Soul Ties (Club Ties #4) (18 page)

Giving a little laugh, she shifted against his erection. “I need to get to your office tomorrow. I want that birth control.”

“Want it?” He sucked a big breath of her womanly scent from the most fragrant spot at the top of her head.

“Need it.”

“Damn right.”

“And Connall?”

“Yeah, Sweetheart?”

“You know how to heal things I didn’t know were broken.” Her voice was small, and he understood she surprised herself.

He brushed his lips over her forehead. “I’ve got you.”

Minutes ticked by.

“We should run.”

Her words shocked him deeply. Whatever he’d expect from her, it wasn’t that. “What are you talking about?”

“Let’s just go. Get on your bike and ride out. Make our own lives away from all this. Like Cassidy did.”

He forced her chin up to meet her gaze. All at once, it made sense. “You’re right. You need out.” He had deeper shit going down. If he was out, he was with the Falcons or six feet under.

Surprise reflected on her face. “What?”

“You need to go like your sister did. She’s making a good life for herself, and she’d help you find one too.”

Sarah pushed onto her elbow and stared at him through narrowed eyes. “You want me to go.”

“Yes. I want you to get away from everything that’s happened and start fresh.”

She jerked upright and glared, arms crossed over her nudity, but the pink tip of one breast peeked over her arm. “You could give me up just like that?”

“If it means keeping you safe, then yes.”

She made a disgusted noise. “I’m just a fuck to you.” She jumped out of bed and made a grab for her clothes, but he was quicker. He snagged a few essential items she couldn’t leave without.

He was wrong.

She walked out the bedroom door without looking back.

“Sarah!” The front door slammed, and he sprang into action. “Dammit, Sarah!”

By the time he hopped into his pants and located his boot, she was gone. He stood in the falling darkness, looking up and down the street, but she was nowhere in sight.

She’d slipped away without a trace. Not on foot, which meant she’d flagged down a vehicle. Fuck, anything could happen to her.

From the kitchen, he heard Rocket getting up and went back inside to talk to him, which took more precious time. He settled Rocket on the sofa. Then he rode through the streets, searching for Sarah. After two hours, he gave up and went to the club, but he knew she wouldn’t be there.

Jamison eyed him with a tight look and suggested that she’d run off with O’Dovey.

“Like hell,” was all Connall could spit out without incriminating both of them. “I need to find her. Now.”

“She’s probably just upset,” Ever said from under the heavy weight of Jamison’s arm. “Sarah likes to be alone, and she’ll be back.”

“Where the hell would she go?” Connall demanded, and Jamison gave him a steady look,

“She’s resourceful.”

“Dammit, you still think she’s with O’Dovey.” How the hell could he be jealous of a dead man? He needed to pound something. Before his prez could reply, Connall whirled to the room. “I need to fight. Set it up.”

»»•««

The big son of a bitch who danced around Connall was no match for his fury. It built inside him like a cancer, and there was no cure except pain. He drove his fist into the man’s meaty stomach, feeling the blow ricochet up to his shoulder.

Ace had forced him to use the plaster casts though he didn’t even care if he ruined his hands. He needed to stop feeling. He needed to forget.

Sarah, O’Dovey, hell, even Lorraine. Each was a ghost, hovering over his soul. Except Sarah wasn’t dead to him.

Yet.

He saw the signs of her depression lingering with every look and sad smile. How far was he going to let the darkness sweep her away before he stopped it? He’d let Lorraine sink, vanish. He could have helped more, and he’d been too fucking self-centered, believing he could save her just by being there for her.

He was making the same mistakes with Sarah. And now…she might be gone from him too.

With a grunt, he took a blow to the side. Ribs creaked. Breath gushed from him. He twisted from the brother’s battering fists, but it wasn’t far enough.

“Call it!” someone bellowed.

In the back of his mind, he recognized Ace’s voice. Then his friend’s hands as he dragged Connall from the center of the ring and propped him in the corner. Connall zeroed in on Ace’s face and tried to make out his words. His ears were ringing from a whiplashing right hook.

“I’m not going to let you kill yourself. We made our fucking money on you.”

“What? I lost,” he said thickly, and spat some blood. It lay by his boot, irregular and strange.

“Yeah, we bet against you, dumbass. Now go wipe the blood off yourself and find your woman.”

Sarah pushed her fingers through her hair and let the cool night air wash her nightmare away. Blood, so much blood. She stared at her fingers, blue—not red—in the faint glow coming through her car window.

She was parched and slightly nauseated from her dream.

And she wanted Connall.

A bone-deep ache took over, and she wanted nothing more than to text him. But she couldn’t deal with him. Not after he’d told her to leave the club—and him.

Quickly her heart was ruling her choices when it came to Connall. Whether or not her feelings were real was another thing. Their secret bound them. Without lies and lust, they had nothing.

She pushed into a sitting position in the driver’s seat and groped in the darkness for a bottled water. Her hand brushed a bundle of items she’d brought with her. After sneaking into the club—she knew all the ways in—she’d gone straight for a clean set of clothes, a little money, and a set of car keys. But folded in the center of her clothes was a 9mm, which had belonged to O’Dovey.

Going into his room for the weapon had been one of the hardest things she’d done in her life. No wonder she was having nightmare after nightmare.

She blew out a breath and checked her door locks for the fifteenth time. She’d rolled into the campground parking lot without thinking. As a child, she’d had good times here with her sister and their dad. Funny how the campground was filled with people slumbering trustfully in tents and she was locked in her car with a weapon.

When the sun came up, she’d walk down to the little store and buy something to eat for breakfast. Then she’d use the showers and change.

It was pitch black, though, and she folded her lips against a cry of despair. She had hours and hours until morning lightened the world. Until then, she was stuck in a cramped space with too much time to think.

And burn with thoughts of Connall. The things he’d done to her last…a strange, hot flutter deep in her core also ruled her brain. Her body demanded she let everything go and find him. He would envelop her in his strong arms and fix things.

Wasn’t that what he’d been trying to do when he’d told her to follow her sister out of the club?

Men were fixers, she knew that from years of living around them. Even her father, who’d brought her to this very campground every summer, would take her problems and try to fix them for her. If he couldn’t, he coerced someone who could.

Eventually she’d had to do things her own way, but damn, she missed her daddy.

Though she only saw him through a thin film of Plexiglas in prison, he was all she had. She visited weekly and always returned with an unshakeable feeling in her heart. Her father wasn’t a bad man. He’d simply been caught during his lowest moment. He wanted to do right by people, and she’d never stop believing that.

How would he fix her problem now? He’d never condone her keeping a secret about a club member, but he wouldn’t have Sarah condemned either.

She sighed and stared at the sky until it lightened several shades. Soon her night would end. Her spirits lifted despite her demons surrounding O’Dovey and Connall.

With a kernel of calm in her heart, she stretched back out in the driver’s seat and closed her eyes. The instant her eyelids touched down, her dream popped back into her consciousness.

“Damn.” She flipped onto her back. She needed to make some decisions. If she remained outside the club, what would happen to her? Was she resourceful enough to earn a living on her own?

She’d heard plenty of talk. Single moms and old ladies tossed to the curb. They earned shit pay for shittier jobs, and Sarah wasn’t trained to do anything.

More than financial troubles, though, was her terror of being alone. She slung an arm over her eyes and focused on her breathing. After several minutes she started to drift.

Heated memories mixed with dreams. Connall’s burning expression as he took her. Ever’s happy face as she held her arms out to Sarah. Ace’s big, warm hugs. Hell, even Harris locked her to the club.

A rap on her window made her scream. She bolted upright and reached for the 9mm. Big knuckles grazed the window and another volley of knocks sounded.

Horror gripped her. Should she twist the key in the ignition and stomp on the gas?

“Sarah,” the familiar voice called.

Her confused mind battled to the surface of understanding.

“Sweetheart, open up.”

Her jaw dropped. Still, she sat there trembling. Her hand rested on the warm metal of the gun.

“It’s Connall. Open the door.”

The two days she’d been away from him might have been a lifetime. She’d hungered for him, but until this minute, it seemed a dress rehearsal for the real deal. Need blasted her.

She lunged at the door handle and yanked. Connall whipped the door open, and she fell out into his arms. He lifted her out of the car and against his chest.

“Oh God, Sweetheart. Beautiful woman. I found you.” Relief made his voice waver, and she burrowed closer to his heat and his wonderful fresh laundry smell. But there was a sharper scent under it—antiseptic.

“H-how?” was all she could get out.

“I fucking searched for you for two days.” He held her at arms’ length so he could stare into her eyes. “Two days.”

She clawed at his cut, practically ripping it off him. Then she went after his T-shirt. He started to protest, but she cupped his jaw and stared into his eyes. “I wanted you every minute.”

“Fuck.” He lifted her against his cock and captured her mouth at the same time. His lips and tongue ignited. She awakened as if from a very deep sleep as he kissed her, but too soon he tore away. “I can’t get you out of my head. What power do you have over me?”

“It’s his ghost controlling us.” She didn’t believe that for a minute, but the words popped out.

He stilled. “He’s gone. This is you and me now. I know your guilt runs so deep that you can’t find where you end and it begins. I’ve been there. I
am
there.”

What was he saying? She started to protest and he stopped her by gripping her by the upper arms and giving her a small shake.

“Let me bear this burden for you. I want to.”

“How?”

“You forget everything and I’ll add it to the blackness on my soul.”

“And then?” Part of her feared he’d tell her to run like hell again.

His eyes darted as he searched her gaze. “Then you’re light again. You glow from the inside just as you did that first time I saw you on the street as I rode by.”

She sucked in a breath. “You saw me?”

His grip on her jaw was so tender tears jumped into her eyes. “You’ve all I’ve been seeing for weeks.”

“Connall, I don’t understand why you keep saying you’re no good, that your soul is black. What have you done but get me out of trouble and care for people who needed you?”

“I failed one person who needed me, a long time ago. And that’s all I’m going to say about her.”

He swooped in and plunged his tongue into her mouth. Passion forged in steel sliced away the last of her resistance. Going onto tiptoe, she wound her arms around him and kissed him with everything she had. Skating her hands down his muscled back, she tried to climb him like a tree. He grasped her ass and lifted her. The side of the car still held the heat of the day. A never-ending heat they couldn’t get away from in Alabama. But it was a lot hotter between her and Connall.

His face wore shadows and that crease between his brows as he reached into her jeans and cupped her pussy. She cried out, pulsing around his touch. When he stared into her eyes, her desperation heightened.

“I need you.”

“I shouldn’t have told you to run.” He bit down on her lower lip and tugged even as he sank a finger into her pussy. She bucked into his hand, drawing him deeper and wanting so much more.

He let her slide down his body. Her feet touched gravel. Then he whipped open his jeans and drew his cock into his hand. Fat and long, veined and glistening with lust. Their lies and lust were all they had. Right?

As he lifted her against the car again, he plunged into her. “Fuck condoms. Fuck everything and everybody. You’re mine, right here under the moon.” He punctuated each sentence with hard shoves of his cock.

Juices coated him, and she grabbed his shoulders. His bulk under her hands felt like coming home. Angling her head, she gave him her mouth in long, sweeping kisses as he fucked her so deep.

Muscles bunched under her fingers. She hooked her ankles around his back.

“Come for me, Sweetheart. I can’t last much longer.” His harsh tone spiked her need. She climbed.

He reached between their bodies and curled his fingertip over her swollen clit. Pressure gathered, and her nipples bunched into hard pebbles.

“Come on my cock. Then I’m going to fucking blow inside you.”

The idea of him throwing all caution to the wind and taking her bareback sent her sailing. She tensed as a wave of ecstasy struck. She hadn’t contracted once before he was coming too.

The first hot splash in her body ripped a cry from her. He churned his hips, his face a mask of bliss as he filled her pussy.

He buried his face against her throat and whispered to her over and over. “Mine. Your pain is mine. Your guilt is mine. Your fucking sweet, hot body…all mine.”

With a new sort of warmth in her heart, she held him tight and let him bear all her weight.