The Rise of Ferryn

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "I missed you too," I admitted, moving down over him, sealing my lips to his.

  There didn't need to be any more talking.

  His lips were passive under mine for a long moment before his control finally seemed to snap, making him lift, roll over, roll me under his weight, press me deep into the mattress as his lips burned into mine, demanded more from me, refusing to settle for anything but all I could give.

  And give I did.

  Happily.

  Wholly.

  My legs wrapped around his lower back, holding him to me as my hips shamelessly ground upward into him while my hands tugged at his shirt, yanking it up, waiting for his lips to break from mine to allow me to remove it, watching as he pressed backward between my legs to remove his arms, tossing it to the side to mingle with my tank on the floor.

  His hands glided down my calves, uncrossing my ankles from his lower back, pressing my feet down on the mattress at either side of his body, fingers sliding up the tops of my thighs, air hissing out of him when my breath caught, his fingers curling into the material of my panties at my hips, pulling.

  My hips lifted up, allowing him to slide them down, pressing my knees into my chest to slide them off my ankles, leaving me perfectly bare before him.

  Vance took a breath so deep it expanded his whole chest before folding downward, pressing his lips into my throat, tongue moving outward to glide down, running along my neck, clavicle, down over the hardened bud of my nipple, making my back arch up off the bed almost painfully before his lips sealed, sucked, made everything go white.

  This.

  This was something entirely new to me.

  I knew sex.

  I'd experienced pleasure.

  But it was almost painfully clear that this, this was what I had been missing since the beginning.

  Intimacy.

  Connection.

  The intoxicating combination of physical pleasure and emotional affection.

  My body was buzzing with it.

  My soul felt lifted with it.

  Soon, though, all those flowery thoughts flew from my head as Vance's head shifted, lips blazing a path down the center of my belly. Lower.

  An almost pained gasp escaped me as his lips sealed over my clit, sending shocks of pleasure through my system, nearly pushing me over the edge right then and there.

  My hand slapped down on the back of his neck, holding him to me. As if he had any intentions of moving away.

  He didn't.

  His tongue moved over me with single-minded purpose, driving me quickly up to the edge, throwing me recklessly over, leaving me gasping through the orgasm, too breathless even to call out his name as the waves crashed savagely through me.

  His body moved over mine, his lips claiming mine once again, pressing harder, deeper, bruising in.

  My hands clawed down his back, yanking mindlessly at his pants, too lost in the need to have more, to have him, to feel him inside me that I couldn't seem to remember that the button and zip needed to be undone.

  Vance, luckily, managed to remember himself, pushing up enough to undo them with one hand. Mine took over from there, yanking his pants and boxer briefs down over his hips, ass, down his thighs.

  There was a short shuffle for protection before his body pressed into mine fully again, his cock dangerously close to where I needed him most.

  "Now," I heard myself beg, hands sinking into his ass, trying to shift him, trying to put an end to the clawing need building inside me.

  "Baby," he called. "Babe... Ferryn," he tried finally, managing to break through the growing desperation. "Ace, look at me," he demanded softly, refusing to budge until I forced my desire-heavy eyes open, finding his gaze on me. "There you are," he said, lips curving up ever so slightly as his hips shifted, as his cock pushed, then pressed inside on one slow, deep thrust.

  I nearly shattered right then and there.

  As a rule, I was not an eye contact person during sex. It was too close, too personal.

  But I wanted nothing but close and personal with Vance.

  My eyes stayed on his while he moved inside me.

  Another first.

  Slow.

  Sweet.

  Almost—dare I even think it—loving.

  "Shh, babe, shh," he demanded as my whimpers turned to moans, as my moans became pleas. "Shh," he tried again as my orgasm started to crest. His hand pressed down over my mouth just in time, muffling out my cries as he pressed deep, as he came with me.

  Bodies spent, he collapsed over me, our heartbeats hammering in unison.

  Even if I wanted to, my body wouldn't have been capable of moving. My bones were gelatinous. My muscles may well have not existed.

  But what was more important, I think, was the fact that there was no desire to.

  To get up, to get dressed, to get gone.

  That was how it used to be.

  My heartbeat couldn't even slow before I needed to flee.

  Everything within me, though, wanted to stay. Stay as long as I possibly could. Until this warm feeling became a part of me again, settled down, took root.

  "Let me up," Vance demanded softly, making me realize I had wrapped him up with all limbs, had my face planted in his neck.

  Realizing just how needy that was, just how new this was, I released him as though he burned me. I should have known he would notice the change, would call me on it.

  "Don't do that," he demanded. "Just give me a minute."

  "Take as long as you need. I, ah, I need to get back to my room. We shouldn't have done this here," I added.

  "Yeah, probably not," he agreed. "And you are going to have to go back to your room. But not just yet. We still got that talk," he reminded me, giving me a pointed look before disappearing into the bathroom.

  Alone, I pressed a hand to my heart, wondering if its frantic pace was still from the sex—the amazing, world-tilting sex—or the prospect of the upcoming conversation.

  Both, maybe.

  "Was I fast enough that you haven't started overthinking yet?" he asked, emerging barely a minute later, still perfectly naked and breathlessly unfazed by it.

  "I can't really think much at all right now," I admitted, finding my brain slow. "And I'm not prone to overthinking."

  "Yeah, okay," he said, rolling his eyes as he reached for an old beer on his nightstand, taking a swig, holding it out to me. "Once overheard you and Iggs debate what it meant when that girl in class called your outfit for the school dance 'daring' for eight days."

  I felt my lips curve up at that.

  We'd spent so much time worrying about the thoughts and opinions of people who didn't matter, who never mattered, whose names I couldn't even remember after all these years.

  What a waste.

  "Alright, well, I am not an over-thinker anymore," I corrected, moving over to make room for him to drop down. Which he did. Then threw an arm around me, curling me onto his chest. A part of me said I should pull away, get some clothes on, go back to my room. The other part—arguably a larger part—wanted to stay, never wanting to know what it might be like not to feel his arms around me, his fingers gliding down my arm.

  "Good. Then you won't be a pain in the ass about this."

  "About what?" I asked. "What is 'this?'"

  "It's... something."

  "'Something' isn't really a good explanation."

  "No," he agreed, nodding, finger tracing over a particularly ugly scar just above my hip. I'd taken a pocketknife there, and yanked away, causing a jagged cut that hadn't healed clean, leaving a feather-like scar in its wake. "But it is more than saying it's nothing. We both know it's not nothing. It's never been nothing."

  "No, I guess it hasn't," I agreed. "But things are different. We're different."

  "It's a good thing you plan on sticking around for a while then," he said, plugging on quickly so I couldn't interject and remind him that I hadn't made any promises about how long I would be staying around.

  "We aren't going
to be public with this, are we?"

  "Worried about your dad?"

  "I think you're the one who should be worried about my dad," I reminded him.

  "Probably right," he agreed, fingers moving up to trace up the short sides of my hair. "What made you buzz your head?"

  "Practicality," I told him, giving him enough of the truth but not all of it. "I recently grew the top longer."

  "It suits you. Always liked your long hair, but think this suits your personality."

  "You don't really know my personality. Not anymore."

  "I'm learning. And I am liking it. If you stop being such a pain in the ass, I could learn more."

  "I'm not being a pain in the ass. I'm being cautious."

  "You know what I think, Ace?"

  "What?"

  "Think you maybe need someone you can talk to."

  "I can't talk to anyone."

  "Babe, the fuck we going to be able to start if you won't talk to me?"

  "I do talk to you."

  "About the other shit."

  "I can't talk to you about the other shit."

  "Yes, you can."

  "No, I can't," I objected, pushing up, looking down at him.

  "You're going to have to."

  "I don't have to do anything."

  "Alright, let's not do this right now," he suggested, holding up a hand.

  "You're right. Let's not do this," I agreed, moving over him, standing off the side of the bed.

  "You know that's not what I meant." He sighed, reaching out, but I was already pulling on my panties, my tank.

  "Look," I said, taking a deep breath, reminding myself that normal people who lived normal lives opened up, shared. Even if there was shame. Even if there was insecurity. The problem was, I was not a normal person and I didn't live a normal life. And the things I had done were things that normal people couldn't handle. Vance might have been an outlaw biker, but there wasn't blood on his hands. There weren't nightmares that kept him awake. I couldn't open up to him. But I also couldn't exactly be mad at him for not understanding why I couldn't. "If you want something here, you need to understand that there is some shit about me that you can't know about, that I can't tell you."

  "And if I can't accept that?" he asked, those piercing eyes of his almost sad.

  "Then I guess this stops before it really starts."

  Ten

  Vance - Present Day

  She was a stubborn ass.

  Still.

  I couldn't decide if I was relieved by that fact or annoyed.

  Or maybe both.

  Probably both, I decided as I dragged myself into the shower a little before seven in the morning, knowing Summer was already up, had already been up for hours, excitedly cleaning the clubhouse, likely jotting down a long list of things to make one of us grab from the store.

  I knew she'd been up because I'd been up.

  I'd been up because it was proving impossible to sleep after Ferryn left.

  I'd tossed for hours before I finally gave up.

  I didn't know what Ferryn had been up to over the years, but judging by the map of scars on her body, she hadn't exactly been knitting sweaters and eating BonBons.

  Whatever she'd been doing, she found herself bleeding more than a few times. The weird scar on her hip, dozens up her arms, four on the stomach and rib area, one particularly gruesome one near her throat that had some serious fucking implications it made my stomach twist to think about.

  Her life had clearly been hard and dark and cold and ugly for a long time.

  It was hard for her to even understand light and warm and comforting. Let alone to accept it as something she could have.

  I knew I needed to understand that.

  I knew she would need time.

  I could give her that.

  She'd consumed almost nine fucking years of my life already. I'd been searching for her in every bar and grocery store in every state I had been in for nearly a decade.

  I could give her more time.

  The question was if she would give it to me.

  Clearly, I had no fucking idea what her life was about since she left Navesink Bank, but it was still an active part of her life. It still made her run when her phone rang. And that meant I would never know how much time I had with her before she would up and run off. For who knew how long.

  She was a known flight risk.

  I didn't want to clip her wings.

  I just wanted her to know I could fly too.

  Or I could hang back and wait for her to return.

  So long as she returned.

  Which was what I had to convince her to keep doing.

  But slowly. Over time. Because I knew that she was easy to spook right now. She'd handled her parents, siblings, and aunt and uncle well. Even Fallon's refusal to spend any time with her. Today would be a bigger test. It would be overwhelming handling everyone's happiness and relief mixed with some definite anger and resentment at once.

  So I wasn't going to go at her again this morning, knowing she had enough on her plate. But we damn sure weren't done talking.

  She'd walked into my room while I had that new song floating through my head. For the first time in years. And that song? Yeah, that song was about her. Like all the rest had been since she left.

  It had been starting to really come together, words cascading into my head, begging to be put in the right order so it could all finally become something.

  I'd all but given up hope on having that part of myself back again.

  All I needed was her.

  Not to say she was my muse. That was a cheap and ugly thing to call a person who existed to do more than help you write music, but I think maybe being able to complete the story I had started to albums ago was what was calling to me. Her return was the completion of one thing.

  And the beginning of something new, something unexpected.

  I always wanted her to come home. But I never expected it to be for personal reasons, that there could be something between us.

  I wanted her to come home because around every holiday and every club gathering, Summer could be found with a far-off, sad look in her eye. I wanted her home because Iggy still couldn't have an outing with me without mentioning Ferryn and wondering where she was and if she was okay.

  I wanted her to come home because it bothered me that one event had so wholly changed the entire course of her life.

  And, yeah, I wanted her to come home because I felt a little guilt in it all, I wondered if everyone looked at me as though me acting faster or refusing to take the girls to that shopping center in the first place could have prevented all of this.

  I had a hand in all that happened.

  I wanted to know she was okay and living a good life so that some of that guilt could go away.

  I didn't want her to come back expecting that a crush she had eight years ago might be something she still carried with her and now that she was legal, I could act upon.

  But here we were.

  In so many ways, everything had changed. Yet in others, there was so much that was still the same.

  We still fell into conversation easily. We still debated things with a lot of passion. We still enjoyed each other's company.

  She was changed, yes, but I don't think quite as much as she thought she was changed. I was pretty sure that under a few deep levels of hard that a rough life had piled on her, she was still the same girl. The one who liked baking Christmas cookies with her mom. The one who fretted about her library books being late because her Aunt Reese was the local librarian. The girl who soaked up all the life lessons casually tossed at her from her uncles who had all led pretty colorful lives. The girl who had a connection with my sister like nothing I had ever known until I was a much older adult, until I had become part of a brotherhood.

  Those were all still parts of her. And, for some reason, I felt like she was choosing not to see them. Maybe it made it easier for her. Maybe whatever life she had been living couldn'
t allow those things into it. Maybe those parts of her were seen as soft and weak in a place where she had to be hard and strong just to survive.

  She had likely been so steeped in that world that she forgot that she deserved more than to simply survive.

  I was so lost in my own thoughts that I missed that someone else was in my room until they spoke.

  "I know my brother had some words with you last night," Cash started, making me jolt back, finding him standing just inside my doorway. "But I just wanted to come in here and tell you that if you ever fucking lie to my face again, you will be out of this fucking club, you get me?"

  Cash was generally not the brass. Reign, always groomed from boyhood to eventually take over the club, was the harder one, the one who cracked down, the one who made it clear that you would pay for fucking up.

  Cash, well, Cash was generally known for fucking up. Under his older brother's shadow, Cash was given a longer leash and he used it to screw around, break rules, have fun. It made him a more laid-back person. He wasn't known for cracking down or doling out threats.

  So the fact that he was doing so now said a hell of a lot.

  "I get you," I agreed, nodding.

  "Good," he agreed, tension leaving his body. "Now on the other hand, thank you for keeping an eye on Ferryn. I get wanting to keep the surprise. I'm glad she had one of us to take her in when she needed it."

  "If you think your niece needs anyone else to get by, we must not be talking about the same woman."

  "Christ," Cash sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Woman. That is a hard one to swallow, y'know? Especially because she was still firmly in kid territory when she left."

  "Yeah, she's done a lot of growing up," I agreed.

  "Yeah. She's still passed out, but some of the girls are filing in. And I'm being sent out to grab eggs. My advice is to stay out of the kitchen or they'll have you running out too," he added, moving off into the hallway.

  "Whoa," I said, nearly slamming into Peyton—the mermaid-haired, fully tatted, pierced woman of one of my brothers—standing in the middle of the hall, holding up two pairs of pants.