Devil's Fall: Dust Bowl Devils MC (20 page)

He delved deeper, sliding through her soft folds.

"Feel that," she said, "That's because of you. Look at me." His eyes were dark when they met hers. "I fell hard and fast for you, Gunner. You scare the shit out of me, and this..." She rubbed herself wantonly against his fingers. "This happens anyway."

His fingers slid over her clit. The sharp spark of pleasure drove a gasp from her lips. "Keep talking," he said.

"You don't believe me?"

He slicked past her clit again. "Keep talking."

"Do you want me to tell you more about how hot you make me?" She licked her lips. "You're the only man that's been able to make me come," she whispered. "They've all been fumbling boys before you." He kept stroking her, softly, driving little gasps from her between words.

"I want your cock so bad," she said, tugging against the hand that shackled her wrists. "I need you inside me. I need you. I-" She was startled by the wave of emotion that washed over her.

"Shh," he said, then kissed her, finally, his lips melding with hers too perfectly for words. He slid his fingers deep. She lifted onto her toes with a high-pitched whine. “I did have a moment of doubt. But I was wrong.” He spun her around and pressed her against the wall.
Yes, yes, take me right here.
Her pulse raced. “Fuck all of them. Let’s do this. Let’s ride this thing until it wrecks us.”

It doesn’t need to wreck us,
she thought,
We can sort it out.
But she tucked away that conversation. It could happen later. What mattered now was the sound of his belt, followed by his zipper. She tugged her pants down to her knees. “Hurry,” she whispered. She bent and spread her legs as far as she could within the tangle of her pants.

But he didn’t hurry. He reached around in front of her and circled her throbbing clit, building her pleasure higher as he pressed the head of his cock against her entrance. He drove her right up to the edge, whispering hot promises of what he would do to her later, teasing her recess, until finally, when she was sure she would either come, or scream, or both, only then did he thrust inside her, hard. In that moment she did do both - she screamed as she came, the raspy wail echoing around them as her orgasm tore through her.

His hands clamped down over hers, over the bar along the elevator wall. “Hang on, honey. I’m just getting started.”

“You came in with a girl.” Alvarez’s mother hadn’t missed Senna standing near the doorway. “You’ll introduce me some other time?”

“If she sticks around.” He couldn’t peel his eyes from his friend - it was the first time he’d seen him in three years, and he was unrecognizable. Between the bandage around his skull and the ugly tubes up his nose and down his throat, he looked nothing like his old self.
At least not the way I remember him.
His mind flashed back to that image of him again, sitting in Gunner’s hospital room looking so bereft. He’d never completely lost that look when they came home.

“It’s all that he wanted, you know.” Rosa was a strong woman. Her eyes glistened with tears, but they never dropped. He knew she was holding it together for his sake. “A girl who would stick around. A family. It’s why he never joined that club with you.” She indicated his vest. “He couldn’t see raising a family like that.”

“Some of the guys do it but I think they’re out of their minds.”

She nodded. “It seems cruel to keep him on all these machines. He didn’t want to be here. He wants us to let him go.”

Gunner grunted, not trusting his voice.

“It’s hard, though. It’s unfair.”

“What do the doctors think?”

Her mouth tightened into a thin line - a grim smile. “We’re turning the machines off today. Either he breaths on his own or he doesn’t. Either I let him go, or I scream and make them turn the machines back on.”

“What do you think?” She shook her head and shrugged. “Should I stay?”

“No. You go. You be with that girl.” A more genuine smile played across her lips. “It’s what he once wanted for himself. If he can’t have it, then you go have it for him.”

He was remembering those words when he took Senna in the elevator. He felt like he’d just left a funeral - too damn
alive
to be contained. His cock strained for release and his heart, idiot muscle that it was, rejoiced that they were joined again, that he was letting her sweep him away again.

They had the rest of the day to kill in that small town while he waited for updates from Alvarez's mother. Part of him wanted to get them a hotel room and fuck the hours away.

His hands traced the contours of her body as he leaned into her, pressing her against the wall. She'd come twice and was still trembling. He'd come all over the elevator floor and his own boots.
Whatever
.

"What are we going to do, Gunner?" she asked.

He had no real answer.
Run the fuck away
.

Instead they wasted the day around town. They found a small breakfast spot, where he asked her about her life back home - school, friends, former boyfriends. He was more interested in watching her mouth and hearing her voice than in what classes she was taking but he nodded along.

He learned that they'd both lost their mothers young.
Hell of a thing to have in common
. Hers had succumbed to drugs, his to cancer. Now she had no one but a disinterested sister.

She dragged him into a bookstore to browse. He made her endure watching him tune-up his bike, though she didn't seem to mind when he had to change out of his oil-stained shirt. Her face paled at the sight of his bruises but he brushed her off, assuring her they barely hurt. He was sure she could read the truth on his face but she bit her tongue and let him have his lie.

It was almost normal. If it wasn't for the awful anxiety clawing at his chest, waiting to hear from Alvarez's mother that it was over, it might have been nice.

They finally settled in at a bar as the afternoon wore on. It was an old Irish pub with too many windows, too bright for his preferences, but it was the first bar they’d stumbled across and that was reason enough to stop in.

"Nothing yet?" she asked as he checked his phone for the hundredth time.

"No." The beer was cold and the music was decent but it was impossible to relax.

She rubbed his knee under the bar and sipped her drink in silence. She seemed content to watch the people coming in and out, the bartender working, the sports on the three television screens around the room. He could tell she wasn't as at ease as she appeared, but only because he knew her, now.

He jumped when his phone finally rang. "Wait here," he told her. She moved to follow anyway but he shook his head. "I'll be right back."

He answered the call outside, gut churning and heart racing. More than anything he wanted to drop the phone and run away from it. "Rosa?"

She sounded weakened, her voice tired. "He's gone, Gunner."

He was expecting it. He knew what the outcome would be. It was still like a punch to the gut. He couldn't breath.

"Gunner? Are you there?"

"Yeah." He sank to the ground with his back against the brick wall of the building. "I- fuck, I'm so sorry, Rosa, if I'd just-"

"You stop that." Her voice gradually grew stronger. "You stop that talk right now, Sam Green." He flinched as if he'd been slapped. Few people since his mother had used his proper name, and those who had were promptly and sometimes viciously corrected. "You boys had nothing to feel guilty about. Too much was asked of you. Too much. So you go ahead and you get angry. I am. But nothing about this was your fault."

"But if I'd been around..." He felt dizzy. He felt like he was going to be sick. "If I wasn't such a piece of shit maybe I would have known."

He shielded his eyes with his free arm.
It wasn't supposed to feel like this. I was prepared. I didn't see him for three years, were we even friends anymore?
Tears that felt like fire burned trails down his face. He felt like he was breaking apart.

"I'm his mother and I lived with him," she said tonelessly. "And I couldn't stop it. How do you think I feel."

"I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I'm so fucking sorry."

"You go home, now, Gunner," she said, a familiar, motherly sternness back in her voice. "You take that girl home, and you make love to her until the sun comes up, and then you call me in the morning and let me know that you're okay. Can you do that for me?"

He couldn't choke out an answer right away.

"I mean it. I need to know that you're okay."

"Yes," he said, "I'll call."

She finally hung up after dragging one more assurance out of him.

I have to get away from here
. He couldn't make himself move.

And then Senna was there, as if summoned by his need, kneeling between his legs and pulling his head to her chest. He fought her for a moment, not wanting her to see him like that, but the comfort of her arms was too great.

He could catch his breath there in her embrace. In and out. Her warmth surrounded him as he breathed her in. Terrible things happened and always happened and would continue to happen, but she was there. He wouldn’t fall apart today. She was still there, and he could hang onto her for as long as she let him, and he’d continue to not fall apart. Not yet. Not today.

He looked up. “Time to ride.”

She dried his cheeks and his eyes with the bottom hem of her shirt, taking care to be gentle around his bruises. "You're okay to drive?"

"I will be." He drew her to him and kissed her gently. It took his breath away again, warming his chest and dulling the pain. He spread his hands over her back and kissed her harder.

Someone whistled at them on their way inside the bar. She pulled away, rolling her eyes.

It was time to go home.

There was a dark energy about Gunner when he brought her back to his home that night. A possessiveness in the way his eyes swept up and down her body. A roughness in his touch.

“Are you okay?” she asked. He spun her around once inside the apartment and pressed her back against the wall, crushing her against the hard surface. A thrill ran through her as she felt his strength, as he trapped her in place. “Do you want to talk?”

“No talking. I-” He bit back whatever he was about to say, instead gently stroking her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “No talking.”

She nodded. His fingers traveled from her cheek to her lips, then pressed between them. She flicked them with her tongue. Then she pressed him away with a hand on his chest. He resisted at first, smirking at her puny strength before stepping back.

With a smile, she pulled her shirt over her head and dropped it at her feet, followed quickly by her bra. He reached for her but she scampered away. “Nope,” she said, “Look first. Tell me you like what you see.” His “no talking” definitely didn’t apply to dirty talk - not knowing how much he enjoyed it.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he said, then raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t I told you?”

“You may have hinted.” She cupped her breasts, the sensitive skin warm in her hands. “I think they’re pretty nice. They sure feel good.” She kneaded them and moaned, watching his expression.

A wicked grin split his face.
There he is.
Still shadowed by sadness, but anything was better than that hollow look, that far-away stare focused on nothing. He draped his cut over the back of the couch before wrestling with the laces of his boots. “Are your nipples hard?” he asked.