BETH
Putting Madison to bed never had been so difficult. Usually she was tired enough to lie down and fall right asleep after a short book and a snuggle, but that was before Rafe entered our lives. The man didn’t understand kids, or boundaries apparently.
“Mama, I wanna stay up. Rafe said I could.” Maddie bounced on her bed. I managed to grab her before she fell off and put her on the ground.
“Rafe doesn’t make the rules, Maddie. I do. And I say it’s bedtime. You can play with him tomorrow if he’s still here, okay?” Play with him. Like he was a new toy I’d brought home for her.
She climbed up into bed, wiggling her way under her covers giving me her I’m gonna do it, but I’m mad about it look. “Mama, why were those mean men making all that noise today?”
I sat on her bed and took a deep breath. She hadn’t mentioned the parking lot so foolishly I had hoped she would forget all about it. Tucking her hair behind her ear I tried to make my voice light. “They were just screwing around, baby girl. But sometimes when you play around people get hurt.”
“Like when I was playing tag with Justin and he pushed me down when he tagged me?”
I grinned. “Yeah, something like that. They were just being rowdy boys. But we didn’t get hurt, did we? We are safe, right?” I laid her blanket over her, tucking it into her comforter.
“Rafe saved us.” She nodded matter-of-factly.
“Well, I guess, sort of.” As far as little girl logic went, he had in fact saved us.
“He said nothing will hurt us when he’s with us. He’s like our body guard.” She explained to me. It was getting harder to keep a straight face. I wondered what Rafe’s reaction would be to hearing her description of him.
“I guess that’s right. Now, it’s time for bed. No messing around, you go right to sleep.” I tapped her nose and gave her a kiss to her forehead.
“Okay, Mommy.” She let out a sigh and turned over to her side, pulling her blankie up closer to her chin. I turned her light off and quietly closed the door.
“Your body guard?” His deep voice whispered from behind me, startling me.
I spun around and slapped his chest. “Don’t do that!”
He gave a hearty laugh. “Sorry, was too easy.”
“I’m going to take a shower. I put a blanket and a pillow on the arm chair in the living room for you.” I pushed my way around him and headed to the bathroom. I could feel his eyes on me and imagined his look of annoyance at my dismissing him so easily, but nothing waylaid me. I wanted my hot shower, and I wanted to sleep for a week.
***
The shower did just the trick. My muscles softened, the soft pounding in my head finally simmered down, and my racing thoughts slowed to a trickle after standing under the hot water. Once I was dried off and slipped into my pajama shorts and t-shirt, I tiptoed down the hall to see if Rafe was still up.
The couch was empty. The blankets I had left out were still folded on the armchair. I hadn’t heard the door open, but it looked as though Rafe had left. I couldn’t lie to myself and say I was thrilled about it, a small part of liked having him in the house with us. His presence seemed to make my nerves settle, and the little touches he gave me throughout the night had kept my body responding to him.
Before I took Maddie to bed, he’d given me a kiss and sent me on my way with a pat to my ass. Which of course reminded me of the spanking he gave me earlier. I should have still been pissed at him about that. My mind told me to be angry, to kick him out of the house for laying a hand on me. But my body overruled it and reminded me of the tender way he treated me after the awful spanking. His fingers had worked so nimbly, so skilled at bringing me to one of the strongest orgasms I’d ever had. He wasn’t wrong about my attitude, and I would be lying to myself if I didn’t admit his take charge personality turned me on.
“Goddamn cave man,” I muttered to myself, trying to ignore the heaviness in my chest at his disappearance. Checking to make sure the front door was locked, I decided to forgo the dishes until morning and go to bed.
I checked in on Madison once more to be sure she was sleeping soundly, then headed to my room. I had the morning shift the next day and needed to get up early. I turned off the bathroom light, and went to my room.
I pushed the door to my room open and jumped at the sight of Rafe sitting on the bed, his back pressed against the backboard and his legs crossed at his ankles out in front of him. He’d taken off his kutte but left on his black t-shirt and jeans. His boots were lined up next to my nightstand on the floor.
“Shit!” I shut the door to make sure Madison didn’t hear me. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“That seems to be happening a lot lately.” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “I wasn’t in the mood to watch TV and you looked tired.”
“You aren’t sleeping in here.” I tried to sound firm and formidable, but his expression didn’t convince me I’d been successful.
His lips curled into a slow and easy grin. “I sure as hell am.” He slid his legs off the bed and stood up. The muscles in his arms strained against the thin material of his shirt as he stretched his arms. “And before you get any ideas, you are, too.” His fingers gripped the hem of his shirt and he yanked it over his head. I tried to look away when his hands moved to the button on his jeans, but I seemed content to keep gawking at the man.
He pushed his jeans down to his ankles. Stepping out of them, he grabbed them with one hand and tossed then onto the hope chest sitting at the foot of my bed. The only thing left was his boxers. The length of his cock couldn’t be mistaken as it pressed against the black cotton material. A small wet spot appeared on the material at the head of his dick. I could feel my own moisture begin to slicken my thighs at the sight of his hard body in front of me. The dark black tattoos covering most of his upper body didn’t distract away from the ripples of his muscles, but instead accentuated his strength.
“What are you doing?” I finally found my tongue.
“Getting ready for bed.” He pulled back my light gray comforter and eased himself under it, his back again propped up against the headboard. “As cute as you are in those pajamas, I want your body against mine. Take them off.”
The hunger was back in his expression when he gave his direction. A part of me wanted to rebel, to tell him he couldn’t keep ordering me around like some owned woman, but the other parts of me, the ones that felt slippery and wanting, told me to go along with him. To do as he said, because refusing him only made things worse.
“Tell me about your job.” He changed his tone of voice as he pushed the pillow behind his back. My full-size bed didn’t seem large enough for us both to fit; hell, he barely fit with his massive shoulder span.
“My job?” I slid my pajama bottoms down and folded them, placing them on my dresser next to the photographs of Maddie I kept there.
“Yeah, that nursing thing you do.” He laughed. The reminder made me turn my gaze to his shoulder.
“You took the bandages off,” I accused him, jumping on the bed with my shirt still on. He winced a little when I touched the red area surrounding the black stitches in his shoulder.
“They were annoying. I’m fine. Stop prodding me.” He shoved my hands away. “Your shirt’s still on.” He pointed to me.
“You shouldn’t be using your arm so much. You’re going to tear the stitches. Look how red it is. Have you been using the antibiotic they gave you?” I jumped off the bed and ran to the bathroom to get some of the ointment I kept on hand for Maddie’s endless scrapes and scratches.
When I got back to the bedroom he watched me silently as I dabbed some ointment over the angry looking stitches. “So, how long have you been a nurse?” he asked quietly as I screwed the top back on the tube.
“A few years. I was just finishing up school when I became pregnant with Madison.” Placing the medicine on my nightstand, I sat beside him.
“You finished school while you were pregnant? That asshole of a father of hers didn’t care about that?” From the sound of his voice, I knew if he ever crossed paths with Jeremy, there’d be more than a few spark flying.
I ignored the anger in his voice. No point in arguing; Jeremy turned out to be a bigger asshole than I would have imagined.
“We were already living together and we planned on getting married, but when I got pregnant my need for a full-time job was even more important. Jeremy worked construction, and sometimes there were weeks that he’d go without work. So I had to work. I’m not the first working mom out there.” I gave him a sideways glance. Hard eyes were fixated on me.
“You sure as fuck wouldn’t be doing that if you were carrying my baby in your belly.” He made the statement as though he couldn’t imagine anyone making me work. But the phrase “my baby in your belly” sent a shiver down my spine. The man was nearly impossible as it was, I could only imagine how much bossier he’d get if I were pregnant. “You wouldn’t be working no night shifts either, you’d be home with me and our kids at night. Like a fucking family.”
“Was your mom at home every night when you were growing up?” The change in topic seemed to surprise him. His eyes widened just before he looked away.
“My dad walked out when we were little. Just up and left. Mom worked all sorts of shitty jobs and shifts. I took care of my brother most nights.” I tried to picture a younger version of himself, toting a little boy behind him to school, or fixing him dinner. Rafe had the same experience with his dad as Maddie did hers, no wonder he was so fixated on family, and his rage at Jeremy, a man he’d never met, was so raw.
“Is your brother in the club with you?”
“Fuck no. I carted Danny’s ass off to college. He’s just finishing his master’s degree. Accounting or some shit.” His pride for his brother seeped into his voice, and it made me wonder if he wished he had done something else besides joining up with the town’s biker gang.
“Your mom?” Since he was opening up I decided to test the waters, see how far he’d go.
“Died in a fire a few years back. Been just me and Danny since…well, not really. Jason and his little sister were always around. The four of us, we were family.” The tension came back when he mentioned Jason’s name.
“Jason was the friend who died.” I took his hand in mine. It seemed so small in comparison to his large one, but I held him.
“Yeah. That was him.” His thumb rubbed my palm. “Your shirt is still on, Beth.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek, then my jaw, and then down to my neck. “Take it off.”
“One track mind.” I laughed and leaned away from him. He let go of my hand.
“I could tear it off of you if you want.”
I had no doubt he would do just that if I didn’t do as he said. I rolled my eyes and scooted under the blanket before I pulled it off quickly and tossed it across the room, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
“There.” I stuck out my tongue at him.
He laughed. “Such a brat.” Turning to his side, he kissed me. Not a gentle, good night kiss, but a hard kiss. His tongue brushed across my bottom lip, not asking entrance but demanding it. I brought my hands up to his face, feeling the stubble beneath my hands.
His hands wandered to the blanket, pushing it downward until my breasts were exposed. Palming one then the other, he pinched my nipple. When I groaned from the intensity of it, he pressed his lips harder to my lips.
“Fuck, I could kiss you all night.” He barely pulled away from me before he spoke. His eyes wandered over my face, as though inspecting me. “But there are other parts of you I want to taste.”
He tossed the covers completely off the bed, and yanked my thighs open, exposing my wet pussy to his gaze. The cool air brushed over my body, tightening my hard nipples even more, and tingling my wet sex.
Moving like a man with a mission, he settled between my thighs, pushing my legs open and toward me. “Rafe, wait.” I hadn’t had a man so close to my pussy in years, even Jeremy didn’t go down there very often. I tried to scoot away from him, but his big man hands clamped down on my legs and kept me in place.
“I told you not to give me commands.” He gave me a wink, telling me he wasn’t mad at all, and pulled me even closer to where his face was. He inhaled deeply. “Goddamn you smell so good.”
Heat flooded my cheeks as his thumbs spread my lower lips and exposed my sensitive clit. I bit down on my bottom lip and gripped the bedding beneath me. His warm breath washing over my sex was more tempting than when he sunk his fingers into me only hours before.
“You’re so wet, Beth. Your pussy is dripping. How can that be when I let you come earlier? Wasn’t I generous, finger fucking you until you came all over my hand?” His words were an extension of his fingers as he began to circle my entrance with the very tip of his fingers. As though he were testing the area for tenderness. “Answer me.”
“Yes,” I groaned out. If the man didn’t touch me soon, I was sure my body would explode. Pieces of me would be strewn throughout the room because he had to fulfill his evil need to tease me senseless.
His thumb slowly rolled my clit beneath it. My eyes rolled back and I pulled my knees up closer to my chest. The sensual rippling ran through my body, deep into my very core when he lowered his mouth over my pussy and dragged the fat of his tongue over my clit. I could feel him stretching out my labia, exposing every bit of my pussy to him as he continued to lick and nip at me.
My entire body tensed at the need to come, so quickly could he bring me to that edge. “Please. Rafe. Please,” I begged, I didn’t care, I needed that sweet release that only he could give me.
He ignored my please and continued to lick me, alternating the sensations between harsh and soft, while his finger eased inside of me. I arched my back, pushing up at him. All embarrassment of having him between my thighs vanished. “Please!” I slapped the bed.
He chuckled and looked up at me. “Please what, Beth? Please give you your orgasm or slow down?”
If he slowed down any more I would have to take matters into my own hands, but I knew he wouldn’t allow that. I growled instead. He laughed again. “Rafe, please. Don’t make me say it.”
“Well, now I have to.” He laughed. “Tell me what you want, Beth.” His thumb started rolling over my clit again, driving me deeper to the edge, but he stopped moving his fingers. I wanted to kick my foot at him.
“Please let me come, Rafe,” I whispered.
“What was that?”
“I’m going to slap you! Please let me come.” I shot at him.
He laughed at my response, but stopped touching me all together. “Your battiness is cute, but there’s a line, Beth. If you slap me, what do you think I’ll do?”
“You’d probably spank me.” I needed to get my tongue under control or he would never start touching me again.
“Oh, there are other punishments that work just as well. Especially with horny girls who want my cock buried in them.” He shoved his fingers hard into me then and I gasped at the sudden fullness.
“Oh god!”
“Uh-huh, that’ what I thought. I know what you want, you want me to fuck you hard and make you scream, but not this time. This time we’ll go my pace.”
“We always go your pace,” I mumbled under my breath when he withdrew his fingers from me. He heard me, I could tell by the grin on his face, but he didn’t comment. Instead he moved from the bed and grabbed a condom from his jeans and pushed out of his boxers.
I watched his cock bob free from the material with envy. He wrapped his fingers around his base and stroked himself a few times before rolling the condom down over his length. Fuck, I needed to come soon. Even watching his movements made me want him more.
He climbed back on the bed, between my legs, and held my hips down onto the bed. Lining up his cock with my entrance he took his time looking me over. By the time his eyes met mine, I was hungrier than ever to have him take me. He pushed forward but stopped when only the tip of his dick was inside me.
“Rafe.” I reached for his shoulders, sinking my fingers into his flesh. “Please, please just fuck me.” My legs quivered and my entire body tensed waiting for him to finally sink himself into me and fill me with his thick cock. I needed him so badly I would obey anything he commanded.
“In good time, Beth.” The bastard grinned down at me. His thumb played over my clit again making me wiggle beneath him, hoping if I moved enough he’d slide further in my wet passage. “Stop wiggling around, you’ll take what I give you when I give it to you.” His voice sounded as strained as my body felt. Good. Let him feel as frustrated as me. “Even when you aren’t speaking you’re a brat,” he growled, capturing my mouth in another heated kiss. In one quick thrust he pushed into me
I cried out from the sudden fullness. He licked my lip. “Oh, fuck,” I whispered when he pulled out to the tip and drove into me again, but slower, painfully slow. “Fuck,” I growled, and slapped his shoulder.
His response was to lean up, and grab my nipple between his fingers. He pinched hard. I squirmed, searching his expression for any signs of true anger. Not anger, but mild irritation. He had warned me. I arched up, and tried to pry his hand from my breast, but he was too strong.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” I panted. He released my nipple, which only brought another round of fire to the sensitive nub. “Fuck.” I tried to cover my breasts, but he knocked my hand out of the way and bent lower, taking it into his mouth and soothing the ache with his tongue.
He let go, and put his face right over mine, our noses nearly touching. “Do. Not. Do. That. Ever. Again.” He punctuated every word with a strong stroke of his cock. “Do you get me, Beth?”
“I get it. I get it. I’m sorry.” I nodded and went back to gripping his shoulders. “Please. I’m sorry.”
He withdrew himself almost all the way then slammed into me hard. I rolled my head to the side, as he continued to pound me, slow then fast, but each time deep and hard. “Look at me, Beth. I want your eyes on me when I finally let you come.”
He’d dragged me to the edge and back so many times, I couldn’t think straight. I only knew my body was as taught as a guitar string, and every time he plucked it I wanted to sing. I nodded and managed to look back at him as he quickened the pace.
His jaw was clenched tight. His little game seemed to have the same effect on him as me. I pulled my legs higher, and he groaned from the angle he plowed into me. The pressure built to a peak inside my core and even if he tried to pull me away, I wouldn’t be able to stop it from happening.
“Please,” I breathed out, my breath harder and harder to get out. “Please, Rafe. I need to come. Please let me come. Please.”
He grinned down at me. “There’s my girl. Yes, come for me, baby. Come hard on my cock. Don’t look away.”
One flick of his fingertip over my clit and I spiraled out of control. I bucked up at him, cried out with each hard wave of my release. He captured my mouth as he found his own release and growled his orgasm into my body.
We laid like that, a sweaty heap of a mess, breathing hard and trying to catch our breaths together. His lips brushed against mine once more before he rolled over to my side, taking me with him. “One sec.” He hopped off the bed and went to the corner of the room. I pulled up the blanket to cover myself as I admired his bare ass as it was facing me while he took care of the condom.
“Mommy?” Maddie knocked on my door, then tried the handle. Rafe leapt to the door and locked it just before she could get inside. “Mommy, are you okay? I heard you yelling.” She knocked harder.
Rafe had his jeans back on before I could sit up properly. “I’ll put her back to bed. You lay back down.” I gave me a pointed look and went back to the door.
“Hey, sweet pea.” He slid out of the door before I could see her, or more importantly she could see me. “Mommy’s fine. She’s falling asleep now though, so let’s get you tucked back into bed.”
“Okay, Rafe.” The door shut, but I got a glimpse of her little hand reaching up to take to his. I lay back against the pillows with a wave of relief quickly followed by a roll of panic seizing my body.
Madison barely remembered her father, and had never known any man to be that sort of figure in her life. Yet she took to Rafe as easily as pancakes to syrup. Watching her warm up to him so easily brought to mind how quickly I’d warmed to him. Hell, the man was sleeping in my house, in my bed. If the twins heard about it, they’d have a field day with the situation, or they’d pester him to death with accusations and questions.
It was more than having someone who physically drew things out of me that I never knew existed. Rafe seemed to read my mind, which didn’t always play to my benefit, but he knew me. In such a quick time we’d become friends and maybe more. Did I want more? Could I handle more? He hadn’t said much about Maddie.
There wasn’t a freak out, but he didn’t mention anything about ever wanting his own kids. Well, unless the comment about his baby in my belly counted. Still, that phrase gave me goose bumps. Having his baby would mean being tied to him forever. Rafe wouldn’t walk away like Jeremy did, no he was more of a man than that. But would he be a part of the kid’s life?
I rolled over to my side and faced the door. I needed to get those sorts of thoughts the hell out of my head. Rafe was part of Anarchy’s Reign, and until I knew exactly what that all meant—he couldn’t be a part of our lives.
He’d spend the night, but after breakfast I’d take Madison to the daycare and he’d go home.