by Monroe, Evie
I shook my head. “Naw. Don’t think so.”
“Good.” He pushed away from the counter and paced the kitchen for a few seconds, then stopped. “You said he was beating on her mother?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Bitch is one tough cookie. I wanted to get her out of there, but I couldn’t chance it. I didn’t want it escalating to a shoot-out or something. So we called the police. And Cait called her after the fact. She’s okay for now. But who knows for how long.”
“Well. Shit. You made the right decision, then. She can’t go back to that crazy motherfucker.”
Cait appeared in the doorway then, wearing her camisole and jean skirt, her hair back in a ponytail. “We have to get my mom out of there.”
Cullen was silent for a minute. “Yeah. You’re right. We have to.” He motioned to her and pointed to the living room. “Come in here. Sit.”
She paused for a moment, as if she thought it was a trap, then went and sat on the sofa. His eyes scanned the bruises. “How much trouble would you say she’s in?”
Cait shrugged. “She’d say none. She’s so used to it that a few smacks now and then are normal for her. But with me here? I think it’ll get worse. And if he finds out where I am . . .” she swallowed. “I wouldn’t put it past him to kill her to teach me a lesson.”
Cullen rubbed at his beard. “Okay. Here’s the deal. If the Fury find out Cait is here, we let them think we’ve got her against her will. That way, they’ll come after us. Not her.”
I nodded at Cait. “That means you don’t leave here.”
“Right,” Cullen said. “I’ll get everyone together for church tonight and make the plan. If we hit him where it hurts, we might be able to bring him down for good.”
Cait frowned. “He’s still my dad. I know he’s out of control, but I don’t think he’s going to listen to reason. What are you gonna do to him?”
“Just make him believe something different,” Cullen said with a snarky grin.
I looked at Cait, who was nodding, but I saw doubt in her eyes. She had no other choice but to trust us. She couldn’t go home to that bastard. She seemed to think he wouldn’t hurt her like he’d hurt her mother, but I knew better. She was fucking her father’s sworn enemy. That had to be the worst offense against a club—a father—that a person could possibly commit.
If Slade knew what she was doing, he’d kill her.
Chapter Eighteen
Caitlyn
Listening to these two big, virile men as they discussed my situation and how to help me, made it easy to believe that I’d be perfectly safe. They weren’t just massive and muscle-bound, tough and rugged, they were packing heat. I’d seen the bulge in the back of Cullen’s jeans that had to have been a gun, but besides that, they were Cobras. My daddy easily disposed of things he hated, and I knew he hated the Cobras. Just the fact that they were still around showed that they were a force to reckon with. Maybe the only force in this town that could stand up to Slade.
My father wasn’t big, but he was nasty. And now, I knew there was no hope of getting my old daddy back. That man was gone. Forever.
If I’d gone back home after all this, my father would surely beat the crap out of me. This was the worst act of betrayal I’d ever committed. Maybe he’d kill me. Maybe this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“What’s your mother’s name?” Cullen asked me, taking a gulp of his coffee.
“Roxanne.”
“And she lives with you and Slade? She at your house at night, usually?”
I nodded. “She rarely goes out now because he won’t let her. She only goes to the supermarket to get food some mornings. But that’s about it. She’s home every night.”
He set the mug down on the coffee table. “All right. I’ll get the guys together and we’ll get her out of the house.”
I blinked. He made it sound so easy. “Uhm. Just a warning. She might not want to go. She’s pretty head strong.”
He nodded. “We’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry.”
Oh, I was worried all right. But it didn’t matter. My mother would be going with them anyway. When I got her with me, I could convince her this was for the best and eventually she’d see.
And when my father found out? World War Three.
I just hoped the Cobras would be ready for it. “You know my daddy’s going to unleash hellfire on you, right?”
Drake crossed his thick arms in front of his chest. “Yep. He’s already done that. Bombed our clubhouse and a lot of other shit. I think right now’s about time for a little payback.”
I shook my head. “Believe me, you taking my mother out of his house is not little.”
“Good. That’s what I like to hear. The bigger, the better.” He nodded at Drake. “I’ll text you later. See you, man.”
I couldn’t believe it. There wasn’t even a tremor. Not a single word of doubt. They were just going to storm my father’s house and save my mother, as if it were business as usual. As nervous as I was about it, as worried I was that people would get hurt, relief overcame me at that moment, and tears came to my eyes.
I jumped up as Cullen walked to the door. “Cullen,” I said.
He turned around, and I wrapped my arms around him and gave him a hug. “Thank you. This means so much to me. I don’t know how I can repay you.” I let go of him and looked at Drake. “Both of you.”
“Don’t thank us,” Cullen said as I loosened the embrace, taking my hand and squeezing it. “This has been brewing for months. It should’ve been taken care of a long time ago. I’m sorry your mother and you got caught in the middle of it. But we’ll get you out.”
I smiled gratefully as he left, closing the door behind him. Drake went to the kitchen and started to cook the eggs again. I wobbled over to him in my cowboy boots, leaning over the bar from the dining area. “You two keep saying things like that, I’ll almost start to believe you.”
“What? You don’t?” he said, turning up the burners and pouring the eggs in the pan. He moved them around as they sizzled. Then he plated them, two piles of perfect, fluffy scrambled eggs. He set one plate in front of the stool near the bar. “Believe it. None of the Cobras are worried, Cait. Slade’s got this coming to him. It’s our privilege to stop him from taking his wrath out on the innocent people of Aveline Bay. Once and for all.”
I swallowed and winced as my blister started to burn again. I slid onto the stool.
Drake noticed. I lifted the fork as he said, “Your foot still bothering you?”
“A little. I lost the bandage a while ago.” I devoured my food like a rabid dog.
He let out a low laugh and came around to have a look. “Give it here.”
I lifted my leg and he slipped the boot off, resting my foot on his thigh. He tilted his head to get a look at my heel. The skin was raw and angry and had started to bleed.
“Jesus,” he said, shaking his head at me. “Can’t take you anywhere.”
“Well, I would’ve changed my shoes if I had any.”
Without warning, he scooped me into his arms and carried me down the hallway. Slipping my arm around his neck, I asked, “What are you doing? I wanted more food.”
He laid me down in the center of the bed and walked around it, feathering a kiss across my lips. His rough, delicious voice said, “Oh, I’ll feed ya baby. But you look like you could use a doctor’s attention right now.”
I laughed. “What did you have in mind?”
He disappeared into the bathroom and came back with a Band-Aid and a tube of ointment.
I pouted. “That’s disappointing.”
He shot me a look as he lifted my foot, spread the ointment, and applied the bandage over my cut. Then he kissed my toe. And then he really made me squirm when he licked the arch, all the way to the heel.
“Foot fetish?” I asked, my thighs clenching in anticipation of what he might touch or kiss next.
He shook his head. “Sexy lady fetish.”
He slid off my oth
er boot and tossed it to the ground with a thunk. Then he reached for both of my feet and gently dragged me up to him, standing between my open thighs. My skirt rode up to my hips and his hand fell between us, stroking my pussy.
Tingles ran through my body as he leaned forward, burying his head in my neck. “I definitely have a fetish for this. You. Wet like this, for me.”
I reached for his belt, unbuckling it, opening it, tearing at his buttons and sliding down his fly. I dug my hand inside and pulled out his cock. I wasn’t the only one who was ready. “Looks like you can use some attention, too.”
He grinned wolfishly down at me. “What did you have in mind?”
I licked my lips and dug my hands into his jeans, cupping his ass, tugging the fabric down. Gazing up at him, I touched my tongue to the springy mushroom head, tasting the salty sweetness of the little bit of pre-come at his tip. “Maybe a little of this?”
He shifted his stance a little. His breathing sped up as I cupped my hands around his dick.
The hungry, low rumble of pleasure ripped from his throat as I tongued him, licking around the head and then up and down the shaft. And when I took him totally into my mouth, his hair skimmed the sides of my face, tangling in my hair. He rocked his hips slowly into my mouth and I milked it, wrapping my lips around his huge, hard cock.
“Fuck, girl. That’s good.”
I added a little teeth then some more tongue, then wrapped my thumb and index finger around his cock and let it slip down his slickened shaft, in time with my thrusts. I looked up at him, catching his gaze. He pumped in and out of my mouth, his fingers fisting in my hair, his muscles tightening.
“I’m going to come,” he growled, and I wrapped my lips tight around him and sucked to capture every last bit of him.
When he finished, I tore my lips from his cock and wiped at my mouth as he stumbled to the edge of the bed. “Where the fuck did you get a mouth like that?”
He slipped off his jeans and sat up against the headboard, reaching for me. He grabbed my thighs and scooted me up so I straddled his waist. Then he tugged off my camisole, his big hands dragging it up slowly, taking a nipple into his mouth. I gasped and my head fell back, my hair grazing his thighs as he sucked my breast into his mouth.
“This is much better than breakfast,” he murmured huskily as he flicked his tongue over my skin. “Let me have you.”
And I was powerless to do anything other than let him have me.
Chapter Nineteen
Drake
We finally ate breakfast, though by the time we did, it was after lunch. Cait finished her eggs at the counter, again with one of my big t-shirts hanging off her body, red hair a mess, long legs bare, looking smoky and sexy and every man’s wet dream.
I was damned glad she’d agreed to stay at my place and hadn’t fought Cullen on that. That way, I knew what would be waiting for me when I came home.
I couldn’t wait.
And I didn’t know what it was about Slade’s daughter, but it wasn’t because of Slade that I wanted to protect her. There was something deeper there, something that made me want to keep her close to me. When I looked at her, I felt dangerously possessive, and I wasn’t sure where the hell that feeling was coming from.
I was the last thing she needed. She already had one possessive asshole in her life.
“So let me get this straight. Your dad wanted you to go into plastic surgery. And you came back from Africa and decided you didn’t want to. So you just dropped out? You never thought of going back?” she asked me, taking a sip of her coffee.
She had her toes up on the rim of the chair, pink-painted and pretty, and I had the urge to sit her on my lap. “Yeah.”
She laughed. “I almost don’t believe it. So you’re fixing bikes now? And what? Eighteen years of education, you just threw away?”
“Yeah. Well. No point in doing something if it doesn’t make you happy. Right?” I gave her a grin. “And aside from doing you, not much makes me happy.”
“That’s not true. You have a perfect bedside manner. You’d make a great doctor.”
“But being good at something, and being happy doing it? Two different things, sweetheart.” I drank the rest of my coffee, reached for her chair, and dragged it closer to me so that I could put my hands on her. She squealed as my fingers walked up her thigh, under my t-shirt. “What about you? What makes you happy?”
“Me?” Her eyes widened like I was the first person to ever ask her that. Maybe I was. “I don’t know. I mean, I had aspirations, once. It’s not like I ever dreamed of working for Enterlease. I thought I could do something else, something bigger. I liked math and science. I was good at them. But . . . it didn’t work out.”
“You mean that your asshole father didn’t let you do it, right?” I asked gruffly. My father had definite ideas of what he wanted for me, but he never physically held me back from the things I wanted to do. The more I heard about Slade, the more I hated him, down to my soul.
She nodded, looking small and ashamed.
“What would you have done differently, if it weren’t for your dad? Go to college?”
“Yes. I was good in school. I liked school. Probably because I always hated going home.”
My heart fucking broke into a thousand little pieces. Her words made me feel and made me numb, all at once. “Damn, baby.” I patted my knee because now I really did want her on my lap. “Come here.”
She scooted her little ass onto my lap and sat with her arms around my neck. I leaned into her, smelling her. It drove me wild, the smell of her. I had to take a taste. I licked at her, my cock starting to spring into action again.
I had to put a stop to it before I was late with Cullen and he really gave me shit. Reluctantly, I separated from her. “Got to be at church.”
She pouted. “All right. So you’re an officer with the Cobras?”
I nodded. “Treasurer. You aren’t the only one who’s good at math,” I said to her with a wink.
“Oh, really? Do you get off on the quadratic equation like I do?” she teased.
“Stop. You’re making me hot.”
She giggled.
“I put your clothes in the washer,” I told her, running my tongue along the seam of her lips as I prepared to leave. “You can switch it to the dryer, or is that too grown-up for you?”
She wrinkled her nose at me. “I can manage.”
“You can watch television, too.”
“I was planning on tearing through your bookshelf. That molecular biology textbook is calling me,” she said with a wink.
“Oh, yeah? Have at it.” My hands roved under the t-shirt, finding her bare ass as I kissed her mouth. She slipped a hand around my neck, opened her lips and kissed me, hard, with slow, thrusts of her tongue.
My cock stiffened. She wriggled against me, pressing her tits against my body. Holy God, this girl was going to be the death of me.
I reached between her legs and cupped her pussy, hoping I could torture her half as much as she was torturing me. “Don’t answer the door for anyone,” I told her.
She agreed, finally letting me go after I whispered what I thought would be sexy and witty but ended up being stupider than I thought. “Maybe we can do algebra together, later and I’ll plug my solution into your equation.”
I slipped out the door, laughing like I hadn’t in a long time.
I rode my bike to the clubhouse, thinking of the sweet little girl waiting at home for me. Thinking of all that she’d told me. Then, I thought of how she’d looked when I met her. How she was easily the hottest girl I’d ever seen.
Then I wondered why all I could do was think of her. Cait. Cait. Cait.
This was uncharted territory for me. I hadn’t had a steady girlfriend since college and I wasn’t looking for one. I was happy alone. But Cait being in my apartment the past two days had me thinking some crazy shit. Like what it’d be like to share my place with a woman, something I’d always thought would suck, since I was pretty part
icular about my home and the way I lived. I had to admit, though, there were some really nice perks to having her around.
Like coming home to her tonight. That sounded damn good.
I cruised past The Wall to see if her car was still there. She’d told me it was an old blue Honda Civic, one I couldn’t miss. Even though the lot was packed, I didn’t see a car fitting that description anywhere. I wondered if Slade’s men had found it or if The Wall had gotten it towed.
When I finally pulled up at the clubhouse, most of the guys were already there. It was the third time in as many days that Cullen had called church, so they had to know something was up. I sat down next to Jet, who leaned over and said, “Let me guess. You’re still fucking that Fury pussy.”
I scowled at him.
“Fuck. You are? Cullen’s going to—”
“Cullen knows, asshole,” I snapped, silencing him. “That’s what we’re here about. I’m keeping her at my apartment because she won’t be safe if we let her go back to Slade.”
His face twisted. “What the fuck? She’s at your apartment alone? You really trust her? You’d better be watching your back tonight because I bet you that—”
“Cut it out, Jet,” Cullen barked from the head of the table as Zain walked in.
The rest of the men took their seats at the table, and Nix said, “You told us to pack some heat. What’s this about?”
“Yeah. We have to perform a little search and rescue operation. Tonight. Who’s in?” I said.
“Whoa,” Cullen said to me. “Let’s back up. Why don’t you tell them what the fuck’s going on, first?”
I looked at each of the men in turn around the table in the smoky haze of the clubhouse. “I tried to take Slade’s daughter home, but Slade showed up. Didn’t see me, but he started to thump on Cait’s mom. I couldn’t leave the girl there, so I took her back to my place. Now, we’ve got to get Cait’s mom out of there. Get her out, and end Slade.”
Jet drummed his fingers on the table. “What you’re saying is that you have a thing for her. Because you could’ve left her there.”