“Hound, brother,” Pete murmured calmingly.
“You tell Chew I slit that fuck’s throat?” Hound rumbled.
The room went static.
“Get off me, man,” Arlo wheezed, trying to find purchase with just his toes on the floor and shoving at Hound’s forearm.
Hound squeezed and got deeper in his face.
“You tell Chew I slit that fuck’s throat?” he repeated.
“Get . . . off,” he choked.
“Answer him,” Tack, now at Hound’s side, gritted.
“Get him off me,” Arlo gagged.
“Answer!” Tack barked.
“Yeah, fuck, yeah . . .” Removing one hand from Hound’s forearm, putting it under Hound’s chin, and with a mighty shove and twist of his body, he pulled from Hound’s hold and scuttled away five feet.
Hound felt all the brothers amass at his back, except Tack, who took one step in front of him, toward Arlo, and there he stopped.
“You told Chew that shit?” Tack asked, the question coming almost as a whisper, furious, shocked and with disbelief.
“He was a brother,” Arlo returned.
Dog, at Hound’s other side, stepped forward. “At that time, he was not.”
“I was tryin’ to win him back,” Arlo snapped. “He was a brother. Before that shit went down, turnin’ him, he was a good brother. Thought, he knew we took care of business, Chaos had what it took to do it right, erase that motherfucker from the planet, avenge Black the way it should be, he’d come back.”
“That was not your place, Arlo,” Tack pointed out.
“Never thought he wouldn’t . . .” Arlo shook his head. “I thought he’d come back. He was Chaos. He was one of us.”
“You renounce the Club, you don’t get another shot to come back in,” Pete said.
“Shit was different back then,” Arlo reminded them.
“You renounce the Club, it’s done,” Tack stated. “It was done. You put your brothers in danger, Arlo.”
“It’s hearsay,” Arlo retorted. “He can’t do shit with it.”
“You were there, you’re not only a fuckin’ witness, you’re a fuckin’ accomplice,” High growled.
“I’m not gonna say dick,” Arlo hissed.
“You already did,” High bit out.
“What else did you tell him?” Tack asked.
“Just that we took care of it,” Arlo answered.
“We took care of it or Hound took care of it?” Tack pushed.
“Both,” Arlo spat.
“Christ, brother,” Tack murmured. “You pushed for Hound to stand the gauntlet sittin’ on knowledge for fuckin’ years that meant that’s right where you should be to pay penance for doing some stupid . . .” his tone was degenerating, “fucking . . .” he was losing it, “shit!”
Then he lost it.
And Arlo was against the side wall with Tack’s forearm tight to his throat this time.
The men closed in.
“I was tryin’ to pull the Club back together,” Arlo rasped.
“You mighta tore us apart,” Tack returned. “He’s got the goddamned bones.”
“Chew won’t take it there,” Arlo pushed out.
“You better hope the fuck not, man,” Tack clipped. “You better hope the fuck not.”
He pushed off, took a step back and Hound watched as Tack stared at the floor and took in deep breaths.
Finally, he lifted his head and looked at his brothers.
“The gauntlet is done. The women are outside. Business is concluded for tonight.” He turned to Arlo. “We’ll deal with your shit later.”
Brick came forward, jabbing a finger Arlo’s way. “Hand tied behind your back for fuckin’ certain, brother.”
“We’d lost Black!” Arlo yelled. “We’d lost Chew. Crank had fucked us all. I was tryin’ to keep our Club together!”
“And now you’re learnin’ a valuable lesson we all already knew and you shouldn’t have needed to learn,” Tack said. “Problem with that is you’re not the only one who might suffer the consequences.”
“There was good in him,” Arlo shot at Tack.
“Maybe you’re right,” Tack shot back. “And now we all gotta hope there’s still some of that left and we gotta hope that because of you.”
“I fucked up, is that what you wanna hear?” Arlo asked. “It is or it isn’t, it doesn’t matter. I fucked up. You think I haven’t been livin’ with that for a long fuckin’ time? Shit, I’m glad it’s out. I fucked up. Now we all deal. As brothers.”
“Jesus, that’s a fuckin’ joke,” Dog muttered.
“No it’s not,” Rush stated. “It’s the god’s honest truth. We’re brothers when it’s all good and we’re brothers when it’s in the shitter, and we’re brothers when we fuck up or we’re not brothers at all.”
All the men looked to Rush.
Rush shook his head, mumbled, “Jesus, now I need more tequila,’ then moved back to the bar.
It took some of the men more time than others but eventually they all disbursed.
Except Hound who stood there staring at Arlo.
“I fucked up, brother,” Arlo told him quietly. “I laid you out. I thought Chew would hear you delivered justice for Black, he’d know we were on the right path. But it didn’t go that way so in the end, I fucked up and laid you out.”
“You finally on board with where we’re heading?” Hound asked.
“Yeah, man. Yeah. Have been since after Cherry . . .” Arlo jerked up his chin. “Absolutely. Have been for years.”
So that night wasn’t about Hound moving in on Keely.
It was about Arlo letting out the rage that started building from the shame he felt now that they knew Chew was back.
He’d take that from him.
Because he was his brother.
“Then we’re good,” he decreed.
“I’ll stand the gauntlet, the men put me in the circle,” Arlo said.
“You’ll want that. It clears the head, cleans the soul.”
Arlo nodded and muttered, “Just, on your go, lay off that fuckin’ left hook.”
He was so into the discussion, he didn’t sense her until he saw Arlo’s attention shift beyond him and he felt her hand on his back.
He turned.
And there she was.
Keely.
Standing close to him at the Compound, the heart of Chaos, her hair running in shining sheets down either side of her face, her choker around her neck, looking up in his eyes.
Keely, his old lady.
Right there.
Oh yeah.
He would have taken a beating from all of them, both hands behind his back, for that moment right there.
She lifted a hand and gently prodded the cut in his eyebrow with her thumb, her gaze on it, then lifted her other hand and did the same with the cut on his lip.
“They opened you up,” she whispered.
“Babe,” he called.
She looked again into his eyes.
“Kiss me,” he ordered.
That was when she stared into his eyes.
He watched her eyes smile.
Then she moved into his arms and rolled up on her toes.
Hound bent his head.
And right there, at the Compound, standing in the heart of Chaos, Keely looking beautiful, being beautiful, now all his, kissed him.
And it was then, for the first time in his life, Shepherd “Hound” Ironside had everything he ever wanted.
The Present and The Future
“That, right there, is selfless and unrelenting,” Rush said.
Tack tore his eyes off Keely Black in the arms of Hound Ironside and looked at his son.
“It’s everything you’ve ever fought for, Dad,” Rush went on when he got Tack’s attention.
“He’s right,” Tyra murmured, pushing in under his arm at his other side.
Even as he curved the arm she was burrowing under around her, Tack looked down at his woman.
“I’m seriously fuckin’ pissed at you.”
She wrapped both her arms around her man’s middle and turned her gaze to Rush. “He’ll get over it.”
“Yeah,” Rush agreed. “Selfless and unrelenting.”
“What?” she asked.
Kane “Tack” Allen and Cole “Rush” Allen locked eyes.
Then they spoke the same word at the same time.
“Nothing.”
Hallmark Moment
Hound
Hound felt her wet heat close around him as he watched his cock sink into Keely when she bore down on him.
After she’d taken all of him, he lifted his gaze to hers and watched her bend over him, her tits hitting his chest, her hands sliding up his neck, over his ears, into his hair.
She stared in his eyes as they lay connected in his bed in the Compound.
“You gonna ride me or you just gonna stare at me?” he prompted when she didn’t move for a long time.
“Shh,” she shushed. “I’m memorizing this moment.”
He trailed both hands from her hips up her back until he got to her head. He pulled her hair away from her face and held her like she was holding him.
“Baby, I don’t do goofy-ass Hallmark moments,” he told her. “Especially not when my cock is buried in my woman’s pussy. Fuck me or I’ll fuck you. You got ten seconds to decide.”
“I don’t think Hallmark has a moment when a woman takes a man inside on his bed in a motorcycle club hangout,” she replied.
“I’m pretty sure it took ten seconds to say that,” he warned and watched her smile.
Then he watched her push up.
And with eyes locked to her, he watched her ride him, shifting his thumb to her clit to take her there.
She went there.
Then she took him there.
On his bed in the Compound, his brothers and their women close, carousing, fighting, or fucking.
Hallmark might not make a moment of that.
But it was one of the best in Hound’s life.
“Okay, I saw that coming from Bev to Boz, but I did not foresee his reaction,” Keely declared.
It was after they were done, after they’d cleaned up. They were naked, tangled up in each other and his sheets in his bed. They were front to front but she’d angled herself away and was stroking his chest and abs like she had his tats memorized and could see in her mind the Apache weapons inked into him that she was tracing.
“Yeah,” he grunted, not really thinking about what she was saying, instead trying to figure out if he wanted to eat her next or get her to blow him.
“Boz looked destroyed,” she noted.
That got his attention because his brother had looked just that. When what went down after the women came back in, after he got his kiss from Keely, and after the booze started flowing, Boz had looked destroyed.
Hound remembered the way he’d seemed during the meet, fierce and broken, and he knew then that wasn’t about what was happening with Hound and the brothers.
It was the discussion about Black and Keely and about what Hound now had with Keely.
It was him coming to terms with what he’d had with Bev.
And what he’d lost.
“I almost feel sorry for him,” Keely went on and finished on a mutter, “Almost.”
Hound dug Tad. He was a good man. Solid. Sharp. He loved Bev.
But he felt for his brother.
He played it out in his head, that time after the kiss when Rush called out to ask him and Keely if they wanted a drink and Keely had ordered a beer like the last time she’d partied in the Compound was the weekend before.
He’d been watching Rush telling Chill to pull her one when he felt Keely’s arms get tight around him.
When he looked down at her, he saw her attention was across the room.
He turned his that way and saw Boz up in Bev’s space.
Boz was talking low and intent.
Bev was staring in his face looking impatient.
When Boz got finished speaking, she just shook her head, took one step back, another, found Keely and Hound and blew a kiss their way, calling, “I gotta get to Tad’s. It’s movie night with his kids. I’ll call you later.”
“Later!” Keely replied. “Love you, babe, and thanks!”
“Anytime, every time,” Bev returned.
“Later, Beverly,” Tab called out, standing but snuggled into Shy who was sitting on a stool.
“Yeah, later, Bev,” Lanie said from her position that was the opposite from Tab’s, sitting on a stool with Hop standing close, his arm draped around her shoulders.
“I’ll call you, I got that sex toy party sorted,” Elvira, on her own stool next to Lanie, said.
“Thanks, Vira,” Bev replied. “Later, everybody.”
She took off with men and women yelling good-bye while Hound dipped to Keely’s ear and muttered, “Sounds like the girl meetings are more interesting than the boy meetings.”
Keely turned her head, caught a look at his lip, then his brow, then she looked into his eyes. “Yeah. You want me to help you get cleaned up?”
This meaning getting her to his room, he absolutely wanted that.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
He was going to move her to the bar so they could get her beer, one for him, and take them with when she went solid so he went that way with her.
Hound again looked in the direction she was looking.
And that was when they saw it.
Boz staring at the door Bev had walked out, looking destroyed.
“Oh boy,” Keely muttered.
“Boz, beer or shot?” Chill called.
Boz didn’t move, just stood there, staring at the door.
“Yo! Boz!” Chill yelled. “Beer or shot, man?”
Boz jerked himself out of it, looked to the bar then found Keely.
“That dick’s name is Tad?” he asked.
“Oh boy,” Keely muttered again.
“I mean, that no-dick’s name is . . . Tad?’ Boz asked, this time acidly.
“Um . . . well, uh . . . apparently size is relative considering, well . . .” Keely stumbled along until Hound gave her a squeeze, mostly to stop her from talking, but instead she blurted, “He’s actually above average it’s just that . . .”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Hound whispered in her ear.
She didn’t shut up.
“He’s got a good seven inches and she’s used to more.”
The entire room went silent.
Elvira broke it, and when she did her voice was pitched high.
“The woman has seven inches, why she need a sex toy party?”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Hound whispered again.
She didn’t shut up.
“They’re kinda . . . adventurous, um . . . in the sack.”
Fuck.
“Well all right,” Elvira decreed.
“She’s used to . . . more?” Lanie asked, sounding strangled and staring with big eyes at Boz.
“Are we really listenin’ to bitches havin’ a conversation about dicks and sex toy parties in our own damned Compound?” Speck asked.
Boz ignored Elvira, Lanie and Speck and asked Keely, “She’s marrying him, isn’t she?”
“Yes, Boz,” Keely answered.
“She’s marrying a man she doesn’t love?” Boz pushed.
“I, well . . . no. He . . . Boz, I’m sorry, but he won her over,” Keely answered.
“He’s a good dude,” Jagger put in. “Solid. They were over to dinner and Mom’s asshole folks showed, Dad’s asshole folks showed, he didn’t know dick about what was happening, except they were being assholes, and I thought for a second he’d snap all their necks.”
Slowly, Boz looked from Jag back to Keely.
And the destroyed had intensified.
“He had dinner with you and Bev and the boys?” he asked.
Shit.
“Yes,” Keely answered.
“I lost
her,” he said.
Keely nodded. “I’m sorry, Boz, but yeah, you lost her.”
Boz stared at Keely then at the door before he walked to and through it.
“Oh boy.” This time Keely whispered it.
“Your folks showed?” Tack asked Keely, and she stopped studying the door and looked to Tack.
“Yeah, but the boys kicked them out in a way I don’t think they’re ever coming back, so it’s all good.”
“You there when that went down?” Tack asked Hound.
“Yup,” Hound answered. “And the boys took care of it.”
“Hound opened the door for them after we kicked their asses out,” Dutch shared.
“And followed them to their cars,” Jag added then included, “So did Tad.”
“Then we all shot tequila and ate dessert,” Dutch finished.
Hound felt a lot of eyes but only saw Tack looking at him, and he knew right then Tack was seeing yet another part of the good Keely had, having him in her life.
He felt Keely tug at his hand.
He looked down at her. “Your face. Clean up. Let’s get our beers and do that.”
Hound thought that was a good idea so they did that, ending up where they were.
Naked in his bed.
So he’d been wrong in what he thought.
It hadn’t been a good idea. It had been a spectacular one.
“It kinda sucks, I’m back and she’s gonna be married to some guy who’s not Chaos. But we all bonded over trying to decide what to do about you standing the gauntlet and sex toy parties, so I know she won’t lose the girls. She just won’t be hanging at the Compound anymore.”
“Tad’s welcome here,” Hound grunted.
Her body went still then it swayed into his and she slid her arm around him as she asked, “Really?”
“Why not?”
“Well . . . Boz.”
“He dicked around, let a good thing slip through his fingers, not a brother who doesn’t know that. Probably not a good idea Tad shows tomorrow for a brew at the bar, but give it some time, he’ll be tight with us, the boys, Bev’s always got a place with Chaos and since he’ll be with her, he’ll have a place too.”
She slid her hand back to his chest, up to his neck and into his hair behind his ear.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He grunted.
“Are the boys in trouble?” she asked.
“You send them here?” he asked back.
Wild Like the Wind Page 39