31. Aimee
Aimee
“Is this your thing?” I brush my fingers over the blanket Levi stretched out for us on the desert floor. “When you want to woo a girl, you bring them out to the desert and stretch out a blanket so they have to cuddle you.”
“You’re the only girl I woo.” He tips my chin up, kissing me.
No matter how soft or deep, it manages to skitter all the way through my skin. His kiss tethers me to him. And when he pulls back, I still feel the bind thrumming between us like a physical force we never quite cut, even with all the distance.
“So tomorrow—”
“I don’t want to talk about tomorrow,” I cut him off.
“We need to be ready.”
“You mean I need to be ready, and I am. We’ve talked it to death already. I don’t want to think about it. ”
Levi frowns. Stretching his arms behind him, staring at the horizon.
At least he doesn’t argue. I’m tired of talking about tomorrow.
About what needs to happen and what we risk if anything goes wrong.
I don’t want to spend this last afternoon with Levi thinking about Titan.
All it does is make me uneasy, especially considering how quickly Titan responded to the Twisted Kings agreeing to hand me over.
I don’t know what that says about his arrogance. Or maybe Titan just thinks that little of love that he assumes Levi would be done with me.
“If you don’t want to talk about tomorrow”—Levi presses his lips tight—“how about we talk about the day after?”
“What about it?”
He plants his hand over mine on the blanket, lacing our fingers together. “Stay with me.”
“Here?” I glance at the clubhouse at a distance.
“Yes here. We can build a house in the neighborhood. Or I’ll get us one in the city if you’d prefer a little more distance. But I can’t say goodbye to you again, Aimee. I’m not going to survive if you leave.”
“And here I thought you were a big, bad biker who could survive anything.” I nudge his shoulder, trying to make light of the situation.
“Not when it comes to you, firecracker.” He leans over, kissing the tip of my shoulder.
I settle on his gaze. On those brown eyes that always saw me better than I saw myself. The plan was always to leave when I was done. For my sake and Levi’s. But this man knows everything. All my secrets. My past. My present.
He knows my ugly side and what wakes me up in the middle of the night.
And here he sits beside me. Unwavering.
On top of that, his club has welcomed me and taken me in. They’re the big family I never had. They’re the excitement I didn’t know I needed. Being here is the closest I’ve ever felt to finally coming home.
“You want me to be your girlfriend, Havoc ?” I bite my lip, glancing over at him.
He shakes his head, gripping my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I want you to be my old lady.”
Those two words have my heart racing. I’ve feared them for years because they never held any weight other than existing as a means for a biker to tie a woman down. But when I look into Levi’s eyes, I don’t feel pressure in his offer.
It’s freedom.
It’s peace.
I’m suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.
Standing up, I shake my hands out, pacing as I wrap my head around what he’s offering.
Levi follows, and his face scrunches with worry. “You can think about it.”
“It’s not that.” I pause, and he takes my shaking hands in his. “I just need to make sure we’re clear about what you’re asking.”
“How so? ”
“That if we do this, you’re mine and I’m yours.”
“That’s the whole idea.”
“No one else.”
His eyes widen when he realizes what I’m getting at. Levi steps closer, cupping my jaw with his hand. “No one else.”
“I mean it. I’m not possessive about much in life, but if you make me this promise, I wouldn’t put it past me to punch a girl for touching you.”
“That’s a high compliment coming from you, Aimee Landry.” He grins.
I reach up, wrapping my arms around his thick shoulders. Everything about this man is carved to absolute perfection. But it’s his words that knock me out at the knees.
Levi leans in and brushes his lips against mine. “That last letter I sent when I was in the Marines—the one you never responded to—I asked you a question. Did you get it?”
I shake my head. “No. What did you ask?”
“I asked…” He drops down to a knee in front of me, and my heart nearly stops.
“If it’s possible to know someone is your soulmate without so much as kissing them?
If it’s possible to know someone is meant to be your wife without ever having taken them to bed?
Because as much as I love touching you, that’s not why I fell in love with you.
You’re my best friend—my mirror in a lot of ways. You’re my other half.”
“Why are you kneeling when you say that?” My eyes burn with tears I’m holding back .
“Because I figured out the answer to my own question when I came back and you were gone. When my soulmate was missing from my life, and I spent the next decade as an empty shell of a man. You want to know if you’re mine and I’m yours, then let me prove it.
I’m not going to slow down, and I’m not holding back like we used to.
I want you to be my old lady and my wife. I want you to marry me.”
The smile that climbs my cheeks is so big it hurts. “Is there a question in that long rambling speech because I’m pretty sure all I heard was a demand?”
He shakes his head, unfazed. “Firecracker.”
Levi kisses the back of my hand and then reaches into his pocket, pulling out a simple ring. It’s an infinity band with no diamonds, like I prefer. And carved on the inside it says: Except us .
Because nothing is infinite except—
“Will you marry me, Aimee Landry?” Levi is already slipping the ring on my finger as I say, “Yes.”
He sweeps me off my feet and into his arms as he stands.
“Levi.” I shriek as he spins us around and sits me on his motorcycle to stand between my legs. The firmness of his cock presses to my core. “I thought this wasn’t about sex. Wasn’t that the whole point of your fancy speech?”
“That’s how it started.” He grins. “But now that you let me touch you, I’m an addicted man.”
“Well then, by all means. Please us both.” I unbutton my pants, and he quickly strips them off .
“Yes, ma’am.” The fire in his eyes as he releases his cock and thrusts deep unbinds any tension sitting in my shoulders.
I’m floating in space.
Levi fucks me on his motorcycle, and I’m exactly what he calls me: his firecracker.
I’m sparking. Flames in the sky. I’m exploding at the faintest touch and impossible to contain.
My nails dig into his thick forearms as he fucks me harder. He sweeps one leg up onto his shoulder, cradling my body so I don’t fall. But there’s still too much distance. So I tug his cut until he leans down to claim my mouth.
My hips shift with the angle, and I’m screaming, barely muffled by his lips pressed to mine. I’m falling apart. Drowning in the promises I never thought would come to pass.
A cloud moves in the sky, and the sun beams over us. Maybe it’s the universe opening its eyes and deciding we’ve fought hard enough. We’ve hurt deep enough . Maybe now we can have this bit of the future I thought I’d been denied.
Tomorrow might still fall apart, but I have this moment.
I’ll have Levi’s heart, and he has mine.
Levi strikes me so deeply that a squeak comes out, and he pauses. “You okay?”
“Wonderful.” I grab the back of his hair. “Don’t start treating me like I’m fragile now, or I’ll decline your proposal. ”
He grins, nipping at my jaw. “Can’t take it back now, firecracker. There’s no escaping me.”
With a swift spin, he pulls out and folds me over his bike, thrusting back in.
His fingers dig into the back of my scalp as he pulls my hair, arching my back. Like he knows exactly what I need from him right now. To be lost in everything that is him. Until nothing exists apart from him claiming me, body and soul.
“Are you going to scream for me, Aimee?”
I bite my lower lip, defiant, just to see what he’ll do about it. “Make me.”
Those two words gain me exactly what I’m looking for. He tugs my hair harder and thrusts deep until I can’t muffle the scream ripping from my chest.
Levi chuckles, smacking me on the ass. “Your defiance just makes me harder.”
He spits, and I feel it trickle down my ass, over the tight hole as he presses his thumb to it.
“Are you going to be my good girl?” He slowly works his thumb into my ass while stroking deep with his cock.
“Levi.”
“Havoc.” He smacks my ass again.
“Havoc.”
“Good girl.” He soothes that spot. “Now let me hear how much you love this.”
He spits again, thrusting his thumb into my ass at the same time as he fills me with his cock, and there’s no more holding back. I’m exploding at every nerve ending. I’m so full there’s nowhere to contain the scream that tears from my lungs.
My nails dig into his bike, which rocks beneath me as he fucks me hard. And my screams fill the desert as I fall apart. The climax that rips through me has no beginning or end. My knees buckle, and Levi is all that holds me to this earth.
To my body.
I’m floating as he presses forward, his movements uneven as he chases his release. Making me completely full, to the point where I can’t think or swallow past the air flooding my lungs.
Levi comes with a growl, filling me until he’s dripping out. Only once we both settle does he lift off me. He spins me around so I can once more sit on his bike. But I’m out of breath, clutching his shirt and burying my forehead against his chest.
At a distance, motorcycles are coming and going from the compound. Close enough that anyone standing outside might have heard what we just did. At least we’re far enough away that they couldn’t have seen anything clearly.
My body hums as Levi holds me against his chest. The pulse of my release still thrums between my legs. From the corner of my eye, I catch a flicker of the sun reflecting on the ring he gave me.
Old lady.
Wife .
I focus on those promises and the hope of a tomorrow with him. Until the seconds pass and reality settles. Until tension returns to both of us.
All of this could slip away if we aren’t careful. Levi is smart, but Titan is manipulative. Which one will win out in the end? When does the universe decide I’ve been given too many chances?
At least I have this moment. This day. This promise.
I hold that close to my chest, and I let that be enough.
“I love you,” I whisper, not daring to look up at him.
He’d see the panic in my eyes. Sense my confidence starting to slip.
He rests his chin on my forehead. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s goodbye.”