“And Nash?” I ask. “You ready for the Ruby-whiplash protocol?”
Nash’s smile is slow, cold, and utterly terrifying. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Good,” Malachi says. “James, your part is set. East, your… ‘costumes’ are handled?”
I lean forward, dropping my voice conspiratorially. “They’re already in my closet, just waiting for the right moment. She’s going to look good in sequins.”
The room rumbles with fresh laughter. Knox shakes his head, muttering, “You’re a dead man, East.”
“Nah,” I say, leaning back, completely confident. “She’ll love it.”
The plan is set. For the bank, and for the girls. As the meeting breaks, I look at the key on the table, the small piece of brass that holds the key to destroying Winston Graves. Then I think of Darla, and the ridiculous, feathered costume hidden in my closet.
This is our life now. Planning a bank robbery in one breath and a prank war in the next. And I realize with a gut-deep certainty that this is it. This is what we’re fighting for. Not just survival. But for the right to have these stupid, beautiful, chaotic moments. The right to laugh in the face of the darkness.
It’s what Declan would have wanted. And it’s what I’ll protect with my last breath.
Chapter 36
Darla
Iwakeuptothe feeling of being safe, then a split second later, a deep, bone-weary exhaustion from the war we’ve been living through.
I lie still for a long moment, tangled in cool sheets that smell like him, his arm a heavy, possessive weight around my waist. The last week has been a chaotic blur. A bombing at the Holloway building rocked the entire town. Grim, exhausted faces greeted the guys when they returned to the clubhouse. That night, Malachi tortured Donovan to find out the location of his siblings and Alice Brighton before finally killing the bastard. We’ve all been running on adrenaline and caffeine for days, a small army working to help with the cleanup downtown, theclubhouse a constant, buzzing hub of controlled chaos. The bank job East and Malachi planned in the war room is sitting on the back burner now after the Holloway bombing and everything that happened with Donovan. Malachi pushed the heist, and Ruby’s shot at the branch manager, back until the heat dies down. Last night was the first time East and I were able to come back to his house, the first time we’d been truly alone since it all went down.
A warm, heavy arm tightens around my waist, pulling me back against a hard chest. East stirs behind me, his breath a hot whisper against my neck.
“You’re awake,” he murmurs in a gravelly voice thick with sleep.
“For a minute,” I whisper back, melting into his hold. “It’s quiet.”
“Thank fuck for that,” he groans, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “First real sleep I’ve had in a week. It’s good to be home. In our own bed.”
The words—our own bed—land with a quiet, earth-shattering weight. My breath catches. I haven’t slept in the guest room since the night I finally told him my secret. The secret I thought was going to destroy us only brought us closer together. My few things have migrated into this room, into his closet, his drawers. Without discussion, without a single word, I’ve moved in. This space, his sanctuary, has become ours. This is home.
He must sense the change in my breathing, the way my heartbeat stutters, because his arm tightens around my waist, pulling me even closer.
“You’re thinking too loud,” he murmurs, amusement lacing his voice.
A shiver runs through me, caught between desire and the urge to voice my truth. “Just…” I begin, but the words falter in mythroat. Just realizing I’m falling in love with you. Just realizing I never want to leave this bed.
He reads the tension in me instantly, the way my muscles tighten under his touch. His hand moves from my waist sliding in a slow, hot path down my stomach. The calloused skin of his fingers is a stark, delicious friction against my soft skin. He brushes against the delicate lace of my panties, a silent question. I give a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, a full-body surrender. He hooks a finger into the fabric, tugging them down my legs, his gaze following the movement, hot and possessive. Then his fingers find their way between my thighs, parting me, exploring the slick, swollen folds of my pussy. I gasp, my back arching off the mattress as his thumb discovers my clit.
“Let me make it quiet for you,” he whispers, his thumb establishing a slow, relentless rhythm against my most sensitive spot.
His touch detonates through me, a jolt of pure, white-hot electricity that fractures my senses. My world narrows to the feel of his thumb, circling, pressing, a merciless, perfect torture. A low, guttural moan escapes my lips, a sound I don’t recognize as my own. Trying to bite it back, I shove a corner of the pillow into my mouth, the taste of cotton mixing with the heat of my desire. I crave this. I crave him. My hips move on their own, a desperate, rocking motion, chasing the pleasure he’s so expertly building.
East’s grip on my hip tightens, his fingers digging into my flesh with a bruising intensity, branding me as his. He works me with a relentless, knowing precision. “That’s it, baby,” he growls against my neck, his breath hot and ragged, sending a fresh wave of shivers across my skin. “Don’t hide from me. Let me hear you. Fucking scream for me.” His words are a command and a release all at once, and I let the pillow fall away, my head thrashing against the sheets.
He slides a finger inside me, and I cry out. The feeling of being filled, stretched, is a shocking, incredible pleasure. His fingers are so warm, so sure. His finger curls, pressing against that spot deep inside that I didn’t even know I had, and my whole body jolts. “So wet for me, princess,” he murmurs, his voice a thick rasp. He adds a second finger, scissoring them, filling me completely as his thumb continues its merciless assault on my clit. The combination is too much. It’s an overload.
The pleasure builds, a hot, coiling spring winding tighter and tighter in my belly. My breath comes in ragged sobs, my body trembling on the precipice. I am his to command, his to break. “East—please—” I choke out, the words a surrender. He doesn’t stop. He just moves faster, deeper, his fingers pushing me higher, forcing me to take more than I think I can handle. I am completely his. I submit.
The orgasm doesn’t merely crash over me—it obliterates everything in its path. My spine arches violently off the bed, my muscles seizing as waves of pure, agonizing pleasure ripple through my core with such force that stars explode behind my closed eyelids. I shatter, sobbing his name, clawing at the sheets, desperate for something to anchor me as he continues his merciless assault, his fingers working me with an unyielding rhythm that wrings every last, shuddering tremor from my quaking body.
When I finally collapse, utterly destroyed and panting, my limbs trembling, he yanks me over to face him, rolling me onto my back as he comes over me. His eyes are black with a ravenous hunger that steals the breath from my lungs. Through tear-blurred vision, I meet that fierce gaze, feeling the weight of his desire wrap around us like a heated blanket.
He enters me then. Not the frantic claiming of the alley, but a slow, deep glide that feels like a promise. My pussy, still pulsing and overly sensitive from my orgasm, clenches around him,impossibly tight. He’s so thick, so hard, filling me completely. A low, long hiss escapes my lips as I take all of him. He feels incredible.
