Page 49 of Riding Hard

My lips twitch, and I suck in a breath as I release my grasp on her hair and roll her over onto her back. Shifting my face closer to her, I brush my lips across her soft ones. If I were younger, I’d fuck her again. The simple fact is my body doesn’t work that way anymore, although I seem to be in a constant state of arousal around her.

When I shift my head back slightly, her hands cup my cheeks, and she smiles up at me. “He won’t touch you, Jules. Never again.”

It’s a promise I know I can keep. I’m going to keep her safe. She never has to live in fear again. It all makes sense now. She’d told me there was a guy, but I didn’t know it was as bad as she described. She’ll never have to look over her shoulder again, because I’m going to be there, at her back—always.

“Pack your shit. You’ll stay with me for a while. It’s the only way I know for certain you’ll be safe. Plus, I think Cade could use someone else other than me hovering over him. He’ll like the company.”

She presses her lips together, rolling them a few times before she releases them. “You don’t think he’ll be upset there’s a strange woman staying at his house?”

I almost laugh, not because I’ve had so many women at my place. In all honesty, I haven’t had any. I do my fucking here, not at my home. That house in town is for Cade, and the only time I even slept there was when he was staying with me for a visit.

There are no more visits, though. It’s my permanent home and where I’ll be every night, but I still wouldn’t bring just any woman into my space like that. Juliette is different because she’s mine.

“Fuck no, he won’t care,” I say on a laugh. “He’ll probably be glad there’s someone else other than me to bug the shit out of him.”

Instead of fucking her again, which I really want to, I roll back to my side of the bed but keep my arms around her, tucking her against my side again. She doesn’t say anything immediately, but I can tell she’s thinking.

“You mine, Jules?” I ask.

A moment of silence passes between us, but I know she’s heard me because she’s stopped breathing. She lets out a long exhale before she speaks, but only to ask me a question.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m asking you if you’re my woman?”

Her eyes widen as she tilts her head back, connecting her gaze to mine. I watch as she wets her lips with her tongue, and I almost whimper, wanting to taste said tongue, but I don’t. Instead, I watch and wait.

“We hardly know one another,” she whispers. I wait, expecting her to tell me no—that she can’t be my woman or doesn’t want to be because of her past. I’m not asking for marriage and a white picket fence here. I’m asking for the chance at a future together, something that I can’t promise if she isn’t my old lady.

I can protect her. I will protect her, even if she says no to being my old lady. But what I can’t promise is that the club will protect her. I already know the rules on that, and more guards are better than fewer.

I don’t explain all of that to her, though.

I don’t want her to choose me for that reason alone.

I don’t want her to feel like she doesn’t have a choice. She’s felt that way before, and I’m not going to do that to her. She needs to choose me because it’s what she wants, for no other fucking reason.

Like a fucking weak-ass fool, I will her to say yes, to tell me that she’s mine. But the longer she takes, the way she watches me, the more I expect her no—the not yet, the wait. I don’t know how to wait. When I know something is right, there is no hesitation.

And I know, deep in my marrow, that this is right—Juliette is right.

She was meant to be mine, born for it. Her coming here, landing here, it wasn’t happenstance. It was meant to fucking be by whatever creator, god, or whatever is out there.

She lifts her hand and cups my cheek, then her lips curve upward into a soft smile. She moves up my body just enough to press her lips to mine, but she doesn’t deepen the kiss. Instead, she begins to speak.

“There’s no one else I’d rather be with, Slade. There’s only you.”

I curl my fingers in the back of her hair, gripping her there and holding her mouth against mine before I murmur, “Fuck yeah, there is.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

JULIETTE

The warm sun beats down on my skin as I stand outside the motel room, my bag in hand. I need to load it up into the cleaning car and head on over to Slade’s place. I’m checking out of here, though.

There’s no need to go back.