by Franca Storm
“Baby,” I heard her gasp in relief, just before I threw my arms around her.
Relief couldn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling as I held her tightly to me, squeezing her as hard as I could without the risk of hurting her.
She tried to pull back, but I wouldn’t loosen my hold on her. Instead, she spoke into my chest. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier.”
I didn’t care. Only one thing mattered to me. “You hurt?”
She shook her head against me. “No.”
The lead-heavy weight that’d been bearing down on me since I’d found out she’d taken off, finally lifted. Finding her was one thing, but finding her unharmed as well… Jesus… I was so grateful.
“I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”
She lifted her head and pressing her hands to my chest, she told me, “Let go and come with me, there’s something you need to see.”
Her ominous words had me arching an eyebrow with curiosity. I released her and she snatched up the flashlight, then grabbed my hand and pulled me with her further up the road.
A few strides in, she squeezed my hand and we jerked to a stop. I watched as the muted light from her flashlight revealed the silhouette of a bike downed in the middle of the mud-slicked path several feet ahead. Luce shifted the flashlight a few inches to the right. A guy was sprawled there. Motionless. I strained to make out more detail. A leather cut. Club member.
As if she were reading my mind, Luce told me, “Strikers member.”
“He crashed, cuz of the storm?”
“No. Because I took him out.”
I look away from the guy and back at her. “What?”
Her gaze was fixed on the scene of the accident as she told me, “He pulled his gun, went for my tires. That’s why the truck’s in the ditch. It’s also why I couldn’t call for help. I was trying to call you when he first forced me to clip a tree and the impact crushed it against the frigging window. Anyhow, he pulled his gun next and blew out a tire, before I clipped his bike. The fool wasn’t wearing a helmet. He cracked his skull. He’s dead.”
“Fuck, Luce, I—”
“The shock it caused bought me enough time to gain an advantage over the other two.”
My whole body jolted. “Other two?”
I struggled through a haze of pulsing rage as I followed Luce around to the rear of the truck.
Three guys? Three guys had attacked her? She’d been in danger. And I hadn’t been there. The second I’d let her out of my sight. I was sick to my stomach. I should’ve never given her the option. I should’ve never left that apartment.
“Here,” she said, pressing the flashlight into my hand, then stepping back.
“Jesus Christ,” I choked out, as I swept the light back and forth. Two unconscious, beaten bodies were cuffed to the truck bed. They weren’t small guys either. I snuck a glance back at Luce. Not a scratch on her.
“They had those cuffs on them. For me, they said.”
I spun to face her. “Tell me.”
She glared at me accusingly. “Payback for Natasha?”
Fuck.
“When were you going to tell me, Mason?”
“When I got back to your place. I told you to wait, remember? Told you I was gonna tell you everything.”
She hung her head resignedly. “I’m sorry.” She sucked in a breath. “So, she’s back in the picture then? I assume my brother’s been with her this entire time? She has something to do with this big threat?”
I nodded.
“They were going to take me tonight. To Nik.”
“I know.”
She grinned, pride sparking in her eyes. “But they failed.”
“No thanks to me.”
Slapping my arm, she scolded, “You idiot. You still don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“I was able to stop them, because of you.” She gestured wildly at them. “That… all of it… it’s what you taught me. I’m not helpless. I don’t need your protection, because you taught me how to handle myself without you being around.” She grabbed my hands. “And now, finally, you get to see the proof of that. That’s the only good thing about this screwed up situation.”
I couldn’t deny it. Her words rang true. And they completely decimated my earlier thoughts and fears of needing to always keep her in my sights being the only way to ensure her safety.
Seeing this changed things. It was one thing her talking tough, but seeing the proof of that talk being backed up was another thing altogether.
Yet another way she was a damn impressive woman. I’d known Lucy Taylor for a hell of a long time. But this just showed that no matter how well you knew somebody, there were always new and exciting things to discover and uncover along the way. You never stopped getting to know someone.
“You’re saying you can handle yourself.”
“Yeah.” She looked hopeful, clearly needing me to accept it.
I eyed the guys and reached forward, testing their restraints. Solid. Secure. If they came to they weren’t going anywhere.
Wrapping my arm around Luce, I walked her over to my bike. “Liam and I headed over to your place tonight intending to put you and Abi under lockdown at the clubhouse until we’d secured the situation going down tonight. The Strikers tried to infiltrate all points of entry into town. This, the Northern Road, was the last one needing securing.”
“So, it’s over now then. I’ve taken care of the last point of entry.”
I shook my head. “Nah, that’s just the first step. We’ll need to patrol the surrounding area with a fine tooth comb to ensure Stone doesn’t have anybody else lying in wait. We need to put measures in place in case of reprisal. The list goes on.”
She ducked out from under my arm, scowling. “You’re telling me lockdown could last for several days, rather than hours?”
I smiled. “Nothing you need to worry about now.”
To say she looked startled was a major understatement. “Really?”
I unzipped my jacket, shook it off and draped it over our heads like a makeshift umbrella, holding it between us. We grinned at one another as I told her, “You took down three hardcore rival club members. The two you fought have got a hundred pounds on you, yet you managed to deal with them like any of our men would’ve without sustaining a single injury.” I snorted with disbelief. “You don’t need protection, little darlin’. Not anymore.”
“I haven’t needed it for a long while, Mason.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” I brushed my thumb over her cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“I couldn’t do it, you know?”
“What’s that?”
“Leave you.”
Our eyes locked. Intensity crackled between us.
“I was five minutes beyond town when I realized I couldn’t do it, Mason.” She grabbed at my t-shirt, fisting her hands in it. “I can’t stand the idea of not having you in my life.”
“I know, little darlin’. Fuck, believe me, I’m right there with you.”
“You pushed me away, because you thought you were giving me my best chance. You figured it was the right thing for me, for my career, didn’t you?”
“I never want to hold you back.”
“How about, from now on we start thinking of what’s best for us as a couple? No more going it alone. Let’s put all of that to bed, because I’m here to stay.” She winked. “If you still want me, of course.”
I chuckled. “Well, you are a hell of a handful. It’s a good thing that’s exactly how I like my women.”
“Women?”
“Woman.”
“That’s better,” she said, smiling as she pulled me down via her grip on my shirt. “All these years, whenever I’ve thought about being with you, being yours, I’ve never wanted to be a regular Old Lady. Your quiet little woman who sits on the sidelines whenever shit goes down. It’s not how I grew up, Mason. As much as Cole tried to pretend the past didn’t happen once we got here to War
low, it did. And it put me on a level playing field with you. I want to be your partner, Mason.”
“Okay.”
“Really?” she asked, like she couldn’t quite believe my easy agreement.
“I’m not going to lie, I’m always going to want to protect you. It’s a natural instinct for me when it comes to you. Now you’re my woman, it’s even more intense. But I see now that you can handle shit. I’m sorry, Luce. I’m real sorry that I needed to see this. That I needed proof.” I brushed my lips over hers, eliciting a soft moan from her. Lowering my voice, I whispered, “Partners. I swear it.”
She reached under my shirt and ran her hands down my naked chest. “I love you, Mason.”
“Fuck, little darlin’, I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
The next thing I knew, her fingers were on my belt, frantically working to unclasp it. The moment she reached beneath the waistband of my boxers and grasped my cock, the thin sliver of control I’d been holding onto finally snapped.
It didn’t matter that we were in the middle of a serious situation. That there were two unconscious assholes bound to the truck bed. One dead guy sprawled across the road. It barely registered that my brothers would be down this way any minute.
Nah, my brain had slipped into lockdown. I was only operating on a primal level.
I hooked my fingers into her sodden jeans and roughly peeled them down her legs. Ripping them free from her ankles, after tossing her boots aside and hoisting her up off the floor with an arm around her waist, I draped them over my saddle.
Like a man possessed, I slammed her into a nearby tree trunk, shifted my grip to her hips and thrust up into her, driving deep.
She screamed out into the night. “God, Mason! Yes!” Her thighs tightened around me, begging me for more.
And that was exactly what I gave her, pounding her into the tree with every brutal thrust. I was out of my mind with the feel of her squeezing my pulsing cock mercilessly. So warm. So wet that her juices were dripping down all over my balls.
I fisted my hand in the back of Luce’s hair, jerking her head back, and as I forced her eyes to meet mine and saw the intensity staring back at me, I realized we both needed to unburden ourselves on each other.
“I can take it,” she choked out, knowing my thoughts as usual. “I need it. We both do.”
I nodded and cupped the back of her head, holding her against my chest.
With every powerful thrust of my hips that had Luce squealing in pleasure into the storm bearing down on us, I finally unleashed everything I’d been holding back.
The regret that’d plagued me over all the years we’d wasted estranged.
The ire that I’d held back during our fight hours earlier.
The hurt that’d pierced my heart when I’d thought I’d lost her forever.
The desperation and powerlessness that’d consumed me as I’d searched for her, not knowing whether she was all right. Safe.
Jesus, there was just so much to unburden.
Gripping her ass and angling my cock so I could hit her sweet spot dead-on, I watched as Luce ripped her head from my chest, slamming it back against the tree, her eyes on fire, locked on mine. We both became wild animals as I powered into her over and over. Devoid of inhibition. All control. Absolutely mindless in our pursuit of the ecstasy building to an epic crescendo between us. With me rutting and grunting and her convulsing and screaming, we unleashed everything. Let it all go. Once and for all.
As I felt her clamp down around me, setting off my own intense orgasm, I roared out into the night, my shouts melded with her shrieks as we both unburdened ourselves so completely.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I breathed, gently setting her down.
“Mason!” she gasped, freeing her arm to point down the road.
I swung my head in that direction to see a series of blurry lights coming our way. I strained to hear beyond the thunderous sound of the storm. And, sure enough, I just managed to make them out: tires crunching on the dirt road. Transport trucks. And a shitload more vehicles.
The club had arrived.
“Shit. Get dressed,” I told Luce, reaching forward to help her with her jeans.
14
~Lucy~
I rolled my eyes at Mason as he hauled open my door for me, then even stuck out his hand, intending to help me down from the truck. Given the fact that a bunch of his brothers were swarming around, I let him without making a fuss. I would never embarrass the man I loved.
He winked at me before leaning in and grasping my hips. As he swung me down to the asphalt of the clubhouse lot, he whispered reassuringly in my ear, “Partners, little darlin’.”
I grinned like a school girl with an obsessive crush. He’d truly meant it earlier. He wasn’t going back on it. From now on, he was determined to treat me as an equal, not as something to be protected and sheltered. It was what I’d craved for so long. I could barely believe it, barely contain my happiness.
I had the two things I’d always wanted. The man I’d loved for so long and the freedom to live my life the way I wanted to.
There was just one thing left to deal with.
And, as I felt Mason tense beside me, I knew the time had come.
I looked up to see his gorgeous whiskey-colored eyes almost disappear completely into such irate narrowed slits, zeroing on the sight up ahead. I grasped his arm as I heard a growl reverberate through him.
“Easy, baby.”
Following his line of sight, I watched as my brother strolled from the clubhouse with an arm wrapped loosely around troublemaker, Natasha Ireland.
Troublemaker was an understatement when it came to that woman.
When she and my brother had fallen hard and fast for one another, I’d been nothing but supportive of their relationship. I’d been happy for them. For my brother, especially, because I’d never seen him take a serious liking to a woman before. I’d become close with Natasha. Good friends. And then Nik Stone had come knocking, trying to track her down. We’d found out she’d been trying to escape him, to start a new life. I respected that. But what I didn’t respect was what she’d done in her panicked state when she’d learned he’d been searching for her whereabouts. She’d turned to Mason. Instead of her boyfriend, my brother, she’d attempted to go behind his back. I understood why. Mason was the better guy for that sort of thing. But, still. She known the way things worked by then. But she’d gone to Mason anyway and tried to work her feminine charms on him—the thing that’d obviously turned me off her right away, before I’d found out she’d then betrayed my brother too. When Mason had refused, she’d tried harder, intensifying those charms. Cole had caught her and all hell had broken loose. She’d taken off, leaving hell in her wake and not hours later, Nik Stone and the Strikers MC had come at us, tearing things up to get to her. What a mess.
The two of them were as muddied and soaked as the rest of us, having just ridden in, according to the talk I’d heard going back and forth in the transport truck on the way up here. The rain just made Natasha’s outfit look even more like it was painted onto her skin. Ridiculous and as trashy as ever. I mean, who wore baby-pink pants that clung so tightly to their legs that they restricted their movements? How could she ride like that? The answer was that she normally didn’t. She was just a poser, not a real rider like the rest of us. She just hung with and screwed MC members, but she didn’t get the life. It was a frigging joke. And that leather jacket, the same silly color, considering her and Cole were supposed to be riding covertly—and that meant black. She had it zipped down so low, to her waist revealing nothing underneath but far too much of her boobs. Urgh. She was clearly doing her usual thing of trying to manipulate the men around her with her sexuality, expecting all eyes to be on her, no doubt.
But as I looked around the lot at the guys, I saw that she wasn’t getting the reaction she wanted. No, they were all pissed. They all knew what she was capable of now. They weren’t going to fall for her shit. Well, none of them, ex
cept my brother, who had his arm wrapped around her and a hand I was pretty sure was squeezing her butt. Urgh.
That altered in the next moment when his eyes fell on Mason and I. Specifically, Mason’s hands on me and my fingers clutching his arm, continuing to calm him in the face of Cole’s close proximity. My brother’s face transformed into an expression I’d never seen projected at me or Mason before. Unadulterated rage. It was so pure that his face actually appeared twisted, like that of a monster’s and an icy shiver rolled down my spine, making me shudder outwardly.
“Everything will be okay,” Mason whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the top of my head, obviously feeling my reaction.
Seeing his tender action just infuriated my brother more though, and, while breaking from Natasha and storming towards us, he roared, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“We’re together,” I answered automatically.
Cole flinched, like he couldn’t bear to hear the words.
His fierce glare shot to Mason, ignoring my presence. “I’m gone two weeks and you fuck around with my sister?”
“We’re not fucking around. I made her mine.”
Cole shook his head like a wild man. “No. I don’t accept that.”
“Not for you to accept. It’s already done.”
Cole glanced around at the guys.
“The club accepted it,” Mason added. “She’s mine. Been a hell of a long time coming and you know it. Me and Luce are together. Get over it.”
Cole flashed him a nasty look as he stopped a couple of feet from us. “You broke a code, brother.”
Mason let go of me and eased me back a couple of steps. “Yeah, about that...” He stepped closer to Cole. At the same time, I was aware of the guys quietly forming a large circle around us. The several who had exited the transport trucks and cars were being directed by Liam and formed a semi-circle flanking Mason and me. Then several came out of the clubhouse with Slade mixed in, doing the same to Cole and Natasha.