by Kati Wilde
“Because he doesn’t want you to have to deal with that shit when you’re grieving.”
“I know.” Though if it hurts this much now, I don’t know how I’ll get through it anyway. “There wasn’t a living will—you know, for when he’s so sick that he can’t…” I can’t finish. Shaking my head, I say, “All those papers, and no living will. You’d think it would be the first thing the lawyer would give him.”
“Yeah.” The response sounds full of grit. “It was the first thing we got for my mom.”
Because Saxon has gone through the same. He never mentions it, but it’s a small city, so I remember hearing when she passed six or seven years ago. Breast cancer, I think.
I come up on my elbow. He’s wearing that stoic expression again. This time I can’t read past it but I probably don’t need to. I lost my mom, too. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know her well.” By sight, and mostly I just remember her crying in the courtroom after he received his guilty verdict—a tall, dark-haired woman with soft eyes and a quiet way of moving. “She seemed very sweet.”
That makes the corners of his mouth kick up. “Nah, she wasn’t. She was a tough old broad.”
“Really?”
“My dad ran off when I was three, so it was just her and me. She cleaned rooms up at the Pine Valley Lodge until her back got messed up, but even after she couldn’t work full-time there was always food on the table, always a roof over our heads. She always pulled through.” His smile fades. “Until she didn’t anymore.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head and focuses in on my face again. “You’re thinking there’s a reason Red didn’t make out a living will.”
“Yes.” My lips press together and a long second passes before I can continue. “I don’t think he’s going to wait until the cancer takes him. I think he’s just going to take a ride and he won’t come back from it.”
His thumb brushes my trembling lips in a soft caress. “I would, too. I’d fight it. But when there’s nothing left to fight? I’d get everything settled and hold out until waiting any longer means that I couldn’t steer my bike. Then I’d take that ride, too.”
Tears spill over when I nod. “I know. And my head gets it. But here?” I thump my knuckles over my heart. “It’s not so easy. And last night I was just thinking: He’s all alone out there. And what if he goes tonight? Or what if he’s sick and needs help and I’m not home? He’s not at that point yet, but I just…I…I feel so guilty.”
Saxon catches my face and rolls me onto my back, looking down at me with his brows drawn. “Because you’re with me instead of at home?”
“Not because I’m with you. Because I’m not there.”
“You want to start spending nights out at the ranch again?”
My breath shudders. What I want doesn’t matter much right now. And I do want to be with my dad. But even that’s not as important as being there for him. “I think I should.”
“Then you should. You and me, we’ve got lots of time. You and your dad don’t. So take as much as you can and I’ll be here when you need me. Or out there, if you need me there. All right?”
God. Thirty seconds ago, I thought I loved Saxon Gray. But that was nothing, nothing to what I’m feeling now. My chest hitches, then I’m reaching for him, my fingers sliding into his dark hair. His kiss is hot and sweet and too short. He lifts his head and wipes the tears from the corners of my eyes.
“It’s going to be hard, Jenny. Real hard. I put more miles on my bike when my mom was sick than I did all the years before or since.” On a deep breath, he shakes his head. “You just let me know if you need a ride. Or whatever is the same for you.”
“You’re the same for me,” I say hoarsely. “Being with you.”
“So you like a ride, too,” he responds, and I give a watery laugh before he’s kissing me again and lifting me from the mat. “You want me now?”
“Always.” I bury my face in his neck, feeling cherished as he holds me in his strong arms and carries me through the kitchen. More pale light is filtering through the windows now. “So why were you up? What’s eating at you?”
“You.” In the bedroom, he lays me in the center of the mattress and follows me down, his heavy weight settling between my thighs, his upper body braced on his elbows. His voice is like gravel but his mouth is gentle as he kisses the length of my throat. “And how I’m always so rough with you.”
“I like rough.”
“But you deserve slow and sweet. And I will be this time, princess. I swear it.”
I don’t need it. But I’m not going to complain when he softly coaxes my lips open. The slow thrust of his tongue against mine is matched by the easy rock of his hips into the cradle of my thighs. A warm hollow ache opens up inside my chest, and a hotter ache stirs below. God, the way he kisses me. I’ve never been kissed like this before. As if I’m precious and beautiful and needed.
My eyes are burning as his heated lips journey down my throat. The fan’s cooling air sweeps over my skin when he moves away for the brief moment needed to slide the T-shirt over my head. I shiver, then he’s back over me, solid and warm, the hair on his chest teasing my stiff nipples every time he rocks against me.
It’s still gentle and sweet and I almost can’t bear how much need is building. My body arches beneath his.
“Saxon.” It’s a helpless plea. “Inside me. Be slow inside me.”
He groans against my lips and reaches for the condoms stashed beneath his pillow. His left hand slips between my legs. His breath hisses through his teeth.
“This is always when I lose my head. You’re so damn wet.” His thick middle finger pushes into me. “So damn tight.”
I cry out as his thumb slides over my clit. He’s looking down at me, his eyes feral but his movements controlled as he sheds his sweatpants and rips open the packet.
“Put it on me.”
I barely can. His finger is pumping into my pussy. I can’t stop my hips from moving with him and my hands are shaking as I smooth the condom over his jutting erection. Expression hard, utterly in control, he positions himself at my entrance. His mouth lowers to mine.
“Wrap your legs around me, princess.” He kisses me gently when I do, and his voice is taut with strain as he says, “Slow, all right?”
God, yes. “And deep.”
“Real fucking deep,” he says and begins pushing into me.
I suck in a breath. Whether going rough or easy, this part is always slow. He’s just so big, so deliciously long and thick, and no matter how wet I am, my sensitive flesh burns and stretches to accept his girth. After a few initial thrusts he’ll be able to slide right in, but within a few hours I’m always as tight as if it’s our first time again.
His mouth takes mine, tongue slowly thrusting past my lips as his cock tunnels deeper. I whimper into his mouth with every short push. He’s all around me. All I can taste, all I can smell, all I can feel. His ass flexes beneath my heels and suddenly he’s almost completely inside me, stopping to let me adjust.
Oh, God. Not enough. I rip my mouth from his. “Deeper.”
He groans, his body rigid above me. “I bottomed out, Jenny. There’s no deeper. I’ve got more cock but you don’t have more cunt.”
“I do.” My back arches and my legs hug him closer, trying to pull him farther in. “When you’re fucking me hard, you’re deeper. You’re in me all the way.”
“Yeah, I am. Buried balls deep.” Gripping my hip, he pushes against me and yes, yes. Oh, fuck. I cry out against his mouth and he curses, shaking his head and easing back.
“I’m not deeper,” he says hoarsely. “I’m just punching my cock up into you. Jesus. Have I been hurting you every time we fuck?”
“No.” Tightening my legs, I try to haul him closer again. “Please.”
“Jenny.” He groans my name but pushes deeper—slowly, watching my face. His heavy length fills me, right to the edge of pain, but it’s good. So good. I’m panting as the crown of his cock
hits the end of my need-swollen channel. It’s pure pleasure, but then the pressure increases and suddenly it’s all more, ecstasy radiating through every nerve, and all I feel is Saxon and his big cock stuffed inside me and my pussy clenching around every thick inch.
“You’re squeezing me like a fist.” He grits out the words. Braced beside my shoulders, his arms are like steel. “So you want it like this?”
Clinging to him, I all but sob the answer. “Yes.”
“It doesn’t hurt?”
My head thrashes in a wild No. It aches deep inside, but it’s not a hurt. It’s all just more intense, pleasure on a razor’s edge.
His hand cradles my face as he licks his way past my lips and into a devastatingly thorough kiss. His thick shaft withdraws but only a few inches before he’s sliding deep, each thrust slow and deliberate. The intensity never lets up, each sensation building on the last, a spring winding tighter and tighter around his big thrusting cock. I need more and harder because it’s too much, I need him to jolt me over, I need to come. He doesn’t let me. His face is hard and mean, that look that says he’s in control, that he’s not going to give in. My pleading cries fill the room. I can’t move. He locks my wrists over my head and his weight pins me to the mattress as his cock fills my pussy again and again, so slow, so deep.
I can’t bear it. My whole body is burning and writhing and pulled too tight, and the pleasure never stops, but usually I’m being pushed along, riding a wave of sensation. Now I’m just drowning in it, and every kiss, every thrust drags me deeper. I’m at the black bottom when the pressure finally breaks and my orgasm wracks every nerve, every muscle. Release, but I can’t even breathe. He’s still so deep and I can’t stop coming, can’t stop breaking again every time he pushes into me.
Then he groans, that low and deep sound that means he’s going to come. He lets go of my wrists and his hips thrust in hard jerks, his cock pounding into me. Freed, my fingers slide over his sweat-slicked shoulders, loving the feel of his skin, his strength.
Abruptly his lips capture mine. His kiss is hot and deep and wet, and he’s groaning into my mouth when his big body begins shuddering over me, his thick shaft pulsing against my inner walls.
I can’t stop kissing him. Not when he slowly withdraws, tossing the condom over the side of the bed. Not when he rolls onto his back, carrying me with him. Not when the alarm clock on my phone trills, telling me that it’s time to get up.
But the insistent ring eventually forces me to let him go, rolling over to swipe at the screen. With a sigh, I return to his side. He holds me close, his big arm around me, my head pillowed on his shoulder. Idly, my fingers trail through the dark hair on his broad chest, then swoop in to circle his flat nipple.
“Slow wasn’t half bad,” I finally say.
His body shakes with his laugh. Grinning, I look up and that wild emotion crashes over me again. My eyes burn and suddenly his laugh stops; then I’m on him, kissing him with my whole fucking heart on my lips.
“I love you,” I tell him hoarsely.
His hands fist in my hair and his face goes dark as he pushes me over again. This time it’s hard and rough, yet the pleasure of his touch still drowns me in pure sensation. I cling to him until I break, screaming his name.
And that’s not half bad, either.
5
Jenny
Lily shows up promptly at eight. My hair’s still wet from a hasty shower, so I twist it up in a clip and grab my things. At the front door, Saxon gives me a kiss and swats my ass on my way out.
Lily has the driver’s door open and she’s standing there with her eyebrows raised, as if asking whether I want to drive. Since I’m in a state of so-tired-I’m-punch-drunk, I head around to the passenger side.
It takes me about a second to realize she’s in the same state. Her eyelids are heavy. Her long blonde hair is mussed and she’s still wearing last night’s clothes.
She yawns and starts the truck. “Starbucks?”
“God, yes. No, wait. Just head to Minnie’s—that drive-thru espresso hut in the Safeway parking lot. We won’t have to get out.”
“Good thinking. I like your lazy-ass ways.”
She reverses out of Saxon’s drive. Her kutte is neatly folded on the seat between us. No biker I know wears their colors while in a vehicle. I pull my seatbelt across my chest and notice a scrap of red lace wedged next to the buckle. Pinching the fabric, I drag out a thong.
The panties look about my size but they aren’t mine. And Lily’s six feet tall, at least. She’s lean, her muscles long and defined, but there’s no way she’s an extra small.
“Whoops.” Lily grins and snatches the thong, stuffing it into her front pocket. “I guess Sasha missed that.”
“I guess. Do I need to hose anything down?”
“Just the gearshift,” she says, and I don’t stop laughing until we pull up in line at Minnie’s. Lily rolls down the window and tosses the red panties into the trash container sitting beside the hut. She catches my surprised look and shrugs. “No point in making the effort of washing and returning them. I’ll see her at the Den again, but she wasn’t there for me.”
“She left with you.”
“Only because I raise her hotness level.”
The car in front of us drives on. We pull up to the window and I have to wait until Minnie takes our orders before I can ask, “Her hotness level?”
“Yeah. No, I got this.” Lily waves away my money. “Sasha’s with Beaver, mostly. But he still fucks around, you know? Half the brothers basically think they’re living in Porno World. So the hottest girls are the ones who suck cock and take it up the ass and fuck two guys at once—preferably in front of everyone else. They don’t really give a shit about the girl, just what she’ll do.”
Ah. “And what’s hotter than girl-on-girl action?”
“Right. So Sasha figures she’s going to make Beaver more interested by fucking me. A lot of the club girls do. And it usually works to turn their guys on, at least for a while. I think the guys probably just ask what it was like and then stroke off to it.” She shrugs. “I don’t care. There’s never any dick at the Den that I can get with, because they’re all brothers and I’m not touching that. So I get laid and it holds me over until I can get up to Portland for a weekend and find some dick that’s never heard of the Riders.”
“So you’d rather have the dick?”
“If I’ve got a choice.” She passes my coffee over and sticks hers into the cup holder. “It’s just, you know, like the difference between a crotch rocket and a Harley. The crotch rocket can go fast and riding one can be fun, but I’d rather have some power and a big engine between my legs.”
“Yeah.”
“Whoa.” She looks to me with widened eyes. “That ‘yeah’ sounded a lot like ‘I know exactly what you mean’ and not just ‘I understand the words you’re speaking.’”
I flush—but, hell. It’s Sunday morning and she’s confessing TMI everywhere. I might as well, too. “You’ve probably heard about my issues.”
Because apparently everyone in town has. Lily proves to be no exception. “I might have heard something like ‘skittish’ and ‘freezes up with men.’”
“That’s me. So in college I tried it without men.” And found out I’m as straight as a board. “It was nice but the burn wasn’t there, you know? And I can get ‘nice’ with a vibrator. So...” I trail off with a shrug.
“Yeah,” she says, but she’s suddenly frowning.
Crap. Did I just stick my foot in it? “Not that a woman and a vibrator are the same,” I quickly add. “I just don’t look at one and think, ‘Damn, I need you now.’”
“I get it. I’m just wondering how the hell we started talking about this.” She frowns at her coffee cup. “Am I still drunk? How the fuck did we get on this?”
“You hooked up with club pussy and her panties were stuffed in my seat.”
“Oh, yeah. Shit. Good times.” She grins again. “So what kind of bike a
re you hiding out there?”
It’s a ten year old softail with black and silver paint accented by gleaming chrome. Pretty, if standard. Nothing like Lily’s custom chopper was.
“It’s mostly stock,” I say as Lily pulls on her kutte and crouches beside it. “My dad tweaked it a little, but I don’t take it out much, so—”
“Shh, Jenny. This girl and I are getting to know each other.” She rubs the leather seat. “Hey, baby.”
I shake my head but I get it. My dad’s the same way. I like bikes, but I don’t love them. Lily does.
She glances over at my dad’s custom ride. “Do you think he’ll care if I get close?”
“God, you’re cheating on mine already? Go on. He won’t care.”
“Oh, my heart.” She spends a long time simply circling it. With a sigh, she looks up, her gaze running the length of the garage, lingering over my dad’s equipment. I don’t come out here much, but even I know it’s a sweet garage. “I want to live out here.”
“Maybe you will. Or at least you won’t be too far if the Riders move to the clubhouse.”
“Aw, yeah. Moving out to the ranch. You know, I always thought I should have been a cowboy—kicking sparks out of stone with my bare toes and making lassos out of rattlesnakes. I’d have been the toughest leathery bitch ever.” She bats her eyelashes. “You could be my girl.”
“Until a big horse gets between your legs.”
She snorts out a laugh but her smile fades as she looks past me. I glance over. A big man with red hair that’s going gray, my dad’s standing in the doorway connecting the garage to the house, holding a coffee mug in one hand. Though he’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, he’s still in his bare feet so he hasn’t been up long.
“Lily,” he greets her easily.
“Sir.”
Her response is stiff. I don’t know why, but I suppose there could be a hundred reasons. She’s a Hellfire Rider in Titan territory. But more likely, it’s because of the bad blood that used to flow between her dad and mine. God knows what she’s heard about him all her life.