Lay It Down: Bastards MC Series Boxed Set (14 page)

“You okay?” I asked.

“Oh, baby!” He was out of bed, walking toward me.

I stopped, in awe. That jackass was beautiful without a stitch of clothing on; it was wrong for someone to be that attractive.

“I hurt you!”

"What are you talking about?"

He touched my lower back. I winced when his hand slid onto my bottom. He made a noise deep in his throat and gently pulled the sheet away from me.

I realized suddenly that he was looking at the marks on my flesh, and I didn't object. "It's fine. Really. I'm just a little sore."

"A little sore? Yeah." He scoffed.

I looked down as he lightly traced a finger next to a line of red marks trailing down my breast and onto my nipple. I couldn't see the rest of me, but from the look on his face, I had more. He looked infuriated.

Stepping closer, he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me tight against him. "I am so sorry!" He was just tall enough that his chin could rest on my head perfectly.

I was uncomfortably aware that we were both naked. I didn't need to be coddled but didn't pull away. He seemed genuinely upset.

I wrapped my arms around him, trying to offer some comfort. "Hey, I'm okay."

"You must think I'm a monster." I could hear his voice rumble in his chest, mixing with his heartbeat.

I laughed, one of my real, deep chuckles. If by monster he meant a sex-starved beast who had just feasted on my body, making me beg for more, then yeah, he was a monster. A fuck monster. I felt him stiffen at my laugh and realized that he was serious. He meant a scary monster, capable of horrible things. Then no, I didn’t see him that way. There were many things I’d thought about him this morning, but evil monster was not one of them.

"God, no! I just thought you were an amazing lover." The heartbeat below my ear quickened, and I heard his breath catch.

"That's what you like? Someone hurting you?" His tone was odd. I couldn't tell if he was angry or intrigued—his tone said both.

I pulled back to see his face. I still couldn't read him and narrowed my eyes. "To be honest, yes. I like rough sex.” I shrugged. There, now it was more than a secret I shared with Will. “But if you're asking if I'm into heavy BDSM shit, I'm not. I don’t want to be choked or whipped, or have a man tell me what to do, how to dress, and what to eat every second of the day. I don’t want to be dominated. I don’t have Daddy issues. I'm not gonna lie—I like it when a man takes control and tells me in great detail what to do. It drives me crazy. But it doesn’t have to be like that every time. I enjoyed every second I was with you. Both times." I raised my eyebrows. "Did you not like it?"

He groaned. "Oh, babe, you have no fuckin' idea. I like it wild. I like it rough." His eyes sparkled, and he wet his lower lip. "I want to tie you to that bed and do things to you…" The smile vanished. “But I never, and I mean not one fucking time, have left bruises." He pulled me tight again. "You were so… into it.” He leaned back, shaking his head and meeting my eyes. “Stopping never even crossed my mind. I wanted you beneath me, screaming and begging…” He broke off. "It was fucking amazing, but I never meant to hurt you."

I couldn’t let him drop it. I had to know. "Screaming and begging you to stop, or begging you for more?" Now my heart was pounding.

"More. I only ever want you to beg me for more."

My heart stopped. He wasn't disgusted by me, by what we'd just shared. "Is it always like this… with you?" I didn't want to know, not really. The thought of Matty with anyone else, especially Taylor, turned my stomach. And standing there naked, pressed into him the way I was, I really didn't want to think of him sharing what we'd just had with anyone else. But I had ask.

He tensed a little. "Joes." Something in the way he said my name told me he wasn't the kind to screw and tell. He sighed. "No. I lost control, got carried away. That's a first. I'm not even sure what that was." He laughed.

I smiled against his bare skin. "That, my boy, was you fucking me. Hard." I ran my hands up his back, stopping when I felt welts, surprised. "And I fucked you right back. Does your back hurt?"

He pulled away, walked to the mirror, and turned so he could look over his shoulder. "Shit! Naw, it doesn't hurt." His eyes met mine in the reflection, and he grinned. "Looks like someone didn't want to let go."

I could see the damage I’d done mixed among the black ink decorating him. There were at least twenty bright red welts, some stretching from waist to neck. Some of the shorter ones, near his shoulders, were bloody. I felt guilty, but the memories of why I had clawed his skin made me blush. I smiled back at him. “Or wanted you to be closer.”

He walked back to me and put his hands on my hips. “Baby, I couldn’t get any closer. I tried as hard as I could.”

I laughed as he smiled that damn lopsided grin of his. “That you did! I’m sorry about your back though. It looks painful.”

“It’s fine, really. Just a little sore.”

Hearing my words said back to me, I grinned, tipping my head back to meet his eyes.

His hand moved from my hip, fingertips tracing my neck. He looked sad. “What are you going to tell Will? I think he might notice that his wife has teeth marks all over her and that her ass is covered in bruises.”

I shook my head. “Since I don’t plan on seeing Will, let alone showing him my ass, I’m not going to tell him anything. This is between you and me.” I almost asked him what he planned to tell Taylor before I caught myself. Even if they hadn’t broken up, I didn’t want to talk about her. Or Will. Or even the two of us. As long as we were in this room, I didn’t have to face reality.

In just a little while though, we’d be forced to face it together. To see if we could really go back to being the friends we had been. After everything that had happened in the last few hours, I had my doubts. But screw that. I wasn’t thinking about any of it right now.

I touched his face. “We have to be at work soon, and I need a shower.” I smiled up at him. “I think your sexy ass should come wash my back.”

He smiled. I could see the worry on his face, but he grabbed my hand. “Hey, you wash my back, I’ll wash yours.” Then he quickly added, “As long as you’re gentle with me.”

He looked so sheepish that I giggled. “Oh, I’ll be gentle,” I promised.

“Good.” He lowered he head to mine, his voice barely a whisper. “Because I won’t be gentle at all.”

The mirrors in the bathroom were surrounded by bright white lights, and when he turned me toward my reflection, I could see why Matty had been upset. I didn’t want to look, but he stood behind me, holding me in place. I met his eyes in the mirror, suddenly shy. It was hard for me to see the naked couple staring back at us. Matty was tall, athletic, dark, and all kinds of tattooed sexy. I was the polar opposite: short, pale with only a slight tan—even though it was the middle of summer—and I looked like a mom.

Will had told me once that I was annoyingly self-critical, but I preferred to think of it as being realistic. I had always been proud of the fact that what I lacked in appearance I made up for in personality. I pursed my lips at the girl standing in front of my friend. She wasn’t hideous, but she certainly wasn’t the kind of beautiful girl I would expect to see with Matt. She was plain old normal.

Maybe it was because I had been the fat girl for so long and I’d gotten used to seeing her when I looked at myself. But I wasn’t obese anymore and was proud of the body I saw in front of me, even though it was covered with stretch marks and scars. It was just hard to see the glaringly obvious contrast between Matty and me.

Without thinking about it, I traced the new marks on my skin lightly. Starting at my neck, I drew a fingertip down onto my shoulder then onto my right breast. They really didn’t hurt as much as they looked like they should. My poor nipple though was an alarming shade of purple, and I touched it just to make sure I could still feel. A tattooed arm slid around my waist, and I glanced up, meeting Matty’s eyes once again. They were dark, full of wanting. He pulled me against him, his hardness pushing into me. He bit his lip, and the motion was so erotic, I almost groaned.

He turned me around, lifted me onto the counter, and moved between my legs as his mouth found mine. I forgot my train of thought as his lips teased. As if not sure where to put his hands, he ran them lightly over every part of my body. I knew his back was sore, but I couldn’t stop myself from running my hands over the welts. I tried to be easy, but when his lips abandoned mine to tug gently on my ear lobe, I dug my fingernails in. Then, as if he suddenly remembered that my back was clear, his hands shot behind me and did the same. Feeling his nails in my skin, I arched my back, pushing away from his fingers and into his chest.

“Jo, what the fuck are you doing to me?” He groaned and pulled me back to him quickly as his lips made their way to mine.

I didn’t know, but I knew what he was doing to me, and I wanted more. Burying my hands in his hair, I pushed his head away from my mouth and down my body. I wanted him to kiss me everywhere. He fought me for a quick second, looking up into my eyes as if making sure I wanted him to keep going.

I nodded, shoving his head into my chest. I wanted his mouth on me, not caring how sore I already was or how sore I’d be in a little while. He laughed against my skin as his teeth found a nipple. I gasped. He pulled back suddenly, making me want to cry. He stood in front of me, hands on my cheeks, and leaned in, coaxing my lips open. As I deepened our kiss, his hands moved down my back, digging in slightly, then they kept going.

I almost winced when he touched my bottom. It was still beyond sore. But his hands weren’t rough, and within a few minutes, the gentle massage had me even more worked up.

“God, Matty, please,” I begged between kisses.

“Please? Please what?”

I could feel his smile against the side of my mouth, and I knew he wanted me to beg him for more. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction and refused to answer. I trailed kisses down his neck, my fingers just a few steps ahead of my mouth. My kisses stopped at his collarbone, and I swirled my tongue around the indent in his skin, but my hand kept going.

I traced a line down the middle of his chest, the valley between his muscles, and onto his belly. Not stopping there, my fingers danced along his skin, picturing his tattoos, following the deep V of his pubic bone, until I found a patch of hair. My fingers wound into the little curls while my mouth made the return trip back up his neck, biting lightly then running over each spot with my tongue. My fingers didn’t stay in the soft locks long, instead leaving them to run lightly down the inside of his thigh and back up. Not all the way up though. As I moved my hand inward, I found what I’d been looking for—soft, sweaty and dangling. I cupped him at the same time my teeth sank into his shoulder a little rougher than I had planned.

Matty had become still at some point during my exploration and was now breathing harder than I’d heard him breathe the last time he’d run a marathon. The idea excited me, and I moved my hand, letting go of him and finding his curls again. This time I pulled at the sensitive hair. It was his turn to gasp, followed by a loud series of moans.

I smiled against his shoulder and slipped my hand down a little until I felt his hardness brush my hand. After wrapping my fingers around him, I slid up and down, tracing the tip of him with my thumb. I hadn’t heard him swear so much in a long time. I tried to push him away with my other hand, intending to lean down and see what kind of reaction I’d get when I put my mouth on him, but he wouldn’t let me move him.

The hands on my butt squeezed hard, and he pulled my entire body toward the edge of the counter. I arched my back, wrapping my legs around him in anticipation of what he was about to do. But he didn’t pull me down onto him. Instead, he picked me up and carried me out of the room.

“Matty, wha—”

He shook his head, cutting me off. “I’m not making love to you in a hotel bathroom.” His growl was low, and the whiskers on his jaw tickled my neck when he talked. “I’m taking you to bed.”

I laughed at the look on his face when we reached the bed, and instead of laying me down, he turned around and sat, pulling me onto him. I gave him my best smile as I kneeled above him, pushing his shoulders back until he was lying on the bed.

“I don’t want to hurt you again.” His voice was strained as his hands moved up and down my thighs. “But if you want…”

I shook my head, knowing it was only fair. He’d been amazing last night. It was my turn this morning. I wanted more than him just beneath me though. I wanted him to be the one screaming and begging. I moved off him quickly, before his hands could grab me.

He sat up on his elbows, alarmed. “Jo?”

I’d already moved to the end of the bed, between his legs, fingertips finding my target. He watched me as I kneeled, leaning my head close to him, a look I couldn’t decipher planted on his features. He shuddered when my tongue circled his tip.

“Do you want me to stop?” My voice came out so much stronger than I felt, and I licked my bottom lip before biting it gently.

He groaned. “Good Christ, no.”

His breath caught, and for a few seconds, I was afraid it had stopped altogether. I ran my tongue around him again, very gently, as my fingers found his hair, pulling and tugging at it while my mouth closed over his tip. I felt him flop back onto the bed with a sigh, and I moved my lips down the outside of him to his testicles before kissing each, sucking on them one at a time. Turning my head, my teeth skimmed across the inside of each thigh, lightly but enough so he could feel me teasing him.