Page 41 of Iron and Ivory

I shove the helmet on my head, heart thumping in my chest as I snap it and get on. And when I wrap my legs around him and press my face into his back… I feel it.

It's happening.

It's started.

This is my beginning.

CHAPTER 9

The feel of Savannah's body pressing against me as I take the turns leading to the trailer is exactly what I needed after nearly a month of stacked tension.

She loves the cut, I can tell. And I love the way it looks on her. The way my name is written across her heart. The way she is so thoroughly and completely mine these days.

And it's weird because she's not any closer to my daily life now than she has been in the past. She's exactly the same distance away.

But everything about us is different now.

She hasn't mentioned the post she wrote on her social page. The one where she declared her love for me over Marcus. The one where she burned her entire reputation to the ground.

But I saw it.

Read it.

Memorized those words…

There is no time, no distance, no consequence that could make me stop loving him.

She really is mine.

Possession wasn't the only reason I had the cut made for her. Mostly I just wanted to see her wearin' it. Wanted to see my name sittin' right there across her chest like it belonged, like it was always gonna end up there, like the leather already knew what I was gonna do before I did.

And it does look right. Looks more right than just about anything I ever put eyes on.

But she's part of me now, and that means she's part of Badlands. That isn't sentiment—that's structure.

That's how the club works and that's how I work and those two things aren't separate anymore. Haven't been separate since the brand went on my chest and I put that cut on my back for the first time.

What's mine gets claimed.

What gets claimed gets marked.

Simple as that.

And if she hadn't posted what she posted—if she hadn't stood up in front of four million people and torched everything Marcus White Jr. thought he owned, hadn't said there is no time, no distance, no consequence—if she'd kept quiet and played it safe like she’s been trained her whole life to do, I'd have waited.

I'd have held my tongue.

Let it come in its own time, let her find her own way to the thing that was already true. The day would've come when she looked around and realized her position in the club hadn't been acknowledged yet, and I'd have fixed it then.

But she didn't keep quiet.

So I felt like the claim needed to be made public on my end too.

The sun is just dropping over the horizon when we reach the driveway to the new trailer. Before tonight, I hadn't been out here in months. Not since Colt and I rescued Savannah from the cabin and I took her home with me.

I roll the bike up to the porch and kill the engine. Things go silent the way they always do after the rumble dies and I take off my helmet as Savannah gets off and starts takin' off hers.

I put our helmets on the seat and take her hand, smiling like some normal guy who doesn't have a pit of dead bodies haunting his every moment.