Chapter Eighteen
Gracie
I tried to go back to sleep.
Really, I did.
But even after Perish had brought me to climax after climax, my body still felt like it was humming, aching, begging for more. For him.
I tossed and turned, tangled in sheets, kicked them off, and grumbled at the bunk above mine.
I was painfully aware that Nave was up in the glass room. And that several men were stationed outside, maybe even some inside.
I needed to keep my butt in the basement.
And yet…
And yet I was unfolding from the bed.
Maybe I would just, you know, go get a snack in the kitchen. Look around. See if anyone was paying any attention to me.
It was a little lie, though.
I knew exactly what I was doing.
Because I turned back to the bed and rolled up my robe and pillows underneath.
I had no idea how believable my little decoy was. I’d never snuck out of the house as a teen, so this was my first attempt at making my bed look full when it was empty.
But the light was off, and Nave had no reason to search the bed.
With that, I crept up the stairs, glad for all the sleepovers at the clubhouse because I knew where the creaky stairs were so I could avoid them.
I played it off at first, moving through the common room to the kitchen.
But as far as I could tell, anyone who was inside the building was already fast asleep.
So there was no one to see me as I crept toward the hallway, looking in both directions.
My heartbeat was fluttering.
My belly kept flipping over and over.
This felt like the bravest, most reckless thing I’d ever done. Yet so, so right.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I reached Perish’s door. Then I paused, telling myself that if the knob didn’t turn in my hand, I would turn around and go back to the basement; I would take it as a sign from the universe to move on.
But when my hand closed around it, it turned.
My heart skipped.
Then I moved inside, wincing as the door creaked, then carefully closed and locked it behind me.
One weird quirk about the clubhouse is that the bedrooms of the patched brothers had no windows.
I figured it was because the clubhouse had once been a repair garage. And when Uncle Reign’s father had started converting the place, he didn’t want to put in windows because the lack of them made the club safer.
So as I moved inside, the darkness was nearly complete.
The only light came from an alarm clock glowing from the nightstand.
Luckily, the basement had been dark too, so my eyes adjusted pretty easily, and I could see the massive form of Perish on the bed.
No blanket.
No shirt.
Just sinfully low-slung sleep pants.
Nerves sparked—little pricks on the skin. And my belly flip-flopped.
But I didn’t let myself retreat out of uncertainty.
I put one foot after another until I reached the foot of the bed.
Then, mustering up all my courage, I climbed up on the bed and crawled up over Perish’s body.
“Baby…”
Perish’s voice was a rough rumble.
It washed over me, making a shiver move down my spine.
I leaned downward, pressing a kiss to his hip, loving how his breath sucked suddenly in at the barely-there touch.
Wanting more of it, I moved across to kiss the other.
When I moved back to the center and ran my tongue up that delicious center line between his abdominal muscles, his body jolted as if he’d been shocked.
I kept moving upward, tracing each muscle, smiling at the way they twitched.
For a long moment, his hands stayed fisted at his sides, but as my tongue traced around one of his nipples, his hand slapped down on the back of my head, fingers curling in before relaxing.
Emboldened by his reaction—and the firm outline of his erection against my belly—I slid across his chest to tease some more before moving back to the center and up.
One of those delicious little growls escaped him as my lips kissed up the side of his neck.
His hand drifted down from my neck to my hip, then fell away.
“Gracie, we can’t—”
My heart seized, but I tamped down the urge to jump off the side of the bed, to take my bruised pride and hide in the basement, then insist someone drive me up to Hailstorm in the morning. Then, well, avoid Perish for the rest of my life.
I shifted up slightly to look down at his face, my hair falling like a curtain around us as we stared at each other for a moment.
“Are you rejecting me because you don’t want me?” I asked, stomach twisting at the vulnerability the words created. “Or because we’re not supposed to?”
“Baby,” he started, sounding pained. His hands lifted, both pushing my hair behind my ears, the touch impossibly gentle for such a big man. “I’m not rejecting you. Don’t think I’m even capable of that.”
I leaned my forehead against his, taking a deep breath. “No one has to know,” I told him.
“You don’t know how much I want that to be true.”
“It can be.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Well,” I said, sitting back to smirk down at him, “I’m relatively sure no one is going to directly ask me if we had sex.”
“Fair,” he agreed. His hands seemed incapable of staying off me, moving to rest on my hips and tightening. “But…”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“What? Fuck no.”
“Say mean things about me after we hook up?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s why the rules are in place,” I told him. Even though I had no idea if that was true. “If you’re not going to be a jerk afterward, and we are both acknowledging that this has to stay between us, and we are both consenting despite everything… why can’t we?”
“You’re making it hard to—” he started.
But he cut off when I readjusted my position until his cock was pressed against the juncture of my thighs.
“Not what I meant,” he said, shooting me a devilish little smirk.
“You can say no,” I said, rolling my hips.
“I really fucking can’t,” he said, breath going ragged.
His hands slipped from my hips to my ass, dragging me against him again and again. Until my head was thrown back and my little whimpers started to grow louder.
Perish sat up, one arm anchoring across my lower back, the other grabbing the back of my neck.
Then his lips were on mine.
Hard.
Hungry.
He caught my lower lip between his, sucking gently before adjusting the angle and devouring me.
My cries muffled against his lips as my hips rocked wildly against him, chasing something that remained just out of reach.
Perish’s lips ripped from mine, his head dipping to tease his lips and tongue and teeth up the side of my neck.
Then he pulled back, his hands going to the hem of my tank top and starting to lift.
I lifted my arms, allowing him to pull the material free.
He tossed it to the ground before his hands were on me—cupping, squeezing, fingers circling, rolling, pinching.
“Shh,” he murmured, face between my breasts. “Or I have to stop.”
I was pretty sure I’d combust if he did.
So I pressed my lips together.
His lips, teeth, tongue, and hands were everywhere, but not where I needed most.
“Please,” I whimpered.
Perish moved so fast I barely had a chance to gasp as he flipped us, dropping me onto my back and kneeling between my legs.
That rumble moved through him as he looked down at me, eyes dark pools of desire.
“That’s a great view,” he said as his fingers drifted down my thighs until they reached my knees. He grabbed them, pressing them into my chest before reaching down to snag the waistbands of my shorts and panties, and dragging them slowly down my legs.
They were quickly discarded to the side of the bed.
Then he was pressing my thighs wide and was down between them, his tongue licking up the center of me before finding and circling my clit in soft, relentless circles.
It wasn’t until my soft sighs grew to throaty whimpers that his head shifted, biting my inner thigh, and whispering a soft, “Shh.”
I pressed my lips together, and his head turned in again.
My hands went to the back of his head, holding him to me as he circled, as his fingers slid inside me. Thrusting. Twisting. Spreading.
But not enough.
“Perish,” I whimpered, pulling until he lifted up, his chin resting on my pelvic bone. “Please,” I begged, pulling harder.
Then he was shifting over me, his hungry gaze on mine.
My hands were desperate for the feel of him. I reached to push his sleep pants down. My legs went around his hips, pulling him until he was flush against me, his hard length pressed against my cleft.
I moaned.
He cursed.
We both rocked instinctively.
But it was mine that took over, that set the pace as Perish reached into the nightstand to find the protection.
He pulled back only to slide it on before I felt the press of him again.
I wrapped myself around him, pulling until he gave me more of his weight.
He leaned down, pressing his lips to mine, the kiss long, deep, and lingering.
Only when he lifted up did he shift his hips until I felt the tip of him against me.
Then the press, the stretch.
I gasped.
He groaned.
My legs released from his hips, spreading wider to try to adjust to the fullness of him.
“Too much?” He sounded like it might kill him if he had to stop.
I was pretty sure I might suffer the same fate.
So I wiggled my hips, taking him a little deeper.
“No,” I whimpered. “Just… slow.”
Perish’s lips claimed mine again, kissing long and deep, until I swear I felt it in my toes.
And as I did, he pressed deeper, then, yes, deeper.
A low, deep groan escaped him as he finally settled deep. But he paused, giving my body a moment to adjust.
It was only when my legs went around him again, my hips rocking, that he finally started to move, to give in to the need for friction we were both feeling.
He was gentle at first. Slow. Careful.
But as my whimpers became soft moans, as my hips writhed and my nails dug in, he gave me what we both knew I needed—harder, faster.
“Shh,” he hissed as a sharp moan escaped me when his hips angled just right.
But it wasn’t long before my body was edging closer and closer, making it impossible for me to keep my lips pressed together.