I wasn’t ashamed to admit that my smile grew so wide my cheeks ached. The very visual of staying in bed, his body cradled between my legs as he whispered to me for eternity made the sun shine much brighter, and my heart pound with happiness and contentment.
“You drive a hard bargain. Does this mean you’ll be staying with me and not going to do an honest day’s work today?”
He rolled on top of me, continuing to lose himself in theart of spreading kisses across my skin. “Just give me the word and I’ll quit life for you, baby. All of it.”
I wasted no time in wrapping my legs around his waist, my heels resting on his ass as I studied him. There was no doubt in my mind that he meant it. The truth in his words wrapped around me and tightened until the slightly broken parts of me came together. I’d loved our life together after I’d moved into The Hut. He’d been distracted by the threats constantly thrown at him and the club, and we’d had our moments, but I’d been happy. At least I thought I’d been happy—because remembering that time, before everything went to hell in that warehouse, felt like a ray of weak winter sunshine compared to this paradise I was now in. I had Drew Tucker, all of him. I’d had him before but this was… more. I walked into a room and I could feel his eyes on me, his attention divided between what he was doing and whatever he was imagining doing to me. Not in that lost puppy dog way, either. He was the predator and I was the prey, and I decidedly loved being hunted.
Pressing on his ass with my heel, I felt him grind against me. “As much as I would love that, we may get complaints from the boys when they need your attention and have to come in here where we will be fused together at the hips, working on our muscle tone.”
I felt his smile against my neck, followed by a small huff of laughter before he lifted his head and looked straight into my eyes. His slightly overgrown hair fell forward, and his eyebrows rose as he studied me. “Ayda?”
I hummed in response, continuing my study of his face, and every speck of his blue-green eyes, as the colors intertwined like he was hypnotizing me.
“First of all,” he started in that raspy voice of his. “The men wouldn’t dare come into this room, not even if their dicks were on fire and this was the only place they could put them out. And secondly…” He pressed himself down onto me even farther, supporting his upper body with his ridiculously strong arms. “Even if they did, nothing could make me stop fucking you if I wanted to. Not even an audience.”
“And somehow, you manage to make that sound strangely intoxicating.” I smiled, my fingers pushing the stray strands from his face as I tightened my legs and gifted him with a groan when he met me tit for tat. “I think you can make me forget anything when you touch me.”
“Want me to get Harry to stand in the corner so we can test that theory out?”
My laughter came easily. “Why Harry?”
“Deeks is too much like a father to you. Tate is your younger brother, and I’d be worried that would scar him in ways even I couldn’t repair. Kenny had the hots for you once. Jedd would get penis envy. And Slater saw enough of my naked arse growing up. I think Harry could handle it,” he told me, his eyes alive with mischief. “Just don’t let his hacking cough distract you.”
“You take hypothetical to a whole new level, you know that? But all that being said, I really should go to work. I have that shiny new truck to pay for, and thatHarleyTate got for his birthday needs to be paid for, too. Guilt is a bad, bad emotion.”
Drew sighed softly, his breath washing over me as he searched my eyes and tensed the muscles in his jaw. There were several lectures sitting on the very edge of his tongue about how I didn’t have to work, how he would pay foranything Tate or I wanted and needed in life. I could see the flames of the old Drew Tucker licking away at the tension in his face before he saw something in me that made him shake his head softly, smile his adorable smile that was reserved only for me, and give in. He always gave in these days… Because he loved me.
“Fine.” He groaned, collapsing on top of my body and circling me in his grip before he rolled onto his back and pushed us both off the bed. My legs were still wrapped around him as he rose to a stand and began carrying me across the bedroom. “Let’s do it your way, Hanagan. Independence is yours, but only after our shower. Until you leave this room, you’re mine, and I get to wash you, touch you, and own you for at least the next fifteen minutes. Thirty, if you’re a good girl.” His fingers dug into the flesh of my ass cheeks.
I squeaked out, my legs tightening as my arms circled his neck. “Promises, promises. You know, if you take a break you could always come to Rusty’s for lunch.” I leaned in close and nibbled his ear this time. “There’s this blonde waitress there, and she has the hots for you. When she knows you’re coming in, she doesn’t wear panties under her uniform.”
Drew stopped in his tracks, pulling his chin back until our eyes connected again, all trace of humor gone. “She fuckin’ better wear panties around other men. Especially when that cute blonde knows I can tear panties off her skin with my little finger. They don’t get in my way.”
“Yes, but you seem to forget that bike of yours is very loud, and she knows the moment you pull up. You also forget that you should come in around three when all she’s doing is filling condiments, and you two would be the only people in there.” I rocked my hips against him, using my thighs forleverage. “We could do it anywhere.” I dragged my teeth along his jaw as he slammed my back against the wall next to the bathroom door, a small grunt escaping as the air was knocked from my lungs. “Have I ever told you about my fantasy?”
I was teasing him now and I had a feeling he knew it. I was bribing him to come and visit me at work, making promises I always enjoyed keeping.
He trailed his nose past my ear, pushing it into my hair and releasing a small moan of his own as he grew obviously harder beneath me. “Tell me now,” he whispered.
I smiled down at him, one of my hands fisting in his growing hair. “Not a chance. You have to earn that little ditty, baby.”
“I could always screw it out of you.”
“You could try.”
As always, he tried to prove me wrong. He was buried deep inside of me before the last word had fallen from my mouth. Of course, he didn’t get my secret out of me, nor did he get it by using his long fingers in the shower, or his mouth as he assaulted me in the closet. I liked having the upper hand in some things, and his curiosity would bring him to me when it got too much for him. Of that, I was certain.
Chapter Three
DREW
Iwas standing on the top step of the porch to The Hut and watching Sutton drive my girl away. It was a clear-skied day in Babylon with bright blue above and a hint of yellow streaking through from the right, harsh enough to make me crease my eyes together as I watched the two of them turn left out of the gates.
Folding my arms across my chest, I kept my eyes on their car until long after they’d gone out of sight. If Ayda thought I hadn’t noticed her recent shift in behavior, she was wrong. Dead wrong.
Since returning from that fateful night at the warehouse, all of us had gone through a rollercoaster of emotions. There were seven stages to grief, apparently. No one told you how many fucking stages there were to go through after being chained up in a warehouse, close to death, while also being forced to watch your enemy touch your woman and hurt her in ways that had the ability to turn everything cold, even on a warm day like today.
Whenever she went to work, I fought against every natural instinct in my body to follow her, drag her ass back to The Hut, tie her down and keep her in front of me—always in front of me—where I knew she was safe, protected, andalive. Her first few weeks back at Rusty’s had seen me sitting in that shitty diner for hours on end, sipping coffee and eyeing her from the far corner of the room. The Hounds were now a regular sight in the town of Babylon, no longer the infamous, almost mythical creatures who lived on the outskirts of society. With Sutton, the chief of police under our protection, it seemed the town had exhaled a collective sigh as they’d realized we weren’t quite as bad as they’d imagined.
