Claimed by the Reapers MC

4.The President

I couldn't sleep.

Three a.m. and the compound was silent. No engines. No voices. Just the owl and the generator and the sound of my own pulse in my ears.

I'd been here two days. Two days of Ghost's quiet efficiency, Tank's silent watchfulness, Wolf's relentless teasing. Two days of avoiding Jax's green eyes and failing. Two days of Kael looking at me like I was a problem he hadn't solved yet.

It was the last part that kept me awake.

I threw off the quilt and padded downstairs in bare feet. The common room was dark, lit only by the embers in the fireplace. I'd planned to get water. Instead, I found him.

Kael sat on the leather couch, elbows on his knees, a glass of whiskey untouched on the table beside him. No cut. Just a white t-shirt and worn jeans. The firelight carved shadows into the muscles of his forearms, caught the silver in his eyes.

"You should be asleep."

"So should you."

A long pause. He didn't tell me to leave.

I sat at the other end of the couch. Not close. Not far. The leather creaked under my weight.

"Does it ever stop?" I asked. "Whatever's in your head that won't let you sleep."

"No."

"What is it?"

He turned his head slowly. The fire caught the edge of his jaw, the hard line of his mouth. "You ask a lot of questions for a hostage."

"Guest. You corrected Roxy yourself."

His mouth almost curved. Almost. "You don't act like someone who's afraid."

"I am afraid." The admission came out before I could stop it. "I'm afraid for my sister. I'm afraid I made the wrong choice in that parking lot. I'm afraid of Jax and his knife collection and the way he looks at me like I'm prey."

"And me?"

I looked at him. Really looked. At the faint scar through his left eyebrow. At the ink peeking above his collar — a scythe, I'd learned, the Reapers' mark. At the way his hands rested on his knees, still, patient, capable of anything.

"You're what I'm most afraid of."

Something flickered in his eyes. Not anger. Interest. "Why?"

"Because you don't scare me the way Jax does. Jax makes me want to run. You make me want to stay."

The silence that followed was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.

Kael picked up his whiskey, took a slow sip, set it down. When he spoke, his voice was lower. Rougher.

"Do you know why I brought you here?"

"Because I'm a witness."

"That's what I told the club." He turned toward me, one arm draping over the back of the couch. The movement brought him closer without him moving an inch. "The truth is, I could have killed you in that parking lot. It would have been cleaner. Ghost would have handled the body. No witness. No liability. Clean."

My blood went cold. But I didn't move.

"Why didn't you?"

"Because you knelt in blood without hesitating. Because you told me my prisoner was dying and you didn't flinch when I stepped closer. Because your hands were steady when you stitched him up and I haven't seen hands that steady since I left the service."

His eyes dropped to my hands, resting in my lap. Then back to my face.

"And because when I felt your pulse under my thumb, it was fast. But you didn't pull away."

I was breathing shallowly now, my chest tight.

"You've been in my head for two days," he said. "I don't let people in my head."

"What do you do with them?"

"I remove them."

"Then why haven't you removed me?"

Kael moved. Not fast. Deliberate. One hand closed around my wrist — the same wrist, the same grip he'd used in the parking lot. His thumb found my pulse. Racing. Of course it was racing.

"Because I don't want to."

He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to the inside of my wrist. Not a kiss. A brand. His eyes stayed on mine the entire time, silver fire in the dark.

My breath caught. Every nerve in my body lit up like a switchboard.

"Rule three," I managed. "No one touches me without my permission."

"I know." His mouth moved to my palm. "I'm waiting."

For permission. Kael Voss, the man who killed without blinking, was waiting for my permission.

"Touch me."

The words left my mouth before my brain approved them. I didn't care.

His control snapped.

One hand cupped the back of my neck and pulled me across the couch. His mouth found mine — not gentle, not testing, but claiming. He kissed like he led the club: absolute. His tongue swept past my lips and I tasted whiskey and something darker, something that was just him.

My hands fisted in his shirt. He made a rough sound in his chest and pulled me onto his lap in one motion. Straddling him. The leather was cold against my knees. He was not.

"Avery." My name, broken against my throat as his mouth dragged down. "Tell me to stop."

"No."

His teeth scraped my collarbone. I arched into him. His hands found the hem of my tank top and pulled it over my head. The firelight painted my skin gold and amber.

"Look at me."

I did. His eyes were nearly black now, pupils blown wide. His breathing matched mine — fast, unsteady. The most controlled man I'd ever met was coming apart, and I was the reason.

"Two days," he said, voice scraped raw. "Two days I've watched you walk through my clubhouse. Watched you sass Wolf, impress Ghost, make Tank blush. Watched Jax circle you like you were his next meal." His thumb traced my bottom lip. "You're not his. You're not anyone's."

"Then whose am I?"

He didn't answer with words.

His mouth closed over my breast and my vision whited out. His tongue circled, teased, drew a sound from my throat I'd never made before. One hand splayed across my lower back, holding me steady. The other traveled down my stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of my sleep shorts.

"Tell me you want this."

"I want this."

He pulled the shorts down. Cool air hit my thighs, then his hand replaced it — rough palm, calloused fingers, touching me with the same precision he used for everything else. He found exactly where I needed him and pressed.

I gasped. My hips rolled forward without permission.

"So responsive." His voice was pure sin against my ear. "I wondered. In the parking lot, when your pulse jumped under my thumb — I wondered if you'd be like this."

"Kael —"

"Shh." His fingers circled slowly. Torturously. "I've got you."

He worked me with maddening patience. Building, retreating, building again. Every time I got close, he'd slow down, pull back, watch my face with those silver eyes that missed nothing.

"Please."

"Please what?"

"Please don't stop."

Something in him unlocked.

His fingers pushed inside me — one, then two — and his thumb stayed exactly where I needed it. His mouth found my throat, my shoulder, the curve of my ear. He moved with the same authority he brought to everything, but there was reverence in it too. Like I was something precious. Something he'd chosen.

My climax built low and deep, coiling in my stomach, spreading outward until I couldn't hold still, couldn't breathe, couldn't think about anything except his fingers and his mouth and the rough sound of his breathing in my ear.

"Let go," he commanded. "Let go, Avery. I want to feel it."

I shattered.

His name tore out of my throat as the wave crashed through me. He held me through it, fingers still moving, drawing out every last pulse until I collapsed against his chest, trembling, gasping, utterly undone.

For a long moment, neither of us moved. His heart hammered against my cheek. His body was hard everywhere mine was soft. The evidence of his own arousal pressed against my thigh, restrained, controlled, even now.

I reached for his belt.

"No." His hand caught my wrist. Gentle but firm.

"Why?"

"Because when I take you —" He tilted my chin up, forced me to meet his eyes. "— it won't be on a couch in the common room where anyone could walk in. It'll be in my bed. All night. And you won't be able to walk the next day."

The promise in his voice made my stomach drop and clench at the same time.

"That's not fair."

"Never said I was fair." He pressed a kiss to my forehead — unexpectedly tender, jarringly gentle. "Go to bed, Avery."

"I'm not sure my legs work."

Something that was almost a smile crossed his face. He stood, lifting me like I weighed nothing, and carried me to the stairs. Set me down on the second step. His hand lingered on my hip.

"Sleep. Tomorrow, I have business. When I come back —" His thumb traced my jaw. "— we continue this."

He turned and walked back to the couch. Picked up his whiskey. Sat in the dark.

I climbed the stairs on shaking legs, crawled into bed, and stared at the ceiling until dawn.

Sleep never came.

But something else did. Something I'd been fighting since the parking lot. Something that felt terrifyingly like wanting.

Not just any man.

Kael Voss. President of the Reapers MC. The most dangerous man I'd ever met.

And I had just begged him not to stop.

(End of Chapter 4)