Chapter 5
Chapter Five
ROGUE
Four days. Four days of her in my space, in my head, in every goddamn room I walk into.
Four days of watching her exist with a composure that makes my teeth ache.
Four days of her looking at me like she can see through the cut, through the title, through the violence, down to something underneath that I'm not sure I want anyone to find.
It's past midnight and the club house is quiet.
The Anvil closed an hour ago. Sully kicked out the last of the hangarounds and locked up.
The brothers have scattered to their rooms or gone home.
The building settles into its nighttime sounds.
The creak of old iron, the river lapping against the bulkhead, the hum of the industrial AC that never quite wins against the Memphis heat.
I'm in my office with a bourbon. The Crest situation laid out in front of me.
Maps, routes, contacts. Devlin Marsh is making noise about Ricky's disappearance.
Not to us, not directly. Through channels.
The kind of noise that precedes violence.
I need to be focused on this. Need to be three moves ahead.
Instead I'm thinking about the way she told me that she knew what I was on the deck today. Like it was simple. Like what I am could be known and accepted in a single breath.
The knock on my door is soft. Two taps.
"Yeah."
She opens it. She's in those borrowed clothes. My old t-shirt, too big, the neck slipping off one shoulder. Sleep shorts that must be from a bag Colt picked up. Her hair is down, loose around her face, and her feet are bare on the concrete floor.
"I couldn't sleep," she says.
"Join the club."
She doesn't laugh. Comes in and looks around my office like she's memorizing it.
The maps on the wall, the bourbon on the desk, the leather couch against the far wall that's older than I am.
Her eyes come back to me. I'm behind the desk with my sleeves pushed up, forearms bare, the desk lamp throwing shadows across everything.
"You're working," she says. "I'll go."
“It’s fine. Sit down."
She sits. On the couch, tucked into one corner with her legs pulled up. I should go back to the maps. Should keep my eyes on Crest supply routes and not on the bare length of her legs, the shadow at the neckline of my shirt where it falls too wide across her chest.
“So why can’t you sleep?" I ask.
"I keep thinking about what you asked. Why I haven't run."
"You gave me an answer."
"I gave you half of one."
I put down my pen. Give her my full attention because she's earned it, because she doesn't ask for things she doesn't mean. "What's the other half?"
She's quiet for a moment. The AC hums. The river whispers. And then she says, direct and unflinching, "I'm not running because I realised that I don't want to be somewhere you're not."
The words land in my chest like a fist. I go still. Because I don't trust my body to move correctly in this moment. I've wanted women before. I've taken women to bed with no complications and less thought. But want hasn't felt like this. Like a hook set behind my ribs, pulling.
"That's a bad idea," I say. My voice comes out rougher than intended.
"I know."
"I'm not someone you should be wanting, Margot."
"And yet." She holds my gaze across the dim room. No coyness, no games. Just that relentless honesty that she wields like a weapon.
I should stop this. Send her back to her room, put a door between us, maintain the distance that keeps this situation manageable. She's a witness under my protection. A civilian in my world. Getting involved with her is a complication I can't afford.
Instead, I stand up.
She watches me come around the desk. Watches me cross the room toward her. Her breathing changes, but she doesn't look away. Doesn't flinch. Her chin tips up as I get closer, tracking my approach the way she's tracked everything about me. With complete attention.
I stop in front of the couch. Look down at her. She's small against the old leather, legs tucked up, my shirt drowning her. But there's nothing small about the way she's looking at me. It's a challenge. A dare.
"Stand up," I say.
She does. Unfolds herself and rises until she's in front of me, barely a foot of heated air between us. Her head tips back to hold eye contact, she’s breathing faster.
I reach out. My hand finds the side of her neck. Fingers curving around the back, thumb against the hinge of her jaw. Her skin is warm and smooth and she leans into it. Doesn't pull away. Presses into my palm like it's something she's been waiting for.
“You should tell me to stop," I say.
“No."
I kiss her.
Not gentle. Not asking. I take her mouth the way I take everything.
With intent, with force, with the full weight of four days of denial behind it.
She gasps against my lips and then she's kissing me back with the same ferocity, her hands fisting in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer.
She tastes like toothpaste and something sweet and her tongue meets mine without hesitation.
I walk her backward. Two steps, three, until her back hits the wall and I pin her there with my body.
She moans, a sound that goes straight to my cock, and her hips arch against mine.
I'm already hard. Have been since she walked in looking like that, wearing my clothes and telling me the truth like no man would ever dare to do.
"Rogue." My name in her mouth. Breathless. A confirmation.
I drag my mouth down her throat. Taste the salt of her skin, feel the vibration of the sound she makes under my lips.
My hands find the hem of that too-big shirt and I pull it up, over her head.
She's not wearing a bra. Her breasts are small and perfect and I cup one in my scarred hand, run my thumb over the nipple until it hardens under my touch and she arches into me.
"God..." She grabs my wrist. Not to pull me away. To hold me there. Her head falls back against the wall and I watch her face, watch her eyes go heavy-lidded, watch her bite her lower lip as I roll her nipple between my fingers.
"Look at me," I tell her.
Her eyes open. Dark, dilated, fierce. Even now, pinned to a wall with my hand on her bare chest, she's not passive. Her gaze is a match strike.
I drop to my knees.
Her expression breaks open. Surprise, hunger, a flash of vulnerability that she covers quickly.
I hook my fingers in those sleep shorts and pull them down.
She steps out of them. She's wearing plain cotton underwear, white, and the sight of that simplicity, of her not dressing for this, not performing, makes me harder than lace ever could.
I press my mouth to her hip bone. She shivers. I pull the underwear down and she's bare in front of me, beautiful, wet. I can see it, can smell her arousal, and something animal in my brain goes quiet and focused.
I grip her thighs, spread them, and put my mouth on her pussy.
She cries out. Her hands slam against the wall behind her, finding nothing to grip, and then they're in my hair, fingers twisting tight.
I lick her slow and deliberate. Long strokes from her entrance to her clit, learning the geography of her, finding the spots that make her shake.
She's soaking for me. And the sounds she's making, broken, rhythmic, desperate, are the best thing I've ever heard.
I push two fingers inside her and she clenches around them so tight I groan against her.
Curl them upward and find the spot that makes her legs buckle.
She's holding herself up by her grip on my hair and by my hand on her hip, and I work her.
Tongue on her clit, fingers fucking into her.
Until she's shaking and gasping and pulling my hair hard enough to sting.
"I'm going to..."
"Do it." I look up the length of her body and find her watching me. Eyes wide, cheeks flushed, mouth open. "Come for me."
She does. Her whole body locks up and then releases in waves, clenching around my fingers, her thighs trembling against my ears. She makes a sound that's almost a sob, raw and uncontrolled, and I work her through it until she's pushing at my shoulders.
I stand. My mouth is wet with her and I don't wipe it off. She stares at me, breathing hard, and then she reaches for my belt.
"My turn." Her voice is wrecked. Hoarse. Her fingers are unsteady on the buckle but determined.
"Not yet." I catch her wrists. Pin them above her head against the wall with one hand. She looks up at me and her pupils are so wide her eyes look black.
"Rogue..."
"I want inside you."
"Then get inside me."
I let go of her wrists long enough to deal with my belt, my jeans. I'm aching. Painfully hard, my cock straining the moment I free it. She watches me and her tongue sweeps across her lower lip.
I lift her. Hands under her thighs, her back against the wall, and she wraps her legs around my waist. The angle puts her exactly where I need her and I pause. The head of my cock nudging against her entrance, both of us breathing hard.
She grabs the collar of my shirt, still on, still dressed, while she's completely naked, and pulls me into a kiss that tastes like her. "Fuck me," she says against my mouth.
I thrust into her in one stroke. She's so wet there's no resistance but she's tight. Tight enough that I have to stop, buried deep, and breathe through the urge to move immediately. She moans, long and low, her head dropping back against the wall.
"Fuck," I grit out. "You feel..."
"Move." She tightens her legs. Rolls her hips. Commands me.
I move. Drive into her with a rhythm that's hard and deep, pinning her to the wall with every thrust. She takes it.
Meets it, rolls her hips to match my pace, her nails biting into my shoulders through my shirt.
The sounds of us fill the office. Skin against skin, her gasps, my grunts, the wet sound of my cock sliding in and out of her.
"Harder," she says, and I give it to her. Slam into her until the framed picture on the wall rattles and her moans go high and wordless. She's tight around me, getting tighter, and I can feel her building toward another orgasm in the way her thighs shake and her pussy flutters.
I shift my grip. Free one hand and get it between us, find her clit, and rub.
She comes apart. Screams this time, actually screams, her nails raking down my back hard enough that I'll feel it tomorrow, and the clench of her around my cock pulls me over the edge with her.
I bury myself deep and come so hard my vision whites out at the edges.
We stay like that. Pinned together against the wall, breathing hard, her legs still locked around me. My forehead drops to her shoulder. I can feel her heartbeat against my chest. Rapid, pounding, slowing gradually.
"Well," she says after a long moment. Her voice is small and satisfied and still a little breathless. "That happened."
I lift my head. Look at her. She's flushed and her hair is wild and she's got that look on her face. The one that sees everything, and understands everything.
"Regret it?" I ask.
"Ask me tomorrow."
I let her down slowly. Her legs are unsteady and my hand stays on her hip, steadying.
She finds my shirt on the floor and pulls it back on without the shorts, and standing there in my office in nothing but a t-shirt with her thighs wet and her lips swollen, she's the most dangerous thing in this building.
"Stay," I say. Not in the office. Not here. "Room at the end of the hall. My room."
She picks up her shorts. Looks at me. Something passes between us. An acknowledgment that this has shifted everything, that whatever careful distance we were maintaining is gone.
"Okay," she says.
She walks out. I watch her go. Then I clean up, tuck myself back together, and follow.
The Crest maps sit forgotten on my desk. The war can wait until morning.
Tonight there's only her.