Ride Steady (Chaos #3)(142)

“Oh my gosh,” I breathed, feeling my eyes grow round.

“She wasn’t a good woman but she tried to do good by the Club, even if in doin’ it, she got paid for it. That was her world and that’s the way it needed to be. But she’s dead and she’ll be avenged. The Club will see to that, but they won’t see to it directly. The way it’s done will never color the Club.”

I turned to him, putting a hand to his stomach, feeling all he was giving me, why he was giving it to me, warm me with a heat that sunk straight into my bones.

“Joker—”

“That’s it,” he stated. “That’s all of me. Or all of me that could hurt you and Travis. Now, straight up, if you needed me to leave the Club ’cause you think that would make your case stronger, I’ll tell you, I’d consider it. But that’d say somethin’ about you. Somethin’ about what you think of my brothers, who are me. And in the end, I know it would f*ck with me, which would f*ck with us. So I can’t give that to you, Carrie.”

“I—”

“But I will walk away.”

My body locked.

He kept talking.

“It’ll kill me. I want you in my life. I want your son in my life. I like what we got, and I like the idea of where we’re going, what we’re building. Never dreamed in my life. But now I dream of that. Givin’ it to you. Givin’ you your Candy. And more. Havin’ that for me. But for you and your boy, you need me to, I’ll walk away.”

No.

No, no, no!

“You were a fighter?” I asked hoarsely, emotion clogging my throat, needing to ask that because I couldn’t even think of how he finished all he had to give me.

“Had a father beat on me,” he answered and I fought my flinch. “Had to let that go. Had to get it out. So I did.”

“A woman was murdered?” I went on.

“Yeah. And I won’t know who or how or when, but if the man responsible bites it, I’ll know why.”

I fell silent.

His hand left me.

I felt bereft.

“Carissa, if this has to happen, it’s gotta happen now,” he declared. “You need this done, I gotta walk out the door. You give me more of you, more of Trav, make that decision later, you’ll strip somethin’ off of me that’ll never heal.”

“If you walk away from me, you’d kill me.”

His head jerked.

But I wasn’t done.

“And if you ever turn your back on the Club, I’d never forgive you, Carson Steele.”

Joker stood there, completely still, and stared at me.

“Aaron is going to do everything he can to ruin everything,” I told him. “And he might succeed. That frightens me. No, it terrifies me, because I don’t want to go through it again. But this time, I don’t want to put you or anyone else I care about through it. That said, whatever he takes, wherever I land the next time, and the next, and maybe even the next, I’ll survive, just as long as I still have Travis and just as long as I still have you.”

I got my last word out and then I had my back to the floor and Joker was on me.

He was tugging at my clothes.

I returned the gesture.

Desperate, breathing heavily, clothes flying, lips dragging, mouths connecting, tongues tasting, hands roaming, nails scratching, fingers tangling, we went at each other, Joker on top, me on top, and back, and again, until I could take no more.

“Condom, baby,” I breathed my plea.

He reached out and dragged his jeans our way.

“Back, spread, hold for me, Carrie,” he ordered.

I rolled off him to my back and did as he asked.

He rolled on the condom and wasted no time covering me.

But as frantic as it was getting to that point, right then, his body on mine, my legs circling his hips, my arms curved up his back, hands splayed on his shoulder blades, his eyes locked to mine, his weight in one forearm, the other arm under me, wrapped around my waist, I felt the tip and then he slid in slowly.

My lips parted as I took him inch by inch until he was buried completely.

“So f*ckin’ pretty,” he murmured, gaze still on me.

I closed my eyes.

I was in love.

I opened them and whispered, “Please, please, don’t ever mention leaving me again.”

His response was to dip his head and slide his nose along mine as he groaned, “I won’t, Butterfly.”

“Ever, Carson. Promise me.”

“Promise, baby.”

I touched my lips to his. “Thank you, sweetie.”

He slanted his head and kissed me.

Then as slowly as he entered me, he made love to me, on the floor by the dining room set.

Necessarily, of course, it ended up faster, harder, breathtaking, overwhelming.

Astounding.

And after, lying on my back on the floor under Joker feeling my climax leave me as his weight and warmth pressed into me, his breaths feathering against my neck, it came to me again.

This was my place.

This was me.

This was precisely where I was meant to be.

“Did you turn off the water?” I asked.

Joker’s body moved sharply with his short, startled laugh.

Then he lifted his head, looked me in the eyes, and answered, “Yeah, Carrie.”