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Her tongue drags across my lower lips as she wiggles her breasts so they’re on full display and presses my hand over one. “So, fuck me right here,” she breathes. “You want to claim me, Judge? So, claim me. The way I’ve always wanted.”

A growl that threatens to rip my throat apart surges energy through me. I grip her waist tight and pull her over me. The blanket falls away as I position her over my cock and she sinks down. “You’re gonna ride me, you hear?” I cup the back of her head, tangling my fingers in her hair. “You’re gonna look right here, and nowhere else.” My hand lands hard on her ass, and she lets out a little cry that thickens my cock deep in her cunt. “And you’re gonna let me fill you again and again right here until I’m done. Not you.”

My stare is hard and relentless. Fuck it. If she wants to be claimed and used, I’m more than happy to oblige. Later, when we’re alone, I’ll pamper the fuck out of this woman. Right now, she can ride my cock and coat me with her cream. All fucking night long until every inch of her shakes.

And then she can shake some more.

Chapter Sixteen

The End of Everything

Poppy

The morning comes in like a breath held too long.

Grey light bleeds through the blinds, painting the clubhouse in streaks of ash and pearl. My body knows the hour before my mind catches up, 5:00 AM or just a little past—because Samuel drilled wakefulness into me like a nail. Sleep is a weakness. Get up. Be ready. Be first.

Walker’s arm is slung heavy across my hip, his chest pressed warm against my spine. Even in sleep, even wrecked and exhausted from last night, he holds me like I might vanish. His breathing is slow, steady, the kind of rhythm that says nothing in the world could touch him.

I wish I believed that.

The Nomad cut hangs on the bedpost above my head. Leather and memory. Walker’s name on my back and his claim on my skin. I reach up and touch it, fingers tracing the stitched letters, and something fierce and territorial pulses through my chest.

Mine.

The party died around three. Brothers passed out on couches, on the floor, on the pool table. The clubhouse still reeks of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and sex. Someone left the jukebox playing, a low, distorted hum of a rock song filtering through the club like a ghost that doesn’t know it’s dead.

I slip out of Walker’s grip. He stirs, mutters something that sounds like my name, and settles. I press my lips to his shoulder and pull on his black t-shirt and a pair of cutoff shorts from the pile of clothes we’ve accumulated over the last week.

The hallway is dark and cold. My bare feet stick to the floor, and I step over a prospect who’s sleeping with his face pressed against the wall, mouth open, snoring like a chainsaw. The main room is a disaster. Bottles, ashtrays, and abandoned plates litter every surface. Mama M is going to have everyone’s ass when she sees this.

I’m halfway to the kitchen when I hear it. Not a sound, exactly. More like the absence of one. The crickets outside have gone silent. The distant rumble of the highway is gone. Even the jukebox seems to hold its breath. Every nerve in my body fires at once. I’ve felt this before. This pressure. This stillness that’s really the world holding its mouth shut before it screams.

Tyrant.

I move without thinking. My hand finds the blade Walker gave me, the one he took off Mutt, cleaned, and presented to me with a look that said, “This is yours now,” sheathed on the counter where I left it last night. My fingers close around the grip, and the weight of it settles into my palm like it was made for me.

The first bullet hits the front window. Glass explodes inward, a glittering storm of shards that catches the first weak light of dawn and turns it into a weapon. I hit the floor, shoulder first, rolling behind the bar as the second and third shots follow—crack, crack—punching through wood and plaster like fists piercing wet paper.

The rumble of motorcycles follows closely after.

“Contact!” The roar comes from somewhere near the front door. Crimson.

I can hear him moving, heavy boots on glass, and then the deafening bark of his rifle answers the attack. One, two, three controlled shots, each one a deliberate punch of sound that rattles my teeth.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

More voices now. Bellowing. Cursing. The sickening thud of bodies hitting furniture as brothers scramble from sleep to violence. Someone steps on the prospect in the hallway. He screams, and the sound is lost in the next volley of gunfire that tears through the front of the clubhouse like a buzzsaw.

I peer over the edge of the bar. Through the shattered window, through the smoke and dust churning in the morning light, I see them.

Forsaken. Fucking. Saints.

A line of motorcycles stretches across the front lot, headlights blazing through the dawn like a wall of false suns. Behind the bikes, men crouch and fire. Forsaken Saints patches catching the light. I count. Five. Eight. Ten. They’re spread out in a wide arc, flanking the building, and the muzzle flashes strobe across their faces in frozen snapshots of grimaced teeth and wild eyes.

This is retribution for my little incursion yesterday. For what I took when I shouldn’t have been back in Saint territory at all. Because my father expects me to be dead.

Samuel’s in the back. I feel him before I see him, standing tall beside his black SUV, arms folded, watching his soldiers do his killing for him. He’s not firing. He doesn’t need to.