Where We Started (Stone Riders MC, #1)

by Ashley Munoz

“Explain to me first why all my stuff has been unpacked and moved in here?”

“I won’t risk your safety. This is the best place for me to keep an eye on you.”

“Take her and get her as far away from this shit as you possibly can. If you love her at all, you’ll get her the fuck out of Virginia.”

The memory came quick like a rush of adrenaline battering my chest. Callie being taken, finding her in their club. It still felt like just yesterday when I was carrying her out of there.

“She might not wear my property patch anymore, but I made a promise to Simon that she’d stay safe. Offering her as bait isn’t an option.”

“You promised me!”

“They can’t have you. They can’t take you from me.”

“And she’s my entire fucking soul. We’re bound, her and I. In this life, and even in the next. She will haunt me for eternity, and when the devil tries to pry

my soul from her grasp, he’ll realize there’s nothing to claim because it’s hers. All I fucking am, and all I ever could be belongs to her. There is nothing inside me that would have tolerated waiting. You’ve never once asked if I loved your daughter, and I know it’s because you already know. What you don’t know is that she’s my ending, Simon. She was my first love, there when I just barely started in this world, and she’ll be the only thing on my mind when I leave it.”

but the far wall of his garage caught my attention.

At least ten four by six, glossy images were scattered around the space. I walked closer, desperately needing to see who was important enough to Wes to have them pinned to where he worked.

Wes with his arm hung over my shoulder.

I moved to the next image; it was of us kissing.

The next image was of us dancing at sunset.

My eyes watered as they moved from memory to memory. Soaking in every picture, branding it to my mind,

“And I didn’t agree to you ending us. Now strip. When you’re in my bed, you’re either naked or you’re wearing one of my shirts.”

“How are you still so perfect?”

“Because I’m fucking weak, Callie.

Okay? I can’t have you in my bed again and pretend like it’s not the only place I dreamed of you being for the past seven years. I can’t see you naked and not want to touch you.”

“Even now, it’s killing me not to touch you. You’re in my shirt, and I can’t put my hands on you, or hold you.”

“Then why don’t you? I’m standing right here.”

“I can’t get them out of my head.”

“Every single motherfucker who’s had you since you left me. Every person who tasted you, touched you, held you…I can’t get them out of my head. With you kneeling in front of me, your mouth on me, all I could think was the others you’ve tasted. That same position, that sultry look, that perfect way you know to push your tits out,

pinch those dusky nipples while making me hard as fuck. How many other guys fell into that, thinking they were the luckiest person on planet earth to have you?”

I gave Wes a choice, and he didn’t choose me. So, I chose myself, and while I knew Wes did know how many people I had been with since we broke up, not even one of them had ever seen me in that position I’d

just been in with him. I hooked up with my clothes on, usually with them just bending me over the couch and getting off, but I’d never once put my mouth on another man. I had never let another man taste me, the way he had. I had never even orgasmed.

It proved that a metal casting had been molded around my heart, and only Wes would ever fit it. He was permanently there, and I was doomed to never love again.

We were broken, and there was no amount of chemistry that would repair what we’d done to each other. I knew where this road would end. Wes was still tied to this club, and I still refused to ever be a part of it.

“You will come back stronger, Callie. You’re a Stone. If you aren’t sure how to be strong, you look to me and I’ll show you.”

I had worn my property patch when I was around the club, but every time I did, there was a slice of my pride that seemed to be cut from me. I never wanted this life.

“Can you keep a secret, River?”

“I finished making myself come last night in the shower, picturing you on your knees with those lips all wet from sucking my cock. Then this morning, I woke up hard as stone, still thinking of you, then I saw you in my shower, all wet and soapy, and I fucked my hand to the image and what it would have felt like to have walked in there with you. You make me insane, River, and I don’t know if I’m going to be as strong tonight. So do me a favor and don’t test me. Just be a good girl and do what I say, so I don’t have to teach you any lessons.”

I loved Wesley, but not more than I loved myself. I was about to turn twenty years old, and I already felt like I was locked into a life I never wanted. As a child, I couldn’t change it, but as an adult, I owed it to myself to at least try.

“I can’t be here anymore, Wes. I love you, but I don’t want the club.”

With tears staining my face, I decided for the night I would drop it. I let Wes take me home, and when he slid inside me that night and held me to his chest, I knew it was him saying goodbye. I knew because he fucked me five times before the sun broke into the valley, as if he was afraid of losing me. As if he knew I was already gone.

“I got shit to do, Callie. If you’re leaving, then go. I love you. Wes can’t. You’ll have to choose.”

“I loved you…I begged my dad to free you of the club so you could leave with me. I left so I’d have a chance to chase my own dreams, free of the club

and all the trauma from it, but my biggest dream was always being yours. I was so young…and I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Every piece of you belongs with me when I ride, especially what’s drawn from that body after we fuck.” God fucking damn. This man and his mouth.

“I don’t ever want anyone else on this planet to see you like this. I’m an obsessed motherfucker, too zealous for my own good, but fuck, you’ve ruined me.”