Rachel #2
“Is that why she poured herself into that dress?”
“I’m thinking so. She’s insecure with him right now. I don’t get it. I’ve never seen Nyx like he is with her.”
“Me either,” I agreed, but on a sigh, I said, “When I was pregnant with Wynter, my body changed so much it was unrecognizable. I had other issues, after, you know, but even before then it stunned me. She’s young, don’t forget. We’re more mature now. You remember how it was back then.”
Indy’s huff was impatient. “You’re right.” She knew it but didn’t like it.
I got it.
It seemed futile for Giulia to be jealous, but when you were young and in love, the weirdest insecurities plagued you.
I’d been there, and I’d definitely done that and had bought several T-shirts. I had to think that Indy had as well.
I squeezed her arm. “I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Stone and me too. We’re on the lookout. Kendra’s clearly got a death wish. She’s been worse since Storm left.”
I couldn’t disagree—there was a reason Giulia was on the warpath, after all.
We finally made it to the compound, and the Prospect whistled at the sight of us.
Indy grated out, “Keep your eyes on the ground, boy. Our Old Men are waiting inside for us.”
My lips twitched when his eyes didn’t drop to the ground but bugged out in fear.
Sniffing, Indy tugged me forward toward the beyond loud clubhouse.
I’d heard remnants of it back at my place, but it was usually raucous. I’d gotten accustomed to it over the years.
“Did Rex really not think you’d realize there was a party going on?”
I shrugged. “I think he’s not sure where to put me.”
Indy tugged me to a halt. “You’re not a doll. You don’t need to be put on a shelf.”
Her defense had me smiling. “I know. It’s not a bad thing. It’s more like he doesn’t want to fuck up by bringing me into something that makes me unhappy.”
She squinted at me. “Sounds dumb. But he’s a man. Even if he is smart.”
Humming my agreement, I was about to answer when a brother called out, “Well, bitches, don’t you look fine…”
A soft voice rang out from nowhere, “Lever, you feel like losing your eyes? I got a nice vat of the good stuff just waiting to melt them down to soup.”
Indy shuddered. “God, that shouldn’t turn me on,” she muttered to me.
I bit my lip to stop myself from laughing.
“Fuck off, Cruz. You can’t be threatening my eyes—”
“You’re using them to look at my woman and Rex’s too. You really wanna be blinded tonight, you should carry on with this conversation.”
Lever snorted. “Rex don’t got a woman.”
“Rex does got a woman,” Cruz mocked, the bad grammar sounding even worse coming from a man of his intellect. “Rachel.”
“Rachel? As in the snooty lawyer?”
My lips twisted. “Yes, as in the snooty lawyer who got you out of a solicitation charge last year.”
“You paid for sex when it’s on tap for free?” Cruz mocked, and some other brothers clearly heard because they came from somewhere on the veranda and started giving him shit.
I decided to cut him some slack—wasn’t Lever’s fault the clubwhores didn’t have dicks, was it?
Indy and I headed up the steps toward the front door, and Cruz slipped his arm around her waist and I stuck close, knowing they’d take me to Rex.
In a pair of dark jeans and a bandeau top, Indy looked a lot more dressed down than me, but the emerald color offset her bronze skin and made her inky black hair gleam in the lights. She wore a muted nude lipstick, minimal makeup, but her black, cat-eye liner was on point.
Even above the music, because I stuck so close to them, I heard Cruz whisper, “You look beautiful, princess.”
My lips curved when Indy, the woman I’d always considered hard as stone, melted into him.
Everyone had their kryptonite, didn’t they?
I was glad Indy had found hers.
The party was in full swing by the time I’d hung my coat up in the vestibule in a cupboard whose purpose I didn’t know, but it was acting as a coat rack tonight.
The place stank of beer and sweat. The music was too loud, the bar was too hot, and I was immediately miserable.
When Rex caught sight of me, that was worth all the misery, however.
He reacted like Nyx did.
I hadn’t anticipated that.
He’d been sitting on the edge of the pool table, a ‘Welcome Home, Prez’ banner swaying overhead from the ceiling fans that brought some blessed relief to the still air in here.
He’d clearly been watching Link and Lily playing a game, one leg cocked up slightly for balance.
There were brothers around him, a couple whores too, and instantly, my own hackles were raised.
Much as his were.
It was then I realized that Giulia had been right to make me come here, to make me dress like this.
She’d understood the parameters of this world in a way that I hadn’t.
Rex hadn’t told me about the party. He thought he could keep this part of his life separate from ours, but that wouldn’t work.
It couldn’t.
Somehow, we had to unite the two halves so that we could both subsist happily in them, but me staying at home while he partied here would only cause mutual misery.
I’d already seen one relationship break down from taking this path, and though Rex was close to Storm, and he had to know this path was the wrong one, he’d still failed to share the news of tonight’s welcome home party. He’d still taken the first few steps down this road.
Fool.
It wasn’t often my man was that, but tonight, he’d definitely been an idiot.
When he saw me, he straightened up, his eyes flaring wide before they narrowed into slits. He stormed over to me, then, as if it’d do much good, he dragged off his cut and, before he even greeted me, tucked my arms into the leather vest he’d worn for decades.
It slipped onto me like it was silk.
The leather was warm, soft against my skin, but it didn’t stop me from tipping up my chin, getting up in his face, and demanding, “Trying to cover me up?”
“What the hell are you wearing?” he croaked, his voice hoarse as his gaze devoured wherever it touched.
Adrenaline had eaten away at my fatigue. How he looked at me fired that burst of hormones that made me feel like I’d consumed liquid caffeine.
An hour ago, I could have yawned.
Now, I just felt the solid welter of the energy that stirred to life whenever I was around this asshole.
Fuck, I loved him.
And I’d missed this, and I hadn’t even really had it in me to miss this side of things.
I’d never had this much guts as a teen, and I never would have had the balls to start shit in the middle of the clubhouse bar on his turf.
I smirked at him—in this situation I thought that was the sensible thing to do. “Don’t like my outfit? Giulia will be disappointed. I think she picked it with you in mind.”
“That fucking headcase,” he ground out under his breath. “Did she want a bloodbath?”
His hand shifted, moving around to the back of my neck. He wasn’t usually rough with me, but when he grabbed my nape, I half expected him to turn me away, to shove me aside and push me back the way I’d come and out of the door.
He didn’t do that.
I shouldn’t have been so foolish.
His fingers weren’t like pincers; they drew me into him.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer still.
Until he kissed me.
It was carnal. It was feral.
It was perfection.
Around me, I heard the cheers and the hoots and the catcalls, but they might as well have been flies buzzing around my head.
The only thing I was aware of was Rex.
His smell, his taste, his strength.
Amid this room of outlaws, he was the worst and the best of them all.
And he was mine.
The desire to climb him like he was a tree hit me, but as he tongue-fucked my mouth, I didn’t realize he was edging me toward the door, pushing me where he wanted me, and I was too far gone to even notice.
His mouth tore into mine, eating me up.
Rabid as if he were starving, he feasted on me and I was more than willing to be glutted upon. The difference was I didn’t remain passive. I fought back. Kiss for kiss, bite for bite. The insatiable need wasn’t new, but the desire to claim him was.
The desire for those bitches in there, even though they were no threat to me, to know who we were to each other was imperative.
Biologically so.
Maybe Giulia wasn’t so immature after all.
Nails digging into his shoulders, I thrust myself into him, my tits rubbing up against his chest as my hips rocked, caressing his cock at every turn. The thick, solid length burned into my belly, just not where I needed to feel that heat.
The sudden silence and the pitch-black space were my first indications that I wasn’t in the bar anymore.
Only, I didn’t care.
I just wanted this kiss to never end. I needed it to carry on forever.
When he hefted me into his arms, I didn’t argue, just clutched my knees around his hips, and as he moved forward, a soft scent hit my nose—cedar.
Fire.
Rex’s office.
That was the only room in the clubhouse that had a fireplace.
He rested me on the edge of, what I assumed, was his desk, and his hands shifted to shape my back, my waist, then he rumbled, “Lean over the desk.”
I didn’t argue.
Every nerve in my body standing to attention, I twisted around, let my elbows rest on the surface, and I stuck my ass out.
His fingers clawed at the fly of my pants a second before he dragged them down.
My panties were next. Both pooled around my ankles, baring me to his ravenous gaze.
Those filthy digits then sought out my heat and I immediately spread my legs, my back arching as I moaned out my pleasure from that single rough touch.
I heard the sound of a zipper lowering, and that was pretty much all the warning I got.
His cock was there.
At my entrance.
I moaned, wriggled at his inexorable thrust, only stopping when he tapped out inside me.
His fingers rounded my hips, smoothing over my belly. One moved over the hard swell, the other shifted down, angling toward my clit.
“You think you can come here, dressed like that, and I’m not going to claim you in front of everyone? You think I can’t fuck you when you look like a living wet dream? When you’re finally fucking mine?”
I didn’t answer, couldn’t. I just groaned.
He started to move faster, harder. My ass slapped against his thighs, making his belt buckle jingle.
The discordant noise ate at my nerves, but I pushed it aside as the hand that had shaped my stomach moved to my hip.
His fingers bit into me there, controlling my movements, stilling them before it slid higher up.
He grabbed me by the neck, pushed me down, then blanketed me.
It was at that moment that everything could have come tumbling down.
Grizzly had done that.
He’d torn at my hair as he’d fucked into me.
There’d been clumps that came free from how rough he’d been.
He’d laughed in my ear.
His stinking breath had filled my nostrils.
But Rex was not Grizzly.
He smelled of Calvin Klein, and while there was a hint of JD to his breath, I knew he’d been chewing gum because spearmint was prevalent in the air around us.
His fingers didn’t tear; they caressed. They stroked. They teased and pleasured.
He didn’t hurt me; he savored me. Drowned in me.
He didn’t laugh; he groaned, his torment clear. A torment I’d bestowed upon him.
“You’re walking sin, Rachel,” he ground out as if he were in pain.
My heart, on the brink of skipping a beat out of fear, jolted back into its original pounding rhythm.
Rex.
Always Rex.
Mine.
Mine.
Unmistakable.
“My fucking heaven.” He sank into me again, the flat of his thighs bouncing off my butt as he gifted me with another hard thrust that had me releasing a keening cry. “My personal goddamn hell.”
“Rex!” I sobbed as the tips of his fingers went to work on my clit.
His movements turned wilder, shifting faster and faster while his forearm, clamped under my belly, kept me from bumping into the desk.
Just as my pussy clutched at him, he let out a hoarse yell, and the heat of him scalded me as I screamed out my own orgasm.
It seemed to go on for a lifetime.
My skin burned; my body ached—in the best possible way.
Every inch of me drowned in ecstasy as he imprinted me with a reminder of who owned me.
Another sob escaped my parted lips as he patted my pussy, because when he pulled out, his fingers went to my slit and he slid them through the mess we’d made together.
Once more, he retreated to my clit, and with his other hand, he pumped two fingers into me as he got me off again.
I cried out a final time as he pleasured me, until my bones were rattling, until every part of me vibrated with ecstasy, and then he gave me another physical signature on our non-existent contract.
In my ear, he whispered, “Mine.”
Rex’s.
King’s.
No one else’s.
Ever. Again.