“Clubhouse is the safest place in town,” I said.
Nitro looked at us in the mirror. “I’ll drop you around back. We’ll skip the introductions for now.”
We passed the club’s entrance, where two police cars were pulling in. Damron stood out front, his eyes following the car as we passed.
“I can’t be caught here,” Catherine said. “A federal judge hold up in an outlaw clubhouse?”
Nitro stopped at the back entrance, and we got out. I moved by Catherine and punched in a code on the keypad next to the door. “After you,” I said and followed Catherine inside. I opened the second door on the right and we stepped into my room.
“Does everyone have a room like this?” Catherine walked around the room, looking at pictures, touching a gun on a desk that had seen better days, and sat on my bed.
I locked the door and crossed my arms, leaning against the wall as I watched her. I saw a woman maybe too good for me. A woman who actually knew what she wanted. Or, did she?
“Do you have a shower?” Catherine asked.
I pointed at the door behind her. “I could see if any of the girls have clothes that will fit.”
Catherine chuckled. “No thanks.”
I watched her move from the bed, not bothering to dress as she moved toward the bathroom. She turned at the door and smiled.
I didn’t move as she entered the bathroom and started the shower. When the water met her perfect temperature, she climbed inside. I waited only a few minutes before entering the bathroom. I pushed back the shower door, Catherine’s eyes wide, ready, animal-like.
She faced me through the fog and falling spray. Her body was soft and bruised. The shower stall was barely big enough for two, so when I stepped in, the glass steamed instantly, sealing us in a private world. She didn’t cover herself, just looked me in the eye and waited to see how I’d move.
I wanted to be gentle, but there was too much adrenaline, too many close calls in too few hours. I grabbed her by the hips and pinned her to the cold tile, feeling the shudder of her bones through muscle. The water hammered down, flattening her hair and soaking us both, streaking away the dried blood and dust. Ipressed my mouth to her neck and tasted salt and iron, the flavor of survival. My dick surged, pressing against her stomach.
She pushed back, not away but into me, her hands raking up my arms, finding the fresh scrapes and clutching hard enough to flare the pain. I liked it. I liked the way she fought for control, even here. She twisted, and now I was the one flush against the wall, shower burning a line between my shoulder blades. Her mouth found mine, biting first, then softening. She was wet and hot and angry, and I wanted every piece of her.
I grabbed her ass, lifted her easily, and she wrapped her legs around my waist. Her core was still warm even under the water, slick and ready for anything I gave her. My cock was already hard, pulsing between us, and when I pressed her up, she moaned a sound that vibrated my ribs. I rubbed the head against her, teasing her with just the tip, dragging it along her slit until she was gasping and cursing me in Italian. I lined up and pressed in slow. The heat of her, the unyielding muscle, the desperate clutch around me—it worked every nerve in my body. I bucked, and she hit the tile hard, palms splayed, teeth bared. Even then, she didn’t ask for mercy. She asked for more.
She reached between us, fingers searching under the curve of my balls until she found what she wanted. She squeezed, then ran a slick hand over my shaft, guiding it deeper. I bottomed out, her body taking the full length, and she hissed something that would have made a lesser man recoil. I wasn’t lesser. I was the animal.
She braced herself against the grab bar, footing slippery, hair in her eyes, and rode me with a violence that bordered on self-destruction. The water blasted down, drowning out my grunts, her growls, the slap of skin. Her nails dug into my shoulders, hard enough to draw new blood, and she left a crescent roadmap along the meat of my back.
I felt her core tense, pulse, then clench in a round of spasms, tight as a vice. I felt every ripple, every convulsion, and slammed her harder into the wall. She let out a choked gasp that was half pleasure, half fury, and then shoved me back and dropped to her knees, water cascading over both of us. She stroked my cock with both hands, twisting, squeezing, bringing her lips down around the head, and working me with a practiced, desperate rhythm. She gagged herself a few times, spit mixing with the shower spray, eyes locked on mine, and I almost lost it right then.
But she was a sadist in her own way. She jerked me to the edge, then stood, turned, and shoved her ass back against me, one foot braced up on the ledge. She looked over her shoulder, hair plastered to her face, and said in that perfectly calm, judicial voice, “You want the truth? Fuck me like you mean it.” Her voice broke on the last word, and it was the only permission I’d ever need.
I slammed into her asshole, tight and hot, my hands on her hips, driving her forward until her cheek pressed flat against the clammy tile. I could have sworn she was trying not to cry out, but every thrust drew a shudder from her, every bottom-out made the glass vibrate in its frame. She reached up, fingers squeaking down the fogged surface, searching for a grip or a hold or maybe just something to prove she was still in control. I wasn’t going to let her have it.
I pulled her back, arched her spine, and found her clit with my left hand, working it back and forth, admiring the way she worked through the pain of having my cock in her ass. She grunted once, twice, and then her whole body relaxed.
She came with a hoarse, half-swallowed scream, full body shuddering like I’d just electrocuted her on low amperage. I followed her over, the pleasure rough and perfect, draining me to the knees. For a second, I let my head rest against hers, bothof us panting, the spray cooling the fire radiating. I didn’t come but my cock throbbed as if I’d fucked her for hours.
She began to sob, with me behind her on the shower floor. She moved forward, sat up, and hugged her legs, burying her face in her hands.
And that’s when I realized nothing between us would ever work. Our worlds were too different.
Chapter twelve
Catherine
Seneca lent me a shirt that smelled faintly of him. He kept the cut for himself, and I caught the gleam of the Bloody Scythe patch every time he moved his arm. I tried not to read into it, but I could feel the silent branding. He’d explained to me that the cut was more than a piece of clothing. It was a bond. A binding of men loyal to one another.
The clubhouse looked like every bad idea I’d ever entertained. The place was alive, pulsing. Every head turned when we entered. The music—something hard and relentless—stuttered to a halt. For a second, I imagined myself as they saw me: barefoot, wearing a man’s shirt and nothing else, hair wet, face still bruised from the night before. A hundred hours on the bench, and it took one second in a biker bar to remind me of every vulnerability I ever had.
One of the pool players set his cue down, approached. He was big, built like he could deadlift a Harley, hair clipped high and tight. Tattoos spidered up his arms, over his throat, across the knuckles. His eyes were sharp, but not dead. He looked at me first, then at Seneca.
