by A. J. Downey
I shook my head. “There’s no place in this world that I would rather be, than right here with you,” I said fervently.
He looked me in the eyes and asked, “Is that a yes? You’ll move in with me?”
“That’s a yes,” I murmured. “There’s no place I’ve ever felt so at home than here.”
He swept me up into a big bear hug and I shrieked, laughing as he spun me around.
“Oh, my God!” I cried, and he said to me, “Not yet. That’s later tonight. Come on, let’s get this part of the move over with.
“Okay,” I said, hushed, and I led him down the stairs, excited to start down this new path in life. With him.
It took considerably more time to unload and set everything back up where it needed to go than it had to load everything up. By the time we were through, it had started to rain again and we were all crowded around the two picnic tables under the shelter of the back overhang. The food had been unreal, the mead and home brewed beer had flowed a plenty, and I had thoroughly enjoyed the mead part of things.
I’d never had it before and especially liked the variety where they’d added fresh blackberries from bushes surrounding the farm. It’d enhanced the honey flavor with a tart berry richness and I was easily drunk by my second glass. Nobody warned me that mead could be so potent, but then again; I was home, so who cared?
I sat straddling one of the picnic table benches, leaned back against Fenris, his arms around me as he casually rocked me back and forth. The guys were all varying stages of intoxicated around us, all telling stories that had every one of us in stitches. No one would be driving home. Some would be on the couches or up in the guest bedroom on the second floor, that I hadn’t known was there, which made me smile now.
Some would likely be passed out in the barn by morning. All in good fun, until the hangovers hit.
“You ready for bed, baby girl?” Fen growled in my ear and I smiled.
“Mm-hm.”
“K, come on.”
He got up and helped me to my feet and both of us slipped off into the house, no one paying us any mind.
Up in the bedroom – our bedroom, the candles were lit, the music playing softly, and once again, Fenris pressed himself to my back, his lips to the side of my neck after pulling the collar of my thick sweater away.
“You are so fuckin’ beautiful,” he growled sweetly in my ear before lightly kissing the shell.
I spun in his arms and put my arms around his neck.
“And I love you,” I breathed. He smiled and dipped his head, his mouth meeting mine in a gentle kiss that grew in urgency.
“Oh, baby,” he whispered impassioned when I slipped to my knees and kissed the crown of the head of his cock. “Yes, please, gods.”
I took him into my mouth, eyes closed, listening to him gasp, relishing in the sensation of him gathering up my hair, loving the feel of him sliding across my tongue, touching the back of my throat. He grunted every so often, trying to hold back, and I was okay with that. Finally, he jerked his hips back, the hold he had on my hair tightening, preventing me from following him.
“Enough!” he cried hoarsely. “Enough. Get up off your knees,” he ordered.
I got up off my knees and he kissed me savagely. I loved it when I riled him like this. When he got excited like this. It excited me and when he threw me down on the bed, I was both elated and giggling.
“You drive me crazy, woman,” he said with a grin and I smiled.
“Good.”
He kissed me, all the way down my body and I arched beneath him, into his touch… and as I stared at the ceiling, at the wavering patterns of golden light across it, I had one thought.
It was good to be home…
Epilogue
Mace…
“Another?”
I looked up, squinting at the plucky bartender chick that was serving ‘em up.
“Yeah,” I murmured and nodded and she gave me a look that was somewhere between empathetic and sympathetic.
“Okay, but this is going to have to be your last one, man. I don’t need to get busted for overserving you, no matter how good looking I think you are.”
I gave her a watery smile and swayed a bit on my barstool and nodded as she poured me another whiskey.
I was at this shithole bar in White Center, probably a quarter mile or so from the club. I honestly needed a fuckin’ break from the fuckin’ lovefest going on over there for a minute. Guys were gettin’ girls and settling down left and right and shit if I didn’t want that.
I was a jealous bastard. Weren’t no bones about it.
“What’s your name?” she asked me as she tipped the bottle back up and set it just out of reach.
“They call me Mace,” I said and took a sip of the smoky amber liquid in my glass.
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Not supposed to ask me that, sugar.”
“Well, I apologize then.”
“’S no worries, you didn’t know.”
She was quintessentially Pacific Northwest. Her clothing organic, a mix between steampunk and hippy tree freak. Her top was a tank top looking thing with lacing like a corset in the front. Her shoulder tattooed with a Raven, the rest of her arm crawling with lush ivy vines.
Her hair was a brownish blonde, and in thick, ropy dreads down past her waist. Wood and metal beads with runes on them decorating her thick locks in irregular intervals.
Her skin was on the pale side, a scattering of light freckles over her nose and cheeks, barely there and almost unnoticeable in the dim light of the bar. She was thin, but wiry. I didn’t think she was weak, but she certainly was willowy – almost looked vegan but that could have just been the Burning Man style she had going on.
Burning Man was popular up here, even though it was a big musical festival, rave, party thing that happened down in the California desert. A lot of people from up this way went down that way and partied hard for like a week or two every year – pitching tents, a bunch of crazy art installations – you name it.
“What’s your name?” I asked her and she smiled at me with a wry twist of lips.
“Most of my friends call me Raven,” she said.
“Nice to meet you, Raven.”
“Nice to meet you, Mace.”
A few guys came into the bar. Frat types. Asshole types and Raven gave me a wink.
“Duty calls,” she said with a breezy sigh and she moved away from me, carrying her herbal scent down the bar with her. I smiled and thought through the haze of my drunk that she probably used essential oils for all the things.
She was pretty, and I liked the sparkle in her light eyes, but she probably wasn’t the girl for me. I mean, she was a lover not a fighter type and probably couldn’t hang or go my speed. Her speed was probably saving the spotted owl on the weekends or something. Spending forty-nine days camped in a tree so the man couldn’t cut it down.
I chuckled to myself and shook my head. I could respect sticking it to the man every which way, but I needed somebody that could stick with me. This life wasn’t for everyone. Still, I thought to myself, looking down the bar where she was at the opposite end talking to some old barfly regular; I could tap that.
Her legs were encased in tan leggings that looked like leather, a bunch of bronze zippers along her hips and thighs, but there were definitely no pockets. The way the material clung to those long stems of hers left nothing to the imagination. Her tank boots finished off the look she had going quite nicely.
I heard laughter and muttering behind me and turned a bleary eye on the three frat lookin’ motherfuckers. They were sizing me up, and I turned back forward again.
Little shits could fuck off into oblivion for all I cared. It happened a lot, two or even three guys getting it in their heads that they could take on a Sacred Heart. That we weren’t nothing. That was, until they lay on the pavement broken and bleeding, or until we fuckin’ caught up to their little asses later – whichever came first.
They
burst out laughing about something and high-fived each other and I didn’t care except they were ruining my peace and damn quiet.
“Hey, hey yo!” one of them called out, and I knew it was to me. I just ignored them. I was on parole for another year and I had absolutely no desire to go back to the state pen and finish that bid off, fuck them very much.
“I’m talking to you!” he shouted, irritated.
“Hey! Knock it the fuck off, boys, or you can get the fuck out my bar,” Raven told ‘em.
“Shut up and just keep pouring the fuckin’ drinks, sweetheart,” one of them called out. I turned, just in time to see him grab his crotch and tell her, “I’ll deal with you later.”
Nice.
“Some people’s fuckin’ children, man,” I said slowly. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Man, fuck you!” the dude’s buddy, some Asian kid, said laughing.
“I don’t swing that way,” I said, turning back to the bar. “More power to you if you do, though.”
I have no fuckin’ idea what happened next. I heard something snap, shouting, and a white light flared through my vision as the back of my head erupted in pain. Next thing I knew, I hit the sticky barroom floor, face first and next, my ribs exploded in fire.
I managed to get up, more shouting, as I groped blindly and spilled out of the exit and onto the front sidewalk.
I couldn’t get air, I couldn’t breathe and I had a second to think through my drunken haze, goddammit! They got the drop on me.
What came next was probably the most brutal ass kicking of my life, and that’s including the one I took in that yard fight when I was locked up.
I took a sneaker to the face and grimaced, immediately tasting blood as kicks and blows rained down on me.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three deafeningly loud rapid reports sounded. I heard some muffled shouts and screams, the thudding of rapid footsteps down the sidewalk and then the smell of essential oils assaulted my nose.
“Come on Mace, you gotta get up! Cops are coming for sure and we need to not be here when they do.”
I struggled, but things didn’t want to quite work. My eyes were swelling shut and every time I breathed in, it was like breathing so much bitter broken glass. I spit and tasted nothing but copper.
“Come on, Mace! Help me!” a woman’s voice cried, and I struggled to my feet. My head swam with liquor and a beatdown. I don’t remember shit else after that.
Also by A.J. Downey
The Sacred Hearts MC
1. Shattered & Scarred
2. Broken & Burned
3. Cracked & Crushed
3.5 Masked & Miserable (a novella)
4. Tattered & Torn
5. Fractured & Formidable
6. Damaged & Dangerous
The Virtues
1. Cutter’s Hope
2. Marlin’s Faith
3. Charity for Nothing
4. Stoker’s Serenity
The Sacred Brotherhood
1. Brother to Brother
2. Her Brother’s Keeper
3. Brother In Arms
4. Between Brothers
5. A Brother’s Secret
6. A Brother At My Back
7. A Brother’s Salvation
Indigo Knights
1. Her Thin Blue Lifeline
2. His Cold Blue Command
3. A Low Blue Flame
4. His Wild Blue Rose
5. Her Pained Blue Silence
6. A Cold Blue Call
7. Her Reluctant Blue Cavalier
8. Forged Under Fire
9. Under A Blue Moon
Sacred Hearts MC Pacific Northwest
1. Over the High Side
2. Wind Therapy
Paranormal Romance (with Ryan Kells)
1. I Am The Alpha
2. Omega’s Run
3. Hunter’s End
Standalones
Synchronicity
About the Author
A.J. Downey specializes in writing real and relatable contemporary romance stories. She’s from Seattle, WA and loves the Pacific Northwest. She finds inspiration from her surroundings, through the people she meets, and likely as a byproduct of way too much caffeine. An avid reader all of her life, it’s now her turn to try and give back a little, entertaining as she has been entertained.
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