Chapter 28 Bones #2
I glance down at her foot. She’s wearing sensible flats and the brace she wears during dancing. This isn’t exactly doctor’s orders, but she promised me she’d sit for most of the night. And I’m not particularly good at saying no to her.
Before I can respond, Stone walks over. “Congratulations, you two.” He doesn’t waste time with small talk, just claps me on the shoulder and then turns to Emma. “You look good, kid. That cut suits you. You wear it proud.”
She beams, shoulders back, and I swear she gains two inches in height. “Thanks, Dad. I’ve worn a lot of uniforms and costumes in my life, but this is the only thing I’ve ever owned that gives me genuine street cred.”
Stone laughs, the lines in his face creasing deep and warm. “You always could walk both worlds. That’s why I’m glad you’re here. You make this club stronger—make this town stronger.”
He holds my gaze for a beat longer, then tips his chin toward the back patio. “Come outside a minute, Bones. Need a word.”
I follow, heart thumping just a little faster. The early fall air is cool after the heat of the clubhouse. Stone leans against the porch railing, staring out at the rows of bikes lined up. He doesn’t speak for a minute, just lets silence fill in the gaps.
“You did good, Bones,” he says finally. “Not just tonight. Not just with the Summit thing. All of it.”
I don’t know what to say, so I keep my mouth shut.
“I look at you and Emma, and I see what I would’ve wanted for her if I’d had any sense at all.
” His thumb taps the railing. “She’s been through hell.
So have you. Could’ve turned either of you brittle, mean, all sharp edges and no softness.
But you held onto each other.” Stone finally looks at me.
“I’m proud of you. You hear me? Not just club proud. Real proud. Like a father would be.”
That puts a lump in my throat so big I can barely breathe around it.
Like a father would be.
I think about my brother—dead before I turned twelve.
About the years after, when the club was all I had.
About Stone taking a chance on a scrawny kid with too much anger and not enough sense.
About thirteen years of proving myself, of earning my place, of loving his daughter from the shadows because I didn’t think I deserved to love her in the light.
And now he’s telling me I’m family. Not just club. Real.
“Thanks, Stone,” I manage. It’s not enough, but it’s all I can get out without breaking.
He nods, like he understands everything I can’t say, then claps me on the shoulder before checking his watch. “Well, I should head out.”
“You’re leaving the party already?”
“Not quite.” He doesn’t elaborate.
He checks his phone, then gives me a final nod. “Go enjoy the party. You’ve earned some fun, Bones.” With that, he heads to his bike, and I go back inside to find Emma. She now has a beer of her own, holding court with Kya and Andi. She spots me and gestures me over, eyes bright and mischievous.
“Come settle an argument,” she says. “Kya claims you can’t actually do a wheelie with a full-sized Harley without falling on your ass, and I say you absolutely could, but it would violate at least three traffic laws and several rules of physics.”
I look at Kya. “I totally could, if I wanted to.”
She throws her head back and laughs. “Physics says no, your ego says yes. I know which one’s gonna hit the pavement first.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Andi says. “I reckon Bones has it in him.”
“Thank you, Andi,” I say, sinking onto the couch beside Emma, feeling her body quake against me every time she laughs. The leather of her cut feels a little stiff at the seams, but it’ll break in with time. All the best things do.
The party rages for a while. Someone starts a drinking contest, then a pool tournament, and I see Poppy and Axel slow-dancing in the corner as Rose conks out against his chest, that tiny drool spot on his shirt spreading by the minute.
I shift my gaze to the bar where Lee is half-listening to Duck explain his platform, then I notice Tank across the room.
He’s got his phone to his ear, expression serious. Too serious for a party like this.
He says something, nods, then heads toward the back hallway where it’s quieter.
“Be right back,” I tell Emma, dropping a kiss on the top of her head.
“Where you going?”
“Just checking something.”
I get up and catch Lee’s eye, nodding toward the hall where Tank disappeared. He follows immediately, and we find Tank in the chapel, phone still pressed to his ear.
“—OK. Yeah. I understand.” His voice is low, controlled. “You need us there?”
A pause.
“You sure? Because we can—”
Another pause, longer this time.
“All right. Yeah. I’ll handle it.” Tank sees us standing there and gestures us closer. “Hold on, Stone. Bones and Lee are here. I’m putting you on speaker.”
He pulls the phone from his ear and taps the screen. Stone’s voice fills the room, rough and strained in a way I’ve never heard.
“I left to pick up Josie. But she wasn’t home when I got there,” Stone says without preamble. “So I rode the route she takes from work. There was an accident about two miles out. T-bone collision at the intersection by Miller Road.”
My stomach drops.
“She’s alive,” Stone continues quickly. “Ambulance got there right as I did. But she’s in bad shape. I followed them to the hospital. They’ve got her now. I’m waiting to hear more.”
“Jesus,” Lee breathes.
“You sure you don’t need us there?” Tank asks.
“No. I’m fine on my own.” Stone’s voice is firm. “I need you three to not tell anyone. Let them have tonight. Keep the party going, business as usual.”
“Stone—” I start.
“That’s an order.” He cuts me off. “We don’t know if this was an accident or a hit yet.
Could be nothing. Could be Summit sending a message.
Either way, I don’t want the whole club in panic mode until we know more.
So you keep this between us, you let everyone celebrate Duck and the zoning win, and we deal with what this means in the morning. ”
Tank, Lee, and I exchange looks. Everything in me wants to get on my bike, head to that hospital, stand with my president. But Stone’s right—we can’t show weakness right now, can’t let Summit know they rattled us if this was intentional.
“Understood,” Tank says. “You call if that changes.”
“I will. Now get back to the party before people notice.”
The line goes dead.
For a moment, the three of us just stand there, the muffled sound of the party drifting through the walls.
“Fuck,” Lee says finally.
“Yeah.” Tank pockets his phone. “But we do what Stone said. We go back out there, we smile, we celebrate. Nobody knows until morning.”
“And if someone asks where he is?” I ask.
“No one’s gonna ask. They’ll think he and Josie are taking some private time.” Tank’s expression is grim. “Celebrating the win in their own way.”
“Jesus. OK.”
We head back to the main room. The party’s still going strong—Mercy is teaching Poppy a line dance while Cash and Axel cheer them on, Duck’s still surrounded by campaign volunteers, and Emma’s at the bar with Kya, both of them laughing about something.
I plaster on a smile and make my way over, sliding my arm around Emma’s waist.
“Everything OK?” she asks quietly, reading me too well.
“Yeah. Club business. Nothing to worry about.” The lie tastes bitter, but Stone’s orders were clear.
She searches my face, not entirely convinced, but doesn’t push. “Want to get out of here?” She leans in to whisper in my ear. “We can tell everyone my ankle’s starting to ache, but really, I just need you inside me again.”
I grin, because the idea of tumbling Emma back into bed and forgetting the outside world for a few more hours sounds better than any party. “I like the way you think.”
She smiles, but there’s a shadow under it. Maybe she’s reading the tension in my face, or maybe it’s just habit—waiting for the next bad thing to land after years of training herself to expect it.
Still, I steer her out, make a show of apologizing to everyone for bailing early, and we get heckled all the way to the bike parked behind the clubhouse.
Lee’s skipped out to the back porch to talk to Tank, and as I glance in the rearview mirror, I catch him with his phone out, probably texting Stone for an update despite strict instructions not to.
We get on my bike, and I tell her to hang on as I start the engine and cut us through the emptying streets with the kind of reckless joy only a man in love—stupid, inexorable, all-in love—can muster.
We’re barely in the apartment before she’s wrestling me into the wall. The new cut creaks as she presses into me, and then I’ve got a hand around her throat, and she’s laughing. “Don’t you dare be gentle.”
I pin her to the wall as my lips crash into hers, then lift her clean off her feet so her legs wrap around my waist. She’s so light in my arms—years of dancer’s grind whittled her down to sinew and intent—so I carry her to the kitchen instead of the bedroom, because we never did break in the new countertop and she’s been eyeing it for weeks.
She flashes a grin, eyes alight as I set her on the edge and she’s perched, legs apart, waiting.
“I like this spot,” she purrs, then yanks my belt loose and flicks open the top button of my jeans with one practiced move.
“You just want a new surface to get bent over,” I say, my hands sliding up under her cut and short dress, dragging both up and off in one motion. The cut lands on the other side of the counter, and she’s bare except for those ridiculous teal panties with tiny yellow hearts on them.
“Maybe,” she says, voice husky. “Or maybe I want you to eat me alive.”
I crash my mouth into hers, hands threading into her hair, and for five seconds it’s all need and heat and that heady rush that never seems to dim whenever I get her naked. I feel my knees go soft when she squeezes my cock through my jeans, the friction making me see stars.
“Mmm. That’s not for you yet, swan.”
I get her panties to the side and push two fingers into her, and she’s already so wet my dick jolts with the need to be inside her. She keeps grinding against my palm, greedy and insistent, and when I curl my fingers just so, she moans my name.
“Fuck, Bones—don’t stop—” she gasps, and I don’t.
She finds my zipper, pulls me out, wrapping her fingers around me as she rides my hand. “Don’t make me wait for it,” she whimpers, and the edge in her voice nearly buckles my knees.
Fuck, I love this woman.
She lines me up, and I press in, slow at first, the heat of her making my vision go blurry.
She throws her head back, mouth open, eyes rolling up as I bottom out and set a punishing rhythm.
Our kitchen isn’t secluded—the window over the sink opens right onto the alley behind the laundromat—but I can’t bring myself to care, not with her grabbing at my ass and her voice echoing off Formica like she’s trying to let the whole neighborhood know what we’re doing.
Skin on skin, she claws at my shoulders, her breath hitching with every thrust. I want to devour her, to brand her bone-deep, pummel into her like we’ll never have another night.
Her hands fist in my hair, my tongue in her mouth, her heels digging into my back as I fuck her so deep, she shifts back with each thrust.
“God, Bones!” She trembles in my arms, eyes losing focus, and I want her to break first, to fall apart around me so I can put her back together the way I like her.
Her nails bite down as she jerks me even deeper, and then she’s pulsing, pussy fluttering, wild sound clawing up her throat.
The sight of her makes me lose it. I can barely stutter out her name before I’m pouring into her, holding her so hard our ribs could crack.
My vision goes white, red, then black. The world comes back in fits and starts to fade back in on the two of us, glued together and panting in the kitchen, her arms wrapped around my neck and her forehead pressed to mine, sweat beading between us.
I keep her locked down on my cock, buried to the hilt, her body still pulsing around me in aftershocks that make her breath stutter every time I flex my hips. For a minute we just hold, just stay.
Finally, she lets out a shaky laugh, her lips ghosting over my jaw. “God, you’re good at that,” she whispers, voice hoarse.
“You’re pretty fucking amazing yourself,” I rasp against her mouth, tasting the salt of her. I slide my hands under her thighs and hoist her up, still impaled and still inside, carry her awkwardly through the bedroom door while she laughs at me the whole time.
I set her down on the bed, watching the way her hair fans over the pillow, sweat damp and wild. She immediately pulls me down with her, both arms and both legs wrapped around me, locking me in.
She’s smiling, drunk on something that isn’t booze, and I kiss her slow this time, letting her come down. She runs her fingers along my jaw, thumb skating the spot under my eye where I shatter easiest.
“I love you,” she says, pulling back a little to look into my eyes. “I fucking love you, Bones.”
I brush my nose against hers and press a soft kiss to her lips. “I love you too, swan,” I say. “Always have. Always will.”
She releases me long enough so that I can get a cloth to clean us up. Then when I’m back in bed beside her, she curls against my chest, her breathing evening out almost immediately. Exhaustion catching up with her.
But I stay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about Stone at the hospital. About Josie in surgery or ICU or wherever they have her. About whether this was Summit’s response to losing the zoning battle.
And I think about Emma, asleep in my arms, wearing my patch instead of my tracker. About how I spent years watching over her from the shadows, and now she’s choosing to stay in the light with me.
The tracker was about my fear. The cut is about her choice.
That’s the difference. That’s everything.
She shifts in her sleep, mumbling something that sounds like my name, and I press a kiss to her hair.
“I’ve got you, swan,” I whisper. “Always.”
She settles deeper into sleep, her hand pressing into my chest like she’s holding on even in dreams.
And I realize this is my happy ending. Not perfect, but real.
Emma Armstrong, property of Bones. Mine.