by Kiki Leach
"What am I thinking?"
"That I hooked up with your brother on purpose and to get under her skin, but I'm being honest," she said. "Hand straight up to God Himself, and you know that I would never lie on my faith. Jeremiah told me that she was busy working on a class project with her students at the library, and wouldn't be home until much later that night, long after I was gone."
I pushed my brows together and sighed. "How the hell did you two manage to hook up with each other in the first place?"
"He came into the D&C last night to watch a few of us dance with each other, then asked me if I wanted a ride home."
"How did you end up back at Colette's place instead?"
She shoved her hair behind her ears and rolled those green eyes up toward the sky before finally answering. "He started pushing up on me once we left the building after my shift was over and I got into his truck; trying to shove his hand down my shirt and pants and all that. I told him I wasn't interested in hooking up with him because I was too damn tired to even keep my eyes open, let alone keep my legs up and wrapped around his waist. But then he yanked a rolled-up wad of hundred dollar bills from his back pocket and waved it in my face with the promise of more if I sucked his cock."
"And you did."
"Right then and there, yeah," she said. I groaned and shook my head. "Hey, I'm not all that proud of it, but--"
"You shouldn't have been, especially if the shit was still on our property."
"Everybody was gone by then, Rome, nobody would've seen what we were doing unless they looked close enough -- and I'm talking face on the window until it was fogging up from all of their heavy breathing kind of close. Anyway--"
"How the hell did you end up at that house with my brother, Cherry?" I asked her again.
"I'm getting there," she snapped. "Anyway, once I was finished sucking him off, he said that he was looking for more from me but needed more space to actually make it happen. He offered me more cash in hand, so I agreed, but I thought he was taking me back to the place that he shared with you, not out there to hers. I was hesitant to get out of the truck after he pulled into the driveway, but he threw another few hundred my way, so I obliged, got out and went inside with him."
"What happened then?"
"You know what happened then," she replied with a grin. "He started tearing at my clothes before he even got the door shut, then dragged me off into the first bedroom down the hall. I had no idea that it had belonged to her -- even kept trying to tell myself that the house wasn’t hers until I saw pictures of the two of them hanging on her walls to officially confirm it. I thought about stopping right then, but he kept saying that he would give me more cash if I just let him fuck me, so I did. Not even thirty minutes after that, I heard the front door flying open and hitting the wall, then saw Colette running into the bedroom like a maniac. She started screaming her head off at me and I think tried choking me a few times until Jeremiah pulled her off and moved her across the room. She slapped him around a few times when he tried holding her arms down at her sides and I got the feeling during that whole ordeal that he actually felt bad about what he had done with me, but he didn't seem all that sorry for it at the same time, if that makes sense."
I bobbed my head and swallowed hard. "Yeah, it does." Shit.
"After that, she started threatening us with a gun, so I got the hell out of there as fast as I could. I just grabbed my clothes from the floor, didn't even bother putting them on. Jeremiah came out right after me, hollering for me to get back in his truck. Once we were both inside, he immediately started it up and then we sped off. After dropping me off at home, he pulled another wad of cash from a separate pocket, kissed me on the forehead and told me to take care of myself on top of throwing out a vague apology about what happened, then he took off."
"How much cash did you end up walking away with last night, total?"
"About ten grand."
"Jesus. And you didn't question where the hell he had even been able to get that kinda money to hand off to you so easily like that? The infirmary barely wanted to give him minimum wage and he wasn't getting that shit from here."
"I thought maybe he was finally winning something at the casinos because he had mentioned a few months ago about spending more time out there. But the truth is that I didn't really care where any of it came from," she told me. "As long as it wasn't marked and I knew that the cops wouldn't be coming after me for it, I didn't give a damn whose hands had touched it first before they came into mine."
"Darlin', if the shit came from where I'm thinking it might've, it'll be in your best interest to either spend it as fast as you can or have it shipped off to an offshore account someplace."
She wrinkled her nose and stared up at me in question. "Why?"
I scratched my head and grinded my teeth. "It's club shit and you know how that goes. Just listen to what I'm telling you and make sure to get rid of that money before Friday morning. You don't wanna have a single trace of it left in your account by then."
She bobbed her head. "Alright."
"Now listen, I've gotta head outta here. If Prez or any of them are still sober enough to start asking where I've gone, just mention that I needed to take care of something back at home."
"Okay."
"Thanks." I reached out and squeezed her arm after a streak of fear flashed in her eyes, then headed straight to my bike and hopped on.
After she made it inside, I looked over and saw Colette's car again, recalling my promise to bring it back home to her tonight. I thought about hooking it up to a truck myself and dragging one of the prospects out here to follow me out to my place with it. But then I remembered Maxine and the chance that any time spent with her today could send Colette reeling in the other direction and taking off in the middle of the night. No way was I about to let that shit happen now, especially with the possibility of Lorenzo looking to take out my brother and more than likely any other connection to him in and outside of the club. I had no doubt now that that dumbass had stolen from him and used some of that cash to pay off Cherry last night. And I was even more sure that he had only boned her in Colette's bed to get her to drop him so that he could take off without a chance of her ever going out to try and find him.
The shit was piss poor in action but clever at the same time, I'll give him that. But realizing that he more than likely did it all to protect her, knowing just who Lorenzo was and how he operated, and not just because he was an asshole who lapped up random pussy at will like a motherfucker in search of the nearest well of fresh water, didn't sit right with me. Because no matter how Colette felt about me, she had still been with him first and for a helluva lot longer than she needed to be. And it meant that if feelings were still there on each side, there was a greater chance of me losing what we were starting to build with each other, to the both of them.
Chapter Nine
Roman
Within the hour, I had made it back home.
After stepping inside the house, I realized Colette was still out when I didn't smell any food coming from the kitchen or see her purse anyplace nearby. I closed the door and dropped my keys on the table in front of the couch, then removed my cut and snatched my phone from the inside pocket to try and dial her up again. After about the fifth or so ring and still no answer, I slammed it shut and tossed it across the room to the couch on the other side. It landed on top of a brown briefcase instead of the cushion. I glowered.
"What the hell is this shit?" I threw my cut to the side and walked over to the couch, shoved my phone and rubbed my hand back and forth across the leather of the case. The shit was real. When I flipped it up, I saw the initials "MH" engraved near a small lock located just beneath the front flap. I yanked at it a few times and when it didn't immediately pop open, I snatched my army knife from my back pocket and jammed the tip of it into the tiny hole of the lock. After a few clicks to the left and right, the hook finally unlatched. I ripped it off and opened the flap, threw my hand inside the case and pul
led out a pile of papers. At the top of the first one, PETITION FOR ANNULMENT was written in black bold letters while my full name, along with Colette's, were both stuffed into small but separate boxes in various sections just underneath it and throughout the other pages behind it. "Christ."
I hurled my knife across the room and flicked the lock to the briefcase behind me, then sat down at the edge of the couch, knitting my brows and grinding my teeth, convinced that this shit had been put in place before we came together this afternoon, before she knew how I felt about her and always had.
When I heard a car pulling into the driveway and saw a set of headlights shining through the front window, I shoved the papers back into the case and slammed it shut. Then I got up from the couch and headed into the kitchen, grabbed a beer from the fridge and cracked the lid with my teeth before tossing it into the sink. I leaned back on the counter and wrapped my mouth around the neck, drinking back 'til it was half empty, only yanking it away when I heard Colette laughing and shoving her way inside the house. She sounded like a dream and I tightened my hand around the bottle of beer to keep from heading straight into the den, plunging my tongue between those soft, sweet lips -- both of them -- and taking from her what I knew she had been so willing to give up to me for so many years before now.
She had about three sets of bags in both hands as well as her keys and purse while opening the door. When I realized she had used the key Jeremiah had given her years ago to unlock it, the shit made me feel like throwing my fist right through a goddamn wall. The only key I ever wanted her to use around this place any more was one given to her by me. I needed that shit to have value, to mean something. I needed her to know that it wasn't just a symbol of her being my wife, it was a symbol of her being the only woman who had ever been worthy enough to have one from me.
When she saw me in the kitchen, she stopped laughing on cue, then pushed her friend off to the side and closed the door behind herself. "Hi," she called out to me just before biting down hard on her bottom lip and sucking it into her mouth. I remembered what those lips felt like wrapped around my cock from this afternoon and readjusted my pants around it before either one of them could see it growing hard all over again.
"Yeah, hey." I cleared my throat and drank back the rest of my beer, then placed the empty bottle on the counter and headed back into the living room. She sat her bags on the floor and her purse on top of the table. Maxine clutched her purse at her side and stared at me with big, bugged eyes as if I were King fuckin' Kong. "Where've you been?" I asked Colette.
She swallowed hard and shook her head. "Didn't you get any of my messages about Maxine taking me shopping? I left you a voicemail and a few by text."
I nodded. "I tried calling you back, darlin', but never got a response."
"Oh. Well, we were on the edge of the city, so they might've dropped," she said. We stared at each other 'til Maxine jabbed her in the side of the stomach with an elbow. "Ow!" She looked over at her and made a face. Maxine wrinkled her brows and nodded toward the briefcase. Colette's eyes followed and when she realized the lock was missing from beneath the flap of it, her chin dropped. "Shit." Her eyes darted back over to me and that's when I noticed she was wearing one of my old WILD REAPERS tanks along with a pair of shorts that I hadn't seen in nearly a decade. I wanted to scoop her up in my arms, slid my hands down her back and around her ass, and carry her off into the bedroom right then. But I kept my dick in check as best as I could and instead of focusing my eyes down on her tits like I wanted, because I could tell they were sitting mighty high and tight behind that black tank, I kept them on her face. "Did you happen to see what was inside that briefcase?" she asked me, pointing.
I nodded at her and said, "Yep."
"And what did you find?"
I gulped before giving her an answer. "Annulment papers with our names typed into some tiny boxes all throughout each one of them."
Her brows flinched and she moved forward, away from Maxine. "What?"
"I..." Maxine started. Colette turned back to her and glowered. "I told you that I brought the papers by." She looked between the both of us and waved her hands. "You shouldn't be all that surprised by it."
"I'm surprised that you didn't mention anything to me about plugging our names into the boxes already," said Colette.
"I thought it would make things easier than having to--"
"Easier for which one of us?" I asked her. Slowly, she turned to look me in the face and exhaled.
"Listen, I wasn't looking to make any trouble between the two of you, okay?" She stepped up beside Colette and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I was just looking out for my friend, you know? She's like a sister to me and when she mentioned that you got married, I panicked and assumed that at some point, she would be looking for a way to get out of it." She stopped and looked between us again. "But I was wrong about that and I know that now." Colette brought her soft brown eyes back to mine and released a sigh of what looked like relief. "This whole thing is not something that I'm used to dealing with," Maxine went on, though I was starting to wonder why the hell she was even still around. "Most people that I know who get drunk and married in Vegas are hoping to have it erased from their records before noon the same day--"
"It's not what we want." Colette glanced over at her for a second before turning back to me. "Is it?"
"Hell no," I told her. "No way in fuck are you ever gonna be anybody else's wife but mine from now 'til we're both in the ground." She rolled her bottom lip into her mouth again and Jesus, I just wanted to take her. When her lids hooded, I could tell she wanted the same from me.
Maxine shoved her brows together while staring at the both of us again, then stepped up and grabbed her briefcase from the couch. "I'm just going to go and leave you both to... whatever the hell this is." She backed away and shuffled across the room but stopped and turned back to Colette. "I'll call you after work tomorrow," she said. Colette nodded as her friend headed out the door and closed it behind her.
I dropped my arms and shoved my hands inside my pockets. I wanted to tell her about Jeremiah, about why the shit he had done to her was, in his warped-out mind, for the best. But that meant me also having to tell her about Lorenzo, and since club business needed to remain club business no matter the cost, I kept my mouth shut on all of it.
"You said you would bring my car along with you on the way back home," she said. "Is it still parked outside the club?"
I nodded. "Between two bikes out there, yep."
"Why didn't you bring it back?"
"You want the truth?"
"I never want to hear anything else from you," she told me. "Ever."
I swallowed hard and sucked in air. "After your messages about Maxine, I thought there was a chance she'd get in your head about this whole thing between us and convince you to take off; maybe pack up and leave me in the middle of the night or some shit."
She grimaced. "You really think I would do that after what we did and said to each other this afternoon?"
"I don't know, darlin'. I'd like to hope not but with the shit that went down at the club today, I'm not too sure what I can even believe anymore about anything or anybody else. Even the motherfuckers I'm supposed to trust above all."
"What went down?"
"Shit I can't exactly talk about with ya like I'd want to," I told her.
She bobbed her head while staring up at me with those big brown eyes and my cock swelled straight down to the tip. "I understand." I could tell from the look in those eyes that despite still wanting to know, she did.
That shit made me want her even more.
I made my way over to her and wrapped my arm around her waist, jerking her to me. She rubbed herself against my cock and threw her arms around my neck, pulling me down close to her face. I brought my other hand around to her back, then slid it down inside her shorts and panties and wrapped my hand around her bare ass. She moaned against me and opened her mouth, begging for a sweet, long kiss. I smiled and teased her wi
th my tongue, sliding it back and forth across her lips, then dipping it inside.
She crawled her fingers into my hair and as I could feel my heart beating fast against her, I felt hers slamming just as hard against my own goddamn chest. Shit. There was no way in hell that she was ever leaving me for Jeremiah, no matter what the hell he had done for her or why. I was who she always wanted, who she needed to keep her safe, protect her from now until the end from anything and anyone ever thinking of doing her harm.
"Where'd you go today?" I asked her.
She parted her lips into a wide smile and my cock damn near lost its mind inside my jeans. "I told you that I went shopping for a few things. Some of which I think you might like."
I grinned. "You wanna put any of it on right now?"
"No! I still have to cook us dinner and I can't exactly wear any of that stuff while I'm moving around the kitchen and using the skillet and stove."
"Then I'll cook and you can just go and put that shit on."
She laughed and wagged her head. "Roman--"
"Then you can come back out and stand in the kitchen so I can watch you move around me."
"No," she said, her voice firm, though the look on her face said that she was considering my suggestion. "I picked a few things up at the grocery store that I want to make for you too. If you're still hungry, anyway."
"I didn't eat anything at the club," I told her. "Just had a few beers with the brothers before heading back out here."
"Okay..." She trailed off and lowered her eyes between us.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, I'm just..." She stopped and rolled her eyes back up to mine. "I'm just curious about what they said to you when they found out that you were married to me now."
I laughed aloud and drew her even closer to me. "Darlin', they were pissed."
Her eyes grew and her jaw dropped. "What?"
"Nah, I'm kiddin'."
She threw her hand into my chest and pinched her lips to the side to keep from laughing again. "Don't do that."