Ruined Read online

  The demand in his kiss made me tremble—because there was no resisting him, no holding out or holding back. He took everything. His tongue was pushing inside, sliding along mine, exploring me, and he must have tasted himself because he growled all of a sudden, his fingers tightening around my upper arms.

  Then we were moving as he walked me backwards down a short, dark, dead-end corridor. There was one door to the left, a blank wall to the right, and he pushed me into the corner where the blank wall met the end of the corridor. His hands were pressed to the wall on either side of my head, his big, lean body caging me there while he kissed me, deep and wet, with total and absolute demand.

  The scent of him—so familiar and yet now so heavy with the musk of male arousal—was the most erotic thing in the entire goddamn universe. And the heat of him, so agonisingly close to me, was making me crazy.

  Yet I was shaking. Because some part of me knew what was going to happen next and I was terrified. It would be a step we couldn’t come back from. I knew that deep in my soul.

  Like that blow job hasn’t changed things already?

  Of course it had. But this...this was different. It was one thing to turn him inside out, make him come. It was quite another to give him the same power over me.

  His hands dropped from the wall to grip the fabric of my skirt, pulling it up higher and higher. My breathing was fast and I felt dizzy, as if I didn’t have enough air. I reached for his hands to push them away, but he was too strong, too insistent. My skirt was around my waist before I could stop him, and then he lifted me up against the wall, pinning me there with his body.

  His strength was effortless, and the hard flex of his muscles as he held me tapped into a very feminine part of me, making me shiver with delight. It was insane that I should like this—his control, his dominance—but I couldn’t help it. I did like it.

  He shifted, pushing his lean hips insistently between my thighs, and because his jeans were open I could feel his cock, hard and hot, pressing against the soaking-wet fabric of my panties. The sensation was a lightning burst in my head...a shock of sensation overloading every nerve ending I had.

  My mouth opened beneath his as I gasped, my hips rocking, pushing against him, and he muttered a vicious-sounding curse against my lips.

  His fingers curled into the waistband of my panties, jerking hard, tearing through the lace. Then they were gone and his fingers were between my thighs, sliding through the slick folds of my pussy, finding my clit and circling in hard, tight circles.

  I stiffened, unable to stop a desperate, choked sound escaping my throat. His touch was electric, the pleasure white-hot—unlike anything I’d ever felt before.

  The sheer intensity of it hooked into the panic that was simmering below the surface, frightening me. My hands were on his chest, wanting to push him away, to stop this, but he eased one finger into me, then another, spread them apart, stretching me.

  ‘Smoke... Oh, God...’ I couldn’t stop the words pouring out of my mouth. ‘Jesus... Please... Smoke, I can’t... I don’t...’

  His mouth was on mine again, kissing me hungrily, and his fingers were sliding deeper into my pussy. I shuddered, the hot wall of muscle beneath my palms searing me like the element on a stove. I was going to catch fire. I was going to burn alive right here in his arms.

  His mouth moved to my jaw, down my throat, his teeth closed around the cords of my neck. ‘You’re so fucking wet.’

  His voice was dark as midnight, husky and rough.

  ‘So fucking tight. I knew you would be. I just knew it.’

  He drew his hand back, sliding his fingers out, then back in, again and again, fucking me slowly, making me pant and gasp and writhe in his arms.

  ‘You want my cock, kitten? Tell me you want it.’ His voice got impossibly deeper. ‘Beg me for it.’

  I couldn’t breathe. It was like everything in me was drawn so tight the slightest breath would shatter me into a thousand pieces. Yet I wanted to move. I wanted to end this desperate ache, this need that was eating me alive.

  I knew he was going to do it—fuck me right here in this hallway, where anyone could see us. And I didn’t care. I just wanted this hunger to be gone.

  ‘I w-want your cock,’ I stuttered hoarsely. ‘I want it right now.’

  ‘Where do you want it?’

  His fingers curled inside me, his thumb moving in a slow, slick circle over my clit.

  I groaned. ‘I want it in my pussy. Please, Smoke. Please...’

  He shifted again, his fingers sliding out of me, making me tremble at the loss. While he held me against the wall he reached behind him to his wallet, deftly extracting a condom packet one-handed, before letting the wallet fall carelessly to the floor. He ripped the packet open with his teeth, discarding the wrapper and rolling the latex down. Then he gripped my thighs hard and positioned himself.

  I could feel the head of his cock press against the entrance of my pussy, and I shook so hard it felt like I was going to come apart right there and then.

  ‘Cat.’

  My name was a harsh order.

  ‘Fucking look at me.’

  I did, but the expression on his face was so intense I could hardly stand it. Hunger and desperation and also anger. An anger I didn’t understand.

  His hips flexed and he was pushing into me, my slick flesh was parting before him, stretching around him, and the feel of him tipped me off the ledge I was only barely clinging to. The orgasm crashed over me, a massive shudder shaking my body as I cried out, lights bursting behind my eyes.

  He didn’t even pause, sliding deep inside me, holding me fast with my legs wrapped around his lean waist, the unbelievable heat of his body between my thighs.

  I groaned at the sensation of him inside me, because he was big and it had been a long time since I’d had sex. Not to mention the fact that the aftershocks of my orgasm were like tiny bolts of electricity arcing from nerve ending to nerve ending, sensitising every part of me.

  Then he was drawing his hips back, driving into me deep and fast and wild. Each thrust slammed me hard into the corner. I arched in his arms, shocked as that tight, impossible ache began to build again, the sharp need coiling tighter with each slide of his cock inside me. I gripped his T-shirt, my fingers fisting in the cotton, panting and then groaning again as he tilted my hips and changed the angle of his thrusts, so the base of his cock was grinding against my clit.

  My head fell back against the wall, pleasure rising higher and higher, and the sounds of his ragged breathing and his sharp, hard grunts as he fucked me filled the space between us.

  I’d never imagined it would be like this. Not with him. I’d never imaged this with him at all. And the worst part was knowing that it wasn’t something we could pretend hadn’t happened. We couldn’t ignore it.

  It was fierce, incendiary. It was going to change everything.

  I said his name a thousand times, over and over, my voice so hoarse it didn’t sound like mine. Then, when I didn’t think I could bear it any more, he jerked my hand away from its death grip on his T-shirt and forced it down between my legs.

  I tried to resist, for what reason I didn’t know, but he was too strong, forcing my fingers to where we were joined, to feel my own wet pussy stretched around the thick, hard length of his cock. To feel the slick glide of him as he pulled out, the give of my flesh as he pushed back in.

  ‘Feel me, kitten. This is me, inside you.’ He held my fingers there, flexing his hips with each word to prove his point. ‘This is me fucking you.’

  I groaned, trembling so hard I thought I would break, the dirty words as much of a turn-on as the feel of his cock sliding into me.

  My best friend. Fucking me in the hallway, where anyone could see us.

  He moved his hand, urging my fingers higher, to my clit.

  ‘Touch yourself,’ he ordered harshly.
‘I want you coming all over my cock in five seconds.’

  I obeyed without thought, my fingers stroking my clit over and over as he fucked me hard against the wall until I was desperate and shaking and raw. And it didn’t even take five seconds. In three I screamed his name into the silence of the hallway, my eyes shut tight as the sensation swept over me, annihilating me completely.

  Dimly I felt him move harder and faster, his rhythm wild and out of control, and then he bent his head, turning his face into my neck. And he bit me hard as orgasm took him, too.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Smoke

  I DIDN’T WANT to move. I wanted to stay there, my head turned in to her neck, inhaling the musky scent of aroused Cat and sex, with my dick buried so deep inside her I felt like I was part of her. She was panting, her body shaking, her legs wrapped tight around my waist, and I simply held her there, losing myself in the smell and feel of her.

  I’d fantasised about her for years, and yet all those fantasies hadn’t even come close to the reality. To the pressure of her mouth as she’d sucked me. To the tight, wet heat of her pussy around my cock. To the salty taste of her skin as I’d bitten her neck. So fucking good. So fucking intense.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d come so hard, and even now, two orgasms later, I was already getting hard for her again. But I didn’t want to do anything more here in the clubhouse. I wanted to get her back to a bed, where I could take my time, undress her, taste every inch of her delicious body before sinking into her again. Fucking her slow, fucking her fast. Driving us both insane.

  This was going to happen again, and soon, and I wasn’t going to take no for answer. Not now that I’d felt how wet she’d been or heard her scream my name in my ear as she’d come.

  Her hands pushed at my chest and, reluctantly, I slid out of her, letting her down onto the floor. She was shaky on her feet and had to keep her hands braced on my chest, which was fucking satisfying.

  It was all so fucking satisfying.

  For so many years she hadn’t even noticed the fact that I was a man, and yet tonight, when she’d come to a stop in the hallway and turned to face me, I’d known that she’d noticed. That she’d run from what was happening around the bonfire was because she’d noticed. Which had made my decision real simple.

  She’d gone down on her knees when I’d asked her to. Begged for my cock when I’d ordered her to. And then she’d come, screaming, exactly when I’d told her to.

  She’d wanted it, whether she liked it or not. She’d wanted it. She’d wanted me.

  Her head was bent, her dark hair hiding her face, but I didn’t make her look at me—not yet. Instead I dealt with the condom in a nearby wastebasket and tucked myself back into my jeans. Then I pulled down her skirt, smoothing it over her thighs, covering her up.

  She tried batting away my hands, but I ignored that bullshit. She was mine now, and if I wanted to take care of her I was going to take care of her—no goddamn arguments.

  ‘Smoke...’

  My name sounded all husky and raw.

  ‘Can we just—’

  ‘No,’ I interrupted. ‘Don’t say another fucking word, Cat.’

  Sliding a finger beneath her chin, I tipped her head up so she had to look at me. Her cheeks were deeply flushed, her green eyes dark, tendrils of black hair sticking to her forehead and neck. She looked shell-shocked, and I was asshole enough to get a kick out of it.

  ‘I’m taking you back home. Now.’

  Her mouth opened, but I put a finger on her soft lips, silencing her.

  ‘What did I say about another fucking word?’

  A muscle flexed in her jaw but she remained silent. Good girl.

  I made sure our clothing was all good, then I took her hand and held it tight, turning and heading back down the corridor towards the club’s exit.

  Christ, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About her mouth and the feel of her body against mine. The little movements she’d made and her soft, desperate sounds of pleasure. I glanced down at her as we walked, watching the ebb and flow of colour in her cheeks, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.

  But she didn’t look back at me, which told me everything I needed to know about her feelings: she regretted it and it was obvious.

  My chest tightened but I ignored it. If she thought we were going back to nothing but friendship, she was shit out of luck. She was mine. She was my property and I was going to have her every way I could.

  Nothing about this was going to be pretend—not any more.

  A couple of people asked where we were going, but I ignored them, too.

  Outside, I put her on my bike and we left the club, riding through the dark city streets. Her arms around my waist were a special kind of torture, as was the feel of her heat against my back, and by the time we rolled up outside her apartment I was hard enough to hammer nails.

  But I’d decided I was going to give her space tonight. Just one night to let what had happened between us sink in. Because tomorrow I had plans. And they sure as shit didn’t include keeping my distance.

  The babysitter—a friend of Red’s old lady—was surprised to see us and no wonder. We were probably way earlier than she was expecting. But I paid her for the whole night, and apparently Annie had been good, so everyone was happy.

  Cat disappeared into Annie’s room as I paid the babysitter and didn’t come out after the woman had left. Probably didn’t want to face me after what had happened in the hallway and, hell, I couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t been expecting it. Unluckily for her, I didn’t have any problem with dealing with the fallout.

  Closing the door after the babysitter, I went down the narrow hallway to Annie’s bedroom and stood in the doorway. Sure enough, Cat was sitting on Annie’s bed, stroking her hair. The nightlight threw shadows everywhere, its shade with cut-outs scattering stars onto the ceiling, and the only sound was Annie’s gentle, deep breathing.

  It was a peaceful picture. A beautiful one. It made the tightness in my chest get even tighter—because this was mine. This was my family. One I never thought I’d ever have, never thought I’d even want.

  After the shit had gone down with my father—after he’d made my mother’s life and mine a living hell—I’d decided I didn’t want a wife. Didn’t want kids. Didn’t want a family. But it had been Cat who’d showed me that a family didn’t have to be about fists and shouting. That it could be about respect, about love.

  Until you took him out.

  Yeah, there was that. My soul wasn’t clean and I knew it. Yet somehow, clean soul or not, I had a family right here. A woman I would have moved heaven and earth for and a kid who wasn’t mine and yet I’d lay down my life for her.

  I wasn’t going to give this up for anything. And if anyone tried to take Annie and Cat away from me, they’d have to prise them from my cold, dead hands.

  Maybe she sensed me standing there, because Cat turned her head and her eyes met mine. I said nothing, just leaned against the doorframe, my hands in my pockets. Letting her know that I wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry and that she couldn’t escape me.

  She flushed and turned away, leaning over to give Annie a kiss before rising to her feet. Giving her daughter one last look, she came towards me, and I could tell she was gathering her courage because her chin came up and her green eyes didn’t flicker away from mine.

  She said nothing as she went past me and didn’t stop, heading out into the hall, so I followed on behind, watching the sway of her butt in that tight-fitting pencil skirt. Fuck, what had I been thinking about keeping my distance tonight? I wanted to bend her over the nearest hard surface, shove that goddamn skirt out of my way and bury myself so deep in her pussy she’d feel me for days.

  But I knew Cat. I knew she was going to need at least a night to get her head around this. A night for her body to understand what it need
ed.

  Me.

  In the lounge she turned to face me, folding her arms, all defensive, but I didn’t stop. There weren’t going to be any damn lectures about how we needed to forget all about this, put it behind us, make like it didn’t happen. No—fuck that. She was my property now, and that meant I got to call the shots.

  ‘Smoke—’ she began.

  But I walked straight up to her, grabbing her hips and pulling her in nice and tight, feeling the heat of her perfect little pussy against my aching dick.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t speak. Don’t say a fucking word.’

  Her jaw tensed and her mouth settled into a hard line. But she didn’t talk.

  ‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ I went on, pressing my fingers against her hips, feeling her warmth and softness, letting myself enjoy it. ‘I’ll leave you to sleep alone tonight and I’ll take the couch. But tomorrow you’re taking the day off, and after Annie’s gone to school, you and me are going to have a little talk.’

  She didn’t try to pull away, but neither did she soften against me. Her whole body was tense. She was holding herself rigid.

  ‘And I guess when you say “little talk” you mean...?’

  ‘Fucking, Cat.’ No point in mincing words or pretending otherwise. ‘You and I will be fucking.’

  Her cheeks flamed. ‘Well, I guess that’s clear.’ Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘Nothing like reducing it to the level of a porno.’

  ‘I don’t recall you having a problem with it when I had you screaming in my ear in the damn hallway.’

  She flushed even deeper, biting her lip and looking away.

  I knew what was going on. She was doing what she always did when she was scared, which was to get snarky and defensive. Sadly, I wasn’t going to be putting up with that bullshit.