Jet: A Marked Men Novel (18 page)

“By following me? By scaring the crap out of my roommate and trying to break into my house? This isn’t Woodward. None of that is going to fly here.”

I pulled the door open and glared at him over my shoulder. “I’ll talk to Asa. If I can get him to hand that book over, you better make sure nothing happens to my mama. But chances are he already did something stupid with it and he lied about needing the twenty grand so he could disappear. This is Asa, you know what he’s capable of.”

Silas’s gummy eyes skirted over me from the top of my head to the worn toes of my boots. “So do you, Ayd, and if you think for one hot second that piece of shit would be above selling your fine ass to an MC, if it meant keeping his own skin safe, than you’re dead wrong and that fancy college didn’t teach you shit.”

I walked out the door shaking from the inside out. I had tried so hard to keep the past from interfering with my new life, tried so hard to forget about the things I’d done and the way I had lived, but it seemed like fate was bound and determined to keep right on cramming it down my throat. At that moment, I could say in all honesty that I hated my brother, hated everything he represented, and yet I was still going to have to try to figure out a way to keep him breathing. It grated that I couldn’t just let him hang from the noose of his own stupidity and greed.

When I got back to the table, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that we had visitors. Shaw was sitting on Rule’s lap while he finished her beer, and Jet had taken up post in the seat I had recently vacated. They were all laughing at something Cora was saying, and I felt my heart sink. This was the family I had always wanted. These were the people who I could count on, who would love me through the good and the bad and not ask a thing of me in return, and all I had done was fool them into thinking I was worth more than I actually ever was.

Jet’s dark gaze found mine and I tried to force a smile. There were so many questions shining out of those dark depths. I wished so badly that I could just answer a single one of them. I stopped at his side and smiled for real when his hand curled around my hip.

“What’s going on?”

“We were hanging out at Rule’s when Shaw called in an SOS. I figured since I was close by I could just scoop you two knuckleheads up and take you home, so you didn’t have to wait for a cab.”

It was sweet; he was sweet, and so ridiculously hot. Man, oh man, was he hot. His black hair was standing all over the place like it tended to do and he had on a tight, black long-sleeved T-shirt with a pentagram and cow skull on it. I’m sure it was some band logo that I had never heard of, but it looked good on him, almost as good as those painted-on black jeans he liked to wear, which were tucked into the top of his unlaced combat boots. I liked everything about him, from the silver rings on every finger to the devil spikes at the top of each ear. He looked like a rock star and I knew firsthand that those skills extended way beyond the stage. I licked my lips and felt his fingers press even harder into the soft skin on my hip.

“Well, that was awfully nice of you.”

I didn’t want to think about Asa, or Silas, or my mom. All I wanted to do was get somewhere alone with him and let him make me forget everything. I could fall asleep with him singing in my ear, and pretend that everything would be all right.

Rule laughed and lifted one of his dark eyebrows. The barbells made him looked wicked and sinister, and I had no trouble seeing why Shaw had been his for the taking for so long.

“You don’t have to thank us. It’s totally to our benefit that you’re all liquored up and ready to get down to business. I told Jet on the way over, girls’ night out is one of my favorite nights of the week. Shaw always comes back ready to play.”

She gasped in outrage and smacked him on the forearm. The guys shared a laugh and I couldn’t help but grin when she turned hot pink under the scrutiny. Playing with Jet, drunk or sober, sounded like a whole lot more fun than hanging out in the bar, so I tried to catch his eye and indicate anytime he was ready, so was I. Cora ordered one more round of shots and by the time we finished them it was way past time to go. She was draped over Jet and me, and he had to fold her small frame into the back of the Challenger. He gave us both a level look and warned that if we puked in his baby, we were cleaning it up, wasted or not. Cora found that hilarious and laughed and laughed, until I heard her gasping for air.

Jet let out a low whistle, and honked the horn when we drove past Rule’s massive truck. I saw Rule flip him the bird, but it in no way deterred him from whatever he was doing to Shaw. He had her pressed up against the driver’s door with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

I tried not to wince when the music came blasting out of the speakers. It was so loud and so violent sounding, and I hated that it was what he related to. He turned it down with a shrug.

“Wolves in the Throne Room.”

“What kind of name is that for a band?”

He shot me a look out of the corner of his eye. “An awesome one.”

I snorted and settled back into the seat. We were never going to see eye to eye on musical preferences, just like I was never going to ask him to go line dancing. Plus, if he ever tried to drag me into a mosh pit, I was going to strangle him. It was a good thing we connected on so many other levels.

Cora was rambling something in the back and had flipped herself over, so that she was lying on her stomach with her face smashed into the leather seat. I jumped a little when one of Jet’s hands landed on my thigh, right where the hem of my short skirt had ridden up.

“You looked stressed out when you came back to the table. Is everything okay?”

It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him all of it—Asa, Silas, and the whole ugly, sordid mess—but instead I put my hand over his and moved it higher on my leg.

“The bathroom was dirty, and I was surprised to see you. You’ve been really busy the last couple of days. I thought you would still be at your studio.”

His thumb brushed back and forth across soft skin and climbed even higher until I had to remind myself to breathe and that we weren’t alone.

“Yeah, I’m just working on getting things together.”

I was drunk, but not drunk enough not to know he was being purposefully vague. “Getting things together for what?”

He sighed and went from stroking to squeezing. I shivered a little and shifted in my seat, which gave him even better access to flesh that was rapidly getting wet and ready.

“You really want to get into this now?”

I blinked at him and narrowed my eyes in irritation. “Well, I was starting to wonder if you were going to say anything at all, or just ask me for a ride to the airport one day.”

His thumb hit the edge of my panties and for a second I forgot that I was working on getting pissed at him, because I saw stars.

“I’m going on tour for a couple of months.”

I sucked in a breath through my teeth when I felt him maneuver the lacy material out of his way. I wanted to peek back at Cora to make sure she was still out of it, but I was scared to move, afraid I would give away all the naughty things he was doing to me.

“Why is that so hush-hush? Don’t you go on tour all the time?”

He sighed again and I almost punched him, because he removed those questing fingers entirely. I snapped to attention when I saw that we were parked in front of the house. I was twisting around to help Cora out of the car, when she literally barreled over the back of the seat and scrambled across me to get out the door.

“I have to pee right now!”

She bolted for the front door so fast no one would have ever known she was close to comatose a second ago. I laughed and was going to follow her into the house, but Jet reached across me and pulled the door back closed. He turned the car off so that the radio went silent, and it was just me and him in the quiet cocoon of the front seat of his car.

“I’m going to Europe. We’re going with Artifice, so it’s kind of a big deal. I’ve never been gone for that long of a stretch before, or gone that far, because I was always so worried about what would happen to my mom. Now I have other reasons for being all torn up over it.”

“Because you’re worried that he might hit her again?”

“Come on, Ayd, you know that isn’t what I’m talking about.”

His dark eyes were even darker in the silence around us.

“Every day, I’m waiting for you to tell me it was fun, but you have better shit to do. I don’t even want to tell you what goes through my head when I think about telling you that I’m going to be on the road for three months.”

I bit down hard on my bottom lip. I braced one hand on his shoulder, and used that and the steering wheel to lever myself over him, so that I was straddling him in the driver’s seat. I put my hands on either side of his face and leaned down to kiss him. I didn’t want him to worry about me, about where my head would be, while he was gone. I wanted him to go on tour and do what he loved for once, just for himself, with none of his baggage. I slicked my tongue across his, played with the barbell in the center of it and let my teeth nip and bite at his bottom lip. I kissed him like he always kissed me, like he was the last guy on earth I would ever put my mouth on.

I ran my hands down his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. “Are you going to sing angry anti–love songs to anyone else while you’re gone?”

He coughed out a laugh and moved his hands so that they were on my ass, where my skirt had risen up to an indecent level.

“No.”

“Are you going to find someone else to sing sappy old country songs to before bed?”

He stiffened because I had managed to get my hands between our bodies where we were pressed together so tightly and to snag the buckle on his belt. I wasn’t so sure about having enough room to maneuver with those tight-ass pants of his, but I was more than willing to give it the old college try.

“No, Ayd. I only have ever wanted to do that for you.”

He fell, hot and heavy into my hands and he must have been ready to move the show on the road, because I heard the sound of ripping fabric and felt the chilly night air hit bare skin where my lacy underwear no longer covered my backside.

“Then stop worrying about everyone but yourself. I’ll be here when you get back and maybe by then I’ll be ready to have this conversation you’re clearly itching to have. Moment by moment, remember?”

He groaned when I leaned down to kiss him again. I was tired of talking, tired of thinking. I just wanted to get him inside me and I didn’t care that we were outside in his car, when there were two perfectly good beds less than a hundred yards away. I had a much harder time ignoring Bad Ayden when he was all hot and bothered and throbbing so deliciously between my legs. The run-in with Silas and everything building with Asa had her close to prying off the lid of the box I’d so ruthlessly shoved her in.

“We need to have some kind of conversation before then, Ayden, and you know it.”

He was right where I wanted him, the tip and that cold ring all against the wet and needy parts of me. I was ready to slide down, to engulf him and disappear in the sensation only he could provide, when his long fingers suddenly dug painfully into the globe of each ass cheek. I lifted my head to look down at him, needy and frustrated that he was being difficult. The sexual buzz he offered was way more intoxicating than an entire bottle of Patrón, and he was about to get hollered at if he didn’t give me what I wanted like he did yesterday.

“Jet, seriously, this can wait until later.”

I tried to wiggle free, tried to sink down and seat myself on him, but he had too tight a hold on me and I was stuck between his hard hands and the steering wheel.

“We can’t do this here, Ayd. I don’t have anything on me.”

Well, that sucked. I was ready, beyond ready, and I could feel that he was, too. I kissed him again and Bad Ayden out of the box, I was just so tired of trying to keep it closed.

“Don’t care.”

And I didn’t, at least I didn’t right then. Tomorrow, I undoubtedly would. Hell, in five minutes I would probably be in a full-blown panic, but right then, I just wanted him. It had nothing to do with the tequila swirling around in my blood. It was enough that he cared, that he was worried enough about me to put the brakes on when I could feel how hard he was, and feel that he was as close to the precipice as I was.

He was still trying to hold me off him, but it was futile. I was too buzzed and he was too hard, and there was just something a little crazy and a whole lot sexy about hooking up in the front seat of his car. There was no way we could hold out for much longer.

When I felt that cold press of metal, unfettered for once without the covering of latex, I nearly passed out. My eyes fluttered and I thought I heard him swear, or maybe he told me he loved me. Either way, it was lost in the sensations that were burning up my spine and making me pant against his throat. His hands were rough enough that I was going to have bruises, and I was so glad I’d had to foresight to put on a skirt that I wanted to give myself a high five, until he pushed me up and hauled me back down, and I couldn’t even remember what day it was anymore.

I said his name over and over again because it was the only thing that made any sense to me at the moment, and I heard him growl something dirty and incoherent. I was going to lose it, going to shatter all over the place and take him with me, when he suddenly shifted under me and I felt him pull out. I was too far gone, too close to the finish line for it to matter. I shivered and quaked, broke apart all over him and heard him groan and whisper my name. When I was able to pry my eyes back open and catch my breath, all I could do was look at him with huge eyes. He kissed me on the cheek and moved around to get us back in some semblance of order. He was still hard, still pressing against me like a steel rod, and I didn’t miss that he looked like he had swallowed something sour.

I grabbed his jaw with one unsteady hand and forced him to look at me. His muscles clenched and unclenched, and those dark eyes with their unholy halo did a better job of stripping me bare than anything he had ever used on me before.