“No,” I grumbled leaning back.
She gave me a puzzling look as I reached for the hand in my hair, pulling it down in front of my face. It was faint, but the little pink mark left around her wrist still bothered me deep down. My intentions when doing this kind of thing were never to leave a mark or damage a woman’s body. It would be too sinful. All I wanted was a better hold. A little trust. And a girl who wanted to do as she was told.
Looking at Ronnie now, I could see why I developed such a specific desire. This girl never did as she was told and seeing her bend to my command in bed the other night was so satisfying, I almost came then and there.
It was all her fault.
I pressed a kiss to the mark, feeling the tension in Ronnie’s arm melt away.
“You bruise like a peach. Always have.” I spoke against her skin, my warm breath cool against the wetness. “I don’t like to see you hurt.”
“Hmm,” Ronnie mumbled, her eyes getting that faraway look. She was in such a world of her own, mulling over my words, that she didn’t blink for what must have been over a minute.
I took the opportunity to just stare at her, the sunlight of the early morning highlighting the smooth edges of her face, not bright enough to illuminate, but enough to give her that faint glow of life.
Only when my phone buzzed loud against the wooden table did our gazes break.
I reached for the device and read the screen.
Prez flashed in white text above a photo of an old black and white dog. The thing was massive, but the grumpy expression on its face matched my president to a T, so much so I couldn’t resist putting it as his caller ID.
Note to self: Never let Prez see my phone.
“Yes, Prez,” I answered, my hand giving Ronnie’s ass a small squeeze.
She gave me a glare and swatted my hand away before getting the cue to hop up off my lap.
I watched the view as she sauntered over to the coffee machine. At the sound of her feet stepping out of bed, I’d brewed a fresh pot, making sure it was hot enough for when she came down.
“Church. Twenty minutes,” Wolf growled. “Bring your girl.”
My back straightened, and Ronnie must have noticed as her head turned at the sound of the chair and gave me a concerning look.
“Why?”
“You’ll find out when you get here,” Wolf retorted. “Nineteen minutes.”
With that short sentence, his end of the line disconnected, and I was left with a static buzz in my ear.
“What is it?” Ronnie grumbled, hand poised with the coffee jug in one hand, her mug in the other.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, walking over to her and taking the jug and mug out of her hand. “Get dressed. We gotta head to the club.”
“We?” Ronnie paused, eyes a little wide.
“Yes,” I huffed, leaning down to press a quick peck on the side of her mouth. “We.”
A small smile twitched at the corner of her lips, and I had to fight back the urge to copy her. “Now get your ass dressed. I ain’t taking you in that when any brother can look at that ass of mine.”
She gave me a sharp glare before it softened on the hot jug in my hands. “But my coffee….”
I sighed.
“I’ll put it in a damn flask,” I growled. “Now go do as you are told before I spank you again.”
She looked ready to argue with my attitude until I added that last little bit. When the words came out of my mouth, I saw the moment her pupils grew big and her mouth parted with a slight hitch of her breath.
She was hesitating.
“Ronnie,” I growled. It was more of a beg than a warning, because, fuck, Wolf sounded serious and I had already fucked up by missing one church meeting. But that look of arousal on her face was making me doubt every conviction I had to leave this house.
“Fine,” she huffed, walking away with that sweet apple scent and soft brown hair until she was out of my sight.
I stood for a few minutes, counting down in my head before I was able to function again without feeling the need to ram my dick in the jug of coffee just to calm it down. I fetched a flask, filled it with coffee, and thanked fuck Ronnie wasn’t a normal girl as she was dressed and ready to go by the time I headed toward the door.
Snatching my keys out of the bowl by the door, I marched down the steps toward the bike.
Ronnie locked the door behind us. I doubted it’d do much good. If someone wanted to get into that house, all they’d have to do is blow the door and it’d fall right over. I’d have to fix that….
I threw the helmet to her as she jogged up to my side. She didn’t miss a beat and caught it between her palms before fitting it over her head and fastening it under her chin. I pulled out my own, dragging my hair to pin it under the head protection before swinging my leg over the seat.
Ronnie’s arms fastened around my waist and I fired up the engine.
“Ho—”
“Hold on tight,” Ronnie interrupted me. “I know.”
I wanted to smirk, but I didn’t have the time. Instead, I pulled hard on the throttle and threw a storm of dust up behind us and we skidded out of the farm and down toward town.
* * *
The echoing thud of my boots announced my arrival as I stepped into the club room. Ronnie’s hand tightened in my own as she hurried behind me. It was empty as I stepped in, but at the sound of our feet, I saw a blonde head come whirling around the corner of the stairs into the bar.
“Good, you’re here.” Anna sighed, hurrying over to us.
The concerned look on her face had me on edge as she came over to me with open arms. I reached my free one out, ready to meet her hug in the middle and waited for her to come into my embrace.
Which she did fucking not.
“Hey!” I growled, turning to see her wrapping her tiny arms around Ronnie’s shoulders. She dragged the taller girl down into her arms, and Ronnie dropped my hand in order to return it.
“Shut up, asshole,” Anna teased, turning her face to stick her little tongue out of her red lips. “You’re like a cockroach. An atomic bomb could drop on your head and you’d be laughing about it ten seconds later without a scratch on you.”
“A cockroach?” I gasped, hand going to my heart. “How dare you insult this beauty?”
Anna tutted, rolling her eyes.
She turned back to Ronnie, letting her go at long last before taking her hand. “Go to the club room,” she ordered to me. “Wolf will fill you in on the shit.”
With that, she spun away, and with my girl in hand, she kidnapped her.
Ronnie didn’t look over her shoulder as she abandoned me in the middle of the bar. Not even a glance.
Women.
“You waiting for some divine wisdom?” The chilling voice came down my shoulder.
“Fuck, Lamb!” I hissed, spinning around to see him stood way too close to me. “I didn’t even here you come in.”
“I’m not like Wolf, ain’t got his ghost feet.” Lamb smirked, cocking a blonde eyebrow in the direction the girls had left. “You must have been in a world of your own.”
“Something like that…,” I grumbled, taking a moment to scan over Lamb’s cut and jeans. He wasn’t wearing a suit today, but then again, I hadn’t seen him in a suit since the day Ronnie pulled into the parking lot. His business suit must have been stored away while he had club business to sort. That and his other more private agenda that had him disappearing around the country the last few months.
“You were called in too?” I frowned.
Lamb shrugged, glancing for the second time at the direction the women had left in. “Yeah. Looks like it’s not for good reasons either,” he grumbled. “Not if he allowed all the women to gather together.”
“Pipe better be up there, keeping an eye on them.”
I didn’t want to imagine the chaos they’d create without supervision.
“Poor kid can only do so much.” With that comment, Lamb headed toward the
big black door that closed in the president’s office, and beyond that, church.
“Let’s get this over with then.” I sighed to myself, picking up my feet and following my VP. I could feel a stone growing in my stomach. I wasn’t going to like what I was about to hear.
At a similar height to me, Lamb didn’t block my view as I stepped through the doorway to see all the club brothers gathered within the small conference room.
Each main member was in their designated seat, and the others, the retired, the weekenders, even the prospect, Pipe, were gathered around the edges.
Meaning the girls weren’t supervised….
Shit.
“Kay’s with them.” Hunter read my mind, giving my shoulder a pat as I lowered myself into the seat next to them. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was only a small one as I looked to see the hallowed expression on my president’s face. He gave a glance at both Lamb and me.
“You’re both late.”
“Got here as fast as I could, Prez,” I apologized, whereas Lamb just shot him a sharp smile.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter,” Wolf grumbled, giving his big head a hard shake. “We’ve got bigger problems.”
“How big?” Pretty asked, sitting upright and on the edge of his seat. Not as new as Mint, but still a newbie as far as club seniority went, he hadn’t seen much action in his years of riding alongside us. But of the bad he’d seen in the last two years alone, I didn’t blame his unease. We didn’t want a repeat of anything we had just finished fighting off.
“The last three Black Jacks we were tracking aren’t working solo anymore,” Wolf announced.
The ripple of tension through the room went from wall to wall as the brothers’ fists tightened by their sides and their jaws clenched. Mine laid flat against the glass table, but it wasn’t because I was calm. My knuckles were white with the pressure I was pressing down on them with, and my own muscles were coiling with the need to get on my bike and fly.
I could feel the burning in my shoulder like I had been shot less than an hour ago as opposed to the short four weeks it had been. It wasn’t hard to figure out one of the others had been the one to shoot me. The reason I didn’t know sooner was because I had missed that church, but when I was filled in, I wasn’t surprised.
Ronnie still didn’t know what had happened the night of the storm, and although she cast glances at my shoulder now and then, she hadn’t asked questions.
But I took notice of her. And I knew that she had a clue about something going on. And with her interaction with Anatoli Ivanov, I knew it wouldn’t take long to piece two and two together.
“So, the scattered Black Jacks teamed back up? So what?” I threw into the room. “We took them down when there were dozens of them last time? What’s changed?”
“What’s changed is that it was a concentrated and controlled attack,” Wolf growled. “We were in an open warehouse and they were fish in a barrel.”
“So?”
“So,” Lamb interrupted. “The Black Jacks’ style was never a run-and-gun attack. They’re known more for their stealth and assassinations. Having expectations from before will be like turning your back on a snake. It’ll strike where you’re vulnerable.”
“Shit,” hissed. “The girls?”
“Not just the girls,” Wolf’s face turned ice cold. “The incident with the gang members before. Our trade. The incident with your girl and the chase on your car. It’s all connected. They weren’t just coming at us randomly. They’ve planned this since the beginning.”
“Like a cobra constricting its prey,” Lamb said with an almost wistful tone.
“Your metaphors aren’t helping, Lamb.” Hunter glared at the poetic man.
Lamb shrugged; bastard never gave a shit about the atmosphere, otherwise he wouldn’t have done half the shit he had.
“So, what do we do?” Mint leaned forward, forearms pressing against the table, his leather jacket bunching up around his shoulders at the movement. Underneath his cut, however, I was sure his muscles would be as sore as mine right now, tensed far too tight for just sitting down.
“We don’t get caught in their trap,” Wolf’s hands reached for the handle of his gavel. His knuckles turned white around the wood shaft, but his face remained a picture of control and confidence.
“And then what?”
“We draw them out.” Wolf nodded, looking around the room, as if waiting for someone to question his decision. We all knew better.
“What’re we going to use for bait?” Hunter pressed, his body tighter than mine as the uncertainty radiated from him.
“Me.”
The whole room stilled. Eyes were wide, mouths dropped, and bodies turned to stone.
Prez is going to be bait?
“You got to be fucking kidding?” I yelled, launching myself out of my seat with such speed, my chair went flying and crashed into the brother standing behind me.
I didn’t give a shit at his pained groan; my eyes were too busy being fixed on my president. His eyes didn’t stray from the edges of the room. They were steady, scanning over the faces of the other club members as if I hadn’t just exploded.
My hands slammed hard on the glass, shy of enough force to smash the thing. “Wolf!”
“What do you want me to say, Jax?” Wolf sighed, and in a steady, smooth turn met my gaze with even, clear eyes.
“That you’re joking right now!” I snapped, the heat rising to the front of my chest. “You’ve got a kid at home. A woman. A club relying on you to lead them. What if something happens?”
“Jax,” Hunter’s deep voice warned in my ear, a hand going on my shoulder. I was aware of Pretty standing up next to me as well, his arms twitching at his side as if they could hold me back if needed.
“You just going to abandon Anna? After all the shit you put her through?”
Wolf’s face went red. He flew up from his chair, the heavier, bulkier thing managing to stay upright as it went flying backward. It wasn’t as loud as my own explosion, but Wolf’s held more weight as he rose to his full height, back straight and dark eyes looking down on me like I was nothing more than an ignorant child.
“Do you think I am weak?” Wolf pushed around his brothers as he came toward me. His footsteps were like a rumbling thunder as the others cleared out of his way. Even Hunter stepped away as the president came through.
“It’s not a matter of—” I tried to argue, but his deep Russian voice cut me off.
“Do you think they will get the better of me?”
“No, bu—”
“Do you think I’m a coward?”
“Of course not!” I exclaimed, not backing down as Wolf came chest to chest with me. His beard almost in my face as he was more than a head taller than me. He made me feel tiny and fragile underneath his heavy, domineering glare. I couldn’t stop his intimidating aura pinning my body down at the floor. “I just—”
“Just think I should put one of my brothers in danger in my stead? Because I’m more important? Because my life is worth more than theirs?” Wolf’s fat finger pointed around the room, and my eyes followed it, at each brother looking on with unease and uncertainty as Wolf handed down the law to me.
“No!” I snapped back, shaking free of his hold on me and shoved at his chest. Fucker didn’t even move an inch. “But we’re a team, asshole!” I shoved again, and this time, he at least had the curtesy to take a step back. “We don’t want to sacrifice you either! Not when you’ve got a family to go back to. Not when there’s people who need you more. Let me be the bait! Let me do this for the club.”
“So, your girl’s not worth going back to then?” Wolf frowned, his heavy glare gone, but an even more snide and dissatisfied one in its place.
“That’s not it,” I hissed. I turned across the room to see the one empty chair in the middle of Pres and Hunter… the one that had been empty for a long few years. And then my gaze went to my brother beyond the club and beyond blood. Hunter frowned at my hea
vy gaze, his green eyes and dark hair shaking in confusion.
I looked back to president. “There’s been too many kids who’ve lost their dads,” I confessed. “I don’t want to see another one.”
Wolf’s head snapped over his shoulder to the chair I had stared at, and at that point I saw that Wolf got it. Got the point I was trying to make.
Silence flooded the room and every brother looked down at the chair with bowed heads and a moment of quiet as they regarded Noble’s chair. Our lost brother. Lost but not forgotten.
“You idiot,” Wolf grumbled, his hands tugging down the length of his face and beard before he turned back to me.
Whatever atmosphere had overtaken the room dissipated as Wolf’s hand extended out and the heavy thing dropped hard on my shoulder.
“That doesn’t change my decision. They want me for executing one of their members. I’m still going to be bait.”
I opened my mouth, ready to raise my verbal and physical fists, until Wolf’s huge hand gave me a painful, hard squeeze.
“But you’re misunderstanding something.” Wolf smirked. “I’d never said I’d be going in alone.”
“What?” I choked, confused at the amused expression my president was pulling. “What are you—”
“I’m bait. But I ain’t stupid enough to go out without backup. That’s what I have you lot for, is is not?”
I’m a fucking idiot.
And I made a fucking show of myself.
“You motherfucker…,” I growled, shoving his hand of my shoulder.
He gave a big, righteous laugh from deep within his chest, and soon, the other brothers caught on as well and they all broke out in laughter at my expense.
“Fuck all of you for letting me go through that without stopping me.” I stuck my finger up at each one of them.
“It’s your fault for misunderstanding all on your own.” Hunter gave me a light nudge, which wasn’t light by any measure, and I tried not to stumble. I fixed him with a glare.
“All right.” Wolf’s voice rose over the jeering and jokes. He pushed away from me and headed toward his end of the table. “Now that Jax has learned to watch his mouth, it’s time to get the ball rolling.”
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 27