Authors: Michelle Woods,Mary Bogart Crenshaw
Sarah looked at the bags under her eyes in the mirror, poking at the puffiness. Huh, she really needed to get more sleep. Reaper had offered to go get Josh from across the street at Mrs. Black’s while she took a bubble bath to relax. He sometimes surprised her with his thoughtfulness. He could be so sweet to both her and Josh.
Today had been a rough day. First Buck and then Candy. She sighed as she climbed into the steaming water, sinking in to rest against the back, her heart twisting at the memory.
Candy had come barging into Reaper’s office about an hour after the Buck incident. She’d stopped short in the doorway. “Oh, I was looking for Reaper.”
“He’s still dealing with the Buck situation,” Sarah had told her.
“Yes, why is that? You seem to be causing all sorts of problems here, don’t you,” she said snidely.
“I didn’t ask Buck to attack me, Candy,” Sarah had snapped back.
“Yes and yet it seems that you’re always at the center of the trouble around here, doesn’t it. First with Lock and Reaper, then all the fights, and now this situation with Buck. Before you came along, things weren’t falling apart. Seems to me you might be the problem. I’ll be glad when he gets tired of you.” Candy had turned on her heel without waiting on a reply and left the room.
She didn’t like Candy much but she couldn’t say that Candy didn’t have a point. The trouble with the club did seem to start around the time she showed up. She wanted to say that Candy was just jealous but at least the fight between Reaper and Lock was her fault.
She grabbed a towel, stepping out of the tub when her fingers pruned. She needed to put Josh to bed, but before she finished drying off Reaper appeared in the doorway of the bathroom, his eyes devouring the parts of her he could see.
“Hey, Josh conked out on the walk over here so I put him to bed,” Reaper said, walking towards her.
“Oh, I was just coming to give him a hug goodnight and read to him,” Sarah said, a little disappointed that she hadn’t gotten to tell him goodnight.
“Sorry, baby. Are you feeling better?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her into his chest.
“Yeah, I am actually.” She smiled at him, standing on her tiptoes to kiss his lips.
“Good, because I want to give you something,” he whispered against her lips. Sarah pulled back, grinning because she had a pretty good idea about what he wanted to give her. She let her lips curl wickedly.
“Do you?” she asked, rubbing her hand over his chest.
“Umm…maybe two things,” he whispered, kissing her neck and scooping her off her feet. Sarah giggled as he carried her into the bedroom and tossed her on the bed.
“Stay,” he commanded and she laughed, pushing up on her elbows to watch him leave the room. She frowned; what the heck? Where was he going?
He walked back in a few seconds later. She raised a brow when he handed her a package wrapped in a brown paper. She hesitated and he nodded to it, looking oddly nervous for Reaper.
“Aren’t you going to open that?” he demanded.
Sarah waited another moment before ripping open the brown wrapping paper and gasped. The soft leather came tumbling out and Sarah couldn’t breath. She felt tears sting her eyes as she held the cut to her chest in amazement. He was asking her to marry him. He wanted to keep her, to belong to her.
“Yes, yes, Reaper,” she whispered, and he grinned smugly and tackled her to the bed, kissing her.
“Good, now you’re mine,” he growled, kissing her long and deep before he took her to heaven.
Sarah had been walking on cloud nine for the past three weeks. After Reaper had given her his patch, she’d known that she was more than just another woman to him. She and Josh mattered. It had changed something else too, and that change made her life easier. The women who worked and hung around the club suddenly treated her respectfully. It was like by patching her he’d told them that they had to be nice to her, and she couldn’t say she didn’t like it. Getting the cold shoulder from them wasn’t fun. Although it hadn’t affected Candy’s attitude. If anything, hers had gotten worse.
Sarah walked out into the club. Noticing that Reaper wasn’t at his usual booth, she wondered where he’d gotten off to. Seeing Iron, she asked, “Hey, where’s Reaper?”
“He should be back in a little bit. Lock and he took a ride,” Iron told her.
“Wow, it got busy, huh?” she said, indicating the crowded room. Almost every booth was full and Casey and Starla were running their feet off.
“Yeah, fuck–– go back to the office. I have to go break that up,” Iron said, indicating the two men about to start fighting across the room. Sarah nodded but she went to the bar instead. Casey was waiting on her order to be filled and she was leaning on the counter and looking tired.
“Casey, sit down, you look exhausted,” Sarah told her, feeling bad for the woman. She remembered nights like this at the diner when she and Sammy were so ragged from running back and forth that they were aching.
“I can’t. Reaper still hasn’t found a third waitress and it’s swamped tonight. I am beat though,” she said.
Hawk placed the drinks on the tray and turned away but Sarah swiped it off the bar before she could grab it.
“What table it this going to? You need a fifteen minute break and so does Starla.”
“Oh, no, I can’t let you do that, Reaper would kill me,” Casey said, trying to take the tray back. Sarah wasn’t having that; she had also noticed that with the cut came another sort of power. She would use it shamelessly to help the two women out. They needed a break; being a waitress was hard work.
“Table, now. I’ll handle Reaper,” she growled and sure enough the other woman caved. She pointed to the table with four men off to the left. Nodding, Sarah called over her shoulder, “Take fifteen minutes and not a single minute less, then relieve Starla.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” Casey said, collapsing in the barstool.
Reaper walked back into the club an hour after meeting with Death and Mack. They’d heard some rumors that they were trying to check out about who may have called the hit in on Sarah and Josh. He was already in a mood because not only had Lock given him more bullshit about being pussy whipped, but Death and Mack had joined him. It was grating on his nerves. He couldn’t help that he was addicted to a certain tiny raven-haired woman. His dick didn’t seem to be interested in anyone but her.
If the damned thing wasn’t hard constantly whenever he was near her, he’d think something was wrong with it. But it stayed hard for her, like right now it was throbbing because it had been almost six hours since he’d touched her. He walked by the first few tables and then he saw her and his teeth clenched, snapping together. He began moving in her direction when one of the regulars, George, caught her around the waist. He saw red. That motherfucker had his hands on Reaper’s woman.
He stormed across the room to hear her thanking the son of a bitch. He couldn’t believe she was fucking thanking him for touching her. Oh, fuck no! He was on him in a second, grabbing him out of his chair and slamming him into the table he’d been sitting at, ignoring Sarah’s screams for him to stop. He was killing this dick and he didn’t give a fuck if she liked him. He didn’t have the right to put his hands on
Reaper’s
woman.
He punched George twice in the face. Sarah tried to grab him off of the man and he glared at her. Lock grabbed her, pulling her back as she screamed for them to stop him but that wasn’t fucking happening. They knew better than to get between him and the fucker who’d touched her.
Somehow her hoarse screams seemed to penetrate the fog of his anger. “Stop, damn it, stop! Reaper, he was saving me from falling on my face!”
He stopped hitting George, who hadn’t tried to fight back and instead had just defended himself. He saw the two black eyes and the bloody nose he’d given George as he stepped back, feeling a bit more of the fury drain away. He hadn’t known that the man was trying to help her. He had just seen him touch her and that wasn’t something he could allow. No one touched her but him.
“Get him cleaned up and take care of his tab,” Reaper growled, then met George’s swollen eyes with his own. “Nobody touches her.”
“Yeah, I got that,” George said with a weary laugh as he spit blood on the floor.
“Thanks,” Reaper finally managed.
George nodded, “Sure.”
Reaper went to Sarah, grabbing her arm and dragging her toward the office. “Stop manhandling me, Reaper! I can walk,” she told him, anger evident in her tone. He didn’t give a shit. She shouldn’t have been out there in the main club and he was going to find out what the fuck she’d been thinking. He shoved her into the office ahead of him and stormed in behind her. He went to the desk and locked the doors. Turning to her, he glared.
“What the hell were you doing out there, Sarah?”
“Helping. They were swamped and needed a break. You have to hire another waitress because nights like tonight are too busy for just the two of them,” Sarah told him, her hands on her hips as she stared him down.
Oh, it was like that, was it? His anger swarmed him and he wanted to spank her little ass. “You are not to be in the main club when it’s busy and you know that, Sarah.”
“No, I don’t work as a waitress, but that has nothing to do with me being in the club, Reaper.” He narrowed his eyes and began stalking her. She backed away, proving she was a very smart girl.
“I know I told you not to serve drinks in this bar again,” he growled, backing her into the wall.
“Reaper, stop acting like a damned bully! I was only helping because they needed it. You can get the fuck over it. And that macho display of your strength with poor George was completely unnecessary.”
“Was it now?” he asked, his arms on either side of her head as she pressed back into the wall behind her.
“He only grabbed me to save me from slipping in some beer someone had spilled,” Sarah whispered, her amber eyes clouded with uncertainty. Her breathing was coming in short little pants, and her hands pressed against his chest to push him back. He didn’t budge an inch when she shoved at him.
“He wouldn’t have needed to catch you at all if you weren’t out in the club, now would he?” he growled, grabbing her hips and jerking her to him.
“Reaper, you’re being a jerk.”
His mouth crashed into her devouring her lips, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth to taste, to own. Another man had touched her and he needed to reassert his claim on her because he was an idiot. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from pressing her back into the wall with his hand under the skirt she was wearing, his fingers seeking her wet entrance as he savaged her lips with kisses.
Sarah moaned, arching into Reaper. She was so mad at him right now but somehow the man could turn her into his sex slave with only a few well-timed kisses. She allowed his hand to brush against her wet heat and cried out when he began jerking his clothes off. His kisses wild and needy, it was as if he were trying to erase the other man from her mind. Not that he needed to; she didn’t see any man but him.
His hands cupped her ass and he jerked her panties off. His kisses moved down the side of her neck as he nipped her skin, making her moan. He lifted her and she felt the head of his cock enter her slowly. It slid into her in a smooth thrust of his hips.
She let out a gasp and clutched his shoulders. He began to move his hips, thrusting into her as she let out moans of needy pleasure. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her throat and he nipped the skin before thrusting hard into her, grunting with the effort.
“Mine. Sarah, this hot little pussy is
mine,
” he growled against her skin as he took her hard and fast against the wall. “Say it.”
“Yours, Reaper,” she told him, unable to deny the need she saw in his eyes. He was seriously jealous, she realized, like crazy, insanely jealous. It made her heart beat in happiness to know that he was just as wrapped up in her as she was in him.
She couldn’t say that she hadn’t felt this same possessiveness every time she’d seen him talking to Candy. The woman was always touching him. She hated it, but Reaper never seemed to notice. Sarah did and she wanted to rip the woman’s hair out by her bleached blonde roots every single time. She felt him nip her neck.
“Where’d you go, woman! I’m fucking you, pay attention.” He was frowning and she couldn’t help it, she started laughing. That made the frown turn into a scowl but she couldn’t stop.
He squeezed her ass hard, his fingers digging into the skin, his hips still moving as he pulled back and shoved inside her. She tried to stop laughing but somehow that comment had tickled her and she couldn’t seem to stop laughing. “Damn it! I’m trying to make you come and you’re fucking laughing. Stop.”
“I– I can’t help it, I– I love you,” she told him and suddenly everything seemed to freeze. She’d told him she loved him. Oh fuck. He was going to freak out over that, she thought, frantically wishing she could take it back.
Reaper felt a savage sense of satisfaction overtake him at her words. His body stilled and he was too overwhelmed by the dark lust that overcame him to even move. Then he was slamming back into her so hard he was afraid he’d hurt her. She moaned and clung to him as he pulled back and began to drive them both towards a frantic climax.