Beyond Control

chapter Twenty-Five



The garage was dark, and the slamming of the door echoed behind her. "Dallas?"

A clatter came from the far side, where tools lined a low wooden workbench. Light flared, sudden illumination that offered her the sight of Dallas's back in silhouette. "Go back to the warehouse, Lex." He bit off each word, as if he had to measure them one at a time to keep his control. "I need to cool off."

"I can't." She was drawn to him, always. Unable to walk away. "Are you all right? Your hands?"

His snarl echoed through the darkness. "I'm not f*cking around."

"I can't," she said again, desperation almost choking her. "I can't leave. No matter what's going on between us, you need me here. I'm not just an O'Kane."

Dallas spun, still mostly backlit. She could barely make out his face, only sharp shadows playing over a fierce expression. "If you touch me, I can't promise I'll let you go again. Not right now."

She couldn't go, but she couldn't stay, either. Couldn't push or retreat. Love him or hate him.

Something had to give.

"All I wanted was you." Her voice broke on the confession. "To be as important to you as you were to me."

Silence. Heartbreaking, humiliating silence, until Dallas shifted his weight. "Would you stab me, Lex?"

An exact echo of his words from their horrible, horrible fight. She shuddered. "Only if you make me."

He was still wearing his boots. He hadn't taken them off before fighting Dom, and now he bent and jerked a knife free from the left one. He flipped it around so he was holding it by the blade and offered it to her.

His way of providing her an escape. If she couldn't walk out the door, she could still stop him.

As soon as she touched the hilt, Dallas was on her.

It was harder and different and more than the night she'd stripped off his collar. Rough hands, intense kisses, his mouth slanting over hers as he immobilized her with an unforgiving grip in her hair. But it wasn't angry. It wasn't punishment.

It was hunger, pure and simple. Unchecked, uncontrolled desire, spilling out of him without finesse or thought, drowning her in the truth of how much he wanted her. How much he needed her.

This was what she couldn't walk away from, the reason she'd stay, no matter what. Her longing reflected in the trembling clench of his fingers.

Lex let the knife clatter to the table and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Groaning, he slid his hands down to her thighs and hoisted her against him. "I can't do this without you. I can't be Dallas without Lex."

The night had driven that home already. "We can't wind up hating each other, either. The damn sector won't survive it."

"I know. I know." One hand caught her hair and dragged her head back again. "If you can't stay and be Lex, I'll be Declan and go. Anywhere you want, anywhere you can be happy. None of this is worth a damn if you're not here."

The world stopped. He couldn't do it, could never give up what he wanted so much and had worked so hard to build--and yet there was no deception on his face, just an earnestness that almost hurt to see.

He'd leave it all. For her.

"I want you to be happy," she whispered. "With Four, with the gang. With me."

His grip relaxed in her hair, shifting to cradle the back of her head as he turned and set her on the workbench. The knife glinted a few inches away from her fingers as he lifted his other hand to her cheek. "With you. That's the only way I'll ever be happy, Lex. I thought it didn't matter if you left, that it couldn't matter, but I'm a goddamn liar. I'm too f*cking selfish to stay here and suffer like some noble f*cking martyr. They're my people, but you're everything."

Power was one thing, but his people were another entirely. "You need them, too. But that's okay. So do I."

Dallas exhaled and rested his forehead against hers. "Yeah, okay. Maybe I need them. That's what's gotta change, isn't it? No more lying. Not to you, and not to myself."

"No more," she agreed. But he wasn't the only one who'd hidden things, from himself or her. "If you can do that, so can I. Because I love you."

"I've always loved you." A shudder worked through him, and he pulled her closer. "I've always wanted you. They don't have a word for how much I need you. Everything good I am, everything good I've ever done...it's all you. You make me a king. Without you, I'm just another psychotic thug."

She framed his face with her hands and kissed him through a laugh. "I hope I don't make the thug in you disappear completely. I like him."

His answering laugh was low, relieved--and a little dangerous. Cuffing one of her wrists with his fingers, he dragged her hand down until it covered the hilt of the knife. "How much do you like him?"

Enough to give him what he needed, forever. Even if that meant promising violence to keep him from crossing her lines. She closed her hand around the handle of the knife. "Enough to stop him if it's too much."

He stroked a warm path down the side of her neck before gripping her throat, his hand settling high enough to tilt her chin back. "You're worth getting a little cut up. Just don't stab anything you'll want in working order later."

"Smartass."

He just laughed. He was still laughing when he snapped the braided straps on her tank top and jerked the fabric free of her breasts. He caught one nipple in his mouth and sucked hard, the edge of his teeth scraping her flesh.

Lex abandoned the knife and scratched her nails across his bare back with a shiver. "I saw you in that cage. Thinking about this."

"No you didn't." He lifted his head, giving her the full impact of his half-crazed eyes. Need and triumph and bloodlust, and he licked his lips as he thumbed her damp nipple, as if the taste of her lingered on his mouth. "I was thinking about you on your knees, so hot for my cock you'd suck it all night long. Because I'm a psychotic thug and a goddamn barbarian."

"And a horny bastard." She skated her fingers around his rib cage and reached for his belt buckle.

He let her get his belt open before stepping back to lean against the side of one of his favorite cars, a sleek little pre-Flare antique he'd lovingly restored with years of tinkering. Spreading his arms along the roof of the vehicle, he grinned lazily at her. "You can bring the knife with you if you want. It's f*cking hot."

Instead, she left it on the worktable and walked toward him. "I used to do this all the time. Right here in the garage, remember?"

"Your mouth isn't the sort of thing a man forgets, love."

"So you've told me." She slipped to her knees and looked up at him, unable to resist rubbing her palm over the hard bulge beneath his fly. "Sometimes I think you don't even care how it feels, you just want to see it. Me, on my knees, with my lips sliding around your cock."

He inhaled sharply as his eyelids drooped. "It doesn't suck."

"Then watch me." Her voice dropped to a yearning whisper as she tugged at his zipper. He had to know what this did to her, being able to wrap her hand around him and hear his breath catch. To see every muscle in his body tense when she freed him from his pants, to hear him groan when she stroked him.

"Only one thing could improve the view," he rasped as she licked small circles around the head of his cock.

She squeezed his shaft and lifted her head. "What's that, honey?"

He bared his teeth in a feral smile. "Ink. Marks."

"Ink." Her nipples tightened as heat rushed through her to settle between her thighs. "Tell me what you want. And try not to scratch the car." She took him deep but not hard, gripping the base of his shaft as she sucked him lightly.

"F*ck." His hand fell to the back of her head, impatient desperation clear in the hard press of his fingertips. "Matching ink, you and me. Something fitting for a king and queen. For Dallas and Lex."

She hummed, the image already forming in her mind--an early version of the O'Kane symbol, stripped down and simple, with a crown for each of them.

Beautiful. Right. She sucked harder, flicking her tongue against him.

"And I want your name on my skin," he continued. "Yours. Alexa."

His fantasy, and she couldn't fulfill it without words. She pulled away and coaxed another curse from him with one smooth glide of her fist. "And your name on me. Do you want everyone to see it...or just you?"

"Just me." The words were a growl. "Declan is yours."

"Mine." She licked him again, base to tip, and moaned.

Growling, he thumped his free hand against the car hard enough to rattle it. "Quit teasing, or I swear to Christ--"

Her heart skipped and stuttered as hunger seized her. "You'll what?"

He tugged at her hair and leaned down. "You give me my fantasy, or I'm gonna give you yours. And you know which one I'm talking about."

It should be here, in the garage, surrounded by the scents of motor oil and tire rubber and metal. This was where she'd watched him work on the salvaged cars, listened to him talk about his grand plans for the gang. Where she'd first begun to wonder if there was a place in all of it for her.

Her fantasy and his. They'd have both.

She took him again, closing her eyes with abandon when he thrust against her mouth with a ragged groan. "That's right." He threaded both hands through her hair to hold her in place. "You like it like this. Dirty and rough, getting f*cked by a man who wants you so bad he'll risk all your sharp edges. Who f*cking loves your sharp edges."

Because he had them, too, the quiet, sneaky kind that would cut you before you realized what was happening. Lex knew that now.

And it didn't matter. All she gave a damn about was her people, her family. Her man. She'd fight to protect and love them all, even if she had to fight them.

Or herself.

She reached up to grip his ass, and he hissed as his head fell back. "I know you wanna suck me off. It gets you hot, doesn't it? Deciding when I come." He thrust forward, pushing deep enough to choke her. "Which one of us is in control now? I never f*cking know."

She didn't need to breathe. She'd never need anything else, ever. Just this.

He surrounded her, overwhelming her. Sweat and leather and whiskey and even the metallic scent of blood, from where his bruised knuckles lay wrapped beneath strands of her hair. When the world began to swim he drew back, stroked her hair and said that she was beautiful, that her mouth made him crazy, just long enough for her to catch her breath before rocking forward again.

Lex pulled away, heedless of the sharp tug of his fingers in her hair. "You're in control," she gasped.

Dallas stared down at her, his eyes intent. "That an observation or a request?"

The cool, easy words flew right the hell out of her head. "Please."

He moved so fast her head spun. One second she was on her knees, the next he had her up and moving. Three stumbling steps back with him looming over her, only to spin her when her ass bumped the worktable.

His slick shaft jutted against the small of her back. The wooden bench pressed against her hips, just the right height to bend over. But instead of pushing her forward, he curled his fingers in the remains of her tank top and jerked at it. "Arms up."

Anticipation raised goose bumps on her skin, but Lex didn't move.

Growling, Dallas kicked her feet apart. She swayed, and he used her momentary distraction to haul the front of the shirt up and over her head, dragging it to tangle around her upper arms behind her back.

"You can be bad." The words didn't quite cover the sound of leather rasping against denim. His belt sliding free of its loops, one at a time. "You can fight. You know what it'll get you?"

She couldn't hold back her moan. "No, what?"

"F*cked harder." He planted a hand between her shoulder blades and shoved her down until her only option was to turn her head and rest her cheek on the scuffed wooden table.

Just like that, every ounce of her attention was riveted to the sweet pressure of his hand, and how much she could push against it before he eased up. Gave up. She struggled carefully, unwilling to risk losing the heat of him at her back and the rough bite of the bench beneath her.

He laughed and dropped his belt across her lower back, the leather a dangerous threat--or promise. "Is that the best you've got?"

She jerked hard, panting when his splayed hand shoved her closer to the table. "Oh, Jesus." The words escaped her in a hoarse, pleading rasp.

"Not quite," he murmured, sliding his hand up over her shoulder and around her throat. He dragged her upright, her arms trapped between them, and wrenched open her jeans. "But you can pray to me for mercy, if you want."

Lex arched her hips. "You're a tease."

He responded by shoving his hand into her panties, his fingers slicking over her p-ssy. "And you're wet. I bet I can get you wetter."

She started to respond, but the hand around her throat began to tighten. At the same time, he grazed her * with a rough enough touch to send pleasure rippling up her spine.

"Oh, yeah." He whispered the words against her ear as his fingers found a quick, unforgiving rhythm, blunt fingertips slicking back and forth until blood pounded in her ears and her vision blurred. "Such a hot, wet p-ssy. If I weren't such a tease, I'd already be f*cking it."

"Dallas--" Lex barely managed to rasp his name before his rhythm quickened. She rocked as much as she could, and it was almost enough.

Almost.

"Declan," he corrected, easing his grip so that she could speak. "Say it. Say it while you're coming."

"De--" Her hips jolted in a shudder that spread through the rest of her along with a blaze of heat that melted her. "F*ck, Declan!"

"Shh," he soothed, keeping her on edge with another clever twist of his fingers. "Sweet, sweet Alexa. My Alexa. Do you trust me?"

A current of fear flowed beneath the words. Lex longed to hold him, but she was trapped against his chest. All she could do was turn her head with a shaky sigh. "I trust you." She rubbed her cheek against his chin. "I love you."

He caught her mouth in one quick, tender kiss, then sharpened it by biting her lower lip with a groan. "Want me to stop teasing?"

More than anything. More than life. "I need it."

One more taunting stroke before his touch vanished, and she was bent over the table again. She stretched her arms against her bonds as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of her jeans and panties and hauled both down just far enough to bare her ass. He didn't give her time to savor the anticipation or even think before the broad head of his cock pressed against and then inside her.

No teasing. No mercy. With one hand forcing her to the table and the other bracing her hips, he pushed into her in one raw advance. He felt huge, bigger with her jeans trapping her legs together, and he filled her one relentless inch at a time.

Lex's head spun, all thoughts of struggling to regain control of the situation gone. He'd take what he wanted--and in return give her everything she never knew existed.

As if he sensed her submission, his fingers drifted up to smooth through her hair. He withdrew a few inches before rocking back, pushing deeper and a little harder. "Does it scare you, love? Knowing you're stuck with me?" His hand tightened suddenly, hauling her head back. "Does it scare you to know I'd burn it all to the ground if that'd make you happy?"

Pleasure clashed with satisfaction. "Hell, no." Nothing less would be enough.

He thrust harder, angling to hit all the right spots. "It should. I couldn't let you go. I knew I had to, and I couldn't. I'll be any man you want. A king or a beggar or a farmer or a killer. But I'll never be the man who can let you walk away."

It hurt where he pulled her hair, painful tingles that shimmered down her spine and melted until her body clutched greedily at his cock. "No more leaving," she gasped, a promise and a warning.

And because he was Dallas, because he knew her, he understood both. "What'll you do instead?"

"Make you pay," she growled. "Make you mine all over again."

Groaning, he slapped a hand on the table and bent low enough to speak in her ear. "Your threats get me so f*cking hot."

The angle shifted his thrusts to a subdued grind, and Lex smacked her head back against his shoulder. "Sharp edges, remember?"

"Uh-huh." Every thrust was a little rougher, a little quicker, as if his self-control was fraying at the edges for all the lazy drawl of his words. His body told the truth--the hardness in his tensed muscles, the growing urgency every time his cock plunged into her.

He reached for the knife as he straightened. The tangle of her shirt around her upper arms loosened and fell away, and he jammed the blade back into the table in front of her. Catching her hand, he guided it to curl around the hilt. "If you let go, I'll stop."

"Kinky bastard." She gripped the knife with one hand and the edge of the worktable with the other.

Dark laughter spilled over her as he slapped her ass. "It's not kinky until I tell you to stab me," he corrected.

Before she could respond, he clutched her hips and drove into her so hard that she pitched forward into the table. She bit her tongue, but the pain vanished in an instant, consumed by the fire sparked by his next thrust.

Deep and unforgiving, the kind of merciless f*cking she'd had to coax out of him before. Rough grunts punctuated each thrust, along with the slick sound of his cock slamming into her, their bodies slapping together.

It should have been selfish, Dallas using her body, wrenching his pleasure from it too fast and hard to give her any in return, but his hands held her hips at that desperate angle, and the sparks multiplied, turned to fire.

He cracked one open palm against her hip. "Is this what you wanted?"

Yes. The word didn't come, but she did. The knife wrenched free and clattered to the wood, but Lex couldn't help it. Her entire body shook, trembled on the edge of something more, so she pressed her forehead to the table and whispered his name.

"Christ," he groaned, dragging her back to meet his cock. "I love f*cking your p-ssy while you're coming. So f*cking tight and hot."

She swept one arm out, desperate for something to hold on to, and the knife skittered away and flipped onto the floor. "Don't stop--"

"Never," he promised, riding her faster. "I'll never stop f*cking you. Never stop needing you. Loving you."

Something crashed off the pegboard above the table, and the impact vibrated through the wood, up through her body. In the midst of a storm of ecstasy, that small, quiet sensation centered her.

Never stop.

Dallas had always known how to get her off, but this was different. Having him with her--and knowing she always would--tripped something primal deep in her brain. Every nerve ending lit up, and she tensed again with a mounting pleasure that went on and on, tighter and tighter as his movements grew less and less controlled.

A rumbling noise started in his chest, twisting feral possession with satisfaction, and gave way to a string of snarled encouragements, words bitten off between fast jerks of his hips. Things like f*ck yeah and so good, commands that stroked inside her. "Take me," he growled, barely audible over the rattle of the table and the blood pounding in her ears. "Love it. Tell me you love this."

"I love--" Something snapped, just f*cking snapped, and her brain locked down. The waves turned to bolts, lightning strikes that curled her toes and left her gasping for enough breath to scream.

He did it for her, a wordless shout of triumph as he rode her clenching p-ssy to his own orgasm. He slammed home a final time before freezing there, his body locked within hers, his forehead dropping to rest between her shoulder blades.

He panted, his skin slicking over hers with every breath. Lex tried to lift a hand to his hair, but her limbs felt too heavy. So she licked her lips and shivered beneath him.

Lips brushed her nape, a soft kiss through her hair. "You all right, love?"

"I can't move."

"Me neither." But he did anyway, levering himself up before easing his cock from her body with a soft hiss. His hands were gentle as he eased her panties and jeans back into place, relentless possession in every touch.

He turned her, lifted her onto the table, and grabbed her arm with a curse. "Shit, you're bleeding."

There was a shallow, harmless gash running along the outside of her forearm. Lex stared at it and laughed. "I don't even feel it."

Dallas still frowned, sparing only a few seconds to straighten his pants before ordering, "Stay here."

He stomped out of the easy circle of light only to return with a small med kit. He fussed over her arm, applying med-gel and frowning even harder when she winced at the contact.

Lex watched him, rapt. "I was willing to stay and be her, you know. The queen. For you and the gang. That's what I had decided tonight."

Dallas froze in the act of opening a bandage, his gaze suddenly wary. "And now?"

She touched his face, every last shred of doubt gone. "I still want to be her for everyone else. For you, it's different. I can be all of me."

He fixed the bandage in place before catching her hand and turning to kiss her palm. "Christ knows I'm not going to stop being dumb, Lex. And I'll always want power. To keep us safe, and because it's who I am. But I'll come to you first, and be honest about it. Because I'll always choose you. Over power, over money, over everyone and everything. You just have to believe it, okay?"

"I do." Part of her always had--the part that had held her back from seeking more of Dallas's attention over the years. It was safer, in a way, to flirt with that devotion rather than submit herself to it...and then have it snatched away. "I need to come first. Well, me and the gang."

"Hey." He caught her chin. "Everyone and everything. Get it straight in your head, woman, 'cause it's too late to back out."

"Stubborn ass."

"Whose stubborn ass?"

Lex wrapped her arms around him, relishing the heat of his bare skin against hers. "All mine."