by S. E. Jakes
He didn’t touch my dick. I had no friction, nothing to relive the ache.
He just concentrated on me. Murmured “Mine” a couple of times.
“Do you say the ‘mine’ thing because you know it turns me on . . . or because you mean it?”
He continued sliding his fingers in and out of me. “I say it because it’s true. That’s why it turns you the fuck on.”
And oh, I hadn’t considered that. But I liked it, more than I thought possible.
“Don’t you get it, Sean? I get ‘you’ better than you get yourself. I understand your impulses. Your needs. Your PTSD shit, as you call it.”
“You get it . . . but why do you want to deal with it?”
“Because,” he said as he entered me with his cock, finally. “As much as I love this MC, and what I do for it—you, Sean, you make me feel alive. You make me want to be better, so I can protect you.”
“So you can stop me.”
“To protect you so you can do what you need to do.”
He never took his eyes from mine as he fucked me, pounding me with long, hard strokes, pushing one of my legs onto his shoulder so he could take me more deeply. Forcing the surrender from my body. His eyes were dark, with striations of brown and black, almost blue-black. Ever changing, like a mood ring. A predator’s eyes, guarding me, wary and fierce. Piercing, and there was no escape for me under his gaze.
Ryker threatened my heart, and I welcomed that shit. Every single time. “Yeah, that’s it . . . Christ, don’t stop, Ryker. Don’t you fucking dare . . .”
My orgasm caught me off guard, slammed me with the force of a freight train traveling down a mountain without brakes.
I trusted Ryker to get me to the bottom safely.
“I really can’t leave you alone for a second,” he growled after he’d come—and I’d come twice.
“No,” I agreed. Not if we could do this like all the fucking time.
“We might have to take some time out for food and sleep.”
“Do you have a direct link into my brain?”
“You really don’t realize you say whatever the fuck comes to your mind?”
“No.”
“You’ve been doing it since that first night. You seemed like you were telling me. Took me a bit before I realized you thought you were saying it to yourself.” He smiled. “Like you can’t control anything around me.”
“Obviously.” I curled against him, my cheek against his shoulder, tracing the tattoos on his forearm with my fingertips. “Did you get these done here?”
“Some of them. Some were done at other MC’s shops.”
“Who does them here?”
“Gavin. Why? You’ve got an urge for ink?”
Your ink all over me, I thought, and thank God I hadn’t been drinking or else that would’ve come out of my mouth and I’d never live it down.
“Say it,” he growled, held up the belt. “If you say it, I’ll use this.”
“Your ink all over me,” I agreed easily, no hesitation, and then closed my eyes and cursed internally. Because he played dirty.
I heard a soft chuckle and said, “You know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
He shifted so I was forced to look at him. “Tell me how you meant it then.”
“You look entirely too fucking pleased with yourself.”
“Said from someone who wasn’t sure if they wanted to ride on the back of my bike a few weeks ago.”
But I did it.
“But you did it.”
Fuck. Me. “Stop, Ryk. You’re turning me into a . . .”
“Romantic?”
I huffed and put my forehead against his chest.
“You rode my bike,” he reminded me.
“I rode a lot more than that,” I griped.
He swatted my ass with the belt, and I stiffened and groaned, but the good type of groan. “You were right, you know. About what it means to get on the back of my bike.”
“So what now?”
He cupped my ass and rubbed. Jerked me closer possessively. “You don’t run off and do shit without me.”
I glanced up at him. “Did you want to?”
“Want to what?”
“Want to own me? Or was it that you had to get me out of there?”
“I could’ve easily taken my truck to come get you.”
“Point taken,” I muttered, feeling my face flush. “Ryk, you’re killing me.”
“Good, Sean,” he said. “Because you’ve been killing me since the goddamned day I laid eyes on you, when you sauntered by me, telling me to catch you if I dared.”
And he’d dared all right. It’d been like poking a hungry lion with a stick . . . except I really didn’t mind being mauled.
But owned? That was different. And I couldn’t say, at the moment, that I minded it all that much.
oah thought I was fucking nuts (his words) when I told him about fixing Casey’s car. To his credit, after much convincing, and several days’ rest at Havoc, because Edmund’s goons had beaten him up, he went to the Hangmen’s clubhouse with me, grumbling the entire way there about how he hoped I knew he was going to kick someone’s ass if they started with him.
When we got there, the first person Noah zeroed in on was a tall blonde woman. She was cute pretty, with freckles across the bridge of her nose and a killer body.
And she was fixing a car. Which for Noah was like porn with a side of porn. He went over to talk to her while I went to Casey, who was sitting with a group of guys, all looking at Noah like they wanted to rebeat him for talking to an MC woman without anyone’s permission.
Noah and I had always lived by the easier to ask forgiveness than permission motto anyway. It was too late to change either of us.
Casey had stood to greet me, all while looking over my shoulder, his face darkening. I turned to see Noah and the blonde woman discussing . . . something. And they were both laughing. Casey marched over there and I followed, really hoping that the chick wasn’t like, Casey’s woman. Because Ryker’d told me Casey was bi, like me.
“Hey, Noah, this is Casey,” I managed, just as Jethro popped around the corner.
Noah barely glanced up at Casey. “Dude, sorry about your car. It wasn’t in the greatest condition anyway. Did you ever do any maintenance on her?”
Casey’s brows rose and Jethro snorted. I was killing two birds with one stone by delivering Noah to both of them at the same time . . . and keeping Noah inside the MC was better than keeping him out.
But Casey ignored Noah and put a hand on my shoulder instead. “You ever get bored at Havoc . . .”
“He won’t.”
I turned to see Ryker. “You really are following me everywhere.”
“Because you really do need a keeper. Speaking of . . .” He turned to Casey. “Still pretty hot out there. Can you keep Noah here for a couple of days? Or else I’ll pick him up and drop him off.”
“Hope he’s got a bag packed, because he’s not going anywhere until the car looks as perfect as if did before he fucked with it.”
“No offense, but I’d never describe that car as perfect,” Noah muttered. If he hadn’t been running his hands over the hood at the time, that look in his eyes I knew all too well, Casey probably would’ve decked him.
Instead, Casey looked at me. “He’s lethal too?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed.
Casey stared at Ryker. “This is why we don’t let outsiders in.”
“Too late.” Ryker put a hand on the back of my neck and steered me out to his truck.
“Want to put your bike in?” I asked. “We can go have lunch.”
Ryker studied me for a long second. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
Lunch led to a couple of drinks at Bertha’s—for Ryker, not me. Because those damned drugs from the other day had fucked me up enough. He played pool while I looked around and tried to remember all the little details of the first night I�
��d met him.
His phone rang. He listened for a few seconds then said, “I’ve got plans tonight,” before he hung up. Then he motioned for me to follow him, and we stopped in the long hallway that connected the two rooms of the bar. He pulled me against the wall and said, “Here. This is where we first talked.”
“This, I remember.”
We stood side by side, backs against the wall. This time, Ryker was drunk, and I was in control. As much as in control as I could be around him.
“I’d like to put you on that pool table,” he started. “Strip you. Hold your hands behind your back. Fuck you, holding you helpless like that. Helpless, taking whatever I give you.”
I bit back a whimper.
“When I get you home, that’s what we’re doing. Kitchen table. Bed. Maybe the porch.”
I shuddered. “You said you had plans.”
“I do. I plan to spend at least several hours between your legs tonight.”
Jesus. I flushed, and he grinned. Yanked me to him. “Love making you blush, baby.”
His smile was lazy. Heavily lidded. If he could bend me over the bar (if I asked), he would. But instead, he backed me against the wall, put his arms up, blocking me in (like he needed to), and kissed me. Like, kissed me so well, there was applause at one point.
A woman walked by, trailed her fingers across Ryker’s arm and said, “I’m definitely jealous. I know you’re sometimes looking for a third . . .” and dropped a card in my pocket.
I glanced up at him. “Seems like she might know something about you that I don’t.”
Ryker grinned sheepishly. “I haven’t done that in eight months, Sean.”
“But before that? Threesomes? Was she an example of how you and Casey shared?”
“You little shit. How did you—” He seemed to realize that I’d simply guessed. And then he raised his brows. “Interested?”
“I just like hearing about it. Turns me on.”
“Sometimes women. Sometimes guys,” he said, running a finger along the side of my neck. “Always tied down.”
“So you and Casey never . . .”
“Nah. Not like that. More about the person in the middle than us.”
“And Sweet was okay with that?”
“Despite all the false shit out there, most MCs couldn’t survive without cooperation between them. Casey brought this Hangmen’s chapter up here from Florida. Settled in and everyone waited for us to kick their ass.”
“Seriously, will Noah be okay there?”
“Can he restore that car?”
“Yes.”
“Then he’ll be fine.”
woke from a deep sleep to the sound of an alarm. Before I could jolt out of bed, Ryker’s hand was on my shoulder, and he was turning off the high-pitched shriek coming from his phone.
“It’s okay, Sean. Just something I have to take care of now.”
“Is everything all right?”
“No. But it will be.”
“Can I help?”
“Yeah, by staying here. By being here when I get back.” He touched the side of my face, and I nodded and watched him pull his vest on, grab a knife and his keys. When he left the room, I got out of bed and followed him out the door. From the porch, I watched him take off on his Harley.
He wasn’t alone. I watched more motorcycles following him, flying down the hill, a single-file trail of destruction ready to take on the world. With Ryker at the helm.
“He’ll be okay.”
I hadn’t heard Sweet come up onto the porch, because I’d been so enthralled watching them. “I feel like I should follow.”
“No, you shouldn’t. If you’ve never done it, you’ll scare the kid.”
“Scare the kid?” I turned to Sweet. “They’re picking up a kid?”
“A twelve-year-old boy.”
“And what? The bikers from hell aren’t going to give him nightmares?”
“He’s met Ryker and the others before. That’s how he knew to call them if things got bad.”
I didn’t know what his definition of bad was, but I could only imagine. “I don’t understand what’s going on, Sweet.”
And honestly, I didn’t expect him to tell me. Not after all the shit I’d put Havoc though. But he said, “We help kids—sometimes kids and their parents, mom or dad—who need us. Some of them have been abused. Some of them are witnesses to unspeakable things, and we protect them until they testify. Or we relocate them.”
I stared at him, trying to process what he was saying. It’s not that I thought Havoc was the worst place ever, with the porn and the bodyguarding and whatever else they wouldn’t admit to. They were a biker club, not angels. But I never expected them to be involved in something like that. “You guys could get into real trouble for that.”
“For some of it, definitely. Then again, sometimes federal marshals ask us to hide the kids here. Who’d want to come in here and deal with us to get to their witness, right?”
“What’s going on with the kid Ryker went to get?”
Sweet looked angry. “There’s some bad shit going on. He’s supposed to testify against men his father knows. At first, his father was supposed to be cooperating, but Ryker never believed that. Told the kid to call him at the first sign of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Sweet looked at me. “His father tried to beat him to death to stop him from testifying. He ran when the neighbors heard the screams and called the cops. He called Ryker first, so I’m hoping he’ll get there before the police do.”
“The police won’t help?”
“The police aren’t US Marshals. This kid’s already supposed to be hidden.”
God, I couldn’t believe this. “So Ryker will get him and bring him here?”
“Depends on how badly he’s hurt. If he doesn’t need surgery, my sister will come here and help him out.”
“Your sister’s a doctor?”
“Works the ER down in Montgomery County. I try to keep her out of most things, but for a kid, there’s no stopping her.” His phone beeped and he stared down at it, muttered, “Good, good,” then turned to me and said, “They’re bringing him here. Gotta go call my sister.”
He jumped down off the porch and disappeared into the night. I waited out in the semidarkness, curled on a chair, listening for the sounds of the Harleys to come dancing up the hills again.
From my vantage point, I could see the main clubhouse had a few lights still on. From what Ryker had told me, there were men in the trees, guarding Havoc too. Maybe one day, I’d be one of them.
But being in the club (or not) didn’t seem to be a deal breaker for Ryker.
Goddammit, I was freaking myself the fuck out. We’d come so far. I’d given him more trust than I’d ever given anyone. Even Noah.
Noah. Jesus. I stood and paced the generous porch, my bare feet padding against the smooth wood. Ryker said he’d made it by hand, and I could picture it.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, how long I alternately sat and stared into the darkness, then got up and paced, went inside to grab something to drink. Came out again, prayed for a little boy and for the men who were helping him.
I was just about to go inside and maybe try to sleep when he spoke.
“I came into Havoc when I was twelve, and I never left.” Ryker’s voice—quiet and serious but still riveting—and my hand stilled on the doorknob. I hadn’t heard him come back. I let go of the doorknob and turned around, went to stand next to him. We both held on to the railing of the porch and looked out into the night as I asked, “Were your parents bikers?”
“My mom was a teenager when she had me. And she was a drug addict—she got clean when she was pregnant but went right back to it after I was born. I don’t think she knew who my dad was. I never cared much to try to find out.”
“Were you taken away from her?”
“Child protective services probably tried, but she moved around a lot. Until we moved around here, and Havoc int
ervened.”
I got it then, the pieces clicking together faster than I could get the words out. “Havoc rescued you through their Underground Railroad–type of system.”
The silence told me I was right. A big burden for a little kid, but the guy’d always been an old soul. I knew that from the second he’d stepped into my bathroom to rescue me. I should’ve noticed he’d been rescuing me all along.
Havoc really was his family, and I’d threatened everything about this place and the people who’d kept him safe. How the hell could he even look at me after that? I could barely stand it myself.
His hands came down heavily on my shoulders, but I still couldn’t look at him.
“This is so fucked up, Ryk.”
“Yeah, it is.” He moved a hand down to slide it around my chest, tugging me against him. “Come back inside.”
“How the hell can you still want me here?”
His nose nuzzled my cheek. “You’ve done nothing wrong, babe. You’ve been being you. All right? This shit takes time to figure out, and you’re figuring it out. And you’re loyal.”
“You know I am.”
“When this started, I didn’t think any of it would go this far. But I’m not sorry at all.”
“Me neither.” I paused. “Sweet told me about the boy.”
“Charles.”
“Is he okay?”
“Physically, he will be.” Ryker put an arm around my shoulders and pulled at me. We went inside, where he put on some coffee, then joined me on the couch.
“I was the first,” he admitted. “I’m the start of the whole program. When Sweet’s father found me, he didn’t know what to do with me. But he knew enough not to leave me where I was. So he put me on the back of his bike, and he drove me here. And later, when my mom sent her boyfriend here with his crew to get me, Havoc stood around me and told them to try to get me. And they did try.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well for them.”
“Not at all.” He paused. “Sweet’s mom took me in. They lived in the cabin right over there. That was the first one built on the compound. The only one for a while, but then, over time, the MC decided it was safer for members to have a place here. If they wanted it.”