Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V (9 page)

“What are you thinking?” I asked softly.

“It seems so sad,” she murmured.

“Do you know the story?” she shook her head. “It’s an old
poem, about a man who travels first through Hell and then through Purgatory to reach
Heaven and find his lost love who was taken from him.”

She hugged herself as her eyes roamed over Dante who I had
drawn pretty much in as wretched a state as anyone could get. He looked to be
on the verge of death in my version which was kind of the point. He was on the
edge, too soon to tell if Beatrice could pull him back from the brink, but at
the same time, his expression beautiful and at peace, utterly content at being
reunited, even if she couldn’t save him. I don’t know why I’d drawn it that way.
I just had and it had come out pretty badass so I’d framed it and put it up
here, so I had something instead of nothing on the walls. She turned
reluctantly from the drawing and faced me. Eyes searching.

“I apologize for what you had to see today,” she started and
I went to her. She seemed just, fractured… in need of some healing. I pulled
her into my arms and placed my fingers over her lips, shushing her.

“Shhh, no need to talk about it anymore today, Sugar. You’re
safe with me. You know that right?” I trailed my fingertips from her lips,
grazing her cheek. Her eyes closed and she seemed to relish the little touch.
She sighed out and nodded faintly. God she was beautiful. So soft, so sweet and
I couldn’t imagine anyone treating her like anything less that the fucking
magical creature she was.

“Kiss me?” she asked softly and I smiled. I couldn’t think
of anything I would rather be doing. I leaned in and brushed her lips lightly
with mine, so softly, in a barely there caress. She sighed out and leaned into
the kiss, pressing her lips to mine, parting them in invitation and I didn’t
need any further urging than that. I swept my tongue past her lips and slipped
it into her mouth.

Her arms slid along my shoulders and twined around my neck.
She pressed her body the length of mine, and buried her fingers in the hair at
the back of my head, pressing me closer. The action knocked my hat off but
fucked if I cared. It was just the first of many articles of clothing that I
planned on making the floor their new home.

I held Red around her waist but I wanted skin, I wanted my
hands on her smooth skin so bad. I slid my hands around to her front and worked
at the wide decorative belt she had on. She took a half step back with her
lower body but kept us firmly pressed up top. She wanted this, was letting me
do this.
Yesssss.
I felt giddy, excited, I dunno, like I was on top of
the world. The belt dropped to the floor and I gripped her lush ass and pulled
her in to me.

God I loved her hot, soft mouth on mine. Her kiss was sweet
and honest and so pure. A wild thing. She didn’t
think
when she kissed,
she
felt
and it was so raw, so real, and so fucking good! I rucked up
her sweater until I reached the hem and slid my hands underneath it, sliding
them ever upwards until the denim of her jeans gave way to smooth, soft, silky
heated skin. She moaned into my mouth at the contact and I couldn’t stand it
anymore. I had to be inside her. I
needed
to be inside her.  That tiny,
soft little moan had me completely undone.

I broke the kiss and lifted the sweater off of her, over her
head. I dropped it to the floor and had the camisole she had on underneath it
join the sweater in short order. She wore this satin and lace nude bra and I
couldn’t wait to see if the panties matched, but first… I shrugged out of my
cut and tossed it at the recliner. It landed, leather on leather with a slap
and Red jumped. I pulled my shirt over my head and dropped it to the floor and
pulled her by her denim clad hips tight up against my chest, skin on skin and
good Christ it was almost enough to make me jizz in my pants.

She kissed me, her mouth more insistent the more comfortable
she became. I could feel her heartbeat pounding, throbbing steady and sure
where my hands smoothed up her ribcage. I curved one arm around her back and
held her against me. The other I smoothed up her body to cup one satin and lace
clad breast. I gave the lush globe a squeeze and she moaned again. That sound
was officially my new very favorite sound in the fucking world. I turned us,
putting her back to the bed and broke the kiss. I searched her face and found
it flushed, her eyes hooded with desire and lust and yeah, I could totally say
the feeling was mutual. So very mutual.

I grinned and gave her a shove and she yipped out a short
laugh and tumbled onto her back in the middle of the bed. The down comforter
fluffing up and nearly swallowing her. Her red hair turned fiery against the
black backdrop. I knelt and she started to sit up. I planted a hand on her
chest, between those glorious tits of hers and pressed her back down.

“Lay back, I’m gonna get your boots,” I murmured. She
relaxed after a heartbeat or two of consideration and I knelt, lowering first
one zipper and the next, easing off first one boot then the other, divesting
her legs of the socks she had on while I was at it. I reached for her
waistband, keeping eye contact. She bit her lower lip uncertainly, almost shyly
and it was the most erotic damned thing. I slipped the button free of its loop
and lowered the zipper slowly. 

Holy God the panties matched and I think I about died and
went to heaven. Yep. I was pretty sure I was dead and this was heaven because I
had the most perfect fucking angel in my bed.
How did I get so lucky?
I
knelt on the bed between her legs and kissed her. She captured my face between
her hands and kissed me back and there was a low level need to it, an urgency a
barely controlled frenzy to it this time. I unbuttoned and unzipped and shoved
my shorts to the floor, taking the boxer briefs down with them.

I fumbled at the laces of my high tops and got them loose,
toeing one after the other off as I lowered my body over hers. I wanted her
skin against mine. She was so
warm
and I loved it. There was an awkward
couple of half seconds while I reached back and ditched my socks that left her
laughing nervously. My erection pressing over her mound, I shuddered. She was
soaked through her panties, so hot and wet and ready and she smelled fucking
amazing! Like her lilies and all woman, her sex delicately perfuming the air.

I kissed the side of her neck and she must have liked it,
she must have liked it a lot because she cried out and she
writhed
underneath me. The feel of all that silky soft body pressing up against mine,
oh yeah, oh God, I needed in her. I needed in her
right now
. I slid my
hands under her back, my lips working that sweet spot on the side of her neck
and unclasped her bra. Not the smoothest unhook of my sexual career but the
girl was driving me nuts with the beautiful soft little whimpers she was
making, her nails digging into the back of my neck lightly where she held me to
her.

The bra joined the rest of the textile wreckage on the
floor. I disengaged from kissing her reluctantly but I wanted so badly to see.
I cupped her breasts in either hand, the full weight of them so incredibly sexy
and alluring. Her nipples were
perfect
, a soft shell pink and standing
like perfect beaded pearls. I looked up her body as I took the first one into
my mouth. Her back arched so beautifully, her eyes fixed on me, so deep and
dark and lovely with the heat of her passion. I rolled the delicate tissue of
her nipple between my tongue and my teeth and she cried out. Her eyes closed as
she relished the sensation, and she was so beautiful doing it my heart gave
this sharp ache at just how exquisite the vision was.

I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her panties and
whisked them off her legs, quickly re-covering her body with my own. I kissed
her, tongues playing against each other, bodies pressed hot and close,
intertwined. She broke the kiss with a gasp.

“Zander!” my name spilled from her lips an impassioned plea,
a siren’s call and I didn’t even care. I lined myself up, I would put a condom
on, but first, God, I just had to feel her wrapped around me just once, just
for a moment without. I know! It was a selfish, dick thing to do but I couldn’t
resist, I couldn’t not do it.

“Zander!” she cried desperately and I thrust forward, I felt
some unexpected resistance, a slight pop, Mandy cried out and it wasn’t in
passion, oh no, I knew the difference. Something was wrong, this was pain. One
of her hands pressed over her mouth, the other against my stomach. I froze,
seated deeply inside my girl and didn’t move.

“Oh shit! Oh Baby, oh Red no… Why didn’t you tell me Honey?
Huh? Why didn’t you say something Sugar!?” I said in a panic as I smoothed her
copper curls back from her frightened face and felt the worry crease my own.

My girl, my beautiful angelic Red, had been a virgin.

Mandy…

“Oh shit! Oh Baby, oh Red no… Why didn’t you tell me honey?
Huh? Why didn’t you say something Sugar!?” his voice was strained tight over
his panic. My eyes watered and the moisture slicked down my temples. He
smoothed my hair back from my face with gentle hands.

“I was trying to,” I whimpered and he closed his eyes. It
had hurt, briefly, a flash of pain then nothing. Now I simply felt full and wet
and I swallowed hard, half afraid there might be something wrong with me.
Everett had always described it as something so magical, so full of bliss… We
were both so still.  Zander searched my face but then he dropped his forehead
to mine closing his eyes. He swallowed hard, overcome by some unnamed emotion.

“I’m so sorry Sugar. I would have made this so much better,
been so much more careful with you if I’d known,” he murmured, his breath warm
and gentle against my lips. I pressed my hands to either side of his face and
forced him to look at me.

“You know now,” I said gently and he nodded.

“I promise Baby, I’m not gonna leave you like this. I promise
I’m going to make it good for you.” I smiled tremulously at this and nodded.

“I’m gonna move now, okay?” he asked and I nodded again and
oh
my God
he moved. He withdrew from me slowly, searching my face for any
signs of discomfort, and finding none, eased his way back in. The sensation of
it, the feeling, it was as if my body was awash in a tingling wave, as if the
most pleasurable electric current gently hummed through me.

My eyes drifted shut as I let the sensations take over. Zander
felt so
good
. His hard body warm against mine, caging me protectively in
his embrace. He tenderly moved above me, inside me and kissed me so sweetly…
but too soon he stilled and with a gentle kiss or two murmured for me to stay
put.

“Where are you going?” I asked, startled.

“I need a condom baby, you’re not on birth control.” I
blinked.

“Yes I am,” I colored deeply and he frowned in confusion. “I
have been since I was fifteen, it helps keep my periods regular.” I felt myself
blush an even deeper shade of crimson.

“I guess I just never figured a virgin would be on it,” he
murmured, “Still want me to get one?” I thought about it and shook my head. I
knew there was still a risk but the moment called for this, for us to simply be
and I was okay with that. Zander looked relieved and started that slow rocking
of his hips that was driving me crazy! I smoothed my hands down his body and
gripped his ass, urging him on and he groaned and it was such a sound! It
coiled things low in my abdomen tight and tighter until I simply couldn’t stand
it. I knew something had to give, that something
should
give, and I had
had orgasms before through pleasuring myself but what happened next… there were
simply no words to describe it.

The world imploded. It was as if my body had become this bottomless
black hole, every sensation known, hot, cold, soft, sharp, tingling, rough; all
of them filtered through me all at once! White shining starbursts, fireworks of
passion and beauty and grace went off at the edges of my vision and I bowed
beneath him. He held me fast, grounding me in the moment, keeping me protected
and safe as pleasure coursed in a rapid paced closed circuit, over and over
again, from my head to my toes through my body. I was vaguely aware of my
echoing cry bouncing back from the ceiling at me before his mouth closed over
mine in a greedy desperate kiss.

Zander swallowed my cry and too soon the ride was over and I
fell limp and quiescent beneath him. He smiled at me and kissed the tip of my
nose. I laughed, which twisted into a throaty moan as the pause he’d taken to
let me come down ended, and he stroked into me once more.

“Oh God, Red!” he closed his eyes, the cadence of his
breathing becoming ragged and abnormal and with a final violent jerk of his
hips, he withdrew from my body the hot wet splash of his release coating my hip
and lower stomach. He held himself up from crushing me and I cradled his head
against my breast, smoothing my fingers through his sweat damp hair, lightly
scratching his scalp with my nails which made him groan, his eyes slipping shut
in pleasure.

“Move in a minute, Sugar, just give me a second,” he panted.

“No rush,” I said gently, voice husky from my cries, “I like
this.”

He pressed his lips against my shoulder in a reverent kiss
that made me smile.

“We are definitely doing that again and soon. Christ woman!”
he propped himself up on his brightly colored arm depicting all the scenes of
Hell, and I looked down between us. Zander grimaced and tipped my chin up,
capturing my eyes with his.

“No don’t look,” he said.

“Why not?”

“There’s a decent amount of blood, Baby,” I nodded.

“Um, it was my first time. Isn’t that normal?” he smiled.

“Speaking of your first time, c’mon, up you go! You gotta go
pee,” I laughed and raised my eyebrows incredulous.

“Wait, what!?”

“I’m serious, come on Sugar, let’s get you cleaned up,” he
plucked his briefs off the floor and tugged them on and I managed not to
grimace, he was right, there was definitely blood. He grinned at me.

“How did we go from amazing first time sex, to I need to
pee?” I frowned and Zander laughed.

“It’s a girl thing, figure no one told you,” he shrugged,
“Either pee right after sex or run the risk of a real nasty UTI,” my mouth
dropped open and I made an incredulous sound.

“And just how do you know that Dr. Zander?” I asked amused.
He opened the closet and held out a robe for me to shrug into, but not before
he wiped the worst of the mess off with his discarded black shirt which he then
pitched into a laundry bag in the closet.

Zander had the grace to look embarrassed, but he was honest
with me, “Was
your
first time Baby, but not mine. Not by far and aside
from loving you, I’ve fucked some real classless chicks,” he shrugged, “I’ve
also fucked some real honest ones.” I swallowed and nodded. I didn’t really
want to think about him with anyone else but Zander was a gorgeous man, it
would be silly to think he was… inexperienced. I peeked into the hall and
followed him quietly into the bathroom, he shut the door behind us and locked
it.

“You are too fucking cute,” he said with a laugh.

“Why!?” I asked grinning.

“Sugar, nobody cares that you just had sex,” he said shaking
his head. He took the robe from me, it was gray and warm and made out of this
sweatshirt material. It had a hood on it and looked like something a boxer
would wear and with his wide breadth of shoulders I simply swam in it.

“Besides that, with how you came, I’m pretty sure
everyone
already knows.”

I felt myself color and he pulled me tight against him
laughing. He kissed my throat and smacked me on the ass which made me give an
indignant yip.

He started the shower and got in saying, “Go pee and get in
here,” before snapping the black shower curtain closed. I did what he asked and
was surprised that I didn’t feel weird or uncomfortable about it. I mean, it
was kind of hard to feel embarrassed when we’d just done what we’d done right?
I slipped into the tub behind him and he grinned at me, the water cascading
over his shoulder and down his chest.

I reached out and traced a line of black flowing script with
curious fingers. It was tattooed along his ribs beside the arm covered in
demons and hellfire.

“What does it say?” I asked softly. I couldn’t read it with
him moving as he was. He stilled and turned so I could read it. “
Through me
you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me
you go amongst the lost people
.” I murmured aloud. I looked at him.

“It’s Dante,” he said with a shrug.

“Why this particular line? Why here?” I asked tracing the
small, delicate script with my finger.

“I’m a southpaw, you know what that means?” I gave him a
blank look and shook my head. “It’s a boxing term, means I’m left hand dominant,”
he sniffed and turned me under the shower spray which ran hot and delicious
down my back.

“Okay…” I said slowly, not quite understanding. 

“It’s the kind of fighter I am, Sugar,” he said softly. I
read the line again, ‘
Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me
you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people.’
I swallowed
hard and suppressed a shudder. When he put it like that, well… I think it was
one of the most formidable things I’d ever seen or heard.

I focused on his right side, tracing a curve of an angel’s
wing near the crook of his elbow. “And this?” I asked letting my finger trace
another line of script along his ribs on this side.

“Milton from his book
Paradise Lost.
”

I read it aloud, “
I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, Taught
by the heav'nly Muse to venture down the dark descent, and up to re-ascend...
”
I smiled, “It’s beautiful,” he pulled me tight against him.

“No,
you’re
beautiful,” and he kissed me, drowning
any further thoughts or questions with my body’s very visceral reaction. We
stayed in the shower for a long time, washing each other clean, kissing and
touching, just generally exploring one another for a time.

“Come home with me tonight,” he said as he dried my body,
and giggling I tried to return the favor, when really all we were accomplishing
was getting in each other’s ways.

“Oh I wish I could,” I said regretfully, “Tomorrow is Black
Friday. It’s all hands on deck at the shop. I’ve spent weeks getting ready for
it.” He stopped toweling me off and pulled his robe off the hook, holding it
for me.

“Then your place it is,” he said with that endearing devilish
grin. I laughed and wrapped the robe around me. He wrapped one of the towels
around his lean hips and tucked one end. The other he threw over his broad
shoulders.

“I need to sleep you know!” I cried as we padded barefoot
across to his room.

“I know!” he smacked me on the ass and I jumped, another
girlish yip coming out of my mouth, which I clapped my hands over.

“Why does it matter so much?” I asked suddenly.

“Red, I just made love to you for the first time. I don’t
want or need you thinking, that it meant anything less than the world to me.
You tell the guys I’ll deny it but my sappy ass wants to sleep with my woman in
my arms tonight. That cool with you?” he raised his eyebrows and rubbed the
towel he had over his shoulders over his black hair briskly.

I rocked back on my heels and looked him over and finally
nodded. “Okay,” I agreed. I turned the possibilities and implications of what
he was saying over in my mind. Finally, I couldn’t help myself, I blurted,
“Does this mean we’re boyfriend and girlfriend?” I immediately colored at how
incredibly and humiliatingly junior high I just sounded, but it was out in the
ether and there was no taking it back so… I shifted on my feet and waited until
Zander finished howling with laughter at me.

“Yeah, Sugar, yeah it does,” he said and immediately started
howling again, with great side splitting laughter that he couldn’t breathe
through, and that I couldn’t help but join with a titter of laughter of my own.

Okay, I was a dork, but apparently I was
his
dork
now. I kind of liked the sound of that.