Chapter Twelve
McKelle
I hated sleeping alone at the MC. But I hated sleeping at home more. Being in Cruz’s bed somehow made me feel closer to Ryatt. Maybe because he belonged here with us.
Cruz’s motorcycle rumbled outside the window.
Early morning light seeped through the crack in the blackout curtains.
When Cruz worked at night, he needed the room dark and quiet during the day to sleep.
But not today. I couldn’t sleep because we’d finally been approved for weekly in-person visitation.
Butterflies flitted in my tummy. Two weeks didn’t seem long unless the separation was forced. We’d had a couple of video calls with Ryatt, but I ached to be in the same room with him, to smell him, to have my skin touching his.
After a couple of minutes, voices sounded from the hall, then the door quietly opened.
Fabric rustled as Cruz stripped out of his clothes.
Metal clanked as he set his gun on the dresser.
It was still strange to see him in anything but jeans and his cut.
But working for the Brunos required him to wear black pants and business casual shirts, and a business casual jacket.
No cuts. No jeans. He didn’t have to wear a suit, but he had to blend in with the family.
I understood what he meant by family. My boyfriend worked for the mafia.
He slid into bed, naked, and I curled against his side.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep,” he said as he banded his arm around me. “What if he changes his mind about us?”
I trailed my fingers over his chest. “He won’t.” Because being apart from him left all of us completely unhinged. Part of me was with him. And I believed him when he said he thought about us.
When he admitted he wanted both of us.
We had fifteen-minute phone calls every afternoon, and Cruz had been putting money on Ryatt’s books. Neither would allow me to help. Something my dad said to Cruz had changed him.
Cruz spent last Saturday volunteering at the track. I hadn’t raced. Not without Ryatt. Cruz had also come over on Sunday for dinner. He’d sat at the table and talked to my dad about bikes, work, and Ryatt.
Cruz was frustrated with the lack of information. Until Ryatt had a court date, nothing would change. And nothing was the same without him. Including us. I pressed my lips to Cruz’s torso. He weaved his fingers into my hair.
I lifted my face. “I hate this,” I whispered. “I miss him.”
“Me, too.” Cruz curved his strong fingers around my neck and brought my mouth to his. Warm breath caressed my lips. With gentle pressure, he rolled me to my back. Then he sat back, snagged the edge of my panties and tugged them down my legs. “Ice cream down on Washington street.”
This was how we kept Ryatt with us in bed. We talked about the things we’d do once he was out. “Ice cream in bed,” I countered, “with whip cream. Caramel.”
“And two big bananas.”
I smiled, and Cruz used his knees to nudge my thighs open. My pulse quickened, and a thread of apprehension slithered along my spine because it wasn’t just the two of us anymore. “Do you ever feel guilty?”
He stilled. “Every fucking day. He’s there because of me.”
I traced the arch of his brow. Ryatt didn’t blame Cruz. He caught charges because he’d associated with users and bangers. Without Cruz, he would’ve died in that vile bathroom. “I meant about us.”
“No, Micki, not about this. And you never have to feel guilty for thinking of him when you’re with me. I think about him, too.”
This was us without Ryatt. Stripped bare and aching for him.
Cruz’s tongue touched the seam of my lips, then slipped past my teeth.
He didn’t just kiss me. He consumed me. I breathed in the warm scent of his skin, tasted the cigarettes and sin on his tongue, and I desperately needed the hard length of his cock inside me.
I clung to his shoulders and arched my back.
“Please,” I whimpered. “I need you.” I needed him to heal the hurt in my heart.
“How do you want it? Slow and filthy or a hard, fast fuck?”
“Fuck me so hard it hurts.”
Cruz leaned over and plucked a condom from the nightstand. We’d both been cleared at the clinic, but we’d made a promise to Ryatt. Until we were all together, Cruz would wear rubbers.
Heat bloomed low in my groin and rushed to my core. My hips canted instinctively wanting his weight against me. My inner muscles flexed, anticipating the stretch of his cock filling me.
Cruz rolled the condom over his dick, then settled between my thighs. His cock was thick and hard, and when he thrust deep inside of me, sparks of pleasure erupted over my skin.
Within my core, my inner muscles quivered and tightened, gloving to his shaft as he reared back, and then pounded deep again, grinding hard against my clit. I cupped his ass and raised my thighs high on his flanks.
Every thrust of his cock forced the fear from my thoughts. Nothing could be wrong when Cruz was inside me. He fucked me harder, slamming his cock into me again and again.
And then he rolled his hips and nailed me to the bed. The springs squeaked and the frame knocked against the wall. I clawed at his shoulders, hanging on as he fucked me up the bed.
“I need you, Cruz. I need this.”
“You got me, Micki.” His lips slid along my neck, sucking my flesh, marking me as his. My inner walls squeezed his cock as pressure built. Every nerve in my body electrified, sizzling and snapping as he fucked me.
Cream soaked my channel. Sweat slicked my skin. And he penetrated my body again. And again. Riding me harder. Faster. He stole my breath as he set a rhythm that shattered me into a million sparkling pieces. Every muscle in my body seized. I trembled and quaked.
I whispered his name over and over again as I clung to him, absorbing the impact of his thrusts as he unleashed on me.
A feral growl exploded out of him, and he tightened his hold on me.
I could feel every violent pulse inside me as he came hard, cursing my name in a way that seeped into the darkest parts of my soul.
After the last fluttering pulse, he collapsed next to me. Too tired to leave the bed, he slipped the condom off and dropped it on the floor. With the scent of sex saturating the air, he curved around me and buried his face in my neck.
“I need you, too,” he whispered.
Once Cruz’s soft snores filled the room, I slipped out of bed, disposed of the condom, and pulled on jeans and a hoodie. With my phone in my hand, I migrated into the chapel for coffee.
The MC was quiet. Blue and Steele sat at a table near the open doors. Crisp morning air drifted into the room. Sunlight slashed across the old wooden floor.
“Morning,” Steele said to me and then tipped his cup to finish his coffee. “I’m late. Gotta meet with Lili’s teacher. Not a good look to be tardy.” He chuckled as he walked behind the bar and rinsed his cup. “Catch you later,” he said to Blue and slipped mirrored sunglasses over his eyes.
Once I grabbed a cup of coffee, I sat next to Blue. He shifted on his chair and glanced over his shoulder to the back bedrooms. Since the night he’d confessed to killing Sam, things had been different between us.
“I haven’t seen Kiss,” I said.
“She’s at a meeting. She hates going because she says it’s not the same without Ryatt. But she knows she needs to stay connected to the program.”
That only explained this morning. She’d changed. Or maybe it was me. We didn’t play pool or hang out. She avoided me, and I didn’t want to push her. Something changed when you knew someone’s secrets. I missed the connection we had. “I miss her, Blue.”
“She has a way of making everything her fault. She sees you hurting, and she feels responsible.”
We sipped our coffee in silence. Traffic rumbled from the street.
“That’s fucked up,” I finally said. “If I’m hurting, her ass should be here commiserating with me.” Just as I’d been there for her. “She’s being a shitty friend.”
He smiled. “Want me to drag her over tonight so you can tell her?”
“Yes. Bring pizza and ice cream because we’re going to cry it out until we’re both in a food coma and back to being best friends.”
“Sounds like girl bonding. Does Cruz work tonight?”
I sighed. “He works every night.” Not only was he paying on Ryatt’s R1, but he worked out a deal with Dozer on a Harley. Ryatt didn’t know it yet, but he’d become part of the MC.
“Cruz seems to like working for the Brunos,” Blue said.
“He does. I don’t know what they have him doing. I think it’s better I don’t know.”
He circled the rim of his coffee mug with his fingertip. “How’s Ryatt doing?”
“He asks about Kiss when we talk. If it would help her, I can ask him to use one of his phone calls to reach out.” Those fifteen minutes were all I had, but Kiss’s sobriety was important to Ryatt, and it was important to me.
Blue smiled. “She’d appreciate the thought, but she wouldn’t accept the call. If she only had fifteen minutes a day with me, you’d have to fight to the death to get her to give up even one of those minutes.”
My phone buzzed on the table. I flipped it over. “It’s Ryatt,” I said breathlessly. My heartbeat escalated and a kaleidoscope of butterflies exploded in my belly. My finger trembled as I slid it across the accept call bar.
Blue walked toward the bedrooms, and I jogged up to the pool table platform and curled into the corner of the couch. There was always a second or two of silence before the recorded message from the jail came through. I pressed one to accept.
“Hi, baby.”
Tears filled my eyes with the sound of his voice. “Hi,” I squeaked out with emotions balling up in my throat. “I didn’t think you were going to call today.”
We’d be up to visit him this afternoon.
“I only have a few minutes. When you come to visiting, we won’t be alone.” He didn’t have to say the words for me to know he wasn’t talking about Cruz being with us. There would be guards and potentially other inmates.
“I don’t care as long as I can touch you.”