Hawke: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (With bonus book Sons of Flame MC) (7 page)

“Don’t scream,” he told me, a cruel challenge laced with that cocky shit-eating smile as he drove his fingers up into the tender spot hardly any man even knew existed and worked it in time with his teasing thumb. “You gonna come for me?” he growled.

I started to tell him, No, asshole, you think this’ll do it? Even though it would. Instead when I tried to talk he pulled my head to one side and buried his teeth in my neck, and tugged his hand up, some digit—I’d lost track—manipulating me with quick, circling flicks until I was breathless and speechless, my brain shut down and reeling and I was close, so close, and clawing at his shoulders with one hand while the other reached down to find his dick and squeeze and pull and beg him silently to fuck me already, for God’s sake.

My body tensed. Jack’s mouth found mine again, and then he slipped a hand around the back of my head and pressed my face to his chest so that I could barely breathe but I understood why. I had started moaning, lost in this feeling, in the thunder he was releasing inside me. I gasped, and pressed my face to his muscled chest, and he held me close as he worked me with his hand until my body tensed, and jerked, and that sweet, honeyed lightning spread from Jack’s hand to the rest of my hips, up through my spine, and curled over my head with the blissful promise of oblivion and release.

And then, like a light switching off, it stopped.

“No,” I whispered, “no please, keep going… so close, Jack.”

He growled into my hair. “Think it’s that easy, Darlin’?”

Knowing that he’d stopped because he knew; he could feel that I was close, nearly drove me out of my mind. I bit his collarbone, his neck, his ear, and tried to work myself against his hand that had gone still. “Jack, please…”

In response, he drew his hand out of my scrub bottoms and slipped both hands around my ass. With a grunt of pained effort, he pulled me forward, and slid down on the bed. His rough fingers found the band of my pants and jerked them down. A second later they pulled my hips forward, and Jack’s mouth clamped down on my clit, sucking and lapping, his stubble grazing my lips. I fell forward at the hips, bracing myself against the head of the hospital bed, and bit down on the mattress’ edge to keep from howling.

Jack’s tongue played over my swollen, sensitive button, swirling and digging and flickering until every brush of his wet muscle had me twitching in response. I slipped a hand down behind his head and clutched at his hair, desperate to somehow push him further, make him consume me, destroy me. “Oh, God, Jack,” I chanted, over and over again while he dug his fingers into my hips, and rumbled that avalanche growl into my pussy, urging me closer to oblivion.

When I gasped, and let out a high pitched, plaintive whine of need, he slapped my ass cheek. “Quiet,” he ordered.

It was like asking the Sun not to burn. I pulled the pillow that smelled like him up to my face and wailed into it. He went at me like an animal; I felt his teeth graze me, the barest scratch that made my hips jerk back before he chased me and sucked my clit, hard, and slipped fingers inside me to work that tender spot again, and then I was screaming into the pillow and clawing at his hair and maybe losing consciousness.

My body tried to curl on itself. My thighs cramped, and my toes curled and liquid heaven exploded while I convulsed. Jack’s fingers dug into my ass and drove me against his mouth from inside me and his tongue assaulted me while I smothered myself in his pillow, lost in the tidal force of release.

He kept it up until I was flinching with every twitch of his tongue, and pushing at his scalp but I was trapped like this, bent over his face and helpless until I manage to push myself up and finally pull my hips away.

Jack smiled up at me, proud of himself and glowing with smug satisfaction. I slapped him. I don’t know why. It felt right. He licked his lips and winked. “Cherries,” he said. “Tastes like cherries.”

When I kissed him again, I didn’t taste cherries. I tasted me, but maybe for him it was different. His tongue wasn’t tired, though. I almost challenged him. Do it again then, tough guy. Asshole. But I couldn’t because whatever functions were left in my brain, they had nothing to do with words.

I reached down, and squeezed him again, still as hard as before. He grunted, bit my lips, and then as I slid down, he tangled his hand in my hair with one hand and freed himself with the other. He was thick, dark from some trick of genes, and the tip of him was moist from his own need, a dewdrop of clear fluid budding up.

I opened my mouth to let him in; he was salty, and musky, and he filled my mouth as he sighed, and stifled a groan. His fingers dug into my scalp, urging but not quite pushing.

I wrapped my fingers around his shaft and took as much as I could, swiping my tongue over the smooth skin of him, and his cock flexed and swelled and gushed a small shot of something salty into my mouth that I swallowed down. My free hand found his sac and squeezed what was inside, not too hard; enough to let him know I was there, and Jack laughed quietly and then gasped when I bobbed up, drawing my tongue along the length of him, and sank down again.

It wasn’t fair, what he’d done to me so easily. I wanted to counterattack, to make him beg, to prove to him he wasn’t the only one that knew his way around this arena. I squeezed, and sucked, my tongue already sore from pressing against him inside my mouth, and I milked another drop from the tip of him and swirled my tongue and fist around the ridge of his cock-head.

He pulled my hair. “Stop.”

I didn’t; I sped up, tugged his balls, tried to force him over.

“Naomi, stop,” he breathed.

I had him to rights, I had him close; I wanted to win, to finish him.

He pulled my head away. “I said stop, darlin’!” His voice was a quiet boom in the room. Both of us froze. I looked over my shoulder. I glanced at the clock. Fuck. Two minutes to my next appointment.

Our eyes met. I glanced at the clock again. That second hand seemed to be suddenly moving faster than it should have.

I’d seen Jack’s chart, all his blood work. I was on the pill. We had a minute and a half.

I pushed my scrub bottoms and panties to my ankles, and scootched up to straddle his hips again. He opened his mouth to say something, to protest, but before he got it out we both covered one another’s mouths with a hand as I slipped him inside me. He was thick; it stretched, and stung for a heartbeat, but I was so wet, and he was so hard that I had him inside me in a few short seconds and squeezed him. Jack gasped under my hand.

I rose, and fell, the slight curve of him driving into me, hitting that almost painfully sensitive spot inside. I rose and fell, putting more of my weight against his mouth, and his eyes burned up at me, glazed and full of lust and demand.

He let go of my mouth, and I had to bite my lips to keep from moaning when his fingers dug into my hips and with one grunt after another he thrust his hips up, slamming into me until he was into a rhythm that had to be getting him close again. When I felt him swell, he slipped a hand to the front of me and found my aching nub with his fingers and attacked it again. I thought I would taste blood from biting down on my own lip so hard, panting through my nose.

We were racing. The clock, one another. God, he filled me up, and he was sweating and I must have looked like hell but I was as determined to make him come as he was to hammer another orgasm into me, and I couldn’t tell who was going to win but I glared down at him and hated that he could do this to me but was already looking forward to next time and wanted to leave the kind of impression that would haunt him in his dreams when I was gone.

And then his eyes fluttered, and rolled, and his body tensed and he bit the palm of my hand that was still covering his mouth, and slammed into me hard enough to leave a bruise while his fingers pinched me, hard, and sent me flying.

I felt him explode inside of me, his cock swelling and throbbing once, twice, three or four more times, a counterpoint to the series of quiet explosions that hammered into my midsection and radiated out into the rest of me until I was falling forward and lost.

Jack held me tight, gasping breaths. “Shit,” he said. “Holy shit… fuck me… ow… Oh, fuck… god damnit…”

I had the sudden thought that he was still, somehow, coming inside me. When I moved, though, his hands shot up and gripped my arms and pushed me carefully, slowly away from him. “Ribs,” he grunted, barely able to suck in a breath.

“Oh,” I said, reality gradually seeping back into me. “Oh, God, Jack… I’m sorry; fuck…” I slid off of him—his body jerked from the stimulation—and managed to struggle off of the side of the hospital bed. In my panic I pulled my panties and scrubs back up.

We watched one another. Jacks’ cock was still out, hard and glistening, wet with me, and him, and he was clutching an arm to his wrapped chest I had leaned on his broken ribs. But he started to laugh. Quietly, at first, and then louder, and then he was coughing. It was infectious, and I started laughing too, and couldn’t figure out why except that I was dizzy and light and already I wanted him again and for the first time in months I felt like I had just had fun.

Jack’s head rolled, and he grinned at me with those broken teeth and winked. “I feel all better, darlin’,” he muttered, spent and on the brink of passing out—maybe from pain, maybe from getting off, I didn’t know. Either one, I supposed, or both.

Me? I felt… better, yes; some itch that had gotten scratched.

And worse. That itch, it was already back, already growing again and I hadn’t even realized it was there before. I knew it was, now, though.

“I, ah…” I breathed, and let out a long, slow breath. My knees were weak. I felt empty without him inside me, stills stretched, and slick. I need a bathroom. Fuck, what must I look like?

“Clock’s tickin’,” Jack said. He waved a finger at the clock.

“Jesus Christ,” I swore, and grabbed my clip board. I was so entirely fucked.

At the door I stopped, smoothed my hair, then pulled the hair tie out of it and redid the whole thing. At least I wasn’t expected to be entirely kempt; none of the nurses were. I looked every bit as harried as they did, now.

Jack was watching me. My hands in my hair, a clipboard between my teeth, and I might as well have been the sexiest thing he’d seen. He winked again. “Go get ‘em, beautiful.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” I muttered, but I was smiling.

“Anytime,” Jack chuckled. “I’ll be here all week.”

I left, trying to sort through what had happened, and harboring a small smile that I couldn’t seem to shake.

All the way to Mrs. Johnston’s room, I got the sort of looks that said people knew. Or, maybe it was my own paranoia.

I couldn’t bring myself to give a fuck.

Chapter 8

Naomi

The end of my day came at seven pm, and I was still high off of my encounter with Jack. It seemed like a dream, intangible now but stuck in my mind like a surreal sequence of impossible events. Had I really done that?

I was still a little sore. I definitely had.

Thinking of it again on my way out the front door put a private smile on my face —people were going to think I was crazy, grinning like an idiot all the time—and gave me a pleasurable shiver of anticipation. Because I had a feeling that what had happened between Jack and I that afternoon wouldn’t be the last time.

God, but what was I thinking? Maybe after he was out of the hospital. After we were no longer in this professional relationship. But then, what was Jack thinking? He’d already said he didn’t want to get attached.
Had
it been a one-time thing? Maybe. It didn’t feel like it, though. Tomorrow I could talk to him about—

“Hey, Naomi,” Jason’s familiar voice called as I walked to my car.

I spun, looking around for the source and suddenly, irrationally, worried that he might somehow know; like he could read my thoughts and see what had happened. “Jason?”

He was walking toward me from the hospital entrance.

I waved, and when he got close I hugged him briefly. Shit, did I smell like sex? Last thing I needed was a lecture from Jason.

When we parted, he walked me to the parking garage. I leaned against my car there. We’d walked in silence, and Jason had a pensive look on his face.

Finally, he spoke. “So, Nic called me.”

I groaned. “I see. And what did she say? I take it this has to do with the other night.”

“She’s a mess, Naomi,” Jason said. “She didn’t tell me any details, just vented about… well I won’t repeat it but she’s upset with you. What did you say to her?”

“We just had an argument is all,” I said, shrugging. No way was I going to tell him the truth. “She’s worried about me. She always is, though. Wants me to settle down, but, you know, with the guy she wants me to settle down with. I think if it was her choice I’d be barefoot and pregnant in some guy’s kitchen.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m sorry that I upset her, really I am, and I’ll talk to her, but you don’t know what it’s like. She doesn’t harp on you like she does me.” Jason had a tendency to harp as well, it was worth mentioning, but I didn’t feel like opening that box of worms here and now—already; Jason was already harshing my buzz, making my too-brief connection with Jack an even more distant memory. I wanted him to just leave me alone. Go comfort Nic if you’re so concerned with her, dumb ass.

“Yeah,” Jason said. He rubbed his chin. “She’s a little concerned that you’re getting too close to this Jack Hawke guy. And, honestly Naomi… so am I.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, my face heating. What the fuck did he know about it?

Jason put his hands up in peaceful surrender, an offer of parley, but didn’t drop it. “Nic said you couldn’t stop talking about him. Naomi, you know what’s going on better than anyone else, I’m sure, but you do have a tendency to… well, self-sabotage.”

I set my jaw, and squared my shoulders, ready and willing to fight about this. “Just who the hell do you think you are?” I asked sharply.

Jason sighed. “I knew this would get your hackles up; look, we’re just looking out for you. Professionally, for one thing—if you get involved with a patient, do you think you’re going to be able to get another job in this town? This could ruin you, Naomi.”

Maybe it will, I wanted to say. Maybe I want it to, because this job, this city, this life is strangling the fire out of my soul and Jack Hawke is the only thing fanning it back to life right now. But that way lay madness. So instead I jabbed Jason in the chest, “Nobody elected you my guardian, or my caretaker, or my father. You can keep your nose out of my business, thank you very much, and if you think that you can just make accusations like that and that I’ll just take it lying down, then mister you have got another think coming.

“I don’t know where the hell the two of you get off making judgments and guesses about how I’m handling my patient, my job, or my whole freakin’ life,” I was almost shouting now, “but you are entirely off the mark here and I don’t want to hear another goddamn word about who you, or Nic, or the fucking Pope himself thinks I should be taking an interest in because, Jason, this is my goddamn life and I’ll do what the fuck I want with it.”

Jason’s face had gone harder and harder as I ranted at him, and now he was almost trembling with controlled anger. His eyes were furious, and riveted on me, and his face had gotten a shade redder.

“Jesus Christ, Naomi,” he said quietly. “Can’t you see why I’m worried about you? Can’t you see why I care who you take an interest in and what you do with your life? Do you even have any idea how I feel about you?”

Shit.

I knew this day would come. I had tried to pretend that it wouldn’t, and I had denied that it was possible, but of course it was. The way Jason constantly had his eyes on me, was always asking after me; the way he ignored Nic almost entirely and had almost our whole lives.

The easy thing, for all concerned, would have been to just try and open up and give Jason a chance. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about it before. Jason was good looking, he was an upstanding citizen, he was a cop for God’s sake; he was as good a man as they came. And for all those reason and others, for the long nights I had spent with him for year, and years, and for the way he had always been around to comfort me when my mother and then father had passed away, and the way he had been a much needed buffer between my pushy sister and I—even if he had his own way of pushing—I did love him.

Just… not like that. I wanted to, at one point. It never happened, though. It wasn’t happening now.

My stomach twisted, and my chest tightened. It would be better if he’d never said it. “Jason,” I whispered, trying desperately to look strong right now but failing miserably, “I… I wish that I could say I felt the same, but…”

Jason’s shoulders slumped a little, his whole body caving in from the inside. His jaw muscle jumped once, twice. He blinked rapidly. “No,” he said. “No, I guess not. Why, though, Naomi? Why not? Haven’t I always been there for you? Haven’t I proven that I’m worth it? Worth a shot, at least?”

“Jason, I love you; I have for… God for most of our lives but just… not like that. You’re like my brother; I love you more than I may ever love another man, but I can’t be with you like that. Besides, Nicola would…” I bit it off, and squeezed my eyes shut when Jason’s eyes widened.

“What about Nic?” He asked. I didn’t answer immediately, and he pushed me for more, growing more tense as he did. “What about Nicola, Naomi? What does she have to do with this?”

“Fuck, Jason,” I sighed. “Are you fucking blind? Nic is gorgeous, and she is so madly in love with you she’s turning herself inside out trying to get your attention. How can you not see that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “how can you not see me?”

“Well, I guess you probably know how Nic feels, then, don’t you?”

I waited for it to sink in. Nic would kill me when she found out about this. Would Jason be able to keep his trap shut about it? Best case, of course, was that he’d finally realize how much better Nic was for him than I was. I tried to figure if that’s the conclusion he was coming to by watching his face go through the motions but it didn’t reveal anything to me.

“Nic loves you,” Jason said finally. “And if you were happy—if I made you happy—she would be happy for both of us.”

I sighed, and slumped against the car. “Jason, you don’t get it. You and me? That’s not going to happen. If it was, it would have by now. Tell me you know that’s true.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I don’t see why it has to be.”

I wanted to hug him again, or put my hand on his shoulder, or give him a peck on the cheek—one of the things I had done a thousand times before to comfort him. But now, it seemed like any contact I made would give him the wrong idea. I wondered how long it would feel like that. Was this what it felt like when a friendship like ours changed irrevocably forever? If I answered wrong, would I lose Jason forever?

“Because, Jason, I don’t have those feelings for you, and I don’t think I ever will. I’m sorry. It’s not something I can help. And I already have those feelings—” Shit. “I mean, I’ve had those feelings before and I know what they feel like.”

Jason, though, was used to catching little details like that. He was used to listening, and to watching body language, and suddenly I was under interrogation. I could see it change in him, the way his focus sharpened to a point that felt like it was driving into me. “Who do you have feelings for, Naomi?”

I started to dissemble, but he interrupted me, seeing through my bullshit before I even dragged it out.

“God, Nic was right. You’re hung up on Jack Hawke, aren’t you?”

“No!” I snapped. “Of course not, Jason; he’s a patient, how can I get that through to the two of you?”

“You can’t,” he said, “because it isn’t true. Look at you, Naomi, you get flustered the moment he comes up. Your face is red, you’re fidgeting with keys and your scrubs, trying to keep your hands occupied. You’re even…” he examined me closely. “Your hair is a mess. What’s that on your neck? Or your earlobe, did someone…” he stopped, stared at me, his mouth open slightly. He wasn’t breathing, he seemed like he might be going into shock.

And then he staggered back, shaking his head slowly, and leaned against the car parked next to mine, maybe to keep from falling down.

Oh, God. Oh, God, he knew.

I was so fucked. I panicked. I started slipping my keys into my car door. “I don’t have to put up with this,” I muttered.

“You fucked him,” Jason was muttering. “Jesus, Naomi, do you have any idea who he is? What he’s connected to? You can’t have feelings for me, when I’ve looked after you and protected you and loved you for years; but you can screw a hardened criminal in the hospital while you’re working? Have you… are you fucking kidding me? Are you crazy, Naomi?”

I opened my car door and slipped into it. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said as I put my keys in the ignition.

Jason held the door when I tried to close it, and I looked up to see his face twisted with pain and disbelief. “Naomi… please… just give me a chance. I love you. More than Jack Hawke is even capable of.”

“It wouldn’t matter if I was seeing someone,” I told him, “or if I was single. It wouldn’t matter who I was seeing, Jason; it wouldn’t change anything. Please let go of my door.”

“You know he’s wrapped up with Peter Valentino, right?” Jason snarled. “A fucking mobster? You have no idea what you’re stepping into, Naomi. Jack’s not some rebellious teenager tagging city property and trespassing on the steel mill grounds for illegal parties. He’s involved in the sort of world that people die in; violently. You really want to be a part of that?”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Jack Hawke,” I said, a politician clawing desperately to stay on-message. Just drop it, Jason. Please, please just drop it and go away.

He let the door go, shaking his head. “Please be safe, Naomi. Please. If anything happened to you…”

I closed the door, though, and made sure I didn’t run over his feet when I pulled out of the space and sped away around the corner.

Halfway home I pulled over, leaned my head against the steering wheel and sobbed. Just like that, it seemed like my world was upside-down. Jason had ruined us. Jack had ruined me. Nic… if nothing else, maybe now that Jason knew exactly how I felt, he would finally see her. She’d be so furious that I said anything to him about how she felt, but… maybe that was for the best. Maybe, if he could just see that she was the one for him, not me, then some part of this would fix itself.

If Yvonne was with me, she’d push me to look for the silver lining. So, I did.

With things the way they were, I didn’t see how they could get any worse.