3. Gray
GRAY
Emma’s mom collects Ruby at nine Saturday morning. Ruby has been talking about the zoo trip with her friend for two weeks.
Ruby hugs me, quick and tight, then climbs into the back seat beside Emma. I check the door after it closes. Mrs. Carr waits until I step away before backing out. Ruby waves through the window. I stand in the drive until the car turns toward town.
Meg’s sedan appears from the other direction less than a minute later. The timing isn’t accidental. I asked her to come after Ruby left because last night’s kiss deserves daylight and the truth. My plan is to give her both, then find another solution for the remaining week of program closure.
The plan feels solid until she steps from her car. She wears a sleeveless black dress that stops above her knees and flat sandals. Her hair is loose, copper catching beneath the sun. Nothing about what she’s wearing is designed to distract me, but it does anyway. Meg closes the car door.
I lead her inside. The house is quiet in a way it rarely is. No television, no music, no second set of footsteps above mine. Meg stops in the kitchen where I had her against the wall last night. Her gaze touches the place, then me.
“This is where you tell me last night can’t happen again, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“That sounds promising.”
“Sit down, Meg.”
Her eyebrows rise. “That’s never an encouraging opening.” She sits at the table anyway. I remain standing because distance feels necessary, then realize how that looks and take the chair opposite her.
“I’ll find different cover for next week,” I say.
Meg studies me while I continue. “Mrs. Lawson can take a couple of days. I talked to Kane. I can probably move things around at the compound for the rest.”
“Can you?”
“I’ll have to make it work.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I rest my forearms on the table. “It’s handled.”
“There’s the phrase men use when they want the conversation over.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“No. You’re just cutting me out of a commitment I made and telling me it’s already settled.”
“After last night, having you here isn’t simple anymore.”
“I don’t recall asking for simple.”
“Ruby is getting attached to you. She’s getting used to you being around.”
Meg’s expression changes. Not anger yet, just attention.
“She trusts you,” I continue. “She waits for you. Talks about what you’ll do the next day.”
“Is that so bad?”
“Her mom left when she was three.”
“I know that, Gray.”
“No, you know the fact. You didn’t live through a year of her sitting by the front window whenever a car slowed.
You didn’t hear her ask what was wrong with her that made her mom stay gone.
” The words come harder than I intend. Meg doesn’t look away.
“If you and I cross this line, Ruby gets pulled into whatever happens after.”
“Whatever happens?” she repeats.
“Relationships end.”
“They do.”
Her agreement makes my chest tighten. “If we end, she loses you too.”
“So the safest answer is to push me out now, then?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You’re removing me from your house before either of us gets a say in what happens next.”
“I’m protecting my daughter.”
“From a woman keeping the commitment she made?”
“From believing people stay because they say they will.” Meg sits back. The sentence sounds wrong after it leaves me. Not false. Worse than false.
“People can’t guarantee forever,” she says.
“Exactly.”
“You expect people to leave, so you never let them get close enough to prove you wrong.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“It’s entirely about you.” Her voice remains level. “You can take a hit. What you can’t stand is the idea of Ruby taking one, so you keep everybody at arm’s length.”
“Don’t tell me what I can survive.”
“Then stop telling me where I can stand.”
Silence settles between us with edges. Meg can’t promise this will last forever. I can’t erase what my ex taught Ruby about people leaving. Meg sees the fear and refuses to let me use it as an order.
“I’m not applying to replace her mom,” she says. “I offered to help during a two-week school closure. I care about Ruby, but my attraction to you has nothing to do with packed lunches or a ready-made home.”
“Never said it did.”
“You’re making my access to you depend on my role with her. I don’t need to walk through this kitchen to want you.” Heat moves low despite the fight.
“Meg.”
“I can handle honest fear. I won’t let you make every call for both of us and call it protection.”
I stand. Staying at the table means saying something sharper to force the outcome.
I know that trick. King, my old president, built a reign from it.
I leave through the side door and cross the drive to the garage.
Meg follows, because of course she does.
My Harley stands beside the workbench, black paint catching the strip of light from the narrow window, and I stop at the workbench with both hands against the wood.
“You don’t get to walk out halfway through,” she says.
“I’m trying not to make this worse.”
“By hiding beside your bike?”
“It doesn’t argue back at me.”
“Maybe because it knows you won’t listen anyway.”
I look at her, and that almost gets a smile from me. Meg notices and grows angrier.
“You kissed me last night like you wanted to leave marks. This morning, you looked at Ruby’s calendar and tried to shut the whole thing down.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
“You, okay? Just you.” The words crack across the garage, stilling Meg’s anger.
“I want you in my kitchen. I want you in my bed. I want to know what you sound like when there’s no hallway behind me and no reason left to stop.” I push away from the bench. “I also see Ruby watching the door waiting for you, and it scares the shit out of me.”
Meg takes one slow breath.
“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said since I arrived.”
“Doesn’t change the risk, though, does it?”
“No.” She comes closer. “It means you stop handling it alone.”
“You can’t promise this works.”
“Neither can you.”
She stops in front of me and puts her hand over my heart.
“I want you, Gray. Not your house. Not a position in your family. You.”
My restraint gives one last warning.
“You should leave.”
Meg grips my shirt and backs me into the workbench.
“Make me.”
I catch her hips. “I’m not playing with you, Meg.”
“Good.”
She kisses me first.
The first contact wipes the garage clean of everything but her mouth and my hands.
Meg presses close, one thigh between mine, her fingers opening the top button of my jeans before I can think about stopping her.
I take her wrists and turn us. Her back meets the edge of the workbench.
I lift her onto it and kiss her harder, forcing her knees apart with my hips.
The thin dress rides up over her thighs. Meg hooks one leg around me and pulls.
My cock presses against the heat between her legs. She gasps into my mouth and works the remaining buttons of my jeans.
“Still want me to leave?” she asks.
“No.”
“Then stop trying to be noble.”
“Never claimed noble.”
I slide my hand beneath her dress and find damp lace. Her breath breaks, but there’s nothing hesitant in the way she spreads wider. I drag one finger over the soaked center of her panties, slow enough to watch impatience sharpen in her face.
“Tell me what you want.”
“Your hands on me without another excuse between us.”
I pull the lace aside and touch her. Meg arches. Her nails catch my shoulders as I circle her clit with my thumb, then push two fingers deep. She is hot and tight around them.
“Fuck.”
“That sounded like a man with something to say.”
I curl my fingers. Her next answer is a moan. I work her harder. Meg’s thighs close around my hips, trapping my hand where she wants it.
“You came in here to fight.”
“I can do both.”
“Prove it.”
She pulls my mouth to hers, bites my lower lip and reaches inside my open jeans. Her fingers close around my cock. My restraint thins fast. Meg strokes once, slow from base to head, and watches what it does to me. Her mouth curves.
“You’ve been walking around like this since last night?”
“Pretty much.”
“You could have saved yourself the speech, you know.”
“You needed the truth.”
“I needed this too.”
Her grip tightens. I kiss down her throat and pull the top of her dress aside.
No bra. My mouth closes over one nipple, and Meg’s hand stutters around me.
She makes a low sound as I suck, then drags my head closer.
I switch to the other breast while my fingers keep moving inside her.
Her hips follow every thrust of my hand.
“I want you inside me,” she says.
The blunt demand lands hard. Meg cups the back of my neck. Her eyes hold mine.
“I’m serious. I want you, Gray. Right here.” She reaches beneath her dress and slides her panties down.
They catch around one ankle. I remove them and put them on the bench beside her hand. Meg looks at the black lace, then at me. “Planning to catalogue those as a threat too?”
“Already did.”
I pull her to the edge. My cock slides through her wetness, and her humor disappears as she gasps.
I guide the head against her and push in slowly.
The first tight stretch drags a curse from both of us.
Meg grips the bench behind her, eyes fixed on my face while I fill her inch by inch.
When I’m buried deep, I stop. Her inner muscles tighten around me.
“You’re still holding back.”
“You’re taking a lot.”
“I asked for all of it.”
She locks both legs around my waist and drives her hips forward. That ends the pause. I pull out and thrust deep. The workbench strikes the wall. Meg cries out, then catches my face and kisses me before I can check the sound.
I take her hard.
One hand grips her hip. The other braces behind her, protecting her spine from the tools fixed to the wall.
Every thrust slides her over the bench and brings her back against me.
Her dress gathers at her waist. Her breasts move with the force of us.
I lower my mouth to one while she claws through my hair.
“Harder.”
I hook her leg higher and change the angle. The next drive reaches deeper. Meg’s mouth opens on my name.
“That?”
“Again.”
I give it to her. Again. Then harder. The bench rattles beneath us, tools clicking against their hooks. Meg meets every thrust, taking what she demanded and pulling more from me. I slide my hand between us. My thumb finds her clit, wet and swollen. Her body jolts.
“Don’t slow down.”
“Wasn’t planning to.”
I circle in time with the drive of my hips.
The pressure builds through her in visible stages.
Her head tips back. Her thighs tremble. Her fingers tighten hard enough on my shoulders to leave marks beneath my shirt.
Meg catches the back of my neck and pulls my mouth to hers.
I kiss her through the first hard clench of her body. Her cry breaks against my tongue.
Her body clenches around my cock, tight pulses pulling me deeper while she cries out without hiding. I keep moving, slower only long enough to carry her through it. Then she grabs my ass and draws me close.
“Now stop holding back.”
I lose the last of it.
My rhythm turns hard and rough, every thrust driven by a week of wanting and years of refusing to name it. Meg takes all of me, mouth at my throat, nails down my back. I come with my forehead against hers and her name torn low from my chest.
For a long moment, the garage contains only our breathing.
Meg remains on the workbench with her legs around me. I keep one hand at her back and the other on her thigh. The fight is still there, and so is the fear. Neither disappeared because sex was good enough to make me forget my own name.
“I’m not calling this casual,” I say.
Meg’s fingers move over the edge of my beard. “Good.”
“I also can’t promise easy.”
“I didn’t ask for easy.”
“And I’m still afraid Ruby gets hurt.”
“I know.” She lowers her leg and lets me step back. “But if you shut me out again, we’re going to have a much uglier fight.”
“Understood.”
“Good.”
A laugh escapes me anyway, short and unfamiliar. Meg slides from the bench, steadies herself against my chest and dresses. Nothing is settled when we return to the house.
Meg takes my hand anyway.
Ruby returns at three with a stuffed red panda, a sun-warmed face and enough information about giraffes to fill the drive from Springfield, apparently.
I listen patiently. Meg hides a smile when Ruby informs me that giraffes sleep less than two hours a day, which she considers proof that my bedtime rules are completely unreasonable. At three thirty, Kane sends me a text. Church at four. The unease from yesterday returns before I finish reading.
“I need to go to the compound. Kane called church,” I tell Meg.
She doesn’t ask why. “How long?”
“An hour or so.”
“We’ll be here.”
The words land harder after this morning. I kiss her once in the kitchen, quick but not secret, then put on my cut.
Church is full when I arrive. Kane stands behind the head chair. Judge sits at his right with Tank opposite. Cash turns a pen between his fingers. Wilder and Colt take the middle seats. Griz, Chains and the remaining brothers fill the rest.
“Perdition bikes were seen north of the county line,” Kane says. “Two near the old mill road Thursday. One truck used the fuel stop on Highway Eight this morning.”
My pulse remains level through practice. Judge looks around the table. “Anybody heard from them?” Silence. I could end it with one sentence. Bishop asked me to open the river road, and I refused.
Instead, I think of the truck slowing outside my house and tell myself I don’t know that it belongs to Perdition. Bishop asked for Monday. It’s Saturday and I gave him nothing. I handled it. Kane’s gaze passes over me without stopping.
“Double the north-road watch,” he says. “Gray, check the old landing before dark.”
“Got it.”
The answer tastes wrong. Church ends, and I leave without speaking to Kane alone. At my bike, Tank catches my shoulder.
“You all right?”
I look at the brother who trusts me with his life and his sister.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
He accepts it because I’ve never given him a reason not to. I ride to the old landing before heading home. Fresh tire marks cut through the damp earth near the entrance, but they could belong to any truck using the river. They could.
I should call Kane.
Instead, I start the bike and turn toward home. I refused Bishop. I checked the road. By the time I reach the highway, I’ve almost convinced myself that’s enough.