Call My Name (Fallen Angels MC Book 3) (6 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

This time, she threw a couple changes of clothes into the car, just in case she ended up spending the night again. She had no idea what was going to happen when she walked in the door. She wouldn’t blame him for shouting, and she wouldn’t mind if he hugged her so tight that it was hard to breathe.

He’d responded quickly to her text saying that she was on her way, saying he’d meet her at the apartment. The door was locked when she got there, though. She pulled out the key Mason had given her and turned it, but before she could even twist the handle, it turned and opened. She felt Mason’s hand close on her wrist, was yanked into the apartment, and the door slammed behind her. Her back was up against the door, and he was kissing her, grinding his mouth against her, his hands coursing over her body, one hand tight on her breast, the other squeezing at her ass, pulling her tight against him.

For one split second, she panicked, and her hands went to his chest, ready to shove at him, ready to scream. And then he was away, his hands running through his hair. His curly red hair, loose around his shoulders for once.

“Sorry,” he said. “Inappropriate. Not everyone reacts to stress like me. Working on it. Are you okay?”

“Yes. He didn’t hurt me, anyway.”

His words were as much growl as they were human sound. “He put his hands on you. He would have hurt you if he could have.”

She looked into his eyes, and she understood the desire, the swelling need to be safe with someone. “So get over here and make it better,” she said.

His eyes were dark and animal. “Are you very sure?”

She nodded. “I need— I need to know I’m still powerful. I need to know that I’m still in control.”

The darkness shifted, and he grinned. “Then tell me what you want, baby.”

Darkness found a mirror in her, and shifted, and she was panting, wet, eager. “You,” she said. “I want you.”

He leaned in closer, his hands behind his back like a little boy at a museum. His erection was clear, even in his jeans, and it brushed over her belly, trailing heat behind it. She wanted him to touch her, to burn her up, and he was taunting her with his refusal. “Tell me,” he said, separating the words carefully. “What you want.”

“On your knees,” she said, because it was the only thing she could think of. He dropped like a stone, with a thump that made her own legs ache, but he went without question, his hands still carefully behind his back. That, and his hair falling in strawberry curls around his shoulders, framing his face, softened everything about him, made him seem younger, gentler. And the way he was watching her, the delicate light in his eyes, dancing through the darkness. “Kiss me,” she said.

He leaned forward, his balance delicate, and with his teeth, he tugged her shirt out of the way, then licked and teased at the skin of her navel. Her jeans sat low on her hips, and were a bit on the loose side; his tongue slid under the fabric, teasing at the delicate skin between her navel and her mound. She couldn’t stop the delicate cry that choked out of her at his caress. “More,” she whispered.

“May I used my hands?” he asked.

“Yes. Please, yes.”

She’d expected him to move quickly, eagerly, but instead, his fingers trailed up the inside of her thighs, torturing her even through the denim, wandering up to hook into her belt loops and tug her against his mouth for a moment.

He breathed heat against her mound, and she heard a whisper of air escape her mouth at the sensation. He kept his mouth there for a moment, inhaling her scent and exhaling his heat, and she writhed against him, whimpering, wanting. He unbuttoned her jeans, slid them down her hips; they were tight enough that she had to help him wriggle them off, and then she balanced on his shoulders as she stepped out of them.

He pushed her back against the door, and his mouth went back to her body, this time teasing over her inner thighs, tickling her skin with his teeth and his tongue. She buried her hands in his hair and lifted his mouth to where she wanted it, settling her weight against the door so that she could spread her thighs and give him access. He smiled a thank you, and sent his hot breath over her again.

“You smell gorgeous,” he told her, nuzzling her with his nose, and breathing her in again. “Like an exotic musk, delicate but overwhelming to the senses. Addictive. When I’m away from you, I just want more of you. More and more of you.”

He eased her panties down her hips, then settled her back against the door, his hands on her ass, kneading her flesh as his tongue licked forward, separating her folds and making her groan, eager and excited.

Once his tongue was on her, all teasing was done. He found her clit and suckled it deeply, his fingers sliding easily into her wet and clenching body. Her knees went weak, and he caught her, tipping her hips forward, balancing her against the door. Her hands, seeking some sort of balance, found the doorknob on one side of her, a bookshelf on the other; she clung to them to ground her while he fucked her with his mouth and hand.

She lost track of the orgasms; they came so fast and hard, one on top of the other, that they blurred into one mind-bending surge of ecstasy. She came and came, and she screamed for him, screamed like she was dying, and she heard him beneath her, crying out as well, urging her on, urging her to come again, come once more, let him taste her one more time.

All those smaller fireworks came together in a grand finale; her body clenched around him, surging like an exploding star, and instead of screams, she found utter silence. A moment where the world went still and white and utterly calm. Her eyes, squeezed tight for so long, opened, and she saw his eyes, looking for her gaze, and she caught it, held it, her hand reaching down and touching his face.

And then the surge came, the world rushing back in, and she threw back her head and howled. For the pain of the past few months, for the agony and irritation of being without her home and her dog and a sense of stability. For feeling alone in the most loving and caring relationship she’d ever had. She surged through all of that, feeling it entirely, and then let it wash away as Mason bore her down to the wood floor. She was limp, exhausted, but not so much that she couldn’t cling to him when he tried to stand. “Baby, please,” he murmured. “I want to fuck you.”

He’d stripped down at some point; she had no idea when. She’d lost her shirt and bra, too. She had a vague memory of flinging them off because she wanted to play with her own nipples. “It’s okay,” she said, knowing suddenly that it was. “I went on the pill. A couple weeks ago. And we’re both clean, so— it’s okay.”

He was as still and silent as the world had been a few moments ago. She could feel the heat of his erection against her thigh, and the weight of his gaze on her eyes. “Are you absolutely sure? I am okay with still using them, if you want to. I mean— no method is perfect, but two can be better than one, and I get that it’s a trust thing—”

She pulled him down to her, capturing his mouth with hers. Her hand slipped down between them and stroked the satin-skin of his cock, feeling the moisture swell out of him with her strokes. “Consent,” she said, her mouth moving against his. “Enthusiastic consent, even. If you want one for you, then that is fine, but you don’t need one for me.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he breathed.

She laughed and shook her head. “No one deserves anyone else. But we can try and be worthy of each other. I’m game if you are.”

He trembled at her entrance; she could feel the sweet heat of the tip, with no barriers between them. He pressed her open, slowly, moving like she was a virgin; and in a way, she supposed, she was to this.

Of all the crazy things she’d done in college, she’d never let anything this close in her life. People had made noise about how different it was, how much more intense, and in a way she supposed they were right, but it wasn’t so much the physical difference as the one in her mind and her heart.

She arched up to meet him, flesh to flesh, and groaned at the sweet completion she felt as he slid utterly home. His hands curled up around her shoulder blades, cupping her shoulders and holding her firmly. His mouth was close to her ear, and she could hear him panting heavily, even though he wasn’t moving. The muscles of his back trembled with tension. “Holy shit,” he whispered, again and again. “Holy shit, baby, oh my god.”

“I love you,” she whispered back, there on the floor of his apartment, just feet from the door.

She bucked her hips, sliding him out of her, and then just a little deeper in. He made a noise, a keening, and then he was driving into her, fast, deep, and it didn’t hurt, it didn’t make her wince; it felt like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the promise kept, the moment when a minor chord resolves.

“Need to…” he groaned, and rose up just enough that he could look into her eyes. His control was held by a ragged thread, she could see that. His pace slowed, and she could see the entire ring of his irises in his eyes as he fought to hold on a little longer, extend the sensation just a little more. “Need to see you…”

She wrapped her legs around his hips, hooking her ankles together and pulling him in tight to her. It undid him. She watched as his upper body froze, completely still, while his hips drove into her in short, rapid thrusts. She could feel him convulsing against her, feel him emptying inside of her, the rush of heat as he spent himself within her.

She held his silence inside of her and smiled, stroking her hands down his back as he embraced the sensation, and then came back down to her, holding her against him, rocking softly back and forth as he whispered nonsense words in a gentle tone. She held him just as tight, feeling completely loved.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

One thing they never showed in porn, she thought later, as she went to the bathroom to pee, was how much easier clean-up was with a condom. Her thighs were cold and sticky, and she took a moment to wipe herself off, chuckling. It was worth it, she was sure of that. But one more thing that no one told women about sex. She ought to write a book.

When she went back out to the living room, Mason had found his jeans and shorts again. It felt awkward to be naked while he was dressed, so she started collecting her own clothing from the various places it had landed.

“I— that was amazing,” he said.

She glanced at him, then leaned over to adjust her breasts into the cups of her bra. “Sounds like a ‘but’ is incoming.”

“I meant to talk to you first,” he said. “I didn’t mean to— push myself on you.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “Well, you did at first, but you stopped before I even had to ask you to, and then you were only doing what I asked you to. So no harm, no foul.”

He patted the couch next to him, and she sat down, but when she reached out to take his hand, he squeezed hers and then pulled back. Okay, that was unexpected. She felt the walls she’d been working so hard to disassemble try to rebuild themselves in her heart; she fought the sensation, but it was difficult, given the day, not to just pull her knees up to her chest and call the whole damn thing off. “I need to know,” he said finally, “Why you called Munch and not me. Why you called Jack and not me. I need to know why you don’t trust me.”

She took a deep breath. This was both the conversation that needed to happen, and the one she’d been hoping to avoid. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. But… Shit, Mason, the last time a guy threatened me, look what happened!”

The look on his face chilled down to the temperature of cold oceans. “Yes, I’m sure I should ask forgiveness for protecting you from a guy who would have killed you if he’d thought for one second that you knew enough to be a danger to him.”

“It’s not that—I appreciate you keeping me safe. But I— we should have gone to the cops in the beginning, Mason. We wouldn’t be in this hole now.”

“You’re right.
You
wouldn’t be in this hole. You’d be in your pretty little house with your pretty little dog, and I’d be in jail on charges of embezzlement, guns trafficking, and distribution. But your ass would be perfectly safe, so what’s the difference?”

“You don’t know that,” Caroline said, working to keep her tone calm and even. “Jack’s friend is going to try and get you a deal.”

“What deal? I don’t need a deal, because I haven’t done anything!”

She stared at him, and he stared right back. He didn’t flinch or hesitate. “Where’s Declan, then?”

The grin that spread over his face was fueled by nothing but cruelty and pain. “I could tell you,” He said, enunciating each word like a stage actor after an elocution lesson, “But then, I would have to kill you.”

If she’d been standing, she would have stumbled away from him. Sitting, all she could do was press herself back away from him, into the arm of the couch. She saw uncertainty flicker through his eyes, but it was too late. What he’d said— there was no way to take it back.

She stood up and shook her head. “I’m not sure what you think is going on here,” she said. “I was trying to protect you. I was trying to handle my problems like an adult. I went to Teddy because I’ve known him my entire life. I went to Jack because I was scared Randall would move on him next. You were here. You have your own personal army ready to defend you. I love you, Mason, but I can’t—I’m not a rebel. I’m not a renegade. I don’t know how to live like you live.”

“No one’s asking you to live this way,” he said, and she knew he didn’t mean it, knew that he was as frightened by the coldness of the words as she was, but he said it all the same.

She didn’t know what button of his she was pressing right now to make him act this way, to make him say these things that seemed calculated to do nothing other than hurt her. But he was still doing it, and for all the screwed up things she’d been taught as a kid, she’d also been taught that if someone is hurting you on purpose, that they’re the asshole, not you, and that it was okay—even encouraged—to walk away from them.

“That’s a shame,” she said, forcing her tone to stay level, forcing herself not to cry. “Because what I was working up to saying to you was that I was trying to learn. But this is not the world I grew up in, and I need your help to figure out how to walk in it. “

He stood up too, and reached out to her, but she brushed his hands away.

“Mason, no,” she said. “I can’t— I don’t know what’s going on, why we’re fighting right now, but I can’t do this. I need some time away from all of this. Jack thinks that his friend will be able to offer you a deal, testify against the cop, about what you know about the club’s involvement in all of the dirty dealings Declan had, and you won’t be prosecuted for any of it. I’m going to— I think I’m going to get out of town for a couple of days. Go see Gloria. See what I feel about all of this when I’m not getting— getting threatened and assaulted and followed all damn day long.” She touched his face, and brushed away the wetness that had swelled out of his eyes. “Just give me a few days.”

“I don’t know who I am without you anymore,” he said. “I’m scared to death that they’re going to take you away, and I’m going to be lost all over again, just like when Anna died.”

“I get that,” she said. “But that’s—not actually a healthy way to love someone. You know? And I’m not saying I’m some bastion of emotional health, but the stuff we’re trying to survive right now—maybe it’s too much for both of us.”

“Please don’t go,” he said, reaching out for her, but she slipped away from his hand, something it seemed like she was always doing.

“I need to.”