“We’re taking our time on the way back. Stopping to sleep in Wichita. Maybe Kansas City if we’re feeling feisty.” He gave me a half grin.
“Be safe, either way.” I made him promise.
“You got it, brother.”
After our final goodbyes, we watched as they walked to their bikes with their ol’ ladies. They rode off with waves and racking pipes.
The cemetery staff were waiting for us to leave to finish their job. With a respectful nod as we walked off, they got to work. We had to walk away. There was no way we could watch them bury our brother.
We walked the women to the SUV. They said quiet goodbyes to their men. I’d given Mattie a hug and a kiss, then let her climb in the back seat. Gwen and Raiven got in on either side of her, but I held Nova back.
“Thank you for being here for me today,” I whispered in her ear, and I inhaled the sweet smell of her hair. My hands were curled around the sides of her neck, and my thumbs caressed the line of her jaw.
“Of course,” she replied, and wrapped her fingers around my hands.
“I’ll meet you guys at the clubhouse.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead and stepped back.
She nodded, then got into the passenger seat. She rolled down the window after closing the door to give me one last kiss. It had me on the verge of climbing in through the window, so I broke off and grinned a little.
“See you soon,” she said softly.
Before I went to get on my bike, I stopped at the driver-side window. The prospect rolled it down.
“You take good care of my woman and my daughter,” I growled quietly to him.
“Of course, Smoke. You know I will.” He was a smart guy and seemed devoted and loyal. I had high hopes for him. Time would tell, though.
With one last nod, I patted the doorframe and motioned for the others to follow me so we could head out.
We’d parked across the cemetery, since we’d been at the front of the procession and among the first to arrive. The prospect was driving around the road that looped to meet up with where we were.
In my peripheral vision, I realized the SUV had stopped. The world switched into slow motion. As I turned my head toward the vehicle, my brothers followed suit.
From across the stone-filled cemetery, I heard the screams as a bearded man pulled Nova out of the vehicle.
I was already running, with the pounding of my brothers’ feet hot on my heels. We dodged headstones as we rushed closer.
He was dragging her into the trees that bordered the back of the property as I propelled my body harder and faster to get to them. Angry that the prospect hadn’t gotten out of the vehicle to go after them, I barely spared him a glance as I grabbed the edge of the hood to round the vehicle.
What I did see had me yelling, “Goddammit! Styx, Lock, see to them!”
Everyone else followed me.
We burst into the trees where we’d seen the guy enter. For fuck sake, he was dragging a woman; there was no way he could outrun us. The problem was, we couldn’t see him, and with us running we couldn’t hear him. If we stopped to listen, he would get farther away.
“Spread out!” I yelled. Nothing was processing other than the need to find them. There was no way I could think about the possibilities. My heart was slamming against my rib cage as I pushed through the brush. Branches grabbed at my clothes and hit my face, but I kept moving forward.
“Over here!” I heard shouted to my right and pivoted.
I skidded to a stop and dropped to my knees when I saw Straight crouched down by Nova’s sprawled form. “Nova!”
She had a small trickle of blood on her neck and on her temple where it looked like she’d fallen. She was blinking and looked a little dazed.
“She’s okay, just a little banged up,” Straight assured me as I carefully pulled her to my chest.
“Nova? Talk to me, baby.” My hand shook as it lightly ran over her from head to toe. The rest of the brothers came thundering up as I continued to check her for injuries.
“Grayson, stop fussing over me. I’m okay,” she grumped.
“What the fuck happened?” I was on the verge of frantic and I fucking hated it. Being out of control was the worst feeling in the world.
“It was the asshole from the dumpster and on my back porch. His voice… he had the most awful, raspy voice. Maybe from the horrific scar across his neck. His beard covered most of it, but I saw it when he leaned over me and stabbed Drew.” Her eyes looked tortured. “Is he okay? Oh God, please tell me he’s okay.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stop, I just came after you. Can you stand?” I asked her.
“Yeah, I’m okay, just a little shaken up.”
A little shaken up? Jesus.
As I stood, I helped her up. Her knees were a little skinned up and her dress was snagged. It had me seeing red all over again.
“Did anyone catch up to him?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
They all shook their heads, looking pissed. “He got in an old blue Ford and took off. He had it parked on the main road. I got a partial plate,” gasped Slice.
“Dude, you need to do more cardio or quit the smokes,” said Truth as he gave Slice a side-eye for being so out of breath.
“Man, fuck you. At least I caught up to the fucker.” Slice was still winded from his run. I might have laughed at him in any other situation.
“Enough. Let’s go back to check on everyone else.” I made eye contact with Straight. He knew things were getting out of hand as well as I did.
“Smoke’s right, head back to the vehicle. Prospect is hurt. We need to see what kind of shit we’re dealing with.” Straight started walking back out of the woods. We all followed. This time we weren’t running at breakneck speed.
When we emerged from the trees, we arrived to find an ambulance loading the prospect up on the gurney. Styx was talking to them. There was a flat tire at the front of the SUV that Anthony, our newest prospect, was changing.
After leaving Nova in the capable hands of Styx and EMS, I rushed to check on my daughter. “Mattie, baby, are you okay?”
Her head was buried in Gwen’s shoulder. She looked up when I spoke.
“Where’s Nova? Dad! He took Nova! He said if we got out he’d kill her.” She was understandably shaken, and I hated she’d witnessed everything.
“She’s safe. The paramedics are checking her over now,” I reassured her. Relief blossomed on her face. “I’m going to go check on them. Will you be okay with Gwen and Raiven?”
She nodded and clutched their hands. Assured of her safety, I returned to where they were loading the prospect up.
“How is he?” I asked as I stopped near them.
“He’s good. They don’t think anything vital was hit, but they wanna get him to the ER for further examination and the removal. Fucker stabbed that big-ass knife through his chest and had him pinned to the seat. How he had the leverage or strength to do it is beyond me. He may’ve just gotten lucky.” Styx shook his head in disbelief as the ambulance drove off with Slice riding escort for Drew.
Lock and Straight stepped up next to us. Lock looked agitated. “Raiven says the guy had appeared to stumble into the road in front of the SUV, making them stop. They thought he was a homeless bum that was drunk or something. Except, when he was bent over, he went around the passenger side and stabbed the tire, then ripped open the door. Unfortunately, your woman had her window down so he was able to unlock it. She said it happened so fast, no one had a lot of time to react. Prospect had pulled his gun and that’s when the guy stabbed him. He used a second knife to get Nova out of the vehicle.”
“Fuckin’ A. What is this guy, some kind of Jim Bowie? And do you know how this is going to look? Two people from our club get randomly ‘jumped’ within weeks of each other? We’re going to have the fucking cops up our ass looking for some kind of ‘gang connection’ bullshit.” My head turned, and I absently stared at Nova and the girls where they were consoling each other as Anthony
watched over them.
“I’ll get in touch with my contact in investigations. I’ll make sure he’s on the case. It’ll be okay,” Radar said quietly. The man had some strange-ass connections.
“When were you going to tell us you had connections with the cops?” Straight crossed his boldly tatted arms. His eyes were narrowed in suspicion. I didn’t know why, though. He knew that Radar had worked some secret squirrel shit when he was active duty. Plenty of his brothers from his service time had gone into law enforcement of some kind.
“It hadn’t come up.” Radar shrugged nonchalantly. He raised a brow as if daring any of us to say anything else. I gritted my teeth and gave him a look that said not to stir the shit.
“We’ll discuss this later. Smoke, are you good with the girls driving themselves if we flank them, or do you want Anthony to drive them? Because we’ll need someone to stay with Slice’s bike as it is. If he drives, then that’s two bikes we leave behind,” Straight pointed out.
“As long as we’re with them, they can drive. Prospect and Radar can stay here.” I knew Radar had the training if something crazy happened.
“Roger that,” Radar confirmed.
“We need to get the girls out of here. Even though I’m sure the asshole is long gone, I don’t like them being out in the open like they are,” I said.
Lock and I literally stood on the running boards of the SUV and held on to the mirrors as Raiven drove over to the bikes. We waited by the bikes while the rest of the brothers ran back across the cemetery. The place was suddenly giving me the creeps, and the sooner we were out of there, the better.
We needed to get to the bottom of whatever was going on.
Sooner rather than later.
“Interlude”—My Chemical Romance
Everyone was on edge by the time we made it back to the clubhouse. Raiven was a bad bitch, though. She drove like a bat out of hell keeping up with the bikes in front of us. The guys behind were hot on our tail, too.
We parked and stepped into the dim interior of the clubhouse. As soon as we got there, Truth and Styx turned around and rode back in the SUV to bring home the bikes and their remaining brothers.
“Something about the guy looked familiar,” I insisted to Smoke as I wracked my brain trying to figure out why it seemed that way. He was cleaning up my cuts and scrapes himself. I hissed when he wiped the antiseptic over the wounds on my knees. They were pretty minor, but it still stung.
“Do you think he was a disgruntled client?” he asked, concentrating on his task.
“Maybe, but that doesn’t explain how your club would tie into it. My clients were down in Houston; your chapter is up here. It’s not like we were in each other’s backyards. And I’m telling you, he let me go on purpose. It was like he was playing with me. Showing me how easily he could get to me. Just like he said,” I explained.
“Will you be okay for a bit with the girls? Once Styx, Truth, Radar, and the prospect get back, we need to have an emergency church.” His soft green eyes met mine, and my heart thumped wildly.
“Of course. I’m not helpless, you know. Nothing is broken. I have a few bumps and bruises. That’s all.” He was worrying over me worse than a mother hen, and it was touching but exasperating.
“I know that, Nova.” He tossed the used supplies in the trash and helped me stand from where I sat on his desk.
Instead of letting me go, he pulled me close. His hands palmed my ass, and he pressed his thick erection against me.
“Mmm, how can you be so turned on after all that?” I asked as I slid my hands up his defined abdomen to his firm chest until my right hand rested flat over his heart. It thudded heavily against my hand.
“Adrenaline” was his brief reply. “Not to mention, you’re sexy as fuck.”
I snorted out a laugh. “Looking like this?”
“Looking any way I can get you,” he confirmed.
“How much time do we have before they get back?” I questioned as my breathing sped up.
“Enough” was his reply before he sat me back on the edge of the desk. Wasting no time, he flipped the skirt of my dress up, yanked my panties off, and shoved them in his pocket.
“Hey, those are mine! I’m going to need them,” I argued.
His answer was a sexy smirk. “Trust me. You won’t.”
“I can’t walk around here without underwear,” I gasped.
“The fuck you can’t,” he said as he dropped to his knees between my legs, pressing them wide open. He was obviously done talking as he trailed his tongue up through my pussy and suckled that ridiculously sensitive nub.
I gasped at the sensation that slammed into me and fell back to lean on my hands. When I did, I accidentally shoved something off the desk. “Oh shit,” I moaned.
He pulled away far enough to speak, but didn’t really stop. “Don’t worry about it.” His tongue continued to flick over my clit as soon as he was done talking. Then he pulled me until my ass barely rested on the edge of the desk, hooked my legs over his broad shoulders, and buried his face between my legs.
The more he moved, the closer I got to exploding. When he slid two thick fingers inside and curled them in that perfect way, I lost control.
Hand gripping his hair, I alternately tugged him closer and pushed him back depending on the intensity between my legs. Except he didn’t let me get much relief. His skilled tongue drew out the waves of ecstasy until I was ready to collapse.
“Oh my God,” I gasped with a shuddering breath. He leaned back and wiped his mouth with the back of one hand as his other was working his belt. The clanking of the buckle preceded the sound of his pants dropping. Through it all, I watched with a heaving chest—aftershocks of my orgasm still rocking my world.
He lined the thick head of his cock up to my now soaking-wet opening. As he teased me by inching it in and out, I reached down and grabbed his arm.
“Wait! Condom!” I choked out. There was no way I wanted a repeat of that time, even though we were both wide awake.
Instead, he continued to dip deeper, the sounds of my arousal evident in the quiet office. Rolling to the ceiling, my eyes couldn’t focus on him. The feel of him sliding in and out of my sheath as it squeezed tightly around his length was nearly unbearable. A slight burn accompanied the best feeling in the world, accentuating every movement.
“Grayson?” I struggled to get his name out.
“Do you want to be with me?” His question was ragged with the control he was exercising.
“What?” I asked, shock widening my eyes.
“You fucking heard me,” he said as he thrust deep inside me. I screamed at the exquisite pleasure/pain combination. After slowly withdrawing, he plunged in again. The entire time, he held my astonished gaze.
“Yes,” I breathed, too afraid I was dreaming to say more.
“Then no more condoms.” He broke our visual connection to stare at the physical one between our legs. “God-fucking-damn, babe. That’s a beautiful sight.”
I could only whimper.
A few more slow but deep strokes were all I got before he growled, “Hang on.”
The words had barely registered in my blissfully overwhelmed brain before he began to fuck me. Hard.
The beast was loose, and I reveled in it.
My nails dug in to him, and I knew there would be marks, but neither of us cared in that moment. With each stroke “no condom” flashed through my head. I was equally enthralled and terrified.
He was like the motherfucking Energizer Bunny. Fucking me hard, fingers digging into my ass as he powered in over and over. The wet slapping of skin echoed off the paneled walls. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and still he kept moving.
A knock on the door had me jumping and trying to pull away.
“No,” he grunted as he held me tight and drove deep. “What?” he yelled.
The door didn’t open, but I heard the slightly amused voice of Straight. “Bossman, they’re back. You ready for church?”
“In a minute!” he shouted as he thrust hard again.
“Grayson!” I whisper-yelled, both mortified and weirdly turned on, knowing Straight was on the other side of the door listening. The thought of it sent me into climax, and I whimpered as I pulsed around his stroking cock.
“It turn you on knowing he can hear us?” he asked with a sultry curl of his lips. Those glorious hips of his kept moving.
Swallowing hard to find my voice, I didn’t answer fast enough.
“Tell me! Does it turn you on that he can hear us?”
Clenching impossibly tight, I gushed all over him as my back arched and my chin pressed to my chest. It was so intense, I’d forgotten to breathe.
As I sucked in a deep breath, he jerked out, and I cried out. Before I could process what he was doing, he had me bent over the desk, skirt flipped up onto my back, and long hair fisted in his hand.
“Come in!” he said, and I gasped, trying to pull away. His grip tightened as he shoved that giant cock deep inside me. In fascinated horror, I watched the door open and Straight step in. He’d been looking down but at the first slap of skin his eyes shot to Smoke’s, then to mine.
A silent exchange passed between him and the man between my legs. My mouth hung open as Grayson continued to fuck me.
It was impossible to miss the bulge growing in the VP’s pants. Jesus.
The man was likely as big as Grayson.
“Do you want him to watch me fucking you, Nova? Or do you want him to leave?”
Torn between what I knew I should say and the way the situation turned me on, I could only breathe out a gasping exhale each time Grayson bottomed out in me. My eyes were locked on Straight’s crotch, and I came again.
“I take it that means he should stay. Do want to watch him stroke his cock?” At Grayson’s shocking question, my gaze darted to Straight’s. He had a questioning brow raised as he looked to his president for confirmation that he meant what he was saying.
When I didn’t refuse, he instructed his brother. “Do it.”
Straight didn’t waste time. His pants were open and his thick cock was in his hand. I whimpered again at the glint of metal on the bottom side. Holy shit.
Smoke and Mirrors: A Demented Sons MC Texas Novel Page 19