Her words were filled with wonder as she stared around the room at the scattered bikers, their rough faces and scraggly beards, their cuts and the weapons visible if you looked hard enough at the opening of their boots and the backs of their pockets.
She saw disgusting outlaws.
I saw brave knights in rebel colours.
“I just wanted to tell you that I love you,” my mum tried again and when I looked back at her face, I saw it was damp and crumpled like a used napkin. “I just wanted to say it with a small hope that you’d see I was being honest. I just wanted to tell you that if you’re willing, I’d like to be in your life again.”
“I don’t think so,” I said immediately and then regretted it.
She looked down at my hand where it rested on the bed and gently reached out to run the back of her pinky on the needle scars there. “So beautiful and so brave. I never deserved a daughter like you.”
My throat burned but I didn’t say anything as she stood up and hesitated.
“Even if you don’t want to have a relationship with me moving forward, I need you to know that there’s something… Very wrong with your father. I thought maybe I could talk to your, er, gentleman friend about it.”
My heart clenched. “You know something?”
She bit her lip. “He left some files on his desk when he left after I told him you’d been injured in a shooting again. I haven’t seen him since but I was curious so I read the papers.”
“Bring them here,” I told her instantly, struggling to sit up further so I could properly relay my intensity. “Go home and come straight back with them.”
“Okay,” she said with wide eyes. “Take care of your sister while I’m gone.”
“I always do,” I snapped and winced when my mum ducked her head and scurried out of the room.
I tipped my head back into the pillow and tried to take deep breaths.
Mute was dead.
Mum wanted reconciliation.
The world had gone fucked.
Zeus stirred beside me, his hand flexing in mine as he rolled out of his bend and into awareness. The second he hit upright, he opened his eyes and found mine staring at him.
“Loulou,” he rasped, and there was so much emotion in that one word that I’d thought I’d die from it.
Just my chosen name on the lips of the man fate had chosen for me at seven years old. It was the most beautiful and poignant thing I’d ever heard.
“Zeus,” I breathed back.
We stared at each other, his eyes devoting every inch of my face to memory. There was a panic to the way he searched me as if he couldn’t believe I was whole and real before him. It made my heart ache to think of what he must have gone through when he thought I might not wake up.
I was staring into his silver eyes, counting the rings of deeper grey radiating through the iris like rings in a tree so I watched as they went shiny then wet then as one tear welled up in the wedge of his lower lashes and spilled down his cheek into his beard.
He was crying.
“Lou,” he croaked, tears falling. “Fuck me, I thought you were gonna leave me. I really fuckin’ did.”
“I’d never leave you,” I promised turning our hands so I could link our pinkies and shake my thumb with his. “Fucking swear it.”
He smiled through his tears and leaned into my hands when I touched my fingertips to the wetness on his cheeks.
“Come here,” I told him. “Get on this bed and hug me.”
He laughed and it sounded like a sob. “Not yet. You’re awake and I’m fuckin’ doin’ this ’fore anythin’ gets in our way.”
“Doin’ what?” I asked, absorbed with the sight of those tears on my badass biker’s face.
Zeus Garro, big bad Prez of a notorious outlaw motorcycle club, was crying for me.
I watched as he pushed his chair back with a loud screech that had most of the sleepers in the room jerking awake and then dropped to his knees with a hard thud. He was so tall, even kneeling beside the bed, his face was nearly at the level of mine.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
One of his big hands pushed back the hair on my head and cupped my face. “Couldn’t see you for five fuckin’ hours when I first got ’ere, Lou.”
“God,” I said as my heart bled for him.
I couldn’t imagine not being able to see him when he was injured.
He nodded, anger a brief flare in his eyes. “Fuckin’ right. And that’s never happenin’ again. I will not be parted from you, ya get me? I’m your guardian monster, your fuckin’ lover and your fuckin’ man. That’s not ever gonna change.”
“Fuck no,” I agreed.
His smile split his face in two. “Fuck no.” He reached into his back pocket, palmed something then reached for my hand as he said, “Left your side three times in ten days. First, to talk to the fuckin’ pigs and identify Mute’s body, then for his funeral—which was epic, little warrior, don’t you worry and I’m sorry you missed it—then to get this.”
He slid something cool onto my finger, but I was so fascinated by the expression on his face, the ferocity of his passion and determination like war paint on his features, that I didn’t notice.
“It’s you and me, Lou. Has been since you were seven years old, so even though you’re young, I figure it was gonna happen sooner rather than later and I decided that it better happen right fuckin’ now.”
I frowned at him, slipping my hand out of his to cup his face. “You aren’t making sense, Z.”
There were a few teary giggles and deep chuckles from our sleepy audience but it was Zeus who laughed from his belly.
“We’re gettin’ married.”
My ruined lungs seized and then seemed to collapse because I couldn’t breathe properly. I stared at him, wondering if I was hallucinating or still asleep but as I stared I noticed the twinkle of something big and shiny on his face, on my hand on his face.
A ring.
It was big; one huge round black diamond surrounded in a halo of small green stones on a band of white gold.
The Fallen MC colours on my hand.
And their President, my guardian angel, my childhood dream man had put it on my finger.
“You’re fucking me,” I breathed.
He laughed uproariously again, manic with relief that I was alive and sassing him. “Not yet,” he said like he had the night he’d first touched me at The Lotus, “but I fuckin’ well plan to. For the rest of our fuckin’ lives.”
As far as proposals went, it wasn’t the most flowery or the most well-thought out.
It was simple and honest.
So true to us, I felt like I was living in a fairy tale. One of the horrible ones, Grimm brothers fairy tales where the wrong people die and the good guys don’t always win, but a fairy tale nonetheless.
I burst into tears as I shouted, “Fuck yes.”
Zeus laughed with me and finally, fucking finally wrapped me up in his arms and hugged me. Our audience erupted, the men into shouting revelry and the women into sobbing congratulations.
“Now,” Zeus said. “Was serious, Loulou. We’re doin’ it right fuckin’ now.”
I pulled away slightly and looked down at my white-and-blue polka dot hospital gown, knowing I looked like shit and, honestly, still felt like it too.
He laughed at my expression and pressed his forehead to mine. “You want a big party, we’ll have one when you get better but for now, let’s get this thing tied up tight, yeah?”
“Okay,” I agreed, not daunted by the idea of getting married in a hospital room without a pretty dress or flowers. I’d given up that version of my future a long time ago anyways. “But um, I’m seventeen so I don’t think I can even legally marry you.”
“Can’t,” Z said with a strange, twisted smile.
“I told him I’d sign off on it for you,” my mum said from where she stood in the doorway, dwarfed by Axe-Man and Boner on either side of her.
My mouth fell open. “S
eriously?”
“I, um, I went to Ben’s office to get special dispensation for a license when Zeus asked me about it and, well, your grandfather is waiting outside to see you and, if you want, perform the ceremony.”
I blinked at her. “What? Grandfather approves?”
“He said something about God having different paths for everyone and then something about some princesses needing dragons to protect them instead of Prince Charmings to save them.”
Despite my shock, I laughed because that was totally something my grandpa would say.
Phillipa smiled shakily. “I don’t fully understand how you ended up this way or why this lifestyle appeals to you so much but it would be clear to a deaf, dumb and blind person that that man loves you more than anything so, if you really want to, I’ll sign off on it. He’s been a better guardian to you than I’ve been anyways,” she admitted with a self-deprecating smile.
“Damn straight,” Harleigh Rose muttered.
King elbowed her in the gut. “Shut up.”
“Hey, I got shot too, you know? You should be nicer to me,” she told him, fisting her hands on her hips and tossing her hair.
“Shot in the fuckin’ calf, H.R., and it was barely a nick. Stop milkin’ it.”
She glared at him. “Thanks for the sympathy, bro.”
“Children,” Cress chided on a wary sigh. “You’re ruining a perfectly romantic scene with your bickering.”
King laughed and slung an arm around his woman. “Right, sorry, Dad keep goin’, you’re on a real roll ’ere.”
“Glad you approve,” Zeus said dryly over his shoulder before he turned back to me and said, “Well, you ready to commit yourself to the dark side?”
I stared at the man that had been mine in one way or another for over a decade. The man that had raised me more than my parents had, who was my father and my best friend and my lover all tied into one complicated but beautiful knot.
I beamed at him. “Bring it on.”
Five months later.
“Mrs. Garro, I’m happy to be the one to tell you that you are officially in remission.”
I blinked hard at Dr. Radcliffe but Zeus was already up out of his chair and pulling me into his arms to crush me in a hug.
“Seriously?” I squeaked as Zeus squeezed the breath out of me.
Dr. Radcliffe laughed delightedly. “Seriously, Louise. I’m so happy to be able to give you the good news.”
“Not happier than fuckin’ me,” Zeus practically shouted.
I laughed even as I said, “I think I’m in shock.”
“Why? You’ve been doing really well since the incident in January,” he said, referring to the fire that had so brutalized my lungs. “The chemo worked beautifully on the cancer and we’ll obviously keep an eye on your lungs, but this has been a while coming.”
He was right. I’d been feeling like myself again since April but I hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up too high even though each checkup, I’d received good news about my prognosis.
Zeus’s hopes had been high and stayed high the entire time.
And now, he was so happy he looked like an overgrown kid on Christmas morning.
I watched him as he talked to Dr. Radcliffe about follow-up appointments and what I was and was still not allowed to do.
His hair had grown out in the last six and a half months since he’d shaved it for me and it was a wavy, kinking mass to just below his jaw. The gold was coming out in it again now that summer was here and his perpetual tan had caramelized to an even darker tan. He was even bigger now than he had been at the beginning of the year, so broad and quilted with muscle he was a physical threat just standing there. I’d needed to get back into the swing of exercising after the chemo ended and Zeus had taken it upon himself to work out with me each morning before I went to school and he went to work. Most of the time, especially at first, we’d just ended up fucking on the exercise equipment but the rewards of our new early morning routine were especially obvious in him. I’d mapped the growing muscles like a mountain explorer with my teeth, lips and tongue with wifely delight.
My fascination with him only grew deeper each day I spent by his side.
He turned back to look at me as he spoke to the doctor, reaching for my hand to tug me to his side. Even though I was well, and it’d been months since the incident, Zeus never liked to be in a room I was in without being able to touch me.
“Perfect, thanks, Doc,” Z said, offering his rough hand for the medical man to shake.
Dr. Radcliffe was used to us now, his teenage patient and her nineteen years older biker husband, so he didn’t hesitate to grasp that hand and do it with a smile.
“Congratulations, you two. Take the opportunity to celebrate.”
“Oh, we will,” Zeus said on a grin as he scooped me up in his arms and threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Zeus,” I yelled through my laughter as I beat against his back. “Put me down, you monster.”
“Yeah, your monster,” he agreed, practically running out of the doctor’s office and down the stairs to the parking lot. “Your monster who’s gonna celebrate by fuckin’ you right goddamn now.”
I caught my breath when he dropped me onto my little seat on the back of his bike and swung on. Before I could question his intentions, he revved the engine and shot us out of the parking lot.
I screamed in delight as he gunned the engine and took us zooming out onto the highway. We only drove for ten minutes before hitting The Lotus and pulling to the narrow side alley. I was surprised he would have brought us there for the celebration until he grunted, “Closest place to the hospital.”
I laughed at his impatience as he swung off the bike but when I went to get off too, he shook his head. “Gonna fuck you on my bike.”
Sweet Jesus.
He knelt down to pull off my boots and strip off my tank, jeans and panties then gruffly ordered, “Straddle the seat, ass tipped back and hands on the bars.”
“Zeus,” I said like I was going to protest when I really was not.
“Need to take my girl on my Harley,” he muttered, distracted by my naked body as I arched it just to his liking.
He ran his rough fingers down each notch of my spine then dipped them into the shadowed crease between my ass cheeks.
“Already wet,” he hummed with approval. “You like being played with, don’t you, little girl?”
I threw my head back and panted as he sank three thick fingers inside me and circled his thumb at my ass.
“Yes, Z, I fucking love it when you play with me.”
We’d gone two long months without sex at the height of my illness but since then, we’d been fucking like rabbits. I couldn’t get enough of him even though we were having so much sex, I was perpetually sore and swollen between my thighs.
“Wanna take my cock in this sweet little cunt?” he asked darkly, moving around the back of the bike with his fingers churning inside me so that he could straddle the seat as well and grind his jeans clad cock against my ass.
I ground back on it and moaned shamelessly. The cool air of the breeze in the alley pebbled my nipples and I loved knowing that anyone could walk by and see the huge man fucking his little girl on a great big Harley.
I shuddered and creamed all over his fingers.
“That’s it, get this pussy nice and wet for me,” he praised as I heard the telltale clack and release of his belt buckle and then felt his hot flesh against my ass cheeks.
The hand in my pussy disappeared but I could hear him moan as he spread my juices on his cock and gave it a few long pumps with his fist.
“Use me, not your fist,” I complained, canting my hips higher for him.
He jerked off faster. “What if I want to come all over this sweet ass and watch you touch your cunt until you come all over the leather?”
“God, yes, but please next time. I need to come on your cock,” I begged.
“Right answer, little girl,” he growled the
n planted a hand on my hip and rooted his big cock balls-deep inside of me.
I threw my head back onto his shoulder and tried to grind down on him, but I was too precariously perched on the handlebars with my feet on the foot pegs.
I didn’t need to work because Zeus lifted my ass higher with one hand then started to fuck up into me ruthlessly, his legs long enough to brace himself on the ground as he fucked me into his bike. My tits swung over the handlebars, the peaks catching on the cold metal and pulling them tight.
I moaned and swore and bucked against him.
The hand not on my hips curled around my torso to cup my throat, his thumb at my pulse. “Love hearing my girl moan for me, love feelin’ you alive and burnin’ against me.”
“Fuck,” I cursed as my womb coiled painfully, ready to spring into orgasm. “Zeus, I’m going to come.”
“Do it. Come all over my cock so hard it christens my fuckin’ bike with your juices,” he growled and squeezed slightly at my throat.
The coil released and I came undone, bones rattling under loose muscles as I fucked down against him and clenched him hard with my cunt.
Zeus roared like a triumphant beast as he came a second later, biting down into the junction of my neck and shoulder the way a wild cat would do to still his mate as he bred her.
A shiver rippled down my spine as I collapsed against the bike and Zeus slid his wet cock out of my sex. He cupped me gently in one hand and leaned down to press a kiss to the back of my neck.
Without words, he carefully peeled me off the leather seat and dressed me, his touches reverent as a worshipper attending Madonna. I pressed my hand to his bearded cheek as he knelt before me in a quiet gesture of love.
“Feel alive, little wife?” he asked me.
“Whenever I’m with you,” I told him.
He beamed. “Glad to fuckin’ hear it. Now, we’re late, which is your fault ’cause you’re so fuckin’ edible but we’ve got to hightail it or we’ll miss our appointment and Axe-Man will be fuckin’ pissed.”
Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men Book 2) Page 32