Their Lasting Claim: A Death Lords MC Romance (The Motorcycle Clubs Book 13)

by Goode, Ella

  I look down at my undershorts that are now about a size too small. “No need because my cock only responds to you.” I grab her hand and place it over my burgeoning woody. “Maybe a good fucking would help you get over your morning sickness.”

  She grins and squeezes me. I lean forward for a kiss when I hear a knock at the door.

  “Easy, your bacon is burning.”

  Fuck. “I’ll be out in a minute,” I shout a little more gruffly than I intended.

  “Later,” she whispers and then gives me another swift stroke. Reluctantly I push away and get dressed. Afterwards, I stomp out and finish breakfast. The bacon was not fucking burning though. I glare at Mrs. Bloom who gazes back with wide, innocent eyes.

  Chapter Seven

  Annie

  Breakfast has a weird flavor to it. The bacon is crisp but I can’t eat the eggs. They make me nauseous. Or maybe it was the tension. I can’t decide whether I want my mom there or not and Easy picks up on that readily. He’s taking his cues from me, which I appreciate more than I can say, but I’m not sure whether I want her to leave or I need her to stay.

  I do give her a hug goodbye before Easy takes me to work and it’s not as awkward as the one yesterday was. But it’s also not warm. I don’t have a lot of memories where she’s embracing me so I don’t think it’s the distance or time that makes the hugs awkward but just who she is. Some people aren’t huggers. Father and I weren’t given to overt physical displays of affection. I’ve gotten more used to touching after being around Michigan and Easy. When I’m with them, one or both have a hand somewhere on me. Maybe it’s my ankle when we’re watching television or maybe it’s the small of my back when we’re walking. They have no problem touching me all the time and I love that.

  I want my child to be surrounded by constant love and affection. The kind that Easy’s family doles out like it’s candy on Halloween.

  The day speeds by again. Fortunately there isn’t anything at the shop that I’m going to be asked to do that is going to be a problem. Shipping and receiving need to be logged so I create a spreadsheet to track both.

  On the wall is Judge’s wait list. His shop specializes in the repair and restoration of American muscle cars. The shop is so good it has a waiting list that is two pages long. Some of the names on the list send my eyebrows into my forehead and I’m desperate to ask anyone if there are really famous people on the list or it’s merely a coincidence.

  In the meantime I spend a couple of hours cracking Judge’s obscure symbols and shorthand. It takes me some Googling, but about midmorning I start to figure out what it all means. The letter C stands for Cobra, not Camaro or Corvette. P with the exclamation point is not Pinto but the 1964 Pontiac GTO. CZ is the Camaro.

  The product catalogs are indecipherable to me so I call up the companies to ask if they have any online catalogs. They do and email me the forms to fill out to get access.

  I put in what I can based on the information I’ve seen on the invoices. There are two bills to pay so I handwrite the checks from a check register I find in the desk drawer and set them aside for Judge to sign. By noon, I’ve finished with nearly everything and am reading an engine repair site to familiarize myself with the names of different parts. That way when people call, I won’t be totally clueless.

  Around lunchtime, my mom shows up.

  “Your mom is here, Annie. You okay with that?” Judge stands with one hand on the doorknob as if he's ready to shoo my mother away.

  "I'm fine, thanks. Is it okay if we eat lunch in the office?"

  “You bet.”

  “Hi honey!” Mom comes over and hugs me before I can even stand up. It’s more hugs than she gave me in the past decade. I notice Judge’s eyebrows shooting up, and over Mom’s shoulder I see that she’s got her tush in the air. From Judge’s expression, whatever she’s wearing is giving him a good view.

  I push out of her embrace and when she straightens, I see her smooth down a short pink skirt. It’s pretty with ruffles around the bottom but Lord, is it short.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Judge says. “Take whatever time you need.”

  “Please, feel free to stay. I’d love to get to know my little Annie’s employer.”

  “Not fucking happening,” he replies and shuts the door firmly.

  “Well, that was rude.” She huffs and lets out an exasperated laugh. “What do you expect from someone who runs a motorcycle gang? Annie, I’m worried about you. What is going on? You’re living with not one, but two men and from the looks of things, these boys aren’t roommates. What kind of relationship have you got going on?”

  Years of being told to turn the other cheek prevents me from saying it is none of her business. “We have an unusual arrangement but it works for us. I love them both.”

  She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Annie, honey, you are a baby. You are not experienced enough to hold these two roughnecks. They are going to use you up and then toss you aside. You need to find some nice boy who works at the factory and will provide a good home for you. These two men are not going to be satisfied with one little church girl at home. And how are you going to feel when they start stepping out on you?”

  Her words cut deep into my insecurities. I rub the leather cuffs around my wrists—the ones that say I belong to Easy and Michigan. I wear these cuffs every day as a sign of their claiming. But where’s my sign on them? My introspection causes my mother to continue.

  “I don’t deny that there’s a rough sensuality about the two of them but you’re just too young to know how to deal with that.”

  “We’re getting along fine,” I say finally. The fact is if they had wanted to leave me behind, they could have. I was out of commission for several weeks after Father beat me. But they cared for me and waited for me and rearranged their whole lives to make room for me.

  I straighten and look my mother in the eye. “They love me and they would never hurt me like that.”

  “You don’t know that,” she scoffs.

  “I do,” I say with growing confidence. I rub those leather cuffs again and remember the wonder on Michigan’s face when I put his on. He’d never leave me and Easy, for as careless as he may seem on the surface, he loves hard. I feel it every night after we make love and he can’t let go of me. I may be young and inexperienced but I’m no innocent.

  Having two men at one time strips all that away. And any lack of finesse I may have in the bedroom has never generated an ounce of discontent. They love showing me and teaching me all the ways we can pleasure each other. Easy once said that it was because I hadn’t ever had sex before that I wasn’t afraid of anything they proposed. Every sexual experience I’ve had has been wonderful so when they propose new things, I’m excited rather than scared off.

  “I’m your mother,” she begins, but I cut her off.

  “No, you gave that up a long time ago. If you want us to have a relationship again, you need to acknowledge that.”

  She doesn’t like this. Her pink lips press together and thin out. I notice then that the fullness is really a result of artfully applied makeup. In the harsh fluorescent light of the shop office, she doesn’t look as flawless as she did by the softer light of the Hilltop Cafe or the early morning sunlight that drifted into our kitchen. I see her eyes are darkened with liner making them look mysterious. And I have a suspicion that her long lashes might just be glued on.

  We stare at each other for a while and then her face hardens.

  “Fine, let me be frank with you. Your dad had a sizable inheritance from his parents. If he goes to prison, the state will take it.”

  “How so?”

  “In legal fees, for one, but for the other, felons can’t access their funds. And those funds stay frozen while the person is incarcerated. Your father has been paying me a monthly stipend since I left. When it stopped, I looked him and you up.”

  I sigh with part relief and part sadness. “Why am I not surprised that this visit is all about mone
y? I don’t have access to it. Father wiped out my account before he beat me.”

  “This is where I come in.” She smiles and for the first time I think it's genuine. "Your father and I are still married.” She nods at my gasp of shock. “We’ll go in together. That money is supposed to be yours someday. Your name is on a special account. We go in together and you give me half and I’ll be out of your life for good.”

  “How much is in there?”

  “About a quarter of a million.”

  I nearly faint.

  “You had no idea, did you?” she says. “Your father is the tightest bastard and he liked to control people. I bet he did everything possible to make sure you stayed at home, working in that church. Did he call people in town and tell them not to hire you so you were forced to be church secretary?”

  “I-I—” I don’t even know what to say. It never even occurred to me that he’d do something like that but it made sense looking back because I couldn’t get a job even pumping gas.

  She nods knowingly. “I’m right. I can see it in your face. So will you help me?”

  “I need to think about it.” I shove out of my chair and run to the bathroom where I puke up my breakfast. She follows me inside and hands me the water bottle that was on the edge of my desk.

  “Or I can stick around and play grandma for you,” she mocks.

  “How’d you know?” I ask, placing a protective arm around my middle.

  “You look just like me and I know what I looked like pregnant. Which one of them boys is the father or don’t you know?” She laughs in my face when I don’t answer. “I’ll be going but here’s my number. Call me when you’ve made a decision. A simple signature and I’ll be gone. Otherwise, I might just have to make Fortune my home for a while.” She runs a hand over her blouse and down to her hip. “And then we’ll see how good of a hold you have on your men.”

  I bolt out of the garage and run to the library. Inside I find my former boss, Pippa Lang. Pippa’s only a few years older than me but she’s smart and has more mothering instinct in her pinky than my mom has in her entire body.

  “Hey, Pippa, you got a minute?”

  She takes one look at my disheveled mess of a self and holds open her office door. “I was just taking lunch. Why don’t you put the sign up?”

  I reach under the circulation desk and pull out the “Be back in 30 minutes” sign. I hustle into the office and collapse in a padded chair.

  “What’s going on?”

  “My mom showed up. Did you hear?”

  “It’s all over town, almost nothing else people can talk about.”

  “I was so conflicted at first, because she’s my mom and I missed her so much. But she took off and never looked back. Now I find out that while she’s been gone my father has been paying her a monthly fee to stay away or something.”

  “Oh my God, that’s terrible. Was he blackmailing her or what?”

  “No, I don’t think so. She’s not nice, Pippa. And that’s kind of an understatement.” I explain to Pippa about the money situation. “What should I do? I kind of don’t want her to have a penny of it but I also don’t want her around here. She’s poisonous.”

  “You don’t think Easy and Michigan would cheat on you? They adore you.”

  I wave my hand. “No, but she could just cause trouble by stirring up gossip. You should’ve seen her at the garage. She came in wearing this real short, ruffled skirt and bent over to hug me while Judge was standing right behind her. I think she gave him a little show.”

  Pippa leaps to her feet, “I’m going to kill that bitch.” About halfway out the door she turns back. “Sorry, I’m so sorry I called your mom a bitch.”

  “That’s okay.”

  She comes back into the office and settles into her chair. “What do you want to happen?”

  “I want Father to go away. I want her gone. I want to be able to start my family clean and new. It’s not like those two are good examples of parenting, you know? I don’t want my kid to be around a man like my father who is cold and mean or around my mother who looks out more for herself than anyone else.”

  “Michigan and Easy could make both of them go away.”

  I give a half hearted smile. “How?”

  She stares hard at me and the light bulb turns on. Sucking in my bottom lip, I think about what she’s not saying. What they would do if I asked. “I can’t ask that of them. And besides, my mom doesn’t deserve it.”

  I don’t know about Father. I’m still pretty conflicted about that.

  “So, don’t ask, but they want payback and I don't think your father going to prison is going to be enough. Are you going to be okay with that?”

  “I—I don’t know,” I stammer.

  “When you hook up with one of these guys, you have to understand that they play by their own rules. They love you but they’re going to do things that other people have taught you are wrong. You either have to close your eyes and ears or you openly embrace them.”

  As I walk back to the garage, I replay our conversation. She’s right. When you climb in bed with a Death Lord once, it’s just for fun. When you become their old lady, when you wear the claiming cuffs, when you take them as your own, you have to accept the lifestyle that they chose before you came along. And you can’t change them and frankly, you don’t want to. Because underneath the violence, the sex, the hard play is loyalty—not just to their brotherhood but to you.

  I know deep in my bones these men will never turn away from me, never leave me. They will cut off their hands before they hurt me. And all I have to do in exchange is love them unreservedly. I can do that. No matter what, I can do that.

  Chapter Eight

  Michigan

  There are approximately twenty bikes in the courtyard when Easy and I pull up to the granary outside of town that serves as the Death Lords clubhouse. I’m an enforcer for the club which means if someone steps out of line, I reel them in. If someone presents harm to the club, I put the hurt on them. Most of the time that means erasing their existence, but sometimes we just scare the ever-loving shit out of people. Whatever works, by whatever means.

  I’m the gun, the hammer, the fist, and when I walk into a room with my cut around my shoulders, people quake. I do not quake. Ever.

  But if I were honest, my palms are feeling a might slick today because what happens during church today could mean I’m saying goodbye to those who’ve stood as my brothers for the last several years. They are the only family I’ve ever known; the one I didn’t even hope that I’d have.

  But with Annie and Easy, I’ve got a different viewpoint and unlike most conflicts in my past, it’s not one where death wipes the slate clean.

  The crunch of gravel reminds me that I’m not alone. Easy, my fellow enforcer and brother Marine, walks beside me.

  “You ready, brother?” he asks, holding his fist thumb up. I knock the bottom of my fist against his.

  “Ready.”

  If anyone should feel conflicted, I guess it’s Easy. He grew up here in Fortune. He was a prospect of the Death Lords before he joined the Marines and patched in almost immediately when he separated from the military. He dragged me with him and we became enforcers together.

  It hasn’t been a hard job and there’s been no task unwelcome. We’ve done everything and more that the club has asked of us, from carrying out beatings to drug dealers and dirty cops to putting down a former club member gone feral and a few other worthless human beings. I killed way more people in the Marines and by my way of thinking, there were just folks who needed killing and I didn’t mind being the one to send them away.

  There’s a man who needs killing now and if I didn’t have the club to worry about, he’d have been dead the minute he stepped outside of the jail.

  Inside the long room at the back that holds our service, the majority of the Death Lords are already seated with Judge, our president, at the head.

  I take a seat at the other end of the table and Easy stands b
eside me. He’ll do the talking.

  “Why don’t you present the situation to the brothers,” Judge invites.

  Easy nods. “Thanks for coming. As you all know, we’ve claimed Annie Bloom for our own. She was beaten within an inch of her life by her father, Pastor Bloom. He’s been let out on bail awaiting his trial. Michigan and I don’t think he deserves another day of freedom so we’re telling you that he’s going down. The question before you isn’t whether we’re taking Pastor Bloom out, because we are. The question is whether you want our cuts before we do it.”

  The collective air around the table is sucked into the Death Lords’ guts as Easy’s announcement takes them by surprise. They were thinking they were going to vote on Pastor Bloom, not on our throwing our patches away.

  “Before we vote, anyone got anything to say?” Judge asks.

  Mech, one of the older members who works at the shop, rubs his chin. “I got no problem with the killing. Just don’t want any blowback to the club.”

  I see nods all around the room. The club comes first. I open my mouth but Easy stays my hand. “We got you, Mech. Thing is it wouldn’t make a difference if we killed the son-of-a-bitch today or three years from now. Everyone’s going to look to the club so the best we can do is make sure that Michigan and I have a good alibi.”

  “You got one in mind?” Mech asks.

  “A couple of years ago, I helped Mayor Heinz out of a little problem. He has agreed to play a few hands of poker with us and swear we were there the whole time.”

  Mech shrugs. “Then I don’t know what we’re even having the meeting for. Clean your house. It’s all good with me.”

  “I say that the two of them fuck another woman at the mash and that woman can be their alibi,” offers Brownie.

  I shut that shit down immediately. “No, even if it was just for show, it’d hurt Annie. I don’t want that kind of talk about her.”