If I Should Die: A Kimber S. Dawn MC Novel (22 page)

After he leans back and puts just enough space between us, he drags his hands from my collarbones, barely skimming the surface of my skin with his fingertips until they’re just below my breasts. When the pads of his thumbs circle my nipples, I shudder as he cups each breast. And when his mouth is finished its assault on mine, he drags it to my ear before growling against it. “Give me five seconds, Pipsqueak. And anything I do to you after won’t matter, baby.” The hand cupping the back of my neck pulls my body closer to his, just before he leans me back onto the chaise. And once he has me splayed out, his mouth and hands are everywhere. My neck. My shoulders. My chest. His rough beard abrades my tender flesh between sweet kisses and swift licks. When he brings his face back up to mine, his eyes are piercing and it’s too much. I have to squeeze my eyes closed.

“Don’t,” he whispers, begging me as his hand cups my face. “Open your eyes, Vagabond.” Whatever hand that’s not cupping my face slides between my legs before barely brushing my clit. “This still mine?” he asks, before coughing and clearing his throat. “This still mine?” he repeats in a gruff, hoarse voice.

And this time, when I look up into his eyes and I’m able to make them out in the moonlight...this time, I don’t feel the fear of losing. I feel the fear of never having again...at all.

“Answer me, Vagabond, before I lose my shit. This still mine?” He growls just as he sinks a finger deep inside me. His thumb pad lands on my clit before he slowly circles it. And the harder his hand works between my legs, the more the tattoos dance on his forearm from the muscles flexing beneath his tan skin. “Always looking for answers. Well, I have a few of my fucking own I need answered, but I’ve accepted that’ll never happen.” When he effortlessly sinks a second finger in and hooks them around before finding something that even I haven’t found yet—my legs tremble before falling apart. “But you will answer me. This mine?”

“Yes. Please.” As embarrassed as I am to say, those are the only two coherent words I currently possess and can form before I speak.

And when the hand cupping my face slides back and cups my neck again, I’m not prepared when he uses his hold and tugs my face up to his. His mouth is so warm and so sweet. And his kisses are so tender. Almost delicate. “That good?” he mutters against my mouth, causing me to moan the harder he works his new found magic spot.

I sputter an unintelligible, “Mmm hmm” when his face heads in the general south direction, scaling down my body. His mouth never ceases its assault on my flesh. And you have to keep in mind here, I’ve had
two
sexual experiences in my inept romantic history. How many? Yes, you’ve been here: Two.

So it doesn’t take much. Honestly, I think I started feeling the orgasm when he first began his journey down my body. My neck. My chest. My abdomen. I’m a trembling mess when he drapes one of my thighs, crossing it over his head before settling it on his other shoulder. I can hardly breathe as I watch him settle between my spread thighs, back onto his haunches. Leaning over my bare body lying across the chaise lounge, Jacques smirks when he’s a breath away from my bareness, and when I suddenly realize how wet I am, shyness starts to creep in.

Just before his mouth covers me. And then, I don’t give a damn what I feel after that. Because whatever it is, it’s swallowed whole by the orgasm that tears its way through me a split second later.

I haven’t even crested, much less made it down, when suddenly he stands. We’re both vertical, and my straddling his face has somehow turned into my straddling
him
, and his
at least
ten inches,
and
Al. I’ve barely connected the fact that we’re no longer lying flat, much less that he’s pinning me to the side of the house with both thighs suddenly draped over each of his tattooed forearms. His dark navy blue eyes narrow when they hit mine. “Good girl,” he whispers, before crushing his mouth against my swollen lips. When he pulls back, his stormy eyes flash with something, but it’s gone too quickly for me to catch. “You’re still here,” he mutters. “I’m gonna need you here.” When his eyes glance down between us, I follow their direction, and shudder and moan all at the same time at the sight I see. His thick, heavy cock weighs down on me, almost visibly pulsing with roped veins and he’s completely drenched in my wetness. “That yours?” He growls, and I feel my heart—or what I thought was left of it—flutter back to life in my chest.

But when my eyes meet his again, and I witness the shutters go down behind them just before his eyes go blank, my heart—or what I thought was left of it—squeezes until aching in my chest. I nod hurriedly, answering him before raking my hands into his hair and pulling his mouth back to mine. And when we pull apart, we’re gasping for air again, but he still mutters the words, “I’mma need you here, Vagabond. No matter what, I need you here the whole time. Stay.”

His deep, soul searching, heart wrenching blue stormy eyes flash again when I see the shutters visibly rise behind them, just as he sinks fully into me to the hilt. And it takes a minute for me to physically adjust, especially in this position. But when he moves, stormy eyes still locked on mine, his huge hands cradle my face now he has my weight pinned against the house with him fully seated inside me where we’re connected. And then he smirks. I don’t know what to tell you—my need for him, for all of him—outweighs my need for any answers. I don’t need to know anything else. As far as I’m concerned, he needs me to stay. So I’ll stay.

Wherever and for however long he needs me to, I’ll stay.

With every one of his thrusts, the bones of my bare back crush harder against the paneled wood of the house behind me. And I can’t tell you if I want to cry because of which feeling: The feeling of being screwed against the side of Grams’ house like a whore, or the feeling of Jacques Cain, ten inches and then some, deep inside me, making a home for himself in my very soul. Where I know he doesn’t belong.

But when his hands move from cradling my face to cupping the sides and harshly gripping it, and he growls out his demand, I obey. “Come for me, Vagabond. I’m coming so damn hard. Come with me, baby. Come.”

My brown eyes flutter open to see his blue ones staring back at me and I obey Jacques Cain. And I come harder than I’ve ever come in my whole life. And I just came pretty freaking hard before his last demand.

As I’m floating down from that spot in heaven, that place I’ve only ever frequented a few brief times before, I sigh in happiness before snuggling closer to him as he adjusts me in his arms. And when he’s got me secure under my legs and behind my back, I slide my arms around his neck and pull myself closer to him. Then I inhale his unique scent as he carries me over the threshold and through the house.

And I want to tell him everything. I want to tell him he’s the only one. That he’s been the only one. I want to tell him he confuses the hell out of me. I want to question him. I want to beg him for answers about earlier, about
all
of earlier. I want to tell him what’s in my heart. Or what’s left of it. I want to tell him so much—and I’m not sure if it’s my recent unusually strenuous activities, or the lasting effects of whatever it was he drugged me with, but instead of muttering a single word, or getting out one pertinent question, somewhere between the living room and my bedroom, I fall asleep, right where he’s carrying me.

***

After waking the next morning, and he’s gone...I’m not surprised. Heartbroken? Yes. Devastated? Absolutely. Surprised? No. Not at all. It doesn’t take more than a novice to know what those few moments and the cryptic words he kept muttering meant.

I knew. I knew then, just like I know this morning. He hasn’t snuck off to the kitchen to find what he can and whip us up some breakfast to eat.

No, he’s gone. Just like he said; he left. And it was definitely before the sun rose, judging on how cold the rest of my double bed is.

I don’t even have an excuse for myself. And other than mentally bitch and whine about it, there’s nothing else I can do. I glance around my room, looking for any trace of him or his presence from last night, and when I don’t see any, my heart squeezes, contracting in my chest. You’d think for someone who's so
un
surprised, it wouldn’t hurt so bad, but it does. And you’d think for someone used to being left behind, it wouldn’t hurt so bad either. But I guess that joke’s on me. Because it fucking hurts.

The tears well in my eyes before slipping over my lashes as I make my way from the bed. And once I have my thin robe tied around my waist by its sash, I head towards the kitchen in search of coffee.

Thankfully it takes my Keurig less than fifteen seconds to sputter out the last few drops of my dark, wake-me-up elixir, and a few after that I’m stepping out onto the deck to watch the sun rising over the ocean, and having my morning cigarette and coffee.

The tenderness in my aching muscles, holding me together and upright, are the only lasting evidence that anything happened last night. That Jacques Cain was even here. I can hardly bring my cigarette to my mouth and pull in a drag, my hand is shaking so hard. When Ty comes around the wrap-around porch with two bagels and two coffees in his hands, his voice is singing, but it’s no song I’ve ever heard. “Hey, dove. Gotcha some break.” He sets down what I assume is my breakfast, and when his eyes land on my face he stills.

“Fuck,” he mutters. Singing, we’re past. But I’m pretty sure he gets that when a few seconds later, he’s plucked my cigarette from my hand and put it out in the ashtray. After he has me wrapped up in his arms, we settle back on the chaise I was sitting on. When his lips meet my forehead, he glances out over the water and the sand before he continues, nailing every head. On every nail. “He didn’t pull out of town when they did, did he? He come back here?” Ty’s words are spoken softly but I still feel the tension vibrating off him. And I know he’s pissed as hell.

I nod, unable to actually form the words and speak my transgressions and sins from the night before.

“Why him, Evie? Why can’t you find someone who isn’t him? Anyone’ll do at this point, dove. You gotta get over this. Over him.”

When I don’t answer him, I feel his face nod against mine. “When’d you fall in love with him?”

“I don’t know, Ty.” I sputter out the words around my choked sob. “What’s wrong with me?” I cry into my best friend’s warm shoulder. And as his arms tighten around my waist, he shushes me.

But I can’t focus on his softly whispered reassurances. Hell, I can hardly focus on breathing around the pain cracking open my chest.

God, I’m so stupid.

“Why didn’t I say no? Why didn’t I say something? Or do,
anything
, other than just keep kissing him? Oh my God, Ty, there’s something wrong with me!” I cry, interrupting my best friend and his words as he tries to tell me there’s not.

But I know the truth.
And
you know the truth. We were there.

God, what’s wrong with me?

“Evie, stop. You have to stop beating yourself up. I mean, what’d you expect to happen? You’re twenty-six years old. And the only person you’ve ever been with comes back into your life at damn near your sexual peak? I’m surprised you didn’t fuck him before he kidnapped you. Hell, that’s what I’d have done. As a nice thank you. He is beautiful, sweetie. Hell, even I’ll admit that,” he whispers as his pointer finger tips my face to his.

I have to blink past the tears to see him. And when my brown eyes meet his, I shyly smile before swallowing the lump lodged in my throat. “Sorry.” I pull my hand to my chest, rubbing at the sore spot where my heart beats. “It hurts.”

“It’s supposed to, baby.” His voice sounds older suddenly, wiser almost. “I know how you like yourself numb. I know I’m only here out of default, and because you haven’t found a way to push me away yet. But, dove...life—life’s about feeling. And feeling means feeling all of it. The good with the bad. The highs and the lows. It’s gotta hurt before it can feel good. Especially with all the scars you got.”

“I know,” I mutter, before standing and making my way into the kitchen from the deck. And I do, I know he’s right. I just don’t think I’m ready.

Especially now. Especially after Jacques Cain. And the new pain he’s caused.

I’ll pick myself back up in a few months. You’ll see. Then I’ll be ready to start living.

Again? I don’t know—we’ll see. I’m not certain I ever have, other than the few moments of home I felt with Grams. Or Ty. I can’t promise I have ever lived.

“Hey, what’s this?” I hear Ty ask as I settle in my stool at the bar overlooking the kitchen from the breakfast nook. I can’t even see what he’s talking about ‘cause he’s blocking it. He turns back around and when he’s facing me he holds up his hands. With a folded piece of paper in one and my crucifix—
his crucifix
—in the other. “You didn’t see this? When you made your coffee?”