by Kati Wilde
But, holy crap. That was like two weeks ago. She thinks I’m still mad? And she’s freaking out because she thinks I am?
“We’re okay,” I say.
“Oh. Good.” The tension visibly leaves her body, and she grins at me. “Beer?”
I’ve got one better. Stepping up on a small footstool, I reach for her favorite bourbon on the top shelf.
“Aw, that’s a cute little footstool. You want me to get that for you?”
“Shut up.” It’s not my fault I’m not a giant like she is. Or that I’m so short I actually have to go up on tiptoe, even standing on the stool.
She snickers. A little mean, but I like that about her.
And not always mean. Not if she cares about you.
Watching me pour the bourbon, she says quietly, “So what are we going to do about Jenny?”
I’m pretty sure we just have to give it time. But Lily knows more about this than I do. “What did you do after your dad died?”
“Got drunk. Rode my bike. Fucked a bunch of girls and boys. Became a tough biker. Drank some more.”
I grin, trying to imagine Jenny doing any of that. I can’t. “She’ll be okay,” I say. “Nothing will be the same. But we’ll just ease her back into it.”
“Sounds good.”
Yeah, it does. I wait for a long second, then say as casually as I can, “Have you heard from Gunner?”
“Yeah. He’s in town, somewhere.” Her eyes narrow again, but not angrily this time. More like she’s wondering if I just turned stupid. “Ever heard of texting?”
“I don’t have his number.”
“You’re joking.”
Nope. “He had Stone’s phone. So we just used that.”
“You idiots.” She snorts and tugs her phone from her back pocket. “I’ll give it to you. Or, never mind. He can just give it to you himself.”
Because he’s coming through the door. Looking so damn beautiful, dragging off his helmet and sliding his hands over his thick hair. He’s already spotted me behind the bar, his crystalline gaze locking on me and never wavering, and he doesn’t slow his steady pace in my direction even when some of the other Riders come up to bump his fist and congratulate him. Because it seems now everyone knows that Stone was gone.
And they know who brought him back.
My heart’s overflowing when he stops at the bar, his hands braced flat on the countertop.
A grin curves his gorgeous lips. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“You brought my brother home,” I say and my throat is so thick.
“I told you I would,” he reminds me, but his grin falters a little, and I know why that pain flickers through his eyes. He glances over at Lily, who seems to read his silent message. She bumps his fist and heads off.
“He seems…not good,” I say quietly when he looks to me again—gently taking my hands, holding them clasped in his at the center of the bar.
“He’ll come through.” Gunner sounds sure of it. “It’ll just take time.”
I nod, my heart pounding so hard, my breath like a bellows in my chest. “So what now—for you and me?”
“Well.” Those pale eyes are so steady on mine. “I thought we could make it simple again.”
And my heart’s just…gone. My chest empty.
I wonder if this is what it’s like to die.
But it can’t be. Because death, you don’t start hurting again. Death, you don’t pull your hands from his and blindly turn away.
“Anna? Where you going, sweetheart?”
I don’t know. “The Philippines, maybe.” My voice is thin, broken, almost unintelligible. “It doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not here.”
In the mirror behind the liquor shelf, I catch a glimpse of Gunner’s white face. I see the powerful flex of his arms as he shoves against the countertop, vaulting over the bar and into the service area with me. And I haven’t run fast enough because his strong hands snag my waist, drag me back against him.
“All right, sweetheart,” he says hoarsely in my ear. “If you want to go, we both go. The Philippines it is. Although it sounds like a damn good place for a honeymoon, instead.”
Something stutters in the empty cavity of my chest. “A what?”
“I love you, Anna. You love me. So this is really simple. Not the kind of simple we had before. I said it all wrong. So I’m just going to let this speak for me.”
His fingers thread through mine. But not just to clasp our hands. He turns my palm over, presses his lips to the center before dropping a glittering object onto the same spot.
A ring. My voice is high, thready. “Gunner?”
“I just need one word from you, Anna,” he says gruffly. “So tell me yes. Tell me you’ll belong to me.”
“I already do.”
I feel his huff of laughter. “One word.”
“Why are you complaining? I gave you three.” My heart so full, I turn in his arms. “And here’s three more: I love you.”
“I’ll take those,” he growls against my lips, then his strong hands capture my face and he claims my mouth in a deep kiss. Behind us, a few cheers echo through the bar, then grow louder, and along with them are Riders shouting suggestions about what Gunner can do to me next.
Laughing, he breaks the kiss, then says in my ear, “Now you’ve got two choices. I can either sit you up on that bar and lick your pussy in front of everyone, or I can take you into the back.”
“Back,” I say breathlessly and easily ignore the new shouts and cheers as Gunner swings me up and carries me toward the employee door, his mouth fastened to mine.
Down the hall, he kicks open the stockroom door. Saxon’s going to kill us but I don’t even care. Wildly I kiss him, pushing at the shoulders of his leather vest, then drop my hands to his belt when I realize there’s no reason for his top half to be naked.
But Gunner is stripping out of his kutte, carefully putting the folded leather aside before catching my hands.
I groan, looking down. He stopped me with his zipper half undone and the pressure of his thick erection against the fastening is slowly, slowly unzipping the rest.
“I love you looking at my dick, Anna. You always look so damn hungry and impressed.” He’s grinning as he turns his back to me. “But look at this first.”
Gathering the back of his collar in his fist, he drags his shirt off—and there’s ink on his skin now.
The Hellfire Riders’ emblem stretches from shoulder to shoulder.
Mouth parting in astonishment, I step forward and lift my fingers toward the tattoo before abruptly stopping. The skin around the edges of the emblem is still an angry red, the inked surface gleaming with ointment. He must have gotten this today. And it’s so big, he must have been sitting under the needle for most of the day.
Voice thick, I say, “I thought Cooper boys didn’t change what they were born with. That you all look like you do for a reason.”
“I’ll look how I want to look and for my own reasons. This reason says I’ll always be a Rider.” His voice deepens before he faces me again. “And the reason for this one is that I’ll always be yours.”
There’s new ink on his chest, too—right over his heart, a thick red script, as if written in lipstick across his steely pectoral.
Anna will always be here.
“Gunner,” I whisper, then he’s kissing me, turning and lifting me up against the stockroom door. My arms circle his neck as his big hands drag my jeans down—just far enough for him to spread me open and sink deep.
Filled completely, I cry out at the deliciously thick intrusion, my head falling back. His hot mouth fastens to my neck and he fucks me with powerful strokes that rattle the doorframe and shiver through the shelves.
Then abruptly he stops, holding me pinned against the door, his cock so deep. “Put on the ring, Anna. Let me see that you’re mine when I come inside you this time.”
The ring is still in my hand, clenched in my fist. Hands shaking, I slip my arms from around his neck.<
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“I swear to you, Anna,” he says and emotion roughens his voice. He takes the ring from me and slides it onto my finger before curling my hand into a fist—as if to keep the ring on tight. “I’ll give you any future you want.”
“Just one that’s long and happy.” But I’ll take whatever I get with him.
“Long and happy.” He grins. “At this moment, that describes my cock.”
Still buried inside me. His mouth captures mine when I start to laugh, until need begins to take over. Then, with a groan, he tears his lips from mine and swears solemnly,
“I’ll give that future to you, sweetheart. I’ll give you everything.”
With a shuddering breath, I touch his jaw, his lips, before cupping his face in my hands—and the pretty diamond sparkling in my ring can’t compete with the beauty of his pale eyes when he’s looking at me, so hot and fierce and in love.
“You’ve already given me everything,” I tell him with my heart overflowing. “Because now I have you.”
And in the end—it really is that simple.
The End
Coming Next
(Teaser for LOSING IT ALL)
Stone
I hear the chime of an incoming message on my phone at the same time a knock sounds at the cabin door. A soft whimper comes from slight form on the bed.
“Not a fucking sound,” I warn her.
Even though, out here on the clubhouse property, I don’t have to worry that whoever’s at that door is anyone except another Rider. And when I open it—only six inches, enough to look out and with my body blocking the view of everything behind me—Beaver is standing there in the rain, holding out a wad of cash.
“You won,” he says.
I eye the money warily. I haven’t won anything worth having lately, so I sure as hell don’t trust that this cash is something I want.
“What’s that for?”
“Gunner just jumped over the bar after your sister and kissed her in front of everyone before dragging her off to the back rooms. That’s public confirmation of them hooking up. You picked this week on the calendar, so you won the pot.”
Aw, yeah. I always figured it would be the holidays that would get to them. All those fucking awkward silences at my mother’s house. So a week after Thanksgiving sounded about right.
“She came out wearing a ring,” Beaver adds.
That makes me smile—the first smile in a long time that actually feels like one.
But it vanishes when Beaver’s focus shifts past me, as if he’s trying to see more beyond the small slice of door I’ve got open.
“Anything else?” I ask.
“No.”
I snatch my winnings out of his hand and slam the door shut.
The cash, I toss onto a small table under the shuttered window. The cabin’s rustic—just a single room with a little bathroom off the side. Two chairs, a small potbellied stove, a double-wide bed, and a naked woman tied to it.
I feel her emerald eyes on me as I check the messages on my phone. This cabin’s far back on the property and one of the few places that seems to get better than sporadic reception. Still I’m surprised it came through, because it’s not a simple text. It’s a picture. Anna’s smiling up at me, her head pillowed on a familiar chest—except now Anna is always here is inked into Gunner’s pectoral. An engagement ring glitters on her finger.
About damn time, I text back.
I drop the phone onto the bed, beside a long slim thigh. She’s tied with her arms straight up over her head and her legs wide apart, ankles bound to the bed posts. Her pointed nipples are flushed a deep rose, the soft skin of her breasts abraded by whisker burn. Thoughtfully, I rasp my palm over my jaw. Don’t really feel like shaving. So those inner thighs will soon be feeling the same burn.
Gazing down at her, I reach into the front of my sweats, drag out my hard cock and give the shaft a long, rough stroke. Eyes wide, her gaze follows the path of my fist.
She makes a soft, plaintive sound, her full lips stretched wide around a ball gag. I’ve got use for her mouth—Jesus, I’ve got so much fucking use for it—but no use at all for the lies coming out of it.
“You remembering how it tastes?”
Her brilliant green eyes shoot back to mine. Wide and shimmering, they’re pleading with me now, and the sight of her desperation just makes my dick even harder.
“You think I’m going to fuck you? Nah, not yet. We’ve still got a long way to go before that, making sure you get every bit of punishment you deserve.”
She’s watching my hand again, her sweet tits rising and falling with each panting breath. Her rosy nipples stand stiff at attention and the soft curls guarding her pussy are glossy and wet. She doesn’t want to love this.
Oh, but she does.
Hunger roughens my voice. “This looks real fucking familiar, doesn’t it? Except it was me tied up while you sucked on my cock. But what’s real similar is how you’re about to discover how goddamn hard you can come, even when you hate the fucking sight of the person who’s getting you off.”
A low moan breaks from her. Her red hair whips around her face as she wildly shakes her head, the long strands clinging to sweat-slicked skin.
The end of the mattress dips under my weight as I kneel between her bound legs and slide forward, stretching out between her sleek thighs. God, her scent. Musky and sweet. Holding back a groan, I lower my head, my hot breath stirring those dampened curls. “But here’s the difference in this scenario: Men, we only come once. Twice, if we’re real lucky. But you? You’re going to come over and over again. Until you break and give me what I fucking want.”
Frantically she pulls against her restraints, the long muscles in her pale thighs trembling, her fisted fingers yanking desperately against the rope over her head.
My big hands clamp down on her bucking hips. With broad thumbs, I spread her glistening pussy lips and expose her sexy little clit. My mouth waters with need and I don’t hold back, claiming her cunt all at once, groaning at her hot flavor, savoring the agonized pleasure in her muffled scream and the rush of wetness that greets my tongue.
Payback never tasted so fucking good.
***
Look for Stone’s book, Losing It All, April of 2020!
“I loved this book! Going Nowhere Fast is a modern day, scorching hot yet deeply emotional Pride & Prejudice story that you won’t want to miss.” —Kristen Callihan, New York Times bestselling author of the Game On and VIP series.
Only $2.99 | Available Now!
The brakes are off in this sizzling-hot new adult romance from the author of the Hellfire Riders MC Romance series…
One promise.
Two hearts.
Three rules.
Four weeks to break them all.
When Aspen Phillips’ best friend invites her on a month-long road trip, she has serious mixed feelings. Sharing their tight quarters will be Bramwell Gage, overprotective brother and all-around jerk. Bram may be ridiculously sexy, but he’s made no effort to hide how he feels about Aspen—that she’s trash who’s no good for his sister. But Aspen is determined to get along with the uptight millionaire—and to keep her promise, concealing a secret about his sister that Bram can never know.
But after a scorching kiss reveals that Bram’s feelings toward her run much hotter than she believed, Aspen’s emotions swerve into a complete 180. Suddenly the girl who has nothing has everything—but only as long as the truth about his sister remains hidden. Because when all the secrets and promises unravel, she risks losing it all…
Available Now!
Also by Kati Wilde
Contemporary Romance
Going Nowhere Fast
(a new adult romance)
Secret Santa
(a holiday romance)
All He Wants For Christmas
(a holiday romance)
The King’s Horrible Bride
(a modern royal romance)
The Wedding Night
(billionaire romance w/a twist)
The Dead Lands
Barbarian Fantasy Romance
The Midwinter Mail-Order Bride
The Midnight Bride
Pretty Bride
The Hellfire Riders Motorcycle Club
The Hellfire Riders: Saxon & Jenny
(includes: Wanting It All, Taking It All, Having It All)
The Hellfire Riders: Jack & Lily
(includes: Betting It All, Risking It All, Burning It All)
Breaking It All
(Gunner & Anna)
Giving It All
(Saxon & Jenny)
Craving It All
(Bull & Sara)
Faking It All
(Duke & Olivia)
Werewolf and Shapeshifter Romance
Beauty In Spring
(a short Beauty & the Beast romance)
High Moon
(a werewolf romance)
Teacher’s Pet Wolf
(a werewolf romance)
Upcoming Romances
Losing It All
(Stone’s book — Coming Soon)
The Midsummer Bride
(a Dead Lands novel)
Sheriff’s Bad Bear
(a berserker romance)
Reading Order
The Motorcycle Clubs Checklist
For a complete series list with links to individual sites, please visit my website.
KATI WILDE’S HELLFIRE RIDERS:
THE HELLFIRE RIDERS: SAXON & JENNY
THE HELLFIRE RIDERS: JACK & LILY
BREAKING IT ALL — Gunner & Anna
GIVING IT ALL (Saxon & Jenny)
CRAVING IT ALL — Bull & Sara
FAKING IT ALL — Duke & Olivia
LOSING IT ALL — Stone & “Cherry”
ALEXA RILEY’S GHOST RIDERS:
PULLING HER TRIGGER — Vincent & Cas
