ASH: Westside Skulls Motorcycle Club: (Westside Skulls MC Romance Book 4)

by Cooke, Jessie

  She flipped herself over and lay there trying to catch her breath as she reached for the hand he’d just had inside of her. He watched with his sexy, wide green eyes as she took one of his fingers and put it in her mouth. He looked mesmerized as he watched her suck on it, slowly cleaning her own juices off him before taking the other one and doing the same thing. Once that was done, in a voice even she didn’t recognize because it was so thick with passion she said:

  “I need to feel you inside me, Ash...now...please.”

  He put his knees up on the bed then and took his hard cock into his hand. He stroked it up and down her slit a few times before she reached down, unable to take the teasing any longer, and she guided it inside of her, sliding her butt down until she had the head and about an inch of his shaft up inside her. They groaned together and when he lost all self-control and pushed forward and buried his cock inside her...deep. She whimpered and writhed around on the bed, gasping, moaning, and making other desperate sounds that almost sounded like she was in pain...but what he was doing to her was so far from pain that it wasn’t even in the same realm. It was pure, unadulterated pleasure, the kind that only Ash could give her.

  He began moving his hips in until his throbbing cock was buried deep, and then rotating them, causing his cock to stroke her walls and tickle them before pulling back out again. He did that for a while, and it felt incredible...but she was ready for more. “Harder,” she told him. Ash sat up straighter on his knees and pressed down on her thighs to open her up even more, and then he slammed into her, causing another loud gasp to escape from her chest. He fucked her a little harder, rocking into her while she rocked back...and slowly he increased his pace and the force of his thrusts, pounding into her again and again, slapping their pelvises together each time and sending the sound of their flesh meeting echoing off the walls of the trailer.

  His hard thrusts became almost violent and just as Mack felt the first pulse of his hard cock, she let herself go, almost screaming into a wild, intense orgasm that shook her to her very core. The waves of it were still crashing over her, threatening to steal her oxygen, when she felt another pulse and his body tense and then explode inside her. Ash’s face was bright red and the veins on his neck bulged out as he growled out her name and filled her up with his hot come. He continued to rock against her for so long that she could feel a large wet spot pooling beneath her and then at last he was finished, and he collapsed down next to her taking deep, gulping breaths. Mack lay still, quietly kissing the sides of his face before he repositioned himself and laid his cheek against her breast, sliding one arm underneath her and wrapping the other one across her, just underneath her breasts. She had almost forgotten how good this felt. The sex was off the charts...but being held by him, or holding him, was what she really needed. It was all she needed. But could Ash forgive her, and could they move on...or was her telling him the truth the biggest and most dangerous choice she’d ever made? She had no idea, but at that moment she pressed all of those thoughts out of her consciousness and simply let herself be. She let herself be satiated. She let herself be in love. She let herself be Ash’s woman...his old lady...if only for a little while, and if only in her mind.

  27

  The grief came in waves. He could forget for a while that Smoke was dead...and then suddenly when he least expected it, another heavy wave would hit and nearly bring him to his knees. Today was going to be especially hard. It was Smoke’s funeral. He was having a full military funeral. The army had come out of the woodwork, talking about his honors, awards, and medals when he served. He’d been a hero and none of them had even known. Smoke rarely spoke, but when he did, it was never to toot his own horn. He was loyal to a fault and any brother in the club knew they could trust him with their lives. Wolf told Ash dozens of times that what happened at the bar was not his fault. They’d all been set up...but it was just so fucking hard for him to get past the fact that Smoke had died out there, alone.

  Sledge was having a hard time with it as well. The injury to his leg was healing well, but the one to his soul ran deep. Ash knew him better than anyone and he was worried about his friend. Sledge was always the life of the party, but suddenly it took a crowbar to even get him to speak. It would be even worse when Ash told him that he was back with Mack. Sledge was going to go ballistic...until he heard what happened to Mackenzie and why she’d done what she did. And then, he was going to go ballistic in another direction. Sledge loved Mack. When they were young, Ash suspected that his friend was even in love with her. Sledge knew how Ash and Mack were in love and he would never even think about trying to come between them...but Ash knew that even to this day, if anyone threatened her, they’d have hell to pay. Ash was going to have to share the plan he was developing in his head with Sledge, and hope his friend didn’t decide to go off half-cocked and alone before they could put it into action.

  “Hey.” Mack found Ash sitting on one of the picnic tables outside, smoking a joint. He wasn’t much of a smoker, or a drinker. He didn’t like to be out of control of his actions. But he’d woken up that morning before Mack was awake, taken a shower, put on a dark suit, and then decided he couldn’t go and watch them put Smoke in the ground. He knew he had to, however...so the weed was vapor courage, or at least he hoped it would work that way.

  “Hey.” Mack was wearing a simple black dress and low black heels. Her hair was straightened and fell down to the middle of her back. She had on very little makeup and just a small string of black pearls around her neck. “You look beautiful.”

  She reached out and put her hand on the side of his freshly shaved face. “Thanks. So do you. How are you doing?”

  He shrugged and held up the joint. “So-so,” he said with a half smile. Mack smiled back and held her hand out for what was almost a roach at that point. Surprised, Ash handed it to her. He’d never seen her smoke in all the years he’d known her. She took a long drag and as she held the smoke in her lungs, she stubbed the rest out. “You need some courage too?”

  Smiling again and letting the rest of the smoke out she said, “Maybe for telling Steve...I mean, Sledge...about us.”

  Ash nodded. He reached out and pulled her in close, kissing her softly on the lips. “I guess we should go see if Charlie wants to ride with us.” Mack nodded, kissed him again, and then hand in hand they walked towards Bruf’s trailer. They were almost there when Sledge hobbled out of his, still on his crutches.

  “Motherfucker,” he growled. “Are you kidding me?” Ash’s muscles automatically tensed. He turned and looked at Sledge.

  “You don’t know the whole story.”

  “Steve...” Mack began.

  “Sledge!” he barked at her.

  “Hey,” Ash said. “This fucking day sucks already. I promise you tonight I’ll explain everything, and you’ll understand. But for now, I’d appreciate it if you’d treat Mack with the respect she deserves.”

  “The respect she deserves?”

  “Yes, Sledge...for me. Please.” Sledge looked like he had so much more to say...but thankfully, he decided against it. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, however, he turned his back to them and made his way down the three steps from his porch that led to the grass below. When he reached the bottom Ash said, “You want to ride with us?”

  “Nope.” He didn’t even look back at them; he just kept walking, headed for the clubhouse. Ash watched him for a second, feeling hurt that Sledge wouldn’t trust him enough to just take his word that things were going to be okay with him and Mack. But he had to remind himself that all of Sledge’s angst was coming from how much he cared about Ash...and a little from how much he cared for Mack too. Ash closed his hand on hers tighter and they went to get Charlie. There was going to be a chapel ceremony that Smoke’s aunt, the lady who raised him, was putting on. Then there would be graveside services and finally a wake back at the club. The girls had been in the kitchen since dawn, cooking up a feast. In other words, though, along with the emotional agony...it was going to
be a long fucking day.

  * * *

  The church ceremony was beautiful...but so stinking sad. Mack thought she’d never seen anything as heart-wrenching as a room full of rough, tough bikers, trying not to cry. Smoke’s aunt was quite elderly, but still spry enough to get around on her own. She held her head up high throughout the ceremony. It was only when she went forward for the viewing and laid eyes on her nephew in his coffin that she broke down. The poor woman laid her head against the coffin and told him how much she loved him, and how proud she was of the man that he’d become. She didn’t seem upset at all that he’d been a part of a motorcycle club, and Mack had witnessed her earlier, embracing Wolf like he was her own son, clearly not blaming the club for what happened to her nephew. There were a few more of Smoke’s family members there too, cousins mostly. His parents were both dead...killed in a freak boating accident when he was only eight years old. Mack had no idea if he had siblings, but so far, she’d not seen hide or hair of them if he did.

  After the church service was over, Ash went to take his place in line once again. He was a pallbearer, which he told Mack was the very least he could do. She wished he didn’t blame himself. She wasn’t there, but from what Charlie told her that everyone around the club was saying, no one blamed Ash for what happened that day except himself.

  Six men lifted the coffin from the altar and carried it out of the church and to the car that would take Smoke to his final resting place. Wolf, Bruf, Manson, Ash, and Sledge Mack recognized, but there was one other man...a dark, scary-looking one who had Nomad stitched on his kutte. Ash told her Smoke’s best friend and old army buddy, Payday, would be carrying the coffin with him. Mack decided the dark man must be him.

  Once the casket was loaded into the car, Ash, Mack, and Charlie went to where they’d left her car and pulled out into the funeral procession, following them all to the graveyard. The graveside services were even tougher on the guys than the church had been. The army was there, playing Taps and doing a 21-gun salute. Afterwards they folded the flag that draped Smoke’s coffin and tried to present it to his aunt. It was then that anyone with a dry eye lost it at last.

  “No,” she said, through a torrent of her own tears. “Thank you. I loved my nephew very much. He was a good man, as you all know. But despite my best efforts, he never really found a family until he found his club. He spoke so fondly of you all,” she told Wolf, who had tears staining his cheeks and running down off his beard. “He loved you, and if you’ll accept it, I’d like for you to have this flag, and display it in the club in memory of him.”

  The soldier holding the flag turned toward Wolf and stood at attention. Wolf squeezed his old lady Blair’s hand and then stepped forward. In a heart-wrenching little ceremony, the colors that Smoke had fought for were presented to the president of a motorcycle club. It was an odd and touching sight. It was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it warmed Mack’s heart. She clutched onto Ash’s arm tighter and felt his body shake as he finally stopped fighting back the tears. She glanced over at Sledge and the big guy was standing ramrod straight, staring at the coffin with a stream of tears running down his face. There was no denying that these people were a family and that they loved each other very much.

  28

  Sledge had been staring at the wall of the shop for a really long time. Ash was trying to be patient and give him time to process what he’d just told him, but it had been a really long time, and Sledge still hadn’t uttered a sound. Finally, unable to take it any longer, Ash said, “Are you okay?”

  Sledge began to shake his head slowly from side to side. “He raped her.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. Neither Ash nor Sledge gave any thought to whether or not what Mackenzie told him about Phil was true. They didn’t know Phil, but they knew Mack. As angry as Sledge had been with her and as hurt as Ash was, they both knew that she wouldn’t lie about something like that...not in a million years. In a low, almost growly voice Sledge said, “I’m going to kill the motherfucker.”

  “I want to kill him too,” Ash said, “but Phil Spencer is a prominent businessman in Manhattan with a lot of friends and contacts in the city. You know as well as I do that we can’t just waltz in there and kill him. He could have copies of these videos anywhere and a police investigation would undoubtedly turn them up.”

  “So...you’re suggesting what? I know you’re not saying we’re going to do nothing. He raped Mackenzie—fuck! I’ve spent five years hating my best friend while meanwhile she was dealing with this. She thought she was protecting you...us...fuck, Ash, what have I done?”

  “Nothing, Sledge. You haven’t done anything. Mack understands that all you had to go on was what we were told back then. She knows that you were just being loyal to me. You and Mack can be friends again...if you want to be.”

  “If I want to be? Shit. If I were her I’d never speak to my stupid ass again.”

  Ash tried to hide his smile. “Well, I think she’ll be happy to speak to your stupid ass again, if that’s what you want.”

  “I want to kill somebody,” he said, flatly. “I didn’t get to be a part of taking care of the trash that killed Smoke because of this fucking leg. That was bad enough. But now, I find out that this piece of shit raped our Mack and got away with it. He’s living his Wall Street life, probably harassing other young women and just fucking getting away with it. I want him dead. I want to watch him die. That’s what I want.”

  Ash nodded. “Me too, brother. But guess what? I’ve learned something about being patient and controlling my temper lately, and I think this is one of those situations where both are going to be warranted.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “First thing tomorrow morning, we go buy us a couple of new suits.”

  Sledge looked at Ash like he’d grown another head. “The fuck you say?”

  Ash smiled. “We’re going to need them if the people in Phil Spencer’s office are going to believe we’re old friends of his.”

  “I’ve got a feeling this will be the first trip back to Manhattan that I’ve enjoyed since I moved out of there.”

  “I’ve got a feeling we both will,” Ash said. “Mack and I are going for a ride before it gets too late. You okay?”

  “Yeah, bro, I will be. Tell her...shit, I’ll tell her myself when she has some time.”

  “I’ll tell her,” Ash said, clapping Sledge on the shoulder. “I’m sure she’d love to talk to you in the morning. I’ll give you guys some time alone before you and I head for town, okay?” Sledge nodded. Ash patted his shoulder again and then left him there in the shop and went to pick up his “date.” It had been three days since Smoke’s funeral and things were starting to get back to normal, somewhat, around the club. Mack told him that she was going to have to get back to New York; she had to get back to work. Allison’s lawyers wanted to meet with Ash, Charlie, and their attorneys on Monday. It was Saturday now, and Ash intended to make the best of what time he and Mack had left before things all started changing, dramatically. He wasn’t sure how he and Mack were going to work it out, but he didn’t intend to be without her for long. He also intended to accept his part of Allison’s offer to settle, if for no other reason than to wash his hands of her altogether. Charlie would be an overnight multi-millionaire, practically a billionaire, and in less than two weeks, she’d be sixteen and an emancipated adult as well. He didn’t doubt that all that was trouble in the making, at least until they all adjusted. But he was ready for it...he hoped. With Mack by his side and his little sister safe and happy, he was sure he could accomplish anything. Once Allison was out of their lives and Phil Spencer was taken care of...maybe they could all learn how to be a different version of the family they’d all imagined having someday.

  * * *

  Mack felt like a teenager as she got ready for her “date” with Ash. Charlie was hovering, asking a lot of questions about whether or not Mack and Ash were back together. Mack told her that nothing had been decided yet.
The truth was, she was afraid to think about it because she couldn’t wrap her head around how they would be able to do it. She’d just accepted the CEO position with Bennett Textiles and she couldn’t just leave them high and dry. Charlie had no idea how to run a billion-dollar company and Mack wasn’t sure she’d trust anyone else in that position until Charlie was a lot older. As it was, she’d be so easy to take advantage of. She gave Mack free rein and although Mack was giving her weekly status reports, she knew that Charlie actually processed very little of it. She heard that they were doing well financially and that was all she was interested in.

  In the same vein, Mack would never expect Ash to move back to New York. The short time she’d spent with him and his brothers in the club had given her a much deeper understanding of why he had left New York in the first place. Ash was raised rich, but even after he’d spent four years in college and graduated with a business degree, he had no interest in taking over the family business. He’d gotten a job on Wall Street because he wasn’t the kind of guy that was going to live off Daddy’s money, and he lived in New York because that’s where Mack, his dad, and Charlie were. But her hurting him might have just been the best thing that ever happened to him in the long run because the life he’d made for himself in California suited him, and he was happy, and he finally had good, strong, real people in his life. She’d never ask him to give that up.