Unforgiven--Includes a bonus novella Page 20

  She huffed out a breath and lifted her hands to push her hair back. I loved the way the motion forced her breasts out, loved that she was unashamed of how she looked and who she was.

  “I can’t say I’ve been too busy to have any fun. However, I’ve always been selective as to who I have said fun with, and I’ve always taken care of myself. I’ve got things covered on my end if you really do trust me to take care of you.” The last words sounded almost shy.

  “I wouldn’t be in this bed if I didn’t trust you.” Not when I was vulnerable and weak. Not when I wasn’t at my best. I would have never fallen in love with her in the first place if I didn’t trust her. Even though I knew she might play fast and loose with the personal information she wanted others to have, I also knew she was always unflinchingly honest about her choices and their consequences.

  She went quiet for a second, green eyes glittering, and I wondered if maybe I was seeing my own feelings reflected back at me. If I was, they were beautiful.

  She released her breath and gracefully climbed up on the bed next to me. When I went to reach for her, she slapped my hands away and told me to stay as still as possible. Curious how she planned to get things back on track, I let my arms drop and watched her with open curiosity.

  I gulped when she climbed over me, straddling me on all fours, her knees near my head and her hands braced on the mattress next to my hips. None of her weight was on top of my battered and bruised places this way, and all I had to do to get to her glistening, soft center was pull her hips down toward my watering mouth. And all she had to do was lower her head to take my very interested cock into hers. Her lips slid down my shaft as her tongue swirled around the head. I had forgotten I was supposed to be focusing on returning the favor when I felt a little flick against the slit.

  My fingers dug into her thighs, and my teeth dragged across her clit. I felt her whole body stiffen in response and gave her a flick in return. I wasn’t over the moon that I couldn’t see her face and read her expression while we simultaneously tried to eat each other alive. But I was eternally grateful I could touch her and taste her without wanting to climb out of my skin to escape the pain knocking against my bones. It was easy to get drunk on her flavor and to lose my head at how good her talented mouth felt wrapped around me.

  She sucked hard enough my hips wanted to lift off the bed. I responded with a thrust of my tongue that went deep enough to make her shiver where she was arched above me. Her silky hair brushed along the insides of my thighs as she dipped her head even lower. The sensation was erotic as hell. I couldn’t get enough of it. My legs twitched restlessly from pleasure, and her hips started to push back against my face in a small rocking motion.

  I ran a hand over the curve of her hip and down the side of her leg. I traced her goose bumps with my fingers, working my way back between her quivering thighs. I might not be able to move much, but I still wanted to give her as much pleasure as possible, wanted her to remember the day we told each other we were in love. Since my fingers and my mouth were among the few parts of my body I could move without wanting to pass out, I used them to the fullest.

  I swirled my tongue around her clit and slid my fingers inside her wet heat. Her body clenched around them, and she hummed her pleasure around my cock. She shifted so she was leaning her weight on her uninjured elbow and used her free hand to drag her fingernails up the inside of my thigh. It was a light touch, barely there, but I felt it like an electric shock.

  I growled in approval and sucked even harder on the little nub trapped between my lips. I flexed my fingers inside her, pleased when a rush of moisture suddenly swirled around them. I felt Kody’s nipples drag across my lower abdomen and couldn’t stop myself from thrusting into her mouth when she lowered her head at the same time that she carefully raked her fingernails over my tender sack.

  There was no place left untouched or unexplored.

  It was hands down the longest I’d ever spent learning another person’s body, and every new secret spot I uncovered, every hot button I found, got me a better reaction than the one before it. She was also doing her best to drive me out of my mind, alternating between light, little licks and steady suction. My cock was throbbing intensely against her tongue, and I could feel the rest of my body starting to coil in satisfaction. I wasn’t going to be able to hold back much longer, but I wanted to make sure I pushed her over the edge first.

  I switched to stroking her with my tongue and thrusting my fingers in and out of her in a deliberate rhythm. Her head lifted and she looked over her shoulder in my direction. Her lashes were lowered and she had twin circles of pink staining her freckled cheeks. She panted a little and whispered, “So close.”

  Good. I wasn’t going to last much longer either. I pulled my fingers away from her body and pushed my tongue back in. I swirled around for a second and was immediately rewarded with my name bouncing off the walls and a rush of wetness. I felt her body tremble as she moaned her way through her orgasm. It was a beautiful sight. One that was going to be seared on my memory forever.

  I caught a handful of her and silently urged her to sit up.

  “Move down.” She shot me a questioning look but followed my direction. It must’ve been a pretty good orgasm for her to be so docile.

  Once she was hovering over my cock, I grabbed the base, lined myself up with her very wet and ready opening, and gruffly told her, “All I need is to get inside of you.” It was going to be over for me as soon as I felt her surround my aching cock with nothing between her body and mine. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been with anyone long enough, or trusted them enough, to go in bare. “Just move slowly.”

  She did.

  So slowly I was ready to scream.

  It seemed like it took ten years for the tip to breach her entrance. Then another ten for the next couple of inches to make their way inside. Kody was watching me over her shoulder for any sign of distress, but I could see the playful smirk on her face. She knew this was torture and she was enjoying it.

  Finally I was seated all the way inside her, drowning in the aftermath of her pleasure. It felt so good. This was the connection I needed to finish expressing my feelings to her. Everything inside my body was screaming at me to move, to thrust hard and fast into the velvet softness encircling the pulsing length. Kody must’ve sensed my growing desperation, because she carefully, gingerly moved her hips in a purposeful, precise circle.

  That tiny motion was all I needed for all the tension pushing at the threshold to break free. I let out a sound that wasn’t human. I could no longer stay still, which I was undoubtedly going to pay for later. My hips automatically kicked up as I thrust against her with a desperation that was raw and unchecked. I shook and moaned my way through the most intense orgasm I’d ever experienced.

  It would have been nice to wallow in the afterglow. I wanted a pat on the back for our managing to wreck each other while I could hardly move, but Kody almost immediately slipped back into her role as caretaker.

  After getting a quick kiss, she disappeared from sight, only to return a few minutes later with the stuff she’d used earlier for the sponge bath. Now that I’d managed to act on some of my dirty thoughts, it was much easier to lie still and let her fuss over me. She gave me a disbelieving look when she got to the spot between my legs and my cock twitched in renewed interest. All I could do was chuckle and tell her I only ever rebounded that quickly with her.

  We exchanged playful banter for a few minutes as she cleaned me up the best she could and tucked me into her now-messy bed. She sat down next to me, brushing some of my hair off my forehead.

  “I think I need to talk to Dr. Baskin once all of this is over.”

  Her quiet words caught me off-guard. It was the last thing I’d expected her to say. “Why?”

  She sighed and reached out to put her hand lightly on the bandage around my ribs. “Because I can’t keep blaming the wrong people for the painful things that happen in my life. I heard you tell your mo
ther the reason Aaron died was because he was sick.” She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lip. “It’s true. I blamed you. I blamed me. I blamed him. But it wasn’t any of us. When you told me my dad died, I did the same thing. Found the easiest person to blame.” She shook her head as if to clear it, and when she looked at me again her eyes were clear and her expression was earnest. “She’s been through a lot. The loss of her mother. Finding out her father was someone like Conrad. Learning she has a whole new family, one who didn’t exactly welcome her with open arms. She was betrayed by someone close to her. I guess I just feel bad about how we treated her. I shouldn’t have assumed the worst. The blame needs to be placed where it actually belongs. If I’d learned that lesson earlier, maybe I could’ve seen what was waiting right in front of me. Blame blinded me to beautiful things. I don’t want to make that mistake twice.”

  “You saw what you needed to see when you were ready to see it.”

  She grinned at me and leaned forward so that the very tips of our noses almost touched. “The world looks a little different now.”

  I lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “Oh yeah? What’s it look like now?”

  She blinked. “You. My entire world looks like you.”

  It was about time, because mine had always looked like her.

  Chapter 19

  Kody

  It’s the end of the road for you and me, Trouble.”

  Shot’s voice was softer than normal, and so was the look in his very dark eyes. I nodded from my place behind the bar. I was surprisingly choked up about this conversation.

  “It is. I need to stop taking the easy way out. I told everyone I was going to make this bar into something on my own, but you’ve always been there in the background, like training wheels. It’s time to sink or swim for real.” I needed to do things the right way if I was going to make a relationship with Hill work.

  “I figured this conversation was coming the minute I saw the way you looked at the Ranger.” His lips twisted into a smirk. “You never looked at me that way.”

  I wanted to cringe, but I kept my composure. “I’m sorry.”

  Shot shook his head, black hair falling into his eyes. “Don’t be. I liked you from the start. I liked your fearlessness and your smart mouth. I could’ve more than liked you if I didn’t know it was impossible for us to be anything more than what we were. I knew you would never put your brother in a bind. I knew you were actually a really good girl making bad choices. I don’t regret having you in my life and letting you get close to my club.” He winked at me and knocked on the bar top with the backs of his ringed fingers. “Hanging around you was never boring.”

  I gave him a weak grin. “Same.” I exhaled a long, slow breath and muttered the hardest part of the conversation I had to have with him. “I promised Hill that if the club gets in trouble with the law, with the feds specifically, I have to be honest about the deal we made. He knows everything, and he’s still sticking around, so I have to keep up my end of the bargain. I would never betray you, not after all you’ve done for me, if I had a choice.” I looked him in the eye and ordered, “So don’t get busted. I can’t be the reason you go to prison, Shot.” It would break my heart. But I would do it for Hill.

  The rings covering his tattooed fingers tapped on the bar again. “Don’t worry about us. You do what you got to do. If the feds start digging, all they’re going to find is a liquor distribution company under the club’s name, which has incredibly inflated prices. All the patrons who came in to see you bought and paid for that product legally. Don’t stress the details. That’s my job.”

  I shoved both my hands through my hair and looked down at the wooden floor. “I want to stay friends. Can we?”

  It seemed like maybe I was asking too much of him. I’d severed our business ties and told him flat out I would betray him if it came down to it. If I were in his motorcycle boots, my ass would be out the door with zero plans of coming back.

  “Of course we can. I’ve got your back no matter what. Never doubt it. Plus, the boys and I like the Barn. This place suits us when we need a night out. You make sure your cop knows there’s no hard feelings so I don’t have to worry about him breathing down my neck all the time, and we’ll be cool, just like we’ve always been.”

  I was very lucky to have great men on either side of the law standing in my corner. I figured it was the universe’s way of evening things out since I’d been saddled with a father like Conrad.

  I reached across the bar so I could squeeze his hand. “Thank you.”

  Shot nodded and pulled his hand free before he leaned back on the bar stool. “How’d you convince the Ranger to let you out of his sight? I figured he would have you under lock and key after you nearly got run over.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I still have a business to run. My life can’t grind to a halt just because some crazy woman suddenly has her sights set on me.”

  It was the same argument I’d given Hill when he tried to keep me from leaving my apartment that afternoon. I had a feeling his reluctance to let me go was only partly due to me being some kind of target. I was fairly certain he was more than a little uneasy I’d planned to meet Shot alone at the bar before it opened. His jealousy was kind of cute. His high-handedness was not. Ultimately, he knew there was no way to stop me from doing what I had to do. But he refused to let me go unescorted. One quick call to Case and I had a babysitter for the day. It was an okay compromise, all things considered. I wasn’t going to hide from the woman who had murdered my father and was doing her best to ruin the sister I’d never known about. I was actually looking forward to getting a chance to face the woman. There was a lot she had to answer for.

  Shot chuckled. “You know there are two Loveless deputies parked outside, right?”

  I snorted. “Yeah. That’s Hill’s doing. He’s still laid up and moving slow. He asked my brother to put one of his guys on the bar until the woman who killed my father is caught.”

  Shot nodded his approval. “Good man. You also know the deputy called it in as soon as I pulled up, right? Your Ranger is going to know we’re together.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows up and down, chuckling when I dug out a piece of ice and threw it at him.

  “Hill knows we’re together. I don’t keep secrets from him.” Not anymore. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes where Hill’s concerned. I didn’t give him, or myself, enough credit. He loved me, even when I forgot how to love myself. He loved me enough for the both of us.” I shrugged. “He’s the one.” Really, it was as simple as that.

  Shot studied me for a long moment before finally nodding and giving me his silent approval. “So tell me about the new sister. What’s she like?” His midnight brows danced upward playfully. “She look like you? ’Cause I could be into that. You think I’m her type?”

  I couldn’t hold back my burst of laughter. “Hell no.”

  He cocked his head to the side and smiled. “You sure? I’m pretty much everyone’s type.”

  He wasn’t wrong. It was hard to resist his wicked charm and badass swagger. There was something about the leather and ink that really worked for him.

  “I wasn’t very nice to her. None of us were. We were all so caught up in our own guilt and grief, we made her an enemy without giving her a chance to prove whether she was friend or foe.” I rested my elbows on the edge of the bar and cupped my chin in my hands. “We do look a lot alike, but I think the similarities are only on the surface. She’s freakishly smart. She’s very composed and talks like she’s narrating a documentary on the Discovery Channel. But she’s got a killer right hook, so I guess there are some surprises under all the frost. I told Hill I would like to get a chance to know her. She didn’t have to tell us about the blackmail. She could’ve just brought Conrad’s affair with her mother to light and demanded her share of whatever he happened to have, but she seemed sincerely remorseful about what her mother did. And it bugs me that she seems so alone. She’s not a Lawton, but she has Lawton blood, and that means something. W
e take care of our own.”

  Shot let out a whistle. “You should introduce me. I’m intrigued.”

  The idea of the two of them together was laughable. I couldn’t imagine two people being more opposite than Shot and Dr. Baskin.

  “She’s a medical examiner. She spends her time with dead people. Like, that’s the job she chose for herself on purpose, and she’s really good at it. What kind of person chooses to surround themselves with death?”

  Shot sighed and climbed to his feet. “Sometimes the dead make better companions than the living. I’m going to head out.” His smile shifted and started to look a little sad. “I’m glad to see you looking happy, Kody. Gets me right here.” He tapped his fist to his chest and flashed me a flirty wink.

  “I’d like to see you happy one day too, Shot.” I really would. I couldn’t envision the type of woman who would be able to handle his rough, often lawless lifestyle, but I liked to think she was out there and he would find her sooner rather than later.

  He waved the statement off, pausing to answer his phone as he walked toward the front doors. The staff would be here any minute to get the bar opened for the day. I needed to sit down and brainstorm real, legal ways to increase business and keep the doors open. It was time to grow up. I’d failed and fought. Now I had the opportunity to struggle and succeed. I was surprised at how much I was looking forward to the challenge.

  “A fire? Are you sure?” Shot’s voice was sharp, catching my attention as he turned on his boot heel to look at me. “Call it in. You guys check out the property. You’re probably looking for a woman. Be careful, she’s a killer.”