Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (12 page)

Mandy…

Music started up a few seconds later in the back of the
house. Hard hitting and loud, the suddenness of it startling. I set the remote
Zander had given me off to the side and instead pulled my Kindle from my purse.
The fire was catching and starting to throw some warmth out, beating back the
slightly damp chill that was pervasive in the house.

I hadn’t any idea what to expect coming to Zander’s home but
this… this wasn’t at all what I’d envisioned. I don’t know why, but I had
always pictured him as an apartment dweller. A nice two bedroom with uniform
white walls. I’d been surprised when he’d pulled into a neighborhood full of
houses.

I took in the shabby interior of the house. It was dusty,
but relatively neat. Not even close to the sparkling perfection I’d been raised
in, but then again, I’d had the impression from before, that Zander’s upbringing
was nothing like mine, except maybe, in one aspect. I’d heard comments alluding
to the fact that Zander’s father had a volatile temper. Something Zander had
apparently inherited though I’d yet to see it. I rose to my feet and chewed my lip
in indecision. He’d said to make myself at home but…

I sat back down and tried to read, but after the fourth or
fifth time of raking my eyes over the same line or paragraph I realized the
effort was futile at best. I put the thing away and took off my shoes and
padded down the hall in my thick wool socks thinking that maybe if I changed
into something more comfortable than my jeans… I paused outside Zander’s
bedroom door and looked into the lighted doorway across the hall from it.

Home gym indeed! This was the nicest room of the house and
by all appearances had been the master bedroom. The walls were a crisp white,
and the far left hand wall, as you went through the doorway, was floor to
ceiling mirrors. Windows took up the back wall, but white cloth shades were
pulled from ceiling to floor over them. There was a darkened doorway to a small
bathroom in the far right corner and the rest of the room was filled out with
varying weight equipment, the hardwood floors gleaming beneath black rubber
mats on which rested the shiny white and chrome equipment.

Zander straddled a bench, his back to me and the doorway,
gripping a bar that was attached to a cable at its middle, turned down at
either end and capped in black rubber handles made for holding on to. His head
bowed, he pulled the bar to the back of his neck across his powerful shoulders,
the muscles coiling and bunching beneath his tattoos, the flames of his left
arm dancing, the clouds of his right arm boiling as he pulled and eased off,
pulled and eased off. I swallowed hard, struck by the fluid grace with which he
moved until he reached the end of whatever count he’d been holding and with a
metallic clack let the weights rest back in their place. I was frozen in
my
place, watching him and blushing furiously at how inappropriate it must be. The
thought broke me out of my locked status and I ducked into his room and sat
heavily on the edge of the mattress beside my packed bag.

I didn’t regret having sex with Zander. At all. In fact I
was pretty sure I was ready to again and I know he felt the same with the
heated looks and constant nearness. Still, I felt incredibly guilty at certain
times for going against my fathers and the church’s teachings on the subject.
Which felt a little ridiculous now. My dad
and
my mom were nothing but
big fat liars it seemed, and that hurt. That hurt incredibly so and I really
didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to feel these things I simply
wanted to be here, with Zander, where I felt safe and cherished and that was
the heart of it really.

Zander made me feel special. Every time he looked at me,
every time he touched or kissed me, he made me feel like he’d been waiting for
so long just for me to come along and that was the sweetest thing anyone had
done for me, consciously or unconsciously on his part that it may be. I’d never
been in love before but I was pretty sure that that was what this was. The
feeling that stirred in my chest, just beneath my breastbone whenever I thought
of him, or whenever he smiled at me. A feeling like I weighed nothing at all
overtaking me until I felt as light and insubstantial as the air I breathed.

I listened to the rhythmic click and clank of metal against
metal, at odds with the music pounding from the speakers I hadn’t noticed in
the room when I’d been surreptitiously watching him. The music cut after a few
moments and I heard him sniff and cough. I ghosted to the door to his gym but
he had disappeared, the darkened rectangle that I assumed was the bathroom was
lit and the water in the shower cranked on.

I had never been a brave or wanton girl. I had always done
what was expected of me and stayed neatly within the boundaries, however
restrictive, that my parents had laid down for me and after today I was sick
and tired of being who my family wanted me to be. Especially after finding out
that neither of them were who they presented. Perhaps it was wrong of me, I
mean they were human and all humans were prone to mistakes, but I wanted this.
I wanted to be close to Zander, to have him hold me, to have him kiss me and to
replace all these ugly feelings with something beautiful for a time and so
before I knew what I was doing, I found myself threading my way through his
weight equipment and slipping into the bathroom doorway. 

He was in the shower, behind the opaque curtain and so
before I lost my nerve I slipped my sweater over my head, shivering in the cool
air of the bathroom. Warm steam puffed out from behind the curtain as I let the
rest of my clothes fall and after quickly rearranging my hair with the basket
and stick to twist it all up off my neck rather than only half up the way I’d
had it before, I boldly and bravely pulled back the curtain and stepped into
the bath, before I could lose my nerve.

“Hey Sugar,” Zander smiled appreciatively and leaned back
into the shower’s spray, water coating his chest and running down his body,
magnifying the delicate black script along his ribs.

“Hi,” I said softly.

“C’mere,” he reached for me and I gladly went into his arms,
our lips found each other and we kissed slowly and sweetly. He was so warm and
I pressed my body to his, his hands roaming freely over my skin causing me to
heat up from the inside. He turned me in the close space, so that the water hit
my back and I gasped into his mouth. It was hot, just this side of being
too
hot. I squirmed in his arms and he chuckled low and base and the sound thrummed
through me turning my gasp into a sultry moan I didn’t even know I had in me.

The sound that emitted from my throat had Zander pressing my
body even closer to his. He palmed the outside of my thigh and pressed me back
against the shower wall. His kiss becoming an urgent and wild thing. He broke
the kiss, chest heaving with desire and pressed his forehead to my chest, just
below the hollow of my throat. I smoothed my hands up his solid physique and
buried my fingers in the thick wet hair at the back of his head, tugging
gently. He tipped his head back, his chocolate caramel eyes darker somehow with
the base things he wanted to do to me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked softly.

“Nothing, Sugar. I just want you. Want to love you, but
shower sex, as awesome as it is on TV, is just about completely impractical.” I
laughed and he smiled.

“So take me to the bedroom,” I said and he blinked as if he
hadn’t expected me to suggest such a thing and truthfully I surprised myself
with it too.

“Oh I intend to, but first…” he picked up a bar of Dove soap
and I smiled. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Same soap I use,” I murmured.

“Gotta take care of your skin when you’re inked or the tats
start lookin’ like hell,” he soaped up his hands and glided them over my skin.
I sighed out, my eyes slipping shut.

“Pun intended?” I asked trailing a finger down his fiery
arm.

He chuckled, “No, but it was a pretty good one,” and then we
were silent as I grew relaxed under his soap slicked palms gliding over my
skin. He washed every inch of me and almost, by default, himself with how he
pressed our bodies together. I gasped when he slipped his hand between my legs,
teasing at the sensitive folds, paying extra attention to the top of my sex.

He let me return the favor, let me wash him and explore him
just as thoroughly with my fingers while the water slowly began to grow tepid.
We were both fairly pruned, fingertips wrinkled by the time we finished our
explorations and he shut off the tap. He snatched a towel off of the bar
outside the curtain and gathered me to him, drying me gently and wrapping me in
the thick terrycloth-like material. He wrapped another towel down low around
his hips and his hands on mine, turned my back to his front and guided me out
through the shiny metal equipment, across the hall and into his room.

He shut the door behind him, batted my bag to the floor and
tugged the towel away from me, letting it fall to the floor. I shivered in the
cool bedroom’s air and he pulled my body tight against his, backing me up
against the foot of the bed. I tugged the tucked corner of his towel while we
kissed and let it fall to the floor, wrapping my hand around the burning hard
length of him. He sighed out against my mouth and thrust me back by the hips, I
tripped over the end of the bed and secure it was behind me let myself fall.

I tingled, down there, hungry for his touch, for him to fill
me out and kiss me and move above me like before. He stood over me with a dark
grin taking hold of his lips as he looked me over and instead of dread, which I
had felt a time or two when Grinder had looked at me so when I was fully
clothed, I felt nothing but want and need and a fine burning desire for Zander.

“Make yourself comfortable, Red,” he commanded in a low and
even voice. I put my palms against the mattress and pulled myself back, up
towards the head of the bed. Zander watched me, so carefully, a hunger in his
gaze that my body matched. He devoured me with his eyes and fisted his
erection, stroking himself slowly. It was probably one of the most erotic
things I had ever seen even though admittedly I hadn’t seen much, just imagined
plenty when I was alone in my bed late at night when the rest of the world was
sleeping.

“God I love it when you look at me like that!” his voice was
low and impassioned but what he said, it made me smile.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like I’m some kind of wonder, makes me feel like a fucking
super hero or something.”

He crawled up the bed, over me, and I willingly parted my
legs so he could get between them. He pulled open the drawer on the nearest
bedside table and brought out a foil packet tucking it beneath the pillow. He
kissed me and pulled the stick from my hair and the basket from it, setting
them both off to the side. He combed his blunt fingers through my hair until it
uncoiled and hung more naturally.

“God, you’re fuckin’ beautiful!” he exclaimed and kissed
across my jaw, finding that spot on the side of my neck, the one that made me
break out in a pleasurable wash of tingles over every inch of my skin. His big
hands roamed my body as freely as his mouth as he kissed down my chest. I loved
the silky soft feel of his hair which was already almost dry as I wound my
fingers through it. He took one of my nipples into his hot, wet mouth, grasping
it lightly between his teeth as he sucked, teasing me with his tongue. I arched
beneath him, a deep ache starting between my thighs, my body growing needy and
way past moist.

His fingertips grazed my mound and my legs jerked from the
still, as yet, unfamiliar touch. His body was in the way of my ability to snap
them closed which filled me with yet more heat. He tipped his head and I met
his eyes as he continued to tease my breast with his mouth. Whatever he saw on
my face must have reassured him because he broke the suction he had on my
nipple and moved to give the other equal attention, his fingertips lightly
grazing over my vulva in a feather light touch that had me moaning.

I let my head fall back to the pillows and I couldn’t help
but writhe at all of these beautiful, new, and enticing sensations he was
eliciting from my body. He took his mouth from my other breast and kissed his
way down my body, firmly palming my sex, his hand rubbing broad strokes over
it, a press and grinding motion that was driving me wild. He stopped his mouth
just above the line of my pubic hair and checked on me with his eyes.

I had no idea what he intended to do, but at this point, I
would let him do anything he wanted, anything at all. He stroked my folds one
more time and with a glance in my direction plunged one of his fingers inside
of me. I cried out and he smiled against my skin, stroking the digit in and out
of me in a fluid glide. It felt amazing, his hands on me. The other he stroked
across my stomach in a firm caress before stretching the skin. Cool air
caressed my nether region and before I knew what was happening his hot mouth
licked over that sensitive bundle of nerves before he sucked the delicate nub
of tissue into his mouth.

My body went wild. A fine burning, shining wave of pleasure
sweeping over me and through me. My back arching off the bed, my hands fisting
in the covers by my hips. Zander used the hand on my stomach to hold me down,
his arm a bar across my hipbones as he pressed me flat, working me expertly
with his mouth and fingers until white starbursts went off at the edges of my
vision, ever expanding towards the center until I was drowning in light and
sensation and gasping desperately as I tried to writhe beneath him.

My vision came back in stages and I trembled as Zander
carefully climbed my body. He propped his chin in his hand, his elbow resting
against the bed over my left shoulder, his other hand lightly stroking up and
down the skin of my arm. I shivered and wanted to slap the smug look off his
face but I couldn’t form words let alone move. He had effectively rendered me a
useless puddle of Mandy in the center of his big bed.