Wild Child (Rock Royalty #6) (12 page)

“How much extra is it going to cost me to fix my house?”

“Nothing. I’m covering that as…as your friend.”

She stared at him. “We’re friends now?”

He threw up his arms, his temper lighting. “What the hell else would we be?”

Her mouth opened, but a commotion near the entrance interrupted whatever she was about to say.

Brody turned on his stool to see a bunch of rough-looking men spill into the room, the patches on the backs of their leather jackets proclaiming them to be members of “The Unruly MC.”
Christ.
They didn’t have the look of a weekend motorcycle club with members who only got together for late afternoon beers and long Sunday rides with their old ladies. These guys were obviously more hard-core.

“Where’s your bouncer?” he demanded.

Ash was already rounding the bar and heading in the direction of the newcomers. They were pulling out chairs and settling at tables. “He’s off on Thursday nights.”

“Where are you going?”

“On Thursday nights I help Madelyn with the table service.”

Though Brody’s intention had been to stay for a single beer, with what looked like a one-percent motorcycle gang—“one-percent” referring to the quote from the American Motorcycle Association that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens—on the premises, he decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

Or getting anywhere near Ash, it turned out. She busied herself with her customers, leaving him to his own devices as she delivered drinks and baskets of food and flirted and laughed with men who probably ate pretty little girls like her for lunch. A grizzled older guy Brody hadn’t seen working at the roadhouse before took her place behind the bar and served him a mug of coffee when he asked for it.

As the motorcycle gang’s party turned more raucous, Ash didn’t seem to mind in the least. She sashayed over with a tray of shots and began doing them, too, throwing herself into the rowdy atmosphere despite his glowering from across the room.

Somebody had edged up the volume of the music coming from the jukebox, blaring mostly heavy metal interspersed with the occasional hard-driving country song. A bearded dude with a gut the size of a watermelon pulled the beautiful roadhouse owner into his arms and led her into a spirited two-step around the dance floor. When it was over, another drew her onto his lap, and she laughed even has he threw a meaty arm across her waist.

Then some joker boosted her onto a pool table to set up an intricate shot that involved Ash kneeling on the felt and the pool cue sliding between her spread thighs. Every muscle in Brody’s body tightened to the point of pain, and when she glanced over at him, her expression half-drunk and half-challenge, he finally lost his shit.

He shoved through the gathered crowd of men who smelled like leather, beer, and criminal records. Ignoring their muttered protests, he lifted Ash off the table and strode away with her in his arms.

Behind them, the motorcycle crowd grumbled ominously, like one of their Harley Davidson bikes.

“Don’t worry,” she called out gaily over his shoulder, her arms circling his neck. “This is Brody. We’re friends! Really good friends!”

Not having a clue about where to go or what he was going to do with her when he got there, he headed toward the door marked “Employees Only.”

At the back of what looked to be a break area was another door that led to a darkened storeroom lined with metal shelves filled with boxes and cans of foodstuffs. Once inside, he kicked the door shut but didn’t flip the light switch.

The only thing in the shadows with them was the sound of his rough breaths and her unsteady ones.

“What the hell?” he demanded. “The Unruly Motorcycle Club?”

His arms tightened around her delicate form. Without thinking, he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet scent.

“Brae liked them,” Ash said. “I think she dated one of them…or maybe two or three.”

His heart felt as if it was trying to break free of the cage of his ribs. “Damn it, you need to be careful.”

“Of whom?”

Maybe he’d throttle her instead of trying to get through to the beautiful blonde who said
of whom
like she was at the grammar bee that she needed to watch herself around the roadhouse’s rougher clientele.
My God.
The Unruly Club had to be a criminal motorcycle gang.

He squeezed shut his eyes. “I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

She squirmed, and he let her slip out of his arms until she was on her own two feet. Beneath his steadying hands she swayed, and he thought of those shots she’d tossed back earlier, and then of their night together. She’d been at least half-smashed that evening, too. And he couldn’t be a sanctimonious shit about it, because he’d had his share of lost nights and lost weekends. Sometimes he’d been lost longer than that.

“You shouldn’t get drunk like this,” he heard himself say anyway.

His eyes had become more accustomed to the dark, and he could see her draw herself up. Maybe she’d not had as much as he’d thought.

“Don’t be a sanctimonious shit.”

He had to laugh. “Can you read my mind? Sometimes Bing does. Did you and Brae communicate without words?”

She shook her head, and her hair swirled around her shoulders. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand anything.”

“I know.” He didn’t understand himself and the death-wish draw she held for him. He should be on his way home and not sequestered in an intimate darkness with a tattered angel heading for trouble. “Can you tell me what’s going on with you? Why the hell were you playing around with that crowd?”

“It’s simple. I’m having fun. I’m trying to forget.” Her chin lifted and her voice filled with both defiance and desperation. “I’m living in the moment because it’s smacked me hard in the face that’s all I might have. And that’s the only thing I can be certain about.”

His heart contracted, because sadness ran beneath all the bluster. “Ashlynn…” He cupped her face in his hands, his fatal, futile flaw urging him to promise her he could fix everything for her, be everything to her. “There’s more.”

Her hands covered his. “Maybe not,” she said, her voice fierce. “Maybe there’s just now and just…
this
.” Then she went on tiptoe and placed her hot mouth against his.

Every thought scattered from his mind, and he groaned at the goodness of her taste. One of his hands slid to the back of her head to hold her close, and the kiss consumed everything— past, future, good sense.

His intention to steer clear.

There was only this woman in his arms and his consuming need to have her.

Ashlynn’s head spun as she pressed herself against Brody’s tall, strong form. She could feel his body quiver, and the hand at the back of her head flexed.

He was still warring with himself, she thought, fighting the desire even as she could feel the heavy bulge of his sex against her belly. She’d surrendered, however, and was throwing caution to the wind, because tonight she wanted this too much to deny herself the pleasure.

“We’re not friends,” she said against his mouth.

Ashlynn Childe from Saratoga in Northern California would have told herself she was friends with Brody Maddox.

But that would have been because Ashlynn Childe from Saratoga would have used the word to put a barrier between them. That Ashlynn had been too afraid to take on a man like this one, so male he made her pulse flutter and her belly swan dive when he walked into the room. That Ashlynn would have been afraid a man like this would demand improper things. Raw passion. Naked pleasures that weren’t the least bit polite.

She’d been afraid of the sounds and tastes and improprieties of unbridled sex.

Topanga Ash already knew how delicious all that could be with Brody Maddox. Since he’d walked in tonight she’d been able to think of nothing else. Add a shot or two of belly-burning liquor, and she was eager to make that happen.

His hand flexed in her hair once more, and she touched her tongue to his bottom lip. His erection pressed into her as she tilted her hips, inviting him to rock against her a second time.

He groaned, and his tongue speared into her mouth. Ashlynn clutched at his shoulders as a rush of desire flooded her bloodstream. Her inner muscles clenched on emptiness, and she went wet between her legs.

She reveled in the heat of the need burning like fire through her veins. Ashlynn Childe of Saratoga had been straw and sawdust inside, a mannequin trained to use a modulated voice and good manners. This was what it was to live loud and brash. Like Brae.

Ashlynn pressed closer to Brody and sucked on his tongue, exalting when one of his big hands moved down her body to grope her ass. The broadness of his palm, the length of his fingers made her feel feminine and small and so…overtaken.

By lust.

Then he lifted his head, his breathing ragged. “Wait—”

“Why?” she demanded, reaching up to pull his mouth close again.

“Think—”

“No
.
” She wanted to feel
this
, and only this, arousal taking over her body and blanking out all the dark emotions that loomed at the fringes of her mind, the ones waiting to grab her and then drag her into the sad and lonely shadows. Her lips ran down the strong column of his throat, and when she used the edge of her teeth she felt him jerk, heard his little grunt.

His mouth slammed onto hers.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he growled when they came up for air again.

“Not being careful,” she said, yanking up the tails of his shirt so she could feel the sleek skin of his back. It burned against her palms. “Been careful all my life.”

“You want a mindless fuck then?”

She laughed, her head dropping back as his mouth explored her throat. The contrast between hot, soft lips and the prickly grit of his evening whiskers made her shudder.

“Absolutely.” Mindless was exactly what she was after. “Bring it on.”

He groaned. “Glitter girl, you have no idea what you do to me.”

“Of course I do.” She laughed again, as bold as could be, and cupped his sex. Squeezed a little. “I know exactly what I do to you.”

And it was heady stuff, to realize how she affected such a large, powerful man. The instinctive and underlying feminine fear at having aroused him so only added another layer of thrill to it.

His mouth found the hollow behind her ear, and she shivered. Her nipples had tightened to points so hard they hurt.

He bit her earlobe, the sharp pain making her jolt. Ripples of ensuing pleasure moved over her, making her moan. Her whole body thrummed with the sweet ache of anticipation. Her inner muscles clenched again, more wetness readied her for him.

“Can you leave the roadhouse now?” he asked, his voice gruff. “We could go to your house.”

“No.” That had been her downfall the last time. The softness of a bed and the hours of intimacy had lowered her guard. Made her vulnerable. “Here is good. Right here. Right now.”

He glanced around. “You might get dirty.”

“I want it dirty.”

The word shivered down her spine and tasted good on her tongue. Like candy. Even better, like candy you sneaked fifteen minutes before dinner. She insinuated her hand down the front of his pants, heard his sharp intake of breath and felt his belly contract.

All the better to wrap her hand around the hot thick stalk of him. “Your manroot.”

“What?” he asked on a half-laugh, half-groan.

“I read it in a book, and it seems to fit for you.” She stroked his heavy organ in the confines of her fist. “You don’t like the word? What do you call it? Penis? Hard-on? Joe?”

Another laughing groan. “Are we actually talking about this now?”

He covered one of her breasts with his palm, thumbing her stiff nipple.

She pressed her thighs together, trying to assuage the new ache there.

“Okay,” she said, moaning as he reached under her sweater to tweak the bud of flesh through her bra. “I don’t need to talk.”

He grunted and used his free hand to tear open his jeans. While she continued to stroke him, he adjusted denim and cotton so that he freed the thing he would not name.

“Manroot,” she murmured against his mouth as he swooped down for another kiss.

“You’re nuts,” he said, lips to lips.

For you
. But she popped that thought like a bubble and opened her mouth wider for his marauding tongue.

Then he tore his mouth away again.

“Damn it.” He shook his head as if trying to clear it. “Ash. Hell. We can’t do this. I don’t have a condom on me.”

She froze. “The dispenser in the men’s room is out.”

It was on her list, though she didn’t know if she should order them from a supplier or go herself to a big box store and load them up in her cart.

“There’s no way to sanely do it in here anyway,” Brody said, drawing his hand away from her swollen breast.

At the idea she couldn’t have him, she only needed him more. Though barely able to make out his perfect features in the darkness, she glared in his direction.

“You’re not leaving me like this!” she said, stepping back and stamping her foot like the tantrum-inclined toddler she’d never been. “I’m hot and bothered, and if we stop now I might have to go out there and pick up a motorcycle—”

“Not that,” he said, his spine snapping straight. “
Not that
.”

Uh-oh
. She might have poked the tiger with a little too sharp a stick. “Okay, okay,” she said, lifting her hands in surrender.

He grabbed her wrists and yanked her close to him again. “You want it dirty, little girl?”

The harsh note in his voice made her shiver…in the very best way. Ashlynn lifted her chin. No backing down now, not that she was the least bit inclined to do so.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s going to get dirty.”

He brought her hands up to his mouth. She could feel his gaze on her face.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Her breath was moving in and out of her lungs in fast, shallow pants. God, the ruthless tone of his voice had her even more wound up. She was soft and wet between her thighs, and her clitoris was throbbing and desperate to be touched.