His reaction has me gasping out loud; he grabs hold of my hair in his right hand and makes a fist, pulling my head back. “Then do it. Say it,” he growls.
“Jamie, I—I want you to take me back to the cabin, and I want you to show me what it means for you to be my—my master.”
A slow, wonderfully sinister smile spreads across Rebel’s face. “Sophia?” he says.
“Mmm?”
“You may not want to talk about it this second, but you are going to marry me. You know that, don’t you?”
I feel weak and helpless in his arms, but not in a bad way. I also feel safe. Protected. At peace. I know, no matter how many other men I could potentially meet in my lifetime, no matter how special they might be able to make me feel, I will never meet another man like this. I will never feel as special as the way he makes me feel. I bury my face in his neck, hiding from the truth in his eyes and the truth in my heart. I can’t face it yet. It’s too damn frightening.
Rebel laughs silently, his shoulders moving up and down. He presses his lips against my temple and then stoops to collect the gun I dropped on the ground. I’m still clinging to him, legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck, when he shoots out the remaining cans.
“Come on, sugar,” he whispers into my hair. “Let’s get you home. Time to show you what you’ve been missing.
THIRTEEN
REBEL
I take a corner, leaning my Monster into it, and Sophia’s thighs tense ever so slightly. My dick is suddenly harder than reinforced concrete. Fuck Maria Rosa. Fuck Agent Lowell. Fuck Hector Ramirez and his evil piece of shit right hand man. All I care about right now is what’s gonna happen when I get Sophia through the door and into my damn bed. I doubt very much we’ll make it to the bed in all honesty. At this rate, as soon as we pull up outside the compound I’m probably going to be bending her over my motorcycle and fucking the living daylights out of her just to warm her up. She has no idea what she’s getting herself into. No clue whatsoever.
Up ahead, the compound is lit up against the darkness like a beacon. We pass the huge tree where Carnie found Bron’s body as we head toward home, and I can feel Soph judder against me. No matter how much time passes, that tree is always going to have evil connotations for her. For me, too. I’m not normally one for wantonly destroying living things, but I make a mental note to come out here tomorrow morning to take a chainsaw to the damn thing. I’ll use a pickaxe to dig the stump out, and then I’ll fill in the hole so it looks the same as the rest of this desolate landscape. Shame, really.
There are plenty of people milling about when we pull through the compound gates. I park my motorcycle up alongside the long line of machines behind the barn. Cade’s out the front of the clubhouse smoking a cigarette. He sees us, gives me a curt nod of his head, but he doesn’t come over. He’ll have things to tell me—if anyone can make Maria Rosa part with information, it’s Cade—but he must see the small shake of the head I give him. He’ll wait for me to come find him later. After my business with Sophia is at an end.
The girl beside me has her shoulders drawn back, chin tilted proudly. She’s set her jaw, and looks extremely defiant as I gesture for her to lead the way up to the cabin. She sets off without batting an eyelid.
“That woman hates me,” she says.
“What woman?” I don’t really need to ask, though. There’s only one possible person she could be referring to. Shay needs to calm the fuck down, or she’s gonna get called into my office and we’ll be having words. Really unpleasant ones. Sophia jerks her head to the right, where Shay is leaning against one of the storage units, talking to Dex, one of the Widow Makers’ longest standing members. She’s glaring at Sophia, sending her the foulest look imaginable. She seems completely oblivious to the fact that I’m even here. When she does notice me I shoot daggers at her and she looks the other way, eyes to the ground. When I was a kid, Ryan taught me how to treat a woman. Southern manners are hard to shake off, regardless of where you end up living and regardless of how other people may treat the fairer sex. Shay’s something else, though. She’s enough to make me forget my manners entirely.
“You guys used to sleep together, right?” Sophia asks.
She’s far too astute for her own good. I can see the awkward look on her face out of the corner of my eye; I know telling her the truth is only going to make her feel weird, but in the same vein I’m not going to fucking lie to her. I never will. “Yeah. Couple of times, back when she first showed up here. I put a stop to it very quickly.”
“Why? I mean, she’s a beautiful woman. You didn’t think so?”
I laugh, placing my hand non-too-subtly on Sophia’s ass as we climb the hill toward the cabin. “Sugar, a girl can be just about the most stunning thing to ever walk the surface of this planet, but if she’s ugly on the inside then it’s only a matter of time before she’s ugly on the outside, too.”
“So she’s a bad person?”
I take a beat to think about this. “No, not bad. Just damaged. Seriously, seriously damaged. This club is a family, though. You don’t kick out the problem child just because they have problems, right? You try and help them.”
“And if they just don’t want helping?”
“Then you lock them in their rooms until they start behaving themselves.” I am really not beyond considering this with Shay if she continues to act like a spoiled little bitch. “The thing about Shay is she hates to lose,” I say.
“And she thinks I’ve won?” Sophia sounds incredibly amused by this idea. I slap her on the ass. Hard. She stifles a cry, which has my cock throbbing in my pants. She can try and stifle her cries all she wants, but before the night is out I swear she won’t be able to help herself anymore. Her throat will be sore from all her screaming, in the very best way.
As soon as we’re through the door of the cabin, I have her in my arms, feet off the floor, and I’m charging across the other side of the room toward the bed. I must take her by surprise, because Sophia goes rigid, stiff as a board.
“Shit,” she hisses.
I throw her down on the mattress so hard she bounces. There’s a look of poorly disguised fear in her eyes as she blinks up at me, her breasts straining against the thin material of her t-shirt as she breathes in and out in quick time. “Are you afraid of me, Sophia?” I growl.
Her cheeks are stained with a delicate, rather attractive shade of crimson, as are her lips and the base of her throat. She swallows, and then nods. “A…little.”
“You can’t be. If this is going to work, you can’t even be a tiny bit frightened.” I crouch down at the foot of the bed, grabbing her by the ankles. Pulling her forward, I only let her go when her legs are either side of me, her feet almost touching the floor. I look her in the eye along the length of her beautiful, perfect body, and grin. “Sit up.”
She slowly props herself up on her elbows, and then pushes herself upright so her breasts are at my eyelevel. They are so incredible—I want to tear her shirt right off her back and go to town on them, licking and sucking, but I don’t. I need to make sure she understands what’s about to happen first. And what will never happen. “Look at me, sugar,” I whisper. “Look me in the eyes.”
Until now she’s been looking everywhere but at me. It’s so important that she knows I’m telling the truth when I say what I have to say now, though. If she doesn’t, she’s likely to flip the fuck out and panic and I don’t want that. I may be about to make some serious demands of her, but I want her to enjoy them all. I want her to come so fucking hard on my dick.