by Maisey Yates
He walked to the window and looked out at the streets below. New Orleans. Swirling below. A mix of saints and sinners. Every vice, every bit of debauchery, available for the taking on Bourbon, with Jesus’s outstretched arms waiting in view. Witnessing it all. Never altering his stance. Never flinching as he saw the worst of the worst playing out before him.
Because it was a statue. That was all.
He closed his eyes, pain washing through him as he thought back to standing in the Priory with Sarah.
“I have a soul. I’m still breathing, aren’t I? It doesn’t mean it’s one worth saving.”
“But I love it already. I don’t need you changed. I don’t need you saved. I love you already. And I’ll leave all of it behind for you. Every last thing.”
A strange thing to think of, staring at the cut. To think of the love Sarah offered to him, even without salvation, so to speak.
Maybe it made more sense than he thought.
Come as you are. Forgiveness of sin. Wasn’t that what the statue represented? It was right there, overlooking the Quarter all this time.
He had looked at it for years. And he’d missed that.
He took a breath and put the cut on over his T-shirt. This wasn’t what he’d come back here to do. He was supposed to put on the suit.
He was supposed to get ready to go back to his life.
But something shifted deep inside him the moment he put the cut on. A sense of peace he hadn’t felt since he’d left New Orleans the first time.
You’re back. Really back. You can stay.
All of a sudden, he could barely breathe. He wouldn’t be sent away again. He didn’t have to leave if he didn’t want to.
The family had splintered, but it wasn’t destroyed.
He turned and looked in the mirror and everything fit. Everything matched. Inside and out. He was the boy from the streets made good. A man who loved a woman he wasn’t even half worthy of. A man who had escaped the life he’d felt trapped in, only to find out it wasn’t New Orleans that had trapped him. It was his own body. His own broken soul.
He’d never fit anywhere, because he didn’t know who he was. Walking around like he thought he was too good for every damn thing, when in reality he’d always feared he could never be good enough.
Not for the MC. Not for Sarah.
But he was determined to be different now. To make the change. Because she’d locked together all those broken pieces that hadn’t seemed to have a hope in hell of fitting with each other.
She had been the missing piece, all this time. And now he saw himself—bad and good—more clearly than he ever had.
He was Prince.
He was a motherfucking Deacon of Bourbon Street. And for the first time he truly felt like he was home.
Sophie had put Sarah to work right away. This morning she found herself putting test strips into bleach water to make sure the rags Sophie wiped the tables down with were soaked in water that had the correct ratio of chemicals.
After that, she was supposed to fold bar towels. Neat and small. Stacked just so.
The Priory was a biker bar, but Sophie ran a tight ship. It was becoming pretty clear to Sarah that the women in this culture were strong. Not only that, they had quite a bit of their own power, and they wielded it well.
Ajax was the scariest man Sarah had ever met, and it was clear Sophie knew just what to do with him. Not to say the man was whipped, not by half. But no matter that Sophie wore a PROPERTY OF AJAX patch on her back, it was clear they were much more equal than an outsider would guess from the words on her vest.
Sarah walked out from the back, a basket of unfolded rags in her arms. When she looked up, she stopped cold.
Silhouetted in the doorway was Micah. She knew it was him, even without seeing his features. Recognized his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and slim hips. His muscular forearms, his thighs . . .
More than that, her body just knew.
He took a step in, and her heart stopped. He was wearing jeans, a tight black T-shirt . . . and a leather vest.
She’d never seen him in leather. Even when he was casual, he didn’t dress like a biker.
But he was pure biker now. Walking into the Priory like he belonged, like he was part of it, where before he’d always seemed separate.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her heart in her throat.
“I’m back,” he said, his voice rough. “Or maybe, I’m here for the first time.”
“What do you mean?”
He moved closer, and she saw something in his eyes she couldn’t name. Something she’d never seen there before.
Peace.
“I’m Prince,” he said. “I’m one of the Deacons. And we own the whole fucking Quarter. And your mansion.”
“That’s what I hear,” she said, her throat tightening. She could barely speak. Could barely breathe. “But you introduced yourself differently then.”
“I was different then.”
“What changed?” she asked.
“You changed me,” he said. “You wanted me before I figured out who I was. Before I could accept who I was. I thought I broke everything. Ruined everything. But the Deacons are still here. Ready to take me back, no matter what. You’re still here. I don’t deserve either of those things. I don’t deserve forgiveness. Atonement. Acceptance. Love. But I seem to have it. And I would be a fool not to take it.”
“Damn straight you would be,” she said, launching herself at him, wrapping her arms around him, kissing his neck. “Oh, Prince, I love you.”
“I love you too, Sarah,” he said, his voice tight, strained. “I love you.”
“Are you back?” she asked, pulling away slightly so she could look at him.
“Yes,” he said. “This is my home.” He looked around the Priory. “This is where I belong.”
“Me too,” she said. “And I belong to you.”
He gripped her chin, dark eyes meeting hers. “You want to wear my patch?”
She felt a smile curve her lips. “Yes. Has any other bitch been Property of Prince?”
He shook his head. “Not one. Never.”
“Good,” she said.
“Sounds awfully possessive of you, baby,” he said.
“It is,” she said. “I am.”
“That’s not how this works. Though it might be how we work. I’m yours. You’re mine.”
“I’m okay with that,” she said.
“Tell me,” he said, “with everything you know about me, why do you want me? Why do you love me?”
“That’s an easy one,” she said. “I love you because you were the first person to really love me.”
“I didn’t say I loved you till just now,” he said.
“I know,” she said. “But you showed me you did. You . . . wanted me. Not who you thought I should be. But me. You wanted me as I was.”
“That’s pretty amazing. Because you did the same for me,” he said, voice rough.
“I suppose I did,” she said.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” he asked.
“I do. Because of you.”
Micah looked at the woman in his arms, and for the very first time, he had a sense of being in the right place. In the right skin.
There was a feeling of homecoming that people often waxed lyrical about. It was immortalized in songs, in literature, and in film.
All of it paled in comparison to this. To her.
Home, for him, wasn’t just a place, though New Orleans, the Priory, were certainly important. Home was a person.
It was her.
It was the brotherhood.
Ajax walked in from the courtyard then, stopping when he saw Micah, standing there holding Sarah.
“I knew you’d be back,” he said, nodding once before heading up the stairs.
“Well,” Micah said, “I guess that means he isn’t going to kill me.”
Sarah laughed. “That’s good. Because I’d rather have you alive. You know . . .
for things.”
“What kind of things?” he asked.
A wicked smile curved her lips. “Why don’t you take me back to the mansion and let me show you?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, hoisting her over his shoulder. She laughed, the sound washing over him like a wave. She wiggled against him, and he put his hand on her ass, holding her tight. “I have a better idea, baby,” he said. “How about I show you?”
Epilogue
Micah “Prince” Carpenter had always felt like a whole lot of layers of people stuck together. A kid from the streets who wanted something better, an outlaw biker who finally had the power he craved. The real estate mogul who finally had the money he’d always desired.
But in bed with his princess, Sarah, he was just one man. He wasn’t at odds with himself or the world or anything else.
It was Sarah who made it all fit. Because he’d explored each and every one of those pieces. Had lived all those lives.
But she was the one who made life feel right. Made it feel like it was worth living.
Life in the MC was different now that they’d gone legit. And while Micah had passed the day-to-day running of his company to other people, he was still generating a strong income—both for the club and for himself.
He was still Prince, after all.
And even though he was involved deeply in the MC, and Sarah was too, he still wanted to keep her in a certain level of comfort.
They might be living an unconventional life, but Sarah was from a world full of convention. He knew she liked to buck against it.
As she’d just spent the past hour showing him. A year into this thing and he still made her scream. Yeah, she liked to revel in her newfound freedom. But he also wanted to make sure he honored where she came from.
That was why he’d bought a very big, very traditional diamond ring. That was why, once he was done kissing every inch of her naked body, he was going to get down on his knees and ask her to be his wife.
Sarah sauntered back into their bedroom, completely naked, looking every inch like the refined southern belle she’d been raised to be, even though he’d just watched her suck his dick. That contrast never failed to make him hard.
“If you get back in bed with me, you better be ready for more,” he said, leaning back against the headboard, his eyes never leaving hers.
“This reminds me of something,” she said.
“What?”
“The day we met. Me walking in. You sitting there like a big lazy cat.”
“We weren’t naked, though,” he said.
“No. Sadly not. I was forced to picture what glory might lay beneath your suit. Which you could wear in the bedroom, you know, even though you’ve disavowed corporate life.”
“Could I?” he asked, arching a brow.
“Think of it as the male equivalent of lingerie.”
“I prefer you naked,” he said. “Lingerie is just an obstacle.”
“Sometimes you need obstacles, Prince. Keeps you humble.”
“Yeah,” he said. “This does remind me of the day we met. Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t love you yet.”
She smiled and moved closer to the bed. “In fairness, I wanted to have you killed and dumped in a swamp.”
“I love you now. In case you were curious.”
“Always nice to hear.” She climbed onto the bed, straddling him before leaning in. “I love you too.”
He decided he could lick her after he proposed. He reached into the bedside table and pulled out the ring box. “I got you something.”
She froze, her eyes wide. “Is that . . . did you . . .”
“Yeah. I know you’ve been engaged before. I know I can’t compete with whatever flowery romantic shit he did or said. But I’ll do better. I’ll be better for the rest of our lives. No other women. Nothing else but you. The Deacons are my brothers, Ajax is my president, but you . . . you’re my whole heart. I’d fucking die without you.”
She blinked, kissing him as tears trailed down her face. “Then I guess I’d better say yes, huh?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t even look at the ring.”
“Who cares about the ring?” she asked. “I’ve got your patch already. And I’ve got you.”
“And that’s enough?”
“What can I say?” she said, her lips brushing his as she spoke. “I have expensive taste.”
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