Bad Apple (The Uncertain Saints MC #4)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I snorted.

  “You should be careful what you say or he’ll hear you and complain to Ridley,” I said soothingly.

  “Fuck them both.”

  With that eloquent statement, Apple left the room, leaving me smiling at his back as he went.

  ***

  Dinner and the rest of the night had been magical, but the moment Ridley arrived home at ten, I’d sent Apple home.

  Why?

  Because he was falling asleep on his feet.

  He hadn’t been happy to be sent away, but the promise of seeing him in the morning before he went to work had given him enough incentive to leave even when he didn’t want to go.

  And now here I was, three oh three in the morning, and I was wide awake because his child liked to play.

  I’d been awake for going on an hour when I decided that a visit to Apple was in order.

  Certainly if I had to be up because of his child, so did he.

  Right?

  I knew it totally contradicted the entire reason I’d sent him home, but I wasn’t thinking clearly any more. I was running on just as much, if not less, sleep than him.

  I decided I was right after another twenty minutes of second guessing myself.

  Getting up, I walked to my closet door and grabbed the first pair of shoes I could find, which happened to be my boots.

  Then I went to the bathroom and gathered up the shorts I’d slipped on after my shower.

  Once I’d slipped both my shorts and boots on, I grabbed my sweatshirt off the back of my chair and opened my window.

  Luckily, I’d covered my camera before I’d gone to bed, or Ridley would be receiving a call right about now telling him I was trying to sneak out.

  Why he’d get one, I didn’t know. I was a grown ass adult, but since I knew Jake was on duty, I knew he’d think it necessary to call Ridley ‘in case I hurt myself’.

  Or whatever shit he’d come up with for calling.

  Ridley was absolutely crazy if he didn’t see that something was wrong with that weird man who watched my every move.

  Apple realized it with one single phone call.

  Ridley had dozens, and he still didn’t see the big deal.

  I contemplated this for the entirety of my walk, and had just come to the decision that I’d be bringing this up with Ridley tomorrow when I arrived to Apple’s driveway.

  I smiled when I wasn’t met with just one, but three of Apple’s dogs.

  I wasn’t actually sure the exact number he had, but I was sure there were more than just the three.

  “Hello,” I sang to the dogs.

  Their tails swished in the dirt, and I touched each of their heads once as I walked past.

  They didn’t move from their spot, and I was tempted to walk around them to see if I could get them to move.

  But my eyes were already heavy, and my ankles were hurting from the walk.

  Not to mention my back, which always seemed to hurt lately, was killing me.

  And then there was my pubic bone.

  That one felt like it was cracking each time I took a step.

  I’d asked my doctor, on one of my many visits, if it was normal for a pubic bone to feel like it was about to crack in half, and he’d said it was more than normal. That it was the ligaments that were stretching and preparing for birth that were the cause.

  Knowing that it was normal didn’t make it better, though.

  I still hurt like a motherfucker each time I took a step. Or moved wrong. Or rolled over in bed. Or painted my toes.

  Okay, it hurt all the fucking time.

  I didn’t think there was a time it didn’t hurt, unless I was sleeping and able to ignore it.

  Except I wasn’t sleeping all that much, now was I?

  “Goodnight, doggies,” I called as I walked past them and down the driveway.

  I went straight to the barn, closing the door behind me as I went inside.

  My eyes went straight up the stairs to find the huge barn doors up top closed as well, which meant that Apple was likely in there with the air conditioner on.

  He’d said he rarely closed them unless the air was on, and even though it was only February, it’d been in the mid-eighties all week.

  It cooled down at night, but the big barn was fast to heat up, and slow to cool down, according to one of our few conversations.

  So I climbed the stairs, wincing with each step.

  Once I reached the barn doors, I slid one door softly open just far enough that I could squeeze inside, and closed it just as soundlessly behind myself.

  Then I looked to the bed where Apple was lying, and I strongly urged myself not to do it.

  I really shouldn’t have.

  I swear to God, I was telling myself not to, but the way he was sleeping so peacefully with his hands tucked under his face like a fucking angel had my eyes narrowing.

  “Apple!” I bellowed.

  He sat up in the bed like he’d been cattle prodded, his eyes crazy, as he looked around the room sightlessly.

  It was then I saw the gun in his hand.

  I never said I made smart decisions.

  Sometimes they were terrible decisions, in fact.

  Like starting paralegal school. Or working at a gas station graveyard shift. Or having unprotected sex because I thought my medication rendered me infertile.

  Yes, I made terrible decisions, and seeing Apple with a gun in his hand pointed at the roof had my eyes widening.

  “Shit,” I apologized. “I’m sorry.”

  His eyes finally turned to me, and he narrowed them dangerously low.

  “What. The. Fuck,” he said through clenched teeth. “I could have shot you.”

  “Well, aren’t you glad I’m over here waking you up rather than standing over you?” I asked, hoping making light of the situation would bring the tension level in the room down minutely.

  It didn’t.

  In fact, he got angrier.

  “Next time, call,” he said through a growl.

  I narrowed my eyes, then turned around and threw the barn doors open.

  “Maybe next time I won’t come at all,” I threw over my shoulder as I started to stomp down the stairs.

  It hurt like a bitch to do, too. But I did it.

  I made it all the way to the bottom and about five steps into the hayloft before I felt him behind me.

  I would’ve run if I wasn’t humongous elephant pregnant, but I did have some sense, after all.

  So I continued my pace towards the set of barn doors that would lead outside, trying to ignore the impending doom I could feel baring down on me.

  And bare down it did.

  He had his hand around my waist, pulling me back against his chest - his naked chest, might I add - in the next second.

  He stopped me with another hand in my hair.

  “How about you check the attitude and tell me what was so important that you just scared the shit out of me and nearly got shot for?” He whispered gratingly against my ear.

  His beard tickled my neck, and his words, although threatening, made my seriously in need of a fucking vagina, clench with need.

  Shivers raced down my spine at the deadly quiet of his tone. The seriousness of it.

  I was horny.

  I was emotional.

  I was in need of a good fucking.

  That was the stitch.

  I needed it, and he needed to give it to me.

  But I didn’t want nice and sweet Apple.

  I found that I wanted a rough and little bit angry Apple.

  The one I’d woken up and scared ten years off his life.

  “Why the fuck do you care?” I asked. “I just wanted to see if you were where you said you were going to be.”

  His body, which had been loosening, tightened back up again.

  “What did you say?” He asked carefully.

  I turned, and with him not letting g
o of my hair, it made his grip seem tighter even though he hadn’t moved so much as an inch.

  My belly pushed him even further away, but he didn’t seem to notice as he glared into my eyes.

  The only thing that was lighting the dark room around us was a single harsh bulb high above our heads, casting an eerie yellow glow in about a five-foot radius all around us.

  The shadows on Apple’s face made him appear more sinister, and even though I was loathe to admit it, he looked even hotter.

  And the anger I could see in his eyes, as well as the stiff way he held his body, was clearly not conveying the correct information.

  At least not to me.

  “You heard me,” I said, poking him with a stiffened finger in the chest.

  His bare chest.

  And as I looked down, his even barer lower half.

  I say barer because his chest had a smattering of chest hair that I’d never actually seen before.

  We’d had sex all of two times together, and I’d yet to see him without his shirt on.

  I could see scars.

  In fact, my finger was directly in the middle of one scar that started at his collarbone and curled around his pectoral muscle, making a divot where it trailed through.

  I could also see something wrong with his right shoulder, but the second my eyes lit on the mangled flesh, his hand that’d been around my body was now fastened to my chin. Holding my face in place so I couldn’t let my eyes drift beyond where he wanted me to look.

  “Don’t look at me,” he ordered.

  I laughed in his face.

  “I can look at you if I want to look at you. You’re mine, aren’t you?” I challenged him. “Or was what you said two days ago a lie? Maybe you don’t really want me like you say you want me.”

  His eyes narrowed, and a glow seemed to light from somewhere deep within him.

  His hand that’d been in my hair pulled me impossibly closer, and the one that was on my chin let go of me and took up a place in my hair as well.

  “How about you drop to your knees and see how much I don’t want you?” He suggested vulgarly. “Take my hard cock in your mouth and see.”

  I think he thought that maybe by being crude like that, I’d leave him alone long enough for him to regain control.

  Control that he so desperately needed.

  He was obviously worried that he’d scare me away if he showed me this side of him, and I just knew that I had to break through the wall.

  I had to let him know that I could handle all of him.

  The scars. The anger. The self-loathing.

  I had to prove to him that I could handle all that he had to give, even if what he had to give wasn’t all that great, before he’d give himself over fully to me.

  Although this wasn’t what I’d come here to accomplish, it seemed like as good of a time as any to get this over with.

  I’d been holding my anger in for months.

  I was so pissed off, and still was, that he’d dropped me as if I was nothing to him, all because of some look I gave him and he misread.

  To be honest, I had a lot of pent up anger that I would love to unleash on him.

  Starting now.

  “How about I get on my knees so you can treat me like a whore? A faceless nobody that can’t see your body. Doesn’t know anything about you,” I said snidely. “Is that what you want me to be? Someone who looks pretty on your arm, who has your kid, but doesn’t ask you for anything else? Maybe someone who’s not fucked up like I am?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t want anybody else.”

  “Well, you could’ve fooled me, Apple,” I hissed, poking his left pec with my right pointer finger as I rose up on my toes to get my face into his. “Most people that want someone go after them. What have you done?”

  I really didn’t know why I was antagonizing him the way I was.

  Clearly I’d lost my mind, as well as the filter on my mouth. Otherwise, I would’ve seen the state I was working him into.

  But I didn’t.

  I just kept going. And going. And going.

  Until suddenly, he just snapped.

  One second I was poking him in the chest, and the next I was on my knees while he grabbed a hold of his cock.

  My knees were on the cool wood floor of the barn, and I was extremely turned on.

  But I couldn’t let him handle me like this. I was pregnant after all. Weren’t you supposed to act a certain way when you were pregnant?

  I opened my mouth to protest, but before I could get a single word out, my mouth was filled with him.

  “Obviously,” he said through clenched teeth. “You need something constructive to do with that mouth.”

  I moaned around his cock, causing him to hiss in a breath of air.

  “Now you’ll listen to me,” he said. “Suck it. Move your mouth on my cock.” He made a sound of approval. “That’s it. Use your hand. Good girl.”

  I did as instructed, moving my mouth up and down his shaft while I copied the rhythm I’d set with my hand.

  I pulled back and let my tongue circle the tip of his penis, tasting a drop of pre-come that leaked out of his cock.

  “Are you listening?” He growled. “Give me your eyes and let me know you hear me.”

  I looked up at him, sucking the tip of his throbbing cock back into my mouth, and gave him my eyes.

  “I fucking love you. I’ve loved you since you said you liked my goats,” he said.

  I blinked, backing off slightly.

  “No, don’t stop,” he ordered, tightening his hold in my hair and roughly shoving himself further into my mouth.

  I kept going, but my heart, not to mention my mouth, was full to bursting.

  All I wanted to do was to stand up and impale myself on his cock.

  But I was logical.

  I was thirty-two weeks pregnant, and there was no way I could climb him like a proverbial tree.

  That, and I wanted to hear what else the man had to say.

  And I was glad I kept going, licking, sucking, and teasing.

  Because he gave me what I wanted.

  “I suffer from depression,” he said through a pant. “And I wake up sometimes and my head’s not in a good place. But all I have to do is think of you and our baby we made, and it makes everything okay. Not good, but okay. The only thing—the only thing, Kitt—that makes it better is when you’re with me. Every day. I’m tired. I’m just so goddamned tired of fighting everything, baby.”

  His eyes stayed on mine, and despite his telling me not to stop, I did anyway.

  I let his cock slip from my mouth with a nice long lick down the length of his shaft, and then got up.

  He didn’t protest this time.

  His hands did stay in my hair, however.

  “I know we haven’t spent much time together,” I said to him, moving as close as his cock and my belly would allow. “But not a day has gone by, since I met you, that I haven’t thought about you. In fact, it would be safe to say not a single day has gone by where I haven’t thought about you several times. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve wished you were there holding me at night. I’m damn tired, too, of fighting what I feel for you, and I honestly don’t want to do it anymore. I’m fucked up. Beyond fucked up. You’re fucked up. Apple, why can’t we just be fucked up together?”

  “I’m possessive,” he warned, pulling my face closer to his.

  I laughed.

  “So?” I challenged.

  “I have to take medication,” he informed me.

  I smiled, grabbing a hold of his cock and pumping it softly.

  It was still hard enough to pound nails. Sleek, smooth skin wrapped around a rock hard shaft. So hard, in fact, that he could probably fuck me for hours without slowing.

  “I don’t know if you’re aware, but I take medication, too,” I told him.

  He pressed a wet kiss against my lips, trailing his
tongue along the seam.

  “I have nightmares.”

  He was letting it all hang out.

  Good, me too.

  “I don’t sleep,” I told him.

  A grin kicked up the corner of his mouth.

  “I like my job, and I’m gone a lot during hunting season,” he informed me.

  I laughed against his lips.

  “Honey, this is the South. It wouldn’t be right if I had a man and didn’t lose him during hunting season,” I informed him. “In fact, I think it’s against our religion or something if you don’t hunt.”

  “I’m a cover hog,” he kept it up. “And I don’t like people eating my food.”

  “Is that right?” I asked, squeezing his length.

  His eyes brightened.

  “Yeah. That’s right,” he murmured. “Can’t stand it when people eat my food. Or when I have to eat last. Or when I’m forced to clean up other people’s food.”

  “So it’s something about food that has your feathers ruffled?” I confirmed.

  He shrugged.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m just giving you fair warning not to fuck with my food,” he informed me.

  I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t dare.

  “Anything else?” I challenged.

  He started backing up, and seeing as my hand was still wrapped around his cock, I chose to follow.

  He backed up until he hit the wall, and there he flipped on the light switches that lit up the barn, as well as the room upstairs.

  “Follow me,” he ordered, pulling my hand free of his cock and turning to go upstairs once again.

  I watched him walk away, my eyes first on the way that his cock bounced as he walked.

  Then on the way his ass flexed as he took the stairs.

  Then I got sidetracked as I watched his balls sway slightly with his movements each time he lifted a leg up to the next step.

  Then he stopped, one foot on the step above him, and he looked over his shoulder at me.

  “Come,” he ordered.

  Oh, I was going to.

  Guaranteed.

  The moment I finally made it up the stairs, my pubic bone still killing me, I stopped when I found Apple sitting on the bed with his back to me.

  “It’s bad,” he rumbled. “And it hurts. It never stops hurting. It’s a constant reminder of what I failed to do.”

  I blinked as tears started to form in my eyes.