Adler (The Henchmen MC 14)

That arm went around my hips, pulling me to my feet and against his chest, my nipples twisting tighter as his hair teased over them.

Once on my feet, his hands sank down my back, sinking into my ass, pulling until I was on my tiptoes, then off them completely.

My legs wrapped around his hips, feeling his cock slide against me with a shiver that shook my whole body.

A growl escaped Adler as he turned, leading us back to the living room, turning again to sink down on my couch, pulling me onto his lap.

My ass settled down onto his thighs, his hands moving away, working the condom free, then protecting us, his entire body tense as he did so, as ready for this as I was.

"Feel like I've been waiting for this for-fucking-ever," he rumbled, hand moving between us to grab his cock, sliding it through my folds, finding my clit, and tapping against it until my hands found his shoulders, digging in hard enough to guarantee crescent marks in the flesh for days to come.

"Ya gonna ride me, duchess?" he asked, eyes hooded, jaw tight enough for a muscle to tick there.

As an answer, my hips rose up, allowing him to slide his cock back down, pressing hard against the entrance to my body for a long moment, both of us poised in this odd in-between before I let out a shaky, held breath, and slowly lowered my hips down, feeling his cock breach me, slip in deeper to claim every inch.

"Fuck," I moaned as he settled impossibly deep.

Beneath me, his hips twisted in a circle, making my hand pound down on his shoulder.

"Fuck me, Lou," he demanded, doing another delicious twist.

"Only if you keep doing that," I told him, lifting up a bit.

"I can do that," he agreed.

We found a rhythm like old lovers, his hips twisting each time at the exact right moment no matter how fast and frantic my own hips got as the need gripped my system, making my chest tighten, my body slick with sweat, my moans become choked whimpers.

"Come, Lou," he demanded, voice rough with his own need for release.

His hips shifted as his hand slid between our bodies, and the orgasm ripped through me, fast, violent, overwhelming, making my head slam into his shoulder, crying out my release into his neck, feeling his cock surge within me as his breath exhaled while he found his own release, my name like a prayer on his lips.

It wasn't long until the aftershocks overtook my body, every nerve ending overworked.

"Christ." He broke the silence first, his hands moving up and down my back soothingly, teasing the strands of my hair.

"Yeah," I agreed, pushing back, looking down at him, almost feeling like I was seeing him through different eyes, as cheesy and romantic and unlike me as that sounded.

My hands rose, reaching for his head, holding his hair with one hand, working his band free with the other, sliding it onto my wrist so my hands were free to sift through the silky strands, softer even - I was convinced - than my own.

He pulled me forward, sealing my lips to his, lacking the hunger but not the heat.

But it was a different kind, warming my very veins, filling my system with something I wasn't sure I had ever truly felt before.

Contentedness.

By the time Adler pulled away, my lips were tingling, my heartbeat thrumming, my blood racing.

It felt like ages before I could force my eyelids open, finding his gaze already on me, looking tense, hesitant, but determined.

"Ask me, Lou," he demanded in a soft voice, barely loud enough to be heard.

"Ask you what?" I asked, feeling my brows draw together.

His hands sank into my hips, squeezing.

"Ask me."

I took a breath, not sure I was ready to hear it, but realizing that he was ready to tell it.

"What's your story, Adler?"NINEAdlerI didn't remember my early years.

A pity, that.

Since it was likely the only time in my life that I had been loved, that I had things like security, stability, glimpses of happiness.

There was a scent that - when I smelled it even years later - gave me a feeling of contentedness - something I was convinced my mother must have smelled like. Cocoa butter. It must have clung to her skin while she rocked me, nursed me, hummed me to sleep the way I heard mothers were known to do.

I had nothing else, though. Not a single memory of her face, her eyes, her hair, what her voice sounded like.

Just a scent that could catch me off-guard in years to come, give me a momentary false sense of security.

She'd been the one to give me one of my names. The one I was born with, but not allowed to keep, one I never would have known had I not seen my birth certificate before it was burned.