Chapter 21
Ami
I realize that we’re having this conversation completely naked. I marvel at how strange that is for us—Gage who hasn’t shown a single person his scars. Me who didn’t tell anyone that I was a rape victim. Yet here we stand, unashamed, naked, nearly flesh to flesh.
Talking.
“I roughed him up. That’s it. Put the fear of god into him. He won’t touch another person again. Not the way he touched you. Not ever.”
I stare up at Gage, my gaze locked with his. His eyes never dart away. He doesn’t even blink. I search his face, but his mask is back, a wall keeping me out. If there’s more, I sense that he’s not going to tell me.
“I just want to know that you didn’t kill him,” I sigh.
“That’s it. I couldn’t bear it if you were taken from me.
I spent my whole life running. The past year was spent trying to figure out a way to make it back here to make a clean break, but now…
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I want it.
I still want a future. I want this. I want this with you.
I don’t know what that means for our future, if we have one, but I don’t want us to try and make it work and then have it all come crashing down.
So if that’s a possibility, I need to know now.
I need to know so that I can prepare myself.
So that I can plan. Because I can’t just fly through this without a plan.
I can’t, Gage… I can’t just rip up those papers and change everything. ”
His face softens and he takes my hand in his, threading our fingers together. “Shh,” he says soothingly. “I didn’t kill him. I swear it. You won’t find any unsolved murders in the Orlando area. At least not this bastard.”
“No. Because if you did, you and the rest of The Riders, they’d never find out where the body was or who did it. He would just go conveniently missing.”
“No missing persons either. I promise. And The Riders don’t work that way. We don’t make people disappear in the middle of the night.”
I hear the words he doesn’t say, though.
How he should have tacked on, often, at the end of it, because I know what happens to enemies of the club.
To people who try and walk into Helena and make the town their own.
To people who threaten those Steel Riders hold dear, especially their women and their children.
I’m not a na?ve little girl.
I’ve heard the stories.
“How did you find him?” I finally ask when I realize that I’m going to have to trust Gage’s answer.
It hurts that I don’t know him well enough to know if he’s telling me the truth. I trust him not to lie to me, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something he’s not telling me. My hormones are overcharged, my body hot and freezing, fiery and ice, all at once, and it’s confusing as hell.
“Tracker.”
“Tracker?”
“He owed me one.”
“That’s the understatement of the fucking century. So he’s really that good at what he does?”
“Let’s just say he earned his name.”
“I thought I had time to come here and talk you out of it. At least at night. I didn’t want to chance driving here overtired and in the rain. I was scared that it would be a bad idea. I called you this morning, though. First thing. I called and called and called.”
“Phone died. From the rain.”
“Yeah,” I huff. “I know.”
Gage extends his other hand and tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
He does it with such tenderness and care that my breath hitches in my lungs.
My pulse leaps madly at my throat, and all my attention is riveted on the powerful male form standing so close to me that my peaked nipples nearly brush the granite hardness of his chest. Our body heat floods together, mingling and swirling like the air currents that come together to produce a tornado.
“You didn’t have to avenge me,” I breathe, knowing full well that of course Gage would feel like he had to.
Or rather, that he needed to. Not just for me. But for himself. For every other victim out there who never had a say in what was done to them. How their body was marked and scarred, their soul branded with the brutal stamp of cruelty.
“It’s done,” he says, his voice soft and filled with compassion. Not pity. Compassion. Because he’s walked this road too. “It’s over, Ami. He’ll never hurt you, or anyone else. Ever. I made sure of it.”
“Did you maim him?” I hate that a jolt of pure, wicked satisfaction rips through me. I don’t want to think like that. I don’t want to be evil, like him.
“No.” The fire in his eyes roars back to life as he sweeps his tongue over his bottom lip.
“I’m done with him, karma can do the rest. He’s the past. This is us.
This is our present. Our future. I like the sound of that.
I’ll do my best not to fuck it up.” His fingers tighten on mine.
“And those papers are getting torn up and pissed on and burned. Now. Tell me again. Tell me that you want me inside of you, because this time, I’m gonna give you everything you want. ”
My breath doesn’t just hitch at his words. Breathing becomes an impossibility entirely.
Instead of using words, which doesn’t really seem possible anyway, I lean in and tilt my face up, kissing along the ridge of his shoulder, trailing my lips against the heated velvet of his skin.
I sweep my tongue out to taste him, the salty, musky tang that is his and his alone.
It’s rough and primitive and I love the heady taste of his sweat and flesh.
Gage groans and his chest rattles beneath my palms. I feel the vibrations in my lips, the way his muscles hunch together and tremble with as desire, as rich and carnal as what I feel, sweeps through his veins.
I nearly jump when his hand grazes my jawline, tilting my face to stare up into his eyes. His pupils are completely dilated and his nostrils flare when he speaks.
“I want you to stand at the edge of the bed. Put your hands on the mattress and spread your legs. Not because I don’t want to see you.
You got me? This isn’t about that. This isn’t about any of it.
This is you and this is me and there is nothing else out there.
This is us, finding our redemption, creating something new out of the flames and the ashes.
This is what you asked me for last night. A rebirth.”
A shiver traces its way up my spine and warmth floods my belly.
A rush of wetness gathers at the apex of my thighs and I can feel the arousal begin to trickle down my thighs.
Or maybe it’s just fresh droplets, because I realize, when I squeeze my thighs together to try and still the ache, that I’m already soaked.
Through some miraculous force of will, I feel myself step away. I glide over to the bed like I’m floating, like none of this is real, but I know it is. I know it’s real, and I want it. I want it far worse than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life.
Even if it doesn’t make sense.
Even if it’s happening too fast.
Even if I can’t rationalize it away, and it’s most terrifying because without reason, I can’t fight it.
I plant my hands on the bed, curling my fingers into the faded, worn comforter.
The room is sparse, like the rest of the house.
Just a bed on one of those metal bed frames, propped up off the floor, but not fancy.
Utilitarian. There’s an old wood nightstand to the side and a beat up dresser across the way and that’s it for furnishings.
It’s broad daylight and the blinds, which have a few broken slats, barely do a decent job at covering the window.
I can’t find it in myself to be ashamed, even as I spread my legs, presenting all of me to Gage’s predatory stare behind me.
When I turn my head to glance behind me, I find him there, his entire body rigid, hands balled into fists at his sides, his teeth sunk into his lower lip, fighting with himself.
When he moves, the air in the room shifts.
It becomes electrified, like lightning, the particles charged and vibrant.
I react, my body going completely stiff like I’ve been struck by his lightning.
I feel like I’m sizzling from the inside out, scorching, my blood roaring, my heart beating unnaturally fast.
His hands, big and rough and capable of the worst kind of violence, land on my hips with the utmost gentleness. Even when he curls his fingers into my skin, he takes care not to hurt me past a slight twinge of discomfort that mixes like a heady cocktail, with the pleasure spiking my blood.
One hand sweeps up, tracing the pattern of my spine, playing along my ribs.
He cups my breast roughly, his hand scraping over the tender flesh and the sensitive peaked bud of my nipple.
I let out a raspy moan when he pinches that bud and then twists slightly, so that the pain knifes down straight between my legs.
He steps forward at the same time, ramming our bodies together.
His erection presses into my back, throbbing and wickedly alive.
I wait for the familiar prickle of fear to spike my blood like it did in the past whenever I even stood too close to a man. All the times I was trapped in crowds, jostled, pushed into an overfull elevator. It was like bubbles in my blood, trying to reach my heart and stop it.
I wait, but nothing happens.
The fear never comes.
When Gage sweeps his hand from my hip down, to part my legs, when he smooths his fingers up the tender inside of my thigh, soaking them in my arousal, I feel nothing but fiery elation. He keeps tracing a delicate pattern until he reaches my weeping sex.
“Spread your legs,” he commands darkly, voice thick, right by my ear. “Take me inside of you and let me show you everything that’s possible.”
I shudder and my legs practically fall open for him. My body reacts to his commands before my mind even has a chance to process them.