Unattainable (24 page)

“
Good,” he ground out,
leaving me even more confused as to what he was getting at or why
he was doing this in the first place.

But as he palmed his own cock and his
grip on my throat moved to my hair and he yanked me forward,
bringing my mouth to the tip of his dick, I knew exactly what was
going on. Having just succumbed to the mere touch of his fingers,
there was no way in hell I was going to let him get away with
further humiliating me.

“
I’m layin’ fuckin’ claim
to you, Tegen, every single fuckin’ part of you, right the fuck
now.”

“
You can’t have any part
of me!” I cried, trying to turn my head but his grip on my hair was
too tight. Grunting, he yanked my head backward, forcing me to look
up at him.

“
Wrong,” he growled. “I’ve
always had you. Only difference is now, I’m takin’ you.”

Oh my God, what did that mean? What the
shit did that mean?

“
Take it,” Cage gritted
out, trying to force his cock between my lips, “or get the fuck
outta my life right the fuck now and stay the fuck out.”

My heart began to pound, my stomach
fluttered, and tears pricked the back of my eyes. He pulled his
hips back slightly.

“
I don’t want to be like
my mother,” I whispered.

“
I’m not Jase,” he
whispered back. “I’m not Hawk, I’m not my father, I’m not any of
them.”

Staring up at his big brown eyes, I
choked back a sob. He already was like his father, in so many, many
ways. But at the same time, he wasn’t.

“
Take it, Teacup,” he said
hoarsely. “Be my girl.”

My breath left me. Be. His.
Girl.

Be Cage’s girl.

My eight-year-old self, my
nine-year-old self, my twelve-year-old self, my brokenhearted
sixteen-year-old self, and my bitter, broken-down adult self, they
all converged together…and…

I took it.

I grabbed hold of him and took as much
of him into my mouth as I could. Both his hands were in my hair,
gripping tightly, pulling painfully hard, and jerking his hips
forward, gagging me, forcing me to take more, but I didn’t
care.

I didn’t care because I wanted more. I
wanted all of him. I always had; I’d never stopped.

My hands flew to his hips in an attempt
to hold on to him. My nails dug down deep and deeper still until he
was grunting in pain yet thrusting faster, and I couldn’t breathe
and his grip on my hair had reached scalding levels and…

“
Tegen,” he said,
groaning, breathing in and out in hard, erratic bursts. “It’s never
been like this for me, babe, never. Nobody’s ever been this
good…felt this good.”

Oh God, I knew; I had always known. How
fucking long had I prayed for this moment? For as long as I could
remember, forever even.

It had always been him. It would only
ever be him.

My tears spilled over. My longtime
broken heart was breaking again, shattering, falling to pieces and
disintegrating. And in its place was a brand new heart. Like a
phoenix rising from the ashes.

When it was over—after Cage had taken
everything, every part of me he could take, making me take him
inside my body everywhere I could take him, after falling away from
one another—we lay side by side on the floor of his room, sharing a
cigarette.

“
Now what?” I
whispered.

Cage’s head lolled to his right and his
half-lidded eyes found mine. “Now, nothin’,” he said.

“
Nothing?” Panic flooded
me. Had he just fucked me over? Again?

“
It’s me and you, Teacup,”
he said, rolling to his side and sliding his hand over my bare
stomach. “And nothin’. ’Cause nothin’ else fuckin’ matters right
now.”

• • •

Cage lifted Tegen off the floor and set
her down on his bed. He stared at her for a while, running his gaze
up and down her naked body, just watching her sleep.

He’d lied. When he’d said he’d never
loved a single woman he’d fucked. He’d lied.

He’d loved before. He’d loved exactly
one of them. He just hadn’t realized it until right now.

He loved Tegen. He’d loved her most of
her life, actually, but just hadn’t known the feeling for what it
truly was until now.

Love wasn’t something he’d measured by
how many days you spent around a person, or how long you’d known
someone, and it sure as fuck wasn’t measured by whether you fucked
them or not or how many times.

Cage only measured love by what he
would do for someone, the lengths he was willing to go. How much he
cared about their well-being and their survival. And he’d always
cared about Tegen; he’d never stopped. She was family, she was his
best friend, and just like he’d take a bullet for his sisters, for
his brothers, even for his old man, he knew, in that moment,
staring down at her, he’d take one for Tegen too.

No way was she going back to
California. Not a chance in hell.

He’d tie her to the fucking bed if he
had to.

Dressed more comfortably now in a pair
of black leggings and an oversized, slouchy pink tee that hung off
one shoulder and had a pair of silver angel’s wings printed on the
back, Ellie followed Danny out of her room.

The club looked exactly as it always
had. The back hall of bedrooms had the brothers’ names on the
doors, pictures of the boys with their families or on their bikes
lined the walls, and it smelled of cigarette smoke, spilled booze,
and men who preferred smoking and drinking over bathing on a
regular basis.

Every visit to the club before she’d
left for college had been barely tolerable and had always left her
with a bad taste in her mouth. But instead of feeling any sort of
negativity, she felt more at home than ever before. Safe,
too.

The telltale sounds of sex, from both a
male and female, flooded the hallway and Ellie flushed with
embarrassment as she recognized Cage’s deep voice, and heard Tegen
crying out in response to his quite frankly mouth-watering sexual
demands of her.

Thinking back to high school, to her
own experience with Cage, she smiled to herself. If there was
anything Cage excelled at, it was women. Or rather, sex with women.
And from the sounds of it, Tegen was being thoroughly
excelled.

Danny, with Harley in her arms, shook
her head in disgust and picked up her pace.

“
Guess crazy #1 and crazy
#2 made up,” she muttered. “Give them five minutes and they’ll be
at each other’s throats again. I swear, it’s like Kami and Cox all
over again.”

Ellie gave her a sideways glance. “Have
they finally calmed down?”

Danny snorted. “Actually, yes. But I
think it has more to do with the fact that Kami wants more kids and
he doesn’t, so she’s taken to ignoring him entirely.”

“
And you?” Ellie asked.
“And Ripper? Things are good?”

Danny stopped walking and looked into
Ellie’s eyes. “They’re better than good,” she said softly. “I-I’m
so happy Ellie. I really, really am.”

Ellie stared at her old friend, feeling
the sharp, unwelcome pang of jealousy rear its ugly head. What was
wrong with her? First she was having baby envy and now this? Being
beaten and nearly raped had seemingly stirred up doubts about her
priorities in life, making her wish she’d maybe taken a different
path.

No, she would never regret putting
school and a career first. But maybe she sort of regretted not
going on any dates in college, not really doing much of anything
except studying. Her only boyfriend to date, a millionaire with a
kink fetish who favored cream-colored cable knit sweaters…and
existed only in the pages of a book.

Not that she was into kinky sex…or
anything.

“
Talkin’ ’bout me,
beautiful girl?”

Ripper turned the corner, smiling at
his wife and daughter, Dirty and Tap close behind him. But Ellie
was only focused on Ripper. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been
carting around his usual bottle of tequila and looking miserable.
That was definitely not the case anymore. This was an entirely
different man standing in front of her; a man whose entire world
consisted of two heads of blonde hair, two sets of blue eyes, and
dimples as far as the eye could see.

“
Maybe,” Danny replied,
smiling coyly. “If you’ve stopped being stupid about
ZZ.”

Ripper’s smile melted into a soft, yet
serious expression. “Yeah, baby,” he said quietly. “I’m
good.”

“
So fuckin’ glad you’re
both good,” Tap said, pushing past Ripper. “I for one ain’t fuckin’
good. We’re locked the fuck up for four more days and all the pussy
inside this motherfuckin’ club is all taken.”

“
Shoulda stayed true to
your old lady, brother,” Ripper said as he took Harley out of
Danny’s arms and swung the little girl up over his head, setting
her down on his shoulders. “Then she’d be locked up with ya instead
of married to some fuckin’ asshat down south.”

Opening his mouth, about to respond,
Tap’s eyes landed on Ellie and his mouth abruptly closed. The grin
that followed made her skin crawl. It wasn’t that he was a
bad-looking man, maybe a little shorter than Ellie liked, but he
was fit, clean, his long black hair was well taken care of, but the
fact remained that he was old enough to be her father. If not
older.

“
Forgot about you,” Tap
said, stepping forward. Ellie took a quick step back.

“
Like big black asses and
chocolate pussy,” Tap continued. “Don’t get enough of it ’round
here.”

“
Oh my God, Tap!” Danny
shouted. “Little ears!”

Tap glanced over just as Dirty stepped
forward, immediately dropping his head into Tap’s personal space.
“Back the fuck off her,” Dirty said darkly. “Or the only pussy
you’ll ever be seein’ again is gonna be you cryin’ on the fuckin’
floor after I drop your ass on it.”

Tap’s eyebrows shot up at the exact
moment Ellie’s jaw dropped. She hadn’t grown up around the club
life like Danny had, but she’d seen enough, knew enough to know
that Deuce’s boys loved one another fiercely, that unless it was
their women or their kids in question, they banded together. Them
against the world.

Ellie wasn’t anyone’s woman; she wasn’t
a biker brat, she wasn’t even friends with Danny anymore, not
really, yet Dirty had just threatened Tap. For her.

“
Come on, Ellie,” Danny
said, sounding irritated. “I’ll find you a room. One of the boys
can crash on a couch.”

Ellie yanked her arm back, a knee-jerk
reaction out of fear, partially because she was more than jumpy
lately and Danny had caught her off guard, but mostly because of
Tap’s behavior.

“
No,” she said. “Thank
you, but I’ll, uh, stay with Dirty.”

“
What?” Danny asked,
gaping at her. In fact, everyone was gaping at her. Even
Dirty.

Why was everyone staring at her as if
she’d suddenly lost her mind? She felt safe with Dirty; he’d saved
her life, for God’s sake. So what if he had issues? She had plenty
of issues herself lately and Dirty, of all people, understood.
Whatever had happened to him as a child, he knew exactly how she
was feeling, maybe even better than she did.

“
You can have the room,”
Dirty said as he backed away from Tap. “I’ll sleep up
front.”

Ellie didn’t like that idea either.
With men like Tap crawling all over the club, she didn’t want to be
alone in the middle of the night. In fact, the more she thought
about it, she never wanted to be alone anywhere ever
again.

God, she felt pathetic. Helpless,
powerless. She couldn’t even save her own life.

“
You don’t have to,” Ellie
said quietly, her eyes focused solely on Dirty. “I would
feel…better…if you stayed with me.”

• • •

Dirty tried his best to ignore the
three shocked sets of eyes burning holes into him as he stared back
at Ellie, but there was no ignoring the thundering rattle of his
heart trying to pound its way out of his chest.

What was wrong with this bitch? First,
she came back to comfort him after he’d attacked her. Next, she
saved him from having to explain to Danny why he’d cleaned himself
up. Not that he could have. He honestly didn’t know why he’d done
half the shit he’d done lately.

And now, she felt safe with him; so
much so that she wanted to bunk with him. Out of everyone here,
Ellie felt safe with
him
.

Jesus fucking Christ. He was the one
man in this club no woman should ever feel safe around.

What was going on? Up until now, his
world had made sense. It wasn’t pretty, or sugar-coated. He damn
sure wasn’t envied.

But to him, it was all he knew, it was
how he lived to see another day. To him, it worked.

Until now. Until her. And suddenly,
nothing was working and none of it made any fucking
sense.

He knew that if he tried to speak, his
voice was going to crack and give away how fucked-up he truly was
to everyone standing in this hallway. So, instead of speaking, he
pulled his pack of smokes from his cut, lit one up, and as he was
putting the pack away, glanced back at Ellie and jerked his chin
toward the other end of the hallway. Then he took off down the
hall, feeling something akin to masculine satisfaction when he
heard Ellie’s bare feet slapping the concrete floor behind
him.