Tanner's War by Amber Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

he
needed. Drain the wildness from his system. He heaved a deep sigh. "Are
they gonna keep coming after you, these Church
bastards?"
    Beth nodded. "I think so. It's
a question of pride. Abram won't be shamed before the Church." She hugged
herself, shivering. "Perhaps ... If you'd be kind enough to give me a ride
somewhere ..."
    "No!" He didn't mean to
yell again, but there was just no fucking way he was dumping her somewhere.
"No, Beth, no way. You can't run from shit like them. You can't let them
beat you."
    "What choice do I have? I've
got nothing, nobody—"
    He whirled round and grabbed her by
the shoulders, pulling her hard against his chest. She gave a little gasp,
staring up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. "You've got me now,"
he said, an unexpected fierceness rising in him. Before he could think better
of it, he kissed her.
    It was probably a mistake. But
fuck, she felt good in his arms. She melted into him, opening herself to his
possessive kiss and pressing her soft body against him eagerly. He wrapped his
arms around her, lifting her off her feet in his need to get as much of her as
possible. She tasted sweet and fresh, and his cock hardened as he wondered if
her cunt tasted as good as her lips. The thought spurred him to kiss her
harder, deeper, sweeping his tongue over hers, then biting her lip. She
moaned—half pain, half encouragement, but the sound cut through some of
Tanner's blind lust.
    "Shit," he said,
releasing her abruptly. "I shouldn't have done that."
    Her face crumpled and he realized
too late how callous that sounded. He thumped the wall with less force, and ran
his hands over his face, trying to compose himself.
    It wasn't easy. His cock was
throbbing and his whole body felt hot and tight, wired for action. Beth stared
at him with a mixture of hope and shame on her face, and all he wanted to do
was snatch her back into his arms and start kissing her again. For starters, anyway. Everything else he wanted to do to her
...Well, fuck. She probably hadn't heard of half the things he wanted to do to
her.
    "Don't you want me?" she
asked, voice breaking.
    Well shit. Of course he wanted her.
Look at her. Sweet hips, hot tits, lush lips. Who wouldn't want her? But not
like this, with her drunk and vulnerable.
    "I didn't mean it like
that," he said, reaching for her. "I just mean, you're ... you know
... And I'm ... you know ..." Shit. What was it about her that made him so
damn tongue-tied?
    "I don't know," she said,
hugging herself again and turning away from him
slightly. “Don’t do things like that if you don’t mean them.”
    “I did mean it. It just probably
wasn’t very appropriate.”
    There was a touch of bitterness in
Beth’s laugh that he didn’t like. “Do you always worry about what’s
appropriate?”
    “No,” he admitted. Well, this was
going really fucking badly, wasn’t it? He laced his fingers behind his head and
kicked at the scuffed boards on the porch, wishing he could go join the fights
he knew were happening not far from here. Nash had him on probation though. No
getting back in the cage until his actual probation was over. Tanner had tried
to persuade him otherwise, but he’d realized that all his arguments made him
sound like a teenager screaming you’re
not my real dad and gave up out of embarrassment.
    But fuck it, he needed to fight
tonight. It was an itch under his skin that would just get hotter and hotter
the more he ignored it. He was tuned up all wrong, what with finding Beth,
laying out that creep at Mia’s, and now that kiss. It was either fight or fuck,
and the only woman he wanted to fuck … He glanced at Beth. She looked torn
between bolting and throwing herself at him. He could have her, he knew that.
Their kiss told him that. She might be innocent and scared, but she was
electric in his arms. It would be really fucking sick of him though, wouldn’t
it? She’d been assaulted, sexually and physically, in the past twenty-four
hours by men she’d known