Chapter Nine #3
Raven snorts. “I wasn’t going to judge technique.” I glare at her, and she shrugs. “Not out loud.”
Steel’s mouth almost curves. “Good.”
“But I am having you,” I say.
The words leave me bold and reckless and absolutely true. Steel stares at me as if I’ve just handed him something sacred.
Then he nods once. “Then we go now.”
****
The ride back is a blur of dark streets and too much silence. I sit in the back of Savage’s SUV beside Steel because my car is still at the clubhouse and my common sense has apparently resigned.
Raven sits up front beside Savage, turning her head once to look at me. Not intrusive, just checking. I give her a tiny nod, and she faces forward again.
Steel’s hand rests on his thigh between us. Open and waiting, and I put mine in it halfway there. He closes his fingers slowly.
At the clubhouse, no one speaks when we walk in. Savage heads straight for the war room. Raven peels off toward the kitchen, but not before saying, “If anyone interrupts them tonight, I’m letting Mama M handle the body.”
Mama M appears in the doorway. “What body?”
“Future problem,” Raven says.
Mama M looks at me, then Steel, then our joined hands.
Her smile is pure menace. “About fucking time.” And my dignity dies quietly behind my ribs.
Steel leads me down the hall to his room. At the door, he stops. “Are you sure?”
I look at him. The blood on his collar, and the bandage on his hand. Violence in his bones, but restraint in every breath.
“No,” I admit, and his face changes. “But I choose it anyway,” I say.
His eyes close briefly before he opens the door. The room is dim and quiet. He steps in behind me and shuts the door, but he doesn’t lock it until I say, “Lock it.”
The click sounds final, and my pulse jumps. Steel turns to face me, and for a moment, neither of us moves. Then I cross the room and kiss him. He meets me halfway.
The heat is immediate. Not soft, cautious, or the gentle, careful kind of heat that asks permission from the room before it burns it down. This is Steel. It hits like a match dropped into gasoline.
His hands clamp around my hips, fingers digging in just hard enough to make my breath hitch.
Then he lifts me like I weigh nothing, like my body is something he has already memorized in his head and is finally allowed to touch.
My legs wrap around his waist on instinct, and the sound that falls out of me is half gasp, half surrender.
His mouth is on mine the entire way to the bed. Hungry. Rough. Devouring.
He kisses like he fights—focused, brutal, and completely unwilling to lose.
His tongue pushes past my lips, taking every inch I give him, and I give him too much.
I give him everything because I am tired of pretending I don’t want this.
Tired of acting like the sight of his hands doesn’t make me think of filthy things.
Tired of lying to myself every time he looks at me with those hard eyes and that barely leashed violence.
He lays me down like I am precious before he looks at me like he wants to ruin me. The combination should scare me, and it does. But God help me, it also makes me wetter.
I grab his cut, fingers fumbling with need more than nerves, and shove it off his shoulders.
He lets me. Watches me do it, eyes dark, jaw tight, like every second I touch him is another piece of control being stripped away.
His shirt follows, black fabric dragged over his head and tossed somewhere behind him.
Then my hands stop. Bruises bloom across his ribs, dark and ugly against hard muscle and tattooed skin. My chest tightens. “You said you weren’t hurt.”
“I’m not.” I glare at him. Steel catches my wrist and brings it to his mouth, kissing the inside of it with a tenderness so sharp it almost hurts. His lips brush my pulse. “Not enough to stop.”
That shouldn’t turn me on, but it does. So. Fucking. Much.
Heat punches low in my belly, and I tug him down because if he keeps looking at me like that, I may lose my mind before he even touches me properly.
He comes willingly. His big body covers mine, one arm braced beside my head, the other sliding along my waist. I feel the weight of him without being crushed.
The heat pouring off his skin. The strength in every hard inch of him.
The restraint. God, the restraint is what makes me crazy.
He is holding back when I don’t want him to.
I dig my nails into his shoulders, and his breath leaves him in a rough hiss. “Touch me,” I whisper.
Something breaks across his face. His hand slides under my shirt, hot palm dragging over my stomach, my ribs, then higher until he stops beneath my breast.
“Here?” His voice is dark enough to make my thighs tighten.
“Yes.”
He cups me through my bra, his thumb dragging over the sensitive peak, and my back arches off the mattress.
“That’s it,” he murmurs, watching my face like he needs every reaction. “Let me hear you, baby.”
A sound leaves me that I would absolutely deny in court, church, and under threat of death.
His mouth moves lower. Down my jaw, my throat, my collarbone. Every kiss is open-mouthed and dirty, teeth grazing, tongue soothing, beard scraping my skin until I am squirming beneath him. He strips my shirt away inch by inch, not rushing, not fumbling, making me feel every second of exposure.
When my shirt is gone, he looks at me. Really looks. And the hunger in his face goes raw. Not just lust, but need, and possession. Something deeper and far more dangerous.
“You’re fucking beautiful,” he says roughly, and I believe him. That’s the terrifying part.
I believe him because Steel doesn’t say things to be kind. He doesn’t flatter. He doesn’t soften the world so it hurts less. If Steel says I am beautiful, it’s because he sees me beneath the fear and blood and smoke. He sees me and what he sees is beautiful to him.
I pull him back down, kissing him hard enough to bruise. My hands shake as I work at his belt, desperate and clumsy, needing him out of every barrier between us.
He catches my hands. “Slow.”
“I don’t want slow.”
“I do.”
I freeze, and Steel lowers his forehead to mine, breathing hard, eyes burning into mine.
“I want you here,” he says. “Not running from fear. Not trying to drown the night. Not using me because the world went to shit and I’m the closest thing that feels solid.” His voice drops. “Here, Harper. With me.”
My throat tightens. Damn him. Damn him for seeing too much. Damn him for being violence wrapped around patience. Damn him for making me want him more with every filthy, careful word.
“I’m here,” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
I slide my hand to his jaw, fingers tracing the scar there. “Yes.”
That’s the moment he finally lets go. Not of his control.
Of the distance. His mouth crashes into mine, and this time there’s no hesitation in it.
He kisses me like he has been starving quietly for years, like I am the thing he has denied himself so long he no longer knows how to be civilized about wanting me.
His hands learn me with rough patience. My bra goes next, dragged down and away until I am bare beneath him. His eyes drop to my breasts, and the look on his face makes my skin flush hot.
“Steel.”
“I know,” he mutters. “Fuck, I know.”
His mouth closes over one nipple, and I nearly come off the bed. He sucks hard enough to make me cry out, tongue circling, teeth grazing just enough to turn pleasure sharp. His hand covers my other breast, squeezing, thumb rubbing until my body goes soft and frantic under him.
“That’s it,” he says against my skin. “You like that, don’t you?”
“Yes.” The word comes out broken, and he gives me more. More mouth. More hands. More filthy praise muttered against my skin until I am shaking beneath him.
“Look at you,” he growls. “So perfectly responsive. So fucking perfect for me.”
I should have a clever reply. I have nothing. Only heat and need.
He kisses down my stomach, and panic flickers for one insane second because this is Steel. Big, brutal, terrifying Steel lowering himself between my thighs like he belongs there.
His hands hook in my jeans, and he looks up at me. “Say no, and I stop.”
My breath shakes. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.”
His eyes darken as he strips me bare. No ceremony. No hesitation. Jeans gone. Panties gone. My legs parted beneath his hands while I lie there exposed and burning and too turned on to remember shame.
Steel stares at me, and the silence stretches.
“What?” I breathe.
His jaw clenches. “You’re wet.”
I flush so hard my skin burns. “Is that a problem?”
His gaze snaps to mine. “No, baby. That’s a fucking gift.”
Then his mouth is on me. I cry out. There’s no easing into it, no soft little teasing kiss. He licks through me with a groan that vibrates straight into my clit, his hands locking around my thighs to hold me open. My thighs jerk, but he doesn’t let me close them, doesn’t let me hide.
“Steel.”
He looks up from between my legs, mouth wet, eyes savage. “Hold still.”
The command should piss me off. Instead, I melt. He smiles like he knows it. Bastard. Then he lowers his mouth again and ruins me.
His tongue works over my clit in slow, filthy strokes, then faster when my hands twist in the sheets. He learns me too quickly. The pressure that makes my thighs shake, the rhythm that makes my breath hitch, the hidden place that makes my entire body go tight.
When he pushes one thick finger inside me, I choke on a moan.
“Fuck,” he mutters against me. “So tight.”
My fingers fly to his head, grabbing at him, holding him there because I can’t do anything else. He adds another finger, stretching me, working me open while his mouth stays on my clit, relentless and dirty and perfect.
Pleasure builds fast. Too fast. Sharpened by fear and relief and the weight of him watching every reaction like he needs to memorize how I fall apart.
“Steel,” I gasp.
“I’ve got you.” His voice is rough against my pussy.