by Malcom, Anne
He jerked back. “That’s spousal abuse, you know.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s spousal abuse, but me handcuffing you to our bed making you fight so hard that your wrists bled wasn’t?” I asked dryly.
His eyes darkened. “No, because I got an orgasm after that. So you give me a blow job, I’d be willing to reconsider calling the authorities on you.”
I smiled. Even though I really fucking didn’t want to.
That was Gabriel. He made me happy even when I didn’t think I could be. Even when I didn’t want to be.
And the night before a war that seemed greater than anything we’d ever faced was a time when I really didn’t want to be happy. It was a time when I really want to find an eight ball, a needle and welcome oblivion.
Even being clean for as long as I had been, even being happier than I thought human beings like me were allowed to be, I was always going to be an addict. And when times got hard, dark and fucking scary, my kneejerk reaction was always going to be to think about a fix.
But the problem was, there was no fix for this. Nothing could take me away from this reality, not even heroin.
“Gabriel,” I whispered.
His smile left his face and he moved his hand up my back, tracing the ink that he had memorized like I had his. He was there for every single tattoo. It was a rule of his.
“Becky, I promise you that I’m not going to do anything stupid and get myself killed tomorrow.”
I raised my brow, though my favorite vein itched with his words. “You? Not do something stupid?”
“All my stupidity is calculated, measured,” he said, voice light and gaze heavy. “And all my decisions center around coming back to my wife so she can abuse me.”
“I’ll abuse you extra well tomorrow if you let me come with you,” I said.
“I would,” he replied, eyes dancing with demons. “I’d be happy to have my warrior princess on the battlefield. But you’ll make the other guys look bad, give them a complex and it’ll be a whole thing.” He kissed my nipple. I shivered as he grazed it with his teeth. “How about you get the next war?”
I glared at him. “There’s not going to be a next war.”
His face turned serious. “Not like this, babe. It’s the end. I promise, Becky.”
It was the end.
One way or another.
Lauren
I was painting when he walked in.
Hands settled on my hips and he rested his head on my shoulder, watching the movement of my brush.
You’d think with everything that was going on, I’d be painting something red, angry, violent. That I should be angry for what was happening right now, that I had to go through something else where I had to entertain the thought of losing another person I loved.
Burying Anna was agony.
But Gage shared that agony with me. He didn’t try to take it away, didn’t make it better. He just shared it. He gave me all different kinds of agony. Beautiful pain. He gave me a beautiful son. A beautiful life. Sometimes, for that beautiful life to stay, it had to become ugly. Agonizing.
So I wasn’t angry.
I was scared. Terrified.
But I trusted that my husband would never make a decision that had the possibility to take him away from us. That he would choose the path of least pain. I trusted him with my life.
So I wasn’t painting angry. I was painting peace. Soft watercolors. Gentle strokes.
“It’s beautiful, baby,” Gage murmured.
“It will be,” I whispered, putting my brush down and turning so he could press my front to his. “It will be soon. But it’s going to get ugly, isn’t it?”
Gage’s face tightened with fury, his hands flexing to the point of pain on my hip. I watched him fight his demons, the past clawing at his throat. “It’s gonna get ugly,” he agreed, releasing his grip.
“But we’re gonna get through it.” I moved my hand to cup his face, saying what he thought he had to say to be strong for me. But screw that. This man had been strong enough for me. Strong enough for himself. And he had to be plenty strong for tomorrow.
A cry sounded from the nursery.
I moved my hand. “I got him.”
He snatched my wrist and killed my palm, not taking his eyes off me. “I got him.”
I smiled, letting him go and be with his son.
I picked up the paintbrush and painted a little more beautiful.
Then I went to find my family. Nothing I painted could reproduce what I found. Gage, sitting in the rocking chair, our son in his arms, fast asleep. His little hand was holding one of his large, scarred ones.
I walked over, wishing I could freeze this moment, wishing I could protect my strong, scarred man from what was to come. Wishing I could protect myself. My son.
But all I could do was gently lift our baby from Gage’s arms.
His eyes opened the second I grabbed him. Of course he wasn’t going to let anyone take his child from his arms. After what happened in the life he had before, I understood his crazy protection. Why, for the first few months of David’s life, he was wired tighter than he had been when we first met. Once I’d been cleared for sex, he did not go gentle. No, he went hard, brutal, trying to fuck his demons out.
And I let him.
Slowly, he got as calm as he could, easier with David. But he still loved him with an intensity that was born out of a place of fear.
But wasn’t all love born out of fear?
Because we found a person that rocked our core, the first thought would always be terror at losing them, at losing the part of ourselves we’d take with them.
So love was fear.
I’d never loved my husband or my son more than I did this night.
Macy
Hansen did not come to bed until late.
He stayed up. Looking at whatever intel they’d accrued, studying it. I didn’t interrupt him. Because I knew he needed it. I knew he needed to feel like he had every single piece of information. Every part of the puzzle.
That was him. Regimented. Controlled.
And I knew this was screwing with him. The grief that he pretended not to feel for the entire club. The fear he only showed me while making love to me. I let him feel it. Deal with it in his own way.
Because I knew he had to. I just had to be there. Show him I would be here. That with everything that was changing, that was going to change. I wasn’t. We weren’t.
I hated that this was part of the club life. I despised it. But this was the life I’d chosen. The only life I wanted to live. So I dealt.
I grieved the family that I’d lost. I felt the pain.
Then I squeezed my sons. Then I curled up to my husband at night. And I reminded myself that this too, shall pass.
We were in one of the houses that Evie had arranged. Xander was asleep in the small room beside ours, I’d held his hand as he fell asleep. I had just put the baby down in the crib that was on the other side of the room. He was a good baby. Quiet, staunch, like his dad. But once I put him down, I couldn’t move from my position looking at him, my hand on his chest, moving ever so slightly with his tiny inhales and exhales.
I wanted to keep my sons safe from this. I wanted to protect them. The cold and rancid fear that he would be taken from me in this only grew larger, to the point where it was almost unbearable. But I had to bear it. And I trusted that the club would work this out. That Hansen would come home to us. I couldn’t even entertain any other possibilities.
I didn’t hear him come in.
His lips at my neck were the indicator of his presence. One of his hands slipped up my nightgown, caressing my thigh, the other stroked the hand that was resting on our son’s chest.
“We made some beautiful kids,” he murmured.
I sighed against his touch, my entire body melted and simmered with his nearness.
“We did,” I agreed.
“Xander’s gonna make a great president one day.”
There was no que
stion in his voice as to whether our sons would join the violent and dangerous life in which he was being brought up.
And it didn’t bother me. I wanted them in this life, because it was a beautiful one.
Even when it was ugly.
“He is,” I agreed. “But not for many, many more years. And his little brother will likely be right beside him. You’re going to lead the club through this.”
He didn’t answer for a long time. “I miss them,” he whispered against my neck. “I fuckin’ go to call Grim, ask him to sign off on something, ask him for advice. I keep expectin’ Levi to be at his place at the bar. I keep thinking I see their faces at the table.”
My heart bled as his words did. I moved my hand to thread with his. “I miss them too,” I replied. “We’re not going to be missing any more people,” I lied.
He kissed my hair. “No, we’re not,” he lied back.
Scarlett
I tilted my head one way, staring at the wall. Then the other.
Frustration and fury built up inside of me to the point I wanted to go and get my gun and empty the clip into the photo frame that I was currently trying to get centered on the wall.
And yes, I was aware that the fury and urge to shoot up the walls of mine and Cain’s new home did not originate from not being able to hang a photo. It originated on Christmas day, and every day since then.
It was hard, mingling fury with the happiness I continued to feel. The fury was more familiar. More comfortable.
“Babe, what in the fuck are you doing?” a low voice grumbled as arms yanked me into a strong and naked torso.
Okay, there was one thing more comfortable than fury, it was being nestled into Cain’s body, my skin touching his. I responded. Immediately, despite the fact we’d just had sex. Twice. Which meant four orgasms for me. Cain was teaching me a lot of things, and though I’d considered myself an expert in the bedroom, he was showing himself to be somewhat of the orgasm whisperer.
Or maybe that was because I was in love with him.
“I’m trying to hang this photo,” I answered, sinking back into his arms, letting him take my weight.
It was something I was getting used to, more metaphorically than anything. Leaning on Cain, letting him in. Trusting him.
“Babe,” he murmured in my ear. “It’s fucking one in the morning, you get outta my arms to hang a fucking picture?”
“It’s our wedding picture,” I said.
“Yeah, I know, I was there,” he growled.
We’d eloped in Vegas.
Amy had threatened to burn our house down if I didn’t let her throw us a wedding party.
I’d agreed because I liked our house. Our home. It was small, right by the ocean, it was nicer than I ever thought I’d have. Not because it was just a cottage in California with an ocean view. Because it was somewhere I was putting down roots. Which was why I needed to hang this picture, because, when I’d been in Cain’s arms, thinking of tomorrow, I’d realized our home didn’t have pictures. And hanging pictures created a permanence. So I thought if I got up, and hung the photo, then Cain couldn’t be taken away from me tomorrow, these roots couldn’t be ripped out, even though they had only just begun to grow.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said by explanation, because no way I was putting all that on Cain, tonight of all nights. When he was riding out to fucking war in eleven hours.
He turned me so he could cup my face and I could get all girly over how fucking hot he was. “You can’t sleep, you wake me up,” he commanded. “You can do it with your mouth on my dick if you feel like fucking me back to sleep.”
My pussy clenched.
He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, eyes probing. “You feel like talking, you just wake me up. I’m not sleepin’ while my woman tosses and turns.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
Me.
I never whispered or agreed when Cain decided to order me around.
Obviously he tried to order me around because he was an alpha male biker, surrounded by all sorts of other alpha male bikers.
He did not get to order me around.
Except in the bedroom.
And, as it happened, at one in the morning before he and the club went to war with an international criminal.
“I like it here,” I said.
He grinned. “I’m glad, since we’ve bought a home here.”
“I like it here, and I’ve got roots when I thought I was gonna be some kind of nomad forever,” I continued. “I’m terrified tomorrow is going to rip those roots out. Rip me to pieces. Because as much as I didn’t think I’d fit in with Old Ladies and women who have about ten thousand different products in their skincare routine, and love to talk about it in details, I somehow fit.”
His hands tightened. “Of course you fuckin’ fit,” he growled. “And those roots are only going to grow deeper. Curl around this soil. And we’re gonna put more photos up.” He looked to the wall. “Well, I’ll put the photos up ‘cause that’s wonky as shit. But we’re gonna stay. For the long haul. There isn’t any other option.”
I nodded, because I was trying to shake the tears from my head. I couldn’t cry right now. It was stupidly cliché. And weak.
“I’m done talking,” I croaked. My hand found the inside of his boxer shorts. His cock responded immediately. “I want you to fuck me back to sleep.”
His eyes darkened. “That, I can do.”
And he did.
First, he fucked me against the wall so hard that the picture fell off.
Then he carried me to bed.
Where I slept.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Caroline
Eventually, when everyone began to party like it was their last night on earth, I retreated to the room we’d been assigned.
I wanted to be angry at Liam for disappearing on this night, when every other member was at home with their wives, soaking up what could be the last moments.
But I couldn’t be.
Because I understood.
He didn’t want us to be around each other, in this horrible prolonged version of goodbye.
We’d done that already.
And as painful and terrifying as this solitude was, I got it.
I wasn’t lonely.
For the first time in a long time.
So I put on his tee, crawled into bed and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long, just enough for the sun to set.
He came to me in the darkness.
When I was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, in yet another unfamiliar clubhouse.
He didn’t speak. Neither did I. We fucked.
Hard and fast.
And then, after that, with barely any pause, we made love.
* * *
Morning came quickly when you were awake to wait for it. To dread it.
Liam and I hadn’t spoken a word. I physically couldn’t. So I didn’t. Neither did he.
He was dressing.
I was watching. Terrified.
It was like watching him put on that military uniform sixteen years ago, after a sleepless night much like this. But there had been talking then. We’d been young. Stupid. Planning ahead, skipping over the war, like it didn’t exist, like it was a foregone conclusion he’d come home.
There were no foregone conclusions here.
He was a part of something I couldn’t control, couldn’t belong to. That uniform, that cut, was a layer of something that separated us.
“Where does the name Jagger come from?” I asked, surprised at the question even after I’d spoken it.
Hadn’t I made a promise to myself not to ask these kinds of questions? Not to find out anything more about his life without me than was most painfully necessary?
Yes.
But promises were little but empty air between us.
Made and broken too easily.
He blinked once. Twice. Regarded my face. The question.
Maybe he wouldn’t answer.
&
nbsp; I hoped he wouldn’t answer.
“Bikers mostly have road names. Usually when you start prospectin’, someone calls you somethin’. It usually sticks. Didn’t want to get stuck with somethin’ fuckin’ stupid. What someone else chose for me. I was already living a life someone else chose for me.”
“You chose it for yourself,” I snapped, unable to stop myself from interrupting, unable to withhold the accusation and anger in my tone.
He nodded. “I guess I did. But it doesn’t feel like me that made that decision. Not the me I was before or the me I am now. It was the decision of a man who found himself inside the gates of hell. Didn’t quite know how to navigate it. Sure as fuck didn’t know I could turn around and walk right back out. So I took the road in. The one paved with good intentions. The journey to hell isn’t one that makes a man. It destroys him.”
I hated how he was explaining things. Like it was tortured poetry. Because it was beautiful as it was ugly. He had a grasp on what he’d done.
“Felt like I was all sharp edges when I found myself there,” he continued. “I felt jagged. Looked in the mirror one day.” He touched his ruined skin. I itched to press my mouth over it.
I didn’t.
“Made sense. I was ripped apart on the outside. Jagged.” He shrugged as if to say, ‘and the rest was history.’
If only that’s what it was.
History.
But history was static. Safely tucked away.
What was between us wasn’t safe. Wasn’t still.
And it wasn’t history.
And I prayed, that after today, it still wouldn’t be.
There were no dramatic goodbyes or declarations.
We’d done all that.
I just stood when he’d slipped on a shoulder holster and put his cut on top. I wrapped my arms around him. He did the same. His guns were pressing into me, the leather of his cut scored through his scent. I breathed it in.
He let me go, brushed a hair from my face and stared. I did the same, I was cataloging him, making sure there was no part of his face I didn’t memorize.
He kissed my head.
