Chapter 24
Laiken
My eyes fluttered open, and I could feel Jace’s arms around me. My eyes took in the slowly setting sun as the sting between my legs slowly surfaced. I stretched and groaned, pushing my ass into something solid and hard.
“Sleep well?” Jace asked.
I turned around in his arms and found him grinning at me. I pressed my lips to his, smelling my sweat upon his skin. He held me close as we laid there on the couch, naked underneath the blanket he must’ve pulled over us.
“I get it, you know,” I said.
“Get what?” he asked.
“Why you had to push me away like that.”
I saw Jace nod as his grin slid from his face.
“What are you going to do now?” he asked as his eyes focused behind me.
I turned around to see what his eyes were focused on and saw my badge lying on the floor.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “As a cop, I should’ve carted you off to jail with all the things you told me this morning.”
“I know,” he said as he let out a sigh.
“You’re an outlaw, and I’m a cop. This can’t work between us, right?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You tell me,” he said.
“Don’t play that game. Don’t do that.”
“I made my choice, Laiken. I’m laying here with you. I haven’t gotten up, and I’m not second-guessing my choices that got me here. Technically the club could kill me if they wanted for opening up to you like that. But I am still here. So… you tell me.”
I sat up on the couch and put my head in my hands. Jace sat up and wiggled his way behind me, his arms threading around my waist. He pulled me flush to his chest before he settled the blanket around my body, and I drew in a deep breath at his touch. I felt so beautiful and safe wrapped up in his arms. That was something that had never changed.
I wasn’t sure if it was something that ever would.
“If you want, we can figure this out,” Jace said.
“I just don’t know how.”
“It’s usually why couples work together,” he said.
“Oh, so we’re a couple now?” I asked.
“We just professed our undying love for one another. I’d say that makes us a couple, yes.”
“Undying, huh?”
“What would you call it?” he asked.
“A fit of passion because I was about to come?”
I heard him sigh as he leaned his head forward. His lips pressed a kiss into my shoulder. A kiss that drew goosebumps upon my skin. A shiver ricocheted down my spine that I couldn't control, and I felt Jace grin into my skin.
“I know you should cart me off to jail. It’s your duty as an officer of the law. But hear me out for a second, okay?”
“Why?” I asked.
“We’re not the bad club in town.”
“The Road Rebels?” I asked.
“Right. It’s The Devil Saints. Laiken, they don’t just run drugs. They prostitute their own women. Sell them off to men to do whatever those men need them to do, including running their drugs during their transactions. They work their children to the bone. They own half the illegal strip clubs in Henderson-”
“Strip clubs?” I asked.
“The Devil Saints have this thing call pop-up clubs. They are usually in the back of their bars, and inside anything goes. I’ve heard stories of men rushing the fucking stage and raping those women right there on the fucking floor.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “Can you prove any of this shit?”
“Not the kind of proof you need that keeps me from being a fucking rat.”
“Shit,” I said.
“They’re the bad ones. Not us. We have morals.”
“A motorcycle club with morals?”
“We don’t sell our women, we protect our kids, we nurture our families, and we keep our nose to the ground. We’re not like The Devil Saints. Nowhere near it,” he said.
“Do you guys run drugs as well?”
Jace fell silent, and I turned myself around in his arms. I straddled his lap, feeling his cock twitch right back to life. He sucked in a short hiss of air through his teeth as I ground down into his hips.
“Do you, The Road Rebels, run drugs?” I asked again.
“That’s a hell of interrogation tactic you got there, Laiken. You use that on people all the time?”
I grinned before I rolled into his hips again.
“Yes,” he said with a grunt. “But we don’t do the really hard shit.”
“So not any heroin,” I said.
“So you do know a bit about us,” he said.
“Rumors and chatter. Nothing that can be proven,” I said. “You’re welcome for the tidbit, by the way.”
“Can I have the main course now?”
He grabbed onto my hips and situated his cock at my entrance.
“Not so fast,” I said. “I’m not done.”
“Shit. What, Laiken?”
I looked into Jace’s eyes before they fell to his chest. I had always admired his tattoos, but there were a couple on his arms I didn’t recognize. One was a wrap-around bicep tattoo. Something in Latin or some shit. But the one that caught my eye brought me back to reality.
It was a tattoo of The Road Rebels logo, along with his club-given name.
“Laiken? What’s wrong?” Jace asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “I have to go.”
I slid from his lap before his hands had the chance to clamp me to my spot. I gathered up my clothes, jumping into them and trying to piece myself together. I had fucking work to do. I had a captain I had to report to. I had to somehow erase the bullshit that had taken place over the course of today and walk in like I didn’t have a damn connection to one of the fucking motorcycle clubs we were investigating.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Laiken. Slow the fuck down.”
“How am I supposed to feel?” I asked.
“I was hoping ready to fuck me again,” Jace said. “Now slow down and tell me what the hell happened.”
I turned towards him and took in his naked body. His chiseled abs were shining in the sun streaming through the window. His cock was swinging log between his legs, ready for another round at the drop of a damn hat. The veins in his arms were throbbing, and the muscles in his legs were twitching. Holy fuck, this man was the finest slice of marble I’d ever carved my fingers through.
I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to bring myself back to reality.
“I’m not going to bring you in,” I said as I hooked my belt around my body. “But I just need time to sort through all this.”
“You can do that here. I can cook us some dinner, you can call in sick-”
“You don’t get to make decisions on my fucking career, Jace. You hear me?”
I lowered my finger as his eyes settled onto my face.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, all right? If you need time and space to think, I get it. It’s a lot to digest.”
“Fucking right, it is,” I said.
“Just… let me know when you get to wherever you’re going.”
“You worried about me or some shit?” I asked.
“Always.”
I turned my head to take him in one last time. His rock hard chest and his dazzling brown eyes. That short, trimmed up beard that felt so good against my skin and those lips that had uttered the words I had longed to for years.
“And put some fucking clothes on,” I said.
He grinned at me as I reached for his door.
“Yes, officer.”