Twelve
S trangely, instead of being dragged into more of the situation Ice had just discovered, Reacher stayed true to his word, and sent me to go and fortify Elise’s room for her. Stitch looked pissed, but he knew it had to happen, and even though he didn’t trust me for some unknown reason, he also knew they needed to work out who’d hacked them.
Don’t get me wrong, because I kinda liked that Tesio guy, but I wasn’t convinced it wasn’t him, even if he just did it to prove some kind of hacker superiority or some shit.
The most important part of what had just happened was that I was alone with Elise, and able to offer her the comfort I was risking my life to act on right there in Reacher’s office.
“You were gone all night.” She was standing in her room with her arms tight around her again. Was she doing that because I wasn’t holding her? Was it her way of trying to replicate the comfort Cammy and I had offered when we held her?
I turned the lock on the door and made my way over to hold her again. Damn… it felt like everything in the world went away when she was in my arms. How was she affecting me so intensely when we barely even knew each other? Every time I had the opportunity to pull her into my arms, she never hesitated, almost like she was being thrown against me. Her body crashed against mine, every sweet soft inch pressing against me, and I groaned.
“Worst possible time to get a boner. I’m sorry, babe. You don’t need that from me right now.” I tried angling away so she couldn’t feel it, but every move away from her was chased by her body as she pressed close again.
“I was so scared last night. I wished I could call you and hear your voice as I sat here in the dark, and watched the door until the sun came up.”
“Jesus. I wish I’d been here for you. I hate the idea of you being that afraid, especially here, in the only place I’ve ever been happy. It’s a good place, Elise.”
She lifted her face, pressing one palm against my cheek. My god, even that innocent touch made me want her more.
“Kiss me, Has-Been, please.”
I didn’t argue. She needed what she needed right now, and I’d never withhold anything that could offer her comfort. Our lips met as we both moved closer, and this time it was her tongue that teased at my lips, and shattered the tiny fragment of control I’d been trying to hide behind.
With a low growl, I threaded my fingers through her hair, and crushed our mouths together, tasting her with every brutal surge of my tongue. Her soft whimpers as we kissed were devastatingly sweet, and torturous, because I wanted to lay her down and see what other sounds I could wrench from her lips as I pleasured her body, and exorcised her demons.
Sounds. Her sounds. Fuck! I pulled back, and forced myself to breathe, before I ended up diving right back in again.
“Sounds… the text said sounds. He liked the way you sounded? When did he talk to you?”
She was blinking sluggishly, trying to follow my train of thought.
“I uh… what? Oh, oh god…” Suddenly she was pushing me back, and letting go of her took so much out of me. Everything that had felt right just seconds ago was replaced with wrongness. She belonged in my arms, not out of them.
Elise
A rghhh he was so frustrating! One minute he was intensely focused on me, and the next he was caught up in something else, and pushing me away, or was I pushing him? I had no idea anymore.
“Elise, what did he mean? Did you meet this guy?”
What the hell? “Did I… what’s the matter with you? Suddenly you care if I’ve met other guys? You’re as bad as my brother! I don’t know if I’ve ever met him, okay? I don’t know who he is. My phone rang and I answered it and he… he didn’t speak.”
“You had a funny phone call too?” He followed me as I moved around the room, trying to distract myself with something, anything, so I wouldn’t remember how that guy sounded. The sound of his deviant pleasure, the way it felt like a violation, because I’d never been around a man who made such a sound, and I definitely didn’t want to hear it from a stranger.
“Dammit. Will you stay still? Talk to me. What did he say when he phoned?”
“I already told you. He didn’t speak.”
“At all?”
I couldn’t look at him, focusing on his cut instead, on the neatly sewn patch with his road name. I didn’t even know his real name. Just that he was known as Has-Been. I wasn’t even sure if I knew why that was his name.
“What’s your name? Your real name, I mean?”
He groaned, releasing my arm as he stepped back.
“You’re just gonna dodge the question?”
“I think mine is a valid question. You’ve had your hands on me, and your mouth on me, and I don’t even know your name.”
He narrowed his eyes, and raked his gaze over me.
“Haven’t had my mouth on nearly enough of you, babe. I want to taste every fucking inch of your body.”
Oh god. That’s what I want. That’s exactly what I want.
“Please, Has-Been.”
He let out a curse and turned away, linking his heads behind his neck.
“I swear to god I’m not strong enough for this.”
“For me?”
He turned again, and the intense look in his eyes made me squeeze my thighs together against a sudden tingle of excitement.
“To resist you.”
“To resist me? Maybe you’re not supposed to resist me, Has-Been. Maybe you’re supposed to be with me, did you ever think of that?”
A door slammed out in the hallway and we both glanced in the direction of the door, like we thought someone would walk in, even though the door was locked, and it was unlikely they were anything to do with us.
“That’s why this can’t happen, Elise. We’re in the fucking clubhouse. A building filled with bikers, my brothers, and your brother. My fucking VP . One of only two guys who can take all of this from me. This is all I have. This club is my home. Do you realise what I’m risking, every time I give in to what I fucking want?”
His home. All he has. Maybe I was being selfish for trying to push him into being with me, because he could literally lose everything.
“I get it, I’m sorry. I won’t keep trying to encourage you into something you’re uncomfortable with. Not with what’s at stake for you.” I headed for the door, because someone had to arrange a replacement, and he clearly wasn’t, while he stood in the room with me.
He caught my arm as I reached the door.
“Don’t do that. It’s not about me not being comfortable, it’s about both of us risking a hell of a lot to be together. Jesus… I don’t really have a lot to offer you, Elise. I’m not a guy who could possibly deserve a woman like you, and I can’t provide for you like you deserve. I… I live in a fucking clubhouse, babe. I’m like an overgrown teenager-”
“Like me. See, I didn’t get to grow up, because my brother made sure nobody could help me become a woman. I’m not a woman, Has-Been, because I’m so untouched, and unwanted. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be twenty-one and still have a fucking hymen?”
His face reddened and he let go of my arm.
“Jesus, Elise. Don’t say shit like that to me. Please don’t fucking say shit like that.”