Steele: Into Your Heart (Carolina Bad Boys #3 (7 page)

Ashe and I moseyed around. We talked to folks, strolled around the rides, did the whole cotton candy and kettle corn thing. We walked hand in hand, shared a soda, laughed together on the freakin’ Ferris Wheel.

My phone chimed, and I checked the time. “Hey, babe. I’m up.”

“For what?” The wind whipped Ashe’s hair across her face. I tucked the soft strands back, leaning to kiss her with a brush of my lips.

“Free rides on the Harley for an hour. What else?”

“Mind if I tag along?”

As we hopped off the Ferris Wheel I held out my arm for her.

The sponsors had set up a small circuit, and whaddya know? A bunch of big burly biker dudes and hardcore Harley women lined up with their bikes to take kids on a once in a lifetime ride. Obviously I didn’t wear my Fuck Off rings or Fuck Off helmet today.

It wasn’t until my last kid of the afternoon that my heart pretty much dropped down to the pavement. A little bald boy with bright pink cheeks stood beaming between his parents, trying to tug free of their hands. He was probably five or six.

I leaned right down. “What’s your name, little dude?”

Damn, he had the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

“Wyatt.”

“He has leukemia.” His mom’s voice faltered.

“
Mooooom
. I bet he can tell. I’m not rocking the bald thing for fun.”

Fuck me. I knew Wyatt was sick, he wouldn’t be here otherwise, but I couldn’t imagine what he lived through, what he survived on a daily base. Not that I let any pity show. Hell, no. I knew firsthand from Cat sympathy was not wanted. Talk about brave.

“So, wanna go for a ride?”

“Yeah!”

I got him settled with a helmet, then sat him in front of me on the Harley. We didn’t go very fast around the circuit or do anything dangerous, but for a kid who’d never experienced the thrum of a bike or the thrill of an engine, it had to be pretty awesome. Wyatt shimmied against me, vibrating with energy. His squeals of laughter made
me
laugh. I couldn’t stop grinning.

After we finished our laps, I helped Wyatt off with his helmet and hunkered down in front of him.

“Damn, dude. You’re a good partner to have on the front of a bike.”

Oh man, his smile just about cut me apart. It made his whole face shine.

“That bike’s sure cooler than what normal folks drive.” Motioning me closer, he dropped his voice. “We got a minivan.” His nose wrinkled.

“That’s because they’re safe. When you get older, you can have a bike like mine. But you gotta be safe about that too, right?”

“’S’pose so.” He kicked one of his little Keds against the pavement.

“Hey, I got somethin’ for ya.” I pulled out a Stars and Stripes handkerchief from my back pocket, and looked to his mom. I figured the patriotic bandana would meet his folks’ approval more than the skulls on my Retribution rag. “This okay?”

She pressed both hands to her mouth and nodded.

Yup. I did some massive throat clearing as well.

Handing Wyatt the bandana, I showed him my forearm with tats snaking down to the backs of my hands. I wore the same bandana twisted around my wrist. “See, you can wear it like this, or—”

“I can tie it on my head so people don’t look at me funny. I can be cool like you!”

I was anything but cool as tears threatened to leak from my eyes. “Tell you a secret?”

He nodded like crazy.

“I’m actually pretty normal. I got a real job, a brother and sister I love, friends I hang with. Sometimes I even wear a suit.”

“
Nuh uh
.” His blue eyes rounded.

“You’ve got a big job too. Ready for it?”

“
Uh huh
.”

“Your job is to let your mom and dad look after you . . . and get better, okay?”

“I can do that.”

“Oh, and when you’re a little bit older, come look me up. I’m at Chrome and Steele Auto Supplies in Mt. Pleasant.”

“We live in Mt. Pleasant!”

“I guess that makes us neighbors. I’ll have to check in on you, huh?” I took a chance, grabbing him to me for a hug.

He struggled free way too soon and held out his tiny fist for mine.

Balls and bravado. How much more was there to love about this kid? Man, my heart just about broke.

I knocked my knuckles to his. “Keep fighting, Wyatt.”

I had a quiet conversation with Wyatt’s folks before I turned to find Ashe. She wiped at her eyes as I ambled up.

“What?”

“Good with kids too,” she grumbled. Then she wrapped her arms around me. “You okay?”

Working hard to find my voice, I held her harder as I nodded.

****

During the next four days, I hung out with my crew off and on. More often than not Ashe was with me. We screamed down the strip, tearing it up. We knocked shots back at Suck, Bang, Blow Roadhouse, and made fire alarms go off when we danced together. We had a lot of burning-up-the-sheets sex. She didn’t get clingy, and I found myself craving her company instead of giving her the old heave-ho.

Ashe never moved her stuff to my hotel room. She always maintained a certain level of independence, which I admired. At the same time, I hated it. No shit she could take care of herself, she had the badge, the handcuffs, and—holy Christ—the gunshot wounds to prove it.

But I wouldn’t have minded one bit if she’d decided to make my room her home base.

I
kinda
minded that she didn’t.

The last afternoon before Bike Week ended, we met Tail, Tuck, Handsome, and no-name Probie at the mega-minigolf course.

Of course the guys made a big show of stroking their tiny tin clubs as we meandered from one
hole
to the next. They were shit shots though, not like my girl who racked up the holes-in-one just like she did at the pool table.

After the last round of putt-putt where Ashe wiped the Astro Turf with us, Tail smirked. “Not our fault she has more experience with balls than us.”

“I don’t know about that. There’s only one set of balls I’ve handled this week.” Ashe sashayed in front of us to the mini-shack with her scorecard in hand.

“
Fuuuck
. Brodie, you hit the goldmine with her.” Tail twirled his golf club between his fingers.

“A real gem.” Tuck pinched one end of his handlebar mustache between two fingers.

“You know I can hear every word you’re saying, right?” Ashe turned with a smile. She held out her hand to collect her winnings, because we bet on everything from mini-golf to pool to poker and whether or not Probie had managed to grow any pubes yet.

Every single guy grumbled as they placed bills on her open palm.

“So it looks like I owe you a round now?” she asked, pocketing the cash.

I was too busy watching Ashe to pay attention to anything else until Tuck elbowed me in the ribs with a, “Got company, Veep.”

Before I even turned my head, I heard the raspy two-packs-a-day drawl Leta laid on as thickly as her makeup. “Brodie, darlin’. Don’t you wanna hang your helmet with someone more worthy of your rep?”

I looked behind me and there she stood. Double the face-cake. Dressed in a tight skirt and low-cut lace shirt. Leta, everybody’s easy lay and the president of the First Ladies of Redemption, pursed her lips at me in a simulation blowjob pucker. She must’ve ridden shotgun to the golf course because no helmet could ever contain hair styled so lethally high.

I’d never noticed before, but she had a mean mouth and pitiless eyes.

Ashe slinked forward, her stance relaxed, her smile easy. “Brodie has plans with me tonight,
darlin’
.”

“That so, Officer Ass? Maybe the crew wanna think twice about hanging out with a pig.” Tawdry and tarted up, Leta loomed over Ashe. Slim, fit, and very fucking fine, Ashe didn’t give an inch or twitch a damn eyebrow.

Looked like it was time for a catfight, because Leta had her claws out and aimed at my woman.

Ashe calmly retied my cut-off flannel shirt around her midriff. She didn’t even look at Leta. “I usually don’t participate in public brawls unless I’m arresting someone. But I can make that happen for you if you’d like.”

Leta’s cheeks turned even pinker beneath her garish blush. Seeing her next to au naturel Ashe, I couldn’t believe I’d ever hit that.

The guys dug Ashe’s smackdown, trading more bets. Hell, I did, too. I was almost all the way in love. And guess what? Surprise boner number three today.

Leta seethed in total humiliation but remained speechless. Speechless was a good look on her. She should try it out more often.

And with that I walked off with my arm slung around Ashe’s shoulder and all eyes on us.

“Hey, where the hell you goin’? She said she’d buy us drinks!” Handsome shouted.

“Dinner date, losers.” And just because I knew they were making obscene gestures at me behind my back, I flipped one bird then two at them without a single glance in their direction.

****

Dinner would come later.

Right now Ashe was up for sex, and I was absolutely cool with her marking her territory on me. Bite marks, fingernail scratches, maybe even more ink with her name on it.

Half an hour later, in my hotel room, she lay on top of me. My cock coated in her saliva and precome from the blowjob of the century thickened even more between her belly and my abs.

“What are you tryin’ to do to me, babe?”

“Fuck you.” She leaned down, her slow sultry kiss punctuated by her hand curving around my dick.

Yes to all that.

Lifting her hips as she straddled me, she pointed my cock along her wet slit. Damn, she was always on fire for me.

Ashe made sure my cockhead hit her clit as she worked over my rod, up and down. She was awesome at multitasking—kissing the hell out of me then nibbling the sensitive skin of my throat as she ripped a rubber open. One handed, she rolled it down, giving an extra eyeball-peeling pinch-twirl to my Prince Albert.

I fell back with a growl, losing the suction of her mouth. She made up for it by aligning my cock with her cunt.

“Oh, shit,” I groaned.

Bracing a palm on my chest, Ashe lowered herself onto me until I tunneled deep. The fist of her tight depths squeezed me as she threw her head back with a throaty moan of my name.

She moved on me, sexy, slow, languid. Every so often, she leaned down to kiss my lips, my jaw, my chin and neck and chest.

I held her hips, watching through half-closed eyes. “Goddamn but you look good.”

Her smile—slow and sensual—mirrored the motions of her body over mine.
She ground her pelvis, hitting her clit on my pubes. I rocked up into her. I sat half up, holding her hair off her face and pulling one of her ripe nipples between my lips.

Christ, she knew how to fuck. Blonde hair, pink streaks, fine tits, the orange flowered tat dancing with every undulation.

We were hot and sticky, wet and slippery all over.

Ashe’s body wrenched tighter. Her thrusts grew shorter. Her gasps louder. Then she stretched over me, jamming down on my cock. She rode me fast and hard. My neck cranked back as I cupped her ass, basking in her orgasm, plunging into her pulsing cunt.

Her body shivered, shuddered, and she kept orgasming over me. The tight wet sleeve of her pussy took me on a wild ride until I was almost there with her. But not yet.

I rolled Ashe off me, onto all fours.

She trembled. Her body arched to take me. “Again?”

I got a good prime view of her glistening pussy, the full ass and long thighs framing the place I needed to be most. “Yeah.”

I thrust deep, one full-to-the-balls slam. I shouted as she creamed around me, the smooth channel of her body clamping down. I lunged deeper in this position, and I was not done yet. Her hair and her hip were my handholds. She bowed against me, the curve of her back the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. My piercings hit her g-spot this way, that way: faster, harder, nearly vibrating inside her cunt.

When she rose up, I ran my hands down her body. Her nipples, her clit, her slit split open by my cock.

She grabbed my thighs, then my ass, pulling me up into her with jarring thrusts.

“Yeah? Like that?” I grunted, voice hoarse, words coarse.

Ashe nodded, turning her face to mine. We kissed, tongues outside of our mouths, nothing more than panting, groaning, sheer need.

She fell forward, and I leaned all the way over her. I nipped her neck, her shoulders, her ears as her head swayed from side to side. With my legs outside of hers, my feet planted on the bed, I drilled straight into her.

“
Ahhh, yes!
” she yelled.

Heat boiled inside my balls. It scorched my body. My cock swelled, throbbed. Ashe gripped me from the inside as I unloaded with her name escaping my lips. I pumped into her, lacing my fingers through hers, and she pressed up against me, coming again.