All the Sky (21 page)

But he’d just grinned and said, “Finally!”

Since then, Havoc was over a lot. He was still spending as much time with Nolan as he had been—maybe more. And Cory felt better about the time Nolan was spending at the clubhouse. Not great, but better.

Havoc had spent four or five nights out of each of the past two weeks in her bed. It was nice to wake up to him. It was nice to go to bed with him. And sweet mercy, the sex. She’d made up for all those years of drought with a deluge. At night, when Nolan was at the other end of the house, Havoc was almost sweet, understanding the need to be quiet and not traumatize the teen. But he’d taken to stopping by in the middle of the day, while Nolan was at school and before she went to work, and then—well, she’d discovered she liked some things she’d never have guessed she liked.

But Bonnie was right. Havoc was getting pissed. He’d offered her the job of managing Valhalla Vin about a week ago, and she hadn’t accepted it yet. She’d turned him down three times, and now she was supposedly thinking about it—but she’d only told him that to cool him down a little. Still, she hadn’t seen him at all in the two days since then, so she wasn’t sure he was all that cooled down.

The idea of the job made her uncomfortable—she’d only been working there a little more than four months. She had exactly zero experience managing anything. She wasn’t such a splendid success at managing her own life. She was sure he was giving her this job because of what she was to him. Whatever that was.

There were other concerns, too. It would be a lot more hours—which was good, money-wise, but she’d probably have to give up the few gigs she had. And she didn’t want to lose Bonnie’s friendship because she’d leapfrogged her way to a position as her superior by sleeping with the boss. But now Bonnie was encouraging her to take it.

“Take the job, Cory. Everybody wins. And you could use the money.”

“I’ll think about it.”

~oOo~

Cory was in the living room, practicing a new piece for the gig she had that night, when she heard Havoc ride up. And when he showed up in the middle of the day—not an unusual occurrence—he was here for one thing in particular. Smiling, she got up and went to the bathroom for a quick little check in the mirror before she went to meet him.

He just came in these days without knocking, and that was okay by her. He never called or texted to say he was coming over, either, and that was a little bit less okay, but she was getting used to it. She’d mentioned once that a call would be nice, and his response was, “You doing something you don’t want me to see?”

If he hadn’t been grinning when he’d said it, she might have thought it a red flag for a bit too much possessiveness, but she took it instead for typical Havoc snark. And he continued not to call first. Also typical. If it was possessiveness, it was ironic, since he was the one constantly surrounded by willing women he’d fucked repeatedly and routinely for years, and she wasn’t feeling overly possessive. Not overly. She didn’t think. She wasn’t dropping by the clubhouse unannounced, anyway. Or at all.

She hadn’t seen him for a couple of days—not since the last time he’d pushed her to take the manager job, when she’d finally said she’d think about it. And she had been. It was a big step, though, one that she felt unequal to and undeserving of. Even Havoc’s demand and Bonnie’s encouragement hadn’t succeeded yet in persuading her that it was the right thing.

There was a lot she could screw up in a job like that. And if she screwed up the job, what else would that screw up? It scared her. That was the real truth of why she hadn’t said yes.

He was still taking his gloves off when he came through the front door. Cory expected him to grab her, as he usually did, but instead he stopped right in front of her and just stared down into her face.

“Tired of fuckin’ around with this. Time to decide.”

“Hav…”

“No. Fuck this shit, Cory. What is there to think about?” He put his gloves into a pocket of his kutte and wrapped his hands around her arms, just above her elbows.

“I’d probably have to give up my gigs in Rolla and Sullivan. Maybe the one in Worden, too. That’s all of them.”

“Christ. Who the fuck cares?”

“What? Me! I care. My music is important.”

“Get real. How much do you make a week from that—playing at those little dives and that thing you do online? Huh? How much?”

A few hundred dollars. On a good week. “Fuck you.”

He grinned—it was a smug, nasty grin, and she hated it. “It’s not a job, honey. It’s a hobby.”

“Oh, fuck you. Seriously.” Knowing how much
fuck you
sucked as an argument just pissed her off more. She shrugged and pulled, trying to get loose from him, but he simply clamped down harder and got a gleam in his eye. But this wasn’t foreplay. She was legitimately furious. “Get off me.”

“No. You’re gonna listen. Playing guitar in the corner of a bar, making that little jewelry you make—none of that is making you a living. When you didn’t have any other kind of work, when you could just do that, did it make a living then? No. You flit around, not doing anything serious. Hobbies don’t pay the rent, honey.”

He was sounding far too much like her sister, and her brother-in-law, and every other bastard who’d ever tried to tell her how to live her life, and she discovered a whole new dimension of anger. Instead of trying to pull her arms free, she hit him in the chest with both hands, as hard as his constraining grip would allow. “FUCK YOU. LET ME GO.”

He didn’t, but it wasn’t foreplay for him anymore, either. His face went dark, and he pulled her hard to his chest. She used the opportunity to hit him under his chin with the heel of her hand. She wanted loose, and she wanted the son of a bitch out. She did not need him thinking he could dictate her life. Bossing her around in bed did not give him license to run her damn life.

“Calm down, you little bitch, and do it now. I’m not backing off, and I’m not fuckin’ apologizin’ for saying what’s true. It’s true, and you fuckin’ know it.”

She hit him in the chin again—it was all she could reach—and she heard his teeth crash together. That gave her some satisfaction.

But then he spun her hard, pulling her back against his chest and locking his arms around hers. When she tried to kick him, even though she was barefoot, he brought one of his legs around and locked her down that way, too. She was effectively immobilized, but she was going to explode with rage.

Through clenched teeth, he gritted in her ear, “You are pushing me far, woman. You need to chill the fuck out, and now, or I don’t know what. I like a fight, but you are just pissin’ me off right now.”

“Fuck you!”

“Listen to yourself. You don’t even have anything real to say. You know I’m right. That’s why you’re so mad.”

She almost said
fuck you
again, but had the presence of mind to realize how laughable it would be. So she fumed silently. He was right. She knew he was right. She didn’t even know why she hadn’t tried harder to make a go of her music. She’d never been very aggressive about promoting herself. She’d never done the banging on doors thing; she’d never gone back and tried to change somebody’s mind after a rejection. She’d never really fought for it. She had no idea why.

Maybe Linz was right. Maybe she did have ‘success issues.’ Or maybe what she had was
failure
issues. Maybe that was the real gate between her and the job Havoc wanted her to take. She was afraid she’d fail. In fact, she knew that was true.

Oh, but she hated to let him know he might be right. Especially now, with him forcing her into stillness, shutting her down. She did not want to give in.

He knew it anyway, though. Her body must have relaxed or something, because he chuckled in her ear and then his hold on her eased a little.

“That’s my girl. Easy now.”

Smug asshole. “Fuck you.”

Again, he chuckled. “Not such a bad idea.” He moved one hand down her belly, lifting her sweatshirt and pushing into her jeans. Now she realized that he was hard, his long length pressed into her lower back. His fingers slid between her folds, over her clit and then into her, and she couldn’t suppress the clench of her body around them—or the moan that came with it.

“Oh, honey. That’s what I like. You got me all kinds of stirred up. I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’ll still be screaming tomorrow.”

Cory wanted to be too angry to want it, but she’d lost the edge of her fury, and what he was doing to her made the sweet kind of ache she couldn’t ignore. When he pushed his other hand under her sweatshirt and then under her beater tank to take her breast, his touch soft at first but quickly roughening, her limbs went liquid, and he laughed and clasped her more tightly, holding her up with his hand between her legs. So fucking smug.

He took a few steps across the room, moving her with his body behind hers. Opening her jeans, he said, “Get on the chair.”

She was confused and looked back at him. “What?”

He’d moved her to her old, high-backed armchair. He nodded at it. “The chair. On your knees.” He yanked her jeans and underwear down, and she stepped out of them and did what he’d told her. When he started to pull her shirts up, too, she raised her arms and let him.

It felt awkward to her to be kneeling, facing the back of the chair, but then he was behind her, his arms around her, his body all along hers. Running his hands over her chest, her breasts, her belly, her thighs, up and down, over and again, he bent his head and kissed her shoulder. She was breathless, her body barely under her control.

“You are so fuckin’ hot. The things I want to do to you.” He pushed his hand between her legs again, sharply, reaching far back and dragging it forward again roughly. She arched and threw her head back with a high-pitched moan.

Fuck, the things he made her feel.

He backed off suddenly. “Hold on. Don’t move.” With a sharp swat to her ass, he walked away, toward her bedroom. She waited, feeling vulnerable, kneeling on a chair, naked in the living room of her rented mobile home. When he came back, he had her bottle of baby oil.

Oh, Jesus.

“Hav, what…?” She was afraid to finish the question.

He just grinned and stripped, pulling a couple of condoms out of his pocket before he dropped his jeans to the sculpted, avocado-green carpet.

He rolled a condom on and stood behind her, his legs spread wide, then put his hands on her ass, bending down to kiss each cheek. His beard tickled her skin and made her clench. She faced forward and closed her eyes, equal parts terrified and excited. Then he stood, and one hand left her ass—and then she felt him pushing into her, into her pussy, and she relaxed instantly, so quickly, in fact, that she hit her climb to orgasm running, the sensations mounting at breakneck speed, and she started rocking back against his thrusts, grunting “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” with every deep connection.

Without breaking his tempo, he folded over her back, his bearded chin resting between her shoulder blades, taking her breasts in his hands, her nipples between his fingers, pulling and rolling. Oh, God, everything was so intense. She wanted it, she wanted more, she wanted everything. Dropping one hand from its grip around the top of the chair, she put it between her legs and rubbed on her clit, in a pattern and rhythm she knew well.

“Yeah, yeah,” he rumbled. “That’s it. That’s it. I want you to come so hard. I want you loose.” He picked up his pace, increasing the demands of his body on hers.

With him inside her, his hands exciting her breasts, her own hand thrilling her clit, she thought there was nothing more she could take. She dropped her head to the back of the chair as wave after wave of incendiary ecstasy overtook her. “Holy fuck! Holy fuck! I can’t—I can’t—”

“Yeah, you can, honey.” He went even harder, and then she shut her mouth and screamed against her locked teeth, blood roaring in her ears and crashing across the sight of her closed eyes.

“Fuck, that’s so motherfuckin’ hot.” His voice sounded strained to the point of pain. He stood up straight but did not leave her.

Before her body had even unlocked from its ecstatic rigor, she felt the cold ooze of oil running over her ass and into the cleft between her cheeks. She was still too dazed to find the speech center of her brain, but she managed to find some fear. She knew what he wanted. She’d never done it before. He wasn’t a small guy, or even an average one. She was scared. But she stayed as she was, her head resting on the chair, both hands now gripping it again. She tried to stay alert, but she was feeling pretty stoned from the intensity of her climax.

With an uncharacteristically gentle touch, his cock still hard inside her, Havoc smoothed the oil over her ass and between her cheeks. His thumbs rubbed gently over her anus, doing nothing but tracing circles around it. She flinched a little at the new sensation and what it foretold, but it didn’t hurt at all. It felt good, actually, and she relaxed a little.

“Easy, honey. Not gonna hurt you. We’ll take it slow.” With that he pushed a finger into her, thrusting his hips at the same time.

“Oh! Oh.” That wasn’t bad at all. That…that was nice.

He chuckled quietly. “You like that.”

It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. He took his finger away, and that was a different kind of feeling, still good, and she whimpered, starting to focus keenly on this new thing. He pushed in two fingers—no, from the feel of his hands on her she thought it was both of his thumbs—and that was even more intense; the way he pushed against the rim made her draw her hips forward with a moan.

“Easy, easy.” One thumb left, and there was more cool drip of fresh oil down her cleft. She kept her eyes closed and tried to breathe.

And then he pulled out of her and she felt his cock pushing against her, where his thumb still was. He moved his thumb as he pushed slowly in. Oh, wait. That was different. So much bigger. She felt a sharp pain, like a pinch or a pull.

“Hav, wait.”

He groaned. “Fuck, honey. I’ll go easy. But don’t stop me. I need it. I won’t hurt you.”

She wanted to say that it already did hurt, but something in his voice stilled her tongue. And then he pushed deeper into her, and the pinch faded away, leaving only a heavy, unfamiliar fullness. He pulled back a little—that felt good—and then deeper still. And again, even deeper.