Raiden (Satan’s Angels MC #2)

Epilogue

One Year Later

Professor

I know. It’s a terrible name, and yet again, I didn’t pick it myself, but it’s one the whole club gave me after I got my PhD, and so this time, I’m fucking in love with it. I’d completed half of my PhD back in Nevada, and luckily, I found a college up here where they were happy to take me on to finish my thesis. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have minded starting afresh as learning is the true joy. But now I can impart that knowledge to others.

The eggs in the cast iron frying pan sizzle on the wood stove in front of me. Just outside the window in the small kitchen, the trees surrounding the cabin are waving softly in all their vibrant autumn splendor.

As soon as the front door bangs open, my attention is yanked from the window and the stove. Eggs hold no allure when there’s a sweaty, half naked man who just walked in, and that man isn’t just any man.

My eyes trace Raiden’s tight pecs and cant down lower to the grooved muscles of his sinfully gorgeous abs. His sweats are seated low on his hips, showing off half of that prominent Adonis V to an advantage that just isn’t fair.

As usual, Raiden grins like a devil over me standing here pretty much drooling over him.

He walks past me to the stove and takes the frying pan off before our breakfast turns into a charred black mess. There’s a hotplate on the butcherblock countertop that he places it carefully on, but he doesn’t move to get plates out. Instead, he steps into my path, throws his sweaty arms around me, and hugs me to his drenched chest.

“Oh my god!” I make a show of mock trying to shove him away.

He’s having none of it and he knows I’m not really either. He tilts my face up and slants his mouth over mine. The fact that he’s slow and gentle and not blazing hot with the intensity of devouring me tells me that he’s got something on his mind. Whatever it is, I hope he tells me soon so I can rip those sweats clean off his beautiful body.

He kisses harder and deeper, savoring the little whimpers I make before he releases me, his hands on my arms to steady me. I’m right by a hot woodstove and my legs are pretty much like jelly. I need all the steadying I can get.

“Happy birthday, El. I never knew it was possible to fall deeper in love with someone every day, but I do. You’re more beautiful to me with every passing year.”

I thump his shoulder. “You know that you’re going to get laid. There’s no need for flattery.”

“Truth isn’t flattery. I missed your birthday last year. I told you there’s no way I’m ever letting it happen again.”

“You missed it because I didn’t tell you when it was.” I narrow my eyes at him. “Ahh. So that’s why you wanted to come out here.”

“I might have arranged a small party for you later this afternoon.”

“I’m not sure you’re aware but telling me about a surprise party ruins the surprise aspect.”

He laughs and it’s the rarest, most beautiful sound in the world. It’s taken over a year since we met but smiles and laughter come more frequently and are won far easier now.

“I didn’t arrange it as a surprise. I knew you’d want to celebrate with all of our chosen family.”

Over the past year, that family has steadily grown. The club took on three new prospects as others patched in, and all four of the men who came with me from New Mexico decided to stay. They were supposed to be sent back, but when they asked Gray if they could prospect with the club and patch in instead, he didn’t make them leave.

Mason, who used to be an architect in a previous life before leaving the rules and regulations behind in favor of a life with a far less rigid structure, played a key role in drawing up the plans for this very cabin.

When the Berserkers stopped being a threat and Hart became Satan’s Angels’ peaceful hometown again, Gray was able to focus on negotiating a deal to buy the land and the cabin that Raiden and I went to check out. The woods that we got lost in are now property of the Angels. Gray’s going to build a cabin for him and his family on the land. Several additions were added to the old, crumbling, one room trapper’s cabin where my brother was once taken and tortured. Gray was adamant about saving the original structure.

I get why he wanted to do it. It was about taking back what was ours, not letting the fear and pain of what was done to us become a permanent ghost in our bones haunting us.

It’s the exact same reason why I went back to college to finish my PhD.

One of the prospects who just patched in—Jonathan—also got his GED. Raiden’s been helping him with it for a while now and honestly, when he showed us the results, it was almost better than my own name on my own piece of paper.

“They’re coming here? Everyone?”

“Yup. No one’s going to stay the night, though. They’ll go back to Hart to continue the festivities at the clubhouse without us.”

“Celebrating my birthday without me.” I laugh. There truly is nothing like a biker or a biker party and I mean that in the best way.

“We could go if you want. We don’t have to stay up here for the weekend like we planned.”

I swat at him. “This is our weekend away. I’m not giving it up for anything. The only place I’d ever agree to go is to our house. I don’t mind sharing you with everyone for a few hours this afternoon, but I’d like to have you to myself all night.”

“It’s your birthday, Prof.”

I circle one arm around his neck and haul myself closer to his sweat-soaked chest. I think women are lying if they say that they don’t find a muscly, sweaty, hard living man more attractive than a clean-cut guy, freshly showered, in a suit, smelling like artificial cologne. I much prefer the scent of fresh air, pipe tobacco, oil and gas, grease stains on skin and dirt that never comes out no matter how much scrubbing goes into it because it’s the dirt from working on an old truck or our bikes.

Speaking of pipe tobacco… “Oh my god, did you smoke your pipe before you went for a run?”

Raiden grins at me sheepishly, but it still lights up his whole face. “I had to do a warmup and it’s way too pretty out here to just walk and not smoke a pipe. That means you’re enjoying yourself. You’re contemplating life and other shit.”

“What other shit?”

“Maybe the book we finished last night.”

Lark told me a few days ago without any grudging hesitation, that Raiden and I are couple goals. She thinks it’s utterly the most romantic thing that she’s ever heard that we read together. Not just the classics, but anything we might like. Raiden has really branched out from finance. He likes thrillers and adventure the best, but he’ll read anything I want to read. He doesn’t have to pretend he likes it. He’ll tell me straight up what he thinks, but once he starts something, he always wants to finish it.

“What else?”

“Club stuff.”

I thread my fingers through his hair. He keeps it short on the sides, shaved nearly to his scalp, but he’s grown it out a little on the top. Just enough for tussling with my fingers, or grabbing on when I need a hold.

“I knew you’d be thinking about the club. There’s lots going on, but there’s always going to be a lot.” No threats, just lots of business. Rebuilding warehouses, getting new suppliers on board, finding ways to keep the money flowing but also make it legal. Yes, it’s criminal, but this is the family that I’ve chosen for myself, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

At least the peace in Hart is holding out. After going through hell with my father, the club is more prepared for anything or anyone who might come at us in the future. I once mocked the serenity of Hart and Satan’s Angels, but now I realize how much work goes into keeping the town theirs without the appearance of strings and certainly without the threat of violence and intimidation.

Hart belongs to the club, but every single person connected to the club also belongs to Hart.

“Dad’s coming up with Gray and Lark. She’s going to drive his car up with a few of the other kids in the backseat with Penny.”

I have closer friends here at the club than others. Bullet and Smoke, and Gray, but it’s the relationships that I have with the old ladies and the other women, all the kids, and with Raiden’s dad that fill me with the most joy. It was only ever me and my mom, and now I have an entire chosen family surrounding me.

“It’s going to be wild around here in a few hours. A full-on biker picnic and celebration. I can’t think of a single better cause that looking forward to another year with my woman.”

“My god, you’ve turned into a such a flatterer.”

“Would you like me to flatter you right now?”

“With something other than your mouth.”

He whirls me around to the counter and lifts me up, already unlacing my boots. “Alright then, Prof. I promise not to use my mouth at all.”

I can’t fucking wait to have his hot mouth back on my body. When you bring two people like us together, full of dry humor, snappy sass, electrifying intelligence in completely different areas, and two very different pasts, the sparks are inevitable. It’s inevitable that we fuck and fuck hard at least a few times a day, but Raiden’s still not afraid to be loving, tender, and kind either. It never feels any less electric. He’s surprisingly unafraid to experiment.

“I’ve changed your mind. You can use your mouth a little.”

“Where?” I get one boot off and goes for the other.

“On that sweet, summer fresh pussy?”

“Maybe.” I set my bare foot on his chest and grin at him playfully. “Maybe my nipples and my mouth too. It depends.”

“On?”

“I could say on how well you worship me, but you know it depends on nothing. If you don’t kiss me, I’ll die. I freaking love you too much to even put conditions on anything in play.”

“Fucking love you too, El.” He practically tears my jeans down my legs, wrenching off my panties with them. He parts my legs and goes down on his knees in front of the counter. It’s almost the perfect height for this. I mentally file that away for when we do a few renovations to the kitchen in our bungalow this winter. Just a few. We’re keeping most of the time capsule intact. It’s only the pink bathroom that’s getting a real color change.

He looks up at me, sober. “I love you very much. Marrying you was redemption. It was blessing. It was all the glory and hope for heaven a man like me can ever ask for.”

My dad might have done a lot of things wrong, but when he matched Raiden and myself, he got that so right. That day gave us a chance at happy and things like forever. It doesn’t excuse what he did. Raiden still has some stuff from the past that he’s working through, just like I do and probably most people, but now, he smiles.

“You better come here and give me your mouth now. I need to taste those sweet words off of you before you have your pre-breakfast meal.”

He surges up and claims my mouth, kissing the words of love I whisper off my tongue. I tell him that I love his honor, his kindness, his quiet solemnity at times, and his boisterous laughter at others. He’s still not afraid to let Penny give him manicures, but he’s also equally as tough as any other biker out there. I tell him he’s beautiful and sweet, that he’s smoke and wonder, that we work so well together not just because we respect each other or because of the intellectual stuff, but because neither of us saw a future like this. The unexpected often frames the most profound joy.

I whisper against his lips that he’s my lovely mess of contradictions. My Raiden. And, whatever people call me, I know that I’ll always be his Ella.

THE END