The Bare Bones (The Bare Bones MC) (10 page)

I had studied the anatomy of an orgasm in my efforts to figure out what was wrong with me. There was no such thing as a vaginal versus clitoral orgasm. They were all one and the same. There was a whole mass of internal clitoral erectile tissue, “crura” that became aroused, and wrapped its sexy little arms around the vaginal canal.

So an orgasm didn’t just involve the clitoral button. There were powerful unseen forces at work, and they were all in full swing now, sending wave after wave of sheer bliss rocketing through my pelvis. My chest flushed hot red, and I squirted again against poor Ford’s mouth.

I found myself jerking my pelvis rhythmically against his face, like some kind of roaring twenties dancer. Now that he’d set me off, I absolutely could not stop. One contraction after the other, it seemed to go on for five minutes, breaking even my solo shower record. I held my breath and tossed my head back and prayed silently to the sky that this hellish ecstasy either stop or end my life.

Eventually Ford slowed his lapping. He was probably wondering, too, when he was going to injure me.

“
Ahhhh
,” he groaned, giving my twitching clit one last long swipe with his tongue.

I still gasped and jumped as he kneeled tall between my thighs. He wiped his beautiful face off with his forearm and I almost laughed at the absurd sight.

I was still twitching and jerking like a beached fish. A flood of tingling shivers raced up and down my body, made me want to slap my own face and chest to get it to stop. It wasn’t unpleasant but I wasn’t used to it, and my clit was so sensitive that when that sly bastard blew lightly on it, I nearly reacted by smacking
him
.

It was his turn to laugh. I’d never seen Ford so relaxed and fully masculine, as though
he
were the one who’d just had an orgasm to blow away all other orgasms. “Wow,” he said, wiping his face again. “I’ve never seen a gal come that long.”

I struggled to pull up my scrubs. “I’ve
never
come that long, Ford. I’ve actually…” I didn’t know how to explain it to him without explaining the reasoning behind it. I decided to keep it to myself. If I confessed that a psychologist thought my frigidity—or “anorgasmia” as they more clinically termed it these days—was a direct result of Cropper’s disgusting molestation of me, the whole story would spill out. Ford would go bury Cropper, the club would fall apart, and Ford would possibly wind up in jail.

Maybe I was giving myself too much credit for deeply affecting Ford. I’d seen him toss beefy bruisers around a boxing ring like they were made of foam rubber, and I’d seen him pull his Sig Sauer on a guy who cut him off in traffic. Cropper had been right about a few things. Ford was no angelic saint, and he
was
more dark-skinned than anyone knew.

“What?” said Ford slyly, fishing for a compliment.

I made a bowtie with my drawstring. “I’ve actually never had that huge of an orgasm. Damn. I always suspected you’d be one hugely talented guy in bed.”

This was enough to make Ford embrace me and plant an enormous smooch on me. At first it was kind of disgusting, seeing as how he’d just had his face buried between my legs. But he’d wiped his face off and I could only vaguely taste it. I figured these Bare Bones men had put their faces in far worse things before.

A strange thing happened.
Love
surged through me. It was as though the orgasm opened up the floodgates and it all came pouring out. Such a powerful, frightening deluge of pure love that was so strong my chest literally wrenched with the vitality of it.

It terrified me.

If you never love anyone, you can never be hurt, right?

I didn’t love Dr. Dubois in the same way I’d always loved Ford. My feelings for Jake were safer, more conventional, more shallow. Jake was certainly handsome, a good provider, popular in social circles. He was moody but knew to never cross any lines, to never get too intense.

That’s what I wanted. Love makes you crazy. Love reaches its fist down your throat and wrenches your organs from you. Love consumes you, so you have no room in your soul to think of anyone else.

I couldn’t get involved with the Bare Bones, much less the Veep who controlled everything. It would upset my life. It would take everything and turn it upside-down and shake it until the nuts and bolts and all the embarrassing little broken things fell out.

“Ah,” Ford sighed with contentment against my mouth. “My Maddy. My little Cookie. I’m staking my claim. You’re mine. Mine and only mine. You’re my property, my sweet Cookie.”

I was blown away that he’d remember what he slipped up and called me that fateful day we kissed in the pool. He’d called me sugar cookie and now he was doing it again, in a purposeful and cruel attempt to reel me in.

I was relieved when someone knocked on the door. Ford being here in the hospital to begin with was a gigantic shock, in and of itself. Him muff diving in a locked hospital room was enough to scar me for life.

I wanted nothing more than to make out with him forever, feel his velvety lips against mine, to take his enormous cock in my hand and satisfy him. But I was a registered nurse, accustomed to forcing myself to do unpleasant tasks. The unpleasant thing right now was to stop being self-indulgent and get back to reality.

“Oh!” I cried, sitting up straight.

Ford’s dopey smile never left his face, and I remembered he could only hear out of one ear. The pressure of the IED blast wave had probably ruptured his eardrum and slammed his brain against the inside of his skull.

I pointed at the door, my eyebrows raised. “Someone’s there.”

“Madison?” It was a muffled male voice.

What the fuck?
How did anyone know it was
me
? I shot Ford a fearful look. “Yes?”

“This is Security. Just wanted to know if you were okay in there.”

Standing, I adjusted my uniform and gestured at Ford to do the same. When he stood, his belt buckle I had undone dangled heavily between his legs, and I motioned for him to fix it.

Weren’t they always going hard at it in the hospital on
Grey’s Anatomy
? I’d screwed often enough before in supply rooms and on-call rooms. But never had anyone magically known it was
me
behind the door.

I clung to the locked door. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”

The guy paused, and I could feel his discomfort through the door. “I received a call that you might be in trouble in here. Just needed to check it out.”

It was then that I remembered the security camera. Idiotically, I looked up straight at it. Ford’s gaze followed mine, but he was laughing. I couldn’t take it so lightly, as it involved my job, so I glared at him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I shouted at the door. I finally opened it so the guy could see I was fine. He left, but Ford was practically busting with laughter.

“Oh, man! That’s a good one,” he said mirthfully. “Pearl diving in the quiet room next to the chapel.”

I started sputtering with the giggles too, but knew I had to sober up. This was serious business. I could get written up for this. Other times, it had been staff members I’d been with. Now I had been caught on film sitting on a biker’s face, and what if Dr. Dubois heard about it?

I grabbed the edges of Ford’s cut and tugged. “Listen. I’ve got to go. My lunch is over.”

His look was incredibly gentle and mild. “I know. I can’t claim you. You’ve got a good life going here, and I’m just a scumbag criminal. But let me see you again, tomorrow, before I go back to P&E.”

I breathed in his scent of mountain air and exhaust fumes. “I can’t, Ford. I live with someone, and I don’t do cheating.”

Ford tipped my chin up so I was forced to look at him. “I get it. You’re an honest woman with integrity, unlike the chicks we hang with. But you know you can always get a job in P&E or Prescott. Or have no job at all. You know if you’re my property you never need to work again.”

“But I
like
to work, Ford. Being responsible is what got me out of that shithole at Ingrid’s.”

He shrugged. “Then work. Doesn’t hurt my whopping ego.”

I had to know. “Your father. Does he still…come around the clubhouse much? You said he spends a lot of time with his citizen wife.”

Ford frowned. I could tell he wondered why I had changed the subject to his father. “He’s still the Prez, if that’s what you want to know. Why?”

“So he still has a say in what the club does?”

“Of course. Why does it matter?”

I had to squeeze my eyes shut then. Looking at his gorgeous Italian face with his superlative eyes all limpid like that, I was a goner.

I knew our lives could never fit together. He was right. He
was
a scumbag criminal, and I was an upstanding member of society. We had an ill-fated, star-crossed love that would last our lifetimes, but Ford was a lifer in a different sort of enterprise. One that had been founded by his scumbag father.

“I can’t, Ford,” I whispered.

He drew back from me. I had to look at him then. An entirely new personality had overtaken him. I’d seen this in him time and again—like when he’d almost shot the rude driver, or when Riker trimmed his moustache over Ford’s toothbrush.

Except this time the transformation was more severe. Obviously seeing overseas combat had twisted him in undesirable ways. A hard cast swept over his face. His eyes flashed with anger, and his lush lips firmed with disgust. “Why not? Because I’m a criminal?”

What other excuse could I use? If I had to drive him away with loathing and hatred, then that’s what I had to do. We were from two different worlds that could never collide. “Yes, that’s it,” I whispered.

He stood tall and proud. It made me love him even more. “So I’m not good enough for you? Then fuck you, Maddy.”

He was the one to stride out with dignity. I watched him go down the hall, his boots sounding hollowly on the linoleum, his spine erect.

His self-respect made me feel even smaller. How I wanted to race after him, grab his cut, and force him to face me! I knew even as it happened that it was probably the biggest mistake of my life, but that’s an indication of how much I abhorred Cropper.

That night I told Jake I couldn’t fuck because I had my period. He probably kept track of it, but was nice enough to pretend to believe me.

FORD

“Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but now I see that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I belong not to men and governments, that I have nothing to do with creeds and principles. I have nothing to do with the creaking machinery of humanity—I belong to the earth!” ~ Henry Miller,
Tropic of Cancer

O
n his way to church, Ford had to pause on the stairwell landing to finish buckling his belt.

His cock was raw from fucking, and he wondered if that sweetbutt had the clap. Riker hadn’t mentioned anything about it when he’d used her, but then, Riker wouldn’t. Everyone was using that cunt because they knew the Prospect was hot for her. It was Speed’s rite of passage. He had to know how to take it before he could dish it out himself.

Cropper passed him, jogging down the stairs. He slapped Ford chummily on the back, nearly sending him onto his face. “Getting a little of that Irish box, eh? Good for you.”

“Irish?”

Cropper turned around, amused. “Yeah, didn’t you know? That cunt used to service the Hellions out of Phoenix.”

“No shit? All the more reason to bang the stuffing out of her. Why’d she leave the Hellions?”

“I think she was kicked out for being too slutty. Police found her on some street with a beer bottle up her ass.”

“Too slutty? Wow.”

Wondering how it was possible to be too slutty, Ford followed his father into the airplane hangar itself where they stored equipment that wasn’t being used on a job. They walked past a few gleaming loaders with the Illuminati logo on the doors.

“What we voting on today?” asked Ford.

Cropper had a look of glee that didn’t bode well. “We’re finally going to decide whether to sub out for government contracts.”

They had been arguing back and forth over whether to apply for the certification to bid on government contracts. The added scrutiny in working for the Department of Transportation probably wasn’t worth it, Ford thought they’d decided. “That’s it? That’s not why you’re all jacked.”

“I think we’re going to vote on how to hit those Cutlasses who’ve been running through our backyard. Riker saw them running through Merry-go-Round Canyon last week.”

So what? They were always hitting Cutlasses. That feud had been going on for decades. “And…?”

“Oh, and?” Cropper’s wide grin was so legendary it was about to split his face in two. “We’re finally gonna decide on the Prospect’s trial by fire.”

So
that
was it. Speed was finally ready to go full patch and get his top rocker. For weeks now, they’d been arguing over what they should force him to do to test his dedication. Cropper was being especially hard on Speed. It made Ford wonder if Madison had anything to do with it. Maybe Cropper knew Madison had broken Ford’s heart, not once but twice now.