Burning Desires (Blue Bandits MC Book 4) (32 page)

“From what?” she asked her voice shaky.

“Me,” Burner uttered, glancing towards her to see she was watching him before he finally said, “the shit I’ve done. I never wanted to make you a part of that, baby.”

“Burner––” she began but he cut her off.

“Just listen, please. I know that I can’t take back the things I did, they’re done, but I can explain why I did them.” Burner watched her nod before he ran a hand over his jaw. “Damn. I don’t know how to start this. I mean, fuck, I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I’m asking for one.”

Kelsey was still standing a foot from him but her face wasn’t angry. Her head was tilted slightly and her gaze was steady but her body was still tense and it was clear she wasn’t ready for him to touch her like he wanted to. He was grateful that she was willing to listen to him, it was more than he deserved after what he’d said to her.

“I didn’t mean any of what I told you the day you left, Kelsey. I said those things just to hurt you.” He didn’t want to admit that to her but he had to so they could fix their relationship. “What happened while I was with the Headhunters, it broke something in me. The longer I was with them the more broken it was, until I couldn’t see how I would ever heal the hurt inside me. You have likely heard stories of their brutality and the way they treat women, hell, people in general, but that’s only half the story. Living it like I did for over a year, having to turn a blind eye to the rapes and murders– the kidnappings, all of that was hell.” His voice broke and he closed his eyes tightly.  He paused, unable to speak as the memories flooded him.

Burner didn’t know how long he stood like that, with his eyes closed and the voices screaming inside his head, but he felt Kelsey’s gentle hand cup his cheek allowing him to push them back enough that he could open his eyes to stare at her. She stood before him now, her hand still cupping his face, her eyes dark and filled with sympathy that would have sent him running a few days ago but now only soothed him.

He reached up holding her hand to him with his heart pounding in his ears and he felt captured by her gaze. His breath escaped him in a rush and he wanted to kiss her but there was so much more he had to tell her that he couldn’t, at least not yet.

“It’s okay, Burner,” Kelsey whispered, her voice soft.

“It’s not, baby. I never should have said those things to you. Just like I should have done something to stop those assholes from hurting women,” he retorted, his voice hoarse, his eyes closing again because he couldn’t bear to look at her while he spoke those words aloud, the ones that echoed inside him.

“You did do something to stop them, Burner. You stayed even when it was destroying you. You didn’t walk away and leave those women to their fate.
You stayed
.” Kelsey’s voice was firm and when his eyes opened to look down into her hazel pools of understanding, he felt as if they were ripping him open.

“I––no, staying wasn’t a big dea–” he began but she stopped him with a shake of her head.

“Yes, Burner, it was. Most people wouldn’t have stayed if it was tearing their lives apart but you did. It wasn’t easy and they would have killed you if they found out you were there only to bring them down. What you did was brave.” Kelsey was now cupping both his cheeks to force his eyes to stay on hers.

“No, it wasn’t brave,” he snapped, his eyes darkening as he glared. “It was fucked up. I allowed them to hurt people and I helped, Kelsey.” He needed her to understand that he wasn’t a good man like she wanted to make him out to be. Burner knew that letting her believe he was some type of hero would get him what he wanted but he refused to allow her to make him into a white knight, even if it cost him the only thing he desired.

“I know that, Burner. You think I’m too innocent to understand what you had to do in order to pretend to be a part of their depravity. But you’re wrong,
I know
. But it was still brave because it tormented you, both then and now. You seem to think that I don’t get that you had to do bad things while you were there, but I do. I can imagine the awful situations you were forced into. Do you think if you’d tried to stop them from hurting those women that you could have? Because from what I know of them, all that would have gotten you was dead, Burner. How many times did you let a woman get away or protect them in the only way you knew how? And don’t tell me you didn’t do those things because I know better. You aren’t the monster you think they made you into or you never would have tried to stay away from me when we met.” Kelsey’s speech was impassioned and the look in her eyes made the ache inside him ease a bit but he wasn’t ready to agree with her. Before he could tell her that, she added, “And you certainly wouldn’t have saved me from being raped.”

Those words pierced him like a knife because thinking of someone hurting her made him a little crazy. Remembering the fury he’d felt that night and the time he spent watching her sleep because he couldn’t stand the thought of her needing him and him being in the other room, he paused.

“Kelsey, you don’t know what I did have to do. You can’t judge me by what you think you know. I–I didn’t want to do the things I was forced to do. I remember the first time I had to beat a woman. I did it because it was either me beat her or Viper would. Viper was cruel, he liked to flay women open with a whip and I just couldn’t take it that night. I just couldn’t.” Burner pulled away from her to press his face into his hands, the memories flying at him too quickly. He could still feel the weight of the whip in his hand as he stared at her bare back, wanting to be anywhere but in that room standing over that bed. Burner remembered the sound of it cracking against her skin and her screams when it hit and he flinched.

“Burner, you have to stop torturing yourself with this. I know you did things you’re ashamed of but you have to forgive yourself,” Kelsey whispered, trying to pull his hands away from his face but he wouldn’t let her.

“I hit her seven times before Viper decided I was really going to beat her and left the room. She was screaming and begging and I couldn’t stop or he would take over. When he left I tried to help her but she just jerked away from me and screamed her head off for over an hour until all she could do was whimper because her voice had given out. They were heart-wrenching, those whimpers. I didn’t sleep that night, hell, the next several nights, because all I could hear were those screams and her whimpering in the darkness. Viper actually complimented me on a job well done the next morning because she screamed for so long. I almost shot him in the head that day but I managed to control my rage somehow.”

Burner dropped his hand from his face to stare at her again. He could see the rage that burned inside her on his behalf as she stepped forward, her arms going around him. He knew that he wasn’t worthy of her but he also couldn’t bring himself to let her go.

Kelsey couldn’t stand there without touching him when he started telling her about what he’d been through. She knew how hard talking about it was for him but he was trying to let her in. It made her heart ache for him but it was what he needed to do in order to heal the open wounds that were festering inside him.

Over the past week at the cabin, she had thought a lot about the way he’d left her that night and she had come to the realization that everything he’d said had been to shove her away so she wouldn’t see. So she wouldn’t know how truly broken he was. It was why she had intended to go back home tomorrow because she planned to convince him she was worth it but here he was telling her the things he’d never told anyone about his stay with the Headhunters. He’d come to her and that made tears spring to her eyes because it meant that he truly wanted to work past the pain inside him so that they could be together.

She couldn’t deny the joy that burst through her despite her sorrow over what he had suffered. Wrapping her arms around him, she held him tightly, refusing to let him go despite the way he stiffened. Kelsey felt his sigh as he brought his arms up to hold her to him, one hand cupping the back of her head as he pressed her into his chest, his other arm tightly wrapped around her waist and his face buried in her hair.

“Kelsey,” he whispered almost desperately and she felt him jolt against her.

She squeezed him and he let out a little growling moan as he tugged at her hair, pulling her head back to meet her eyes with his blue ones. His eyes were filled with so many conflicting emotions that she almost wanted to cry. Burner lowered his mouth to hers slowly, allowing her time to protest but she didn’t. She wanted his kiss as much as he did hers.

When their lips met, his hard and unyielding, hers soft and pliant, she knew that he loved her, it was there in the air between them. Softly his tongue caressed hers and her fingers buried in his hair holding him to her. Kelsey moaned, realizing she was suddenly on her back on the bed of flowers when she felt the hard ground pressing into her back. Pressing up into him, she tugged at his leather cut pulling it from him as she ran her hands up beneath his shirt, caressing his hard abs and moving upwards to circle his nipples. He grunted and pulled away long enough to rip his shirt off before coming back to her, his lips commanding as they took hers again.

Burner was already unbuttoning the oversized shirt she wore, his callused palms caressing the smooth skin of her stomach as he slid them upwards to cup her breasts. Kelsey could feel her body tremble as his mouth moved down along her jaw, his teeth lightly nipping her, and she felt the scrape of the small beard he’d grown brushing against her skin as he moved downwards. Her hands clung to his shoulders moving over him in possessive strokes, a gasp escaping her when his lips covered her nipple, sucking it into his mouth.

His teeth tugged at her nipple as his hand cupped her other breast, his fingers rubbing lightly over the beaded tip in a teasing motion that had her body shaking with unfulfilled desires. His head lifted and his eyes, filled with passion, moved over her breasts as he cupped them both plumping them, his thumbs rubbing over them.

“I fucking love your tits, Kelsey,” he growled, making a light blush stain her cheeks at his frank words. “When I touch them they ripen into little pink berries. So beautiful.” As he spoke his face lowered until his lips could surround her breast and he sucked one inside his hot mouth. Kelsey grabbed his hair, holding him to her as he lightly scored it with his teeth before he vigorously began sucking it again.

She moaned as pleasure raced through her veins in a heady rush of feeling, making her cry out his name as he moved across her chest to suck on the other one, his beard scraping against her skin adding to the sensations. Her hands moved from the back of his head to clutch at him, trying to contain the need that gripped her hard in its embrace.

Kelsey felt her nails digging into his shoulders holding him to her as she arched into him. His hands were moving over her stomach and she felt them tug at her shorts, pulling them down and off her legs, taking her underwear with them as he pushed between her legs. His thick cock pressed against her thigh making her wiggle and mewl as the need to have him inside her burned through her.

Burner seemed to understand her wordless plea or maybe he was just as lost as she was to the passion that stirred between them because he moved to position himself at her entrance. She moaned as he slid slowly into her, pushing deep in one slick thrust. He paused above her, his blue eyes darkened with emotion as he gazed down at her, his lips parted slightly. She felt dazed by the explosive want that detonated inside her. Kelsey couldn’t catch her breath as she silently watched him hover over her, just staring at her with a possessive gleam in his eyes.

“You’re
mine
, babe. I won’t take no for an answer anymore. I warned you a long time ago that I took what I wanted and baby, I want to
own
you.” Burner’s words dripped with the arrogance she had once hated him for, but somehow at the moment with him buried inside her it didn’t bother her. Maybe it was the way he’d opened up to her about what he went through or maybe it was that she had missed him desperately because she loved him, but whatever it was sent elation thudding through her.

“What if I don’t agree?” she asked, trying not to give in to the need to just agree with him without making him pay for hurting her.

“Too damned bad. Like I said, you should have run but you didn’t and now you’re
mine
.” Burner’s voice became hard and possessive when he uttered that last word before he began thrusting into her with deep heavy strokes that had her panting after only a few and crying out in orgasm a minute after that. She felt the power of the bliss that speared through her like an arrow, making her almost pass out from the waves of pleasure that passed over her. Burner was still working on his own orgasm, but the satisfied look he wore as he continued told her he was enjoying her pleasure too.

When he came, it was with a shout of her name as he collapsed on top of her, pressing her into the hard ground beneath her for a long moment before he finally managed to roll off her to lie panting in the grass beside her. Reaching out, he pulled her onto his chest, his eyes closed as he rested her over his heart. Kelsey lay there with him catching her breath.