by A. J. Downey
I bit my bottom lip, whimpering, moaning, close, so close, so maddeningly close; drawn fluttering a moth to a flame, captivated by the light and wanting to burn but with too much fear to venture that much closer to the flame and certain death by the incinerating heat and then all at once, it happened.
He smiled, wickedly, almost cruelly down at me and it was that final push I needed. I arched, shoving my pussy against him, and jolted; shuddering, as the orgasm he teased from me, forced out of me, consumed me.
It was all-consuming, too, and with a grunt of savage triumph, as my body rippled and convulsed with that white hot sensation that seemingly disrupted every electrical signal, plunging all muscle movement into chaos, he shoved himself inside of me. Thickly, roughly, completely, and I came all over again. The intensity of the new orgasm out of this world, overlapping the first, plunging me into a stream of wild colorful chaos as he slammed in and out of me, pinning my wrists to either side of me to keep me from flailing, to keep me from scratching as he pushed me way beyond my limits and left me a screaming, squalling, jerking mess beneath him.
He fucked me so hard, so fast, so thoroughly, I didn’t think it was going to be possible to ever be the same woman I had been before this encounter.
With the way he fucked me, pouring every bit of savage, wild love into me; I honestly thought that this was it… this was how I was going to be somehow reborn. Stronger, surer of myself than I had ever been. Because if I could bring a man like this to his knees between my thighs? Surely, I was an all-powerful being.
Jared made me feel transcendent; an all-powerful goddess wearing a mere mortal skin. He made me love the skin I was in, just by virtue of the fact that he loved it, loved me for who I was.
30
Glass Jaw…
She was luminous, beautiful, and I had a penchant for loving to break beautiful things and make them whole again. From gutting a house and building it back better than before, to taking apart and restoring old hulks of cars and bikes. I fucking loved making that mess then cleaning it up.
It gave my little boy’s heart a savage glee, like ripping the wings off a fly only putting them back better than before. She was like that now, whimpering, begging, nearly broken beneath me as I teased her slowly.
She took longer to break than I thought she would, and I delighted in every second of watching it happen. Then, when she finally did? I doubled down, pressed my way into her throbbing, tight, achingly wet pussy and I thrust so hard and fast I damn near broke myself.
Her?
I absolutely fucking destroyed her, pressing her past the point of exquisite anguish into a beautifully devastated agony that said a few more times bottoming out against her cervix, and I would have gone too far.
I liked to break things – but not to the point past fixing. That was a drag.
She was anything but a drag.
Fuck, she felt so good. So hot, so slick, so beautiful as she gripped the sheets once I could trust enough to let her go and that she wouldn’t savage me with her nails.
Her voice was like a benediction, spilling from her lips in fevered and feral chanting, at first ‘yes’ then ‘fuck yes’ then just my name, over and over, and over again.
She blessed me, goddess to my god, and made me an all-powerful being with her supplication for whatever I was willing to bestow on her.
I took her to that sacred space where pleasure and pain were one and the same and the tighter she gripped my cock with that tight little pussy of hers, the closer she brought me to the stars until they starting going off behind my eyelids and covered my vision even when my eyes were open and my balls drained inside of her the likes I had never felt before – and I knew, I just knew, I would be chasing that particular high like a fuckin’ unicorn for the rest of my days and if I were ever to find it again?
It would only be with her.
There wouldn’t, couldn’t, be anyone else.
I collapsed over her, smoothing her hair back from her face, my lips finding hers and kissing her deeply, possessively as I murmured against her mouth, “Good girl, that’s my good fucking girl.”
I felt something slick against my fingertips and pulled back, rubbing them at her temple, through the tears there as she broke emotionally – no, crashed – the adrenaline and fear, and all of that anxiety letting loose all at once. I gathered her close and did what any man should do when his woman cried, choosing to be vulnerable in his presence.
I held her close, kissed her tears away, and did my best to soothe the pain.
We were lying together, her emotional storm subsided, basking under the rainbow of our mutual afterglow when we heard the back door open, the alarm system belting out its chime that a door had been opened. We heard the door shut and a moment later, Marc pounding up his set of stairs.
Cadence sighed and made to pull out of my arms from where she was laying against my chest, and I tightened my grip on her hand and around her body.
“No, not yet,” I said, and she rested against me. It didn’t take much arm twisting.
“I don’t want him to think I’m mad at him,” she said gently. “And I owe him an apology for snapping.”
“It’ll keep, babe… just give me a little bit longer,” I said and pressed lips to her forehead. She melted into my side, and I smiled even though it wasn’t a full forced kind of a thing. No, it was watered down by worry and tinged a little with regret.
I worried about the position that she put herself in, because of me; and I worried about what it meant to stay with me. I’d never been with a woman in such a way that it shook my foundation this much. I had never, ever been in a position like I was now that my loyalty to the club was in question – and that was the position I found myself in now.
Holding this beautiful, fierce, brave and wonderful creature in my arms. I found myself questioning whether I should maintain a future with my brothers or whether I should consider giving it up… and fuck that was heavy. The heaviest burden I’d ever have to bear because I really wasn’t sure if I could have my cake and eat it, too here.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” she asked me, and her voice shook, as though she were afraid to ask.
“Fuck,” I said. “I don’t know.”
She pushed herself up, resting her chin on the back of her hand which rested on my chest. Fixing me with those hallowed green eyes as she said plaintively, “Liar.”
I smirked and played with her hair, brushing it off her forehead, chasing it behind her ear, committing her face to memory in case I bet the farm and lost it all.
“I guess it’s time for some kind of reckoning between you and me,” I said softly and her slightly playful expression fell off her face, replaced with the most serious look I had ever seen her give me.
“What do you mean?” she asked softly.
“I mean, I feel like I have to choose, and I’ve never felt like it’s been higher stakes.”
“Choose what, exactly?” she demanded and pushed off of me, into a sitting position. “Are you breaking up with me?”
I shook my head. “No. No, I can’t do that… but I do feel like it’s you or the club after what you pulled because, baby, I need you to fly free. If either of us is ever gonna get caged, it has to be me, because I don’t think I could survive the guilt of you getting locked up and I know I wouldn’t survive getting locked up without knowing you were out here and free and living life for the both of us.”
“I did what I did because I don’t want either of us getting locked up. I didn’t want to lose you and I don’t want to go back to being in a relationship where I’m alone all the time again. Do you understand? I love you, and this?” She swallowed convulsively, “This was a onetime deal, Jared. I will never do anything like this again but…” she looked off into the distance, pensive and I waited her out.
“But?” I asked when the silence had drawn on too long.
“But those people, they depend on that medicine and… and I hate to sound like a giant nerd but
it’s Kobayashi Maru.”
“It’s what?” I asked, brow wrinkling in confusion as her cheeks colored slightly.
“My dad was a huge, and I mean monumentally huge original Star Trek fan,” she said.
“And?”
“And the Kobayashi Maru was a fictional training exercise they would put Starfleet cadets through. A simulation that was an absolute no-win scenario designed to test a cadet’s character.”
“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t following, but I was trying. “Spell it out for me.”
“If I tell you to leave the club, to choose me, I am being incredibly selfish. Not just to you, but to all those people that not so secretly depend on you. I would be doing the world an incredible disservice to my own ends, and I won’t do that.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding slowly.
“But I am not so un-selfish that I am willing to give you up, you understand?”
A bubble of hope was rising in the center of my chest.
“I get that, baby.” I reached out and touched the side of her face.
“So, it’s a no-win situation for me,” she said, turning her face into my hand. “Because I won’t give you up, and I absolutely don’t expect you to give up the club or helping those people because I can’t let you do that. I won’t let you do that.”
“Let me ask you something,” I said, and she opened her eyes and looked at me. I pushed myself up into a sitting position and leaned back against the headboard. I cleared my throat and asked, “What do you need from me?”
“I just need to know…” she said, and the desperation was clear in her eyes and the set of her expression.
I was silent for a long fucking time as my thoughts whirled like a kaleidoscope in my head, flashes of ‘what if’ and ‘what was’ a myriad of ‘what could be’ scenarios chasing each other around in my brain; some good, some really, really bad.
“I need to know,” I said. “I need you to absolutely fucking swear to me, that anything I share with you is between you and me and no one else. Not Marc, not any of the other ol’ ladies. Not Marisol, not Little Bird, not Raven or Aspen, and definitely not Dahlia under any fucking circumstance.”
She searched my face, and she was thinking about it and thinking about it hard.
“You have to understand the consequences if I were to be caught spilling club secrets to my woman – because that,” I swallowed hard, “that’s a level of betrayal that will get me killed, and rightfully fucking so. My brothers can never know.”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Meet me halfway,” she said finally.
I cocked my head to the side, and she twined her fingers with mine. I gave her hand a squeeze to indicate I was listening.
“Don’t tell me anything that could or would get me in trouble. Keep the dirty details under wraps, but don’t ever lie to me about how deep the shit is… please.”
Relief flooded my system.
“That’s easy as fuck,” I growled, hooking a hand behind her neck and dragging her mouth to mine. She kissed me back, fiercely, and I clutched her to me.
“I want to make this work, so badly,” she whispered.
“Me too. You don’t know how much.”
“So, let’s do that,” she said. “Be my partner. Let me be your equal. Same team, always.”
“I want that,” I said. “You don’t know how much.”
“I think I do,” she whispered. “I think we’ve both been desperate for the same thing for a long time.”
“I know that’s right,” I said and held her close. She folded against my body so wonderfully, so sweetly, and it was perfect.
“I love you,” she said. “And I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“I love you, too, and as much as I love a good fight, I’d rather do it with you by my side than as my opponent.”
She snuggled in close. “So we’re on the same page?” she asked.
“Chapter and verse,” I agreed. “Chapter and verse.”
31
Cadence…
Maverick, Blackjack, Cipher, and Deacon showed up to my place late. After Marc was asleep, and with Jared at my side.
Blackjack and Deacon were in a pickup truck, Maverick and Cipher riding out in front of it like some kind of forward guard – except there wasn’t anything valuable in it yet. No, the drugs (and I hated how awful that sounded to say it even if it was just in my head) were in my outdoor storage unit off my back patio.
I had talked with Marc, who was choosing to remain angry at the fact I had snapped at him for now, while Jared had gone out to finish the oil change on his motorcycle, getting it up and running so he could help the men coming move the prescriptions to a more secure location.
I didn’t want to know. It was just enough that I knew, and he wasn’t hiding anything from me anymore.
Maverick got off his bike as I stood, arms crossed and maybe a little defiant looking, but as he raked me with those dark indigo eyes of his I tried valiantly not to shrink.
“I’m sure Glass Jaw informed you as to why this was a monumentally stupid fucking idea on your part,” he said by way of greeting. “So, I won’t beat a dead horse.”
“Appreciate it,” I said clipped, but with no hint of sarcasm, just a tired relief.
Jared had indeed explained why the optics of our particular stunt were bad within inter-chapter and club politics. I swallowed hard and turned sideways as the men passed me by and went into the storage unit, flipping on the light.
“Holy shit,” Cipher declared.
“Manny said the insulin was good for forty-eight hours packed like it is,” I said and Blackjack just sort of stared at me like I’d done something interesting.
“Why do this?” Deacon asked. “You have a son, a house, a career…”
“And some people have none of those things,” I said with a raised eyebrow. “They need those medications. All I did was flex some of my privilege to get those drugs out without a second glance. I didn’t mean to step out of bounds, but Dahlia was right – it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and for once in my life, I have more than just my son, who is about to be a man and out on his own, to hold on to.”
I fixed Jared with a look.
“I love Marc more than life itself, I’m his mother, but he’s destined for a lot more than just being my kid and when the nest is empty… well, I found my other half and I wasn’t willing to let him go. So, I did this for a lot of reasons, not all of them altruistic, not all of them selfish.”
“Kobayashi Maru,” he said.
“Kobayashi Maru,” I affirmed.
Deacon raised his eyebrows. “Huh, I get that reference.”
“Okay, Captain America Meme, get over here and let’s roll. I don’t want to be out here all night,” Maverick declared, but he was looking at me with something like respect.
“They didn’t throw you under the bus, per se, but informationally, Dahlia and Marisol let me know that most of this idea was yours. That true?” he asked me.
I raised my chin; I would take the heat. Perhaps if I did, I would get off easier under the guise of being the new girl.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was my idea.”
He nodded, raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head, mouth turning down in an expression of being impressed.
“I owe you without owing you,” he said finally. “As much as I hate it, you girls out played us and saved our asses with this. Manny’s place was raided a few hours ago. They didn’t find shit.”
Jared and I exchanged looks.
“Manny okay?” he asked.
“Yep, they didn’t find shit and their whole case fell apart. They’re stalled, and they ain’t got nowhere to go from here.”
“Except we’re stalled too,” Blackjack said grimly. “This is all there’s going to be for a while.”
Maverick nodded. “Manny’s place is burned, for sure, but there are a couple other places under consideration. May take some time to re-org, b
ut we can’t stop what we’re doing.”
“Too many people depend on it,” I said softly, and he nodded.
“And so it goes,” he agreed.
“Well,” I said with a slow nod. “This was the last part I was willing to play. You all are on your own from now on. I don’t want to know it, see it, hear it, smell it – this was enough for me.”
“That’s just the way we like to keep it,” Maverick said. “You girls pull a stunt like this ever again, there will be consequences and I would hate to mete them out. That ain’t me – don’t make me do it.” He stared me down and his gaze was colder than I would imagine the outer reaches of space to be. It chilled me right to the bone, and I had to admit, he had look terrifying down pat.
“I don’t want to fuck around and find out,” I said softly.
“See that you don’t.”
“A more curious girl would ask,” Cipher said, and I looked at him.
“Oh, I’m plenty curious,” I said. “But I’m not asking. Sometimes the horror is best left to the imagination and sometimes, like I think this time, it’s best left kept in the dark because I am sure whatever it is? It’s worse than the things my sheltered mind could conjure up.”
“Let’s put it this way,” Blackjack declared. “Feel free to fuck up this hard again. Pretty sure all the rest of us who aren’t Glass would really like that.”
I blanched.
“I catch your meaning loud and clear,” I said through a throat gone tight with fear.
“The fuck, Blackie?” Jared scowled in his direction.
“Give him his one ‘get out of jail free’ card on that one,” Mav ordered Jared with a hand on his chest and pushing him back. “That’s not coming from me as your brother.” He gave Jared a warning look.
“It’s cool, Mav,” Blackjack said. “For the record, we all like you, Cadence. We don’t want to see anything happen to you, but as much as the citizenry loves to declare us a pack of animals – we aren’t. We follow the rules, it’s just a different set of rules. Animals have none.”
