Apex Of The Curve (Sacred Hearts MC Pacific Northwest Book 3)

by A. J. Downey

  I mean, what a bitch.

  I swallowed my confoundedness and irritation and let Little Bird guide me to the next section of apparel.

  By the time we were done, I had a complete outfit with an absolutely staggering price tag to match. I mean, there was easily a thousand dollars or more between the three items in Dahlia’s hands. The boots were almost two hundred, the chaps, over four hundred, and the jacket that she and Little Bird had finally had to choose for me was over six hundred and fifty dollars! I didn’t even spend that much buying my first car!

  I was deathly pale as Fen wandered over to look everything over. He nodded in casual approval.

  “Not bad for a first set, still incomplete, though. Come on. We need to get you a better lid, Leaf.”

  “Leaf?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  “Why Leaf?” I asked.

  “Because you look like a little lost leaf on the wind, caught in a fuckin’ hurricane, right now.”

  “I feel like a little lost leaf on the wind caught in a hurricane, right now. Hurricane Dahlia.”

  “I heard that!” Dahlia called from behind us. “I’m taking it as a compliment, too!”

  Fenris chuckled and guided me over to the helmets saying, “Dahlia takes some getting used to.”

  “So, I’ve heard,” I said charitably, unsure if I could or would ever get used to her brusque interactions.

  “You okay?” he asked with a laugh.

  “Overwhelmed,” I said, and he turned me by my shoulders to look at me.

  “Listen,” he said gently. “Like with anything, there’s good with the bad. I’ve been filling you in on a lot of shit in a short amount of time when it comes to my world and this was the part about it I was neglecting. Are there risks? Yeah. Are there perceptions? Yeah. Are there a lot of misconceptions?” he asked. “Fuck yeah.”

  He searched my face and said finally, “There’s a fuckton of good things about it, too, baby. We keep each other close; we keep each other safe, and sane, and we’re always there for each other. This is a family in a truer sense of the word than there’s ever been. Do we always get along? No. Are we always there for each other? Without fucking question.” He gave my shoulders a little shake and said, “You’re with me; you’re part of that family.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said quietly.

  “You don’t have to say anything right now, not even ‘thank you.’” He kissed my forehead, and I felt the tension drain out of me, my eyes slipping closed. “Taking care of you has been and is my pleasure.”

  “You’re going to make me cry,” I whispered, eyes misting.

  “No tears, beautiful. No need. I’ve got you,” he said pulling me into a tight hug.

  We stood like that for a solid minute while I gathered my wits, then he led me over to be properly fitted for a damn helmet.

  I was a bit emotionally exhausted, though for a far better reason than grief, by the time we rode back down his driveway, dusk just beginning to settle.

  Fenris had insisted, as soon as our purchases were made, that the girls help me get into them so that I was safe to ride. I was still speechless at how much he had casually spent on me. Shocked didn’t even begin to cover it. I don’t think my ex-husband had ever spent so much at once on me the entire time we were married… and it was all in the name of ensuring I was safe. Cared for; and I felt so… loved.

  When I’d asked Fenris to love me that first night we’d had sex, I’d meant just my body. I guess he was just an all-or-nothing kind of a man, and to be completely honest, I could appreciate that. I was finding it hard, after all of this, not to love him, too.

  Too fast? Maybe.

  Too right? Absolutely. It absolutely felt so right. The only thing I think I’d ever felt so surely that I never once second guessed it. That did not make it, in any way, less scary than it felt. Certainty, did not, in every case, negate fear.

  “Penny for your thoughts?” he asked and tucked the smashed penny we’d gotten at the Ballard Locks into the palm of my hand. I smiled and laughed a little. I didn’t know why, but Little Bird was absolutely enamored with the things. The souvenir pennies. She’d gotten so excited when she’d found the machine that made them at the Locks’ gift shop that she had insisted that she get one of every design it offered.

  Dump Truck had humored her without question, producing pennies and quarters from the depths of his pockets as though he kept them on hand for just such an occasion, and with her enthusiasm over them, I had to believe that was exactly why he held on to such copious amounts of pocket change.

  “Today was a good day,” I said and Fenris nodded, turning me around gently and taking my new leather jacket from my shoulders to hang it beside his from the pegs set inside the back door.

  I was glad I had worn a plain, fitted white tee beneath my sweater. It had been too bulky for the jacket to slip over and had come home in a Harley-Davidson store bag in one of the saddlebags on Fen’s motorcycle. That bag now hung next to our jackets as he smoothed his hands over my shoulders, digging his thumbs just so between my shoulder blades alleviating the tension there just a bit.

  What he did next, bringing his lips to the side of my neck, was the real magic trick to make all of the tumult I was feeling drain away.

  It was so simple when it was just he and I like this, in his kitchen, leaning back into his broad chest as he gently kissed my neck. His arms pulling me tight against him, rocking me gently, swaying us as though we slow danced to music that only he could hear.

  “I have to go back to my mom’s place eventually,” I said, and the mere thought of leaving this place, this refuge, this idyllic place where I felt so loved and so safe… it broke my heart.

  “So, we go back,” he whispered gently. “We go through things a box at a time, chip away at the pain until it becomes some kind of manageable.”

  I closed my eyes and rested against him and whispered, “And tonight?”

  “Tonight, I make love to you until there’s no room in that pretty little head of yours to think about anything other than how good you feel.”

  I chuckled slightly and said, “That’s a tall order.”

  “I’m confident I’m the man for the job,” he said.

  “Mm,” I hummed in contentment and anticipation as he wheeled me around as expertly as he piloted his bike.

  He steered me in the direction of the stairs and would receive no resistance from me. I wanted him, wanted this, everything about being with him soothed the ragged edged of my heart that’d been torn asunder by Charles. I wanted to hold onto this for as long as possible because my soul craved it. Craved this man who protected my tattered soul from the hurt. Holding my grief at bay and letting me clear my plate at my own pace. Feeding me tiny bites at a time, keeping me from being overwhelmed but allowing me to feel what I needed to feel when I needed to feel it.

  He didn’t tell me to stop, he didn’t order me to dry my tears, or tell me I was being a drag, or say anything else that made me feel like I was somehow wrong for feeling what I was feeling whenever I was feeling it. He was like this giant tree, branches and canopy protecting me from the rain. Twisted roots plunging deep into the earth, trunk strong enough to hold me up when I couldn’t seem to stand on my own for anything.

  Someday, I hoped I could repay him. I didn’t know how, or in what way I could ever do it. His kindness had been as immense as he was… but I wanted to. Someday.

  “Don’t move,” he growled in my ear, smoothing his hands down my body and over my denim clad hips once we’d entered his room. He went to the dresser and picked up the long lighter, clicking it to life and dipping it into the glass cylinders to light the candles one after the other.

  He returned to me, the music going, the soft glow of the flickering flames filling the room with muted light and resumed his place behind me.

  “Arms up, baby,” he ordered, voice a husky, sexy growl. I raised them up obediently, and he lifted my tee, pulling it from where it was tuc
ked into my jeans, his fingertips whispering against my flanks, tickling, making me jump and giggle slightly.

  He quickly got the hooks of my bra undone while he stood behind me, but not before I heard him pull off his own shirt. I covered my chest with my arms, a reflexive action, as he turned me around to face him.

  “Don’t hide from me,” he whispered, pulling my arms away from my chest, my hands from my shoulders, and tugging me close to him, winding them around his lean waist. I looked up at him and he smiled down at me.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, don’t you ever hide it.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath as I saw the truth of everything he said in his bright blue eyes, just before he lowered his mouth to mine.

  It was cool in the room, and I cuddled into his warmth gratefully, loving as his hands skimmed over my hips; half over my skin, half over my jeans.

  I moaned into his mouth but he was just getting started. We kissed like that for a long time, giggling and chuckling awkwardly as he toed off his boots. Mine were too new for that to work, but he seemed in no hurry to get me undressed the rest of the way. At least not yet.

  The light skimming of his fingertips, slow, up and down my spine, a ghostly erotic touch of his fingertips sent me into a fit of shivers and goosebumps, the sensation absolutely exquisite as he kissed me deeply. I clung to him, and dug nails lightly into his flanks just above the waistband of his jeans and he laughed darkly, a sound that tasted rich and decadent like no other, warmth curling at the apex of my thighs at the mere sound of it.

  I broke the kiss and moaned, “Fenris, please…” even though I didn’t even know what I was begging for precisely.

  “Please what?” he purred.

  “Everything.” I gasped as he kissed the side of my neck in that spot. “Just… everything.”

  “I’ll give you everything and more,” he promised, bending low, grabbing me by my outer thighs and hoisting me up his tall body.

  I gave him no resistance, hopping up, wrapping my legs around him frustrated by the layers of denim and cotton still between us.

  I held his face between my hands, kissing him fiercely as he turned me around and took the half step to the bed, setting me down on its high edge, leaning forward on his hands to either side of my hips, pressed in the furs. He kissed me for a time, then broke it just long enough to order me to lie back.

  I was his obedient girl, and did just that, but only because the anticipation for what he would do to me next was too strong not to.

  He stood, raising up to his full height and went for the belt at the front of his jeans.

  “Play with those beautiful titties,” he demanded and awkward though I felt at first, I didn’t want to disappoint my man. I let my hands drift up to the sides of my neck, my arms covering me, as I made a great show for him, letting my fingertips glide from just behind my ears down my neck. I tipped my chin to the ceiling and looked up my nose from my prone position, locking gazes with my lover as I performed for him.

  His nostrils flared slightly as he worked at his belt and his fly, watching me grip and massage my breasts for him at his behest, arching slightly as I teased my own nipples and waited for him to get naked, and for whatever would happen next.

  My man did not disappoint, stripping himself in front of my eyes, for my gaze only, standing confident and sure between my still-clad knees, his cock standing high, thick and long reaching almost to his navel. He throbbed with need, a pearly drop of pre-cum tantalizingly sliding from the head of his cock, making its way over the pronounced mushroom head to his veined shaft.

  Oh, that was a sight. So erotic, so raw and powerful like everything else about him. Fenris was so organic, salt of the earth, no pretext no assumptions to be made. The look on his face intense as he reached for my belt and slipped the leather tongue through its restraining loop, folding it back, the leather creaking, as he freed the slip of metal from the hole.

  He made quick work of undressing me the rest of the way, stopping to let down the zippers on my boots, dropping them to the fur rug at the side of the bed with a soft thud, first one then the other. My jeans sliding and slithering, belt rattling and clinking to join them with a softer thump to the floor.

  He stepped up and pulled me down further, to the edge of the bed, my ass barely supported, hands smoothing and massaging up and down my thighs as he looked down at me. God, my pussy ached to have him inside me and none of this was moving quite quick enough for my taste.

  “I’m going to make you come so hard,” he murmured.

  “Don’t threaten me with a good time,” I teased, raising my eyebrows and biting my bottom lip.

  He smiled and said, “Don’t you dare take those hands off those titties, baby.”

  I giggled lightly, as he massaged the top of my legs a few more times and brought his hand to his mouth.

  Making a great show of getting his middle finger lubed up, reaching down between us and sliding it inside me with no resistance, as I was quite aroused already.

  Still, my hips jerked slightly at the contact, and I couldn’t help my eyes closing and my head falling back as he slid that finger all the way inside me, the knuckles of the surrounding two meeting my body, the pad of his thumb slicking through my wetness and finding my clit.

  He played me expertly, just the right amount of pressure, the right pace, starting me at a steady climb for the stars as he rubbed tight circles around that sensitive bundle of nerves, his eyes sharp, the calculations behind them certain as he gauged my responses.

  It was like a rollercoaster that slow climb to the top, the breath held at the precipice and that wild, screaming plunge down the other side.

  I bucked and writhed against his hand, but he was determined to make me overwrought, determined to make it last for as long as possible until the line between pleasure and torture became exquisitely blurred and I lost every one of my senses and faculties.

  “Mm,” he said, tasting me. “I can’t wait to feel the way you tighten up like that around my cock.”

  “Mm,” I echoed. “Well come here.” I rose my arm, heavy with dreamy afterglow, beseeching him to come to me and he smiled with an edge of savagery.

  “Oh, no, not like that. Turn over and come slide off the edge of the bed some for me.”

  The anticipation of what he would do to me once I was bent over the bed for him had me intrigued. I turned over onto my belly and slid back, my toes finding the floor, the bed a bit too high, but putting my pussy at the perfect height for his cock.

  The furs were sensuous against my naked tits, teasing my nipples as he grasped my hips in his big hands. He pressed the head of his cock at my entrance and groaned in appreciation, pressing forward, slipping inside, as I gasped and gripped fistfuls of the furs beneath me.

  I was still sensitive, but he knew that I was sure. Nothing Fenris did sexually was an accident. It was purely by design, and I loved it. How sure he was, how confident. How safe with him that made me feel.

  He went slow at first, making noises of appreciation that sounded so sensual falling from his lips. His hands traveling over my ass, sweeping up my back as though he touched a fine piece of art. One that he never dreamed he would or could ever lay hands on.

  “God, I love it when you touch me like that,” I murmured, and he gave a dark little chuckle.

  “How about this?” he asked, laying a sharp, stinging slap against my ass. My hips bucked, and he laughed and said, “Oh, that did some nice things.”

  I just moaned in response and wriggled a bit, trying to take him deeper. He laughed then and said, “I think she likes it.”

  “God, shut up and move already!” I cried, and he laughed some more but obliged me, rolling his hips in sure, deep, slow and lazy strokes that got me on a low-key build up.

  So intense, so wonderful, he gripped my hips, driving into me, sweeping his hands up my back, pinning me to the bed with our lovemaking, until all that was left was sensation and warmth to bask in.

  He took me
through at least two more mind blowing orgasms before he took his own, collapsing over the top of me, and holding me close.

  “God, I love loving you,” he murmured with such a reverence, pressing a kiss to my shoulder.

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I asked, breath catching in my throat. Sometimes it wasn’t what you said but how you said it, and this was most definitely one of those times.

  “Absolutely,” he said in a tone full of such fierce certainty, there was no doubt to be had.

  Chapter Twenty

  Fenris…

  We were waiting outside the gates at the Monroe prison complex, waiting on our boy Mace to get out. We’d had the prospect, Sauley, ride Mace’s bike out here as was tradition. Maverick stood by with Mace’s colors, waiting to restore them to their rightful owner.

  We chatted, joked, and to some extent, even though he’d only been locked up a couple of years from arrest to release, we worried for our brother. Adjusting to life outside could be a royal pain in the ass, especially if you were on probation or parole, which he would be for at least another year.

  He had to keep himself clean on paper, and off The Man’s radar until he was completely free and clear. That meant he damn sure wouldn’t be going on any runs with us, especially if it meant crossing borders or state lines. One, he was a felon, Canada wouldn’t let him cross legally, not that we did much of that, anyway. Two, he technically had to get permission from his P.O. or Parole Officer to cross state lines.

  We would do what we could to find him employment, which was always a good first step to get The Man outta your ass, but tonight we cut loose, celebrated, and welcomed our boy back into the fold.

  I was both excited and nervous. My girl and I had spent yesterday at her mom’s and made a damn good dent in the crazy amount of shit that stuffed the house to bursting. There’d been more laughter than tears, which was a good thing, and by the end she was feeling a little stronger, a little better.