Chapter 14
They ended up in room four.
Not the cabin at the compound. Not the dock or the boathouse or any of the places that belonged to the club and the life she'd walked into.
Room four of The Pines—her room, in her motel, on the highway she'd just put under Ridgerunner protection by walking into a chapel full of patched men and refusing to blink.
The power was off. She'd killed the breaker when she boarded the place up, and she hadn't turned it back on yet, so the only light was the work lamp she'd been using to clear room nine—a battery-powered LED that threw a hard white circle on the floor and left everything else in shadow.
The room smelled like paint and plywood and the faint ghost of bleach from the last time she'd cleaned it, and the bed was stripped to the bare mattress because she'd taken the linens when she left.
This was her room. She'd laid this carpet.
She'd hung this door. She'd painted these walls the color of lake fog and installed the deadbolt and replaced the shower head and made this space hers, and now she was standing in it with a man she'd chosen in a way she'd never chosen anyone, and the rawness of that—the ownership of it—burned in her chest like something lit.
Buckshot stood just inside the door, watching her the way he'd watched her all day—through the chapel vote, through Maggie's kitchen, through the drive out here and the hours of tearing burnt drywall out of room nine. Patient. Waiting. Letting her lead.
She was done letting him wait.
She crossed the room and backed him into the wall.
Her hands went to his belt buckle, and she held his eyes while she worked it open—the leather sliding through the loop, the metal clinking in the quiet room.
He didn't move. His hands stayed at his sides, his back flat against the wall she'd painted, his jaw tight and his breathing already changing.
She went to her knees.
The carpet she'd laid was rough under her kneecaps, and she could feel the seam where she'd cut and joined the pieces herself, and there was something fierce and right about being on her knees in a room she'd built with her own hands, doing this because she wanted to, not because anyone had asked or expected or assumed.
She freed him from his jeans. He was already hard—had been since she'd pushed him against the wall, probably since she'd walked into chapel this morning—and she wrapped her hand around the base of him and took him into her mouth without preamble.
The sound he made hit the walls and came back. Low, guttural, pulled from somewhere behind his ribs. His head went back against the drywall and his hands came to her hair—not pushing, not guiding, just threading through, holding on, the way a man holds onto something when the ground starts moving.
She worked him slow. Took her time. Drew him deep and pulled back and used her tongue on the underside, and every time she glanced up his eyes were on her with that dark, undone look that made her feel more powerful than any vote in any chapel ever could.
She kept going until his hand tightened in her hair and his hips started to move—small, involuntary thrusts he couldn't control—and his breathing went ragged and his thighs were shaking under her hands.
"Tamsin—" His voice was wrecked. "You need to stop or I'm going to—"
She pulled off. Looked up at him. Wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
He hauled her up.
His hands under her arms, lifting her off her knees, spinning her before she was fully upright.
She barely had time to register the movement before he had her facing the bed, his chest against her back, his hands pulling her jeans down her hips.
She kicked them off one leg and braced her forearms on the stripped mattress, and he bent her forward and pushed into her in one hard stroke that drove the air out of her lungs.
She grabbed the edge of the mattress and held on.
He was not gentle. Not slow. Not any of the things he'd been on the dock or in his cabin on their sides with their foreheads touching.
This was the other side of him—the side that spread damage wide, that took over a room by filling it, that had looked at her across a wrecked parking lot and said you're mine like he was carving it into stone.
He drove into her with a rhythm that shook the bed frame and rattled the work lamp on the floor, and she braced on her forearms and pushed back into every stroke.
"Harder," she said.
He gave her harder.
"Your hand. Left. Right there—"
His hand slid between her legs and found her, and she told him exactly what she wanted—the pressure, the speed, the angle—and he gave her every piece of it without hesitation, adjusting to her voice, following her words the way he'd followed her through the motel's corridors, trusting her to know the ground.
The pressure built in a tight spiral, and she was close, so close, when he pulled out.
She made a sound of raw frustration.
He pulled her upright against his chest. His arm wrapped around her from behind, and his hand came to her throat—light, no pressure, just his palm against the column of her neck and his fingers resting along her jaw.
A hold, not a grip. A claim, not a threat.
She could feel his heartbeat hammering against her back.
"Okay?" he asked against her ear.
"Yes."
His other hand slid between her thighs and he pushed back into her from behind, and the angle—standing, upright, his hand on her throat and his fingers between her legs and his body filling her from behind—was different from anything they'd done.
She was held. Surrounded. Completely his, in a room that was completely hers, and the contradiction of it lit her up from the inside.
He moved in her slow. Deep. His mouth at her ear, his breath hot, his hand on her throat feeling her pulse race under his palm. His fingers worked her in time with his hips, and she let her head fall back against his shoulder and closed her eyes and let herself be taken apart.
The orgasm started deep and rolled outward, a slow wave that built and built and crested and broke, and she came with her head on his shoulder and his name—his road name, because that was who he was in this room, in this life—spilling out of her in a sound that was half moan, half prayer.
His hand flexed on her throat and his arm tightened around her and she felt him follow—the deep pulse of him inside her, the groan vibrating against her neck, his whole body going rigid and then releasing.
Her knees gave.
He caught her. Went down with her onto the bare mattress, pulling her against him, wrapping around her from behind.
His hand stayed on her stomach, his face buried in her hair, his breathing harsh and slowing.
She grabbed his forearm with both hands—the one wrapped around her—and held it against her chest and felt his pulse thudding against her back.
He didn't let go.
Minutes passed. The work lamp threw its white circle on the floor.
The room was still and dark and warm, and outside she could hear the cicadas going in the tree line and the faint sound of a brother walking the lot—the watch, the guard, the club keeping them safe while they lay in the dark and breathed.
"This is my room," she said quietly.
"I know."
"I laid this carpet. I painted these walls. I hung the door you just pushed me through."
His mouth pressed against the back of her neck. "I know."
"Nobody's ever been in this room with me. Not like this. I cleaned it a hundred times and changed the sheets and mopped the floor, and no one was ever in it except guests passing through on their way somewhere else."
His arm tightened around her. His hand spread wider on her stomach.
"I'm not passing through," he said.
She laced her fingers through his against her stomach and held on, and the work lamp hummed on the floor and the room she'd built held them both.
Somewhere past the boarded window, a vehicle passed on the highway. It slowed at the mouth of the lot—she heard the engine drop, heard the tires crunch on the shoulder—and for a long, still moment it idled there, invisible behind the plywood, before it moved on and the road went quiet again.
Buckshot's arm tightened around her. She felt him go alert behind her, felt the shift from soft to sharp in the space between one breath and the next.
She put her hand over his on her stomach and held him still.
"Not tonight," she said. "Tonight is ours."
He settled. Slowly. His mouth found her shoulder and he kissed it, and his body relaxed against hers, and outside the window the highway stayed dark and empty and the motel held its ground.