Page 45 of Wild Side (Vicious Reapers MC #3)

brIANA

Pulling my car up to the hospital driveway, I look over to the man in the wheelchair. I can’t even believe it’s him. He doesn’t look like himself. He appears smaller. I hate that. Lightning has always been huge, larger than life.

The passenger side door is opened, and I watch as he crawls into the seat, groaning when he does. He’s got a stack of papers in his hand and a bag of clothes in his lap. The nurse waves, and I don’t miss the way she eyes him.

“Bye, Grant,” she calls out.

I narrow my eyes at her. She blinks, then closes the door. Bitch. Shifting the car into drive, I pull out of the hospital parking lot.

“Do I need to go to the pharmacy?” I ask.

I already know that there is only one pharmacy in town, and I know this for two reasons.

One being that’s where I picked up my birth control, and two, it’s where I would pick up any medicines that Dakota’s baby, Nathan, needed.

As his auntie, I always tried to help out as much as possible, especially when he was a baby.

“Yeah,” he murmurs.

A few moments later, prescriptions in hand, I drive him to the clubhouse. I wish there were somewhere else we could go. I’m not sure I’m ready to go back there. But it doesn’t matter. My wants and needs are not important right now. This is about Lightning.

Once we’ve gone through the clubhouse gates, I park the car in front. I let out a heavy sigh. We haven’t spoken the entire ride here. I’m not sure what to say. He reaches for my hand, and I jump, not expecting it.

Turning my head, I look over to him. I don’t ask him anything. I wait for whatever it is he’s going to say. His eyes search mine, and then he makes a noise in the back of his throat. His fingers squeeze my hand, his fingers flex around mine.

“You’re mine, Briana.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. He shakes his head once, and I snap my lips closed. He’s focused on me and only me. I always feel like the only woman in the room when Lightning looks at me, but this is different. I feel like the only woman in the world.

“Light,” I rasp.

He leans forward, grunting when he does, and touches his lips to my own, but doesn’t deepen the kiss.

“Mine.”

LIGHTNING

Every step, I take a breath, causing a groan to escape my lips. The Vicious Reapers are there in the bar when I walk inside. My arm is slung around my woman’s shoulder, and something shifts inside me.

The room erupts in applause and cheers as I stand in the middle of the room. Smiling at everyone, I wave and move toward my bedroom. I’m offered shots and beers, but I can’t think about stomaching that right now.

Once we make it into my room, Briana walks to the door and closes it behind me.

I watch as she locks it. Then she turns around to face me.

Her gaze finds mine, and I watch her for a moment, unmoving.

Unable to move. This room, just her and me, nothing else in the fucking world matters right now, not even my pain.

“Light,” she whispers.

My lips twitch into a smirk. “I want to tell you to call me Grant, but I love the way you say Light too much.”

She moves closer to me, closing the distance between us. She lifts her hand, cupping my cheek, then she slides her thumb across my bottom lip. Briana smiles, then she rises to her toes and touches her mouth to mine.

“You’re mine,” I demand.

“Yours,” she exhales against my lips.

Slipping my tongue inside her mouth, I taste her briefly, then break the kiss and straighten slightly. “I mean it, Briana. You’re mine. The minute you walked away, I knew I should have chased after you.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” I murmur.

“Why?”

Inhaling a deep breath, I wonder if I should feign pain or exhaustion. I’m not sure if this conversation should continue. I didn’t chase after her, but explaining my reasoning is probably just going to piss her off more. The way she is watching me, I know that I don’t have a choice.

“Because if I chased after you and you told me to fuck off anyway, I’m not sure I could have ever recovered from that.”

I’m not someone who admits the way I feel. But in this case, I think that I don’t have a choice. She needs to know what I’m thinking. I don’t want her to walk away from me again. I don’t want her to think that she ever can.

When I feel her hands cup my cheeks, she lifts to her toes, then touches her lips to mine. I moan. She speaks against my mouth, and I know that she is mine. She is here to stay. And I also know that I need to tell her how I really fucking feel about her.

“I love you, Light,” she rasps.

“When I was shot, all I could think was that I’d fucked up. I fucked up huge. Then you were there when I woke up, and I can’t ever let you walk away from me again. No matter what. You are mine, babe.”

“I’m yours,” she exhales.

“Forever. Never fucking walking away again.”

She smiles against my mouth and repeats my words. “Forever. Never walking away again.”

And that is fucking that. We seal it with a kiss. The best fucking kiss to have ever fucking happened between two people.