CHAPTER 2
THREE MONTHS AGO - FEbrUARY
KADE “DRILLER”
My body is strung tight as I stare at the woman in front of me. I felt the change in the air the moment she walked into The Sanctuary. It was her; it was all fucking her.
I haven’t been able to stop watching her as she’s talked and laughed with her friends while nursing a beer at the bar. Normally I would have been at the clubhouse to have a drink, but I needed a little bit of a break. It’s getting more difficult to disconnect from the time I have with my brothers when I know it’s almost time to head back out onto the rig.
I don’t have to be back for another week, but this stint is going to feel like forever because I know what’s on the other side. I’ll be putting in three months on the job this time so I can spend all summer at home. I need a break. I’ve been working on an oil rig for far too long.
When it was just short stints where I only had to start new production rigs, it was fine. It was easy to be on the water for a few weeks and to come home and enjoy being part of the Devil’s Saints MC. Then shit went down and Dad died. I was only 18 and hadn’t had my patch for very long when it happened.
Mom could have leaned on the club, but she blamed them for Dad’s death even though it was an accident which had nothing to do with the club. Mom was an old lady, but she never loved the life, which became very fucking clear after Dad died.
I probably wouldn’t have cared, but she wasn’t willing to accept the club’s help and with my two younger sisters being eight and seven, both surprises which weren’t exactly planned, she put pressure on me to make sure she was taken care of. Looking back on the last ten years, none of which has gone how I thought it would, I should have taken up Lucifer’s offer for him to take care of Mom and my sisters through me without her knowing.
But the fucking guilt she heaped on me, along with the way she berated me about being the man of the house after Dad died, made it impossible for me to put my pride aside.
I’m just not sure how much longer I can keep going the way I have been. I’m exhausted and the physical labor is taking its toll. I feel much older than my almost 29 years. I ache and I can’t see the physicality of my job helping to keep me healthy for much longer.
In just a few months my eldest sister, Emma, will be graduating from high school. Then my only other sister, Miley, will be done with school next year.
I don’t think I can make it another year out on the Gulf. I just can’t do it.
I’ve put my dreams on hold for far too long.
“Driller,” the gorgeous woman in front of me murmurs softly, pulling me from my thoughts and the downward spiral my soul was trying to plunge into. When I look into her eyes, the dark pools I find there pull me towards her making thoughts of my time on the rig and my fucked-up family feel like a million miles away. “Can I ask how you got your road name?”
“I work out in the Gulf on an oil rig,” I explain and try not to puff my chest out with pride as her gaze rakes over my body. Again. Fuck, the things this woman’s looks do to me. I don’t think my cock has ever been harder. “But I want you to call me Kade,” my voice is husky as I tell her my given name.
I should be shocked at myself for sharing it with her, but it feels right. There are only a few people in this world who call me Kade, but this woman deserves the honor and the intimacy of it.
The fact that I’ve just met her doesn’t matter.
“Kade,” she whispers, the sound skittering along my skin. I smile as I watch her eyes glaze over with sin and lust. She licks her bottom lip, and it takes all my fucking willpower not to taste her right here and now. “I’m Emery.”
I take a moment to allow my eyes to linger over her, touching her with my gaze everywhere I want to touch her with my hands and mouth. Her hair is dark brown, thick, and flows down over her shoulders. It looks so damn soft that my fingers are begging to dive in and grip hard. Her lips are pouty and a pink color that reminds me of a blush, but not because she’s wearing lipstick. The top she’s wearing isn’t overly tight or low-cut but gives me enough of a glimpse of the tops of her tits that my mouth waters with the thought of latching my mouth onto her skin. I bet her nipples are the same color as her delectable lips and I can’t wait to find out if I’m right.
She’s shorter than my 6’3” height, but she’s not pint sized. She’s probably 5’7” and the way her waist dips in makes me want to wrap my hands around her hips and pull her closer to me. I can almost feel the way her long legs would wrap around me as I press her up against a wall.
My cock is fucking leaking inside my jeans. The ache of my shaft pressing against the zipper is just enough to pull me up short from bending her over the bar and fucking her without a single care about who is here to witness it right now.
I came here to escape the clubhouse for a night and to get my mind right before I go back out onto the unforgiving water. And I’m damn glad I did.
“What do you do, Emery?” I can’t help myself from asking, and the surprise in her dark eyes pulls a chuckle from a happy place I thought was weathered and destroyed long ago. “I told you mine, tell me yours,” there’s a commanding edge to my voice.
From the way her pupils dilate, she doesn’t mind the bark in my tone at all. Interesting. Very fucking interesting.
She squares her shoulders like she’s bracing for my reaction, and I take a sip from my beer to hide my smirk at how fucking feisty my woman is. And make no fucking mistake—she is mine. Her voice is like honey with a hint of a challenge mixed in, “I’m a tattoo artist.”
“No shit,” I sputter with a cough, my eyes wide as I look like a bumbling fool unable to stop from reacting to the last fucking thing I was expecting to come from her.
“That surprise you?” The way her eyebrow arches tells me this is something she’s fought hard for. And that she still fights for it. For who she is. For what she loves.
“Fuck yeah, Ink,” I admit with a wink. She narrows her eyes, and it makes my cock pulse and remind me we need to get this woman under us as soon as fucking possible. My arm shoots out and wraps around her waist, pulling her closer to me before she can get it into her head that she should put any distance between us. Not fucking happening. My voice drops to a haunted whisper, “That was my dream, what I was working toward before shit got real in my life and I became an 18-year-old boy who had a mom and sisters who needed me to step up for them.”
Her eyes soften and she nods slowly. Understanding is all I can see in her gaze. Not pity. Not judgement. Understanding.
She melts into me, and I kiss the top of her head, the world around us disappearing. “I’m sorry you haven’t lived your dream, Kade,” she whispers before steel enters her voice to add, “yet.”
Fuck me.
“Let’s go, Ink. We’re going to lose ourselves in each other and then we’re going to figure out how to make both of our dreams come true.”
I mean the words, even though something nags at me in the back of my mind. I know I won’t be able to make my dreams happen right away—at least not until I go back out to the rig one more time. I would never leave the men I work with in the lurch like that. It’s not who I am. That doesn’t mean I won’t make this woman mine.
I’m claiming her. Everything else will have to work out.
Right?
The doubt wiggling through my soul like an insidious parasite vanishes when Emery pulls back enough to look up into my eyes and smirks. “Thought you’d never ask.”
With a firm grip on her hand, I tug her along behind me as we make our way out of The Sanctuary and toward my bike. I’ve never had anyone on the back of my bike before. It means something to me and to the men of the DSMC. It’s not something we fuck around with. It’s hallowed and sacred.
Once she tells me where her place is, I make sure my helmet is strapped to her head and give her a quick rundown on where to put her feet and that she needs to lean with me during turns. After I straddle my bike, she doesn’t hesitate to grip my shoulder and throw her leg over my bike and position herself behind me. A huge grin spreads across my face as I reach back and grip her thigh before I rev the engine and pull out into the night.
The stars and a half-moon shine down on us and lead us toward a moment, toward a night, I know will change everything. And the ride is too fucking short because having her wrapped around me is like peace blanketing my existence. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
Not when I was patched in.
Not when I’ve felt the freedom of the road under my wheels.
Not when I was doing right by my family and putting them first.
Maybe it’s selfish, but this is just for me. For us. It has nothing to do with the club and it sure as fuck doesn’t have anything to do with the demands and pressures of my mom and her needs. It’s just for me.
I want to protect it with covetousness selfishness and never let it go.
Once we park, it’s Emery’s turn to lead me this time. And I fucking follow, my breaths becoming pants of anticipation and need with every step. Do I look like an over eager puppy to anyone who bothers to take in the scene? Probably, but I don’t really care.
The moment we’re inside her place, my hands are on her hips and I’m spinning her in my arms at the same time that I push her against the solid wood of her door. She gasps, but it’s the only sound she’s able to let out before my lips are on hers and we get lost in a kiss which lights up our souls.
When was the last time I kissed someone? I can’t even remember.
I won’t fucking lie—I haven’t been a monk for the last ten years as I’ve been working on the rig. Whenever I’m shore side, I’m more than willing to find some pussy. At first it was the club angels, but then the longer I spent out on the rig, the more the topography of the club would change every time I came back to it. The angels I was with back then moved on with their lives—good for fucking them—and I realized the ones left were catty bitches who were just looking for a patch instead of a way to build a new life.
Not my fucking scene.
Finding a woman at the club’s bar or somewhere else became a better option for me.
Now I’m fucking grateful because I’ll be damned if the first time that I take Emery to the clubhouse she has to go up against some jealous club angel who never had a chance at being more. Hell no. I already know the woman I have in my arms deserves more respect than that.
“I need you, Ink,” I growl against her lips.
“Then take me,” she taunts, her words breathy but shrouded in a ring of fire and need.
“Fuck,” I grunt as I wrap my hands around her thighs and lift.
Then I’m moving towards the couch in the small living room of my woman’s apartment. The building isn’t the greatest, but I hardly notice, and you better fucking believe I’ll be taking care of my woman from now on. It’s just a matter of time before I get her out of here and make sure she’s taken care of. I don’t even give a fuck what that looks like for her; I’ll make it happen.
When we’re close to her couch, I tap her thighs and can practically feel her disappointment as she unwraps her legs from my waist. I slide her down my body, making sure she can feel just how much I want her. The way her eyes sparkle with mischief and naughty promises tells me she’s very much aware.
Fucking good.
“This first time, I’m not going to be able to go slow and gentle like you deserve, Emery,” I grit out the words. “Need you too much,” I admit.
Her small hands cup my jaw. They’re so fucking delicate and capable of making what I’m sure is beautiful art. “Don’t need slow and gentle, Kade,” her words are dripping with sincerity.
And that’s all I need to know.
I make quick work of pulling and tugging her clothing from her delectable body. Every piece of skin I uncover is like a treasure undiscovered. Until now.
My eyes take everything in. Every bit of her. Because I can’t help myself, and there is nothing I need other than this woman in front of me.
When she’s naked, I drop to my knees and bury my face in the apex of her thighs. I breathe deeply and the squeak my woman lets out is adorable as fuck. Using my tongue, I swipe between the lips of her pussy because I need to taste her before I bury myself inside of her the first time.
It sure as fuck won’t be the last time.
She shudders and moans, “Kade,” as her fingers slide into my hair, and she tugs.
With a scrape of my teeth against her clit, I pull away from her and stand slowly. My knee wants to stick, the twinge of pain making me clench my jaw as I push past it. Fuck.
The pain disappears as I strip and get a front row seat to how much my woman enjoys the show. Good to fucking know. When I grab a condom from my wallet, I almost praise the angels when Emery grabs it from my hands, deftly opens it, and rolls it down my length.
I hiss out a breath when she gives the base of my length a squeeze. “Fuck,” I grunt, “gonna blow way too fucking soon with your sweet little hands on my cock, Ink.”
The grin she shoots my way is all seduction and promises of satisfying forevers. “Can’t have that,” she murmurs, innocence coloring her words even though the way she’s eyeing my dick hungrily is far from innocent.
My hands grip her shoulders before turning her quickly and bending her over the arm of her couch. When I swipe my fingers along her pussy, she’s soaking fucking wet for me and I let out a growl of appreciation which has goosebumps popping up along her spine.
It feels like the entire fucking universe takes a deep breath, us included, as I grip her hips and place the tip of my cock at her entrance. Then before another heartbeat can pass, I’m plunging deep inside of her. Her scream of pleasure ricochets around the small room as her head flies back which causes her hair to fan over her shoulders.
“Kade,” there’s a plea in her voice and it’s not just about how fucking good I feel inside of her.
There is a lifetime of meaning within the way her lips form my name. And I understand it all.
“I know, Emery,” I whisper across her shoulder as I lean over her, curling around her and protecting her while the feeling of rightness cocoons us in its bliss.
“Need you to move,” she begs with reverence in her tone.
And I fucking do.
I’m not soft.
I’m not gentle.
I fuck her hard and fast, pulling her back toward me with every thrust. My fingers dig into her hips, grounding me, grounding her. She is my anchor, my lighthouse to find my way back home.
It’s a feeling I can’t deny, and I don’t want to.
With every moan, she encourages me to take her harder. With every plea, she burrows a little deeper.
When we come, it’s together with silence screaming from our throats and whispered praise on our tongues.
“Kade.” It’s barely there on the current of what pulses between us.
“Emery.” It sinks into her skin as my lips move from where I’ve slumped against her shoulder.
But I’m not done with her.
Not even close.