“She likes you,” I said to Slash as he held open the car door for me.
“Who?”
“Lily.” I grinned. “I think she might have a crush on you.”
He snorted. “I’m just glad she’s not afraid of me anymore.” Slash closed the door and went to the driver’s side and climbed in. “You handled it well. The situation, I mean.”
“So did you,” I pointed out. “Tarzan was your idea.”
He started up the car and a moment later pulled away from the curb. We’d been one of the first couples to leave the party. We’d used the excuse that I was tired, but all the Old Ladies had looked at me with knowing grins.
“You’re good with kids,” I said quietly.
“Am I?”
I nodded. “Yes. It was…unexpected.”
Seeing Slash pretend to be Tarzan had alleviated a concern I hadn’t even truly been aware I had. It was one thing to be worried about him as a partner. It was another thing entirely to worry about him being a good father.
I could see it, I realized. Slash in the middle of the night, crooning to the baby and changing its diaper.
It suddenly felt real.
My hand went to my stomach, and I looked down. I wasn’t even close to showing. Hell, I hadn’t even had my first ultrasound yet. I hadn’t spent any time thinking about if it was a boy or a girl, or what I wanted. The books were on my nightstand, but I hadn’t started reading them yet.
The truth was, I hadn’t really given much thought to the future where the baby was concerned. I lived in a studio apartment over a bakery, in a building that had been in my family for three generations. It would be fine in the interim, but what about later?
What did later look like?
Slash reached over and took my hand. His touch calmed my nerves and eased my worries, but when he started stroking his thumb across my skin, he ignited my lust.
It pooled in my belly and made my mouth dry.
Slash parked in the spot behind the bakery next to his motorcycle. I removed my seat belt and immediately turned to him.
“Slash, I—”
His lips came down on mine, hungry, fierce, possessive. I sank into him. The last few hours of fun and conversation had swayed my attention from what was going to happen between us, but the promise of it came roaring back with a vengeance.
We broke apart long enough to get out of the car. My hands trembled when I took the keys from him and unlocked the back door.
When we got to the door of my apartment, I turned and met his gaze. It was hot, all-consuming.
He reached up to cradle my cheeks and stared down at me. “You sure about this?”
I nodded slowly.
He moved so that his leather cut brushed against the front of me. “If you let me into your bed, I’m not leaving it again. Think about what that really means, Brooklyn.”
It meant we were going to be more than just two people raising a kid together.
I stood on my tippy-toes, trying to reach his mouth.
With a groan, his lips touched mine and he hauled me into his arms. My head spun and my skin flushed. I was dizzy with want, and nothing else mattered.
We stumbled into the apartment, stripping out of our clothes as we went. I tossed my jacket and staggered as I tried to get my boots off.
Slash placed his leather cut on the couch, and then he stalked toward me. Suddenly, I was in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist as he carried me to the bedroom. It felt so familiar. Our first night together had been the same.
Passionate. Feral.
He plopped me onto the bed and took off the rest of his clothes, baring his skin and ink to me. I vowed to study it later when I was sated and tired and had already had my fill of him. But for now, I wanted him inside me, stretching me, making me scream as I clawed his back.
I quickly divested myself of my dress and whipped off my thong.
His gaze darkened and he gripped his erection.
I sat up on my haunches and reached for him. He came to me and stood at the edge of the bed, giving me the perfect angle to take him between my lips.
Slash groaned in pleasure when I took him deeper and he hit the back of my throat. I licked and sucked until he tugged my hair and pulled himself from my mouth.
“My turn,” he rasped. He settled on the bed and flipped onto his back. “Come here.”
I straddled him, but his hands grasped the back of my thighs, urging me to scoot higher.
“You want me to—”
“Sit on my face,” he commanded.
“But I—are you sure?”
“Woman, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Embarrassment flooded my cheeks when I spread my thighs over his mouth. His tongue flicked out to tease me, and I moaned. The sound was raw and guttural.
He delved deeper, his hands spreading the back of my thighs to keep me in place. His mouth consumed me until I was trembling with my need to come.
Slash’s stubble rubbed against my sensitive skin, sending sparks shooting along every inch of my body.
I quivered, trying to maintain just a bit of decorum, but Slash was voracious and uninhibited. He pressed the flat of his tongue to the bundle of nerves between my legs, and I screamed my release, grinding against his face.
“Ride me,” he rasped.
With shaky limbs, I slid down his body. I took his hard shaft and positioned it at my entrance, slowly taking him inside me.
He sucked in a breath, and I looked at him. His mouth and chin glistened with my desire. I bent over and kissed him, and he drove his tongue into my mouth. I tasted myself and kissed him deeper.
I writhed on top of him, feeling every ridge. There was no barrier between us, and I’d never felt anything so good in my entire life.
He let me control the speed, his hands grasping my hips. I sat up and thrust my breasts out as my fingernails scored his chest.
“Fuck yes,” he gritted, taking one of his hands off my hip to pinch my nipple. He rolled it between his fingers until it puckered.
I clenched around him, my eyes closing as pleasure zinged from my nipple to my core.
He speared up into my body, stroking the place inside me that ripped another orgasm from me. As I cried out, Slash grabbed me around my waist and flipped us over so that I was on my back. Then he was drilling into me. With a few more powerful thrusts, Slash shouted out his release. Panting, he collapsed on top of me, settling his face in the crook of my neck.
After a few moments, Slash leaned up and pushed my damp hair away from my face. He kissed me, his tongue sliding against mine.
He moved ever so slightly and the flesh between my legs quivered.
I clenched around him, and he sucked in a breath.
“What are you doing?” he demanded when I wriggled beneath him.
“I’m not finished.”
He arched a brow. “You’ve got another orgasm in you?”
I nodded.
“Then use me to get yourself off.”
I grasped his behind and rubbed against him. In just a few short strokes, I was coming again.
When I stilled and opened my eyes, Slash was staring down at me, a smile on his lips. “Never be afraid to ask for what you want, Brooklyn.”
We were in bed, tangled around one another. My head was against his chest, and he kept brushing my hair away from my temple and kissing my forehead.
I leaned back so I could look at him. I traced the scar across his face.
“You don’t have the body of a forty-three-year-old,” I said softly.
“No?”
I shook my head. “Definitely not.”
My fingers trailed down his muscular chest to his flat stomach, and then I inched lower. His head hit the pillow and his eyes shut as I continued to play with him. It wasn’t long before he was clenching his jaw and muttering curses.
Slash rolled me over and pinned me beneath his body, and in one swift movement he was inside of me again. My back arched in pleasure, and he reached under to hold the meaty part of my ass where it met my thigh. I hooked my leg around him as he drove into me over and over again. Our skin dampened, and sweat beaded along Slash’s brow. Just as I came again, Slash had a release of his own.
He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine, and then he slid out of me. The sheets were a mess and so were we.
I rolled out of bed, my nipples pebbling in the cool air of the bedroom. “Shower?” I asked him.
Nodding, he got up and trailed after me.
My bathroom was hardly big enough for one, let alone a giant biker who took up most of the space, but we made it work. Hot water beat my muscles, which felt like jelly.
I turned off the shower and reached for two clean towels. We bumped into one another as we attempted to dry off.
“Why do you live here?” he asked suddenly.
“The building, you mean?”
He nodded.
“This area is zoned for commercial and residential. When I had the building renovated, it made the most sense to turn the storage room into an apartment. The building’s been paid off for years, but I had to take out a loan against it to pay for the renovation.”
“What was it before it was a bakery?” he asked.
“My dad’s leather store and workshop.”
“Where was he living if not here?”
I opened the dresser drawer and pulled out a T-shirt. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”
“I’m curious.”
“So am I,” I said pointedly.
I threw on the T-shirt and a pair of underwear, and then I went to strip the bed. Slash removed the towel from around his waist and ran it roughly over his hair.
“What do you want to know?” he asked finally. He put on his boxers but left his chest deliciously bare.
“Where are you from?”
“Tiny little town in Oklahoma that you’ve never heard of.”
I extracted a clean pair of sheets from the sliver of a linen closet in the hallway and brought them back into the bedroom. Slash helped me with the fitted sheet.
“How’d you get the scar?” I asked.
“I got between my mother and the drunk piece of shit who called himself her boyfriend. He was coming at her with a broken beer bottle.”
I paused in my action of sliding a pillow into a clean case. “A beer bottle did that?”
“Yeah.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” He tossed a pillow in a case onto the bed. “After he cut my face, I beat him senseless. He went to jail, and I went to the hospital to get stitched up. He made bail a few days later. Mom went back to him immediately, and I left town. Never looked back.”
My mouth tightened into a line. “What about your dad?”
“Never knew him.” He looked at me and paused. “What?”
I launched myself at him, tackling him to the bed. He fell onto his back as I straddled him. His hands wormed underneath my shirt and rested at my hips.
“You’re a miracle,” I whispered. “Do you know that?”
“What do you mean?” he asked in confusion.
I worked my lip through my teeth. “When you found out I was pregnant, you could’ve bailed. You didn’t. Now that I know about your past? Jesus, Slash. You’re a miracle. Do you know that?” I cradled his cheeks in my hands and stared deep into his eyes.
He lifted his leg and twisted his body, flipping me over onto my back. He gently lifted my shirt and grazed his lips against my still-flat belly.
“Woman…” He sighed and rested his cheek against my skin.
My fingers tangled in his damp hair.
It had been a perfect day. And an even more perfect night.