Chapter 34 #2
"HE MOUTHED A WORD!" East screams. "THE MAN MOUTHED A WORD! THIS IS HISTORIC! SOMEONE DOCUMENT THIS!"
Frankie slow-claps from the back of the room, her beer raised in Nash's direction.
"My name is still not Greg," East adds, to no one in particular.
The song ends. I take a bow. Nash catches my waist before I can walk away, pulls me against him, and kisses me in front of the entire room. His hand is on the back of my neck, his mouth firm, tasting like beer. When he pulls back, he's fully smiling.
"That was singing," I say. Breathless.
"That was standing."
"Standing is the Nash Sutton version of singing, and I'm counting it. It's going in the record books. Future generations will speak of this night."
His hand slides from my neck to my lower back. Down. Over my ass. He squeezes once, his fingers pressing into the curve, and I feel it through my jeans. In front of everyone. East whistles. Nash doesn't flinch.
Who is this man and what has he done with my Sergeant-at-Arms?
I press up on my toes and put my mouth to his ear. "If you keep grabbing my ass in public, I'm going to have a situation that requires private attention."
His hand tightens on my ass. He leans down, his mouth at my ear. "Hallway. Two minutes."
He releases me and walks toward the back hallway.
Casual. Easy. Like he's going to check on something.
Or doing a perimeter sweep. Like the Sergeant-at-Arms is running his usual operational protocol.
Nobody looks twice. Nobody except me, standing by the jukebox with my pulse in my throat and a two-minute countdown running in my head.
I wait ninety seconds. Then I follow.
He's leaning against the wall beside the bathroom door, arms crossed, waiting. The hallway is dark. The sounds of the karaoke filter through the wall. "Barbie Girl" starts up for the second time, then Kyle's voice curses Knox's programming.
I open my mouth to say something. His hand covers it.
He grabs my waist, spins me, and pins me against the wall where he was just leaning. My back hits the plaster, his body pressing into mine. His mouth finds my ear. His hand pops the button on my jeans.
"Quiet," he says.
His fingers slide inside my jeans, past the waistband of my panties, and press against my pussy. I'm already wet. I've been wet since he grazed my earlobe during Darla's performance, since his hand found my hip. Since he grabbed my ass in front of every person I know without a single hesitation.
His middle finger parts me, sliding through the slickness, and my head drops back against the wall. His hand is still over my mouth.
"Not a sound," he says against my ear.
His finger pushes inside me, curling, and my knees buckle.
He catches me with his body, pressing me harder against the wall, and pins my hips with his.
His cock is hard against my hip, the ridge of it pressing through his jeans into me.
The feel of him wanting me while his finger is inside me in a hallway where anyone could walk out sends a rush of heat so intense my vision spots.
He adds a second finger, stretching me, and his thumb finds my clit. I moan against his palm. He presses harder over my mouth.
"I said quiet." His lips brush my ear. "You're soaking my hand, Ruby. Right here. Twenty feet from every person you know."
Oh god. The words. The words in that voice, low, controlled, his breath hot against my ear while his fingers curl inside me. My pussy clenches around him.
"They're right through that wall," he says. His thumb presses harder on my clit, rubbing in a slow circle. "Singing. Drinking. Having a good time. And you're out here dripping on my fingers."
I whimper against his palm. My hips buck into his hand. His cock presses harder against my hip. I grind against it, needing the pressure, needing him to know that his voice in my ear is doing as much as his fingers.
His fingers fuck me slow, deep, curling on every stroke, as his thumb rubs my clit in tight circles. My hands grip his shirt, fisting the fabric. My hips grind against his hand.
"You like this," he says against my neck. "You like knowing they could hear you. That someone could walk around that corner and find my hand down your jeans."
I nod against his palm. I can't speak. Can't think.
His fingers are inside me, his cock hard against my hip, his mouth is on my neck saying things that are rewiring my nervous system.
Through the wall, someone is singing off-key with the bass thumping twenty feet away.
The proximity of it, the risk, makes everything tighter, wetter, more.
He speeds up. His fingers pump faster, thumb pressing harder, mouth on my neck, teeth scraping my skin. I'm shaking against his chest, my moans trapped behind his palm, my body climbing, climbing.
"Come on my fingers," he whispers. "And don't make a fucking sound."
I come against his hand, my whole body clenching, a broken cry caught behind his palm. His fingers keep moving through it, slower, drawing it out, his mouth pressed to my temple while my legs give out and his body holds me up.
He pulls his fingers out. Puts them in his mouth. My knees almost go again watching him taste me.
"Nash."
"Mm."
"You just fingered me in a hallway during karaoke night while 'Barbie Girl' was playing."
"Yeah."
"That is either the most romantic or most unhinged thing that has ever happened to me, and I genuinely cannot determine which." I grab his belt. "Bathroom. Now."
His eyebrow lifts. I don't wait for permission. I push him backward through the bathroom door, kick it shut behind us, and press him against the sink. The fluorescent light buzzes overhead. The lock clicks under my fingers.
"Ruby—"
"You don't get to put your fingers in your mouth, taste me, then talk to me like that as you button my jeans like nothing happened.
" I drop to my knees on the tile. His belt is already open from where I grabbed it.
I pop the button. Pull the zipper. His cock is hard, straining against his boxers.
When I pull him free, the heat of him fills my hand.
"Ruby." His voice is different. Lower. The control fraying at the edges.
"Quiet," I say. Looking up at him. "Isn't that the rule? Don't make a fucking sound?"
I wrap my lips around the head of his cock and suck.
His hand slams against the sink behind him. His hips jerk forward, pushing deeper into my mouth. The sound he makes is rough, broken, pulled from his chest. I take more of him, my tongue running along the underside. My hand grips the base, stroking what my mouth can't reach.
"Fuck." His hand finds my hair. His fingers twist into my hair, gripping, holding on. "Ruby. Fuck."
I hollow my cheeks and take him deeper, my eyes on his face.
His head drops back. His jaw is open, throat working, chest rising fast. The composure that holds him together in every room, every meeting, every moment of every day is cracking on the bathroom tile while I'm on my knees with his cock in my mouth.
I pull back to the tip. Swirl my tongue around the head. His thighs tense under my hands. I suck hard and his hips buck into my mouth.
"I can't—" His fingers tighten in my hair. His breathing is ragged. "Ruby, I'm going to—"
I take him deep. My hand pumps the base while working the shaft with my mouth. My tongue presses against the vein on the underside. His hips lose their rhythm, thrusting shallow, fast, and his hand shakes in my hair.
He comes with a groan he buries behind his teeth, his cock pulsing against my tongue. Nash's hand grips my hair so tight my scalp burns. I swallow. His thighs tremble against my palms. His breath comes out in bursts.
I pull off slowly. Wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Look up at him from the floor.
He's wrecked. Flushed. Chest is heaving. His hand still in my hair, fingers loosening, trembling. The Sergeant-at-Arms undone in a bathroom while the jukebox plays through the wall.
"That," I say, "was my thank you."
He pulls me off my knees by my arms. Cups my face. Kisses me hard enough that he can taste himself on my mouth and doesn't care. He holds me there, his forehead against mine, both of us breathing hard in the fluorescent light.
"Fuck, that was hot," he says. Low. His thumb tracing my jaw.
"I can't believe I got away with that."
His mouth curves. The slow, dangerous curve. "Oh, you didn't. Your punishment is coming."
My stomach drops. The good kind. The kind that makes my thighs press together and my pulse jump.
He buttons his jeans. Smooths my shirt. Tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. Kisses my forehead. I smirk at him, turn, and walk toward the door. His hand cracks against my ass before I reach the handle. The sting blooms through my jeans, and I gasp as I grab the doorframe.
"Consider that a preview," he says behind me. "Go back out there. You have something to show them."
The cuts. I almost forgot about the cuts.
The man just made me come against a wall during an Aqua song, and I almost forgot about the single greatest craft project of my life.
I walk back into the main room on legs that are still recovering.
Nash follows thirty seconds later, casual, easy, taking a spot against the bar beside Knox.
"Okay," I say to the room. "I have one more thing."
I walk behind the bar and pull out the bag I stashed there three hours ago.
Black leather. Heavy. The bag I've been working on for two weeks at Amaranth after hours.
It's the project that made Frankie raise one eyebrow and say, "You're serious" then I replied with, "I have never been more serious about anything in my life.
Which is saying something because I was very serious about the bedazzlement of Knox's bike. "
I pull out the first one. Hold it up.
It's a cut. A woman's cut. Black leather, fitted, tailored to actual female proportions instead of the boxy men's cuts the club wears. Across the back, in rhinestones that catch every light in the room: EAST'S OLD LADY.
Darla's hand goes to her mouth.
I pull out the next one. MALACHI'S OLD LADY. Rhinestones. Bedazzled. Sparkling under the clubhouse lights.
Candace says oh my god so quietly I almost miss it.
KNOX'S OLD LADY. I hold it up toward Sloane, who is laughing, crying, and holding her stomach because the olives are still working through her system.
JAMES' OLD LADY. Maggie takes it from my hands, runs her fingers over the rhinestones, and looks at James with an expression that makes the older man's ears turn red.
"Ruby," Candace says. "You made us cuts."
I reach into the bag one more time. My hand shakes. I didn't expect it to shake, but it does because the other four were gifts and this one is mine. I pull it out and hold it against my chest before I turn it around.
NASH'S OLD LADY.
My vision blurs. My throat closes. Shit.
The rhinestones catch the light. His name is across the back in letters I placed one by one with tweezers and shaking hands at two in the morning.
Nash is looking at me from across the room. His jaw is tight. His eyes are bright.
I hold the cut against my chest and let the tears fall.
"I made five," I say. My voice cracks. "I made one for me too.
I bedazzled them by hand, every rhinestone placed individually with tweezers at two in the morning.
The E in East's Old Lady took forty-five minutes because the curve kept catching the glue at the wrong angle, and I almost called the whole thing off.
Then I thought about what East would do if he saw Darla wearing this.
The answer was 'Have a full emotional breakdown in front of the entire club,' and that mental image sustained me through three more hours of rhinestone application. "
"You made us cuts," Darla repeats. She's holding hers against her chest. Rowan is asleep in her lap. Tears are running down her face.
"Try them on," I say.
They try them on. Candace zips hers up and turns to face Malachi. His jaw loosens. His eyes soften.
Darla hands Rowan to East long enough to put hers on, then takes her back and walks directly to him. East is holding Declan as he tries to process the rhinestones, his name on his woman's back, and the visual of Darla in leather with their daughter asleep in her arms.
"Greg," she says.
"Don't ruin this," he whispers. His eyes are wet. "Don't you dare ruin this with the Greg thing."
"I would never." She kisses his forehead. "Greg."
Sloane puts hers on over her pregnant belly, which means it doesn't zip, so she wears it open and somehow looks more beautiful that way. Knox pulls her into his lap, his hand on her stomach, and his mouth against her temple.
Maggie puts hers on, and James stands up. He walks to her, takes her hands, turns her around to read the lettering on her back. Turns her back around. Cups her face in both hands and kisses her full on the mouth.
The room goes dead silent for two seconds. I start clapping. It spreads. Maggie's hand comes up to James' chest, gripping his shirt, kissing him back in front of every person in the room. James pulls back. His ears are red. Maggie's eyes are bright. Neither of them says a word.
"So," I say. "The official position of the Outsiders MC Women's Division is that we are now patched members of this organization and our patches are better than yours because ours sparkle."
"Those are not official patches," Kyle says.
"Those are absolutely official patches. They are rhinestone-certified. Bedazzle-authorized. They carry the full weight and authority of the Women's Division, which I just founded. It has a membership of five and a goat."
"The goat is not a member."
"The goat has always been a member, Kyle. It was the founding member. The goat was here before any of us. The goat is the spiritual leader of this entire operation."
The goat walks across the room and sits on Kyle's foot.
"I rest my case," I say.
Nash crosses the room. His arm slides around my waist, his thumb tracing my hip through my shirt. Both corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. His eyes warm.
I lean up and press my mouth to his jaw.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"For what?"
"For tonight. For standing next to me. Being here." I press up on my toes, my mouth near his ear, but not quiet enough. "And for making me come so hard my knees are still weak."
Candace chokes on her drink. Darla's mouth drops open. Sloane covers her face with both hands. Maggie turns to James and says something I can't hear, but James's ears go red again.
Nash's jaw clenches. His hand tightens on my hip. He looks down at me with an expression that promises I will be paying for that comment later, in detail, and I will enjoy every second of the payment.
"RUBY!" East yells from the couch. "There are BABIES in this room."
"The babies are asleep, Greg."
"MY NAME IS NOT—"
Darla puts her hand over his mouth.
I grin up at Nash. He smirks, then shakes his head.