7. Saint
7
SAINT
We were early. Traffic had been kind to us and a closed section of a major motorway had reopened in time to shave three hours off our journey.
Locke parked the rig—he was better at it than me, reversing into the bay with the same quiet competence Decoy possessed, even though he was as weary of the road as I was.
The loud HGV engine cut off, cloaking us in the hissed quiet that came next. My skull throbbed, ears ringing. Someday I’d understand the utter fucking madness that had let me agree to this bullshit, but tonight was not the one.
Eager to be somewhere else, Locke pressed his fist to my shoulder, dropped the keys in my hand, and slid out of the cab.
He didn’t get far. Nash appeared before he had two boots on the ground, and I turned away, letting them reconnect in peace before it occurred to me that I hadn’t expected Nash to be here, on the compound, at two in the morning when he should’ve been home with Orla.
Something happened.
I opened the passenger door and leaned out, my gaze finding Cam before my heart compelled me to look for him. I jumped down, stepping into his arms, wrapping my hand around his jaw the way only I could.
Who came here?
“Easy.” Cam’s dark eyes gleamed with enough humour to relax me. “Old man Doherty paid us a visit, but it’s all good.”
Doherty .
Murder flared in my veins. He was only still alive because by destroying all three of his sons, Ranger had hurt him worse than death ever could. But that could change. I knew where his grotty caravan was. How he rotted there, spreading litter and junk around like a fucking disease.
“ Easy ,” Cam repeated, taking my hand from his face and lacing our fingers together. “You don’t need to riot. Someone else got there first.”
I fought the gremlin in my throat as Nash and Locke rounded the cab, somehow entwined without touching, the energy around them so bright and full of love that I returned Nash’s grin, forgetting that I gave a fuck about speaking. Safe in the knowledge that I never had to, because Cam heard me all the same.
Who? What? How?
A dry smirk warmed Cam’s face, laughter dancing in his eyes again. “Viktor’s been having some fun hounding that cunt with his chopper. Got him thinking the mafia are chasing him with drones. That’s why Doherty came here—daft twat had the fucking nerve to ask for help.”
Locke lounged against the cooling lorry. The tallest rig, which made up for the fact I hated the sound of it. “How’d that go?”
“As you’d expect. Cheered Folk up, though.”
“He okay?”
Cam’s smile faded a little. “I’m taking Decoy’s next run. He needs to be home.”
Locke was tired. We’d been on the road for as many hours as the tachograph allowed. But instant understanding flared in his eyes and he reached for Nash, tugging him closer. “I’ll find him tomorrow.”
“You won’t have to look that hard. Didn’t know how the Doherty thing was going to play out, so we kept everyone close.”
“He’s here?”
“Somewhere. Ivy’s in with the girls.”
Locke’s gaze shifted to the residence and I saw the longing there, for Orla and the baby, but I knew he wouldn’t climb those stairs until he’d seen for himself that Folk was as okay as he could be with Decoy gone another week.
It’s why I stayed in Cam’s immovable embrace instead of seeking out Folk for him, a task made more complex by the fact that Folk didn’t like sleeping here. I’d never seen him willingly knock out in the bunkhouse or the residence, even before he’d shacked up with Decoy. For whatever reason, he didn’t like it, and I couldn’t see him catching a nap in the bar either. “Try...” I pointed at the room that had once been Cracker Delaney’s office. “There’s new books.”
Rubi had filled the shelves from a house clearance in town, turning it into a mini library for the brothers who liked to read. It smelled of old paper, and the mint and lemon that surrounded Embry most days. If I had Folk’s brain, it’s where I’d be.
As it was, coming down from fifteen hours of engine noise was starting to piss me off. My head felt too heavy for my body and I could feel my skin too much.
“Hey.” Cam rubbed his cheek against mine. “Look at me.”
I made a low sound.
Cam waited, somehow knowing my vision was unfocussed and that it didn’t matter what direction my eyes were pointing, caught between us and where I’d had to leave Alexei on the road, I was too far away to see anything.
He had this way of breathing.
Cam.
In and out like a metronome, even when he was angry, grounding me, wrapping steady, phantom hands around my ankles, my wrists, my throat, tethering me to where I needed to be.
I closed my eyes, aware Nash and Locke had gone. Cam tightened his arms around me, his muscles cut and hard, his chest warm. So fucking warm. He smelled of smoke and leather. Of home, even if it didn’t feel that way without Alexei, and I pressed my face into his inked throat.
I love you.
Cam wove his fingers into my tangled hair. “I was thinking we could go to the van.”
I drew back, tilting my head. Why?
“I like being there with you, and there’s enough brothers here to watch over the kids and everything else.”
I counted them up.
Embry.
River.
Locke.
Nash.
Folk.
Viktor , maybe, if I’d read him right and he wasn’t out terrorising Doherty.
A grin broke free.
Cam grinned back. “What are you laughing at?”
“Doherty.”
“Right? Couldn’t make it up. But you didn’t answer my question. You wanna go or stay here?”
Getting on my hog was the last thing I wanted to do. But I craved alone time with Cam like a smack fiend jonesing for a fix, and I’d have ridden to the ends of the earth to get it.
I nodded, pointing at the bikes lined up in the yard.
Let’s go .
* * *
The campsite where I kept my van was closed for the winter. Eerily deserted, it was perfect for my mood, and I’d stopped wondering a long time ago how Cam and Alexei had learned to read me so well.
After swinging by Juana’s place to check on my favourite feline vandal, I rolled off my hog and stood in the dark, listening, reaching out for anything that shouldn’t be here.
I heard nothing but foxes and the wind.
Cam’s boots as he came up behind me and kissed my neck. “I missed you.”
I’d missed him too. More than I’d expected. Which was a hell of a lot. Being apart had grown harder over the past few years. Since Alexei. It was hard to fucking fathom that I’d once lived this life without knowing how it felt when Cam touched me like this.
Like he’d die if he didn’t.
I turned and kissed him, letting his energy seep into me. Cam was intensely sexual. I wasn’t, not always. But recently, it hadn’t seemed to matter how often I connected with him and Alexei that way, it didn’t feel enough. I wanted more .
Though I wasn’t above making Cam work for it. I liked stumbling to the van, his big hands roaming everywhere he could reach. His dark gaze finding mine every few seconds, checking in with my mood. As if I’d ever let something happen I didn’t want with every fibre of my fucking being.
My back hit the van door. Cam braced his hands either side of my head. “I get crazy with how much I want you, but lighting a fire and going to sleep is just as goddamn perfect.”
For me too. But despite exhaustion weighing me down, part of me wasn’t tired at all... and there was more than one way to light a fucking fire.
I unlocked the van and slid the door open. The inside smelled of cut wood and the same smoke that clung to Cam’s skin. We hadn’t been here in a while—not inside, anyway. And not since I’d junked the old wooden sideboard and not got round to building another one.
The empty space left more room for two fully grown men to manoeuvre. I kicked off my boots and dumped my jacket on top of them. Cam swiped Alexei’s vodka bottle and took a healthy swig.
He knew I didn’t want it, even if the taste reminded me of what we were missing. He found a bottle of water in cupboards that had once held bags of weed. Held it out to me. Tracked me as I tipped some down my throat.
I set the bottle down and moved to the log burner, grateful past me had thought to sweep it out and stack logs inside.
With the fire set, the van began to heat up. Still drinking vodka, Cam leaned against the built-in bed in jeans and a plain tee so old it was obvious Alexei had been gone as long as I had. Alexei didn’t like old clothes. Something about them triggered him. He liked sex, though. And he liked me telling him what I did to Cam when he wasn’t around.
Somewhere in the pile of jackets and boots on the floor, my phone buzzed with a tone that wasn’t Alexei, but with brothers on the road and Orla so pregnant, I couldn’t ignore it.
I crouched, digging it out. A message from Rubi lit up the screen.
Rubi: That diabolical herbert just yeeted my Steely Dan album. How dare you leave me
I sighed. I’d paired Rubi with Ranger for a reason, but I’d regretted it about six minutes into the run when I’d discovered the ancient CB radio speakers Rubi had installed in the cab of each rig. To sing me to death, probably, but he’d mainly used it to complain about bullshit I was apparently still not free of.
Saint: i’ll buy u a new one
Rubi: Not the point, Sainty. Though, at least banging my head against the window in time with his fuck-awful EDM will save me from starving to death
Because Ranger had binned all his snacks too, in revenge for something to do with falafel that I’d let Decoy break up, then felt bad when he’d told me he felt like smoking.
I clicked out of the message thread as another text pinged through.
Alexei .
The message was in Russian, but I’d learned enough to decipher the tone, and it wasn’t the crackling fire that sent heat pooling in my blood.
He wants us to fuck.
So did I.
I dropped the phone in my boot and rose.
Cam was still leaning against the bed. Still nursing the vodka. Still watching me. “He okay?”
Alexei, not Rubi.
I nodded and moved into Cam’s orbit, confiscating the bottle.
He widened his legs, making room for me, sliding his hands under my clothes, his rough palms making contact with bare skin. I shivered at the touch and a low rumble rattled his chest.
“I want you,” he whispered. “But holding you is always enough.”
He’d already said that. It bothered me that he felt the need to say it again. That he thought he couldn’t read me. Maybe I wasn’t giving him enough for him to know I wanted him too.
I slid his belt free of the buckle and pushed his chest. “Get on the bed.”
Cam arched a brow but obeyed, and I covered him with my body, kissing and kissing and kissing him, peeling his clothes away, shedding mine, the cold night a distant thought as the log burner did its job.
Sometimes I kissed Cam like this for hours, keeping the beast in him at bay, but I didn’t feel like that tonight. I didn’t want him to hold back. I wanted to give him what he needed. I wanted to fuck him. On his back. On his belly. All over this fucking bed.
It was dark in the van, only the glow of the fire lighting the space. But I saw every nuance in Cam’s stare as he gazed at me, reading me better than he ever gave himself credit for.
“You want me, Saint?”
I pushed his hand to my dick.
Cam wrapped his calloused palm around me and his pupils dilated. “Fuck.”
Yeah.
Fuck .
But there was always a question mark over what that meant for us. Which way it would go. Recently, I’d let him fuck me more often than I’d fucked him, but it had been a while, and my mood had to be some weird kind of specific to let someone— anyone —inside me.
Even Cam.
Especially Cam.
He was so fucking dominant—he had to be to survive. But yielding to that didn’t come easy to me. Sometimes it didn’t come at all, and I felt that tonight, like I’d brought a layer of tension home from the road I wasn’t quite ready to shift.
Cam felt it too. He squeezed my dick and lay back, pulling me over him. “First time we ever fucked was on this bed.”
I let my weight settle on him, testing how submissive he was feeling, grinding us together in a slow circle of my hips. I remember.
Of course I did. We’d writhed under the blankets while a freezing dawn swirled around us and I’d been so convinced that was it for us. That he’d never want me to fuck him, and I’d never be able to let him fuck me.
He’d proved me wrong that day, and fresh heat zipped through my blood as I pictured it. Cam pinning me down and riding me, his face cinched with the best kind of pain. Me rolling him over and slow-fucking him until the craziest release had blown me apart.
“Saint.” Barely a whisper, Cam’s plea was somehow deafening. He held my face like I had his when I’d jumped off the rig. “I need you to stay with me tonight. I missed you.”
I’m here.
His grip on me tightened, his breath catching like it did when emotions he’d spent way too many years repressing caught up with him.
I took his hand and pinned it above his head. “I came back.”
“I know.”
“He’s coming back too.”
Alexei .
“I know.”
Then what the fuck had put fear in his eyes right now?
I pinned his other arm over his head and paused. Even if he didn’t believe it, Cam was stronger than me. I gave him every opportunity to throw me off, to shift us to a more even power balance.
He didn’t fucking move.
Just held my gaze as if my eyes had all the answers, and if I thought about it enough, I’d figure out why. But he’d asked me to stay tonight when he already knew I wasn’t going anywhere without him. That I was home, even if Alexei wasn’t. Which meant he needed me out of my head, and loving him had taught me how to do that.
I focused on the raw desire that had taken hold of me while I’d been thinking in circles. I was so fucking hard, but I lived with the belief that there was nothing on earth as solid as Cam’s dick when he wanted me or Alexei.
When he wants us both.
I couldn’t give him that—not tonight.
But I could give him me.
I raided the lube stash I was pretty sure Rubi had added to when I hadn’t been paying attention. There was no other reason for a vibrating tentacle plug to be in my van.
Couldn’t complain about the lube though. It was the kind of shopping I always forgot about. I didn’t think about sex much unless I was having it—or watching it...
Stay .
I kissed Cam, caressing his inked throat with one hand while I guided my cock inside him with the other. Missionary . I’d grown to like it, with him, with Alexei, though between them it was a wildly fucking different experience.
Alexei goaded me to fuck him harder.
Cam locked onto my gaze as if it was the only thing holding him together. As if he had no clue that he was the glue in my fucking soul.
I pinned his arms again and rocked into him. He groaned, tension gripping every sinew of his muscular body. Getting fucked was a process for him, in that, we were the same.
Look at me .
I thrust deeper.
His eyes cracked open, molten with heat. “You’re gonna kill me with that big dick.”
You want it.
“I fucking love it.”
Still holding him down, I fucked him slow enough to relax him, tracking every reaction and emotion that lit up his face, bringing my knees closer to find the angle that made him throw back his head.
Cam wrapped his legs around me.
I released his hands. Let him hold my face with his big, rough palms. Press our foreheads together, so utterly fucking mine only Alexei would ever reach us. Alexei with his dirty mouth and fragile heart. His wise soul that had guided me and Cam to a moment like this.
Jaw locked, I flexed my hips.
Cam flexed his.
Oxygen left us and something changed. Shifted. In me or in him, I couldn’t tell. And it didn’t matter. We were one tangle of breath and limbs, of heat and love, and logical thought really did fucking desert me.
Cam’s gravelled moans replaced it, reaching every part of me, driving me harder and deeper inside him, a slow violence that made my head spin and my tight skin burn away.
We throbbed together, the intensity rolling Cam’s eyes. He was close, I felt it, but it wasn’t enough. For him. For me. We needed more.
I eased back and pulled out of him.
Messy, Cam fought for breath. “I?—”
“Shh.” I claimed his mouth, his lips, his chest, the rigid planes of his abdomen, a path I’d traced before, but never lower.
“Saint.”
I wrapped my lips around Cam’s cock. His back arched and his hands flew to my head.
“ Fuck .”
I held still, giving him a moment. Giving myself a moment. Cam fucking my mouth scared the shit out of me. His big dick crammed in my throat, cutting off my air supply. Alexei wasn’t exactly small, but he wasn’t Cam. No one was, and they never had been.
One day, maybe I’d tell him he and Alexei were the only ones I’d ever allowed past my lips, and I’d always felt guilty for taking something I had no intention of giving back. Until they’d started sucking my cock and I’d realised how different it was when every graze and sweep, every pressured slide, was fuelled by love.
Cam simmered down, clasping his hands behind his own head, his breathing still a fucking riot, but reverent calm hazing his gaze. He didn’t tell me I didn’t have to do this—he knew I wouldn’t if I didn’t want it.
And fuck, I wanted it.
I swallowed him again, easing him down my throat the same way I fucked him. Slow. Deep. Eventually, anyway. It took me a while, and I got off on the tremble in Cam’s powerful thighs. In the effort he exerted keeping his pelvis nailed to the bed, and the ominous pulse in his cock.
Fuck.
I let Alexei come in my mouth sometimes. On my mouth mostly—he liked to see it on my lips. I didn’t know what Cam liked. I’d never seen him come from a blowjob.
Did I want to?
Yeah.
Would I fuck him more after?
Yes .
He was so close. I dug my fingers into his hips, scraping my teeth along his most sensitive skin, his groan tight, his body contracted, so almost there, until he pulled me off, shaking fingers threaded in my hair. “I want to come with you inside me.”
That shift flared in his gaze again, and I rose up on my elbows. “Show me how.”
Cam dragged me in for a messy kiss. Then he rolled over, spreading his arms.
I slid my palm down his spine. “Like this?”
Cam braced his hands wider, his strong back rippling in the dark. “Yeah. I want it.”
On his knees.
Me fucking him from behind.
I reached for more lube and found my place, pressing inside him again.
Cam growled, rough and through clenched teeth, head dropping as I hit a spot I hadn’t found with him on his back.
His body swallowed me up, drawing my thighs to his, my chest to his back, his wider frame a stone column of strength that felt like a challenge.
I ground into him, testing us both, and the answering bolt of pleasure sent my face between his shoulder blades.
Too much .
But it was perfect, and the dam broke, the smouldering heat between us expanding into something almost feral. I fucked him harder. Rattling his balance, wrecking mine, composure dead and buried at the side of the road.
A frantic sound tore through me.
I pushed Cam down, forcing his chest to the mattress, fucking him harder still, wild to the reality of him letting me take him like this. Of how much he was giving up to let it happen.
Of how much he needed it.
I lay over him, tipping his head to kiss him, claiming his sharp breaths, and the deep, deep moan that rumbled from him, only to cut off as his body began to tighten around me, stealing what little rhythm I had left.
That violence returned, filling the space. I drove inside Cam as if I was carving a home for myself—one I already had, but my body hadn’t got the memo. Like we were mating, a feeling I’d lived through before with him and Alexei both.
He came.
I released inside him.
I bit his fucking neck like I owned him.
It took a long time to come down. I eased Cam onto his side, curving my body around him, his hand rooted to my hip, keeping me inside as he battled his laboured breaths.
Dizzy, I sought sanctuary between his shoulder blades again. But I cared about him more than I cared about passing out. I braved my spinning head and sat up a little, taking his hand, letting my cock slip from him.
I laced our fingers together, noting the chill in the air as my blood cooled.
Fire needs stoking .
Keeping Cam warm became my priority.
I left him for the brief minutes it took to add more wood to the burner, fetch water, and find a pillow to slide under his head, the way Mateo always did to Embry, whether he needed one or not.
Cam tipped me a slow grin, one that was somehow wry and shattered at the same time. He didn’t speak though, and I liked that—the quiet. The steady thud of his heart as I lay down beside him and pressed my palm to his chest.
I almost fell asleep. But I wasn’t sure he was okay, and I had to know.
Rolling to face him, I brushed his hair out of his eyes, noting the flicker in his gaze as he shifted on the old mattress. “I hurt you?”
“Nah, my fucked shoulder’s grumpy today.”
“Why?”
“Cos I’m old.”
I waited for the real answer. Let his tired eyes haze over again as he pondered whatever it was, and I wasn’t sad it took a little time. My favourite things about fucking him—and Alexei too—were these still moments when he wasn’t thinking about a thousand things at once. Just a couple I could keep up with and maybe even help rationalise enough to let him sleep.
Cam needed sleep. Lots had changed in our lives, but not that. He didn’t thrive on the thrill of insomnia or forget to rest until he fell over. His heart needed it, or it would break— he’d break. Because he loved us all so fucking much.
His work-hardened palm slid along my jaw, calloused fingers finding a home in my tangled hair. He rolled onto his side again, pressing his face into my neck, nuzzling the scar I’d forgotten about until we found each other all those years ago.
How many years?
Did it matter?
Probably not.
Hot fingers trembled on my face. “Come back.”
“I’m still here.”
Cam cocked his head to stare at me, still holding my jaw, his other hand gripping my hip as if he was scared I really would leave.
I kissed him. I’m here .
I kissed him again. I promise.
He relaxed again and we lost more time to being wrapped up in each other. We didn’t fuck again, but he did shit to me that took me out of my body. And I blew him again, he came in my mouth, and it took a while for him to put himself back together.
I rubbed his chest, waiting on the tremor to ease from his limbs and for an answer to the question he’d likely forgotten about.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Because I was starting to feel tired too. The connection between my brain and my voice was always tenuous, but as my body began to give in, it fizzled out to pretty much nothing.
I slid a hand over Cam’s scarred and battered shoulder and found the spot that was making him wince.
He remembered the question I’d asked before he’d blown his load down my throat. “Ivy talked me into sleeping on her bedroom floor every night this week. Cos that’s what you do.”
“While she’s looking. Then I sit on the landing and read Folk’s pirate books until she wakes up.”
Cam blinked, as surprised as me that I’d strung two sentences together. “Fucking Folk didn’t tell me that.”
“He—” Fuck. My throat closed up. I mean, it didn’t, but it felt that way, and fighting it made breathing too hard, and I’d learned not to do that around Cam. It scared him.
I took a slow inhale. “I never stayed with Folk. Just Decoy.”
When Alexei and Folk had been gone so long, I’d almost choked on the fear they’d never come back. On the very rare nights Folk had been on the road since.
Cam kissed the unicorn on my neck. “That kills my next question.”
Say it anyway .
He sighed, his body heavy with the guilt and concern he rode more than his fucking hog. “I didn’t realise how fucked up Folk’s been over Rocco.”
“Rocco?”
Cam elaborated, telling me shit that made a cold shiver slink down my spine. Nightmares. PTSD. A desperation for relief so bad our brother had returned to the habit of jumping off cliffs. “It rattled me, seeing him caught in that. And he seemed so low after, I’m fucking scared we’ll lose him to it.”
“Why?”
“Cos I can’t see where it ends. Rocco’s dead. We found his fucking bones. How do you get closure from that if time isn’t enough?”
Closure .
Something clicked in my brain. Something loud . The scar on my belly wrenched, twisted and raw, and smoke filled my lungs.
Cam frowned. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t know. Not yet. I pulled Cam closer, shifting onto my back so he could rest his head on my chest.
His legs tangled with mine. He was still worried, about me, about Folk, but he was so fucking tired I felt the energy drain from his body. Felt him slip away as his breathing evened out and his muscled frame fell slack.
He slept.
I didn’t.
My brain went into overdrive, my pulse thundering out of my ears, thinking, thinking, thinking until it finally fucking dawned on me what I’d done.
What I’d missed.
I fumbled for my phone, frantic in the knowledge I’d made a terrible mistake, my soul vibrating with the need to put it right, if I even could.
My hands shaking as I tapped out a message to the only person who understood me well enough to help.
Saint: come home. i need u