by Aiden Bates
Crack. Crack. I kept sinking balls.
Logan and Blade slipped out the front door, still wrapped up in each other. Logan and I were the same age. Gunnar and Blade were the same age. No one had blinked at Logan and Blade—and yet no one could even conceptualize me as an actual contributing adult in the club.
Gunnar left the beer pong game with a laugh and a smile, moving towards the common space, his predatory eyes scanning the room.
Re-rack. Start again.
But I’d already fucked up any chance I had of being with Gunnar for real.
It had been the night of Dad’s funeral. I had felt like I had a hole carved inside my chest. The clubhouse had been full to bursting with members sleeping in the extra rooms and on every couch and air mattress we had. All of us club members had just wanted to be together after shoveling the dirt on Dad’s shiny black coffin.
I hadn’t been thinking. I had felt scrubbed raw, like I had road rash on my heart. The house had been silent and cold and still. Tomb-like. Couldn’t stand it. My feet had walked me to the clubhouse, to Gunnar’s room, before I knew where I was.
I remember I had stood in the doorway with my arms wrapped around my body. Gunnar had blinked awake, his head poking out just barely from the duvet. I had braced myself for the rejection: ‘Fuck outta here, Raven,’ or ‘This ain’t Priest’s room, kid,’ or something like that.
Instead Gunnar had simply turned the duvet down and patted the bed next to him.
Before he could change his mind, I had crawled into the bed and then sank into his warm mattress with a sigh.
“Turn over.” Gunnar’s voice had been scratchy with sleep. I had rolled onto my side, and Gunnar had slotted his body up against mine. His bare chest had pressed warm and solid against my back. “Get some sleep.” His breath had evened out, slow and deep on the nape of my neck.
If he had noticed me shaking as I cried, he’d said nothing. He’d just tugged me closer.
In the morning, I’d woken from a fitful sleep to the hard line of Gunnar’s cock pressed against my ass. I had been drunk on the feeling of it, half-asleep, still delirious from grief, and I had been trying to say thank you, trying to fill the hole in my chest, to feel connected. I had been trying to feel anything. I needed it.
I needed him.
When I had pulled away, Gunnar had huffed a sigh and rolled onto his back, still deeply asleep. I had wriggled down his body and nosed at his cock in his boxers. It had jerked beneath me and hardened more. It had been so easy to pull his tight cotton briefs down enough to reveal his cock flushed and dark in color. I had smoothed my hands over the solid points of his hip bones and the firm muscles of his abs.
I had sucked the tip of his cock into my mouth gently.
Gunnar hadn’t woken up right away. His hips had shifted as he thrusted into my mouth. I had sucked him all the way down and it had felt good, tasted good—the rich sensation had briefly washed away the pain. My cock had hardened dizzyingly fast, and I had shifted my hips into the mattress, desperate for friction.
With a low groan, Gunnar had blinked awake.
“Fuck.” He had drawn out the vowel like it hurt.
His hand had drifted down and touched my hair gently as his thighs had flexed under my hands. His head had tipped back onto the pillow and the taste of sweat and precum exploded on my tongue. For a few long, beautiful moments Gunnar had wanted me.
Then, something had shifted. His fingers had tightened in my hair. “Whoa, whoa.” He had tugged my head up. “Jesus. What the fuck are you doing?”
My mouth had dropped open at the delicious burn of his hands in my hair. My face had flushed. Gunnar’s gaze had lingered on my mouth. “Want you,” I had said.
“Fucking hell,” Gunnar had muttered. “You—fuck. You can’t fucking do that.” He had released my hair, then had gently shoved my shoulders so I rolled back onto the bed. Gunnar had pulled his briefs back up, and I had stared at the shape of his cock in the fabric. He had stood up and the early morning sunlight made his messy blond hair glow golden.
“I’m getting in the shower,” he had said firmly. “Go home, Raven.”
The finality of it had cracked my heart in two. But I’d done as he said, slinking away like a kicked dog.
Since then, he’d barely spoken to me. Just grunts, sneers, sideways looks. Full sentences only when club business required it. Never any personal business.
“Hey.” Pops’ voice snapped me back into reality. “You’re doing some work on this table, kid. Everything okay?”
I’d cleared the pool table a couple of times mechanically as I was lost in thought. I shook myself back into reality. I glanced at my empty beer and Pops handed me a fresh one.
“Thanks. Yeah, everything’s fine.”
“You sure?”
Across the room, Gunnar lounged in an overstuffed armchair with a club prospect perched on the arm. She leaned close to him, her dark hair falling in a long, shiny sheet around her face. With her red lips close to his ear, she whispered something, and Gunnar laughed. His smile was like a spotlight on her. Nausea turned my stomach.
“Yeah, you know me. Just got a little caught up.”
“Thinking about what happened with Logan?”
“No. And yes.”
“Can’t change anything now,” Pops said. He gripped me on the shoulder hard. “But we did the right thing.”
“Yeah,” I said, and somewhat to my surprise, I found I really did believe it. “We did.”
A crash in the living room. Coop looked around suspiciously like maybe no one would notice he’d just dropped a full pint glass of vodka-lemonade on the hardwood. Pops rolled his eyes and went to get the broom. “Coop! Come on, we just got the floors refinished!”
Gunnar wrapped one arm around the woman’s waist.
Our eyes met.
He looked away.
In my pocket, my phone vibrated. Usually I’d ignore it until later, but I was grateful for the distraction. It was an email notification from an address I didn’t recognize.
Curiosity piqued, I opened the email. No subject line. Just an attached photo.
I opened it. My heart stopped as if it’d been dropped into a bucket of ice. A mess of chrome, black leather and rich burgundy detailing wrapped around the thick trunk of a tree. Bloodstains on the asphalt near it. That wine-colored detailing—I’d know it anywhere. Dad’s bike. His favorite one. The one he was riding when he’d spun out on a corner and crashed.
Two words accompanied the photo:
NO ACCIDENT.
The world narrowed around me. I felt cold, breathless, my heart pounding hard in my chest. I couldn’t be here. Around people. What did this mean? Who sent it? How did they get the photo? The wound of Dad’s death reopened in my gut and flooded me with grief and anxiety.
Computer. I needed my computer. Try to track the email.
Commotion behind me, some confused voices. Didn’t matter. I took the stairs two at a time. Cold sweat prickled on the back of my neck.
As I reached my bedroom door, someone grabbed me roughly by the shoulder. I whirled around and instinctively threw a defensive strike, a don’t-fuck-with-me right cross.
Gunnar stumbled back a step as my first connected with his jaw. “Fuck.” He rubbed his jaw and moved it around like I’d knocked it out of place. “You’re fuckin’ fast. What the hell is going on?”
For a moment I was sure Gunnar was about to knock me flat on my ass in retribution. But his brow was furrowed with confusion, and his voice was low and soothing when he spoke. “Is everything okay?”
I couldn’t handle this weird version of Gunnar—this concerned, soft-eyed version so different than the man who’d been ignoring me for a year. This was the Gunnar I’d been enamored with for as long as I could remember. It was too much.
“Fuck off, Gunnar. Don’t touch me again.” I slammed my bedroom door between us.
I rested my forehead on the cool wood and closed my eyes. In the hallway, Gunnar curse
d to himself. He pounded on the door for a long few minutes, calling my name.
My blood rushed in my ears. This changed everything. It wasn’t an accident. Dad had been killed. And I wasn’t going to let the murderer get away with it.
Get ready for Book 2 of my the Hell’s Ankhor Series, Raven.
Available Now!
Raven
Get ready for Book 2 of my the Hell’s Ankhor Series, Raven.
Available Now!
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Blade
Hell’s Ankhor: Book 1
Aiden Bates & Ali Lyda
© 2019
Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.
This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).