Rebel Revenge (Saint View Rebels Book 1)

I woke in the morning, wrapped in blankets like a warm and toasty burrito, but the other side of the bed was cold to the touch. Instantly, panic filled me, fearing Fang had snuck out and driven himself home, or worse, gone woozily stumbling through the house with all its staircases, and was currently lying at the bottom of one with a broken neck.

But when I made it out onto the second-floor landing and peered over the railing, there was no dead body. Sounds did float up the stairs though, frypans banging and clashing together, and oddly, laughter.

I jogged down the stairs in nothing but the T-shirt I liked to sleep in, the hem brushing my upper thighs. In the doorway to the kitchen, I leaned on the doorframe, smiling at the sight before me. “Wouldn’t have picked you for an apron sorta guy, Kian.”

Both he and Fang, who was sitting at the kitchen bench chopping vegetables, lifted their heads.

Kian groaned, his gaze sweeping my body. “Don’t wear that in front of me! I don’t need big boy over there starting round two because I looked at his girl.”

I glanced at Fang.

He was holding the knife a little too tightly.

I put my hand on his back as I slid onto the stool beside him. “Settle.”

His hand instantly went to my thigh, clamping down on it, holding me in place. But he spoke to Kian. “I’m not starting anything with anyone she wants looking at her. Only those she doesn’t. She can tell me if I need to kill you.”

Kian chuckled. “Righto. Remember who won that fight last night.”

“You know I let you.”

I clapped my hands together. “Okay, okay. We’re not getting into that again. You both have very big muscles and you’re both headed for the MMA. Good for you. Moving on, I’m starving, and that smells great. What are we having?”

“Omelets.”

“I’m drooling already.”

Fang’s thumb rubbed absently over my skin.

I liked it more than I should have and was a bit miffed when he moved his hand away to continue cutting up onions.

“So, Fang and I were talking before you came downstairs, and he tells me we’re going after this Caleb guy and his friends who attacked you.” Kian tapped an egg swiftly to the edge of a mixing bowl. The eggshell split down the middle, and he pried it apart, letting the insides drip down.

“We’re?” I asked. “No, not we’re. I am. Fang is backing me up.”

Kian pouted. “Come on. Let me play too. I’ve watched a ton of Law and Order and I reckon I’d be an amazing detective. I guarantee I can find the name of Caleb’s buddies in no time. Then it’s showtime. Let the ass-kicking begin.” He cracked his knuckles. “It’ll be fun to watch you hurt them.”

I shook my head. “An ass-kicking is too kind. It needs to be more than that. I want to…”

Kian leaned his elbows on the kitchen counter, completely enraptured with the topic. “Want to what? Finish that thought.”

I’d let it trail off because I didn’t know how it would be received. But if they were going to help with this, then they needed to know what they were in for. “I want to make it hurt. Torture them. String it out so they’re scared, never knowing when it’s coming.”

“Jesus fuck, Roach. That’s dark.” Vaughn wandered into the room, already dressed, his dark hair slicked back. He grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the table and took a bite out of it. He glanced at Fang. “Who are you? Don’t tell me you moved in here as well? Seriously, Roach, you can’t just move in whoever you feel like. It’s bad enough you’ve made yourself at home.”

I glared at him. “He hasn’t moved in. And don’t be an asshole. The two of you already met outside the courthouse.”

Vaughn narrowed his eyes. “You’re the prick who punched me!”

Kian pressed down on the countertop to hoist himself up onto it. “Oh, really? That’s interesting. Now everyone here has taken a swing at everyone else. What a fun little circle of violence that is.”

I cocked my head to one side. “When did you and Vaughn have a fight? Not that I blame you, ’cause he’s an ass. I hope you won.”

Kian scoffed, “Of course. It was like taking candy from a baby.”

Vaughn said nothing, just glared at Kian. If looks could kill…

I really wanted to know what had gone down between the two of them. But now wasn’t the time. “Anyway, can we get back to my plan for torturing Caleb Black and his asshole friends?”

Vaughn glanced at me sharply. “Caleb Black? Who runs Black Industries? What do you want with him?”

There was going to be no secrets kept from men I shared a house with. But I still didn’t want to tell Vaughn. Not after the way he’d done me dirty, trying to hustle me out of what had been left to me. Especially when I needed it a whole lot more than the trust fund baby did.

Kian tapped his spatula on the edge of the pan. “You should tell him. He knows people the three of us hood rats don’t. He can probably get you the names, addresses, and Social Security numbers of the other two guys in a heartbeat.”

I ground my teeth, knowing Kian was right. I didn’t have those connections to the business world. Vaughn did.

But I was stubborn. “I can do it myself.”

Vaughn rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Have your little powwow down here. I’ll leave the three of you to it.”

“He hurt her,” Kian called out.

Vaughn stopped in the doorway. “What?”

“Kian! Shut up!” I hissed.

“Be mad if you want, Little Demon. I want you to get your revenge more than I care about you getting shitty with me.”

He had a point, but it only pissed me off further. I grabbed an apple from the basket and hurled it at his head.

He caught it easily, giving me a wink. “Gotta be quicker than that. Fighter’s reflexes.”

Irritating man.

But my gaze drew back to Vaughn.

He was a thundercloud in the doorway. “Hurt you how?”

I just stared back at him.

“Tell me, Roach, because I’m imagining all sorts of really bad shit. Tell me I’m exaggerating.”

I couldn’t. I was sure his imagination probably didn’t even scratch the surface of what Caleb had done to me.

“He…raped you?”

The nod I gave was tiny, but it was all he needed.

Vaughn’s fist slammed back against the drywall, making the entire wall shake. “I’m in.”

I blinked. “In for what?”

“Whatever this is. Whatever we’re doing, I’m in.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You just said I was dark.”

“When it comes to Caleb Black, you could never be dark enough.”

A chill raced down my spine. “What do you know about him?”

He shook his head. “Nothing I like. You said he had two friends with him? Can you give me a description? Anything identifying about them?”

Kian chuckled. “We watched Law and Order together.”

Vaughn glared at him. “Shut up, Kian. This is serious.”

It was, but it was also overwhelming. I’d tried really hard not to think about that night ever since it had happened, and now, I was having to dredge up all those memories and relive them like they were happening right then and there. “One was shorter than him, one was taller. The shorter one had a business suit on when he arrived. Closely cropped hair on the sides, a little longer on top. He was chubby, and he had a lion—”

“Tattoo on his arm?”

I blinked. “Yes.”

“The other one had acne scars? Like not just a couple. A lot?”

I nodded.

“How do you know that?” Fang asked quietly.

Vaughn had pity in his eyes. “I went to college with them. But I haven’t spoken to any of them since I moved away.”

Heat flushed through me. “You were friends with them though?”

Vaughn went quiet.

I shook my head, anger spiking. “How could you? Did you know what they like to do in their spare time?”

“What? No! Of course not.” He reached out to me.

I flinched away.

In an instant, Kian and Fang were both between us, putting distance between me and my stepbrother, who’d just happily spent his formative years hanging out with a couple of gang rapists.

I suddenly wasn’t hungry anymore.

“Rebel…”

“First time you haven’t called me Roach.” I got off the stool stiffly. “Thanks for making breakfast, Kian. I’m not hungry anymore though.”

He tossed the spatula into the sink. “Me neither.”

Fang put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s go for a drive.”

Anywhere was better than here. I knew it wasn’t Vaughn’s fault and I actually believed him when he said he didn’t know what they were doing. Hell, for all I knew, they weren’t even doing it back then. I really hoped that was the truth, but my gut told me Caleb Black was as dark as his name. He’d hurt Bliss and Vincent. He’d hurt me. It wasn’t much of a leap to assume we weren’t the only ones.

It only confirmed for me yet again that it had to end here. With me. No matter what it took. “A drive sounds nice.”

Fang escorted me around Vaughn, and I avoided looking him in the eye. I ran upstairs to change, then grabbed my purse from the entranceway. Outside in the crisp morning air, I rubbed my chilled arms briskly. “It’s cold out here.”

Fang pulled his jacket on. “Yeah, I got up early this morning and made a fire to keep the house warm. Wasn’t expecting to be out here with you, but your jacket is beneath the seat.”

I blinked at him. “I have a jacket?”

He shrugged. “After I drove you home the other day, I realized you didn’t have one suitable for being on my bike. So I bought you one…”

He handed over the leather jacket, still with the tags on it.

I caught sight of the price tag and did a double take. “You can’t afford this.”

He pushed it toward me again. “You need it. Queenie helped me pick it out. She swore you’d like it, but if you don’t, I’ll take it back. Get you something else…”

I slipped my arms into the sleeves and smiled up at him. “It’s perfect. I’ve never owned a single article of clothing that cost this much.”

He reached behind me, to the tag at the back of my neck, and snapped it off. “Now you do.”

He moved back, his face mere inches from mine. His gaze darted to my lips.

I sucked in a breath.

The thing about Fang and I was, we hooked up. We kissed in the heat of the moment, tongues tangling as foreplay, winding us both up for the main event.

We’d never kissed without it leading somewhere else.

Nerves suddenly flooded me, and it was like I was thirteen all over again, never been kissed, and standing in front of a boy, wondering if it was going to happen.

He seemed just as indecisive.

The moment passed.

He cleared his throat and straightened. “Come on, let’s take your new jacket for a test drive.”

I nodded, getting on the bike behind him and wrapping my arms around his waist. He tried to start the engine but jerked his hand away from the accelerator like it had burned him. He swore low beneath his breath to cover the sound of pain he’d let slip.

I peered around his broad back. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

I slid farther around, and for the first time that morning, properly looked at his hands.

Two fingers on his right hand were swollen to twice their normal size. Which was alarming because his hands were huge to begin with.

I slapped his arm. “That’s broken.”

He shrugged. “Probably.”

“You need an X-ray.”

“Nothing getting drunk won’t fix.”

“You aren’t getting drunk at ten in the morning.” I slid off the bike and took my keys from my purse. “Come on. I’m taking you to the hospital. They can check your head while we’re at it.”

“We were going for a drive.”

“Yeah, well, we still are. Just now it’s to the ER.” I folded my arms across my chest when he didn’t budge off his bike. “Move it, Fang!”

He raised an eyebrow. “Anyone ever tell you you’re bossy for someone so short?”

“Only every other day. Can we go now?”

He grudgingly got off his bike and walked to the driver’s side of my car. “Don’t know what it is about you that makes me want to do whatever you tell me to.”

“It’s my charming personality,” I sassed him. “Now scoot to the passenger side. Nobody drives my car but me.”

He squeezed the handle. “Wasn’t planning on driving. Was just opening the door for you.”

I bit my lip. “Oh. That’s…nice. Nobody ever does that anymore.”

“Yeah, well, I do.”

I slid behind the steering wheel, and he closed the door before walking over to the passenger side. He crouched to adjust the seat, pushing it all the way back to accommodate his long legs.

It was still comical to watch him try to fit his six-five body into a hatchback made for short asses like me. He had to twist awkwardly but he did manage to get himself inside.

“I’ve had Matchbox cars bigger than this thing,” he muttered.

I sniggered the whole way to the hospital, laughing every time I looked over at him because he truly was like a pretzel and clearly uncomfortable.

After I parked the car, he undid his seat belt. “Wait there. I’ll get the door.”

But he groaned in pain as he tried to get out. It was more than him just being shoved in like a sardine. He’d taken a beating last night, and it was clearly bothering him more than he was letting on.

I got out and jogged around to his side of the car, opening the door for him.

He scowled at me. “That’s my job.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think we’ll ever be going anywhere in this car again, so at least now we’re even.”

“I’ll buy you a bigger one.”

“With the millions in your piggy bank?”

“I play lotto.”

I sniggered. “My mom always used to say that, too…”

Fang looked down at me. “You miss her?”

I shrugged. “It’s stupid. It’s not like we lived in each other’s pockets. I could go weeks or even months without seeing her in person. And yet now, because I can’t…”

“You want to.”

I nodded. “I know that’s dumb. I just wish I’d loved her harder when she was here. When I was younger, I’d prepared myself to bury her young. She was reckless, you know? And she had big feelings. She fell hard and fast for every guy she met, and so many of them were scumbags. For the entire six months she dated Linden the Loser, I thought I was going to come home from school and find her head crushed in on the kitchen floor. The man had a vicious temper, and he took it out on her all the time. It got so bad that I was almost surprised when it didn’t happen.”

The hospital doors opened for us, and Fang led the way to the nurses’ check-in point.

“I hate men like that,” he said softly as we joined the line. “Men who make a woman feel small to make themselves feel big.”

I had my own Linden the Loser, I realized with a start. His name was Caleb the Cunt. I clenched my fingers.

Fang took my hand, slowly massaging it, pressing warmth into my cold fingers, until I relaxed.

“He can’t hurt you anymore. That’s never going to happen again.”

I nodded. I knew. Not because Fang was going to protect me. As much as he might try, he couldn’t protect me every minute of the day.

But I would protect myself. I would talk to Kian about it tonight. Get a training schedule set up. I was a decent fighter to begin with, but I was like Fang. No style. All scrappy fury. It hadn’t been enough against Caleb.

The nurse behind the plexiglass raised her head when we reached the top of the line and did a double take at Fang. “Oh my. I mean, can I help you?”

I almost laughed. It was the way so many women in the bar and at the clubhouse reacted to Fang. I wasn’t sure why I never had. Maybe because I’d seen plenty of truly scary men over the course of my life. I knew a legitimately bad man couldn’t be figured out because of what he looked like on the outside. Caleb was a truly bad man, and he looked anything but when he was dressed neatly in a suit and driving around his hundred-thousand-dollar car.

Fang seemed scary, but there was a gentleness about him that most men didn’t have. I’d seen it from the minute he’d walked into the bar on my very first shift there.

Fang held up his mangled fingers. “My girl says I need an X-ray.”

The nurse glanced at me with huge eyes. “You’re his girl?”

I could tell what she was thinking. How did we even fit together?

Wouldn’t she like to know.

Maybe it was that, her staring at me with such incredulity, that had me saying, “Yeah. I’m his girl. I think he has a few broken fingers. Possibly a concussion too, though he seems a bit better this morning.”

“Take a seat, and we’ll be with you when we can.”

Fang put his good arm around my neck and guided me over to a seat. He didn’t move away once we were sitting, and I found myself cuddling into his side, warm and fuzzy feelings tingling their way through all the places we touched. I was surprised at how much I liked hearing him declare me his. He dropped a kiss on my head absently, and it lit up a part of me I hadn’t known would react like that.

Shit. I had the sudden realization this man could turn me into a snuggler if he kept up this behavior.

The thought was a little scary. I’d never known much affection. I’d never really had a proper relationship, and I’d never known my father. My mom had loved me, but she hadn’t been much of a hugger. It was a dangerous loss of control to let someone touch me freely.

But one that maybe I was willing to take with Fang, because of every man I’d ever met, he was the one I trusted most.

We’d see. We weren’t there yet. But sitting with him like this, just enjoying the feel of him beside me, made me want to try.

“Lucy Tinsdale?”

I jerked my head at the voice of a doctor calling his next patient. He searched the waiting room with a roaming gaze, one that finished on me.

Horror froze me to the spot.

Recognition dawned in his eyes, but he quickly moved on, ushering Lucy through security doors for her assessment.

I couldn’t move. It took every ounce of my being not to scream in terror when his gaze returned, before the door slammed shut behind him, the locks automatically engaging.

Like some spell had broken, I slumped forward, elbows to my knees, sucking in deep breaths. For the minute he’d been there in the waiting room, just feet away from me, I hadn’t been able to breathe.

Fang’s warm hand came to the center of my back. “Pix, you okay? What just happened?”

I couldn’t talk. Fear had wrapped itself around my throat and was squeezing the life out of me.

Fang became frantic, twisting in his seat, trying to get a look at my face. “Tell me what to do. Do I call a nurse?”

I shook my head frantically and forced myself to sit up straight. The room spun, but I managed it.

He dropped his hand to my thigh, squeezing reassuringly, and I focused on that. On him. On the fact that with him beside me, that fucking asshole would never get to lay a finger on me.

Not again.

“Please talk to me,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s happening, but you’re fucking scaring me, Pix.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry for. One minute you were fine. Better than fine, actually. The next you’re frozen and hyperventilating.”

“That doctor…”

His eyebrows furrowed, and then he glanced at the closed door. “What about him?”

“Lion tattoo…” It was all I could get out before panic took over my system again.

But it was all I needed to say.

Understanding lit up Fang’s blue eyes.

In a second, he was on his feet, storming to the door the doctor had disappeared through. His fist slammed against it. “Open this!”

My mouth dropped open.

The entire waiting room full of people swiveled to stare at him, me included.

He clearly didn’t care. He rammed his fist against the door again. “Open this fucking door, or I swear I’m going to kick it down.”

“Sir,” the nurse behind the safety glass, which was clearly there for this exact reason, tried to calm him. “Please. We know the waits are long at the moment, but we’ll be with you as soon as possible. Your hand is not considered an emergency, and there’s other cases that take priority over yours.”

It was the complete wrong thing to say to him, though I couldn’t blame the nurse for trying.

“I don’t fucking care about my hand! Do you know one of your doctors is a rapist?”

The woman shook her head in disbelief. “Sir, if you don’t sit back down, I’ll have to call security.”

“Fuck security! Call the fucking cops to arrest him!”

The woman behind me tutted a little too loudly to her husband. “Drugs. They make you paranoid. Hopefully the police get here quickly.”

Dread pooled in the bottom of my stomach. I didn’t know exactly what Fang was involved in with his club. But I doubted much of it was legal. There was a high likelihood he had outstanding warrants. Even if he didn’t, if the police arrested him here, I wouldn’t put it past them to try to pin something else on him. They’d already proved themselves completely incompetent by suspecting me of murdering my mother. They’d take one look at the Slayers emblem on the back of his jacket and he’d be locked up.

I needed to get him out of here. I ran to his side, pulling down the arm he was using to bash on the door. “Stop. We need to go before they call the cops.”

He gazed down at me, eyes wild. “Let them. I’m going to fucking kill him.” Without waiting for me, he gave up on the emergency room security door, which had proved its worth by keeping him out, and stormed to a hallway that led who knew where in the hospital.

I had to run to keep up with him. “Fang. Stop.”

He shook his head, slamming his way through the halls while nurses and orderlies jumped out of his way. “There’s gotta be a back way into emergency through here.”

I trailed after him, helpless to stop him, noticing every nurse who picked up a phone to call security.

His gaze flickered over every sign, searching for a way to get to my attacker.

An alarm sounded overhead, blaring and sharp. “Code eleven. Code eleven.”

I didn’t need to work there to know that a code eleven had to be the signal for giant biker on a rampage.

“Fang!” I jumped in front of him, arms out, so he’d have nowhere to go but stop or mow me right down. He was so lost to his bloodlust; I wasn’t even sure he’d stop.

He did.

Right as a storm of boots sounded from down the hall.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here, Officer Johnson. He’s down that way. Big guy. Long, dirty-blond hair in a ponytail and a leather jacket. He’s got a young woman with him.”

I widened my eyes at Fang, and finally, some sense seemed to reach his hopped-up-on-adrenaline brain. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“Yeah, you don’t say,” I hissed at him. I glanced around, searching for somewhere to go. The hall split in three directions, one pointing to X-ray, the second to oncology, the third to maternity.

We could take one and hope the cops chose one of the other two.

But judging by the number of boots I’d heard running down the corridor, they had enough to split up.

I took door number four. The one that was open and led to a storeroom on our left. I shoved Fang in ahead of me and closed it with a quiet snick. A lock engaged. We could get out, there was a handle inside, but I suspected they’d need a key to get in from the hallway. Hopefully that would deter them enough to go on down the halls and away from us.

Fang’s eyes flashed, his chest heaving. “I need to find him.”

I pinned him with a glare. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. Get your shit under control. I don’t have time to get arrested today.”

He leaned against a bare brick wall and dropped his head back against it, staring at the ceiling. “Just the thought of knowing what he did…”

The footsteps outside got closer. I held my breath, not making a sound.

A protective growl started deep in his chest, a terrifying noise in a space as enclosed as this.

And loud. At any moment, it was going to turn into a shout of outrage.

He was going to give us away.

I lifted up on my toes and put my hands to the back of his head, tilting it down so I could press my lips against his.

He pulled back, eyes flickering between mine in the dim light of the supply cupboard. “Pix?” His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion.

This wasn’t what we did. Outside his bed, we didn’t kiss.

Just the briefest touch of his lips had me wanting more.

But his confusion had me regretting the choice, and as the footsteps moved away, I dared to explain myself. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “The cops were out there, and you were growling like a hungry bear who’d just spotted a chubby hiker. I was just trying to shut you up.”

He let out a quiet groan of need. “Shut me up some more, then.”

But it was him who took control. With one hand on my hip, he pushed me back against the wall on my side of the narrow closet, his other hand cradling the back of my head. He surrounded me with his big body and slammed his mouth down on mine.

My eyes closed all on their own. A gasp slipped from my mouth as he took my lips, kissing me with the knowledge of a man who’d done it plenty of times before, even if the dynamic was totally different.

His mouth was warm and soft, his beard scratching lightly across my skin, only making me want more of him. He stroked my lips with his tongue, and I opened for him, the kiss deepening.

“Oh,” I moaned softly, taking his kiss and giving him back exactly what he’d been wanting from me for the longest time.

He gripped me so protectively that if that door opened, and the entire Providence Police Department stormed in, I doubted they would have been able to get to me.

I speared my fingers into his hair, kissing him back with everything I had, holding him as tight as he held me.

It was him who broke the kiss. Moving his lips away from mine to rest our foreheads together. We both breathed hard in the tiny space between us, breaths mingling, all the drama outside forgotten.

He had an uncanny ability to do that.

To make me forget about anything else.

It was why I always ran to him when I needed to forget my problems. Why I always let him fuck me into oblivion when something upset me.

The attack had stopped me from doing that with him. When Caleb had stripped every inch of dignity from my body with his rough hands and unforgiving cock, he’d also taken away the one coping mechanism I’d allowed myself.

Not having sex with Fang left me wide open and vulnerable to other things.

Like feelings.

Sex was so much easier.

I pushed him back, creating a little room in the space between us. “Why did you stop?”

He breathed heavily and stared down at his crotch. “’Cause kissing you like that, creates that. I need to be able to walk out of here once the coast is clear.”

I stepped forward, putting my fingers to the button on his fly. “There’s other ways of taking care of that.”

“Pix,” he warned. “Don’t. That isn’t what I meant. You don’t have to.”

“But what if I want to?”

He put his fingers beneath my chin and tilted my head up. “Don’t do it just because you think it’s what I want.”

The problem was he wanted so much more. So much more I couldn’t give. I saw it in the way he watched me. In the way he protected and touched me so gently. No man had ever looked at me the way he did.

His appearance had never scared me. But the things he wanted from me did.

I’d seen that sort of love too many times before. It was how my mother had found herself broken on the floor, with only a ten-year-old to comfort her.

I couldn’t give him all the things he wanted. The thought of handing that sort of power over to any man was too much. I wouldn’t be her. Lying on the floor, too heartbroken to move.

I couldn’t give him the sort of love he wanted or deserved.

But I could give him this.

I slid to my knees, taking his jeans with me. I stared up at him while I forced his boxer briefs to follow, his thick dick springing free.

All the women who thought Fang’s appearance was terrifying would die a thousand deaths if they saw how beautiful his cock was. I stroked my hand over it. “Prettiest dick I ever did see.”

Fang chuckled, brushing my hair back off my face and tucking the short lengths behind my ear. “It’s so weird when you say that.”

“Why? It is pretty. Pretty and perfect.”

“It’s a dick, Rebel. Nothing pretty about a one-eyed monster.”

I grinned up at him. “You think highly of yourself to call it a monster.”

He quirked one eyebrow. “You’ve seen bigger?”

I had not. He had porn star peen, there was no doubt about that. Monster was a fitting name. I didn’t doubt him when he’d once told me he’d had women just nope right out as soon as they saw it. Hell, the first time we’d had sex, his exact words to me had been, “If it’s too much, I understand.”

It was not too much. The way he loved was the only thing that was too much about this man. That was the only thing that scared me. His monster peen was not a problem.

“Actually, I saw Kian’s the other day, and he gives you a run for your money.”

His fingers fisted in my hair. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that, but only because your lips are going to look so fucking good around my cock.”

This was where we were good. When it was all hot sex and desire. Too many other things had crept in over the past week or two, and getting back to our usual was comforting and safe.

I opened my mouth to take him in. At first, just the head. I ran my tongue all over it, paying particular attention to the thick vein, starting on the underside. Then I slid him deeper, coating every inch of him so he slid easily in and out of my opening.

It was impossible to take every inch of him, even if I deep-throated. I didn’t really feel like asphyxiating today, even if I was in the right place for a medical emergency. But I used my hand at his base and pulled off to lick every inch of him when my jaw needed a break.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, not taking his eyes off me for a second.

“Bet you say that to all the women who get on their knees for you.”

He shook his head. “Only you, Pix.”

Despite myself, my heart swelled. He was telling the truth. I could see it in his gaze.

I sucked him harder and faster, using one hand on his shaft to help my mouth along while the other gripped his balls. His hips jerked, and he thrust shallowly into my mouth, unable to hold back.

I waited for the terror. For the reminder Caleb and his doctor buddy had forced me to my knees too.

But I kept my gaze firmly on Fang’s face, which chased away the demons. He was as beautiful as his cock when he was lost to pleasure.

Pleasure only I gave him.

I selfishly liked that he never went elsewhere. Maybe it was because he thought no other woman would find him attractive enough to want to do this.

If he ever showed this side of himself, how gentle and sweet he was, they would. He’d have them lining up around the block.

It was probably only a matter of time until he realized that and stopped waiting for me.

“Gonna come, Pix. You’re too good at that.”

It was his way of warning me. Of giving me a chance to end it there or jerk him off ’til he came.

I’d taken it every other time I’d done this for him. I’d switched it up and planted myself on his cock and ridden him ’til he couldn’t hold on anymore. But this time I just kept going.

“Pix,” he warned again, like he was sure I didn’t want this, and I was playing with fire.

“Come in my mouth,” I begged him breathlessly. “Let me do that for you.”

God knew he deserved it after everything he did for me.

“Fuck.” His balls tightened, and he let go, releasing into the back of my throat.

I swallowed him down, everything he had, until he slumped back against the wall.

His blissed-out expression had me tingling from head to toe. So freaking proud that I’d put that expression on his face.

Slowly, I stood, wishing I could do it all over again, just to see him stare down at me like that.

He put his hand to the side of my face and rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip. “I didn’t deserve that. You told me not to go after those guys. I get one opportunity, and look what I go and do. Get us locked in a supply room while a hospital full of cops searches for us.”

“Can’t really blame you. The carrot was dangled right in your face. I might have done the same if I wasn’t so stupidly paralyzed with fear.”

I hated how I’d reacted. I might as well have been right back there in Caleb’s house, while they taunted and teased me, blocking the exits, telling me exactly what they were going to do to little sluts like me who led men on.

Fang’s expression turned protective again, and he slid his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me to his chest. “Come ’ere.”

I let his arms wrap around me. Accepted the comfort I always found so hard to tolerate. I didn’t know why he was different.

When he tilted my chin and took my mouth again, probably tasting himself on my lips, I didn’t stop him. The kiss felt too nice. It wormed its way down into my heart, where I knew it would destroy me.

I couldn’t bring myself to stop it.