Hearts: Motorcycle Club Romance (Savage Saints MC Book 7) Read online

  But at least now, I’d never have to do that while awake. I’d never have to fear his presence in the real world. I’d never have to wonder if I was safe.

  “I’ll be fine, hun,” I said reassuringly. “I’m just glad you gave everyone tonight off. You should think about giving them the week off.”

  Richard looked around, leaned forward, and smiled.

  “I am,” he said. “We gotta clean up the exterior as it is. I just wanted people to think they only had tonight to foster discussion. If they didn’t, they might put it off. But I want them to start the healing process tonight.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  I looked out on the crowd of people. A couple looked grief-stricken, yes, but for the most part, people looked like they were reliving fond memories and laughing at good jokes. Knowing how us bikers were, this was eventually going to turn into a massive drunken shitshow with people stumbling over each other and passing out everywhere, but that’s just how business was done. If it was part of the healing process, it couldn’t be skipped over.

  “Do you think this is really over?” Joseph said. “You really think that we’ve eliminated all the Sinners?”

  “I don’t,” Richard admitted. “The nature of running an MC is you’re always going to have people wanting to stir up shit. Some will just be stupid drunks in a bar whose ass you need to kick. Some will rise to the level of threat that the Degenerate Sinners were. Right now, there’s probably a few loose ones out there. And I’m sure when we face them, we’ll take care of them. But their numbers, at best, are severely reduced. We don’t have anything to worry about.”

  That wasn’t quite true. We always had something to worry about.

  But the past decade and a half had shown me that life gave whatever I was looking for. If I looked for a reason to worry, I got it. If I looked for a reason to put my guard up, I received it.

  And if I looked for a reason to love and a reason to connect with someone, I got it.

  So maybe the Degenerate Sinners weren’t totally dead. Maybe the philosophy of them wasn’t dead. Maybe an offshoot would spring up.

  But we had time. Our biggest threat was gone. We could rebuild before they could be revived.

  “In any case, I’m glad you’re OK,” Richard said, patting my knee. “And I’m glad you’re happy. Pork?”

  Joseph lifted his head.

  “When it came to the success of this mission, I’m finally happy to invert a favorite line of yours,” he said. “It’s not me. It’s you. It was you who set this up. It was you who made this possible. It was you who accomplished what I did not over the past several years. So thank you.”

  He didn’t give Joseph a chance to say anything else. It wasn’t anything malicious; Richard, like all of us, was probably just worn out. As president, he was going to stay as late as he needed to, maybe even until sunrise, but that didn’t mean he had to engage on a very deep level.

  I turned to Joseph. He looked so weary. He looked so tired.

  He looked like all of us.

  “Wanna get out of here?” I asked.

  He nodded, looking like he’d fall asleep in his chair.

  “Let me go tell Dom.”

  I watched him do just that, and all I could do was stare in admiration at my man. My man. Not a man of the club. Not Pork. My Joseph Young.

  He came back with a grin.

  “We got the place to ourselves tonight,” he said. “You’re riding with me.”

  “Is that an order?” I asked, smiling. “You seem too tired to give orders.”

  “Are you too tired to take them?”

  Ohhh, I like this aggressive side.

  “If they’re from you, I’m not.”

  * * *

  We had our clothes off before we’d even gotten to Joseph’s bedroom.

  Hell, he already had my shirt off before the door to his apartment had closed all the way. I tore at his shirt and then shoved his pants and boxers to the ground. I was stroking his cock as he pushed me into the wall, making out with me as he did the same to my body.

  I grabbed him, begging for him to be inside me. I needed him as close to me as possible; I needed him to be one with me.

  “Joseph,” I moaned. “Be in me, please. Get in me.”

  He acquiesced in no time. He wore no condom, had no foreplay, and yet had an erection so hard that it almost certainly surpassed how hard he’d ever been before. He filled me entirely, and I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him as he thrust into me.

  I felt the thudding down below, the smacking of skin, reach through the rest of my body. Pleasure made my toes curl, my fingers dig into his neck, and my body arch into his. Pleasure spread like wildfire through my body; I could scarcely contain the heat emanating through me.

  But more than that, the pleasure came from the fact that he was being pleasured. That we were pleasuring each other. That we loved each other.

  Corny? Sure. Fucking real? Absolutely.

  I buried my head between his shoulder and neck as I felt the pleasure begin to tense and climax in my sex. I bit my lip, whimpered like a dog, and then came violently as it felt like my entire body was cascading under the ripples of some of the best sex I’d ever had.

  And we were only getting started.

  Joseph then carried me to the window, pressed me up against it.

  “Yes,” I moaned, stretching out the word. “Take me here, Joseph. Let’s show Las Vegas what we’ve got.”

  He grabbed my hair for support—something no one had tried in years, but something that I found I fucking loved—and then inserted himself.

  Once again, the orgasm began to build extraordinarily quickly. I could barely stand; my thighs were trembling with pleasure, the world seeming to sway in the seas rocked by Joseph.

  I looked back at him, at his broad shoulders, his boulder chest, his perfectly sculpted abs, and couldn’t help but wonder just how I’d gotten so lucky. Not only did he look good, but he also made love amazingly well. Not only was he funny, but he knew how to be serious. And not only was he mine, he was also quite probably mine forever.

  I looked out on the city that had made me, shaped me, and turned me into Mama. It was Sin City, alright. It was a delight of a city and a wonderful place to be.

  But it had taken Joseph to give me something real. Thinking of it like that—and realizing how exceedingly rare people like Joseph Young were—made me that much more grateful to be with him like this.

  My second orgasm washed over me like a flood shortly after. I had to beg Joseph to stop for a second, if only because my legs couldn’t last much longer. They felt like quivering Jell-O, desperately needing to sit down.

  “Oh my God,” I said. “I think I’m gonna stay down here a moment.”

  And what a happy coincidence it was that Joseph’s thick cock was sprung right in front of me.

  “And make you feel the way that I feel.”

  Joseph tried to say something about making sure I felt good, but what he missed was that him feeling good made me feel even better. Sure, it wasn’t the same kind of feeling good as having him inside of me or of having his tongue pressed against my clit, but it was a special kind of feel-good that I couldn’t describe that well.

  Goddamn, Joseph was making me some sort of sappy woman.

  Better that I’d found it now in my late thirties than never at all, I suppose.

  I slurped and sucked on his cock much as he had fucked me at the beginning of the night—aggressively and with a determination to make him come as quickly as possible. It didn’t take long for me to get him stiffening and twitching in my mouth, not quite at the point of orgasm but mere moments away from it. He grabbed my hair as his cock reached peak stiffness, and I could feel the cum rising in him.

  “Oh, shit, Tanya,” he said. “Tanya!”

  He said my name again, and then, in a burst, he groaned my name as he unloaded his seed all into the roof of my mouth. I licked at his tip, trying to slurp up all of his seed.
I didn’t stop until he tried to push me away, and even then, I gave his cock a few good strokes just for some good torture. Because, frankly, why not? Why not have a little fun after a couple of days that had been so draining in so many ways?

  Finally, I let him go. Joseph leaned back for a few moments, catching himself before bending forward like a zombie and lifting me. He kissed me gently, not caring that my lips still probably had his taste on them, and then held me close.

  “You know that I’m never going to let you go,” he said. “You know that I didn’t get into this just so I could say we hooked up, right?”

  I knew he didn’t also mean “just so I could say we dated for a bit.” He was in it for the long haul. I might have thought it was probable that we’d be together for the long haul earlier, but now, it didn’t just seem probable.

  It seemed inevitable.

  “Absolutely,” I said as I collapsed into his chest, listening to his beating heart. “And I’m in this forever too.”

  Perhaps more than anyone who had uttered those words, I knew what it meant.

  I used to think forever meant that I’d forever have Scar in the back of my mind, haunting me and tormenting me.

  I used to think forever meant that I’d forever be alone, forever without love, and forever without children.

  I used to think forever meant that I’d have to live out the remainder of my days watching everyone else fall in love, never to understand what it truly felt like.

  But now, Joseph had changed all of that.

  I had my forever.

  “I love you, Joseph.”

  I looked up into his handsome, majestic smile. He kissed me, and I sealed his lips to mine.

  “I love you too, Tanya.”

  Epilogue

  When twenty-two weeks had passed, Tanya and I threw the biggest celebration of her life.

  We held it at The Red Door on a Tuesday night, thanks to Richard’s willingness to host such a party for us. By now, Mama’s pregnancy was obvious. She was now set to be the second woman of the club to have a baby, following the birth of Barber’s baby boy, Clyde.

  That birth had felt momentous for a lot of us. For many, it was a way to remind ourselves that the glory days of youth and playfulness did have an end. That wasn’t a bad thing, per se; I still could joke and make stupid one-liners. It just meant that I—and all of us—had to be better about knowing when to act goofy and when to act like an adult.

  But this party that we had for Tanya meant a whole lot more for me. It certainly carried the most weight for Tanya.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Tanya said, standing on stage, looking out at the couples, the single men of the club, and some of the dancers we’d brought by. What she was about to reveal was something that, as far as I was aware, only Richard and I knew. She’d felt nervous about it, and when she first proposed the idea of discussing it, even I had felt that it was a bad idea.

  But she came around to it more and more, and when I understood that she wanted to show the club a side of her that wasn’t just “Mama,” I understood.

  “As you can see, Baby Mama’s due in the next couple of months, and let me tell you, it’s about damn time. All you beautiful dancers remind me I got enough curves every day. I don’t need more!”

  Polite laughter filled the air. I laughed too, but that was because I just took such joy in seeing her all the time. She could have been brushing her teeth, and I would have described it as one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

  “But the reason that we’re throwing this party,” she said, “is that this is actually not my first baby.”

  She paused, took a moment to catch herself, and powered through.

  “Fifteen years ago, I was pregnant with child. But I miscarried. And I spent the next several years believing that I was not worthy of having a child. Now, don’t get me wrong. Some of you bastards are way too crazy ever to be parents.”

  Laughter came again, as well as shouts of, “Yeah, Dom!” Dom just laughed even harder, fully aware that everyone in the club knew his reputation as a player—a reputation he not only still wore, he seemed to relish as the rest of the officers of the club had found themselves hitched.

  “But when something like that happens, there’s no joking around about it,” Tanya said, and the room went completely silent once more. “It drags you down. It fucks you over. It ruins you. I stayed strong for you all as best as I could, but sometimes, I couldn’t believe I’d ever find love or that I’d get a second chance.”

  Finally, a tear came. Only one.

  But as far as I was aware, it was the first tear that Tanya had ever shed in front of the club.

  “But I’ve got the second chance, and I can’t think of a better reason to celebrate,” she said. “I’ve got my love, many of you know—and while I’m gone don’t any of you dare hitting on my dancers, boys, I will still kick your ass!”

  Again, more laughter.

  “Even though many of you are my babies… I can’t wait to be a real mama to a real baby. Now, let’s celebrate!”

  Everyone in the room stood from their chairs and gave her thunderous applause. She looked like she was trying to fight back tears so hard. She looked so damn beautiful.

  When she got off the stage, I met her and kissed her. She hugged me after, and I leaned into her ear.

  “You’re going to be a mom,” I said. “Everything you’ve ever wanted to be. It’s happening. And you deserve it, Tanya. You really do.”

  She leaned back, kissed me one more time, and then smiled at someone coming behind me.

  “That was beautiful,” Dom—Dom?—said.

  I turned to the last single officer of the club, looked at him like he was crazy, and then laughed and hugged him.

  “I don’t mean you, I mean her,” he said with a snort.

  I moved back and, pulling a move from Mama, playfully slapped him.

  “Dude!” he said, but he was smiling.

  “I hope we can still be friends after that,” I said. “Tell me I’m beautiful!”

  “I see Pork is still Pork,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But Mama, seriously.”

  He went over and embraced her. She leaned forward, put her hand around her mouth, and appeared to whisper something into Dom’s ear. From my spot, even as close as I was, I couldn’t hear what she was saying. Dom’s reactions ranged from understanding to surprised to amused and back, but they never seemed too far out of left field.

  Finally, when Mama pulled back, Dom nodded, patted her on the arm, and congratulated her again before moving to… who would’ve guessed, the dancers’ table. He spread his arms wide, bowed, and took a seat.

  “Still up to his old ways, huh?” I said. “Dom is a real Don with the ladies.”

  “For now,” Tanya said. “He’s like you, you know.”

  “Is that a compliment?” I said in mock outrage.

  “Maybe,” Tanya said, sliding her arm across my back and leaning into me. “I just mean that he likes to mask things with levity. But he’s got a serious side.”

  “Yeah, and I gotta imagine seeing everyone around him get hitched is going to encourage him to also get someone. I’d think being single by yourself would suck.”

  “Not as much as you’d think, babe.”

  That was true. Tanya had spent all this time being single, having seen plenty of her friends and club mates getting married.

  But now that she was with me, now that she wasn’t alone, I didn’t think she could say it any other way. It was so much better being with someone who loved you than to be alone. Of course, being alone was better than being with someone who didn’t care about you.

  But, thankfully, neither Tanya nor I ever had to worry about that again.

  “I do know one thing for sure,” I said. “And that’s that I love you. And I can’t wait to be Papa to your Mama.”

  “Oh heavens,” Tanya said. “Just couldn’t let a joke get away, could you?”

  “Never,” I said, b
eaming. “I love you, Tanya Reed!”

  She just giggled as she kissed me.

  “And I love you, Joseph Young.”

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  Hazel Parker is known for her contemporary romance writing and loves her bad boys. From bikers, rugged mountain men, and all sorts of sexy alphas, Hazel will have you turning the pages for more.

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