Lazarus (The Henchmen MC 7)

Somehow, someday, someway, I wanted to be as good as he thought I was. I wanted to deserve him.

It was my new mission in life.

"Okay?" His arms gave me a squeeze- tight, reassuring.

"Okay," I agreed, smiling against his chest.

"Now," he said, his tone a lot less serious suddenly. "I do recall something about you wearing clothes so that I could peel them off of you."

My belly fluttered. My sex tightened. And the smile threatened to split my face.

"You know, I do have a vague recollection of something to that effect."

"Vague recollection, huh?" His tone was amused as his hands slid down my back, sinking into my hips and pulling me to straddle him. "Well, we will have to see what we can do about refreshing your memory then, won't we?" He smiled at me, his eyes heated, his fingers sinking into my ass.

"That might be for the best," I agreed gravely, making him throw his head back and laugh.

"Don't change," he demanded a second before he sealed his lips over mine, a smile still in place, making me smile back before the moment turned more heated, before my body realized that, while it had only been a day and a half, my body had missed him.

His lips teased mine- unhurried, explorative, sweet.

But the hands on my ass were firm, possessive, borderline bruising.

My breasts felt heavy, my heart beneath a pounding bass beat.

But then his lips ripped from mine. A whimper escaped my lips as his hand moved to frame my face. "Look at me for a minute," he demanded, tone sweet but firm.

My eyelids fluttered open, feeling weighted.

"This bastard," he went on as soon as I was looking at him, "did he hurt you anywhere else?" My lips parted to answer, but before I could even try, he pushed on. "I don't want to hurt you."

"No. He, ah, I was running for the door and he slammed me against it then he pulled me by my hair and then did this," I explained, touching my fingers to my bruised throat, knowing the external damage showed just about one one-hundredth of how much it hurt on the inside.

"So no hair pulling for a while," he said with a nod.

"I, well, I like the hair pulling." My cheeks went a little pink at that admission, but I didn't want him going on thinking I was somehow traumatized by the experience and he could never pull my hair in the throws of things again.

"I know you do, sweetheart, but your scalp can't be feeling too great right about now so no hair pulling for a while, not forever."

Well.

Yeah, that made sense.

"I can live with that."

His eyes went all melty at that; his smile warm.

"In fact, I think it is about time you show me exactly how you like being fucked," he informed me, grabbing my butt harder and moving to stand with me wrapped around him.

"I think you've been doing a pretty good job so far," I told him as he moved out toward my hall, past my dated but very clean bathroom, and into the doorway of my bedroom.

Where he froze.

My face over his shoulder, I couldn't see what it was he was looking at. True, my room wasn't that much to look at, but it wasn't hideous or anything. I hadn't painted the walls in there either but I had some framed art in bold colors and a nice off-white tufted headboard on my queen sized bed with nice fluffy white sheets and a gray and white swirly comforter. It was a bit minimalist, but not enough so to cause a man to stop short at seeing it.

Confused, I pushed back so I could look in his face, brows drawn together to find him looking over my shoulder for a long moment, his eyes sad and far away. When they shifted to me, I was pretty sure I saw genuine hurt in their depths.

"You were just going to leave me?"

The luggage and boxes.

They were on my bed.

My belly sank at the idea of how he must have seen that- like I didn't care, like it was easy to walk away, like I not only didn't trust him to handle the truth, but also didn't think he was 'strong' or 'manly' enough to handle it for me.

It was none of those things.

I did care. I cared so much that every single item I put into the luggage or a box sent a stabbing pain through my heart. It wasn't easy. It was the hardest decision I had ever made. I had wanted to run back to his apartment a million times. I had wanted to grab the phone and call him and lay it all out on the line. I wanted to share the burden.

But the larger part of me didn't feel deserving of that slack.