by Lane Hart
“What?” I say flatly, staring down Holden.
“Uh, it’s just…Torin told us to go to Newport tomorrow. Ian called and needed money on his commissary. We were going to go visit and take care of it. One of us could go, I guess…”
“I’ll get Dalton to do it,” I interrupt him. Ian’s got a few months left to serve after getting picked up making a run with a pound of the club’s weed in his saddlebags. He kept his mouth shut and is doing his time. So, if he needs money for ramen noodles, I’ll go myself, if it comes to it. “You two stay together, you hear me? These aren’t likely to be the last bodies we have to deal with, so you watch out for each other.”
“One more thing. Don’t say a word about this to anyone, even Torin,” I warn them. Both of their eyes widen and mouths drop open as if to question that. “Not. A fucking. Word,” I repeat. “I’ll tell Torin, but he hears it from me first. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” they answer in unison. When both of their eyes cut to the left behind me and sweep downward instantaneously, I know Sasha’s finally ready.
“Don’t look at her,” I snap at them, and they jump before glancing away at the opposite wall. Mostly I’m just fucking with them, because that’s what we do to prospects. If they patch in, they’ll get to repay the favor someday. But also, I know Sasha is a fucking knockout any day, but wearing those skin-tight leather pants and flimsy shirt with no bra, she’s a walking wet dream, hotter than any pin-up girl that’s ever appeared in Easy Rider magazine.
“Oh my God,” Sasha mutters when she spots the bodies. I could’ve stopped her before she came into the room, but I’m not gonna sugar coat shit for her. She’s a tough girl and can handle it. If not, then I need to know now.
“Holden and Maddox are gonna make all this disappear,” I assure her. “It won’t come back on you, or we’ll have two more bodies to bury,” I joke.
“Do they, um, need my mop?” she asks, making me bite back my grin when the guys whip their heads around to look at her with hearts in their eyes like she’s too perfect to be real. It’s fucking true.
“No, sweetheart. They’ll use their own cleaning supplies,” I say as I go over and grab her arm to take her out the back.
“Call me if anyone parks outside the house,” I tell the guys before we take the long way through the yard to my truck.
Chapter Thirteen
Sasha
“I have to go to work tomorrow afternoon,” I tell Chase, mostly just to break the silence in the cab of his truck. The small space smells too familiar, like the comforting leather scent that always lingered on him back when we were dating. Surprisingly, it doesn’t smell like cigarette smoke.
Was I disappointed he wasn’t on his bike? Heck yes. But I’m still shaking so badly from everything back at the house that I probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on.
“We’ll see,” Chase replies.
“No. I have to go to work tomorrow.”
“I heard you,” he agrees, eyes staring straight ahead as we wind through the country roads to his parents’ farmhouse. “And I said we’ll see.”
Rather than argue with him, I simply lean my head back against the seat to try and calm my nerves.
“Why aren’t we going to the clubhouse?” I ask.
“Because Torin thinks you’re a threat,” he answers, surprising me with his honesty. “I don’t want you near him until I figure out what he’s paying Hector for.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Yes,” Chase replies.
“And?”
“And he lied to me. I didn’t mention the money exchange to see if he’d own up to that shit. He said he was warning Hector to keep the crank out of our county.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell Chase. I know he and his brother are close, and it must be hard to deal with him lying. Chase missed Torin like crazy while he was in the Army. I think that’s one reason he was drawn to his uncle’s MC when he was so young; he wanted that brotherhood.
“It doesn’t matter what the relationship is with Torin and Hector, though,” he says. “Hector’s not gonna back off on trying to take me out, so he’s gotta go.”
“Yeah,” I agree. Hector’s a horrible man, and if the choice is between Chase or Hector, well, I don’t want anything to happen to Chase for the same reason I can’t erase his name from my skin.
“Do you think more guys will show up at my house?” I ask.
Chase shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe not. I wasn’t gonna sit around and wait for more bodies to pile up.”
Clearing my throat, I ask, “What will your dad and stepmom say about me staying with them?”
“They don’t live at the farmhouse anymore,” he answers. “A few years ago, they decided they wanted to live on the beach, so they sold the house to the MC and bought a new one at Topsail Island.”
“Oh,” I reply in surprise. “So, who lives in the farmhouse?”
“No one,” he answers.
So…does that mean, it’ll just be him and me alone together tonight?
“Our grow house is in the basement. We have a few workers that tend it,” he explains.
“Grow house? Like weed?”
“Yep,” he replies. “It was cheaper to grow our own than buy it. Then, when we had more than we could use, we started selling it to the other charters to bring in some extra cash.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not that big of a deal. It’ll probably be legal soon anyway,” I tell him.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
The rest of our ride is in silence. After we hit the bumpy gravel road, I know we’re close.
When we were together, I spent more time at Chase’s dad and stepmother’s than he did at my house, since they actually liked me. My parents wouldn’t allow Chase to come over. They had no clue that he was sneaking into my room most nights after they went to bed.
The white, two-story house with a wraparound porch comes into the headlights view. It’s completely dark, not a single light left on.
“You live at the clubhouse, don’t you?” I ask Chase.
“Yeah.”
Thinking about him spending his nights at the bar picking up women is more unpleasant than I expected. It’s not like I thought Chase had been a monk since we broke up, but it’s another thing to know he’s living there, in that rowdy scene. I’ve been to the Savage Asylum with him before and know how the girls throw themselves at the guys, sometimes even giving blowjobs or fucking them right there for everyone to see. I may have let Chase touch me in front of his brothers, but we never went that far, mostly because Chase didn’t want anyone to see me that way.
Without a word, Chase turns off his truck and climbs out, so I do the same, following him up the porch steps and into the dark house. He flips on a few lights as we go.
“You can sleep in my old room if you want,” he tells me.
Great, the one with the most memories.
Everything in the house is pretty much the same, just fewer family photos and knickknacks that I expect his parents took with them.
Chase’s room up the stairs is neater and tidier than I remember.
“We have a housekeeper come and clean up every few weeks,” he explains as if reading my mind. “Sheets should be clean. I hardly ever stay here. Just once in a while, to get away from the chaos.”
I nod as I sit my duffle bag down on the floor.
“I’ll, um, let you get changed,” he says as he starts for the door. “If you need me, I’ll be downstairs.”
“Where were you when I needed you ten years ago?” I blurt out.
…
Chase
“Where was I?” I repeat in confusion as I reach up and shove my fingers through the front of my hair. “What the fuck, Sasha?”
“You were the first person I looked for when I woke up,” she says. Her voice cracks when she continues, “And you weren’t there. I thought you…I thought you were dead, because I couldn’t imagine any other reason that you wouldn’t be beside me.”
&nbs
p; “Are you fucking with me right now?” I ask. She has to be.
“Just answer the question!” she yells through her tears. “Where were you?”
“I was there!” I shout. “I was in the waiting room.”
She shakes her head as tears stream down her face. “No, you weren’t!”
“Yes, I was, goddamn it!” I exclaim as I stride up to her until our faces are only inches apart, so she can read the truth in my eyes. “I was waiting for days, worried to death about you, wanting to see you, to hold you, to tell you how fucking sorry I was, and you wouldn’t let me!”
Choking on a sob, she says, “I wouldn’t let you? I was barely able to open my eyes for the first few days!”
“You were awake enough to tell your parents that you never wanted to see me again and that you would never forgive me for hurting you,” I remind her.
Sasha gasps and reels back like I slapped her. “What?”
“I’d caused you enough pain. I wasn’t gonna stay around and keep making you upset. So, after three days, I finally left,” I tell her.
“I was upset because you weren’t there!” she shouts, bringing me up short.
“Then why didn’t you call me and tell me you changed your mind?” I ask.
“Changed my mind?” she asks, then shoves both palms against my chest. “Changed my mind! I never changed my mind! Every fucking day I begged for you to come, and every day you broke my heart!”
“That’s…I didn’t know, sweetheart,” I tell her as an invisible fist tightens around my neck, hearing her say that I broke her heart. “I thought when you said you never wanted to see me again that you meant fucking never…”
Sasha shakes her head emphatically back and forth. “I didn’t say that.”
“You did,” I assure her. “When you first woke up. Maybe you don’t remember because of the drugs…”
“I. Didn’t. Say. That,” she repeats through clenched teeth. “I remember every moment from the time I woke up. The doctor telling me that I would need more surgeries, the nurses asking if I needed more pain medicine. And I remember telling them that all I wanted was to see you, to know if you were okay!”
“Are you sure? Everything was probably hazy,” I tell her, knowing that she’s mistaken.
“I remember my parents coming to see me in the recovery room,” she goes on through the tears. “I asked them about you…”
“And?” I ask, needing her to keep going.
“They said that you walked away from the accident with a few scrapes and bruises.”
“I fucking did,” I grumble. “It’s so goddamn unfair. I would’ve traded places with you in a heartbeat if I could’ve, sweetheart, I –”
“And they said that you…that you refused to come see me.”
All the air is sucked out of my lungs like they’ve been attached to a fucking vacuum cleaner hose. With my next breath, I explode.
“That’s fucking bullshit!” I shout so loud the neighbors a mile away probably heard it.
The weight of hearing all of this is almost too much for me to bear. Sasha’s parents manipulated the two of us…and it cost us the past ten years.
My ass flops down on the bed as I force myself to go back to that hellish night, and into the next morning to make sure I’m not missing something.
“I waited,” I tell Sasha. “I waited there at the hospital for you to change your mind. Every time your parents came out of your room, I asked them if you had. And each time they said no, that I should go home and give up. That you didn’t need the stress.”
“They wouldn’t have lied to me,” she says as she drops down on the bed next to me and stares into space, likely trying to convince herself, rather than convince me. “They wouldn’t have hurt me like that. They knew how upset I was. I cried…I cried for weeks…”
Sasha’s close to her parents, especially her father. But they’ve always been protective of her. They would’ve done anything to get me out of her life. So they took advantage of our shitty situation to split us up.
Reaching over for Sasha’s right hand resting on her thigh, the one my name is on, I cover it with mine and give it a squeeze, relieved when she doesn’t flinch or push me away.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her softly, meaning for everything, but mostly because of our time apart caused by a stupid misunderstanding.
Sasha inhales a deep, shaky breath and then blows it out.
“Wow,” she says, followed by a sniffle.
“I’ll go get you some tissues,” I tell her. But when I start to stand up, Sasha grabs my arm to pull me back down on the bed. One look at her face, and I know exactly what she wants, what she needs from me, because it’s the same thing I need. We’ve waited too damn long for this moment, and I don’t intend to waste another second.
Grabbing the side of her face, I cover her lips with mine, doing what I’ve dreamed of for so long that it’s hard to believe it’s actually happening. When Sasha moans and parts her lips for my tongue, I dive in and never look back. If this is a dream, I’m gonna make the fucking most out of it. My free hand clutches her side to pull her closer, and Sasha does me one better. She throws one of her long legs over my lap to straddle me, putting her in the perfect position for my hands to roam up her sexy shirt to get to her breasts.
“Fuck, they still fit my hands perfectly,” I tell her as I give both a hard squeeze that makes Sasha gasp. Being the angel that she is, she rips the shirt over her head and tosses it to the floor to give my mouth full access.
“Oh my God,” she gasps, arching her back and throwing her head back to push her tits toward me in offering. Her hands grasp my face between them while she grinds down onto my lap. Dragging her fingers through my facial hair, she says, “I love this fucking beard.”
If my mouth weren’t full of her nipple, I would respond. As it is, I’m not willing to stop sucking on her just yet.
Sasha’s not content with just a lap dance. She pushes my cut down my arms and then lifts my white tee up, forcing me to remove my mouth from her breasts as it comes over my head. When she reaches for my pants and pops the button, I know she’s tired of foreplay already, even though I just got started and want to cover every inch of her body with my mouth. But it’s been too long since I’ve been inside of her, so I start undoing her pants too. Neither of us gets very far since we’re both sitting, so I pick her up and lie her on her back in the middle of the bed to get us naked.
Chapter Fourteen
Sasha
Chase looks down at me with a mixture of awe and need on his face as he stands next to the bed and undresses. His capable hands have his boots, socks, and pants off in record-breaking time while I take in his tall, massive frame, covered in muscles and tattoos. Some are old, like my name in faded black cursive ink on his chest, but there are other new ones on his chest that I can’t wait to examine closer. He’s bigger than he was when we were together, and I’m pretty sure I had forgotten how long and thick his cock was, more substantial than any of the few lovers I was with after him.
He watches me the entire time as he crawls across the bed and then kneels over my legs. Leaning forward, his mouth kisses a path down the center of my chest to my belly button while his hands start tugging my tight pants and panties down my thighs.
“Chase,” I moan as my eyes close, and I throw my head back. His thick beard feels so soft moving down my stomach that my hips roll to try and press into it a little more. Like he knows what I want, he runs his lips up and down my stomach a few more times, making sure his beard brushes my skin along the way.
I’m halfway to coming just from the glide of his beard before I realize he’s finally worked my pants all the way down my legs. I notice this when his mouth moves away from my body, causing my eyes to blink open.
Chase kneels over me, my pants and panties paused at my ankles when his gaze locks on my scarred knee.
Sitting up, I finish removing my bottoms and then tug on his beard, telling him, “Get back up here.”
His head falls forward as he curses. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. So fucking sorry,” he tells me while his head is still bowed.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I assure him as I comb my fingers through the top of his hair, meaning the accident and now…everything that followed because of my parents. “I never blamed you for the accident, Chase.”
He shakes his head but doesn’t look at me. “I wasn’t paying attention. I should’ve seen him coming…”
“Our light was green. I remember,” I say to him. “The guy was drunk and didn’t stop for his red light.”
“I made him pay for what he did,” he says softly.
“I know,” I reply. “He made a mistake, one that hurt us both for a long time. I blamed him for everything…” I trail off. “Before that moment, my life was perfect. And then it felt like it ended.”
“Mine too,” Chase agrees. “Every night I prayed I’d go to sleep and wake up to find out it was all just a fucking nightmare. Then, each morning I woke up, and it all stayed the same – I’d lost you.”
“We’re here now,” I tell him, tugging on his beard hard enough that he has to look up at me. His eyes are shimmering and filled with so much pain I can’t bear another second. “I kept waiting for you, Chase. Please don’t make me wait any longer.”
That was apparently the right thing to say to put him into motion. He leans forward and presses a trail of kisses up my scar before moving to my inner thigh and then swiping his tongue through my slit. “I’m gonna eat this pussy like a starving man later,” he promises as he moves up my body. “But right now, I have to be inside of you.”
“Yes,” I agree, reaching for his face to pull it down to mine.
Both of us pour ten years into our kiss. It’s so rough and brutal that our teeth clash and tongues get bitten, but it’s exactly what I need. Chase slips a finger inside of me and then two, pumping them in and out of me with the same ferocity as our kiss, making me come so hard my entire body levitates off the mattress.
