by Raven Dark
“Slow down.” He bites my shoulder as if in reprimand.
I let out a helpless whimper.
Riot’s tongue sweeps across my lips. “Mm. We have our whole lives to do this, baby. You’re going to spend every night in this bed, taking me just like this.”
“Ah! Fuck!” My thighs shake with the effort not to fuck him faster. I grip his quilt to either side of me.
“Fuck,” he hisses. As if the sound I made or the feel of me trying not to ride him drives him to the brink, Riot grips the bed to either side of me and hammers into me savagely. “Fuck. Mine.” He groans and laps at my mouth, his hips slapping mine.
I thrash and scream into his mouth. Just as I’m about to come apart, he rears up, spins me onto my stomach, pins my hands to the bed and drives into me from behind.
“Fuck me, beautiful. Come on my cock.”
“Ah! Yes, yes, yes!” I buck and toss my head. White lights slash across my vision and I come apart, fucking him like a fiend.
Riot gives me three sharp thrusts and roars in release. We collapse on the bed, panting. He lays over me, his chest rising and falling against my back. His breath fans my ear. “Love you, baby.”
Oh, God, yes. My heart does a little dance in my chest.
A few minutes later, he’s shut the door and we lie in his bed, tangled in his sheets and wrapped in each other’s arms. Darkness has fallen, moonlight turning everything in the room silver and making those skull tattoos of his stand out. Riot’s fingers run up and down the curve of my back, slow, lazy strokes that make me hum in satisfaction and snuggle closer.
“You drive me crazy, you know.” His lips brush my forehead.
“Is this a bad thing?” I rest my chin on his chest and look up at him.
“Never.” He traces my lips with his fingers. “Christ help me, I like when you challenge me. I want you to spend your whole life keeping me on my toes.”
I squeeze him tight. Those words have so much power. With that single confession, he’s somehow wiped away all the fears and hesitations, setting all the things that held me back firmly and forever in the past.
I’ll always challenge him, and he wants me to.
My heart grows too big for my chest. I can’t hold back telling him what’s in my heart, but it seems only right that I do this properly and use his real name.
“I love you, Nick.”
He squeezes me against him. “Love you too. So, tell me, future owner of the world’s biggest cupcake empire. Do we go to Cali, or do we stay here?”
I grin. I can’t believe he’s letting me decide. God, I can’t believe he’s mine.
“I looked online while you were in the hospital,” he adds, helping me along. “There are some good schools here, but I know you set things up out there with your friend. I haven’t put down roots here yet, so if you have your heart set on somewhere out there, we’re as good as gone.”
I slip my arms around him. “Well, since I’m not leaving the clubhouse, there’s no reason to go back out there, except Gabby.”
“Why don’t you ask her to come to Ohio?”
I draw back. “Ask her to come here? Just pick up, leave everything behind and move all the way here?”
“Sure. You never know until you ask. She might say yes. We could get a place together, and she can stay with us until she’s on her feet.”
“You’re serious?”
“Sure.”
I hold him close and kiss him deeply. “You’re unbelievable, Florida. How in the hell do you make me so happy?”
His eyes twinkle. “I think I can make you even happier.”
“Oh, you think so do you?” I doubt I could feel any better than I do right now.
“I have something for you.” Riot lays me gently beside him and leans over, opening a drawer in his nightstand. Then he leans back on the headboard with me, holding out a small black velvet box. He smirks when my eyes go wide.
My heart gives a bound. I take the box with trembling fingers. “Riot, is this what I think it is?”
He nods. “You gonna open it or stare at it all night?”
Licking my lips, I open the box. A diamond winks up at me. The band has a row of smaller diamonds to either side of the bigger stone.
“Riot, it’s gorgeous.”
He tips my chin up, cocking his head down at me. “So, you never answered me when I asked you at the motel.”
There’s no need to ask what he’s talking about. I bite my lip around a smile, butterflies going wild in my belly.
“I meant what I said. I’m in this for life.” He brushes my hair off my shoulders.
Again, I can’t resist messing with him. I put my head back to look up at him as I trace those beautiful skull tattoos that cover his chest with my fingers. “You still have the unenviable task of asking my brother for my hand.”
I don’t tell him that Devil already implied his answer.
Riot touches my nose with his finger. “I was intending to.”
I chuckle. It figures that he’s as old fashioned as Devil. Secretly, I love it. And I love that he’s not afraid to ask him.
Riot cups my nape with his big, warm palm, then says huskily, “Be my old lady, Red.”
Joy spreads through me. I cradle his face in my hands. “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Florida.”
Epilogue: The Best of Both Worlds
One year later…
I shiver, pulling my coat tighter around me and the sleeping bundle I’m carrying against my chest as soon as Riot and I step off the plane.
“Cold?” He rubs my arms, instantly making me feel a lot warmer despite the storm raging.
“Freezing.” My teeth chatter. “I hate the weather here.”
I’ve obviously grown way too used to the California heat.
Riot puts one arm around me and gently strokes our baby’s tiny head, tucked under my chin.
For the umpteenth time, I check on her. She gurgles softly. In the baby carrier that’s slung over my front and bundled in warm clothes, she doesn’t seem the least bit phased by this butt-fucking cold.
We hurry toward the entrance of the Ohio airport.
“I don’t understand how you aren’t shivering your ass off,” I chatter.
Riot’s dressed in only a thinly lined leather bomber jacket over his cut.
He holds open the door for me and I rush inside, rubbing my hands.
“It’s never bothered me,” he says. “I like it. I think the California sun has spoiled your ass, woman.”
“No, you’re just crazy. Here, let me check her and make sure she didn’t freeze to death.” I move out of the way of the doors.
“Come here, sweet pee.” Riot helps me take the baby out of the carrier with a chuckle.
“What?” I ask, stroking her cheek. Sam gives a tiny gurgle and snuggles into Riot’s shoulder.
“You’re such a worrier. The kid’s going to grow up with a complex.” Eyes twinkling, he lets the baby wrap her tiny hand around his finger. Her hand doesn’t even fully close around it.
I’ve never seen a man adore a kid the way he does. Fatherhood suits him.
In the fall following our wedding, I’d started a two-year program in Culinary Arts at a school in California. With the first term behind me, I’d signed up for business courses, too, for next year. Riot insisted on paying for my business classes. The man never ceases to amaze me. I can’t imagine how I ever thought he’d be like my father.
Gabby couldn’t leave her sick father, so Riot and I had gone to Cali. She and I are going to school together while Riot has joined the Heathens Chapter out there. She’d gotten her own apartment, and often looks after Sam now. I’d wanted her to come to Ohio and meet the club, but her dad’s been too sick.
Riot and I are here to spend the week with Devil and the MC before going back to Cali. When Gabby is able, we’ll open our shop here in Ohio.
When we’d arranged to come down here, Devil had told us he had a surprise waiting for us. He’d sounded k
ind of awkward, as if he wasn’t sure how I’d take it. I’ve been going crazy, trying to figure out what the hell he might be up to.
“We’d better go.” I straighten as Riot adjusts the baby in his arms. “Devil’s waiting for us.”
“He didn’t give you any hint as to what that surprise of his was?”
I shake my head.
“Well, we’ll find out soon enough.” He rubs my back. “Warmer now?”
“Yes. Much.” I snuggle into his side anyway.
He touches me under the chin before claiming my lips. “Happy, baby?”
“With you? Always.”
As we walk toward the front of the airport to meet Devil and see whatever he’s got waiting for us, my heart swells with joy, and something else I never thought I’d feel for this big bad biker at my side.
Love.
Once, I’d thought I’d have to choose between the life I wanted, and the life I could have had with him. Now I have both.
Riot was right. I was made for this life. I was made for him.
I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and the future has never been brighter.
THE END
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