Forgotten & Found: A Dark & Dirty Sinners' MC Boxset

by Serena Akeroyd

  Maybe Amara and Tatána did as well.

  The only one who didn’t?

  Ghost.

  Fucking typical.

  Why was that always the way? Why did everyone else see how someone felt about us, while we were totally blind to it?

  The rumble of motorbikes slalomed into being behind us, and Lily and I tensed up—all day, bikers had been coming and going from the clubhouse, as was their way, but we were waiting.

  Link and Sin were supposed to be coming back, and I knew we were both more than ready to see them. Especially after our texts. I wasn’t sure if he was still mad at me, and I didn’t want him to be. I wanted to just… God, I wanted nothing more than to be in his arms. No artifice, no playing around.

  Just us.

  Earnest.

  Honest.

  Real.

  For the first time in forever.

  The notion sent chills down my spine and made me want him here even more than I already had, which was saying something.

  Still, my responsibility was to these women. They needed me, and I wasn’t going anywhere until they were ready to quit for the day.

  We weren’t doing like group sessions or a therapy circle, mostly we were just talking, and I was trying to get them to open up.

  Yesterday and today had been eye-openers though. Learning the little they’d shared was enough to give me a nightmare for the rest of my life.

  It blew my mind how I’d eaten at the same table with Luke and Donavan. How my parents had dinner parties with him, how our families had been in business with one another.

  I’d never thought they were capable of doing what I’d learned, and yet, these women were living proof of it.

  Worse still, I’d never picked up on him forcing himself on Lily.

  What kind of fucking therapist was I?

  Jesus, no wonder I’d thought it best to pull out of school.

  Fuck.

  I mean, I’d known she didn’t like him. That she thought he was a control freak, but I’d always just thought she let him do that.

  If my daddy told me to eat a certain breakfast, I’d have told him where to get lost.

  Lily had always seemed so cowed…but I’d never imagined it was for the exact reason it was.

  Guilt hit me, as it kept on doing whenever I thought about how long I’d known her and her family, and how I’d failed her as a friend.

  She didn’t look at me with hatred though. She didn’t hold it against me. If anything, she was still supporting me. Still thinking nothing of allowing me and my mother to live with her, even though Mom was being a royal pain.

  I reached up and tugged at my bottom lip as Lily whispered, “Link told me he was looking for Katina. Seems a shame that you asked him to find her and she’s found now, but you don’t want to see her.”

  “I do want to,” Ghost snapped, for the first time raising her voice. “But I don’t want her to see me as this…” She released a shaky breath. “She’s too young to know, she can’t possibly understand—”

  “Tell her you were sick,” Amara suggested, and because she was a woman of few words, we all turned to her in surprise. “What?” she questioned uneasily. “It’s only a suggestion.”

  Ghost gnawed on her lip. “Maybe. I could say I was ill, that would work for how thin I am.”

  Mav scowled at that. “I don’t like it. Feels like you’re wishing shit on yourself—”

  “She was ill for a while,” Lily reasoned. “I know the club was concerned about you pulling through after they found you.”

  Ghost wriggled her shoulders. “No, I like it. I think it will work.”

  “Will you see her then?” I questioned gently.

  “Yes, if I can tell her…” She reached up and gingerly touched her head. “Maybe she won’t think anything of it. Maybe she’ll think it’s fashion or something.” No one answered, because we knew she was talking to herself. Something that was confirmed when she got to her feet without waiting on us to say anything and walked over to Mav. “Will you take me to her, please?”

  He reached for her hand. “Of course.”

  I watched as she squeezed his fingers before she muttered, “Can I push you?”

  I’d never seen anyone push Mav. He always did it himself. He didn’t have a motor or anything on it, just his hands on the wheels.

  His arms bunched up, and I could see on his face that he didn’t want to, but he mumbled, “Sure.”

  Ghost blew out a relieved breath, and I figured she was wanting to do something with her hands, wanted to focus on something else.

  Her nerves filtered through the room, making it cloying with just how anxious she was—pretty much a parallel to how Maverick had been when he’d wheeled himself into the room.

  As they walked away without a backward glance, we stared at them, all four of us watching them leave.

  “I hope it goes well,” Tatána rasped.

  “Me too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I do too.”

  We all shared the sentiment, even as we turned back to each other.

  The bunkhouse was small, made up of grody furnishings that’d been new back in the sixties or seventies, but the pieces, while ugly, were comfortable. I was sitting on a weird leather armchair, Tatána and Amara were on a sofa that Tatána usually slept on, and Ghost and Lily had been on one of the dining table chairs.

  I wouldn’t say we were lounging. If anything, it looked like a strange AA meeting, but we were starting to gel, and I was glad for that.

  Maybe I’d never be able to help them fully, but I could do something by just trying to get them to open up.

  Had to have faith, right?

  Amara cleared her throat. “Your men are back.”

  I frowned at that. “How do you know?” The room had no window in it, but even though it was stupid, her words had me itching to get up and go look for Sin.

  She shifted her shoulders. “I heard their bikes. Well, I heard Link’s. Whenever he arrives, his bike has a faint whistle.”

  Lily frowned. “A whistle?”

  Amara nodded. “Yes. It’s only slight.”

  “I’d best tell him, because I think hogs are supposed to roar not whistle,” she commented wryly, making me laugh.

  That they babied their bikes was a given, and we shared a sheepish grin, because somehow, we’d stopped being with guys from the country club who jacked off to thoughts of Lamborghinis and Ferraris, and were now with anal-retentive fools who spit polished their bikes for fun.

  “We’re not done here,” I pointed out when Lily went to stand up.

  Tatána shrugged. “I’m tired. I could nap.”

  Frowning, I asked, “Are you sure? We can stay.”

  “No. I’m tired too. Plus, if Giulia is back, maybe she’ll bring us some food.”

  Amara’s eagerness was pathetic to behold—not for the food, but for the fact she wanted to see Giulia but couldn’t admit to it.

  Sorrow filled me, as did a surge of sympathy. “I’ll get her to come and visit with you when we see her.”

  Amara perked up, her eyes gleaming. “Thank you.”

  I nodded as I got to my feet, and though I wanted to dart off like Lily did, I couldn’t.

  Wouldn’t.

  I needed to take this slowly.

  I hadn’t seen him in months.

  Fuck, but it felt longer than that.

  As I rounded the bunkhouse, which looked out onto the fields around the clubhouse, not onto the building itself, I made it to the driveway where a cluster of bikes were indeed gathered together.

  I registered Sin’s bright black beast instantly. It had black and silver flames licking the body, which made it gleam like it was a mirror or something.

  Lily was already with Link, her legs around his waist and her butt in his hands as he stared up at her.

  They were both laughing, and the sight of them together did something to me. Relief and hope swirled about inside me as I hoped, for her sake, that L
ink could help heal her wounds.

  He seemed like a good man, like good people, even though I knew, to decent society, he wasn’t, and maybe that was what Lily needed.

  Someone with dark edges, but whose soul could fit hers. Like two jigsaw pieces, no?

  I bit my lip as I cast a look over Rex and Nyx and Steel, noticed Giulia was missing, then I found him.

  He was turned away from me, talking to Nyx.

  He was tall. Fuck, when had that happened? I mean, I knew he was, but seeing him standing by all those super tall, hot guys rammed home just how big he was.

  It seemed like he’d been working out in his absence too, because he was larger than before. His cut kind of looked small, and the back seam definitely strained. Oh man, he was like looking at trouble with a capital T.

  But he was mine.

  And the kid in my belly?

  His.

  A shaky breath escaped me, and it was so stupid to feel so nervous that I felt pretty much like a dick, but my emotions were all over the place. The last time I’d seen him, things had been normal.

  Now?

  My world was upside down, and the only thing that was stable was him.

  He represented far more to me than he could ever know.

  My dad was gone, my mom was being weird, my world was on its ass, and we had debts coming out of us worse than bad lobster at a fish restaurant.

  I was grief-stricken, pregnant, trying to help women who’d been held captive, and my best friend had just admitted that, for years, she’d been sexually abused and psychologically tortured by her family.

  In that moment?

  I totally understood Lily’s mindset.

  And while I wasn’t her, while I wasn’t exuberant, and while Sin wasn’t used to me doing shit like this because I was terrible at the whole PDA thing, I could no more stop myself from running over to him than I could stop the tears from pricking my eyes at the sight of him.

  Link saw me, said something, and Sin twisted around to face me. When he did, his eyes turned dark, stormy, and he moved forward, not as fast, but we collided.

  And it was like the Big Bang happened.

  He grabbed me hard, hard enough to hurt, his arms around me like fucking concrete as he held me against him. My legs were up around his waist after I leaped at him, and he clung to me as much as I clung to him. I gripped him tightly even as our mouths smashed together in homecoming. He had a beard that tickled the heck out of me, and normally, I’d have complained, but God, I didn’t even care. It just felt so good to have his lips on mine.

  I pulled away, mumbling, “So glad you’re home early.”

  His groan as I kissed him again sent need soaring through me, hitting me in the belly with a force that was close to painful. Enough to hurt. But in the best possible way. I sank into him, knowing he’d hold me, that he’d support me, that he’d always have my back, because he was that kind of guy.

  He was a sequoia. Timeless, endless, his roots deep, his calm eternal.

  I needed that.

  More than I ever imagined needing a man this much.

  When he thrust his tongue into my mouth, the move surprised me, because it was such an act of claiming in front of his brothers that I almost tensed before I had no alternative but to melt into him.

  Seemed like we were tearing down the shroud of secrecy in one fell swoop, and I didn’t have it in me to be sad about that.

  Daddy was gone. Mom was in another universe. If I wanted to be with a biker? Who was going to judge me?

  The people who were supposed to be close? The family and friends who hadn’t attended my father’s funeral?

  Yeah, fuck them.

  I wanted Sin more than I wanted anything, more than I’d ever wanted anything.

  He was mine.

  And I was going to take him.

  Sin

  The feel of her fucked with my head.

  I was gone for her. So fucking gone that I was only just realizing it.

  I knew, without a shadow of a doubt now, that if this crap with Faudreaux hadn’t worked, I’d have hauled her ass down to Ohio, because there was no way in fuck I could have been without her longer.

  Call me pussy whipped or call me a man who recognized solid gold when he found it, I wasn’t going to let go of her.

  I wasn’t.

  And it had nothing to do with the baby in her belly. If anything, that made me happy. I was nearly fucking forty. If there was ever a time to have a kid, it was now.

  Never thought I’d be having it with a woman who was twenty-three, but my dick was smart. Probably the smartest thing about me.

  It had seen her, scented her out, and knew prime pussy when it saw it.

  My lips twitched at the thought, because I knew she’d slap me if she realized I was thinking crap like that, but fuck, it was heaven to be around someone who wouldn’t take my shit anymore.

  I squeezed her as I kissed her, loving the feel of her in my arms, before I tore my mouth from hers and ground out, “You ready to go home?”

  Her eyes flared wide. “W-What?”

  She flickered her gaze to the others, but I tutted and said, “Nope, you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Your place?”

  I shook my head, not only at the words but her shy tone. Fuck, what had happened to my woman since I was gone?

  Tiff wasn’t shy.

  She was loud, proud, and fucking dangerous to know.

  Of course, dangerous in the real world was a relative thing.

  On the scale of danger, I was a ten and she was a one, but that mouth on her? Always unpredictable.

  “Our place,” I rasped, suddenly glad I’d invested in the property because that meant my kid could grow up in that old house with the woods in the yard and all that land to roam in. He’d have everything I didn’t—space, freedom, parents who gave a fuck. Now that I was back, he’d be safe here in the town, and my rep would precede him in several states around us.

  Fuck, I needed to brand her.

  I needed to make sure she was safe too.

  Being the club’s Enforcer meant a pay rise, plus a higher taking of our hauls, but to be honest, that came with a shit ton of more danger too.

  I wasn’t averse to that. It was no more danger than I’d been in back when I was deployed, but the truth was, I needed it. If Storm was languishing by having no real role in the club because Rex was Type A with the Sinners, then so was I.

  I was goal oriented and a hard worker. There was a reason it’d been easy to drown my problems in the bottle.

  It was something to do.

  Until she’d come along.

  I didn’t think she knew how much she’d changed my life without even trying.

  It had all happened so smoothly.

  From a one-nighter to a few hookups to becoming a regular thing.

  I wasn’t even sure how it had happened.

  Couldn’t pinpoint the moment when, suddenly, I’d wanted to wake up with her hair in my face in the morning, blunt razors on the vanity because she’d used them on her legs, and weird froufrou vegetarian shit in my refrigerator because that was what she liked.

  She pulled back to nip my bottom lip, then as her fingers entangled in the beard that was on its way out now that I was back with her, muttered, “Do you still have a room here?”

  That she was as desperate for this as I was shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She kept up with me like the sleek ride she was, but the notion of fucking her here?

  Man, the possessive bastard in me didn’t like the idea of anyone hearing her come, but they’d know whom she belonged to.

  And the clubwhores?

  They might figure out I was taken without shit getting nasty.

  So, without another word, I grabbed a firmer hold on her ass, and ignored my brothers as they howled at me with laughter.

  Rex called out, “Your room is still empty. Good fucking thing, huh?”

  I didn’t reply, just carried on kissing my woman, mo
ving down to her throat so I could look over her shoulder and suck on her hotspots as we moved. Last thing I needed was for us to go flying over the doorjamb or tripping up.

  When I was inside, there were some cheers and jeers at what we were doing, but she didn’t shy away from it, which surprised me.

  I knew how private she could be.

  Did this mean something to her?

  Was it her way of staking a claim in a place that mattered to me?

  I shouldn’t have liked that as much as I fucking did.

  My dick hardened even more within the tight confines of my jeans, and she moaned, rocking her hips back and forth against its thickness as we maneuvered up the stairs toward my room.

  When I pinned her against the wall on the upper landing, she reached up and stuck her tongue in my mouth. I almost choked on how good it felt, then as she tongue fucked me, I ground into her, loving how she turned to goo in my arms.

  “Need you inside me,” she rumbled, pulling back to pant the words against my lips.

  “Nowhere else I want to be, angel,” I rasped, knowing my eyes were dark and hard in response to the soft light in hers.

  She melted against me even more, confirming what I already knew—her feelings were deep.

  I just needed to work on making her at ease with them.

  She’d had a weird relationship with her family, but fuck if I could judge. Mine was the weirdest out there.

  I hitched her up again, loving how her sleek legs clung to me, then moved us down the hall to where I slept.

  When I peered inside, I was glad to see that all my shit was still in there.

  Had Rex put it all back or had things just never been moved?

  I’d have thought Nyx would trash it all, so it made me wonder if he’d had Prospects move stuff around.

  Either way, I didn’t care, was just grateful everything was pretty much where I’d left it.

  The notion of taking her in that bed didn’t sit well with me.

  I’d fucked a lot of bitches on that mattress, and she wasn’t a bitch.

  She was going to be my Old Lady as well as the mother of my kid.

  I wasn’t sure if she knew what I was thinking, but she muttered, “I need you to fuck me, Sin.”

  My eyes flared wide at her words.