My hips don’t comprehend the difference as my pelvis slaps against her ass hard and fast. My palm itches to redden her other cheek, instead I reach around her and tease her clit with my fingers. Playing her, tuning her, waiting for her to hit the high notes.
“You still want more?” I pant, flicking my finger over the bundle of nerves exposed by the swollen lips of her pussy. “Tell me what you want, Cel? Need to hear that mouth get filthy for me.”
“I want more,” she stammers. “Everywhere.”
I drag my fingers away from her and lift them to her lips.
“Suck,” I command.
She does as she’s told, taking my already wet fingers between her lips.
In and out, my fingers mimic every thrust of my cock.
My head spins.
My balls ache.
I’m losing it.
Knowing I can’t go much longer, I take my fingers from her mouth and slip them between her ass cheeks.
A promise is a fucking promise.
“I can’t hold out anymore,” she stutters, pulling on the sheets as her hips buck. I barely get a finger inside before I feel her pussy squeeze my dick. She hangs her head as she chants my name over and over.
Sin, gorgeous.
Grunting, I slide my finger out, grab her hips and fuck her with everything I have. A flash of wild abandoned pleasure rushes through me as I fight to breathe…to see. My hips snap along with my mind as my sin spills into her and a flash of heaven blinds me.
Too much.
Not enough.
Everything.
I feel her body start to fall and quickly wrap an arm around her waist, softening her descent into the mattress. Drenched in sweat, singed in a fire created by us, we collapse as one. Struggling to find my way back to reality, I push aside her hair and kiss the back of her neck.
“You okay?” I ask hoarsely.
A soft moan falls from her lips as I withdraw from her and softly turn her so she’s on her back. Eyes closed, her chest heaves as she tries to catch her breath. My eyes skate over her body as I swallow hard and run a hand over my face.
“Fuck, Cel…I’m—”
“I swear I didn’t come here for that,” she interrupts. Her eyes blink open as I drop my hand from my face and stare back at her. “That was…amazing,” she chokes.
My lips tick, curving into a grin and I finally let my body drop next to hers.
“Yeah, it was,” I agree, rolling onto my back. Listening to our breaths, I stare up at the ceiling as a sense of calm washes over me. It’s a fleeting moment, one that is quickly replaced with knowledge.
I don’t do calm.
And this feeling I’ve got is nothing but a tease.
A temptation sent from the devil.
Because in a couple of hours I’ll be riding with my brothers to an uncertain hell.
In a couple of hours, she’ll be wondering if I’m coming back and I’ll be fighting to make sure I do.
“Jagger,” she whispers, jarring me from my own conflicted thoughts. “Cobra,” she amends, releasing a breath.
I turn on my side, lift my hand to her face and force her eyes to me.
“Leave the heavy outside, baby,” I murmur, seeing the sad story start to take root in her eyes.
Thoughtfully her eyes gaze into mine as she reaches out and traces the words tattooed on my collar bone.
Live to die.
It’s true.
We’re given life and then it’s taken.
My eyes dip to the tattoo on her hip.
Beyond the clouds a beautiful sky awaits.
Everyone wants that to be true too.
A place to go when it’s all over.
Heaven.
The tattoo disappears as she lifts the sheet over her body.
“There’s something you need to know,” she whispers.
My gut clenches as my eyes rake over her. The pleasure that covered every inch of her is gone and she’s nothing but a coiled bundle of nerves. Uncertainty and fear are etched across her beautiful face, and when she turns those deep brown eyes on me there is a shit ton of sadness reflecting back at me, burning a hole right through my chest.
“It used to feel like there was this big black cloud following us, clinging to our dreams. That cloud dragged us away, it took all the beauty we were supposed to experience and kept us latched to the ugly.”
Sighing, I roll my neck and push myself into sitting position.
“Celeste—”
“Please let me finish.”
I glance over at the duffel bags sitting in front of the door next to my boots. Soon I’ll be strapping those bags to my bike and those boots will nudge my kickstand off the asphalt. I’ll take to the wind and drag my pipes to Boston.
I’ll walk out of heaven.
Throw my life into Satan’s hands.
If it’s meant to be I’ll come back to her.
If it’s not, then this is her last chance to say her peace.
“Go on,” I sigh, turning my attention back to her.
“That cloud followed us to that hotel two years ago, but it finally tore away from us. It broke apart and when the fragments cleared all that was left was a beautiful sky,” she continues.
“Your tattoo…”
She shakes her head and my eyebrows knit together in confusion as tears fall from the corners of her eyes.
“It’s not about us, not anymore.”
Dread churns in my gut.
Intuition knows the game and the words she says next are either going to change the play or end the game.
“It’s about her.”
“Her,” I repeat.
“Our daughter.”
Game over.
-Twenty-one-
Cobra
Our daughter.
“Say something,” she whispers. “Jagger, please say something,” she begs.
What do I say? I’m sure there are a hundred things I should say, but I can’t think of a single one. All I can do is replay the words in my head over and over, hoping they sink in and I have some sort of reaction.
Our daughter.
Hers.
Mine.
“Her name is Skylar,” she cries, wiping the tears trailing down her face with the back of her hand. Her tone is full of remorse until she speaks her name then the threads of pride weave through.
Skylar.
Mine.
“Skylar Alexandria,” she amends.
Her words are a knife buried deep inside me, twisting with every word, with every fucking crumb she throws at my feet.
Our daughter.
Jesus, fuck!
Trying to pull myself together, I rub my hands down my face as a vicious anger boils in my veins. The same vicious poison that led my brothers to name me Cobra. One bite can kill. One bite and like the king cobra, I can strip a person down to nothing. One bite and I become a deadly bastard.
“She’s beautiful, Jagger,” she adds.
“Stop,” I snap.
My jaw clenches as my body vibrates with the need to destroy something.
My anger knows no bounds and if I don’t control myself, that venom will reign down on Celeste.
Fucking Celeste.
The girl I never got over. The woman I desire most.
The mother of my kid.
My kid.
I throw my legs over the side of the bed, desperate to get away from her because I don’t trust myself right now. Gritting my teeth, I grab my jeans from the floor and pull them up my legs. Zipping them up, I turn around and watch as she reaches for her clothes. She pulls her shirt over her head and pushes the sheet away from her body. I don’t say a word as I keep my eyes glued to her and will myself to calm down.
Tears fall shamelessly down her cheeks as she searches the small room for the rest of her clothes.
The tension mounts with every passing second, making this a slow moving collision. You know the kind—you see the cars headed for one another, hers and mine, bu
t you lose your voice. You can’t shout a warning, all you can do is sit there and watch us hit each other head on. The impact will leave you numb and you’ll wonder why the world is such an ugly pit of misery.
Bending down I grab her pants and throw them across the room at her.
“There’s your fucking pants,” I growl.
Picking them off the floor where they land, she lifts her wide eyes to mine.
“You don’t get to treat me like this,” she sneers, struggling to pull her tight pants up her legs. The remorse leaves her eyes and the fire ignites.
“Oh no? Okay, tell me how I should treat you?” I seethe. “Go on and tell me how the fuck I’m supposed to react to you right now? I’m having a hard time trying to decide for myself.”
“I don’t know,” she shouts. “I don’t know how you’re supposed to feel or what you’re supposed to say, but I’m pretty sure making me feel like a five dollar hooker isn’t going to help anything,” she spits, crossing her arms over her chest.
CRASH.
Tempers collide.
Anger is unleashed.
Minds unhinged.
“Oh, are your feelings hurt?” I grunt. “I’m so fucking sorry your feelings are hurt, Cel. Maybe I should’ve let you come off your just fucked high before I ripped into you for dropping a bomb like that on me.”
“Fuck you,” she sneers. “I told you I didn’t come here for that! I came here with every intention of telling you about her.”
“How big of you,” I taunt. “You ever think you should’ve maybe told me sooner? Been two fucking weeks since I first saw you after the bomb went off. Two fucking weeks and a whole bunch of fucking times where you could’ve told me about her.”
“Two weeks,” she scoffs. “Yeah, I suppose I could’ve told you after I saw you covered in blood, holding a dead woman’s shoes,” she hollers sarcastically. “The thing is, two years ago, I ran into you at a hotel. It was one fucking night and when you were finished with me, you were out the door.”
“You’re the one that walked out the door.”
“Yeah, after you made me. After you told me the boy I loved was dead and all that was left was a monster,” she reminds me, stepping closer. “You were dead to me, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve learned once someone’s gone they’re gone for good.”
There is no mistaking the reference to my sister.
Gone.
Gone for good.
“Don’t make this shit about Alexandria,” I order.
“It’s always about Alexandria. Don’t you get it? Don’t you see? Every damn thing that’s ever happened to us always goes back to that night. This is no different. You made me walk out of that hotel room so you could go on searching for the answers you hoped would clear your conscience, answers you needed to put your sister to rest. As much as I wanted you to stay and choose me, I knew you couldn’t. I also knew there was a small part of me that didn’t want you to, a small part of me that wanted you to find the bastard that took her from us and ruined our lives. It’s that small part of me that made it possible for me to walk away from you. It’s that small part I clung to when I was alone in a hospital delivering our daughter. It’s what I hold onto every damn day I look at her and see you.”
“Her.”
“Yes, her. You have a daughter,” she rasps, her voice trembles the same way her whole body does. “No, I didn’t look at you that day in the hospital and fight some crazy urge to tell you the truth. I looked at you and thought how fucked the universe is. Then I saw you again, sitting in Linc’s room and I still didn’t want to tell you, but I ran upstairs to the day care center and hugged her because seeing you again wrecked me. Here I was with this precious girl that was equal parts you and me, a testament of everything we shared and everything we lost. A precious girl I will do anything to protect. I didn’t tell you then because I had no idea you were living here. I thought you’d pick up and leave. I waited for you to leave, expected to find you gone every day I walked into the hospital. I didn’t want her to have to watch you walk away. But you didn’t leave. You stood there day after day, and the few times you and I were with one another, you began to make it clear you weren’t leaving.”
“Even if I was leaving don’t you think you should’ve told me? I would’ve stayed.”
“Really? You really think you would’ve? Because I’m looking at you right now and all I see raging in your eyes is the need to flee.”
“Don’t mistake what you see in my eyes for anything other than anger. If I walk away, it’s because I have to. It’s because staying here is too fucking much for me to wrap my head around. It doesn’t mean I won’t be back. It doesn’t fucking mean I’m not going to want more than to know her name,” I grind out, shoving my arms through a t-shirt before pushing my head through it.
Once its on, I push my hair away from my eyes and pin her with a look.
“You make that girl by yourself?”
“Of course not,” she fires back.
“Then you don’t get to decide my part in her life.”
“I don’t want to decide your part in her life that’s why I told you,” she says, stepping forward so that we’re only a breath apart. “But decide wisely, Cobra, because once you’re in, you’re in. I won’t let you walk in and out of her life.”
I open my mouth to rip into her but my words die on my tongue once I hear the distinct roar of motorcycles. Her eyes dart toward to the door as someone pounds a fist against it. Quickly, I reach for the gun on my nightstand and glance over my shoulder.
“Get down,” I demand as I inch my way closer to the door.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” she shrieks.
“Quit giving me your lip. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to keep quiet, you seem to be a pro,” I sneer, pulling back the safety of my gun as I aim the barrel toward the door. The rumble of engines grows louder as the banging on the door persists.
“Cobra, open the fucking door, bro,” Deuce bellows.
Lowering my gun, I stand behind the door and peer into the peephole as he flips me the bird knowingly.
“Open the door, dickhead,” he shouts.
After a quick glance at Celeste, I pull it open and meet his amused stare.
“Ready to ride, motherfucker?” he asks as he wiggles his eyebrows and glances over my shoulder. “I bet you are, you dirty dog.”
“I need a minute,” I tell him.
The amusement leaves him as he studies my features, instantly recognizing the devil in my eyes.
“Shit,” he hisses as I turn to hand him the duffel bags.
“Take these, tell them I’ll be ready in five. If they give you any shit, tell Blackie he’s fucking early,” I instruct.
“Gotcha, brother,” he says with a nod before looking back at Celeste. “Blondie,” he acknowledges before slinging the bags over his shoulders and walking away.
Spinning around, I reach for my cut and slide my arms through it.
“Is this the ride you were talking about?” she questions lowly.
I shove my gun into the waistband of my jeans and load the clip into another one. Fully loaded, I turn my eyes back to her.
“Go home, Celeste,” I order evenly.
“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”
“That’s it,” I confirm. “That’s all I can give you right now. It’s all I got.”
She stares at me blankly.
In another life, I’d take her into my arms and tell her everything would be okay.
In another life, I’d forget about the reaper on my back and I’d go meet my daughter.
In this life, I do none of those things.
In this life, I turn around and walk right out the door.
In this life, I straddle my bike, banding together with my brothers.
Brooklyn.
Bergen County.
In this life, the two become one.
In this life, I rev my engine and ride straight to revenge, thinki
ng of a faceless child that’s mine.
In this life, I stare at the patch sewn to the backs of the men riding in front of me and I wonder how they do it. How do they balance both—the club and family? Blackie doesn’t have kids, but Riggs does and here he is, riding in front of me locked and loaded, prepared to kill.
The men at my sides, Deuce and Stryker, they don’t have shit. Like me, they’re still lost, but the men behind me, the Bergen County chapter, well, I’m sure some of them forgot to wrap their shit and have a kid or two floating around.
Maybe all they know is hell.
Maybe they never got to experience heaven.
They don’t know there is more than this.
When you live chaos, you breed it too.
They don’t know there is beauty buried deep beneath the ugly.
Yeah, they don’t know about that life.
In this life, all they know, all I know is what is staring in front of me.
Lit up like the shiny unsuspecting target it is, the Corrupt Bastards’ clubhouse comes into view and Blackie swirls his finger in the air.
It’s our cue.
Wrangle in the mayhem.
Deliver the evil.
Sin.
Flashing my headlights like the rest of my brothers, I steer my bike with one hand and reach for the rifle strapped to my back.
In this life, I am Satan’s deadliest soldier, a man who isn’t worth shit.
A man who isn’t worth the glory of being an innocent little girl’s daddy.
In this life, I am the man who tips his chin toward his brother and accelerates his bike to cover his acting president’s ass.
In this life, I throw my life down for his and fire away for brotherhood.
In this life, I pull the trigger and try to imagine a little girl I’ve never seen.
In this life, I hear Celeste’s voice say her name as I dismount from my bike.
Skylar.
Skylar Alexandria.
Holding my gun steady, I send bullet after bullet whizzing through the air.
I wonder if she has blonde hair or brown.
Are her eyes blue like mine or the color of chocolate like her mama’s?
Blackie pulls a glass bottle from his saddle bag and shoves a soaked rag inside it. Lighting the tip of it with a match, he sends the Molotov cocktail flying into the enemy’s window.
The Nomad Series-Collectors Edition Page 45