Cracked & Crushed Page 9

  “I don’t think I love you Babe. I know I do,” he said and crunched into another piece of bacon. I frowned. “And to answer your question, I think about you all the time, I can tell just by looking at you if you’re happy or you’re sad and it’s a deciding factor on how I feel on any given day. The thought of anything happening to you wrecks me, and when you smile at me, sort of like you’re smiling at me now, my whole world falls into place and I can almost pretend that I’m not as big a bastard as I am.” Alice snorted in disgust and looked appalled. I blinked and looked over at her and said.

  “Shut up, Jesus!” To which Reaver barked out a laugh that boomed through the dining room and had Marcy and Tom and even Alice’s husband Joe joining in.

  Reaver hooked an arm around my shoulders and pulled me against his side, kissing the top of my head before letting me go. Alice stood up with an angry scrape of her chair and stalked out of the room. Joe remained seated and smiling, continued eating through his breakfast.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, embarrassed.

  “I’m not,” Joe said, good-naturedly, “She’s my wife and I love her but she had it coming. I keep telling her, you can’t treat people that way.” He shrugged and sighed.

  “So we couldn’t help but overhear you say you were going up to the old Acantilados Cortos light house,” Tom said.

  “Is that what it’s called?” Reaver asked me.

  “Yes,” I said softly.

  “Then yeah that’s where we’re heading. Why?” he asked.

  “If it’s all right we’d love to join you!” Marcy said.

  Reaver and I exchanged looks.

  “Kind of hard to fit four on my bike,” he said with a grin.

  Marcy laughed.

  “We’d follow you of course!” she said.

  “Up for some company Doll?” he asked me and I smiled.

  “As long as I get you to myself at some point during this trip,” I said before I even realized what was going to come out of my mouth. I smiled at Reaver and the look of sheer delight that lit up his handsome features, causing his eyes to glow from within with a boyish glee, well that made what I’d said entirely worth it.

  While I hadn’t done everything with Andy all wrong, I was willing to admit that I hadn’t done everything entirely right either. I didn’t know what exactly it was that I was doing with Reaver. Especially just two days after being unceremoniously dropped on my ass at the alter by Andy.

  Everything my upbringing had taught me was screaming at me “What are you doing Hayden!?” but simultaneously I felt more relaxed and more, just… I don’t know, safe, appreciated, cared for, loved, pick an adjective, in Reaver’s presence than I had whenever I was around Andy. Be it in the beginning, middle or end of our relationship.

  Reaver took every notion I had, about life, love, family and turned it on its head and honestly, it scared me but not in that way that made me want to run for my life, but more in that way you get stepping onto a roller coaster for the ride of your life.

  I tuned back in to the conversation just in time to hear Tom say, “That’s great, we’ll see you back down here in ten.” I smiled and nodded and looked to Reaver who was studying me with his steady, cool blue eyes.

  “You’ve been thinking awful hard today Doll,” he said softly.

  “I have, haven’t I?” I said ruefully.

  “Yeah,” he said and he looked me over again.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothin’,” he said and I could taste the lie of the single word.

  Joe coughed and excused himself and Reaver and I were suddenly alone in the dining room.

  “Having second thoughts about me?” he asked quietly and I was shocked to detect a little bit of fear in his tone.

  I stood up and did something I wouldn’t ever normally do. I bit my lip and with a false sense of bravado I straddled Reaver’s lap. His hands went automatically to my hips to steady me and his eyes gently but silently questioned me. He held me lightly on his lap and I put my hands to either side of his face.

  He let me, watching me fascinated as I lowered my face to his.

  “Doll?” he asked and the breath from the one word utterance brushed across my lips sending an erotic fission up my spine in a tingling wave.

  “I still don’t know what I’m doing,” I said softly and let my eyes slip shut.

  “I get you,” he said, voice strained and I kissed him.

  I touched my lips lightly to his and it was as if my blood turned to fine champagne, the bubbles rushing and fizzing through my veins in a subtle pleasurable sensation that engulfed me. Sound stopped, sight stopped and the whole world narrowed to my lips on his. My hands cupping the heat of his face, the warmth of our mingling breaths on our skin heady. I drank him in. He tasted masculine and brisk, a hint of the bacon he’d consumed lingering in the background. He pulled me forcefully and tightly against him and I could feel at the apex of my thighs that he was very, very happy to have me in his lap.

  His length was intimidating even through the combination of my shorts and his. I could feel myself moisten in my bikini bottoms as our tongues stroked against one another, clashing and dancing as we languidly took each other in. Each exploring the other’s mouths with intrepid curiosity. I let my hands smooth down the rough stubble on his cheeks and along the sides of his throat. I caressed his shoulders through his tee shirt and marveled at the swell of muscle in his bicep. Sculpted to perfection from his long hours spent at the gym and possibly from his line of work as well.

  His hands drifted to the slight swell of my ass and his long, strong, sure fingers gripped me there, tight and tighter pulling me up against him, crushing our pelvises together. I rode him, sliding my hips up and down his length and he moaned into my mouth. Things were quickly heating up, slipping outside my control and I didn’t care.

  Finally Reaver reared back, eyes glazed with passion and sucked in a shuddering breath as if he were a swimmer too long under water. He shook himself and pushed me back off of him a bit.

  “Baby my self-control isn’t absolute,” he said and I bowed my head, resting my forehead against his shoulder, half disappointed we’d stopped. He pushed back firmly but gently on my hips and I slid from his lap and got to my feet, a little unsteady.

  “Go get dressed to ride Babe,” he ordered gently.

  “Reaver I’m…” I began but he cut me off.

  “Hayden, Baby just please, go… or I’m going to fuck you right here on the dining room table,” his voice was low and controlled but still gave the impression that the order was barked. I felt things low in my body coil with want at his admission but his tone had me taking a step back none the less.

  I left him sitting alone and obviously hard through his shorts in the dining room and ascended the stairs on quivering knees. I did as I was told and dressed in jeans, slipping them on over my swimsuit as I had with my shorts. I pulled on a slightly oversized button down blue women’s oxford shirt on and buttoned it most of the way.

  Reaver entered the room as I was lacing up my running shoes over low socks. He went about getting better clothes together to ride in and I slipped off the bed and to my feet. I picked up Shelly’s jacket but his voice stopped me with my hand on the door handle.

  “Baby I didn’t want to stop,” he swallowed hard I turned to look at him and he looked worried. I frowned.

  “I didn’t either,” I said.

  “I get why you’re pushin’,” he said and I blinked.

  “Am I?” I asked surprised.

  “Yeah Babe you are, and it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere, but I gotta ask… why’d yah kiss me like that?” he looked me over and I swallowed and told the truth.

  “Because no one has ever kissed me the way you do… Because I like it and I… I know it’s selfish but I wanted to feel good and I feel better than I ever have before when you touch me, when you kiss me.” I bowed my head and fixed my eyes on the floor, my cheeks heating with embarrassment at my admission.
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br />   It was true. He kissed me and the whole world tilted on its axis. It was crazy. Like something out of a romance novel or a movie. The kind of thing you always heard talked about and dismissed as a pure flight of fancy.

  “One of these days we’re going to dance, Doll,” he said to me, a very audible smile tinging his voice. I looked up and met his eyes which were sparkling with good humor. They cooled with a flip of the switch.

  “Before we do, we have to talk because sleeping with me… it comes at a price,” I swallowed at the ominous words.

  “Wh-“ I cleared my throat which was suddenly a little tight, “What kind of price?” I asked.

  “You planning on something I should know about?” he asked me. My eyes snapped up and I blinked. He was smiling that incorrigible rakish grin of his at me and I bit my bottom lip.

  “I want you,” I blurted.

  “I want you too Baby but I want you when you’re really ready, not when you think you’re ready. You want to feel good? I’ll make you feel good but you don’t get me, all of me unless you’re ready for it. I’d rather you get some rebound sex from Cutter or one of his guys first.” I balked with an audible incredulous noise. His eyes were cool, somber and distant.

  “Are you serious!?” I demanded.

  “As a heart attack,” he stalked to me and his fingers curled around the back of my neck, his thumb smoothing under my jaw and over my pulse point in my neck. I felt my heart rate pick up.

  “You forget what kind of monster I am,” he said carefully and all semblance of warmth, all emotion leaked from his eyes and was swallowed whole by their glacial crystalline depths. I heard a slight snick and I jumped when the cool metal of the blade kissed the skin at the side of my throat, not cutting not yet but one slight move on my part or his…

  I went very, very still, the coppery tang of fear coating my tongue. Reaver let out a shuddering breath.

  “Oh yeah, there it is…” he said and he bent, slowly but surely his mouth hovering over mine.

  “There’s what?” I whispered barely breathing, but I knew the answer. I was both fearful but at the same time… oh my God this was hot! Crazy, but totally erotic!

  “You want this don’t you?” he asked, breathe hot against my lips.

  “I want you Reaver… and I’ll take you whichever way I can get you. You…” I swallowed hard and felt the sharp edge of the blade against my throat as it expanded minutely with the motion. “You scare me some times… when you do this… but I trust you and maybe I’m crazy but you make me feel alive.” I meant it. I was surprised that I meant it.

  “I’m not going to add my malfunction to the pile sittin’ on top of your chest but one day, we’re going to finish this and I’m going to taste you and make you beg me for more before I’m done. You get me Hayden?” he asked me.

  “I get you Reaver,” I said trembling.

  “Good girl,” he murmured and he kissed me, a gentle almost chaste press of lips. Sometime during the kiss I heard the blade snick back into its handle and when he pulled away it was simply gone. His hand empty as if it never was. I’d never even seen it. I felt the hair raise on the back of my neck and I shivered. Reaver shook himself and turned away from me.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “Don’t what?” he asked with a wry curl of his lips.

  I went to him and dropped Shelly’s jacket onto the bed.

  “I don’t want you to beat yourself up. You are who you are Reaver. I don’t know what that is, I don’t know if I’m crazy but…” I swallowed. This was the most, brash and crude thing I was likely ever going to do…

  “But?” he asked.

  I unbuttoned my jeans and lowered the fly and snatched his hand from where it rested at his side. I slid his hand against my body, between my skin and my bikini bottoms. His eyes went wide in his face with surprise and when his fingers found the wetness his lips curled into a slow and feral grin.

  I closed my eyes and relished the feel of his fingers against my sex. He withdrew his hand and smiled his rogue, devil may care grin down on me.

  “Oh yeah, we’re going to finish this,” he said in no uncertain terms.

  “Okay,” I said and smiled.

  “We got folks waiting on us Doll,” he reminded me gently and I startled. Oh God! I’d forgotten all about Tom and Marcy!

  “See you down stairs,” he said and turned around. I zipped and buttoned up and snatched Shelly’s jacket off the bed, going for the door. Reaver’s soft laughter following me into the hall until I shut the door on it.

  He turned me upside down and inside out and left me so rattled!

  And I would be a liar if I said I didn’t love every minute of it.

  What did that make me?

  Chapter 7

  Reaver…

  I shook my head and pulled a plain white tee shirt on over it. It was snug in the chest and shoulders but would work. I pulled on my jeans and my boots and threw on my cut. I sighed and adjusted myself. My cock was standing at attention and it was just about everything I had in me to not fuck Hayden into next week for what she did.

  The perfume of her hot, slick, wet pussy still clung to my fingers and I went into the little bathroom and roughly and regrettably washed my hands. I couldn’t have her there, not and maintain my self-control. As it was, I was barely holding on to the strings of it which, with the way she cuddled into me, the way she held my hand and stood inside my personal space, may be just better left to fray.

  I didn’t think we were going to make it out of Florida without having sex. I didn’t really know how I felt about that. On the one hand, I wanted her with a deep seated gnawing ache that made my desire for my next fix of heroin when I was addicted seem like a paltry thing in comparison. She was in my blood, on my mind, in my heart and like the other half of my soul within a blink of the eye and I didn’t understand it.

  I didn’t want to.

  There were some things in life, some people you met and connected with that just fit. Like peanut butter and jelly, we went together. I felt it in the deepest part of me. When we were together it was fated, meant to be and when we were apart, that gnawing angry desire pushed me to find her and be with her, near her, hovering over her and protecting her was too strong to ignore.

  On the other hand I didn’t want to break us before we had a chance to get started.

  There was a lot to this life of mine, to the life of being an Old Lady to one of the MC brotherhood… I didn’t want to put her in over her head and have it break her in two. I wanted her scared but I didn’t want her scared away. I felt like I was walking this tight wire act with her. I wanted so many things and yet everything that I wanted came at a steep cost.

  Not for me, but for her.

  I combed my hair forward and tugged on my cut, checked for wallet and keys and satisfied, I headed downstairs. Hayden was talking with Marcy, Tom was across the circular cobblestone drive swinging the back door on a dark blue Mazda shut.

  Hayden’s body language said it all. She stood, completely unaware of what she was doing but she was hugging herself despite the oppressive heat. Her shoulders rounded in, as if to hold all that wild chaos of what she was feeling inside and even though her face was smiling, even though she laughed at something Marcy said, I could see the hurt jut there below the surface and I wanted to take it away. Unburden her lithe, narrow shoulders…

  I wanted to see those light emerald eyes of hers spark fire again. I wanted to see the happy, confident woman who stepped out of the locker room over a year ago. I wanted to pull that woman out of her, scare the hell out of her, ravish her and make love to her and fucking cherish her the way she deserved to be cherished.

  I wanted to promise her the moon and the fucking stars and come Hell or high water I wanted to deliver them.

  I just needed to figure out how. I knew one place to start that was as good as any. I slipped up behind her and made good on my self-imposed vow to give her the affection she so seriously craved, putting my arms aro
und her and pulling her back against my chest.

  The smile that lit her beautiful green eyes made an answering smile appear on my face. She leaned back into me and cuddled into my arms and she fit so perfectly there, our difference in height tucking her just so perfectly into the front of my body, under my chin.

  “Ready baby?” I asked her and she huffed out a sigh tinged with contentment.

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “We’ll follow you,” Marcy said with a smile and she and Tom got into their car.

  “You doin’ okay?” I asked Hayden and she leaned her head back against my shoulder and rolled her bright green eyes to meet mine. Their jeweled depths were steady and filled with a mixture of sadness and something else.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” she said and smiled with a false bravado.

  I nodded slowly. She was going through so much all at once and I wasn’t helping. I sighed, her mercurial moods were to be expected. Riding always helped me when I felt like shit. When the world was full of confusion and it felt like the bits and pieces of me were being torn off and blowing away in whatever shit storm had come my way. Riding had always brought me clarity, I was hoping the same would hold true for her so I helped her into her helmet and once we were both situated started up Baby and pulled us out of the drive. I followed Hayden’s directions and from there, followed the historical marker signs on the freeway to our destination.

  The lighthouse was impressive. Tall and painted like a barber’s pole in classic barber pole red and white except the red had faded some in the punishing Florida sun to an orangey color. I backed Baby into a parking stall next to a yellow crotch rocket and shut her off. Hayden had ridden beautifully, her slender arms locked around me, her body snug against mine the whole way. Her expression in the side view had gone almost meditative about ten minutes into the forty-five minute or so ride and now she looked up at the lighthouse from beside me. Her face completely unreadable, her eyes hidden by her too-large sunglasses.

  “It’s big,” I said and she handed me her helmet smoothing her pixie cut across her forehead and nodded.