by V. Theia
Was that the reason he never returned to New York?
Addison was not a nice woman at all.
And her point last night was never more true.
That woman didn’t deserve the affections of the Hunt brothers.
TWELVE
“The damning judgment of Souls.” – Texas
Now Texas was back in Armado Springs, he couldn’t avoid running into a Souls wherever he went.
He caught sight of Tag at the gym, sparring with a young guy. They exchanged a chin lift.
Out running he was passed by three of the Souls bikes and it was Arson who turned around and looked at Texas but the bikes carried on riding.
And just today, in the hardware store of all places it was Uncle Jed who cornered Texas when he was trying to avoid the old man.
“How’s it going, son?”
“Yeah, fine, Jed. And you?”
“Ah, can’t complain. The grandkids are like wild animals at home, so I brought myself out for a bit of peace.” He said it with a grin on his old face. Texas knew for a fact that Jed was a family man and loved having them over. “Doing some decorating?” He pointed to the cans of paint in Texas’ arms.
“Just doing up the lower apartments at my place, something to do.” He added before he was asked if he was going to rent them out.
He might one day, when he took off for good.
He couldn’t stick around Armado, not now.
Jed followed Texas out to his Ford Raptor and stood back while he put his purchases in the bed of the truck.
“I understand, son.” Jed said and had Texas turning around to face him.
A sense of unease pooled in his lower stomach.
Was this how it was gonna be every time he saw one of the Souls? Either ghosting him like a spurned girlfriend or confronting him?
“What happened, I understand why you did it. Gotta be a tough position to be in having a cop brother who has a boner for all MC’s. And what with you being a member of the biggest, that’s bound to sting him.”
As he stood there, the fire in Texas’ gut intensified.
He didn’t want justification or understanding.
He’d fucked up.
That didn’t deserve anyone’s forgiveness.
But Jed went on in his roughened voice.
“In your position most of us would have done the same, son. We’ve always protected our own. Sometimes that shit ain’t pretty. We do what is needed and then we gotta roll with the punches even when it hurts a whole fuckin’ lot.”
“Look, Jed…”
“I mean it, Tait.” Fucks sake, first naming him, the old man meant business.
Texas dropped his head, leaning a hand on the side of his truck, he pulled in a quick inhale just to steady himself.
He knew coming back to Armado that he’d have to reinforce a shield to deal with seeing the boys, but this… this shit got right under those shields.
“The wrong doing was not fuckin’ telling us. You looked out for the Souls in a difficult situation, we’re gonna be grateful for that, son, you gotta know that, even with what went down.”
“Rider might have killed my brother…”
“Yeah, I’m getting that and understanding more about why you did it.”
For all the differences he and Malachai had now, that was his one thought throughout, if he didn’t intervene, if he didn’t cut off his brother, then Rider surely would have done and Texas couldn’t live with that. Couldn’t have lived knowing his twin would receive a visit from Lawless.
“Far as I know, he was never looking at the Souls for anything major.”
“We’ve never been bothered about that, son. You know we have thick skin with the law.” Jed smiled and then clapped a hand on Texas’ shoulder. “We miss seeing you, it’s a crying shame we lost you. None of those boys know how to fucking count.”
This Texas laughed at.
It also told him that no one had his treasurer patch.
He felt oddly relieved about it.
“I hear you got a girl.”
“Nah, just a friend staying with me, I’m helping her out while she’s had a bit of trouble.”
“Yeah, Axel auctioning off that little girl,” Jed hissed. “He’s a piece of work. You should bring your girl around for dinner, my Helen would love to meet her.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening but he appreciated the gesture all the same.
How could he self-punish if people kept being fucking nice to him?
That night as bad luck would have it, he took Poppy out for dinner, having breathed in paint fumes all day. And instead of going to Otis’ bar and grill, a known Souls hangout, they went to Boondocks Lounge and didn’t you know, nearly every Souls boys was there.
They clocked him almost as soon as he clocked them and he nearly reversed his feet, if not for Poppy sashaying her ass up to the bar to perch on a stool.
Giving him a hurry up look.
“Is that your old club over there?” She whispered into his shoulder when he leaned an arm on the bar and ordered two drinks. “Yep.”
“Do you want to leave?”
Yeah, he did. But he wouldn’t.
“Nah, it’s fine. Grab a menu.”
Food ordered; they found a booth out of the way though his hearing was on high alert for any sense of trouble. He was already getting the stink eye from Capone.
“I can’t believe you were in a motorcycle club, Tait. Was it fun?”
Fun might be the wrong word he’d choose.
It was togetherness. Knowing you belonged somewhere and that at any time, there was someone who had your back.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“Do you miss it?”
Her hand covered his and at the same time they inhaled when jolted zips shot through both their arms. Before she could pull her fingers away he locked on around them and stroked her knuckles with a thumb.
“Is that what you wanna talk about, Poppy? How much I’ve changed? How I’m not the same guy you knew a million years ago?”
She blinked and watched how he stroked her fingers. “You are different.”
“So are you. You’re no longer a little girl who would follow me around the country club or dog my steps at my family’s estate.”
She blushed to the cap of her hair and Texas held back his grin.
“That’s because everyone else there sucked, you were the most tolerable.”
He just smirked.
“Did you…” she cleared her throat. “Did you do dangerous things?”
Back and forth, her eyes followed the pattern of his stroking thumb.
She had skin like silk.
Skin he shouldn’t even be touching seeing as how she was a taken woman.
Story of his life.
Any day now he expected a knock on the door with her fiancé coming to take her back home where she belonged.
His thumb didn’t let up.
“Not really. I was the money man.” He didn’t go into details how he cleaned bad money and made it legitimate. Texas got such a kick out of doing that, and he’d been damn good at it. Rider never had any complaints of their profits.
It was as far from the job as his father wanted for him and at every turn, whenever he did something illegal, Texas grinned to himself knowing how appalled his old man would be.
“Why do they hate you?”
She’d quickly picked up on the animosity.
His thumb had moved to her inner wrist, tracing the thin blue veins.
Almost hypnotizing himself with how soft she was.
Their kiss still plagued him.
Two rounds of jerking off this morning still didn’t calm his body.
Whatever crush or gratitude she was feeling toward him, being the only man she’d turned to, it didn’t take away the fact she regretted crawling into his mouth and kissing the hell out of him.
She was probably waiting impatiently for the fiancé to ride in and take her back.
“I did so
mething wrong which was against club rules.”
“Did you kill someone? Hurt someone?”
“No, but club rules are law, babe.”
He just wanted to get out of there, but chance was a fine thing when a shadow fell over their table and Texas reared his head to see Preacher, Tag and Arson standing there.
A showdown it is then.
“Don’t worry, we’re leaving.” he told them and felt Poppy slip further across the booth near him, he could practically hear the way she trembled and he placed a hand on her thigh under the table. She covered his hand and squeezed.
“No need,” Preacher grinned big and wide as only Preacher could and look friendly and like a thug at the same time. “Just came to say hey, seeing as your rude ass saw us and didn’t come over.”
All of them would have taken the vote on him being kicked out, that’s how Rider worked, he was always diplomatic with his patched brothers.
Why then they wanted anything to do with him on a friendly basis, he didn’t know. But he’d always had respect for them, so he wasn’t gonna get into an argument.
And not with Poppy digging her nails into the back of his hand.
“Well hello again, pretty thing.” Arson said, his eyes glued to Poppy and Texas felt a new heat fill him.
It wasn’t a good heat.
In fact, he felt violent with the way Arson was licking the corner of his lips watching Poppy.
What the fuck? Hello again?
“Didn’t know you knew Texas.”
About to interrupt and tell Arson she wasn’t the kind of girl he could crack on with, she was not a MC groupie who didn’t mind being shared around or being fucked in public as was Arson’s way.
Until now Texas didn’t give a fuck what the guy did.
But Arson was looking at Poppy like he could taste her and that shit didn’t sit well with him at all.
A possession like nothing he’d ever felt before made him stake his claim with a heated back the fuck off glare.
As a growl brewed in his chest wall, it was Poppy who spoke first.
“Yes, I do. He owns me.”
He owns me.
The blast of her words… sure as hell he shouldn’t enjoy them, but he felt claimed by those three words.
All three men guffawed with barrel laughs.
Texas wouldn’t deny her the claim, not when Arson still had his eyes all over her where her shirt dipped down in front to showcase a fantastic rack.
“You want to take your eyes back, Arson.” He warned and clashed stares with the former brother.
Suddenly the air stirred because Arson, as Texas knew, loved nothing more than a challenge where pussy was concerned.
Someone he couldn’t have, suddenly became cotton candy to the guy.
The guy looked half cut as it was, swaying a little on his feet as he tucked thumbs into his belt.
“Maybe I don’t,” he tried to confront. “She doesn’t look very owned to me.”
“Well I am,” she burst out, “so if you don’t have anything nice to say to Tait, then perhaps you gentlemen should leave us alone.”
Jesus.
Where did this mouth come from? He cocked his head to the side and saw how highlighted in embarrassment her cheeks were.
It was Preacher who laughed and broke the tension by shoving Arson away from his table. “You heard the lady, fuck off, you randy bastard.”
Arson didn’t quit though, even as he ambled off, he turned to wink at Poppy and blew her a kiss.
Texas felt it in his bones.
Possessiveness.
He might not agree with her claim, but in the eyes of Arson and his dick, she absolutely belonged to him.
He was keeping her safe and untouched for her to return to her former life, he lied to himself.
Even as his own dick started to ache.
She was standing up for him and that felt good too.
Giving her thigh another squeeze he smiled from the corner of his mouth at her and watched her eyes light up.
Yeah, she was definitely feeling him and dumbass that he’d become, he soaked it in.
And his moral dilemma being, did he fuck around with Poppy Astor as she so clearly wanted him to, or do as his conscience urged and send her back home.
The conversation with Preacher and Tag was pretty neutral, he asked about Tag’s next fight and Preacher’s old lady and kids and that’s when Poppy excused herself to the restroom.
It was only when ten minutes went by that he got worried and thought about Arson following her and without much of a word to Preacher and Tag standing there, he slipped out of the booth and strode to the back of the bar, ready to throw down if need be.
But he found her in the small restroom hallways, slumped to the wall, cradling her phone to her chest.
On instant alert for her distress, he took hold of the top of her arms, “What’s wrong, did someone bother you?”
He saw her eyes were flooded with tears ready to tip down her porcelain cheeks.
Texas had never experienced many opportunities to protect a woman, not one he cared for, or was attracted to. He would have always protected the brothers old ladies, that was a given, but he wasn’t attached to those women, not in this sense that it burned his chest.
“No, I… I decided to call my parents. They’re worse than mad at me, Tait. They said how I’ve ruined my family name and there’s no going back for me now, not until I fix my mistakes.”
Damn. The fucking crème de le crème of high society always fired the hardest bullets.
Say what you will about bikers being scary or hardcases, but they tell it like it is. No one spared a person’s feelings, but they were never duplicitous either.
“It’ll be okay, little girl. They’re not going to kick you out when you go home.”
“I’m not going home. Not ever. I left for a reason, Tait. Not just because of Ronnie. I was stifled. I couldn’t breathe, they wouldn’t let me live.”
Tears did fall then and he had no choice but to pull her into his chest, it was a need he didn’t ignore and didn’t dig into the reasons why he felt like he could only exhale properly when he was holding her.
She clung both arms tightly around his waist and found his chest with her face. “Parents are supposed to love you no matter what.” She cried. “Why can’t they just love me for me?”
“I don’t know, little girl, but it’s their issue, not yours.”
Poor baby. Those Astor’s were a piece of work.
“Mom just text and said she would send all my clothes and things express tomorrow.”
His tongue felt like an out of control rattlesnake not asking about the guy.
Where the fuck was the guy in all this?
She’d been with him nearly a week, she’d been at Axel’s compound another week before that, that was two fucking weeks and there was no sign of the guy she was marrying.
Either she’d gotten herself into a marriage of convenience or she really had planned to marry some sexless wonder who didn’t know how dicks worked.
Because having a woman like Poppy, all soft and good smelling and the way her tits fit against his chest. Any guy would be chasing her ass down to get her back.
He felt attraction swell between them as she lifted her tear stained face to look at him all pitiful and cute.
He was a man with many flaws and one of those glaring flaws came to the front like a soldier at war as he cupped her face and teased the tears back with his thumbs.
He always seemed to find himself wanting women who were already taken.
What the hell did that say about what kind of man he was?
“Can we just go home, Tait?” She whined, clutching his upper body. Her whimpers clinging just as equally deep and he couldn’t ignore them. “I just want to go home and be with you.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
He felt that.
He knew he shouldn’t.
He knew her words didn’t mean what his dick
were interpreting them to mean.
But what he knew about himself was, Texas was great at compartmentalizing shit and ignoring what he didn’t like. He’d done it so often with the club and Malachai that it was easy to ignore she was not a woman he could grow attached to.
She might have run away from that guy, but they weren’t over.
She had another life, a better life than a washed up has-been biker could offer her.
And still his system flooded with endorphins, churning her pleading words around his brain, making each word stick to the inside of his head.
I own her, she’s mine.
Not even with Addison did he ever get the sense he was looking at a woman who was lost and he’d found home.
Something pulsed in his chest, even when he pushed it aside, ignored the rapid thumping of his heart as if his bones and skin were telling him he’d found this girl and he shouldn’t give her back.
Finders keepers.
THIRTEEN
“The sins of a biker are endless.” Capone
“Why the hell are you going over there for?” Capone hissed, his scowl as black as it ever had been. He didn’t get why the brothers wanted to fall over themselves to go and talk to a traitor.
The guy had done the club wrong; did no one realize that?
He didn’t just get fired from a job he wasn’t good at.
He broke the cardinal club rule.
Capone brooded the whole time Preacher and the rest were over there having tea or whatever they were doing.
He also noted the girl clinging to Texas on their way out.
Texas’ life wasn’t so much ruined then, he sucked his disgust through his teeth.
As a pack, the boys made their way out of the bar. Capone’s bike was parked near their florist, the place they had as a front to one of the Souls gambling dens.
The others split off from him in the opposite direction and it was when he was steps from his bike he caught the conversation up ahead with a woman saying. “I’m sorry I ruined the night.”
“It’s not ruined, Poppy.”
Capone swore in Spanish under his breath. It was Texas and his hot piece.
Hardening his spine, he kept in step, listening to the woman whining and Texas pacifying her that everything would be okay.