17. LILY
Iwas used to men’s offices.
I’d spent a lot of time in my father’s and, before he died, my grandfather’s too.
Then, there were the occasions where Tiffany pleaded with her dad for something—like the brat she was, God love her—and she’d hauled me in to wait for her until she was done. There was also the principal’s at the academy we’d attended.
None of those offices were like this one.
It was clean, cleaner than I’d expected, to be honest.
Lots of wood paneling, a big, wide desk that was surprisingly neat, a banker’s light on one corner that created a warm glow, and a full drink tray on a dresser that was calling to me like you wouldn’t believe.
There was a dining room table in a nook where a ‘council’ had gathered, and behind the desk, there were a couple of Japanese prints that were actually pretty damned nice. Worth a second look, at any rate.
Well, if you didn’t look at the men in the corner first, of course.
Bikers were supposed to be rough and coarse. Which these were, I guessed, but no one had told me how gorgeous they were.
All of them.
Link was in good company, and if I was ever going to have a wet dream, then all of them would be in it, because, yikes.
In my world, handsome men wore suits and had eight-hundred-dollar cufflinks on their wrists.
They dared to be brave by going without socks in their hand-tooled Italian leather loafers, and bucked trends by not gelling their hair.
They were as sleek as the women they had on their arms…
Nothing about these guys was sleek.
And that made them all the more beautiful for it.
Link somehow glowed among them, like the sun rising from behind a mountain.
I felt the heat of his energy regardless of the distance between us, even if he hadn’t looked at me since he’d half dragged me in here.
It had been an eventful afternoon.
I’d been involved in a shootout when Link had stuffed me into a very nice Mercedes SUV that the men called a ‘cage’ for some reason, a move my guards hadn’t appreciated.
I’d been entangled in a tussle when said highly-paid guards had followed me to the compound, and…well, that was what it had taken to get me to the clubhouse.
I wasn’t sure if the guards had been protecting me or the computer Link had been carrying, because knowing my father the way I did, I’d put nothing past him.
But, equally, the bastard would surely have destroyed Luke’s computer the second he could, if he’d known there was video evidence that could put him behind bars.
Arrogance made a fool out of a lot of people, my father included, but this much of a fool?
I wasn’t sure.
Still wasn’t.
What I was sure of was that I was about to explode from a surfeit of energy if Link didn’t do something.
I was antsy and felt like I had something on my to-do list, something major, and also, I felt like I’d dropped the ball.
My dad would know soon that my charade had been a lie.
All my mom’s money gone.
Forever.
So many plans. So many things I’d intended on doing with it. All down the toilet?—
“Babe?”
I jerked back when I noticed Link was crouching down in front of me.
That I hadn’t realized he’d moved told me how far down the rabbit hole my brain had taken me.
He cocked a brow at my jolt of surprise, and I shot him a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”
“Thinking bad shit?” He patted my knee. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get him.”
“He’s still in Hong Kong,” I reminded him, as I’d been reminding him since he and his brothers had arrived at my father’s estate. “He’s ripe for fleeing to a non-extradition country.”
Rex grunted. “We got this sorted, Lily.”
I frowned at him. “If you underestimate my father, he will make you pay for it. Trust me, I’ve been there before.”
“You’ll never be there again,” Link ground out, his eyes flashing as he slipped his hands around my waist from his crouched position.
The move put us really close together, like, super close, and a quick glance at the men behind us showed me that this was atypical behavior for Link, because they looked perplexed by his affection.
That didn’t bode well, did it?
Having walked into this clubhouse that was ‘womanned’ by naked ladies called sweetbutts, I’d had a horrendous realization earlier…
Every time Link had come to me and he’d given me pleasure that he hadn’t received in turn, he’d probably gone to one of those women with his blue balls.
They were mine.
Mine, dammit.
I wanted to be the one he slaked his lust on. Not some random ho who eked out a living on their backs.
I bit my bottom lip to contain the emotion that was pulling me in two ways—one, cry. Two, scream and pull out Link’s hair, if he really had been fucking around with those women instead of doing something with me.
Sure, I wasn’t ready for what he needed, but there had to be things we could do together, right?
He could have taught me how to give him a damn blowjob, for God’s sake, couldn’t he?
“Lily!” Link shook me slightly. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I blinked at him, aware my thoughts had drifted once more.
Oops.
Clearing my throat, I muttered, “Long day.”
Maverick wheeled forward.
Of them all, he was probably the leanest of the lot, but a picture above the drinks tray had revealed a younger Maverick.
A god-like Maverick, who made Thor look like an average six out of ten.
“You did good finding that footage.” He jerked his chin up. “I’ll nail that son of a bitch’s ass to a cross. Don’t you worry about it.”
“I’m not worried,” I immediately discounted. “Mostly because I don’t think he’ll ever return to the States.”
Silence fell in the office, and Link’s hands tightened around me. Not to the point of discomfort, just a reminder that he was there.
I liked the feeling that I wasn’t alone, and Link gave me that in more ways than one. In more ways than he probably knew, to be fair.
“What do you mean?” Nyx rumbled. He was an easy face to remember too. The guy looked like sin and chocolate combined into one devastating package.
“We’ve got the evidence to take him down, sure, but you don’t get to where he is without having contacts.
“The second you give this information to the police is the second he’ll make plans to escape arrest.”
Link frowned. “I don’t get it, Lily. You were so psyched earlier. Why, if?—”
I reached down and grabbed his hand. “Because what I found released me from my prison. He will never return to the States again.” My eyes fluttered to a close on their own volition. “I’ll never see him again.” A shudder whispered through my frame. “He’ll never touch me again.”
My eyes were closed, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the way the tension in the room crept up at that.
“He hurt you?”
Nyx.
I forced myself to look at him. “Yes. And though I want him to rot in jail, I’ll be quite happy for him never to return home.
“He’s a racist, anti-everything that isn’t American. He loves this country. Being barred from it will drive him nuts.”
“He deserves a worse punishment,” Maverick growled, his face white from rage. Did he care that much that my father had hurt me?
I frowned at the thought, then stared at him a little longer…no, there was something personal there. Something that drove him.
Even as I wondered what, he grunted and said, “I’ll dig up what I can from Lancaster’s files. Let’s see if there’s something more we can pin on him.
“Something the courts will fight over him for. He’s not due back for a while, so we can wait to go to the police when he returns?—”
“The second you took me off the estate with that computer, he’ll know to change his plans. I told you to leave me there.”
Rex slammed his hands down on the table. “What? Like a sacrificial lamb?”
“I’ve done it before. I could do it again.”
“If that isn’t the most disturbing thing I’ve heard all day,” a man I knew was called Steel grumbled.
A hiss escaped Rex, then he muttered, “Maverick, call in Lodestar.”
“Oh, fuck. Why?”
“Because she can help us. I know you can trawl through that shit and find stuff, but we need to drain accounts.” Rex caught my eye. “Let’s hit Donavan Lancaster where he really hurts.”
“The wallet.”
“Exactly. Prisons don’t always come with bars.”
“They just come without Fendi ties and million-dollar estates.” A smile formed out of nowhere. “I approve of this plan.”
Rex laughed. “Good to know, sweet pea. Now, I got Maverick to set you up in one of the bunkhouses.”
My hand tightened around Link’s. “Aren’t you staying with me?”
The immediacy of his answer filled me with relief. “Damn straight I am.” Link cut Rex a look. “Which bunkhouse?”
“Three.”
He hauled himself onto his feet, then for my ears only, muttered, “Come on, sugar tits. Let’s get you some fresh air.”
I stared up at him, wide-eyed from his words, then was promptly hauled onto my feet too.
When my body collided with his, I released a sigh. The desire to slide my arms around his waist, to hold him tight, was something I fought with.
Men were the source of my problems, always had been and always would be, but there was something about Link…something safe. God help me.
I wasn’t sure what that said about me. Didn’t know if that meant I was weak or pathetic, but if it did, I’d take it.
Two men had made me feel unsafe for the entirety of my life, and I wasn’t about to complain if Link could undo all that with not only his proximity, but the fact he could call on only God knew how many bikers to stand at our backs as well…
He grabbed my hand and tucked me into his side. The move had most of the council frowning at our joined hands then darting up to peer at Link’s face.
It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that this wasn’t Link’s regular behavior.
Just by sight alone, I knew what he was—a manwhore.
Hell, if I looked like him, I’d be taking advantage of it too. But I took the fact he was acting strangely around me as a good sign.
I didn’t really envisage this going far, him and me, even if the notion saddened me. We were too different, and not just in how we’d been raised either. But the way he made me feel was coming to be addictive.
The thought that once my usefulness was over—even if, in the long run, I hadn’t been that useful—he might move on, had me clinging to his hand a little tighter.
He looked down at me, and what he saw had him frowning, and muttering, “Time to roll.”
He half dragged me out of the office, then down a hallway that led to the front door.
In the distance, there was an opening that led to a room filled with couches. There were a lot of guys slouched on them, and a…
“Sweet fuck,” I whispered.
Link, frowning at me for braking, peered where I was gawking, and hauled me along even faster.
“Is he fucking her?” I squeaked. “Right in front of everyone?”
Link tugged at his collar. “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. It’s all consensual.”
I hadn’t even questioned that. Just the fact that dudes were drinking and shooting the shit while one of their buddies was boning some chick.
As Link towed me down the hallway, I tilted my head so I could swerve and maintain a visual on the weirdest thing I’d ever seen.
And I’d seen some weird shit in my time.
But it was just so…so normal. The guys weren’t reacting to it. Weren’t even watching, for God’s sake. It was like they were bored by the sight!
When Link had dragged me out of the door, I scowled at him. “You’re hurting my arm.”
He instantly stopped, then rubbed my arm all the way up to my shoulder.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” I muttered, even as I was peeking into the window that led into the same room we’d just walked past.
He reached for me, clutching my chin with his thumb, forcing me to look up at him. “That room isn’t for you.”
My brows furrowed. “Huh?”
“You don’t want to go in there.”
“Why not?” I huffed, not liking his tone. “That lady was in there.”
“JoJo is the opposite of a lady.”
“I guess that’s why you like her, huh?”
He cringed—it was minute, but I spotted it. Inside, mortification filled me.
He’d slept with her.
And I wasn’t talking about how he’d slept with me either. There’d probably been very little sleeping going down when he was with her.
Because she was normal.
Because she could have sex without shying away from it.
My throat closed up, and I stopped trying to look into the window. Maybe it was weird that I wanted to watch, but it was like a circus act. I just wanted to know what was going down in the big top tent.
“Fuck,” he rasped, making me jolt in surprise at his dark tone. Then, his hand was at my nape and he was hauling me against him.
The move was so swift and so abrupt that I yelped before I collided into his chest.
“Don’t look like that, Lily. You’ll break my fucking heart.”
I didn’t say anything. What was there to say?
I just carried on looking at him, and he looked at me. He released a breath, bowed his head until our foreheads were touching, then muttered, “I have a past.”
“So do I,” I whispered.
“Mine’s dirty. I’ve got a reputation.” He swallowed. “My entire past is written in those walls. People know stuff about me in there, stuff that might hurt you and I can’t protect you from it, because it happened. That was me.” When I tried to pull away, he gritted his teeth and firmed his hold on the back of my neck. “No. Dammit. Listen. That was me then. But this is me here. Now.”
“And what? I’m supposed to think you’ve changed?”
“Haven’t you changed?” he challenged, his voice husky. “Haven’t I changed you a little bit? Don’t you want my touch now? Where before you were nervous? Don’t you want me close?”
I licked my lips. “That isn’t fair to ask me that.”
“Isn’t it? I can’t be the only one feeling this way, sugar tits. I want your touch. I like you close. I want you at my side, riding bitch at my back. Never wanted that before. Never needed it. Until you.”
My throat felt overfull with emotion. “Link, I’m not right for you.”
“Why? Because I’m not good enough?”
His voice lowered at that, but I wasn’t sure if I’d hurt him or angered him. “I-I’m…I don’t want to say broken, because I’m not. But you say you’ve got a rep, well, how can I compete with that? There might be things I’ll never be able to do for you.”
I nipped my bottom lip because the physical pain was better than the emotional pain spearing me.
I hadn’t anticipated this conversation, hadn’t thought we’d be discussing this after the day’s events, and yet here we were, having this talk outside a clubhouse where someone was having sex in a living room just a few feet away.
“Do I make you feel safe, Lily?”
My eyes widened at his question, because hadn’t I just been thinking about how safe I felt around him?
“You don’t have to answer that, because I know it’s true. I know I make you feel safe.”
“You do,” I admitted, “and that’s something I need, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to give you what you need.”
He bent down, then stunned me by nipping my bottom lip exactly where I’d been gnawing on it.
“That’s mine to bite,” he declared.
“It belongs to me,” I retorted, amused despite myself.
“Me too.” He huffed. “People think I’m a soft touch?—”
“They do?” I interrupted, stunned by the notion because Link was the opposite of soft in my opinion.
“My name…it means good stuff, but it also has a bad connotation.”
“Why?”
His fingers rubbed the back of my neck where he was still holding me tight.
“Before I became a Sinner, I fell for a girl. She told me she loved me and I believed her. I let her in, let her come around.”
“Did you love her?”
“Thought I did.” His lips twitched. “You don’t need to be upset, babe. I just…I felt something for her, and I wasn’t ashamed about that.
“Turned out she was an undercover cop. Never heard the end of it ever since.”
“Did she get you in trouble?” I inquired, my eyes wide with surprise at the turn the conversation had taken.
“Yeah. You could say that,” he rumbled, but there was a trace of amusement that gave me some relief. “My point is, my brothers don’t trust me around women anymore, even though they can.
“They think because I’m friends with the clubwhores and the Old Ladies that I’m a pushover. But I’m not.” He blew out a breath then, with his spare hand, reached up and tapped my bottom lip. “With you, there’s danger.”
“What do you mean?” I whispered, my mouth dropping open at his words.
“I mean…you could break me.” He cleared his throat. “Please. Don’t.”
For a second, I could do nothing more than blink at him as I stared up into those beautiful eyes of his, eyes that I felt could see into my very soul.
They knew me somehow, even though we’d only been close for a short while.
His plea was heartfelt, poignant, and I could do nothing less than whisper, “I promise I won’t.”
He dropped his chin. “Thank you.” Another breath escaped him. “Now, as for the other stuff, your father and brother messed you up, and I get that. I’m patient an?—”
“No one is that patient, Link.”
He rocked his head, making our brows rub together. “You’d be surprised. I’ve got nothing but time on my hands. I can give you time so long as you give me you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will always stop when you ask me to. I will never take things too far. But I want you. I want to feel you. I want to touch you. I want to taste you. Give me you, and I won’t ever take advantage of that gift.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, and my mouth worked uncertainly for a second as I thought about what his request might entail.
But then I thought about the fact that he was right—he made me feel safe. I was safe around him. And I wanted to give him everything he’d asked for. Him and only him.
“O-Okay, Link.”
He sighed, and I knew my ears weren’t deceiving me, because I heard relief in that sigh.
“Thank you.”
He meant that.
I smiled at him. “You’re welcome.”
“Come on, let me show you your new place. You ain’t gonna like it, but it’s only until your dad’s no longer a threat, okay?”
I had a feeling he’d always be a threat, but I didn’t say that. I’d stay here for as long as I could be close to Link. When things changed, I’d move on.
Fingers crossed, life would be more resolved by then, and until that time, I’d enjoy Link and the pleasure he could give me. And, hopefully, learn to give him that in return.