Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
He remains silent. The kind of silent that feels like gravity shifted. Then he moves slowly, as if he’s afraid to spook me, stepping forward until our bodies almost touch. His wounded hand rises, shaking, and he cups my cheek. “You loved me,” he repeats, voice barely audible.
“I did and I still do.”
His breath catches like I sucker punched him.
He doesn’t speak. He just looks at me. Like he’s been starving and I’m the first real meal in front of him. Then his hands are on me.
Strong. Certain. Shaking just enough to tell me this isn’t about control, it’s about need.
He grips my hips and lifts me clean off the floor like I weigh nothing, my back hitting the wall with a soft thud that knocks the breath from my lungs. The cool surface contrasts with the heat of him pressed against me, the solid strength of his body bracketing mine in.
“Riot,” I breathe.
My legs wrap around his waist without thinking, muscle memory and instinct taking over. His forehead drops to my collarbone as he exhales, slow and wrecked, like holding me upright is the only thing keeping him grounded.
“I thought I lost you,” he murmurs into my skin. “I thought I’d never get you back.”
“You have me,” I say, threading my fingers into his hair, holding him there. “I’m right here.”
That’s all it takes.
He lifts his head and kisses me like he’s been holding himself back, slow at first, then deeper, rougher, full of all the things we didn’t say when we were pretending this was just fun. His mouth moves to my neck, my jaw, the place under my ear that makes my knees weak, and I gasp as his grip tightens, grounding me against him.
The wall is solid behind me. He is solid everywhere else.
Every inch of space between us disappears. Clothes come off and skin to skin the fire between us is hotter than ever before. His fingers slide between my slick heat before he lines his cock up entering me, stretching me, and filling me in a level of ecstasy I have never felt before.
His breath is hot against my skin, his voice low and broken when he says my name, like it’s a prayer he’s afraid to say wrong. My hands roam over his shoulders, his back, feeling the tension there finally start to give, like he’s letting go of something he’s carried too long.
“I love you,” he says again, like he needs to hear it echo back.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper.
He presses his forehead to mine, breathing hard, and the world narrows to the sound of our hearts, the heat between us, the way my body responds to him like it always has—like it always will.
Time blurs. There’s no fear here. No past. No what-ifs. No more reserve. No need to hold back.
Now we are holding each other. Him holding me up, holding me together, kissing me like this is the moment everything finally lines up.
When it crests, it’s not explosive—it’s overwhelming. A rush of relief and want and love all tangled together, leaving me clinging to him, breathless, my face buried in his neck as he groans softly, arms locked around me like he’ll never let go.
We stay there long after, pressed together, breathing each other in.
His hand slides up my back, slow and delicate, like he’s memorizing the feel of me now that he knows he gets to keep it.
“Still here?” he murmurs.
I smile against his skin, heart full, body warm, finally whole.
“Always.”
Twenty-Five
Ledger
Some ghosts stay buried. Some find their way out of the dark. Some you carry like a shrapnel wound.
I awake after a night of sleep like I haven’t experienced since childhood. The peace of not holding back with Kelly is something I can’t describe.
She’s here, in my arms, not going anywhere. Jonas drugged her causing the memory loss and she is indeed getting the pieces back little bits at a time.
Chux text and it’s time I make my way to the holding cell. As the full Alabama Kings are ready to descend to support if needed, it is time to get to the bottom of the threat posed by Jonas Greene and make decisions. We have ten chapters in Alabama alone and hundreds worldwide with Kings of Anarchy in every single state of the United States. We are a band of brothers who will rise together and fall together.
But I don’t want to drag anyone else into this if we can clean it up on our own. I’ve already been to two different chapters compounds, clubhouse, or safehouses during this time with Kelly. I’m ready to finish this bullshit with Jonas, my past, and get back to life in Freedom Falls.
I always thought the illegal shit we run through the port would be my undoing not a situation from my past that I do not regret.