Page 12 of The Kings of Kearny

The world tilted as he set me down on the bed. I sank into the mattress, his added weight pushing me deeper. God, I’d missed this. The feel of warm skin beneath my hands. The sight of a man rising above me. I hadn’t had sex since before I’d moved to town, and four months of abstinence had left me hypersensitive to touch.

I shivered as his hands slid up my arms, his calluses deliciously rough against my skin. I’d braided my long hair to keep it out of my face while I worked, and he coiled it around his wrist and then clamped his fingers down on a section close to the base of my neck, using his grip to tug my head sideways. His beard tickled when his lips hit my neck.

I shivered again, harder this time, a familiar ache building between my thighs. This wasn’t enough. There were too many layers between us, and I wanted to be skin to skin with him. I reached down and tugged at the hem of his T-shirt. He let me go and pushed off the mattress, kneeling between my legs as he pulled his shirt over his head.

I was torn between wanting to launch myself at him and wanting to stay right where I was and stare at him for a while. The man was absolutely jacked, but he didn’t look like one of those testosterone-fueled monstrosities you sometimes see in weight rooms. He was leaner, meaner.Dense.There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. His was the kind of physique that came from constant exertion. I knew through the grapevine that he belonged to a local mixed martial arts gym. He must have been in the dojo six days a week to look like this.

The tattoos didn’t stop at his arms. They marched right up his shoulders and down his chest, covering his pecs. The contrast between the dark ink and his pale skin was striking in the dim light of his bedroom, and because he was so fair, it was impossible to miss the scars. On his lower right side, the telltale mark of a gunshot wound stood out. The tattoos covered it, but I saw a similar indentation on his right pec that might have been another one. There was a dark line across his left ribs from the kind of slicing wound a knife would make. It was still pink and angry-looking, like the stitches hadn’t come out that long ago. Several more scars dotted his torso, varying in color because of their age.

The Kings of Kearny weren’t what I would call a peaceful bunch, and with other gangs and motorcycle clubs within striking distance, violence was always in the cards. It was impossible to tell if Jakob had earned the majority of his scars while still in the military or after he was discharged. I wasn’t going to ask. Ultimately, the answer to that question didn’t matter right now, and it would ruin the mood.

Instead of interrogating him, I pulled my shirt off. Thank God I’d gone into tonight hoping to end it beneath him. I’d shaved before leaving my house and had the foresight to slip on one of my nicer bra-and-panty sets. Nina and I had been spending our days off loitering at my apartment complex’s pool, and the red lace popped against my suntan.

Jakob’s gaze drifted from my bra down over my stomach and landed on the waistband of my jeans. He reached out and unbuttoned them with a practiced flick of his fingers. “Tell me it’s a matching set.”

I stretched beneath him like a cat. “It’s a matching set.”

He let out a low grunt and slid my zipper down. This was usually the part of the night where I stopped my potential partner and warned them about my leg. The kind of injuries I’d sustained, paired with the surgeries that followed it, left gnarly scars. And not just thin slashes of red running across my skin like the worst of what Jakob seemed to have. I had chunks missing where metal had cleaved through muscle, permanent mesh patterns from the skin grafts I’d needed, and Frankensteinian marks where my body had been held together by staples.

I didn’t think I needed to warn Jakob. He had his own litany of past injuries, and as a King and fellow vet, he must have seen his fair share of life-threatening wounds, both fresh and healed. Still, I couldn’t stomach the thought of watching his face twist in disgust as he took my leg in for the first time, like one of my past, aborted one-night stands had.

“The leg is pretty bad,” I said.

He gripped the top of my jeans and tugged, shucking them down over my ass. His eyes came up to mine slowly, like he didn’t want to look away from my panties. “So?”

I let out a sharp exhale.

So.

Bless the man for sounding like he gave absolutely no fucks.

“I thought I’d warn you in case you were squeamish,” I said.

He didn’t say anything to that, just tugged my jeans down lower, pausing when he realized I was still wearing my shoes. I swore and started to kick them off. Several heartbeats later, we were both naked. Neither of us had the patience to strip each other down and slowly savor every inch of freshly revealed skin. That wasn’t what this was. Instead, we ripped our own clothes off in quick, jerky movements.

He pulled a condom from the pocket of his jeans before dropping them to the floor. I was neither offended at the assumption nor surprised he had one so readily available. If I looked like Jakob Larson, I’d keep all four pockets stuffed full of them at all times with a spare pack strapped to my ankle like a backup gun.

I braced myself up on my elbows so I could see more of him. He tore the condom open, and I dropped my gaze and watched him roll the rubber on. His dick was big like the rest of him and thick enough that I’d worry about having to take things slow if I wasn’t already soaked.

Jakob chucked the wrapper aside and then paused, his gaze running over my right leg. One shoulder rose in a lazy shrug. “I’ve seen worse.”

I dropped my eyes to his left thigh where a noticeable divot in his flesh and thick, ropey scarring showed me that he was missing a small chunk of muscle himself.

He paused, noticing my line of sight. “Still want to fuck me?”

I let out a shaky breath. “God, yes.”

“Good.”

He slapped my left knee and then jerked his head in a silent command to roll away from him. I might have been irritated if I didn’t realize what he was doing. He wanted to take me from behind with me lying on my right side because that position would require the least amount of movement from my aching leg.

Great. Just when I’d convinced myself that this would be a one-time-only thing, Jakob had to go and be sneaky nice.

I shifted onto my side. The mattress dipped behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and nearly stopped breathing. The sight of Jakob stalking toward me across the bed was something I knew I would never, ever forget. The graceful, almost lazy way his huge, muscular body moved was damn near inhuman, all rolling sinew and languorous power. Somehow the reality of being with him was already better than the hundreds of fantasies I’d had of us together, and we hadn’t even done more than kiss.

My inner muscles clenched in anticipation as he slid into place behind me. He gripped my shoulder and turned me a little, just enough that he could sear his mouth over mine like a brand.

“You are mine,”his kiss said.

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