“I get it, Prez,” Jax sighed, pulling loose his bandana to scrub a hand through his hair.
Jax’s so-called “Prez” stared at him a little longer. When his mouth fell open again, I expected him to continue shouting at him like the big, bad motorcycle club presidents were supposed to do. But much to my surprise, all that came out was a weighted sigh. A huge paw ran down his face, tugging on the short brown beard hanging off his thick jaw. He shook his head.
“I wanna say I don’t get what you’re doing, Jax, but a piece of advice for you,” the president said, and despite Jax’s frown, he didn’t stop. “Get your priorities sorted before this escalates any more. You won’t be able to handle this blow out from the Black Jacks if you don’t know what you want to protect and what you don’t.”
From the defiant flinch of Jax’s body, I had a feeling he wanted to argue his capabilities, but he didn’t. He just nodded his head and took his president’s words with a grain of salt.
“And next time,” the guy added, reaching down to the humungous bike nestled between his legs, “don’t miss church.”
With that, the engine’s thunder filled the air, and seconds later the smaller bike started up next to him.
They were gone and leaving dust in their wake and a heavy impression left on more than just Jax.
“You can stop hiding now.”
I stood to attention. My eyes that had been admiring the departure of his motorcycle buddies were now turned to him. Whatever annoyance that had been on his face had gone.
He arched an eyebrow up at me, almost amused as I stood there looking like I’d been caught red-handed. I hadn’t been hiding, but perhaps I should have made myself known instead of just skulking into hearing range.
I pushed through the grass that was beginning to get a bit long and made way up to Jax’s side. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.”
“It’s fine.” He sighed. “That was my president, Wolf. He may look like a mobster but he’s a good guy.”
“Oh,” I said, surprised at his sudden offer of information. I looked back to the road. “And the one next to him?”
“That’s Pretty Boy. Our youngest. He’s back at school now, trying to get his GED.” Jax smirked up into the distance, looking like a proud big brother. It was a hilarious concept to me. Unfortunately, before I got to experience the true humor in that statement, Jax was walking back over to the barn. “Come on. Let’s get Max’s training started.”
I watched him walk away, admiring the purple skull and wings peering through the thin material of his sweat-drenched shirt. I thought about his cut. About the bleached white skull and lettering stating their name and turf. The same emblem was borne across the backs of the two other members who rode away on their bikes without looking back.
Maybe there was more to Jax’s new life than I thought.
I wondered if I would have the chance to find out or not.
I hoped I would.
Chapter Nine
Jax
Ronnie waited. Her arm was outstretched, breathing in and out with patience, eyes glossed with a lustful yearning for the contents in her palm to be taken.
The horse paid no attention to the grass in her hands.
We’d forgone Max’s breakfast and removed the feeding hay from her barn last night to encourage her toward Ronnie for this next level of her recovery. It was a slow process, and this was after almost a month and a half of hard work.
The season had turned slowly with us; the sun wasn’t rising as high in the sky and a humid breeze rolled through the air as autumn gave its oncoming warning. The crops were almost ready for harvesting, bowing to the earth and rustling like a whispering crowd, but I had yet to spot a red, brown, or even a yellow colored leaf; fall wasn’t yet ready.
Mr. Jenkins had ought to have been home by now, but after further assessment of his recovery, rehabilitation had been put on the table. He was in a center in the neighboring town and was enjoying all the new nurses he’d met. It was safe to say he wouldn’t be back any time soon.
Despite my worries over the old man and the beautiful scenery around me, my eyes were pegged to the one girl that had my mind running in circles. Her brown hair was tied in a braid running down over one shoulder and coming to a rest just above her breast. Her skin had turned even more bronzed under the summer sun, and her whole body, not just her skin, was beginning to have a glow of healthiness that hadn’t been there before. It was an easy to see the contrast as I looked at her now, at how she’d changed in the last six weeks not just physically but emotionally too. The withdrawn and meek side that had been the pinnacle of my concern when I first saw her now changed back to the mouthy, curious, and stubbornness that had plagued me most of my childhood.
A month ago, I probably would have been unnerved by the nostalgia she was churning inside of me, but doing this again, the physical labor on the farm, the rekindling of my passion to help horses, and doing it all by her side, it felt okay somehow. The stubborn fight in me had given way to just a hint of reluctance incapable of stopping her from wriggling into my life.
Confidence had always been the ace up my sleeve, no matter the situation. Until this one came along. The grooves of our past defined who I was today, and despite my vow to not let the past be rewritten, I could feel that vengeful heat begin to chill.
Everything that had happened between us was now like a long-forgotten dream. Instead we were acting like two friends reunited.
Mentally, though, I wasn’t ready to forgive Ronnie yet. As blurry as it felt, the memory was still clear in my mind, and I had to trust my head if my heart was going to make it out of this whole. It would be over soon. Max was progressing quicker than I’d expected and soon Ronnie would go back to the place she had chosen over me so long ago.
I will be back to my normal life before I know it.
While my mind wandered, Max had finally turned to Ronnie, and doing her best to keep calm, Ronnie stayed as still as she could while hooves moved her way. It took a little coaxing, but when Max took a sniff of the fresh grass in Ronnie’s hand, the gluttonous horse was bought.
Her lips slopped against Ronnie’s palm as she hooved every blade of grass from Ronnie’s open palm until it was licked clean. Once she was finished, she stayed next to Ronnie for almost half a minute before she realized no more grass was forthcoming and wandered away, scanning the ground for something edible.
A squeal eminent on her lips, Ronnie galloped over to the fence, clambering her way up to the top. “Jax!” she said on a breathy scream as she looked down to where I stood.
Shaking my head at her excitement as the sun cast an illuminating glow over her face, her green eyes crinkled under the light, not moving off of me.
She clambered down, and I stepped back to give her room.
Until her foot didn’t make the next step.
My hands flew out, coming around her waist just as she slipped her hold, twisting in the air and smashing her front into mine. My jaw jerking upwards as Ronnie’s hands buried in my hair and yanked hard as she attempted to support her body while I tried to grab hold.
My palms wrapped under her ass as I staggered away from the fence, adjusting my balance before coming to a wobbly stop a few feet from it.
“Christ, Ronnie,” I gasped. “Let go of my hair.”
“Oh,” she breathed, looking down at me with shock written into every smooth curve of her skin. “Sorry.”
She pried her hands out of my hair, and her elbows unhinged themselves from the dent she made in my shoulders and I loosened my grip on her ass, letting her feet descend to the dirt. Boobs, hair, and ass were all over me as she slid down my body, the womanly part of her hitting the manly part of me, and, fuck, it felt too good. I should have loosened my hands, let her step back instead of stepping on my toes, but I didn’t.
I stiffened, fighting the burn of her all over me, awareness clear as day on her face.
She was only a few inches below me and our faces were so close that a
strand of my hair was a fingerbreadth from touching the soft skin of her heart-shaped face. It would only take a second to kiss her. A second to claim her.
I let go of her like she was fire and my long stride had a gap between us in seconds. Both of us looked shocked at each other, both of us knowing we let that get too far.
“I—I,” I stuttered, looking at her face, not sure what to say. I need to go. We can’t do this. Anything to get away from her, but….
I caught her face. I saw the hurt expression written into the softening of her eyes as they moved away from my face and to the ground. Choosing to look at the dirt rather than watch me walk away.
I didn’t say anything. Words were lost on me, but my actions weren’t. And I did as we both expected.
I walked away.
* * *
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I fucked up.
I never should have let Ronnie touch me. I never should have let that divide I had been insisting was still between us slip. I knew I still hadn’t forgiven her, even if I wasn’t pushing her away as much. I wasn’t supposed to feel even the slightest bit of compassion for her, never mind attraction. Sure, I could feel lust, any man looking at her kind of body would. But attraction was different. It was asking for something from her—and it wouldn’t be just a touch.
Ronnie was just supposed to be the brat that never really grew up. The girl who had pined after me when we were younger, and I wasn’t supposed to be interested. She was just my little annoying shadow. A little sister. She wasn’t supposed to be the girl making my dick hard.
But she was.
Since the second I saw her tight ass shimmy out of her truck and drop down in front of me, I couldn’t help but notice that the woman in front of me was no longer a child. She was beautiful and tall. Long, curling brown hair hung over her handful sized breasts. Her thighs didn’t touch, and her ass was on the smaller side, but it was tight and firm. Everything about her screamed fuck me! in the subtlest, but most alluring way.
I always wanted to fuck big boobed and willing blondes. But that was no longer true. What I wanted to fuck the most, I realized, was her. Someone who carried her body like a tool and did so without realizing it. I was supposed to like bad girls, not innocent. I was supposed to like dirty girls in the sheets, not dirty from hard work. I was supposed to want soft hands around my dick, not calloused, hardworking ones.
But I did want those things.
I wanted them from Ronnie.
The one person I couldn’t have.
I knew that one step in her territory would make everything I’d run away from, every bit of anger I held on to, every bit of betrayal I felt… it’d all be meaningless. And I couldn’t give that up. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
“ANNA!” Bellowed through the club house and I turned on my stool, shocked out of my thoughts when I saw a barreling ball of white and red fly past me as Anna went storming out of the club house like hell on wheels, leaving an unsuspecting bunch of bikers staring after her in her wake.
We all knew something was going on. What exactly it was, however, wasn’t made known until our badass president came running out, his hair covered, and I mean every-single-strand covered, in neon pink hair dye.
I couldn’t help it.
My mouth opened before I knew it, and what came out of it was something I’m sure even people in Australia could hear, as the heavy, near-painful laughter exploded out of my chest.
I fell from my stool, collapsing on the floor in a pile of laughter, as I heard the silence all around me. Apparently, everyone else was too scared to even dare move a muscle as they took in Wolf’s pink head, his face such a bright shade of red that it clashed with his hair, and I just—I couldn’t.
“JAX!” Wolf roared, pissed to high heavens as he made his way over to me.
Nobody came to my rescue. Even Hunter stood in the corner with his nephew by his side and didn’t dare come anywhere near me.
“Shit,” I wheezed, trying so hard to get up from the floor, and flailing like a seal as all my strength was sapped out of me.
Wolf reached down, and with ease a man shouldn’t have when lifting someone my size, grabbed the back of my shirt, and all but dragged my ass outside. I didn’t even try fighting as my jeans tore up along the concrete and the heels of my boots were scuffed.
Everyone followed outside to watch my funeral as Wolf lifted me to my feet and shoved me a few feet back. A rabid smile lit up his face, body itching with the need to come at me as my laughter died down.
“You may be my kid’s godfather,” Wolf began, tying back his pink hair as the wind began pushing it in his face. I puffed out my chest with pride, knowing it pissed him off that Anna had chosen me to be Dimitri’s guardian should he ever need it—and hopefully he wouldn’t, “but I can still beat your ass in my woman’s place.”
My woman.
The word seemed to cut through my laughter and remind me of my earlier agonizing over my lust for Ronnie, and I wasn’t laughing anymore.
I was ready to fight.
What better way to work a woman out of your body than getting punched in the face by a one-ton man, right?
I would like to say I’d beat the man black and blue, although it was more likely for me to end up that way since the huge bastard that called himself our brother, leader, and ally never held back punches and was strong as an ox.
Neither of us had the chance to find out.
A familiar bike pulled up through the gate, the prospect, Pipe, quickly opening it and pulling it out of his way as the Black Low Rider S Harley with the familiar gold rims and frame came rolling our way.
He pulled in along the members’ bikes and cut the engine.
He wasn’t wearing his helmet, and the ragged blonde hair on top of his head was like a wave of traumatizing memories. His long body rose from the seat, the Black Angels leather turning to reveal the patch that spoke volumes as he turned to face us. Our V.P.
“Lamb!” Hunter yelled from the doorway, marching over to him. “Where the fuck have you been, brother?”
He shoved Lamb’s shoulder, and the slender man took it well considering the size difference between the two.
“Hunting.” Lamb shrugged, tugging off the leather jacket before replacing his cut on his shoulders to alleviate some of the sweltering sunlight filtering into the car lot.
None of us argued about what exactly Lamb had been “hunting.” We had our suspicions, and I figured they were identical. We also shared the same reluctance to interfere as well. Especially Wolf.
He turned his nose up at Lamb’s comment, but when his right-hand man turned to him and stopped dead, the tension in the air changed. And not in a good way.
Lamb’s eyes went straight to Wolf’s head.
To the neon pink hair.
And silence filled the yard. We waited so long that a suffocating atmosphere pressed down on us. We were waiting for all hell to break loose as Lamb just continued to stare at him and everyone braced to see his reaction.
He opened his mouth.
And then pulled a piece of paper out of his jean pocket, crumbled from the ride. “So I’ve managed to track down one of the remaining Bratva—not the one that tried to run you and the women off the road.” Lamb turned to me, and I barely registered his words. “But I got the one that has been trying to amass his own military-grade arsenal, no doubt trying to blow a hole in the earth where our clubhouse is currently standing.”
He held out the paper to Wolf, who looked at Lamb, spooked by his reaction, or rather the lack of it.
He didn’t say anything. About the hair. Lamb, of all people.
“All right,” Wolf grumbled, his big paw taking the paper from Lamb’s hand, staring at him for a second longer with dark, calculating eyes before turning to the paper. As he read along Lamb’s scrawled handwriting, visible as the sunlight bleached the thin sheet with a translucent glow. All of us watched him do so in silence.
Th
e tension dissipated and confusion took its place as we shared glances and gestured to Lamb; we mouthed words between each other while Lamb played the part of being none the wiser.
It was then that a single strand of pink hair slipped from Wolf’s low ponytail, falling over one dark bushy eyebrow. He puffed at it once or twice to get out of his way, which it refused to do, before Wolf gave up with a final, useless huff.
By the time I noticed the importance of that pink strand of hair, it was too late.
The hair was tucked back behind his ear, and Lamb dropped down from his heels as he stepped back away from the huge Russian, his gaze giving him a slow once over. And then, with a grin on his face so wicked that it made everyone shiver, his lips parted, and he said, “There. Much better.”
I stared. Hunter stared. Wolf stared. Fuck, every brother was frozen as solid as the Antarctic.
It was a record long ten seconds that Wolf stood there in silence. And then as the quiet ticking of my watch passed slowly, then at the fifteen second mark…
Chaos exploded.
Chapter Ten
Ronnie
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting.
When Jax jumped away from me like he’d been scalded, the look on his face clearly as shocked as mine, I didn’t know what to think. In fact, I couldn’t. It was after Jax left, and after his shock had turned into fear and what seemed like annoyance before he finally fled, that I finally got to think.
I did a lot of thinking.
I did so much thinking that I found myself pacing up and down the stairs, the creak of the floorboards like a symbolic crank lifting me higher and higher into a state of frustration that I knew I wasn’t coming down from anytime soon. I was going to carve a hole in the floor, through the basement and the foundation of the house, and keep going until I had made my way all the way through to China.
And when I heard the sound of a motorcycle engine tearing up the dirt, I exploded.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 11