“Yeah?” He glances my way briefly. “Yes, sir.”
“Something wrong?” I ask, but Sin’s shaking his head.
“Nope.” He looks up at Beast. “The Los Gatos and the Seattle chapters are on the way.” He tosses me a wary glance. “That means I have a lot of work to do. Think you can stay out of trouble for the time being?”
I stare back at him, but I don’t answer, and he ends up cursing.
We both know that’s an impossible task.
But if the club is sending men from other chapters, that means we’re in serious trouble.
It means we’re officially at war.
My mother makes dinner, and we end up eating in the living room with Cat. It’s awkward and weird, but I get the idea that the world has tilted on its axis again. After my sisters died, Cat and Nellie changed everything about the way we lived. They were home more—Nellie especially—and they started watching me like a hawk. Started trying to actually parent me. Well, sort of. I mean, if your idea of parenting is shooting your daughter’s dog and pretending to kill her.
Anyway, before that night, I essentially did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But things changed. Things are changing again. Going missing for three months seems to have endeared me to Cat. Just barely. But it’s there.
“You can help the other wives set up for the party tomorrow,” Cat tells me as I stare at him, seated on the leather sofa across from him and Nellie. Thankfully, Gaz is absent tonight. I’m not sure I can look him in the face over dinner and pretend to be civil. He strangled a prostitute to death. And not because she’d done anything wrong, but to get rid of evidence.
He’s as wicked as they come.
“Should I dress up in an apron and heels while I do it?” I quip, and Cat gives Beast a look, pointing at me with his fork.
“Last chance to back out of this. You’re sure you want to deal with this brat?”
Beast inclines his head slowly. He may as well have screamed for the impact that it leaves in the room. His expression brooks absolutely zero argument from anyone, including Cat. My mind flashes to the possibility of a real wedding night with Beast. It wouldn’t be a game to him. It wouldn’t be just another fuck. It’ll mean something.
Am I ready for that?
I take another bite of my food, glad to see that Nellie’s back to experimenting again. Tonight is bangers and mash or some shit. Basically, sausages with watery potatoes, but at least she’s trying.
“I’ve decided that we’ll hold the wedding while the other chapters are in town,” my father continues conversationally, cleaning his plate and then holding it out to Nellie in a silent request for more. It bothers me, the way she takes it and hurriedly runs off to get his second helping, but having heard her side of the story, I try to be understanding.
Try, of course, being the key word.
That can be her life, but it will not be mine.
“Excuse me?” I repeat, glancing over at Beast. He meets my eyes with his blue ones, and the way they darken … the way he sweeps that powerful gaze over my body, leaves me with pebbled nipples and an impossible heat between my thighs that begs to be slaked; it demands satisfaction. My cunt is on her knees with wanting, and that pisses me off.
I look back at Cat, reclined like a king in the living room that used to belong to his mother. We can’t live here permanently. Too much shit goes down at this place, but I guess for now, during a war, this is where we’re staying.
“You got a problem with that?” he asks, his tone a warning. See, I told you that he suspects me. His dark eyes glint with the promise of pain.
“Do I have a problem getting married during a war? Yeah, I sort of do. Isn’t this something that can wait?” I’m thinking mostly about Reba right now. Just Reba. The idea of getting married while she’s still missing, while she’s … fuck, God only knows what they’re doing to her.
Virginal Reba. Sweet, pretty Reba. The girl who’s waiting for marriage.
My insides twist up into an impossible knot. If I mention Reba, Cat will shrug her off, and I can’t deal with that. They all assume she’s already dead. Nobody cares either way. Nobody but me and maybe, because of me, the four men I’ve chosen as my own.
“You’ll get married while the other chapters are in town, or you won’t get married at all,” Cat warns me, and Beast stiffens up beside me. He can’t handle that, the idea that Cat could actually come between us. If it came down to it, I have zero doubt that he’d quite literally kill my father and whisk me away to keep us together.
The thought, as violent as it is, is oddly comforting.
My mouth turns down in a frown.
“What day, exactly, is this supposed to happen? Shall we head down to the courthouse and get hitched tomorrow? Get it over with.” I’m getting angry, but I can’t possibly think about a wedding when my best friend is missing. I’m just not that sort of monster. Nah, that’s more Gaz’s thing.
“Courthouse?” Cat asks with a sharp laugh. Nellie reappears with his plate, and he drags her down into his lap before taking it. “You can file papers at the courthouse, but you’re not getting married there.”
“Oh, Gidget, let’s plan a wedding,” Nellie says, smiling at me from her position on my father’s lap. “We can pick out a dress and plan a party.” Her eyes sparkle, but only partially with joy. I know why. I know what she’s thinking. You’re the only daughter I have left. I was supposed to do this three times, but now … please let me do it at least once.
Fuck.
“We’ve had some hard years around here,” Cat muses, stabbing his sausage and bringing it to his mouth like a barbarian. He doesn’t bother to cut it into manageable pieces. I think about the mafia and their fine-stemmed wineglasses, their waltzes, their five course dinners. “We need something unifying.”
Unifying.
Mm.
I glance over at Beast, but he never gives anything away that he doesn’t want. Right now, it’s clear he doesn’t want to show a single emotion at all.
I’m going to be a unifying factor for the club? With my marriage to an officer that lies for me? How … ironic.
Meanwhile, golden boy Gaz who’s always been my father’s favorite, is quite literally rat-fucking the club for what, Rolexes and whores? I have no idea.
“Let’s give you girls two weeks to plan,” Cat muses, setting his plate aside and then rubbing at his beard. “We’ll have the wedding fourteen days from today.” He gives me a look. “I’ll give your mother a budget, but not a penny more. You hear me?”
And then he’s standing up with my mom in his arms, and Nellie’s letting out this girlish shriek that has me cringing. He carries her out the door while she kisses his neck, and I try my best not to gag.
“Gross,” I murmur, stabbing my own sausage and finally bringing it to my mouth. Just before I slide the tip in and subsequently bite it off, I make sure to meet Beast’s eyes. The ghost of a smile hovers on his lips. “Think you can wait two weeks to try this out?” I slide the sausage back into my mouth and Beast shakes his head at me.
“I don’t know how you got to be the way you are, suge,” he purrs, leaning forward and folding his hands together. “All I know is that I like it.”
A warm flush fills me, but I refuse to acknowledge it, focusing on my food instead.
Two weeks.
Do I have to make a choice in that time period? Between Beast, Sin, Crown, and Grainger? It’s almost as agonizing to think about that as it is to think about Reba.
“I don’t want to get married without Reba,” I whisper suddenly, the words sneaking up on me.
All at once, my throat is tight, and the hand that holds my fork is shaking. I can deal with a lot. Really, I can. But … somehow the idea of getting married without Reba makes me feel like I’m dying on the inside.
Never in my life have I ever wanted to get married. Never. Now that it’s here, and I’m faced with the idea without my sisters by my side, I feel lost.
“Darl
in’,” Beast purrs at me, taking my plate away, and then putting his hands on either side of my face. “You don’t have to fight the world by yourself.” He wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Not anymore.”
My hands are still trembling when I place them over his.
“I don’t want to get married without Reba,” I repeat, but what I’m really saying is I don’t want to get married without my sisters. Only, I can’t fix that part of the equation. The only thing I can do now is save my best friend. If I can do that, if I can at least protect one person that I love, I’ll call it a win.
Beast releases me, putting my hands in my lap before dropping to his knees in front of me.
My breath hitches strangely as he slides a ring from the pocket of his vest, studying it on his calloused palm for a moment before he looks up at me.
“I will get you Reba,” he tells me, and my brow lifts up in question. “If I don’t, you can walk down that aisle with someone else.” The sheer confidence in his voice staggers me; I want to believe him, I do. My life hasn’t exactly set me up to trust people, but I’m learning. Actions speak so much louder than words, and Beast is not a man who speaks many of them. If he’s saying this to me, he intends to follow it up with real-life consequences.
This is as close to an official marriage proposal as I’m likely to get from Beast.
He takes my hand and, after meeting my eyes and waiting for my choked nod, slips a ring onto my finger.
From Grey’s fancy diamond ring to stories of Crown’s heirloom ring to Beast’s thick gold band with rubies embedded in it.
“I had this made from my UFC championship belt,” he tells me, and now I’ve got two brows up. That’s … sort of a big fucking deal. Those things are made of real gold; their value is like, three hundred K or some shit. He took an heirloom from his MMA days and turned it into a ring for me?
“Don’t you … isn’t this important?” I ask, staring down at the ring with a slight frown.
“Not as important as you, darlin’.”
He takes my right foot and carefully removes the leather boot that I’m wearing. He sets it aside, almost reverently, before reaching for the other.
“What are you doing?” I breathe, pulse thudding in my skull. I want so badly for Beast to break down, to rut me the way he did beside the pool (twice). Is that what he’s up to right now? He sits back on his heels, sliding his thumb across his lower lip and cursing under his breath.
“Taking care of my woman,” he tells me, as if that explains everything. He looks back at me before going for my socks. The way he peels them down by feet, it’s almost pornographic. His fingers tease my skin, sending thrills through me that shouldn’t be sexual, but somehow are anyway. I’m pretty sure Beast could poke me in the arm, and it would turn my clit into a rock.
“But Cat …” I start, and he gives me a look, one blond brow raised in question.
“He might be my president, but he damn sure ain’t gonna tell me what I can or cannot do with my own wife.” Beast stands up, leaving me a confused puddle on the couch as he heads over to one of the doorways, sliding the pocket door closed. He does the same on the other side, flicking off the lights and leaving us in total darkness.
I close my eyes, just so I can listen to his heavy footsteps on the carpet.
I smell him before he touches me, his scent a toxic thing that blinds me to the rest of the world. When he’s near like this, all I care about is him. All I want is him. He is goddamn everything.
His warm hands land on my knees before sliding up to my hips. I make myself relax, leaning my head back against the sofa cushions. With deft fingers, Beast undoes the button and zipper on my leather pants—the ones Cat gave a sharp look to but didn’t comment on—before peeling them down my legs.
Guilt for Reba pricks at the edges of my consciousness, but it’s quickly subsumed by the fire of Beast’s touch, his fingers trailing down my legs before discarding the pants entirely. He pushes my knees apart, and I choke, struggling to breathe past the overwhelming surge of passion, of raw, unfiltered need.
“Please tell me you’re going to fuck me,” I whisper, and he lets out a low, sultry chuckle. His resolve is ironclad—except when it comes to me. I broke him down before, got him to fuck me when he didn’t seem particularly inclined. I could do it again, couldn’t I?
He leans in close to me, taking my t-shirt by the hem and lifting it up and over my head. I raise my arms to make it easier, and he tosses it aside. When his huge, warm hands slide across my rib cage to grab the clasp of my bra, I buck my hips up against his torso, feeling the leather of his vest against my inner thighs.
“Tell me what a good wife you’ll be, Gidge, and I’ll give you something nice.” He puts his mouth near my ear as he undoes my bra and lets it fall between our bodies. His hand cups my breast, and I bite my lower lip in an attempt to keep my moans at a minimum.
“I can’t say that,” I murmur, pushing my chest into his hand and wishing he’d pinch my nipple. It aches, being so near to him. “I don’t fetch food and clean and plan parties. That isn’t me.”
Beast chuckles again, and thank the fucking gods, he actually brushes his thumb over the aching hardness of my nipple. I bite my lip even harder, making myself bleed. Doesn’t matter. It feels too good to care.
“You think I want a housewife?” he queries, like he’s actually curious as to what my answer might be. “I want a wife in leather who knows how to shoot.” He puts his mouth up against the side of my throat, running his tongue up to my ear and sending goose bumps springing across my skin. “On Monday, we’ll start those lessons I promised.”
It takes me a minute to tame my sex-addled brain and figure out what he’s talking about.
“Do you want to learn to defend yourself?”
Oh, that’s right. After Gaz beat me up, Beast offered to train me.
“I would very much like that,” I breathe as Beast kneads my breast, stroking my nipple, stroking that fire inside of me. He draws back slightly, replacing his thumb with the heat of his mouth. His tongue flicks over my pebbled nipple, and my hips buck up against him yet again. I’m so wet, I’m probably ruining his shirt.
He doesn’t seem to mind, trailing his lips across my collarbone before taking my other breast into his mouth and sucking it in just such a way that my cunt clamps down, making my lower belly muscles ache. I need to be filled. I want something inside. I don’t care if it’s his fingers or his cock, but I need it.
When I reach for his hand and put it on my pussy, he allows it, cupping me tightly and using his thumb to stroke the moist curls between my legs. Beast slides that same thumb in, and I nearly choke. It feels so good, finally getting that forbidden fruit I’ve been eying since I came back.
Having Beast when I was sixteen, then not having him for years, then tasting him briefly before I took off on Crown’s bike? Agony. It’s pure, unbridled agony. I need him so badly that I can’t even think of putting it into words. Instead, I grab him by the hair and try to drag him closer.
Instead, Beast pulls back from me, sliding his thumb out of my cunt. I can hear the sound of him sucking it clean.
“Say it.” Just two words. Not a request. Ugh.
“I’ll be a good wife,” I grind out, burning and aching and wanting so badly that it’s hard to think straight.
“Then trust me,” he says, and then I hear the creak of leather as he stands up.
“Where are you going?” I ask in a near panic, naked on the living room sofa with no idea of what this man is planning. It’s infuriating.
“Trust me, sugar,” he repeats, and then he’s walking away. I can’t see much with the drapes closed, with night lying heavy and ebon across the compound. I can hear him though, as he opens one of the pocket doors and leaves.
All I can hear for a minute there is my heart, racing so fast that I feel dizzy.
Trust me, sugar? What is this man up to?
More footsteps, the sound of the pocket door closing, a
warm body kneeling in front of mine.
Only … this isn’t Beast. It’s someone else. The dizziness triples, my pulse picks up, and my skin goes flush with the promise of a stranger’s touch in the dark. I wish briefly that I hadn’t inherited Cat’s perceptiveness because, by smell alone, I know exactly who this is.
Even if they don’t speak.
Violets and suede.
Crown.
I don’t say his name. He doesn’t say mine. We don’t talk at all.
Instead, he takes over where Beast left off, his hands on my knees, moving them aside and making space for himself. His fingers trail along my thighs just before he presses his mouth to the inside of my knee. His lips are soft, but the stubble on his face is hard, a contradiction that my tender flesh very much enjoys.
Crown kisses his way up my inner thigh, his touch gentle but demanding. Spread your legs, it says. Open for me. So I do. Even though I’m not quite sure what the five of us are up to. What Crown really wants. Sin, Grainger. What Beast will allow.
Each kiss is simultaneously a blessing and a curse, like a knife in my flesh, twisting, twisting, twisting. I gather his head to me, and he makes this … this sound, like maybe he’s going through all the same thoughts that I am. His mouth finds my cunt, licking up and over my clit before continuing up toward my belly, my breasts.
He takes one of my nipples into his mouth, sucks it, and then continues upward, until our mouths are crashing together. My fingers dig into his hair as he yanks me against him. He’s fully clothed, and I’m completely naked, but I like the contrast. I like the whisper of his leather vest against my bare flesh, the rough brush of denim, the softness of his t-shirt.
Crown wraps an arm around my waist and adjusts us so that I’m lying on my back on the sofa with him on top. I can feel the leather of his riding boots with my bare toes, teasing my foot up to his denim-clad calf. He kisses me in that infuriating way of his, the one that’s both disdainful but also full of like, rainbows and shit.
It feels very important to me that we do not talk right now. That no words leave either of our lips. It’ll ruin this careful conversation of our bodies. And lips might lie, but body language does not.
I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2) Page 23
