Damon:A Bad Boy MC Romance Novel(57)

Walking the town only killed about half the time I needed it to kill,  and soon I found myself wandering back towards the motel, no wiser for  my stroll. Anxiety was creeping in again. I wanted to get gone, as soon  as possible.

The fact that the town seemed to be entirely operated by the club didn't  actually help my worries; if anything, it made me more nervous. It  meant that if Jeremy found out where I was, and came to get me, I could  be ruining Reign's life along with my own. And if I was responsible for  bringing outside forces to Ditcher's Valley, I suspected he couldn't  protect me from whatever revenge the club decided to enact.

Besides, the longer I thought about it, the less realistic it seemed to  me that Reign was doing anything but using me. Girls like me certainly  didn't get to attract guys like him without an ulterior motive. He was  so handsome, he could have any girl he wanted, and the fact that he  chose me only meant that he thought he could get something out of me.

That's the way it always is with fat girls, I thought sourly. We always  have to settle for assholes like Jeremy, or get used by men like Reign. I  was being blind and stupid to believe that he actually cared for me and  wanted to help me. More likely than not, he had suspicions about what  was in the duffel bag, and meant to get to it by pretending to be  interested in me. And if I didn't watch myself, I'd fall right for it,  hook, line, and sinker.

But I still needed my damn keys.





11





Reign was having the best dream of his life. He'd had some doozies  before, but this one was … spectacular. Mostly because of who was in it.  That raven-haired, tan-skinned, luscious woman he'd been lucky to spend  the night with  –  and now lucky to be dreaming of.

He was holding her by the waist, their mouths inches away from each  other, their eyes matched perfectly. Her flesh was warm and inviting  under his fingertips, seemed to crawl with life and pleasure, and her  face was flushed with expectation. She had her hands on his backside,  was pulling him into her, his manhood plunged into her welcoming sex,  where it throbbed and throbbed with almost painful desire.

They were in the bar, or a bar, and she was seated on the table before  him, completely naked, her large breasts perfectly shaped and pressed  against his bare chest. He thrust into her, spreading her legs wide,  making her eyes seem to grow larger and larger as he stared into them.         

     



 

His whole being strained forward into her, like she was a vortex that  led straight to paradise. And she just felt so soft, so warm, so wet and  loving and accepting of him as he moved his hips back and forth,  impossibly slow, feeling every rib and fold of her pussy caress his  cock, releasing it only to pull it back in deeper and deeper each time.

"Reign, Reign, Reign," he heard his own name coming from her throat, the  words taking the form of glowing lights that surrounded his head. She  was so close, he could feel her pussy clenching around his cock, could  feel his body responding in kind, his balls churning and his thighs  buckling as he plunged into her again and again, suffering beautifully  on the edge of coming, wanting to stay hard inside her forever, to feel  this awful bliss for every second of every day of the rest of his life.

The sounds coming out of her mouth suddenly changed, became short, sharp  bleats. Violent against his ears. Her skin began to change, shift or  melt, into something like fabric. She was going, she was leaving him,  she was turning into …

"Gabriella," he said, and his own voice finally pulled him from sleep.  With a slap, he silenced the alarm that was bleating red, jagged beeps  throughout the room. And with a groan he realized he'd been holding his  comforter, that the only warm body in his room was his own. He looked  over to the empty space in his king-size bed.

Why did I buy a fucking king-sized mattress if I always sleep alone, he  thought, bitter and annoyed. He hadn't slept long enough. That was all.  He wasn't mad because the dream was just a dream, he wasn't mad about  waking up alone, he was just cranky. He'd set the alarm for 8:45,  planning to keep his word and meet Gabriella once more at 9:00. Now, he  didn't regret this choice, but he did regret staying at the bar so long  earlier that day.

Reign was not a man who liked his sleep to be cut short.

But he wasn't going to leave that beautiful woman hanging, either.

As he rose, shaking his head as though he could knock his hangover away,  he thought about what it might be like to fall asleep and wake up  nestled close next to a woman. A woman like her, mainly, but any woman.  The other girls he'd slept with recently didn't make the idea very  enticing, but her …

What the fuck is going on with you, man? You never get this way over  chicks. She's just your type, sure, but there's others like her, and  you'll never get to screw them if you settle down with her, he thought,  distraught by his own heart's hollow beating, its sense of loneliness.  This was not a feeling Reign was used to.

Not by a wide margin.

Reign the playboy, Reign the hunk, Reign the drifter. Not Reign the  boyfriend, or, worse yet, the groom. He didn't need an old lady to take  care of him. And there was certainly no lack of girls who were willing  to give him what he needed in the bedroom. Even if those girls weren't  exactly what he wanted, and couldn't really give him exactly what he  needed.

No, he needed someone like Gabriella …

Or no one at all, he thought. It was good that she would be going, after  all. Once she left town, he could get back to being his old self,  unfettered by romance. His heart winced at the idea of waving her off as  she drove down the road. But he was sure he could buy another night or  two of her company.

And he really would be helping her. He already had plans for that car of  hers. And, it would take some string-pulling, but he knew he could get  her safe passage to South America. Hustling someone into Mexico was a  hell of a lot easier than hustling someone out of Mexico.

Another night or two, he repeated to himself, trying to make that wince  in his heart fade. It didn't, only throbbed all the harder. If he  already felt this way after one night, did he really imagine it would  get better once he fell a little deeper?

Maybe I'll get bored of her, he thought hopefully. Surely, once he'd  gotten a few more chances to partake in the pleasures she offered, he'd  lose interest and she would just be someone he was fond of, like a  sister he'd be willing to go out of his way to help but who he no longer  wanted to screw seven ways from Sunday.

He was surprised when even that thought, which should have comforted  him, only made him sadder. What did she think of him, anyway?

The question hit him like a runaway truck on a steep grade in the dead of winter.

Since when did Reign give two shits about what anyone thought of him?  Not just girls  –  anyone? He was his own man, he liked himself, as far as  he was concerned that was the end of the story. No, Reign didn't like  that question at all. He didn't want to have to wonder what someone else  thought of him. Even someone special … which she is NOT, he reminded  himself.         

     



 

But, really, what did she think of him? Did she think he was just using  her? Did she have feelings for him? If she didn't already have feelings  for him, would keeping up the romantic aspect of their friendship  –  if  you could even call it that  –  make her start developing feelings for  him?

And then would she think he dumped her like a bag of moldy potatoes?

Would she hate him?

Could she love him?

The minutes were ticking away, and he was just sitting on the edge of  his bed, staring down at his two bare feet like they could provide those  answers.

You don't care about those answers, though, you care about you, and the  club, and that's it, he thought, but it was becoming more and more  pointless. That voice in him that wanted to preserve the good thing he  had going, that desperately wanted homeostasis, was getting softer and  softer, as though he was walking down a long hallway and leaving that  voice behind.

This new voice  –  the one with all the damn questions  –  was louder. And way more obnoxious.

Reign looked at the clock again. 8:55. Shit, he thought. Where had ten  minutes gone? He didn't want to be late  –  yet another newfound concern.  Reign was never a punctual man. Now, he'd have to shower in the sink and  brush his teeth on the toilet.

Groaning, still tired but thankful for the gradual waning of his  hangover, he got to his feet and headed to the bathroom, where the  shelves were nearly bare except for basics. Hangover remedy (aspirin and  tums), shampoo, conditioner (he had to keep up the health of those long  locks, after all), razor and cream. Toothbrush and toothpaste.

An image flitted in his brain of the bathroom in the house he'd grown up  in. With a mother and two sisters, the family bathroom was  girl-central. Tampons, seventeen types of shampoo, an arsenal of body  lotions and sugar scrubs and exfoliators and razors and loofahs. It had  been cluttered but … pleasant, almost. All those bright colors made the  bathroom seem lively, especially in a house where "lively" usually meant  Dad was home and drunk and screaming and about to punch you in the  face.