Fire & Dark (The Night Horde SoCal Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

want to go to some random guy’s place. She’d been on calls that were the aftermath of that kind of stupid.
     
    Troy had a soft spot for the protect-and-serve types and made a point to get to know those who frequented his establishment, so when he’d come back here once or twice while Pilar was mid-squelch with somebody, he’d just nodded and gone on about his errand.
     
    The storeroom was a semi-private space in a very public place. Safety and convenience. Perfect.
     
    But not, you know, romantic. It was a huge, chilly space, lit with rows of industrial fluorescent lights suspended on long poles from a ceiling which must have been at least thirty feet high. Rows of metal shelving held canned food, boxes of paper supplies, and whatever else an enormous bar like this needed to keep in stock. One wall held a row of deep freezes. She’d fucked on those a couple of times.
     
    But Connor was pulling her up by the stacked cases of bottled beer. Well, she had said they could fuck against the beer. Then he immediately went for her jeans as his head came down, and he planted his mouth right on hers.
     
    And damn, he was a good kisser. His mouth covered hers and his tongue went right for it, sweeping into her mouth. When she met him, her tongue rolling and twisting with his, his hands stopped plucking at the button of her fly and just held on, curling into fists around her waistband, pulling her close.
     
    He smelled fantastic—the booze and the leather of his kutte, which had a kind of well-worn scent, and his skin itself, which smelled warm and, well, indecent —and his scent wrapped around all her senses and made him taste just as good. Pilar grunted and arched her body into his, pressing herself against a very hard, very cut chest, just out of reach behind his shirt. He responded to her tighter contact by letting go of her jeans and taking hold of her ass, clutching her hard.
     
    But he could go harder. She wanted him to go harder. To encourage that, she put her arms over his shoulders and grabbed the neck of his kutte in her fists, increasing the ferocity of their kiss. He went with her, grunting along with her, until she bit down on his bottom lip and pulled away. When he pulled sharply back, letting go of her so he could rub at his lip, she dropped her hands and stared up at him.
     
    Fuck, he was hot. His eyes were like a dark grey or something and sheltered under a perfect, strong brow. That little bit of blood smear on his lip made her lick her own.
     
    But when he came back in with a little growl, she shoved him back.
     
    He frowned. “Don’t you want this?”
     
    She was practically panting for this guy. In fact, she was literally panting for this guy. But the lingering turmoil from the freeway call was still frothing up her blood, and she wanted more from this encounter than just a quick, thrusty fuck. What she felt like she needed was something she didn’t take from strange men.
     
    But she needed it. Or something like it. A bit of it.
     
    “I want it.”
     
    “Then what the fuck, Pilar?”
     
    For some reason, that—his saying her name, her given name, in that deep, rocky voice—decided her. “I want you to work for it. I’m no post-teen princess. You gotta bring more game.”
     
    At that, he chuckled. “Baby, you dragged me back here. And now you’re playing hard to get?” She could see in his posture that he was changing his mind, deciding she was a nutcase and not worth the trouble.
     
    “I’m not playing hard to get. I’m playing make me.” For emphasis, she hit him in the chest with the flat of one hand. Not hard, but abrupt.
     
    His brow furrowed, but he didn’t react in any other way. “You got a rape fantasy thing, I’m not your guy, puss. Girl says no, I stop.”
     
    “Well, aren’t you a gentleman.”
     
    “Not especially. But that’s a line. And a point of pride.”
     
    “That’s fine. Rape’s not my kink.”
     
    His eyes flared at the word ‘kink.’