“Jedd has got someone else lined up for you,” Kenny stuttered out beside me.
I shook my head slowly so as not to make the dizziness even worse. “Maisey.”
“This girl's meant to be real good, Drew. She's a huge hit with all the big shots on all sides of town.”
“K-Dog, I want… Maisey.” That silence was there again and it was only when the boy tried to shuffle and lift my body up that I felt his nervous energy. Parting my lips, I let my eyes peel open before I lazily tilted my face up to him. “What?”
Slater sighed on the other side of me, blowing all the air out of his cheeks and forcing my head to roll up to him instead.
“She's out of the game, man. Married. Hooked up with Howard Sutton and got twin girls now.”
I must have been drunker than I thought because I could have sworn I just heard him say magic mouth, Maisey Piper had gotten married to the chief of police, Howard fucking Sutton. And had... “Twins?”
“Twins.” Slater nodded, his mouth falling into a flat line as he shrugged the shoulder furthest away from me.
My head flew between the both of them and it did shit all for the balance thing I was trying to get under control. “Jesus Christ. When did that happen?”
“About six months after you got sent down,” Slater informed me before encouraging us all to keep moving over to the back to the van.
“She missed you, Drew,” Kenny said nervously.
“Tell me something I don't know.” I smirked as I stumbled forward. Walking was proving harder than I ever thought it could.
“She cried for weeks, according to the others in her circle.”
“Fuck for? We weren't dating. I'm just gonna miss that mouth. She was… Man, she was something else.” I huffed out laughing. “Guess I'm gonna have to find another regular Friday night bit of tight.”
“Don't try to act like you didn't know she was in love with the idea of you two being exclusive. You played her.” Slater laughed as his hand found the back door of the van and swung it open. It took the two of them to get up in the thing and hoist me up before anyone spoke again. When my body crumpled to the floor in a drunken heap and my arms curled around my chest, I let my laughter pour free, like fucking blood was seeping out of an open wound, for the first time since I left prison. The air rang with the sound of my strangled fits before I threw my hands back in the air and made like a damn starfish in the back of the van.
“What the hell anyone sees in you, I'll never know.” Slater groaned before leaning over to Harry, who was already in the driving seat, waiting. Who knew how long he'd been there? Tapping his shoulder once, Slater gave him a nod. “The others gone?”
“All rode through the town on their bikes to make some noise and mark our boy’s return.” Even in my drunken haze, I could tell Harry was tired. I couldn't help but wonder why, even if it was only a fleeting thought, quickly drowned out by visions and memories of Maisey doing her thing.
“We'll be front page news tomorrow.”
“When aren't we?” Harry answered in a quiet reply.
Slater slapped his shoulder again before returning back to stand over me, crouching down as he rested his hands on his knees and tilted his head. “It's gonna be bumpy down there, bro. You staying anchored or want me to move you?”
“Leave him where he is,” Harry said, starting the engine up again to make my bones rattle. “Gotta rewire him the hard way. Club life starts again in the morning. No better way to mark your return than by being a little sore.”
I was just about to answer him with some cocky assed response until I looked up into Slater's eyes and saw him laughing at the sight and state of me. Squinting and flashing him a paralyzed, lazy grin, I raised a hand and pressed my thumb and finger together, creating a circle to show him I was a-o-fucking-kay. Then, when my head fell back against the floor, the darkness crept in, the feeling in my legs began to disappear and I knew I was about to pass out.
In five...
Four...
Three...
Two...
Snore.
I hadn’t meant to throw up all over Slater’s boots. It just happened, but the fact that he was being so pissy about it was making the thudding in my head even more painful. He only had himself to blame. What that lanky fucker expected to happen when he was bouncing his foot up and down on my stomach in the back of the van, God only knew.
“Here, take some water,” Kenny said quietly, pulling out a bottle of the pure stuff from fuck knew where before holding it to my lips.
I didn’t answer him but my hands clung onto that bottle, and I drained it. I could hear Slater cursing and stomping around as the van came to a stop.
“Swill your mouth out then take a mint,” Kenny said casually, watching as I did exactly what he said like he was the older of the two of us. “Any better?” he asked, slapping an arm around my shoulder as I sat on the bench in the back and let my head fall into my hands again.
“Champion.”
“Yeah, you look like you could go ten rounds with Tyson,” he joked, choking out some kind of laugh that made it obvious he didn’t find anything funny at all. Slater threw the doors open, and the moment the fresh air hit me, I closed my eyes even tighter, locked my jaw and just soaked that shit in. There was a certain smell to this place that was practically in-fucking-describable. Once you were in the yard and you gave yourself up to club life, the whole atmosphere around you shifted.
It was like a big welcome back embrace from my home, and I couldn’t wait to get inside and collapse on my bed. But I was also nervous. Not that I wanted to admit that to the guys around me now. Not that I could. I was Drew Tucker. That man wasn’t allowed to be weak.
Dropping my hands, I let my eyes peel open, cleared my throat and looked out through the open doors. From where Harry had parked, I could see all the bikes lined up in position and the faint light from the front porch of the hut. My eyes fell to the Harleys for just a short while before Kenny slapped my back again, turning to hop out of the van, too.
“They’re all waiting for you, bro,” he said quietly. I wasn’t sure when Kenny had turned from boy to man, but as my eyes caught his, I knew that transition had happened while I was away, and his zigzag eyebrows didn’t reflect shit about him anymore.
“Who’s in there?”
“Everyone.” Kenny nodded at me.
“Just our charter?” I asked.
“For tonight,” Slater almost whispered as he ran his free hand over his forehead.
I knew what that meant and I was grateful. It meant that for tonight, I wouldn’t have to put on a show to all the men from far and wide, who would eventually make their way down here to test me and my strength again. I’d be scrutinized, assessed, judged and more importantly, challenged. It was all part of the job.
Groaning as I let my body rise to a stand, I kept my head ducked, jumping down onto the gravelly ground beneath me and stumbling to find my feet. Both my hands gripped my brothers’ shoulders before I allowed myself to look up, and when I did, it was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. Our patch sign hung over the doorway of the wooden building that was my home.
Hounds of Babylon, Texas.
The one image that was tattooed across almost every inch of my chest because it was the mark of our patch, stared down at me: the central skull with his two guarding canines on either side.
Just like that, clarity took over. I could see what I stood for and why I was born. I was a member of the pack; a man who was created to become something greater than his father envisaged he himself could be.
“You can clean that shit up tomorrow,” Harry grumbled as he walked in front of us all and brought me out of my trance. My head snapped up to his and for the first time since I’d woken up, a small smile started to play on my lips again.
I ignored Harry’s quiet insults as the guys behind me shut up the van, and I made my way over to the front doors of the building. The steps creaked beneath the weight of my heavy boots while
I took them slowly, savoring each moment and sound that was pulling me further forward. When my hand eventually found the entrance, I stood staring at that door for far too long. Every breath I took made me feel like the old me was resurfacing. Before I even knew what I was doing, I pushed against the wooden slats and let the warmth of my home drag me in.
“Drew!”
“Tucker!”
“And he’s back…”
They were all shouting. The air became thick with heavy accents, cries of my name and the sound of boots walking towards me while they all clapped like seals. It was embarrassing as shit and all I could manage was a raise of my brows as I began to scratch at the side of my face awkwardly. My eyes soon fell to Jedd who was standing behind the majority of the crowd with a smirk on his face and his arms folded across his chest.
“What? No banners?” I mouthed over at him.
Lifting his chin, he rolled his eyes and swirled a finger above his head before dropping it back down across his chest again. That was his signal for the cops.
Pushing past the faces in front of me, I tried to keep smiling at each and every one of them before making my way to stand in front of Jedd. He was a smarmy fucker and a few inches taller than me, with more black hair all over his body than a damn wild animal. But he was good at what he did. He was a good second in command – or should that be a good leader, now?
“What’s happened?” I asked, adopting his pose as I sniffed and looked up at him. “Trouble?”
“Nothing unusual. Couple of the guys got taken into holding. Public intoxication bullshit but we know it won't stick.”
“Shit. Not what we needed tonight. This unusual?”
“No more than we expected. Howard Sutton stopped us on our drive through town. He knows you’re out. It’s why we only just got back here ourselves.”
My lazy half-grin pulled up on one side of my face again. “He marking his territory ‘cause he knows I’m out?”
“You know about Maisey?” Jedd asked roughly, his chin dipping as he looked down on me through cautious eyes.
“Yeah. Can’t say I give a shit, either.”
He nodded once and smiled flatly. “Fair enough. As for Sutton, he just gave us the usual verbal crap about not riding through his town as a pack, lowering the noise levels for the locals. Oh, and keeping you out of his sight for the foreseeable future.”
“Damn.” I laughed. “Anyone would think I’d fucked his wife.”
His hand landed on my shoulder before he gave it a squeeze and looked over to the door on the opposite side of the room. My door. My sanctuary. The one place that no one else was allowed inside except me, and the door that was hardly ever used because I always kept a padlock on that fucker, preferring people to get to me in my office instead. “How about you go see what we have waiting for you in there. She’s a beauty.” Jedd reached into his jacket pocket, slyly pulling out a pack of gum and a box of dick sheaths, too. I knew I liked him for a reason.
Taking them from him, I looked up and raised a brow. “Is this you feeling guilty for the van beats?”
“No, this is me wanting you to wake up with a fresh head tomorrow… in more ways than one. We’ve got a lot of business to go over.”
I didn’t hang around to ask any more questions. I was still drunk as hell and now I was tired, too, but not exhausted enough to dismiss the idea of a naked woman waiting for me. It felt like a long walk through the rest of the leather-clad men as I made my way over, shouting over my shoulder as I smirked. “Turn the music up loud, boys.”
When I pushed the handle down on the door and took my first step across the threshold to my bedroom, my eyes roamed all around it – down on the carpets, up to the walls that still had the same photos and postcards pinned to them, then all across the ceiling, before eventually landing on the beautiful, half-naked redhead sprawled on top of my bed-sheets. Her hair was the color of the devil and her face spoke of nothing but sin as she twirled the fine curls of her locks around one finger to try and look even more seductive. I stepped through that door and slammed it shut in less than a heartbeat, smiling over at her as I started to unfasten my belt, my eyes locked on hers the whole time.
“You have a name?” I asked smoothly.
“Not tonight,” she cooed over at me and I instantly felt my balls shrivel up. Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard, and I could tell from the way she let her tongue roam all over her mouth that she was going to be a noisy bitch.
“Good,” I mumbled, taking a step forward.
Lifting my t-shirt up and over my head, I tossed it to the floor and began to kick off my shoes at the end of the bed. With her eyes on mine, she spun around to crawl on all fours and started making her way over to me. “Let me undress you.”
I didn’t answer as I looked down on her, but I paused what I was doing and my smirk grew. Her hands soon found my stomach as she traced her fingernails across skin that hadn’t been touched for so long, and that’s when my whole body stood to attention and I had to grind my teeth together and work the muscles in my jaw at how fucking weird it felt. Half good weird. Half bad. My instincts were telling me to throw her off and get her as far away as I could. The prison paranoia was still lurking in the back of my mind. Anyone close could hurt me, and she was really fucking close. Too close. I tried to control my breathing, but it was just getting heavier and harder. I could see this whole thing heading south, not just her hands and mouth.
“Loosen up, Tucker,” she purred as her fingers drew down the zip on my jeans and she looked up through fluttering eyes. “I'm here for you for as long as you want. I'll do anything you want.”
Her hands slid around the back of my waistband as she began to guide it down, and the small touches of her hands on my bare skin had my ass cheeks clenching and my muscles tensing even harder.
“Get off me,” I whispered through tight lips.
“That's what I'm doing, handsome.” Her body rose until she was on her knees in front of me. “I'm getting them off you so we can give you some TLC.”
I shook my head at her and closed my eyes. “No,” I breathed out. “Get. Off. Me.”
“You want to be the one in charge? I forgot… The Drew Tucker doesn't take orders from anyone.” Her eyes flashed in the muted light and all I could think about was hurting her. And that wouldn't have been good for anyone, especially not me.
I broke contact with her completely, removing myself from the situation as much as I could and took two steps backwards. “Look, sweetheart, I appreciate this little performance you're putting on, but this ain't gonna hap–”
And that's when I heard it the first time. A banging in the room I stood in that didn't come from either of us as we froze in place and stared back at one another. Her eyes popped wide open, while mine narrowed without thought.
“What was that?”
“I don't know.” I held my finger up to silence her completely. My attention moved to the built-in closet that was against the far wall. “I don't know,” I repeated in a whisper, my feet crossing over one another as I side-stepped my way over to the spot I was staring at.
Then I heard it again – the dull thud against the carpeted floor, and I instantly snapped my head back over to the bed and let my eyes fall to underneath it. I couldn't see shit in this light and my hand was too far away from the switch on the wall, but as I crept closer, I prepared my body for a fight, just in case.
Glancing up at the broad, I shook my head at her in silent warning before I bent to crouch down and investigate. The sound of my bones cracking must have alerted whoever was hiding out underneath, and before I could even take a good look at who was there, their body began to move and scurry out across the floor.
“What the fuck?” My growl was low and threatening, but it was soon drowned out by the sound of the chick as she screamed out like she was being murdered.
I didn't have time to react much, but as soon as I saw the shadow fly over to the door and swing it open, I threw my arm over my eyes
and cursed the harsh light that shone straight at me.
Finding my feet as fast as I could, I pushed up from the bed and started to run after whoever the fuck had just been in my room. The energy flowing through me was pumping so hard, I felt the power start to spread from my toes, crawl up my spine and feed itself into my biceps.
“Stop ‘em!” I shouted to the guys in the main area as loud as I could, but the music was so heavy, they'd have had to see him rather than hear me.
Running out into the open room with no t-shirt on and my jeans practically hanging off my ass, I tried to squint to find the obvious foreign body in here. It was only when I saw a mass of long hair weaving between all my half pissed-up crew that I really let my voice turn into a roar.
“CLOSE ALL THE FUCKING DOORS, NOW!”
Then everything went silent.
Everything except the sound of a young voice crying out as his body was slammed up against the wall by none other than Jedd Thomas himself.
We had him.
Bingo.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ayda
Considering what a bad day it had been, I found myself almost in high spirits when I came home that night. It was ten thirty, I had nowhere else to be, and walking into a clean house didn’t hurt either.
Heading to the fridge, I grabbed myself a beer and kicked off my shoes with a groan of appreciation. Standing on my feet for four hours doing absolutely nothing productive was more draining than it should have been. At least I’d had some entertainment. The MC had been out in full force. There was coming and going from the bar across the street for most of the night. Most of them were absolutely annihilated. Huge, leather-clad men were stumbling around like teenage girls, their arms slung around scantily clad women who seemed more than eager to please.
I envied them their freedom, but that was about the crux of it. I had more self-control and pride than that. They didn’t have the responsibilities I did and they wasted it all. I just needed something to hold my attention, and the distraction came in the form of a six-pack, microwave popcorn and a cheesy eighties movie in the darkness of my living room. There was nothing like the brat pack to make you feel better about your life.
Without Consequence Page 4