I need more. I want to stay here all day, licking and sucking her, making her come a thousand more times—
There’s a knock at the door, and it surprises me into stillness. It’s loud and forceful, the sound reverberating through the small cabin.
“Fuck off, I’m busy,” I murmur, going back to what I was doing. Ruby’s sweet on my tongue, and I lick at her clit again as I gently move one finger to her lips, teasing her before I plunge it into her tight, hot channel.
The knock sounds again. It’s louder this time, and Ruby stills beneath me.
“Fuck off!” I shout. “I don’t want any!”
“Jax,” Ruby says, still panting for breath. “Maybe we should—”
They knock again, this time so hard that I can hear my door rocking on its hinges, and it’s not a weak door. I lift my head, looking at Ruby’s glorious body in front of me, furious at whoever’s trying to ruin this.
“Police! Open up!” they shout.
I quell the urge to shout fuck the police! I’ve still got Ruby’s thighs in both hands, but she’s twisted around, looking through my bedroom door and toward the front.
“Now!” they shout.
“Jax, you should go,” Ruby whispers.
Clenching my jaw, I stand from the bed, unwilling. I’d stay quiet but I’m afraid they’ll break down the door if I don’t answer them, and then I’ll never get to finish eating Ruby out.
“Stay here,” I tell her as I pull on my pants, not bothering with my boxers. “Just like that.”
She gives me a smile, but I can tell she’s rattled. I pull on a plaid shirt as I make my way to my front door, still barefoot, Ruby’s juices still on my lips. I lick them off as I open the door to find two officers, a man and a woman.
“Jackson Stuart?” the man asks, holding up a badge.
I give it a long look before I respond.
“Can I help you?” I ask curtly.
“Mind if we come in?”
“I do, in fact.”
“Sir, we need to—”
“It’s about Ruby Dawson,” the female cop butts in from behind him. The male cop’s jaw works for a moment, and I can tell he’s not happy about the interruption, but he doesn’t say anything.
“What about her?” I ask.
“We believe that she may be in considerable danger,” the male cop says before the female cop can say anything. “And given that she left the hospital late last night with a man matching your description, we have reason to believe she’s here.”
Considerable danger?
His eyes flick briefly to my lips, where I can still taste her. I’m sure it’s obvious what I’ve been doing.
Behind him, the female cop nods once, and my heartbeat picks up speed. I have a flash of memory about the night before — Viper going through the open window in Grandma Flo’s house before I could get him, when I went to Ruby instead.
He’s still out there.
He could be anywhere.
My jaw tightens. I’ll kill him if he tries anything else, and that’s not an empty threat.
“All right,” I relent. “Come in.”
Chapter Eight
Ruby
“But why me?” I ask, clutching my mug in front of me like it’s a shield. “The Iron Diablos must have tons of enemies.”
The male cop, who introduced himself as Officer Dennison, just shrugs.
“Perhaps this is a straw-that-broke-the-camel’s-back situation,” he says.
“Our informant in the Diablos tells us that Eugene Thiel — that’s Viper — has been increasingly unstable as of late,” Officer Brazza says, her voice low and soothing. “He doesn’t know why, but he does know that Mr. Thiel is very dangerous right now. I’m afraid you picked the wrong time to turn him down.”
“You mean he picked the wrong time to proposition me,” I say hotly. “I was just eating a cheeseburger.”
“Of course,” Officer Brazza says. “Sorry.”
Before I can ruminate any further on why anyone’s acting like this is my fault, Jax puts one big hand on my knee, squeezing it reassuringly.
“Ruby will need protection,” he says.
The officers nod.
“She’s staying here,” Jax goes on.
I turn my head incredulously. It’s a nice offer, and God knows I’d like to finish what we started earlier, but I can’t stay here. Jax has already protected me enough — I can’t ask him to put himself in danger any more than he already has.
“I can’t,” I tell him. “I’ll go home, they’ll put an officer outside my dad’s house —”
“No,” he says flatly.
I raise both my eyebrows at him, taken aback. Jax’s frown deepens.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he goes on, his voice gentler now. “I know the Iron Diablos, because I pour their whiskey and listen to their bullshit every night. I know how they operate, and most importantly, I know how to take any of them down.”
I look away, worrying my lip.
“Besides, they don’t know you’re here,” Jax says.
“They could have followed us from the hospital,” I point out.
“They didn’t,” he says. “If they had, do you think we’d be having this conversation right now?”
He has a point.
“I guess not,” I say, acquiescing. “But…”
I trail off, because I don’t really have any good arguments, even though I get distracted by the fact that the Diablos are apparently still out to get me, just because I turned down an offer of gross bathroom sex from one of their members.
Besides, there’s one more very good argument in favor of me staying here, and it’s the slowly dulling ache between my legs, driving me almost to distraction. I feel like I still haven’t fully realized what’s going on, partly because I’m finding it hard to think about anything but Jax, on the bed, between my legs as he flicked his tongue lazily over my clit…
“Do you know how long I’ll be staying here?” I ask the officers, who shake their heads.
“Not long,” the man says. “We’ve got some good leads on Thiel already.”
As soon as the police leave, Jax shuts the door, then takes my face in both his face and looks deeply into my eyes. I tilt my face up so he can kiss me, but for a long moment, all he does is look at me.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Ruby,” he says. “I swear it.”
I put my hands over his so our fingers are intertwined.
“I know you won’t,” I say, because I believe him, and I believe that no matter what happens, I’m safe here with this man.
He kisses me deeply, his tongue exploring my mouth and probing at my own. We kiss for a long time, hands and fingers intertwining, leaving me utterly breathless by the time he’s finished.
“Now that’s settled,” he says, the hint of a smile returning to his face. “I believe we have unfinished business.”
Before I can even think, he’s picked me up and slung me over his shoulder, and he takes me back into the bedroom and tosses me on the bed.
Then I come twice on his tongue and once on his fingers before he lets me anywhere near his magnificent cock.
We don’t hear from the police again that day. Grandma Flo is released from the hospital and goes to stay with my dad, and they’re both still worried about me, but the police reassure them I’m in the best hands possible.
Which is true.
I don’t know what’s come over me, but I can’t stop touching Jax. It’s like the danger of being ambushed at Grandma’s house released some sort of insatiable need deep inside me, and I just happened to get stuck with him.
The thing is, he doesn’t seem to mind. A few hours after he eats me out when the police leave, he hoists me onto the kitchen counter and does it again.
It’s even better the second time.
I fall asleep easily that night, in Jax’s bed, Jax’s arms around me. It’s completely quiet except for the hush of the wind through the pine trees that surround his cabin — different from the suburban noises of my dad’s house. It seems like back home there’s always someone revving an engine or a dog barking, but here it’s utterly peaceful and still.
I could get used to this. All of it.
In the morning, I wake up before the sun rises. One minutes I’m deeply asleep, not even dreaming, and the next, bam. Fully awake, like it’s ten in the morning and I’ve already had a double-shot espresso on the way to my first class.
I roll over, stretching. Jax is still next to me, one huge hand on my stomach, still asleep, his face softer now, his eyes flicking back and forth beneath his eyelids.
I examine him for a long, long moment in the gray not-yet-sunrise light. I can already pick out a few silver streaks through his hair and beard, a few shallow lines around his eyes.
None of it makes him any less handsome. If anything, it makes him look… dignified, weathered. Rugged.
Frankly, it’s kind of hot. I have no idea how old Jax is and I’ve never asked — until yesterday, he was just someone I saw every so often, someone who I had wild, won’t-ever-happen fantasies about.
You didn’t tell him you were a virgin, I think.
Something tightens in my stomach. It’s not that I mind being a virgin — I just haven’t had sex yet, it’s no big deal — but I don’t really know if someone like Jax is going to be interested. I’m sure he’s more experienced than me, but what if he doesn’t want to have to show me the ropes?