Boxed Set: Steel: Blacthorne MC Romance (5 page)

I
followed
Nick across the building, and the sound from the bar faded behind us. We travelled along the same wooden paneled corridor until we came to a green door. Nick opened the door and gestured for me to enter first.

I took a step inside and then felt my stomach tighten.

Crap. There was only one bed.

Normally I’d expect Nick to be a gentleman and let me sleep on the bed alone, but right now Nick needed sleep even more than I did. He was badly hurt, and I wasn’t convinced that the doctor had done a good job.

I stood in the centre of the room and sniffed back the tears that were threatening to fall. Why was this happening to me? I just wanted to go home.

“Don’t cry, Ella, please,” Nick said softly behind me.

“I’m not!”

I felt him lift a lock of my hair away from the back of my neck as he moved behind me. “I will make sure you get home, I promise. Just be patient for a couple more days.”

I felt him behind me and I leaned back against his hard body. I hated myself for it, but I yearned to feel his arms around me. I wanted any amount of comfort I could get.

“Why can’t you just let me go now?” A tear wound its way down my cheek, and I turned around and buried my face in his chest so he wouldn’t see. He smelled so good, of some kind of citrusy cologne. I breathed in the scent of him as my fingers ran over his abs and up his back. I felt his muscles under his shirt tense, sending a flash of lust through me. I wanted him. I wanted him more than I had ever wanted any man. I needed to feel him inside me. I wanted him to whisper in my ear and tell me everything was going to be okay as he thrust himself into me.

I felt his lips brush my hair as he pulled me against him. I could feel his hardness against my belly, and my fingers inched down, eager to hold him in my hand.

But Nick took a deep breath and then put a hand up against the wall to steady himself. He really didn’t look good.

“What is it?” I moved towards him, cupping his chin in my hands and looking up into his eyes.

“It’s nothing. Just a little tired I guess.” He looked spaced out and his skin felt burning hot.

I was sure Nick had an infection and he needed more antibiotics.

“Here sit on the bed,” I said, guiding him to sit on the corner of the mattress.

“No,” he said with a husky voice. “You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the chair.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Nick. You are not well, and you’re not in a position to argue.” I kept my tone bossy to hide my nervousness as I reached for the bottom of his T-shirt. As I pulled the fabric up, his eyes shot up to meet mine with a questioning look.

“Don’t get any ideas,” I said primly, even though I was having quite a few ideas of my own just from being this close to him. “I want to check on the dressing.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said and smiled. “I forgot you’re a medical student.” He helped me lift of his T-shirt.

I licked my lips. I’d already seen his body, but that didn’t stop me wanting to reach out and touch him. I wanted to run my hands along his muscles and feel every inch of him. I pulled my hand away quickly as if his skin burned me. I needed to focus.

I gently pushed on his shoulders to make him lie down on the bed and he grinned at me. “Well, this is nice. I like it when a girl takes charge.” He winked at me, but his voice sounded weak.

I tried to ignore him and focused on the dressing. It had come loose and there was some evidence of bleeding, but that seemed to have stopped now. The skin was very red and inflamed around the wound. I decided to go back and get the doctor. He would be able to give Nick another shot of antibiotics.

As I moved away, Nick called after me. “Hey, where are you going?”

“To get the doctor.”

Nick struggled to sit up, and I couldn’t help noticing the strong muscles in his arm tense under his weight.

Jesus. I needed to snap out of it.

Nick shook his head. “You can’t leave the room. I can’t let you out of my sight.”

“Look, I promise I’m not going to try and escape. I really am just going to get the doctor. Damien won’t even know.”

Nick fell back against the bed. “Okay, I’ll trust you, Ella. Don’t let me down.”

It took me five minutes to find the doctor, and when I eventually did, I was unsurprised to find him in a back room playing poker. He waved a hand in my face as I tried to speak to him.

“Not now, sweetheart. This is an important hand.”

“I need your help. It’s Nick. I think he has an infection.”

He looked at me for a moment, then sighed. “I’ll just finish up this hand,” he said.

I looked over his shoulder at his cards and said, “You can’t win with those cards. You may as well come with me now.”

His mouth dropped open and the other people at the table looked like they would like to murder me, but I didn’t care. I needed to get the doctor to Nick and fast.

The doctor followed me to the room, muttering something about a fussy woman overreacting.

“I have a year of medical school,” I informed him haughtily. “And he’s really sick.”

“Wow, a whole year,” the doctor said, sarcastically, taking a long drag of his cigarette.

I decided to ignore him. He wasn’t worth bothering with.

“Perhaps you could take a few more years at school before you start lecturing me about…” His words died on his lips as he saw Nick laying on the bed. Even to someone without any medical knowledge at all, it was obvious he wasn’t doing well.

The doctor removed the dressing from Nick’s shoulder. “He must have dislodged it somehow,” he said defensively. “And it was probably already infected when you got here,” he continued when I didn’t respond.

I felt incredibly guilty. The dressing would have become loose during his fight with the biker when he was trying to protect me.

“Instead of making excuses, perhaps you should clean the wound again and give it a new dressing and give him more antibiotics. You do have some don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the doctor said, nodding and looking down at Nick with concern. “I’ll go and get some now.”

After the doctor left us alone in the room, I stared down at Nick.

He looked so beautiful lying there. He could have done anything with his life. He didn’t have to be tied up with this biker gang. I wondered how he had gotten involved in it all. Had he joined as a young kid and not been allowed to leave? Had his father been in the gang?

As I stared down at his handsome face, he stirred and looked up at me.

“Ella,” he said urgently and reached out for my hand. “Be careful. Don’t trust them.”

I felt icy trickles of dread creep along my spine. “Trust who?”

“They think you saw something,” he said. “No matter what you saw that night, tell them you saw nothing. Your life depends on it.”

“What?” I shook my head. He wasn’t making any sense.

“Are you talking about something that happened last night? I can’t remember anything. I had too much to drink. What did happen?”

Nick didn’t answer. His eyes fluttered shut.

It was probably just his fever talking. At least I hoped it was. What the hell had happened last night? What was I supposed to have seen? And did involve my friend Claire?

I felt a tug of guilt because I knew he was feeling very sick, but I shook his arm, trying to wake him again. I needed to know what had happened.

“What happened last night, Nick?” I asked urgently. “Did something happened to Claire? Is she okay?”

He blinked up at me and looked confused, and then the door opened and the doctor entered the room.

After the doctor gave Nick another shot of antibiotics and a sedative, I refused to leave his side.

“He’ll be out for the count until morning,” the doctor said. “So you may as well get some sleep.”

I nodded, but I had no intention of sleeping.

After the doctor left, I sat on the edge of the bed holding Nick’s hand and prayed he would survive this. I needed him in more ways than one. He held the key to everything, and I was starting to realize he was the only chance I had of getting out of this mess.

N
ick’s fever
finally broke at 3 A.M., but it wasn’t until the dawn light flooded in through the window that he finally woke up. I hadn’t slept at all. I’d spent all night sitting beside him, anxious to see some sign that he was getting better.

After everything he’d been through, he should have looked a wreck. He’d been at death’s door last night and almost died, yet he woke up looking refreshed as if he’d just taken a quick nap. The pale tinge had disappeared from his skin, and he was back to his gorgeous tanned self.

It just wasn’t fair.

I on the other hand, looked a complete mess. As I hadn’t changed my clothes and hadn’t showered, I felt grubby, and my hand tangled in my hair when I tried to run my fingers through my unruly curls. I’d been so worried last night and caught up in what had been happening that I hadn’t given a thought to my appearance.

But as Nick looked up at me and gave me a sleepy smile, I couldn’t help wishing I looked a little better.

I rubbed my fingers under my eyes self-consciously, thinking that I probably had smudged my mascara. I hadn’t so much as glanced in a mirror.

“Hey,” Nick said. “Did you wake up early?”

I just shrugged. I didn’t want him to know that I had been sitting up all night watching over him.

When it seemed like he was waiting for an answer, finally I said, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“You should try and get a few hours now,” he said. “The rest of the crew will be hungover, so we won’t be leaving here until late afternoon. It will be cooler then.”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to sleep. What I could really use is a shower. I’ve been wearing the same clothes for far too long. Do you think there’s any way I could wash them?”

Nick’s eyes flickered down to take in my red dress. My heart skipped a beat as his eyes lingered on the low-cut area at the front of my dress.

It wasn’t my usual type of outfit, and it definitely wasn’t suitable for the daytime. Claire had persuaded me to wear it, telling me that my curves were hot, and that I should show them off. I’d always been self-conscious of my curvy figure and with Nick’s eyes on me now, I blushed.

He reached across and gently trailed a finger over the red strap of my dress. My skin tingled at his touch. But I pulled away. My body was reacting too easily to him, and I was getting carried away with these feelings I had for him. I needed to focus on getting out of there, not crushing on Nick Steel.

He looked confused as I pulled away, but only for a moment before he threw back the blanket he’d had over him and swung his legs out of the bed.

I held my breath. It didn’t matter how many times I’d seen his body, every time, the stab of lust that hit me took me by surprise.

“I’ll talk to Johnny’s wife and see if she’s got anything you can borrow,” he said.

As he stood up, I forced myself to look away from his toned torso.

I stared down at the floor and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, considering.” He ran a hand through his hair and grinned at me. “My shoulder is a little sore, but nothing I can’t handle. It won’t stop me riding.”

I didn’t know exactly how to approach what I wanted to ask him, but I needed to know what he’d been talking about last night in his fevered state.

I chewed on my thumbnail. “Last night, you said something to me.”

Nick turned to face me. He had just been pulling on his jeans, but he paused and stared at me with an intense expression. It was only for a moment and then his expression cleared and he smiled at me again. “Oh, really? What did I say? I think those drugs the doctor gave me last night were pretty strong. I’m not sure it’s fair to hold me to any promises I gave you last night.”

He winked at me, and I rolled my eyes at him. He was a bit full of himself. I supposed with a body and a face like that he could afford to be.

“It was nothing like that,” I said, irritably. “You said something about me not trusting them…” My voice trailed away as I saw the expression change on Nick’s face.

He suddenly became more guarded. He shook his head and then shrugged on his T-shirt. “Really? That was a funny thing to say.”

“What did you mean?”

“I haven’t got a clue,” he said. “It was probably the drugs talking. Nothing to worry about. Don’t take it seriously, Ella.”

I didn’t believe him. My gut reaction told me that when his defenses were down last night, he’d wanted to protect me and tell me the truth, but now in the cold light of day, he was closing ranks with the rest of the crew and wouldn’t tell me what was going on.

He reached out for the door handle, but I said, “Wait. What about Claire? Look, you can keep your secrets about the motorcycle club. I’m really not interested. I just want to know if my friend Claire is okay.”

He stood motionless in the doorway with his back to me, and for a long time, he didn’t turn around. When he finally did, he shook his head. “Sorry, Ella. I don’t remember Claire.”

I clenched my fists in frustration. “Of course you do. She was at the bar when we hooked up. Remember? I went to tell her where I would be in case she was worried.”

He nodded slowly. “Oh, yes, I remember that. I don’t know what happened to her, though. I guess she went back to her hotel.”

I sighed. “I hope she did. If you would just let me use the phone, I could call her to see if she’s okay.”

“You can call her in a couple of days, Ella.”

“But I want to phone her now,” I said, growing irritated. “Why is it such a big deal? Last night, you said I saw something. What did you mean?”

His tone changed, and his jaw tightened as he replied. “Ella, you’ve got to stop asking questions. I told you. It was the drugs talking. Anything I told you last night… You just need to forget about it!”

I flinched at his angry words. I’d waited by his bedside all night to see if he would be okay, and now he treated me like this. He was just as bad as Damien Blackthorne.

Before he left the room, he turned and said, “Don’t mention what I said last night to anyone. Do you hear me, Ella?” He insisted when I didn’t reply and glared down at me furiously.

I couldn’t understand why he was angry with me. It should be the other way around. “Fine,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring back at him.

When Nick returned, he held a pile of clothes in his arms and passed me some shampoo and other toiletries in a blue and white striped bag. He handed me the clothes. “I’m sorry for shouting at you, Ella,” he said. “It’s just… You’ve managed to get yourself caught up in a very dangerous situation, and the best thing you can do is keep quiet. You saw nothing. You heard nothing. After you’ve spoken to Victor and convinced him of that, he will let you go.”

I threw up my hands in frustration. “But I didn’t
see
anything, and I didn’t
hear
anything. They must have gotten me mixed up with someone else. I’m sick of this. I just want to go home.”

“I know,” Nick said, his tone gentle. “And you will, I promise. It’s just a few more days.”

I wasn’t in the mood for his platitudes. I grabbed the bag of toiletries. “Where is the bathroom?”

“Down the hallway. Second on the right.”

Once I was in the bathroom, I stripped off. The red dress I’d been wearing was made of a thin, skimpy material, and I thought it would probably dry quickly. I did my best to wash it with some shower gel in the sink, and I did the same with my underwear. I figured it would have time to dry if I hung it outside in the sun.

The shower felt amazing. I washed my hair twice with the strawberry scented shampoo, enjoying the soft, clean feel of the water running down my body. Under the shower spray, I tried to calm myself down. Sure, this was an unusual situation, but they hadn’t hurt me, so I had to take that as a good sign. If what Nick said was true, then all I had to do was wait until I could speak to Victor and convince him this was all down to some sort of mistaken identity, and then I could get back to New York and my normal life.

I thought again about Claire. If she had gone back to the hotel and realized I was missing, she would be beside herself with worry right now. I only hoped she hadn’t contacted my mother.

After I had toweled myself off, I slipped into some of the clothes that Nick had given me. In the pile, there was a pair of blue jeans and a white shirt. My bra was still wet, so I decided I would hang it out to dry after I’d taken my stuff back to the room. I buttoned up the shirt and pulled on the jeans.

I was willing to bet that Johnny’s wife was a lot skinnier than I was. The jeans were a tight fit. I gave up trying to fasten the top button, hoping that the zip would hold out, especially as I was going commando.

I bundled up the wet dress and underwear and left the bathroom. While towel-drying my hair, I walked back to the room where I had spent the night with Nick.

I’d only taken a couple of steps when I saw Damien Blackthorne approaching me. As he drew closer, his eyes zeroed in on my braless breasts. The material of the white shirt was thinner than I had realized, and with the wetness from my hair seeping into the shirt, there were patches that were almost see-through. I moved the towel in front of me to block his view, and his gaze slowly lifted up to my face.

“I hope you’re keeping out of trouble,” he said in his gruff, gritty voice.

I rolled my eyes, trying to pretend I wasn’t intimidated.

He licked his lips slowly and moved closer to me. “If you’re bored, you could spend a little time with me.” He stroked my cheek, and I took a quick step back from him.

“No, thanks.”

He chuckled. “Nick’s keeping you busy enough, is he?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, and as he walked away, I quickly rushed back to the room, bursting in and was glad to see that Nick was still there.

He held a plate of bacon and eggs in one hand and two mugs of coffee in the other. He put them down on a windowsill and then turned to face me. His eyes sharply focused on me and took on a dark look as they drank me in. He raised an eyebrow.

“Ella, I’m going to offer you a little bit of advice. It’s probably best not to walk around like that. You can see through your shirt.”

His eyes were on my breasts, and I felt my breath hitch in my chest as I began breathing more rapidly.

“My shirt got wet,” I said, shrugging. “And I had to wash my bra so…”

“So you didn’t put it back on. I can see that.”

He took a step towards me. “Perhaps you should take the shirt off while it dries.”

My heart was beating so fast. I didn’t know why I kept letting this happen. I shouldn’t have felt so turned on in this situation. It was wrong. But he reached out a hand, and his fingers skimmed my wet shirt just above the swell of my breast. My nipples hardened instantly at his touch, and I could feel the wetness already growing between my thighs. I squirmed awkwardly, wishing I were wearing panties at least.

“Ella, you are quite the most…”

I frowned as I waited for him to continue his sentence.

“… The most irresistible woman I’ve ever met.”

He undid the top button of my shirt, and I felt a pulse of heat between my legs. He reached inside the thin cotton and groaned as his hand cupped my breast. I gasped as he tweaked my nipple until it ached.

My hands flew up and finished unbuttoning the rest of my shirt, brazenly shrugging it off.

His pupils dilated as he took my breasts in both of his hands and then lowered his mouth to suck the sensitive skin on my breasts. His tongue twirled around my nipple as his hand reached for the zip on my jeans.

As he slipped his hand beneath the denim, he groaned again, and I felt the vibrations from his deep voice as his teeth grazed my nipple.

“No panties,” he said, his voice husky. “Damn, Ella.”

When his fingers found my slick opening, I had to put both of my hands against his chest to stop myself from falling. I could feel the pressure already building in my core as he moved his fingers back and forth. I was going to come. How could this happen so fast?

Nick raised his head, but he didn’t kiss me. Instead, he stared down into my eyes as his fingers worked their magic. My breathing grew faster as he gazed down into my eyes, and his thumb circled my most sensitive spot as he thrust a thick finger into my opening. That was all it took to push me over the edge. I cried out, and then buried my face into his chest, panting.

“Did you like that, Ella?”

I couldn’t speak. I was too breathless, so I just nodded.

He turned me around, holding me by the waist as he removed my jeans and then positioned me over the bed. He pushed me so I was leaning over, and he put his hands on my hips. I could feel his hardness probing me from behind.

I felt his fingers on me again. I was so wet and slippery.

“Are you ready for me, Ella?”

“Yes,” I gasped.

I couldn’t wait. Since that first night, I had wanted to feel him inside me. I pushed my hips back towards him, hoping to encourage him to move faster. He reached to grab a condom from his wallet on the bedside table and ripped the packet open with his teeth.

He slid it on and then he thrust himself inside me so hard that I had to push back on the bed and arch my back to take him in. I gasped at his size. He was huge, filling me entirely. After the first sudden thrust, he moved slower, pumping in and out and then one of his hands slipped around to caress me as he pushed into me from behind.

“God, you feel so tight,” he groaned as his thrusts began picking up speed.

I pushed back into him as I felt his flesh smack against mine. He gripped my hips tightly.

“Are you close, Ella?”

“Yes.”

He intensified his thrusts, and I felt my inner walls clench around him as thousands of pleasurable tingles shot through my body. His fingers slipped over me, flicking rapidly.

Nick groaned my name as my orgasm tore through me, and I felt his whole body jerk as he emptied his seed deep inside me.

Despite all my protestations that I couldn’t sleep, I relaxed back into Nick’s arms and drifted off. When I awoke later, it was because Nick was shifting his arm from underneath me.