by C. M. Marin
God, he’s deep.
Then he pounds into me. My moans get louder as his thrusts get fiercer. My ass locked in place, I can only take what he gives me, and ecstasy is swelling fast, provoking a climax that shatters me inside and out in no time. In tune with my cries, Nate groans his own pleasure before dropping on me, as sated as I am.
“Fuck,” he croaks, and I laugh before I feign suffocation under the weight of his muscular body. “Sorry, babe, but you’re wearing me down,” he drawls, pushing himself up on his elbows.
“You’re still inside me,” I point out.
“I’m well aware. Want to live in here.”
His tone is serious but his grin spreads as he pulls out of me despite his absurd confession, gets rid of the condom, and drops on his back next to me while I cover myself up with the sheets.
Gravity steals his smile when he next speaks, his question voiced reluctantly. “How are you dealing with what happened yesterday?”
My eyes lock on the ceiling, and I sigh. “It still feels surreal somehow. It’s like he took two years of my life from me. It’s seriously fucked-up to do something like that. And on the other hand, it feels good not to have to hold on to his memory anymore. I feel free.”
For the longest moment, we both stay silent. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but I hope he’s not disgusted by the image of me with someone he despises so much.
Even though he didn’t express anything about it, I say, “You know, it’s never been like…,” I pause, searching for the right words. “The way it is when I’m with you, it’s never been like that with him. When you touch me, I feel like I won’t survive it if you stop. It’s so intense… I’ve never had that. I felt guilty for feeling that way the first time. I felt guilty because I loved it so much.”
I’m startled when he unexpectedly shifts on the bed to come hovering over me just before his mouth assaults mine again. The thought I did my best to get out with the right words sounded stupid to me, but not to him, it seems. But just when I start to grow wet again, he already deprives me of his lips.
He exhales a breath full of a heavy lust. “Seems like we share the same problem. Can’t touch you without dying to fuck you.”
I laugh because that’s not exactly what I said. But it’s close enough, I suppose.
His mouth comes back down to lazily suck on my neck.
“God, now I have to go downstairs after what I said yesterday. I completely lost it,” I wince. “I can’t believe I actually said that I’d fuck whoever I felt like fucking.”
Nate neglects the prickling spot on my neck, too busy snickering. “No doubt Ben had to painfully refrain from making some kinky comment in response to that one. Must have been painful for him. Pretty sure he’s still cursing you for that.”
“I’m so embarrassed, but I was so pissed off. I swear I wanted to strangle him.”
“Doubtful a girl ever talked to CJ that way, that’s sure as hell. His guys looked like they didn’t know where to put themselves,” he chuckles. “Gotta say, I’m fucking proud of you. During a short moment, I was scared you’d turn this into a massacre, but I’m so damn proud you didn’t fall apart in front of him. That said, I have to make something clear, baby…” He trails off, rocking his hips to press his crotch directly on that right spot of mine that makes me moan every time. “I’ll be the only one you fuck.”
Smiling up, I tease him. “That can be arranged.”
“Better be, because I don’t share what’s mine.”
I arch a brow. “Yours?”
“Absolutely.” His opened palm brushes my chest and saunters its way down until it pauses on my stomach underneath the sheets. “Mine,” he vows, a knowing smile tugging at his lips when a shiver rocks my body. “I’ll sound like an insensitive prick, but I can’t help liking that your dead fiancé wasn’t the perfect marriage material after all. Makes me feel less like a loser.”
“Stop with that,” I scold him. “I never thought that of you, so stop,” I repeat. “Now, I need to take a shower.”
Despite him still half-lying on me, I sit up, forcing him to straighten as well.
“Understood, ma’am,” he grins.
My head tilts to the side. “Stop that, too,” I berate him but place a kiss on his smiling lips. “What do you think about going to Dona’s for a very late breakfast?” I suggest at the same time I leave the sheets.
I start to walk to the bathroom but stop in my tracks and turn around when Nate doesn’t answer. His gaze stares right where my ass was before I looked back at him, and it lazily roams up my body until it reaches my face.
He just shrugs an unapologetic shoulder. “Can’t help it.”
“What about Dona’s?” I roll my eyes.
Freeing himself from the sheets, he stands up and shuffles toward me.
He really is a beautiful man. His confidence makes him even more gorgeous than the hard planes defining every inch of his body.
“Who’s checking the other out now?” he drawls, but I don’t tear my eyes off him until he’s joined me.
Oddly, it doesn’t feel weird at all that we’re both standing naked in the middle of the room.
“I wish we could go out, but right now it’s too dangerous. Can’t risk you being snatched again, baby. The guys and I need to come up with something in case Rod really is who he says he is. And even if he isn’t, it means he’s up to something else. Or maybe CJ is the only one with an agenda, I don’t know.”
“So what? I won’t ever be able to go out again? This is just ridiculous. How can they think they can decide where I should be and who I can talk to? It’s…”
This is… I’m outraged. These people are so… There are just no words to describe those men.
When I can’t come up with anything, I blow out a breath just as Nate’s phone buzzes on the nightstand. His face reveals how torn he is as to what to do, but a frustrated groan later, he spins around and snatches his phone.
A scowl deepens on his forehead.
“Is everything okay?”
I don’t like how tense his body got.
“Cody says he needs to talk to you and me.”
“About what?”
“Just said it has something to do with Rod. Let’s take that shower and go see what he wants, okay?”
He walks back to me, and I only nod, my brain completely blank as to what can even be said at this point. Not even twenty-four hours ago, I helped Nate’s friend bake her brother’s birthday cake and got to celebrate that special day with the people he calls family. And now I’m dreading to discover that my blood is the same that runs into the veins of a psychotic torturer. How the hell did I get there? I’m too jaded to even wonder.
We’re in and out of the shower in a flash, surprisingly without jumping each other one more time. That must have something to do with how nervous I am to know what Cody has to tell us.
I slip into a pair of jeans and a yellow shirt and follow Nate downstairs.
A few guys are fiddling around, a beer snuggled in the crook of their hand and their eyes locked on the TV as they watch some program about motorcycles. The cliché has the advantage of making me smile.
“Nate,” Cody acknowledges him as he ambles out of the kitchen. “Melvin’s about to bring some tea and coffee. Said he’ll cook something if you guys are hungry.”
Nate leads me to an unoccupied couch where he sits beside me, and Cody joins us, dropping on the couch facing us. He swallows several gulps of water from a large bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before diving straight into the conversation.
“What CJ said about Rod being your biological father might be true,” he tells me, not handling my heart with kid gloves.
I shouldn’t be surprised; diplomacy isn’t any of these men’s greatest feature.
“What do you know?” Nate asks, which I’m grateful for because I lost my ability to speak despite the questions fusing in my head.
“About twenty-five years ago, when the pres
ident of the Spiders, Twitch, gave him his patch, Rod was barely twenty but had an old lady. She had been with him for more than a couple of years from what he said, making sure to spread the word about how untouchable she was. And quickly after he got his patch, we got wind of the fact she was pregnant.”
He stops talking, and I summarize. His girlfriend, or old lady, was pregnant around the time my birth mom was. Just like plenty of women, right?
“Besides the timing, what makes you think Cam was the baby?” Nate speaks for me again.
Cody eyes me in a brief silence before answering. “About a month after that, the girl left town. Since there was no letter, he was convinced she had been snatched by a rival club, along with her best friend, who seemed to have disappeared as well. Rod raised hell around the state for more than a year, searching for her. I was the only one knowing both girls left on purpose and were safe. Don’t ask me how,” he adds, scratching his beard, and continues. “Anyway, maybe it’s also no more than a coincidence, but that girl’s name was Mary. That’s the name you said yesterday, right? Mary.”
My heart thumps in my chest while a wave of nausea that kept threatening me with sickness since yesterday assaults me. My eyes close as a very crestfallen sound flees out of my mouth.
“When I turned sixteen, my parents gave me a letter from Mary.”
“So, she died then?” he asks even though he sounds like he already figured that out.
I nod. “Soon after I was born. Cancer. There was a photo with the letter, and I’m looking a lot like her. I should thank God for that,” I mumble.
Cody casts me a sad smile. “Rod’s old lady had light brown hair, that I know, but I’ve only ever seen her twice, and from afar. From what I knew―again, please, don’t ask me how―she wasn’t happy with him but was too scared to leave him. Courage only came after she learned about the pregnancy. And I had no idea she had died so soon after leaving town.”
“I suppose that’s it, then. Is it normal to now wish the Spiders wanted me to sell me to whatever pervert?” I joke half-heartedly.
Nate kisses my temple in the sweetest kiss he ever gave me. I snuggle into his side instinctively, remembering what he told me yesterday. Whose blood courses through my veins is unimportant. Besides, I know from my parents that my real mom was a nice, sweet woman who loved me, which means my blood isn’t entirely bad. She was courageous, and her courage is what allowed me to live the childhood I lived.
“Sorry, kid,” Cody uses a nickname for the first time. “I wanted to believe the timing was only a coincidence, even though the fact CJ playing the long game meant Rod was pretty sure of who you were,” he says then shakes his head. “I’ve always thought Mary and her best friend were taking care of you, which would have explained why neither ever came back. Guess I was all wrong,” he goes on absently. Something close to sorrow flickers on his face, but it’s gone in a blink. “Nothing else I know, Nate.”
On that, he shoots up from the couch and is gone just as Melvin arrives with a cup of tea in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
“Do you want to eat something?” he asks us.
“Not for me, thanks. I’m not hungry, I’ll wait until dinner is ready.”
Before Nate can answer for himself, a voice booms on our left.
“Nate, we might need to move quickly.”
Blane has appeared behind the bar, at the top of the stairs leading to the basement, his attention absorbed by the phone in his hand.
“What’s going on?” he asks him, standing.
Blane nods absently as he makes his way toward Nate, and the atmosphere in the room switches within a short second. As Melvin goes back to the kitchen, chairs grate unpleasantly on the floor, clothes rub against the leather of the couches, and Ben, Jayce, Liam, Cody and Brent all stamp toward Nate and Blane, ready to jump into action.
I wonder if I should discreetly go back upstairs. Whatever this is about sounds like something I shouldn’t be listening to. But Blane’s voice quickly kills my indecision and my curiosity encourages me to stay put.
“Long story short, I’ve been able to get into Rod’s phone after a friend of mine from college got his number and we hacked it.”
College? Blane went to college? That’s a surprise. Not that bikers are stupid, because in fact, they’re quite smart, which you have to be to run a business―however shady the said business is, it requires good skills. It’s just that for some reason, I thought they all choose this life early on. Not necessarily, it seems.
“The thing was a pain to hack, to be honest, but once we entered it, we had access to a lot of things, such as numbers of the inner circle―that we were able to hack as well―and messages, though they’re obviously talking in code about important things. But mostly, we got to locate them easily. And I really think the timing’s good, because most of the inner circle is now at the same place. A spot near the lake.”
“The lake?” Jayce parrots.
“You think one of them owns a cabin there?” Liam asks with surprise clear in his voice.
Are they talking about the lake Nate kissed me for the first time? They must be, considering the change in Jayce’s demeanor. That’s where his family were killed.
“CJ does,” Blane confirms, and I tense at the sound of his name alone. “He bought it a little over a year ago, but under a fake name, obviously,” he specifies, his eyes assessing Jayce. “Lana and I found out that the house is supposed to belong to some Fred Stermann guy, who is a retired flight attendant from South Carolina. No doubt there’s a lot more hidden, and I’ll need some time to find it all, but only being able to locate them is a damn good advantage.”
“Lana?” Ben muses the name of Blane’s friend.
“Tune down the hormones,” Cody mutters.
“Think they’re at the lake to enjoy a camp fire tonight?” Nate asks no one in particular.
“Could be,” Brent says.
“Or they could be there for business,” Jayce suggests.
“But we know they’re still handing their drugs and weapons over to their clients in the desert,” Liam steps in. “Well, the clients they didn’t ditch, at least.”
“What if it’s not drugs or weapons they hand over there?”
At Ben’s words, I bristle. What Nate told me a while ago about the Spiders and their potential nauseating activity replays in my mind.
“If they deal with women there, it’s fucking bad for us. It’s too close,” Nate says.
“Maybe that’s done on purpose, if you think about it,” Blane suggests. “The lake is slightly closer to our territory than theirs. If the cops get wind of anything, or if something goes wrong while they hand the girls over to another crew, or get them, their attention would land on us first.”
“Definitely Rod’s type to think about that kind of vicious detail,” Jayce agrees.
My stomach roils in disgust. Hearing of something and knowing how it happens are two very different things. Women are kidnapped, thrown into a car―or most likely a truck―, and brought to someone who is buying them. That’s a real thing. People are actually doing that, and they are doing it here, just a few miles away from where I’m sitting, safe and sound.
“Could explain why Rod killed them.”
Jayce’s voice is emotionless, but his eyes scream a rage I had yet to see in his eyes. Dread forces out of my stomach the disgust I feel at picturing those faceless women when my gaze drops to his fists clenched at his sides.
All gazes swerve toward him.
“It’s possible they saw Isaac there and didn’t want to risk us finding out about them doing this kind of business,” Liam admits. “And it’s easier to kill than to find another discreet meeting point and house to buy.”
“They also knew we wouldn’t go back there because it wouldn’t be safe anymore,” Brent adds.
“That’s proof enough for me. We’re going,” Jayce states, urgency emanating from him in intense waves.
“Easy, J,” Ben―surprisingly�
��tempers him.
I’d cower under Jayce’s lethal glare, but Ben only keeps talking when it lands on him.
“I get you want to take them down, alright? But we don’t even know how many guys of the other crew will be there. There’re too many variables. Couple of weeks ago, we said we needed to stop their shit before any Cartel gets wind of it, but what if they’re already working with one? We know too little about this.”
“It’s a possibility,” Nate agrees. “A fucking bad one, but one anyway.”
“What, then? We just do nothing?” Jayce hisses. “What was even the point of sweating to get information if we let them get away anyway?”
“Didn’t say we do nothing,” Ben groans. “Was just thinking of calling one or two charters. If shit happens tonight, we got several hours ahead of us. Grant can make it in time.”
More poised, Nate asks Blane, “Without going into detail, can Rod notice his phone’s been hacked?”
“He can if he has someone who knows what they’re doing checking his phone. But regardless, he’ll probably deduce it if we go there and mess with his operation. First thing we’d do if another club rolled up while we do business would be to get rid of our phones. And since Lana got his number by getting rather close to him without actually meeting him, she’d have to do it again to get the new one. That shit can take weeks, if not months.”
“How did she do that?” Brent asks. “And why would she?”
“Got hired a couple of months ago at the strip club Spiders go to. She only danced on stage and observed at first, then danced for Sheridan when he showed interest in her. About a week ago, she got the opportunity to snatch his phone. She did, got Rod’s number and put the phone back where she found it. She quit the following day. As for why she did this, besides helping me, let’s say she has her own reasons for digging out Spiders’ skeletons. Which is why I reached out to her when I couldn’t figure things out on my own.”
