Lock and Key (23 page)

His hand swept over my hip, and he pulled me back in against his chest. I handed him the pack of smokes. He took one out and lit it with his chrome Zippo, then dropped the lighter back on the nightstand next to his gun.

Lock exhaled a stream of smoke then put his cigarette between my lips, and I took a drag. His free hand stroked my bare thigh. He shifted and tapped the ash from his cigarette into a glass filled with water on the table. We sat in silence for a while.

“That moment on their bike, heading into the unknown… I don’t think I’ve felt that kind of fear since the attack,” I said. “Wreck and Dig had prepped me for moments like that,” I sighed. He put his cigarette to my lips once more, and I inhaled deeply. I leaned my head against his chest and exhaled the smoke. “I actually felt relieved once I saw Vig.” I let out a slight laugh. Lock’s hand tightened on my arm.

“I can handle fear.”

I looked up at him. “You must be old friends with that feeling, right? The army, the club…”

“It’s the helplessness I can’t deal with. That’s not an option for me. It’s completely foreign to me,” he said. “When I realized they had you, and I didn’t know where you were, what they were doing to you…” He dropped his cigarette into the glass, and the butt hissed in the water. “I should’ve seen that coming.

“God, I still remember finding Dig crushed under the twisted metal of his bike.”

Lock buried my face in his neck. “Don’t. Not now. You keep that. I can’t hear it now.” I tilted my head up and pressed my lips against the side of his face.

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“Shh.”

I turned my head. We held each other’s gaze.

“Kiss me, Grace,” he whispered.

I kissed him gently and relished the ashy taste of his mouth. My fingers dug through his closely cropped hair.

“I liked your long hair in high school,” I said.

“Yeah?” His eyes glittered over mine. “It was down to my shoulders, like a good res Indian.”

“Don’t talk like that.” I kissed the corner of his mouth, then the side of his nose over his scar. “It’s part of who you are.”

He said nothing, only brushed away strands of my hair from my face and shoulders.

“It’s true,” I said and kissed him again.

His hands around my neck tightened. He bit my lip. I gasped and crushed my mouth into his, pulled myself up and straddled him. He tore the t-shirt off me and threw it to the side. Lips and tongues explored and sucked throats, chests, shoulders, flesh. His large hands crushed my breasts and stroked them.

“I want to see that one day,” I said in between short breaths.

“See what?” His hips flexed against mine. The friction he created between us ignited my insides.

“You with long, black hair.” I said. “You… connected again.”

Lock cursed under his breath, bent his head, and suckled one of my breasts.

I groaned. His cock stiffened against my thigh. I reached down and stroked him over his boxer briefs. He let out a heavy breath, and his hips jerked up. My center painfully spasmed with need.

“Babe,” he breathed. “You want this? Don’t do this if…”

“I want this. I want you.”

He stripped off his boxers. I sat up and tore off my panties. He held my hips and kept me on my knees before him. Two of his fingers hooked inside me gently while his thumb swirled over my clit. His tongue teased one of my nipples. I grabbed onto his shoulders and whimpered. He slid his wet fingers out of me. My entire body wobbled and shuddered.

“Take it, baby” he breathed.

I tucked him into my entrance and took him in slowly. His eyelids sank, and air hissed out of his mouth.

“Oh, Grace…” His head rolled back against the headboard.

He filled me perfectly, tightly. Waves of sensation shuddered through me, and I let out a small moan. “Lock, you feel so good.” Suddenly his hands clamped down on my hips and halted my movements.

“Shit. Hang on,” he said, his voice strained. My hands dug into the taut flesh between his shoulders and neck.

His fingers gripped the side of my face. “I want you to know I’m clean, got tested last week. I haven’t been with anybody since you walked into the clubhouse. I have condoms. They’re in my bag.”

My hand wrapped around his wrist. “We don’t need a condom,” I said.

His eyes searched mine. “You’re on the pill?”

I shook my head. “I can’t have kids. They had to cut me up after I lost the baby. They took most of it.”

“Grace…” he exhaled, his hands dug into my flesh.

“Shhh.” I brushed his mouth with my lips, and my fingers smoothed over the eagle’s wing that rose up his shoulder and neck. I raised myself up and took him in again. A mess of quivering sensations rioted through me once more.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” I murmured. “So beau…”

His mouth slammed over mine, and I lost myself in him. All that mattered was the hard pressure of his tongue against mine, his thickness filling me without barriers, him driving inside me. I clasped my hands over the top of the headboard and moved over him faster.

“Grace.” Lock’s voice was rough. His hands slid over my hips and clasped my rear, and he pumped into me.

I groaned. “So good. Oh, God—” My fingers dug into his flesh, and I took his earring in my mouth.

A growl escaped his throat. “That’s what I want,” he said against my skin. “I want you to feel good.”

There he was, giving himself to me. This man was always giving to me, always considering me. My lips brushed across his temple.

“I do,” I breathed. “You do this to me. You make me feel good… so good.”

Our movements became more urgent. My throbbing pulse soared, wound its way around us and pressed us together. His fingers fisted in my hair and tugged my head back. The silver in his dark eyes burned through mine.

“You’re doing me in,” he rasped.

His teeth nipped at my throat, his hand went between us, and his fingers flicked over me. I flew hard and plummeted through the air. My hands slid over the rippling muscles of his shoulders. My limbs were utterly weightless.

Holy crap, what the hell was this?

Such a sharp, hard response had become rare for me. I had spent fifteen years mostly fumbling and taking care of my own business even when I was with men, many of whom only put effort into their own performance and assumed I enjoyed their presentation. Lock, however, was focused on what we were doing together. He wanted me there with him, and I definitely did, too. I didn’t want this to end, and I wanted to give him what he needed.

Yes, I was greedy for Lock. Very greedy.

My arms pressed around him. “Don’t stop,” I whispered. “You take whatever you want.”

Lock yanked me down underneath him, pulled my legs up high and ground into me. A deep groan escaped his chest, his forehead slid to mine.

“Grace…”

“You okay? You haven’t said much since you got back.”

I shrugged my shoulders at Ruby. “I’m fine.”

“Fine?” Ruby’s eyebrows snapped up. “How I hate that word.”

I continued to stare out the window and crossed my arms across my chest.

“I’m going to need the key.”

“What key?” she asked.

I tilted my head at her.

“Oh. Okay. I’ll call Alex and have him bring it.

“Thanks.”

“Anything wrong?” Ruby asked.

“Nope.”

Ruby snapped the oxygen mask off her face. “What happened in Montana, Grace? Other than the happy father-daughter reunion?”

“Nothing.”

“You slept with Lock, didn’t you?”

I didn’t answer.

She grinned at me. “Was it good?”

“Rube!”

“I don’t need details, that’s not what I mean, stupid,” Ruby said. “I mean, was it good for you?”

She put the oxygen mask back on and drew a deep breath. I turned to look at her.

“I know there hasn’t been anyone in your life for a while,” Ruby said. “Which is all your fault of course, but that’s another discussion. Now you’re thrown together with a badass hottie from the One-Eyed Jacks.” She reached out and squeezed my hand. “I just hope he blew your panties off—that’s what I meant before —because you deserve it.”

I smirked. “I deserve the proverbial ‘good time’ from a ‘hottie’?

Ruby shook her head at me. “You deserve way more than that. You deserve the whole enchilada, but that, too, is another conversation.” She rolled her head to the side and took in a gulp of air. “So, first things first.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Tell me all of it.” Ruby let out a wheezing sound.

I told her everything from the very beginning. Except for the Demon Seeds abduction. She didn’t need to hear about that.

“So what’s the problem?” Ruby eye’s narrowed over me. Her one arm went over her forehead as she settled back onto her pillows.

“No problem.”

“Grace, how did the two of you leave it?” Ruby asked.

That was just it. Lock and I didn’t really leave it anyway at all.

The morning after, he had woken up first. Already showered and dressed, Lock brushed my lips with a quick kiss and headed out the door to check us out and pay the bill for the room. While he was gone I took a shower, got dressed, and put our wet clothing from the night before into plastic bags, and packed up our duffel bags.

A grin curled the edges of my lips as I swiped my lashes with mascara. My girly parts were sore, and I actually liked it. He had woken me up in the middle of the night with his mouth between my legs. We had gone a couple more delicious rounds, one very energetic and creative, the other slow and sweet. The intense ache Lock left behind each time burned through me still. It was satisfaction laced with fervent hunger.

Lock opened the door and his large frame filled the entrance. “You ready?” He put a protein bar on the dresser along with a tall insulated cardboard cup filled with freshly brewed coffee for me. He took a swallow from his.

My gaze darted up at him. His voice was clipped and his mouth was downturned. I tightened the cover of the tube of mascara and shoved it in my bag.

“We’ll make a stop for an early lunch before we cross into South Dakota,” he said. “That okay?”

“Sure.”

Suddenly, he was in a rush. He scooped up our bags from the floor and held the door open for me. I tucked the protein bar in my jacket pocket and picked up the helmets and my coffee cup.

“Lock?”

“We should get moving.”

My heart thudded in my chest. Great. Welcome to Lock Down City.

Over two hours later we stopped at a burger joint in Bowman. Lock wolfed down two huge burgers. A half-eaten grilled chicken sandwich stared up at me from my dish. Lock had been very quiet the entire meal. In fact, he barely looked me in the eye. When he did speak it was in a flat voice, his responses terse and short. I flagged the waitress and ordered a hot tea to settle my rioting stomach.

Did he regret last night? Was it something else? Maybe it was something I had said, and now, after he’d chewed on it, he reconsidered being with me? I licked a smear of mustard from my thumb.

I wanted to make conversation. Say something, anything. He seemed overly intent on his food.

“You grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, right? That’s where Wreck had tracked you down?” I asked from behind my steaming mug of tea.

His eyes scrunched at me. “Yeah.” His tone was almost suspicious.

I tore a crust off my toasted bread. “I wasn’t sure if it was Rosebud or Pine Ridge.”

His dark eyes glanced up at me from his dish. “Pine Ridge. My dad is Lakota Sioux.”

“What’s his name?”

“Why?”

“I think Native American names are interesting,” I said. “They tell a story.”

He went back to his remaining burger. “Daniel Flies as Eagle,” he said.

“Really?”

“Really. He didn’t use it when he was rodeoing though,” Lock said. “He used his mother’s maiden name, LeBeau. That’s how I got it.”

“Does your eagle tattoo have to do with him?”

“Hell, no,” he said. Lock shook his head as he wiped his mouth with the large white paper napkin. “My father took me from my mother because I was a boy, and he wanted me to grow up Indian. My mother didn’t have much interest in me anyway, and she didn’t have much money either. She already had Wreck, and he was twelve years old when I was born. She wasn’t thrilled about the whole diaper and bottles thing all over again. Cindy was a rodeo groupie, and a baby would’ve cramped her style. So she gave me to him. Guess she should have invested in better contraception, huh?”

I bit my lip and stared at him as he chomped on the last of his burger.

“My father was barely around the res, always on the circuit,” he said. “And when he was home, he didn’t know what to do with me, anyway. His mother, my grandmother Kim, is the one who took care of me when he brought me to the res. You’ll like this, Grace. Her name was Kimimela… “Butterfly.”

My legs stiffened under the table. That was one of the most beautiful things I had ever heard.

“Butterfly Flies as Eagle?” I asked.

He averted his gaze from mine and took a swig of coffee. “Yeah. That was my Gran. Gentle and beautiful as a butterfly, but fierce and proud as an eagle. She taught me more about being a Lakota man than my father ever did. When she died, it all went to shit. The tat’s for her.” His eyes flared at me. “It’s for Wreck, too. He was real proud of being a vet, very patriotic, had lots of flags and…”