Page 17 of Gage

“Again,” he said.

The order was rough enough to make me obey before I could tease him for it.

Gage drove into me harder, each stroke pressing my fingers exactly where I needed them. Pleasure tightened until my body couldn't hold it. I came around him with my face turned into the pillow, his name breaking loose while my thighs shook across his.

He kept moving through every pulse. His grip locked around my hip, and three rough thrusts later he buried himself deep with a harsh curse. The loss of discipline in a man built from control sent another aftershock through me.

For a moment neither of us moved. Then Gage withdrew and came back beside me, hair disordered and satisfaction plain on his face. When he pulled the blanket over us, I tucked one hand beneath his jaw and felt his pulse settling under my fingertips. A motorcycle rolled through the gate outside. Gage listened until the engine cut, then looked back at me.

For a while we stayed tangled together while the compound moved around us. Men crossed the hall, a bike started near the garage and somebody laughed at the bar before being told to shut the fuck up. None of it reached inside the room. I traced the scar across Gage's shoulder and wondered what he looked like somewhere that wasn't built around club business and men carrying guns.

“What’s your place like?” I asked.

He opened one eye. “House. Got a porch, a bad couch, and a fridge that’s mostly beer, eggs and shit Smoke leaves there.”

I laughed against his shoulder. “Sounds irresistible.”

His hand moved lazily over my hip. “You can complain about it in person when this is over.”

The words were casual, but they landed like something more. For the first time since my father had summoned me to that hotel, I could picture a day beyond the next locked gate or phone call, and the picture had Gage in it without my father anywhere nearby.

Darkness had settled by the time he dressed and left to check the compound. I showered down the corridor, then returned with damp hair and one of the clean shirts from my bag. A bike started in the yard. Boots crossed the hall, followed by Smoke telling somebody to take food to the gate before it went cold.

When I reached the main room, Smoke pushed half a sandwich across the bar without comment. Havoc had by now reassembled the handgun and was now sitting with his boots hooked around a chair leg, watching the front windows in the mirror behind the bottles.

“Where's Gage?” I asked.

“Walking the south fence because apparently I did it wrong.” Smoke glanced at the closed corridor door, then at my wet hair. “You break the bed?”

“Mind your business,” I replied, but feeling my cheeks flushing with heat.

“Wall's thin. Be quieter or be proud,” Smoke replied dryly.

Havoc took a drink. “He means be quieter.”

Gage came through the front doors before I found a smarter answer. “Smoke, Shade wants you at the garage side.”

Smoke's amusement vanished. “Movement?”

“Maybe. Lights cut on the old service road.” Gage took the untouched half of my sandwich and bit into it.

“You could ask, you know.”

“Could.”

I picked up the rest of the sandwich. Havoc looked between us and shook his head once.

“Don't,” Gage told him.

“Didn't say shit.”

“Your face did.”

I choked on a laugh. Gage's eyes narrowed, but as he opened his mouth to reply a sharp bang from the garage made the walls tremble. Another followed, louder, and men moved at once.

“Garage,” Havoc called. “Fire on the west wall.”

Smoke shouted for the extinguishers while the outer alarm began ringing. Through the front windows, orange light jumped against the side of Salvation Motor Works.