by C. M. Marin
“You weren’t here when I woke up. I thought…” I pause before deciding to stupidly admit anyway, “I thought I dreamed you coming back.”
My fragile voice breaks at the end.
“Not a dream, I’m right here.” He cradles my head when I nuzzle his neck. “But don’t cry again, baby. You freaked me the fuck out yesterday. I almost called Doc to see if he could bring you some sleeping pills or something.”
It’s better if I don’t think back to that memory myself. Excruciating pain is very far from describing accurately the feeling that roared into my chest when a stranger on TV said those words I can still hear in a corner of my mind.
…a little over an hour ago, Nate Bowers, the president of the Chaos Chasers, a well-known motorcycle club, died from his injuries sustained after he was shot a few days ago…
I gulp for air before pulling away from him, and I only speak when I feel like my voice can come out steady.
“How are you?” I ask him quietly, my gaze falling on his gauze-covered chest.
“I’m good.”
“You were shot,” I remind him.
“Doctors wouldn’t have left me leave if I hadn’t been just fine.”
Of course they would have. It’s not like these bikers are known for following the rules. Nate wouldn’t even have stayed there if the doctors had begged him to. But there’s no need to engage in a debate.
At least I can keep an eye on him here.
“Why did they say that on the news? Mistakes like that shouldn’t happen.”
My voice is still wobbling slightly, but I can’t help it.
He exhales a heavy, long breath. “I’m so fucking sorry about that. Just know that I would never do that to you on purpose. I would never do that just to hurt you.”
I frown. “What do you mean? Do what?”
“What you heard on the news was meant for Rod. We used the local journalists to spread the word about my death. Spiders were gathered around the hospital yesterday. I don’t know if they had planned on making a move, but we couldn’t take that risk. Not at a hospital. It’s Liam who thought about making them believe I was dead. That way, they wouldn’t show up to try to finish the job and kill me, and Rod would most likely go lie low with his inner circle, afraid of retaliation from my brothers. And according to Blane, that’s what they’re doing now. With the signals, we know exactly where they are.”
“Where?”
“Couple of hours away, in some wooden area just outside of a small unknown town. But you have to believe me when I say I wouldn’t do something this shitty to you on purpose.”
“I know you wouldn’t.”
There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s angry at me for leaving him without so much as a proper goodbye, but this kind of cruel revenge isn’t like him.
“Jayce told me you had been watching the local news, that’s why Melvin was supposed to come here and let you know about the plan. I should have told him to text me once it was done, but I didn’t even think something could go wrong. We only learned after the journalist made the announcement that Melvin never made it to the club. He got ran off the road by two Spiders on his way.”
“Oh my God, is he okay?”
If he was driving as fast as he did on our way back from California…
“Not gonna lie, the kid got fucking lucky. Strained his wrist, messed up his shoulder a bit, but nothing’s broken. He can thank his helmet, though.”
“Thank God.” I sigh in relief. “Did Doc see him?”
“He did, babe. Melvin’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“I’m fine,” I say mechanically.
“Baby,” he warns softly.
For some reason, that single word gets to me and a sob is torn out of my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I apologize. “Do you hate me?”
In the next instant, his hands frame my face gently, and his eyes bore into mine. “Don’t say that. You don’t ever say or think that, you hear me? I could never hate you.”
Those words are so good to hear, but even the promise in his voice doesn’t tamper the tears.
“I shouldn’t have left,” I choke out.
The laugh he snorts out is more playful than bitter. “I’m going to have to agree on this one.”
“He said he’d kill you and the guys if I stayed. I knew I couldn’t trust him, but―”
“CJ wanted you away because he knew shit was going to go down,” he cuts me off. “He had already planned to make a move on me. He knew you’d go back to LA, or maybe to New York because Colleen is there, but either way, he knew you’d be away from here. And safe.”
This time, I’m the one snorting. But my own snort is full of bitterness.
“I know, but he’s sick. Obsessed. And most of all, he knows you. Not that I’m pleased with that, but he does.” His features harden, but his eyes on me soften quickly. “He just knows how good you are. He knew you’d never put anyone in danger. And I… Fuck,” he growls. “I knew that, too. I was so fucking angry and lost, I couldn’t see it.”
“I was so scared to lose you,” I sniffle.
“I know you were, and I know you did that for me. But that’s not the way it works.”
A smile sets on my lips as I remember Ben’s words. “Ben already lectured me. And Jayce. Cody, too.”
He laughs but quickly grows serious again. “I should have come and brought you right back. If something had happened―”
“Melvin did a good job of watching over me,” I step in.
His lips twitch with a grin. “Should I tell him to work on his discretion next?”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But I’m glad you sent him. I felt safer, and he helped me a lot with the apartment. I couldn’t have done such a quick job by myself.”
“Your apartment? What about it?”
“No one told you?” I ask, surprised.
“Didn’t ask. I didn’t…” He pauses, rubbing a hand over his damp hair. “I didn’t exactly want to know how happy you were to get back to your life and job,” he grimaces as he speaks.
“I wasn’t happy,” I whisper sadly. “And I haven’t had a life in LA for a long time.”
“Fuck, I know, I’m sorry. I was so fucking miserable without you,” he confesses, which doesn’t help my guilt to falter.
“I emptied the apartment,” I simply tell him. “Melvin helped me with everything.”
“Where is your stuff? I know your car is still back there.”
“Besides my clothes and some kitchen appliances that belonged to my mom, I gave everything to the goodwill. What I kept is in my car.”
He nods. “Were you looking for another place?”
I shake my head. “I knew before I even got there that LA wouldn’t feel home anymore. My plan was to come back and stay at a hotel until my parents’ house was livable. I contacted my school principal and quit. I told her I wanted to start over in my hometown. Considering she still thought I lost my fiancé, she believed that easily. Not that it was a lie,” I smile. “She’s even going to reach out to a few school principals she knows around here.”
“Stay with me,” he tells me as an answer to everything I just said. “Stay here with me even after the Spiders have been handled. I want you here, and I also want you to move in with me when it’s safe for us to go to my house.”
It’s not a question, nor is it an order. It sounds like a plea, and my vision blurs with tears.
His house…
I should feel like this is going too fast, but instead, I feel like this is right. Nate and me, it’s right.
“I’d love to.”
“Good, because I love you,” is what he retorts.
Even said with his usual deep timber, it’s the sweetest thing I’ve heard. I blink twice, as much because the relentless tears start to get on my nerves as because I didn’t expect him to say that.
“Seems like you did think I hated you,” he says half-jokingly.
My lips crash on his. Literally.
I swallow the chuckle my precipitate reaction triggers in him, and he sobers the moment my tongue searches his, eager to the point I must look desperate. I don’t care. I forget all about my lady manners and I lavishly kiss him. A primal sound dies into my mouth as he pushes me delicately on my back and crawls over me, his hips pressing heavily on mine. After tearing my shirt off me, he grabs a handful of one of my breasts while sucking on the other one’s stiff nipple. His mouth has my entire body jolting with a sharp pleasure I express with a tortured whimper.
I only realize Nate has shoved down his boxers and pushed aside my panties when he’s sliding inside of me.
Slowly.
I don’t know if this gentle pace is meant to spare his chest or if he wants to have me this way, but I like it as much as I like it when his strong nature gives it to me more roughly. The softness in his motions brings me to the brink of crying. I think I even feel a tear following a path down my temple, but I’m too deeply tangled up in the sensations to care about how ridiculous I’m being. I just want to feel Nate. His hands, his mouth, his cock. All of him. One slow, deep thrust after another, he shows me how much he craved me while we were apart. As much as I craved and missed him. Strangely, it feels as intense as it feels when he takes me hard. And although the climax builds in my core as slowly as Nate moves in me, it takes over me in a sudden explosion that sends me from whimpering flat on his bed to screaming his name with my back arching off it.
“Fuck yeah.”
Even through my orgasmic daze, Nate’s swearing reaches me as his cock jerks wildly inside of me. And even when his body collapses on me, his face nuzzled into my neck, he keeps grunting the remnants of his orgasm against my skin.
I’d gladly stay right here indefinitely, my body and Nate’s interlocked, but even my sated stupor isn’t strong enough to counter the shouting alarm ringing in my head.
“Your chest!” I urge on a still shortened breath.
“Is fine,” he rasps calmly but pushes on his forearms anyway when I struggle to make him budge on my own. His unblinking eyes staring into mine, he says, “I want you with me, Cam. Every day. Every night. Going through losing you again? Not happening.”
His emotion is raw as he speaks those words I know he never spoke to anyone else.
“I want that, too.”
I seal my promise with a kiss before he goes on.
“As for the job―”
“I want a job,” I affirm, stopping him straight away because I know where he’s going with this. “I like teaching.”
As much as I want to be with him, there’s no way I’m compromising on that. This life I came to understand, this club I came to feel at home in, these guys I came to love like my own family, I want it all. But I refuse to forget who I am for it.
“Yes ma’am.” He smiles like he’s not surprised by my vehement assertion. “Then we need to deal with the Spiders before you find a job, because I won’t let you out of my sight until they’re gone.”
I nod. “I need them gone. I need Colin gone.”
Fury darkens his expression, but he sounds composed when he asks me, “What did he do to you that day at your house?”
“Nothing. He didn’t have enough time, I guess. I just don’t want to live like this.”
His jaw still tight, he says as though making a promise to me, “The plan is on its way. They won’t see anything coming.”
Chapter 33
Nate
Camryn’s eyes narrow and water as soon as they land on the photo Jayce handed her.
“It’s… Oh my…”
Two slow steps take her to the kitchen table, and she lowers herself down on a chair, not saying anything more than this mumbling.
“You good, baby?”
After letting out a sound I couldn’t say whether it’s a laugh or a sob, she asks, “His nickname was Coco, right?”
Instead of answering her question, I exchange a stunned look with Jayce. His eyes are narrowed in confusion, and he’s the first one to move his ass to go sit across from Cam at the table.
“Comes from the time I started to talk. I used to hear everyone at the club call him Connor, so that’s what I said even before saying Dad. Well, that’s what I tried to say, but what I actually pronounced was Coco. It just stuck,” he explains, and Cam stares at him like she’s drinking every word he has to share with her about their dad.
Their dad. Still fucking unbelievable.
Jayce’s smile isn’t forced as he relates his anecdote, but it’s sad. He hasn’t spoken as much about Connor in an entire year than he has these past weeks.
“How do you know that?” I ask her, moving until I’m standing beside her.
“Do you remember when I told you I used to go to the lake with my parents?”
“Sure.”
“The lake?” Jayce questions her. “Where Isaac’s cabin is, you mean?”
Cam nods and carries on with her story. “We used to go there almost every Sunday, and there was this man my parents became sort of friends with.”
“Wait… It was him?” I deduce, stepping in. “That man was Connor?”
“You met him?” Amazement widens Jayce’s eyes.
“Every three months or so, he was there,” she says and falls silent, frowning as though something clicks in her mind. “We first met him because I dropped my blanket and he picked it up. That’s how my parents started to talk with him. He asked me where I got a beautiful blanket like that,” she explains, then smiles. “I’ve always remembered that day because I was sort of scared of him at first. I was only eight, and he was so big, with his beard and tattoos.”
A beast of a man, that he was. Jayce looks a lot like him, minus the beard.
“The blanket was Mary’s,” she continues. “My parents had only told me about my adoption a few weeks before, and I was still talking a lot about it. So, when Connor asked me about the blanket, I explained it all to him.”
“If he was as close to Mary as Lilly says he was, he must have recognized the blanket,” I say.
“Pretty sure he had your DNA tested, too,” Jayce adds.
“Do you think he did?
“A hair, a glass you drank in, a spoon you ate with… I’m sure he found a way.”
“This is…” She blows a dumbfounded breath. “I should have put two and two together after I read Mary’s second letter. I knew Coco’s real name was Connor, but we were so used to calling him Coco. The three of them seemed to get along with each other, and he used to talk to me about school, about my friends, about what I liked…” She trails off, and a small laugh leaves her. “Did he fish?” she asks Jayce.
He snorts. “He couldn’t stay put for ten minutes straight. No way he could have endured fishing.”
“Yet he did fish with my dad. And he bought all sorts of fishing gear from him. My dad worked as a manager in a fishing store, but he also was a door-to-door salesman, so to speak. Your dad bought so many hooks and fishing rods over the years that he probably spent enough to pay for half of my college tuition.” She wipes off her face a tear that slipped away.
“You think your parents knew?” Jayce asks her as she doesn’t quit staring at Connor’s face.
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so. There’s no way my mom would have been so relaxed hanging out with him if she had known what kind of life he was living. No, I don’t think they knew. But now there’s no way I’ll ever know for sure.”
“I never suspected any of it either,” Jayce admits. “Can’t believe you were living so close all these years. But I’m glad he got the chance to meet you.”
“I wonder if Isaac knew,” I say.
Isaac was very close to both his sons, so it would make sense that he knew about the whole story. But like Camryn said, we won’t ever know for sure who knew what.
“Don’t have a clue,” Jayce sighs, confirming my thought. “Maybe. And Dad probably had an eye on Cam from the moment she left town to go to college. How he managed to miss CJ’s bullshit, thoug
h, I don’t know. He wouldn’t have let this psycho near her if he had known who he was.”
“Probably never saw Colin North in person. CJ’s fake identity surely also included a fake picture on the papers. So even if Connor ran a check on him, he couldn’t have suspected a thing because CJ covered his tracks perfectly.”
“Come to think about it, I never saw his papers,” Cam absently points out and shakes her head.
No matter how often I’ve told her to quit blaming herself for not seeing through CJ’s lies, I know she still feels stupid about the whole thing.
“You okay?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t even know he had died.” Her voice wavers, but she fights bravely to keep the cries in. “I remember the last time we saw him at the lake. I was already off to college by that time, and I only came back here during the summer and holidays. It was in September, right before I started my senior year. We ate ice cream and hung out, talking about anything and everything. Then he left, wishing me good luck,” she swats away another tear.
“It’s alright, baby.”
“No,” she counters, the desperation that seems to rule her killing me. “No. If I had known―”
“He made sure you didn’t know, Cam,” Jayce asserts, cutting her off.
“Why? Why didn’t he tell me? At least after my parents died. He came to the funeral. He was there. That’s the very last time I saw him. Then I never came back until now. If he had told me the truth, things would have been different. A lot of things would have been different.”
Starting with how CJ wouldn’t have had the chance to approach her. But back then, Connor didn’t know Rod knew about Camryn. I get her frustration, but it’s useless to think with what ifs.
“Maybe he was trying to respect Mary’s wishes,” Jayce tries to bring her an answer. “Or maybe he believed just like she did that you’d be safer away from the club life. He sure didn’t know about Rod and CJ, otherwise he would have told you the truth and kept you close. No doubt about that,” he says what I’m thinking.