A Brother’s Salvation: The Sacred Brotherhood Book VII

by A. J. Downey

  I smiled myself and said, “Left my damn glasses on my desk. Just finished up with Doc’s arrangements, insofar that I could make ‘em.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry…” her whole demeanor changed and I could feel her hurt for me through the miles separating us and it did my heart some good, strangely enough.

  “I’ll be okay,” I murmured, but I didn’t feel it.

  She sighed and asked, “You coming over for dinner?”

  “Mm, can’t,” I said, taking a sip from my glass.

  “Why not?”

  “Been drinkin’, ain’t safe to ride.”

  Silence, then after a span of heartbeats, “I’m on my way over.”

  She hung up before I could say anything and I had to smile looking at the screen as it flashed the call ended signal. Albeit, blurry as fuck. I got back up and downed the rest of my tequila I’d poured and swore off any more for the night. I had a little stronger than a buzz going, and I think it was safe to say I was over the line into drunk.

  I went back to my office and retrieved my glasses, and locking up behind me, went to Data’s fishbowl.

  Weren’t nobody at the club and I couldn’t say I blamed any of ‘em. If I had my way, I’d take a bit of a break from it, too, just a night or two, but I didn’t. I lived here full time, this big ol’ place all to myself since Red and Dani finished fixing up his cabin to live in.

  I was okay with that. This place was still everyone’s central hub, and it felt good knowing everyone had somebody, had loves, jobs, had lives outside this place to some extent, but still made room to make this club and the family it represented central to their beings despite it all. I stared at the camera for the front gate and waited on Marcie’s car to show on the feed and smiled to myself.

  The club that I built, and everyone in it, was thriving and I couldn’t ask for a better fit for the misfits that called it home. It was everything it was supposed to be and more, and I think Doc had seen that. He knew we would get through it; that we’d be good, and I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have gone the same route, if it were me in his place.

  Headlights flashed on the screen and I hit the keystrokes to open the gate, the iron rolling aside to let her in, up the drive. She parked on the next screen over, right in front of the doors and I got up to go meet my lady-love and take some of my own solace, the way the rest of my crew was.

  26

  Marcie…

  He’d met me at the door, assured me we were the only ones here and kissed me hard, the taste of tequila and pain strong, almost overwhelming. We’d fucked against the bar, then wound up in his room, and forgot about dinner for the time being. I lay listening to his heartbeat, my ear over the ink under his skin depicting the true-to-life drawing of the SHMC’s Sacred Heart over where his real one resided.

  He toyed with my skin, fingertips trailing passionately along it while his mind was a million miles away. Where it’d gone, I couldn’t tell you. He just stared blankly into the dark, eyes unfocused, expression unreadable from what I could make of it, and I couldn’t help but sigh.

  “What’re you thinkin’?” I asked softly.

  “Wasn’t really,” he said, sucking in a breath.

  I pushed myself up and straddled his hips, writhing slightly against his soft cock, and smiled when it immediately began to stir back to life.

  “Thought you was satisfied,” he said with a smirk.

  “Never,” I murmured and bent to kiss him. He held my face to his gently and worked his hips, his body sliding against mine, working for purchase naturally, unassisted. I wiggled, he thrust and we fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, his dick sliding into my hot, wet heat slowly.

  I groaned against his lips as he seated himself all the way inside my body and thrust just that little bit more, in that way that drove me wild. I pushed up off his shoulders, tearing my mouth from his and he let me, his hands drifting to my hips to encourage me to ride him, and ride him I did. Slow, easy movements of my hips, lifting myself on knees and slipping back down his shaft, grinding deliciously when our bodies met. He smiled, this charmed little half-smile and watched me move and the look in his eyes… well, it made me feel worshipped, like I was some kind of goddess made flesh.

  I rolled my hips and his eyes fluttered shut, and it was like the moan that slipped from my lips was the sweetest music he ever heard. We made love in perfect synchronicity and it left me wondering where he’d been all my life.

  “God, yeah, Sugar. Fuck me. Fuck me just like that,” he whispered, his voice strained, and I loved how he talked dirty to me. He had this way about him, talkin’ dirty, sure, but makin’ me feel like some kind of princess just the same. He talked dirty, but he never made me feel dirty. If anything, he made sure I felt every inch of him inside me as we wallowed in the mud together. Sex with Dragon was never one-sided, was always a joyous occasion, no matter how heavy things from the outside got.

  His hands traveled over my skin, smoothing up my ribs to cup and knead my breasts while I ground our bodies together. His eyes were heavy-lidded with lust, both of us breathing heavy in the close dark. Eventually, it was like he couldn’t stand it anymore and he took one hand away, placing his thumb between us over my clit, teasing it to life. My pussy spasmed around his cock and I threw back my head and gasped.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s it, come for me, darlin’.”

  I tried to resist, tried to drag it out longer, my body spiraling higher, tighter around him, gripping him like a clenched fist until he grunted and that grunt seemed to be all I needed. I cried out, and he made good on his promise from the lake – he was there to catch me as I fell as if from a great height, greater than even the stars in the sky. It was like he sent me to heaven but I couldn’t stay.

  Unfortunately, with everything going on down here, I wish it didn’t feel like I was crashing right back down into a certain type of Hell.

  I thought, somewhat selfishly to myself, Of all the times and ways to die, why did you have to pick now and why did it have to be like that, mister?

  I was lying on top of my lover, panting and out of breath, and I jolted when he answered me, “Because that’s how it is when it comes to our folk, and that’s how we roll.”

  I pushed myself up, crimson with embarrassment.

  “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I stammered.

  “It’s all right.” He reached up and grazed a thumb against my cheek in a light touch.

  “You ain’t gotta keep secrets from me, Marcie. Never, for anything, my feelings don’t bruise that easy and I like that you have questions – that you want to know how we roll.”

  “I want to understand,” I murmured. “But I can’t promise that I always will…”

  “You won’t always,” he said and sat up abruptly, putting his arms around me, sitting me up in his lap, his cock driving deeper even as it started to go limp, touching off little aftershocks inside me. I shuddered and he grinned and wiggled a little to get me going again.

  I smacked his shoulder and cried, “Would you stop! We’re havin’ a moment here!”

  He chuckled and it was a genuine sound as he said, “Is that what we’re doin’ now?”

  “Yes, damn it! I mean, isn’t it?”

  He rested his chin on my chest between my breasts and looked up at me with such… I don’t know, but whatever it was, I liked it.

  “You’re so behind on the curve, but you’re quick, baby. I’ll give you that.” He sighed and it sounded worried. “This life ain’t for everybody, though, and I’m afraid eventually, something will be too much… it’s already pretty heavy around here.”

  I felt a strange sort of tension ease out of my shoulders and told him the truth, “You’re right, something might come along that’ll be too much, even for me… and when it does, we’ll deal with it.” I put all the iron determination behind my voice that I could manage.

  “Yeah?” he asked, that halfcharmed smile back on his lips.

  “Yes,” I said. “I may be just anothe
r citizen to y’all, but at the same time, I don’t think I am. I got something the rest of them don’t,” I said.

  “You do,” he agreed. I raised my eyebrows.

  “An’ just what do you think that is?” I asked.

  He pressed a kiss between my breasts and huffed a sigh. “An open mind, for one. An open heart for another. You got a willingness to learn, an’ adapt. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have started any of this with you.”

  “Why did you?” I asked in a curious whisper, and his arms twined around me, and it was as if he were trying to lend some of his physical strength to me emotionally in this moment because in this moment, I think I was as vulnerable as I ever let myself be with a man… with anybody.

  “Because, you’ve got a fire inside. You’re compassionate, you’re strong, and you’ve got everything to you that I think I been missin’, that I think I need.”

  I traced fingertips along his lips and frowned slightly, “You have all of those things,” I said, confused.

  “Had… I had all of those things. Since I lost ‘em, I ain’t been nothin’ but a pale imitation fakin’ it ‘til I make it. With you at my side, I ain’t fakin’ it anymore.”

  I sat in his lap, silent, motionless, awestruck at his words. I swallowed hard, and fought back the tears that threatened. He smiled up at me and drew me down into another lingering kiss and if I had any doubts, any at all, that this man truly held love for me, they were scattered to the four winds.

  All I could think to say was, “Well, I love you, too.”

  He laughed, a deep one from his belly and asked, “You hungry? ‘Cause I’m starvin’.”

  “Hell, yes,” I answered. “Dinnertime was hours ago.”

  “C’mon, I’ll treat you to the finest fuckin’ pizza delivery can provide.”

  I gave a dubious laugh, “Right, some high-class joints come all the way out here.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Only the best for you, babe.”

  I smiled and for a moment, the heartbreak of the last few days was left off to the side.

  “So what’s to expect?” I asked, setting down my unwanted crust.

  He finished chewing and said, “Lot of hard partying, drinkin’, smokin’, fuckin’, you name it.”

  “A party?” I asked, my tone a mixture of disbelief and surprise.

  “Yup, biker funerals ain’t like citizen funerals. We mourn in our own ways, leading up to the wake, but once it’s here, it’s a celebration of Doc’s life in the truest sense of the words.”

  I gave a slightly impressed look as I mulled over what he was telling me.

  “So, like, what do you do?”

  He chuckled and wiped pizza grease off his mouth with a napkin and said, “Doc loved to gamble, so I’m guessin’ there will be cards, and bettin’ on pool. He was a gamblin’ addict before the club, managed to kick the habit and keep it to just recreational with the boys after that. We didn’t play for money on account of his addiction.”

  I wrinkled my brow, “So what did you play for then? Just chips?”

  He gave a feral grin. “Chores around the club when we didn’t have prospects to do ‘em. Shit jobs on runs, that kind of thing.”

  “High stakes, just not money, then,” I said, grinning.

  “Damn right, no one wanted to dig and maintain the latrine. Doc ended up doin’ it more ‘n his fair share. He was crap at keepin’ a poker face.”

  I laughed and said, “I been known to hold my own at a hand of poker.”

  “Oh, yeah? Gonna have to put that to the test with some strip poker.”

  I laughed. “No, thank you!”

  “Thought you wanted to try new things,” he said with a wink.

  “With you! Not the rest of the club, not just yet. Good Lord, ain’t a single one of ‘em gonna wanna see that.”

  “Hey, now,” he said, and caught my eye with his. “You might be surprised.”

  I rubbed my lips together and tried to decide if he was joking or not, I finally had to decide on ‘not.’

  “Y’all are different,” I said, finally. “I’ll give you that.”

  Dragon grinned and took it for the compliment I meant it to be and I was relieved, he could have taken it to mean any number of things. I was glad we were growing to know one another that way.

  “So when does this all happen?” I asked.

  “Soon as they release Doc’s body, he’ll go to the funeral home, they’ll bring him here, we’ll have our night of fun; and then hung over as fuck the next morning, we ride. Take him home to his final resting place with the rest of our boys that have gone before.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slow, “So, in the meantime, what can I do?”

  He smiled, “You’re doin’ it,” he said and covered my hand with his own where it rested on the table. “You’re here, ain’t yah?”

  I cocked my head and looked at him.

  “I’ll always be here, too. I think you can count on that.”

  He nodded and kissed my hand, and that was all that needed to be said about it, honestly.

  27

  Dragon…

  The wake went off about as expected. Drunk, loud, rowdy, with a fuck-ton of gambling and fucking. Doc would have been proud, but holy fuck my head was pounding the next morning, and by morning, I meant noon. We all hauled ass out of bed, heads throbbing like a cannon went off between our ears, slogging out into the common room for a last visit with Doc, who looked like he might as well be asleep.

  That fucked with me. The makeup job the mortuary did was almost too fuckin’ good. I stopped by his open, glossy black casket, lined in white satin, the handles and clasps, the accent pieces all gleaming silver, and leaned a hip against it. I sniffed and cleared my throat and lit up a cigarette.

  “I’m gonna miss you, you son of a bitch,” I muttered and sighed.

  “Wish you’d just fuckin’ told me. You know I would have played it close to my cut, would have done whatever you wanted done. You didn’t trust me, you didn’t have to go alone like that. I could have been there for you.”

  I sighed and put a hand on the coffin lid and took one last look at my best friend layin’ there in his cut, poker chips and photographs surrounding him, some flowers from my late wife’s garden in there, too. Everett, no doubt, judging by the silver Celtic knot necklace wrapped around the stems. Not her special necklace, the one her daddy give her, though. She’d part with that over her dead fuckin’ body. Fearless; that was my son’s Queen.

  “I love you, brother. I’m gonna miss the hell out of you, but I guess I understand. I ain’t mad. I can’t be. That’s not the way I want to leave things between you an’ me.”

  I closed the lid softly and Dray stepped up next to me and helped me secure the hasps on the fancy-ass box’s lid. I was grateful for it, seein’ as my vision was too blurred to do it myself without his help. I swallowed hard. Put my cigarette out on the sole of my boot, and dropped it in a half-full glass of beer on one of the nearby tables.

  I looked over Trig, Reave, Dray, Ghost, and Rev, all standing by, and said, “Let’s do this, boys.”

  They helped me shoulder the burden of my friend in his casket and we carried our brother out the front door, the rest of the club standing around watching us, somber and hurting, ready as much as I was for it to be over. Marcie reached out and lightly grazed the back of my hand hanging at my side with her fingertips and I felt myself stand a little straighter.

  We loaded Doc into the back of the hearse and got ready to take him on his final ride. I always fuckin’ hated that it was in a cage, but they didn’t make a bike for caskets.

  The roar of the bikes was almost too much for my aching head, making my skull vibrate so hard I felt like my fuckin’ face was gonna slide off. I shook my head as Marcie got on the back of my bike and resolutely told myself there was no fucking up today; I had precious cargo on board behind me. It was one thing if I biffed it on my own, but it wasn’t gonna happen with her ridin’ with me.

&
nbsp; I led the pack, the officers riding as a vanguard in front of the hearse while the rest of the club and all of the out-of-towners followed up. I gave a nod to the police officers escorting us, and they ran interference, stopping traffic and the like. It was the one fuckin’ time the law and my club was on the same team. Funerals. I started thinkin’ that, maybe, with life calming down like it was, that I should ask Marcie what the club could do charity-wise to better cement with the good ol’ boys in blue that we meant what we said: we were legit and tryin’ to stay that way.

  I let the thoughts go as we approached the cemetery. After all, Rome weren’t built in a fuckin’ day and today, of all days, was no day to start that shit.

  We made it to the cemetery, my head throbbing in time to the chugging of my bike’s engine as I backed it to the curb, first in line. The rest of my brothers pulled their bikes up, some across the road, so there was a narrow gauntlet of bikes behind the hearse. We got off our motorcycles, and the girls drifted up grave-side with some of the out-of-towners while the rest of us went to get Doc. Marcie kissed me quick, and gave me a reassuring squeeze of the hand before she joined Sunshine for the short trudge up the little hill to the man-made plateau our brothers rested on.

  “Y’okay, Pops?” Dray asked as I looked up that hill to the gathering.

  I sighed, “Yes, but no, Son.”

  He nodded, and Trigger rumbled, “I hear that.”

  “Let’s bring him home, boys.”

  There were mumbles and grunts of assent and Trig opened up the back of the hearse, the driver from the funeral home standing by in case we needed any technical know-how. The shiny black box slid almost silent on the hearse’s thingamajig, and we lifted the burden of our fallen man onto our shoulders, knowing the weight of his passing would sit on our hearts long after we put his physical body into the ground.

  We marched up the hill, lined up to either side of the open grave, and lowered our man onto the canvas straps of the hoist that would take him down into the cold, dank earth. It was about this point, I was supposed to say some shit, but this time was… I don’t know. It was hard. Not as hard as when it was Tilly going into the ground, but still difficult for me.