Sloane slowly pulls out of my mouth and then thrusts back inside, his strokes slow and precise. He slips further down with each pump of his hips.
After a few minutes, his movements speed up, as do my own between my legs. I can’t hold back the whimper. I’m on the edge of my release, and he quickly pulls out of me.
“Not coming down your throat, baby,” he grins.
“Sloane,” I whisper.
“Turn around,” he orders. I quickly do, though I’m not fast enough.
His hand presses against my back and he pushes me down as he slams inside of me. His fingers wrap around my hips, holding me still. He pulls almost completely out of me before he slams back inside on a moan.
“Fucking mother fucking shit,” he groans as his hips start to wildly and roughly fuck me.
He doesn’t slow, he doesn’t stop; he fucks the complete breath out of me with each thrust of his hips. I try to push up on my elbows so that I can rear back against him, but his hand moves from my back to my neck. He wraps his fingers around the back of it, holding me to the bed while he takes his pleasure.
I close my eyes and accept all he gives. I can hear the sounds of our skin slapping filling the room, along with low moans from him every so often, as well. My thighs shake. I’m on the edge, but without something more, I won’t come. I let out a cry of surprise when I feel his finger slide inside of my ass.
“Missed this sweet ass, sunshine,” he rumbles as his cock and finger fuck me in tandem.
When he slips the second finger into my pussy, and starts to curl them inside of me, I don’t hold back my cry. I feel so full of Sloane, so full that I can’t keep from forcing my body up. He lets me, and I rear back against him, which causes him to moan. I reach one of my hands beneath me and touch my clit. On the second stroke, my entire body starts to shake, and I come.
Sloane doesn’t stop fucking me until he roars out his whole climax, my pussy trying to clamp down around him to keep him inside. He removes his fingers but keeps his cock planted deep as he pushes me forward and rests his chest against my back.
“Imogen,” he whispers against my shoulder. I don’t move, waiting, knowing there has to be more he wants to say to me. Plus, my breathing is still erratic, and I’m completely out of breath. “I love you, sunshine,” he murmurs.
I turn my head to the side and look at him in surprise.
“You do?” I ask.
I’m unsure of why after two freaking decades that admission makes my heart race. He’s said the words before; not in a long time. I always treasured them.
Yet, as time went on, I discovered that he didn’t mean them, so I asked him not to say them again until he did. He presses his lips to my shoulder before pressing them to my mouth.
“Yeah, sunshine. Fuck,” he breathes as he slips out of my body and then gathers me in his arms.
Pulling me across his chest, our legs tangle together and his hang off of the side of the bed. “I knew I’d always felt love for Kipling. I knew I felt possessive over you, unable to imagine letting you go and be with another man.
“Until last night—until I saw that hurt in your eyes when you thought that I could have done something with someone else, I don’t know. It hit me differently, and I just know that I can’t hurt you like that again. Everything that I feel for you is so much different since I’m sober.”
I’m surprised at his admission, or the fact that he’s speaking it aloud. “I want to believe you,” I say hesitantly.
“You don’t have to, not yet. I’ll earn it, sunshine,” he murmurs as his face lifts and his lips touch mine.
We stay cuddled together for another twenty minutes, and then he tells me that he has to go or he’s going to be late. Reluctantly, I sit up and allow him to move around the room.
I watch him as he dresses, and I don’t feel the pang of sadness that I thought I would at being back inside of this house. I look around and nothing has changed, except for everything.
I’ve changed, he’s changed—we’ve changed.
“If you want to go into Sacramento and go shopping for new furniture or whatever, please just don’t go alone,” he murmurs as he pulls his boots on.
“Furniture?” I ask in confusion.
“Figured you’d want to get rid of everything here and redecorate. It’s cool with me, baby. We won’t be able to have another house built and ready for move in for at least a year. So whatever you need to do to be okay staying here, it’s whatever you want,” he shrugs.
My eyes water and he cocks his head to the side in confusion.
“I’m okay, Sloane. That’s really, really, sweet,” I whisper.
“Sweet?” he asks with a grin.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever said I was sweet, not ever.”
“Well, you just were,” I grin up at him.
Sloane walks over to me and lowers his head, brushing his lips across mine. “Be home as soon as I can, and I’ll bring some brothers with me to unload the truck. Feels good to have you home, sunshine, and to finally be home,” he murmurs against my lips before pressing them against mine one last time.
He straightens his back, and I watch his ass, encased in his jeans, as he walks away from me.
I stare at the empty doorway for a few minutes before I decide to get up and get dressed for the day. I may not want to completely redecorate this place, but I do plan on purging a bunch of stuff and moving things around.
This is a new life for me, for us, and I’m not going to waste anymore time thinking about the past. If I dwell on everything that Sloane’s done to me, to himself.
If I dwell on all I’ve said to him, on the way I behaved toward him, which was shitty on more than one occasion, we will never move forward. I want to move forward.
Once I’m dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, I throw my hair up and get to work on the house. After I’m finished cleaning and rearranging, I’m going to take inventory of our food and head to the grocery store.
Today is going to be a great day, and I’m not going to let anything stand in my way of making it so.
Sloane loves me.
I love him.
We’re going to make this work.
Leaving Imogen at home wasn’t easy. I wanted to be buried inside her for the rest of the day, but church is non-negotiable, especially after what happened last night. It only takes me a few minutes to get to the clubhouse, and I cuss when I realize that I’m the last person here.
With a grunt, I swing my leg over the side of my bike and take my helmet off, leaving it on my seat, knowing nobody will dare touch it while I’m inside.
The bar is empty, which means they’re all in the room waiting, and that irritates me even more. Though, getting laid by Genny, the way I was so thoroughly satisfied, was completely worth it. I walk into the room with a grin on my face, and Camo’s eyebrows rise as he grins over at me.
“Glad you could join us,” MadDog grumbles as I close the door behind me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I mutter.
“No you’re not,” he laughs, shaking his head. My answer is to shrug. “Okay, let’s get started.”
MadDog pulls out a map with two routes on it marked in different color marker. He shows us the route we’ve been taking from the docks, but then there’s an alternative. He explains that this one is a little less direct, a little more dangerous and exposed. It doesn’t sit right with me.
“I don’t like this new route,” I announce. Texas grunts in agreement.
“I don’t either, but I also don’t know how to get away from the docks any other way. Obviously, someone is onto us. It wouldn’t take a super genius to follow our path,” MadDog says.
“Are there any other docks we can come from, maybe? I mean, what about Humboldt? Maybe we can do that instead? It’s about the same distance as Frisco,” I suggest. MadDog’s eyes snap up to meet mine.
“Let me call Kirill,” he grunts.
We all sit in silence, ea
ch of us watching and waiting. MadDog explains the situation, explains that the heat were onto us, the altercation, and the obvious threats. A few minutes later, he grunts his goodbye and turns to face us.
“Soar, when you’re not high as a kite, you’re useful as fuck,” he chuckles, making everyone else laugh.
I shake my head with a smile and wait for him to continue.
“Kirill is going to have the shipment redirected to Humboldt Bay with a worker on the inside. Same thing will happen. Truck will need to be there, one dock worker to accept payment, and two more men will have to load it up. Now I just need to figure out the best route to take. Hopefully, this completely different county, area, and bay will throw that pig off, whoeverthefuck he is.”
MadDog excuses us, and we all let out a sigh of relief that it seems we have this shit handled for now. The men go straight to the bar, and I find my feet automatically following behind them. I accept an offered beer from a prospect and take a pull as the familiar whore slides up beside me.
“You ready yet?” she asks as she bites on her bottom lip, trying to look enticing.
“Nope,” I say, popping my p for emphasis.
I watch as she pouts and then turns and stomps off, like the child she probably is.
“How you doing?” Texas asks from beside me. I hadn’t noticed that he was even there.
“Good,” I admit, lifting my chin.
“Any cravings?” he asks.
“Nah, man. Had all that detox shit happen when I was locked up.”
He smirks before lifting an eyebrow, “Now that it’s available, you good?”
“Got my wife back, got my brother heading to Harvard, got my life back. I’m fucking great,” I state.
“Lots of shit went down with Genny, and then your dad.”
“Genny walking away from me, I earned that shit. In fact, she should have stayed away. I’m happy she didn’t, but the way I treated her for as long as I did—I don’t deserve her forgiveness. My dad? He was never really my dad. I’m more worried about the way my little brother is handling it rather than me,” I say. Texas nods.
“Just want you to keep your head on straight, brother,” he warns.
“I get popped in a piss test for dope, I’m on a one-way street back to prison. I have no fuckin’ desire to be back there again, so no need to worry about my head,” I clarify before I walk away from him.
I ignore him calling my name, and I drop my beer on the nearest table before I head to my ride.
I start my bike, and without another thought, I take off. I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t want to be around the clubhouse right now. I don’t feel tempted by the bitches or dope, but Texas pissed me off.
It makes me wonder if everybody else is thinking like him. If they’re all waiting for me to fail, to take that first hit of coke or whatever.
It’s not like I don’t have enough pressure with Imogen waiting for me to sink inside of some whore. I can tell that she’s braced for it to happen. She’s prepared to feel that hurt from me, and it kills me. I bought that shit with every shitty decision I made.
I automatically stop in front of the tattoo parlor, and I don’t think. My bike knows me better than I do, and right now, it knows I need something. Ink. I don’t have much, just my club’s patch on my back, but now I think I need to add to my body.
“Hey, brother,” Nick calls out from his stool.
He’s drawing something and doesn’t have anyone in his chair, so I ask him if he has a couple hours to spare for a smaller piece.
“You finally decide to mar the front of you?” he asks on a laugh. He’s been trying to get me to add to my back piece for years.
“Outside of my forearm,” I mutter.
“Old Lady’s name?” he asks on a hunch. I nod.
“She’s put up with my ass for almost twenty years, figure I should make a gesture to show her what she means,” I shrug.
“Fuckin’ hell man, twenty years?” he asks as he pulls out a paper. I watch him, pen-in-hand, start to sketch.
“She was fifteen when I met her. Name’s Imogen,” I grin.
“Robbing cradles,” he snickers.
A few minutes later, he turns his sketchpad around and I’m blown away. It’s Genny’s name written in old English with a crown that looks like it’s hanging off of the I.
I smirk at the crown because it’s so her, “So you remember her?”
Grinning, he shakes his head a little, “Hard to forget that little blonde princess you brought in here all those years ago.”
I get into position and close my eyes as he preps to tattoo me. I also ask him to freshen up my wedding band’s ink. Fresh ink for our fresh start.
I didn’t miss this grocery store. Not a single freaking bit. I push my cart down the aisle and narrow my eyes at the box of pasta in front of me. It’s the only veggie pasta they have, and it looks like it has about an inch of dust on the box. I let out a sigh and turn my cart right around, deciding to leave town and go to the good store, even if that’s about an hour way.
“Oh, sorry,” a young girl says as she bumps into my cart.
“Umm, sorry about that, I wasn’t really paying attention,” I mutter as I hike my bag higher over my shoulder.
“Aren’t you Soar’s Old Lady?” she practically sneers.
I take her in a little closer and I blink once. She’s dressed slutty, really slutty. Without even thinking about it, I know exactly what she is. A whore. My back stiffens, and I narrow my eyes on her.
“I am,” I state.
“I can’t wait until he’s finished playing nice with you. He’s the best fuck I’ve ever had,” she announces before she walks away, leaving me standing in the middle of the supermarket, completely shocked.
“What a little see-you-next-Tuesday,” the cashier says from behind her counter, a few feet away, with a pop of her gum.
“I don’t even know who she is,” I murmur.
“Ignore her. Little girls like that?” she shakes her head. “Self-conscious and mean.”
I nod but hurry out of the store, my eyes watering. I push thoughts of the little bitch out of my mind. I’ll talk to Sloane when he’s home, I promised him that we’d give this a fair shake. I can’t start jumping to conclusions without giving him a chance, even if I really, really want to.
Once I reach my car, my step falters at the man who is leaning his ass against my driver’s side door. Pressing my lips together, I continue to walk toward my vehicle. When he sees me, he pushes off of the side and takes a few steps in my direction before he stops and looks down at me.
“Imogen,” his smooth voice murmurs.
My eyes shift from side to side before I close the distance between us. “What are you doing here?”
“Thought that I’d check up on you. See how your old man was treating you,” he rasps, his hand wrapping around my shoulder, and giving it a squeeze.
I shake my head and my hair flies around a little in combination with the low winds. “I’m good,” I practically whisper as my heart bangs against the ribs in my chest.
I don’t know why I’m not running and screaming from him, why I’m not stomping on his foot and kneeing him in the balls, but after the mini-scene I just had with that whore, I feel vulnerable and weak.
Graham’s finger slips under my chin and lifts my face so that I’m forced to look in his eyes. “Are you done being played by him again, yet?”
I open my mouth to respond, to tell him that I’m not being played. I open my mouth to defend him, because Sloane is mine and I’m his. I love him and he loves me, no matter what that little whore says. She probably knows about our relationship and our past. She probably knows exactly what buttons of mine to push.
Jerking out of Graham’s hold, I take a step back. “Sloane is my husband. I already broke it off with you, Graham. I’ve told you, even if Sloane isn’t in the picture, you won’t be either.”
He shakes his head as though he’s disappointed before
he lifts his face and smirks at me, his eyes sparkling in a devious manner. “I thought that I’d give you one last shot, darling. I thought that you would be smart and save yourself. I didn’t peg you for a woman who would want to go down with her man,” he shrugs before he starts to walk away.
“Go down?” I call out after him.
Graham stops and turns to face me, standing about ten feet away. “Darling, don’t you know it yet? It may take me awhile, but I will win. The game may have changed, but I’m still going to take you away from him. It’s just that I’m not going to keep you this time. I’ve offered you up to be played with, a reward of sorts.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
His grin turns devilish and it makes my stomach hurt, just at the sight of it. “Anticipation is fucking killer, isn’t it? Besides, I know you won’t tell Sloane. You’ll be scared, wondering if that cop is going to pull you over and use you on the side of the road; curious as to when Sloane will get locked up again. When he does, I’ve decided I’m going to use your body as I see fit. A plaything of sorts. Do you know how many men want a taste of Imogen Stewart-Huntington? It’s going to be great fun, darling. Just you wait and see.”
My knees shake and my legs practically turn to jello at his words. My vision gets hazy, and I wrap my hand around the door handle of my car and try to keep my self standing straight. My eyes dart around the parking lot after I’ve gathered my wits, and I notice that I’m now alone. He’s gone and, unfortunately, he left me with nothing but fear.
I should tell Sloane immediately. Graham is right, I won’t. I don’t want him to get sent back, and I have a feeling kicking Graham’s ass will do just that. Sliding into my car, I grip the steering wheel tightly before I head toward home. I need a damn glass of booze. Not beer or wine, either. I need the hard stuff.
Pulling into the garage, I have one thought and one thought only on my mind—packing. I can’t be here. I can’t be the reason he gets sent back to prison. I know my husband, and I also know that he won’t stand for Graham’s threats. Once I walk inside, I shake my head.
The house looks different, and it should feel different, but suddenly it feels the exact same.
Rough & Rich (Notorious Devils Book 6) Page 15