Hawke (27 page)

Hawke

Fuck, why did she have to look particularly sexy this morning?

He groaned to himself, knocking his head back so he was staring at the sky instead of the girl who’d just come out of the clubhouse in nothing but tiny jean shorts and a tight white tank.

Then there was that smile, so fucking blindingly angelic.

Could he do it?

Maybe there was another way to fix the club up.

Hawke’s doubts began to mount within him, especially as she threw the helmet over her head and climbed on the back of his bike, wrapping those slender arms around his front. He held her hand for a few moments, squeezing it tight before he let it go. Then he turned the bike on and edged out of the parking lot, taking off down the road.

Tyler’s body felt good around him, her thighs squeezing around his hips, her head against his back as he cut through the streets and went far – very far.

He couldn’t have witnesses.

He needed total isolation.

He had to tell her.

There was no other way.

*

They stopped for breakfast at a nice little place. Hawke spent the entire time taking in his surroundings, eyeing everyone that came in and out of the place. He couldn’t let his guard down, not for a minute.

“You should get yourself a strawberry milkshake,” she told him after they’d eaten. “You used to have those all the time.”

He cracked a smile. “I have one every now and again.”

“Yeah, and you end up looking like a grizzly bear eating berries.”

He didn’t end up getting a milkshake, but she did, and she did that stupid fucking thing of taking her camera out and taking pictures of the thing. He didn’t get why people did this, but Tyler looked fucking cute, so what did it matter?

Hawke watched her demolish it, and his chest went all tight and shit. Was this what it was like with Borden? He wondered. Did he just…
know
the girl was it for him because of these ridiculous fucking heart clenches?

Or did he just have a fucking heart disease or some shit?

Yeah, more like Tyler’s Golden Pussy Disease.

She caught him staring at her, and she smiled at him shyly before saying, “You’re giving me that look, Hawke.”

Hawke’s gaze warmed. “I have a look?”

“Yeah, and it’s fucking me up.”

She was using his lines and he tried to smile, but nothing happened. His goddamn lips went thin instead, and he just stared at her.

Probably giving her
that look
.

She started to fumble with her milkshake, looking red while pretending his searing look wasn’t effecting her.

“I like you, Tyler,” he found himself saying, quietly. “I really,
really
fucking like you.”

You fucking coward. You don’t feel this way because you really, really like her. You
love
her.

Tyler licked her lips and nodded back seriously. “I really, really fucking like you, Hawke.”

Yeah, she loved him too.

*

They rode for a while after. The weather was just too gorgeous to pass up a nice ride around town.

If Hawke was being honest with himself, he knew he was doing it to delay the inevitable.

Finally, he took her to a small creak near the bush in a quiet untrodden area of town. Killing his engine, they hopped off the bike and walked to the water. She slipped her shoes off and dipped her feet in it while Hawke took a seat on the green grass just ten feet from the edge.

He was covered in the shade, the heavy trees overhead providing him comfort in the heat. Meanwhile, the sun hit Tyler, making her skin glow and her dark hair shine as she cooled herself off.

“We should bring the boys out here,” she noted thoughtfully. “Would be a nice place to have a barbecue.”

Hawke nodded absently, distracted by her beauty, by the heavy weight in his chest.

Tyler moved to him then, smiling sexily at him as she threw her shirt off and collapsed in his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. She kissed him before he could think, and his hands instinctively shot to her back, keeping her to him.

Fuck.

This wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

She cut the kiss and raised her head, offering her throat to him. He kissed her, knowing she loved being sucked and bitten there. Her breaths came short and fast, her thighs quaked.

“Take my bra off,” she demanded, needy.

He pulled it down instead, his mouth already sucking at one of her taut little nipples. She moaned, pressing her hands against his face to keep him there.

“Hawke,” she moaned, rocking her hips back and forth. “That feels so good.”

He grunted when her hand touched his dick through his jeans. He was fucking hard. What was new? Every sexual encounter with Tyler was better than the last, making him harder quicker.

“Shit, Tyler,” he murmured, running his palms down her body, and pulling away to watch the rise and fall of her tits. “Shit.”

Hawke wasn’t himself.

He was trying to talk his body out of doing what it wanted, but it was a bit too late.

Tyler had the ability to cloud his judgment and make him detest himself less enough that he could convince himself he could have her.

Now she was sitting in his lap, tits out, face pink, and his dick was hard as granite, yet he couldn’t get himself to do it. All he was thinking was,
Jesus, what the fuck are you doing? Tell her what happened. She has the fucking right to know.

He closed his eyes, halting his movements entirely.

“Hawke?” she whispered, uncertainly. “Are you alright?”

He shook his head. “Nah, Tyler, I’m not.”

“What’s wrong?”

He opened his eyes and slowly pulled her bra back up, fixing the straps as he avoided looking into her eyes.

“I need to tell you something,” he finally said, grabbing at her shirt and handing it to her. She took it and held it to her chest, looking at him confusedly.

The silence crept in.

He wasn’t going to do it, was he?

“Hawke,” she prodded, “is it bad?”

“Yeah,” he replied.

“How bad?”

“Very bad.”

“What does it have to do with me?”

He raked his teeth over his bottom lip. “Everything, Tyler,” he answered. “It has everything to do with you.”

Her entire demeanor changed. The lust in her eyes disappeared and he saw the fear in her, saw her fingers tremble around her shirt as she continued to let the seconds pass without a word uttered.

Nothing would be the same after this.

“I lied to you,” Hawke finally said, feeling his heart pick up. “About Yuri. I think I know why he wanted you, and it wasn’t because of your looks.”

Her eyes were wide. She still didn’t speak, and it made everything that much fucking harder.

“You’ve got money,” he continued carefully. “A fuck load of money sittin’ in a hidden account, ready to be accessed on your twenty first birthday.”

Her brows came together in confusion. “What are you talking about? Why wasn’t I told?”

“Only Hector knows from the club and…Borden.”

“Why?”

This was the difficult part. The part that was going to kill her soul.

“It’s the club’s money,” he let out, his chest constricting. “Millions of dollars stolen and put in your name. Word got back about the account. We know it exists, that you’re free to take it back, but we don’t know its location or how to contact the person in charge of the bank. It’s very underworld business, a banking system reserved for mobs than normal civilians.”

Her hands let go of his, and her face fell. “I’m very lost right now, Hawke. Why is there club money sitting in some hidden account for me?”

“Your father stole it. He was going to run with it.”

Tyler froze. In a flash, he saw a series of emotions: confusion, disbelief, anger. “That doesn’t make sense,” she retorted. “Why would Dad steal money from us? He wouldn’t. You’ve got it wrong –”

“He told me,” Hawke interrupted solemnly. “When he was dying, he kept saying it he took it, over and over again. Why do you think we’re doing so much dodgy shit? We’re in debt, babe. The club is struggling, and we need that money so we can pay everything off and clean the club up again.”

She looked away from him, her face pale, her lips trembling. She slid off his lap and moved away from him, her hands fisting the grass. “This doesn’t make sense,” she whispered. “Dad would never have gone. He would never have stolen from the club. It doesn’t make sense. You’re lying to me.” Her voice broke. “Please, tell me you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lyin’ to you.”

Tears fell from her eyes as she looked at him in awe. “Why would he say that to you? Why would he steal, Hawke?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?!”

“No, babe, I don’t.”

Her chest rose and fell faster. “Did…did you kill him?”

“No, I found him bleeding out in his motel room. He didn’t tell me who killed him. He was dying, and he was barely making sense as it was.”

Don’t trust.
The old man had repeated over and over again.
Don’t trust.

“He’d been acting strange before then,” Hawke explained quietly, “and then I discovered the accounts were clean when he disappeared one night without letting us know he’d be gone. I found out where he was because he’d been with one of his favorite girls.”

Dennis could never resist a beautiful woman.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tyler spat at him, anger fueling her words. “Why didn’t you fucking tell me, Hawke? You hid this from me, from the club, for
years
!”

Hawke narrowed his eyes at her. “Do you know the shit-storm that would have started if I told the club your old man had robbed us clean? Do you have any idea how angry and impulsive they would have been? Nothing would have stopped Jonny, or fuckin’ Kirk, or hell Marshall even, from bursting into your house and killin’ your mother and you for his crimes. I kept it from them to
protect
you, because if you haven’t noticed, Tyler, we are fuckin’ outlaws, and some of us are fucked up more than others.”

“So you’ve been burying it since!”

“What choice did I fucking have?!”

She jumped, startled by his shout. His face fell and he instantly regretted it. “Tyler,” he said contritely, “I’m sorry.”

She was shaken up, clutching at her chest like she was in physical pain. All those years she’d looked up to her father, and he hadn’t the heart to tell her what he had done.

“It doesn’t make sense,” she repeated, her voice cracking. “Why would he put it in my name? Where the hell is the logic in that, Hawke?”

“He had money in his own account, enough to run for a very long time. We managed to take that back. I think he put it in your name in case he got killed, just to make sure you were looked after.”

She shook her head. “No, that can’t be it.”

“Tyler –”

“That’s not it!” she screamed, her face reddening as she glared at him. “All this time I thought you knew him! You didn’t know a damn thing about my father, Hawke.”

He shook his head, his heart slowing as he replied sadly, “Baby, I don’t think
you
did.”

She choked back on a sob and stood up, stumbling away from him. She paced aimlessly, her steps prodding the edge of the creak, her hands in her hair, pulling at the strands as she sobbed into the open air. She was losing it, and Hawke couldn’t sit there and watch her without wanting to do something, anything to make her feel better.

He stood up and went to her. He approached her slowly from behind and wrapped his arms around her. Tyler immediately flailed, screaming at him to let her go. He dropped his arms, but she turned around and shoved him back, her tears replaced with rage.

“I fucking hate you,” she seethed, slapping at his chest. “I fucking hate you for this!”

Hawke just nodded. “I know.”

“No, you don’t fucking know!”

“I know you’re looking for someone to hate.”

“Fuck you!” she hollered, continuing to push him back like he was fighting her, though he wasn’t. He just stood there, taking her hits and aggression, knowing she needed it out.

“I trusted you!” she continued. “I fucking trusted you!”

He didn’t know if she was talking to him, or her father.

“I hate you,” she howled. “All this time? All this time you knew and you didn’t even tell me!”

“You’ll hate me for a little while,” he quietly told her as she stepped away, her eyes narrowed and raging. “But you’ll come back to me, Tyler, when you realize I’m not the bad guy here, and I’ll be waiting.”