Another arrow of pain twisted inside Roxy. Her youngest child, her baby boy, despised her. He thought she was ignorant, uncouth, and unworthy. She wondered if Knox saw her as unworthy, too. He hated her cussing and he despised her purple Navigator.
“I can drop dead in the next minute. Then, what are you gonna do?”
“Mama, you been about to drop dead for over thirty years. Would you stop already?”
“My fucking mouth. My fucking right to say whatever the fuck I want to. Besides, one of these days I’m really gonna kick up daisies. Nobody meant to live forever.”
“I know,” Roxy responded on a sigh. “It’s just that…oh, Mama, what would I do without you?”
“The same thing you doing with me, girl. Live your life. I didn’t raise a bitch that just crumple and give up because of a little setback. Whenever I die, know that I lived a nice, full life. I loved you with all my heart. And I didn’t have no regrets. When I breathe my last, I just pray to Jesus, Hamish is pumping my chooney real good.”
“Mama, I’m not going to listen to you talk about sex with your boyfriend. That’s just too damn much information.”
“When did you become such a prude, Roxanne?” Pearllene asked with disapproval. “I get sex tips from Alexia and Carissa all the time.”
Her daughters were giving their grandmother sex tips? She decided she didn’t want to know.
Pearllene’s hearty laughter boomed through the phone. “You love Knox,” she said after a moment.
“I do.”
“Then you don’t need no double wedding. I’m so surprised at Bailey. It’s unlike her to be so selfish.”
Roxy stiffened. She didn’t want to get into an argument with Pearllene, but casting aspersions on Bailey crossed a line. “She isn’t selfish, Mama. I think it would tighten our bond further if we shared the experience of planning our wedding together. Besides, it was Mortician’s idea.”
“Oh. I see. Then, why don’t you ask Knox, instead of just making that decision for him. It’s his fucking day, too,” she said for the thousandth time. “Even Mortician knows that!”
“Ask him?” Roxy protested, ignoring the last part. Mortician knew a lot. He just didn’t give a fuck about things he didn’t agree with. Whoever went against what Bailey wanted would always be on the losing end. Therefore, Mortician wanting Bailey happy should also appease Knox, since he wanted a huge fucking wedding, too. Apparently, her mother didn’t see it that way. “Why the fuck should I ask that motherfucker a fucking thing?”
“A man’s gonna be a man. You couldn’t even enjoy your new engagement before you telling the man you sharing your day. He wanted to feel like he wears the pants in the family and take control of the situation.”
“That’s exactly my point! He wants to control me. Mortician has nothing to do with that!”
“Where the fuck is your brain, child? That man knows you the last person he can control. But a man like to look at his woman and know three things: He’s her provider, the most important thing in the world to her, and that he lay down some good pipe in the chooney.”
“That’s old school shit,” Roxy snapped.
“No wonder your marriages didn’t last. Maybe, the provider part old school, but it’s relevant. I tell you, chile, you can’t handle a man for shit, if you don’t know that.”
“That isn’t true!” Roxy countered, crushed at those words. “I know how to handle men. But, maybe, Knox feels like Duke does. I mean he hates my ride and my language and—”
“Knox love you for the strong bitch that you are,” Pearllene interrupted. “Maybe, that iron will of yours intimidate him a little. Put that together with the way he feel about Outlaw and you got a recipe for a hurt ego over that Navigator. And, fuck, Roxanne, your fucking ass cuss worse than a fucking sailor, so I understand what the fuck the man mean. You give advice to all those little girls in that club. You need to learn how to apply it to your own damn life.”
“I apply it all the time.”
“Roxanne, baby, listen to me. You smart and beautiful and lively, but you so fragile when it comes to men. You been trodding along just fine, hoping Knox popped the question, and dreading it when he did. Don’t fuck this up. Talk to him. Tell him your stubbornness not about nothing more than nerves before he call the engagement off. You want that?”
“No, of course not. I haven’t talked to Knox in three days. He’s being as stubborn as I am.”
“His shit still there,” Pearllene reminded her. “He gotta come home some time. Call him and ask him to come now so you can talk.”
“Roxanne?”
Knox’s voice floated to her and she snapped her head in his direction. A gasp escaped her. His eyes were black, his nose bandaged, and his lip split. What happened to him? Oh fuck!
Mortician. He’d been upset because Bailey wouldn’t get to have her big wedding, so he’d gone and taken out his frustrations on Knox.
“Mama, I have to go. Knox is here.”
“Let me give you a suggestion. Me and Hamish use bacon grease to make his dick go in easier. But he love the taste and aroma of bacon pussy—”
“I’m not listening to this. Goodbye, Mama!”
“Remember, bacon pussy…”
Those words rang in Roxy’s ears as she disconnected the call and stood from the chair in the living room. All anybody had to do was talk to her mama to figure out why Roxy was the way she was.
Knox shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocked on his heels. Besides him having his face looking as if it was on the wrong side of a battering ram, redness rimmed his amber eyes. Stubble shadowed his strong jaw. His blond hair was disheveled.
He was still one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen.
“What happened to you?”
He shrugged.
“Mortician got to you, didn’t he?”
Knox lifted a brow. “Mortician?” he sneered. “No, baby, it wasn’t your son-in-law. It was the thug. Outlaw.”
“I’m going to talk to him. He shouldn’t have hit you over what happened between us.”
“Don’t bother,” he said coldly. “It wasn’t on behalf of you. It was because I called him out on his ignorance.”
She fisted her hands on her hips. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means Outlaw is a goddamn brute.”
“No, it means you press your luck with those boys too damn much.”
They looked at each other for a moment and grinned.
“Roxanne, sweetheart, I’m so sorry for my assholery. Of course, we can have a double wedding. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Knox, I’m sorry for being so fucking insistent. We’d just gotten engaged and I should’ve respected that.” She rocked on her heels. “Or at least a-a-asked you.” She almost choked on her words, but her momma gave good advice.
He stared at her and then burst out laughing. “My God, where did that come from. Are you sure you’re not going to go into fits for making that statement?”
Picking up a small pillow from the sofa, she threw it at him. He ducked and laughed more.
“Shut up,” she ordered, her own laughter bubbling up.
He walked to her and pulled her into his arms before claiming her mouth in a deep kiss.
“Where’d you ever get the damn idea you needed to ask me anything?” he asked between kisses.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “From Mama. She said it’s your day, too, and I was wrong not to…” she cleared her throat… “Ask you.”
He tasted her lips again. “I thought Pearllene knew you better than that.”
“Mama doesn’t think I know how to handle men,” Roxy confessed. “She was just advising me so I wouldn’t fuck up our relationship.”
He rubbed his nose against hers. “You know how to handle me just fine. As a matter of fact, I think I need a little refresher on how well you handle me.”
She giggled, feeling giddy and happy and content. “I’m all up for
that,” she murmured, grinding against him.
“Uh uh,” a voice interrupted, scaring the fuck out of Roxy. She jumped out of Knox’s embrace.
Mortician stomped forward and grabbed Knox’s arm.
“Boy, what the fuck you think you doing?” Roxy shouted, as Knox struggled to yank himself away from Mortician’s grip.
“Getting him,” Mortician answered, jerking Knox to indicate him. “He keeping his cock to himself until he put a ring on it.”
“No fucking way!” Roxy shouted. “This shit is fucking ridiculous. I don’t know where the fuck you got this in your goddamn head.”
“This shit not up for negotiating, Roxanne,” he said, his ire turning to uncharacteristic sullenness. “He might get too used to the milk and run out to pasture before he walk you down the aisle. Don’t you know nothing, man? Suppose Knox decide to string you along, get pussy, never set a date, and just jet?”
Knox glared at Mortician.
“Knox would never do that,” Roxy protested. He was too much of an upstanding man to even dream of such bullshit.
“You never know,” Mortician insisted. “Maybe, he intend to have the longest fucking engagement in history.”
“You’re an asshole,” Knox gritted before Roxy had the chance to do so.
“I been called worse, son. No pussy ‘til you walk her down the aisle.”
Mortician’s words almost touched Roxy. Almost. “No pussy for him, mean no dick for me.”
“He lucky, Roxanne. I wouldn’t want to have to chop it off.”
Knox opened his mouth to speak but Roxy shouted, “I’d fucking kill you if you harmed his cock.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Mortician said in dismissal. “Me, Prez, John Boy, Val, and Digger, all decided he living at the club until you married. You’re going to be a wife now, not just a momma, momma-in-law, and grandmomma. You can’t live in no momma-in-law quarters no more. We got to have talks with him about if he want to build on club grounds or what. Basically, we going to be too busy getting him up to what we think you deserve. He has to live at the club.”
Mortician was absolutely serious.
“Sugar, Knox is all the man I need. He’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“We got to toughen him up a little bit.”
“He’s fine just the way he is!” Roxy yelled.
“Helloooo, I am right here,” Knox inserted.
“Okay, if you going to be that stubborn, Roxanne,” Mortician started, still ignoring Knox, “we really don’t give a fuck about toughening him up. He’s going to treat you with respect. That mean no fucking until he make it legal.”
“Fine,” Roxy said, going along with it for now. After a couple of days, they’d tire of babysitting Knox and her, and they’d be free to fuck and do whatever they pleased. If the guys wanted to express some misplaced code of honor, she’d let them live in ignorant bliss. “I just need to say a couple of things to Knox.”
Mortician nodded, but remained where he was, holding onto her man.
“That means leave for a minute,” she snapped.
“I’m going right over there.” He pointed a short distance away, near the entrance of the room.
“I’ll be there later tonight,” she whispered to Knox, once Mortician stepped away.
Knox grinned. “I admire them for wanting to protect you so fiercely.
“It is kind of sweet,” Roxy admitted, “if it wasn’t so fucking annoying.”
“Time up,” Mortician called.
“Later,” Roxy mouthed again as Mortician yanked Knox toward the door.
Where there was a will, there was a way. Roxy just had to show those boys that, until they tired of their game and forgot all about protecting her non-existent virtue.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Let go of me!” Knox shouted, yanking himself out of Mortician’s grasp, halfway along the trail back to the club. Roxanne might’ve decided to go along with this insanity on the surface, but Knox wasn’t amused.
“I know you not happy, Knox, but you just have to deal with it, since you the motherfucker that first came up with a long engagement.”
“I was just annoyed. I didn’t mean that. If I had, I never would’ve proposed.”
“Oh, yeah, why the fuck did your fucking ass pop the fucking question?”
“I love Roxanne, jackass. Why else would I propose?”
Mortician stopped so fast, Knox ran into him. The club’s enforcer turned, looking very…enforcerish.
Knox stepped back.
“First, son, I’m not a jackass. Feel me? Don’t call me that again.”
“Digger, Outlaw, Val, and Johnnie call you worse!” Knox reminded him, annoyed he didn’t have such freedom.
“You not one of us, Knox.”
“You don’t say? That’s quite the newsflash for me.”
“You here, you alive, because of Roxanne. But you’d prefer not to be around us.”
“Can you blame me?” He wouldn’t bother to deny it. “You people are violent animals. When Roxanne’s around you, her dignity slips fifty notches. I’ve tried to fit in, but I will never agree with your freewheeling philosophy and criminal tendencies.”
“And that attitude, right there, is why you don’t get to call me a jackass. That’s why I believe you might decide to walk away from Roxanne when it gets close to the wedding. If you miss her, you’ll know how to cherish her. See her as a sweet woman to be protected and romanced; not a biker bitch to use and discard. I don’t trust your uppity ass. So no fucking. You’re giving her flowers and romance and respect, but no dick.” Mortician shoved a finger in Knox’s chest. “She love you but Bailey say her momma scared because she had so many failed relationships. Roxanne think marriage ruin relationships, but then, she told Bailey, she ruined what she had with K-P and she don’t want to do that with you.”
The words stunned Knox into silence. Roxanne afraid? That seemed incomprehensible. She was the bravest, most fearless woman he’d ever met. He’d admired her courage, her wit, her beauty. Her. “She neither wants nor needs my protection, and I’ll thank you to stop trying to turn my fiancée into a simpering mass of nerves. That’s not Roxanne. By the way, if I didn’t want her, I wouldn’t have asked her to marry me. And, in case you’ve forgotten, marriage doesn’t mean anything. I can still walk away from her.”
“You got a lot more to lose if you leave after the wedding.”
“Nothing but my dignity if it comes to that. I’m having Roxanne sign a prenuptial agreement.” He hadn’t considered that before, although he knew his parents would expect it of him, to protect the Harrington interests. Listening to Mortician, however, and seeing a future filled with interference led to Knox’s conclusion that a prenup was needed. He’d stick it out with Roxanne as long as possible. When he had enough of the violent barbarians she insisted on cavorting with, he’d walk away. “A prenup is a requirement in my circles.”
“You signing one for her?”
“What does she have that I’d want?” The moment the words left his mouth, Knox regretted them.
Mortician’s growl didn’t help.
Backing away, Knox raised his hands in surrender. “That came out wrong. I meant she doesn’t have any assets to protect like I do.”
Mortician grabbed Knox by the collar and lifted him off his feet, without much effort. “You not ruining her wedding, her happiness, with no mention of a prenup. Understand?”
Knox tightened his jaw. It wasn’t any of Mortician’s business. Besides, it was because of him Knox felt the need for the legal document.
“Do. You. Understand?” Mortician snarled, shaking Knox like a rag doll with each succinct word he spoke.
“Do you understand?” Knox finally shouted. “I guess you don’t know what it means to have so much at stake, but I have a lot to lose if this marriage fails.”
“You shouldn’t open your fucking mouth about things you don’t fucking know. Especially about me.”
Mortician
set Knox on his feet and thrust his face forward. They were almost nose-to-nose, but the biker was several inches taller than Knox and the fulminating looks and threatening posture worked.
“Would you have a house without insurance?” Knox asked in even tones. “It doesn’t mean your house will be destroyed. It just means it is protected in the event something does happen. That’s the only reason I intend to ask her to sign a prenup.”
“Whatever your goddamn reason, it’s bullshit.” He shook his head and released a humorless laugh. “I don’t have to worry, Knox. Lay that shit down to Roxanne and you won’t have a wedding.”
“I doubt that. She loves me. Unlike you, she’ll understand my reasoning.”
“Want to make a fucking bet?”
Knox brushed off the sleeves of his jacket. “No, I don’t. Everything you’ve said is a crock of shit. Roxanne never told me she was afraid of our relationship failing. Besides, she’s tougher than that.”
“Tough on the outside, soft on the inside,” Mortician corrected. “And she didn’t have to tell you. Why would she, motherfucker? That’s what women got other women for. If Bailey say her momma scared, then she scared. Think. You ever know Roxanne to get ass-hurt over whatever silly argument happened at the ball and hold a grudge three fucking days?”
Refusing to admit how much sense Mortician made, Knox gave him a sour look. He’d address this with Roxanne. He wouldn’t stand here, in the cold, talking to a man who had no perception of what was at stake and no real understanding of Roxanne. He changed the subject. “If you and Bailey still want to renew your vows and make it a double ceremony, you’re welcomed to do so.”
He puffed out his chest, silently showing Mortician who was in control of this situation.
A muscle ticked in Mortician’s jaw. Instead of commenting, he stared at Knox for one long, intimidating moment.
Knox scowled. “Do you still want a double ceremony or not?”
“I’ll talk to Bailey,” he said grudgingly, then relented and sighed. “I lost my momma when I was a kid. I never got to see her happy, Knox. My father was a motherfucker who made her cry all the time. That’s not happening with Roxanne. I don’t give a fuck what you or she says. You not living under her roof and you not sleeping with her until you marry her. Without a fucking prenup. After the wedding, if you fuck up and divorce, she’ll be a rich woman and I’ll have no choice but to de-cock you, shove it in your mouth, then cut your fucking head off.”
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 459