Chapter Eight
Leah
I stare up at Steel, my heart bruised and overflowing, adrenaline making it kick hard.
It knocks against my ribs painfully, sending blood soaring through my veins.
I’ve broken down every single barrier he wanted and needed so desperately to slam up between us.
Whatever he’s going to ask me to do, it’s bigger than both of us.
I get that. I know it’s for his brothers, for the men he would give his life for a thousand times over.
I know it’s not really about us at all, this thing that stands between us.
It’s him. Just him and me. Captured in the very moment that the lives we’ve lived already brought us to.
In the gloom, I watch his face change, the feral hunger in his eyes battling for control and reason, battling with something harder. I want him to lose that fight. I want him to take me. To truly claim me. To invade my body and make me his.
“I want to make you mine, darlin’. I want to teach you what it means to be a part of everything that I’ve built. But not yet. Not like this. I have to put this thing between us. It’s ugly. You’re gonna hate me. I have to ask you first. I can’t touch you ‘til you know.”
I don’t know what he’s going to ask me to do.
But I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ll say yes.
“Never.” I shake my head so hard that it hurts.
My breathing is heavy. “I could never hate you.” That much, at least, I know is the truth.
“Tell me,” I beg. “Tell me because I need you. I’ve needed you for years. ”
Steel gives a deep sigh. I breathe him in, the scent of darkness and raw masculinity, and the throbbing that’s taken my body prisoner grows more intense. I don’t know how it is possible that he’s only gripping my arms because I feel him everywhere else.
“You’re a good man, Steel,” I whisper because he needs to hear it.
The years disappear between us—the hard living he’s done, the things he’s seen, the acts he’s committed. His violence and my innocence, all of it flee that tiny room, and it’s just us.
“I want to be,” he says huskily. “Wanted to for a long time, ever since Harley came along. I want to be for my brothers, so they can know peace, some of them for the first time in their lives. I always wanted to be a good leader, but for you, I want to be something else. Something I can’t be.”
“I just want you.” I blink hard, refusing to cry again.
I finally understand that he has everything to risk.
For me, it’s no risk at all. I don’t care what my father thinks.
What anyone thinks. I want him. I want his family to be my family.
I want to be at his side. I need it more than I need to breathe.
For him, though, I get that I’m not just a risk.
He could lose everything. It’s not just him he has to think about.
It’s his entire brotherhood and his daughter.
They’re his family, and he can’t give them up.
“It’s your father,” he finally says, and I feel the ugliness like a living entity, twisting between us.
“He’s got something against me. Against the club.
He’s been trying to drive us out of Helena for years—buying up land the brothers live on so that they have to go somewhere else, trying to buy the clubhouse out from under us.
But because I own that land and the building, he can’t force me to sell.
He hates us, hates the club, hates the brothers.
I don’t know why, exactly. It’s not just the land.
He could put up his buildings anywhere.”
“I… I know he hates your club. I’ve heard him say things, but I don’t know why. I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
Steel shakes his head, and his raven-colored hair glistens even in the dark. The light leaching in from under the door is just enough to turn the near darkness into a shade of gray that our eyes have both adjusted to.
“I wish it was that simple. It’s not. The thing is, at church—”
“Church?”
He snorts. “Right. Forgot you don’t talk like a biker. ‘Church’ is what we call our club meetings. At the clubhouse. No actual church involved.”
“Oh.” I realize how much I have to learn, and my cheeks flush with embarrassment. Steel doesn’t comment on it, though, because my mortification and inexperience obviously aren’t important at the moment.
“A few weeks back, a few of the brothers brought up something I didn’t even consider.
The Black County Sinners. They operate an hour away, on the other side of Jacksonville.
They do all the shit we refuse to get involved with.
The hard shit. Trafficking women, drugs, and guns.
They don’t care. They were smalltime and never bothered any of us, but that’s changing.
A few of the assholes have been spotted near our warehouses and grow ops this past week.
So far, they haven’t done anything, but it’s only a matter of time.
We’ve managed to stay out of each other’s way, but if someone wants us out of town badly enough, and they manage to get their hands on certain resources to expand their operations, which by all accounts, they seem to be doing…
if they’re promised certain things, by certain people, they might become a threat. ”
I feel my eyes grow wide. “You mean… my father?”
“Yes. Your father. Hatred is a powerful emotion. It’s seldom rational. What better way to wipe out the club, than by arming their rivals and starting a turf war?”
“Wouldn’t that just be exchanging one evil for another?”
“Not necessarily. Not if they have an agreement that they won’t come into Helena afterward. And likely, he probably just hopes that we’ll all kill each other or end up in the slammer.”
“Jail? If he wanted rid of you wouldn’t he just get the cops to come after you?”
“No. There’s so much you don’t know about us, darlin’.
” It’s not said cruelly, just a statement of fact because it’s true.
I don’t. “The cops turn a blind eye to a lot of what we do. First of all, because we have a few of them on our payroll, but secondly, because we’re the first line of defense for this town.
We make sure that no hard drugs enter the place.
That there aren’t a bunch of dealers and pervs walking the streets.
We keep shit low key here, keep our streets clean and our women and kids safe.
We’re, in essence, doing a job that they don’t have the manpower to keep up with, so they leave us alone for the most part.
Men like your dad would know that already.
Men like your dad don’t want the cops involved at all. ”
I don’t want to believe it. My father is a cold, unfeeling man.
He has always treated me that way, but my brother was different.
He seemed to genuinely love Liam. Not just as his heir, but as his son.
Could he really be capable of hurting an entire club of men who have families?
Women and children… just to prove a point?
“What do you want me to do?” I hate that my voice wavers.
I want to be strong, but honestly, my father is someone I’ve never crossed before.
I know that he’s ruthless. I know that he wishes I was the one who died in that accident.
I’ve just tried to stay out of his way since Liam’s death.
It makes me ashamed to think how scared of him I am.
I don’t want to admit it to myself, let alone speak those words out loud for Steel.
“Spy on him. Listen to him on the phone when he’s at home if he takes calls. Does he have an office at your house?”
I swallow against the lump of fear in my throat, but it doesn’t help. “Y-yes.”
“Good. Does he keep it unlocked?”
“Yes. He has no reason not to.”
Steel nods. “I doubt that he’d leave anything lying around, but you could take a look.”
“He probably has cameras set up.”
“In the house?”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“Hmm.” Steel releases my arms. “You could write him a letter. Tell him how much he means to you as your father. Say you put it in writing because it’s easier that way.
Go into the office and put it on the desk.
It gives you an excuse to be in there. That way if he has cameras, it won’t look suspicious.
When you’re in there, you could glance around quickly. ”
“That wouldn’t be very helpful.”
“Like I said, he’s not likely to leave shit lying around for anyone to find.
He’s smarter than that. I just need you to be my ears and eyes where I can’t go.
Can you do that for me?” His face changes, hardens.
“You can say no, Leah. The last thing I want to do is put you in harm’s way.
This… us… we’re not dependent on you doing this.
It would just… help ensure our safety. Let us stay one step ahead. ”
I might be young, but I’m not stupid. I know Steel isn’t the kind of person to lie to me. I can read his emotions, his pain, and his raw hunger for me, but I have to remind myself that I barely know him.
I cross my arms and try to force courage I don’t feel. “How can I be sure that you’re not just using me? That this isn’t all an act?”
Steel moves so fast that it astounds me.
No man his size should have that much agility and speed.
In a single instant, he wraps one arm around me and slams me up against him.
I barely have time to raise my head to ask him what the hell he is doing before his lips come down on mine.
Hard. He bruises me with his kiss as his free hand comes up to cup my cheek and draw me closer.
His tongue tears through the seams of my lips, sweeping in and stroking mine in a motion that makes me hot and weak all over.
My heart thunders so loud it becomes a roar in my ears, one I’m sure he can hear, but he doesn’t stop.
He fists his hand in my hair, tugging painfully, dragging me closer.
He brutalizes my mouth, and fuck me, it’s the first time I have ever actually been kissed with anything more than a stolen peck on the cheek or an awkward, quick smash up of lips that lasted for no more than a second at a party one night a few years ago.
This… this is a kiss. A real kiss. It grips every single part of me. It sends heat rocketing through my veins. Raises the hair on the back of my neck and my arms. Turns my legs into a quivering mess of jelly. My body comes alive, lighting up for the first time.
Even after he pulls away, I still feel the sting of that kiss, my lips swollen.
My tongue darts out, and I lick the last of his saliva from my lips.
I love the taste of him. Raw. Smoky. All man.
I want him to do it again, so I can enjoy it, savor it, but the curl of his lips tells me he is not going to.
He is going to torture me instead, make me wait for it, ache for it.
“I’m gonna use you real soon, darlin’,” Steel says, his tone firm. “But not like that. Never like that.”
When I can finally form words, my voice comes out all wrong, breathy and strange sounding: “H-how will I find you?”
A low, rich chuckle fills up the room. “You won’t have to, I’ll come to you.”
Before I can ask him what that means, Steel turns the handle on the closet door and the door springs open. Then, he is gone, moving like a shadow, just like before.
I bring a shaking hand up to my still stinging lips.
The buzz of his kiss lingers, sending spirals of pleasure snaking through me, rendering me completely useless.
My heart is still slamming beneath my ribs, my entire body in a state of blissed-out shock.
If I looked at myself in a mirror, I would probably find my hair mussed, my lips stained an unnatural red, fuller than normal, and my pupils completely blown, eating up the blue of my eyes.
I blink into the darkness, unsure if any of what just happened, well, actually happened.
No. I know it was real. And Steel left me with more than just a promise.
He’s given me the key to the cage that I have been locked inside my whole life.