Unlawfully Yours (Lawless MC #1)

35

My hair whips around my face as we blast down the open road, heading away from the centre of town. The purr of the engine lulling me into a state of contentment. We lean to the left as we curve around a bend and I squeeze him tighter, clinging to the solid wall of muscle of his abdomen, my knees tight at his hips.

After everything that happened yesterday with Vaughn, we decided to spend the day together, and take some time out for ourselves. We left early this morning and embarked on a two hours ride to Savannah which is like living in another era, the city so beautiful and steeped in history. And after a wonderful romantic dinner, a boat cruise and a stroll through the city, we now head back home, the sun slowly beginning to set on a perfect day.

This is only the third time I’ve been on the back of a motorcycle, but I can quite easily say there’s nothing that feels more freeing than this.

I feel alive when I’m with him . The man I’m falling in love with.

The attraction was always there, right from the beginning, I just tried my absolute hardest to ignore it and replace those undeniable feelings of attraction and convince myself that what I felt was hate. But as everyone knows all too well, there is a very fine line between love and hate, they evoke the same visceral reactions within us that it blurs the line that straddles them both. So different and yet so very similar all at the same time.

Just like him and me.

We slow to a roll at a stop light and my heart jumps when I feel his hand reach back to squeeze my thigh and I have to wonder if he enjoys me being on the back of his bike just as much as I do.

“You okay back there, pix?” he asks over his shoulder.

I rest my head against his spine, squeezing him tighter. “I’m perfect.”

“We’re not heading straight home. Wanna take you somewhere first.”

I’m about to ask where we’re going, but the light turns green and we speed off down the road.

We pull off the main road a short while later and turn down a narrow dirt track lined with a dense row of trees. As Myles kills the engine, the loud roar of rushing water fills my ears as I climb off the bike, using his wide shoulders for support.

Flicking out the kickstand with his foot, he easing off the bike to join me. He grips the belt loops of my jeans, tugging me towards him.

My hands fly to his chest, tracing the ‘President’ patch stitched into the leather of his kutte with my finger.

“You know, if you’re gonna be my girl, we’ve gotta get you one of these, so everyone knows that your mine.”

“I’m your girl?”

He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Pix, you’re my everything.”

He presses a kiss to my lips then takes my hand in his, leading me through a short woody path, the fallen leaves and twigs crunching underfoot, the roar growing louder and it’s only a minute or two before I find out where the noise is coming from.

I lift my eyes to the mouth of the waterfall as it cascades over the rocks, crashing down into the wide expanse of the lake below.

“This is Stillwater Falls, our town’s namesake,” Myles tells me.

The late evening sun sparkles like tiny diamonds on the rippling surface of the water.

“It’s so beautiful. I should’ve visited sooner.”

“Do you remember coming here when you were a child?”

My eyes find his. “I’ve been here before?”

He nods, pulling something out of his inside pocket and hands it to me. It’s a photograph. “I uh, I went through some old photo albums the other night and I found this, thought you might be interested. This is where the photo was taken.”

I take it, studying it closely, noticing the waterfall in the background. “That’s me.” I point out the girl in the photo wearing a pink polka dot summer dress, the sight of it sparking a memory. I remember that dress. I loved it so much I wore it until I couldn’t zip it up anymore as I grew out of it. I can’t be any older than five or six at the time.

My eyes wander over the photo. “My parents,” I say softly, drifting my finger over the familiar man and woman stood behind me. My dad’s hand rests on my shoulder as he smiles for the camera, his other arm secured around my mom’s waist.

I don’t realise Myles has closed the space between us until his hand comes to rest on my waist. He points out the man to the left of my dad. “This is Ray.” He then moves over to the man and woman on the opposite side of the photo, “this is my mom and dad.” He then moves his finger over to the two older boys beside me. “And this is Jett and me .”

“Oh my God.” I crane my neck to meet his eyes and smile, tears prickling my eyes. “I wish I could say I remember you but…”

“Well, I definitely remember you. You were a cute kid. You used to play with Jett sometimes when your dad brought you to visit, hide and seek, shit like that. I can remember you being incredibly shy, are you sure you’re the same girl?” he teases.

I swat him on the chest with a giggle. “Shut up.”

He chuckles.

“I don’t know how I never knew any of this. How did I not know my dad was in the MC?”

“It’s the way he wanted it. When you were born, he distanced himself from us, made sure there was nothing to tie him to the club. He knew the life was dangerous, and back then the club was involved in some not-so-legal shit, he didn’t want you around all that.”

“Thank you for bringing me here, and showing me this,” I say, handing back the photograph. “I’m sorry about Vaughn, and I’m sorry for accusing you of killing Levins’, I should’ve known better.”

“He’s nothing to me. Not anymore. He betrayed me. Betrayed my trust and my club. He helped put my son in danger and he hurt the woman I care about.”

My heart skips a beat. “You care about me?”

“It’s becoming clearer every day that it’s not just about simply wanting you in my life. I need you in it, and since, we’re being honest with each other… I feel like I need to come clean about something.”

“Okay…?”

“You were right about me wanting to corrupt you, to prove you wrong, to prove you could be corrupted after all. I saw it as a challenge at first. You got under my skin and I wanted to show you that I could do the same.”

I recoil from his touch, taking a step away and his face falls. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want everything out in the open between us. I respect you too much to not tell you the truth. I care about you too much.”

“But I was just a conquest for you, and I fucking fell for it.” Hook, line and sinker.

I’m such an idiot. How did I not see this coming?

“It started out that way, but the more time I spend with you the more it becomes clear that it’s you that’s corrupting me.” He takes a step closer, cupping my cheek in his palm. “You’re all I think about, pix. You’re on my mind the second I wake up and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep and everywhere in between. I never expected to feel this way about anyone again and I’m done pretending that this, us , isn’t everything I’ve ever wanted.”

I back away from him, chewing on my lower lip as I turn to look up at the waterfall as it spills over the rocks, the sheer velocity of it matching the emotions coursing through me.

His admission takes me by surprise. Hearing him tell me out loud that he wants this thing between us to be more has my heart thrashing wildly against my ribs.

I hug my arms around myself. “I don’t know when this thing between us started to become more for me, I don’t even think I really wanted that to begin with. I thought that if maybe I slept with you, this insane attraction I’ve felt towards you since we met would go away and I could carry on as I did before I met you, but all I did was dig myself a deeper hole I had no way out of.”

I glance back at him over my shoulder. His eyes are at his feet, his hands stuffed into his pockets, an unmistakable frown etched into his brow.

“You were never supposed to be more, but now I can’t imagine it being any different,” I admit.

His electric blue eyes lift to mine, swimming with hope.

“I like how you walk around my house like you’ve lived there your whole life. I like how my belly flips with excitement as I wait for the rumble of your bike pulling up on my driveway. I like waking up with you beside me in the morning, and I like the feeling of your arms around me as I fall asleep. I like how I feel when I’m with you, Myles.”

Before I know it I’m in his arms and his lips crush to mine. His hand cups the back of my head as he deepens the kiss, his fingers tangling into my hair, his tongue licking into my mouth and I lose myself in the heady feeling of his mouth on mine. He bends to lift me, my legs wrap instinctively around his waist, my arms going around his neck.

He presses me up against a tree, trapped between he hard body and the rough bark that digs into my back. My hands dive into his hair, my nails grazing his scalp, eliciting a moan that rumbles through his chest.

You’re my everything , he said earlier, well he’s quickly becoming my everything too. I tried to tell myself that whatever was between us was purely physical, but I can feel it in the way he holds me in his arms as we drift off to sleep at night, I feel it in his kisses and in the way that he looks at me, that it’s so much more. I feel so much more than I expected to feel.

My hand comes up to his stubbled cheek. “Damn you, Myles Lawson for showing me how good ‘more’ can be,” I murmur.

He smiles against my lips. “It was always more with me, pix. It was never just about sex. Right from that first time I kissed you, I knew no other woman would ever compare to you. I’m a thirty-six year old man who’s feeling like a teenager experiencing love for the first time, because everyone else before you never felt anything close to this.”

He dives back in to claim my mouth and realisation has my heart skipping a beat.

I love him.

I love Myles Lawson.

Those words hover on the tip of my tongue, but before I get the chance to say them out loud, he claims my mouth again.