by Gemma Weir
“I’d like to try that goodnight again, if that’d be okay?”
I pause, unsure what to do. Kent’s cute, but tonight, him driving away, hurt my feelings a little and I don’t like that feeling.
“Please, Emmy.”
The sadness in his tone melts my resolve and my feet move without my permission. A moment later I’m at the front door, pushing it open and stepping onto the porch. His eyes lock with mine and a hint of a smile graces his lips. He watches as I take a couple of steps toward him, my feet bare, my cell gripped tightly in my hand at my side.
I walk a few more steps, then wait, unwilling to make all the effort. Kent looks up at me and smiles shyly, closing the distance between us and reaching for my hand. His fingers wrap around mine and he lifts my hand up to his lips and kisses it lightly. “I had a really great time tonight with you, Emmy,” he says against my skin.
“I had a good time too,” I confess quietly.
“I’m so sorry for leaving before. Hopefully, this goodnight can eradicate the last one from your memory, because I’d really like to take you out again, if you’ll let me?”
“I think I’d like that,” I whisper.
Still holding my hand, Kent leans in and kisses my cheek. It’s sweet and chaste and kind of perfect.
“Goodnight, Emmy.”
“Goodnight, Kent,” I say, pulling my hand free when his grip loosens and turning and heading for the house. Stepping inside, I pull the door closed behind me and rest my back against it, letting a small smile spread across my lips.
“That was so sweet,” Nova says, her head appearing around the doorjamb.
I nod, still smiling.
“Are you going to go out with him again?”
I nod again.
Her lips spread into a wide grin, her shoulders lifting up as she squeals excitedly.
Rolling my eyes at her behavior, I shake my head as I push off the door and move past her. “I’m going to bed.”
“Sweet dreams,” she singsongs, giggling.
My steps feel light and my smile hopeful as I climb the stairs to my bedroom. Stripping out of my clothes I slide on a tank top and loose flannel shorts then climb into bed, flopping down on my back, my head nestled in the pile of pillows I sleep with.
Staring up at the ceiling above me, I allow my smile to get a little wider. That goodbye was so much better than the first one. He didn’t kiss me properly, but what he did was almost better. A knock sounds at my door and I drop my gaze from the ceiling. “Yeah?”
“It’s me, can I come in?”
“Sure,” I call, shuffling a little further up my pillow pile until my shoulders are propped up.
The door slowly pushes open and Griff walks into the room, crossing to the bed and flinging himself down onto my comforter with enough force that I bounce. “Hey,” I cry, shoving at his shoulder as he wedges his huge body next to mine, unbalancing me and making me fall into his chest.
“You okay?” He asks.
“I was until you and your huge ass jumped onto my bed.”
Griff chuckles but doesn’t move; he only lifts his arm and motions for me to snuggle into him. I pause for a second, then rest my head against his chest as he wraps his arm around me. “What did Kent want?” He asks, saying Kent’s name with an edge of anger.
“To apologize.”
“I hope you told him to go fuck himself, the kid seems like a dick.”
“He’s hardly a kid. He’s older than us, he’s a sophomore,” I say against his chest.
“He looked like a pussy and from what you said he behaved like a pussy.”
“He’s not a pussy, he’s just not like you. Normal guys are like that, normal guys aren’t bikers,” I say, rolling my eyes even though he can’t see from my position pressed against him.
“We’re Sinners, no point pretending to be something we’re not,” he says quietly.
“Don’t you ever want anything else? Don’t you want to see what the world’s like when you’re just you? When you’re not Griffin the Scion, the Sinner prospect; when you’re just Griffin Bennett?”
“I know who I am, Emmy. I don’t need to play pretend and try to be something I’m not or hide the separate parts of me. I’m Griffin Bennett when I’m on the field playing football, I’m Griffin Bennett when I’m at the club with my brother and when I’m at your house talking to your dad about prospecting. I’m the same person right now, lying in bed with you. Distance doesn’t make you a different person, or at least it shouldn’t.”
I stay quiet, because I don’t know how to respond to that. I wish I felt that way, that I was the same person back home as I am here, but I don’t know how to be that at peace with myself. I need to split myself up into little sections, so I know how to deal with the different aspects of my life. Here at Hayhurst I can’t be a Scion because no one has any idea who the Sinners are and I’m glad of that. Back home I’m the daughter of the president of the Doomsday Sinners MC. I’m feared and revered, but I don’t really know how to play that part either.
It dawns on me that I don’t really know who I am in either part of my life, and if I don’t know who I am, how do I know when I’m pretending?
Griff’s grip on me tightens and I respond by snuggling a little deeper into the nook of his arm, needing his familiar, reassuring presence.
“Why didn’t you tell us about him? Even Nova had no idea.”
“I don’t really know,” I admit.
He sighs and I feel his chest rise and fall beneath me. “I know you struggle sometimes with being...” He pauses as if he’s choosing his words carefully, and I stiffen, unsure where he’s going with this. “I know that sometimes you just want to be on your own, and I respect that, we all do. We get that you probably find being a Scion the hardest out of all of us, even Nova. But I’m not going to let you push us away because you want this fancy new life where everything is the opposite of how we do it back home.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I cry, pushing up from his chest and locking my eyes with his.
“It’s exactly what you’re doing, but I’m not going to let you. Every time you try to change who you are, your roots, I’m going to remind you of the Emmy I know and the world we thrive in.” His eyes are blazing, his lips pulled into a firm line.
I shake my head and open my mouth to deny his words, but before my lips have fully parted, he flips so my back is against the mattress, his huge body hovering over me.
“College boy said goodnight with his lips on your hand and a chaste peck on your cheek. But Sinners say goodnight like this.” Then his lips descend to mine.
For a moment I’m too shocked to do anything but lie there and let him kiss me, his mouth pressed against mine, his fingers tangled in my hair. His hand slides along my ribs, grazing the side of my breast and I gasp. Teeth nip at my lower lip and I open my mouth, not pushing him away when his eager tongue tangles with mine.
Without thought, I kiss him back, my hands gripping his strong shoulders and clinging to him as he devours my mouth with his. This is nothing like our first kiss all those years ago, but I feel as dizzy now as I did back then. His tongue slides along mine, caressing it before sucking on it lightly and forcing a moan to slip from me.
The sound is feral and raw and if I hadn’t felt it escape me, I’d deny I could ever make that noise. Griff’s lips move against mine one last time before he pulls back and ends the kiss, leaving me breathless and dazed.
“That’s how we kiss back home, shortcake. Like the world is ending and it might be our last chance. When a Sinner kisses his woman, he wants her to know whose lips were pressed against her, he wants her to feel that kiss for hours so when she climbs into bed no one else is on her mind or in her dreams.” Griffin growls against my ear, then he lifts off me, climbs off my bed and walks to the door.
Opening it, he turns back, his arms braced against the doorjamb. “We’re Sinners, Emmy. The next generation, the future. You can try to change, be someone differen
t, but when it comes down to it deep inside where the real you lives, you’ll always be one of us. You’ll always be a Sinner,” he drawls, winking at me with a roguish grin on his face before he steps into the hall, closing my door behind him.
Exhaling a ragged breath, I stare at my closed door with my heart racing in my chest. Griffin just kissed me.
Why would he do that? Why would he kiss me? My mind feels like a jagged mess, but my lips are still tingling. I shouldn’t have enjoyed it. He’s my family, my best friend. But the way he kissed me felt nothing like I’ve ever imagined, and if it was wrong, why is my heart still beating erratically in my chest, and why do I want him to kiss me again?
I shouldn’t have done that. Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that. But I can’t even regret it because nothing has felt so right to me since I was eleven years old and kissing her for the very first time. I stole her first kiss that day all those years ago, I stole her next kiss just now, and I’m not even slightly ashamed.
Emmy Grace Devereaux is it for me. My perfect other half, my soulmate. I knew it the very first time I met her at eight years old and I know it now. All those years ago Zeke caught me kissing her and he told me she could never be mine; that she was Prez’s daughter, off-limits in the most extreme way, and I accepted that. She’s too good for me, always has been. But I’ve never moved on. How do you move on from perfection?
Fuck, I can feel her lips against mine, the taste of her still in my mouth. I shouldn’t have kissed her, but now I’ve done it, now I’ve touched her like she’s mine, I’m not sure I can stop myself from doing it again.
Pushing through my bedroom door, I close it behind me and turn the lock. I need that barrier between us, a physical reminder that I can’t go back in there and really make her mine. As the reality of what I just did dawns on me, I slide down the door until my butt hits the floor. My head falls into my hands and a wave of panic rolls through me as I clutch at my hair.
I want her so much my heart aches for her, my body longs for her, and my soul breaks over and over every single day that she’s not mine. A part of me is missing. It was lost when my parents died. I’m incomplete and empty, until I’m near her. When she touches me, it’s like the world is brighter, louder, more impactful. She’s the sunshine on a cloudy day, the moon in the black of night; she’s everything and she should be mine, she’s always been mine.
It’s been getting harder and harder to hide my feelings for her since we came away to school. Back home she didn’t look at other guys. She was so introverted, so suspicious of everyone that she went through life with blinkers, assuming that because she wasn’t seeing them that they weren’t seeing her.
But they saw her, they all did, and when they looked twice, I threatened to beat the shit out of them. Keeping assholes away from my girl has become my life’s work, and in Archer’s Creek every single fucker who even thought about looking at her knew she was untouchable. I might not be able to claim her, but I sure as shit wasn’t letting anyone else have what’s mine.
I never anticipated that college would be a whole new world. No one here knows who we are, they aren’t scared of us, and I can’t keep them all away. The night of the frat party, when she came down wearing those clothes, so different from the stuff she normally wears, I lost my fucking mind. I went full blown caveman on her and if Zeke hadn’t have walked in, fuck knows what would have happened.
Growing up in a biker club is all I’ve ever known. My parents were bikers and I was raised in the club. When they died, I moved in with Duke, and the Archer’s Creek Sinners all took on the role of parents. I might have lived with my brother until we came to Hayhurst, but I have my own room at Zeke and Nova’s place and between them and my other unofficial aunties and uncles, I was surrounded by family.
The Sinners saved my life. They took me in, made me family, and kept me on the straight and narrow. I owe them everything. I’m a Sinner to my very fucking core and Sinners look after their own.
A wry laugh slips from my lips and I lift my head up, letting it fall back against the door with a thud. I’m not sure they’d all think of me as family if they knew I was jonesing for Prez’s baby girl. I found my perfect woman when I was eight years old, and since that day I’ve been pretending that she’s nothing more than a friend.
I’ve kept myself under control for a decade; the only time I’ve ever slipped was the day I kissed her, until now. I can stop myself from touching her, I can stop myself from acting on my feelings for her, or at least I always could. But seeing that guy here for her tonight, seeing him touching her, kissing her, it snapped something inside of me, broke my resolve and destroyed my control.
I’m not good enough for her, I’m not the future she wants, but I can’t lose her. I’ll become a black hole of nothingness without her. So maybe it’s time to fight.
Emmy thinks that people don’t see her, that they overlook her to look at Nova, but she couldn’t be any further from the truth. I love Nova, she’s my sister, and she’s gorgeous. But Emmy, she’s more than just a pretty face, she’s ethereal. She’s the kind of outrageously stunning that makes you blink and look again to make sure she’s actually real.
Emmy draws people in, but the moment they meet her they know that she’s destined for bigger and better things. Maybe I’m an asshole for keeping guys away from her, but I know that if they had a chance, if they had even one taste, took one step too close, they’d be ensnared, captured in her thrall and never want to leave.
Emmy’s a siren and she caught me when we were only kids. I’d been living with Duke for a few days, barely coping with the fact that both of my parents were dead. I remember her finding me sat on the porch of Duke’s shitty little house. The moment her tiny yellow sneakers had appeared next to me I’d tried to wipe the tears from my cheeks, not wanting the pretty girl to see me cry. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t asked me if I was okay; she’d just sat down next to me on the step, a huge book clutched to her chest and rested her head on my shoulder.
At eight years old I’d thought girls had cooties, but this girl, she took my breath away even back then. I can still remember the way her hair had tickled my cheek when I’d rested my head against hers, the way she smelled like cotton candy. She didn’t say anything, she just sat next to me, her head on my shoulder, while I silently cried. I think I fell in love with her that moment and I’ve been in love with her for every moment since then.
Another laugh slips from my lips, but it changes to a raw broken noise that comes from the back of my throat when I think about losing her to some other guy. I can’t watch her make a life with someone other than me. I can’t watch her fall in love with someone else. I just can’t.
Covering my lips with my hand, I stifle the animalistic growl that’s bursting from me. I’m not this guy, I’m the happy-go-lucky joker. I’m the light-hearted, doesn’t take anything serious guy. Only I’m not that person. That’s who I want to be. But in reality, I’m the guy who is still grieving the loss of my parents. I’m the guy who will never be whole, who will never be truly happy, because they’re gone and I don’t know how to move on, to move forward.
I’m not saying I’m a broken, fucked up mess, because I’m not. I have a great family; without them I have no fucking clue what kind of nightmare I’d have become. But Duke’s just as lost without Mom and Dad as I am. The two of us are adrift, anchorless, and it sucks, but at least neither of us are alone with our unending grief.
The Archer’s Creek Sinners are nothing at all like the club Duke and I grew up in; the club my dad was the president of. They weren’t a family like the AC chapter are and I’m so fucking grateful for the life I’ve had, but it will all be completely worthless if she isn’t in it.
Emmy’s my tether, my anchor, my axis, and she has no idea.
The summer between junior and senior year I thought I was losing her. She hid herself in a world of make believe, making elaborate plans for a new life for herself. What I’ll never admit to anyone, is that as she
was making plans to run as far from us as possible, I was making plans to chase her.
I’ve never been Ivy League material, but I applied to every school that was close to the schools she dreamed of. She might have been planning to leave us all behind, but I was never going to let her.
Since the day I realized what love was, I’ve known that Emmy is it for me and a part of me has always hoped that she might feel the same way. She’s never dated, never had a boyfriend, never kissed, never snuggled with anyone but me. But now there are guys pouring from every fucking nook and cranny and they want her, they all want her.
First there was that guy at the frat party. I couldn’t even look at the way he was dancing with her, dancing with my girl. I’d been on the verge of killing him when I just couldn’t take it anymore and I had to touch her, to claim her and make sure everyone there knew she was mine. Now there’s this guy: the preppy, weedy little motherfucker who stole her first date from me.
I want to hunt him down and beat the living shit out of him. Pound his fucking face until he understands that she’s mine and he can’t have her. But instead of beating up assholes who think they can make a play for my girl, I’m here on the floor of my room wallowing in self-pity.
Did I miss my chance to make her mine? The thought hits me like a tsunami and pain lances through my heart. I don’t know how to see a future where she belongs to someone else, where I belong to anyone but her.
My door ricochets when a fist hits the wood. “Open up, asshole.” Zeke demands, his voice a growl.
Forcing myself up, I turn the lock, then step away from the door, retreating to my bed and slumping down onto it, loss and empty fucking broken heartedness making my body wilt.
The door swings open, hitting the wall behind it with a bang, as Zeke stomps into my room, taking in my pathetic appearance. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he snarls. Turning, he slams the door shut, strides over to me and yanks me upright by the front of my shirt. “Snap out of it, asshole.”