Blood & Rust (Lock & Key #4) (28 page)

He slid my silky tunic top up my torso and pulled a breast from a bra cup, kneading it, his jaw tightening. My breath stuttered at the harsh look on his face. He lowered his head, taking the nipple in his mouth.

I gasped, my back arching. “Have I ever said no to you before?” I whispered.

“Never.” He glanced at me—his face passive, stoic—as he licked, sucked. “Have I ever forced you?”

“Never.”

“After you got hitched and I didn’t hear from you again, I didn’t call you no more, did I?” His voice was even as he stroked me into oblivion.

Tight coils of pleasure wound through me, and heat wrapped around me like warm velvet as my hands fisted the thin quilt. All the pressure of the evening that had built into a tight knot inside my body, my head, now unraveled and built into something else, something that beckoned me to be a part of my destruction.

One ticket. One-way only.

“I missed you,” I murmured, squirming on the bed. “Missed this.”

His hand slid over my panties, cupping me. “You been faithful to your husband all these years?”

My eyes held his iron gaze. “Yes.”

“Still married?”

“Getting a divorce.”

His face darkened. “Fuck him.”

His hand slid under my panty, his fingers hitting flesh, dragging through me. The silky fabric on my skin flew down my legs and off my feet. The mattress dipped and shook, and I blinked. Finger stood over me at the edge of the bed, snapping off his dirty leathers, a thick eyebrow raised, his intense eyes glimmering.

“All these years later, Tania, and you still fucking do it for me.”

A lazy grin curled my lips. “Hallelujah.”

His clothes fell to the floor. My eyes took in his naked body, and my face heated.

Finger was several years older than me, which put him in his mid to late forties, and he was still in amazing shape, like I’d remembered. Contoured thick muscles marred by ugly, jagged scars and so many dramatic tattoos were all over his suntanned chest, arms, and torso, hardly a spot of bare flesh left. His body was virile, powerful. A body that screamed experience, strength, capability, threat.

His fingers stroked his cock that stood at rigid attention against his abs.

Yes, I could have that cock right now.

I’d missed that cock. Badly.

Fuck logic, screw sense, damn
goodgirlitis
.

I sat up on my elbows, my mouth dry. “Finger,” I breathed.

His hand pumped his cock. “You want it?”

Heat pulsed through my veins. My pulse screamed at me as it zoomed past.

We were picking up where we’d left off eleven years ago.

For years, Finger and I would meet in diners and truck stops and motel rooms down highways all over the Midwest. Once, as far away as New Mexico, when I had been on vacation with a girlfriend, and another time in Nashville, where I’d been on business.

Quick, intense.

We had stayed in touch since the very first time we had met by fateful chance in a gas station outside of Tripp, South Dakota, almost two decades ago after I’d left Meager behind. A moment that had changed my life. But it was years later when it had turned into hook-ups between us.

Frequent hook-ups.

We would hook up to fuck away our disappointments, our missed connections. We’d fuck to reconnect to the trust and sorrow that bound us. We would meet to drop the wizard’s curtain for a spot of relief, for however long it would be, either one whole night or only an hour or two. Maybe twenty minutes even, like that time in a restaurant restroom in Indiana.

We’d converse little at each of these encounters. Pleasantries were unnecessary with Finger, and I’d realized it would only serve to make things awkward. We would exchange basic information here and there, always ignore each other’s usual moodiness, and let our bodies do what they did, what they needed.

Finger would push me to try new things, and with him, I’d let go of my inhibitions and self-consciousness. I never felt judged with him, like I did with other men. He wouldn’t show off. He wouldn’t say stupid, superfluous things to compliment me or my body. He wouldn’t put on a performance. No bullshit. Ever. Sometimes, it sucked, when I was feeling sorry for myself, but mostly, mostly, I liked it.

Our encounters were a slap of cold water or a soothing hot bath. Either way, they were always good.

And not too many frills either. We didn’t kiss very much. He’d hold me down or hold me up, keeping me immobile against him, turning me every which way he wanted. I’d only grip an arm or a shoulder of his to steady myself as best I could during the onslaught. Surrendering to him, to his innate authority felt good. Liberating.

I never expected post-coital soft kisses of affection or delicate caresses, and there were none. Only tight grips, firm holds, and insistent strokes.

From what little he had told me, he would go through girlfriends and old ladies like water. Only with two of them had he not cheated with me, but soon enough, they’d be gone, too. I was sure his emotional coldness was the reason. But all that wasn’t for me to judge. We both had our reasons and our demons.

I knew he wasn’t a cold, hard bastard inside because all this was about
her
and always would be. Like for me, fucking him was a purely selfish escape, exhilarating for the moment. Reckless, void of responsibility to anyone but me. My secret joyride. A ride removed from the mundane everyday where I dared to take a risk or two or three. I needed that.

I’d fallen in love for the first time in college, but then that relationship had collapsed after two years. That first love wound was no joke. Later, I’d dated, and I’d slept with the ones I really liked and was attracted to, but I’d left those relationships more often than I took them on. No one ever pulled me in with a fever the way I always craved.

Finger and I weren’t in love, never would be, but we liked each other as people, were attracted to each other, and shared a kinship that I knew, for me, I’d never felt with anyone before or since. He was a constant I could trust, and that was good; it was enough. There was no question of a relationship between us; there was no way he could fit into my life or me into his, and truly, I wasn’t interested in that with him. I honored our way together for what it was. I never expected more, and he appreciated that. Most of all, I respected him, and he knew it and respected me back; that was what really mattered.

Only once, over a shared joint, I’d asked him if he’d seen
her,
his first love wound, and his face had darkened, his body stiffened.

“Yeah, once,” he’d said, wincing. He’d gotten out of bed, got dressed, and strode right out the motel room door without another word. He’d climbed onto his bike, making it roar with a ferocity. That old Harley, that cacophonous metal animal, spun him onto the road and into a blur of power and liberty and force.

And forgetting. I’d never mentioned her again.

I’d met Kyle and been totally smitten, and we’d gotten serious quickly. I’d told Finger about it over the phone as I clutched my winter coat against the freezing wind at a pay phone on Michigan Avenue in Chicago eleven years ago and declined his invite to meet after getting his text message.

“You be happy, Tania.”

“I will. I want you to be happy, too.”

My remark had been met with silence, and the line had gone dead.

Those were the last words we’d exchanged until a few months back when I’d stepped through the massive gates of his clubhouse in Nebraska with Grace and plunged back into Finger World, a world that had now become my brother’s, too. Our connection would not ever be severed, it seemed.

I had never asked him for anything in return, yet all through the years, he had offered me his help with anything I might want, like entertainment drugs or money when I was between jobs more often than not, no strings attached. I never took anything from him though. But I knew in my gut that if I ever needed him, really needed him, he’d be there for me.

Like tonight.

Finger rubbed himself with quick, hard strokes. His long cock was stiff in his hand now, the tip engorged, wet. Ready. He licked at his bottom lip.

This wasn’t reconnecting though.

This was me being frustrated, angry, pissed, jealous.

And I knew, I knew this was Finger being frustrated, angry, pissed, jealous.

Even though Butler was as good as married and going through a soap-opera drama, I liked him. A lot. I couldn’t get him out of my head. And having sex with Finger wasn’t going to change that. It would only mess with me.

Furthermore, I wasn’t the lonely young woman I used to be a decade ago. I was stronger now. I wanted something real, something I knew was worth waiting for. That was why I was getting a divorce. That was why I was here in South Dakota. And even though a relationship with Butler wasn’t possible, the time I’d spent with him as a friend and in that motel bed had shown me that something real, something good, something of worth was possible for me.

I’d moved back home to simplify my life and to be and do the things that I really wanted, to be fearless in that quest, not to take the middle road after eleven years of doing just that. Not to be complacent, under the radar. No, no more. Not any longer.

Finger nudged my legs open with one of his, his large hand pumping hard over his dick.

My breath shorted as he leaned down and kissed me, our eyes on each other, his cock rubbing down my middle to my—

I gripped his arms. “We can’t do this. Not now. Not anymore. We had our time, you and me, and I liked it. I fucking loved it. But we shouldn’t go back there.”

He rose, and I sat up on the edge of the bed and took his hands in mine. I kissed the left, the right. Just above where the middle fingers were missing.

“I don’t want to go backward with you. I want you in my life—you are; you will always be in my life—but I need to keep moving forward. We both do.”

He pulled his hands from mine.

I tugged at my bra, pulling my shirt down. “You know she’s here, don’t you? I saw her. Talked to her. She’s good friends with Grace now. She has a business here in town. She’s—”

“I know.” His heavy voice shot through my chest, its dark tone lodging there, filling me with dread.

“Of course you know.”

“I’ve always known.” His eyes flared, and my stomach clenched at the sight. “Were you going to say anything?”

“I saw her for the first time a few weeks ago when Grace introduced us. She pulled me aside and asked me not to say anything to anybody. Hell, I don’t know what to say when it comes to you two. You had it all, and you both let it go.”

“You call that having it all?”

“From where I’m standing today? Right now? You bet I do.”

“You called me to come here, knowing she was here?”

I shot to my feet. “I had to call you. My brother’s life was on the line.”

“You did good, babe.”

I rubbed my hands down my face. “Everything’s different now. Tell me it isn’t.”

We stared at each other. Finger reached out, his hand cupping my chin. He leaned down, brushed my lips with his, and planted a gentle kiss on my forehead. He left me and went into the bathroom. The shower turned on.

I fell back on the bed and curled up on the mattress. I squeezed my eyes shut, but those vivid crystal blue eyes still stared at me. Hurt. Fervent. Angry.

Would I ever be able to blot them out?

What was Butler doing now? Fucking his old lady back into submission? Punishing her with his cock? Drowning his pain in booze?

Please, not that.

But it had nothing to do with me. Nothing.

In fact, I was sure the One-Eyed Jacks probably hated me now and would never trust me again. Even Grace was ticked at me.

I turned over on the bed and squashed my face into the pillow. My breathing evened out to the steady drone of the shower water.

Exhaustion.

I gave in.

“
ARE YOU INSANE
? What the hell are you doing?”

Nina shuddered from where she sat on the middle of my bed at the club, wiping the tears from her face. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. We were just fooling around.”

“
Just
fooling around?” A blade of fire ripped through the muscles across my back. “You’re not supposed to be doing anything with anybody, you little idiot!”