Revolution (The Lone Riders MC Series Book 1) (35 page)

‘Do you love me, Lexi?’

She looked at him, at his scarred but handsome face, his eyes heavy and tired. The stress of the last few days was obviously beginning to take its toll. ‘Have you slept much lately?’

‘Not really.’

‘You should get some rest. You look shattered.’

‘Do you
love
me, Lexi?’

She stared at him, her heart beating hard against her ribs. ‘Yes. I love you. But sometimes…’ She threw her head back, breathing out and swallowing hard. ‘Sometimes I really wish I didn’t.’

‘You don’t want an easy life, Lexi. You aren’t that kind of girl. And I love you all the more because of that. You’re one crazy fucking bitch, and Jesus, you give me shit I really don’t need. But I can’t do this without you, kid. I can’t. This club, it’s in my blood, it’s who I am and…’ He bowed his head briefly, before looking back up at her. ‘I need it almost as much as I need you, do you understand?’

‘I am so tired of people telling me I need to understand… I understand everything, okay? I might not
want
to… God knows there’ve been times when I wished I could just shut it all down. When I wished I
didn’t
know what really goes on around here. But I
do
know, and I understand, I do. I get it. It’s love you, love the club.’

‘I don’t know how any of this shit works outside of these confines.’

‘You aren’t that weak. You aren’t. You never will be.’

‘You were born inside this club, Lexi. Our
son
was born inside this club, in exactly the same place. And this club, it saved me. Because I was going nowhere, kid. I was just out of the military, lost in a world I knew little about. And then your dad, the Brotherhood, they saved me.’ He looked at her, right into her eyes. ‘I remember walking into that clubhouse as a Prospect back in
Newcastle
twenty-five years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday.’

She walked slowly over to him, her eyes never leaving his. ‘So do I.’

‘You were just a kid.’

‘The day you turned up I was sitting cross-legged on a couch in the corner of the clubhouse. It was the summer holidays, I was just ten years old, and me and Kip were getting our first poker lesson from two of the other Prospects. I whooped all their arses three days later, won forty quid, and was banned from any more of their card games because they claimed they’d created a monster.’

Coby smiled, every inch of him aching to reach out and touch her.

‘So, yeah, I remember the day you turned up at the compound. You didn’t have this.’ She ran her fingertips lightly over his beard. ‘And your hair had no grey in it. You didn’t have that scar… but I was just a kid. You were just another of my dad’s Prospects – the tall one with the Scottish accent, that’s what I used to call you.’

‘And I used to call
you
that cocky kid with way too much attitude. I just had no idea that that cocky kid was my future. That she’d grow up to be beautiful and strong; that she’d still have the attitude but, shit, she fucks like an angel so I can live with that.’

Lexi moved a little closer, her fingers now gently stroking his cheek. ‘Did you miss me? When my dad sent you here?’

‘Not really.’

‘Bastard!’ she laughed.

‘You were twelve years old when I left
Newcastle
, Lexi. You were just Charlie’s little girl, the baby tomboy who loved to hang around the garage asking far too many questions. Did
you
miss
me
?’

‘Like you said, I was twelve years old. More into bikes than boys so, no. Well, maybe just a little bit. I didn’t have a crush on you or anything like that but, you know, you were one of the good ones. I was happy, when they patched you in. So, yeah, okay, I was a tiny bit sad when you left. But I got over it.’ She dropped her hand, sliding it down the back pocket of her denim skirt. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t that long until I saw you again. And I was almost grown up by that time.’

‘Almost,’ he whispered. His eyes were burning into hers, holding her there, refusing to let her go until this was done. ‘Did you listen to what we were saying there, Lexi?’

She cocked her head slightly, moving that little bit closer to him.

‘We have so much history, darlin’. You and me. And all of that past, all of it – that has to mean
something
.’

‘Oh, Jesus, you’re not gonna start spouting crap about fate, are you? Come on, Coby. You know me better than that.’

‘I just don’t want you to walk away from me.’

‘I’m not walking away from anything. I didn’t want to walk away from what we had nine years ago, remember? It was other people who made that decision
for
me. Decisions that meant I had no other option but to leave my home behind, while you stayed.
You
walked away from
me
. You let me go…’

‘Baby, I had to. I
had
to, and you know that. It was the only thing we could do…’

‘Why? Because my dad told you it was for the best?’

Coby said nothing for a few seconds, his eyes lowering to the floor, breaking the stare. ‘It was so complicated back then, Lexi.’

‘And things aren’t complicated now? The secrets and the lies, they’re still coming thick and fast, Jesus, I’m having conversations with a man I thought was dead! A man
you
told me you’d helped kill.’ She could feel an anger building up that she hadn’t wanted to feel, but it was there, twisting her stomach, messing with her head. ‘You told me you’d killed him. You. Why did you do that?’

Coby shook his head as he looked at her. ‘Charlie thought…’

‘Charlie thought shit, Coby! Are you gonna let my dad pull the strings forever? You owe him nothing.
Nothing
. Okay, so he’s put you in charge here, but that means this is
your
club now.
Yours
.’

‘Ours.’

She looked at him, that anger and confusion still burning away inside her. ‘Ours,’ she whispered.

‘If you love me, Lexi, then you really have to trust that I
am
trying to make things better. For everyone. For this club. But especially for you, and Ozzie, because you are my world. You’re my fucking world.’

‘As long as that world involves this place.’

‘I’m
trying
to make it better. But I really need Charlie’s help, Lexi. Right now, I need his help. And I know… I
know
the way we’ve gone about things so far…’ He looked down, running a hand over the back of his neck. ‘What’s gone on, it’s been hard for a lot of people to understand.’ He looked back up at her, their eyes locking once more. ‘But no more, okay?’

She shook her head, folding her arms. ‘No. You can’t make me promises like that, Coby. You can’t. I’m not some biker groupie who’s just walked in off the street, I
know
you can’t make me promises like that.’

‘Then what the fuck do we do, Lexi? Where the hell do we go from here?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly, backing away from him. ‘I really don’t know.’

‘I need you.’

‘You don’t need anyone. Not anymore.’

‘And neither do you. Not really. But when we’re apart we fuck up, baby. We don’t work. We don’t.’

She threw her head back, staring at the ceiling. ‘Shit! Sometimes I wish I could just go back to being that twelve year old kid messing about with bikes because this is killing me.’

‘It doesn’t have to be this way.’

She moved a little closer to him, her eyes meeting his. ‘Have you ever wished we had a normal life?’

‘A couple of times, maybe. But I’d hate it, and so would you. Whatever normal is, we don’t do that.’

‘We
can’t
do that.’

‘Stop fighting this, Lexi. Please, darlin’. Stop fighting
me
, your dad – this club. Because you know, deep down, you’ll never win. You walk away from this, and a piece of you dies. You could’ve walked away years ago, you had that chance. But all you did was run to the Mother Chapter.’

‘I went back home.’

‘I thought
Paradise
was your home.’

‘Shane
had
to go to
England
.’

‘You didn’t have to go with him.’

‘What’s going on here, Coby? What are you doing?’

‘Trying to make you realize where you belong.’

‘With you?’

‘Yes. With me. By my side. My beautiful biker queen. You belong
here
. And you know that, you’ve
always
known that. You’re just too bloody stubborn to admit it.’

‘When I first came back here you were still backing away from me, still refusing to acknowledge what we had, Jesus, you had to watch another man fuck me before…’ She shook her head. ‘No. Even then, even after that you still couldn’t admit that we had history. So, you standing here, telling me what you’ve just told me about fate and our past meaning something…’

He reached out and pulled her to him, ignoring her slight protestations, her feeble attempts to push him away. Instead he shut her up with a kiss, his hand fanning out in the small of her back as she melted against him, her hands flat against his chest.

‘I hate you so much,’ she whispered.

‘Yeah. The feeling’s mutual, kid. But the sex is so much better when you’re mad at me.’

‘You think you’re gonna get sex out of this?’

‘I know I am,’ he said quietly, his mouth so close to her ear, his breath warm on her neck.

‘You sure you can handle me?’ she breathed, already feeling her skin break out in a barrage of goose bumps.

‘I’ve handled worse.’

She closed her eyes as his mouth lowered down on to hers again, his beard rough against her skin; the most beautiful feeling.

‘You gonna get naked?’ he whispered, his hand sliding up the back of her t-shirt.

‘Oh, so that’s conversation over, is it?’

‘I just want you to shut up and open those ridiculously long legs of yours because we’re done now. Neither of us was ever going anywhere, Lexi. We were only ever gonna end up here.’

‘You’re so sure of yourself, soldier.’

‘Because I know you love the way I fuck you,’ he murmured, his mouth close to her ear again, causing those goose bumps to intensify. ‘I know you do.’

Lexi couldn’t help a lengthy groan from escaping as she felt his hand slide her skirt down over her thighs. She kicked it away the second it dropped to the floor.

‘This is how we deal with everything around here.’ He pulled her t-shirt off over her head, running his hands down over the curve of her waist, his eyes locking on to hers. ‘We fuck, and we forget all the shit because we can deal with it all. Everything, baby, we can deal with it.’

‘I still hate you,’ she groaned, unclasping her bra and throwing it aside.

‘Like I said, the sex is so much better…’ He lowered his head and briefly covered one of her breasts with his mouth, flicking his tongue over her nipple, ‘… when we hate each other. When you fight against me and pretend you don’t want me in there when I know – I
know
you do.’

She didn’t even know how they’d suddenly got here, one step away from sex when she hadn’t yet got her head around just where that conversation had actually left them. But she was naked now, his arm holding her close, the roughness of leather and denim scratching her skin, his beard tickling her neck as he covered it in kisses. She was heading in only one direction here. And that was anywhere he wanted her to go.

He lifted her up, placing her down on the sideboard, and she spread her legs, watching as he unzipped himself, not even bothering to take his cut off, but in some respects that only turned her on all the more. Her big, brave biker soldier. The man she hated to love. The man who’d broken her heart but she’d never, ever let him see that. She’d never tell him of the nights she’d spent curled up in a ball crying until she made herself ill because she was confused and fighting everything she felt for him. For nine years that had been her life – not knowing what she’d wanted, and knowing all along that she wanted
him
. For almost nine years her life had made no sense, until now. Until this very second, when she felt him push into her, her legs wrapping around him, her body angling itself to pull him in deeper. Now it all made sense. All the shit and the pain and the lies so sick she hoped they’d never be repeated. It all made sense. Because it had all led her to this moment, with this man.

She rested her hands palm-down behind her, arching her back a little further, pushing her hips up against him as he thrust harder, now as deep as he could go inside of her, his groans mingling with hers until it all built up into one long, loud cry, him coming first, spilling a torrent of white-hot heat out into her. She could feel it, feel
him
taking her over, feel him injecting that beautiful poison into her system once more, and as she succumbed to her own climax, letting those burning tingles wash over every inch of her, she pulled her legs tighter around him, keeping him there, keeping him inside her for as long as she possibly could.

‘Still hate me,’ he gasped, his breathing ragged and heavy.