Chapter 12
Colt
"I'm asking the club to recognize Ellie Frost as my old lady."
Nine brothers sit at the table. Diesel against the back wall because prospects don't sit.
The room smells like leather and coffee and the collected sweat of men who slept in four-hour shifts for a week.
Sunset pushes through the windows and throws long shadows across the table Knox built with his own hands.
I don't make a speech. I've brought enough proposals to this table. Budget reviews, tax strategies, vendor contracts I explained them line by line until Rex's eyes glazed over. This doesn't need columns or projections.
"She defends my daughter. She stood in front of a library board and told them she's with me. She held Lily during the attack and didn't leave." I put my hands flat on the table. "She makes my house a home."
Knox leans back in his chair. "About damn time."
Finn claps my shoulder hard enough to shift my weight. Garrett's fist hits the table once. His standard vote. Rex crosses his arms and kicks his boots up on the table because Rex has never once respected furniture.
"Shit, I had money on last month," Rex says.
"Unanimous?" Knox looks around the table. Every hand goes up. Diesel's too, from the wall, which earns him a look from Knox that would've meant something a month ago but now just makes Knox's mouth twitch.
Knox nods. "Done. Welcome to the losing-every-argument club, brother."
The brothers break from the table. I stay seated for a second, letting the vote settle. Twenty years at this table. I've seen patches voted, prospects cut, wars declared. My hands press flat against the grain and the wood sits warm under my palms.
Bruiser catches me in the hall.
"There's a journalist." He shifts his laptop bag. "Ava White. She's writing a piece on the town for some regional magazine. Integration success story. Feel-good shit." He stops walking. "But there's something about her that I don't trust."
"What kind of questions?"
His grip tightens on the strap. "I'll let you know when I figure that out." He heads for the back office before I can push.
My instinct says to press, to pull the thread, to find out what Bruiser's digging into and why his face locks up when he says her name. But Bruiser's earned the long leash. He'll bring it to the table when he's ready.
The library sits dark from the outside, closed for hours. The sign on the door reads CLOSED in the block letters Ellie hand-painted her first week on the job.
I carry the cut folded over my arm. New leather, stiff, the Feral Sons patch stitched across the back.
The brothers file through the back entrance: Knox first, then Finn, Rex, Garrett, Chain, Steel, Hunter.
Bruiser last, laptop bag in hand. Jess slips in behind Finn with her hand on her belly. Sarah follows with Reeve on her hip.
Lily sits cross-legged in the children's section. She looked up once when the brothers came through the door, took stock, and went right back to her book. My daughter, surrounded by bikers, turning pages.
Ellie stands behind the circulation desk shelving returns, a stack of hardcovers in the crook of her arm. She sees the room fill with leather and sets the books down and presses her palms flat on the counter.
"What's happening? Is everything okay?"
The brothers spread behind me as I walk to the desk, leaning against shelves and tables. Knox takes the armchair by the fiction section. Finn stands beside a display of banned books and grins at the irony.
I set the cut on the counter between us.
"I can't give you a ring yet." I push the leather toward her. "But I can give you this. This is my family and now you're my family. Will you wear it?"
She picks up the cut. Turns it over. Her fingers trace the rocker stitched across the back beneath the Feral Sons patch: PROPERTY OF COLT.
She looks at me. "I'll wear it." She holds the leather against her chest. "One condition. This gets changed to 'Partner of.'"
I open my mouth and Knox beats me to it from the armchair. "That's not how it works, little librarian."
The whole room laughs. Ellie gives Knox the look she gives patrons who argue about late fees and pulls the cut on anyway.
"I like her," Jess says from the doorway.
Lily doesn't look up from her book. "I told you, Dad."
Ellie pulls the cut on over her dress, the floral one with the buttons down the front, the one she wore the first time I walked into this library and forgot why I came.
The leather hangs loose on her frame, the Feral Sons patch down her back, PROPERTY OF COLT across her shoulders.
My chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with grief.
The brothers say their pieces. Knox shakes my hand. Rex pounds my back. Garrett nods toward the door. Finn tells Ellie she's stuck with all of them now, good luck with that, and Jess pulls Ellie into a hug that lasts long enough for me to look away.
Sarah picks up Lily's bag. "Lily, you're coming home with us tonight. Sleep over, girls night."
Lily closes her book and stands. She walks to Ellie and wraps her arms around her waist, face pressed into the cut. Ellie's hand goes to Lily's hair.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Lily asks.
"You'll see me tomorrow."
Lily nods and follows Sarah to the door. The brothers filter out behind them, boots on tile, quiet voices, one by one until the library empties and the only sound is the ventilation humming through the stacks.
Ellie stands behind the desk in my cut and her floral dress.
I lock the front door. When I turn around she's moved from behind the desk, standing between the rows of shelves. The reading lamp in the back throws warm light across the leather on her shoulders.
The distance between us closes in four steps.
My hands find her face, fingers threading through her hair, and I kiss her with every month I spent pretending I came to this library for the books.
She rises on her toes and grips the front of my shirt, pulling me down to her, the growl that rolls through my chest vibrates into her mouth.
I lift her. Her legs lock around my waist and I carry her through the stacks to the reading nook in the back corner, the deep leather armchair under the brass lamp, the one she tells me patrons fight over on rainy afternoons.
I sit with her in my lap, her knees bracketing my hips, and the chair creaks under our combined weight.
My mouth drops to her throat. I scent her there, the hollow below her ear where her pulse kicks hard, the dip of her collarbone where her scent pools warm.
Cedar-vanilla, rich and warm, and underneath the sharp note of wanting that makes my cock strain against my jeans.
I drag my lips down her neck and her head falls back, fingers curling into my hair.
The scent of her arousal thickens with every pass of my mouth and the orc in me starts pulling at the leash.
I work the buttons of her dress one at a time. She shrugs the dress down but keeps the cut on, my leather against her bare skin, and the sight of her in nothing but the Feral Sons patch and her underwear makes my hands shake.
"Leave it on," I tell her. "The cut."
"Bossy." She laughs and the sound breaks open in my chest. I pull her bra down and take her nipple between my lips, scrape the flat of my tusk against the swell, and her laugh turns into a moan she tries to swallow.
I switch to the other breast, sucking hard enough to mark, and her hips grind down against me.
My cock throbs against the seam of my jeans and the friction drags a groan out of me that fills the empty library.
She grinds harder and I can feel the heat of her through my jeans, the wet warmth of her soaking through the denim.
My hand slides between us. I pull her underwear to the side and drag my fingers through her folds, and fuck, she's drenched.
Slick and hot and coating my hand, and the scent of her arousal hits me so hard a growl tears out of my chest that rattles the lamp above us.
"Colt." Her voice catches on the single syllable.
I push two fingers inside her. She's tight, always tight around me, her body still getting used to my size, and I curl deep, stretching her, working her open.
Her forehead drops against mine as we breathe the same air, and she moans against my lips with every stroke.
I fuck her slow and deep, my thumb circling her clit, and her pussy clenches around me in pulses that make my cock ache against the zipper of my jeans.
"More." She breathes it against my lips. "I can take more."
I add a third finger and she gasps, her nails biting into my shoulders.
Three stretch her the way she needs to take my cock, and I work her open with slow, deliberate thrusts, spreading her wider on each stroke.
Her hips roll against my hand, grinding down, taking me deeper.
Her pussy grips and flutters around all three and the sounds she makes stop being quiet, raw moans carrying through the empty stacks, her body riding my hand in my lap.
I press my mouth to her ear. "That's it. Take what you need."
She comes apart in my lap. Her pussy clamps down, clenching in long rolling waves, her whole body shaking, my name ripped from her throat loud enough to bounce off every shelf in the building.
I hold her through it, my free hand gripping the back of her neck, my mouth on her jaw, feeling every tremor run through her and into me.
I strip while she catches her breath. Pull my shirt over my head, lift her enough to shove my jeans and briefs down.
My cock springs free, thick and hard against my stomach, and she looks down between us with blown pupils.
She wraps her hand around me and strokes the full length, her thumb tracing the ridge of the head, and I hiss between my teeth.
Her hand looks small wrapped around my cock.
A growl rolls out of me, low and rough, and she tightens her grip.