I roll over and touch the sheets beside me, but they’re empty. Opening my eyes, I sit up slightly, just as Sloane walks out of the bathroom, his hair dripping and a towel wrapped around his waist.
I can’t look away from him. He’s mesmerizing with his muscular chest, unmarred by any ink. Just perfect. His back is a different story. He has his club’s brand on his back, and it’s super sexy, too. But there’s just something about his chest and abs, his smooth skin, it does something to me. It always has.
“Look at me like that much longer and I’ll have to fuck you before I go,” he murmurs.
My eyes snap up to meet his, and I tug the sheet up my chest a little higher.
“Where are you going?” I ask, my voice raspy with sleep.
“Meeting. We didn’t finish everything we needed to talk about last night,” he says, dropping his towel.
His hard cock is jutting straight out toward me, and I can’t stop myself from licking my lips at the sight. I shiver as he wraps his hand around himself and squeezes. I bite the inside of my cheek as I lift my eyes to meet his green ones, and he gives me his cocky smirk as he walks closer toward the bed.
“What do you want, sunshine?” he asks, his voice low and husky.
“You,” I rasp as I crawl to the edge of the bed, letting the sheet fall around me, leaving me completely naked.
I lean forward and open my mouth. My eyes staying on his, waiting. Wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, he twists his fingers in my hair, never moving his intense gaze from mine, even as he sinks his cock down my throat.
“Touch yourself for me, baby,” he whispers as his tongue pokes out and he wets his bottom lip.
I hum around him and it causes his fingers to tighten in my hair. Spreading my legs further apart, knowing without a doubt that he definitely likes to watch me touch myself when his cock is in my mouth, I slip two fingers inside of me, my eyes still on his.
Sloane slowly pulls out of my mouth and then thrusts back inside, his strokes slow and precise. He slips further down with each pump of his hips.
After a few minutes, his movements speed up, as do my own between my legs. I can’t hold back the whimper. I’m on the edge of my release, and he quickly pulls out of me.
“Not coming down your throat, baby,” he grins.
“Sloane,” I whisper.
“Turn around,” he orders. I quickly do, though I’m not fast enough.
His hand presses against my back and he pushes me down as he slams inside of me. His fingers wrap around my hips, holding me still. He pulls almost completely out of me before he slams back inside on a moan.
“Fucking mother fucking shit,” he groans as his hips start to wildly and roughly fuck me.
He doesn’t slow, he doesn’t stop; he fucks the complete breath out of me with each thrust of his hips. I try to push up on my elbows so that I can rear back against him, but his hand moves from my back to my neck. He wraps his fingers around the back of it, holding me to the bed while he takes his pleasure.
I close my eyes and accept all he gives. I can hear the sounds of our skin slapping filling the room, along with low moans from him every so often, as well. My thighs shake. I’m on the edge, but without something more, I won’t come. I let out a cry of surprise when I feel his finger slide inside of my ass.
“Missed this sweet ass, sunshine,” he rumbles as his cock and finger fuck me in tandem.
When he slips the second finger into my pussy, and starts to curl them inside of me, I don’t hold back my cry. I feel so full of Sloane, so full that I can’t keep from forcing my body up. He lets me, and I rear back against him, which causes him to moan. I reach one of my hands beneath me and touch my clit. On the second stroke, my entire body starts to shake, and I come.
Sloane doesn’t stop fucking me until he roars out his whole climax, my pussy trying to clamp down around him to keep him inside. He removes his fingers but keeps his cock planted deep as he pushes me forward and rests his chest against my back.
“Imogen,” he whispers against my shoulder. I don’t move, waiting, knowing there has to be more he wants to say to me. Plus, my breathing is still erratic, and I’m completely out of breath. “I love you, sunshine,” he murmurs.
I turn my head to the side and look at him in surprise.
“You do?” I ask.
I’m unsure of why after two freaking decades that admission makes my heart race. He’s said the words before; not in a long time. I always treasured them.
Yet, as time went on, I discovered that he didn’t mean them, so I asked him not to say them again until he did. He presses his lips to my shoulder before pressing them to my mouth.
“Yeah, sunshine. Fuck,” he breathes as he slips out of my body and then gathers me in his arms.
Pulling me across his chest, our legs tangle together and his hang off of the side of the bed. “I knew I’d always felt love for Kipling. I knew I felt possessive over you, unable to imagine letting you go and be with another man.
“Until last night—until I saw that hurt in your eyes when you thought that I could have done something with someone else, I don’t know. It hit me differently, and I just know that I can’t hurt you like that again. Everything that I feel for you is so much different since I’m sober.”
I’m surprised at his admission, or the fact that he’s speaking it aloud. “I want to believe you,” I say hesitantly.
“You don’t have to, not yet. I’ll earn it, sunshine,” he murmurs as his face lifts and his lips touch mine.
We stay cuddled together for another twenty minutes, and then he tells me that he has to go or he’s going to be late. Reluctantly, I sit up and allow him to move around the room.
I watch him as he dresses, and I don’t feel the pang of sadness that I thought I would at being back inside of this house. I look around and nothing has changed, except for everything.
I’ve changed, he’s changed—we’ve changed.
“If you want to go into Sacramento and go shopping for new furniture or whatever, please just don’t go alone,” he murmurs as he pulls his boots on.
“Furniture?” I ask in confusion.
“Figured you’d want to get rid of everything here and redecorate. It’s cool with me, baby. We won’t be able to have another house built and ready for move in for at least a year. So whatever you need to do to be okay staying here, it’s whatever you want,” he shrugs.
My eyes water and he cocks his head to the side in confusion.
“I’m okay, Sloane. That’s really, really, sweet,” I whisper.
“Sweet?” he asks with a grin.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever said I was sweet, not ever.”
“Well, you just were,” I grin up at him.
Sloane walks over to me and lowers his head, brushing his lips across mine. “Be home as soon as I can, and I’ll bring some brothers with me to unload the truck. Feels good to have you home, sunshine, and to finally be home,” he murmurs against my lips before pressing them against mine one last time.
He straightens his back, and I watch his ass, encased in his jeans, as he walks away from me.
I stare at the empty doorway for a few minutes before I decide to get up and get dressed for the day. I may not want to completely redecorate this place, but I do plan on purging a bunch of stuff and moving things around.
This is a new life for me, for us, and I’m not going to waste anymore time thinking about the past. If I dwell on everything that Sloane’s done to me, to himself.
If I dwell on all I’ve said to him, on the way I behaved toward him, which was shitty on more than one occasion, we will never move forward. I want to move forward.
Once I’m dressed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, I throw my hair up and get to work on the house. After I’m finished cleaning and rearranging, I’m going to take inventory of our food and head to the grocery store.
Today is going to be a great day, and I’m not going to let anything stand in my way of making it so.
Sloane loves me.
I love him.
We’re going to make this work.
Leaving Imogen at home wasn’t easy. I wanted to be buried inside her for the rest of the day, but church is non-negotiable, especially after what happened last night. It only takes me a few minutes to get to the clubhouse, and I cuss when I realize that I’m the last person here.
With a grunt, I swing my leg over the side of my bike and take my helmet off, leaving it on my seat, knowing nobody will dare touch it while I’m inside.
The bar is empty, which means they’re all in the room waiting, and that irritates me even more. Though, getting laid by Genny, the way I was so thoroughly satisfied, was completely worth it. I walk into the room with a grin on my face, and Camo’s eyebrows rise as he grins over at me.
“Glad you could join us,” MadDog grumbles as I close the door behind me.
“Sorry I’m late,” I mutter.
“No you’re not,” he laughs, shaking his head. My answer is to shrug. “Okay, let’s get started.”
MadDog pulls out a map with two routes on it marked in different color marker. He shows us the route we’ve been taking from the docks, but then there’s an alternative. He explains that this one is a little less direct, a little more dangerous and exposed. It doesn’t sit right with me.
“I don’t like this new route,” I announce. Texas grunts in agreement.
“I don’t either, but I also don’t know how to get away from the docks any other way. Obviously, someone is onto us. It wouldn’t take a super genius to follow our path,” MadDog says.
“Are there any other docks we can come from, maybe? I mean, what about Humboldt? Maybe we can do that instead? It’s about the same distance as Frisco,” I suggest. MadDog’s eyes snap up to meet mine.
“Let me call Kirill,” he grunts.
We all sit in silence, each of us watching and waiting. MadDog explains the situation, explains that the heat were onto us, the altercation, and the obvious threats. A few minutes later, he grunts his goodbye and turns to face us.
“Soar, when you’re not high as a kite, you’re useful as fuck,” he chuckles, making everyone else laugh.
I shake my head with a smile and wait for him to continue.
“Kirill is going to have the shipment redirected to Humboldt Bay with a worker on the inside. Same thing will happen. Truck will need to be there, one dock worker to accept payment, and two more men will have to load it up. Now I just need to figure out the best route to take. Hopefully, this completely different county, area, and bay will throw that pig off, whoeverthefuck he is.”
MadDog excuses us, and we all let out a sigh of relief that it seems we have this shit handled for now. The men go straight to the bar, and I find my feet automatically following behind them. I accept an offered beer from a prospect and take a pull as the familiar whore slides up beside me.
“You ready yet?” she asks as she bites on her bottom lip, trying to look enticing.
“Nope,” I say, popping my p for emphasis.
I watch as she pouts and then turns and stomps off, like the child she probably is.
“How you doing?” Texas asks from beside me. I hadn’t noticed that he was even there.
“Good,” I admit, lifting my chin.
“Any cravings?” he asks.
“Nah, man. Had all that detox shit happen when I was locked up.”
He smirks before lifting an eyebrow, “Now that it’s available, you good?”
“Got my wife back, got my brother heading to Harvard, got my life back. I’m fucking great,” I state.
“Lots of shit went down with Genny, and then your dad.”
“Genny walking away from me, I earned that shit. In fact, she should have stayed away. I’m happy she didn’t, but the way I treated her for as long as I did—I don’t deserve her forgiveness. My dad? He was never really my dad. I’m more worried about the way my little brother is handling it rather than me,” I say. Texas nods.
“Just want you to keep your head on straight, brother,” he warns.
“I get popped in a piss test for dope, I’m on a one-way street back to prison. I have no fuckin’ desire to be back there again, so no need to worry about my head,” I clarify before I walk away from him.
I ignore him calling my name, and I drop my beer on the nearest table before I head to my ride.
I start my bike, and without another thought, I take off. I don’t know where I’m going, but I don’t want to be around the clubhouse right now. I don’t feel tempted by the bitches or dope, but Texas pissed me off.
It makes me wonder if everybody else is thinking like him. If they’re all waiting for me to fail, to take that first hit of coke or whatever.
It’s not like I don’t have enough pressure with Imogen waiting for me to sink inside of some whore. I can tell that she’s braced for it to happen. She’s prepared to feel that hurt from me, and it kills me. I bought that shit with every shitty decision I made.
I automatically stop in front of the tattoo parlor, and I don’t think. My bike knows me better than I do, and right now, it knows I need something. Ink. I don’t have much, just my club’s patch on my back, but now I think I need to add to my body.
“Hey, brother,” Nick calls out from his stool.
He’s drawing something and doesn’t have anyone in his chair, so I ask him if he has a couple hours to spare for a smaller piece.
“You finally decide to mar the front of you?” he asks on a laugh. He’s been trying to get me to add to my back piece for years.
“Outside of my forearm,” I mutter.
“Old Lady’s name?” he asks on a hunch. I nod.
“She’s put up with my ass for almost twenty years, figure I should make a gesture to show her what she means,” I shrug.
“Fuckin’ hell man, twenty years?” he asks as he pulls out a paper. I watch him, pen-in-hand, start to sketch.
“She was fifteen when I met her. Name’s Imogen,” I grin.
“Robbing cradles,” he snickers.
A few minutes later, he turns his sketchpad around and I’m blown away. It’s Genny’s name written in old English with a crown that looks like it’s hanging off of the I.
I smirk at the crown because it’s so her, “So you remember her?”
Grinning, he shakes his head a little, “Hard to forget that little blonde princess you brought in here all those years ago.”
I get into position and close my eyes as he preps to tattoo me. I also ask him to freshen up my wedding band’s ink. Fresh ink for our fresh start.