7. Bear
7
BEAR
W atching her watch me in the shower made me come harder than I ever had, and when she stood there to finish, it took everything in me not to stalk across the house, throw her on the floor, and make her scream my name. Her smirk when she licked her fingers had me half hard just thinking about it. But two weeks passed, and she mostly ignored me. Other than the one day I’d brought her to the garage, she continued to plan our wedding, and I went about my life like nothing had changed.
By the time I got home at the end of the day, she’d already gone to her room, and when I brought her to the clubhouse, she hung out with the other old ladies until it was time to leave.
It couldn’t go on like this.
Living together was one thing, but being a true marriage, one born out of partnership and trust, needed cooperation on both sides. Knowing that did not stop me from remembering her family had been responsible for the deaths of so many of mine. She was beautiful, yes, and fucking her wouldn’t be a hardship, but the cognitive dissonance of our situation kept us in a stalemate.
To top it off, Leo hadn’t made it very far in his mission with the underbosses or his uncles.
“Rancone is in,” he explained, shifting his weight while he held his cane in front of him. “But that means nothing without Davila. He controls the southeast. If we don’t have his territory, we don’t have the ports.”
I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes, leaning back in the president’s chair at the Steel Roses’ head table. We had an officer meeting this afternoon, so I’d come right from the garage without stopping to pick up Julia. Perhaps that was a mistake, but I needed some breathing room.
“What can we do to get him on our side?” I asked.
Leo took a deep breath. “I don’t know what Gabriella has offered him. He won’t budge.”
I nodded. “What about taking him out of the equation? Is there anyone who works for him that might be loyal to you?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. I’d need to talk to Julia and a few people on the inside.”
It had occurred to me before now that my wife had been our main source of information for the last several years. She had every right to be at these conversations. But at the same time, we were fighting dissent among my own club members, and I didn’t want to put her in any more danger. Leaving her with the prospects all day already set my panic to high alert. Bringing her here, letting the guys have frequent access to her, it opened doors to things I didn’t want to contemplate. That chapped my ass more than anything else. This was supposed to be our safe space where I didn’t have to worry about shit like that. But Stallion, Reaper, and their buddies had been talking together in hushed corners, even after Doc and Thor made it clear the shit wouldn’t be tolerated. My suspicion had run so high I’d put my brother, Castor, on investigating them. He could do things with computers that boggled my mind. After this conversation with Leo, I’d check in to see what he found.
“Let me know what you need,” I said. “I’ll make it happen.”
Leo nodded, twisting his lips into a grin. “How are things at home?”
I purposely held myself still to keep from shifting uncomfortably. “What about it?”
He eyed me with a look that said I knew what he meant. Of course, I did. He wanted me to knock his sister up already. The sooner we had a child, the sooner both families would see us as a combined unit.
“Is Julia treating you okay?” He raised a brow.
“Now that she’s my wife, you don’t need to worry about that anymore,” I said, hoping to make my point clear. We’d signed his damned contract. That was where his involvement ended.
“She was my sister long before she was your wife,” he said.
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before you offered her to me as a show of alliance.” I left little to the imagination with the harshness of my tone.
He held his hands up in solidarity. “I meant no disrespect. I only wanted to make sure our agreement was on track.”
“That’s none of your fucking business,” I snapped.
He pursed his lips and let out a small, amused chuckle. “All right, Montgomery. I appreciate your possessiveness.”
“One day, you might have your own wife,” I said. “And perhaps you’ll understand.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded and turned toward the door, pausing to turn back one last time. “Don’t leave it too long. Julia gets agitated when she’s bored.”
Yeah, no shit. But I remained resolute on not touching her until she wanted me to, and based on our family’s long history of bloodshed, that day may never come.
“Have a nice night, Leo,” I said, and he walked away. After he left, I went to the back of the clubhouse where our IT gurus, Switch and Castor, had set up their operation. They affectionately called the area “the trench,” but it was really an old storage closet turned into our server shed. Castor sat perched in front of four monitors, typing on his keyboard with his headphones over his ears. Switch was on the other side with the same number of screens in front of him. At my approach, Switch turned to face me and smiled.
“Descended from on high to mingle with the plebs, huh?” He shoved my brother in the shoulder to make him pay attention.
“Hey, shithead,” Castor said, moving his headphones to hang around his neck. “What brings you to the trench?”
“Just checking in.” I glanced at whatever he had been doing, grimacing when I saw security footage of the Hell’s Knights MC in Southern Virginia. They’d officially trespassed onto our territory, and we’d have to be prepared to fend them off sooner or later. “They’re getting close.”
“Too close,” he said, typing on his keyboard to pull up another screen. “I intercepted a text from Stallion to Coffin, their acting president.”
“And?” That got my heart racing. If this was the smoking gun, I would put those traitors in the ground before they knew what hit them.
“Nothing good,” Switch said. “Stallion is asking for an ETA, wanting to know when he might have backup.”
“Do we know for what?” I asked the question, but I already knew the answer. Stallion was teaming up with the Hell’s Knights to overthrow me, probably kill my wife and new brother-in-law while he was at it.
“I can guess,” Castor said. “But I don’t have any evidence yet. He’s keeping all comms squeaky clean.”
I sighed and blinked against the headache starting to form between my temples. “All right. Keep your eyes peeled. Let me know what you find.”
“Ten-four, prez,” Switch said.
“Hey, you eat dinner?” I rubbed at my little brother’s head the way I’d done since he was a kid. “You’re looking scrawny.” He’d always been tall and thin, but his hours behind the computer screen hadn’t helped, especially if he wasn’t eating.
“Get off me,” Castor said, shoving me away. “Now that Pollux is seeing that hot nurse, I can’t cook at my place.” Around November of last year, Castor’s twin had been severely hurt in a bombing at the Beacon. He’d been on a ventilator for months, and for a long time, we thought he’d never recover. But the little shit pulled through, and after he’d been released, he started dating Phoebe, the nurse that had cared for him until he was healthy again. They spent a lot of time together, apparently too much in Castor’s opinion.
“And I can’t go to V’s,” Castor whined. “She and Hollywood fuck pretty much all over the place.”
I pretended to plug my ears and groan. “I don’t need to hear about that shit.”
“I wish I didn’t know,” Castor said. “I only needed to walk in on Hollywood tied to the kitchen table once for me to never eat off it again.”
Fucking hell. Maybe at the start, I’d had an issue with my best friend dating my sister, but now that I saw how happy they made each other, I didn’t have a problem with it. That didn’t mean I wanted to know about it.
“If you need a place to crash, come to my house,” I said. “I’ve got those extra rooms in the basement.”
“And ruin your honeymoon?” Castor scoffed. “Pfft. No, thank you.”
There wasn’t much honeymoon to speak of, but I didn’t tell my brother that. I rubbed his hair again and turned to leave, calling, “Get some food,” over my shoulder as I went.
I expected to arrive home to the same thing I normally did—dark downstairs, Julia in her room, the entire evening to myself. But when I said good night to the prospects and dismissed them to go inside, I froze at the sight.
The dinner table had been covered with a peach tablecloth and two proper place settings in front of the chairs. Long-stemmed candles lit the center with a plate of steaming vegetables in between them. My mouth watered at the sight of Julia placing chicken next to that, complementing the risotto on the other side. At my entrance, she paused and glanced up at me, crossing her hands in front of her polka-dotted apron.
It smelled delicious, and when my stomach grumbled, I realized Castor wasn’t the only one neglecting his nutritional needs.
“What’s this?” I asked, setting my bike helmet on the table next to the door.
“Dinner,” she said. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No. I mean…” I cleared my throat and ran my hands through my hair, stepping toward her. “Why did you make it?”
She licked her lips, and I dropped my focus to the tiny movement, entertaining the idea of what that perfect pink tongue might feel like on my own skin.
“I thought…perhaps we could talk?” She phrased it like a question, like I could turn her down if I wanted.
I didn’t know what to say. I was disgusting, having spent the entire day in the sweltering garage before going to the clubhouse to mingle in politics all evening. I reeked of leather and oil and sweat, and I was in no condition to sit down and have a meal with her. Besides, what would we talk about? How much we hated each other? How much I wanted to fuck her and choke her with equal intensity?
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” she said, murmuring in Italian as she bent over to blow out one of the candles. “Stupid girl. This was so stupid.”
“No, wait,” I said and held up a hand to stop her. “This is great, Julia. Really. It’s just…uh…I need a shower. Can you wait another two minutes? Let me go?—”
“Oh,” she said, blinking and smiling an adorable grin. “Of course. Please.”
“Okay.” I raced up the stairs and stripped faster than I ever had. I jumped under the water and scrubbed like the world would end before I could get out. And after I dried off and dressed, I took a deep breath before I went back downstairs to find Julia sitting at the table, spinning a glass of wine between her fingers. My stomach rumbling louder, I walked to the other side and sat, meeting her curious gaze as I did.
She’d already plated our food and waited for me to arrive before eating.
“This looks amazing, thank you,” I said, grabbing the napkin to put in my lap.
She did the same before taking a sip of her drink. I brought my own glass to my nose and inhaled. A pinot grigio, and I put that in my mental notes for next time. My wife enjoyed dry wine. Good to know.
“Thank you for breakfast these past few days. I wanted to return the favor.” She picked up her fork and knife to slice off a piece of chicken for herself.
“I didn’t know you cooked.” I, likewise, stabbed into a piece of chicken, nearly wincing when I stuck it in my mouth. It tasted like sandpaper and salt dunes had a baby, and that baby looked and talked like a chicken, but had never actually been alive at all.
“Oh, damn,” she said, nearly knocking over her glass of water when she reached for it.
I coughed and choked the meat back, swallowing it down before going for my drink.
“Evidently, I can’t,” she said with a deprecating chuckle. “Here I thought I’d followed the recipe.”
“It’s okay,” I said, smiling as I took another bite. Just because it didn’t taste like the best meal I’d ever had didn’t mean it was inedible. “Chicken is hard. Maybe try spaghetti next time.”
“Why? Because I’m Italian?” She raised an eyebrow and twisted her lips into a cute grin.
“No, because it’s easy. Noodles. Pasta sauce. Done.”
“Hmm. You’ve been severely sheltered if that’s all you think of spaghetti.” She narrowed her eyes and took another sip of wine. “You don’t have to eat it. We can order in or?—”
“Nonsense. I’ve eaten worse.” I winked at the innuendo, taking another bite and swallowing it before my tongue could really taste it. Suddenly, the last few weeks became clear—the missing food, the smell of burned meat in the house. She’d been practicing, and I laughed internally at what those might have looked like if she thought this turned out okay. “What did you want to talk about?”
She cleared her throat and shifted in her seat. “I thought perhaps we could start over.”
Start over?
“Okay,” I said tentatively.
“These past two weeks haven’t worked for me,” she continued. “I won’t live this way. Moving around one another. Pretending the other doesn’t exist.”
She hadn’t acted like I didn’t exist when she was spying on me in the shower, but I didn’t bring that up. Instead, I took a bite of the mushy overcooked vegetables and shoveled that down with some wine.
“I can’t go to the clubhouse and sit outside with the other women,” she continued. “If you’re the king of this ruthless reign, then I’m its queen. We should at least act like it.”
I put down my fork at her metaphor and sat back in my seat, contemplating her meaning. Her serious gaze burned holes into me like she was trying to get through the facade I showed the world—the one that put everyone else first, the one that resisted buckling under the weight of a burdensome crown.
“I thought you didn’t like me,” I continued. “I thought you said we’d never have a true marriage.”
“I don’t, and we won’t,” she explained, holding her head higher. “How are things coming along with Leo, hmm? Making any progress?”
We weren’t, but I was curious how she knew that.
“It’s almost like he’s not the Caputi you should have in your meetings.”
“Are you suggesting you would be a better option?”
“I fed the Roses information for years. What makes you think I am not still in contact with the people close enough to know things no one else does? Did it never occur to you that I should be the one at your side?”
It did, actually. “I want to keep you safe.”
She scoffed. “I’m in more danger by being kept in the dark than by helping you plot and scheme.”
I was man enough to admit my wife made a good point.
“All right, I’ll bite.” I didn’t see another way around this other than to simply suffer each other until we died. “What do you suggest?”
“We pretend,” she said, brushing her long brown hair over her shoulders. “When we’re at the clubhouse, I go where you go. We make decisions as a team. We bring Gabriella down together.” She reached under her seat and put a folder on top of the table, resting her hand over it.
I eyed it but stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.
“In return, I will give you the information you need to take her down.” She drummed her bright red fingernails on the folder. “I have a plan.”
I considered her request, looking for any obvious flaw. She was right, of course. She had fed Saint information before Gabriella found out about it, and if she truly had a network of spies, I couldn’t do this without her. Leo had been ousted from the family for almost a year now, and she’d been holding it all together in his absence. From the club’s perspective, making a grand gesture like that would show I was serious about this alliance, about her.
“Okay,” I said. “But I have a few conditions.”
Julia sipped her wine. “Such as?”
“When we pretend, we really pretend. We act like a couple, like we enjoy each other, like we love each other.”
“To what end?” She narrowed her eyes.
“There is no end,” I said. “Not until one of us is dead. You signed the paperwork, the same as me.”
She paused, seeming to consider that.
“If we want the world to believe our partnership,” I continued, “it needs to look real.”
“You plan to kiss me in front of them?” A perfectly plucked eyebrow rose up her forehead as her cheeks turned a rosy shade of blush, and I wondered what succulent memories flicked through her mind.
“Among other things.” Kiss her, hug her, sit her in my lap, rub my hands all over those magnificent curves, prove to my brothers she was mine and I was hers, and if anyone dared touch her, I would cut their fucking fingers off. Maybe it made me fucked-up to want this, but what could I say? She was a beautiful woman and all mine.
“What about limits?” She grabbed the bottle of wine to pour herself another glass, reaching over to refresh mine as well. “What if I feel uncomfortable?”
“We’ll have a safeword,” I said, taking a cue from my sister’s BDSM 101 rule book. “If you don’t like something, say it and we’ll talk about it.”
“Fine,” she said. “Since we’re star-crossed and forcing our way through it, our safeword is Mercutio.”
“Fine. Agreed.” Laughing, I finished my chicken before scarfing down the rest of the vegetables and rice. “Now, what’s this plan of yours?”
Julia scooted the folder across the table toward me, and I flipped it open, looking over a list of places Gabriella went to and common hideouts. According to Julia’s sources, Davila had been offered a shitload of money and a promotion in the family business if he backed Gabriella. I had her schedule of events for the next month as well as contacts who would be next in line for her to try to secure.
“I would go after the right column first,” she said. “They’d be more willing to turn on her for the right price.”
“Damn.” I blinked as I flipped through the rest of the pages. “You compiled all of this in two weeks?”
“I did all of this in three days,” she said. “I’ve been sitting on it as I waited to see what you would do. I had hoped you would come to some kind of arrangement on your own, but you know what they say about Roses.” At that, she paused to smirk. “All brawn, no brains.”
“Is that what they say?” I asked in Italian, causing her cheeks to flush as she pursed her lips.
Ignoring my flirtation, she continued. “When you and the Roses showed up at that abandoned cabin four months ago, you messed up her plans. She won’t make a mistake like that again. She won’t allow herself to be that vulnerable.”
“Okay.” I flipped to the last page, containing an apparent list of wedding invitees.
“You need to draw her out,” she said.
It all clicked together like one brilliant puzzle piece. “The wedding.”
“Precisely.” Julia nodded and sipped her wine. “She wants Leo. She’ll do whatever she can to eliminate what she perceives as her biggest threat.” She leaned forward on the table, intertwining her fingers under her chin. “She doesn’t realize Leo is only a pawn. I am her biggest threat.”
I acted like that didn’t turn me on in a million different ways.
“You think this will work?” I raised my eyebrows, trying to imagine a world where we did it, where we got rid of Gabriella and made peace with what remained of the Caputis.
“You could ambush her the way she did to you,” Julia continued. “You could intercept her trade routes and steal her supplies, and that might be a good way to intimidate her. But a lion in wait rests while the wolf exhausts itself chasing its prey.”
“Who told you that?” I’d never heard that proverb before.
She cleared her throat and looked down to her half-eaten plate. “My father.”
I resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably at the reminder of our parents. Her father had killed my mother, my uncle, and my aunt. Selene would never admit it, but I suspected she had then retaliated by killing Julia’s father in return. KC had killed Julia’s brother, and her other brother had nearly killed Lore. On and on the bloody rampage went.
She hated me for it, and I returned the sentiment. But lately, it seemed like I had room in my heart to put aside that loathing and open it up to new possibilities…like accepting this marriage and leaning into it.
Pretending would be a start. I could pretend to like her. I could pretend to want her. Fake it until you make it and all that bullshit.
“This is amazing, Julia,” I said. “Thank you.”
She nodded. “Don’t thank me yet. We don’t know if your club will go for it.”
“It’s something to work with.” I closed the folder, filled with a new sense of warmth and adoration for the woman sitting in front of me. The candles lit her features in a beautiful, hazy glow, making her seem like a succubus here to tempt me into damnation. Her mind matched her beauty, and it made me want things that I shouldn’t want, that I knew she wouldn’t want. “When it comes to pretending, do you think we should practice?”
She ran her tongue over her lips, forcing my gaze to the motion again. Such a tender pink tongue, I bet it could make my knees shake.
“Practice? What did you have in mind?”
I shrugged. “How real will things look if the first time we kiss is in front of my club? It might be obvious we don’t do it in private.”
Julia paused, seeming to consider that. “Are you asking to kiss me, husband?”
The use of that word in her condescending tone sent shivers down my spine, ending with a lurch in my balls. It started as a taunt, true, but now it sounded more like a promise.
“Is that what you need to admit you want it?” I asked. “Do you need to hear me ask for it?”
“Who says I want it?”
“ Wife ,” I teased. “I saw you watching me when I was in the shower. I saw your hands between your legs and the desire in your eyes. I watched you come, and I know you liked it.”
She blinked and dropped her gaze to the table, clearly avoiding me. “That was a mistake.”
“Was it?” I hummed. “As you say, I am your husband. If there’s one person who can give you those things, who should give you those things, it’s me.”
Julia took a deep breath but didn’t respond.
I waved two fingers at her, gesturing her over to me. “Come here.”