I nodded in agreement. Because how could I not? Fuck me, if that was my daughter I would have already ripped my dick off and shoved it down my own throat.
“But we all fucked up recently, that much is true.” Gauge sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. He shook his head and his gaze softened from a glare to a hard stare. “This is your one chance, Prez.” He said my title with disdain. “After this, you ain’t got no more. You feel me?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“She’s been alive longer than I’ve known her, and fuck me if she isn’t fucking amazing. I ain’t gonna let you go chasing her away now that I’ve finally got to know her. She’s too important to me. You sort this shit out, if you can, and if you can’t, you find a way to make it okay for her to stick around either way. If she’s done with you, you fucking accept that. That shit ain’t up for debate.” He patted me on the shoulder and walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
When I turned around, Rider was standing there waiting to talk to me. He came forward with a smile and we shook hands.
“Went well?” he asked.
“Sort of,” I replied. “I mean, I’m still breathin’, so there’s that.” We laughed together and then he frowned.
“Your brothers and I thought of your road name, finally,” he said, and I grinned.
“Yeah?” I asked, having no clue what it could be. Some brothers went their whole lives without getting one, but a road name was a badge of honor.
“Shooter,” Rider replied. “You got skills, mad skills, Shooter—the sort that’s in your blood. Whoever your father was, the man knew his way around a gun. The way I saw you shooting today, it’s obvious that he passed those genes on to you.”
“Shooter,” I said, letting the name settle on me. It sounded strange, being given the name Shooter for the way I had killed Hardy, but it also felt right. “Shooter it is, then.”
Rider smiled, but it fell quickly. “I’m sorry about Butch,” he said.
“I’m sorry about a lot of things, but sorry don’t change the way they are.” I shrugged.
He scratched the back of his neck with his one good arm. The other was covered in plaster, and we were waiting to get the results back on if there had been any permanent nerve damage. At the moment he could barely grasp the handlebars of his bike, but it was still early days yet. For his sake I hoped everything healed up okay. A brother needed three things in his life: his bike, his brothers, and his old lady. Take away a man’s bike and you broke him, permanently. I’d seen it happen before.
“I should have known,” he growled out, his gaze holding mine. “I should have fucking known, Shooter. I’m the motherfuckin’ VP, it’s my job to know. I put the club and my brothers in danger. I got Butch killed.”
He sank into the chair behind him, the air leaving his body in one gust.
I pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. “It wasn’t your fault—Butch’s death, that’s all on Hardy. He turned his back on his brothers, his club, and his sons.” I paused before continuing. “His son,” I corrected.
No one had a fucking clue who my real dad was. Hardy had called my mom a crack whore, and me a bastard, and well, he was right. She’d been a beautiful storm, my mom. But she’d had her problems. A chemical imbalance, a dark turn of fates, who the fuck really knew. The only thing we knew for certain was that Hardy had loved her despite the drug addictions, and the cheating. He’d moved out after my birth—apparently couldn’t stand looking at me and knowing I wasn’t his, but not wanting the shame of anyone else knowing.
The only man who had known was Rider. He’d helped set me and my brother up at the clubhouse and made sure we had everything we needed. He’d spent a long time trying to find out who my dad was—Hardy had wanted to drop me off on his doorstep when he eventually did find out—but it had never happened.
Now Mom was dead, and so was Hardy, and the truth had died with them. I’d never know who my real father was, but I was okay with that. I could live with the Hardy legacy. My mom was a Hardy and so was Butch, and I wouldn’t want to be anything less or more than them.
“He kept you out of the way,” I said to Rider, and he looked up at me, the guilt evident on his face. “I mean it when I say that it wasn’t your fault.”
A knock on the door sounded out and we looked up, seeing Charlie standing there, hands on her hips, eyes scorching through my soul.
Rider looked at me apologetically. “Sorry, brother, I ain’t got no control of that crazy bitch.” He stood up and walked toward her.
“Don’t,” she warned as he got closer. “Don’t even try that injured hero bullshit with me, Rider, not if you ever want your dick sucked again.”
Rider turned back to me with a wince and I nodded. He left the room and Charlie stormed over to me, sashaying those hips of hers with every determined step.
“You,” she said, pointing a finger right into my chest, so close her nail dug through my tee and into my skin. “You better go see my girl, you piece of shit, because if you don’t make love hearts and bunnies bounce around her like some dumb fucking cartoon then I’m going to make you suffer more than you’ve ever suffered before, Jesse fucking James!”
I took a deep breath, not happy with the way that crazy bitch was talking to me, but also knowing I damn well deserved every word of it. Still, I couldn’t have a woman talking to me like that.
“Firstly, you don’t talk to me like that again. Secondly—” I held up my hand when she tried to interrupt me. “—secondly, I’m going to make her see fucking unicorns and kittens by the time I’m done groveling to her and tearing so many orgasms out of her body that she can’t walk straight for a month. And if that don’t work, I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure she’s happy, with or without me.”
That last part was a lie and told purely for Charlie’s benefit. Because there was no way in hell that Laney was ever going to be with anyone but me. Every time she got with someone new, I’d put them in the ground, right up until she realized she had no choice but to be with me and she gave up.
Laney was mine, and I would spend the rest of my life making her see that, if that’s what it took.
Charlie’s scowl fell away and she threw her arms around my neck. When she pulled away she was grinning. “Now that’s what I’m talking about.” She turned and left the room, leaving me alone finally.
We still didn’t know who was running the Razorbacks, and they would have to be dealt with, sooner rather than later. A war was on the horizon between us and the Reverend, and that shit was not going to be pretty. But Hardy had gone to Hades, we knew the truth about Butch’s death, and I was president of the Devil’s Highwaymen.
The day was fucked up.
But fucked up in a real good fucking way.
I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one, taking a deep pull on it. But shit didn’t taste as good as it did before. Laney hated me smoking; if I was going to win her back, that was the first thing that had to stop again. I leaned over and stubbed it out into the ashtray, and then I turned and walked out of the chapel.
Brothers stopped me as I walked through the clubhouse, patting me on the back and congratulating me on my presidency, and I thanked them right back. There’d be a party that night, no doubt—men drowning their sorrows, and cheering to the future. It would be fucked up for sure. But before anything else, I needed to go get my girl.
Casa stood by the door, leaning against the wall and waiting for me. He smiled as I got closer.
“Prez,” he said, tipping his head to me obnoxiously.
“Fuck off,” I laughed.
“Oh, you’re not too good to talk to a simple brother like me, then?”
I punched him in the stomach, hard enough to hurt but not so hard that he’d hate me, and he doubled up laughing and struggling to breathe.
“Motherfucker,” he called as I walked out the door.
“That’s President Motherfucker to you!” I called back with a laugh.
“Tho
ught your name was Shooter now.”
I turned and looked back, pride blossoming in my chest. “Yeah, that as well.”
Chapter thirty-one:
Present day
Laney
I sat on the sofa in Charlie and Rider’s house, my feet tucked up under me. I’d wanted to go to the clubhouse and see Jesse, make sure he was all right after what I’d overheard Rider telling Charlie. But I couldn’t.
That wasn’t my world now, and the sooner my heart understood that, the better.
I’d been thinking about moving back to Florida a lot since leaving Jesse. I had friends there—at least I’d had friends before Gauge had dragged me away from there kicking and screaming. Regardless, I wasn’t worried. I knew I could take care of myself now. I just knew that I couldn’t stay, watching Jesse go through woman after woman like they were trash. Watching him tear apart everything we’d worked for. Watching him destroy our world.
I just couldn’t do it. To him, or to myself.
The roar of an engine startled me out of my thoughts, and I stood up and pulled the netting back on the window. A bike was coming down the street, but I didn’t recognize it. Of course, there were plenty of bikers around there, and I couldn’t know them all, yet something in my heart made me go to the front door and open it. Something in my heart told me that that biker was there for me.
I stood in the doorway as the biker pulled to a stop at the sidewalk, and whoever it was turned off the engine. I definitely didn’t recognize the bike, not even from any of the club events that I had gone to.
It had a dark forest green body, with large ape handlebars and beautiful chrome pipework. And the sound: the engine roared like a caged lion, the sound trembling over my flesh and giving me goose bumps. It wasn’t the sort of bike you bought from a shop. Shit, I didn’t know much about bikes, but I knew it wasn’t one that was just built as a custom job. That bike was special, and it had been built from the ground up with love. It was also covered in scrapes and dents along one side.
The biker shut off the engine, and the sudden silence was unnerving. He climbed off the bike and pulled off his helmet, and I swallowed as I took him in.
Jesse stood there, his cut wrapped over his shoulders and hanging from his lean and muscled body. I swallowed, because despite the fact that I’d chosen to leave him, my body couldn’t deny the attraction I still held for him, nor the love I felt. I would always be in love with Jesse, no matter how many times he broke my heart.
He stalked toward me like an animal moving toward its prey, and my heart sped up. The last time I’d seen him he’d almost killed a guy with his bare hands. The cuts were still visible on his knuckles, the blood still stained on the driveway.
His hair was loose around his shoulders and the sun kissed his skin, making the light sheen of sweat on him glisten.
And then he was there, in front of me, his heated gaze bearing down on me. His beard twitched and his eyes narrowed, and I opened my mouth to say something to him but the words fell away as his large hands reached out and grabbed me, dragging me to his body.
He slammed me against his chest and I tried to push away from him, but I’m not too prudish to admit that it was a half-assed attempt. And then Jesse wrapped one hand in my hair, tipped my face up to his, and he pressed his mouth to mine. I fought him for seconds before finally surrendering myself and going limp in his arms, and opening my mouth to he could push his tongue inside. And then we were kissing.
It was a kiss of claim.
Jesse was claiming me once more.
Owning my mind and my body with that kiss.
And I was powerless to stop him.
When he finally pulled away, my lips were red and sore and I stared up at him in a daze.
“I’m telling you now that you’re coming home with me,” he growled out. “I fucked up real bad, I know that, but that’s over now. That shit ain’t ever gonna happen again, I swear to you. I lay down my life to that promise Laney.”
I tried to pull away from him, needing the space to give my mind the clarity it needed to think clearly, but Jesse held on tighter, practically snarling at me, so I gave up.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you,” I whispered. “You broke what we had, Jesse. You turned it into something ugly, where there should only have been beauty. How do I get over that? Tell me and I’ll try.”
Jesse’s eyes softened and he nodded, and I worried that he was going to back away from me but he didn’t.
“We don’t,” he said. “We don’t get over it. Because we never get over the bad shit that happens, we just somehow learn to live with it. You keep the good vibrant in your mind, and you hold on tight to it, and that makes the bad bearable.”
I nodded, feeling tearful, and he leaned down and kissed me again.
“I will never hurt you again, Laney. I don’t know what was wrong with me these past months—grief, insanity…but it’s over now.” He gripped me tighter. “You are my family. You and the club. I couldn’t see it before. All I could see was that Butch was gone, and I’m sorry for that, but I see it now.”
I thought about the first time I met him—the kid who looked at me like I was made from the stars. I thought about the first time he’d kissed me, and the way my heart sped up and my mind spun out of control. I thought about the way he made my stomach feel like there were butterflies living inside of it. But mostly, I thought about how every time I looked at him, I couldn’t help but love him, no matter how much I wanted to stop.
And so I kissed Jesse back and I thought about the good and somehow, he was right: it made the bad seem more bearable. Who knows? Maybe one day the good would be so good that the bad would be obliterated.
That time when he pulled out of the kiss I felt something other than anger and resentment toward him. I felt the love I’d always felt for him growing inside me with every breath I took.
“If you’ll let me, I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” he said, and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling. Because just when I thought he couldn’t surprise me anymore, he did.
Jesse got down on one knee and pulled a small box from his pocket. The poor man looked nervous as hell and was practically shaking like a leaf. He opened the box and watched my face for a reaction before speaking. “If you’ll have me back, I’d like to marry you, Laney. That way I can spend every minute of every day making you the happiest old lady there ever was.”
I wiped the tears away with the back of my hand and I nodded, and he let out a sigh of relief. He stood up and grabbed me by the waist before swinging me around.
I laughed as I spoke. “What would you have done if I had said no?”
He stopped spinning me and looked at me seriously. A grin split his face. “I would have handcuffed you to my bed and kept you there until you agreed, of course.”
He pulled the ring from the box and slid it onto my finger and we both stared at the beautiful green emeralds in the ring, watching as they sparkled in the fading sunlight.
I couldn’t forgive him for the pain he had caused us both, but I also couldn’t stop loving him, no matter how hard I tried. So maybe it was time to admit that we were meant to be together, mistakes and all. We were both human, and we both made mistakes, but our mistakes were what made us and what defined us as people. Without our mistakes we were just people moving through life and never learning anything new. And that wouldn’t do either of us any good.
I was Jesse’s and Jesse was mine, and we were meant to be together, forever this time.
“I love you, Laney,” he growled against my mouth.
“I love you too,” I replied breathlessly.
He pushed me back inside the house, his arms wrapping around me.
“I have something to tell you,” I said.
His hands reached out to squeeze my ass, and I giggled as he hoisted me up into his arms.
“Can it wait?” he asked carrying me down the hallway.
I nodded and laughed again. “Yeah,
it can wait.”
He carried me up the stairs and I thought about the life that was growing inside of me. The start of our family. The start of something good and pure. The only good that came from Butch’s death. A baby created through pain and sadness, and love.
I thought about how we would do it right. How we would give that little person everything we’d never had growing up. A real family. It would still be a fucked-up little family, because Lord knows there wasn’t anything about those bikers that wasn’t fucked up; they loved hard and they fought even harder. But the club, those men and women, they made up a family that you could always depend on.
Family didn’t have to be made from blood; it was made from love and loyalty, and those people had that in abundance.
I smiled as Jesse carried me up the stairs, one hand giving my ass a quick, sharp slap, and I thought about how happy Butch would have been for us if he would have been there to see his niece or nephew grow up. But he was there in spirit, and I knew he’d be with us every step of the way. Of that I had no doubt.
The end… For now.
Ride or Die #2
A Devil’s Highwaymen MC Novel
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley Writing as
Cee Cee Riley
Coming Winter 2017!
*Read on for a sneak peek*
Prologue
I had never wanted anything more in my life.
Not a home.
Not a family.
Not even the air I breathed.
He was everything to me.
And that’s what made his words hurt so much.
“I’m sorry, Harlow,” he said, his tone more gentle than I was used to. “I just can’t do it anymore. What we’re doing—what I’m doing, it’s not fuckin’ right. You deserve more than this. More than I can give you.”
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