His thrusts were becoming even harder, the force at which he slammed back into her growing rougher and more painful each time, but the release was even more beautiful than she could ever have hoped for. Than either of them could have hoped for, because she knew he’d needed this just as much as she had.
Throwing her hands up above her head she gripped the pillows tight, closing her eyes, arching her back even further as he continued to thrust deep, hitting that spot every time. And when he finally came, when she felt him start to pump out into her, it was as though a thousand red hot pokers had just pierced her skin, so painful was the feeling. So beautiful and wrong and painful. But just feeling him flood her body, her muscles gripping him tightly, drawing every last drop out of him, she’d never felt anything like it before. The more he was giving her, the more she could feel herself burning up, her thighs aching, her body almost unable to take any more as he still continued to thrust, despite the fact he was empty.
With one violent buck of her hips she pushed him out, freeing herself, but instead of that being the end she pulled herself up on to her knees and straddled him, her mouth on his before he’d had a chance to get his breath back. This had to be a fair fight, so the game wasn’t over yet.
Biting down on his lip she reached between her legs, finding him still hard and erect, taking him in her hand and wrapping her fingers tight around him. He groaned loudly, her mouth still resting against his, and she couldn’t help but smile.
‘You’re one crazy fucking bitch,’ he moaned, winding his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back.
‘I thought you liked it that way,’ she whispered, lifting her hips up slightly before lowering herself back down on to him.
‘Did I not hurt you enough?’ he breathed, resting a hand on her breast, pushing against it.
‘Oh, you hurt me good, soldier. You almost ripped my fucking body in two.’
‘That’s the way I like it,’ he murmured, grabbing hold of her hips as she started to grind against him, leaning back to take him deeper. ‘Seeing you in pain is such a fucking turn on.’
‘Now who’s the crazy one,’ she groaned, leaning forward again, slamming her mouth against his, their kisses verging on desperate now.
‘Jesus–fucking–Christ!’ He was coming hard and fast again, something which surprised them both.
‘Oh, baby, you are full of it today. Literally.’
‘Crazy, fucking, bitch!’ he shouted, holding on to her hips as he pumped the last of himself out into her. ‘Jesus!’ He threw his head forward, resting it against her breasts, and she held him there against her, her fingers in his hair, her chin resting on him.
They stayed like that for what felt like a long time, but it was really just a few minutes. A few minutes they both needed to calm down, get their breath back. Ease themselves into the real world again, where shit was waiting to kick off and sex wasn’t going to solve anything. But she knew what she had to do now. Burying her head in the sand wasn’t going to cut it anymore.
‘Did you kill Shane?’ she whispered, her voice barely audible, her fingers tightening their grip in his hair.
He slowly looked up, pushing her away and getting up off the bed.
‘Coby?’ She stood up, too, backing away towards the sideboard, opening one of the drawers and pulling out a black shirt, covering herself with it. ‘I asked you a question.’
He stood still, his eyes down as he pushed both hands through his messed-up hair.
‘Did you kill Shane?’ she repeated, her heart hammering hard inside her chest for a completely different reason now. And when his eyes finally met hers, the look he gave her almost froze her soul.
‘There is so much you still don’t understand, Lexi.’
She held his stare for a few seconds more, slowly shaking her head. ‘For once I’d really hoped I was wrong,’ she whispered.
‘It needed to be done,’ he said, his voice steady and controlled.
‘Why?’ She held his gaze, never moving her eyes away from his.
‘It needed to be done,’ Coby repeated, his stare not wavering. ‘Like I said, there’s so much you don’t understand…’
‘Then tell me.’ Her voice was low, quiet at first, before it rose, the anger and the confusion taking over. ‘Fucking tell me!’
He moved forward, grabbing her wrist, pushing her back against the sideboard, his face close to hers. ‘I did what I had to do, okay? What I was asked to do…’
‘By who? Who gave you the order?’
‘Tay. Charlie. Both chapters, Lexi. The order came from both chapters. They both wanted him taken out.’
‘And you were just the man to do it, huh? The man with the short but shit-filled military background and a heart of stone.’
His grip on her wrist tightened, his eyes burning deep into hers. But he said nothing.
‘So, Shane was the problem you came over to England to sort out?’
‘Lexi, darlin’, believe me, it was complicated. Nobody likes taking another brother out. Nobody. It goes against everything we stand for. But when that brother – when they pose a threat…’
She frowned as she looked at him, another piece of that fucked-up jigsaw slowly sliding into place. ‘Shane was the threat?’
Coby loosened his grip on her, dropping his head slightly, breathing out deeply. He hadn’t expected this. He really hadn’t expected this, but he had to deal with it now. As best he could. ‘Jesus…’ He looked up again, his eyes once more meeting hers. ‘He was plotting to take your dad out, Lexi. He wanted Charlie dead. Shane was planning to take over the chapter, to change the Lone Riders beyond recognition. He wanted to make a name for himself, he was bitter… he was damaged. A loose cannon that needed silencing. He was a risk we couldn’t afford to take.’
She shook her head, every raw emotion she’d ever felt clawing its way to the surface until she could hold it in no more. ‘You bastard… you fucking bastard! How could you… when you knew…’
‘I had to do it, baby.’
‘You had to do shit, Coby… Jesus! After everything…’
‘You weren’t together anymore, Lex.’
‘That doesn’t mean I wanted him fucking dead!’
Coby pushed a hand through his hair, his eyes down on the floor. ‘Everything that had happened before… he’d changed, kid. He’d changed.’
‘And you don’t think that was our fault?’ She walked away from him, over to the other side of the room, resting her forehead and hands against the wall, taking long, deep breaths. She’d feared this, tried to stop thinking about it; hoped it was nothing but her imagination over-playing everything.
‘This club is evil,’ she said quietly, closing her eyes, her hands balling up into fists by her head.
‘No, baby. It isn’t.’
She felt him come up behind her, his hand resting on her hip, his breath warm on the back of her neck.
‘It isn’t evil. It just looks after its own in the only way we know how.’
‘And God help anyone who strays from that path, huh?’
He rested his forehead against the back of her head, his hand reaching up, his fingers unfurling hers, intertwining with them.
‘You messed with that pick-up truck, didn’t you?’ she asked, her eyes still closed, his body now right up against hers.
‘I did what I had to do, Lexi.’
‘The night it happened…’
‘Charlie pulled him aside, stopped him from going to that fundraiser in the next door village, told him he needed him to do an important run. A run he couldn’t trust anyone else with.’
‘Oh, Jesus…’ she whispered, squeezing her eyes even tighter shut, as though doing that would block out everything he was telling her. But she’d wanted the truth, hadn’t she? And now she had it. ‘What if he hadn’t died, Coby? What if he’d survived?’ She let go of his hand, slowly turning around, opening her eyes to look right into his. ‘Because, if he really had been planning to kill my dad, to take over the ch
apter… if that’s what he’d really been planning to do then wouldn’t an attempt on his life have made him all the more determined to carry out that threat?’
Coby didn’t say anything, and she continued to stare into his eyes.
‘You would’ve just tried again, wouldn’t you?’
Again, he said nothing, and she briefly turned away, aware that his hand was still on her hip; he was still close to her. This man who’d played a part in ending the life of another brother.
‘Why didn’t you go straight home? After the accident?’ She turned to face him again. ‘Why did you stay in Newcastle? I mean, you’d done what you’d been sent over to do. So why hang around, why prolong the risk of someone seeing you?’
He reached out to cup her cheek in the palm of his hand. ‘Because I was in love with you, Lexi.’
She frowned, another wave of confusion sweeping over her.
‘Tay, he… he wanted me to hang around, make sure everything was okay; make sure it had all gone to plan. He wanted me to wait until after Shane had been buried before I came back to California…’ He stopped talking, bowing his head, his hand still resting lightly against her cheek, his thumb absent-mindedly stroking her skin.
‘Coby?’
‘I don’t know how it happened, kid. This – us. I don’t know how the fuck it happened, the exact moment it hit me; when I knew you were all I wanted…’ He looked up, his eyes meeting hers. ‘I don’t know when it was, I only know it happened over there. And I wasn’t willing to leave Newcastle until I knew what you felt like…’ He moved a little closer to her, his mouth almost touching hers as he spoke. ‘I wasn’t willing to leave until I knew what it felt like to be inside you. Again. So when you came to me…’
They were kissing before he’d had a chance to finish that sentence, a kiss so desperate and urgent it was all Lexi could do to catch her breath as he lifted her up, pushing her back against the wall. She wrapped her legs around his hips, knowing what was coming, and craving it. Even though it felt almost sick, to be so turned on after what he’d just told her; but she needed him like a drug, like a hateful, potent drug she was never going to be able to kick. He’d helped kill a man who, allegedly, had been plotting to kill her father, take from him everything he’d worked his whole life for; everything his father before him – her grandfather – had created. But she had to put that to the back of her mind, forget that, for a little while. And the second Coby pushed into her, so hard it rocked her whole body, slamming her back against the wall with a thud so loud it almost shook the room, she wiped it all from her mind.
All she could do was hold on to him, and let him take her. Let him invade her again, infect her with his beautiful poison and his unending love for this club – her wise and brave soldier; the father of her baby. Her world. And she knew now that she had no choice in the matter. Not anymore.
Nineteen
Angie looked up as Lexi walked into the office, her arms folded tight across her chest, a look Angie couldn’t quite read on her beautiful face. She was so much like her, in every way, that it scared her. She hadn’t really wanted this life for her daughter, but at the same time she’d always known it was never going to be any other way. ‘You okay, baby?’
Lexi threw herself down on to the couch, pulling her legs up to her chest, hugging her knees. ‘Did you know, Mum?’
Angie frowned, swinging her chair around to face her daughter. ‘Know what, sweetheart?’
‘That Tay sent Coby over to England to kill Shane?’
It took all the strength Angie had to keep her expression stoic. To not let her daughter see how much hearing those words affected her. ‘You make it sound so cold, when you say it like that, Lexi.’
‘Well, it was never going to sound warm and fluffy, was it?’ Lexi stood up, pacing the floor of the small office, walking over to the window that looked out into the garage next door. Coby was leaning back against the wall, laughing at something Luca was saying.
‘Did he… how did you find out?’ Angie asked, her voice still managing to stay steady. Somehow.
‘He told me,’ Lexi replied, still looking out into the garage, watching as Blake joined Coby and Luca, Coby pulling him in for an exaggerated hug, kissing the top of his head, mercilessly teasing the younger man. ‘Because I asked him. Outright. I asked him if he’d killed Shane.’ She turned around, leaning back against the window, folding her arms again. ‘And he told me. Everything.’
‘Oh, Jesus…’ Angie whispered, standing up, perching herself on the edge of her desk. ‘You were never meant to find out, Lexi. Nobody was.’
‘Why? I mean, if Shane really had been planning to do what Coby says he was…’
‘It was just best that way. To keep it low key, to make it look like an accident. Putting the word out that one brother is about to take out another, it makes people nervous. It can cause rifts and unsettle chapters, so we decided to keep it under wraps, send Coby over to do the job because he’s the best we have…’
‘The best, what? Killer?’ Lexi asked, raising an eyebrow.
Angie fixed her with a look. ‘The best man we have to make sure no shit hits the fan in situations like this.’
‘Well, that worked, didn’t it?’
‘The only reason things got complicated, Lexi, was because he started thinking with his dick. We asked him to come home the second he knew Shane was dead. The longer he stayed over there, the higher the risk of someone seeing him, of anyone putting two and two together…’
‘Hang on… he said Tay wanted him to stay in England until after the funeral. The funeral I, for some reason I still don’t understand, wasn’t allowed to go to.’
Angie shook her head. ‘No. Tay wanted him out of there ASAP, but he told us Charlie needed him, just for a few more days. We trusted him, Lexi. We thought he was telling us the truth. We had no idea he wanted to stay there because he was trying to get you into his bed. Because if we had…’
‘How much more messed-up can this get?’ Lexi sighed, throwing her head back. ‘If he had come home when you’d asked him to, this wouldn’t be half as complicated as it’s turned out to be. Would it?’ She fixed her mum with a look that told her that statement was only partly true. ‘But then, I always had my suspicions, Mum. About the way Shane died.’
‘But if you’d never known Coby had been over there, would you still have those same suspicions?’
Lexi shrugged, raking a hand through her hair. ‘I don’t know. Probably. But it’s all academic now anyway. It’s pointless talking about “what ifs”. What happened, happened. And nobody can turn that clock back. Nothing can be rectified. And to be honest, Mum, there are some things I wouldn’t want to rectify.’
Angie looked at her daughter – into her big blue eyes, her pretty face. ‘You don’t regret what happened with Coby?’
‘How can I regret falling in love?’ Lexi whispered, turning her head to look back out into the garage, her eyes on Coby as he held court with the two younger men. They were hanging on his every word. They respected him. And she loved him. So much. Even though, right now, she was struggling with those feelings. Struggling to come to terms with what he’d done. With what he was capable of. Even though none of it should have been a surprise. These men she’d grown up around, they were all capable of things she didn’t always want to think about.
She turned back to face her mother. ‘So, how do we explain Coby being in England? How do we explain our baby? If you still aren’t willing to tell everyone the truth.’
‘We’ll think of something,’ Angie said quietly, sitting back down at the desk.
‘And the secrecy? The lies? Because you are worse than naïve if you think no one’ll pick up on that. Coby was supposed to be in prison when he was sleeping with me, when our son was conceived. That’s a pretty big lie to work around there. You think we can do that?’
Angie dropped her head into her hands, pulling them both back through her hair, sighing heavily. ‘Lexi, darlin’, don’t push this
sweetheart. Okay?’
Lexi stared at her mother. A woman who’d lived so much of her life within the confines of this club with all its rules and codes and twisted morals. Was that how her life was going to pan out, too? Was she looking at the woman she was going to, one day, become? ‘I am so tired of this place,’ Lexi whispered, turning and walking away, out of the office, folding her arms as she strode across the yard, over to the row of bikes all lined up outside the clubhouse.
Kel was tending to his, polishing the chrome handlebars as he straddled the black leather seat. He looked up as Lexi wandered over. She leant back against Coby’s bike that was parked next to Kel’s, her eyes meeting his.
‘Need to talk?’ Kel asked, leaning over the handlebars.
‘It was Coby. He had a hand in Shane’s death, Kel. Him, my dad, and Tay.’
Kel briefly looked down, letting out a heavy sigh. ‘Coby tell you that?’
She nodded. ‘Shane was… he was planning on bringing my dad down, taking over the Newcastle chapter… he was going to kill Charlie, Kel.’
‘Oh, Jesus… Lexi.’
‘Tay sent Coby over there to help my dad. To make sure the job was done, that the threat was dispensed with.’ She stared into Kel’s kind eyes. ‘Was this all my fault, Kel? If me and Shane… if all that hadn’t have happened, if they hadn’t driven us out of Paradise, would he have become so hell bent on some kind of revenge?’
‘I can’t answer that, sweetheart. I mean, who knows whether it was the club who pushed him that close to the edge, or whether it was something he was always planning to do, at some point.’
‘Nobody deserves to die. Not like that.’ Lexi felt a guilt so heavy start to push down on her, spread through her like a wildfire she couldn’t stop. This was a mess that had got so out of control now, so many blurred lines and forgotten actions pushed aside. So much wrong had been done. So many lies had been told. And she knew she was just as much to blame for Shane’s death as Coby was. They were both to blame. And they both knew why.
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