Chapter 8 #2
Toni and her fucking skirts. As a general rule, Ranger didn’t give a fuck what a woman wore, be it baggy lounge attire or a sexy, low cut outfit.
But damn. First that little black dress she wore last night and now this knee-length gray skirt with a flare?
Yeah. Ranger was definitely becoming pro-skirt on Toni.
Not to mention the easy access. On the back of his bike, absolutely, she was wearing proper protective gear.
Any other time? If he had his way, she’d be in a skirt.
How had he survived without this woman in his life?
They’d only known each other a day—and a day mostly spent apart at that.
Yet he felt more connected to Toni than he did any other woman he’d ever dated or known platonically.
It was hard not to play the what-if game around her, since she’d been on the club’s radar for at least four years.
But even thinking about that now tainted the moment, and Ranger wanted all attention on this incredible woman overtop of him.
Sliding his hands up the bare skin of her thighs, Ranger slid under her skirt to her panties, and let out a low moan at what he discovered. “You’re soaked.”
She nodded, her eyes glossy in the nightlight. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so turned on in my life. This is the hottest, craziest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Crazier than sex with a stranger against a tow truck?” Ranger inquired, raising an eyebrow. He worked his hand into her panties, circling his thumb around her clit.
Toni closed her eyes, keeping her hands exactly where he placed them as she rocked her hips against his hand. “Well, maybe not that,” she breathed out on a laugh. “But this definitely takes second place. This is Sophia’s car!”
Ranger chuckled. “And if you knew Sophia like I did, then you’d know how disappointed she would be if we had the opportunity to fuck in her cage and didn’t.”
“Oh, God,” she moaned, though Ranger wasn’t sure if it was brought on by his hands or his words. “Please don’t tell her we’re doing this. I’ll be mortified.”
“Nothing that passes between us goes any further than you and I,” Ranger vowed. Taking his free hand, he brought it up to her chin, forcing her to tip her face down towards him. “I don’t share, Antonia.”
She visibly shuddered over him. “Why is it so hot when you use my full name? I hate my full name.”
“It’s beautiful,” he declared honestly. “Your eyes flare every time I say it, like someone’s lighting a fire behind your irises. I love how expressive your eyes are.”
“I don’t…” Even in the dark car, Ranger could see her cheeks darken. “I don’t normally look. I don’t know what it is about you. I can’t seem to look away. You’re different, Ranger. I don’t know how and I don’t know why.” Her breath caught as he increased the pressure on her clit. “Oh, God. Ranger…”
“Liam.”
Unlike others—like Bulldog, Lucky, Bear, Steel, and Ghost—Ranger had changed his road name from his military moniker of Snow White.
It had been his teammates’ unoriginal reference to his white-blonde hair.
No way in hell was he bringing that name into the club.
He was proud of his time as a Ranger. He’d earned that scroll, and wanted to carry it with him.
Other than his mother and sister, he hadn’t been ‘Liam’ to anyone who mattered in a long, long time.
He didn’t know how, but after a day, he knew with certainty that Toni mattered.
“Liam,” she whispered passionately.
Ranger had to breathe through his nose as his chest shook. “Always Liam to you.”
Her eyes flared, and he wished the cage wasn’t as dark as it was so he could see her more clearly. “Are you sure? That seems so…intimate.”
Taking his hand from her chin to grip the back of her neck, Ranger brought her face down to him, taking her lips in a dominating kiss. “You’re damn right, it is, Antonia.”
Toni stared down at him, but even as she shook her head, her hips never stopped rocking against him. “I can’t… It’s too soon. There are things we don’t know…”
Ranger’s hand tightened on the back of her neck as his other hand increased the stimulation on her sensitive clit.
“I don’t give a fuck. I have been falling, sinking in quicksand, for so long, and with you is the only time I have felt truly like myself in months.
So I don’t give a damn if it’s fast, I don’t give a damn what society says is proper.
I want you, Antonia, and fuck what anyone else thinks. ”
Her breaths started coming out in short, uneven spurts. “I can’t… I don’t know… I can’t think with you touching me like this!” she cried out loudly.
“Then don’t think,” he pressed. “Just feel. Look at me, and feel…”
Toni’s back bowed as her orgasm swept her away, and Ranger could not recall a more beautiful sight in all the world.
He didn’t wait for her to come down. He grabbed a condom from his wallet and released himself from his jeans.
Shifting her panties aside, Ranger got her into position over his hard cock as she still fought for breath.
“Ready?” he questioned the second her eyes met his again.
She nodded quickly, looking very much like a bobblehead.
Ranger pressed himself inside, groaning at the tight feel of her.
He didn’t know what it was about Toni, but she felt incredible.
So different than any other woman he’d been with.
Or maybe it was no mystery at all, and it was simply her.
Maybe he couldn’t love her as she deserved, maybe he wasn’t capable of those feelings anymore.
Honestly, he didn’t give a damn. All he knew, with an immeasurable amount of certainty, was that he’d found the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with.
He just had to convince her of that.
* * *
Toni felt drained and reenergized at the same time. Like she could run a marathon if she could just find it in her to get up. And yet, there was absolutely no part of her that wanted to move ever again. The inside of the car was hot, their combined body heat a furnace in the already warm night.
Ranger’s fingers traced up and down her spine, so lightly that if it wasn’t for the sparks of his touch she likely wouldn’t have felt it.
Still on top of him, Toni was slumped against his chest, her head tucked under his chin.
They were a mess. Carefully, Toni had brought her hands down from where he’d placed them, and to her surprise, he had not stopped her.
Why was it that sometimes she was able to touch him, and other times, it appeared as if she could not?
He never said ‘no’, never told her he did not consent to or did not want her touching him.
So why was it that he now allowed her to wrap her arms around his neck and play with the hair at the base of his skull when, during sex, he did not want her touch? Was she reading too much into it?
The smart play would be to ask. She was an attorney, and used to asking the hard questions. She could argue that she was too comfortable, and did not want to disturb the post-orgasm peace they had found. But she knew the real reason.
Asking would lead to talking, and talking would lead to why both of them were at an NA meeting tonight.
Turned out, Toni was a chicken. A big, fat, clucking chicken who wanted more than anything the ability to freeze time.
They would have to talk. She knew it, and so did he.
The alternative was that they went their separate ways and never spoke again.
Did she want that? Could she walk away from this man she barely knew and yet felt such a connection to?
Toni had spent her entire adult life devoted to her work.
Relationships were secondary, but that was also an excuse.
It was less harsh on the ego than to admit she sucked at relationships.
She’d never had a long-term one, and the ones that she thought might actually become something abruptly ended right after sex.
So maybe she’d stopped trying, stopped looking.
Claimed she was concentrating on work rather than admit the truth that no one wanted her, just wanted what she could do for them.
Yet, Ranger had never asked her for anything.
Hell, she was the one who’d asked him—or his club—to cover up her father’s murder.
When Ranger touched her, Toni felt cherished, and while her brain was busy trying to convince herself it was too good to be true, her heart was already completely wrapped up in Ranger.
In Liam.
Toni didn’t want to be a chicken. Realistically and logically, she knew they couldn’t stay here forever. One of them would have to start talking, and as much as she absolutely hated it, she knew it had to be her. Not to prove him the coward, but to prove to herself that she wasn’t.
Taking a deep breath, Toni sat upright on his lap.
He was still naked beneath her. From the feel of it, the used condom was still hanging from his flaccid dick.
They’d really made a mess of Sophia’s car, and Toni was already working a stop to the car wash into her schedule tomorrow to make it up to her friend.
Ranger’s eyes were closed with his head lolled against the backrest. If it wasn’t for his hand moving up and down her back, she might have assumed him to be asleep. Then he blinked, eyes shifting to her in the dark without moving his head.
There were so many questions to be asked, so many things to be said. Toni had no idea what was the best or proper place to start, but figured any conversation was better than no conversation. “I didn’t know you were in recovery.”
Ranger lifted an eyebrow. “Wasn’t like we’ve actually taken the time to stop and talk between bouts of sex.”
Fair point. Toni lowered one hand to his chest over his shirt, and again, he did not stop her. “Which, unfortunately, leads me to the most clichéd, girly question I swore to myself I was never going to ask, but is that all this is? Is this just sex to you?”
His eyes never wavered as he stared directly at her. “No.”