Devil's Angels Boxed Set: Bikers and Alpha Bad Boy Erotic Romance (7 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“My Momma was a good woman once, or so I was told. By the time I was old enough to know good from bad, there was nothing much left for me or my sister that was good. My real Dad died when I was two. I don’t remember him at all. Momma was pregnant with my sister when he passed. He was on the side of the road, trying to fix a flat on the car when another car swerved too close and hit him. He died instantly.”

“After that, Momma went from man to man. I remember a constant stream of ‘Uncles’ that would stay a couple of months then move on. Then she met Rick and he decided to stay. Rick liked his whiskey and he liked to beat on my Momma when he was in the bottle. I hated him as much as a little boy can hate anything.”

“Rick had another love—little girls. He started molesting my baby sister when she was just four. One day he got carried away and killed her. My Momma called the police and they came for him. When he tried to run, they shot him dead. I was glad.”

“After that, my Momma had a breakdown of some sort. She tried to kill herself a couple of times. They put her in a mental hospital to try and fix her, but it didn’t work. She got hold of a steak knife and slit her wrists. I was thirteen and had been living with a cousin of my Momma’s.”

“When they told us she passed, I guess I lost it too. I got stupid, made a lot of mistakes, got in some trouble with the law. Nothing serious, but enough to get me labelled a ‘bad kid’. I got tossed in foster care when the cousin decided she’d had enough. I bounced around the system until I ran away for good at seventeen.”

He couldn’t look at her. He’d never told his story to a living soul. Not one. As far as anyone knew, he was just a drifter who’d found a home in Pecan, Texas. There was no reason for him to tell the dirty details. No reason, until her.

Sandy couldn’t stop the tears that streamed down her cheeks. It explained so much about him, the way he treated women, how he never got too close. It also explained why he had been so determined to prove himself here. To prove himself to her Daddy. It hadn’t just been about earning his respect; Christian was looking for approval.

*****

The next couple of days went by in blur. Her job, checking on Christian, and dealing with whatever was going on between her Daddy and Mariah had Sandy exhausted. Exhausted and completely frustrated, because Mariah wouldn’t tell her what was wrong and her Daddy claimed to have no clue.

Mariah worried her the most. Christian was on the mend and going home in a few hours. Mariah seemed even more fragile this morning than she had when she’d found her bawling in the kitchen the morning after Christian’s accident. She’d dropped two glasses this afternoon already, and was muttering to herself constantly. People were starting to talk.

She’d promised Christian she’d pick him up from the hospital that afternoon, but she worried about leaving Mariah alone. She felt like she was being pulled in too many directions and it was affecting her work.

She stopped by the club to check on Mariah one more time and got shooed away. Honestly, she was glad to get away. She was anxious to see Christian out of that hospital bed.

Leave it to Christian to be sitting outside when she got there, wearing a funky hat with the hospital’s logo on it. She shook her head at him. “You just have to ruin all my fun, don’t you?”

He feigned innocence. “I have no clue what you’re talking about, darlin’.”

“Don’t you play angel with me. You
know
I was looking forward to pushing you outta that place in that wheelchair.” She watched him hobble on his crutches to the door, then get in and buckle the seatbelt of her old truck securely around his waist. She knew he was balking at the necessity of normal transportation, but they couldn’t take any chances for a while.

“Pretty girl, I never feel like an angel when you’re around.”

“Good thing you’re disabled, or I’d think you were trying to get in my pants.” She put the truck in gear and headed toward his place. “I got the guys at your shop to gather up all the pieces of your bike and store it in your garage. I figure with you being down for the count with that knee you might want something to tinker with.”

The surprise on his face was genuine. Of all the things that she had done, this had to be the most awesome. “Do you know how hard you rock?”

“Duh. Stuff of legends.” She shot him a pretty good mockery of his cocky smile.

Once they got to his house, he went to shower and change while she got things in order. Spoiled food from the fridge went out with the rancid trash from the can, and the new food she’d gotten him was put away. He came out in just a pair of old gym shorts, his nearly bald head bruised and the wound across the crown swollen. He came up close behind her and brushed the hair off her neck.

“You forgot to remind me to thank you.” He kissed the soft spot at the base of her neck.

“Because you’re in no condition to be thanking me right now.” Her voice was husky, those simple touches heating her blood.

“Mmm, that’s where you’re wrong. My head feels much better. The knee we can work around.” He walked her forward until her belly hit the counter. “I need you, Sandy.”

Her fingers dug into the counter. How was she supposed to argue that he was too hurt when her entire body was begging for him? She turned, seeing the same fire in his eyes that she was sure was in her own.

The smile on her face was downright evil, and he was harder than steel in half a second. Her hands were around his waist working his shorts down before he realized her intentions. She knelt down, sitting back on her heels to work the shorts over the huge knee brace and then from around his ankles. With gentle pressure on his hips, she turned him until his back was to the counter so he could lean against it.

When he was exactly where she wanted, she lifted her face, running the softness of her cheek up the entire length of his cock. Her hands trailed up his sides, running over the ink she’d put in his skin, then back down to the sensitive spots above each thigh. His one good knee tried to give out, and he braced his hands on the counter behind him.

Her tongue followed the same path her cheek had taken before swirling around the tip. His eyes closed but hers never left his face. His jaw was clenched tight, as tight as the fingers holding the counter. The devil on her shoulder smiled greedily.

She took him into her mouth as far as she could, pulling back with a gently sucking motion combined with a lazy back and forth with her tongue. He took a sharp breath, one hand coming down to play with the hair over her ear.

He didn’t thrust at her, even though he was dying to. He let her have the control. That little trick with her tongue was making him crazy. Her fingers were alternating between stroking his thighs and scratching them. It wouldn’t take long until he lost control.

She could feel the way his muscles tensed and knew he was close. Backing off, she changed the rhythm slightly, holding him in her mouth longer and keeping her tongue still. When he relaxed slightly she switched tactics again and took him deep into her throat, stroking on and off him until he lost control and shouted out her name.

He was still semi-hard when she released him, only to be yanked up under her arms, turned and lifted up onto the counter. His face was flushed and his chest rose and fell quickly. There was barely time to register the determined look in his eyes before he yanked her jeans down and off her legs.

Pulling her to the edge, he spread her thighs wide, put her calves on his shoulders and ignored the little yelping noise she made. He had his mouth on her, licking and sucking at the barely hooded bud nestled between her dark pink lips, before she could think.

Lost as she was, Sandy remembered to keep her hands off his head. To try and tame temptation, she rose up on her elbows to watch him take her with his mouth. He slid a finger inside her, then another, pressing up and hitting a spot that made her growl low in her chest and close her eyes.

So close, her whole body trembled. He flicked his tongue faster and her eyes shot open, looking right into his. Knowing he was watching her react to what he was doing to her set her off. Her inner muscles clamped down around his fingers, and she cried out when he pulled them out.

He gave her no time to react. Somehow, despite the fact that her knees were like jelly, he got her off the counter and turned, her upper body sprawled across the cool granite, her body lined up perfectly to his. He slid into her slickness easily, moaning when the contractions from her orgasm gripped and released his cock.

He was out of his mind. He couldn’t get enough. Couldn’t get deep enough. The sound of his stomach smacking against her behind with each thrust was intoxicating.

Reaching her hand back, she took hold of one of his from her hip and wove their fingers together. She didn’t think too hard about why she’d done it, she’d just needed a connection with him that went deeper than the sex itself. As if he needed that connection as well, he gripped her fingers tightly and slowed his pounding thrusts slightly. She raised up on her toes, changing the angle of his thrusts, and they both gasped.

It was no longer a race. His strokes were long and deep. Her heart was pounding so hard, but not in a way it ever had before. When she reached back with her other hand, he immediately took it in his, leaning down to kiss the backs of them gently.

The moment itself seemed to build with the pressure in their bodies. She could sense the change in his breathing, a change that matched her own. Her grip on his hands increased. He changed the angle of his thrusts once more, stroking right against the sensitive and engorged bud throbbing between her thighs.

It was the way he began to whisper her name over and over that sent her over that edge, taking him along with her. Her body held him tightly inside while he came, his body shuddering against hers, hands still holding tightly to each other.

*****

Mariah knew what she had to do. She couldn’t let him get away with hurting an innocent man. She needed to tell Christian what Atticus had done. Maybe there would be a way to fix everything.

Well, not everything. Her relationship with Atticus was done. She couldn’t live with someone who could so easily try to destroy another person the way he had tried with Christian.

She hated that what she had to say would probably destroy Atticus’ relationship with Sandy. She hated that what she had to say might tear Christian and Sandy apart. She hated this entire mess, but she couldn’t protect the two of them without telling them the truth.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Christian rested his head on Sandy’s back. She smelled of sex and cinnamon and him. It was a heady scent. He realized that he was still crushing her fingers in his and released her hands. He smiled at the tiny sound of disappointment she made.

Bracing his hands on the counter he pulled away, then froze. His stomach twisted, and he broke out in a cold sweat.

She’d known he’d have this reaction. They’d been out of control and hadn’t stopped to think. It was a surprise that it had taken him this long to react. She lifted her upper body off the counter and turned quickly, taking in his pale face and stunned eyes. “Christian, I want you to listen to me. We’re okay. I know how very careful you’ve been. I’ve been just as careful, and I’m on the pill. Never missed a day since I was seventeen.”

Her words broke through the panic that had been trying to set in. He let out a long breath and relaxed. Then, realizing how it might seem to her, he gave her a smile. “I don’t want you to think—I mean, it’s not—I’m really screwing up here. I’m careful because I don’t ever want to have to force a woman to have to make a decision that could have been prevented.”

“I understand. I’m not offended, so you can drop that, okay?” She took his face in her hands and kissed his lips, tasting herself there. “We’re good.”

He nodded, amazed at her. She’d understood, even when it presented as him being a complete jerk. “Thank you.”

This time she was the one who nodded because she couldn’t trust her voice. He could be so soft and sweet, a side of him that she hadn’t expected, and it always threw her for a loop.

She pulled her clothes and his up onto the counter, sorting them out so they could re-dress. She was turning her jeans right side out when her cell phone dinged. She pulled it out of her pocket and checked the caller id. Mariah. She motioned for Christian to give her a second. “Mariah?”

“Sandy, are you still with Christian?” Her voice was calm despite the nerves gnawing at her gut.

“Yeah, is everything okay?” She didn’t like the sound of Mariah’s voice.

“No. I need a huge favor.”

*****

Christian didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it was had Sandy dressed and rushing out the door with promises to come back as soon as she was done. The growl of her old truck had barely died away when the doorbell rang.

He opened the door to a frantic looking Mariah. She pushed past him and started immediately pacing the living room, wringing her hands. “Mariah, what is going on? Are you okay?”

“I sent Sandy away so I could talk to you, but now I don’t know where to start and I’m so scared, Christian.” She collapsed on to the couch and buried her face in her hands.

He hobbled over to sit next to Mariah and put his arm around her shoulders. He hated to see her so upset. “Just take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on. I’ll do whatever I can to help fix it.”

“That’s the thing, honey. You can’t fix this. No one can.” She pushed his arm off her shoulders. “Atticus paid someone to hurt you. I overheard him talking to the man on the phone the afternoon after you got hurt.”

Every muscle in Christian’s body went tight. His blood pounded. The need to punch something was overwhelming. “Be very sure of what you’re saying, Mariah.”

“I know what I heard, Christian. I need to know what
you’re
going to do.” Mariah stood and paced away.

“You need to be away from the club for a while, Mariah. Take the night off. Don’t go back there until I tell you.” He turned to go get dressed, stopping when Mariah grabbled his arm tight.

“What are you going to do, Christian?”

“I’m going to take care of the problem.”