Tiger
I LAY ON the bed, panting and fucking destroyed. Because that was what she’d done to me. She’d destroyed me. She’d done exactly what I told her to, fucked me hard and rough, and now I wasn’t sure I’d ever be the same again.
She’d collapsed on top of me, her soft hair all over my chest, and I could still feel her hot little pussy squeezing my cock. Christ, she was amazing. Everything about her was amazing. I wanted to hold her tightly to me, never let her go. She was mine, which was a fucking weird thought since I’d never had it before about anyone.
She knew about my past, about my mother. And she’d been the one to read that letter to me, discovering right along with me the real reason Mom had left.
That had been the hardest thing to hear. To know that Mom had gone to protect me. To give me a fucking life, as if I didn’t have one already. I’d been full of nothing but anger in that moment, because it had been my fault she’d gone. And if she’d given me the choice, I would have told her not to go, that the decisions about my life were mine to make, not hers. But, no, she’d taken the choice from me. She’d decided to leave me without even talking to me first and I’d wanted to smack something so bad I hadn’t been able to think straight.
I’d had to walk out, to leave before I did something stupid and frightened Summer.
I hadn’t expected Summer to come after me. To follow and put a hand on my back. Her warmth had been astonishing and her voice calm.
Then she’d put her arms around me, her warmth soaking into me, and it was the strangest fucking thing. No one had ever given me a hug before, not since Mom left, and it made me feel... Christ, I don’t even know. Like I wanted to melt back into her. She’d felt strong at my back and it was as if she was giving me a piece of her own strength, filling up something that had always felt hollow and empty before.
Jesus, how had she ever thought of herself as weak? I was the one who was weak and now she was making me strong.
I hadn’t wanted to talk about it any more right then. I’d just wanted her.
Fucking hell, I’d never wanted anything so badly in my life.
Then she’d given me more than strength. She’d given me the fire that I knew was inside her, that burning blue spark. Riding me like I was her favourite stallion. So fucking hot.
I hadn’t realised what I was missing—that I’d been missing anything at all, in fact—until she’d put her hands on my chest and looked down into my eyes. Holding my gaze as she’d fucking taken me to heaven and back.
Hot and fierce and bright. That was Summer. And I wanted more.
I tightened my arms around her.
She’s yours now.
Yeah, she was. She just fucking was. And suddenly it didn’t feel weird. It felt right, like it was meant to be somehow.
Keep would probably be after me by now and I thought I’d better check in with him. No, it was going to be more than a check in. It was going to be a fucking full-on denial. There was no way I’d let Summer anywhere near her father. Anywhere near anyone who could hurt her.
I was going to protect her until it was time for her to fly out west to her new job and her new life, and if anyone tried to stop her they’d have to answer to me.
I rolled onto my side, taking her with me. Then I pushed her onto her back, sifting her beautiful hair through my fingers. Felt like fucking silk. ‘I need to go check in with Keep,’ I murmured. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t mention you’re here. I’ll hide you until it’s time to get your flight and then I’ll take you to the airport myself.’
Her brow creased, an expression I couldn’t quite catch flashing over her face. ‘Are you sure? You’d really lie to your president for me?’
‘Nothing I haven’t done already, baby girl.’
‘But your club—’
I put a finger over her mouth, silencing her. ‘Leave the club to me. It’s my thing, I’ll handle it, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Yet that worried look didn’t leave her eyes. ‘Tiger, I’m sorry. I don’t want to make things difficult for you.’
‘Yeah, I know. But that’s not your decision to make. It’s mine. And I’m making it right now.’
Another flicker of expression across her lovely face. ‘Okay,’ she said again, sounding reluctant. ‘But you know, if there’s anything—’
I shut her up by kissing her, sliding my tongue into her mouth so she couldn’t speak. And then she didn’t want to anyway, giving a little groan and tipping her head back, encouraging me to kiss her deeper, harder.
I growled, because I wanted to. But I had to deal with Keep first.
Giving her a nip, I lifted my head and gently disengaged myself from her, rolling away to deal with the condom in the nearby wastebasket. ‘I need to call Keep.’ I turned and gave her a look from over my shoulder. ‘Don’t go anywhere, okay? And definitely don’t get dressed. I have plans for you.’
She flushed, which was straight out weird considering what she’d done to me not two minutes ago, but I was fucking delighted all the same. I was already getting hard thinking of all the other dirty ways I was going to make her come today.
Christ, suddenly two days with her didn’t seem enough.
I pulled on my jeans and grabbed my phone, taking it downstairs so I wouldn’t stress her out. Then I hit Keep’s number.
He answered it almost immediately. ‘Where the fuck have you been and why aren’t you answering my goddamn calls?’
‘I’ve been out looking for the chief’s daughter, just like you wanted, Prez,’ I lied without even a twinge of guilt. ‘And, no, I haven’t found her yet. Anyone else?’
‘No,’ Keep said curtly. ‘Chief’s getting fucking pissed, put out a few APBs, all kinds of shit. You don’t have a number for her or anything?’
‘Why? Because I did some protection for her? That was five years ago. Fuck only knows what’s up with her now.’
Keep grunted. ‘Yeah, okay. Well, keep your eyes open.’
He ended the call without another word, but I didn’t lose any sleep over it. I had no problem with protecting Summer. None at all. And it was kind of weird to think that I didn’t. Because it meant that she had become more important to me than the club, which was a worry, but I decided I wasn’t going to let that get to me. I could deal with that later, once she’d got safely away. Right now, I had other things to do.
Like making her come some more.
We spent the rest of the day in bed, pausing only for a lunch break and then some sleep in the afternoon. I woke her up after that, flipping her over onto her stomach and pulling her up on her hands and knees. Then I ate her out from behind, making her come a couple of times, before pulling those slender hips up against mine and sliding deep inside her quivering little pussy.
It was hard and it was raw and I made her scream. Then I made her scream some more before I let myself go, pushing her down and slamming her into the mattress over and over until I was blind with the fucking ecstasy of it.
I got her up after that and took her into the shower again, soaping her down, loving the feel of her leaning against me as if she couldn’t stand upright on her own, knowing it was me who’d made her feel that.
Afterwards I made her dinner and we sat at the counter and talked about nothing in particular. I liked hearing her talk about her new job and about her interest in math. It all went over my head—she was so fucking smart it kind of astounded me—but she explained everything in such an easy way it was almost as if I could grasp it. She talked about her life at college and then, when she got sick of talking about herself, she began to ask me about life at the club and what it was like.
I was honest with her, didn’t gloss over the stuff that wasn’t great, but she seemed to get how important the club was to me. How like a family it was. How my brothers truly were like brothers.
After I’d given her a rundown on one of our wilder parties, making her blue eyes go round and her cheeks pink, I took her over to the workshop and showed her a few of the bikes I was in the process of fixing. She was right into it, peering at everything and asking me questions, wanting to know how things worked.
I’d never explained any mechanical shit to a woman before, let alone one who was so interested. She even sat down beside me, watching and getting me to explain what I was doing, making comments and asking yet more questions.
I didn’t much like it when people talked at me while I was working, but with Summer I found I didn’t care. In fact, I liked it. I liked that she was interested in something that interested me, too, and that it was all completely genuine. There wasn’t a fake bone in her body, not one.
A couple of hours passed like that and it was...good. Just fucking good.
Later, I got us both beers and sat on the couch with her in my lap, talking about nothing. Talking about everything.
I was so deep in discussion with her about something she called game theory that I didn’t even hear the distinctive rumble of a hog in the courtyard outside. All I knew was that one minute we were alone and talking, the next the door of my warehouse had been kicked open and Keep was there, striding inside with Smoke following along behind him.
For a second Summer and I just stared at them in shock, because what the actual fuck? Then she stiffened in my lap, making a soft, distressed sound.
And I acted without thought.
Pushing her off my lap, I shoved her behind me, then stood up, putting myself between my president and my best buddy, and her.
Keep stopped not far from me, his blue eyes glittering and full of rage. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded, coming straight out with it.
I met him stare for fucking stare. ‘I could ask you the same thing.’
Stupid question. There was only one reason he was here and she was sitting on the couch behind me, dressed only in my T-shirt.
A sudden rush of possessiveness filled me. I didn’t want these assholes looking at her. I didn’t want them even glancing in her direction, so I adjusted my stance, blocking her from them as much as I could. ‘What the fuck, Prez?’ I decided to go on the attack, since there was no point denying Summer’s presence here. ‘I’m just having a quiet beer with—’
‘The chief of police’s daughter,’ Keep finished, hard and cold. ‘The one you told me you were out looking for.’
Summer started to say something, but I held up my hand sharply to let her know that her talking right now was a very bad idea.
Luckily she seemed to get it and stayed quiet.
‘I didn’t tell him,’ Smoke said from his position behind Keep, his dark gaze meeting mine. ‘Crash let it slip this afternoon that she’d been at the party yesterday. We came to ask you where she was.’
Rage turned over inside me. Crash. Of course. That fucking asshole. I thought he hadn’t known who she was but clearly he had. ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘He want some brownie points from you, Prez?’
‘Doesn’t matter why.’ There was nothing but ice in Keep’s voice. Always a very bad fucking sign. ‘You knew who she was. You knew she was nothing but trouble for the fucking club, and not only did you not tell me you had her, you’ve been fucking her, too, from the looks of things.’ The glitter in his eyes got even colder. ‘You lied to me, Tiger.’
Aggression poured through my veins. Because he was right, I’d done those things. I’d lied to my president. I’d broken his trust. I’d created a potentially volatile situation for my club, one we really didn’t need right now.
I’d fucked up.
And I didn’t even care.
There was only one thing I did care about right in that moment and she was sitting right behind me.
The truth of it hit me so fucking hard that I couldn’t speak but I knew.
It was her. It was Summer. She was mine.
And I wasn’t giving her up, not to anyone.
‘Yeah, I did.’ I didn’t bother keeping the edge out of my voice. ‘I did lie to you. But I did it to protect her.’
Keep’s expression hardened. ‘I don’t give a fuck why you did it. That doesn’t change the fact that you did.’ The look on his face got even meaner. ‘I got no room in my club for an officer who lies to his president. I got no patience with that shit.’
‘Prez—’ Smoke began.
But Keep gave a jerk of his head, silencing him. ‘You want to make things right, Tiger?’ His blue gaze was squarely on mine. ‘You take her to Grant right the fuck now.’
I didn’t make the mistake of thinking this wasn’t the flat-out choice that it was. Basically, it was her or the club. The club that’d looked out for me, been there for me, that’d been my family since my mom left. Or a woman I’d only really known a matter of days, yet who’d somehow lit up my life in a way no one else ever had.
I didn’t even have to think. I already knew my choice.
‘No,’ I said flatly ‘She stays with me.’
Keep smiled and it wasn’t a nice smile. It was his ‘don’t fuck with the president’ smile. ‘You’re seriously going to choose her? Over your club?’
Smoke was silent, giving me a strange look that seemed a whole lot like understanding.
But I couldn’t deal with that now. There was only Keep and the knowledge that if he took one step towards the woman behind me, I was going to punch his fucking head in. Which would be crossing a line.
I couldn’t come back from that and I knew it. But again, I didn’t give a shit. Protecting her was more important. She was more important.
More important than the club. More important than me.
More important than any damn thing.
So I put my shoulders back and my hands curled into fists, and I stared at Keep, daring him to come at me. To touch what was fucking mine.
And the tension in the warehouse wound so tight with violence it was a wonder the whole fucking thing didn’t explode.
Then there came a sound from behind me, and suddenly Summer was coming around me, putting herself between me and Keep.
‘Summer,’ I began, reaching out for her. ‘What the fuck are you—’
‘I’ll go with you,’ she said flatly, not even looking at me, all her attention on Keep. ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go right now.’