Chapter 12
Kemah
I wake up gasping for air. No. That’s not quite gasping.
Is that panting? Why am I panting? Then I feel the wave of pleasure shoot through my body.
My lips part as sounds come out. Am I dreaming?
What the hell? I try to pry my eyes open, but there’s only darkness.
Why can’t I see? This has to be a dream.
Another flick over my clit, and my body arches. Then I hear the groan. It’s Hodge, and he’s buried between my thighs. This has to be a dream. There’s no way this is actually happening. It can’t be.
I lower my hand and find a head full of hair between my parted thighs as rockets burst inside me. Instead of pushing his head away, I tug his hair, earning a growl from him in return.
As I come down from the high, Hodge slowly licks at every part of me until he finally pulls away. He doesn’t say a word, just crawls up the bed, drops down next to me, and tosses his hand over his head as if he never did anything.
“What the hell?” I mumble.
“Good, right?”
“Why did you do that?”
“If you heard the way you were moanin’ in your sleep, then you’d know why.”
“I was moaning?”
“Yeah. Sounded like a good dream too, but I couldn’t let some fake man in your head make you moan like that, so I handled the job.
” My mouth falls open when he turns his head to look at me.
Even in the dark, I can feel his eyes burning straight through me.
Hodge moves, flipping the light on before returning to the same position.
His eyes bore into me, and I found myself wiggling under his stare.
“It was a dream.”
“No, sweetheart. That was all me.” He moves his head closer to me, reaching up to wrap his hand around the back of my head, pulling my face closer to his. “Now kiss me.”
“What?”
“I said, kiss me. I want you to taste your pussy all over my lips. I want you to see exactly why I’ll be doin’ that again soon.”
“We can’t do that.”
“I said, kiss me, Kemah.” Without overthinking it, I lean in and press my lips to his.
He shakes his head, pulling back slightly, confusing me.
“I said, kiss me. I want you to fuckin’ devour my mouth with yours.
” No one has ever talked to me like he does, and there’s a part of me that likes it.
So when I lean in this time, I kiss him.
I kiss him until I’m nearly breathless, and then he takes over.
His mouth claims mine in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
Our kiss becomes heated quickly, and the next thing I know, Hodge is on top of me, his body fitting perfectly between my legs.
His cock is hard as it presses against me, and I moan into his mouth.
He rocks his hips, rubbing against me until I’m lifting my hips to match his.
But as quickly as he got here, he’s gone.
Hodge moves off me and stands, adjusting himself before running his hand through his hair.
“Fuck,” he curses under his breath.
“It’s fine. I get it.”
“Get what?” he asks, turning to look at me now.
“Why you stopped.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do. I’ve seen myself, Hodge.” He huffs out a dark laugh before grabbing the waistband of his shorts and yanking them down. His cock is there, hard and glistening at the tip. I swallow hard as I drag my gaze back up to meet his.
“This look like a man who didn’t want inside of you?”
“But you stopped.”
“You don’t deserve this shit, Kemah. Fuck. I said I was gonna find out what’s goin’ on with you, not fuck you.”
“Well then, what the actual fuck were you doing between my legs?” I snap as I sit up and grab for the shorts he’d given me to sleep in. I sit up and pull them back on, standing to get them up.
“I told you why.”
“So, a woman moans, and you think you need to fix the issue?” I snarl in his direction.
“Not any woman, no.”
“Then why, Hodge?” I yell louder this time. Hodge wipes his hand down his face before bending over and pulling his shorts back up.
“I’ve done a lot of shit in my life. I’ve fucked up a lot of lives, Kemah.”
“Meaning?”
“Meanin’, I don’t want you involved in it.”
“I don’t even know you! You’re over here talking like we’re getting married, Hodge.
What the fuck?” What is with him? He acts like we’re going to run to Vegas and get hitched when all it was was sex.
It was just sex, right? He couldn’t look at me any differently, not after the girls I’ve seen around here.
“Just … go to sleep.”
“No.”
“I said go to sleep,” he demands this time. Fuck this. Fuck him. I don’t care if I have to be homeless; I’m not staying in this room with him. I roll my eyes, grab a pillow, and stomp toward the door when he stops me.
“Where the hell are you goin’?”
“I’ll sleep on one of the cum couches.” He snorts a laugh before blocking the door.
“No, you won’t.”
“Where am I sleeping then, Hodge? Because with you isn’t an option.”
“The fuck it’s not. I said you’re stayin’ in this room,” he argues.
“And I said fuck you,” I argue back.
“I would like nothin’ more than to sink my cock inside you. Show you what the fuck a real man feels like. Show you what a real man could do with a body like yours,” he says, keeping his tone even as he steps toward me.
“But?”
“You don’t deserve my life.”
“That makes no sense. You do know that, right?”
“Makes perfect sense. If I fuck you, Kemah-”
“What? If you fuck me, what?” He licks his lips and looks as if he’s torn on what he’s about to say, but I push him anyway. “What, Hodge? If you fuck me, what’s going to happen?”
“I’m keepin’ you! If I fuck you, I’m keepin’ you. You get that? I told myself a long time ago the next fuckin’ person I had my cock in was gonna be mine, Kemah!”
“You don’t want me.”
“How do you know?”
“You don’t know me.”
“You came back, Kemah. You fuckin’ stayed with me. Do you know what that means to someone like me?”
“What do you mean, someone like you?” I ask now.
“Someone like me! A man who’s been so fuckin’ lost for years he couldn’t see good things in front of him.
A man who dragged someone else into his life and then watched it all shatter!
A man so fuckin’ broken he never thought anyone could see through the shards at who he truly is!
That’s what I mean.” His roar sends a chill down my spine.
How can someone who looks so put together be that broken inside? What happened to him?
“A woman?” I ask softly, needing to know what happened.
“Go to bed.”
“No. Tell me. Please.” I bite my lip as I look at him, waiting for him to give me another piece of himself. I don’t know why I want it. Maybe it’s because I see something as broken in him that he sees in me. Maybe we’re two messed-up hearts just trying to find our way in this world.
“Yeah, a woman.”
“What happened?”
“I happened!”
“I need more than that,” I tell him. Now he looks up at me with glossy eyes, as if he’s remembering every single thing that tore him apart.
“She was younger than me, had a little girl. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a dad, but I liked her.
I brought her into the club life. She loved it.
Every fuckin’ second of it, and so did that little girl of hers.
They found their family here. One day Becky begged me to teach her to ride, so I did.
She got good at it, too. I woke up one mornin’ and heard the rev of my bike outside, and I thought it was kind of strange, yeah?
I wasn’t on it. I got up and dressed as quick as I could, and rushed outside thinkin’ someone was stealin’ it.
Well, Becky was on it with Cheryl, her little girl.
I remember callin’ her name, and she looked over with sadness in her eyes.
I knew that was it. I knew she was tryin’ to get away from me, from the club, but she wasn’t a trained rider,” he says as emotions fill his eyes.
My heart is breaking. I can almost picture what happens next, and it’s killing me to listen to him tell me. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him.
I raise my hand to stop him, but he shakes his head.
“You wanted it. You’re gettin’ it.”
“No. Just stop.”
“I saw the look and I knew, yeah? This was it. This was her way out. I started toward her, ready to tell her I’d get her a car, a ticket, anything she wanted if she didn’t try to ride that bike with Cheryl on it.
She didn’t stop, though. She turned her head, ignored my screams, and took off out of here.
I ran down the driveway behind her … she didn’t stop, or look, for that matter.
She was hell bent on gettin’ the fuck out of here, that she pulled out in front of a truck.
The impact threw them both. Strangely enough, they landed next to each other.
Blood was comin’ out of every hole on Cheryl, her little head was …
” I’m going to be sick. I can’t do this.
I can’t hear this. I raise my hand to cover my mouth as he continues.
“They were gone. Both of them. There was no way they could have survived that. I begged her, though. I don’t fuckin’ know why.
She didn’t want me, want this life. But I still fuckin’ begged her to stay with me.
I begged her to be with me, to just hold on.
” He reaches up and wipes a stray tear from his cheek before scratching at his jaw.
“That’s the reason, Kemah. That’s why I can’t fuck you without keepin’ you, and that’s why I can’t keep you.” With that, he turns and leaves me a sobbing mess in the room alone.