Lyric

  He stilled, his eyes searching mine. “You really want to be here?” When I dipped my head, he blew out a stuttered breath and nodded resolutely. “We’ll figure it out. Whatever you want. Ask me to leave Henley, and I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t want that,” I said quickly and struggled to sit up on the bed. “I’ve never wanted that. Those guys are your family. You said it earlier.”

  “They’ll be my family if we aren’t a band, but they know what you mean to me. They know what it’s been like for me since we left here and how much the last few months have nearly destroyed me.”

  I lifted a hand to his face, pressing the tips of my fingers to his lips. “I’m sorry.”

  He grabbed my wrist to put more pressure to his lips, then pulled my hand away. “They know my life doesn’t make sense without you.”

  “I would never ask you to stop playing, and I don’t want you to.”

  “But you’ve been waiting for me to come back and stay,” he said, recalling my earlier words.

  I smiled sadly. “I never claimed to be easy to handle.”

  The corner of his mouth curled into a smirk that made my stomach swirl with need. “I think I handle you just fine,” he murmured. “I also think Henley needs some time off . . . after that I can figure out the fucking long commute to LA from here.”

  I barely had time to register his words before his mouth was on mine again.

  “Are you serious?” I asked against the kiss, my tone a mixture of disbelief and pure joy.

  “Rebel,” he said with a soft laugh. After brushing another kiss across my lips, he laid me back on the bed, his mouth moving across my jaw and down my throat. “I’ve always known I wanted forever with you. Just been waiting for you to get there with me.”

  Our next kiss was a slow claiming. Our touches nothing more than faint, teasing brushes as we unhurriedly removed clothes. When Maxon spread my thighs at an achingly slow pace, those faint brushes became hard and demanding, our kiss rough and pleading.

  I clung to his muscled forearms as he shifted his body to kneel between my legs, and tried to follow him when he pulled away from the kiss.

  “From now on, you don’t leave before I wake,” he said in a low, serious tone.

  My head dropped back, and my mouth opened with a whimper when he pressed his thumb to my aching clit.

  “If you see something that bothers you, you ask me about it. Don’t fucking ghost me.”

  I started to nod but cried out when he pushed two fingers inside me, pumping me roughly, thoroughly, exactly the way he knew I liked it. “Oh God, Maxon . . . yes.”

  “The next time you tell someone you’re engaged, you’re gonna have my ring on your finger.”

  My lips twitched into a smile, excitement swirling in my chest just as his mouth covered me, sucking and licking and teasing me while his fingers fucked me. I secured my fingers in his hair, pressing him closer and shuddering when he groaned against me. The heat in my belly suddenly intensified when he raked his teeth over my clit, my back arching away from the bed as my orgasm tore through me.

  My mouth opened with a silent moan as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through me until I was nothing more than a trembling mess weakly attempting to cling to what I’d almost lost.

  A shiver ran down my spine when he swiped his tongue against me one last time and then pushed himself up to press his mouth to my stomach.

  “If they want to print about me being a dad, it’ll be because this belly is round with my child.”

  I pulled him close and whispered, “Yes. Yes, to everything.”

  “About damn time.”

  A laugh rolled up my throat and turned into a whimper when his thick length pressed against my entrance. “Please,” I whispered, my fingers tightening in his hair and legs wrapping around his hips. “Maxon, please.”

  My head fell back when he slowly pushed into me. His mouth and teeth trailed up my neck at the same torturous pace until he was fully seated inside me, bare for the first time.

  This was how it was always meant to be. Us. Together. Completing each other in a way only we could.

  How I ever thought I could live without this—without him . . .

  And then he moved.

  Each roll of his hips was powerful and demanding. Each thrust pushed me to a high I was sure I would never come down from.

  I moaned when he pressed his mouth to mine—devouring me—begging me for everything I was. Making me crave more of the intoxicating mixture on his lips and tongue of whiskey and me. A silent proclamation. A heady claim.

  This man was mine.

  I whimpered in protest when he moved back to sit on his knees and pulled most of the way out. He gripped my hips and lifted me so only my upper back and head were touching the bed, a wicked grin playing on his lips when I tried to move against him and wasn’t able to. A frustrated cry fell from my lips and ended with a sharp whimper when he roughly forced me onto his cock, sending me spiraling into a bliss that pulsed from deep in my core.

  “Fuck, Libby,” he growled as I trembled around him. Each shudder had him tightening his possessive grip on me. Each ripple of pleasure through my body silently urged him faster and harder until he found his release inside me.

  His body tensed, his muscles straining as he slowly pumped inside me once . . . twice . . . and then shakily set me on the bed and lowered his body to mine.

  I laced my fingers through his hair, pulling him closer and pressing his forehead to mine as our chests moved with our ragged breaths. “I love you.”

  A brilliant smile pulled at his mouth before he was brushing it across mine. “When are you gonna let me give you my last name, Rebel?”

  The high I’d been on immediately dipped.

  Maxon’s smile faded when he saw my expression. “Libby . . .” he began warily. “What—I thought—”

  “No, no. It’s not that. It’s not what you think,” I hurried to say when he moved to sit in the middle of the bed. I pulled the sheet over my chest and licked my lips as my mind raced. “If you ask me to, I will leave with you in the morning and take your last name.”

  His face fell into an unreadable mask. “I’ve been waiting to hear that since we were eighteen . . . but I know there’s a but coming.”

  “You started calling me Rebel so long ago. That name fits me better than you realize.” I hesitated for a second, my tongue darting out to wet my lips. “I never wanted to leave my family, Maxon. I was just rebelling from what they were—what I was. But I couldn’t tell you.”

  “You mean the mafia?”

  I stilled, my breath catching in my throat when Maxon said the title so casually. “How . . .”

  Maxon laughed softly, his face cracking with relief. “Jesus, Libby. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. You think I wouldn’t catch on that something was going on with your family?” When I stared at him in shock, he asked, “Is that what you were worried about me finding out? Is that the but?”

  “Well, yeah . . .”

  A fuller laugh left him as he placed me on his lap. His eyes searched my face, amusement dancing in them. “This?” he murmured, passing his fingers across the tattoo on the back of my neck. “You told me about it when we were in second grade. You drew it and said, ‘This is me. I’m a rebel.’” Maxon’s smile stretched wider. “You rebel against everything, Libby, but I call you Rebel because of that day.”

  I automatically reached back to touch where his fingers had just been.

  Four horizontal lines, each shorter than the one above it, with a vertical line slashing through, longer than the others. All centered in an outline of a circle.

  It was our family’s symbol. We adopted it when they rebelled from a different mafia family long before I was born. Now every Borello member had it tattooed or branded on them to show their allegiance with pride.

  I’d never been proud of what we were, but the blood pounding through my veins had marked me a rebel from birth.

  I
just couldn’t believe I’d told Maxon.

  “But I didn’t really know what you were until your dad was murdered,” he continued, his tone solemn. “No one in town seemed to know or talk about it. Your brother immediately dropped out of school, and you acted like it wasn’t a big deal. And whenever I saw him over the next few years, he had adults straight out of a mafia movie hanging on his every word. But I’m pretty fucking positive I wasn’t supposed to see any of that since I was usually sneaking in or out of your window.”

  A breath of a laugh escaped my lips, and my head shook in disbelief. “I just—I can’t believe you knew all this time.”

  “Would it have changed our relationship before?” When I only offered him a pained smile and shook my head, he shrugged. “Then what does it matter?”

  “Doesn’t it matter to you?”

  He placed a teasing kiss on my lips. “Is Dare gonna have me killed if I marry you?”

  I tilted my head to the side and pretended to think about it before leaning in for another kiss. “No. He’d just do it himself.” My chest shook with a laugh at Maxon’s stunned expression. “He wouldn’t. Dare dissolved the gang over a year ago. He doesn’t want anything to do with that life anymore.”

  “Really?” he asked, surprise coating the word. “Why?”

  “That’s another story, and it’s not mine to tell,” I whispered against his lips. “Knowing all you know, you still want to marry me?”

  He nipped my bottom lip then pressed his mouth to mine, kissing me tenderly. “Always, Rebel. I’ll always want to marry you.”

  Sorrow and grief still pulsed through me from how much the probability of losing him had affected me. My heart still felt bruised from the months of believing there was no hope.

  But it made my love for him undeniable. It left me assured our lives were irrevocably intertwined.

  And I felt whole for the first time in so long.

  He twisted me around so I straddled his lap, his eyes burning with need when he gripped my hips to position me over his hardening length.

  My head dropped back, a low moan building in my chest when I sank down onto him. I rocked against him slowly, letting my head roll forward to hold his heated stare. “So, Maxon James, about my last name . . .”

  Libby

  I STRETCHED LAZILY, RELISHING IN the aches that accompanied two blissful nights in bed with Maxon, my movements halting when the person behind me burrowed closer.

  Someone too small to be Maxon. Someone smaller than me.

  Someone with ice-cold feet pressed to my ankles.

  My eyes flew open, a demand for my best friend to get out of the bed on the tip of my tongue, until my brain suddenly caught up with the situation.

  If Einstein was in bed with me . . . that meant Maxon was gone.

  And Henley was scheduled to return to LA today.

  I was out of bed and storming out of the room before my chest had a chance to start aching.

  My gaze touched everything as I moved . . .

  The leather cuff I gave him when he first left Wake Forest wasn’t on my nightstand.

  The clothes I’d ripped off his body last night weren’t scattered on my floor.

  The acoustic guitar Lincoln brought over yesterday was no longer propped against the couch.

  There wasn’t a trace of him anywhere.

  He wouldn’t.

  He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t.

  Cruel, unwanted thoughts reared in my head, saying he would.

  Saying Maxon did this—did everything—to get back at me for all the times I told him I wouldn’t be waiting for him. For all the times I left before he woke. For the last six months.

  But every promise and plea, every touch and kiss, were quick to push those thoughts away, making his disappearance that much more incomprehensible. That much more painful.

  I didn’t realize I was gripping at my chest and my hair until I heard a loud, obnoxious yawn from behind me.

  I turned, my breaths coming out rough and ragged when I saw Einstein watching me with a look of annoyance.

  “Kinda hard to cuddle when you jump out of bed like it’s on fire.”

  “He’s gone,” I said, the words nothing more than a breath.

  “Well, who would stay when that’s how you sleep? Jesus.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Calm down,” she mumbled as she passed me, wrapping my comforter around her tiny frame before plopping on the couch. “He’ll be back when he’s done.”

  A wounded laugh punched from my chest. “He was supposed to be done, Einstein. He wasn’t going to go back—not for a while. We were going to—” I bit at my lip, unable to say the words as pain seared my chest.

  Einstein stared at me like I’d grown another head. “Have you always been needy and whiny and insecure? Because I feel like we wouldn’t have been friends if I’d realized this before now.”

  I straightened, my expression falling into something I was sure would’ve made others cower.

  Not Einstein.

  “I thought I lost him to someone else,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now after having him back for a couple nights, he’s gone. And you’re calling me—”

  “Yeah, and like I said, he’ll be back. Do you want him to talk to Dare or not?”

  My head jerked back. For a few seconds, I stood there watching Einstein. “Wait, what?”

  “You honestly think the two of you can be together without Dare’s approval? Dare hates him.”

  “He’s . . . he’s talking to Dare?”

  “Yeah.” She waved a comforter-covered hand toward the hallway. “If you wouldn’t have jumped out of bed and ran, I would’ve told you that.”

  “I didn’t—” I laughed faintly and ran my hands through my hair. “Considering I didn’t fall asleep next to you, I wasn’t expecting to wake up with you there.”

  “Well, don’t sound so butt-hurt about it. I’m an awesome cuddler.”

  “You only cuddle because you’re cold.”

  “Doesn’t change the fact that I’m awesome at it,” she shot back. “Anyway, I was about to make coffee when he left. I figured cuddling was better than coffee.”

  My mouth twitched into a smirk. “Cuddling in the bed I’d had sex in all weekend? On and under that comforter?”

  Einstein’s face went void of any emotion. After a few seconds, she pushed the comforter away from her body and stood from the couch. “If you need me, I’ll be in the shower. Scrubbing my skin with steel wool.”

  I laughed when she passed me, light and free.

  Now that I knew where Maxon was and knew he was coming back, it felt like a weight had lifted off my chest. It felt like how it always should’ve been.

  Maxon and me.

  Together in Wake Forest.

  The dream I’d always had but could never touch, wasn’t only in reach now, I was living it.

  Over the next two hours, I moved around the apartment on a cloud.

  I washed the bedding and took a shower. I dressed in something other than clean pajamas since Maxon would be back soon. Made coffee and breakfast for a still-scowling Einstein and myself.

  And when Maxon knocked on the door as he opened it, I ran for him and jumped into his arms.

  But the way he gripped me, arms like steel bands around my body, like he was afraid of what would happen when he let go, had me leaning away.

  I gripped at his hair and pulled his head away from my chest, searching his whiskey eyes, my heart sinking as he slowly lowered me to my feet.

  “Maxon . . .” My unspoken question lingered in the air between us.

  “Holy shit,” Einstein said from somewhere beside us, drawing out the words.

  But Maxon didn’t respond or look at her. He stared at me with eyes like fire as the muscles in his jaw worked.

  When I started to look toward Einstein, she asked, “He said no, didn’t he?”

  “What?” I searched Maxon’s expression for any indication that what she as
sumed was wrong. My stomach dropped moments later. “No. No, tell me this is a joke.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched into a weak smile. “It’ll be okay.”

  “You have to be fucking kidding me,” I said through gritted teeth, trying to shove from Maxon’s arms so I could get to the door and to my brother.

  But his arms only tightened, and then his mouth was on mine.

  When my body relaxed, he moved his lips to my forehead and placed a gentle kiss there. “It’ll be okay,” he repeated. “You’re mine, and I’m not going anywhere. He’ll change his mind eventually.”

  I nodded against his lips, but I didn’t plan on waiting for eventually to come around.

  Dare couldn’t give me my freedom only to control my life.

  He couldn’t stop me from being with Maxon after waiting nine years for him to come home to stay.

  Dare would change his mind sooner rather than later, or he wasn’t going to have a say at all.

  Maxon

  I TWIRLED A FRY BETWEEN my fingers then dropped it in the basket. “I just can’t believe you’re actually serious.”

  “Dude. If you’re all in, we’re all in. And if we’re doing this, then we’re fucking doing this right.”

  “Don’t say we like we all agreed to this,” Jared said.

  “You didn’t disagree,” Ledger said matter-of-factly.

  “I said it was dumb to make that kind of split-second decision when there’s no motivation for us like Maxon.”

  I held a hand out toward Jared, as if to show one of them had sense.

  “You were heard. And you were outvoted,” Ledger continued. “This is our hometown, that’s all the motivation we need.” A smirk slowly pulled at his mouth. “What better way to say ‘welcome home’?”

  Something that resembled a laugh left me as I ran my hands through my hair, leaving my head hanging when I mumbled, “Jesus.”

  I should’ve known.

  I should’ve fucking known.

  I’d had no doubts the guys would support my decision in wanting a break to spend time with Libby. To slow down for the first time in too long.

  But I hadn’t expected this.