“Just once.” Jasper licked her jaw, her lower lip, and then nudged Ace’s fingers aside to tease his tongue over her nipple.
It burned, and then she burned, propelled beyond herself for one exhilarating, wild moment. No shame, no guilt…no body. Just floating bliss and him, and she stopped fighting and rode the first of a dozen waves.
Up and up and no down, no end. Not until fingers stroked her cheek and a rumble shook her, and she realized she was wrapped in a blanket and cradled against his chest. Blinking, she let her head fall back and caught sight of Ace watching them with an oddly intense look, one she swore was jealousy.
It vanished a moment later as he smiled. “There you go, Jas. Your girl’s drifting down.”
“Beautiful.” Jasper stroked her hair, brushing the tangled, damp strands away from her forehead.
The gentleness made her shiver. She turned her face toward his palm and closed her eyes. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Before or after we made you come?”
She laughed. “After. And maybe while.”
“You took a little trip, sweetheart.” Jasper kissed the spot just behind her ear. “Now Ace is going to ink your cuffs.”
“But you took me out of the chair.” And she felt no pressing desire to leave the warm cocoon of his embrace.
Ace snorted out a laugh. “Under the circumstances, I’ll make do. For all I know it’s going to send you flying again, and your big, dumb brute will rip my balls off if he can’t pet and cuddle you.”
Jasper kicked the footplate. “Less talk, more work.”
They were situated so it was easy enough for Noelle to squirm her arm out of the blankets and lay it down for Ace. He winked at her before bending to his work, and Noelle looked away with the first prick of the needles.
It barely registered as pain, just a buzzing that vibrated through her, and she closed her eyes with a humming sigh. “What happens after this?”
“You get ready for tonight.” Jasper smiled against her cheek. “Every time Ace lays O’Kane ink, we have a party.”
“What kind of party?”
“Not like the one in Dallas’s rooms. We drink, and we celebrate the fact that there’s another one of us.”
“Fun.” She was floating again, floating on his voice and the warmth of his body and the sweet kiss of pain that was its own sort of claiming. Jasper was claiming her. Dallas’s mark and Ace’s ink, but every jab of the needle plunging into her skin was Jas, binding her to the gang, binding her to him. “Don’t let me go.”
“I won’t, Noelle.”
Dallas
O’Kane Liquor prospered through hard work, and that work had to be done every day, even when Dallas’s right-hand man was wandering around like a pussy-whipped fool. Not that an outsider would be likely to notice the change in Jasper’s stony expression, but Dallas had known his friend too long. Noelle was a sweet little piece of ass, and Jasper was well and bloody hooked.
Even now a tiny smile played around the edges of the other man’s mouth. At least Bren looked like his usual violent self. In five minutes, the door across the room would open, spilling out reluctant allies who could become enemies with damn near no provocation. Dallas had picked the meeting point this time, an abandoned bar on the border between the third and fourth sectors. Everyone was less twitchy in neutral territory, but violence had broken out before—and would again.
But hopefully not today. “So is your girl ready for her big welcome party, Jas?” Dallas asked.
“Yeah, bandaged wrists and all.” Jasper arched an eyebrow. “Having second thoughts about letting her in so fast?”
He’d left second thoughts behind the day the girl had stumbled into Jasper. Tonight, he was having fifteenth thoughts. “Just counting the days until you mark her.”
That straightened out the edges of the man’s smile. “We’ll see.”
At least the bastard was glaring, and none too soon. Footsteps shuffled in the hallway, and Dallas nodded to Bren and Jas before relaxing into a deceptively casual sprawl that left his hand close to the gun strapped to his thigh. “Here we go.”
Wilson Trent always glared, and today was no exception. He walked in, followed by four of his men, and surveyed the room before taking a seat. “O’Kane.”
“Trent.” The other leader had brought more than the customary two lieutenants for backup, but it was the tightness around his eyes that told Dallas they were treading close to a trap. Trent’s glare seemed too forced, too fixed. Anticipation hung in the air, so thick Dallas could taste it.
Fuck. The bastard was going to play one of his games.
He confirmed the suspicion a heartbeat later. “I’m surprised you didn’t just send your men tonight. Word in the sectors is you’ve got your hands full playing daddy over in Four.”
Damn Jasper, and damn Lex too. They’d plucked a girl off the street like shining heroes, and everyone smelled weakness. “Never too busy for you, Trent,” Dallas replied mildly, trusting Jasper to keep a leash on his temper for the words that followed. “But we can talk about the new girl if you want. Big eyes, tight little pussy. Ever defiled one of Eden’s angels? They start out shocked, but if you break ’em in right, they’ll beg for cock.”
Trent shrugged one shoulder. “What new girl? I was talking about that dancer—” He turned to the muscle on his left. “What’s her name, again?”
“Alexa,” the man rumbled.
“That’s the one.”
Lies. They reeked of deception, but Dallas couldn’t blink. Couldn’t flinch, couldn’t stir so much as an eyelash and give them the impression Lex meant a damn thing to him. He certainly couldn’t cut out the man’s tongue for daring to say her name.
Watching him bleed and cry would brighten up Dallas’s shitty day, though.
He hadn’t gotten this far without being as good at lying as he was at spotting liars, so he smiled. “Lex is a hell of a dancer. Not too easy to shock, though, if that’s your thing.”
Trent lifted one hand and signaled his men. “I brought her something. Figured you could deliver it for me.”
It took everything in Dallas not to tense as the door opened again. A feminine growl of outrage preceded the unmistakable sound of an open palm cracking against skin, and he put it together with Trent’s taunting question about Noelle—and it had been about her, before the bastard had wiggled the knife for a weak spot—and saw the shape of the trap.
So he wasn’t surprised when one of Trent’s men dragged a struggling brunette into the room. She was a sleek creature, curves over muscles and shapely legs shown off by a skimpy miniskirt. Her leather bra matched. So did the cuffs that trapped her wrists together and the collar around her throat. Her cheek bore a vivid handprint, but she seemed unsubdued. When the man dragging her jerked the chain connecting her collar to her cuffs, she snarled and spit on him.
“Charming,” Dallas drawled, turning his attention back to Trent. “But Lex already has a new toy. If I give her two girls to play with in one month, she’ll get spoiled.”
“Slavery,” Jasper spat. “It’s dirty, even for you, Trent.”
“Don’t be such a snot. You might call it something different over here in Four, but pretty words don’t change facts. You peddle more flesh than I’d know what to do with.”
Dallas raised two fingers. “Enough.” Trent’s men would beat the shit out of the girl if they thought it would goad one of Dallas’s men into a reaction, and Jas was just softhearted enough to walk into the trap.
He’d give him hell if they had to leave the kid to Trent’s nonexistent mercies, though. Dallas gave her poor odds of surviving the night.