Chapter Fourteen
Banshee
There was no doubt about it; I was a fucking fool. For seven years I could have had this woman. This body. This perfect pussy. But I’d said no because I was scared. Scared of what she made me feel. Afraid she would own my soul.
Except she already had, from the moment I first saw her.
What I’d felt that first day, watching her confidence as she left the clubhouse, her give-no-fucks attitude toward her brother, who I knew was an asshole, was nothing compared to what I was feeling now.
Seeing the way her body responded to my touch. The way she moaned with my tongue in her pussy. The way she gave up control and let me pleasure her body. Seeing the way her face lit up when she came. The complete satisfaction she experienced at my hands made me feel ten fucking feet tall.
I lay beside her, my fingers trailing lightly over her skin. The sound of her breathing, slow and even, told me she was awake but fully relaxed.
“Baby girl,” I whispered.
She let out a sigh, and said, “Please don’t spoil this.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Why won’t you talk to me?”
Her eyes opened, and she turned her head. “You really want to stop and talk?” Her gaze flickered down to the bulge in my pants. No, I didn’t want to fucking talk.
“I don’t have any condoms.”
“You don’t carry one around in your wallet?” she scoffed.
“Not all bikers are whores, baby girl.”
“Please don’t call me that.”
I leaned over her, my face inches from hers. “Baby girl, I just had my tongue in your pussy. I can still fucking taste you on my lips. I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want.”
She rolled over, attempting to get off the bed, and I pulled her back.
“Fucking talk to me.”
“Someone was here the other night. It’s why I came back inside.”
I shot up from the bed and glared at her. “Who the fuck was here?”
“I can’t tell you. I made a promise.”
I climbed out of bed and grabbed the doorknob. “Diesel, let’s go.” The dog, who had sat outside the door while my face was buried in his mom’s cunt, jumped up and trotted behind me down the hall.
“Banshee, wait.”
I ignored her. Not wanting to look back and see her naked body. I needed to look around outside. See what clues I could find.
“Elijah, please.” Her hand touched my back just as I reached the front door. She had this power over me. One word, one touch, and I was done. I’d do whatever she asked.
I turned around and leaned against the door. Aspen stood behind me, a sheet wrapped around her body.
“Tell me who it was.”
“I can’t. He asked me not to.”
“He? Did you fucking say he?”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me to the sofa. When she placed her hand on my chest and pushed, I let myself fall onto the couch. Then she hiked up the sheet and straddled my lap.
A groan rumbled up through my chest as I grabbed her hips and pushed her down against my hard cock. I was desperate to sink into her. But I needed a run to the store.
Her hands rubbed over my chest, and she smiled. Before she could speak, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. My mouth took control with a passion I had never felt before.
She was it.
Mine.
She met my fervor with her own. Grinding down on my hard length as she opened her mouth, giving me entrance.
My tongue swirled with hers. I tasted her the way I did her pussy, sucking her tongue into my mouth and lightly biting down on it.
My hands cupped her ass, and I rolled her against me over and over until she finally cried out with her release.
The sound of her orgasm spurred one of my own, and I came in my jeans.
I didn’t fucking care.
I had no control when it came to Aspen Winters.
She pulled back and smiled at me again. There she was. The girl I fell in love with. For just a moment, she had that carefree, don’t-give-a-fuck look on her face, and then it fell.
“Will you listen and let me explain?”
“Will it piss me off?”
She inhaled deeply before answering with a shrug. “Probably.”
I cradled her cheek and rubbed my thumb over her bottom lip. Slipping my hand around to the back of her neck, I yanked her forward and kissed her hard.
“Tell me.”
Anger boiled inside me as she told me that she’d planned to run. I understood why she did. Aspen was selfless. She put everyone before herself. She’d been doing it for years, hiding to protect the man who gave her away.
“Do not fucking run from me, baby girl.”
“I need you to listen and not interrupt.”
I pressed my lips together; it was the best I could do. I wouldn’t promise her something I didn’t know I could deliver. And it was a good thing I didn’t because when she finished telling me about the asshole who grabbed her outside, I was ready to go find him and put a fucking bullet in his head.
“I have to tell King.”
“You can’t. Not yet.”
“Aspen,” I said, and she jumped off my lap.
“Don’t. Don’t do that. I have been begging you for months to call me by my name; don’t do it now because you aren’t getting your way. That’s an asshole thing to do.”
“Tell me who it was.”
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Go ahead, tell King what I told you. It won’t matter if you don’t know who it was.” She spun around and marched down the hall, slamming her bedroom door behind her.
I looked at Diesel; his eyes said it all.
I was fucked.
We were back to her not speaking to me. At least this time, she would answer when I asked her a question. She just wouldn’t talk to me voluntarily.
I thought about what she’d told me. About the man who stopped her from running. She was willing to stay for him, but not for me.
Who the fuck was he?
“Diesel, let’s go for a walk.” She set the book she’d been reading on the couch and stood. Her long legs looked even longer in the tiny shorts she wore. I swear she was doing it to torture me.
She grabbed her sneakers and slipped them on as Diesel danced around her, waiting to go out. I stood up from the table and followed her onto the porch.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking a walk with you.”
“You weren’t invited.”
I smiled at her and smacked her ass. She spun around, her gasp opening her mouth enough for me to lean forward and shove my tongue between her lips. There was a chance she might bite me, but it was a risk I was willing to take.
It paid off when she melted against me and groaned as I kissed her.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and held her tight against me.
I wanted her to feel how hard I was. Wanted her to know what she did to me.
Diesel barked, impatient for his walk, and Aspen pulled back.
Her eyes locked onto my lips while her tongue darted out as though she was tasting me.
I waited for her to chastise me; yell at me for taking what I wanted without asking. But when she looked up, I didn’t see anger. I saw longing. She blinked it away and turned without a word, taking the few steps to the ground. I followed with a smile.
I was wearing her down.
Knocking down her walls brick by brick and throwing them away so she couldn’t build them back up. I would find the girl she was, if it was the last fucking thing I did.
“Will you tell me about your sister?”
My feet stumbled beneath me at her question, but by some miracle I managed to stay upright. I hadn’t been expecting her to say anything, least of all ask me about Kaylah.
“What do you want to know?” I asked, emotion clogging my throat.
Aspen stopped walking and turned toward me. Compassion shone on her face, and she reached out and took my hand. Turning away, her feet started moving again, and I had no choice but to follow—our hands locked together.
“What happened to her?”
“When she was sixteen, she ran away. I was twenty and had moved out of the house, on my own. But I didn’t leave her.
I talked to her every day, and on the weekends, she stayed with me.
I should have seen it. Should have known something was wrong.
She’d gotten quieter, more subdued. Every time I asked her what was wrong, she told me it was school.
She was worried about her grades, or she was fighting with her friends. They were all bullshit excuses.
“Then one day I called, and she didn’t answer.
That wasn’t like her; she always answered, but I still didn’t think anything was really wrong.
Three days passed, and I still couldn’t reach her, so I went to the house.
My father told me she’d run off. The son of a bitch didn’t bother to call me, or ask me to help find her, nothing. ”
I squeezed her hand, desperate for her touch. Desperate for her to hold on to me.
“I went to her room and searched through her things. I knew she kept a diary. Knew whatever had been going on would be written in those pages. I should have pushed her more. I should have made her talk to me.”
“You can’t force someone to talk.”
I halted my steps and waited for her to turn around. When she did, I saw the pain in her eyes. “I should have said yes.”
“I wasn’t your responsibility.”
“You were. I knew the first day I saw you, you were mine.” I lifted my hand and brushed her cheek with the back of my fingers.
“Did you find her diary?”
I dropped my hand and breathed through my nose like a bull waiting to charge. She had no way of knowing what her question would do to me. How it would make me feel. How the rage would boil in my blood.
I let go of her, afraid I’d hurt her. She stepped closer, her hand on my chest. I covered her hand with mine, holding it there, breathing her in and letting her touch settle over me. Letting it calm the anger.
“I found it. When I read it, I found out what my father was doing to her. She’d never said a word.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died when Kaylah was thirteen. My father never remarried. Never had a girlfriend. I should have questioned it. Should have questioned him. I foolishly thought he’d loved my mother so much that no one could take her place.”
“But Kaylah did,” she whispered.
“Kaylah did,” I repeated, the words hollow and void.
My baby sister had been forced to take my mother’s place in my father’s bed.
The son of a bitch had been raping her for years, and I never knew.
Never even suspected. I’d thought she was just a moody teenager—that with time she would work through it and be herself again.
I’d failed her. Failed my mother. And I’d failed Aspen. The three most important women in my life and I’d failed them all.
“Do you know what happened to her?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been looking for her ever since. I don’t know whether she is alive or dead.”
“What happened to your father?”
I looked into her eyes. I wanted her to see the real me. The me that would do whatever was needed to protect her, to avenge her.
“I killed the son of a bitch.”