I Am Dressed in Sin: A Reverse Harem Age Gap Romance (Death By Daybreak Motorcycle Club Book 2)

by C. M. Stunich

  “Fine, okay, I’ll get a dress,” I grind out, and Reba nods her chin like this is what she was expecting all along. Nellie gives me that sad, desperate smile she’s been so fond of lately. “But don’t expect anything fluffy, diamond-encrusted, or longer than my knees.”

  “That’s my girl,” Reba drawls, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “Be right back. I need to visit the powder room.”

  “You can say toilet, you know,” I remind her, but she ignores me. We both know she’s only going into the bathroom to gather herself together. She saw her fucking parents murdered in front of her. She’s hurting, and she cries at random times, and she stares at nothing for minutes on end. That’s all normal, considering the circumstances.

  “I’ll go get changed. I know a bridal store that understands the meaning of shotgun wedding.” Nellie winks at me, but I just stare at her. I’m not pregnant.

  I’m not.

  I better not be.

  I bite my lip.

  “Shotgun wedding?” Grainger queries as soon as Nellie’s left the room. “That would imply you’re knocked-up. You knocked-up, Gidge?”

  I glance back at him, Beast’s leather jacket draped over my shoulders. It creaks pleasantly with the motion.

  “That’d be an interesting thought, huh? Considering it most definitely wouldn’t be Beast’s kid.” I stare at Grainger, and he takes a step closer to me. Likely, he wants to fuck again. That’s all we do right now, me and him. We fuck. And we fuck. And we fuck some more. I think that’s the easiest part for him to be honest. He isn’t great with complex feelings.

  “Whose would it be?” he asks, but his question is far more serious than I expected. If I really think about it … if something like that were to happen … it would probably be his.

  I gag and clamp a hand over my mouth. That does it. Grainger is right back to sneering at me again.

  “Are you pregnant?” he asks, and maybe he’s thinking about how we screwed each other in a Catholic church before I ever started taking my birth control pills again.

  Yikes.

  “I feel nauseous, but maybe that’s only because the thought of having your baby freaks me out.”

  “You’d be lucky to spawn my seed,” he snaps, but even if the words are rude, some of his usual acidity is missing. He sounds disturbingly pleased at the idea.

  I hate him. I lied. I don’t want him in my harem. I just want him to fuck off and die.

  “Gidget.” It’s Cat.

  I didn’t hear him come in, and that scares me. I turn to look at him, finding him waiting in the doorway to the kitchen. Grainger has already moved a careful distance away, just in case. Cat may or may not know we’re sleeping together, but I’m not ready to find out just yet.

  “We’re tightening security in preparation for the wedding; I want that girl out of this house.” He retreats before I even get a chance to argue, and I hear the front door slamming behind him. I can see Cat out the window. He pauses next to Crown, a crowd of men behind him.

  “What the fuck is that about?” I ask, and Grainger gives me an unreadable sort of look.

  “Does it matter? He’s the president. Do what he says for once, and don’t pitch a fit.” Cade leans back against the wall, his myriad sun and moon tattoos making him look slightly less like a brutish dickhead than he might otherwise. “Your problem is that you’re too nice.”

  “I’m too nice?” I reply with a laugh. Cade is glaring at me, but underneath all of that spite is raging heat. He wants me so goddamn bad he can taste it. I take a moment to ensure that my tight leather pants—the ones Cat doesn’t bitch about anymore—are hugging my thighs and riding low, revealing a small strip of skin above the waistband. Grainger can’t stop himself from looking. “Oh, that’s rich. Do you have the same problem? You too nice, too, Cade?”

  “Cade, nice?” Crown asks from the doorway Cat just vacated. His chocolate hair gleams with auburn highlights as he steps into the light, one of those Cheshire cat smiles on his face. He rarely gets those anymore, usually only when he’s teasing Grainger. I think there’s something about me that makes him too sad to accomplish it. Mostly, I think he’s upset that I’m marrying Beast and not him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard those two words in the same sentence.” The vice president gives me a look, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets. He’s wearing his cut, the badge beneath his name listing his position as VP. “Your father tells me that Reba needs to be out before the wedding,” he says, not like it’s a problem to be solved but a fact to be acknowledged. Crown gently inclines his head. “She can stay at my place if you want.”

  “By herself?” I ask, flicking a glance in the direction of the bathroom. Nellie seems to have taken to Reba like a lost daughter and vice versa. They never got along well before, but they’ve found a connection this time around. Still, Cat is right. Reba cannot stay here. Every second that she’s in this house, she’s in danger. If she sees something she shouldn’t see, she’ll be trapped. Or dead. Or worse. “She can’t be there by herself. She needs me, at the very least.”

  “You can all stay,” Crown offers, his gaze laser focused on me. It’s hard to concentrate beneath that stare, like standing in the beams of the sun. At first, it’s warm. At first, it feels good. Just don’t forget about the sunburn later. “Normally, we could just move you into your husband’s house …” He trails off here, his pupils dilating slightly. This isn’t an easy subject for him. “But Beast has been living here.”

  “Beast lives here, too?” I query, and Grainger scoffs.

  “We all stay here, Gidge. Me, Beast, Sin.” He storms up beside me and then leans down, putting his mouth so close to my ear that I shiver. “I’ll get you a pregnancy test later.”

  “I’d rather you ate a bag of dicks and died,” I hiss back at him, but he isn’t listening. He’s leaving through the front door, but he doesn't go very far. Instead, he pauses in the front yard and lights up a cigarette. He’s been wearing that bullet necklace of his lately, the one that had the cocaine in it that night. I have not, however, seen him use it. Not once.

  Good for him. He might not be a cokehead anymore, but he’s still a dick.

  “Fucking prick,” I grumble, rubbing at my face as I drop my hands by my sides. It makes sense, however, that the guys would live on the property. Their work never ends; it’s a twenty-four seven funhouse of death and violence over here. “Okay, so … we all move into your place?”

  Crown shrugs his big shoulders. The movement is a farce, however. I can see how tense he is in the set of his shoulders, in the way his arms are locked tight over his chest. This is sort of a big deal for him.

  “We’ll stay there,” he agrees with a nod, exchanging a look with Beast as my future husband enters the room.

  “That’d be best, I think,” he says, reaching up to brush a hand over the well-groomed blond hair on his chin. “There are a lot of people on this compound, and the last thing they need to see is a pair of beautiful girls living in a graveyard.”

  “Pretty words, Beast,” Nellie scoffs as she sweeps back into the room with her purse on her arm and Cat’s jacket on her shoulders. I’m surprised to see that as afraid as she is of Gaz, as much as she defers to Cat, she isn’t afraid of Beast. Because she knows he doesn’t hurt people without reason. He’s a reasonable man. That comforts me immensely somehow. “But it’s all fucking fluff.” She points at him. “You’re a bastard; you’re all bastards for what you did to my little girl.”

  Christ. Of all the times Nellie could’ve started acting like a real mom. This is fan-flipping-tastic.

  Beast cocks a brow but says nothing. Sin, however, affects a grimace as soon as he walks in the room and hears her say that. He, at least, appears to have a healthy level of shame still available.

  Not sure any of the others do.

  “We’re all heading over to the bridal shop with you,” Sin confirms, glancing over at Crown. “It’s what Cat wants.” His silver eyes find mine, and my breath hitches, b
efore he drags his gaze back to the VP.

  Crown very carefully, very slowly nods, his eyes still on me.

  Because right now, the thing the mafia wants most is Gidget motherfucking Kesselring.

  One good thing about the club is, no matter which chapters are present, no matter whose daughter or wife or whatever it is, they wouldn’t give her up. They won’t give anyone up, not even to save their own skins. When there’s danger, the club closes ranks and defends its own.

  See, gray as hell. The club. The world. Everything.

  I’m taking four lovers with me to the bridal shop. Four lovers, a future nun, and my estranged mother.

  How exciting.

  The bridal shop that Nellie drives us to in her Escalade is much fancier than I expected. When she insinuated that they, um, knew how to get things done quickly, I didn’t think we’d be hitting up a store downtown. This is the tourist area of Ashbury, and it’s all high-end bourgeois bullshit.

  The men get quite a few looks when they park on either side of the Escalade with their bikes, wearing leather and looking like, well, outlaws. Reba hops out of the front seat while I scoot across the center bench toward the door, pausing when I notice a bit of blood crusted on the seat’s stitching.

  Mm.

  Must be mine.

  I look at Sin as I climb out, wondering what it must’ve been like, driving me back home while I lay dying in the back seat. He meets my eyes, and I wonder if he’s thinking about the other night. I know I am. Not just the sex either. The stuff about his sister, the fact that he spilled his secrets into the smoke-kissed night.

  “You belong to me.”

  He said that, which is fine, but in reality, it’s the other way around. Colton belongs to me.

  “Oh, Gidge,” Reba coos, dragging me toward the front doors of the shop, her eyes glittering. I think because she’s decided to become a nun but has also fantasized about getting married since she was in kindergarten, she’s living vicariously through me. She pauses just outside the doors and turns to glance back at Beast with a frown. “It isn’t proper for a man to see his wife in her wedding gown before the big day,” she tells him, and he raises a brow at her.

  “Then I suppose I’ll be on door duty,” he acquiesces, nodding his head at her.

  Reba pulls me into the store with Nellie, Crown, Grainger, and Sin following behind.

  I must say, the three of them seem to suck up every available molecule in the room. It’s like, there is no atmosphere without these men. The world is nothing until they show up; they bring the weather with them.

  Now I see why the store sign in the window says Shown by Appointment Only.

  We are very clearly the only people booked in for today.

  “Got another one for me?” a woman asks, appearing from the back and smiling at Nellie in just such a way that I see they have a working relationship.

  “This one’s my daughter,” Nellie tells her, putting her hands on my shoulders. There’s a second there where I have to blink through my reality, try to align it with my feelings. I’d gotten used to living with Grey. I’d gotten used to the idea of marrying him. Now, I’m here and starting a relationship with my mom, and I’m getting married to someone else, and … it’s a lot to take in. “We need something we can take home today.”

  The woman nods, looking me over like she’s mentally gauging my size.

  “Anything in particular that you’re looking for?” she asks, and I swear to fuck, I can feel the eyes of all the men on me. All of them, except for Beast. Their gazes burn as I follow the woman through the store while Reba and Nellie list their ideas for my dress.

  “Something white,” Reba says, giving me a look. I return it with both brows raised.

  “Are you sure red wouldn’t be more appropriate?” I query, but she balks at me.

  “Goodness, no,” she breathes, giving Nellie a look. “You wouldn’t let your baby walk down the aisle in red, would you?”

  “Anything she picks, I’ll be happy with,” my mother says with a wistful sigh, fingering the strap of a sleeveless white gown. “The dress I married Leroy in cost twenty dollars. I found it at the thrift store and insisted on altering it myself. He was so proud of me. The way he looked at me in that dress, it may as well have been worth millions.”

  That gives Reba pause. She takes the story in like she’s filing it away for later, and I start to get suspicious.

  “She wants something short, but I just don’t know about that,” Reba continues as I sigh and rub at my forehead. I hesitate while Nellie and Reba move away with the sales chick.

  “Whose wedding is this, exactly?” Grainger asks dryly, giving me a look and spinning one of his lip rings around with his tongue. “Are you really allowed to wear white? Sure you won’t burn the church down?”

  I let my gaze slide his way. Sin has taken up a position near the back door while Crown is … looking at dresses? He’s moving them across the rack while the three women disappear deeper into the sea of white fluff.

  “What would you want me to wear, if it were our wedding?” I ask Cade, and he scowls at me, I mean like viciously scowls at me.

  “Why the fuck would you even ask me that?” he snaps, and then he’s raking his fingers through his rust-red hair. It’s freshly buzzed along both sides, perfectly slicked back down the center. His leather vest is polished and shining, his denim creased and new.

  I think Cade Grainger dressed up to come here today.

  “Don’t tell me it isn’t something you’ve thought about,” I query back, and he looks at me like he used to, like something distasteful that needs to be gotten rid of. It’s all a defense mechanism, that much I know for sure. “Of all the—I’m sure—thousands and thousands of girls you’ve fucked, how many have you fantasized about marrying?”

  “The truth, Gidge?” he asks, giving me a dark look, one that might make a lesser person wither on the vine. “None.” He turns away from me, like he’s done with the conversation. “I never thought you’d be someone who got married.”

  He takes off, pushing aside a curtain in the corner with a sign that says Intimates on it. Just before he disappears behind it, I notice a sea of white lingerie that reminds me of the items Giulia forced me to wear.

  No thanks. I’ll go with a red thong underneath, true DBD style.

  “You’re pretty perceptive,” I tell Sin as I catch up to him. Reba, Nellie, and the saleslady are gushing over a series of crystal-covered nightmares in the opposite corner of the store. If it makes them that happy to pick a dress, what do I care? “What’s Grainger’s problem?”

  Sin gives me a look, his fingers tapping at his jeans pocket, like he wouldn’t mind a cigarette just about now.

  “Don’t do that,” he scolds, looking me over carefully. “Don’t pretend that you don’t know.”

  I look back at the curtain and wonder what that perv is up to in there, surrounded by all of that lingerie.

  “I think he’s disappointed in me.”

  Sin shrugs.

  “Maybe. He thought you were too wild to be tied down.” Sin kicks his boot up against the wall, and the saleslady flicks an annoyed expression his way. With a sigh, he drops it to the floor and crosses his arms over his chest.

  “He said that?” I ask, cocking a brow as I continue to stare at the curtain.

  “He said that,” Sin confirms, nodding his head. He gives me a real smile, one of a number that I could count on both hands. I remember him smiling a lot more, before my sisters’ funeral. Before he kissed me like he wished our combined love would grant us both the sweet release of death.

  I understand why he pulled away from me that day, at least. Fifteen is pretty young.

  Eighteen is young, I guess. But whatever. Sin and I are a thing now, officially. Or as officially as two people can be when one of them is four days away from marrying someone else.

  “What would you have me wear?” I ask, and Sin hazards a glance over to where Reba and Nellie are fawning over more
gaudy dresses.

  “Nothing from here,” he says, almost wistfully. “Something short and casual. A white sundress, maybe. Or white leather pants.” The idea makes him grin. “Yeah, I like that. White leather pants and my jacket.”

  Crown scoffs as he pauses beside us, his own eyes taking in the dress fervor with interest.

  “I like traditional gowns,” he adds, shrugging unapologetically. “You looked nice in the mafia one, I have to admit.” I give him a look, but he isn’t smiling, even if his words are somewhat playful. No, he looks sad. This is truly the end of an era for him, the loss of a dream.

  “Alright, we have a stack for you to try on,” Reba calls out, waving me over excitedly.

  “Wish me luck,” I murmur, moving away and slipping into the dressing room.

  The first dress I step into is form-fitting, a pale cream color with tiny crystals on the bodice. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don’t recognize who it is that I am anymore.

  “Come out and show us!” Nellie calls as the saleslady finishes buttoning me up. I do as my mother asked, moving out into the room and pausing in front of a three-way mirror while Nellie and Reba gush excitedly.

  But it isn’t them I’m looking at.

  It’s Sin. It’s Crown. Surprisingly, it’s also Grainger.

  The three of them are watching me in just such a way that I might blush, if I were the sort of girl who was capable of that kind of thing. Instead, I stare right back at them in challenge. Don’t abandon me all over again, my look says. Don’t leave me.

  “Do a spin for me, sugar,” Reba says, and I blink myself out of my trance, doing a quick turn so she can study my silhouette. “I’m not a fan of the cream. Let’s try a white one?”

  I don’t complain. How fucked would it be if I did? Nellie’s been through a lot; Reba’s been through a lot. I can, at the very least, give them this moment to enjoy.

  The next dress is one of Reba’s picks, this flouncy, fluffy thing that makes me wish I had some lighter fluid and a match on me. Her eyes sparkle when she sees it, laying her hands on my shoulders and leaning in close from behind.