Chapter 16 Emily
Emily
The room was so dark it could have been another night entirely, but the lamp by the bed had burned a hole in the gloom, casting my naked body into the crosshairs of its light.
The air was stale, heavy with the residue of a thousand cigarettes and the ghost of spilled whiskey.
Dean’s room at the clubhouse felt like a bunker—windowless, walls painted the color of old ashtrays.
At least the bed was comfortable. It was all his, and by extension, for these few hours, it was mine.
I lay on my back with the sheet twisted at my thighs, listening for the sound of boots on the cinderblock corridor.
My skin prickled, aware of every molecule of sweat, every bruise and bite from the night before.
The bed smelled like him: leather and salt.
I ran my fingers over the fresh bruises on my ribs—evidence, not regret—and wondered how he’d react when he saw me waiting like this, stripped bare in the heart of the Bloody Scythes’ fortress.
There was a story in my head, some half-remembered paperback about a biker’s woman, all wind-blown hair and denim cut-offs, the princess of the outlaw kingdom.
I’d never believed in that girl. But this—what Dean and I had made—felt like the only version of romance that didn’t ring hollow.
I wanted him to walk in and see me, really see me, and not think of all the ways this would end badly.
For once, I wanted to be the thing someone came home for.
When he opened the door, it was so quiet I didn’t realize he’d entered until the hallway’s fluorescent light fell in a stripe across my feet.
He stood for a moment in the doorway, his silhouette huge, leather cut slung over one arm, hair still wet from the storm of adrenaline that must have followed the night’s meeting.
His eyes adjusted to the light, locked on me, then did not move.
He didn’t say a word. He set the cut on the desk and closed the door behind him with the softest click. The air between us vibrated—two live wires thrown into the same tank.
He moved to the bed in three strides, every muscle taut, face stripped of all humor.
He knelt, boots braced at the edge of the mattress, and stared at me like he was memorizing my body for a police lineup.
My own pulse was so loud I thought he could see it, hammering in my throat, my wrists, the hollow between my legs.
He traced the length of my shin with one finger, then the line of my thigh, then paused just above my hip, palm flat against the bare skin. His hands always felt warm, even in a cold room. They lingered just a beat, as if asking my permission. I nodded—didn’t trust my voice, didn’t need to.
He gripped my hip hard enough to make the bones ache, then slid his other hand up my torso, thumb brushing the underside of my breast, stopping only to map the new constellation of bruises he’d left there the night before. His touch was possessive, not cruel—more a claim than a question.
I reached for him, pulled him down by the neck of his shirt, lips already parted. The kiss was wet, desperate, nothing like the careful ones you use to test a new lover’s boundaries. He bit my lower lip, hard enough to taste blood, then sucked it, tongue pressing the sting into pleasure.
He broke the kiss to strip off his t-shirt, and the sight of him—old scars bisecting the muscle, a sheen of sweat at the hollow of his throat—made me moan, involuntary, like an animal.
He slid his hand down my side, fingers splaying over the flat of my stomach, then lower, brushing over the place that ached most. He didn’t rush, but he didn’t linger either.
He wanted this as badly as I did; the air reeked of it.
He spread my thighs with both hands, then buried his face between them.
His tongue was brutal, methodical, as if he was working out aggression he couldn’t spend elsewhere.
I arched up to meet him, hips bucking against his face, the need in me so sharp it bordered on pain.
When he slid two fingers inside me, I nearly screamed.
I wrapped my hands in his hair, yanked him closer, grinding against the line of his jaw until I broke apart, every nerve in my body white-hot and useless.
He climbed up the bed and braced his elbows on either side of my head. His cock pressed against me, hard and insistent, but he didn’t push in yet. He stared down at me, blue eyes wild, hair a mess, sweat dripping off his brow onto my cheek.
“You want this?” he growled, voice a rasp.
I nodded, then said, “Fuck me, Dean,” because he needed to hear it.
He did. He turned me on all fours and slid inside all at once, no warning, and the shock of it made me gasp.
The pain was exquisite—stretch, friction, the way his hips slammed against my ass with each thrust. The bed frame screeched against the concrete wall, the sound ricocheting through the room.
I heard my own voice, high and desperate, begging him not to stop.
He didn’t. He fucked me like he meant to break something, but when I moved to my elbows, he slowed, the violence gone, replaced by a focused tenderness that was somehow even more dangerous. He’d turned fucking like dogs into something sensual, though still feral.
He pulled my hair until I was looking back at him. “Watch me,” he said, and I did, even as another orgasm crashed through me, stealing the breath from my lungs. He followed close behind, growling through clenched teeth as he emptied into me.
For a long minute, we didn’t move. I felt his heartbeat against my ribs, heard the soft plink of sweat as it hit the mattress. The smell of us—sex, blood, leather—coiled through the room like a prayer.
He rolled off, pulled me against his chest, and held me there with one arm slung over my waist. My body trembled, but the terror of the last twenty-four hours had been replaced by something like peace.
Not safety, exactly, but the comfort of knowing that even if the world was going to end, someone else would be at my side to watch it burn.
I could have slept. For the first time in weeks, I could have drifted off without the fear of waking to sirens or a knock on the door.
But my phone, abandoned on the desk, vibrated with the urgency of a bomb about to detonate.
Dean felt it, too. He released me and, in a single motion, was up and scanning the room for threats I couldn’t see. I watched as his body switched from lover to soldier in a blink.
I peeled myself off the sheets and padded, naked, across the floor, Dean’s come spilling down my leg. The phone lit up with three new messages, all from Taryn.
First: “CALL ME NOW.”
Second: “Fire at the shelter. Get here ASAP.”
Third: “Someone’s dead. They found a body.”
The last message hit me like a car crash. My vision went white at the edges, tunnelled down to just the screen and the raw, impossible fact of it.
Dean saw the change in my face and crossed the room, already pulling on his jeans. “What happened?” he demanded, voice like gravel.
I handed him the phone, my hand shaking. He read the messages, eyes narrowing. “Get dressed,” he ordered, tossing me his shirt. I pulled it on, the fabric rough and smelling of sweat and the road.
He was already in motion, barking orders through the thin wall to the hallway. “Nitro! Augustine! Get the truck ready, now!” The sound of boots and the slam of doors followed instantly.
I fumbled with my jeans, fingers refusing to work. Dean had my bra in his hand before I even asked, helped me hook it, his touch no longer gentle but efficient, professional. He kissed my temple, then herded me toward the door.
The hallway outside was a blur of men, most in varying degrees of undress, but all sober, all moving with lethal intent. Nitro met us at the end of the corridor, keys spinning on his finger. He nodded at Dean, then at me, and said, “What’s the sitrep?”
“Arson,” Dean replied, voice clipped. “They left a body.”
Nitro’s jaw set. “That’s a message.”
Augustine joined us, face pale but eyes blazing. “Who’s the stiff?”
Dean shook his head. “We find out when we get there.”
The four of us ran down the stairs, boots slapping hollow on concrete. The parking lot outside was lit by the cold blue of dawn, air thick with the ozone of the coming day.
I shivered, not from the cold but from the certainty that nothing would ever be the same. Sergeant, somehow, was already at the foot of the stairs, leash in her mouth, ready for orders.
We peeled out of the lot, Dean twisted in his seat, and locked eyes with me. The blue in his irises was gone, replaced with something harder, the color of battlefields and old bruises.
“It’s not your fault,” he said, quiet but absolute.
I almost laughed. It felt like the only thing I had left. “Yeah?” I said, voice thin as glass. “Then why does it feel like it is?”
He reached back, took my hand, squeezed it so tight the bones ground together. “Because you’re the only one who gives a damn.”
The sun was up now, lighting the edge of the world in a line of fire.
***
The shelter’s roof was rimmed in orange, fire painting the sky in a sick parody of dawn. We saw the smoke first, billowing black and straight as a goddamn column, visible for miles. Then we saw the crowd—people and uniforms, camera phones, children in pajamas clinging to parents.