Page 4 of Lone Star

She went. How could she not? She’d never been able to resist his charm, and the smug bastard knew it. But, oh…it was worth the concession when his big hands settled on her waist and he hauled her up higher in his lap like she weighed nothing. When he cupped her face and brought her mouth down to his with lowered lids, and a quick bite of his lip, and a look like she was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen.

This was different from their hello kiss. This one started slow, gentle, like he was acquainting himself with the taste of her all over again. He cupped her cheek, thumb gliding along the line of her jaw, the pad of it rough with calluses, drawing a shiver from her. With the barest pressure, he tilted her head, angling the kiss and touching his tongue to her lips, asking, so sweetly, for entry. When she opened, his tongue slipped inside, and then the kiss wentdeep. Still unhurried, but lush, and wet, and hungry.

His other hand slid up beneath her shirt again, fingers climbing her ribs like a ladder.

“Mmm,” she hummed against his mouth. “Forward.”

He chuckled, and closed his hand over her breast; the nipple pebbled against his palm, so tight it ached. “I’m not the one who’s not wearing a bra.”

She put both hands on his pecs and squeezed. “Maybe you should.”

“Ooh, gonna take that as a compliment, baby.” He stood, and scooped her up, her stomach swooping, a laugh bursting out of her mouth before she managed to clap a hand over her lips and choke it off.

“Shh, don’t wake the kid,” he stage-whispered.

“Don’t make me,” she hissed back, and nearly choked on a giggle.

He carried her to their bedroom, heeling the door shut silently in a move they’d both perfected over the last two years. He set her down carefully on the foot of the bed; he’d been known to toss her down – even that carefully – so she bounced, and laughed, and then kissed the laugh right out of her mouth. But that had stopped when they’d learned she was pregnant again; he’d been treating her with nothing short of reverence since. It made her feel loved and cherished…even if she wished, a little, for some of the wilder nights.

When he unbuckled his belt, his hands were at eye level for her, and the lamplight glimmered off his rings: the simple gold wedding band she’d slipped on his finger two years ago, and the chunky dog’s head ring on his right hand, its jaws open, fangs bared, ears back. His Lean Dog ring – her Uncle Walsh had one similar.

Thought of the Dogs brought what she’d just seen on the TV back to the forefront of her mind. “What happened to Pacer?” she asked.

The belt – tooled floral leather – hissed through the loops and landed over on the corduroy armchair with a muffled thump when he tossed it. “Blue and I took him back home. He rents his cabins at the compound to a couple of his younger guys, and they said they’d look after him tonight: make sure he ate something, and didn’t get too drunk. We offered to bring him back here with us, but he thought he needed to be with his own club.” A shadow crossed his face as he said it, and he shook his head, mouth turned down with obvious sadness.

“Does he have a wife? A girlfriend? Anyone to lean on?” All the men in her life had one thing in common: the need of a soft place to land when shit got a little too real. For the first forty-five years of his life, Jenny had been that for Candy; a devoted, good-hearted sister. But there was only so far a sister’s love could go; some nights, even the biggest, meanest bikers needed a lap to lay their heads in, an ear to listen to the words that stood in place of tears they fought not to shed.

“Nah. He had a girl back twenty years ago, but she wouldn’t marry him, and he doesn’t keep anybody steady.” He undid the buttons of his flannel and shrugged out of it, tossed it over with the belt, leaving him in an old white wifebeater worn soft from countless washings. The room was warm, but his nipples were peaked, stiff points visible through the fabric. He grabbed the hem and peeled it off over his head, muscles of his torso bunching and flexing with the motion.

And, oh, thereweremuscles. Acres of them, the swells of pecs, and the chiseled definition of abs, throwing shadows in the low light. His Wranglers rode low enough to show off the sharp V of his Adonis line.

When she finally lifted her gaze to his face – her own feeling fever-warm – he lifted his brows and said, “Still wanna talk about Pacer?” He fought a grin. “Or is there something else on your mind?”

“Well,” she said, aiming for prim, unable to keep from wetting suddenly-dry lips; his eyes tracked the flicker of her tongue. “I was just thinking that you’re in remarkably good shape for a man of your advanced years.”

He chuckled darkly, and pounced.

Pounced carefully.

He undressed her, and she got him out of his jeans, tight enough to make the process difficult, but worth it to watch him walk around in them. He laid her out and lay worship to her, from mouth to knees, with his lips, sucking almost delicately at each nipple in turn, her breasts already swollen and tender. He teased at her sex, little kitten licks, until she was tugging on his hair, and then he reared up above her, pulled her thighs around his waist, and entered her on a slow, breath-stealing stroke.

He leaned down to kiss her as his hips started up a leisurely rhythm, his tongue mimicking the movement between her lips. “God, Mama, you’re perfect,” he murmured, one hand braced by her head, the other smoothing up and down her side, skating between them to touch her belly, the life growing inside it.

The problem with marrying into the club was the body count: the dark moments when someone threatened them and theirs. When you had to look over your shoulder, and lock your doors, and treat paranoia like religion.

But the thing that made it worthwhile? This, always this. She kissed him back, and lifted her hips to meet his, and resolved to worry about all the problems tomorrow.

Knoxville

Four

Fox wasn’t restless. He wasn’t, he wasn’t, he wasn’t, he–

Okay. He was restless.

He wore a Tennessee bottom rocker these days, and he sat in on church around Ghost’s ornate, long dining table with the other Tennessee boys. He spent his days tinkering with bikes or cars, and he ate lunch with Mercy, and Aidan, and Tango, and Carter instead of Jinx, and Cowboy, and Gringo, and Talis. He told himself over and over that this life wasn’t any different from the life he’d been living in Texas. And, here, he was even training two proteges. Three, if you counted Evan, which he usually didn’t. He was still a Lean Dog, still a contributing member of the club, still himself, with all his accumulated skills and experiences.

He’d even gained some things – like Eden, who wasn’t a thing, but a person; he liked making the distinction in his own head so he never slipped and said the wrong thing to her. And he had the opportunity, now, surprisingly, to watch perhaps his favorite brother floundering for the first time in memory. Albie’s face the day he’d shown up, sheepish and uncertain, had beenpriceless.

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