Page 43 of Tyrant

I worked on all of what I would say the whole drive. The last few days. The last five years. He’s studying me with a fierce, unreadable expression.

“I’ll earn it. Your trust, your love, your friendship, your hope, your cock.”

“Birdie!” A low rumble of laughter works its way up his throat. “I keep telling you, you don’t have toearnmy cock.” He loses the smile and grows serious. “I know you had an idea of me before, but Raiden and I kept a lot of our lives from you. That’s half the problem. I understand you’re seeing this as no life for achild. There’s not a brother at the club who doesn’t worry about how his choices might affect his kids, but show me a father who doesn’t worry.” He thumps a fist over his chest. “I’m not the devil or the grim reaper. Everyone knows I have a heart and when it comes down to it, I’m pretty damn soft. But I am a member of Satan’s Angels MC, and I’m always going to be until the day I die. It’s my code. I live and I love and breathe by it.”

I know what he’s asking me. Can I accept that fully and truly? Can I love him as the man he is now? “I know I left, but I never did get over you. I couldn’t breathe without you. I dated to try and get out of your shadow, but the truth is, I’ve never been with anyone but you. Penny’s yours. I’m yours. We always have been. It’s a huge fucking risk and I’m scared to death of what’s coming, but I love you with all of me.” I’m nothing but a bleeding heart and a whisper now.

Gray widens his stance, ready to fight off any invisible threat. He’s so fierce and beautiful, my fallen angel. I want to do this with him. The hard living and the easy, for as long as we have. I want to be as fierce as he is, a warrior inside and out.

He lets out a ragged sound, like bones and muscles, his very heart being torn in half. “I have zero plans of ever letting you go. I was trying to be polite about it, but I wasn’t ever going to give up. I didn’t doubt it since that first moment I knew you were back in Hart. I love you and I swear to you I will build a world of happiness and joy for you and Penny. I’ll kill anyone who gets in the way, anyone who even thinks about hurting you, or my daughter. I love you, Lark Anette Joy Gardiner. My Birdie.”

I’ve been running to Gray in one form or other since I could walk. He opens his arms and I fly at him, the years and the betrayal, lies, silence, and pain cracking wide open and splittingapart in the room, drenched in the lightning of our desire, in forgiveness and promise, love and peace.

He picks me up after I crash into him, letting me tangle my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. I fist his hair brutally, driving his mouth down to mine. Gray whips us around, pressing me hard against the wall. He brutalizes my mouth, his tongue stroking mine into a storm of lightning that whipped straight between my legs. I’m drenched so fast that all I can do is whimper. My desperation to have Gray inside me hurts about the same.

I put my hands up, planting them behind me, palms flat to the wall for leverage. I try to writhe against Gray, taking what I need, but he keeps me pinned between his hard body. I’m going nowhere, taking nothing until he’s willing to give it to me.

He drags his teeth over my neck and sucks my earlobe, his breath hot and feral against my skin. It’s been five years. Five. Fucking. Years. The universe decided we were never supposed to be together, but we’ve been it for each other all this time. To me, that says a thousand times more than flowery words of romance.There’s been no one else. There will never be anyone else.

“How wet are you, Lark?”

“W-wet,” I stammer. If I haven’t soaked through my jeans already, I’d be shocked.

“Maybe I should let you down and you should check.”

I don’t want him to let me down. I’m shaking my head, but he’s already dislodging me, setting my feet on the floor. I’ve never been so desperate for anything as I am to get us stripped out of our clothes and get his cock inside of me. I growl in frustration as he bats my hands away from his belt.

“I want this moment worse than I’ve wanted anything. Will you undress for me? Show me your sweet body, the body that I’ve been dreaming of and longing for all these years? Will you let me touch you, love you, remake you and be remade by you, me, and no other man?”

“Gray,” I choke. Hot tears well up in my eyes. He’s never going to write poems for me, but he doesn’t need to. His poetry is his desire, hard and stark and utterly naked, imprinted into his very being.

I’ve never taken my sweater off so fast. My black sports bra is hardly sexy. I’m awkward as fuck getting it over my head because now that Gray’s eyes are on me, I’m shaking so hard it makes me clumsy.

I run my hands over my breasts, touching myself without taunting. I just need hands on my body. Mine. Gray’s.

“Please, Gray. Write your name on my body with your lips and your tongue. Write me a forever born of your love.”

He groans, capturing my breast with one rough palm. He rolls my nipple between his fingers, pinching so hard I gasp. He drops to his knees, so tall his face is still pretty much level with mine. He pinches one nipple while he licks and bites the other. He scrapes his beard over both of them, tickling me, but also drawing a straight line of pleasure right down to my throbbing core. “Beautiful.” He sucks my nipple again, letting it pop loudly out of his mouth. “Tastes like sweet strawberry candy.”

“You don’t even like strawberries.”

“I do now.” He reaches around me and grabs my ass firmly in both hands. “You still have these jeans on. ShouldI take them off? Unwrap you like the gift you are? The most beautiful gift I could ever imagine?”

“Yes. Yes, yes, please, god, yes.”

He’s much quicker than I would have been, stripping me down to my white cotton panties. Gray spreads my legs apart and kisses me over the cloth. He sucks my clit through the cotton and licks my slit so hard that the fabric clings to the outline of me. Seeing his big head bowed between my legs while I stand here leaning against the wall for support, is the headiest dream.

“Even sweeter than strawberries,” he groans.

He pushes my underwear aside and licks straight from the source. I almost scream before I remember to bite down on the sound, so I don’t wake up Penny. She’s just across the hall. If she wakes up, she’ll have no idea where she is or where I am.

“Can you be quiet, Birdie, or do you need to bite down on your hand?”

I twist my hand to the side and sink my teeth in.

“You’ll need to stay silent, my sweet strawberry queen. I have every intention of plundering this glorious pussy until you’re coming all over my face.”

He shoves me up harder up against the wall, lifts my legs onto his shoulders in one swift move, and delves straight to the center of me. His tongue is sweet. Sweeter and darker than any sin. If this is sin, then I don’t want to go to heaven. I don’t want redemption. I don’t want the light and the goodness. I want the dark. I want Gray.

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