Rough & Raw (Notorious Devils Book 2) (18 page)

“Baby,” he murmurs when he’s right in front of me. His hands wrap around my hips and his face nuzzles my neck. His lips caress me in a gentle kiss before his teeth nip me, and I melt.

“I need to get this done and get back to the house,” I murmur, stepping away from him. He lifts his head but his hands stay planted on my hips.

“Sorry I ain’t been around…” His words trail off and I shake my head.

“You don’t need to explain. It’s not my place to question. You come home when you’re ready,” I say, looking down at my feet. His fingers slide under my chin and he tips my head back so that my eyes are forced to connect with his.

“Working, drinking, and smoking, baby. That’s all I been doin’. I had the feeling you didn’t really want me around,” he shrugs. The nonchalant move doesn’t match his serious gaze.

“We really need to get our shit together and get on the same page,” I mutter.

“
Fuck
, no kidding,” he grunts as his arm slips around my waist and pulls me closer to his hard body.

“Mr. Jones called me last night,” I say before I hurriedly finish my thought. “Scotty signed the divorce papers.”

“Huh,” he grunts. I look at him in question before he begins to talk. “That seems too easy. For everything you went through with him, it just doesn’t make sense.”

“Custody hasn’t been agreed upon yet. Just the divorce. Maybe he’s ready to be rid of me, too,” I shrug. Bates squeezes my waist with his strong fingers.

“Lived with an abusive asshole my whole life, baby. He’d kill her before he let her just walk out the door. It ain’t as simple as it seems. Don’t let it fool you. He wants you to get comfortable, to stop looking behind you, to feel safe,” he murmurs. It makes a cold shiver run through me.

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I say as I twist my fingers into his t-shirt.

“Lean on me, trust me, and let me take care of my girls,” he whispers before his lips gently brush mine.

It’s been days since he was inside of me, and I ache for him. I was fooling myself if I thought that I could live a life without Bates in it.
No way
. I need him. I need his strength and I need his support. I bared myself for him and he hasn’t verbalized his response, but maybe him offering for me to lean on him, to let him take care of us, maybe that’s the only verbal answer I need.

I was also fooling myself into thinking that I could live with only having
part
of him. The past three days, I’ve been trying to distance myself and it’s been killing me. My imagination has been going wild with jealousy. I can’t handle him being inside of another woman. I can’t handle another woman’s hands on him.

“I… I need to get to work,” I blurt out before I tell him everything I’m thinking. I’m not ready to admit what I really want from him, what I
need
. Maybe someday soon, but not today.

“Yeah, okay, baby. We got church in ten minutes. Afterward, I’ll take you home and we’ll just hang out the rest of the day,” he announces. He presses his lips to my forehead and spins around, walking away from me. I take a few moments to appreciate his spectacular ass before I shake myself out of it and get to work.

The next hour, I find myself in the storage room, counting bottles of beer, when I feel the presence of another person behind me. I turn around and see Star in the doorway. She’s wearing a pair of daisy duke cut offs and a bikini top. Her dark hair is pulled into a high ponytail, and her face looks like she spent about an hour applying and reapplying makeup, it’s so thick.

“Star,” I murmur, wondering what in the hell she’s doing here.

“What is it about you? I don’t get it,” she states, eyeing me with a look of disgust on her face.

“What do you mean?”

“He wants you. Like he’s willing to give up what he needs to make you happy,” she says, narrowing her eyes.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I sigh, annoyed with her and this conversation. What Bates wants or needs is up to him, not me, and certainly not her.

“He told me in bed this morning that he wants you. He won’t even consider anyone else but you.”

I stare at her. Completely fixed on her words—
he told me in bed this morning
. Visions of a rumpled Star and then Bates walking out of the hallway immediately flash in my mind and my stomach lurches. He fucked her and then he lied about it
. Fucking lied to my face
. It was bad enough when he told me he might need things I couldn’t give him, that he would seek it elsewhere, namely Star over here. Now, he’s lied to me.

Fuck. Him.

“Well, if he wants you, Star, he can have you. I’m not holding him back,” I announce before I walk past her, deliberately bumping her with my shoulder.
Bitch
.

I don’t wait for her response. I don’t care enough to hear it. She obviously wants Bates, and if he, for whatever reason, feels like he needs to have her, then I’m not going to stop him. He can fuck that nasty bitch until his dick rots off.

When I walk back into the clubhouse bar, all the guys are out of their little meeting. My eyes scan the room and land on Bates, who is playing pool with Drifter.

Fuck him.

I ignore his beautiful, big, gorgeous, ass and go straight toward Paxton, who is sitting at the bar talking to Johnny.

“I need one of you to take me home,” I announce. They both swivel their heads over to me.

Paxton smiles and Johnny grins.

“He piss you off?” Paxton asks. I roll my eyes.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to leave and one of you is taking me.” I lean in close and whisper, “
Now
.”

“I got you, babe,” Paxton says, setting his full beer down and wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “You want to make him jealous, babe, I’m your man,” he announces as we walk out of the clubhouse.

I hear a shout behind me, but I ignore it. By the time I’m wrapped around Paxton’s back, I look up and see Bates charging out of the clubhouse.

“
What the fuck
!” Bates screams from several feet away.

“Go,” I cry. Paxton doesn’t think twice, he takes off down the gravel road as his bike roars, and I hold the hell on.

Luckily, since I’m on the back of his bike, the entire ride is in silence. I don’t want to talk. I want to curl in a ball and cry. I am so sick of making one stupid mistake after another. I immediately decide that it’s time to contact Connellee. We aren’t the closest, never have been, but I think he’ll help me. As his sister, I pray that he will.

I can’t stay with Bates another minute. I’ll fall into his bed again and hate myself that much more. I’ll keep doing it until there’s nothing left of me but a shell. I need to be done with him completely. When we arrive back at the house, I see that Kentlee’s car is here and Buck is on the front porch just hanging out.
Protecting
.

“Thank you,” I murmur as I slide off of his bike. Paxton wraps his hands around my waist to keep me from walking away. I look down at him with wide eyes.

“You want more from me, I’ll gladly give it to you, Brent. You’re a good woman and nothing would please me more than to have you at my side. I’ll take care of you,” he murmurs.

I stare at him in surprise. Paxton Hill is hot. Dirty Johnny Williams is hot, too. But Bates is gorgeous and he owns every part of me. I could never be with another man aside from him. If anything, I’m just going to be alone.
Scratch an itch every so often, but relationships? No
. I’ve fucked those up too many times. It’s obvious I don’t choose men very well. I don’t need to fuck my daughter up more than she’s already going to be, either. Stella’s going to be devastated when I inform her that we’re leaving.

“I like you, Paxton, like a whole lot, but…” I begin. He holds his hand up.

“I get it, babe. I do. Just think about it. You want someone to just take care of you, I’m willing. Keep it in the back of your mind, yeah?”

I nod, unable to speak. He gives me a wink and waves at Buck before he starts his bike. Then my breath hitches. Barreling down the drive is Bates. I can almost see the anger that radiates off of him. Paxton doesn’t turn his bike off or say a word. He leaves. He leaves me standing in the dirt drive waiting for Bates to turn his rage on me.

Great protector
.

Sniper

I
watch as Torch’s bike passes me. I want nothing more than to block him and beat the ever lovin’ shit out of him. How dare he take my woman and put her on the back of his bike without my permission. And Brentlee—
the fuck
! Not two hours ago we were gonna get on the same page.
Fuck
, I thought we already were. I don’t want any other bitch but her, and I want to take care of her, of Stella—my girls.

Now, I don’t know what the fuck is goin’ on.

I kick the stand down on my bike and quickly get off. She’s standin’ in the drive, sexy as fuck, lookin’ like a deer caught in headlights. Her honey eyes are round and wide, her hair mussed from the back of Torch’s bike, and her chest is heaving with her labored breaths. She looks so fuckable right now, I can’t stop my dick from pressing against the zipper of my jeans.

“The fuck, Brent?” I roar, vaguely aware that Buck is on the porch and LeeLee and the kids are inside the house.

“I’m going to Conn’s,” she announces, lifting one arm and planting her fist on her hip.

“No, you ain’t,” I tell her, wrapping my hand firm, but gentle, around her bicep and dragging her to the unattached garage.

I never use the garage for anything, except in the winter when I want to work on my bike or my truck. It sits empty, other than some tools and boxes and shit. I lift the door and flip the light on before I guide her inside, closing the door behind me. I have a feeling whatever this fight is, it’s about to get messy; and though I don’t mind fuckin’ her into submission in the front yard, she might get pissed if LeeLee and the kids see.

“What bug crawled up your ass within the last hour?”

I watch as her gorgeous eyes narrow and she plants both of her fists on her hips.
Oh, she’s fuckin’ pissed, and I can’t stop my lips from twitching
. This, right here,
this
is my
tigritsa
. Makes my dick so fuckin’ hard when she gets that tigress attitude goin’. Makes me want to slay her, own her, force her submission to me. Only me.

“You fucked Star,” she announced. I just look at her, cocking my head to the side.

“Yeah,” I say slowly.

“You told me you were drinking, smoking, and working. Never in there did you add—
fucking nasty ass, trashy, fucking whores
,” she screams as her fists come up and pound my chest. I let her. This is all a misunderstanding, or a ploy by a clubwhore to snag a brother. It ain’t the first time.

“Quiet,” I demand, my voice even and low.

“Fuck you, Bates,” she yells, hitting me once more.

I wrap my fingers around her wrists and walk her backward. I don’t stop until her back hits the dirty garage wall.

“Didn’t fuck Star last night,” I murmur, dipping my head to look into her eyes.

“That’s not what she said, and you two came from the same hall this morning, looking awfully tired,” she snaps. My lips twitch again. Fuck, she’s a gorgeous being when she’s got her claws out.

“She’s a whore, babe. I wouldn’t believe her if she told me the sky was blue. I didn’t fuck her, not last night, and not since you been in my bed, baby. Whatever I gotta do to prove to you that
this
is what I want
—you
are what I want—I’ll fuckin’ do it. But this shit, this ain’t gonna do nothin’ but piss me off,” I say. I then watch as her eyes narrow to little slits.

“What
shit
? The fact that I feel like I can’t trust you because you already told me you’d be fucking whores whenever you saw fit, whenever you
needed
it?” she spits.

“Told you that, then I recanted it. My dick’s yours, babe. You don’t use it, I might have to go elsewhere, but I’d be informing you of that before it happened. I want you. I want Stella. I want my family,” I growl before I smash my lips down onto hers.

Brentlee whimpers when I force my tongue inside of her, and I know I’ve won as soon as her hands leave my chest and her fingers tangle in my hair. This bitch, this fucking
tigritsa
, she undoes me.

I grab the hem of her shirt and yank it up.
I need her
. I need that perfect cunt wrapped around my dick. I don’t bother unhooking her bra, instead I just yank the cups down and free her gorgeous tits. Then my hands travel down to her jeans, tugging on the zipper before I push them over her hips, along with her panties, stopping when they’ve reached her thighs.

“Bates,” she purrs. I know I need to fuck her hard. I have to. That purring shit she does,
fuck
, it kills me.

“Get on your knees,” I growl before I pinch her pretty pink nipples. She whimpers again, and my dick’s two seconds from exploding inside of my jeans.

“You can’t force me,” she says softly. I shake my head.

“Get on your goddamn knees, Brentlee. I’m gonna fuck that pussy while I stare at your perfect ass. I’m going to remind you that I own this sweet body of yours. Because sometime in the past three days, you’ve somehow forgotten,” I growl. She shivers in my arms before she sinks to her knees.