Was Jet?
God, please let them be okay. Watch over them for me. Keep them safe. Bring Jet back to me in one piece.
It was the same prayer I’d repeated over and over again when I knew Jet was on a run. I wasn’t blind to the fact that his life was a dangerous one, but all I wanted was for him to come back to me safe and whole.
My uncle wasn’t home, so it was just Mary and me in the house. I knew that there was at least one guard outside, though. Ciro and his father always made sure Mary was well protected at all times. Uncontrollably, my eyes began to grow heavy and I had to fight back a yawn.
“Come on, darling. I’ll show you to the guest room. When your young men arrive, I’ll give them a room too.”
My young men? I wanted to laugh at that thought. I had never considered them mine before. It had never felt like that to me, not even when I’d actually been with Jet. Sure I considered them all family, but I hadn’t ever imagined them feeling the same way. It surprised me how good it felt to think that way now. At least some of them had welcomed me home with a warmth that had thawed my heart to the idea of actually staying.
I’d only been back in the MC life for a little over a day, but it was starting to feel normal again.
As I took a shower in the guest room’s connecting bathroom, I took a moment to ponder that. I missed Emmie and the children. I even missed Nik and the rest of the Demons. But it was nothing like how I had missed Raven and the other Hannigans when I’d first gone to work for the Armstrong family. There was sadness and even pain, but it didn’t make me have to stop and catch my breath as I’d had to do for the first few weeks I’d been in Mal
ibu.
Not wanting to admit that it was because I belonged with the Club, I toweled dry and climbed under the sheets of the king-sized bed in the middle of the bedroom without bothering with the shirt that Mary had given me to sleep in. The sheets felt cool against my skin and the pillow was thick but soft. Perfect. Wrapping my arms around it, I laid on my stomach and let sleep consume me.
It was late when I thought I heard the bedroom door open. I sighed and rolled over on the bed. Vaguely I knew that I wasn’t alone, but I didn’t feel threatened. From the bathroom I heard the shower turn on but my mind was still fogged with sleep and without giving it another thought I drifted back under.
The feel of the bed dipping had my eyes blinking open as a big, hard body crawled under the blankets with me. Seconds later a rough, calloused hand reached for me and wrapped around my waist. It was dark in the room but the way my body instantly caught fire told me exactly who it was.
Jet.
He let out a contented sigh and his lips brushed over my forehead. “Finally,” he growled in a low voice. “Fuck, I’ve missed this.”
My eyes closed as I savored those words. For now, I would pretend that he spoke the truth. For now, at least, I would hold them close and live off them.
For now.
“Is Hawk okay?” I asked, needing to know if my friend was still alive before I could get another moment of sleep.
He stiffened but nodded. “He’s better now that he has Gracie back.”
“So you found her?” I felt him nod in the darkness. “Is she okay?”
There was a pause and my heart dropped into my stomach as I pictured so many terrible things happening to sweet Gracie. “She caught a bullet when the Italians took her. The damn thing was still in her arm and there were signs of blood poisoning. Sepsis, Raven calls it. They took it out at the emergency room and admitted her. She’s getting the strongest antibiotics that they can give her, but she was already pretty sick when we left. Uncle Jack and Trigger decided to stay with Hawk to watch his back.”
“She’s going to get better, though. Right?”
“Of course she will,” he assured me and tightened his arm around my waist. “Come on, Flick. Let’s sleep. I’m dead tired. I didn’t sleep that great last night.”
“Okay.” I lifted my head so he could put his other arm under it, and used it as my pillow. If the thick pillow was perfect, this was pure nirvana. This was how we’d always slept when we’d been together. With Jet’s big body and the heat that he put off, I didn’t even need a blanket.
It was only then, with my bare breasts pressed against his shirtless chest, that I remembered I’d gone to bed naked. If I’d been on fire with just the touch of his hand on my waist, it was nothing to the inferno that was starting to consume me now. A shiver ran up my spine.
Lying like this, with our fronts pressed so close together, I was in no doubt that he wanted me just as much. His cock was rock hard and hot against my lower stomach.
“Fuck, you’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?” he groaned and buried his face in my hair. The hand at my waist clenched into a fist and his body actually shook. “Is that what you want, baby? To kill me with wanting you?”
I licked my suddenly dry lips. “How’s that going to kill you?”
“Because I’m not going to take it from you, Flick. You know me better than that.”
I frowned in the dark. “But…”
“But what?”