He pops to his feet and strides toward me, hauling my body close to his. For a few seconds, our breaths mingle before he lifts me, and my legs naturally circle his waist. Without a word, he sits on the seat of his bike again, holding me flush against his chest and groin.
His breath sounds ragged as if he just ran a mile. A war rages in his eyes for a heartbeat, maybe two, and then he lowers his head until his mouth hovers only an inch above mine. “You’re the only one I want, Letty. You and no one else. Not since that night. You’ve haunted me for two and a half years, but not anymore. I’m done with ghosts.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I can see his control slipping. His eyes darken, and that amber color reminds me ofrich honey. His body cages me in as he tightens his arms around me.
“It means you and me. Fucking forever, Letty. All or nothing.”
“Gage,” I begin, but he doesn’t let me finish.
Our mouths collide. The kiss is hard and hot and demanding, and I feel sucked into the vortex that is Gage, forced into his will, but this time I’m a willing, eager participant.
God. He consumes me. His scent. His raw sensuality. The lust in his eyes and the fever in his kiss.
I want all of it, every bit of him, and I don’t care that we share a last name because Mifflin insisted on me changing mine. It doesn’t fucking matter. Gage is right. This is about us, not our parents.
He groans into my mouth, thrusting his tongue inside, sucking and twirling, and taking until my fingers pull on the hair at his nape, forcing him to let me breathe. His lips brush mine with every exhalation. And those eyes strip me bare, revealing more secrets I don’t care to find out yet.
The feeling that rises within me is so raw and real that I know the reason I’m so frustrated and annoyed by him is because a part of me loves him too.How can I love someone that I swore to hate?
My palm slides to the spot over his heart, and I feel it pound beneath my fingertips.
“No one else does that to me. Only you, Letty.”
“But you still left me,” I whisper, stuck on that detail. He could have come back at some point and explained what happened. I would have listened.
“I didn’t,” he admits. “I’ve been your shadow this entire time.”
“What?” But that’s not possible.
“I was ordered to keep my distance, but I didn’t abandon you, Leticia. I protected you the entire time and waited until I could tell you the truth. But my fucking heart?” He places his hand on the left side of my chest. “It beat for you every minute and never stopped.”
God. There was a time I would have given anything to hear words like those from his lips. Now? Two years later? I don’t know if they’re enough.
“Gage,” I whisper, my voice catching because this doesn’t seem real. “Who ordered you to stay away?”
He leans back enough to point at the leather vest he wears. I scan the patches on the front—Blaze, Summit Hill Vipers.
“I’m in a motorcycle club, Letty. What my club president says is the law. What he orders is fucking gospel.”
“Biker code,” I realize. I heard of it on television and in movies. I didn’t know it was a real thing.
“Yes.”
“Because of our parents?”
“No, beautiful. It was the age difference. No underage pussy. Sorry.” He winces. “I was nearly nineteen, and you were barely sixteen. I never should have crossed that boundary at Homecoming.”
“Do you wish you would have stayed away?”
“No,” he answers with a growl as his head dips, and he glides his nose along the line of my jaw before trailing his tongue lightly over the skin. Without warning, he attacks my neck. Nipping. Licking. Sucking. Open-mouthed kisses trail along my throat and move down to my collarbone.
I can’t help arching my body into his, rolling my hips, needing more contact, more everything. “Gage.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s get out of here.”
He doesn’t respond, but his hands grip my ass and squeeze. I can feel how hard he is since my core is smashed against his groin. Lust fogs my brain.
