by Kati Wilde
And still so beautiful.
“I wanted to look sexy for you,” she whispers, and there’s a sad little laugh in it, her breath hot against my neck. “Put this on and wait for you on the bed. Then I saw that.”
The box. Just cardboard, about two feet long and half as wide, still sealed with shipping tape. “What’s in it?”
“A pair of antique dueling pistols. I got them off eBay back in May. My dad’s Christmas present.” A shudder runs through her and her voice breaks as she says, “I never…do anything…last minute.”
I press a kiss to her hair because there’s nothing to say. Nothing to do except hold her tighter.
Clinging to me, she draws a ragged breath. Already calmer. She does that. Grief breaks over her like a summer storm, then she settles again. But it blows her out when it goes. Soon she’ll be leaning heavy against me, then falling asleep.
“I forgot I hid them in here. I mean, I saw the box all time. I just…didn’t think about it.” Already she’s sinking deeper into my arms. “Maybe I should give them to Thorne. Or put them with the other things to donate. Unless you want them?”
“No.” I don’t want anything but her.
Working my arm under her knees, I lift her up. She barely weighs anything at all. With a sigh, she rests her cheek against my shoulder and I carry her to the bed, where I slide in behind her.
She turns and snuggles in tight against my chest, her eyes already closing. “This isn’t what I planned for tonight.”
“I’ve got no complaints.” I’m here in her bed. She’s curled up against me. “We’ll head down and eat after you nap.”
“Okay.” It’s just a breath. Then, “I’m sorry.”
Fuck that. “Don’t you ever be sorry, Jenny.”
My cock will never matter more than her heart. Having her in my arms is more than I ever thought I’d get, and a hell of a lot more than I deserve. So whether I’m deep inside her or just holding her as she falls asleep, it doesn’t make any difference to me.
As long as she’s here. As long as she’s safe. As long as she’s mine.
I don’t need anything else.
Chapter Four
Saxon
I enjoy seeing Carlisle more than I figured I would. But then, I didn’t know whoever’s after him had already delivered a warning and busted up his knee with a crowbar. Watching him hobble around the clubhouse’s garage with a brace on his leg and a crutch under his arm is the most fun I’ve had since putting Zoomie up against the Devil’s Hangmen’s prez.
And I’m enjoying it all the more because, when Jenny’s hurting, I just want to tear the whole fucking world apart.
Tear it apart and remake it, and create a world where she’s never crying.
But I can’t. All I can give her is the little I have. I can kiss her awake and make sure she eats. At least that’s something. Last night we ate the pizza together, and while we were talking over her glass of red wine and my beer, some of the light was back in her eyes. And since she only eats one slice to my three, she finished before me, then licked her way down my stomach and made up for lost time.
But I still felt the hurt in her. Even as she rose up over me, took my cock deep—riding me, kissing me, her mouth and her pussy so hot and sweet. Even as I gripped her hips and set a pace that had her scratching at my shoulders and crying out as she came. I gave what I have, being careful not to be too rough or demand too much. Still, I can tell she needs something I’m not giving.
And it’s fucking killing me. So seeing Carlisle’s pain is the one goddamn thing I’m happy about this morning.
“You should marry Jenny soon,” Blowback says quietly.
I did not just fucking hear that.
I tear my gaze from Carlisle and look to the Riders’ warlord, who’s crouching beside a snow blower with a socket wrench in hand. The garage is another leftover from the old dude ranch—it used to be a horse stable, and instead of large bays that open to the outside, a wide center aisle separates a dozen stalls, each the perfect size for working on a motorcycle.
Today, the stalls are all occupied by motorcycles. Since the snow’s keeping everyone from riding, many of the brothers are using the downtime to tinker with their bikes—especially since Zoomie and Blowback are around to advise them if any repairs require a more knowledgeable touch. Zoomie’s in the stall across the aisle, poking at Grasshopper’s ride. Blowback got tapped to fix the snow blower after it puttered out this morning—although leaving it broken would have been just fine with me, because if all the walkways from the clubhouse to the cabins are a mess, it means Carlisle will have even more difficulty getting around than he already does.
Now Blowback’s not even looking up at me. After saying I should marry Jenny.
“What the hell did you just tell me?”
He spares me a glance, his eyes flat and empty, then returns his attention to the machine. His voice is pitched low enough that no one can overhear. “As warlord, I’ve got two jobs. The first is to make sure nothing comes at you or yours. The second is to make sure you get what you need. And you need to marry her.”
I do. That doesn’t mean I can yet. “We just put Red in the ground. She’s still hurting.”
“And neither of those situations will change anytime soon. He’ll always be in the ground and him dying will always hurt her.”
That’s true. But this is one of the ways Blowback is fucked up. I don’t think I’d understand that so well if I hadn’t spent time in a cell with his brother. I’m not sure whether Blowback is aware of how much I know—or if he would care that I do. But some of the shit I learned there about him and his family explains a whole lot. He doesn’t always pick up on the gray areas of emotional shit that other people absorb easily. Everything’s literal, cut-and-dried, black and white. But he understands well enough as soon as it’s put in his terms.
I glance at Zoomie. She’s healed up now. But I remember how, only a few months ago, Blowback barely touched her. “It’s just like kissing a girl with her lip busted and bleeding,” I tell him. “Maybe she wants you kissing her, maybe she likes it, but you know it’s hurting her at the same time. So you wait until the swelling’s gone.”
He sits back on his heels, regards me with that dead stare. “Or just like when someone stabs your cock. You don’t fuck a girl while it’s still bleeding. Or even when it’s scabbed over. You wait for it to scar. No matter how much you want to get inside her.”
Jesus. I stare at the crazy bastard before it hits me. “You’re just fucking with me.”
He grins and reaches for the coffee balanced on top of the low wall at the front of the stall. The old ladies have been in and out all morning, carrying hot drinks and platters of cookies. Through the wide, open doors at the end of the garage, I can see kids playing, and the noise from outside sounds like a schoolyard. The Hellfire Riders never had any young ones around the clubhouse when we were located in town, but this was apparently a tradition out here on the ranch—as soon as the schools shut down for the holiday break, Red allowed the Titans’ kids and grandkids to come out to ride their sleds and mess around in the snow.
It looks like the Hellfire Riders took to that tradition real well. And, Christ, it’s a lot of kids. No one’s ever going to claim the Riders don’t get their share of fucking in—though a good number of the brothers could stand to wrap a rubber around their dicks a little more often.
Blowback regards me seriously again. “So you think you know when to ask her?”
“I’ll know,” I tell him.
It’ll be when she starts listening to music again. It used to be—in the brewery, in her truck, at home—she’d always be blasting something. Or using music to make me laugh, like putting on a cheesy ballad by Air Supply and betting me I can’t get through a blow job without pushing her off and changing the song to something else.
But lately, she turns her music on, listens to a song or two, then turns it off. Maybe she thinks I don’t notice, but I do. And after living
with Red a while, I know the songs she turns off are by the bands he listened to.
So when listening to those songs doesn’t cut her so bad, when she can sing along with her music, when she dances around the kitchen again—that’s when I’ll ask.
Blowback nods. “You need a reminder?”
“No.” I’ll be counting down the days, waiting. But since he’s having his fun fucking around with me, I guess I’ll do it right back. I nod toward the door and the kids playing outside. “So are you and Zoomie going to start popping out some babies?”
Blowback huffs out a laugh. “I’m too fucked up to risk raising a kid.”
At least he knows it. Hell, I’m probably too fucked up, too, but I’m still looking forward to seeing Jenny pregnant with our baby. Looking forward to holding a little boy or girl in my arms. We’ve talked about having two or three, someday.
“We’re thinking about a dog,” he adds, pressing the start button on the blower. The engine coughs then catches, quickly rolling to a roar and blowing dust around the stall.
When he powers it down, I tell him, “You’re probably too fucked up for a dog, too.”
“Probably,” he agrees easily.
Still, he’d do a better job than some. I’ve seen him snap necks using as much effort as other men use to eat French fries. If I told him to finish my father with a crowbar, it wouldn’t be anything different than asking him to fix my bike’s engine. Killing doesn’t touch him like it does most people. It doesn’t leave a stain he can’t wash away. But as fucked up as he is, Blowback takes care of his own. If he had kids, he’d lay down his life for them, sacrifice everything he has to make sure they have everything they need.
Yeah. He’d make a hell of a lot better father than some men. Especially the one hobbling down the aisle in this direction.
I stand at the low wall, watching Carlisle come. In his face, in general appearance, I suppose he looks like me, although grayer, leaner, and a few inches shorter. But I can’t say I’d have recognized him, passing on the street—and that’s not just the age difference between when he took off and now. I haven’t thought about what his face looks like in thirty years. I couldn’t have said what color hair he had.
It’s dark, like mine. He’s got blue eyes, like mine.
But I don’t see a bit of myself in him. I didn’t know how much of a relief that would be—and it’s the only good thing to come out of seeing him, a bonus addition to the entertainment.
Blowback pushes the snow blower out of the stall and leans back against the low wall, coffee in hand—settling in to watch Zoomie, I realize. Across the aisle, she’s straddling Grasshopper’s ride while leaning over and helping him adjust the height of his apehangers. Her blond hair’s covered with a stocking cap. She’s got knee-high boots on, and some skinny jeans, and the considering the way her ass looks in them, I guess I’d settle in and watch, too, if she were my wife.
Instead I watch Carlisle slowly making his way closer. “You get that info on who’s after him?”
“Yup,” Blowback says. “Nothing we didn’t expect. He owes a bookie up in Portland a quarter million. Lowery’s the collector who’ll be coming after him.”
“Is Lowery someone we ought to worry about?”
His gaze on Zoomie, he shakes his head. “I’m pulling in a favor. If Lowery or his crew comes this way, I’ll know.”
“Carlisle’s not worth a favor.”
“Lowery has a reputation for using family to get to his target.”
That family would be me. So Blowback’s just doing his job. Like when he kept tabs on my father. “What was Carlisle in for?”
“Fraud. He persuaded a handful of widows to hand over bank accounts, their kids’ college savings, property. Then lost it all at the track.”
Jesus. I’m no fucking saint. I’ve done some pretty low shit. But preying on anyone weaker—preying on women and kids—is about the lowest it gets.
Behind Carlisle follows Bull, his babysitter for the day. The Titans’ former enforcer is moving in closer to the old man and eyeing me, silently asking whether I want him to keep the bastard out of my way.
Nah. Might as well listen to what Carlisle has to say. It might be entertaining, too.
“Bull,” I tell him, “why don’t you give Zoomie and Grasshopper a hand.”
The big man nods and heads to the other stall. Carlisle’s worked up a flush crutching his way over, and now he stands looking me from head to toe.
“Been a while,” he says.
Too long to care now. So I wait for him to say something worth hearing, but even before a few seconds pass, Thorne’s wife Molly comes by with a tray of snowman cookies and a fresh coffee for me, her cheeks rosy from the cold. Carlisle lights up when she turns her pretty smile on him, and in his smooth compliments I see the man who persuaded all those women to hand over their money.
He’s nodding as he watches her walk away. “This place isn’t what I thought it would be. You’ve built something real good here. All these kids, the beautiful womenfolk.”
What we’ve built is a goddamn biker club. We drink, we fuck, we fight, and we ride. But if Carlisle wants to believe this snowy holiday scene is what’s usually here, he can go on thinking it.
“And that one, Jesus. I don’t know whether to look at the bike or the girl.” He’s gazing into the opposite stall, then swings back to say, “I guess I wouldn’t mind riding either one.”
Now that’s something worth answering. “The last man who said something like that about her, she straddled him and used her fists on his big fucking mouth until he didn’t have a tooth left.”
And she did it at my request. But that’s not worth mentioning. Zoomie might have done it anyway.
Carlisle tips his head as if considering that. And all my life, I held the impression he was smart, if nothing else. My mother used to say that was the worst thing about him—that he was so damn smart, but so damn lazy, so he only ever put his brains to use while trying to find the easiest way to get by.
So until he says, “Having no teeth might be worth it,” I didn’t know how fucking stupid my father is.
I look to Blowback, but I suppose if the warlord was going to kill him, it’d have been done by now. Instead he just levels that dead man’s stare at Carlisle. “The boss is mistaken. The last man who said something like that, the teeth were all that was left when I was done.”
I’m not sure if he’s telling the truth. He might be. A whole lot of shit went down in the past month, after one of our brothers went missing. I didn’t see most of it, but Blowback did, and it’s possible he took out some fucker who insulted Zoomie along the way.
But it probably isn’t true. Or at least, not completely. I easily believe he killed a man. It’s harder to believe he left teeth. Blowback always gets rid of the evidence.
And it’s like a cold wind blowing past when he walks away now. Carlisle watches him go, shaking his head.
“That one doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
“He does.” Just not regarding things most people find funny.
Carlisle nods and gives me another once-over. “Jesus, you really grew up into something. That size must come from your mom’s side. I was real sorry to hear about—”
“No.” I stop him there. “You mention her, you won’t need a brace for that knee. Instead you’ll need a plastic leg after I shove your foot through that snow blower. You got me?”
I don’t raise my voice, I don’t change my tone. And he may be stupid, but not so stupid that he doesn’t see that I mean every word.
He nods and shifts his gaze away from me to skim a look around the garage. “This ranch is a nice spread. About a hundred acres, yeah?”
Just the property we consider belonging to the clubhouse. Jenny’s entire spread is another five hundred forty acres. But I nod because he doesn’t need to know that.
“This is where the Titans used to hang out, yeah?”
“Yes.”
His gaze settles on
me again. “And you a Hellfire Rider. Did you have to kill Tommy Burns to get him out of the prez’s seat?”
The Hellfire Riders’ former president. “A truck killed him.”
“That sounds like a bit of luck for you.”
“Not for him.”
Across the aisle, Zoomie glances over, a frown creasing her brow. Tommy Burns was her dad, and there was no love lost there, any more than there is between me and Carlisle. She still doesn’t like overhearing that his dying was luck.
Oblivious, Carlisle just keeps on going. “Yeah, I’d say you’ve been real fortunate. I looked you up a while back, saw you spent some time in Snake River. Following in the sorry footsteps of your old man, I thought.”
He can think what he likes. There isn’t a bit of comparison between my stint in prison and his.
“But I hear that turned out lucky for you, too. That helping that girl is the reason you have all this now—”
Fuck this. His jacket balled in my fists, I whip him around and slam his back up against the wooden post between the stalls. The clatter of his crutch falling against the concrete floor echoes in the sudden quiet. Not a single brother says a word as I stare the fucker down. The only sound in the garage is the shouting of the kids floating in from outside and Carlisle’s coughing as he tries to draw a breath.
I wait until I’m sure he can hear me, because I’m only going to say this once. “I’ll take your leg for my mother. But for Jenny, I’ll rip out your tongue and replace it with what’s left of your cock when I’m finished with you. Nothing that happened to her that day was luck.”
And the stupid bastard just doesn’t know when to shut up. Instead he stares back at me with a defiant jut to his jaw. “I’m just saying, your life turned out real well. Maybe it wouldn’t have if I’d been around. If I hadn’t left, your life might have gone completely different, and you wouldn’t have any of what you do now. So maybe you can show a little generosity to your old man instead of holding on to a fucking grudge because of something I did over thirty years ago.”