Without Consequence

by Victoria L. James

  Creeping forward, I moved as quietly and as slowly as I could until there were only inches between her back and my chest. I was certain she would be able to feel the heat of my body pouring down onto her, but when Ayda didn’t move, I raised my hands up slowly behind her before wrapping them around her face and pressing them against her eyes. Her body flinched as though I’d snapped her out of whatever daze she’d been in, but when my lips dropped down to her neck and trailed a path of kisses up to the spot just below her ear, I felt her entire being melt back into my arms.

  “Is it a coincidence that you always turn up here when I need a shower?” I whispered, my lips curling into a smile against her. “Or are you here to break into my petty cash and run away with all my t-shirts?”

  “The shirts,” she whispered back in response, her hand reaching to cover both of mine. “Definitely the shirts. I’m going to sell them all and make a small fortune.”

  “I feel so used.”

  A small burst of laughter fell from her lips as more of her weight settled back on me, her fingers prying my hands away. “Poor baby. Is now a good time to tell you that I’m also using you for your incredibly hot body?”

  “Now I feel cheap, too,” I said through a grin, spinning her around in my arms until I was looking down on her once more. “You’re going to ruin me, aren’t you, Hanagan?”

  “Ruin you?” she asked, her hands running up and over my shoulders, a blush tainting her cheeks. “I had an intervention at the diner today because they thought I was on drugs.”

  “Drugs?” I smirked, raising a brow.

  “I was practically giddy.”

  My hands fell to the waist of her jeans, my thumbs running over her hips as I pulled her closer and breathed her in. “Practically isn’t good enough. Sounds like I need to work harder.”

  Her eyes widened before darting around the room. I didn’t know what she was looking for, or if she’d just remembered where she was, but the shrug and smile told me she was beyond caring as she leaned in and pushed up onto her toes. “If you try any harder, I may lose feeling in my legs permanently.”

  Not giving her a chance to react, I bent at the knee, wrapping one arm under her legs and one arm around her back as I scooped her up and started to move forward. “Legs are overrated anyway. And it might do me a favor, too. No legs, no running away, no matter how many times I screw up.”

  Flashing a grin down at her, I raised my foot to my office door and tried to kick it open. When it stayed firmly shut, I did the same again, kicking it a little harder to try and make the fucker budge so I could walk Ayda through the thing like I’d seen all those Hollywood bastards do a thousand times before. Only it didn’t budge an inch, and I was left standing there looking like more of a tool than I actually felt.

  “That kinda went a little differently in my head.”

  With one arm around my neck, she flashed me a smile, the humor and amusement evident. Reaching behind her, she twisted the handle and winked at me. “Should work now. I promise to be thoroughly impressed.”

  “Now I feel used, cheap and inadequate. I’m so glad you turned up tonight, Ayda. I don’t know how my head would have fit through the door without you.”

  Stepping over the threshold, I walked us straight through the office, skipping through the bathroom before heading to my room and standing the two of us over the edge of the bed.

  “Inadequate is not a word I would attribute to you.” Her eyes shot to the mattress below her and back up at me, her grin almost cocky. “A bed? What are you planning on doing with me and a bed?”

  “I was planning on making you work off some more of your debt.”

  “You’re a cheeky bastard.”

  “You have no idea.” I growled before I launched her onto the comforter, my own face lighting up the more her laughter rang out around the room. At some point, between me shrugging off my cut, tossing my hoodie to the floor and climbing over to her, it dawned on me that I’d never wanted to make a woman laugh quite like I felt the need to bring a smile to Ayda’s lips in that moment.

  Despite all the dark clouds that were hanging over my head, she was like that poetic ray of sunshine that I was drawn to, and I knew as long as she was nearby, I’d probably be alright in the end.

  Or at least that’s what I hoped, for both our sakes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Ayda

  The hours I spent with Drew seemed to make time pass like it hadn’t since my days in college. I think a lot of it was getting lost in the life of the hut with him – the stories he would tell me while drinking beer with one of his buddies, the constant rivalry he had with Slater, and then there was his laugh. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t do it all that often, or because the caring was taking on a whole new depth, but no matter where I was or who I was talking to, the moment I heard it, my eyes were on him.

  My hours at work seemed to pass with just as much speed. Having a better outlook on life seemed to spur me on in every aspect of it. I’d even attempted to run with Tate one morning and almost killed myself trying to keep up with him. I had never been more thankful that Deeks continued to follow us on his bike, even if Kenny had taken up the challenge and was trying to keep pace with Tate. Even my shifts at the food mart were more entertaining now that Deeks was there. He would get more bored than I would most of the time and wander through the aisles, picking up random things that most people ignored. The last adventure had been the cheapest of the caviar. The look on his face as he spat it out had me laughing aloud, bringing some of the other shelf stackers to the front of the store to see what the commotion was. Deeks sat on the bench, midway into the act of spitting what he had in his mouth in a brown bag I’d been generous enough to throw him.

  I’d gone from dreading each day to opening my eyes and wondering what the hell it had in store for me.

  Being happier meant Tate was happier, too. I still wasn’t sure about the influence Kenny was having on him, but he was keeping up with football and his school work, so I turned a blind eye to the friendship and rivalry the two of them had going on. It was like having two kid brothers a lot of the time. It was also helping Tate forget that Sloane didn’t want to break her daddy’s rules or fracture her new friendship with her stepmom, who had suddenly taken an interest in her life.

  I felt sorry for the girl. It wasn’t like she and I had ever been close, but the mentor she’d chosen for herself was surely going to make her a statistic. Maisey Sutton was the girl you warned your kids about, but was now somehow giving etiquette lessons to her stepdaughter. Truth was, Tate was better off out of it, though I wasn’t thrilled about Kenny’s encouraging pep talk about there being plenty more whores in the doghouse.

  All of my financial burdens were still there. They weren’t going anywhere fast, but it was no longer all I thought about. I’d decided to take one day at a time and would just have to deal with the problem if it arose. I couldn’t keep worrying about the future, but I also hadn’t expected for the days to pass by quite so quickly.

  “You gonna sit here and stare at the gates all night, kid?” Deeks asked, his elbow coming to rest on top of my car. I had just finished my shift at the diner and wasn’t needed at the food mart, so I’d come to see Drew. I’d also moved my shifts around indefinitely to fit in football Fridays. Tate was damn good at what he did out on that field, and as his last surviving family member, I owed it to him to be there with him. Although I wasn’t sure how it was going to look when I sat there with Kenny and Deeks on either side of me like sentries. Even though I was pretty sure Kenny was up for seeing Tate put practice into reality.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “About?” Deeks asked, flicking his cigarette butt across the lot.

  “How my two person family is slowly growing, what to do for dinner, and when the last time y’all cleaned out your barbeque pit was.”

  “That’s a lot of thoughts.”

  “You do take your time.”

  He huffed out
a laugh and opened my door for me. He wasn’t slow at all; he was thorough. His bike could eat up the distance three times faster than my car could and we both knew it.

  We walked into the yard together, following one of the trucks that was towing in a few months old model car that still had the goop from the sticker attached to the window, as though the owner hadn’t had time to remove it. Times were hard in our little town and that was reflected all the more by the litter of almost pristine cars in the yard in front of me. The owner would now be forced to see the local used car dealership, and over pay for a piece of shit with a criminal interest rate. That wasn’t the Hounds’ fault; they were just doing what they could to earn their living.

  The thought didn’t last long as I was steered onto the porch and in through the doors of the hut. The atmosphere cleared my head, giving me a whole new line of reasoning. Oddly, the place no longer felt like I was stepping onto some alien planet. I wasn’t sure when it happened, but as I stood there scanning the men and women talking and flirting, I realized that it was becoming familiar enough for me to feel comfortable. The girls still weren’t thrilled by my presence, but they weren’t rude, and they sure as hell didn’t call out insults to my face. They saved that for behind my back, which suited me fine. I was of the mind that what I didn’t see couldn’t hurt me.

  I found Drew over by the bar with Slater, drinking beer and deep in a quiet conversation that no one seemed inclined to disturb. I was always cautious about interrupting him when he was talking to someone seriously like that. Even though we’d been spending time together, I was still an outsider. I was a guest in his home, with his family. It was Harry who alerted him to my presence.

  “Hey, Ayda,” he shouted, popping the top from a beer and sliding it between Drew and Slater’s. They all seemed to take turns behind the bar most nights, even if it was just to give one of the girls a break, but I could never get used to seeing them there.

  Drew and Slater both turned at my name and I flashed them a smile, my feet finally propelling me forward as my hand slipped around the neck of the ice cold beer.

  “Evening, boys.”

  Drew’s smile seemed to take a minute to catch up with whatever thoughts had been way ahead of him as soon as he knew I was there, but when it came, it was one of those lazy grins that felt like it had the power to knock me off my feet. Keeping his body hunched over the bar, he pushed his chest further into his fists resting on top of the counter and raised his eyebrows in my direction, like the cocky ass was actually waiting and expecting me to approach him without him even having to say hey.

  Taking a mouthful of my beer, I rotated my body towards Slater, who had obviously noted the same as I had, my smile still polite, and teasing. I was messing with Drew and they both seemed to know it. “Hey, Slater. How was your day?”

  “Ask Drew,” he said, tipping the mouth of his bottle at his friend and smirking. Loyalty. It was honorable and all, but it wasn’t helping me out.

  Harry seemed to be the only one to want to help me in any way. “Tweedle Dee held a bag and Tweedle Dumb beat on it. They congratulated one another on a job well done and went to supervise a couple of repos.”

  I heard Drew’s rough laugh beside me, but refused to turn around and give in so soon into this game we were obviously playing, even if it was killing me. “I better be the fucking Dee out of that duo,” he muttered before I heard him swipe up the bottle in front of him.

  “Sounds like a tough day at the office,” I said, playing along and patting the bar. “Can I get another beer to accompany me in the shower? I smell like a greasy spoon from the diner.”

  Harry didn’t answer me right away. His eyes flickered to Drew as he raised his brows in question, and I could hardly believe it when I saw that man shake his head out of the corner of my eye, not so subtly telling Harry that my request was denied. Just as my mouth began to part in protest, Harry turned back to me and let out a long stream of air as he pretended to wipe down an invisible spill in front of him. “I’m sorry, darlin’, but apparently we’re all out of the 4% Buds and Coors at the moment, but I do believe we have a well brewed 100% Tucker for you to try out.”

  “Sounds like something from a micro brewery. I’m not sure.” I tapped my lips thoughtfully and took a step back. “No worries. I’ll grab one from the kitchen walk in fridge.”

  I started to back away, chugging the beer I had in my hand and winking at Harry. It was yet another one of those moments for me. I honestly wasn’t sure when I became comfortable enough to play along with them, but it was an instinct. Keep things respectful and there would be no problems. It was knowing the lines and when not to cross them.

  The sound of a howl filling the air was what had me pausing in my step. I’d never heard anything like it before in my life, or the fit of choked laughter that followed it from Drew, but one minute I was walking away thinking I was playing the game and slightly in front, the next, I had a group of Hounds standing in front of me, blocking my path. I was circled like a damn sheep amongst the wolves, each man with his arms crossed over his chest and a Tucker smirk replica plastered across his face.

  “Stop right there, Hanagan,” came an arrogant whisper from behind me.

  My eyes moved from one face to the other of the men around me, my head shaking with feigned sadness as they all smirked down on me. I was fighting the smile that was desperate to get free. Turning my head and resting my chin on my shoulder, I raised my eyebrows.

  “You take beer very seriously around here, Tucker.”

  “No…” He grinned back at me, tilting his head to one side. “I take my regular piece of ass seriously.”

  Dragging my bottom lip between my teeth, I sucked in a deep breath and took my time releasing it. “Is she in the kitchen?”

  “I think she just came from there, given she has a knife and is currently sticking it in my fragile heart and ego.”

  “You don’t play fair.”

  “She finally gets it,” he said through a half laugh, taking a small step closer towards me with that expectant look upon his face. “And you don’t do yourself any favors.” Drew’s head dipped, his chin pushing forward as he took his voice down to a private whisper. “Do you realize how many HW’s are glaring at us right now? I feel like my ass is on fire.”

  As immature as it was, those last words made me do something I didn’t think I would ever do. I acted instinctively and marked my territory. My body turned and stepped in with one little shift, and my arms circled his neck as I pushed up on my toes. “I’m about to make it worse. Forgive me?”

  I didn’t wait for him to answer. My lips found his as my hand cupped the back of his neck. It wasn’t just a kiss; it was an intimate kiss, my body pressing so close to his that the men in the room started hollering and whistling out. It was as close as I could get to pissing a circle around him and I wasn’t sorry. I couldn’t be, because even though he said he belonged to no one, in my mind, I was showing him that I was his. Everyone else could think what the hell they wanted.

  Drew kissed me back with as much force and passion as I did him. His hands circled around the base of my spine as he dipped me over in his arms and dragged the moment out. Only when I was balancing in his grip did he pull away at just the wrong moment, close his eyes and flash me a grin. “We have a problem.”

  I was terrified to let go of him, and I knew we had an audience, so my next words came cautiously. “What kind of problem?”

  He took in a slow, deep breath, holding me still in place and lowering his mouth closer to mine again as he growled out. “The kind of problem where you have entirely too many clothes on, and my dick is way too hard for you to move away from me without flashing everyone in here a shot of what’s going on underneath my jeans.”

  I smiled up at him, one hand coming around to cup his cheek. “Hmm, that is a problem. Maybe I should just wrap my legs around you and let you carry me away. It’s not like they don’t realize we’re about to go fuck like bunnies.”

&
nbsp; “Bunnies?” He frowned, even though his lips were still turned up into a grin. “Fucking bunnies? I’m a mother fucking lion.”

  I smiled at him. “You are, but it’s a metaphor. Rabbits literally fuck more than any other mammal, and their little pumps are so enthusiastic...” I paused and closed my eyes to filter out the useless information I could so readily reach for. “Fuck like lions it is.”

  “Thank God. If you were to say little pumps and rabbits one more time, I would have literally bent you over the nearest table and screwed you until you couldn’t speak anymore.” His laughter fell free as he began to pull me up in his arms.

  In the short time I’d known Drew, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen the look in his face as he took my hand and pulled me toward his room. He waved his boys away and even their laughter seemed a little lighter somehow.

  “Well played, Ayda,” Slater called after us with a quiet chuckle.

  “Fuck off,” Drew responded, swinging me into his office. He flipped Slater off while I peered around him with a grin of my own before he pushed the door closed.

  All it took was one arm around my waist and I was pulled up against him, our lips welded together as he walked us both through the bathroom and into his room. His hands wasted no time in pulling my t-shirt over my head, the two of us only coming apart as he pulled it free and threw it to one side. I stood there in my bra and jeans as he fell back on the bed to admire me like he’d painted the picture himself.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Drew

  I was starting to think that she was keeping tabs on me and knew exactly when to show up in my life. Every time things were about to get deep and wander off into that territory of ‘what-ifs’, there she was. Slater had been whispering the latest news on the Navarro Rifles MC, having just got word in from one of his contacts who was always playing the snake behind their backs. And even though I had wanted to know what was going on and where we stood, my mood had been tanking with every passing second.