Caution to the Wind (The Fallen Men, #7)

by Giana Darling

“I’d die for her, so don’t talk to me about trust,” I snarled softly. “Maybe,” she agreed slowly. “But I’ve heard enough about you to know what you’re like, Mei Zhen. And sometimes, to heal, you have to lay down the sword and expose your underbelly. You might die for her, but that’s not what she needs right now, and I don’t think you’re strong enough to be soft for her.”

“Speaking of, how do you plan to deal with this? Axe-Man doesn’t want you here. The rest of us don’t want you here because we know all you’ll bring is drama and painful memories to two good people who have already been through too much. Tell me I’m wrong.”

For a kid who’d grown up with nothin’ in a trailer park outside of Fort McMurray, I’d always appreciate the beauty of British Columbia and this town we’d made our home.

It felt good to be accepted, admired even, for bein’ exactly who I was. It was somethin’ I’d struggled with my whole fuckin’ life, and findin’ it here gave me a kinda peace I’d yearned for a long time.

Daiyu used to say I didn’t know how to do anything gently. My love was violent. I threw my heart against unsuspecting acquaintances, trampled on it myself before they could pick it up off the ground, and when I stuck it back in my chest, torn, dirty, beating a little less madly than before, I didn’t even bother to wipe it off. It was a reckless, dangerous kind of love that hurt those I tried to care for as much as it hurt me.

like even Madame Cheung had told me in the red tent that night at the carnival, I was doomed to love and live alone. It didn’t seem to matter if the love I had to give was platonic or romantic. I clearly wasn’t a good influence.

When I wrenched my gaze from his groin back up to his face, his bright eyes were locked on my mouth. I held my breath as he slowly raised his hand from the flat pillow and unhooked my lower lip from my teeth. The pad of his thumb came away with a streak of blood, and we both watched, transfixed, as he started to bring it to his mouth as if to lick it away.

He had never been an angry man, or even a sad one despite all the things he’d suffered through in his life, but he seemed so tired now, almost hollow like he had nothing left to give. It made me ache to fill him up, to give and give all I had just to ease his pain for a second.

I’m the one who’s got a stake in this, not you. You might’ve moved here for Cleo, but don’t think for one second this place will ever be your home.” His words were embedded in my skin like needles in a pin cushion until pain radiated from every pore. I ducked my head because I deserved his anger and malice. But I couldn’t bear for him to see the tears surging to the backs of my eyes.

Being here with him and Cleo in Entrance was for my own good. Taking care of them was the only good I’d ever done or attempted to do in my life. It gave purpose to my existence.

Beneath the beauty, she was one of the most dangerous people I’d ever known. She’d even proven it last night by findin’ a way to flip me over her damn back. It was just my goddam luck that I found that sexy as fuck.

Nineteen years. Married at seventeen. I ached to talk to Loulou suddenly. What had it been like loving Zeus at seventeen? Had it felt like being awoken from a lifetime of slumber? Like realizing suddenly who you were and why you’d been put on the earth? And what had it felt like to be loved like that in return?

I felt for him and related to him in a lot of ways. He couldn’t be who he wanted to be, couldn’t be with someone he truly wanted to be with, and that was a kind of hopelessness I felt echoed in my own heart.

“It’s none of your business.” It was. In fact, it couldn’t have been more his business because it was for him. Always for him and for Cleo.

“If you’ve stayed friends with him over some mis-fuckin’-guided attempt to get justice for Kate, I swear to fuckin’ God, Mei, I’ll turn you over my knee and tan your ass so hard you won’t be able to sit for a goddamn year.” “I’m not a child anymore, Axe-Man,” I sneered, shoving at him with two hands. He didn’t even budge. “You think I’d threaten to spank you if you were?” he asked, his voice so dark, so rich, it felt like black velvet tied around my throat just a little too tight.

When you’ve wanted someone for half your life, the single touch of his hand on your skin could light a bonfire in your soul.

“Fuck,” I gasped, clawing at his shoulders until I drew blood and made him hiss. “Take it,” he ground out, collecting my clawing hands in his then holding them above my head so my entire centre of gravity was focused on where we were connected. I hung there like an ornament as he fucked into me, his thrusts so deep they kissed my cervix with a twinge of pain that almost instantly blossomed into pleasure. The door rattled loudly in its frame as he pounded against me, the wet slap of his balls against my sopping cunt a sharp underscore to the bass beat.

And the truth came back to me in a rush, a cold wave as fierce as an avalanche landing on my chest. I lost my breath to it. Because the truth was he might have been the hero in my story, but I’d always be the girl who’d made his a tragedy. Nothing would change that. Not finding Kate’s killers, not loving and caring for Cleo. Not even fucking him the way I’d fantasized about for years.

The feeling of the Red Pole holding me down while he and his lackeys systematically beat me wouldn’t fade for a long time. The feeling of helplessness was somehow even worse than the resulting pain from the assault.

“He’s protective, and those instincts have to be blaring after what happened to Cleo,” I explained. “Trust me, if Axe-Man wasn’t such a good guy, he’d probably be wishing the triad had killed me and saved him the trouble.”

I’m one girl, not the destroyer of fucking worlds.” “You destroyed mine once before,” he stated through clenched teeth. “I won’t let you do it again.” “Fuck you,” I tried to hiss, but it came out like a whisper because I felt like I’d been punched in the gut again.

Zeus and Loulou were nineteen years apart in age, but they’d clearly been made for each other. Even with two newborns, a preteen foster kid, and a club to look after, they acted like newlyweds.

Lila and Nova had twelve years between them, and I bore witness every fuckin’ day to the chemistry between those two. Lovin’ Li had changed Nova, taken him from somethin’ like a caricature to the truest, best version of the man I’d met on my first visit to Entrance when he was just a punk-ass graffiti artist.

King and Cressida were the heart and soul of the club in a lotta ways, always the listenin’ ears, the thoughtful friend, and I figured it was ’cause of the bounty of peace their love produced. So much, ...

Even Priest and Bea, night and day, the couple no one hardly saw comin’ made a strange and beautiful kinda sense, like the oddly love...

If anyone tried to tell me not one of those couples should exist ’cause of somethin’ so fuckin’ stupid as age, I’d’ve knocked them back a step so they had better perspective to reconsider. So it fit wrong, thinkin’ of Mei as bein’ too young, now.

Too tempestuous, too reckless and stubborn, too willin’ to fall on someone else’s sword ’cause she’d never really felt peace, but she wanted that for everyone around her.

“Axe-Man?” she breathed. I had the sense she’d wanted to call me Henning, but hadn’t. For one brief, mad moment, I wanted her to speak my given name. Imagined the breathy catch in her voice over the “H” and the moan over the “i-n-g” like she was gettin’ off just on the sound of me between her lips. Fuck

“Next time,” she said in a low, velvety purr. “Don’t waste that cum on my underwear. I can think of better places for it.”

She’d infiltrated my life like a fuckin’ disease, and I was gettin’ worried there wasn’t a damn antidote.

I caught her watchin’ me too much, but I couldn’t even snap at her ’cause the only reason I’d noticed was ’cause I was watchin’ her right back.

I waited for everyone to chime in on my behalf, but for outlaw bikers, these fuckers believed way too fuckin’ much in romance. Hell, King literally called his woman his Queen and wrote her poetry. Nova’d secreted love notes into Lila’s tattoos years before he even admitted he was into her. I was fucked.

I’ve been feeling a little smothered lately, but I can’t imagine my life without every single one of them. Even brothers like Skell, who’s kind of a jerk, or Lab-Rat, who’s always high. It’s like no matter how bad life gets, we all know we will keep each other safe.” I swallowed thickly before I could find my voice. That was all I’d ever wanted.

I guess I didn’t realize until the past couple of weeks how alone you’ve been, Rocky. How come no one is ever texting you to check in? Where are your friends calling you to arrange a visit? Why do I get the sense you’ve been in some kind of self-imposed isolation since you left us last?” Because I deserved it, I wanted to say, but didn’t because even thinking the words hurt. Because I let down the only family I ever had.

“Do I need to threaten to turn you over my knee again to get some honesty from you?” he practically purred, crowding me against the wall beside the door. Without breaking my gaze, he reached out with one hand and carefully closed it around my throat. “You want me to fuck the truth outta you, don’t you?”

The truth was, I ached for the burn, for the danger of all that strength and ferocity under my hands and mouth again. Something about his viciousness was honest and made me feel cared for in a way that was elemental. He wanted me despite everything between us, and it made me feel powerful

“But you’re not a kid anymore, and I wanna fuck ’til you forget all the goddamn lies. I wanna punish your tight cunt with my cock and all this pretty skin with my teeth. I wanna destroy you like you destroyed me.”

“You little thief,” he snarled, tracing another design up to the lower curve of my small breast before he harshly pinched my nipple and toppled me to the bed. “You have me all fuckin’ over you.”

When my wet folds were bared to his touch, he palmed me again, not rubbing or fucking, not even moving. Just holding my pussy like he had a right to it.

Meanwhile, he sucked hickeys on my shoulders and collarbones, a necklace of vampire kisses, a wreath of bruises that I’d watch turn from one jewel tone to another.

“If you won’t be quiet,” he murmured, fisting the root of his erection and slowly thrusting forward to smear his precum over my parted lips. “I’ll shut you up myself.”

Light-headed, overwhelmed by desire and the reality of Axe-Man touching me like this, I rubbed my thighs together wantonly. “No, no,” he grunted when he noticed my attempts to get off. “You wanna come, you do it on my cock.”

When I made a little, unbidden noise of protest, he grinned at me meanly. “You want my bare cock, my cum inside you, you gotta earn it, Mei. You won’t tell me shit, you don’t get me fuckin’ you raw. You don’t deserve my cum.” He rolled the condom onto his fat dick as he spoke, and I tried not to drool.

“Ask nicely, and I’ll fuck you ’til you forget everythin’ but the sound of my name in this sweet mouth,” he whispered against my neck before fixing his teeth there.

“Don’t hold back. I like it rough.” “Fuuuck,” he groaned, tugging on my ponytail again as he brought his body over mine and whispered into my ear, “A rebel on the street and a good girl in the sheets. Who would’ve thought.” “Are you complaining?” “Not at all.”

“I’m going to come,” I nearly sobbed, dropping my head back to his shoulder, reaching back to grip his hair in my hand so tightly he grunted. “God, no, I-I don’t think I can do this.” His chuckle was mean and sexy, a side of him I’d never known that I knew now I’d be addicted to forever. “Take what I give you. You asked for this.”

the strain of taking him in my swollen pussy was the same unbearable pleasure-pain of loving him and longing for him. Unbidden, tears burned at the backs of my eyes. I didn’t want this to end because I didn’t know if I’d ever have him like this again.

he moved one hand up to cup my throat and turn my head so he could speak against my parted, panting mouth. “Goddamn you, but yeah, I want you. Never want to stop fuckin’ this pretty, perfect cunt. You’re so fuckin’ dangerous ’cause you make me so fuckin’ weak, Rocky.”

Even though my heart had started racing the moment I realized he’d actually spoken, it calmed me to feel him there. He’d always been a special kind of gravity to me, something to keep me grounded, something I felt on every inch of me, in every molecule in a way that was both natural and profound.

Over the past eight years, I’d developed a habit of not breathing. Just holding my breath without conscious thought until suddenly I was gasping for air. I wasn’t doing that as much now, living in Entrance. And here in the dark womb of a room with Axe-Man, all I could sense, I felt like I could breathe freely for the first time in almost a decade.