So when Mathias and Bishop came in, I should’ve been prepared. But I went silent, just waiting to see what Mathias would say to me.
Bishop spoke instead, and he wasn’t translating. “Might want to get ready,” he said and handed me a pair of jeans and a black top. I guessed it was either something of Tru’s or Aimee’s, and it looked tight and sexy and like nothing I normally wore.
I had closets full of conservative outfits at home. Even when I’d been away at boarding school, playing guitar, I’d done so in my sensible clothes.
I never wanted to be sensible again. But I certainly didn’t think, after what had happened, that I’d be going anywhere. I held the silky black material and the denim, heard Bishop drop shoes too...and still, I didn’t make a move.
“Do you understand why I didn’t say anything about being married to Charlie?” I asked Bishop finally.
“I’m not the one who matters.”
“You are, though. You’re such an important part of it,” I told him.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t get it. Grief and fear make people do strange things.”
I wondered if he was talking about Luna as much as he was talking about me. “I don’t think he wants to see me.”
“Then you’ll have to want to see him more,” Bishop said. “Tru and Aimee had me drop this stuff off. They’ll be here to get you in a few minutes.”
“Wait, where are they taking me?”
“The place you want to be,” was all he said.
* * *
An hour later, Tru and Aimee laughed their way into the guesthouse. They’d already started drinking—Tru carried a bottle with her—and I noted that Hammer was outside, waiting for them.
“I knew those clothes would look great on you,” Tru said.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Out. It’s time to have some fun and make merry. For tomorrow, we may die,” Aimee said, and I was surprised to see her smiling when she’d said that.
“I just can’t think about going out and having fun now.” Beyond what had happened with me today, there was still Keller, and the LoV, to think about. Not to mention storms.
“How can you not?” Tru asked.
I hadn’t considered that.
“Bad things are going to happen whether or not we have fun. We can’t stop it, so why not enjoy the fuck out of ourselves, as Cas would say,” Tru continued.
“Because I never have,” I said simply.
“Then it’s about time you do. Let’s go have some fun.” Tru stopped. “What’s the worst that could happen? Can you die from having too much fun?”
“Maybe,” I whispered.
“But what a way to go,” Tru said as she hooked her arm in mine and we followed Aimee out the door.
The bar the MC owned was on Defiance’s compound, but allowed civilians—like me, I supposed—on certain nights. It was crowded by the time Tru and Aimee walked me inside. I felt conspicuous in my tight jeans and tank top after shrugging off a borrowed leather jacket.
I felt eyes on me, and realized a lot of the men—and the women—were staring at me, and not in a good way.
“Does everyone know?” I asked and Tru nodded. Any trust I’d earned with Defiance was gone, but it didn’t bother me half as much as the ground I’d lost with Mathias.
“They won’t give you much shit because you’re with Tru,” Aimee told me.
“Come on. We came here to have fun. Forget about all of it and have some fun.”
I followed Aimee and Tru onto the dance floor and we put our hands up and shook our hips and we laughed and shimmied like we didn’t have a care in the world, and I guessed that’s how they handled things. Maybe it was the reason they could.
And then I looked over and I saw Mathias. He was dancing too, on a table, with several women.
Whether or not he was doing it purposely to get my attention or my jealousy didn’t matter. The fact was, the women had their hands on him. And he was mine. I’d never felt such a primal roar of possession in my life.
“Oh, is that your man?” Aimee asked innocently.
“You guys knew he’d be here.”
Tru blinked innocently. “I had no idea. But what I do know is, if you want him, you’re going to have to go get him.”
“You don’t think I betrayed him, or Defiance, do you?” I asked suddenly.
Tru tilted her head. “I think you’re scared, and I know that fear makes you do things you wouldn’t do otherwise.”
I thought that was her way of saying yes, but I could take her statement a couple of ways. Still, she motioned toward Mathias and I didn’t think she’d guide me in that direction if she didn’t trust me.
Did I trust myself? I’d wavered, just slightly, but still wavered just the same when Charlie talked about Defiance using me. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that fear, tucked into the back of my mind.
Maybe it was time to acknowledge everything, starting with the fact that I only wanted Mathias dancing with me. And in my borrowed boots that made me feel sexy and like I could kick some serious ass, I sauntered over to the table and put my hands on my hips.
He looked down and watched me carefully. And one of the women put her arms around his waist and moved against him, ignoring me purposefully. I moved to stand on a chair and then the table just as purposefully, easing past the second woman.
She didn’t put up much of a fight, but the other one wouldn’t go down easily. Instead of dealing with her directly, I put my body against Mathias, fitting it to his because I knew we fit together so well. And I bit his neck, and then licked the reddened skin.
He turned and gave me a hot, lazy smile. The woman gave me a little push on my shoulder and said, “Go find your husband.”
“I don’t want my husband. I want him.” I stared at Mathias and only him as I spoke, and then tugged my hand through his hair and pulled his face down to mine. I kissed him hard, and I swear I heard some wolf whistles, but that might not’ve been for us.
Playing. With. Fire. He mouthed that carefully, and I knew it was a warning—a big one—but I didn’t care. I wanted the fire. And I knew what I had to do to prove it.
I jumped down from the table, looking back at him over my shoulder for a second before I pushed through the crowds and up to the raised platform where the live band was just starting to set up. The jukebox was playing for now, and I went over to the man with the guitar and I told him what I needed to do.
“Yeah, that’s cool,” he told me.
A few minutes later, I stood in front of the mike as the opening bars of the all-too-familiar song rang out. My heart pounded, the rush of blood to my ears overpowering everything else.
You can’t screw this up—it’s too important, I told myself.
I searched the crowd and found Mathias, my eyes settling on his dark ones. I wouldn’t screw it up. And when the opening bars of the music played behind me, I swallowed and I sang, for the first time in years, in a public place.
It wasn’t a fast, catchy song, but it seemed to be something most were familiar with.
If anybody...should ever write...my life story...
When I sang the refrain to “Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me,” Mathias moved away from the women who’d been surrounding me. It was so damned obvious to the entire bar who I was singing to, making a fool out of myself for. But I didn’t care. I only cared about letting Mathias know that I’d inexplicably fallen in love with him, that the signs had all been there.
My body moved to the music as I sang and I watched him, itching to jump down and join him. And he knew it. He was teasing me. It was like I was on the other end of a string, pulled taut between us. A tightrope between my past and my future.
But the tug was all mine.
Afterward, there
was applause, but that didn’t matter. What did was that Mathias was in front of me, holding out a hand to me, motioning for me to jump. I didn’t hesitate, knew that he’d catch me, and judging by his smile, I’d passed the first part of his test.
He held me and balanced a bottle of beer as he carried me through the bar and into a back hallway that was dark and dotted by other couples here and there. He placed me down, my back to the wall, set the beer down next to my feet. It was quiet and he stood in front of me, put a hand under my chin and forced me to meet his eyes. I did, with a great deal of trepidation. I didn’t exactly find warmth there, but he wasn’t icy either.
He was protecting himself. Because of me. Because I’d hurt him. And here I’d thought it was definitely going to be the other way around. “I’m sorry, Mathias. I should’ve said something to everyone, but most especially, to you.”
He shrugged, the Why didn’t you? coming through loud and clear.
“I didn’t want that to be real. I wanted this to be real,” I whispered to Mathias, pointing between us.
It was, Mathias mouthed, and at the word was, my stomach dropped.
“You’re so angry with me.”
I am.
I saw the truth of that in his eyes. “I’m sorry. But I think it’s obvious who I want to be with.”
Finally, he signed, and I swore I understood what he said.
Show me how obvious.
But I didn’t have time to ask if I was right, because he proved it. He pushed me up against a blank slab of wall, moved my arms up over my head, catching my wrists in a single hand while his free hand brushed my bare tummy. I shivered as the music pounded overhead. A single bulb flickered a little as the floor bounced under the weight of the people dancing on the other side of the wall. We weren’t the only ones in the hallway—but hidden by Mathias’s body, I pretended we were. It didn’t matter—the only thing that did was him touching me. It was what I wanted—he’d become a drug and I couldn’t get enough.
Having fun?
I moaned in response as his fingers found my sex, the pad of his forefinger running along my clit. He chuckled silently, his eyes dark with intent. He held my hands firmly behind my back, playing with me as we rocked together in the middle of the hallway and I didn’t dare look around, because I was pretty sure everyone was as close to having sex as we were.
I wasn’t supposed to care. I was only supposed to concentrate on him, and I’ll be damned if that was all I could do.
“Mathias!” I yelled his name out into the music, and he heard and maybe everyone else did too, but in the rush of my orgasm, nothing mattered but the giant throb of pleasure in my womb. I sagged against him and still, he held my hands in place behind my back, kept me solidly upright while he kissed me through the aftershocks. His eyes glowed when I told him, “I want to return the favor.”
In the semi-privacy of that hallway corner, I knelt between his legs. I knew it was foolish to feel protected by the dark, but I was. Somehow, this was right, because all I cared about was pleasing Mathias at this moment.
Defiance women take care of their men. That’s why our men take such good care of us.
Now I understood the infinite and unbreakable attraction most women—no matter their age or education or status—had for bad boys.
There was nothing better than a bad boy between your legs. It made everything else you put up with worth it.
I took his cock in my mouth, as deep as I could. I wasn’t skilled by any means, but it had never meant more to me to get this right than now.
I could feel his moans. A gentle hand threaded through my hair and gripped it hard when I hit the right spots, egging me on. And when he was about to come, he tried to pull me away but I refused. I swallowed him, wanting to taste him. And when I pulled back and looked up at him, his eyes were shut and he’d leaned his head against the wall.
God, I liked being able to make him that relaxed.
I zipped his pants, then got off my knee, grabbing the bottle he’d put on the floor earlier and taking a big sip. And then I leaned into him and told him, “By the way, I did that for you, not for Defiance.”
He gave a small, pleased smile, like he’d thought so, but still had needed to hear it.
Chapter Eighteen
I’m the only one
Tru
Tru danced with Aimee for a while after Jessa disappeared with Mathias.
“You trust her,” Aimee said as they walked home, and it was a statement, not a question.
“I think we have a lot in common,” she said.
Hammer was behind them, a few feet, because this was their time. After what happened to Aimee, they were supposed to walk in pairs, and women weren’t supposed to walk without a guy with them. Tru knew it seemed like a step backwards, but she also knew it was necessary.
Cas had started all the women in training shortly after that—learning self-defense, boxing and how to use weapons. No one outside of Defiance was supposed to know about it. Training them was the smart thing to do, but if word got out that Defiance was doing so, other MCs would start to think they were weak.
It was still a man’s world, or so everyone thought. But the women, they knew the truth. She did, most of all.
“I trust her too,” Aimee said. “She’s scared. I can’t imagine what coming into Defiance is like to an outsider like her.”
“She’s handling herself pretty well.” They stopped at Tru’s door and hugged good-night. Tru watched Hammer walk next to Aimee, and wondered if things between them would ever be the way they’d been before Aimee’s attack.
When she asked Cas that, he shook his head no. “Never be the same, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be better.”
He always knew how to make her feel better. “I missed you tonight.”
“Yeah. Wanted to spend time with you. But I had shit to do.”
He meant, things to think about, because that’s what he’d spent the night doing. He was alone, in the semi-darkness of the new place he’d built for them. He’d also built them a new place underground—a new place to make new memories, he’d said. But She still liked a lot of the old ones too.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He tugged her close and she ended up sitting in his lap. He was half reclined and he played with her hair, taking it down from the ponytail she’d worn. “Mathias and Bish brought in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“So did I,” Tru reminded him.
“Don’t need remindin’.” Caspar shook his head. “Shit with Keller was comin’ down the pipe anyway. We’ll make it look like we’ve got an advantage. Pretend we knew shit and use it to help Defiance.”
“Let Keller or the LoV think they have a leak inside their organization.”
He smiled at her and her stomach flipped, especially when he said, “Sexy when you talk strategy, pretty baby.”
She knew why he was worried. Defiance was a young crew—even though Caspar had grown up in the MC and was, by rights, born to lead it, the majority of his MC were under twenty-four. That was great for partying and for being up for general wildness, but sometimes, it made them unable to understand that there was, in fact, a strategy to all of this.
The Chaos made things better in some ways on that front and worse on others. She knew that Defiance was about to be put to a pretty big test, coming up against the more experienced LoVs, and by extension, Keller’s crew.
“Is it harder than you thought?” she asked. He remained silent and she continued to probe. “I know you’re not supposed to admit things like that to anybody, Cas. But I’m not just anybody. I’m the only one you can admit things to. So please, use me.”
She heard the gentle plead in her voice and that must’ve moved Caspar, because he turned to her, his icy blue eyes boring into hers.
Com
e on, Cas. Trust me. Let me be here for you.
“It could be fuckin’ anyone,” he said finally, his voice barely a rasped whisper.
“No. Maybe the old generation,” I started but he shook his head and repeated, “Anyone.”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of the men who’d stood there and let themselves be branded to prove they were on Caspar’s side before everything had gone down with Lance. She couldn’t believe it could be one of those men. “It’s not me.”
“Anyone but you, baby.”
“I hate it that you’re hurting.”
“Shouldn’t ask things you don’t really want to know. I tell you that all the damned time, but you still push, woman.”
“If you hurt, then I hurt.”
“Don’t want you hurtin’.” Caspar was angry now. “Dammit, Tru, you gotta stop pushin’. You’re not ready to handle this.”
“I don’t want you handling it alone.”
“How I’ve always been.”
“But you’re not alone anymore.” She wondered if he was doubting everyone now, including her. How could he not? She was certainly was going to gaze with suspicion on everyone in Defiance from now on, until they could resolve this.
“This is what it’s like, babe. Not trustin’ anyone for your own safety. Want you to trust me. Need you to. But I want to protect you from this shit. Want you innocent.”
She slid her hands over his shoulders and straddled his lap. “I know. And I love you for it. For so many other reasons, but especially for that.”
He gave her a small smile and sat up so they faced each other. Then he wrapped his hands around her waist, then dropped them to cup her ass, and this was where she’d wanted the evening to end up from the second she’d gone out.
From the second she’d known she’d fallen in love with Cas, all those years ago. “Whatever happens, we’ll survive it.”
She could’ve been talking about Defiance or the two of them, or everything, but it didn’t matter. What did is that they both believed it.
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