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Amy had threatened to burn our house down if I didn’t let her throw us a wedding party.
I’d agreed because I liked our house. Our home. It was small, right by the ocean, it was nicer than I ever thought I’d have. Not because it was just a cottage in California with an ocean view. Because it was somewhere I was putting down roots. Which was why I needed to hang this picture, because, when I’d been in Cain’s arms, thinking of tomorrow, I’d realized our home didn’t have pictures. And hanging pictures created a permanence. So I thought if I got up, and hung the photo, then Cain couldn’t be taken away from me tomorrow, these roots couldn’t be ripped out, even though they had only just begun to grow.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I said by explanation, because no way I was putting all that on Cain, tonight of all nights. When he was riding out to fucking war in eleven hours.
He turned me so he could cup my face and I could get all girly over how fucking hot he was. “You can’t sleep, you wake me up,” he commanded. “You can do it with your mouth on my dick if you feel like fucking me back to sleep.”
My pussy clenched.
He ran his thumb over my bottom lip, eyes probing. “You feel like talking, you just wake me up. I’m not sleepin’ while my woman tosses and turns.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
Me.
I never whispered or agreed when Cain decided to order me around.
Obviously he tried to order me around because he was an alpha male biker, surrounded by all sorts of other alpha male bikers.
He did not get to order me around.
Except in the bedroom.
And, as it happened, at one in the morning before he and the club went to war with an international criminal.
“I like it here,” I said.
He grinned. “I’m glad, since we’ve bought a home here.”
“I like it here, and I’ve got roots when I thought I was gonna be some kind of nomad forever,” I continued. “I’m terrified tomorrow is going to rip those roots out. Rip me to pieces. Because as much as I didn’t think I’d fit in with Old Ladies and women who have about ten thousand different products in their skincare routine, and love to talk about it in details, I somehow fit.”
His hands tightened. “Of course you fuckin’ fit,” he growled. “And those roots are only going to grow deeper. Curl around this soil. And we’re gonna put more photos up.” He looked to the wall. “Well, I’ll put the photos up ‘cause that’s wonky as shit. But we’re gonna stay. For the long haul. There isn’t any other option.”
I nodded, because I was trying to shake the tears from my head. I couldn’t cry right now. It was stupidly cliché. And weak.
“I’m done talking,” I croaked. My hand found the inside of his boxer shorts. His cock responded immediately. “I want you to fuck me back to sleep.”
His eyes darkened. “That, I can do.”
And he did.
First, he fucked me against the wall so hard that the picture fell off.
Then he carried me to bed.
Where I slept.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Caroline
Eventually, when everyone began to party like it was their last night on earth, I retreated to the room we’d been assigned.
I wanted to be angry at Liam for disappearing on this night, when every other member was at home with their wives, soaking up what could be the last moments.
But I couldn’t be.
Because I understood.
He didn’t want us to be around each other, in this horrible prolonged version of goodbye.
We’d done that already.
And as painful and terrifying as this solitude was, I got it.
I wasn’t lonely.
For the first time in a long time.
So I put on his tee, crawled into bed and waited.
I didn’t have to wait long, just enough for the sun to set.
He came to me in the darkness.
When I was staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, in yet another unfamiliar clubhouse.
He didn’t speak. Neither did I. We fucked.
Hard and fast.
And then, after that, with barely any pause, we made love.
Morning came quickly when you were awake to wait for it. To dread it.
Liam and I hadn’t spoken a word. I physically couldn’t. So I didn’t. Neither did he.
He was dressing.
I was watching. Terrified.
It was like watching him put on that military uniform sixteen years ago, after a sleepless night much like this. But there had been talking then. We’d been young. Stupid. Planning ahead, skipping over the war, like it didn’t exist, like it was a foregone conclusion he’d come home.
There were no foregone conclusions here.
He was a part of something I couldn’t control, couldn’t belong to. That uniform, that cut, was a layer of something that separated us.
“Where does the name Jagger come from?” I asked, surprised at the question even after I’d spoken it.
