Page 98 of American Hellhound
He breathed raggedly against her throat, his voice a growl. “You sore, baby?” Right in her ear.
She stretched – his fingers dug into her hipbone – and felt the pull deep, deep in her belly, the dull ache below. “Yeah. A little.”
He breathed just under her ear, a low purr against that ticklish spot, and his hand smoothed down her thigh and back up again. Steady, possessive sweeps, warming her skin, making her squirm. “You okay?” he asked, and she sensed it wasn’t the same as being sore.
“Yeah.” Because she was, because it was a good kind of sore, and she felt her blood warming, a slow simmer as his hand moved, teasing her.
“You sure?” His fingers skipped back up over the ridge of her hip and then skimmed down her belly, feather-light, sliding into the line where her leg joined her pelvis.
Her pulse fluttered, trapped and happy about it. “Y-yeah.”
He pressed a smile into her shoulder; she felt the curve of it, the sly quirk in the corners. “You don’t sound okay.”
She wriggled back against him, worked her ass against his hips, and was rewarded by a quick hiss through his teeth. “Whose fault is that?”
His hand slipped between her legs, bold and expert. “Yeah, well…” He laid a wet kiss against her throbbing pulse and ground his hips against her, hard and ready.
The heat elevated in seconds, from one flick of his finger, from a simmer to a roar, flooding her, leaving her weak, and flushed, and craving. “Ghost,” she said, helpless, and he eased her legs open with his thumb.
“Easy, baby,” he murmured, but she felt the way it wasn’t at all easy for him, his harsh breathing and his pounding heart against her back, trying to beat right out of his chest.
It was an anticipation that belonged to children, the heady rush of waiting tangled up with wanting, like the sleepless, beautiful tension of Christmas Eve. That’s all she could compare it to, the thundering build-up as he touched her and rutted purposefully against her. She was sore, and he wasn’t going to mount her, giving her a break, but his fingers stroked her until she was wet and wishing he would, soreness be damned.
“Ghost,” she said again, just a whisper; his finger circled, and she came. Sparkle and starburst andso, so warm.Her body clenched, and she wished he was inside her after all, even though she knew it would have hurt.
His hand found her hip again and he gripped hard, face buried in her hair. “Shit, shit–” he murmured, and wet heat spilled across her ass and the backs of her legs.
They caught their breath a moment.
Then Maggie laughed and said, “Good morning.”
~*~
Ghost had a problem.
Sure, he’d had a problem before, but this was a dangerous one. Before, he’d spent at least three nights a week at the clubhouse, spending more than he could afford on Rita and other babysitters. On those nights, he’d drink himself blind and stumble into a dorm bed with one, or two, or three groupies. He rarely remembered the debauched things that played out between the unwashed sheets. It wasn’t about pleasure, but about forgetting. The more he abused himself, the less time there was for remembering. And the less he remembered – the cruel line of Olivia’s mouth, cold fleeting touch of her hand; she’d never been warm, never – the better. The easier it was to push himself through the next day, holding on until the next sin.
But Maggie.Maggie. He’d been stone-cold sober with her. And he didn’t have to try to forget when he was with her – what had come before ceased to exist when he laid hands on her. He collected details – bright spill of her hair across the pillow, breathy moan in his ear, soft thighs, soft mouth, and soft, wondrous eyes when he was inside her – and spent his days turning them over in his mind, rubbing them smooth as river stones, using them to weigh down the curling corners of his sanity.
He felt like he’d been scrubbed inside and out with bleach. He felt clean. Purged of all the poison he’d pumped into his veins these past seven months. He imagined her skin emitted light, divine, bacteria-killing, shadow-chasing brightness. He was enthralled, there was no other word for it.
And it was so, so wrong. The way he was tainting her. Sixteen, and a virgin, and he’d ruined her.
But he couldn’t stop.
And bless her heart, she didn’t seem to want him to.
That morning, she’d smiled at him in his kitchen, holding a coffee mug stained with her dark lipstick; a smile that promised him things would sort themselves out, that there was an answer to this problem of his own making. He wanted to believe her, he really did, because right now he thought he’d rather kill someone than lose what he had.
She’d packed him a lunch today. Like his mother had when he was little. Like Olivia never had – like a wife. He’d rolled up the paper bag into a cylinder and crammed it inside his cut for the ride to the clubhouse, jammed it in the back of the fridge, behind a jar of pickles, where no one would find it. He wished now that he hadn’t crumpled it, as he spread the contents across the picnic table. A sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil: roast beef, lettuce, tomato, Swiss cheese, brown mustard. She’d been shopping again. A granny smith apple, a granola bar with chocolate chips in it.
It tasted like she cared about him a lot more than she should.
“Hey,” Collier said, sliding onto the bench across from him. He was in his embroidered garage smock; he worked at Eddie’s during the day, his and Jackie’s living expenses more than the meager dealing-cash the club could provide. If Duane would consent to using this massive, overgrown piece of land for something profitable, Collier could have worked at a Lean Dogs-owned garage. But no. “You make that?”
Ghost smirked and crammed half the sandwich in his mouth on one go. “Wha’ ‘oo you ‘ink?” he mumbled around it.
Collier took a deep breath and looked like he worked hard not to sigh or make a face. “She’s your old lady, then?”
