“Shit,” he says again, and there’s a measure of surrender in his voice. He’s giving up; I’ve broken him down. A smile teases across my lips as I lift my face up to look into his. “Every time I think there’s a line that can’t be crossed, I …”
“Not black and white,” I tell him, taking his huge hands and putting them on my breasts. He kneads the full mounds with my fingers still entwined with his, and I moan so loudly that he actually curses again. The sound echoes around us, ricocheting off into the shadows of night. “Shades of gray.”
I reach between us and work my clit with my fingers as Crown plays with my tits, hefting them into his warm, rough palms and pinching my nipples as I pulse and squeeze around his body. He gets hard again relatively quickly, and a sultry chuckle escapes me.
“You really are a brat,” he growls, yanking me against him again and bouncing me on his lap, spearing his cock all the way inside of me as I whimper and writhe against him, digging my nails into his shoulders. “A terrible fucking brat who doesn’t listen to shit.”
Crown lifts us both up suddenly, and a small sound escapes me. He carries me up the porch steps and lays me on his stupid outdoor rug that’s spread out in front of a pair of rocking chairs. And then he fucks me while looking into my eyes. When I try to turn my face away, he snatches my chin in rough fingers and makes me look at him while I come.
I try to close my eyes, and he squeezes my chin harder until I’m forced to open them, staring at him as my body milks his with hard, strong pulses. And that’s exactly what got us all into trouble before, isn’t it? I think, panting there underneath him.
He waits until I’m nothing but a messy puddle, and then fucks into me until he comes again, digging his nails into the rug on either side of my head. And then Crown collapses on top of me, his heavy weight a pleasant warmth on a relatively cool evening.
“I love you, too,” I murmur finally. “I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen. Maybe longer than that.”
“No, don’t say that,” he whispers, but he doesn’t move from where he is. Of them all, Crown is the one that’s been here the longest, the one that I’ve known the longest. He lifts up slightly, bracing himself on his forearms so that he can stare down at me. “Please stop.”
“You want me to lie?” I offer up, and he groans, pushing himself up into a sitting position, naked and gorgeous in the flickering flames of the porch light. I sit up, too, squeezing my thighs together and apologizing to the poor rug. I pick at the fibers with my fingernails. “You’re a very easy man to have a crush on.”
He almost smiles at that, but then, he wouldn’t be Crown if he didn’t throw an imperious look in my direction.
“You shouldn’t have worked so hard today,” he says, and I narrow my eyes.
Oh boy, here we go.
“Why?” I ask as he shoves up to his feet, heading down the front steps to gather our clothes. He comes back with the items in his arms and then gives the front door a scathing sort of scowl.
“You know why,” he says, his voice relatively calm, even if his expression is hideous. The scowl isn’t for me; it’s for our houseguests. Crown chucks the clothes onto one of the chairs, removing our phones and his gun and then offering me my Magnum.
I stand up and take it, giving him an odd look.
He types the code for the house in, and the lock makes a mechanical swishing sound as it unlocks.
“If anyone’s in here, clear out,” he calls after he opens it, and then he looks back at me, nodding in the direction of the front hall. “I didn’t buy and renovate this place to wear clothes in it; this is my house.”
I take the Magnum with me as Crown moves into the front hall, waiting for me to join him before he closes and locks the door behind him. The way he looks in the shadows of that hallway, I know that this is it.
No more games.
No more games …
“This is my house,” I correct him, and he sighs.
“Get upstairs. Now.”
I move past him and up the steps, cursing as his cum drips hot down my inner thighs. We make it safely into the bedroom without encountering either Reba or Grey. Never in a million years would Reba want to see two naked bikers carrying handguns. Pretty sure Grey would rather claw his own eyes out than look at me with one of my lovers right now.
I set my weapon on the bathroom counter and start the shower, admiring the old claw-foot tub, and its fresh, white glaze.
Crown pauses behind me, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. Neither of us has bothered to turn any lights on.
“You did good today, Gidge,” he tells me, and while he doesn’t necessarily sound surprised, there’s a thread of pride in his voice that makes me smile. I’m not looking at him, so it doesn’t matter. Otherwise, I might try to hide it. “You up for more work tomorrow?”
“As long as you don’t treat me like an invalid for being pregnant,” I suggest, testing the water and finding it nice and hot and steaming. I should’ve realized there was something wrong with me a long time ago.
I like when the water burns; I like when it scalds me.
I love the pain.
I glance over my shoulder to find Crown’s face in the dark. He stares right back at me and shakes his head.
“You can break me down on some things, but not on this. You’re pregnant. I will treat you like a treasure whether you like it or not.”
I scowl at him and throw the curtain closed in his face.
He leaves me alone, but only for a second. A fucking second. And then the curtain is being wrenched back and he’s climbing in right beside me, grabbing me and kissing me in the hot, steamy spray.
If I thought it was bad before, when Crown was just my father’s righthand man, that was nothing.
I am in so much more trouble now with this man than I ever was before.
So, so, so much more.
Crown actually sleeps beside me in his big four-poster bed, one arm around my waist, my body tucked up against his. Or … at least, I think he sleeps? I don’t. I lie there and stare at the reading nook on the wall opposite me, barely visible in the darkness.
I like it here.
No, no, I love it here.
In this house, tucked up against Crown, in his bed.
And I don’t ever get anything that I want without paying a hefty price in return.
I must doze off eventually because when I wake up, Crown is gone, and annoyingly bright sunshine is streaming through the slats in the wood blinds. With a grumble, I shove up from the bed and open the blinds, just so I can look outside and see how bad the sky is today.
It’s hazy with smoke, worse than yesterday.
That’d be just my luck, to finally break Crown’s resolve down, get him to admit that this really is my house, and then watch as it burns to the fucking ground. With a sigh, I look around for my phone and find it on the nightstand.
The emergency alert is still at level one. That’s good, right? It hasn’t been rescinded or downgraded but staying stagnant works okay for me.
I dress myself in jeans and a black tank top with a huge skull on the front of it, slipping downstairs to find Beast in the kitchen. His jacket is draped over the chair on his right. I wonder if he retrieved it from the pile outside. God, I hope not.
I do my best to creep into the kitchen without him noticing, but at the last minute, he explodes out of the chair and grabs me by the wrists, slamming me into the wall just hard enough to teach me a lesson but without actually hurting me.
“It’s not just about the creak o’ the floor or the crush of leaves beneath your feet,” he explains as I struggle to catch my breath, as disturbed by the intensity of my attraction toward him as I am about getting caught. “You need to control your own body as well.”
Beast runs his tongue over his lip, studying my mouth before lifting that blue-eyed gaze to my face.
“Bend both knees, keep a low point of gravity for stability. When you start to walk, put all your weight on one f
oot then step forward slowly with the other. Put the outer part o’ the ball of your foot down first, rollin’ it down to the inner portion. Then come down with your heel.”
“What was I doing?” I whisper back, wishing that he would just say good morning, wife and kiss me already.
Beast snorts and rubs his stubble against my cheek, making me groan. You’d think I would’ve had enough, right? But somehow, I always want more.
“Well,” he starts, his drawl particularly pronounced at the moment, like he’s suffering from extreme exhaustion. I bet he didn’t sleep at all in the last twenty-four hours. And then before that, we fucked more than we slept. I can’t let him kill himself like this. “You were trompin’ around like a hound dog in a forest of dry kindlin’.”
“Technically speaking,” I hiss back as Beast pulls away from me, this sparkle in his gaze that says he’s very much enjoying this.
“You clearly weren’t bendin’ your knees enough. Pretty sure you were walkin’ on the outside edges of your feet without ever putting your heel down. No stability like that, darlin’. And it isn’t just silence you’re lookin’ for—you need to be able to take a surprise hit.”
He moves away from me again and sits back down in the chair.
“Do it again, and if you impress me, I’ll kiss ya good mornin’.”
I scowl at him and shake my arms out, but I do as he asked, retreating to the edge of the room, and trying again. He must just want me to kiss him because this time, he lets me slide my arms around his neck and lean my body against his from behind.
“Much better,” he grunts, pulling me into his lap and kissing me with this needy passion that can’t possibly have been born from a single day apart. No, this is deeper than that, isn’t it? Beast samples my mouth like he’s at a banquet, and I’m a delicacy he only meant to try, but has now decided to consume in its entirety …
He pulls back with a bit of a curse, studying me as I reach up to tease at the stubble on his cheeks with my fingers.
“Everything okay?” I ask as he gives me a searching sort of look. I wonder if he’s curious about what happened between me and Crown. If he asks, I’ll tell him. I’ll tell him anyway, just not right this second unless specifically requested.
“Okay being relative,” he starts, and then gives a loose shrug of his broad shoulders. “It’s alright. I took care of some business. Seems your little friend was right: we need to get ahold of that team before they get to Cat.” Beast reaches around me for his coffee, and I realize that Crown must’ve filled him in on everything; I haven’t had the chance to and yet, he already knows what Grey told me about his father’s tactical unit.
He also seems to know just a little bit more than that.
“You tortured someone yesterday?” I guess as Beast takes a sip of his coffee, eyes watching me over the rim, waiting to make sure I really want to know the answer to my own question.
“We found some mafia scum lurking around the electric fence on the north side of the compound.” Beast takes another sip of coffee and lets out a low, acidic laugh. “Morons.”
Crown sweeps into the kitchen next, pausing when he catches sight of me in Beast’s lap. He blinks past a rush of dark jealousy and turns away, busying himself at the coffeepot.
“So there really is an official hit out on Cat,” I murmur contemplatively, and Beast gives me a look.
“Not just on Cat; they’re after you, too.” Beast glances over at Crown, and their eyes meet. He turns back to me. “The mafia is demanding that we give you up.”
I raise both brows.
Oh.
Another demand.
With the attack Gaz leveled inside our own walls, the deaths of René’s family, and the tense situation with families bunking on the compound, that’s all pressure on the club to submit, to relent, to give something ‘simple’ up to restore order.
Me.
Just me.
“And?” I suggest as Crown moves over to take the seat on Beast’s left.
“What do you think?” Crown asks, posing the question like it’s part of an exam. I reluctantly stand up from Beast’s lap—it’s far too distracting, and he’s already hard—and go to get myself a cup of coffee.
Both men stand up immediately, and I roll my eyes.
“I am capable of pouring myself coffee,” I say with a laugh, and Crown gives me a look. “Oh, and don’t worry: I looked it up.” I give them both a palms out, I’m surrendering sort of look. “As long as I keep the caffeine under two-hundred milligrams, it’s a-okay.”
Crown doesn’t look happy, but he sits down with a sigh, taking a drink from his own mug. Beast stays standing for another minute and then does the same.
I join them after adding cream and sugar, leaning back in my chair with the warm mug clutched between my palms. Looking down at my drink, I can’t help but think of Grainger. I like the way he makes coffee. I like when he makes me coffee. The gesture of it. The familiarity. The normalcy.
I see that both Crown and Beast drink their coffee black—little surprise there.
But what about Sin? I wonder how he takes his.
“The club would never give into a demand like that,” I say finally, lifting my gaze up to meet Crown’s. It’s impossible to look at him and not think about the conversation that we had last night. The sex. More so, the cuddling.
I exhale.
He almost smiles but tries to hide it when he takes another sip of his drink.
“Never,” Beast agrees as he looks over at me. “More than that, you know your daddy would never sell you out like that.”
“Not even after …” I don’t want to say it. I hate the way it sounds. I hate it. “Finding out that I’m a traitor.” I make myself drink the coffee, staring at the surface of the table and hurting in ways that I cannot explain, that I don’t want to explain.
I miss Gaz, even though I hated him, even though he was a threat to my safety. Shit, he was a threat to everyone’s safety. Those fifty-plus lives the club lost? Those are on his conscience. I wouldn’t be surprised if, depending on your religious persuasion, he was burning in the fiery pits of hell or if maybe he got reborn as like, a slug who gets salt poured all over its back and shrivels up. Equally fitting punishments.
And yet I can’t help it.
I can’t help missing him.
I can’t help missing … something else, too.
Cat hates me. Cat told me we were alike. Cat … trusted me.
My father trusted me.
Something I’d always wanted, always dreamed of, even if I was far too cynical to admit it to myself let alone out loud. And I ruined that. I ruined all of that.
“Not even,” Crown agrees with a long sigh, tapping his fingers against the sides of his mug. “We don’t give up anyone: wives or daughters or even prospects; we close ranks.” He sounds proud when he says that and, I have to admit, that’s one of the main draws of the club, isn’t it?
Loyalty and community.
And that first one, we have trashed to hell and back.
I want to make it right. The urge rages within me, makes me burn and ache and want. I want to bring Cat bodies. I want to deliver heads. I want to prove to him that I was never out to destroy Death by Daybreak in the first place.
Yet, he still needs to be punished. I have a mental list of people who have to pay for my sisters’ deaths, and his is on it. He even holds blame for my brother’s death—and I don’t mean because he did what was needed and pulled the trigger. Cat raised Gaz; he made that monster.
“What’s the mood amongst the guys like?” I ask, wondering how the wedding day attack was explained away. There were bodies on our side, but no mafia bodies. Did the other club members assume Grey Wolfe Mafia took their dead with them? It happens. “Are people putting pressure on Cat to give me up?”
Crown shakes his head as Beast remains quiet and stoic, as usual.
“Nobody believes we’ll have peace either way, not even if they promise not to target anym
ore club families in exchange.”
My skin crawls with goose bumps. If that were possible, if that were even remotely true … but it isn’t. There’s no way to guarantee that. I’m not sure I’m that self-sacrificial anyway, but if I were so inclined, it wouldn’t matter. Once the mafia had me, there’d be nothing to keep them from breaking their word.
Never bargain with outlaws, whether they’re the silk tie or snakeskin type. Doesn’t matter either way. Never trust someone who spends their days dressed in blood.
“Sin is being released from the hospital soon,” Crown offers up eventually, setting his mug down and meeting my eyes. “Once he’s back, and Grainger is back, the five of us need to talk.”
Beast chuckles, but doesn’t look at either of us, his gaze focused out the window where the sun is cresting in the distance. It’s that disgusting orange color again, tainted with wildfire.
I glance over at my husband, and his eyes finally swing over to meet mine.
“We do need to talk,” I agree, looking back at Crown. “But that won’t change anything between us. Between me and Beast. Me and you.” I finish my coffee and set the mug down with a sigh. “I haven’t decided what to do about … this.” I gesture at my stomach. “But I’ll tell you one thing: if I do keep this pregnancy, I’m not getting a DNA test, and you assholes are just going to have to get over that.”
I stand up and leave the room, the sound of Beast’s low laughter trailing along behind me.
The work I do for the next few days is tedious and relentless. I meet more club wives and children than I could ever possibly remember. Everybody knows who I am though.
I am infamous, it seems.
Crown and Beast take turns watching over me. They keep their distance during the day, doing their own work while I deal with mine. At night, it depends on who’s there when I get ready to fall asleep.
For the last couple nights, it’s been Beast. Just me and my new husband shacking up and sharing a bed. It’s hard to remember that this is all new for me. Staying the night with a man, sleeping next to him, waking up with him by my side.
On the day Sin is supposed to be released, I sit down and try to remember when I last had my period. Tapping my phone’s stylus against the side of my head, I stare down at the calendar in thought.
I Will Revel in Glory Page 15
