Chapter Forty
My fingers clung to thick steel girders beneath me.
Metal in front of me and metal inside me.
Every inch I took, another barbell pushed through my flesh, moving tissues out the way as Ryan slowly pressed his way inside me.
His arm wrapped round my waist, holding me steady for him, each movement dragging a ragged gasp from my throat and condensing in front of me in clouds of white.
Ry groaned from behind, his arm tightening.
Inside, my pussy screamed silently as it adjusted, flesh resetting, just for a second.
Then he shifted his hips, piercings pulling and grabbing, my pussy filled with heat and friction, pain mixed with the first hints of ecstasy as he moved his cock in and out of me.
His rhythm was slow at first, and I could feel him against my back, the roughness of his jeans against my bare legs. Cold fingers stroked under my top and I shuddered, my body shaking against him, and he growled low against my ear.
“Fuck, Soph,” hot words tickled my earlobe as his fingers stroked up, his left hand cupping my breast like he was feeling the weight.
Then his hand adjusted, his fingers brushing across the nipple, already cold and extra sensitive. And I shuddered again, pushing my hips back into him involuntarily.
“Sophie,” he whispered it like it was a warning as I sunk back onto his cock.
Ryan’s fingers tightened over my nipple, a little roll, a little pull, and the first wave of loss of control juddered through me.
I pushed back into him again. This time he growled, the sound echoing in the dawn, and a rabbit scurried off to our left.
His hips moved faster, the gentle, careful strokes of before lost, and he yanked his cock free, slamming it back inside me.
I cried out, recoiling at the loudness of my voice, but distracted in a second as he pumped into me from behind, the piercings inside of me twisting and pulling.
Delicious agony. My pussy clenching, reacting, and even I could feel the juices flowing, the sound changing from the dry slapping of his body against mine to a muffled wetness.
“Fuck, you’re amazing, Soph,” Ry groaned in my ear, releasing my waist, his right hand travelling up over my body and stopping at the base of my throat.
He waited there for a second, listening, the pumping of his cock slowing down, when I gave him a little gasp, need difficult to hide, he squeezed tighter. Harder. Blood stopped for a second. The tiniest hints of fuzziness in my brain, the pressure in my pussy, stronger now.
“Ry,” I whispered, my voice vibrating against the palm of his hand. “Fuck me. Harder. Please.” My legs shook with anticipation and cold.
He stopped, dropping his hand, easing his cock from inside me. And for a moment I stayed, bent over the steel feet of the Angel of the North, disappointment creeping into my stomach. But soon cold fingers gripped my hips, turning me, pushing me backwards.
Ryan dropped to his knees, pushing my thighs wide.
For a moment he held my gaze, and I waited, watching him, silently begging him to fill me full of something.
Then he yanked, pulling me to him until I covered his face with my pussy and he was lost between my legs.
I felt the tip of his tongue, the nudge, the heat, and I tried to clamp my legs round his head.
But his hands held my legs open as he slowly pulled his tongue across my slit.
He hummed as he went, the sound vibrating through me.
“Ry,” I gasped.
He swiped again, then pushed his tongue flat, dragging it up, pressure on my clit.
I murmured something into the air, clouds of white rising in front of me, the gibberish still spilling from my mouth.
Ry’s fingers gripped my thighs tighter, smothering himself between my thighs, the tip of his tongue diving inside, swiping, pushing, licking, sucking at my lips, teeth grazing over my clit.
Then thick, hot pressure as he sucked it into his mouth.
My legs shook around his face, my fingers tangling in his hair, my hips trying to move, but he held me still as his tongue lapped at my pussy.
“Fuck, Ryan,” I breathed.
“Let me have it, darlin’.” His lips and beard scratched at my swollen lips, and the first shudder racked through my body.
My fingers tightened against the handfuls of his hair. “Come on, Soph. More,” he instructed, his voice rasping out into the night.
His hands moved, pushing between my legs, his fingers finding my clit and swirling, and now I bucked my hips into his face, his mouth plucking at mine.
Teeth grazing, just enough to make me gasp.
Then he flattened his tongue again, holding it against me as I dragged my hips back and forth over his face.
“Good girl,” he hummed as my hands released from his hair and I collapsed back against the cold steel.
Above me the clouds turned terracotta, morning crept in overhead as Ryan moved settling between my legs again.
“It’s getting light,” I whispered, feeling the head of his cock pushing against my swollen lips, my body exhausted and limp from where he’d just fucked me with his tongue.
“I know, Grey. And I want to see it break as I do inside you.”
He thrust his hips without warning, and the terracotta above me turned red, my eyes fluttered shut. Ryan grunted as he moved, grabbing my hips and pumping into me hard. The metal seared my insides, my pussy clenching instantly, my legs wrapping round him as I met his thrusts.
“Fuck, Soph,” he reached forward, nipping my earlobe between his teeth, and my insides melted, unconditionally accepting everything that he was and that his body contained.
His fingers entangled mine, lifting them above my head, teeth pressing into my earlobe, delicious, radiating pain everywhere. Ryan grunted loudly, his thrusts growing shallower, faster, and then, as morning broke over the top of us, I felt him shudder and groan into my ear.
“You’re fucking everything, Soph,” he grunted as he thrust slowly in me now. “You’re absolutely everything I’ve ever needed.”
*****
The funeral had been noise. Lots of it. Engines rolling through Newcastle in long black lines. Visiting clubs. Handshakes. And respect paid in patches and revving motors.
Now it was only Kings. Family.
The clubhouse had emptied hours ago, strangers and associates drifting back out into the dark while those who remained settled into the heavy silence that grief left behind.
No posturing. No speeches for show. Just the people Magnet had loved most trying to work out how the world kept moving without him in it.
Indie stood slowly, pushing off the stool he sat on at the bar, whiskey glass in one hand and Magnet’s cut folded over the other arm. The room hushed.
The leather looked wrong without Magnet inside it. It was worn on the shoulders. The Kings’ patch stretched broad across the back. His road name stitched over the breast in thick white thread. Proof he’d existed. Proof he’d belonged.
I watched Suzy straighten slightly beside Mamma Dot, her fingers knotting together so tightly that her knuckles blanched white. Indie didn’t speak immediately. He just walked toward the wall behind the bar where the old cuts hung. Some newer than others. Some faded, almost brown with age.
The room stood with him. Every man. Every woman too. And I pushed to my feet with everyone else.
“May the heart of Harley beat eternal,” Indie’s words filled the bar, rolling low through the silence.
“May the roar of the Kings never die.” The men around me joined their voices to his.
Then Indie lifted Magnet’s cut and hooked it carefully beside the others. Not hidden away. Not buried. Still riding with them. Something inside my chest cracked quietly at the sight of it. Up there, Magnet still belonged.
The old radiator hissed beside the bar. Someone cleared their throat roughly. Glass clinked softly somewhere behind me. Then the music started again. Soft this time. Almost hesitant. The same song we’d listened to only hours earlier, as the curtains fell closed in front of his coffin.
Maybe time running out is a gift…
The lyrics of ‘If We Were Vampires’ drifted through the clubhouse and settled into every corner of it. Around me the Kings sat back down slowly, heavier now somehow. Quieter. Reap beside me, broad shoulders tense beneath black cotton, one hand wrapped around a pint glass he still hadn’t drunk from.
I’ll work hard ’til the end of my shift…
My throat tightened painfully. Because suddenly I understood what this life really was. It wasn’t recklessness or stupidity. Or men playing at being dangerous. It was loving people while knowing exactly what it would cost you one day. And choosing them anyway.
Across the room, Suzy rested her head briefly against the shoulder of the woman beside her, eyes fixed on Magnet’s cut hanging over the bar like part of him might still walk back in for it.
It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever.
Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.
Maybe we’ll get forty years together.
But one day I’ll be gone.
Or one day you’ll be gone.
Forty years. The song made it sound impossibly precious.
A miracle instead of an expectation. Beside me, Reap’s fingers brushed mine beneath the table.
Rough. Warm. Real. And sitting there in the dim light of the clubhouse, surrounded by grief and whiskey and old leather and people who would bleed for one another without hesitation, I realised something terrifying.
If someone offered me another life; a safer one, an easier one, I wouldn’t take it. Because this place, for all its violence and darkness, loved harder than anywhere I’d ever known.
And if loving Reap meant that one day this grief might become mine too. I swallowed slowly. I would still choose him. Every version of this life. Every time.