Unbeautifully

CHAPTER TWELVE

I hated lockdown. Every single one had always completely sucked.

Brothers, their old ladies, their kids, young and old, all piled inside the club, filling up every nook and cranny. There was no seat unoccupied, no bed not taken, and in a warehouse roughly the size of a department store, most of which was used for locked storage, there wasn’t a whole lot of room.

But this time…

It was day four of prison by Hell’s Horsemen association and there wasn’t anywhere else on earth that I wanted to be other than right there, locked up in a crowded, overheated building…with Ripper.

Seated at the U-shaped bar, my elbows on the counter, chin propped in my hands, I was watching Ripper move across the room. He was shirtless, barefoot, wearing only his half-buttoned leathers and his cut. His blond hair was pulled back mid-skull in a messy ponytail and a cigarette dangled from his lips. My gaze traveled down his big body, lingering on the trail of blond hair that disappeared inside his pants, and my heart started beating faster.

I’d never been so intensely attracted to a man before, never felt so aroused in all of my life, and it wasn’t just when he was touching me, it was all the time. All I had to do was think about being with him, and I was crossing my legs and squeezing my thighs together.

He was an incredibly beautiful man. The scars just forced you to look a little harder to see what was still there, and what was still there was the squared, strong bone structure of a Greek god, the heavily muscled stature of a boxer, and a deviously sexy smile.

We’d spent the past three days sneaking off together, deftly avoiding the club security cameras, and finding secret places to be together. The kitchen pantry, the communal showers, the shed behind the clubhouse…

I was waiting for Ripper’s signal, eagerly anticipating day four of being together.

“This sucks,” Tegen pouted, walking up next to me and folding her arms across her chest. Startled out of my Ripper stare-a-thon, I glanced over at her and winced.

Even her attempt at dressing like a girl had somehow gone hideously wrong. Her plain black sundress hung loosely on her, the straps had fallen off her shoulders revealing two white bra straps, she’d spilled something on the skirt of the dress earlier and hadn’t bothered to wipe it off, and…I looked down at her feet. She was wearing flip-flops. Not cute, stylish ones but a plain pair of black foam flip-flops that I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing, not even at the beach.

“What does he see in those fucking sluts?” Tegen hissed.

Knowing she was talking about Cage, I started rolling my eyes until I saw where she was looking. It wasn’t just Cage talking to a pair of club whores, it was Cage and Ripper. I shot into an upright position. He wasn’t giving me the signal because he was too busy talking to…those whores?

Jealousy swamped me, followed closely by panic. He’d lied. He was still interested in other women and here I was forced to sit and watch it happen right in front of me, just like Dorothy had to watch Jase with his wife while she pined for him from afar. Oh god, I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t be an old lady or, even worse, a secret old lady that no one knew about.

Without warning he glanced my way, a small smile on his face that instantly fell the minute we locked eyes. I bit down on my bottom lip and attempted to school my expression, hoping my inner turmoil wasn’t showing through.

I knew I’d failed when his eyes narrowed.

The next thing I knew Ripper was crossing the room, heading toward the bar, toward me. Taking the space to the left of me, he leaned forward, placing his forearms on the counter top. I went rigid, suddenly completely at a loss as to what I should be doing with myself, where I should be looking. God, I didn’t even know what to do with my hands or how I should be sitting. He’d made a point to never be less than twenty feet away from me, and this new development had caught me completely off guard.

“Yo,” he said, nodding at ZZ who, as usual, was playing bartender while he kept an eye on the security monitors.

ZZ lifted his chin. “Tequila?”

“Naw, dude, gimme a brew.”

Nodding, ZZ reached below the bar and pulled a bottle of beer from one of the small refrigerators underneath. Popping the cap off on the bar, he handed it to Ripper, who took a prolonged swallow during which I moved my hands from the bar to my lap and back to the bar again. Twice.

“Uh, are you okay?” Tegen asked, eyeing me queerly. The expression on her face clearly showed that she thought I’d completely lost my mind.

I nodded jerkily. “Yes.”

Her nose wrinkled. “Yeah, sure. So, you’re suddenly acting like you have Tourette’s for no good reason?”

I glared at her. Just because I wasn’t dressed like a secondhand clothing reject who’d had her hair done by an electrical socket, and didn’t pout in corners staring at a guy who’d never give me a second glance, didn’t mean she had to hate on me.

“I’m fine,” I gritted out.

“Right,” she muttered. “Fine, whatever, no need to give me your prissy angry face.”

I gaped at her, furious, Ripper’s close vicinity instantly forgotten. Who did she think she was?

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Why can’t you ever just be…normal?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Normal?” she asked, her tone scathing. “What the fuck is normal, Danny? This? The club? My mom crying in the corner, staring at Jase and Chrissy? Or Adriana over there,” she said gesturing to where Mick’s wife was sitting. “She’s talking to her husband’s favorite club whore and she doesn’t even know it. Is that normal?”

Whether Tegen actually cared about the virtueless bikers and the lack of morality that went on inside the club was debatable. Her bad moods, as often as they were, nine times out of ten were usually related to only one biker. My brother. If she wasn’t angry, which was rare, she was just outright sad.

“Girls.”

Ripper’s voice was low but harsh and both our heads swiveled toward him. Using his bottle of beer, he gestured between us. “Lockdown’s wearin’ on everyone, yeah?”

Tegen sighed noisily. “If by wearing on us you mean driving us all to the brink of insanity from having to watch you all drink yourselves into oblivion, belch and fart and whore it up with whatever walks by, then yes, I’m a little worn.”

Both ZZ and Ripper burst out laughing. Leaning over the bar to ruffle her hair, ZZ grinned at her. “You’re one badass little motherfucker, you know that?”

She swatted at his arm, trying to duck away from his hand. “Piss off!” she yelled, throwing a stack of bar coasters across the bar, missing ZZ by several feet.

“Danny.”

Swallowing hard, I glanced over at Ripper.

“You’re thinkin’ again,” he said quietly. “And whatever you’re thinkin’ you really ain’t likin’.”

“I’m not,” I protested. “I’m totally, completely, one hundred percent fine.”

“You’re not,” he said. “You’re readin’ into shit you shouldn’t and makin’ up all sorts of crazy inside that head of yours.”

Damn him.

“Fine,” I hissed, slapping my hand down on the bar. “You want to know what I’m thinking about, I’ll tell you. I don’t like being a secret, that’s what. I don’t like that those stupid sluts can just walk up to you, thinking they can touch you. If they knew about me, that wouldn’t happen when I was around.”

Realizing what I’d just said, and that I’d said it not so quietly in a room full of people who would undoubtedly be interested to know why I was having such a personal conversation with Ripper, I slapped my hand over my mouth and shut my eyes in dismay.

When I braved looking up again, I found the club exactly as I’d left it. No one was paying me any attention, Tegen was still yelling at ZZ, Ripper was still beside me, still leaning over the bar, still looking right at me. Smiling.

“You tryin’ to tell me you’re my old lady, Danny?”

Yes.

“No,” I whispered and watched his smile turn into a full-fledged grin.

“Liar,” he whispered back.

“I hate you.”

“Liar.”

“Now I really hate you.”

Standing up straight, he slid his empty bottle across the bar toward ZZ, using the action to lean into me. “Five minutes,” he breathed over the top of my head. “Your room.”

Then he left me sitting there, staring after him, feeling like a complete moron for freaking out.

For the next five minutes I stayed where I was, my stomach fluttering with anticipation, watching the clock on the wall. After the longest five minutes of my entire life had gone by, I slid slowly out of my seat and began navigating through the groups of people. Once I’d cleared the hallway, filled with exhilaration and anticipation, I started running to where I knew he’d be waiting. My bedroom. I don’t know how he did it—avoid the cameras, somehow knowing where to step and how to time it so his entrance to my room wouldn’t be recorded—and I didn’t care. All that mattered was that he was there in my room waiting for me and I was—

I burst through my door and nearly crashed into him. Grabbing my arm, he swung me further inside and kicked the door shut with his boot, locking it quickly.

“Why do you do this shit?” he demanded, looking me up and down as he walked me backward.

“Do what?” I asked, playing dumb.

“You know what,” he muttered, shoving me backward, already unzipping his leathers.

I scooted backward over my bed, bunching my skirt up around my waist, then quickly wiggling out of my underwear.

“Shirt off,” he growled, staring at the bared lower half of my body, slowly stroking himself. I watched him touch himself, growing harder as he continued to gaze at what I was freely offering him, turning myself on by doing so.

Once my camisole was gone, Ripper took a long, leisurely look up and down my naked body, further propelling my hormones into overdrive.

“Don’t know why you’re thinkin’ I want club ass when I got all this waitin’ on me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I just…got jealous.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, using his body to push me onto my back again, then he was propping himself over top of me and pushing a finger up inside me. “I know.”

Moaning, I reached up, wrapped my arms around his neck, trying to pull him down to kiss me but he turned away.

“I wanna watch you,” he said softly, adding another finger.

Pure lust shot from the apex of my thighs and straight up my body, exploding in my stomach and lungs, making me shiver and clench tightly around his fingers.

The things this man made me feel just by speaking was unreal. At times I wanted to weep from the sheer sensation of never before experienced feelings that I knew had already wrecked me for any other man.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he muttered, increasing the speed of his finger thrusts.

“Are you going on the run to North Dakota?” I panted.

“No.”

“Mick said my father’s going once he gets back from New York.”

“Yeah…Danny?”

“Hmm?”

“Can we not talk about your old man right now?”

“But I was thinking…” I trailed off, breathless.

“Never good,” he muttered and added another finger.

My eyelids fluttered as I tried to stay on task.

“Eyes on me,” he growled.

“Mostly everyone is gonna be gone,” I whispered, trying to focus on his face. “So I was…oh my god…”

My orgasm hit me hard and for a moment I forgot all about what I was talking about. I’d never had an orgasm before Ripper, before that night at the lake, that hadn’t been a result of using my own hand. The difference between a self-induced orgasm and an orgasm given by a man is like comparing a rainy day and a rainstorm. Rain was a sure thing, you knew exactly what you were going to get: a clean and crisp, both sweet and refreshing experience. But rainstorms were unpredictable, they were riddled with surprises, messy and wet; they were something you had no control over.

Rainstorms brought you to your knees, soaking you in uncontrollable need, lightning flashing before your eyes while you dug your fingers deep into the earth, trying to hold on; unable to tell which was louder…the thunder roaring in your ears or the pounding of your heart.

Ripper was my rainstorm, my skin-drenching frenzy, where you couldn’t tell right from left, where all you could feel was the phenomenon exploding throughout your body, feverishly burning through you even as it pleasurably cooled.

I came back to awareness as he rolled me onto my stomach and lifted my hips.

“You were thinking?” he asked, laughing softly as he positioned himself at my entrance.

I had to work fast. He was nearly inside me and once he was moving inside me, all would be lost.

“That we could spend a couple days together at your house and—”

I cried out as he slammed inside of me and his hand slapped down across my mouth.

“Shh,” he whispered, pulling out of me only to slam back inside. I cried out again, this time the sound mostly muffled by his hand, only to end up crying out again and again as his body repeatedly met mine, harder and faster and harder still until I was screaming against his hand, another orgasm pulsing through my already over-sensitized flesh.

Flipping me over, he slid back inside of me, but before I could react, his tongue shot out, stealing all sound from my mouth and the breath from my lungs and we kissed and kissed, faster and harder, as he worked my body into a needy hysteria, leaving me begging to be sated.

…And he did just that.

Staring down at me, Ripper was growling—honest-to-god throaty growls were erupting from deep within his chest, vibrating against my breasts, and I was pretty sure it was the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard in my entire life—as I stared up at him feeling…

Just feeling.

I felt dizzy, drunk with need, and beautiful and wanted and alive.

I never wanted it to end.

• • •

“Goddamn,” Ripper groaned, feeling his orgasm closing in. “Good goddamn, Danielle.”

“Oh my god,” Danny panted, grinding her hips upward into him, grabbing at him, driving him fucking nuts with how crazy into him she was. “Oh my god…”

His grip on her hair and ass tightened. “Gonna…come…baby, gonna…”

Biting down on Danny’s lower lip, he swallowed her whimpers and cries as he finished hard, still thrusting.

He waited there a moment, still deep inside of her, watching her beautiful blue eyes blink up at him, her nostrils flare with heavy, needy breaths, felt the moisture of her mouth against his.

When his breathing had returned to normal, he pulled out of her, watching while her soaked pussy clenched, as everything he’d just released inside of her began sliding out onto her pink comforter. No matter how perversely narcissistic, it was hands down the hottest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.

And fucking without a condom. Fuck him, it felt so damn good, wasn’t anything he’d ever done before or been able to do with the dirty bitches who hung around the club. But with Danny he wasn’t worried; the girl was clean, an idiot with half a brain would know that, and she was on the pill. Which apparently was some big, bad secret that only she and Eva knew about and after telling him, made him promise not to spill the beans to Deuce or Cage.

Yeah. Right. That was the first thing that had gone through his head. Tell the brother and father of the bitch I’m fucking that she’s secretly on birth control.

Sure… Maybe if he had a death wish.

Rolling off her he fell onto his back beside her. “Jesus,” he muttered, staring up at the ceiling. “That was—”

“Awesome?” she suggested.

He glanced over at her and smirked.

“It is always like this?” She sighed happily, smiling at him. “So…so…sexalicious?”

He almost laughed but a wave of realization knocked him straight on his metaphorical ass. No. It wasn’t always like this. It wasn’t ever like this.

Sex had never been this goddamn good before.

“Because the other guy I—”

“No,” he growled, frowning at her. The last thing he wanted to think about was some asshat up inside what was his. “It ain’t ever like this.”

Her smile widened. “Then we got lucky,” she whispered.

Ripper stared at her, feeling all kinds of weird shit happening inside of him, shit that was going down a whole lot faster than it should be, shit that should be scaring the ever-loving crap out of him.

But it wasn’t.

“Yeah, baby,” he whispered back, pulling her into the crook of his arm. “We sure as fuck did.”

“So, can we go to your house?” she asked, kissing her way up his chest.

Threading his fingers through a handful of her hair, he closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of her mouth on him. His house? His house, or rather his one-bedroom cabin in the middle of the mountains, was his sanctuary. Where he went when he couldn’t take one more second of the bullshit always surrounding the club, the constant noise, people always coming and going.

Cupping the back of her head, he kissed her hard. “We’ll talk about it later,” he muttered against her mouth as he debated on whether he wanted to fuck her doggy first and then have her ride him, or make her ride him first and then flip her onto her knees. “Got more important things to do right now and not a whole lot of time.”