Chapter Sixteen
What the hell are you doing?
Once again, Autumn gagged the stupid voice in her head. This time she hog-tied the twit and locked her in a closet. She was doing exactly what she wanted to be doing, and for once in her life, she was letting want have the reins.
That voice had been in charge most of her life, telling her to ignore homophobic jerks who made comments about her dads when she wanted to dump drinks on their heads. Telling her to focus on work and find fulfillment in her life through success in her career, when she wanted to find someone to share her life and fill it that way as well. Telling her to manage Chase and use his interest in her to her own advantage, when she wanted to sue him so hard she claimed MWGP right out from under him and his father.
Telling her to be smart, to be strategic, to make no decision until she could see the whole field before her, to make no move that might spiral out of her control. Her inner hall monitor.
That voice had been screaming at her today. Everything she’d done, every decision she’d made (if anything could be said to rise to the level of an actual decision), was reckless. Everything carried the chance of consequences she couldn’t imagine—and those she could, all of them bad.
There was not one single sane reason that she was locked in a bedroom with Daniel Cox, lying beneath him on a bed of ambivalent quality, while he pushed her La Perla bra up from her breasts and sucked one into his mouth like he meant to feed on it. Nothing about where she was now had anything to do with strategy.
But oh, how she wanted this. Him. She wanted him. Daniel Cox, a hick biker who hated his name, hoarded words like each one was solid gold, and frowned so much she could go spelunking in the crease between his eyebrows.
Before today, her answer to the question of what she wanted in a romantic partner had been the same: somebody attractive but not so handsome it became a defining feature of his personality. Somebody educated, who paid attention to the happenings in the world and could hold up his end of a conversation. Somebody who knew how to dress—by which she meant somebody who knew their way around Tom Ford and Burberry, or at least, like Pops, Brooks Brothers.
In high school, she’d made a vision book for all her plans for her life; four pages had been devoted to her dream guy, represented on those pages by a magazine cut-out of Henry Cavill. Back then, she hadn’t yet figured out that really handsome men generally spent a lot of time looking at themselves. Now she’d consider extreme good looks to be a red flag.
Cox was the opposite of her supposed ideal: Cavill-level good looks, with that thick blond hair and heavy blond beard, those ridiculously blue eyes, those broad shoulders, that dangerous shadow taking up permanent residence on his expression. Despite the surprising tendency for random bursts of poetry, he hated to talk, and his education had stopped with trade school. And his dress? T-shirts, jeans, battered boots, and, of course, the kutte. He wouldn’t know the Burberry plaid from a lumberjack.
But Autumn was interested in more than looks and style. When she thought of her ideal partner, she also listed other traits: somebody with a good heart, somebody who wasn’t skimpy with respect, someone who treated her as both an equal and a treasure.
She hadn’t fully realized it before today, but Cox met each of those vastly more important criteria. Even when they argued or bickered, he didn’t condescend to her, try to diminish her. He met her head on, he listened, he said his piece, and he listened again. He treated her as an equal.
And he’d held her hair back while she’d puked. He hadn’t taken advantage of her when she’d drunkenly thrown herself at him. He’d put her to bed and held her when she’d told him she was afraid. As mortified as she felt about that particular night, what it said about Cox was a lot—all of it good.
This was a man with a good heart. Maybe it was encased in concrete and rebar, but it was in there.
It was in the way he gazed down at her now, the way he’d gazed at her since he’d first kissed her tonight—a hungry, needy look, but pulsing too with confusion and maybe even fear. He didn’t understand this any better than she did. They were both off the map, off script, in unfamiliar territory, with no understanding of the language.
Seeing her own feelings in his eyes had Autumn absolutely gone for him, at least for this moment.
What would happen when it was over? She did not care. Later could take care of itself; she was tired of being strategic. A lifetime of careful vigilance had wearied her to her bones, and Cox’s tender ministrations were like therapy. Every quivering thread of pleasure he drew from her body seemed to close a place she’d been bleeding without realizing it.
He growled—growled—against her breast, and his arms and hands clenched around her suddenly, forcefully enough to crack her back. It didn’t hurt, but surprise propelled a soft grunt from her.
His head shot up, and Autumn whimpered at the loss of his mouth.
“I hurt you?” he asked on a gasp.
She’d been so wrong about this man. Brushing her fingers through his hair, she shook her head. “No. I want this—all of it.”
His frown deepened as he studied her, checking for the truth.
An impulse clutched at her throat, to tell him how much she wanted it, how he was rewriting everything she’d thought she knew about sex and men and having sex with men, and she swallowed hard, pushing that impulse away. Too intense. Throwing caution to the wind was pretty great, as it turned out, but she didn’t want to scare the poor man. Or herself.
This was a singular moment in time, and it couldn’t be more than that. She didn’t want her mouth to make promises her mind, in the coolness of distance, wouldn’t keep.
So she raised her head from the pillow and planted her mouth on his. He made a low, rumbling sound and settled in, his hands pushing all over her, finding the hooks of her bra, the last buttons of her blouse, the zipper of her trousers. Autumn kicked her shoes off and got busy with his clothes, raking his t-shirt up his back until she had it nearly over his head and he had to lift up to rid himself of it—
—and oh GOD. Look at him.
He had a full sleeve of ink on his left arm, and the word HORDE in thick, Old-English letters that filled the space between his wrist and his elbow on his right arm, so, without actively wondering, she’d expected him to have multiple tattoos under his clothes. But his chest was unmarked. A broad expanse of firm, contoured flesh, lightly sprinkled with short golden curls.
She spread both her hands wide and set them on his pecs—just as firm as they looked. His heart thudded against her palm, like it was trying to break through the confines of his ribs.
Had any man before ever wanted her so much she could feel it?
Before that thought could evanesce, Cox claimed one of her hands and set his mouth on her palm. He rested there.
It was such a gentle thing to do, Autumn felt her eyes begin to water. She blinked and cleared her sight.
“Too many clothes,” she whispered, because if they spent another minute in this intense stillness, it would come to mean more than it could hold.
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, Cox shifted back to his knees. He drew her pants and underwear from her hips and pulled them off as he stood at the foot of the bed and rid himself of his own clothes.
And again, GOD. He was perfect. Sinewy strength, masculine power. Every part of him was breathtakingly strong and beautiful.
Every part.
“You’re so fuckin’ gorgeous,” he said, his voice a graveled rasp.
A pleased laugh surged from her chest and rolled from her lips as she writhed beneath his scorching gaze. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Naked at the foot of the bed, his erection huge, his skin flushed with need, Cox went still. He stared down at her, frowning, and didn’t move.
Also naked, Autumn lay in a sprawl and stared up at him, wondering. Each passing second made her a little more self-conscious, a little more confused. She held off the growing need to shrink up, to shield herself from the intensity of his regard. But she didn’t understand what was going through his mind. Why had he stopped?
“Cox?” she asked finally. She lifted her arms in invitation.
He blinked. For another second or two, that was his only movement. Then, just as she would have let her arms drop, he caught her hands in his and pulled her from the bed to stand before him. They were so close, and he was so much taller, Autumn had to tip her head back to claim his gaze again.
“You want this?” he asked, his voice so soft the words were more of a thought than a question.
“I want this,” she assured him. Her inner hall monitor made no protest.
His eyes shifted to focus at some point beside her. He nodded. Then he stepped to the side of the bed and sat down. He hadn’t let go of her hands, so she came with him, still standing before him, her gaze still bound to his, but now looking slightly down.
Her eyes dropped lower, taking in his strong shoulders, the notch at the base of his throat, the curve of pecs, the light dusting of golden curls collected there, the tight furrows of his folded belly, his thick cock standing ready, his meaty, firm thighs.
His fingers weaved with hers, and he dipped his head, drawing her attention to his face again. When he had it, he tipped his head toward the cheap dresser. “We need a condom.”
At that moment, Autumn felt a frisson of disappointment. The foreplay was over already? His attention to her breasts had been wonderful, the feel of his rough palms all over her skin had been magical, but there was so much more she wanted ...
She’d forgotten that Cox was a biker, used to a clubhouse full of ready and willing women, used to taking from sex what was offered.
Her inner hall monitor worked the gag loose enough to say, See? What did I tell you?
But Autumn still didn’t care. She was turned all the way up, so hot for this man she was throbbing. This was only sex, and his equipment was more than sufficient to get the job done. So what if she’d need to help herself along a little, to close the gap of disappointing foreplay?
She freed her hand—he’d only give up one—and reached for the box of condoms, pulling one free.
When she offered it to Cox, he shook his head. “You.”
Oh. Well, this could be interesting. In fact ...
Autumn hadn’t gone down on a man for quite a while. Miles, her most recent ex, had used it like a punishment, putting her on her knees whenever he felt she needed humbling. He’d kept his sadistic streak under wraps until she’d been invested enough to bring down her guards, and it had taken her too long thereafter to accept that his goodness had been the anomaly, his cruelty the reality.
After him, in addition to giving up on serious relationships, she’d opted out of that particular facet of sex.
But here she was. Cox hadn’t asked for oral sex, he’d simply indicated, in his typically terse manner, that he wanted her to put the condom on him. The thought of doing more had occurred to her on her own.
And she liked it. Even now, after confronting the memory of Miles, she still wanted Cox’s cock in her mouth.
So she dropped to her knees between his legs and put his cock in her mouth. She set her lips on his scalding-hot tip and sucked until she had as much of him as she could take.
Cox pulled in a loud, shocked breath and rocked backward so forcefully he nearly bucked her off. The reaction was so sudden, so intense, so unlike anything she’d known of him, Autumn nearly laughed with joy. This was amazing! To do this and to be in control?
She wrapped a hand around his base and devoted all her attention to making this taciturn man wild with need. She sucked, bit, licked, kissed, rubbed, everything she could think of, seeking every reaction she could draw from him.
He twitched, rocked, writhed, twisted, moaned, gasped, groaned, grunted. Both his hands grabbed her head, sank into her hair, and pulled. What he didn’t do, through all that wild movement, all those uncontrolled sounds? He didn’t drive himself into her mouth. He didn’t try to make her gag, he didn’t hold her head in place and use her like a sex toy.
Autumn had never felt so powerful on her knees.
And then he called her baby, and her knees went weak.
“Baby—baby—babe! I can’t—Jesus fuckin’—I’m—you gotta—I don’t wanna—”
There, she stopped.
She’d known what those half-formed pleas meant; she knew why he’d asked her to stop. He was close, about to come, trying to stop her before he did it in her mouth.
Until he said he didn’t want to, she assumed he was trying to protect her (sidebar: swoon). But she was in no hurry to give up this astonishingly hot rush of power, and she was absolutely great with swallowing.
Maybe that was all he meant, even when he said he didn’t want to. But in that choice of word, she heard consent being withdrawn.
So she stopped. She pulled carefully back, sat on her heels, and looked up at him.
What a sight he was—flushed and panting, mouth slack and eyes wild with ... everything. She was making him feel everything.
“I like it,” she said, smiling up at him. “We don’t have to stop for me.”
As if he were too stunned to make sense, he didn’t try at first. He simply stared with that slack-jawed, wild-eyed expression. Then he shook his head. “For me,” he said.
Autumn thought she understood that as well: every surge of power she’d felt with her mouth on him, every gasp, groan, twitch, writhe she’d drawn from him, he’d felt it, too—and he’d felt it as power draining from him.
He wasn’t used to feeling so much; he wasn’t used to losing control.
She didn’t like to lose control, either. But on this day, when she’d neutralized her inner hall monitor, she didn’t care about control. It was enough to know she had that power if she wanted to wield it. She didn’t need to wield it always.
Lifting a hand to his cheek, she smiled. “What do you want, Cox?”
He stared hard, diving deep into her eyes. His hands came up and clenched her face, and he surged forward, slamming his mouth over hers, his tongue plunging, claiming every inch.
She threw her arms around his neck and claimed him right back, meeting him as an equal, demanding from him everything he took from her.
Kissing her as if he meant to weld them together, Cox drew her forward, upward, onto his lap. He dropped a hand from her head and flung his arm out, returning to shove his hands between them. Autumn was vaguely confused for a moment until she felt a small, sharp corner and realized that he’d grabbed the condom and was putting it on himself.
He slipped his hands under her thighs, her ass, and pressed upward. Understanding, she lifted herself into his hold and let him position her where they both needed her to be.
As she sank down on him, as she felt every inch of his length, his girth, fill and stretch her, light up every nerve ending like a match, Autumn kept her eyes open and watched Cox. His need for her, his shock at the sudden intensity of their connection, his confusion, his anxiety—it was all there, written in neon-bright letters as big as the Hollywood sign. He was wide open and unguarded, and it was beautiful.
When she was seated on his thighs, completely full of him, he wrapped her up in his arms, held her desperately to his chest, and buried his face in her hair.
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?” he murmured.
Nothing in her life had ever been as sexy, as exciting, as this man so completely lost to lust for her his sense of himself scattered. She was rewriting him as much as he was her.
Was this something real, this thing happening between them? Something more than an isolated experience?
Autumn locked that thought up with her hall monitor. They could both sit in the dark and think about what they’d done.
No more thinking. She twisted her hips, moving him inside her, and they both groaned. Cox moved suddenly then, flipping them around, putting her down on the bed. The swift, purposeful movements sent him even deeper into her, almost impaling her—and Cox’s restraint broke. He shoved himself into her in one forceful surge, withdrew and did it again, and again, and again, bucking his hips against her faster and harder each time until they were crashing together, the bed bouncing against the walls. Each crash pushed a squeaking shriek from Autumn, but it wasn’t pain or fear. It was mounting, igniting ecstasy.
Never in her life had she felt so uninhibited, so hungry, so desperate.
She wound her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck and held on as everything she knew about sex, everything she thought she’d wanted in a man, rearranged and regrouped.
When she came it was sudden, a burst of light and sensation so vivid she arched backward. Her hands clenched and her toes curled. It went on and on and on, Cox slamming into her, chasing his own while he kept hers rolling, the fingers of one hand under her ass, between her legs, strumming her, giving her every single atom of her completion.
He let himself go the second she began to relax. He went rigid as a steel beam from head to toe. She studied the tendons in his neck, the way they rose like flanges, how they pulsed with his racing heart, how his skin darkened to russet.
When it was over, he dropped his weight onto her and let his face fall into the pillow beside her head. How she loved the feel of his weight pressing her into the mattress, holding her, swaddling her. Better than any weighted blanket ever designed.
Autumn drew her fingers through his damp hair. She understood that this was not a mere isolated incident. Whether or not she and Cox were ever alone together again, what happened here had changed her in ways she’d never undo.
In ways she’d never want to undo.
Sense began to return, and she noticed how dark the room had become. Night was fully upon them. Still holding Cox, she checked her smartwatch. They’d been back here longer than she’d realized—more than an hour. She needed to get up, find Chase, get him in the rental car, and head to the B&B.
But she didn’t want to move. So she didn’t.
A few minutes later, Cox sighed and rose onto an elbow. Looking down at her, he brushed stray strands of sweaty hair from her eyes. “I hurt you?” he asked again, a refrain to bookend this sojourn.
Catching his hand, she brought it to her lips and sucked the salty sweat from his fingertips. A sound like a purr caught at the back of his throat.
“You didn’t hurt me. That was ... amazing.” Studying his still-shocked eyes, she asked, “Are you okay?”
A smile almost achieved his mouth. “I got no fuckin’ idea.”
A new clamoring voice rose in Autumn’s mind, begging her to Ask what this means, ask what this means, ask what it means. She’d sooner die that let those mood-killing words loose, so instead she shifted beneath him and said, “I guess we need to face reality again. I need to figure out what’s going on with Chase—”
“No,” he said. That one word, like it was enough.
It wasn’t, not for her. “What? Why no?”
“He’s fine. He’s attended to. I don’t want ...” he stopped and seemed disinclined to finish.
“You don’t want what?” Autumn asked, gently, hoping she knew the answer.
Again he stared down at her, his mouth silent while his eyes screamed.
“What, Cox?” she nudged softly.
He looked away, shifting onto both elbows above her—she realized he was still inside her, still mostly hard. “I feel good right now. Different. I’m not ready ... not to.”
She had known his answer, because it was hers as well.
“Okay.” She kissed him. He relaxed again and settled into that kiss. Soon enough, it was foreplay—and this time, Cox took his time about it.
Eventually, much later, they fell into sated sleep, tangled together in sweaty sheets.
Autumn’s last conscious thought was that she’d been changed in an important, fundamental, but not yet entirely clear way.