Reinventing Mel: A Hellion MC Novel (11 page)

After he'd cleaned up, Mel didn't come back and join me much to my dismay.  Instead I watched through exhausted eyes as he dressed although I thought it was a shame he wore clothes at all especially after seeing him in all his naked glory. 

He stomped his feet into his boots before bending over me to capture my mouth. 

"Lu?"

"Hmm?"  I started to rise up onto my elbows, but he gently pushed me back down to the mattress.

"No, darlin'.  Don't get up.  I, ah.  I just want you to know I've never had such beauty before."  His eyes were dead serious on me as he spoke.  "It was a wonderful dinner and I've enjoyed the time we spent together.  Thank you."

I smiled, feeling the fullness in my heart as my mouth moved.  "It was my pleasure.  In every way, Mel.  It was my pleasure to have you here."

He gave me another kiss and I heard his boots moving through my small apartment before hearing the thud of the front door.

I could feel myself still smiling even as my eyes closed of their own accord.

Chapter Eleven

Mel practically crawled into the Hellion clubhouse finding it already three-quarters of the way full before his first official meeting as a Hellion recruit.  He snagged a chair from one of the tables and moved it to the farthest wall before dropping his very tired and extremely dragging ass into it.  And with such force it disrupted the shades he'd put on before leaving the house.

He was hung-over.  Only not from any sort of alcohol.

It was, straight and true, a complete and total sex hangover.

God.  Lulu. 

Her and him and naked.

Writhing.

Delving.

Goddamn wanting and assuaging that want until it would reappear only moments later, when their hands and mouths had gotten hungry for more, even after the satisfaction had been wrung out of them.

Mel didn't think he'd be able to get it up for a goddamn week. 

Not even in his sleep.

His lips and the head of his dick felt chapped.

And there was some curious bruises that he'd caught glimpse of in his mirror but he hadn't had either the interest nor the energy to explore after his shower.

Fffuuuccckkk
, his dick breathed only it was one of complete and total exhaustion unlike what it had spoken to him just the day before.

He hiked his sunglasses back into place and spread his knees to better balance the chair on its back legs and to give his crotch a respite.  The room was noisy, too loud for a man with a hangover even of the sex variety.

He heard the bang of the gavel and turned his head to the table at the back wall, to see Trey standing before the room packed full of men. 

"Let's get this fucking started," Trey yelled which effectively shut down all the conversations in the room.  The man's deep voice spoke and to Mel's mind droned as he went through all the different shit of the club which didn't mean diddly to him.   There were stats and finances, updates on members whose names slid over the young recruit's consciousness but never took hold as they passed.  Recaps on what the Hell's Honey's were involved in which only caught his interest when his house was mentioned.

By and large, Mel considered the outing a complete waste of time.

That was until Trey turned both his eyes and speech to him.

"As of today Melvin Davis is fucking joining us as a new recruit."  There were more than a few grumbles around the room at Trey's announcement but Mel didn't know why.  "I know.  I know.  We typically make a man do six months fucking hanging on before we consider him as a prospect.  But I met young Mel during a job and was hella impressed by both his fucking smarts and how he goddamn handled himself.  I think he is perfect Hellion material and Dare has signed up to sponsor him, which we all know takes an act of god since Dare is one picky bastard.  So I want you all to welcome him and make Mel feel at home."

Trey started clapping and turned Mel's way.  Soon his other managers, the men he knew from HC picked up on it and before he knew it, the entire club was standing and clapping, their bodies all pointed his direction in his chair tilted against the wall.

Mel didn't know what to do.  His heart was beating like a mother and his hands were sweaty against his jeans.  Using one hand to push his sunglasses up, he lifted up the other in a half-assed wave. 

God, he wasn't gonna have to talk was he?

Luckily Trey started speaking again as soon as the clapping began to die down and asses hit whatever they'd been sitting on before.  "Rinse also has requested to join the club.  As most of you know, he's doing the Hellion Youth Program.  I'd like to take a vote to see if you agree to allow his six months to count as an HO."

Glancing up over the top of the frames of his sunglasses, Mel saw more hands than not in the air.

Trey banged the gavel again.  "Motion fucking passed."

There were a few more things brought up and discussed throughout the meeting but since he didn't have knowledge of or an interest in, Mel let it all slide by.

He was still caught up in what had happened the night before.

The way Lulu looked, all smooth tanned skin and pink-tipped perfection.

Her little sounds that drove a spike in his balls when he knew, fucking
knew
, she was reaching for the beauty he'd created within her.

The way she wrapped her full self around him, cradled him as he'd ridden her.

Mel was disrupted from his memories by the slap of the gavel and dropped his chair down to all four legs.

Was it over?

Jay-sus, he hoped it was.  He wanted to get home and slide beneath his comforter until his alarm announced it was time for his first shift with the new crew.

"Yo', meat," he heard called before he felt the kick at his boots.  "You're in, motherfucker.  How do you feel?"

He opened and raised his eyes to his sponsor without moving his head.  "Good, I guess.

"You guess?  You fuckin' guess?"  Dare's laugh rang out in the slowly emptying room.  "C'mon, my man.  Time to fuckin' party."

Mel stood up feeling like he was unfolding himself in three-foot lengths at a time until he was fully on his feet.  "Thought I'd head home and…"

"That's the best part about being a recruit!  You don't get to think, junior," Dare announced looping an arm around the younger man's shoulders as he walked to the bar.  "So, now, we eat.  Then we drink and then we get to the first part of a recruit's duties."

Mel followed along having no other option than to be guided by the arm around his neck as Dare led him to the bar.  There were trays and trays of food, deep dishes of some kind of egg casserole, sausages, bacon, cheesy hash browns, fruit and some big-assed biscuits that looked homemade.

"Chubby up, junior," the smiling man shoved a plate into the recruit's stomach.  "Grab what you fuckin' need because I can guaran-damn-tee you there ain't gonna be seconds."

While Mel knew his body was depleted, he only took a scoopful of this, a couple of pieces of that as he made his way along the length of the buffet at the bar.  He wasn't sure how his body would react to the food.  Settling his length next to Dare, Mel pointed his face towards his plate surprised at how fast he'd emptied it.

"Goddamn!  Shit, this food is fuckin'
awesome
.  Damn.  Brand did good bringing Reesie in."  Mel shot his eyes to Dare as he spoke, the last few crumbs being captured by a squeaking fork on an almost empty plate.  But at the mention of Reese's name, Mel's stomach did a hard clench.

Oh, hell. 
That
had been what old fuckin' Deschames had wanted from the young Reese when he'd had her at the compound.  What Mel'd done with Lulu.

Oh, shit.

Oh, fuck!

Mel couldn't take a breath and was afraid he was going to embarrass himself by spewing the chunks of his breakfast all over the floor next to his chair.

"Hey.  Hey, Mel," he heard Dare say from his right although his sponsor's voice seemed to come from very far away.  "Did you tie one on last night?  Fuck, you're as green as a pea."

He'd known in a sense what old man Deschames had wanted with Reese but without the actual particulars it had been in an abstract way. 

But to work it out in his head with his new up close and personal knowledge? 

Fuck! 

He was convinced he was going to be sick. 

He filled his mind with the color of Julie's nail polish, on how the sunlight had caught on the glitter.  The fluffiness of his new bedcovers and how he loved having a queen bed all to himself.  Of how the late autumn in Montana smelled which in his mind was as close as a season in heaven could get.  And was soon able to battle back his nausea.  He knew he'd be looking at his memories through the filter of his new acquaintance with sex but it didn't have to be right then, he told himself.

Mel realized that he'd been asked a question and did a quick mental rewind to capture the words.

"No.  Don't drink the hard stuff," he finally answered, with a glance to Dare wondering if the man knew how close Mel'd been to losing it.

"Maybe not now, kid.  But you will.  Oh, fuck yeah, you will,"  Dare laughed.  "We just probably need to pick your poison.  Find you your signature drink."

Pick his poison?  Find his signature drink?  To Mel it sounded as if he'd be on a mission to uncover the name of his own personal demon, not a quest he wanted to take.

Growing up he'd heard the stories of his birth dad's battle with the bottle until Dan Tully's car had ended up wrapped around a telephone pole.  Leaving behind a young wife and a four year old Mel.  And then there'd been the one time that his step-father, Tom, had come home from some kind of town council meeting reeking of bitter spirits.  At first, it had been funny to see the normally calm and quiet man cavorting, waving an award plaque around as he'd tried to dance Mel's mom around the kitchen.  But it wasn't long before the mood in the Davis family's little house had turned ugly and she'd had Mel take Derek and a three-year old Julie upstairs.    

He wasn't quite sure what had gone on the rest of that night but the next day his mother had bruises on her arms and a swollen cheek.  After that, the relationship between his parents had changed.  Gone were his mother's easy smiles and soft touches towards her husband.  And the light in Tom's eyes had gone from happiness to regret.  His parents relationship had never gone back to the way it had been.

And had provided Mel with his first lesson on how life, on how
people
could change irrevocably from just one bad decision.

"I'll just have a beer," he muttered as he and Dare left the table and chose two stools at the far end of the bar.

"Beer's good but fuckin' tradition demands you have a goddamn shot with the council."  Silo's deep voice coming from behind them was firm with correction.

Mel swallowed realizing there was no way to get out of it with any sort of dignity.  He watched as his new brothers and bosses gathered around where he sat hunched over his tall beer.  Shot glasses clinked as they hit the top of the bar and he saw Bishop fill them from a large square green bottle.  Once filled each man snagged a glass and raised it to chest level, Mel's hand being the last to make the movement.

"Need you to stand, man," Dare advised, leaning towards his charge.

Once on his feet, Trey,
the man
and president of Hellion Motorcycle Club held Mel's eyes and told him to repeat after him.  "I pledge to protect my Hellion brothers in the name of real life, real freedom and to do what is needed to ensure all innocents remain as they are.  We live free or die and allow others to do the same.  This I vow and this I affirm as a recruit of the Hellions."

As soon as Mel's voice stopped, every man threw back their shots and slammed the small thick glasses on the bar top.  The silence that had descended over the busy room at Trey's words and Mel's repetition was soon broken by loud cheers, war-whoops and yells.

The young recruit used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth and was proud that he only let out one cough as the strong liquor hit the back of his throat.  Sharing fist bumps and offering congrats, the other council members moved off leaving only Mel with his sponsor.

"It's official.  You've got the fuckin' cut, took the Hellion pledge and did your shot," Dare recapped before he turned and waved at a group of women standing near the swinging doors of the kitchen.  "Only fuckin' thing left to do today is intro you to the Honeys."

Mel had seen some of the women around the compound when he left in the afternoons and, admittedly, had been unable to take his hungry eyes off them.  They were, each in their own way, beautiful and built with their high hair, higher heels and wearing clothes that showcased their body's amazing assets.