by Malcom, Anne
Panties.
Until I stood there in front of him, naked, quivering, terrified and more turned on than I had been in my entire life.
Liam was still fully dressed. He hadn’t touched me, apart from to take off my clothes. But I felt his grip all over my body. If a stare could leave bruises, I’d be black and blue.
Slowly, with his eyes glued to mine, he knelt at my feet. I expected him to devour me with more than just his eyes, my body was crying out for it. He hadn’t explicitly ordered me to move, but I was frozen nonetheless.
Liam didn’t move to lay his mouth on the area that was silently begging for his attention. No, his hands gripped my hips and he rested his head on my stomach. In worship. Like a broken man finding solace.
And that’s exactly what he was doing. It was the single most beautiful and terrifying moment he’d shared with me. Counting the time he’d shared all those truths. Because without speaking, with kneeling in front of me, he was setting himself at my feet.
I moved my hands down, ran them through his hair. I didn’t speak. I know he didn’t need that from me.
He took a deep inhale, kissed the bottom of my stomach, glanced up at me with shimmering eyes and then he moved down. Way down.
And he worshipped me in a different way.
Later, much later, he made love to me in a way that was hello and goodbye at the same time.
* * *
“It’s happening,” he murmured against my chest.
I didn’t know what time it was. I knew it was dark. Hours had passed, meal times had gone unnoticed. We were feeding on each other, all of our desperate pain.
I stroked his head. I didn’t need to ask what.
“We’re going to Amber tomorrow morning.”
I stopped stroking. It wasn’t a question. And it was more than a road trip. It was riding out to war.
A war that I was well and truly in the middle of. I found myself relieved that we could stop waiting, that this thickness would finally disappear from the air.
But then it hit me. A lot of other things were going to disappear before this was all over. A lot of other people.
I pulled Liam tighter to me. “Okay,” I whispered, kissing his head.
* * *
Driving into Amber was not what I expected. As the hub of a lot of the Sons of Templar publicity and from what I understood, one of the founding chapters, I expected the town to be rugged, lawless, just like the men that ran it.
I did not expect the quaint, seaside town that was like old America, pure, Mom and Pop stores lining the well-presented main street. Houses with yards tended perfectly. Not one chain fast food or coffee shop marred the backdrop of the town. Corporate America seemed to have forgotten to breeze through this place, snatching away everything original and special like it had with others of its kind. It reminded me of Castle Springs.
Locals looked up at the line of motorcycles with faint curiosity, most with some kind of familiarity, none of the contempt I would expect coming from the residents of a small and quiet town being invaded by bikers.
And that’s what it was, an invasion. Every single patched member and prospect from the charter were in formation, two vans and another SUV behind with Macy and the kids, and Linda, who I only knew of by reputation. We departed from the town proper and into a more industrial area.
The security around the clubhouse was much the same as in New Mexico. Tighter, if anything.
I found myself nervous riding up.
Never had I felt nervous while covering a story.
But I wasn’t covering a story anymore.
I was living it.
I was barely off the bike, Liam pulling my helmet off gently before I heard the thwack of heels against concrete and a throaty voice. “Well look what the surly biker dragged in.”
I grinned, turning.
Scarlett was smirking between Liam and me, looking very self-satisfied. Her hair was wild curls, she was wearing a black tube top, high waisted black leather pants and black booties with a six-inch heel. “I would say I’m surprised to see you here, but I’m not.” She winked at Liam.
A large man came up behind her, yanking her into his chest and kissing her neck. She melted. The strong, sassy woman melted. Which was understandable given the size of the arms around her and the man who was holding her.
He gave me chin lift then looked to Liam. “Church in five, brother.”
Liam put an arm around my waist. “Got it.”
The man everyone called Dwayne—for good reason—nuzzled Scarlett’s neck. “You wanna show me what you can do in five minutes?” he asked her.
She glared at him. “No, you want to show me what you can do in five minutes. Come back to me when you’ve got at least thirty.”
He grinned and kissed her full on the mouth with no mind of who was around. “Deal,” he murmured.
Liam squeezed my hip. “You good, babe?”
I nodded. Despite the fact I was in a biker compound which looked to be preparing for war, facing the prospect of losing Liam for a second time, I was good. Kind of.
He gave me a quick kiss, only slightly more appropriate than the one that had happened moments before.
“Take care of her,” he ordered Scarlett.
She rolled her eyes. “She can take care of herself. But I’ll hang out with her.”
We both watched the men walk away from us.
“So, should we get drunk?” Scarlett suggested.
“Definitely.”
We both watched a bright red convertible enter the parking lot.
“Perfect timing,” she said. “They have arrived.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jagger
“It’s no secret that this grudge originated in this charter,” Cade began, voice as cold as the expression on his face. He looked around the room, brothers from wall to wall, not even standing room left. Everyone listened to him. Everyone respected him. Despite the fact that his was one of the only clubs that had stopped running guns and earned legit.
For the most part.
Just because the Amber chapter didn’t earn from outside the law didn’t mean that they lived inside it. “You didn’t ask for this war, but it was brought to your door.” He focused on Hansen for a beat. “In some cases, it broke down your door, hit your clubs, destroyed them. I cannot make up for that. I will not ask you to fight a war that isn’t yours.”
“It’s ours,” Swiss cut in. “Anyone who harms a brother, who takes down a club, they’re our enemy. It’s our war. We’re with you.”
There was a chorus of agreements. Hansen included in this.
Cade nodded once. “I’m not gonna give you all false promises about glory in this war. War doesn’t give glory. Or satisfaction. It only takes. I have faith in my brothers that we’ll win this war. I know every single man in this room will die for the cut. For their club. I also know that some of you will die. I can only promise that for every Son that falls, we’ll cut them down threefold.”
“They say there are no victors in war, but they’ve never met the Sons of Templar.”
A chorus of grunts of agreement sounded from around the table, a handful of men slamming their fists down on the smooth oak, others gripping their weapons with an excited glint like Gage and Hades, two fuckers that knew the dangers of this mission but craved the death they would be able to deal out.
But even Gage, one of the craziest and most soulless men Jagger had seen in the flesh, had something else behind his eyes, like a lot of the men in this room.
Fear.
Not for themselves.
But for the women they loved with something more than most civilians experienced.
The women, that Jagger had seen first-hand, loved the men with the same ferocity.
He wasn’t a romantic man in any sense of the word. Romance died with him along with many other things years ago.
But one didn’t need to be a romantic to see how these women saved his brothers. See how his brothers
fucking worshipped them. And for good reason. They were something extraordinary. Something dirtbags like them surely didn’t deserve, so they cherished it more than any civilian man could.
This was a war that threatened their lives—something they could all handle without blinking.
But their lives were no longer their own.
They had wives. Kids.
Families that they’d all thought they’d forsaken the second they’d put on the cut.
And a death was a blow to the women that he knew the men would do anything to protect. But they had to fight for their club. They were in the middle of a war that made them fight for their club and sacrifice their women.
It didn’t sit right.
Not with Jagger.
It haunted him, the look in Caroline’s eyes. The shadows in her. Because of him. Shadows that would never lighten, not in the best-case scenario. And they were fucking far from the best-case scenario now.
His stomach lurched with the thought of having someone tell her he was dead, properly this time. She’d demand to see his body. He knew that already. She would never accept anyone’s word on such things.
His brothers—whatever was left of them—would refuse. Because they would want to protect her.
She would fight them. And she would win.
The sight of his lifeless, likely brutally wounded body would not only cause more shadows, it would banish her soul to oblivion.
She’d never repair.
Recover.
She’d endure, because she was strong.
But he’d put her as close to death as she’d ever come.
And he’d do anything to make sure that never fucking happened.
He envisioned himself calmly walking out of that room, away from his brothers—the men who’d saved his life, who’d become his family, who helped give him a purpose—grabbing Caroline, putting her on the back of his bike and riding. Back to that small town in the middle of nowhere, back to his family, where no one would likely trace him. There might not be anyone left to trace him. Where he’d be able to keep her safe. Where he might be able to repair relationships with his family, stitch together some kind of life that he was meant to have.
He clenched his fists.
Then he envisioned his brothers in a hail of bullets, battling for the club, he watched them fall. Watched wives have to bury their Old Men. Children grow up without fathers. Something that might not happen if he’s there, another gun in the fight.
He would do almost anything to make sure Caroline did not have to feel his death again.
But what he wouldn’t do was sentence another good woman to the same fate.
He would not forsake his club.
Cade
“Go home to your families,” Cade said to the table. Something in Cade told him that whatever kind of piece of shit Fernandez was, he had a depraved and deeply kind of fucked up sense of honor. He was giving the Sons of Templar this one last night on the earth. With their loved ones. Family. He was giving them that because he believed this was the last night they’d have.
Fucker was wrong.
“We meet here tomorrow morning,” he said. “This place goes on lockdown. Prospects at every entrance. We’ll have the kids down in the basement. Women too.”
Though he doubted any of the women would be locked in a panic room, his wife included. The only thing that would keep her in there would be the love for their kids. But that might be the thing to take her out, fight for them. Gwen was a lot of things, all of them wonderful, but the thing that scared the shit out of him was that she wouldn’t just sit out a fight. Not for her family.
He looked to Brock. “Keltan and his crew comin’ in?”
Brock nodded. “Yep. They’ll be here early hours.” He paused. Something moved on his best friend’s face.
Cade didn’t even need to hear him say it.
His fucking sister.
“For fuck’s sake. Crawford didn’t put a stop to this shit? Keep her home, safe?”
Brock grinned. “You even met Rosie, brother? You think Crawford’s gonna let her sit out on this fight. This is her fight.”
Cade clenched his fists. “No, it’s ours. Her fight is to be a fuckin’ mother to her kid. An aunt to mine.” He was glad that his wife wasn’t here to hear him say this shit, because he guessed she’d have a lot to say about that statement in regards to feminism.
He fully supported women’s rights. Celebrated them, in fact, seeing what his wife had done, he knew women were stronger, smarter and fuck of a lot more capable than men in every way.
Except this way.
It was his job to protect his family. And he was gonna do it.
“Luke’s coming earlier, got a meeting with the sheriff to run him down,” Brock added, reading his mind.
Despite his wife’s opinions on the men of the Sons of Templar and their supernatural abilities, none of them could read minds. If they could, their respective courtships would’ve gone a fuck of a lot smoother.
But Brock was his brother. Best friend. Second. He’d only been on his right-hand VP seat for a short time, but they’d rode together since they got their first bikes. They knew each other.
“Good,” Cade said. “I want a prospect and a patch on Rosie. Lock her down, any means necessary.”
Brock raised his brow. “Just two? That’s seriously underestimating your sister.”
Cade leaned back in his chair. “I’m not underestimating her. I just need to slow her down.” He glanced around the table. “I need volunteers.”
Silence.
“Jesus, you would honestly rather walk into a battle blind tomorrow than deal with my fuckin’ sister?” he asked.
Nods around the table.
Lucky actually fucking shuddered. “She’s scary, man. I’m also attached to my balls. And dick. I’ve got a wife to fuck. And we all know Rosie’s gonna go straight for the crown jewels as soon as she gets savvy to what’s happening.”
More nods.
“For fuck’s sake,” Cade muttered.
Gage leaned forward. “Let her fight.”
All eyes went to their most depraved brother. It was not a secret him and Rosie had a weird connection. Cade didn’t want to think too hard on it, because he knew Gage’s demons were fucking deepest level of hell type shit. And if he thought about their connection, he had to entertain the thought that his sister had some of those same demons.
“Say again,” Cade challenged.
“She’s a better shot than half the men here,” Gage said, not heeding the warning in Cade’s tone, or at least not giving a shit. Gage never met a warning he didn’t plow right through. “And she’s got more cause than any to be here.”
“She’s not fuckin’ going anywhere near the fight,” Cade gritted out.
Gage eyed him for a long time.
“How would you feel if I gave Lauren a fuckin’ gun and sent her into a situation where we don’t know what we’re up against?” he challenged.
Gage’s normally cold face morphed with the mention of his wife’s name. The only woman that he turned fully human with. Which was fuckin’ funny, considering the bitch looked like a librarian and he looked like—he was—a fucking serial killer. But it made sense.
And it would be a stretch to say that Gage had changed since being married and being a father—he still killed with the same ruthless coldness, but he’d calmed some.
Which wasn’t saying much with Gage.
“Lauren’s different than Rosie, you fuckin’ know that,” he hissed. “But if the occasion called, I know my wife would be able to bear arms. That she would protect herself. Our child. This club. But that’s not gonna happen. I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
Cade looked to Gage for a beat longer. “So it’s settled. Someone volunteer for Rosie duty before I pick one of you motherfuckers myself.”
“I’ll do it,” Swiss, from the New Mexico charter, piped in. He looked to Hansen. “If that’s cool with you, prez?”
&nb
sp; Hansen chuckled. “Yeah, it’s cool with me. Just don’t think you’ll be smiling when she cuts your balls off.”
There were some chuckles around the table, a breaking of the tension. But it still hung in the air. The eerie promise that the table would never be this full after tomorrow. That after tomorrow, there would be empty seats at this table.
But that didn’t matter.
It couldn’t matter.
All that mattered was there was a table left, and someone to hold the gavel. Hold whatever remained of his club together. Cade was not a praying man, but he sent one up anyway, that he would be able to hold the gavel in twenty-four hours. More importantly, that he would be able to hold his wife and children in twenty-four hours.
But no one upstairs listened to the prayers of men with the reaper on their backs. And at their heels.
Caroline
“Holy shit,” Gwen, the beautiful, fashionable woman declared from across the table.
“Holy fuck,” Amy, the equally beautiful, red-haired, equally fashionable woman corrected from beside her.
“That’s like more dramatic than all of our stories put together,” Mia declared. She was slightly older than the rest of the women, but also jaw-droppingly stunning. She was also a total fricking lightweight. And hilarious.
“Too fucking right it is,” Bex, the heavily tattooed and sober woman beside her agreed.
“Are you okay?” Lily asked, she was the quietest of them all, Lauren after that, but it was easy to seem quiet with Amy, Mia, and Gwen at the table.
We were in the ‘girls room’ in the Sons of Templar clubhouse. Apparently it was a new addition since the club had undergone some serious renovations of late. They’d likely been preparing for this exact event, and Gwen had decided that in addition to rooms safe in war they’d get rooms safe from ‘men.’
It was so different from the rest of the club it was laughable. It had a small bar, complete with a blender for margaritas—which we were drinking right now—pure white walls, dusty pink sofas on either side of the room, and a long white chic table with multiple chairs the same fabric and color as the sofas. Wedding pictures were framed on the walls.
