Grounds for Divorce (7 page)

Kayla weighed her answer. She knew better than to get involved in this kind of mutinous talk. Booker could be testing her allegiance. She knew he wasn’t just a pretty face. Those patches on his kutte were an effective resume.

“Zach’s the one who deals with the colonel,” she said in the end, settling on something vague and innocuous that wouldn’t hurt her too badly if it got back to her employer.

Booker scoffed. “That’s not a reason.”

“The Hounds don’t do business with women—not if they can help it. Something to do with their old ladies laying down the law or threatening to walk…” Kayla hadn’t kept in touch with any of her old clients. She didn’t have the details. “Colonel put Zach in charge. And Zach hired me.”

“To run his back office work while the Hounds do his financing,” Booker finished for her, cup raised halfway to his lips. “Seems like we’d both benefit from cutting out the middleman.”

His self-assurance had turned her on last night, but it was galling now—another reminder that she was here first and foremost as a form of collateral. Frustration soured all remnants of post-coital bliss. “Is this how you operate?”

“What?”

“Come into a man’s house, sabotage his deals? Christ, if the colonel finds out—”

Booker caught one of her hands in his. “The colonel ain’t in charge anymore, babe.” His lips were dry and soft on her knuckles. “I am.”

“You’re staying?”

“Didn’t you see the Hackby patch?” he asked, gesturing to the kutte that hung from the back of a swivel chair. Cerberus slobbered on the back, straining out of its studded collars. “I transferred. Colonel passed the torch…”

Kayla tried not to let her relief show. The colonel wasn’t gone yet. Nolan had said they had another hour. That was plenty of time to poison Booker’s heart against her. It seemed like the sort of parting gift the colonel might think appropriate. He had every reason to want to hurt Booker—the usurper who had finally forced him off his throne and out of town.

“I thought that was just…a matter of speaking,” she confessed.

Booker grazed her fingers with his thumb. “We’re pretty literal folks.”

“So I’m learning.”

“For instance,” Booker went on, lips peeling back into a slow grin, “when I say I want you in my bed, I don’t mean for sleeping.” The coffee mug hit the bedside table with a dull clink.

Despite the dread still swarming in her breast, Kayla couldn’t resist grinning back. “Oh yeah? I don’t remember you saying that at all—”

“Kayla.” Booker slid a hand up her bare leg, pushing up the cheap cotton tee.

“Hmm?”

“You talk too much.”

Kayla made a show of sucking her lips into her mouth, but then a better thought came to her. She took one last sip of coffee, the bitter blend sinking in her belly like a gut-punch, and set aside the cup. She shuffled down the mattress under Booker’s guarded gaze. He didn’t stop her when she walked her fingertips up his inner thighs, nor spur her along as she took him in hand.

His eyes only fluttered shut once Kayla leaned in and traced the length of his cock with her tongue.

She had always been a fan of blowjobs, ever since she’d discovered that she could make a man whine and whimper, bring them right to the edge and ease them back. She knew, as soon as Booker gathered her hair in a fist and pulled her down again, that the choice wasn’t going to be hers today.

A moan spilled from Booker’s lips, pleasantly harsh, when she suckled his balls into her mouth. She’d had men who perfumed their junk and men who shaved everything below the chin, and none of them had turned her on like the taste of Booker’s skin or the heft of his dick in her hand. Kayla relaxed gradually into the pull-push motion of his hold, letting him guide her where he wanted her most.

“How’s your gag reflex?” he asked, voice strangled with effort.

Kayla glanced up and nodded. Yeah, she could take him. He was thick enough to force her jaw wide open, but she could take him as deep as he wanted. She raked her tongue along the underside of his length, breathing through her nose as Booker clenched his fingers in her hair.

His cock scraped the roof of her mouth, nudging into the back of her throat with blunt pressure. Kayla didn’t fight it. She’d panicked before, with men far less endowed than Booker. Somehow, she was convinced he’d pull out before she started to choke.

He didn’t disappoint.

“Fuck, baby…” Booker grabbed her by the arm and hoisted her to him, tight-laced tension ratcheting up a notch as he slammed their lips together.

Kayla could barely respond. She felt feverish, maybe even a little drunk. Her body ached for him in a very real way, but she wanted to finish this, she wanted him to know—

Booker pulled her back with a hand on her cheek. His eyes were like two dark beads, hypnotic. His voice was an order and a plea when he rasped, “Make me come.”

Wild horses couldn’t have stopped her. Kayla wrapped a fist around the base of his cock and filled her mouth with the taste, the silky-smooth texture of his pre-cum. She couldn’t work him to completion with her throat—not at this angle, not if she couldn’t pull back—but she knew how to coax out his release with her tongue swirling around the sensitive, slick head.

Booker cupped the back of her neck, thumbing at her jaw. She heard his sudden intake of breath as though from very far away, didn’t realize it was a warning until heat shot onto her tongue, bitter and salty—a deeper flavor than the taste of his skin but not so different as to be unpleasant.

Kayla stroked and licked at him until his climax had subsided. She knew she’d made a hash job of cleaning him up. She didn’t have the patience for more. Need pulsing at her core, she stripped off her shirt and crawled on top of Booker. She couldn’t resist pressing a hand to her wet pussy. She’d barely managed a handful of frenzied strokes before Booker flipped them over, parting her legs with his knees.

“Did I say you could touch yourself, you little slut?”

He closed a hand around her neck in not so subtle warning. He didn’t need to squeeze down—he didn’t have to remind her that he held her life in the palm of his hand.

Kayla’s breath caught, her cunt clenching with an aching, pleasurable twinge.

She sobbed as she tore her hands away from her cunt, inner muscles contracting around that unbearable void. “Please…”

Ink flexing on ripped arms, Booker seized her wrist in a firm grip.

Panic shot through Kayla at the thought that he’d abort her efforts entirely, pleas already surging to her lips, when Booker crammed her slick fingers into his mouth, licking between and around her digits as though he couldn’t resist the taste of her. He was no less forceful in maneuvering her hand back between her legs.

Kayla might as well have been a blow-up doll for all the input she provided.

She was tethered to the filthy words that slipped from Booker’s tongue.
Bitch, whore…cunt.
She wanted them all and she wanted his hands on her, marking her as if she were property, as if she were his and only his, and no one else would ever be allowed to touch her.

Orgasm was a rapturous, surprise onslaught, rushing over her with tidal wave force.

Kayla howled, shuddering as wave after wave of pleasure left her helpless and drained, wriggling weakly under the stroke of her own hand in Booker’s. His arms buckled when it was over and he collapsed, half on top of her and half onto the sheets, chest heaving with ragged breaths.

Kayla wiped her fingers on the sheets before folding them around his heavily tatted back. The ponderous rise and fall of his ribcage was almost enough to lull her back to sleep.

* * * *

The bike ground to a gradual halt outside Kayla’s house. She hopped off quickly, before the yen to hold Booker close got the better of her. She couldn’t afford to cling, let alone in full view of the neighbors’ yards. Let alone when she was still wearing her pajamas.

Her most ardent hope was that Tamra wouldn’t see her like this. It died a swift death when the screen door clanged open and her daughter stepped out onto the porch in her uniform, already dressed for school. She wasn’t supposed to be home.
Probably forgot her homework.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Tamra had inherited her mother’s rattlebrain—and thankfully not much else.

“Mom? Everything okay?” Tamra glanced from her to Booker and back. “I thought you were at Zach’s…”

Shit
. Guilt stung like a swarm of vicious hornets. “Um—”

“Your mom had some car trouble,” Booker said, plucking off his sunglasses. “I was giving her a ride home.” He wasn’t lying. The Mercedes had refused to start in the morning, its battery dead.

Yet even with his best, most convincing, ‘trust me I’m one of the good guys’ smiles on, Booker still looked like bad news. The ink on his arms and the scar on his face gave away a whole history in a single glance.

Tamra folded her arms across her chest. “Uh-huh.”

The pang of regret in Kayla’s chest became a wrecking ball swinging between her lungs. “Sweetie, it’s okay. I’ll be right in.” She hadn’t meant for Tamra to find out about Booker like this. She hadn’t meant for Booker to find out about her kid, either.

She should have known by now that her best laid plans had a way of falling apart.

“You,” Tamra said in a mock whisper, “are in
so
much trouble.” The screen door slammed shut in her wake.

Kayla winced, clutching Booker’s helmet to her chest.

“She doesn’t approve,” he observed.

“It’s not that.” There were no two ways about it. Secrets clearly didn’t work for Kayla. “I told her to stay away from the Hell Hounds,” she confessed, turning to face him.

“Smart mom.”

Kayla looked down at herself, her pajama bottoms, her unlaced sneakers.
“Hypocritical
mom.” It wasn’t the first time she’d screwed up the parenting gig and it wouldn’t be the last, but it ranked up there with missing school bake sales because she had to run from one job to the next or forgetting Tamra at her grandmother’s house.

She met Booker’s gaze with some effort. She shouldn’t have feared his judgment.

“You didn’t mention you had a kid.”

The night they’d met at the Grounds
,
Tamra had already been asleep by the time Kayla had got home. Even the revving of motorcycles hadn’t woken her.

“Does it make me more or less attractive?” Kayla wondered, a tepid smile climbing to her lips. “Don’t answer that.”

Booker didn’t attempt to. “How old is she?”

“Sixteen. I had her young.”
And stupid, obviously, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation
. For a little while this morning, she’d almost deluded herself into thinking something good could come of her messed-up choices. “Sorry.” Kayla sighed, waving a hand. “I should head inside, make sure she eats before she leaves…”

“When can I see you?”

The question caught her by surprise—so much so that no clever quip was immediately forthcoming. “Oh. I have to work tonight. And I shouldn’t make a habit of leaving Tamra—”

“Doesn’t have to be the whole night.”

“I can swing by after my shift?”

Booker’s lips arced into a slow, delighted smile. “I can work with that.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” He slid his glasses back on and revved the Harley. “Go get your ass chewed out, hot mama. You’ve earned it.”

“Bite me,” Kayla shot back, tempted to flip him off but not so eager to let her daughter see. She didn’t have to look to know that Tamra was watching them from the kitchen window.

She made no move to hide it when Kayla entered. “So…no more Zach?”

“You don’t seem too torn up about that.”

Tamra shrugged, crunching through a spoonful of milk-sodden cereal. “Eh, Zach’s annoying.”

Kayla couldn’t disagree. She didn’t want to think about the evening ahead. Working with Zach was difficult enough when they weren’t at odds. He wouldn’t take kindly to being thrown over for another man.

“And he doesn’t have a bike,” Tamra added meditatively.

A spark of dread kindled in Kayla’s chest. She turned with the coffee pot in hand, bitter brew swirling against the glass sides. “You know you should always do the opposite of everything I do, right?”

“I know.” Tamra’s grin dimmed slowly, as though it took her a moment to grasp the gravity of what Kayla was saying. “Mom.” She caught Kayla’s hand in hers. “
I know.
”

“Okay.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, though.” Tamra cocked her head owlishly. “Are you in love?”

Heat filled Kayla’s face. Was she? No, obviously not. And even if she had been, she wouldn’t tell her kid. Tamra needed to live out her own crushes and heartbreaks, not worry about her mother’s. Kayla gestured vaguely to the table. “Eat your Cheerios.”

* * * *

The club was quiet. Only a few cars pocked the parking lot, dusty and scratched, the vehicles of choice of the working class. Zach’s gray Honda in particular caught her eye. It wasn’t so long ago that Kayla had let him spill her across the backseat and work himself inside her in short, stuttered thrusts.

She sighed and killed the engine.
No accounting for taste…
The Mercedes lurched when she got out, chassis juddering with the hard smack of the car door. Booker had gotten the junker running again, but he couldn’t work miracles.

Another slap of metal answered, as if in echo.

“Where the hell’ve you been?” Zach shouted. He must have heard her arrive. “I’ve been calling your cell. I drove by your place
twice.
” He didn’t abort his forward momentum until they were nose to nose. “The Hounds called. They want their money.”

“Grace period’s over?” Kayla forced out through clenched teeth. She hated her quaking voice nearly as much as she hated Zach for towering over her. He knew she didn’t do well with intimidation.

“They want
all
of their money, you stupid bitch.” He bent a little at the waist, nose brushing Kayla’s. “What did you do, huh? What did you say to that fucker—?”

“Babe? Is everything okay?”

The club door opened and closed with a dull burst of sound. Lou stepped out in a pair of pink stilettos, draped in one of Kayla’s robes. The fabric had a way of drooping open. One glance over Zach’s shoulder was enough to tell Kayla that Lou was stark naked.