Chapter 1
Chapter One
KEANE
Molding her naked body flush with mine, I bury my face in her fragrant hair, soaking in the delicate way she smells like ambrosia and the softness of her skin. I never thought I’d ever get the chance to hold Andie like this. Be with her like this. That she’d want me just as much as I’ve always wanted her. I honestly couldn’t give a shit that I just shared her with two other men. One, my best friend. The other, my enemy. Jax was right. If I want to keep her, I have to accept all the baggage that comes with her. That baggage being Jax; Liam Connelly, Declan’s top enforcer; and Rafe, my other best friend who betrayed me and switched sides.
We all love her. There is no budge to that. No give. No compromise. Andie has made it perfectly clear where she stands and what she wants.
The entire situation is a fucking mess.
Andie and I are like rotating magnets. The forces between us repelling and attracting. We fight and argue. Bicker and butt heads. But that’s who we are and what has made this thing between us electric and all-consuming. We are two powder kegs on short wicks, ready to explode. That spark finally flared to life tonight when Andie asked us to help rid her of the demons from her past, and after a decade of denying myself, I gave in. To her. It was inevitable anyway. From the moment I laid eyes on Alexandria, she owned me. Didn’t matter that we were kids at the time. Didn’t matter how many other women I screwed to fill the empty void as the years went by. Andie is my beginning and my end.
Cupping her breast, I brush my thumb over her nipple until it peaks. Her sharp intake of breath is music to my ears.
“Keane,” she moans huskily, her body arching back into me.
Jax and Liam just left the room. Jax to get us some food and coffee, and Liam to make a phone call.
“Shh, baby. I just want to touch you,” I whisper into her ear, kissing her temple and feathering my fingers up and down her side, over her hip, and back again. She hums in pleasure, her body relaxing into my arms.
I’m surprised we didn’t break her after four hours of hard, hedonistic fucking. But my girl has always been strong.
Andie rolls over to face me, those gorgeous violet eyes looking at me in a way I had only dreamed about. She wraps a long, toned leg over my thigh and scoots closer to press tender kisses to my lips. My fingers thread through her silky hair, holding her in place. I could stare into her eyes forever. The unique color of them has always fascinated me. No matter how many photographs I take, I can never capture anything as beautiful as the woman lying next to me. Photography is a way for me to escape; to try and find beauty in the ugly world I live in.
When Andie snuck into my room at Kellan’s cabin, she saw the framed photographs I had taken over the years. My favorite one was an image I secretly took of her when she and Kellan were out for one of their walks around the Rossi property. A spear of sunlight had broken through the clouds, and Andie, so young at the time, reached her hand out, trying to grab onto the ray’s warmth as if it were a physical thing.
Andie’s touch grounds me back into the present. “Does your offer still stand?” she asks, moving to kiss down my jaw and neck.
Her question takes me by surprise. “What offer?”
Her plump, kiss-swollen lips roam for a minute, tasting me with little flicks of her tongue. She pulls back and cups my face between her palms. “To marry you.”
I go silent, my mouth slightly parted as I stare at her in bewilderment. She can’t mean… “What?”
Those beautiful pale indigo eyes roll in playful exasperation. “You said to think about it. I have. My answer is still yes. I already said yes, if you recall.”
She’s referring to my proposal of marriage. The one I suggested because it was the only solution I could come up with to stop Max from handing her over to Ortiz.
But that deal’s off the table. She’s under the protection of Declan Levine now. Her real father. She doesn’t need me or Jax to save her anymore. My heart starts thumping wildly the more I process her words. She wants to be my wife. Not because she’s being forced to, but because she wants to.
The only time I have ever felt any semblance of happiness in my life was when I was in her orbit. Didn’t matter if we were fighting or playing that stupid hand slap game. Just being in her presence was enough. But right now, the surge of absolute joy that’s rushing through my bloodstream and invading the beating organ I thought had died when she left five years ago is almost painful with its intensity.
Rolling on top of her, I force her back onto the bed and settle between her thighs. My cock is rock-hard and aching to sink into her. My mouth presses a path of soft kisses along her chest and neck, her moans getting louder when I pull a puckered, rosy nipple into my mouth.
I release her tiny bud and blow a caressing breath over it, watching how the color darkens from pink to red.
“You’re safe now with Declan. You’re not being forced to marry Alejandro anymore,” I murmur into her neck as she writhes under me, trying to get the friction she needs on her clit. Greedy girl. You’d think after all the orgasms we gave her that she’d be satisfied.
“And?” Her breath stutters when I nibble her earlobe.
My skin tingles and erupts into goose flesh when her hands glide up my arms and shoulders, stopping to explore every bump of muscle.
I need to make sure that I’m not just reading into her question what I want to hear. “And you don’t have to go through with my stupid idea anymore.”
When my lips reach hers, and I dip my tongue inside her mouth, she abruptly pulls back, eyes raging at me with a mixture of desire and anger.
“Keane, I know I don’t have to. And my answer is still yes.”
Those are the words I needed to hear. I had to be sure.
Without taking my eyes off her, I stretch an arm out to pull on the drawer of the bedside nightstand and take out the small black jewelry box I’d put in there. She looks at me in shock as I carefully place it in the valley between her breasts. Her wide eyes move from the box to me, waiting. I didn’t think my heartbeat could hammer any faster, but the tempo increases as I rest my weight on an elbow and open the ring box for her. Inside are a delicate, yellow princess-cut diamond engagement ring nestled next to a matching eternity wedding band.
“These were my mother’s,” I tell her, and her eyes gloss over.
“Jesus.” Her hand goes to her lips, her chest rising and falling fast, with only silence engulfing the room.
Steeling my emotions, I tell her, “She would be honored for you to wear them.”
Andie’s breath exhales like I just knocked the oxygen right out of her lungs. “The honor would be mine,” she says breathlessly, and my heart clenches.
Not able to speak through the sudden lump in my throat, I grip her neck and jerk her to me, kissing her like the world will end. I slide both rings onto the fourth finger of her left hand. But it’s not enough. I may have just claimed her as my future wife, but my body needs to claim her as my woman. Her pussy is soaking already, her sweet nectar dripping down my cock that has been pulsating at her entrance, ready to take her. In one smooth thrust, I’m seated fully inside her, and we both vocalize at how good it fucking feels.
“Andie Agosti. Has a nice ring to it,” I say, pulling out ever so slowly before sliding back in.
On the next thrust, she bursts out laughing. “Oh, hell no.”
I grip her thighs, spreading her legs wider to better take me, and deep-tongue her smiling mouth, our kiss becoming as slow and sensuous as the way I’m making love to her.
“Hell no, what?” Jax asks, walking over to the bed, seeming to forget he’s holding four mugs of coffee by the handles between his fingers of both hands. He watches with heated interest as I fuck our girl. My future queen. My Andie.
Panting out her words when I pick up the pace, Andie moans, “Looks like… there’s going to be... a wedding.” Her inner walls convulse, choking the life out of my cock, as she loses herself to her impending orgasm, head thrown back, neck exposed for the taking, my name erupting from her lips like a benediction. So damn gorgeous.
“Over my dead fucking body,” Liam growls at the doorway.
I rouse with a loud groan at the sound of hushed voices. Sitting up stiffly, I crick my neck from side-to-side, having fallen asleep in the chair, body bent over the side of Rafe’s bed, my head tucked under an arm.
“Next time I fall asleep like that, drag my ass to the floor or something,” I grumble and rub the nape of my neck.
I look over at Rafe and relief hits me in a torrent. I may still be pissed at him for what he did, but he will never stop being my brother or my friend. My love for Jax and Rafe go bone-deep. Ride or die to the end.
He’d been out for days after being shot in the chest by one of Alejandro’s men. The doctors Declan has on his payroll kept Rafe sedated, wanting to give his body the time it needed to start healing without him fucking it all up by trying to move around. Stupid asshole already tried to get out of bed earlier and wound up bleeding all over me and his bedsheets.
Rafe gives me a pained look of regret, then turns his head toward Jax and asks, “Where’s Andie? Is she okay?”
Silence. Nothing but dead silence. Andie and Rafe still love each other. It’s plain as day, even though Andie pretends to hate him.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Jax replies, but his tone of voice is off, and Rafe picks up on it immediately. As soon as he hears about what happened to Andie, he’s going to lose his shit.
Not knowing how to break the news to him, I say, “She and Liam were in a car accident.” Not the whole truth, but whatever.
He demands, “When? How fucking long have I been out?”
Jax reluctantly looks away from his screen and glowers at me. “Just tell him, already. He’ll find out eventually.”
“Tell me what?”
The door bursts open, light flooding into the room. Liam points at Jax. “Tessa wants you.”
Jax runs out of the room like his pants are on fire with Liam hot on his footsteps right behind him. Did Tessa find where Andie is being held?
I stand abruptly, about to follow them, when Rafe calls out, “You’re going to tell me right the fuck now what the hell’s going on.”
My blood turns to stone as rage rises. I give him a brief glance over my shoulder. “Your fucking brother is what’s going on,” I inform him and walk out just as Pearson walks in.
I hear Tessa before I see her.
“What the ever-living fuck ?” Tessa shouts at her laptop. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Shit! Goddamnit! Motherfucker! Why isn’t this stupid algorithm working? Jax!”
Jax comes up behind her on the sofa and bends over her shoulder. He’s been working in tandem with Tessa to locate where Alejandro took Andie. Leaving them to figure out the high-tech shit, Liam and I pace the room like caged animals, while Declan sits stoically in the leather armchair, taking slow sips of what I assume is whiskey from a tumbler.
We got back from New York six hours ago, having dealt with Ricci and Barone and slaughtering every man in their organizations. They’re the ones who sent men to capture Andie, wanting to honor the agreement Max made with Julio Ortiz to give Andie to his sadistic son, Alejandro—Rafe’s brother—in order to cement a deal between the Rossis and the Ortiz Cartel.
It’s been days. Days . And not a single clue as to Andie’s whereabouts. I’m about to lose my mind. Thoughts of Alejandro touching her. Hurting her. My eyes squeeze shut to stop the unwanted images from forming.
Tessa briefly glances to her right. “Rafe, what do you think you’re doing?”
Rafe is leaning heavily on Pearson, who’s basically holding him up. I know not to open my mouth to tell him to get his ass back to bed. The stubborn fucker would just give me the finger and ignore me.
“Consider me Inigo Montoya,” Rafe says, and we all stare at him like he’s high. Which is probably a given considering the amount of drugs the doctors have given him.
Tessa laughs loud and long, apparently understanding his gibberish, while the rest of us stand around in confusion.
“More like Westley when he confronts Prince Humperdinck,” she replies, and rolls her eyes at us when we remain clueless. “Seriously? Forget it,” she huffs. “I suppose you don’t happen to have a direct way of communicating with Voldemort, or some floo powder that will take us right to him?” she says to Rafe.
What in the hell is she going on about?
“What if I said I might?” Rafe finally replies.
Turning back to her laptop, she waves him over. “Then you, Rafael, just became my best- est friend.”
“Did any of you understand that?” Declan asks us, and we shrug.
Jax moves out of the way when Pearson helps Rafe over to the couch where Tessa is sitting.
With a grunt, Rafe picks up a cell phone that’s on the coffee table next to Tessa’s laptop. “Can this be traced?”
It must be her phone because she answers, “If it can, they’ll think the phone is calling out from Jakarta.” She takes it from him, unlocks it, and hands it back.
Rafe dials a number. There’s a beat of silence, then Rafe turns his back to us when someone answers on the other end.
I snap my fingers at Jax and mouth the words, “Can you trace it?”
He immediately picks up Tessa’s laptop and sits down with it on the sofa, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
A big part of me wants to rush over and strangle Rafe with my bare hands. He’s known how to contact his father this entire time and never told us?
Rafe mumbles into the phone in Spanish, words that I can’t make out because Liam’s loud-ass voice bellows, “What?” into his phone when it rings.
His eyes fly to me, but his words are to Declan. “Andie. She’s here.”
Declan is already up and running to the elevators.