Chapter Twenty-Three
WYATT’S CEILING HAS a water stain that used to look like a piston head—round, with a distinctive notch in the side. Now it’s just a softly diffused blob, spread wider over time, the edges feathered and indistinct.
I used to stare at it when I slept here alone, many months and another lifetime ago.
Wyatt would be off doing his “mysterious work”—work I now know was infiltrating the very motorcycle club I’d escaped from—and he’d let me stay up here in his apartment while he was away, because it was more comfortable than my makeshift bed in the storage room downstairs.
I remember clearly, embarrassingly, how much I loved the way the sheets smelled faintly of him, even washed and overpowered by detergent.
Even then I had wanted to be close to him.
But the idea that I would ever be here, curled up against him naked, with his arm heavy around my waist and his breath warm at my shoulder, would have felt outrageous and shocking.
How much things have changed since then.
I’ve been awake for a little while, staring at the ceiling, when Wyatt’s alarm goes off. He swings his arm over to the nightstand to silence his phone with a grace of motion he wouldn’t have managed several months ago, before his ribs healed fully and pain stopped dictating his movements.
Working at Leathernecks has always been special to me. I love my job here. But cozy in bed with Wyatt, my body still thrumming from the night before, the last thing I want to do is leave the warmth of his body and get up and go downstairs.
And clearly Wyatt feels the same, because he drops his arm back over me and pulls me in close with a growl, pressing his hips forward until the hard weight of his erection nudges against my hip unabashedly. The evidence of his arousal sends a sharp pull of heat straight through my belly.
Wyatt slides a warm, broad palm up my thigh suggestively, and my body responds easily, desire humming through my bones, even after all the ways it was satisfied last night. We don’t share a bed every night the way we did in the clubhouse, and now when we do, I can’t get enough of him.
I move closer, fitting myself against him, and hook my knee over his, tucking my foot under his calf.
He exhales through his nose, pressing his erection against me deliberately, and then lifts himself up an elbow and kisses me, soft and lazy and unhurried.
It’s the kind of kiss that implies we have all the time in the world, even though we don’t.
His tongue strokes mine slowly, and I make a low sound I don’t bother swallowing because we’re alone up here.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his blue eyes gone dark in that way that automatically coaxes a response out of me.
“God, I want to fuck you all over again,” he murmurs.
“Do we have time?”
He shrugs. “I’m the boss.”
I laugh and slide my hand down his chest, over the hard planes of muscle, feeling him tense and shudder under my touch.
“Then fuck me,” I say.
He huffs a quiet laugh and lowers his mouth to my throat.
His kisses move slowly—jaw, neck, the place under my ear that makes my toes curl.
His hand moves lower, rough palm gliding over the curve of my hip, sliding between my thighs.
His finger traces the seam of my sex, already slick and sensitive, and I can’t help the way my hips tip forward, needing more. He blows out a pained breath.
“Fuck, I love that you’re already wet for me, sweetie,” he rumbles, voice husky.
My breath turns uneven. My thighs tighten around his hand. Wyatt swears under his breath and I reach for him, fingers curling behind his neck, and pull him down to kiss me again. He groans into my mouth.
He slips two fingers inside me, slowly, circling my clit with his thumb. I moan against his mouth and clutch at his shoulders, nails digging in. He moves his fingers so softly, so carefully, I’m tensing with every stroke.
“I want to feel you come on my hand before I fuck you,” he says, voice a low promise at my ear. “Let go for me, sweetheart.”
My breath gets faster, chest heaving as his fingers move, and I lose myself the way I always can with him, his strength and surety always making me feel safe.
I clench up, sucking back breath, and then the tension snaps.
Pleasure surges through me sharp and bright, and I come shaking, hips rocking helplessly against his hand.
He eases, strokes turning gentler, and kisses my temple.
“That’s it. Good fucking girl.”
Before I can catch my breath, he shifts above me, guiding himself to my entrance, pushing in slowly and letting me feel every inch.
God, the fullness of him, the way he fills me…
I arch up to meet him, needing him deeper.
The stretch is so deep, pleasure on the verge of pain.
I gasp and dig my fingers into the rock-hard bulk of his biceps as he sinks home.
He pauses there, breathing roughly, and then he starts moving slowly, hips rocking in deep, even strokes like he’s savoring the clench of my pussy around him.
Like he’s determined to draw it out. Every push sends a wave of heat rolling through me.
He keeps his weight braced on his elbows, one on either side of my head, his gaze never leaving mine.
His blue eyes are hungry, but tender, filled with a kind of gentle awe.
He murmurs my name, low and rough, and I feel it all the way down to my toes.
“Look at me, sweetie,” he says, the words a command and a plea, and I do.
I meet his eyes, and his gaze holds me there, the intensity and intimacy of it making a shiver go through me.
It’s the vulnerability and trust. It’s seeing directly what it’s doing to him to be inside me.
He grinds deeper, hitting the spot that makes me gasp, and then he leans in and kisses me, swallowing my moans, his thrusts growing harder until I’m right on the edge again.
“Wyatt—” I can’t get anything else out. I’m gone for him, lost.
He presses his forehead to mine and whispers, “You’re gonna make me come, honey.”
The words tip me over. Pleasure crashes through me, intense and wild. My whole body tightens, locking around him, thighs trembling. I cry out loudly, not caring if anyone hears. I feel myself pulse and flutter around him, and Wyatt groans, the sound raw, his hips stuttering.
“Jesus, sweetheart,” he rasps, breath hot against my cheek.
He loses rhythm, pounding into me with a desperate urgency.
A shudder wracks him, and then he’s coming, spilling inside me as he buries himself to the hilt.
His whole body tenses, then shudders, his voice breaking in a low, helpless sound that’s part relief, part wonder.
He stays there for a long beat, our bodies locked together, both of us panting, slicked with sweat.
Finally, he kisses me softly, his lips lingering on mine, and then falls back onto his side, pulling me into him, his arm banded around my waist, and I let myself drift in the warmth and the afterglow, every nerve ending sparking.
I’m floating on the verge of sleep, eyes blinking shut against the gray light leaking in around the blinds, when the alarm starts up again.
“Shit,” says Wyatt. “That’s the backup alarm.”
“Thought it didn’t matter for the boss,” I quip.
“That was my boner talking,” he explains. “We gotta go to work. C’mon, hop to it.”
He gets up, and I prop myself on my elbows, taking him in for a second—the broad shoulders and strong back, the long, lean strength of him in the morning light. He stretches, utterly unselfconscious, and I feel such a pang of love and attraction toward him my heart squeezes.
I blink to refocus and stand, grabbing my Leathernecks coveralls from the floor, where I dropped them last night, and pull them up and zip them. Wyatt pulls on a shirt and steps into my space, hands sliding around my waist from behind. His mouth brushes my neck with one quick kiss.
“Worth being late,” he murmurs.
I lean back into him for half a second, enjoying the warmth, then I shove him away. “C’mon, we gotta go to work.”
He laughs and grabs the keys. “Yes, boss.”
The familiar smell of Leathernecks hits me the second we push through the shop door.
It’s rubber, oil, metal, old concrete. Not a typically comforting smell combo, maybe, but to me it smells like safety and home.
The air is cooler than Wyatt’s apartment, the cement floors holding on to the early spring chill.
I breathe it all in like it’s the most welcoming smell on the planet.
The shop lights are on and Luis is already there, bent over a bumper bracket with bolts lined up neatly beside it, a heat gun cooling beside him. He’s got his sleeves rolled to his elbows, tattoos peeking out. He glances up when we come in, face breaking into a grin.
“Mornin’,” he says.
“Morning,” I answer, smiling back, still moving like my bones have become soup.
Wyatt heads straight for the office and I pick up the day’s work orders, leaning against the bench beside Luis and shifting through them.
“Sleep okay?” he asks
“Yeah,” I say. “Great, actually.”
He hums, approving. “That’s the goal.” As he reaches for a tool, the inside of his wrist flashes, showing fresh ink, still raw.
“Is that new?” I ask, pointing at his wrist.
He glances down, then holds his arm out for me to see. “Yeah.”
The tattoo is small and cleanly done. A snail with a crooked baseball cap tipped sideways and a tiny arm with a wrench tucked under it. Ridiculous and adorable. Luis turns his wrist so I can see every angle, a faint, pleased smile on his mouth.
Luis is a tattoo artist as a side hustle. The same steady hands that make him a great mechanic make him a great artist, I guess. He’s talented, and I love seeing when he’s done a new piece on himself.
“It’s cute,” I tell him. “Terrifyingly cute.”
“Thank you,” he says solemnly. “I was going for ‘menacing.’”