Page 17 of Duke's Rescue
Ghost was there still, leaning against the railing outside the diner, watching the street with the quiet vigilance of a man who’d keep watching until he was told to stop.
“We’re good?” he asked me.
I looked at Trixie. At Ruby. At the town around us, the mountains behind it, the road that led to the compound where the rest of my brothers were waiting.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re good.”
TRIXIE
ELEVEN MONTHS LATER
He hadme on my back in our bed with the curtains open and the moonlight turning everything silver and his mouth on my throat and his hips rolling into mine with the steady, unhurried rhythm of a man who had absolutely nowhere else to be.
“Duke.” His name came out breathless, my fingers digging into his shoulders, my legs wrapped around his waist. “Right there. Oh…my…god. Don’t you dare stop doing that.”
He didn’t stop. Instead, he shifted his angle, just slightly, and the change hit something inside me that made my back arch off the mattress. His hand slid down my thigh, gripped behind myknee, pushed my leg higher, and the new depth pulled a moan out of me that I buried against his neck.
“Fuck, Trixie.” His voice was rough against my ear. “You feel incredible. Every time. Every goddamn time.”
He fucked me slow and deep, his mouth finding mine between strokes, kissing me until I couldn’t breathe. His free hand found my breast, his thumb working my nipple, and the dual sensation made my whole body tighten around him. The orgasm built, that slow, familiar pull. I rocked my hips up to meet him, chasing it, my nails raking down his back.
He reached between us. His thumb found my clit, circling with the same steady rhythm, and I gasped his name and gripped his arm and felt everything begin to tighten toward a single point. He watched my face while he worked me, his eyes dark, intent, the face of a man who’d learned exactly what I needed and never got tired of giving it to me.
I came hard with his thumb on my clit and his body buried inside me. He followed a few strokes later, his face pressed into my neck, a low groan vibrating against my skin, his hips stuttering as he spent himself.
Quiet. Breathing. The sound of crickets through the open window. Ruby’s nightlight glowing under her door down the hall whilst she was fast asleep, the faint hum of the fridge downstairs, the ordinary sounds of a house that belonged to us.
He rolled onto his back and pulled me against his chest. I settled there, my ear over his heartbeat, my hand on the warm skin of his stomach, my body loose and heavy and satisfied. His fingers trailed up and down my spine.
“So,” I said. “When I mentioned having more kids, I didn’t mean we had to get right on it.”
His hand paused on my back. Then resumed, slower, the lazy stroke of a man who was very pleased with himself.
“Well,” he said. “No sense in wasting time.”
I laughed. He pulled me tighter against him and I felt his smile against the top of my head, and the feeling of it, his body warm beneath mine, our house around us, and our life built from a broken car, a highway, and a biker who stopped.
