don’t you know that?”

  He could?

  “But –”

  “I got the brains, he got the brawn.”

  What the –

  Then I saw the smile in his eyes and grinned at him.

  “You love him a lot, don’t you?”

  “Endlessly,” he said to my surprise. “Thought about ways to kill his damned ex, but he asked me not to, so I didn’t.”

  It was my turn to stumble, and he pressed me briefly to his chest.

  “Are you thinking about killing me?” I asked.

  “Not yet. We’ll see,” he said with a grin and one of his stupid brow-wiggles.

  Our eyes met, and for a brief second something flashed in his, and I knew that he pretended it was a joke, but he would do anything for his brother. I got up on my toes and put my mouth by his ear.

  “It’s okay,” I said quietly. “If I’m stupid enough to do something to Black that you think deserves me getting killed, then you have my permission.” He reared back and stared at me, but I smiled sweetly. “I’m not that easy to kill, though. You’ll get one shot at it and if you fail then...”

  I pursed my mouth, and then we both burst out laughing.

  Ice was a surprisingly good dancer, and I wondered if it was just him or if his brother had the same kind of moves.

  “Have to go, sweetie,” he said when the song was over. “We’re playing tonight.”

  “Playing?”

  He tilted his head toward the side where a small band had set their gear up.

  “You’re singing?”

  “Yup.”

  “But not Black?”

  Something moved over his face, and I knew where that came from. Gee had told me that Black had been good enough as a young man to get noticed by scouts from a couple of labels. He’d gotten married and stayed in Rogan instead, and she’d pressed her lips together after sharing this, and had looked sad, so I hadn’t asked if it was because he hadn’t been good enough or if something else had happened.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “He’ll get back up there one day,” Ice murmured into my ear. “That day might come sooner if someone encourages him.”

  Then he walked away, and I watched his back.

  Had he just told me to push Black to sing with them? Should I? It was his choice, wasn’t it?

  The band played a few songs here and there through the evening, and they were good. Ice had a strong, clear voice and he clearly enjoyed being center stage. Gee got up and sang a few songs with them, and her voice was way beyond good. While the evening moved on, I saw Black glance at them a few times, and then I decided that, fuck it. I was curious, so I was allowed to ask, wasn’t I?

  “Why don’t you sing with them?”

  “I don’t sing anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t.”

  I looked at him and waited for a more elaborate answer, which I didn’t get.

  “Do you really think that is a good answer?”

  “Since it’s the one I’m giving you, what do you think?”

  “I heard you were good,” I said.

  “Long time ago.”

  “Okay,” I said and was prepared to let it go, but I saw him glance over the band again and something flashed in his eyes.

  Fuck. This.

  Was what I thought but didn’t say.

  Instead, I said, “I guess out of the two of us, I’m not the chicken.”

  Before he could yell at me, I walked over to the band who were winding down the song, and before I could stop myself, I told Ice what I wanted to sing.

  As expected, he started laughing and watched me with brows high on his forehead.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  Ice grinned at Black who raised a brow, which was summarily ignored. The band was informed about what we would do, and they started laughing too.

  Then they started the intro and a cheer which was mostly a loud laugh swept through the room.

  ***

  Black

  The fucking woman.

  The room erupted in loud cheers, and he heard his father hoot when she started singing.

  “Mister Big Stuff... Who do you think you are?”

  His goddamned brother chimed in with cheeky backing vocals and stupid brow wiggles.

  “You have no clue, Black,” Ronnie said in his ear, suddenly.

  “Huh?”

  “What you’ve got up there is pure gold. Don’t fuck it up.”

  She was gone when he’d torn his eyes from Cas who was swaying her hips and laughing with his brother as they sang. Cas had a good voice. Not an excellent one, but certainly good enough to sing in a small roadside bar like this one, he thought. Perfect pitch, good range. He would have liked to be up there with her.

  He hadn’t wanted to sing with anyone in a very long time, so the thought surprised him. It wasn’t as if he’d stopped, whatever they all thought. He still played his guitar, and he still sang. He just did it at home, and now he wanted to do it with her.

  And he would, but not here and now.

  There was no way he’d pass on her challenge, though, so he took a deep breath, grinned at Brooks who was laughing openly at him and walked toward the stage when they reached the end of the song.

  “Guitar,” he grunted, and Ice passed his over.

  “Jesus,” Black said into the microphone. “The shit I do for you, Cassandra.”

  Then he started the steady rhythm that was the intro to Springsteen’s “Fire.”

  And the room went crazy.

  ***

  Cassandra

  Holy cow.

  I’d thought he’d sound like Ice, and in a way he did, but he totally didn’t.

  His voice was deeper and slightly raspy, but it carried through the room like nothing I’d ever heard. Everyone was cheering around us and clapping their hands. Black swayed his hips slightly from side to side and watched me while he shared that kissing me felt like fire.

  The band started up, and Ice did the backup vocals just like he had done for me, but all I could think was...

  Holy.

  Cow.

  I’d heard him sing softly to me a year earlier, and I’d seen his guitar, but I’d had no idea. If I had a voice like his and had missed out on a record deal, I wouldn’t sing in public either.

  I wouldn’t have blamed him at all if he’d become a bitter, angry person who raged at a life who had fucked him over so hugely.

  That’s not what he’d done, though, because that’s not who he was. Life happened, and he dealt with it. As I stood there, watching him sing for an ecstatic crown in a small biker bar, I realized that we were very much alike, he and I.

  Shit happened, and we dealt.

  Then the song was over, and the band took a break. I saw the brothers hug in that manly way where they pounded each other on the back once, and Ice said something which made Black bark out laughter.

  He got pats on his back and cheers as he moved around the room, and he didn’t come straight to me, but our eyes met over the crowd. His dark ones were full of adrenaline, and a happiness I hadn’t seen in them before, so I held back and watched him. I’d let him enjoy the way he felt right then because it was clear that he felt good. We’d have our time.

  Instead, I got me another drink and chatted with the people around me.

  “Cas,” Ronnie murmured half a drink later and leaned over the bar to take the glass out of my hand. “Go get him, hon.”

  “What?”

  “He’s waiting for it.”

  Oh. Was he?

  Our eyes met again suddenly, and a shiver went through my gut when I saw how he watched me. Oh, yeah. He was waiting for it.

  “Besides,” Ronnie drawled. “If I had a man looking at me the way he did, I would have been up on that stag
e, riding him like he was a little pony and I would not have cared that his mother is in the room.”

  “Ronnie,” I snorted, but she just shrugged.

  “Like a pony.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll just...”

  I made a gesture with my hand and heard her chuckle as I walked across the floor, straight up to him.

  “Babe,” he said and put an arm around my waist, ignoring the men he’d been talking to.

  “Black,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making a fool out of myself but not caring too much about it. This was us, and I knew what I wanted. “You told me to think about shit, and I have.”

  “Yeah?”

  I got up on my toes, put my mouth by his ear, and murmured, “I need you to fuck me, Einar. Can you do that?”

  He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.

  With my hand in a firm grip in his, he turned and walked right out the door, taking me toward his home with long, determined steps.

  ***

  Roddy

  “What’s wrong?”

  Roddy put an arm around his wife and looked through the window at his son and the woman he finally seemed to be getting somewhere with. The damned boy had taken his time, he thought.

  He’d seen Black’s eyes widen when Cassandra pulled off Sissy’s helmet all those months ago at that outlook. Seen how he’d stepped in to protect her, and how he’d hurt when she left.

  Roddy had never liked his former daughter-in-law, but he’d tried to accept her because of his son and his grandchildren. Then Einar had finally done what he should have done years earlier, and he’d had a better life, but he still hadn’t been happy.

  And then Cassandra came back to tie the boy into knots.

  That had been fun to watch, knowing where it would go because there was no way Black would let it end up anywhere other than where he was heading with long steps and Cas’ hand in his.

  So, he should be content. Should be happy.

  And he wasn’t.

  “Something is coming,” Roddy muttered. “I can smell it.”

  The woman who had stood by his side for almost sixty years pulled in a quick breath of air.

  Since she’d been with him all those years, she knew well that if he smelled something coming, then bad shit was heading their way.

  “Brooks, get a group, check the perimeter,” Roddy muttered to Black’s second.

  “Trouble?”

  “Don’t know,” Roddy said. “There’s something in the air.”

  Brooks had grown up in Thor. His dad was a member. If Roddy smelled shit, then they all listened.

  “On it,” he muttered but added with a wry grin. “Know where he’s heading, but Black won’t like that you asked me.”

  “Black won’t know about it. Not tonight anyway.”

  ***

  Black

  He closed the door, flicked the lock and shuffled her in front of him into his bedroom.

  Jesus.

  He was so hard it hurt and pumped up from adrenaline and the way she’d looked at him, so there was no way he’d last for as long as he wanted.

  “Sorry as fuck, babe,” he grunted. “Not gonna be much finesse because I’m too horny and too hard. We’ll have to get the first few times out of the way before we get to that.”

  “God, Black,” she breathed out. “Just do me, already.”

  “Yeah,” he growled and pushed her pants away so he could put a hand down her panties.

  Then he started moving his fingers over her clit, hard and fast.

  She was wet and hot and made a frustrated sound when she pushed her jeans down over her thighs and kicked them off.

  “That’s it, baby,” he said and removed his hand from her pussy long enough to tear her panties and shove them off her. “Spread for me now.”

  It took him no time at all to get her to where she arched her back and moaned loudly. He kept moving his hand while she came down, and she rasped out something unintelligible which he ignored.

  “Again, babe,” he said. “Gonna have a couple more from you before I fuck you and I wanna get in there, so you’d better hurry.”

  “I can’t –”

  “Another one,” he ordered and moved around to put her thighs over his shoulders and his mouth on her pussy.

  Then he started flicking his tongue.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tip-job

  Cassandra

  I thought I’d die when he moved his mouth away and pushed a strong finger inside.

  “One more,” he said against my neck. “Come on now, baby.”

  I’d come twice already and wasn’t sure I had it in me to give him one more, but then he pulled out, pushed two fingers inside and started rolling his thumb over my clit. His fingers hit a spot inside, and I gasped.

  “Yeah,” he grunted. “There it is.”

  “Oh, God.”

  His fingers moved faster, and I couldn’t think. It was happening again, and in a way I hadn’t ever felt before. My legs started shaking, and I pushed out soft wails with every breath.

  “God,” I moaned, and just when it was about to hit me, he stopped.

  I reached for him, but he was on his knees between my legs and pulling at his jeans.

  Then he held his cock in his hand, and I spread my legs for him.

  “Fuck me,” I rasped out in a voice I barely recognized.

  He leaned to the side and reached for the drawer in his bedside table.

  “Don’t need one,” I said. “Black, please...”

  He froze, and our eyes met, and slowly, he thrust inside.

  “Yeah,” he breathed out and closed his eyes as he slowly started bucking his hips. “Ahh, Cassandra.”

  I pulled him down toward me and wrapped my legs around his hips when he went down on his elbows. Then he groaned softly and shook his head slowly from side to side.

  “Ah, hell. So good...” he murmured and started moving faster. “Wanted one more.”

  I watched him while he kept moving, slack-jawed and focused but then he hit that spot inside, and I gasped.

  He shifted slightly and hit it again.

  I moaned, and his eyes met mine.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “One more, baby.”

  Then he started pounding hard, pushing me closer and closer to orgasm with every long thrust.

  “Einar,” I breathed on a hitched breath.

  He threw one of my legs over his shoulder and set a furious pace that pushed me over the edge. I cried out when I came and saw him smile through a vision that had become blurry. His thrusts slowed down and became jerky and then it hit him.

  “Cas,” he hissed and planted himself all the way. “Fuck, it’s –”

  He shuddered and groaned while he came, and I watched him until he’d emptied himself inside me. Then he gently lowered my leg and came down on top of me.

  “Baby,” he murmured after a while. “God, I’m sorry. That was a bit rough. You good?”

  “So good I suspect everyone in a ten-mile radius of your home is leaning back and smoking a cigarette.”

  He snorted out laughter and turned his head to kiss my neck.

  “Am I heavy?”

  “No.”

  “Good,” he mumbled, and added, “Not sure I can move. I may be paralyzed.”

  I chuckled as I held him to me and felt how his pulse beat at the same rhythm as mine. I was sated and happy, and a little stunned. The first time we’d made love on that bench outside his home, it had been intense but oddly sweet. This hadn’t been sweet. It had been urgent and somehow desperate.

  Then he pulled out with a groan and rolled to the side, shifting me with him until I was on my side with my head on his shoulder.

  “Black,” I murmured into the silence, and moved my fingertips over this chest, trailing the outline of the mountains inked into the skin across the ribs.

  He was lean and strong, and I circled his nipples with the tip of my index finger.
He did indeed have his left nipple pierced and had put a bar in it which looked seriously hot. I got up on my elbow and let my tongue slide over it.

  “It’s been a while, but you still gotta give me a few more minutes, babe.”

  I blinked.

  It had been a while?

  And, oh wow. He thought he’d be ready to go again in a few minutes?

  “I just wanted to say thank you, but I wasn’t sure if you’d freak out again,” I said.

  “Cas,” he said sternly. “I did not freak out.”

  “Did,” I mumbled.

  “Not.”

  “Did.”

  He rolled us around and came down on top of me, and I laughed into his happy face.

  Then he ground his hips against me, and my eyes widened.

  “Yeah,” he said smugly. “You started it, so get ready for round number two.”

  ***

  Black

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Ice said and stared at him when he walked into his parents’ kitchen the next morning which wasn’t as much morning as it was lunch-time, but since it was Sunday, it didn’t matter.

  “Huh?” Black said and reached for the coffee pot.

  “You’re limping.”

  Their father barked out laughter, and Black straightened but realized that their mother was occupied elsewhere, and relaxed.

  “I’m not limping,” he said.

  They’d spent most of the night jumping each other like goddamned rabbits, and to his relief, it had not only been him starting another round. He’d dozed off after the third time but had been wide awake again when he felt her hand slide over his stomach, and her mouth by his ear, sharing explicitly what she wanted him to do which had her on her hands and knees within seconds. The last time had been this morning, and it had been gentle and slow, and yeah... He had started it, but she’s been in his arms and naked so the way he saw it; It had mostly been her fault. He hadn’t known he still had it in him to make love to a woman that many times in one night and she’d told him she wasn’t sore, but he vowed to get a goddamned grip of himself anyway and ease off a little.

  He absolutely hadn’t fucking limped, though, or if he had, it hadn’t been much.

  Ice snorted something and kicked a chair out.

  “Sit before you fall over. Where’s Cas?”