“You want to get into this now?” he asked, his voice scarily quiet. “We both knew it was coming, so let’s get it over with.”
“There is no getting it over with,” I hissed. “It won’t ever be over.”
“Well, you sure as fuck got that part right,” he muttered.
His hands came up to cup my head, and before I could push him away or say anything else, his lips were on mine.
Chapter 12
Mark
It was a spectacularly bad idea to kiss Cecilia, but goddamn did she taste good. I wasn’t sure how she managed it, the rest of her was a mess, but her mouth tasted clean with a hint of chocolate from the candy she’d had while we were driving. It was incredible, and she’d been right about the drowning—I sure as hell felt like I was drowning then.
Her hands came up to grip my forearms, the nails pressing into my skin, and I shuddered. It had been so fucking long since anything had affected me that much. Hell, I’d had sex that hadn’t rocked my world the way one taste of Cecilia’s mouth did. Tilting my head, I pressed deeper into her mouth, the memory of how that used to make her groan swirling in my head—
“Am I interruptin’?” Forrest drawled from the open doorway, making Cecilia tear her mouth away.
I was going to kill him.
“What?” I snapped, not bothering to raise my head. I was too busy staring at Cecilia, who looked like she couldn’t decide whether to bolt or hit me.
“Just lettin’ you know they brought in some pizzas. Time to eat,” Forrest replied, his voice laced with amusement.
“Got it.”
He didn’t leave.
“Is there a reason you’re still standing there?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Nope,” he answered, coughing to hide a chuckle as he walked away.
I sighed as Cecilia stepped away from me, avoiding eye contact as she reached for the diaper bag.
“We’ll finish this later,” I told her as she carefully unwrapped the baby to change her diaper.
“There’s nothing to finish,” she replied. “In a few days, you’ll be back in California, and I’ll be back in hell. Just drop it.”
“You know that’s not going to happen.”
“I’m going to get some pizza,” she mumbled, giving me a wide berth as she headed for the doorway, Olive snug in her arms.
I followed her out to the common area and watched as she was swallowed up by the crowd. No matter what she thought about the club or her place in it—the woman belonged with these people. Most of them hadn’t even seen her since she was a toddler, and they still treated her like a long lost daughter.
“This place is a trip,” Lu said around a bite of pizza as she walked up beside me. “The men look at me like they can’t figure me out, and the women don’t bat an eyelash.”
“That’s because most of these guys don’t have any clue how much the women pitch in,” I replied quietly. “These women have been kicking ass and taking names for years, they just do it from behind the scenes.”
“Yeah, that’s the vibe I’ve been getting.”
“When I was a kid, the men in the club paid an interest—especially after my pop died—in teaching me how to work on engines and fire a weapon. Hell, one of the boys taught me how to drive. But it was the women who pulled me into the fold—made sure I had clean shit to wear, kept me fed, made sure I was doing alright.”
“Men did the surface shit, women did the real heavy lifting,” Lu said with a hum.
I chuckled. “Pretty much, yeah.”
“But you lived with your mom, right?” she asked.
Cecilia was handing the baby off to someone and I paused until I realized it was Eileen. “Yeah,” I told Lu distractedly. “But she worked two jobs, so I went to my pop’s a lot, and later, to different club members’ houses. I spent most summers there.”
“Like a big, extended family,” Lu mused.
“Pretty much.”
“Must be nice. It was always just me, my brother and my mom. Now it’s just me.”
“It’s not just you,” I argued, throwing my arm over her shoulder. “You’ve got your niece up north, and the team, too.”
“True—if her mother would answer my calls. Do I have to claim Siah, though? I’d rather not.”
“If I had to pick and choose, I’d leave out Wilson,” I joked.
“Nah, Wilson may be a pain in the ass, but he doesn’t go out of his way to irritate me.”