My head finds the crook of his neck, his arm wraps around me and finds my waist, and for a little bit we just rest like that, our breathing slowly syncing.
The bed is the same size as our bed at the clubhouse. God, I want to sleep here, beside him. But he’s tender, moving slowly, and I want him comfortable.
Besides, I’m fairly certain Ryder would be upset.
I sigh, burrowing in deeper. What a mess everything is. Jake, Damian, Ryder, Wyatt. And me, in the middle of them all.
This morning with Ryder had been pure heat and instinct. That draw toward him I can never ignore. A raw, animal need to connect, to ground myself with him.
It’s the kind of thing I used to be able to discuss with Wyatt, but now everything has changed between us, too. And my feelings for Ryder don’t make me love Wyatt any less.
“You should get some rest,” Wyatt says, turning and kissing the top of my head.
“You too,” I say, and don’t move.
He laughs softly and we keep sitting there, way too much to say filling the space between us. After a while, I finally sit up and lean over, kissing his cheek.
“Night, baby,” he says, low and rough, the term of affection gutting me.
“Night, old man,” I say teasingly, making him exhale another rough, breathy laugh. He keeps his eyes closed.
I get up out of the bed and slip out of the room, half-closing the door again behind me.
The pull-out’s open, Ryder and Jake on it with a top sheet over them. Damian’s on the recliner using a towel as a blanket, a sweatshirt bunched under his head like a pillow. Ryder watches me cross the room, like he’s scanning me for information, and then lifts up the top sheet, making room for me beside him.
There’s a single pillow on the empty spot on the mattress for me. I fall onto it, exhausted, as Ryder closes his arms around my waist.
The fire is down to coals, a soft orange glow pulsing like a heartbeat against the walls of the room. The heavy warmth of Ryder’s body is pure comfort. I sigh and let myself melt into the solid heat of him, closing my eyes. For the first time in months, I truly feel safe.
CHAPTER FOUR
I’M DRIFTING OFF, half asleep but still conscious, my mind surfacing images of the past few days. Weeks. Months.
Lying on the gravel in Silas’s kennel behind the clubhouse. Billy’s collar digging into my neck. Maze’s unwanted hands. The moans and cries of all the women in Billy’s bed.
There’s a restless charge in me. An edgy discomfort I can’t turn off. I shift and turn toward Ryder, moving in toward him until my nose is pressed against the warmth of his chest, rising and falling softly underneath the cotton of his t-shirt, his smell, like it always does, transforming me. A chemical reaction that starts at my nose. Heat, comfort, want. I breathe deeply, then deeper again, his pheromones taking the edge off my looping thoughts.
That was then. This is now.
The sound of the rain is softening, the drops hitting the roof in small clusters breaking up long stretches of silence. I ground myself in the sounds of the cabin. Ryder’s breathing, deep and slow. Damian’s behind me on the recliner, lighter. He inhales deeply and then moves slightly in the chair, making the leather creak. Behind Ryder, Jake snores lightly. Wyatt is too far away to hear.
I’ve always slept around other people. Foster homes. Billy’s apartment. The O.D. clubhouse. Privacy wasn’t something I grew up with, so sleeping with the sound of four peoplebreathing around me doesn’t feel strange. Whatisstrange is the knowledge that these are four men I’ve loved in different ways, all within reach.
Every man in this cabin has had me in one way or another, and yet it doesn’t feel sordid. It feels like the only place I’m supposed to be.
I lift a hand to pull the collar of Ryder’s shirt down, just an inch, so that I can press my nose against his skin and breathe the soothing chemistry of him in. God, the way his scent hits me. Like it’s tailor-made for my nervous system. It quiets everything. I press a soft kiss to his collarbone and his arm tightens around me, pulling me closer. His body is so big, so unmovable, that being tucked against him is like getting to rest inside a fortress.
I straighten my legs so that my stomach touches his and feel the slow, heavy twitch of his cock waking. Heat flares through me—God, he feels good. Solid enough to keep me from spinning off into half-remembered traumas, to drown out the residual static in my nerves.
I’m wide awake now, my body humming, my breath quickening, a low swell blooming between my legs. I want him. I want the rough, raw masculinity of him, the agonizing build-up of pleasure and release. I want him to pin me down and fuck me hard and make me feel something that isn’t fear or emptiness or despair.
I run my hand down his back, over the strong, carved muscles that bracket his spine, and slide my fingers under the waistband of his boxers, tugging them over the curve of his ass. He groans, soft and raw and half-asleep, and shifts just enough for me to get the fabric over his hips. Then I reach for the warm, solid column of his cock—hard now, thick and hot and perfect in my palm. He jerks faintly when I stroke down the underside, a quiet sound slipping from him. His chin tilts up, eyes still closed, breath hitching.
Pre-cum streaks warm across my palm and I wriggle under the weight of his arm, pulling my underwear down—small-size men’s briefs Damian bought me at Walmart because he “didn’t know how to” buy women’s underwear. I tilt Ryder’s cock until the head of it is pressed against me, sliding over my clit, and almost moan aloud at the jolt of heat.
That’s what wakes him. His eyes snap open, dark and blown wide, and his jaw flexes, nostrils flaring as if scenting me.
Wordlessly, he slides fingers into my hair and fists it, my scalp tingling painfully as he tips my head back and brings his mouth to mine. His kiss is warm and unbearably tender beneath the roughness of his beard, but the heat in his kiss matches my urgency.
