5. Lucy
LUCY
At nine Tuesday morning, I sit at the Kingdom Come bar in yesterday’s skirt and Wilder’s black shirt while Cash counts ammunition ten feet away.
Wilder has been awake since before dawn. He moves between bikes and brothers with a folded map in one hand, his cut open over a dark T-shirt. Men older than he is listen to him. Tank changes position after two quiet words. A prospect runs for another radio when Wilder points toward the east fence.
The authority is not loud. It doesn’t need to be. I’ve spent six years imagining him in bed. I gave far less thought to the man he would be everywhere else. He enters the clubhouse carrying heat and the smell of fuel.
“You need to eat,” he says.
Cash pushes a plate toward me. The eggs are overcooked and the toast is black along one edge.
“A prospect made it,” Cash says.
“I should have guessed.” I laugh.
He takes his ammunition into the back corridor, leaving us alone at the end of the bar.
Wilder drinks from my coffee.
“Hey! That was mine.”
“You can have it back.” He starts to push it back my way.
“It’s okay. It looks like you need it more.”
I watch him set down the cup. The same steady expression has carried him through waking up accidentally married, a threat from Perdition and a sleepless night.
“Why were you so calm in Vegas?”
His eyes meet mine. “What do you mean?”
“When we woke up. I was naked in a destroyed hotel room with a marriage certificate on the floor. You looked as though the morning had gone according to plan.”
He glances toward the men by the front windows. “My room.” He offers his hand. I take it.
His room still carries the traces of us. My blouse hangs over the chair with one button missing, and the missing black pin is still somewhere on the floor.
Wilder closes the door behind us.
“You asked why I wasn’t panicking.”
“You looked almost pleased.”
“I was.”
“About waking up married?”
“About waking up married to you.”
My breath catches. There’s no smile to soften the words, nowhere for me to hide from them.
“You already told me you wanted me before Vegas.”
“I wanted more than one night. Waking up married didn’t scare me.”
“It still doesn’t?”
“No.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. “Then why didn’t you ever say anything when I kept turning up with other men?”
“Because I thought they were what you wanted.”
“They were easier.”
His expression tightens. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No. If one of them left, only he left. If you and I went wrong, Nora would be caught between us every time we were in the same room.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“It’s why I kept my hands off you.”
“You still spent six years saying things designed to make me blush.”
The corner of his mouth shifts. “Had to have something.”
“I didn’t want to risk the best friendship I’ve ever had for one night.”
“Neither did I.”
The room goes quiet.
“One night was never what I wanted from you.”
I look down at my hands. “The men I dated weren’t bad men.”
“Didn’t say they were.”
“They were kind. Predictable. I knew what a year with them would look like before the first month ended.”
“And that was enough?”
“It was quiet.”
Wilder studies me. “Quiet isn’t the same as happy.”
I have no answer because he’s right.
“No,” I admit. “It wasn’t.”
Perdition is somewhere out there beyond the gates, and a loaded gun sits beside his bed. Every reason I kept my distance is still here.
“Vegas was reckless,” he says. “Wanting you wasn’t.”
I cross the room.
My hands slide beneath his cut and push it from his shoulders.
Wilder catches the leather before it falls and lays it over the chair.
I lift his shirt and he lets me pull it over his head.
Black ink crosses one shoulder and spreads over his chest, broken by pale scars.
I touch the narrow line beneath his ribs that I have seen only in glimpses.
Wilder’s hands remain at his sides. “You are making me do everything,” I say.
“Well, you walked in here.”
“I seem to keep doing that.”
I kiss the scar and his breath moves beneath my mouth.
Yesterday burned too fast for patience. Today I take my time.
I follow ink and old wounds with my lips, feeling restraint tighten through his body as I move lower.
At the waistband of his jeans, I look up and his eyes have gone dark.
I open his belt and jeans. His cock strains against black cotton.
I free him and wrap my hand around the thick length.
The first slow stroke pulls a rough breath from him.
“Still feeling calm?”
“No.”
I lower to my knees. The first taste draws a curse from his mouth and I take the broad head between my lips, tongue moving along the underside while my hand works the rest.
Wilder braces one palm against the wall beside him and I take him deeper.
“Lucy.”
My name holds warning and pleasure. I look up while I draw him into my mouth again. The quiet man who can move a compound with two words loses another piece of control. His free hand cups the back of my head without forcing the pace.
“Keep looking at me like that and this ends fast.”
I release him slowly. “Then put me on the bed.” He lifts me in one movement.
My back meets the mattress. Wilder follows, covering me with his body, and the laugh that escapes me disappears beneath his mouth.
He kisses me slowly and the difference from yesterday is devastating. Every stroke of his tongue is deliberate. His hands open the shirt I borrowed and spread it beneath me. He looks at my bare breasts before dragging his knuckles over them.
“Beautiful.” The word comes rough. He takes one nipple into his mouth and works the other between his fingers until I arch beneath him.
“Wilder, we don’t have time for…”
“We have time.”
“But Perdition gave you a deadline.”
“Cyrus has taken enough of our time. He’s not taking this too.”
He kisses down my stomach and strips away my skirt and underwear. Light from the narrow window crosses my body. There is nowhere to hide, and I don’t want to.
Wilder settles between my thighs. He presses his mouth to the inside of one knee, then the other, taking his time while my body tightens in anticipation.
His hands spread me open. The position should make me feel exposed.
Instead, the way he watches me feels intimate, as if he understands I put myself here and knows the difference.
His first slow lick pulls a moan from me. He spreads me with his thumbs and keeps his eyes on mine while his tongue circles my clit. The intimacy of being watched hits harder than urgency.
I grip the sheet. He learns every change in my breathing. Broad pressure. A sharper flick. Two fingers sliding deep while his mouth returns to the center of me and pleasure builds steadily.
“Wilder.”
“Look at me.”
I force my eyes open. His mouth works between my legs.
His fingers curl and find the place that makes my hips lift from the bed.
The pressure breaks and I come against his mouth, calling his name while he holds me through every pulse.
Wilder kisses the inside of my knee and rises.
I reach for him, but he catches my wrist and presses my palm to his chest. His heart pounds beneath it.
“This is not Vegas,” he says.
“I know.”
“Say what this is.”
I hold his gaze. “You. Sober. The man I came back for.”
Something fierce and exposed moves across his face. He slides the head of his cock through my wetness, then pushes inside slowly. My body stretches around him one inch at a time. I hold his shoulders and feel every part of the moment settle into me without blur or missing sequence.
When he is fully seated, he presses his forehead to mine, draws back and thrusts. Slow first. Deep. Each stroke grinds his body against my clit. Wilder braces on one forearm, his other hand holding my hip as if the contact steadies him.
I wrap both legs around his waist. “Harder.”
“Thought you wanted slow.”
“I want all of it.”
His mouth curves by a fraction, and then he drives into me harder.
The bed strikes the wall in a steady rhythm.
He kisses me between thrusts, fierce and unhurried at once.
His chest slides over my breasts. Sweat warms the space between us.
I drag my nails down his back and feel the answering shudder move through him.
He catches one of my hands, laces our fingers together and pins it beside my head while his hips keep working.
The hold is possessive without taking anything from me. I tighten my grip and pull him closer.
“This,” I whisper. “This is what we never said to each other.”
“Not anymore.” I feel his control tightening through his shoulders.
“You made me watch those men touch you,” he says.
“You made me wait for you to do anything about it.”
“Fair point.”
“Make up for it then.”
He rises to his knees and takes my hips. The new angle opens me wider. He drives deep enough to pull a cry from my throat.
“There?”
“Fuck. Yes.”
Wilder watches my body take him and changes pace with every response. My next climax gathers fast. He reaches between us and circles my clit.
“Come with me.”
I tighten around him and his rhythm breaks. I come hard beneath his hand, and he follows with my name torn from his mouth. He lowers over me, taking his weight on his arms. We stay joined while our breathing settles. I stroke the damp hair at his temple.
“I’m keeping the ring.”
His head lifts. “Say it again.”
“I’m keeping you.”
For the first time since I’ve known him, Wilder looks unguarded.
Not soft, and not uncertain. Simply struck by something he wanted and never expected to hear offered back.
He kisses me with every scrap of control gone.
When it ends, he rolls onto his side and draws me against him.
The compound works beyond the wall, engines and radios low beneath the quiet of his room.
“You thought I would see the gates, all this stuff and leave,” I say.
“I thought you might decide wanting me was easier than actually being with me.”
“I still need my work.”
“Keep it.”