Obsession (Magnetic Desires Book 4) (3 page)

“I want…” I got stuck on the want. That word could not contain how drawn to him I was. My throat worked, my chest rising and falling in sync with his, as I struggled for the word that would encompass how absolute this moment could be.

His hand did a slow slide down my throat and I swallowed as his fingers left a trail of need through every cell of my being. “What did you do with my friend?”

“What?” I pulled back, only to realize I’d been leaning in to his touch, practically begging for him to go further.

“You didn’t fuck him.”

“No.” I shook my head. Somewhere deep, a small shred of my dignity flared at his bluntness, but the potency of him so close flooded my senses. He could ask me anything and the answer would be honest, because there was nothing I could hold back from him. “We kissed at the bar, but that was all.”

His palm grazed my side, tingles shooting off in all directions. Tiny gasps burst from my lips and left them dry. I darted my tongue out to wet them, to cool the burning heat that would only be quenched by his kiss. His gaze lingered and he squeezed my hips, lifting me onto his lap. The steering wheel pressed into my spine, but it was the bulge pressing between my legs that fascinated me, and when he wrapped a hand in my hair and tugged me forward, I could feel the entire length of him pressed against my slit. “Good,” he said. “When I want something, I take it. Do you understand?”

He slammed his mouth to mine, his tongue devouring me in a way that left me breathless and yet it felt like I was breathing for the first time. When he pulled away an inch I chased his lips, clinging to him, intoxicated. “What do you want, Mike?” I would give him anything, he wouldn’t have to ask twice. Anything for another hit from his lips.

“You, in my bed, and later, barefoot and pregnant in my kitchen. I don’t do casual, and I don’t do sloppy seconds. Do you still think you can handle me?”

I scraped my nails over the stubble on his jaw and stared into his eyes. My heart screamed at me to go with the way it felt, to give in to the man who was meant to be mine. I didn’t know how it knew, didn’t care, only that I couldn’t fight it. “I can handle you.” 

He tugged my head back and gorged himself on my mouth, his hands riding up the side of my body, to brush lazily over the curve of my breast. One thumb grazed a nipple, bringing it to a hard peak. I rocked on his lap, unable to ignore the deep ache he’d built in me with a few words and greedy kisses, until he groaned and broke his lips from mine. “Put your seatbelt on, sexy legs. This is going to be one hell of a ride.”

Mike

Three years, seven months, twenty-three days, and thirteen hours. That’s how long it had been since I’d had sex. It was fucking sad I knew that. Not quite as sad as the fact that it’d been so long, but it hadn’t been high on my list of priorities.

The house was too quiet with only the hum of electricity to keep me company.

Only a few weeks ago, the house had been full of noise. Finding Mellie’s identical twin sister stumbling along the halls when I went for my last appointment with the specialist had been surreal, but she and her daughter Tia had had nothing. I hadn’t had to consider the course of action. They were Mellie’s family, and if I could do anything for her, I would. They’d ended up staying with me longer than I’d expected, while the relationship between sisters mended, but having them under my roof had given me purpose I hadn’t had in so long.

It was such a small world. I’d only thought of what it would mean for Mellie to have family, not expecting Lola to be married to one of our friends, and once they’d gotten their issues sorted, it was inevitable she and Tia would go home with Leo. Unable to stand the damn quiet, I raced up the stairs to get changed for a run.

Three years, seven months, twenty-three days, thirteen hours and ten minutes. Hell I may as well have declared myself celibate. Only now, I’d put the thought into my head, it was lodged there, and no amount of tapping my temple was going to remove it. I slipped back down the stairs and out the door, immediately breaking into a jog. My second run for the day, a supplement to my normal morning routine. Usually, I’d work. I’d set myself up in my office and pour over orders and floor plans. But the ticking in my head drowned out rational thought and left a static charge under my skin.

Three years, seven months, twenty-three days, thirteen hours, and forty minutes. And the reason I knew this, the reason I could remember the event down to the minute, wasn’t because the sex had been fanfuckingtastic. Although it always had been with Mellie. No, it was the appointment after it. The appointment exactly one hour after that last fuck had changed my life.

Lengthening my stride, I pushed harder, needing to wear myself out, and knowing that even if I kicked my own ass it wouldn’t help me sleep.
Cancer.
That’s what the doctor had said.
You have cancer.
Then something about surgery and treatment. Also maybe, there might have been something about mortality rates, life expectancy, how bad the cancer actually was.
We need to form a course of action. Speak to your family. Come back in tomorrow.

Honestly, after, “
You have cancer
,” I’m not sure what I heard. The doctor could have been inviting me back to his house to have an orgy for all I knew. Suddenly I was drowning, but not in water, not the way most drownings happened. No, this had been quicksand and hot wax filling my ears, turning my mind to sludge and seeping through the pores in my skin. Pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my fingers even when every other part of me felt like it was carved from ice. The doctor’s mouth had opened and shut, his gaze on mine, trying to communicate, but it was only a blur of pictures, the sound on mute. When I’d finally managed to lever myself out of the chair, my limbs shaking and heavy, I hadn’t gone home to share the goddamn news. No, I’d gone back to work.

Cancer.
Even with it all behind me,
would I ever forget the first time I heard that?

Breathing heavily, I slowed to a jog and checked my
Fitbit. Five miles. Not bad. The five back should be enough to keep me from doing something stupid, like finding Mellie and convincing her to take me up on my offer.

I used to be the guy who believed if he wanted something he could take it. It hadn’t been that far-fetched. After I’d made my first million it had been damn near factual. Hell, coming from nothing, I’d had this image in my head of what would make my life perfect. I’d held onto that vision, grabbed it with both hands and worked my ass off to make it happen.

And it
had
happened. I’d exceeded my goal and then I’d met Mellie. The first time I saw her wearing nothing but one of Orion’s shirts, I’d had a new vision. A new goal. That girl was meant to be mine and I knew exactly how to get what I wanted. Funny how cancer had changed that. The world I’d built dropped away like shifting sand beneath my feet, and the only thing I could grab onto was fear. Money meant nothing in the scheme of things, but her… she’d been the one thing I should have had the strength to hold onto.

Well, that was then, and this was now, and she was done with me. So why hold on to that vision any longer? After a quick shower and change of clothes, I headed out to the one place I was certain I wouldn’t run into Mellie. 

A pub on the outskirts of town. A small run down shack, with a pool table in the back room, and bikers everywhere. It had been a while since I’d set foot in the place. There wasn’t much point in a place like that when you didn’t drink all that much. It had been my first everything when I’d ended up in Reverence at seventeen. My first job, my first drinking hole, my first family, in a way. I’d taken Mellie there a bunch of times over the years, needed to have her understand where I started out and the people who had taken my hand when I was climbing out of the gutter. But they could be rough, dangerous even, and she understood it wasn’t the place for her to find her kicks.

Everything else in Reverence was a five-minute drive, but this place was as close to the middle of nowhere as anything could be. Pulling the truck up beside the row of motorcycles, I jumped from the cab and headed toward the bouncer. “Hey, Wolf.”

“Knight,” he drawled. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

I cringed at the old nickname, though I had earned it. Both the nickname and his respect built on my ability to throw down against guys bigger than myself. It didn’t matter that I’d made it off the streets, become more successful than I’d dreamed of back then. Part of me would always be that kid who had to fight tooth and nail to prove himself, and when she’d been here with me, there’d been nothing I’d enjoyed better than unleashing on whoever stepped to me. God, she was everywhere. In every part of my life I wanted to remember, but those days were behind me now. With a shrug I mounted the steps. The flood of noise from inside the pub wasn’t dampened by shut windows and doors. Wooden slats creaked underfoot as I grasped one of his meaty hands. “Gave up drinking.”

His black leather jacket creaked when he shifted, the brass knuckleduster on his left hand resting on his trunk of a thigh. “Don’t start shit.”

I wouldn’t start shit, wouldn’t even finish it. I just wanted a quiet drink, not that I would advertise it. Grinning, I turned my cap backward and rolled up the sleeves on the flannel shirt I’d thrown over my T-shirt. “Got it.”

He smirked, showing a gold tooth through his thick black beard, and letting out a crackling, grating laugh. “Yeah, looks like it.”  

I pushed through the door and took a minute to let my eyes adjust to the dim lighting and smoky haze. Angel leaned over the bar, her hair in a wild ponytail over her shoulder, the black wife-beater she wore revealing ample cleavage and full sleeves of tattoos. “Hey, Angel.”

The hard gaze she’d been dealing up to the room softened when it met mine. “Knight. It’s been a long time.”

I stalked forward and took a seat at the bar. “How about a drink?”

“Scotch?”

“I’ll start with a beer.” It’d been a long time since I touched the hard stuff. Between the operation and when I’d gone back to allowing myself the occasional beer had been a year as it was.

She poured from the tap, swirling it around the glass, producing a beer with little head. “We’ve missed you and your antics around here. Settled down yet?”

“No.” I flicked one corner of my mouth up. “Why? Do you fancy a ride?”

Her chuckle started with a snort, her eyes dancing. “You’re the same boy you were the first time you walked in here when you were what?”

“Seventeen, and I sure as hell don’t feel like it.”

“Yeah. Time dances us right to the grave, doesn’t she? Let me know when you want another.” With that she slipped along behind the bar, serving up harder alcohol to harder guys than me.

Settling in, I drank my beer. Nothing was the same now as it had been then. At seventeen, I’d been tougher, or at least ignorant of what waited. I’d been goddamn invincible. Never mind I’d had my lights punched out by a dude twice my size that first night.  After that I’d made sure no one would take me down.

Getting up, I headed for the bathroom to take a leak.

Standing at the urinals, one hand planted on the wall above his head to keep his drunken ass sway from taking him to the ground, was the shit stain I’d never wanted to see again. Tamping down on the surge of anger that rose up, I stalked over to relieve myself.

“Knight. That pretty little whore of yours around tonight?” He sneered as he pissed on his boots. Funny how he could barely get the words out around his alcohol thickened tongue, but he could remember who the hell I was.

“Fuck off, Rabid.” I finished off and tucked my cock back in my pants. There was no point in rehashing the night I’d found him with his dick inside my girl. I’d been ready to destroy him, but the guilt in her eyes before she turned away from me had been enough to tell me she knew what she was doing. Every muscle in the back of my neck and along my jaw tightened, and my fists itched to land in his face. That had been my fault, my doing, but it still filled me with nausea, cutting me apart. Turning away from him, I went back to the bar.

“You want another?” Angel rested her elbows on the scarred wood in front of me as I took my seat. “Maybe scotch this time?”

“What’s with the fucking scotch, Angel? I haven’t drunk it in years.”

“You might want to tonight.”

Behind us, her laugh rang out clear in the crowd, and I spun around. Mellie leaned over the pool table, cue in hand, lining up her next shot, while a group of salivating dogs crowded around behind her. Not surprising when she was putting out all the right signals. A black mesh top over a black bra didn’t leave much to the imagination, but who needed an imagination when I had memory. Pink areolas, the same color as her lips, and nipples that hardened to stiff peaks under my gaze. Or they had, when they’d been mine to look at. There was a nipple ring through one, or rather, a little silver bar, with round ends. The outline of it visible through her shirt when she was cold. My mouth watered with the memory of rolling my tongue along the metal, and the way she used to moan my name.

I stalked toward them, unable to keep my fists from clenching when a huge guy in dirty jeans and a leather vest ran his filthy paw up the back of her thigh to the hem of a tiny leather skirt which barely covered her ass. She slapped him away. “Hands off.” 

He laughed and grabbed her hips, pulling her back against him. “Don’t pretend you don’t like it.”

She whirled on him, the stick between them. “I told you to get your hands off me.”

Anywhere else and she would have had control of the situation. But this wasn’t Blazers and these guys were harder than she was used to. Hell, I’d told her never to come out here alone, made her promise not to even after we were done.

His palm found her ass, dragging her to him, the stick useless between them, and her tiny skirt lifted, to the delight of the others watching. Not that it wasn’t a perfect view. The curve of her ass, and the sliver of black panty that peeked out beneath, was distracting. With a growl I crossed the distance. The chill in my words the only giveaway of the anger coursing through me. “Get your filthy hands off her.”

Both heads snapped my way, her eyes widening as she breathed my name. He glared at me, a half smirk marring his face, while he made no effort to let her go. Instead, he dragged her hips closer. “Fuck off. Find your own pussy.”

I blinked, a slow, tension-filled shut and open of my eyes. The only sign I was about to let loose was both pointer fingers tapping out a staccato beat on my thighs while the buzz of anger filled every cell. No clenched fists, no clenched jaw. When they’re big like that you want to take them by surprise. “She
is
my fucking pussy.”

Her intake of breath was audible while every head turned in our direction, silence descending.

“Is that right?” He glanced down at her, and for a moment I thought we would get out of there without a fight.

“Hurricane, you little whore.” Rabid staggered across the room, stumbled and bumped into the pool table hard enough to skid it several inches over the floor. “Come back for more?”

She crumpled, her gaze darting to mine. Those wide expressive eyes watered, her lips parted, while she shook her head almost imperceptibly.

With clenched fists, I whipped my head around to glare at Rabid, wanting to take him down, to put my fist in his face and beat the living shit out of him. But I only gave him a second, more than he was worth, before I snapped my attention back to the more immediate situation.

“Whore, huh?” The big guy grabbed her chin, reefing it up, causing her eyes to water, and crashed his mouth to hers.

With a snarl, I threw myself at him, the first fist connecting with his gut, sending him staggering and causing him to release her. The second landed on the underside of his jaw.