Once Hazel knew that Alice was taken care of at Sonya’s place, I took Hazel and Amy home.
Amy was dead on her feet, and she headed straight to her bedroom.
“Are you okay?” I asked, checking on Amy before she fell asleep.
“I am,” she replied. “It’s just hard. I know things happen because of the gang, and you’re the leader and everything, but this is different. It’s going further than just your bikers. It scares me.”
I dropped a kiss on Amy’s hair. “You know I’ll keep you safe, sweetheart. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” The words were harsh. I was serious; I would kill anyone who even thought about hurting Amy.
“I know. If anyone can protect me, you can.”
“Damn straight,” I said, smiling. “Get some sleep. I’m right downstairs if you need me. You’re safe.”
Amy nodded and closed her eyes. I sat with her until she drifted off, then got up and walked to her window. I checked the window, making sure it was closed. I looked out and judged if it would be possible to climb up here. The brick wall had no climber plants on it or big trees close enough to use. If anyone wanted to get to Amy, they would have to come in somewhere downstairs. I felt a great swell of pity for the person who tried.
I left Amy’s room, leaving her door ajar so I could hear if she was in trouble, and found Hazel. She was sitting on the couch, hugging her knees to her chest, looking distraught. I walked to her and sat down next to her, putting my arms around her. I folded her against me, and she shuddered.
“How did this happen?” she asked, her face turned toward my chest. “One day I’m tagging with nothing wrong in the world, then the next, artists are dying, and my friends are assaulted.”
I stroked her hair. “I’ve got you.”
Hazel nodded. “But what about that artist who was stabbed? No one had him.”
She was right. It made my blood boil to think about it, but she was right. No one had been there to look out for the artist, to protect him. The skull had been a warning, but not enough people had taken it seriously. They were taking it seriously now, but a life had already been lost. And there was no way to get that life back, to go back and change the fate of that man.
Hazel tipped her head up to me. Her eyes were dark in the night, deep, her lips slightly parted. Her face was only inches from mine. I wanted to kiss her, but I couldn’t do it, not when she was in such a state.
When her eyes slid to my lips, an indication that she thought the same thing I did, I let my inhibitions go. We were two people cocooned with questions and angst, fighting against a night that seemed darker than usual. Hazel needed reassurance, and physical contact healed wounds in ways words never could.
I pressed my lips against hers, and she sighed, melting against me. I licked her lips, sucked her bottom lip into my mouth and kissed her so hard she forgot whose air she was breathing. My cock hardened in my pants, a thick ridge that lay along my leg and I shifted, tugging at my pants to make space for my growing need.
When I did, Hazel reached for me, her hand landing on my dick. Her skin was hot, searing me through my jeans but she was the one that gasped, echoing what I felt.
We shifted on the couch so that I lay back with her draped on top of me, her breasts mashed against my chest, her slender legs tangled with the thick meat of mine. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her flush against my body, feeling every curve. I rubbed my cock up against her, grinding my hips and she mimicked the movement, rubbing her pussy against me, our sex separated by the layers of clothes between us. This wasn’t only about lust and fucking. This was about so much more than that.
I couldn’t call it making love because it wasn’t love. I cared for her, but it wasn’t love. Whatever it was that happened between us, when she put her hand on my cheek and kissed me like I’d never been kissed before, was pretty damn close though.
Chapter Fourteen
Hazel
Everything was different this time. We had fucked many times, Logan and I, but tonight it had meaning Maybe we were bound by what had happened to Alice. It had come so close to us that I was left reeling, gasping for air, that I had been missed so narrowly. I didn’t know if it got to Logan as much as it got to me – he was a gang member, after all. But everything between us had changed.
When he kissed me, it was like he was aware of me, not only going through the motions. He had been with many women. I hadn’t had to ask to know that. But tonight, it felt like I was the only one.
With that, I switched off my mind. I wouldn’t overthink this one, let my mind ruin the moment. I needed to be with Logan in a way I hadn’t before – the trauma had left me raw – and he was willing to be there for me. That was all.
Logan tugged my shirt up, and I lifted off his chest enough that he could get it up to my neck. I ducked my head and helped him pull it off me. He put his large hands on my skin, and I shivered at his touch. His hands were gentle, calming, even though I knew he had done so much with these hands that were rough and violent.
Logan ran his hands over my body as if he was committing the feel of me to memory. I got goosebumps in the wake of his trailing hands.
“What about Amy?” I whispered.
Logan nodded and sat up, taking him with me as if I wasn’t lying on him with my full weight. He picked me up and carried me to his bedroom.
I didn’t have time to look around. I was aware of monochrome colors before Logan put me on the bed, crawled over me, and kissed me. I pulled his shirt over his head, and he stopped kissing me, only so that I could get the shirt off. He lifted me, and I arched my back so he could reach the clasp of my bra. When I was topless, too, Logan sat back and stared at me.
“I know we’ve done this before,” he said, “but have I ever told you how beautiful you are?”
“Not like that,” I replied.
Logan had complimented me before, saying all the right things. But this time, I knew he meant it. His eyes were drowning deep, and there was power to every word he spoke.
He kissed me again, his hands finding my breasts. He massaged me, squeezed me, rubbed his thumbs over my hardened nipples, and I moaned into his mouth. He massaged my breasts, squeezed them, replaced his hands with his mouth, kissing me all over.
His hands slid down my body to the waistband of my jeans. He undid them before pulling them down, peeling them off my legs one by one. He pulled off his own pants as well before crawling onto the bed with me, and my thighs fell open for him. Logan kneeled between my legs and pressed his lips against my pussy. I shivered at his touch.
He stuck out his tongue and licked my slit to my entrance and back before flicking the tip of his tongue over my clit. I writhed on the bed beneath him. Logan put his hands on my hips, holding me steady while he wrought pleasure on my clit. I cried out.
Logan inserted two fingers into my pussy, and he moved his fingers in and out while he licked and sucked on my clit. My hands were in his hair, making fists, so I held onto him, pulling him into me, the pleasure so intense it was almost painful.
An orgasm ripped through me, and I cried out, closing my legs, trapping Logan’s head. He didn’t relent, licking my clit as I fell apart.
When the orgasm was over, and I could breathe again, I looked at Logan between my legs. He stopped his onslaught and crawled over my body, positioning himself between my legs.
“Let me please you, first,” I said in a breathy voice.
Logan shook his head and pressed his lips against mine. I could taste myself on him, sweet. The scent of my sex clung to his skin.
“You’ve already pleased me,” he said and pushed into me in one swift movement.
I cried out as his cock slid home, splitting me open, driving into me all the way to the hilt. Logan bucked his hips, moving in and out of me. It started slow, but he picked up his pace as if he had no patience to tease and torture me. His cock slid in and out of me, the friction a wave of ecstasy with every thrust.
Before I knew it, I was orgasming ag
ain.
Logan picked up the pace, fucking me faster and faster, and I moaned, trying desperately to keep my voice down so Amy wouldn’t hear us. Logan’s hands were on either side of my head, his shoulders thick and straining with the effort to keep himself up and thrust into me this hard and this fast.
“Turn around, angel,” he growled out in my ear after a while, and he pulled out of me.
I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed myself up so that I was on all fours. With one hand on my ass, he guided himself with the other hand and pushed into me again.
I whimpered. He resumed his pace, slamming into me hard and fast. It was like we were working together, driving away the fear and the doubt and the pain of the day until it was only Logan and me left, making love, fighting away the darkness.
A third orgasm shattered me, and I collapsed, lying on the bed with my ass up in the air, Logan still fucking me, his fingers digging into my hips. I cried out. Logan shoved himself into me as deep as he could and released his load, pumping into me. The jerking and spasming prolonged my orgasm. If Logan hadn’t held me by the hips, I would have collapsed completely.
We rode out our orgasms together. When it was over, Logan pulled out of me, and I fully collapsed onto the bed. He lay down next to me, and we breathed hard, our skins slick with sweat. Logan pulled me against him, so I lay in the crook of his arm, my head fitting into place as if it was always meant to be there.
I pressed my hand flat against his chest and felt his heart beating under my palm. Was this what love was like? I had no idea what we were doing, or who we were to each other.
What I did know was that I was freaked out by what was happening, and so far, Logan had been there to save me.
“How long do you think this is going to keep going?” I asked Logan.
He turned his face to mine. “I don’t know.” He didn’t pretend not to know what I was talking about. “But we have Earl on our side. It helps to have contacts in the right places. And I’ll see what I can do in the morning to speed this up. When strangers get hurt, it’s one thing, but when it’s someone close to me, it becomes a different story.”
“I’m worried about Amy,” I admitted.
She was only a kid. To be caught up in a world of murder at her age was already horrible. I was terrified that she would be a victim. I would never forgive myself for that, never get over that I had mentored her – turning her into a target because she was an artist.
“He won’t touch her,” Logan growled out.
He was protective, and I didn’t blame him. I felt protective over Amy, too. But it wasn’t only Amy Logan was protective over. It was also me. For the first time, I wasn’t in this alone. I wasn’t isolated and by myself, living a life no one understood. I had become a part of something bigger without realizing it.
When I’d fallen pregnant, I had been terrified of raising a baby all alone. But even that seemed more bearable now.
And even though things were pretty shit all-around, it felt good to belong.
Chapter Fifteen
Logan
Hazel and I fell asleep afterward. We were curled up in my bed, and I held onto her as if my arms around her alone would be enough to protect her, to chase away the hell that was happening all around us. When I woke up, I checked the alarm clock on my nightstand. It was five in the morning. What had woken me?
I strained my ears to listen. The house was quiet. Hazel’s even breathing suggested she was sleeping soundly. I slipped out from underneath the covers, pulled on my boxers and checked on Amy who was sound asleep, too. There had been no reason for me to wake up.
When I returned to the bedroom, Hazel was awake.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “I checked. Everything is fine.”
Hazel clutched the sheets to her chest, self-conscious now that the passion had faded. I understood how she felt. We had fallen into each other’s arms after the tragedy had struck, seeking solace, looking to be there for each other. But the darkness was receding, the air filled with the promise of a new day and Hazel and I didn’t know who we were now.
We had been driven together by circumstance. First, it had been about art, about mentoring Amy. Then it had been the baby. We had decided to try to make it work for the sake of the life we had created together. Now? It had become so much bigger than that, about life itself. But what were we? Who were we without everything else?
I wanted to be with Hazel. I wanted to make it work. Not only for the baby but because there was something about her that fit into the world I lived in. And Amy liked her, too. I had been alone for so long, being a leader and a parent alone, that it felt good to have someone else in my corner, to know that I didn’t always have to face the world as a single man with no one backing me.
Did Hazel feel the same? I knew she cared about the baby and the home we would provide for him or her. But what did she feel about me as a person? She was isolated and alone in a lot of ways, too. But maybe she wasn’t looking for a way out of that.
“I’m going to get some clothes,” Hazel said.
She wrapped the sheet around her like an oversized towel – picking it up from the floor and walking out of the room with it, so she wasn’t naked. I watched her leave, a ghost wrapped in my sheets, disappearing into the dawn that hung thick in the air. I wondered if she was going to disappear out of my life the same way.
I sat down on the bed and sighed. We hadn’t slowed down enough to think about these things, to talk about them thoroughly. And we wouldn’t have the time to do it now either. We had to take care of Christopher Maxwell – not only the threat he posed to us as a potential family but as a threat to the entire art community in L.A. It was so much bigger than us. Until this was taken care of, we couldn’t focus on anything else. It was a simple case of survival.
Hazel and Amy had an art show coming up. They had planned one with Lisa after Amy hadn’t been able to attend the previous one and I didn’t want them to have to cancel. It was a big break for both of them, and I didn’t want to teach Amy to hide whenever something went wrong. At the same time, I didn’t want to teach her to be reckless when she knew there was danger. But this was her moment to shine, and I wanted the girls to do the show.
I wanted them safe, too. I was the leader of the Valley Reapers MC, and this was my turf. It was my family we were talking about. It was a double knock, and it was up to me to make sure this ended here and now. I didn’t want anyone else killed in my territory, and there was no way I would let anyone hurt the two women I cared about.
What I really needed was someone who knew the game to take this on with me. My men were on my side, of course, but they looked to me for direction. I needed someone untethered from them, someone who had been in the world I lived in but wasn’t a slave to it.
Someone that had been on the inside but wasn’t anymore. Someone like Emmerson Blake.
When Hazel returned, she was dressed in tracksuit pants and a tank top, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She sat down on the bed next to me and now that we were both dressed, there was less tension. We were two people, facing a problem together again.
“I think I know what I need to do,” I said. “This has to stop. I’m going to make sure it stops.”
“What are you going to do?” Hazel asked wearily.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to get her hopes up if it was a dead end. I didn’t know if Emmerson would be able to help me. I hadn’t seen the old dog in a long time. I didn’t know if he was still around or if he would want to help me at all.
“Give me some time to see what I can figure out,” I said instead. “I have an idea, but I need to investigate it first.”
“How long do you need? A week?”
I shook my head. “I want to take care of things a lot sooner than that. Give me a day. Then I’ll tell you what it’s all about. I want to get Maxwell off the street as soon as possible – get rid of the threat and let you and Amy do your show without a hitch.”
Hazel nodded. “Okay. Will you be safe?”
Warmth spread through my chest. That she was asking meant something to me.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” I answered.
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s not an answer,” she said but nodded. “Okay. Do what you need to do. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
I put my arm around her and pulled her closer to me. “You can stay safe. I don’t want you getting involved any more than you already are. I want to keep you and the baby right where I can see you, so nothing happens to you. I don’t think I’ll be able to deal with it if something happens to you.”
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