The platinum band was in the shape of a small wrench, arranged so that the teeth held the shining gem within its grip. I didn’t bother to wipe the tears from my cheeks as I smiled down at him. “I swear I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you.”
His smile was the first kiss of morning sun against my skin. Bright and comforting. “Unless I’ve gotten my customs all kinds of confused, the whole idea here is that you’re going to agree to marry me, magic girl. But if you would rather I go out and hunt a deer or something with my bare hands and bring it back to you, I’ll do that instead.”
“Venison doesn’t really do it for me...so I’m gonna have to pass on that one.”
Undaunted, he tried again. “Alright, the blood offering is out then. You trying to tell me you’re more a precious silk kind of girl? Because I think that would require being able to eat without spilling food everywhere.”
“Give me that.” I laughed, plucking the ring from the box and sliding it onto my finger. Admiring it was a little bit difficult with my wrists still bound together, but I managed. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
He rose to his full height, a tower of finely dressed muscle that was no longer smiling. Storm-cloud eyes took me in steadily as he advanced, pushing his chest against mine and then continuing until my back was against the same tree once more.
“It means that you’re mine, Kayla,” he whispered into the night, voice floating around me. “It means that there’s no one else and there will never be anyone else. It means you’re the only woman I want to love. To fuck. To cherish. It means you’re the other half of my soul and I’ve decided to make that into a fact for everyone to see.”
I tipped my chin up, refusing to back down even when his hands went to either side of my head, caging me in. “I think you skipped a step there, babe. I didn’t agree to anything yet.”
“You’re wearing the ring, aren’t you?” He grabbed my hands, placing them on his chest. Right above the thundering beat of his heart. My own beat in answer, and I closed my eyes, riding the waves of our love as they surged and crashed against each other. “That means you’ve already signed on the dotted line whether you like it or not.”
Calloused fingers yanked at my dress, sliding it back up my thighs, and I stopped caring how much it had cost. Focusing on anything other than his touch skimming over my legs and across my waist seemed impossible. Another gust of cool air hit us, and I waited to see steam waft from my skin.
That was how hot he made me in seconds.
Rain kissed me without warning. Without notice. Yet the moment his mouth covered mine and our lips sealed together with a moan that could’ve come from either of us, I recognized this kiss specifically.
It was the same as the very first one we ever shared. Soft and familiar, a sharp contrast to the harsh sound of him undoing his zipper in the dark. This was a kiss that meant forever, and imaginary wings that had grown full and heavy thanks to his love over the years burst from my back while his tongue moved with mine, carrying my mind into clouds.
He pulled back, both of us panting, and stared at me in silence. Silence that was only broken by the ragged cry that ripped from me as he lifted me by the ass and drove his entire length into me all at once.
I started to yell with pleasure but his mouth was over mine again, eating the sound alive while he pinned me to the tree. Impaling me on his cock.
My legs hung limply at my sides as he drove into me with powerful movements, spreading my walls open to receive him. I was wet, but he was huge. And the piercing at the end of his blunt head bumping against the end of me was...a lot. Bordering on too much in this position. But I took it without complaint, letting him fuck away the residual doubts I had foolishly held.
Every thrust sent our bodies slapping together and I assaulted my insecurities with that pain until they were bloody and beaten. Tail tucked. Running fucking scared.
How could I have possibly doubted this man after everything we had already been through?
Had there even been a single time he wasn’t there for me when I needed him?
The answer was a quick and easy no.
Rain was my lifeline. If I was his Pixie, flying in the sky above. He was the solid ground beneath me. Always there. Always waiting for me to land and recharge. Always patient with me when I wanted to fly a little longer.
He whispered into my ear.
I couldn’t hear him. Not really. My head was full of static, the sensations he was creating blocking out everything but where our bodies touched. It was a good thing I didn’t need to hear in order to understand.
We were doing this.
This was us.
Painful and reckless and sweet mixed together yet undeniably something we would continue to share.
“Rain,” I breathed, pressing against his chest to try and gain some leverage. Needing to move against him. Dying to meet each of his thrusts with one of my own.
The flash of his white teeth in the dark was all that greeted me when I turned my head. “Work for it,” he told me. “Show me how fucking bad you want it.”
For a fleeting instant, I didn’t understand. As if to punish my lack of comprehension, he shifted his angle, driving into me impossibly harder. Stealing the breath from my lungs. Demolishing my body beneath him so he could rebuild it twice as strong. Just like he always did. Then I looked between us.
From the glistening shadows between our legs while we fucked with our clothes on like horny teenagers. To my bound wrists bouncing against his solid chest. My back burned, drawing my attention there with each slam and I swear in the darkness I felt leaves falling around us, brushing against my skin.
Grinning in understanding, I raised my hands behind my head. Fingers climbing up and up and...there. A branch was just within reach, close enough that I could wrap my fingers around it and hoist myself up.
“There you go,” Rain growled, splaying his hands across my ass, taking up every bit of free real estate my body had to give.
Holding myself up from such a strange position was a bitch on my shoulders and I promised myself I would get back to doing some kind of physical exercise. But I was determined to make it work. And we were prime examples of a well-known truth.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
I rocked against him the next time he slid inside me, throwing our bodies together with such force that explosions traveled along the surface of my brain. My vision detonated with stars only I could see, but I had the rhythm now, and I was determined to hold it for as long as I could.
Pleased with my effort, Rain lifted me higher, biceps bulging beneath his suit jacket. Even with sweat dotting his brow and lightning detonating in his gaze, he was taking most of the strain so I wouldn’t have to.
A frustrated noise came from my throat and then his teeth were on my neck. Gliding over my skin. Making me shiver and drop my hands so I could adore the silky, black strands of his hair.
Rain bit down where my shoulder and neck met and that was all it took.
I cried out as my body spasmed around him and he groaned in my ear, falling over the edge with me. The feeling of his cock swelling and pulsing echoed through me, making my toes curl and my lashes flutter.
Then he was burying his face in the center of my chest, hips still lazily rolling while we came down from the sky and back to reality.
Which now included me returning to the party with for sure sex hair this time and a blossoming imprint of his teeth on my skin. Not that I was complaining, mind you. Whoever wanted to look could look. I would never be ashamed or hesitant of having my man’s mark on me. The only reason I had tried to hide some of the evidence earlier was for Lizzy’s sake.
Rain lifted his head and licked my jaw. To which I reacted like anyone would, in love or not.
“Ewww!” I cried, pushing at his chest playfully. “I’m not a piece of candy, dude. Don’t just lick me out of the blue.”
He tipped his head back and grinned, making my heart do more
backflips than an Olympic gymnast while I simply savored the look on his face and gave thanks to whoever might be listening.
“You weren’t complaining when I licked you earlier,” he said on another low chuckle, carefully setting me down. A muscle in my back pulled and I must have grimaced because his eyes narrowed. “You good, Pixie?”
I gave him a quick wink. “Had to tuck the wings away. Can’t have anyone seeing them or else the secret would be out.”
“Keep talking like that and one of these days I’m actually going to fuck you hard enough for wings to grow.” He paused for a second, looking up to the sky with a slight frown that was soon replaced with cunning. “And since I’m setting that as a goal as of this very fucking moment, we should get started on our alibi.”
I offered my hands and he unwrapped the belt from my wrists before sliding it back through the loops of his pants and collecting his tie from the ground.
He took a quick look at it. Held it up against his shirt. Tried to brush the leaves and dirt from the surface before rolling his eyes and shoving it in a pocket. Then he grabbed my hand again, linking our fingers together as we headed back towards the activity still going full swing.
Maybe more than full swing.
Was Caitlin up on a table dancing?
I figured it had to be her, because despite how ridiculously gorgeous she looked with her red hair swinging from side to side, there was a cordon of empty space around her that stretched far enough to be obvious. Along with a solitary figure seated at the table with his arms crossed and the closest thing to a grin he could manage on his angry lips.
Creed was sending a message loud and clear, and however else I felt about him, it made me happy to know he treated the unlikely woman he had ended up with like a person instead of a punching bag.
Rain pulled me onto the dance floor and sidled up behind me, arms creating an iron barrier around my body. Hands splayed across my stomach. A happy sigh left me and movement from the corner of my eye had me looking up.
Tone was walking by with a couple of other guys I recognized but didn’t know. He stopped and looked right at us, offering a small salute before someone clapped him on the back and they all vanished into the crowd. Rain groaned, and I had a feeling the amicable Sinner had something over my man-
Wait.
I held up my hand, staring at the dazzling ring sitting there like I had just remembered I was wearing it. He wasn’t just my man anymore, was he? We were officially engaged now.
He was my soon to be hubby, even though I was seriously going to have to find another term because that one nearly made me gag just thinking about it.
But holding the ring up so obviously had been a serious mistake. Because I heard several shrieks all at once, and the next thing I knew I was being bombarded with questions from each side by every woman in our vicinity.
Shell-shocked, my head whipped around for Lizzy desperately. This was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid. I did not want to be that girl stealing the spotlight.
Except when I found my best friend, I realized I was about to have a mini panic attack for no reason.
Lizzy was curled up in Texas’ lap, shoes kicked off beneath her, eyes closed. She was completely oblivious to the rest of the world and the way her head was nodding told me she was on her way to being fast asleep.
Nothing to worry about there. But how the hell was I going to get out of this when all I really wanted to do was spend time with the man wrapped around me?
“Sorry, ladies,” Rain purred in a voice so sexy I briefly wanted to stab each of the women around us in the ears. “I’ll think about turning her over later. But right now, we’re gonna need some space. Feel me?”
After lots of giggling and murmured assent that had my hands curling into fists, we had space free of perfumed jealousy. I inhaled his scent instead, letting it clear my lungs as I relaxed into him. He held me up like I knew he would as we started to slowly rock from side to side.
“The ring was only part one,” he whispered, lips against the shell of my ear, stirring my hair. “We still have to celebrate.”
My body melted against his. I reached back, tracing my fingers down his sharp jaw. “What are you planning, babe?”
“Guess you’ll have to find out…”
I rolled my eyes when he didn’t give me anything else.
Whatever. I was sure I could handle anything he could cook up at this point.
Right?
Epilogue - Kayla
Wrong.
So incredibly wrong it wasn't even funny.
In fact, it was the opposite of funny. And when Rain showed up, I was totally going to strangle his ass. That wasn’t even a joke.
How in the hell was this his idea of a celebration?
“You look a little tense,” Tone said beside me. The scowl I threw his way would've bowled over an average person, but none of the Sinners were average. His grin was there and gone so fast it practically didn't exist. “Don't kill the messenger. I'm just calling it like I see it.”
I looked around the open airfield, purposefully avoiding the small prop plane he was leaning against the landing gear of. The plan was to keep pretending it wasn't there long enough to make it disappear.
Fool-proof.
Guaranteed to succeed.
Not.
“Distract me,” I said desperately, tugging on the sleeves of my baby blue hoodie. “Better yet, let’s get back on the road and go literally anywhere else that’s not here. Yeah, I like that idea a lot.”
Because here was—again—in the middle of a huge airfield surrounded by tall pine trees. I hadn't known this place existed so close to Oakdale before today and I wished it had stayed that way.
Here, there was nothing but the perfectly good plane and the grinning pilot waiting inside the cockpit. The chewing tobacco in his mouth was the only thing interrupting his wide smile, and I fought the urge to flip him off. Him and his stupid, leather, aviator hat.
It's not his fault, I reminded myself, shoving my hands in my front pocket. I would be laughing pretty damn hard at someone wanting to jump out of my perfectly good plane too.
“Fine.” I turned my attention back to Tone when he didn't offer to be my escape route. “I'll gladly take distraction at this point. Please tell me you've got something that'll take my mind off this.”
“Just relax. Take deep breaths. Close your eyes. Count backwards from one hundred.”
“We can't all achieve perfect Zen at the drop of a dime, Tone. Unless you've got a crash course on how you managed it, that's not going to work. Actually…” I frowned and stepped closer to him, tilting my head. “Do you even get angry? Because I'm pretty sure I haven't seen it once in like, two years.”
His shoulders lifted. Dropped. “Of course. I just know how to avoid holding onto it.”
Bullshit. I cast my mind into the past, trying to think of any point in time I might have seen him lose his cool. And I came up surprisingly empty. He hadn't been around the garage much these last several months so my evidence wasn't conclusive, but I was sure I was right.
Considering the club he had sworn himself to, Tone shouldn't have been one of the most patient people I had ever met. Except he was. Hadn't I watched him walk Mrs. Mumford across Main Street barely a week ago? The woman was the definition of a sour puss. I could remember hearing her complain even while he made sure her old ornery ass wouldn't be hit by a car.
He didn't drink. Didn’t smoke. And he was so damn helpful he should’ve been a boy scout in another life. People like that didn't just exist. And they certainly didn't join terrifying biker gangs.
“Fine,” I said. “You can keep wearing your I-conquered-anger-management crown. Next question.”
He brushed his fingers through his beard. “When did this become an interview? I don't remember signing up for that.”
“It became one when I realized I needed to think about something other than my date with gravity. Stop distracting me and spill. When can I
expect to see you wandering around town with someone? I've got a few girlfriends that would love to meet you.”
They would too. With his smooth, milk-chocolate skin, neatly trimmed beard and rugged good looks, Tone had dropped more than a few panties with that half-smile of his. Even though I only had eyes for Rain, I could admit his friend would be a catch.
He stood, making a show of pulling the collar of his shirt out and peering down the front of it.
“What are you looking for?”
Tone let his shirt fall back into place. “Had to make sure I hadn't grown a pair of tits without realizing it. We ain't having this conversation, girl. The last thing I need is some chick following me around thinking I want to date her ass. I don't have time.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You would make time for the right one.”
Never breaking his casual stance, he stared at me blankly. Giving away nothing. He reminded me of the Queen’s Guard. There was no anger or impatience, just a general sense of readiness.
Convincing an inanimate object to spill its gut would’ve been easier.
I huffed dramatically. “You’re seriously not going to tell me anything? Anything at all? What about your favorite type? Give me something to work with here.”
He raised a brow, dark eyes amused. “Does it really matter? Nothing is going to happen. Sly is about ready to head to Charlotte to deal with some issues we’re having down there and I’m gonna be her backup.”
“Wait. What’s going on there?”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told your man. And I say this with the most love I can possibly manage because y’all are some of my favorite people. But it’s none of your damn business.”
“Everything is gonna be fine though, right?” He didn’t say anything. Tone actually looked away from me and my gut clenched. “Right? Y’all always have a plan.”
“We had someone who was into making plans upon plans and thinking three steps ahead of his competition. Thanks to that same fucker, we’re now in this position.” He chuckled. “I wouldn’t say we’re winging it, but we are taking things back to basics.”
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