Angel's Halo: Guardian Angel (4 page)

I shrugged, turning my own gaze out my window and gazing at the dimming sun in the distance. “It’s okay. Nothing that won’t get worked out in a few days. I just have to get used to it. I had fun though, and I got some really good tips. I can even pay Raven for groceries.”

Hawk clenched his jaw, his hands tightening on the steering wheel as he drove on. He didn’t say another word until he pulled into the driveway at home. I started to reach for the door handle, ready to get up to our room and take a long hot shower and down a few Tylenol. Before I could get the door open, he grasped my hands and examined them.

“What are you doing?” I demanded and winced when he rubbed his thumb over a sore spot. I realized I not only had blisters on my feet, but on my hands too. When had I gotten those?

“Your hands are already starting to get beat up.” His voice was rough, his eyes dark. “They were so soft. I want them to stay that way, Gracie. I love how they rub over my chest when you cuddle against me at night. They feel like silk as they drift over my stomach and then lie over my heart all night long.”

I pulled them back from him fast, feeling like he’d just punched me in the heart. “So if they are work-worn and callused you wouldn’t want me to touch you?” I asked in a voice that sounded brittle to my ears. I swallowed the hurt-filled lump of tears stuck in my throat and reached for the handle again. “Sorry, you won’t have to worry about it happening. I’ll make sure I don’t cuddle you in my sleep anymore. Wouldn’t want my beat-up hands disgusting you or anything. And since I’ve got a second job now, I won’t have to share your bed for more than a few more weeks at the most.”

“Gracie, that’s not…” Whatever he was saying was cut off when I stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind me. “Gracie,” he called after me as he got out and hurried behind me. “Gracie, I didn’t mean it like that. I… Wait. What do you mean you have a second job? What the hell kind of other job could you have gotten while working all day at that damn diner?”

We were in the house now, in the kitchen. I went straight to the fridge and got a bottle of water, thankful that no one else seemed to be around. The driveway had been empty of any bikes except for Hawk’s, but Raven’s car had been out there so I knew that she and Lexa were either in the living room or upstairs.

“Jack offered me a job after you left earlier. He said I would be answering the phone, doing office work.” I opened my water and took a long thirsty swallow, trying to swallow the pain that was still making my chest clench. “It’s probably just something he made up on the fly, but he offered me triple what I would make at Aggie’s. As much as I don’t want to be around him, I need the money more. So I start tomorrow.”

“That’s good. I’m glad. You won’t have to work at Aggie’s, then.” He sounded relieved.

“No,” I told him as I turned to face him, refusing to meet his gaze directly. I didn’t even know that I touched him in my sleep, damn it. Now that my hands were covered in blisters and would be rough and unattractive, he didn’t want them on him at all. Fine. I would make sure that I stayed on my side of the bed all night long and not touch him ever again.

“No?” His eyes narrowed and I had to admit that I was starting to hate that look. He was intimidating like that, but I refused to be intimidated.

“No,” I repeated. “I’ll still be working at Aggie’s. I asked her for the evening shift and she said it was fine. That I’d learned everything faster than almost anyone else helped, and the dinner rush would be a better fit for me.”

“So you’re going to work all day at the garage, then all evening at Aggie’s too?” he demanded. “You’re going to be exhausted. You’ll kill yourself with that kind of schedule. And what about school? Are you going to work both and still go to classes?”

“Of course not. I’ll work both until I have enough to get my own place. Then when school starts, I’ll quit one so that I can go to my classes.” I would probably quit the garage. I didn’t care how good the money turned out to be; once I had enough I was getting as far away from Jack Riley as fast as possible.

Hawk muttered a bunch of curses under his breath, probably thinking that I couldn’t hear him. I rolled my eyes and watched as he scrubbed his big hands up over his face and raked his fingers through his hair. He needed a haircut, I decided. If he was going to find faults in me then I was going to start making a list of his. Maybe then I wouldn’t want him so fudging bad.

Giving him a quick once-over I took note of the things that I didn’t like about him and started a mental list.
Number one: Hair. Too shaggy. Number two: …

Well, it would take more than a quick glance to find the things I didn’t like about him. I’d add to it later, I promised myself.

“Why are you so set on moving out?” Hawk asked in a gravelly voice, his forehead furrowed as he studied me, those green eyes trying to pierce into my soul. “Don’t you like it here, Gracie? Has anyone made you feel unwelcome? What? Just tell me and I’ll take care of it. You belong here, sweetheart.”

I lowered my eyes, not wanting to let him see how much I was affected by what he had just said. I wished so much that it was true, that I did belong there. But I didn’t. “No one has made me feel unwelcome. You’ve all be so nice, so great. I honestly don’t understand how you all can take a complete stranger into your house like you’ve done with me. I’m thankful for it, though. So very thankful.” I bit my lip and forced myself to lift my eyes to meet his. “But I can’t keep living here. I can’t continue to sleep in your bed night after night.”

I watched as he swallowed hard and took a huge step closer to me. He was only a foot away now, and his eyes darkened even more before they became expressionless, as if he were hiding what he was feeling from me. “Why?” he breathed.

I clenched my jaw, not wanting to lay my feelings bare to him, but unable to lie to him. “Because it is slowly killing me…” I stopped and shook my head. “No, that’s a lie. It’s
quickly
killing me.” Taking a deep breath I rushed on, knowing if I didn’t say this now, I probably never would. “I sleep in your bed, and some nights you come home from work and wrap me up in your arms. It makes me feel so safe and so cherished, Hawk. It makes me so damn confused because there are other nights when you come home and I smell
them
on you. I can smell their perfume mixed with your sweat and all those other smells you carry home from the bar.” My hands clenched around the bottle of water, trying to keep them from trembling as I met his gaze boldly. “And those are the nights that I can’t breathe for the pain and the jealousy that eat up my insides like cancer.”

Tears filled my eyes and I blinked them back, making it hard to see him for a moment. “If I don’t leave soon there will be nothing left of me. My heart will be just a crushed-up stone in my chest. I c-care about you, Hawk. But I know that we are just friends. I’m okay with that because I know you can’t help that you don’t feel what I feel.”

“Gracie—” He started to take a step toward me, his face twisting with some emotion I couldn’t identify through my tear-flooded eyes. I raised my hands, stopping his words and, thankfully, his approach.

“No,” I dashed at a stupid tear as it spilled from my eyes and ran down my face. “No. I don’t want to hear. All I’m asking is that you let me continue working without giving me a hard time about it.”

Hawk

“I c-care about you, Hawk.”

Gracie’s tear-filled voice came back to haunt me as I tossed a dirty bar rag into the sink. “I care about you, Hawk.” It was like a mantra in my head, bouncing off the walls of my brain and vibrating throughout my body like an electrical shock. Over and over again. I’d had no peace from it all night.

“I care about you,” her voice whispered through me this time and I froze. Clenching the edges of the bar top and lowering my head as I closed my eyes and waited for my heart to stop racing, my body to stop throbbing.

It had been hours since I’d dropped Gracie off at the house, hours since she had told me that she cared about me, but that she knew I didn’t feel the same. That she knew I just wanted to be friends…

A snort left me without my even realizing it. ‘Friends’ my ass. I wanted more than just friendship from that sweet little redhead. I wanted so much more that it was all I could do to go home every night and just hold her. It was an act of God that I was able to restrain myself, keeping my hands from touching her the way I really wanted to touch her. Keeping my lips from tasting every single inch of her incredible body.

I wanted Gracie Morgan more than I had ever wanted anything in my life. I could tell you that I wanted her more than I wanted air to breathe, but air was in abundance. It wasn’t something I worried about, because it was something I knew I would always have. No, I wanted her more than air. I wanted Gracie more than I wanted my bike to start each day so that I could feel the wind on my face as I did the one thing that had ever truly made me happy—feel the wind on my face and the power of my hog between my legs.

I wanted her. So. Damn. Much.

Yet it was more than the wanting. It was this need to protect and cherish her. Gracie was special. Not because of her sweetness, or her beauty, or even that huge-ass brain of hers. It was because she touched something inside of me by doing nothing more than existing. I’d never felt this way in my life. She brought out a part of me that had lain dormant for twenty-nine years.

If I were being honest I would just admit to myself that I loved that girl. While I was at it I should probably confess the same to her. But to put myself out there like that, to expose myself in such a way... it was new territory for me. I’d never been so vulnerable in my life and I wasn’t going to embrace the experience anytime soon.

I had to do something, though. Had to show her that she meant more to me than what she thought. She had her head hard set on leaving me, and once she was out of my house—out of my bed—she would start putting even more distance between us until she completely forgot about me. Those feelings that she had for me right now, her caring about me? That would all fade with time until I was nothing but a memory to her.

A growl left my throat, making Colt jerk back from where he was placing clean glasses on their racks beside of me. “Chill out, brother. I’m just doing my shit before heading home.”

I scrubbed a hand across my face. “Yeah, sorry.”

My little brother put the last glass in place. “So, how did Gracie’s first day of work go?”

I clenched my jaw and didn’t answer him. My lack of answer had him chuckling. “No wonder you’re growling like a caged beast. Guess she’s ready to leave the nest. You poor fucker.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled as I turned off the water in the sink and started to rinse it out to get rid of the scent of the stale beer I’d poured into it just a few minutes ago.

Colt laughed again, which caught Raider’s attention. He placed the case of beer on the floor and crouched down to stock the fridge for tomorrow’s shift. “What are you two idiots doing now?”

“Hawk is suffering from empty nest syndrome,” Colt informed him. “Gracie is moving on.”

“Smart girl,” Raider said with a grin as he emptied the box. “She could do a shitload better than our black-hearted brother.”

I knew he was just trying to get a reaction out of me. Nothing had ever made me respond to bait from my dumbass brothers in the past. But when it came to Gracie, I was almost helpless not to react. I fucking hated it, but there was nothing I could do to change it. That damn female had me all kinds of twisted up. I cut off the water and turned around so fast Raider didn’t have time to move before I kicked his feet out from under him and he landed on his knees. Hard.

“Fuck,” he bit out and pushed to his feet. “Break my kneecaps, why don’t you?”

“Next time I will,” I promised. Pulling my keys from my pocket, I headed for the door. “I’m out of here. See you idiots at home.”

The warm summer air hit me as soon as I stepped outside. The parking lot was empty except my brothers’ bikes and the man leaning against his own hog beside mine. I bit back a curse, knowing that I wasn’t going to get to go straight home, as I had wanted to.

Bash straightened as I neared. He was probably the biggest fucker I’d ever seen in my entire life. When he was the Angel’s Halo enforcer he’d made grown men piss themselves from a simple glare. He’d kept us all in line when he’d been the enforcer. Now that he was our club president he made the new guys and prospects shake in their boots.

“What now?” I demanded when I reached him.

Bash gave me a grim smile. “Got some intel on Samson,” the man I considered my brother-in-law informed me. Just the mention of that motherfucker’s name made rage boil in my veins. “I wanted to confirm it before I brought it to you, brother.”

“And?”

“That fight at Paradise City last weekend?” I nodded, remembering that there had been talk about a brawl breaking out at Bash and Spider’s strip club over the weekend. The fight hadn’t been that big of a deal. That shit happened all the damn time when you had a bunch of drunks grouped together. Add in naked girls and you got yourself a bloodbath when fights broke out. No, the real surprise had been when someone had tried to rape one of the girls while everyone else was distracted.

There were things that my club was known for. We did some not-so-nice things. You name it, we might or might not have our toes dipped into it. It was safe to say that we weren’t very nice people. However, when it came to the abuse of women and kids, we would kill before we let that kind of shit happen. Bash and Spider were notorious for how they handled the mistreatment of their employees at Paradise City. That someone had the balls to even attempt to hurt one of their girls like that told me loud and clear that that prick was either not from the area or had a death wish.

“With all the excitement that had gone on from the fight, the fucker got away before Spider could get over there and deal with him,” Bash told me, his face set in hard lines. “So it took a while before we realized who it was. We had to go through all the videos from the cameras that we have around the place.”

“Spit it out, Bash.”

“It was Samson. He was the one that assaulted Kelli.”

Everything inside of me went instantly cold. I turned away from my friend and club president. My fists clenched at my sides as I fought back the images of Gracie lying on the damn pool table with Samson and some other dirty sonofabitch standing over her, getting ready to hurt and humiliate her in a way no woman should ever have to experience.

After letting me have a moment, Bash went on. “After a little digging, Spider found out that Samson knew that Paradise City was under club protection. After talking to some of the fuckers that were with him that night, we learned that he went in there supposedly looking for a fight. He was the one who instigated it, and then he snuck off to hurt Kelli.”

I raked a hand through my hair, and then realized that I’d been doing that a lot all day and quickly dropped my hand before I started tearing my hair out. Turning back around, I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to remember what Kelli looked like. I’d only been over to the strip club a few times in my younger years. Why would I want to go over there and pay for some gash to take her clothes off when I had club sheep begging me for free at the clubhouse any time I wanted it?

“She’s new,” Bash supplied when I just gave him a blank look. “Not the normal type we hire over there but Topaz felt sorry for her or some shit. Kelli is still a kid, not even nineteen yet. Attends the community college and apparently takes care of her family. I don’t know her. Only met her twice since I’ve been back. Raven says she’s talked to the girl a few times when she’s been over there doing the books. Kelli isn’t her real name, of course, and I didn’t bother to ask what it actually is.” He thrust his hands into his front pockets and shook his dark head. “The point is that Kelli has some physical features that are similar to Gracie’s. Dark red hair, skin tone, height and build.”

Bile churned in my gut. “So he knew that his raping her would get back to us. To me.”

“Yeah,” Bash confirmed with a grim nod of his head. “He was making a statement.”

My hands balled into fists, but I didn’t so much as blink in reaction. I couldn’t keep going off the deep end when that fucker could be watching and looking for any sign that he was getting to me. “What about the threats Spider’s been looking into? On the bar and the clubhouse?” There had been a few other places that had been on the list that Samson and his friends were talking about hitting since we had torched their frat house. The most likely places that they were going to hit were the clubhouse or the bar.

No one was going to be happy if they targeted the clubhouse, but it would be pure mayhem if they got the bar. It was where we held church on Friday nights, but it was also where so many called home for a few hours every damn night. The bar was part of my legacy and I would gut anyone who tried to take that away from me.

“No more news in that area. Spider has picked up some whispers here and there about the clubhouse and even about Uncle Jack’s garage. Nothing more about the bar, but we aren’t ruling that out. I don’t want Raven or Willa here alone, ever.”

“Agreed,” I assured him. No way was I going to put my sister or Willa in danger, even if it was just a bunch of hot hair being tossed at us by that poor little rich boy with mommy issues.

By the time Bash and I were finished talking, Colt and Raider were locking up. Bash and I went home, but my brothers had other plans for the rest of the night. Like getting their dicks wet in one of the sheep over at our clubhouse. When I entered the house Bash was already heading up the stairs, but I wasn’t ready to face Gracie yet. I needed to get myself under control or I was going to go straight up to my room and wake her up the way I’d been dreaming of for months now. By licking that sweet, innocent little pussy of hers until she was screaming for more.

I drank a beer and watched TV for an hour, trying to turn my stormy thoughts of the day’s events off so that I might get some sleep tonight. Toby slept at my feet, snoring louder than one of my brothers after a night of hardcore drinking. I glared down at the dog, thinking of his master and wanting to wrap my hands around her neck.

Damn Flick.
If you asked me, she was being seriously selfish. Taking off without a word or so much as a hint of where she was going. Making us all worry for weeks on end and burning up favor after favor as we tried to find her. Then calling on a fucking burner phone to ask for her own favor that could have kept Jet in jail for the rest of his damn life.

I’d grown up thinking of Flick as another sister—okay, so maybe not just a sister. One look at that female and no one would consider her a sister unless they were actually related to her. But I’d never been tempted to take her to bed. It had been beat into me that she was just as precious as Raven and should always be protected. When she’d called me and asked me to get a message to Jet, I’d only done it because I thought I had owed her something.

Lucky for her, Jet hadn’t been caught doing her little favor and would be home in a few more weeks. If things had been different, if my brother would have had to spend the rest of his life in prison because of her fucking
favor,
I would have hunted Flick down and…

Shit, I wasn’t sure what I would have done once I’d found her. I’d never mistreated a female in my life. Sure, I’d done plenty of bad things that would land me in the deepest part of hell for eternity, but hurting a female hadn’t been one of them. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about that since it was all over now.

My head was starting to pound and my eyes were feeling heavy so I finally went up to my room. When I opened the door I found the bathroom light still on with the door cracked. It cast a soft glow over my bed, and the female tangled in my sheets. Like it always did, my dick instantly reacted to the sight of Gracie sleeping in my bed and I took a moment to savor it.

Her long, thick red hair was spread over her pillow. She was lying on her side, with one hand tucked under her chest, the other resting over her stomach. The covers were tucked under her arm, but I still saw that she was wearing that damn adorable pajama top with the little butterflies all over it. Her legs were bent and tucked toward her stomach, making her ass pop back. If I had been beside her, that ass would have fit perfectly against my crotch, almost like a puzzle piece snapping into place.

If I didn’t do something soon I wouldn’t be able to come home to this every night. I wouldn’t get to climb into bed with that little sweet, innocent goddess every night and hold her and sleep peacefully. If she were gone I would be lost, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle going back to being lost.