Demon (The Northern Kings MC #1)

Chapter Twenty Nine

Ciara

Ste was at the door of the pub when we pulled up, propped up against the doorway as if his legs wouldn’t support his frame. He was leaner than when I had last seen him fighting for every breath. If anything, he looked worse. His face was gaunt, shadows under his eyes and his grey hair was even greyer. He looked tired.

“Indie. Demon. I need a word.”

His voice was strained, speaking an effort. And he looked old, as if he had aged ten years in just a few weeks.

Indie and Demon followed, scowling at each other as they trudged along behind him like two kids being led to the headmaster’s office. I joined the others inside, perching on the edge of a seat at an empty booth. Outside, the darkness swarmed the building, a muggy summer’s night closing in around us, charging the air with apprehension.

“Don’t worry, Ciara,” Suzy’s voice broke the silence. “They’re probably just getting a telling off. Tomahawk will have been straight on the phone complaining Demon had tried to kill him.”

“He hardly did a thing to him.”

“Yeah. We know that. But the Vandal’s Pres is itching to get revenge on the beatings he’s dished out to the clubs over the years.”

“I thought they all got on now?”

“They do. Mostly. But it’s a fine line between friendship and rivalry. Particularly given the history between the Kings and the Vandals.”

“What history is that?”

“Ste’s brother ran off with their VP’s sister.”

“That guy called Flat-Pack?”

Suzy giggled.

“Yeah. That’s him. Don’t call him that to his face, though. It’s just what we call him.”

“I thought that was his rider name?” I asked, confused.

“No. He just uses his proper name. Gunnar. He’s Swedish. And as frustrating as putting up flat-packed furniture. You know, like the type from Ikea.”

I snorted loudly. The giggle catching by surprise.

“Yeah. I know. Tickles me every time I hear it. But it pisses him right off, and he’s got a temper.”

“I still don’t get what he’s so pissed off with?”

“Rumour has it Si didn’t treat his sister well. Knocked her about a bit.”

And that wiped the humour straight away. Demon might not be directly related, but something about his uncle treating a woman that way… I chewed on my lip, pushing back memories of my childhood wriggling their way to the surface.

“Hey,” Suzie said lightly, touching my arm. “Demon and Indie. They’re not like that. Ste neither. It was just Si. He was a bad one. You get them in all families, y’know.”

I nodded. Agreeing. Knowing she was right but unable to chase the unease collecting in the pit of my stomach. What did I know of families, anyway? Mine was royally screwed up. Fuck, I didn’t even know where any of them were. If they were safe, or happy, or miserable. And I’d never taken the time to find out. I’d just run. Just looked out for myself. Because I was the only one I could depend on. That’s why.

“Remember. I told you about him this morning?” She continued, glancing around the room, and then, when she was happy no one was paying us any attention, leant in even closer. “Rumour has it, it was his own son who offed him.”

I stared at her for a moment, studying the seriousness on her face. Shit! That was seriously fucked up.

The door to the far side of the bar opened and Demon bristled out alone. His face was dark, his lips pushed firmly together, tense. The Dog

on the Tyne descended into a loaded silence. All conversations stopped. No one whispered or grunted. I glanced around nervously, watching the same tension matched on everyone’s face. They had all seen this Demon before. I had merely glimpsed it. Seen a fraction of what his temper really was. And now I was frightened. And Suzy’s words echoed in the back of my skull. A warning.

He stopped in front of me and the tension I thought I had seen as he came through that door was nothing to what I looked at now. The muscles at the side of his neck were tight, straining under some sort of mental weight, flickering every now and then as if we would momentarily lose control and then find it again. His lips were pushed together, fighting what might come out, but when I looked into his eyes, into the smouldering darkness, it wasn’t anger I saw there. It was pain. And confusion, and a cocktail of raw emotion. Whatever had happened back there in the room that neither Indie nor Ste had come out of yet, wasn’t a telling off. It was something far worse.

I stood up. Snaking my arm round his. Feeling for the warmth over the leather of the bike jacket he wore, and winding down so I could push the palm of my hand against his. His fist was balled tight, but I covered it, squeezing gently, wordlessly telling him I was here. And then he opened his hand, entwining his fingers with mine, and pulled me towards the door and away from the suffocating atmosphere and prying faces.

It took minutes to make it over the Tyne Bridge. The traffic was steady, unlike Demon’s riding as he darted between cars, the bike’s deep exhaust echoing off the vehicles we passed, sounding angrier than he was. He halved the usual time from the Dog on the Tyne to his apartment over his tattoo shop. The little street of commercial premises was as sleepy as ever. Desolate and private, and even with the heavy rumbles from the angry exhaust, there was no one to wake apart from Kinobi. Her voice sounded from the other side of the door, menacingly loud now that the roar of the Harley Davidson had cut off. I was still wary of her, despite that we had come to an understanding, a level of tolerance.

The dog stared at me as I followed Demon up the stairs, and I still thought she was plotting my demise at every opportunity. But she let me pass and then brought up the rear. Demon was quiet, brooding. He slumped into the armchair that sat in front of the tall window in the kitchen-living room, darkness consuming the space behind him, casting shadows that obscured my view of his face. Beside me, the dog pushed her head under my hand, the nudge of a damp nose making me recoil.

“Demon….”

He stood again, looking at me as if he couldn’t work out what to say before moving to the door.

“I need to take the dog out,” he grunted, before leaving me in the dark, as the Doberman padded off after him.

I listened to his heavy steps on the stairs leading back to the garage, and the clatter of the metal shutter. Around me, the flat settled into silence. An ominous quiet. The type of atmosphere when you know there is something fucked up hanging around you, but you daren’t call it out because that just might make it real. Denial. That’s what it was.

When Demon and the dog returned five minutes later, it felt like they had been gone more than thirty. I’d spent the time staring out into the darkness, at the glow of the streetlights on the deserted, pitted pavements and the shadows of trees that moved in the breeze.

He didn’t move for the light and neither did I, instead sitting back down in the armchair and gazing down at his hands, as if there was something there, a mark on his skin, dirt, something. The dog wandered across to his side, resting her head on his knee and letting out the softest of whines I’d ever heard. And right then, she was doing more for him than I was.

Moving across the room in front of him, I gently nudged his legs apart, stepping into the gap before dropping to my knees where my eyes could meet his. His face was more relaxed than earlier, but the tension was still evident, the way his teeth raked back and forth across his bottom lip a dead giveaway.

“What’s wrong?” the whisper of my voice sounded like a tannoy in the thick silence.

“I can’t,” he muttered, “I just can’t right now, Ciara.”

“OK. Tell me what I can do?”

“I need you to fuck me.”

I tilted his head up, studying the pain welling in his dark eyes and understanding him suddenly for the first time ever. He’d been brought up to hide how sensitive he really was, and the only way to do that was to distract himself with anger, with adrenaline. So, if it’s adrenaline he needed right now, that’s what I would give to him.

His lips came at me with no warning, crushing and grabbing at me, his tongue invading my mouth as I took a breath at the sudden onslaught. His mouth was hot and desperate as he pulled my head into him, pulling me up off my knees. Hands skimmed under the leather bike jacket I still wore, pushing the heavy material over my shoulders, until it worked its way loose and fell to the floor with a dull thud. Nails clacked across the polished wood floorboards, the dog retreating to somewhere quieter.

Demon wrenched my top up, yanking it over my head and pulling off my bra with urgent desperation as I moved over the top of him, straddling him on the chair. His mouth was even hotter on my nipples, his lips attacking them. No gentle kisses or teasing. A sudden onslaught of sensation as he pulled one into his mouth, sucking hard before flicking his tongue over the end. I hissed loudly, pushing myself into his face as an ominous heat licked up through my stomach, radiating outwards, exploding hot, fiery pulses along my nerve endings.

My hands slid under his t-shirt, feeling over the ripples of his stomach and the bulge of his pecs, over his perfect skin and the wisps of hair that ran all the way from the centre of that hard chest, down beyond his leather trousers. Demon sucked hard again, his teeth grazing the end of my nipples, making me yelp. Beneath me my fingernails dug into his flesh, and I felt the wince of air rush against my nipple, the cascade of breath against the wet from Demin’s tongue on my delicate flesh driving my head back.

Underneath me his hands worked, popping over the button and sliding the zip down, the tear of metal loud in the muffled atmosphere of heavy breaths and raging heartbeats. He pushed his trousers off, wriggling out of them as I tried to keep my balance against his lap, and against the sudden hard shaft that intruded now between us. Demon groaned from under me as I moved against him, dragging my hips up over the top of it, riding his length, still covered in my own leather trousers.

“Off,” he grunted, the imminent loss of control clear in his words. “Get these trousers off.”

I worked over the button, pulling at the waistband, peeling them down over my thighs. Demon’s hands followed, pushing the material away, diving between my legs with his fingers and yanking my knickers to one side, plunging into me hard, before I’d even got my trousers to my knees.

“Fuck,” I cursed, my legs wobbling and sending me falling forward onto Demon’s chest.

“God, this pussy is just incredible,” he whispered against my cheek as I lay against his chest, at the mercy of his fingers pumping in and out, rendering me helpless.

He twisted suddenly, pushing in a third, filling me full, but not as full as his cock would make me. No amount of fingers ever made it any easier to take him. Nothing ever prepared me for the way he tore me open, and no amount of wetness ever lubricated it enough for him to enter me without feeling like my insides were being put into a blender. Tonight was no different. He needed me. His emotions tore through him like his cock would tear through me. And I could feel it under me, hard and protruding, ready to pull my flesh apart, straining against me, my only defence the thin material of the boxers that contained it.

But with my pussy full of Demon’s fingers, heat quickly spread, pulsing round my body like a combination of liquid electricity and a blazing inferno. And now I was rocking, meeting each thrust, rubbing my swollen clit against the bulge in his underpants, my breaths becoming erratic, my heart drilling against my chest. I was going to come right here, riding his fingers as I rubbed myself against his erection, his lips and mouth still punishing mine.

“Not yet, darlin’,” he muttered, the soft plumpness of his flesh moving against my lips as he spoke.

Demon fumbled underneath me, tipping his hips and letting that hard shaft spring free. I didn’t need to look at it to appreciate its size. I knew how big it was. It had prized me open many a time. But not from this angle. And for a moment, I was apprehensive. I wriggled closer, poised over the top of him, brushing up against the tip. His fingers squeezed over my hip bones, digging into my flesh, pulling me towards him as he pushed up into me. There was nowhere to go, no time to ease myself onto him, his cock forcing its way inside of me, burying into soft, sensitive flesh.

I cried out, my head rolling back, the burning pressure deep inside, a red-hot poker impaling me, stretching me. And from this position, it was bigger than I thought I could cope with.

“Slow down, Demon. Please.” My words were half a whisper, half a hiss of pain and apprehension, my body tensing, making the intrusion of his big cock even more difficult to take.

“I need you, Ciara,” he groaned as a further inch of him slid inside.

“I know. Just slow down. I’ll take you, just more slowly.”

His grip loosened and the upwards pistoning of his hips stopped, letting me slide down on him at my pace. Sinking bit by bit, until every part of his length and girth was inside of me. I paused a second, waiting for my body to adapt, to mould around his shaft, the tissues inside my pussy settling around to grip him. Then, moving slowly at first, I rolled my hips upward, pulling over the length of him, the muscles inside me tugging against him.

Demon watched me, his dark eyes fixed on my face, and soon I was setting a rhythm, listening to the needs of my body, feeling the immense pressure building from the cock inside of me, terrorising my insides from the movements I created. From underneath me, Demon continued to watch, his eyes dropping between our bodies, watching me move up and down his shaft, the muscles in his neck tensing and his hands gripping the sides of the armchair underneath us.

Inside, my body pulsed, a thrumming, vibrating sensation filling me each time I took every inch of his length and thickness. And soon I was riding him harder, my juices coating his cock, making it easier to go at the pace we both needed, as my hips rocked up and down, back and forth, and I forgot that this was for him, chasing my own needs on the huge shaft that impaled me.

Demon’s hands moved to my hips now, gripping me hard and moving my hips faster, his own rocking under me, pulling me up and down his shaft so that the huge thing was punishing my insides, igniting an inferno of molten desire and fiery hot convulsions that swarmed inside of me.

“Shit!” I groaned as he pulled me down hard on top of him, the head of his cock hitting my cervix, sending a confusion of pain and elation through me.

“Ride me, Ciara,” Demon whispered, his voice choked with the edge of orgasm, and I obeyed him, this time, because right now my body would have it no other way.

And with each time I pushed down on his shaft he rammed his hips into me, filling me with everything, every long, thick, painful inch, sending a blaze racking my body. His grunts filled the room, drowning my pitiful cries of ecstasy and pain, his eyes darkening, the black of his pupils bleeding into the dark brown that surrounded them. He wrapped an arm around me, controlling my body, not letting me edge away from the punishment of his cock, making sure my body took him. And just as he pushed me over the edge and into oblivion, he roared against my neck, using my throat to muffle the animalistic noise as I fell against him.

“Fuck,” he grunted. “Fuck.”

And for a moment we sat there, together, breathing heavily, our chests heaving against each other and the only noise the thudding of our hearts.

“I’m sorry,” he said eventually, pushing me backwards a little so he could stare into my eyes. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. Not really,” I wriggled under him, his cock softening inside me, and my battered insides now able to breathe.

Demon’s brow furrowed.

“It hurt. But in a good way.” I kissed his forehead, tasting the salt on his skin. “You want to tell me what’s going on now?”

The darkness flickered in his eyes, but it wasn’t that which surprised me. Suddenly those eyes glistened, like polished glass, and it took me a second to realise what I saw. But then he blinked, and the hardness returned to his face.

“My Da. He’s got cancer,” his words swelled in the surrounding air, a suffocating, oppressive silence, and then, “he’s dying Ciara.”