Ben

Half an hour later we had cleaned up, but we were in bed again. Because it was late, we were naked, and there was no question of her leaving.

Charotte sat in bed, the sheet pulled lightly over her midsection, her arms around her knees. “Why did they do that?” she asked me. “Those two guys.”

I was leaning back against the pillows, the sheet over my legs. I couldn’t quite take my eyes off her. Her expression had lost its usual don’t-fuck-with-me fierceness and was softer, even the dark slashes of brows. Her hair was sex-tousled, her voice quiet. The effect was even witchier than usual. “Orders,” I told her. “They were prospects, guys who want to join the club but have to pay their dues first. They do whatever the brothers tell them to do.”

“So someone told them to scare me?”

Not someone. Kingston, the club president. This was most likely his work. “Yeah, he told them to scare you.”

“Scare an unarmed woman coming home from work at night. These guys are real princes.” Her voice held a hint of its usual snark, but she was scared. I knew it like I knew my own heartbeat.

“How much did your brother tell you about what went on between him and the club?”

“Nothing,” she said, and now there was hurt alongside the fear. “Though he told me that he told you.”

Okay, then. I was hoping he’d man up, but obviously Jeremy would need another lesson that included his forehead hitting my dashboard. So I told her all of it, the murder and the security footage Jeremy was hired to delete. I even told her about the ten thousand dollars, which made her stare at me in shock, then curl into herself.

Like I say, no one ever wants to hear the truth.

Except now I could touch her, so I did. I leaned forward and curled my hand around her upper arm, touched it gently. Moved my palm down and detached her arm from where it hugged her knees. Opened her up a little so she wasn’t such a hard shell.

“He lied to me,” she said, letting me move her. “And we had the worst fight today. Like he was trying to push me away.”

“We’ll figure it out,” I said, putting my hand on her calf now, sliding her bent leg down. “We’ll see him tomorrow and get answers. We’ll get answers from the Lake of Fire, too.”

She sighed, the sound infinitely sad. “He’s all I have.”

“He isn’t all you have.” I moved her other leg. “He hasn’t been all you have since you sat in front of my door.”

Her attention turned to me, her gaze wandering my face, my throat, my chest. A slow perusal that made her eyes go dark. I fucking loved that she looked at me like that. Like I did it for her. Like whatever it was that got her hot, I had it in spades.

None of my one-night stands had ever looked at me like that. My ex-wife hadn’t, either. How had Janice looked at me? I couldn’t remember anymore; I’d blocked it out. It was so long ago, and the end had been so fucking bad. But if Janice had ever looked at me like Charlotte was looking at me right now, I’d remember. I’d remember until I was old and dead.

I smoothed my hand over Charlotte’s knee, and she lay back. I propped myself on an elbow over her and traced the line of her hip, her waist. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t believe I had my hands on her. But since I did, and she liked it, she was mine.

She took her turn touching me, running her fingers along my collarbone, my shoulder, down my arm. I went still and let her do it. I watched her eyes, that soft, hot line of her mouth.

“You’re not my type,” she said softly, her hand betraying the lie as it moved over my chest, her skin warm against mine.

“Yeah?” I said. “What’s your type?”

“Normal,” she said, brushing over my nipple and down my side toward my hip. She was memorizing me, like I’d been memorizing her. “I’ve been trying to find a normal guy with a normal job so I can have a normal life.”

I laughed softly. “Sweetheart, I hate to break it to you, but after what we just did, I’m definitely your type.”

She sighed, and I heard relaxation and arousal instead of sadness this time. “I’ve been trying so hard,” she said. “Working so hard. I don’t even know what I want anymore.”

I could see it. Looking down at her, I could see it so clearly. She just needed to see it, too.

I cupped a hand gently against her jaw and ran my thumb lightly over her cheekbone. “You want the chaos,” I said, leaning down, barely brushing my lips against hers, then pulling back again. “You like it. Deep down, you want to take chances and fight bikers and fuck your boss like the world’s ending. You just don’t think you’re allowed to.”

“I don’t,” she said, but there was no fire behind it. “I don’t want chaos.”

“You do,” I said. I ran my thumb over the seam of her mouth, then slid it over her bottom lip and rubbed it. “When was the last time you thought about what you want, baby? Just you.” I bent down and kissed her nipple, ran my teeth over it lightly as she sucked in a breath. “You tell yourself you don’t want the chaos, but your legs are open for me right now. You want me so fucking bad. I’m your type, Charlotte. I always will be.”

“Ben,” she breathed.

“Roll over,” I said.

She obeyed, moving on to her stomach. I braced myself over her, my knees between hers, my free hand pressing into the small of her back. I bent and kissed the dip of her spine, up to the back of her neck. She shivered under my touch.

“I’ll show you,” I said, moving my hand down over the perfect curve of her ass and between her legs. She was wet, soaked. She gasped into the pillows.

I rubbed the hot, wet flesh of her pussy, her clit. Fucking heaven. She gasped softly into the pillows.

Still rubbing her, I put my other hand to the back of her neck and wound it in her hair, twisting the dark locks over the back of my hand. She responded by gasping again and lifting her hips off the bed, pushing her legs open wider to give me more access.

Jesus, I’d never had a woman like this. So open, so ready. Never before, and never again. I’d never want another woman but her.

Keeping my hand in her hair, I rubbed her pussy, then moved my slick fingers back to her ass. She breathed hard into the pillows and her body tensed, but then she pressed back against me, exploring, liking it.

I circled my fingers, letting her feel it, letting the sensation flow. “We’ll do this,” I told her, rubbing, pressing. “Not tonight, but we will. We’ll do it right, and you’ll like it.”

“Oh, God,” she said softly.

I was so hard, watching her. I was losing my mind. I gripped one of her perfect ass cheeks and lifted her another inch off the bed. Then I positioned my hips over her and slid into her. She made a sound, halfway between a moan and a sigh, as I pushed in that I would probably hear in my dreams.

I’d thought it was incredible last time, but this… this was slow and sweet. She was so damn hot. I was ready to come, but I made it last, pumping into her slow and steady, my hand still wound in her hair. I watched her every move, every flicker of her eyelashes, listened to every sound. There was nothing in the world except this woman I was pleasuring, nothing but the orgasm I was going to get out of her and feel on my cock. Nothing else mattered or ever had.

Her fingers wound in the sheets, gripping them as the pleasure rose. I leaned down and nipped the side of her neck. “Yes, baby?”

“Please,” she said.

All Charlotte ever had to do was say please. I put my hand beneath her raised hips and found her pussy, her clit. I hitched her up and fucked her faster, harder as I moved my fingertips on her, over and over.

And she came. Slower than the last time, the orgasm shaking through her, soft tremors and then hard ones. She pressed her mouth into the pillows and cried out and pulsed against me, and I let it go and came inside her as she squeezed me. I let her milk me dry.

It was incredible.

There would never be another woman for me but Charlotte Browning.

I just had to find a way to make her believe me.