by Winters, KB
“If it makes you feel better, I’m impressed by your skills.”
I knew what she meant. They had nothing to do with eating pancakes. And she wasn’t wrong, I’d spent hours pleasuring her body last night, making her come time and time again for no reason other than the fact that the sounds she made kept my dick painfully hard.
“It doesn’t.”
I laughed and shook my head. “Well, I also find it incredibly sexy the way you put away an entire stack of pancakes, and that sheen of bacon grease making your lips shiny? It’s making me think of other parts of last night.”
Vanessa’s face turned a bright shade of pink as she leaned in. “You mean when I tied you to the bed and sucked you until you begged me to stop?”
Fuck yeah. “Well, I wouldn’t say I begged. More like asked, passionately.”
She tossed her head back and laughed. “Semantics, but I’ll allow it.” The look she laid on me was filled with more than lust; it was affection. It was genuine emotion, and I knew I was a lucky son of a bitch that she somehow managed to forgive me. “Don’t go there, Emmett. Not again.”
I blinked. “What did I do?”
“That look right there.” She aimed one long finger in my direction.
“You’re thinking about what a dick you were for keeping the Fiona news from me. Right?” I nodded.
“Guilty as charged.”
“Well stop it, dammit. I was mad and yeah, I’m still trying to get over it completely, but that can’t happen if you keep having bouts of guilt when you look at me.”
She wiped her mouth one last time and stood, laying several bills on the leatherbound book our waitress left behind, arching her brow as if to dare me to say something about her paying the bill.
I wanted to say something, but if a week without her and letting her buy me breakfast was my punishment, I’d fucking take it like a champ. I caught up to her in the parking lot and grabbed her hand, clasping it with mine.
“It’s not guilt,” I whispered in her ear and pressed against her body, gently trapping her against the car. “I was just thinking what a lucky fucking bastard I am that you forgave me. That I get to do this to you again.”
Our lips came together quickly, soft but urgent at first, but as the heat grew, her leg inched up my hip, and I pressed my cock right to the center of her, pulling a low moan from deep inside of her.
“Emmett.” My name came out on a growled whisper and those big blue eyes met mine with a sleepy smile. “We’re in public. The whole restaurant can see us.”
She was right and I didn’t give a damn. “They’re just jealous that I get to kiss you like this.” I kissed her again because the taste of Vanessa mixed with syrup and warm butter was giving me—and my cock—all kinds of ideas. “That gave me a thought. Syrup and butter, all over your body.”
She laughed and shook her head before giving me a gentle shove.
“Damn you, I like the sound of that. A lot.”
“Next stop, grocery store?”
She laughed and pulled open the passenger door. “Get inside and I’ll tell you where we’re going next.” There was a gleam in her eyes that held a dirty promise I would hold her to when we got to wherever we were headed next.
I slid behind the wheel and started the engine, saying, “It turns me on when you’re bossy like this, just so you know.”
“Good to know.” The corners of her mouth tipped up into a teasing grin a moment before a familiar sound ripped through the air. A deafening pop. And then another.
And another.
“Get down!” I reached across the car and shoved Vanessa toward the floor. “Stay down!”
I shouted the words and swung out of the parking spot, taking off out of the lot as fast Vanessa’s car would allow, trying hard to put as much distance as I could between Vanessa and the shooter.
“Wh-what’s happening, Emmett?”
I looked in the rearview mirror and saw two motorcycles behind us. “Not sure yet, but we have company.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know yet, babe. Just stay down there,” I spoke through clenched teeth, cutting down side streets in an attempt to lose the bikers.
“Shit!” Bikers. Of course this was the moment Agent Beck’s warning came back to me. “Black Jacks.”
Vanessa scoffed through her fear. “Black Jacks?”
The side streets turned into a two-lane highway and we picked up two more visitors.
“Grab my phone and call Terry. Tell him what’s going on and where we are.”
She nodded and took the phone with shaky hands. I hated the fear I heard in her voice, but I understood it. “Don’t worry, Nessa, I’ll do everything I can to make sure you get out of this alive. Tell Terry there are four bikers.”
Two bikers approached on each side, bullets coming from both sides. Trying to disorient me.
“Hang on!” I shouted.
As soon as they were close enough and shooting, I jerked the wheel to the right and hit the brakes, I clipped one of the assholes and sent him flying through the air.
“Oh!” Vanessa wrapped both arms around her head, shielding herself from the bullet or the sound, I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that she was shaken. Terrified.
“You all right?”
“Yeah, just shaken up. A little.”
“It’d be weird if you weren’t.” It had taken me a long time to get used to the sound of bullets flying around me, and that was only after the government put in tons of time and money to train me.
“We’re a long way from Ashby Manor, but it’s our best and safest bet. Just keep your head down.”
Three bikes still followed, too fucking close for comfort, and I had to slow down my pounding heart in order to focus. Eyes on the road. Hands on the wheel.
A bullet shattered the back window. “Shit!”
The roar of one of the engines came close. Too close.
“Stay down, Nessa!” I reached over to shove her down again but the stubborn woman ignored me and slid away from me, curling her legs up to retrieve something from the glove compartment.
A moment later, she produced a plain black nine millimeter.
“It was a gift from Lance. Never used it,” she said as she checked the bullets and disengaged the safety. “But I clean and load it regularly.”
With a nervous smile on her face, Vanessa hit the button to open the window and stuck her hands out, turning towards the two bikers on the right.
“Deep breath and squeeze, deep breath and squeeze” she whispered to herself and pulled the trigger.
“Holy shit, I got one of ’em!” she squealed. A wide, childish smile appeared on her face as she turned to me with a little shimmy.
“Shit, good job, babe.” Her accuracy was impressive and I swear, I fell a little more in love with her in that moment. “Now, get down. Please. There’s still two more assholes back there.”
“Oh, fine,” she growled and slid back down to the tiny space between the passenger seat and the glove compartment.
My foot pressed down on the gas so hard I felt a cramp starting to form in my right calf muscle, but I kept going, knowing that getting as close to Ashby Manor as possible was our best chance of survival. It’s time to start packing that heat. If things stayed like this with Vanessa, then I would have to be prepared to keep her safe whenever.
Wherever.
Two bikers still followed us, close but not so close now that they knew we would fight back. Instead of charging straight ahead, I slowed down and swung the ass of the car from left to right, forcing the bikers to slow down to avoid falling over. It wouldn’t keep them away for long, but I needed time to think.
“You got any backup ammo in here?”
She smiled and nodded. “Just a box. Maybe another in the trunk.”
One of the bikers kept shooting while the other gained on the right, pulling up right beside Vanessa, close enough that I saw his kutte. Black Jacks, just as I suspected.
“Gun,” I
ordered and held one hand out but she hesitated as the biker started smacking the window. “Vanessa! Gun!”
Her blue eyes snapped up to meet mine and she nodded absently.
“Right. Here you go.”
Fumble.
The gun fell to the floor before it hit my hands, and I felt a sense of dread wrap around me when I spotted the two bikers heading right towards us.
“Stay calm, babe.” I wanted to tell her it would be fine, but I couldn’t, not when it looked like we were about to be ambushed by more bikers. With my foot pressed down on the gas, I braced myself for impact.
It never came.
I heard more gunshots. But they weren’t aimed at us. I slammed on the brakes and looked behind me. I saw two bikers still standing and two lay on the ground. I eased the car over to the side of the road.
“What the fuck?” It didn’t make sense, and I stared in the mirror at the scene behind us, trying to figure out what in the hell had just happened.
“What? What’s going on?” Slowly, Vanessa unfolded her body and tried to look at the road without being seen.
I had no fucking clue, but I watched the two men walk forward to the car.
“Gun, Vanessa. Now.” My words were short and low, leaving no room for arguments. This time, she quickly retrieved the gun from the footwell and pressed it into my hand, and I aimed it at one of the men, knowing I could only get one of them before they downed one of us.
“Don’t come any fucking closer!” I snarled through Vanessa’s open window.
One of the guys had a lazy, long-legged gait that reminded me of a cowboy. He stopped and put both hands in the air, shocking the shit out of me. “That’s a fine thank you if I ever heard one,” he called out to us.
The voice was playful and slightly familiar, except I couldn’t quite place it. “Do I know you?”
“Not biblically, but we have met.”
The amusement in his voice threatened to piss me off. Four men had just tried to kill me and my woman and this dude was being a joker.
“Sadie rang up the Prez and said you might need some help out here, so here we are.”
I frowned as I tried to process his words.
“Sadie?” The dark haired man who couldn’t be older than his early twenties nodded. “So, Sadie sent you and knows your President?”
And then it clicked. “Reckless Bastards?” I said, getting out of the car.
“Got it.” He took a few steps closer and held out a hand. “Jameson and that’s my brother Charlie. Maisie’s cousins, in a way.”
“Maisie?” At the familiar name Vanessa popped up. “You’re related to Maisie? From Texas?”
“No. Mayhem.” The one called Charlie grinned. “We’re happy to help. These assholes have been causing a lot of trouble around Mayhem.”
I nodded. “I heard they were trying to take over your territory.” Another piece of info from Agent Beck.
“Trying is the key fucking word,” Charlie growled, his good natured grin replaced with a deadly one. “Looks like you managed to take down a couple before we got here.”
I nodded and raked a hand through my thick hair. “Thanks for the assist, man. We really needed it.”
“No problem, man.” Jameson clapped me on the back. “Anything to help out family, right?”
“Right.”
They were Maisie’s family. She hadn’t been part of the Ashby family long, but she fit right in, and soon she would be an Ashby in every sense of the word.
“Plus you saved me from an afternoon of tux fittings. I’d much rather be disposing of dead bodies than having some old dude handle my junk. Come on.”
“Glad I could help,” I grunted and stepped away from the car, casting a quick glance over at Vanessa.
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. “You boys need some help?” She stepped from the car with a wide, willing-to-help smile and her hands fisted at her hips.
“In those shoes?” Charlie laughed. “No thanks. Anyway we’ve got a cleanup crew on the way, we need to get these fuckers off the highway before any traffic comes through.”
We spent at least thirty minutes moving the bodies off that bare stretch of highway before the van showed up with more Reckless Bastards and cleaning solution. Twenty minutes later we said another round of thanks and goodbyes before Vanessa and I made our way to Ashby Manor.
I spent the drive home thinking about Charlie’s words. Family. In a strange, twisted, unconventional kind of way, we were family. But the Ashbys? They were as much my family as Terry. Sadie had taken me in and encouraged me to reach for more. Colm had taught me how to fix cars and never back down from a fight. They’d given my brother a way to use his love of kicking ass and make a living at it.
I wasn’t an Ashby in name, but I was in all the ways that mattered. Each of us had our flaws. We were loud and abrasive, reckless and spontaneous. Each of us had our strengths and weaknesses, but at the end of the day we had each other’s backs. Whether it was supporting me after I left the military or finding a place for Maisie to use her brand new college degree, or letting Cal explore options with his tech work, we supported each other.
We encouraged each other to do better. To be better. And at the end of the day, each of us were better because of it.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Vanessa’s voice held a smile and I reached for her hand.
“Just a penny?”
She shrugged. “I only have plastic on me, but I’m pretty sure there are a few coins in the ashtray.”
“I was just thinking about what Charlie said about family and realizing that I had a damn good family. They aren’t perfect, but they are my family, and that includes you, no matter what happens between us.”
“You mean that?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. I care about you. A lot. And I want to keep you safe.”
It was time that I stopped fighting with the other side of myself and started to embrace it. If it meant keeping Vanessa safe, I would be the standup citizen, the veteran and the good guy when I needed to be, and the bad ass, take no prisoners motherfucker when he was needed.
“I can take care of myself, you know?”
“I do know, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep you safe. Be mad about it all you want, but you bring out all of my caveman protective instincts.”
“As long as you know that I’ll protect you too.”
“I look forward to it, sweetheart and I mean that.” A lightness spread across my shoulders, and I smiled. It felt good to stop fighting with myself, to own who I was.
As soon as we got to Ashby Manor, Vanessa disappeared with Maisie and Kat, while I debriefed Jasper, Sadie and Terry on what went down.
“It’s a good thing you called the Reckless Bastards or else we’d be dead right now.”
Sadie grinned. “Good friends are hard to find.”
“Fucking Brendan Rhymer and those bullshit bikers. It’s time to end this. To end him.”
Jasper looked furious and I knew he meant what he said. Brendan had come to Vanessa’s home, scared her, and he’d killed Fiona. He had to pay.
“I’m here,” I told him. “Whatever you need, man, I’m here.”
My words shocked them all but no one said a thing. They just smiled. Glad I was finally owning up to being the man I realized I was always meant to be.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Vanessa
Ever since those bikers chased us down the highway, Jasper and Sadie had put extra security everywhere. Sadie stationed more men with guns at the gates to enter Ashby Manor, which I expected. The card games still happened every Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, only now each player had an escort into the room by an armed guard and then the same guard made sure they arrived safely at their waiting vehicles. It was crazy since most of these people arrived with their own security detail that waited outside the building until the game was over. But Jasper wasn’t taking any chances with anyone but his own people.
Never in my life h
ad I been surrounded by so many guns, and I grew up in the Midwest where people collected guns for fun, hunted with them, and many had served in the military. It was a stressful time for everyone. The air crackled with anxiety as we waited to see what would happen next.
“You’re quiet tonight.” Evan glanced at me from the driver’s seat of his car as he drove me to Ashby Manor. Sadie had moved me back in more than a week ago, and this time I didn’t argue.
“Just thinking,” I told him honestly because it was hard to stop thinking when a girl had to look over her shoulder any time she stepped outdoors.
“About anything in particular? Or anyone?” Evan wiggled his dark brows suggestively. “You can tell me; I won’t tell anyone.”
A loud laugh erupted at his words. “You won’t tell anyone except Hulu, Mace and Provo?”
Evan shrugged. “Maybe Emmett, but I have a feeling he knows all about what’s on your mind. Hot and dirty monkey sex, perhaps?”
“What in the hell is monkey sex?”
“You know, wild. Primitive. The kind of sex that makes you do wickedly dirty things that you don’t even feel weird about the next day. It’s white hot and straight up animalistic.”
I shivered thinking about all the dirty things Emmett had done to me, had let me do to him. Primal was a good way to describe some of those things, so was animalistic. “Never heard it called monkey sex before, but I approve.”
Evan laughed. “That’s ‘cause you know the power of monkey sex. It’ll have you agreeing to crazy shit like antiquing and watching reality TV.”
He shook his head like he really just couldn’t believe he was doing that stuff, and for a woman, no less. “Crazy, right?”
“Totally. Those are the things we do for love. Or monkey sex.”
Evan nodded thoughtfully but said nothing more until we drove through the gates of the big compound that housed the Ashby family.
“If you need to make another trip to your place, let me know. We’ve been keeping an eye on it for you.”
“Thanks. Why are you being so nice to me? Is it because I was shot at and beat up?”
I laughed, but a small part of me wondered if that was the reason.