by Ashley, Ava
I can hear the pain in Cooper’s voice. He’s vulnerable like never before. This time it’s my turn to be the comforting one and I hug him a little harder, giving him a kiss on the chest.
“I was on my last mission before our wedding. Things went wrong, really wrong. I lost one of my men and I had taken an oath to protect every one of my brothers—no man left behind. It tore me up. And then when I wanted to go home to the woman whom I was going to marry, she said that my PTSD, my fucking mild PTSD, was ‘too much’ for her and she didn’t want to ever see me again. She wrote it in a fucking email. But then I found out that the real reason she didn’t want to see me again was because she was pregnant and by another man. She cheated on me.”
“Oh,” I say, quietly. I had no clue how much hurt was hiding under Cooper’s tough front.
“Savannah, I know what being hurt feels like,” Cooper says. “I’ve spent my life around hurt and had my own fair share of pain. But I also know that I spent too long cutting off my emotions and not really living. Until I met you. And then I realized I’d rather have a single day with you, even if it meant years of pain, than have an existence full of nothing. That’s not life, that’s not worth it.”
“But—” I don’t know what else to say. I’m searching for a way to convince him that I’m wrong for him, but he’s already given a more convincing argument than I can even try to counter.
“But we’re going to die?” Cooper asks. “I would die for you without a second thought, Savannah, but the thought of the hurt you could experience, being left alone—I can’t do that to you. And the thought of them getting to you? I wouldn’t do that, either.”
“So...” It’s what I knew was going to happen, but it still hurts so badly. “So that’s it, then.”
“No,” Cooper says, turning my face up to look at him. “No, Savannah! Don’t you see? The safest place for you is with me. It’s the safest place for both of us, because if you’re with me I can focus on guarding us as one. If you leave, my efforts will always be split. Savannah, there’s no way I’m going to let you go out there on your own and have these guys hurt you.”
“But how can you protect us?” I ask, “These guys know what they’re doing and they won’t give up.”
“Savannah, I was at the top of my unit as a fucking Navy SEAL,” Cooper says. “I can cover us, I have the intelligence and access to the tools to create entire new identities for us. We’ll leave the US, or at least the continental US, and we’ll move somewhere else as new people with new identities. Even the government won’t know who we are, since we’ll be our own Witness Protection Program of two. We’ll be the only ones who know. I’ll hack into the government systems and create new identities, just like we always were them. We’ll fake our deaths—I’ll make it convincing and well-publicized. I still have friends in high places who would do anything for me, as thanks for saving their lives overseas—and the motorcycle clubs will have no choice but to give up. You can’t re-kill dead people. Babe, it will be just you and me, and no one will know.”
“But your fighting,” I protest. “You’ll have to give it up.”
“Savannah, you are what I want more than anything in the world. If that means no more fighting, then so be it. You make me happier than fighting ever could and I have enough money saved up to keep us very, very comfortable until my new career kicks off. Savannah, there are no buts. Be with me.”
“I, I...” I can’t believe it. “Yes. Yes!” We can do it, it can happen. Hope and relief and, more than anything, happiness crash over me like a frighteningly wonderful wave of warmth. Cooper tilts my face up, bringing his lips to inches from my face. My eyes flutter closed, anticipating his sweet kiss. The sweet kiss of the man who will go to the literal ends of the world for me.
The kiss doesn’t come. I open my eyes.
Cooper stopped there, a few millimeters from my lips. “Savannah, my dear, you have to promise me that you will believe me when I say that I will stay with you and I will take whatever comes with that, no matter what. No more running away.”
I look deep into his beautiful blue eyes. “I promise.” And then I kiss him, deeply and passionately and, for the first time ever, completely and entirely lovingly.
Oh, God, I want him. I want him now. I want to have sex with my man. I want him to mount me and fill me and be as close to me as any two humans can be. I fumble with his belt and he’s immediately thinking the same thing, pulling my shirt over my head.
“Oh, baby,” he breathes, kissing a trail down my neck as he smoothly undoes the clasp on my bra with one hand and slides the other down into the waistband of my pants, where my throbbing sex is already soaking wet for him. I feel his member growing in his pants, pushing against my thigh.
“Yes, oh, yes,” I moan, as he strokes the front of my clit.
Then suddenly, there’s a harsh knock on the door. We ignore it. It comes again.
“We’re busy,” Cooper shouts, before going back to playing with my stiff, sensitive nipples.
The knock comes again.
“I know you guys are in there, Savannah—and Cooper! We have to talk.” It’s a man’s voice. A very familiar man’s voice. Cold chills run down my back.
Nate.
Chapter Six
Cooper
My actions are all reflexive when I see Nate standing there in the hallway in front of our hotel room. I pull Savannah behind me, blocking her, and put one arm out defensively and one arm up, offensively. My knees are bent, my muscles flexed and ready to explode and rain pain on this little punk. Who would have ever guessed that the new guy in the league would be the cause of so much trouble for my girl and me?
Nate throws his arms up almost as quickly, in the universal symbol of truce. “I’m not here to start anything,” he says, coolly. “I’m not even armed. See?” He slowly lowers an arm to turn one pocket, then the other, inside out.
“Savannah, go to the other room,” I command. I’m not taking any chances of him trying to pull some kind of funny business when I go to check whether he’s really unarmed. He should have never been able to track me here in the first place, I’m a fucking ex-Navy SEAL. I got sloppy in my rush to get to Savannah before she could switch locations again and become entirely untraceable. I knew the necklace was the last way to track her and I knew she’d change her name and wouldn’t do something as dumb as trying to get a credit card. She is a smart girl and that’s part of why she’s so fucking irresistible to me. But knowing that my window of opportunity to find her was severely limited kept me from taking all the necessary precautions. I still changed license plates to an untraceable, bogus number and drove erratically, to throw off anyone trying to tail me, but I didn’t thoroughly check my car aside from a quick frisk. He must have planted something inside one of the tires or in an engine part that I didn’t get to in my rush.
“GPS, by the way,” Nate says with a smirk, holding up a little black disk the size of a hole-punch paper clipping and barely any thicker than that. “It’s not even on the market yet, but I got it through some...friends in high places.”
“Think I’m impressed?” I snarl, taking an intentionally heavy step towards him. “Hands up. I’m not letting you in here until I’ve confirmed you’re clean.”
“Fine,” Nate says, putting up his. “I’m unarmed and I’m here alone. Look all you want.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I will.” I pat him down, making sure he’s not carrying any weapons or anymore bugs, then I crush his high-tech GPS under my heel.
“You happy now?” Nate asks.
“No,” I say. “Why the fuck are you here? I don’t want you anywhere near my girl.”
“Your girl,” Nate laughs drily. “It never gets old hearing you call Savannah that and act like you’re serious. Straight-up comedy show.”
I growl and lunge at him, but stop when I feel Savannah’s hand on my back. She had been watching from the door of the bedroom and came back out into the living room when she saw me clear
him.
“Please, baby,” she says softly. “Let’s take it inside.” She’s right. We’re too conspicuous out in the hallway. And if he’s in our room with the door locked, it’s easier for me to stop him if he tries to be sly and make a quick getaway to rat us out to his men.
“Fine,” I say. As much as I hate letting this slimy slug into our hotel suite, I move aside and gesture him in. As soon as he’s in, I lock the door, turning as I do. There is no way in hell that I am turning my back to this guy for even a moment.
“So, talk,” I say.
“I get it,” Nate says, refusing to be intimidated. “You guys aren’t exactly thrilled to see me.” As though to prove how comfortable and secure he feels, he throws himself down on the sofa with a thud, legs sprawled like he’s watching a Sunday afternoon football game. “I can understand that, but I’m here to call a truce.”
I walk past him, knocking his legs off of the coffee table, and go sit with Savannah on the loveseat across from the sofa. I put my arm around her, admittedly being a bit more of a possessive Neanderthal than strictly necessary. But Savannah is my girl, and Nate is all kinds of fucked if he thinks he is going to march his punk ass in here and change that.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Savannah says, rolling her eyes. “But as magnanimous as you might think you are, Nate, it isn’t your choice to free me from our engagement.”
“Are you on crack?” Nate yells it, his casual posture instantly gone as he sits up and leans forward.
Just as fast, I’m up on my feet. “Don’t you dare talk to Savannah like that,” I growl. I’m ready to bash his skull in.
“Baby.” Savannah jumps up, too, wrapping her arms around me. She is tiny compared to me and isn’t actually able to come even close to physically restraining me, but her touch calms me down. And I would never want to risk hurting her, so I am not about to fling her off of me so I can give this punk the pounding he deserves. We sit back down, Savannah keeping a hand on my knee and me keeping an arm around her. “Let’s hear him out.”
“Thanks,” Nate says, finally trying to be diplomatic. “Look, Savannah, I don’t want to get married to you any more than you want to get married to me. I never have, and I never will—not that there’s anything wrong with you, or anything.” He adds this on in a rush, glancing nervously at me. “You’re a great girl and everything, and I’m sure I would be lucky to have you, but you’re just not the one, you know? But then we were engaged before I even stopped thinking that girls had cooties. And that engagement screwed up any chance of liking you. It was screwing up my life, so I hated you. I didn’t think about how it was doing the exact same thing to your life. And it’s still screwing up both of our lives. It’s going to continue doing that, but we have to stop hating each other for something that isn’t either of our fault. I was in love with Nikki—” Here, he pauses, putting a hand up to his forehead and shaking his head slowly. “I have to come clean with you. I still love Nikki. She’s my everything. But I—we—have no choice. I’m ready to be a man and leave the woman I love, and the dream of happiness with her, to do the responsible thing, the right thing, and marry you. Neither of us wants this in the least, but I am ready to make sacrifices. That’s what I came here to say. I won’t be with Nikki romantically anymore, not even on the side.”
“Nate—” Savannah starts, shaking her head. Nate holds up a hand, cutting her off.
“And I know you’re worried that you’re going to be in deep shit when you come back with me—” Nate scoots further away when he sees me visibly bristle at the use of ‘when.’ “But don’t worry. I forgive you. And I’ll tell them not to give you any grief. At this point, they’ll all be relieved just to have you back and the wedding on. We’ll just chalk the little running away episode to normal pre-wedding jitters. It’s not even a thing.”
“Nate—” Savannah tries to cut in again.
“Here,” Nate says, tossing a little blue velvet box to her. “Put it on, and we can get going and get this whole mess sorted out.”
“This whole mess?” Now I’m fucking seeing red. I grab the box from Savannah, flip it open to reveal some blinged-out engagement ring, and hurl the goddamn insult at his head. “This is not ‘this whole mess.’ The sadly mistaken idea that you have that you’re going to marry my girl, or go anywhere with her, is. Do you understand? Let me spell it out for you. Savannah. Is. Mine.” I am over by the couch at this point and have him up in the air by the collar of his shirt.
“Baby,” Savannah is back over by me. “Please don’t hurt him. We need to all talk rationally about this—but I’m not marrying you, Nate. I’m not marrying him, Cooper, I don’t want any man but you.”
I put him down, but not before giving him a good glare. “If you dare act like Savannah is your property again, I’m going to make you wish you were never born.”
Nate nods vigorously and looks sufficiently rattled, so I am finally content for the moment.
“But Savannah,” Nate looks nervously at me. “You know we have no other option. There’s the war, for starters, and I will be disowned and exiled if I don’t bring you back by next month. We are running out of time and we never had any options to start with. I’m sorry, I really am, but it’s just the facts.”
“First, let’s all sit and calm down,” says Savannah, her voice surprisingly level. She is a strong woman. She takes me by the hand and leads me back over to the loveseat. “Okay. Now, Nate, the fact is that things have changed since you last saw me. Cooper and I are together now and I can’t marry you.” She pauses to look up at me. I lean down and give her a kiss, her lips as soft as silk against mine. Then she turns back to Nate. “I can’t marry you because it would serve no purpose. There would be no blood on the sheets when they come to check the next morning and the terms of the peace agreement would thus have been violated. There’s no going back. Marriage isn’t an option anymore.”
Nate’s face is blank with shock as he takes in the news.
“Nate, I have given myself to Cooper,” says Savannah. “Entirely.”
Chapter Seven
Savannah
There is a moment of silence as it sinks in. Then Nate groans, lowering his head into his hands.
This is it. Now Nate is definitely turning us in. There is no amicable way for us to deal with the situation now. There will definitely be some serious repercussions, one way or another at this point, and there is no need for Nate to suffer repercussions because of something that I did. Yes, he also broke the purity rules by having sex with Nikki, and most likely many others over the years, but he is a man and the rules work differently for him. It’s why he was able to date in high school and sleep around to his heart’s content. He doesn’t have to be pure, and when the son of a motorcycle club king sleeps around, everyone turns a blind eye. When the daughter of a motorcycle club king tries to get involved with someone, it’s dishonor, disgrace, and a good reason to pummel her lover into a bloody pulp.
It is simple and as old as time itself. I have—or rather, had—a virginity to protect and he did not.
So even though both of us committed the same transgression against the engagement clause of the peace treaty, only I will be punished for it if he turns me in. And Cooper. But Nate and Nikki would come out unscathed. If Nate turns us in, he not only won’t be disenfranchised, dishonored, and exiled, but he also won’t have to marry me.
It’s an almost ideal situation for him, minus the fact of the massive gang war that is about to erupt because of me. But that will happen either way.
I count the seconds until he jumps up for the door. My throat is starting to close up. I know Cooper won’t let him leave and I know that Nate leaving would spell doom for us, but I really, really don’t want to see Cooper kill someone. Even if it’s Nate. I know he would only be doing it to protect me, but that doesn’t change that it would be hard to look at him as the same kind, if rough around the edges, man that I fell for if I saw him take someone’s life.
Cooper jump
s up, his biceps tensing in anticipation as he curls his hands into fists. His sleeves of ink ripple on his skin as his muscles flex for action.
But instead of jumping up, Nate scoots back further on the chair, putting both hands up. “Chill, let’s not do anything rash,” he says quickly. “We have to figure this out. But I’m not going to try to make a break for it. I’m not turning you guys in. We just...we just have to think. This really complicates things, of course.”
I am surprised, but relieved. Cooper seems skeptical. Instead of sitting back down, he pulls the loveseat, with me still on, over to the door, barricading us into the room. Only then does he sit down, putting his arm around me.
“And don’t think about the windows,” said Cooper. “Or do, if you want. That makes this easier for me. It’s a long drop and I know I won’t shed a tear if they’re scraping you off the sidewalk.”
Nate pales a bit, then clears his throat, trying to regain some of the power in the room.
“Okay. Well, let’s all just think rationally about our options, then.” He clears his throat again. “So, um, marriage isn’t an option. Or maybe we could cut you—” Cooper snarls and Nate quickly backtracks, “I mean, cut me, and they won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“You aren’t marrying my fucking girl, punk!” Cooper yells. I immediately wrap my arms around him in a hug, so he can’t jump up and knock Nate’s lights out then and there. Just feeling his strong, familiar body in my arms calms me a bit and I hope my touch is doing the same for him. Nate’s continued existence counts on it.