3. Pope
POPE
Ican still taste her.
And I hate myself for wanting more.
The whiskey burns going down, but it doesn't burn away her. Nothing does. I've been pacing my office at the clubhouse since three AM, trying to convince myself that walking away was the right thing. The noble thing. The only thing a man with any decency would do.
I kissed my dead best friend's wife. Worse—I don't regret it. I want to do it again. I want to do a hell of a lot more than kiss her.
The guilt should be crushing me. It is crushing me. But underneath it is something worse: hunger. The kind I've been starving for two years. The kind I've been denying for seven.
I pour another drink and don't taste it.
Marco's face swims up from the amber liquid. Grinning, always grinning. The way he looked that last night, before everything went to hell.
The run was supposed to be routine. A simple delivery for one of our legitimate businesses—auto parts heading up the coast. I'd made that route a hundred times. Knew every curve, every stretch where cops liked to hide, every shortcut if we needed one.
But I didn't know about the ambush.
Iron Serpents had been testing our territory for months. I knew they were getting bolder. I should have been more careful. Should have sent scouts ahead. Should have—
The first shot took out Hammer's tire. The second clipped Rev's shoulder. By the time I realized what was happening, bullets were flying from both sides of the road and Marco was screaming my name.
I found him behind the overturned truck, bleeding out from a gut wound that no amount of pressure was going to stop. His hands were slick with it, trying to hold himself together, and when he saw my face, he knew.
"Don't." His voice was already fading. "Don't blame yourself, brother. This life... we knew the risks."
"Shut up." I was pressing my hands over his, both of us slippery with blood. "You're not dying. You hear me? You're not fucking dying."
But he was. We both knew it.
"Take care of Mara." His eyes found mine, urgent. "She's gonna need someone. Promise me."
"I promise. Marco, I—"
"And Pope?" He grabbed my cut with what was left of his strength, pulling me closer. "Let yourself have something good for once. You deserve it. Even if you don't believe that."
I held him while he died. Felt the exact moment his body went still. And I didn't understand—couldn't understand—what he meant.
Let yourself have something good.
Marco knew. He knew I loved her. Somehow, some way, he'd figured it out—the thing I'd buried so deep I barely admitted it to myself. And his dying wish was to tell me I deserved happiness?
I've spent two years trying to convince myself those were the rambles of a dying man. Blood loss. Delirium. Anything but what they sounded like.
Permission.
The memorial starts at six.
I shower, shave, put on the cleanest clothes I own. The black button-down feels like armor. Like mourning. Like a lie.
Marco's Trattoria is packed by the time I arrive.
Half the town has shown up to honor him—the men in their cuts, the women in black dresses, kids running between tables while their parents try to corral them.
Candles flicker on every surface. Photos of Marco cover the walls, that same grin in every shot.
I spot the others immediately. Jax stands near the bar with Maddie, baby Emma asleep against his chest. Rev and Eden are tucked into a corner booth, his hand covering hers on the table.
Doc leans against the wall with Rory beside him, little Luna clinging to his leg like he's the only safe thing in the room.
My brothers. My family. The people I'd die for.
And then I see her.
Mara moves through the crowd like water, greeting guests, accepting kind words, holding herself together with a grace that makes my chest ache. She's wearing black—a simple dress that hugs her curves and leaves her shoulders bare. Her dark hair is pinned up, exposing the line of her neck.
She's beautiful. She's always been beautiful. And I have no right to notice.
Our eyes meet across the room.
The kiss hangs between us, unspoken. Her lips part. My hands clench at my sides. For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then someone calls her name, and she turns away, and I can breathe again.
The eulogy is worse than I expected.
I stand at the front of the restaurant with Marco's photo behind me and a hundred pairs of eyes watching, and I try to find words for a man who was my brother in every way that mattered.
"Marco Deluca was the best of us."
My voice comes out steady. Controlled. The voice of a president, not a friend. Not a man drowning in guilt.
"He was loyal. Brave. He had a heart bigger than anyone I've ever known, and he loved without reservation.
The club. This town. His family." My eyes find Mara in the crowd.
She's crying silently, mascara tracks on her cheeks, and I have to look away before I lose my composure.
"He loved fiercely. And he made everyone around him better for knowing him. "
I talk about the good times. The runs we took together, the bar fights we survived, the nights we sat on the clubhouse roof and talked about everything and nothing.
I don't mention the ambush. Don't mention that I was leading that night.
Don't mention that my best friend died because I made the wrong call.
Don't mention that I've been in love with his wife for seven years.
"Marco asked me to take care of things when he was gone." My throat tightens. "I've tried. I'm still trying. And I hope—" My voice cracks. I pause, breathe, force myself to continue. "I hope I'm making him proud."
When I finish, the applause is muted. Respectful. People come up to shake my hand, to tell me Marco was a good man, to share their own memories. I accept it all with the same controlled expression I've worn for twenty years.
But my eyes keep finding Mara. And hers keep finding mine.
The crowd thins around ten.
I should leave. Should go back to the clubhouse, drink until I pass out, and spend another night not sleeping. Instead, I find myself in the back office, sitting in Marco's chair, staring at the photo of him and Mara on their wedding day.
He looks so goddamn happy.
The door opens.
"Hiding?"
Mara's voice is soft. Tired. She closes the door behind her and leans against it, watching me with those dark eyes that have haunted my dreams for years.
"Something like that." I set down the photo. "You should be out there. People want to see you."
"People have seen me for four hours. I needed a break." She doesn't move from the door. "We need to talk about last night."
"Mara—"
"Don't." There's steel in her voice now. "Don't shut me out again. You kissed me like... like that, and then you walked away without a word. You left me standing there with no explanation."
"It shouldn't have happened."
"But it did." She pushes off the door, moving closer. "And you don't get to just disappear again. Not this time. I'm leaving in a week, Pope. If you have something to say to me, say it now. Because I can't spend the rest of my life wondering what the hell that was."
The room tilts. She's really leaving. Walking away from this town, this restaurant, this life. Walking away from me.
"You can't leave."
"Why not?" She's standing right in front of me now, close enough to touch. "Give me one real reason to stay."
My control shatters.
"Because I've spent two years staying away from you and it's been killing me." The words pour out before I can stop them. "Because kissing you last night was the first time I've felt alive since Marco died. Because if you leave, I don't know how to—"
She kisses me.
Her mouth crashes into mine, swallowing my words, and every barrier I've built for seven years crumbles to dust. I pull her onto my lap without thinking, hands gripping her hips, kissing her back with all the desperation I've been choking on since the day I met her.
She tastes like wine and tears and something sweet I can't name. Her fingers tangle in my hair, nails scraping my scalp, and I groan against her lips. Two years of staying away. Seven years of loving her. A lifetime of wanting this woman I couldn't have.
"Take me home," she breathes against my mouth. "Not to talk."
I don't need to be told twice.
The ride to my place is torture.
She presses against my back on the bike, her thighs bracketing my hips, her hands flat on my stomach. Every red light is an eternity. Every mile feels like ten. Her fingers trace patterns on my abs through my shirt, dipping lower, teasing, and I nearly run us off the road twice.
By the time I pull into my driveway, I'm so hard it hurts.
We barely make it through the door.
Her back hits the wall and I'm on her, kissing her like I'm trying to consume her. She pulls at my shirt, buttons scattering across the floor, and when her hands find bare skin, I shudder.
"Pope—" My name on her lips is the sweetest thing I've ever heard.
"Ryder." I kiss down her jaw, her throat, the curve of her shoulder. "Call me Ryder."
"Ryder." She says it like a prayer. "Please."
I find the zipper at the back of her dress and drag it down slowly, letting the black fabric pool at her feet.
She's all soft curves and warm skin, black lace barely covering the parts of her I've imagined a thousand times.
I trace the swell of her breast with my thumb, watching her nipple harden beneath the fabric, and she arches into my touch.
"Do you have any idea," I murmur against her collarbone, "how long I've wanted this? Wanted you?"
"Show me."
I carry her to the bedroom, laying her down on sheets that have never held anyone but me. She looks up at me with eyes that hold no hesitation. No doubt. Just want, raw and open and devastating.
This first time is fast. Desperate. I can't slow down, can't make myself wait—seven years of denial have burned away my patience. I strip off the rest of my clothes while she unhooks her bra, and when I lower myself over her, skin to skin, we both gasp.
Her panties are soaked when I slide them aside.
She's ready, so ready, and when I push inside her we both cry out.
She's tight, hot, perfect—and I lose myself completely.
I take her hard against the mattress, her nails raking down my back, her moans filling my ears.
It's over embarrassingly fast, both of us shaking, gasping, clinging to each other like we'll drown if we let go.
"I'm sorry," I pant against her neck. "That was—I couldn't—"
"Don't apologize." She kisses my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. "We have all night."
The second time is different.
I take my time. Learn her properly.
I start at her throat, kissing down the column of her neck while my hands map her body. The curve of her waist. The soft swell of her hips. The way she shivers when I trace the underside of her breast.
"You're beautiful." I circle her nipple with my tongue, feeling it tighten. "I've thought about this so many times. Touching you. Tasting you."
"Ryder..." Her voice breaks on my name.
I kiss lower. Down her stomach, over the soft curve of her belly, nuzzling the crease of her thigh. She trembles beneath me, fingers twisting in the sheets, and when I finally settle between her legs, she whimpers.
The first touch of my tongue makes her cry out.
She tastes like heaven and sin, and I take my time—long, slow strokes that make her hips roll against my mouth.
I learn what she likes: the way she gasps when I circle her clit, the way she moans when I slide two fingers inside her and curl them just right.
"Please—" Her thighs clamp around my head. "Oh god, please don't stop—"
I don't stop. I push her higher, feeling her body tighten around my fingers, her cries growing desperate. When she finally breaks, it's with my name on her lips and her back arched off the bed, shaking through waves of pleasure that seem to go on forever.
I don't give her time to recover.
I rise over her, positioning myself at her entrance, and pause. "Look at me."
Her eyes flutter open. Dark. Dazed. Beautiful.
"I want you to see me," I tell her. "Want you to know who's inside you."
I push in slowly this time. Inch by inch. Watching her face, the way her lips part, the way her eyes go wide when I'm fully seated. She's still fluttering around me from her orgasm, and the sensation nearly breaks me.
"Ryder." She cups my face in her hands. "Move. Please."
I do.
Long, deep strokes that let me feel every inch of her. She wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, and we find a rhythm—slow, intense, our eyes locked. It's nothing like the frantic coupling before. This is something else. Something that feels like worship.
"You feel so good." I thrust deeper, harder, and she gasps. "So perfect. Like you were made for me."
"I was." She pulls me down for a kiss. "I think I was."
I feel her building again, feel the way she tightens around me with every stroke.
I reach between us, pressing my thumb against her clit, and she shatters—crying out against my mouth, her whole body clenching around me.
The sensation drags me over the edge with her.
I bury myself deep and let go, spilling into her with a groan that comes from somewhere I didn't know I still had.
We collapse together, breathing hard, tangled up in each other and the sheets.
I hold her like she might disappear. She traces my scars with her fingertips, learning me the way I learned her. Neither of us speaks. What is there to say?
Hours later, I watch her sleep.
The moonlight turns her skin silver, her dark lashes fanned across her cheeks, her breathing slow and even. She looks peaceful. Content. Like she belongs exactly where she is.
In my bed. In my arms.
Let yourself have something good.
Marco's words echo in the darkness, and for the first time, I let myself believe he meant them.
But there's more she doesn't know. More I haven't told her. The full truth of how long I've loved her. The confession Marco dragged out of me years before he died. The permission he gave that I never felt I deserved.
I press a kiss to her shoulder. She stirs but doesn't wake.
I'll tell her everything. Soon, I'll risk losing her with the truth.
But tonight, I let myself have this.
Her. Us. Something good.
Even if I don't deserve it.