by E. C. Land
“Second thing, you leaving the way you did is stupid beyond doubt. You put yourself in danger. After what happened to your house, you shouldn’t be doing anything without having someone at your back. So from now on, you’re gonna do that. You gotta be at the coffee shop at a certain time fine, but you’re also gonna do it with help starting tomorrow.
“For now, you’re gonna lay here and go to sleep. You’re dead on your feet and need to rest. I’m not playing games with you, and I’m telling you now, last night, I claimed you. You’re mine, and I’m not jokin’ around when I say I’m making you my ol’ lady.”
My heart is beating in my chest as each word sinks into my head. I don’t know what to feel or even think about any of it. What I do know is I’m not about to allow him to dictate my life.
“I’m not you’re ol’ lady, and you can’t tell me what I’m going to do with my own business,” I grumble in protest.
“Sunshine, I just did. I know you feel the connection like I do, and I’ll give you the rest of the day to come to terms with it, but you’re mine, Avery, and I ain’t lettin’ go,” he decrees, and my heart stutters to a stop right before it begins to beat again.
He can’t be serious.
“You . . . I . . . We . . . Ugh . . .” I stumble across the words trying to start a sentence to say something, but I can’t seem to get them to come out.
Hammer grins, and he lowers his head and presses his forehead to mine, and then steals my breath right along with a kiss so gentle if I hadn’t felt his lips against mine, I would have thought I’d imagined it all. Sucking in a breath, my lips part, and Hammer takes that as his opportunity to take the kiss further and deepens the kiss. His mouth seals to mine, and someone please save me before I combust. With only his tongue dueling with mine as he dominates the kiss, I yearn for more. My panties become wetter than they already are as my back arches off the bed, leaning more into him.
At this motion, Hammer repositions us without breaking the kiss. Falling to his side, he pulls me in flush against him. One hand reaching down to cup my rear in his grasp, the other slides up my spine up into my hair, where he tangles his fingers in the strands.
I don’t know how long we lie there making out, but when he breaks the kiss, his hands still in the places where he’d put them, both of our breathing is heavy.
“Knew I’d fuckin’ love your mouth. Thought it would be around my cock but gotta say I’m not one for kissing and all that shit, but we’ll definitely be doing a lot of that,” he announces, causing my body to shiver. “Now you need to rest.”
Hammer rearranges us yet again on the bed, moving me until I’m lying with my head pressed against his chest and his hand that he has in my hair moves to trail up and down my spine.
“Sleep, Sunshine,” he commands ever so gently in a tone of voice I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use with me, and I’ve got to say I really like it.
Closing my eyes, I do just as he orders and fall asleep feeling for the first time in a very long time, if not ever, that I can sleep without worrying about what’s going to happen when I wake up.
“Avery, baby, you need to wake up.” I feel my body gently being nudged as the person presses a kiss to my forehead.
“Hm, I don’t wanna,” I grumble sleepily and curl even more into the warmth as I sleep. This causes my pillow to move as I hear a chuckle. I also then realize I don’t have my head on a pillow but rather Hammer’s chest.
Holy crappity crap.
I slept the entire time in the same position without moving the slightest. Okay, well, maybe I curled my leg further around, but that’s it.
“Sunshine, you gotta wake up so you can eat and shit. Plus, need you to be able to sleep tonight when it’s time to go to bed,” Hammer mutters, his lips still against my forehead.
I slowly open my eyes and blink against the dual lighting of the room.
“What time is it?” I ask, snuggling into him more.
“Dinner time, baby. You’ve been asleep nearly eight hours, and if you have any hopes of getting more later, we gotta get up. Plus, I’m fuckin’ starving,” he says, and I immediately jolt to a sitting position to stare at him.
“You laid here with me this entire time?” My cheeks blush as I ask him this.
“Yeah, Avery, you were out, and I wasn’t about to move you. Stayed here, watched a game on the TV, and got some work done on my phone. You slept through it all. How about we go into the main room and get some food?” he suggests after telling me what he’d done all day.
My chest tightens, and I have the urge to jump him right then, but my stomach begins to rumble, which in turn causes Hammer to start chuckling.
“Come on, let’s get you fed, baby,” he says with a grin and climbs off the bed, reaches out, and snags me around the waist. He then proceeds to pull me out of bed, onto my feet.
Hammer keeps his hands on me the entire time as he leads me out of the bedroom and out to the main room. As he does this, all I can think about is when did my world get turned upside down.
Chapter Ten
Hammer
For the past three days, we’ve been working on finding out who messed with Avery’s house as well as keeping an eye out for whoever the hell it is that wanted to fuck around with our club.
So far, we’ve gotten jack shit. Whoever they are, this gang, they’ve been careful since I’d gotten back to town a week ago. We did, however, find all the bugs planted in the clubhouse the day I’d stayed in bed with Avery while she slept. I felt guilty for not helping my brothers in locating all of them, but with Avery sleeping, I didn’t want to take the chance of her waking up and trying to go do more work. The woman needs to learn to live a little, and not everything has to be about working at that fuckin’ coffee shop.
Each morning since I moved Avery into the clubhouse, yes, moved her in. I had the prospects go to her house, pack her shit up, and put it in storage. Until it’d been completely repainted, carpet replaced, and what not, she wasn’t going back there. Bonus I get to hold her to me every night. But come first thing in the morning when she’s gotta get up and get to the shop, I get up and take her. I hang around with her while she does her thing.
I’ve come to realize why Avery’s always busy and burned out. Besides not having enough help, she’s got customers coming in from sunup to sundown. All because she makes some damn good coffee. I wish I could save it all for myself, but this is what Avery does for a living, and I’m not about to take that from her. Not after spending time around her the past few days as she worked. I did, however, get one of the prospects to come in to help her and watch her when I needed to leave.
While she worked, I dealt with club business here at the clubhouse. I held church with my brothers as we discussed not only the shit with the gang, but also the Supreme Masters, and Simone. I knew Axe wanted to take care of her because of the shit she’s been through, but the club as a whole couldn’t deal with the shit she’s causing. Between the screaming in the middle of the night to her medicine wearing off and her begging anyone and everyone to fuck her. I might not have wanted to take her on, but I’ve seen my brother with her, and he’s not going to let it go. So we’d voted to get her into a facility to help her. It’s not her fault she’s going through the shit she is. She didn’t ask to be kidnapped, drugged, and knocked up. It’s no wonder she’s not right in the head anymore. That kind of torment would fuck with anyone’s mind.
Axe at least agreed with us she needed more help than we could give her, and we had Cy look into the different places here and the surrounding areas. Soon as church is finished, I head into my office to go over some shit I knew was waiting for me to go over. Malice follows and sits quietly in the chair across from me. I toss him a file I’d received and hadn’t mentioned in church because this wasn’t meant for anyone else but my brother. He needed to see this so we can decide where to go from here with the information.
As he looks it over, I look at my phone as it beeps on my desk. I find the
first message from Tap, who’s at the coffee shop with Avery, and another one from Cy with the name and address of a good facility. Studying the address, I decide to call Viking from the Toxic Warriors MC. With him being the President of the national charter for the TWMC, I knew he was the one I needed to speak to about this and that he’d help do this favor if asked. He owes us as we helped find Fawn, his ol’ lady for him when she’d been taken. Shit, neither of them have yet to fix what happened between them. Now that I have Avery, I get how he’s got to be frustrated at the fact his ol’ lady ain’t with him.
Glancing at the time, I pull my cell off my desk and find his number, and hit the send button. I put the phone on speaker and wait for him to answer.
“Hammer,” Viking says upon answering.
“Viking,” I mutter in return.
“What can I do for you?” he asks, getting straight to it.
“Callin’ cause we gotta girl we’re looking into putting into a facility that’s near your club and was wondering if you’d do us a solid and look out for her,” I say, lifting my gaze to meet Malice’s as he looks up from the folder in his hands.
“What facility and who’s this girl to the club?” Of course, he’d want to know more before giving an answer. I’m the same fuckin’ way. It’s why I didn’t help find his ol’ lady until he’d told me what the hell was goin’ on.
“Girl’s name is Simone. Don’t really know much about her other than she’d been kidnapped, spent months pumped full of a date rape drug that now pretty much lives in her system, and she needs to constantly be sedated. Brother here wanted to help her, so we’d brought her down here, but it ain’t working out. The woman needs more help than we’re able to give her. The facility is called Resting Hands Mental Institute.” Strange name, but if it’ll help, then we’ll send her there.
“Good place. One of the doctors who runs the place is one of my brother’s sister. This Simone chick would be in good hands there,” Viking grumbles as he confirms he’ll look out for her. “When are you thinking of getting her in there?”
“Gonna get her in soon as fuckin’ possible. Woman keeps wakin’ up the whole fuckin’ club in the middle of the night. I don’t need my ol’ lady bein’ woken up earlier than she already has to get up to go to her fuckin’ coffee shop,” I state and close my eyes. I don’t need another morning like this one where Simone’s screams woke Avery up not even two and a half hours after she finally fell asleep.
“You got an ol’ lady?” Viking chuckles.
“Yeah, I’ve made her my ol’ lady. She just doesn’t know what that means just yet.” I grin, thinking about how hard my cock’s been for her and how I’ve yet to get in her pants. I’ve kissed her, made out with her like I’ve never done with anyone. And I mean anyone. I didn’t do that shit when I’d first started fuckin’ bitches; I sure as hell haven’t done it since. But when Avery’s mouth hits mine, it’s the best damn thing. My cock throbs at the mere thought and demands to finally sink into her.
I will be, though, soon enough. She’s mine, and I’m not lettin’ her go.
Viking’s laughter filters through the line, and I shake my head. “Now you feel my pain somewhat when it comes to my own ol’ lady. Damn woman is gonna do my head in. Good luck with that shit, and let me know when you’re sending this chick down. I’ll make sure my brother’s sister knows to handle with care on this one.”
“Thanks again,” I mutter, not bothering with a response since I know Fawn and how she is with Viking. Shit, I’d never be able to put up with the headache that woman can cause.
“Anytime.” With that, we disconnect, and I toss the phone down on the desk. I wait for Malice to finally speak about the information I’d just handed him.
“You sure about this shit?” he asks, holding the file up in the air.
“Yep, I’m fuckin’ sure. These are the men Amaya found. Instead of sending it through a fuckin’ email or some shit, the damn woman had her ol’ man expedite it to us overnight,” I inform him, anger starting to seep into my veins again at the thought of what those files showed. Venom’s ol’ lady not only has been looking into trying to find Fuse’s woman, who is Simone’s sister, but also who all the players are with the Supreme Masters. The file I’d given to Malice he needed to see before anyone else, considering it impacted him personally. On the list of names in the folder Amaya found is not only Malice’s father, who’s a fuckin’ dick, but also his mother and uncle.
“Fuck. I knew they were weaselly assholes, every last one of them. Shit. This is fucked up. I left that life a long fuckin’ time ago. Left it all behind after what they tried to pull. Should have known, brother. Should have fuckin’ known to expect this,” he sneers, tossing the file on top of my desk. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing you can do right now. We go after them, and that opens our club up to be a major target than it already is. Stoney’s charter is already causing waves. So are the Inferno’s Clutch now that they know what direction to look toward. Right now, we’ve got enough shit on our plate to deal with. Let’s have Cy get in on this and look further into them and see how deep they are. This whole thing with the Supreme Masters, it’s bigger than we all thought it was, and they target one they’re coming after all,” I growl, not liking this shit show we’re gonna be heading into.
“Way this world is with corruption everywhere, it’s gonna take a hell of a lot of firepower to take these fuckers down even a notch,” Malice says gravelly.
“You’re right, but until that time, brother, let’s deal with what we can for now. We’re sending Simone to this facility that gets her out of our hair. Now it’s a matter of finding this fuckin’ punk-ass gang who want to fuck with us and throw them out of our fuckin’ territory,” I say, curling my lip in anger and disgust as I mention the gang we need to find.
“We’ll find them, and we’ll get the asshole who trashed Avery’s house too,” Malice mutters.
Not many people get in on my VP’s good side; however, Avery, she’s got every one of my brothers’ attention because of who she is. This is not about her being mine but because she’s sweet and has tried to take care of all of us while she’s here at the clubhouse. Dead on her feet, she comes in with a smile on her face and offers to fix dinner when Leanna hasn’t come in.
Leanna met her and also fell under Avery’s spell. Sweet and innocent isn’t something we see around here, and I don’t want that shit to ever be taken away from who my woman really is.
“Oh, you can count on that, brother. I’ll find who did this, and I’ll make them pay,” I mutter, knowing I will do whatever it takes to find them. I haven’t found out anything about Avery’s past yet, and I know I need to soon, but I’ve been trying to gain her trust fully.
That shit with Cheeks and Bunny, I think, still fucks with her head, and I need to set things straight once and for all. She has nothing to worry about. Those two bitches are nothing compared to the beauty that’s Avery. Small and dainty with hips I can hold onto while slamming my cock into her. Her tits might be smaller than I normally go for, but I don’t give a fuck about that, not when they’re the perfect size to fit her body.
Tonight, I’ll have to show her she can trust me, and when she can admit it, then I’m takin’ what I’ve claimed as mine.
Chapter Eleven
Avery
“Willow, I think Avery’s gonna die of sexual frustration,” Quinn remarks for not the first time today. I guess you can say I’ve been one moody woman since coming in. Sure, I’ve been my usual nice with the customers, but a certain Quinn tells no lies, I could right now die of sexual frustration, and that is driving me nuts.
“Quinn, she’s more or less going batty,” Willow retorts, giggling.
The two of them stand near the doorway leading to the front while I work in the kitchen area preparing more pastries for not just the front case but also for the club. I’d found out that the guys love sweets. Well, some of them do, whereas the others have all but commanded me to
bring coffee to the clubhouse and make it before I leave in the morning.
Since everything happened with my house and it being trashed to Hammer carting me back to the clubhouse on his bike a few days ago from here, I’ve wanted more. But I don’t want to seem like a floozy when it comes to pushing for more. I get he’s in a motorcycle club. That’s something else he’s taken the time to explain to me: they’re a brotherhood and nothing like a gang. Hammer didn’t go into detail on what they do as a club, but he did tell me about the businesses they own in town and around it. To hear him say they own restaurants and bars along with a strip club shocked me. I figured the rough and gruff men would stick with garages and things like that. Instead, they have several profitable businesses.
I don’t know how it’s happened or how I could allow myself to let it happen, but Hammer has weaseled his way under my skin. If I wasn’t a scaredy-cat, I’d jump his bones at a moment’s notice. Yeah, we’ve had some seriously hot and heavy make-out sessions, sessions he stops before it gets any further.
Hence the reason I’m so frustrated and Quinn and Willow are making fun of me. I’m horny for a man who keeps pulling back rather than taking it the distance and letting me find my release.
“Both of you can bite me,” I mutter and go about what I’m doing, trying to ignore them.
“Come on, babe, you need to loosen up,” Quinn says, and I hear her step further into the room.
“I’m fine,” I grumble without lifting my head to meet her gaze.