Page 124 of American Hellhound
She didn’t realize she bit his lip until he pulled back with a hiss, tonguing away a flash of blood. His eyes were black, heavy-lidded. “Shit,” he murmured, and dove back in.
Taste of copper, bright and thrilling. Messy kisses, now, sting of teeth and rasp of tongue. He put his hand on her face, angling her head, urging her jaw to open wider.
She melted. Each time they did this, it was better than the last, more familiar, easier to find the spots that made him growl and lean into her. Easier for him to touch her just so, and get her wet and panting.
He eased her down onto her back, paper crackling beneath her.
“Not the plan!” she laughed against his mouth, and he lifted her effortlessly, twisted and laid her back on the carpet of the living room floor, well away from their hours of hard work.
He crawled over her, braced up on his hands, his blown-black eyes staring down into her face. “You’re beautiful.”
She didn’t question it; when he said it, he meant it. He thought she was beautiful, and it had nothing to do with what she was wearing, with her hair or makeup or any of the reasons she’d been called beautiful before.
She reached up to frame his jaw in her hands. “You are too.”
He bent his head and kissed her collarbone, followed its path to the tender hollow of her throat. Down. Down to her breastbone, nosing at her shirt collar, pulling on the hem so he could reach more skin, the lace edge of her bra. She closed her eyes and let her fingers slide into his hair again: heat of his scalp on her palms, heat of his mouth at the tops of her breasts.
For the very first time, the prospect of talking to her mother didn’t fill her with cold fear. For the first time, she didn’t feel alone. She had Ghost now – not just a friend, not just a boyfriend, or a way to pass the time, but apartner.
The sensation of being cared for and wanted and appreciated was almost better than sex.
Almost.
~*~
Their business plan – in his mind it was “theirs” instead of “his,” because at this point, he was having a hard time envisioning a personal future that didn’t involve Maggie Lowe – was seven sheets of printer paper, stacked and folded up tight enough to cram into his wallet, no mean feat. It made his back pocket feel unaccountably heavy as he climbed off his bike the next morning and walked to the clubhouse. His side hurt badly, his face hurt – and looked even worse than it felt, two black eyes and a spanning patch of bruises across the bridge of his nose that made him look like he’d beaten a pair of sunglasses onto his face – and he was stone-cold sober. Anticipation sat acidic on his tongue, and his heart beat too hard. He was going to have this conversation, though, and he wasn’t going to be muddy-headed when he did it.
The clubhouse was its usual mix of post-party and pre-party, which was to say, an unmitigated disaster. Ghost didn’t look at any of it, walking straight through to the office and pushing open the cracked door without knocking.
Duane was at the desk and glanced up, face betraying nothing. Expressionless, his gaze traveled down to Ghost’s boots and back up again. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah. That disappoint you?”
“No.” His look said Ghost should know better. But that would imply he actually gave a damn about him, something Ghost doubted. More than doubted.
Ghost shut the door behind him and leaned back against it. “I think you owe me an explanation,” he said, insides jittery like he’d had too much coffee. He’d practiced with Maggie that morning, rehearsing what he’d say to his uncle, but he was no less nervous for it.
Duane stared at him.
Be direct, Maggie had said.Don’t give him a chance to twist your story.
“Which one of us were you hoping would bite it?” he asked. “Me or Roman?”
Duane frowned.I don’t have time for this shit, his expression said. “What the hell are you on about?”
Doubt prickled at the back of his skull. This was what Duane always managed to do: take all his hours of self-convincing, all his piled-up evidence of his uncle’s hate, and dismiss it with a single look. Ghost would nurture his suspicions for weeks at a time,surethat Duane hated his guts. And then a single word, a tender callused hand against the back of his neck, and family was all-important again; Ghost was the paranoid idiot, and not Duane, never Duane.
But not today. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.Don’t let him get to you, Maggie’s voice repeated in his head.If he loves you, make him show it.
And if he hated him, make him show that, too.
He lifted up the hem of his shirt and flashed his bandages.
“Shit,” Duane said, without inflection. “How deep is that?”
“Deep.” Ghost heard the nervous tension in his voice and pushed through it. “Better than a gunshot wound, though, and that’s what almost happened.”
“Yeah, Roman told me,” Duane said, looking back to the ledger in front of him. He reached for the glass at his elbow: Scotch, no doubt. “Guess we won’t be selling to the Ryders from here on out.”
