I was at work when news of the attack on a motorcycle clubhouse in Jackson began to hit the news. There was some evidence that Stone Security was somehow involved, but information was still sketchy. I was again distracted, sitting at the bar longer than I should have, watching the news. Rhonda stuck her head in a few times, but she never said anything to me. Still, it was a relief when she called closing time.

I was exhausted, feeling the weight of everything that had been happening resting on my shoulders as I trudged up the stairs to my apartment that night. When I saw movement, my thoughts moved automatically to Curtis. I touched my bag, feeling the outline of the Taser Brent had sent over to my place a few days ago. But then he moved into the light and saw familiar blue eyes watching me wearily.

I went to him, my hands moving over his face, his jaw, searching for injuries. When my search moved down to his chest, he pressed his hands into my hair, forcing my head back. He kissed me without uttering a word, his obvious exhaustion melting into a need that continued to refuse to be ignored.

Or maybe it was just my need that was suddenly awake and rearing its head again.

We kissed for a long moment there against my apartment door. But then he slipped my keys out of my hands and managed to work the lock with surprisingly steady hands, pushing me back into my own home, his mouth seeking mine again as he kicked the door closed behind him and urged me deeper into the apartment.

I don’t know when he picked me up, but I remembered falling onto the bed, glad I’d forgotten to make it, glad the blankets were out of the way, nothing impeding us but the clothes we were quickly tearing at, pulling from one another’s bodies. I tugged his shirt over his head, burying my mouth against his throat when it was free, tasting the warm salt of his skin, smelling the soap from a recent shower. His hands were digging at my jeans, pulling at the snap that held them closed even as he pulled me tighter against him, blocking himself from his work as he rocked his hips against mine.

There was a desperation about him that kept him from going about this in a logical way. I had to push him away, had to pull myself to a partial sitting position in order to remove my own shirt, my own bra. He watched, a fever burning in his eyes. When I unsnapped my jeans, he pulled me under him again, his mouth moving over my breasts, his teeth scraping a nipple that stood up on end and begged for that touch. And then his mouth came back to mine as I tugged his jeans open, my hand sliding inside to grasp his impressive erection, to possess what I’d wanted to possess since the moment I set eyes on him.

He groaned, rearing his head back as I touched him. He tore at my jeans as I stroked him, a curse slipping from between his lips when his fingers fumbled, his hands refusing to do what his body was begging them to do. I pushed him over, climbing on top of him, taking control of the situation. I shrugged out of my jeans and straddled him, held his hands in place against my hips as I eased myself over his erection, as I allowed him to slowly fill me.

He closed his eyes and released a groan that was almost a growl, an animalistic sound that danced up and down my spine with an intensity that almost hurt. I settled, my hips against his, still holding him still as I refused to move, allowing my body to adjust to his invasion. When I finally opened my eyes, when I let go of his hands, he pulled me forward with an urgency that might have been painful if he wasn’t mindful of me, of my pleasure. And then we were moving together, rocking against each other as our mutual need slowly found a kind of release that was like the unspeakable pleasure of finally finding that itch and scratching it.

After a few moments, he sat up and wrapped his body around me, stealing another kiss before turning and trapping me against the mattress. Fear briefly flared in my chest because of the power of his weight, because of the loss of control. But then he was tugging my legs over his hips and he was driving deep inside of me and pleasure drove everything away. All I could do was go for the ride, scraping my nails on his back in a desperate attempt to keep him right where he was.

I’d never experienced anything quite that intense. And this incredibly intense orgasm was building deep inside of me. I didn’t even realize what it was at first. Curtis had never…Curtis didn’t even care enough to worry about my pleasure. But it was there with Brent, making me ache in places I didn’t even know I had, sending these waves all the way down to my toes. And that was just the precursor.

I was lost when the real thing began. I couldn’t help the sounds that escaped my lips, couldn’t stop myself from digging my nails into his flesh. I just rode the wave and it was an incredible wave! I was barely aware of the moment he hit his peak, too. But I heard his growls, felt the spasms that rushed through his body, making the spasms in mine that much more. And then we just collapsed, tangled in each other’s arms.

Was that what it was supposed to be like? Was that what I’d been missing all this time? I almost laughed as he rolled onto his back, pulling me up against his chest. He held me tight, a funny sound slipping from his lips.

I sat up a little, resting my hand against his chest as I studied his face.

“You okay?”

He shook his head in the negative. “It’s been a long couple of days.”

“I’ve been watching the news. They said someone died at your brother’s house.”

“Yeah. One of our guys. He was shot by this MC guy from Jackson.”

“The same MC whose clubhouse was burned down?”

“Revenge. It was Rae’s idea.”

“Rae?”

“Jack’s…” Brent hesitated like he didn’t know what to call her. “She’s his girl, I guess.”

“Does he often burn down the clubs belonging to his girl’s exes?”

Brent chuckled. “Only when she’s a client, too.”

“Does he date a lot of his clients?”

“This is the first. Hopefully the last, too.”

I kissed his chest, moving slowly up toward his neck. “What about you? Have you ever dated a client?”

“Never.”

“Do you think you ever would?”

He twisted his fingers in my hair and pulled my head back so he could look me in the eye. But instead of answering me, he tugged me close and kissed me, his need as intense as anything that had come before. When he let me go again, I lay against his chest, my ear pressed against his heart so that I could hear the pounding going on inside his chest.

“She was shot.”

For a brief moment, I thought he was talking about his wife. But I knew what happened to her.

“Who?”

“Rae. Jack took her with him to Jackson and she was shot during a confrontation with her ex. And then Jack shot her ex.”

I was quiet for a moment, a sudden realization of the life Brent and his brother lived flowing through me. I wasn’t sure I liked the idea. What if something were to happen to Brent?

But then I remembered the things that had happened to him over the past few years and realized that bad things happened to people all the time. Inviting danger didn’t necessarily mean it would visit him.

“Will she be okay?”

“Don’t know yet. Jack’s with her at the hospital. The doctors are optimistic.”

“Is she the one who was organizing your office?”

He grunted. “How did you know?”

I shrugged. There was something about the tone of his voice when he talked about her. He liked her.

“She’s a firecracker,” he said, running his hand slowly down my back. “She was with me when I confronted a couple of the Mad Dog club members, saved my ass when the meeting got violent.”

“Is that how you got this?” I touched the wound near his eye. “Fighting some motorcycle gang member?”

“Does that frighten you?”

“With everything that’s been happening these last few days?”  I stared at him like he was insane because that was an insane question. “You’re damn right it frightens me!”

He surprised me by smiling. I smacked his shoulder.

“I’m not being funny!”

“No, I know. I just like the idea that you care what happens to me.”

I snuggled down against him and sighed. “Don’t get used to it.”

He laughed. His hand continued to move up and down my back, the combo of his touch and that laughter so soothing that my eyelids grew heavy. His breathing changed after a few minutes, too, growing heavier. Deeper. We were both so exhausted that it didn’t take much for sleep to capture us. I don’t even remember dreaming that night. I slept more soundly and deeply that night than I had in a very long time.

*

Brent wasn’t beside me when I woke the following morning. I stretched my hand out, searching for him before I even opened my eyes, but my hand came back empty. I was lost in this deep disappointment when I heard the rattling of paper behind me. I rolled over, squinting in the bright light coming in through the window. Brent, dressed only in his underwear, was sitting in an armchair that was more commonly a place for discarded clothes rather than a place to sit, shuffling through a pile of papers that were stacked on the floor between his feet.

He glanced at me before his eyes fell back to the papers.

“You looked me up.”

It wasn’t an accusation, not a question. It was a statement.

“I, uh, I was curious.”

He shrugged his powerful shoulders, his eyes moving over me for a second before he looked at the papers again.

“It’s okay. I mean, I researched you, too. I just wish you had come to me instead.”

“You weren’t exactly forthcoming about your past.”

“It’s a little painful to talk about.”

There was nothing to say to that.

He continued to shuffle thought the printouts of the articles about his personal tragedies. He paused when he came across one that showcased a picture of his wife and daughter in happier times. His thumb moved over their faces before he dropped the paper back down and sat back, his eyes moving over me again.

I wondered what he thought when he looked at me that time. I wondered if he saw the resemblance between me and his wife that I’d noticed the day before. It was almost impossible to tell height in a photograph, but she seemed taller than me. And her eyes were a little rounder, her lips fuller. But there was a striking resemblance between us. Madeline had dark, curly hair that she wore long, just like me. And she had a round face with a narrow nose, just like me. We could have been sisters in another life.

It made me wonder if that was why he’d been drawn to me that night at the club. And if that was why he was here now.

“These articles tell the facts, but they don’t tell everything.” He ran his hands over his head, rubbing his palm against his hair. “They tell you my father committed suicide, but they don’t tell you why.”

I sat up a little straighter, tugging the sheet up to my chest.

“Will you tell me?”

He dropped his chin, his eyes moving back to the stack of papers at his feet. Then he sighed, rubbing his hands against his thighs now.

“My parents were closer than anyone I’ve ever seen. I can’t even begin to explain what it was between them. As kids…sometimes I felt like I was in the way by simply existing. They loved us, but they loved each other more, you know? They couldn’t get enough of each other, never got bored in each other’s company. They could have lived in isolation together, separate from everyone else in the world, and they would have been happier than a kid in a candy store.” He sighed, his eyes lost in the memory. “When she got sick, you could see the fear radiating from them both. And I think that was because they knew that they’d finally come to a place in their lives when it was possible that one or the other would be gone. I don’t think they knew how to handle that.”

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, still lost in his memories.

“He built this sort of wall around her, refused to let anyone do anything for her but him. Not even us kids. It seemed to work for a while. The doctor declared her cancer free after they did a mastectomy and she underwent a couple of months of chemo. But then they discovered it had metastasized to her liver. Nothing they could do. Still he wouldn’t let us near her, not until the very end. And then…you could see the life go out of him as it left her.” He shook his head. “I fully believe he died that day even though he went on to live another six months.

“Madeline and my sister, Remy, stayed close to him, took care of him. And it appeared that he was coming out of his funk. But then, exactly six months after her death, I got the call. He’d written out a careful will, written letters to each of us kids. Then he laid down on her side of the bed, a picture of her in his hands, and put a bag over his head. He suffocated himself so that he could be with her again.”

He was quiet for so long that my heart broke for him. I wanted to go to him, but I knew he wasn’t the kind of man who wanted that kind of pity. So I waited, watched the grief wash through him.

“It brought us closer, Madeline and I,” he said, his voice decidedly different. “She was my rock during that time, the only reason I got through it. And I did. I came out the backside and found happiness again. In Madeline, in our daughter who was only a year old when her grandmother died. I thought we were all going to make it.

“Dad left us a lot of money, my brothers, sister, and me. We decided to put it into a business we could work together. Aiden and Gentry were still on active duty, but Jack, Remy, and I put together the business plan, designed the building, got everything going. We’d just begun taking clients when Madeline and Josie…”

He stopped, his voice breaking slightly.

“I didn’t know she was going out that day. If I’d known, I might have offered to run her errands for her. She was exhausted, never able to get a good night’s sleep. Josie was a handful and she refused to sleep in her own bed, even at two. And the pregnancy was just at that stage where it drained her of all her energy.”

When his voice broke again, I couldn’t stop myself. I got out of the bed and went to him, crawled into his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck. He began to cry, hard sobs that broke my heart with each spasm they sent through his body.

I didn’t need to hear the rest of the story. I already knew.

She was driving downtown, running errands in an area that was known for heavy congestion on the roads. Either she wasn’t paying attention or she was distracted. No one knew for sure. But she drove out in front of a speeding delivery truck while trying to make a left turn. There were pictures of her car in the paper. At least they said they were her car, but they looked like nothing more than hunks of scrap metal. There was nothing left. Madeline and Josie never had a chance.

Brent buried his face against my shoulder, the heat from his tears, his sobs, melting into my flesh. I kissed the top of his head over and over again, whispering words of consolation, not even sure that he heard me. But then his hands were moving over my naked body, his mouth seeking mine even as little sobs continued to escape his lips. I pushed his face back and looked into his grief-reddened eyes. He tried to look away, but then he met my gaze full on, showing me his raw emotion. He broke open his soul and let me have a nice, long look.

I loved him for it. I loved that he trusted me enough to show me this side of himself. He was a powerful man, a man who lived in a violent world where vulnerability was equated with weakness. He was going pretty far out on a limb to show me this, to allow himself this. It was overwhelming to me.

He slid his hand over my back as he sat back in the chair, drawing me into him. We sat there for a long time, listening to each other’s breathing, enjoying the intimacy of each other’s movements, of skin touching skin.

“I haven’t been with anyone since Madeline.” His voice was deeper than usual, his tone heavy. “And Madeline was my first in so many ways that I thought I could never want anyone else.”

That explained a lot. I remembered the way the people at Stone Security stared at me when they saw us together, the way Rhonda had seemed surprised when I took Brent’s hand and led him back to my room.

I kissed the center of his chest. “She must have been very special.”

He sighed softly. “She was shy. Quiet. It took me weeks just to get her to say hello to me without blushing like I was asking her to get naked in the middle of the quad!” He laughed a little at the memory. “But once she warmed up to a person… I don’t know anyone who didn’t like her.”

I ran my hand over his ribs, my fingers moving up to the tattoo over his heart as though they had a mind of their own. I traced the names of the two ladies he’d loved so completely, two ladies who’d stolen his heart long before he set eyes on me. I wanted to be jealous, wanted to hate this woman who’d had his affections so completely once upon a time. But I couldn’t.

“She sounds wonderful.”

“She had her faults. But she was more than I deserved.”

I kissed his chest again, tracing my lips over that place between his pecs where there was just the finest growth of hair. He pressed his fingers into the tangle of my curls, pulling my head back. This time it was he who wanted to look into my eyes.

“I’ve never talked about that day with anyone. But you…why is it so easy to talk to you?”

“We’re two of a kind.” I touched his face, drew him up to me so that our lips could touch. “We’ve both been beat down by life.”

“Have we? Jack’s girl was beat down by life. But I think you and I, we’re not beaten. We’re not broken. We’re just a little bruised.”

I smiled at the imagery. “What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know. But it feels like there is a difference.”

He slid his hands down the small of my back, his fingers seeking things that were hidden in folds of flesh. I moved my hips a little, encouraging his touch and then moving away from it, giggling when he groaned in frustration, his hold on my hips growing stronger. We kissed and that intensity was back in his exploration of my mouth. I closed my eyes and sighed, thinking I could sit there and kiss him like that all day. But I forgot to move my hips, to get out of his way and his fingers began doing things that made my heart race and that intense pressure of need begin to build in my lower belly again.

He picked me up, falling onto the bed with me, our bodies a tangled heap for a second. But then we were moving together, exploring each other, our bodies becoming less of two individual things and more of a single unit. We lay together for a long time, never growing bored covering the same line of flesh, touching the same erotic points. There was actually a great deal new to discover, new sounds, new spots to explore. And a seemingly endless supply of pleasure.

He hissed when we climbed into the shower later and I had to laugh when I realized how badly I’d scratched his back. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but there were several raw patches along his love handles. I kissed them, an apology on my lips.

“It’s worth it,” he said, drawing me into his arms, apparently not tired of me yet.