“Your pussy is the only pussy I want for the rest of my life, Alessa. No other. Only you. Only yours. You’re my woman,” he ground out, his dick slipping inside me, filling me full, filling me like no other ever had, ever could. “You’re mine. No other’s. That brand says it fucking all.” His hand moved to gently trace over the Saran Wrap that shielded my ink, and that he could be so tender when I felt as if he was vibrating with tension hit me hard.
This man. A study of contrasts. But he was right… He was mine.
No other.
Ever.
Only him.
“Irreplaceable,” I rasped as he moved his hand again, letting his fingers dig into my hips as he started to rock into me. He wasn’t as ferocious as he’d been the other night on Indy’s Camaro. Whenever he took me, there was something that made me feel as if the air around us was burning up. As if I was burning up, and I’d never wanted that more than I did when he was inside me.
His hand held me in place, his forearm banding against my belly as he started to speed up, and my pussy clutched at him, letting him know I wanted him to keep on fingering my clit, to keep on doing what he was doing, because it was perfection.
With my other hand, I leaned back, gripping him by the nape, and while the natural arch to my spine was even more exaggerated, I felt closer to him, especially when my thumb brushed over the Saran Wrap there.
I thought about being with my friends, my fellow Old Ladies, thought about them watching as I nipped his neck, hard enough to leave bite marks on his throat. I thought about watching Indy trace the marks I’d left behind with tracing paper, and then I shivered as I remembered her tattooing my bite onto his skin.
Shuddering at a memory I knew I’d never forget, I groaned long and low, wanting to see that brand as much as he wanted to see the ink on my chest, so instead, I tugged on the ball chain necklace that rattled whenever he thrust into me, and found comfort in our new ritual. A ceremony that was just for us.
Today went deeper than just the act of branding. This went deeper than the marriage ceremony in West Orange’s courthouse. This was something that would protect us in the future.
Today, we’d laid down the first foundations for an uncertain tomorrow.
“You’re thinking,” he ground out in my ear, his breath hot as he nipped my earlobe, hard enough to make me yelp. “Focus on this. On us. On me. On you. Nothing else.” The words were ferocious and had my eyes fluttering to a close as his speed increased, forcing my pussy to clamp down around him as he hit the perfect spot with his fingers.
A squeal escaped me, my hips pulsating to a rhythm different than his as I surged my way toward a climax he demanded I have. As I slowed down, my belly rippling, he sped up, the thud-thud of his thighs against my butt turning staccato as he reached his own peak.
Another squeal escaped me as I heard him grind out a curse in my ear, and I moaned once more as I felt the sharp pulses of his release, combined with the nip to my earlobe and a hissed out, breathless, “Who do I belong to?”
That he asked me that at that moment, when my mind was foggy, dull from pleasure and whittled down to the barest of thoughts, wasn’t fair.
But Maverick would never be fair.
Not when he knew tomorrow wasn’t promised.
With my eyes closed, I released a shaky sigh, and savoring his gift to me, I rasped, “Me.”
Because he did.
And always would.
Forty-Two
Maverick
The following day
“Sin?”
“Hey, Mav, how’s it going?”
Because I knew he wasn’t talking about the work we were both doing for the council, instead was meaning on a personal level, I was honest with him. “Had some nightmares last night.”
Which was irritating because the way I’d felt when I slept in Alessa’s arms, I should have been at peace. Instead, my mind had been turbulent, stormy. And even the sound of a chair scraping on the fucking floor had me rearing back like I was in the middle of a firefight.
“I know how that goes, brother. Wanna talk about it?”
I sighed. “Not really, Sin. I mean, I know I can, and I want you to know you can talk about this shit with me too, but I just—fuck, I’m so used to keeping it inside.”
“I get it. I do,” he murmured. “It’s what we do. But maybe that’s why we get the nightmares?”
“Could be.” I rocked my head to the side, trying to ease the tension in my neck. “Truth is, this situation ain’t helping. All this crap with the Sparrows? It’s got me seeing fucking conspiracies left and right.”
“Who could blame you? I didn’t sleep well myself last night. How many of our brothers are inside on trumped up charges, huh? How fucking many? I can’t wait until Quin’s out. A week inside is more than I can stand, never mind him.”
Because I agreed, I released a heavy sigh. “I’m the same. Be glad when he’s home.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, needing to get this out because it was stupid, but my brain hadn’t been able to see anything but wheels within wheels since I’d woken up this morning, coated in sweat, my chest burning like I’d been running.
Alessa had done the unthinkable—sucked me off until I was calmer, which had turned into a whole other kind of reason for my lungs to be burning—but the thoughts wouldn’t go away. They wouldn’t leave me.
“Remember how I told everyone in church about the assassin who was behind Rene’s death?”
“How could I fucking forget?” he grumbled.
“I just couldn’t get this stupid sliver of information out of my mind. It’s crazy and dumb as fuck, but… it’s too simple to ignore.”
“Talk to me, bro. What is it? Where’s your mind at?”
That he was willing to listen to me posit a stupid theory had me shrugging my shoulders back as I stared at the water, looking out of the kitchen window into a pool that was slowly turning frigid with fall. “Ken told me how the assassin’s surname, or at least, the identities he was willing to burn, were made up of capital cities.”
Silence fell on the other end of the line. “You serious?”
“Deadly. He mentioned a Paris, a Moscow, and Madrid.”
A hiss sounded down the line. “Can’t be a coincidence,” he muttered.
“That’s what I was thinking.” Tension hit me hard, and I reached up to rub the back of my neck. “London’s a more common name than a goddamn Moscow, but still…”
“I’ll get Hawk over there. Get him to pick up some DNA samples. See if there’s a match.” He grunted. “This is too neat, surely?”
“Neat read insane. Whatever the fuck we did to get on the Sparrows’ radar…” I shook my head even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “I wish we could roll back the hands of goddamn time.”
He agreed, told me once more that he’d be sending Hawk out right away as he was in the middle of club business—I didn’t ask for more details because, as enforcer, that could mean he was beating the shit out of someone who owed the MC money and I really didn’t want to know—before we parted ways and I was left with the ringing silence of the kitchen.
The poolhouse’s situation was such that half of the view from this window was made up of the pool, but the other half led to the yard and the main house, so you could see anything and everything.
At that moment, the pool was still, because there wasn’t a lick of a breeze, but Kati was dancing barefoot, her hair a wild cloud around her head and, if my eyes didn’t deceive me, some kind of mud on her face. I’d never seen a messier kid, she always had something on her cheeks, a rat’s nest for hair, and her clothes were always clean but rumpled to the point where she looked like she lived in a bag.
As I watched her dance though, watched her do some cartwheels and some standing somersaults that had my brows lifting in surprise at her skills, I recognized two things—one, this was why she was always rumpled. She hurled herself from one side of the yard to the other, uncaring if she fell or if she face planted
, she just carried on. Getting dirtier and messier as she went.
Two, someone had taught her this shit.
Someone…
The thought had unease unfurling inside me again, and those goddamn wheels within wheels began to churn in my head.
I knew London helped out at gymnastics practice…
Jaw tensing, I stormed out of the house and headed for my sister-in-law who wanted me to act like a big brother. A protective older brother.
Was there a reason for that?
Sweet fuck, I hoped not.
*An hour later*
MAVERICK
My stomach was churning as I headed into West Orange on the back of a hog I shouldn’t be riding but really fucking needed to. The last thing I wanted was to eat, but I’d made a date with Alessa and I wasn’t about to let her down, especially when nothing was confirmed.
I’d talked to Kati who, I thought, was purposely being obtuse—either that, or I hadn’t spelled shit out well enough—so I’d taken her to Lodestar in the kitchen and told them to have a talk about her ‘gymnastic' capabilities.
Lodestar being Lodestar had quickly picked up on the situation, but from my conversation with Kati, I didn’t fear London had targeted her. I wondered what Cyan had confided in her, because she was the one who’d been instructing Kati who, I knew from Alessa, didn’t take goddamn gymnastics.
Cyan’s confidences might reveal something about London that a background check wasn’t pulling up. Even with Conor O’Donnelly on the hunt, you couldn’t milk blood out of a stone, and if, like I’d laid out for Sin, London was a Sparrow backed assassin, he had an army of his own to wipe out his identity and to forge new ones for him.
The blast of the wind in my face was the only thing that was stopping the headache from blinding me. I needed it, needed that air to feel awake, to feel like this nightmare wasn’t just an endless circle that we’d never be able to fucking escape.
I needed Alessa, her smiles and her warmth and her love, but I feared for what I was bringing into her world.
She didn’t deserve more trouble, more strife.
She deserved a good man, a great life, and what was she gonna get? An MC treasurer who might forget her one moment, and who had brought her into the crosshairs of a cabal that had itchy trigger fingers for us.
Gnawing on the inside of my cheek helped as I made it into West Orange proper, where the noise grew worse and the sun pounded on my head, making me feel like an overripe orange that could burst. My breathing was shallow, my face clammy with sweat, and I knew it was a good thing the MC’s diner was around the corner because if I didn’t stop soon, I could fucking crash.
What a dumb idea this had been, a dumb fucking move—
Then I saw her.
She was standing by the diner, waiting on me, her attention on her phone, dressed in a slim fitting dress that danced around her knees, black leggings hiding those beautiful legs from the world, a navy shrug covering her arms from the slight chill in the air. She was like a fifties housewife that, for whatever reason, gave me a boner.
Which wasn’t really helpful in my current state.
The approach of the straight pipes had her peering at the road, though, and when our eyes caught and held, immediately, I felt better.
As I rolled to a stop, kicked down the stand, and straightened up, I smiled at her as she moved nearer to me, like she didn’t want any space between us, which was when a car backfired.
The sound was short.
Sharp.
Staccato.
Nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Nothing to anyone with a normal mind.
But I wasn’t normal.
One second, I was looking at the love of my life, the next I was looking at hell itself.
All around me, the COP was in chaos. The sun pounded down on me worse than anything Jersey was capable of even in midsummer, and the weight of my kit on my back, the weight of the helmet on my head, the narrow field of vision in front of me, had me whipping around, trying to find my fucking bearings.
I was standing in the middle of the outpost we’d only just taken back the day before, a grimy piece of shit place that was only useful for a couple of warehouses that stored lethal munitions we didn’t want in the enemy’s possession. It was barren, blistering with heat, and there were only rocks and very little green anything as far as the eye could see.
What had once been a functioning post was now laid to ruins from several routs.
Men lay dead around me. I saw them, registered their uniforms, saw pools of blood beneath them. There were Taliban soldiers here too, but I only looked at the BDUs for identities of fallen brothers.
The radio sputtered out sound, and I recognized the voice. Liam. “This is Chaos 7. We need rotary wing gunships. Air support imperative. Over.”
“Chaos 7, air support is forty mins away. Use 120mm mortars. Over.”
“Mortar pit is pinned down. Over.”
I stared around me, trying to figure out the lay of the land and saw the mortar pit was pinned down. We were in a kind of bowl, meaning we couldn’t reach higher ground.
“We’re going to need medevacs. Over.”
Before I could process much else, gun fire showered me, but I ducked down, running toward shelter which came in the form of a piece of corrugated iron. As I ran, as the bullets wove and danced between my feet, someone called my name.
“Maverick!”
It was hoarse, a rasp, a splutter.
A death rattle.
Coming from the lips of a man I loved.
I forgot about the bullets, forgot about the heat, the violence, the death, the terror. Just focused on finding that voice.
I darted around corpses, seeing faces of the men I’d served with who were brothers to me. Junkers was down, Samie too, but then there was Nic.
He was on his back, his fatigues puddled with bright splotches of red, and his eyes were glassy as he stared straight up at me. I dove to the ground, my knees spraying up a cloud of dust as I loomed over him. One hand went to check his pulse, the other to put pressure on the gut wound, but he grabbed my wrist with surprising strength and said, “Find Eagle Eyes. Ask him about Dost Mohamet Khan.”
My brow puckered. “What? Why do you want me to find Liam?”
In my earpiece, I heard the sudden sputter of, “Chaos Platoon, please be advised. The 10th Mountain Division is delayed. Repeat, delayed. There will be no backup. Pass it on. No medevacs. Over.”
“No,” I breathed before I howled out my rejection of what I was hearing. Staring down at the blood, so much fucking blood that was draining from Nic’s body, killing him, all I could think was—this isn’t happening. This cannot be happening.
“Chaos 8. We need medevacs. Now! Over,” I snarled into my radio as I shoved even more pressure onto Nic’s stomach.
His hand reached for mine, and as our fingers tangled, his with that strong grip that belied his weakness, he drew mine away from putting pressure on his abdomen.
“Listen to me, Jameson. Listen well.” His eyes were like diamonds that spit fire in the heat of the sun. They compelled me to listen. To never forget. “I want you to live, Jameson. I want you to live and to love. I need you to let me go.”
“No!” I moaned, tears burning as they fell, creating dirty tracks that plopped onto his fatigues. “I can’t let go, I can’t forget you! I can’t. I won’t.”
“You must,” he rasped, his urgency raw. “You must. I need you to do what I couldn’t—get out. Be free. Live a life that isn’t tainted by this hell.” He drew me down, dragging me closer so I couldn’t avoid or evade him. “I want you to love her. I want you to make babies with her.” His smile turned rueful, even as pain creased his brow and dulled his eyes. “If you can’t forget about me, why not name one of them Nic?”
A sob escaped me. “I can’t. I won’t let go.” Into my radio, I screamed, “We need medevacs. OVER!”
“Please, Jameson, do it for me. Don’t be a ghos
t. Live your life. Please.” He grabbed my hand, pressed my knuckles to his lips, and with his dying breath, whispered, “I love you. Please… promise you wi—”
Mortar fire sent me into a world he’d described.
That of hell.
A blast lifted me off my feet, and when I landed, my knees didn’t collide with packed dirt that had a cascade of dust surging around me. They collided with concrete.
A sidewalk.
At my back, horns and traffic whispered into my awareness, and bleary-eyed, deafened by the mortar fire, I stared ahead, once more trying to find my bearings.
A woman was in front of me, fear in her eyes, her beautiful face puckered with terror.
For me?
I shook my head, trying to figure out what was happening. What was going on. But I couldn’t understand, couldn’t—
“Maverick?” she rasped, a strange lilt to her voice, the intonation on the letter ‘E’ in my name different than what I was used to hearing. “Maverick, please, look at me.”
I gulped, turning my face away because I didn’t want to look at her.
Who was she?
Where was Nic?
And then she dropped to her knees in front of me. Behind her, I heard a bell ring out, and booted feet stomped onto the sidewalk. I was surrounded suddenly by men in cuts—the MC?
My MC?
I closed my eyes, unable to deal with this. Why wasn’t I in Kembesh? Where was Liam? Why did Nic want me to talk to him? Dost Mohamet Khan? Who was he?
I heard a gruff voice grate out, “Not again. Fuck. We need to get him to a hospital.”
“No!” The woman’s voice was strident, strong with a command. “Jameson, my name is Alessa. I’m your Old Lady. You’re in West Orange, you’re not a soldier anymore. You’re the treasurer for the Satan’s Sinners MC.” She tugged on something I wore around my neck that rattled.
The sound urged me to act, and I peered down at the dog tags she held in her hand.
Maverick: A Dark MC Romance (A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Series Book 6) Page 34
