Brittany
He tells me to stay put.
That should be the first warning.
Instead, it feels like a dare.
He steps outside the cabin without another word, the screen door slapping softly behind him.
I stand in the middle of the small room, his shirt hanging loose on my body, bare legs still warm from where he held me.
The space feels different now. Charged. Sexually.
Lightning finally struck and hasn’t decided if it’s finished.
Through the window I see him.
He walks past the porch railing and disappears around the side of the cabin. A second later he comes back into view beyond the tree line, stopping beside a thick oak. He plants his boots in the dirt and leans back against the trunk like he’s trying to hold the whole world upright with his spine.
His head tilts back. His hands drag through his hair.
He looks wrecked.
Not angry. Not annoyed. Wrecked.
And something inside me snaps.
I don’t think. I don’t weigh consequences. I open the door and step outside barefoot. The air wraps around me, cool and damp from the lake. Bugs hum. Somewhere farther down camp, a bottle clinks against another and someone laughs low.
Oaks hears me approach.
His head turns slowly.
His eyes drop from my face to the shirt, his shirt, brushing my thighs.
He exhales once through his nose, controlled in the way men get when they are one second from losing it. “What’re you doin’, Brittany?”
I stop a few feet away. “What are you doing?” I counter.
He pushes off the tree, arms crossing over his chest. “Cooling off.”
“From me?”
He studies me like I’m something dangerous. Like he’s measuring the distance between want and need. “From what I’m about to do if you don’t give me space.”
My pulse kicks hard enough to feel like it’s in my throat. “And what’s that?”
His voice dips deep and rough. “I’ll claim you.”
The word hits me dead center.
Claim.
Possession.
Not just worry. Not just sex. Something deeper. Filthier. Older.
Claim.
The men of the Kings of Anarchy MC don’t use that word lightly. Bikers like him don’t say it unless they mean blood and consequence. Which mean people whispering my name again.
I take another step toward him, anyway.
“I want that,” I say, but I’m holding my breath.
He goes still. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I do.”
His eyes darken, something wild flickering there. “You think this is just about almost drowning? You think this is adrenaline?”
“No,” I whisper, and my voice doesn’t shake because I’m done being scared of my own want. “I think I’m tired of pretending.”
A muscle jumps in his cheek. His control is so thin I can see through it.
“You got any idea what it means if I put my hands on you like that?” he asks.
“I’ve had your hands on me.”
“Not like this.”
I close the last of the distance between us. I can feel the heat rolling off him. And leather and that unmistakable maleness that always makes my stomach flip. He's got the look of a man who's been starving and stayed quiet about it.
“I ain’t scared of you,” I say.
“You should be.”
“I ain’t.”
That’s when he moves.
It ain’t gentle or careful. It’s fucking inevitable.
His hand closes around my waist and in one swift motion he turns me, pressing my back against the tree.
The bark bites through the thin cotton of his shirt, and I gasp at the scrape of rough wood against skin.
His body pins mine hard and unapologetic, his weight telling my body what my mouth refuses to admit.
“Last chance,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“To what?”
“To walk back inside. Do this in a somewhat civilized manner or not at all.”
I grab his shoulders and pull him down.
He kisses me like he has been holding back for months instead of days.
Like restraint has been a physical pain he finally got permission to stop enduring.
His mouth is hot and ruthless. His hands roam, not tentative now, not careful, sliding up my thighs, gripping, lifting slightly until I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist.
The tree presses harder into my back.
He doesn’t seem to notice.
Or maybe he likes it.
“You’re gonna bruise,” he mutters, voice rough like the thought does something to him.
“Don’t stop.”
He makes a sound low in his throat at that, the kind that turns my knees weak. His mouth trails down my jaw, my neck, teeth grazing skin just enough to make me shiver. His hands slide under the hem of the shirt, his shirt, and grip my hips like he owns the right.
"You're wearing my clothes, dammit," he growls.
“You gave them to me.”
“Yeah.”
The single syllable lands like he hates how much that matters.
His fingers hook into the waistband of my panties.
He pauses.
It’s a pause that feels like he’s giving me control while looking like he wants to take it.
“Tell me,” he says.
“Tell you what?”
“That you want this,” he demands, eyes locked on mine. “No games. I don’t even have a condom, Brit.”
My breath shakes out. My body's a mess of need and jitters. Protection ain’t something I’m used to thinking about.
“You’re clean. Tested?”
“Of course,” he sighs. “I can pull out so you don’t end up like Lottie.”
I think of Lottie and Holler. Her getting pregnant and them getting married.
“I want you,” I say, my desires winning out.
Something in his face breaks. Not softness. Not romance.
Control.
The thin scrap of fabric tears under his hands. The sound is sharp in the quiet woods.
My breath catches. My pulse skitters. I should be embarrassed. I should be mad.
Instead I feel filthy in the best way. Chosen. Wanted. Claimed.
“Jesus,” he mutters. “You don’t know what you do to me.”
“Then show me,” I whisper, because I’m done asking for permission from men who never gave it, anyway.
“You’ve done this before?” he asks.
“Once or twice,” I say in a whisper.
He growls and unzips his wet pants. His hand finds me wet where water is no fault. Another hand goes under his shirt that I’m wearing. He brushes his thumb over my nipple. At the same time, his fingers walk my slick slit, like he’s trying to test if there’s room for him.
I just fall apart.
Oaks decides to make room. I bite my lip as his fingers enter me rough, one and then two, then three, spreading and kneading as to prepare the way.
His mouth descends on mine as he removes his hand and replaces it with his cock.
Somehow it feels so much harder than his fingers.
Solid, grounding as he leaves it parked.
He rumbles against my cheek. “You want me to fuck you against this tree?”
“An oak tree? I don’t even know why they call you Oaks.” I don’t even know his real name for that matter. Currently, I can’t bring myself to care.
“Why am I called Oaks? Lots of different reasons. You’re about to find out one of them.”
“Why? Do fuck all the girls against big oak trees or something?” I ask almost laughing at the thought.
“No,” he says, as he forces his cock forward.
Force is the word. And I know. He doesn’t have to explain the name Oaks as his dick practically rips me open.
“I lost a bet once, at the Oaks.” He’s talking about a horse race at the Derby. “Had to marry a woman I didn’t love,” he says as he thrusts what can only be described as a mighty oak into me.
Swallowing my cries, I can no longer respond.
Everything else fades away except the way he fills me, hot skin, warm breath, and the feel of bark scraping my back.
His mouth finds mine again, slower this time but deeper, like he’s branding me with every thrust of his tongue.
His hands tighten at my thighs, holding me up, holding me there, holding me exactly where he wants me as he fucks me.
He slows and moves with intent.
Not rushed.
Not careless.
Deliberate.
He’s finally all the way in. My head tips back and a sound slips out of me that I didn’t know I could make. The cool air hits the sweat on my skin and I shiver. His mouth catches it, steals it, swallows it down like he likes the proof.
“You’re mine tonight,” he growls into my ear.
My heart stutters hard as my thighs shake around him. I’m full of him, and the sensation burns into my belly in the most wonderful way.
“Say it,” he demands.
I should fight it. I should push back. I should remember he still has a wife and there’s a thousand reasons this is a terrible idea.
But my body ain’t been honest for months.
And my mouth is tired of lying.
“I’m yours.”
He exhales like that nearly undid him. Like he’s been waiting to hear it his whole damn life and didn’t even know it.
The forest hums around us, distant camp noise, wind through leaves, the faint slap of water against dock posts, but it all feels far away.
There’s only this. His hands gripping my thighs.
His mouth at my throat. His dick driving the point home in a rhythm that steals every coherent thought from my head.
The bark digs into my back so hard I’m probably bleeding, and I don’t care.
My fingers tangle in his hair and I pull him closer, closer, like I can’t physically stand an inch of distance between us. Like if he steps away I’ll remember every reason I shouldn’t be doing this and I don’t want to.
“You’re trouble,” he mutters against my mouth.
“I know.”
He kisses me harder, brutal and honest as he takes me exactly the way I asked. My thoughts go messy. Dirty. Hungry. I think about his cock, about his mouth, about the way he said claim like a threat, about how he looks like a man who would burn the world down if it meant keeping me.
I think about Bethany and I don’t feel guilt.
I feel satisfaction.
Because she might have his name on paper, but she never had this. Not the way his body shakes like he’s losing control. Not the way he watches my face like my reaction matters more than his pride.
And somewhere between breathless laughter and broken sounds and his grip tightening at my hips like he’s afraid I might disappear, something inside me shifts.
This ain’t just sex.
It ain’t just rebellion.
It ain’t just survival.
It’s choice.
I’m finally choosing Oaks.
The married biker with dirt under his nails and blood loyalty in his bones. The man who dove into dark water without thinking. The man who warned me and tried to walk away and failed.
When it finally breaks, when the tension snaps and my body feels like it’s exploding behind my closed eyes, I bury my face in his shoulder and hold on like I’m falling. My whole body shakes. My legs lock around him. My mouth is full of his skin and my own ragged breath.
He stills against me, breath torn, forehead pressed to mine as he pulls out but stays close enough I feel him quake warm goo against my stomach.
For a long moment neither of us speaks. His hands soften where they hold me, but he doesn’t let go. Like he can’t.
“You okay?” he asks, voice rough.
I nod. Then I laugh softly because the absurdity of life always finds a way in. “You tore my underwear. The only panties I have here.”
He huffs a breath that might be a laugh. “You don’t need them no more.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He brushes his thumb across my cheek, suddenly gentler like the softness is an accident. Like it scares him more than the sex did.
“Brit…” he starts.
I look at him.
Whatever he was about to say dies in his throat. Maybe he was going to apologize. Maybe he was going to warn me. Maybe he was going to tell me this changes everything again.
Instead, he kisses me once more, slower, deeper, and sets me back on my feet. My legs feel weak. My skin feels too alive. My mouth is swollen from him. That ain’t the only place where I’m swollen. I’m sore there too. But it feels earned.
The woods don’t look any different. The camp doesn’t sound any different.
But everything inside me is.
I pull his shirt down over my thighs and follow him back toward the cabin, still shaking, not from cold.
From him.
From the way he looked at me when I said I was his.
From the way it didn’t feel like a line.
It felt like a truth.
And as the screen door slaps behind us, one thought settles deep and terrifying in my chest.
I’m not just falling for him.
I’m already there.