Then I found it. Wrapped around the ribs on his left side, high, set under his arm and over his breast.
Not old, newer than anything else on him by months, maybe years, I found flowers; rose and lavender and peonies white as snow, the creeping vines twined around a skull and jawbone, ribs fashioned into wings, the softness of flowers covering and cradling the bones. A dark angel, and I remembered my fever dreams. This was me. He was my dark angel, watching over me.
Beauty and her Bones. I had found me, and he knew when I did, because he tensed up as I leaned close, then blew out a relieved breath when I began laying kiss after reverent kiss on the marks.
“You put me on your skin.” My angel.
“I did. A time when I didn’t think I could have you, and I wanted you with me always. So—” He shrugged, not lifting his head, but cutting his eyes over his shoulder so he could see my face. “—I made it so.”
I found myself astonished at the casual way he drew the image in my head. As if it was nothing, the application of a thousand needles into his skin so he could hold a memory of me near his heart. As if in submitting to the act of receiving the tattoo, he had gotten more. I knew, of course, the ink on his skin always had a story inside the story people saw. Like the dead rose with the ember of life in the center, bearing the weight of a rebirth he wanted very much. But people saw the dead rose and assumed a meaning and he allowed that. But in putting me on his skin, not only the chosen image tailored for me, for an us that didn’t exist at the time, but in the placement, in the colors, in the everything that was anything I could see, he told me secrets so far from casual I was breathless at the discovery. Seeing right through to the heart of everything. I hadn’t been the only one falling, hadn’t been alone since I met him days and weeks and months ago, years by now, with the multiples of hours coming at us without any desire on our part.
“Hidden but not secret, beauty carried over your heart. I see you, Bones. I see me on you.” He twisted to look at me directly, eyes roaming over my face. I lowered my voice, imitating his accent and tone, “My most precious possession.” His nostrils flared on an inrush of air. I remembered that night, remembered everything about it, remembered those moments in the darkness when I trusted, and he knew what that took for me.
Even as I unraveled my head these days, I still remembered how snarled I could get, and he knew it so well. He, who had pursued me even when I’d been a dreadful knot, a kitten’s toy dragged through mud and dirt so that grime and bits of flotsam made untangling impossible, yet he still picked at the threads, worked tirelessly at the ends of the yarn until he found a way. But in the dark, echoes of gunfire behind us, I had followed him into darkness, and he led me out and into the light. “You love me.” Given to the air, my certainty tattered in the saying, until he nodded, firming my footing on these unfamiliar shores. “You, Salvador Ramos, my Bones, my angel…you love me.”
“For a long time now, Ester.”
Moving in a rush, I unlocked my muscles and stretched out over the top of him, pressing myself against his back, absorbing the feel of him under me. Covering him, so he would know this was a balancing blanket he could use anytime he wanted. His moon. Hoping the everything I was about to show him meant as much to him as I wanted it to. Knowing that every single time I had wanted in the past, I’d come up in a different place, currents of revulsion sweeping me away and around the bend of the river. Closing my eyes for a moment, I needed on the air. Needed in a way I’ve never tried to do before, or since. I needed him to know I would never ever let anything hurt him. I would have his back, would care for him, would protect him like only his chosen family did. I wanted him to choose me, wanted to believe I could be chosen.
“I love you, Bones.”
At my words, his muscles melted. Stiff and starched before, straight and edged with blades of fear, he puddled underneath me, and I laughed at the feel. “You like hearing those words from me.” Eyes pressed tightly closed, he nodded, stubble on his cheek catching on his fine sheets. His hand that I could see was clenched into a fist, and I flattened my palm on the back, covering a narrow portion of his skin with my hand, bands and lines of his tattoos escaping my grip, but that was okay because his hand moved, fingers spreading and I threaded mine with his. “I’m home, Bones.” I hadn’t meant to give him more, but he deserved to be reminded this was how I felt. I’d gone from fearing his walls to longing for them in the space of a February, and when I was here he was guaranteed to be with me sooner rather than later, so, of course, I wanted to be inside his walls. It meant I was inside him, and now I was on his skin, too, a place even more precious where Bones was concerned. “With you, I’m always home.”
He twisted underneath me, and I was suddenly chest to chest with him, the arm of the hand I wasn’t holding tight around my waist. He kicked, feet shoving and the sheet I’d so carefully bundled midlength was gone, and I was suddenly naked chest to chest with him. Well, I wasn’t naked, but I didn’t have on panties, and he wasn’t wearing anything. So it was more naked loin to loin, and his loin was long and hard. Without thinking, I moved, letting my legs fall to either side, and he shifted again, hips surging up and I felt the head of him probing me.
“Kiss me,” his lips demanded, and I gave him what he wanted. No hardship, because it was what I wanted, too. Lips ghosting across his until he groaned, I then touched the tip of my tongue to his mouth, and his arm shifted, moving up until his palm cupped the back of my skull, pulling me down hard so our mouths clashed together and his tongue was in my mouth, sweeping side to side, thrusting between my lips as his hips moved again and that tip became the promise of more. Then that more just became more in a way that I groaned, and his fingers tightened around mine to the point of pain, but it was a sweet pain, because I was home.
“Jesus, Ester, what you give me is beyond precious.” Fingers tangled in my hair, he pulled my head back, and then shoved it into his neck, the bristly whiskers on his jaw catching on my skin, each score sweetly singing about his passion. Mouth to my ear, he kept talking, giving to me while I gave to him. Thrusting up, he was far inside me, staying at that depth and grinding, then withdrawing on a glide, smooth and hard, filling me always.
“You lay your heart bare, and gift me with your love. I have done little right in this world, but I thank God I did enough to earn a moment with you. You show me every day how much you trust me, and then you show your love like this.”
Our fingers were clenching, releasing, clenching, coming together in a pumping hold that was in time with every entrance and exit. The feeling was rising and subsiding, but each glide built a glory inside me only Bones had ever given me. In the past my fingers only going there in my sleep, and never to the finish line. I’d always wake and stop myself midstride. But in bed with Bones, it didn’t matter if it was his tongue and lips, fingertips, or his penis, I was always pushed past the point of no return, finding the end of the race in reach, with his guidance.
I tried to always be quiet, but I wanted him to know, in case he never noticed. “You make me happy.” And by happy, I meant orgasmically happy. But not just that, and I wanted him to know. “Not just the sex, but always.” I’d told him about needing being like a wish, only for more important things. “I didn’t know I was needing for you, but when you hold me like this, when you are inside me like this, I don’t ever need to need anything else. You are everything I ever needed for.”
“You make me happy too, Ester.” His words had changed, morphing into more of a grunt, each word voiced on an exhale and movement and I knew what this signaled. “Baby.” Another grunt, and then he stilled, and this stopping moving wasn’t normal because by this point it was usually full steam ahead, so I lifted my head, staring down at his face. “You make me happy.” He twitched inside me and I smiled at the insistence of his own need. Still, he remained locked in place, looking up at me. “I love you.”
He immediately turned all watery, and I felt the chill of tears trailing down my cheeks. Tuggin
g against his hand, I freed my hair and plopped my forehead against his chest. “Are those good tears, baby?” I nodded. He twitched again, and I responded in a muscular grip he couldn’t mistake. Rolling us, he put me beneath him. I lost him in those movements, but he nestled between my legs and thrust, again probing and finding the perfect depth and movement. He rocked into me, my hips lifting so he could move deeper. “Do not ever doubt my love for you, Ester.” Forehead pressed to mine, he made promises with his words that were supported by the look in his eyes. “Ever.”
I returned the promise he seemed to need, and then I realized his words were needings he’d released on the air and I’d caught them. Needings in my heart, holding them close. “I won’t.” Tentative, I tried out a word that meant so much to me, not knowing if he would count the cost it took to give it back, even momentarily. “Baby.”
Always he had me. Always he gave me things that mattered, because he turned right around and handed me the better words, the ones that had paved the way for this road we were on right now, rushing in a race to the finish line together. “My love.”
Matching needs
Bones
“Tell me again, Mason.” Bones was patient, waiting for Mason to pull in a frustrated breath, expecting a sharp retort, receiving instead exactly what he’d asked for.
“We were in my backyard, there in Chicago. I was headed down to Fort Wayne the next day, was after Ray made his visit to Mica. She’d gone home with Daniel and I was there alone, finally. Went outside and there he sat. Bold as brass, because you know we weren’t on the friendliest of terms anytime, and I wasn’t in the mood for his shit that night. Was a shit night, for a lotta reasons.” Mason shook his head, and the background blurred as the camera tried to hold him in focus.
“We got to talking, and back then, I was of the mind that like it or not he was my blood, so unless he was actively being an asshole, or trying to kill me, I’d let him rattle on. That night—” Mason shrugged. “—I let him rattle on. He started talking about Luke, and then got on about Eddie’s mom, Kimberly. How she was the only one for him, but he didn’t see it at the time. That turned into him talking about our mother. He got pissed talking, could see it in his face, because he was focused on how it felt to be him, knowing his mother had another family out there who didn’t even know he existed. How that galled him, tore at him until it was all he could talk about. Then, he said her being with Morgan put a target on her back. Said that was what killed her. I’d always thought she probably got sick, living the way she did between worlds. He said a Mexican club killed her. Said they caught her on the freeway and tossed gas on her car and then torched it. Said they shot her before the fire killed her.” Mason took a breath, visibly distressed, and Bones wished he could do something to ease the way for his friend. “That was it. We had twenty minutes of conversation about women and Mama, and then he was gone. Didn’t see him for a while. About a year later I was in the River Rider’s clubhouse and he was there. Had some bangers come in and try to throw down. Willa was there with Eddie. At that point, Eddie didn’t even know who I was, neither did Judge. You know the next time I saw him, in Cali, had him on his knees watching his chapter get torched. That’s it, Bones. All I got.”
“It is enough.” Bones thought a moment, then asked, “He never named the Machos? You assumed because you knew the Outriders had bad blood between them and the Machos?”
“Yeah, pretty much. You know how it is, even if you know for sure, you still don’t say names where they can be overheard. We were outside on my patio, but still the open air and no countermeasures in place that he knew of. He didn’t name names, didn’t call out the club, but knowing the trouble it sure made sense them killing her would either be the result of shit, or the genesis of shit.” Mason’s eyes were focused on the laptop camera, his sharp intensity coming through the video. “He never said, but it was implied. And he was clear about her being dead. Said that more than once. Offered just enough details to make it believable, but not so much it pinged me as a fucking lie. You think she was already here in Florida by then? That would have been five years ago, man.” Chin lifting, Mason looked away from the camera. “Jesus, only five years. A lot of fucking shit has happened in five goddamned years.”
“True words, my brother.” Bones closed his eyes, running everything he knew of Morgan and Shooter through his head. “You said he was angry? Shooter?”
“Yeah, fucking pissed as hell. Even years after. It torqued him over there were people out there who mattered to his mom who he didn’t know.” Mason paused, then shook his head. “No, it was more than that. It was because those people didn’t know about him. The words I heard her say, it was something she told me a lot the last time she was home. Always going on about John Morgan, wanting me to remember the name. Justice Morgan said once she’d done the same in Cali, talking about Bethy and me. Told me he knew she loved me. Said he wished for a way to make things right, claimed to not know what was left behind the last time he took her back. That was the thing. He never claimed she went willing, and I believe in my gut she didn’t. Believe in my soul he took her unwilling, stole her away. If she’d talked to me about John, then it makes sense she’d have talked to him about us. He was seventeen the last time she made it home to Kentucky. Old enough to be pissed and hold onto those feelings for a bit.”
“Morgan never seemed to carry any illusions about his son. I remember more than one party when he would warn people if John were in a mood. Shooter’s emotions were never very predictable, but Morgan could at least tell when a bad turn was coming on.” Bones kept his eyes closed, hearing Mason shifting around. A cough, and he thought it was probably Fury, dialed in from the Little Rock chapter. Opie was silent at Bones’ side, everyone waiting for Bones to put whatever it was in his head together. “I remember Watcher talking about how the Outrider president in Lexington died, a questionable death that allowed Morgan to put Watcher in as a figurehead for the chapter. Shooter became a mentor of sorts, and Watcher had to keep a lid on him because he could go off the end of the pier and into deep water quickly, with little provocation.” Bones righted his head, and stared at the screen, watching Mason’s face. “You said even years later he was angry about your existence. Probably is still angry, knowing the man. Do you think he would have been angry enough to hurt Crystal?” Mason tipped his head to one side, considering, but before he could speak Bones continued, “Perhaps Morgan secured these women to keep them away from Shooter?”
“Thin, man.” Fury spoke up, and his image popped to the top of the display, larger than life, leaning into the camera. “That’s fuckin’ thin, Bones.”
“Maybe not so thin,” Opie said. “I remember a meeting we had with Outriders, back when Judge was not much more than a boy. We got the distinct feeling Shooter was out of control, and even Judge had more on the ball than Shooter did. We know where that wound up, with Judge pulling the kind of shit he did. We already know where Shooter went with you, Mason.”
Bones nodded, because Shooter’s hatred for Mason was legend, and the man’s failed attempts to kill his own brother had become the topic of many a church meeting in many clubs. “Shooter is capable of nearly anything, and we know that. I think we should wait for Myron to find out the dates and whatever information he can dig out of the facility records before we let the knowledge go beyond this small circle.” Shifting his gaze from camera view to camera view, Bones saw everyone nodding. “Shooter should still be in prison, but we have not yet confirmed anything. Even if he is, it does not mean his reach is limited. And if he were truly incensed about something, he would not hesitate to pull in whatever markers were needed to conduct a strike, even if it meant he would spend additional time in lockup.”
“Shooter’s a psychopath. He’ll do whatever he wants with the full expectation that everyone will agree that whatever he’s done was the right thing. Fuck, Mason, if your ma were dead, I wouldn’t put it past the motherfucker to have killed her himself.” Fury moved, shifting back
in his chair. “He’s fuckin’ insane, and everyone who’s partnered with him over the past ten years is either dead, or jacked so far sideways they can’t see whether they’re coming or going. Hell, if Morgan did put your ma there with the other women, you can bet it was what saved her life.”
“I don’t doubt it, brother. Let’s wait for Myron.” Mason stood, leaning forward with an extended finger, preparing to shut off the laptop even as his window popped to the top of the display. “See what he turns up. Talk soon, brothers.”
“Talk soon.”
***
“Ester, where are you?” Bones paused for a moment just inside the living room door, listening. No answering call came to his ears, and he tensed. Calling her name again, he pulled a relieved breath when he heard a noise from one of the empty rooms overhead. This was a big home, and there were no fewer than four extra bedrooms which only had basic furniture installed. He’d never needed more than his room fully furnished.
Slipping his boots off, he casually armed the alarm, heading first upstairs to see what had so engrossed Ester that she didn’t hear him come home. Feet to the treads, he sniffed, noting with some surprise there was no smell of cooking or dinner. Not that he expected it of her, but Ester had been enjoying cooking in the weeks since he’d come home, having picked up a few basic recipes from her time with Road Runner. Bones grinned to himself, remembering Road’s words, and believing he had been right. Ester did indeed like his shit.
All thought was wiped from his brain when he rounded the corner and looked into the first empty room on the left. Ester stood in the middle of the floor, arms lifted over her head, swaying in place. Where he was tucked to one side of the door, she hadn’t yet seen him, and he watched for a moment, trying to discern what she was doing. Head tipping from side to side, her hands moved, fingers tapping together as she lifted first one foot then the other.
Rebel Wayfarers MC Boxset 4 Page 27
