Page 18 of Property of Mako (Kings of Anarchy MC: Louisiana #1)

Burning the Fuse

Lyra

The clubhouse felt heavier than when we’d first walked in.

It wasn’t just Bugsy’s blood still lingering in the air or the sharp, tense looks passing between the Kings. It was something colder, something creeping.

Calix had been quieter than usual, which was saying something. He’d sat with Crypt Keeper, Spook, and Dexter for hours, voices low, their words too far away for me to make out. Every so often, his gaze would flick toward me, unreadable, before sliding away.

Unsure if he was blaming me for everything that had happened lately or why he seemed angry with me, I finally got up and went upstairs to his room.

I lost track of time as I stared at the maps and notes, trying to make sense of any of it.

But the notes were written in a language I didn’t understand.

By the time he came up to the room, it was late.

I was still in my jeans and boots, sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to keep my mind from running circles around Lily and worrying if she was alive or dead.

Supposedly, they wanted her for this auction thing, but what if she’d tried to escape or fought them and she’d been killed?

Calix had assured me she was alive, but he wouldn’t tell me how he knew that.

My gaze sought his, hoping for answers.

He shut the door behind him and leaned against it like he was holding something back.

“They’re getting bolder,” he said finally. For some reason, his cryptic statement irritated me.

“No shit.” I crossed my arms. “Who exactly? And what is so special about Lily that you know they wouldn’t have killed her? So what’s the plan? Wait for them to make the next move? Because I’m not?—”

His eyes cut to mine, sharp. “You’re not going anywhere near them.”

“Calix—”

“I mean it, Lyra. The Covenant’s tightening their net. You step outside this clubhouse without me, they’ll have you before you can blink.”

I pushed up from the bed, anger flaring hot. “She’s my sister. You think I’m just going to sit here while they?—”

“I think,” he said, his voice low but laced with steel, “you’re going to be smart enough to stay alive so I can get her back.

I’m fully aware that she is your sister and you feel a responsibility toward her safety, but goddamn it, Lyra, sometimes you need to admit when you’re in over your head.

You have no idea what these people are capable of—you don’t know them. ”

The words stung, partly because he wasn’t wrong. But fear and helplessness had a way of turning into something sharper inside me. I hated it.

Boldly, I stepped closer, my chin tilted up. “And what if I’m not smart enough to wait? What if I need to do something?”

His jaw flexed, and I saw the moment his control frayed. The space between us snapped tight, charged.

“I don’t have the luxury of losing focus, Lyra,” he said, voice rough now. “Not when they’ve already taken too much from me.”

Something in me broke at that—because I knew what he meant. Yet I didn’t.

“Who was she to you?” I asked, prepared to push him until he told me this time. Was it his wife? Was he still in love with her ghost, and would there never be anything left of his heart to give me? Because my feelings for him were getting tangled.

“My sister,” he quietly murmured after a few moments of soft silence.

Oh my God. We were both staring down the same darkness, just from different angles.

And maybe that’s why I moved first. Why my hands fisted in his shirt, why his mouth crashed down on mine before either of us could think better of it.

It wasn’t gentle.

It wasn’t sweet.

It was desperate—two people clawing for something alive in the middle of a storm.

His hands were everywhere, rough on my hips, my back, pulling me closer until there was no space left between us. My pulse hammered against his chest, and I felt his heart answering it, fast and unsteady.

The bed hit the back of my knees, and we went down together. Boots thudded to the floor, clothes stripped away with ripping seams like they were in the way of breathing.

He slid deep and hard inside me, and I welcomed him.

We didn’t talk.

Didn’t whisper promises or reassurances.

We took.

We gave.

Hard thrusts, clawing fingers. The headboard banged a steady tempo on the wall. Moans, the sound of flesh colliding, and needy pants echoed in the room, and I didn’t care who heard us.

We drowned out the world beyond the four walls because we both knew it would still be there when the sun came up—and it might be worse.

Clutching his shoulders, I stared into his stormy gaze as my orgasm hit so hard it practically drowned me like a tsunami.

He broke contact and dropped his head to bury his face against my neck as he drove in harder and faster. The only warning I had was his muttered “Fuck” before his teeth sank into my neck. As he emptied inside me, another orgasm hit. If the first had been a tsunami, this one was an utter implosion.

Conscious thought disappeared, and I was hurtling through space. Stars that were mere streaks as I lost myself to the incredible ecstasy.

By the time I lay against him, sweat cooling on my skin, the weight in my chest hadn’t disappeared. But it had shifted, softened enough for me to breathe again.

His arm tightened around me, just enough for me to feel it.

Not a promise.

Not safety.

But maybe a truce—just for tonight.