Beyond the Cut

by Sarah Castille

  “You are mine,” he whispered. “Mine to hold. Mine to protect. Mine to love.” And then he slid one finger over her clit and stroked until she came again.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I will live my life with no regrets.

  SINNER’S TRIBE CREED

  “Mommy!”

  Maia and Tia waved to Dawn from the road outside the school. They were wearing new pink-and-purple outfits, all ready for the housewarming barbecue Dawn had organized for later that afternoon.

  The steady rush of an autumn breeze chilled her skin, pulling a few curls free from her ponytail. Dawn pulled her cut tight around her and pushed back the wayward strands just as Cade pulled up on his bike beside her.

  “Did I make it?”

  “They just got out.” She looked up just as Maia and Tia clasped hands and stepped onto the road.

  “Crosswalk.” Cade’s loud voice carried over the after-school chatter and the whistle of the wind; it carried across the street and into the ears of two little girls who knew very well that if they ran across the road, there would be hell to pay. And not just from their mom.

  Dawn heard that voice at home and in the clubhouse, in restaurants and in bars. She heard it at school plays and picnics, but only once at a ballet recital because Cade didn’t like to see his girls “wearing next to nothing” on stage. That voice had coaxed her deepest, darkest fantasies from her lips and made her believe, after six happy months, maybe dreams really could come true.

  “Christ,” Cade muttered as they made their way to the crosswalk. “Every fucking day. Why don’t they remember? I’m gonna stop coming here because one of these times I’ll have a goddamn heart attack. Even when I was on the road, I’d see a crosswalk and get worried all over again.”

  Cade had never talked about his road trip with Dax, T-Rex, and Hacker before. But he didn’t have to. The morning after he returned, she found a framed photograph of her parents on his pillow when she woke up. And when she went to the kitchen and found him making pancakes with her girls, she had been too overwhelmed with emotion to ask. But she didn’t have to. He had promised to protect her and now there were two people who would never hurt her again.

  “Language, honey.” Dawn’s gentle reminder was met with a string of cusswords that would have put the boys in the playground to shame.

  “I’ll fucking swear all I want when they put themselves in fucking danger.” He scowled as the girls crossed the road, his face softening only when they reached the sidewalk and smiled at him. “Don’t know how Dax manages with five kids.”

  “I heard it gets easier the more you have.

  * * *

  Two hours later, with the barbecue in full swing, Dawn sent the girls to play with Dax’s boys and grabbed a minute to chat with Arianne.

  “Aren’t you worried your neighbors are going to call the police about all the bikes on the street and the bikers in your yard?” Arianne sipped her vodka cooler and sat beside Dawn on the back steps.

  “Apparently they’re used to it. Dax lives down the street and he’s had lots of biker parties, both with and without the kids. From what I hear, our little barbecue is pretty tame. And now I don’t have to pretend Cade is just a bike enthusiast. Dax has never hidden who he is or what he does so he’s smoothed the way for us. No one at the girls’ new school seems to have an issue with him and Cade showing up for school functions wearing their cuts. It was one of the reasons we picked this house.”

  She didn’t share with her new friends that she worked part-time for the Sinner’s Tribe MC, helping Cade with the finances. But they did know she was always on the go, juggling her new restaurant and college classes with school runs and kids’ activities.

  “How’s that new bike working out for you?” Sparky joined them on the step, a beer in his hand. He and Arianne had fixed up an old Harley Sportster for Dawn after she had officially become an old lady in the club.

  “I love it, but I haven’t told Cade about it yet. He’s still a bit overprotective. He gets agitated if I drive the SUV too fast. I can’t imagine what he’s going to say about the bike.”

  Sparky waved a dismissive hand. “Once he sees you on that bike, he won’t be thinking about anything except chasing after you. Nothing hotter than a chick on a bike.”

  “I thought nothing was hotter than a chick with a gun.” Arianne raised an eyebrow, but Sparky just laughed. “A chick with a gun on a bike … now, that would be something to see.”

  Dawn stifled a laugh. Cade didn’t need to see her on a bike to chase after her. He used any excuse to get her in bed. Dressed for job hunting? Check. Dressed for a PTA meeting? Check. Undressed for the shower? Double check. Cleaning and unpacking their new house in her old sweats and ratty T-shirt? Check again. He thought she was sexy. Period. And there was nothing she could do that didn’t make him want her all over again.

  She heard a squeal of laughter and spotted Cade playing with Maia and Tia and their new dogs. He’d brought them the two pups from a shelter in Whitefish—one each—and they were already a permanent part of the family. Although both girls adored him, Tia was his closest companion, always thinking up new ways to make him smile. He had suffered through countless of her baking disasters, but he never complained. He ate whatever she made and convinced even Dawn that it was the most delicious food he’d ever tasted.

  “Hope you’re not giving Sparky a hard time.” Banks pulled a beer from the cooler and twisted off the top. “You should see these two at the bar. They think they run the place ’cause they’re old ladies. I need more staff. Normal people. Bikers are nothing but trouble.”

  “That’s why you’re always at our parties.” Sparky grinned. “’Cause you hate us.”

  “Just bein’ polite.” Banks sipped his beer. “You’re good customers, and I like to keep the customers happy.”

  After catching up on club gossip, Dawn excused herself and went looking for Cade. She found him near the back fence with Zane, deep in conversation. Usually cold and distant, Zane greeted her with what looked suspiciously like a smile.

  “Cade was just saying you have all the custody shit sorted out with your kids and they’re yours free and clear.”

  “Yes, they’re all mine and no one will ever be able to take them away.” Warmth flooded her and she squeezed Cade’s hand, still needing the simple assurance that she had her happily ever after. “Deputy Benson worked out a deal. Shelly-Ann testified that the video was a setup, and we were able to use the PI’s confession to back it up. She also testified against a senator and some of the Brethren. In exchange Deputy Benson got her into witness protection with all charges against her dropped.”

  “Richard sorted out all the legal stuff,” Cade said. “Family services, court case, custody order … and now he’s looking into adoption. I’m gonna have three ladies to look after.”

  “I still have to pay you back for that,” Dawn said. “Even though he’s the club lawyer, he can’t be cheap.”

  “You can pay me in other ways.” Cade reached down and pinched her ass. “We’ll start here and work our way up.”

  “Beast.” She slapped his hand away and he pulled against his chest.

  “You love my beastly side. Admit it.” His mouth came down hard and fast, and Dawn wound her arms around his neck. She loved that he wasn’t embarrassed by public displays of affection, although the girls teased her mercilessly every time they kissed.

  “Okay. It’s hot.”

  Cade nuzzled her neck. “How hot?

  “Someone get these two a fucking hose.” Zane grabbed a beer from Hacker, who had been assigned the task of ensuring no biker was without a drink, and pointed at the fence. “There are children out there. Might corrupt their young minds.”

  Dawn tore herself away from Cade to look. The boy peering in through the fence was no more than twelve, but tall and solidly built, his straight dark hair cut to his shoulders, and his skin a tawny gold.

  “I don’t recognize him.”

  “I’ll t
ell him to fuck off.” Zane took a step toward the fence and Dawn pulled him back.

  “He’s young, Zane. And he has to belong to someone. He’s probably just shy and no threat. Let him be.”

  “Kinda looks like you.” Cade clapped a hand on Zane’s shoulder. “You sure you’re off women? Maybe you got a coupla kids you don’t know about it.”

  “If I had a kid, I’d know about it. And he wouldn’t be running around the streets without his damn dad.”

  “Keep saying things like that and I might think you have a heart after all.” Cade clasped Dawn’s hand. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, I gotta take the old lady inside.”

  “Cade…” She stopped in her tracks. “We can’t just leave our own party.”

  “We did last time. And if I recall you weren’t complaining, babe. Screaming. But not complaining.”

  Her body heated in an instant. “The girls…”

  “Are in the middle of a yard full of Sinners. And I got a present for them. I want you to take a look.”

  Dawn pressed her lips together. “If this is just another ploy to get into my pants…”

  He leaned over and pressed his lips to her ear. “You’re not wearing pants. You’re wearing a tight little fuck-me skirt that shows off your perfect ass and your beautiful legs and all I could think about the minute you put it on was ripping it off. Which I will do. But later.”

  “I was talking about a different kind of pants.”

  “I want in those, too.”

  She followed him into the house and up to their room. Cade had paid for the modest three-bedroom house in cash and refused her contribution, saying it was a good way to launder the club’s money and he didn’t want her involved. Although she loved the vaulted ceilings, sunny country kitchen, and dark hardwood floors, she didn’t have the heart to tell him it might already be too small.

  “Before you show me what you got the girls, I have a housewarming present for you.” She turned away and leaned over the dresser. “Open it.”

  With a low growl, Cade reached for her skirt and undid the zipper. “I was gonna wait to sex you up, but I’ve suddenly changed my mind.”

  And then silence.

  “Do you like it?” Dawn looked back over her shoulder at her very still, very quiet, very shaken old man.

  “What did you do?”

  “It’s a Sinner’s Tribe tat, exactly the same as yours, scars and all. I checked with Jagger that it would be okay and he wouldn’t consider it a dishonor to the club. His reaction was kinda like yours.”

  Even the tattoo artist hadn’t been happy to add the jagged lines to match the scars that marred Cade’s tattoo. But she wanted Cade to understand that she accepted him, just the way he was. Loved him. Scars and all.

  She felt the soft press of his warm lips against her back.

  “You never cease to amaze me,” he murmured. “Or surprise me. Or move me in ways a biker shouldn’t be moved. It’s the best fucking present I ever got.”

  “You can thank me later,” she teased. “But now I want to see what you got for the girls.”

  Jaw still clenched with emotion, he nodded to a box on the bed. Dawn removed the lid and looked inside.

  “What are these?” She lifted out two small leather vests.

  “Sinner cuts. For my girls.”

  Dawn spun one of the vests around and stared at the miniature patches on the back. “PROPERTY OF CADE?”

  He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her back against his chest, his lips brushing over the soft skin on her neck. “All three of you are mine. Mine to look after. Mine to protect. Mine to love.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, there’s one missing.”

  “’Cause you’re wearing it.” His breath was warm and moist in her ear as his hand slid up to cup her breast. “And since we’re alone, I want to see you wearing your cut and your new tat and nothing else to celebrate our new home.”

  She turned in his arms, her body trembling. This moment had gone so wrong with Jimmy. But this was Cade. And they had planned for this together. Wanted it. Hoped. Dreamed.

  “I meant you’ll need something smaller … baby size.”

  Read on for an excerpt from the next book by

  SARAH CASTILLE

  SINNER’S STEEL

  Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  Zane flicked the throttle on his Harley and the bike surged forward, forcing Evie to tighten her grip around his waist.

  He could do this.

  The distance between Evie’s house and Bill’s shop couldn’t be more than twenty miles. And look. He’d already made it to the highway. If she would just stop wiggling on the seat behind him … and if she didn’t hold him quite so tight with her breasts pressed up against her back … and if her fingers weren’t dangling over the bulge in his jeans, which was getting more pronounced the closer she pressed her body against his.…then he might actually make it to the shop without either crashing the bike or spilling in his pants like a teenage boy.

  He couldn’t remember feeling lust like this since the night he’d left Stanton. Sure he’d had women. He had an apartment separate from his room at the clubhouse so he could indulge his less than conventional tastes. The sweet butts were always warm and willing, and if he wanted to keep things discrete, the Sinners owned several strip clubs in town. But he rarely felt the need to take advantage of the opportunities the cut provided. And when he did, every woman morphed into Evie. She had been burned onto his brain, ruining him for other women forever.

  And now her soft, sexy body was pressed up against him, her thighs brushing his thighs, her hips firm against his ass, and her damn fingers resting on his fly. His groin tightened and he swerved the bike.

  Fuck. Concentrate. But it was so damn hard.

  He wondered what Mark would think about his wife riding on the back of Zane’s bike, holding on to him, legs parted, cheeks flushed from the wind. If she’d been his, there would be no way he would allow her on the back of any man’s bike. Hell, he wouldn’t let her near another man. Look how he reacted to her, despite the stain of her betrayal still tainting his heart.

  By the time they reached the shop, he was rock hard and his body thrummed with need. Shooter pulled up beside them and Zane prayed for Evie to dismount quickly so he would have time to get himself together and calm the fuck down so she wouldn’t see the evidence of his desire.

  He wanted her. She’d hurt him and he wanted her. She was with another man and he wanted her. She’d slapped him and damned if seeing Evie come into her own hadn’t made him want her more. And back there on the porch, when she’d brushed her breasts against his chest, the way she’d brushed up against him when they were young, telling him with her body what she couldn’t say out loud, he’d almost taken her.

  “Gotta talk to Shooter,” he said after she slid neatly off his bike. “I’ll meet you inside.”

  “I’ll go check out the damage.” She gave him a wink and then walked to the door, making his groin tighten all over again at the sight of her beautiful ass perfectly outlined in dark denim.

  After the door closed behind her, he briefed Shooter on surveillance techniques, which basically meant find somewhere to stand where you weren’t visible and don’t fall asleep. He sent Shooter to the picnic table across the street, then walked around his bike as he tried to get his libido in check, considering the various bike parts, how they fit together and how easily they came apart, and how hard it had been to replace his stock exhaust with a longer, harder, thicker pipe, and how he had to fight with Sparky to get an upswept ball-end megaphone muffler.

  When he realized the direction his thoughts were leading, he gave up the fight, made a careful self-adjustment, and headed into the store.

  Rows of motorcycles gleamed under the overhead lights. Bill had a lot of stock for a small store, mostly new models, but a few bobsters, and some custom pieces. The walls held parts and supplies, racks of leathers, helmets and boots.

  He found E
vie in her shop spraying primer on a gas tank perched on an A-frame stand. She had stripped down to a skin tight tank top and tied her hair back in a messy pony tail with loose strands framing her beautiful face. Damn she was hot, standing in that gritty shop, surrounded by motorcycle parts, and with a spray gun in her hand …

  Christ. Was everything going to make him think about sex?

  “Thought I’d get a head start on my work for tomorrow while I was waiting. My portfolio is over there if you need to look at it under more legitimate circumstances, or if you’ve brought a design, just leave it on the bench and I’ll take a look.”

  Zane walked along the wall beside the benches filled with paint supplies, and air brush guns. He had already checked the place out, trying to find clues about her life from the personal items in her workspace: a handbook from Conundrum College, a parenting magazine, a coffee cup from a restaurant in Stanton, a motorcycle magazine, and the charcoal drawing of him, Jagger and Evie on the wall—a rendition of the picture he had given her. Even now, seeing it again, a lump welled up in his throat—not just because of the memory, but because she’d kept it, and made it larger than life.

  “Find anything in the portfolio?” She came up beside him, and he couldn’t stop himself from brushing one of the loose strands of hair back from her face. The sharp scent of primer took the edge off his desire, and he was finally able to untangle his tongue.

  “No. But you’re work is exceptional.” She’d always been artistic, which was why he was so unsure of the gift he’d made for her the night of Jagger’s going-away party. Although he knew her as well as one person could know another, he still worried it wasn’t good enough … that he wasn’t worthy.

  “You’re nothing and you come from nothing,” her father had shouted as he beat Zane in the forest. “You’ve got nothing to offer my daughter. No future. No skills. Hell you couldn’t even finish school. All you got is a trailer full of drugs, an addict for a father, and your shit for brains.”

  Perversely, he’d been happy for Evie, thinking at least her father cared. It was only later, when Sheriff Monroe showed up at the trailer with a gun, that he realized her father was protecting himself. Until that night, he hadn’t known Zane was Doug Colton’s son. And he couldn’t take the risk that Zane would tell Evie or the police that he was on the take, running drugs for Zane’s father across the state line, accepting bribes, and doing everything a sheriff shouldn’t do.