Page 25 of Desert Sky (RB MC #4)

SKYE

I knew I shouldn’t be following him. But something in me—something reckless, something primal—couldn’t stay away.

“JD!” I called after him, breath catching. “Talk to me. Please.”

He didn’t stop.

Not when I grabbed his arm. Not when my voice cracked. Not even when I whispered that I was scared.

“This isn’t you,” I said. “Don’t do this. Don’t treat me this way.”

He didn’t even flinch.

He just kept walking, like a man possessed, tugging me along behind him until we reached the end of the hallway. A heavy steel door creaked open under his touch. He didn’t look back. Just disappeared down a narrow staircase.

By the time I stepped into the cold, echoing space beneath the Royal Bastards clubhouse, my pulse was slamming in my throat.

Concrete walls. A metal table with rings in the corners. An old bed with black sheets and chains hanging like ornaments of sin. This wasn’t some frat-boy MC basement. This was a dungeon dressed in leather and low light.

He looked different in this space—taller, broader, darker. His shirt stretched tight over his shoulders, every inch of him coiled tension.

“What the hell is this place?” I whispered, my voice trembling.

He turned slowly, his eyes wild with something I couldn’t name. Anger. Lust. Pain. It was all there—twisting like smoke.

“I shouldn’t want you,” he growled. “But I do. I still fucking do.”

“JD, I came back for my mom?—”

He cut me off with a brutal kiss. Hot, punishing, desperate. I gasped as his hands found my waist and spun me toward the bed. Leather cuffs circled my wrists in seconds, my arms stretched above my head, locked to the headboard.

I froze. “JD, wait—what are you doing?”

“You ran. You lied. You broke me,” he said, voice ragged, breath hot on my cheek. “And I still want to ruin you in the best way possible.”

His mouth was back on mine, stealing my breath, igniting something raw and untamed. I moaned into him, thighs clenching, hips arching. My body betrayed every thought I had of resisting.

He growled against my throat. “You smell the same. But sweeter. Richer. Like I could bite into you and never stop.”

My shirt was pushed up—just enough to let his hands slide under, to make my skin burn under his touch. My nipples ached, my jeans were too tight, and he ground his thigh between mine with maddening precision .

“You want this?” he rasped.

“Yes,” I breathed. It was insane and confusing… familiar and yet new.

“Say it.”

“I want you.”

“Say it like you meant it—like when you screamed my name into my sheets.”

“I want all of you, JD.”

He surged forward again, kissing me like he could erase time, like we were nineteen again, tangled up in each other’s heat.

But the kiss turned to fire. The kind that scorched.

“You were with someone,” I hissed between kisses. “At the coffee shop. Don’t lie to me.”

His mouth paused, breath ragged. “You really think I could really move on when I’ve been making love to the ghost of you for years?”

“Don’t turn this on me,” I spat, heart cracking. “You think I didn’t see her—those eyes on you like she had a claim?”

“You want to talk about claims?” he snapped. “What about you and the guy? Huh? You let him put his hands on you?”

“It was nothing!”

“And you were everything,” he bit out. “Everything I wanted. Everything I couldn’t fucking have.”

The kiss that followed was war. Our mouths clashed. Teeth. Tongue. Pain and pleasure blurring. I couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to.

“I hate you,” I gasped.

“Liar,” he groaned. “You hate what you did to us.”

He tugged my shirt up further, just enough for his hands to roam—rough palms trailing up my ribcage, cupping my sides with reverence and fury.

“You think this doesn’t kill me?” he rasped. “You think I sleep? That I breathe? I’ve been living in hell without you, Red.”

His voice cracked, and I felt it—down to my bones.

“Every night,” he said, forehead pressing to mine, “I made love to the memory of you. And now you’re here… flesh and bone… and I still don’t know if I’ll survive it.”

I whimpered, body trembling with the ache of want and heartbreak. My jeans were still on. His belt still buckled. But we moved like sinners under a curse, dragged together by fate and fury.

He grinded into me again, slow and brutal. My core ached, clenching around nothing. His breath caught against my neck.

“Say you missed me,” he demanded.

“I did,” I whispered.

“Say you missed this. Nothing and no one compares to this fire.”

“I’m burning.”

That broke him.

His lips crashed into mine again, devouring me, hands tangled in my hair like he couldn’t get close enough. And I didn’t care about the chains, the darkness, the danger. I only cared about this man. This soul I’d never stopped loving.

But just as fast as it began—it stopped.

He pulled back, panting, dragging a hand down his face.

“I can’t,” he choked out. “Not like this. Not when I still want to hurt you for leaving.”

I stared up at him, stunned, cuffed, trembling.

“You think this doesn’t hurt me too?” I whispered .

He didn’t respond. Just unbuckled the cuffs and stepped back like touching me burned.

And then he was gone.

Leaving nothing but the scent of leather, the ache between my thighs, and the silence of too many words left unsaid.