Clay had stopped hurting the minute he’d touched her. It’s psychosomatic, he understood in the only sane part of his brain—a thought he quickly tamped down. Because, whatever the reasons for the reprieve, he knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Besides, right now, with her cool, prim, white hand on his dick, there wasn’t much point trying to sort out what was right or wrong, good or bad, or any of that other shit. No point at all, because he hadn’t felt this good in months. Months? Fuck no, years. It had been years since Clay Navarro had felt anything so right.
“Tighter,” he said, because she was teasing, and he wanted real.
She tightened her fingers, reminding him of how efficient she could be with those strong hands. Down his cock, then back up, without really hitting the head—still with the teasing—until he glanced up at her face and understood this wasn’t about that at all. She looked fascinated, curious, and completely taken in. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You can’t hurt me.”
Her eyes met his at those words, which he realized with a start could be misinterpreted. The green was nearly gone from her gaze, pushed out by a gaping black pupil. Her face was flushed and she looked different in the throes of desire: kind of lost but also curious and… What was that other thing? There was something hungry there, something that made his cock even harder, while his mouth watered and his mind went to a darker place. The image he’d gotten, looking at her just now, wasn’t one he’d pictured before.
Suddenly, he wanted to wreck her a little bit—to take her pristine, white shell and crack it.
It made him feel guilty, the image his sick mind had conjured of her. Guilty but hard, which was one hell of a fucking complication for a man who’d lived a double life for so long.
His mind went back to all those women who hung around the MC. He’d had to pretend he felt like the other guys, had to act like just another horny bastard. The guys who used them and threw them out. Women like his sister, Carly, whose suffering had just been par for the course in their fucked-up world. Not even collateral damage, since collateral had value. And he’d had to taint Carly’s memory by pretending to use women just like her. The memory made him sick.
Better to stay in the moment, here, with this woman—this woman who made him almost feel whole again.
He thrust once into George’s hand, and she got the picture, tightening and moving up, around the head of his dick, and back down. “Pull up your shirt,” he said, even as a part of him insisted this wasn’t the way to talk to this woman. “Let me see your tits.”
The thing about Dr. George Hadley was that she was a lady. Definitely a lady, except…except the look in her eye told him she liked it when he talked to her rough.
Unable to get the fabric up, she made as if to let his cock go for a second, but he reached down and held her there.
“No. Do it one-handed,” he ordered, understanding that something about this wasn’t quite right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be with this woman. He was supposed to accept her tenderness; he wasn’t supposed to be this way anymore.
But that made him wonder what the fuck she was doing with a guy like him.
She was into tats. She had to be. The tats and the danger of a bad boy. She was responding to his rough edges. That was it, wasn’t it? He thrust into her hand again, aggressive, and jerked her bra down, hard.
“You like that?” he asked, feeling filthy, horrible, but also needing to know. Do you like that? Do you like this side of me I may never be able to get rid of?
He pinched George’s nipple, and she moaned, deep and low, so he pinched it again, harder. Her cry jostled free memories, shame. He didn’t deserve this—her. He didn’t deserve to have this kind of forgiveness, acceptance. The last time he’d done this…
There’d been a woman at the club… God, he didn’t want to think of her right now. Those girls who’d let the guys do anything. He shuddered, his brain fuzzy around the edges as another memory seeped in—
His face—the day he’d gotten this scar he’d wear for the rest of his life. He’d gotten sliced in service to the Sultans. An unfortunate occurrence, which had turned into the boon he needed and helped earn his status as Brother. A scar for a Sultan patch. Not so big a price to pay.
Another jagged scar, on his sister’s body, like the one on his head. She’d been cut. They’d cut her.
Clay blinked, feeling wrong, in the wrong place, mixed up, and fuzzy. He shook his head to clear it, brushed off a hand, tried to back off, said something. Slurring, panicked, his head full of a powdery fog, clogging him, breathing impossible, the buzz inside his ears a hive of bees or—
He was on the floor, seated, his back to the sofa, and a woman was on her knees beside him.
“The fuck?” he said, squinting, his voice raw. The room was a broken kaleidoscope, his heart pumping poison.
“You need a doctor,” she said.
“No.”
“What’s going on, Andrew?”
“Andrew?” he asked, trying to see past the gray honeycomb filling his vision. “Who the fuck is Andrew?” Her hand was on him again, and he pried it off. “Don’t.” Why was he slurring? Had they given him something? What the hell had they given him? He couldn’t think past the panic. “Where’s Handles? He know I’m here?”
“I’m, um…” The woman swallowed audibly. “I’m not sure. What’s your name?”
That cleared the clouds from his brain, just enough to know there was danger in this question, and he grabbed her hand, hard. Her tiny bones rubbed together in his fist. “Why—” He blinked. “George.”
“Yes, you seem to be having some kind of…”
Attack. Episode. Flashback. Something.
But it was over now. The fog was clearing.
“I’m fine.” He’d be fine when he left. He blinked, stood, tucked himself back into his clothes, and gave the place a bleary once-over before stumbling out the front door—running before he lost himself in memory again.
Because, after all the worrying and watching over her, he’d never forgive himself if he was the one to hurt her.
* * *
George blinked after him, confused and hurt and worried and a little angry.
What was going on? No. No way could she let Andrew Blane leave her behind for the second time that week, clearly in pain, clearly needing help. It tweaked something in her brain. No, it didn’t just tweak her—it set her off, exploding in her chest and sending her running to the front door to… She didn’t know what she’d do when she had him cornered—keep him here so he’d explain? Make him stay so she could take care of him? Whatever it was, she couldn’t stand this feeling of impotence.
Oh, she’d felt it before, hadn’t she? The inability to do a single blessed thing to help. But she could help this man, if he’d only let her. And there was no way she’d let him push her away like this.
So rather than go back to worry, to wait, to wonder in silence, George walked out her front door.
She tromped down the stairs, eyes going right to where his truck was turning around in the cul-de-sac. She stalked out into the road and waited.
The truck stopped; she walked around to the passenger door and climbed in, facing him, feeling so damned reckless.
Without even really thinking, she pulled back a hand and slapped his shoulder. “Don’t. Ever. Walk out on me again,” she said, her words more measured than her breathing.
“What are you—”
She scooted in and pushed at that shoulder again. It was a ridiculous, ineffectual move against someone so much larger than her, but she wanted to reach him, damn it. Wanted him to feel it.
“I don’t want to hurt you, George.”
“You don’t get to decide how much hurt I can take. So, just…fuck you for thinking you get to decide. For us. For me,” she spat, raising her hand in frustration. He reached out and grabbed it, drawing their eyes up together to where his inked fist held her naked one.
“Go inside, George.” He let her hand go.
“You…you need help, Andrew. Why won’t you trust me?”
He shook his head at her and looked away, and she wanted to scream with frustration. This was someone she could do something for. This wasn’t someone being threatened by disease and—
Unless… “Are you dying? Is that it? Do you need—”
“I’m not dying. I’m fine.”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered on a great big sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure she could go another round with cancer as the enemy. “Why then?” She kept her eyes on that beautifully harsh face and thought, Fuck it. Just fuck it.
He leaned in to talk to her, eye to eye. “This isn’t gonna—”
She cut him off with her mouth, hard and wet against his, and there it was again, the zing of desire straight to her crotch.
With a grunt, he responded, one strong arm running down her body, under her bottom. He pulled her up and over the armrests, slamming her into his lap, her legs around his waist, strong arms hauling her against him, stuck tight between the wheel and his body.
An accidental tap against the horn, the sound of keys jingling, then the gearshift shoving into Park, and with a curse, Andrew tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him. Wouldn’t let go.
“This what you fuckin’ want?” He tilted his hips into hers, squeezed her ass tighter, pushed against her.
“Yes.”
“Doctor likes the bad boys, huh? That what you’re into?”
“No,” she whispered as she ground herself against him. And then stronger. “Maybe,” she said before pulling away. “But you don’t always get to decide. You don’t get to run away when things are tough. Remember that, okay? Remember that.”
He nodded, looking dazed, and George bit his lip before throwing open the driver’s-side door and sliding out, down, and onto the asphalt. “You coming?” she asked, channeling someone who knew what they were doing. It was an odd thing, this strength that ran through her. It made her feel like a different sort of woman—one who acted because it felt good, not because it was smart or made sense.
And there was one thing she knew for sure: this decision wasn’t even close to being smart, but whatever happened tonight, she would never let herself regret it.
* * *
Clay parked in front of George’s house and followed her, chastised but turned on like crazy. And wanting her to understand.
What? What the fuck did he need her to understand?
Inside, she stood by the stairs.
He took her by the shoulders. His kiss was hard and probably hurt, but she didn’t seem to mind, responding with equal ferocity, her body strong and lithe under his hands, her teeth clashing with his in what might have been anger.
“This what you want, George?” he asked. “You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” she said. “No. I don’t know.”
“I’m a mess.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“You’re not a mess. You’re perfect.”
“Me?” She chuckled, the sound low and sexy. “I’m worse than you are. How messed up is that? Taking advantage of people? Feeling up patients in my care.”
“Patients? You saying I’m not the only one?”
Her green eyes got wide as she stilled and looked up at him. “You’re the only one,” she said. In that moment, he felt like it—the only one. The way she looked at him made him feel huge, whole, important. Like the only one ever.
He couldn’t remember wanting anyone more than this woman in this moment. As messed up as he was, he couldn’t run from her anymore.
“Come on,” she whispered, her voice as eager and full of wanting as he felt.
His hands tightened on her, helpless against her power, and he urged her up the stairs, half walking, half crawling, tripping in their haste and then staying down, the air leaving him with an audible whoosh. Because here was as good a place as any, wasn’t it?
He was stuck, on his knees on the stairs, needy and wanting and ready for whatever she’d give him. He scooted up the two steps to where she was, took in the smile on her face when she turned to look at him, and then kissed it off. Hungry, God, he was hungry for her. He covered her with his body and lost it, grinding against her with blind, animal urgency. Before he could think it through, he pushed her skirt up and shoved two fingers past her panties where they sank into her hot, hot pussy.
* * *
George lay splayed on the stairs, Andrew’s fingers inside of her, his tongue hot in her mouth.
Over the past decade, she’d wanted sex in a vague sort of way. She’d masturbated, but it had always felt physical—the call of hormones—rather than emotional. Even with Tom, there’d been something…practical about the way they’d made love. Here, though, with Andrew, there was more to it. Its roots were deeper. A spirituality or something that she’d never before associated with a man or a relationship. Whatever kind of relationship this was.
Doctor/patient, came the words from a guilty, dark little corner of her brain, quickly tamped down. Lovers, came the second, more honest label, which she chose to embrace.
“Fuck, George,” he said, pulling at her hips, pressing his into her. “I can’t get enough of you.”
She felt the same way, but she couldn’t say it, too busy breathing to talk through this intimacy.
From below, she watched his eyes rove across her body, enjoyed the admiration and fire in them. But he was fully dressed and she lay there with her skirt bunched up, and it felt unbalanced. She wanted to see him, his strength above her, his skin.
She reached a hand up to touch his chest, where even beneath his T-shirt, his nipple beckoned.
“You’re so fucking wet for me.”
“I’ve been like this for days,” she breathed.
“And I’m like this,” he said.
“I want to see it again,” she said, shocked at her brazenness.
With a long, heavy-lidded look, he ordered, “Take me out.”
Oh, that pushed a button she didn’t know she had.
Quickly, she half sat, reached for him, fumbled at the belt and snap, then yanked down the zipper and pulled him out gently, her breath coming hard. Her eyes darted up to meet his before they both turned back to their bodies—his erection stiff between them, angry and red. It almost made her smile—gave her a sharp jolt of power. Here she was, beneath him, open and vulnerable and yet…she could do anything.
“Here,” she said kindly. With one hand, she grasped him, stroked him up and down, watching how his eyes narrowed to slits, his cheeks flamed red. She shifted, let her bottom land on the next step down and then the next, until she could take him into her mouth, just the tip—just a taste.
Andrew groaned and touched her head. Was he seeking permission? She grasped his hand and shoved it into her hair, showing him. This is what I want.
Without hesitation, he tightened his fist and tilted her head back, his face going from flushed and lost to hard and animal. That change hit her low in her belly, as did the groan he let loose.
She pulled away from licking him. “I want to suck you,” she forced herself to say, her voice edged with something hard and brittle but stronger than she’d have imagined. “I want you to…” Make me. God, she couldn’t say it, couldn’t even think the words. Being used by a man was masturbation material—not something she’d ever thought she’d actually try.
She must have said the words, she realized with a start, because he did it. That was all it took to release the creature caged inside him. Face hard with lust and power, he pulled at her hair—so hard it almost hurt—and lifted her up.
“You want this?” he asked, voice ragged.
“Yes. Yes, I want you to…do things to me.”
“You’re sure?”
“Please. I want this. Please.”
A swift pinch of her nipple made her gasp and scramble slightly—only she couldn’t scramble far, because his hands closed around her hips, tightened, and rolled her onto her stomach.
I couldn’t move even if I wanted to, she realized with a jolt of hot shock as he put her where he wanted her, showing her how strong he was. The words brute strength floated through her mind, turning the shock into something more visceral, shaded with images of cavemen hunting down their prey. Her knees hurt where they ground into the step.
Good thing I don’t want to move. The thought edged on shame, that ridiculous image of being bested by the caveman, but she let that go—she let it all go, the fear, the guilt, the weight of responsibility.
She felt him shift, fumble at something, then a plastic crinkle and the acrid smell of rubber.
On her hands and knees now, with Andrew Blane’s bulk behind her, she waited for him to do it. For the longest time—a handful of seconds probably, but it felt like forever—he stayed there, mighty and unyielding, but also shuddering in a way that said he was close to losing control.
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, caught those wild, dark eyes, and said, “Fuck me.”
The words pushed through whatever hesitation he still had, until she felt the blunt tip of his cock slowly, inexorably easing its way into her body. He was hot, stretching her, the feeling so new it was like learning how all over again.
While her mind continued to adjust, her body seemed to know exactly what it was doing, bringing out a side of herself she’d completely forgotten. The animal in her: instinctual, elemental, basic. She craned her neck to get a look at his face.
We’re not civilized at all, she thought as he filled her again and again, faster with every thrust, his body enveloping hers, his testicles slapping her thighs, the slippery, sweaty smack of his hips loud in the still night air.
He was saying things, she could tell—although, being nothing but a creature of the senses now, she couldn’t decipher the actual words. Only that they were guttural and raw, probably too harsh for her soft insides.
George jolted at the sound of him smacking her bottom before she even felt the sting of it, but she involuntarily tightened around him, and he groaned louder, thrust harder—hitting her high, on the cervix, before leaning forward, truly bestial now, to bite her neck, hard and marking. Mating.
George had never done sex quite like this. Never. Not as a horny teen, nor as a loving spouse. And as her body reacted with intrinsic knowledge, it wasn’t a memory so much as instinct. Deep and ancient and rooted in her genetic code.
Hands on her hips, lifting her to meet him, holding her buttocks apart, spreading her wide so he could get in deep… And that bite, that brand of ownership, made George grunt long and low—the kind of sound she’d never uttered in her thirty-three years on earth—and climax hard, the sensation new and unexpectedly moving.
* * *
Clay’s orgasm came too fast, too hard, an uncontrollable blast that left him gasping and immobile, collapsed over George’s back.
He didn’t want to move, wanted to stay in this blissful limbo, wrapped around this woman who’d thrown him for such a loop.
Slowly, things began to refocus. She shifted, and he woke up to her position on the steps—splayed out on hands and knees with nothing but wood to cushion her. With a final squeeze, he pulled back, gave himself a moment to take her in from top to bottom…and froze when his eyes landed on her neck.
Tooth marks. Deep and red and painful-looking.
I did that. I hurt her.
And there, on the stairs, it came hurtling at him—the guilt, the fucking sea of guilt. For everything, for all of it. For sitting there, just listening and pretending to agree while Ape and Handles and Boom-Boom planned the murder of a local sheriff’s deputy who’d gotten too curious. For drinking and fighting and joining them in their vicious, raucous partying. For flirting and fucking when he had to. And worst of all—Jesus Christ, far worse than anything else—for feeling it, wanting it, actually becoming a part of it all.
Now, here, he’d brought that to her.
“I’m sorry, George,” he croaked out, body already far removed from hers.
“What? Why?”
“Your neck. I hurt you.”
Avoiding her gaze, he focused instead on her hand as it flew to examine the place where he’d marked her. He quickly pulled his jeans back up, yanked at the zipper, and worked to close the belt, shaking, shaking with shame.
“I’m sorry. You won’t ever—”
“Stop that and come here,” she interrupted, grabbing his hand and tugging him down. She covered his mouth with hers, giving him another dose of that medicine he couldn’t seem to get enough of—tenderness, understanding, feeling, or whatever it was. He had no idea what he’d call it. All he knew was it made him raw and open, its newness blinding. “Come upstairs, Andrew. Come to bed and hold me.”
“Okay,” he said, helpless before her, and let her drag him up the steps.
They did the normal nighttime things that he usually took care of blind drunk nowadays. She brushed her teeth and loaned him her toothbrush, which should have been gross, but instead felt like a tiny slice of trust. Intimacy that was painfully real.
After, he followed the light to her room, where she waited for him in one of those antique-looking wooden beds. Jesus, he’d never slept on anything this fancy before. Bright-white sheets, a faded quilt folded down at the feet, the window wide open, and nothing but the ceiling fan to press out the heat.
He didn’t care, though, as he lay down naked beside her, switched off the lamp, and let her scoot right up into his side.
Enveloped by the heavy air, he wound his arm tightly around her and enjoyed knowing he could watch over her here, tonight, even if he didn’t deserve this unexpected sense of security.
Within minutes, he felt heavy, sleep nearly shocking him at how easily it deigned to come, the woman beside him something solid to latch on to as his heart slowly began to unfold.
* * *
Hot, can’t breathe. Hot, hurts.
He was caught, trapped on the bed. They’d found him. How’d they find him? Fuck, it was hot, searing pain through his back, his leg paralyzed. Holes in his skin. The noise, the fucking roar of fire.
Clay pushed and hit and somehow worked his way out of the bed, as he’d done so many times before. The fall to the ground was harder than he remembered, the bed higher. Shooting him in the back hadn’t been enough to kill him apparently, because he was here, here, alive, hurting. And yet…
They know. They know, his brain told him over and over. How the fuck do they know? Who the fuck told them? And where the fuck’s the team when I need them?
He was screaming, he thought, although he couldn’t hear his voice through the sawing in his brain, the acid in his sinuses. Something was on him, then, cold and wet, and he reached out to whack it off, but it came back, and with it, a thread of a voice—clean and clear and magic. It pierced the fog, the mush in his brain, and he opened his eyes to see a shadow of her there in the dark.
“George,” he croaked, and she curled into him. “George.”
It was a whisper this time. A whisper of relief as his arms found her, her body already sturdy and familiar in the dark, hot night.