Chapter 8
Kate
“And then Duke said I could go back and watch them customise a bike.” Conner crammed another slice of pizza almost completely into his mouth. He chewed loudly for a few seconds before he continued to talk. “I can go right, Kate? On Saturday?”
He was so full of eagerness, so excited that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him no outright. I didn’t want Conner hanging around the Savage Sons” clubhouse. I didn’t want him getting mixed up with the wrong crowd again.
“We will see.”
“He’ll be safe there, Kate.” Legacy pushed his plate onto the coffee table. “He’s probably safer there than anywhere else in London. You can come as well if you like.”
Pursing my lips, I studied him.
“I don’t think I would find anything to do there, Legacy, but if you promise you will watch over Conner, then he can go at the weekend.”
“There’s another woman there, Kate. I met one today called Carly. She’s a friend of Legacy’s.”
Legacy paled.
“She was hot.” Conner blew out his breath. “Like hot, hot.”
“She’s no one. Not even a friend. Carly’s just a club girl.”
I didn’t know why Legacy was suddenly on the defensive, but he had every reason to look nervous.
“Conner, take the rest of the pizza and go and play your Xbox or something.”
I watched as Conner”s eyes slid to Legacy. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Legacy’s smile was forced. “Go on. I’ll be okay.”
I didn’t say a word. Would he be okay? Jumping to my feet, gathering up the plates before heading into the kitchen.
“Look, she is just a girl who hangs around the clubhouse.” Legacy followed after me. “She’s not—” He snagged my wrist, pulling me into his chest.
It felt good to be held again. He was firm against my back.
It shouldn’t have felt so good. I stiffened.
Pulling away from his arms, I turned. “I don’t care who you sink your dick into, Legacy.”
He winced at my words.
“I do care that you take my teenage son and introduce him to whores.” My voice shook.
“Conner isn’t your son, and Carly isn’t a whore.”
I froze.
I wanted to scream at him. Shout at him until I was red in the face, but what would be the point? He was right. I wasn’t Conner”s mum, even if I had been the one to raise him since I was eighteen. And I didn’t know this Carly, so I didn’t get to call her a whore just because she had some sort of relationship with Legacy.
“You’re better than his mum could ever hope to be, Kate. A million times better and all I meant was—”
Dumping the dirty plates into his hands, I brushed past him. “Can you put those in the sink, please? I’m going to grab you some sheets and make up the sofa for you.”
“Kate.”
“Unless you have somewhere more important to be?” I threw it over my shoulder.
“Kate.”
My name was followed by a rap on the door. A soft brushing of knuckles against the wood.
I stayed where I was, on my side with my back to the door. The same place I had been for the last two hours. Not crying, well, not crying any longer. I was just lying there and wallowing in my own self-inflicted misery.
“Kate.” Legacy called again. A little louder this time, but still quietly.
“Go away. I’m asleep.” I muttered.
His throaty chuckle filled the room. “Sure you are. Can I come in?” Without waiting for me to answer, he pushed the door open further. I knew the moment he was inside because I felt the air around me shift. It became thicker and hotter.
Or maybe it was me that got hotter.
“I’m tired, Legacy. Can this wait until the sun”s up?”
His silence spoke volumes. Of course, it couldn’t. If it could, he wouldn’t have climbed the stairs to come and search me out. With a groan, I rolled onto my back, deliberately flinging my arm over my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him, and so he couldn’t see how red and puffy my eyes were.
The bed dipped as he sat on the edge of the mattress.
“Want to tell me why you are mad at me?”
An exasperated sound left my mouth. That particular conversation could wait to be had. It could wait forever.
“Well, right now I’m mad at you because you”re in my bedroom and it’s past midnight,” I muttered.
“Kate.” Warm fingers curled around my wrist and pulled my arm down. “I’m being serious.”
Glaring up at him, I fidgeted. Having him in my room was bad enough, but he was right there, sitting on my bed in nothing but his boxers. The darkness didn’t do anything to hide it, either.
“So am I.”
“Why are you really mad at me?”
“Because…” My voice was ragged. “You come back into our lives after ten years and just take over. You”re bulldozing us, Legacy. And I don’t like it,” I huffed. “I don’t like you and your friends taking over my house.”
“Did Pocket do something?” His voice was sharp.
“No, no.” I shook my head with such vigour that my hair fell into my eyes. “Pocket is a sweetheart. Why do you call him Pocket, anyway? I get why you are Legacy. Your family has been riding with the Savage Sons forever. But Pocket?”
Legacy laughed. “Because he’s pocket-sized.”
For a second, I was confused. Pocket was the biggest guy I had ever seen. The realisation came slowly. “Oh, I get it now.”
“Bit slow off the mark today, aren”t you?” Laughing, Legacy leant over me. “I remember you being sharper than this.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t know what to say about anything because he was hovering over me. A half naked man almost pinning me down in my bed.
It had been a long time.
A really, really long time.
My body barely remembered what a loving pair of hands on my body felt like. I had disgusting memories, thanks to Tristan. But pleasurable ones? My body had forgotten the feel of Paul’s hands.
“You left us, Legacy. Apart from the flowers, we haven’t seen you or heard from you since the funeral. And now you’re back and trying to take over and it’s driving me insane.”
“You saw me at Chance”s wedding reception when you hit me over the head with the flowers.”
I growled out a few choice swear words. “See, this is what I mean. You make me crazy.”
“Do I?” The fingers around my wrist flexed. Not squeezing. He wasn’t pinning me down. I was just hyper aware that he was touching me. “Why?”
“You know why, I just told you.”
“So it has nothing to do with what happened at lunchtime?” His eyes darkened.
“What? You almost beating a man to death in front of me?”
Tristan had deserved everything he had got. Hell, he deserved worse, but I couldn’t help but think that the only reason Legacy had stopped was because I had begged him to. There was a darkness in him. I could feel it rolling from him. Just like I had felt it from Tristan. They both lived life on the edge. On the borders of civilised society.
“I wasn’t talking about that, but yeah.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “I can see why that would freak you out. You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
I ignored his question and asked one of my own. “What were you talking about?”
He didn’t answer at first. And then his finger rubbed against my bottom lip.
I shuddered. My mouth opened slightly before I could stop myself. The tip of my tongue peeked out to swipe against the pad of his finger just once.
Legacy’s eyes flared. But he didn’t move his hand away. He kept brushing it against my lip. Back and forth.
“Kate,” he groaned. Pulling my lip to bare my bottom teeth, he slid the tip into my mouth and against my tongue.
“God.” He shifted his weight and, for a second, I thought he was going to crush me underneath him. I wanted that. To be crushed between the soft mattress and his hard chest. I wanted him to kiss me, to push his tongue into my mouth like he was with his finger.
I couldn’t speak with his finger in my mouth, so I did the only thing I could think of. I closed my lips around him and sucked, drawing it further into my mouth.
My eyes closed, and a weird sense of bliss flooded through my body. After so long of being alone, with no one touching my body but me, it felt so good to be wanted and Legacy wanted me. I knew he did.
I knew…
“Kate.” His finger slipped from my mouth and his hand cupped my cheek instead. “We can’t.”
My eyes flew open.
He continued to stroke up and down my cheek, but neither one of us moved. We stayed there, frozen to the spot, with our eyes glued to each other.
“I want to.” His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth again and I turned my face away before I sucked that into my mouth as well. If I did that, then it would be all over and we both knew it. We would fall into bed together.
“I don’t,” I lied. Pushing at his shoulders, I forced him to sit up and away from me. “I don’t care what you want, Legacy.” I pulled the sheets up and around my chin, scuttling backwards until my back was against the headboard. “Don’t ever touch me like that, Legacy. Not ever again.”