Authors: JC Emery
I slide down her beautiful, naked body and kiss her hip before making my way to her slick center. No longer nervous about her body or afraid to ask for what she wants, she parts her legs even more and moans when I finally give in and tease her tiny bud. Soon enough, she’s unable to stay still, close to coming and a panting mess. When I crawl back up her body and slide into her, my eyes roll back in my head. The best part of our lives is beginning now, in this bed, with just the two of us making this place our home.
“What’s that noise?” she asks suddenly, barely able to suck in enough breath to form the question.
“What noise?” I try not to get distracted and to keep my rhythm going. If she’s hearing other shit besides me, then I’m not doing my job, so I reach down and massage her clit in slow circles.
“It sounds like panting,” she says with a scrunched face and through broken speech.
“That’s you, baby,” I say. She shakes her head, opens her eyes, and looks around the room as best she can. I’m sliding into her, going as deep as I can, when she lets out a terrified scream and uses her nails to claw at my exposed flesh. I look around and find the reason for her fear.
“Shit,” I mutter without stopping my ministrations. The little brown eight-pound ball of fat and fur stares at her from under his splayed, floppy ears. He growls, raises his butt in the air, barks, and brings his head down to the comforter. At this age, he’s cute when he’s being territorial, but it won’t be so cute when he’s a full-grown pit who thinks he runs this shit.
“Gentle,” I command, still refusing to stop what I’m doing. The dog takes a moment to think about the command before he quiets down. When I order that he sit, he decides instead to walk around the bed to get a better look at Cheyenne. He’s never seen her before, so this is new for him. He’s barely three months old, so he’s still learning his commands. He’s smart, though, so I have no doubt that in time he’s going to be an excellent guard dog for my girl.
“I’m guessing he’s ours,” she whispers, looking slightly less afraid now. Her back arches when I hit a particularly sensitive spot, and her eyes flutter. “Not in front of the dog.”
“Fuck that,” I say. “This is our bed, and I’m not going to stop fucking you every time nosy ass over here decides to enter a room.” Really, he and I are pretty good friends at this point. I’m hoping Chey doesn’t mind him sleeping in the bed with us, because since I got him last week, he’s slept by my feet above the covers.
As creepy as it is, the damn dog watches us the entire time. In a few minutes’ time, she seems to forget about his presence, until my dumb ass has to comment with, “Watch Daddy. I’ll show you how to handle bitches.”
“Asshole,” Chey whispers, almost like it’s a compliment, and reaches down to stroke the sensitive flesh behind my ballsack. A hot jolt rushes up my spine as she clenches down on me, and we come together in near silence with our eyes open and watching each other shudder and shake with the ripples of pleasure that pass over us.
“Thought the place was too big for just us,” I say and nod to the dog when I’m able to speak again. “He doesn’t have a name yet, so that’s been kind of confusing for training purposes.”
“Can I name him Leo?” she asks.
I pull out of her and shake my head in disagreement. If she wants to name the fucking thing Leo, she can, but I don’t have to be happy about it. Somehow, she and Scavo developed a friendship while he was here. She says he makes her feel brave. I want to support her friendships, but I won’t lie—that kind of pisses me off. I want to be her everything, and the idea that she bonded with somebody else doesn’t sit right.
“Don’t be like that,” she says and crawls to the top of the bed where she buries herself under the covers. “You know it’s not romantic or sexual. He’s like a brother to me, and I’m sorry that he’s gone. That’s all.”
“Yeah, I get it. Doesn’t mean I want to name my dog after the guy,” I gripe and crawl up the bed to join her beneath the covers. I stare into her green eyes, taking a moment to really see her and just be fucking grateful that she’s here and with me willingly. Because I would have totally kidnapped her if she had objected to coming home with me. I told her once that she was my always, and I fucking meant it.
She smiles softly, leans in, and grabs ahold of the goatee I’ve been working on, and tugs. She smirks as she says, “We could name him Ryan.”
Back when I was a prospect, the idea of naming a dog after Ryan would have scared me. But now? Fuck it. I’m sure it’ll be funny when he finds out. Plus, it wasn’t my idea anyway.
“Ryan, come see Daddy,” I say. Yeah, I’m one of those fucking people who treats their dog like their kid. Grady thought it was funny until he realized who little Ryan’s mama is if I’m his daddy. The dog stares at me and then Cheyenne and then back to me before prancing up the bed to my lap. I give him a quick rub under his chin and then behind his ears before dropping my hand and letting Chey bond with him.
“Go to Mama,” I tell him. Ian’s dog training guy told me to familiarize him with her scent early on, so I did. We’ve spent the past week learning how to find Mama by her scent. Just yesterday he managed to complete the entire session without any issues. Next week we’ll have to up the ante.
“Go to Mama,” I repeat. This time he seems to understand, and he takes the few steps to sit at her side, tail wagging against the comforter, and waits for praise. I watch as she tentatively shows him her hand and goes about waiting for his acceptance. Once granted, she rubs him behind his ears, under his chin, and along his spine.
“I can’t believe you did all of this for me.” Her green eyes shine in the fading daylight, illuminating her pale skin and dark brown hair. She’s gorgeous, even more so than when I first fell in love with her.
“Believe it, babe. I told you we would have our always, and this is it,” I whisper and lean over to kiss her.
“I’m never leaving this bed,” she whispers back and presses her lips to mine. We’re lost in slow, sated kisses for so long I almost forget what we’re doing until she says, “Hey, don’t you owe me a ring?”
Yeah, I do.
I really fucking do.
The End
Vow (a Bayonet Scars novella, No. 4.5)
HE REFUSES TO GIVE IN. SHE REFUSES TO GIVE IT UP.
Alexandra Mancuso knows all about regrets. She talked to the wrong person and started a war that’s ravaged her newly adopted motorcycle club family and threatens to cost Alex her life. Now, she’s cautious with the commitments she makes.
Ryan Stone, road captain for the Forsaken Motorcycle Club regrets nothing—except putting Cub in danger one time too many. The Forsaken Motorcycle Club has a plan to end the war with the Mancuso crime family and they need everyone’s head in the game. But Ryan can’t focus on the club when he’s so distracted by a certain reckless brunette. She gives him everything except for what he really wants.
Today, he refuses to take no for an answer and maybe, just maybe, this time Alex won’t be able to stand her ground.
True love always defies the odds.
Dedication
For my readers—you insisted Ryan wasn’t romantic enough. Here you go.
Alex
For what feels
like the hundredth time, I raise the semiauto and point it at the tree line, doing my best to focus on the black-and-white target. With my right index finger, I pull the trigger, squeezing my eyes shut in the process. The blowback from the gun scares me, making me freeze. I hate guns. I hate the violence of it all. But this is the life I was born into, and it’s the life I choose. I have to get used to them eventually.
Slowly, I open one eye and check out the target. It’s brand new—I just painted and mounted it this afternoon—and should now have a bullet hole. If I made my shot. Which from the looks of it, I didn’t. Damn it.
I try not to get too frustrated with my total ineptitude at self-defense. It’s not easy, though. Mom has tried to teach me how to defend myself, but that’s not working out so well. Apparently I can’t block a punch to save my life, which pisses Ryan off to no end. Not that it takes much to piss him off. He’s always been a bit of a testy sort, and that’s only magnified by his concern for my safety. I hate that he worries, so when he’s gone on a run, I come out here and get in some target practice.
Again, I raise the gun, focus on the target, and pull the trigger. My eyes involuntarily shut, and I freeze up once more. I can never keep my eyes open once I pull the trigger. It’s been months now that we’ve been coming out here and working on my shot, and it’s done no good.
Tears of frustration well in my eyes. I hate this. I just want to be able to defend myself so my entire family—my new family—doesn’t have to worry about me so much. It’s been nearly a year since the club saved me in New York and brought me out here. Nearly a year, and the club’s been attacked, members have died, their old ladies have been targeted, and it’s not going to stop any time soon.
There’s always something going on around here, and they never really tell me anything. Mom tells me I’m safe and that’s all I need to know. Ryan pats my butt and says, “Gonna have to tap that later.” Because he’s a true gentleman like that. And Jim? Anytime I ask him a club-related question, he sarcastically remarks that he must have missed my patching-in party. When he first started in on that, I didn’t know what to say. But now? I just roll my eyes and walk away. I should stop asking Jim questions, but I kind of feel like it’s our bonding time, and I don’t get to hang out with many people. Even Duke doesn’t come around and bug me like he used to. Now that Nic is closer to delivering, he spends all his time at home. Not that I miss him or consider him a friend or anything.
The gun weighs heavily in my hand as I think about my next move. I squeeze the handle until I can’t feel much of anything anymore. Months have passed, and I’ve gotten nowhere with any kind of gun. I can’t take an attacker down either. The best I can do is intimidate a Lost Girl—something Mom has spent an inordinate amount of time teaching me. She says that Carlo Mancuso is only one man, but whores sprout up like a wild fungus that you always have to be on the lookout for. I may not be able to protect myself or keep anyone alive, but I sure as hell can keep a bitch off my man.
But I can’t save him. I can’t give him even a tenth of what he’s given me, and I never will. So I try again. This time I try telling myself the bullet will boomerang and kill me if I close my eyes. A third shot doesn’t hit the target, and my eyes flutter closed. It’s not the panicky squeezing that normally happens with the harsh jerk of the gun. So I try again, and this time I refrain from fluttering a little more. With three more quick shots, I find myself screaming at the top of my lungs at the stupid fucking invincible target. I pull the trigger again and again until the clip is empty and the gun clicks in protest. Still, my screams are as loud as I can manage, and I kick at the dirt beneath my feet. I must look like an idiot—like Ryan—throwing a tantrum when I don’t get my way.
The ridiculousness of it all gets to me, and I stomp toward the target and throw the gun as far as I can. I’m close, so close in fact that the stupid fucking gun hits the target on the outer ring, near the edge of the wooden board, and then falls into the grass below. Fabulous. The only way I can hit the target is to throw a gun at it. I close the distance to the target and glare at the stupid wooden board that I painted so neatly.
Idly, I reach out and slap the edge of the board. It doesn’t budge, but hitting it feels good enough to do it again. And again. Then I close my fist and try to focus my inner rage on the bull’s-eye and swing. I lose track of time and how many swings I’ve doled out. A dampness covers my fist, and when I survey the damage, I find blood dripping down my fingers to the patchy grass below. The skin covering my knuckles is torn open, with more blood seeping out.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryan’s deep voice shouts from across the field. I turn and catch sight of him rushing toward me. He’s wearing an old, torn wifebeater that hangs off him, obviously too large, and black jeans with his black boots. His black hair has grown out some and falls into his eyes as he runs. He ignores it and picks up speed, stopping just short of knocking me over. His rough hands reach out and grab mine. With narrowed brows and a seriously ticked-off expression, he rips off a piece of his shirt and wraps it around my battered knuckles. “Stupid brat.”
“I just lost my temper,” I say. I hate it when he calls me names, but I’ve grown more accustomed to returning the favor. “Asshole.”
I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t feel good to call him out. So I do it again. “Like you’ve never lost your temper, you jerk.”
“You’re beginning to have an attitude problem,” he gripes. Wrapping his large hand around my wrist, he drags me away from the target and fallen gun and toward the house. I guess he doesn’t care that he’s leaving the gun behind. We do have plenty more in the house, I reason.
“You love me,” I whisper, reminding him of something I’m certain he’s never forgotten.
“And you talk too much.”
“And you still love me.” Through his grouchy expression, a hint of a smile appears in his eyes, and I know it’s his way of confirming the obvious. Ryan loves me when I’m quiet and when I’m sassy and when I talk too much. He loves me in a stupid, self-sacrificial way, and he even loves me when I’m crying—something else I do too often as well.
And I love him, though I’ve been having trouble connecting with him. We haven’t done a lot of things together lately. He comes home and crawls into my bed—our bed—in my room—our room—and he takes me. He barely says a word, and then he’s sated and passed out while I’m left to wonder what I’m doing wrong and why he’s so disinterested. I know he loves me, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t losing interest or patience. He hasn’t even reached out for my pinky in weeks, and that’s always been our thing. It didn’t matter how much of an asshole he was being. As long as he wrapped his pinky around mine, I knew he loved me. Now I just grasp at straws because I can’t bear it if he’s found someone else. It doesn’t matter how much I loathe violence—I’ll kill the bitch who tries to take him from me.
He drags me through the house to the hall bathroom, where he shoves my bloody hand into the sink and turns on the faucet. The cool water stings against my torn knuckles, and I try to pull back, but he won’t let me.
“I have to clean it out.” One of his rough fingers pushes into my wounds and fishes around for foreign material he has to pluck out. It hurts, but I don’t say a word. Instead, I bite my lip to keep myself from whimpering. He’s doing his best, just trying to ensure that I don’t end up with an infection or something equally nasty. Still, it really hurts, and I can’t take it anymore.
“Stop!” I shout and pull away from him, barely slipping my wrist through his grasp. He lets me go and takes a step back only to grab my wrist again and pull me to him. With his free hand, he stops the flow of water from the faucet. We don’t move for several breaths. Every instinct in me tells me to apologize for snapping. My voice was too loud and far too demanding. I was bossy, and I need to remember my place.
But I don’t apologize because that’s Alexandra Mancuso, the principessa to the Mancuso crime family, who wants to say she’s sorry. Alex, the small-town biker chick who scored a majorly hot but also majorly moody boyfriend, doesn’t apologize for speaking her mind—at least she tries not to. The weight of my rudeness weighs on me.
“I’m—”
He cuts me off. His warm whiskey-laden breath washes over my face when he says, “You’re not sorry, Cub.”
“No, I’m not.” I’m crap at having a backbone and even worse at lying. “Something’s going on with you, and I don’t know how to help.”
“Explain,” he says.
“
My Ryan
is short-tempered and quick to jump to conclusions. He’s a serious ass, but then he’s gentle with me. I don’t get the short-tempered asshole, but he’s been showing up lately, and I don’t like it.”
With a heavy sigh, he lets out a breath and bends at his knees to meet my eyes. He leans forward just slightly, his jet-black hair wisps against my forehead.
“What are you making a big deal out of now?” His voice is soft and low. I lift my eyes to find deep pools of gray staring at me intently. His brows are furrowed, and there’s a sadness in his expression. “Life sometimes sucks and shit goes down. I got a lot happening in the city right now, and I don’t got time for this shit. My primary goal is to keep you safe, and I can’t do that if I have to make sure you’re not fucking up your hand by beating on a fucking piece of wood. I can’t take care of club shit and your shit and not fuck them both up. You get what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I do. You can’t deal with my shit right now.” My stomach drops as I say the words. The last thing I want is for us to fight—again—but it seems inevitable these days. Our fights usually consist of something like this, where he tells me he can’t be bothered with my crap and I end up crying. Except this time I refuse to cry, so I close my eyes and steady my rapidly increasing heartbeat. The moment of peace gives me the strength to pull back the tears, but it’s not enough to keep my mouth shut.
“You had every chance to leave me alone and not deal with my shit. Duke does it, Ian does it—and he’s my brother—and even Jim manages to leave my shit alone. But you? You couldn’t
stop
yourself from being selfish and forcing me to fall in love with you just so you could shove me aside when you realized how much maintenance it takes to date a chick with fucking feelings!”
Everything hurts, and I don’t care how dramatic I’m being. My knees to my toes and all the way up through my chest to my temples ache with heartbreak. We don’t fight like this. Never this serious. It never feels like we’re severing something between us that I once thought was unbreakable. But I suppose everything breaks. It’s just a matter of when.
Backing away from him, I hold my hand up in front of me and tug my other hand free. It still hurts, though less now, but I’m not up for doing anything with it just yet. I guess I hit the board harder than I thought.
“Don’t walk away from me,” he barks.
I narrow my eyes and shake my head slowly. How dare he order me around. I spent my whole life under the control of a man who oversaw every tiny detail of my existence as best he could. Ryan offered me a life where I could make my own choices. He promised me he wouldn’t become my father. He promised me he’d give me the freedom of choice. But here he is, taking that choice away.
Asshole.
“Or what? You’re going to bully me some more?”
I push past him and rush down the hall toward my room. He’s faster than I am, though, and he catches up quickly. His hands wrap around my upper arms. His grip is firm, but he’s not hurting me. Slowly, I let myself lean back and rest against his chest. The tension in my body slips away the longer we stand here like this. His touch means the world to me. It always has.
“Don’t act like you can’t take it,” he murmurs into my ear. This is sweet for Ryan—the best I can expect from him.
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“I can’t
tell
you—not again—how dangerous my job is. You don’t get it. I don’t stay on point, I end up dead.”
“I
do
get it, but you want me to just stay in the house all day, and I hate it. I’m sick of cooking and trying to clean. I want to help.”
“You’re sounding like a housewife,” he teases.
That’s another thing I don’t care for. He sees me as this fragile little woman whom he has to protect. Duke doesn’t see Nic that way, not entirely. She’s strong and fierce, and it doesn’t matter that she’s waddling these days, because she can still be mean as hell. The men all seem to respect Holly. She’s taken care of business when need be. Even Cheyenne is respected for helping negotiate a peace treaty between the club and Leo Scavo. Part of me feels that should have been me since I have a history with him. We come from the same culture, and we quite literally speak the same language.
But it wasn’t me. I was stuck in this house, unable to do anything to help clean up the mess I created. Right where Ryan wants me to be as his little lady, all sweet and protected. If I didn’t know him better, I might think he wants me to end up like Nic—incapable of doing anything but playing housewife. But even Nic is more than a housewife. I know damn well that she advises Duke in his dealings with the club. He talks to her when they lie together. He lets her in when things go bad, and he knows better than to shut her out.
“You help by taking care of me.”
“No. Stop forcing me out. You promised you wouldn’t shut me out. You promised I could go on a run one day.” I spin around to face him, tip my chin up, and do my best to meet his eyes. He doesn’t remember it, of course, but he did promise me I could go on a run. He was just high and about to pass out at the time. But he promised, and I want to cash in. I’ve done dozens of loads of laundry, folded countless pairs of jeans, and have prepared too many meals to count. My life should amount to more than my ability to spread my legs and feed my man.