I started up the steps with Lenore, went through the kitchen and into the living room without saying a word.
My mother’s place was on stilts, allowing Casen to get to my bike, up the steps, and up to my room about as quickly as Lenore and I did since we’d had to cut through the house.
“Thanks man,” I said, taking my bag from Casten and shutting the door softly behind us.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I heard her ask once again.
I shrugged, leaning my head against the closed door.
I took huge, deep pulls of air as I filled my lungs with one of life’s precious gift.
“My son never had a chance like theirs did,” I told her softly.
My eyes squeezed even tighter when Lenore placed her hand in between my shoulder blades.
“You did everything right,” she told me. “Forgive yourself.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that easy.”
I couldn’t forgive myself because I was supposed to be Tanner’s protector, and I’d failed.
I didn’t think that I’d ever be able to forgive myself.
I should’ve seen the potential complications with Noreen marrying Justin.
He was a senator for Christ’s sake.
Why wouldn’t that have been the first thing to cross my mind?
Blackmail happened all the time.
Usually, it was due to someone wanting money when they kidnapped a child.
But not in Tanner’s case.
He never got a chance.
Chapter 18
Moving in with a woman is much like saying that her vagina is good enough that you won’t consider other vaginas anymore.
-Man Fact
Lenore
After getting Griffin into the shower and laying down with him, he fell asleep almost instantly.
He was exhausted, I could tell.
I looked over at him, surrounded by the white sheets that his mother had decorated the bed with.
It was about two hours after he’d fallen asleep, and he hadn’t moved a single inch since his eyes had fallen shut, when I realized I couldn’t lay there any longer.
His mouth was slightly open, and he was snoring very lightly.
Both of his hands rested on his bare chest, right under each pectoral.
I studied his defined chest.
The tapered muscles that formed a ‘V’ leading down to his pubic area that was only covered by a thin sheet.
The security light from outside highlighted the shadows under his eyes, as well as the sharpness of his cheekbones.
With a start, I realized that he’d lost weight over the last week.
Enough for me to realize that his face was slimmer…noticeably slimmer.
His hand twitched, causing me to look down, and I saw that he was covering the tattoo on his ribs with his hand.
The one that said one simple word: Tanner.
My heart ached for him.
If I could give him anything, it would be his son.
But I wasn’t a miracle worker, and all I had to give him was me.
My support. My heart. My shoulder to lean on.
I could hear muted voices coming from somewhere beyond the closed door, and I eased out of bed as carefully as I could as not to wake him.
He needed his sleep more than he needed to eat right now.
I, on the other hand, was hungry.
Almost from the moment I’d walked into the house and smelled the delicious aroma of bread. We’d made the five hour trip all the way there without stopping, and now it was nearly bed time and I hadn’t eaten since brunch that morning.
Which was why I slipped out of the room and raided the fridge, heating up leftovers and gobbling them down while standing. I’d waved to the men in the living room on my way past, and gotten nods in return.
After arriving back to the room fully satisfied, I glanced at Griffin.
He hadn’t moved so much as an inch since he’d laid down.
I took a step toward the bed and leaned over it, placing a soft kiss on his forehead before standing once again.
My sore body made itself known then.
Riding five hours on the back of a motorcycle hadn’t been as fun as I’d thought it would be.
My ass had fallen to sleep within an hour, and my legs had been close to follow.
My lower back hurt, and my stomach muscles were sore from clenching them tightly when a car would get too close to us.
I turned to the small bathroom off of the room and closed the door silently once I’d crossed the threshold.
Hitting the lights, I went through a quick routine of brushing my teeth, moisturizing, and brushing my hair.
Once I was finished, I stripped down to my nightshirt I’d hung on the back of the door earlier, sans bra and panties, and walked out
The moonlight shining in through the open blinds startled me, and I went to the blinds and shut them tightly so the sun shining in wouldn’t wake us up in the morning.
The moment my body slid into bed, Griffin reacted.
He turned and pulled me into him, curling his large arm around my body and pulling me in close.
I smiled as I snuggled into his arms, hiking my leg up, allowing it to rest curled around his ass.
I fell asleep moments later with the calming sound of the sea in my left ear, and Griffin’s steady breathing in my right.
But sometime later, groggy from sleep, I woke up confused…and extremely turned on.
“You awake yet?” Griffin’s husky, sleep filled voice asked.
I nodded against his chest, letting my lips trail along his chest and neck until I found his lips.
Then I kissed him, letting him know that I was, indeed, awake.
The feel of Griffin moving in between my thighs, his hard, massive cock pushing in and pulling out of my slickened channel had me on the verge of coming without him even put that much effort in.
He’d been busy while I’d been asleep.
He growled against my mouth as his hands lifted up and cupped my breasts.
His thumbs moved over each nipple, flicking and tugging lightly.
I lifted my leg up higher over his hip, gasping when I felt him move even deeper inside of my channel.
“God,” I moaned. “Griffin.”
He chuckled against my neck, wrapping his entire arm around my back to come to a rest just under my opposite arm.
“You fit me so perfectly,” he whispered. “So fuckin’ tight…and God you taste so good.”
He licked my lips, sweeping his tongue into my mouth when I gasped at one particularly delicious thrust.
“You like it soft and sweet, Queenie?” He asked.
I nodded. “I like it however you want to give it to me.”
“Good answer,” he said, pulling out very slowly before thrusting back into me hard.
My breasts were rubbing along his chest, and it was exhilarating to feel his coarse chest hair rubbing against them with our movements.
My hands moved, one to his head where I took a hold of his hair, and the other to my ass, then further back to where we were joined.
I let my hand rest there, feeling the way he stretched my entrance for his wide girth.
He growled when my fingers met his shaft, then started to fuck me harder, telling me that he’d lost the control by one tiny gesture.
“You know what I love about you, Queenie?” He asked me, panting against my lips.
“No,” I gasped. “What?”
“That you enjoy me so much. You let yourself go, and let me take care of you the way I know you need it. You enjoy whatever I want to do to you, and you trust me implicitly to give you what you need,” he answered, rolling to his back and pulling me with him to rest on his chest.
“I trust you with not just my body but my heart as well, Mr. Storm,” I whispered, bending down and gyrating my hips down on his hard cock.
He urged me fas
ter, pulling down and pushing up at the same time, taking me higher and higher until on one particular thrust, I started to come.
I threw my head back, closing my eyes as bliss started to roar through me.
My pussy clenched down on his invading cock, trying to milk his come from him by sheer force of will.
He gasped as well and, at the last moment, pulled out of me.
Come started to jet out of his cock, pulsing up against my belly as he came hard.
I collapsed on top of him, pressing my now sticky stomach against his sweaty one, and tried to recover from the orgasm he’d just given me.
“Woke up and your hot pussy was pushing against my cock,” he rumbled.
I smiled. “I’ve come to like not sleeping in any panties. Seems it works out well for you, too.”
He chuckled. “That it does.”
He rolled me over and got up, turning the light on in the bathroom as he saturated a washcloth to clean up with.
Once he’d tackled himself, he came back to me and cleaned me up as well before tossing the wet cloth in the corner of the room next to the laundry hamper.
“You’re gonna pick that up tomorrow, right?” I asked sleepily.
He laughed, the rumble of his chest vibrating my face as he did.
“Yeah,” he said. “Been cleaning up my come rags since I was thirteen, darlin’.
I snorted, and would’ve replied but the sudden stillness of the room had the man underneath me going on alert.
“Did the power go out?” I asked, listening hard.
I could no longer hear the groan of the air conditioning, nor the soft whir of the ceiling fan.
Griffin got up and shoved his foot into the sweats that he’d been wearing earlier, picking up his gun from the nightstand.
“Stay in here,” he instructed, shoving what felt like his phone into my hand. “Text Casten.”
With that he was gone, and I was left alone wondering what the hell had just happened.
Was there someone in the house?
Power went out all the time…and I never acted like he’d just done.
I heard a soft thump-thump that jolted me into awareness.
Pulling up his phone’s messaging, I quickly sent a text message to who was listed as ‘Casten’ in his phone book, and rolled off the side of the bed.
I slid down the wall and curled into a ball beside the bed and nightstand.
And I stayed there, heart pounding, and listened.
“You can come out!” Griffin called long minutes later, causing me to let out a relived breath.
I tugged on my short shorts as well as the first t-shirt I could find, and hurried out of the bedroom.
The three men in the living room were encircling something big and bulky on the ground.
I couldn’t see what it was until I got right next to them, and gasped in realization when I saw what was laying there.
“What’s going on?” I asked, taking a step back.
“Fucker broke into the house,” Griffin said shortly, nudging the man on the ground with the bottom of his foot.
The man was unconscious, I assumed, since he wasn’t moving and all.
“So…” I said, waving the light on my phone around the room.
However, I froze when I saw an older man standing next to Rayleigh.
He had his arm wrapped around her protectively, and Rayleigh was leaning into his side, watching with concern in her eyes.
Was that Griffin’s dad?
What was he doing here?
“Dad,” Griffin asked, just now seeing the man standing next to Rayleigh due to my light. “What are you doing here?”
Rayleigh smiled and looked down at her feet.
Griffin’s dad’s face transformed into a shit eating grin.
“My wife’s here, boy,” was his answer. “And you’re lucky I was, or you would’ve had a lot more than just him to take care of.”
I shook my head and turned back to the intruder as Griffin took a step in his father’s direction.
“What do you mean more? Where are they?” Griffin asked. “Go check it out.”
That was said to Casten and Ridley, who immediately split apart and went in opposite directions of the house.
“Outside.” He said. “Likely wishing they were dead if they’re not already.”
Griffin’s parents moved out of the room to get dressed, leaving only Griffin and I with the room’s unwanted occupants.
My eyes moved to the man on the ground while Griffin pulled out his phone to make a call.
The invader was pretending to be knocked out.
I knew it.
So I studied him closely, keeping my light trained on the man while Griffin argued with someone on the phone.
It was a good thing I did, too.
With everyone’s attention but mine diverted, he spit something out onto the carpet, and my eyes widened in disgust.
I didn’t warn anyone yet, though.
I wanted to see what he would do.
And it was good I did, or I wouldn’t have seen the nod, then the shake of his head.
“What did you just do?” I asked the man sharply.
He closed his eyes and feigned sleep, but I wasn’t born yesterday.
I grabbed a hold of Griffin’s arm, and pointed to something on the rug.
“He just spit that out of his mouth,” I indicated the small black thing. “And he just nodded, then shook his head.”
Casten, arriving out of nowhere, bent down and picked it up.
“Camera,” he said, fisting it and then shoving it into his pocket.
Griffin grabbed the man’s face to get him to look at him.
“You’re going to want to wake up, or what I do to you will seem like child’s play in comparison,” Griffin snarled.
Then the stupid man said four words that changed the course of his life.
“I killed your son,” the man said, opening his eyes and smiling at Griffin.
Griffin’s hands tightened on the man’s face.
“You’re lucky that right now I actually want to hear what you have to say, and I wanna hear all about it,” Griffin growled menacingly. “Then I’m going to fuck you up so badly that, if you survive, you’ll be shitting into a bag for what’s left of your life.”
The man didn’t react at all, but I could tell he wanted to.
He wanted to tell Griffin that he was crazy…and maybe he was.
But one doesn’t mention that they killed your pride and joy and not bring the crazy out.
“I did. I enjoyed it, too. I liked the way his small body jerked as the AK-47’s bullets tore through…”
He wasn’t able to finish because I suddenly found myself in motion.
The lamp that’d been on the bar next to me was suddenly in my hand, and I was swinging it at that stupid little shithead’s face.
The lamp itself was made of solid metal.
It consisted of a shaft about four inches thick all the way down, and I’d admired it from the first moment I’d seen it.
The use of it as a weapon had never entered my mind when I’d first admired it, though.
The lamp met the man’s head, knocking him unconscious for real that time.
My chest heaved.
I was glad the fucker had stopped talking.
Griffin had enough visual evidence of his son’s death without adding even more to it.
I dropped the lamp on the floor, and it rolled until it came to a rest against Griffin’s bare foot.
He was looking at me like I’d grown a second head.
“What?” I asked, slightly out of breath.
And the most brilliant of smiles appeared on his face, followed by him standing up and capturing me around the waist, slamming his mouth against mine.
“I fuckin’ love you,” he growled against my lips.
“You say that now…when I beat up some man?”
I asked, voice coming out high and squeaky.
“Yeah, I say that now…because I can’t hold it in anymore. I’ve loved you since you sold me a dildo I didn’t need,” he said roughly.
“This is a fuckin’ camera. How about we break up the love fest and figure out just why he needed video evidence of what went on in here,” Griffin’s father interrupted us.
Griffin didn’t acknowledge his father as he stared at me, waiting.
“What?” I asked.
He narrowed his eyes.
“Fine. I love you, too. Happy?” I asked.
He nodded and set me down on my feet.
“Casten, take her into our room to get dressed completely. Socks and shoes. Jeans, if you have them,” Griffin ordered, completely in professional mode now.
“What about you?” I asked as I started to back towards the hallway.
He looked up, and the last view I saw of his face was a seriously scary one. “I won’t be needing new clothes…yet.”
Chapter 19
I started my day waking up in a pool of my own blood. Is that how you’d like to end yours?
-Lenore, period day 1.
Lenore
I sat down heavily in the chair of The Uncertain Saints club house, tired beyond belief.
And I hoped I never had to make that trip to his mother’s in a two-day time period again anytime soon.
It was torture.
My ass would never be the same…at least it didn’t feel like it.
I was surrounded by all of the Uncertain Saints, and not one of them had a happy look on their face.
“Lenore’s store was hit last night and the prospect, took a bullet to the cheek, but stopped them from doing any serious damage to the store. Luckily, it just grazed his cheek. He’s currently at the hospital getting that looked at. Your place was hit a little less than an hour later, but a couple of Ridley’s deputies had been in the process of doing a drive by so they weren’t able to set the place on fire like they’d originally intended,” Peek started, looking very tired. “Lenore’s place was burned down. Nobody even saw it happening until it was fully engulfed due to the time of night.”
“Doogan!” I yelled somewhat frantically.
I was standing and marching towards the door to do I don’t know what, but I had to see for myself.
Griffin caught me around the waist and hauled me back into his chest.
Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) Page 18