EIGHT
Kennedy
Not being a casual sex type of girl, I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to say, or do, from that point on. Truly, it was about as awkward as I had been when I lost my virginity at the ripe old age of eighteen to someone much more experienced than me, making me feel mumbling and bumbling and wholly unsexy.
Slate pulled up a chair and got himself a round as I tried to pull off of Pagan and sit down on the free side of the couch, but the arm around me only tightened.
"Relax, pet," he mumbled when Slate launched into some line of conversation I was too distracted to follow along with.
Was I really going to do it?
Was I going to go home with a man I barely knew who beat people and sold guns for a living?
Was I going to have sex with a man whose last name I didn't even know?
If I were only listening to my body, the answer was a resounding yes.
But could such decisions really just be made by the body? I mean, I guess they could. So long as the brain was present enough to demand protection and you had pocket money to catch a ride home if things felt wonky.
But was I the kind of woman who...
"You got nice hands, Kennedy," Pagan said oddly, making me jerk back, realizing how zoned out I had been when his hand closed over top of mine, making me realize how long I had been staring at my own, "but they're not that fucking interesting."
His hands were though.
They were the kind of hands that told a story. Each and every one of the white, pink, and red scars there was evident of something, some form of trauma, some memory he had.
Feeling weird about romanticizing the man's freaking hands, I looked up to find Slate already gone somehow. When I turned back to Pagan, his lips were twitching.
"He tried to talk to you twice before he gave up."
Ugh.
I was not usually so bad at social graces.
I never stared at my own damn hands when someone tried to engage me in conversation.
"Kennedy," he said, his voice a strange mix of firm and gentle that didn't quite seem to suit him, making my attention snap to his slightly damaged, but no less sexy, face.
"Yeah?"
"If this is a no," he said, gesturing between us, "then it's a no. I'll take you home. Or I'll call you a cab. I'm cool with a lot of fucked up shit, but a woman giving herself an ulcer over whether she wants to slum it with me is not one of those things. First, it bruises my pride a little," he said, giving me a small grin, both of us knowing his pride could withstand a freaking earthquake. "Second, I'm not the kind of man who is going to convince you to sleep with me. You want to, or you don't want to. It's as simple as that."
"There's nothing simple about it," I admitted, surprising myself a little.
"I get you're the relationship kind of girl, pet. But I think it's pretty fucking obvious that I am not the relationship kind of man. I'm not offering you that. But if what has you hung up is because you've never fucked a guy once and never saw him again, I'm open to the idea of fucking you anytime you need a solid dicking."
I snorted at that, completely caught off-guard. "Wow. That was eloquent."
"Regular fucking Hemingway over here," he agreed, reaching out and giving my hair a little tug. "Besides, I don't think I could do to you all the things I want to do to you in one night anyway."
He wanted to be... fuck buddies?
Was that what he was offering me?
Somehow, my mind didn't rebel quite as hard against that as it did the one-night stand thing.
"You want to just... have casual sex with each other whenever the mood strikes?" I asked, wanting to clarify.
"The mood is gonna strike often. So clear your fucking calendar."
There was a weird little thrill inside at that, my body fully on board. And my mind, well, it was holding the grab bar, wanting reassurances from the conductor before it boarded.
Sex talk was, in my experience, almost never comfortable. The safe sex talk or the hard limits talk or the exclusivity talk. All necessary, but awkward.
The latter was the one that had my belly in knots as I swallowed hard and forced the words to come out, knowing they were going to trip all over themselves, but wanting to be clear.
"I get that your lifestyle is, ah, a bit loose on the sexual moral thing. And that's fine and all. Your choices are your choices, but I don't, um, share. And I understand if that is a deal..."
"You want to be the only one riding my dick," he cut me off, lips twitching as my mouth fell slightly open, still not quite accustomed to his particular type of bluntness.
"I, ah, yeah. That's sort of what I was trying to..."
"Can't say I have ever, fucking ever, been a man for exclusivity. But if that's what you need to give this a shot, I'm willing to give it a try."
"No, ah, what are they called..."
"Clubwhores," he supplied easily. "Trust me, pet, that's no fucking loss. So, we're good? Got that shit out of the way."
"That 'shit' being my conditions," I said with a smile. "Um, I guess."
"Alright, out with it," he said, leaning back, brow raised.
"Out with what?"
"There's another condition or two in there. Out with it."
"Obviously we would need to use..."
His somewhat loud snort cut me off. "I've never fucked without a condom. Anything else?"
I was pretty sure I couldn't really demand after sex cuddle sessions to make me feel less weird about it. It was pretty standard in normal relationships, but this wasn't normal, and it wasn't a relationship.
"I guess that's it. Oh, well, we can't really... go back to my place," I said, absolutely horrified at the idea of anyone seeing how I lived. Hell, even Benny had been forbidden from going inside.
"Old man a filthy eavesdropper?"
Not really. "Something like that," I lied, looking down at his chin because I knew my eyes tended to give me away.
"Well, I have a room at the compound and my own place."
The compound. Which meant every single one of them would know that we slept together and would see me doing my sort of walk of shame later that night or early in the morning?
Yeah, that didn't sound the least bit tempting.
"Your place?"
"Yep," he agreed, standing suddenly, making me let out a very uncool squeal since I was still on his lap. But his hand was still around me, and he let me get my feet before he dropped an arm around my shoulders, the action very possessive and I found myself really liking it as he led me through the crowds of people still around then out the doors to the lot. "Hope bikes don't freak you out," he said as he led me toward a line of them, likely all belonging to his brothers.
"My dad had a bike. I think I was all of five the first time he took me out on it," I admitted, then winced slightly.
My dad wasn't my most favorite of topics. The memories I had of him were all amazing, fun, loving, exciting. But those memories ended right at ten when one night, he just decided to never come home. Which led my mother into both a deep depression because she lost the man she loved, but also into dire financial straits. While we had always been somewhat low-income even with my father around to help provide, when he disappeared, I became a little too familiar with the sensation of hunger, and we were the state-assistance kind of needy.
My mother had never been able to pull herself back out of that, not on her own. I aged up and started paying my own way and she remarried and let someone else take some of the burden off of her shoulders.
I couldn't blame her, but it also taught me how much I wanted to be my own woman, stand on my own two feet, never have anything that a man could point at and say 'if it weren't for me, you would never have that.'
So I busted my ass.
I did everything right.
I scrimped. I saved. I went to cosmetology school. I scrimped and saved some more and opened my business.
All was going to plan until...
"Kennedy, you getting on or are you following me on foot?" Pagan asked, making me realize he had already dropped down on his bike and was holding out a helmet toward me.
I inwardly cringed at the idea of sweaty helmet hair, but pulled it on and clipped the buckle as I moved to the side of the bike, realizing for the first time how dresses and motorcycles really weren't the best of ideas. Namely, because I couldn't get on without flashing him.
I made a spinning motion with my finger that made him chuckle. "I plan on peeling those panties off with my fucking teeth, but sure, save your modesty," he said, turning forward, still shaking his head at me as I climbed on.
It had been a while, obviously.
And being on a bike with a family member was completely different than being on a bike with a man you were interested in.
It was a hell of a lot more intimate than I realized as the soft, sensitive skin of my inner thighs met the rough material of his jeans, as my crotch pressed right up against him, as my breasts crushed to his back when my hands went around him.
It was practically foreplay, and he wasn't technically even touching me.
"Tighter, pet," he instructed as the bike roared to life.
My thighs tightened on his as my arms squeezed harder as well, my belly tightening for the inevitable pitching feeling I would get when he pulled off.
Then we were off.
Slowly at first, through the main area of Navesink Bank. I felt my brows draw together as we reached city limits and he kept going, taking a side street that I knew from experience led toward the beach.
Pagan lived near the beach?
Well, I reminded myself, there were some not-so-nice areas around the beach by us. Maybe he lived there. It seemed to sort of suit his personality, even if the idea of heading there made my belly turn over a little.
Somehow, I was sure I was safe from pretty much any threat with Pagan beside me.
That was a bit presumptuous, but if his own friends were afraid to get into a fight with him, that pretty much said it all, didn't it?
But when we turned onto the street lined on the right by retaining walls to keep the water in when the tide got crazy and headed not toward the bad area which was, apparently, "up and coming" (or so the real estate agents liked to claim), but into the area where the nicer houses were located, I felt myself stiffen.
They weren't all mansions, though some certainly were, all raised thanks to the hurricane years before that destroyed so much property. But regardless of their size, I knew that they all cost a literal fortune for literally being all of twenty feet from the shore. But maybe he was just taking the scenic route, trying to get me calmer, then turning off back toward what was still, technically, a shore town, but nowhere near as expensive as beachfront property.
But that idea got shot to shit all of ten seconds later when he pulled straight into a driveway off the main drag. It wasn't a huge house, but certainly bigger than one man really needed. It was a beach-style two story white house with porches on each level, big windows, and blue accents. There wasn't much property, as there never was in shore towns, with the neighbors a literal stone's throw to either side.
He cut the engine but didn't move.
This was likely because I was still holding on like we were moving. "You live here?"
"What? Cage-fighting, gun-running bikers can't have nice crash pads?"
Crash pads.
I was pretty sure the snort that I thought was internal was totally audible.
But seriously? His 'crash pad' cost more than I would probably ever see in a lifetime. I guess crime paid well. It was something that didn't surprise me the least actually.
"Hop off," Pagan said, sounding amused. Which he should, seeing as I was still all clutching him like a weirdo.
I released him, reaching up to take off the helmet, self-consciously trying to fluff my hair back up as I quickly jumped off the bike, and reached to pull my skirt back down.
"Come on," he said, touching my hip to steer me toward the door, reaching out to a security system and punching in a code.
The inside was light and airy like any beach house, using mostly white and other neutral colors. Directly forward was a U-shaped staircase leading up on either side. To the right was a living space with deep blue couches around a coffee table, all facing a positively massive flatscreen TV. To the right was a dining space that, while decorated, looked like it had never had one single diner in it. Forward and beneath the stairs was a hall where Pagan walked, hand still on me, bringing me with him.
"You're going to have to settle for ginger ale as a mixer," he told me as we walked into his massive kitchen with white everything and a huge set of windows and doors which led out onto a deck with a hot tub and then down stairs to a small, kidney-shaped in-ground pool.
"That's fine."
Hell, I'd settle for whiskey straight I was so damn nervous.
Why? I wasn't sure. It wasn't like I was some starry-eyed virgin. I had engaged in many a sexual encounter with men I had been involved with since I was eighteen. And, sure, maybe the first time with someone new had a few awkward giggles or fumbling, but it was all in good fun and not overly uncomfortable.
But right there, in a beautiful kitchen in a lovely beach house with a big, sexy biker man fixing me a drink, I felt like I was crawling out of my skin with uncertainty. I guess the long drive had managed to calm my sexual frustration a bit and allowed room for doubt to sift back in again.
"Here," he said, reaching around me to hand me a drink of who-knew-what mixed with ginger ale. Then he moved past me, going toward the deck doors and going out without a word, leaving the door open for me to follow. Hearing my heels, because he didn't turn from where he was standing there, looking around, his voice met me. "Not gonna lie, I'm finding the shy thing sexy as fuck right about now. But I figured you're not exactly in the mood for me to pounce on you yet," he said, tipping up his drink to drain, then moving a few feet to the side, bending down to pull the top off the hot tub.
He wanted to go in the hot tub?
It was ninety degrees out still.
But then he stood, pushed off his cut, and reached to start pulling off his shirt and, well, my mind got crowded with thoughts other than the temperature outside.
Because inside, I was about at boiling point as the material got lifted off and dropped onto the deck, showing me more muscle than I had maybe been anticipating. Generally, when one thinks 'biker,' their first thought didn't exactly go to 'buff.' In fact, it was more inclined to think 'beer belly' or 'greasy hair.'
But Pagan was built.
You could run fingers between his eight pack. Yes, eight. And there was this strange, completely unlike me urge to lick them. Yes, lick. Because I was a freak like that apparently.
His chest was no less strong, his shoulders wide and solid-looking. There was a small trail of dark hair disappearing into his pants which his hands were at the waist of, like he was planning on unfastening them.
My eyes shot back up slightly, finding safer things to look at- the scars making a map of his body, all various stages of age and severity. The darkest, biggest one went almost perfectly down the center of his stomach, angry-looking even though it seemed long healed.
Then I heard the zip followed by the whoosh that made it clear he was down yet another article of clothing. But before my greedy eyes could look, there was a splash, and he was in the water.
"Come on, get your ass in here," he demanded, but his tone was almost sweet-sounding.
And, well, I didn't have a bra on.
"Pagan, I..."
Then he went ahead and did the spinning motion I had done to him back in the parking lot at Hex, making me smile a little as I kicked out of the shoes that had effectively made my toes numb about two hours before. Then I turned, reaching for the hem of my skirt before I could lose my nerve, pulling it up my back, reminding myself the whole time that being in my panties was no different than being in a bathing suit bottom which I did shamelessly when I could sneak away to do so. That being said, my panties were a pale pink peek-a-boo lace and I had no bra.
It was too late to worry about that, though, as the dress fell to the deck and my arm rose to hold around my bare breasts, almost painfully aware that he had neighbors who could look over into his yard at literally any time.
Before I could even convince myself to turn, I heard a rush of water and found myself snagged around the center and hauled back against his chest, off my feet, then into the water.
I let out a small shriek in surprise.
"Couldn't wait all fucking night for you to get the nerve to turn around," he informed me, sitting back into one of the built-in seats and situating me so that I was sideways with my legs over his like we had been on the couch in Hex.
His hand immediately went to my thigh, stroking up and down, surprisingly gentle for such a brutal man. I figured maybe that had a lot more to do with my hesitance than his personal preferences which, inadvertently, gave me a glimpse at the man underneath all the things you immediately thought when you saw him.
When his fingers sank in suddenly, moving to pull me to straddle him, my hand slapped into his chest. "What's your full name?"
His head jerked back suddenly, lips twitching. "Why? You gonna run a background check? See my credit score?"
"I can't have sex with someone whose name I don't even know."
"Pagan Robert Scott."
Then, without any other preamble, dragged me up and onto him. "Wait," I said, too distracted by the information to really notice the fact that I was straddling him. "Robert?" I asked, smiling.
"It was my first name before I changed it."
"Robert?" I clarified, smiling big, realizing how much cooler it was that I called him Niro if he was actually named Robert originally.
My smile proved infectious, making his lips curve more than they usually did. "You good? We done enough of the talking shit?"
"The talking sh..." I started, only to have the rest of my sentence cut off on a gasp as his hands sank into my ass, yanking me a few inches forward, making his hard cock press against my heat. I took a slow, deliberate breath as his eyes went hooded. "Yeah, I think we're done with the talking shit," I agreed, the decision finally, finally made.
I wanted him.
It was as simple, and complicated, as that.
"Thank fuck," he said, one hand going to grab the back of my neck and dragging me down until his lips claimed mine.
Without thinking, my arm slipped from my chest, moving to hold onto him. His hands tightened, flattening me to him, my bare breasts crushing to his chest, making him let out a low groan directly before his tongue moved inside to toy with mine.
I couldn't say for sure, but it really felt like point-five seconds before I was so far gone, so beyond anything even resembling hesitance or uncertainty. The next thing I knew, my hips were grinding down into his, letting his cock slide up my cleft, hitting my clit with perfect precision, making me moan against his lips.
His hand curled into my hair, using it to yank me back, watching me as he thrust upward as I did another swipe, the pressure causing a desire so acute that it couldn't be called anything other than actual pain.
"Pagan..." My voice held a pleading, a question, and his eyes got even hotter in response.
He yanked harder on my hair, making my whole upper body arch backward to ease the sting. My breasts were just above his face, and he arched upward without hesitation and sealed his lips around my nipple, sucking so hard that I saw white at the unexpected current of even stronger need to my heat, something I was sure a second before wasn't even possible.
One of my hands went to the back of his neck, silently begging for more which he was all too happy to give me as his lips pulled back and his teeth nipped hard, the sting an actual pain that he took away as his tongue started to swipe over the sore peak before moving across my chest to continue the torment there.
"Pagan... please," I begged, my hips pressing against him harder, needing the friction, needing an end to the pressure low in my belly.
"Like you fucking begging for my cock, pet," he growled as he released my nipple, angling his head to look up at me. "But not yet."
You'd have sworn he had just told me that everything I ever wanted out of life was never going to happen. That was how intense the disappointment felt in that moment.
But before the sensation could even settle, I found myself moving, ripped off his lap, and shoved into the seat he had vacated, leaving him kneeling before me, fingers tracing up my inner thighs.
His finger traced the line where my pantie met the crease of my thigh, making a visible shudder course through me. It was something he made another rumbling noise at a bare second before a jolt of pleasure shot through me as his finger pressed firmly into my clit.
The whimper ripped from my lips, almost foreign-sounding to my ears, overly loud in the quiet, still night.
I lost the touch for the barest of seconds before I felt it again, this time without the barrier as his hand slipped inside my panties. His thumb worked my clit as another finger traveled down, stroking my lips then around the entrance for a painfully long minute before I felt a finger slowly press inside me.
There was no searching, no fumbling for it. His finger curled inside and raked over my G-spot with precision, a sensation that made the muscles in my inner thighs shake hard.
"Jesus Christ," he hissed, yanking his hands out of my panties, wrapping an arm around my lower back, and dragging me onto my feet as he got to his, hauling me over the side of the hot tub with him and slamming me back against the wall of his house, lips claiming mine again. If possible, harder, hungrier than ever before. And, judging by how hard his cock was pressing into my belly, he was just as far gone as I was.
His hand slid down my side, slipping into the panties at the hip, and yanking. The splitting of the fabric sent a thrill through me, something primal and intoxicating in the idea of a man ripping your clothes off because he couldn't stand a barrier between him and your body. Then he was grabbing my knee, forcing my leg around his back, his hands slipping to hold my ass as he started moving, carrying me into his house as my arms went around his shoulders.
I was vaguely aware of the cold air, making my skin goosebump, as he led me up the stairs.
But the next thing I was truly fully aware of was my back hitting a mattress, Pagan curled forward with me, lips never leaving mine from the moment we got out of the hot tub.
He pulled against my hold and, finding no way I was going to release him, changed tactics and moved his lips down my neck, his stubble creating a fire on my skin, making me angle my head away to allow him better access and releasing his shoulders. Free, he rubbed the scruff over my nipples, the sensation foreign and a strange pain and pleasure mix, before his tongue moved between my breasts and worked a line downward.
"You don't have to..." I started, reaching for the back of his head.
His head angled up at the lowest point of my belly, his brow raised like something I said was completely moronic. "Have to?" he asked, shaking his head. "Fucking want to. I'm gonna eat this fucking pussy until you're about to tear my goddamn sheets. Then and only then do you get to have my cock."
It was said like a promise, like a vow.
Then his head ducked, and I realized he meant every single syllable of each word.
He didn't tease when he went down; he freaking devoured. He truly fed on me, making my system press toward the edge faster than I had ever been brought before.
And, sensing it, he leaned upward, watching me for a long minute.
"Touch your pussy," he demanded, making me jolt slightly out of the fog of near-orgasmness.
"What?"
"Touch your pussy," he repeated, reaching for his soaked boxer briefs and dragging them off. "I want to watch you sink your finger into that wet cunt of yours."
Maybe it was the shock of the words, sure I had never heard a man refer to it as that before, and maybe enjoying it a bit more than I should have, but my hand moved down my body and slipped between my thighs, finding my clit for a long minute before a finger slipped downward and inside me.
"Fuuuuck," he growled, throwing his head back and looking at the ceiling for a second. "Keep going," he demanded as he moved off to the side of the bed. I heard a drawer and the crinkle of a condom before I heard him moving back toward me, taking a stand at the same place he had been a moment before, his cock in his hand, a silly blue color, but promising fulfillment as he stroked it once watching me finger myself.
Then he reached down, grabbing my wrist, and dragging it upward. My wet fingers slipped between his lips, and he closed them, his tongue stroking the taste of me off my fingers as he let out a growl.
Then he pulled them back down, giving them a seemingly uncharacteristically sweet squeeze before pressing it back down on the mattress. His fingers traced up my thighs then down my legs, grabbing my ankles and yanking up, letting my bare feet meet the warm skin of his chest. He pressed forward, making my knees go closer to my chest as he reached between us, grabbing his cock at the base and rubbing it between my folds for a long moment before running a circle over my clit.
And just as I was adjusting to that sensation, his cock slammed into me- hard, deep, to the hilt with one smooth motion.
"Ow," I whimpered at the slight burning sensation, my body not used to accommodating someone anywhere near his size.
"So fucking tight," he growled, closing his eyes for a second.
So big was more like it, but I was busy deep breathing for a second, forcing my body to relax so I could enjoy the invasion, finding the pressure of him deeper than I had ever felt before.
"You with me?" his voice asked, huskier than it had been before, needy, sexier than any sound I think I had ever heard in my life.
It was then I realized my eyes were closed tight and I forced them to flutter open, seeing his intense gaze on me, waiting, but desperate.
And as if to give him an answer, my sex tightened hard around him.
"Fuck yeah you are," he said with a devilish little smirk as his hands grabbed my knees, his hips moved back, and I lost almost the full length of him for a long second before he slammed back in. Not fast, but hard.
There was still an ache, but it was buried under the surging desire, the demanding need for release.
As if sensing the urge, or maybe feeling an akin one himself, his hands left my knees, reaching forward and grabbing my breasts hard as he started fucking me- fast, controlled, relentless, not giving me even a second to have the orgasm ebb.
"Oh my..." I moaned, feeling my sex tighten almost painfully as the orgasm built to a pinnacle point.
"Fuck yeah, fucking come for me, Kennedy," he growled as he slammed into me again.
I wasn't sure it was possible before, but I both soared and crashed simultaneously, the sensation a pulling, pushing tug of war through my entire system as the waves of pleasure crashed through me.
His name cried out from between my lips.
He came with me, brought to the edge himself, leaning into my knees until they slid numbly open, burying his face in my neck, coming with my name on his lips.
And nothing in the world had ever sounded quite so right before.
My eyes shot open at that, staring up at the high ceiling of his bedroom, realizing too late, as I often did in life, that I had made a mistake.
Not because I regretted it.
Actually, it was anything but that.
But that was precisely the problem.
It was a risky game I had chosen to play- pitting my mind against the worthy opponents known as my body and heart.
And as much as my brain had a running monolog of: we aren't going to catch feelings, we aren't going to catch feelings, wearen'tgoingtocatchfeelings!
My body and heart pretty much flipped my brain off and said: oh yeah? Just watch us.
Great.
Just great.