Chapter 25

TWENTY-FIVE

MILES

I t's been a full day since the explosion. It's also been a day since we left a little treat for the Jackals leaning against The Dirty Pour's entrance. I don't know if Vito's true intent was to start a war over his sister, but after I killed his man in the restaurant bathroom, it turned into something personal. Especially after they blew up Kylo's tow truck. Had it been anything else, we'd have decimated the fucking bar, and they likely knew that.

How they found us is the more pressing issue.

"So, we think it was Aella?" Kylo asks, and I come back around. Braxton and Kylo are before me in my office, and I reach up and rub my temples.

Anger has been my constant state since she left and all this shit began. Since Aella Montague showed up, our lives have been turned upside down, and it's easy to see the two as connected, even if I know they're not.

"What do you mean it was Aella ?" I ask, voice leaking venom.

Brax clears his throat, pulling my stare over to him. "He means she came here, and she was likely followed. They had eyes on her before, when they infiltrated that restaurant. They know she's a sore spot for us, and they're angry. It would stand to reason she was being followed, even if she didn't think she was."

I know he's right. She didn't realize how far away someone could be and still have her on their radar. I'm still angry that she didn't listen, even if I had registered the change in my brother since she came into his life. After so much commotion last night, he's being helpful in my office rather than being dug into his basement and overwhelmed. I wholeheartedly believe it's because of her.

Since then, I've thought of nothing but them on the hood of that fucking Lexus, fucking under a blanket of Oregon stars. Half of me is happy it finally happened. The other half of me is jealous. Not because it was him instead of me, but because I wasn't there to witness it.

I scrub the thoughts and words that have been lingering in my mind.

There had been a moment between Braxton and me, one I don't like to think about because it confuses me. It seems he's comfortable discussing it as if it's as natural to him as breathing.

My upbringing was clear cut, black and white, especially in this world, but Braxton believes sexuality is as fluid as you want it to be. He has no shame in his feelings or wants, and I wish I could be the same.

"Hello? Pres?" Kylo says, waving his hands in front of my face. "What's our next move? "

"Is Sully back on Aella?" I ask Braxton, ignoring Kylo completely. He huffs at the dismissal and sits back in his chair.

Braxton nods. "He is. He swapped with Blaze early this morning. However, Blaze said she came running out into the street when she couldn't get you on the phone last night. She was distraught, he said."

"She can't be doing that," I tell him, scrubbing my face in annoyance.

"Blaze told her as much," Brax replies.

My eyes snap at him. "How did he tell her?"

Blaze can be a loose cannon. He also has very pointed views on relationships inside the club.

"Told her she needs to lie low and behave herself was all he told me," Kylo answers.

A snarl gets caught in my throat at the thought of anyone telling her what to do other than myself or Braxton, and Brax smirks knowingly.

"Where do we think they're going to hit back?" Kylo says, not realizing the moment going on between Braxton and me. He's oblivious to most things surrounding him, making him easy to work with.

"If I were them? Zeke's. I'll need you to get a couple of men on watch over there."

Kylo nods. "Will do, Pres."

Braxton and I remain silent when he stands and moves out of the room like he knows I need it.

"Blaze was doing his job," Brax says, breaking the silence.

"I know that."

He chuckles. "You can't kill him," he adds .

"I know that, too."

He smiles, standing and nodding to me. "Sully said she's been organizing things all day today. He thinks she starts at the factory tomorrow."

"Alright, thanks."

Brax opens the door and then thinks better of leaving. He turns back. "Why didn't you answer her call?"

I sigh, pressing back into my massive leather chair that has seen better days. "Because talking to her right then, when it was all fresh… I'd have gone to her, Brax. It's not a wise move."

Braxton shrugs. "Probably not, but I bet it would put her mind at ease, Miles. She can't go into that factory with her mind all jumbled. She needs to be clear-headed."

His words linger long after he's gone, and it has me pulling the burner from my pocket and sending hers a text.

Remember the boutique?

I stare at it awhile, wondering if she'll answer me. It doesn't take long until I get a notification, and I glare at it with a smug smile on my face when she replies:

How could I forget about the boutique?

Meet me there at ten tonight. In the alleyway. Blaze will accompany you.

Yes, sir .

I shake my head as I pocket the phone again, smirking. She knows just how to boil my fucking blood. Half of the heat in my veins has nothing to do with seeing her tonight or what she said. It's the authentic imagery of her and Braxton together, the two people I hold the closest to me, that haunts my fucking brain.

Standing in the dark alley, I shift as I hear footsteps approaching. When Blaze stops at the end of the alley, Aella looks towards me. She can't see me.

She looks at Blaze for confirmation before he nudges her with his hand.

When he's sure she's alright and sees me step from the shadows towards her, he turns his back. The alley only has one exit, and he guards it, hand on his hip, where I know his gun is holstered.

"You're alright," she breathes as I envelop her.

"I'm alright, princess." Her scent washes over me as I drop my face into her hair.

"Are you alright?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I miss you. I miss Brax. I was always fine alone. The life I've been living for the last few days is one I've always known, but now it seems foreign, and I don't like it."

My heart breaks for her because I can't imagine what she's going through. She's doing it for us.

"So, come home. We'll figure out another way to do this," I tell her, lifting her chin upward and not giving her a chance to answer.

My lips connect with hers hungrily. Passion moves between us as I back her to the brick wall behind her. I capture her gasp as her back hits the building.

"We need to do this," she breathes before I kiss her again.

Her tongue presses against mine, and one of her legs hooks around me. I want nothing more than to take from her, even though I know I shouldn't. Even though I know this isn't the time or the place.

"Aella," I breathe, pulling back from her mouth so I can think.

"Mm," she murmurs, hand cupping my cheek.

"We have to be sensible. This isn't the place I want to sink into that beautiful body for the first time," I admit.

She smiles. "What's it matter?"

I lean forward and nibble her bottom lip, reveling in the hitch in her breathing and the moan she lets loose. "Greedy, greedy girl, aren't you?"

She laughs breathlessly. "No. I'm just a realist. What does it matter where you are when you do something if it's what you want to do?"

"Mmm, and what you want to do is let me fuck you against a dingy wall in the middle of a dark alley while Blaze watches our six?"

She turns, registering where Blaze is standing stoically, looking around attentively. Almost as if she'd forgotten he was there.

"I know that should put me off, all you've just said, but it doesn't. What does that make me?" she asks, looking back at me.

I'm hovering near her face, trying to keep my fucking wits, but it's not working. Not when she's so willing to give me what I crave.

"It makes you addicting; that's what it makes you," I tell her, closing the small distance between us. I'm lost to her and the feel of her kiss.

Her kisses are unrestricted. There's no hesitance or thought behind her lips moving with mine, only raw feeling and need.

I reach down, finally registering she's in a short dress. She's got boots on and a denim jacket. Her pussy is uncovered, and I growl as my hand skims across shaved, silky skin.

"Did you come here with intentions of fucking me, Ms. Montague?"

She shrugs. "A girl can hope, can't she?"

"Are you still sore?" I ask, slipping two fingers between her folds and through the wetness of her center.

"From Brax? He told you?" she breathes.

"Of course, he told me."

"Are you mad?" she asks, and she tries to maintain a calm facade, but her features grow heated as I slip a finger inside her tight cunt.

"Fuck to penetrate this beautiful pussy finally, Aella…"

Of course, I was mad she disobeyed an order, and I don't know that she wasn't the reason the clubhouse was hit, but the tension building between us was all I could focus on.

The way she's grinding over my hand, begging for more with each panted breath, has my brain on a single track, and it's not one that discusses all the bullshit surrounding us.

I slide another finger inside her, and she lets her head fall back to the building behind her and a moan to slip free. "Miles.".

The image of her and Brax and what they might've done comes back to me, and my cock gets even harder behind my pants.

"You're so fucking beautiful, Aella."

Leaning down, I kiss her neck before nibbling her flesh and making her grind harder on my hand. There's going to be a damp spot in my pants where the evidence of how badly I want her is leaking from me, but I don't care to rush it.

"Tell me, princess, did my brother fuck you good?" I whisper in her ear, pumping harder and grinding the heel of my palm over her clit.

"Y—Yes," she stammers.

"Did you come all over his cock?" I tease, nipping the shell of her ear with my teeth.

She's wetter and wetter the more I tease her, and the thought that I'm touching her where he already was has my eyes rolling back in my head.

Something about sharing with him is so fucking hot. It's something I'll allow myself to have of him even if I won't let other aspects of us become anything .

"I did," she finally answers when I fuck my fingers into her quicker, heel grinding harder.

"Where did he come?" I ask. "Did he fill this tight cunt with his cum? Or did he paint your pouty lips with it?"

Her nails grip into my shoulder, and my cock twitches at the sting of pain.

"Tell me, princess, or I won't let you come."

"He… he came on my tattoo. On my Cobra," she finally says, and I'm sure her cheeks are heated with not only lust but embarrassment. To me, it's the hottest fucking idea I've ever had plastered in my mind's eye.

I pull out of her, licking my fingers and tasting her tang on my tongue. "Did he, now?"

She nods and then pulls her short dress up, showing not only her bare pussy, but the massive inky tattoo we'd branded her with. Her other hand rubs over the Cobra slowly as her eyes stay locked on mine. "He said he was marking me as his when he came. Thick ropes of cum covered me when he was done. Too bad you weren't there to see it," she teases.

I'm on her in a flash, my mouth colliding with hers as I free myself from my pants.

When I press inside her, she gasps. I give her a moment to adjust. While Braxton is longer than I am, I'm wider. I know she needs a second to get used to the feeling. Before she gives me the go-ahead, I slide out and back in, letting her grip me and massage me with her tight canal.

"Fuck, princess… I knew you were going to feel good, but this… fuck! "

"God, how will I ever choose one of you?" she groans as I roll and grind against her clit, giving her the friction I know she needs to fall apart for me.

"Who the fuck said you had to?" I growl, kissing her until her mouth grows lax, falling open to breathe as the pleasure builds in her body to new levels.

"Once this is over, I'm going to watch my brother fuck you," I groan, feeling my orgasm building already.

She's too tight. So fucking tight.

"Yes!" she cries, and I don't know if it's in answer to what I said or because she's going to come for me.

"Then he's going to hold you down, so I can fuck your ass raw," I add, barely getting it out through gritted teeth.

She grabs for me, holding on tight, and part of me panics because I need to pull out of her.

"Come inside me," she says, eyes frantic, breaths rapid. "I'm on birth control. Fuck, Miles! Come inside me," she begs, and then her head falls back, and her body clenches around me as she comes violently.

"Goddamnit, Aella!" Thrusting upward, I empty my orgasm inside her, feeling a sense of pride that it's the first she's ever had coat her walls.

"Holy crap!" she breathes, and then she looks over to Blaze, who is still pretending he can't hear a thing.

My lips find her ear. "I want more, princess. I want so much more, but I need to get you home."

She turns and kisses me slowly, her kiss becoming fraught with emotion as the moments pass by. "I won't be home until I pull back onto Cobra property."

Something in me locks into place. If there was a question about what Brax and I are doing with her and how I feel, it's gone.

"Well, then let's get this shit over with so you can come home, hm?"

"That's more like it," she says, and when I pull out of her, she hisses.

She's an addiction, and that's for certain—one we've both already killed for. I feel much more bloodshed is to come before it's all over.

But she's worth it.