by Max Henry
“So why are you leaving?”
I suck in a sharp breath, hearing the man in question’s deep, husky voice directly behind me.
Dog laughs, spinning on his heel to disappear inside the clubhouse.
“That wasn’t nice,” I call after him, but it’s too late.
It’s just me, and the man I called home.
“You got an answer for me, fairy?”
I turn around to face Hooch, and wilt. I’m on the back foot here, and I sure as hell don’t like it. He stares down at me, his shoulders broad as he stands with both hands jammed in his jean pockets.
“You promised me you’d stay.” The pain in his voice is a knife straight to the heart.
“You know why I’m going.”
“Because I hurt your feelings?”
“You did more than that,” I snap. “You used me, again and again. You can’t help yourself.”
“Maybe I’m just findin’ excuses to keep you around?”
“Is that what I am? Entertainment? A distraction?”
“Is that such a bad thing if the need is real?”
I want to argue the point with him, God how I want to. But he’s hit the nail on the head. Maybe he went about it the wrong way, but those precious moments in the laundry prove the truth to his words: he needs me. He’s said it. He’s showed it.
“What do I get out of this, though?” I whisper. “I get that you need me, for whatever reason, but I can’t just keep on giving without getting anything back to replenish the well.”
He sighs, reaching out and running a thumb over my cheek as he cups the side of my face. “You’ve got to tell me what you need before I can give it to you.”
Snap. He’s got me on that.
“I need to know I can trust you, before I tell you.”
“Trust that my intentions come from a good place,” he offers. “I screw things up, Dagne. It’s just what I do.” He drops his hand away, rubbing his fingertips over the leg of his jeans instead. “I’m goin’ to hurt you, but it’ll never be intentional.”
“That’s not exactly a winning offer,” I admit.
“But I’m tellin’ you the truth, ain’t I?”
Yeah, he is. It’s just not a rose-lined walkway through the Garden of Eden, it’s an uneven dirt road through hell.
“What happened in there …” he says, holding a hand out to the clubhouse. “I didn’t realize that I was using the grief with you to get at Digits for personal reasons. I mean, it made sense when you said it, but up until that point, all I was focused on was makin’ the son of a bitch hurt for the things he said to you.”
“I don’t need violence, though.” I shake my head. “I need resolution.”
“Violence is how I resolve things.” He looks skyward, as though searching for an answer in the stars. “We’re from two different worlds, sure, but haven’t we both been hurt the same?”
“I guess.”
“So what really is so different about us?”
He has me, literally, figuratively, and every way in between. We’re not so different in the center of it all. I want to belong, and he feels he needs to be worth something to the people around him. I’m trying not to repeat past mistakes, and he’s doing his best to make up for the ones he’s made.
“I guess … nothing.”
His heat envelops me as he steps forward, tentatively reaching for my face with both hands as though he could startle me out of this daze at any second. And he could. I’m lost in a fog when I’m with him, but it’s a beautiful mask for the burnt forest of failures around us.
“So stay, Dagne.” His palms rest against my jaw, cupping my face in his hold. “Come back to Fort Worth with me and promise you’ll give us time to understand how this goes. We’ve got the pieces, babe. We just need to figure out how they all work together.”
I close my eyes, letting his words sink in as I fight back my emotions. It’s so perfect, so magical out here with him in the night. If I could freeze time and live in the bubble we create, I would, because it’s quiet in here, even from my own mind.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I promise this time. No more running.” No more hiding from what I don’t understand. No more fighting fires before they’re even lit.
No more.
“Thank you.” His breath caresses my lips before he seals them with his own.
I soften into his hold, my hands finding their own way instinctively to his sides as he leans me back a little, deepening the kiss. It’s fairytales, folklore, and all that bullshit I don’t believe in, right here for the taking. Yet I don’t know if I can, because what if love still isn’t real and, just like my dreams as a child, he’ll fade away with time?
I can continue to survive on my own, but I can’t be loved only to be left alone again. It took me too long to get to this point, and it’s not a road I’m willing to walk again.
One hand slips to my lower back, the other still possessively cupping my face as I reach up and wrap mine around the back of his neck. He breaks away, our foreheads still touching as he seems to gather himself before moving in for a second round.
It’s completion, satisfaction, and the unique euphoria of knowing you’re on the right path, that you’re doing exactly what you should be, when you should. It’s a moment of bliss in an otherwise fucked up reality, and it’s everything we need to survive.
“We’re goin’ to head inside,” he murmurs, deep and breathless, “and you’re putting that fuckin’ bag down with my shit upstairs. You feel me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
His eyes fix on my mouth as he caresses my bottom lip with his thumb, an intense focus that leaves me shivering for more.
“I’m not goin’ to sleep tonight unless I know you’re in the only place I can keep you safe.”
“Here?”
“In my bed,” he states, “with my arms wrapped around you. Ain’t anyone threatenin’ you again on my watch.”
I can handle that. “You know I’ll probably hurt you too,” I whisper. “It’s just what I do.”
“It’s a given.” He straightens, sticks both hands under my arms, and hoists me up against him.
I wrap my legs around him automatically to save from falling, linking my hands behind his neck. “Just shows that I care,” I tease.
“Then I hope you make me bleed.”
THIRTY-THREE
Hooch
The answer can’t be so simple. A woman with no special skill, no particular tie to any of our allies or enemies, a woman with nothing to give me but herself. Isn’t that the most special gift of them all, though? I guess. But am I worthy of it?
All I can do is hope to prove that I am.
“You okay?” I give her a smile as she jostles and rolls on my hips while I walk us inside.
“Yeah,” she half laughs. “Strangely enough I am.”
I pause long enough to place a quick kiss to her soft lips, and then open the door with one hand before maneuvering us through the narrow doorway. She begins to fidget the closer we get to where the entrance hall opens out to the heart of the industrial building: the common room.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Her lips twitch in a small smile as her fingers tease the lengths of my hair. “Maybe you should put me down.”
“Give me a good reason to.”
“Because it’s kind of embarrassing.”
I drop her to the floor a couple of yards short of the entrance to the common room, and promptly pen her against the wall with my forearms leant either side of her head. “Why?”
She shrugs, failing miserably to look anywhere that doesn’t involve me. I’m all over her, in front of her, around her, and exactly where I want to stay.
“I guess I’m not used to PDA is all.”
I chuckle, my overgrown hair falling forward as I duck my chin. “You better get used to it, Dee, because there’s no way you’re gonna stop me from lettin’ every one of those fuckers in there know—including one in particular—tha
t you belong to me.”
“What did you call me?” Her eyes twinkle in the soft hall light.
“I said you were mine?”
“No.” She smirks. “Not what you said. What you called me.”
It takes me a minute to realize what it was. “Dee?”
“I like that. Nobody’s really given me a nick name before.”
“Darn sight fuckin’ easier than twistin’ my southern tongue around your whole name.”
Her eyes narrow in challenge. “That so, Josiah?”
“Get my drift?” I smile back. Fuck—I haven’t smiled this much in years. “What’s wrong with fairy, though?”
She shrugs. “I don’t like being reminded how small and fragile I can be.”
“That’s not why I called you that.”
Her eyes find mine. “It’s not?”
I shake my head, and then kiss the top of her head. “It’s because you’re magical. There’s something about you. Something I picked up on, even when I was first being an asshole to you. In fact, it’s probably why I was an asshole to you.”
“Because you didn’t like it?”
“Because I thought I didn’t need it.”
She pushes up in the space between us, slow and careful. I lean down, my shoulders hunching as I strain to meet her short height. But it’s worth the discomfort. Fuck is it worth it.
She doesn’t just kiss me. The connection is so much more. For her, such a guarded heart, to offer this vulnerability to me … I don’t discount what that means, not one single bit.
“How about we ease into our PDAs, then?” she asks after I finally relent and let her go. “You can put your arm around my shoulders or something.”
I suck in a sharp breath between my teeth, grimacing as I tease her. “You sure? That might give it all away.”
Her small hand hits me solidly in the chest. “Shut up.”
“It’s too easy.” I step back, offering her my hand. “Ready?”
“Just promise me one thing?”
“Fire away.”
“You’ll do what you say and keep me safe?” She glances up at me from under her lashes and I almost come undone right there and then. “I played it down, but Digits’ messages did make me worry.”
“You think I was kiddin’ around about that?” When I love something, I protect it with all I’ve got. It’s just that so far all I’ve had to love is my family. Yet I’m pretty sure the loyalty would stay the same.
“No, I don’t think you were kidding,” she answers, tugging at my hand. “But I didn’t really give you the full story about Digits before either.”
“I’m listening.”
She flexes her hand, and I realize I’m crushing it just thinking what she might say. I let go completely before I hurt her when she does actually speak.
“I played down how he made me feel because I could see you were both getting really angry with just the messages.”
“What else has he been doin’?” Fucker better not be where I can find him if he knows what’s good for him.
She tips her head side to side, sucking on her bottom lip. “I still don’t want to start a fight, Hooch.”
“If you’ve got it in your head that you’re causin’ trouble just because you’re an ‘outsider’ and he’s one of my brothers, then quit it. I don’t give a fuck how long a man’s been in my club; you treat a woman, especially one I care a great deal about, like this, history means nothin’.”
“But wouldn’t the rest of your club hold it against me?” she pushes. “Until now, you were united, and now—”
“Now nothing,” I stress. “Babe, our chapter was fucked years ago. We’ve been climbin’ out of the shit, but it’s a slippery slope and every now and again, we slide backwards.”
“So I wouldn’t be disturbing the peace, so to speak?”
“Far from it.” I reach out and tuck her hair behind her shoulder. “You’re just shinin’ a light on the cracks so we can see them.”
It’s not enough; I can see it in the firm set of her lips, the hard line of her brow. She’s been the cause of conflict in the past, and the thought of doing it again tears at those memories.
“You know what’s different now?” I ask.
She shakes her head, fussing with my cut.
“Even if one of those fuckers does get a bee in his bonnet about this shit, you ain’t in it alone.”
Her chin lifts, and she tries to smile.
“You got me to walk with you, babe. Any of those guys in there have issue with me reprimanding an officer for his behavior, they take it up with me. Okay?”
“Okay. I guess.”
I run a hand over my face, trying for another angle. “If I don’t call Digits out on what he did, what kind of message do you think that gives him?”
“That it’s okay?”
“Right. And what then? How many more girls is he going to emotionally blackmail before it’s enough?”
She nods, her shoulders more firm now that she’s coming on board with what I have to do. “I see your point.”
“We’ll do it properly; in Church when we’re back in Fort Worth.”
“Church?” She frowns, tipping her head to the side.
Not from this life, remember? “Our meetings,” I explain. “It’s referred to as church in most MCs. The meeting room is called the chapel.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember Beth saying that the week I was there.”
I nod. “They just don’t call it that here because they had a religious guy years ago who took offence to a room where wars are planned being likened to where he went to pray.”
She smirks. “Figures.”
“What you say then, fairy? You with me?”
Her hand rests against my cheek, and I lean into her touch, holding eye contact with this petite enigma.
“Yeah, I’m with you.”
“Good.” I lean in and take her mouth, pushing a little harder than before and sweeping her tongue with mine.
She sighs into the kiss, giving me life as I suck her breath into my lungs, relishing that little part of her inside of me. With my eyes closed, I lift my hand and blindly feel out her shoulder, drifting my touch across her collarbone to rest at the base of her throat. Her kiss stalls, and then continues with more urgency and she pushes off the wall and into me.
I hold her against my body, promising so much in that gesture: safety, security, and most of all, surety. If there’s one thing in life I want her to be able to depend on, to know will always be there for her, it’s me.
I’ve lived that philosophy in my leadership of the Fort Worth boys, given them my undivided loyalty and devotion. But this … it’s my most important charge yet. Nothing can compare to somebody trusting you with everything they’ve got. Nothing. And I’m yet to have that with a woman outside of my sisters.
Family is great. But life partners are where the rewards are at. I’ve seen it. I want it.
I’ve found it.
Fuck the fact I’ve only known her for a short time—she’s already proved herself ten times over. I want her there beside me, every step I have left before my time is up. Every single step.
“If we don’t stop ourselves now,” she says with a blush as I let her come up for air, “then your pals in there will get more than they bargained for.”
I nod, stepping back and adjusting the obvious reaction in my jeans. I’m not fazed by the idea of somebody seeing what we’re doing—been there, sailed that ship—it’s the thought of somebody seeing her so intimately that sets my skin on fire.
“Guess we better take this to bed then.” I wiggle my eyebrows at her, and she rewards me with the sweetest laughter.
I’ve never heard her laugh until now. Chuckle, yeah. Give a little grunt of amusement, plenty. But her laugh? Now that’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.
“Show me the way, then. Before I change my mind.”
“Uh-uh.” I wave my index finger at her. “There ain’t no take backs, so
you better hang on and enjoy the ride, sweetheart.”
Pretty sure I’m going to.
THIRTY-FOUR
Dagne
Hooch looks across the hallway and smiles as the distinct sounds of his roommate having the time of his life filter through the door. The start of White Zombie’s More Human than Human has nothing on this soundtrack.
I duck my chin and hide my smile as he chuckles, running a hand over his mouth and chin. Truth is, the sounds are kind of hot, and if anything they’re making me want to hurry this along even more.
“I think the room at the end is empty for the night. The guy’s away for the week.” Hooch thumbs in the opposite direction.
“We’ll give that a shot then, huh?”
He reaches out, taking me by the hand, and leads us down the darkened hallway to a room that’s shrouded in darkness. I hesitate as we turn in, expecting him to reach around for a light switch, but he simply tugs my hand again and coaxes me into the inky black with him.
The door’s wide open, and I couldn’t care less.
“Hey, babe,” he mumbles, pulling me to his chest.
“Hey, yourself.”
He strips me of my bag and it makes a definite thump as it hits the floor beside my boots. Hooch’s hands roam my body, finding their way up to my face in the dark. Warm, calloused palms press against my cheeks as he grumbles in appreciation. I soften in his hold as his lips press down on mine, steadying myself by placing my hands on his shoulders.
His thick, rounded shoulders.
I trace my palms down his arms, stopping to duck my arms outside of his hold so I can continue to explore easier. Hooch’s tongue presses against the seam of my lips, and I tilt my head to allow him to deepen the kiss as my touch slips inside his cut and caresses the ridges of his abdomen through his shirt.
I’ve seen his body in the daylight, felt his solid mass pressed up against me on more than one occasion, but there’s something about the gentle exploratory way my fingertips graze the dips and ridges of his form that sets my body on fire. It’s erotic, sensory, and intimate on a level I’m not used to.
I want more.
He sighs heavily as I step back, pulling free from his hands. But the discord doesn’t last long when he realizes what I’m doing. I kick my boots off, and the T-shirt I had on hits the floor. I reach out to remove his cut and shirt also.