Maxwell

 

And that was the truth. If I had known my interest in Nicole was going to drag her into this kind of mess, I would have passed on her that first night in the bar.

 

Are you sure? A small part of my mind whispered to me.

 

I frowned. No, I wasn’t sure. I thought of her ex-boyfriend, Ben, and what an asshole he was. I thought of how dangerous he might really be, the things Nicole might not have been telling me. Things he could have done to her.

 

I wasn’t sure I could just leave her to deal with that on her own, but I wasn’t sure this was much better. In fact, I was starting to think me in her life was much, much worse.

 

My blood boiled at the thought of what they might have had the chance to do to her. It infuriated me to think of anyone hurting her, but like that? There was little they could do to her that was worse.

 

I looked down at Nicole, twisted there in my arms, to find her staring up at me with a surprised, slightly horrified expression on her face.

 

“W-what do you mean?” she asked, clearly shaken.

 

Of course she was shaken. After what happened tonight, I wasn’t sure most women would have been as okay as she was in the first place.

 

Taking a deep breath, I clarified as best I could. “It was my fault that those men were after you,” I told her, though it pained me to say how bad of an effect I was already having on her life.

 

“I don’t understand. Why…why would they come after me?”

 

I drew in a ragged breath and sparred one hand to run through my blond hair, shoving it back away from my face only for it to fall in front of my eyes again. I let out a heavy sigh, then answered. “Because I showed interest.”

 

She still looked confused. “I don’t get it. Who were they?”

 

I didn’t want to tell her. She seemed like the nice, girl next door type and they usually didn’t like to keep company with the likes of me. But as I held her in my arms I acknowledged two things. First, I’d already dragged her into this whether she liked it or not. Two, I didn’t regret it as much as I should. So I told her. “They belong to a motorcycle club called the Lions.”

 

“Why would a motorcycle club—” she began, but I interrupted quickly.

 

“Because I’m part of the same club.” She didn’t say anything. I felt her tense, but she didn’t pull away or tell me that I was a terrible, horrible excuse for a human being, so I counted that as a small victory. “Our leader, Spin, is in prison. He did the deed, no one’s questioning that, but they think someone ratted him out. And they think that someone is me. Up to this point, Spin’s been in my corner…I think that changed.”

 

For the next three hours, silence reigned. Nicole didn’t seem to know what to say and I’d said all I could. Now we were left with the question of whether or not she could get over tonight and who I was, or whether we were both wasting our time.

 

I didn’t think I had been, but she was clearly on the fence. Especially since she’d been hesitant to start anything with me in the first place. I was pretty sure tonight hadn’t eased her earlier worries as far as that was concerned.

 

Eventually, though, after several more cups of coffee she came around. When the tension in her shoulders eased a little and she still didn’t kick me out, I finally spoke again.

 

“They’ll try again.”

 

She clenched her eyes shut and tried to keep her breathing even.

 

“You won’t be safe. They’ll find out where you live. They probably already know. If you want to be safe, you’re going to have to come with me.”

 

At this, she looked at me curiously. “Come with you?”

 

I nodded. I’d been running through this crazy plan ever since I told her what was going on. Now that I’d had the time to think about it, I knew it was nuts, but there was also the increasingly strong urge to do it. Now that I’d blurted it out, there was no turning back.

 

“You need to get out of town. Between your crazy ex and my crazy boys, you need some space and a little safety. I can give you that. And I need to do some research. I need to figure out who the real rat is before it all falls on my shoulders and they do something no one can take back.”

 

She was tense again, but she didn’t yell at me to get the hell away from her. In fact, she seemed to be considering it. “Where…where would we go?”

 

I shook my head. Gathering her up into my arms again, I held her close, enjoying the feel of her body as it pressed against mine, full breasts and wide hips and long, silky hair. I tilted her chin up and leaned down. When our lips touched, I’d meant it to be a soft, quick kiss, but I couldn’t leave it that way. As soon as our mouths made contact, I felt the all too familiar need to devour as much of her as I could.

 

By the time I broke the kiss, we were both panting and the bulge in my pants was growing.

 

I opened my mouth to speak, but she had lost interest in talking. She was the one to instigate the kiss this time and when her tongue slid into my mouth, I thought I was going to lose my mind. I jerked her up so she was in my lap. Automatically, her legs went to either side of me, her skirt hiking up high onto her thighs, and this time I could feel the underside of her ass as my hands went to cup her rear. I felt her soft nether region slide along the rough crotch of my jeans and instinctively tried to buck up into her.

 

It was killing me that we were wearing so many clothes.

 

My hands gave her ass a tight squeeze, which made her moan into my mouth. I swallowed the sound hungrily. My touch moved upwards, then, sliding over her hips and her tiny waist until my hands found the swell of her breasts. She gasped when I got ahold of them, squeezing the soft, full skin, pleased to find her bra didn’t have much padding.

 

One hand made it around to her front, slipping into her shirt, popping open several buttons in the process. When that same hand slipped inside her bra to touch bare flesh, Nicole broke the kiss to groan, arching her back to push her chest farther into my hand.

 

I brushed my fingers over her nipple a little roughly, pleased when it hardened beneath them. I wanted to suck on it and worry my teeth against it—I wanted to put my mouth on every inch of her body, as a matter of fact—and pulled the fabric aside to do just that. My eyes raked over the exposed tit, better than I’d imagined, and the straining of my cock against my pants was almost too much.

 

I couldn’t help but buck up to her, sliding against her covered crotch, wishing the fabrics separating us weren’t there. I was about to lean forward and start sucking on that one bare tit, but before I got the chance she slid off my lap. She was heaving and gasping and her tit hung out from her shirt, her nipple hard. Her skirt was rucked up and I could see her panties were a deep purple color with lacy trim and what might have been the tails of a bow hanging down from the top.

 

“I…we should…” She didn’t even seem to know what she was trying to say and looked half tempted to come back to me—but with less clothing.

 

Before she could decide to do that, I cleared my throat and forced myself to focus. In a low, growling voice I said, “Go pack. We’re leaving tonight.”

 

She didn’t argue. Her eyes flashed with heat and I debated leaving in the morning if only to finish what we’d started. I still wanted to see what was really beneath the rest of those clothes and to see if I couldn’t make that flush trail over her entire body.

 

I wanted to do a lot of things to her. But I let her go pack, keeping in mind that it was too dangerous to stay.

 

I’d have to make up for this lost moment later.