Living A Beautiful War

by Debra Kayn

  "It's not happening, Ace." Ink's gaze lifted and he nodded at the others coming out of the building. "Go do your measuring and then lock up. We need to get back to the club."

  She moved back to the building and rolled her eyes when she turned around. Whatever Kurt and Ink worried about regarding having Katie and her friends room at the Sterling Building made no sense. The girls were only in a relationship with bikers. From everything she knew, they weren't property of the Moroad MC, and that made them regular citizens without any rules.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  The sun hovered on the ridge of the Bitterroot Mountains dimming the goodbyes for Rain and Tori as they got ready to ride back to Pitnam. Every Bantorus member stood outside the gate in respect of the head president's departure. Ink wrapped his arms around Lilly and pulled her back against his chest. He couldn't say Rain was thrilled over him claiming Lilly, but not another word or threat was mentioned toward Ink during the last four days Lilly's parents stayed in Federal.

  Last night, Lilly's parents even sat down and talked with Lilly about her plans for the Sterling Building. For once, Rain saw things through the eyes of a businessman and not as Lilly's dad. The only thing Ink disagreed with Rain about was the idea of the Moroad women renting a few of the rooms. But after Rain explained how Cam ruled his club, he could attest to Moroad having no advantages over their women compared to Bantorus MC.

  Lilly turned her head and peered up and over her shoulder at Ink. "I'll miss them."

  He held her tighter. "You'll always have your family."

  He lifted his hand to wave, and Lilly already forgot about her parents and turned to face him. "You know what I really want to do?"

  "What?" He grinned, loving how she could go from telling her parents goodbye to sharing the future with him in a blink of an eye.

  "Take me on your Harley." She flashed her dimples.

  He laughed. "You've rode with your dad. You raced your dirt bike as a kid. I think you've even talked a few of my MC brothers into picking you up after school, years ago, and giving you a ride home."

  "That was only because Chrissy Shilo didn't believe me when I told her I knew guys who would slap her hard if she didn't stop picking on Derek...I can't remember his last name. He moved away in sixth grade." She rubbed her breasts back and forth against his chest. "The point is I don't care about the whole 'making it official' ride on your bike, I want you to take me out on a date."

  He gazed down at her nipples hardening under her T-shirt. "Are you going to keep rubbing your tits on me?"

  "Anything is possible." She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "Go ahead...ask me out."

  He curled his hand around the back of her neck, leaned in and said, "Do you want to go fuck?"

  She smacked his arm. He laughed, holding her tighter. Damn, she was adorable.

  "Come on, Ink. You have no idea how many times I sat in the house wishing you'd come and ask me out on a date," she said.

  He tapped down his amusement. "Ace, I haven't known a biker who has ever needed to ask a chick out on a date. It doesn't work that way. Why go out to eat when we could go inside and have sex?"

  She clasped his vest. "Because I've never experienced being free to touch you, hold your hand, and kiss you out in public the way other women do. Even the bitches have touched you out in public more than I have. I think I'd like to, and I think you'd enjoy it...even if you're being an asshole biker and think you're too tough to enjoy a night out."

  He leaned in and kissed her. While her lips were soft, she stood stubbornly in front of him, pressing him to ask her out on a date.

  He straightened and held her hand to his chest. "Would you go out with me tonight?"

  Her smile grew and her eyes widened in pleasure. "Yes."

  "Let's go then," he said, grabbing her hand

  She skipped into a jog, holding his hand and laughing at him. He'd give her a date if that's what she wanted, but he had plans for later when they got back to the club that involved more than eating dinner. At his bike, he handed her a helmet. Her excitement for a night on the town exceeded his need for sex.

  He tugged on the strap under her chin. "My old lady wants a date, she gets a date."

  He got on the Harley, toed the kickstand, and held the bike as she climbed on behind him. She put her arms around him and laid her hands on his upper thighs. Best damn feeling in the world.

  He rolled out of the parking lot below the clubhouse and hit the road. Aware of Lilly on the back, he took his time. The warm night couldn't camouflage the embrace of her bare legs surrounding him or the heat from her hands that wandered to his stomach and rubbed. His cock hardened in response, and his jeans grew uncomfortable.

  Her laughter filled his ears and she palmed the crotch of his jeans. He grinned into the wind. If she wanted to stroke him and his ego tonight, he wasn't going to argue with her.

  He pulled up in front of Rail Point Bar. She hopped off as soon as he cut the engine, and he followed taking her helmet and hanging it on the handlebar. She reached out for his hand.

  "Ace...I don't hold hands in public." He glanced up and down the sidewalk. "It's not safe."

  She frowned, dropping her arm. "This is Federal."

  "You're a beautiful woman." He placed his hand on her back and turned her toward the door. "I want my hands free if I need to protect you. It's not something I'll debate with you. You want to hold my hand on Bantorus property, you hold my hand. But not when we're in town."

  He opened the door and let her enter first. Inside, he lifted his chin at Joe, the bartender, and led Lilly to a vacant booth in the back. She hadn't argued with him, but her quietness alerted him that she took his rejection to hold her hand the wrong way.

  She scooted into the booth. He followed her, blocking her in. He had to fix the problem, because tonight was for her. He'd give her the best damn date she'd ever had.

  He laid his hand on her bare thigh. "You're the most important thing in my life, Ace. Whether another man approaches you or tries to touch you, I will always protect you. If that means using my fist or my pistol, I need my hands free. I can't have anything happening to you, because it'd kill me."

  "Can I hold your hand while we're sitting," she asked.

  "You can do whatever the hell you want when I know I stand between you and the world," he said, squeezing her hand when her fingers slipped between his.

  Surprised to learn that sitting beside Lilly, letting her hold his hand, felt as intimate as laying between her legs, he leaned over and kissed her. "Love you."

  "I love you too," she whispered, gazing up at him in happiness.

  Within minutes, he'd ordered them both a meal and settled back to enjoy their date. Except he had no idea what to say.

  She'd seemed so excited to have this moment with him, and he wasn't much on small talk. Hell, he'd spent every minute of the last four days with her and between visiting with her parents, working, and sex, there hadn't been any opportunity or desire for talking.

  "Relax," she said, turning on the bench to face him better. "It's just a date."

  He gazed at her and found her smiling. "What exactly do you expect me to do on a...date?"

  "Have you seriously never gone on one? Not even when you were a teenager?"

  He shook his head. There were lots of things he missed out on. He went from a messed up kid to a Bantorus MC member. He had no time to date.

  "Normally, people just talk and learn more about each other." She played with his hand, using her free hand to run her finger over his thumb. "Like...I don't know where you lived before coming to Pitnam."

  "All over Cowlitz County," he mumbled.

  "Because you were in foster homes." She nodded. "I remember you telling me that. How about telling me how you got hooked up with the club."

  "I dropped out of school, ran away, and after two months living on the streets, Torque busted me when he caught me stealing hubs off a car in Pitnam. He dragged my ass back to the club and when I refus
ed to tell him anything about me, he and your dad slapped a prospect patch on my back and threw a bunch of rules at me that I was scared to break." He chuckled. "Next thing I know, I'm staying in the bitches' cabin and getting mothered to death."

  She leaned back and her brows lifted. "What did you do?"

  "Grew up." He wiped the grin off his face at the memory of all the available older women handed to him. "Fast."

  He'd become a man soon after and earned himself his own cabin, but he continued spending time with the bitches. They had ways that let him escape the harsh life he found himself living.

  "I bet." She let go of his hand and lifted her leg until it was looped over his thigh. "Okay. New question. What was your very first tattoo?"

  His heart pounded in his chest. He lifted his left arm and pointed to right above his wrist. "This one."

  He'd inked a flame to match all his MC brothers. It served a purpose back then, and covered his biggest scar he had from cutting himself. He liked not having the daily reminder of the hell he'd gone through. The flames were fading now, no longer the vibrate orange and black that he remembered.

  Lilly rubbed her finger over the tat. He stiffened, waiting for her to ask him again why he had scars all up and down his arms.

  "Will you give me a tattoo?" She leaned back and lifted the bottom of her shirt, showing her flat stomach and pointing to the area below the waist of her jeans. "Right here."

  "You want inked?" he asked, taking in her bare skin and suddenly wanting to put his drawings on her body.

  "Yeah." She let her shirt go and straightened. "Something special and from you. You can pick out what I should get."

  "Yeah, I can do that." He fiddled with the napkin on the table. "Think about it for a while, and when you're sure, I'll do it."

  "Great." She hugged his arm, leaned closer, and kissed him.

  He nudged her lips and dipped his tongue into her mouth. The date was going better than he thought it would, and he pulled back to take a deep breath. "I wanted to talk to you about where we're living."

  "The club?" She left her legs on him and gathered his hand on her lap.

  He let his fingers fall between her thighs. "I think we should move into one of the rooms upstairs in the Sterling Building. It'll give us a little more privacy and it's your place."

  "It's ours," she said. "But what about the club? Lee's still staying in his room with Shari. I don't mind staying there too. We're both working and I'll be spending more time in town with the girls once we go to opening up five days a week."

  "Lee bought property off Kurt, about a half mile down the road. He's going to start building a cabin soon. Remmy's got his own place on club property. I like the thought of being in town. Before Shari started up Silver Girls after the rebuild, I spent a lot of nights up in one of the rooms in case anything happened in Federal." He stopped and nodded at the waitress putting their dinner on the table. "Thanks."

  Lilly ignored the food and waited until the girl left. "You wouldn't mind being away from the club?"

  "I want us to have more room, and you deserve more than living with a bunch of single bikers." He caressed her leg, feeling the warmth between them. "Besides, if we move into town, it's one less room you have to rent out. We have the money coming in from the militia and the bikes we're sending down to Arizona. After a while, if you'd like to turn the whole upstairs into our house, that's what we'll do. You might even decide you want a house outside of town on some property...we've got time to figure things out, but I like the idea of staying at the Sterling Building for now."

  She straightened in excitement. "I do, too."

  "That's settled then." He slipped his hand from her leg and picked up his burger. "Let's eat."

  She leaned into him and nudged his arm. "Thank you."

  Just like that, he'd conquered a real date, got her to agree to move to town with him, and put a smile on her face. He ate half his burger before it dawned on him that he hadn't thought about his surroundings or the people inside the bar the whole time.

  He glanced over at her, caught her looking at him, and winked. Yeah, he had dating nailed.

  Throughout their meal, Lilly kept the conversation going. She talked about her job, her to-do list, and finally finished her burger. He tossed his napkin on his plate and sat back with a full stomach and more information than he'd heard all year.

  "Thanks for taking me out." Lilly cuddled against him on a sigh. "This has been fun."

  He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. The day caught up with him and he yawned. It was only around ten o'clock, but the night out relaxed him.

  Lilly's hand rubbed his stomach. His balls tightened in pleasure. He loved how she always touched him as if someone was going to make her stop and she had to make sure she had the freedom to stake her claim.

  He shifted onto his hip, removed twenty dollars from his back pocket, and tossed it on the table. "Let's get out of here."

  He led her outside and stopped on the sidewalk, stretching his legs. On a whim, he said, "Let's walk down the block and take a peek at our new home before we head back to the club."

  She fell into step with him and slipped her hand into his. He shook her loose and instead put his arm around her shoulders. She curled against his side and put her hand in his back pocket. With him on the outside of the sidewalk, closest to the occasional car that could drive by, and his right hand free to use the pistol on his side, he liked this arrangement. He had his girl, and that's all that mattered.

  At the end of the block, in view of the Sterling Building, he stopped and looked up at the brick building, proud of what he'd accomplished. It'd be perfect for them while Lilly got the Silver Girls growing. Later, he could buy her a real home with a fucking picket fence if she wanted.

  A man walked out of the alley between the Sterling Building and the vacant building beside it. Ink studied the man, but the guy's upper body remained in the dark.

  "Who's that?" Lilly asked.

  "I don't know," he mumbled, stepped to the edge of the sidewalk.

  She wrapped her arm around his waist. "Probably a drunken miner who got his days mixed up and was hoping we'd be open for business."

  "Yeah." He continued watching as the man walked in the opposite direction at a fast pace.

  Whoever he was, he wasn't drunk. Ink watched until the man disappeared around the block. First thing he needed to do was set up a security alarm in the building. He didn't like the feeling he was getting from someone snooping around, and if he planned to live there with Lilly, he wanted her protected.

  "I still can't believe we own the Sterling Building, and we're going to move in. I'm still waiting for someone to come and tell me to get away from you." Lilly held on to him tighter.

  "No one can take you away from me now." He turned her until she faced him, wanting to go back to enjoying their first date. "Do you remember when you told me to grow up?"

  She frowned. "No..."

  "You were twelve years old or so and told me you were going to wait for me, because I had a lot of growing up to do. That always stuck with me, because you were right," he said, chuckling. "You always had a mouth on you."

  She smiled. "I was probably mad, because you were ignoring me."

  "Yeah, you were, because I told you to stop saying you loved me." He framed her face with his hands. "No one had ever told me they loved me before, and the feelings I got from your confession scared the shit out of me. You were just a kid, but you've always had an old soul."

  "Obviously a smart one too." She kissed him lightly.

  He held her tighter. "How did you know?"

  Her eyes softened and she stared at his mouth for a few seconds. He held his breath, afraid she wouldn't answer. He remained clueless on how someone could love him, and all his fucked up ways.

  "I've thought about that a lot, because you've always been a part of my life, I had a hard time figuring out where everything started. I think it goes back to when you first came to the
club. I overheard Torque talking to my dad one night." She rolled her eyes. "Okay, I was eavesdropping. They were talking about club business and having a beer out on the patio. I can't remember the whole conversation, but Dad started cussing and threw his bottle out into the woods...are you sure you want to hear this?"

  He nodded.

  She moistened her lips and continued. "Dad said he wanted to kill the people who damaged Ink enough he had to cut himself to feel any love that Bantorus MC wanted to give him. Before he killed them, he wanted to use his knife to pay them back and—"

  Ink pulled away, his hands fisting.

  "Ink...please. Dad didn't hurt whoever he was talking about. He wouldn't. He was upset. Even back then, I knew he was only frustrated over not protecting you sooner." Lilly put his hands on his back. "I'm sorry. I won't say anymore. I might not even be remembering the exact—"

  "Finish," he said, the word gutting him.

  "No. It's not—"

  "Finish the fucking story, Ace."

  She dropped her hands from his body. "Dad ordered Torque to buy you a tattoo kit, so you could hurt yourself without any questions from others and in a way that you'd be proud of your scars."

  The news hit him low and he bent at the waist, holding on to his knees. His thoughts swam and he squeezed his eyes closed. Rain had known. Torque had known. Lilly had always known. She'd been a child and knew the ugliness inside of him.

  "Ink, please. Look at me," she whispered. "This was a long time ago."

  He rubbed his hand over his face and straightened. The truth stripped him of the one thing he wanted to keep from her. She was too sensitive and too beautiful to understand what he'd gone through. She felt too much, and she'd fallen for a boy who couldn't feel.

  "Ink, let's go home."

  He nodded without looking at her. She moved first, and he followed. The tattoo kit he'd kept all these years wasn't left behind by a former Bantorus member like Torque had told him, but bought specifically for him to hide his scars.