“OPEN,” Bear ordered again. He grabbed my face, forcing me to look into the deep dark pools of blue.
He thrust once, twice, three more times until I was coming so hard, I felt it all the way in my toes. Over and over again I pulsed around him in waves of pure pleasure, which set him off because he gripped the backs of my thighs, and with our eyes open, his nose touching mine, staring into each others souls, Bear came.
Hard.
A guttural roar tore from his throat as he spilled himself inside me. I’d never heard anything so beautiful.
His warmth spread inside me and I moaned because nothing felt better than how it felt to be fully consumed by the man inside me.
On top of me.
In my heart.
By Bear.
He fell onto my chest, and with his lips against my skin, before his orgasm had fully subsided, his cock still twitching with his release, he whispered two words that stopped my heart, “Marry me.”
I paused, unsure if he was serious. My stomach knotted with nerves. My pulse still pounding from the mind-blowing orgasm was now beating so hard, I was a few seconds away from a stroke. “Is that the after sex high talking?” I asked with a small laugh.
Bear looked at me, holding my face in his hands. When I tried to turn away from the power of his unrelenting glare, he didn’t let me. “Ti, I fucking love you,” Bear said, dipping his head, kissing me long and hard. When he pulled back and saw that I was still confused, he asked, “Do I fucking look like I’m joking?”
No. No he didn’t.
Holy shit.
Bear buried his face in my neck and inhaled, breathing me in. I could never get enough of knowing he wanted me as much as I wanted him. “Seriously though,” I started, needing to clarify something that had been nagging me over the last twenty-four hours. “I know you want your club. And if not the Bastards, then a new club. A better one. You don’t have to give that up for me. I need you to know that.”
Bear lifted his head and narrowed his eyebrows, a worried expression crossing over his beautiful face. He ran his thumb over my lips, still swollen from our kisses. “So what does that mean?” he asked, and I knew he was wondering where I was going with all this.
“I don’t know,” I said, taking a moment to pause for dramatic effect. “You really think I’m old lady material?” I joked, jabbing my fingers into his ribs.
Bear laughed and it sent a wave of tingles over my skin. I made a note to myself to make him laugh more. He grabbed hold of my wrists and held my arms down above my head. “Babe, we just fucked, the best fuck of my entire life, with a dead body less than three feet away, if that doesn’t make you old lady material, I don’t know what the fuck does.”
It was my turn to laugh.
“So say you’ll marry me already and stop fucking stalling,” Bear said, looking down to me with a big boyish grin on his face.
“Yes,” I said, because there was no other answer. There never was.
Just yes.
Just Bear.
Just me.
Just Forever.
In that rickety old farmhouse, in my parents’ old bedroom, with my father’s dried blood staining the floor and an open-eyed corpse looking on, Bear had proposed.
I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
’Cause life is just fucked up like that.
I realized that all my past worrying had been pointless, because not only did I fit into Bear’s world.
He kissed my temple and dragged me against his chest.
I WAS his world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Bear
“How come I’m not dead?” Thia asked, lifting her sleepy head from my chest.
“’Cause you’re not fucking supposed to be,” I said with more bite than necessary. My girl was very much alive, in my arms, and full of my cum. Which was exactly where she was supposed to be.
When I came into the room and saw Ti’s lifeless body on the floor, it was like a switch turned on in my mind. A kill switch. I thought she was dead but I wasn’t going to tell her that. It wasn’t until I saw her peek out from behind the bed when I felt as if I could breath again.
The second I knew she was alive, I knew that after I put Tretch down that I was going to fuck her. It was a messed up part of me that needed a reminder that we were both alive.
I meant it when I’d told her it was the best fuck of my life. I’d came harder and longer than I ever had before, and from the way Ti was moving underneath me when she came, the way she tightened around me, I’m pretty sure she didn’t have any complaints either.
“You know what I mean,” she said, elbowing me in the ribs. Besides the body on the floor, you would have thought we were any other normal couple, laying in bed recovering from intense orgasms.
But we weren’t normal.
I fucking loved that about us.
“Pancakes,” I told her, watching with amusement as her face scrunch up in confusion like I knew it would.
“Huh?”
“It seems that your non-dog decided to act like the coyote he is. He tore that massive hole Tretch’s arm before I’d even got here.”
“My Pancakes?” she asked. I knew she was having a hard time imagining the coyote she thought was a dog, who licked toes and liked to watch us fuck was capable of that kind of violence, but it was true.
That coyote was the perfect dog for us.
“Yes, your Pancakes. Unless you know of some other non-dog coyote named Pancakes, hell bent on defending you.” I laughed. “Also, I need to warn you not to freak out when you go into the other room, ’cause our non-dog has blood all over his face and fur, and right now he looks a lot less like a regular dog or a coyote, and more like motherfucking Kujo.”
“He’s the best dog,” she said sleepily, her eyelashes fluttering against my skin.
“He’s a coyote,” I corrected softly.
“He’s the best coyote,” she muttered.
“He sure is,” I said, kissing her softly on the lips. She moaned and I could tell by the way she was tossing her head around that she was trying to fight off sleep.
“Did you find her? Your mom?” Ti asked through a yawn.
“No,” I answered. “We looked in every shelter up and down the coast but there was no sign of her. Stone’s lead turned out to be a dud. We have time to figure out another plan though. Chop and the MC are out on a ride. Looks like they won’t be back for a couple of weeks or so.”
She opened her eyes, although barely, glancing up at me through little slits. “This was kind of fucked up.”
“Nah, this was nothing,” I said, waving her off. “If you want to know what fucked up is, you need to meet Jake.”
“Who’s Jake? Is he a friend of yours?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Jake is… Jake helped us when Ray was in trouble.”
“That doesn’t sound so fucked up,” she said, trailing soft lazy kisses all around my chest.
“No, but that’s why he’s the most fucked up person I know. You never know what side he’s on. Also, it doesn’t help that he looks like sunshine. Blond hair and blue eyes. The kind of looks you’d see on one of them TV shows all the teenagers like these days. But that kid’s got the devil in him. Only human lives he values are his wife Abby’s and now his kid. Jake’s the only person in the world who scares the shit out of me. You know, besides you.”
“Sounds a little like Rage,” Ti said. “And if he saved Ray, then Jake’s okay by me.” Ti linked her leg over mine, her little thigh resting over mine, her knee grazed my cock which should be as exhausted as Ti but was seriously thinking of how hot another go-round would be.
I mouthed a silent “Thank you” to Tretch as I stroked Ti’s wild hair. After all, it was because of him my girl realized what I’d known all along.
How strong she was.
How resilient she was.
She was going to be a great old lady.
Ti’s eyes danced behind her eyelids like she was watching a dream unfold.
In the stifling Florida heat, we only had a few hours before Tretch started to smell, but cleanup could wait for a little bit, while Ti napped.
I wasn’t anywhere near tired.
Besides, I had no use for dreams when mine was already lying on top of me, fast asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Thia
Rage showed up to grab some of her things and when I said good-bye to her she just shrugged and walked off into the grove. “Where is she going?” I asked Bear. Who ended his call to Wolf and shoved his phone in his pocket. Wolf was going to be the one who was going to be running ‘cleanup’ on Tretch’s body.
Bear shrugged. “Don’t know. Never do when it comes to her.”
I followed him over to the truck, “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot,” Bear said, hopping in. I got in the passenger side and slammed the door. Pancakes, without having to be told, hopped in the bed.
“Why her? Why Rage? Why not have some big security dude or big bouncer guy look after me while you were away?” I asked the question that had been nagging at me since the day I’d met Rage.
Bear started the engine and we pulled out onto the road.
“Rage doesn’t care about anything but the job. Things, places, people. She’d done a lot of tracking for the club and I thought she’d be the one to best protect you if it came down to it because unlike a bouncer or security guard, Rage wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”
“That makes sense,” I said, finally having my answer, but for some reason I’d thought there would be more to it than that.
A muscle under Bear’s eye twitched.
“What?” I asked. He waved me off.
“What?” I repeated, demanding to know what had his face contorted in a way that made me think he was trying not to laugh.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Bear burst out into laughter.
“What the hell is so funny?” I asked, growing annoyed as he leaned over the steering wheel, holding onto his stomach with one arm.
Bear set his hand on my thigh and gave it a squeeze. “Ti, do you really think I’d let a dude stay in the same house with you for one fucking second, never mind six fucking months?”
And there I had it. The truth behind the truth. Which when it came to Bear, made the second truth make a whole lot more sense.
We were still laughing as Bear pulled us onto the highway and we headed back to the place where it all started.
Back to Logan’s Beach. Back to Ray, King, the kids, and back to the apartment I’d grown to love.
Nobody was home when we arrived and we hadn’t been back for more than a few minutes before Bear had already stripped me naked and was on his knees in front of me, worshiping between my legs with my his talented tongue and mouth.
It must have been the week for people to walk in on us because right after I’d come down from yet another mind-blowing orgasm, I opened my eyes to find King and Ray standing in the living room on the other side of the coffee table. Bear stood up, completely at ease with the fact that he was still naked, although he wasn’t JUST naked. He was naked and very, very hard. His mouth still glistening from lapping up every last bit of my orgasm.
The solemn look on both their faces made me realize they were there for a much bigger and more serious reason than trying to catch us in the act.
“You might want to put some clothes on for this,” King said, and suddenly I was all too aware of my nakedness. Bear led me into the bedroom and I was still getting dressed when he left the room after throwing on a pair of boxers, leaving the door open on the way out.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asked. I looked out and spotted the worried expression on his face and suddenly I was as worried as he looked.
“It’s Grace,” Ray said, choking out a sob and burying her face into King’s shirt. He held her close by the back of the head and stroked her long icy blonde hair.
“What the fuck is wrong with Grace?” Bear barked, an angry burst of yelling that I felt deep in my chest.
King reached out and placed his other hand on Bear’s shoulder, but Bear jumped back like King was trying to stab him instead of comfort him. “Tell me,” Bear demanded.
I stepped out into the living room just in time to see King kiss Ray on top of the head. He looked back up to Bear when he spoke again. “She’s in bad shape, man.”
“How bad?” Bear asked, grabbing a pack of cigarettes from the table. He put one in his mouth, it dangled from his lips as he scurried around, searching under couch cushions for a lighter.
“The kind you don’t come back from.”
Bear’s cigarette fell from his mouth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Bear
I fucking hate hospitals.
Always have.
For good reason, too. Ain’t nothing good ever has come from stepping foot in one of them. Not for me anyway. Actually, the fucking worst always happened. A wave of bad shit, along with the smell of antiseptic and disappointment, hit me in the fucking face every single time those automatic glass doors opened, followed by me frantically asking a million white-coated fuckers where the brother I was looking for was.
Usually, they were dead.
It was at that very hospital where we’d come to see Grace, through those very same fucking doors where a white-coated cocksucker came out and officially told us that Preppy was a goner.
I’m sorry. There was nothing we more we could do.
I remember everything about that night, down to the pussy-ass yellow smiley face tattoo the doc had on the outside of his hand.
The last time I was there was when I drove Ray, who was in pretty bad shape after being beat to shit by her fucking ex husband douche-bag, and King, who was all shot up, to the emergency room that smelled of unhealed wounds and misery. My immediate reaction whenever I went to a hospital has been to get on my bike and drive as far away as I possibly could.
Which sounded pretty fucking good to me as we walked down a sea foam colored hallway, the wallpaper peeling at the seams.
King and Ray were ahead of us with Thia and I staying back a few steps.
The last time I saw Grace, she was in better shape than I was. Where I had been wrestling with every demon I’d ever come across, hopped up on so much booze and blow it was a wonder I was even alive, she’d looked as if she could place in a marathon or give that juice guy on late-night TV a run for his money.
We knew Grace had cancer. She’d had it for years. More than a decade, I think. At one point, her pain got real bad and King gave her some weed and showed her how to smoke it so she could manage it