Chapter 7
Talia
I wake up because I’m warm.
And my thighs ache.
Heat crawls up my face even though no one is awake to see it.
I lie very still and take inventory like that’s a normal thing to do after losing my virginity to a terrifying biker on a motel floor.
Arms? Functional.
Legs? Questionable.
Heart? Loud.
Dignity? Missing, presumed dead.
Jayce breathes against the back of my neck. His chest is pressed to my spine. One of his legs is tangled with mine beneath the blanket. His hand rests low on my stomach, broad and warm and possessive even in sleep.
Something in my chest goes soft in a way I do not trust.
I should be thinking about Brianna.
I am thinking about Brianna.
The guilt is there, heavy and waiting.
But there is also this.
His body around mine. His breath on my skin. The low ache between my thighs where he made me his and then held me afterward like I mattered beyond the heat of it.
Forever, he said.
Insane man.
Worse, some ruined, reckless part of me believed him.
I shift carefully, trying not to wake him.
The arm around my waist tightens.
A low rumble vibrates against my shoulder. “Where you going?”
My heart jumps.
“Nowhere,” I whisper.
“Good.”
His voice is rough with sleep, deeper than earlier, scraped raw around the edges. It slides right through me.
I turn my head enough to see him.
Bad idea.
Terrible.
He looks unfair in the red motel light. Hair mussed. Jaw dark with stubble. Eyes half-open and still somehow sharp enough to pin me in place. His scarred chest is bare above the blanket, one arm under his head, the other still banded around me.
“You sleep like a guard dog,” I whisper.
“You wake up like trouble.”
“I woke up very respectfully.”
His gaze drops to my mouth. “Liar.”
My pulse stumbles.
He notices.
Of course he does.
His hand spreads over my stomach, fingers flexing once, just enough to remind me how big he is. How strong. How careful he was with all that strength.
I should say something clever.
I have built an entire personality around saying something clever.
Unfortunately, my brain is currently a puddle wearing boots.
“Are you hurting?” he asks.
The question is quiet.
Serious.
My face heats again. “A little.”
His eyes sharpen. “Was it too much?”
“No.” I swallow. “Just… enough to remember.”
Something dark and satisfied moves across his face.
“There she is,” he murmurs.
“What?”
“My brave little hellcat.”
My stomach dips.
That nickname should not do this to me. It should make me roll my eyes or threaten him with vending machine cookies.
Instead, it makes me want to crawl under his skin and live there like a deeply inappropriate parasite.
His hand slides from my stomach to my hip, stopping there.
Waiting.
He’s letting me decide.
I hate how much I like that.
I turn slowly beneath his arm until I’m facing him. The blanket shifts, and cool air brushes my bare shoulder. His gaze follows it, hot enough to make me forget the room smells like bleach and bad life choices.
“You didn’t let me touch you before,” I whisper.
His jaw tightens. “After I finished inside you?”
I nearly choke. “Could you maybe not say things like that in your murder voice?”
“That wasn’t my murder voice.”
“There are categories?”
“Several.”
“Comforting.”
His mouth twitches, but his eyes stay on mine.
“You needed rest,” he says.
“I’m awake now.”
The words come out softer than I mean them to.
His body goes still.
Completely still.
I know that stillness now. It is not calm. It is control with its teeth bared.
“Talia.”
“My name is still not a warning label.”
“It is when you wake me up looking like that.”
“Like what?”
His hand tightens on my hip.
“Like you want to be ruined again.”
My breath catches.
The red light flickers across his face, turning him into shadow and hard angles and hunger.
I should be embarrassed.
I am embarrassed.
I am also apparently very, very bad at self-preservation.
I slide my hand to his chest. His skin is hot beneath my palm, scarred and solid. His heart beats slow.
Steady.
“You said forever,” I whisper.
“I did.”
“Then I can want you again.”
His eyes go darker. “You can want anything.”
“Good.”
I move closer.
His hand catches my wrist before I can reach lower. Not hard. Just enough to stop me.
“Careful.”
“You say that a lot.”
“You need to hear it a lot.”
“I’m not going to break.”
“No.” His thumb brushes over my pulse. “But you’re sore, and I’m not taking you again tonight.”
I freeze.
Oh.
Something hot and disappointed twists low in my stomach, followed immediately by the kind of mortification that makes a woman want to fake her own death and start over in another country.
“Right,” I say, pulling back. “Of course. Totally fine. Sensible, actually. Big fan of sensible decisions at three in the morning.”
His grip tightens before I can retreat.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn embarrassed because I’m trying not to hurt you.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
“You’re bright red.”
“It’s the neon.”
“Talia.”
I huff. “Fine. Maybe I’m a little embarrassed.”
His eyes soften at the edges.
Only a little.
Barely enough to count.
But I see it.
“You think I don’t want you?” he asks.
My mouth goes dry.
The blanket is thin. He is not wearing much. The answer is obvious enough to have its own weather system.
Still, my pride is wounded, so I mutter, “I think you are extremely committed to being noble at inconvenient times.”
A rough sound leaves him.
Then he rolls onto his back, taking me with him in one movement that leaves me sprawled half across his chest.
My hair falls around us.
His hands settle on my hips.
“You want to touch me, love?”
My lungs forget their job.
His voice is low.
Rough.
Wide awake now.
“I…” I look down at him. At the ink across his chest, the scars, the hard planes of muscle under warm skin. “Yes.”
“Then touch me.”
My fingers curl against his chest.
“You make that sound very simple.”
“It is.”
“For you, maybe.”
His hands slide up my sides, then back to my hips. Firm. Anchoring. “You don’t have to know everything. You just have to tell me what you want.”
I stare at him.
“What if I don’t know what I want?”
His gaze burns into mine.
“Then I’ll teach you what you like.”
Oh.
Oh, that is absolutely unfair.
“You can’t just say things like that,” I whisper.
“I can.”
“Legally?”
His mouth curves.
A real smile.
Small.
Devastating.
Then it’s gone, swallowed by hunger.
I lower my head and kiss his chest because I need something to do with all the heat rushing through me. His skin tastes like salt and him. I kiss over one scar, then another, following the uneven map of him with my mouth.
His hand slides into my hair and holds there.
The quiet approval in it makes me braver.
“You don’t have to be gentle with me,” he says.
I lift my head.
His eyes are on me, dark and steady.
“You sure?”
“Love, I’ve been shot, stabbed, burned, and thrown off a moving truck.”
I blink. “That was not a yes. That was a medical history of bad decisions.”
His grip flexes in my hair. “Yes.”
My stomach flips.
I kiss lower.
His breathing changes.
That small shift is powerful enough to go straight to my head. Shadow, the terrifying biker who made grown men move their eyes away from his cut, reacts to my mouth on his skin.
Mine, a wild little voice whispers.
I kiss the center of his chest. The hard ridges of his stomach. The line of dark hair disappearing beneath the blanket.
His entire body goes tight.
“Talia.”
I glance up.
His jaw is clenched.
“What?”
“You know you can stop.”
“I know.”
“You know you don’t have to prove anything.”
I pause.
Because of course he sees that. Of course the man who moves through shadows and notices exits and cameras and danger also sees the tiny ugly thing tucked behind my ribs.
The part of me that wants to be useful.
Wanted.
Enough.
“I’m not proving anything,” I say.
His gaze holds mine.
I take a breath.
Then I give him the truth.
“I want to know what you look like when you lose control because of me.”
Silence drops over the room.
For one second, even the neon seems to stop flickering.
Then Shadow’s eyes go black.
“Careful,” he says again, but this time it sounds less like a warning and more like a prayer.
“No.”
His brows draw together.
I slide lower, settling between his thighs.
“Not careful,” I whisper. “Honest.”
His chest rises hard.
I push the blanket down.
He is beautiful in a way that should have another word. Rugged. Scarred. Powerful. Unashamed. Every part of him looks like it was made to survive war and bad roads and worse men.
And right now, because of me, he is barely breathing.
That does something to me.
Something wicked.
Something brave.
I touch his cock with trembling fingers.
His hand fists in the blanket.
I look up fast. “Okay?”
His laugh is rough enough to scrape. “You’re asking me?”
“I’m new at this.”
“I noticed.”
“Rude.”
“Love.” His voice drops. “I’m hanging on by a thread.”
My whole body warms.
“Well.” I lower my mouth, then pause because apparently even my courage has a dramatic flair. “Hold on better.”
Then I taste him.
His curse is quiet, vicious, and absolutely the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.
Power moves through me. Hot and bright. He could stop me. He could guide me. He could take over in half a second.
He doesn’t.
He lets me learn.
Lets me be curious.
Lets me set the pace until I get braver and his hand tightens in my hair.
“That’s it,” he rasps. “Just like that.”
Praise from Shadow should not make my entire body melt.
It does.
I learn the sounds he tries to swallow. The way his stomach tightens when I use my tongue. The way his breathing turns ragged when I get confident. The way his control breaks in pieces, not all at once.
A flex of his jaw.
A curse under his breath.
A rougher grip in my hair.
My name, wrecked and low.
“Talia.”
I look up at him.
That is apparently a mistake.
His eyes lock on mine, and something brutal moves through his face.
“Come here.”