Sydney Storm MC Complete Series

by Levine, Nina

  I traced her lips with my finger, my erection straining against my jeans. “This lipstick staining my dick.”

  She pulled my hair and my breathing grew ragged. I fucking loved it when she was rough with me. Pulling my face down to hers, she bit my bottom lip and kissed me hard as fuck. It was as if she was laying claim to my mouth. When she came up for air, she said, “You wanna know what I’ve been thinking about?”

  Fuck, I wanted to know every damn thought that ever crossed her mind. “Tell me,” I demanded.

  Rubbing my cock through my jeans, she said, “This. I can’t get enough of it.” Moving her face closer so our lips almost touched again, she added, “Of you. I can’t get enough of you.”

  Just as I was about to lift her over my shoulder and carry her to my bike, a voice broke through the night, shattering the moment into pieces.

  “Rhys.”

  I spun around to come face-to-face with Joseph. My body tensed. Soldier mode triggered like a fucking dog responding to his master. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  His gaze shifted to Tatum and a smile snaked across his face. “You’re being rude, son. Introduce me to your girl.”

  I moved in an attempt to block her from his sight. “Not fucking likely.”

  The smile on his lips morphed into displeasure. “I’ve warned you, Rhys, either you give me what I want or I’ll find a way to make you.”

  His threat was loud and clear, and it fuelled anger in me I didn’t recognise. Taking the step needed to get in his face, I grabbed his shirt and yanked on it. “I hear you, Joseph, but what you fail to understand is that I’m not the boy who used to cower in front of you. I’m not the boy who you beat until he passed out. And I’m sure as fuck not a man who doesn’t protect what’s his. You wanna come at me? You fucking come, but be prepared to die trying.”

  With that, I shoved him away from me, took hold of Tatum and dragged her as far away from that piece of filth and evil as fast as I could.

  No fucking way would he win against me. Not anymore.

  Tatum

  “Home” by Phillip Phillips

  I rifled through Nitro’s drawers looking for a T-shirt. Anxiety riddled me because I was running late for work. He’d woken me just after five to have sex and then we’d both fallen back asleep. When I’d woken up again, it was nearly eight. It was not a good day to be late for work. Billy had me scheduled in for a meeting with his lawyer to go over the game plan for a case coming up, and I had less than an hour to get home, get dressed and get to that meeting.

  “Nitro!” I called out. “Where are all your damn shirts?”

  “In my drawer,” he yelled from the bathroom, his tone irritated.

  I slammed the drawer shut. “Don’t you take that tone with me,” I snapped, bending over to snatch up my panties that lay on the floor. If only I’d insisted on him taking me home last night instead of giving in to his demand for me to stay at his house. He’d been on edge after the run-in with his uncle, and I’d sensed his need to protect, so I agreed to stay over.

  As I stood, he appeared in the doorway, a shitty look on his face. Jerking his chin at the wardrobe, he said, “Did you check in there?” Still with the tone.

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “I know you’re angry about your uncle and all, but don’t bring that mood to me. All I asked was where your shirts were.”

  He scrubbed his hand over his face and blew out a long breath. Without saying another word, he walked to the wardrobe, rummaged around in it and found me a shirt. Passing it to me, he said, “Here.” And then—“You almost ready?”

  I decided it really would be best if I just ignored him that day. At least until he got his head together. Throwing the shirt on, I nodded and grabbed my stuff off the bed. “Yeah.”

  We were almost out the front door when Renee ran in, breathless. “Sorry, I’m late!”

  Nitro halted and I almost ran into him. “What for?” he asked.

  She gave him a confused look. “Ah, for my driving lesson. The one you promised to give me before school this morning.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered. “I can’t do it this morning. I’m sorry, I forgot.”

  “Shit,” I apologised, joining their conversation. “Sorry, Renee, it’s my fault. I need him to drive me home so I can get to work on time.”

  She waved me off, but her disappointment with Nitro remained. “Can you do it after school, then?”

  “I wish I could, but I’ve got club stuff on all day.” I could hear, clear as day, his regret, but Renee wasn’t taking it in.

  “How am I supposed to clock up the hours you want me to if no one will take me driving? Mum can’t do it and she can’t afford to pay for lessons, so you’re pretty much it,” she said, staring at him with a hard expression.

  “I can take you,” I offered. “I can finish work early today.”

  Nitro moved so he could look at both of us. “No. I’ll figure something out.” His voice was firm, leaving no room for me to misunderstand that he didn’t want me driving with his niece.

  His words were like a slap in the face. “You don’t trust me to take Renee driving?”

  He grimaced. “Fuck, Tatum, it’s not that—”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “It’s—” he started, but Renee cut him off.

  “He doesn’t trust anyone else on the road, Tatum. It’s not you. But I would like to say that at some point, you’re gonna have to let me out there, Nitro, so it may as well be with someone you do trust.”

  Trust.

  As we stood watching each other, my breathing slowed. If anyone understood how hard it was to give trust to someone, it was me. And yet, I desperately wanted Nitro to give me his. I wouldn’t hold it against him if he wasn’t ready yet, but I realised how much I wanted it.

  He rubbed the back of his neck as time ticked on. It felt like minutes had passed when in reality it was only moments. Finally, he said, “Okay, you take her today.” His words came out haltingly, but he did give me his consent, and that meant everything.

  * * *

  “So, you and Nitro, where’s that heading?” Renee asked later that day as we sat in traffic. We’d been driving for almost half an hour and she’d avoided all talk of my relationship with her uncle in that time. I’d been waiting for it, though.

  “I honestly don’t know,” I admitted.

  She glanced at me quickly before turning her eyes back to the road. “Really? You don’t know what you want?”

  I loved her bluntness. “If you’d asked me at first what I wanted, I would have told you I didn’t want a relationship. Now, I want that, but what I don’t know is what Nitro wants. So who knows where it will all end up.”

  She grinned. “I can tell you that I’ve never seen him date a woman. You coming for dinner and meeting us all was huge.” She waved her hand in the air. “Well, I know we’d already met, but it was different at dinner. And he smiled a lot that night. He never smiles.”

  “So what you’re telling me is that I’ve got half a shot.”

  Her grin turned into a laugh and she looked at me again. “You really have no idea, do you? I think you’ve probably got less than half a shot of getting rid of him.”

  Her words settled in deep. They felt good. This felt good. I liked Renee and I liked spending time with Nitro’s family. “What was it like growing up with him for an uncle?” I imagined Nitro to have been completely overprotective and overbearing, but I wondered what it felt like for her.

  She was silent for a beat, thinking. “Nitro was the best dad I ever had,” she said simply, but those words told me everything.

  I smiled. “Have you ever met your biological father?”

  “No. Mum was so young when she fell pregnant. They were both kids. Nitro took on that role from the beginning. I mean, he practically raised Mum, too.”

  I frowned. “I thought they lived with their uncle?”

  “They did until Nitro got them out. Mum was only thirteen then. Nitro was al
most eighteen. He got them a place to live and put food on the table. He also made sure Mum and Dustin finished school.”

  I fell silent, lost in my thoughts. Nitro was the kind of man you thought you knew when you met him. He gave the impression of being unemotional and very cold. But truth be told, he wasn’t that person at all. Underneath the layers of moody and bossy and distant, was a man who cared very much.

  “You know, Mum would be dead by now if it weren’t for Nitro. And I wouldn’t care about living as much as I do unless he’d taught me that. He always said that it didn’t matter how much I wanted to give up, I couldn’t. That even if I felt like no one cared whether I existed, there was always someone out there who needed me. He made me believe I was born for a reason.” She paused for a beat, and took a deep breath before adding, “I had a lot of shitty thoughts about my birth, that I was a mistake and probably not even wanted, but Nitro took the time to help me see otherwise.” Her voice cracked a little, and I saw a vulnerable side to her I hadn’t seen before.

  I touched her arm gently. It felt weird to do it, because the only person I was touchy feely with was Monroe. But I couldn’t deny the urge. “He’s right.”

  She smiled and nodded. However, the moment was broken when the car behind rear-ended us.

  “Oh my, God, Nitro is going to kill me!” Renee yelled in a panic. She was driving his ute and although he hadn’t said anything to either of us, I knew she was focused on returning it to him with no scratches. She wanted to prove to him that she could be trusted on the roads and with his car.

  “Pull over to the kerb and I’ll get out and speak to them,” I said, craning my neck to see who had hit us. The car behind, however, had heavily tinted windows so I couldn’t get a look at them.

  After she pulled over, I exited the car and made my way to the back to inspect the damage. Before I had the chance, though, a deep voice called out my name. Looking towards the car behind us, I saw Nitro’s uncle leave it and head my way.

  What the fuck?

  I stared in confusion.

  Why is he here?

  All the things Nitro had told me about this man rushed at me. And when he stood in front of me, I felt the evil rolling off him. He oozed it. In the way he watched me, in the twisted smile he gave and in the way he held himself, towering over me as if he could crush me. But I stood straight and didn’t show my feelings. Something I was good at.

  “Joseph,” I greeted him.

  “I see that Rhys has told you about me.”

  I ignored what he said and cut straight to the chase. “What do you want? Because I’m taking it that you hitting us was no accident.”

  He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket. Handing it to me, he said, “Give that to Nitro. I’ll have his car fixed.”

  The last thing I wanted was to take that card, but I figured this would go a lot faster and smoother if I did. “Was there a particular reason you wanted us to pull over and talk to you?” No way was I pretending this was anything but what it clearly was.

  His face darkened. “Just pass that card along to Nitro.” He turned to leave me but glanced back for a moment. “I see what he sees in you and I have to say that you’d make an excellent addition to my organisation, too. Tell him that also.”

  I stared after him for a long while, and it wasn’t until I could no longer see his car that I realised I was shaking. I had no doubt that Joseph really was pure evil. It bled from him like blood. And it scared the absolute fuck out of me.

  Nitro

  “My Own Prison” by Creed

  Rage burned in my gut and blinded my vision. Joseph approaching Tatum and Renee pushed me over the edge, to the point where I could no longer control my impulse to lash out. I wanted to kill him. However, he’d trained me so well that I could control that urge. Killing took careful preparation and planning, but I’d settle for hurting him. His death would come later.

  I banged on his hotel room door and waited for him to answer it. I’d called ahead, so he knew I was coming. The bastard never saw my fist coming, though. He thought he’d indoctrinated me enough that I would never turn on him. He should have been smarter.

  My punch knocked him onto his ass. I stepped inside the room, the door closing behind me, and reached down to grab hold of his shirt. Pulling him up, I punched him hard again. He didn’t fall, just stumbled back a few feet.

  We stared at each other. My breaths came hard and fast. His were calm. As if he’d expected the confrontation. Fuck, had he planned my reaction and I hadn’t seen that coming?

  “This is the Rhys I’ve been waiting for,” he said, fucking with my mind again.

  Jesus.

  I needed to figure out his game or else he was going to win.

  “Leave Tatum out of this!” I roared. “If you go near her again, I will fucking kill you.” When he didn’t say anything, but just stood there with a smile on his face, I added, “I will fucking rip your heart out of your chest if you fuck with her.”

  He looked down and straightened his shirt, smoothing it as if that was all he cared about. Lifting his face back up slowly, he met my gaze. The smile had been replaced with the cold glare I knew so well. “Now I know for sure where your loyalties lie. I clearly taught you nothing,” he spat harshly.

  I knew going to him would reveal as much, but I couldn’t stop myself. And I would deal with the consequences of that. I’d make sure Tatum and my family were safe at all times. I would never allow him to get close to them again.

  “You taught me more than I care to understand, Joseph. But I’m a good soldier thanks to you, and I will have your blood on my hands one day.”

  He lifted a brow casually, as if he didn’t believe a word I said. “Is that a threat, son?”

  I took three determined strides in his direction and punched him again. “No, it’s a fucking promise.”

  He stumbled backwards, raising his hand to cover his face where I’d punched him. The motherfucker still didn’t retaliate.

  As I was trying to process the fact he was taking everything I gave him, the door opened and clicked shut as someone entered. Joseph’s eyes sparked with pleasure as he looked beyond me. Turning, I was confronted with a face I knew well. A face that caused a strong physical reaction in me. The kind of reaction that years of conditioning produced.

  Terror sliced through my gut and bile forced its way up. Doubling over, I struggled for breath.

  “Rhys, it’s been a long time.”

  His voice was like acid washing over me.

  It burnt.

  The heat was too much.

  I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Panting.

  He can’t touch me again.

  They can’t hurt us anymore.

  I pushed some short, sharp breaths out, trying desperately to get my shit under control.

  My skin was on fucking fire.

  I covered my ears, trying to dull the roar there and dropped to my knees, unable to hold myself up any longer.

  And then the first kick came.

  My uncle’s right-hand man, William, kicked me repeatedly, like he had done so many times. My whole body blazed with pain as his boot connected with my gut, my legs, my arms and my head.

  When he decided I’d had enough of his boot, he yanked me up and punched me. The force of his punch landed me on my ass, and I took a blow to my head when the back of it hit the edge of the coffee table. Something in that punch woke my fighter side, though. I’d never stood up to William when I was younger, but fuck if I wouldn’t now.

  Shutting down my conditioned response to him, I pushed my way up off the floor. Raising my fists and roaring out my anger, I lunged at him. He blocked my punch, but I didn’t give up. I would never give up again.

  I fought like the soldier they’d trained me to be. I landed punch after punch on him, but he also got some in. My body didn’t feel the pain, though. I was running on pure adrenalin and rage. There was no time for feeling anything.

  I didn’t stop until he
lay sprawled on the carpet in front of me. Unconscious. Staring up at Joseph, I fought for my breaths, but I managed to spit out, “Fuck you.”

  He stepped over William and came to me, our faces close. “That will be the last time you speak to me that way.”

  His declaration was like an ominous message. One that meant nothing to me because I’d already made the decision to kill him. However, as I raised my hands to choke the life out of him, a loud knock on the door sounded.

  “Ah, that will be my guests,” he said and moved around me to let them in.

  My mind failed in its efforts to keep up, and I missed my chance to end his life when five men entered the room. I could take on Joseph, but I couldn’t take on that many at once.

  I met Joseph’s gaze. “This isn’t done,” I said and then exited the room before he could reply.

  I managed to make it out of the hotel. My bloody appearance drew a lot of attention, but no one bothered me. The only thing that bothered me were my memories of William and Joseph and what they’d put me through all those years ago.

  William may have hurt my body and drew blood, but those fucking memories hacked at me, ripping open old wounds I thought had healed. Wounds I was beginning to think may never heal.

  Tatum

  “Dust to Dust” by The Civil Wars

  I’d just put silverside on to cook when Nitro turned up at my place, bloody and beaten. I’d seen him like that before, but I flinched as he stood on my doorstep looking at me through eyes full of pain. It wasn’t the wounds or the blood that caused my reaction; it was the torment radiating from him.

  Pulling the door wide open, I let him in and watched as he walked to the kitchen. While he held himself like the warrior I knew him to be, there was something completely off about him.

  Facing me, he said, “Are you good?”

  It was such a simple question, but those three words were all Nitro ever wanted to know. He always wanted to make sure I was okay. They may have been plain words, but they held depth. And I knew they were words he reserved only for those he cared about.