by V. Theia
“The suggestion was clear. And today? I’m not impressed. In fact, …” Hawk smiled tightly, flashing even white teeth. Shark like. Danger lurking behind every line of his face. “I can’t say it’s made me very happy at all. It’s a weak as fuck man who uses women for intimidation.”
“Your president is trying to ruin me!” Grigori spat out with a rare show of emotion. The first Hawk had seen from the Russian in years. “We had deals, da?”
“And Rider permitted your illegal gambling rackets. But like any shithead you want more.”
“I give him a handsome cut, he has no complaints.” The underboss gritted with darkness lurking in his otherwise blank eyes.
“Only, you fucked up real good this time, commie. She’s mine. And I don’t take kindly to people putting hands on what belongs to me. Who told you who she was? Where to find her? I might go easy on you if you give me a name.”
Grigori thinned out his lips and said nothing. The elegantly dressed man was as conniving as a rattlesnake. He chose his words as carefully as he probably did his alligator skin shoes, Hawk surmised staring at him with blistering hatred.
Fury fueled his every breath. The thought of Gia in danger put acid in his gut.
This whole time he was staying away from her because he knew he wasn’t good enough. But could he have protected her more had he not made that decision?
Fuck. He knew no one would guard her better and with his own life than he would.
The Russian underboss was not wrong to have shown surprise at Hawk’s entrance, for good reason. A few years back when the Russian mafia suddenly appeared in Colorado sniffing around for business, only Hades taking them up on their partnership. Hawk and a couple of his boys ran into a few of Grigori’s men one night. It didn’t go well for the Russians. What with Hawk killing them all and sending them to the underboss as a gift. Grigori gave him a wide berth for years after.
Hawk rose from his seat, the coat flapping around his legs. He stared down at the hard-faced mafia man. “I’m not going to forget this. And nor will Rider once he knows what you tried to pull here today. There's going to be a day when I rain hell down on you like the Holy Ghost.”
Grigori sneered and shook his head.
“And word to the wise, dipshit. The one feeding you information.” Not a flicker of acknowledgement on that pale face. “I find out who it is, who put you in my old lady’s path,” fuck, he shouldn’t get a shock of hot electricity down his spine saying that. “He’s going to regret it. You just took a shit in my garden, Grigori,” resting both hands on the table in a menacing stance, Hawk, aware he was in a crammed restaurant and couldn’t end this maggot’s life for good, leaned down to his ear. “I’ll be seeing you, commie.”
One heavy stride after another Hawk swerved his bigger body around tables and out through the entryway ignoring the maître d' staring at him.
Long hair. Unkempt beard. Dark, biker clothes, a permanent scowl. Hawk presented a picture to the public that brought fear without him even opening his mouth.
Today he was grateful for it.
“Do we need a clean-up crew inside?” Asked Juicy when Hawk was in distance to hear the mohawked man with his varied piercings, tatts and rings on each hand.
Switching his gaze from Gia’s face, he shook his head. “No, they’re alive. You can head off, appreciate the backup, kid.”
Juicy grinned and rolled a shoulder, climbing back on his Harley. “No problem. Should I say anything to Mad-dog if he comes to the club?”
“That’s not necessary, Thanks, Zachary. it was a misunderstanding, no need to tell dad. You know how he gets.”
Juicy snorted understanding Mad-dog’s temperament, he nodded, he roared off a minute later.
Hawk was rattling under his skin and before he knew it he’d hauled Gia into his chest, a trembling hand buried in her hair. “You’re okay?”
Instantly two arms wrapped around him and nothing had ever felt so fucking good before. “I’m fine, Hawk. Pissed off I didn’t get to eat, but I’m fine.”
“C’mon, I’ll take you home.” He stepped back, rubbed palms together, trying to use her face as a focus before he walked back into that restaurant and put a bullet between Grigori’s eyes in front of God and country.
It was times like this he had no black or white.
Hawk saw in red.
“Hey, I really am fine.” Hands on his chest, deep eyes looking up at him, she stroked up his torso. A rhythmic comforting. She’d just been held by the most notorious man in Russia and here she was calming him down.
“Gia…” their foreheads met. He sucked in fast air through his clenched teeth. Everywhere hurt in his jaw. “Fuck. I could kill him.”
“Nah, men like him aren’t worth it. They like to puff out their chests because they have nothing else to make them feel good. Take me home?”
He nodded. “Where did you park?”
“My car is at the office. I walked here.”
That’s how Hawk got Gia on the back of his bike for the second time in their history.
Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Her delighted laugh in his ear when he took the corners swift and precise.
And his heart knocking against his ribs. Hawk knew one thing; he’d be whatever she wanted him to be. To stay in her life. However, much it tortured him.
No one was ever getting the chance to get that close to hurting her ever again.
He was her own personal wall of security from now on.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Roomies…” - Gia
Hawk followed Gia at a slower pace into her house. Every step felt like he was treading through concrete and his head buzzed so fucking badly for the danger she’d been put in.
If something had happened to her. He didn’t know what he’d do. It would be bloody and ongoing but as to the exact details he couldn’t say since it was impossible to think about something bad happening to Gia.
He felt his jaw crack under the weight of his teeth crunching together. He took the few seconds to turn his back, to close and lock the door, his fingers shook a little with suppressed anger bubbling through his veins.
When he turned around to trace Gia’s steps into her kitchen he found her right there.
Her shoulder brushed his chest.
That’s all it took to pop the lid off his emotions.
Growling, he cupped a hand under her chin, seeing her eyes darken to deep blue pools, he stooped down and crushed her mouth under his.
Alive. His mind whispered. She makes me feel alive.
He all but fucking devoured her, just ate at her lips, revelled in how quickly she opened and permitted his savage tongue inside to taste her. He bit at her soft lips, soothed his inner rage with a lick, held her around the neck so he could just take her over, not that she was trying to get away, in fact he had her breasts crushed into his chest as she tried to reach up on her toes to press them even closer.
Jesus Christ. He licked his way in, pushing in deep, tonguing Gia for all it was worth, pushing her head back to get more, taste her deeper
The blood in his head roared.
His cock throbbed.
Reel it the fuck in, dickhead.
God. His dick was so goddamn hard.
He couldn’t, she’d detonated his bomb. He grabbed a hand full of her hair, gently easing back, her lips puffy and pink and wet. “Hawk…”
He pictured her face back in that restaurant, squashed between Russians. Every scenario of what could have happened to her in the thirty minutes she’d been alone with them drove him mad. He growled low in his throat, dove back, crushing her mouth, swallowing her moan, giving her his own.
She was a straight shot of heroin to his veins, he didn’t know he’d crowded her against the wall using his hips like a rutting bull until he lifted his mouth off hers, cursing internally for his weakness he stepped back, huffing in air through his nostrils.
She took fingers up to her smiling mouth. Her eyes were like two stars.
Hawk closed his eyes for a second.
“I was going to ask how you are. I think that answers my question.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.” All the air sucked out of the hallway when her hands came to his chest and rubbed. Caressed. Soothed his inner beast.
“You can kiss me anytime you want, if you need permission.” Hawk couldn’t believe he’d put that dreamy sound in her throat. He didn’t do nice, he certainly didn’t give nice to a woman. He was a fucking animal.
Eyes raked down over her.
He remembered when those sexy hips were all straight lines. Now they were lush curves. Handles for his greedy hands.
He stepped away from her touch, and prowled the hallway to the kitchen, gave his hands something to do and fixed a coffee pod in the machine for her.
“I gotta call Rider and fill him in on what’s happened.”
“First you can tell me what all that was about.”
“It’s club-only business, Gia.”
“I was detained by Russian thugs when all I was trying to do was eat lunch. It’s more than MC business now, Hawk. Spill it or I ask Rider myself. And if he is as tight lipped as you then I’ll ask my father.”
Mashing his teeth together, he turned around and arched his brow at her. Daring little girl.
He shrugged out of his leather duster, tossed it over the back of a chair. Rolled his Henley shirt sleeves up his forearms. The chain connecting to his wallet in his back pocket clinked when he moved to grab the coffee cup, he slopped in enough milk for her and the sweetener and then placed it in front of her on the table.
“That man back there is very dangerous. All of them are. If you see them again, even if it’s a thousand yards away, you call me.”
“That much I got. He said you killed his men. Was that just all bull-crap.”
Sucking his teeth, Hawk lowered his eyes and kept his trap shut. What could he say that she hadn’t already heard back there? He’d killed those men. Killed more than that in his life.
He killed when he was only eleven. An accident through his only defence, but a death was a death.
The human body was a dickhead.
As unfeeling as Hawk was most of the time it took one glance at Gia and everything he'd lived by for most of his life crashed down around him.
His body no longer his own.
Didn't matter that he told it to calm down. His heart pounded.
Don't you dare look over at her. His eyes swerved, staring.
Don't you get hard. His cock grew stiff.
His body; a useless piece of disobedient meat under the control of one five feet, four inches force of reckoning. A mere mortal man whose addictions ruled him, leading him around by the heart.
A need washed over him. One he never thought possible. Because he never trusted anyone enough before to confide in; to vomit out his life and tell Gia everything from start to finish.
Then she’d really be done with him, he thought. Then she’d run so fast he’d never catch up to her.
And as logical as that seemed. The right thing to do. He couldn’t do without her. That flaw made him weak, dependable on a fix of her even if it meant holding her apart from him where he could have her, couldn’t he? He could live a lie and pretend to be a normal man and have her for a while.
And as madness eroded through his skull, like any insane bastard, the whispers of what could be forefront and taunting, seeing images he’d rather not, he replaced them with ones of Gia. She calmed him and soothed his noise.
But he couldn’t give her all that. His restraint was threadbare, but it existed. He’d rather she just thought of him as a volatile bastard than what he was. Unhinged.
He gripped the counter behind him, his chest inflating before he met her eyes. “Yeah, they were right. I’d do it again.”
He watched Gia suck in a quick breath. The coffee cup trembled in her hand before she placed it on the table.
Watching the woman he worshipped with horror on her face, was probably going to be the one defining moment of Hawk’s miserable life. On his death bed he’d recount back to this time and that look on her perfect face.
In any scenario he could have rehearsed he never expected her next words. “If it means you stay alive, then yes, do it again.” Shock punched through his lower stomach. “So, they’re dangerous, and Rider and your club are in a deal with them over what I’m assuming is something illegal?” He didn’t confirm but she nodded. “Got it. And I was what, a way to pull Rider into line?” This time Hawk nodded and reached into his back pocket for his phone. “I gotta put this through to Rider. Why don’t you start your packing?”
She rose her stubborn chin at him and Hawk wanted to laugh.
She stared.
And he stared back.
Gia won. He left her sitting at the table while he leaned into the counter and put the call through to her brother.
It took a matter of a minute to fill Rider in and then another minute to wait out his tirade on the other end, Hawk lifted the phone away from his ear to stop the impending deafening.
“You done?” He asked his friend.
“That motherfucker, I’ll string him up by his goddamn balls.” Not done then. Hawk let him go another minute. While watching Gia sip her coffee and watch him.
She wasn’t just watching him, she was fucking eating him up.
Everything on his body hardened.
And when she noticed his pants he had the pleasure of seeing her turn pink.
Your fault, little bit.
“I need you on her, Hawk.” Hawk nearly snorted at Rider’s direct order. If only Rider knew how hard he was to get on Gia. He’d string him by his balls. “And fast track her relocation here, you got it?”
“I’m already here at her place. I won’t leave her.”
Gia’s curved brows winged up.
She smiled so fucking wide his stomach hurt.
He’d pleased her?
Running a hand over his head, he sucked in a breath at the pleasure it brought him.
“What about your old man?”
“Fuck.” Cursed Rider. Hawk could hear sounds of the club in the background as Rider strode through to the quiet of his office.
Hawk couldn’t come out and ask if he thought Ajax was involved with the Russians and Rex. Not in front of Gia, but Rider caught his meaning. “I’ll deal with that on this end. I’ll also pay that commie asshole a visit.”
“How’s Lawless getting on, on his end?”
Rider snorted. “We’re getting closer to wrecking the Russian from the inside. We got that handled, you just stay on Gia, right? If you need more men I can have Red-Light there overnight.”
“Nah, don’t need anyone else. I can get Juicy stationed outside if need be, did you know he wanted to put his transfer papers in for our chapter?” Rider confirmed he’d talked to Ty about it already. He watched Gia’s eyes take a roll and she emitted the same snort as her brother. He kicked a brow. “I think your sister has something to say to you.”
He passed over the phone and for the next ten minutes he listened to a one-sided heated conversation between siblings. Those half-Greeks had no concept of noise levels when they were in the middle of ranting.
Gia huffed.
He heard Rider curse.
Hawk made his own coffee; this shit could go on a while.
“Here,” she shoved the cell phone into his chest, he barely caught it before she flunked out of the room and stormed up the stairs. “Sorted then?” He asked.
“Jesus. Good luck watching her, bro. Pain in my fuckin’ ass. Keep her safe, okay?”
With my life. “Yeah.”
The call ended. And he’d made Gia a sandwich with stuff he found in her fridge before she emerged again.
She eyed the food. And then him. She sat and ate silently.
“I suppose I need to start packing. You can help, babysitter.” Oh, lovely sarcasm dripped off her pink tongue. The same pink tongue he had in his mouth not so long ago an
d hungered for more. “I don’t need to be watched,” she informed, in the same snipped tenor. Her eyes flashing. “But since you’re here I’ll use you.”
Use me hard, baby.
“Put me to work, little bit,” reaching into his front pocket he fished out an elastic hair tie, pulling his hair back he secured it at his nape.
Gia gaped at him. Hawk answered it with a frown.
“I can see more of your face now. You still need a beard trim, ZZ.” Hands went to the hair hanging off his face. He never gave it any thought, he wasn’t a vain man, what would he need to look good for? But as she continued to watch him. Hawk’s belly stirred. If she wanted him to cut it, he could.
Her sigh mowed through his thoughts. “This is all a giant mess.” She turned her back and rubbed her forehead. He heard her sniff.
Frowning, he moved across the kitchen quickly, hands on her stiff shoulders, he turned her to face him. Saw her eyes glistening. No. No. Dammit. No, tears. He couldn’t handle tears, not from Gia. Hawk’s soul fucking crumbled.
“This was supposed to be my big adventure, Hawk. The first thing I did for me, moving across country, to do something I wanted to do, not because it was expected of me or in my boring ten-year plan. And now I’m doing it to run away because some mad idiots want to have something over my brother? It’s bullshit.”
Those dancing tears on her lashes began to fall and before Gia could brush them away Hawk’s thumbs were there doing the job. He bent over her, rested their foreheads. “Don’t cry, little bit. Beautiful things shouldn’t cry. Nothing is gonna happen, I swear it on my life. The only asshole to walk through your front door will be me.”
He managed to get a laugh out of her. “How do you say something so sweet yet blow hot and cold with me, Hawk?”
He sighed heftily. Because he was a moron in love. “Little bit…”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that. It makes me want things you won’t give.”
One last brush under her eyes, he stepped out of space. “I’ll get you some packing boxes, then I’ll grab my stuff from the club.”
He was moving in with Gia for the duration.
God help him.