by Aiden Bates
I sunk my shot. “So you didn’t take a job.”
“Go for the corner there,” Raven instructed. “And no, I didn’t. I came back for a bit after school with the intention of leaving again eventually. But then Dad died. And I know my Pops needs me around.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmured.
“It’s been a bad year,” Raven said. “Every year around my birthday, ever since I was a kid, Dad and Pops and I would share a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream and watch a movie on television. When I was a kid, it was always a movie I was a little too young for, you know? Like Alien when I turned eight. So this year it was just Pops and me. Got the ice cream and everything. Couldn’t finish it, though. Just really fucking depressing.”
“I lost my mom.” I spoke quickly, before I could talk myself out of it. “When I was a kid. Just to say. I know how painful it is.”
“Thanks,” Raven said. “I could tell you’d been through something. People who haven’t felt it are real awkward. Falling all over themselves trying to make me, I don’t know, feel less shitty?”
“Like that’s possible.”
I missed my shot, and Raven began to examine his options on the table. “It drives me crazy. Nothing’s going to make me feel less shitty. Nothing except getting Dad back.” He sunk one pool ball, then another, then another, then missed the next shot—intentionally, it appeared. “It’s easy for me to stick around now, anyway. I can do a lot of contract work remotely. And I wouldn’t fit in any other club. Just Hell’s Ankhor. You know?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
The door to Ballast swung open, and Blade and Gunnar walked in together, deep in conversation. Blade’s hair was tied back and his cheeks were flushed from their ride over.
Raven’s sharp gaze went immediately to Gunnar, tracking him as he strode across the room and sat next to Blade at the bar.
“That’s the only reason you stayed?” I asked teasingly. I missed an easy shot on the table again. “There’s not another reason? Maybe a certain member?”
“Choose your next words wisely,” Raven said. “Or else I’ll ask you a question you don’t want to answer.”
Raven leaned over the table, lining up his next shot, and Gunnar’s gaze moved as if magnetized to Raven’s ass. I shook my head slightly. Blade caught my eye from where he was seated. He lifted his pint glass to his lips and drank slowly, our eyes locked, his gaze heavy like a physical touch. Even though I’d started seeing glimpses of the man Blade was, when he looked at me, I burned with the desire to know more. How did a man like him end up wrapped up in club business? Smart, driven, curious, distractingly attractive: he could succeed anywhere. Why Elkin Lake? Why Hell’s Ankhor?
And why me? I hadn’t told him anything about me. I kept trying to push him away, but I couldn’t maintain the distance. Even though my secret hung heavy on my shoulders. Some moments I was so sure I could do it, that telling Blade was the right decision—even if it ended up with me alone, stranded in Elkin Lake without the protection of Hell’s Ankhor. Blade deserved that honesty, even if it left me with nothing.
But now, with his gaze on me, I wasn’t so sure. I wanted more time with him. If I had to live a lie to do it, maybe I should. Maybe it would be worth it. Soon the Sundance would be fixed anyway, and I’d be on my way again, but at least the memory of our time together would be untarnished.
An easy smile formed on Blade’s lips, and his tongue darted out to wet them.
After I left, I’d compare every other guy to his memory, and we hadn’t even kissed. I had to get a fucking grip.
A sharp crack jerked my attention back to the pool table as Raven’s expert shot sent two solids sliding into the corner pocket. He whooped and grinned at me.
“Kick his ass,” Blade mouthed.
My father had taken so much from me. Was he going to take this away, too?
Was I going to let him?
Raven cleared the rest of the pool table neatly. “Warned you,” Raven said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed some looks between you and someone else here.”
My face heated, which made Raven laugh.
“Re-rack?” he asked.
“Nah, I don’t think so.” I slipped my cue back into the stand. “I’m more of a darts guy.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if I told Blade the truth. I wish I knew him better, so I could guess at what his reaction would be. Was there a possibility he might hear me out? Give me a chance? Unlikely, but even if he shunned me, turned me away, he’d know about the Vipers’ plans, and Elkin Lake wouldn’t be at risk. I could live the rest of my life without the weight of that what-if, and the guilt, even if I’d always wonder what might have happened between me and Blade if we’d had more time.
Behind us, glass shattered.
The member who’d been staring me down earlier staggered to his feet. “There’s no fucking booze in this!” he shouted, whirling on the bar. “You think I’m an idiot?”
“Whoa there, Jed.” Blade set his own drink down and stood up. “I think you’ve had enough.”
“Who the fuck cares what you think?” Jed snarled. “You trying to babysit me? Get all up in my fuckin’ business when you’re letting outsiders get in ours?”
Jed sneered at me like an attack dog ready to lunge, a strange fire of recognition there in his eyes. Instinctively, I stepped backward and knocked into the pool cues hanging on the wall. What was this guy’s problem with me?
“Jed. Time for you to go home and sleep it off,” Blade said.
Gunnar stood too, ready to jump in if necessary, motioning for Coop and Tex to be on alert from their positions nearby.
“Fuck you, Blade,” Jed said, low and slurred. “You’re a shit president and you know it. Ankh would be fuckin’ ashamed to see you dirtying the club with outsiders.”
“Watch your fuckin’ mouth,” Gunnar growled.
“You don’t deserve it! After all I’ve done for this club!”
Blade stepped forward, quick and catlike. He shoved Jed backward hard, then gripped his face by the chin so tight that Jed’s alcohol-flushed skin turned white under Blade’s grip. “Go home, Jed.”
Jed jerked his head wildly. Blade released him and Jed stumbled cursing and slurring under his breath. He straightened up. “Stay out of my face,” Jed groused, then shoved past Blade and stomped toward the door.
“Christ,” Blade muttered. He returned to the bar, his back to Jed.
Just a few paces away, Jed snatched a beer bottle from a table and slammed it down hard. The glass exploded, leaving the neck intact and the sharp shards in his hands. His face pinched with rage, he whirled back toward Blade.
“Blade!”
Blade raised his head towards me. He saw the terror on my face and whipped around to face Jed. Then with a motion so smooth and practiced as to be unthinking, an automatic response of his nervous system, he extracted a sleek switchblade from his pocket, opened it, and sent it spinning towards Jed, the knife catching the gleam of the dull faux-Tiffany lamps and glittering like a star.
The knife hit its target with a dull squelch.
Jed howled and dropped the bottle to the floor. He gripped his bicep around the embedded knife. Blood gushed through his fingers and dripped to the floor. His face ashen, he whined like an animal and ran.
My heart raced quick as a bird’s.
“Hope you didn’t want that knife back,” Gunnar said.
“Fucking bastard,” Blade said. “Coop, Tex, find Jed and bring him back in for discipline. I’m not going to tolerate that kind of treatment of any club members. Or citizens.”
Raven slunk over to the bar then grabbed a stiff drink from Siren before sipping it while standing next to Gunnar, who pointedly didn’t look at him.
My hands itched to reach for Blade, but I was paralyzed, adrenaline still flooding my system. Blade was standing, seething, barking orders at club members as a rapid, organized cleanup ensued.
Terror and arousal ba
ttled for dominance in my gut. The helplessness at seeing Jed raise the bottle to strike Blade had been ice on my spine, and then the easy, graceful brutality with which Blade took him down was a counterpoint of fire.
Blade turned to me and my world narrowed to only him.
He crossed the space between us and crowded me against the wall, his broad shoulders hiding me from the rest of the bar. A thin sheen of sweat had formed across his forehead. With one hand on either side of the wall beside my head, he trapped me.
It should’ve scared me. This was a club guy—no, a club president—pinning me. I had no escape. But somehow, with Blade, the closeness was electric. The catcalls from the other members in the club faded into the background.
“You,” he said, low, his mouth close to my ear. “You saved my ass.”
“Didn’t,” I said breathlessly. “Nice little knife trick you did there.”
Blade’s laugh rumbled in his chest.
His lips brushed my jaw. I turned my head slightly to the side, just enough to invite more contact. “Come upstairs with me,” he said, barely audible even when he was so close.
“I can’t.”
“We don’t have to talk. I don’t have to know everything about you to know I want you.”
“Blade…” I tangled my fingers in the hem of his shirt. The smell of sweat, leather, and sandalwood overwhelmed me.
“Because I do. I want you.”
I turned my face towards him and moved to brush our lips together.
Blade pulled back enough to avoid it, as he curled his lips into a small smirk. “Say something.”
A fling. This could be a fling. A fling, then I’d go. That could be enough for me. Right? “Yes,” I murmured, my words ghosting over his lips. “Yes, let’s go upstairs.”
He didn’t kiss me, but the heat in his eyes promised there would be that, and more. He grabbed me by the hips and hauled me up. I gasped in surprise and clung to him, my legs wrapped around him for balance. The show of strength and the sudden contact—his muscular body radiating heat against mine—made my cock start to harden against him where he surely could feel it. He effortlessly strode towards the stairs, as if I didn’t weigh anything at all.
12
Logan
Blade kicked the door open to my room and then just as easily kicked it closed. He pressed my back up to the door, caging me in again. My feet hit the floor. Only my arms, still draped around his neck, kept me standing. Blade wrapped one arm around my waist, and I tipped my head back against the wood. I was open to him. Whatever he would give me.
“Look at you,” Blade growled. He ducked his head and nuzzled against my neck, his breath hot on the sensitive skin behind my ear. “Where’s the guy I had to beg to get a coffee with me, huh?”
“You wore me down. Fuck, Blade. Don’t be a tease.”
“You’re one to talk.”
He kissed me.
No—he devoured me.
Blade skated his hand up my body and into my hair, carding through it and gently tugging, a sweet hint of pressure. He guided me where he wanted me. Giving in was intoxicating. He kissed me deeply, unrelenting, pulling back only to bite gently at my lower lip.
Surrounded by him, wrapped in his arms, I surrendered. I gasped into the kiss with pleasure and he pulled me impossibly closer.
We broke apart just long enough for Blade to rip my shirt up and over my head. He pulled back, and his gaze traveled hungrily over my torso. His face darkened.
My scars.
For once I’d forgotten about them. I’d forgotten to warn him, or to even be self-conscious. This wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d brought people home only to have them rear back in horror. Across my upper arms I carried a handful of long, shallow knife-scars from Viper discipline by my father’s henchmen. My father’s work, by contrast, was marked in the swollen pink scar tissue that ran across my abdomen and up to my pecs: a visual history of belt-beatings and long mean thrashes with a switch. There were a few on my back, but those were older, flattened and smooth. Markers from childhood. The ones on more painful places, my abs and my upper thighs, were the more recent additions to the collection. As I grew older, my father found it harder to get the reaction he wanted from me. And I refused to give him the satisfaction. Recovery often took days, or weeks.
“The fuck is this?” Blade asked. His tone was heavy with rage. He rested his hand flat on my belly over the scarring as his determined eyes met mine.
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re a bad liar,” he said.
If only he knew how wrong he was.
He slid his hand with slight, delicious pressure up my torso to tap his fingertips at the hollow of my throat. “Same person who gave you the bruises.”
“You said we didn’t have to talk,” I said, and to my embarrassment my voice cracked.
He kissed me again, slower and sweeter this time. “Right… As long as he’s long gone,” Blade said. “And if he’s not, I’ll change that.” He stepped away to pull off his own shirt, then turned to sweep my things off the foot of the bed.
I inhaled sharply.
Blade glanced over his shoulder as if curious about my reaction then grinned. “Oh, the tattoo? You like it?”
I stepped forward and ran both hands up the wide, smooth expanse of his back. The powerful muscles in his lats and shoulders shifted under my touch. The tattoo covered his entire back, from his nape across his shoulders, to the sweet dimples above his ass. In full black, an immense anchor sat in an elegantly stylized nest of flames. The bottom half of the anchor was traditional, rounded iron ending in sharp, vicious tips, but from the top of the anchor emerged an ankh. The arms of the ankh stretched across Blade’s broad shoulders, and the rounded top finished at the base of his skull.
“Must’ve taken a long time. It’s beautiful.” I pressed a kiss to the vertebra at the nape, and beneath my hands he shivered just the barest amount.
He suddenly spun around, a cheeky grin on his face, and then tossed me on the bed. “I’ll get you one to match.” He crawled onto the bed over me. He kissed me deeply again, then slid his lips down my neck and across my collarbones, then to my pecs, his tongue wet and hot over my nipple. I arched up into his mouth and coiled one hand into his thick, dark hair. He ran the palm of his hand over my cock, through my jeans, and the desperation in my voice when I said his name shocked me.
Blade unfastened my jeans expertly with one hand.
This was a bad idea. This was already more than a fling. The tenderness of his hands on my scars cleaved me in half. Hell’s Ankhor was everything to him—that was obvious not only in his actions, his words, but also in the gorgeous tattoo that covered his strong back. I couldn’t be the one to betray that.
“Blade, wait, I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?” He softly dropped a few more kisses along my chest
I opened my mouth, but with his dark eyes gazing up at me from below, the words wouldn’t come. The lie was trapped in my chest, weighing on my heart.
“What are you so afraid of?” Blade asked. He kissed an angry scar slashed just over my navel. “There’s nothing you can say that’ll change how I feel.”
“Oh?” I murmured. “How do you feel?”
Blade kissed me on the mouth again, hot with passion. His body covered mine as he pressed me into the mattress. The kiss said what words could not.
I’d tell him soon. I would. But I couldn’t resist. Was it really so wrong to have this, just for a little while?
He pulled off my jeans, and my chest heaved with anticipation. My cock was hard in my boxer-briefs, clearly visible. Blade hovered above me, his tanned skin slightly damp with sweat. The coarse dark hair on his chest caught my attention, and so did the line of dark hair that started above his navel and traveled down.
“God, you’re pretty.” He gripped my cock through the fabric, no preamble.
I gasped and tried to arch up towards him but his strength kept me pinned. A hot thrill ra
n through me.
“Hands above your head for me, yeah?”
Without question I did as he asked. I slid my arms up and locked them in place with one hand looped around the opposing wrist.
“Fucking gorgeous,” Blade said. He slid his free hand up the length of the side of my body. “I’m gonna suck your cock.”
“Please,” I gasped. “Yes. Please.”
“But don’t come.”
I nodded furiously.
He met my eyes. “Seriously. Don’t.” His grip was still tight and commanding on my cock. Against my lips he whispered, “Because I want you to come when I’m inside you.”
“I’ll come right now if you keep talking like that,” I managed to say through my panting breaths.
Blade laughed low, then kissed my jaw, right over the almost-healed bruise. Then he slid off the bed, on his knees on the floor, and pulled my body across the bed for easier access. I kept my hands where they were. God, it felt good to just let go—to not always have to be wary of people’s intentions.
To trust someone.
Blade shouldered my knees wider. He kissed my abs, my hip bones, and ran his tongue along the skin above the elastic of my boxer-briefs. Then, instead of going where I wanted him to go, he pressed kisses to the pale skin of my inner thighs as he ran his hands over the muscle of my calves and the knobby bones of my ankle. The heat of his mouth left me weak and writhing against the bed.
“Jesus,” I hissed. “Fucking tease.”
“Impatient,” Blade shot back. “I’m enjoying this.”
It took a century for him to remove my underwear.
My cock throbbed, hard and flush against my belly. I hooked my ankles around Blade’s body where he was kneeling. Blade hummed in pleasure at the sight, then wasted no more time. He gripped the base of my cock and sucked me into his mouth hot and slow.
