“That’s an order.” He cuts me off. “We don’t know if this was an accident or a hit yet. Could be nothing. Could be Summit sending a message. Either way, I don’t want the whole club in panic mode until we know more. So you keep this between us, you let everyone celebrate Duck and the zoning win, and we deal with what this means in the morning.”
Tank, Lee, and I exchange looks. Everything in me wants to get on my bike, head to that hospital, stand with my president. But Stone’s right—we can’t show weakness right now, can’t let Summit know they rattled us if this was intentional.
“Understood,” Tank says. “You call if that changes.”
“I will. Now get back to the party before people notice.”
The line goes dead.
For a moment, the three of us just stand there, the muffled sound of the party drifting through the walls.
“Fuck,” Lee says finally.
“Yeah.” Tank pockets his phone. “But we do what Stone said. We go back out there, we smile, we celebrate. Nobody knows until morning.”
“And if someone asks where he is?” I ask.
“No one’s gonna ask. They’ll think he and Josie are taking some private time.” Tank’s expression is grim. “Celebrating the win in their own way.”
“Jesus. OK.”
We head back to the main room. The party’s still going strong—Mercy is teaching Poppy a line dance while Cash and Axel cheer them on, Duck’s still surrounded by campaign volunteers, and Emma’s at the bar with Kya, both of them laughing about something.
I plaster on a smile and make my way over, sliding my arm around Emma’s waist.
“Everything OK?” she asks quietly, reading me too well.
“Yeah. Club business. Nothing to worry about.” The lie tastes bitter, but Stone’s orders were clear.
She searches my face, not entirely convinced, but doesn’t push. “Want to get out of here?” She leans in to whisper in my ear. “We can tell everyone my ankle’s starting to ache, but really, I just need you inside me again.”
I grin, because the idea of tumbling Emma back into bed and forgetting the outside world for a few more hours sounds better than any party. “I like the way you think.”
She smiles, but there’s a shadow under it. Maybe she’s reading the tension in my face, or maybe it’s just habit—waiting for the next bad thing to land after years of training herself to expect it.
Still, I steer her out, make a show of apologizing to everyone for bailing early, and we get heckled all the way to the bike parked behind the clubhouse. Lee’s skipped out to the back porch to talk to Tank, and as I glance in the rearview mirror, I catch him with his phone out, probably texting Stone for an update despite strict instructions not to.
We get on my bike, and I tell her to hang on as I start the engine and cut us through the emptying streets with the kind of reckless joy only a man in love—stupid, inexorable, all-in love—can muster.
We’re barely in the apartment before she’s wrestling me into the wall. The new cut creaks as she presses into me, and then I’ve got a hand around her throat, and she’s laughing. “Don’t you dare be gentle.”
I pin her to the wall as my lips crash into hers, then lift her clean off her feet so her legs wrap around my waist. She’s so light in my arms—years of dancer’s grind whittled her down to sinew and intent—so I carry her to the kitchen instead of the bedroom, because we never did break in the new countertop and she’s been eyeing it for weeks. She flashes a grin, eyes alight as I set her on the edge and she’s perched, legs apart, waiting.
“I like this spot,” she purrs, then yanks my belt loose and flicks open the top button of my jeans with one practiced move.
“You just want a new surface to get bent over,” I say, my hands sliding up under her cut and short dress, dragging both up and off in one motion. The cut lands on the other side of the counter, and she’s bare except for those ridiculous teal panties with tiny yellow hearts on them.
“Maybe,” she says, voice husky. “Or maybe I want you to eat me alive.”
I crash my mouth into hers, hands threading into her hair, and for five seconds it’s all need and heat and that heady rush that never seems to dim whenever I get her naked. I feel my knees go soft when she squeezes my cock through my jeans, the friction making me see stars.
“Mmm. That’s not for you yet, swan.”
I get her panties to the side and push two fingers into her, and she’s already so wet my dick jolts with the need to be inside her. She keeps grinding against my palm, greedy and insistent, and when I curl my fingers just so, she moans my name.
“Fuck, Bones—don’t stop—” she gasps, and I don’t.
She finds my zipper, pulls me out, wrapping her fingers around me as she rides my hand. “Don’t make me wait for it,” she whimpers, and the edge in her voice nearly buckles my knees.
