by SE Jakes
Finally, he shoved Bram’s body down on the bed, lifted his hips as Bram whimpered. Sweet couldn’t resist—he bent down, spread Bram and buried his face in Bram’s ass.
Bram stiffened, then howled as Sweet’s tongue took him, over and over. His dick thrust air, and he moaned for any kind of friction so he could come. Sweet reached around and wrapped his hand around Bram’s cock, stroking it slowly as he slid his cock between Bram’s ass cheeks. Sweet had Bram where he wanted him, where he needed him to be, and he didn’t plan on letting him up until Bram was incoherent. The sound of bikes purring in the background was the perfect backdrop . . . until Bram went still underneath him, tension filling his body and Sweet froze on top of him, waiting.
The sudden sound of Harleys roaring through Sweet’s opened windows ripped Bram out of his pleasure haze. Loud. A pack of them. Bearing down . . .
They’re here to kill you.
But they weren’t. He was with Havoc, not Heathens, and Sweet was about to fuck him, Bram reasoned.
Suddenly, being trapped under Sweet’s body, in Sweet’s house, on Sweet’s MC compound was just too fucking much. Every other time, they’d been on a more neutral ground. Even at Gypsy’s, Bram was still in town.
Now, he was on MC land. Virtually trapped. Prisoner. And even though he’d allowed himself to be pulled deeper and deeper into Havoc, he still had to prove he had a choice in this.
He shifted and stilled . . . and, instinctively, so did Sweet.
How much of your ass does Sweet really expect? How little would he deal with? Bram needed those answers and he grabbed the headboard for leverage as he prepared for a different kind of fight.
Sweet heard Bram’s whimper above the growl of the bikes, and something about the tone made Sweet stop and wait. They’d been together enough times for Sweet to know that wasn’t a sound of pleasure. So he let Bram shift, even pull away, although he didn’t loosen his own hold all that much.
It was like Bram needed to know that he could get away. Needed to prove it.
Well hell, Sweet needed to prove he’d never fuck anyone against their will. And when Bram turned to face him, he stared back at Bram with all the patience he could muster.
Bram seemed to waver between fighting Sweet and letting himself be fucked . . . and Sweet waited for him to make that decision. Finally, Sweet murmured, “I’ll move away.”
But Bram shook his head and struck hard with panther-like movement, flipping and dropping on Sweet. Which was damned hard to do. Sweet wasn’t going to let Bram hurt him, but he hadn’t realized how damned strong the man actually was.
Bram was breathing hard, sitting on Sweet’s chest, and for a moment, his eyes were unfocused. Haunted, like he was waking up from a nightmare.
Sweet, in turn, murmured, “Come on, Bram. You want to take me? Go ahead, baby. Take what you need.”
“Is that what you do—take what you need?” Bram asked.
“Sometimes. When you’re willing,” Sweet conceded.
“You’re not in fucking charge of me.”
Sweet gave him a dark smile. “Think again, babe. I’m pretty much calling all the shots, pulling all your goddamned strings while you’re a guest of Havoc’s. And when my dick’s inside of you, I’m not hearing a whole lot of complaints. But I’m not into forcing anyone to fuck . . . unless they like pretending they need to be forced.”
That seemed to ease something in Bram, cemented the fact that he needed the push-pull during sex the way he needed air. Sweet had seen it before, understood it—and Bram—maybe better than Bram himself did. Because then Bram leaned in, put his forehead on Sweet’s and then angled his head so he could kiss Sweet. Holding him in place like he did that first night when he’d pushed Sweet against the wall. Kissing the shit out of him.
When he broke the kiss, he murmured, “You can be in charge—in here. Right now.”
After Bram spoke, Sweet wasted no time in flipping him onto his back and mounting him. His legs straddled Bram’s hips, Bram’s legs spread around his thighs as Sweet’s hand stroked his ass.
Bram closed his eyes, felt the bed shift, heard the snap of the lube cap. He took a deep, stuttered breath, his dick hard as hell. “Come on, Sweet. Hurry.”
He braced himself, hands clutching the sheets by his sides as Sweet stretched him with lube-slicked fingers.
“Put your hands on the headboard. Grab the bars,” Sweet ordered and Bram resisted . . . for a moment. In return, Sweet bent down and bit his nipples, causing Bram to surge up, gritting his teeth in pain . . . and pleasure.
“Fuck,” Bram bit out in response, renewing his grip on the sheets.
Sweet stared at him. “Hands. Up.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll flip you. Tie you. Spank you until you can’t sit comfortably for days,” Sweet warned, then leaned in to whisper, “Or maybe that’s exactly what you want.”
Bram groaned, despite himself. His hands went up to grasp the bars of the headboard and Sweet entered him quickly. The pinch, the pressure, the pain was all so fucking good and necessary, and Bram fought the urge to yell or howl as Sweet grabbed his hips and began to pump hard and fast.
He’d never trusted anyone in charge of him because he’d never had a reason to. He knew trusting Sweet beyond fucking was a death wish, but that just made this fucking so much better. He wrapped his legs around Sweet, heels digging into Sweet’s broad back, and let himself go up in flames.
Bram opened his eyes slowly. Sweet was still on his knees, in no hurry to move, looking him up and down unabashedly. Bram’s come was sticky on his belly, and he knew he looked well-fucked, could see it reflected in Sweet’s eyes.
Finally, Sweet moved off him, and Bram watched him get rid of the condom before lying down next to Bram on the bed. “Another shower, then we get moving.”
“Maybe I want to stay dirty,” Bram told him.
Sweet snorted. “Don’t worry—you will.”
Bram thought about keeping his next thoughts to himself, then realized he couldn’t. “Do you do this a lot?”
“What?”
“Take non-MC strangers into your home.”
“No. But because of Sean, Linc’s practically family.”
“Because family borrows money and never pays it back?” Bram shot out without thinking, and thankfully, Sweet laughed.
“Pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?” He sighed. “The last man here with me was the solider you saw in the picture—his name was James. Jimmy-Boy.”
Was. Shit. “Combat?”
Sweet nodded slowly. “Jimmy-Boy was a good man, but he was fucked in his own way. Like you, he loved danger. And me. He just chose one over the other exclusively.”
“I’m sorry, Sweet.”
“So am I.”
“So there’s been no one since Jimmy?”
“A lot of someones, but not like that,” Sweet admitted. “You?”
“Nah. Between the military and the job, not a lot of downtime. One-night stands worked best.”
Bram used worked—past tense. And what if he did? It’s not like there was a future here . . .
Not even if Bram thought he wanted one. “I need to find . . .”
“Linc. I know.” Sweet paused. “You use that like a shield.”
Bram couldn’t deny the truth in that. Because even though finding Linc was tantamount, Sweet knew it. Bram repeating it seven million times?
Shield. “Been a rough month.”
“Yep. I know that too,” Sweet said quietly. “Just consider what I’m saying.”
All Bram could do was nod.
Sweet walked over to the diner Fay ran on Havoc’s property. Bram had turned over and waved him away when Sweet offered him food, and Sweet took the opportunity, because he had a lot of shit to do today, including checking up on the gas station Linc visited before he disappeared. He texted Ozzie and Tug to meet him in the clubhouse in ten and figured he’d find Gypsy at Fay’s to catch him up as well.
As alway
s, the pride he felt in Havoc tightened his chest a little as he walked the short distance through the busiest parts of the compound. At times growing up he’d simultaneously loved and hated this place, but he knew now that there wasn’t anyplace else that could possibly be better for him than here.
A lot of men who joined the MC didn’t have an easy time of it growing up, and although Sweet was considered a legacy, his time coming up was as difficult as any of his men’s. He’d figured out he was gay at an early age, and although his grandfather had been as well, that didn’t make things any less confusing. Throw in a shitty father and a good but tough grandfather who had a compound to run, and Sweet had ended up a tough but extremely angry kid. His grandfather sired kids but didn’t marry. Relationships were kept secret, more because he’d wanted to protect those close to him versus keeping his relationships with men under wraps.
Back then, Sweet hadn’t been sure he’d wanted this lifestyle, despite—or maybe because of—the fact that he didn’t know anything else.
When he’d left for the Marines, he’d learned quickly. At that point, he realized he did have other choices, could’ve stayed in the military or gotten out and gotten on with life somewhere else.
But growing up Havoc was part of his blood, and walking away? He realized that there were too many cons and far too few pros. So when he returned to Havoc, it was because he wanted to, not because he had to. Because he knew the club was where he belonged. Where he needed to be. His brothers were here. Others from the Marines followed him in. Havoc was robust. They had rogue members and an offshoot that Sean Rush and Ryker, his XO, were currently dealing with, but Sweet didn’t want other charters. Havoc was special—the land she’d been built on was, and you couldn’t re-create that magic. He’d rather draw from it than attempt to dilute it.
So for years, he put Havoc before himself. He’d reasoned that’s what the club needed—and it had been. But when Jimmy-Boy came into his life, things changed. He tried to balance things, but Jimmy needed him and so did Havoc, since Heathens had gone into overdrive with their drug trade during that time, especially the meth. And Jimmy needed far more attention than Sweet could give him and the entire relationship tore him apart. Bad.
After Jimmy, Sweet swore off relationships and stuck to sex only, and most of the men he slept with respected that. Most of them didn’t want anything more either.
Even so, Havoc was a lot to manage. Men did stupid things—for women, power, and money—and his MC, and Sweet himself, wasn’t immune to those charms. He worked hard to keep it pure, to help it sustain itself and its members.
And he himself walked a fine line daily, and right now he was balancing the hell out of the tightrope because of the man currently asleep in his bed.
“I like the new guy,” Fay declared.
“I’ll have my usual,” was Sweet’s first answer. “And you haven’t met him yet. And I think you’re getting soft in your old age, woman.”
“I like the way you smile since he came into the picture, asshole.” She punctuated her words by throwing an empty can at him. He shifted and caught it before it made contact with his head. Then she pointed at him. “Don’t mess this up.”
“There’s nothing to mess up. He’s here until we find Linc.”
She stared at him as he lied to her face, but she didn’t call him out on it. But the look she gave him? Enough to tell him she knew everything. She poured him a mugful of coffee and pushed it his way. “Please do it soon,” she said, with a pointed glance toward the corner table where Gypsy was currently glowering.
Sweet nodded, grabbed the coffee, and headed over to his friend’s table. Gypsy glanced up for a second from his phone, long enough for Sweet to see the black eyes and the bandage across his broken nose. “Glad one of us is happy. But I don’t need your good fucking cheer this morning.”
Sweet ignored that and slid into the seat across from him. “Did Misha check that out?”
“It’s fine. Not the first hits I’ve taken.”
“You provoked him,” Sweet told him evenly.
“And you didn’t?” Gypsy asked without looking up at him. “Or are you going to try to convince me we’re playing good cop–bad cop?”
“I’m not playing anything. He’s fucked up.”
“Tell me about it,” Gypsy muttered, throwing his phone onto the table and lowering his voice. “What the fuck, Sweet?”
“What the fuck’s your problem—besides getting your ass kicked for saying shit about Bram’s brother? You had to know that wouldn’t go over well.”
“Stop babying him, dammit,” Gypsy spat out. “You’re fucking him for information—at least that’s what you’re supposed to be doing.”
The anger balled up inside of him. “Shut it down, man. You don’t run me.”
“I know. I think he’s running you though. He’s a dangerous fucker.”
“So am I.”
“Great. Right now, I’m not a fan of either one of you, so I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Sweet sighed. “He’s fucked up as hell—I know that. But so was I at one point. So were you.”
Gypsy’s eyes hardened. “Don’t you dare compare me to him, Sweet. Don’t you fucking dare.”
“I just did.” Sweet pushed away from the table and walked out without waiting for his breakfast. Gypsy was one of the few he allowed to question at will, because he never wanted to become a goddamned island of a leader, but he’d done nothing to compromise Havoc.
Nothing you know of.
Bram sat on Sweet’s porch, watching the sun come up, thinking about how different Havoc appeared to be. Granted, most of the men here could’ve been ax murderers and they’d still be a nicer group than what he’d witnessed over the past years.
That shit was enough to send him into a tailspin, his beating notwithstanding. All along, he’d been forced to watch Bones order his men to torture other MC members, and some innocents from town, and incite fear wherever the Heathens went. The night he’d finally pulled out (earlier than anticipated but longer than most would’ve lasted) was right before he was supposed to kill someone in order to get his patch. The big payout for that would’ve been an introduction to the inner circle and possibly a face-to-face with the main kingpin of the heroin trade that the Heathens were trying to break into.
The worst part was that he’d been expected to patch in. The ATF—Parisi specifically—wanted him to. For the greater good. Kill one, save many. But Bram had justified too many damned things in his life, and that one wouldn’t balance anything out. He’d spent too much time sitting on his hands, hating himself and everyone around him, including the ATF, for having to do so. Would the same happen here?
You won’t be here that long, he reminded himself. Not at the rate Parisi was moving to track him down. Bram actually had begun the process of coming to terms with dying, maybe before he found Linc. The scariest part?
He wasn’t all that goddamned scared. Dying might be the easiest thing he’d ever done.
So while he was at Havoc, he needed to make the best of it, make it work for him for Linc’s sake.
Linc. Fuck. He couldn’t shake the suspicion that Heathens had something to do with Linc’s disappearance, but wouldn’t Havoc know that by now? Or Parisi? Heathens wanted to torture Bram—the best way to do it was to let him know that they had his brother.
But it was radio silence on all fronts. Short of busting into Heathens, aka certain death, he’d have to continue letting Havoc do his dirty work for him.
And speaking of dirty, yeah, it felt good to be able to give up control to Sweet, to stop looking over his shoulder for even those few moments he allowed himself to do so.
After two years of being surrounded by scum, of having to watch his back, he was actually letting himself think he could trust Sweet.
Which was ridiculous.
It was risk-taking behavior, but hell, he wasn’t related to Linc for nothing. He’d agreed to go undercover, so of course he had that gene
in common with his brother, as hard as he pretended he didn’t.
The military might’ve forced him into the straight and narrow path, until Special Forces. And then it was a different set of rules, although all of it required control. Precision. Deadly calm.
He was decorated. He’d taken out a lot of bad men and saved a lot of good ones. But he’d also seen more than his fair share of horrors and, at thirty-two, felt old as fuck.
The next steps, whatever they might be, appeared currently unattainable. Instead, he’d let himself relax in Sweet’s cabin.
In Sweet’s bed.
He hadn’t wanted to meet—or possibly like—any of these people. Didn’t need to be taken in and adopted like a stray fucking puppy. Because it wasn’t real. He wasn’t real.
It’s the realest role you’ve played in years, he reminded himself. He was a man searching for his brother and seeking help from the last people who’d seen him. He knew that trusting Sweet—or any MC member—was Stockholm-level stupidity. They were together because Bram needed the grounding that sex with Sweet gave him, and Sweet was looking for intel—on both Linc and Bram.
Thing was, they were also both seeking a way into each other. It was working . . . but it was going to backfire and really fucking soon. Because they’d both realized it was much more than either man wanted, and they’d learned that from the first night they’d fucked outside Bertha’s.
Sweet didn’t bother waiting for Gypsy at the clubhouse. Ozzie and Tug met him there and he briefed them on the bank account information and sent them to the gas station Linc’s bank statement showed, told them to keep it on the QT. Fay had dropped off his breakfast, and so he sat at the head of the long clubhouse table and began to eat.
Gypsy walked in about ten minutes later. Sweet hoped his friend had cooled down, but one look told him that was wishful thinking.
Sweet motioned for the probie named Callum, who was currently cleaning up behind the bar, to leave them alone, which he did with a nod. Gypsy sat next to him and said, “Is Bram alone in your house?”