Trouble: Crooked Souls MC (12 page)

“So sweet,” he murmured, swiping his tongue along me again.

I could have cried, I was so frustrated. He must have taken pity on me because the next time I felt his tongue it was deep within my folds.

“Yes!” I gasped when he made contact with my aching bud. He held my lips open with his fingers, giving him full access to me. His tongue worked, swirling in circles around that little bundle of nerves, then flicking it back and forth. I felt the pressure in my center build and build the closer I got to my climax.

“Please, oh, please…more…yes…” My entire body was tensed and right on the edge. I grasped the back of his head and held it in place, grinding myself up into his face as my entire body began shaking and trembling, the orgasm spreading through me in waves. My thighs clenched, squeezing his head between them as his tongue continued to dance over me.

I thought I might break into a million pieces, the pleasure was so intense. Wave after wave washed over me in an endless flow. When he slid his fingers inside me to reach my G-spot, I almost leaped off the bed. One orgasm hadn’t ended before another started to build, growing faster than I could keep up with, until I was screaming again as he massaged that special place inside my sheath.

I was left trembling and whimpering in the aftermath. He climbed into bed, holding me close. Emotion swept over me, almost more than I could bear. He stroked my back and murmured in my ear as I came down from the height of so much pleasure. I didn’t understand how he managed to uncover this side of me. I was never the girl who cried after sex.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered once I was calm enough to speak. “I don’t usually do this.”

“It’s okay. As long as you’re not crying because I hurt you or anything.”

“No! Far from it. Though I was pretty sure you were trying to kill me for a minute there.”

He chuckled. “Worse things could happen than a girl crying because she feels so good.” He kissed my forehead, my cheeks. My mouth.

I knew it was like a point of pride for him, seeing how many times he could get me to come before I demanded he stop. I was happy to let him take me and do whatever he wanted, as long as I got to keep coming over and over like this.

He rolled me onto my back, still kissing me softly. I opened my legs, inviting him back inside. I couldn’t believe that after all that, I still wanted more. I was addicted to the way he felt inside me. Watching and listening to this man who had seemed so in control of himself when we first met, who was strong enough to lead a dangerous group of men, lose control of himself when he was inside me. It was better than any drug I could imagine.

“You feel incredible,” I whispered as he entered me again. I gasped, the feeling still so delicious. I didn’t think I would ever get used to it.

He rocked me slowly, barely moving at first. He teased both of us, driving himself slowly into me, so deep. I could only close my eyes and let this new pleasure consume me. And it did, but by inches. He was an expert, knowing just how to move to keep the fire growing and building without letting it flare out of control. He gently ground his length into me, kissing my neck and shoulders as he did. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever felt. It was like we were connecting, body and soul.

This was dangerous, but I couldn’t stop the thought. We weren’t just screwing. We were connecting on a deeper level. It was scary, this dangerous man moving into my heart the way he was. What was scarier was that I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted him, all of him. I had finally found someone who lit me on fire and brought happiness to my bruised heart even when I was lower than I’d ever been. I couldn’t let go of that.

My arms and legs tightened around him. I needed him as close as I could get him. He sighed deeply, thrusts coming more quickly now. My fire burned more steadily, and I used my legs against his butt to pull him harder and faster to me while I jerked upward. We moved like this, harder, faster, our cries mingling together until we both tensed. I cried out with my face in his neck, my nails digging into his back. We held each other in those first moments after coming, when I knew I felt the most vulnerable. I couldn’t speak for him, but his trembling told me he was feeling overcome as well.

I stroked the back of his head, kissing his neck until he pulled away and rolled over onto his back. I curled at his side, my head on his chest. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Oh, no
, I thought. I hoped I wasn’t falling for him.

***

I was having the most beautiful dream. We were having a picnic, Sabrina and I. It was a picture-perfect day, the blue sky filled with billowing clouds. A soft breeze brought the scent of salt water to my nose, the waves crashing along the edge of the beach far below our picnic blanket. From our spot on the bluff, I could see for miles in all directions.

She was wearing a white cotton dress which moved in the breeze. She looked so peaceful and angelic. I was so relieved, deep in my soul, to see her looking safe and have her here with me.

“Where were you, all this time?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Don’t ask questions,” she said. “It’s not worthwhile. There’s no time for all the answers. Let’s just sit and enjoy what we have, right now.”

“Where are we?” I asked. “I’ve never been here before.”

“No one is, until they are,” she said. “I had never been here before either. Now I come here all the time.”

“I can see why.” I looked out over the water. It seemed like I could see for miles.

“Mom’s just down there,” she said. She stretched out her arm, pointing to the sand. I shaded my eyes against the sun, and sure enough, there was our mother. She was here, too.

“How?” I asked.

She shrugged. “She’s always been here. She was here when I first came.” I marveled at this. On some level, I knew it was a dream. It had to be, if Mom was there. If this was so, I wanted never to wake up. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so happy, so totally at peace with myself and the world.

“I don’t ever want to leave you,” I said. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“You didn’t need to miss me. I was never very far away.”

“Where did you go?”

“Let’s not talk about that now. There are so many things to enjoy. Why do you want to keep talking about things that don’t matter anymore?”

“They don’t?”

“No. All that matters is what’s happening here and now. Isn’t it beautiful here?” Sabrina asked. I looked over, saw her radiant smile, and smiled in return.

“It is,” I agreed. “It’s like heaven.”

She nodded slowly, her smile widening. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

The sound of ringing ripped my eyes open. What was that noise? After two more rings, I realized it was the phone.

What time was it? It had to be the middle of the night, the sky still dark outside the window. My phone had been ringing. I must have left it downstairs.

I looked over to where Gabriel still softly snored. He slept like the dead.

The dead.
What had I been dreaming about? Sabrina. Had we been…in heaven?

I heard ringing, again. This time I felt compelled to get out of bed to see who was calling. At this time of night, it had to be important. I slid into my robe and tiptoed downstairs.

Where was my phone? We’d both been a little hasty when taking off our clothes. I blushed when I remembered what we’d done on the kitchen table. I would have to pull out the disinfecting wipes in the morning.

I thought I’d left my phone in my jacket pocket, so I went to the coat rack. It was there, but when I checked it, I saw that I had no missed calls. It must have been Gabriel’s phone that rang, then.

Sabrina. There she was, with me, in the picture from Christmas. Smiling up at me as my phone’s wallpaper. I felt a twinge of guilt in my chest. I was betraying her by sleeping with Gabriel. I knew it, and I felt awful about it. What would she think if she knew the man who was protecting her killer was sleeping in my bed at this minute? I touched my finger to the image, my dream coming back to me in little fragments. Had we both been dead? Was that what she’d been trying to tell me? My subconscious was working overtime lately.

Then, a buzzing noise. It was coming from the floor in front of the sofa. Gabriel’s jeans. I thought I would take the phone to him, let him know someone was desperately trying to get in touch with him. I found the phone in the back pocket and pulled it out.

The screen was lit up with a list of missed calls and messages. I didn’t mean to look, I truly didn’t, but it was all right there. I didn’t even need to open an app to see that a person named Thorn had been trying to get a hold of Gabriel.

Thorn. The name sounded familiar. I remembered Sabrina mentioning a person with that name—it stuck out because it was so unusual. Who named their kid Thorn? Or if it was a nickname, who chose that?

Was Thorn her boyfriend?

The last message, the one which had just come through when I was downstairs, made my blood run cold.
I need to talk to you about Sabrina. Come to my house when you get this.

Gabriel

I was dreaming. It was one of those dreams you knew was a dream.

I was living in my old house, the one we lived in when I was a kid. Only I was an adult now, the same age I was in real life. There I was, laying on the mattress in the corner of the room, flipping through a comic book. It was one of the few things I was able to hold onto after my parents sold off the rest of my toys and other things. I used to hide it in a slit in the mattress. I’d read through it so many times, the pages were almost falling out.

I heard laughter downstairs, and music. I knew my parents were having a party. I was never allowed to go downstairs if there was a party happening. I didn’t even like leaving my room to go to the bathroom. One time when I did, I ran into a scary man in the hallway. His face was all covered in sores. From that time on, I kept a bottle in my room in case I had to pee.

They were cheering downstairs. I wondered why. And I had to go to the bathroom, really bad. I looked around the room but didn’t see a bottle anywhere. What was I supposed to do? I had to leave the room and rush to the bathroom.

I opened the door, looking left and right to make sure there was nobody up there with me. Then I hurried into the bathroom and peed as fast as I could. I washed my hands, and when I looked up in the mirror, I saw myself. I was a grownup. Why was I still afraid of my parents and their friends?

I heard more noise from downstairs, and my curiosity was too much. I had to know what they were doing there. It wasn’t the usual talking and music. It sounded like animals were in the living room.

I tiptoed down the first few stairs, then looked through the railing. I could just see three men on their knees, with somebody in the middle. She was on her knees, too, with one hand on the floor. One of the men was behind her, one was in front, and one was off to the side. All three of them were doing things to her. The one behind was holding her hips, roughly humping her. The one in front held onto her head and shoved his dick into her mouth. The third was playing with her tits while she jerked him off—then she moved her mouth to his dick and stroked the other one.

There were other people sitting around. Some were watching, some were passed out. My dad was one of the passed out people, curled up in a ball on the floor. I wanted to wake him up and tell him to stop those men. How could he let this happen to his wife? She was being fucked by other men while he was too high to care.

Then the man behind her finished, groaning painfully when he did. As soon as he slid out, one of the two in front moved around to take his place.

“Roll over, bitch,” he muttered, and he slapped her ass. She did what he said, and when she rolled onto her back, I saw it wasn’t my mom this time. It was Kat.

My eyes flew open. I was sweating and my heart was pounding. That sick image stuck in my head. Kat, being used like that in the middle of a drug den.

Was that who I was afraid she would become if she hooked up with me? No, it couldn’t be. I was just mixing her up with my mom since I told her the story earlier about how I saw almost the same thing happening when I was a kid. I would never let anything like that happen to her. She was too good a person to go down that road. Maybe my parents were good people at one time. I wouldn’t know.

I took one deep breath, then another, forcing my heart to stop pounding the way it was. I had to get control of myself. I didn’t want her to wake up and worry.

Then I realized I was in bed alone. I rolled over, trying to get comfortable again. As soon as she was back and I could touch her, everything would be okay.

A voice in my head laughed.
Who the hell are you?
I heard it just as clear as I would have if another person said it to me not three feet from the bed. Who the hell was I? I didn’t know anymore. This wasn’t the Gabriel Hunt who had notches in his bedpost for every woman he ever fucked. This wasn’t the Gabriel who would practically be out the door after he came, or who’d be shoving the girl out the door if we were at my place. This wasn’t like me at all. Here I was, wanting Kat to come back to bed so I’d feel safe. If I didn’t know myself, I’d hate me for being so whipped.

Hadn’t I already learned my lesson from my parents? Love was a joke. The only thing it got you was pain. When you loved a person, they had power over you and could do whatever they wanted to hurt you. I didn’t want to leave myself open to that again. Right? Wasn’t that what I always told myself? But here I was. I walked right into it.

No, I didn’t love her. It wasn’t close to that. But I did need her, and that was scarier. Just the way I wanted her to come back to bed showed me how much I needed her. Damn it. I got too close to her. She was eating at my mind all the time, ever since that first minute I laid eyes on her at the bar. She wormed her way inside like a disease and grew when I wasn’t paying attention. Now I was in her bed, in the middle of the night. Sucker.

A lot of time passed, and she still didn’t come back. Now I was worried. Had someone come while I was sleeping? I shot out of bed and down the stairs.

When I saw her sitting on the sofa, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Shit. You had me scared for a second.” I laughed. “What are you doing up? Come back to bed.”

She didn’t move a muscle. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. Something had happened while I was sleeping.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, wishing she would at least look at me. When she did, her eyes were like marbles. Cold and hard.

“Who is Thorn?” she asked. “Tell me the truth.”

“He’s my vice president,” I said.

“I don’t care who he is to your club,” she spat. “And you know it. I mean, who is he to you?”

“Why do you wanna know? Why does this matter right now? What’s Thorn got to do with us at this time of the night?” I was stalling, trying to come up with something to say. Why did she want to talk about Thorn? What had he done?

“Didn’t you hear your phone ringing?” she asked, and she held it up from where it had sat on her lap. I hadn’t noticed it.

“No. I’m sorry it woke you.” I held my hand out, wanting the phone back. She didn’t hand it over.

“I’m going to ask you again. Who is Thorn? And why does he want to talk to you about Sabrina?” She threw the phone at me. I caught it only as a reflex. I was too shocked to think straight.

“What are you talking about?”

“Check your messages.”

“You were going through them?” But all I had to do was touch the screen and see the most recent calls and messages listed there. She didn’t need to break into my phone. Thorn had texted me a half hour earlier, wanting to talk about Sabrina.

“How did he know Sabrina?” she asked. “Was he her boyfriend, or whatever it is you people call it? Her old man, maybe?”

“We don’t call it that,” I said, like it even mattered. All I wanted to do was end this conversation. It couldn’t do any good.

“I don’t care what you call it,” she said. “I couldn’t care less. You people disgust me, with your lies and your ability to do whatever it takes to protect one of your own, no matter what they’ve done. Even if they’ve killed an innocent girl. It doesn’t matter to you people, does it? Especially not you.”

“Don’t say that.”

“No, you’ll just fuck me anyway. Even when you see how it’s breaking my heart every minute of the day, you’ll pretend you don’t know anything about my sister and use me. Right? You’ll hold me in your arms in bed and sleep a nice, deep sleep. Your conscience doesn’t even bother you a little bit, does it? I can’t believe how cold you are.”

She was the one who was being cold, and it was scaring me a little. I was afraid of what she might do to herself. “Kat, please. Let me explain.”

“I am sick to death of your explanations!” she shouted. Her voice cut through the quiet. “All I want is the truth! Don’t sugarcoat it for me, Gabriel. Don’t give me your half-truths. You’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

“No, and that’s the truth. I still don’t know anything.”

“Right. You wouldn’t even try to find out for my sake, would you?” There was no winning with her. Anything I said, she took and twisted around so I was still the bad guy.

Well, wasn’t that who I was? I couldn’t pretend I was the one who was hurting in all this. She was the one who’d lost someone close to her, not me. And I knew in my heart who did it. I just didn’t know how, or what he did with her afterward.

“I did try to find out. Don’t you think people have secrets from me, too? They know I’d never go for something like this. Hurting a girl? Or worse? I’d lose it on them. They know it’s better to keep it from me. I tried. I asked questions. I did.”

“Then you’re not the leader you’re supposed to be,” she spat. That stung. It was like she had sat here going through everything in her head while I slept. She had an answer for everything before I even got it out of my mouth.

“Tell me,” she pleaded. “Tell me what happened to my sister! I want to know where she is! You will tell me!” She stood up, facing me. She was so small but so fierce. I wanted to hold her. I knew how much she was hurting. But I also knew how she would slap my face, or worse, if I did. I was naked and totally vulnerable.

“I can’t because I don’t know.” It sounded like a lame excuse, and it was, but I was desperate to get her to listen to me. And it was all I could say because it was the truth. “Kat, I can only say this so many ways. I do not know. I’m not even going to tell you to stop asking or warn you that you could get into trouble. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m just saying, flat-out, that I don’t know.”

“You’re such a liar! Then why does this guy want to talk to you about her?”

I looked at my phone, still in my hand. “I don’t know. I guess he’ll tell me once I get to his house. That’s the truth!”

“So he doesn’t want to talk about what you did with her body, or what he should do now that he got rid of her? And not about what you’re going to tell the police if they ever question you?”

“Jesus, Kat. You’re going off the deep end.” I hated seeing her like this. Now there were two people in my life going off the deep end, and I couldn’t help either of them. She was right. Some leader I was.

“Get the hell out of my house, and don’t ever come back.”

“Kat…”

“I mean it. Put your clothes on and get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

There was nothing for me to do but listen and do as she asked. She wasn’t in any position to listen to reason, that was for sure. She had sat there, alone, for thirty minutes. That was plenty of time for her brain to make up all kinds of stories. If there was such a thing as being at the end of your rope, she was there.

I put on clothes, which were all over the place. I didn’t bother with a shirt since that was upstairs. I could go home and put one on before going to Thorn’s. I didn’t wanna take any more time than I needed. The way she looked at me made my blood run cold. I’d seen some murderous looks in my life, but this was the worst.

“I wish you would listen,” I said before I stepped outside. She slammed the door in my face.

I stood on her porch for a minute, hoping she would come around and let me back in once she realized what a bad move she’d made. But she didn’t. I was alone.

How could I protect her now, when she wanted nothing to do with me? I couldn’t sit out in front of her house all day.

It was almost dawn, and there was a chill in the air. I didn’t feel it, even without a shirt under my kutte. I got on my bike, riding away with a heavy heart. I hoped that whatever Thorn had to say would be enough to finally put Kat’s mind at ease.

Of course, telling her what he said would mean betraying his trust. Trust was everything. What was more important to me? My best friend, or this woman who had totally changed everything about me?

First thing’s first. I had to find out what Thorn wanted to tell me, and what this meant for Kat.