5. Lilly-Rose
LILLY-ROSE
The compound changes as soon as Dad leaves.
Brothers move bikes out of the main yard, clear loose tools from the garage and make sure there’s nothing a nervous deputy can mistake for a threat when Wade Corbin brings the warrant through the gates.
Guns stay where they always are, on men who know how to use them.
But Kane makes the rule plain: nobody draws unless Corbin does first and it goes sideways.
Cash sits at the bar with King’s blue folder beside him and a fresh set of copies spread across the counter.
The rest of the old club records have disappeared from the office behind church, and nobody explains where.
Kingdom Come is preparing to give the sheriff enough to put a corrupt deputy in cuffs.
It isn’t volunteering to become respectable.
Dad calls once more. The judge is expected to sign before midnight, Corbin plans to arrive at first light, and outside investigators will be close enough to move when he acts on the lie.
I tell Dad I understand what I need to say.
Cash tells him he’ll cooperate if Corbin arrests him, though the calm way he says it makes my father warn him not to turn handcuffs into a personal challenge.
When the call ends, Kane takes the envelope of copied records and leaves the bar with Judge.
Cash remains on the other side of the counter, watching me with the same controlled distance he used after our kiss.
I know that look now. It means he’s already planning how to lose something before anybody can take it from him.
“What happens after tomorrow?” I ask.
“Wade Corbin gets arrested. Doran follows, assuming he’s not smart enough to disappear before the sheriff finds him.” Cash closes the folder and slides it away. “You go home once the department is clean. Back to your job at the bank when your father says it’s safe.”
Every sentence sounds reasonable. Together, they leave him out of my life.
I wait until he heads toward the side hall, then follow him into his room. He removes his cut and hangs it over the chair, exposing the fitted black shirt beneath. He knows I’m at the door without turning. “You should get some sleep.”
“So should you, but that isn’t what either of us is doing.” I close the door and lean against it. “You’ve already put me back into my old life, haven’t you?”
Cash turns, his face unreadable. “I haven’t put you anywhere.”
“You just described everything I’ll do after this, and somehow you weren’t in any of it.”
His jaw tightens. “Because I’m not interested in being the bad boy biker you tried out while the gates were closed and your blood was still full of fear.
I knew before I touched you that one night wouldn’t be enough for me.
That’s why I stayed away. I want more. But I don’t think this life is you.
You have a nice life outside these gates, Lilly-Rose. ”
The admission is quiet, almost blunt, and far more vulnerable than anything he said while naked beside me. “You think I only want the fantasy?”
“I think you’ve had three days inside my world. Before that, you watched me from a bank window and went home to a life that never had to make room for Kingdom Come and what that means.”
“I watched because I wanted you. I came into your room because I wanted you. Tomorrow, when the warrant is gone and I’m back at work, I’ll still want your bike outside the bank and your cut hanging over a chair in my house.
” I move close enough to place my palms against his chest. “I want you when Dad is furious, when people stare and when the danger isn’t making everything feel sharper.
Stop assuming I’ll be embarrassed by you before I’ve even had the chance. ”
Cash studies me for a long moment. “Your father may never invite me to dinner.”
“That’s a hardship I’m prepared to survive.”
His mouth curves, but I hook my fingers into his belt before he can use humor to escape the rest. “You controlled everything the first time. Tonight, I want to find out how much control you really have.”
The smile disappears. Heat replaces it. “Careful, Lilly-Rose.”
“I’ve spent my whole life being careful.” I pull the belt slowly through the loops and let it fall beside his boots. “Sit down.”
Cash lowers himself into the chair without taking his eyes from me.
The obedience of a man that powerful sends a slow ache through my body.
I stand between his spread knees, lift his shirt and drag it over his head.
Tattoos cover the broad planes of his chest and ribs, dark against warm skin.
This time I don’t have to rush. I trace the ink with my fingertips, follow it with my mouth and feel his stomach tighten when my lips reach the line above his jeans.
“You said you imagined me,” I murmur while opening them. “Tell me what you imagined.”
Cash lifts his hips so I can push the denim and underwear down. His cock is already hard, thick against his stomach. “You after the bank closed. Blouse open, skirt around your waist, your hands flat on that desk.”
I wrap my fingers around him and stroke once, slowly. “Blinds shut?”
“No.” His voice roughens as I circle the head with my thumb. “I wanted you looking at your reflection in the glass while I fucked you.”
The image tightens every muscle low in my stomach. Cash reaches for me, but I catch his wrist and return his hand to the armrest. “You watch. I’ll tell you when you can touch.”
His eyes darken. “My good girl found an attitude.”
“She’s had one all along.”
I sink to my knees. The first slow drag of my tongue over him wipes the amusement from his face. I take the head into my mouth, tasting salt and heat, then draw back until my lips barely hold him. Cash grips the chair, forearms tightening as I repeat the motion and take him deeper each time.
“Lilly-Rose.” My name leaves him as a warning and a plea together.
I look up while my mouth moves over him. The smooth man who always knows what everybody wants is losing his certainty beneath my hands, and the sight makes me bolder. I hollow my cheeks, work the base with one hand and let him watch me enjoy every rough breath I pull from him.
His fingers close in my hair at last, not forcing, only holding. “You keep looking at me like that, this ends in your mouth.”
I release him slowly. “Maybe I’d like that.”
Cash’s entire body goes still. “Say it again.”
“I said maybe I want to taste what I do to you.” I stroke him while holding his gaze. “Maybe you should’ve looked closer.”
A rough laugh breaks from him. “Fuck, you’re going to ruin every clean thought I ever had about that bank.”
I take him again until his thighs tense beneath my palms, then stop before he can come.
Cash swears, and I rise with a smile that feels nothing like the woman who used to watch him from safety.
I strip in front of him, slowly enough to make him suffer through every button and inch of skin.
When I’m finally naked and his control is stretched thin, Cash’s hands settle on my hips, but I remove them and place them back on the chair.
“Still watching,” I tell him.
“Then give me something worth seeing.”
I guide him through my wetness and lower myself over the thick head of his cock. The stretch is slow and deep, pleasure sharpening as I take another inch and then another until my thighs meet his. Cash’s jaw is rigid, his hands locked around the armrests while I sit full of him.
I roll my hips once. His breath leaves hard. “Tell me what else you thought about.”
His gaze drops to where our bodies join. “I thought about making you admit you wanted a biker’s hands under those sensible clothes. About bending you over until you stopped worrying who might hear.”
I rise and sink again, letting him drag over every sensitive place inside me. “You imagined me begging?”
“I imagined you trying not to.”
“Then you don’t know me as well as you think.” I lean close, my lips against his ear. “I wouldn’t beg. I’d tell you to fuck me harder.”
Cash’s control snaps exactly the way I wanted. One hand closes around my ass, the other grips the back of my neck and drags my mouth to his. He thrusts upward as I ride him, meeting every drop of my hips with enough force to make the chair creak beneath us.
“You wanted control,” he says against my mouth.
“I wanted to make you lose it.”
“You did.”
He stands with me wrapped around him and carries me to the bed. Instead of lowering me onto my back, Cash turns me and bends me over the mattress. One palm presses between my shoulder blades while he drags his cock through my wetness from behind.
I look back at him. “You going to make me ask?”
“No. I’m going to make you tell me how you want it.”
“Hard.” I push back against him. “And don’t make me ask twice.”
His grin is dark and delighted. “There she is.”
Cash drives inside me in one powerful stroke.
The angle pulls a cry from my throat, and he answers with a low groan before withdrawing almost completely and filling me again.
His hands grip my hips, holding me exactly where he wants me as the rhythm builds.
This is nothing like the first time. There’s no uncertainty, no need to discover whether fantasy survives contact.
I know how his body feels inside mine, know the control in his voice and the hunger beneath it, and I want all of it rougher.
I push back to meet him. “Still holding back?”
Cash laughs once, breathless and dangerous. “Not anymore.”
He gathers my hair in one hand and draws me upright against his chest, never breaking the deep rhythm of his hips. His other hand slides down my stomach and between my thighs.
His fingers circle my clit. The combined pressure makes my knees weaken, but Cash holds me easily, his mouth against my ear as he tells me how good I feel around him and how long he’s imagined hearing me lose control.
“Tell me what you want,” he says.
“I want you to fuck me until I feel you tomorrow.”
The sound he makes is pure approval. He pushes me forward again, one hand braced beside mine on the mattress while the other keeps working between my thighs.
Each thrust lands deep and hard, the bed striking the wall in a steady beat I make no effort to silence.
Pleasure gathers fast, hotter because I know exactly what he wants and he’s finally letting me see how much he wants it.
When I tell him I’m close, Cash slows just enough to make me whimper.
“Don’t tease me.”
“Then ask.”
I grip the sheets. “Make me come.”
Cash loses whatever restraint remains. He drives into me hard, fingers moving faster until the orgasm tears through me.
My whole body clenches around him, and I cry his name into the room while he keeps thrusting through every pulse.
Before I can recover, he turns me onto my back and follows me down.
I wrap my legs around him as he pushes inside again, his face stripped of every smooth expression.
“I wanted more before you ever came through those gates,” he says, each word roughened by the effort of holding back. “I’m not walking away tomorrow.”
“Good.” I pull him closer. “Because I’m not letting you.”
Cash kisses me as he comes, hips driving deep while his body shudders over mine.
I hold him through it, feeling the broken sound against my mouth and knowing it belongs only to me.
For several minutes, neither of us says anything.
Cash stays braced above me until our breathing slows, then lies beside me and pulls me against his chest.
The sound of the compound continues beyond the room. Low voices in the common area, a motorcycle moving near the garage, boots passing once in the hall. Cash’s hand drifts over my back without urgency, and I trace the edge of a tattoo across his ribs until the last tension leaves his body.
Eventually, he presses his mouth to my hair. “I’m starting to think you’re not nearly as innocent as I gave you credit for.”
“I think you were hoping I wasn’t.”
His fingers tighten briefly at my hip. “I was counting on it.”
I smile against his chest and let my eyes close.
The knock comes early the next morning, before the sun has properly risen. Kane doesn’t waste words through the door. “Just got word from Sheriff Miller. The warrant’s signed. Corbin’s on the road.”
Cash is on his feet immediately. We dress without awkwardness, moving around each other with the efficient intimacy of people who know the next few minutes matter.
When he reaches for his cut, I lift it from the chair and hold it open.
He slides his arms into the leather, then turns so I can settle it over his shoulders.
“In front of Corbin, the deputies and my father,” I say, “don’t step away from me.”
Cash cups my face and kisses me once, hard and possessive. “Wasn’t planning to.”
We walk into the yard together. Kingdom Come gathers beneath the garage lights, cuts dark against wet gravel, Kane and Judge at the front.
Beyond the fencing, headlights move between the trees, followed by the first flash of red and blue.
Corbin is coming to tell a yard full of men that my father is a dirty cop and that I don’t know my own mind.
This time, he’ll have to say it while I’m standing beside the biker who knows exactly what I want.