by Madison Faye
“It’s all good,” I grin. And it really is. You can go through life pissed at having shitty parents, and I’ve seen plenty of people do just that. Or, you can do what Asa and I did and just let it the fuck go. Trust me, you can get to the “living” part of life a lot better when you cut that shit out.
“But seriously, that chain.”
Bishop rolls his eyes. “Thanks for the opinion, but—”
“Motherfucker,” Bastion grunts. Bishop frowns and turns to him.
“Huh?”
“He’s right. We’ve got this running a link too short, I think. It’s gonna jam.”
I grin as Bishop leans closer and then swears under his breath. He glances up at me, smiling thinly and shaking his head.
“You limey fuck.”
I chuckle and clap him on the shoulder.
“I’m going to go to sleep. Catch you twats later.”
“Dick,” Bastion laughs, shaking his head. “Hope she was worth it.”
I freeze, frowning as I turn back. “Huh?”
Bishop snorts. “Save the ‘who, me’ routine, Mr. Gauge. She fucking branded you.” He points to my neck, and when I bring a hand up, I can feel the bruises from her lips.
Shit.
I don’t say anything though. I just raise my brows, raise my coffee in a toast, and turn to walk across the compound to my cabin. I ditch the rest of the coffee and fall into bed, and then I just think of her.
Then, all I think of is Delphine.
I think of the way she tasted, and moaned, and felt. I think of the way the world just seemed more clear with her in it, or the way something inside of me sparked like it’s never done before.
I think of how she’s mine, and I realize how true that is. She’s mine.
Not Barnes’s.
It’s not even a question of how to take her from him, it’s when. It’s how soon. Because I’m going to take her from him.
… Just as soon as I figure out how the sodding fuck I’m supposed to do that without bringing a bloody shit-storm down on my club and my brothers.
My eyes close, and I sleep like the dead.
“Rough night?”
I frown and look up from the jeep engine I’ve been tinkering with.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Ryker chuckles. “Because it’s nicer than saying ‘you look like shit.’”
I roll my eyes and he keeps laughing. “Laugh it up.”
“Oh I plan on it.”
He snickers and walks into his office. A minute later, he steps back out and walks over to me with a steaming mug of coffee.
“It’s not tea, but…”
“Hilarious,” I grunt, grinning at him. He knows I drink coffee, it’s just one more good-natured English jab, like Bastion and Bishop calling me royal highness.
Ryker’s turned into a pretty great friend out here. In his old life, he was the President of the first version of the Lost Devils. Now, with a kid, a wife, and his own garage and business, that sort of outlaw shit just isn’t for him anymore, and I get it. Hell, I envy it. He’s not a member, but he does consult on a few things, and help guide the club if Shepherd needs it. Also, he hooked me up with a mechanic’s job at his shop, which is awesome. I mean the money is fine, not like I even need any. But the chance to get my hands dirty fixing up engines feels great after only tinkering with my own for years.
“Well, I hope she was worth it.”
I laugh, standing up from under the hood of the Jeep and sipping the coffee.
“Let me guess, I’m also not the first to say that to you today.”
“Bingo.”
“Well,” Ryker grins and shrugs, nodding at my neck. “It’s hard to miss.”
“So I’ve gathered.” I shrug and turn back to the engine, but my lips pull back in a grin. “And yeah,” I growl. “She was.”
“Hey, that’s what counts, brother,” Ryker says with a laugh before he nods his chin towards the front of the garage through the open bay doors. Outside, a black, older-model Escalade pulls up.
“What’s a douchebag like that doing up here?” he grumbles under his breath.
He’s not wrong. Whoever this clown is, his ride is complete with spinning cheesy looking rims, crappy DIY-looking tints on the windows, and when he opens the driver’s side door and the mud guards fold down, I almost laugh. Yeah, that’s a knob of a car if I ever—
Shit.
The man who steps out, slipping a backwards baseball hat down over his head, is Barnes.
Ryker rubs his hands on a grease cloth and steps towards the garage bay doors.
“How we doin’ today?”
Barnes swaggers over, and I groan. The fuck is this twat doing here?
“Hey, my man,” Barnes says with a grin. “Was just in the area and remembered I’d been meaning to get my oil changed and my tires checked out.” He shrugs. “You know, these rims don’t keep themselves spinning, right, my man?”
With every interaction I have with this complete knob-head, I have less and less clue how it is that he’s the hardest cunt Dark Water Falls has to offer.
“Anyways, I thought I’d heard of this place and thought I’d swing by.” He nods and glances around at the front of the garage. “Guess you could use the work anyways, huh?”
Ryker’s back is to me, but I would pay solid, solid quid for a front row seat to how hard he’s gritting his jaw not to knock this fucker on his arse.
“So, oil change and tire rotation?”
“You got it, boss.” Barnes frowns. “Wait, this your place?”
“Sure is.”
“Mountain Steel Motors…” Barnes nods, frowning like he’s thinking hard. I can guarantee, the geezer hasn’t thought harder than if he wants a Budweiser or a Coors in his entire life.
“That’s a bad ass name, man.”
“Thanks,” Ryker says dryly. “Listen, we’re actually pretty jammed today with other work—” he ignores Barnes’s loud snort. “But I think we can fit this in. My friend here will take care of you.”
Motherfucker. And there go my plans to skulk around the back of the shop pretending the man I owe three-hundred thousand dollars to isn’t here. Barnes squints into the garage as I step forward, but somehow, by the unsurprised way he grins, I get the feeling this stop-by isn’t accidental.
The cunt knows I work here, and as unthreatening as he is, it’s an unsettling thought.
“Well, well,” he grins. “If it isn’t my favorite Brit. You gonna be changing my oil, Gauge?”
“That’s the plan,” I growl lowly, stepping out of the garage and wiping my hands on a rag. I eye Barnes, and he just grins back.
“Awesome, dude, awesome. Hey babe!”
He turns back to the Escalade and barks it out again.
“Babe! Get out here!”
The passenger side door opens, and my brow furrows as I watch a long, lithe, tanned leg clad in denim shorts and biker boots slide out. And suddenly, there she is.
Delphine.
Our eyes lock across the small parking lot, and I see the fire blaze in hers before she quickly looks away, her cheeks pink. She’s got her hair down and a high-necked, sleeveless blouse on. And I damn well know why.
…Because her neck looks a hell of a lot like mine.
“Babe,” Barnes grins at me, waving Delphine over hurriedly. “Babe, this is the dude I was telling you about. Motherfucker tears it up at the races!”
My jaw clenches, and I glance sidelong at Ryker. Yeah, he’s still standing right there. Fucking perfect.
It’s not like my races are a big secret, it’s just that they—oh sod it, yeah, they’re a secret. Part of it is that I owe so much fucking money to a dick like Barnes. It’s the kind of black cloud I don’t feel like the club and my brothers knowing about. Ryker’s not an official member, but he’s damn well close enough.
“Babe, this is Oliver Gauge. Gauge, this is my girl, Delphine.”
“Pleasure,” I growl, nodding at her,
my eyes locked on hers.
“Hey,” she says softly.
“Alright, well,” Barnes claps his hands together. “You gonna get this done or not?”
I tense my jaw as my eyes drag back to his. “Sure,” I say thinly. “Pull it into the middle bay here.”
“Thanks bro!”
I turn away, rolling my eyes as Barnes gets back in his knob-head mobile and revs it.
“None of my business,” Ryker growls lowly under his breath as he walks past me into the garage. “But does Shep—”
“You’re right, Ryker,” I say thinly. “It’s not.”
He glances at me and nods. “Heard loud and clear,” he grunts. He heads back over to the Jeep I was fucking with before. Barnes starts to pull his truck inside, and I feel her presence before she says a word behind me.
“I didn’t know he was coming here,” she says quietly.
“It’s fine,” I grunt.
Seeing her, with him, has my blood boiling and something bloody savage snarling inside of me. I know the arrangement, but that doesn’t lessen how much I want to snarl “she’s mine!” in his sodding face right now.
“It’s not,” she says gently. “I—he just demanded I get into the car. I really don’t know why he came here. He doesn’t…” she trails off, and I turn to look at her.
“He doesn’t know,” she whispers. “Trust me, he doesn’t.”
A smile curls at the corners of my lips. “About last night?”
She blushes fiercely. “Yeah.”
Fuck. I’ve been thinking about her all goddamn day, but I wasn’t prepared for what it would feel like to be near her again. I wasn’t prepared for the ache, and the raw lust. I wasn’t ready for the way my hands clench with a need to grip her and take her. I wasn’t expecting the way my cock throbs hard in my jeans, or the way every part of me screams to have her again.
The Escalade turns off, and Barnes steps out as the hood pops. I go to duck under it, when Delphine clears her throat.
“Um, is there a lady’s room?”
“Yeah,” I growl, half turning. Our eyes lock, and my pulse thunders.
“Down the hall past the office. Second door on the left. If you walk into a storage room, you’ve gone too far.”
She rakes her teeth over her pouty lower lip, her eyes just locked and smoldering on mine.
“Got it, thanks.”
She turns, and I barely hold back the groan as I watch that denim-clad ass saunter away. I turn back to the Escalade and start to unscrew the cap for the oil.
“Yo, is it cool if I smoke?”
I frown and poke my head out from under the hood to look at Barnes. “What?”
“Is it cool if I—”
“Not in a garage full of gasoline and chemicals,” Ryker growls from across the garage, glaring at Barnes. “Take it to the other side of the parking lot.”
Barnes shrugs. “Whatever, bud.” He jams a cigarette in his mouth and heads off to a bench on the other side of the lot.
I slide back under the hood, but roughly a quarter second later, it clicks, and I snap.
Fuck this.
I whirl, my blood thundering as I storm for the back of the garage. Ryker catches my eyes and frowns, raising a single brow.
“Gotta grab something,” I mutter.
“Uh-huh,” he grunts, looking at me sternly.
I’ll deal with Ryker and whatever dots he’s connecting later. Right now, she’s all I’m after. I storm down the hall, and I don’t even knock before I slam the door to the bathroom open, lust thundering in my veins.
It’s empty.
“Psst.”
I grin at the sound of her voice, and I turn. There, one door down, leaning out of the doorway to the storage room, is Delphine.
“Did I go too far?” she purrs out.
Yes. You, me, collectively we have gone entirely too far. But there’s no fucking way we’re coming back from that ledge now. My eyes lock hungrily on hers, my muscles clench as my jaw grinds, and I move right into her. She gasps as my lips crush to hers, shoving her back into the storage room and slamming the door shut behind me.
Chapter Nine
Delphine
I moan eagerly into him, my hands tight on his t-shirt as he crushes his lips to mine. I kiss him with everything I have—tasting his mouth like a meal I’ve been starving for. Like a balm I’ve been aching for to soothe me. We tumble back into the storeroom, and my heart races like crazy as he slams the door shut behind him.
This is reckless. This is insane. For a second, I think about what would happen if Barnes were to walk in on this. I’m not his—not like that, and it’s not like this is cheating or anything like that. It’s an escape—a rush of life after being held in the dark for so long.
But Bryce would see this as an attack. He’d see it as a blow to his pride, and his ego—it’s not that he even gives a shit about me or likes me in any romantic way. But to him, I’m his property—a sports car, a signed fucking sports jersey. He’d see this as the same equivalent as someone putting their hands on one of his toys—someone keying his car or something.
And the consequences would be…grim.
Barnes is a tool, and a wannabe, poser gangster, and at times a big pussy. But he’s also dangerous. His ego, and his pride, and that I’m guessing deep down he understands how much of a phony he is makes him unpredictable, and that makes him a danger. There would be consequences for him finding me with Oliver.
Fatal ones.
But when Oliver kisses me and runs his hands up the back of my shirt, and slams my back against the wall, everything else fades away. The rest of world disappears—all the danger, and drama, and heartbreak, and betrayal. All the shadow and shittiness blurs to nothing, until all I know is his body against mine, the taste of his lips, and the sounds of his possessive growls in my ears.
He pushes the back of my blouse up, and then slides his hands around to cup my breasts under it. He shoves the shirt higher, and I gasp, pulling away from his lips to lift it over my head. My bra follows at the same time as his grease-streaked work shirt, and then we’re slamming back together, skin to skin.
He groans into my lips, kissing me fiercely as his big rough hands slide over my waist. He pushes one around to the front, and I gasp, my stomach caving under his touch. He teases his fingers under the waist of my shorts, and my breath catches. Boldly, I reach for him, pushing my hands down his abs and then sliding them into his jeans. He groans, and my pulse races as I push my fingers lower, following his happy trail and the v-grooves of his hips down until finally, I feel him.
Fuck.
I don’t just want him, I crave him. I lust after him, and I definitely lust after this cock. I whimper as my small hand curls around his heavy shaft, and Oliver growls into my mouth.
“What the fuck are we doing, Delphine?” he groans.
“Whatever we want,” I gasp, kissing him and stroking his big cock in his pants.
He growls, and his fingers pop the button of my daisy dukes and slide inside. His fingers tease the lacy edge of my panties, and then boldly push under it to slide lower. I groan as his thick finger pushes down over my clit to drag through my dewy, slick lips, making me gasp in pleasure.
“This will have consequences, you know,” he growls.
“Want to stop?” I gasp.
“Fuck no.”
His mouth bruises punishingly to mine, and I moan eagerly as I taste his tongue with mine. My hand strokes his huge dick faster as his thick finger rolls over my clit, until I can’t take it anymore. I pull away from him, and he groans when I spin us and push him against a dusty countertop covered in boxes. I kiss him hungrily, my hand still in his pants, before slowly, I pull back and sink to my knees.
Oliver groans, his jaw grinding and his eyes blazing fire as I drop down in front of him. My hand slips from his jeans, and I yank open his belt. My pulse thunders, and the raw need to have all of him, in every possible way, is impossible to ignore. I tug his jeans d
own, moaning softly at the enormous bulge in his boxers. My fingers grab the waist of those, and I pull them down with one yank. With a gasp, I watch his thick cock spring free to bob heavily right in front of my face.
I reach out, wrap my hand around him as much as I can, and lean forward. My tongue darts out to wet my lips, and when I look up into his eyes, it’s like I can feel the fire in his gaze as it sizzles over me. I lean forward, and with my eyes locked on his, I plant a slow, wet kiss on his swollen head.
Oliver hisses in pleasure, his abs clenching and his jaw dropping.
“Oh fuck, Delphine,” he groans.
I whimper, kissing him again before I slide my mouth down the underside of him, licking and sucking at his enormous dick as it throbs against my lips. I tease his heavy, cum-filled balls with my tongue, making him hiss and his cock jump and pulse in my hand, before I move higher again. I kiss and suck and lick my way back up the muscled, veined shaft before I open my lips and slide them over his crown.
His masculine groans of pleasure fuel me, and I moan eagerly as I slide my lips further down onto him. I slurp wetly on his big cock, whimpering and squeezing my legs tighter together. I can feel my own arousal soaking my panties, and it fuels me on even more. I whimper and slobber on his cock, like I’m fucking addicted to him—like this cock has me under a spell. I moan and take him as deep as I can, and Oliver groans deeply in pleasure, his hands sliding into my hair. He grips my long blonde locks in a fist, sending a thrill through me. But then he gently pulls me away as he gasps.
“Fucking hell,” he groans, his eyes wild and his muscles clenched tight all over.
He pulls me to my feet, and I moan as he instantly sears his lips to mine. His hands yank my shorts down and then delve into my panties, and I moan as his big finger slides deep into my pussy.
“Oh fuck, Oliver!”
He sinks his finger into me, grinding his palm into my clit before he slides back out and shoves my panties down, I kick my way out of them and my shorts, and then gasp as he spins me, lifts me up like I weigh nothing at all, and sets my bare ass down on the counter behind me. He moves between my legs, and I eagerly wrap them around his waist. He kisses me hungrily while he strokes his cock in his hand, and when I feel the swollen, slick head tease over my eager lips, my breath catches.
