Page 11

Lynette

I can’t even describe what it’s like to slip into my silk pajamas and start on my skincare routine in the bathroom of this brand new to me house. Maybe it’s that I have too many emotions to just feel one, or it could be that I’m exhausted. I’m not numb, though. I just don’t feel like me.

Probably because my life, and my regular defenses, have been shot to shit and left in tatters. I’m stuck in this weird in-between place, and, unlike Willa, I can’t just bounce back.

She made eight thousand new friends today, although there were only fifteen to twenty people here. It was hard to keep track, but I bet she could tell you the name of each one of them, who is dating who, who is married, how long they’ve been together, and each man’s backstory of how he came to be a member of the club. Then again, she did more talking than assembly, organizing, and unpacking. That’s okay. We’re just so different.

She seems fine with this massive change to our lives. Positive. She’s a survivor, but unlike me, she comes out of every messy situation shiny and beautiful, while I crawl out bedraggled and half dead.

I wash my face and apply the endless lineup of moisturizers, eye cream, collagen, lip conditioner, and oil. I’m shiny and glowing by the time I’m finished, but it’s a faux radiance. None of it can hide the dark circles smudges under my eyes, or the doubt in them.

Willa crashed two hours ago, while I locked myself in my room and finished unpacking, hanging up every garment, meticulously, in the wardrobe, because neither of the rooms have a closet, unpacking my books to set them on the shelves, arranging shoes and the few purses I brought.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. Everything is new in this place, and though the house is old, the lingering scent of fresh furniture hangs in the air. Willa and I were both amazed at the thought, effort, and time that so many people put into making this a home for us—especially as we’re basically strangers, and I certainly haven’t committed to taking the job with the club.

I’ve had no one but myself to depend on for so long that it feels… Fuck, I don’t even know. That’s part of that undefined place inside me that hasn’t determined what it exactly is yet. It’s like my foundation has been shaken, right along with those cracked and broken defenses, and I’m more vulnerable and brittle than ever, all while trying to hold it together like I always have.

Tender. Maybe that’s the word. It’s like I’m that tough piece of meat that was forced under the spiked tenderizer and forged into something slightly more palatable.

Bullet disappeared this afternoon. When I finally worked up the nerve to admit to myself that I was looking for him, I asked Lark if she knew where he’d gone. She told me they’d forced him to go get a few hours of rest before he came back this evening to keep watch.

The security system was explained to us, as well as the schedule of men from the club who would be driving by every fifteen minutes. They’d be in car rather than on their bikes, so as not to disturb the peace. That seemed like more than enough, so I was surprised to hear that he’d be back.

He came back at nine, a few hours after the last of the group had left the house. I let him in, thanked him for coming, and basically fled upstairs to shower and get ready for bed. I couldn’t chance losing control around him again, but I didn’t thank him, and that’s bothering me so badly that I know I won’t be able to sleep.

I slip downstairs, my bare feet soundless on the wooden treads, and find Bullet pacing the small living room like a caged animal. The heavy ivory curtains are drawn tight, but he’s still giving the window dirty looks as though it has personally offended him. Inside the room, he looks barely big enough to have fitted through the domed doorway, and since the house is so closed off from itself, it appears smaller than it is.

“Bullet?”

He whirls around like a panther, lethally graceful, shimmering with muscle under a dark pair of jeans that hug his thick thighs and cup his ass in the most sinfully delicious way, and a tight t-shirt that shows off the stack of his abs and his massive shoulders. Without his leather vest, he seems almost naked. I quickly spot it draped over the large brown leather recliner, and drag my mind away from the brink before it tips over and starts going places where it has no business.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Scare me?” he snorts humorlessly, but his eyes sweep down my body and darken like he’s still looking for a threat.

I freeze as they spark with something that resembles hunger. Now I’m the one who feels naked in these stupid silk pajamas. They might not be tight, but I don’t have the vitals on underneath—a bra and panties. Great last lines of defense.

“I wanted to thank you for everything. That sounds so trite, because words aren’t nearly enough, but I didn’t want to go to bed not having said it. I couldn’t stand it if you were sacrificing your time and energy, and you didn’t feel that it was noticed or appreciated. Plus, this…” I sweep my hand around, indicating the house. “The massive effort that went into this is very much seen and appreciated. Willa’s been sleeping for the past few hours already, or she’d tell you herself.”

His face blanks the same way I so carefully veil my emotions, but he drops that unceremoniously and offers me a smile that starts a heady, buzzed feeling in my body, like I’m drunk.

“You’re welcome. Thank you, too, for everything you’ve sacrificed for me. It’s also seen and appreciated.”

I don’t know how to deal with that, or the restless, wild animal sensation that’s about to claim my body again. The room is small already, but it’s growing smaller, the air tighter and thinner.

“I wanted to tell you that we pulled some strings, and Willa is registered in the community college here. Arts courses, just like in Seattle.”

“Thank you.” What is wrong with my voice?

“We registered one of the guys from the club in as well. Atlas. He was… here earlier.” I’m not sure what the pause is, or what flickers across his face. “He’s young. Older than Willa, but, uh, we thought it would be good for him. That they might get along. He needed something to occupy his mind since he’s going through some personal shit, and she needs someone to be close to her and make sure she’s okay.”

“A bodyguard.” I hadn’t even thought about that.

“Yes. We didn’t want to stick her with someone she wouldn’t mesh with. She shouldn’t have to focus on that, or feel like she’s being watched or babysat. Atlas is from Hart. He knows people here. He might be able to help her make some friends. He’s young, but she’ll be safe with him. He looks like a playboy, but he’s the opposite. Loyal, a real sweetheart. His parents had him late in life and they’re elderly. He’s definitely a mama’s boy. He’ll be good to your sister, I promise. Plus, the personal shit has made him uninterested in a relationship of any sorts.”

“It sounds like whoever decided this thought about it long and hard to find the best match possible. Thank you for that too. This is beyond what I could have expected. This level of accommodation.” That sounds so prim and proper, but I can’t help but fall back on the same old barriers.

“Nothing has been decided about Harold yet. The club talked it over, but hasn’t made a decision as to what we’re going to do. We will, though, I promise. You have no reason to put your faith in strangers, but it might help you sleep knowing that something will indeed be done.”

“I wasn’t having trouble sleeping.”

“No?” He walks to the chair he’s strung his jacket over, and sits down carefully, probably so he doesn’t break the thing.

I wonder, not so absently, how many hours a day he spends in the gym to have a body that muscled, but not so overdone that he’s chunky. He still moves around with a lithe grace that’s totally at odds with his powerful build.

“No. I’ll be able to sleep. I just wasn’t ready yet.” I eye the chair. “You’ll be sleeping there?”

“I won’t be sleeping.”

“Aren’t you exhausted?”

“Nah. I’m well-conditioned to it. Civilian life hasn’t made me soft yet. I had a few hours this afternoon. It was quality, and that’s always better than quantity.”

How would it change me as a person to spend a few quality hours in bed with him?

“Aren’t you going to be bored?” I choke.

He leans forward and lifts a black military looking backpack that I hadn’t even noticed. “I brought books, and if I’m really desperate, I could always play one of those match games on my phone.”

I nearly burst out laughing, but why shouldn’t he like something like that? People don’t fit in tiny, organized little boxes the same way you can organize socks into a drawer by pattern and fit.

He hasn’t looked at me again and it sneaks up on me that maybe he’s trying not to. Maybe my nipples are visible under the light pink silk.

Jesus. Why didn’t I think of that?

I barely refrain from crossing my arms over myself in the naked Eve pose, one across my breast and a hand over my crotch. “I guess good night, then? I hope it’s uneventful?”

“Yes. Yes, I hope so too.” His voice is rougher than normal.

It seems that I’m always running from this unnerving energy between us, but I can’t just stand here and give in. I turn tail and scramble from the room while trying to be dignified about it, surer than sure I’ve indeed given him a headlights show.

***

Back in my room, I scramble for the bed, tucking myself under the convers like a little kid fearful of the monsters in the closet.

Maybe Bullet just thought I looked weird out of my extremely formal clothes, without makeup or my hair done up. That was probably it.

Anyway, I have bigger things to worry about than if he saw a shadowy outline of my nipples or not. Like what I’m going to do about this job, and a virtual madman on the loose with a possible vendetta against the club that I’ve got myself wrapped up in.

Today was a lot. Yesterday was too. Tomorrow undoubtedly will follow the same pattern.

Sleep is a must .

I dose myself with more than my usual amount of melatonin, turn off all the lights, and sink down into the bed. It’s the perfect firmness. My spine isn’t going to sag in the night and be sore in the morning. I don’t like sleeping on a pile of bricks, but I do appreciate not waking up contorted.

Who picked out this mattress and how did they know?

Despite the exhaustion, lack of sleep, my breathing exercises, my effort to clear my mind downstairs, the perfect bed, and the melatonin, I keep having to switch from my left to my right side, my body growing more restless, not less.

I’m not a cup of warm milk kind of person, but my mind is racing and the one thing I can think to calm it is to write some of my thoughts down. They’re all jumbled and random, and maybe taking them out of my brain will help my gray matter finally shut up.

I turn on the lamp on the square gray end table with the chrome handles. The switch is a metal chain with a large ball, and it bangs against the lamp’s chrome stand under the woven white shade. The noise pings around the room a few times before it’s silent.

I get up, searching my bags and the whole place for my pad of paper and my pen before I remember that I left it down in the kitchen. I was writing a to-do list for tomorrow before Bullet knocked at the door, and seeing him had done things to my brain that made me forget all about it.

I know he’s not asleep, but I creep down quietly into the kitchen anyway. There’s something about him being here that is completely comforting and utterly disconcerting. My racing thoughts probably don’t have as much to do with my restlessness as the heat flowing unchecked through every part of me.

I find the pad of paper and pen right there on the kitchen counter by the stove. I pick it up without making a sound, and that’s when I hear the grunt. It comes again, another forced exhalation of breath, like someone fighting.

Terror immediately turns my body into a hostage, but I force myself out of the frigid response, sliding open the kitchen drawer by the stove and pulling out the 9mm that Tyrant discreetly gave me before he left. The bullets are in a bowl in the cupboard. It’s harder to be quiet retrieving them, but I load them into the gun as quickly as I can with my hands shaking so badly.

Tyrant also showed me how to put the bullets in, turn the safety off, cock it, and after that, it’s just a matter of pulling the trigger.

I’m afraid of guns. I don’t like them. I don’t trust them. I certainly never want Willa to have to touch one. I hid it without telling her where it was. There’s also one upstairs in the drawer of my nightstand, the bullets for it hidden in my sock drawer.

I’m sure I’m overreacting, but I hold the gun in front of me like they do in detective shows, the safety still on, as I edge out of the kitchen, down the short hall, and towards the living room’s domed arch doorway.

The grunt comes again, louder. Is someone in the house? Did Bullet fall sleep? Is he being attacked? Even more alarming is the distinct sound of flesh smacking flesh. Like someone has crept in here past the security and has Bullet in a chokehold, or has his hand rammed over his mouth while he’s pinned to the wall. I’m so scared that my heart is like a car engine that hasn’t been turned over in years, sputtering then firing to life and running far too fast.

The closer to the living room I get, I hear hard breathing. All I can imagine is a man in there, masked and in black, a hand over Bullet’s nose and mouth, trying to strangle him as he fights back.

I edge around the curved doorway, bursting into the room with the gun in front of me, flipping the safety off and cocking it. It’s dark in here, but the light from the hallway spills in, so I can see what’s happening.

There’s no hostage situation.

Bullet is in that reclining chair with his legs spread, his dark jeans open and unzipped, his head thrown back, and his cock in his hand.

He was actually enjoying himself before I charged in here, but now his eyes have shot open and there’s nothing but a look of horror on a face that was so beautiful and relaxed for just that instant right as I charged in.

“Oh my god, Lynette!”

I can’t breathe. It’s half shame, half humiliation, and a heady amount of disbelief, but I’d be a liar if I said that what my eyes are taking in doesn’t make me hot enough that my legs are immediately unsteady. My body is an instant inferno, hot and aching. I can’t tear my eyes away. It’s certainly not like looking at a train wreck. Nothing about this is horrifying, except maybe the secondhand embarrassment at being caught doing it.

“Are you… are you beating your meat down here?”

I quickly flip the safety on the gun, then take the bullets out, slipping them into my hand before setting the whole horrible thing down on the sleek white top of the modern coffee table. Its fancy chrome legs glint in the golden light.

Bullet rushes to get his jeans closed, trying to shove his cock back in, but there’s no easy way to curl that behemoth back inside. I have visions of him breaking his dick or doing something terrible to it with a zipper.

“Stop!”

He freezes. Well, most of him. His cock has a mind of its own. It’s long and thick, pulsing and throbbing, precum leaking from the tip in fresh, shining beads. Even in my wildest imaginings would I ever have dreamed up that length and girth. My pussy throbs, my walls closing in on themselves, empty and wanting. It’s a nonsensical thing to do. The whole tearing me apart or breaking me thing has never seemed so accurate.

That isn’t a cock. It’s a fucking weapon, just like the gun I’d been holding in my hand, but it seems vastly more dangerous.

And alluring.

I lower myself down slowly and carefully, as though I’ve just walked in on a wolf feasting on its kill.

“Why-why were you doing that?”

“Jesus Christ!” He tries to put it away again, but like before, his cock isn’t in cooperation mode.

“I really want to know.”

“Because I needed to. It’s as simple as that. I needed a release, or I was gonna lose my damn mind, and it’s not like I can take a break and just head to bed or have a nice long shower and get it over with.”

“Why did you need a release?”

“Because you’re so goddamn gorgeous and I can’t have you. I’ve been watching you in your sleek little skirts, your tight pants, and then in those silk pajamas that outline every bit of your body. I couldn’t focus, and I need to be alert. I needed to just fix this and get my shit back in order. I’d have a clear head, unless until I got back to the clubhouse.”

“Oh my god.” He seems as mystified by his explanation as I am, like this normally doesn’t happen to him. I should hope it fucking doesn’t. The thought of someone else seeing him do this wraps around my conflicted brain like poisoned brambles. “You were thinking about me? Why?”

“Do you really not know?”

He tried to tell me last night. I might know, but I still can’t believe it. I want to hear it from him. “I have zero allure. Intelligence is intimidating and off-putting. I have no natural charm, and no idea how to flirt. I’m not curvy. I’m sharp instead of soft. People don’t want to stick their dick into a block of ice.”

We both blush.

“It’s because you’re intelligent that I’m attracted to you. I don’t find you intimidating because you’re a fighter. I find that so fucking hot.”

“So you decided you’d be respectful by jacking off down here while no one knew about it?”

“I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No, it actually does. In a roundabout, strange sort of way.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“I don’t know. But you have a problem. It looks painful. You should… continue.” I should not be putting words like that out there, or wanting it, but I do. With every fiber of my being.

I can practically see the same question crashing down over Bullet’s face as he eyes me in shock. “Continue?”

“Would you keep doing that? That is, would you want to do that if I was watching?”

“Do you want to watch?”

This is the part where I get my shit together and tell him politely to have a good night and beat a fast retreat back to my room. I do not do exceptionally wanton things like tell a man I want to watch him masturbate. I have extremely rudimentary experience when it comes to sex. It’s going to show. That will be even more humiliating than what’s already happened.

And yet, it’s not like I have to perform. I can just watch.

His hand slowly moves to the base of his cock and he strokes it up, smearing the wetness at the tip all over his fingers and dragging it along his shaft on the downstroke.

This isn’t me. I’m bold and fearless when I have to be, but it’s an act. I give the impression of ice and hard edges in order to keep the soft parts of me safe. I’m not really bold. I’m not actually brave. But it’s not like I can just run back to my room like a scared little mouse. I can’t just pretend this never happened. If I’d wanted to do that, I would have uttered an apology and turned and left the second I realized that there was no fight going on. I wouldn’t have stood there gaping. Staring. Wanting .

“Take off your shirt.”

“What?”

It’s not like this soft, worn t-shirt stretched tight over his bulging arms and muscular chest is hiding much of anything at all, but if we’re doing this, we’re doing it .

His eyes never leave my face as he debates with himself. He slowly lifts his arm overhead and grabs the back of his shirt, pulling it up and away. It looked like it was straining over his body, but it comes away like it’s soft and oversized.

My mouth goes dry at the sight of those chiseled muscles, his defined chest, cut abs, and all his bronzed skin. He doesn’t appear to be a stranger to the sun, as I glimpse the paler band of skin where his jeans have ridden low. I know I should keep my eyes on his face, but I have trouble tearing them away from the carved boxy abs.

His body is what you’d expect from a soldier and a hard man. His skin is littered with scars, though most of them are small and silvery. There’s nothing defined or huge, where real damage could have been done.

“If you’re looking for bullet holes, there’s a scar along my left thigh, and a wicked one on the back of my shoulder.”

My face. “I was looking to make sure you had all your organs. Kidneys and whatnot.”

“Organs?”

“Just wanted to know what you might be worth on the black market.”

He’s sitting in the fucking leather recliner, with his jeans undone and his cock pulled out, thickly muscled body on display like a god of lust, but he throws his head back and laughs loudly.

“Shhh! You might wake up Willa!”

He sobers instantly. “And then this would all be over.”

“Yes, because I’d kill you myself.”

Willa sleeps with earbuds in, and if the fucking apocalypse happened, it probably wouldn’t wake her up, but my luck seems to be terrible.

I sit down on the couch and shamelessly eye-fuck Bullet’s chest, lingering on every muscle, every scar, every exquisite detail. “Touch yourself.” It’s more like a puff of air, not some imperious command, but he obeys.

He wraps his big hand around his thick, veiny shaft, gathering up the beads of precum to lubricate his palm on the way down and back up. His eyes flutter shut and his lips part slightly at the pleasure.

This is the most indecent, craziest experience of my life, and there’s no way I want it to be over.

There are more shadows than light, but that just makes his cock look like a work of art. Dicks aren’t pretty, at least I never thought they could be, but I’m willing to allow that I could change my mind.

As new beads of precum form and slip over the swollen head before Bullet’s hand can reach it, I wonder what it would be like to lap it up. I’m not going to kid myself that I’d be good at giving head. I probably couldn’t even get my lips wrapped around him properly.

He keeps working himself with his hand clasped tight around his shaft, a soft groan tearing loose from this throat. It’s the same noise I heard earlier, when I thought he was being held captive.

I guess he was, but not the way I expected.

His breathing increases as he tightens his fist over the head and passes it down, before surging back up and doing it again. I watch his abs bunch and tighten, his pecs leap, his shoulders draw in and forward.

His jaw tightens. Mine does the same as I bite down on a whimper. It takes everything I have not to spread my legs right there on the couch and glide my hand down my pajama bottoms. The silk sleep pants are stuck to me, soaked by my arousal. I know that if I stood up, there would probably be a visible wet spot on the front or the back.

I should feel red hot with shame at that, but all I feel is the white heat of need.

I could tell him to stop, and he would. He’d hold his hand around the base of his thick cock while I stripped off my pajama bottoms and climbed on top of him, bare, slick, and ready.

I don’t realize I’ve closed my eyes until I see myself doing it, taking him inch by inch, his cock so thick I’d have to be careful. It would hurt, but not worse than the ravenous ache at the core of me. I wouldn’t stop until I took all of him, all of me spread so painfully wide. My legs around his thick, powerful thighs. My pussy around his cock. I’d sink down until my tender skin hit the harsh zipper of his jeans.

In my head, he’d lift me up, kick those jeans off, and pin me to the wall, burying himself to the hilt, fucking me so hard I’d feel his balls slap against me with every stroke.

I jerk my eyes open, desperate to escape that fantasy. It’s bad enough that this is already happening. With the man who’s going to be my client . Just last week, I would have had more reasons than that, but I’ve realized how wrong I was. Now, it’s just the thin but rigid line of professionalism that stands between us. A line I can’t cross, even if I want to.

That resolve is flimsy against the dirty thoughts burrowing through my brain. It feels like nothing compared to the throbbing heartbeat in my chest, and to the one between my legs. My nipples are ready to slash right through this silk top and my breath is coming out in sharp, little pants.

At that moment, Bullet’s eyes tear open. “I’m gonna come, Lynette.”

Panic spears me in the gut. What the hell does he want me to do about that? Give him the go ahead? Tell him not to?

His hand churns up and down his shaft. He must have been doing this for a while before I barged in on him, to be so ready this fast. Then again, if I so much as grazed my clit, I know I’d throw myself into a mind-shattering orgasm of my own.

“Okay. Yes. Make yourself come.” I swear to god, there’s nothing else to say.

Not when he fists his cock like a madman, doing things to it with his hand so tight that it looks painful. His body bows, his shoulders curling into himself. He stops breathing, and then suddenly there’s an explosion of air, the sharpest exhale and a muffled groan. His cock kicks in his hand, white jets oozing over the top of his fist. He’s angled his cock towards his stomach and the eruption is so violent that it even reaches his pecs.

I stare at the shining, wet globs, a hunger like I’ve never known blooming inside me.

I’ve never wanted to do anything more than I want to know what it would feel like if he buried his cock deep inside me and came like that. If he filled me with those hot splashes of his come. I want to know what it would taste like if I got off this couch right now and ran my finger through that glistening wetness and licked it off.

I’m so far gone that I can actually imagine myself leaning over him and cleaning off every drop, though the idea should be completely repulsive. I’ve never wanted to give head before, and I really haven’t ever wanted to get eaten out either.

All of my strange, dark impulses send a thousand alarms pinging in my brain. I shouldn’t be here right now. I shouldn’t be thinking like this. I shouldn’t be burning so violently that my skin is probably steaming. I shouldn’t be sitting in ruined, soaked pajama bottoms, wondering what this man’s come tastes like, while thinking about riding his cock until he comes again, then sitting on his face while he—

I jerk upright, springing off the couch. “Let me get you a towel. Hold on.”

“Thanks,” he says past gritted teeth. “Much appreciated.”

My cheeks are blistering as I snatch the soft tea towel out of the kitchen. I wet part of it with warm water before returning to the living room and thrusting it out at Bullet.

His hand curls around it and takes it gently.

I’m the biggest sucker for punishment because I can’t stop my eyes from following his movements. He cleans his cock first, though he barely touches it—the towel is probably too abrasive for that velvet soft skin and that vulnerable, sensitive area. He’s much rougher with his stomach and chest, scrubbing away the wetness, then balling up the towel carefully. He doesn’t hand it back. He sets it in his lap while he tugs on his t-shirt, and then he stands, tucking himself carefully away in his jeans and zipping them up.

“We’re not going to talk about this,” I whisper. “Not now. Not ever.”

His face is a storm, the aftershocks of pleasure still lingering there, and I’m the hottest hot fucking mess that ever existed. I need to get out of here before I combust on the spot.

“Not ever,” I hiss, picking the gun and bullets back up to put it all away, and rushing from the room.

I’m so fast in the kitchen that I probably set a world record for stashing a gun, then I scramble up to my room, turn out the lights, and fling myself under the blankets.

For the second night in a row, it takes everything I have not to jam my hand into my pajama bottoms and give myself the release I so desperately need.

I’m not ready for what happened down there. I might want it, but what has want ever had to do with anything? I know what’s right, and that wasn’t it. I’ve warned myself against this repeatedly. I don’t know what’s happened to make my ironclad will turn as soft and molten as gold. It’s pathetic, really, that I should capitulate and turn into this wanton, half-wild woman with this enormous sexual appetite in one day.

My icy facade has melted, and I’m so hot with shame, embarrassment, self-recrimination, and animalistic need that I can’t think straight.

But I need to.

I need to get myself in order and get this under control. I was blessed with a good brain, and I need it to function how it always has. Duty first. Emotions second, or better yet never. Sex? Who really needs it. I need to be the focused, driven, impeccable woman without a single weak spot.

Despite my resolution, my hand slips down under my pajamas, landing on my soaked, swollen pussy. I don’t allow myself the luxury of enjoying it. I just work my clit for all of twenty seconds before I shatter so hard that I just about black out. I feel no relief after, just a growing sense of emptiness that makes me want to scream in frustration.

Instead, I climb out of bed and grab a new pair of pajama bottoms before wrapping myself up tight in the comforter and closing my eyes. I purposely do that stupid exercise with words where you think of a letter and name all the words you can that start with it, so my brain doesn’t go straight back to giving me a repeat of the gorgeous, godlike, raw and rough man pleasuring himself downstairs.

I’ve never watched porn, but if it’s anything like that, no wonder people get turned on.

“Fucking damn it,” I mutter into my pillow before ramming my face into it so hard that I can’t breathe and have to tilt sideways before I smother.

Apparently, now that I’m here in Hart, and will undoubtedly be seeing Bullet every day, the torture is just starting.