Free Hard As Steel: A Hard Ink/Raven Riders Crossover (1001 Dark Nights) by Laura Kaye Page B

handlebars and eaten some major asphalt,” he rasped, rubbing his hands over his head. “Think it’s getting worse again.”
    “Drugs,” she said, handing over the pill bottle. He swallowed them down.
    “What time is it?” he asked.
    “Going on eleven. Thought you might want to check your messages,” she said. “Phone went off a few times.”
    On a groan, Ike pushed himself up and worked his fingers over the screen. “Shit,” he bit out.
    Dread curled into Jess’s belly. “What happened?”
    “Nothing yet. For some reason the commanding officer from the team’s base in Afghanistan—the one who oversaw their trumped-up discharge from the Army—is in town. And because he was friends with her father, he called Becca and asked to get together. She’s gonna do the meet tomorrow morning. They’re sending her in wired, just in case.” Becca Merritt was Nick’s girlfriend, the daughter of his Special Forces A-Team commander who’d died last year.
    Worry curled into Jess’s belly. She’d gotten to know Becca over the past few weeks. She was nice and sweet and she smoothed Nick’s sometimes too-hard edges. And the woman had been through a fuck-ton already—way more than Jess, that much was for sure. “Man, Nick must be flipping out.”
    “No doubt.” Ike tossed his phone to the mattress beside him. “I’m useless like this. I gotta get out of this bed.” He shifted like he meant to get up.
    Jess planted a hand in the center of his red-hot chest. And not the good kinda hot, either. “Not ’til you’re better.” The fact that she was able to so easily push him back down proved he still needed to be in this bed.
    He sagged back into the mattress and his eyelids fell closed. “Don’t like being apart from you.”
    Even though she knew he meant that in the protective sense, warmth still bloomed inside her chest. “Want me to stay?” she asked.
    His lids flipped up and those dark-brown eyes peered up at her. “Yes.”
    He was sick and flat on his back, but something about the quickness of his answer and the intensity of his gaze sent a ripple of awareness through her body. “Well, then scooch over, ya big lug.”
    “You say the sweetest things,” he said, voice like gravel.
    “I know, right? I’m such a peach.” Jess stretched out beside him, just barely resisting the urge to curl into all that hard muscle and inked skin. But it wasn’t like she could still use the excuse that she needed to steal his body heat.
    He stretched out an arm toward her and patted his chest. “C’mere.”
    “I don’t want to make you too hot.” She said the words even though she really didn’t want him to change his mind.
    “You make me feel good,” he murmured.
    Jess settled right into the side of his body, not minding the heat radiating off of him one bit. She tried not to feel so pleased by what he’d said. She really did. But she was pretty much giddy inside.
    The sigh he released was full of comfort and satisfaction. Because of her.
    Gah!
    Okay, Jess. Don’t be ridiculous.
    She’d still been talking herself down from reading into his words and actions when she’d apparently drifted off to sleep…
    Voices woke her. No, one voice.
    Ike. Talking and restless in his sleep. She couldn’t understand the slurred words, so she turned onto her back and closed her eyes. Ike’s body followed hers. He turned on his side and curled himself around her—close enough to feel that his cock was totally hard against her thigh.
    The heat that shot over her body had nothing to do with Ike’s fever.
    God, he felt big and thick against her. Her hands itched to stroke him. She licked her lips, her mouth hungry to feel his heaviness on her tongue, against the back of her throat. She shifted her hips, her core clenching at the thought of feeling him penetrate her, open her, ride her. Hard.
    Nearly holding her breath, Jess stayed still. His erection would go away and her heart would stop racing, and then she’d fall back