Roan (The Henchmen MC 17)

There wasn't any time to bask in my upper-hand, though, because Roan was trained to fight through the pain because not even time could rip you of those kinds of skills.

Roan had not gotten soft.

Before I could calculate my next move, he was pulling the gun from my hands, blocking a strike from my other arm, whirling my body around, pinning my arm against my back between my shoulder blades, his other arm anchoring across my upper chest.

"Calm down, Mack. I don't want to hurt you," he told me, voice soothing.

He didn't want to hurt me.

Well, it was too damn late for that, wasn't it?

"Who says I'm the one who is gonna get hurt?" I asked, cocking my ass out, giving me enough room to slip out of the grip on my chest, letting me turn, landing a knife hand strike to his jaw as I tried to free my wrist locked in a punishing grip.

"Mack..." His voice was a warning.

But, well, I would have gotten nowhere in life had I not learned to disregard those.

I still had a chance.

To get away.

Find a new place to hole up.

Regroup.

Figure out my next move.

I just had to get away from him, get down the stairs faster than him - which shouldn't be a problem with his bum leg. Then I was in the clear.

I wasn't sure how much The Henchmen - and their code about women - had rubbed off on him, but I was going to go ahead and test it out.

I loosened my arm slightly, let his grip firm up, then pulled, and let out a shriek, going down on my knees.

"Fuck," Roan hissed, letting go.

I guess where I had hardened, he had softened.

"Shit, Mack. Let me look-"

His words were cut off when I shot upward, the top of my head catching him under the chin.

I was just turning to strike again, which I hoped would give me just enough time to make it to the door when I felt the tuck of my towel loosen.

But that was the least of my worries when Roan recovered more quickly than I had thought he would.

But he didn't strike.

Maybe that was against his code.

But what wasn't, though, was tossing.

His hands sank into my shoulders, shoving backward with all the force in his strong frame, knocking me off my feet, sending me flying backward onto the bed.

He followed a mere breath later, pelvis crushing down on mine, feet hooking my calves, immobilizing them as he dodged my flying hands, waiting for the opportunity to grab each wrist, then pushing forward, pinning them both against the bed above my head, making his body curve forward, arching over me.

"Enough," he growled when I tried to buck upward to get free. "Enough, Mack," he commanded, voice calmer, softer almost.

And, yeah, it was right about then that I realized my tuck had let go, that the material of the towel had slipped open, creating a line of flesh down the center of my chest, the swells of my breasts half-exposed. Though a small amount of my modesty was saved by the fact that my nipples hadn't gotten free yet. But they had hardened, little pellets under the thin, over-washed towel, there, unmistakable, unmissable.

He'd seen.

He saw everything.

"Get off of me," I demanded, voice a little airy. But only because I was out of breath. That was the only logical explanation.

"Calm down," he shot back, grip getting tighter on my wrists as I tried to yank away.

"Get off of me." There was no denying a bit of hysteria imbued in the words. I wasn't exactly sure where it came from, what the reasoning was, but it was there nonetheless.

And it made Roan's eyes go a little dark, his brows lowering.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Mack. Just calm down."

"You don't get to tell me what to do."

"I got seventy pounds on you, and have you pinned. I am the one who gets to say what you do right now. You might not like that, but it's how it is."

"Your lip is bleeding," I told him as I noticed, taking a small bit of satisfaction in the slow trickle down his chin.

"Yeah, well, I underestimated you," he admitted.

"A lot of men make that mistake," I told him. For no other reason then to hope it bothered him at that base 'no one touches what I touched first' level so many men seemed to possess.

"A lot of men in Cadiz?" he asked, head angling to the side a bit.

"Cadiz, Sochi, Tehran, Botswana..."

To that, his brows knitted, his lips parted. I could see the gears turning, could see him putting it together.

"You've been following me?" he asked, voice a whisper.

"Funny how someone who is trained to spot a tail missed one for almost fifteen years, don't you think?"

"How?" he asked, barely audible. "No one knew about my jobs but my handlers."