Gritting my teeth, I try not to focus on how I can still feel her possessive grip around my cock hours after last coming inside her.

  More than that, I can’t believe the woman is carrying my child. I’m going to be a father.

  Her rapid heartbeat against my tongue, her supple skin beneath my roughened fingertips. I keep looking at her in the barn’s soft lighting and I suddenly want to know what she looks like spread out on my bike taking my cock while the sun plays in her hair.

  She’s so delicate, yet so strong. I can’t honestly say I know her life’s story, but all of me wants to peel back the layers until every minute of her life lives in my brain.

  She’s at a table about ten paces from me, talking about some book, smelling of jasmine and honey. A lesser man would already have dragged her away from her book club and demanded she service him.

  If I try that, she'd probably kick me in my balls and in the same breath get right back to talking about her books. I can’t make out what she is saying, but every few minutes her hand tucks an invisible strand of hair behind her ear as if she can sense me listening in. Or maybe she can hear the erratic tap of my heart. She’s had it in a constant state of either panic or arousal since I rode up on her taking on the Vulture crew in the middle of Main Street.

  The woman doesn’t know when to back down. She’s mentioned a hard life and I want to wrap my fingers around whoever it is that put the fear in her eyes and turned such a wonderful person into someone so jaded.

  “You grip that beer bottle any harder, and you’ll regret it.”

  “Uhu?”

  “Look, man, go over to her and sit with her. Shit, how hard can it be to talk about romance and shit?”

  He’s right.

  “Harder than you think. I go over there and they say the wrong thing, I’ll He-Man her over my shoulder and you guys won’t see us for days. We have too much on the table.”

  Ash works on keeping his cocky grin to himself. “Fair enough. How about I scope out what they are talking about? I’ll signal you if the coast is clear.”

  I narrow my eyes on him. “Like we are in grade school again? Hard fucking pass.”

  He shrugs, not saying anything else.

  It’s been less than a day since I had her wrapped around my cock and I’m dying to scoop her up, take her back to the main house, and lock her in my room. I recognize in the depths of those pretty green eyes, she wants to run away one minute and run to me the next. I lost her once, but if she runs again, I won’t come back to Harlon until I find her…and our baby. Even if it means bringing her back kicking and screaming.

  I smirk at the mental picture of my Arabelle tied up and fighting me. I’m a sadistic son-of-a-bitch at times. But I’d make sure she’d love every fucking minute of it.

  Club members and candy mull around with cold drinks in their hands and good music coming over the sound system. Someone is manning the grill and there’s a cake around here somewhere. Charli practically pushed me onto my bike this afternoon to go pick Arabelle up for a little book club get-together. It was supposed to take place at the bookstore, but Charli is trying to play matchmaker, I think. She keeps shooting me with what-the-fuck glares over Arabelle’s shoulder and I keep staring right back.

  “Well? If you’re not going over there, at least tell me she knows she’s wearing the club mark on her finger, claiming her as Savage blood. The Vultures see that and you might as well put a neon sign on her head that says “Good as Dead”.”

  “Back in N’ Orleans, I didn’t exactly give it to her. She took it.”

  And then I took it off her neck and put it on her finger.

  Knowing she’s been wearing it all this time has my cock ready to jump out of my pants.

  I’ve told Ash just about everything I’ve gone through with my nomad life. He knows about the deals I’ve brokered, the people I’ve made disappear and the night I realized I found the one.

  “She probably doesn’t understand what wearing the ring means. Not to the extent of what you and I know, but she’s not stupid. She knows the MC life, brother.”

  “But does she know what that ring means to us? Thinking she knows and knowing she knows are two different worlds to a woman, man. Don’t fuck shit up with your arrogance. And I can say that because I’m your best fucking friend.”

  “Fuck you, Ash.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  He claps me on the back, but I take it for what it is. A reminder. It’s all too easy to lose what you love most. Arabelle isn’t the first woman I’ve fallen in love with. But she is the last one. I lost the woman I loved in my early twenties to inexperience. She didn’t want to wait for a man going off to war. I didn’t want her sitting around wondering if I would come back.

  So I let her go. Arabelle is not getting away from me that easily.

  “Come on. Let’s see if you still remember how to read.”

  There’s a bit of growling and rumbling, but Ash follows me to the ladies’ table. We take a seat next to Arabelle and she shoves a book in my hands before I get a word out of my mouth.

  “To be part of the book club, you need a book.”

  I look down at the book. “I know this author.”

  Arabelle

  All the giggling and smut talk dries up, and I know why without even looking behind me. Angel’s and Jinx’s cheeks turn a bright red and their eyes dart back to the pages of their dark mafia romance book.

  Reaper is walking up behind me. I can feel his energy draw closer and closer until the scent of his cologne overtakes me and he’s the only thing running through my mind.

  Instead of begging him to whisk me away to the part of the house that belongs to him, I shove a book in his hands.

  “You know her?”

  “Let’s just say she’s the reason I am breathing today. I got into some trouble in New York. She got me out of the corner I was painted into.”

  I can sense an air of friendship as he talks about her. Instead of feeling jealous, I feel measures of gratitude.

  “What happened?”

  That’s Angel. She’s as sweet as her name. Her invisible wings are tattered but not broken by the shit life can throw at a person. It’s what I like most about her.

  Reaper looks up at the girl he gave a home to when no one else would and gives her a placating smile. I’ve learned a lot about the people around this table, just talking about the taste we share in books. The triggers we avoid. Some don’t even know what makes them happy or what makes them pass on a book. But I like noting all those tiny details.

  The girl across the table loves emotional connection.

  “She wanted some insight on biker life in exchange for helping me get a bullet out of my shoulder,” he chuckles lightly. “I had no idea someone who wrote books for a living knew so much about cleaning bullet wounds.”

  He settles back in his chair and looks relaxed. “After that, I think I must have read five hundred romances in the span of a summer.”

  He cocks a grin that drips with memories of good times and some hell-raising. There’s not a dry eye at the table, including mine. Damn him. I lean in until I know it’s only me he can hear. He does the same as if hearing what I have to say is the most important thing to him.

  And my heart falls for him just like in a book. It’s imperceptible at first. I mistake it for lust or desire. But the more I think about it the more I realize it’s neither. The whirl of emotions and fluttering of my heart when he is near is because of something deeper and more connected to a part of my soul. A part no one has control over. Not even me.

  Mierda.

  Everyone continues talking around me, unaware of my tiny life epiphany.

  The spike of heat and the rapid heartbeats aren’t only because I want him to shove me up against the nearest wall or shelf. It’s because I’m falling in love with a Savage. Untamed, raw. Uncontrollable. A man I can’t save.

  Am I coming at this all wrong? Could it be me who is on the wrong side of all this chaos?

  I gather the inside of my lips between my teeth and gnaw at it lightly. What if he doesn’t need saving? Am I standing at the cusp of the abyss, the flames of change and choices licking at my feet with nowhere to go but through the fire?

  Would I burn myself for him?

  He’s already proven he will for me.

  I try to hate the motorcycle life and everyone in it, but the more time I spend with the Savage Reign crew, the more I see the disaster my stepdad and the Vultures bring to the people around them is worlds apart from Reaper’s. What Reaper and his family built for their crew and the people of Harlon is meant to help those in need. To give a family to anyone willing to have their backs.

  Reaper settles a hand on my knee as he recounts a few road stories to the ladies. Why he feels the need to lay a possessive hand on me as he talks I don’t know, but it feels good.

  I wrap my fingers around his for the rest of the hour. When the club candy starts to bicker about a name for the book club, I pull Reaper to his feet.

  “I kinda like the Naughty Riders,” I quip teasingly as he leads me from the old, cozy barn.

  He grabs the bridge of his nose and pinches. “Please, God, no.”

  I press my lips to the back of his hand and kiss him lightly before looking up at him. Instead of watching where we are walking, his eyes are on me.

  “Take me somewhere private,” I whisper in his ear seductively.

  14

  ARABELLE

  The night took an unexpected turn. I thought I was preparing for a night of girl talk, book love, and too many cookies at my place. Then Reaper showed up and demanded I move the book club meeting to his place. The note he handed over from Charli, sealed the deal.

  With the first book club night now a success and officially over, I let Reaper pull me onto the back of his bike. Moments later we leave his place and ride along the back roads of Harlon.

  Yesterday’s rain has cleared for the moment, and the beams of moonlight spilling down to Earth are mesmerizing.

  The power of the motor between my legs vibrates up my body. It’s a new sensation to add to all the others I’m feeling. Happiness is at the top of that list.

  I don’t know how long we ride. It feels like forever, yet not long enough when Reaper throttles down and points his motorcycle off the pavement.

  “Have you brought me parking?” I tease, winding my arms around his middle. The night air clings to him and I love how it melds with his body heat to create this unique aura of wild masculinity around him.

  We’ve come to a lookout ridge, where the parish glitters beneath us. Up here there’s not a thing in the world I can’t conquer.

  I expect something smartass and cocky, but he surprises me yet again. He runs his hands up my legs and leans back into my arms. He raises my legs to hook over his thighs and we just be for several heartbeats. I have my arms wrapped around him, my hands resting on his chest. I reach for the ring and turn it around and around.

  Silence has never been my friend. It begs me to fill it with something, anything.

  “When I was twelve my father left my mother with a thirty-thousand-dollar debt and two kids who needed more than she could provide as a single mother.”

  “Not all men are created equal, baby. I mean that, on a level of morality.”

  His head rests on my shoulder and I lean mine against his. Sitting like this, wrapped in warmth and a protective shield, I only feel with Reaper, I pour my soul out.

  “I was twelve or thirteen when my stepdad came onto the scene. He didn’t care about some other man’s child, much less two. But I could tell he loved my mother. But by that time, she was a shell of the woman I remembered. He cleared her debt with drug money and she gave him her loyalty all the while my older sister was pushing those drugs that paid her debt. Before long Mom was helping him, too. Within three years, my stepdad, mom, and sister were hooked on his product.”

  Reaper stays silent, stroking his hands up and down my legs as I let the words flow.

  “A couple of years later he went off to prison and she fell harder into drugs and alcohol. He kicked the habit while behind bars. She didn’t. Nor did my sister.”

  “And you?”

  I shrug and keep my eyes pinned out over the ledge of the cliff, not looking at anything.

  “Let’s just say, the way you and your family built up your club, is significantly more different from the one my stepdad headed. They looked at me as a game. Instead of caring for my mother or me while he was behind bars, they chased me for fun and fed her more dope. Then the rivals, the fighting, the bullet holes in our house walls. Nights of terror thinking that night would be my last haunt my dreams to this day. I still wake up in the dead of night from panic attacks, from time to time.”

  Reaper stiffens in my arms and sits up. He reaches around for me and I’m on the front of the bike spread over his lap in mere seconds.

  The one time I opt for jeans, I think ruefully but I can see from the murder in Reaper’s eyes that his track of mind is not in the gutter with mine.

  “Where are these men now?”

  I pin my eyes out over his shoulder, my past a blur of shadows clouding my vision. “The Fire Breathers. Stupid fucking name if you ask me,” I say feeling distant for a moment.

  “Where are they?” he repeats. The gentle warmth of his palms cupping my face brings me back to him.

  “Gone. My stepdad is in prison again, and my mom is in rehab. I left her there and split town almost two years ago with my sister. It was a spontaneous decision for both of us. We thought New Orleans would be our ticket to freedom. As for the gang, those that didn’t go down with my stepdad this time headed out.”

  “Did those men ever touch you?” his voice is laced with death. Chills scurry up my spine at the intent buried in his tone.

  My gaze drifts up to his, and I stare into his bold, black eyes. “No, Reaper. I learned how to fight at an early age. I had a lot of practice.”

  He wraps his arms around me and my world melts down to this moment. Right here, right now. I inhale his scent, take in the way our bodies mold to one another’s and just live in the moment.

  “The night I met you, the torture in my soul dissolved. It was the anniversary of my sister’s overdose.”

  “Fuck, baby. I’m damn sorry.”

  He pauses a heartbeat before continuing.

  “Before you, I lived with grief and pain day in and day out from my days in the military. From the days and years after when I did dirty work for men I rather not talk about. Your gentle touches and fiery kisses set something loose inside me. You healed a part of me I didn’t know how to fix. I fell asleep that night in love.”

  I sit up. We are so close, that the air I pull into my lungs is the same as his.

  He traces a finger down the side of my cheek. “And then I woke to find you gone and my heart broke.” His voice is tight. I can tell sharing his deeper emotions isn’t something he does often. This window into his vulnerability is humbling.

  I listen, unable to form words around the lump of guilt in my throat for a long moment.

  “I didn’t want to leave, but I knew I couldn’t stay. I didn’t know where I belonged then.”

  “And now?” He rests a hand over our growing baby while his other slides up to rest on the back of my head.

  Locked in our tiny cocoon, I peel back a tiny sliver of the metal wall I hide my true emotions behind. I owe him the truth. As much as it hurts. “Sometimes, when I am alone in the back of my bookstore at night, I want to just get in my car and drive away. I don’t know where I would go, but the idea of drifting away into nothing seems appealing sometimes.”

  Reaper’s whole body tenses and he hugs me to his hard, muscled frame a little tighter. “But I haven’t wanted to do that lately,” I reassure him and kiss his cheek lightly. “Our baby deserves better.”

  “You are never alone. I was an asshole to not find you the second you showed up in Harlon.”

  He pulls back and studies my face for a long moment. The moon has moved across the sky and the soft, silver glow leaves shadows across his handsome, rugged face.

  Leaning in, he presses his forehead to mine.

  “Don’t ever think you don’t belong here. I’m weak and I’m strong with you, baby. I hope you see you have a place here. With me. With the Savages.”

  “Why didn’t you come to find me when I came to town?”

  He pauses a moment, and for the first time I see him look sheepish.

  “I couldn’t bring myself to go looking for you. What if you didn’t want to see me? What if you only wanted that one night and I served my purpose?” His words are raw and brimming with so much emotion I feel them to my core.

  It’s my turn to cup his face. “Is my big, badass biker turning soft? Were you afraid I would reject you? Oh, Reaper. We were both scared. Why did you think I came here?” I peer up at him expectantly. His gentle-sloping smirk falters like he’s going to speak, but he doesn’t answer with words after all.

  His lips are on mine, devouring, taking, and saying all the words we both need to hear without a sound between us. He moves to the side of my neck and leaves behind a trail of molten heat in the wake of his hungry mouth.

  My fingers are in his hair. “I picked a terrible night to wear jeans, didn’t I?”

  His laugh is rough, and the rumbling of his chest against mine makes me feel whole. “We’ll make it work.” He bites down on my lower lip and he might as well have found the control buttons for my libido.

  I moan into his mouth, wet heat soaking my panties.

  A jingle goes off on my phone that I recognize as my security camera. “Just a sec.” I pull it out of my back pocket and bring up the feed.

  Panic shoots through me.

  Reaper goes on high alert at the way I freeze.

  “What is it?” he demands.

  My heart lurches and I nearly collapse at the site of my life going up in smoke and flames.