Better When He's Bold

by Jay Crownover

  Chapter 8

  Race

  I HAD TO ADMIT that so far, this night was turning out to be all kinds of awesome. Seeing the underdog win against that doped-up bruiser had done something good for my soul. Watching a bunch of greedy, overzealous, bloodthirsty people fall apart when they realized they had bet on brawn and not heart also made something warm ooze inside of my chest. This was a bad place, corrupted by bad people, so when the unexpected happened, when something good and just fought its way to a hard-won victory, it was hard not to revel in the aftermath. Plus the amount of money we had cleared on that dirty-ass fight was obscene and more than enough to keep Nassir off my ass for the foreseeable future.

  Brysen was in the passenger seat of my car and she was coming home with me. That alone put the night at the top of my list in awesomeness. She was hesitant about it, looking for a way to justify it not going down, but then I would look at her out of the corner of my eye, she would bite her bottom lip and blush, and I knew that even though she still wanted to fight the attraction—deny the pull—she wanted to give in to it even more, wanted to give in to me.

  I reached across the interior of the car and put a hand on her knee. She was jittery, I could feel it coming off of her. She was also the only girl I had ever met who could make dirty jeans and a simple black T-shirt look overtly sexy. There was just something about the way she moved, the innate grace and class that she carried with her, that made her so unique and desirable. It was like she knew that she was so much better than what was going on around her, but instead of looking down on it with disdain and resentment, she just stood in the eye of the storm and let all the ugliness and destruction whirl around her, waiting to see where it was going to land. Then she would just gingerly pick her way through the debris and mess and end up safely on the other side of it all.

  She put her hand over the top of mine and traced the heavy veins on the back of it with the edge of her fingernail. It was a barely-there caress, but I felt it all the way through my body.

  “You look like the kind of guy that would have soft, manicured hands. Not hands that are all scarred up and rough.”

  I had a wicked scar on the back of one hand from getting into an accident with Bax while we had been running from the cops. My middle knuckle on one hand had been broken so many times it was big and off-center. There were numerous nicks and cuts along my fingers from different fights and different altercations, most recently from the fight for my life when Novak had sent his crew in to kill me.

  “You look like a girl who should get to enjoy a night out with an interested boy and not have to rush home to take care of her sister.”

  She cut me a look and sat back in the seat with a little humph.

  “I guess looks can be deceiving.”

  “Why don’t you give me the CliffsNotes version of what that’s all about?”

  She didn’t want to, I could see it. Giving me that changed what we were about to do from a quick fuck because we wanted each other into something else. Turned it into something with more depth, and she wasn’t ready for that. Still, after a heartbeat, she breathed out a long sigh and turned to look at me.

  “I was just a typical college student the year before last. I went to class, partied a little too hard, just did my own thing, and it was a blast. Well, my mom has struggled with depression on and off for most of my life. She usually maintains with meds, but something really bad happened last year and she went off the rails. She quit taking everything prescribed to her and started drinking really heavily. I didn’t know what was happening. My dad is a workaholic, spends all his time in the office at work, and the one at home, and pretty much forgets he even has a family.”

  She made a noise under her breath and I wanted to pull the car over and give her a hug.

  “Well, one day Mom went out, I think to pick Karsen, my sister, up from school. Only she had been self-medicating all day with vodka and was shit-faced. She caused a major accident on the highway, hurt herself really bad, and rear-ended a family in an SUV in front of her. She hit the other car so hard that it smashed into the big rig in front of it. The mom and the son made it out alive, but the dad died. It was terrible. Mom was in the hospital for a long time and ended up with all kinds of medical problems. Somehow she was lucky enough to get out of having her BAC taken, either because the cops were distracted or because money changed hands, but either way she missed getting saddled with a DUI and her insurance covered the bulk of the bills, but not all of them. The next thing I knew, we couldn’t afford my car or classes anymore, and things at home were a nightmare for my sister. No one was making sure she went to school, or had any food in the house or that the bills for the lights or the heat were getting paid.”

  She shook her silky blond head and I could see frustration and harder emotions surge in her clear, blue eyes. She might be all frosty and cool on the surface, but underneath a torrent was raging. It made me want her even more.

  “I wasn’t going to quit school, not when I was so close to being done, so I got a job and took a few loans to get through the last few semesters. I moved home to try and keep things together as much as I could until Karsen is finished with high school. One more year, I just have to hold it all together for one more year, but in the meantime, my mom has added all kinds of painkillers to the booze and my dad is even less present than he was before. I never really know what kind of situation I’m walking into when I get to my own front door, and that sucks. I deserve better and my sister sure as hell didn’t do anything to ask for any of what has happened to our family.”

  I wheeled the Mustang into the compound and watched to make sure the gates swung closed behind us. The security lights flickered on overhead, casting her in an ethereal, bluish glow. Everything about her was refined and pure looking. God, I wanted to mess her up. I wanted my hands in her hair, my marks on her skin, and my taste in her mouth. I wanted her to look as rough as she made me feel on the inside. No one had ever riled me up like that before. Maybe because I was so used to just getting without having to ask, and Brysen never offered that to me. I always had to ask her what the next move was going to be, and her answers often surprised me. She was not a sure bet, and I think the challenge of that made her even more desirable.

  “The lengths we go to in order to keep our family safe, to do right by those we love, is often a weighty burden to bear.” I got out of the car and went around to let her out of the passenger side. When I pulled her up, I pressed her back into the side of the car with the full length of my body and bent down so that my mouth hovered enticingly over the plump ridge of hers.

  “I would do anything for Dovie, anything. I have done things for her that made me hate the man I had to be in order to do them, but it was in her best interest. I admire you being able to put your own life down and pick up a different one out of loyalty to your sister, but somewhere in there, you need to remember she’s going to have to learn to take care of herself. She’ll eventually have to admit that your parents are fucked and move on with her own life. Dovie found the one person in the world to love who has the ability to insulate her from anything the Point wants to throw at her. Your sister will eventually have to find her stability as well. She won’t need you forever.”

  I saw something flare deep in those cerulean eyes, a spark of pain, maybe of realization that I was right, but then it was gone and she was pressing up on her tiptoes and sealing her mouth over mine. I let my hands glide down her sides and fall under her backside. She had the nicest butt on any girl I had ever seen, the nicest body really. There was no end to all her curves and dips, and anywhere my hands decided to land, they were filled with firm and sexy flesh. The brief glimpse I had had of her out of her towel the last time we were this close together had been enough to burn out the image of any other female I might’ve seen naked in the last few years. All I could see was Brysen and her pretty, pale skin, her high breasts with perfectly pink nipples, and her most private of places that was just as elegant as the rest of her. Sh
e was a blond bombshell and I could feel my body urging me to stop playing around and finally seal the deal with her.

  She was sucking on the tip of my tongue, her hands were working their way into the collar of my sweater, and the edge of her knee was rubbing ruthlessly against the very obvious erection straining at the front of my jeans. I was supposed to be making her night better, supposed to be taking care of her, making her feel all kinds of good, and here she was getting me so worked up, so turned on, that if I wasn’t careful, didn’t pull back a little, I wasn’t even going to make it inside that perfect body before blowing a load in my pants.

  I gave her a hard kiss and pulled back with a low breath hissing between my teeth.

  “As much as I like the idea of screwing you against the side of my car, considering you and it are the two most beautiful things I have ever seen, I should warn you that this entire place is wired like the White House. There are more video cameras watching what we’re doing right now than I want to think about. So if you don’t want an audience, we need to move this upstairs.”

  She did that thing where she ran her tongue over the curve of her bottom lip and a soft pink flush heated up the crest of her cheekbones. Maybe the idea of having someone catch us in the act wasn’t such a deterrent to her after all. Brysen had a wild streak under all that cool composure, I knew it, had felt it in the bathroom the other night, and I couldn’t fucking wait to start melting some of those icy layers surrounding this girl. I had a feeling the deeper I got into her, the more and more things I would find that I really, really liked. Hell, I was already fascinated by her, she had my interest all tied up in her, and no other girl to date could claim that same distinction.

  I took her hand and pulled her behind me into the garage. Titus’s voice rose up from the other day, taunting me, mocking me. How was I supposed to put the moves on her, seduce her and entice her inside of a place that was practically a hovel? Suddenly, not wanting anything and not having anything to show for what I had been doing in the last few months to take over Novak’s reign seemed like a foolish and self-sacrificing idea. I didn’t know what I had been trying to prove by not accumulating anything, by not staking claim to anything, but right about now I wished I had at least splurged on a kick-ass bed.

  She was steady and sure in front of me. There was no hesitation in her gait, and when we rounded the corner into the loft she turned and put her hands on the center of my chest. I had to admit that I liked the bold streak in her. It matched the bold streak that ran wide through me and I enjoyed the way it contradicted the always polished and prim way she tended to appear on the outside. I think I felt a kind of bond in that. I knew the things that ran in my blood, the things that made me tick and were important to me, didn’t necessarily match the refined genes I had been born with. She pushed my jacket off my shoulders and it landed on the floor with a dull thud.

  I caught her delicate wrists in each of my hands and started backing her toward the couch. I didn’t know that she was ever going to give me an opportunity like this again and I needed to take every second, every moment to prove to her that this thing between us was something she just needed to let happen. I wanted her to feel like it was as unstoppable as I felt it was.

  I moved her back until her legs hit the couch and she went down with a little oomph. Her eyes were huge in her face, big pools of blue that were filled with anticipation and something hot and needy. I got on my knees in front of her, pushed her legs apart so I was right in the middle of them, and felt her start to quiver against me. I reached for the hem of her T-shirt and was a little surprised when she beat me to it and pulled the fabric off over the top of her head. Her blond hair danced up and around her head like a halo. She lifted a pale brow at me and raised her chin.

  “Your turn, handsome.”

  That startled a chuckle out of me, so I obliged her and jerked my sweater up over my head by the back of the neck. I liked the way she looked at me, like she saw more than what was on the outside. Her gaze skimmed over my chest, across my abs, and then landed back on my face. She reached out a finger and traced over the few scars my last ride with Novak’s boys had left. The worst of the damage had been to my leg. It was a gnarly mess of scar tissue and sewed-back-together flesh. If she didn’t like the little imperfections on top, what was below that was going to send her running for the hills when she caught sight of it.

  I used the edge of my knuckle to trace over the pale crest of each of her breasts where they peeked out over the top of her lacy bra. Her heartbeat was erratic and she inhaled sharply at the touch. I continued the journey around her side to the back clasp. She leaned forward so I could unhook the fasteners and set her free. She wiggled the straps down her arms and leaned forward so that her now-naked breasts were pressed against my own naked chest. She felt so good, like this was where she was supposed to be.

  I skimmed my hands down the flawless curve of her spine and leaned in close so I could whisper in her ear.

  “Gonna have to lose more clothes than that if I’m gonna take care of you, Bry.”

  I ran the tip of my tongue along the shell of her ear and it made her legs clamp around the outside of my thighs.

  “Okay.” It was barely a whisper and it made my dick so hard that it hurt.

  I let her pull away far enough to get the top of her jeans unbuttoned, helped her kick off her shoes, and somehow managed to get her all the rest of the way naked without having to move from my really perfect location caught between her long legs and the very heart of her desire. There wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t pretty and perfect. She was the kind of girl a guy could fantasize about in a million and one different ways and never have to repeat himself. There was just something about all that cool blond hair and endless amounts of silky pale skin that gave her a dreamlike quality not a lot of girls possessed. She was enough to get a guy off just by looking at her.

  I gripped her hips and pulled her to the very edge of the couch. I kissed her hard, tasted the way she was so ready to do this with me. I felt it in the way her hands twined in my hair and gave it a hard tug. She wasn’t shy and that was beyond awesome. I moved down to kiss the side of her neck, licked at her pulse jumping there. I skimmed my hands up along her rib cage and stopped to brush each thumb along the underneath swell of her breasts. I felt her nipples go diamond hard where they were pressing against me. I kissed her collarbone, fought the urge to suck on it, to mark her up with my mouth. She was fair, and marring that pristine landscape with something so barbaric seemed like it should be a crime. I knew that I was going to do it anyway.

  I had to give her a little nudge back in order to make enough space between us to get my mouth around the begging tip of her breast. When I did, she gasped and pulled at my hair. I swirled the little pebble around and around until I had her panting, and I could feel her getting wet against me. Her thighs were shaking and her chest was rising and falling in a rapid rhythm. I used my teeth, was a little rougher on the other side and not at all surprised when she seemed to like that even more. She was pulling me closer and mumbling my name. Her hips also lifted involuntarily off the worn fabric of the couch, which totally worked to my advantage. I slid my hands under each side of her ass and lifted her up a little as I pulled back and grinned at her.

  “Showtime.”

  Her eyes got even bigger, if that was possible, and she sank her teeth into her bottom lip, which nearly had my cock coming out of my pants on its own.

  I pressed her legs a little farther apart, bent down lower so I could lick around her belly button, kissed her below that on her quivering stomach, and traced the curve of her leg where it led to my intended target. I heard her whimper and could literally feel the way she heated up from the inside out as I got closer and closer to the parts of her that were weeping for me. She was slight enough that I could lift her up to my waiting mouth, my hands holding her still as I used the tip of my tongue to work through her damp flesh. She tasted like she looked, expensive and divine, silky and
smooth, and this was the only part of her that didn’t seem to have a perpetual chill. All along the edge of my probing tongue she rippled in pleasure, and her fingernails gripped hard at the sides of my head.

  “Race . . .” My name was a broken plea, asking for more or asking me to stop, I didn’t care which, because I was getting drunk on her taste alone and I hadn’t even really started yet. I pulled her up higher, freed a hand from underneath her so that I could put it to better use. I spread her farther apart, breathed her in, and caught the hard nub of her clit between my teeth and gave it a tug. I wasn’t exactly gentle and she didn’t seem to mind. She arched her entire back up off the couch and squeezed my head so hard between her legs it made me chuckle. Never had I been caught in a sexier trap.

  I swirled the pulsing bud around and around with my tongue, used my fingers to play with her, glided them along her inner walls that were flexing and jumping at the barest touch. I lapped at her, sucked on her, used my hand that was holding her up to my face to squeeze her backside, and felt her rising, felt the way her insides were chasing down all the pleasure I was throwing at her. I had never been with a girl who was so honestly responsive. She muttered her approval, said my name when my questing fingers hit her in just the right spot, and she didn’t bother to hide or be embarrassed by the physical signs I was drawing out of her body. She was all kinds of liquid and hot and it was enough to have me wondering if I could finish this without making a fool of myself in the process. I couldn’t ever remember having an erection so hard, having lust riding me so high that it physically hurt.

  She was close. I could hear her making keening sounds at the back of her throat. I felt it in the way she was flooding my tongue with desire. She let go of my hair with one hand and reached behind her to clasp my hand that was holding her up by one firm ass cheek. She squeezed my fingers, I saw her eyes flutter closed and her mouth fall slack in a wordless sound, and then all the parts of her I had my mouth across exploded across my tongue as I continued to eat her up. Her inner muscles spasmed around my stroking fingers and suddenly she was lax in my hands. She went limp, her arms looping loosely around my neck as I lifted my head up from between her legs to look at her. She bonelessly slithered off the edge of the couch so that she was sitting across my legs. My dick practically whimpered when the moist center of her hit my fly.