“See, that’s the problem here, Blue. You think this is a game, and it fuckin’ well isn’t. This islife, mine and yours, and I’m tryna tie them together in a way I know in my bones is gonna last if you let it.”
The little bell over the door chimed as someone came in so I pushed him away and tried to get my breathing under control.Only for Aaron to grab my hand and pull me toward the exit, calling to Lin over his shoulder, “Blue’s takin’ a five-minute break.’
“Aaron! It’s my first day. I can’t just––” My words tumbled to a stop when the door closed behind us, and he dragged me to his gleaming Harley parked at the end of the row beside a massive truck. He pushed me gently into the gap between the two and then pressed himself against me, a hand to the truck and another tangling in the back of my hair.
“Now, I got you for a second, I need you to listen to me, yeah?” he said, low and serious, eyes pinned on mine so I couldn’t look away, couldn’t even blink. “I’m not some frat boy or Otto fuckin’ Fuck Up you gotta worry about protectin’ or protectin’ yourself from. I’m a brother’a The Fallen fuckin’ MC, the baddest club in the fuckin’ nation, and I can not only safeguard myself from my enemies, but I sure as fuck can keep you safe from yours. You only have to ask me, and I’d burn down the fuckin’ world for you.”
“Why?” I asked, the word like a knife held to his throat, a demand and a threat all at once. “Why would you do that for me, though?”
His entire countenance softened, melting against the heat of my anger until his body was flush with mine, and I imagined I could almost feel his heartbeat through the layers of his leather cut, shirt, flesh, and bone.
He tilted my head back with the hand woven through my hair and lipped at my Medusa piercing before pulling back slightly so I could read the sincerity in his eyes.
“The real question is, who, havin’ met you, would offer you anythin’ different?” he paused when tears pushed at the corners of my eyes, his other hand cupping my cheek. “I don’t hafta know your middle name or where you went to high school or what kinda shows you like to watch to know the quality’a yoursoul. I saw it shinin’ from your too-blue eyes the minute I entered that gas station, and I’ve been lookin’ at it ever since.”
“I’m not that great,” I promised, but at some point, I’d clutched his wrists with my hands like I couldn’t bear for him to move. “Honestly, ask anyone I’ve ever known save Grouch, and maybe Axe and Cedar.”
“I’m not that great either,” he said with a little shrug. “We can be not that great together.”
I laughed, slightly hysterically, but then slumped deeper into his body and let the last of my tension leak out through my mouth.
“I’m tired,” I whispered, a terrible confession. “I’m tired of living like this, and it only just started. It’s…I thought I got away, you know? And now it’s so much harder to withstand.”
“Yeah, baby, I know,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “And I’m gonna help you stand tall and strong to endure it ’til we can get you outta there safe, yeah?”
Another gusty exhale stirred the thick lock of hair falling over his forehead. How could I resist a man who seemed as strong as Atlas offering to carry some of my burden on his shoulders?
“Yeah,” I whispered so softly it was mostly air. “Okay.”
“Okay,” he agreed, the shape of his smile pressed to my cheek. “That’s my girl.”
“I want to be,” I confessed, grasping his wrists even tighter. “But I’m legally already someone else’s.”
“Well,” he said, completely undeterred. “I’m sure we can find a way around that. But for now, I’m gonna use the next two minutes’a your break to make out with my woman. You got any objection to that?”
I grinned against his mouth and then closed my lips over his in answer.
And when I returned to work two minutes later, I felt like I was walking on air even with the anchor of Rooster, Hazard, and the White Raiders still tied around my ankle.
BONER
Blue: Hey, Trouble. I dreamed of you last night.
Aaron: Oh yeah? Maybe it was the same dream I had.
Blue: We were riding on your bike along the beach, right on the sand, and I had my hands in the air. I felt so free that the next minute, I became a bird and took off into the sky.
Aaron: Yeah, no. In my dream, you were ridin’ my face. Woke up hard as iron, and my fist ain’t anywhere as pretty as your sweet mouth or pussy.
Blue: You haven’t even had my mouth on you yet.
Aaron: Yeah well, a man can dream. Literally.
Blue: I’m just about to start my shift at Eugene’s, please don’t turn me on!
Aaron: Can’t stop thinkin’ about puttin’ my mouth on you again. You got so nice and wet for me, baby, that I could just slide right on in to that tight little cunt.
Blue: I’m ignoring you now.
