Stone (Knights Corruption MC Series Book 2) (2 page)

My heart skipped a beat at the promising contact, and it wasn’t long before I was the one devouring him. Licking, biting and sucking at his mouth, hungry for his passion to envelop me.

To own me.

And so was the start of our dysfunctional story. He was arrogant and pushy, and I’d resisted as long as I could before inevitably giving in.

It was a constant battle between the two of us, but I wouldn’t change a thing.

Well. . . .

Adelaide

“What’s your problem? Why are you acting like this?” One frustrated breath after another tumbled forth the longer he cornered me in the empty waiting room. My workload had been fierce, and the last thing I needed was an unnecessary confrontation with the man who’d been driving me crazy as of late, both in a good and a bad way.

“I wanna know why you won’t meet up with me later, that’s all,” Stone confessed, his rigid posture the exact opposite of his innocent question. He was poised for an argument, and no matter how many honest excuses I gave him, he saw them as just that—excuses.

“I told you I have to work a double tonight, and then I’m picking up an extra shift tomorrow for Carol. I can’t get out of it now, I promised her.” He’d backed me against the wall, and although he wasn’t touching me, he was still holding me hostage in a sense, his arms braced on the wall behind me. He knew damn well I couldn’t resist him when he was that close. And when my resolve slipped, he attacked, ghosting his lips over my own. I gasped from the sudden shock at his audacity, but I should have known he was going to play that card. When his tongue snuck out and stroked over my bottom lip, I was a goner. As I was about to give in, yet again, my name sounded over the intercom and knocked me out of my delirium.

Placing my hands on his chest, I tried to shove him back but he didn’t budge, instead choosing to try and kiss me again.

“Stone, I have to go. I’m still working, and someone’s looking for me.” My tone was curt but had faltered slightly. I wanted to be consumed by the big, bad, biker crowding my personal space, but duty called. Thankfully. I was weakening around him more and more each time, and it was becoming quite dangerous.

To us both.

Stone Crosswell was fierce, in every way imaginable. I had no doubt he’d done things during his life he wasn’t proud of, most of them probably illegal. I’d seen a few sides of him during the past year, our pseudo relationship—if you could even call it that—bringing out parts of him I was sure he didn’t show the rest of the world.

He was possessive to a fault, even though we weren’t technically together. We could never be, for various reasons. My uncle Trigger, for one. He would no doubt put a bullet in Stone if he ever found out the man was sleeping with his one and only niece, the apple of his eye. And although Stone had a condition where he didn’t feel pain like the majority of humanity, a bullet could still kill him. And I wasn’t going to endanger his life merely because he wanted to claim me publicly.

It was the thing we argued about the most. Sometimes he made me feel guilty for denying him, but other times he confessed he understood. He’d stated on many occasions how he didn’t want me involved in
that
life. Except for helping the club out from time to time with some medical assistance, I wasn’t akin to their lifestyle. My uncle wanted to keep it that way, as did Stone . . . depending on his mood.

Luckily, a lock of dark blond hair fell over his eye when he leaned in to kiss me again. When his hand swiped it back, I made my move. His large frame had been caging me in, but his small movement allowed me the room for escape I needed. Wiggling out from in front of him, I made it to the entrance of the room before he realized what had happened.

“I’m waitin’ for you, Addy, so hurry up,” he called after me as I ran down the hallway to find out why I’d been paged. I needed those minutes away to gather my senses, encouraging myself to stick to the plan I’d talked myself into earlier.

The plan to end things with the man I was falling for.

His club, although falling more on the legit side of the law as of late, was still dangerous. I’d seen some of the aftermath of their dealings with my own eyes. The most recent incident when I was called in to care for one of the nomad brothers, Tripp, after he’d been shot four times by a rival club. And then again when that same club kidnapped Sully, the president of the Knights Corruption’s wife. My new friend.

Further delving into their world would surely put my life in danger more than it probably already was, and I’d worked so hard during my short twenty-six years to have everything ripped away. And for what? A man who rocked my world in the bedroom? I did my best to trivialize our relationship, demeaning it down to nothing more than sexual compatibility, but deep down I knew it was so much more. Stone was the man my heart belonged to. Too bad my head was going to win out this time.

I knew he wasn’t going to take it well. I’d broached the subject a few times in the past, and he dismissed it altogether, telling me I was being ridiculous and that nothing bad would ever happen to me.

Although I believed he thought he was telling me the truth, I wasn’t naïve. I knew as long as I was close to him I would always be in danger.

Walking toward Brenda, an older RN I’d become friendly with when I started at St. Joseph’s Hospital two years prior, she handed me the phone, a big smile plastered on her adorable face. Believing she was at least in her early fifties, I viewed Brenda as cute. She was shorter than my five-six frame, had a head of dark curls, and the most adorable button nose. Her lips were thin, but her smile was contagious.

“Thanks,” I said, putting the phone to my ear to find out who’d been looking for me. “Hello, this is Adelaide.”

A brief silence greeted me before a male voice traveled down the line. “Adelaide. Hi, it’s Dr. Weber. I had a cancelation and wanted to know if you could stop in for your annual, instead of waiting another two weeks. I know you said you were having some issues, so I thought you’d like to come in to put your mind at ease.” His light tone comforted me, and it was a no-brainer. The sooner he could see me, the better.

Dr. Weber had been my gynecologist for the past four years, and the fact I now worked in the same hospital as him made things much easier whenever I needed to speak to him on the fly.

“Yeah, that would be great. What time?”

“Fifteen minutes? Does that work for you?” he asked.

“I’ll make it work,” I assured. “I have a break coming up soon. I’ll just use it then.”

“Great. See you soon.” I hung up the phone and looked at Brenda for a brief moment. So many thoughts ran through my head. I was slightly worried about the unexplainable abdominal pains I’d been having. Ovarian cancer ran in my family, so I was at a much higher risk than normal. And although I was only twenty-six, I knew enough to realize I wasn’t too young for cancer to take hold and rip my life apart. Better to be safe than sorry.

Keeping my worries to myself was weighing on me. I couldn’t confide in Stone or my uncle, and my dad was the last person I wanted to burden. He’d lost his wife, my mother, to the awful disease five years back, and the last thing I wanted to do was cause him to worry over what could potentially be nothing at all.

I was lost in thought walking down the deserted hallway, completely forgetting there was a brooding man still waiting for me. A small scream tore from my mouth when big hands hauled me into the waiting room I’d escaped from five minutes prior.

Smacking him on the chest, I took a deep breath to calm myself. I hated being scared, the feeling instantly irritating me. His playful smirk did wonders for my mood, however.

“I’ll come over when you’re done with work,” he declared, as if we didn’t just have a semi-argument before I was paged. “I’ll pick up some pizza since I know you’re not gonna want to cook after being on your feet all day.” Although the thought of some hot, cheesy goodness had my stomach instantly rumbling, I stuck with my former excuse.

“Stone . . . I can’t.” I took a few steps back. As soon as I made the move, he frowned, advancing on me before I could disappear from the room.

His warm breath hit my face, his lips so close all I wanted to do was taste them.
Get it together, woman.
“Why not? And don’t give me that lame-ass excuse that you have to cover for what’s her face.”

“Carol,” I corrected.

“Whoever,” he grated, placing his hands on the sides of my face. “I wanna see you later. I
need
to see you later.”

I had no other choice but to retreat once more. I held up my hand in front of me, letting him know not to crowd my personal space again. For some reason, he took the hint that time. “I have to go. I have an appointment to get to, and then I’m finishing off the rest of my shift.
Then
going home to bed,” I finished, nodding with a small smile.

He didn’t speak for a few seconds, and I foolishly thought he would let the subject go. But instead of continuing to be persistent about seeing me later that evening, he chose another topic altogether.

“What appointment?”

“What?” I asked, realizing exactly where our conversation was heading.

“What appointment do you have to get to?”

“Oh,” I stalled. “Umm . . . My annual appointment.”

“For that?” he asked, pointing toward my lower region.

“Yes, for
that
.” I smirked, trying my best to lighten the increasingly tense mood before it got out of hand. “They called and told me they had a cancellation and asked if I wanted it. I told them I did, so they’re expecting me in . . . ten minutes,” I affirmed, glancing at the clock on the wall behind Stone. I purposely said ‘they’ instead of ‘he.’ For good reason.

“Is it with a man or a woman?” He had instantly changed the mood from slightly tense to borderline volatile. I could have lied, sure. But I wasn’t a liar, besides the fact I sucked at it. No, lying would only make it worse, as if I was hiding something.

“Does it matter? It’s with a
doctor
,” I emphasized. I knew exactly what he was going to say and how he was going to react once he found out Dr. Weber was a man. He would go all Neanderthal. He might even start pounding his chest and pee on me to mark his territory, even though I wasn’t technically his to claim. But try explaining that to someone as irrational as Stone.

My refusal to answer gave everything away. If jealousy had a look, Stone mastered it right away. His brows drew together in anger, his breathing accelerating while his fists clenched at his sides. A deep red color rose over his throat, spreading higher until his face was flushed with outrage. Moving toward me, he reached for my arms. Once he had a hold on me, he drew me closer. If I hadn’t known him, I would have thought he was about to hurt me in some way. But the man I knew would never lay a finger on me in anger. He simply wanted to touch me, even though he was angry about the situation. He’d told me on numerous occasions I soothed him, now being one of those times, I assumed. Even though I was the direct cause of his fury.

Before he spoke, I knew I had to say something to calm him, bring his focus back around to what was really important. “Stone,” I warned, my tone soft but firm. “You need to calm down. You’re still healing from being shot, and even though you don’t feel it, the stress you’re exhibiting is surely causing all sorts of havoc, prohibiting you from making a quick recovery.”

A few weeks prior, Marek’s wife Sully, my new dear friend, was kidnapped by her crazy ex-boyfriend. Stone had gone with him to rescue her and in the midst of everything, he’d been shot. Thankfully, there was no permanent damage, but he wasn’t one hundred percent healed, and stress of any kind always delayed the recovery process. I swore sometimes just because he couldn’t feel anything, the man thought he was invincible.

He completely zoned out.

Not one word about his recovery registered; instead, he kept focusing on the fact I was going to see a male for my exam.

“You’re gonna let another man look at your pussy?!” he grated through clenched teeth. Before I could answer his ridiculous question, he cut me off, all his insecurities pouring out of him like a siphoned hose. “Absolutely not. No way in fuckin’ hell am I allowing another man, doctor or not, to look at what’s mine.” He raked his fingers through his hair in utter frustration. “No way,” he repeated, shaking his head with such vigor I thought he was going to make himself dizzy. Pointing toward the door, he demanded, “Go cancel. Tell
him
you want a woman instead.” A slight calm descended over him right then, probably because he thought I was going to obey. His posture became less rigid, but little did he know he was two seconds away from blowing a gasket.