by Jordan Marie
“Skull…”
He bends down and kisses the tears that are escaping. “Do not cry, mi cielo. This is just another hurdle. We will clear it together when you’re ready to fight it,” he tells me, right before he reaches over and hits the ceiling fan remote, making the room go dark. I know he can feel the scars on my stomach and thighs, but feeling small marks is nothing like seeing them. I’m going to have to give in soon and let him see it all.
I worry about it, but when Skull’s fingers move between my legs, I give up worrying all together.
He drags his fingers through my wetness, slowly pushing inside of me. I’m so wet, you can hear his fingers thrusting in and out of me. I spread my legs, accepting his weight as he crawls over me.
“How do you want me, mi cielo? Tonight, you tell me exactly what you want.” His breath is against my skin, warm.
I open my eyes slowly, mourning that I can’t see him in the darkness. I see the shadow of his face, and his dark eyes glow down at me, inky and intense.
“Love me, Skull,” I whisper, asking for more than just sex. I just need to know he’s here with me and he’s not going anywhere.
In response, he does the last thing I expect. He reaches over and turns the light back on. I cry out and tense up, but Skull instantly brushes my hair with his large hand.
“Shh… be calm, mi cielo. This is all we’ll do,” he tells me, pulling the covers over his body so they shield us both. Then, he reaches under them, pushing my gown up to my hips. My body is still tight. Fear causes my blood to rush in my ears. A sick feeling curls in my stomach because I feel so weak and stupid, but I can’t get the words or actions out to show him my body. Skull seems to understand though, because he commands me to look at him.
“Look at me, mi cielo. Let me be your anchor. Don’t get lost in the memories. They’re gone.”
“Skull…”
“I love you, Beth. I’ve always loved you. I always will. Nothing else matters. I know that’s hard for you to understand, but it’s true. Look at my eyes. Watch me as I claim you,” he says, his voice gravelly and full of need.
I swallow and keep our eyes locked as he slowly slides inside of me. I pull my legs up to cradle him as he sinks all the way inside. When he’s gone as deep as he can, he doesn’t move. He just stays there, his eyes boring into mine.
“Skull…”
“Do you feel that, Beth? Do you feel how we fit? How everything stills around us when we connect? You are everything I have ever wanted,” he tells me, and the tears begin again, but for a different reason this time.
He kisses them away one by one as his body slowly starts moving. I angle my body to the right, trying to get more friction, but it doesn’t make him go faster. If anything, he goes slower, more deliberate. I bring my legs up, wanting him deeper, unable to get it.
“Skull,” I cry because he’s smiling and I know he’s enjoying torturing me. He reaches beside me, grabbing his pillow. He uses his hold on my hip to lift me up and slide the pillow underneath me. I gasp as he sinks deeper inside, filling me almost to the point of pain.
“Do you feel that, querida? Feel how hard I am? How I’m so fucking hard I stretch your tight pussy, marking it, stretching it so that it’s made only for me, only for my cock?”
I whimper. I can’t get words out. I squeeze him tight inside of me and I can literally feel how his dick shudders with the action.
“Mierda!” Skull groans, bracing his hands on the mattress, on either side of me. “Wrap your legs around me, mi cielo. This is going to go faster than I wanted.”
I do as he says, wrapping my legs above his hips, locking them together and pushing up to meet his thrusts. I pull myself up so I can run my tongue over his nipple. My tongue pushes down hard on the small barbell he has there before I suck it into my mouth, worrying it.
He slams into me so hard, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire bed scraped across the floor with the force of his thrusts. When he reaches down with his fingers and manipulates my clit in time with his thrusts, I know I’m done. I cry out as my orgasm tears through me. I lock my body into place, tensing up, unable to do anything but moan. Then, I plunge over the cliff and I come so hard, I literally feel my cum streaming out of me, bathing his cock and leaving me weak.
Skull keeps fucking me harder and harder, pushing into me, then pulling out only to slam back in. It only takes a little bit though, and he’s yelling out his pleasure as he finally joins me.
“Te amo, mi cielo. Te amo,” he groans, as the last of his cum leaves his body, scalding me and branding me as his.
Our bikes pull in together to Ruby’s. The place is dead. Then again, I expected that. Tucker most likely made sure of it. We switch off our bikes and stare at the place for a minute. Neither one of us are in a hurry to see what is on the other side of that door.
As much bad blood as there is between the Saints and the Blaze, it’s kind of hard to judge what it might be. I never really dealt much with Tucker, but if Viper took after his old man, I definitely have problems coming my way.
“We loaded and ready, boys?”
“You trust this fucker to stick to the white flag?”
“Something tells me yes, but we have the surprise just in case, right?” I ask Beast, and I’m talking about the grenades each of us are carrying. I’m not sure we’d manage to get out of the mess, but they sure as hell wouldn’t. Life’s a risk. “Go big or go home” seems to be my motto lately, even if I am getting damn tired of it.
“I’m loaded,” Torch says. Beast grunts, which I take to be an affirmative.
“Let’s get this the fuck over, then. If nothing else, maybe the fucker will help us find Colin.”
We walk together towards the bar. There’s a big guy about the size of Beast standing at the door.
“Weapons,” he says, and the guy is smoking crack if he thinks I’m about to give up my firepower.
“Forget it, esé. I’ll be keeping them or this meeting isn’t happening,” I tell him.
Apparently he’s hooked up and monitored because I see him hold an earphone in his ear for a second, then he backs away and holds the door open. I see Torch flip the man off out of the corner of my eye. When we clear the door and I give him a look of reprimand, the bastard winks.
The room has been cleared. All the tables are pushed out of the way save one in the center of the room. There’s five men at the bar and they’re all older. None of them are the Saints crew I’ve dealt with before, but their cuts proclaim them to be part of the club. At the table are two men, one of them being Tucker.
“Beast,” I call.
“Got it,” he says, and then he stands in front of the men at the bar. He’s not blocking their view of the table; he’s just guarding our backs. I’m not going out like a punk with a bullet to the back and I don’t put it past the Saints not to try and pull that kind of shit.
“Skull,” the biggest one of the two says. He’s a big man, and when I say big, I’m not talking about height or muscle. The guy obviously likes his beer because he has a gut on him. Still, he’s broad in a way where you know he could put a hurting on a man if he wanted. He’s got long hair, which at one time used to be brown in color, but now is silver-white. He reaches out his hand, which is just as meaty as the rest of him. He’s got two fingers on his right hand cut off at the knuckle. His index finger is intact and carries an insignia ring with a T on it.
Tucker.
I take his hand, shaking it firm and dry. You can tell a lot by a man’s handshake. For instance, Tucker’s whelp Viper always had a damp hand; sweat would roll of the bastard.
I take a seat and Torch remains standing behind me.
“What’s this about?”
He looks me over. I face him head-on, wondering just what the fuck his game is.
“I wanted to tell you a story,” he says as I lean back in my chair.
“Never was much on books or libraries, and my school days are well in the fucking past.”
&nbs
p; “I get there’s bad blood between you and Viper. It’s nearly destroyed both our clubs. I hoped Viper would prove to be a good leader.”
“I’d say your hopes were motherfucking dashed,” I answer.
“He’s weak. A product of his mother, a club whore. A man should be more careful with the woman he chooses to give his dick to.”
“Is this the story you wanted to tell me? Because I have to tell you, hermano, I have zero interest in where your polla has been.”
The man gives me a smile and eases further back in his chair, looking at me as if I just passed a test of some sort.
“You had a good woman for a mother. I can tell.”
There’s a faint ache in my chest as I remember my mama. “She was,” I agree.
“And your father was smart,” he adds.
“My father was a bastard.”
“Most of us are,” he points out, and I can’t argue.
He turns his head. “Are you the one that my men tell me is called Torch?”
I feel Torch shift around on his feet behind me. “I am,” he replies.
“Word is, you’re marrying one of the girls Colin has a price on.”
“I am,” he repeats, and I feel the tension coming off him.
“I hear he’s asking two million for each girl now.”
“No one’s touching her.”
“If the purpose of this meeting was to try and gain the women, you’ve wasted our time,” I tell him, getting ready to leave.
“You’re protecting both of them?” he asks, surprised.
“They’re property of the Devil’s Blaze,” I tell him.
The man curls his nose in distaste. “Property can be sold and bartered.”
“Not in this case,” I growl.
“You’re very much like your uncle. Did he ever tell you how the real feud between the Saints and the Blaze began, Skull?”
“No, and I never gave a fuck once I took over. Viper struck out against my men and I retaliated.”
“Just like that,” he states, as if he’s thinking about something else.
“A man ain’t a man if he can’t protect what is his,” I respond, thinking if I leave now I can get back to Beth in time to take her back out to the lake.
Tucker nods his head in approval, as if I finally said something he can agree to. Maybe the son of a bitch is senile and that’s why Viper took over the club.
“Which is why I stepped down from the Saints so many years ago,” he begins.
“Listen, Tucker…”
“A few more minutes, son. I think you will be interested in this story.”
“I’m not your son,” I object, the nickname irritating me. Actually, this whole meeting so far has.
“True. If you were, then life would be much better at this moment.”
Que está loco.
“A man makes mistakes, Skull. I claimed Viper’s mom. Married the bitch so my son would have my name and so I could control what happened to him. It was a disaster. Hooked on blow. I had to lock her away to keep her clean while she was pregnant. That was my first clue to the weakness in her. What woman ignores the child inside of her for her next high? Still, I suffered through and did what I had to do to get my child. I thought that the club and the life I led was all there was… until I met Lilly.”
“Listen, Tucker, you’re wasting my time here, and I have shit to do. I’m sure your life’s story is interesting shit, but…”
“Lilly was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.”
“Tucker…”
“Blonde hair, the color of summer gold, and eyes the deepest color of gray I had ever seen…”
My hand wraps up into a fist and I lean over the table to be closer to him, to study his face.
“I see I have your attention. Would you like to hear how I learned twenty years after it was done that I had not one daughter but two, Skull?”
Hijo de puta.
“What the fuck kind of game are you playing?” Torch growls. I’m with him except, looking into the son of a bitch’s eyes, I don’t think he’s playing. He’s deadly serious. Christo!
“It is no game, son. It’s a story of a mother and child working together to destroy an old man with stars in his eyes. Lilly was younger. Much closer to Viper’s age than mine. I shouldn’t have touched her, but I couldn’t resist. Her father was in debt to the club for gambling. His choice to pay the money was offering Lilly. Sweet beautiful Lilly, who was innocent… fresh, pure, white snow. I was instantly captured by her and couldn’t bear the thought of not having her near me. I forced her into my bed, kept her there, even though she hated the idea of being with a man who was with another woman. A dreamer, my Lilly, despite her circumstances. She would beg me for freedom, even as she craved the love I gave her. At times, I think she hated herself and me, but she never turned me away.”
The old man is telling his story, looking out across the room. I think he’s swamped by ghosts of the past and not even aware what all he is revealing. Or maybe he is, because each word is laced with regret.
“The club had some trouble in Florida. I was sending my second because I couldn’t imagine being away from Lilly for a week. I was a stupid fool. We had a fight, which again ended in her begging me to set her free. I told her I’d claim her before the club. Fuck, they all knew she was mine. But she didn’t like the life. She didn’t like that she was sold to the club. So much she didn’t like… She begged me to leave and start over with her… My Lilly was a dreamer and I was fucking tired of going in circles. I thought being gone a week would give her a chance to see what I knew. She was mine… When I came back, Lilly was gone, and so was Fox, a member of the club. She left a note telling me she never loved me and that she was using me just to get her freedom, and since I wouldn’t give that to her, she found someone who would.”
He sighs. When his eyes return to me, I can see the agony this caused him. Mierda! Is this what I am doomed to? To grieve a woman even twenty years later?
“I thought to hunt them down,” he begins again with a sad half-smile that speaks of pain and even more regret. “But then she left me, and it was done. I gave her the freedom she wanted—or at least I thought I did.”
“If this is true, then how the fuck did Katie and Beth end up in the fucking hands of the Donahues, and why are they in such a fucking spin to get them back?” Torch asks, taking a seat beside me. I just sit and listen, instinctively knowing whatever the fuck this Tucker tells me is going to solve a lot of my questions.
“My son and my bitch of a wife, may she be rotting in hell, sold Lilly to Redmond while I was gone. Then they set about covering their tracks and killing one of my men, just to add to their fucking bed of lies,” the old man says bitterly.
“How do you know the girls are yours and not Redmond’s?”
“My son is an imbecile. He records everything in a fucking journal like a moron. Imagine my surprise when one of the club girls brought it to me. When I confronted him, the bastard showed the first real sign of balls by not denying it to me. He even enjoyed telling me how Redmond thought the girls were his and forced his wife to claim the children publically so he would have heirs to the throne in the family.”
“So that’s why you have that cut on?” Torch asks, looking at the president tag.
“It is.”
“Why the fuck is he still breathing?” I ask, because there’s no way the son of a bitch would have been taking clean air if it had been me.
Tucker rubs his hand along his jaw, while he considers his answer. “I’ve asked myself that. It’s not quite so easy, brother, when it’s your own blood staring back at you.”
His answer stinks of weakness. If Beth’s safety was in question, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill. But with Beth gone… maybe he’s right. I focus on Gabby. The thought would be chilling. Could I do it?
“Is that the point of this meeting? Do you want us to finish what you couldn’t? ‘Cause I got to tell you, esé, I’ve got zero interest in
cleaning up your messes. Got enough fucking pots on the fire as it is.”
“I want to meet my daughters.”
“Not happening.”
“It can be where you say. I will follow your lead. I need to see my daughters.”
“You’re not getting me. It’s. Not. Fucking. Happening.”
“They will want to see me.”
“Maybe, maybe not. What they won’t do is see anyone involved in this fucked up mess until I’ve determined that any threat has been annihilated,” I tell him, deadly serious. Torch grunts his agreement.
“Then I will work with you to make sure those threats are gone. Then, if my daughters agree, I want to see them… to get to know them.”
“Why the fuck would I trust you?”
“You don’t have to… yet. I will prove myself to be an ally. I’ll do anything I need to do to be in my daughters’ lives.”
“I can take care of the threats without you. Why would I even think about agreeing to this shit?”
“Because I know where Colin is hiding,” he says, and there it is in a nutshell, the only reason I might work with the man in front of me. I start to tell him no. The word is on the tip of my tongue. Then I realize that the sooner I get Colin, the sooner I can kill him. Getting closer to Tucker means I can tear Viper apart and find the mole. All of this fucking shit together means I’m that much closer to throwing the club Torch’s way and taking my family and getting the fuck away from it all.
There’s only one answer I can give.
“What’s your plan?” I ask, giving my agreement without having to say the words which I would ultimately choke on.
“Well, lookie who decided to drag her ass out of bed and join the land of the living girls!” Candy says, and I feel myself blush. It is late. After the work out Skull gave me this morning, I was worn out. I fell back asleep and I’m just now starting my day. It’s only noon. That’s not bad. Heck, after the way Skull went at me, I should be thankful I’m still walking.
“You’re positively glowing,” Sacks observes.
“Enough already. How are you girls?”