Bounty (68 page)

T
he pizza is still lying
on the floor where Bash dropped it as soon as he closed the door, but I’m not hungry anymore. Not for pizza, anyway.

The site of his leather-clad figure standing in my door was a shock, especially given the fact that I had just convinced myself he was probably going to kill me, but it didn’t take long to realize that didn’t make any sense. He’s too smart to walk through security downstairs, with all of the cameras, and announce which apartment he’s going to, just to kill me. He’d never get away with that. Which means I’m safe, at least for now.

Of course, as absolutely gorgeous as he is every time I see him, his mouth hasn’t stopped spouting the same crass nonsense as it always does. That dichotomy keeps my feelings split between wanting to fuck this guy and punch him in the face. Yet when he opened up at the end, it all made a kind of sense. Even though the situation he’s in is his own doing, he’s so very alone in all of this and has been for years. Right or wrong, he feels like he has to keep everyone away, and that attitude is probably the best way he knows how to do it.

As soon as I realized that, I felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him again, and when he made the first move, my brain offered no good reasons to stop him.

Of course, there are good reasons. Plenty of them. But I just can’t think of any now that his teeth are nibbling my neck and one of his fingers is under my shirt in a quest for my hard nipples. I gasp as soon as he reaches his prize, and he answers that sound by clamping his jaws down against my collarbone.

My squeal seems to only delight him more, and he bites a little harder as his fingers close down on the swollen nub beneath my shirt. I was expecting a night alone, so there is no bra to slow him down. And there are no panties, either. Something I know he’ll figure out soon enough.

Suddenly he’s pulling my shirt off, rearing back for a moment to watch as my tits bounce free. “Fucking gorgeous,” he growls. He slides his large, calloused hands under my ass and then lifts me up. I wrap my legs around his waist almost automatically when I lose contact with the ground, and Bash swings me around to press my back up against the wall. Our lips meet again, and now he uses only one hand to hold me by the ass while the other squeezes my bare breasts once again.

“You have phenomenal tits,” he murmurs, tone thick with lust, but his kisses resume before I can respond, the ever present stubble on his face scratching my chin as he presses hungrily against me.

Bash is wearing tight jeans again, and pressed up against me hard enough to hold me against the wall, I can feel the hardness underneath them. His bulge is rubbing at just the right spot, and I do my best to wiggle my hips in a way that grinds against him.

“I need to fuck you,” he says. The hand he was propping me up with drops away as he moves from the wall, but my legs are holding tight and I continue to grind. I know he expected me to let go and drop back to the floor, but now that I know he can feel me, I want to tease him a bit. His other hand leaves my breast and both of them hook into the elastic of my sweats, but he can’t pull them down with me wrapped around his waist like this.

Now it’s my turn to drive him crazy, so I feather soft, wet kisses along the artery in his neck and grasp the leather of his jacket for leverage, trying to push my hot center even harder against his proud bulge.

Undeterred, Brash finally slips his fingers past the waistband of my pants and slides them against my bare cheeks. He can’t get my pants off while I’m like this, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of ideas. His rough, warm fingers slide against my skin, scratching and tickling even as goose bumps of pleasure spark out along each inch of flesh that he touches.

I bite down on his neck now, in exactly the same place that he bit me, and smile into his shoulder at the sound he produces. But his gasp is followed by an even louder one of my own. His searching fingers haven’t stopped, and now they’ve pushed all the way back along my ass and then in between. I squirm, but he isn’t at his final destination just yet. Pushing even further with his long arms, his fingertips finally touch the bottom of my pussy and slide in, penetrating me without the slightest hesitation on his part, or resistance on mine.

Bash spins me around again, and this time he’s facing the couch. I know what he has in mind. It’s the only thing on mine as well, but not here.

“The bedroom,” I squeak, tilting my head toward the door to my room. Bash just grunts a response and pivots, before walking quickly in the direction I motioned. He uses my back to push open my door and crosses the room in two strides before letting us both fall down onto my mattress. I don’t even care that my room is a mess, my clothes from today’s interview piled upon the floor. He hasn’t noticed, and I know he wouldn’t care, anyway.

The moment my back lands with a bounce onto my bed, my legs release him and he wastes no time. His hands are still in my pants, and with a yank, he leans to the side and almost tears them off of me as I work on pushing his jacket off of his shoulders. With my pants joining the rest of my clothes on the floor, he helps me by shrugging off his leather and then peeling his shirt off. My eyes instantly drink in the tattoos that flow along his upper body, moving in waves along the contours of his chest and abs.

“You’re so hot and wet, but this time, I have to taste you,” he says, and then his body disappears as he pushes himself back down along the end of the bed to drop onto his knees. He doesn’t even give me a moment to prepare myself before his mouth is against my folds, spreading them with his probing tongue.

“Holy shit!” I can’t help but cry out at the urgency of his wet kisses, and I grab onto his head to hold him in place. His hair is short, but long enough that I can tangle my fingers in its dark strands and hold on. That’s important, because a moment later, Bash has me bucking against his face in one of the quickest, and most intense, orgasms I can ever remember having. Even the burning of his stubble against my thighs isn’t enough to distract me from coming so fast.

I don’t even notice that my eyes are screwed shut until I jump in surprise as Bash’s body slides over me again. I open them, but I don’t need to see to know that he’s shucked his own pants. His cock is hot and hard against my thigh, and ready to move forward.

“Hold on,” I whisper. My nightstand is within reach, and I hand him a condom from it as quickly as I can. I need him inside of me before the burning pleasure sparkling through me begins to subside. Luckily it only takes moments for him to get it on, and then he’s on top of me, the tip of his cock nudging me open.
No more teasing.
I grab his ass with both hands, all but pulling him up and inside of me.

I need this now. The pounding of his hips. The hardness of his cock as it moves in and out, nearly splitting me in two. The panting of his breath in my ear that tells me he wants me, maybe even
needs
me—or at least, the pleasure my body can give him. There’s no big joke being played on me this time. Bash is here because he wants to be. He’s inside of me because he desires me, even if it’s just at this moment. And none of the lies that Edward has been spreading about me has stopped Bash from showing up at my door. Or from leading to this moment. He doesn’t have control over all of my life. He doesn’t have control over this. Over Bash.

Which means he doesn’t control everything. There’s still hope for me yet.

I trace my fingertips along the biker’s muscular back as he stretches and bends above me, and then dig in my nails as he hits just the right spot. One of his arms drops and slips under my leg, bending it up until he hooks it at the knee. He adjusts his own body now and resumes moving at a new angle that lets him hit me even deeper. No sound escapes my open mouth now. I want to scream in rapture, but I can’t even concentrate enough to do that. I’ve never felt bliss like this before.

When Bash finally groans with his own release, I let loose some sounds of my own, but at this point they’re merely strangled pants as my chest heaves, trying to get enough oxygen to my lungs. I didn’t even realize I had been holding my breath that whole time, and I could only breathe again when he stopped slamming so deeply inside of me.

I feel his last few shudders as he straightens his arm, letting my leg drop, which yanks him out from inside of me. I almost cry out in protest as his warmth and hardness disappears. He’s breathing just as heavily as I am, and although we’re no longer connected between the legs, a thin sheen of sweat still joins us. Heat is coming off of him in waves and making me drowsy.

We lie together quietly for a few minutes as our breathing starts to normalize. Bash’s mouth is next to my ear, and each fervent gust of air causes a wisp of my own hair to tickle my ear.

“I can’t believe we just did this again,” I finally say, wondering if he feels the same way.

He doesn’t answer right away, and I start to wonder if he’s fallen asleep. “Oh, right, I forgot. You’re Evelyn Silver, the girl that likes to live life by the book. I guess the books you read don’t include hot sex.”

“That’s not what I mean,” I protest. I really didn’t mean it as a regret this time. I think the first time might have been a mistake, but we’d already crossed this bridge, doing it again doesn’t make anything worse, does it? “I just… I didn’t expect this would happen again. With you.”

Bash rolls off the bed and bends down to slide his pants up his legs. “You and me both. I gotta get to Axle’s. The club is expecting me.”

“Of course, sure.” I don’t expect him to stay the night. Maybe a few minutes would have been nice, though.

He barely looks at me as he finishes getting dressed and walks to my bedroom door. “So I expect to see you tomorrow morning. Check in with Catherine when you get in. She’ll have all the paperwork you need to get started.”

I sit up, watching and waiting to see if he turns around. He does, eventually—sort of. He turns his head to the side, and I know he can see me out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t look right at me. He looks like he wants to say something else, but then he seems to think better of it and starts to turn away again.

“So that’s it, then?” I say. I’m not sure what else I expect there to be. We both pretty much agreed this would just be a one last fling if I’m starting to work for him tomorrow. I don’t want anything else from him, but I don’t like the way his personality just switches so easily back to ass mode.

He pauses again. Turns, but still not quite all the way around.

“Yeah, that’s it. Just make sure that I don’t regret giving you this job.” That’s all he says as he leaves, his footsteps the only sound left until I hear the front door close.

That image on the back of his leather cut blazes in front of my eyes like an afterimage, all aglow in the dim lighting of my bedroom. That armored skeleton, grinning at me, mocking me, daring me to come just one step closer.

Armor. Now that’s fitting, considering the defenses Bash has put up against me. I’m left with just two questions about that: do I have it in me to take it off him, and more importantly… do I want to?

W
hat is
it about Sebastian and windows?

His door is open, so I poke my head in to find him standing in front of his desk again, staring out across the city. Catherine told me to come right up after I had filled out all of the new hire paperwork. I’m still not sure whether taking this job was a good idea, even after yesterday. Especially after yesterday. Can we really ignore all of that and move on to matters that are strictly business?

“Everything all set?”

I can see him watching me through the reflection in the window, but I can’t read his gaze at all. He may as well be looking at one of his motorcycle buddies instead of a girl he just made come all over her bed last night.

“Yes. Catherine told me to come right up.”

“Have a seat.” Sebastian turns and nods toward the chair in front of his desk as he settles down into the one behind it. He’s my boss now, so this time, I don’t balk at the order. Instead, I concentrate on ignoring how his broad chest fills out the dress shirt he’s wearing, or how I know how many tattoos his muscled body is covered in under that tight cotton. Just like last night, he’s finding it hard to look at me. Instead, he’s staring past me at the door, as if he’s expecting someone to come barging through it at any moment.

He’s got his Bash armor up. He’s not being as gruff as when he wears his leather, though, so perhaps this is a different form of armor. His Sebastian armor. Just like the Bash armor, it’s easier to see when you know he’s wearing it. But probably just as hard to penetrate.

“You worked for Edward Stonewall, so I know you’re intelligent and can get up to speed quickly. He’s not known for his patience. So I’m just going to dive right in and explain what we’re up against here.” When he finally does look at me, I can see what I’m up against. There are no chinks in this armor. Sebastian is all business. That’s fine, though. That’s the way I wanted it, right? No more sleeping with the boss. Move on. Do this job long enough to get something usable on my résumé, and then find something else. Preferably working for an older, overweight, less maniacal boss that isn’t running around hiding secret double lives or trying to ruin my life.

For the next hour, Sebastian gives me a brief history of Piston and their important clients leading up to their IPO less than a year ago. Since then, the pressure has been on to continue to perform. He’s not that happy with it, and flat-out says that he regrets letting Hans talk him into going public. It’s clear, though, that Sebastian isn’t a man who dwells on his problems or lives with regret. He’s a man of action, and so he’s making the best of it.

The IPO has made him a very rich man, but I haven’t had the slightest inclination that he cares at all about the money. As he’s mentioned repeatedly, he’d give up the company in a heartbeat, if he had to—there’d be no contest between this and his life as an MC prez. Those people are his family, and insomuch as I’ve ascertained, his heart. Such a contrast from Edward, where the money is the only thing that matters. Not for how much more it can buy him, he already has everything he wants or needs, but more as a way of keeping score. Edward’s attitude is whoever has the most money when he dies, wins.

With Sebastian, he’s more concerned with keeping away any undue scrutiny on the secret org structure that makes up Piston. The best way to do that is to keep making their numbers, and that wasn’t supposed to be a problem. However, a key shipment of custom parts from Germany went missing over the weekend, and now one of their biggest deals of the quarter is in serious jeopardy.

“Do you guys have any idea what happened to the parts? What did the shipping company say? They must have some sort of tracking on them…”

A flicker of a frown crosses Sebastian’s face, and he purses his lips. It’s a moment before he speaks. “They didn’t just get lost in the mail,” he finally says. “They were stolen. It was a heist of some kind. The police are investigating, but as far as I know, they don’t have too many leads.”

“Oh, wow. Do you think it was a competitor? Someone trying to sabotage the deal, or something?”

“You watch too many movies,” he snorts. “Competitors have a lot more effective, and legal, ways to fuck each other over.”

“Oh. So it was just bad luck then, I guess.”

“Yeah. Exceptionally bad. But there’s not a lot you can do to help with that directly. Hell, I don’t know that there’s anything left that any of us can do. But while our focus is on that, there’s other shit on my plate that is piling up, and I need someone to take care of that. Even before this shit-storm, stuff was falling through the cracks. It’s even worse now. So, I need you to plug the gaps and stuff the leaks.”

“Stop the leaking flow of shit, check.” I nod, trying to look as serious as possible.

That gets Sebastian’s attention, and his eyes snap to mine with a curious twinkle. “Exactly. I guess it’s obvious that I’m lacking a professional filter, where four-letter words are concerned. I try to contain myself around most people. You already know I have a… darker side.”

“I can handle it,” I say with a shrug. I can’t imagine Edward using this kind of language in the office, but Sebastian is no Edward. That’s a good thing.

After we figure out a plan, Sebastian shows me to an adjoining office where there is already a computer set up for me. I get access to his Email, Calendar and his phone gets routed through my office. It doesn’t take long to realize why so much is falling through the cracks. There’s a complete lack of organization to everything, which at least gives me an obvious place to start.

I’m waist deep in emails from two months ago when a thump on my table drags my attention away from the computer. There’s a steaming cup of coffee on my desk, and a strong hand still wrapped around the cardboard koozie.

“I thought it would be my job to bring you coffee.”

“I didn’t hire you to get me drinks. But I did notice that my inbox was shrinking, and you haven’t left your desk since this morning.”

“What do you mean? What time is it? Oh, crap.” It’s half past one, and I didn’t even notice. No wonder my stomach is growling.

“There’s a café on the second floor, by the way. Maybe I’ll give you a tour tomorrow at lunch.”

“Uh, sure. Okay. Thanks.”

After things being all business this morning, I’m both surprised and wary about the invitation. I pull out the sandwich I brought for today and get back to work. Tomorrow’s lunch will be tomorrow’s problem.

E
ven though I
worked fairly late last night, I make sure to get in extra early this morning. I peek into Sebastian’s door as I walk by and I’m satisfied to see that he isn’t even in yet. Who knows what type of hours he keeps if he’s spending his nights with his club, doing God knows what to God knows who?

My mind can’t help but flash an image of the girl I saw him with that first night. Was that his girlfriend? Did he cheat on her with me? Twice? Or do the girlfriends of motorcycle gang members figure that sharing their man is part of the deal? That’s a completely foreign world to me. Still, thinking about that girl again bothers me even though it shouldn’t. What he does with her, or anyone else, is none of my business. I’m here for a job, and that’s it.

I get back to work, and before I know it, I feel like I’m not alone anymore. When I look up, I almost jump out of my seat to see Sebastian standing in my doorway, staring at me. How long has he been there?

“Ready for lunch?” he asks, seeming oblivious to the fact that he nearly gave me a heart attack.

Time flew away from me again.

The elevator ride is silent, even though we’re alone, and Sebastian is staring ahead at the double doors as each of the lights at the top of the car descend. Since he’s not watching me, I’m free to stare at him. The dark hair that always seems so messy when he’s wearing his leather vest is perfectly straight now, and he must shave every morning because the stubble that burned along the sides of my thighs the other night is barely a shadow on his chin. Just the thought of that sensation causes a little tickle to run along my skin, and I shift my stance to make it stop.

Something seems different, though. Something around one of his eyes that I didn’t notice before.

“You get a cell yet?” he asks, breaking the silence just before the doors slide open.

“Oh, um, not yet. I was going to go after work today and pick one up. I meant to do it yesterday, but lost track of time.”

“Just send an e-mail to Armis in IT and we can set you up with a company one.”

“No, thanks,” I say a little bit too quickly. He looks at me, but I don’t say anything else. He knows I dropped my other one in the drink at Axle’s, but he has no idea why. I don’t think Sebastian is the stalker type, and I have no plans on having a relationship with him anyway, but I’m not taking any more chances. My next cell phone will be mine alone. “I mean, if it’s okay, I’d rather just get my own.”

He shrugs. “Suit yourself. You can expense it, at least, unless you have a problem with that, too.”

“No, that would be great. Thank you.”

The café is more like a cafeteria, and it’s pretty packed with Piston staff. Sebastian nods to a few people and introduces me to a couple of others, but in general, it seems like not a lot of people recognize him. He told me he flew under the radar, but now I believe him.

He guides me to a table near one of the walls and sits across from me with his roast beef on a bagel and Pepsi. As he’s looking down at it, I notice what I had started to see in the elevator.

“Your eye…” I start to say, but he looks up sharply at me, so I stop myself.

“It’s nothing,” he says. “I thought I’d covered that up.”

“You did. I mean, I didn’t notice it until I was looking at you in the elevator… I mean, because we were so close, and I just noticed it. And then just now, only because I had seen it before but… what happened?” It looked like he used makeup to hide a cut of some kind.

“Nothing, things just got rowdy at Axle’s last night. Don’t worry about it.”

“Things got rowdy? You mean you got in a fight?”

“It happens, Evelyn. It’s part of being in the MC. Fights are pretty normal.”

“I thought you were trying to get them turned around?”

“I didn’t say I was going to turn them into boy scouts. I’m just trying to keep them out of prison. Out of doing hard time and throwing their lives away. But I can’t change who they are. Or who I am, for that matter.”

“So, you’re fine with that part of the lifestyle? Getting beaten up?”

“I didn’t get beaten up. You should see the other guy.”

“Oh, so that’s better? Beating people up?”

Sebastian is glaring at me now, but I don’t care. We’re talking in hushed tones, and the cafeteria is loud enough that no one can hear us.

“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he says, his jaw tight.

“So much for wanting someone to share both sides of your life with,” I spit back. “Or was that just a line to get me to fuck you again?”

The darkness of his eyes seem to extend for miles, at first masked by a thinly draped veil of fury, but then that is pulled away almost as quickly as it fell.

“You’re right,” he says with an exhale. “But I’m not ready to share that side just yet. It’s too dangerous, still, to let anyone near it.”

“What about you? Is it dangerous for you?” I’m looking at his eye, now. Was that really just from a rowdy night, or something more?

Sebastian shrugs. “Maybe it is.” His voice is barely above a whisper, and he seems to be looking past me again. Was he answering me, or himself?

He’s quiet for a time, and then he looks back at me. “I was serious about feeling relief at not having to hide those sides of me. But it’s this side that I need your help with. The other side is something I have to take care of on my own. For now, just having you know that side exists is enough. But I need you to stay out of it.”

I can tell that he’s serious, so I just nod.

“I mean it, Evelyn. I’ll talk about it when I’m ready, but don’t push me. And don’t go back to that bar, either. Stay away from Axle’s.”

Even before Bash walked into my life that night, I had no intention of setting foot in that bar again. That was more Jackie’s scene that mine. The whole thing had been her idea and as far as I knew, she was still screwing the bartender she met there that night.

But it’s an easy promise to make. “I will.”

That seems to satisfy him, but he’s gone again, gazing past me—perhaps through me. His armor is back up. And I’m left wondering one more time what I’ve gotten myself into.