Raiden (Satan’s Angels MC #2)

Chapter 15

Ella

I might be broken, but so is this man.

Even if we’re just a jumbled mess of ragged edges and torn up pieces, we can be whole this way, with each other, right now.

Raiden doesn’t take my mouth. He kisses my throat, scoring me with his teeth, biting a path that singes my skin until he gets to my bra. He unclasps it and tosses it aside. His mouth is immediately on one nipple, suckling it to a heard peak. His hand hooks under my panties and he tears them off so fast that I don’t feel the sting until after.

He splays one hand around my hips to press me back into the wall and then reaches past me and shuts the shower off.

His coffee hued eyes are dark and blown out. Espresso. The only coffee worth drinking.

The air is cold when he opens the shower door, but he has me wrapped in one of those huge black fluffy towels he must buy for himself because he also has them at his house too.

He lets me follow him to his bed, which is made up so tight that he must have to use brute force to get into it. That makes me wonder who outfitted this place. A bunch of leather wearing, foul mouthed, rough bikers in the home stores picking out furnishings makes me smile.

“I don’t think I did anything to earn that, but I’m glad to see it.”

He strips off his soaked boxers, his cock so long and thick that it rises up against his stomach. He spreads out on the bed, letting the black comforter soak up the moisture of his body. He’s so beautiful spread out on the bed, naked and inked, a gloriously muscled statue of a god, that my mouth waters.

He beckons me forward by lifting his hand and crooking a finger. “Come here, Ella. Want to taste that sweet pussy.”

The question is there, potent and metallic. He might be commanding, but he’s still asking permission.

He doesn’t move as I step closer, heat growing inside of me like embers coming back to life in a stiff breeze. The ash blows away, leaving me red hot and yearning.

When I’m close enough, he sets that big, rough palm on my hip and guides me onto the bed. I lose the towel, letting it fall to the ground. I mean to mount him, to take his cock deep inside of me and fill up the emptiness, but he guides me up higher, arranging me around his chest and shoulders.

He turns his face into the side of my thigh, nuzzling me hard, so I can feel the scrape of stubble on my tender skin.

He keeps me there, a few inches from his face, his breath so hot that I’m going to unravel before I even get there.

I’m electric with want, buzzing with the currents of mad desire. “You want me to sit on your face?”

“I do.” His voice is so low and raspy it only feeds the fire, spreading it from my belly straight down to between my legs. “If that’s what you’d like.”

A few minutes ago I was an icy wreck, but now there’s only the spread of delicious, healing warmth. There’s this man who I’ve needed my whole life and didn’t know it. I needed his teeth and his hands, his tongue, his mouth, his cock, his rough and delicious touch. I want him burned into me like a brand to keep me here with him, to keep me from going back there, into the black pit inside of me that sometimes seems so huge, it could swallow the whole of me and then take the rest of the world with it.

In response I arch forward, positioning myself right over his face.

I’m over thirty years old and I have never done this.

I feel my face flame hot with the lewdness of it and I quickly look up at the wall so Raiden can’t see.

He caresses my slit and then opens me, lifts his head, and takes as much of me in his mouth as he can. He kisses me wetly, his mouth so good that my hands slap against the wall, my head falls back, and I let out a mewling wail.

Fuck being mortified over this.

Raiden’s not. He’s into this in the best way, eating me like I’m his favorite dessert and he’s going to be far from satisfied with just one serving.

I clutch at the wall, smacking my palms against it again and again while my hips buck, riding Raiden’s face. I can direct his mouth where I want it that way. I pretty much want it everywhere and anywhere, so it’s perfect. Having him like this beneath me is hotter than when he was bowed before me, all his power harnessed beneath me like I’m his queen.

He’s not gentle about the way he devours me. He cants his face to the side, the tip of his nose grazing my slit erotically and then he parts me with long strokes of his tongue. He sucks my clit brutally, not letting up at all as he inserts three fingers inside of me. My walls clench around him immediately. I make a noise that sounds like an injured animal as he scissors them apart, stretching me and then thrusting them slowly while he sucks my clit.

My legs start shaking and the black comes back, but this time, it’s the black of impending pleasure, a climax so strong it will shake me down to my foundation.

“Come if you want.” His fingers echo his words, working me twice as hard while he lashes my clit with his tongue.

I do want to, but even if I didn’t, I’d be helpless to stop it. Raiden commands my body, wrenching my orgasm from me in the next few strokes of his fingers.

I bite down on my bottom lip so I don’t scream. Letting that loose here where people might hear isn’t something I’m willing to do. I want our pleasure to be for Raiden and myself and no one else.

The pleasure pounds through me, pummeling me until I’m too sensitive for more.

I back off carefully and straddle Raiden, soaking his abs and waist when I wriggle lower.

I trace his lips, wet from me coming. I slide my thumb along his bottom lip. He bites down on me, drawing a sharp inhale.

“Come here,” he whispers. “Taste how sweet you are.”

I kiss him, but he’s the one who takes the lead. His tongue glides inside my mouth, feeding me that sharp, delicious discovery of my own juices. I moan as he fists his hand in my hair and angles my face so he can kiss me deeper. He’s not rough. He’s surprisingly gentle and intimate. He kisses me like this means something, like he’s found something precious that he almost lost and it scared him as badly as I was scared.

I saw the fear on him, but I thought it was solely for his sister and his club. I thought he was just doing his duty by bringing me back here.

Did I truly think that?

I don’t know. It’s safer if I do.

He’s right there on the threshold of my heart, hand raised, uncertain if he wants to knock or not, as unsure what would happen if I opened that door to him as I am.

I could take him in my mouth. I want to, but when I kiss down his chin and neck, he stops me, grasping my shoulders.

“I’ve got about a minute of self-control left. I want to be inside of you, El.”

“You would be.”

“ Inside of you.”

I reach for the nightstand beside the bed and slide open the drawer. There’s a box of condoms in there. I hesitate, and he takes it the wrong way.

“Want inside you bare more than anything, but I can’t take chances with the consequences. Not when the club is far from secure, and our life is so dangerous. That’s no world for a child.”

“It’s complicated in other ways.” A child should have two parents who love each other. I made do with just my mom for the better part of my life, but there was always a part of me that missed my dad and wanted more of him than I was ever going to get.

That might be ideal, but it’s the ideal I’d like to strive for if I ever have a child of my own.

“Yes.”

My hand hovers over the box. I pick it up and pass it to Raiden and decide to give it to him straight. There’s no way I can do this again, open myself up again, make myself soft and defenseless, only to be crushed with accusations and hate.

I try to speak, but all that comes out is a whimper. I swallow brutally and try again, my mouth so dry it’s nearly impossible. Raiden’s eyes sweep to me, a condom paused in his fingers.

“Only if- if we can stay here. If you can.” I hated admitting that I was vulnerable, that I wanted to feel safe in his arms. I didn’t want us to have sex and then him leave—and leave me with my thoughts.

Something dark and painful lights up like twin flames in the dark depths of his eyes. The shadow of guilt looms large. “Until Gray calls church or until I’m needed, I’m not going anywhere.”

I caress his hand, taking the condom from him to tear it open. I’m the one who slides it down his hard length. He’s made a puddle all over his stomach from being on his back. While I was coming on his face, he was leaking all over himself because he was as into it as I was.

“I said I’d take anything, desire or hate, but I don’t want you to hate me. Ever.”

“I don’t hate you.” His hand covers mine on his throbbing cock. “I’m sorry. I’m fucking shit at saying those words. Shit at most other things too. You deserve so much better, and you got me instead. There’s worse in the club, but there’s a fuck of a lot better. I could have stepped aside, but from the second I saw you, I knew you were trouble, but you were the kind of trouble that I wanted for myself .”

That sears me like a brand. I forget what I’m doing as I regard his eyes, dark with sincerity. He’s not playing me. Not just saying this shit because he wants to get inside of me. Not saying it because he thinks it’s the right thing to say and not meaning a second of it.

“You don’t want to keep me,” I say, testing him in a teasing way to hide the real feeling behind it.

I bring my face to his and try to kiss him, but he turns and grasps my shoulders. “Ella. I mean it. You think I like that? That a man as ruined as I am, with my own demons, a club full of men that I’d die for and who would do the same for me in a second going to hell, most of it because of one man, would like to fall for that man’s daughter? I swear that for my first kill, I’d be more than happy to make it Zale Grand. I never saw you coming. We barely know each other, but I have that feeling in my gut that I can’t push away.”

“You did before.”

The words hit, leaving scars in their wake. “Never said I wasn’t an idiot.” He looks up at me, begging me to see the truth there. He’s barely voiced it to himself, but I do see that he believes fully in what he’s saying.

My hands curl against his shoulders, flexing instinctively away before I can grab hold of him. I don’t do things like cling. That’s the most appalling word I know. I’ve dated safe men. Men who would never hurt me, boring men, men who both objectified me and tried to get me to love them because they thought they were in their own version of that word with me. It never happened. They were safe for a reason.

My whole life was built around wildness and danger. My mom soaked it up, breathed it, lived on it, and spoon fed it to me. There was never any danger in falling for a safe man. They got the parts of me that I allowed them to have, which wasn’t much. When they finally figured out that I wasn’t the marrying type, was more than the white collar, scholarly version that they saw on the surface, and was somehow less than the spell of my alluring beauty, they left fast.

I never did anything to stop them.

“I told you once I was never going to belong to anyone,” I hiss through clenched teeth. My heart races, prey trying to figure out just who and what the predator is, or the midst of danger is the safest spot to be.

“You don’t have to belong to me. In the future, you might want to make a home here in Hart.” He pauses, a flash of that prey running scared on his face. The next words are a growl, scary and deep because they’re drenched with emotion. “I might want you to.”

“But you don’t want to want that.”

“I didn’t. I- don’t know. Shit’s twisted up in my head. I’m not eloquent like you. I have the words in there, the thoughts, but they’re all banging into each other.”

“Brain pinball. Sounds hot.”

He ignores my attempt at a joke. “You saying you don’t want to stay?”

“I’m saying it’s been a hot minute. I don’t want you to walk out that door and I don’t want you to call me a traitor when I’ve done nothing to deserve it, but promising my whole future? I can’t do that.”

“Good.”

“Good?” I reel back, but bump directly into his hard cock. I lost myself for a second. We’re having this out right now while I’m poised over his massive erection.

“I can’t promise my whole future either. Just tomorrow, maybe. I’m not looking for you to promise it back. You asked me a question and that’s my answer. It wasn’t one I knew I was going to give.”

“So what? We’re just going to cuddle now like a regular couple if I don’t feel like taking this any further right now? Have a heart to heart? Pretend like we have a white picket future waiting for us?”

He snorts, the ghost of a smile skating over his lips at my sass. “No. But if you don’t want to fuck, that’s alright. We’ll just lie here until Gray calls church.”

“You have to find whoever it is doing this. You have to make them pay.”

“Gray will. No one touches anything of his. Lark, Penny, any one of the men in this club or anyone related to it. Old ladies. Kids. Fuck with them and you’re fucking with all of us.”

“But no one’s fucked with you in a long time.”

“Doesn’t make any of us any less deadly.”

My mind shadows back to that horrible moment when Gunner strolled over to that man crumpled on the ground. When he pulled out that wicked blade and slashed his throat.

“You’re living with monsters here,” I breathe, my lungs spasming in my chest.

Raiden nods. “Not so Sunday school as you once thought.”

“He liked it. Goddamn stupid is what it was. A waste of someone you could have extracted information from.”

“I agree. It will be addressed in church.”

“He liked it. I saw his expression. It was gleeful. There’s no other word. He—”

Raiden’s thumb grinds down on my bottom lip, silencing me. “I know. We all have that darkness in us, but there’s good too.”

“Not in him.”

“He’s still a person. Still a human being. He keeps whatever that shit is going on in his head in check. Most of the time. That man was an enemy. He tried to kill you and Lark. It was Gunner’s job to protect you.”

“Don’t excuse it.”

“I’m not and it won’t be. I’m just saying, you don’t have to be afraid of him. My guess I that he was born that way… as a- I don’t know. Some kind of path. That doesn’t mean he’s less worthy of being a club brother. We all have our own shit. He’d never hurt anyone here, I trust him with my life. In some situations, his lack of emotion makes him a tremendous asset.”

I press my palms flat onto Raiden’s chest, over all that dark ink, until the heat of him bleeds up into me, warming the sudden chill that just swept into the room.

“That’s not a romantic conversation,” I cede.

“I’m not a romantic man.”

“Conventional romance is overrated.”

Raiden flips me over onto my side and turns so that we’re face to face. “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe. We all are. Gray has PIs and we’re going to figure out what’s going on. No matter who’s behind it, we’re seeing this through as a club, and that means you too. You know how I feel, probably better than I do. The short of it is that I want you here and not because that stupid peace agreement says you have to be. You understand?”

He rolls the condom off and holds it in his hand.

“I’m sorry that we’re—”

“Don’t ever apologize for that. We need to talk more than we need to do anything else right now. I want you calling the shots.”

He gets up, goes to the bathroom to toss the condom out, and when he comes back he pulls out some fresh clothes from the dresser. He throws on a t-shirt and a pair of boxers and tosses me a second tee when I sit up.

I slip it on, the soft cotton blanketing my curves. It’s huge on me and they’re so tight on Raiden. It makes me even more keenly aware of the size difference between us. I’ve never felt tiny the way I do next to him.

Raiden crosses his arms, standing at the foot of the bed. “To be clear, I didn’t know I wanted any of this until right now.”

I bite down on my lip, plying it and working it because it’s distracting. My mind and heart race in time with each other.

“Some of my club brothers have old ladies. Some of them have kids. I’ve seen how Gray and Lark bring each other such joy. Never saw my sister as a fierce woman, seeing as she’s tiny and she’s so much younger than me, but here, she’s a lioness. She’s fierce. Fiercely in love with my best friend. Not every man here loves his old lady and looks at her like Gray looks at Lark, but their lives are better for it. I never thought that was my path.” He paces across the room, unable to stand still.

“Let me guess. I’m going to get heat for this. You’re going to figure this out and then you’re going to blame me for enchanting you.”

“No.” He whirls, as wild and fierce as a bear. “I can take responsibility for my own feelings and actions. I’m sorry that I made you feel that way. I was being an asshole.” He stops pacing and comes to kneel at the foot of the bed. I’m so alarmed that I push back a few inches, until my back bumps the headboard. “I don’t know what to do with any of this.” He looks like he’s drowning, waiting for me to extend a hand.

“I’m as lost as you are, Raiden.”

“Okay.” His hands curl into the sheets. “I hear that.” He motions at the room after drawing in a deep breath. “You want to move in here, it’s open to you. You want to stay where you are, that works too. You want to leave one day, you’re free to do that too. You can pick your own path. That’s the only thing that seems right in this.”

“Even if you want me to stay?” It’s unthinkable that I’d ever hear this from him. I never would have expected that the man who saw me as the enemy and hated me because he hates my father so much, would offer his imperfectly beautiful heart to me.

I think that’s what he’s doing.

No, fuck, I know that’s what it is.

Soon. Shocking.

He thumps his chest and gets to his feet. “You might as well be etched into my skin. There’s no getting you out now.”

“Like a tattoo?”

“Yeah.”

“Those can be covered up or lasered off.”

He sits down on the edge of the bed, face impassive at my sass. “You’re right. I’m not a poet. Like I said, I’m good with numbers. That’s about it. You’re the one who’s read the classics and speaks all those languages.”

My heart gets heavy, but somehow still rises to clog my throat. “You’re not like other bikers or even other men. They see something they want, they think they can take it, bikers twice over. They think that they desire a woman, it’s a done deal.”

“We’re not a done deal unless we both want it. I just want more. That’s where I’m at.”

“More,” I whisper, my body going into full on riot with my panicked brain. There’s been too much coming at me, far too fast.

He doesn’t have time to confirm. He’s going to say something, but someone pounds roughly on the door. “Raiden? Widow?”

Gray. Raiden’s going to be called to church.

I’ve had shit happen to me in my life, but I always stood on my own two feet. I never needed a man to hold me up, protect me, or give me meaning. I don’t like the strange, hollow emptiness that I feel tearing up in my chest at the thought of Raiden stepping out of this room.

Fucking trauma.

“Yeah. We’re in here,” Raiden shouts back, voice so changed it’s like it’s not his at all. He’s shut down. Lacking all the gravelly emotion I was just hearing.

“I just got a call from one of the men I hired. They know who was going after Lark and Widow and who lit our warehouses on fire. I’m calling church. Now.”

Heavy footsteps signal his leaving.

“I’m all good,” I huff. “Thanks for asking, brother dearest.” I see Raiden about to make excuses, but I cut him off. “I get it. I do. He’s stressed. His club is being attacked, Lark was just chased down and almost taken, he’s still trying to heal from what our dad did. He’s been through a lot and it’s far from over. Any other man would have broken so much sooner.” Probably. Tough doesn’t begin to describe some of the bikers I’ve met.

Raiden gives me that chin jerk guys do that’s not a nod, but conveys so much emotion. He throws on a pair of jeans and tugs on socks and boots. He stops at the door and turns to look at me over his shoulder.

“Are you going to be okay? I’ll ask Seer or—”

“Goodness. I don’t need babysitting. I’m fine. I’ll go make a cup of coffee and I’ll be back here chilling with one of your finance books, waiting for you when you’re done.”

He doesn’t have time to argue. He can assess my mental and physical state when he’s finished hashing out how to save his club. That includes women and children, and even though I don’t think of myself as in need of saving, rage still bubbles up so strong that I see black dots as it constricts my lungs.

“I hope you get it figured out. Hart seems nice enough. Maybe your Sunday biker batch of besties isn’t so bad.”

He shoots me a look, then pulls a book off the bookcase and tosses it onto the bed. “Start with that one. It’s great for beginners. Also? The code for the door is nine, nine, eight, two, seven, four. Don’t lock yourself out. I’d like it if you were here, safe, reading and sipping that coffee when I get back.”