Kinkaid (Bad Boys of Retribution MC Book 2) (14 page)

With one hand between her legs and grinding against her clit, the other pinching and slapping at her tits, I pushed up from the soles of my feet. She climaxed, throwing herself back at me, screwing her pussy on top of me.

I yanked her down and yelled. Bursting inside her, I seized and shouted. Blinded by the thick rush of come spraying inside her, I twisted her head so I could kiss her.

A messy, nearsighted, sloppy kiss.

Minutes afterward, I mopped up between us. “That was selfish. I’m—”

“You say
sorry
one more time, Imma hit you.” Sadie’s wet fingertips snuck between my lips to silence me.

I suckled the taste of her into my mouth, rolling her down on the bed. My stubbled chin grazed her belly as I roved lower.

“Then I need you again.” I had to have her on my tongue, on my face, and on my cock. “No apologies.”

Her body tightened, her thighs spreading, her hands spearing into my hair. “Yes!”

I took Sadie one more time, making her cry out as I poured everything into—memories, love, loss, and life. My body shook all over as I shot deep into her grasping unwaning heat.

Spent and exhausted, I wrapped myself around her. Smoothing the sweat-dampened hair off her forehead, I kissed the tiny pulse at her neck and spooned against her. I slept after that, knowing she’d be with me in the morning.

She was my friend, my lover.

She was my strength.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS blurred past. The arrangements. The mourners visiting. Neighbors with homemade casseroles. Phone calls and list making.

The coffin buying.

Choosing a headstone.

Talk about morbid.

There was one constant through it all—Sadie, always by my side. She’d even packed a few things and brought them to the house, moving in piece by piece.

The day of Grampa Dean’s funeral dawned bright, clear, and cold.

Sadie walked out of my bedroom in a black dress. I wore a Sunday suit, offering her my elbow. With only a dirt bike and a Harley between us, I drove Grampa’s old Ford pickup, the one I’d meant to repair.

By the time I pulled up at Christ Church, our lips were blue, our teeth chattering, but our hands were warm, burrowed together in her lap.

Grampa was buried beside the same Civil War chapel as Miss Myra Loveland, the love of his life. He wasn’t lowered into the same plot, of course, but close enough.

The Retribution MC honor guard roared past us on 17 North, hands raised, Palmetto State flags flying from their bikes as they saluted the man who’d meant everything to me.

“Goddamn.”

Sadie tucked my face into her neck, hiding my tears from everyone else, clasping my shaking shoulders.

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” I turned toward the old towering trees, taking a moment.

“You don’t have to be okay, Kinkaid.”

“Yes. I do. For him. Just one last time. Stay with me?” I held out my hand.

She clasped it.

We stood by Grampa’s gravesite, accepting condolences. His old-timer friends. The church folk even though he’d never been much for organized religion.

Brodie gripped my hand and hugged me against him.

Boomer followed, dipping his head in Sadie’s direction before he turned to me. “Must’ve been a good man to have raised you. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet him.”

I nodded, breathing in and out. Tears welled in my eyes at this tribute to my grandfather.

Tucker’s mustache twitched and his eyelids drooped at the corners. “You’re not without family, kid.”

Cole came up next. “I’m so sorry, my man. Come back to the club? We’d like to celebrate Mr. Dean tonight.”

Celebrate they did. The tunes were muted, but the drinks poured freely inside the clubhouse. Sadie never strayed from my side. Not until the door banged open, and Micah, Jamal, Jack, Hiro and Mamie strolled inside.

Talk about a motley crew.

Cowboy, Japanese, black and white all over, they caused stir.

Brodie seemed to know Micah from somewhere, and I remembered what I’d heard about Cat’s stripper past. He fist-bumped Micah, and welcomed my GQ brothers and Mamie inside.

“I’ll make sure no one finds out.” Sadie had paled as soon as my fellow strippers walked inside.

“No.” I ran an arm around her waist. “It’s all good. You stay here.”

“Gettin’ possessive on me?” Those startling turquoise eyes beamed at me.

“Yeah. Exactly that.”

Micah had warned the other guys. I didn’t need to worry about them so much as the nosy MC fuckers scenting around my GQ family like wolves on the hunt.

The ragtag crew from the strip joint quickly blended in with the crowd. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Lord knew they had plenty of experience working a room. I just hoped Jack, Hiro, and Jamal didn’t end up on top of the bar later, ripping off their clothes, dancing to their all-male revue version of
Coyote Ugly
.

“So, how do you come to know our Kinkaid?” I overheard Tuck questioning Jamal.

Jamal—tall and muscular with a footballer’s build and a massive bubble butt—dipped his head into his beer as if looking for answers in the alcohol. His wide lips spread in his megawatt
slip another fifty into my G-string
smile when he came up for air. “See, now, Kinkaid and me get our kicks off—”

I was about to hop across the bar to silence the big black motherfucker when Micah rolled up.

He clamped a hand on Jamal’s shoulder and doffed his battered cowboy hat in Tuck’s direction. “They get their kicks off working out together.
Yessa
. Jack and Hiro too.” He gestured toward the other male strippers in the vicinity. “I’m their trainer and Mamie here, my beloved wife, she’s their dietician.”

Or something like that
.

Mamie the dietician? Just the other day she’d stopped by the house with an enormous casserole of homemade mac ’n’ cheese, telling me to tuck in, that it “be so good I like to stick my foot in it.”

That was a Gullah expression I’d heard come out of her mouth a time or two before. I didn’t know exactly what it meant except the food was bound to be mouthwateringly delicious.

Mamie hipped her way over and shook Tuck’s hand, clearly approving of his round-bellied girth. If she had her way, Jamal, Jack, Hiro and I would weigh three hundred pounds, but then who would Micah get to dance at The GQ?

Mamie and Micah, the odd couple if ever there was one, shot the breeze with Tuck while I listened with half an ear. No one knew Mamie’s real name for sure, and she and Micah were complete opposites from her coal black skin to his tanned rawhide. She was round as a fertility goddess and Micah? Tall and rangy.

But they weren’t just business partners. They were plainly in love, joined at the hip, two parts to a whole, mismatched though they were. Mamie finished half of Micah’s sentences for him, and within a couple minutes they had Tuck busting a gut laughing, which wasn’t such good news for his already stretched to capacity leather cut.

Assured my secret wouldn’t be outted by my fellow hustlers, Sadie had found Rayce and JB. They’d taken over one of the pool tables, garnering a cheering swarm of gamblers as the stakes were raised and bets were placed.

During a quiet lull between receiving back slaps and hugs and condolences, I smacked Jamal upside the head. “Douche.”

“What? The old dude asked how we knew you. I’m a Christian sort. Lying don’t set well with my religion.” His deep brown eyes popped open.

“Bullshit. And Jesus is a-okay with you taking off your clothes for strangers?”

“Nothin’ more godly than the naked body, homeboy.” Jamal cranked an arm around my shoulders and bent his head to mine. “Sorry about your grampa, Kaid.”

“Thanks, man. That means a lot. He was my father, you know?”

Hiro swooped in and with the usual lack of social graces all but bellowed, “When are you coming back to The GQ?”

“Jesus Christ. Keep your voice down.” I pulled him aside.

“What? They’re all blind drunk anyway.”

“Not all of them.”

Not the important ones like Tuck, Boomer, Hunter, and Brodie. Every so often their sharp gazes landed on me as if measuring the possibility of a total emotional breakdown. I’d already done that, with Sadie. I wasn’t about to sob my heart out in front of a bunch of big, badass brothers. And I was in no danger of shedding tears at the moment, not when I had other things to worry about, like Hiro’s big mouth.

“A lot of ladies here.” He carried on, talking through his megaphone mouth. “We could clean house. Bring in some big tips.”

I clapped a hand over his face. “Shut. Up. I’m coming back next week. Now go drink yourself under the table or something and try to keep your trap closed.”

A little later Brodie elbowed up to the bar. “Interesting bunch you got there.”

The interesting bunch needed no naming. Micah—a showman first and foremost—held court from his perch on a stool on the little corner stage. The crowd was captivated as he told a story, and when it ended the air filled with loud hoots and hollers.

“How do you know that Micah fella?” Brodie asked, sweeping back his wavy blond hair.

“How do you?” I countered.

He considered me for a moment, perhaps wondering if I’d spill if he kept those icy hard eyes locked on mine. I didn’t twitch a frigging muscle.

A faint smile spread his lips. “Respect, my brother.” He held out his fist.

I knocked against it with my knuckles.

It seemed I’d passed some sort of test with him—or won a battle of wills.

“I wish I’d have met your grandfather, Kinkaid. I’m sorry about his passing.” Brodie kept his gaze carefully away from my face, watching his woman Ashe as she danced with Handsome.

“I appreciate that.”

“Bet he was one of the good ones, raising a fine young man like yourself.”

It should’ve felt strange Brodie talking to me like an elder—he was only seven years my senior and not even thirty—but he was the VP, and his power came not from the title, but from his ease in handling people, and making them feel cared for.

“He was one of the best people in my life.” My heart slowed. The noise inside the clubhouse dimmed. I looked for Sadie, easily plucking her straight gold sheath of hair from the heads bobbing around the pool table in the far corner of the room.

“And she’s the other one?”

“Yeah.”

Sadie glanced over. A sweet smile curved her lips as she raised a hand to me.

Brodie turned, clapping me on my shoulder. “You know about my folks?”

I nodded.

“Good. Then you know Boomer and I are here. For whatever you need. Whenever you need it. And we’re not gonna headfuck you about it. You grieve the way you have to, so long as it’s legal.”

“Thank you. And you don’t have to worry about me going off the rez. I never so much as shoplifted. Grampa Dean told me early on he’d let me rot in juvey if I even thought about stealing a pack of Hubba Bubba at the corner store.”

“Yep. I knew he was a good man.” Brodie disappeared into the throng, and Hunter took his place beside me.

“Patched up things with your girl, I see.”

“I don’t know about that. Could just be sympathy.” I sipped from my beer bottle, gazing at Sadie as she systematically pocketed pool balls.

“Anyone can see it’s not that.” Hunter’s jacket dipped open, revealing hip holsters.

“Really?”

“Did she come running the second you needed her, even though she was pissed at you?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed a hand down my face. “I guess.”

“Let me tell you something, kid. I guess at nothing.” He glanced at his lady with the long sable curls falling down her back, her head thrown back in laughter.

I hooked an eyebrow at him and he laughed in a rich, dark rumble.

“Got me there. I chanced everything on Jessica. I didn’t want love or a relationship or commitment. She gave me no choice in the matter.” He knocked his knuckles on the bar. “Wouldn’t want it any other way. Mind that thought when you decide what to do next.”

Once again I got the eerie feeling Hunter knew more about me than he should. I accepted his handshake and broke away, eager to take Sadie home.

****

Mourning and missing Grampa Dean was easier with Sadie staying at the house. We’d both known him inside and out and could imagine every wry comment he’d come up with at the drop of a hat.

He was gone now, but she was here.

The cottage would’ve felt empty without her. She’d stayed since the moment I’d called her, and each night I fell asleep wrapped around her reassuring warmth, knowing I’d wake next to her in the morning.

Next week arrived and with it my first shift at The Gentleman’s Quarters since Grampa’s death. I showered late in the evening, shaving with care, and getting my gear together in my gym bag.

I passed through the living room, and Sadie swiveled from her latest painting at the sound of my footsteps.

“Where are you off to?”

“I’ve got a shift.” I looped the bag over my shoulder after shrugging into my leather jacket.

“At Retribution?” She thrust a paintbrush into a Folgers can filled with turpentine.

“No. The GQ.” I picked my keys up off the coffee table.

“You what?” The second paintbrush was shot like gunfire into the coffee can.

What
exactly
.
The GQ, Wednesday night. It was what I did. I needed to return to normalcy.

“I’m working tonight.” My jaw pulsed and my muscles tensed. I was suddenly faced with a dangerous animal—an angry female.

“
What
? You don’t need the money now. It was Grampa Dean’s wish you find something worthy of you!”

“Maybe you just think I’m not worthy enough for you.” I cornered her, throwing my bag across the floor.

“Bullshit, Kaid.” She punched me away from her, her loose hair spinning behind her.

“It’s all I have left!” I shouted.

Maybe not entirely true, but The GQ was what I knew. They were a sort of family to me. If the MC didn’t make me a member I’d lose that connection, too. There weren’t enough people left in my life I could blindly cut ties, strippers or not.

Sadie turned sheet white, staring at me.