by Kati Wilde
“And then you did.”
“Yeah.” A soft chuckle rolls through his chest. “And then I just stayed quiet.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I was never sure what would come out of my mouth.” When I tilt my head to look up at him, he drops a kiss to my lips before sitting back again. “When you grow up, thinking one way, sometimes you don’t even realize you think things you don’t want to think. So you start trying to change it. But it’s an effort.”
“Like renovating a house.” Or close enough. “Because maybe the wallpaper is pretty but the plaster beneath is rotten. And you don’t know until you start peeling away that wallpaper that you’ve got a hell of a lot more work to do than you thought.”
“Yeah. That’s exactly it.” He pauses. “The Marines was the farthest thing from the pure community at home as I could get. And the shit that popped into my head sometimes…it was all those years of living on the farm. Not anything I actively thought or believed in, but was just sitting there in my head. Like my first deployment, there was this Arab guy in my battalion. Real good guy. But now and then these thoughts would just get into my head that he was going to turn on his brothers. Because I grew up hearing it. And shit, we were in Iraq. So there’s my father’s voice saying, ‘He’s going to side with his own kind.’ But this Marine, he was so fucking loyal. I knew it. So I’d watch every word that came out of my mouth, and make sure it was what I wanted to say, not my family saying it for me. And I spent years being uncomfortable in my own fucking head.”
So he wouldn’t make anyone else uncomfortable. “Are you still?”
“Not so much. Now and again, sure. Shit pops up and I wonder where it came from. Sometimes it’s me. No one’s that fucking perfect and there’s all kinds of noise slipping in.”
“Like calling girls ‘club pussy’?”
“Yeah.” His lips twitch. “Sometimes that’s to piss off Zoomie, though.”
“But not always.”
“No, not always,” he admits. “Sometimes that’s me. And other things, sometimes that’s me, sometimes it’s that old shit.”
My chest is tight. How much of that old shit? “You were always quiet around me.”
“Yeah, I was.”
“What pops into your head that you don’t want to say?”
“Things like, I bet your pussy tastes real damn good after you’ve come around my cock.”
My gaze flies up to meet his, pale ice burning with humor and need. Instantly a familiar ache deepens between my legs. “Really?”
“That’s just to start. So, Anna, sweetheart”—abruptly he flips me over onto my back, begins sliding down, kissing his way past my navel while I try to catch my breath—“Hush now. Because I’ve got a decade of being quiet to make up for.”
* * *
Later, in the dark, with exhaustion pulling me down, what pops into my head are doubts. So many doubts. Remembering all those years of Gunner staying away from me. Wondering what’s so different now, if he loved me then, too.
Was it just because I was hurt and Chef threatened to come back again? But what happens when I’m back home and his family is still a threat? Will he stay away from me again to keep me safe?
It just doesn’t seem like anything has changed. The only difference is here, in this hotel room.
“That’s a heavy fucking sigh,” Gunner says quietly, pulling me closer. “You all right?”
“Yeah. Just…wondering how this is going to work. After we get Stone back.”
“You worried I’ll ask you to stay here—near my family? Because I wouldn’t. We’ll be going back home.”
“So you’ll be with the Hellfire Riders again?”
He’s quiet. Not because he’s holding something back, I realize. But because the question hurts him.
“Gunner?”
“I can’t,” he says, his voice thick. “I gave my word when I patched in with the Few. I’m a member permanent.”
Pain twists through my chest. A trade he made so they’d help find my brother. “Then how are you going back home?”
“They need something from me. They were willing to offer something else in exchange but…it’s no good. So I’ll ask for nomad status in return.”
So he’d still wear the Notorious Few’s kutte. He just wouldn’t live here. “But you still wouldn’t be a Rider.”
“No.” A hard kiss presses to the top of my head. “I’ll be a member of the Few, keeping up my part. Wearing the kutte. Coming here when they need me. Doing the jobs the need me to do. But having you, having Stone back safe—it’s worth it.”
But will still hurt him, because it will be a line drawn between him and the Riders who’ve become his brothers.
Throat aching, I nod against his shoulder. “And your family? You said your mom and Adam would never accept you being with me.”
Voice harsh, he says, “And if there’s a single fucking threat—”
My phone rings, the screen lighting up on the nightstand. For a second I look at it stupidly, wondering who the hell is calling at this hour, then my heart jolts up into my throat.
Oh my god.
I leap for it, my hands trembling, and I hear Gunner saying behind me, “Record, Anna,” and I go through the motions we practiced after installing the app that will record a phone conversation, pressing the right number on the keypad to activate the recording before hitting the speakerphone.
“Hello?” The word trembles and a brief pause has my heart rate spiking with panic and fear. “Stone?”
His familiar deep voice suddenly comes through. “How you doing, pipsqueak?”
A sob rushes out of me but I can’t stop to cry. “I’m all right and I love you. Daisy’s okay, too.”
“Good. Now tell Gunner that me and Crash had a real bad argument, and I—”
And silence. I wait breathlessly but there’s nothing more. Just the phone disconnecting after the silence continues for a few seconds.
I turn wild eyes on Gunner. Tension whitens his jaw and every muscle in his body is rigid. “What did he mean—him and Crash? He crashed? Or does that mean a person that he fought with?”
A real bad argument.
“It means a person,” he says hoarsely and pulls me close, buries his face in my hair. I’m shaking uncontrollably against him. “And it’s nothing good. But this call will make it better, all right? I need to tag Blowback, get this trace started.”
I nod and he pulls back, cupping my face.
“You did good, sweetheart. You told him just what he’ll need to hear.”
I hope so. I just pray it’s enough to find him.
28
Anna
“I thought I’d find you out here,” Grace calls out.
I look away from the canvas I’m working on and see Grace walking up the hill toward Gunner’s truck, where I’ve got an easel set up in the truck bed. Her cheeks are flushed with cold and her vest zipped all the way to her chin.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I call back, smiling. Because the alternative right now is being in Marian’s house and that’s not so fun.
But Grace’s company is more than welcome. It’s been almost a week since we arrived in Santa Rosa, almost a week since Stone called. Almost a week since he told me he loved me. And each day since I’ve been driving Gunner’s truck out to the farm, with him tailing me on his motorcycle until he heads out to the clubhouse.
I miss riding behind him on his bike, but he’s been on and off the property since patching in, and having his truck gives me the option to leave whenever I want to—and gives me the option of bringing in canvases and paints, parking the truck up away from the houses and working on my landscapes.
In the afternoon, at least. In the mornings, I’m usually helping Johanna with her chores—an arrangement that suits us both, since it gets Marian off her back and makes me feel like less of a lazy interloper.
And keeping busy helps keep me from worrying…a little. We haven’t heard anything yet about th
e trace on my phone.
But hopefully Gunner can learn more today. I don’t know many details, but he and the other Few headed out early on a run with the Iron Blood—and Gunner thinks they have a connection to the Cage.
Grace climbs up into the truck, parks her butt on the tire well. “Nice,” she tells me, nodding to the painting.
I like it, too. But then, it’s inspired by an amazing view—the olive groves rolling down into the shallow valley, the stark afternoon light.
“But not particularly useful,” I say.
She grins and passes over an insulated mug, which I take gratefully. The coffee’s more bitter than I like but my hands are chilled, and warming my fingers up on the sides of the container is worth about a thousand sugars.
“So dinner yesterday,” Grace says in the way I’ve come to understand isn’t actually the beginning of a remark, but is the remark. Just her way of opening up a subject.
And dinner yesterday was Thanksgiving dinner at Marian’s house—though it wasn’t technically Thanksgiving. But the farm store was open through Thursday, so the family has a tradition of celebrating the holiday on Sunday, instead.
“It wasn’t too bad.” Kind of fun with the huge family there, all the kids. Everyone loud and getting along.
“You and Zachary left early.”
“Yeah, we did.” I take another sip before handing her the coffee. “It was hard. Missing my mom and dad. And Stone.”
And because Gunner and I wanted to spend the rest of the evening in bed. Which we did.
This week, we’ve been going back early to the hotel as often as we can. And he hasn’t once run out of dirty things to say.
Grace slides me a wry look. “I suppose Marian didn’t help.”
“Maybe not.” She hasn’t given up on pushing Grace in his direction.
She picks at a stray thread at the hem of her vest. “He’s not such an asshole.”
Everything inside me tightens. “You think so?”
“I guess that’s why he was gone. He’s not like them.” She glances up at me, then suddenly sits up straight, shaking her head. “Oh no. I don’t mean it that way. Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be saying anything, but—there’s something between you two, isn’t there?”
“No.” At least not that I’m going to share. Because I really like her. I think I could trust her. But I’m not risking Stone.
“Yeah. Okay. You’re afraid to say, and I don’t blame you. So I’ll give you something.” She leans back against the side of the truck bed, stretching her arms out along the rail. “I’m not here to be a bride. You know why I’m here?”
I shake my head.
“My girl Shari met Benjamin about five years ago. And she started coming out here a lot, and so I was here, too. Then three years ago, I was finishing up my four-year degree, looking ahead at med school. And I realize Marian’s starting to…treat me a little different. So she comes to me and basically says, ‘I have a son who will eventually be coming home. I think you’d be a great match for him. So here’s a house you can live in for free—and, oh yeah, we’ll pay for med school, because we’ll need a doctor around. You just can’t screw any other dudes before he comes back.’”
My jaw is somewhere near the floor of the truck bed. “Seriously?”
Eyebrows arched high, she nods. “Not in so many words, but… Yeah. And I would have said no, except that it seemed—aside from Marian—that everyone else believed Zachary was never coming back. So I figured what the hell. And the bonus was, I could be here with Shari.”
Sharon—Muncher’s wife. Who’s sweet and quiet. Every now and then I glimpse a few sharper, tougher edges in her, but mostly she just looks tired and sad.
Which isn’t really surprising.
Eyeing Grace carefully, I venture, “You know what goes on in the clubhouse?”
“Yeah. Not just the clubhouse.” She takes another sip before passing the coffee to me again. “Benjamin and Jacob slept with Erin while Adam was in prison to make sure she got pregnant after her conjugal visit with him—slept with her at the same time, so there was no telling who the father was. Any baby would just be Adam’s. And while he was gone all the brothers regularly saw to her needs. They just used condoms so a baby wouldn’t come at the wrong time.”
My jaw is down around my feet again.
“And Shari asked me to join her and Benjamin.” With a brief grin, she watches me struggle to figure out how to react to that, then laughs and continues, “Shari and I have been close before. In that way, yes. Exactly as you’re thinking. Marian knows it, too. But as long as I wasn’t with a man, I was still suitable. And still a virgin because this doesn’t count.”
With a wicked grin, she holds up two fingers and pumps them up and down.
I’m laughing and still dumbfounded. “You’re really serious.”
Grace nods. “Right? They’re so open-minded in some ways and so bigoted in others. It’s kind of dizzying. But it’s so easy to get sucked in. Shari met Benjamin and that was it. Bam. Just crazy for him. And we were together then but were more like friends with benefits and…”
She trails off with a shrug.
“Yeah.” I know what the shrug means. I’ve done it myself a couple of hundred times.
“Anyway, they all felt that I should be taken care of while waiting for Zachary to return. And I figured, what the hell. The only rule was no penetration, which is fine. Because guys don’t do it for me, really. But Benjamin, Jesus. He can suck on a clit like a hungry baby on a bottle.”
I’ve seen him. But… “Is that supposed to be a sexy image? Because babies and clits? No.”
Her laughter rolls out hard and she shakes her head. “I guess not. I have babies on my mind lately. Not my babies.” All at once her amusement’s gone and she looks out over the groves. “Shari’s having a rough time lately.”
“Because of the cheating?”
“Kind of. I mean, you would never know he was. The way Benjamin is around her, I’d have said he’d never touch someone else. But he’s like, I’m born this way.”
Give me a fucking break. I don’t say anything but she glances over with a look that says exactly the same thing I’m feeling.
Then she sighs. “The thing is, it’s hard. Because Shari and I both have had people tell us, you know, being with other girls—that’s a choice, not the way we are. They say we weren’t born this way. So sometimes it feels like, Okay, yeah. Maybe Benjamin’s born without that monogamous trait. And other times it’s like: That’s not the same as being attracted to a certain gender. That’s just not having enough self-control to keep from jumping everyone you are attracted to, so maybe you could try a little fucking harder.”
Yep. But I just nod.
“And she knew about the club girls before they got married. There wasn’t any deception on his part. It was just, that’s at the clubhouse, this is the farm, they’re separate parts of his life.” Pausing, she looks down at her cup, absently swirling the contents. “Then she had her second baby about a year ago and kind of went into a funk after. We all thought it was postpartum depression. And she’s seen people for it, gotten care for it. But, you know…I think she’s just unhappy with how things are.”
I would be. But again, I only nod.
This time Grace seems to realize it. “I’m unloading on you, aren’t I?”
“It’s okay.” It helps her to talk and I like learning more about the Cooper family. “It makes sense. You don’t want to unload on Shari, maybe make her burden worse. But telling anyone else? How would it make sense to them?”
“Yes. It helps that you understand.” She slants me a laughing glance. “But that’s not the only reason. Unlike some of the brides, I also know you’re not going to tell Marian.”
“No, I’m not,” I agree, laughing.
She grins in response but it quickly fades.
Watching her, I carefully say, “What happens if Marian knows? Are you afraid of her interfering? Or just afraid?”
&nbs
p; A sigh is joined by the helpless spread of her hands. “A little of both. Because Shari hasn’t said she’s going to leave Benjamin. But there have been a few times when I felt as if she was this close to saying something like it.”
“And that worries you—what the family will do?”
“Yeah. No.” She licks her lips in agitation. “I don’t know. There was another bride, Emily. She was Isiah’s wife.”
“I did wonder,” I admit, because I’ve heard her name mentioned but she was never around. “I just figured she was an astronaut or neurosurgeon or maybe out being a superhero.”
“No.” Grace’s smile fades quickly again. “An accountant. Smart as hell with numbers, and pretty, but in a quiet way. Kind of on the mousey, timid side. So Isiah blows into her life.”
Six-Point. I can imagine how that went. “He’s hard not to like.”
Grace nods. “Yeah. And before you know it, Marian’s got them sealed up tight. But right away it starts going bad. And you know what, I’ll give him credit where it’s due. He tried. He did stop fucking around.”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Because the others gave him crazy shit for it. Apparently he wasn’t touching any of the club girls. So I think he did care about her. As much as he could.”
“But it still didn’t work?”
“No. For a while, it seemed, maybe it would. Then she got pregnant and she was unhappy because he was on her too much. Always needing to fuck. So he backed off but he was frustrated and angry, and she was angry and trapped. And the fights, Jesus. You could hear them shouting at each other. Emily yelling how she would leave and take the baby. Then Marian steps in and—she’s a lawyer, did you know?”