“True,” I rumbled with a snort. She was so fucking smart and too good for me. I knew that. “Finishing school, huh?”
“Father insisted.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you stopped calling him that? You won’t ever be seeing that fucker again.”
She nibbled a little harder on her lip. “You think?”
“That’s a fucking promise.”
Her nod was resolute. “Okay. Donavan, then. He insisted I be finished.”
My eyes widened. “That sounds ominous.”
“It wasn’t actually. But I had to walk around with a book on my head and learn where to set cutlery on the table. There’s also a whole damn protocol about where to sit a prince next to an oligarch—tedious as fuck.”
My lips curved even as I got, even more so, a sense of the yawning gap between us. Oligarchs and princes were not in my world.
“Babe, you become my woman, my Old Lady, you’ll be safe. I will never let anyone harm you. I will make sure that you’re safe from that cunt of a father, and I’ll go to war with the Famiglia to keep you out of their paws but…”
When my voice waned because she was looking at me like I’d set the planets in the sky, I didn’t want to finish my sentence.
I really fucking didn’t.
I wanted her to look at me that way.
I wanted this princess, this fucking queen, to look at me, trailer trash, like I was capable of anything. Like I was her knight in goddamn shining armor.
But I wasn’t.
My armor was tarnished, and it had been for a helluva long time. She needed to know that. Even if she thought she didn’t, I needed to ram that home because I wasn’t doing this with an expiration date in mind, even if she was.
I was going with a gut feeling. A feeling that appeared whenever she lay asleep on my chest, whenever she cuddled into me at night. When she moaned from a nightmare and it pierced my fucking heart like she’d used a goddamn dagger to stab me.
I was going from the smiles she earned whenever she sent me something funny via text, to thinking about how right it would feel when she rode bitch on the back of my bike…
No, this wasn’t temporary. This was, in my mind, permanent. And the fact that I was willing to wait until she was ready, until she wanted me as much as I wanted her, until she was begging for my touch and not tensing up at it, spoke wonders.
“What is it?” she whispered when I didn’t continue, when I just looked at her, staring into her starry eyes. The abused woman finally able to see the broken pieces of herself come together again.
“I’m not a prince. I’m not an oligarch. I don’t go to the opera and I don’t have a pass to Crosskeys. I used to work there, for God’s sake. I don’t wear Prada, and my hair? I usually cut it in the bathroom. Nothing about me is fancy, and everything about you is—”
Before I could say more, she raised her hand and pressed a finger to my lips. “Do you know how many guys have tried to pick me up at Crosskeys?”
Irritation flashed through me like a tidal wave. “I can imagine,” I rumbled.
She snorted. “Don’t get jealous—”
Fuck. I was.
Me. Jealous!
Holy.
Shit.
If I needed proof that this woman was different, I had it.
Right there.
Right then.
“I didn’t want a single one of them. Dressed in tennis whites, golf vests, Armani suits, or designer casual. I didn’t want any of them.
“It was a biker who made me feel safe. One who cuts his hair in the bathroom, one who wears Henleys and ripped jeans and has engine oil in the tiniest creases in his nails. You, Link. You. You made me feel safe, you made me feel like I wasn’t alone, and when you touch me, I’m not Donavan Lancaster’s daughter, I’m Lily. I’m me. And I like me around you.”
“I like you around me too,” I replied huskily, liking her answer so fucking much I thought I’d burst.
“What do I have to do to become your Old Lady?”
“You get a tattoo.”
“Is that it?” She released a breath that I realized was relieved.
A laugh escaped me. “What did you think you’d have to do?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t sure.” She winced. “I mean, when you join frat houses and sororities they all make you do weird stuff—”
“Well, this is weird enough.”
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo,” she mused.
“This one will tell the fucking world what you are to me. What you mean to this club. It’s a brand, babe. A stamp of protection that will keep you safe forever. You have my word on that.”
Her big blue eyes grew hazy. “You really mean it, don’t you? You want me like that. Even though I…”
“Even though you, what? Haven’t put out?” I arched a brow. “Don’t you realize that’s half of what makes me know I need you in my life, sugar tits?” As her eyes widened, I told her, “And don’t think that just because I’m taking shit slow, I’m not going to touch you. ‘Cause I am. I already told you I’m going to glut myself on your fucking taste and give you so many fucking orgasms that you’re never going to want to leave me.”
A choked cry escaped her as she plunged into my arms, clinging to me as tightly as a fucking spider clung to its web.
And that was exactly where I wanted her.
Cleaved to me.
Body and soul.
Eleven
Nyx
Three days later
“Tell that moron asswipe that if he brings this shit into me again, I’m telling the sheriff he needs his license revoked,” Link snapped, as he wiped his hands on a rag and hollered his irritation at Gunner, one of the brothers who helped out at the garage as Link’s right-hand man.
“Ain’t gonna tell him shit, Link,” Gunner retorted. “Levi Jamieson spends a fucking fortune on this car. Think of how much money he wastes by being a shit driver.”
“Yeah, and I made it how it is.” Link ran his hand over the sleek, custom-build he’d done last year before we’d moved into these premises, and grunted. “He keeps on damaging it, and I’m going to get a real fucking boner for him.”
“Since when were you into dick?”
My lips twitched even as I launched off the side of the wall where I’d been leaning, watching over shit without anyone knowing the wiser. “Yeah, Lily will be surprised to hear you suddenly prefer cock to pussy.”
His eyes narrowed at me. “Stop fucking talking about her pussy.”
“Wasn’t talking about her pussy, not specifically anyway.”
I pretty much heard his teeth grind as he glared at me, and I almost shook my head at the sight. Giulia had only last night bet me a hundred dollars that Link would make Lily his Old Lady and, though I’d argued against the notion because Link was a manwhore, I had a fucking feeling I was going to lose to my woman…
Still, losing to her usually involved her gloating, and I liked watching her gloat. Especially if that included her squirming on my dick as she did so.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he groused, even as he began packing up tools, tools that were black with the work he’d been doing.
Even though I liked to think of myself as being pretty open-minded, it still blew my mind that Lily Lancaster, a woman who’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, liked a man who got his hands dirty for a living touching her. I kind of felt shitty for thinking that way, but there was no evading just how different Lily and Link were.
Sure, their names started the same way, but alliteration wasn’t the key to a happy future. And fuck, I cared. I loved Link. He was my brother by choice and that was all that mattered to me. I didn’t like the idea of this bitch coming in, wrecking his world, and just for…
I blew out a breath.
What?
For what goddamn reason would Lily have done the things she had if it wasn’t to cauterize her life from her father’s?
I knew that, I did. R
eally. But fuck. I was protective. And Link? He had shit judgment where women were concerned.
“Thought I was the one in danger of turning,” he rumbled, still pissed at me. “Or can I just feel your eyes on my ass because it’s wishful thinking?”
A snort escaped me, one that quickly morphed into laughter. The fucker could always make me laugh, even if I was rolling my eyes at the same goddamn time.
“You wish,” I retorted.
“Oh, you’re right. I do.” He puckered his lips and sent me a kiss that had me wrinkling my nose, and Gunner just shook his head before he tossed a greasy rag at Link’s face.
Link, good-natured bastard that he was, snatched the rag, tossed it on the side table where he was working, and asked, “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Lodestar’s hit pay dirt.”
His eyes widened even as he stopped tossing tools into a box. I wasn’t sure why he bothered when he’d be working on the same vehicle in the morning, but I knew my brother had a routine. He cleaned the garage and himself down every evening, so that things would be just so the next morning when he came in.
He’d fought against running this place, and I wasn’t sure why. It was his natural habitat, but I figured it had to do with him not wanting the extra responsibility. He was already Road Captain, and throw this in? A business that had already been mostly made thanks to his fame with custom work? More responsibility, less time to do what he liked doing—boning chicks and partying.
Something that had seemingly changed since he’d met Lily.
Another reason this entire situation blew my fucking mind.
An old dog couldn’t learn new tricks…but was that right? Wasn’t I an old dog? Hadn’t Giulia taught me some new shit? Why couldn’t Lily teach Link something new? Giulia sure as fuck kept me on my toes, so I couldn’t imagine Lily not doing the same for my best friend.
“What? How?”
His urgent tone had me blinking when I realized I’d tuned out of the conversation.
Lodestar was a soldier buddy of Mav’s that he’d met overseas. She’d been recruited by the CIA and did shit I really didn’t want to know about. For some reason, they kept in touch. I wasn’t sure if Mav had boned her, but had to think that if he had, then it was unlikely she’d still be talking to him and willing to do the illegal shit she did for us.
Not that he asked her often, but when we needed her help, it was usually for something bad.
And she always came through.
Always.
“What did she find?” Link demanded, surging toward me, a storm cloud in his face that told me he really fucking cared for Lily. Enough that this was all he could think of. Her safety was as imperative to him as Giulia’s was to me.
“He’s in Hong Kong, which makes Vietnam and Cambodia likely destinations for him if he’s going to flee to countries with non-extradition orders with the US.”
“Okay, so?”
“She’s found some shit that would help persuade those governments to return him to the States.”
His eyes widened, glee filling them. “You’re shitting me?”
“Nope. I promise I’m not.”
“What did she find?”
“Ties to the Triads, more ties to the Fieris.” I rubbed my chin. “Lots of trafficking shit, Link. Lots of Vietnamese and Cambodian women…”
“What about them?”
“You know that shit with China? The One Child Law?”
He blinked at me. “Yeah. They could only have one kid per family, right? Population control or something.” He scratched his head. “I ain’t no historian.”
“Yeah. Well…” I blew out a breath. “Okay, so that’s created a deficit. Lots of dudes, not a lot of pussy.”
Link’s mouth dropped open. “What? He’s transporting women across the border for men to buy?”
“Well, not him in particular. He’s the money man.”
He shook his head. “Why the fuck has he gotten involved in this? He was legit. He didn’t have to go down this road.”
“Lodestar found out why.” I paused for a second. “He and Benito Fieri were in college together. Benito introduced him to Henry Lindenbourg.”
I watched him process that, process a name that was up there with Rockefeller, the Vanderbilts, and the Rothschilds. “I mean, I know who Henry Lindenbourg is, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“Henry is Lily’s grandfather.”
His mouth dropped open. “Now you really are shitting me.”
“No, I’m not. This shit has been tied up for a long time. It’s come full circle.” I blew out another breath, still a bit confused over all this myself. “But it means we can go to the sheriff with what we’ve found without fear he’ll never come to justice. You ready to ride?”
His jaw worked. “More than fucking ready. Let’s take that cunt down.”
I caught his eye. “When he’s on American soil…”
Mouth tight, he spat, “We’ll ride and watch him burn.”
We bumped fists and sealed that promise.
* * *
Lily
As I hovered in front of the door to the bunkhouse I knew housed the women my brother and father had abused, a door I’d been trying to knock on for the past three damn days, I bit my lip over whether I should go in to help.
I got the feeling that Giulia, the woman Luke had attacked, was working to help them alone, and I wanted to assist. My family had done this to them, after all. I should be one of the people to do something to make things right.
But I was nervous.
Really nervous.
I deserved their hatred, deserved to have shit thrown at me, and…
I blew out a breath as the roar of bikes suddenly drowned out even the noisiest of my thoughts.
When I twisted around to see where the racket was coming from, I saw about six bikes riding into the yard in front of the clubhouse.
I didn’t know any of them, but as I looked over the bikes and the helmets topping the guys’ heads, I had a pretty good idea which one was Link.
Whether it was the bike or just the fact that it was Link, my body started to overheat, and when the throb of the engine cut off abruptly, I was reminded of the fact that I really wanted to feel that buzz between my thighs one-on-one.
As the men climbed off their modern-day stallions, I leaned against the wall and watched them strip off their helmets, revealing exactly who they were to the world.
When I saw the same men who’d been around the council table the first day I’d come here, I had to figure they’d gone out to do something. Exactly what, I wasn’t privy to, but I had to hope it included my father and his arrest.
Link punched Rex in the arm, which made Rex grab him by the head and give him a noogie. The sight made me grin—Link was such a jackass sometimes. But I got it. Beneath the gruff exterior was a man who didn’t cut himself enough slack.
He was like Puck from A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Except, his mischief wasn’t meant to harm, but to distract.
I didn’t think even Link recognized how he acted the fool to make others feel better, but I liked that I was tying myself to a man who did that on the regular. Who thought of others and their feelings before he thought of himself.
What other kind of man would promise a woman no sex until she was ready at our ages? I wasn’t a teenager, I was out of college, for God’s sake. And I didn’t know how old Link was—Christ, how terrible was that?—but I knew he had to be in his late thirties.
That kind of promise was selfless, and I appreciated him all the more for it. Not because I wanted to take advantage of him and what he was giving me—safety—but because it made me want to give him the things I wasn’t sure I was ready to give yet. I just knew when I was ready, he’d be the one I wanted. Just as he’d been that first time I texted him and asked him to come over to Tiff’s place.
The guys strode into the clubhouse, Nyx at their back like a storm cloud. His shoulders and arms were tensed,
bunched up like he could throttle something—
“Don’t worry about Nyx. He always looks like that.”
I jerked in surprise at the voice. Twisting around to find its source, I realized it came from the window to my left.
A beautiful woman of distinct Italian heritage was looking at me like she—
My brow puckered. Like she, what?
I couldn’t really make it out. Was she angry with me? Distrustful? Disapproving? Her face was a mixture of expressions, most of them negative enough to make me want to step back because I knew she knew who I was.
Licking my lips, I whispered, “I-I can go.”
“Go where?” The other woman sniffed. “Seems like you’re cornered.”
Was she talking here, now? Or just in life?
I wasn’t sure which option was better.
Fuck, I really was cornered. Hell, more than that, screwed.
“I’m Nyx’s woman. Giulia.” She pushed her hand through the window’s opening and thrust it at me.
Surprised by the gesture, I grabbed hers and shook it. I wanted to do so gingerly because the polite offering and gesture seemed too banal for this woman, but I made sure to give her a solid handshake. Like I’d give any of my father’s associates.
Only by exuding strength and confidence did you show no weakness to a potential foe.
“You’re Lily Lancaster.”
I could feel my face pucker as a whole, like I’d just chomped on a thousand Atomic Warheads.
Giulia laughed at that, surprising me. “No, we don’t like that surname around here either.”
I licked my lips. “I loathe everything my father gave me.”
Giulia arched a brow. “I wouldn’t loathe his millions.”
“Billions,” I corrected. “Each of them corrupt.”
“From what Nyx said, Link thinks you’re waiting on that money so it can’t be that corrupt.”
“I want my mother’s original fortune. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“You just gonna toss the rest away?” she countered.
“No, I have plans for it.” I tipped my chin up. “Not that I’ll get it now. They’ll probably freeze all his accounts once he’s arrested.”
Link: SATAN’S SINNERS’ MC: TWO Page 24
