by Celia Crown
“Children listens when I tell them to sit,” he growls back, pinching her pink cheek.
She puckers her lips for a kiss with a demanding pout, Kane doesn’t give in. His control is steely, that’s one thing he prides himself on and Dean needs to learn how the hell that man can say no to the woman he loves.
Kane drags the girl away, protests falling uselessly over his selective hearing.
Laura laughs heartedly. Her smaller body quakes in his arms as she watches her family begin a conversation of nonsense that has everyone around them roll their eyes to the back of their skulls.
“What do you think of them?” she asks, “Since we know they like you, I want to know where you stand.”
Dean presses his hand to her side and thrums his fingers to her waist, a small giggle rushes from her lips before she can stop it.
“They’re a lot to handle.”
“They are.” Laura agrees with a hum. “You’ll get used to them, and they’ll be the best thing that can happen to you.”
He shakes his head, slanting his lips over hers and his chest rumbles in pride when she kisses him back with devotion.
“You’re the best thing that happened to me.”
Dean’s heart steadily thumps away, a rhythm that beats his love for her while his mind stores every single feature on her dainty face into his memories.
“I don’t care much about anyone, my brothers know I care for them, but you’re different. You matter to me, and I want to keep you forever.”
Her lashes flutter with the same speed as her heart pressing on his chest, Laura breathes erratically with uncontrollable warmth. She coils her fingers on his shirt, pressing her fingers to his back muscles as she plops her face into his chest.
Her ears burn, “Can I keep you forever too?”
He returns her enthusiastic embrace with his own strength.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
They could stay like that for minutes or hours, Dean didn’t care for the eyes honing on them. He’s used to all types of gazes on him, fear and avoidance are the two that’s most often. Some people just can’t choose between trying to avoid the hell out of him and even goes as far as walk across the street to not run into him or fear of becoming a victim to his seething rage that their emotions cause their fight instincts to bolden their courage to take the first swing.
Dumbasses don’t learn the first time, they hold onto resentment and tries their luck the next time they see him. It’s a monotonous thing that became too bothersome to deal with.
“I hate to break this lovey-dovey cringe-worthy scene, but we need to get ready.”
Dean swears a storm of colorful profanities while Laura laughs with joyous tears. Mavis slams her hand to her heart; her face takes on an offended gasp as her eyes carry amazement at the string of curses.
“I fucking hate your sister,” he grunts into Laura’s light brown hair, his lips tug back into a half sneer that’s not too aggressive, but it conveys his disappointment at Mavis’ timing.
“You’re prickly,” the black-haired girl scoffs, then points to Kane. “Even worse than that angry bear over there.”
Dean hisses between his teeth, “I’m going to fucking—”
Mavis waves her hand, shooing away his animosity like invisible mosquitoes.
“Control your boyfriend, Laura. He’s going to bark at me.” she shudders in fear, lips curling in protest.
“You know animals despise me, I need protection from him.”
“Okay, okay,” Laura said as she pats his chest, rubbing small circles to calm him down.
He’s not angry, just a bit irritated at the interruption as he hates letting Laura out of his sight.
The night before and the next early morning, he had never let her out of his sight for longer than a minute. It’s instinctual to look after her, and he can’t take care of her when he doesn’t know where she is all the time.
“I’ll be back,” Laura whispers against his lips when she kisses him.
He returns her kiss, deepening it through a tilt of his head. His hand sliding into her hair, holding her closer with a promise behind the kiss that she’ll be seeing him soon.
Dean ignores the groan from Mavis.
That girl has no shame of standing there, ignoring the social cues that would usually get people to give them privacy. But as Vlad had said, Mavis is an oddball. Norms are out of her area of expertise.
He knows she’s not actively trying to get on his nerves, but this tiny little girl is poking the berserker with her stupidity.
“You’re making me very uncomfortable,” Mavis begins, her lips twitch in disgust. “There’s only a hand full of times where I’m this uncomfortable, and one of them is the Richard Episode.”
She starts her rambling and Dean pauses because he doesn’t know what to do with this weird girl.
“But, we don’t talk about Richard in this house. Vlad said I can’t talk about him because it makes me upset. Mom said to forget him, and almost-dad Nate thinks I’m too nice for forgiving Richard. My own sister thinks I’m stupid for getting into the mess in the first place, that traitor.”
Dean half-listens to a bunch of nonsense with Laura’s shoulders shaking from suppressing a burst of laughter.
“I don’t care,” he simply said, his eyes are uninterested in her rant which she takes offense to.
“You are heartless, I was truly scared by Richard.”
Melodramatic and talkative, he can barely get a word in when her hands are sailing everywhere to reenact her side of the story before he interrupts her.
“I wasn’t there, and I couldn’t care less.”
She looks at him as if he’s stupid, “Of course, you do. We’re going to be a family, so you have to care.”
“I don’t have to.”
Dean should teach her some manners, the girl is comedically out of control from where this conversation is going.
“Okay, you’re hurting me now.”
“Am I?” Dean unapologetically said with a straight face, “Good.”
His dark eyes scan the bar and lands on Vlad who shakes his head as his subtle steps come behind Mavis. It’s no use to reason with Mavis, logic often doesn’t work on the girl. Only Vlad’s word has any power over her, or else people would be arguing with a wall of selective hearing.
The girl got her boldness and courage from Laura, one of the most sought-after lawyers.
“Don’t be greedy, you have to share Laura.” Mavis lifts her chin at him, blue eyes staring directly in his.
Dean is intimidating, he knows that by heart; he’s tall, he has thick muscles that can crush skulls, and a mean streak. All his life, he’s been fighting and defending himself. He fought kids who made fun of him for not having a mother, he kicked adults who attempted to tame his temper, and he threw anything he got his hands on to those who thought he looked at them wrong and tried to fight him.
He’s been using his hands to protect all things important to him. Dean isn’t above using that strength to put Mavis in her place.
Though, he has to get through Vlad first.
That man is not a joke, Vlad made it to the president seat for a reason.
Mavis may be a tiny girl with a face of innocence and beauty mixing with strange habits and abnormal social skills, but she has Vlad on her side. He doesn’t take threats towards her well, and the monster lurking beneath his calm façade smells fear.
However, Dean is also a monster himself.
“She’s mine.”
His voice is hard; crushed velvet and molten lava, he latches onto her blue eyes with his own darkened eyes. His stance is tall and confident, he will convince this stubborn little girl that Laura belongs to him and he belongs to her. Their love is tested beyond distance and time, they got a second chance and he won’t be intimidated by a clawed kitten to back down.
Mavis’ throat closes, her cheeks blooming in heat.
“Oh dear, you’re making me swoon.”
Vlad growls possessively behind her.
Chapter Twelve
Laura
Laura believes in her instincts.
It’s been sharpened and perfected through numerous court cases.
She understands when to accept or deny a case. Her gut instinct upon the first introduction to potential cases and clients often tells her whether the trouble after the case will be worth the money they provide. It is why many people request her to be their lawyer on retainer.
She can study the case file and come up with the best strategy to win the case from information given to her and loopholes in the criminal justice system.
When the bells in the back of her mind ring noisily as a scantily clad woman in a one-piece latex suit saunter in the bar with a burly man beside her, Laura knows it is trouble. Everyone in the bar is up on their feet with an air of hostility to the newcomers.
There’s this nagging feeling in the back of Laura’s head that says she recognizes the woman but can’t put her name to the face.
“Walk back out now, and we won’t have a problem.” Vlad’s commanding voice booms over the silence.
The woman ignores the man and stalks up to Dean with exaggerated hips swings and a seductive smile playing on her red lips. A fire of protectiveness flares as she eyed the muscles on his exposed arms, Laura hates that lusty look she gives him.
“Remember me?” the woman purrs.
Dean steps aside before her wiggly finger gets to touch his chest, a coy smile plays on her lips like an observant hunter.
“I sure remember you.” she continues, her male companion walks up to him with a snarl on his yellow teeth.
“So, it’s you.” the man sneers heatedly.
Dean narrows his eyes; Laura’s hand immediately holds his and feels the annoyance rolling off his stiff muscles. The woman glares at their hands and gives her a death stare to drill a hole in Laura’s forehead. Laura stares back with unwavering confidence, she’s gotten a lot of target practice with people in court.
“You’re that fucker my woman keeps wanting to fuck.” the man snaps harshly, hands balling into fists at the side of his legs.
Laura freezes as her mind screeches to a halt; she doesn’t know how anyone can even offer a response to that or why this is a matter of public spectacle.
Was Dean supposed to offer condolences and say he’s sorry for the loss of sexual attraction between the man and the woman?
Maybe the woman is just looking for attention, but she’s not welcomed by anyone in the bar.
“Get out now.”
Count on Vlad to save the day.
“Or what?” the man foolishly counters back, the insignia on the cheap leather jacket has some demonic logo of a devil and an angel that’s warped into some horrifying image.
Hell’s Angel.
Justin Schrader, leader of his club.
A man with a notorious reputation for dirtiness and scheming plans, however, he doesn’t have the means or intelligence to execute one plan that actually worked. Schrader’s genius plan, and Laura’s saying this with heavy sarcasm, was ammunition for the woman to be the catalyst as to why Dean was in prison.
Laura made it her assignment to know about the town when her mother first moved here, and it came in handy when she met Dean two years ago.
The man that Dean put into a coma was a member of the Hell’s Angel, he made accusations of outrageous acts that Dean had done. He accused Dean of forcing himself on his woman and she can identify him with bodily evidence.
Back then, Dean had a temper that rises quicker than lightning, he beat the man until his brain swelled with blood and bones shattered beyond repair.
The entire trial was based on he said, she said. The only compelling evidence that made his case a slam-dunk was the comatose patient. Laura had a feeling the judge was biased, but she didn’t have any evidence and her mentor wasn’t interested in a hunch from an intern. She knows how the judge looked at the witnesses, the woman had come up with a sob story of how Dean had forced himself on her.
The witness and the so-called victim is the same woman in the tight latex suit, but Shrader isn’t the man Dean put into a coma. It seems that she’s moved onto another man.
“You can’t do shit, you fucker!”
“I will put your head through the fucking wall.” Vlad hisses.
She knows about the deep rivalry that causes sparks everywhere the two groups meet. She also knows that Noir is much more powerful than Hell’s Angel; stronger men, heightened intelligence, and thick loyalty of protection.
Add in her sisters’ creativity in biochemistry and knowledge in neurosurgery, Noir has an upper hand in many things that people only can dream of having. Now that Laura is here, they can count of the legalities that she can file to toss them all in jail or prison, given how many criminal activities have been committed by members of Hell’s Angel.
The woman’s red lips stretching wide as a tense shiver bulldoze down Laura’s spine like a crazy avalanche.
“I’m not asking much, I just want you.” she licks her lips, picking up red lipstick. “Dean.”
Dean doesn’t spare her a glance and glares at Schrader, he squares his shoulders for a fight as his fist clenches tightly. With Laura’s hand in his, she feels the pressure pressing down on her bones and the anger trickles out of him like slow molten lava.
Laura makes eye contact with the woman whose face turned red at the lack of attention and stomps her foot angrily. She screams his name at the top of her lungs before an echo of her threat hangs in the thick atmosphere.
“You don’t come with me right now, I’ll call rape again!”
Laura chews at the inside of her cheek as her amber eyes light up in fury. How dare this woman cry rape when Dean didn’t even touch her at all, her accusation will make it harder for law enforcement to take real sexual assault victims seriously.
This woman is already number one at her enemy list.
“I’ll say you hit me, I have witnesses that’ll testify against you, and I’ll give evidence from my body.”
Laura pushes down the need to put some common sense into her, she’s heard threats made to her for being a lawyer and she knows how to handle these situations without getting involved with violence.
“We’ve done this dance before, Dean. You don’t want to experience that again, do you?” she coos, sleaziness blends with disgusting lust in her eyes.
“Everything will go well if you just accept me.”
Laura clings onto his hand when she feels him beginning to pull away and give the despicable woman a black eye.
She’s had enough of this.
“What’s your name?” Laura asks, she squeezes Dean’s hand and brushes calming patterns on the back of his hand.
The woman’s eyes linger on their hands, a blistering scowl aims at her as she spits out her name.
“Tory Kilian.”
A flash of an older man in a black robe and fading hair comes to mind, she nods to herself and formulates a plan in her head. This is murky water, she needs to tread carefully.
“I assume you know that false accusations carry the maximum of four years in prison and ten years for extortion, given your father is Judge Kilian. The same judge that tried Dean’s case.”
Tory’s eyes had a moment of fear before it’s taken over by resentment, her companion sucks in a frightened breath that made him cough into his fist.
“That bastard can fuck himself!”
Family issues aren’t Laura’s favorite thing to listen to, so she proceeds. “He will be under investigation for Dean’s biased trial, and then I will sue your family for defamation and emotional damage. That’ll be settled with a hefty amount of a million or two.”
Tory haughtily flips her hair over her shoulder and sticks her nose up in the air like the arrogant woman she is.
“As you said, my dad is Judge Kilian. I won’t do any time.”
Laura laughs, bringing her free hand to her lips as her amber ey
es curve in humor.
“You can’t argue with evidence.” she points to her left with one finger and the woman’s eyes follow the path of the direction.
Her eyes widen at the camera pointed at the three of them with Schrader just in the frame to implicate his role in the crime.
Mavis waves with her free hand, her knees up to her chest as her ass sticks to the barstool. Good thing mom and her future husband are somewhere doing their nasty pre-honeymoon activities, or they’d be scolded at.
Her mother is too kind.
The air of confidence from Tory and Schrader diminishes quickly as the president of Hell’s Angel is torn between dragging his woman out of the bar or take the video from Mavis.
He chooses to save his own ass and clamps his hand on Tory’s arm who yanks it away. He knows he can’t mess with Mavis because Vlad will have his ass on the floor before he thinks about hurting the girl.
“No!” Tory screams, her shrilling voice piercing everyone’s ears.
“You’re mine, only I can have you!”
The infatuation the woman has for Dean lasts for two years; when she couldn’t get Dean to sleep with her, she made up some bold and flimsy accusations to threaten him and had the man Tory was sleeping with at the time believed she was raped so he would get even with Dean. That lead to Dean putting him into a coma and he was arrested and put into jail.
The woman visited him in jail and gave him the proposition of withdrawing her charges if he just agreed to be hers, which Dean obviously refused and walked away.
Then Laura found out his brothers bailed him out of prison, she could breathe easily from the stress of trying to help Dean but not go against her mentor.
The entire case was a mess and before she knew it, his trial continued, and he was sentenced to prison.
Things got worse, he somehow found out she was an intern working for the prosecutor and he thought she was only with him to indict him quicker. Then, their relationship had shattered into pieces along with his memories.
“You get away from him!” Tory launches herself at Laura who could only stand there and watch the woman’s acrylic nails coming closer to her face.