Betting It All: A Hellfire Riders MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs Book 11) (9 page)

I start picking at my salad. “Have you had a chance to contact Creek yet?”

“No. I’m hoping he’s pushing Croc to be the one who comes after me.”

“He probably won’t come alone. He’s not the enforcer.”

“I’ll work it out.”

“And find out why he’s here without exposing him?”

Jack nods and stabs my steak, dropping it onto his plate.

I reach for the bourbon and splash more into my glass. “You saw the patches he’s wearing? If he’s spent time in prison, if he’s killed for the club, he’s gone under pretty deep. That takes years. So he must be after something big. There’s nothing that big around here.”

“It’s best if it stays that way.”

Amen to that. My gaze slides down his heavy shoulder, watching the flex of his biceps as he cuts the steak. The club’s emblem inks his skin, wings of flame and wheels of steel. The one good thing.

“How’d you end up with the Riders?” I know Saxon sponsored him about eight years ago—back when my dad was still the prez. “Did you know Saxon in the service?”

Jack shakes his head. “He shared a cell with my brother.”

While doing time for manslaughter. “What was your brother in for?”

“Selling prescription meds.” He pauses briefly, his gaze on the knife cutting through his steak. “He wouldn’t have made it in prison. So I asked Saxon to look out for him.”

He asked Saxon? No. Jack doesn’t ask. I roll the bourbon over my tongue and study him. “So what you really said was that you’d kill him if anything happened to your brother.”

Jack glances up at me, amusement lighting his eyes. “I did.”

“And that made you best buds?” Close enough that Saxon appointed Jack as his vice president five years ago. During the recent merger with the Titans, Saxon appointed a new veep from that club, and made Jack a warlord, instead—which makes him Saxon’s right hand man. He answers only to the prez. “Your brother must have gotten through all right.”

“He got out alive.” His shrug suggests
all right
is relative. “After I left the service, I came by Pine Valley to thank Saxon for looking out for Jaime. He told me to stay and ride with the club. I did.”

“So you knew my dad.”

“I did.”

For a second I wonder what Jack thought of him, but I don’t really want to know. My dad could be a charming motherfucker and Jack might have liked him. I stab at a piece of lettuce. “How’d you know about Portland?”

He sets his knife down and sits back. “The boss heard you rode up every couple of months. We knew you didn’t have any family up there and he worried someone was holding something over your head. So he sent me up after you.”

My throat is tight as hell. “You saw me in that red dress?”

“Looking like a fucking supermodel? Yeah, I did.”

Fuck. “If I’d wanted any Rider to see me that way I’d have walked into the clubhouse wearing it.”

“I figured that.” His voice is low. “Is that dress for you or for them?”

“For them. It makes it easy. A lot easier than wearing a kutte.” But I’m still picky. I’m more likely to turn down invitations than not. “Did I get lucky when you saw me?”

“No. What I saw was how many you sent away.” His dark gaze seems to glitter with a dangerous light. “I thought about sitting next to you.”

Where he might buy me a drink. Where I might decide to take him up to my room. “Why didn’t you?”

“Because even when you’re not wearing a kutte, you’re still a Rider. And I’m still one, too.”

“And you thought I might send you away?”

“Yes.”

Every breath I draw seems to ache deep in my chest. God. How many hookups have I had? Girls mostly in town. Trolling for guys out of town. And it never got to me—until now, when I think of how everything would be different if he’d just sat down. Or if I’d seen him at the hotel, because I know myself. I’d have reeled him in, taken him up to my bed.

And I’d never have stopped taking him. I don’t know how I’ll stop now.

The pressure in my chest erupts on a bitter laugh. “Well, I guess one thing—this bet saved me a trip and hotel bill. At least until next time I need some dick.”

Jack leans in, his eyes like heated stone. “Do you need more now?”

My heart thuds. “Yes.”

“Good.” He takes my hand and sweeps up the bourbon bottle in the other. “Because my dick needs to fuck your ass.”

I grin and let him haul me toward the bedroom. “Still not my favorite fuckhole.”

“That’s why I’ve got this.” He sloshes the bourbon around in the bottle. “If the lube doesn’t work I’ll just start pouring liquor into you. You’ll end up liking it one way or another.”

I snort out a laugh. “It might take a lot of liquor.”

“Whatever works. Get on the bed so I can tie you up again.”

Still wearing his jeans, he tosses the lube and strip of condoms to the mattress beside me, then he cuffs my wrists and fastens them to the headboard. “Got any toys? I bought a few but didn’t know what you like.”

So he didn’t reconnoiter my stash? “In the big dresser. The top drawer.”

I watch his face as he looks through. Nothing in there seems to surprise him and finally he pulls out a smooth G-spot vibrator with a clit stimulator.

He glances back at me. “You like it?”

“Love it. But, I just realized I forgot to take off your shirt before you tied me.” And with my arms stretched over my head and my hands bound, it’s not coming off the normal way.

“I didn’t forget. I like seeing you in it.”

He returns to the bed and pushes the hem of the shirt up over my tits, bunching the material at my neck. His big hands slide up the sides of my ribcage before swooping in to pinch my taut nipples. Fuck. My back arches, and I moan when his hot mouth replaces his fingers, the ache of arousal already building in my pussy again.

His lips taste my neck, my jaw. His voice is like gravel when he says, “Are you going to bite me if I kiss you?”

We broke that rule a while ago. But I’m never that easy. “I won’t draw blood.”

And that must be good enough because his mouth devours mine, tasting of bourbon and pepper and the sweetness of this need. His cheeks are flushed when he pulls back, his cock a thick ridge behind denim. Gripping a pillow, he wedges it under my hips, then grabs another when the height doesn’t satisfy him. Finally he kneels between my splayed legs, watching my face as he eases the slim vibrator inside my slick pussy. The stimulator covers my clit.

On low speed. Immediately frustrated, I roll my hips. “That’s not going to do it. Turn it up.”

Ignoring my demand, he leans forward between my legs and catches my left nipple in his teeth before sucking hard. His hand slides down to my cunt, his fingers lightly teasing the lips of my pussy before gripping the base of the vibe and slowly, slowly pumping it in and out, maddeningly shallow thrusts.

Oh, God. He’s going to fucking kill me. The toy isn’t big enough or deep enough and it’s not vibrating fast enough to do anything but drive me insane.

“Fuck.” Groaning, I try to lift my hips, to get more sensation, but he pins me down.

“More, Lily?”

“Yes.” I grit it through clenched teeth, because he’s squirting lube onto his fingers and I know the more he’s going to give. “You bastard.”

He grins and his hand slides farther back. God help me. It
is
more. Just one long finger, and although it doesn’t feel bad I still don’t like it much, either. But the slow thrust into my tight channel seems to enhance all the rest—and yet it’s still not enough, my body clenching and squirming but I can’t get to the height I need.

“Jack! God. Do it!”

No longer smiling, his face taut with hunger, he sheathes his cock. “You want me to fuck your ass?”

“Or turn up the fucking vibrator.”

That’s apparently not his choice. Fisting his shaft, he begins pushing into me. I expect him to pull the vibe from my pussy but he leaves it in, the stimulator teasing my clit as his cock slowly fills my ass. My fingers twist in the ropes. Jesus. I groan and try to lift my hips, to ease the pressure. The vibe isn’t thick but now I feel it, my inner walls seeming to tighten the deeper Jack goes. He’s big and it hurts, and I still don’t like it, but it’s so much
more
and that feels so fucking good.

With a grunt, Jack tips me up higher. He thrusts fully into me, his pelvis hitting the base of the vibrator and pushing it deeper into my pussy, harder against my clit. I cry out and he slowly withdraws, but I wrap my legs around him and try to force him back, to fill me up again. He shoves into me, hitting the vibe, oh God, like that, and he’s evil, fucking evil, because somehow he’s got me begging him to fuck my ass. Then he turns up the vibe to high and I’m suddenly screaming for more, and he gives it, fucking me hard until the buzz against my clit blows me apart.

Jack groans long and low as I come, bracing his hands beside my shoulders and gentling his thrusts. I lay shuddering as he finishes and falls forward over me, sweat dripping down his taut back.

“You bastard,” I pant, tightening my legs around him. “You dirty fucking bastard.”

He grins, looking down at me, brushing away the long hairs clinging to my sweaty face. “Want that liquor now?”

“Screw you,” I say but my laugh ruins it. Never would I have guessed Jack fucking Hayden is fun in bed. Intense? Yes. Sexy and gorgeous? Oh, yes. But not fun.

Yet here I am, laughing and enjoying every second with him—and loving that he seems to like it all as sloppy and as rough as I do.

Jack reaches up and tugs the rope free but doesn’t release my cuffs. He pulls his shirt over my head. Sliding his arms beneath me, he lifts my weight easily and carries me into the bathroom, where he trashes the condom and tosses the vibe into the sink. I turn on the shower and he slides under the hot spray with me, pulling me back against his chest. God, this is nice. After so much great bourbon and spectacular sex, I’m languid and warm and feeling good all over.

Jack’s hand strokes down my wet hair. “How long does the water last?”

“Forever. I have a tankless water heater.”

“Then we’ll take forever,” he says and grabs the cake of soap. He lathers my back, then tenderly slides his sudsy fingers between my ass cheeks, washing away the lube. “All right back here?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Lazily, I turn my back to the spray and lay my head against his shoulder. “And I’m not saying you made me a fan. But it did feel like sweet angels were pounding my ass at the end there.”

Though his broad chest I feel the rumble of his laugh. His fingertips gently skim from my shoulder to my elbow. “Is your arm hurting?”

“Not too bad.”

“So it is.” His arm tightens around me. “Want to take a break before round two?”

“Sounds good,” I mumble against his neck. “Fair warning, though. I’m going for a knockout.”

“No need.” His hand tangles in my hair and he holds me closer. “I went down in round one.”

I guess we both did.

• • •

Back in my bed, Jack holds me against side, my head pillowed on his shoulder. I’m still boneless and sleepy and utterly happy. I’ve had some wild nights but I can’t remember being this well fucked, this satisfied. In the dim light, I listen to his even breathing, feel his heart beating slowly beneath my palm. A demon’s inked mouth devours his parents beneath my hand. His brother’s name bleeds beneath my fingertips.

We’ve been quiet for a while, but I know he’s not asleep. “Where’s your brother now?”

“Tulsa.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“No. Up near Seattle.”

A long way from Oklahoma. “Do you ever see him?”

“I see him. He doesn’t see me.”

Unless his brother is blind there’s only one way that makes sense. “So you don’t visit. But you check in, make sure he’s doing all right.”

“I do.”

Just like he’d made sure his brother was okay in prison, too. “Is the distance your choice or his?”

“His. I killed our father when I was fourteen and he was ten. He hasn’t forgiven me for it.” During my stunned silence following that announcement, he adds, “My mother never did, either.”

Heart pounding, I come up onto my elbow. His eyes are flat, but I know better now than to think they’re empty. I just can’t see what’s behind them.

Fucking hell. This might be
why
I can’t see what’s behind them. And didn’t he say that he’d learned his first lesson from his father’s fists? “Why did you kill him?”

“He started in on Jaime. I tried to stop him and that pissed him off. But when he dragged me into the kitchen and got me over the table, I got my hands on a knife—and I didn’t take what he gave me that time.”

Jesus. What was it he said to me the other day? I told him I was going to be the worst fuck ever and Jack said he’d already had the worst. “You say he started in on Jaime. You don’t just mean beating.”

“No.”

My throat and stomach hurt like I’m going to cry, but Jack’s relaying it all like it’s somebody else’s past. “What happened to you after? Were you arrested?”

“No charges were brought. But my mother wouldn’t take me back. So they put me in a place.”

No charges. That probably meant the evidence of abuse was so severe that the cops didn’t even think to. That it was self defense or justified. Fourteen. With his father’s blood on his hands after being sexually abused by the man for God knows how long. Then rejected by his family. No way that didn’t cut something out of him. “How the hell did you get into the service? I thought you were fucked up after you came out but obviously you must have been before you went in.”

A short laugh shakes through him. “I was. I failed the psych evals, but in just the right way. I was perfect for other operations.”

“In what branch?”

“Not any. I just did what needed to be done to protect the country.”

I can hear what he isn’t saying. That he was recruited to carry out operations where he had to work alone. Maybe operations where the government didn’t really want to claim involvement, so if any of his missions went south they’d have washed their hands of him. “And you had the right mindset for it.”

To work alone. To kill without hesitation. And not to expect anyone to have his back.