“
Who ya got in there,
man?” Fish asks. He leans back in his chair and eyes Trigger as he
plops down in the Lay-Z Boy at the other end of the coffee table.
Trigger doesn’t say anything. He just leans forward and places his
elbows on his knees and sets his face in his hands. The rest of the
guys haven’t picked up on it yet, but I have. My heart stops for a
good long time, so long that I think it might not actually start
again, and my veins all feel like they’re shriveling up the longer
I stare at Trigger.
“
You fucking bastard,” I
say, shaking my head. Diesel and Bear look at me curiously. Wyatt
just shakes his head slowly with the realization of what Trigger’s
done. One by one, my brothers and the prospects start to figure out
why I’m so mad and Trigger looks so fucked up. Still, Trigger
doesn’t say anything right away.
He lifts his head and stares at me with
reddened, pained eyes. Shaking his head back and forth he says, “I
let her go.”
Once more, a door creaks, and out steps
Princess into the hallway. Her eyes are bright red and her hair
looks like a hornet’s nest—like somebody was handling her roughly.
She walks slowly into the room. Trigger takes a hit from the joint
he had Rink roll and light, and he refuses to look at her. His
entire body has tensed the fuck up since she walked in, but his
eyes stay trained on the coffee table.
“
Duke’s going to take you
home,” Trigger says in a bored tone. Still, he doesn’t look at her.
My eyes fall closed for barely a second before I look from Princess
to Trigger and back again. What a fucking asshole. Trigger’s always
had some kind of dysfunction in his brain that makes him a bastard,
but this takes the cake. Of all people to fuck with like this, he
really messed up. Sure, I get it—he had to do something to get her
to understand it wouldn’t work between the two of them—but this is
above and beyond. Looking at him and narrowing my eyes, I bite my
tongue from saying all the shit I want to say. But what’s done is
done and there’s a code. He’s my brother, and I’m not going to call
him out in front of everybody in the room.
“
Just fucking do it, or
she’s going to have to take a cab,” Trigger says. He turns to me
and blows out the smoke from the joint he’s got.
Standing, I point a finger at him and
say, “We’re going to fucking deal with this later.” Fuck. I hate
this shit. I called it way back when she rode on the back of his
bike for the first time. He just told her she’d be riding with him,
and that was all there was to it. Technically, it should have been
Grady taking her, since he’s our Sergeant at Arms and the one
responsible for that kind of shit. But no, Trigger didn’t even give
Grady a chance to get off his bike before that fucker was at the
van, offering Princess his hand and acting like he’s some charming
fuck that he ain’t. Well, she knows that now.
I cross the room and place my hand on
her back and lead her out of the house, saying, “Come on,
Princess.”
I give her my helmet and climb onto my
bike then help her get on before I peel the fuck out of there.
She’s hurt, so of course she calls me on my shit and doesn’t let me
off the hook for nothing. I slip and tell her that she’s just like
her mother—and she is—but it’s not my place to drop that bomb.
She’s got enough going on right now. She holds on, but barely
enough to be safe. I don’t say anything though. I can feel the
slight jerking of her body as she withholds her sobs. Crying
a-fucking-gain. With every slight movement, a part of me breaks
into a fuck ton of pieces. Over the last few months that she’s been
here, Princess has become one of us, even if Grady can’t accept
that. She’s family in more ways than one, and Trigger just fucked
with my family.
Chapter 15
Back at the house, I try to talk to her
again, but she isn’t up for conversation. I fight the urge to walk
her into the house and make sure Ruby and Jim don’t catch her. She
looks fucked all right, and she’s going through the front door.
There are three other entrances better suited for sneaking into
that house, but she’s obviously not even thinking about that. Maybe
she wants to get caught. Either way, I let it go and get back on my
bike with my helmet—that’s now toast thanks to Princess dropping
it—on my head, and ride slowly back to Nic’s house. Princess can’t
have known she was going to be treated like a filthy whore when she
got on Trigger’s bike. She can’t have known how entirely fucked her
night would turn. My mind wanders back to Nic. She was barely
nineteen when she started hanging with the club. Her dad had been
inside for about three years at that point, and she’d spent two of
those years trying to take care of her brother on her own after she
stopped letting Ruby and Jim help her out. She’s always been a
stubborn thing, and we let her do it. We blew it—every single one
of us.
God, she was so fucking young. She’s
still young. Did she know that first party what it meant to be a
Lost Girl? Did she have any goddamn idea that she’d become pussy
with legs? The thought of Nic feeling as used as Princess does
right now sends a shiver up my spine and makes my gut feel like
lead. I don’t want either of those chicks to feel like that ever
again, but there’s nothing I can really do about Princess until she
gives up on this fantasy of being with Trigger. But Nic? I got that
covered.
I cut my bike down the street and walk
her the rest of the way. I don’t want Jeremy to hear me coming if
he’s out and about. I want to know if he took my warning seriously.
If he didn’t, I’m going to be in for a much longer night. And I
still haven’t eaten. Fuck. I need food. I pull her up into the
driveway and toss my helmet to the side. I’ll have to see about
getting a new one tomorrow.
The house is silent, and all of the
lights are off. It’s a welcome change from what I came home to
earlier. The front door is unlocked when I walk in, and I say a
quiet thank you to Nic, even though I know she can’t hear me, and
lock the doors behind me. Walking down the hall to her bedroom, I
slowly open the door and find myself met by near total darkness. A
window on the side of the house streams a little yellow light in
from the street lights outside. Still, I can’t really see where
anything is, and I’m trying not to wake her up. But I’m not quiet
enough.
The room brightens just slightly by the
click of a table lamp. Straight ahead, Nic’s sitting up in her
king-sized bed, the covers pulled up to her waist and her hair a
total mess. She lets out a big yawn and smacks her lips, blinking
at the light. A smile overtakes my face at the sight. Suddenly, I’m
not so hungry for food anymore.
“
You’re back,” she says,
like she wasn’t expecting it. Maybe she wasn’t. From the look on
her face, she wasn’t expecting me. I click the door shut behind me
and step into the room. Kicking my boots off and then my socks. I
take my cut off and set it on the chest at the foot of the bed. Nic
watches as I pull my tee shirt off over my head and then start
working on my belt buckle.
“
I said I’d be back,
baby,” I say quietly. Her eyes dart down to my belt buckle then up
to my face again. She’s not protesting or even complaining about me
waking her up. She’s just quiet and watchful. As much as I like her
feisty side, I’m starting to really like this side that I didn’t
know existed. Sliding my jeans down to the floor, I kick them out
of the way and walk to Nic’s side of the bed. Her neck cranes back
to look up at me. I sit down on the side of the bed and twist my
torso to face her. Placing my hands on either side of her legs, I
search her eyes for something that tells me I’m not making a total
fucking jackass out of myself right now. She’s so guarded that I
can’t really make anything out for sure.
“
When I say I’m coming
back, that means I’m coming back. When I tell you that you’re my
girl that means you’re my fucking girl. When I call you my Old
Lady, don’t question it. Got it?” She looks away for a moment then
brings her face back up to mine.
“
I don’t believe you,” she
says. Her honesty practically crushes me, and I have to fight to
keep myself upright. I just want to sink into the mattress and call
it a fucking day. I don’t know what I can do to show her that I’m
serious. “One day, you won’t be back.”
“
Stop worrying about one
day. Just enjoy today. None of us knows what’s going to happen
tomorrow,” I say and lean in. My beard brushes the side of her face
as I trail soft kisses down from her temple to her jaw. She doesn’t
move or sigh or do any of that girly shit that other chicks do when
I make a move on them. No, not Nic. She just sits there and lets me
do my thing, but she gives me nothing to go on.
“
That doesn’t work for
me,” she says. “You’ve been through at least a hundred women. I’ve
seen it. What makes this so different?” she asks in a tone that
sounds so defeated and so fucking sad that it’s like a shovel to my
abdomen.
“
You’re different,” I say.
“You called me a cocksucker. Not that I advise you try it again,
but you did it. You’re tough as hell, and you don’t even know it.”
I don’t say the thing I want to say—that all of those women were
really fucking easy, and really fucking stupid. They all like the
idea of being an Old Lady, but none of them were cut out for it. It
takes a special kind of woman to put up with the club and its
members. Nic doesn’t know it yet, but she’s got it. She’s got that
fire and that backbone that an Old Lady needs. She’s loyal and
protective, and she can be mean as all fucking hell. Makes sense
since she was raised in this life, but with all the shit she’s
seen, she’s damaged as fuck. And the more fucked up I realize she
is—the more broken she shows herself to be—the more I want to glue
her back together.
“
But I’m not,” she
says.
But she is.
Talking isn’t working out so well for
me, so instead I decide to just move on. My bones ache with the
need to be inside her. I need to show her in the only way I think
she’ll understand that I care about her and I’m going to care about
her in a few weeks, and a few months, and even years down the line.
I’m going to show her that this is forever.
I bring one hand up and cup her face.
Her green eyes stare back at me and then close. I move in, pressing
my lips against hers. She’s so fucking soft in a million ways, but
not her bottom lip. She’s always chewing on the damn thing, and it
shows with the bits of cracked skin on the sides. She responds,
moving her lips against mine and pulling me in closer.
Nic slides down the bed, letting me
crawl on top of her and cover her body with my own. This feels
right in a million fucking ways I can’t explain. She reaches down
for my dick, but I bring her hand back up above her head. I want to
take things slow with her, but if she starts pulling on my dick,
shit’s gonna happen really fast. As it is, I’m not very used to
going slow. Normally I’m all about getting my orgasm going as fast
as I fucking can, but this isn’t about me. This is about showing
Nic that she’s more than a good fuck. She’s everything.
A few minutes pass of us kissing, so I
start sliding my body up and down hers to create friction. My dick
gets so hard I worry I’m gonna blow a load right here, and I’m not
even inside her yet. It doesn’t matter that I had her twice this
morning.
Taking a few deep breaths, I force
myself to calm down and be more patient. I want her to enjoy this
in every way possible, and that’s not going to happen if I keep
thinking about myself and my dick. She lets out a soft moan when I
drag my dick over her pussy. She places a soft kiss on my forehead,
and it’s so fucking sweet. I don’t think she can know what her
being sweet does to me. Looking up and locking eyes with her, I
place a gentle kiss on her lips and then pull back.
“
You don’t believe me, but
I’m going to show you that this is different,” I whisper. Pulling
her bottom lip in between her teeth, she nods and keeps her eyes
focused on mine.
The mood in the room shifts, and we’re
moving impossibly slow. It’s like fucking torture when I take her
night shirt off, inch by inch, kissing my way up her flat belly and
then her tits, up her collarbone and then to her neck. But as hard
as I am, I wouldn’t trade this moment for any fucking thing on the
planet.
No more clubhouse fucks. If I want to
show Nic that I’m serious, I can’t be fucking her like she’s some
whore in a bed I’ve taken countless women to. This right here is
the way it should be, but it should be in our house, in the bed we
share every night. And if I have my way, that’s how it’s going to
be.
Achingly slowly, I slide down her body
and remove her panties, which are already damp. Diesel’s comment
from earlier flies through my brain, and, for a brief moment, I’m
fucked in the head. Thinking about Diesel licking her pussy just
plain pisses me the fuck off. She’s just a piece of ass to him, and
that ain’t right. Nic deserves better. She definitely deserves
better than me, but I’m a selfish prick and I want to keep her for
myself. Looking up at her, I see that she’s propped her head up so
she can watch me between her legs.
“
I’m going to make you
forget that anybody else has been here,” I say. Her eyes heat, her
chest rises, and she sucks in a deep breath. I start by parting her
legs. She bends her knees and lets her legs lean outward, giving me
ample room. Her pussy is waxed as fuck—there’s not a hair in
sight.