Her breath hitches. "Austin..."
"Did you think about me?" I ask, voice dropping to a growl. My thumb strokes the hollow of her throat. "When you were in the city, safe in your apartment with your doorman. Did you think about the boy you left on the mountain?"
She closes her eyes, tears gathering in her lashes. "Yes," she whispers. "All the time."
That confession snaps the last thread of restraint.
"Good," I growl.
I move my hand to the back of her neck, tangling fingers in her hair. I don't give her a chance to overthink it. No chance to run.
I crash my mouth onto hers.
The kiss is a fucking explosion. Violent. Reckless. Years of repressed anger and lust detonating all at once.
I groan into her mouth, a guttural sound vibrating through both of us. Her lips are soft, yielding, tasting of mint and shock. I tilt her head back, deepening the angle, demanding more. I need to taste her. I need to breathe her air.
For a second, she stands rigid, hands hovering. Then, she breaks.
She makes a small, desperate sound in her throat and surges against me. Her arms come up, wrapping around my neck, fingers digging into the leather of my cut. She opens for me, and I take the invitation. My tongue sweeps into her mouth, tangling with hers, hot and wet.
Electric. Burning. Like coming home and torching the house down at the same time.
I press into her, flattening her soft curves against the hard planes of my body. My knee drives between her legs, spreading her thighs apart. She gasps into the kiss, hips instinctively bucking against my thigh.
Fuck.
The friction sends a jolt of pleasure straight to my groin, made sharper by the heavy weight of the burner phone shoved in my pocket pressing into my hip.I’m hard instantly. Painfully. My cock strains against the denim of my jeans, aching to be closer. To be inside.
"Courtney," I grind out against her lips, breaking the kiss for a fraction of a second just to say her name. "You taste so fucking good."
"Austin, please," she whimpers, breathless. She doesn't know what she’s pleading for—for me to stop, or for me to never stop.
I kiss her again, harder. My hands roam down her back, tracing the dip of her spine through the thin t-shirt. I grab her ass, squeezing the soft flesh, lifting her slightly so she’s pressed right against my erection. I want her to feel it. I want her to know exactly how much she affects me.
She wraps her legs around my waist, abandoning all pretense of friendship. She clings to me like I’m the only solid thing in the world. And I am.
My mind is a haze of lust. I pull back just enough to look at her. Her lips are swollen, red and wet. Her eyes are blown wide, glassy with want. She looks ravished—marked—utterly, deliciously claimed.
But it’s not enough.
My gaze drops to her stomach, pressed against my leather vest. My hand slides around to splay over her belly. Soft. Warm.
Mine. The word roars through me. My woman. My legacy.
I imagine her swollen with my child. I imagine her walking around this old house, belly round and tight with my baby, safe behind the walls I built, wearing my ring, wearing my mark. The image is so vivid, so visceral, it nearly brings me to my knees. I want to fill her up right now. I want to plant a seed in her that ensures she can never leave Pine Valley again.
"You have no idea," I rasp, thumb rubbing circles over her navel through the fabric, "how long I've wanted to put my hands on you."
"Show me," she challenges, voice breathless.
I growl, burying my face in the crook of her neck. I bite down on the sensitive skin, not enough to draw blood, but enough to mark. Enough to bruise. She cries out, fingers tightening in my hair.
"I'm going to ruin you for anyone else, Court," I murmur against her skin, inhaling her scent. "You understand that? Once we start this... there is no going back. You’re mine. The club, the mountain, me. You take all of it."
She shudders, chest heaving against mine. "I'm not selling the house," she whispers.
I freeze. I pull back to look at her face. "What?"
