21. Maddoc
I clingto Riley for a long moment, just needing to be close to her while that gut-wrenching promise settles between us. Needing to feel her softness, her nearness. Her love.
There was a time that this need would have made me feel weak, but that’s bullshit. Nothing about Riley is weak, and everything about her makes me stronger.
I don’t know if she’s right about me being a good leader, but I do know she’s right about my people. It’s the thing that makes me different than my father, the reason I’ve been able to build the Reapers, to earn their loyalty, when—for all his street smarts and connections—my father was never able to rise up in Halston’s underground.
I learned a lot from him, but some of the lessons were what not to do. And one of those, the one that I’ve never wavered on, is people first, always.
Keeping the Reapers who’ve pledged themselves to me alive is more important than anything, and it’s the worst fucking feeling in the world to know that I might have to give up what I’ve fought so hard for in order to make that happen, but I needed the reminder.
I fucked up. I’m not sure exactly how or where I could have done shit differently to put us in a stronger position right now, but if I’d been the leader Riley sees me as, the one I want to be, I wouldn’t be failing my organization the way I will be when I fulfill that promise I just made to my butterfly. I wouldn’t be faced with the choice that isn’t really a choice—to let Austin take what’s ours, or to protect the whole reason we exist. Our people.
Riley makes a soft sound, shifting on my lap, and I realize I’m holding her too tightly. I relax my arms a little and lean back, tipping her chin up. “You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. Thank you, butterfly.”
“You never need to thank me,” she says, the love shining from her eyes almost eclipsed by her faith in me.
It’s almost painful to see, because failing the Reapers isn’t the only thing fucking me up right now. I failed her too. I let that son-of-a-bitch fucking marry her. Hearing him call her “wifey” tonight was like a knife between my ribs.
“I fucking hate the idea of you being with anyone but me and my brothers,” I growl, the truth bursting out of me as I dig my hands into her soft body, marking her, claiming her.
She gasps, and I know I’m hurting her a little.
I also know she’ll welcome it.
“I never will,” she promises, fire flashing in those bottomless whiskey eyes of hers. She doesn’t fight the bruising hold I’ve got on her. She leans into it, cupping my face again and staring right into my fucking soul. “Do you hear me, Maddoc Gray? I only belong to the three of you. You, Dante, and Logan.”
It’s nothing but the straight-up truth, and I know she means it with every fiber of her being… but I’m still the fucking caveman who can’t get over the idea that even if he didn’t fuck her, McKenna still married her. Is still married to her.
It grates on me to the point that I can’t fucking stand it, and I know I’m gonna have to do something permanent about that issue. Soon. But for now, what I need is something else. I need to fuck her, fill her up, mark my own claim on every goddamn inch of her gorgeous body. Wipe that word out of her memory and the taint of that bastard from between us.
I kiss her. It’s brutal and savage and fills my mouth with the coppery taste of her blood as our teeth clash together, but my fierce little butterfly doesn’t shy away from it. She meets me with a ferocity of her own, my perfect match in every way that matters.
“You’re mine,” I mutter against her mouth, smoothing my hand down that amazing hair of hers and then wrapping the strands around my fist and yanking her head back so I can suck on her throat. I want to claim her so goddamn thoroughly that no marriage vow to another man will ever keep us apart.
She arches into me, giving herself just as completely as she always does, and there’s nothing on the fucking planet—not my territory, not the respect of my people, not even my vengeance on McKenna—that I want more than this, right here, right now.
I need the whole fucking world to know she’s mine. That she belongs to me and my brothers, and that we’ll destroy anyone who ever tries to take her from us.
“Maddoc,” she gasps as I scrape my teeth over her collarbone and rip her shirt open, baring her for me the way I need.
Nothing can be between us. Nothing can block me from having her. Not fucking ever.
“You belong here,” I growl, pushing the torn fabric aside and squeezing her breasts together so I can suck both of them at once. “You fucking belong to me. To us.”
Her hands land in my hair, the filthy sounds I pull out of her turning my cock into steel.
She’s straddling me, that hot pussy of hers rubbing over my shaft as she writhes in my arms, but there’s still a barrier. Still something trying to stop me from taking what’s mine.
“Up,” I demand, digging my fingers into the crack of her ass.
She lifts her hips and helps me as I get rid of that barrier, yanking her pants off and tossing them aside before putting her back where she belongs. Right over my cock.
She’s so fucking wet that my fingers sink right into her, the silky little scrap of her panties easily pushed to the side. “I need to be inside you. I need my cock right here, right where it belongs.”
“Do it, please, fuck, Maddoc.”
She’s panting hard, just as desperate for this to happen as I am, and she lifts herself up, practically clawing at me, just enough for me to free my cock before I shove her back down on it.
The sounds she makes when my shaft spears into her shoots liquid fire down my spine, and I take her mouth and swallow it, claiming every fucking bit of her as her pussy clenches around me, gripping me like a vise, milking me until I’m in serious danger of busting a nut before we even begin.
It feels too fucking good, but it’s not enough.
I need to fucking wreck her.
I need to push her over the edge before I get mine. It’s the only thing I’ll be satisfied with.
“Say it again,” I demand as I grip her ass and lift her, dragging her up and down my cock as she pants into my mouth, her hands greedy and demanding as she pulls herself closer, clings to me and begs for more. “Tell me who you belong to. Tell me what you need.”
“I’m yours,” she gasps, her lips crushed against mine as we kiss wildly. “All of yours. I need your cum inside me. I need to be filled with you. Need to feel your claim dripping out of me. I need… I need…”
I groan, fucking her harder. Hard enough that she can’t speak, her words trailing off into a whimper.
“Gonna give you all of that, butterfly. Fucking everything,” I promise, breathing her in, licking into her mouth and letting the whole fucking world fall away as I take what belongs to me and drive into her until we’re both on the edge of shattering apart.
Something cracks in the chair under my ass as I slam her down on my cock again, grinding up into her perfect heat as I rip her panties off, needing to get at her clit. Needing to send her fucking flying.
I thumb the little nub and slap her ass hard enough that my hand burns, and she screams for me. Coming apart on my cock, head thrown back and soul laid bare for me.
She’s everything. Every fucking thing I could ever want, and I would die to keep her.
But only after I kill the motherfucker who dared to lay a claim on her.
“Madd. Oh god, I… fuck,” she gasps brokenly, her pleasure rippling through her in visible waves.
It’s the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen, and I grip her hips and drive my cock into her even deeper, greedy as all hell to keep it going. To get even more. To wipe everything but the bliss she’s feeling out of her mind.
She drags her eyes open, cheeks flushed and mouth wet and panting, and stares down at me as I raise her up and drop her on my cock again.
“Maddoc,” she whispers, her whole heart in the word.
“Fuck,” I groan, my orgasm ripping through me without any further warning. My balls unleash like a fury, my cum pumping into her so hard that it blacks out my fucking vision for a second. “Riley, shit, baby, Jesus.”
I’m holding her too tightly again. Squeezing her until her breath is nothing but short, sucking gasps.
I don’t care. She’s mine. I’m never letting her go.
“I fucking love you,” I murmur, burying my face against her neck as my cock gives one final pulse inside her. “So damn much.”
She strokes my shoulders. The back of my neck. Cups my face.
“I love you too. With my whole soul,” she whispers, the words filling me with a sense of true peace.
It can’t last. I know that. There’s a battle to fight, and the worst is yet to come.
But when she sighs softly in my arms, melting against me, and presses a soft kiss against my throat, it’s enough.
Nothing fucking lasts, but whatever hell we’re about to wade through is worth it when it means I get this.