Chapter 22 Violet
VIOLET
Fresh air greeted me outside my apartment building, the night mild, Levi’s bike waiting out front. He took a spare helmet from one of his saddlebags and fit it down over my head.
He kissed the tip of my nose before pulling down the visor and dragging on his own helmet.
His long leg swung over the bike, and I followed suit, getting on behind him.
Unlike the first time I’d been on his bike, I didn’t try to keep any distance from him.
I snuggled right up against his back, wrapping my arms around his middle.
He squeezed my thigh once, and then we were off, cruising the streets of Saint View.
He didn’t go fast, just puttered around, letting me ease into the feel of taking corners again.
It was easier this time, when I wasn’t desperately trying to keep myself from hyperventilating over being so close to him.
This time, I could touch him all I wanted.
So I did. I slipped my hands beneath his open jacket and pressed against the ridges of his abs. Even though I couldn’t see what I was doing, it was easy enough to find the hem of his T-shirt by feel and slide my fingers beneath it, so I touched his skin.
A tremble ran through his body. Which might have been vibrations from the bike beneath us.
Might have been because of the way I was touching him.
Familiar landmarks of Saint View and Providence flashed by around me, but I didn’t pay much attention. All I could think about was where Nyah was and how stressed out Dax had to be right now.
If it was Levi or X or Whip who hadn’t come home, I didn’t think I’d be functioning.
I’d known them barely days longer than Dax and Nyah had known each other, and yet the way I felt for them had consumed me so wholly that now I couldn’t even imagine what I’d do without them.
If they walked away…if they were hurt…if someone took them from me…
My stomach clenched.
I tapped Levi’s shoulder and pointed to the side of the road.
He nodded and turned off into the parking lot of the Saint View end of the beach that ran the full length of both towns. It was the one thing Saint View and Providence had in common. Waves crashed beyond the sand, and I pulled off my helmet.
Levi did the same, both of us just sitting there for a moment, watching the ocean.
“I couldn’t bear it if it was you missing.” Levi’s voice cracked.
“I was just thinking the same thing about you.” I pressed my lips to the space between his shoulder blades.
He just squeezed my thigh again. “I want to marry you, Violet. I want to grow old with you by my side. I want miniature versions of you running around with pigtails and little versions of me—”
“Running around in leather jackets?”
He snorted on a laugh. “I was going to say barefoot in the grass, fishing poles in hand, and the two of us following them, a dog yapping at our heels.”
“I can offer you a stinky cat.”
His shoulders shook with laughter. “You’re as bad as X, ruining the mood with jokes.”
I got off the bike and stood beside him so I could see his face. “Are X and Whip in this vision too?”
He nodded. “Whip is helping the boys tie knots in the line. X is probably still trying to get Harold to love him.”
I leaned into him, seeing the vision all too clearly. It was much the same as the one we’d talked about in our letters.
Only now it included two other men.
And somehow, that felt right.
I squeezed his fingers. “Let’s go for a walk. It’s so nice out.”
“There’s a towel in one of the saddlebags.”
I raised an eyebrow. “In case you feel the need to go skinny-dipping?”
He smirked at me. “Normally I just use it to kneel on when my bike needs attention, or to sit on when I stop somewhere to eat… But hey, if you’re offering to get naked…”
I wriggled my eyebrows at him suggestively.
His whole tone changed. “Don’t do that, Violet. I will take you hard and fast on the sand if that’s what you want.”
It hadn’t been my intention, but Nyah’s disappearance, Toby’s death, the constant danger that surrounded us was all so dark and heavy. Any opportunity to forget it and live in the moment felt like it needed to be grabbed with both hands and kept close for as long as possible.
I found the towel in his saddlebag, my fingers brushing over his tattoo kit. “You brought your work home with you.”
His gaze had been busily devouring me but switched to the case in my hands. “I just wanted to get some extra practice in while I’m off tomorrow.”
I grimaced at it. “But if you take me to the city to look for Nyah, you won’t have time.”
“Doesn’t matter. I can practice later.”
I pushed the kit toward him. “Or you could do what I’ve been asking you for weeks. That thing runs on batteries, doesn’t it?”
He stared down at me, fingers wrapped around the tattoo gun. “I’m not tattooing your pussy on the beach, Violet.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Oh well, your loss then.” I grabbed the towel and headed into the shadowy darkness beyond the lit parking lot. I didn’t get very far before he caught up.
I also didn’t miss that he’d brought the tattoo gun with him.
A small smile lifted the corner of my mouth, but I said nothing.
He didn’t miss it though. He put his arm around me, drawing me close, like the beach was full of people and he didn’t want anyone to hear, even though there wasn’t a person in sight. “When we can’t see the parking lot anymore, you’re going to take all your clothes off, Violet.”
Heat rushed through me, doing pleasant things to my body which was already a little jazzed just from the ride here. “Am I?”
He grabbed a handful of my ass and squeezed it. “You’re being a brat. Say, yes, Daddy.”
Oh Jesus Christ. I’d never been the sort of girl who thought I would wobble at the knees over something like that, and yet, when Levi said it, I was pretty sure they buckled.
I stopped walking. I was dead serious, breathless, and turned on when I whispered, “Yes, Daddy.”
He groaned, dropping the hard-cover case in the sand. “This is far enough.”
Excitement lit up inside me, pushing away the thoughts of everything horrible in our lives and leaving room only for the good. For this. For enjoying my man, and living for the way his gaze devoured me, promises held in the depths of his green eyes.
I slowly stripped my clothes. My shoes. My top. My leggings.
He didn’t offer to help. Just watched me drop articles of clothing one by one onto the sand, my gaze locked with his, both of us burning.
He spread out the towel in the darkness, but there was enough moonlight to see what we were doing. It glinted off the water, making it sparkle. A breeze blew across my skin, but it did nothing to chase away the heat.
I reached behind me and undid the clasps on my bra, letting my breasts fall free.
“You worried about someone seeing you?” His voice was like gravel.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Good. Because I want to see every fucking inch of you, Violet. Take your panties off.”
Wetness pooled at my core, silky and slick. I tucked my fingers into the elastic on either side of my hips and tugged them down over my thighs, not even caring they were dimpled with cellulite.
It was impossible to feel like anything other than the most beautiful woman in the world when a man looked at you the way Levi was looking at me right now.
It was also impossible to deny him anything he wanted.
“Get on your knees.”
A small moan slipped from my lips. I knelt on the towel, my knees digging into the soft sand beneath that still held a vague hint of the warm day.
His gaze locked on mine; he undid the button then the zipper on his fly. He dragged his jeans just far enough down his legs to free his cock.
“Fuck me with that bratty mouth.”
He’d never spoken to me like this, but something deep inside me, something I knew from how I’d been with Whip and X, knew I liked the submissiveness of it.
I gripped the base of his cock with one hand, the other fitting between his legs to grip his balls. My mouth found the head of him, and I licked his tip, tasting him.
“Need to be in your mouth, Violet.” His fingers sank to the back of my head, and he drew me in closer, forcing his cock deeper past my lips.
He slid across my tongue, and then back again, thrusting in and out. He held my head firmly, guiding me, but never in a way that had me feeling like he wouldn’t let go the second I made so much as a peep of distress.
He let me breathe. He let me pull off if I needed to. He let me come back to him a willing partner each time.
When his fingers fisted in my hair and my scalp prickled in delight, the moan I let out was one of pleasure, not fear.
I let him have control of me because it turned us both on. Because I trusted him with my body. With my life.
With my heart.
I loved him so damn much. Every side of him, from the sweet and tender, to the way he was now, dominant and strong.
I wanted him inside me.
I sucked him harder, wanting to please him, wanting him to want me as much as I wanted him.
His growl of need told me he did. “Get on your back, Violet.”
I lay back, and he followed me down, pushing my legs apart so my heels dug into the sand. I grabbed at his jacket, needing his skin on mine and not the smooth cold of the leather.
He shrugged it off, and I managed to yank his T-shirt up over his head, him dropping it to the sand before lying down on top of me.
God, his weight felt good. He kept a lot of it held in his knees and the strong forearms either side of me, but he was heavy enough that my brain whispered seductive words, telling me I was safe here with him, wrapped up in his arms, sheltered from the world.
His cock inside me was so needed. He drove in like a man on a mission, stretching me, filling me, setting off new pleasure inside me.
He groaned, his mouth trailing up my neck to my ear. “I want my baby in you, Violet.”
I stared up at him, at the honesty and raw intensity in his eyes. He’d never had a real family. Neither had I.
I was almost as surprised as he was when I whispered back, “I want that too.”