Tarnished Lies and Dead Ends Page 16

  Justine lifted her chin and deliberately squared her shoulders as she stuck out her hand. Her father hadn’t raised a quitter. In for a penny. “I wanted to introduce myself properly.”

  He ignored her gesture, his head gradually tipping to one side. That was the only encouragement she got. He proved himself a master at holding his silence and maintained the same calm composure, each deep breath slipping in and out slowly. He gave every indication he could do this all day long. Okay then. She let her hand fall to her side.

  “I’m Justine LaPorte—”

  He cut her off, words brusque as he clipped out, “I know who the fuck you are. You fuckin’ know that too.”

  “I work for the—”

  “Shut up.” He shook his head as she stared at him, her legs beginning to tremble. If he’d only let me speak. “Jesus fucking Christ on a goddamned stick. Next thing you’re going to tell me you’re”—he made air quotes around his next words—“thankful we rescued you.” His upper lip lifted in a snarl. “Grateful for the help, or some shit.” He bent at the waist, shoving his face right up next to hers, and Justine fought the instinct to back away. “You wanted this, tonight, with all these goddamned folks watchin’ everything? You wanted to do whatever this fucking thing is here? With my brothers and family standin’ by to witness everythin’?”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. The darkness didn’t help, and she was unmoored, helpless to direct anything the way she’d wanted it to go.

  “Goddammit.” He huffed out an irritated sigh, heat from his breath a gentle caress against her cheek. “What’d you want? Justine, what did you fuckin’ want from me?”

  Swallowing hard, she steadied her voice and, with her eyes still closed, whispered, “To talk to you.” She paused, then added, “In private.”

  “Fucking shit. People always getting up in my goddamned shit all the motherfucking goddamned time.” His hand closed over hers with a viselike grip, and her eyes flew open as he whirled, yanking her along. He stomped through the crowd, broad shoulders moving like a wall ahead of her, the weight of his glare parting the people like a hot knife through butter. He stopped short, and she ran into his back as he allowed a gaggle of kids to run past, then jerked at her hand again, pulling her along in his wake. Up the stairs, which rattled loudly with every angry stomp, and then she was once again inside his room.

  Wildman used his grip on her hand to whirl her around, then dropped it as if her skin burned him. “Strip,” he ordered, backing up a step. His hands lifted his shirt off, sending the discarded piece of clothing sailing across the room in a flutter of fabric. “Goddamned strip.”

  “I…uh…” She didn’t get more than those sounds out of her mouth before he was crowding into her space, shoulders blocking out the room. I don’t understand.

  His head dipped, and muscles in his jaw jumped and quivered with the force of his words. “I said strip.”

  “I’m not wearing a wire.” She offered the only thing that made sense, a possibility that hadn’t even occurred to her until this instant, how he might see her visit as an attempt to damage the people and organization he was part of, those he called family. “Promise.” She lifted her shirt and turned all the way around. “It’s just me.”

  His hand was on her throat, and he gripped tight then lifted, bringing her to her toes as he slammed her back against the wall. “That’s what you think of me?”

  Confused, she shook her head, lungs working overtime to pull in air against the constriction around her neck. “No,” she gasped, and he eased his hold a little. “I don’t under—”

  His mouth was on hers with an angry, dreadful possession like nothing she’d ever experienced. Teeth slicing at her lips, he fucked into her with his tongue, every stroke brutal and hard. Through the long minutes of the kiss, she let him dominate, giving way to his control until he took her wherever he wanted, drawing her along one path, then changing course and the angle of his head to cut off that course and find a different route. He ground against her and gasped into her mouth, his long, guttural groans forcing themselves down her throat, and she swallowed it all, taking and taking and taking until he eased back, softening his assault, calming her hammering heart. He tenderly broke the kiss and leaned on her, forehead pressed against hers.

  Slowly, Justine came back to herself enough to realize her arms were wound around his neck, holding tight, fingers through his hair in a desperate grip. He surrounded her. His hot body braced on rigid arms to keep from crushing her. She was framed in on either side by a wall of flesh, his biceps, chest, and face all she could see. She lowered her leg from where it had hooked itself around his hip, and pulled in a breath. The harsh inhale broke into pieces, and she tried again, finding scarcely more success.

  “Better?” He asked the question like it made sense, his heavy breathing balanced by the deep growl in his voice, gravel traveling across velvet, rattling through her head.

  “Yes?” Better than what? The words in her head were what she wanted to say, but her mouth wasn’t working yet. “Maybe?”

  ***

  Wildman

  She sounded and looked so softly confused he couldn’t stop the chuckle from rolling out of him. Kissed her stupid. “Now, baby. Need you to strip so I can fuck you like I want.” He took her mouth again, tasting her, slowly tongue-fucking her mouth, stroking and twisting in a sensual battle with hers as he amped her back up, satisfied by how quickly she lost herself. “We keep this up, I’ll fuck you against the wall.”

  The way that caught at her breath, it wasn’t an unwelcome idea, and he filed the information away for later use.

  Because there will be a later.

  He waited a beat, letting her catch up, until eventually she nodded, gaze lifting to his eyes.

  She came to me.

  He saw the weight of her giving this to him again slip sideways, her fears he’d reject her falling away, losing substance and growing lighter with every breath. “Okay,” she said finally, eyes clear once more from the haze he’d brought her to with a kiss.

  A single goddamned make-out session without even my hand in her pants.

  “Did they rape you?” His words appeared to strike her like a blow, and he wished he could have found different ones, but he needed to know. She’d needed to purge, the first time, coming to him in an effort to tone down the howling in her own head. He hadn’t thought it was to wipe another man’s touch from her body, but maybe he’d misread the moment.

  She shook her head slowly.

  “Say it.”

  “No, they didn’t rape me. I…bartered with them for something else, to protect the women.”

  He remembered the bruises, the way she’d dived deep with him, pulling roughness from him. She’d taken everything he’d offered. “A beating.” She stared, gaze stuck on his face. “Why?”

  Her expression didn’t falter, watching him as she shook her head side to side, dark wings of her hair flying through the air.

  Oh, honey.

  Tongue pressed between his teeth, he stepped over to the door and locked it, making a show out of it so she’d know. Turning to face her, he stood still, breathing slowly, then told her, “You and me, we’re going to come to an understanding.”

  Justine LaPorte might be the most dangerous woman he’d ever met. She didn’t realize it yet, might be suspicious, yet still couldn’t know for certain—but she held him in the palm of her hand, could break him with a single word and send him soaring with a smile. It didn’t matter who she was, her name, or where she worked. No, what counted most was what she was—the other half of his soul. Something he never expected to find. He closed his eyes, pushing hard against the desire to be done with this, all this talking, all this chatter. To be done with it and inside her. We both need this.

  “What you gave me was something I liked.” She nodded, even though he hadn’t asked a question, the statement seeming to settle something inside her. “Then before I could get back to talk to you, a man took you from a
place I thought was safe.” He swept his hands out to the sides, indicating the clubhouse, the people in it, and his room. All of me. “I dealt with it. This is my life, woman. I will always protect what’s mine by force, because there are assholes who want to take it from me. This is who I am. It’s all I am. The club made me, and then with my brothers, every single day I make the club. It’s a give and take, always. You and me, we shouldn’t work, but I think we do. We will. If you wanna give this a go, if that’s why you came here tonight, then I’m all in on the idea. We’ll push through whatever obstacles there are, and baby, given the fact me and your job are like polar opposites, there’s gonna be a bunch of ’em. I got shit in my past, too, and we’ll get to that eventually. But for the life of me, I cannot get you out of my head. And I suspect you’re the same, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  She opened her mouth, but he cut her off with a firm shake of his head.

  “Here’s what’s going on in this room tonight. It’s you and me, and nobody else. I wanna fuck you, wanna see what’ll make you come fast, drag it out of you slow. But I also wanna talk about what matters to you. I did some digging—”

  She tipped her head to the side with a frown, and he laughed.

  “Woman, we know a fuck of a lot of the same people, so I did some asking around. I think I know a lot of your secrets, but I wanna earn ’em. Wanna be someone you think’s worth hearing them from your lips, and that’ll take time. You live in Florida, and I’m here in Louisiana, but it ain’t so far a drive and isn’t a place I’m unfamiliar with.” Wildman flashed her a smile, hoping like fuck it hid his trepidation. “Now, if you didn’t come here for this, and I’ve misread every fucking thing, then you got a minute right now to go ahead and say your piece. Then you can turn around, take your sweet, sweet ass down the stairs and out the door, and you won’t ever, not ever, see me again.” She didn’t move, and he pulled in a breath filled with the ease of relief because she wasn’t scampering to escape, and her very stillness told him more than she knew. “You wanna get to know this old outlaw a little, I’m down for that, because there’s something about you just fuckin’ fits me. So what do you say, Justine LaPorte?” That felt too formal, and he smiled as he followed with something that rolled like satin off his tongue. “Jussie. You ready to take a walk on the wild side with me?”

  Minutes rolled past as they stood on opposite sides of the room, and he waited. Worth any time it takes for her to be on the same page as me.

  “I’m not the best submissive.” The words burst from her, and he wondered at the desperation in her tone. “I like what we did in bed, need it, but I’m not always going to want to kneel at your feet. And it stays in bed. If that’s not what you want, then we can—”

  “Did I say I wanted more than what we have?” She shook her head in confusion, and he smirked at how cute she looked. “I’ll tell you what I want, give you a lil’ lesson. So, right about now—”

  He thumbed his belt free, followed by the fastening of his jeans, sighing as the uncomfortable constriction around his rigid cock eased. Wildman marked how her breathing increased.

  Aww, yeah.

  She might not have come to the clubhouse for a fucking, but she’d take one with pleasure.

  “What I want—”

  He bent and tugged at one boot and sock, tossing them to the side.

  “My dearest wish come true—”

  He changed his stance to do the same to the other, his gaze never leaving her face.

  “Would be for you—”

  He shoved his pants down and stepped out of them, standing bare-assed before her, cock rigid.

  “To fucking strip.”

  To his great pleasure, she complied.

  When they came together, it was his arms around her, her hands in his hair, and he lifted her, turning back to the bed before resting her in the middle of it. The covers were neatly tucked and folded, this not being a place he could rest in with her gone, so he’d been sleeping at his own house. Right now, that simply meant there were crisp, clean sheets underneath the soft fuzzy blanket spread over the top. Pale silk of her skin against the midnight blue of the blanket made his heart pump faster, and it was already pounding like an overworked outboard motor in the middle of a sudden bayou storm.

  Justine’s chin lifted, and he obliged the unspoken request, trailing the edge of his teeth along the column of her neck, settling his mouth over the sweet spot where it joined her shoulder before he bit down. Gently at first, his hands roaming her sides and belly, cupping a breast before slipping along her hip, he bit until she moaned, lips against the side of his head, and he smiled around the mouthful of flesh, grinding his teeth in just a little harder.

  “Wild.” Her whisper was wispy, breaths sounding like broken shudders, and she quivered underneath him. He shifted, released his hold, and dragged the rough scruff along his jaw across the tops of her breasts, tongue following like a puppy, wagging its wet way behind, soothing the sting. “I didn’t think.”

  “You don’t have to think, Jussie.” He lapped at her nipple, catching it between his teeth as it hardened, the rosy color darkening with her arousal. He nibbled gently, knowing the tease would be frustrating, but wanting to push her higher up the sliding edge of the wave. “That’s the beauty of this. I’ve got you, baby.” He cupped her breast in his hand, fingers molding and kneading the flesh before he fed it into his mouth on a hard suck. He slipped his other hand up the back of her neck, tangled his fingers in her hair, and twisted, yanking her head back as he bit down on her breast, mouth as full of her as he could make it.

  He transferred his attention to her other breast, fingers tweaking and twisting the wet and swollen nipple left in his wake. “I’ve got you.” Puffy and swollen, the nipple and areola were both red and pink and gorgeous—a testimony to what they both liked.

  She arched off the bed, one hand landing on his arm, the other flying over her head, and he watched as she flattened her palm against the wall. “My baby likes a little titty torture.” Sucking hard, he flicked the nub in his mouth against the edges of his teeth and twisted her other nipple again until she groaned, the vibration of her cry of passion filling the air around them. “Gonna be wet for me, aren’t you, Jussie?”

  “Yes, Wild. Always for you.”

  “Gonna come all over my cock, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Wild.”

  “Be my wild woman, take my cock how I give it to you.”

  Her legs moved restlessly, and he draped a thick thigh over, pinning her in place as he kept up an intermittent pace with the nipple torture he’d begun. Wish I’d thought to grab… fuck, anything. His bag was at home, and in the room here at the club, all he had were fresh condoms and a tube of lube in the little table next to the bed. Next time, he thought, unsurprised at how confident he was there would be another time. And another.

  “Wild.” The word had an edge of pleading in it, like he’d lifted her just until she could see the finish line but didn’t know how to get there on her own.

  “I got you, Jussie.” He let go of every hold and flipped her to her stomach, startling a tiny cry out of her. “Hush, baby.” Covering her with his body, he used his knees to spread her legs, mouthing along the muscles of her shoulder, threatening with his teeth often enough to keep her attention there and not where his hands were. “Kiss me, Jussie.” Her head turned, neck craning until her mouth met his, and he swallowed down her gasps and moans. Taking her bottom lip between his teeth, he razed it with a tight grip, letting it slip slowly free as she writhed harder from the pain. Working between their bodies, he rolled the condom down his length, then quietly popped the top on the lube, working enough of the gel onto his fingers to do what he wanted. Tube recapped, he tossed it to the side and rose to his knees, clean fingers once again wrapped in her raven tresses, making her arch her back.

  “Knees, Jussie.”

  She rose to hands and knees, collapsing down to her forearms when he put weight against her upper back. A nudge
with his cockhead against her entry found she was as sloppy wet as expected, and he didn’t hesitate but dove straight inside, his steady push not giving her much time to get accustomed to the girth of his heavy cock. As her silken heat enveloped him, he had to tear his gaze away from the smooth lines of her body in front of him, the vulnerable knobs of her vertebrae aligned with the sweep of her ribs, instead staring up at the darkened ceiling. Once deep, he didn’t give her a chance to breathe then, either, pulling out nearly entirely before slamming back inside, his balls drawn up so tight to his body they didn’t have a chance to spank her clit, and he grunted when he bottomed out again, and again, fiercely ignoring the orgasm that kept trying to sweep him up as he kept up the punishing pace.

  Deep again, he paused for a breath and ground hard against her, listening to the squelching sounds with a grin. Middle and ring fingers paired, he thrust into her ass without prep or warning, stretching her wide. She pushed backwards against his intrusion with a scream, and he bottomed out there, too, twisting and scissoring his fingers before hooking them at the edge of the rim and pulling with a steady force. Enough to have her hole gaping and fluttering but without danger of tearing. Never hurt her.

  “Wild, God. Please. Oh. Wild.”

  The sounds Jussie made were unbelievable. From deep groans that came all the way up her throat to be swallowed back down, to these tiny keening noises he didn’t think she could control. Every few strokes of his cock, tugs of his fingers, she’d pull in a breath on a gasp that broke in the middle, and he found himself living for and pushing harder to bring those sounds out of her again and again.

  But she hadn’t come yet, and as good as he was making it, she didn’t seem close, not desperately so at least.

  That’ll change.

  Wildman bared his teeth and thrust his thighs to each side, shoving at her knees until she was spread even wider for him. He released his grip on her hair, watching as her neck remained arched for a moment before she settled on the bed, cheek half on, half off the blanket, pillows fallen to the floor a while ago.