Once a Disciple, forever a Disciple.
After giving up eighteen months of his life for his club,
the Disciples' president is finally tasting freedom again.
Stone knows there's only one thing that might ever be as sweet,
but she's too young, too perfect, too untouchable for a man like him.
A Disciple will fight like a savage to protect what matters.
Evie's life is pretty much blowing up in her face
until Stone finds her broken down on the side of the road.
Now if only she could get him to stop being the martyr
and give them a shot at what she knows they both want.
It's high time this biker got the chance to let go and just cruise.
After giving up eighteen months of his life for his club,
the Disciples' president is finally tasting freedom again.
Stone knows there's only one thing that might ever be as sweet,
but she's too young, too perfect, too untouchable for a man like him.
A Disciple will fight like a savage to protect what matters.
Evie's life is pretty much blowing up in her face
until Stone finds her broken down on the side of the road.
Now if only she could get him to stop being the martyr
and give them a shot at what she knows they both want.
It's high time this biker got the chance to let go and just cruise.
Stone
Pulling open the car door, I watched her lie in the back seat without stirring for a minute debating what to do. I could try waking her, or just see if I was able to get her into bed without her stirring. The second option was the smart one.
“Evie.”
She shifted around but didn’t wake.
“Sweetheart, you gotta wake up.”
The sleepy groan that time had my cock responding even more than it did to the dress she had on, and that dress with the way she was laying showed off nearly the whole length of her legs in a way that was fucking testing me.
Going for broke, I leaned into the truck, reaching out to brush her hair back. It was soft, so fucking soft just like I imagined all of her would be. She leaned into my touch, but even then, her eyes stayed closed.
Maybe there was some kind of higher power keeping me from making a mess of my life.
Slipping my arms beneath her legs and back, I hoisted her up. She’d never have been heavy, but after eighteen months of working out to pass the hours, I was in better shape than I had been since I left the Marines. Even getting her out of the car door was easy now.
When I had her out and the door kicked closed, I adjusted her so she was leaning on my chest, her head on my shoulder. My sweet Evie snuggled right in, face nuzzling into my neck.
I got about halfway up the stairs when the movement finally made her stir.
“Wha—”
“Sh. You’re all right, sweetheart. Gonna get you to bed.”
“Yours,” she murmured.
“What?”
“Your bed. You’re cozy.” She nuzzled farther in like she was trying to burrow into me.
“Not sure that’s a good idea.”
Her head came out of my neck, and her hazy eyes settled on me. “It is. I know it.”
“Evie,” I started to argue, but she scrunched her face.
“No. I thought I should leave you alone, but Ember said she had to keep at Jager. She said sometimes you have to be willing to fight for what you want.” Her words slurred a bit, but there was a deeper clarity to them that shocked me. “I’m small, and I’m not that strong, but I’m used to having to fight for what I want. I left my home to get it. I can fight. You’ll see.”
It came out like a threat, but some part of me that was already screwed wanted it to be a promise.
Her face relaxed, having made her point, but that fucking nose of hers twitched.
Fuck, but that got me every time.
“Okay, bunny. My bed.”
“Okay.”
So I did just that, taking her to my bed and laying her in it. She was already out again by the time I did. Without waking her, I stripped off her shoes. Her purse was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully, it was just on the floor of Daz’s truck. If not, the crew at Candy Shop were all people Daz trusted, so they’d probably just stash it somewhere for safe keeping.
With that done, I got in beside her. I shouldn’t have, really fucking should not have for the sake of my own sanity, but I couldn’t resist wrapping my arms around her and pulling her into my side. Even in sleep, she came willingly, wrapping an arm around my middle and a leg over one of mine.
I laid there for a long time thinking that I’d imagined that exact scenario a hundred times lying in my shitty cell bed. Sure, in my head I’d fucked her to exhaustion rather than her getting drunk off her ass, but it wasn’t just the sex I’d thought about. I’d pictured this. The stillness, the quiet. My bed in the place I called home and a beautiful woman next to me.
Fuck, that imagining went back before I even knew Evie.
It went back to when I was younger than her, a rifleman a few months into my time with the Marines. My corporal decided we needed a few words before we shipped out for the first time.
“Every man that goes to war has to keep a picture in his mind. Something other than the blood and the gore. You don’t have that, you aren’t gonna make it through. That’s the brass tacks. Being a Marine means we do what we do for our country, for freedom. I’d never diminish that. But when you’re in the thick of it, when shells are falling, men are dying, and you feel like you haven’t had a real night’s sleep in a year, that ain’t always goin’ to cut it. Some of you will be leaving behind a woman that’s got your heart. Some of you might have kids. You got all the motivation you need right there. Those that don’t, I suggest you find something to hold onto. Something you’ve got, something you want, doesn’t matter. It just has to be something you can hold onto when you got nothing else.”
I had no idea what I could keep in my head that’d see me through. I wasn’t leaving behind anything. Mom had already passed. My dad was a fucking scumbag that ran out on her. I had no family. I didn’t even have the club yet. But something about what he’d said about the guys that had a woman, a family, already having what they needed, stuck.
So when that time came, when the shit I was seeing in service to my country threatened to overwhelm me, the image I clung onto was a simple one. I imagined laying my head down at night in a real bed, away from all the shit we were mired in, living my life on my terms, and a soft, warm woman that had it all from me at my side.
When I left the Marines, I didn’t let go of that image for a long time. Even when I found the club, when I took my place in it, I held onto that. It was only after years that it started to fade.
Until I met Evie.
Until they closed me in that cell and I was back in a place where I knew I needed to hold onto something to keep it together.
Only then, unlike when I was younger, it wasn’t a vague, faceless woman. It was her. And that image was all the sweeter for it.
Right then, experiencing a part of that—even if it was one night and I’d never get it again—I felt content in a way I never had unless I was on my Harley with the wind in my face.
I felt fucking free.
And I knew, no matter what I’d told myself, that there was no way I was letting go. From right then, in the dark, while she slept peacefully, Evie was mine.
Drew Elyse spends her days trying to convince the world that she is, in fact, a Disney Princess, and her nights writing tear-jerking and smutty romance novels. Her debut novel, Dissonance, released in August of 2014.
When she isn’t writing, she can usually be found over-analyzing every line of a book, binge watching a series on Netflix, doing strange vocal warm ups before singing a variety of music styles, or screaming at the TV during a Chicago Blackhawks game.
A graduate of Loyola University Chicago with a BA in English, she still lives in Chicago, IL where she was born and raised with her boyfriend and her prima donna pet rabbit, Lola.
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