Chapter Eight #2
“I didn’t know I’d feel like this.” She threaded her fingers into the hair at the back of my neck. “Don’t make me choose.”
“Could I?” I asked her. “Would you give him up if I asked you to?”
Her eyes slid closed. When she opened them again, her blueish-green eyes darkened with unshed tears. “Yes, but you’d break me. I’d have to let you both go.”
“Would you feel the same if he asked?”
“Yes.” She sank her teeth into her trembling lip. “My heart hurts. You’re right. Every time I’m with you, he’ll hurt. And you’ll grow to hate me, too. He’ll feel the way I do when I think of you with anyone else.”
I cupped her cheek and forced her to look at me.
“There is no one else. Never again. It fucking guts me to know I’m the reason you cry.
If anyone treated you the way I have, I’d fucking kick their ass.
I get it. I’m all in. You’re so fucking deep inside me.
But I see it when you’re with him. He’s gotten inside you.
I know you don’t want to let go of him either.
He gives you something I can’t. He fits in with you and your family in a way I never will. ”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m telling you that I won’t make you choose. You’re all I need, but there’s room for Ryatt in our relationship. I can’t give you everything you deserve. I’m broken, baby, but all my pieces are yours.”
“I need you, too. You’re so messed up, but I’m here for it.
” She crashed her lips against mine and kissed me filthy.
Her tongue was in my mouth, tasting, controlling, claiming me as hers.
Her fingers curled into my shirt. “Don’t let me go, Cruz.
No matter what I say when we’re fighting, I need you. ”
I fisted her hair, angled her head back, and slid my tongue along her neck. “This is what you need from me.”
“Always.”
She kissed me again, a temporary truce. Maybe we didn’t make sense to anyone else, but this was us.
“Your dad is right outside those doors. I don’t want to give him another reason to get his gun when he sees how I fuck his daughter.”
The first hint of a smile tilted her lips. She slid off my lap. “Don’t mention sex and my dad in the same sentence.”
I rested a hand on her thigh. “You need to talk to Ryatt.”
“I will.” Her whispered words didn’t sound convincing.
“McKelle, you need to come clean to him.”
“I told him I still have feelings for you.”
“But then you fucked him. If he knows you, he knows that means something. I don’t know what it meant for him, but he needs to know there’s no option that doesn’t include me in your life.”
“Last night just happened.” Her voice lowered. “We didn’t use anything.”
“Fuck.” I leaned my head back. Pressure built behind my eyes. Knowing she’d developed feelings for him hurt. Her giving him something we’d only shared once was a hard punch to the throat. I couldn’t swallow down the regret, and I couldn’t mask the bitter taste in my mouth.
Maybe I wasn’t as ready to share her as I thought.
“Are you mad?”
“No.” I bent forward and braced my forearms on my thighs. “Not mad.” But the consequences of what I’d done in the past were hard to accept. “Mistakes like that can’t happen.”
“I know.”
“Not for you and me either. If it’s not going to be just us, we have two options. You have to promise me that nothing happens without our boy putting on a condom. Or we all get tested, and if he touches anyone else while he’s with us, I’m burying him out on Bullet’s property.”
“There are all kinds of questions in that statement.”
“Not now. Just tell me, is he wrapping up or are we getting tested?”
“I didn’t plan for last night. I think we should all get tested.”
I released a heavy exhale. She’d fallen hard and fast, and I was figuring out how he fit with us. Because I never wanted there to be a Ryatt and McKelle without me. “You trust him?”
“I do, and I trust you.” She curled her fingers around my neck and pulled my lips to hers. The soft pad of her tongue and the steel knob of her piercing glazed across my lips. I hissed, collared her throat, and pushed my tongue into the sweet wetness of her mouth.
A nearly silent whimper slipped from her as she kissed me back.
“Come to the MC tonight.”
“I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t know how he’s going to react to us.”
I didn’t know either and there was only one way to find out.
“He needs to know the truth before anything else happens between us, and before anything happens between you and him.”
After I said goodbye to McKelle and kept my promise to Cece, saying goodbye to her, too, I headed over to the MC. Brenna was the only one in the clubhouse.
“Pike is over at Crew Custom Cycle. He picked up a bike from Lee. Once he drops it off at the shop, he’s going to bring the hearse back.
I found some furniture online. We’re going to go pick it up.
We can’t move into the trailer until the first of the month, so my mom is going to let us store it in her basement. ”
“Do you need some help?” The hearse was a flatbed truck the club used on long rides to haul dead bikes and supplies. But it had hauled a few dead bodies and stolen car parts when we used to go midnight shopping for Lee’s salvage yard.
“Maybe. You’ll have to ask Pike.”
“I’m going over there now.” Because I wanted to talk to Romeo before I spoke with Ryatt again.
I headed out the door, climbed onto my bike, and rolled out of the MC lot.
The electronic fence closed behind me. Did Ryatt even have the code for the gate?
Probably not. At some point today, we were supposed to meet up here.
For all I knew, he could’ve come and gone when he couldn’t get into the property. Not like he could call.
Which made me think of the last night at Chrome. Before I asked the board to vote on him becoming a prospect, they had to know the situation with the Kings.
I rode around to the back of the strip mall. Crew Custom Cycle occupied the last two units. Stormy had opened a dance studio next to Wild Ink, Hana’s tattoo shop.
Dozer and Romeo sat on plastic lawn chairs at a small bistro table next to the back door. Once I parked my bike, I joined them.
“What the fuck happened last night?” Dozer clamped a cigarette between his lips.
I plopped down in a chair and my gaze locked on Romeo because he was the one with an investment in my relationship. Ryatt. “McKelle and I got back together.”
I waited for Romeo’s reaction, but the only indication he heard me was a tick in his jaw.
“I’m not surprised.” Dozer rolled the cherry of his cigarette in the ashtray. “But I was talking about Ryatt. He bounced and next thing I know, you and McKelle are off in a corner talking.”
“There was a situation, and he had to leave.”
Romeo huffed a breath. “Were you the situation? Take it from me, getting rid of Ryatt won’t make McKelle yours.”
“I’m not trying to get rid of him.” A twisted part of me wanted him in my relationship with McKelle.
“Don’t ask me to explain.” Because before last night, I’d hated him.
“Some shit went down last night at Chrome. We need to talk to Ryatt. Just the three of us. We need to talk before Friday night at church.”
“What’s going on?” Dozer asked.
“He wants to prospect for the club.” I turned to Romeo. “But I’m going to be his sponsor.”
Romeo chuckled. “You and Ryatt? When did that happen?”
“Last night, when we were with McKelle.”
Romeo and Dozer glanced at each other. They wouldn’t need X-ray vision to see through the statement. They had a history of spit roasting Pippa, back before Romeo went all in with Levi, and Pippa tamed the dark monster lurking in Dozer.
Not that I expected a threesome with Ryatt and McKelle, but listening to her come apart with Ryatt had hit hard.
I’d felt the impact from my chest to my balls.
I didn’t just want to be a voyeur. I wanted my hands and mouth on her, and I wanted to smell his cologne on her skin while my dick was inside her.
For now, I’d settle for her dating both of us. With the way Ryatt stared at me last night, he wasn’t comfortable with whatever was playing out in his thoughts either.
I stared at Romeo. “Ryatt and I already have this thing with McKelle between us. I don’t want you and the MC between us, too.”
“Do you think you’re ready for the responsibility?” Dozer asked. “Your fingers are still sore from sewing on your colors.”
I tugged on a thread from the worn knee of my jeans. “I’m not too arrogant to think I won’t have questions.”
“I’m good with it,” Romeo said. “Friday night at church.”
“You need to talk to him first. He’s got a situation he’s dealing with.”
Romeo rubbed at a grease stain on his knuckle. “And he talked to you about it?”
“He didn’t have a choice,” I mumbled. “Have you seen him?”
“Not since last night,” Romeo said. “He’s not answering his phone. My calls are going straight to voicemail.”
“Fuck. Dude, he lost it last night on his bike. I was hoping he’d swung by here.”
“He does deliveries on his bike.” Romeo pulled out his phone.
“Not without his service moving over to McKelle’s old phone.”
The steel back door popped open. “Pike is here with the bike from Lee. He’s coming around,” Jazzy said, just as the hearse came around the building and pulled up to the roll door of the bay.
“Come check it out,” Dozer said to me and Romeo. He jumped onto the flatbed as Pike opened the driver’s side door.
“I don’t know what you said to Lee, but he wasn’t his usual friendly self.” Pike loosened the strap holding the bike down. “Said you’re blackmailing him.”
“More like extortion,” Dozer said. “He wanted to charge me ten grand for a totaled ride.”
“We can get ten out of her once she’s running.” Romeo stared down at the red and black Heritage classic.
“Lee thought he’d fuck me over because of the work we used to do for him. I made sure he understood I’d be back for more than bikes if he tried to fuck me over again. We decided three was fair.”
“Got the title?” Romeo asked Pike, and Pike nodded.
“I’ll help you unload her,” I said.