by Levine, Nina
Devil’s hand slid around my waist as his body moulded to mine in one of the most possessive moves I’d ever experienced from a man. If I hadn’t been so frazzled, I would have been turned on by it.
The smile in Wayne’s eyes died as he tracked Devil’s hand going around my waist and pulling me back against him. When he looked up, his gaze met mine briefly before he looked past me at Devil.
“Wayne,” Devil said, his voice deep and gruff. Dominant.
Wayne’s gaze flicked back to mine. “What’s going on, Hailee?”
Anxiety burned in my chest. I hated confrontations. But even more than that, I hated hurting people. “I’m sorry, Wayne… I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.” I stumbled all over my words again, but I managed to get them out eventually.
“So, what? You’re screwing him now?” Wayne shot his question at me like venom, and I recoiled.
Devil’s other arm circled my chest and he held me tightly to him. “You can leave now, Wayne,” he ordered. A shiver ran through me at the malevolence I heard in his tone. He was so calm, though. I wouldn’t want to be in his firing line, because that kind of calm was more dangerous than fire.
Wayne ignored him. “I want a fucking answer, Hailee. Are you fucking him?” His eyes glittered with disgust, and I realised I’d dodged a bullet with him. No way did I ever want to be involved with a man who treated me like that. Even if he did feel betrayed.
I’d hardly had time to process that thought when Devil switched our positions, putting himself in front of me. His calmness disappeared, replaced by a ferociousness I was yet to see in him.
“You ever speak to her that way again, and I’ll make sure you never utter another word in your life. Now turn the fuck around and go the fuck back to where you came from.”
My heart beat faster as I waited for Wayne to reply. Placing my hand on Devil’s back, I found it hard as rock. He was wound so tight that I worried what his reaction might be if Wayne chose to argue with him rather than doing what he said.
“You know what I think?” Wayne spat out.
“What?” Devil’s back tensed even more, like he was ready to lash out any minute.
I wished like crazy that I’d just been a dick and told Wayne over the phone. I didn’t want Devil involved in this because it all seemed to be going to hell in a handbasket.
Wayne puffed up his chest. “I think she clearly doesn’t know how to choose men. You’re a pig, and there’s no way you’d treat her as well as I would have. You two deserve each other.”
He took a step back as if to leave, but Devil’s hand shot out and grabbed him. Moving closer to him, Devil snarled, “And you know what I think, motherfucker? I think you know nothing about me and that you shouldn’t be so quick to judge another person. I also think that if you don’t leave right now, I won’t be able to control myself much longer. My fist is fucking itching to smash itself into your face.”
I’d never dated a guy as intense as Devil. His violent outburst frightened me, and I felt the need to stop him going any further. Especially since this was all my fault.
I cut through the tense air, inserting myself in front of Devil. I ignored the way he tried to pull me back, and placed my hand on his chest as if to say, “Back off.” Eyeing Wayne, I said forcefully, “I’m sorry for the way this went down, but you need to accept my decision. And I think it would be best if you left now before this goes somewhere none of us want it to go.”
He glared at me for what felt like longer than it probably was. I was so damn tense, worried that Devil would punch him, that it screwed with my concentration. I breathed the longest sigh of relief when he finally said, “Fine. I’m leaving. But don’t come crawling back to me when you realise I was right.”
A low growl sounded behind me as Devil pressed against my hand on his chest. But Wayne left us, and no harm came to pass. When I turned to face him, I found his angry eyes still following Wayne as he walked to his car.
I smacked his chest to gain his attention. “Devil.”
He grunted, and I got the impression it was taking all his restraint not to go after Wayne.
Scrunching a handful of his shirt, I pulled on it. “Devil, stop. I don’t want you doing something you might regret.”
His eyes cut to mine, still angry. “Darlin’, no way in hell would I fucking regret anything. That asshole needs to learn to shut his trap and not insult people.”
“That’s true, but honestly your response seemed a little over the top.”
“It wasn’t.” Fury still flashed in his eyes, and I wondered where it came from. I struggled to believe Wayne caused it all. There had to be something else going on here that I didn’t know about.
“You really believe that?” I knew bikers were renowned for using violence, but threatening Wayne in the manner he had seemed too much.
“We’re gonna have to agree to disagree on this one, Hailee.” He forced the words out on a harsh breath, unable to let his outrage go.
“Yeah, well I’m just telling you that I’m not a fan of unnecessary violence. You know my history with that. I don’t know anything about your club and what goes on there, but if we’re gonna keep dating, I’d rather you didn’t bring your temper home.” I pushed past him and went back inside. The confrontation between him and Wayne had really shaken me up, and I needed a moment to get myself together.
He didn’t follow me inside, so I guessed he needed the same thing. It was the first disagreement we’d had, and while we hadn’t really fought about it, I felt like this could turn into a problem for us. Devil was a biker after all and I hadn’t really stopped to think about that too much since I’d met him.
Devil
“So you let your temper get the best of you?” Sonya asked as she chopped vegetables for dinner.
After Hailee had left for work, I’d gone for a long ride to clear my head and then found myself at Sonya’s place. The kids had been a good distraction for the afternoon, and she’d asked me to stay for dinner.
“Yeah.” I’d just finished telling her about the way I’d reacted to Wayne when he showed up at Hailee’s home.
She glanced up at me. “Why? We worked so hard on getting it under control, and I thought you were doing better. Why all of a sudden did you snap?”
Just thinking about Wayne stirred my anger again. I took a couple of deep breaths while I tried to work through it. “I can’t explain it. Well, not the initial trigger. That seemed to come from an urge to protect Hailee. But after that, when he started badmouthing both of us, it sparked all those old feelings of being worthless that Dad used to make me feel. It put me right back there with him.” Sonya was the only person I ever spoke so honestly with about all this shit. Having been my brother’s high school sweetheart, we’d grown up together and she’d lived through my hell with me.
Anger to me was like alcohol to an alcoholic. Or at least it had been for more than a decade. I’d used it to numb the hurt and the shame of not feeling wanted by my parents.
I held Sonya’s gaze while I said, “What kind of parent wants a child enough to create them, and then abandons that child when they decide it isn’t good enough for them? How can a father do that to his son?” He’d kicked me out of home and ran me out of town when he didn’t approve of my choices in life. And I still lived with that hurt.
She stopped chopping the carrots and put her knife down. Moving to me, she enveloped me in a hug and said, “Ivan Ford is a fool, Dom. We’ve already discussed this. Why are you allowing yourself to be dragged back down by him?”
It always felt safe with Sonya. She was my safe place. Even though Campbell took issue with my choices in life and made it hard for me to be close to his family, she’d never once let me down. We’d spent the last few years working on my temper and angry outbursts, and she’d guided me every step of the way. Her mother was a psychologist in Tamworth, and Sonya had relied on her advice to help me. However, regardless of all that, my internal walls were up, and I couldn’t access my
own damn feelings. I didn’t know why this was all surfacing.
I moved out of her embrace. “I have no fucking clue. I haven’t heard from him or even really been thinking of him lately, so I don’t know why all of a sudden he’s in my fucking head.”
She turned quiet for a moment, thinking. “Maybe it’s finally time for you to go back,” she said softly.
“You’re not serious?” She couldn’t be. “You’ve seen the way Campbell still treats me. He gets that from Dad. Campbell fucking hangs off every word Dad says, so there’s no way in hell Dad has changed his mind where I’m concerned if Campbell still thinks that way. And besides, I have no interest in going back there.
“I’m not suggesting you go back because anything has changed with your father. I’m suggesting it because maybe you need the closure. I think you’ve been holding on all these years hoping he’d come to his senses. You need to see for yourself what his thoughts on the matter are now. And then hopefully you can either close that door or decide you’re okay with still leaving it open.”
“That fucking door is closed.” It fucking slammed shut years ago when he ran me out of the town I grew up in.
Kylie ran into the kitchen then, flying straight into me. Her little arms wrapped around my legs as she squealed, “Uncle Dom, you’re still here!” Sonya had put Kylie and her brother to bed earlier, and she’d been upset at the thought of me not being there when she woke up.
I pulled her up into my arms and gave her a huge smile. “Of course I am, baby girl. I told you I would be.”
She almost choked me in a hug as she squished her arms around my neck. “I wanna go on the swing!”
I met Sonya’s gaze. “You need me to help with dinner?”
She shook her head. “No, you guys go play. It’ll give me some peace and quiet.”
“Okay,” I said to Kylie, “let’s go find your brother. We’ll play for a bit and then it’s bath time before dinner.”
Her glee was infectious. Fuck, I loved playing with kids. They made me forget all the ugly shit in the world. “Yay, yay, yay!”
That excitement and the love she never failed to give me was exactly the medicine I needed after spending the afternoon beating myself up.
I pressed a kiss to her forehead as I carried her out of the kitchen. “I love you, kid.”
She buried her face in my neck. “I love you, too, Uncle Dom.”
Exactly what I needed.
* * *
My Sunday plans to get Hailee into a bikini had to be changed when she woke with a sore throat and fever. She could hardly move, so I figured there was no getting out of bed for her.
I placed my hand on her forehead and frowned. “No bikini for me today.”
“I told you, there is no bikini for you ever,” she croaked.
I fought a smile and bent to give her a quick kiss. “Oh, there will be a bikini. I’ll make sure of it.”
She groaned and pushed me away. “Don’t come too close. You’ll get sick, too.”
I scowled. Moving my face back near hers, I ignored what she said. “What do you need, darlin’? Asprin? Advil?” I grinned as I added, “Cock?”
She smiled at that. “As much as I want your dick, and as much as I think it has magical powers, I really doubt it will cure the headache I have or ease my sore throat. But I’ll take a raincheck, okay?”
Sliding my hand down her body, I reached for her pussy. “I could just—”
She slapped my hand away. “God, you’re gonna drive me crazy today, aren’t you?”
Laughing, I admitted, “Maybe.”
“Okay, well let’s start with some Advil. If that helps, we might move onto cock.” Even through her sickness, she couldn’t hide her amusement, giving me an eye-roll that was mixed with a shake of her head.
I pushed up off the bed. “I’m on it.”
When I came back to her with a glass of water and pills, I found her curled almost into a ball while she had a coughing fit. Sitting next to her, I waited for her coughs to subside before passing her the glass and tablets. “What else can I do besides the pills, darlin’?”
She sat up enough so she could swallow the tablets. “Hold me while we watch a movie together?”
I switched the television in the bedroom on, positioned her next to me on the bed, and held her close while we watched Marley and Me. It was the absolute worst movie choice because it made her cry and hurt her throat.
But it was the perfect movie choice because she snuggled against me and told me how much she loved that I’d listened to her when she told me that was her favourite movie.
* * *
Hailee was sick in bed for three days. I spent that time taking care of club business during the day and looking after her at night. I moved her back to her home on Monday afternoon after I finished up with club work. She was hardly conscious that night, so I had dinner with Jean, listening to stories of the crazy shit Hailee got up to when she was younger, before spending the night taking care of Hailee.
Tuesday night, I cooked dinner after arriving and finding Jean not feeling well. I sent her to the couch to rest after making sure she’d had painkillers. Hailee was awake in her bed but didn’t have the energy to eat dinner at the table, so I took it into her.
She hit me with a smile as I passed her a bowl of soup. “Thank you,” she croaked. She’d told me her throat wasn’t sore anymore. It had left her with a raspy throaty voice that did amazing shit to my dick.
I sat next to her. “You like chicken soup?”
She glanced at the soup before looking back at me. “Did you make this?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Wow.”
“I told you my sister taught me to cook. Chicken soup was one of those things.”
She stared at me with a stunned expression.
When she didn’t speak, I said, “I know you’re sitting there thinking how fucking amazing I am. I mean, not only am I good at using my dick, I’m good in the kitchen, too.”
Shaking her head at me, she muttered, “You really are too much sometimes. Let me taste it and see if you’re as talented in the kitchen as you are in bed.”
I smirked but didn’t say another word while I waited for her thoughts on my cooking.
Her eyes lit up as she had her first taste. She quickly ate more and was halfway through the bowl when she finally said, “Oh my God, you can fucking cook. This is the best chicken soup ever. I need to meet your sister so I can thank her for teaching you some mad skills.”
I lifted a brow. “You ever gonna doubt me again, darlin’?”
“Don’t go getting ahead of yourself, bossman. A girl’s gotta make sure of these things sometimes. In fact”—she handed me the empty bowl—“I think I need to test it some more. You know, just to be sure.”
I took the bowl and stood, grinning. “If you’re fucking well enough to run me around after you, I think you’re well enough to give my dick some action tonight.”
“Ha,” she said with a laugh that turned into a cough. “I could probably lie there while you do your thing, but this mouth isn’t up to sucking or anything like that, so don’t go getting excited.”
“I’ll take a hand job,” I threw over my shoulder as I exited the room.
The tension I’d been carrying in my shoulders and neck due to the stress with the club started to ease thanks to Hailee. The last week had been spent trying to figure out Wesley Marx’s game. We’d also tried to work out what the feds had on us over Moses. Bronze was helping with that, but even he struggled to find out what we needed to know. King was furious with Jen and had started sleeping at the clubhouse, leaving me to deal with her. On top of that, Bronze had pulled me aside yesterday to tell me again to leave his sister alone. Nothing had been resolved with any of these things, and the stress was beginning to show in the club. I was fucking grateful to have Hailee to come home to at night. She couldn’t fix my problems for me, but just being with her helped me forget them for a while.
* * *
Shit with the club came to a head on Thursday afternoon when Bronze turned up at the clubhouse, furious.
“Two things,” he bellowed after King had ushered him, Nitro, and me into his office. He held up one finger. “Firstly, I’ve been able to confirm the feds are indeed investigating your club over the Moses thing and they’re also looking into your drug activity.” He turned to me and held up a second finger. “And secondly, you put fucking railings on Hailee’s house even after I told you to stop fucking seeing her. I wasn’t mucking around, Devil. Either stop seeing her or I’ll fucking walk away from this club and cut all ties.”
My temper exploded at the same time Nitro’s did. We both responded with an angry outburst, but King cut through the noise we both made with—“Enough!” When all three of us stopped and stared at him in furious silence, he rubbed his temple and said, “For fuck’s sake, I’ve got the headache from hell. I’ve had no fucking sleep for days, we’re dealing with fucking crisis after crisis, and you wanna bring this shit to me? What the fuck, Bronze?”
Bronze’s eyes blazed with fury. “My sister mightn’t be important to you, but she’s fucking important to me, and I refuse to allow Devil to drag her into your world.”
King frowned. “Hailee’s your sister?”
“Yes!” Bronze squared his shoulders. “I will walk, King, and I won’t fucking look back.”
King’s nostrils flared as his body tensed. “Like fuck you’ll walk.”
“I give no shits about the cash you give me. I’d give all that up without a second fucking thought.”
King took a step closer to him. The dangerous glint in his eye matched the deadly energy vibrating from him. “And I give no fucks about the cash either. What I do care about, though, is what I did for you seven years ago. Has that shit vanished from your memory? Do you need me to remind you about that? About what it would mean for your life and your career?”