CHAPTER NINE

I awoke in darkness to the heavy weight of a warm body pressed against my back, hot breath fanning my cheek, one large hand palming the flat of my stomach between me and the mattress, another gripping the back of my thigh, and Cage sliding inside of me from behind.

Clutching the pillow, I gasped.

“My turn,” he growled in my ear.

Closing my eyes, I relaxed my body, concentrating only on the slick slide of Cage, slow and gentle, in and out of me.

“Feel good?” he whispered.

Oh, hell yes. It felt like the physical equivalent to an ice cream sundae, the kind my mom used to make me when I was sad. Two scoops of vanilla, one scoop of chocolate, crushed walnuts, sprinkles, cookie crumbles, whipped cream, and drizzled chocolate sauce, topped with cherries.

“Fuck off,” I breathed. “And shut up.”

He laughed and my breath caught. I could feel his smile against my cheek, the vibrations in his chest on my back.

In the woods behind the house we’d come together fast and furious, then we’d fallen apart and lay side by side under the stars, not touching, not speaking, barely breathing, until Cage stood up. He helped me up, helped me dress, and then took my hand in his and walked me around the side of the house where his bike was parked, and he’d said…it.

A string of eight little words, eight very stupid, insignificant words that meant absolutely nothing to Cage and absolutely everything to me.

Get on the back of my bike, Tegen.

How many years had I dreamed of him saying just that to me? Dreamed of being his “old lady,” on the back of his bike and in his bed? Me and only me.

How many years of anguish, of repressing memories and trying so hard to move forward, to shut my feelings off, trying to replace Cage with another, had I fucking spent? Too many.

The first half of my life I’d spent falling in love with him, and the second I’d spent trying to fall out of love with him.

And stupid, STUPID me had just lost the control I’d tried for so hard and so long to attain, all because of stupid Hawk AND REALLY STUPID CAGE. So now, here I was in the arms of the man I’d loved since I was a kid and he was a boy, and there was no way out of this that was going to leave me unscathed.

My resolve had long since cracked, and emotions were seeping inside me at an alarming rate. I felt my anger, my long-time internal suffering, slipping away and my body beginning to ease, welcoming the comfort this man was offering me.

There was no choice to be made now. I’d left my options at the dinner table when I’d allowed Hawk to get under my skin and when I’d knowingly, willingly stopped fighting Cage and let him, finally let him, touch me.

I was going to have to ride this out and hope to God I came out all right on the other side. No, I would come out all right. I’d come this far, suffered through this many years; one night wouldn’t change anything. One night would never again change the course of my life.

So I’d thrown caution to the wind. Silently, I’d climbed on behind him and allowed him to take me home with him.

He led me through the small, dark house, up the stairs and into his room where’d he’d stripped naked, letting me see exactly what I’d never been able to stop thinking about over the years.

He was bigger now, taller, his arms and thighs thickly muscled and his face, his squared features more defined with age and, God, he was beautiful. He was so fucking, unfairly beautiful. He always had been, and I’d always been—

I felt suddenly awkward, uncomfortable in my own skin, and embarrassed by what I lacked in physical beauty. I felt not good enough; I’d never been good enough for Cage.

“It ain’t like that for me, baby.”

From across the room I watched him light up a blunt, flop belly-down on his bed, take two quick drags of the roll before extending his arm and offering it to me.

Without thinking, I stepped forward, reaching for it, but Cage snatched his hand away and his other arm shot out, grabbing my wrist and pulling me forward. The roll pressed between his lips, he jumped to his knees and yanked me onto the bed.

Then it was me being stripped naked and Cage was taking long, leisurely looks up and down my body. Pulling the blunt from his mouth, he brought it to my lips and I took a long drag. As I exhaled, he took another drag, then he stubbed it out on his nightstand, placed his mouth over mine, and blew the smoke into me.

Then he was inside of me again, rolling us over, bringing me on top and telling me again to “take it.”

I forgot all about my insecurities and my anger and I took him, rode him hard and fast, watching with indescribable satisfaction as he fell victim…to me. Every groan I elicited, every eye-closing, head-thrusting, body-jerking jolt of pleasure I caused, every growled syllable of my name, every desperate stare, his hooded eyes begging me to finish him off. All of it had only increased my own pleasure. I’d never come so hard before in my life.

Then, sexually sated and emotionally exhausted, I fell asleep in his arms.

Now he was taking it, and I was loving it.

As his hips continued their leisurely slide, he gripped my chin, turning my head as far as my neck would allow, and plunged his tongue into my mouth. Slow, sloppy, lip-sucking, tongue-plunging kisses, out of sync with his hip thrusts. And yet, slower still, deliberately prolonging every long, wet stroke.

His mouth was bigger than mine, taking my mouth inside his, pulling on my lips, biting softly, engulfing my lips…my chin…my neck.

Oh God. Nothing, no one had ever kissed me like this. No one had ever fucked me like this.

I reached around me, grabbing hold of his head, crushing him to me, and I kissed him harder, fiercer, needing, wanting, oh God, wanting.

My belly seized, a shiver tore down my spine, and I came hard, crying out against his mouth, shaking beneath him.

“One more, babe,” he muttered. “Gimme one more.”

I cried out again, more so in frustration than from my immediate second release. I cried out because Cage wasn’t just fucking me, he was fucking me.

Because I’d just had an orgasm just by kissing. And then another just because the motherfucker had told me to.

“Fuck you,” I said, half moaning into his mouth as I ground my backside into his groin. “Fuck…you.”

Cursing, Cage pulled quickly out of me and wet warmth shot up over my back as he groaned through his own release. Breathing hard, he rolled onto his back, bringing me with him, settling me on my side into the crook of his arm. I slid my arm over his rippled stomach and curled my left leg over top of his, then laid my cheek down upon his tattooed chest.

“Fuck you, too,” he rasped and kissed the top of my head. “You mouthy little shit.”

I snorted, my lips curving into a smile, and I found myself holding Cage tighter.

“You’re stayin’ all weekend, right?” he asked as he reached to his right, fumbling around with the contents of his nightstand.

My smile fell away as reality began to permeate my lust-addled brain. Why the fuck was he asking me that?

“Teacup?” I heard the flick of a lighter followed by the scent of freshly lit green.

“What?” I whispered, refusing to look at him.

“I asked how long you’re stayin’, babe.”

“I’m not sure.” Which was a lie. I was due to leave on Monday, but I could stay longer if I wanted. I had vacation time at work and if I…

FUCK.

No. No way was I going down this road again, no way was I going to get trapped inside feelings that could never amount to anything but more self-loathing. So I kept my eyes shut and tried to remember every female I’d ever seen Cage slutting it up with. Groping them, kissing them. I forced myself to relive that awful night so many years ago at the clubhouse.

I had to get out of here. Away from Cage. And then I had to get very drunk, very, very drunk and forget this ever happened, because if I didn’t, if I allowed what just happened to sink too deep within me…

Teacup. I would be Teacup again.

So I told myself that, in no uncertain terms, Cage West was a whore, that this was what he did, and that if he hadn’t changed his MO not once in his entire lifetime, he never would.

“’Cause I’m thinkin’,” he wheezed, blowing out a mouthful of smoke, “that if you’re stayin’ for the whole weekend, we could keep this shit goin’ ’til you head out.”

Sex. That’s all he was about. It’s all he would ever be about. If I spent the entire weekend with him having sex, more sex meant more feelings were going to slip out, and more feelings meant I’d end up doing something really fucking stupid.

Like telling him I loved him…again.

Which would mean I had indeed turned into my mother even after all the promises I’d made myself to never be some dirty biker’s second choice. Or third. Or his whore.

Suddenly I wasn’t just mad at myself, I was mad at him and my mother and my father and my grandparents and Jase and the whole lot of stupid bikers that had set this all in motion, all over again. And then I wasn’t just mad, I was fucking livid and suddenly wanted to cry and scream and rip my hair out for being such a stupid girl! Again!

“Tegen?”

“Hmm?”

“Fuckin’ really, woman? I’ve only been askin’ how long you’re fuckin’ stayin’ for the last ten minutes.”

“I’m tired,” I lied, rolling away from him as I faked a yawn. Grabbing the blankets, I pulled them up over my shoulder. “Let’s talk in the morning.”

Muttering nonsense about women and decision-making, Cage rolled over, reached under the blankets, and gathered me in his arms. His large hands slid over my bare body, one stopping on my breast and the other between my legs.

“I had fun tonight,” he whispered as his lips found my neck. A shiver tore through me even as I grimaced.

He had fun.

Was I supposed to take that as a compliment? When didn’t Cage have fun? Fun was one of his two middle names, the other being “slut.”

“Lips,” he growled, nipping his way across my face. Unwittingly, I turned my head and met him, countering every stroke of his perfect tongue with one of my own. We kissed for a while, touched, but Cage was spent and even though I’d never admit to it out loud, I was too, not to mention a little sore.

Eventually exhausted, we fell away from each other.

It took all of fifteen minutes before Cage was sound asleep. Then I was up, dressed, and calling my mother from his cell phone.

• • •

The next afternoon, upon arriving at the clubhouse, Cage headed straight for his father’s office holding the small envelope of photos he’d taken from Eva’s room in New York. Things had gotten so out of control so quickly last night, he’d forgotten to pass them along. Finding the office door already partially open, Cage walked in and found Deuce seated behind his desk, looking over a pile of printed pages that looked to him like laundry lists. As in the dirty money the club laundered through their legitimately owned businesses.

“Tell me you didn’t fuck the hippie,” Deuce said, not bothering to look up.

Cage grimaced.

Yeah, he’d fucked the hippie. And then the hippie had taken off and never came back.

So she hadn’t wanted to spend the weekend with him. She hadn’t even wanted to spend the night with him. Which was fine. Whatever. So what if he’d never had a bitch just up and leave in the middle of the night before, not even a club whore. But hey, there was a first time for everything. Which was…fine.

He’d hit her up later today for a re-run.

“You fucked her, didn’t you?” Deuce growled, finally looking at him. “Even after I told you to leave her the fuck alone?”

They stared at each other and Cage felt like he was looking in a mirror thirty years in the future. A cranky, pissed off, judgmental bastard of a mirror.

Cage opened his mouth and Deuce’s hand lifted, then crashed back down on the desk.

“You got any idea how fucked-up D is? She barely sees her daughter as it is and what do you do? YOU GO AND FUCK HER!

“It was real fuckin’ simple,” he continued. “I told you to leave the girl alone, but stickin’ your shit in anything that’s walkin’ by you is more important than followin’ orders, isn’t it?”

Cage didn’t respond. He’d heard this speech enough times that he knew it by heart. He also knew that interrupting his father would only make the man angrier.

“You’re pushin’ thirty fuckin’ years old and still ain’t listenin’,” he continued, looking at Cage with unmasked disgust. “You’re never goin’ to amount to jack-fuckin’-shit, are you?”

It wasn’t a question. It was an answer. He knew it, his old man knew it, and Blue, who was in the front room asleep at the bar, knew it too.

“Here,” Cage muttered, pulling the pictures from his cut as he walked toward his father. He tossed the envelope on the desk.

Deuce’s gaze dropped. “What the fuck is that?”

Cage shrugged. “Found it at the Demons MC, in Eva’s old room.”

Deuce glanced down and picked up the envelope. As he looked over the first photo in the stack, Eva seated next to Blue at the bar, Cage watched his father’s expression shift from indifferent to downright sappy.

“Where the fuck did you find these?”

“Hidden,” Cage said, knowing better than to bring up anything to do with Frankie, or Frankie with Eva, to his father. Shit might be happy-go-lucky between them now, but it wasn’t always that way and Frankie had been the reason.

“Behind a photo,” he finished.

“Fuck,” Deuce muttered, slowly going through the stack, his eyes growing more and more unfocused with every picture. “Look at her…just fuckin’…look at her.”

“She still looks pretty damn good,” Cage said and Deuce’s eyes shot to him and narrowed.

“That’s not what I was talkin’ about,” he growled. “I was talkin’ about how fuckin’ stupid I was. I had that.” Deuce held up the photo he was looking at.

Eva, grinning, wearing a baggy cropped tee and saggy jeans, sandwiched in between Kami and Dorothy, was giving Dorothy rabbit ears while her other hand made the sign of the devil over Kami’s shoulder.

“I had that,” Deuce repeated. “And I fucked it all up.”

Cage didn’t say anything, unable to believe his father was done fucking up, and Deuce went back to looking through the pictures.

Jumping to his feet, his father glared at him. “Did you look at all these?”

Father and son stared at each other.

“Little fuckin’ asshole,” Deuce growled. “Get the fuck out.”

“I’ll be around if you need me,” he said tonelessly, already turning on his boot heel.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he heard Deuce mutter.

He wasn’t going to.

When it came to his old man, he’d stopped holding his breath a long fucking time ago.