Chapter 16 #2
The answer leaves me before fear can edit it. Varina’s eyes sharpen, and for one second, she looks so much like Canon that it hurts more than frightens me.
“This isn’t over, Oisín.”
Saint’s hand appears on the back of my chair before either of us speaks again. I don’t know how he crosses the room so quietly for a man his size, but suddenly he’s there, looming behind me with his attention on Varina.
“He said no.”
Varina’s eyes flick up to him. “This is family.”
Saint’s thumb brushes once against the chair back. “Not anymore.”
Varina’s face changes. She looks at me and I see the hurt under the rage. Then Canon calls my name from near the side door, and the moment breaks.
“Oisín. Outside.”
Saint’s hand stills behind me.
Canon doesn’t wait to see if I’ll obey. He turns and walks toward the lot like the command is already attached to my spine. It almost works. Habit pulls at me, my feet moving before I fully decide to stand.
Saint’s fingers close around my wrist, stopping me, his expression unreadable. “You don’t have to.”
The room feels too full of ears, though, and not going feels like a death sentence.
“I know,” I say, though I don’t know if that’s true yet. “I’ll be fine.”
It takes another minute for Saint to let me go before he just nods, my feet taking me toward the one man who never saw me until another club took interest.
Varina follows despite not being asked, and Rook trails behind her like a shadow with fists.
The lot is mostly empty, though two Obsidian prospects linger near the far gate pretending to check something on a bike.
Canon stops beside his bike and turns on me with the expression he used to wear when I was younger and had disappointed him by existing too visibly.
“You’ve been inside a week,” he says. “I want details.”
I stand with my hands at my sides. “Good morning to you too.”
Varina’s eyes flick toward me, startled, but Canon’s face only hardens.
“This isn’t a joke, son.”
I hold back a bitter laugh. He hasn’t called me his son in nearly twenty years. “No, it really isn’t.”
“What have you seen?”
I take a breath. “A lot of men eating breakfast at an uncomfortable wedding.”
Rook scoffs. “Cute.”
Canon steps closer. “Don’t be difficult.”
A week ago, that tone would have folded me around the edges.
I feel the old shape waiting inside me, the instinct to lower my eyes, soften my voice, make myself useful enough to survive the next five minutes.
But Saint’s cut is on my back, Saint’s signature is beside mine, and Canon had looked me in the face not long ago and called my usefulness a consolation prize.
“No,” I say.
Canon stills. “No?”
“No, I’m not giving you details.”
Varina lets out a sharp breath. “Oisín.”
I look at her. “You asked me once. I answered.”
Canon’s gaze cuts to her. “You spoke to him?”
Varina’s expression closes too late.
Rook mutters, “For fuck’s sake.”
Canon turns back to me, anger gathering in the lines around his mouth. “You think because Masters put a ring on this and leather on your back, you stop being blood?”
“I think blood didn’t seem to matter much until I was on the other side of the room.”
Canon’s hand lifts. It isn’t even high enough to strike yet. Just the beginning of movement, the old threat my body knows before my mind has time to name it. I go still, and I hate myself for the way my shoulders tighten.
A throat clears a few feet away and everyone looks over. Saint is just a few feet away, one hand in his pocket, the other twirling a small box in his hand. I don’t know how long he’s been there. Long enough, though his eyes are on Canon’s raised hand.
“Finish that motion,” he says, “and I’ll break it in three places before your boy there clears leather.”
Rook’s hand twitches toward his cut.
Bricks appears behind Saint like he was grown from the shadow of the building itself. “I’d rethink that.”
Canon lowers his hand slowly. Saint walks forward, unhurried, the lot seeming to shrink around him with every step.
He reaches me, catches my wrist, and pulls me out of the circle of Rogues with enough force to make the statement clear and enough care not to hurt.
Then he turns, placing himself slightly in front of me without fully blocking my view.
“Canon,” he muses, his tone almost pleasant, “Oisín is no longer a Rogue, no longer your son in any way that gives you authority, and no longer your problem. He’s wearing an Obsidian cut, and he’s my husband, which makes him mine.”
Canon’s face darkens. “You don’t get to erase blood because of paperwork.”
“You were fine reducing him to paperwork when it got you paid.” A wild smile splits across his lips as he pulls me to his side and stuffs the small box he was holding into my hand. “I only came outside because I was forgetting something. You can’t exactly be my husband without a ring can you?”
I just stare at him and then the small velvety box. There’s no way there’s an actual ring in there as Saint continues to tell my father off.
“The fact that you’re trying to drag information out of him while he’s literally standing on our turf moments after the wedding? That’s stupid as fuck even for you.”
Canon opens his mouth, but no answer comes out fast enough.
Saint laughs softly. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re a sore loser because you’re realizing how valuable the thing you lost is. Too bad. You had twenty-seven years to know what he was worth, and you wasted every one of them.”
Varina steps forward. “You’re a little bitch who couldn’t handle the original agreement.”
Saint turns so quickly the air seems to move with him. I catch his hand, my fingers wrapping around his. His hand closes around mine at once, squeezing tight.
Then he smiles at Varina. “Varina, it would never have been you in my clubhouse.”
Her face goes still.
Saint’s voice remains calm, which makes it worse.
“We’re two raging fires. We clash, we burn, and everything nearby would pay for it.
I can see now you had a plan for Obsidian.
Smart enough on paper. Get inside, learn the structure, find the seams, feed your father what he needs to turn alliance into takeover. ”
Varina’s jaw locks. “You don’t know shit.”
“I know enough.” Saint’s hand tightens around mine.
“If anything moves against us in the near future, I’ll assume it was Rogue.
If a shipment goes soft, if a buyer starts talking, if someone gets curious about a door they shouldn’t know exists, I won’t waste time asking who whispered first. I’ll come to your table and start removing people until the whispers stop. ”
The lot goes very quiet.
Canon’s face has gone red under the control he’s trying to hold. “You threatening an allied club on your wedding morning?”
“No,” Saint says. “I’m clarifying the terms.”
He turns without waiting for dismissal and guides me back toward the clubhouse. Bricks stays behind us long enough to make sure Rook doesn’t get ambitious, then follows with a low, pleased laugh.
Every conversation dies as Saint pulls me through the door. Sol looks up from his seat with one brow lifted, cigar now back between his fingers like the room had finally become interesting enough to deserve smoke.
Saint doesn’t release my hand. “Party’s over.”
Moth sets his coffee down. “Issue?”
“Seems the Rogues are using this alliance as a way to take over Obsidian.”
The room erupts in murmurs before Sol laughs.
“I told you, son.”
Saint looks at him, and the laugh fades from everyone else before Sol’s does. “Actually, my husband didn’t say shit. Canon and Varina, though? They’re the ones you need to be wary of.”
Sol’s eyes flick briefly to me, then back to Saint. I don’t know what my face looks like. I only know my hand is still in Saint’s and my heart is nearly beating out of my chest.
Saint’s smile sharpens as he drags my hand up to his lips. “Now, excuse me. I’m going to go enjoy my wedding afternoon or whatever bullshit the kids are calling it these days.”
I don’t speak until we’re inside his room again, the door shut behind us. Then my mouth catches up with my fear. “You’re going to fuck me right now?”
Saint bursts out laughing as he meets my gaze but there’s no brutality in it. He releases my hand, drags both palms over his face, and drops onto the bed like the morning has finally put weight in his bones.
“No. I’m too tired for that shit.”
I stare at him, thrown so badly that I forget to be embarrassed. “Oh.”
His eyes move over me from the bed, dark enough to make the relief in my body turn traitorous. “However.”
My stomach flips. “However?”
“You are going to sit on my face and scream like the pretty man you are.”
Heat floods me so fast I can feel it in my ears. “Saint.”
He grins and lies back fully, one arm folded behind his head like he hasn’t just detonated an alliance breakfast and threatened half my bloodline in a parking lot. “What?”
“I’ve never...” The words fail because I don’t even know how to finish them without my face catching fire. “Why?”
“Because you’re mine,” he muses, “and I want everyone in this clubhouse to fucking hear it.” Saint’s grin widens. “Now come sit on my face.”
I start to strip slowly, hands shaking as I hesitate on the shirt, a low, aggravated sigh pulling from his throat.
“Jesus, Sín. I said sit, not put on a goddamn show. Get over here before I drag you.”
The impatience in his voice makes my stomach flip.
I yank the shirt off, shove my pants and underwear down my legs, and climb onto the bed.
My thighs tremble as I swing one leg over his chest, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his head.
Saint’s hands lock onto my ass immediately, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he drags me forward until I’m hovering right over his mouth.
“Look at you,” he growls, breath hot against my hole. “Already ready for it.”
His tongue spears into me without warning.
A sharp and broken cry pulls from me, my hands flying to the headboard to keep myself upright.
Saint doesn’t ease in. He fucks me with his tongue, licking and thrusting while his hands spread me wider.
The wet, obscene sounds fill the room, louder than the blood rushing in my ears.
“Keep your hands on the headboard, Sín,” he snarls against my skin. “Don’t you fucking let go. And don’t hold back your sounds. I want you so fucking loud your father hears every single one.”
The rational part of me knows that Canon would have left already but…
I moan helplessly as he spears his tongue deeper, curling it, devouring me like he’s starving. My cock is rock-hard and leaking against my stomach. Saint’s grip on my ass tightens, pulling me down harder onto his face, and I can’t stop the broken cries spilling out of me.
“Saint—oh fuck—Saint—”
He wraps one big hand around my cock and strokes me in time with his tongue, his thumb swiping over the slick head on every upstroke. The dual assault is too much. My thighs shake violently, my hips jerking as I ride his tongue and fist.
“I’m—fuck—I’m gonna—”
I come with a shattered scream, painting the headboard in thick ropes while my ass clenches hard around his tongue. Saint keeps licking me through it until I’m trembling and oversensitive.
I sag forward, forehead pressed to the cool wood. A few seconds later I feel the hot splash of Saint’s come across my back. His hand presses there, smearing it into my skin in slow, possessive strokes like he’s marking me inside and out.
I pull off his face on shaky limbs, still trembling, and collapse beside him. Saint grins up at me, lips shiny and swollen, eyes dark with satisfaction.
“Well, husband,” he muses, his voice rough, “I definitely think any lingering Rogues will have gotten the hint after that.”
I cover my face with both hands, mortified. “How the fuck am I supposed to face your club tomorrow?”
Saint laughs, the sound full of every filthy thing he still wants to do to me, and drags me closer until I’m half on top of him. “If you don’t think they haven’t already heard you over the last week, you’re wrong. You make a lot of pretty sounds, Sín.”
He presses a kiss to my temple, then nips at my ear before reaching over to the side of the bed where I discarded my clothes. He pops back up and produces the small velvet box before flipping it open, revealing two thin silver rings.
My eyes widen as Saint pulls one out and grabs my hand to slide it on to my ring finger. I just stare at it, seconds later, Saint thrusting the box at me and holding out his own hand. “What…”
“We’re making it official. I’m not letting anyone else get stupid with you, Sín.”
I carefully pull the ring out and slide it onto Saint’s finger, the man crushing his hand around mine and dragging me into a filthy kiss. “You sweet, sweet sin.”