I handed Destiny over and took my place behind Fabio, slapping him on the back as I did and searched the crowd for my Amelia. She sat, front row next to Kristy. The Callaghan family row yet there wasn’t a Callaghan sitting in it. In fifteen minutes, I would be the last of us by name.
Start your own generation, I heard Double D’s ungodly suggestion from the night before go through my head as I tried to focus on the ceremony. Concentration be damned because all my focus was centered on Amelia.
Tonight Half-Pint. Tonight.
The wedding ceremony was quick and before wedding pictures we were all ushered outside to greet the guest. I escorted a teary-eyed Anastasia back to the steps on the church but knew better than to mention that it wasn’t happy but sadness I saw in her eyes. I wondered if she was thinking of Brooks’ dad. I knew little about him except he was Duro Ocho and dead.
We, along with the new Mr. and Mrs. Ames stood on the steps and greeted wedding goers. I searched the crowd for Amelia and finally found her hanging back. I broke my position in the receiving line and grabbed her by the waist and spun her around, kissing her for all to see.
“Hello,” she said softly when the kiss broke.
“Hello to you too. You still taste of whiskey. Jack Daniels, Destiny’s partial to it,” I ran my tongue over her lips.
“We look like heathen’s!” she hissed and attempted to push me away with a wickedly bashful smile.
“That’s a different MC, they’re over there,” I pointed, and Amelia slapped me in the chest and ducked her face into me.
“You know what I mean. I thought you looked perfect in that cut but… it should be a sin for you to wear this and in a church. Trust me, there wasn’t a thought I had that was holy.”
“Amelia?” I asked pulling her close into me, almost protecting her from the rounds of slaps on the back I was getting as if I had gotten married as well.
“Yes Houston?”
I bit down the feeling, bit down the stupid thing I was about to say. The thing we would both regret saying. “I have to get some pictures taken. Stay close?”
***
Pictures seemed to take forever. Especially since Destiny demanded pictures on the back of Fabio’s bike, him without his tux jacket and them both in their cuts. Who knew she would become a bridezilla? Well I should have, Double D lived to be a “zilla” of anything.
But as we were coming up on an hour and a half of pictures Fabio was suggesting in hushed tones that it was time to get to the hall and since Kristy had declared bikes allowed, Destiny settled in behind her husband whose had magically appeared along with the rest of the wedding parties.
Kristy settled in behind Alec and Stella behind Eric, having turned their keys over to prospects. Technically, Anastasia was supposed to ride with me, but the maid of honor hiked her skirts and climbed on behind Riccardo, who had spent years as Alec’s second. Finally, I was able to turn my attention back to Amelia. I had removed my tux jacket and tossed it in Kristy’s SUV when I pulled back on my cut. The tie had gone with the jacket.
“I would like to have seen you ride this in full tux. Very, James Bond,” she laughed, taking my hand and climbing on.
We had all forgone helmets, hoping the three miles gave a light wind shuffle to the women’s perfectly placed hairdo’s and not helmet or pavement hair. When we reached the reception hall Fabio was laying black marks with Destiny’s dress flowing behind the bike, her veil and coverup long gone and hair flowing freely behind them.
“They look perfect,” I heard Amelia say as we parked the bike.
“Looks can be deceiving. Those two, are far from perfect. I can guarantee you that.”
“Either way,” she muttered sadly.
“Hey,” I grabbed at her chin. What was I supposed to say to reassure her? Someday you will find that? That perfect love, that perfect happiness long after I’ve disappeared from your life? Now come on and play my woman for a little longer?
Amelia didn’t bother waiting for me to come up with something else to say. She ran her fingers through my hair like she loved to do and then playfully slapped me on the ass. “Come on playboy.”
The wedding dinner was lovely, what else was I supposed to think it was? It was food my uncles had paid a shit ton for. Anastasia had worked hard putting together a mini movie of the bride and groom growing up together. I had Amelia tucked firmly in my lap for it, listening to her giggle at pictures that included me in my younger years.
I gave a best man speech, short and sweet. Destiny had given strict instructions not to embarrass her and Fabio had given strict instructions not to piss her off, so it left little to say. Destiny came with a fighting side sober and we all knew my whiskey loving sister wouldn’t have an empty tank.
Amelia mingled though I never took her eyes off her if I could help it. She had excused herself to use the ladies room and said she would grab another round for us on the way back. I knew she could get caught up easily, people liked to talk, and there was likely a line for both the bathroom and the bar. I was getting nervous, chatting with Scottie and a few other nomads outside where we smoked.
“She been gone a while to you?” I finally asked Scottie who chuckled. But I was sure she had been gone too long. Fifteen minutes at least. “I’m going to check on her.”
“Settle down boy, clucking like a mother hen,” Scottie was all to amused by Amelia and how she made me act.
But then Vat, a Sweetwater, busted through the side door. “Houston!”
I was inside before Vat could finish yelling my name. I pushed my way to the bar as Vat had pointed me towards. “Stay the fuck away from me! Do you know who I am?” I heard the firmness in Amelia’s voice. She wasn’t scared, wasn’t nervous. Same tone she used with Dart, same tone she used every time she told me personally to fuck off.
“She’s not Houston’s old lady, he don’t keep old ladies,” I heard Tasha announce a little too loud and a little too drunkenly, but Amelia ignored all of them and turned back around to the bar. Just in time for a little burly, greasy Bastard with the Four Corners chapter rocker reach up the back of her dress.
Amelia wasted no time swinging around and cracking a full beer bottle over his head and bringing her knee to his groin. She would have done more too but I picked him up by the back of his cut and threw him out the open and awaiting service entrance.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Amelia
I heard the slime ball whistle at me, same as Dart had in Amarillo. I rolled my eyes and ignored him as I waited in the line for the restroom, but he was still there when I got out. This time Tasha was with him. The little disappointed girl who had expected Houston to fall madly in love with her.
“Get in line princess,” I muttered as their voices rose.
“She’s a nobody, just a plaything,” Tasha said to the patch loud enough that everyone nearby could hear. I saw a local patch, one of Destiney’s, the creepy one, duck out of the room. Oh boy, I knew where he was going.
“I bet you don’t even know what he likes? Bet you don’t even know how to make him…”
“Stay the fuck away from me! Do you know who I am?” This bitch was a nobody. My brother was a Vice-President, my old man was a President. I belonged to the last Callaghan. Me. Amelia Lorbosh!
I was fuming as I turned back to my drink. And when I felt the hand slip under my dress, I knew instantly it wasn’t Houston.
I had barely connected my knee to the assholes balls when Houston ripped him from his feet. I followed the chaos staying the front of the pack.
The slime ball had landed hard in the gravel off the rear service entrance from which he was tossed. Houston was on top of him in seconds, slamming him back into the side of the building and connecting his fist to the other biker’s face in a rage that should scare me but had only made me want to roll my eyes.
“Enough!” I shouted at Houston. “He’s just a drunken piece of trash! Not worth the blood on your tux or the kill in your buzz. This is a wedding, I
won’t have it ruined with a bullshit fight on my account!”
Houston held the man, suspended off his feet and against the building and he looked over at me. His face was still all dark and stormy with that ‘I will fuckin’ destroy you’ look. This was more intense than I had seen in Amarillo and in Laredo put together, but it was still surprisingly sexy.
People were staring. A few bikers I didn’t know and faces I did. I saw Destiny and Fabio come around the other side of the building with Alec, Kristy and Scottie. I took a deep breath, they were all watching me play my role. Wondering if I could pull it off. If I could tame the Callaghan.
“I’m fine and he’s not worth it baby,” I said taking a step closer to Houston, ignoring the crowd of people and never taking my eyes from his. Finally, Houston dropped the Four Corners biker, kissed me, and turned to the crowd.
“Do something with him Dubious,” he said glaring at an older man with a President patch.
“He just got fresh with a girl, something I’m sure you’ve done…” the man started.
“He put his hands on her after she told him to fuck off. And she isn’t a girl. She’s mine. My woman, who belongs to my family and my club,” Houston snarled, and I wrapped my hand around his wrist.
“I’ll see that his behavior is corrected,” Dubious caved and Destiny stepped up.
“I do hate to miss a good fight, especially at my own wedding. Vat, see that our friend here is removed from the wedding premises. He is no longer welcome at my family affair,” Destiny stepped next to her brother, her husband only a half-step behind her.
“Yes, ma’am,” the scrawny crazy eyed enforcer answered, gripping the offender by his leather like an unruly pup and pushing him along.
I heard the now distinctive chuckle of Tasha, a sound I will remember all my life unfortunately. Tasha was drunk and leaning up against the small railing that was by the back door we had come out of. “Must be great pussy Houston if you don’t want to share!”
I’m not entirely proud to say I lost about three seconds of time. In those three seconds that I blacked out, I somehow, managed to clock Tasha. Doubled up my fist and punched her right in the face. Tasha collapsed as collective gasps and cheers rang out. “That’s my last warning before shit gets serious. I don’t want to hear you say a damned thing about Houston! You hear that through that strung out Aquanet mess you call hair bitch? He belongs to me.”
I straightened up and immediately got a little embarrassed by what I had done. Houston slung his arm around my shoulders. “Come on darlin’ that fist of yours looks just about as bad as mine,” Houston took me around the back and through a side hall and to the kitchen that the catering crew had already cleaned up and vacated.
He picked me up and sat me down on the stainless-steel counter next to the sink and turned on the water and gathered up some paper towels.
“What was that you were saying about ‘drunken piece of trash not worth the blood?’” he teased as he ran my hand under the water and rinsed away the blood that come from Tasha’s nose. “Not half bad. Wouldn’t mind if you had to have my back.”
“I always have your back Houston. On the ranch, here, anywhere,” I replied as he inspected my dress.
“How did you manage to keep that blood free?”
“Lucky I guess. You’re a mess though,” I helped him rinse his hands and then I wiped the blood from his cut.
“I guess we’re both the jealous and defensive types,” he chuckled as we turned off the water and tossed the paper towels away.
“Horrible combination. I don’t have a right to be any more jealous than Tasha does. I don’t really belong to you.”
“Not tonight okay?” he pleaded as he kissed my neck. “Tonight, just is okay. I’m yours, you’re mine.”
“Tonight.” I promised.
“So, since you fought at my wedding…” Destiny started as we stepped back through the hall itself and a touch too close to the dance floor.
“No.” Houston said apparently knowing where the conversation was going.
“It’s my wedding and I only get one.”
“I told you no two months ago when you asked.”
“Yeah, but this is now,” Destiny pleaded. “Do it for Amelia.”
“Whoa. Do what for me?” I jumped in. I had been here all of twenty-four hours and knew it was best to read the fine print before agreeing to anything.
“Has he ever sung to you?”
“Oh my God, you sing?”
“Destiny Dallas Callaghan!” Houston grumbled with a very unconvincing threating tone.
“When he wants to and he’s amazing. He never sings in public though unless he’s like obliviated. I’ve been begging him to sing at my wedding.” It didn’t take Destiny much to sell me on the idea. Besides, the biker princess had softened today, and this was a little girl begging her big brother for something to make her wedding special.
“Houston….” I started in a singsong voice that matched Destiny’s.
“Fine. One. Fucking. Song.”
Houston stomped towards the stage and Destiny squeezed me tightly and rushed off to grab her husband.
I stood to the side of the dance floor and watched Houston lean in and talk to the small rock band that was set up in the corner and took the microphone. I was unsure of what to expect of Houston’s singing, but I sure has hell didn’t expect the cords that came.
“You called me up from Amarillo, said you were coming to town…”
Texas Tornado. Tracy Lawrence had always been one of my favorite singers even today. I couldn’t believe the big burly biker was signing a country song.
“My little Texas Tornado, blowing me away again. I swore it wouldn’t happen again, but I looked at you and then. I’m like a tumbleweed in a wild west Texas wind, you’re blowing me away again…”
Fabio twirled Destiny around the dance floor and Houston jumped off the stage, eyes just for me as he closed in. It might have been a song for Destiny, but it sounded more like a serenade just for me.
My face hurt as it tried to contain all my happy emotions as he sang the song to me and when the last cord ended, his thumb caressed my lower lip and handed off the microphone.
“Dad used to call Mom his Texas Tornado, she loved that song. It’s one of the few things that Destiny remembers about them together that’s an actual memory and not something someone told her,” he whispered to me. “Every once in a great while Fabio calls Destiny his Texas Tornado. It’s the same way I think of you.”
“Do you think it’s late enough we could sneak out of here?” I asked him softly as he rocked me to him.
***
We never said goodbye to anyone when we left the wedding, Fabio wolf whistled as we mad a bee-line for the bike, but we never paid it any mind.
We rode back to Kristy and Alec’s empty house and this time there was no stopping for a beer or awkward conversation. Rushing up the stairs like the teenagers we felt we were. The second we were inside his bedroom, Houston picked me up in his arms and pushed me against the wall.
His cut hit the floor and my dress rode up around my waist as he trailed kisses down my neck and collarbone. He lay me carefully on the bed and stepped back, shucking free of what remained of his tuxedo and I sat up and slid the dress over my head.
His mouth found mine again as we climbed back into the bed and he started a slow and tedious trail down my body. Finally, having a full caress, a full taste of my breast was driving us both mad. I felt myself losing all control of my body as my senses overrode my brain and took over.
I felt his touch, each kiss as he went lower still, as if there were a thousand new nerve endings I had never felt before. Each lighting up for the first time for this experience alone. He kissed every part of me, running his tongue along my stomach and nibbling at my curves like I was feast lie out before him. It wasn’t her first time. My first time in a long time certainly, but not my first time. In my experience it was usually the tension and the flirtation that w
as better than the actual act itself, but not with Houston Callaghan.
No nothing with Houston Callaghan was anything like I could have imagined, could have expected even just an hour ago. The strong and angry man I had met at Tommy’s but two weeks ago couldn’t have done the things he did to me. Nor the man who kissed me and told me to run outside of the ranch house. The man who kissed me and claimed me as his in front of all his family and friends yesterday and the man who shed blood for me just an hour ago couldn’t have either.
The Houston Callaghan who had done those things, been that way, he was a man who came in hard, rough. Took what he wanted, offered what he felt, a fast and hard rollercoaster that would have stayed all night and destroyed me for anyone else and left.
The second half was still true. But this Houston, this Houston was gentler in a single touch than what I had seen and felt from him in two weeks combined. He teased and played with his fingers and enjoyed taking his time. I would lose her damn mind and make a fool of myself if I wasn’t careful. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to bring myself back down, trying to restore what dignity I had left.
“Don’t,” he whispered in my ear as I wrapped my arms tightly around his shoulders. “Don’t you dare block me out, let go, come to me, fall apart with me love, it’s okay.”
Houston molded and rocked our bodies together like the craftsman of the art that I knew he was. His hands ran the length of my body, up and down. Gripping at her waist, traveling the curve of my ass and tugging at my thighs. Finally, his fingers tangled in my hair and I bit his shoulder, crying out his name.
When most of the trembling had subsided, Houston rolled to the side and tucked me carefully next to him. My head lying on his arm my fingers roaming across his chest. “Don’t hold back from me ever. Not here, not like this. There’s too many lies, too much bullshit in the worlds we live in to begin with. I want this to stay pure and perfect between us.”
“I didn’t want you to see, to know…”
“You were not a…”
“Oh God, no!” I laughed. “But nothing like that. Not even close. But this…”
Houston Callaghan: The Devil's Bastards MC Page 16