Where We Started (Stone Riders MC, #1)

by Ashley Munoz

“Sometimes rescuing someone can lead to a pretty fun adventure. I bet Peter enjoyed it.” She didn’t ask anything else, and I started to drift off. Right before I fell asleep, I heard her whisper. “I think Wendy loved Peter more.”

I’d wage war for that girl. I’d go to hell and pick a fight with the devil if I had to. In every scenario, she was on my mind. How to keep her, how to love her, how to make her mine. Nothing would ever change that.

“Like fuck is another man going to date you while you’re here. If you leave, then that’s one thing. I can’t control who you’re with. But in this town, you’re mine. It’s me you’ll date. Me you’ll call. Me you’ll fuck. You need romance, then read one of those books you love so much. When you go back to DC, you’ll have your fuck buddies again, but here, there’s not a chance I’ll stand by and let you be with anyone else.”

“I never could touch anyone after you. You were my first, and fuck, if you ended up being my only…there would never be another after what we had.”

Stepping toe to toe with him, I roared back, “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.”

“Every piece of you belongs with me when I ride, especially what’s drawn from that body after we fuck.”

“River, you started an apprenticeship to become a tattoo artist. I’m both excited and nervous, and a little jealous. How did I never know you wanted this? You’re so talented. I wish you’d design me a tattoo. I wish your hands would draw it permanently onto my skin. More than anything, I wish I could live there, under yours.”

“You did not lose me, River. You left me.” Stomping past me, she yelled back, “This is impossible. I did lose you. And long before I left. You weren’t coming home, Wes. You were late every night, you seemed to forget that I didn’t want to belong to the club or be forced to go to parties. You forgot that I used to run away from those parties, Wes. I’d run to you, and all the sudden you weren’t there for me. You were the one dragging me into them. You were my safe place, and then everything changed. I did lose you, you’re just too enamored with your new life to see it.”

“You think you scared me with that bullshit about birth control, River? You think I’m afraid of marking you over and over, filling you up to the brim with my cum, until you give me a baby?”

“You think I’m afraid to play the same game as you, tempting fate to tie us together in some sort of toxic, fucked-up way? Putting a baby inside of you isn’t going to scare me off, River. For as long as I have you, consider us in a game of Russian roulette with fate. Each time we fuck, we’re going to see if that’s the one that’ll ruin us. Because I know you’re going to leave me, and even with a baby, but it’ll still tie you to me, River. You won’t be able to walk away without being marked by me.”