Soul Ties (Club Ties #4) (9 page)

Ace popped up beside Connall. “You’ve fucking done it now.”

“Done what?” he asked absently, mentally rehearsing moves while the hunger for blood built.

“The only reason Harris wasn’t making a move on Sarah was out of respect for O’Dovey. But now that she seems to be into you…”

“Harris wants to knock out all my teeth,” Connall finished.

Ace’s grin cut lines in his face. “You got it, bro.”

Connall lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I’ll get tooth implants.” A crawling feeling had wormed through his stomach at the mention of O’Dovey. Too well Connall remembered the man’s death stare and the weight of his lifeless body. He also knew if Sarah hadn’t killed him, the bastard would have sucked all the light from her.

Or maybe it was too late.

Sarah was shattered. Several times during the night she’d awakened from fitful dreams. She’d refused to speak about them, but he knew. Drawing her against his chest, he’d kissed her face and hair until she’d sighed with sleep once more. But he’d only held her ghosts at bay for a single night. She had a lifetime ahead.

Hell, look at me. Three years later, I’m still wrecked over Lorraine.

The two fighters in the ring were peeled off each other. A winner was announced, and blood-thirsty shouts filled the garage. When Connall’s name was called a minute later, he ducked between the ropes and bounced on his toes, warming up.

Harris came from the other side, big body rolling as he approached the center. He had a good head’s height on Connall and was bulky. But Connall was no lightweight. He lifted daily and prided himself on strength as well as speed. That’s what would carry him through this fight.

“Does O’Dovey know you’re fucking with his girl?” Harris called.

Connall rocked back and forth while stretching his shoulder muscles. “Haven’t seen the guy,” he said perversely. Tempting fate, that’s what he was doing.

He’d spent a lot of time working out that if anyone knew the truth of his past, he’d be shunned. He was in a position to save people and he’d failed so fucking bad. As a result, he put himself in the darkness, in the shadows. Where he stood, the light couldn’t hit him. The darker part of society was all he deserved.

He also loved the hell out of the club life. As did Sarah. They had that in common besides burying a man.

She had darkness too. She’d killed a man, and Connall would do anything to bear that guilt for her. He was a pro at it.

The ref called the start of the fight. Harris bounced forward. The whistle barely sounded and Connall dropped under Harris’s jab. He delivered an uppercut to Harris’s jaw, hitting the soft spot that made him gasp.

As they danced around each other, Connall’s mind cleared. The fog was gone, leaving only truths.

Sarah deserved a second chance at happiness. When he’d first come into the club, he’d noticed her, all right. She wasn’t just beautiful—she was light and air. He’d watched her plenty those first days. When she was out of O’Dovey’s clutches, she’d offered peace and comfort to so many. Everyone liked to believe the guys kept the club together, but they were wrong. The women were the heart and soul of the club.

But Connall couldn’t taint her. No, he needed to give her back that inner joy that extended to every member she touched.

Harris sucker-punched him. His head rocked, and he saw red. The fog coated his mind as he delivered a right, then a left. Dammit, he wasn’t going down so easily. He was beating this tough motherfucker’s ass no matter what it took. So the guy had his eye on Sarah but resisted out of respect for O’Dovey? Fuck that. Harris wasn’t getting her.

Connall struck out in a wide arc. When his fist connected with the man’s cheek, pain jarred Connall’s arm, but he ignored it. The noise around him silenced. He pushed on, huffing with fury and exertion. Battering the man and taking enough hits that he no longer felt the pain.

The whole audience seemed to draw a deep breath and hold it.

They knew.

Their bets were on the wrong man.

∙
•
∙

Sarah pressed her fingers to her mouth and watched with total absorption as her lover beat the hell out of Harris. A man taller and more muscled, but Connall was berserk.

His anger flew off him in drops of sweat. The creases between his brows deepened, and he lunged at his opponent with a grace she couldn’t look away from. The way he moved was totally foreign and familiar at the same time.

In bed, he’d been thorough and tender at one minute and demanding and ruthless the next, pulling long, body-racking orgasms from her. How all this emotion was packed into one hunk of a man was beyond her.

“Get him, Doc!”

She sank deeper into the shadows so as not to be seen. If Connall spotted her, he’d be upset. Nothing had been spoken between them—not even a promise for a second night. But she knew if he saw her, he’d jump out of the ring and bodily remove her from the building.

She ran her tongue over her lower lip, almost tasting his salty tang… She wouldn’t mind his hands on her again.

He took a punch to the gut that shoved the breath from him. She swallowed a cry and stared at him hard, as if her gaze could urge him to stand straight and tall and keep besting his opponent.

Harris and O’Dovey had shared a rocky friendship. Brothers through club blood, but deep down they were rivals. Harris wanted the same things O’Dovey did—
had.
Respect, wins for the club. And her.

“Harris! Harris!” The rowdy shouts unnerved her. Her nerves felt too tight. One wrong pluck and she’d be crunched in a ball in tears.

Connall was a rock—and was rock-hard. Harris’s knuckles glanced off his bare, glistening abs. Each movement Connall made was a brushstroke of muscle riding under velvety flesh. And she knew just how hard other parts of him were too.

Pressure deep inside her built by a degree or ten. Her nipples ached for his scorching mouth. Her pussy throbbed to be licked, lapped, stretched, and filled.

Harris took several brutal jabs to the midsection. The fire in his eyes made her quake. She’d seen that look before—during the last fight when he’d knocked Jason into an unconscious slump. Jason was one of the biggest bad-asses in the MC. People came from all over to see him fight, and he rarely lost. The club made a lot of money off him.

If Harris could beat that huge bastard, Connall was a dead man.

His fist glanced off Connall’s mouth. Blood flew.

A raw cry sounded, and she realized it came from her. Jarred, she stared into her own reality days ago. The blood—all that blood. O’Dovey’s eyes glazing over, his mouth going slack. Hot blood rushing over her fingers.

Blindly, she pushed through the crowd. Men in leather parted. Some grabbed at her. Fear swallowed her, and she lashed out. A rowdy roar lifted from the crush of men.

She wanted to turn and see whose body she had heard hit the floor of the ring, but she had to get out of here. Her heart slammed her ribs. She gulped for air and caught the smell of weed and motor oil, unwashed man and…fabric softener?

Fingers closed around her shoulder. Hard fingers but the touch was one she understood. He’d shown her how soft and rough he could be, delivering gentle kisses while pounding into her pussy. Tender licks on her inner thigh while pinching her nipple. The juxtaposition had heightened her awareness, and she’d come harder than she ever believed possible.

Over and over and over.

“You’re going to wish you’d listened to me and left.” His voice, pitched low, sliced through her, straight to her pussy. The stab of heat swelled into an inferno of need.

But she had to get out of here.

She rushed through the doors into the thick, humid night. She gasped for air, and Connall was there, whirling her to face him.

“Shh, Sweetheart.”

Shh, why?
She found she was making small, fearful squeaks. He yanked off his gloves, and she saw the sticky blood clinging to the fingers, inky black in the outdoor lights.

She backed up. “Don’t touch me. Please.”

He held up his hands and stopped in his tracks. “I’m not here to hurt you. I won’t touch you.”

The panic she’d felt didn’t dissipate. O’Dovey’s blood loomed in her mind’s eye.

“Sweetheart, take a minute to get it together. Want to sit?”

She nodded, and he led her toward a picnic table flooded in moonlight. She hitched herself on the top and he paced back and forth for several minutes. After countless passes, the swish of his boots in the grass broke through her haze and she breathed deep.

“I’m okay,” she said at once.

He stopped walking and stared at her. “You sure?”

“Yes. Come here, please.” She reached out, and he didn’t hesitate to come. But he didn’t take her hand—his were still plastered. “You won,” she said on a sigh.

He nodded. “I think everyone doubted. I probably only had five bets placed on me. I didn’t earn the club much money tonight.”

She gave a sorrowful laugh and patted the wood next to her. “Sit with me.”

He eyed her. “You’re sure?”

“Believe me, I’m too jittery to try to lie
and
use good manners.”

When he hitched himself onto the table, his heat engulfed her side. The veins in his forearms still bulged with adrenaline. She wished she hadn’t missed him laying out his opponent.

“Harris asked if I’ve seen O’Dovey.”

She gaped at him. Didn’t speak. Then she folded in half and put her head between her knees.

“Oh shit, Sarah.” His big hand was heavy on her spine, weighting her to the world once again. “Just breathe, Sweetheart.” His voice was strangled.

She didn’t know him well enough to read him, and it was obvious he was used to hiding his true self. On the surface, he was everything a good doctor should be. But she’d peeled away some of the layers and seen the club tattoos—and even the heat in his eyes as he spurted hot come. Last night she’d felt a bond with him.

He ran his hand up and down her spine until her dizziness subsided and she was able to sit up and meet his gaze. “Wh—” She tried again. “What did you tell him?”

“That I haven’t seen him since the other night in the club.”

“Oh God. I never thought of that. Everyone saw me take him to my room.”

His eyes hardened. “That’s not how I remember it.”

She considered his words. O’Dovey had carried her there. “You’re right,” she said quietly.

He hadn’t removed his hand and slid it up to her nape. The warmth curled around her gave her a slight shiver. “You’re not allowed to beat yourself up over this, okay?”

“What?” Surprise washed through her.

“He did it to himself. If you walk in front of a car, it’s your own fault. Nobody pushed him, Sweetheart.”

No, she’d sunk that knife into O’Dovey’s back. But maybe she was to blame in other ways—she’d led him on or something.

“Don’t let your mind go there.” His tone was forceful enough she looked at him harder. He leaned in. Her eyes closed on their own accord, and the first brush of his lips sent all thoughts of O’Dovey flying out her ear.

She angled her head and opened her mouth. When he slid his tongue inside, she moaned. He echoed it with a growl. Then his hands were in her hair, tugging. He’d played with her hair a lot the previous night, pulling it over one shoulder, and then moving it to the other shoulder. The way he stared at her made her feel beautiful, which shocked her because she felt far from beautiful inside.

She wrapped her fingers around his biceps, still pumped from his fight. She traced the inky lines of his tattoos and kissed him back with everything she had.

Need mounted. Her pussy squeezed and grew wetter. Overhead, the lights from Heller’s Gap tinted the sky red against the smoky blue clouds of night, streaked like blood. Her mind fumbled to make sense of the sensations Connall raised in her.

“Fuck, Sweetheart.” He dragged her across his lap, against his erection. Somehow it felt bigger than it had last night. How deep could he get? God, she wanted every fraction splitting her, wet by her need.

He ground his cock against her hip, and she reached between his shoulder blades and hauled his club shirt overhead. His small brown nipples puckered in the centers of each sculpted pec, and she couldn’t resist running her forefinger around one.

“You have on too many fucking clothes,” he grated out. He pressed her down on the picnic table and proceeded to remove her tank top. She stared up at him, silhouetted by the strange, colorful sky. So surreal. Her whole life had flown into a netherworld. Suddenly she was like Alice in Wonderland, believing it all a dream.

But the man hovering over her was definitely flesh and blood. She surged upward and kissed him. He slammed his mouth against hers. His roughness was far from pain—with him she was alive.

And she wanted him bad.

She tackled his belt. Then his fly. His cock twitched under her probing fingers. “I want you in my mouth,” she whispered.

That was one thing he hadn’t allowed her to do last night—suck him. And damn, she hungered for it. Knowing she could give him extreme pleasure with her mouth was a huge turn-on.

He shook his head. “No.” He just flexed his hands into fists, cracking the plaster on the backs. “I’d take it off, but it will take time I don’t want to spare. I see that need in your eyes, Sweetheart. And I need to get closer to it. Now.” With more movement in his hands, he made quick work of opening her denim shorts and easing them down her hips.

“Take off all my clothes. I want to be rolling naked with you.” She arched as he scraped rough-jawed kisses between her breasts to her waist.

“Later.” He splayed her thighs and dived into her pussy. He sank his tongue deep, and she writhed closer to the extreme heat. Cool air licked over her skin as she rocked up to meet his tongue thrusts.

Too soon he lifted his head, mouth wet in the moonlight. “I want you hard right here on the picnic table. Then I’m going to carry you to that tree, pin your arms over her head, and make you come again.”

She pushed her mound against his mouth, but he didn’t lick her as she wanted—no,
needed
. A sort of physical pain of want spread through her belly, but he wouldn’t take her hint.