Chapter 6
Gemma
The way his skin felt against mine was undeniably beautiful. His skin was soft, which was uncanny given some of the men I’d already met. Jace’s hands were calloused and rugged. Constantly dinged and nicked. His knuckles were currently bruised, though the yellow on his skin told me they had been there awhile. My brother was known for his temper and his protective nature, but one thing he was not known for was his violence.
I had a feeling that was the ‘gift’ The Road Rebels bestowed upon him.
Part of me wanted to kiss his finger. I felt my knees growing weak as we stood in the corner of that bar. We were near the exit door and far away from where my brother was, and I felt the wild wind that had blown through my hair sneak up underneath my arm. I wrapped my hand around Talon’s wrist, watching his gaze as it slowly drifted over to our connection point. His fingertips fell from my lips as I slowly lowered his hand, but then I stepped around him and pulled him towards the exit.
His eyes began to sparkle with danger, and it lit a fire inside of me I’d never felt before.
I pulled him out into the parking lot before he took the lead. He wrapped us around the building while we ran, my lips trying to stifle my giggles as a shed came into view. He barreled us towards it, my legs running as fast as I could. But when I knew I could no longer keep up with the long strides his legs were making, I tugged at him to stop.
“What is it?” he asked.
While panting for the very breath his voice rid me of, I jumped onto his back. I giggled into his neck while his arms wrapped around my legs, and he jumped to hike me further up onto his back. Feeling his body against mine was intoxicating as I breathed in the leather of his jacket, and by the time I was done reveling in the strength of his muscles my legs were wrapped around he was sitting me on the edge of a box.
The storage shed was musty, to say the least. Dust was flying around, and its walls were stacked to the brim. It was dark, and there was no light to turn on, but at that moment I didn’t care. All I was knew was that I was here with Talon, the one man my mind always fled to whenever someone hit on me in college.
I did my fair share of experimentation. Guys. Girls. Threesomes. Orgies. I quickly found out that schools who were known for their academics were also known for their parties. And without my overbearing brother, I was free to do what I wanted. I drank, and I explored. I experienced my first orgasm in a broom closet at a guy’s house whose name I still don’t know.
But there was no one who set aflame the feeling Talon did by just looking at me. My encounters were temporary and lifeless, lit by a spark of electricity that was fueled by alcohol. I got mine, I gave them theirs, and I allowed myself to expand my mind to the pleasure the world had to offer. I’d experienced enough of its horror and its anger and its frustration.
I promised myself that when I left for school, I’d come back with positive memories that I could fill the corners of my life with.
“Whatcha thinking’ about?” Talon asked.
“College,” I said.
“What about it?”
I felt his hands slowly grazing up my legs, pushing up the fabric of my skirt while his fingertips left their searing marks against my skin.
The feeling of his fingernails against my body was too much to bear.
“How… um… how I never felt… like this with anyone.”
In an instant, he dug his nails into the swell of my thighs, and I had to choke back my howl of shock.
“With anyone,” he said.
“You didn’t think I was a virgin, did you?” I asked, giggling.
But when he didn’t respond, I felt something akin to shame drift over my body.
“Talon, I-... I didn’t realize-”
“Did they make you feel good?” he asked.
His hands didn’t move, but they didn’t pull away from me either.
“Most of them did, yes,” I said.
“But some of them didn’t?”
I had no idea where this conversation was going, but I didn’t like it one bit. I didn’t enjoy remembering that night. How contorted my body had been. I didn’t like remembering all the needles that sank into my skin and the beeping from the monitors while I sat alone in that hospital bed. I didn’t enjoy the absurd reality check I had that night, realizing I had friends but no family. I didn’t like remembering the fact that people only wanted to hang out with me because I was the ‘fun girl’ who ‘got the real party started.’
I didn’t enjoy the fact that none of the guys who were so anxious to give me their numbers suddenly didn’t want to answer their phone for the poor girl who was in the hospital.
I didn’t enjoy remembering the fact that my own brother shot that fucking call to voicemail himself.
“It’s funny, I couldn’t get you to say a word to me in high school, and now you want to know all of my-”
“Did someone hurt you, Gemma?” he asked.
His question froze me right in my place. He released my thighs from the confines of his fingernails, and I could feel the crescents throbbing. His hands slid up to my hips, cupping them tenderly while his thumbs danced along my exposed hip bones. I could feel his fingertips tracing the hem of my panties, and I could feel his eyes burning a hole into the top of my skull.
“What would prompt such a question?” I asked breathlessly.
“I’m quiet, but not stupid,” he said.
“I never assumed you were,” I said.
Suddenly, he pulled a hand from underneath my skirt. I wanted him to go back. I wanted to feel the spread of his hands against my skin. I wanted him to dig his nails into me and mark me with the fury I felt radiating from his body. There was something desperate in me. Something that wanted him to claim me unlike any other man or woman ever had. My eyes trailed up to where I thought his would be while his hand drifted up my back, and in an instant, I knew where he was headed.
“Don’t,” I said darkly.
But all he did was stop at the base of my neck, cradling it lightly before his forehead connected with mine.
“Trust me,” he said, whispering.
Then, I felt his fingertips slowly reach up to the beginning of my hairline.
He traced his fingers around my face, clocking the light scarring that outlined the whole of my head. My jaw trembled, and my legs weakened, and in that instant, I was glad he’d picked me up and placed me on something. His fingertips traced the entity of my thick hairline before he threaded his hands into my hair, and the moment he ran across it, he paused.
The light bump underneath my skin that signaled the screws that peppered the back of my head.
One by one, he found them all. One by one, his fingertips circled them, reminding me of the painful experience I’d endured. One by one, he placed kisses on my forehead with every screw he found, wetting my forehead with his warmth as tears cascaded down my cheeks.
I hated that he was making me remember. I hated that he was forcing me to expose myself. I hated the fact that this man, who didn’t say a fucking word to me all those years ago, was somehow now pushing past all the boundaries I’d thrown up after that night.
The night I realized I truly had no one.
“How in the hell did you see those?” I asked breathlessly.
“I don’t talk much, but I see a great deal,” he said.
“You couldn’t have possibly seen those screws,” I said.
“So that’s what they are.”
“Wait… what?”
“I thought you were talking about the scarring around your hairline,” he said.
“Yes… I mean, wait… what?”
I was trembling on top of the box as Talon’s knee trapped me there. I felt him press it against me, the warmth from my pussy drenching his kneecap. I simultaneously wanted to push him away and grind down onto it. I felt my entire body rising to meet his challenge while he cradled me like a child needing to suckle from the breast of its mother. I felt like I couldn't breathe and yet was somehow floating in the very air I was gasping for. Like I’d been wholly exposed with the swoop of someone’s arm. Like some magic trick had vanished me into thin air before pulling me back to reality without my clothes on.
I felt Talon’s hands cup my cheeks, the wetness of my tears drenching his skin as he pulled my gaze up to where his would’ve been could I fucking see anything.
But even if the lights had been on… even if the sun had been drenching his skin… the globule tears rising up in my eyes would’ve skewed anything I could’ve tried to lock onto.
How my life had forever changed just from that one incident.
“What happened, and does Snake know?” he asked.
“No, he doesn’t,” I said.
“What. Happened?” he asked again.
“It was just… a stupid party,” I said.
His thumbs wiped at the tears spilling down my face as his chest pressed closer into me.
“Who hurt you?” he asked.
“It was stupid. We were drunk, and things got out of hand-”
“How did a drunken party end up putting screws in your skull?” he asked.
“If you’d shut up, I’d tell you,” I said.
Had I been able to see him, I could’ve sworn he was smirking at me.
“The police busted the party, and we ran. This guy I was with took my hand, and we ran through the woods back towards campus. We were crossing the road, and this car was just barreling at us. High speed, like they weren’t even driving through the middle of a campus. Apparently, the driver had fallen asleep behind the wheel of the car, and the car catapulted me into the air. No one intentionally hurt me, Talon.”
“You said he was holding your hand. Was he not hit, too?”
I felt my body clench as I swallowed deeply.
“He was. I-I-I mean, we were. He just… got spooked was all. Let go of my hand and got out of the way of the car.
“He let go of your hand.”
“Yes,” I said.
“He didn’t pull you out of the way, or take you with him when he jumped.”
“No,” I said. “But I could’ve just as easily followed him. I just wasn’t moving fast enough. I was just shocked. Like he was. His reaction was different from mine. That’s all.”
“Gemma, I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen to me good.”
His lips floated over to the shell of my ear, raising goosebumps upon my shaking form as I felt the whole of his strong, rippling arms encompass me.
“He let you go to fend for himself. In a moment where he could’ve saved you. In my eyes, he’s the reason you got hurt. Not that driver.”
I closed my eyes and let out a shuddering sigh, leaning my ear against Talon’s lips. I felt him press a light kiss on my skin as tears barreled down my face, and in an instant, his lips descended into the crook of my neck. I felt him kissing up my tears, his tongue darting out to lick the saltiness from my skin while my arms drifted around his neck.
My hands slid his leather cut from his shoulders, exposing the paper thin white shirt he was wearing.
“I would always protect you,” he murmured into my skin. “Always.”
I allowed my fingernails to graze down the muscles of his back. I felt them twitch and ripple, my touch pulling a groan from his throat that rattled me all the way to my ribcage. I allowed myself the friction against his knee, grinding my wet panties into the roughness of his jeans. While one hand continued to cradle the back of my neck, I felt his other hand drift down my side and slowly pull up my shirt up over my head.
In an instant, my bra was unhooked, and I couldn’t help but be shocked.
“Talon,” I said breathlessly. “That’s quite a trick you’ve got there.”
“Would you like to experience a few more?”
His lips trailed along my cheek, ghosting against my skin before they hovered over my lips. I could feel the hot air of his mouth pulsing against me, the stain of beer tinting the smell of him while my hands drifted along his chest. The strength he boasted of and the way his muscles were chiseled and defined, it tugged at something within me.
Something I’d never felt before.
I slowly pressed my lips against his, feeling the whole of my body spill into my panties as I reveled in how he felt. His lips moved against mine delicately, fulfilling every fantasy I’d had of him as a teenager while I’d drooled over him in the bar.
Somehow, it felt like things were weirdly coming full circle.
Just then, I felt his fingernails dig into the small little love handles I had sitting on my hips. My mouth opened against his and his tongue fled to its home, raking across the roof of my mouth while his throat swallowed my moans. My hands flew to his head, taking in his hair before my hands dropped to his cheeks, and soon my shirt was over my head while my bra hit the box beside me.
He pulled his lips from mine, and I leaned forward to try and find him. His hand pressed against my chest, slowly inching me down onto the top of the box while his lips dipped to my breasts. He suckled on them, his tongue lusciously encircling them until they were swollen with his mark. Then he tugged on them with his teeth, rendering me speechless before his figure loomed over me.
“A few more it is,” he said.