“Well, what I can say is—” Nellie starts, pausing at a knock on the door. She waits as it opens and in walks Crown. Relief washes over me as his gaze finds mine, flicking over me once as if to see that I’m okay before turning back to Nellie again. “I was just talking about you,” she says, gesturing at him and acting as if fifty-plus members of the club—essentially her extended family—aren’t dead. I get that it’s a coping mechanism but watching her act like nothing happened here three days ago is weird and dystopian as fuck. “The girls are all excited to see you back on the market.”
Crown just stares at her before looking at me again.
I look right back at him, waiting. Give me something, you stupid prick. Anything at all.
“Am I?” he asks after a few seconds. “On the market?”
“I don’t know, Calder,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back in the chair. “Are you?”
Nellie looks between the pair of us, supremely confused. Not that it matters. She can go and gossip to whoever; she can even tell Cat. Because he already knows. And he knows not just because of Gaz’s fat mouth, but because I’m married to Beast and Crown was still willing to put a gun to his president’s head to keep me safe.
“I don’t understand,” Nellie hazards with a nervous laugh.
“We’re working something out,” I explain, but she still doesn’t get it. She won’t. A lot of people will be able to sit there and listen to us spell out exactly what’s going on in our relationship and not understand. And that’s okay. They don’t have to; it isn’t about them.
“You should’ve called it a day hours ago,” Crown warns me, getting that annoying VP voice of his on. “I was watching to see if you’d self-regulate.
“I ate and drank; I rested.” Barely. “And I was about to call it.”
He stares at me like he doesn’t believe me, and Nellie nervous laughs again.
“You’re a hard worker, Gidge, but you need to work smarter, too.” I almost roll my eyes and just barely manage to keep it together. He’s speaking to me not as Cat’s little girl, but like a soldier under his command; I can respect that. I’m independent and strong-willed, not stupid. Well, not usually. “Let’s go home.”
Nellie gives Crown an odd sort of look.
Home.
The word reverberates through me in the strangest of ways.
Home. I’d love to have a home again. A real home. And I don’t mean a place with four walls and a door. I mean people. People are what makes a place home.
“You never answered your own question,” I say, standing up from the chair. “Are you on the market, Calder?”
He gives me another look and then glances down at my mom.
“Sorry, Nellie, but you can tell the girls that it was over a long, long time ago. It’s Gidget for me.” He looks up at me with this forlorn, almost sad sort of expression on his face. “It’s always been Gidget.”
“I’m sorry?” Nellie asks, but Crown is already slipping out the door and I’m following after him. I hesitate briefly to dance back a few steps and press a kiss to my mother’s cheek.
Likely the first time I’ve done that since I was nine years old. It weirds me out just as much as it does her. But I don’t regret doing it. Because fuck, who knows? Nellie might be the one lying dead tomorrow. I might be. Any of us could.
Besides, the last time I kissed her cheek, she reeked of alcohol and the cologne of a man who most definitely wasn’t my father. This version of Nellie, at least, is an improvement.
“Tell the girls that nobody’s back on the market just yet. And if I have my way, none of them will be.” I stand up and head out before she can stop me, jogging to catch up with Crown just outside the doors.
The part of the clubhouse that Gaz blew up is on the other side of the building, but I went over earlier just to look at it. It seems that the explosives were intentionally placed on the gift table.
That blast was meant for me and the boys, or at least for me and Beast. That much I know for sure. I only wish Gaz was still around so we could torture all the particulars out of him.
I wonder if that’s what Beast is doing now? Torturing Gaz’s lackeys for information. Wouldn’t surprise me.
“Have you made a decision yet?” Crown asks me, pausing beside his bike and toying with a helmet. I’m standing just behind it, watching him and wearing Beast’s jacket on my shoulders, his ring on my finger.
I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that’s slave to this culture and its traditions in a way that makes me wonder if this is the right path to take. Beast is my husband now. He’s mine. I’m his. I shouldn’t be getting on Crown’s bike, and I certainly shouldn’t be offering to carry a baby for him at any point in my life.
“About?” I query politely, and he sighs, looking up at me like he’s exasperated. But there’s a certain glint in his eyes that I believe he’s been intentionally hiding from me all along; it’s a glint that says he likes me this way, defiant and angry and annoying.
“About me,” he says with a low, masculine laugh, shaking his head. Crown lifts his gaze over to mine. “I want a kid, Gidge. That’s it. Just one.”
“Is that what I’m worth to you?” I ask softly, my voice whisper quiet on the wind. I’m not actually upset. I get it. He’s giving up everything else, so why not just this one thing? But I can’t help it. I always have to push back. I always have to try just a little harder. It never ceases to keep me out of trouble, but it is what it is.
I want Crown to fall for me completely, irreversibly, just like I’ve fallen for him.
Because I can’t possibly be the only fool in love between us.
There’s a long stretch of silence there, another pause in the fabric of reality, another moment where everything goes still and it’s just me and Crown and the hush of the woods at the edges of the parking lot. Nothing else matters but for this feeling between us, this invisible red thread of fate that keeps pulling us back together even when we’re both running in opposite directions.
That’s when it happens, in that contemplative quiet. He breaks, and I’m there to catch all of his pieces and meld them with my own.
Crown lets out a sound and drops the helmet to the gravel beside his motorcycle, leaning over and putting his palms on the seat of it.
“How much can you possibly carve out of me?” he chokes, like he’s in physical pain. His eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s visibly shaking. “How much, Gidget?”
“I don’t know what you mean—” I start, but Crown lets out such a sharp, horrible laugh that I stop. I shouldn’t lie like that. I do know what he means. I do.
“You always push, push, push,” he says, speaking so low that it’s almost impossible to hear him. I take a step forward and he turns his head toward me, green eyes ablaze. “I’ve tried so hard to stay away from you. But you always chase. You come at me when I’m drunk or I’m low or I’m hating myself so much that it hurts to breathe.”
He stands up and turns toward me, making me gasp when he snatches my wrists in his hands. Those beautiful eyes search my face, looking for something that I hope he can see as plain as day, even if our only light is dusky and diffused, falling from one of the clubhouse windows.
“I give up my morals,” he whispers, eyes getting half-lidded, almost dreamlike. “By fucking a sixteen-year-old girl and then pushing her aside because I’m still trying. I’m telling myself that she needs to make her own choices, that I can’t influence the things she does.” He slides his thumbs along my pulse points, and I swallow hard. “I lie to my president and betray my brothers.” He closes his eyes, and I see suddenly how hard this has all really hit him.
It was no small thing for Crown to do what he did. He loves this club. He even loves and respects Cat, is proud to call him president. And he’s given all of that away for me. For me. And all he wants is a baby.
“I’ll—” I start, prepared to offer that up as easily as I breathe. But he cuts me off with this punishing kiss tha
t tastes like tears. They couldn’t possibly be mine, right? But then I realize that they are and that’s okay.
Life is painful, and it doesn’t make you weak to feel alive, to hurt, to show others how you feel. Connection is what makes it all worth it.
“I would’ve taken you far away from here,” Crown whispers against my mouth, breathing heavily, struggling and fighting and yet, still falling. For me. Hard and fast enough to break bones. Spiraling. “So you could live with that boy.” He lets out a harsh laugh and releases me, turning away and raking the fingers of both hands through his hair.
Seeing a man who’s usually so composed but is currently having a breakdown … it’s devastating for me.
I look around, but it’s black as pitch out here, and there’s nobody nearby. I can hear the heavy buzz of chatter from inside the overcrowded building, but that feels like a whole universe away from this.
Crown turns back to me and holds his arms out to either side of him.
“And then I watch you walk down the aisle with someone else. I hate myself for not speaking up.” He drops his arms by his sides and shakes his head with a frustrated scoff. “I hate myself even more for that, I should say.”
“Crown, I’ll—” I try again, but he cuts me off by lifting his head and looking at me so sharply that the words steal from my throat.
“No, Gidge. Shut up. For once, just shut the fuck up and let me talk.”
I blink at him, but I kind of deserve that, so I do what he asks and stay quiet.
Crown stalks back over to me, his boots loud in the gravel, and then looks down at me. Panting, but not touching. Just watching.
“And now you’re pregnant,” he hisses out, clenching his teeth. “It might be mine. I don’t know. But do you know what fucking terrifies me?” He puts his palm on his chest and leans down so that our mouths brush, but he isn’t kissing me, and I’m dying on the inside. “I realized today that I don’t fucking care. I don’t.” He stands back up again and laughs. It isn’t a pretty laugh. Not even close. “Do you know what Beast said to me yesterday?” he asks, almost absently, but that’s a farce. This is the crux of the whole situation. “He told me that he didn’t give a fuck if it was my baby or not. It was his, that’s what he told me. And it could be ours, but it would never be mine.”
I swallow hard, digging my fingers into my thighs and watching as Crown turns his gaze up toward the smoky sky. It smells like ash out here again, like ruined cities and decimated forests and dead things. The moon is a bizarre otherworldly yellow color, like it’s slathered in butter. It has the faintest orange-red ring around the outside, the edges blurred with hazy clouds.
The fires are getting closer, hungry fingers licking their way toward the valley where our once small but very quickly growing town lies nestled.
Wildfires like this can, have, and are currently burning straight through entire towns.
It’s a real fear.
“He wanted me to choose him, but he doesn’t care if I also choose you,” I explain, unsure why that is, why Beast would offer something like me. But now, standing here with Crown, I figure it out. Because … if Beast told me he needed to see other women in order to get over his jealousy, I’d … I’d do it.
Because I want him to stay.
And that’s what he wants from me. To stay. He better not actually want other women because, well, I’m a selfish alpha female bitch, but I don’t think it’s anything I need to worry about.
Any woman who approaches my men will get her ass handed to her by yours truly.
“So what else can you take from me, Gidge?” Crown continues, stalking over to the helmet and picking it back up. He moves over to me and very carefully places it over my head. “All of it. Take it all. Because the only time I like who I am, is when I’m with you.”
Crown is good at grand romantic gestures, sweeping ones that redefine entire universes. He’s also good at small ones, at one-liners that make my knees quake and my pulse pound. What he just said to me is like a sword to the chest, puncturing my heart and leaving it irreparably altered.
I love it.
I love him.
He turns away and swings his leg over his bike, waiting for me to climb on behind him.
It’s no accident that there’s a cushy backrest for me to lean against. Why would Crown get a bike suited comfortably for two? Not for anyone else. He didn’t buy a farmhouse for anyone else. He didn’t save his aunt’s ring for anyone else.
He kicks the bike to life as I wrap my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his back and struggling to breathe. He did that too fast for me to come up with a proper reply, to tell him that I’ll do it. We can have a baby together someday. Fuck.
The ride back to the house is short but blissful.
We’re alone in the woods, and when we get far enough away from the main portion of the compound, we’re immersed in that endless country darkness that scares city people half to death.
The moon is covered in smoke and far too dim to penetrate the canopy. The only light out here is Crown’s bike.
He takes me back to the farmhouse and parks beside the steps, shutting the engine off. And then he just sits there for a moment. I sit back and take the helmet off, holding it between our bodies like a shield.
“Does it hurt that bad to love me like that?” I ask him, but without judgment. If it hurts, it hurts. Crown glances back and then stands up, climbing off so that he can turn to look at me.
“Worse than anything I’ve ever experienced,” he admits, watching me there with memories dancing in his eyes, illuminated by the soft glow of the porch light. It’s a gas lamp which makes it flicker like real flame. That’s what this man’s attention to detail is like. A regular porch light wasn’t enough to bring his wife home to. “Like being eviscerated, crucified, and left to rot in the hot sun.”
“I’ll do it,” I agree, staring down at the surface of the helmet instead of his face. “Does that make it better?”
“Put that fucking helmet down and look at me when you say it,” he growls out, so I chuck the helmet and turn, staring up at him with defiance.
“You’re saying you’ll be mine anyway, right? Whether we have kids or not. So fine. Fuck you. Or rather, fuck me. Fuck me and come inside of me, and give me a baby if that’s what you want. I don’t care.”
Crown grabs my face in two hands, kissing me with that devastating tongue of his, the one that demands literally everything. He might be reluctantly willing to share me with Beast, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be able to give Calder Reid one-fourth of anything.
He demands everything; he demands all of me.
“I need to fuck you,” he murmurs, undoing his jeans. “Right here. Now.”
I look down at his bike and memories come flooding back to me, of a night that quite literally changed all of our lives. It was wicked and dark and sinful and wonderful. It was also wrong. But I don’t give a shit about that.
Everything about my life is wrong to so many, but all that matters is if it’s right to me.
“Fuck me then,” I murmur, standing up and shedding Beast’s jacket. I toss it to the ground as Crown strips off his own shirt, and then I climb off to stand beside him, kicking my boots off and shoving my pants down. My shirt and bra are next, falling on the ground to join the rest of my clothes.
We climb back onto the seat together, but with the backrest, it’s a tighter fit. My back is to the handlebars while he faces me, gabbing my hips and pulling me close so that he can grind our bodies together.
Crown reaches between us and guides himself to my entrance, yanking me hard against him with the other hand so that my body is impaled on his. I’m still sore, but it feels so damn good that I don’t care. My legs wrap around his midsection, and we roll our pelvises together. It’s a team effort in this position, to fit together this way, to look up and find each other’s gazes.
That first night, I can’t speak for the other guys, but Crown … he made love to me.
“Oh God, Gidge,” he groans out, and he gets my name right which makes me happy. “How can you still be this tight? The first time, I figured …” He shakes his head and then leans down, kissing the side of my neck. My hands grip his biceps, feeling the easy strength in them. “Fuck, you feel good.”
I love hearing him say that. I could listen to that every day and never get tired of it.
“More,” I murmur, “keep talking.”
Crown’s arms wrap me up and pull me even closer, crushing our naked chests together. His mouth tastes a bit like ash when we kiss, but I’m sure I taste the same. The sky dictates the tastes and smells of this encounter. Smoke. Burnt things. Fervor.
We’re rocking together in this frenzied, simple motion, but there’s so much feeling in it that it might as well be the most interesting, most incredible thing I’ve ever done.
And Crown is right: it hurts. It hurts so bad. I can never give him the things he wants so he hurts which makes me hurt, and … it’s glorious pain. Once upon a time, I was afraid to feel like this.
Because falling in love is just that—falling.
“Keep talking …” He trails off, sliding his palms along the outsides of my thighs, skimming my scarred but still sensitive flesh with his heat. Crown looks up and into my eyes, and my heart stutters. My arms twine around his neck and I let my head fall back so that I can look up at that strange moon in the sky. “I love you, Gidge.” He puts his mouth near the side of my neck and whispers against my throat. “And I’ll keep loving you even if it kills me.”
I groan and push my hips into him, meeting his pelvis with my own, over and over until Crown is moaning, these low incomprehensible sounds that give me chills. There’s nothing human in that; it’s all animal pleasure and raw nerves. He clings to me and holds me close as he comes inside of me, panting and shivering in the smoky air.
“Shit.”
I put my head against his chest and close my eyes, listening to his heart thundering away. Crown digs his fingers into my hair and strokes my scalp.
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