Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Vienna

He'd worshipped every inch of me.

With his lips, tongue, teeth.

I wasn't sure I'd ever had someone know every bit of me like that. And there'd certainly never been anyone to find all those new little spots that made need riot through my body.

The crease of my thighs.

The insides of my knees.

The arch of my feet.

My toes .

My whole body felt like one giant erogenous zone, every nerve ending pulsing with desire.

I couldn't think of anything but feeling him against me, his hard lines to my soft ones, the brush of his chest hair on my responsive nipples.

And, yes, the press of his hardness against my cleft, the sensation like a live wire sparking through my system.

He had to feel how drenched I was, how needy. But still, still , he offered an out, was letting me guide this.

Which was why I was able to pull him down to me, then wrap my legs tightly around his lower back, so I could rock my hips, make his cock glide against me, the head teasing over my swollen clit with each rock.

Riff was groaning against my lips, his kiss getting hungrier, needier, as my hands slid over his back, exploring him a bit like he'd explored me, wanting to know every inch of him.

My legs fell away, feet pressing into the bed to give me more purchase against the mattress, grinding up into him as my hands slid lower, digging into his ass, and pressing him harder against me.

"Fuck," Riff hissed, lifting up to look down at me, his eyes so hooded they were almost closed as he gazed at me, the pure longing doing something to my belly, making it flip-flop even as my heart swelled.

"Reid, please," I begged, rocking harder against him.

I needed the feel of him like I needed my next breath. It was something necessary. Unavoidable.

His mouth opened, likely trying to give me another out that I didn't want.

I was too far gone for that.

I knew what I wanted.

And I wanted him.

Now .

"Now, Reid, please," I begged, lips meeting his neck.

On a groan, his weight shifted as he reached into the nightstand, finding a condom, then pulling back for just long enough to protect us.

Then he was pressing hard against me again, and my hips were rocking, coating him in my desire as his lips claimed mine again.

My fingers were scratching down his back as my hips ground up into him.

My fingers dug into his ass, trying to guide him, trying to force him toward where I so desperately needed to feel him.

"I need you," I whimpered, looking up at him, seeing such a soft, warm look, that my heart swelled again.

But then his hips were shifting, and I felt the press of him against me.

There was a pause.

A choice.

My hands grabbed his ass, pulling hard, making that choice, feeling him fill me, surging to the base, a fullness that had never felt quite so right before.

Our groans mingled.

And then it was all feeling, all movement, both of us too far gone to think.

My hips met his thrusts, slow and deep at first, then faster and harder as I begged for more.

"Please, please," I cried, feeling my walls tighten, knowing I was close.

"I've got you," he said, voice tight. "Come for me."

And just like that, I did, the pleasure a slow explosion that tore through every inch of me, leaving me mindlessly crying out as he continued to fuck me through it, making it last, until he was slamming deep.

"Fuck, Vienna," he groaned, settled as deep as he could be, and doing small rocks as his body tensed with his release. "Fuck," he moaned again, his weight coming down on me, as spent as I felt.

My arms and legs wrapped him up tight as my face pressed against his throat, breathing in his comforting scent as the chaos slowly died down in my system, leaving me more emotional than I could have expected, tears threatening but then filling and flooding from my eyes before I could blink them away.

" V ," he gasped, pulling against my hold to look down at me, eyes big, worried.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "No, it's okay," I said, leaning up to press my lips to his. "It's good," I said with another kiss. "I promise. So good."

His body relaxed against me again as he kissed me back, gentle and long, until my lips felt tingly.

His body pulled from mine, his weight coming down on the mattress next to me instead, his fingers drifting over me lazily.

"Give me one minute, darlin'," he said against my lips, before untangling from me, yanking his pants a bit awkwardly up, and moving into the hallway.

Alone, I stared out the windows, seeing the sunbeams streaking across the sky, the same sensation moving through me, lighting me up, warming me completely.

"Aren't you cold?" Riff asked, coming back to the bed a moment later, immediately reaching for me, curling me up on his chest where I belonged, his fingers drifting through my hair where they belonged .

"For once, no," I admitted, snuggling up to him.

"Got any plans today?" he asked as we both lay there, watching the sky get brighter with each passing moment.

"Yeah."

"What's that?" he asked.

"Staying here in bed with you," I told him.

"I can get behind that," he agreed, leaning down to press a kiss to my head.

"With short breaks for food," I added.

"We could make that easier and order in. Then eat in bed."

"I like the way you think."

"I like your everything," he said, fingers sliding over me.

"That was the right kind of corny," I told him, angling my head to smile up at him.

"Mean it, though," he said, tucking some hair behind my ear.

"I like everything about you too. Well, except one thing."

"Yeah?" he asked, forehead wrinkling. "What's that?"

"You don't use fabric softener on your towels."

"It reduces their absorbency," he insisted.

"They could stand up on their own," I shot back.

"Fine. I'll use softener next time," he agreed as Vernon woke up for the morning, doing a big stretch, then jumping down off of his tree stand and up onto the bed.

Riff was quick to flick the covers over our naked bodies, and Vernon moved up on top of both of us, doing biscuits on me, then Riff, as we each took turns petting him.

"Riff?"

"Yeah?"

"What happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

"About this," I said, waving between us.

"Whatever you want, darlin'," he said, clearly choosing his words carefully.

"I just mean… do we tell everyone? And what happens when you go on the road again? That kind of thing."

"Don't think we need to tell them shit since the kiss," he said, shrugging. "Def don't need to announce that we're having sex," he added. "Unless you want to talk to someone about it. That's fine. I won't be, just so you know."

I would be telling my therapist, that was for sure.

But I didn't want to be sharing it with anyone else. This felt like it was just ours. I didn't want to share it.

"And as for me going on the road… that depends on you, I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if you are busy here with classes or your therapist, or you are going to school or whatever for yoga instruction, then you can just hang here with everyone like you did last time. If you're ready, we can get you a car, so you can start taking yourself around, and don't have to rely on anyone else here."

"I would like to drive again," I agreed, even though nothing was so far in Shady Valley that I couldn't walk if I wanted to. Once it started to get hot, I had a feeling that I wasn't going to want to be doing that. "But what else would it depend on?" I asked.

"If you want to come with," he said.

"That would be allowed?" I asked.

"It might take some finesse on Slash's part, but, really, it would come down to you and your comfort level."

"With the guns."

"Yeah, I mean… more so, with the illegality of it. That's a risk you have to really consider. I would never have you come with us if we were doing a deal that wasn't public. Most of what we are doing is actually legal. The buying of the guns, that is. It mostly happens at gun shows. It's legit. The problem is, we can't take them across state lines like we do."

"That's why they're hidden."

"Exactly. But we also do some deals that are private. Those are risky."

Risky.

Like the deal he'd been trying to make when the shootout happened, when he'd found me.

I didn't immediately try to push the thoughts away, instead just breathing through the way panic started to build, then releasing it.

Some day, it wouldn't have so much hold over me.

But, for now, it was okay that it still threatened to pull me back and under.

"But if I wanted to, I could come and just hang in the hotel while you work?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's the idea."

"Would it bother Raff?"

"Why would it bother Raff? He loves you. So long as we get separate rooms, there's no issue."

"I think maybe it would be fun to do a time or two," I decided. "But, doesn't it get old after a while? Especially if you keep taking the same routes?"

"It didn't used to feel that way. I think I used to be a lot more restless when I was younger. Now, yeah, it's… it's getting old. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be willing to do the whole route."

"You said it might eventually stop being so long, though, right?"

"Once the chapter in Texas is fully up and running, yeah. Then it will only be from here to there and back."

"Half the distance."

"Yeah, for the most part. There might still be times when we will need to go past Texas to hit up gun shows, since we can't all rely on Texas to get all these weapons purchased and distributed."

"But your club is growing too," I said. "And guys like Coach, Colter, and Rook might actually want to take those trips, get away for a while."

"Yeah, I think that might be the conversation I have to have with Slash eventually. That we all need to start splitting it up, so we can all spend most of our time here, and just a little bit on the road."

"What about Raff?"

"I don't know if he's done yet," Riff admitted.

"Won't it be difficult for you two not to be doing this together?"

"Yeah," he said, sighing hard. "Harder than I think either of us realized yet. At this point, we've never really spent much time apart. But I can't ask him to stop before he's done. And he wouldn't ask me to keep on when I'm done. We care about each other too much for that."

"What do you think will have him settling down?"

"Fuck if I know," Riff said, shaking his head. "We've always been so different. I think, I dunno, maybe a woman would slow him down or stop him."

"Or be crazy on the road with him," I said, shrugging.

"I honestly can't imagine him settled down, so I have no clue."

"Does he want to settle down?"

"Eventually, yeah. He really likes kids. So he wants some of his own one day."

"Do you?" I asked, wincing, hoping that it wasn't too soon to ask something like that.

"Yeah. There was a time where I was worried I wouldn't be a good parent…"

"Because of your father?" I asked.

"Yeah. I don't want to learn I got that kind of meanness in me."

"You don't," I said, knowing that down to my bones. No man who had been so sweet and patient with me would be cruel to children. "Besides, if it was true that we are doomed to repeat our parents' mistakes, then I would be a selfish teen mom who decided to drop her kids off at her mother's doorstep, so she could follow a band across the country."

"You never told me that before," he said, his fingers moving up and down my spine.

"I don't like to talk about my mom. She's not really my mom. My grandmother was my mom."

"Did you ever see her again?"

"She dropped into town on occasion, broke and needing to crash for a while. Something was always missing after she left. Money, family heirlooms, my laptop once."

"I'm sorry," he said, pressing a kiss to my head. "She never grew up?"

"Not the last time I saw her."

"When was that?"

"At my grandmother's funeral," I said, sucking in a deep breath, and then releasing it slowly, finding there was a lot of anger inside me still about that. "She showed up late and drunk, making a scene. And then at the house after, while we were all just trying to share fond memories of my grandma, she was ranting and raving about how she never tried to help her get on her feet. It was embarrassing and frustrating."

"I'm sorry, darlin'. You shouldn't have needed to deal with that while you were grieving."

"Yeah," I agreed. "I know this probably makes me sound awful, but I told her that night that I never wanted to see her again."

"I get that. You had to protect your peace. She doesn't deserve to be in your life if all she did was bring you frustration and anger."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"We went no-contact with our old man too. So, I'm never gonna judge you for that."

"Does anyone here have a family?" I asked. "No one really talks about them."

"Detroit has a father and brother. Coach has some family. And Colter had some but they didn't stay in touch when he went to prison. And Rook, obviously, has his mom. As a whole, though, I think the kind of people drawn to an outlaw biker club are ones who don't have anyone else."

"People looking for found family."

"Exactly," I agreed.

"Are all of the clubs like this one?"

"Golden Glades is. I think the mother chapter has a lot more actual family now too, but, yeah, it is still a place for people who are looking for family and connection, not just a job."

"I like that," I told him. "I think it's why I feel so at home here. Because that's how everyone else felt when they came, so they just embrace all the new strays that happen in."

"This is your home," he assured me, pressing a kiss to my head.

It felt like it.

Home.

Not just the clubhouse.

But right here in Riff's arms.

Nothing, I was sure, could ever come between us.