“If anyone needs to talk, you and I do,” I say, buckling my seat belt and glancing into the rearview to get a read on his expression. He seems calm. He must know about the pregnancy, right? If Crown knows then Beast would have to.
“Later,” he assures me, starting the car and heading back in the direction of the compound. Beast’s hands tighten on the wheel enough that it squeaks beneath his grip, and then he forcibly relaxes himself. “You wouldn’t want to have a conversation with me right now.”
I open my mouth, but then I can’t decide what it was that I wanted to say.
I continue to stare at him in the rearview mirror, but his stoic expression gives absolutely nothing away.
When we get back to the compound, the on-duty guards open the back door and shine a fucking flashlight in my face. I’m tempted to hiss at them, but instead, I just cross my arms and stare back at them like the vampire Grainger accused me of being.
Intense. Baleful. Undead.
They check the back seat, slam the door, and off we go.
Beast thinks sitting back here in the center seat keeps me the safest from snipers, so … this is now my go-to spot. Anyway, the guards checked us on our way out with just as much attention to detail, so I guess Grey stays another day. Maybe a week. Maybe longer.
I stare out the window as we head through the main parking area and then rattle our way up the makeshift road that leads to the farmhouse. There are people fucking everywhere on the compound, in a way I’ve never seen before.
All the families of local members.
This is insane; it’s unprecedented.
A lot of the families—at least half, I’d say—don’t really have anything to do with the club at all. Their husbands are members, but they go to school and work and live like anyone else. Not everybody’s as embroiled in this shit as I am, tangled up in the bloodied tendons of club life like a tumor.
With a growl, I turn back toward the front of the SUV.
Gaz really fucked things up, didn’t he? Cat never needed to know that I’d stolen Grey; he never needed to know that his officers were involved. We could’ve worked our way out of the Grey Wolfe Mafia mess without my father ever being the wiser.
This complicates things.
When we pull up in front of the farmhouse, Beast climbs out and moves to open the door for me, a gentlemanly behavior that I can accept. Mostly. I eye him warily as he climbs in beside me and slams the door shut.
His hand ends up on the side of my neck, and I go completely still before he puts his lips near my ear, grazing that glorious stubble of his against my cheek.
“Was that fear, Gidge?” he drawls, his voice tight and strained.
“No,” I say. It’s the truth.
It isn’t fear; it’s something else entirely.
“Good. Know that as your husband, I will never hurt you.” His hand tightens slightly on my neck, and he adjusts his mouth to meet mine. His lips, when they do brush mine, hurt worse than any other kiss I’ve ever received.
It’s a quiet, desperate sort of violence lined up beside a savage claiming.
My tongue flicks across my husband’s bottom lip as he pulls away to look at me, putting our foreheads together as his grip on the back of my neck squeezes just a little more, and I groan, caught somewhere between a massage and a possession.
“Not unless you ask me to,” he murmurs, licking up the side of my face.
My hands fist in his cut, and I find myself enamored with the song of our attraction. The tempo is made up of frantic breaths; the rhythm is the shushing whisper of leather on leather; the beat is my heart, a steady but rapid flicker of muscle that leaves my pulse racing and my body wracked with dizziness.
A gasp escapes me as Beast puts his teeth to the side of my neck, grazing the throb of my carotid.
“I’ve tried my best to remain a gentleman for you, suge,” he growls, and then he’s biting me in that tender space between my neck and shoulder, and I’m thrusting my hips up off the leather seat. I’ve always found the back of this SUV pleasantly roomy.
Not with Beast in it.
He takes up all of the extra space, consumes the oxygen until I’m not sure if I’m even breathing anymore. I could be dying. If so, if this is what death feels like, I would gladly give into it.
A groan slips out as he grabs my right hand with his left, pinning it to the seat with unbelievable strength.
“But I don’t have to be.” Beast moves his mouth back to mine, using his right hand to fist in my hair as he kisses me like I dare not even ask him to share. Like this is it. And if it is, I have to be okay with that.
