Cash (The Henchmen MC Book 2) (14 page)

“Finish yourself off?” he asked, twisting his head around to look at me. And then, to my absolute horror (and maybe absolute delight) he raised his glistening fingers to his mouth and slipped them inside, licking my taste off. “Honey,” he said, sliding them out, giving me a grin, “I have it on pretty good authority that I finished you off just fine.”

“One orgasm, Cash?” I started, not adding that it was one all-consuming, life-changing orgasm. “What is this... amateur hour? I expected better from a man with a reputation like yours.” Then I took up off the stairs fast enough for me to want to cry out in pain in doing so, but not fast enough to look like I was running away. Which was exactly what I was doing. I was running- away from Cash, away from the twisted mix of feelings I had toward him, away from the rush of feelings he brought out of me. I was fucking running.

Thirteen

Cash

The woman was going to fucking kill me. Death by utter fucking confusion and the most severe case of blue balls known to man. All I had to do was look at her and I was hard. One kiss and I was ready to forsake all other women. She was what I wanted. If I were honest, she was who I had been thinking about every time I sank inside another woman since I met her a year before. She had been invading my thoughts way before I suddenly found her in my house.

I adjusted my jeans to get more comfortable, well, as comfortable as I could be with a raging hard-on, listening to her slam the bathroom door upstairs and turn on the water.

She didn't need a shower. She needed a couple of minutes away from me to put her walls back into place because with the orgasm I had just given her, they had come crashing down, leaving nothing in front of me but the most beautiful sight I had ever seen in my entire god-forsaken life: the real Lo.

As soon as the tremors stopped shaking through her body, her eyes found my face and all I saw in hers was raw, almost painful vulnerability. It was so shocking I almost couldn't believe it belonged to her. She was always so strong, so unflappable. But, I guessed, that was why she had all those walls, all those guards: to keep anyone from seeing the woman underneath, a woman that had been through something, who had endured, who had survived by locking it all away so no one could ever use it against her.

I wanted to know what she had been through. I wanted to know her story. And seeing as, many times, I barely stuck around long enough to learn a chick's last name, that was really fucking terrifying. The problem was amplified by the fact that it didn't make any sense.

Why her? Why the only woman I had come across in years, hell a lifetime, that I didn't like? Why would she be the one who was different?

I had just jumped off the couch to storm up the stairs and get some kind of clue as to what was going on in her head, when there was a knock at my door. I, unlike my brother, didn't hide the fact that I had my own place. Guys from the club, women I fucked, they all showed up from time to time, usually without calling. It was nothing out of the norm.

Opening the door and finding Wolf, however, was.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, brows drawing together.

“Got some shit...” he started and trailed off with a shake of his head.

“Yeah, man,” I said, letting out a humorless laugh. “I got some shit too. Want a drink?”

Wolf inclined his chin and stepped inside, following me to the kitchen where I poured us each some whiskey. We each threw back the first round, needing the burn to settle inside, needing it to loosen up the words we weren't ready to share yet.

“You gonna talk about it?” I asked, pouring us each a second round.

“Are you?” he countered and I shook my head, looking down at my boots. If only it were that easy. Besides, what could I say?

Wolf made a grunting noise, staring off out the darkened window as I heard footsteps on the stairs. Shit. How had I not heard the water shut off? Before I could even call out a warning, Lo stepped into the doorway in yet another of my tees, this one a little tighter, a little shorter, white. You didn't even have to look hard to see the little pointed peaks of her nipples through the thin material.

Lo stopped short, her red-rimmed eyes going wide. Focusing on those eyes, on the fact that she had been upstairs crying in the shower, I missed the look as it spread across Wolf's face. I didn't miss, however, the low, lethal, chilling growling noise that came from somewhere deep in his chest. It drew my attention away from Lo, finally finding his face and seeing the kind of blind rage there that scared men much greater than me to their bones. He was looking at Lo's face, her bruises and cuts, her tear-stained cheeks, her swollen eyelids.

The sound came back louder, making Lo take a step back, watching Wolf like she might need to spring into action at any time. But Wolf wasn't looking at her. No, he was looking at me and there was nothing but accusation and a bitter kind of hatred there. Shocked, I felt myself straightening as his lips thinned out.

“Wolf what's...”

“A woman?” his deep voice boomed loudly, making Lo jump slightly, her eyes moving around to, I imagined, locate a weapon.

“A woman?” I repeated, at a complete loss.

“Her. Fucking. Face.” Each word was its own sentence. Each word got louder and louder until the dog next door started barking manically.

Jesus Christ.

He thought I did it. He thought I busted up her face.

“Seriously?” I felt myself asking, feeling anger- foreign, very unlike me, bubbling up under my skin, making me feel like I wanted to claw it off. “You don't fucking know me better than...”

I didn't get the rest out because suddenly he wasn't across the room from me anymore. He was right in front of me and his fist was cocked backward. I'd been hit plenty in my life before. It came with the job. It came with being a member of a biker gang. It came with fucking whatever skirt I wanted despite her relationship status. I could take a punch. That being said, Wolf in full rage-mode was like being hit by the Hulk.

“Wolf, no!” I heard Lo screech, making Wolf start, his arm still cocked, as he twisted his head to look at her.

“Shouldn't fucking hit you,” he ground out, the words barely coming out from how hard he was clenching his jaw.

“Wolf, Cash didn't hit me,” Lo said calmly, reassuringly. It was the same tone someone used when talking to a scared child or a skittish dog. Low, almost melodic. Wolf's hand fell, but his body was still tight, practically pulsing with rage. “Cash would never hit a woman,” she said with so much conviction that my eyes stopped watching Wolf for a sign that he might pounce and moved to look at Lo. As if sensing my inspection, though her gaze was fully focused on the bearded, light-eyed, rage monster in my kitchen, she went on, “He's an asshole and all, but he wouldn't do that.”

Wolf huffed out his breath, slowly relaxing. It was a sight to see- how he went from inhumanely angry to the cool, collected, calm man he always was so effortlessly.

“Sure?” he asked her, his haunting honey-colored eyes unblinking on hers.

“Yes, I'm sure. This,” she said, waving a hand at her face, “had nothing to do with him. Do I seem like the kind of woman who would stay in the house with a man who beat her?” she asked, her tone oddly sharp.

“Lotta' women do,” he shrugged, putting down his full glass of whiskey and turning back to look at me. “Gotta go.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Stay. You wanted to talk about something. Let's talk about it. If it is about J...”

“No,” he cut in, the word almost angry again and I quickly shut up. I guessed Janie was a touchy subject, but who was I to judge? Lo was a touchy subject for me too.

“Then just stay. Have a drink. Lo made food...”

“Club,” he said instead, and it was a dismissal. “Lo,” he said, nodding his head at her as she moved out of his way.

With that, I heard his boots across my floor and the front door slamming before his truck roared to life out front.

“He's, ah,” Lo started, with a head shake, “a really intense guy, huh?”

“That would be putting it mildly,” I agreed with a smile, throwing back my round.

“What was with that reaction?”

“He doesn't like men who put their hands on women.”

“History there?” Lo asked wisely.

“Yeah,” I nodded, not giving her any more than that. It wasn't a secret among The Henchmen. Wolf's sordid past was common knowledge. That being said, it was private. It was for the brothers to know and the brothers only.

“You gonna share that or what?” she said, nodding at me as I poured more whiskey into my glass.

I reached up into the cabinet for another glass and poured her a round. “So are all those walls back into place?” I asked as I handed her the glass.

Her hand retreated for the barest of seconds before she grabbed it out of my hand and threw it back. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“No? Then why have you been crying?”

Lo's eyes got small as she took a breath. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

I felt the ironic smile pull at my lips. “You want to keep your private shit private, say that. Don't lie to me, baby.”

“Nothing to keep private,” she said with a casual shoulder-shrug. “And like I told you before, I'm not your baby.”

“And like I told
you
before, I can have you begging for me to call you that.”

“I think you greatly overestimate your skills there, Cash.”

That was the wrong fucking thing to say.

I put my glass down on the counter with a loud clank, reached inside to pull out an ice cube, and moved toward her.

“What are you...” she started, but I wasn't in the mood for explanations. I was in the mood to prove to her that she couldn't use that lame-ass argument anymore. So before she could open her mouth to object, I grabbed the front of her tee and yanked it up hard, popping her head out of the top and pulling the material down her arms slightly, pinning them to her body, seeing that she hadn't bothered to re-wrap her ribs or dig out one of her bras or fresh panties, leaving her gloriously naked before me. “Cash...”

“Yep. You're going to be screaming that in a minute,” I promised, a smirk toying with my lips before I lifted my hand and ran the ice cube down the side of her neck, making a shiver course through her body. I wasn't going to take it slow. I wasn't going to ease her into it. I wasn't going to do anything but drive her to the brink of utter oblivion as fast as was fucking possible. I wanted her creaming. I wanted her crying out loud enough for the neighbors to blush. I wanted her to
beg.

I slid the ice cube over her chest then found her nipple and circled it, enjoying the hiss of breath out of her lungs. Her eyes were huge, surprised, turned on. I worked the one nipple until it was as tight and pointed as it could get before I moved toward the other which was already half-hardened in desire. Her body convulsed as I moved the ice toward the center of her chest, watching as the muscles just under the surface of her skin tensed at the sensation, making her body pull away initially before sinking into the feeling. I ran it across her hips, side to side, giving her a sly smile as I lowered myself down on my knees in front of her.

When I looked up, her eyes were glued to mine, expectant, but more importantly, open. I pulled the ice away from her skin, watching her breathing make her chest and belly expand and contract for a moment before I slowly slipped the cube into my mouth, pushing it to peek out of my lips slightly and holding it there with my tongue. Understanding and the slightest hint of uncertainty registered on her features before I grabbed her knee and slipped her leg over my shoulder. Before she would even draw a breath to object, I moved forward and ran the ice up her cleft. Her body shook so hard I thought her legs were going to give out, making me grab her hips and slam her against the wall behind her, holding her there as I teased the ice around the hood of her clit.

A strangled whimper escaped her lips as her thighs tightened. Finally, slowly and with the barest bit of pressure, I pushed the ice cube against her clit and listened to her breath catch on a shocked moan. I slipped the ice back into my mouth, moving it to the side so my tongue could slip out and work over her in fast circles, letting the warmth on her cold clit drive her toward the brink of orgasm faster than she could have thought possible. I slipped the ice back out, pressed it against her again and listened as she cried out my name. Close. She was so close.

Again, I cheeked the ice and pulled slightly back, smiling at the frustrated whimper she let out. “Am I overestimating my skills, Lo?” I asked, my tone not teasing. I was dead fucking serious about that shit.

“N... no,” she ground out, her hips gyrating slightly and I let my fingers trail up her inner thigh, teasing the crease where it met her sex, but not giving her any kind of release.

“I'm the fucking best you've ever had, aren't I?” I asked, not needing to ask. I knew I was. And it wasn't arrogance, it was just stone cold fact.

“Yes,” she whimpered.

“And what do you want me to call you?” I asked, my fingers tracing across her slick lips, moving up toward her clit, but not touching it.