She’d fucking forgotten to lock the fucking front door.
Bruised and swollen, with blood still crusted around their mouths and noses, they’d clearly found somewhere else to drink. She faced five furious, violent drunks. The grabber smiled—he’d lost a tooth in the fight. That smile was not cordial or happy. It was victorious.
The bat she’d wielded earlier lay on the bar, inches from his hand. The shotgun was in its cradle, out of her reach. For self-defense, all she had were two brooms, a metal dustpan, and her wits.
In the second or two that it took her to understand and assess the danger she was in, one of his friends slid behind her, blocking her path backward.
Maybe she could get out of this without violence. If he wanted an apology, she’d give it to him. Fuck, she’d pay him, if he’d just leave her and the bar without further damage. “What do you want?”
His sinister smile grew. “You’re a mouthy bitch when you got backup. On your own, though, you’re just a puny little cunt afraid of her own shadow.”
The men with him laughed, and they all came a few steps closer to her. The one behind her was close enough to grab her; she turned and stepped to the side, putting her back to the wall. That was probably a terrible position, but it was the only one that gave her any sense of security at all—at least she could see them all coming.
“What do you want?” She kept her voice as steady as she could and tightened her fist around the push broom. When the time came, she’d just throw the other things in her hands; the big broom was the best weapon available, and she’d need both hands to wield it.
A broom was her best weapon, and it was barely a weapon at all. Her mind began to conjure images of the terrible things that would happen to her when these apes tore the broom from her hands and overpowered her, but she slammed the curtain shut on that horrifying footage.
Grabber came closer still. He stood at the end of the bar now, five feet away at the most. “What I want, sugar tits, is payback. Your big mouth caused us trouble tonight. So I’m gonna need to give you some back.”
They were too close now, all of them, for throwing anything to be of use to her, so she dropped the straw broom and the dustpan to the floor and grasped the handle of the push broom in both hands.
“Look at my bar. I got plenty of trouble already. Just go. Please, just go.”
“Oh, I like that you’re beggin’. A woman begging—that’s about the sweetest sound in the world.” Sniggers from his peanut gallery. “I think I wanna hear you do that some more.”
If they got any closer, the push broom would be useless, too. Seeing one chance, she spun the handle in her hands, so that the breadth of the broom turned up vertically, and she swung it upward, between the legs of the man who’d cut her off from the back room and was closest to her now.
Her aim was true; the short edge of the broom landed firmly in his junk, and he howled and doubled over. That reaction, and the step back he took, caught the head of the broom between his legs and yanked it from her hands.
She was empty handed. Nothing between her and, now, four furious men.
They all converged on her at once, even angrier. One man grabbed her, then another, and she was trapped between them, positioned like an offering to the guy who’d started all this.
The only words in her head were Please no! Please no! but she kept her teeth clenched, afraid that begging would only get this guy more excited. He came right up to her and grabbed her breasts, clenching his hands around them like he was testing grapefruits for ripeness.
More like oranges, really. She wasn’t that stacked. What a strange thought to go through her head right now.
“They are sweet tits, ain’t they?” He squeezed harder. Jenny kept her mouth shut, but she was going to cry, and she just knew these guys would get off on that. “I can’t decide whether to fuck you before I beat you or after.”
One of the ones holding her leaned close to her ear. “Fuck her first, so we all get some before you start the beatdown.”
“I want in. I’m gonna shove that fuckin’ broom so far up her cooze she’ll be coughin’ up splinters for a month.” That was the guy she’d hit; he gasped out the words. She faced five men again.
“Please,” she moaned, but she wasn’t talking to them. She was talking to God. She hadn’t prayed since she was little. Her mother had been Catholic, but her father had been indifferent, and God was one of the many things of her mother that had been erased from her life. Right now, alone in the middle of the night with five thugs who meant her terrible harm, all she had was a God she’d forgotten, if He would still listen. “Please. Please.”
“Yeah,” Grabber grunted and released her breasts. She didn’t look down, but she heard the jangle as he opened his belt. “I fuckin’ love it when they beg.”
And then God answered her prayer.
Grabber’s head rocked forward, spraying blood and bone in a fountain, at the same time that a thick thud resounded in the air. His eyes did a strange thing—they bugged out, nearly straight out of his head—and he fell forward, into her, taking her down to the floor.
What she saw as she fell backward was a miracle. Maverick. Holding the Louisville Slugger, which now dripped with blood and brain matter. His face was warped into a mask of monstrous rage.
The other men turned, all of them shouting incoherently, and leapt at him. Pinned under a dead man, Jenny couldn’t see what was going on. She heard grunting and shouting, and none of it sounded like Maverick.
Finally, she worked her way out from under the man who’d been about to rape her, for his opening act, and struggled to her feet.
Another man was already down, and Maverick fought the remaining three. Jenny went for the shotgun, yanked it free, and then stopped, stunned, as he took down another one, using the bat and his feet and his body. He fought all these men at once, and he was winning. He blocked almost every blow. When they grabbed at him, he used their weight against them. When a blow connected, he used their momentum against them.
The men he fought were noisy as hell, roaring, grunting, groaning. Maverick was silent. He’d been like that in the ring, too. She’d seen him fight a few times—she hadn’t gone often, because the street fights were much more violent than anything she’d seen on television, and they stressed her out—and he’d always been quiet in the ring, too. He’d been quiet like this when he’d beaten her father near to death.
“Put it down, Jen. I got this.” Right in the middle of this raging battle, he addressed her. Calm as you please, like he was telling her they didn’t need milk. She looked at the shotgun in her hands. She didn’t even know how to cock the damn thing. Or if it was loaded.
She put the shotgun back in its cradle. And then she knew what she needed to do. She picked up the phone and dialed.
~oOo~
Radical waved a wallet at one of the bloody men kneeling at his feet. “Do we understand each other, Elliot Bundy of Porter Street?” The man nodded, and Rad tossed the wallet at him. “Good. I’d hate to have to pay a visit to your family.”
“How about you, Charles Peters? I got a good friend lives in Bixby. Know that area real well.”
“No trouble from me...sir.”
Rad chuckled. “Sir. I like that.” He tossed another wallet.
The third guy was nodding before Rad started to speak. The fourth guy, the one who’d taken a broom to the goods, was barely conscious. Rad crouched down and slapped him in the face with his wallet. “How about you?”
He groaned. Rad looked up at Ox and Eight Ball. “This one we keep ahold of until we know he gets the situation. He can sit in the back of the van with his friend over there.” He nodded at the body of Grabber.
“You got it, Sarge.” Eight Ball yanked the groaning man almost to his feet, then dragged him toward the back. The club van was parked in the alley, waiting for Grabber’s body—Ronald Edwin McCook III, they now knew—and also, now, his friend, Clark Godwin.
Jenny sat at the bar and wat
ched it all happen. Maverick’s arm was around her. He hadn’t stopped touching her since he’d come to her after disabling all of the attackers. Except to ask if she was okay, he hadn’t said a word to her yet. He’d spoken to Rad when he, Eight Ball, and Gunner had come in, and he’d said a couple of reassuring words to Gunner, but otherwise, he’d been silent. He’d sat back and let the club SAA handle everything.
Not that there was anything but cleanup to handle. Maverick had finished the fight.
Rad stared down at the three still kneeling before him. “You three, get the fuck out. You darken this door ever again, you ever mention even a word of what went down here tonight to anyone, ever, and I will hunt down you and your family and wipe you all off the face of the earth. If fifty years from now on your deathbed, you feel the need to bare your soul and scrub your conscience clean, my son will find your children and grandchildren and wipe them out. Are we fuckin’ clear?”
The men all nodded and struggled to their feet. Gunner cut the bonds from their hands, and they limped and lurched toward the front door.
“Hold up,” Maverick called and stood up, bringing Jenny with him. The men stopped and turned wary, blackened eyes back. “You owe my woman an apology. Get over here and do it right.”
“Mav, no,” Jenny muttered. The last thing she wanted was to be face to face with these assholes, for any reason.
“Yes,” he growled back.
She was about to push her point, but movement from Gunner caught her eye. She turned a little and saw him staring at her, shaking his head slightly. Getting the message, she let it drop. This was about Maverick and these men, and some kind of power thing. Not about her. It sucked, but she understood it.
They apologized. She stood still and let them, but she offered them no kind of concession or acceptance. Fuck them.
When they were gone, Rad turned to Jenny. “Stay closed for the day. We’ll send some guys over to help get things to rights later on. You take the day off.”
“It’s Saturday. I don’t come in on Saturday anyway. But I have people on the payroll who need to work, and I need to earn so I can pay them.”
Rad huffed. She remembered this about him—he didn’t like people pushing back on him. Most of the guys were like that, they all wanted their own way, but Rad didn’t even like to have a damn conversation. At least Maverick would talk about things. He’d talk her in circles, but he’d talk.
“I’ll talk to her,” Maverick cut in. “Thanks for this, Sarge.”
Rad clapped him on the back. “We got your back, brother. And you’re a fuckin’ beast.” He smiled at Jenny. “You did good, callin’ the clubhouse. Right thing to do.”
She knew it was. It felt strange, to think of the club as help, as rescue, but when she’d picked up the phone, there’d been no question whom they’d needed.
“Okay. We’ll deal with the trash. See you later, Mav?”
“Yeah, Sarge. Yeah, I’ll be in.”
Rad nodded and headed toward the back. Gunner had already dragged Grabber’s body back.
“Rad, wait.” Acting on the sudden impulse, Jenny went up to him and hugged him. He stood stiff and surprised, and it was like hugging a tree, until his hands came to her back and patted her awkwardly. He supposedly had a different old lady and a kid now, but Jenny found it hard to imagine Rad as a father.
Still, seeing him tonight, as one of her rescuers, was a far cry from the last time he’d been in her bar, when he’d threatened her.
“Thank you,” she said as she stepped back.
His expression softened, and for a second, she could almost see the partner and father he might be. “We were always here, Jenny. All you ever had to do was ask.”
With nothing to say to that, she simply took another step back and let him leave.
And then she and Maverick were alone in her ransacked bar.
She turned and saw him standing there, a bruise flowering on his cheek, his hands scraped, his t-shirt bloody and torn almost all the way down the middle, showing half his chest beneath it.
God, what a night.
He’d killed a man for her. He’d saved her from—God, what? A gang rape. A beating. That had been a certainty. Death had been a likelihood. Then she’d sent out a prayer, just a feeble, hopeless little prayer, and Maverick had been delivered to her like her own personal avenging angel.
As she walked toward him, he starting talking, making Rad’s case. “You have to close the bar, babe. There’s—”
He stopped in midsentence as she reached him and grabbed his t-shirt in both hands, tearing it the rest of the way open.
“Shut up and fuck me.”
“Jen?”
“Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.” She wrapped her hands around his head and pulled, bringing him down so she could reach his mouth. By the time their lips touched, he was all in.
“Oh fuck, yes,” he mumbled against her mouth. His arms went around her, clutched her tightly, and he took her down to the floor—a floor still filthy from the violence of the night, smeared and spattered with blood and booze, strewn with chunks of furniture and shards of broken glass. Somehow, like what they were doing was predestined, there was no broken glass where they were.
Frantic and ravenous, they snatched clumsily at each other’s clothes and their own, until they were finally naked. Oh God, his body. His beautiful, beautiful body, how she’d missed it. He lay on her, and she felt the warmth of his skin, the gentle exhilarating scratch of the hair on his legs, his torso, his arms, brushing over her. The wet, brilliant heat of his mouth on her breasts, sucking her nipples, his tongue flicking over skin he’d made taut and needy. The fine grit of his palms skimming over her body. Oh God. Oh God.
He nuzzled and laved the tattoo—a flaming heart with his name inked across it—that marked her as his old lady. Not a title she deserved any longer, but she wanted it again. Fuck it, she wanted it right now. She did not want to move slowly. They’d lost so much time already.
“Fuck me, Mav. Please.”
He shifted over her, and she reached down for his cock—hard and hot, thick and heavy, and ready, so ready. He groaned at her touch and curled his hand around hers. “Wait. I don’t have a fucking condom.”
That didn’t slow her down at all. “I don’t care.”
His eyes went to hers, and he went still. “Jen. I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull out in time.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care. Be inside me. Please. I love you, Mav.”
He flinched at her words, and a spasm tightened his features. Staring up into his eyes, Jenny might have sworn that they’d filled with tears. “That’s one,” he murmured, and, with his hand still around hers around his cock, he pushed in. He brought her hand up and kissed it as they both groaned at his entry.
“Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking tight.”
She couldn’t reply; his entry had taken her breath and her words. Not because it hurt—the stretch was surprising, but the pain dissipated before it had made an impression—but because it was so right. So perfect. As he filled her, it was like he’d never been away from her. They fit together like they’d been custom made for each other. He’d said that often, before, and thinking it now, Jenny was overcome with nostalgia. No more waiting. No more.
When words and breath were possible, she whispered, “There’s been no one else. There’ll never be anyone else.”
He dropped his head to her shoulder and began to thrust. Jenny wrapped her body around him as tightly as she could. At her ear, faint but clear, she heard him whispering, over and over, I love you, I love you, I love you. Like he was trying to catch up for all the time he’d missed, all the I love yous they hadn’t counted.
He came quickly, fiercely, clutching her so close that she couldn’t breathe. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t even tried to pull out, and she didn’t care. A prayer had brought him to her on this terrible night. If a baby happened because of it, then it was meant to be.
She didn’t come, but it
didn’t matter in the slightest. She was full of him, closed in his arms. She was safe and complete.
In many important ways, Jenny was a different woman from the one who’d first fallen in love with Maverick Helm, that girl who’d been instantly besotted by her own James Dean, standing in the ladies’ accessories section of Wal-Mart, festooned with fancy handbags. But in other, equally important ways, she was the same. She loved this man. He was the only one who’d ever taken care of her, who’d ever made her feel safe and secure. He was the reason she’d been able to grow—and, yes, he was also the reason she’d been forced to change. He was the only person who’d ever really understood her—even his infuriating way of ‘reasoning’ with her was founded on understanding. He knew her, and he loved her. He would love the woman she’d become, too. He was already showing her that he loved her and wanted to give her what she needed. He wanted to understand who she was now.
He lived a violent life. He was a violent man. But until that last day, he’d never brought his violence into their lives. With her, in their life, he was calm and steady. He’d been a strong support while she’d struggled to separate from her father. It was little wonder he’d taken to managing her and shaping her wants. The girl he’d met hadn’t known how to know what she wanted for herself. That girl had shaped herself to an erratic, angry father, and the process of discovering what she wanted, who she wanted to be, had been long and painful.
She’d been wrong to compare him to her father. Maverick was nothing like him. He wasn’t a bully. He was strong and willful, but it wasn’t his fault that she’d bent so easily.
On that last day, when she’d stood up to her father, that had been the day that the Jenny she was now had begun to be formed. Until she’d been able to do that—for her entire relationship with Maverick—she’d been like soft clay, allowing the men in her life to shape her in their hands.
That was on her, and her father. Not Maverick.
“Can I still say the word?” she whispered. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
He reared up and stared down at her, his eyes sparking with heat. “Jen?”
Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3) Page 20