Axe: A Steel Paragons MC Novel Read online

  “You don’t have to. I’m sure this sweet cunt will tell me all I need to know,” I rasped out as my hand slipped between her soft flesh and the waistband of her pants. I watched her, waiting for some red light that would snap me back into reality, but unlucky for me, I didn’t get one.

  She wasn’t wearing panties and I could honestly say that I was a little shocked. The scent of her desire swirled around me and I wanted nothing more than to strip her naked and lick her until she came.

  My fingers circled her pussy, finding it drenched. I couldn’t wait another minute to feel how fucking tight she was. My finger pushed into her with an unforgiving force. Her body trembled as a strangled moan escaped her throat.

  My palm worked her clit as I pumped my finger in and out of her. Without warning, I added another finger. Her eyes were heavy and I could see the smallest flicker of blue peeking out at me through the narrowed slit. She tried to fight it, but her body couldn’t. For some fucking strange reason, she was loving this and trying to prolong the end.

  Well, shit.

  Her juices soaked my hand as her hips started to rock against my fingers.

  “That’s it, baby, come for me.”

  Her whole body shook and I was worried that her legs would give out on her. Her pussy tightened and quivered against my fingers. It wouldn’t be long now. She was hot as hell right then and I couldn’t seem to look away. I wanted to take in everything. The way her breathy moans filled the air. Her sex hazed eyes. The blood pulsing in her neck.

  It was all too much. My dick strained against my zipper and it throbbed intensely with the need for release. I knew I wasn’t going to get that though, and I was just going to have to push away the strong urge to bury myself inside her.

  Her hands left the wall, one gripped on to my bicep, her nails digging into my skin. The other clutched the wrist of the hand I had buried inside of her. I could feel her nails tearing my flesh and it only made me pump harder and faster, but she wasn’t trying to pull me away. It was more like she was holding on for dear life. I focused on her, trying to distract myself from reaching down and grabbing my dick to relieve some of the pressure.

  Thoughts of painting her with my cum came to mind and I’d be damned if it didn’t make me feel like I was going to blow my load right there in my pants.

  “Oh, God!” she cried out and literally cried with it. I watched as her eyes squeezed shut, so tight that it forced the tear to slip down her cheek.

  I couldn’t help myself, watching it fall felt like such a tragic waste. Before I could even think about what I was doing, I leaned down and licked against the fallen path. The saltiness hit my tongue, igniting a fire inside me that was uncontrollable. My fingers slowed their pace but continued to thrust in and out of her as her cream coated my hand and her orgasm waned.

  I had never been so turned on in my entire life. I wanted nothing more than to relive this moment over and over again for the rest of my life.

  Her eyes opened to look at me. I pulled my fingers out, trailing her cum up her stomach as my hand slipped out of her pants. I wanted to suck her sweet honey off of my fingers. I wanted to know if she tasted as sweet as she smelled. But I didn’t, because I couldn’t let her know how much she affected me. I couldn’t let her think that this meant anything, even if it was by far, the most intense sexual experience I’d ever had. That was saying something, too, because I’d had quite a few of them.

  So instead of licking myself clean, I wiped my hand on the leg of my jeans and stepped back like the whole encounter didn't mean a fucking thing to me.

  “Now, you’re going to talk, bitch. And don’t fuckin’ try to lie to me,” I said in her ear.

  Then I turned, walked over to the couch and sat down like I didn’t have a care in the world or the most painful hard-on ever. I didn’t have my eyes on her, but I knew I didn’t need to. Her son was upstairs and that meant she wasn’t going to try to run.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Allison

  It felt like an eternity that I stood there with my back glued to the wall. I couldn’t catch my breath or seem to stop my legs from shaking. Even if he made me feel like the whole thing meant nothing to him, it didn’t stop the insane feelings that I had.

  He was an asshole, and that wasn’t even a strong enough word to call him. He played me and my body gave into him the second he touched me. I wouldn’t lie, there was something dark about him that scared the crap out of me. But there was also something that I just couldn’t explain. It was like deep inside there was some part of me that felt like I could trust him, like he was safe. Which was confusing as all get out because the things he did to me—the way he seemed to get off on how he held his power over me—were the total opposite of safe.

  My mind was all over the place and I felt flustered and thrown off balance. It shouldn’t have surprised me but for some reason it did. I mean, given all that I’d been through you would think that I’d want something more subdued than what had just happened. Something more boring, if you would. Dare I say, something that would be normal. Whatever normal was. Truth was, I had no idea what sex should be like.

  I walked to the couch as calmly as I could manage, and tucked myself into the opposite side from him. I pulled my legs up, feeling like I needed some sort of shield in front of me.

  “Why are you here? What’s your story?” he asked and his tone was completely flat. I felt like he was bored more than anything.

  What should I say?

  Burke had told me that if I was faced with this situation to do my best to stick as close to the truth as possible. It was easier to make your lies believable and keep them straight that way. Burke told me that I should give the shallow details. I tell them just enough to let them know that I was a woman on the run from an abusive man. I was to leave out names, how I’d come to be there, and the big one, that I’d had any kind of help.

  “My name is Allison. I’m twenty-four years old and I have an eighteen-month-old boy. I like chocolate but only if it’s mixed with peanut butter. I prefer coffee over tea. I’m terrified of drowning so I never take baths or go swimming.”

  And I’ve never had someone touch me like that before.

  Obviously, I couldn’t say that to him. Even if I was brave enough, I feared it would lead to too many questions.

  I did my best to hold my ground. I knew he wanted deeper but I wasn’t going to crumble and give him things so easily. Really, I just wanted the whole thing to be over and I wanted him gone. It had been an exhausting couple of days and all I could think about was crawling into bed and falling asleep.

  “Allison…what?” he asked his eyes shooting lasers into mine. His look told me that he was going to get things out of me whether I liked it or not.

  “Callahan,” I said almost automatically.

  It was the first name that popped into my head that wasn’t directly mine but something I knew I’d remember. And for the first time in years, I thought of my childhood best friend. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about her all this time. I did my best to push away my past life seven years ago and along with it, all the good memories.

  Some people said that holding onto the best times and the great people in their lives was how they made it through. I knew this because I watched a lot of TV. My favorite were the shows on survivors. The people who’d been through something traumatic and still made it out in the end. I loved to hear how their life had some sort of happy ending after it all. I ate those shows and interviews up like they were candy.

  But for me, the only way I could make it through each day was to forget. To leave it all behind and embrace the cold darkness of my future.

  Saying her last name out loud had my mind drifting back. So far back to when we were running around in tiaras and playing dress up. My mind started to wonder about what she was doing now and how seven years might have changed her.

  “Callahan?” he said, jolting me back into reality. His brows rose as his eyes pinned me with a look that said he didn
’t quite believe me.

  His gaze made me uneasy. It shook me to my core with a confusing feeling. Not confusing because I didn’t know what it was. The thing was, it was maddening as hell because I felt split in two when he looked at me. A rolling dark anxiety spread through me as a blazing fire followed behind.

  “Yes,” I managed to say with unfaltering certainty. How I pulled it off, I had no idea. But his head nodded like he believed me…just barely.

  “And little bit? He have a name?”

  “Neiryn.”

  “Hmm…” He paused and I waited for more questions. “Chocolate and peanut butter?” His lips tipped up with amusement as his face softened.

  “Yeah, I think it’s more of like a texture thing. You should try it.” I said actually feeling the tightly wound coil in my core unwind a little.

  “How is it that you ended up here?”

  “I was driving, looking for a fresh place to start over. I pulled off for some gas and I saw the ad for this place.” I held his eyes as I spoke.

  “So, you just what? Barely drove into town and decided this was a good place to settle down?”

  Well, crap. When he put it that way it did seem suspicious.

  “I had a gut feeling,” I replied, forcing a smile to make it believable.

  He raised up and scooted closer to me. I couldn’t breathe as the warmth wafted off of him and onto me. I couldn’t think as his fingers grazed the side of my face. I couldn’t even swallow the lump in my throat as he peered into my eyes, his face so close that our noses were almost touching.

  “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what the problem is,” he said, his tone so flat it somehow shook me, but the light in his eyes flickered with a genuine concern.

  Stupid tears fell from my eyes. I hated it. I hadn’t cried in years because I’d made myself become numb to everything around me.

  That was the moment Neiryn chose to let out a scream that caused me to jump to my feet without even thinking. I ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time and hoping I wouldn’t trip.

  I found him standing in his playpen, bouncing up and down with a nervous energy as his eyes spilled a never-ending river of tears.

  “Mommy,” he said as his arms reached out for me.

  I was sad that he was scared but if I was being honest, I was thankful for the escape. I felt like I was two seconds away from throwing everything that Burke had told me out the window and spilling my life story to Axe. This allowed me to collect myself before I had to face him again.

  I picked Neiryn up and rocked him as his head dropped to rest on my shoulder.

  “Safe,” I whispered over and over against his hair and he nodded as if he understood. I knew it wasn’t exactly true but we were a lot safer than we had been.

  I looked over at the doorway and was relieved when I didn’t see Axe’s form looming there. He let me have the space I desperately needed and I only wished I could stay up here and not deal with him anymore.

  Neiryn fell asleep after a few minutes and I lightly placed him back down in his pen. With my shoulders pulled back, I walked down the stairs.

  Axe was still on the couch. His body was hunched over and his arms were resting on the tops of his thighs. He stared down at his fingers and I could tell he was lost in thought. I found myself wondering just what was going on in that head of his, but before I could linger on that crazy train, I cleared my throat. His head turned slowly to face me. If that wasn’t creepy as all get out, I didn’t know what was.

  “It’s late. I should go up there in case he wakes up again. I don’t want him to be alone, being in a new place and all,” I said, motioning to the door as a big, fat hint for him to leave.

  The smirk that spread on his face told me that he wasn’t leaving. In my mind, I growled. I couldn’t show him that he was getting to me.

  “I’ll be here when you wake up,” he said as he kicked off his sneakers and got comfy on the couch.

  “Fine,” I ground out through gritted teeth before I turned and headed for the stairs.

  “Night, bitch,” he called after me but there was something strange there that made me pause.

  Bitch wasn’t exactly a nice term to call someone, and though he’d used that word towards me before, there was something different in his tone this time. It was almost like he meant it as a compliment, a term of endearment. And I couldn’t even let myself go down the path of over-analyzing the fact that he actually had some sort of emotion in his voice. The whole time he had been here, every word he’d spoken had been as flat as an opened can of soda left out for days.

  I forced my feet to move up the stairs. They felt like they were in tar and for some strange reason, all I wanted to do was turn around. At the top, once I was hidden behind sturdy walls, I let out the breath that I didn’t even realize I’d been holding.

  I brushed my teeth and washed my face. As I caught my reflection in the mirror above the sink, I startled at the girl looking back at me. I wasn’t used to the new darker color of my silky strands. I ran my fingers through my hair almost feeling like it wasn’t real. I felt like the color was going to brush off onto my fingers and when I would look back up, I’d be blonde again. I’d be back there again. I’d be trapped again.

  Somehow my brain convinced me that this was reality and I shut off the light, then made my way to the bedroom. I could hear the TV on downstairs and I wondered what he was doing down there.

  Was it really no big deal to him to just hang out at my house when he was unwanted? Didn’t he have a girlfriend or whatever to get to?

  Considering his fingers were just inside me not that long ago, I sure hoped there was no girlfriend, for her sake. I knew first hand how little I was valued for being a woman and not that I was trying to judge him or his brothers, but the lifestyle wasn’t exactly known for its monogamy.

  I climbed into the bed, grateful that I had already put the sheets on earlier in the day. A shiver ran through my body as I tucked my hands under my head. I didn’t have a pillow, but that was alright because I was able to breathe, in a sense. I had my freedom, sort of, and I had my son.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Axe

  I would like to have been able to say that the next day brought some kind of breakthrough, but it was the fucking opposite. She clammed the fuck up and spent the day doing her best to avoid and ignore me. I didn’t leave the house, and while I didn’t follow her around watching her every move, I did have my eyes on her the entire time.

  I should have pushed her but for some reason, I just didn’t have it in me to do so. I wanted to blame it on the fact that there was a kid there. A kid, who seemed to be holding onto my every move. Whenever we were in the same room, his tiny baby blues were glued to me.

  Allison found some cleaning stuff under the sink in the bathroom and she spent the morning scrubbing down every surface she could think of. I watched with silent amusement as she dragged that kid jail into every room as she cleaned it. It was like she didn’t want the kid out of her sight, not that I could blame her. She didn’t know dick about me and I hadn’t exactly been friendly.

  Finally around four in the afternoon, she stopped her frantic lame excuse to keep busy. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, Neiryn toddling around her legs while she seemed unfazed. Her eyes pinned me with a hard look and I did my best not to chuckle. She was a damn firecracker but I had a feeling that once she cracked it might be the end of it all.

  That was what worried me the most. I could tell there was something up with her. I had enough sense in me to see that she was running from something—or someone. It brought me back to my childhood and my mother. I knew first hand how an abused woman acted. I’d spent years with one, and even though I was a kid, I saw through my mom’s carefully placed façade. I saw how she was always right there on the edge and I was constantly waiting for the moment she snapped.

  I couldn’t risk that with Allison. So I gave her the day to stand her ground or whatever. I gave her the time to let
her think that she had the control. Instead of feeling like I somehow had an advantage over the situation, I found myself wanting her to be comfortable with me. I didn’t want to push or mentally beat her into telling me everything. In my chest, I felt this weird sensation like I needed her to want to tell me. I felt this deep itch in my soul that I wanted her to trust me enough to open up to me.

  But sitting there staring at the fire blazing in her eyes, I had my doubts that it would ever happen.

  “I need to shower,” she said with displeasure dripping off her tongue.

  “Okay. Do what you gotta do, babe,” I said, flipping through the channels even though my attention wasn’t on whatever was on the screen.

  “You need to leave.”

  “Nope,” I said shooting her a smug smirk.

  “I…I don’t feel comfortable…leaving Neiryn while you’re here,” she said with a hint of regret in her tone.

  I got that. I was a stranger. A stranger that had his fingers deep inside of her last night. Just thinking back to that moment had my dick pulsing in my pants. Fuck! I needed to get a hold of myself.

  “I won’t do anything to him. You could just leave him down here with me. Me and Lil man can watch some cartoons or some shit.” I smiled trying my best to get her to relax.

  Her head shook as she looked down at her boy.

  “Look, I’m not goin’. So, you can look into my eyes and see that I’m not going to do anything to him while you take a shower or you can stress the fuck out, get yourself all worked up, and make this harder on all of us. I’m sure he can sense your uneasiness and it’s only going to make him more upset.” I was pulling shit out of my ass because I didn’t have the first clue on how kids worked.

  However, my words seemed to make her pause. I could see the back and forth playing out in her head, and I wanted to open my mouth and tell her this wasn’t a war she was going to win. But I didn’t, I sucked in a deep breath and bit my damn tongue.