by Aiden Bates
Somehow having Raven in my arms, looking at me like this, felt more intimate than the blowjobs or the fevered kissing. I couldn’t hold his gaze for long. I broke eye contact to kiss the soft skin of his neck. Raven sighed and scraped his nails over my scalp. I slid one hand into the dark hair at his nape and gripped there, not pulling, just keeping his head tilted back as I kissed up his neck and the line of his jaw.
“Feels like a dream sometimes,” Raven murmured, more to himself than to me.
“Not a dream,” I assured him.
He shivered.
Behind us, his desktop computer chimed.
“It’s done compiling,” Raven said.
“I don’t even know what that means.” I kissed the jut of his collarbone through the fabric of his t-shirt.
Raven tightened his knees around my hips. “Means I gotta go check it. Fix any errors.” He didn’t move.
I released my grip on his hair and slid my hands down his back, and then gripped his ass and squeezed playfully. “Go check it, then. I’m not going anywhere.”
Raven kissed me quickly, but the kiss was mostly smile. Then he leaped out of my lap and back into his desk chair, his focused, quasi-confused programming expression dropping into place almost immediately. I stretched back out on the loveseat.
“There’s a weird runtime error here in the sequence where it initially connects to the VPN,” Raven murmured, leaning closer to the screen. Then he glanced over at me. “Mind if I use you as a sounding board?”
“Not at all. I can’t help, though.”
“Talking it out helps,” he said.
Raven verbally walked through his code, half to me and half to himself, noting errors and logically connecting them as he went. I barely understood any of what he was saying, and eventually I tuned out the content of his words, preferring to let the sound of his low, murmuring voice wash over me.
When—if?—Raven decided to move on, it wouldn’t be the sex I remembered most vividly. It’d be moments like this: Raven perched on his desk chair like a genius gargoyle, glancing between me and his code as if we were equally deserving of his attention.
17
Raven
Logan looked exhausted, but not bad—like he’d finished running a race and placed higher than he thought he would. He leaned heavily on the pool cue as if it were a staff. At every club party, we always seemed to gravitate towards each other. Logan was nearly as introverted as me, and we both found the club parties a little overwhelming. This gathering wasn’t quite a party, though. It was more of an impromptu group wind-down. Everyone had been on edge since I revealed the contents of the emails I’d gotten, and now that we had started to move forward, even in the smallest way, we all felt like we deserved a slight break.
Logan and I were tied in our pool game, but that was only because I was working more on trick shots and difficult geometric lineups instead of winning. I’d missed a lot, but in my defense, my attention was mostly elsewhere. As was Logan’s. The game was just something to do with our hands.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“Program installed just as well as you said it would,” Logan said. “Really seamless. I’ll probably keep it on my phone just because it makes me feel better.”
“Come on.” I lined up a calculated ricochet shot, and then screwed it up completely. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Logan sighed and paced a circle around the pool table, but he wasn’t really looking at it.
“He didn’t answer,” he said finally. “I thought I wasn’t expecting him to. I mean, why would he, with the number blocked and everything? But I guess part of me was still holding out hope that he’d pick up.”
“But you left a message?”
“Yeah. No voicemail greeting on his phone, either. Just the robotic voice. It’s weird. I really did want to hear his voice.” He lined up a shot, changed his mind, paced the perimeter of the table again. “I still don’t trust him, though. He’s still a Viper—that hasn’t changed. So I didn’t leave him any details in the message, I just told him it was important, and he needs to get back to me in private as soon as he can. I doubt I’ll hear back.”
I shrugged. “Only one way to find out. Wait.”
“I hate waiting.”
“Yeah, me too. So take your damn shot.”
Logan rolled his eyes then lowered his pool cue to neatly lined up corner pocket shot and sank it.
Clearly Logan was being pulled in opposite directions by his conflicting feelings: the love he had for his brother that he couldn’t seem to stomp out, no matter how hard he tried, and the anger and hatred he felt for the Viper’s Nest.
But I had a strange feeling that we were on the right track. Rebel would get back to us. I didn’t say anything to Logan, as I didn’t want to complicate his feelings any more than they already were, but if Rebel was anything like Logan, he’d know when he needed to do the right thing. There was no reason for me to feel so sure, but I couldn’t shake it.
“So who’s been the crazier one, with all the waiting around?” I asked. “You or Blade?”
Logan lightened at the mere mention of Blade’s name. Since Logan had been patched in, the easiest way to immediately improve his mood was to talk about his Old Man.
“Definitely Blade,” Logan said. “You think I’m bad without something to do? At least I’m used to it. When I was under the Vipers’ control, I spent so much time standing around waiting for them to figure out what awful thing they were going to do next. Or just waiting for some gutted member to stumble through the clubhouse door.”
“God, I’m glad you’re rid of them.”
“Tell me about it,” Logan muttered. “You know Blade, he always wants to be doing something. He’s been like a dog chasing his own tail the past few days. I feel like I have to physically stop him from charging into Viper territory himself.”
“That’s the Hell’s Ankhor way, it seems.”
“Yeah, apparently. Since that was your initial reaction, too.” Logan picked a shot and missed, and then motioned for me to start my turn. He leaned against the table, clearly ignoring the game now. “How are you doing with everything?”
I thought about it. How was I doing, really? Dad’s death still chewed at me, as if my grief were a physical animal that lived burrowed inside me: a mole working on destroying my deepest roots.
But this time, I wasn’t alone.
“As good as I can be,” I said.
Logan looked at me pensively, and then nodded, as if he’d decided to accept my answer. “If there’s anything I can do for you, just say the word.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s the only reason I’m hanging on, really. I know everyone in the club has my back.”
The front door banged open noisily as Coop shouldered in, arms laden with grocery bags. He glanced around the room, taking in Logan and I at the pool table; Blade, Maverick, and Gunnar at the kitchen island; and Priest, Heath, and Siren on the couch.
“Are we having a little party?” he asked, visibly betrayed. “While I’m tasked with running errands? So not fair.”
One of the bags began to slip from his grip.
“Ayúdame!” Coop yelped. His Spanish only came out when he was particularly moody.
Siren ambled over and took two of the bags out of his arms. “It’s not a party. We’ll put these away and fix you a drink, big guy.”
Tex followed Coop in, carrying even more bags and looking visibly irritated with Coop. Logan darted over to Tex to help him with his load. The groceries were quickly put away.
Logan got waylaid in the kitchen by Blade, and Coop sidled up to the pool table in his absence, with one beer in each hand, now looking much happier.
“Oh, thanks, but I have one,” I said, motioning at my beer perched on the edge of the pool table.
“What? These are for me.” Coop took a sip from each beer. “I’m still mad at you anyway for ditching me.”
“You’re so whiny,” I said. “Do yo
u want me to reset the table?”
“Sure,” he said. “And now, on top of ditching me, you’ve gone and stolen my sergeant-at-arms, so I have to manage the enforcers all on my own.”
“You’re managing the enforcers?”
“Well, no, Siren is managing, but I still have to do more work.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Come on, Coop, let’s shoot a little pool.”
I hadn’t seen much of Coop since I had ditched him at the police station, as I’d been holed up with Gunnar and hadn’t been concerned about much else. Spending time with Coop always lifted my spirits, though. He had an infectious positivity like he couldn’t help but see new and wild ways to have fun in less-than-ideal situations. Even if I sometimes gave him a hard time for his shenanigans, his lightness was a necessary counterweight to the often harsh reality of club life.
Plus, he was loyal as a hound and could kick serious ass when the situation called for it.
“So what’s up with that?” Coop wiggled his eyebrows. “The protective detail. What’s going on there?”
“It’s protective detail,” I said. “So I don’t get offed by Vipers in my sleep.”
“Pretty intense for the sergeant-at-arms to be tasked with protective detail instead of just a regular enforcer, don’t you think?”
“Why, were you gunning for the position?”
“Yes,” Coop said. “I wanted to spoon you every night. As the little spoon.”
“There’s no spooning involved.”
“Ah! But he’s in your bed?”
I narrowed my eyes. Then, as punishment, I sank my first three shots. “Coop. We’re friends now. It’s nice. I thought everyone would be happier now—it’ll make group settings easier, that’s for sure.”
In the kitchen, Gunnar was rooting through the fridge. I couldn’t help but stare at his ass.
Coop followed my sightline, and then rolled his eyes when he saw where it landed. “Right. Friends.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to admit that Gunnar and I had something going on between us. I just wasn’t sure what to call it. The only word we’d used to describe our relationship thus far was “friends,” and to be sure, that was a big leap from the animosity we’d been working with before. “Friends with benefits” didn’t sound exactly right, either—this didn’t feel casual. It felt important. And I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet, because I had no idea what I’d say, and I didn’t want to risk knocking down this delicate house of cards Gunnar and I were building.
As Coop scoured the table for a viable shot, cursing my pool skills under his breath, I watched Gunnar crack open the bottle of ginger ale he’d pulled from the fridge and take a drink.
He leaned against the kitchen counter, casually adding a pour of the ginger ale to a highball glass of whiskey. He caught my eye as he lifted the glass to his lips and took a slow sip.
A bolt of heat shot through me.
Gunnar set the drink down and turned his attention back to Blade and Maverick, laughing at whatever conversation they were having. He casually tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his jeans, pulling them down just enough to reveal a thin strip of tan skin between his jeans and the hem of his shirt. His gaze darted towards me. My arousal was matched by a spark of fond annoyance—he was winding me up on purpose.
I stuck my tongue out quick enough so as to not get Coop’s attention, but I knew Gunnar saw it.
“Your turn,” Coop said with a cheeky smile. Maybe I had overestimated his inattention.
I turned my back to Gunnar and leaned over the table to line up a shot.
“Okay,” Coop said. “Now you’re being ridiculous. This is like watching two brainless birds do a mating dance.”
“I’m just playing pool,” I said mildly, and sank two more shots before I missed. I only had the eight ball left, versus Coop’s six stripes on the table.
“’Just,’” Coop said. “And I’m ‘just’ a guy with a bike.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Coop missed his shot.
“Well, whatever’s going on,” he said, clearly resigned to his upcoming loss, “I’m happy for you.”
I paused. “What?”
Coop motioned at me vaguely. “This. All of this. You look better. Happier. That makes me happy.”
“I was happy before,” I said.
“Not like this.”
I threw him a stern look.
Coop raised his hands in surrender. “I’m not asking for details. Or confirmation. Or any of that. Just saying it’s nice to see you a little more lighthearted. That’s all.”
I sank the eight ball. Coop gasped in faux shock. “I can’t believe it, I’ve lost.”
In the kitchen, Gunnar caught my eye as he finished the last of his drink. He flicked his eyes upwards towards the stairs, and then gave me a little shrug, as if to say, You wanna?
This secret conversation thrilled me. It made whatever we had between us feel a little more real—it still existed even among the other club members. Even if I didn’t know how to vocalize it to the others, the attraction was there in the heated looks he pinned me with, and the subtle motions of his eyes and hands from across the room. He wanted me. He wanted me badly enough to leave the party behind.
Grinning, Coop clapped me on the shoulder then hopped over the back of the couch, scaring the shit out of Siren as he landed on the cushion beside her.
Gunnar said something to Blade and Maverick, and then wandered up the stairs. All eyes fell on me for a moment before the conversations restarted. I lasted barely a minute before I followed.
18
Gunnar
I left the door to my bedroom cracked open. I hadn’t spent any time with Raven at the party itself; I figured he needed some time to catch up with Logan, especially with the weight of Logan’s task of contacting his estranged brother hanging over him. I’d tried to give Raven space, make sure I wasn’t smothering him with attention, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.
Ever since our second kiss in his room, every motion of his body drew my attention closer like a magnet. In the ease of his grip on the pool cue, I saw his fingers running through my hair. In the curve of his smile, I felt his kiss. And when he leaned over the pool table—on purpose, little bastard—and wiggled his ass at me, I remembered how that ass had felt in my hands when he was in my lap. I almost had to adjust my jeans in the middle of the kitchen from thinking about it.
Footsteps padded gently up the stairs. Silence. For a moment I thought Raven might change his mind and go toward his own room. I waited to hear his door click closed.
Instead, my door opened.
Raven slipped inside and closed the door behind him. He leaned his back against the door, hands at his sides, and drew his lower lip in between his teeth. His gaze lingered at his feet, almost shy. The skin of his neck was a stark pale contrast to his dark sweatshirt—I was already cataloguing places I wanted to leave marks.
Then he flicked his flashing gaze to mine.
Like I’d been physically dragged forward, I closed the distance between us and pressed him against the door. I grabbed his hips roughly, slotting one foot between us so our bodies were nearly flush. I tipped my head down and pressed my forehead to his. Raven sighed like my touch was a physical relief. He wound his arms around my neck and his eyes flickered close, his long lashes dark against his pale cheek.
“Hey,” I said.
Raven’s bitten lips curled into a smile. “Hi.”
I kissed him.
It was electric.
Raven shuddered beneath me but didn’t passively give into the kiss—he kissed back hard, like he was just as hungry for it as I was.
Having him close to me changed me, turned me into a more desperate, animal version of myself. Something I’d been keeping down, locked away, far away from the daylight for many years. A weakness. A weakness in that I’d do anything he asked of me.
This was different than the family loyalty I carried for Hell’s Ankho
r, and not the blind obedience I’d had in the Marines. It was a terrifying, bone-deep knowledge that I’d do almost anything to ensure he was safe and happy. I’d treated him so badly in the past, and he’d had such a rough go at life—and now, I’d do anything he asked if it’d help him recover from the ordeal I’d put him through.
And that kind of power—even if he didn’t realize he had it—was enough to scare me shitless. I’d be left unmoored, completely adrift, if he ever decided to let me go.
Maybe it wasn’t just him I’d been protecting all these years when I was keeping my distance.
Raven slid his slim hands under the hem of my shirt and caressed my abs. His touch sent a thrilling rush of pleasure through me. He took control of the kiss without even trying, his quick-moving tongue guiding the pace, before he paused just to catch my lower lip in his sharp teeth, a bright edge of delicious pain in the overwhelming warmth of his closeness.
I ran my hands over his body. I needed him out of these clothes now. Watching him from across the room at the party had driven me to the brink already, and if we didn’t move things along, I’d end up coming in my pants like a teenager just from rutting clothed against him.
I broke the kiss just to kiss his neck instead. Pulling the collar of his shirt side, I revealed the sharp line of his collarbone and set my mouth on it. I sucked hard, even bit a little, and the skin was red and angry when I pulled back.
I wanted him to look in the mirror tomorrow and see my work.
Raven inhaled a sharp little gasp when he realized I was doing it intentionally. He whispered my name.
I growled in response and slid the palm of my hand roughly over his crotch. His cock was already fully hard, straining against the zipper of his tight jeans. I fumbled with the button.
