Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3)

by Susan Fanetti

  “I have to figure out my father, and I don’t know what that’s going to be, and I have to talk to Kelsey so she understands everything, but I want the life we were supposed to have. I want it now. If it’s not too late.”

  “It’s not too late. I love you, Jen. So goddamn much.”

  “That’s...I lost count.”

  He grinned. “Infinity.”

  July 1993

  Jenny’s father opened the door.

  She could smell the bourbon on him. Since she’d moved in with Maverick, her father, always a heavy drinker, had dived deeper and deeper into alcoholism. Second-guessing her intent, Jenny stood on the porch, two steps down from him. He was already drunk. What she had to say could go very badly. She swept her hands protectively over her huge belly.

  “What d’you want?” He sneered down at her hands. His only reaction thus far to her pregnancy and his impending grandfatherhood was resentment.

  Which was why this talk couldn’t wait any longer. “I want to talk to you.”

  He shrugged and stepped back, clearing the way for her to enter the house she’d grown up in.

  It was dark and musty inside. From the entry, she could smell that he hadn’t washed dishes in a while. Newspapers were strewn in careless stacks across the dining room table. Various empty bottles and overfull ashtrays littered the tables in the living room.

  “Jesus, Dad. What happened?”

  “My daughter abandoned me and let some piece of shit biker put a bastard up her twat.”

  So they were starting with nasty right off the bat. Okay, then. Good. It would make this easier.

  He walked into the living room and picked up a half-full bottle of Wild Turkey from the coffee table. “You want a drink?”

  Cradling her belly, she laughed. “No, Dad. I don’t want a drink.”

  “You want to talk. So talk.”

  She could feel tension tightening the strings through her body, making it want to shake, but she took a deep breath. “The baby is coming next month.”

  He grunted and drank from the bottle.

  “I can’t have her around this mess between us, Dad. I can’t let her grow up like I grew up. After last week, I know we’re not ever going to be okay, you and me.”

  The week before had been his wedding anniversary. That was a hard day every year. When she was little, it had been an especially terrifying day; several times, she’d been left alone the whole day, until she’d gotten hungry and gone next door to ask the Turners for something to eat, and he’d returned bombed out of his head and dragged her back home.

  When she’d gotten old enough to understand what the day was, she’d started trying to make it okay for him—being extra careful to be good, making his favorite foods, seeing to it that there were things he liked happening all day, to keep his mind off the darkness.

  Like a fool, she’d come over last week to take care of him on his hard day. He’d shown his appreciation by glowering at her belly all day, and snarling at every word she’d said. When he’d called her unborn daughter ‘the little cunt,’ she’d stormed out.

  She hadn’t told Maverick anything about that day. But she’d realized something crucial: her daughter wouldn’t be safe with him. Ever. He wouldn’t be a better grandfather than he’d been a father. In fact, he’d be worse. The little girl she was carrying was Maverick’s child, and her father despised Maverick.

  Understanding that, she’d made a decision she probably should have made a long time ago. Today, when her father wasn’t working, was the day she meant to act on it.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Someone had changed out her heart for a rabbit’s. It seemed to beat dozens of times a second. “It means...” Her voice quavered, and she stopped and steadied it. “It means that this is the end, Dad. My daughter deserves a good life, surrounded by people who love her. I deserve that, too.”

  “Are you sayin’ I don’t love you?”

  “No. I’m saying you don’t love this baby. And I’m saying I don’t want her to know the fear I’ve known being around you.”

  He threw the bottle, and she should have left then, before he crossed the living room. The front door was right there. But her feet were glued to the floor—and something else. Something strange. She wanted him to come at her. That was crazy. She had to protect her baby. But desire for a real confrontation was there, holding her in place.

  Ninety-five percent of her tried to run for the door, but the other five percent knew that if he hit her now, she wouldn’t feel bad for him anymore, she wouldn’t feel the relentless, irrational pull of guilt and need that made her keep trying to make him love her like he should. She was twenty-five years old. He was never going to love her like he should. He would always see her mother in her, and he would always swing back and forth between outlandish declarations of love and terrifying demonstrations of rage. Hugging and hitting—how her father showed his feelings.

  When he stalked up to her, she stood her ground. Then she had the thought—what if he punched her in the stomach? That fear broke the five percent’s hold, and she turned for the door, but it was too late now. He cut her off and blocked the door.

  “That fuckin’ thug is fillin’ your head with shit, Jennifer. You never been smart. You don’t know what’s good for you. Just like your mother. I shoulda locked you up the first time you brought him around here. I know what’s good for you. I know what you need. Now you got some biker bitch growin’ inside you.”

  “Dad, let me go.” He hadn’t touched her yet, and she had a small twinge of hope that he wouldn’t. She tried to reach around him for the door, and he pushed her back, with his hand on her shoulder.

  “You’re mine. Mine. I knew when I let you move out he’d turn your head against me.”

  The impulse to give in, to cajole and concede, grew inside her. All her life, it had been her only hope to avoid the belt or his hands—if she could catch him at just the right time, say just the right thing, she could defuse him. She’d come to think of his beatings as her own failures—she’d pushed too hard, or misread the signs that would have allowed her to change the scene.

  Right then—standing in the entry, facing her father before the front door—Jenny understood something that changed her whole life. Past, present, and future, all different, all at once. She’d been blaming herself for her childhood. She’d believed it was her fault that her mother had left when she was six. She’d believed that it was her fault that her father beat her and terrorized her and controlled her. She’d believed that he was the victim in this house. Even when she’d been victimized, even when she’d been angry or hurt. Even knowing that he was abusing her, even being able to talk about it with Maverick, to the extent that she had—despite all that, deep down, under it all, she’d believed that he was the victim. She’d seen him as a sad man, lost in his life.

  He wasn’t sad. He was mean. Her mother hadn’t run away from her. She’d run away from him. If she’d needed a man at her side to give her the strength to do that, well, Jenny sure as fuck understood that now.

  What was more—Jenny remembered that night when her mother had died. She remembered how her mother had reached out to her, how she’d crawled, trying to reach her—Baby, come here! Jenny, baby, Mommy loves you!

  Her mother hadn’t run away from her. She hadn’t left her alone with her father. She’d wanted to take her with her. Jenny’s father had thrown her out. But she’d have come back. If she hadn’t died that night, if her mother’s lover’s wife hadn’t killed them both, her mother would have come back for her. For the first time in all these years, Jenny remembered that night the way it had happened, the way she had seen it happen, not the way her father wanted her to see it.

  “What’re you grinnin’ at?” her father sneered. Jenny hadn’t realized she was smiling.

  “I understand why my mother ran away from you.”

  Bam. He moved so quickly, she didn’t see the backhand slap until his knuckles slammed into her c
heekbone. She grunted and sidestepped, but she kept her feet. He rarely lashed out like this and almost never went for her face. He preferred the meaty body parts that didn’t show damage in public. He’d still been using a belt on her when she’d graduated from high school—long after, in fact, though she’d stopped making it easy for him.

  Cupping her cheek with her hand, she stood straight and faced him. He still blocked the door, but she didn’t care. They were done, and it needed to be said. She’d turn and run to the back door if she had to, even eight months pregnant. “This is the end of us. You will never see me again.”

  “You’re just like her, you filthy, disloyal little CUNT!” He slapped her again, catching her mouth with such force that this time he knocked her off her feet. She landed hard on the wood floor, and her back slammed against the wall. The impact jostled the picture hanging there—a photograph of The Wayside Inn, taken on the day he’d opened the bar—and when it hit the floor, he forgot her and dove for the broken frame.

  Jenny used the chance to get her waddling ass up and out of the house.

  She was two blocks away when she pulled over and opened her car door so she could puke on the street. After, she closed the door and sat there, shaking, her eyes closed, trying to feel inside her belly and know the baby was okay.

  When her baby girl kicked and rolled fussily inside her, Jenny laughed. And then she cried. Not with sadness, but with joy. She was free.

  She had to figure out how to tell Maverick about this, and already her brain kicked away the mere thought of that conversation. But she’d figure it out, and everything would be okay.

  Better than okay. Everything would be wonderful. Life spread out before her, all sunshine and smooth seas. The life her little girl deserved.

  She had hours yet before Maverick got home. She’d make a nice supper, and she’d figure out how to talk to him about this. If he could see past whatever her face looked like, he’d be thrilled and relieved that she’d finally cut her father out.

  Everything was going to be perfect now.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Maverick unfastened the restraint in Kelsey’s booster seat, and she raised her arms. He lifted her out of the back of the Cherokee, and she looped her arms around his neck, hugging him.

  He’d meant to set her on the ground, but instead, unwilling to let her go, he held on, turning his face into her soft hair. Shifting her a bit to the side, he took her weight on his forearm and came around the back of his car.

  She turned in his arms and looked at the station lot. “This is where you do work?”

  “Yep. I fix cars. And over there”—he twisted and pointed at the clubhouse next door—“that’s where I see all my friends and family.”

  “You see family at my house, too. You’re my daddy, and Mommy’s my mommy, that means family.”

  “That’s right. You want to meet some more family? I’ve got lots of uncles for you.”

  She screwed up her little brow. “I don’t have any uncles.”

  “Sure you do. You just haven’t met them yet.”

  Gunner was heading their way, so Maverick nodded toward him. “And here’s one right here. Kelsey, this is your Uncle Gunner.”

  “Hello, cutie.” Gunner held his hand up to her. “Nice to finally meet you.”

  Rather than shake his hand or offer a reply, she laid her head on Maverick’s shoulder. He kissed her head. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You don’t have to be shy.”

  “He has a scary face,” she whispered back. “Hairy like a monster.”

  If facial hair scared her, then she was going to be a nervous wreck before they made it through just the Bulls on shift at the station. Maverick had another twinge of doubt about introducing her to the club. His first had come when he hadn’t told Jenny that this was his plan for his first outing alone with his daughter. He’d only told her about the second part—spending the day at his house—because he’d known she’d resist having Kelsey meet the Bulls. Jenny had never gotten fully comfortable around his people, and her distaste had only grown while he’d been away. Last night’s excitement at The Wayside might have thawed her some, but he didn’t think she’d warmed enough to be comfortable with this part of his plan.

  Understanding she’d be mighty pissed that, first, he’d done this without her okay, and, second, he’d essentially lied to her mere hours after that intense, fraught, astonishing connection they’d made on the filthy floor of the ravaged bar, Maverick had indeed had second thoughts about evading this truth. But he wanted it enough to cope with the consequences.

  This was how he really came home. He had Jenny back. He had his little girl. Bringing her to the club—this was how he found his steady ground and made himself whole and real again.

  But he hadn’t considered that Kelsey would be afraid of these men.

  Hearing what she’d said to Maverick, Gunner chuckled and brushed a self-conscious hand over his thick beard. “Hey, Kelsey?”

  She didn’t answer him, but Maverick felt her head turn to look at Gunner again.

  “It’s just hair. You can give it a pull, if you want. I don’t bite.”

  Gunner came close and lifted his chin toward her. Kelsey squinted at him suspiciously, then reached out and patted his beard. Apparently satisfied that it was safe, she clenched a little fist around the part below his chin and tugged, and Gunner pursed his lips and make a smooching sound.

  “See? I don’t bite, I kiss.”

  Lifting her head, Kelsey smiled and tugged again, and this time, Gunner turned his head and planted a kiss on her arm. She giggled. And Maverick’s doubts were assuaged.

  His family would be whole.

  ~oOo~

  “Hey, babe.”

  Grabbing her hand, Maverick stepped back and pulled Jenny in the front door. He didn’t like that she’d rung this doorbell and waited for him to let her in. He wanted this to be her house, too. But not even a day had passed since she’d said she didn’t want to go slow, and he knew she still saw complications in every direction, so he would continue to be patient—but persistent.

  “Hey. I can’t stay long. I have Mr. Turner with my dad.”

  On weekends, she was her father’s caretaker. One of the complications between them.

  He shut the door and drew her close. There was no more resistance in her, and that was a beautiful thing. When he bent his head to hers, she licked her sweet lips, ready to form her mouth to his. Need charged through him as he took her kiss, and he pushed her against the door.

  Her body was perfectly pliable, yielding to him, shaping to him, following his every lead. Christ, he wanted her. He wanted to fuck her properly. Not on the floor of the damn bar—that had been transcendent, but it had been his first time inside her in more than four years, and he’d blown in about a minute and a half. He hadn’t given her pleasure, and he wanted that. He wanted to watch her come, to watch her pleasure, to feel it, the pleasure he gave her, to feel it grow and grow until she was wild with it.

  He’d come inside her, too. And she’d wanted it—or, at least, hadn’t not wanted it. Holy fuck, if he’d made her pregnant. If he could raise a child with her, be with her from the start.

  Growing frantic with need, he thrust against her, rubbing his throbbing cock against her belly, and she tore her mouth from his with a gasp. “Where’s—where’s—”

  “She’s taking a nap. It’s okay. Fuck, Jen, I need you.”

  But the willing partner in his arms stiffened; her hands came between them, and she pushed on his chest. “She’s napping? It’s five o’clock in the afternoon.” Though she was still flushed and breathless from the brink of sex they’d been on, Kelsey’s mom was quickly replacing Maverick’s lover.

  He took a step back and a deep breath. “She was tired. Should I have kept her up?”

  “A nap this late, she’ll be awake until ten or eleven.”

  “Oh. Sorry.” Deciding to get the pain out of the way now, while they were already diverted, he added, “She had
a big day. I took her to the clubhouse, and she met almost everybody. Delaney gave her a stuffed Dino, and she hasn’t let it go yet.”

  Yeah—this was going to go badly. The lingering softness of their kiss disappeared from her face, supplanted by the sharp edges and deep creases of anger. “You did what?”

  “It’s my family, Jen. I wanted her to get to know them.”

  She pushed him farther back and stepped around him, stalking away, into the living room. “And you knew exactly how I’d feel about it, so you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie.” He was twisting the truth around semantics, and he knew she’d only get angrier for it, but the words came out anyway. He’d begun to understand what she meant about the way he argued, but it was his nature and not so easy to change.

  “Nothing’s different. You still think you can manage me, and I’ll just give in.”

  “Jen, stop—”

  Before he could finish, and offer an apology, she wheeled around. “Don’t fucking tell me to stop! You don’t get to shut me down! You know what? I’m an idiot for thinking things could change. I got caught up in my feelings these last couple of days, and I let myself see you as my rescuer, and I forgot the truth. You just do what you want.” She huffed a humorless laugh and walked to the front window. “The very first time I trusted you to be alone with Kelsey, you pull this.”

  He went to stand behind her, but he didn’t try to touch her. “She’s my daughter. The club is my family. She was going to meet them, Jen.”

  “It’s not that she met them. It’s that you went behind my back.” She turned to face him, and he saw not anger but sorrow in her eyes. “Don’t you get it, Maverick? You knew I’d have concerns, and rather than be straight with me, rather than hear what I was worried about and work it out with me, you went around me and figured you could talk your way out of it later.”

  She was right. Completely. “I’m sorry. I...don’t know why I didn’t tell you. I guess it’s a habit.”

  Her huffing laugh was so bitter now, it stung. “That’s not better.” She turned back to the window. “You know Rad threatened me?”