After the Fall: The Fallen Men, #4 Read online

  It was fucked up, and we’d been only too happy to help them out. After all, if anyone knew what it was like to have the world against them, it was King and me.

  So I grinned at him, and asked, “You like pie?”

  His answering smile wasn’t as vibrant as the one saved for Kylie, but it was stunning all the same. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Wrath was sitting at my pretty island drinking a beer when King returned with a crate of apple and ink stains on his fingers. He clocked Wrath right away, but ignored him as he dropped the apples on the counter and reached around me to wrap his hand over my throat and tip my face for his kiss.

  He tasted crisp and sweet as the apples he’d just picked.

  “Caramel smells good,” he murmured even though it was me he was smelling. Running his nose down the line of my neck, he bit into the junction of my throat and shoulder. “Save some separate, yeah? I got a mind to test a theory and see what’s sweeter, you or the sugar.”

  A shiver ripped through me, and my lids fluttered closed as he licked at my pulse, then lightly suck at the skin there. He could reduce me to ashes and embers with a single kiss, and he had no qualms about wielding his power, even in front of guests.

  Actually, especially in front of guests if they were of the male variety.

  “Stop being such a caveman.” I laughed, slightly breathless, and playfully shoved him away. “Get out of my kitchen and catch up with Wrath while you can. Eugene should be here any minute to reunite the lovers.”

  “Good,” he said as he retrieved his beer. “Fuckin’ hungry and not just for that pie.”

  Wrath laughed a rusty, almost painful sounding chuckle that spoke of disuse. “This from a man who writes poetry?”

  King shrugged and pulled his folded, worn leather notebook from the back pocket of his jeans before tossing it on the table so he could sit down. “How do you think I got her in my bed? Dirty poetry’s the way to a woman’s heart and bed.”

  “King!” I laughed, tossing an apple at his head that he caught all too easily. “Why do you always have to embarrass me?”

  “’Cause I like the way you blush for me, babe.” He grinned, unabashed, and then abruptly sobered. “And I like braggin’ about the fact that all that’s you is mine.”

  I pinked as rosy as the Ambrosia apples on the counter beside me and ducked behind a sheave of my hair as I poured the caramel over the apple mixture in the pie pan.

  “Good to see ya, though, brother,” King said, clinking beers with Wrath. “What’s the news?”

  “You should know, Farrah’s been hangin’ ’round Reaper,” he started off. “He’s callin’ her his Old Lady, so you know it’s serious for now, even if it’s temporary.”

  “Yeah, got the knowledge from Zeus about two hours ago. How’s that play out for us?”

  “He’s distracted, which would normally be good. Problem is, he’s distracted by your sister.”

  “Fuck.”

  I locked eyes with King over the counter and read the anger and helplessness in his eyes. He wanted to get on his bike and roar down to Vancouver in a blaze of gasoline and smoking tires, throw Harleigh Rose on the back, and steal her away to Entrance where we could keep her safe.

  Only H.R. didn’t want that.

  She wasn’t the kind of woman who waited for a man to save her. She was the kind of woman who stormed the battlefield herself, damn the consequences.

  Even though she’d just killed the man who’d been abusing her for years, she was reluctant to accept help, even from the brother who loved her and semi-raised her or me, the woman she considered her friend and almost mother figure.

  It killed me, but I knew it absolutely slayed King. He was just that kind of man.

  “You keepin’ an eye?” he asked Wrath, voice calm but hands fisted.

  “You know it. She’s keepin’ an eye on me while I keep one on her, though. She’s a smart one even though she’s dumb as shit for hookin’ up with Lion.”

  “Lion?” I squeaked. “As in Lion Danner?”

  “One and the same,” Wrath confirmed grimly. “Motherfucker doesn’t know I’m in with ya, so he thinks he’s got everyone fooled. Playin’ the biker part, tryin’ to take down the club, obviously. The thing is, he’s a good man, and I’m inclined to like ’im despite ’im bleedin’ blue.”

  “That’s because he is a good man,” I admitted begrudgingly. So many years with The Fallen under the corrupted thumb of Staff Sargent Danner had turned my bias against the men in blue, but there was no doubt in my mind that Danner Junior was one of the good ones.

  He had to be; he had practically raised King during the years Zeus was incarcerated.

  King seemed to think so too if his pensive expression was anything to go off. He stared into the distance, thumb rubbing over his lower lip as it did when he was contemplating something.

  “Fuckin’ Danner,” he finally said with his boyish grin. “Always stickin’ his neck in where it doesn’t belong. Gotta say I’m grateful he’s takin’ care of H.R., though. God knows she needs watching over.”

  “Don’t let her hear you say that.” I winked at him as I opened the oven and slotted the pie into the racks. “She’d have your balls.”

  “She would,” he agreed proudly. “Still, I’m tellin’ you, Wrath, risking my balls and all, because my sister is my responsibility, and now, I’m hopin’, she’s yours.”

  Wrath and King locked eyes, sharing something between them that only two men with a code of honour built on brotherhood and masculinity could fully understand.

  “’S already done, to tell you the truth of it,” he finally said with that rusty chuckle. “She and Lion were bein’ idiots moonin’ over each other, so I stepped up. You hear talk she’s my woman now, don’t be surprised.”

  King groaned and knocked his forehead against the table dramatically, making me laugh as I made my way toward him. Instantly, he pushed back his chair and made room for me to sit on his lap. “In bed with a cop and a rival MC biker…fuck me, if Zeus hears of this, he’ll come down on H.R. like the hammer of God.”

  “We won’t let it come to that,” Wrath assured. “I got that situation under control so long as you keep takin’ care of my girl.”

  We weren’t really taking care of her, but we had arranged for her to live with Eugene up in his secluded mountain cabin so that she would be out of sight and out of mind of her filicide-inclined father. Eugene wasn’t officially affiliated with the club so if for some reason one of the Berserkers went looking for Kylie, they’d only find her visiting a friend of her family or shacked up with some random older guy. Only King and Eugene knew of the arrangement with Wrath, and I knew King planned to keep it that way, both for Kylie’s protection and as an ace up his sleeve should he need to use Wrath’s info to deepen his position in The Fallen.

  Just because he was the son of the Prez didn’t mean King was exempt from earning his spot in the club.

  There was the sound of tires on the gravel outside, and instantly, Wrath’s face transformed from his normally taciturn expression to one of absolute ecstasy.

  “She’s here,” he said, almost to himself, and then he was up and stalking across the kitchen to the front door.

  King buried his nose in my hair and chuckled softly. “Should we leave them to it?”

  “We could…but this is my favourite part,” I admitted, wriggling off his lap even though he playfully tried to grab me.

  “My hopeless romantic,” he teased even as he followed me to the door.

  “Hopeless before you,” I agreed as we halted in the door, and he wrapped his arms around my waist, chin perched on my shoulder so we could watch the separated lovers greet each other. “Not so much now.”

  He pressed a kiss to my ear in silent acknowledgement of my sappiness.

  And we watched.

  Kylie was out of the car like a shot, slamming the door in her haste before sprinting toward Wrath, curling black hair flying behind her, long dark legs churning
, arms outstretched.

  “Wes,” she cried out seconds before she launched herself into the air like a pole vaulter and was caught in the large bracket of Wrath’s embrace.

  Instantly, he contracted, bringing her tight to his body, her limbs wrapped around him like ivy, their faces tucked into each other’s necks as if they need to feel the other’s pulse beat against their cheeks. Reassurance, after so long apart, that they were both alive and well.

  It made my heart ache to watch them, as it did every time they had reunited since Wrath brought her to us for protection some months ago. I couldn’t imagine being separated from King. The longest we ever went without physical contact was when he went on runs down the coast with the club, and that was never for longer than two weeks. He felt too elemental to me to be parted with for long.

  As if sensing my thoughts, King used his nose to push my hair away from my neck and kissed my pulse point. “You know, sometimes, even when I hold you like this, bein’ with you feels like a dream I have no business dreamin’.”

  “I pinch myself every day,” I admitted. “Who would have known the prissy school teacher would be so happy with the gorgeous rebel?”

  “Didn’t doubt it.”

  I rolled my eyes and shoved my hips back into him. “Born to be king, doesn’t doubt a thing.”

  He laughed, and the warm waft of his breath on my neck made me shiver with longing. “Everyone’s got doubts. Even I’m not exempt from that. Just never doubted my longing for you, Cress babe. Not for a single fuckin’ second.”

  His tongue flashed out to lick a sultry path down the side of my throat, and I practically melted back into his embrace.

  “Now, come inside. Got a hunger only the taste of you will satisfy,” he whispered in my ear before sinking his teeth firmly into my neck.

  I moaned, tipping my head instantly to give him better access even though we were in full view of the embracing lovers and Eugene.

  “Gonna invite me in for a spot’a tea?” Eugene bellowed from down the drive, laughter rich in his rough voice.

  “Only thing I’m drinkin’ down is my woman,” King called back even as he moved us backward into the house. “Fuck off and find your own refreshment.”

  He closed the door on their laughter. I opened my mouth to protest his brazenness even though I was used to it, but his mouth stole the words on my tongue as he sealed it with a searing kiss.

  When he pulled back, it was with that smug, lazy half smile tucked into his left cheek. My lips tingled and my nipples ached as I pushed my breasts into his chest in a physical entreaty for more.

  “You wanted to say something?” he asked as he swiped his thumb over my kiss-swollen lower lip and dipped the pad over my tongue. He tasted of apples and the salt of man.

  I tried to kiss him again, eager for the taste of his mouth in mine, but his hand at my throat, squeezing just enough to be felt, stopped me.

  “No, babe, wanna hear you ask for what you want from me,” he demanded huskily.

  I strained against that hand, loving the way it arrowed heat straight down my throat to pool in my gut like a shot of whiskey.

  “You,” I gasped as his grip tensed tighter and his other hand flattened on my lower back to push me into his groin where I could feel his hard cock throb against my hip. “I want you, always.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed gruffly, dipping down to lick my lower lip, then tug it between his teeth. “My woman is always greedy for me.”

  And God, I was. I’d spent half my mature life thinking I’d been some deviant woman, some unenviable slut for craving sex the way I always had. My ex-husband had degraded me for those desires, condensing to make love to me only when he hoped it would produce a baby.

  But not King. He took pleasure in my body the way a painter does his art, every curve and dip of my surface a delight to revel in, every movement of my form a different temptation to chase after. He made me feel ripe and wanton with the way he gorged on me. I loved his mouth on my sex, his fingers playing on my skin, and his lips sealed over mine as he drank long and deeply from the well of my mouth.

  Sex with King was nothing short of sumptuous. And as he backed me farther into the kitchen, lifting me onto the counter beside the stove, I tangled my fingers in his hair, eager to discover more ways he could teach me his lessons in corruption.

  I watched his big hands made quick work of my button and fly, then tugged off my jeans and panties, loving the way his King of Hearts tattoo peeked at me from the side of his middle finger. I had the matching one, with a Queen, on the inside of mine, and I loved the reminder of me he wore on his skin.

  “Gonna feast, babe,” King said as he tugged my hips sharply to the edge of the counter. “Brace your feet against the edge and open that beautiful pussy for me.”

  I blushed because his filthy mouth never failed to smoke under my skin. Cool air wafted over my exposed sex as I brace my hands behind me and tucked up my feet, but I didn’t feel insecure because King was between my thighs, his thumb rubbing over my bare public bone as if I was a work of priceless art.

  “Fuck me, but I get so hard just lookin’ at this pretty pussy.” His thumb dipped down the edge of my lips, then swirled at my entrance, playing in the wetness that pooled there. “Love feeling you get wet for me, all swollen and aching for my cock. Is that what you want, babe?”

  I groaned, trying to jerk my hips up to get more of his thumb inside me. “Yes, King, please, stop teasing me.”

  “Stop?” He laughed, eyes sparkling like glass in sunlight. “Babe, I’m just gettin’ started.”

  I moaned, this time in protest as he moved away just long enough to pull the bowl of cooled caramel into reach. His grin was wicked as he dipped a finger in the sugar and twirled some around his thumb before offering it to me. I sucked hard, then lapped my tongue around the tip in a way that made his eyes go black with want.

  “Good?” he asked roughly as he went back for more and then smeared it over my bottom lip. He didn’t give me time to answer. Instead, he leaned over to suck the sweetness from my mouth.

  I was panting when he finished kissing me, and I could feel myself leak from my sex and pooled over the counter like spilled caramel.

  “King, please.”

  “I love the way you say my name. Like a zealot reveres the name of her deity.” He dipped to his knees, still tall enough that he was eye level with my dripping wet pussy. “Fuck me, what a sight. What do you think is sweeter? You or the caramel?”

  I gasped as he painted warm candy on top of my clit and then laved it with his tongue. It felt electric, as if he was rubbing raw energy over my sensitive flesh. I bucked up into the heat of his mouth, needing him to shock my clit until I burst open into that elusive orgasm, but he only played with me, adding caramel to my outer lips and sucking them into his mouth, then swirling his tongue as if licking droplets from a leaking faucet.

  “Sweet and salty,” he rumbled against my inner thigh as he used his caramel-free hand to sink two fingers inside me and twist in a way that made my back arch and my toes curl.

  He folded my legs farther back, pressing me open like a book for him to read, to study and dedicate to memory so that he could recite the taste of me, the smell of me anytime he wanted.

  “Oh my God,” I chanted as he worked those fingers and his tongue in perfect harmony, playing me so easily it was almost degrading how quickly I needed to come. But it was exactly that edge of shame that made me cry out and spasm around his fingers, shouting to the ceiling just to release the wild ecstasy coursing from my core.

  He lapped at my cum, running his tongue from my taint all the way up and over my clit. I shuddered as he moved over my sensitive pussy, but I still ached for something more.

  “Please, I need you inside me,” I told him, using my hands in his hair to drag him up to standing and my legs to hook around his back and bring him close.

  I reached down with one hand to undo his jeans and take his hot, steely flesh into my hand. A groa
n escaped before I could think to stop it, and my mouth watered at the feel of him as I notched his leaking crown against my entrance.

  He ran his hands through the sides of my hair and rubbed his thumbs over my cheekbones. “You want me inside you, babe?”

  I nodded, tipping my head back as he worked his mouth over my ear and across my jaw.

  “You want to feel me stretch open this beautiful pussy?”

  A whimper as I felt myself grow even wetter.

  “Want me to show you with my body just how much I fuckin’ worship you?”

  “Yes,” I cried out as he surged inside, seating himself completely inside me.

  I writhed against him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders to hold on as he clasped one hand on my ass and kept the other in my hair to hold me still while he pumped into me. It seemed almost unnatural how much I craved the connection between us, how feeling him inside me felt like a key fitting into a lock, and the real me burst through, darkly, maddeningly greedy and possessive for every drop of King he could possibly give me.

  “Come inside,” I urged, clawing at his back just feel a moan move through him. “I want to feel you spill hot and deep inside me.”

  “Fuck,” he cursed viciously, head tossed back and eyes squeezed shut in a motif of exquisite pain. Then he groaned so deeply it moved through both of us like the roll of thunder, and he was coming inside, cock thumping, hips grinding, and I was coming with him.

  I gasped into his feasting mouth on mine, shuddered against his body, and shattered, waves breaking open on the intractable shore. It felt so natural to give in to those desires, to ride them all the way to completion, and then, because I was obsessed with him, with us, to dreamily imagine the next time we could come together like that again.

  King pulled away and brushed a damp lock of hair off my forehead. He was so utterly lovely, so deeply beautiful, the sight of him almost made me believe in God again, because only a divine hand could have made a face like this.

  “You have this way of lookin’ at me,” he murmured huskily as he continued to card his hand through my hair. “Lookin’ at me like I’m the sun and you’re fucking dazzled by me.”