by Raven Dark
I look over to where he’s pointed, across the room.
My mother is still talking with Cooker, Barber, and Princess. I half-register that Princess is sitting in Barber’s lap, even though he has to be nearly fifty, and Princess can’t be more than a few years older than me. Most of my attention is on my mom and Cooker.
Cooker is bending over the arm of the couch, showing her a tattoo of a skull with a snake winding through its eye and out of its mouth. And my mother is running her long fingers, with her perfect pink nails, over the tat with wonder, apparently marveling at the fact that it’s real. I suppress a giggle.
“Wait a minute, though.” I turn my head and look up at Vicious. “He’s flirting up a storm with my mother, but what about Birdie?”
“Oh, Cooker finally had the sense to dump her ass the night you met her. I guess her tendency to treat every other woman like dog shit got to be too much.”
“Oh. Well, good for him. Only, I hope he realizes he’s wasting his time.” I shake my head. “My mother would never date a guy like that.”
Never mind that he’s a biker; he’s also at least ten years younger. Not to mention she thinks he cooks drugs. She’s accepting this whole thing—the club, the men, what they do, and what they did for us—incredibly well. She doesn’t seem to be running for the nearest cop station, even though she saw Vicious kill two men. That robber must have hit her in the head harder than I thought. What will she think tomorrow after having spent the night here and after a good night’s sleep?
I sigh and snuggle into Vicious’ arms with a tired yawn. Whatever the case, those are issues for tomorrow.
“All right, come on you.” Vicious stands up with me cradled in his arms. “Let’s get you into bed, beautiful.” He heads upstairs to the clubhouse’s second level.
I catch sight of several bedrooms, most of them messy, with clothes strewn about and beds rumpled. Vicious takes me into a bedroom at the end of the hall. Wood paneling lines the walls, dark carpeting covers the floor, and a flag with the club’s symbol on it, the skull with the snake in its mouth, is draped over the window instead of a curtain. The room is about as masculine as it could get, but it’s clean, with a blanket that has the same symbol spread across the large mattress.
“I could have walked up here on my own,” I say half-heartedly, aware that I suddenly sound like my mother.
“I like having you in my arms.” Vicious sets me down on the bed long enough to pull the blankets back, then starts to peel off my clothes. “And I like taking care of you, so get used to it.”
“So, does this mean we’ve made up?”
When we’re both naked, he slips into bed beside me and pulls me into his arms. The warmth of his body seeps into me, soothing away the worries and the fears of the day. He surrounds me in power and strength, and suddenly it doesn’t matter what he’s done in his past. I’m safer than I’ve ever been.
With one arm around my shoulders and pinning me against him, he cups my chin with his other hand, and his lips brush and tease mine. My senses reel, and he leaves me breathless.
“Does that answer your question, woman?” he murmurs, nipping my bottom lip.
I slip my leg over top of his and give him a playful smile while I let my fingers play across his gorgeous chest. “Well, I don’t know. I think I may need a little more before I can decide.”
His eyes dance. “Oh, I see how it is. You’ll make me work for it, will you?”
“Uh huh.”
“Brat.”
“Bastard.”
He rolls me over onto my back so suddenly I whoop in surprise and delight. “If you’re going to talk to me like that, you need to be shown who’s boss, beautiful.”
I bite my lip to keep from groaning, the words alone making me wet. “And how will you do that, exactly?”
His mouth claims mine, hot and hard, completely owning me and letting me know he has all of me completely under his control. He does, and I love it. I go limp in his arms. He kisses his way along my neck and then lower. He sucks one already hardened nipple into his mouth until I arch my back for him and groan. He does the same with the other. I grip his hair, and he shoves my hands to the mattress with a growl.
“Keep your hands there.”
“Oh, God, Vicious.”
The feel of his grip on my wrists, crushing them into the bed and putting me at his mercy, sets my blood on fire.
Keeping my hands pinned, he kisses his way along my stomach and lower still. He nips and licks my skin until I’m drunk with need. As his mouth gets closer to where I need it most, he stops.
“Again? You’re going to do this to me again?” I pant.
His smile is pure wickedness. “And if I did? What would you do about it?”
I give a broken moan and try to free my hands, but it’s useless. His grip is like iron.
“Spread your legs.”
Expecting that he’s going to pleasure me with his mouth the way he started to last time, I do as he says, my sex dripping. He kisses and licks the insides of my thighs, slow lazy licks that leave me squirming and panting. His lips and tongue trail and tease everywhere but where I’m most needy. The anticipation is enough to drive me mad.
“Vicious, please.”
He rumbles, a triumphant, cruel sound. I almost come from the sound alone. His teasing stops and he dips his head, licking my sex in one long stroke.
Instinctively, I try to trap his head between my legs, letting out a moan. He releases my hands and forces my legs apart, those strong hands prying my thighs wide.
“Relax, Anne. Let me take care of you. Trust me to give you what you need.”
The words turn me the hell on, but they also make me feel incredibly connected to him. I know I can let go and put myself—not just my pleasure, but all of me, my life, my heart—in his hands. I go limp again.
“Good girl.”
And that’s when he goes to town on me.
Vicious strokes my clit with his tongue, several times, every touch intensifying the sensations until there is only him, only where he’s taking me. He alternates between flicking his tongue over my hardening bud and stroking and sucking on it as if it’s all his, as if he could live there forever. That high keening sound rips out of me, shameless and full of need.
He hums in pleasure and laps at my core until I’m rubbing myself against him eagerly.
“Oh, God, Vicious, don’t stop. Don’t ever stop…”
He doesn’t; instead, he speeds up the pace, hardening the pad of his tongue just right as I buck against his touch.
I lose it completely. I grip the sides of his bed for dear life, crying out and fucking his tongue wildly. I come apart, white lights flash across my vision, and I float in an euphoric daze.
Vicious sits up, and the look on his face, rough and dark and hungry, makes me ache all over again. He grabs a pillow from beside my head and puts it on the bed at the level of my hips. “Roll over,” he growls.
“You’re so bossy,” I tease.
“Roll the fuck over.” He spins me onto my stomach.
“Oh, God, yes.” I’m almost coming again.
“Greedy wench.” He swats my ass, and I groan in pleasure-pain. He arranges me to that my hips are raised on the pillow at an angle that’s perfect for him. My sex clenches at the implications.
I am his, naked and spread open, his to do with as he pleases.
The bed dips with his weight as he kneels between my legs. I pray to God he’s not going to tease me for too long. I can’t handle that right now.
Vicious brushes the head of his cock through my folds. I groan, and he thrusts into me hard and deep.
“Ah! Vicious, oh, God!”
His hips crush mine, and while his shoulders are lifted so that he isn’t crushing me, his hands pin my wrists to the bed, trapping me there for his use.
“You’re mine,” he says, fucking me savagely, with long, hard strokes. “All mine, forever.”
“Yes…oh, yes!”
He speeds u
p, the slap of flesh on flesh making me needier. He lets go of one wrist and grips my hair, taking total control. The sting makes me cry out in as much pleasure as pain. He growls and pounds faster as if he likes the sound.
“I almost lost you today, Anne,” he snarls. “That’s never going to happen again. You hear me?” He pulls harder on my hair and fucks me faster. “You belong to me.”
“Oh, shit…yes.” I know he means it, and I want all that he’s telling me in those words, that there’s no getting rid of him, and that he’ll do anything to protect me. Even if that means killing for me.
“Say it, Anne. I want to hear you say that I’m your man and you’re never leaving me.”
I whimper for mercy and beg for more. “Yes, Vicious. You’re my man… I’ll never leave you. Never…”
He rumbles into my ear and bites it. “Good girl.” His voice is pure, raw possession. A few more thrusts, and I careen over the edge screaming his name. He thrusts into me three more times and grunts his release. He doesn’t pull out this time, filling me with his seed.
We collapse in each other’s arms, and he rolls me over, holding me tight. I rest my head on his chest, listening to the strong, savage beat of his racing heart.
“You’re kind of a brute, Vicious.” I grin.
“Too much of one?” he whispers, running his fingers over the slope of my ass and over my back.
“Nope.”
“Good. Cause you make me crazy, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life letting you know how much.” He tips my chin up. “So. Was that enough to show you that we’re good now?”
“You’re getting there.”
“Getting there, is it?” He becomes serious and traces my lips with his fingers. “What if I told you I love you, Anne? Would that be enough for you?”
My heart leaps. I draw back a little. “You…you love me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Are you playing with me right now, Vicious?”
He shakes his head. “Never.” He sighs and traces the curve of my bare back with his fingers, making me shiver with delight. “I can’t believe I almost lost you tonight. When I saw that asshole with that gun pointed at your head, I wanted to die.” He crushes me to him until I can barely breathe, and it’s the most wonderful thing in the world.
And then he saved my life. The realization leaves me as filled with wonder as the confession he’s making, as the promise that fills his words.
“I’ll never let anyone hurt you, Anne. Never.”
I drop a kiss on his chest. “Vicious?”
“Mm?”
I look up, right into his perfect eyes. “I love you, too.”
“Even if I’m a brute?” he rasps.
“Oh, yeah,” I say, using his favorite phrase.
“Does this mean you’re moving in with me?”
I grin and nod. “Of course.”
Days ago, I’d questioned if I could handle his life, handle the club, and what it would mean to be part of it. But after tonight, after seeing what he’s done for me, and what being part of the club means, there is no question now. I belong here, with him, always.
“My woman,” he murmurs, tracing my mouth again.
“My Vicious.” I kiss his fingers.
He captures my mouth with his. My heart swells huge, and I realize it then.
I love him with all that I am. Because he is my bad boy biker in leather. Because I am his good girl, and every good girl needs a Vicious in her life.
Epilogue: A Mother’s Love
Three years later…
It’s amazing how fast life can change.
After the night my mom and I were robbed, everything was different, but I’d never expected how much.
For one thing, I’ve adjusted to MC life better than I thought I would. Vicious has helped me fit in, not that he needed to do all that much. He had some of the ladies teach me how to dress like them, and one of the men gladly put a gorgeous butterfly tattoo on my ankle. It had hurt like hell, but I love it. Princess insisted on teaching me to swear like a biker chick, and she thinks it’s funny that my mother’s swear jar is always full now.
The men tease me whenever they can about my bubble gum ice cream and my pop music, but they accept that I’m Vicious’ woman, and they love that I make him happy. Barber hides my i-Pod every time he hears Katy Perry, and I know Vicious puts him up to it half the time, but it’s all in good fun.
When I’d first moved into the clubhouse, I’d been afraid most of the women would be like Birdie, cruel and always trying to make trouble for Vicious and me, but he was right, it’s not like that all.
There are about fifteen women in the club to the two hundred men, and they aren’t anything like I expected. Sure, they dress in leather, and some of them are covered in tats. Some of them smoke like chimneys, and some of them drink the men under the table. But they’ve welcomed me with open arms and ready smiles. They liked to tease me about my place being in the kitchen…at first. Until I taught some of them how to cook.
I guess they never expected me to like it more than some of them.
The ladies are a surprise. They’re like their own little club within the Hell’s Heathens, and they aren’t all rough and rowdy. Hell, some of them are downright girly. Vicious was right about Badger’s wife. She has pink nails and long blond hair that’s as perfect as my mom’s, and legs for days. Which is apparently why they call her Barbie.
She also shares my love of Walt Disney, and she really does know every word to Frozen by heart. It makes for an interesting image, watching a woman with her arms covered in tats, puttering around the kitchen with me making banana’s foster with the two of us belting out Let It Go at the top of our lungs. Vicious likes to screw up his face and growl at us when we do it, but I know by the way his eyes sparkle and his lips twitch that he loves it.
The men just laugh.
I’ve finished school, and the club helped put money into The Eatery to keep it from failing, which has made my mom change her mind about my owning it when she retires.
Equally shocking is the way my mother has adjusted to my new life. She still rolls her eyes and shakes her head when she sees my tattoo and leather clothes—not to mention my wedding band—but she doesn’t say anything about them anymore. Over the years, I’d catch her smiling when me and Vicious held hands or kissed. I guess Vicious and the men saving our lives has made her less apprehensive about the club, and him.
Oh, yeah, and did I mention another little surprise? It came last month.
As the summer’s just beginning, Vicious and I ride out to see my mother for a visit. I heave a nervous sigh as he cuts the engine in my mother’s driveway and opens the car door. He lifts his dark sunglasses up and smirks at me, then his eyes go to the one-month old baby girl who’s strapped in a pink car seat.
Vicious doted over me the whole time I was pregnant with her, and now he dotes over her, spoiling her rotten. If both of us were scared as hell at the idea when we learned I was…preggers, as Barbie and Princess call it, all that fear disappeared when we both looked down at the tiny pink bundle in my arms in the club’s infirmary. It thrills me that the guys enjoy her and that Barber delivered her. It’s like that made her part of the club, too.
“Are you going to just grin at me like the Cheshire cat forever, or are you going to help me, Vicious?” I tease him from the backseat.
He helps me with the release button on the car seat carrier and strokes my hair, then hers. “I think I’ll stare at you two for a while. My women.”
I shake my head at him and kiss him on the lips, then grab the diaper bag and my purse.
“Come here, munchkin.” He lifts the carrier out of the car seat’s base and grins at our daughter like the proud father. “Grandma’s going to spend the next few minutes squeezing the life out of mommy and losing her shit, so you’d better stay here with me where you won’t get smothered. Yes.”
I giggle. “She’s not that bad.” We walk up to the house and I knoc
k on the door.
“Yeah, she is. Watch.”
The door opens. Mom looks wonderful, especially when her face glows with happiness. “Oh my God, Anne.” She pulls me into her arms, crushing me to her with a throaty laugh of joy. I feel Vicious watching us with delight, and my face heats.
I can’t blame her, though. We’ve been so busy with the club and the new addition to the family that I haven’t seen her in a few weeks. I hug her tight.
“Missed you too, Mom.”
We go into the house and sit down. Vicious unstraps his daughter from her seat and cuddles her in his arms, adjusting the little leather baby hat on her head.
“Look at what you’ve done to her,” Mom says, running her hand over the studded cap. “Aw, that’s adorable.”
I’m thrilled at her smile.
We take pictures and talk, and then I head into the kitchen to help Mom make sandwiches for lunch, leaving Vicious in the living room, happily cooing back at our daughter. As soon as I get in there, I notice something strange.
There’s a big silver ring with a skull and a snake on it sitting on the counter. The design looks just like…
“Moooom…” I draw out slowly. I hold up the ring. “What. Is. This?”
Her face goes red and she clears her throat before snatches the ring from me and makes it disappear into her jeans pocket.
“Oh. My God.” I’m grinning. “Is that Cooker’s ring?”
She bites her lip and puts sandwiches on a plate.
“Moooom. Exactly how long has this been going on?” I use her words. “Cooker’s only been back from California for a few months.”
“Things started between us as soon as he got back in town,” she says sheepishly. Then she looks at me. I’ve never seen her look so unsure. God, she’s waiting for my approval. The thought makes me happy that my opinion matters.
“I just have one thing to say,” I tease, making her wait until she squirms. “It’s about time.”
She laughs and holds me tight. “You stinker. You had me worried. I know how young he is.”
“Yeah, so do I. And it’s hot.” We both laugh.