Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lettie
I opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch to watch the sunrise. I missed the morning talks with Cash and Kytten. It amazed me how three or four days were all it took to form a bond, a friendship.
It only proved just how lonely I was.
Brock had shown up yesterday after a week of radio silence. No messages, no phone calls, not even a carrier pigeon to clue me in on why he’d ghosted me. His excuse about club shit getting in the way? Not good enough.
With all those men and women at the clubhouse, someone could’ve delivered a message. But I doubt I even crossed his mind.
I lifted my cup to my lips and closed my eyes as the sweet taste of coffee washed over my tongue. The warmth spread through my chest, settling low in my belly. Comfort. Routine. The things that kept me sane when everything else felt like chaos.
“Think I could get some of that?”
I choked on my coffee, barely managing to avoid spilling the hot drink all over my shirt. My arms jerked out as the coffee sloshed over the sides. The liquid burned my hand.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, dabbing at my chin and wiping away the drops I’d spilled. My heart slammed against my ribs. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to make breathing difficult.
“Waiting to talk to you.”
He moved closer, his eyes darting around.
No doubt searching for Cerberus. His shoulders relaxed when he realized we were alone, and he sat down on the steps beside me.
The heat of his body radiated against my side.
Too close. Not close enough. My skin prickled with awareness, every nerve ending suddenly alive and screaming.
“I’m sorry, Lettie. I didn’t plan on things going to shit when I went back to the clubhouse.”
I stared out over my gardens, my mind cataloging which plant I could slip into his coffee that would do the most harm without actually killing him.
Aconite would make his heart race before it stopped.
Hemlock would paralyze him slowly, letting him feel every moment of his body shutting down.
Belladonna would make him hallucinate before the seizures started.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to kill him. Part of me did. The dark, vicious part that lived in my chest and whispered murder when people hurt me. But I’d lived in Athens long enough to know that the Gods of Mayhem wouldn’t take kindly to having their vice president assassinated.
Even if he was an asshole who deserved it.
The back of his finger grazed my thigh, and I jerked my leg away, glaring at him. Heat flooded my body from that simple touch. Traitorous. Weak. I scooted over, creating more distance between us, but he just followed. At that moment, I cursed myself for leaving Cerberus inside the house.
On one side, the railing dug into my hip. On the other, Brock pressed close, his thigh burning against mine through the thin fabric of my skirt. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the message.
“When I told you to go home, it wasn’t meant to be for the night.”
“I didn’t go home.”
My head snapped toward him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I didn’t go home. I stayed on your porch.”
“Why?” The word came out breathless. Stupid. I hated how much I wanted his answer to matter.
“Because I wasn’t leaving until I talked to you. Made you understand what the fuck was happening here.”
“And what exactly do you think is happening here?” My pulse thrummed in my throat. I believed in second chances when the situation required it. Ghosting someone after making them come in their kitchen and promising them a date wasn’t one of those situations.
Sure, there could have been an emergency, and no, he didn’t have my phone number. But it had been a week without a single word. Hell, he could have mailed a fucking letter and it would’ve arrived sooner than him showing up yesterday.
“I’m claiming you,” he said, as if that explained everything.
I knew what he meant. I’d read the books.
I’d done the research before moving next door to a motorcycle club.
Claiming meant ownership. Possession. It meant I would belong to him in a way that went beyond dating or fucking.
It meant protection and territory and violence if anyone touched what was his.
It meant I would be his.
“And do I have a say in this claiming?”
“Nope.”
I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up. His arrogance was astounding, but it was also sexy as hell. The confidence. The certainty. The way he looked at me like I was already his and he was just waiting for me to catch up. I shook my head and stood.
“Sorry, Brock, I don’t want to be claimed,” I said as I stepped onto the porch and reached for the door.
He moved faster than I thought a man his size could. In seconds, my coffee cup clattered to the floor and my back was pressed against the wall, his lips on mine. Ceramic shattered. Coffee splashed across the wood. I didn’t care.
Everything else disappeared.
Every thought, every protest, every doubt that what I’d felt last time was merely a biological reaction—it all fell away as his tongue traced the seam of my lips. His teeth nipped my lower lip as he sought entrance. I tried to deny him, but damn, this man knew how to kiss.
He tasted like coffee and something darker. Something that made my pussy clench and my nipples harden. Something that made me want to climb him like a tree and let him fuck me right here against the side of my house where anyone could see.
His hands fisted in my skirt as he pulled it up, exposing my legs.
The morning air hit my thighs, cool and shocking.
His knee nudged between my legs and his fingers grazed the edge of my panties, tickling my ass, drawing a whimper from my throat.
The sound was pathetic. Needy. I hated it and craved more of it at the same time.
“The way your body reacts to my touch has my dick weeping for a taste.” His teeth pinched my earlobe after he whispered those dirty words.
My hands gripped his shoulders while he kissed a trail down my jaw to my neck.
His tongue blazed a path down my throat to my collarbone, and further, until he was dipping into my cleavage.
My fingers dug into his leather cut. The material was rough under my palms. Real. Solid. Something to anchor me while my world tilted and spun.
He pulled down the neck of my shirt, exposing my braless breast, and sucked my nipple into his mouth.
The wet heat made me gasp. Made my back arch.
Made me forget every reason I had to push him away.
He caught my leg as I hooked it around his hip, desperate to get closer.
My body was on fire. Red and orange flashed behind my closed eyelids.
Colors more beautiful, more vibrant than any sunrise I’d ever seen.
He lifted me off the porch, pinning me against the side of the house as my legs wrapped around his waist. The wood scraped against my back. Rough. Painful. Perfect. My moans grew louder with every touch. Cerberus pawed at the door, desperate to protect me from what must have sounded like pain.
But I wasn’t being hurt.
I was being claimed.
Possessed.
Owned.
Brock ripped my panties away and swallowed my gasp with a kiss so scorching that nothing else mattered but the feel of his fingers sliding inside me. The fabric tore. The elastic snapped against my hip. The sting was nothing compared to the pleasure of him pushing inside me.
“So fucking wet for me, my queen.”
There it was again. My queen. Like it rolled easily off his lips. Like he’d been calling me that his entire life. Like I’d always belonged to him and he was just now coming to collect what was his.
“Your body is telling me it wants to be claimed, Lettie. It wants to be ravished and conquered.”
I wanted to deny his words, deny him, but that would mean he’d stop, and I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted more. Wanted to feel him everywhere for days after he left. Wanted to be so thoroughly fucked that I couldn’t walk without remembering the way he’d made me come. The way he’d made me his.
Because somewhere inside me, I knew he would leave again.
He would take what he wanted and then disappear like last time. Men like him didn’t stay. Didn’t commit. Didn’t choose women like me. Women with blood on their hands and poison in their gardens and darkness in their souls.
“Stay with me, Lettie,” he ordered, his voice rough and commanding.
His fingers pumped inside me as his lips wrapped around my nipple again.
His tongue flicked over the sensitive bud, and my head fell back against the house.
The sound of the thump echoed in my skull.
Pain ricocheted through me, but I pushed it back, letting Brock’s touch take over once more.
His thumb found my clit. Circled it. Pressed. My hips bucked against his hand. Desperate. Shameless. I didn’t care. Couldn’t care. Not when he touched me like this. Not when he made me feel like I was the only woman in the world.
“Come for me, Lettie. Come for the King of the Underworld, my queen.”
His command pushed me over the edge. For a moment, I let my heart believe his words. Let myself believe he was who he said he was. That as the King of the Underworld, he wouldn’t bat an eye at the things I did.
The people I killed.
The vengeance I took.
The poison I brewed from my secret garden.
I let my heart believe there was someone who would understand. Someone who would accept me for who I was and not try to change me. Who would see my darkness but not let it overshadow the light.
Someone who, once they saw the darkness, would still look at me as though I were the sun.
My orgasm crashed through me like a wave.
Violent. Consuming. I cried out, not caring who heard.
Not caring about anything except the way his fingers curled inside me, hitting that spot that made stars explode behind my eyelids.
My pussy clenched around his fingers. Pulsing.
Throbbing. Soaking his hand with my release.