by Ada Stone
The jealousy she’d shown at the club was the first sign of something real between them, and he held on to it. He couldn’t even be mad at her for insulting Candy or him, because she’d done it out of jealousy.
Michael climbed out of the truck with a new plan in mind for their evening. She needed to understand that she couldn’t pull away, that he wasn’t going to play that game or allow her to keep herself secluded from his life or the rest of the world. She was tired. He knew that. Working all day, visiting her mother afterwards, and then going out with him to the clubhouse had drained her. Her mom was just finishing the last round of chemo, then she’d be able to have surgery. It was at Michael’s insistence that she be moved from the depressing atmosphere of the hospital back to her own home. A full-time nurse moved in to care for her while Belle worked.
He’d taken that weight from her, but she still needed rest. She needed to unload and release the stress building inside of her.
“Maybe you should just take me home.” She sighed heavily as he opened her door. She swung her legs to the side but didn’t hop out like she usually did.
“No.” He gripped her waist and easily removed her from the truck, still marveling at how light she was even pregnant.
“Michael…” She sighed again.
“I said no. You’re sleeping here tonight. You don’t have work in the morning, and your mom is being taken care of. You’ll sleep here, you’ll sleep late, and you won’t lift a fucking finger tomorrow. You need more rest.” He shut the truck door, harder than he intended but still finding some satisfaction in the little jump she gave from the sound.
“I—”
“You are going to do what I say. You’re exhausted and stressed. Your behavior tonight is proof.” He linked his fingers with hers and walked her to the house. She didn’t complain again, just walked silently beside him. As he slid his key in the lock, a rumbling engine grew louder and headlights swept over the yard and into the driveway.
Michael recognized the biker and quickly unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Get inside. Do not come out here, no matter what.” She started to argue, to question him, but he gave her a hard look that stopped her. Once she was inside, he pulled the door shut, trying to ignore the frightened look in her eyes as he did so. Locking it, he pulled the key back out and tucked it in his jeans before turning to deal with the asshole in his driveway.
Delvin hadn’t dismounted his bike. He just sat on it, letting the engine rumble away in the quiet of the night.
Michael walked up the driveway, not glancing back at the house, instead taking faith that Belle had listened to him and stayed inside. Devlin wouldn’t be stupid enough to do anything right there in his driveway, but there was no reason to take any chances, especially not with Belle inside.
“What do you want?” Michael took a defensive stance, his legs spread and his body tense, ready to take on whatever Devlin had brought with him.
Devlin eyed Michael for a long moment, then cracked a smile, letting a laugh loose. “Chill.” He waved a leather gloved hand at him. “I’m just here to talk.” He leaned forward and cut the engine to the bike. “Your president isn’t doing well.”
“Craig is fine.” Michael stated flatly.
“Right. He can barely catch his breath after walking from the door to his desk, but he’s fine.” Devlin shook his head. “And as I hear it, your VP hasn’t been well enough to even make it into the clubhouse.”
Nothing he said was untrue, but still it triggered Michael’s anger. “What does any of that have to do with why you’re sitting in my driveway?”
“I’m saying, your leaders aren’t well. They aren’t making good decisions. I’m saying, if it were my club, I’d want my president to be able to hold up a fucking bike.” Craig hadn’t ridden a two wheeler in over a year. No one gave him any shit about it. A lot of the old timers switched over to the three wheels, but to an outsider, it probably made Craig look weak since he was the president
“Good thing it’s not your club, then.” Michael heard the lock of his front door unbolt, and his muscles tensed. If she came outside, he’d be distracted.
Devlin must have heard the sound as well because he looked over Michael’s shoulder at the front door. “The deal I gave to Craig, it’s the only one he’s getting. If he doesn’t take it, your club dies. We’ll still take the routes, the cash, and your club won’t get a single percent. Without that run, you’ll dry up.” He glanced back over at the house, then settled his eyes on Michael. “I’m coming to you because you have sense. Take the deal.”
“You think my club should become your little lackeys? Fuck that.” Michael clenched his fists at his side. “We don’t work for you. We don’t work for anyone. Craig will bring the situation to the table, and the club will decide.”
“Right. I know. What I’m saying is, you need to sway that vote if you want your club to survive.”
“I’ll do what’s best for my club.” Michael heard the screen door open, and he tensed. A simple command, stay in the house, and she couldn’t listen to that? Did she think she’d be of any fucking help on his driveway?
“Your old lady don’t listen too good, huh?” Devlin grinned. “Hopefully you will. Your club needs to make this deal. If you don’t, it will all die. Got it? I’m not fucking around, Michael. The route will be ours. We don’t need to cut you in. It’s out of respect that we do. A vote any other way would be disrespectful to the Devil’s Nest. You got it?”
“Michael?” That soft voice nearly undid his temper.
“Get the fuck off my property,” Michael snapped at Devlin.
Devlin shook his head and turned the key to the ignition, giving life to the engine once more. “Do yourself a favor and think about it. You and I, we aren’t that different. We both want what’s best for our clubs, for our brothers. Put some real thought into it.” He flicked his chin over Michael’s shoulder to where Michael assumed his errant woman was standing. “Mine never listens either. Damn woman thinks she knows better than I do.” He gave a different sort of chuckle, like the two of them were talking over a couple beers about how their girls gave them trouble. “You’ll want to keep her safe. Taking this deal, that would keep her safe.” The smile dropped from his eyes, and his lips thinned into a straight line.
Michael stepped forward, feeling the need to put his fist into something, but Devlin kicked up the stand and tore out of the drive, making a large U-turn in his lawn on his way out. Michael stood still, watching the bike and its rider take off down the street, until he could only hear a soft purr of the engine and no longer make out his brake lights.
A leaf crunched behind him, reminding him of Belle’s presence. He took several deep breaths, not wanting to mix his anger with Devlin’s overhanded play with his irritation and disappointment at Belle’s inability to listen to one simple order, an order given for her safety. If Devlin hadn’t been there to just talk, if things had gone south, what the hell would have happened to her? She could have gotten hurt in the crossfire.
“Michael?”
He closed his eyes and took one last steadying breath before turning to face her. “I told you to stay inside.” Her eyes widened at his tone—dark and low, but at least he wasn’t bellowing. He wanted to scream at her, to grab her and shake her, but he managed to keep himself in check.
“I know.” She nodded. “But what did he want? That guy? He was at the clubhouse tonight. He looked mad.”
“And if he was? What would you have done? Did you think coming out here would help, making my attention turn from him to you?” She didn’t understand the danger, he tried to remind himself of that fact. But she would now. “That was Devlin. The president of Devil’s Nest. He’s not a nice guy.” Even he heard the contempt dripping from his words as he spoke. “If you see him again, you get away. You lock yourself in the house and call me.” He took a step toward her, trusting himself more with each breath that he could contain his anger.
“Why would he hurt me? I ha
ve nothing to do with your club.” For such an intelligent woman, she didn’t understand such a simple concept.
“He knows that you’re my old lady, that you have my baby in your belly. That makes you an easy way to get to me if he wanted to.” He stopped walking when he finally reached her, towering over her.
Wide, dark eyes met his as she looked up at him. Confused and maybe a little afraid, she reached out and touched his chest, laying her hands flat against his kutte. “If my being here is so dangerous, then take me home.” Her voice hardened.
The last thing he would do was take her home. “No.” He grabbed a hold of one hand and pulled her back toward the house. “You’ll stay here tonight, like I said already.” She didn’t pull back, but she didn’t make the short walk easy on him either.
“Michael.” She finally yanked free once they were inside and he had kicked the door shut, bolting it before turning on her. She glared back at him. Not more than five feet away from him and standing more than a head shorter than him, the little slip of a woman was giving him as heated of a look as he threw at her. “I just wanted to see what was going on,” she said by way of explaining away her disobedience.
“When I tell you to stay put, you stay put. If I tell you to do something, anything, you do it because it’s what will keep you safe. I don’t give you orders just because I like hearing myself speak.” The heat in his voice couldn’t be helped. The woman’s defiance continued as she narrowed her eyes at him.
“I am not some child for you to order about!” She stomped her foot, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. She’d actually stomped her foot at him. It was almost too comical for him to keep his anger. Almost.
“You’re not having a very good night, are you, Belle?” He relaxed his shoulders, reminding himself that she wasn’t built for the world he lived in. He needed to coax her into it.
Her eyes softened, and her shoulders dropped. “I didn’t mean to piss you off. I’m just not used to standing on the sidelines.”
“I get that.” He closed the gap between them, cupping her face with both of his hands. The light from the kitchen illuminated her face, giving her a soft glow. “But when I tell you to stay inside, you have to do it. You can’t second guess me.”
“Because I’m just a woman?” He heard the irritation laced with her tone, and he wanted to smile, but it wasn’t time for that. The little hellcat needed to understand the way it was.
“Do you have a gun?” he asked her.
“W-what? No.”
“Do you have some martial arts training you haven’t told me about?” He let her go when she tried to wiggle free from his grasp.
“That has nothing to do with anything.” She shook her head, but he could already see her mind working. She could see his point, see where he was taking the conversation, and now she’d try to derail him. “I’m sorry if I’m not some doormat for you to wipe your feet on.” A fight. She wanted to fight instead of admit that she’d been wrong. Well, too bad for her.
“You don’t have a gun, you can’t fight with your hands, and I’m going to assume you haven’t strapped some knife to your body in the last half hour, so you don’t have that either. What exactly were you going to do if Devlin proved to be dangerous? Did you think you’d ask him nicely to go? Did you think that you standing there would frighten him off?” He crossed his arms over his chest. She was almost there, but she still mentally fought him off.
“I’m going to take your silence as a no. So if you being there wouldn’t have helped at all but would have given him something to use against me, do you think staying in the house was a better option? Or do you still think going out there, taking away my concentration from him, and giving him a new target was the better choice?”
Her throat worked as she swallowed, her hands began to fidget at her sides, and she worried at the corner of her bottom lip. But still she said nothing.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Belle.” He would outwait her, even if it took all night. She would understand the consequences her actions could have had. She would finally get the idea that she needed to listen to him. He was trying to keep her safe, not locked up like some simpleminded woman.
“If I had a gun, would me being out there have helped?” Her chin rose an inch. Defiant as ever.
“Do you know how to fire one?”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I’m not going to play a game of hypotheticals with you, Belle. Answer the question.” She looked so damn frustrated it took all of his strength not to wrap his arms around her and hold her tight. She needed soothing but not until she admitted she’d been foolish.
Her eyes were the first sign of her wavering resolve; they slipped from his gaze down to his chest. Hands pumping at her sides, she seemed to be taking it all in and whirling it around her mind. With a heavy sigh, he knew she’d finally come to the end. “I shouldn’t have gone out there.” A small victory, but not quite done. “My being out there made the situation worse, gave him something to use against you, and you’re right, if he had done something toward you or me, I had no way of defending either of us.”
“Because you’re a woman?” He didn’t need to push that button, but he wanted to see where she was in that thought process. Some members kept their women in line because they didn’t hold them in very high esteem, but Michael wasn’t one of them. Sure, he willingly used their warm bodies when they were offered, but he never believed that was all a woman was good for. His mother had raised him better than that.
“No. Because I had no idea what I was walking into.” Her eyes finally made their way back up to his. “But if you think for one fucking second that I will just bend to you because you’re the guy, because you wear that fucking kutte, you have some serious disappointment coming your way!” Her pointed finger jabbed him in the chest.
Easily, he caught that finger and held it flat against him. “No, you’ll bend because I’m your man. I’ll keep you safe because you’re my woman. I won’t ever treat you like some stupid girl, but if I tell you to stay put, you will goddamn stay put.” His voice hardened. She needed to understand, because with Devlin’s little field trip to his house, that meant shit wasn’t going to go easily. If the club didn’t decide to let the Devil’s Nest take their route, they would be going to war.
“Sniper spanks Candy when he’s mad at her.” Her words were blurted out seconds before a deep red blush captured her entire face. Of all the things he thought she might say to him after his statement of possession, that was not even on his radar.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
What the hell had she just said? Her mind must have spun out of orbit. Did she just imply that he should do that to her? Would she let him, could she let him do that? She had put herself and him in danger by not listening, by assuming she would be able to take control of a situation she had no idea of how to handle. She swallowed hard, feeling her cheeks heat up with her embarrassment.
“Does he?” His dark eyes twinkled as he gave her one of his devilishly grins. Was he thinking about it? “Sniper’s always been into that sort of thing.” He shrugged indifferently. “I have an entirely different way of handling these situations though.”
Her throat thickened under his steady gaze. She could almost hear his brain working, thinking up some sort of punishment to fit her crime. How quickly she lost her temper when he looked at her with such heat, such desire in those damn eyes.
“Maybe I should go?” The suggestion was weak, given in a high-pitched squeak that made his smile get even broader.
“Maybe you should hightail that ass of yours to the bedroom and get out of that dress.” He let go of her finger, removing the warmth of his touch and pointed to the stairs. “Get going. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Her eyes darted to the stairs, then back to him. She should just go, move up the stairs and do what he said. But since when did she just follow orders easily? “What are you going to do?”
His exasperated sigh cou
ld have parted her hair if she was a step closer to him. She opted not to push him. Whatever it was he had planned, she figured it wasn’t something too horrible. After all, he just admitted he didn’t use spanking. She’d have to ask Candy if that was something most of the bikers did. She’d also need to take a few minutes and figure out why her brain was so fixated on that one topic.
“Belle, go upstairs.” He bent and straightened his finger twice, indicating she get moving. Seeing the possessive way he looked at her and recognizing the hunger in his eyes, she moved her feet until she was practically flying up the stairs.
His bedroom had quickly become her favorite room in the house since she’d been seeing him. The entire house was decorated simply but with as masculine elegance, as she figured was appropriate for a biker, but his bedroom was different. He indulged in a king-size bed with a mattress that resembled a cloud more than cotton fibers and springs. She slept more soundly wrapped in his dark purple comforter, burrowed into the softness of his bed, than she ever did on her full-size, decade-old mattress at home.