Secondhand Smoke (Dartmoor Book 4) (2 page)

Tango pulled out of her mouth, sat back, hard and aching, watching. She kicked her head back and gasped. “Oh. Oh. Oooohhhh.” He knew the flush of her cheeks, the way she bit her lip – a real orgasm, and not a show.

Carter made a sharp growling sound and tensed, ass clenching as he drove into her hard, pressed her down into the mattress, and found his own release.

Jazz heaved a deep, satisfied sigh; ran her hands down Carter’s back, to his ass, squeezing, holding him where he was. Both of them panting, gleaming with sweat. A moment Tango should never have been witness to, much less a part of.

Then Jazz turned her head and looked at him. “Baby boy. Come here to me.”

An invitation. The woman who made him feel like both a sheltered boy and a man. And a man who had no idea of his sordid history; didn’t know that in a way, his own nakedness was as much a part of the temptation as Jasmine’s.

“Tango,” Jazz prodded.

He plucked two condoms off the nightstand and joined them.

~*~

Aidan had to close one eye behind his nighttime goggles on the way to the clubhouse, but he managed not to wipe out or crash into another vehicle. Wouldn’t that just be perfect? His epic turnaround had been prompted by an accident – and when that didn’t work, it would be back to the asphalt he went. Splat.

              But he arrived in one piece, staggering off the bike once it was parked in front of the clubhouse, head tipping back as he sucked cool night air into his paper-dry mouth.

              The stars cartwheeled overhead. The plain gray façade of the clubhouse snapped in and out of focus. The black dog affixed to the siding was running, long legs reaching…

              He was at an unheard-of point of drunkenness. He’d never in his life been this wasted and still been on his feet.

              But the fury was still there, flooding his veins, tangling with the whiskey in a way that made him think he’d breathe fire if he tried to speak.

              She’d done it on purpose, hadn’t she? Gotten pregnant. That’s what women did – they trapped you, pinned you to them for life. Drained you of your money and your soul, and all with those five words:

              “I’m pregnant, and it’s yours.”

              He snarled up at the sky, but the stars ignored him, dancing and swirling and refusing to keep their constellations.

              “Bitch,” he said to Tonya, though she wasn’t there to hear.

              The ground heaved beneath him as he walked to the front door. One way, and then the next. He stumbled and caught himself against the wall. Took three tries to turn the knob and let himself in.

              He wanted there to be a rampaging party waiting for him, some den of heathens where he could drink and fuck and smoke the hatred away. But the common room was empty. TV rumbling to itself. Two beers sitting on the coffee table, cold condensation running down their sides.

              Fresh beers.

              Someone was here.

              The back hall lengthened as he walked down it, like he was in a funhouse. His head pounded, the blood thrusting against the backs of his eyes with each beat of his pulse.

              If he so much as smelled Jack Daniels Honey after this night was over, he’d probably puke on the spot.

              Damn you, Tonya.

              Damn women.

              He heard moaning. Deep, highly-aroused, feminine moaning. Porno material, the kind you dreamed about hearing when you were inside a woman.

              Women – the stuff of both dreams and nightmares.

              All the dorm doors stood ajar, clean and ready for occupancy. All but one, a seam of light flashing along the floor where it was shut up tight.

              Aidan didn’t knock; he’d spotted the bikes in the parking lot. He opened the door and nearly fell inside, catching himself against the jamb and waiting for the room to stop spinning.

              A whole lot of naked skin greeted his glassy eyes. Tango. Carter. Jasmine between them. She was groaning and undulating, chanting “yes, yes” in solid agreement with the double penetration situation they had going on.

              A good old everyday occurrence in the MC world. Some overwrought groupie wanting to be fucked from every direction, treated like a piece of meat. They were all the same, weren’t they?

              Women.

              Aidan pushed off the doorframe and fumbled at his cut, managed to shrug out of it. His hands were made of lead as he found the hem of his shirt and peeled it over his head. He didn’t think it was possible, given how much he’d had to drink, but his cock stirred to life, asking to join the party.

              “My turn next?” he asked, and walked toward the bed.

~*~

Jasmine dragged in a huge breath and launched into another coughing fit, choking, gasping for the breath that had been denied her those few precious seconds.

              “Is she okay?” Tango asked between his teeth.

              “Yeah,” was Carter’s terse, furious response. “I got her. You get him under control.”

              Tango dug his elbow into Aidan’s windpipe, until the guy gasped and his eyes bugged.

              “Shit,” he wheezed. “Shit, Kev…”

              The door clicked and the sound of Jasmine’s coughing dimmed as she and Carter moved down the hall.

              Tango dug his elbow in another notch, just because the anger wouldn’t ebb inside him. Because Aidan was drunk off his ass, and he didn’t know how much force it would take to get through to him.

              “Kev,” Aidan gasped. “
Kevin
.”

              It had all gone so terribly, terribly sideways. One moment it had been the two of them filling Jasmine, and he’d been building toward the wildest orgasm of his life. And then Aidan had come in, joined them. “Don’t reach above your means, junior,” he’d told Carter, his words slurred. He’d shoved the younger member aside, had taken his place at Jasmine’s sex.

              And she’d been ecstatic, all purrs and moans and deep gasps.

              Until Aidan wrapped both hands around her throat, called her a slut, and tried to choke her to death.

              Tango had thrown his drunken best friend to the floor, and he was pinning him down now, boiling with murderous fury.

              “What in the fuck is wrong with you?” Tango hissed in his face. “Were you trying to kill her?”

              Aidan licked his lips, started to answer. His breath stank of sweet whiskey.

              “I swear to God,” Tango said, “I love you, and you’re my best friend in the world, but you touch her again, and I’ll break you in two. You
do not touch
Jazz. Understand? Not ever again.”

              Aidan stared at him a long moment, chest heaving, brown eyes far, far away. Then they closed, and his face pinched, and he drew in a shuddering breath. “She’s pregnant,” he groaned. “I got her pregnant.”

              Tango’s skin shriveled. “Jazz?”

              “Tonya.”

              “Oh, shit.”

              “She told me tonight.” Fat, drunken tears leaked from the corners of Aidan’s eyes and he took a deep, shuddering breath. “I didn’t use a rubber, and I knocked her up.”

              Tango recalled the beautiful, cold rich girl who took horseback riding lessons with Walsh’s wife. Perfect, moneyed features, and a cruel mouth. Nothing but a heartache in designer clothes, but Aidan had been infatuated. He’d been hooked…

              “Is she going to…get it taken care of?” he asked, haltingly. He couldn’t imagine a woman of that caliber allowing a biker’s seed to grow inside her.

              Aidan’s face screwed up tight.

              “Shit,” Tango muttered, releasing him, sitting up.

              Aidan pressed his hands over his face and took another of those haunted, rattling breaths.

              Tango raked his hands through his hair, suddenly aware of their mutual nakedness, and lack of a girl.

              He bit at his lip. “I’m sorry, bro. Really. I don’t…” He swallowed. “But what you did to Jazz…”

              “I know, I know,” Aidan groaned. “I’m sorry.”

              Tango sighed. “She wanted both of us together. Guess that won’t seem so romantic after this.”

              “No such thing as romantic,” Aidan mumbled. He pulled his hands away, and his eyes opened unnaturally wide, came to Tango. “Brother.” His voice was strained, lost. “Why do we put up with bitches? You and me – you’re bi. And I could learn.”
              Tango sighed. “Aidan–”

              “I’m serious.”

              “You’re drunk.”

              “No. Why…why do we…? Why don’t we just…?”

              Tango sighed again and leaned over him, the long hair on top of his head falling down onto Aidan’s forehead. “Because you’re very straight, and I’m very confused, and you can’t be gay in this club.”

              He kissed him, his best friend, his surrogate brother. On the lips, his mouth clinging.
Yes
, a voice in the back of his head said.
Give your body to someone you love
. And he could almost imagine that Aidan responded, lifted into him. It wouldn’t be the poison of Ian, would be something so whole and pure.

              But it could never be.

              He pulled back. And Aidan’s gaze was unfocused, blurred-over.

              “You need to sleep,” Tango said quietly. “And then I’ll help you figure it out. All of it. I promise.”

~*~

“Here.” Carter handed a cold water bottle from the fridge to Jasmine and she took it with a nod of thanks, still wheezing.

She sucked down half of it in one long gulp. Gasped afterward, coughed a little more.

They both stood naked in the clubhouse kitchen, but they might as well have been fully clothed for all the interest he had in their state of dress.

“Thanks.” Jasmine’s voice was all wrong, scraped-hoarse. She pressed the cold bottle to her forehead, her neck, between her breasts. The smile she sent his way was nothing like the one she’d been giving him before. It was without pretense or sexual innuendo. It was embarrassed, actually. “I’m sorry.”

He folded his arms. “For what?”

She ducked her head and fiddled with the bottle cap in her hand. “I’m a total skank, huh? Sorry.”

His chest tightened. From the moment he’d prospected, he’d been fascinated by the Lean Bitches. It had started as a violent disgust…but the curiosity had been there, lurking beneath. And the longer he’d stayed with the Dogs, the more he’d seen, the more he’d begun to hunger for the nastiness. Why work and struggle and make a fool of himself for a girl out in the real world when there were the club girls wanting to snag a piece of him? There were casual groupies who showed up and then never showed back, but then there were the hardcore few. The ones who’d put themselves in Dogs’ beds every night for years, and seemed to enjoy it. Jasmine was their leader, and she was gorgeous, and he’d fantasized about her while he’d held his cock in his hand.

And now he’d been inside her, and his world was upside down. He wasn’t thinking with his upstairs head; possession roared in his veins.

“Jazz.” He loved the sound of the word on his tongue. The taste of it. Loved the way her head lifted, eyes wide and red-rimmed, helpless and hopeless all at once. “You’re not a skank.”

Her mouth lifted at the corners. “You’re sweet.”

“No. I’m dead serious.”

She blinked.

“And Tango’s not your man if he let that happen just now.” He nodded toward the hall, toward what the three of them had done. “’Cause if you were mine,” he said, feeling bold, feeling ten-feet-tall, “I wouldn’t share you.”

~*~

Tango was dressed and sitting on the side of the bed, having a smoke when Carter came back in. He didn’t turn his head to look at the other blonde; nakedness was never a turn-on once the heat of the moment had passed.

              Carter grabbed his jeans and hauled them up his legs in a few efficient movements, not speaking until they were in place. “Did you kill him?” he asked, nodding toward Aidan’s still figure on the floor. His voice was still strained. Tango hadn’t seen him angry since he was a teenager, since Ava was kidnapped. That same tight ire was in his voice now, over Jasmine.

              Tango took a deep drag on his cigarette, forced the smoke out through his nostrils. “He fell asleep. He smells like someone broke a bottle over his head. Or maybe a barrel.”

              Carter braced a shoulder against the door and exhaled sharply, still pissed, all jacked up in the shoulders about it. “What the hell was that? Is he jealous or something?”