Silver Bastard (Silver Valley #1)(15)
Author: Joanna Wylde

“Fuck off,” he said, his voice happy. The shadows had grown longer and the sun was already down below the ridgeline. Night fell fast here in the deep mountain valleys.

“You wish,” she replied, crawling over me to lie down on top of him. I rolled my eyes.

“You guys are disgusting.”

“Jealous?” Blake asked. “You’re totally welcome to join in.”

I flipped him off, then looked back toward the empty apartment across from mine. There was definitely a light in there, I decided. Between the dirt and the dark curtains it was hard to see, but apparently I had a new neighbor.

“Hope whoever moved in isn’t an asshole.”

Danielle and Blake didn’t reply, and I looked over to find them swapping spit as his hand slipped up her shirt. Great.

“You know, you’re hurting my feelings,” I muttered. “Seems like just a little while ago your hands were all over me. What’s a girl to think?”

They ignored me, and I giggled at my own little joke. Then I saw a shadow pass across the window.

Alcohol is fully to blame for what I did next.

Booze and that unpleasant, impulsive streak I’d inherited from Mom . . .

Setting down my bottle carefully, I crept across the roof on my hands and knees in full stealth mode. This wasn’t exactly an impressive feat, given how old and soft the shingles were, but I still felt very sneaky and special when I reached the far window and tried to peek inside.

The grime blocked everything, so I spat on my finger and wiped off a little peephole. It worked surprisingly well but when I put my face up to it to look through, I was rewarded with a sight that shocked me. Oh wow.

It was an ass. A bare ass, with tight, sculpted muscles and thick, firm thighs. It’d been five years, but I recognized those thighs all too well. Even if I hadn’t, the little tingle of arousal would’ve been a dead giveaway.

What in the name of hell was Puck Redhouse doing in the building across from mine? And where the fuck were his clothes?

I gasped as he slowly turned, revealing that it wasn’t just his butt that was naked. Nope, that was a penis and it was every bit as big and hard as I remembered it being. I’d felt that thing push deep inside and it’d felt good. Total understatement. It’d been fantastic.

Well, fantastic until the pain, the beating, and the endless ride across the desert wondering whether my mom was still alive.

You’d think the memory of the bad would wipe out the good, but it didn’t. In my head they were almost two separate incidents, unrelated. Regina told me once that we do whatever we have to when it comes to survival, including allowing our bodies to feel pleasure at the strangest of times. She said I shouldn’t worry about judging my sexual responses, even if they were kind of fucked up.

This was easier in theory than practice.

I really, really didn’t want to be attracted to Puck.

God obviously has a vicious sense of humor. Here I was, a walking, talking portrait of sexual dysfunction, and the only guy who really got me going happened to be the scariest biker I’d ever met. The motorcycle club was supposed to be a deal breaker. It wasn’t personal—more of a “been there, done that, got my lifetime supply of psychological trauma” kind of thing.

Puck was exactly the opposite of what I wanted and needed, yet my stupid body just wasn’t getting the message.

Unacceptable.

Then he reached down and caught that big cock in his hand, giving it a stroke. I stopped thinking and settled in for the show, figuring if God was going to betray me by creating a body that only responded to Puck, I might as well enjoy it. It didn’t occur to me that maybe I shouldn’t be spying on him. Not even a little. Of course, nothing good ever happens when you spy on someone.

Sometimes you get caught.

Sometimes you see horrible, horrible things . . . like Carlie Gifford stepping into view and dropping to her knees in front of the guy you absolutely don’t want anything to do with under any circumstances—not even a little—and sucking his dick deep into her mouth.

I’d never been under any illusions about Puck. The night I’d met him, he’d fucked me harder than most women experience in their entire lives . . . but I knew I wasn’t anything special in his world. Hell, he’d brought women to breakfast at the diner regularly whenever he was in town. Guess that made him a gentleman, because at least he fed them after a night spent hot and heavy under the sheets.

Still, knowing he was fucking around and seeing it in living color right in front of you are two very different things.

This was where I should’ve backed away. Scuttled off like a good girl, gone back into my apartment and gone to bed. Definitely the smart thing to do.

But when her mouth wrapped around him tight and he dug his fingers deep into her hair?

I couldn’t have dragged my eyes away if my life depended on it. So I watched as her cheeks hollowed and sucked him in. So wrong on so many levels, and utterly compelling. Need and desire grew between my legs as her fingers dug into his ass. I still remembered exactly how it felt when he’d come deep into my own throat all those years ago.

It was wrong.

And when his entire body tensed before he pulled free and sprayed all over her face?

That’s when I realized my fascination with Puck was deeply fucked up. I needed to meet some other man. Any other man. Maybe before I took a job down at the Bitter Moose, I should go check it out for myself. See who might be there. Somewhere in the world there had to be a guy as sexy as Puck who wasn’t a biker. I just needed to find him.

There had to be a sweet spot between lonely cat lady and full-on biker whore like my mom. Not that I had a cat—yet. But one of Regina’s was pregnant and she’d been talking about giving me a kitten.

When I got it, I’d already know how to make it sundresses . . .

No. No more cat dresses. I’d just have to suck it up and start screwing random guys until I found one that worked right.

Standing unsteadily, I backed away from the window, tripping as I knocked over the empty wine bottle with an unholy rattle of metal flashing. It startled Blake, and he sat up abruptly, rolling Danielle off to the side with a thud. She squawked in outrage. This would’ve been of far more concern to me if I wasn’t suddenly teetering toward the end of the fake roof facade, hoping rather desperately that the two-foot-high barrier would be enough to keep me from going over the edge.

“Fuck,” Blake muttered, diving for me. He caught the side of my shirt and yanked me back. Hard. The fabric tore wide open and we fell back down on the roof together with a thud.