by Megan Crane
Sophie certainly hoped so.
Ajax straightened slowly, his hot gaze all over her, and that mouth of his in a hard line. He was wearing a white T-shirt under his cut that was plastered to him in this heat, licking over all those ridges that marked his sculpted abdomen and made her fingers itch to touch him again, and then maybe sneak below the jeans he wore low on his hips. He was all tattooed danger and that glittering, greedy thing in the way he looked at her. It still punched straight through her. It still made her ache.
One year later and she was even more addicted than she’d been back then, at the start. She kept waiting for that crazy rush to go away. For this longing, this wild hunger, to ease a little bit. For life with this man to feel normal. Run of the mill. Boring, even.
Something other than spectacular, but that hadn’t happened yet.
I’m addicted to you, she’d shouted at him in the middle of an intense battle between them a few months into this thing. She couldn’t remember why she’d been so furious with him. Or maybe she’d been scared of how much deeper it felt with him, every damned day. No rest from it. No time out. Ajax had no boundaries. That meant loving him was equally limitless. There’s nothing healthy about this bullshit! I’m the daughter of a junkie and I’m no better than she is and this drama might as well be me crouched on a street corner with a needle in my arm!
Ajax had laughed in her face, the dick.
You want to OD on me? Do it. He’d loomed there in their living room, that pitiless look on his face and that grin on his lips, like he wanted this thing to hurt. Like he took pleasure in it. He’d moved his hands to his zipper. Treat me like a crack pipe, babe. I dare you.
She’d taken that dare.
And sometime into that very long, very boundary-pushing night, Ajax had cradled her head in his hands while he’d moved in her, pinning her to the floor with his big body between her legs and her ankles high on his shoulders.
Some addictions aren’t all bad, Sophie, he’d gritted at her, never losing that ferocious pace of his, his cock as hard as the expression on his face and both of them tearing her apart. It’s what you do with them that counts.
Here, now, in the sunny courtyard on another October morning, Ajax pulled a bandanna out of his back pocket and wiped his hands, never shifting that hard blue gaze of his from her face.
“Got a hot date?” he asked, his voice that low, menacing rumble that still made everything inside of her clench tight. “Maybe with a pole?”
Sophie smiled at him as if her heart wasn’t beating any faster, the way it always did when she had his full attention. All that power. All that strength. All that lethal promise in his cool blue eyes and that battered body of his that backed it up every time.
God, she loved him.
“I’m going for a walk,” she told him, her voice as cool and casual as she could make it. “My daddy told me once that I could dress up like a drag queen and wander the streets of the French Quarter. Over his dead body, of course.”
“It’s not his dead body you should worry about, babe.”
Sophie let her smile deepen. “You look like you’re breathing just fine.”
She swiveled around then, and set off across the courtyard toward the alley that led out into the midday bustle of Bourbon Street. She made sure to saunter, to give him a show. She could feel him follow her. Even if she hadn’t heard his boots against the stones, she’d have felt that harsh blue gaze of his all over her ass, making her break out in goosebumps in exultant defiance of the Louisiana heat.
“You think all these douchebag tourists deserve to get a look at my property?” Ajax asked, from much closer behind her than she’d expected.
It took everything Sophie had not to jump—but she couldn’t control the way her heart thudded against her ribs, or the pulse of sheer longing that hit her hard, straight in her pussy. He didn’t touch her, but when she stopped moving at the mouth of the alley, she could feel the wild heat of his wall of a chest behind her. Almost pressing into her. Almost stealing her resolve away. He was good at that.
“Think maybe you should ask before you parade my shit half-naked down the middle of my city, babe?”
He sounded only mildly interested, but she knew better. She knew him now. She knew how his clever mind worked. She knew how he dealt with the emotions he pretended he didn’t have. She knew what kind of leader he was and she knew what kind of man he was. She knew he made being an old lady worth the questions she sometimes asked him that he couldn’t answer. So worth it. She’d never understood that part, looking in on it. She’d had no idea that intimacy could feel like this, precarious and necessary, vulnerable and strong all at once. Ajax was a revelation.
He was the love of her life.
And he was the kind of man who needed object lessons, not discussions. He was a doer, not a talker.
“This is our anniversary, asshole,” she said, tilting her head back so the headdress scraped against the stone wall of the alley and she could look at him. That gorgeous face of his, no less dangerous for all that dark blond, blue-eyed prettiness. He was still half feral. She thought maybe he always would be, and the truth about her, Sophie knew, was that she liked him that way.
One corner of his mouth crooked up. “I know what day it is.”
“This is how I celebrate.” She eyed him. “You have a problem with that?”
“What if I do?”
“If you do,” she drawled, and then lifted her left hand to wave it in front of his face, “I’ll remind you that there’s no ring on this finger. I’m not wearing a property patch at the moment. I can do what I want.”
A different sort of light kindled in that hard blue gaze of his then, making her legs feel unsteady in her crazy shoes.
“You know the deal,” he said in his low voice, making her nipples pebble hard beneath her pasties while that nearly savage look in his eyes made it hard to breathe. “You want a ring? I want ink.”
Sophie made a great show of shrugging. “You first.”
Ajax laughed that filthy laugh of his, and it danced all over her the way it always did, making her feel delicious and dirty and his. A thousand times, his. But that was the point of this, she reminded herself.
“You always come first, babe,” he told her, and he reached out then, toying with her belly ring in a lazy sort of way that made her feel slippery and much too hot. He leaned in and got his mouth on her ear. “I want my name on that ass, Sophie. A property patch you can’t take off. Ever.”
It turned out that Sophie wanted that, too. So much it actually hurt her, like a stitch in her side nothing made any better, all this whole long year. But she knew her man. He respected a fight, not an easy surrender. He was made of fists and ferocity, and he expected her to stand up to him no matter what, not to break when he got loud or a little harsh.
That was the only way he could feel free to be himself. Nothing reined in. Nothing held back. The way she got to be with him.
So she eyed him for a minute. “Then you know what you have to do, don’t you?”
He grinned, fierce and far too hot, and let go of her belly ring.
“That sounds a lot like you giving me an ultimatum.” His voice was almost casual, when she could sense that he wasn’t at all and she could feel it in that tightening inside of her that was quickly becoming the only thing she could think about. “I’m not gonna lie, babe. It makes my dick hard to think you want a repeat of that lesson. Happy fucking anniversary to me.”
Sophie glared at him. She’d tried throwing an ultimatum at him all right. Once. Ajax had taken that as an opportunity to introduce her to the joys of erotic spanking and the kind of insane fucking that came after. She couldn’t say she’d hated it, exactly. Not when she’d come that many times, and that hard. But she also hadn’t sat down comfortably for a few days, to Ajax’s endless amusement.
Nor had she tried the ultimatum route again.
No matter how many times he dared her to.
“Not at all,”
she said now, her voice as light and easy as the southern sunshine that danced its way along the street. “I’m not telling you what to do. Heaven forbid I try to impose my will on the great and mighty president of the Deacons of Bourbon Street, feared by all and sundry and challenged by none. Perish the thought! I’m just going for a walk. With no one’s name on my ass. The truth is, I like walking around like this. It’s performance art and deep in my soul, Ajax, I’m an artist. I might have to do it more often.”
That laugh again, darker this time. “You can try.”
But when she rolled her eyes and set out into the street, he didn’t stop her. He simply fell in behind her like her own, personal biker bodyguard, and let her do her thing.
A year ago, this had been an act of grief. Of loss. A little girl’s final act of pointless rebellion against the father she couldn’t bear to lose.
This year, everything was different. She missed her father terribly, still. She wished he was around to see how many of his fondest wishes had come true. She wished a lot of things when it came to Priest. That she’d known him better. That he’d shared his secrets when he still could. That he’d understood how much he was loved.
Sophie would be damned if the new president of the Deacons had the same trouble or the same lonely trajectory. He’d know how much he was loved, always. How much he mattered. She told him every day—with her body as well as her words—because everyone else under his protection couldn’t or wouldn’t, big tough men that they were.
She wanted to keep telling him the same thing forever. She wanted his babies. She wanted all that shit neither one of them had ever had. Two parents, happy kids. A real family of their own to go along with the family they’d made.
She did a long, slow loop through the French Quarter, drinking in the shocked looks and scandalized gasps like the sweetest sort of liquor. It had been fun last year, like a roller coaster ride through her hometown. But this year, knowing that every move she made was for Ajax, that he was watching her, that he liked it when other men ogled her as long as they knew better than to touch—
This year, it felt like jumping out of a plane miles above the ground, one badass parachute firmly attached. Last year had been the equivalent of flipping her father the bird. This year was a dance. This year was theirs.
It was their anniversary.
One wild-eyed, already-wasted idiot lunged at her near the painted red brick wall of a pub and grill as she looped her way back down Bourbon Street, and Sophie didn’t even flinch. She smiled as she heard a thud and the idiot hitting the ground in her wake.
“Hands off, motherfucker,” Ajax growled. “That’s mine.”
The truth was, she fucking loved that.
And she’d learned some things herself this year. When and how to push him. How to make her point in private and suck it up in public. She’d been raised knowing these rules. There was no changing them now because they chafed sometimes—there was only learning how to work in them and around them. This was the life. This was her man. If she wanted him—and she did, God help her, she did—then this was the deal.
She sauntered back into the Priory, smiling brightly at Danielle behind the bar, whose mouth dropped open the way it had a year ago.
“Again?” the other girl asked, sounding somewhere between awe and you’re crazy.
“It’s a tradition,” Sophie replied, tugging off her headdress and tossing it on the bar, the way she had the last time, with a dramatic little spin.
But this time around she didn’t sit down, because Ajax was behind her and crowding her the way he liked to do, his big hand at the small of her back as he pushed her forward—not exactly gently—and then through the door that led into the back hall.
He didn’t speak, but she could feel the tension in him, that simmering wild thing that never dimmed, never eased, never changed. He kept his hand on her, guiding her down the hall and into the office. His office now.
He locked the door behind him and the click of it went through Sophie like a gunshot.
“Being my old lady isn’t enough for you?” he asked, in that hard voice of his that made her whole body seem to hum. “Is that what this is?”
He circled around her like the predator he was and never pretended he wasn’t, but Sophie stood her ground. She pulled her sparkling mask off and tossed it in a lazy sort of arc toward the sofa against one wall. Then she unwound her hair as Ajax leaned against the front of the big desk, his eyes on her.
“No,” she said. “It’s not enough.”
Ajax crossed his sculpted arms over his broad chest and scowled at her. “Wrong answer.”
“I want everything,” she said, meeting that scowl with one of her own. “Every. Single. Thing. I told you a long time ago I was addicted to you. You claimed that was no big deal. Have you changed your mind?”
Ajax only glared at her. “I don’t know what the fuck you want from me.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I’m never getting down on my knees, babe. Unless it’s to get my face in that pussy.”
“Noted.” She widened her stance. “Is that on the menu?”
“Jesus Christ, Sophie.” He raked his hands through his hair, and he looked so deliciously harsh, so thoroughly pissed, but she knew better. She could see his thick cock pressed hard against the front of his jeans. She could see the truth in his blue eyes when he shifted that glare back to her. “I’m not wearing a fucking ring, like a house cat bitch.”
She tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowed, and he laughed at her.
“Pick your battles, babe.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she murmured, swaying as she moved toward him, stepping between his outstretched legs and bracing herself with one hand against his rock-hard chest while she ran the other through her hair, shaking it out. “Did we agree to something?”
Ajax wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her against him, hard, his cock an iron bar flush against her clit. Sophie’s breath deserted her in a rush.
“You know I love you, you little shit,” he growled, like it was painful, and she had to bite back the giddy thing that cartwheeled through her at that. “Why the fucking parade? Why all the drama?”
She reached up and traced that hard mouth of his, that beautiful face. “I don’t know it,” she said quietly. Deliberately. “I hope it. You’ve never said it one way or the other.”
His scowl deepened and his grip on her hips tightened. “Because you should fucking know it already. You think I shack up with random bitches? You think I’d waste this much time on disposable pussy?”
“I want you to write our wedding vows, Ajax. Really. This is like poetry.”
He shifted, pulling her tighter against his chest and standing up from the desk so he could get his face in hers.
“I love you.” It was hard. Harsh. Furious.
Perfectly Ajax in every way, and it washed through her like sunlight. As bright and as beautiful.
Sophie smiled at him, her battered hero of a biker, grumpy and gorgeous and hers. All hers, always. And now there could be no mistaking it.
“I love you, too. Don’t you like it when I say it? I know you do.”
He growled at her. “Stop talking.”
Ajax took her mouth then, in a dark, hot, insane kiss that almost made her come right there, with her riding him as he held her against his cock. He tugged her even closer and she wrapped her arms around him, and he kept kissing her, like his mouth was a weapon and he was making her pay.
And pay. And pay.
It thrilled her. From her toes to her pussy. From her wildly beating heart to the top of her head. It was better than a vow. It was everything they were in a single, endless, glorious kiss.
Then he set her away from him.
“Lose the fucking shorts,” he ordered her. “But keep the shoes.”
He shrugged out of his cut and placed it carefully on the desk beside him. He threw his T-shirt on the floor. He kicked off his je
ans while she was shimmying out of her shorts, and he jerked his chin at her when she was done. Ordering her to come to him.
And Sophie was happy to obey.
Ajax slid his hands down her back, tracing over her angel wings as if he could feel them with his fingers, then all the way down to cup her ass in his palms.
He leaned back against the desk and lifted her up, spreading her thighs wide and then settling her down hard on the length of his cock. They both groaned as he shoved into her, big and hard and smooth like satin. Skin to skin, the way they’d done it for a long time now. Perfect.
He worked her up, then slammed her back down, and Sophie let her head fall back, surrendering herself to his strength and his power and that hot glide of his cock inside her and the intense pace he set. She never got enough of him. She never satisfied that itch.
She never wanted to.
“I’ll marry you,” he told her, his voice as dark and demanding as the cock he pounded into her with such measured ferocity. “And I’m gonna tattoo my goddamned name all over you, so fuckers can see it from across the French Quarter the next time you get the urge to shake this ass—my ass—across Louisiana.” He moved his mouth, open and hot, along the side of her neck. “My little junkie. I’ll be your heroin.”
“I love you,” she said, or maybe she shouted it, as he hurtled her toward that sweet, hot edge.
“Oh, I know you do, baby.” And he laughed as he stopped moving, making her moan in frustration. He laughed again when she scowled at him, and tried to move her hips against him to do it herself if he wouldn’t. He just tightened his grip and held her there, so hard and deep inside of her she was shaking with it. With all the same old hunger. All that hard-edged need. “Pull those fucking tassels off. Now.”
Sophie sucked in a shuddering breath. His blue eyes were hard on hers, amused and much too aware.
“That’s going to hurt,” she said, and she didn’t care that her voice shook. That he could hear it the same way he could undoubtedly feel her quivering around his cock as he held himself there, lodged deep inside of her.