Which made me continue to stare at him.
Essence had told him her Woodstock orgy story on first meeting, and he’d grabbed my hand and dragged me out the door to get to her not even knowing there was a dead body that involved me on the street outside her house.
He just thought something was wrong with Essence, he grabbed me, and he booked.
“Rebel?” he called.
I said nothing.
Just kept staring at him.
Because it wasn’t even just that.
When he and his brothers took me to that cabin, he’d told me he knew Diesel was bi.
He’d talked of Diesel and Maddox and Molly since. So had I.
He agreed hate was a burden.
He was a biker dating a woman whose brother loved and intended to commit to a man.
And Rush hadn’t said anything. He hadn’t even given me a facial expression to share he was not down in some way with that.
It was what it was. It was how Diesel was. Essence was how Essence was.
And for Rush, that was it.
I grew up in Indiana, and one could not say every citizen in that state had some prejudice, great or small. A lot of folks were awesome.
One could say it was far from the most tolerant state in the union.
And my house was one of the least tolerant ones I knew.
I grew up listening to vile, venomous shit about blacks, gays, Mexicans, Muslims, hippies, and it went on. Hell, my father and Gunner had written off the entire state of California as liberal losers and wouldn’t have a problem if they seceded from the union.
Rush didn’t just buy his date potato chips and fry fantastic hamburgers for her. (And not once had I seen my father cook a meal for my mother, even though he refused to allow her to grill steak because she “ruined meat,” even though she never ruined his chops, burgers, cutlets or meatloaf, just that grilling was “man’s work”—the asshole.) Rush was more.
So much more.
He was the real deal.
I came out of my thoughts when Rush’s hand wrapped warm around mine and gave it a squeeze.
When I focused on those eyes—those insanely beautiful eyes—he asked, “Where are you now?”
“I don’t wanna watch TV,” I whispered.
His hand tightened further on mine.
I twisted my fingers so I could tighten them on his too.
Then I slid off my stool, holding on to him, but now tugging him.
He came around the counter.
It was me who led us to his stairs.
Up them.
To his bedroom.
He’d admitted during the tour that not only were the framed photographs of his family and his brothers that were dotted around the house the product of his little sister and stepmother interfering with his décor, but together they’d picked his bedclothes.
When I met them, I’d congratulate them on a job well done.
The sheets were a slate gray, they had a sheen, so they not only were masculine and attractive but looked expensive.
His comforter was swirls of dark blues and grays with some chocolate brown thrown in, and it was manly but smart and crazy appealing.
They’d given him euros with shams that were on the floor. And the comforter was askew because he clearly didn’t make his bed, just threw the covers back.
But on that low, contemporary, mattress-only king-size bed with its short headboard that looked covered in black python, those sheets were the shit.
I thought this during the tour.
After I walked him into his own room, I just turned to him, ready to get busy in that bed.
He put his hands to my hips and kept me walking, just backwards.
Toward the bed.
And all of a sudden, I felt weird.
I didn’t have hang-ups about sex.
I did, back in the beginning. A woman didn’t grow up in the house I grew up in and not have hang-ups about sex.
I left two days after my nineteenth birthday, and although I’d gone back, I never looked back, and after I found a few good lovers who guided my way, I found my way past that.
But there were women (and men) who would say I could stand to take off a few pounds.
And it had been a while, what with Diane being killed and me going undercover in the porn industry.
Then there was me going undercover in the porn industry.
But most of all . . .
This was different.
I knew it.
This wasn’t just sex.
This wasn’t taking on a new lover.
This was Rush.
And I knew from what I’d already had of him this meant something.
And if this didn’t go well, if I did something to make it not go well, that would be very, very bad.
He was still walking me backwards to the bed, his hands smoothing over my dress at my hips, his eyes aimed there.
Okay, that was hot.
“Rush,” I whispered.
It was hotter that, at my call, his head snapped right up and his eyes, already starting to haze over with the promise of sex, snapped to attention.
On me.
“Okay?” he asked.
I could stop what we were doing, what I’d promised when I led him there, and tell him I changed my mind. I wanted to watch TV.
I could have another meltdown.
Another dead body could turn up.
Whatever.
He’d be with me, however it went down.
I hesitated a step, he didn’t, and I did this so our bodies could collide.
When they did, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.
“Okay,” I answered.
Those gemstone eyes flared right before he bent his head and kissed me.
This was right before my calves hit the bed and we went down.
I rolled him, still kissing him, and straddled him.
The pads of his fingers dug into my waist.
I dove my fingers into his thick hair.
I’d been right that first night when he’d hijacked me.
That hair begged for my fingers to be buried in it.
I broke our kiss and went after his throat.
He had a beautiful throat and I’d wanted my mouth on it since I’d first noticed it.
So I took that, gliding my lips down, and up, then my tongue along it, to the dent in his collarbone.
I did this unbuttoning his shirt.
He’d worn a nice, dark-blue button-down that highlighted his eyes.
Biker date gear.
I liked it. I liked the effort he took to look nice for our date in a way he was still Rush.
But that shirt had to go.
Two buttons in, I let my mouth trail down.
Another button, and down.
His skin was warm and sleek and firm.
Another button, I spread him open and took him in with my eyes.
Swelling pecs. Fabulous quarter-size brown nipples adorning the bottoms.
I wanted my mouth on those nipples.
But I had more to uncover first.
I yanked the tails of the shirt out of his jeans.
More buttons.
Down.
I spread the shirt wide.
He didn’t have an eight-pack.
But he had a four-pack and a flat belly and nice dents at his V.
Delicious.
I kissed his navel and looked up.
Okay.
Um.
That.
The hungry look on his handsome face that still managed to seem satisfied.
Now that was delicious.
“My biker takes care of himself,” I whispered.
I got that out, the hunger sank deeper in his expression, and then I had his hands under my arms and I was up, rolled, and he was on me. His mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth, his hands pushing up my skirt.
Right, now this was delicious.
I was disappointed when one of his hands went to my back so he could put his weight into his arm in the bed, and not to my nipple, the trajectory he was taking when we were on his couch.
I was not disappointed when the other went down, into my panties, and he cupped my ass, lifted me, and ground his hardness into my hips.
I moaned into his mouth.
Rush kissed me, and he kissed me, and he kept kissing me as he ground into me and I squirmed into him, already wet and getting wetter.
Finally, he broke the kiss.
And he was such an amazing kisser, I chased it.
He slid his hand out of my panties to tug the hem of my dress.
“I want this gone,” he growled.
Okay, we could stop kissing to do that.
“Get rid of it,” I breathed, lifting my arms to help with that effort.
Using both hands, he pulled up, then tossed it aside.
He planted a hand in the bed, arm straight, and dropped his head to look down at me.
I was wearing a bandeau-style, black, strapless lace bralette that didn’t do much but give a little lift and support, but it was better than nothing.
Rush stared at it like he wanted to rip it off with his teeth.
And that made me even wetter.
I lifted a hand high and slid it over his hair, tucking a thick shank of it that had fallen into his eye behind his ear, murmuring, “Baby.”
He dipped down in a one-armed push up that didn’t go back up and sucked my nipple in over the lace.
I arched up and whimpered, “Baby.”
I should have known with the way he kissed, his mouth would be magic.
It was.
I held his head to me until I was done with that and put the fingers of both hands to the bralette, tearing it up.
He lifted his head just long enough to let me do that and catch my eyes. The blue fire raging in his had me catching my breath before he bent back to my nipple and pulled it deep.
I squirmed.
His hand came up to palm my other breast then roll and squeeze that nipple.