Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2)

by Stephens, Olivia

  “This is bad, isn’t it?” I ask, although it’s not really a question.

  “Well, it’s not great.” Jake nods, confirming my suspicions.

  Jake’s phone chimes, signaling an incoming message. He looks at the display and grabs it off the table in one easy move, tapping a reply in faster than I thought he was capable of.

  “My dad,” he explains, looking at me. “He’s just checking that we’re both alright.” As soon as he puts the phone down, it chimes again and he breathes out in frustration.

  “He’s just worried about you,” I tell Jake gently. But my radar for trouble starts beeping when I see the expression on his face change. “What? What is it?” I ask insistently.

  “It’s Dad again,” he replies slowly. “He still knows a few people on the force.” I wave him on—this is something I already know. Bill and my dad were friends from way back and Bill used to spend a lot of time hanging around with the other cops in my dad’s unit. Although now he probably couldn’t count on any one of them in a pinch, they weren’t too concerned about sharing information with him. “Anyway, he says they think it was an army truck,” he finishes, catching my eye, and I’m surprised to see a ghost of a smile starting to appear on his lips.

  “And that’s funny because...?” I ask, completely confused.

  “No, not funny,” Jake says, raking his fingers through his dark hair. “It means they screwed up,” he confirms. When he sees that I’m just as confused as I had been before, he carries on. “Hitting an army truck is a big friggin’ deal, Aimee. It’s not like one of their other corporate targets. They get some crappy electronics to sell. This is government-owned property.” The significance of what he’s saying quickly dawns on me.

  “They can’t cover this up!” I exclaim, feeling something close to excitement start to pulse through my body. “The Feds will have to get involved to investigate what happened tonight. But how could they have been so stupid to try to knock off an army truck? They must’ve known they’d get caught.” I shake my head, trying to figure this all out.

  “I don’t know, Winters,” Jake replies. “But you said the guys you saw were drinking?” I nod to confirm he’s right. “Maybe they were drunk and something went wrong.”

  “Whatever happened, Scar is going to be pissed,” I note, and can’t keep the gleefulness out of my voice. We sit there grinning at each other like idiots, and then a thought occurs to me. “This could be it, Jake—our way out,” I say. “The Feds come down and investigate what went down tonight with the truck, they figure out that it’s the Bleeding Angels, and then everything that they’ve done starts to come out. All the people that have disappeared or that have been hurt, the drugs, everything. They’ll all be sent away for a long, long time,” I assure Jake, feeling lighter than I have in weeks, like a load has been lifted off of my shoulders.

  “That all sounds great, Aimee.” Jake sighs as he stands up and starts to walk around the room. “But you know that’s not going to happen within the next month, right?”

  “No, but it doesn’t have to,” I point out, mimicking his pacing. “We just need them to start looking into the Angels a little closer. Enough to spook them. It’ll give Scar something bigger to worry about than you and me. And that’s when we leave. When they’re too busy looking in the other direction, watching their backs for the Feds. That’s when we go,” I say, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice and failing.

  Jake looks at me, assessing the situation. “Do you think it’s possible?” he asks, not daring to hope. I know how scary this is for him, how much what I’ve suggested leaves us in the hands of fate.

  “Honestly? I think it’s the best chance we’ve got. We just have to hope that the Feds aren’t as easily bought off as the cops around here,” I note wryly, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

  For the first time in a long while, I feel hopeful. Like I can see a way out of this nightmare, this thing that we’ve been calling a life.

  “What did they say to you?” Jake asks eventually.

  I look at him with a questioning glance. “Which they?” I ask, taking a sip of the water he had poured for me and realizing how thirsty I am.

  “The Angels in the diner,” Jake continues, leaning against the wall in his customary faux-casual position. “What did they say to you?” he repeats, clearly knowing that I’m trying to avoid the question.

  “Nothing. They were just being jerks.” I try waving the question away to show how unimportant the whole scene had been.

  Jake covers the space between us in only a couple of steps and holds onto my shoulders. Not hard, but not gently either. “Aimee, no secrets.” He reminds me of the pact that we had made to be honest with each other. “Tell me,” he urges.

  “They were just being jerks,” I repeat, because that really was the truth. “Basically they told me I was on borrowed time and that I should keep my mouth shut.” I smile to cover how shaken I had been. “Fat chance of that happening,” I laugh, but Jake doesn’t join in.

  “Did they touch you?” he asks, his gaze intent on mine. His expression is more than concerned—it tells me that he’s willing to go out in the middle of the night and, if Blondie and Baldy aren’t already dead, kill them.

  “No,” I reply. I hate lying to the man I love—lying right to his face. But it’s preferable to the alternative: having him go all vigilante because some idiot biker smacked my ass.

  Jake doesn’t call me out on my lie. Instead his shoulders visibly relax and he drops his hands from my arms. “Good.” He nods and between the light in the studio and the angle of his face I get a flash of another man.

  Travis. Scar.

  In that moment, the similarity between them is undeniable. It’s only a second, but it’s enough for Jake to notice that something is up. “What?” he asks, grinning at me in a way that tells me I must have a pretty amusing expression on my face.

  “Nothing,” I say, getting my breath back. “Nothing, you just reminded me of someone, that’s all.”

  “Anyone I know?” Jake laughs as he gets closer to me, lifting my chin up so that our lips are only inches apart.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?” I tease, kissing him quickly on the lips to prevent any more questions being asked. That’s lie number two, Aimee, I tell myself. I reason that both lies have been for Jake’s own benefit, but that doesn’t do much to stop me from feeling like I’ve done something wrong.

  “You tired?” he asks after our soft kiss.

  “Dead tired,” I confirm, suddenly realizing that I really am. Between not getting much sleep the night before, lunch with the Summers, working an 8-hour shift at the diner, and then being shocked half to death by the explosion, it’s been a busy day.

  “Me too,” Jake laughs. “Look at us, we’re like an old married couple already.”

  “Yeah, like all those old married couples that go to bed at 4 in the morning,” I reply dryly, bantering back.

  “I like the idea of that, though,” Jake says after a moment’s musing.

  “Well, I’m no night owl so if you want to go to bed at this time every night, you’ll be on your own,” I tell him in no uncertain terms as I make my way to the bathroom. I strip off my clothes that smell a little of ash and let the cool material of my nightdress slip over me.

  I’m brushing my teeth when Jake walks in. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he says, looking pointedly at me. “I was talking about the married couple part.” He smiles at my reflection in the mirror as my jaw drops. “You’re, um… drooling a little there, Winters,” he notes, dead-pan as he wanders out of the bathroom again like what he’s just said is no big deal.

  I blink at my reflection. Did I just hear what I think I hear? Once the shock has worn off I feel my smile spreading so wide across my face that it actually hurts my cheeks. I hurriedly finish with my teeth and virtually run out of the bathroom, tiredness forgotten.

  “What did you just say?” I ask, or rather, squeak.

 
“Why? Are you freaking out again?” Jake asks from the bed, looking a little like he’s expecting me to run out the door.

  “No. Yes. A little,” I say, noting that a multiple-choice answer isn’t really any kind of an answer at all. “You just caught me off guard is all,” I tell him. “And all this.” I gesture to the space between us. “It’s all… pretty new.”

  “I didn’t mean tomorrow, Winters,” Jake says through his smile. “I meant one day. Does that help to reduce the setting on your freak-out scale?” He assesses the effect his words have had on me.

  “A little,” I admit.

  “Come here,” he says. He opens his arms and I walk over to him as if I’m being pulled by a magnetic force and I couldn’t get away even if I had wanted to, which I don’t.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jake settles us together in the bed in our sleeping position that has become customary. Next to him, snuggled in tight, is pretty much my favorite place to be in the world. The full impact of Jake’s words wash over me and I can’t deny that I like the idea of us, all old and wrinkly, walking hand in hand into the sunset. I want to believe that’s possible, that we’re not crazy to think that we can have that.

  I remember the fact that Jake threw himself on top of me when the explosion filled the sky, protecting me from whatever was coming next. I’m filled with a warm, fuzzy feeling as the gravity of what he did comes over me. I love this man more than I thought I could love anyone. If it’s possible for us to have found each other, then it must be possible for us to be together. Why would life put us together and match us so perfectly, just to tear us apart? It doesn’t make any sense. I ignore the little voice in my head that has started to make such an unwelcome return. She tells me that life doesn’t always make sense, that there isn’t necessarily a grand plan to all things.

  I can’t think about the future right now. All I know is that we have the present, one moment to the next. So I want to spend as many moments as we have together, telling and showing Jake how crazy I am about him.

  As I think this over, my right hand, almost unconsciously, starts to drift down his chest, over the tight muscles of his six pack, and further down to the dense curls below.

  “I thought you were tired,” Jake whispers in my ear, and I can hear the smile in his voice.

  “Well, if you’d prefer I slept,” I tease, easing my hand back up his body before he catches it in his.

  “Did I say that? I don’t think I said that,” Jake amends quickly, and I laugh at his eagerness.

  “That’s what I thought.” I release my hand from his and make my way back down his happy trail.

  I reach lower this time, to the hardness that I knew I would find between his legs. Jake lets out a low moan as I wrap my fingers around his shaft and tug gently, up and down. I look at his face and see the control he’s trying to maintain. “No games tonight,” I tell him, and he understands straight away. I see the smile spread across his face.

  “Deal,” he replies softly.

  “Good,” I say, and kiss him deeply on the lips. His mouth is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, but that’s not where my mouth is going to stay tonight. I maneuver myself so that I’m lying on top of him, teasing him with my tongue, flicking it in and out of his mouth, and biting his lips. I start to slide down his body, slowly, making sure as much of my torso rubs along his shaft as possible in the process. I kiss my way down his neck, his strong chest. I let my tongue trace the squares of his abs.

  I'm already wet between my legs. This man’s body drives me insane. All I have to do is touch him to get so turned on it’s hard to think straight. Jake’s hands sink into my hair, and then further down, touching my breasts through the thin material of my night-dress. I breathe in deeply as he starts rubbing my nipples in a way that makes my pussy throb.

  “Hold on there, cowboy,” I say, looking up at him through lowered lashes. “This one’s about you,” I tell him.

  “You’re driving me crazy, Winters,” he admits, his voice sounding more than a little strangled.

  “That’s kind of the idea.” I continue kissing him, following the line of hair from his bellybutton down to the dark curls between his hips.

  I shimmy my body down for better access to his shaft and in one swift movement, I cup my hand around him and bend my head down to lick his tip. Jake gasps as I taste the saltiness of his cock. I never thought that it was possible to enjoy giving a guy head this much. A blow job—it was something that the girls in high school would whisper about. They all used to say that they only did it because their boyfriends made them, that they hated it, hated the taste, the act. But I couldn’t disagree more. Giving Jake pleasure turns me on as much as anything his touch can do to me.

  I lick from the tip to the base, along the bottom of his shaft. Jake raises his hips and I grab hold of his hard butt with one hand and his shaft with the other, guiding him into my mouth as far as he’ll go. He lets out a muffled moan and I can feel myself getting even wetter between my thighs as I listen to the noises.

  “Jesus Christ, Aimee,” he says explosively, sitting up as I take a long pull of his cock, enveloping as much of him in my mouth as I can without gagging. “Come here.” He motions for me to move up but I shake my head.

  “I want to do this, let me do this for you,” I say.He doesn’t understand that doing this for him is a massive turn on for me too.

  “But I want to touch you too, to taste you,” he says seductively, with that gorgeous mouth of his. He pulls me up his body, so we’re face to face again, and he kisses me deeply. So deeply I feel like my whole body is turning to jelly. “Have you heard of 69?” he asks, breathing heavily.

  I nod. I’ve heard it, but I’ve never really been sure what it meant. I would always just nod knowingly when Suzie would talk about it. Suzie—I push the thought of her out of my mind, shaking my head for good measure.

  Jake must see my confusion and embarrassment at not knowing what he’s asking. But he’s not frustrated, not judgmental, he’s gentle and kind and patient with me. “You stay on top, but you need to face that way.” He nods towards his toes. I don’t need to voice the question in my eyes for Jake to explain. “This way we can taste each other.” He says it softly, and it makes my body turn hotter and hotter.

  Jake guides me into position and I try to put all my hang-ups aside until I realize that my pussy is hovering right above his face. “Maybe… this isn’t such a good idea,” I say, wishing that I could ignore the crippling embarrassment at the idea of Jake seeing way more of me than even I’ve seen.

  I feel rather than see Jake shake his head. “You’re beautiful, Aimee,” he says reverently. “Every part of you is beautiful.” I gasp as he licks the wetness that’s already spreading between my legs.

  Feeling his tongue exploring me and licking my folds makes me forget any uncertainty I was harboring. I want to make him feel as good as he’s making me feel. I lower my head and take his cock into my mouth. He exhales deeply against my pussy and the sensation threatens to push me over the edge.

  “Fuck, Aimee, you taste so amazing,” he murmurs, and that just drives me even more wild.

  I bob my head up and down, taking him into my mouth and sucking hard, only to release him again and repeat. He’s starting to move his hips, encouraging me to take more and more between my lips, and I find my body is mirroring his movements. My hips are moving up and down as Jake’s tongue dives inside of me again and again.

  We’re both sucking, licking, tasting each other so deeply, turning each other on, building each other up to our own release. I feel his tongue against my clit and I cry out, sucking hard on his cock.

  “You’re so goddam good at that,” Jake breathes out and I allow myself a little feeling of pride before I stop focusing on anything other than Jake’s mouth on me and mine on him.

  We’re both moaning and breathing hard—so hard that I know we’re both close. I take him into my mouth as much as I can, and at the same time I feel Jake’s tongue goi
ng to work on my pussy in earnest. I’m building towards my release and I can tell from Jake’s erratic movements that he is too. I pump Jake’s cock, licking the tip, and I feel his shaft surge with his orgasm. I catch him in my mouth as he comes, tasting the saltiness of his juice. At the same time I come hard, so hard I almost feel like I’m going to pass out as Jake licks inside my folds, tasting my slickness. We lie without moving, both breathing heavily, recovering from the intensity of the experience.

  “We should definitely do that more often,” I say eventually and I feel Jake laugh beneath me.

  “You talk a lot of sense,” Jake agrees, still taking deep gulps of air.

  “Now I really do need to sleep,” I say quietly as the tiredness I had been fighting off surges through me with the satisfaction of my release.