Carry Your Heart

by K. Ryan

  "I love you," he repeated just as softly as before, this time closing his mouth over mine in an impatient kiss.

  Somehow, beneath the hurricane of emotions churning through me, I found my voice.

  "You love me?" I whispered hoarsely.

  His eyes blazed down at me. "Yeah."

  All the breath dove out of my lungs and my lips curled up into a hesitant smile. "I love you too."

  A slow smile spread across his gorgeous face. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  That must've been all he needed to hear because the moment that word fell from my lips, his hips started sinking into me until I thought I might split in two. Every movement of his hips seemed to bury himself even deeper, like he was planting the connection between us as far as he could possibly go and I couldn't get enough. The sensation just kept building and my fingers dug into his back to steady myself as his mouth found my lips again and his tongue danced inside my mouth, mimicking the movement of his hips.

  A low groan rumbled in his throat, catching me off-guard, and his hands slipped underneath my hips to pull me into him as close as our bodies would let us. My breath was coming in and out in sharp gasps, my hands clung to him to hold on, and I felt him everywhere.

  Every inch of me—he was there. Branding himself onto my skin with every touch, every kiss, every rock of his hips.

  This was connection. This was the intimacy I'd always craved in my life.

  I was tipped sideways, upended, and carried away.

  Everything else fell away as I floated along with the movement of his body, lifting my hips to somehow get closer. It was right there, coiling, flaming out, and enveloping my entire body and that fluttering pressure sent me flying over the edge, rippling little explosions through my entire body.

  I shattered under his hands; the tremors practically lifted me off the bed and my head pressed back into the pillow, desperate for something to hold onto as the intense tidal wave crashed against me, shooting stars all the way down to my toes.

  I cried out at the impact, barely aware through this hazy fog that Caleb had gone rigid above me, his forehead pressed into my neck and he muffled a groan into my skin. I was on fire and all the tension finally snapped as cascades of dizziness echoed around me until it lulled into tingling in between my thighs.

  As we came down, he kissed me, grinning lazily against my lips, and pressed our foreheads together as our breathing slowed to a more normal, less chaotic pace. He was still hovering above me and I wished we could stay like this all the time, intertwined as completely as possible.

  I never thought I'd be the kind of girl that would enjoy being claimed like this—totally and completely owned. Possessed. His. Because that's what I was now. I was his.

  When he finally settled back against the pillow next to me, careful to keep one arm leisurely around my neck, I nestled against his shoulder with a deep, satisfied sigh and completely wrapped around him.

  "Wow," I exhaled. "That was..."

  Caleb nodded and kissed my hair. "Yeah, it was."

  My head tilted back into the pillow so I could get a better look at him. "I think we should sleep for a little bit and then do that again."

  His mouth twisted into that sexy crooked grin I loved so much and his lips found mine again, kissing me thoroughly despite how spent we were.

  "Babe, I think that's the best idea I've ever heard."

  . . .

  I woke up several hours later surrounded by Caleb. There was no part of me that wasn't touching some part of him and since we'd ended up on the floor at some point during the night, our limbs were happily tangled up in skin and blankets.

  It was the most beautiful way to wake up.

  And it was too bad that the second consciousness seeped back in, the dull ache in the back of my head, the sharp pain underneath my eye, and the throbbing on my left hand stuttered through my blissful peace. I winced and tried to stretch out the stiffness plaguing my entire body, but one tiny, uncomfortable groan slipped out, which unfortunately, also stirred the hot piece of man-meat currently using my right boob as a pillow.

  He nuzzled into me a little and then his head lifted, his bleary blue eyes searching for me.

  "You okay, babe?" he murmured sleepily.

  I wanted to respond with actual words, but the best I could do was grimace as my body tried to adjust into the carpet. Alerted by my obvious pain, Caleb's head shot off my chest and started awkwardly untangling himself from me.

  "No," I pouted, tugging on his bicep to try to keep him with me for as long as humanly possible. "Don't get up yet, baby. Come on."

  He tossed aside the blanket we'd knotted ourselves up in with a laugh. "Don't worry, Iz. I won't leave you hangin' for long," he winked, "I'm just gonna grab you some meds and then I'll be right back."

  After he stood up and ambled across the room to pull on his boxers, he puckered his lips up into an air-kiss over his shoulder as he headed for the door. I don't know what I was expecting, but the rear view I got shocked a jolt of reality through this Caleb-love-haze.

  Bare-chested Caleb wasn't just drool-worthy, but award-worthy too. Barebacked Caleb was something else entirely.

  I'd only seen flashes of his full-back tattoo the day I'd forced him to open those art school acceptance letters for me, but never the full view I had now. With the emblem of the Iron Horsemen MC, a furious black horse with blazing-red devil eyes, staring back at me, my throat tightened just a little. It was the exact same emblem on the back of the leather cut Caleb wore whenever he wasn't working at the shop. I'd known he had a back tattoo like that and I knew what it meant, but seeing it full-blown like this was a shock I hadn't anticipated.

  I loved Caleb. There was no doubt in my mind about that.

  But everything else? I didn't know how to make sense of it and that scared me more than I could probably comprehend right now. The Iron Horsemen was widely known as an outlaw MC according to more people in town than just my alcoholic father. I'd never seen any evidence of it myself, but that didn't mean it wasn't true. Wasn't there always some tiny kernel of truth to every rumor?

  What I saw at the clubhouse was only a small fraction of what the club was really about and by Caleb's own admission, things weren't always this calm and uneventful. Because nothing of note had really happened since I'd started coming there with Becca, at least in legal terms, it was easy to forget that the clubhouse was meant for anything other than rowdy, raunchy, and, most of the time, wild parties.

  Those thoughts weren't able to gain much traction because Caleb materialized in the room again with a glass of water in one hand, a bottle of painkillers in the other, and I could see the corner of a tell-tale foil package curling around the glass in his hand.

  Hmm, it looks like someone had some other errands to run in his little escapade out of the room.

  He held up the bottle with a smirk and gave it a little shake.

  "I wasn't sure how many you'd want, so I brought the whole thing."

  "I think I'll start with two and go from there," I laughed.

  He glided back over to the spot where we'd camped out on the floor in all his glory, kneeling next to me to hand over what I needed. I swallowed the pills with a long gulp and set the glass on the nightstand directly above my head, turning back around to find Caleb already hovering in my space with his tattooed forearms settling on either side of me. The foil packet fell to the floor next to the pillow and I had to bite back a laugh.

  Looks like he's wide awake and ready to go.

  "You're lucky I knew where my mom's stash was 'cuz I only had one of those in my wallet," Caleb informed with a cocky grin.

  I slapped my good hand over my face. "Oh my God, you did not just steal a condom from your mom."

  "You got any better ideas, babe?"

  "I am on the pill, just so you know, and we don't have anything to worry about on my end."

  He swallowed hard and all the light in his face seemed to dim right before my eyes.

  "C
aleb," I jumped into damage control mode and pressed both my hands into his chest to force him to focus on me. "I didn't mean—"

  His lips found my neck, halting the words in my throat, and I didn't know what I could do to fix this.

  "I don't want there to be anything in between us either, but just gimme a little time, okay?" he murmured and I knew what that meant.

  He was the one, out of the two of us, that potentially had something to worry about and he'd have to take a trip to the doctor before we could get what we wanted. Just the thought of it, the very idea alone, slapped some reality back into me. And now, with reality seeping through the door I'd slammed in blissful ignorance, those questions I'd been too scared to even consider asking bubbled to the surface.

  "Can I ask you a question?" I ventured cautiously, sitting up a little so I could meet his eye level more.

  "Sure, babe."

  I sucked in a hard breath and went for it. "How many have you...?"

  God, I couldn't even finish the sentence and the second the words left my mouth, pain and something a lot like humiliation flashed across Caleb's face and he quickly scrubbed it away.

  He blew out a deep breath, settling back on his knees and rubbing his thighs anxiously. "I'm not really sure. I wish I could give you a number, but I can't."

  That wasn't really going to cut it.

  "Try, Caleb."

  He rubbed the back of his neck with a grimace and I could practically see the wheels in his head turning, sifting through all his whiskey-clouded memories. After a few silent moments, he scrubbed his face with both hands.

  "If I had to guess," he told me, but his voice was still muffled by his hands. "Forty. Maybe more. I don't really know."

  I don't know what I was expecting, but I hadn't mentally prepared myself for an estimate like that. Most of that was probably racked up in the last few months alone. My breath blew out in a slow, long exhale and when I glanced up again, I found Caleb leaning forward with both hands scrubbing over his eyes.

  Maybe if I just ripped off the band-aid for him, we could move past this already.

  "I've been with five people, including you," I blurted.

  Judging by the sullen look glowing in his ocean-blue eyes, that little confession hadn't had the effect I'd intended. But I had a point to make and goddammit, he was going to listen.

  "Brandon was my fir—"

  "Don't," he cut me off, his voice hard and his eyes stared black holes into my bare thighs. "I don't think I can handle hearin' you say it."

  I slid forward, slipping my hands over his shoulders and wrapping my legs around his waist as I eased myself onto his lap. With all my limbs wrapped around him, hearing me now would really be his only option unless he threw me off his lap, which I knew he wouldn't do.

  "Brandon was my first," I finished. "I was 16. I thought I loved him. He thought he loved me. We were both wrong. Then there was Ben. I met him at a frat party my freshman year, got drunk, and I think you know what happened from there. We actually tried dating for a few weeks, but I just couldn't compete with Call of Duty, you know? After that, there was Lucas. He lived in the same dorm as me and I dated him for a couple months. The next one was Nick. You remember Nick, right?"

  A hint of a smile curved up one side of his face and that's how I knew I was finally getting somewhere.

  "Nick and I had a comparative law class together my sophomore year...trust me, it was exactly as boring as it sounds. We were friends for awhile and then we dated for two years before everything happened with my mom and I guess I stayed with him as long as I did because—I don't know. He was pre-law, just like I was, my dad loved him. It just sort of fit the plan, you know? I was wrong about him too. And then, there's you."

  Caleb swallowed hard and his chest was heaving a little too much for my liking.

  "Does it matter, Caleb? Does it change the way you feel about me? Now that you know?"

  He shook his head and I rested my uninjured hand on top of his cheek.

  "It doesn't matter who's come before you," I whispered. "Because out of all the things in my life and all the people in it, you're the only one that feels right, you're the one that feels like home. You're the only one that I've ever...what happened last night between us...I've never felt that before. I've never felt so connected before, so loved before and that's because I'm finally with the person I was always supposed to be with. All that matters is us, Caleb. Please tell me you see that."

  He nodded tightly as my fingers slipped up his neck and cupped both sides of his face.

  "I don't know if I can handle seein' you in my bed at the clubhouse because I don't want you thinkin' about..." he murmured hoarsely and squeezed his eyes shut.

  "I'm not saying it doesn't matter at all, baby," I told him gently. "We both know that's not true. I'm not gonna lie to your face and tell you just thinking about it doesn't make me wanna bitchslap every single one of them. I hate it just as much as you do."

  "I doubt that," he huffed.

  "Okay, maybe not as much as you, but it doesn't change the way I feel about you, Caleb. It doesn't change how much I want you or how much I love you. It's just..." I trailed off, searching for the words I wanted and now I wasn't sure who I was trying to convince more, me or him. "It's just a piece of the past. Something we can live with. That's it, baby."

  I brushed my lips across his mouth, hoping this would be enough for both of us. This entire conversation was equal parts a balm to my insecurities and a match to the gasoline and I had no one to blame for that but myself. I'd started this, so now I had to finish it.

  So, I leaned back all the way until my elbows hit the carpet, my legs still somehow wrapped around his waist and slipped my panties down to my ankles with my good hand. His eyes flashed, pooling with hungry need, and he lifted my ankles to free them of my panties, tossing them over his shoulder. He held out a hand to me and I took it, letting him pull me back up to his chest, and watched me with hooded eyes as I grabbed the condom packet and tore it open.

  I rolled it over him and tilted my hips down, sliding him inside me and our mouths crashed together as rough fingertips dug into my waist to press me even deeper into his lap. My arms enveloped his neck and our chests clamped together as my hips rocked against him.

  It was different this time. The first time we'd been connected this way, it felt momentous, heavy with newly-expressed declarations of love and I felt like he'd been consuming every inch of me. This time, I was the one consuming him. I was the one doing the branding and mixing myself into the black ink tattooed across his tanned skin.

  Every slow back and forth rock of my hips let me take a little more of him. Let me own another piece of him.

  I had to believe that he was mine now. Lingering doubts wouldn't get us anywhere, even if they still existed and even if those same insecurities were justified, I had to believe he loved me enough to make those doubts disappear. It wouldn't be today. It probably wouldn't even be next month, but if we kept talking like this, if we kept connecting this way, I had to believe we'd be able to withstand anything life threw at us, whether it was his life or mine.

  We had to figure out how to meld the two together, how to make his life in the club and my life outside of it work as one.

  And when I broke apart underneath his fingertips and he pushed his forehead into my chest, his entire body trembling because of me and what my body was doing to him, I knew we would figure it out.

  We just had to.

  Now that I'd had him, I wasn't so sure I would know what to do without him.

  . . .

  His fingertips trailed down my shoulder and I shivered a little under that light touch. I felt his lips in my hair and I burrowed my face in his chest, desperate to get even closer.

  "I love you," Caleb murmured into my hair.

  My mouth spread apart into a dreamy smile and I had to bite down on my bottom lip to keep myself in check. "I love you too."

  His lips moved to my forehead. "You feelin' better now
?"

  "I feel like I just slept for a whole week."

  "Can't imagine why."

  His skin muffled my laugh and I was really starting to love the way that felt. "Yeah, I guess not."

  There were more questions bubbling up to the surface again, but this time, I had a feeling these questions would be received a little better than my last ones.

  "So..." I tilted my head up to him, suddenly feeling a little shy about what I wanted to ask him and I found myself tracing a finger around the intricate lines of the black skull tattoo on his right forearm as I geared myself up for this conversation.

  "So..." he prompted.

  "I'm not sure what I'm supposed to call you. I mean, I know boyfriend isn't the right term and I think this is a little more than dating, right?"

  Caleb nodded, his eyes glittering deep blue. "Right. So, my old lady wants a little clarification, huh? I guess I can manage that."

  My eyebrows rose at that term. "Old lady?"

  "Yeah, that's what you are to me, babe."

  I chewed on my bottom lip in thought. I'd heard that term before at the clubhouse in reference to Lexie, but no one had ever really explained exactly what that meant.

  "So what's the difference then?"

  "What do you mean, Iz?"

  "If I'm your old lady and what we're doing is more than dating, then what's the difference between being your old lady and just dating?"

  He nodded his understanding and his lips curled up like he was looking forward to having this conversation with me. "I guess the best way I can explain it is that being an old lady is kind of like being a wife."

  My eyes must have flashed with the panic I was feeling because he chuckled and just pulled me back into his chest.

  "Okay, maybe that wasn't the best way to explain it. It's about the commitment, babe. It means we're exclusive and monogamous and everything that goes with it."

  Now my head was spinning a little with all this new information.

  "So," I ventured hesitantly. "Is it like that with everyone in the clubhouse?"