He was top heavy and easy to knock over.
And as it always went in a fight, if you were the first on the floor, you were going to fucking lose.
I curled low and struck up toward his midsection, landing a painful blow to his spleen that sent him back a step. But he didn't hiss or curse in pain. It was the sheer impact that moved him, not the agony he should have been in.
When my next hook caught him on the jaw and sent him flying and there was still nothing from him- no cursing, no hesitation as he moved upward again, my gaze slid momentarily toward Edison and Pagan, all of us knowing exactly what was going on in the same moment.
Sunny Andrews was one of those freaks who didn't feel pain.
No wonder he got off inflicting it.
He had no idea what it felt like.
To say that, because of that little fact, the fight got ugly, would be a gross understatement.
By the time he was finally out cold, the entire floor of his small main room was streaked in blood, pretty much every last drop from him- the only solid strike he got on me causing my nose to bleed for a short moment before clotting up.
My hands, so accustomed to fighting, so used to the damage that it was hard to even break the skin anymore, actually fucking hurt as I looked down at the twisted, unconscious body of Sunny Andrews.
I curled and uncurled them, making sure I hadn't broken anything as we all moved back out and climbed silently into the car and turned toward home- Edison at the wheel because I had just walked toward the passenger instinctively, not trusting myself to drive.
"Know how much that fucker could have made in the ring?" Pagan broke the silence, shaking his head as he lit another cigarette, acknowledging that the idiot could have made the same amount of dough if he had not used it for evil.
It would be told late the next morning that Reign got the call.
Sunny Andrews hadn't made it through the night.
By the time paramedics had arrived, called by his father, he had stupidly tried to reset his own ribs and had punctured a lung, filled with blood, and suffocated to death.
It wasn't a painful end for such an evil fuck since he didn't feel it.
But it was fitting.
I wasn't a man who took lives.
But just that once, I was more than okay with it.
SIXTEEN
Bethany
He said nothing as he looked down at me.
Everything about him was unreadable for a long minute.
It was nothing like how he was when he came out of the ring at Hex where the fight was just a fight- just a way to please his boss and make some extra money. This was the kind of fight that obviously took a bit out of him. You could see the tension in the square set to his shoulders, in the muscle ticking in his jaw.
Or maybe I was projecting my own tension onto him based on the sheer amount of blood he had all up his jeans, across his white shirt, on his hands, his cheeks, dried in his hair.
My mouth felt weird and I swallowed hard to try to alleviate the sensation. "Shower?" I offered, my voice a little oddly wobbly.
He nodded at that and started toward the bathroom door, reaching inside to turn the light on before turning back to me. "You want to join?" he asked and his warm little smile was pulling at his lips.
"How about you wash off ninety-nine percent of that and I will take you up on the offer?"
Because right then and there I realized- it didn't change anything. It didn't change how I felt for him if he had gone out and beat or killed the men who hurt me. It didn't, in my eyes, make him any lesser of a person, any worse of a man.
There was a different set of rules, it seemed, to this biker lifestyle. I had learned earlier what had happened to a man named Lex Keith when Wolf found out what he had done to Janie when she was just a girl. I learned about the damage Cash had done to Lo's abusive ex. I got the painful, ugly details of what Duke had done to the men who carved into Penny's back.
They didn't live inside of normal society.
Their rules of conduct were entirely different.
It wasn't good enough to hold your woman after someone hurt her and tell her all would be okay with no proof that it would.
These men weren't satisfied with that.
These men wanted to make sure that when they said those words, that they knew they were true, because they had already handled the situation themselves.
Was it barbaric and illegal?
Sure.
But there was a certain kind of poetic justice to it as well.
I wasn't going to cry over the pain or death of men who had caused nothing else to everyone they crossed paths with.
And so long as Lazarus was okay with the whole situation, I was as well.
So after I gave him a good five minutes after I heard the water hit the floor of the shower stall, I moved into the bathroom, stepping over the discarded clothes saturated with blood, and stood in front of the shower, slowly peeling off my clothes.
Lazarus, sensing my presence, opened his eyes, turning his head slightly to face me, the water cascading over the top of his head and down his back, sliding all over the areas I suddenly longed to touch.
His eyes went heated as my breasts were bared, as I reached to slide my pants and panties down my legs, stepping out of the material and standing there naked for a long time, letting his eyes rake over me, sensing his need to take me in inch by inch, fighting any urge to hide myself from his hungry gaze.
He pushed off where his hand was planted at the wall, languidly stretching to his full height and offering his hand toward me, waiting for me to slide my fingers into his before yanking me forward, crashing my full body to his.
My air exhaled with a grunt that ended on a small groan as I felt his hard cock press into my belly- promising an eventual end to my sudden torment.
"Heard you were worried about me." His voice was low and deep as his arms crossed under my ass, holding me tightly against him as, despite the hot water, my nipples tweaked and hardened almost painfully against his chest.
"I have callouses to prove it." I lifted my hands for him to inspect, but his hands refused to budge from my bottom so he leaned down instead, kissing the raised, painful and rough patch right underneath my fingers.
I put my hands to his chest and slid them upward, wrapping around the back of his neck and letting out a rush of breath when it forced his body closer to me- his erection somehow even harder already.
"Also heard you talked to Amy." At my blank look, he added, "Amelia. Shooter's girl."
"Oh. Right. Yeah, I really like her. She's very, um, non-invasive and just... accepting. I wasn't expecting that."
I always thought of any kind of therapy as someone asking inane stuff like 'what color are you feeling like today' and 'you need to start a feelings journal' or other nonsense like that.
It was refreshing to know that not all people in that type of field were that way- that some were just... real with you.
He nodded slightly at that and gave me a soft smile. "I plan to take you to bed for at least a week. But once we climb out of it, we are going to start going to meetings. Together," he clarified.
"I don't need you to..."
"No. You don't need me there to hold your hand. But wouldn't it be better if I was there? I go to meetings still, sweetheart. I probably always will. And it's something you need to incorporate into your routine as well. So we're going to do it together."
Maybe it wasn't a grand romantic gesture.
Maybe it wouldn't make a 'normal' girl swoon.
But to me, that really meant something.
He saw a future with me. And he was under no illusions. He understood my addiction and his addiction would always be a part of any relationship with us. He didn't want to gloss over that, hide it, act like it was a source of shame. It was just part of who we were as individuals and a couple. He was okay with that. He wanted to be a support system for me and I wanted to be that to him as well in any way that I could. It
didn't make us weak. If anything, it was genuinely a source of strength between us- how we wanted to raise each other up whenever we could.
That was unique.
Not everyone had that.
I still may not have felt deserving of it, but I was so incredibly thankful that I had it.
"I like that," I admitted, giving him a smile I felt down to my soul.
"Know what I like?" There was a depth in his tone, something heavy and meaningful, the weight of it making me somewhat uncomfortable.
So I deflected.
"My ass?" He looked taken aback for a second before a slow, strange smile pulled at his lips. "Because you can't seem to let go of it," I added, giggling when he squeezed the cheeks.
"Well, that, yeah." He was looking suddenly devilish, a glint in his eye that made my belly wobble deliciously. "And your tits. Your pussy. Your sweet mouth. That fucking face."
"Especially the chin," I piped in, knowing he always ended up touching the cleft before letting me go.
"This chin?" he asked, bending down and biting into it comically, making a wild animal growling noise as I threw back my head to laugh. "Yeah," he said with a grin as he pulled back, "I guess you can say I'm a fan of that too. But that wasn't what I was talking about."
The weight was back in his words and that time, it made my belly do a flip-flop. "What were you talking about then?"
"You, sweetheart. I'm a big fucking fan of you."
Told you he was the one, my heart said, warm and melty.
Can't argue with that anymore, my brain agreed.
EPILOGUE
Bethany- 8 days
It was what one might expect from a local NA meeting.
Whether that was good or bad was up to personal tastes, I guess.
To me, the common room in a local Baptist church felt cold and informal. The walls offered nothing but sterile whiteness and morbid pictures of Jesus nailed to a cross. The floor was well-worn and I imagined thousands of worshippers congregating there for Christmas and Easter services or prayer groups- their fancy formal shoes scuffing up the wide-plank wooden floors, the lacquer long faded.
There were simple gray and beige metal folding chairs lined up in short rows with a narrow aisle down the center for speakers to get up and down from their chairs.
Lazarus' hand squeezed mine hard enough to snap me out of my own swirling thoughts for long enough to be led over to the last row where he pushed me in and sat at the aisle.
"We're just here to listen," he reminded me, pulling the top of my hand on top of his knee, still holding it tight in his wide palm.
He had made good on his promise; he took me to bed for a week.
I was pretty sure I truly did need some Pedialyte to make up for all the fluids I had lost with the wild, rough, hard, inventive sex as well as the slow, sweet, passionate kind that could be called nothing other than lovemaking.
But that very morning, he came back out of the bathroom after giving me hard and rough, my body still a puddle of uselessness, and told me that that night we were hitting our first NA meeting.
Maybe there had been a part of me that had hoped he forgot about it. I should have known better. Lazarus, because he had been there himself, knew there was no other way out of an addiction than through it. That meant not just staying clean and away from old contacts, it meant going and hearing stories and eventually telling your own.
Burying your head and ignoring the addiction wouldn't help. That was how relapses happened.
He was looking out for me.
So even though my skin felt creepy-crawly and my heart was slamming in my chest at being in a room full of (anonymous) strangers who still knew just from my presence that I was an addict, and my hand was sweating against his hand, I knew he was doing what needed to be done.
To ensure my sobriety.
To build a future with me.
And that right there was why I was going to suck up my fears and nerves and general distaste for the very idea of being at a NA meeting. Because for the first time in far too long- I had someone other than myself to care for, to have be proud of me, to have the possibility of disappointing.
That, well, it meant everything.
Lazarus - 3 months
"Come on, one more fight."
Ross and I were sitting in his office at Hex, legs propped up on his shiny desk, his pristine dress shoes across from my beat-up leather combat boots.
"She doesn't like seeing me in there."
It really was that simple for me. Since that first night at Hex with her, she had been to two other fights while Ross struggled to find some decent guys to fill in his empty spaces. She had happily gotten dressed, slipped into uncomfortable shoes, and rode my bike in with me. She would stand there and watch the other fights somewhat impassively and go to the bar when Pagan got into the ring because she just wasn't a fan of his particular brand of brutal, telling me one night that it would make her view him differently to watch him fight and that she didn't want that because she liked the crazy fuck.
But the second I got into that ring, her entire body went stiff, her jaw clenched hard enough for her teeth to hurt, her eyes guarded, but worried.
I didn't like seeing her looking that way.
For me, it was that easy.
She didn't like it, I didn't want to subject her to it.
I was over the fighting anyway. I preferred the gig as a guard. And Ross was always in need of one he could trust.
"She know you're quitting because of her?"
Ross wasn't exactly a small-talk kind of guy. But we had known each other long enough to occasionally indulge in it.
"Nope."
"She gonna be happy?"
"Pissed, probably."
Which was why I didn't tell her it was my intention to do it. I wanted to tell her after the fact.
See, while we were settling in, while she was comfortable enough to let her guard down around me, to talk to me more about the uglier parts of her childhood, the moments of helpless anger while caring for her mother, the lows she hit while using, she still didn't feel safe enough with me.
Safe enough to rock the boat.
She was constantly afraid that if she did, she might fall- or be tossed- overboard.
So she never fought. Even when I knew she wasn't happy about something, she bit her lip and went along with it. With some things, like the meetings, I was glad she wasn't making a big deal about it because I knew she needed them. But for other things, the just between the two of us, normal things? I wanted her to feel secure enough to fucking pitch a fit if she wanted to- to rant and rave and bitch at me until my goddamn balls shrank.
Because that was a sign that we were good, we were on solid ground- being able to fight without it bothering our foundations.
We were nowhere near that point because she steadfastly refused to fight.
But I had a feeling this was going to be the final straw- me doing something because of her and her feelings. Because she had some misguided notion that I would resent her for me making the choice.
Which was ridiculous.
I planned to tell her that much.
And hopefully it ended up with her screaming and pacing and throwing shit.
After that, it would end in rough, wild, ear-drum shatteringly good make-up sex.
Bethany
"I didn't ask you to do that!" It wasn't quite a shriek, but it was damn close.
We were in the kitchen at the clubhouse, one room away form Edison, Pagan, Reeve, and Cyrus. Why he was choosing to tell me this information in a public sort of place was completely beyond me.
He was giving up fighting? For me?
Um.
Hell no.
"You didn't have to ask, sweetheart. I know you don't like being there."
"That's not true, I..."
"You like every part but seeing me in that ring."
He wasn't wrong.
It didn't seem to matter how much I tried to psych myself up, how I tr
ied to steel my stomach, how I tried to remind myself that it was a job, I never could feel okay watching him get hurt.
Maybe he was used to it.
But I knew I would never be.
That still was not a good enough reason for him to quit.
Someday, maybe not soon, maybe years down the road when he was too old to fight anyway, he was going to resent me for it. He was going to think I stole something unique from his life, that I had tried to change him.
I wasn't going to be spending the next decade waiting for this decision of his to blow up in my face.
"It's already done," he shrugged, walking toward the fridge and grabbing two ginger ales. I no longer needed them to settle my stomach, but it was more of a comfort thing now. It was the same for him, even after all the years.
"Then call Ward and undo it!" My voice was definitely getting above my normal speaking tone.
That had always been a careful line I walked.
I didn't like fighting almost as a rule.
And the idea of fighting with Lazarus made me, quite frankly, feel like I was going to throw up.
"No."
No?
No talking, no discussion, just no?
"I'm pretty sure we are supposed to discuss decisions like this." I said, my voice a pitch higher still.
"Nah."
He actually turned away from me and shrugged at that.
Like discussing it was a ridiculous idea.
I wasn't sure what possessed me to do it. But one second he was walking away from me toward the doorway. The next, my hand closed around an empty to-go coffee cup and hurled it at his head.
"I want to talk about this!"
That time, it totally was a shriek.
"We can talk about it all you want," he said, a strange smile tugging at his lips, completely inappropriate given the situation. "After you get your pretty ass in that bed and let me fuck this attitude out of you."
Oh.
Lazarus (The Henchmen MC Book 7) Page 21