“I didn’t want that to be real. I wanted this to be real,” I whispered to Mathias, pointing between us.
It was, Mathias mouthed, and at the word was, my stomach dropped.
“You’re so angry with me.”
I am.
I saw the truth of that in his eyes. “I’m sorry. But I think it’s obvious who I want to be with.”
Finally, he signed, and I swore I understood what he said.
Show me how obvious.
But I didn’t have time to ask if I was right, because he proved it. He pushed me up against a blank slab of wall, moved my arms up over my head, catching my wrists in a single hand while his free hand brushed my bare tummy. I shivered as the music pounded overhead. A single bulb flickered a little as the floor bounced under the weight of the people dancing on the other side of the wall. We weren’t the only ones in the hallway—but hidden by Mathias’s body, I pretended we were. It didn’t matter—the only thing that did was him touching me. It was what I wanted—he’d become a drug and I couldn’t get enough.
Having fun?
I moaned in response as his fingers found my sex, the pad of his forefinger running along my clit. He chuckled silently, his eyes dark with intent. He held my hands firmly behind my back, playing with me as we rocked together in the middle of the hallway and I didn’t dare look around, because I was pretty sure everyone was as close to having sex as we were.
I wasn’t supposed to care. I was only supposed to concentrate on him, and I’ll be damned if that was all I could do.
“Mathias!” I yelled his name out into the music, and he heard and maybe everyone else did too, but in the rush of my orgasm, nothing mattered but the giant throb of pleasure in my womb. I sagged against him and still, he held my hands in place behind my back, kept me solidly upright while he kissed me through the aftershocks. His eyes glowed when I told him, “I want to return the favor.”
In the semi-privacy of that hallway corner, I knelt between his legs. I knew it was foolish to feel protected by the dark, but I was. Somehow, this was right, because all I cared about was pleasing Mathias at this moment.
Defiance women take care of their men. That’s why our men take such good care of us.
Now I understood the infinite and unbreakable attraction most women—no matter their age or education or status—had for bad boys.
There was nothing better than a bad boy between your legs. It made everything else you put up with worth it.
I took his cock in my mouth, as deep as I could. I wasn’t skilled by any means, but it had never meant more to me to get this right than now.
I could feel his moans. A gentle hand threaded through my hair and gripped it hard when I hit the right spots, egging me on. And when he was about to come, he tried to pull me away but I refused. I swallowed him, wanting to taste him. And when I pulled back and looked up at him, his eyes were shut and he’d leaned his head against the wall.
God, I liked being able to make him that relaxed.
I zipped his pants, then got off my knee, grabbing the bottle he’d put on the floor earlier and taking a big sip. And then I leaned into him and told him, “By the way, I did that for you, not for Defiance.”
He gave a small, pleased smile, like he’d thought so, but still had needed to hear it.
Chapter Eighteen
I’m the only one
Tru
Tru danced with Aimee for a while after Jessa disappeared with Mathias.
“You trust her,” Aimee said as they walked home, and it was a statement, not a question.
“I think we have a lot in common,” she said.
Hammer was behind them, a few feet, because this was their time. After what happened to Aimee, they were supposed to walk in pairs, and women weren’t supposed to walk without a guy with them. Tru knew it seemed like a step backwards, but she also knew it was necessary.
Cas had started all the women in training shortly after that—learning self-defense, boxing and how to use weapons. No one outside of Defiance was supposed to know about it. Training them was the smart thing to do, but if word got out that Defiance was doing so, other MCs would start to think they were weak.
It was still a man’s world, or so everyone thought. But the women, they knew the truth. She did, most of all.
“I trust her too,” Aimee said. “She’s scared. I can’t imagine what coming into Defiance is like to an outsider like her.”
“She’s handling herself pretty well.” They stopped at Tru’s door and hugged good-night. Tru watched Hammer walk next to Aimee, and wondered if things between them would ever be the way they’d been before Aimee’s attack.
When she asked Cas that, he shook his head no. “Never be the same, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be better.”
He always knew how to make her feel better. “I missed you tonight.”
“Yeah. Wanted to spend time with you. But I had shit to do.”
He meant, things to think about, because that’s what he’d spent the night doing. He was alone, in the semi-darkness of the new place he’d built for them. He’d also built them a new place underground—a new place to make new memories, he’d said. But She still liked a lot of the old ones too.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He tugged her close and she ended up sitting in his lap. He was half reclined and he played with her hair, taking it down from the ponytail she’d worn. “Mathias and Bish brought in a hell of a lot of trouble.”
“So did I,” Tru reminded him.
“Don’t need remindin’.” Caspar shook his head. “Shit with Keller was comin’ down the pipe anyway. We’ll make it look like we’ve got an advantage. Pretend we knew shit and use it to help Defiance.”
“Let Keller or the LoV think they have a leak inside their organization.”
He smiled at her and her stomach flipped, especially when he said, “Sexy when you talk strategy, pretty baby.”
She knew why he was worried. Defiance was a young crew—even though Caspar had grown up in the MC and was, by rights, born to lead it, the majority of his MC were under twenty-four. That was great for partying and for being up for general wildness, but sometimes, it made them unable to understand that there was, in fact, a strategy to all of this.
The Chaos made things better in some ways on that front and worse on others. She knew that Defiance was about to be put to a pretty big test, coming up against the more experienced LoVs, and by extension, Keller’s crew.
“Is it harder than you thought?” she asked. He remained silent and she continued to probe. “I know you’re not supposed to admit things like that to anybody, Cas. But I’m not just anybody. I’m the only one you can admit things to. So please, use me.”
She heard the gentle plead in her voice and that must’ve moved Caspar, because he turned to her, his icy blue eyes boring into hers.
Come on, Cas. Trust me. Let me be here for you.
“It could be fuckin’ anyone,” he said finally, his voice barely a rasped whisper.
“No. Maybe the old generation,” I started but he shook his head and repeated, “Anyone.”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of the men who’d stood there and let themselves be branded to prove they were on Caspar’s side before everything had gone down with Lance. She couldn’t believe it could be one of those men. “It’s not me.”
“Anyone but you, baby.”
“I hate it that you’re hurting.”
“Shouldn’t ask things you don’t really want to know. I tell you that all the damned time, but you still push, woman.”