“Mancuso’s guy takes Chey, what do you do?” he asks. His face is down-turned and his expression so solemn that it’s almost painful to look at him. He’s imagining losing his daughter to that psychopath in the expensive suit. I want to tell him not to worry, but I can’t. The guy proved that he can get to her and he can get to me. He can get to anybody, I think. None of us are truly safe and if Grady can stay on his game by feeling every ounce of that fear, then his pain has some use.
I’ve known her less than a year, and on a personal level even less than that, but the thought of losing her churns my stomach. She’s funny and smart and the very best of Grady with hints of a woman I’ve never met, but who doesn’t deserve Cheyenne because she’s not here and she doesn’t get to see how awesome her daughter really is. And I kind of hate her for creating that void in Cheyenne’s life.
“He takes Chey, Sweets. What do you do—if I’m not here, what do you do?”
The words come out instantly and without any thought. I’m not sure where they come from. I only know that when I say them, I mean them with every fiber of my being.
“He dies.”
“He dies,” he says with a nod. “How?”
“Any way possible. You won’t lose her. I promise.”
He finishes undressing himself and leans over me. I arch backwards and lay myself gently on the floor as he cradles the back of my head. His lips descend on mine with such passion that I think I might explode from the kiss alone. But then his hands get to work and he brings me back to that place where I’m hanging between being here and being lost in a sea of feeling. I fight the urge to let it overtake me. I want to be here, in the present as I say this.
“Marry me,” I say. It’s not much of a request because I won’t take no for an answer.
“Told you,” he says as he slides into me, igniting delicious sparks of need. A loud groan escapes him as he buries himself to the hilt. “I won’t do that to you.”
“You’ll give me this,” I say in a breathless whisper. “I need this from you—the security—and you’ll give it to me because you know you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong,” he says as he slides out and then back in with a slow, shallow thrust before rearing back and this time impaling me with all his might. My back arches and my legs twitch with the force of him.
“You are,” I say as my jaw shakes and I break out into shivers. We move together slowly, neither of us with any desire to rush this. “Because you’re not going anywhere.”
“You can’t know that,” he says in broken words. He blows out a deep breath and pulls in a shaky one. I lean up and nip at the corner of his mouth. We’re nose to nose with his strong arms supporting my new position. The friction is incredible like this and I wonder why we’d never tried it before. “Chief died.”
“You’re going to marry me and when everything calms down, I’m going to give you a son.”
“You’ll change your mind,” he says as he picks up the pace. His jaw tenses as he gets closer to the edge. I don’t know where the word-vomit came from, but in this moment I want him to know everything about me. I want him to have every hope and dream because he’s clearly worried about what’s going on with the club. I’m not stupid enough to try to dissuade his fears.
“No.” I whimper. “You’re scared.”
“I love you,” he says as he bites his lip to fight back his impending orgasm. He stills and takes a deep breath then moves slowly in and out, in and out. I fall apart around him and a moment later, he loses himself in me as well. I manage to mumble out a pathetic “I love you” as I’m coming down. We lay there like that, connected, for a while. Eventually, he places a kiss to my forehead and says, “You ambushed me with that shit.”
“You’re still going to marry me,” I say as I drag my hands up and down his back.
“Yeah, Sweets,” he says as he kisses me. A drop of sweat falls onto my hairline near my ear. His voice is pained when he says, “I am.”
Chapter 25
“WHY DIDN’T YOU tell me Jeremy’s prospecting for the club?” I ask. We’ve untangled ourselves from one another and we’re dressing. I fix the last of the buttons on my shirt and turn back to Grady who’s shoving his feet into his black motorcycle boots. Aside from the cuts, the boots are the closest thing the club has to a uniform. They all wear them and it’s obvious they’re not a special occasion shoe. Lisa made a joke last week that Grady’s laundry is now my responsibility. I hate to break it to her, but Grady’s laundry is Grady’s responsibility. I don’t care how many other women he has wrapped around his devilishly long, flexible fingers, I’m not doing the man’s laundry. It goes against everything I believe in.
“Would you have understood?” he asks. “I tell you before I got you hooked that I got a teenager prospecting for my club—how’s that go over?”