Inflamed: A Shadow Riders MC (30 page)

"Yeah, baby, the goddamn deal. First he moves you into the club, now he's moved you into his goddamn house. Motherfucker's never let a bitch in here for longer than a goddamn night unless he's too fucking piss drunk to kick her the fuck out before the sun shows up. You're like an Old Lady without the benefits of it all, without all the fucking that comes along with it. Unless that's what you two are doing, 'less that's why he moved you in here." He took another step closer and dipped his head lower in an attempt to focus my eyes on his. "
Are
you two fucking? 'Cause if not, it's a goddamn fucking shame." His eyes went straight down to my breasts. "A motherfucker would have to be blind as fuck to not wanna get all up inside that."

I took a few steps back and crossed my arms over myself. "I don't feel comfortable with you being in here or talking to me like this," I told him.

"Guess what, darlin'?" he said through a hearty chuckle. "I don't really give all that much of a fuck."

As he stepped closer and dipped his head even lower in an attempt to kiss me, my hand darted out for a butcher knife on the opposite counter. But I had no time to do anything with it because Avery had stepped into the kitchen then, and called out for me.

Eightball dropped back and grinned; if a snake could smile, he gave the perfect imitation of one. His eyes shot down to the knife in my hand and he nodded his head. "Next time, babe."

The minute he was gone from the kitchen, I dropped the knife to the counter and fell back against the wall, covering my mouth to keep from screaming. My heart was pounding so hard, I thought it was actually going to fly right through my chest and splatter against the wall on the other side.

Avery moved closer into the kitchen and stared up at me with those big brown eyes. "Mama?" she said.

I forced a smile and swallowed hard. "Yeah, baby?"

"Alisha wants to know if I can spend the night at her house tonight."

"Who?"

"Alisha; the girl I've been playing with all day."

"Oh, right." I grabbed my head and closed my eyes. "Meghan's daughter."

"She wants to know if I can spend the night with her tonight."

"Um, baby, that's
extremely
short notice. Let me talk to her mother about it first, and we can maybe work something out for another night."

"But I wanna spend the night over her house TONIGHT."

"Avery!" I snapped. "You can't spend the night with her tonight, alright? We'll figure something out for another night, end of story."

She glared at me before stomping out of the kitchen and back into the yard while spouting off 'No fairs'. I dropped my hands to the edge of the counter and closed my eyes again, only to jump back with the knife in my hand the second I felt someone else's hand drop down on my shoulder. When I realized it was River, who had jumped back from me as if I had planned to skin him alive until there was nothing left of him but eyes and bones, I calmly placed the knife back down on top of the counter and rattled my head.

"I'm sorry."

"Shit. What the fuck?" He dropped his hands and moved in closer to me. "You alright, doll?"

"No," I sighed. "I think the reality of everything is just starting to hit me. That, and one of your bikers just made me feel
extremely, extremely
uncomfortable."

He clinched his fists. "Which one?"

"Eightball," I said. "He came in here while I was getting Miranda's potato salad and kind of cornered me."

"What the fuck did he say to you?" he growled; the rumble from deep inside him sent a chill throughout my entire body, though it wasn’t the kind that would’ve normally frightened me.

"Just...” I stammered. “He just said
stuff
that made me feel uncomfortable."

He breathed in deep and grinded his teeth. "
Piece of shit
,” he murmured. “That's why you reached for the goddamn knife, 'cause you thought I was him?"

I nodded. "Yeah.
Sorry
."

"You ain't got a goddamn thing to be sorry for, doll, but that motherfucker just might."

He turned from me pretty quickly and tried racing for the patio door, but I reached out for his arm and dragged him back into the kitchen with me. Once we stopped, he looked down at my hand and flared his nostrils and his temples; and suddenly, my hand felt like a hot plate against his skin.

"Um..." I gently released his arm and he clamped his teeth together. "I don't want you to make this into some kind of big scene with him. I mean, I can handle myself, it's just... he threw me off by coming in here like that."

"I know you can handle yourself, doll," he said. "I've got no goddamn doubt about it just from the way that you talk to
me
." He moved in so much closer this time, so much closer to the point that I could feel the heat from him bouncing right off of me.
God, if this is how I'm meant to go out, then I might just lie down and take it on my back.
"But none of these motherfuckers out here should be makin' you feel like that," he went on. "Makin’ you feel uncomfortable in any kinda way, and sure as fuck not inside my own goddamn house."

"Thank you--"

"You don't have to keep thankin' me for shit, babe," he said. "'Specially for shit like that."

"Still," I told him. "Even with my parent's, I've never really had anybody looking out for me before. So whether you want to keep hearing it or not, I'm going to keep telling you ‘thank you’. And more than that, I’m going to keep showing it."

Unthinkingly, I reached up and threw my arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight embrace. I could feel his hesitancy at first, feel his tension and resistance in being so damn close to me; and then before I even knew what the hell was happening, his arms were sliding around my waist and his hands were tightening; his face was moving beneath my jaw, his mouth and nose were nuzzling into the side of my neck. I heard him grunt, felt the harshness of it against my skin as his mouth opened, then closed and opened again. I felt the tip of his tongue brush against me; I felt his teeth. My fingers trailed along the hairs of his neck and as I tried swallowing, my throat was so dry that it was completely impossible. I felt myself melding with him, my body molding to his as he pulled me tighter against him. And then I felt myself walking backward. I didn't know if it was something I was doing on my own, or if he was pushing me, but I knew at the moment that I didn't care.

He grunted again once I was pressed against the wall, once his body was completely shoved against mine, though the sound was much softer this time, more arousing; and as my fingers moved up into his thick head of hair, his fingers brushed against me and dug deeply into my skin. I whimpered as my skin grew hot against his; just his touch made me feel as if I was boiling. His arm dipped even lower around me and when I felt the brush of his thick, solid rod against my inner thigh, that's when I closed my eyes and completely inhaled him. I inhaled every ounce of his scent that I could in one intake of air, and that's when I knew that this man was mine, all mine, no matter who he had before me, no matter who he thought to have after, if anyone; whether he knew it or not, whether he was willing to accept it or not, he was mine. Just as much as I knew without a single word of confirmation that I was his; completely, fully, wholly, entirely and incredibly his.

When he finally pulled back from me, though it didn't seem as if it was what he had wanted to do, I looked up at him and it was like staring up into the eyes of an abyss. I was sucked in,
completely
sucked into them, into him, and there was no way in hell that I was going to search for a way to dig myself out of it.

He brushed my hair behind me and dropped his hand to the side of my throat, directly against my pulse. "You good?" he asked me in a whisper.

I blinked a few times before finally opening my mouth to respond to him. "Yeah, I'm good," I said, though my voice was so low, I wasn't sure if he could actually hear me.

"Good." He brushed his thumb across my cheek before quickly pulling back. "The whole reason I came in here was to tell you that, um, the Dragons are comin' in tomorrow mornin' ahead of the Orlando and Miami charters instead of tonight. And I think it's probably best to have Wolf and Blue at my side to talk with the Prez and VP of each camp. I shouldn't have thought to bring you into this shit."

"It's okay," I said. "I'm glad that you were willing to even tell me about it. I know that you weren't supposed to--"

"No, darlin', I wasn't."

"But like I said, I'm glad that you did. It shows me a lot and I appreciate that, and respect it.”

His chest descended as he exhaled. His eyes went down to my breasts and for the first time that day, I wasn't eager to cover them up. I wanted his eyes on me like before, I wanted them all over me, like his hands. God, I wanted his hands all over me, embracing every warm inch of my skin.

"Why don't I take this shit back out there for ya?" He reached for the bowl of potato salad and held it tight inside his hands. "You come back out there when you're ready again, yeah?"

"Okay."

Within a split second, he was gone and before I knew it, I was alone again; and in the silence I could hear my heart pounding even harder and louder than before, like the sound of a gong banging against my ribs.

Who the hell knew that an embrace, a simple wrapping of your arms around someone else's entire body, could be so unbelievably stimulating and sexy? I didn't know that feeling, had never felt it before until him, until I saw him again, but now it was official. No matter who came into my life after, there would never be another man like Jacob 'River' Hawkins who could take my breath, and my panties away with just one single look.

And no matter how he managed to make me feel in between all of those times, I knew that overall I was absolutely, positively and completely okay with that fact.

Chapter Twenty-One

River sat back on his deck alone, drinking a beer and staring off into the distance. It was early evening and everyone with the exception of Blue, had already gone home, taking their 'junk' with them and leaving the cash for Mia in a jar that Blue had locked up in a cabinet located in River's basement. Most of that time he had spent after being with her in the kitchen, even as everyone else was still around him, was spent thinking. He couldn't seem to keep his mind on anything else but her and how good it fucking felt to be wrapped up in all of that, in all of her goddamn, motherfucking
sweetness
.

Jesus, how long had it been since he had wrapped his arms and hands around a woman like that, a woman that he knew he shouldn't? A woman that he would've gladly fucked right out in the goddamn open no matter who the fuck had come around to see? A woman he wanted to be so goddamn deep inside at that point that even his cock was starting to feel pain from it. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he had never wrapped his arms around a woman like that, never felt like he did as she slinked her hands around his throat and up into his hair, and curved her body into his and
shit
… it was like they belonged together, so goddamn perfectly molded into each other like they were one.

That motherfucker didn't know what the hell to think anymore, didn't know how to fucking feel. For so goddamn long he had told himself that she was the enemy; people who looked like her had no goddamn business being with motherfuckers who looked, walked, talked or acted like him. He knew that shit stemmed back to his mother, to those two black motherfuckers who fucked her up and left her for dead on the side of that road. And somewhere deep inside himself, he knew it was wrong to feel that way about every goddamn motherfucker who looked like them, but he couldn't help himself. Then again, he had never tried to feel any differently – never tried to think it; he never tried to wonder what life would be like with the shoe on the other goddamn foot. Not until now. Not until her.

Because from the moment she walked in, she fucked up his entire goddamn world; blew it to fucking bits. This woman. Mia Marie Sullivan. She fucked him up the second they locked eyes. The second he got a good long look at that face and her fucking smile and those goddamn legs and fucking tits with hard as fuck nipples that he wanted to wrap his lips and teeth and tongue around. She came in and everything he ever thought he knew about people like her, about his own goddamn self-changed; everything he had ever forced himself to feel or believe or find truth in over the years was suddenly fading away, fading so far off into the goddamn distance that he could no longer see it, and he didn't know how the hell to react to that shit, he wasn't prepared for it. He had generalized for so goddamn long because of something he couldn't control, and now it was like that shit was coming back to bite him on the ass and bite him hard enough to leave marks that he could never rid himself of.

But the crazy thing about it -- the crazy
shit
about it, was that the motherfucker liked being bitten. In fact, he was starting to like it a little too goddamn much, and too fucking often.

"Yo, VP."

River took one last gulp of beer, then sat his bottle back down onto the table and groaned. He peeked behind him and saw Blue standing in the doorway of the patio. "What?"