“Sure,” she breathed as she shivered beneath his touch. The movies, New York City, in that moment, Debbie would go anywhere with Preacher.
The corner of his mouth lifted, and any remaining strain in his expression vanished.
• • •
Being bad felt damn good.
This was something Preacher had learned from a young age. It had started out innocently enough, disobeying his parents or lying to a schoolteacher. Tiny acts of defiance that made a small boy in a world of men feel not quite so insignificant.
At ten years old he was shoplifting from the corner bodega and slipping money out of The Judge’s wallet. At thirteen he was placing illegal bets in the back alley behind the neighborhood butcher shop.
And by the time Preacher was in high school, he’d graduated from shoplifting to jacking neighborhood cars and joyriding with his friends.
Even after his father had brought him into the club and illegal doings had become a way of life, Preacher had still found ways to get his kicks. Taking another man’s girl to bed just because he could. Skimming money from business associates, or snagging some junk for himself. It was never enough to cause notice—just enough to satiate Preacher’s appetite for rebellion.
In Preacher’s mind, those tiny bits of rebellion had kept him fresh. Awake. Alive.
He’d since grown stale in prison. He’d forgotten what being him felt like. He’d forgotten how much he loved to push boundaries. To break rules. To bend them to his will.
He remembered now and he had Debbie to thank for that.
It wasn’t that being with Debbie was necessarily bad, only that Preacher had deemed it not the right thing. He’d drawn a line.
And then he gave his conscience a swift kick off a tall bridge and dove headfirst right over that line.
And yeah, it felt damn good.
Crouched inside his tent, Preacher zipped the door flap closed and turned toward Debbie. Seated cross-legged on top of the sleeping bag he’d laid out, she looked up at him with a nervous, expectant expression. Moonlight filtering through the tent’s windows bathed her in an almost angelic glow, emphasizing the dark of her eyes.
Was that a little bit of fear he was seeing, too?
It might have given him pause… if he hadn’t been so drunk. And high. And three times as keyed up as he could ever remember feeling before in his life—an uncomfortable combination of angry and horny that desperately needed an outlet.
Not bothering to kick off his boots or remove his cut, Preacher moved swiftly across the tent. Cupping the side of Debbie’s face, he claimed her mouth. And as his tongue plunged past her lips, he used the weight of his body to push her onto her back and maneuver himself between her legs.
While his hands were busy skimming the length of her, Preacher thrust his hips forward, rocking himself over the sweet spot between her thighs. She jerked at the contact, gasping softly into his mouth. He continued mimicking sex until her legs were wrapped around his waist and she was grinding against him the same way she kissed him—absolutely inexperienced, but at the same time, so crazy into it.
This girl did not think, not when it came to him anyway, and Preacher fucking loved it.
A breast in one hand and a handful of ass in the other, he broke their kiss and moved to her neck, licking, sucking, biting his way across the soft skin there.
He traveled quickly down to her collarbone, pushing her T-shirt up as he went.
He didn’t bother to take her top off—he’d already freed the parts of her he wanted. He groped and kneaded and teased until Debbie was panting.
And then his mouth replaced his hands.
Debbie’s hands went to his head, gripping handfuls of his hair. Soft, needy, sexy-as-hell noises filled his ears, and he went from straining uncomfortably against his jeans to nearly punching straight through them.
Heaving himself up over her, he took her mouth again, kissing her hard and fast.
Still wet from his mouth, her tits were in his hand; he palmed one and then the other before sliding his hand down her stomach toward her shorts.
He yanked open the top button.
“Preacher.” Debbie turned her head, freeing her mouth. “Preacher… wait.”
He continued fumbling with her shorts, pulling open two more buttons. Although he’d heard her, nothing had registered. His skin was too hot, his anger with The Judge was still simmering inside him. And his dick felt full to the point of bursting. He was sick of only wanting this girl—he wanted to have her.
Legs twisted beneath him, hands shoved at his shoulders. “Preacher, stop!”
Preacher froze and Debbie shoved at him again. He rolled off her onto his side as she scrambled to sit. Flushed and breathing hard, she wrenched her T-shirt down and quickly fixed her shorts.
“What’s wrong?” Preacher asked, unable to hear himself over the rapid roar of blood pumping through him.
Biting her bottom lip, refusing to look at him, Debbie only shook her head.
Irritation rose inside him, and Preacher had to fight to battle it back down, to remain calm. Sitting up, he ran a hand through his unbound hair and blew out a breath.
“I’m sorry,” he heard Debbie whisper. Her voice sounded small and timid, and Preacher heard real fear there. He blew out another breath, and with it, some of his frustration.
“It’s cool,” he muttered. “We don’t gotta do it.”
“It’s not that.” Debbie joined him at the door. “I do wanna do it. It was just…”
She trailed off and Preacher made the mistake of looking at her. Her hair was a mess, her lips wet and swollen. Her nipples were visible beneath her T-shirt, tiny torpedoes aimed straight at him. Inside his jeans his dick surged, the buildup of pressure quickly becoming uncomfortable. His hands began to twitch, suddenly desperate for something to do.
Grinding his teeth, Preacher moved quickly across the tent and opened the door. “You don’t gotta explain shit to me,” he managed to grit out as he fumbled to light a cigarette.
Staring out into the night, he puffed on his cigarette like his life depended on it, feeling like he might actually explode if he didn’t fuck… something.
Debbie’s hand appeared on his arm, her touch an electric surge to his already fried system. “I’m really sorry. I just got—I don’t know. It was, um—it was just too fast.” The hand on his arm began to quiver almost as much as her voice. “I don’t know—”
Preacher cut her off by shoving a cigarette between her lips. “Shh,” he growled, “and let me calm the fuck down.”
They smoked in silence. Preacher lit one cigarette after another until the mountain in his jeans was more of a semi-hard mound and his heartbeat had returned to normal.
When he eventually chanced another glance at Debbie, he found her with her arms wrapped around her legs, chin resting on her knees, nervously twisting a small silver ring around her finger. And now that he could think clearly, he felt like a first-class asshole.
“Wheels,” he said, sighing. “Look at me.”
Her big brown eyes lifted, full of riotous emotions that Preacher wasn’t going to begin to guess at.
“Whatever bullshit you got goin’ on inside that head of yours, it better not be because of me. I ain’t mad. You don’t gotta fuck me. Hell, you don’t even gotta talk to me and I’ll still get you to the city. A promise is a promise.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
“After you get me to the city. Are you going to stay… or are you going back on the road?”
Preacher studied her. “You tryin’ to ask me something specific?”
She stared at him a moment, then shrugged. “Just wondering.”
It was too flippant a tone, too cavalier a gesture to be anything other than a lie. And Preacher wondered if that’s why she’d stopped him. It made sense—why would a good girl like her want to sleep with an asshole like him, especially if he was just going to cut and run in a few days?
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his neck. “I got some shit goin’ on with my dad.”
“I know, but… why don’t you just talk to him?”
Preacher snorted. The idea that The Judge would be willing to hear anything Preacher had to say was a pipe dream at best. His old man was wired wrong. He couldn’t actually listen to anything anyone said. He was built to give orders, nothing more.