It was true. She had.
All her life there had been changes. Changes that had hurt. And so she’d clung to anything that gave her stability and safety. People. The club. Her garage.
There was no one to cling to now. She had nothing. She was on her own.
A weird burst of adrenaline shot through her.
She had no idea what she’d do now or where she’d go. Or what would happen after this, and yes, that was scary. But she couldn’t keep clinging to people and hoping for safety, hoping for protection against the winds of change. Because not every change hurt. Not every change was bad.
Sometimes you had to be the wind of change yourself.
“Red!” The voice that called out behind her was deep and male and very, very familiar.
Her heartbeat sped up, the adrenaline flooding through her bloodstream.
She should keep walking, she really should.
Why? This is what you want. What you’ve always wanted and yet been too afraid to reach for.
Alice stopped. Turned.
He was coming toward her, tall and big and muscular. A big, scary biker with his fallen-angel looks and his dark, intense eyes.
And she knew all at once that yes, she had been a coward. That she’d been the one getting in the way of what she wanted most.
Love.
But shit, she’d just thrown away everything that mattered to her and she was still standing. She was just Alice. Alice whom everyone had left, who couldn’t have kids. Who couldn’t offer anyone anything.
Nothing except herself. And that would have to do.
So she began to walk toward him and when walking wasn’t fast enough, she began to run. Straight into his arms.
And they opened wide, caught her up, and she was held against his big, hard body, held so tight she could hardly breathe. But she didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest, her heart beating wildly.
“What the fuck did you do?” he demanded thickly after a moment. “Leaving the Ministry…Shit, Red. What were you thinking?”
She lifted her head and glanced down the street, suddenly conscious of what they were doing. “Does Blade know you’re out here?”
“I told Ajax I had to go find my bike. They don’t know I came after you.” He slowly lowered her back down to the sidewalk, but he didn’t let her go. “Why did you do it, baby? Why did you leave?”
She looked up at him, into his beautiful face. “Why do you think? I couldn’t tell Blade I’d been seeing you. I couldn’t drag you into it. It was the only way I could tell him no.”
Something moved in his dark eyes and he cupped her face between his big palms. “But what about you? Your garage? I thought they were your family.”
There was a lump in her throat and her chest felt tight. “They were. For a while. And they were safety and that’s what I thought I needed. But…I don’t, Blue. What I need is you.”
He’d gone very still. “What?”
“I gave up the Ministry to protect you, Blue.” She lifted her hands and covered his with hers, met his gaze. And it didn’t feel so difficult to say this time, or so scary. “I told you in the houseboat that I loved you once. And…I still do. I always will.”
He was staring at her, his eyes so dark. “Fuck…what I said to you. About the cut. About my road name. What I demanded from you all this time…” He shook his head. “I made a promise, Red. I made a promise I wouldn’t hurt you. But that’s all I seem to do.”
Her heart constricted. “No, you don’t. Those conflicting loyalties…They were because I was scared. I was scared of losing the stability, the peace I’d found. But, Blue. Stability and peace is actually pretty fucking shitty if I don’t have you there too.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment and she didn’t look away, just stared up at him, letting the warmth of his touch seep through her, seeing the truth in his eyes.
“I never deserved you, Red. Not even back then,” he said hoarsely. “What makes you think I deserve you now?”
—
He didn’t know how she could have done that for him. Thrown away everything that mattered to her, and all to protect him.
What had he done for her? His father had broken her family apart and he’d spent a long time trying to make up for that. Trying to be better than his old man. And yet what had he done in the end? He’d left her, hurt her. Ten years later he was hurting her still.
Yet here she was, holding his hands in hers and looking at him like he was her hero.
Telling him that she loved him.
What had he done to deserve that?
Her fingers were so warm around his and her mouth was curving in a delicious smile he hadn’t seen for so fucking long. “You came for me all those years ago, Blue. To check on me, to make sure I was alright. And okay, so your methods these days haven’t progressed past the Stone Age, but you wanted the best for me when you tried to protect me from Ajax.” Releasing his hands abruptly, she reached out and touched his face, like he’d just done to her, her fingers light and cool against his skin. “You let me go warn Blade. You let me protect my club. You broke your promises for me. And I know how much of a big deal that is.” She was still smiling at him and he couldn’t imagine why. “Oh and you’re a great cook, you give head like a dream, and you know a screwdriver from a wrench. What more could this girl ask for?”
Something weird was happening to his heart, something that felt as if all the tightness and anger that had been holding him for so long were draining away.
“You left everything for me,” he said roughly, desperate to give her something because it felt like she was doing all the giving. “You gave up the most important thing in your life. So, if you want me to, I’ll take off my cut, give it to Ajax. Tell him to find another VP. If that’s what I have to do to deserve you, I’ll do it.”
In the darkness of the street, the color of her eyes was muted, but he saw the glitter of blue in them all the same. His color. His blue. “You don’t have to give up anything for me. I don’t need you to, not anymore. I’m pretty strong; I can handle where your loyalty lies.” Her hands moved, down from his face and over his chest, to rest on his cut, over the patch with his name on it. “You’re a Deacon, Blue. That’s a part of you. And I want you as you are, even the parts I may not like. They all make up you and that’s the man I love.”
It didn’t seem possible, not after all this time. But she wasn’t a dream—she was standing here telling him everything he hadn’t known he wanted to hear.
He put his arms around her, wild possessiveness gripping him. “You belong with me, Ally. Blue and Red, that’s what we are. That’s what we’ll always be.” He paused. “You okay with that? ’Cause I’m not letting you go a second time. I can’t do it, not again.”
She only smiled. “So don’t.”
He couldn’t hold back after that, leaning down and taking her mouth, hot and hungry. And then, belatedly remembering where they were, he pulled back. “Can’t do this here. I’ve got a better idea.”
Her cheeks were flushed, just the way he liked them. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’ll see. Now. Where did you put my bike?”
She showed him where she’d parked it and he put her on the back of it. Then he burned rubber all the way back to Buras and beyond, down to the little floating house he’d once called home. Where no one would find them for at least a couple of days.
Ajax would be pissed, but right now he didn’t give a fuck. He’d left Ajax and Blade hashing out some kind of agreement that would essentially boil down to each club leaving the other alone, which would be perfect.
Ajax would also want to get on to finding out who’d paid Gator for the hit on Priest, but that, too, could wait. He had more important things to do, such as getting Alice naked.
They fell on each other when they finally got back to his bayou house and he’d carried her into the tiny bedroom.
Then he ripped off he
r clothes and laid her on the bed, spread her thighs, and pushed into her. Not hard this time and not fast, but deep and slow. Then he moved like the tide that rocked the house itself, surging in and out of her, feeling her legs come up around his waist and hold on to him tight, watching her gaze meet his, her eyes the color of blue summer skies even in the dark.
“I love you,” he said, the words pulled out of him by pleasure and by the warmth of her body, by the look on her face. “I fucking love you, Alice Day.” And he meant it. Because it felt like those words had always been part of him, always been there waiting to be said to her.
Alice kissed him hard. “I know,” she said.
And later, slick with sweat and lying skin on skin, his arms tight around her, he said, “Your garage—we’ll make sure it stays yours. Ministry can’t take that away from you. And I’m gonna get you a family, too. We’ll have kids, some way, somehow, and it doesn’t matter where they come from, because they’ll be ours in the end.”
Her smile was the sweetest, most true, most real thing he’d ever seen. “I’d love kids, but you know what? If it doesn’t happen, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be okay. Because you’re my family, Blue.”
He stared at her in the dark, his heart pounding all of a sudden. “I don’t want my property patch back, Red. I want you to wear it.”
And for a second she only looked at him, and in that moment he truly didn’t know what she was going to say. It scared the living shit out of him.
“Okay,” she said after a moment. “I’ll wear it. I’ll be your old lady for real.”
Triumph rose in him, and relief. “Blade’ll be pissed.”
Her mouth curved. “I’ll work something out.”
Christ, she was amazing. Fuck, he loved her.
He bent his head and kissed her hard. Lifted a hand to cup her breast. “One more thing,” he added, moving his thumb lazily over her nipple, relishing her shiver as he did so.
“What?”
“If you ever take my bike again, I’ll kill you.”
Alice laughed. “Don’t kill me. How about you make love to me instead?”
And despite the fact that he’d just done so, he said, “I’m out of practice. I think you need to show me how it goes.”
So in a floating house, under a bayou moon, she showed him how to love and be loved in return. And later, much, much later, he decided that she needed to take his bike again.
Often.
JACKIE ASHENDEN has been writing fiction since she was eleven years old. Mild-mannered fantasy/SF/pseudo-literary writer by day, obsessive romance writer by night, she used to balance her writing with the more serious job of librarianship until a chance meeting with another romance writer prompted her to throw off the shackles of her day job and devote herself to the true love of her heart—writing romance. She particularly likes to write dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who’ve just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines.
Jackie lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr. Jax, two kids, two cats, and two rats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their stroppy heroines, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, posting random crap on her blog, or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband.
To keep up to date with Jackie’s new releases and other news, sign up for her newsletter at her website and follow her at:
jackieashenden.com
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@JackieAshenden
The Editor’s Corner
Happy Holidays from our hearth to yours! This month we’re sending you some hot Loveswept romances to keep the fire burning:
USA Today bestselling author Bronwen Evans’s new Disgraced Lords novel is about a marriage of convenience and its delightful pleasures—and mortal danger in A Whisper of Desire. K. J. Charles turns up the heat in her new Society of Gentlemen novel, A Seditious Affair, as two lovers face off in a sensual duel that challenges their deepest beliefs. Samantha Kane’s Birmingham Rebels series proves that three’s never a crowd…at least not for the hard-bodied football all-stars who give teamwork a sexy twist in Calling the Play. Welcome to Forever, new from author Annie Rains, introduces a small coastal town where America’s best and brightest risk everything for love. Jackie Ashenden ups the ante in the seductive Deacons of Bourbon Street series, co-written with Megan Crane, Rachael Johns, and Maisey Yates, with Hold Me Down, a story about what happens when the biker who broke Alice’s heart rides into town, and she must choose between passion and duty. Another story for MC fans is Violetta Rand’s irresistible novel about a sexy-as-sin biker who tempts a good girl to go bad, Persuasion.
In USA Today bestselling author Tina Wainscott’s gritty, emotional small-town romance Falling Hard, passions run high as a reformed bad boy reconnects with an old enemy…and gets her engine revving. In Laura Marie Altom’s tale of forbidden love, Stepping Over the Line, meet two tortured souls with an unbreakable bond. Then comes a tender military romance from Serena Bell, USA Today bestselling author of Hold on Tight, in which a war-shattered veteran gets a second chance at love with the one that got away in Can’t Hold Back.
Writing duo MJ Fields and Chelsea Camaron release another sizzling-hot Caldwell Brothers story—Morrison, which hits the Vegas strip as a bad-boy gambler from Detroit Rock City shows a single mom what it means to play for keeps. Then it’s off to Los Angeles where Hollywood’s hottest young actor hits the road to chase his big break—and discovers a leading lady where he least expects in Cassie Mae’s No Interest in Love.
I can’t believe 2016 is upon us, can you? Thank you for spending your reading time with Loveswept, and we hope to entertain you all over again in the new year.
Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Sparks fly when a society belle and a biker with a troubled past get down and dirty in the Big Easy. Maisey Yates turns up the heat in the sizzling finale of a series co-written with Megan Crane, Rachael Johns, and Jackie Ashenden.
Strip You Bare
Coming soon from Loveswept
Continue reading for a sneak peek
Chapter 1
There was a feeling of homecoming that people often waxed lyrical about. It was immortalized in songs, in literature, and in film. Peace, belonging, and all other manner of bullshit.
Micah “Prince” Carpenter didn’t feel any of those things.
No, since his return to New Orleans a few weeks back even walking around felt like he’d taken a bullet to the chest. Lead twisting itself around his heart, interfering with every beat, every breath. Or that could just be the godawful humidity.
But he had a feeling it was to do with the city itself. Like an aging matron trying to coat every imperfection with more and more makeup, the French Quarter clung to its former glory, claiming cracks in the sidewalk and corroded metal on the curling wrought iron balconies as part of its charm.
The Delacroix House, where Micah found himself, was no exception to the air of haughty, tarnished glamour. Even now the old building thought far too highly of itself for a place that had been all but abandoned for more than ten years. Heavy brocade drapes hung in the windows, at the center of the room a settee and two wingback chairs, flanked by solid mahogany tables, still invited guests to come and sit down. To enjoy a little bit of Southern hospitality, even if the only residents were ghosts.
There was something oppressive about this place, where even the air was heavy. But Micah was stuck here for the foreseeable future.
Fuck Ajax and his fucking brotherhood. His fucking honor.
And fuck himself for his inability to walk away.
Micah walked deeper into the sitting room, stirring up a cloud of dust with each step. The old house would seem remarkable to some, but nothing about these stately Southern homes appealed to him. He preferred things sleek, modern. And in his new life, far away from here, he su
rrounded himself with those things.
The humidity, the heat was oppressive, even in late October. Sometimes he thought this city was sitting right on the mouth of hell. He stripped off his suit jacket, reached up and loosened the knot in his tie, then draped his jacket over the back of one of the chairs. Then he turned and sat, looking around the darkened room. At the golden sconces on the wall, their shine diminished from years of neglect. At the wallpaper, dust clinging to the textured flowers that covered the deep blue surface.
It was opulent, that was for sure. Even the dirt couldn’t hide that.
But whether or not he was impressed by the house was irrelevant. Because this wasn’t about the house. It was about the woman who was still under the impression that she owned it. Or more specifically, it was about her family.
The Deacons’ connection to the Delacroix family apparently ran deeper than simply claiming their infamous prodigal son Leon as a member.
That much had become clear when they were sorting through all of Priest’s holdings after his death. Not only were there the assorted properties on Bourbon Street, but there was this house that had—as far as anyone else knew—belonged exclusively to the Delacroix family since it was first built.
Not anymore. The Deacons had possession of it now.
And given that they were sure Priest had been murdered, any connections that seemed out of the ordinary were worth exploring.
Which was a damn shame because it meant his ass was parked here for the foreseeable future.
The sound of high heels clicking on the marble floor made him turn. Just in time to see a petite dark-haired woman freeze in her tracks.
Upper class. She reeked of it. From the perfectly smooth waves of rich dark hair cascading down her back, to the pale pink dress that flowed over her curves like water. The kind of woman that was off-limits to a guy like him. Or at least the man he had been. The kind of woman who was way more trouble than she was worth. At least, that had been his take on them when he’d lived down here. There were a hell of a lot easier ways to hook up.
Hold Me Down (The Deacons of Bourbon Street #3) Page 20