I was afraid that for one reason or another, he wasn’t going to come back for me.

My muscles tightened in anticipation as he came up behind me, his jeans rubbing against the back of my thighs before I felt his hands run from my shoulders to my hips. I relaxed into the bed, arching my back when his nails dug into the cheeks of my ass and scraped down the back of my thighs.

Cody groaned, pulling my cheeks apart as he bent his knees slightly and pushed inside me. “One day soon, I’m gonna have more pictures of you,” he said. “Kneeling on the floor with my cock in your mouth, laying on the bed with your legs wide, wet and ready for me . . .”

He moved slowly, watching himself move in and out, and it drove me crazy. I wanted him to move. I wanted to feel his balls slapping against my clit and his hips pushing against my ass.

“You’re not taking any more,” I replied snottily, gritting my teeth as I turned my head to look at him. He was holding my hips still as I tried to push back against him, and it was driving me insane. “I’m not that kind of girl.”

He laughed quietly at my squirming and jerked me back hard as he thrust forward. “What type of girl is that, Ladybug?” he asked with a smirk. “You fucking love it. You love that I wanna see your wet pussy even when you aren’t around.”

“Oh God.” I moaned, unable to argue. He was right, I loved it, and the picture he’d painted had me growing even wetter.

“Quiet, Farrah,” he ordered, picking up the pace until he was moving in a smooth, fast rhythm. “I’m going to fuck you hard, and you’re going to be really, really quiet. Aren’t you, beautiful?”

I nodded my head, dropping it to the bed again as my nipples rubbed against the stitching on my quilt. When one of his hands left my hips, I braced myself in anticipation, picturing what he was doing in my head. I knew what was coming, but I still yelped as I felt his saliva-covered thumb slip into my ass.

“You’re going to be so fucking sore,” he rasped, turning his hand so his thumb stayed planted but his fingers surrounded where his cock slid in and out, rubbing my lips where they were stretched wide around him. “You’re going to be thinking about me for days after I leave. Every time you sit down, you’re gonna feel me here.”

I couldn’t catch my breath as my orgasm built, and the hand on my hip slid forward between my pussy and the bed. I completely stopped breathing when his fingers hit my clit and the ones covering me from behind pinched my lips hard against his cock.

Dear God.

My eyesight grew fuzzy as my orgasm hit, the mixture of pleasure and pain making me writhe against him. I didn’t know if I was trying to get away or move closer, but it didn’t matter because Cody wasn’t letting me move. He slammed inside me in unmeasured strokes, cursing and praising me as he warned me to be quiet.

By the time we were both spent and he’d pulled out of me, I wasn’t sure how I’d ever move again. I could feel my pussy throbbing in aftershocks and my body breaking out in goose bumps as he cleaned me up with tissues off the nightstand, and I didn’t even open my eyes to see where he stashed the used condom.

A knock on the bedroom door had my eyes flying open. “Time to go, little brother,” Grease called through the door. “Tried to give you some time, but I just got a call from Slider.”

“Be right out,” Cody replied.

“Hand me my pants?” I asked quietly, sitting up. Our time was really over, no more procrastinating.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?” he said, holding my jeans and underwear out together so I could step inside them. “Even if you think it’s nothing . . . call.”

“I will,” I answered as he buttoned my jeans and wrapped his hands around my waist. He leaned in to rub his nose up the side of mine, the same way I’d comforted him weeks ago, and the gesture almost broke me.

“I love you.”

“Love you too, handsome.”

I followed him into the entryway where the old ladies and Grease were waiting, but I didn’t meet anyone’s eyes when I got there. My mask was on, though I wasn’t sure who I thought I was hiding from. Every person around me except Lily had seen me sans mask, but I didn’t care. If I was going to say good-bye, knowing that bad shit was going to happen before anything was resolved, I needed my mask. I needed the comfort and poise it brought me when I was feeling anything but confident.

I was afraid if I didn’t wear it, I’d beg him not to go or burst into tears, and neither of those behaviors were acceptable.

Instead, I’d wave good-bye as if I didn’t want to chase after the car. Afterward I played cards with Gram and Lily as if my mind wasn’t an hour north with a man who had the ability to shatter me, and later, after the house was quiet and I was wrapped up tight in my quilt, I cried myself to sleep.

Chapter 24

Casper

The ride to Eugene was silent. Sometimes I forgot how thoroughly entrenched Grease was in our family, until times like those when I knew his anxiety over leaving Gram and Farrah was as bad as mine. Neither of us liked the situation but there was nothing to say, no argument or excuse to make.

We left them based on the belief that no one would find them or connect them to the Aces . . . and that was a pretty fucking huge leap of faith.

When we got to the club, the sun had already set and things were quieting down. There were so many families inside, most of the brothers had taken to drinking outside at the picnic tables so they wouldn’t get bitched at by their wives, and were keeping things pretty calm.