Chapter 22 Diesel
TWENTY-TWO
DIESEL
It’s too quiet, like the moment the shelling stops on a battlefield while everyone reloads. Silence, stillness—it’s something I usually need, but as I peel my eyes open, it feels wrong.
Makenna’s tucked against me like a barnacle, clinging as if she’s scared I might roll away from her in the night. I won’t. I’m never fucking leaving her again.
I keep my arms locked around her, just existing while the seconds pass, heavy with the weight of what’s coming.
More blood will be spilt.
More bodies will fall.
But after…
If we survive…
Something new, something better, will rise. And I want her to be a part of it.
Makenna’s breaths are soft and warm against my chest, and her hair tickles my skin. I wish there was no war looming ahead of us, no dead, no blood on the clubhouse floor.
Just me and her in this bed.
She shifts slightly, and her lashes flutter. When her eyes find mine, she lifts her chin to kiss the edge of my jaw.
“Morning.” Her voice is thick with the last edges of sleepiness, but warm. She’s always warm. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I had you in my arms,” I say.
She smiles. “That’s not an answer, Zane.”
But it is. I slept because she was here with me.
I brush my lips against hers and she whimpers, her fingers sifting through my hair as our tongues tangle in slow, sensual rolls. Does she know that the only way my heart keeps beating is with her in my life?
“I could sleep for another week,” she complains, nuzzling into my neck like a drowsy kitten.
I hold her there, wishing we could do that too.
When this is over, I’m taking my wife somewhere quiet, just her and me, no phones, no noise, no war.
Just sleep, food and fucking. Her eyes narrow slightly when I don’t speak. “What are you thinking about?”
My lips lift a fraction. “About sinking into your pretty pussy.”
I don’t bother lying. Not with her. Not anymore.
“Oh.” Her lip drags between her teeth and she shifts a little, opening her thighs like an invitation to play. “What’s stopping you?”
I grin. Then I slip my hand between us, down into her underwear and through her slickness. Her back arches, pushing her tits against me. Her breath hitches when I drag along her folds. The way her eyes lock to mine as I stroke her almost unravels the tenuous control I’m holding on to.
Take her. Fuck her. Claim her.
I want to press her under me and sink into her like I’m possessed. But she’s soft and melting into me. I want to keep her like this—unbroken, unbruised, untouched by the hell waiting for us outside the door.
“You’re not playing fair,” she whimpers, her nails digging into my shoulders. She’s leaving marks on my skin. I want her to paint me with her touch.
“I don’t care about being fair,” I murmur against her throat.
Her pulse flutters wildly beneath my lips, a reminder that it beats for me, even if I don’t deserve it.
I sink my fingers inside her pussy. The moan that spills from her is a balm to my soul. I would do anything to keep her happy, and mine. I failed in that before, but never again. I’ll never come that close to losing her.
My thumb presses against her clit, that small amount of pressure lifting her hips toward me.
Greedy little firefly. Always chasing the heat, even when it burns.
She gasps against my mouth, writhing on my fingers desperately. I plunge deeper, and the noise she makes as she comes is beautiful.
Her pussy clamps around me as I slip out of her heat and free my cock from my boxers. I hook her leg over my hip, dragging her closer.
The trust in her eyes… fuck, it wrecks me.
I nip her shoulder, grazing my teeth over her silken skin. Then I press my shaft into her pussy. Inch by inch, watching her face as I fill her and feel her stretching around me. We both groan—hers breathy, mine guttural, like it tears out of somewhere primal inside me.
I thrust my hips, finding a rhythm that makes my vision splinter for a second. She feels so good, so perfect. I burn this moment into my memory so when things get tough, I can remember this right here is what I’m fighting for.
My wife. My firefly.
My reason to exist.
I roll my hips, driving my cock deeper inside her. I don’t want to know where she ends and I begin. I would climb inside her skin if I could.
“You take me so good,” I rasp, kissing her jaw as I keep up my relentless pace.
“Because I’m yours.”
Her words crack my ribs open and my rhythm stutters as I spill into her. Fuck. My head goes light, the world tilting until I drag a breath back into my lungs.
Makenna’s thighs tremble and twitch, her nails embedded in my back now. “Shit,” she gasps, her eyes wild and dazed as she comes around my cock.
The silence settles, the only sound our ragged pants as we try to calm our racing hearts. My nape is clammy, my skin slick with sweat. Her hair sticks to her forehead and I like the way she looks drunk from taking my cock.
I kiss her temple over and over. I can’t stop touching her. “You okay?” I murmur.
“Perfect.” She smiles and I want to keep that look on her face forever.
I stay inside her, feeling my cock softening. I don’t want to leave the warmth of her body. “You look beautiful like this.”
“Sweaty and thoroughly fucked?” Her grin is lazy and sated.
“Full of me.”
She swats my chest, hiding her face against me. “That’s disgusting.”
“I like you filled with me, Makenna.”
She pulls back and looks at me. “I like it too.”
The kiss she presses over my heart is devastating, like she’s pouring everything she feels into me.
For a while, we lay wrapped in each other, unmoving. I don’t want to get up, but the wolves are knocking outside the door.
There’s still a war to fight, blood to spill. Until we take out Crank there will be no rest, no peace. Nothing but these small moments of joy among the horror.
We shower together, like we’re unwilling to leave each other for even a moment, and afterwards I dress on autopilot. As I do, my mind makes that mental shift from Zane to Diesel and by the time I shrug into my kutte, I’m in character.
I readjust the leather, trying to get it to sit right. It feels heavier every time I wear it lately, like I’m carrying the weight of the club on my shoulders. The weight of mine and Kenna’s future, too.
I shove that aside, and instead watch Makenna as she drags one of my hoodies over her head. It’s too big and hangs off her much smaller frame, but it awakens something in me, seeing her in my clothes.
I would wrap her in everything I own if I could.
I would wrap her in me.
“What’s the plan for today?” she asks, grabbing her trainers.
“I don’t know yet.” I sink next to her to put my boots on.
As always, I start on the left. Through one hook, then the next. Cross. Tighten. Loop. Repeat. Then I do the same with the other one.
Structure. Routine. Comfort.
It eases the anxiety inside me for a second, at least.
“Will you be okay if I have to go out today?” I stomp my feet, settling my boots into place.
I ask it like I don’t already know we’re heading out in an hour. There was a message waiting on my phone from Nic when I got out of the shower.
“I’ll be fine. I like the girls. Chloe too.” She says her name tentatively. I lift my head and try to read what she’s thinking, but she’s blank.
“They’re good women,” I agree.
“The girl with the battered face…”
Chloe. Right. Of course she’d latch onto the bruised girl. We both saw so much violence in foster care. There were always girls like Chloe who got pulled into situations before they understood them and then got hurt.
I know my firefly. She’s trying to fix this, but Chloe’s situation isn’t exactly straightforward. Everyone tried to get her away from Crank, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Why did they hurt her?”
“Because they’re cowards.”
“Obviously,” she mutters. “But they battered her, Zane.”
My sweet girl. Always looking for understanding in places where there isn’t any. Considering the things we’ve seen over the years, it always surprises me that she still tries to see the good. “I don’t know why they did it, but Crank allowed it, and he’ll fucking pay for that,” I assure her.
Her brows draw together, and the look in her eyes makes me want to burn things. “I hope she can rebuild her life. It sounds like she has been through a lot.”
That’s putting it lightly. I kiss her nose. “She’ll be taken care of.”
We leave the room and head into the main bar area. It’s already busy. Brothers are hanging around the tables, and the girls are sitting with Riot and Mace.
Ravage, Nox and Nic are in the corner, huddled together with serious faces and hushed whispers.
Nic stands, then addresses the room. “We’ve got a lead on Crank and the others. We’re heading out.”
My stomach clenches, not in fear of fighting, but because Makenna stiffens at my side. I hate knowing she’s here, worrying about me.
Her smile is thin, wobbly too. She squeezes my hand, and I go to kiss her, but she stops me with a hand on my chest. “Save that kiss for when you come back to me.”
I get it. It feels like a goodbye. Too final. Too real. But fuck, I hate walking away without tasting her.
“Stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”
Her laugh is sharp. “I’m not the one who goes looking for it.”
I step back, her hand still in mine until I have to let go. I turn and walk away, even though it fucking kills me to do it.
Riot and Mace walk beside me, and I ignore the glares coming from Riot. I’m done defending myself.
“Where’re we going?” Blade jogs up behind us as we step out into the car park. He’s breathless, flushed in the cheeks, his eyes a little wild.
“Got a lead on Crank,” Mace says.
“Good,” he says, a little too enthusiastically. “I could do with letting off a little steam.”
We stop in front of the van, and Mace opens the back doors. I tune out the conversation flying around me, and glance back at the clubhouse just once.
She’s inside, she’s safe.
And I’m fucking coming to her, even if I have to drag myself out of hell itself to do it.