Chapter 8 #2
"Before we fixed anything."
"Yeah." My throat was tight. "Ordered it the morning after Locke Garage. Paid a patch shop over in Hazard triple to stitch it same day."
She ran her thumb along the lapel of the cut, the leather still stiff and new. I could see the edge of the patch across her back. PROPERTY OF CAGE. Mine. For good, and every year I had left after that. Her eyes came up to mine, dark and steady and absolutely certain.
"Say it again," I said.
"I love you."
I backed her against the bar. She went, her spine hitting the edge, breath catching. I braced one arm on either side of her, leaned in until our mouths almost touched. "Again."
"I love you." Quieter now. Her fingers curling into the front of my shirt.
I kissed her neck, right below her ear. Her pulse hammered under my lips.
"Nathaniel," she breathed, and my cock throbbed so hard I saw white.
A name nobody used, given to the only person who'd earned it.
My mouth traced down her throat, teeth grazing the tendon, tongue pressing flat against her pulse point. Her back arched off the bar.
"You're keeping the cut on," I told her.
"Wasn't planning on taking it off."
Good. Because she had my name across her back and I was never going to be right again, and I didn't give a single shit.
I lifted her onto the bar. She wrapped her legs around my waist, the leather creaking, pulled me flush against her until there was no space left.
I was hard enough to ache, pressed right against her heat, and when she rolled her hips the sound I made wasn't dignified.
Her mouth found mine, open and hungry. I kissed her how I'd been wanting to since the courthouse steps, slow and deep, my tongue sliding against hers while she made a sound in the back of her throat that lit me up from the inside.
I dragged my mouth down her jaw, her neck.
Took the cut off her long enough to peel the flannel off her, then put my leather back on her bare shoulders where it belonged.
Off her about four seconds. I counted. Leather against bare skin, nothing underneath.
She hadn't bothered with a bra under my flannel and Christ. Nothing on her but my cut, the leather falling open across her chest. I lowered my mouth to her breast, tongue flat against her nipple, sucking hard until she gasped, her hips bucking against me.
I bit down just enough to make her jolt, then sucked again.
Her hand fisted in my hair. I gave the other breast the same attention and her thighs clamped tighter around me, grinding herself against my cock through my jeans.
"Cage." Ragged. "Don't make me wait."
"Not tonight." I stepped between her legs, shielding her from the hallway with my back. Any brother with half a brain would stay gone, but half a brain was generous for most of them. "This is going to be fast and hard before some fucker walks in."
"Then stop talking." She went for my belt, yanking the leather free, popping the button, shoving the denim down until she wrapped her fingers around my cock and stroked.
Firm and certain, like she owned it. Fuck.
My hips jerked into her grip. I shoved her jeans down off one leg and she locked her legs around me, the cut still on her.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered, because the sight of her bare and wet and wearing my claim was going to kill me and I was going to let it.
She pulled me in by the back of my neck. "Now."
I lined up against her and pushed in slow, watching her face the whole time.
Wet. So fucking wet that I slid in with one long stroke, stretching her open around me, and the tight heat of her nearly buckled my knees.
Her lips parted. Her lashes dropped. She breathed my name, and it damn near broke me open.
When I bottomed out she grabbed my jaw with both hands and held my gaze.
"Eyes on me," she whispered.
"Couldn't look anywhere else if I tried."
I pulled back and drove in deep, my grip on her hips hard enough to leave marks.
She met me thrust for thrust, her back arching, her legs tightening around me, and every time I buried myself to the hilt she made this broken little noise that went straight to the base of my spine.
The bar creaked under us. I made a note to fix it and lost the thought in the same breath. Let the whole building come down.
"Feel what you do to me," I said against her mouth, driving deeper. "You have any goddamn idea?" She clenched around me, hot and tight, and I groaned into her neck. "This is mine. You're mine. Say it."
"Yours." Her nails raked down my back. "Yours, Nathaniel."
Fuck. Hearing my real name with my cock inside her, in my clubhouse, with my patch on her skin.
I thrust harder, faster, my hand sliding between us to press my thumb against her clit, rubbing in tight circles.
She cried out, loud enough that it bounced off the cinder block walls, and I swallowed the sound with my mouth.
"Come for me," I told her. "Right here, right now. I want to feel it."
Her body seized. Her thighs shook against my hips.
Then she shattered, her pussy clenching around my cock in hard, pulsing waves, her teeth sinking into my shoulder to muffle the scream.
The cut bunched under my grip on her shoulders.
I held her through it, still thrusting, still fucking her through the aftershocks until she was shaking so hard I was the only thing holding her up.
The rest of me followed her over, face pressed into her hair and her real name on my tongue—Adelaide—erasing every memory of the fucker who used to think he owned her. I came hard enough that my vision whited out, spilling deep inside her, my hips grinding against hers while she held on to me.
The drum stove popped. Orange light shifted across the wall. I was still inside her, still shaking. Her hand drifted up my arm to the bare patch of skin over my heart, where nothing had ever earned the space. Her thumb pressed flat against it. Looked up at me with those dark steady eyes.
I already knew what was going there.
"You're mine too," she said.
"Yeah, baby." My voice was wrecked. "I sure as fuck am."