Summer
WATCHING TIGER COME and knowing I was the one who’d done it to him had to rank as one of the hottest things I’d ever seen. And the most powerful.
It was weird how I was on my knees in front of him, supposedly at a disadvantage, and yet he was the one who’d come completely undone.
His cock was pulsing in my mouth and I could taste him, salty and thick. His head was thrown back, the tendons of his throat standing out rigidly as he gasped, the sound of my name echoing around us.
His fingers were wound in my hair and it was a little painful, but I barely felt it. I was too busy looking at him, watching what I’d done to him and feeling the same rush I got when I solved a complex equation.
I’d done this to him. This experienced, jaded biker was shaking and all because I’d taken him in my mouth and sucked him hard.
He’d had to take over in the end, but I didn’t count that as a failure. I’d filed away what he’d shown me, remembered it so that next time I could fully take charge.
If there is a next time.
I shook the thought away. Of course there’d be a next time. Maybe later, after we’d had the talk he’d promised me. I knew more about what he liked now. I could use that knowledge and maybe it wouldn’t be him seducing me. Maybe it would be me seducing him.
The idea sent a thrill down my spine, making me shiver, making the ache between my thighs more intense.
His grip in my hair loosened and slowly he pulled out of my mouth, tucking himself away. His hands shook as he did so and that gave me a thrill, too.
Hell, everything about him gave me a thrill.
Once he’d zipped himself back up, I leaned forward and rested my cheek against the warm skin of his stomach, feeling the rock-hard muscles of his abs tense and flex. His hands returned to my hair, combing through it, then massaging my scalp with firm, circular movements of his fingers.
It felt so good that I closed my eyes, enjoying his touch and the heat of his body, the scent of musk and spice that was all Tiger. But pretty soon I wanted those massaging fingers to touch me elsewhere and so I had to move.
Because I wasn’t going to let him distract me again. That was exactly what he’d done with his blow job demands and we both knew it. He didn’t want to talk about his mother, or about the fact that I’d offered to teach him to read, and, hell, I couldn’t blame him. He was such a tough, strong guy and he must hate having his vulnerabilities exposed.
But I wanted to help him. I’d hated the look of pain in his eyes when he’d told me about his mother’s disappearance and I wanted to make it better for him. Because I’d bet the entire, meagre contents of my bank account that he didn’t have anyone else who wanted to help him the way I wanted to help him.
It was probably a good time to start asking myself why this was so important to me, but I decided I didn’t want to answer that question right now. It was enough that I wanted to. Anyway, he’d brought me here and hidden me from Keep and from my dad, so helping him seemed the right thing to do.
After a moment of silence, I felt Tiger move, bending to lift me up into his arms, and I let him, loving his strength and the feeling of lying against his warm, bare chest. Loving how he held me as if I was made of glass and he had to be careful of me, gentle with me.
It made me feel special, which was a dangerous thing to feel, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to feel special to someone, since I’d never really been special to anyone, and this was as close as I was going to get.
I leaned my head against his shoulder and looked up at him. His golden eyes gleamed as they met mine and there was a very satisfied expression on his face. ‘Did I do okay?’ My voice was hoarse, probably due to him pressing against the back of my throat, and it felt a little raw.
‘Do I really need to answer that?’ He headed towards the armchair opposite the couch. ‘You made me go fucking blind.’
‘Oh.’ There was a warm glow in the centre of my chest and I smiled, pleased with myself. ‘You did have to show me what to do at the end, but next time I promise I’ll do better.’
‘If you do any better, you’ll fucking kill me.’ He sat down in the armchair and arranged me across his lap, keeping one arm around me so I could lie back against his shoulder, while with the other he toyed with the hem of the T-shirt I wore. ‘I’m planning on some payback already.’
I shivered again at the heat in his voice. ‘I’m sure you are. But that’s not what we’re doing now.’
‘Oh?’ One dark brow rose. ‘And what exactly are we doing now?’
‘What you promised. You told me if I made you come, we’d talk.’
He gazed at me from underneath this long, thick black lashes, dark amber gleaming. ‘That was a dumb thing to say, wasn’t it?’
‘You were the one who said it.’
‘Hmm.’ His fingers stroked my bare knee. ‘Fine, let’s talk. Tell me why you’re afraid all the time.’
I blinked, trying to ignore the light touch of his fingers on my bare skin and only just stopping myself from pulling a face. Talking about myself wasn’t exactly what I’d planned. ‘I don’t know,’ I said vaguely. ‘It’s just... I’ve always felt afraid of things.’
‘Yeah, and that’s not a fucking answer. Perhaps it’ll become clearer if I do this.’ His fingers slid higher, up the inside of my thigh.
I frowned at him. ‘What did I say about distraction techniques?’
‘Then answer my question.’
I sighed and looked down, raising a hand to trace his beautiful tattoos. I could see the tiger on his right arm, all strength and grace and ferocity. ‘Did you design this one, too?’ I touched the tiger’s gleaming fangs that seemed to close around his shoulder.
‘No. Got that when I patched in and the tattoo guy did it for me. Now you’re being distracting.’ His finger caught me under my chin and tipped my head back so I met his gaze. ‘Come on, baby girl. Talk to me.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly. ‘Maybe it was growing up in a house that feels like it’s going to collapse at any second if you make a wrong move.’
‘Why did it feel like that?’
‘Oh, Dad. His moods. You never knew where you stood with him and you never knew what could set him off. He used to shout at me for no reason, and I hated it so I tried to keep out of his way as much as possible.’ I swallowed, a familiar tense, anxious feeling gripping me. ‘And my brother used to do the same thing.’
Tiger’s dark brows drew down in a sudden, ferocious frown. Maybe that should have scared me, too, the way it always had whenever Dad had looked at me that way, but it didn’t. Because this was Tiger, and sitting here in his arms I’d never felt safer in my entire life. ‘Your brother. My buddy’s old lady used to go out with him and he used to hurt her. He ever do that to you?’
I hadn’t had much to do with Cat when she’d been with Justin so I didn’t really know her. ‘No, he didn’t. I kept out of his way, the same way I kept out of Dad’s.’
But Tiger’s frown didn’t lift. ‘He fucking better not have laid a finger on you, get me? Because I’ll kill him if he did.’
At first I thought Tiger was joking, but he wasn’t smiling. Shit, he really would, wouldn’t he?
I wrapped my fingers around his wrist. ‘Don’t kill my brother, Tiger. Please.’
He grunted, but the feral look in his eyes didn’t waver. ‘Just a warning.’
‘Look, Dad and Justin didn’t hurt me, so I’m not sure why I was even so scared.’ Now I’d said it out loud, it all seemed so stupid. A lifetime of fear just because I didn’t like my daddy shouting at me? How pathetic. ‘They never did anything to me.’
‘Fear doesn’t come from nowhere, baby,’ Tiger said fiercely. ‘And being an abusive fuck doesn’t necessarily mean punching the shit out of someone. Making you feel bad about yourself, making you feel scared, that’s all abusive shit right there, and you know what? At least if someone hits you that’s honest. At least you know where you stand. But with that kind of emotional bullshit, it’s hard. You have no comeback and no way to protect yourself.’
I stared at him, suddenly thinking about all the things that Dad had said to me over the years, the jabs and criticisms, the subtle way he used my fear against me. ‘He told me Mom left because of me,’ I said hoarsely, not even realising I was going to mention it until the words came out. ‘He said that I’d made him angry and that Mom didn’t like it when he was angry and so she’d gone.’ There was a lump in my throat and it felt tight and sore. I tried to turn my head away, feeling vulnerable and wishing I’d never spoken, but Tiger’s grip on my chin tightened, holding me so I couldn’t.
‘Go on,’ he growled.
I didn’t want to, but there was something about his hot amber gaze on mine that felt reassuring. Even though it burned with anger, I knew the anger wasn’t directed at me. It was for me. And I liked that. No one had ever been angry on my behalf before.
‘He said that if I wanted her to come back,’ I went on, even though it was painful to say it out loud, ‘if I ever wanted to see her again, I’d better be a good girl and not make him mad.’ I swallowed. ‘I shouldn’t have believed him. I don’t know why I did. At the time I felt bewildered because I didn’t know what I’d done to make him angry. All I knew was that I had to make up for it somehow, so I tried to be as good as I could be. And eventually I thought that if I made myself invisible, he wouldn’t see me and if he couldn’t see me, I wouldn’t make him angry. And then maybe Mom would come home. It’s stupid now I think about it, because how could Mom know if he was angry or not when she wasn’t there? Anyway, I don’t know why he said those things to me. Maybe he was simply angry about Mom leaving and didn’t know what to do—’
Tiger’s grip tightened, cutting me off. ‘Don’t excuse him,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘That was a terrible thing to say to you. No father worth the name blames his little girl for his own fuck-ups, no matter how goddamn angry he is.’
‘It’s okay,’ I croaked, not wanting to make a fuss about it. ‘Look, the whole being scared thing was my fault anyway. I’m kind of pathetic and emotional and—’
But Tiger cut me off again, sharp and hard. ‘Is that what he told you?’
‘No, of course not. But I know that I am and I—’
‘It’s not your fucking fault your mom left. Why do you still believe him? Why are you taking the blame?’
I stared at him, stunned. ‘I’m not!’
‘Yes, you are.’ There was a fierce, angry light in his eyes. ‘You’re excusing him. You’re saying you’re pathetic and you’re not. You’re just fucking not. You’re steel, baby. Coming down to the clubhouse, shoving Crash when he put the moves on you. Getting all up in my grille. Fuck, you wanna know how many people challenge me the way you did? Not one. No one would fucking dare.’
The way he said the words and the conviction in his voice did things to me. I hadn’t thought I still blamed myself for the way Mom left. I knew it had simply been Dad’s anger talking, but...
Realisation began to settle down inside me, and with it came pain. Because all my life my father had made me feel small and weak, and I’d let him.
Even when I told myself I hadn’t believed the things he’d said all those years ago, there was still a small part of me that did.
A tear slid down my cheek and I didn’t bother to wipe it away. ‘Mom kissed me goodbye when she left. She said she’d see me again. Dad was always so angry afterwards, no matter how good I was. I wondered if I wasn’t being good enough and somehow...she knew and...stayed away.’
The fierce light in Tiger’s eyes didn’t fade, yet somehow it became warmer. He’d kept that big, rough hand on my cheek, and now he brushed the tear away with his thumb, a gentle movement that pierced my heart straight through. ‘You didn’t drive her away, Summer,’ he said, and that warmth was in his rough voice, too, wrapping me up like a velvet blanket. ‘And you didn’t keep her away either. Your father’s an asshole for telling you that. I bet she left because she couldn’t stand his shit, but honestly? She should never have left you behind in the first place. She should have come back. She should have fought like a fucking demon to get you.’
I felt every one of those words hit me like sparks thrown from a fire. And they touched something cold in my heart that I hadn’t known existed, igniting a warmth that hadn’t been there before, thawing everything icy inside me.
Another tear slipped out, though I tried not to let it. ‘We were supposed to be talking about you. Not me.’
‘I prefer talking about you.’ His thumb moved, brushing away a tear again. ‘Don’t let your dad affect how you feel about yourself, baby girl. The only power he has over you is the power you give him, so don’t give it to him. And you can do that. You’re stronger than you think. Jesus, if you can face down an MC enforcer like me, you can face down anyone.’
He was right. I knew it deep in my bones. Maybe the knowledge had always been there and I hadn’t wanted to face it, because the thought of confronting my dad was scary. And not because of what he might do to me, but because of the way he could hurt me inside.
But Tiger seemed to see deeper into me than I saw myself. And if he thought I was strong, then maybe I actually was. He wasn’t a guy who would lie or blow smoke. He didn’t manipulate people. He told the truth.
I gave him a watery smile, leaning into the comfort of his palm against my skin. ‘You’re not that scary.’
‘I’m pretty fucking tough.’
‘Not as tough as you make out.’ I put my hand over his where it rested on my cheek. ‘Your mother didn’t come back for you either, did she?’
His gaze flickered as I hit a nerve he didn’t want touched. But I didn’t look away and I kept my hand over his. I wanted him to know he could talk to me about that, that he could trust me. ‘It’s not the same,’ he muttered eventually.
‘Why not?’
‘Your mom said goodbye to you.’
‘So? Clearly that didn’t stop me from blaming myself.’
‘I don’t blame myself.’
But he did, that was obvious. ‘Tiger...’
He looked away. ‘Come on, I’ll make you breakfast. But don’t forget I owe you one.’
‘You owe me one what?’
‘One orgasm.’ His hold shifted and I found myself sliding off his lap and onto my feet.
Yeah, he really did not want to talk about his mother and I couldn’t help the sharp spike of disappointment that slid under my skin. I’d laid myself open for him yet he wouldn’t give me any of himself? It didn’t seem fair.
He got to his feet and then, unexpectedly, reached for my hand and threaded his fingers through mine. His amber gaze was suddenly direct. ‘I’ll talk while I cook, okay?’