Epilogue
Dahlia
I t had been six months since Rocky had died. Six long months that should have been the hardest of my life. I hadn’t been certain who I was without Rocky and the life that we had shared. Yet Bear had been by my side through it all. Every morning he was outside my house, bringing me coffee and bagels, and every evening he kissed me goodnight before leaving. There was no pressure with him. No urgency, barring my own. He had been the perfect gentleman, just like I had remembered him to be all those years ago.
But now I was the one that was done waiting.
He’d given me space, and that man loved to give a woman space, but I could feel his hunger for me growing with every kiss and every touch and I knew he was desperately waiting for me to give the okay.
And tonight was it.
He’d been on a run with the club all day, and I had been at the clubhouse with Natalie, helping to look after the kids. It was JoJo’s birthday, and she was turning eight, so we’d invited some of her classmates and hired some entertainers for her, and now kids were running around with balloon swords and poodles.
I smiled as I watched the scene in front of me, wishing I hadn’t shut myself off from all of this for so long. The club wasn’t what I had thought it was. I had no doubt that not everything they did was legal, and they had enough bars, tattoo shops, and strip clubs for a Las Vegas promenade, but they did good too, and I could finally see it.
“Hey,” Bear said, coming up behind me. He kissed the top of my bare shoulder, and I leaned back into him, breathing in his scent of leather and diesel.
“Hey,” I replied. “Everything go okay?”
He grunted a yes, and I knew he couldn’t say too much about it. Rocky had been gone for six months, and in that time we had discovered a lot of things that he had been involved in. Guilt bloomed every time the club uncovered something new, but no one blamed me for any of it, and they tried to keep me away from the worst of it as much as they could.
I was excited and nervous, and curious about my future here. About the club and the wives and girlfriends of the men here, and about Bear and I, and what the future held for us. But for the first time in a long time, it was exciting. Life felt full of something that seemed exciting.
“You wanna get out of here?” he asked, placing another kiss on my shoulder.
“Sure, let me go say goodbye to Natalie and I’ll meet you out front.”
Natalie was stacking the leftover paper cups and paper plates while Sophie scraped the leftover food into a garbage bag. We hadn’t stopped all day and we were all exhausted from it, but both of them were mothers, and their shifts weren’t over yet.
They smiled as I got close and stopped to say goodbye to me. Natalie was Moose’s wife, and Sophie was Ride’s girlfriend. They both had kids—little rambunctious boys that never seemed to slow down. You could already see that they were the future of the club. Already wanting to ride.
“You going?” Sophie asked, pushing her blonde hair away from her face.
“Yeah, I think we’re going on a ride before he takes me home,” I said.
Natalie grinned wider. “And then another ride?”
All of us started to laugh and I dragged a hand down my face and looked around to make sure no one had heard me.
Natalie placed a hand on my arm. “Oh, quit worrying. No one here is listening to the cackle of women.”
“But tonight is the night, right?” Sophie said, eager for information.
I nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I’m ready and I think he is too.”
Both women started to laugh. “Girl, he has been ready since day one. I’m surprised he can straddle that bike of his because of his—”
“Stop,” I laughed cutting her off. “Oh my God, what are you like!”
I hugged them both and took off to the front of the clubhouse where Bear was waiting, his bike rumbling between his thighs. He pulled me to him when I got within reach, and he kissed me hard on the mouth, leaving me breathless and wanting.
“I got a good spot to take you to tonight. Gotta be quick, though, or the sun will have set already.”
We had been watching the sunset every night since we had kissed, a throwback to when we had been kids and would sit on the roof of his apartment and watch the sun go down. It was our way of embracing both our future and our past.
“I was actually thinking that maybe we could just go back to your place tonight,” I said.
He looked confused, and then realization lit his eyes and he nodded. He kissed me again, harder this time, and I kissed him back with just as much passion, letting him know that I was ready.
We rode to his house, and despite our urgency Bear took it slow, going around the curves of the road with a slickness and ease of a man that was hungry for the next bite of pie but wanted to draw out the temptation of it a little while longer. By the time we arrived at his house, my chest was heaving and butterflies swirled in my belly with anticipation.
Bear helped me off the bike, and then he held my hand as he guided me into his home and into his bedroom. We stood momentarily, looking at each other as the sun set through the window to his bedroom. His house was on a small hillside, overlooking the mountains. It was a view I was looking forward to seeing every morning and every night once my house sale finalized and I moved in here.
Bear stroked his hand through my short hair, his gaze never leaving mine. His fingers were hot and every touch of them on my skin felt like he was branding me. I hummed with need and pleasure as he traced his fingers down my collarbone and down my side, and I reached for him, desperate for more of him.
Bear’s breath mingled with mine while the glow of the setting sun cast a soft light over our skin as he stripped me of the short cotton dress I was wearing and then pulled his T-shirt over his head.
I reached for his jeans, unbuckling them without breaking eye contact, and then I pushed them down his thick thighs. We stripped of every inch of clothing that separated us, seeing each other like it was the first time, both mesmerized by the curves and dips of each other’s full-grown bodies.
He stroked a finger down between my breasts, making my nipples harden and goosebumps break out across my skin.
“Just like old times,” he said, raising his eyes to look at me coyly, and I smirked at him, remembering how he used to love to do that to me. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
I bit down on my lower lip before releasing it. I stroked a hand down his hard chest, running my palm over the ridges of his muscles.
“Not too bad yourself, champ,” I replied, and he chuckled.
Bear grabbed me and dragged me against his body, and we fitted together like pieces of a jigsaw that had been lost but had finally been found. Our bodies pressed together as the last vestiges of daylight painted the room with a warm orange hue, illuminating every tender touch and glance.
His lips met mine in a passionate kiss, igniting the fire within me. He lowered me onto the bed, the cool sheets a stark contrast to the heat of our bodies. Each touch and caress speaking volumes of the love and desire we held for each other. He held himself above me, kissing me as he slowly slid into my body. I groaned against the fullness of him, arching my back and widening my legs to accommodate his size. He slid his tongue between my nipples before covering my full breast with his mouth, and I moaned louder as he began to move his hips.
The world slipped away until it was just Bear and me making love for the first time. In a world filled with so much pain and grief, there was only pleasure and love in our quiet solitude. In the peace we found within each other.
Our hips collided over and over, our touches and kisses becoming gradually more insistent and urgent.
He whispered sweet promises into my ear as his movements grew more fervent, each thrust deeper and more consuming than the last. Our breaths mingled, heavy and ragged, as we lost ourselves to each other. The world beyond the walls of this room ceased to exist; there was only the two of us, our bodies connected.
Bear rolled from me until he lay on his back, and then he reached for me. I climbed on top of him, holding him still as I slid him into my body, connecting us again.
His hands were on my hips as I rocked back and forth over and over, each roll of my hips eliciting a groan from him. I placed a hand on his chest as I lifted myself and then slowly lowered myself again, loving the feeling of him sliding in and out of my heated body.
“Fuck, Dahl,” he growled as I slammed myself down on him harder and harder until my body was tingling and pulsing with need. “Fuck…”
He moved a hand up my body, placing it over my breast, squeezing and plucking the hardened nipple between his calloused fingers as I moved quicker and quicker, harder and harder to bring us to the end we both knew was coming.
In one swift movement, Bear flipped me off him, pushing me on to all fours on the bed. My body pulsed for him and I cried out with need. He was behind me, his hardness filling me as he draped his body over mine. His front to my back as he drove into me over and over.
His bed became a tangle of limbs and cries of pleasure as we took from one another and gave to one another, until I felt like I might go insane if he didn’t finally, mercifully, let me come.
His hands were on my hips as he slammed into me, my head lowered to the mattress and my ass to the sky, and I called out in frustration as he pulled out of me once again.
“Bear, please…” I begged.
He chuckled and lay down beside me, his front to my back, and slid himself back into my heated body. He leaned over me, and I turned my head so he could kiss me, long and deep as he moved his hips quicker. Sliding deeper and deeper into me with every thrust. His tongue met mine and we continued to kiss as the urgency inside me built before finally releasing. I called out, my toes curling as pleasure rolled through me in waves over and over. Bear continued thrusting into me hungrily, calling my name out unapologetically. His hands held my body to his, his fingers digging almost painfully into the softness of my muscles before finding his own release moments later. I felt the heat of him scorch my insides and I leaned back into him, hungry for all of it.
He trembled against me and groaned, and I arched my back into him as he buried his face in my neck. His hips continued to circle, releasing every last bit of himself into my heated body, and I squeezed and pulsed around him, the pleasure still trembling through me.
Afterwards, we lay there naked, in quiet contemplation. The sun had set and out the window we could see the stars in the night sky. Our bodies were still entangled and Bear trailed lazy patterns down my sides. I felt safe and loved, wanted, and needed. I felt like I was home.
Bear
I woke to the sound of Dahlia humming from somewhere in the house. I had slept deeply after last night and a smile rose to my face as I realized that I hadn’t woken with the nightmares of screams for the first time I could remember.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ceiling that I had stared at for so long, begging for the day to come so the night would stop haunting me, and I knew that things could be different now.
I didn’t need to fear the dark, and I didn’t need to drink away my demons. They couldn’t chase me anymore—I wouldn’t allow them to.
I didn’t know if things would always be this good between us, and I didn’t mind if they weren’t, because life wasn’t about perfection. Life wasn’t about fate and the stars being aligned, and it wasn’t about hiding from the past…from our secrets. Life was about being with the one you loved, through the good and the bad, and letting them accept all of you.
Sliding out of bed, I headed to the kitchen, finding Dahlia with a paintbrush in her hand as she painted my small kitchen the most awful shade of yellow.
“It’s fuckin’ awful, babe,” I said in a lazy drawl.
She turned, startled, and smiled. She was still wearing one of my white AC/DC T-shirts, speckles of yellow paint splashed across the front, her nipples hard and prominent.
Dahlia looked around her, taking in the color. “I like it.”
“I thought you might,” I chuckled.
“It reminds me of summer days.” She looked at me with a soft smile. “You were sleeping so deeply, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Sorry about that,” I replied.
She placed the paint brush back in the can. We had bought the paint a couple of days ago, intending to do it together, but I guess she got bored of waiting for me to wake up.
Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up and kissed me. “That’s okay.”
I put my hands on her waist and looked at the paint on my T-shirt and tutted. “This is never coming out.”
“Might be best to put it in the wash right away,” she said.
I gripped the bottom of the T-shirt and lifted it over her head before flinging it to one side. She stood there, in my sunny yellow kitchen, naked barring a small black thong, and I groaned as I lifted her up to me. She wrapped her legs around my waist, her breasts pressed against my hard chest, and we kissed.
“You definitely set on this color?” I asked between kisses, and she mumbled she was, kissing along my jaw and chin. I felt myself harden and I held her tighter to me, ready to take her here in my kitchen.
“It makes me happy,” she panted.
“You make me happy,” I replied, laying her down on my table.
She looked up at me. “Then I guess we’re keeping the color.”
I smiled down at her and gripped my boxers, pushing them down my thighs. “Then I guess we are.”
I slid her thong down her legs and dropped it to the floor before she opened her legs wide for me, and then I stood between them, guiding myself into her heated body.
Her eyes fluttered closed, her mouth opening in a whispered breath as she said my name. “I love you, Bear.”
I groaned. Hearing those words come from her was the only thing I ever needed to hear again.
“I love you too, Dahlia,” I replied.
I moved slowly and without the urgency of the previous night. There was no need to hurry this thing between us.
We could take our time, because we had the rest of our lives.
We had forever.