I shook my head. These motherfuckers. Though I couldn’t deny I got a kick out of watching Alexei mould Mateo into the efficient, ruthless enforcer I needed him to be. His temper still burned bright, his heart on his sleeve, but there was a maturity in him now that hadn’t been there before. A calmness. Where Saint and Embry had failed, Alexei had taught him to think.
To breathe.
“...Alexei died yesterday.”
As the others asked Saint more questions about his fucked-up childhood, I reached for Alexei and yanked him beneath me. “I hate thinking about that shit, but we can talk about it if you want.”
“Which part?”
“Any of it. Thinking about you dead... fuck. It hurts.”
Alexei was better these days at sharing his smiles. But there was one he saved just for me. He tucked my hair behind my ears and kissed the tip of my nose.
“Biker boy, I am alive now.”
* * *
Alexei
Cam’s brothers watched us a lot. It took me a while to understand that it was not with suspicion, but with love. They wanted him—and Saint—to be happy, and somehow, my acerbic presence in their lives made them so.
We left Porth Luck. Decoy drove the van with Mateo guarding the rear on his bike. I wondered if he had fucked the girl he’d made a show of talking to in front of Embry, then decided I did not care. I was very fond of the chaplain and the enforcer and found the push and pull of their undefined relationship fascinating, but it was hard to concentrate on anything that wasn’t the lazy circles Cam was tracing on the back of my hand with his thumb.
Saint rode up front with Decoy.
I missed him.
Being with Cam was everything but the hole Saint left behind when he was gone.
It did not upset me that Cam felt the same. We needed Saint. Nearly losing him had taught me that. I had suffered much pain in my life, but watching Saint fight for his was a wound that would never heal.
The van stopped outside the cottage on Beach Road. Cam kissed his sister on the cheek. “Call River, yeah? He had a face on earlier.”
Orla’s gaze slid to Rubi. “Okay. Love you.”
“Love you too. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
“No offence, but that leaves me plenty of scope.”
Cam rolled his eyes and unfolded his brawny self out of the van. I followed and shut the doors behind me.
Saint was already at the front door, leaning against it, slouched in a way that made him utterly fuckable. I contemplated how he felt about that tonight, not literally, but sex in general. He did not possess the same appetite for it as Cam and I, and he still did not like it when Cam was as rough with me as I sometimes needed him to be.
And yet somehow, the physical side of our complex dynamic was perfection.
Cam closed the distance behind me, his steady heartbeat thudding against my back. “I want you,” he whispered.
“We have been rolling in dirt all night.”
“I like you dirty.”
“Then let me get clean.”
Saint caught the tail end of the exchange. His gaze was inscrutable, but his tiny smirk full of heat. Hmm. Maybe he was in the mood. Who knew? It did not matter. He would let us know.
I left Cam and Saint in the hallway and climbed the stairs to the bathroom. It was tidier than I knew it would be if they lived alone. Or together without me. And I appreciated that. Sometimes I convinced myself they did not notice my idiosyncrasies.
Others, I knew they saw them all.