Chapter Eleven
Ollie
Apparently, I wasn’t privy to “club business.”
Honestly, I didn’t want the details. My life was already complicated enough with my seniors, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little curious.
I rolled over and smiled at Diesel, who was just waking up.
His eyes blinked open, blue irises catching the early light through the blinds. Seeing him so at ease—messy hair, relaxed features—sent a flutter through me that felt deliciously dangerous.
“Morning,” he rumbled, voice thick with sleep.
“Morning.” Before I even thought about it, my fingers were tracing the tattoo on his shoulder. “Sleep okay?”
“Better than okay.” He shifted toward me, pulling us close under the covers. “You stayed.”
“Where else would I go?”
He grinned. “Some people bolt after sex being dragged to a clubhouse and locked in.”
“I wasn’t locked in,” I protested with what little brainpower I had.
“You were strongly encouraged to stay put.”
I couldn’t help the small smile. “I wanted to be here when you woke up.”
Something in his gaze softened, and he leaned in for a slow, thorough kiss—tasting of sleep and entirely him. My blood raced south the moment our lips met.
When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathless.
“I missed you yesterday,” he murmured against my mouth. “At that meeting.”
“Missed you too.” My hand drifted down his torso, following muscle and ink. “What was it about?”
“Club stuff. Nothing you need to worry about.”
His dodge stung more than I expected. My hand froze on his ribs as I lifted my head to look at him. “You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” He resumed circling my hip with his thumb. “Some things are better off separate.”
“From me?”
He cupped my face with his free hand. “From anyone who isn’t wearing a patch. It’s not personal, Ollie. It’s just protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“From everything we deal with, so you don’t have to.”
His answer should’ve reassured me. Instead, it only raised more questions. Questions that could shift everything between us.
After a moment, I sighed. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” I let my hand drift lower until I brushed against his morning erection. “Can we stop talking about club business now?”
His breath hitched, the sound raw and needy. His fingers dug into my hip hard enough to leave marks. “What do you want to talk about instead?”
“Nothing.” My palm slid over his shaft, thumb smearing the bead of pre-cum at his slit. “Not in the mood for words.”
A broken sound tore from his throat. “Christ, Ollie—” His hips jerked, cock swelling in my grip. “You’re gonna kill me.”
“Good thing we’ve got all morning.” I shoved the sheet off us, baring him completely. The sight of him—muscles coiled tight, skin flushed, cock flushed darker—made my mouth water. “Look at you. So perfect.”
“You’re the perfect one.” His hands were everywhere at once, mapping my chest, my thighs, the dip of my waist.
“Spent all yesterday hard as hell watching you haul lumber. Sweat dripping down your back, tiny muscles flexing every time you lifted something. Wanted to bend you over that half-built porch and fuck you until you couldn’t stand.”
I groaned, my cock throbbing against my stomach. “So why didn’t you?”
His fingers wrapped around my shaft, stroking in time with mine. “Club members were there. Not exactly the audience I wanted around while I fucked you.”
“Edith would’ve cheered.”
His laugh was a dark rumble. “She’d have brought popcorn.” His thumb swiped over my crown, gathering the wetness there. “Fuck, you’re leaking for me.”
The pressure in my gut was already unbearable. I needed more. Needed him. “Want you inside me.”
“Yeah?” His pupils were blown, swallowing the blue of his irises. “Show me.”
I let go of his cock and rolled onto my back, legs falling open. The cool air hit my hole, making me shiver. “Please, Diesel. Need you.”
He moved fast, yanking the nightstand drawer open. The snap of the lube cap made my pulse spike. He slicked his fingers, then his cock. My hole clenched at the sight.
“Right here.” He nudged my thighs wider, settling between them. His lubed fingers pressed against my entrance, circling, teasing. One breached me, then two, stretching me open. The burn was good. So, so good.
“More.” My voice was wrecked, desperate.
“Greedy.” But he gave me a third finger, scissoring them inside me. When he brushed my prostate, my back arched off the bed. “There it is.”
I was panting, my cock dripping onto my stomach. “Now. Do it now!”
“Not yet.” His fingers curled again, hitting that spot over and over until my vision blurred. “Want you begging for it.”
“We had all night to savor every moment.”
“We’ve got the whole morning too.” Diesel’s thumb circled my entrance while his fingers plunged deeper. “I want you aching for me.”
“I already am.” I reached for my hard length, but he caught my wrist.
“Not yet.” He slid his fingers free, and the sudden void made me whine. “I want your mind locked on me.”
He lined himself up and eased in with one slow thrust. The burn of the stretch hit me hard, despite every slicking drop, and I gripped his shoulders, nails raking into muscle as I braced for the fullness.
“Breathe,” he whispered, forehead against mine.
I sucked in air once, twice. The sting began to soften, replaced by a deeper, wetter heat. My hips shifted, chasing every millimeter of friction.
He drew nearly all the way back before driving home again.
Each pulse sent me soaring, a mounting pressure demanding release. My cock leaked thick and hot, untouched and throbbing. He hit that perfect spot inside me with every thrust, and my thighs trembled from the rush.
“Touch yourself,” Diesel rasped. “I want to see you losing it.”
My hand wrapped around my shaft, matching his rhythm. The double surge coiled pleasure tighter, until my vision blurred.
“Close,” I managed to groan.
“Let me watch.” He slammed in harder, deeper. “Come for me, Ollie.”
My orgasm struck like a bolt. My vision flooded white as I spilled over my hand and down my stomach, my body convulsing around him. A raw, urgent sound tore free from my throat. At the same moment, I felt his teeth clamp into my shoulder—the same fierce mark from before.
The sharp burn laced with pleasure, dragging out my release until I was panting.
Diesel growled, hips stuttering as he found his peak. The slick pulses inside me and the bite on my skin merged into one blistering sensation.
When he finally let go of my shoulder, he collapsed partly atop me, easing his weight so I wasn’t crushed. We lay there, breathing hard, sweat cooling in the dawn light.
“Jesus,” I breathed out.
“Yeah,” he said, lifting his head. His blue eyes were soft as they met mine. “You okay?”
“Better than okay.” I brushed my thumb along his jaw. “That was flawless.”
He slid free, dealt with the condom, and flicked it toward the trash—nailed the shot. Rolling to his side, he pulled me close, tucking me under his arm so my head rested on his shoulder and his arm settled snug around my waist.
The bite mark throbbed—two of them now, one on top of the other. The ache was grounding, a physical reminder that this was real. That he was real.
“Stay for breakfast,” Diesel said against my hair.
“Trying to feed me?”
“Trying to keep you here as long as possible.” His lips pressed against my forehead. “Got pancake mix somewhere.”
“Somewhere?”
“Kitchen’s not my strongest area.”
“You can rebuild an entire porch but can’t find pancake mix?”
“Different skillsets.” But he was smiling, I could hear it in his voice. “Help me look?”
“Only if I get to eat most of them.”
“Deal.”
Lying there in his arms, wrapped in the warmth of his body and the safety of his room, something settled in my ribcage. The loneliness that had been eating at me for months felt distant, pushed back by his presence, by the way he looked at me like I mattered.
“Diesel?”
“Hmm?”
“Thank you. For yesterday. For helping Greta. For being there when I needed you.”
His arm drew me in tighter. “You’re in this now. That’s not changing.”
“In what, exactly?”
“Whatever I care about.” He said it like it was obvious. “Club looks after its people. You’re one of them now. Didn’t have to opt in.”
Something like that should’ve sent me running. Instead I felt the last of my resistance go soft, dissolving into the particular absurdity of it—these men with their criminal reputations and their weekend porch repairs, their whiskey and their paint-smeared hands.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
“Yeah. I can live with that.”
The laugh moved through him before it reached me, a low vibration spreading from his chest into my spine. “Glad to hear it. Wasn’t up for debate.”
“Presumptuous.”
“Accurate.”
The quiet came back and stayed. Beyond the door the clubhouse was finding its feet—the thud of boots, a conversation in the hall, the building shaking off sleep. Sooner or later we’d have to be part of that.
The light through the blinds lay in pale bars across the floor. I watched them and didn’t move.
“Pancakes,” I said.
“Sorry?”
“You made a promise. I have a good memory.”
“Now?”
“When we get around to it. Once we’re done lying here like this.”
“No rush on my end.”
“Mine either.”
His fingers moved without purpose against my hip, slow and unthinking. I’d gotten used to the weight of his hand faster than made sense. Faster than felt safe.
“Question,” Diesel said.
“Answer.”
“The seniors. How’d you end up driving them around?”
I hadn’t seen that one coming. My fingers drifted to a tattoo on his forearm—something angular and dark—and traced the edge of it. “The community center was hiring for the shuttle. I was broke. It had all the makings of a temporary situation.”
“Doesn’t sound temporary now.”
“No.” I thought about how to put it. “Greta’s outlived two husbands. Irene did burlesque until she was forty-six. Walter has a drawer full of medals he never shows anyone. People just walk right past them like they’re furniture.”
His hand went quiet against my hip.
“So yeah. I got attached.”
“And now you’re their attack dog.”
“I’m not—” The warmth climbing my throat made a liar of me. “I just don’t think people should get to decide someone’s used up their interesting years.”
“No, you just show up for them. At the grocery store. In the bingo hall. With a full construction crew.” Something in his voice had shifted, gone quieter. “Most people talk themselves out of that stuff.”
I’d heard the opposite version of this speech so many times that his read on it took a second to land. Too involved, too sensitive, too much. Diesel had all the same evidence and reached a completely different verdict.
“I’m not as good as you’re making me sound,” I said.
“Gorgeous.” He said it simply, like a correction. His fingers found mine and held them.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say things like they’re just true.”
“They are true.” He rolled us so I was looking up at him, his body caging me in. “You matter. To me. To the seniors. To everyone whose life you’ve touched. You matter, Ollie.”
Something stung at the corners of my eyes. I pulled him down before he could see it, and kissed him instead.
Outside, someone dropped something heavy in the hall. The morning was starting without us.
It could keep starting without us for a little while longer.
THE END