I used to dream about white picket fences. I refused to admit it, though. I swore I’d never spill my secret. Never in a million years. My sister, Sloane, wouldn’t have understood. Since we were tiny, all she ever wanted to do was follow in Dad’s footsteps and become a doctor. She was so driven and focused on her career that the idea of a husband and a family just never occurred to her. I asked her once whether she was going to get married and take time off to have babies after she graduated from medical school, and she just looked at me like I was a perplexing puzzle she couldn’t quite figure out. Mom and Dad would have been thrilled to know I wanted to build a home and a family for myself, but I could never voice my dreams to them for some reason. They made me feel uncomfortable in a way that I didn’t know how to handle. Embarrassed, almost. Nearly every woman I knew wanted to achieve greatness, to strive for some seemingly unobtainable goal, to grow and better themselves. It seemed like wanting a family was such a small dream. Pointless in the grand scheme of things, as though being a mother or a wife was always meant to be a secondary role I was meant to play, and my main purpose in life was something far greater.
It’s laughable to think back on all the hours I spent slogging away over test studies and group assignments in college now, though. I never planned on witnessing a murder, getting kidnapped, being spirited away across two states, and falling in love with the president of a motorcycle gang. It never crossed my mind that I might end up running away from everything I ever held dear to me. That I would be laying in bed with a man who stole my heart so thoroughly that I feel like I can barely breathe without him by my side.
It’s been six months. Six months since Jamie found me. The best and the worst six months of my entire life. I’m used to waking up next to him now. I’m used to the roar of motorcycle engines rumbling in the dark as members of the Widow Makers MC return to the compound—I don’t even notice the sound anymore. I sleep like a baby, my head resting on Louis James Aubertin III’s chest, his arms wrapped around me, and it seems utterly normal that twenty armed men are sleeping in a bunk house only a hundred feet away from us. It’s strange how time and exposure to violence can dull its impact on you. It’s strange how one decision can change your life forever.
“You still sleeping, Prospect?” Jamie whispers into my hair. Sunlight lances through the gap between the heavy curtains, casting long fingers of gold and white across our bodies and up the opposite wall. Dust motes hover in the still air, refracting the light. I’ve been watching them spin for the past twenty minutes, enjoying the way Jamie’s naked body feels tangled up in mine, while I’ve listened to his heartbeat beneath my ear. It’s always the same: slow and steady, never erratic or unpredictable. It calms me. No matter what’s going on in our lives, no matter how much shit seems to be raining down on us, he’s always there, steady like his heart beat, always watching over me.
“Mmm. You’ll never get tired of that, will you?” I whisper.
He strokes a hand lightly over my hair. “What?”
He knows exactly what I’m talking about, but I humor him all the same. “Calling me Prospect,” I say, prodding him in the side. Ever since that night in the desert after we buried Raphael together, the night he agreed that I could prospect for the Widow Makers, he’s taken great delight in calling me that name. He finds it amusing that his girlfriend has to bend over backwards twenty-four seven in an attempt to be accepted into his motorcycle club.
“I guess not,” he says softly, stroking his hand up and down my bare side, making me shiver a little. “It’s good to know you have to behave yourself and do as your told. What can I say? This power I hold over you has gone to my head.”
He’s so fucking ridiculous. He knows I rarely do as I’m told, and he knows I rarely behave myself. He’s clearly asking for trouble. I can hear the smile in his voice, taunting me. I tilt my head so I can graze his chest with my teeth, biting down a little. “You’re dreaming, buddy.”