by Ryan Michele
I removed my arm from my face and chanced a glance at Maggie. She'd been silent through my entire speech and I wasn't sure if that meant she was plotting my murder or about to smack me again. I'd take both if that's what she wanted to give me. I'd take whatever she wanted to give me, violence suited me just fine.
Silent tears poured down her face and her body shook almost violently. This was worse than what she'd looked like earlier, worse than how she'd been during Franny's funeral.
"Come here, Maggie," I urged in a gentle voice as I opened up my arms to her.
"I hate you," she choked out.
"You can hate me," I murmured quietly. "That's okay. But, just so long as you know I had not one thing to do with your sister dying. I've been working my ass off since I got out to turn things around and make them better. My old man, I had to-"
I snapped my mouth shut, realizing I'd said far more than I had intended to. There were some things she never needed to know. Things no one outside of Ronin and Trip needed to know, and even them knowing set me on edge.
"You killed him, didn't you?" She whispered in a hoarse voice full of accusation.
I looked her dead in the eyes and told her the honest truth, "I was still in prison when he died." She'd get no more out of me.
"That doesn't mean-"
I cut her off. "Shut up, Poison. You know all you need to know. I told you about your sister, like I promised. Now, a deals a deal and that means it's time for us to go to sleep. Stop crying and get your ass over here. Or, you know what, I don't care if you keep on crying, just get over here, you can cry while I sleep."
She made an angry noise in the back of her throat as she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand.
She slid down the bed and turned her back to me. Her head landed on the pillow and she tucked her hands up in a prayer under her cheek. The line of her back remained taunt, rigid and I knew it was because she worried I'd touch her or say something else to fuck up her world.
I rolled over onto my side and scooted back until we were back to back, barely touching but we were both more than aware of the heat between our bodies.
"Sleep, Maggie. Your problems will still be here when you wake up in the morning."
"First I'm Poison, then I'm Maggie." Her breath came out in a shudder that shook her thin frame. "I don't get it, and I don't think I should have to tell you again that it's you who's the poison, not me. I'm a nice person, dammit. At least I was until I got that phone call telling me the only person I loved in this whole world was dead. I've been thinking really bad, bad thoughts ever since then."
I had no doubt a woman who was capable of loving someone as much as she loved her sister was at this very moment plotting her revenge against those she'd thought had been responsible for her death. I know I should have been worried about her coming after my club, but in all honesty, it just made me want her more. I wanted that kind of love for myself even if I knew I'd never do anything to deserve it. I wanted it more than I had ever wanted anything in my whole miserable existence. I wanted it worse than my longing after being locked up to have nothing but my bike, the open road ahead of me and the wind whipping past me as I roared down the road. The ultimate freedom, and I wanted Maggie more than I had wanted even that.
Now I had a shot at both, and I was going to get everything I wanted. Even if it meant I would have to kill people for Maggie in order to avenge her sister, so that she didn't ever have to get her own hands dirty. The fact it would be some of my own people who'd die meant next to nothing to me.
Prison changed a man's priorities, especially when you found out it was your own father who'd put you there.
It took less than twenty minutes for her body to stop shaking, and her quiet sobs to die off. When she lay limp in bed beside me I knew she'd finally lost herself to sleep.
Fucking finally.
It had almost hurt trying to hold myself still and stop myself from turning around and pulling her into my arms. I couldn't remember when the last time I'd held a woman in my arms while she slept was, if I'd ever done it. Before prison, women had held an entirely different purpose for me. After prison, I'd fucked my way through a whole slew of club whores before becoming bored and entirely desensitized to it.
Gently, I rolled Maggie over onto her back and then I pulled her body into me. I slid my arm underneath her and very carefully drug her body on top of mine. Her legs fell to the mattress surrounding mine, her arms doing the same.
Brushing the hair off her face, I tangled my fingers in her hair as I slid my hand back around to the back of her skull. I held her close to me, pressing her check into my chest, above my heart.
My entire world shrank down to this moment as her dead weight settled on top of me. She could be pissed about my manhandling her when she woke up in the morning, I didn't care. It was worth every second of it.
It took me longer to fall asleep than it had her. When I did sleep, for the first time in years, I slept like the dead and didn't wake up with a nightmare once.
My boys had my back and my girl was on top of me.
The rest would eventually work itself out or end up dead. Either one worked for me.
6
Maggie
The hard, incredibly warm body beneath my own had me sucking in a sharp breath as I slowly blinked my eyes open.
Sometime during the night Hawk must have hauled my body on top of his. It was a gross invasion of my personal space, and I wanted very much to hate him for it. Since I felt like I'd actually gotten a full night's sleep for the first time in almost two weeks, I couldn't be upset or even hold it against him.
My eyes roamed over his face, taking in the subtle differences from when he was awake. There was a slight softness to him around his mouth and eyes. He looked less angry, less likely to pull out his gun and shoot someone just for looking at him funny. It was a horrible thing to stereotype him like that, but he looked like the outlaw biker slash felon that he was.
Guilt ate at me.
He'd been kind to me on so many different levels. He'd taken my abuse, be it the physical and verbal kind and not said shit about it to me. He'd stood at my side when everyone else had stood before me, and then he'd held me while I'd cried my eyes out at my sister’s funeral. I had a feeling that last night he'd shown up here to check on me because he hadn't seen me in a few days and wanted to make sure I was okay.
I was starting to think that Hawk, despite now being president of the Kings of Torment Motorcycle Club, was a decent, even kind man.
And didn't that just fuck with me on a whole different level.
I was all about taking the Kings of Torment men down. Laying in bed beside Hawk? Yeah, there was one man I really hoped I wouldn't drag down with the rest of them. I think I would lose another vital part of myself were that to happen, and I didn't think I could afford to lose much else before becoming a person I didn't think I could live with being.
I could live with destroying people I thought had ruined my sister. I couldn't live with harming Hawk, I was starting to think.
He was growing on me, like some sort of disgusting boil. I could pop it and clean up the mess afterwards but would it leave me with a permanent scar?
"I know you're awake," he rumbled in a deep voice that sent a happy little shiver down my spine, my body betraying me.
His eyes opened lazily, and I ended up staring down into his deep, dark depths.
"I didn't mean to wake you," I murmured.
"I was up before you woke," he whispered back and heat filled the darkness of his eyes. "Your sweet body pressed up against mine has had my dick hard and ready to go for a while now. You're driving me crazy."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "I didn't get here on my own. In fact, I'm betting I had not one thing to do with it."
He grinned at me, unrepentant, and he looked a whole lot less scary in that moment too.
"You definitely didn't get here on your own," he murmured, and my body tensed as his eyes dropped down to my mouth.
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"Don't look at me like that," I whispered as our eyes locked. His hardened as they filled with determination. For whatever reason, Hawk had decided he wanted me, and that determination in his eyes solidified it.
That guilt I had talked about earlier dug its way in a little deeper, carving up my insides. It was more than that though. The more he came around, the more he pushed his way in, the more I feared he dug his way under my skin.
I crawled off his body and slid off the side of the bed. My feet hit the floor with a soft thud and I quickly turned around. With my back to him I was hoping he wouldn't be able to read the emotions crossing my face.
Sheets rustled, then feet thudded on the floor. His heat hit my back before strong arms wrapped around my middle. His palm pressed against the exposed skin above my belly button and below the hem of my top. His thumb roamed around my skin in small circles, caressing. I shivered at the contact.
He pulled me back into his body and his mouth went to my ear. His lips brushed against my ear as he whispered, "What are your plans today, baby?"
Baby?
I think I preferred Poison when it came down to it. Poison was less dangerous to me than baby.
"I need to get back to work," I muttered. "I've fallen behind schedule and need to make up the lost time."
He hummed into my neck. "What is it that you do for a living?"
"I'm a writer."
"Like books and that shit?" He asked.
I rolled my eyes. "Yes, Hawk, like books and that shit."
"That's cool," he said as he ran his palm up and down against my bare skin before letting me go. "You gotta go anywhere to do that, like a coffee shop or anything? Or, can you do that from home?"
I whirled around to face him, not at all liking where this was going. I crossed my arms over my chest while I watched him pick up his cellphone off the bedside table and start to go through his messages.
"I prefer to work from home, by myself. Otherwise I get distracted. Why do you ask?"
Please don't say what I think you're going to say. Please don't say what I think you're going to say.
He blew out a heavy breath that stirred the long hair hanging around his face. His shoulders tensed, and the fingers wrapped around his phone tightened.
Without looking at me, he spoke. "The shit with my club is only just getting started, I'm afraid. I could be wrong, and I'd be damn happy to admit it if I am, but I'm not willing to take any chances with you. I made a bold move at the funeral and all eyes were on us. Then with me spending the night here, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who already know exactly what that means. When I leave here today I'm going to leave one of my boys here with you, and I am going to ask that you please be smart and not argue with me about it. If you don't want someone hanging out with you in your house that's cool, just tell them to get out and they'll wait outside. No big deal, no hurt feelings, just that simple."
I dropped my head, staring down at my feet.
Playing my game, biding my time, this, having his boys stay with me when he wasn't around was the golden opportunity and it had fallen right into my lap. I hadn't even had to work for it. Hawk just handed it right over.
"Okay," I said in a small voice as I squeezed my eyes shut painfully. I drew in a shuddering breath and released it in a rush.
Knuckles went to my chin, gently lifting my face. The pad of his thumb on his other hand came up and brushed across my bottom lip.
"I'll be back later," he said. "I'm pretty sure you know what I want from you but I want to make myself clear. I want you. I want you in my life, on my bike, and under my body with my dick buried inside you. And I want that in a way I've never wanted anything. You did the stupid thing and you stuck around, now you're stuck with me and I'm spending the night tonight. I'm going to let you off easy though and let you get to know me a little better before you give yourself to me because you just put your sister in the ground. But, make no mistake, Poison, you're going to give yourself to me and I'm going to love every fucking second of it."
His hand fell away, and my heart beat in overtime as I stumbled back, his words washing over me.
He spared me not a glance as he pulled his shirt from yesterday back on, slid his belt into place, pulled his arms through his shoulder holster and stuffed his phone into the back pocket of his jeans.
"If you need anything let Ronin know and he'll have someone take care of it for you."
Then he was gone, and I was left feeling like a prisoner in my own home with a guard and a whole slew of mixed feelings.
Nothing was going to plan.
Good thing I had time to figure it all out.
7
Lance
Looking over my shoulder one last time, I walked around the side of the old, half rotten, crumpled mess of a farm house and strode quickly to the back of it. Nobody had followed me, of that I was certain. But, you never knew with my father’s men who were still to this day loyal to the man even though they thought him dead. I wouldn't put it past them to be hanging out around here for some fucked up reason.
The farm house and all the land belonged to my father, it had been passed down generation by generation, father to son. One day it would be mine, I already considered it as such, even if I didn't want it and hadn't asked for it.
The doors to the cellar were locked with a padlock only I had the key for. I slid the key in and turned, unlocking it. I twisted the lock free and stuck it in my back pocket. I didn't leave it hanging off the door because I didn't trust someone not coming along and locking me in down there. Paranoia was my friend and had yet to steer me wrong.
I pulled a flashlight out of my back pocket and clicked the button. Light shined down the cement steps, and I strode down them. Cobwebs brushed against my hair and I swatted at them in an attempt to get the sticky shit out of my hair.
I swept the flashlight around the room in a circle, making sure there were no surprises waiting for me. The room was empty save for a few damp, mold covered boxes sitting in a corner and a door directly across from the stairs. Ignoring the boxes and the garbage inside them, I strolled across the cracked floor to the door that was locked with yet another padlock only I had the key to.
Using my key, I unlocked this padlock too and stuffed the lock into my back pocket beside the other one. The door swung open with a noisy creak, and I pushed my way inside.
Outside of the beam of light the flashlight I held in my hand spewed across the tiny, dank room, there was no other source of light.
He had been stuck down here for weeks now, chained to the floor like a rabid dog, in the dark. The only food he'd eaten had been brought by me. The only water he'd drank had been given to him by me. Outside of that, he had a bucket to piss and shit in and you could tell it'd been a few days since I'd last visited to dump the waste out and hose the bucket off. The smell gave my absence away.
Snarling at me in angry words I couldn't understand, my father lunged forward in an attempt to attack me. The chain around his neck pulled tight when he reached the end of its length, jerking him back and off his feet. His back slammed into the dirty floor, and he grunted in pain.
I'd been smart enough to stand just out of reach of him every time I'd come here for our father son visits. These had gone a whole lot better for both of us when it had been me who'd essentially been chained up like a fucking animal.
Leaning a shoulder against the dusty wall, I sneered down at him. "Now, now, old man, you would think you'd be smarter than this by now. Yet, here you are, doing the same thing over and over again, week after week, like that brain of yours is no longer in proper working order."
"Fuck you, son," he spat. "The club will figure out soon enough what you've done."
I shrugged carelessly. "I plan on telling them what it is that you've done first. Framed your own son for a crime you committed and had him sent down to do time before anyone could figure out what it was you actually did. Then there's all the attempts on my life while I was inside, attem
pts orchestrated by you. All because you're a greedy fuck and knew if the club had something, someone, else to choose they'd side against you, so you tried to take out your only competition. Me. Jokes on you, old man, I'm still standing."
He lunged for me again, charging like an angry bull, but once again, the chain stopped him, jerking him back.
He fell backwards and hit the floor with a sick sounding plop that echoed around the small room. He never did seem to learn, and here I had always idolized him growing up. Until, I'd learned the sad truth about him, that is.
"I'm not here for that, not today."
He eyed me suspiciously, and my lip curled in disgust. Like he had any choice in what went on here. He was going to give me exactly what I wanted, or I was going to end him once and for all.