Chasing Claire (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) (15 page)

My arms wrapped around him and pulled him closer. He moved away then and smiled into my eyes.

“Fucking beautiful. You are so fucking beautiful.”

I was so wet and ready that I ached. My legs moved by themselves to wrap around him.

Reno pulled away. Teasing me, fighting me for that control. I pulled him back. “Reno, please.”

I moved to position myself under him.

“Fuck, baby, when your eyes get all big like that, only thing I want to do is be inside of you.”

“Hurry.” I was ready, just at the sound of his voice. Jesus, if he didn’t enter me soon, I was going to have to seal the deal on my own. I was ready to combust.

Reno caught my hand. I whimpered. “I’m going to take my time. And, woman, you are going to wait while I do that.”

I moaned softly—dangerously close to begging.

Reno’s eyes darkened and he shifted over my body. Slowly. He bared his teeth, and nipped and pulled at the tips of my breasts until they were dark pink and swollen. I arched my back to meet each gentle pull. I was slick and wet and almost crazy with need.

Reno moaned, then he imprisoned my hand between us as it moved to pause him. Pressing heavy against me, he began to work his way between my legs.

Oh. My. God.

Reno’s fingers slid up and down, teasing the soft, moist folds. His touch left trails of fire before he finally settled. When the rough callus of his thumb hit my soft, swollen nub, I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming in pleasure.

Reno tapped the sensitive bud gently, then he pressed, and swirled. His finger made soft insistent circles while my body arched and stretched against his hand.

Expertly, Reno kept me on the edge.

I felt my eyes go wide, and my mouth open with soft little puffs of air.

“Ahhh, that’s it, baby. We are going to get to know each other all over again and real slow. I want to see the light in your eyes when I touch you like this . . .” Reno had turned on his side and was watching my face as he touched me.

“And like that.” His finger dipped inside of me.

Oh. My. God.

“Baby, you are so wet for me. Nice.”

“That thing, Reno . . .” I breathed. “That thing you just did, do it again.”

“This thing, baby?”

Yep. That thing. That exact thing.

I fought to wrap my legs around him, to draw him closer. When I arched my back, Reno pushed me back down.

I writhed against his hand in frustration.

When he grabbed my hands and captured them over my head with one of his big ones, I felt another exquisite shock of wet pulsate through me.

Then Reno grinned at me and kissed me tenderly. When I felt his hard body cover mine, I almost screamed in relief. The hot insistent length of him prodded against me. Reno’s body slowly began to fill my own empty, aching need. Then with one last steady motion he was inside of me.

Holy. Holy. Wow.

His hand worked me between my legs, while his hardness slid slowly in and out of me.

I was burning alive with the heat of my own body.

My whole body pushed against him, drawing him in. He let me hold him there, deep inside of me.

Then Reno withdrew his length from me again.

I beat at him with my fists in sheer and frantic frustration.

“You are so fucking beautiful.” Reno captured my nipple again just long enough to whisper against my skin. His breath shot sparks
of heat against the wet swollen tips before he entered me again. I felt him plunge deep inside me. I clenched and spasmed around him. Over and over again meeting his desire with my own until we came together in an explosion of tangled limbs and breathless murmurings.

I felt unhinged at the hips, and hot, sensitive, and swollen. My nipples were chapped. My inner thigh muscles screamed from being stretched wonderfully beyond their limits. My cheeks were chafed where the rough stubble of Reno’s face had rubbed against me.

Yep, I was sore, all right. Sore in a deliciously, decadent, totally dirty girl sort of way. And it felt great.

“Rest up, beautiful.” My man pulled me close into his arms. And as I lay in Reno’s arms and waited for sleep to come take me, I pushed all the doubts and questions to the far recesses of my mind.

Then I snuggled closer to my man and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER 25

O
h, my God.

Not again.

I had just come back from a very long day at Ruby Reds. One of the waitresses had a sick kid so I had picked up both her weekend shifts. One weekend shift was hard enough, but two was brutal, and if they hadn’t been incredibly shorthanded, I never would have agreed to it.

I smelled like fried onions, beer, and the pickle juice that had splattered all over me when I had tried to open the jar. My head pounded from the constant piped-in music and my back hurt from all the bending and stretching.

Prosper had sent Reno and some of the boys away again on club business and Reno texted and called whenever he could. While the sound of Reno’s voice never failed to leave me blushing and breathless, I knew there was still much to be settled between us and I welcomed the short reprieve. Midterms were right around the corner and I knew I had to focus on my schoolwork.

What I needed was a glass of wine, a hot bath, and a quiet night with my studies.

What I got was Glory and Jules arguing.

Again.

In the serene lakefront setting, Jules’s loud voice shattered the
silence. The strains of his worn-out argument reached me as I drove up the driveway.

Great. Just great.

After a long day on my feet, I was not feeling the love or the patience I would need to referee this new round in their old argument. Besides, I was totally on Glory’s side.

To everyone’s surprise, Glory’s little venture had taken off big time. Having said that, it had not gone unnoticed by anyone that the rise of Glory’s star could be credited mostly to the mob. Glory’s first big break came from catering Gianni’s niece’s sweet sixteen party and she had gotten several jobs from that one successful gig.

The boys, Reno included, weren’t thrilled with one of their own women serving the “dago wops” as they called them, but Prosper had decided that there was no harm in it. Prosper also knew, like anyone with any sort of sense would know, that it would be a huge insult to the Italians to refuse the opportunity they had extended in Glory’s direction. As long as things continued to go smoothly, it was all good with the president of the MC.

But Jules hated the idea.

Hated it.

And he had made it very clear to Glory, that as far as he was concerned, Glory’s first job for the Italians would be her last. Glory was frustrated and confused by Jules’s attitude, but I got it. When Jules first met Glory, she had still been shell-shocked. Although it had taken us all a while to recuperate from that horrible day, it had taken Glory the longest. And that was because, while it had been one terrifying day for Raine and me, it had been much longer than that for Glory. Glory had been kidnapped by Gino, the bastard, and survived that and God knew what else. It had taken Glory literally months before she could even drum up the courage or desire to leave the relative safety of the home she had made with us.

While I would never want to think that Jules preferred Glory to remain a scared little shut-in, even I had to admit that Glory’s unwillingness to leave the house had made it pretty convenient for Jules to make his play. She had never been unavailable to him in all that time, nor had she put her beautiful self out there to be available to anyone else. For a long time now, Jules had had Glory exactly where he wanted her. Under his thumb.

This new Glory, he wasn’t so sure about.

I grabbed my stuff and headed toward the war zone, hoping to skip by unnoticed and whisk up the back steps to the bathroom.

Luck was not on my side.

“Oh, no, you are fucking not.” Jules’s voice came booming around the corner.

“Fuck you, I’m not!” Glory yelled at Jules.

“Calm your ass down, Glory, or I fucking swear . . .”

“What? You fucking swear what, Jules? You’re not going to stop me from doing this, so don’t even try. As a matter of fact, I have peppers to chop and you’re in my way, so I want you to leave.” Glory waved her new ninety-dollar ceramic chef’s knife in the air. Then, she pointed it toward the door.

Jules didn’t move.

Glory stabbed the air with the knife. “Get out!”

Whoa. Apparently, our beautiful soft-spoken Glory had found her voice.

It was about time too.

Because how dare Jules try to stop her from doing something that made her happy?

And even though I strongly suspected that Jules had the bad luck of being the straw that had finally broken that proverbial camel’s
back, Glory’s rage was just about the most beautiful rage that I had ever seen.

Good for her.

Glory had put too much into her business to stop just because, as she said, the brothers had a stick up their asses about it. I had to hand it to her. My best friend had taken her love of cooking and baking from an enjoyable pastime to a successful business.

And she loved it.

So what if her first big break came from feeding an internationally known mob boss? Everyone had to start somewhere, right?

And it had to be said, the Italians didn’t mind throwing their money around. I didn’t know what they were into, but they had our boys beat by half. Gianni’s top crew seemed to be rolling in it. Their places were all five-bedroom, five-bath mansions. These houses boasted marble everything, carefully groomed lawns, and alabaster stone fountains. Their wives dressed in Versace, and accessorized in Giuseppe Zanotti. From what I heard, their mistresses or goomahs, as I guess they were called, all had their own apartments.

The differences between the MC world and the mob world hit us like a cold shower whenever we worked one of those events. Raven-haired, dark-eyed, handsome men in Armani suits kissed each other’s cheeks in greeting. Thick envelopes created an endless parade of offerings at the christenings of their sons and even more at the weddings of their daughters. Each shake of the hand left their palms full of green.

The Italians wanted only the best. No open pits for the mob. They wanted their pork cut into thin tender strips steeped in marinara sauce, their tables laden with fresh fruit and the best cheeses, their table wine served in thick crystal goblets.

Glory joked, “Give them cheese, garlic, and olive oil, and they will come.”

She was not wrong.

Gianni paid well. Strangely enough, some of his crew paid even better. The girls and I had talked about it, and we had noticed Gianni was never far away when we were getting our very own envelopes of cash. We all had the feeling that he had, as they say, put the squeeze on his boys to make sure that they paid us well. They always added at least half to the fee that Glory charged. Because of that and a host of other reasons, Dolly and I helped Glory out with the parties as often as we could, and even I enjoyed working them.

I loved our boys. I did. The Saints were all big and gorgeous in that bad boy kind of way—muscled, tattooed, and born to be wild. Every woman knew that draw, felt that pull, at least once in her life. Every good girl dreamed of being loved at least once by an outlaw man. Every bad girl lived for it. Rugged, surly, dangerous outlaws in leather taking what they wanted and riding with thunder between their legs.

A lot could be said about the good ol’ red-blooded American male.

But the Italians wove a pretty hot man-web of their own.

Just as big. Just as muscled. Just as dangerous.

But instead of custom Harleys, they drove sleek black Cadillacs. Instead of hand-stitched leathers and silver skulls, they wore custom-made suits and eighteen-karat gold rings. Best of all, they spoke a different language.

Yeah, the Italians definitely cast their own spell.

They appreciated good-tasting food, good-looking women, and they liked to throw their money around.

Nothing wrong with that, Glory had said. More than once.

Glory moved quickly past me with Jules hot on her heels.

“Hey, Claire,” she managed as she walked by.