“I knew there was nothing out there that was better for her than me. She just had to figure it out on her own.”

He snorted. “You are such an arrogant bastard, Gates. I’m outta here. Keep me posted on what’s happening with the club. I’ll call Stark and have him swing by and grab all the files you have on the club members and the employees from Chuck. I’m just a little bit glad you aren’t dead.” He turned to leave the kitchen and called over his shoulder when I could no longer see him, “And I’m locking your goddamn door for you on my way out.”

His spot across the island was taken up by a much prettier sight. She was wearing one of my shirts and nothing else, and even though her bright red hair was standing up all over her head like artificial flames, she was still the most beautiful thing in the world.

“You want to eat?”

She nodded sleepily and yawned. When she stretched her arms up above her head, I wanted to pull the island out of the ground with my bare hands to get a glimpse of how high the shirt rode up on her legs.

“How’s your head?” Her voice was still thick with sleep and it made my dick twitch and my skin get tight.

“It was doing okay until Race started complaining about the trials and tribulations of raising a teenager.”

She laughed a little and I felt it all the way in my gut. I decided maybe man could live on mind-blowing sex alone because I was far hungrier for her than I was for food. I moved the pan off the heat and prowled toward her.

“I thought we were gonna eat.”

I grinned at her and made sure it showed all of my teeth. “Oh, we are.” After all, I had been starving for her for years. Now it was time to have my fill.

Chapter 11

Keelyn

Every dirty thing we’d long denied each other was alive in his smile as he started toward me. Stripped of his armor of typically fancy duds and broken down to his most basic parts, Nassir was so much more dangerous. This was real. The man underneath the artifice—he was beautiful and ferocious. Raw, open, and completely unpolished.

Maybe it was the scars that liberally dotted every inch of his exposed chest. Maybe it was the sprawling canvas of black ink that covered his back from the base of his neck to the top of his perfectly sculpted ass. Maybe it was the ripple of muscle as he prowled toward me like a big, uncaged predator. Maybe it was the way his odd-colored eyes sparked and popped at me like hot embers. Maybe it was his too long hair and the way it contrasted with the stark white bandage still taped on the side of his neck. Really I knew it was all those things that made Nassir who he was, and they had my skin pebbling up and anxiety mixing with leftover and lazy desire in my blood. I sucked in a breath and did what I always did when I wasn’t sure how to handle everything he was throwing my way.

I ran.

I pushed away from the kitchen counter and bolted toward the living room and the stairway that led up to the side of the house that was opposite his room. It was always fight or flight with him, not that it mattered which option I went with. Fight led to exhausting myself trying to wear him down while he stayed impenetrable, and flight led to him chasing after me until I was caught and had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t sure I ever really wanted to win or get away from him in the first place, at least not anymore, but that didn’t mean I was ever going to make him stop working to have any part of me.

I was almost to the top of the stairs when his hands landed on my hips and his hold sent me to my knees on the hard wooden surface. I put my hands out to catch myself from falling forward, which left me on my hands and knees in front of him as he leaned forward and coiled his hand in the fire-colored hair at the back of my head. He was gentle about it, and that had my tummy twisting up and my breath rushing out of my lungs.

His lips were soft when they landed near my cheek as he growled at me, “I’m always going to come after you, Key. It doesn’t matter how fast you run or how far you go. I’m always going to be right behind you.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a threat or a promise, but hearing him say he would never stop coming after me was more of a turn-on than the fact that he worked his hands around to the shirt I had borrowed from his ridiculously massive closet and tore the front of it open, sending buttons bouncing all over the place and sailing down to the first floor.

I looked over my shoulder at him with a lifted eyebrow. “That’s going to piss your bitchy housekeeper off.”

He grunted a response, pulling the fabric off of me, leaving me naked and prone before him as he worked his hands around the front of me so that each of my breasts was trapped in his callused palms. The rough brush of his skin across my sensitive nipples had me drawing in a sharp breath and curling my hands around the edge of the step in front of me. It wasn’t the most comfortable position to be in—the stairs were hard under my knees and I was arched at an awkward angle—but with him standing a few steps below me and looking at me like he was going to devour me in one gulp, I wasn’t in any hurry to ask him to let me up.

He squeezed each breast and shifted his hands so that each nipple was trapped between his index and middle fingers. He pinched the puckered peaks with enough force that it had me sucking in air between my teeth in a mixture of pleasure and pain that was strong enough to make my head spin. His lips landed on the back of my neck and the scrape of his stubble across my skin had my spine bowing up in response. That was a hot spot for me and he was taking full advantage of the fact that I was immobile and pliant in front of him. His talented tongue dragged a wet path all the way to the center of my spine, which had me shivering in delight and mewling in almost protest as his hands got even more impatient on my breasts. It was a fine line between too much and just enough to make it hurt so good, and Nassir was walking it like a pro.

He bent forward again and I felt his heat envelop me. The shirt I had on was suddenly too much and I wanted it out of the way so I could feel all his smooth skin and hard physique pressed along me. “I like you like this.” He let go of one of my nipples and the sudden blood flow into the previously trapped peak made my eyes slam shut. He brushed his thumb along the underside of my breast and let his fingers dance and skip across my quivering stomach toward my already slick and wanting center.

“On my hands and knees? Who doesn’t want a girl in that position for them?” I meant to ask it sarcastically but he stopped to trace my belly button with his finger and my words came out sounding thin and breathy instead. Just that simple little caress had passion sparking white-hot inside me. I’d never experienced anything like it. My sexual experience was vast and varied. There wasn’t much I hadn’t tried or been interested in at one time or another, but nothing and no one came close to igniting the kind of response this man did. It was like my entire being had been waiting for him to come along and show me what it really meant to want, to need.