Chapter 12
AXLE
N itro’s cooking wasn’t half bad. He took over the range like a man who liked to set things on fire for fun, a dish towel flung over one shoulder.
The kitchen smelled like garlic, and something smoky curled through the air.
The man had made a ton of food—seared steak, blistered peppers, and cast-iron corn with scallions and a squeeze of lime.
Brothers drifted in and out, loading plates, leaning on counters, filling the long tables, talking and laughing low.
TVs murmured from the common room, the rumble of someone’s bike came and went outside, and the compound pulsed with that familiar night heartbeat that said we were safe because we made it so.
Yeah, the bastard could cook.
It killed me to admit it. Mostly because Ashlynn had been leaning forward over the kitchen island the past ten minutes, fork in one hand, smiling up at him like he was some culinary savior who’d just fed her after a week in the desert.
My jaw was tight enough to crack a molar.
Ashlynn was perched on one of the barstools in my extra cut, a black tee—one of my softer ones, stretched over her tits in a way that tested my patience—and a pair of my black sweatpants rolled at the waist. Her legs were crossed at the knee, one foot swinging lazily.
Her hair was down tonight, and every time she tucked it behind her ear, I watched the move like I’d never seen a woman touch her own hair before.
“Seriously, this is incredible.” She licked a drop of sauce off her lip, and my eyes zeroed in on the glossy spot as if I hadn’t been staring at her mouth since we sat down. “I don’t even like peppers half the time, and I’m going to dream about these.”
She shifted in her seat, smiling at Nitro again. I caught the way his eyes flicked to me in a quick, silent check—as though he was asking if he was about to die.
Maybe.
Nitro tried to play it off with a shrug. “It’s just citrus and smoke, sweetheart.”
“It’s not ‘just’ anything.” She widened those storm-gray eyes and took another bite, closing them with a hum that did something filthy to my head. My hands clenched so hard my knuckles cracked. Those sounds were for my ears only.
She smiled at him again. The real kind, where her eyes softened and the corner of her mouth tugged higher on the left. “Thank you for cooking.”
A dark, entirely unreasonable heat crawled up my spine.
Jealousy wasn’t a thing I’d ever entertained in my life.
It’d been a long time since a woman had sparked a speck of interest in me.
But even before that, I’d never been into one-night stands.
However, I wouldn’t call what I had relationships either.
Back then, women came and went. I treated them well while they were around, and I slept fine when they weren’t.
Possessiveness didn’t live in my wiring.
Until her.
That smile didn’t belong to anyone else. I didn’t want her flirting, and she wasn’t. I also didn’t want Nitro flirting, and he wasn’t either. None of it mattered, though. My chest got tight anyway, and I had to fight the need to put my body between her and everyone else like a dog guarding a bone.
I forced my jaw to relax and slid in behind her, palms pressed against the counter on either side of her plate, close enough that my chest brushed her back. “Angel.”
She tipped her head and aimed her smile my way, like she’d saved the best part for me. Some of the tightness let go.
I stole her fork, stabbed a piece of steak, and fed her. She went still—surprised—and then her lips closed over the bite. I nearly groaned at the way her throat worked when she swallowed.
“Share,” I said, the word rougher than it needed to be.
Her giggle settled warm in my chest. “You hijacked my fork.”
“Semantics.” I fed her another bite because I could.
My phone buzzed on the counter, and I dragged my eyes away from Ashlynn just long enough to check it.
Jax
Got a ping. Elias’s last IP traces to a decommissioned Helix dark site.
A server farm outside Crossbend. Supposedly shut down.
Dirt lot, dead grid, cameras that don’t exist on paper, the whole pretty lie.
Caught heartbeat pings on an internal test feed that shouldn’t be active.
Leek might be squatting there—off-grid enough to hide, close enough to listen and see if the devil blinks.
My eyes cut to Kane’s. I jerked my chin toward the doorway leading to the short hall by my office.
“Be right back, angel,” I murmured to Ashlynn, letting my hand pass along the back of her neck in a touch that said later without saying anything at all. Her lashes dipped like she felt it. She always felt it.
She gave me a quick look, curious but not suspicious, and turned back to her conversation with Savannah.
I stepped into the hallway, with Kane close behind. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, all coiled attention. He’d sent a text to Edge, so we waited a minute until he slipped out of the common room.
“Well?” Kane urged.
“Jax traced Elias’s last digital footprint,” I explained, my voice low. “Decommissioned server farm, fifteen miles out. Helix property once, but not anymore. He thinks Leek’s holed up there. Close enough to keep eyes on them, off their grid so they can’t sniff him.”
“Patterns?” Edge asked.
“Six-minute increments at certain hours, just like the babysits we saw in the logs. Same signature drift. Jax said it smells like him.”
Edge’s mouth curved in a slow, dangerous way. “We’ll put a team on it tonight. Eyes first. See if he peeks his head out. Once we’ve confirmed, then we go in quiet and bring him out breathing.”
Kane’s expression didn’t change as he watched me steadily, but the air sharpened around him.
“We verify,” he confirmed, his voice brooking no argument. “Don’t spook. If he’s our key, don’t want to smash the lock.”
“We get him, we get answers,” Edge added.
“Fine,” I agreed through clenched teeth. “But when you’re ready to pull him, I’ll lead it.”
Kane gave me a short nod. “Done.” Then he tipped his chin back toward the kitchen. “Go keep your woman from convincing Nitro he’s a chef. His head gets any bigger, and his hats won’t fit.”
I rolled my eyes as we slid back into the kitchen like everything was normal.
And on the surface, nothing had changed: Nitro plated something green to make Savannah happy, Kane smirked at the attempt, and Ashlynn—my woman, whether she realized the permanence of it yet or not—was still on that stool, still wearing my vest, and still making the room better because she was in it.
Nitro said something under his breath, probably dry and cutting in that way of his. Ashlynn laughed, and laid her hand on his forearm, quick and innocent, the kind of touch people used when they liked someone without thinking about why.
Nitro’s eyes snapped to mine so fast his neck should’ve popped. His gaze flickered from her hand to my face in a single, surgical pass, calculating whether he needed to apologize, duck, or leave the state.
Run, asshole. Run far.
He jerked his arm back like her fingers burned and forced a grin. “Gotta keep standards high or Prez will dock my nonexistent pay.”
She laughed again. It wasn’t flirtatious—nothing about her was—but it landed on me like sandpaper anyway. The stupid, primitive part of my brain said mine in a voice that wasn’t a thought so much as a roar in my blood.
He lifted both hands in mock surrender, then quickly grabbed a towel and busied himself at the sink with a pan that didn’t need attention.
Ashlynn blinked, confused by the sudden space he’d opened, then turned toward me and saw the heat I wasn’t bothering to hide. Pink licked up her throat before she looked away too quickly to be casual.
I was past my limit. Past the calm nod and the slow burn and the reminders to myself that this was ridiculous. Absurd or not, I was beyond rational thinking.
In seconds, I crossed the space, slid an arm around her waist, and lifted her off the stool in one clean pull. She squeaked, hands flying to my shoulders.
“Mason!” She twisted, half laughing, the other part breathy. “What are you—hey!”
“You’re way too comfortable teasing men who aren’t me.” The growl my words carried wasn't planned. It was weighted, possessive, and a reminder that she was mine.
Her hand thumped my back. “I was being nice.”
“That’s the problem.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” she hissed, wriggling as I headed down the hall.
“Uh-huh.”
“I only thanked him for feeding me!”
Her protest just lit me up hotter. I landed a sharp smack on her ass—enough to make her gasp, not enough to hurt. Her muscles went tight under my palm, and I felt her shiver.
I carried my squirming, cursing, beautiful trouble out of the kitchen, down the short hall, up the stairs, and down the corridor to my room with the kind of stride that broadcast ownership.
She gave up hitting my back and switched to digging her nails lightly into my hip like she was trying to get purchase.
The little drag of her fingertips through the denim made my control slip a bit more.
At the door, I popped my palm flat on her ass in warning when she tried to twist free. The sound was a hot slap against cotton and skin. Her entire body jerked against me, her breath catching before she shivered.
“Did you just—” She attempted to sound outraged but failed.
The lock clicked under my thumb, and I kicked the door open.
“Keep talking.” My smirk was wicked as I walked in and carried her to the bed. “See what happens.”
I tossed her onto the mattress, not gently.
She bounced once, hair spilling over her shoulder, my vest swinging open to show my tee knotted just below her navel.
She pushed up on her elbows—eyes bright, cheeks flushed, nipples peaked against black cotton.
I couldn’t even pretend this was going to be slow.
I climbed onto the bed on my knees and caught her hip with one hand to stop her retreat.
“Open.”
She did as she was told, like always when I used that tone. Something raw and possessive clawed at my chest.
Her lips parted, breath warm against my face, and I kissed her like I’d been starving for a week.
Which was a joke because I’d had her four times in the past forty-eight hours, and my hunger was somehow worse now than it had been when this started.
Her tongue met mine, tentative for half a second, then bold, and the sound she made when I angled my head to go deeper almost took the strength out of my arms. She whimpered when I released her mouth, and I almost smiled. But I had a point to make.
“You want to know what happens when you make me watch you smile at another man?” I asked, voice even when the rest of me wasn’t.
“That wasn’t—” She swallowed, then tried again, her voice shaky. “Nitro made dinner.”
“And you said thank you.” I skimmed my palm up under the hem of her tee. Her skin was warm, softer than anything I deserved to touch, and my breath got rougher because I was already imagining how she’d sound when I pushed deeper. “Now you’re gonna thank me.”
“That’s not how gratitude—oh!” The last word became a gasp when I slid my hand into the front of her sweats and my fingers found her hot and drenched, the cotton of her panties already clinging.
“Fuck,” I rasped, palm full of heat and slick. “You’re soaked.”
Color flooded her cheeks. Her hips tilted toward my hand, her body deciding before her brain caught up. “Mason?—”
I slid two fingers along her slit, slow enough to make it mean, and watched her eyes glaze.
“Is this for me?” I asked, thumb working a slow circle that had her thighs trembling.
She bit her lip and nodded, breath shaky.
“Say it.”
Her breath rushed out on a soft sound of protest and need. “Yes.”
“Good girl. Anyone else make you this wet?” It was technically a question but came out like a threat.
Her head moved in a quick, desperate shake.
“Words, angel,” I said, sliding one fingertip up her slit in a slow, deliberate stroke that made her hips twitch.
Her lashes fluttered. “No one makes me feel like this but you.”
“And who owns this pussy?”
Color spread across her throat. Her lids fluttered, then lifted, her eyes vulnerable and defiant in the same breath. “You.”
“Louder,” I demanded.
“You!” Her hips jerked, the sheets rustled, and the sound she made went straight to my cock. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and held me in place like she thought I might leave. “Always you.”
“Damn straight,” I growled, two fingers dipping between her drenched folds, parting, rubbing, testing. I fucking loved the way her mouth fell open, and she tried to chase my touch.
She grabbed at my wrist, not to pull me away, but to anchor herself to the hand doing this to her body. I caught her mouth in a kiss that was all heat and claim—no space or air, just teeth and tongue…and the kind of filth that left her breathless.
When I pulled back, I kept my forehead against hers. “I think you need a reminder of who you belong to.”