Page 23

Willa

One Year Later

“T his is incredible!” I throw my arms out to the side, balancing my chest against Atlas’ back. The bike isn’t huge, and he takes up most of the room, pressing me between the back seat rest and his huge body. I like the small space just fine. The closer I can get to Atlas, the better.

He wasn’t lying about the rides at night thing.

We’ve taken the bike he spent the past few months fixing up on a few rides during the day, but this is our maiden voyage in the dark.

It’s a totally different experience than it is riding under the sun and open skies. The black night seems to come at us from all angles. I can feel the road vibrating beneath us, but it rushes along the sides and over us, creating the sensation of being flipped around. We could almost be riding in the sky.

Until headlights sweep against the purple night, piercing through it from the opposite side of the road.

I’m not sure if Atlas heard me or not over the bike’s roaring engine. I tuck my hands back into place on his rock hard abs, squeezing him tight, hoping that some of my exhilaration will flow into him.

These rides were almost a year in coming, but the best part of restoring this old bike isn’t that it’s something rare or worth a lot of money, but that we did it together. It wasn’t a flip project, it was a labor of love. I learned so much about myself piecing this old thing back together, as well as about mechanics, and a whole lot about Atlas and some of the other guys at the garage as well.

It’s different being an official old lady. The club always treated me well, but now they see me as family. I was friends with the other old ladies long before Atlas claimed me as his, but now I’m officially part of that club in a deeper, more meaningful way.

Atlas turns the bike around after ten minutes or so. We’re heading to Patterson’s, but I wanted a ride before we even got there.

He pulls into the parking lot, lining up the bike with all the others. Most of the club is here, by the looks of it. Friday nights are busy here before the guys take it back to the clubhouse.

It’s still relatively early. Only just past ten. That’s basically a biker’s morning. Kidding. Kind of.

We won’t stay long because I have to be up early to open the store tomorrow, but the sense of camaraderie, even if it’s rough and boisterous, is a great way to end the week.

Atlas kills the bike, but the vibrations still rattle through me, even as he leans forward so that I can get off. He balances the bike easily and makes getting off into a new artform.

We’ve officially been together for almost a year now, but the sight of him in his worn out jeans, biker boots, and leather club vest will always make my mouth water.

He shucks his helmet and helps me with mine, finger combing out his glorious blonde hair. The wind has whipped his natural waves up so that they flow over his shoulders. He grins at me when he catches me checking him out and my panties practically go up in a cloud of smoke.

We just left Bullet and Lynette’s after having dinner with them and seeing Dinah. She’s almost three months old now, and everything people say about how quickly time flies is absolutely true. She’s the perfect baby. Beautiful like her mama, tall for her age already, with Bullet’s eyes. She gave Lynette no small amount of trouble in making her way into the world in the form of over a full day of labor and then an emergency c-section, but she’s made up for it by being the quietest, most adorable, placid, wonderful baby.

“We don’t have to go in there,” Atlas says, snagging me around the waist and bumping me up against his chest. My hands fly out to grasp his shoulders and it’s all I can do not to pull his face down and kiss him hungrily, but that would probably result in me grinding on his leg, and just… people . At the windows. Not far away. “We could keep on riding for however long you want. All night, if that’s your preference. We could ride and ride and double back and still be here for your shop opening.”

“Mmm.” I purse my lips, pretending to think about it. “Is that what you want to do?”

We took the bike out for a long ride on Sunday, to spend the day with Agatha. We spent the whole day with her. She’s doing well. We’ve helped her clean up the barn, the guys from the club all pitched in and did some repairs around the place, and Bullet even set up a mini firing range in the back field for her. Not to use grenades. He was quite against those and even convinced her to turn them into him so he could dispose of them properly, much to her disappointment and everyone else’s relief. She was mollified by the prospect of going to his newly constructed range in town and shoot any weapon to her heart’s content.

Every time she comes to Hart with us, we make sure we go there first. Bullet always gets a kick out of her enthusiasm for firearms.

“Won’t the guys be disappointed if we just pull up, and grope each other like horny teenagers right in their view, and peel away?”

Atlas nuzzles my neck, kissing me softly all along the slope, heading up and over my chin to my mouth. Sure, there might be people watching, but neither of us really care. He kisses me with just as much passion and scorching heat as if we were in private.

“Nah. They get it,” he grunts, breaking the kiss reluctantly.

Every bit of him is reluctant. I’ve always wondered just how uncomfortable it is to ride a bike with a huge hard-on in the way. I can feel his length pressing through his jeans, throbbing against my hip. I angle into him, blocking the view and keeping that private, though my proximity probably doesn’t do much to help the problem.

“Do you want to keep riding?”

“With you?” His eyes twinkle just as bright as the stars overhead. “Always.”

I finally get what Lynette meant when she said that love changes you chemically. It literally alters you at a molecular level. She told me that when I was still a kid and she was talking about me, but I can see how different types of love change different parts of you.

“Because I’m your ride or die?” It’s the corniest biker saying ever, but I can’t help a goofy smile because I love it. I just plain fucking love using it and always will.

“You’re my ride or die.”

“I’m a better ride than that bike, or any bike?”

He snorts and chucks me under the chin, but then he tilts my face up and blisters my lips with the most sensual, toe curling kiss that heats every part of me.

“We’re going to have to get on that bike now. There’s no way you can walk into Patterson’s with a very obvious tent in your pants. Chances of it going away anytime soon are probably zero.”

“Probably,” he agrees. “Guess it’s the bike then.”

“Or a ride and then a ride .”

He swats my ass as he passes me my helmet. He holds his and knocks them together before I lift mine to fit it over my hair. “Here’s a cheers to the open road. To good friends, family, a club full of brothers, and to you, Willa. My ride or die, the love of my life, my best friend in the world, my open road, my freedom, my soul.”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard. How am I supposed to top that?”

He gives me the widest grin as he guns the bike to life and helps me mount up behind him. “Just hold on tight, always, and never let go.”

I clench my arms around him and kiss his neck, right over the scar tissue where I branded him with the poker. Right underneath, he had Crow ink a lovely tattoo of a heart with wings. It sounds cheesy, but Crow is a master artist and it’s lovely. It doesn’t say anything, but it doesn’t need to. Atlas told me he’d wear that brand with pride, and he has. He does.

Along with the tattoo, which I know he got just for me. That’s my heart right there inked into his skin forever. Property of Willa, until the end of time.

THE END

Hope you enjoyed the book!

The next book in the Satan’s Angels MC

series is Dravin