21. July 1st

21

July 1st

W orking, I find, is fun and easy . Something to focus my mind on and Darius is right–it's just a puzzle to solve. All I need to do is match the diagrams above to the plates below.

The only distraction is Axel's intense stare. He has been watching me this entire time. There is just a metal table with plates of food between us. There are two other men in the kitchen working but neither has paid me any mind.

Grayson's training consisted of pointing to the pictures and walking away.

"What is your problem?" I finally spout out after twenty more minutes of Axel's staring.

"It's just odd, how fast you already are at this."

"I'm sorry?" Did he want me to mess up so I couldn't come back? But he is right, I find myself barely even needing to look at the diagrams, I am simply relying on muscle memory, except it's only been about an hour.

He doesn't say anything else, but I feel his sharp eyes watching me as the night progresses.

"Last call!" Grayson's voice startles me out of my haze. "Take her?"

I turn around to speak to him, but he is already walking away.

It doesn't take long to see what he means. Axel is stripping off his apron. "You two got this? Want to make sure she gets home alright."

I finally acknowledge the other cooks with soft smiles. They are both older men with greying hair and round bellies. Their eyes crinkle in return.

"Sure kid." One reaches out and ruffles Axel's hair.

I find myself clenching up in anxiety, but Axel doesn't lash out, in fact he smiles .

"Whatever bottle you want, on Grayson." Axel laughs and half hugs both the men before stepping out from around the table and joining me. I am still in shock at what I just witnessed. He undoes my apron and places it on top of the table. He takes my hand. "Come on, Little Lamb, it's time to go." He bends down and presses the words into my ear.

Heat tingles there and everywhere he is touching. Being with Axel is the most dangerous of the brothers. He will push until I am forced into a corner. Will I lash out? Or will something else entirely different happen? My face flushes in embarrassment, but thankfully he doesn't see. He's too busy tugging me along to a back door and down the stairs.

"Sunday School."

Axel stiffens, we are at the foot of the stairs now, his motorcycle is only a few feet away.

But Maxwell is blocking our path.

"What do you want?" Axel drops my hand and bows up as if to hit Maxwell. I reach forward, unsure of what to do. I wish Darius was here.

The thought surprises me, but I push that aside. I try to pull Axel back, but he doesn't budge.

"Of course you would be with her. Just a guard dog sent out to do whichever master's bidding. How did it feel to go away for a crime you didn't commit?" Maxwell's face is all darkness and shadows. He is what I imagine as a devil in human form. I can practically see horns. Or maybe that's just his stupid gelled up hair.

Every encounter with Maxwell solidifies what I already know. He's a bad person.

But exactly how bad?

"What do you want?" I step carefully around Axel, trying to place myself between them, mirroring what Darius did before with Rayden.

Maxwell's lips curve up into an eerie smile. "Sunday School. We have some unfinished business, don't we?" He reaches up, but I am already jerking back.

Into Axel's arms. He wraps them around me securely, and I feel as tension leaves my body at the sanctuary of his embrace.

Axel might be filled to the brim with chaos and anger, but it's not just that. He lives in the moment, and it is contagious.

Maxwell sneers. "What's going to happen when you are out in the world again? They can't keep you under lock and key forever." Maxwell spits on the ground centimeters from my shoes. "Better watch yourself, Sunday School."

He walks briskly to his car and gets in. It squeals as he speeds out of the parking lot.

It isn't until he's gone that I realize Axel hasn't let go of me. "Axel?" I question softly. It's then that I notice we're shaking. Correction. He's shaking us.

"Axel?" I turn in his embrace and for the first time I see tears in his eyes.

"Please don't disappear. Please be real." The words come out heavily, saturated with a million emotions I could never even fathom to understand. "Please don't let it be like before."

"Axel?" I reach my hands up carefully, his name leaves my lips, a whisper. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

In a moment his face snaps. His tears dry. I see as he comes to some decision. "You know what? Fuck this. I don't care if you hate me for this, I don't care what the others want, I am done playing by their rules. I need every moment I can have. You are the only thing that keeps me grounded in this reality."

I don't understand what he means until he is lifting me up and stepping to his bike and settling me onto it, my legs spread, my back on the handles.

He moves onto the bike facing me.

He attacks.

His lips are on mine. His hands find my waist. He rolls against me.

His hard cock presses against the thin fabric of my shorts. His hand creeps under my shirt and cups one of my breasts. His tongue licks along the seam of my lips.

Everything is on fire. He is filling all of my senses. He is imprinting into my very skin.

A hand reaches up and tugs on my hair, pulling my neck to the side. His mouth moves like a viper and latches onto the flesh there.

He sucks and licks and bites.

The feeling goes directly from my neck to the heat currently building. I clench around nothing. I want both more and less.

He has invaded me so quickly that rational thought leaves me.

We are a frenzy of emotions and wants and needs. And he knows exactly what those are and I am just meant to lay here and take it.

He pulls away from my neck like a suction popping, just like he did to my thigh. My toes curl.

His hand finds the outside of my shorts. Finds my clit through the material. He rubs a furious circle while his head falls forward pushing me further back onto the handle bars.

"Such a good Little Lamb." He nips at my ear, his furious circles on my clit not letting up.

My hips roll involuntarily into his fingers and I hear him chuckle softly.

" Sunday , you're fucking magnificent." He leans down and pushes my bra up under my shirt. His mouth finds one of my nipples and he plays with it with his tongue for just a moment before he is suctioning onto it and pinching my clit through my shorts.

It's too much. It is my undoing. The tension that has been building, floods my body.

I come with a breathy moan and the aftermath settles around me.

Guilt is at the forefront.

The rest rolls in; I am in public, under a restaurant.

And there are Grayson's eyes staring directly into mine as he stands at the bottom of the stairs.

For a moment I think I see something akin to lust, but quite quickly rage takes hold.

"Clean her up and take her the fuck home. I'll be there soon. Don't fuck this up," Grayson snarls out the words.

I look up to Axel, his eyes are softer than I have ever seen them before. "You okay?" he asks gently. He puts my clothes back in place as best he can, trying to rewind the evidence of the last twenty minutes.

But the wet spot visible through my shorts? The bruises I can feel forming on both my neck and breast? The flames that still lick up my spine?

He can do nothing to assuage any of that.

And what about the guilt? This is becoming a pattern. I am slowly allowing these brothers to take what should only have been Tripp's.

Axel sees my face shift. "Blame me. There is nothing to feel bad about. This was my fault. I can't keep my hands to myself. I will always love Tripp, but you? You aren't his. We promised Auggie we wouldn't touch you. Let me ask you, precious Little Lamb. Did Tripp break that promise?"

My face whitens, ice shoots through my veins. Axel knows about Tripp and me. It is clear in every word. He is mocking me.

My anger flares, I push him away and jump off the bike. I almost fall, but I catch myself at the last moment. "Just fucking take me home."

"That's a good Sunday, keep that anger. Keep that fiery rage. Because at the end of the day, all that really is, is passion ."

He places the helmet on my head, and clasps the clip before getting on the bike and patting the spot behind him. I don't want to deal with Grayson, and I have zero idea where Darius is.

I begrudgingly get onto the bike. He reaches behind him and tugs me closer. I wrap my arms around his stomach. Ignoring the feel of his hard edges. The way that even after hours in the kitchen he still smells good . How through my guilt another feeling is beginning to fester.

I care about Axel.

About Darius.

And even about Grayson.

I just hope that that's not going to be my undoing.

He revs the bike and off we go.