Iwant to stay like this forever, wrapped up tight in the gift of this man, his limbs heavy, weighing me down, his heartbeat thrumming life underneath the shell of my ear, his gentle breaths rising and falling. He’s warm like a sun-kissed beach, his broad, hard chest damp with the dew of salty sweat. I am tired to my bones, weary and impossibly sore, but it is the kind of pain I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.
The throbbing between my legs and the ache in my breasts reminds me that I’ve changed. In the span of an hour, I’ve been transformed into a new being.
Steel’s big hand comes down to caress my arm like he can’t bear for there to be an ounce of separation between us, even though I’m draped across him, my hair spread over his chest like a golden blanket.
I look up at his face. His eyes glow in the dim light. He smiles down at me, his perfect lips arched into a lopsided grin. He looks… different. Different in ways I didn’t expect. He looks happy, his face relaxed. The perfection of him steals my breath away, and I want to stay like this forever.
I see something else. Pride. He is proud of me. He has me now, a prize that he never should have won. A game he should’ve stayed well away from, but he played anyway because no one could tell him otherwise.
“I have to go soon. It’s late. I can’t chance my father finding me gone. Not that he’d care. But if I’m going to help yourclub, I’ll never be able to get close enough to my dad to find anything out for you if he thinks he can’t trust me.”
Steel’s smile falters, his lips pulling into a thin line. I see the sheen of regret cloud over his eyes, but he can’t take back what he has asked me to do. I don’t want him to anyway. I’m his now. His, and I’ll do anything to help him, even if it means bringing my father down and betraying my family.
“It’s Christmas tomorrow,” I say boldly. “My parents will be going out. They get together in the evening every year with some of my father’s business associates for a big, expensive dinner at a fancy restaurant in Miami. It’s a few hours’ drive for them… Of course, I’m never invited. My brother, he… he used to be invited, but never me. I can come back here, or you could come to the house?”
He surprises me by shaking his head, and my heart skips a beat. “Can’t, darlin’. Christmas day I spend with Harley. Always.”
I’m disappointed but try not to show it. “You could come after? Just for an hour,” I suggest.
He shakes his head again, and his features turn into the hard mask that I’m used to. A mask of a man used to being obeyed. “No can do, darlin’. I got the club, I’m expected here.”
“But I-I want to fit into your life. I want to be yours. I can come to the clubhouse?”
“You will.” Steel lets out a sigh. “But this kind of thing will take time. We can’t be seen together.”
Is this him telling me it was a one night stand? Did I misread everything? I tuck my trembling hands into my lap, my bare lap, wishing I had my clothes back on. I hate feeling this naked and exposed. I’m an idiot. A naive idiot. I thought I meantsomething, thatwemeant something. “You wanted something from me. You only agreed to this because of what I could do for you. You’re… you’re ashamed of me. That’s what it is, right?”
“Leah.” Steel’s voice is stern, but when he reaches out for me, I shrink back. “This is what I was afraid of. That you don’t understand my world—”
“I understand perfectly. You’ve got what you wanted. You took it, and you were going to play me until I gave up my father. I won’t say you didn’t warn me,” I snap as I slide off the bed.
I rush around the room, gathering up my clothes, my cheeks burning with humiliation, my pride and heart in tatters. “I was stupid enough to fall for a few lines and a man’s touch. I gave myself to you with blind trust.”
I tug on my dress and yank up the zipper, then ram my arms into my sweater and hold it gathered tight in front of me as if it could shield me from the man sitting upright on the bed. Even now, he looks like a fucking work of art.
I wish I could hate him, but I’m the stupid one.
I’m so confused. I don’t know what I feel. I don’t know where to lay the blame.
“I don’t know if anything you said to me was real,” I continue. “All of this. Everything. You could have been using me the entire time. You played me, and I let you. I was too stupid to know the difference, but now…”
My shoulders heave with the effort of breathing, and my heart beats out a painful rhythm of grief. I thought I had finally found freedom, but really, I went from one cage to another.
Steel’s face doesn’t change. I search it for a sign, for anything, for some tell-tale hint of emotion, for a shred of anything, something that tells me I’m wrong, but I find nothing.
And then he laughs.
“Are you done, darlin’?” Steel drawls. His callous indifference is infuriating. “You can yell and scream at me. Take out your rage on me, if that’s what you need, though I’d rather fuck it out of you…”
“You’re disgusting,” I snap.
“And you’re mine. Now that I’ve had you, Leah, I’m not gonna let you go. So you can act like a spoiled brat, you can act like a princess, or you can grow up and be the queen you were talking about.”
I just glare at him.
“I told you we have to be smart here. We gotta do this in secret. Not because I’m ashamed of you. Fuck, I want to parade around the damn town with you on my arm. But how’s that gonna look to your father? To other people? It’s your life that’s gonna be ruined if you’re associating with me and my club. I care about you. I don’t want that for you, so we have to take things slow and use some common fucking sense. But no matter what happens you’ll always belong to me. Now. Tomorrow. Fucking always.”
My mouth drops open when he tucks his arms behind his head and stretches out lazily on the bed, a bastard straight to the core. A thousand warning bells chime in my head, triggers flying up, waving in the air, bloody signals that grip my insides and turn my rational sense into something cold and frantic. He wants me on the sly, like I’m a dirty little secret not good enough for his world.
