Blood & Rust (Lock & Key Book 4) Read online

  Tania moaned.

  Again.

  She twisted in the bed next to me. The rise and fall of her chest was deep and slow as she breathed through sleep.

  I couldn’t fucking sleep.

  Even though my body was exhausted, my brain was wired. Pick coming after me through the woman I was with was all kinds of bullshit. All kinds of warning signs.

  He had been drinking, but still, that was no fucking excuse. Creeper had been hiding out with the Blades, and they were obviously pissed that I’d taken him.

  Too fucking bad.

  But Pick hanging out with a biker from another club? A club that had never had a foothold in our parts. A club that I’d literally made my mark on as a prospect. A club that Finger had a bloody history with.

  Shit, I need a smoke.

  Another moan.

  A deep sigh.

  Tania kicked off the sheet, and a long bare leg made an appearance. Her shorts had ridden up her ass, and the curve of a full cheek was visible in the light from the bathroom that I’d left on.

  I hated sleeping in the dark, and I’d gotten up and turned it on, leaving the door ajar, after Tania had fallen asleep in the middle of our conversation about our favorite rock ballads of all time. (Mine being Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” hers being Pearl Jam’s “Black.”) Now, I had a view of skin. Smooth, sleek skin on a leg that was bending, the lean muscles flexing.

  Maybe Pick’s assault had freaked her out more than she’d let on? I should’ve talked to her more about it after. Instead, I’d gone on about club politics and club history.

  Then, she’d asked me how I was doing. And that one simple question had a gutting effect on me along with the touch of her hand against my chest. I hadn’t known how to answer.

  When was the last time anyone had been concerned about me? About my fucking feelings?

  Not for a long, long time.

  Tania murmured in her sleep again, her head arching back.

  I edged closer to her.

  “Oh. Mmm,” seeped from her lips.

  More little moans.

  She couldn’t be dreaming about Pick unless he was some sort of fantasy come to life for her.

  Huh.

  She turned again, and her back pressed against my chest. The sudden heat against me, her against me, lit up my skin, and my breath shorted. I lifted the sheet a few degrees, unstuck my legs, and…yeah, there. Skin-to-skin with Tania’s legs.

  Fuck.

  I wasn’t supposed to be doing this.

  Her neck arched again, offering itself to me. I ran my fingertips across the silky skin of her shoulders, her arms. She rolled over, a slight smile on her lips, an arm sliding up against my chest, around my neck, her fingers in my hair.

  A current raced up my spine and choked the breath in my lungs.

  My hand swept across that long throat of hers and cradled her face. My lips brushed her ear, down the hidden patch of skin behind it, and goose bumps rose on her skin. I smiled to myself and wiped her thick hair away from her neck, revealing more skin.

  Always the conqueror of female flesh.

  No, no, this is different.

  She nestled against me, her fingers rubbing against my scalp. The fragrance of the soap we’d both used in the shower invaded my senses along with another far prettier, more delicate scent, something flowery yet clean. Something I liked a hell of a lot. Like unexpected gentleness on a take-no-prisoners determined Tania. There was plenty of soft and vulnerable underneath her hard shell.

  My hips pressed against hers on a primal instinct for friction, and my cock heartily agreed with the move. It had been stiff since her first moan I’d heard over an hour ago. Now, it was full-blown bone.

  I can’t do this. I shouldn’t be doing this.

  Another moan.

  Fuck.

  I licked the side of her warm throat with the tip of my tongue. She let out a whimper, and it pulled on my insides.

  “You like that, baby?” I murmured against her skin, following the angle of her jaw under her throat. I was rewarded with little cries and stretches, flexing, and hips searching for contact.

  My fingers tucked under the warm cotton of her shirt, slid against her skin, down her torso, and over her hip. I hit elastic. Panty elastic. The final frontier. The border. Only, I didn’t have a passport to cross over.

  My heart clanged in my chest.

  That’s new.

  This wasn’t just turned on, ready to fuck. This was…anticipation.

  She squirmed against my cock, another lazy smile tugging on the edges of her lips.

  Tania, who always seemed bitter and sour, who I’d always enjoyed taking down a peg or two when the opportunity had arisen.

  Tania, who, decades ago, had blown me off in the middle of fucking her, stomping on my inflated sense of identity and manhood.

  But that was then.

  This was—

  “Yes, yes…” she murmured, her voice husky, low.

  This was Tania, who hadn’t gotten any in a long, long time.

  The whole afternoon in that artist’s house flashed in front of my eyes. The softness of her face. That was real pleasure, excitement. Those exotic dark eyes of hers alive with fire. That was intelligence, determination, appreciation. The way we’d communicated in the dark. I’d held my hand out to her, and she’d taken it. She’d handed me her flashlight, listened to my comments, asked for my opinions. We’d lobbed jokes back and forth to lighten the tediousness of the ginormous task of weeding through eons of junk, dirt, and cobwebs to find special somethings.

  But there had been so much disappointment in those eyes when she told me about her marriage. Self-flagellation. For bad decisions, missed opportunities. I had seen it in her, and I knew. I knew. She was walking on burning coals.

  Sex used to be one of my favorite outlets, but once I’d cut myself off from the drugs and the booze to fill the holes, the sex hadn’t been what it used to be. It took effort. And being sober for it was new, and I wasn’t sure I liked it that way. Being conscious, being aware, having to deal with the other person in the mix. Nothing like the aftereffects of high living.

  At dinner tonight, Tania had asked me about other women. I’d caught the taunting smirk on her face, which she’d quickly masked with a laugh and a joke.

  I’d gotten thrown out of my first rehab for fucking a fellow inmate over the copy machine. That was a new low because I couldn’t even finish.

  That was when I’d decided to button it up. Button it all up—at least for a while. A kind of fast. I’d figured, I’d gone the opposite direction, enjoying the ocean view from Party Town Heights. So, why not check out the desert now and see if I could get to the oasis at the end of it?

  There had to be an oasis. And I’d be so ready to drink.

  Now, with Tania here, in bed next to me—sexy, hungry Tania—after all her frank confessions of the day and night, after her trusting me with thoughts and feelings and insecurities she had trusted to no one else…I was hard as a fucking rock.

  Tania’s lips moved, her tongue peeking out against her bottom lip.

  That tongue. Her tongue.

  My fingers cradled her face, and I leaned down and kissed her. She moaned, her body pressing into mine. I tugged on her bottom lip with my teeth. I stroked her upper lip with my tongue. She raised her head a few degrees and kissed me back. She explored my lips with hers, sucking, nibbling. So slowly. So…

  A moan escaped my throat, and her tongue invaded my mouth and stroked.

  I got my fucking passport and got it stamped.

  My fingers slid under that band of elastic on her hip and found her.

  Warm. Wet. Irresistible.

  Her body shuddered, and she cried out.

  My head swam. I stroked her wet silk, finding her clit. I listened to her body with every cell in my being.

  Tease her. Please her.

  I went gentle, I stroked faster, I touched lighter, I rubbed harder.

  Fuck, I
love this.

  I wanted her to come. I wanted to be the one to give it to her. I wanted my mouth on her tits, my fingers in her pussy. I wanted her crying out my name on those swollen lips.

  But that would be going too far.

  I took in a breath.

  Cool it. Enjoy the small shit, goddamn it.

  The small gifts in the dark. The ones you couldn’t see, but you knew were there.

  I rubbed my cock up against her, and she pressed back, enjoying the friction I offered and offered me more of the same.

  I wanted to give her pleasure, relief. She deserved it. She obviously needed it. I wanted to be the one to give her that. I was peeling back layers. A flower was blooming in my hands.

  Her body stiffened in my hold as her fingers dug into my scalp. “Wh-what the hell are you doing?” she choked out, her eyes wide open.

  She’d woken up, and her logical brain had kicked in.

  “Shh.”

  “Shit.” She twisted in my hold and planted her hands against my bare chest.

  Fuck if that didn’t turn me on more.

  “We’re both here, so we might as well?” she asked, her voice tight.

  “No. No, it’s not—”

  “I don’t want to be your might as well,” she blurted.

  My hand gripped her jaw. I don’t either.

  A noise escaped from the back of my throat. “It’s not that. You aren’t that.”

  “Then, what? Are you doing me a favor, taking pity on me?”

  “Fuck no.” My fingers stroked her skin. “You ever touch yourself? Make yourself come?”

  “All the time.” She breathed hard.

  My dick jumped at the husky sound of her voice. Stubbornness laced with need. Images of her touching herself in a stolen moment in a bed, the shower, on a sofa, her head thrown back, lips parted, fired off in my head.

  “Good. So then, you can appreciate this.” I increased the pressure of my fingers. “A man touching you. Now, stop talking and feel this. Enjoy it.”

  Her breath fanned the bare skin on my chest. “Butler—”

  “Let me touch you, Tania. Let me give this to you.”

  Her legs rubbed against mine, and a fever rushed through my veins. I didn’t want to stop. We both wanted this bad. Whatever the hell this was.

  “No, don’t. This isn’t…”

  “Feel it, Scarlett. Just this. Only this. This is for you.”

  My fingers dragged through the soft flesh between her legs. I swirled them through her, back and forth and around. Her eyes widened, hanging on mine.

  Whirlpool. I was in a fucking whirlpool.

  Her breath snagged, and her fingers squeezing my arms.

  “Vibrator better than this?” I whispered.

  “Shut up.”

  I grinned against her damp skin, my lips nuzzling her throat. She trembled.

  “Tell me it doesn’t feel good, baby. Tell me you’re not liking it. Tell me you don’t want to come.” My raspy voice sounded jagged through the darkness as I slowly stroked her.

  “Butler—”

  “Let me take you there.” My lips danced across the side of her face. “Fucking tell me, Tania. Say it.”

  She squirmed in my hold. “Harder.”

  Yes.

  I intensified the pressure of my fingers, and she cried out. A helpless wild cry. A tide of unexpected sensation pulled me under at the sound.

  Her hips rocked against my hand. “So good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m coming…”

  The sounds of my fingers moving in her slickness made the heat bunch in the base of my spine. It had been a long time since I’d given to someone I really wanted to give to. That there had been a reason, a motivation to give, other than the woman was a hot piece of ass who was working me good and I was obliged to do the same.

  Forget my cock. My fingers weren’t even inside Tania now. I hadn’t even seen her naked; she still had clothes on. I was only touching her, holding her, kissing her, watching her.

  This is crazy.

  Her fingers rubbed my neck as our eyes searched each other’s in the half dark. Our lips touched.

  I wanted to be naked with her. I wanted more from her. I wanted—

  My fingers moved rougher, quicker, pressing harder around her secret flesh.

  “Go with it. Take it higher, Tania.”

  She gasped, her mouth against mine. “Oh, oh—almost—oh—”

  “Get there, baby. Fucking get there for me.”

  “Butler!” She detonated.

  The priceless bottle of champagne had finally been uncorked. The sweet bubbly liquor flowed over the bottle and into my fucking mouth.

  And I drank.

  She clung to me, and I held on to her as the orgasm tore through her. I pressed my palm down over her throbbing mound, prolonging the intensity, and she cried out at the further stimulation. Her lips nuzzled my chest as the pleasure tumbled through her.

  “Feel all of it, Tania.”

  Her muscles finally relaxed in my firm hold.

  Her hand slid between the press of our bodies to the steel rod craning through my boxer briefs. Her eager fingers slipped past my waistband and wrapped around the engorged wet tip of my cock.

  My body seized.

  All I wanted was to plow through her right this very second. All I wanted was to feel her coming on me, moving with me. Those huge eyes taking me in as I drove inside her. Her pleading for mercy, a mercy I wouldn’t give.

  Holy shit.

  I tugged her hand away. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Let me—let me do something for you. Let me touch you, please.”

  “No, you don’t have to.”

  Have I ever said that to a woman before in my life?

  “I want to,” she whispered.

  “Shh.” I buried my face in her hair, trying to get my breathing, my pulse, under control.

  That didn’t help. At all.

  “You don’t want me?”

  “I wouldn’t be touching you if I didn’t want you, trust me. But I didn’t do this to get laid.”

  “Then, what? Why not?”

  “You were moaning in your sleep, making me crazy. What the hell were you dreaming of anyway? You and George Clooney?”

  “No!” She laughed.

  “You and your vibrator?”

  She only laughed harder.

  “Just don’t tell me it was your fucking ex.”

  “No, no.” She pressed her face into my chest, and I held her tighter, skimming her chin, her jaw with my lips. “I was dreaming of Gerhard and Astrid. How they were together. Only…”

  Jesus, this woman.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tania, I just had my fingers between your legs. We’re past embarrassing. Tell me.”

  “I dreamed that I was Astrid, and Gerhard was looking at me the way I imagine he must have looked at her while he was dressing her for a photograph.”

  A sharp prickle laced over my chest.

  “Were you naked?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh. And he put a long scarf around my neck. Only that.”

  My fingers traced a curve up her throat to the slim angles of her face.

  “I could feel him touching me. Kissing me,” she continued, her voice breathier. “Then, he put the crown in my hair.”

  “Hmm. You looked good with that crown.” My hand smoothed through her hair. “Even better if you were naked.”

  She laughed. A satisfied lazy laugh.

  “I’m serious. And all this black hair swirling around your neck, like a scarf.”

  “You wouldn’t put a cape or that fabric over me?”

  “No, only your hair wrapped around you. Much sexier. You’ve got great hair.” My fingers smoothed down the ends of her silky black hair over the swell of her breast. I stroked the full curve, and she let out a low moan. “You deserve a man crowning you.”

  She pressed a hand to the side of my face
and held my gaze. Comfort and assurance flooded my veins like morphine.

  “I feel really idiotic for saying thank you, but I feel like I should. Thank you.”

  “For what exactly? The compliment or the orgasm?”

  She laughed. “For both.”

  “My pleasure. Really. Now, go to sleep.” I tucked her further into my embrace and inhaled the warm musk of her skin, a blend of soap, lust, and sweat dancing in my nostrils.

  Years ago, she had pulled away from me, rejected what I’d offered her, and I’d shouted at her, cursed her for being so hard to please, such a snobby bitch. Now, over twenty years later, all I wanted this very second was to beg her to ride my cock, to take me in as deep as I could go.

  The groan building inside me was killing me. The words were on my fucking lips.

  I bit down on them to stop it all from spilling out of me.

  Fucking Karma.

  She stroked the sides of my face and brought her lips to mine. A small groan escaped me as she kissed me, enticing my tongue in lazy strokes with her own.

  I pulled back, sweeping the hair from her face, and kissed her forehead. “Tania…”

  Look at me, considering the bigger picture, thinking of consequences. I’m all grown up.

  “That was really good. Really, really good,” she whispered. “And that sounded sort of lame.” She let out a giggle.

  My chest swelled at the sound of that relaxed soft laugh. She'd enjoyed it. Enjoyed me.

  “Can’t we keep kissing?” she asked.

  “That’ll only lead to—we’d better stop here, not complicate things.”

  She twisted a lock of my hair around her finger. “You’re right. I agree. I don’t want to complicate things either. Both of us are going back home now after being away a long while, and God knows what we’ll find. Only kissing, I swear.”

  My hand cupped her jaw, and her mouth met mine. Everything spun on our tongues—her taste, her enthusiasm, invading and caressing, giving and demanding, playful and forceful, needing.

  Needing.

  Oh, I needed. Shit, I really needed.

  But I needed to stop this more.

  My fingers fisted in her hair, tugging her head back. Her chest heaved under mine. My erection was as hard as iron against her middle.