Stay Vertical (The Bare Bones MC #2)(61)

“June Shellmound. You are the love of my life. I want to be here for you through thick and thin, to be your rock, your savior, your support. I want to obey you as much as I want you to obey me. I want to ride, eat, and sleep with you. We’re never going to stop riding when we get old together. It takes more love to share the saddle than to share the bed, and we’ve got both in spades. June Shellmound, would you do me the honor of becoming June Driving Hawk?”

I was so aghast, I actually forget the next few minutes. I heard words and remember Lytton’s blurry face, and he put some ring onto my finger so I must’ve said yes. But damn, I was in such shock I was probably on the verge of fainting like a Victorian lady.

“Mungu moja,” I whispered. One God.





EPILOGUE




LYTTON


Lytton had been waiting a long time to claim June.

Sure, she wore the diamond and garnet choker he’d given her. Several garnets made teardrops, symbolic of the hell they’d been through to be together. But Lytton felt he’d wised up and progressed far in the past several months. He found himself wanting more, surprising even himself.

He had designed his new house with June in mind. He’d been holding himself back from her, waiting to see how she reacted to the trauma she’d endured. He didn’t want to throw anything too major at her while she was still recuperating from her ordeal. Being close physically had resumed at a snail’s pace, of course. For the first few weeks, Lytton just being there had been tense enough, probably for both of them. After all, he was the one moronic enough to harbor Iso at his ranch while the psycho hid from a murder rap.

Lytton couldn’t escape the guilt. Ford even tried making him feel better by bringing up theories, like he couldn’t have known Iso was a pervert who would cross the line with someone’s old lady. Or he thought June had left the ranch when he did—he had no way of knowing she’d go back for the phone that Iso had stolen.

None of this shit soothed him, and Lytton was on pins and needles the first few weeks until June assured him she didn’t hold anything against him. Slowly, bit by bit the guilt eased off. Lytton’s first job was to gut the play room and put all the furniture in storage. When it became obvious Toby didn’t even like sleeping in the house, that was when Lytton went ahead with the plan that had been in the back of his head for a long f*cking time. He bought ten acres closer down to Pure and Easy off Highway 17. He grabbed an architect he was already pals with and had designed a five bedroom house in the Arts and Crafts style he knew June adored.

But Lytton hadn’t asked her to move in. Not even when she accepted the hydraulic job at Leaves of Grass, no, she drove herself back to Ford’s house after work every day because he didn’t dare ask her to spend the night. That old shitty house would be good enough for daytime offices, but Lytton couldn’t wait to put it in his rearview. Now it looked just like some nerdy “incubator” where adult children played video games and threw pizza upside-down on the floor. Typical of a bunch of bachelors, there was always a carton of spoiled milk in the fridge, no toilet paper on the roll, and a stripper pole in the play room. It was time to leave all that behind.

They hadn’t even f*cked. Lytton couldn’t bring himself to infringe on her space in that way. He’d gone from being an overbearing, aggressive Dom who could care less about the woman’s orgasms to a sensitive, caring lover who only cared about her orgasms. At least, June’s. Because her mouth was out of bounds for now, Lytton had spent the last weeks muff diving and honing his fur smoking skills, as Toby would say. It was an area of expertise he’d been lacking, and now he was pretty good, if he did say so himself. He could bring June off in two minutes flat, if he didn’t want to draw it out longer.

Now that metal was off her teeth, it was time to push his luck a bit farther. He’d been keyed up about this for weeks. His normally unflappable spirit was suddenly wracked with nerves when it came time to recite his planned speech. “It takes more love to share the saddle than to share the bed, and we’ve got both in spades. June Shellmound, would you do me the honor of becoming June Driving Hawk?”

Had the words actually come out of his mouth? Lytton wasn’t sure. She just stared up at him with those round doll’s eyes, so Lytton slipped the ring on her finger. It struck him that this was presumptuous. She hadn’t uttered a word other than to whisper a few things in Swahili. But she allowed him to slide the ring on—Madison had helped him find the ring size by borrowing one June wasn’t using from her room at Ford’s.

Lytton took a big bite from the side of her throat, right above her collar. Splaying his hands around her waist, he pressed his torso to hers. His prick was up like a gavel, pulsating against her belly, and he sucked a bruising kiss on her neck, branding her.

“Oh, Lytton,” she sighed, like the wind through electrical wires. She uttered a few entire sentences in Swahili—it was such a musical language—while he ground his cock against her.

It took him awhile to realize he hadn’t received an answer from her. Lust was sucking up the logical, left side of his brain. Undulating his spine like a stretching cat on a fence, Lytton obscenely swiveled his packed crotch against June’s pubic bone. She cradled the back of his skull, weaving her fingers through his damp hair, urging him on.

Yanking down the neckline of her mesh tank, Lytton slurped up a stiff nipple. He loved it when her pert boobs popped out of her push-up bra. He’d been thinking for a long time about having Knoxie ink her breast with some Apache symbol. Now he lovingly tongued the luscious globe while expertly unbuckling her chaps.