Walking past the tables I see Papa and I lean down to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, Papa, you boys starting early tonight? Where’s Mom?”
“Hola, mi corazon, we are headed out soon. Tu mama is helping Harley with something they have going on tonight,” Papa winks at me.
Why is Papa winking at me about their plans? Patting him on the back, I walk away to the back office to put my purse away and start to work on our finances.
As I set my purse down in the desk drawer, I find an old photo of the three of us, Vegas, Jenn and myself, laying on top of the desk calendar. I sit in my chair and pick it up. I flip the photo back and forth and look at the back and front repeatedly, hoping there would be a clue to where this photo came from, but nothing. It’s a memory I vaguely recall, but I don’t remember seeing this photo in here before?
I set it up against the newer framed photo of us three from the day we opened the bar. I decide to take a walk and go ask Vegas if she knows. Stepping out the back door, the warm sun heats my cheeks, and I look over to see Axl watching me from his bike at the other end of the building. Anxiety hits me as I remember the last time I saw him on his bike outside on the night of the fight.
He yells out, “Hey, princess, see you at seven.”
A few other members come out from the tattoo shop and he waves. Little butterflies swarm my heart and words lodge in my throat with my feelings. I wave back and tuck my head down while I keep moving toward The Brew House. Walking in, I stop to look around at what Vegas has done out here. The floors she glossed over the concrete with a deep cobalt blue. The walls that have a texture of dark gray with logos that Blade must have come out here and hand painted for her. On the middle wall is large sign of painted letters that spells “Battle Born Brew” around a large wolf. A large brewing kettle sits underneath the logo in the corner.
I couldn’t be happier for her as she creates a new world with her own touches. Classy and a little flashy, but very much my Vegas.
“Yo, ho, what’s up?” She yells as she walks out from her office, carrying some supplies in a brown box.
“This place looks so good, why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“Dana, girl, you were hurting. Paint and flooring I wasn’t going to bother you with,” she scolds me.
“This,” I point around the room, “is a whole lot more than a little paint and flooring. I’ve been in my own world,” I agree with a sigh. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to hear about it. “I’m here now, so keep me in the loop.”
“You got it. Hey, I found this old t-shirt of yours at my house, I thought you might like it back?” Vegas places the box on the floor before I have a chance to answer. She runs to her office and back, holding out a ratty and worn out Guns N’ Roses t-shirt from the night I lost my v-card at the concert.
“After what we were talking about the other day with Axl’s text messages, I thought to myself, ‘I bet I have that t-shirt from that night’. I thought that I had it packed away in the garage when we all moved up here and I did.” She grins, so proud that she brought me something comforting.
“Yeah, I do.” My hands hold out the shirt I haven’t seen in years. A little light shines from some little dark place that’s still hiding a secret away, tucked in the back of my mind. The dark holds up some memories that want to come back to me about that night. A guy that wore a red bandana. It starts coming forward from the back of my mind. Like a flash, the rest of them are pulled back under and like a dream it escapes me again.
“I thought, since we talked about that concert, that you would want to see it after all these years. We really should see what else is in the garage. The three of us have tons of boxes in there. We need to get together and go through all that again one day.”
“Yes, we should, it would be fun. Hey, I was going to ask if you left a picture on my desk?”
“Nuh uh,” she shakes her head no and goes to pick her box back up.
“Okayyy, well, I got a few things to take care of. Talk to you laters.”
“Laters, chica,” she says over her shoulder, back on her mission of taking on her little world.
Back at my desk, I hold onto the shirt and stare at the picture. I sit and think but nothing will come to me. Frustrated, I set the shirt down and start to work on bills. After hours of work, I walk out to check on the floor before Axl gets here.
Stepping out of the office and into the bar, I see that the bar lights are off. But white twinkle lights are spread across the ceiling. Axl stands directly across the bar from me, wearing his cut and a red bandanna. He’s so handsome and appears to be so much more relaxed today. The bar is completely empty of people, just he and I stand there looking at one another. At a table to the side, there’s a small pitcher of beer and two plastic cups. His smile hurts my heart and I don’t know why. A tear starts to roll down my cheek. All the pent-up agony pools in my eyes and it bursts open from deep within me.
In quick strides, Axl is in front of me. Holding me to his chest, he rocks me back and forth while I cry all over his cut and black shirt. Taking in a few deep breaths, I gain some control.
“Dana, I was wrong to push you away, I never left you, princess. Please believe me when I say that I never left us. You have always been mine. Sometimes, we need some time on our own to figure things out. I shouldn’t have done the things I said and did. I’m going to get your trust back, Dana.” Axl holds my face in his hands and gently kisses my lips.
“Nothing stays the same, Axl, we can’t go through that every time something happens. We have to lean on eachother.”
Axl nods along with me before he softly says,“Dana, nothing lasts forever, this minute to the next is never the same. I learned from this, and I know that I never want to have another moment without you in it again, good or bad. I want you at my side for them all. That I know will never change. Our love will never be the same, but it will last forever.” Axl kisses my lips, then my cheeks.
“These tears,” he kisses my eyes as I hold onto his forearms tightly, “Tell me how much love you have for me, they tell me that you know you are mine too, princess. They tell me how much I hurt you, my woman. I’m sorry, Dana, stay with me?”
Axl kisses my lips one last time before pulling me in tightly to his body. With one hand around my back, the other holds my head as he rests his head on top of mine. “You’ll see, Dana, this is our life and I’m going to worship you and the love you give me from it.”
Whispering back I choke out, “I’ll always be beside you, forever, you’re mine too.”
Letting go, Axl wraps his hand around mine, taking me to the table that’s set up for us and scooting me in. He pours us a beer and sits down next to me.
“Fancy pitcher you have here,” I chuckle at his romantic choice of drink.
“Only the best for my woman,” he beams back.
Getting comfortable in the wooden chair next to me, he asks, “How was your day?” While resting one arm on the back of my chair.
“Axl, what happened to you? You’re more bruised up than yesterday.” I can’t help but worry that he’s still getting into reckless trouble like before.
“Nothing like that, princess, club stuff. Tell me about your day,” he vaguely responds.
Knowing that I will never really know what’s happened, I continue. “Good, really. Papa was kind of weird, then I found this old picture on my desk that I don’t know how it got there.”
I watch as Axl starts playing around with his phone and I’m about to say something before I realize that he started a song. The room fills with the sounds of November Rain by Guns N’ Roses.
“Sorry, go ahead, princess.” Axl looks at me as he puts his phone down. “What weird picture?”
Holding my finger up, I race into the office to grab the old picture and race back to show it to him.
He takes it from my hand and I sit back next to him. “This you?” He asks as he squeezes me with the arm that was around my chair.
“Yeah, me, Jenn
and Vegas.”
“Tell me about it.” Right as he finishes talking, Mom and Harley come walking out of the kitchen. Axl grabs my hand from under the table. Mom sets a plate of shrimp scampi in front of us and Harley sets down a bread basket. Neither one of them says a word, trying not to interrupt our dinner.
Mom kisses my forehead, and they both walk out the front door, waving at us. Kissing my hand, Axl says, “Eat and tell me about the picture.” Setting my hand in his lap, he starts to eat while watching me.
“I was nineteen, my family went down to Las Vegas for spring break. We went along with Vegas and her parents. Our parents always took Jenn with us wherever we went. This trip, I begged Papa to let the three of us go to this concert, but he kept saying no, that he had business and couldn’t go with us. The girls and I were so disappointed because we had already bought our tickets. We ended up at the pool that day and met some guys there. I really wanted to go. So, Vegas asked this guy to go with me.” I stop for a minute to get a drink and a bite of food.
“I went along with it, mostly because I had packed for this trip, I was ready for this concert, and if I had a chance to go with this guy, I would take it. Turns out, this guy was a total dumbass.” Taking another bite of food, Axl watches me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Let me guess,” he says rubbing his chin. “This guy got knocked out early into the night?”
Nodding my head, I agree, “Yes! He was so drunk and was bumping into everyone. If he wasn’t holding onto me, he was hitting the person next to him.”
“What happened next?” He questions.
“This hot guy kicked his ass and then he asked me to hang out with him and his friends. I was so in love after one punch with this hot badass, I couldn’t say no. It’s hard to remember the details after that, but we uh…”
“What?”
“You know…”
Axl turns up the music a little, and November Rain continues to play on repeat. He pulls my face close to his, then whispers in my ear, “He took a picture with you, actually several. You two spent the night dancing, drinking and buzzing. Until you pulled him into the bathroom and you gave him your virginity at a concert while listening to November Rain?”
Looking around, I feel paralyzed in my spot, my eyes darting around as I look at Axl in his red bandanna, hearing the song that’s playing, and I can’t say a word. My pulse rushes through my veins, my mind spinning with the memories, clashing with my reality.
Axl starts laughing and hands me an envelope. I don’t touch it and he continues holding it out to me until I take it. I open it to find a stack of pictures. I thumb through them and each picture tells the story of that trip. My fingers stop and run over the one of a young man resting his chin on my shoulder as he holds me from behind. In the next one, he holds out the camera as he’s kissing me. I close my eyes, and feel the memories flooding me even clearer as the song plays in the background. I try to slow my mind down from the onslaught of memories that are on replay in my mind, just like the song. I see us talking and laughing and singing together. Then me flashing the band from on top of Axl’s shoulders! My eyes snap open.
Pure love and amusement covers Axl’s face. “You remember something interesting?”
“Oh. My. God. It was you all along, it was you! And you let me flash my tits to the band!” I accuse Axl of what I did.
“Dana, I was just standing there with you on my shoulders. You did that all on your own.” He shakes his head at me. “Look at the next picture.”
I look at the next picture and there’s a profile of my body with my tits out. “Son of a bitch, who took this picture?!”
“I had asked Tank to take a picture of us, and right before he snapped it, you flashed the band.” Laughing, he takes the picture out from the stack. I try to get it back, but he swats my hand away, tucking the picture inside his cut.
“Where, or how, did you get these?”
“My mom, after Maddox died,” Axl swallows before he continues. “I threw shit around, trashed my room, she went in there to clean up. She found this disposable camera and developed it for me and out of curiosity.”
I run my hand over Axl’s face, and the pain in his eyes breaks my heart for the piece of himself that left with his dad. Kissing his cheek, I want to kiss his hurt away with it.
“I’m happy your mom is here with us in Reno,” I tell him earnestly.
“Me too, Maddox would want her with me.” And a little more conviction reinforces my belief that Axl will be okay, that we will be okay.
We laugh some more while reminiscing of that night. Axl and I finish the pitcher of beer and then another two. By the end of our own Guns N’ Roses party, we are slow dancing when an idea pops into my head. I start pulling Axl from the dance floor, down the hall to the public bathrooms.
Chasing behind me, he follows me in and we lock ourselves into a stall. Axl’s hands run up the back of my thighs, pushing my skirt up as his fingers trace the hot pink thong I have on. “Princess, I love you in pink.” His fingers rub my clit, tracing his fingers along my folds, he pumps his fingers in and out of my pussy.
I devour his lips with mine needing him inside of me, needing to feel whole again with our bodies. I unbuckle his pants and push them down his legs along with his boxers. Lifting one of my legs over his hip and then the other, he pushes into my hot, wanting cunt. His weight helps to hold me up against the door while he sinks his dick further into my aching, needy body. I moan out in bliss as he rears back to slam into me.
Axl uses his need of me to heal a tear that was broken between us. This man worships my body. His hands hold my ass while he kisses and nips up to my ear. He watches in amazement as he pushes inside of me and growls out at the sight of our connection.
“I love you, Dana, we were meant to last forever.” Our hearts and bodies ravage the other until we both come together, and our future welds back together.
I hold Axl’s face to mine, our foreheads touching. Best fuckin’ night ever.
Chapter 19
Axl
I stir from a deep slumber, my body feeling warm and relaxed wrapped around Dana’s petite one. My arm and leg possessively claim her body. Spooning her from behind, my face is buried in her golden hair. The slight smell of vanilla and coconut linger around me. Dana stirs a little in my arms, and I hold her protectively against my chest as I thank God or whoever that she stayed with me even though I hurt her so much.
My hand slides under her arms and in between her breasts. Reaching up to her collarbone, my heart beats a little harder at the thought of losing her. I take a few moments of her peaceful serenity and beauty and let it creep its way into my heart, tattooing her permanently there. Taking up some of the dark and pushing it out, making room only for her.
“What’s wrong, baby?” She whispers in her morning raspy voice.
“It scares me what I could have done to us. I could have pushed you too far to ever have forgiven me. I know that I need to earn your trust back. My view of life went dark, and thank God you see me, princess, you see my soul through all the pain I put you through.”
“Baby, whoever said that I forgave you? I haven’t forgotten shit either. You still have a lot of work to do.” Dana chuckles at the little admission of her own darker confessions. “I have faith in you and in us, Axl. I have faith that you will deliver on your promises. We may stumble along the way, but you will come through for us.” She says it as she rolls to her back and brings her hand to my hair to brush back the overgrown pieces that have fallen forward.
“I like this repayment request, I can repay you in many ways, princess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to start now,” I say as I pull the sheet away from her firm body. My lips kiss her enticing plump ones, kissing down her jaw and throat. My princess moans for me when I suck on her neck. My hands grab hers and I lift them above her head, holding them there with one of mine.
Following the seductive lines of her body, my lips
stay on course, kissing down. I leave a cherishing kiss over her heart. Dana’s restless body stretches under me.
“Keep going,” she demands of me, her legs rubbing together in anticipation of my touch.
My thumb grazes over her nipple. Ever so lightly, I caress her skin on the way down to her waist. Goosebumps prickle as she tries to stifle from laughing.
“Behave,” I growl at her, “or I’ll stop.” Taking her nipple between my teeth, I graze them across her sensitive flesh. Dana moans and tries to bring her hands down, but I hold her there, needing complete submission from her. My other hand picks up her knee and I rest her leg over mine. My fingertips caress over the arch of her foot, up the inside of her leg and she shivers from my delicate touch.
Reaching down to her pussy, I stroke her delicate lips there, and find her hot and ready for my dick. My fingers pump in and out while my thumb caresses her little clit. Moaning, my lips find her ear and neck, and I deliver nips, tasting her skin as I stroke her. Priming her pussy further to take more from me, my desire wants to bring her to ecstasy with me.
My submissive princess arches into me, asking me to give her large breast attention. My tongue swirls around one nipple and then the other. I bite down on her delicate flesh and she starts to tense as an orgasm rushes through her. Her legs open wider for me, inviting me inside her compliant body, inside her tender heart.
Slowly, I suck at her breasts and pump my fingers until she fully comes down from her blissful state. Dana’s chest rises and falls as she takes in deep steadying breaths. Releasing her hands, I position my body between her legs. My goddess lays before me, her legs spread wide for my enjoyment.
“I will consume all of you,” I warn. “I am not the same man as before, Dana, there’s a darker version that was never there before. If you take me, you take the demon that’s inside of me too. I don’t want it to take away from your light.”
Nothing Lasts Forever (Battle Born MC Book 2) Page 13