Unruly (24 page)

I could hear history in those words, and even without the details, I understood what he was really asking was the same question I'd have to ask any man I thought about keeping: Do you accept that sometimes the Southern Wolves come before you? I was okay with that. I always had been.

This didn't mean that I wanted to be a woman he kept or that I was sure I wanted to keep
him
. So I didn't say anything for a moment. There wasn't anything I was sure I could say truthfully. We'd spent half a day together, and I was interested in more. I already knew I liked the look of him, and I'd had enough conversations with him in groups that it stung that he hadn't wanted more. Now I realized that he had but had been stymied by club rules, I wanted to get lost with him for a few days and see what this could be.

“We might not even suit.” I softened the word with a smile, but I had to put it out there.

He picked me up, supporting me with his hands holding my ass, and kissed me—not a polite kiss meant for public, but an assault on my senses.

My legs wrapped around his waist, and my arms twined around his neck. I returned as good as I got, tongues dueling as we both tried to dominate the other. It wasn't until I heard applause that I pulled back.

“It looks like Miss Ellen's beau liked her singing too,” the singer quipped as they took the stage again. “Maybe you ought to take him out of here before you set the house on fire, Ellen.”

Alamo looked at me as he lowered me to the ground. “I need to go out, but if you wanted to wait in my bed, it would be more than enough reason to hurry home.”

“Safely, though,” I amended.

He smiled widely. “Darlin', I'm always safe. Just need to go deal with a thing, but it's nothing to fret over.”

I'd seen that same glimmer in Killer's eyes when he had worked for Echo. The job in question was one that would involve violence. Back when we were kids, Killer had always said that a fight left him wired to the point that all he wanted was to follow it with a fuck. From the barely restrained excitement in Alamo's eyes, I suspected he felt much the same.

As a kid, I was more than a little disgusted by the idea of violence leading to sex—both because I didn't get the correlation and because I didn't much want to think about Killer doing
that
. Now, however, I got it, and I wasn't complaining about the adrenaline rush being redirected to something I'd benefit from, since it was Alamo who would be with me.

The ride home continued to be an exercise in flirtation. As with the rest of our day, it was obviously flirting with the intent to deliver. He gripped my legs or stroked my calves when we stopped at lights, and after the third light, I told him, “Two can play.”

He didn't reply, but conversation was a challenge on the back of a bike.

More important, it was unnecessary. I slid my hands down his sides until I reached the bottom of his shirt. I felt him tense under my touch, so I waited, letting it drag out, extending the moment until my own patience expired.

Then slowly I eased my fingertips under the material. The skin under the pads of my fingers was newly free to explore, and there was something delicious about doing so while we were on his Harley. I'd never been an exhibitionist, but touching him as I had over the day so far was making me rethink that.

At the next light, he glanced back at said, “Payback's a bitch, Ellen.”

“Are you telling me to stop?” I asked lightly. My hand dropped lower, not moving now, simply resting between his legs.

He arched forward slightly. “Not at all. Just warning you that if you're going to tease, I don't want any complaints later.”

Far from complaining, I wanted to make him promise to deliver on that threat. I tightened my legs on either side of him and stroked my fingers down the seam of his jeans. “I'm not teasing. I have every intention to follow through.”

He said nothing, so I continued the gentle motion of my hand until he slowed down the bike and ordered, “Stop, darlin'. There's a limit to what I can handle and still ride safely, and you've already passed it.”

I felt as powerful in that moment as I had earlier onstage. It was good to be wanted, and even better to be wanted by him.

By the time we reached his house, my own desire had surpassed anything reasonable, but work didn't wait for such things. Alamo left me there inside his house with a kiss that promised everything else, and a quiet word of trust.

“I have no secrets I won't tell you if you ask, Ellen. Nothing like Bluebeard's wives hidden away in trunks. No rooms in my house are forbidden. Just be here when I get home.”

“I will,” I said.

A few hours later, though, I wasn't sure
where
to wait. It felt presumptuous to be in his bedroom, but I didn't want to sleep in the guest room and accidentally give the impression that I'd changed my mind. My hope was that he'd be back before sleep overcame me, but the few hours of rest the night before were starting to catch up to me. I changed into his sweatshirt, curled up on top of the covers in the guest room, and took a nap.

Chapter 22

I
WOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE BEDROOM DOOR OPENING
. For a moment I wasn't sure where I was or why, but the outline in the doorway brought it all back. I was at Alamo's house, in his guest room, and he was back.

He was also walking back out of the room.

“Stop,” I said, sounding more asleep than awake.

“Ellen?”

“You shouldn't leave,” I muttered, still blinking away the sleep. “I just napped, and . . .” My words drifted away as I tried to clear my mind. “I'm here. You're here.”

“Is that a proposition?”

“Oh, hell, yes.” I started to sit up so I could get out of bed and go toward him.

Before I could do so, he was at the edge of the bed. He scooped me up and walked out of the room, holding me aloft like I weighed nothing. I was fairly certain that carrying me like that was impossible. No one ever had before. Alamo held me effortlessly and walked to his bedroom.

I'd glimpsed it earlier, all simple lines and practical furniture. I hadn't lingered, though, feeling like it was an invasion of his privacy despite his parting words.

He lowered me to the mattress and looked down at me. “I've pictured you here.”

It was no longer sleep that was tangling my ability to form words. It was him, the way he looked at me and the sheer unabashed
lust
in his expression. I swallowed, trying to think of something to say that didn't sound foolish.

“Do you know what I imagined, darlin'?”

I shook my head.

“Do you want to know?” His hands were on my bare legs, sliding up higher and higher.

This time I knew the right answer. “Yes,” I said.

His fingers stopped at the edge of my panties, just as mine had done with his shirt earlier when we were on the bike. Unlike him, I wasn't trapped by circumstances. I held his gaze as I reached down and shimmied out of them, leaving only a shirt as a barrier between us.

He said nothing as he stared at me. It felt right to be silent then, only bodies and feelings between us. I wasn't so self-assured that baring my self was something I could do lightly, but any doubts I had faded as he drew a sharp breath.

In the next moment he had hands on my hips and was pulling me to him. There was something more intimate in this act, in the trust it took to let anyone near that most sensitive part of me, but I didn't feel the trepidation I'd felt when anyone else tried it. Alamo licked me and let out a guttural noise that made me feel like I was the sexiest woman in the world. He was everything a woman could want in a man, and he was worshipping
my
body.

Within moments, I knew that I'd been right about him: his careful, deliberate attention was heaven. If not for his grip on my hips, I would be arched halfway off the bed, but he held me steady as he drove me higher and higher. When I reached that blissful peak, he was still there, holding me to his mouth and driving me back up to nirvana.

My entire body shook with the force of my pleasure by the time he released me.

“Payback, darlin',” he murmured as he pulled me up to rest on his chest.

Then I drifted back to sleep in his arms.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I woke up confused. It took me a moment to realize that I was in Alamo's house again, but not the guest room. I was in Alamo's bed, and he was holding me tightly.

I wouldn't have taken him for a cuddler, but I'd ended up with my head cushioned on his chest while I slept. He had an arm tight around my waist, holding me there. It was restful without being entrapping . . . at least it had been until I realized that I was nearly naked and in his bed. All the wanting that I'd been ignoring washed over me like the river escaping its banks after a heavy rain.

I splayed my hand out across his stomach and marveled at his taut muscles.

“If I play possum, will you keep going?” he asked in a low voice.

“Pants off.”

“Yes, ma'am.” He complied with a smile.

There was no need to waste more words when actions would serve us both far better. I wanted to explore, had wanted to do so since not long after we met, and now we were here. I slid my hand lower, dragging the edge of my thumbnail over his bare skin just hard enough to test his reaction.

Alamo's quiet murmur of appreciation made me smile. That was one of the things I appreciated about bikers: they usually appreciated both rough and gentle. As my hand wrapped around his cock, he parted his legs wider—granting me access and simultaneously pushing my leg back so he could touch me.

“Tell me what you like, darlin'.” His fingers slid into already wet folds.

“Right now? Harder.” My strokes sped. “Faster.”

In barely more than a moment, he'd matched my pace.

The only sounds for several minutes were groans and breathing.

Soon I was grinding down on his fingers, but it wasn't enough. I didn't want just his hand. I wanted everything.

“Condom,” I half asked, half ordered.

“Drawer” was his only reply.

It wasn't a battle of wills, not truly, but I saw the edge of it there. I opened the drawer, pulled out the packet, and looked at him.

“Am I still to be playing possum then?” he teased.

I grinned, tore the packet open, and in moves that were far more practiced than I'd usually admit to the first time with someone, I sheathed him.

He watched me with nothing but approval.

I threw my leg over him. For a moment I braced myself on my knees and looked down at him. There was a beautifully challenging expression on his face, and I knew that he wasn't going to let me keep control much longer. I wanted that, the fight for who was driving.

I waited, gaze locked, hovering over him. I lowered myself until we were touching, until it would take only a breath to be exactly where we both wanted to be, until it was a matter of which one of us moved.

And as soon as his hands came up to grip my hips, I slammed down just as he surged up. I let out a small animal noise at the perfection. We fit like he'd been custom made for my body.

He closed his eyes and groaned. In that moment, it was the most beautiful sound I could ever remember hearing.

When he opened his eyes, he ordered, “Take off the shirt.”

“Gladly,” I said. I wasn't as confident in my body as some women, but the way Alamo looked at me gave me all the self-confidence I needed. When I stripped off my shirt and he looked at me like I was a gift, I wanted to preen. To him, I was beautiful. To him, I was mesmerizing. I saw it in the way he stared. It was better than any rush I'd ever felt.

“Fucking perfect,” he murmured.

And I felt like I was. Naked atop a gorgeous biker who was thrusting up into me like there was a prize for delivering the fastest, hardest orgasm of my life, I felt like I was a goddess.

When he followed that orgasm with several more, including the sort of leisurely sex that could be easily called making love, I was revising my stance and declaring
him
a god. Nothing had ever been this good, and despite my urge to keep my heart locked away, I was fairly sure he already had the key—and if he didn't, I'd tell him where to find it if he could make me feel
this
good regularly.

Chapter 23