Chapter Ten #2
Thank God I’d been smart enough not to stash all the money at the clubhouse. Or I’d be dealing with trying to figure out this new chronic illness of mine while also working some soul-sucking job. Though, yeah, money was dwindling down. Even with being careful.
But once I had my club back, I would have to figure out how to pay bills. And quickly.
“It just feels different because of what the girls have gone through.”
“Yeah.”
“They might find it empowering in a way. Having the upper hand on men again after being under their thumbs.”
“Maybe. I won’t know until they’ve gone through recovery and therapy for what happened to them, though. And I will need money before then. I have the mortgage mostly paid off, but bills will roll in eventually.”
“You can switch up the kind of blackmail. Plenty of secrets can be uncovered without putting beautiful women in front of lecherous men.”
“True,” I said. “I think I’d need to take some classes on, hacking and shit, though.”
“I happen to know a hacker,” Colter said.
“Let me guess… Rook.”
“How’d you know?”
“I dunno. It always seems to be the skinny guys with lots of ink.”
“Yeah. He could teach you a thing or two. Just an option to keep in mind.”
“I will,” I said. Though I knew myself well enough to know that asking for help was probably not going to be in my future. Toxic? Probably. But I wasn’t sure if that was fixable at this point.
“I got it from here,” I said when we reached the road across from the motel. He shot me a raised brow look that said, We’ve been here already. “Fine,” I said with a sigh.
But, secretly, in a little place I planned to keep buried, I was glad he stayed at my side.
“Thank Detroit for dinner for me,” I said when we reached the door.
For maybe the first time in my life, I felt awkward with a man. Like I had no idea the right thing to say or do.
“Will do. See you tomorrow,” he said.
He paused for just a moment.
But whatever he was going to say or do, I’d never know, because he turned. Not back toward the clubhouse, though. He seemed to be heading toward town.
I’d just gotten my door unlocked and let Sugar rush in ahead of me when the door next to mine creaked open.
“Well, well, well,” a voice said, making me suck in an annoyed breath. Because every woman knew that tone. Knew the intentions behind it. “I didn’t know my neighbor was so hot.”
I cast a sideways glance at him because it was never good to let a possible predatory man remain faceless. He looked like he sounded. Slimy. Greasy. With sunken cheeks and close-set eyes. And a long, almost gaunt body clad in low-hanging jeans and a dirty white wifebeater.
“Fuck off,” I said.
“Oh, come on. Neighbor gotta be friend—whoa, what the fuck—”
He was looking past me.
I didn’t see what he was looking at until Colter appeared out of nowhere, grabbing the guy by the throat and pinning him to the wall. Then the guy lifted up. Colter lifted him up with one damn hand.
Hot.
God, that was insanely hot.
Even if, yet again, I did not need to be saved.
“We got a rule in this town,” Colter said, his tone eerily calm as the man’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.
“When a woman says fuck off, you fuck off. And if you don’t fuck off, well…
” He let the threat hang as his hand stayed clamped around the guy’s throat, making his eyes widen as he couldn’t draw in a breath.
“You’re gonna kill him,” I said, reaching out, placing a hand on Colter’s giant arm, the muscles tightening with the strain of holding onto the guy as he started to fight.
“He hasn’t even passed out yet,” Colter said, still freakishly calm, even as his arm started to shake from trying to hold onto the wriggling man.
“Colter,” I snapped, pulling harder on his arm.
While his little assault was actually kind of sexy, I didn’t want the guy to go back to prison for it.
There was a darkness in his eyes as he kept staring at the man, who looked a little blank behind the eyes.
I dropped his arm, grabbed his chin instead, yanked his head to face me.
“Put him down.”
It was like a curtain lifted.
Then the man dropped down to his own feet, gasping hard for breath.
Colter was breathing heavily.
And his gaze was intense—cold and heated at the same time. I couldn’t look away.
I felt a shiver course through me.
But it wasn’t just one of those little inside ones. He saw it.
Then his hand was the one reaching for me, grabbing me by the side of my neck and yanking me forward.
I stumbled into him.
Not a single molecule in my body tried to resist.
My head tilted back.
His lowered down.
There was nothing slow or soft about the kiss. It was all hard and heat, all demand and combustible desire.
Distantly, I heard the guy next door’s door slam.
But then I was being pushed back against the wall of the motel, and I didn’t hear anything but the whooshing in my ears. I felt nothing but his lips, teeth, and tongue.
Colter reached down, grabbing me behind my legs, lifting me off my feet. My legs wrapped around his lower back as his lips slanted over mine again and again.
A low, throaty moan worked its way up my throat and escaped me.
The sound had Colter pulling back. His gaze was molten; his breath panting out of him.
There was something conflicted on his face.
But if there was one thing my body wasn’t right then, it was conflicted.
“I didn’t say to stop,” I said, grabbing both sides of his neck and pulling him to me again.
A rumble moved through him as I took over the kiss, letting the heavy pressure of desire low in my body lead.
I hooked my ankles, then used his body as leverage to drop down until I felt the hard press of his cock against me, then started to rock against it.
There were probably security cameras.
There were likely people driving past.
I couldn’t have cared less as the need coiled tighter and tighter, threatening to snap.
Colter’s hands tightened on my hips.
His body pushed harder against me, letting me feel him even more firmly as I kept writhing, as I drove myself shamelessly up.
His lips swallowed my moans as the movement dissolved into urgency and instinct, the friction having every nerve screaming for release.
Then I came. Relentless. Brutal. Perfect.
I cried out against his lips, felt the vibration of his groan in response.
He ground against me, dragging out the pleasure until I was trembling and boneless against him.
My lips broke from him, my face buried near his neck as I tried to catch my breath.
Colter’s face leaned against the side of my head for a second as we stood there, the world suspended.
But then he wrapped his arms around me, turned, and walked.
I had no idea where.
I didn’t really even care.
I was all bursting bubbles of satisfaction right then, floaty and weightless.
But the world tilted.
He tilted.
And my back met the mattress.
His hands slid down my thighs, reaching back to unhook my legs.
Then he moved away, leaving me staring up at him.
The look on his face was unexpectedly soft as he stood there watching me for a moment.
“Goodnight, Dylan,” he said.
Then he turned… and left.
But not before he made sure the door was locked before he closed it.
“What the hell was that?”
I folded up, staring at the door as if his retreat through it didn’t make sense.
It didn’t.
I mean, I’d been primed. Ready. Willing.
Why the hell had he left?
It wasn’t long before the confusion gave way to something like rejection.
And because that was uncomfortably like he’d left me stinging in places I thought were well-protected, I went ahead and got angry about it.
Because that was a lot more comfortable than admitting that he made me feel something, made me want something.
Made me want him.
And something told me it was deeper than just simple desire.
That, well, that just couldn’t stand.
I had to cut it off at the knees before it made me do something monumentally stupid.
Like catch feelings for some fucking biker.