Authors: Carly White
Chapter 8: Grady
I knew once I heard the soft moan against my lips, that she was mine. There was something in the surrender, as before, it was complete. She had brought up good points, ones that we would have to talk about later, but for now, I was happy to just feel her against me again. It was almost surreal. The amount of time that I had been yearning for her was too long to seem real.
Her lips were soft and her body molded against mine. It was different, not the way I remembered it, but she was so much more to me now. She was going to have my son and the thought of them anywhere else but with me, did not sit well. I had to have her.
The thought made me pull her tighter and then release her as she whimpered against me. My grip was too tight and I released her, afraid that I would hurt her and the baby. “I’m sorry Laney. It’s just that I finally have you in my arms, I don’t want to let you go.”
She looked down and then smiled back up at me. “I have been thinking about you and our night together for a long time. I don’t think I could ever stop thinking about you, Grady. You have done something to me, but I figured I would never see you again.”
“I’ve been looking for you and now you are here. I didn’t know about the baby, but I couldn’t be happier that it is with you. It’s meant to be.”
“But your record and my job. How can it work?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t give up the gang. They were like family to me. I certainly couldn’t be with a cop. It wouldn’t be safe for her. One of us was going to have to give up what we did for a living. “I can’ leave the Black Angels. No one ever leaves. You are in it for life.”
She pulled away and sighed. “I know Grady. That is why it is impossible. My uncle was killed by a motorcycle gang. He got caught in the crossfire. That’s why if I would have known, I never would have looked at you again. I can’t be around that, my son is not going to be raised to think killing and drugs are normal.”
I could see she was working herself up. There was a knock at the front door and then the man from before was back. “Casper if you don’t get the fuck out right now…”
Casper shut the door and left Laney looking at me. “See.”
I didn’t see her point. The little punk was on my nerves and the last thing I needed to think about was if the two of them had been together. I didn’t even want to think about someone else’s hands on her. It drove me crazy to even consider such a thing.
“He is nobody and you know it. I am the one who’s child you are carrying. What does he matter?”
I could tell he mattered as much to her as he did to me. “So what do we do Laney? What do I have to do to make you come back with me?”
“I am not going back anywhere with you Grady. Our son is safer without you around.”
***
It hadn’t been easy to convince Laney to leave with me and I didn’t get her back to the city like I had hoped. We both couldn’t change who we were, but I told her I would try. I had some money stashed away for a rainy day and this was the downpour that I had saved for. But leaving the Black Angels wasn’t an option without consequences.
We had moved away from the city and further away from her home town. Renald knew about Laney and I didn’t want them to find us, so we had to completely disappear. It was not what she wanted, but after a little touching and tasting over a couple of days, she couldn’t think beyond the last orgasm and she finally agreed.
Now it was almost time for our son to be born and I was putting the finishing touches on the baby room. The furniture was put together and everything was set. I heard a noise in the other room and I stopped for a second. It didn’t sound like Laney. She was large and loud at this point in her pregnancy and would usually call out to me when she was home.
I hadn’t wanted her to go out alone, but she insisted. Laney was a hard woman to get along with, so used to doing things her own way. A touch could usually tame her. But it wasn’t her that was making soft noises as someone who didn’t want to be heard did.
The hairs went up on the back of my neck and I moved to the side of the wall. I saw the gun before I saw the man and grabbed it out of response. He pulled a shot off and I hear the loud ringing in my ears from it being discharged so close. The bullet went into the wall behind to me because I ducked in time.
I didn’t need to see the shooter to know who they were or at least, who had sent them. It didn’t matter how loyal I was, I knew once I left the gang, the boss would send people out looking for me. It was just too soon and I was racking my brain trying to figure out how they found me there. I moved back behind the wall and waited.
“Come out Grady. Loch has decided to give you a slide this one time if you come back now.”
Loch didn’t let anything slide, so I knew it wasn’t true. The fact that he had already squeezed off a shot was a good indication that what he said was a lie. Loch wanted me dead. I knew that.
I would have waited him out if it wasn’t for the familiar sound of Laney in the hallway, coming up the stairs. I moved out in front of him, knocking the gun out of his hands and putting my hand over his mouth. The last thing I wanted was for Laney to walk in on it. I didn’t want her to always be looking over her shoulder. Ignorance was bliss in this scenario.
Dragging the other man to the kitchen, his struggles were lessening and by the time she made it to the front door, he was out of sight. I didn’t know if he was dead, but he was out of the equation for the moment.
“Grady? Why is the door open?”
I put a smile on my face and shut the door on the incapacitated would-be attacker. “Sorry love. I was just about to check the mail when I had to use the restroom. How was your day? Did you get any shopping done?”
She smiled back at me and waddled towards me. She looked ready to pop and there had never been anything more beautiful that I had seen in all of my life. Laney practically glowed. The kiss got heated quickly and I had to push her away before I forgot what was going on.
“Is smells strange in here. Like something is burning.”
“Oh, I just put a candle out. I know how you like the smell of the cookie one.”
“Yes, it’s making me hungry and I have to pee.”
“I steered her away from the bathroom. “Why don’t we go out? I know you don’t feel like cooking and it’s been a while since we went out just because.”
Laney was happy with the surprise. “Sure that sounds good.”
I breathed a sigh of relief as I ushered her out the door. She stopped and looked back for a minute at the wall in front of her and then walked towards the car. Laney waited for me to open the door and then got in. I closed it and went around to the driver’s side. “So are you really not going to tell me why there is a bullet in the wall or why there was a gun shot in the house?”
I looked over at her stunned. How did she always know? “Laney, I…”
“Was it Loch that sent him?”
I nodded and started the car. “So we have to move again?”
I shook my head again and she sighed. “Well I really liked that place. How many times is he going to make us move? The baby is going to be here soon, we need to take care of it.”
She was scary sometimes. There was no other way about it and I couldn’t help but think that she would have been someone I could have worked the business with. There was something sexy when she acted tough. I knew that I was part of the reason I had been drawn to her no-nonsense way and I loved what Laney had become. “I will take care of it. You don’t worry about anything.”
Resting her head on my shoulder, I heard her sigh. “With you next to me, how can I worry about anything? I know you take care of what is yours.”
Chapter 1
He hadn’t seen the sun so bright in years and he had to squint as Chris walked out of the iron-wrought gates to freedom. It had been too long since he had been free and the air never smelled so sweet. Chris looked around for someone there to pick him up. He hadn’t been able to make a call in months because of solitary, but it almost didn’t matter if no one was there. Walking on the side of the road as a free man would have been okay with him.
Then Chris heard his name being called and he looked back to his left. He saw James getting out of the small, black sedan with tinted windows. He sighed a little bit, happy to see his oldest friend. They had run together as kids, then grown up to run James’s father’s gang. Chris was his second, but he knew that some things had changed while he was gone. Five years is a long time.
“Chris! Damn it is good to see you out of that place, out of those jumpsuits. How are you feeling?”
He hugged him for a moment, smacking Chris on the back. Something passed between them, his gratitude showed for a moment before he was telling him to get in. “Where is my bike?”
“Back at the house. Don’t you worry about that. I kept her up for you. You don’t know how many times I got offers for that thing.”
“Well thanks for not selling it James.”
“No problem. The least that I can do after all you have done for me and for the Hell Riders. We owe you, I owe you Chris.”
Chris didn’t want to talk about it and he stared out the window at the passing scenery. Everything was going by so fast and nothing looked the same. Even as they got closer to their home turf, Chris could tell there were changes everywhere. He saw a group of bikers on a street corner that used to be theirs and he looked over at James questioningly.”
“Like I said brother, things have changed.”
“They sure the hell have if this is no longer ours.”
“Half the city is now another gang, Demon Wish or something like that. I don’t know. It was like they came in overnight and they have been pushing on our turf since they got here.”
Chris nodded, but was still unbelieving of what he was hearing. How had James or his father Cliff ever let that happen? “Looks like it is time to push back then.”
James grinned at him and clapped his back. “God I have missed you. Been out for less than an hour and you are already talking more sense than half the gang. Things have been bad without you. I can’t believe you are back. It’s going to be just like old times.”
Chris sat back a little more in the seat. It did feel like old times and it seemed like there was always problems with the lifestyle. It was the kind of life that those things happened, bad things happened on a daily basis. But like James, he was born into it and didn’t know anything else. It was always the Hell’s Riders first and the rest second. Even out, he knew that there was always the possibility that he will go back right away.
“Why did Cliff let this go?”
“He has been sick for a while now. We almost lost him last year, but he bounced back. You know dad, he is too stubborn to die I think. So he is out of it completely now. Mom says he doesn’t need the stress, though he asks me for reports, I make sure to sugar coat it for his heart.”
“I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know. I hate that it has happened. He isn’t that old. Besides, you had enough stuff to worry about in there without our problems out here. He’ll bounce back, but for now I have to take care of this or we won’t have a city for him to come back to.”
Chris wondered if his friend really thought it was possible for him to get better. It was just as well that he was ready to take over because it sounded like he was going to have to. “So what else is new?”
“Not much, there are new members that you will meet at the party, but your room, everything is the same. I wouldn’t let them touch or move anything. Cassie is back from school for the summer. You haven’t seen her in a while.”
“No, I think she was 16 when I saw her last. Does she still have her nose stuck in a book?”
He sighed. “I wish. Once dad went off his rocker, she went to college and it has been hell ever since.”
Chris couldn’t imagine the short redhead being much trouble at all. She had always been a little stuck up and had big dreams to get away from all the bikers as she called them. Cassie had never made it hard to know how she felt about something. He couldn’t see her doing wrong because she was always the pillar of sweetness.
“I can’t see Cassie going off the deep end. For a while there, remember you were worried about her becoming a cop?”
“Well there are worse things.”
Chris shook his head and smiled. They were back in their old neighborhood, his old stomping grounds. When he saw the old house that he had lived in for most of his adult life, it was all back to him. He was finally home.
“So who are all of these people?”
As they pulled up there were several faces that he didn’t recognize, but everyone was waving and saying hello like they knew who he was. “They are new recruits. Some are just here for the party. Everyone knows about you, even the new ones. You are what they strive to be, loyal and my right hand man.”
“I didn’t know if you had someone else now.”
“Never. You have that job for life, you know that. Whenever you are ready to get back to work, its there for you. Take some time off though. I am sure there are things that you have been missing in your time away.”
Chris was already looking at what was on offer. It was like a buffet of women and as he saw a short blonde with an ass for days bending over to get a beer out of the cooler, his body reminded him how long it had been.
“Yeah, there are a few things that I would like to do first.”
Chris got out of the car and instead of checking out his bike first, Chris moved towards the blonde that had caught his attention and as she stood up, he swallowed hard. Her front was as full as her back and Chris knew that she was the one. He was always so good at going anywhere and finding the one for him. It was a gift and he knew that whoever the young woman was, she was going to be his for the night.
“Well look what the cat dragged in. If it isn’t my big brother’s guard dog.”
“Cassie?”