Lynette is worth so much more than she believes she is.
Besides, I couldn’t have her working in the titty bar, all I would have done is watch her strip every damn night. I would have so that I could get a look at her rocking body. Then I would have killed any man who looked at her. I don’t even want her going on dates with fuckers who have no right to so much as sneak a peek at her. I make sure she knows I am not too fond of the thought of it, so Lynette tells anyone who asks her out that she can’t make it, that she needs to focus on her daughter.
Who gave me the right to tell her what to do? To expect her to do as I say? Whatever cunt thought it was okay to let her steal my fuckin’ heart so long ago. She should have been the one I was with not Celia, but she was too damn young back then. Just sixteen years old, and way too fuckin’ young for me. I didn’t know her age when I met her, and I already had Tate with Celia. I thought Lynette was at least nineteen; she seemed much older, more mature than her sixteen years. Drove me crazy when I found out she was a kid. I felt like a damn pervert of the worst kind for liking her the way I did.
There’s no way on this earth I would have touched her back then. I would never touch a young girl in that way, no matter how beautiful she was.
There’s an understanding in this place. You don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you. Lynette may not be officially branded as mine, but every brother knows she’s off limits to anyone but me! I will put a bullet in their heads if they so much as look at her for too long! I had no damn to go there, but it gives me a headache thinking about her with any of these fuckers.
“How about a private dance,” I may have had too much to drink already, but seeing her standing behind that bar in that tight red dress... the dress that hugs all her natural curves has sent all the blood in my body to my fuckin’ cock. She’s the sexiest woman in this place, and she knows it. I'm sick of fighting what I feel for her. Lynette is not a little girl anymore; she’s twenty-eight. However, something always stops me from claiming her.
She cocks her head to the side with a smile on her face.
That smile does something to me. I’ve fucked many women in my time, but none have had me wanting them the way I want Lynette. Pussy is pussy at the end of the day. I get drunk, and I fuck whoever is on hand at the time, I don’t even remember half of them. However, I’d never forget Lynette’s sweet little pussy should I get my hands on her for the night. That I have no doubt about.
I fight what I feel for her every damn day because I put my boy first. Tate needs to be one number one, and he is, but even my father has been in my ear about taking her for my own. Reckons she’s got a thing for me. Said he can see it in her eyes. Sees it in mine as well, so he said.
I don’t know, maybe he’s right. Celia has been gone for two years; I’m VP, do I want to teach my boy that the only way to treat women is to use them to get off? Never showing him what a real relationship could be like? He’s at an impressionable age. I don’t want to mold my boy into a man that can’t form bonds with women because of his mother.
I won’t use Lynette for one night to get off. She’s worth so much fuckin’ more than that.
“If I thought you meant that...” Her voice trails off with a shake of her head.
She wants me, I can see it in her eyes. I finally understand what my dad has been telling me. Maybe I always saw it but just ignored it. I don’t give a fuck about the age difference between us anymore. She’s ten years younger, not fucking twenty. Even then it wouldn't bother me. Not anymore.
“You’d what?” I ask her, my eyes on Lynette’s mouth and those made to suck cock lips.
She swallows hard. “Shepard?” Fuck this!
I jump over the bar, and she backs up against the mirrored wall behind her, bottles clang as if they’re about to fall. They won’t. I grab her waist and pull her against me. She was made for me; she fits me like a fucking glove.
“You’re driving me crazy,” I tell her while leaning in and breathing in the rose scent of her hair. “Every time you look at me, I want to tear your fuckin’ clothes off and fuck you senseless.”
“You do?” Her voice is husky, wanton.
That’s what I love about Lynette; she’s not a shy, timid little thing. She’s all woman, and she knows what she wants. If my dad is right and she wants me, I know she won’t have said anything because she would never take my attention away from my son. Lynette knows Tate is everything to me. I’ve seen the way she, herself is with him, the way he clung to her when Celia first fucked off. The way Lynette took care of Tate when I couldn’t. The way she still does. My boy loves her, and I know she loves him.
I’m not saying I want a mother for my son, but if I did, I couldn’t think of anyone better. Her daughter is her world, just as my son is mine. I know she’d never expect anything I couldn’t give, just as I wouldn’t expect what she couldn’t.
I can feel her curves beneath my hands, and my mouth is watering!
“You’re so beautiful, Lynette, more beautiful than I’ve ever known. It should've been you, baby. It should’ve been you.”
It should always have been her. Celia and Lynette were friends. Celia met Lynette through a class she was taking at the local college in town. Of course, Celia was a little older than Lynette, seven years older, but she befriended her because Lynette didn’t seem to have any other friends. Lynette was a sweet girl, and I liked her instantly. She was smart and funny, great bothered me like you wouldn’t believe. Lynette told me she was happy with the guy, and he took care of her, so I said nothing, even if my dad did tell me to keep an eye on the man. Something didn’t seem right with him, and my dad picked up on it right away.
The only reason the club didn’t beat the shit out of the guy for sleeping with Lynette when she was fifteen was that at first she lied about her age and said she was eighteen. We found out the truth when she accidentally told Celia, but then she asked me, no begged me, not to do anything to Jose because she loved him. She said he was the only family she had, and he was the father of her baby.
I should have known it was bullshit. I should have known Jose was hurting Lynette. I should have looked out for her better. She was a good girl, always there to take care of Tate when Celia couldn't be bothered. The boy even slipped up and called Lynette Mommy one day.
I think that’s why Celia began being bitchy toward Lynette. It wasn’t Lynette’s fault that she was more of a mother to Celia’s child than she was.
Once I knew the truth about Lynette’s age, I pushed away any thought of her. Fuck, I felt like a damn pervert for lusting after her in the first place. Besides, I had something to keep my mind occupied. Celia already had my boy, she who bore my children, she who walked out on one child and stole the other.
Lynette isn’t a little girl anymore, and nothing is standing in my way now, I could claim her. I could make her mine. God, I want to make her mine.
I lean my forehead against Lynette’s, her face in my hands, hers clutching my cut, and I’m seconds away from kissing the life out of her right here in front of the whole damn club.
“Shepard, please,”
“Please, what, beautiful?”
“Don’t do this to me. You don’t want me; you’ve been drinking. I don’t want to be a one-night thing. I’m worth more than that. Isn’t that what you keep telling me? Isn’t that why you won’t allow me to...” I don’t let her finish. She’s right; she’s worth more than what I can give her.
I kiss her forehead and pull away from her. She audibly groans as if not having my body against hers hurts. “I’m sorry,” And then I’m gone.
Chapter Two
Lynette
It's not that I didn’t want Shepard, the man is all I’ve thought about since I was sixteen. I watched him struggle with his relationship with my friend for years. A friend who took me in for a short while after I ran away from my father.
I watched Shepard become a father to her children. I argued with Celia many times about the way she treated not onl
y Shepard but the children, children I took care of most of the time. I loved them as if they were my own. I still do.
Shepard is the man who helped me when my daughter’s father left us because he believed I’d cheated on him and had someone else’s child. Why would he think such a thing? Because he was Puerto Rican, I’m white; our baby was my color, not his. His family pushed the idea into his dumb brain that even a half Puerto Rican child would be dark in color.
My beautiful baby girl had light skin, hazel eyes, and looked just like me. However, she was most definitely Jose’s baby. For two damn years, he made me feel like crap over what his family believed. He wouldn’t allow me to name him as Willow’s father on the birth certificate, and he wouldn’t have anything to do with her at all. If she so much as walked up to him, he’d flip out, and it would scare my little girl so badly she would sob in fear. Which, of course, would make me angry, which made him more furious. Once I’d calm Willow down, Jose would take his anger out on me. Sometimes, he’d batter me so severely, I’d have to hide away until the bruises disappeared.
Jose was no kind of father to Willow. He never celebrated with me when she said her first word, walked her first steps, cut her first tooth. No, Shepard did. Even though Willow wasn’t his, Shepard always treated her like his child.
I’ve spent years loving a man I never believed would be mine. He’s my best friend; there is no doubt about that. How can I be best friends with an outlaw biker ten years my senior? Because beyond the criminal, beyond the violence is a fantastic man, friend, father. A man not many get to see. A man I have seen many times.
Whenever he’s down and drinks himself stupid over missing his little girl, I’m there to pick up the pieces and make sure he’s okay. I’m the one who takes care of his son so that he doesn’t have to see his father at his lowest.
I’m the one who loves them both so much, I would die for them as much as I would my little girl.
I think Tate also deserves a mother who will put him first. A mother who will never leave him, always love him, and I do love him. Not that I’m saying I should be his mother, but I love him like he was my own. Every day since Celia walked away, I’ve been there. Tate always comes to me when he needs something. Even just someone to talk to. We spoke a lot after Celia walked away from him.
I cried that first day. Shepard’s mother, Myra, had called me to see if I could collect Tate. She filled me in on what happened, and I headed right on over.
The second I got him home, he wrapped his arms around my waist so tightly and cried as I stroked the back of his hair and kissed his head. Willow wrapped her arms around him and held him just as tightly. ‘She didn’t want me!’ He cried, and my heart broke for that little boy.
‘She didn’t deserve you, Tate,’ I told him. Not that it would be any comfort to him. I knew that, but I also didn’t know what to say to him.
‘She took Nova!’
‘I know, baby, I know.’ I rocked him in my arms and shushed him, all the time telling him how much I loved him and would never leave him. I just wanted him to know that somebody loved him.
It took me an age to calm Tate down. After his shower, Tate sat on the couch with Willow, both of them in PJ’s, his arms wrapped around Willow protectively. He kept telling her how he’d always protect her, how nothing would ever happen to her, and no one would take her from him. It broke my heart, and I sat at my kitchen table crying to myself and wondering why Celia had done this.
She said nothing to me that would have caused me to think she’d leave and take Nova without a word as to why. Celia didn’t give a damn about anybody, but herself and I worried about Nova continuously. Yeah, Celia might have been her mother, but I raised that baby girl. Celia had never had time for her before. I felt Nova’s loss as if she were my child. I loved that little girl, and I felt the pain everyone around me was in, and it tripled my own.
I felt Shepard and Tate's pain at never knowing what happened to Nova. I cried myself to sleep some nights wondering why. I held Willow a little tighter, a little longer every day. I watched as the man I have loved forever crumble under the weight of such a huge loss.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find his little girl. I’ve encouraged him these past two years not to give up. Never to give up. I know in my heart that we will one day find her. No one will give up until she’s home. However, he has to face the fact he needs to try and live his life. Tate needs him. We all need him.
“Hey, Mommy,”
“Hi, baby,” I smile at my little girl from my spot at the kitchen table. I’m trying to organize her birthday party. It’s not for a while yet, not for a few months, but I like to plan her parties in advance, especially as I want them to be special for her.
Twelve.
Jesus, where do the years go?
“You look beautiful today, Mommy.” She tells me while wrapping her arms around my shoulders from behind and kissing my head. My daughter, she may be, but we have a special bond. Best friends as she tells everyone we are.
Beautiful. Willow is always telling me how beautiful she thinks I am, even when I look like crap. I look like crap right now. I’m not wearing anything special today, shorts, and a tank top, nothing on my feet. My little girl is a real confidence booster when I'm feeling down.
“As do you, my princess.” She’s wearing a blue summer dress with flipflops on her little feet, her long hair is tied in a messy ponytail, and she’s always smiling.
She kisses my cheek and then sits beside me, clasping my hand in hers, making me smile. Such is the way of a little girl. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“That’s okay, baby,” I smile. “I do need to get dinner started, though.”
“Is Shepard coming over tonight?” Every night she asks the same thing. She loves him like a father, and it hurts that she’s never had one. She didn't deserve a father that wouldn't even try to love her.
She clings to Shepard because he does love her. It’s written all over his face every time she runs into his arms.
Am I so selfish in wishing he could be mine?
Wishing my baby girl could have a father whom she'd mean everything to?
“I’m not sure, sweetheart. He might be busy.”
“I’ll go ask!” She out the door before I can stop her.
Thirty minutes later, and all four of us are sat at the table, Shepard, Tate, Willow, and me, eating spaghetti. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, to the outside at least, but I feel different after what happened the other night. My heart is beating a little faster with him sat opposite me, looking at me like he wants to eat me alive.
Trying to eat when all I can think about is him fucking me, his mouth on me, his big hands touching me, is bordering on impossible. I feel uncomfortable, and I want the damn night to be over already.
I kind of wish he’d told Willow that he couldn’t make it to dinner tonight. Deep down, I guess, I knew he’d come. He’d do anything for Willow, and I know he hates letting her down. He hates to see the disappointed look on her little face when he tells her that he’s busy. However, things haven’t quite been the same between us since he asked me to dance for him. I don’t know if he feels embarrassed by what said when he was drunk, but he doesn’t need to be.
“Thank you for dinner,” I smile at Tate. Fourteen years old, voice broken, almost six-feet-tall, and already working out with his friend Haiden.
Haiden is Titus’s son, the clubs Sergeant-At-Arms. His wife, Hillary, is a friend of mine, one of my best. Their oldest son, Sam, is a prospect with the club, already going by his road name of Hammer. I’ve always believed it to be in the stars that Tate and Haiden will, as soon as they’re old enough, be part of the club also. It’s in their blood.
I’m not sure if I had a son I’d like the fact he’d want to be a biker. The things those men get up to... It would be every mother’s worst nightmare. Not that I’d be able to stop my son from joining if he wanted to. Not that I’ll be lucky enough to have another ch
ild. I can’t even have a date without Shepard scaring them off with his death threats.
It annoys me sometimes. I’m a woman with needs. This dry spell has lasted, well, longer than it should have. Shepard obviously doesn’t think about that when he’s telling me the next time I say yes to a date, he’ll kill the guy for asking, in the first place.
“You are most welcome,”
“Why don’t you and Dad go have a drink on the porch while Willow and I do the dishes?”
“Sounds like a plan, Son.”
What the hell is that look between my daughter and Tate? They’ve planned something; I just don’t know what yet.
Nevertheless, a glass of wine in my hand, I follow Shepard to the wrap around porch and lean against the wood, breathing in the summer air.
“Think they’re trying to tell us something?”
“Yeah,” I chuckle. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
I drag my long fingernail down the condensation on my wine glass, and I hear Shepard set his bottled beer down on the wicker table just across from us. I try not to look at his ass in those jeans when he bends slightly, but it’s hard not to when he’s so damn fine. Not many men have an ass that tight.
Am I just noticing these things about him because I'm horny?
“Its time we stopped this, Lynette,”
“Excuse me?” Stopped what? Being friends? Is that what he means?
The President's Wife: Prequel (Snakes Henchmen MC) Page 2