Rude (King's Harlots MC Book 4)

by J. M. Walker

  “It’s about time,” Asher chimed in, stretching his arms over his head. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

  “You don’t know shit,” I told him, taking a long swig of my water. I loved my brothers but I wasn’t about to tell them anything when it came to Brogan.

  “Coby has been moping around the apartment for years,” Dale joked. “He finally got laid by the pussy he couldn’t have.”

  I smacked him across the head. “Respect, my brother. Or I’ll smack you harder next time.”

  “Fucker.” Dale rubbed the spot I hit. “You know it’s true.”

  Maybe so. Brogan was the one thing I had craved even before meeting her but I wasn’t about to admit that to the man who couldn’t control his own actions when it came to women.

  “Are you happy?” Angel asked. He didn’t know my history, and a part of me felt bad for that but none of us talked about the shit we’d gone through before meeting the Harlots.

  “No,” I admitted. “I won’t be happy until Charles Brian dies by my fingertips.”

  Dale chuckled. “That’s my brother. Listen, if you fuckers want to go track him down …” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m game. I need something other than sex.”

  I knew the feeling. “All of those women not cutting it anymore?”

  “Fuck you,” Dale muttered, crossing his thick arms under his chest.

  “Maybe you should man up and approach the one woman who won’t put up with your shit,” Stone suggested, taking a swig of his beer.

  Dale shoved to his feet, forcing the chair to fall back. “Listen, asshole—”

  “All right,” I grabbed him by the back of the neck. “Let’s take a walk.”

  “No,” he shoved out of my grip. “All of you can judge me but I know you’ve done your own shit to push women away. Leave my situation out of it.”

  “Let’s take a walk,” I said, my voice firm.

  Dale stomped out of the makeshift kitchen.

  “Something bad will happen before he gets his shit together,” Stone said. “I’ve seen it before.”

  “I love you, man, and I respect you, but when it comes to Dale, you don’t know shit.” I followed Dale outside, the cool night air caressing my skin. “Dale?”

  “I’m an asshole,” Dale muttered, leaning against the brick wall.

  “We all have our moments.” I stood beside him, mirroring his pose.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing. When I muster up the courage to talk to Max, words come out of my mouth before I can even think about them and then we have a fight. God, I’m such a dick.” His voice grew thick. “I’m scared.”

  “I know.”

  He slid down the wall, landing on his ass. “I want to be with her but a part of me doesn’t. What does that say about me?”

  I sat beside him, stretching my legs out in front of me. “It means you’re human.”

  “I’m not ready to be a father.”

  “Most people aren’t.”

  “Do you think about her?” Dale asked, leaning his arms on his bent knees.

  “No, but I think about the baby she took from me.”

  “Does Brogan know?”

  “Yes, but not everything. I have the same problem you do. She tries to get me to open up and then I explode for no reason at all.”

  “It fucking sucks, doesn’t it?”

  I chuckled. “Yes. It does.”

  ***

  (Brogan)

  “Can you be in love with someone and hardly know anything about them at all?” I asked Meeka, curling my feet under me.

  “Um …” Her eyes widened with excitement.

  “Don’t.” I pointed at her. “I’m not labeling anything yet. I’m just asking.” I didn’t want to think about my feelings for Coby and jinx it. We had become close, even more then it just being sex but we needed to take our time. I had a jealous stepbrother to worry about and Coby had his past.

  “I think the heart wants what it wants,” Jay chimed in, handing me a water. She sat down beside me on the couch in the waiting area of the tattoo shop and rubbed her lower belly.

  “Are you going to make us wait or are you going to admit it finally?” I asked, nodding toward her stomach.

  She smiled, her cheeks reddening. “Yeah. I guess it’s time, isn’t it?”

  Meeka giggled.

  “I’m pregnant and scared as shit.” She laughed. “Angel is more excited than I am.”

  I glanced at Max.

  “I’m fine,” she said, catching my stare. “Don’t worry about me. I want Jay to be happy. God knows, she deserves it. Both her and Angel do.”

  “Thank you,” Jay whispered, her eyes glossing over.

  “Wow. This pregnancy is going to turn you into an actual human being,” Creena joked, laughing.

  “Shut up,” Jay pouted. “I am not a human.”

  “Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow. “Pregnancy hormones have you losing your mind too?”

  She laughed. “I guess so.” She took a deep breath. “I love you girls. I don’t say it enough.”

  “Have you talked to your sister?” Max asked, taking a sip from her water bottle.

  “Yes. We talk every chance we can. I miss her but I understand that she needs to lay low for a while.” Jay sat up, massaging her lower back.

  “You have pain already?” I asked, helping her by kneading my fingers into the tight muscles of her tail bone.

  “Yeah. We went to the doctors, and I’m almost four and a half months.”

  “Are you sure you’re not further along?” Max asked, pointing at the small bump of Jay’s lower abdomen.

  “Um …” Jay shrugged. “The doctor mentioned twins because of Violet and I but I thought it skipped a generation. And since we don’t know anything about Angel’s history, we’re only guessing right now.”

  Angel had been in foster care his whole childhood. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was to not know where you came from. My brothers drove me nuts but they were a part of me. I would be completely lost without them.

  “Either way, as long as you and the baby or babies are healthy, that’s all we care about.” Creena took a swig of her beer. “How does it feel not being able to drink?”

  Jay snorted. “It fucking sucks.”

  We all laughed, enjoying the somber mood of not talking about Charles Brian even though I knew we were all thinking about him.

  At that moment, the guys appeared. Asher pulled Meeka from the chair she was sitting on and sat on it himself before lowering her to his lap. She kissed his cheek, wrapping his arm around her waist.

  Angel leaned over Jay, kissed her hard on the mouth, and sat beside her on the couch.

  She blushed, smacking his hands away from her hips but gave up after a couple seconds. Giggling, she leaned into his side.

  He kissed her head, whispering something in her ear.

  She nodded.

  He grinned, shaking his head.

  His gaze met mine. He gave me a wink before looking back at his fiancée.

  My neck heated at being caught staring but I couldn’t help it. Two of my sisters were finally happy. After all the shit they had been through, it was about damn time.

  “Are you staring at your friends?” Coby whispered in my ear, running his hand over my lower back.

  “Yes.” I didn’t even realize he had sat beside me. “I’m happy for them.”

  “Me too.” He nodded toward Dale who stood off to the side and Max who looked pale. She sat on the other couch, holding her lower belly. I knew she hadn’t been feeling well the past couple of days. I just prayed everything was fine with the baby.

  “Have you talked to Dale?” I asked Coby, enjoying the feel of his hands on me.

  “Yeah, but that shit takes time,” he grunted. “He’s more closed up than I am.”

  “Is that even possible?” I teased, poking him in the ribs.

  He grinned, grabbing my hand, and kissed my knuckles.

  My breath caught in my
throat at the public display of affection. Coby wasn’t that type of man. I knew it even before we started sleeping together. “Coby.”

  He winked.

  “Have you heard anything from the insurance company?” Meeka asked Jay.

  “Insurance should get back to us in a couple days,” Jay explained. “I’m just happy that we’re safe. As much as it annoys the shit out of me, it could have been worse.”

  Several grunts and sounds in agreement went around the room.

  “Has Greyson said anything? Did he contact his resources?” Jay asked me.

  “I haven’t talked to him in a couple of days,” I confessed, shifting in my seat. “But I’ll call him. I know he’s still in town.”

  “Call him now,” Jay demanded. “I’m getting antsy.”

  Coby’s eyes burned into the side of my head but there was nothing I could do about that now. No one needed to know that Grey was an issue in my personal life.

  Doing as I was told, I dialed Greyson’s number.

  “So, you’re talking to me now?” Grey answered almost immediately.

  “I’m not calling over that,” I snapped. “The club got blown to shit.” I explained what had happened and that we all got out safely but the club wasn’t livable in its current condition.

  Greyson let out a string of curses. “Fine.”

  I placed him on speaker phone and put the phone on the table. “Go ahead.”

  “I’ve been dealing with shit in New York,” he explained. “Even though I’m not there, people like to think I have something to do with the explosions.”

  “How could you have something to do with it?” Jay asked, sitting forward. “Or are you telling me that you did? If I find out—”

  “Fuck. It wasn’t me,” Grey cursed again. “Listen. My sources are telling me that this is some underground shit that’s going on. Charles Brian is doing everything he can to make it so this doesn’t point back to him.”

  “It has to be him,” Angel countered. “He’s pissed because he got caught. He took my brother and his fucking girlfriend. I’ll end him before he even knows what hit him.”

  “And to add that he knew Vega,” Dale pointed out. “All of them need to go down. All of the customers, every single bastard that has something to do with this business.”

  “We need to get to the top,” Stone added. “This isn’t our job but it’s hit too close to home for us to stop.”

  “Too many people have died already.” Jay shook her head. “I’m not letting anyone else get hurt or worse.”

  “We’ll stop this, baby,” Angel reassured her.

  “How? We have no idea how this even began,” she cried. “Fuck, I hate not having control,” Angel scoffed.

  “Shut up.” Jay playfully pushed him. “You know what I’m talking about.” She turned back to the phone. “Greyson, you need to help me out here. I need to avenge my sisters.

  “You’re not avenging shit,” Angel argued. “But, Grey, you need to contact all of your sources.”

  “I have my guy looking into things as well,” Coby added.

  “Really?” Dale raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you have a guy?”

  “Since always.” Coby shrugged. “You just never asked and we haven’t needed him until now.”

  I stifled a laugh, enjoying his honesty.

  “Okay.” Angel frowned. “Who is this guy then?”

  “He’s an old friend. I should have told you this before but we’ve been kind of distracted. The leader of this shit has a sister. Zane and Tina Birtch. She’s the woman who attacked Jay,” Coby explained. “They’re close.”

  “In more ways than one.” I shivered.

  “Fuck me.” Stone rubbed the back of his neck. “So, you’re telling us that this woman is the sister to the front runner of this organization and they’re more than just siblings?”

  “Yes.” Coby nodded. “But we still don’t know if it’s him or her who is the leader in all this shit. The sister has Daddy issues. It’s your typical story of the children being abused who grow up to be psychopaths. My guy is still looking into it further.”

  “I’ll start looking into that as well,” Greyson added. “If there are two of them, someone is about to slip up and reveal things they never meant to. Do we know where Charles is?”

  “He ran and hasn’t made himself known yet but we know that he’s the one who is controlling these explosions,” Asher said. “When we catch him, I’m going to end that fucker.”

  “Not if I get to him first.”

  “I can’t wait to watch the life leave his eyes.”

  “I’m going to rip off every piece that touched me.”

  Everyone spoke at once, agreeing in the end that Charles needed to die. I would give my left arm to have him in my chair but I didn’t say it out loud. These people meant everything to me but I had a feeling that they wouldn’t appreciate my honesty.

  “Are we all good with staying where we are?” Angel asked, voicing his leadership role like always.

  We all said yes and that we would check in when we could as well, letting each other know that we were safe.

  “Are you good with living with me?” Coby whispered in my ear.

  A hot shiver raced down my spine. “Yes.”

  “Hmm … that makes me hard,” he purred.

  “Coby,” I groaned.

  He chuckled. “Let me take you home, little one.”

  Brogan was going to be the death of me. Her strength. Her determination. Her need to make me open up would bring me to my knees, and I would submit willingly. I wanted to give her all of me. To show her that I was a good man or that I at least had good parts. Everyone had a dark side to them. Whether you acted on it or not was up to you. In my line of work, that darkness needed to come out every so often. It needed to be shown to these evil bastards that there was something way worse than them. But before they could comprehend that, they would die at the tip of my rifle.

  It had been a couple of days since the meeting at Jay’s tattoo shop. We all met up at the club, doing our best to fix it up as quickly as possible. The girls cleaned, throwing the debris in the trash while my brothers and I put up walls.

  Brogan worked hard on the blue prints, deciding that it was time for a change anyway.

  Every time I walked by her, a knowing glance would pass between us. I had spent the night before inside of her, wrapped in her warmth until we both passed out from utter exhaustion. It was a perfect way to go to sleep. But no matter how wonderful our time together was, I knew it wouldn’t last. None of my relationships did because I would get scared and push women away. I was a fucking pussy.

  “How are you doing, brother?” Dale asked, coming up beside me, and clapped a hand on my shoulder.

  I grunted in response.

  He laughed. “That good, huh?”

  “How are you doing?”

  He frowned. “Same old shit. Max won’t talk to me, and I’m still an asshole.” He shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it.”

  “Do you believe that?” I picked up a slab of wood and placed it on the cutting board. “Have you tried talking to her?”

  Dale helped me line up the wood to the saw. “I’ve waited too long.”

  I looked over my shoulder to where Max was talking to Jay. Her pregnant belly had become more pronounced over the past week or so. It pained me for the baby I missed.

  My chest tightened. Clearing my throat, I glanced back at Dale.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “I know.”

  I didn’t even have to say anything and he knew what I was thinking. I needed the next mission we were going on to come fast. Although I would miss Brogan, I needed to shoot something and do what I did best.

  A sudden rumble of an engine sounded from far away, the noise becoming louder as it neared the club.

  I recognized the bike as it pulled up into the parking lot, followed by a black SUV.

  Greyson parked his motorcycle, climbed off it, and stretched.

  Brog
an’s brothers stepped out of the vehicle, all four of them coming toward us.

  My fists clenched at my sides, needing to punch that smug look off Greyson’s face.

  He caught my stare and headed to where Brogan was standing. Before she could protest, he had her in his arms, his hands a little too close to her ass.

  She pushed out of his hold, glaring up at him, and I took that as my cue.

  “Coby.” Angel clapped a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “We need him.”

  “He’s an asshole,” I growled.

  “Yes, he is, but he’s Brogan’s family, and he’s helping us end this shit.” Angel placed both hands on my shoulders, gripping them tight. “You tell us to think first before we act. Take your own advice, Coby.”

  Fuck.

  I took several calming breaths before I nodded.

  Angel let me go but continued to watch me as I headed to Brogan and Greyson. The bastard needed to be taught a lesson when it came to touching my woman.

  My woman.

  Fuck yeah. My woman.

  ***

  (Brogan)

  “You need to stop touching me,” I snapped at Greyson. “Just because you can’t have me doesn’t mean you need to be a dick about it.”

  Greyson chuckled, his eyes darkening. “Yes, it does. You think Coby can give you what you need?”

  “That is none of your business.” I glared up at him. “I love you but as a brother. You need to get that through your thick head.”

  “What’s going on here?” Benny demanded, coming toward us, followed by Brox and Blake.

  “Nothing,” I bit out. “We’re just having a friendly chat, aren’t we, Greyson?”

  His brows narrowed. “Yeah, sure.” He looked over my head, the corners of his lips turning up into a wicked smirk.

  My heart stuttered. I knew who was behind me without even looking. I didn’t have to. My body was already in-tune with Coby’s, like it knew where he was before my brain was able to catch up.

  “Well now, isn’t it the man who ruined it all?” Greyson gripped my shoulders, spinning me around. “Does he take your breath away like I did?”