Tab had recently sustained a loss. The night of the picnic table. She hadn’t been back to the Compound since and was finding recovery difficult. So Shy, Rush, Tack, Tyra, and Tab and Rush’s little half-brothers, Rider and Cutter, were seeing to their girl.
Another shot across the bow.
Yeah, on the goddamned verge.
Roscoe and Hopper were playing pool with Lanie and Carissa. Joke was in the garage across the forecourt, keeping his shit tight by letting his head fall deep in a build.
Lanie and Carissa were losing in a big way. Lanie and Carissa also did not care, their frequent laughter and bright personalities, along with Rosie’s quiet serenity, were the only things that was keeping the doom hanging over the Chaos Compound from enveloping them, choking out the air, strangling them standing.
Snap saw it in Roscoe and Hop. The brothers shot smiles at the women but their bodies were tight. Of late, Roscoe had taken to habitually cracking his knuckles, and right then was no different. Hop had wound his head around to loosen the neck muscles twice that Snap had caught.
On the verge.
Big Petey moved from the huddle toward Renae, who was shooting the shit with Arlo on stools at the other end of the bar, close to the double doors that led to the Compound. This happened as Dog headed to the back hall, where he’d left his old lady, Sheila, in his room. His woman was undoubtedly passed out or simply physically immobile after the hard-core sex sounds they’d all heard drifting into the common room, prompting Snap to turn up the music. Brick’s route was to the pool table.
Snap watched Pete’s movements closely.
Arlo had a woman who he’d claimed as his for a long time, and Snap didn’t know a lot about that, he just knew he stepped out on her. Frequently. After Boz (who also liked variable pussy even when his cock was owned by just one) left Bev, Arlo was the last brother with a Chaos patch who did that shit. And Snap had not left attention to Renae to that brother alone. He’d kept an eye.
He didn’t like it.
Pete, it was coming clear, liked it less.
Then again, the look on Pete’s face, the reason why Snap wasn’t a big fan of Arlo setting up to make a move on Rosalie’s mother was not why Pete didn’t like it. Pete had around ten years on Arlo, but he wore it on his face more like it was fifteen. Or thirty.
But the man was the most loyal, solid human being Snap had ever met. More than Tack, who could be volatile, even if he had a fierce check on that shit. Even more than High, who’d learned the hard way to keep his shit cool. More even than Brick, who was mellow and smooth almost all the time, even if he hadn’t just finished a blunt.
As Pete instigated a cockblock, Snap again scanned the space.
High and Millie had High’s daughters that he’d had with his ex, so they were up in that crazy-ass mansion the man had bought his girls in north Denver.
Yeah, Logan “High” Judd was a biker who lived in a gothic Victorian manor that dripped class from every square centimeter, the same as his old lady. All of it, except the basement man-cave that was such a stark contrast to all that was around it, Snap couldn’t walk into the fucking place without feeling an instant sense of culture shock, then fast on the heels of that busting a gut laughing.
Whatever they were doing up there, Snap had no doubt High often found times to reflect on current times, and when he did, he’d wind his neck around just like Hop.
Notably absent was Hound. He used to be around a lot. Serious shit had gone down with him—him and his brothers, him and his now-woman. Snap was frankly shocked as shit Hound had nailed down any woman at all, much less the one he went balls to the wall for. Snap was under the impression that the man had always been about brotherhood, blood, guts and attachment-less booty.
Then again, a lot had surfaced about Hound recently that was shocking as shit.
So in a rare instance, when it came to Hound, Snap had learned he was wrong.
But in this instance, he was glad to be that.
His eyes lit on Rosalie, and not unusually, his dick had the response.
She was mellowed out, with her people, but the vibe had penetrated, she knew what it did to her man, and she was all in to do something about that.
He lifted his chin to accept her offer.
She smiled and looked to Speck.
Snap moved to Boz and poured another shot in the empty shot glass Boz was scowling at.
Then he shouted, “Chill!” and the recruit that had been doing whatever the fuck he’d been doing behind the bar with Snap loped over.
“You got the bar,” he said to the prospect.
“You got it, brother,” Chill replied.
Snap moved around the bar and it was not a surprise to him that, in sync, he met Rosalie at the door that was the mouth to the back hall, the hall that led to all the brothers’ rooms.
Returning her small grin, probably also returning the heat he felt from her eyes, he slid an arm around her shoulders and felt hers glide along his waist.
They had to turn slightly sideways to get through the door, but they did it, moving attached through it, down the hall and all the way to his room.
* * * *
He took her with two fingers, sucking rhythmically on her clit, but harder, then harder, and then harder, eyes up watching her strain into him, naked, arched, legs dropped wide to the sides.
As he intended, she found it for him, her body bolting against his mouth, and he kept sucking and stroking her through it until he knew it was too much and only then did he unlatch and lift away, still watching her, eyes glued to the beauty of his Rosalie gripped with an orgasm.
But he kept his fingers buried deep, part of her, and only when her frame settled and her gaze drifted hazily down her body to catch his did he come up on his knees, withdrawing his fingers slow, tender, floating them over her clit with a light touch, listening to the soft noise she made telling him she liked that.
He kept his eyes on his woman, her eyes on him, as he knelt between her legs, wrapping his left hand around his cock and stroking slowly while he lifted his right hand, fingers coated with her, and drew them into his mouth to suck her sweetness down his throat.
Another noise, a deeper mew, and she writhed in front of him.
He’d taken her there.
But she was ready for more.
He slid his fingers out between his lips and ordered gently, “Turn over, baby. On your knees.”
She nodded and did as told instantly, offering her sweet ass and wet, pink cunt to her man, spreading her thighs to give him the perfect angle to position.
God, fuck, he loved this woman, her hair on his pillow, the smell of her sex in his nose, the quiet unity they shared all the time, but especially in these times, the straight-up trust she gave him all the time.
But especially in these times.
He wiped the wet of her from the whiskers around his mouth with the back of his forearm, not licking it clean but leaving it there so he could smell her on him after they’d passed out to sleep.
Then he walked on his knees to her, guiding his cock, now unsheathed since they’d both been tested and she started taking care of family planning.
He’d lay seed in her womb. Soon. After Chaos shit was finished and he could hand her nothing but steady and true.
The ring he’d give her, though, that’d come sooner.
He slid in slowly, watching her strain to hold back and take him how he wanted to take her. He knew his baby was wild in just one way and he gave her that, after he took her to a place where the end result would blow her mind but reduce their world to nothing, not a thing, but their two bodies in a bed.
He rocked in her, watching her arms come out, dig under the pillows, reach to wrap her fingers around the headboard.
And he continued to rock in her, giving her just his cock, not even caressing the skin of her beautiful ass with his fingers.
As he watched the tension gather in the muscles along her spine, felt her thighs and ass quivering as she
took his slow thrusts, holding back for him, he went faster, catching her at the waist, pulling her to meet him.
“Snap,” she whispered.
He said nothing. He was right there. Right where he was made to be. And she couldn’t miss it.
But he bent over her, gliding his hands up her ribs and in. The light twists he gave her tight nipples caused her entire body to buck.
Christ, she was fucking magnificent.
“Snap.” It was a plea.
He dragged the pads of his thumbs hard over her nipples, then tweaked them with his thumbnails.
“Oh God, baby,” she breathed.
Moving his hands, he held her with his left at her waist and flattened his right on the small of her back.
It was time.
“Go, baby,” he whispered.
And she went. Head flying back, fingers tight around the headboard to give her leverage, Snapper watched her at first, fucking herself on his dick.
Then he watched their glistening connection as she drove back into him, again, again, again.
One of her hands released the headboard, dove between her legs, and Snap clenched his ass, then his entire body to beat back the rush of feeling that would overwhelm him if he let it as she rode his cock on her knees, touching herself. She didn’t do this long before she cried out and kept at her rough ride through coming, coating him so fucking slick, they both had to be dripping.
Only then did he let go but he did it focused on his dick sinking deep into her wet until he could see none of him, none of her, just the two of them together, and he gritted his teeth to drive the beauty of what they had down his throat, his lungs, his gut, his ass, through his balls, out his cock, shooting it in glorious pulsing floods into his Rosalie.
He came down to find she was already down, now fucking herself, and him, on sweet glides.
That was when he moved his hands over her skin, taking her in in a different way, giving her something at the same time.
She made a move as if to draw him out, shift position, and he murmured, “No, honey,” and she stilled that movement, but continued to fuck him sweet.
He let her until he lost it and had to slide out completely, but he kept his hands moving on her waist, her lower back, hips, ass, fingertips tracing down the backs of her thighs.
She shivered in front of him and didn’t move, quiet, contained, the world that bed and their bodies and Rosalie offering him everything he needed, on her knees, dripping his cum, holding for him, there for him, his world.
“Pete’s making a play,” he said softly.
“Yeah,” she agreed.
“How you feel about that?” he asked, still touching her.
“If she lets it happen, happy for Mom. Thrilled for Big Petey.”
He smiled at her back because her words were good.
Renae needed happiness in her life that came from more than her daughter, her daughter’s happiness, the relationship she was building with her daughter’s man and the Club that man gave them both, and if Pete, who hadn’t reached for it himself in years, could give it to her, that worked for Snap.
But he was on the other side, knowing Pete as he did. He’d be happy for Pete if he found someone again. He’d be thrilled for Renae, because she couldn’t do better than finding Petey.
The silence settled nice and warm but Rosalie broke it.
“Things are not good.”
Yeah, he was right, Rosie had felt it.
“Nope,” he confirmed.
“You’re all twitchy.”
“Yep.”
“Anything I can do?” she asked.
“Nope,” he answered.
She jerked her head so her hair slid to one side and looked up at him out of the sides of her eyes.
“You sure?”
Laid out, ass up, pussy dripping.
Her invitation was not veiled.
He grinned at her.
“Nope.”
She grinned back and wiggled her ass. “Take your time, Mulder.”
His drifting fingers slid between her legs. “You better believe it, Scully.”
She bit her lip.
He started playing with her clit.
Slowly, his old lady closed her eyes.
And nothing penetrated, not rival bike clubs, not dealing, pimping psychopaths, not what was left for them on that picnic table, not the shift happening in the Club.
The world was small.
In the scheme of things, tiny.
Just Snapper and his Rosalie.
But it was about to crack open.
Open wide.
Sucking them all into a dark void of insanity.
* * * *
It was raining hard.
He was soaked.
His throat was choked.
His hair was straggling in his eyes, eyes that were blinking away the hair and the wet.
And the blood.
His hands were in fists, including the one with its fingers curled around the butt of his gun.
And Everett “Snapper” Kavanagh stared.
This was it.
The end was near.
And by what he was right then seeing, what had just been done, something that had already been hideously nasty was going to get seriously…fucking…ugly.
The red staining the rainwater was pooling at his boots.
It was Black again.
The asshole had tried to pull the same thing on Snap that his mentor had succeeded in doing to Black.
Take out the brother that everyone liked. The even-keeled one.
The calm in the storm.
Take out the brother that would light a fire under the whole Club that was already a powder keg in an attempt not to blow it sky high, but to force them to scramble to put the light out then toe the line.
But this time, seriously fucking fortunately, they’d failed.
“I am the master of my fate,” he whispered, head unbowed, blood and water and sweat mingling as it trickled down his neck, into his cut, drenching his tee, the adrenaline that had suffused him as the life he wanted to share with Rosie nearly went black on the stroke of a blade, staring, damned staring, unable to tear his eyes away. “I am the captain of my soul.”
It took a lot but he broke eye contact and walked away, sliding up the safety and shoving his gun in the back waistband of his jeans before pulling out his phone, ignoring the pizza he was picking up for him and Rosalie, moving to his truck.
He had to make decisions, and fast.
He made them.
Fast.
So his first call was Rush.
His second call was Throttle.
His third call was Tack.
His last call was Rosalie.
The End
* * * *
Also from 1001 Dark Nights and Kristen Ashley, discover Rock Chick Reawakening.
Sign up for the 1001 Dark Nights Newsletter
and be entered to win a Tiffany Key necklace.
There's a contest every month!
Click here to subscribe.
As a bonus, all subscribers will receive a free copy of
Discovery Bundle Three
Featuring stories by
Sidney Bristol, Darcy Burke, T. Gephart
Stacey Kennedy, Adriana Locke
JB Salsbury, and Erika Wilde
Discover 1001 Dark Nights Collection Five
Click here for more information
BLAZE ERUPTING by Rebecca Zanetti
Scorpius Syndrome/A Brigade Novella
ROUGH RIDE by Kristen Ashley
A Chaos Novella
HAWKYN by Larissa Ione
A Demonica Underworld Novella
RIDE DIRTY by Laura Kaye
A Raven Riders Novella
ROME’S CHANCE by Joanna Wylde
A Reapers MC Novella
THE MARRIAGE ARRANGEMENT by Jennifer Probst
A Marriage to a Billionaire Novella
SURRENDER by Elisabeth Naughton
&nb
sp; A House of Sin Novella
INKED NIGHT by Carrie Ann Ryan
A Montgomery Ink Novella
ENVY by Rachel Van Dyken
An Eagle Elite Novella
PROTECTED by Lexi Blake
A Masters and Mercenaries Novella
THE PRINCE by Jennifer L. Armentrout
A Wicked Novella
PLEASE ME by J. Kenner
A Stark Ever After Novella
WOUND TIGHT by Lorelei James
A Rough Riders/Blacktop Cowboys Novella®
STRONG by Kylie Scott
A Stage Dive Novella
DRAGON NIGHT by Donna Grant
A Dark Kings Novella
TEMPTING BROOKE by Kristen Proby
A Big Sky Novella
HAUNTED BE THE HOLIDAYS by Heather Graham
A Krewe of Hunters Novella
CONTROL by K. Bromberg
An Everyday Heroes Novella
HUNKY HEARTBREAKER by Kendall Ryan
A Whiskey Kisses Novella
THE DARKEST CAPTIVE by Gena Showalter
A Lords of the Underworld Novella
Discover the World of 1001 Dark Nights
Collection One
Collection Two
Collection Three
Collection Four
Collection Five
Bundles
Discovery Authors
Blue Box Specials
Rising Storm
Liliana Hart's MacKenzie Family
Lexi Blake's Crossover Collection
Discover More Kristen Ashley
Rock Chick Reawakening
A Rock Chick Novella
By Kristen Ashley
Click here to purchase.
From New York Times bestselling author, Kristen Ashley, comes the long-awaited story of Daisy and Marcus, Rock Chick Reawakening. A prequel to Kristen’s Rock Chick series, Rock Chick Reawakening shares the tale of the devastating event that nearly broke Daisy, an event that set Marcus Sloane—one of Denver’s most respected businessmen and one of the Denver underground’s most feared crime bosses—into finally making his move to win the heart of the woman who stole his.
Rough Ride Page 18