TESSA #2
He lays me down instead of throwing me. The mattress dips beneath him as he removes my boots, his gaze fixing on my damp panties. Tank tears the panties down my legs, then slows as he spreads my thighs, his hunger leaving me more exposed than nakedness.
His mouth lowers. The first stroke of his tongue is broad and slow. My hips lift, but his forearms lock across my thighs while he watches each reaction and repeats whatever makes me gasp until I’m shaking beneath him.
The restraint should make panic spark, but it doesn’t.
The knowledge turns the pressure of his arms into pure heat.
He drags his tongue over me again, slower this time, and watches the reaction he pulls from my body.
There’s something devastating about a man built to break things learning exactly how to make me come apart instead.
“You like holding me down now?”
“Only because you can tell me not to.”
Then he sucks hard enough to wipe every thought from my head.
Tank feels the climax building and slides one hand to my breast, working my nipple while his tongue drives me higher. I come with his name torn from me, and he keeps going until I shove at his shoulder.
“Too much.”
He stops immediately. The sudden obedience is almost as hot as everything before it.
Tank rises and unfastens his belt. I watch because I want him to know I’m watching as his jeans and briefs hit the floor, leaving him thick, hard and already wet at the tip.
He settles over me, sliding through my wet heat and rubbing over nerves he’s already made oversensitive. I arch, trying to take him, but he holds back.
“Stop making me wait.”
“I’m going to make sure you really feel me.”
Tank pushes in slowly, the stretch burning deep and heavy while every muscle in his shoulders locks. When he’s fully inside, he stops.
“You’re shaking,” I whisper.
His forehead drops to mine. “Because I want to fuck you through this mattress.”
Heat flashes through me so hard I clench around him. I lift my hips, and his restraint snaps.
He pulls almost all the way out and drives back in hard enough to knock a cry from my throat. The bed strikes the wall. Tank freezes for half a second, but I hook my leg higher and drag him closer.
“Again.”
The next thrust is harder. He takes my mouth while his hips settle into a deep, relentless rhythm, every stroke grinding against nerves still raw from his tongue. I claw down his back as he drives me into the mattress.
This is the strength I feared at the motel, force barely leashed and capable of overwhelming me. The difference is that now I’m pulling him closer.
I bite his shoulder. Tank answers with a rough growl, catches my wrist and presses my hand above my head while his other hand lifts my knee. The next thrust reaches impossibly deep.
“This doesn’t mean I forgive you for kidnapping me,” I gasp.
“I know.”
“It doesn’t make me yours.”
He drives into me again, slower this time, making me feel every inch. “No. But I’m already yours.”
The confession is too raw to be calculated, spoken as though he hates the weakness of it and would still tear himself open rather than lie. I expected possession from a man like Tank. I didn’t expect surrender, and I certainly didn’t expect him to offer it without demanding mine in return.
Something inside me gives way. I drag his mouth back to mine, and he releases my wrist only to lace our fingers together, holding our joined hands against the mattress while he moves harder.
He holds me possessively, and his thumb finds my clit. The first rough circle makes me jerk, and he changes the angle of his hips, grinding deep while his fingers work me in time with every thrust.
“Tank, I’m—”
“I know. Give it to me.”
The command sends me over. My body locks around him, climax tearing through me harder than the first. His rhythm breaks, and he buries himself deep with a hoarse sound against my throat, his body shuddering as he comes.
For several seconds neither of us moves. The moment I shift, Tank releases my hand and searches my face. Not asking whether the sex was good, but whether he took something I didn’t mean to give.
“I’m fine, Tank.”
Some of the violence leaves his expression. Tank withdraws carefully, then bends and presses one unexpectedly gentle kiss to the inside of my thigh before reaching for his jeans.
I look away. I knew exactly what to do with the roughness because I wanted it, matched it and demanded more. It’s the tenderness afterward that slips beneath my guard.
I pull the sheet over myself. “Sex doesn’t make what happened acceptable. I haven’t forgiven you, and I don’t know what this was.”
Tank sits on the edge of the bed and drags on his jeans. “I know what it was for me. You don’t have to call it the same thing.”
“What was it for you?”
“The end of me pretending I’m walking away from you when this is done.”
Before I can answer, someone knocks. Tank is instantly between me and the doorway, pulling on his shirt before opening it only far enough to block the view inside.
Cash tells him two vehicles are circling the north road, another is parked near the service turnoff, and Gray is tracking a man through the trees. Harlan is watching the compound, though nobody has moved on the gates yet.
“Tell Kane I’m coming.”
Tank closes the door and reaches for his cut. Harlan paid Kingdom Come to make me disappear. Now the whole club stands between us, and the man pulling on his enforcer patch looks as if he hopes Harlan is stupid enough to put one hand on me.