Taylor smiled. “Only in my head, but I came up with some good ones.”
She felt Brandon’s body shake with a laugh and then he said, “I’m sure she’s been called them all to her face at least once. The first thing I ever noticed about Beck though...”
“Besides those blue eyes and killer body?”
He laughed again. “Yeah, besides that, was the way she literally didn’t give a shit what anyone thought about her. I like that and yet here I wasted all this time doing the opposite.”
“I don’t want to think of it like we wasted time,” Taylor said. She lay back down and Brandon slid his arm back underneath her head. “I just want to wake up every day from now on knowing we have the rest of our lives together. We can figure out the rest of it as we go along.”
Brandon pulled her over on top of him so that her breasts were crushed into his hard chest. He ran his rough hands down her body and kissed her. It was the kind of deep, passionate kiss that usually led to their making love. Although she had three orgasms the night before, she would have no problem going for a fourth, especially since she could feel his cock growing hard against her. He kissed her until she was breathless and then used her hair to pull her face up. “Can I call you my old lady?”
Taylor giggled. His hands were on her butt, groping and massaging her cheeks. It felt amazing and in a breathless voice she said, “Baby, as long as you keep doing that, you can call me anything. I love you, Brandon.” Brandon pulled her down for another kiss and then arched his hips and ground his throbbing cock into her thigh. This time he didn’t stop with a kiss. He pulled her up higher so that his cock could slip into her wet pussy and he showed her how he felt. Taylor knew being with a man who was in an MC wasn’t going to be easy, especially with Beck around all the time, but she didn’t want easy, she wanted Brandon.
30
One Month Later
Streak was inking a tattoo on Boot’s back when Beck walked in. He was using one of the rooms that the car salesman at the old car lot used to take their customers in. It was glass and people at the party going on that night were gawking through the window, watching him. Streak was in the zone so he didn’t seem to notice and Boots looked like he was asleep. Besides, the snakeskin boots he was wearing that night were facing the window and everyone knew that showing those off was all he cared about.
“Looks good,” Beck said, looking over Streak’s shoulder.
“Thanks, the more of these birds I do, the better they get.”
“Yeah, now that I see other people’s, I’m a little pissed off about getting mine first.”
Streak laughed. “We can always update it.”
“Where’s the old lady?”
“She’s working this week and next. She’ll be back for a while after that.” For now, Streak had told Beck that he and Taylor decided she would keep her job in Chicago. She was flying back and forth, working two weeks on and two off. The two weeks she was in Arizona, she had been interviewing for jobs at the hospitals there. For Streak’s sake, Beck hoped she found a job there soon, but she still wasn’t sure how she felt about the other woman. She seemed a little too much like a princess type to Beck...but she guessed some guys liked that shit.
“Where’s the boss?” Streak asked.
“He went to the airport to get the Southies.”
“They flew in?”
“Yeah, Dax said they could only be here for the weekend. Wolf and some of his guys got here about an hour ago.”
Streak nodded. “Yeah, I saw them come in. I was kind of glad Tay wasn’t here when I saw they brought some of the fighters with them.”
Beck laughed. “Yeah, any one of them would snatch that little blonde right out of your hands.” Streak finally looked up at her and gave her a dirty look. She was still chuckling as she said, “I just thought it would do you some good to know how she feels about me.”
Streak shook his head. “If you aren’t the most arrogant, conceited...” Beck laughed louder and as she headed for the door she said:
“It might be conceited, if it weren’t true.” She winked at him and Streak sighed and gave up. She was still chuckling when she ran into Jace in the back hallway. “Hey! You’re back. I didn’t see you guys come in.”
Jace put his arms around her and pulled her in for a hug. “What’s so funny?”
“I was antagonizing my boy Streak a little bit.”
Jace laughed softly. “Poor Streak, he catches it from both sides, you know. That girl of his is still not totally convinced he doesn’t want you.”
She smiled up at him and said, “I know. That’s what I was teasing him about.”
“You have a mean streak, baby.”
“And that’s part of why you love me.”
“True, but I feel bad for Streak’s girl. Jealousy feels like shit.”
Beck wrinkled her nose. She knew he was talking about Bruf. who was there tonight. He had brought Sabrina with him this time, which Beck thought might make her old man feel better. “I’ve told you about a million times that there’s no man on this earth that you need to be jealous of.”
“I know, baby, and I believe you, just like Taylor probably believes you’re not sleeping with Streak and Tommy out there is probably sure that Jessie’s not hooking up with Finn.” Beck had been worried about inviting Tommy and Jessie. Finn had already been in enough trouble; it was only a matter of time before someone that hauled him in would figure out he wasn’t really who he said he was.
“Are they behaving? I just stepped out for a second.”
“They’re fine,” Jace said. “I was just using them to prove a point. See, baby, you don’t understand what it feels like, because you’ve never been on the other side of it.” Beck thought about that. It wasn’t exactly true. When she first went out to California to find Bruf she had been so jealous of Sabrina that she could hardly see straight. Meeting Jace had changed that, and Beck couldn’t care less about Bruf and his old lady now. But she wasn’t going to admit to Jace that Sabrina was the only woman she’d ever been jealous of. Instead she said:
“I do know what it feels like. I’ll stop messing with Streak and Taylor, okay? I was just having fun, but you’re right, it’s mean.”
“I didn’t say it was mean...”
She smiled. “You didn’t have to. I think we’re going to have the nicest kid that ever walked the planet one of these days. You’re so good, and now you’re turning me. No wonder my mother and grandmother and Steve love you so much.”
“Speaking of, they were driving up as I came in.”
“What? Who the fuck invited my family?”
Jace laughed. “It’s your birthday party, baby, I just assumed you would want them here.”
Beck made a face and then said, “Yeah, okay...but let’s go in the supply closet and have some fun before we go back out there.” When Jace laughed again she said, “I wasn’t kidding.”
“Oh, I know...” She was already in motion, pulling him behind her. She opened the door to the largest supply closet in the building and as she stepped inside, Jace followed. The door swung shut behind him and he said, “This one doesn’t lock.”
“Oh well, we’re all adults here. If they see anything they’ve never seen before, that’s their problem.”
Jace laughed. “Like poor Bubba?”
Beck giggled almost evilly. “Poor” Bubba had been in his bedroom at their house one day, but they both thought he’d left already. They were going at it on the dining room table when he walked in. Jace had to give him credit, he didn’t even pause, he just kept on walking. “He lived. Besides, it’s my birthday and I want my birthday goodies.”
“You used that one this morning,” he said with a smile.
“It’s my birthday all day long.” Every day, he thought with a smile. But that was okay, he loved giving her what she wanted. He watched her strip off her boots and tight jeans. She was wearing a pair of black panties underneath that were barely a strip of fabric. She took those off
as well and then looked at him and said:
“Are you getting undressed or am I doing this myself?”
Jace laughed and started taking off his boots. While he was bent over doing that, Beck was pushing his vest off. “You want everything off?”
“Mm-hmm, I love that big chest.” Jace had never been able to figure that out. His chest was scarred, hideously in his opinion. But Beck was constantly touching it and kissing it. This time as he pulled his t-shirt over his head he finally said:
“Can I ask you a serious question, baby?”
“You can ask me any question.”
“I just don’t get why you love the most scarred part of my body the most.”
She stopped what she was doing and put her hands on either side of his face. There was no doubting she was serious by the look on her face and the tone of her voice when she said, “You have the biggest and the best heart of any human on this planet. It’s so big and strong that it’s making a lady out of me.” When Jace’s lips twitched she said, “Shut up, I’m a fucking lady. Anyway, that’s where your heart is, underneath all of those scars. The fact that it survived all of that, and it still works like brand new, is a miracle. So yeah, your scarred chest is one of my favorite parts of you. It’s your armor, the armor that has protected that heart all these years, so you could give it to me. God knows I didn’t have one of my own, so I needed it.”
Jace felt a lump growing in his throat and he pulled her up against him before she saw the tears in his eyes. She let him hold her for a second and then she said, “If you’re finished crying, can you fuck me now?” He was smiling when he pulled her back to look at her face again. Once again she gave him a sincere look and said, “I love you so much. I’m so proud of how you’ve handled all this shit we’ve come up against so far and I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life watching you in action. Now, that’s all the ego-boosting you’re getting from me today until you bend me over this dusty shelf behind us and make me scream.”
“I love you, Rebekah Golden. I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
She kissed him softly and said, “I know, baby.” Then she smiled and turned her back to him and grabbed hold of the shelf. “But show me how much anyway.”
Excerpt from Jace
Phoenix Skulls (Book 2)
Chapter One
Jace Bell changed schools four times before he got to the fourth grade. He hated that, and he resented his father because of it. He never told him that, though. Already at eight years old, there was nothing that scared the boy, except for his father. “The Colonel,” as Jace called him--behind his back of course--was a real colonel in the army at that time. He was a career military man and he never said no to an assignment, no matter how much it might fuck up his only child’s life. Jace didn’t have a mother. He never wondered about that until he started school and realized that almost everyone else did. He asked the Colonel about it and his response was, “She didn’t want to be a mother. She didn’t particularly like either one of us, so she left.” That was it. That was the only conversation they ever had about her.
Jace wasn’t always the only new guy. Military life meant going to school on an army base where there might be a new kid every day of the school year. He also wasn’t the only kid that got picked on, but as a little boy, with no one to talk to about it, he felt completely alone in his misery. Each time they moved, the town changed, the army base looked a little different, and the schools and teachers changed...but the bullies were always lurking. At only eight, and in the third grade, Jace was already as tall as a sixth grader. He looked about twelve years old, and mean kids liked to point out the obvious. They called him “Jace the giant” or “Jaliath,” and sometimes on the playground they would actually pretend he was Goliath, and they would throw stones at him.
Jace never once thought about telling the Colonel about the abuse. He did his best to avoid it, by avoiding everyone. He knew he was big and ugly, but he thought if he stayed silent, and out of everyone’s way, they would forget he was there. It worked at home. Sometimes, even when the Colonel was there, he’d go days without talking to Jace. Most of the time he wasn’t there, but it was even worse when he was gone. Jace would be left with a babysitter or nanny, and those were as ever-changing as his schools were. He had a lot to do with that. He wasn’t nice to them. He wasn’t necessarily mean either. Jace didn’t know the meaning of the word “intimidating” back then, but nevertheless he had figured out how to become it. He would quietly stare at the young babysitters no matter what they said to him, refusing to answer them, and giving them the meanest look he could muster. Most of them didn’t come back after the first day, and by the time Jace turned nine, the Colonel had given up and just started letting him stay by himself.
Jace maintained the anger he felt inside of him, the hate he felt for other people, the sadness and worthlessness he felt over never being wanted...well into the middle of the third grade. Then a well-placed rock and a particularly bad day unleashed a kind of rage that no third-grader should even possess. That particular day, he’d waited in the boy’s bathroom, like he did most days, for the rest of the kids to leave before he started walking home. He wasn’t afraid of them, but he preferred avoiding them to the confrontation if it was at all possible. That day as he was leaving, he saw the only person in the world he could honestly say he liked. It was his third-grade teacher, Miss Morgan. She had pretty blonde hair and light blue eyes and she smiled at him, a lot. No one else ever smiled at Jace, and it gave him a warm feeling deep in the center of his chest. She always wore flower print dresses and when she stood close to him, Jace could smell her floral perfume. It was like being in the middle of a sunflower field with the sunlight shining down on his face. Sometimes Miss Morgan would rumple his hair with her hand or look at one of his assignments and tell him how smart he was. No one else ever told him he was smart either. He’d just assumed that he wasn’t at that time. Jace didn’t understand the feelings he had for Miss Morgan. For months he thought that he only wished she were his mother. He imagined her making him cookies after school and giving him hugs and saying nice things. But that day he had a new feeling. It was jealousy, or envy, but again, Jace had no words to describe it.
He heard a loud rumble as he came out of the bathroom and he looked in that direction toward the front of the school. A big, dark motorcycle, black and shiny with a ton of chrome, pulled up in front of the school and the man on the back of it pulled off his black helmet. Jace was fascinated by the machine, at first. He spent a lot of his time at home, putting together model cars that the Colonel let him buy with his allowance. He thought about buying a motorcycle once, but so far he hadn’t. Now looking at the black Harley made him want to run right out and get one...a model, that is. It might have been the coolest thing he’d ever seen. But then, he saw her.
Miss Morgan came out of the front door of the school...but she looked different. She wasn’t wearing the yellow sunflower dress she had on that day. She’d changed into a pair of jeans, and a long-sleeved black shirt and boots. Jace had never seen her in anything other than a dress, but when she walked straight for the motorcycle, and the man on the back of it...he understood. That ugly feeling started in the pit of his stomach when Jace saw the way she smiled at the man. It was even prettier than the smiles she gave Jace. Her whole face lit up. But that wasn’t the worst of it. That ugly feeling moved up into his chest when he saw the man stretch out a tattooed arm and pull Miss Morgan in for a kiss. Jace had only seen people kiss like that on late night television, the kind he wasn’t supposed to be watching. It looked like the man was trying to suck off her face, and Jace almost went over to help her. When she pulled back, however, she was still smiling, only now there was another kind of look about her, like a glow or something. The man on the bike handed Miss Morgan a helmet, and Jace watched her put it on and climb on the bike. She wrapped her arms around the man and laid her head against his back. Once her legs were pulled up and her feet on the chrome pegs, t
he bike took off...and Jace felt like he was watching his princess ride away on someone else’s horse.
With those confusing feelings festering inside of him, Jace started walking toward home. He made it about three-quarters of the way before he felt a stinging feeling on his right cheek. He thought he’d been stung by a yellowjacket at first until he heard the giggles. He looked over toward a clump of bushes and trees and the freckled face of Randy Barr. The biggest bully in school was looking out at him. Randy was laughing and Jace would never know if it was still about what he was feeling for Miss Morgan, the feel of the rock hitting his cheek, Randy’s smiling face, or the culmination of all of it...but he snapped. For the first time in his life he felt the need for violence. He could almost taste blood in his mouth as he dropped his backpack and began to run toward the bushes.
Jace was almost there when his nemesis seemed to realize that this time, Jace was going to fight back. His green eyes widened and Jace heard a scream just before he dived through the bushes toward him. He missed, and Randy took off running after the two girls and a boy that had been with him and had already gotten a good head start. Jace’s legs were long, and Randy’s weren’t. In three long strides, Jace caught up with him. He pounced on the boy, knocking him to the ground. Randy’s face was buried in the dirt and when Jace grabbed his shoulder and pulled him over onto his back, it was so filthy that all Jace could see were his frightened eyes and the blood that seeped from the kid’s nose and ran down his chin. Randy opened his mouth to say something. Later, he would claim that he was going to apologize for what he’d done earlier. Jace didn’t believe that, and he didn’t care. Before Randy had a chance to speak, Jace unleashed all that anger. He beat that boy until he was unconscious. When Jace realized Randy was no longer moving, that’s when he stopped. Just like that, the rage was gone, and Jace just felt tired...and ugly inside. The “ugly” was probably guilt, but Jace’s grasp of emotions was all over the place all the time. All he knew at that moment was that he did feel sorry for what he had done. But he didn’t feel sorry enough to believe he might never do it again.
Rise of the Phoenix: Phoenix Skulls Motorcycle Club: (Phoenix Skulls MC Romance Book 1) Page 22