Chapter 20 #2
“Need you to know that I thought about it,” he says. “Handing you over to him. I wouldn’t have done it. Couldn’t have. But it crossed my mind. He offered me a deal, and I thought about taking it. Just for a second.”
I take a step back, my stomach dropping, anger sparking. “Hell of an admission, Linc.”
His grip on me tightens. “Just being honest.”
I swallow. “So? Why didn’t you?”
He’s quiet a long time, those amber eyes of his boring into mine. Tension builds in the air as I wait, as he slides his hand back and weaves it in my hair.
“I forget sometimes,” he says finally, casually resting his other hand on my waist.
My heart beats in my throat. In my ears.
“Who I’m supposed to be,” he murmurs. “And maybe you’ve reminded me. That there’s a little good left. That I haven’t”—he takes a breath—“that I haven’t completely lost myself.”
“That’s what it took to remind you of what a conscience is?” I scoff. “A man offering to trade drugs and money for my life? How fucking big of you. Happy to be the one to help you through your little crisis.”
His lips twitch. “When you put it like that, it kind of makes me sound like an asshole.”
“Your words. Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I want you to know what kind of man I am.”
“I already know who you are, Linc.”
“Right. The boy scout.”
I almost laugh. He’s so far from the man he was when I left this place.
The good guy, the straight arrow. That man never would have spoken so casually about taking a life, about handing me over to an outlaw for a little cash and a kilo of coke.
This man before me? He’s violent. Self-serving.
Ruthless. As cold-blooded as the asshole he killed in this garage, as the men who raised me.
“No. I think we both know that version of you is long gone.”
His face flashes with what might be pain.
But he quickly steels himself. “It’s good you know that.
Because that version of me? He wouldn’t have been able to take care of this the way I did.
” He angles forward, the heat of his skin burning into mine.
“I made that piece of shit feel everything for what he’d have done to you.
I made him pay. And I won’t apologize for that.
Hate me if you need to. But I told you I won’t let them hurt you, and I plan on keeping my word.
I don’t care how many bodies I have to cut up, to bury. I’ll keep you safe.”
A strange sensation slithers through my veins. It’s dark. Just as violent and ruthless and cold-blooded as the man standing before me. I can’t explain it, but Decker seems to understand.
He cocks his head. “You like it, don’t you? That I did that for you.” He drags his fingers down the curve of my throat to my collarbone. “You like that I killed him.”
A wave of need rolls through me. “Yes.”
Keegan deserved this. He was a bad man, just like his brother.
Just like Decker, I guess. Men like that?
I’m drawn to them. Maybe because it’s all I’ve ever known.
Violent men. Men who make a habit of getting their hands bloody.
Or maybe it’s because I’m like that too.
The kind of woman who will plunge a knife into a man’s chest, wear his blood, feel it seep into the crooks of her fingers, watch the life drain from his body.
Like calls to like.
“What do you think that says about me?” I ask.
He smirks. “That you are beautifully ruthless, Gracie. In this world, in your world, that’ll keep you breathing. Don’t lose it, and don’t ever fucking apologize for it.” The hand at my waist falls to his side. “You said you wanted to talk.”
I take a breath—a fucking big, long breath—as Linc steps away from me. “I’d like to call a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yeah, like, you know. Forget the gun-pointing, house-trashing, blackmail thing. Wave the white flag or whatever.”
“And why would I agree to that?”
“Like I said, bigger problems. And I don’t know anything.
” My shoulder sag. “There’s nothing I can tell you about the Sinners that you don’t already know.
Jack and Axe don’t trust me. And Kat and Triss?
I like them. They’re good people. I’m not about to go digging for information so you can use it to hurt them. I won’t be a part of that.”
Decker folds his arms across his chest, doing that intimidation thing again.
I don’t budge. I’ve already betrayed the Sinners, and while I know they’ll never forgive me if they find out what I’ve done, I have no interest in digging this hole any deeper.
Decker wants to take them down, he can do it without me.
Whatever the consequences, I’ll face them.
I made this mess, it’s time I accept that I may not be able to claw my way back out in one piece.
I sigh. “What Axe will do if I give you information that hurts Kat? I guarantee it will be a lot worse than anything you could ever do to me.”
The silence that settles between us stretches, his focus drifting, like he’s thinking on something.
He nods slowly. “All right. Truce granted.”
Unease unfurls in my chest. “Just like that?”
“You want me to make it harder for you?”
“No. I just had this whole argument planned out in my head, and you’ve kind of ruined that for me.”
He smiles, and god, it’s a good smile. “I’m always game for a fight, Gracie. So long as there’s a bit of angry, rage-fueled, sweaty hate sex after the fact.”
“Wow, you really need to see me naked again, don’t you?”
“Need isn’t the word for it, Grace.”
He’s close again, his fingers dipping under my shirt, my skin pebbling under his touch. I swallow as he backs me into his workbench. He palms my ass, and then he yanks me up, placing me gently on the wooden top. Fingers weave into my hair, tugging my head back, exposing my neck to his mouth.
It’s barely voluntary, the way my legs curl around his hips, the way my hands itch to slide over his skin, to explore his muscles, the scar, that little trail of hair going down. His lips find my neck, kissing. Hungry. Wet. Passionate. Needy. Like he’s trying to devour me.
He sighs into my skin. “Out of your system yet, Gracie?”
“Not… exactly,” I breathe.
“I’m gonna fuck you until I am.” His grip on my hair tightens, pulling at my scalp, and he trails his mouth up my neck to my chin and then to my lips.
Kissing Decker is pure sex. Possessive, all-consuming. The kind of kiss that sends a little signal to my legs, telling them it’s time to open. My mind turns off, and there’s nothing else. Just him.
I yank off his shirt, then his hands are wandering over my thighs and ass, making their way up and relieving me of my tank top and bra. The moment my breasts are free, he’s biting and sucking, taking them the same way he took my mouth. Without control, without inhibition.
He grinds himself between my legs, pulling a low moan from deep within me. His hardness presses into my centre, rubbing against my jeans. God, I really need him to take those pants off. And mine.
“That was a beautiful fucking sound, Gracie. Let’s see how many times I can make you do that.”
I break away. Breathing heavy as I hold him at arm’s length. And god, the way he looks at me—eyes dark, starving, desperate to taste me—makes my insides go molten. I can see it, the same need that’s flooding my own veins, lighting my skin on fire.
Need isn’t the word for it.
It’s too much, that look. It’s more than just attraction. It’s obvious in the way he touches me, smiles at me, in the way I can’t keep away from him, the way he consumes my mind like he consumes my body. It’s too damn much.
“This is just sex,” I say. “Right?”
He stills, those ever-moving hands of his tightening on my thighs, his expression one of consideration. But then he smiles and says, “And what else would this be, Grace?”
I arch a brow. “Nothing, which is my point.”
Humming, he clutches my throat, lips inches from mine. “Fine by me.”
Another one of those all-consuming kisses, and then he’s tugging off my jeans and panties and diving between my legs.
As he pulls my clit into his mouth, sucking and licking and twirling his tongue, I gasp.
My back hits the rough wood of his workbench, and he jerks my thighs farther apart with a groan.
“Fuck, Gracie. You taste so goddamn good. Can’t stop thinking about this. About you.”
He drags his tongue over my slit, and I arch forward, demanding more, but Decker pulls back and drags his lips over the ink marking my thigh.
I prop up on my elbows, watching as he follows the pattern, obsessively tracing lines with his tongue.
Trailing wet kisses over the bones of my hips to my waist, licking flowers, black leaves and petals, the scales of the snake curling around my body.
Decker knows exactly how to touch me. He has since the first moment he put his hands on me.
He understands innately that I like a little pain with my pleasure, that I don’t do gentle.
Hard, fast, rough, hand squeezing at my throat.
Even when he’s doing this, savouring me, taking his time, his movements teasing as he moves higher to my breasts, he handles me with a rough edge.
Fingers slow but digging deep into my skin, marking me, bruising me.
A special kind of hurt that sends my body into overdrive, making my pussy pulse and beg for him to just fuck me already.
Pulling him into a hard kiss, I reach for his waistband. “I need you inside me,” I whisper. “Now.”
He chuckles against my lips. “I fucking bet you do.” Without warning, he tosses me over his shoulder, eliciting a loud yelp from me. Then he carries me out of his garage. Ass fucking naked.
“Decker!” I hiss as I smack his back. “I’m not wearing any fucking clothes!”
He slaps my ass without slowing. He rounds the side of his house quickly, then slips through the back sliding door. Ten seconds later, I’m being tossed onto his bed.
He grins. “I’m not gonna fuck you, Grace.”