Chapter Fourteen

The O'Kanes loved to party. And since that was part of their image—hard-drinking, hard-fucking hedonists in search of nothing more than a goddamn good time—they usually didn't mind if people showed up to watch. But not when they were celebrating new members or new marks.

Tonight, they had both.

Jeni accepted another beer from Trix and held the cool glass up to her cheek. Even if this hadn't been an occasion for O'Kanes alone, she suspected that no one without cuffs would have been invited. It seemed like everyone was pulling inward, and it was no wonder. They'd been scouring the sector for city spies, for fuck's sake. If there was ever a time to stick close to the other O'Kanes, this was it.

Jyoti pulled one side of her deeply cut gown aside, revealing the fresh ink on the swell of her breast, near her heart. It was shaped like an intricate knot, and Jeni had to lean closer to make out the lines in the dim light.

They weren't just lines. They were words, the names of her lovers wound through the knot in Ace's inimitable style.

She straightened and shook her head. “It's beautiful. Just gorgeous.”

“It is.” Jyoti slid her dress back into place with a gentle smile. “Mad swore he was willing to wait, but I wasn't.”

“Neither was I.” Scarlet's almost identical tattoo peeked above the low neckline of her tank top, and she touched it lightly before arching one eyebrow. “And if we'd tried to make Dylan wait…”

It was a familiar refrain, one that had suffused the sector for weeks and throbbed beneath the music tonight. It was impossible to exist in Four right now and not feel the sharp sting of desperation. “I'm happy for you, all of you.”

Jyoti brushed a finger over Jeni's collar. “I'm happy for you, too. Hawk is a good man. One of the best.”

“He is.” Jeni looked across the room, spotting him instantly where he stood with Jas and Finn, all three clustered close with the intent expressions that usually meant engines were being discussed. He glanced her way, and the corner of his mouth tilted up.

A tiny smile, but it blazed in his eyes, transforming his face. Her blood thrummed a little hotter, and she pressed her beer to her flushed cheek again.

Noelle slid up behind Jyoti and wrapped her in a fierce hug. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Noelle.”

“I'm so glad we have something to celebrate.” She kissed Scarlet's cheek. “Are you going to sing for us tonight?”

“Oh, I don't think so.” Her cheeks turned pink. “I don't have my band, and it's not really that kind of night, you know?”

Jyoti stroked her fingers through Scarlet's hair, a slow caress full of as much promise as her words. “I'll see if I can talk her around.”

Scarlet's blush deepened, and Noelle laughed.

“Only if you want to. It's your party.” Noelle hooked her arm through Jeni's. “But I'm stealing her away. I'm in the mood to dance.”

Jeni set down her bottle and followed Noelle out onto the floor, but there was clearly more than dancing on her mind. “What's up?”

“I think Noah's getting close.” Noelle swayed with her, her voice a low whisper. “I couldn't even convince him to come up for the party.”

“The decryption?”

“Yeah. That tablet the boys found gave him what he needed. He's thinking he'll have it cracked by lunch tomorrow.”

It had been weeks since Eden had gone into lockdown, weeks since they'd started encrypting all their transmissions. If Noah managed to decipher their code, Jeni would have hundreds of thousands of pages of messages to go through. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Noelle agreed in a sympathetic voice. “Hey, Emma and I will be right there with you. Even if it's just to get coffee or look up anything that seems weird.”

“No, it's not the workload.” How could she explain without sounding irrational—or, worse, superstitious? “It's just that it means we'll be that much closer, right? There has to be information in those messages that we can use. That we'll have to use.” She met Noelle's gaze. “It means no more waiting.”

“I know.” For a moment, worry lined Noelle's features, then it twisted into resolve. “But we're ready. We have the supplies, and we have the hospital. We have a life worth fighting for.”

Jeni had to smile. If sheer fucking force of will could pull you through a war unscathed, then they'd all be fine. No one was more stubborn, more relentlessly alive, than an O'Kane.

Before she could respond, someone banged on the makeshift bar. The music cut out, and Lex climbed onto the bar, where Rachel had already set up sixteen shot glasses in a neat row. She filled them two at a time, from the finest whiskey Nessa had ever bottled right on down to the roughest rotgut, as Lex shaded her eyes and scanned the room. “All right, where's he hiding?”

Whoops and cheers rose as Dylan began to make his way to the front of the room, a broad smile on his face. It was so different from the rare ones he'd always worn, sardonic and vague, that it was a little hard to recognize him. Being with Mad and Jyoti and Scarlet had changed him, and tonight was evidence of that.

Lex cleared her throat, then ruined her solemn air by reaching down to ruffle Dylan's hair. “Dr. Jordan. I guess there's only one thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Zan called out from the crowd. “Took you long enough!”

Lex hopped down as laughter rippled through the room. “Close, but not quite.” She patted Dylan's cheek fondly and grinned. “Welcome home.”

Rachel lifted the first shot glass and held it out, but before Dylan could take it, Mad appeared at his side. His brown eyes sparked with irrepressible joy as he plucked the shot from Rachel's fingers and held it up. “Might be a little redundant to stake my claim…but who the fuck cares?”

He tipped back the shot, drove his fingers into Dylan's hair, and dragged him into a liquor-soaked kiss that went on and on, long after the whiskey was gone. Dylan was breathless when it ended, his face alight with desire and satisfaction.

He reached for the next shot, but Dallas picked it up instead. Lex followed suit, and so did Jasper. One by one, the people closest to the bar stepped forward to claim the remaining shots.

It made sense. When Jeni had gone through the O'Kanes' version of an initiation, she'd passed the night in a giddy blur that had ended with her slung over Flash's shoulder and carried away to sleep it off. From a practical standpoint, they couldn't afford to have their only doctor get that trashed, not when Eden's MPs could beat down their door at any moment.

But this went beyond the practical. An almost reverent hush fell over the room as they raised their glasses—Dallas and Lex, Jasper and Bren. Jyoti and Scarlet, of course. Six, Lili, Ace. Their faces blurred together as tears burned Jeni's eyes.

Hawk picked up the last shot, the rotgut at the end of the bar. His gaze locked with hers, he smiled slow and warm, and lifted his glass in the air. He didn't look away, not even when he knocked back the shot without so much as a flinch.

The noise broke the spell, yelling and laughter that rebounded through the room in a chorus of revelry. Dylan began to make the rounds, spinning from one embrace to another.

By the time he reached Jeni, he looked a little dazed. She folded her arms around his neck, hugged him tight, and whispered, “It's okay. I know the feeling.”

Someone else whisked him away, and Jeni stood there, her hands trembling. This was the part no one outside these walls could ever understand. O'Kanes didn't bend, didn't break. They were stronger than steel because they held one another up. If one of them needed help, their brothers and sisters would step in and shoulder some of the load.

It was unspoken, understood. Whether they were at war with other sectors or the city or no one at all, they stood together.

Jeni retreated back to the edge of the room and picked up her beer. It had gone warm already, the amber glass slick with condensation, but she finished it anyway, then leaned against the wall and looked around. If she stared at them all long enough, tried hard enough, she could fix this moment in her memory forever.

“I'll trade you,” Cruz rumbled.

He was holding out a fresh beer, one Jeni accepted gratefully. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He leaned against the wall next to her and watched the crowd of people jostling to congratulate Dylan. The stern lines of his face softened as Ace's laughter drifted over the din, and he lifted his beer. “I want to do something nice for Hawk.”

It wasn't quite the last thing she expected him to say, but it was close. “Why?” she asked curiously.

His lips quirked. “The ginger tea he showed me how to make for Rachel has almost gotten rid of her morning sickness completely.”

“Oh.” That explained why the petite blonde wasn't in a corner with her head in a bucket—and why Cruz wasn't gnashing his teeth in helpless frustration. “Good. I'm glad she's feeling better.”

“Me too,” he murmured. “So if I can do anything for him—or for you—then you tell me, okay?”

“If Hawk helped, it was because he wanted to, Cruz. Not so you would owe him one.”

“It's not about owing.” Cruz braced one shoulder against the brick and stared down at her. “If we were keeping track of debts, I've already got such a mountain of debt to you, I couldn't repay it in a lifetime.”

She did a double take. “To me? What for?”

“For helping me get here.” His gaze was so, so serious. So solemn. “I've jumped off twenty-story buildings and been less scared than I was the first time I kissed Ace.”

She remembered the moment—the hesitation, the challenge. How the tension had stretched out between him and Ace like a chasm in the earth, only instead of widening with every heartbeat, it had grown smaller and smaller. How Cruz had finally broken with a flash of guilt eclipsed only by his longing.

She hadn't seen it at the time, but here, in retrospect, she recognized his fear. “Of course you were afraid. You weren't falling off a building, but you were still falling.”

“Yeah, I was.” His gaze drifted back out to the dancing, going inevitably to where Ace and Rachel swayed with the music. “Still am. It doesn't stop, you know. It gets less scary sometimes...but it doesn't stop.”

Jeni glanced over to where Hawk was finally getting a chance to congratulate Dylan. His smile was brilliant, so open that it almost hurt. Then he looked up, directly at her, and the bottle almost slipped from between her fingers.

She was starting to suspect Cruz was right.

If Hawk thought Ace talked a lot when he was sober, then getting him to shut up when he was buzzing was damn near impossible.

“—so we had just rolled out our second real batch of the good stuff. The first one, most of those credits went to buying better supplies. But the second?” Ace grinned widely. “Oh, we were dick-deep in credits for the first time in our lives.”

“And…” Lex stretched forward in her chair to grab another one of the tiny sandwiches Lili liked to make for parties. “What do a bunch of hale, healthy, dumbassed little boys like to do when they have that much money?”

Rachel stifled a giggle. “They get dick-deep in something else?”

Jasper leaned forward with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please, please do not tell this story.”

“Sorry, brother. Some tales are just too legendary to let slip into myth.” Ace propped his elbows on his knees, deep into the story now. “So it's me and Jas and Zan's big brother. And that charming motherfucker didn't even have to open his wallet, because he was way better looking than Zan—”

“Fuck you,” Zan enunciated slowly over the rim of his glass. From her perch in his lap, Tatiana mock-glared at Ace, but he only winked at her.

Noelle nudged Ace with her foot. “Come on, I want to hear the rest of it.”

“Fine, so Jas and I bring a couple of pretty ladies back to the compound.” Ace waved one hand around. “Which was basically just this building at that point, nothing else. We had bedrooms up where the storage is now, and we were all making very good use of them—”

“Too good,” Dallas rumbled. “Since I was the only one who noticed when a handful of punk-ass thieves kicked in our damn door.”

Ace raised both hands in a shrug so melodramatic, Hawk choked on his beer. “I can't help that I'm focused,” Ace drawled. “I don't hear Rachel and Cruz complaining.”

“Right, you're a sex god,” Jasper interjected. “The end.”

“C'mon, Jas, this next part makes you look heroic.” Ace's grin widened. “I might have been distracted, but Jas wasn't fucking around. He comes roaring down the stairs, a gun in one hand, and with his other, he's still trying to pull up his pants. By the time I made it out here, he was in a goddamn shoot-out with his jeans around his ankles and his dick waving in the wind, just begging to get shot off.”

Jeni turned her face into Hawk's neck, her shoulders shaking with silent mirth, but the others weren't as subtle. Warm laughter rose around them as Jas glowered.

Noelle bit back a giggle and stroked Jas's arm. “I'm glad nothing got...shot off.”

“I bet you are, princess.” Ace slapped Jas on the arm. “Gotta say, it wasn't the worst strategy. The punks were distracted by Jas in all his glory, and it only took so long to finish them off because I couldn't stop fucking laughing.”

“You've had your moments, Santana,” Jasper grumbled.

“Not like that.” Ace sprawled back in the chair and threw his arms wide. “If it had been my magnificent dick, they all would have swooned on the fucking spot.”

Dallas snorted. “If that was true, I'd kick your ass for not saving us all that work.”

“My man's wise, as always.” Lex flashed Dallas a wicked grin as she rose and reached for his hand. Without a word, she tugged him from his seat, toward the deserted dance floor.

The music had been turned down, relegated to the background as they drank and talked, but it still throbbed softly through the room. Together with the lowered lights, it created the illusion of a sheltered place out of time, a calm in the middle of the storm.

As Ace started in on another story, Hawk laid his hand over Jeni's and twined their fingers together. “Dance with me.”

She slipped into his arms like falling into bed at the end of a long day, with a quiet, relieved sigh that warmed his skin. “I wasn't sure if you'd want to.”

On any other night, he would have wanted something more. Something filthy and raw, the realization of all his fantasies of Jeni, shattering at his touch while the whole damn gang watched.

He pulled her more tightly against him and let one hand drift up her back. Her hair slipped over his fingers, soft and silky, and his thumb found the leather collar at her throat. He didn't need to stake his claim in a public declaration. Jeni had been his from the moment she said yes, and he was the only one who hadn't believed it.

Maybe he never would, entirely. Because having her like this, snuggled trustingly against his chest as they swayed with the music... It was too damn good to be true. “I'll always want to dance with you.”

She laughed. “Not the me part. The dancing part. Some people don't like it.”

“I suppose I didn't let you get much dancing done at the rally.” He caught her hand and spun her around before dragging her back to his chest. “It's just about the only thing to do at those parties, since they're not quite as adventurous as us O'Kanes.”

“Liar.” She rubbed her thumbs over the ink around his wrists. “That barn's seen its share of clandestine rendezvous.”

“Well, sure. Clandestine being the key word.” He grinned and leaned close. “C'mon, Jeni. Admit it. Sneaking away can be fun, too.”

Her amusement faded into a glowing smile. “With the right person.”

With him. His heart dove toward his stomach before flipping up into his throat, and the emotion swelling through him was too big to contain and too new to share.

He twirled her toward the door as laughter rose behind them again, another round of affectionate ribbing as Ace finished a second outrageous story. They were reliving old memories and making new ones, fixing each one in place in their hearts because, this time, they really were standing on the edge of oblivion.

And there was one memory Hawk needed to make.

They slipped through the warehouse door, but when Jeni turned for the barracks, Hawk shook his head and steered her toward the garage instead. His car was inside, chrome gleaming in the flickering overhead light, the new paint job flawless.

He ran his fingers up the hood. “If we weren't on the brink of war, I'd take you out into the desert. Drive fast, and then ride you nice and slow.”

Jeni walked around to the other side of the car, skimming her hand over the surface of one headlight as she moved. “We don't have to go anywhere.”

The car had been an extension of him for so many years that he damn near felt the trailing of her fingertips, like she was stroking him, too. “You gonna make out with me in the back seat, Jeni?”

“Or the front seat.” She tilted her head, considering. “We'd probably dent the hood.”

The image of her spread out over it bloomed in his imagination. Her hair wild, her short red skirt up around her hips, ankles braced on his shoulders while he took his time working deep. “I might be willing to risk it,” he rumbled, circling the front of the car.

“You wouldn't.” Smiling, she leaned over the trunk, gliding her body across the cool metal as she slipped away. “This car is your baby.”

That was an image to savor, too—Jeni, bent over the trunk. She'd like it like that, hard and rough, trapped between the unyielding metal and his unforgiving thrusts. He lengthened his strides, stalking her with a lazy smile that promised trouble when he finally got his hands on her. “Is that a challenge?”

“I don't know.” She stopped and propped her hand on her hip, dragging that sinful skirt a few inches higher on her bare thigh. “Should it be?”

He took two more steps and lunged for her. Her squealed laughter echoed off the huge bay doors as she ran, threading softer warmth through the sharp edges of his arousal. His heart was pounding when he caught her with an arm around her waist and dragged her to him.

Her ass rubbed against his cock, and her hair flew wildly into his face as he bent to her ear. “I can't resist a challenge.”

The only answer was the click of the handle as she opened the back door.

He caught the top of the door, hauled it wide, and nudged her inside. Her skirt fluttered up as she slipped onto the seat, flashing her thighs and the sweet, naked curve of her ass.

Hawk damn near dove in after her.

She squealed again when he caught her and pulled her into his lap. His boot slammed into the seat and her head almost bumped the ceiling, but then he settled on the leather with Jeni astride him, her skirt hitched up to her hips and her bare ass filling his hands. He found the ribbon around her waist, some barely-there scrap of nothing masquerading as underwear, and he dragged her closer and groaned as she ground down against his erection.

Jeni traced the corner of his mouth with her tongue. “You said nice and slow, right?”

“You're the impatient one,” he teased, stroking up her back. The top of her strapless dress barely clung to her breasts, and it was so easy to coax it down as he kissed her throat. “I could make out with you like this all night long.”

“Now that sounded like a challenge.”

He licked the spot that made her squirm before teasing her with a soft bite. “I don't know,” he echoed her words back to her. “Should it be?”

She closed her teeth on his earlobe—hard.

He could tease her all night, but fuck if he wanted to. He caught her mouth, groaning in approval when her lips parted for him. He fell into the kiss as he tugged at her dress. Her breasts spilled into his hands, warm and soft, with hard nipples begging to be pinched. He rolled his thumb around one, and she hissed in a shocked breath.

He did it again and murmured against her lips. “Open my pants.”

Jeni smiled and tugged at his belt. They were pressed together so tightly that every movement was also a caress, the backs of her hands stroking his stomach through his shirt.

She left his belt hanging open and danced her fingers lightly over the top button on his jeans. Teasing. Tempting.

He dipped his head and closed his lips around her nipple. One hard suck, and she popped open the button with a throaty moan. He teased her with a hint of teeth but pulled back when she arched into him, switching instead to her other breast.

Another suck. Another button. Jeni squirmed in his grasp, and he cupped her breasts again, catching the wet peaks between his thumbs and fingers. When her dazed gaze locked with his, he pinched both of her nipples at the same time.

The last button yielded, and she rocked against him with a shudder.

“Now take my cock in your hand.”

She didn't look away, and she was barely breathing as she freed his erection and wrapped her fingers around the shaft in a firm, possessive grip.

He dropped one hand to the leather seat, grasping the edge of it as his self-control faltered. For one heartbeat, all he wanted to do was thrust up into the sweet circle of her fingers, but he held himself back. Everything but the words.

“We're gonna fuck just like this.” He slid his other hand up her thigh. He found the ribbon and traced it to the tiny scrap of silk covering her pussy, and a brush of his thumb rubbed the wet fabric against her clit. “I'm not even going to take these off, just push them aside and shove my cock deep, because that's what you want. You want me to lose control and take.”

“Sort of.” She shifted closer, until their bodies were pressed together, their hands trapped between them. “I want you. All of you.”

Maybe he wasn't the only one who couldn't quite believe, who touched the collar around her throat and thought too good to be true. “You've had all of me, Jeni. From the first fucking time I put my hands on you. Maybe I control my body, but the rest of me…”

He moved his thumb in a tight circle and inhaled her jagged sigh. “The words that come out of my mouth when I'm touching you… I can't even talk to anyone else, but with you, I can't fucking shut up. Every dirty thought, every fantasy I've ever had—I can't control it when you have your hands on me. I can't stop wanting.”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. She lifted her free hand, trembling as she traced his lower lip with her fingertips. “I'm the opposite,” she confessed. “I'm good with words. I usually know what to say, just...not when it matters this much.”

He kissed the tips of her fingers, his heart racing with more than just arousal. “You don't have to say anything. Show me instead.”

Her hand fell away, and she kissed him, long and deep, every slick glide of her tongue reflecting the need that pulsed within him. She lifted her hips, and Hawk scrabbled for the control to think past her kiss, for the coordination to help her into place and nudge her panties aside.

It wasn't smooth. It wasn't easy. He knocked his knee against the front seat and almost put his elbow through the window, but he didn't care. He was more sure than ever that anyone who could hold themselves apart from Jeni didn't fucking deserve her.

And none of it mattered when she slid down his length, her slick pussy gripping him tight, the friction of fabric and the confines of the car making it all hotter, rawer. She bit his tongue and moaned into his mouth as she began to move—slow, so slow, but with an intensity that consumed them both, that narrowed the whole fucking universe to just them, here, in the back seat of his car.

He let himself pretend it was their universe, that they'd driven so far that everything else had fallen away. He gripped her hips, helped her rock, every slow withdrawal torture, every slide back like coming home. His life could be this—just Jeni, just the two of them, deep, drugging kisses and slow, sweet fucking and no pain but the kind she begged him for.

She was panting, gasping for breath, when she finally tore her mouth from his. Her head fell back, and the look on her face was beyond pleasure—a new expression that didn't exist in his careful catalog of all the ways she gave in to ecstasy.

It was more. It was his. “That's it, Jeni. Fucking show me.”

She clutched at his shoulders, scratching him through his T-shirt. As sharp as the caress was, it paled next to the sensation of her nipples against his chest, rasping through the thin cotton. Different than skin on skin, but he liked this, too, how she would strip away all her protections for him, how she trusted him enough to be exposed even if he wasn't.

He couldn't work his hand between their bodies to touch her clit, but he could shift the angle of her hips. He dragged her close and tilted them until she was shuddering every time he met her thrusts. Her throat beckoned, and he couldn't stop himself. He bit the delicate skin just above her collar, and she turned her face to his.

Her lips brushed his ear. “You're the first,” she whispered. “The only one I could ever give this much to.”

The darkness inside him would have loved that, if there had been anything dark left. But Jeni had crawled under his skin and slipped through him, shining so fucking bright that nothing seemed wrong anymore, as long as she was right there with him.

“I want it all. All of you.” He sank a hand into her hair and urged her back, grinding out the words between each slow, endless thrust. “You're the only one who's ever made me dream.”

Her breathing hitched on a noise that sounded like his name. Her mouth crashed into his again as she rode him faster, harder, fucking her way toward bliss. Using him for her pleasure, shameless and selfish—

It was the hottest fucking thing he'd ever seen.

She came with a rough cry, one that filled the confines of his car. Her teeth dug into his bottom lip, and she kept moving, even as she shook above him, clenched around him.

Control was a vague memory, and patience a joke. Hawk tightened his grip and drove up into her, gave her all of him. His hope and his future and then his pleasure, as the perfect grip of her pussy around his cock tipped him over the edge.

He kissed her as he came, traded her cries for his groans, and stopped himself from letting more words tumble out. Words that offered too much, too soon.

Words that would scare her away unless she was dreaming of the future, too.

She collapsed against his chest, her face nestled in the hollow of his shoulder. Hawk struggled to catch his breath, but pleasure lingered in lazy, tingling waves, set off all over again every time she exhaled against his skin.

He wrapped both arms around her and closed his eyes. “Would you believe this is the first time I've ever fucked a woman in my car?”

“It is not.”

A smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah, it is. You weren't wrong. It's my baby.”

She wiggled in his lap, in his arms. “All the more reason, I would think.”

There hadn't been anyone he wanted enough, anyone he could let become a part of this—the only thing that had been his during the hardest years of his life. “When you don't have a lot to offer, you save it for the people who matter.”

Jeni went still for a moment, then snuggled closer. “Thank you, then. For sharing it with me.”

He guided her hand down to the cool leather seat. “I rebuilt it, you know. Inside and out. Figuring out how to reupholster these seats, that was a pain in the ass. The guys kept razzing me, telling me to settle for the fabric we'd scavenged. But I wanted leather, so I saved for it.”

Her hand flexed under his. Then she twisted her wrist, turning it so she could twine her fingers with his. “Tell me about it. I want to know.”

“The car?” He wove his other fingers into her hair and smiled. “When I left the farm, I ran into Shipp not long after. I was pissy and mad at the world, and he wasn't that much older than me, but he had his shit together. Like Dallas, you know? You just look at him and you know that if you follow him, your life will be better, because he cares about making it better.”

She made a soft, amused sound. “So you joined a gang of smugglers.”

Hawk laughed. “No, I joined a gang of gearheads who smuggled so they could afford to fix up their cars.”

Her laughter joined his. “An important nuance.” She lifted her head. “Were you happy?”

Not an easy question to answer. “I thought I was,” he said finally. “Not at first. But after about six months, Shipp dragged the bones of this car home and gave her to me. And he told me I could brood about what I'd lost, or I could make something new. Took me a couple of years, but by the time I'd earned enough to do the seats, I was content.”

She squeezed his hand. “And now?”

“Now I know what happy feels like.”

“Mmm.” Her eyes were shining. “Like this.”

Exactly like this. But he still brushed his lips over hers and corrected her. “Like you.”