My lips twitched. “Let me get this straight.” My stomach began to ache from just how serious she was and how hard I wanted to laugh. Me. Who never fucking laughed. “You won’t ask for help for hygiene reasons?”
“Damn straight. Only fuck knows what they’re carrying.” She sniffed. “In fact, you should get out of the kitchen too before your bacteria floats into my food. Once it’s in the dining hall, it’s No Man’s Land.”
“That’s twice you’ve insulted me today.”
She didn’t flinch at my cool tone. “Then that’s two times too few.” When I saw her swallow, I knew she was all show. If she’d had an Adam’s apple, it’d have been bobbing at that.
Because I could appreciate her front, I hitched a shoulder. “You saw how they reacted when you insulted me the first time.”
“I did.”
“Yet you repeated the insult.” I reached up and rubbed my chin. “You must have been hell on your mom.”
For the first time, she reacted—jerking back as though I’d hit her. Instantly, she twisted around, giving me her back. Not to piss me off further, but to hide her expression from me.
Scowling at the sight, especially when I knew she was upset about my referencing her mom and not the fact that all the sluts knew to watch my temper, I sighed. Hurting her by reminding her of her mom hadn’t been my intention.
For a second, I just stood there, hovering.
Me.
Fucking hovering.
What in hell was even happening here?
I tried not to think about the fact that if she was any other bitch, I’d have stormed out of there. Instead, with her, I wanted to wrap an arm around her goddamn shoulder and ask her if she was okay.
Okay.
Fuck me.
Since when did I even care how anything with a vagina was?
Because it was a concerning development, since I didn’t give a shit about anything other than my club, I just muttered, “If it gets to be too much, get a Prospect in. They can’t fuck the sweetbutts, so they should be clean enough for your standards.”
I didn’t wait for her to reply, just got the fuck out of there.
Because if that sniff I heard as I left was her crying?
Then I really would have to go over to her, and...
My jaw clenched as I thought about the last female I’d comforted, and when I thought about how shit had turned out for Carly, that made me want to start planning my thirtieth tattoo, not just my twenty-ninth.
❖
STORM
“HE’S GOT the hots for her.”
I snorted at Rex. “You only just figured that out?” Arching a brow at him when he glared at me, I just flexed my hands in the tape before I contemplated putting on some gloves.
The last thing I wanted to do was work out, but it was the only way I had to beat off this aggression. There was only so much sex a man could have before it started feeling redundant, before it started feeling like he was goddamn procrastinating.
And that, right there, was proof I was thirty-five and not twenty-fucking-five.
Jesus fuck, I hadn’t given a shit back then about how often or who I’d fucked, just so long as I’d gotten my dick wet. Now? Things were different. I was supposed to have a goddamn Old Lady to slake my thirst on, instead, she was the one behind my goddamn frustrations in the first place.
“I figured it out when I saw him daring her to watch while he practically chewed Cammie’s face off.”
I blinked at him. “And they say romance is dead.”
Link snorted out a laugh. “It is in this place.”
Shaking my head at the weirdo with a butt plug up his ass while he went for a jog, I muttered, “Doesn’t have to be. But the way to a woman’s goddamn heart isn’t to have a bitch suck your dick or chew your mouth off while your boo is watching.”
“Boo’s a little strong, isn’t it? They barely interact!” Rex countered, frowning at me in the mirror.
“Sometimes it’s in a look not a conversation.” I swallowed at how fucking real that was. Back in the day, that was all it had taken for me and Keira. A long look, and I’d known where she was at, how she was feeling, what was going on with her.
That was how I’d felt sure she was supposed to be mine.
That a single glance at her could be loaded with such meaning had made me feel sure that things were different with her.
Now, even after all the crap, I couldn’t say that didn’t hold true. She was mine, always fucking would be. Convincing her of that might be a difficult feat, but I was slowly coming to the realization that life without her was—
"Storm?"
I blinked at my Prez. "What?"
"You doing okay, man? You were just standing there, staring into space."
Link snorted. "Maybe he was checking out your ass."
My lips twitched. "Since when was I into guys?"
"I dunno, but you've been a dipshit of late. Maybe you're into compounding your mistakes by coming onto Rex."
Gradually, with each word uttered, my eyes widened until I was pretty fucking sure I couldn't look more stunned if I tried.
Link snickered at me. "Cat got your tongue?"
"No, but it should have yours," Rex ground out, glaring at Link. "Where the fuck is your head at talking to him that way?"
Link shrugged. "You try dealing with a call at four AM from someone's Old Lady..."
"What?" I ground out, my entire body tensing at what Link was inferring. "My Keira called you?"
Link let the treadmill slow down, and as it whined to a halt, he grabbed his water and took a deep sip. All the while, he milked the fucking attention until I wanted to rip off his goddamn head.
"Funny how she's your Keira when—"
Rex was suddenly there, his hand on my shoulder, holding me back. "You know not to fuck around with Old Ladies, Link," he grated out, shooting me a concerned glance.
"Fucking around with them?" Link frowned. "Fuck you, Rex. She was upset."
"Why was she?"
"Apparently over something she didn't feel comfortable talking about with you." He sniffed. "What she told me in confidence can't be repeated."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Are you looking to have your ass kicked?"
"You could fucking try," Link snapped. He folded his arms across his chest, his sweat-flecked biceps bunching as he tensed them. "Get your head out of your ass, man. That's all I'm saying."
"You have no right to make any opinion about what I do."
"I have every right when Keira's the one calling me."
My gut churned at that. Why would Keira call another brother? I'd never realized they were close. Hell, Keira had never spent all that much time here. None of the Old Ladies did. Mostly because of the sweetbutts...
Okay, that was the only reason.
I didn't really blame them. As great as it was for the brothers to have pussy on tap, and to have a walking strip show wherever we went, for the Old Ladies, it wasn't exactly a fun time, was it?
I knew they had their own get-togethers. Parties or some such that they held every week at their homes, but Link wouldn't have been invited, would he? The entire point was to be in a brother-free zone, wasn't it?
"I can see I got your mind ticking over," he said dryly, "but as always, Storm, you don't see the trees for the fucking woods."
Rex huffed. "It's the other way around."
Link shrugged. "It doesn't matter. Either way, it's right. He's focusing on the fact that she called me, that I'm the one she spoke with, not the fact she was crying."
"Mostly because you threw it down like a goddamn gauntlet to make him jealous, dumb fuck." Rex squeezed my arm. "What's going on with you, Storm?"
"Nothing."
Rex snorted. "Keira moved out two months ago for a time out. You've been fucking everything that moved ever since."
"You'd better not have fucking told Keira that," I snarled at Link, concerned over what my brother had told my Old Lady when everything that
went down on the compound was sacrosanct.
"Like she doesn't already know." He arched a brow at me. "In fact, I think she might be getting some action of her own. Last time I visited her and Cyan, she was talking about a date."
My blood surged in my veins until I could hear my pulse throbbing in my ears.
Keira was fucking dating?
What had started out as a break, just some time to get our heads together, had morphed into something else.
Something that had me fearing there'd be no getting back together. No resolving our differences.
Christ.
What the hell had we done?
We should never have taken a break, never put distance between us. How the fuck could we fix things if she was in our family house and I was staying here at the compound?
I wasn't ashamed to admit that I felt shaky. Shaky as fuck. For a moment, Rex was the only thing keeping me upright, and I knew he knew it because he muttered, "It's okay, bud. You can still fix things."
My jaw clenched. "How can I if she's fucking someone else?"
"You've been fucking all the sweetbutts," Link pointed out, ever goddamn helpful. "Do they matter to you?"
"Keira isn't like me," I snarled at him. "She doesn't sleep around unless it matters."
"Maybe she changed." He shrugged. "You can't condemn her when you've done much worse."
While he was right, I wanted to.
How fucking dare she be dating some fucker when she was mine?
Like he felt the aggression surge inside me, Rex put both his hands on my shoulders and ground out, "Calm the fuck down, Storm. Don't do anything rash. You make another mistake, and it's all it will take for this break to become permanent."
Because he was right, I backed off, backed down. But I still felt like I was torn between puking and ripping off either Link's head or the head of the guy Keira was seeing.
I pulled back and staggered toward the wall so I could lean against it. As the bare brick cut into my skin, I let it ground me. For a while, I stared ahead, not really looking at anything, not even thinking all that much.
Thinking hurt.
Had I lost Keira?
Forever?
I scrubbed a hand over my face, and in that second, Link was there. Pushing his fucking luck as per goddamn usual.
"Link," Rex warned, but the faint clank of the weights told me he’d gone back to working out.
"What?" he sniped, just on the border between insolence and respect for Rex's station. "I'm telling him to pull his head out of his ass. We should have done it a while ago."
With his attention split, I let it rip. A single punch let some of my aggression flow free and had Link coughing up his guts as he cradled his stomach. I didn't surge forward, though, didn't flow into a fight. I'd just needed to pay the SOB back for telling me this shit the way he had.
Holding his belly, Link glowered at me, and the fact he didn't come after me and that Rex didn't stop what he was doing, told me they knew I wasn't going to take this further.
I was well within my rights to. A brother knew not to fuck with another man's Old Lady. He should've known not to get in between them too, but Link couldn’t keep his nose out of shit.
"Why was she upset?"
"Some kid in Cyan's class is picking on her."
My eyes flared wide. "She's being bullied?" I blurted out. Why the fuck hadn't Keira told me that?
"Don't get your panties in a twist," Link grumbled.
"No? My woman calls you about my kid being bullied, and you don't think I should be pissed off?"
"He has a point," Rex said dryly.
"You're so helpful," Link grumbled, wincing as he straightened up. Rubbing his gut, he glared at me as he said, "They weren't tears of sadness. They were angry tears."
Either way, they were tears. My woman was crying. And she didn't think she could come to me.
More than anything, that made me feel surer than ever that we were over.
If she couldn't share her sadness, and wouldn't share her anger, then what the fuck were we?
Nothing.
That's what.
I ground my teeth as agony speared me in the chest.
Holy fuck, it hurt.
It hurt so fucking bad.
More than when she'd made the suggestion in the first place. More than when I'd sunk my dick into a pussy I didn't even want, but had used to alleviate some of my frustrations at a situation I hadn't even proposed.
I couldn't stop myself from sinking down into a crouch, because suddenly, the world just felt like it was all too much, and my life was crashing in around me without me even being able to do anything about it.
"Storm, go to her, man. Stop this shit."
Link's earnestness rang true then. He'd been trying to help. All along, that had been his intent.
But...
"It's too late for that," I rasped.
"It's never too late, and if you don't do something now, then you're a bigger fucking asshole than I already thought." From being earnest to being disgusted, it hadn't taken much to morph Link's opinion.
But I ignored it and him and just focused on the perspiration-dotted mat around the punchbag Nyx had been reaming a new one. The same urge hit me.
Nyx had been working off his frustrations of feelings he didn't understand. I knew my brother. Nyx and emotions weren't alien, but where a woman was concerned, they were. He was used to saving their butts, keeping them secured and out of danger, but that was easy. He didn't have to care about the individual woman. Didn't need to think about her hopes and dreams, her wants and needs.
He could be selfish.
Could lock himself down and never let anyone in.
But, for all the pain in the ass that she was, Giulia wasn't like that.
I knew because I knew what it felt like to fall. I knew the signs, and I was seeing them in Nyx and Giulia. In the sniping and the bitching, in the glares and hot stares when they didn't think the other was looking.
That had been me and Keira back in the day. Back before it had all gone wrong.
Heart in my throat, I got my equilibrium back, but the second I could stand without falling over, I toddled over to the punch bag on shaky legs and, ignoring the weakness in my bones, beat the shit out of the equipment.
It didn't help, but it was better than hunting down the fucker Keira was trying to replace me with and gutting him.
❖
GIULIA
FUCK, I hated this place.
I really, truly did.
It was everything I remembered loving as a kid, but it was somehow worse as an adult.
As a little girl, it had been somewhere to escape my mom and dad’s constant arguing. There’d been a play area, and I’d been able to hang around with my friends all the time.
As a woman, I just saw everything my mom had despised about the clubhouse, and understood, totally, why she’d left. Seeing my brothers get absorbed in everything, exactly like my father, made me glad Mom couldn’t see them, and it made me regret all the times I’d given her shit for making us leave.
Nyx had been spot on.
I had been a pain in the ass to my mom. I’d railed and rebelled and given her nothing but shit. Fuck, no wonder...
My throat closed as I thought about her heart attack. About how we’d argued the day before, and I’d slammed the fucking phone down on her like the bitch I was.
My last words to my mom were hateful, and there was no getting away from that. No getting over it either.
I pulled in a breath because I felt like I was suffocating, felt like I couldn’t get any air into my lungs, and then, he was there.
Awkward, but there.
I wanted to pull back, jerk out of his hold. I’d heard him head out of the kitchen, had thought I had some privacy, but no. He was there. The scent of him was overwhelming.
Sure, it was sweat, but it was clean sweat. And, unlike a lot of the bastards around here, he didn’t stink of the beer that was seeping out
of his pores in the aftermath of a heavy drinking session the night before.
When his arm slipped around my shoulders, I didn’t think anything of turning into him. I didn’t know why, wasn’t even sure why I hadn’t slammed my foot into his instep... okay, so I knew.
Because it was Nyx.
I knew it without having to look.
Anyone else, and I’d have done worse than slam my heel into their instep. I’d have kneed them in the fucking balls.
But...
Nyx...
He was the one who tended to come into the kitchen when the harpies from hell were whimpering over my attacks. He never shouted at me, just shot me an impatient glare, and usually sided with me in the end. He called me out on my shit, but he never got nasty. Not even when I talked crap and gave him more snark than I should.
There was something about him.
Something hot, sure, but more than that. Something that I liked.
He was a dick.
I’d seen his cock already because that fucking Cammie slut was always chewing on it like a dog with a goddamn bone, and he was mean and snarled a lot, but— But what?
I didn’t know, but it didn’t stop me from turning into him, sweat be damned, and pressing my face into the tee he’d donned since he’d left the kitchen the first time. I appreciated the gesture, but when my tears soaked into the fabric, I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t reply. I didn’t expect him to. He was a man of few words, and that was something I’d seen from not just watching him around the place, but also from his forays into the kitchen too.
He got more done with a glare than most guys did with a yell, and I appreciated that. After a childhood of hearing my parents shout at one another, I hated guys who yelled. It was an instant red card to a boyfriend who, during a fight, raised his voice.
I shuddered, thinking about how cruel I was with words because of that. I didn’t even raise the volume when I wanted to be cutting. I just said the meanest shit.
“Mom died thinking I hated her,” I murmured, not wanting to explain, and also not wanting him to think I was a pussy.
I got the vibe that he appreciated how strong I was, and sure, I was, but I was a pathetic priss too sometimes.
“We’d argued the day before she had her heart attack, and—”
Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset Page 7