Chapter Twenty-Three #2
Luis is the most unbothered, unshowy, laidback guy I know. The world can throw whatever it wants at him and he’s never anything less than affable about it.
Damian barrels in ten minutes later, bringing in a rush of cool autumn air with him.
“’Sup man,” he says to Luis, clapping him on the back.
“Voss,” I greet him with feigned officiousness, giving a serious nod of my head.
Just one corner of his mouth lifts, hazel eyes shining with mischief. “Finchy,” he replies.
I laugh and grab us each a coffee, and we fall into the rhythm of the day.
It’s a busy time of year, with cars getting serviced after the winter, but I like the meditativeness of hands-on labor.
I work on a Subaru with a torn bumper, then a dented F-150 that needs body work, then a minivan with a dead engine.
In the background all morning is the sound of the phone ringing, the compressor kicking on, the clang of metal, sounds I stop hearing after a while.
Damian is working at the lift beside mine, as he usually does, half under a sedan with a light clipped to his shirt, humming along with the radio. He scoots out from under the car and straightens.
“Hand me your ten-millimeter socket?” he asks, voice casual.
I freeze. Slowly, I look at him. “Damian,” I warn, arching an eyebrow.
His grin sharpens. “What? It’s a normal request. A basic human need.”
“You can’t just say the forbidden words out loud,” I tell him, deadpan. “We agreed we’re not summoning the Ten-Millimeter Demon anymore.”
It started with him repeatedly borrowing my ten-millimeter and returning everything except the ten-millimeter, as a kind of prank. Now we have a pretend superstition: you don’t say the words ten-millimeter unless you’re holding one, or “the demon” is summoned.
He props an elbow on the lift arm, all innocence. “I’m not summoning, I’m suffering.”
I toss him the socket. “That better come back to me. If you feed it to the demon, I’m making you do inventory.”
He catches it one-handed. “Copy that.” His grin lingers, and he watches me for a beat with warmth in his eyes. “Still coming over this weekend?”
“Yeah,” I say, grinning. “Of course.”
“Jake’s looking forward to it. Hasn’t seen you in a while.”
“I know.” Jake’s been back on contract jobs lately, working consulting gigs to keep eyes on the right channels—whatever that means. Jake doesn’t like feeling out of the loop, and says that working keeps his brain from chewing through the walls.
Damian’s voice drops just a fraction. “And I’m looking forward to it.”
I glance up at him and the look in his eyes makes my heart skip a little, the way it always does when he looks at me like that. He winks, and then plants his feet and glides back under the sedan on the stool.
I turn back to my own work, thoughts wandering ahead to the weekend. To the time alone with Jake and Damian I haven’t had in a few weeks. How nice it will be to curl up with them for a night.
“Hey Wyatt!” Damian yells from under the car. “Tell me you ordered the brake pads and didn’t just think about ordering them really hard.”
Wyatt rolls his desk chair toward the office door and leans out. “What?”
But Luis answers without even looking up from the truck he’s leaning into. “Don’t worry, I ordered them.”
Damian slides out far enough that I can see his face, bright with satisfaction. “Luis, you’re the only adult here.”
I shake my head, smiling, and go back to work.
By the time we close up, the sky has gone dark. I’m pulling my jacket on when headlights sweep across the lot, and I look out the window to see Ryder’s truck.
My stomach flips the way it does every time I see him, even after almost a year. He climbs out and crosses the lot with his easy stride, and knocks on the locked glass door. I let him in, and he reaches for me right away, pulling me close and kissing me full on the mouth.
“Hey,” he says, low.
“Hey.”
His gaze flicks up to Wyatt and Damian and he nods at them, a quick acknowledgment, then his attention comes right back to me.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
He leans in and kisses me again, and Damian makes a gagging sound behind us.
“Oh my god, get a room.”
Ryder smiles, but his eyes don’t leave mine. “We have one.”
Wyatt laughs under his breath. I bite my lip so I don’t smile too big.
Ryder’s hand stays at my back as he guides me out toward the truck.
“How was your day?” he asks, climbing in after me.
“Good,” I say. “We were busy, which is…weirdly nice.”
“Good.” He reaches over and takes my hand, lacing his fingers through mine, and smiles at me. “Missed you last night.”
“Yeah, missed you too,” I admit. And it’s true. Missing him doesn’t take anything away from the night I spent at Wyatt’s. It’s just that there’s more than one place I belong now. The price of having your heart split in four is that it’s rarely completely whole.
His thumb strokes once over my knuckles.
When we pull up to the house, the sight of it soothes and warms something in me as it always does.
This house. It was sanctuary before I’d even met its inhabitants.
That cold night Billy had left me all alone in Hargrove’s car, spiked drink running through my veins, and I’d fled through the woods, running for hours…
I still see the house sometimes the way it looked to me that night.
Dark against the moonlit sky, imposing but welcome. A place to land.
And to think now, after all this time, it’s become home.
The kitchen light is on, casting a yellow square onto the gravel of the driveway, and inside it smells like garlic and rosemary.
“What’s for dinner?” I ask, as Ryder shrugs off his jacket and hangs it up.
“Roast chicken, potatoes, and green beans.”
I kick off my shoes and hang up my jacket beside his, following him to the kitchen. He opens the oven door and checks inside, releasing a waft of savory steam. Then he opens a cabinet, pulls down two glasses, and reaches for a bottle of wine.
I lean back against the counter and watch him, this man I once believed couldn’t stand me, and try not to get emotional about the fact that he’s pouring me a glass of wine so we can talk about our day like the most normal fucking couple. Like our future was never in doubt.
He sets the glass in front of me and I take a sip, the wine warming my throat.
When I look up, he’s watching me with a familiar heat in his eyes.
“You know,” he says in a low voice, “the house feels wrong when you’re not here.”
“I was only gone one night,” I say, but my voice has softened too.
“I know.” He steps closer. “But it felt like forever.”
I let a small smile tug at the corner of my lips. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Mm.” He smiles and takes a sip of his wine, never taking his eyes off of mine. “And did you have a good night?”
“Yes,” I answer, giving him a small, purposely veiled smile.
I’m not sure if he’ll ask anything about it. How much he wants to know. But I know that every time I spend the night at Wyatt’s, or Jake and Damian’s, Ryder needs to claim me when I come back, like he’s marking his territory. I see that hunger in his eyes now.
“You know, it’s funny. Sharing you isn’t easy for me.
There’s always a part of me that wants to chase you over there and pull you back.
” His voice lowers. “But I was also hard as a rock all night thinking about you fucking Wyatt. About your helpless moans as he stretched you open with that big cock.”
He takes another sip of the wine and then puts the glass down and stands directly in front of me, crowding me against the counter.
“I think about him making you come, about your tight little pussy squeezing him, and I get about as turned on as I can ever be.”
My breath gets high and tight, his words making my heart pound. I can barely speak as he reaches for my glass and takes it out of my hand, placing it down near his. He leans forward, speaking softly in my ear.
“And that makes me realize that I love thinking about you with him, how hot it gets me. How hot it gets you. And how much I love when you come back to me. Because right now, you’re not his. You’re mine.”
“I’m always yours, Ryder,” I whisper.
He makes a low, deep sound and raises his hand to my throat, circling it lightly.
“That’s fucking right you are,” he breathes in my ear.
Then his hand moves up to my jaw, tilting my face up, looking at me like he’s drinking me in.
His thumbs rubs softly over my bottom lip.
“God, I can’t think straight when I’m around you. ”
He threads his fingers into my hair, pulling slightly, and kisses me—hunger, heat and longing all wrapped up in it.
I kiss him back with all the same desperation, my hands running up over the huge breadth of his shoulders, into the loose lengths of his hair.
His hands find my zipper and tug it down, then he’s pushing the rough canvas fabric of my coveralls over my shoulders and down over my hips.
“Jesus Christ, woman,” he growls, discovering that I’m naked underneath.
I kick the coveralls off and he finds my hips and hoists me up onto the counter in one, smooth motion. His mouth crashes into mine again, hands moving over my shoulders and arms, down to my breasts.
The urgency in him has my blood thrumming.
No careful preamble, just the press of his hands, the rough scrape of his beard.
He fumbles with his zipper, shoving his pants and boxers down just enough, and steps between my legs, his mouth never leaving mine—kissing, nipping, and breathing me in.
The head of his cock pushes against me. I can feel how hard he is, how needy.
His lips drag down my neck, biting just enough to leave a mark.
He pulls me to the very edge of the counter, hands firm on either side of my ass, and lines himself up.
One hard thrust and he’s inside me, stretching me so suddenly I gasp, legs tightening around his waist. The world goes white-hot.
“God, Max,” he growls, voice wrecked. “God, you feel so fucking good.”
He sets a brutal pace right from the start, thrusting hard, the counter cold underneath me, his body burning between my thighs.
His hands dig into my ass, holding me in place as he slams into me.
My head falls back, a cry ripping out of me, my legs clamping tight around his hips, and he fucks me harder, deeper, until pleasure is snapping through me, pulsing out from where we’re joined, my cries muffled against his mouth as he kisses me through it.
He groans, long and low, as I clench around him.
“Fuck, that’s it, baby,” he chokes out. “That’s my girl.”
His hips stutter, every muscle taut, and with a final, desperate thrust he buries himself deep and lets go.
He grips my ass so hard I’ll feel it tomorrow, panting as he comes, his face buried in my neck.
I feel his release, the heat of it, the way his whole body trembles as he rides out every last pulse.
He stays there for a second, both of us shaking, breath coming in harsh pants. His hands soften, sliding up my sides, grounding me, holding me as we come down together. He presses a kiss to my temple, then my lips, softer now.
As the intensity of the moment passes, he blows out a long breath and then looks around the counter. He reaches for the paper towel and pulls off two sheets, handing me one to clean myself up as he slowly pulls out.
“I needed that,” he murmurs, kissing my forehead as he tucks himself in.
“Me too,” I whisper, and wrap my arms around him and burrow into his chest, taking a deep inhale of his scent.
When we finally sit down at the table, plates steaming between us, I’m starving.
We talk about small things. The gravel road to Leathernecks is going to need grading again once the spring rains ease up.
Jake and Damian want to dig out a pool this year, and Wyatt and Ryder are going to help them as soon as the ground is fully thawed.
We debate whether the new show we’ve started watching is actually good or not.
He reaches for my hand across the table, his thumb brushing my pulse, anchoring me in the moment. This is one of the things I love the most. How simple the day to day has become. Just choosing each other again and again.
Upstairs, we brush our teeth side by side. Ryder stands straight, methodical as always, squeezing toothpaste with his military precision. I lean my hip against the counter and watch our reflections in the mirror.
We couldn’t be more different, physically.
Ryder so big, he makes the bathroom look small in comparison.
Broad shoulders, obscenely defined muscles, his skin a map of ink.
His long, dark blond hair hangs loose, giving him a wild, Viking look.
Beside him, I look tiny. Just a slip of a thing, even though I’ve gained back all the weight I lost in the clubhouse.
My hair is getting long now, falling past my shoulder blades, with ashy gold highlights after the summer.
He catches my eye in the reflection and gives me a quick wink, the corner of his mouth lifting in a warm, intimate smile.
In the bedroom, he pulls back the covers while I strip off my clothes.
Ryder’s room used to look like a catalogue. Bed made tight enough to bounce a coin off of, surfaces clear, nothing out of place. The bedroom of a lifelong soldier. But it doesn’t look like that anymore.
My things are everywhere, on every surface, no matter how much I try to tidy. A stack of books on the dresser. My sweater slung over the back of a chair. A collection of hair ties looped around the bed post. Two half-empty glasses of water on my nightstand.
I climb into bed on my side and settle in against him, and he reaches for me and pulls me in.
Once this was a borrowed space, like all the other homes I’ve lived in. Temporary spots where accommodation was made for me. But now it’s a real, permanent place. The house that I live in with Ryder. My home.