Pulse Page 3

  Team Bolt.

  I seriously try not to laugh myself sick about that shit.

  In the end, it’s only a label. And one thing I do know about labels is that they seldom sum up the truth of what they’ve been slapped on.

  Because this team sure as hell isn’t all about me. Thank fuck.

  I’m jolted back to the moment by a shift in the wind that reminds me I’m standing in a musky tunnel that smells worse than every NFL locker room combined. I follow the dumbstruck stares of the other guys to the entrance of this dirty cave—to where an angel is silhouetted by the late-afternoon sun.

  Ohhhh, yeah.

  She possesses everything but the wings. The high breasts. The gently flared hips. The long, elegant legs, shown off even more as the hilltop breeze wraps her skirt against her knees. Then, as the wind strengthens, her blond waves escape the shadows, their bright-gold ribbons tying around us all.

  “Okay, everyone.” Brent, the crew foreman, edges his low growl with impatience, breaking the group fixation. Astute man. As hard as every guy here is working, I can all but hear every thought and fantasy forming in their heads. Visions starring my girl. “I know the dirt’s complete yums today, but pick your jaws back up and let’s get back to it.”

  As the guys nod and turn, clearly thankful their foreman saved their ball sacks from my backlash, I clap a hand over the top of Brent’s shoulder. “I have a better idea.” After relishing a second of their skittish stares, I finish, “Let’s call it a day.” I send a gruff nod Brent’s way. “There’s only a couple more hours, but we cut lunch short. Mark everyone for a full shift and get home to your families early.”

  In the midst of the celebratory grunts and hearty thanks from the guys, there’s just one creature-from-the-dick-lagoon—Jerry, the token choad of the bunch, smirks and then sneers. “Well, we know you’ll still be getting in a full shift, boss.”

  “Jesus wept.” Brent looks tempted to head-butt the guy. “Jerry, are you fucking kidding—”

  “It’s cool, man.” I add a sound smack to the center of my foreman’s chest. Brent bears more than a passing resemblance to any of the brothers in an Aussie-based movie idol family, but his demeanor is all about the Detroit streets where he grew up. “We’re all tired, and it’s starting to smell like ass in here. Let’s all grab showers and then our women. And Jerry?” I cock a brow at the lanky guy with his hands jabbed into his opposing armpits. “Just remember to take off your tool belt first so you don’t puncture your dolly at first thrust.”

  The sound of seven guys at full laughter inside a twenty-foot-long tunnel is kind of cool. Yeah, even when there’s one not-so-subtle snarl as their chaser. I ignore Jerry and all but strut out of the tunnel, reminded of the days I used to leave night clubs after dawn—with a number of key modifications. One, I’m stone-cold sober. Two, I haven’t just slipped out of a back room after screwing a handful of women. Three, there’s only one bed and one woman I can’t wait to get to now.

  One smoking hot woman.

  No. Not even that description hits a fraction of the justice due my Emmalina, who’s still standing in the main courtyard with an expectant smile on her lips and incredible skies in her eyes. The wind, still stealing in across the bluff, now blows her dress the other direction so the fabric molds across the fronts of her thighs. And into the V that’s formed near their top…

  Everyone on the crew, including Jerry, knows better than to gawk now.

  And I do nothing but gawk. Openly. Unashamedly. Thanking-the-fuck-out-of-God-edly.

  Just before my bloodstream brims with fire. And my muscles race with electrons. And every functioning synapse in my skull concentrates on nothing but getting myself to her side without falling on my face—because, honest to God, that gentle breeze could probably plow me over right now. I’m not sure I’d care. No. Fuck. I would care. Any delay in getting nearer to her gorgeousness is definitely going to set me the hell off.

  My torment, the physical and the mental, only worsens as I close in on her. And her lips part. And her gaze darkens. And her breaths pump faster, straining her breasts against her bodice. Faster…

  Finally, finally, I’m able to push in close and lower my face just inches over hers. After a slow smirk and a teasing wink, I grate, “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

  Her giggle is a gentle caress across my raw senses—which of course ignites an instant blaze in my blood. At once, there’s nothing tender or sweet about my raw lust. “Perfect timing,” she murmurs, tugging at the sweaty ends of my hair. “Our moms just left.”

  “Bolt is my name; timing’s my game.” I issue the joke in response to her first sentence before the context of the second sinks in. “Wait. What? They left just now?”

  Her shrug is as perplexing as it is adorable. “Yeah. So?”

  “You know that’s three hours for lunch, right?”

  “We’re women. We had a lot to talk about.”

  “A lot? About what?”

  “Whoa, cowboy.” She pulls harder on the ends of my hair. “Slow that roll and don’t freak. At no point did your mom dig out her phone and scroll through the pictures app.”

  “Thank fuck.”

  “Though there might have been a teeny-weeny mention of turtle shells.” The twinges at the corners of her mouth get more pronounced. “And a skateboard ramp with baby oil…”

  “Shit.” If my snarl doesn’t clarify my point, I make sure to let my backward stumble do the trick. And yeah, the way I wrench from her, even when she grips my shoulder tighter, silently pleading for me to stay. The moment feels surreal. I can practically see it as if I’m standing outside myself, watching all my asshole glory, a faithful chip off the old block who taught it to me to begin with. But I can’t control it. This is how the anger rolls with every new visit to my past, despite Dad’s recent efforts to make up for it. The holes in the dam are still there. Maybe they always will be.

  I know I promised to play ball with you today, little buddy, but I really have to take this conference call.

  I’ll listen to your song after Tyce’s lacrosse match, I promise.

  I suppose you think dying a blue dick into the dog’s fur is cute, young man?

  I’m guessing by that smirk that you’re proud of the asinine cartoon you doodled onto Chase’s homework?

  I don’t understand how you dare to laugh at me after the cops dropped you off at the front door.

  I don’t want to hear about you screwing any more models until those fucking grades are brought back up.

  I’m not going to take your calls until you earn them.

  Until you prove you can truly be my son.

  I wheel away, loathing how facing her has somehow transformed from leaving my work day into confronting my demons. No. Not demons. That’s giving the fuckers—and their sire—too much power. Admitting they have that much control over me. Conceding they still govern me like that.

  But don’t they?

  “No.” It’s more a sound than a word, spewing in as much air from my nostrils as my lips, as I lock my hands at the back of my head and stomp back into the cave, which thankfully smells a little better now.

  The dimness engulfs me again. I tell myself that should feel good—well, better than it does—because isn’t that why I’ve even trudged back? To escape a few simple, even silly, memories? Pathology I should be way the hell over now? Hatchets even Dad wants to bury and scars he clearly wants to help heal?

  So what’s my goddamned problem?

  The answer is so fucking clear, I’m nauseated. I stop after a couple of steps inside the tunnel, dropping my head between my slumping shoulders as I park both hands against the rock wall.

  “Reece?”

  Did I really think she wouldn’t follow me? Maybe I did, in the flash of a stupid moment that I forgot she’s not like any other woman I’ve ever known. Sure enough, she’s picking her way in with steps that are soft and sketchy, since she’s still wearing the strappy pumps that go with her gauzy tea dress. Hell. Onl
y in edgy music videos and high-fashion editorials does demolished rock and spongy mud go well with flimsy shoes and ladies-who-lunch-wear. “What the hell? What’s wrong?”

  “You shouldn’t be in here.”

  “Well, neither should you.” She steps closer until she’s filling my periphery. My body sizzles, in good and bad ways, with the awareness of her nearness. “Early quitting time, remember? What everyone on the crew just thanked you for—and we were about to celebrate too?”

  The silky turn of her tone comes with a corresponding caress to my back—which I answer with a fresh flinch. I add a jerk of my head before gritting, “I…can’t.”

  She moves in closer. Mixes her gorgeous scent in with the freshly torn earth. Soleil Blanc has always smelled good on her, but now? All I want to do is jerk my head over and inhale the lemon and coconut on her skin mixed with the mud and musk in the air…

  “Oh, I’ll bet you can, Mr. Richards. Just let me show you…”

  I capture her hand beneath mine before she can graze it from my hip to my fly. “No. Velvet. I mean, I can’t do this. The cute-share shit. The turtle shells and the bedtime stories and the throwing-spaghetti-on-the-walls stuff…” Before the bewilderment in her eyes turns into pain, I plunge on. “My memories aren’t funny or cuddly, no matter how my mother presented the scenario. I love the woman, as well as those rose-colored glasses of hers, but things weren’t rosy, okay?”

  “Right.” She’s cut me off on purpose, flipping around to fall back against the wall—her face tautening by matching degrees. “Because mine was, yeah?”

  I drop the shoulder closest to her. Damn it, I’m not a complete prick. Not yet, anyway. With the physical space between us reopened, I attempt to meet her gaze while murmuring, “I know it wasn’t.”

  “Of course you do. Because I told you.”

  “And I’m thankful you did—”

  “But not enough to even try to do the same for me.”

  “Goddamnit.”

  “No.” She bats away the hand I’ve raised to her cheek. “Don’t bring him into this. The damning here is all mine.” She brings her hand back over, shoving so hard at my shoulder that I rock back—but so does she. “Who the hell do you think you are, declaring your pain off-limits after I willingly gave you mine?” Her rant cranks harder despite how I yank her close and prevent the ass-over-elbows tumble for which she was clearly headed. As I grip her closer, she squirms harder—firing hot friction between all of our most sensitive places. Fuck. Me. “You don’t get to raise the drawbridge here, pal. You don’t even get to call the archers to the ramparts.”

  For a long second, I’m not capable of any answer but a deep groan. “Damn it.” Despite how my mind and spirit yearn to forfeit this game, my cock is absolutely all-in for the play.

  “I thought we’d already covered that.”

  She utters it half an inch over my lips. There’s a husk underlining her voice now, and she’s circled her arms back around my neck.

  “Emma.” My throat is a collection of crags now too. My breath, rasping across the gorgeous curves of her mouth, is shaky. “I…I don’t even know how…”

  “That’s why I’m here.” She closes the distance between our mouths but only for a sensual slide of a second. “To help you, my love. To—”

  I’m not sure what she was preparing to utter next. I’m not sure it matters. Right now, I just know I need more of her than a tertiary taste. I need the full, wet, hot smash of mouths that I take without prelude or permission or apology. I need her. Kissing her. Pushing into her. Dancing my tongue with hers. Melding my desire to hers.

  Drowning my pain with her.

  Yeah. Good. This is really good. The deeper I explore her, the more blurred the lines get—and if she’s none the wiser, then what’s the harm? And the trade-off is so much better anyhow. Heartache to hard-on. Anger to lust. Needing no one…to needing her.

  Only her.

  Always her.

  And that’s when I realize how flawed my thinking is. Needing her means I really do have to open all this shit up to her. To expose her to all the vulnerability. Let her see all the loneliness. Give her a flashlight into parts of my soul that I swore, so damn long ago, would never be revisited by anyone in my life. Yeah, including myself.

  But here they all are, pouring into my kiss. Burning through my touch. Scraping back my mental layers as Emma peels away the tight black leather encasing my torso…and then unbuttons and unzips the plackets covering my cock.

  I moan but hardly recognize the sound. Is that me sounding so desperate and feral? Is this my choice, to be so raw and unmasked?

  Am I letting this happen…as she drops to her knees and then, practically in the same motion, pulls my erection all the way into her mouth?

  Fuuuuuck.

  But out loud, all I can get out is a strangled, “Unnnhhhh.” Nothing else develops. Her heat feels too fucking good. In ten seconds, she’s demolished me. Paralyzed me. There’s cold stone at my back, invisible shackles around my wrists. I’m not tethered, but I feel like I am. She’s sucking the resistance from me. Demanding my surrender…

  A moan writhes in my chest before searing up my throat. It bursts out, echoing against the cave’s walls, which are hard and ruthless enough to be…

  Dad’s office.

  Or a laboratory hell.

  Which, in the mud of my mind, are suddenly mashed…as one…

  When are you going to live up to how extraordinary you are, Reece?

  When are you going to face how extraordinary you are, Alpha Two?

  “No,” I hear myself stammer. “No.”

  One voice is the bastard who gave me DNA. The other is the bitch who raped it. The walls of one imprisoned my mind. The walls of the other enslaved my will.

  Different. Different.

  Then the word is tumbling out of me, over and over, a desperate litany to battle the memories of my youth and the nightmares of my adulthood, still stirring together in a sickening, disgusting brew…

  Flooding me.

  Frying me.

  Crumbling me.

  EMMA

  “Reece? Reece!”

  One second, his flesh is hard and huge and perfect in my mouth. The next, he’s buckling against the wall before sliding all the way down it, his legs shooting out like the mud floor has become a sheet of ice. A shudder claims his body. He throws his head back so hard, it thunks audibly against the dirt.

  “Shit, shit, shit. Reece.” My logic races for the most obvious explanations. Has he had a seizure? A blood sugar drop? Did he eat lunch? Does he even have to worry about shit like blood sugar? If not, then does he need to plug back in? Or unplug?

  I thought I was starting to read him better. To know, just by looking at him, what his biological charge is or isn’t and exactly what ways I could help him get back to baseline.

  This isn’t baseline.

  I have no damn idea what this is.

  I’m plunged even deeper into the dark when he jerks his head up, piercing me with eyes that glow with a texture I’ve never seen in them before. This is different than how he looked after the showdown with Angelique, when the Consortium first came after him—and even after the skirmish with Faline and her henchmen in New York, when those assholes decided to come after me. As he gouges me deeper with those dark-silver blades, I begin to fathom the reason why.

  There are layers to his pain now.

  Bruises covering scars. Incisions leading straight to veins. Tears blended with blood.

  Vulnerabilities hidden by his fury.

  And his vehemence.

  And his dominance.

  As he reaches beneath my skirt, clamping his big hands over my thighs and spreading them until I’m straddling him.

  As he jerks me forward, fitting my body more fully over his.

  As he rolls his hips up, ensuring every inch of my pussy starts to thrum and pulse and weep, fully aware of his hardness and heat and need.

  As he does it again and
again and again, wordless in his purpose and relentless in his lust, until my panties are soaked and my whole body is quivering. “Ahhhhhh,” I finally spill, the groan mixed of my pleasure and pain, which instantly tightens his hold and intensifies his thrusts. His force is so fierce, I have to grip his neck with one hand and brace the wall with my other. The jagged rock bites into my palm, adding to the wounds he’s bringing along with the ecstasy, but I accept it. I accept him. The second I realign my stare with his, I know it’s exactly what he needs too. To see that his pain won’t scare me away. That its ugliness only makes him more beautiful to me.

  I rock more feverishly against him. Work my soaked labia up and down his pulsing shaft, savoring the extra texture from the veins that fight his tight, swollen skin. My underwear has been sidelined, rolled into the seam between my crotch and thigh. With one shift in our movements, his incredible cock will be deep inside my shivering sheath.

  But not yet.

  Not until he knows, beyond doubt, what I want from him now.

  More than his sex. More than his desire. Even more than his anger and pain.

  “Give.” I issue the order in a smoky whisper while shifting my hold from his nape to his jaw, fastening his attention on me. “Give them all to me.”

  His face turns as jagged as the walls around us.

  Because he knows exactly what I’m demanding from him.

  I want his ghosts.

  Every last wraith that’s gotten a free ride on his soul since he was a kid, without the awareness or army to fight them off.

  Well, he has an army now. And its commander is here. And ready to fight for him with everything I have. Everything I am.

  And I show him so, by lowering until my mouth is at his ear…as I slide the slick tightness of my entrance against his cockhead.

  “Give them to me,” I exhort again. “All of it. All of them.” I dip my head, cradling his so my promise goes nowhere but in his ear. “You’re safe. You’re perfect. You’re mine. You always…will…be…”

  The last three words are closer to shudders. As if anyone on the planet could fault me, considering the magic of the long, swollen erection he surges up into me. He’s so full and hard and throbbing, filling every corner of my womb while not being enough. Not. Enough. He’s still fighting my ultimate request. Perhaps even thinks that by fucking me, he’ll make me forget…