Reality slowly seeps in almost immediately and I feel like an idiot. Last night and this morning, he didn’t use any kind of protection. Quickly scrambling away from him, I crawl out of bed. Fuck, shit. Fucking shit.
His lazy eyes meet mine and his brows furrow. “What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t use a condom, you didn’t use a condom,” I practically screech.
I watch as he takes his sweet ass time sitting up in bed, then drapes his legs over the edge. His face slowly lifts to mine and he’s got a cocky grin playing on his lips.
“You on birth control?” he asks.
My lips press together in a straight line. “Of course. I got on it after I had my full workup testing five years ago,” I don’t say his name, I don’t say after Rabbit raped and beat me, because like he mentioned last night, I don’t want to bring him here.
He nods, understanding clear in his features. “I’m clean, get tested every six months even though I always wear protection.” I lift a brow at his words. “Well except with my woman,” he grins.
His arm reaches out and he wraps his hand around my waist, pulling me close to him. Spreading his thighs, he guides me down on his leg. I cringe knowing that I’m leaking his release onto his leg. He doesn’t seem to care, his eyes focus on mine and a little twitch appears on his lips in the corner.
“Your woman,” I exhale.
He lifts his chin, his hand cupping my cheek. “Mine.”
DICE
Once the condom and birth control discussion is dealt with, we shower, then I make us breakfast. Juliet watches from her perched place on the counter.
I picked her up, set her ass there and ordered her not to move. I enjoy it, her there, watching me. I’m not a great cook, but I can grill and manage not to fuck up scrambled eggs and fry bacon.
“Why me?” she asks after a few moments of silence.
I press my lips together, trying not to laugh at her ridiculousness. She’s gorgeous, sweet, and her pussy is phenomenal. Though I don’t give her that list, she’d probably get pissed. “Why not you?” I ask. “Why me?”
Her eyes widen, then she purses her lips. “I don’t know. I should hate you. I’ve been scared of everything your cut stands for, for the past five years. I should be terrified of you as well.” She shrugs.
“But you’re not.”
There’s a moment of silence, then I hear her soft voice. “No, Nick, I’m not.”
Once breakfast is finished, I plate the eggs and bacon, handing it over to her, then make one for myself and walk over to her side. I don’t eat sitting down, it’s just not my thing, never has been. Even as a kid I stood at the table and ate. It drove my mom insane.
“What’s your road name?” she asks.
Lifting a brow, my eyes lift to hers and search. “Why?”
“Just curious is all.”
“Dice,” I breathe.
“Why Dice?”
Clearing my throat, I look at her, my eyes searching her own. “Lucky dice means an unexpected piece of good luck. My daddy said I was a lucky little fucker. I cheated death more than once when I was a kid, so he started calling me Dice. He was in the life, and the name stuck until I prospected and was officially Dice to the Notorious Devils.”
“This life is all you know?” she asks. Nodding my head, I watch her, waiting to see what she will say next. “Your club, they aren’t like the Bastards, are they?”
“Do you want to know if we’re legal, or if we just ain’t the cruel fucks that the Bastards were?”
Her lips twitch, she leans over to the side and her lips press against mine. “I’m glad you’re not like them,” she breathes against my mouth.
“Fuck, baby, me neither. Wouldn’t have all this sweet in my bed if I was.”
We leave the cabin after fucking in the kitchen one last time. We leave on the promise that I’ll bring her back, as often as possible.
I plan on it too, this quiet slice of heaven is exactly what we needed to really connect to one another. The rest of the world, the stressors, and bullshit doesn’t exist up here.
This is where I got the girl, and this is where I’ll continue to bring her back any chance I can.
EPILOGUE
DICE
SIX MONTHS LATER
Keys hands me the paper, then the photographs all in one envelope. Rabbit. He’s been alive this entire time. I figured when the Notorious Devils bombed, gunned down, and maimed the Bastards several years ago that he got justice served. I was wrong. He’s been living under the radar, along the border.
Hiding in plain sight. That’s what he’s fucking been doing. The bastard.
“I’ll take care of this shit, right now,” I bark.
Keys reaches for me, his hand wrapping around my shoulder. “Brother. You got the girl, he’s livin’ in a trailer shoving meth into his veins on a regular basis. He will not live long, and you, my man, you got the best fucking days ahead of you.”
He’s right. I know that he is, but fuck me, I want to watch that miserable piece of shit die right in front of my feet. I want him to know it was me who killed him too. I don’t respond to him, instead, I gather the envelope and I head toward home.
Six months ago, the day after our first weekend together, I moved in with Juliet. When I made her my woman, it wasn’t something that I said, it was something that just was. She didn’t question me when I showed up with a pickup load full of my shit, she opened the door and I was—home.
Riding toward that home of ours, I can’t keep Rabbit off of my mind. He ruined her life for five years. He made her a shell of a woman, frightened of every man in a cut. I don’t care if he is on death’s door, I need to be the one to ensure that he crosses over into the depth of Hell.
Parking in front of my home, I glance at Juliet’s car in the drive, I should let it go. Keys is right, he’ll be dead eventually. He will not live for long, yet just thinking about him living for one more day fills me with rage.
I feel something on my arm, turning my head, Juliet is standing there. “You’ve been sitting here for at least thirty minutes, what’s wrong?” she all but demands.
Clearing my throat, my eyes shift from her to our home, then back to her. “I need to talk to you,” I murmur.
She doesn’t speak, instead, she climbs on the bike behind me, only then does she say anything. “Take me to our cabin,” she gently instructs.
Without a word, I guide the bike away from the house and toward our cabin. We haven’t been back since our first weekend together. Maybe this is exactly what I need to deal with the situation and the decision that is staring me in the face, begging me to finish it, to free my woman completely.
JULIET
Something is bothering Nick. My hand wraps around the back of my neck as we drive, touching the place where his road name marks my skin. Dice is written in a pretty scroll across the back of my neck, that way I can cover it for work, but when I’m at his club, it’s visible.
He wanted it to be seen when it needed to be, and I wanted it able to be covered for the same reason. The cabin comes into view hours later, and I’m thankful that we’re here. There’s no fresh food in the fridge, so we can’t stay too long, but I could tell that he needed this, that he needed the space.
Walking inside, we don’t speak, his mind is still spinning, still working on whatever is bothering him. Turning to face him, I watch as he stalks over to the sliding door that leads out to the back porch.
“Don’t go outside, not yet,” I call out. He stops, tilting his head and turning to face me. “Tell me what it is, tell me what’s bothering you.”
He clears his throat but doesn’t speak. His eyes search mine, then his voice, which is almost a whisper finally fills the otherwise quiet room. “I love you, baby. Fuck, I love you,” he announces.
“You’re scaring me, Nick. Tell me what’s happened,” I demand.
He shakes his head, taking a step closer toward me, then his hands wrap around my waist. “Keys found h
im,” he admits.
My heart starts to pound against my chest. “Found him?” I ask, though I know exactly what he’s referring to, or rather, who. I want to hear it though, I want to hear the words.
“Jackson, Rabbit, has been found. He’s livin’ in a trailer park, shoving meth in his arm, on death’s door,” he states, grinding his jaw together.
I gulp, thinking about his words, about what they mean. All I can focus on is that Rabbit is still breathing.
“I thought he’d probably died during the war between us and them, but naturally evil lives far longer than it ever should,” he explains.
“What happens now?” I ask, my lips trembling, my stomach rolling from his words.
He turns away from me, his eyes finding the forest that lies past the back porch. “Keys says to leave him alone, that he’ll kill himself soon enough,” he mumbles.
“But you don’t want to wait?” I ask.
Nick still doesn’t look at me, he’s focused on the trees, or the sky, or maybe nothing at all. Slowly, I walk up to his back. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I press my cheek between his shoulder blades.
“End him, Nick,” I breathe.
His hand wraps around mine at his middle. “Yeah,” he exhales. “How about you end him, baby?”
My breath hitches. I’m not sure that I could kill someone, though I’ve imagined his death a million times. Nick turns around in my arms, he cups my cheeks with his palms and his eyes focus on mine. The pads of his thumbs slide along my cheekbones.
I hadn’t realized that tears were falling from my eyes, not until he started wiping them away. “Take your power back, Juliet.”
Nodding, I inhale deeply before letting it out. “Take me to him,” I practically demand.
Nick lowers his face, his lips brushing mine. “Fuck, that should not turn me on as much as it does,” he groans.
Without another word, his lips slam against mine, just as his hands wrap around my ass and he lifts me off of my feet and carries me to bed. We’re a flurry of arms, legs, shirts, pants, and underwear until we’re both completely naked.
Nick wraps his hands around the insides of my knees and spreads me wide before he drives inside. I let out a gasp, then moan once he’s fully seated to the root.
He fucks me, it’s hard and fast, but he takes care not to hurt me. My eyes flutter closed the closer I get to my climax, when I come it’s with a jerk of my entire body and a sob. Nick shortly follows, staying planted deep as he attempts to catch his breath. His lips press against the side of my neck and he nuzzles my skin.
“I love you,” he rasps.
Sliding my hand up his back, I gently tug his head back by the loose grip I have in his hair. “I want to end him. I want peace, but I also want to make sure he never does it to another woman again.”
Nick’s eyes focus, they’re hard and I know that he’s thinking about Rabbit. Something he said we could never discuss in bed, yet here we are. “Then you’ll have your chance, baby. I told you I’d give you anything, fucking anything you want. He’s yours to end.”
DICE
I walk into the trailer before her. Instructing her to stay in the car. We brought one of the club’s cars, it’s not registered to anyone who exists, just in case someone is watching us. Though, I highly doubt anyone is sober enough to even realize that we don’t belong here.
The trailer is dirty, filthy even, and I see Rabbit, his head lolled back sitting on the sofa. Walking up to him, I’m slightly disappointed that he could have already done the job for us. Kicking his ankle, I grin when he opens his eyes and looks at me. He doesn’t see me though, he doesn’t see anything.
“Time to wake up, fucker,” I growl before I reach for him.
It doesn’t take me long to wrestle him to a chair and tie him down. He doesn’t fight much, his body too fucking full of shit to possess the motor skills. Once he’s tied down, and couldn’t move even if he tried, I walk over to the door and open it. My gaze finds Juliet and I lift my chin.
I watch her exit the car, then make her way up to me. I don’t immediately let her inside. I want to make sure she’s still good with this, that it won’t fuck her up. I’ve brought her back to life, and the last thing that I want to do is send her spiraling back down to the place where I picked her up from.
“You good, baby?” I ask.
Her eyes skirt past my shoulder, looking at the darkness of the room behind me. “I’m good,” she says, her voice and lips both trembling.
Holding my hand out, she slips her fingers in with mine, lacing them together. I guide her inside, she closes the door behind her and then I step to the side so that she can see the pathetic piece of shit who hurt her all those years ago.
“What the fuck is going on?” he slurs, blinking and trying to focus his gaze on us.
Juliet squeezes my hand once before she releases me and takes a step forward. “I’m here for my revenge,” she says, the tremble gone and her voice cool and collected.
He snorts. “Little bitch like you?”
She leans forward slightly. “Yeah, do you remember me?” she asks.
JULIET
Rabbit searches his pea brain for any recollection of me, but he doesn’t find it. He doesn’t even remember me. It should bother me, killing a man that doesn’t even remember raping and beating me almost six years ago. It doesn’t though, he deserves to die, drug-addled memory gone or not.
Reaching into my purse, I pull out the needle. Nick watches me, Rabbit stares into nothingness at the ceiling. Reaching over, I shove the needle into Rabbit’s arm. His eyes widen, and he finally focuses on me.
“I was your girlfriend. You raped and beat me, left me for dead. Never again, you fucking asshole. Never again,” I grind out as I shoot the air straight into his veins.
Taking a step back, I leave the needle in his arm. He gasps for air, his eyes focused on me, but he can’t speak. His mouth just moves like a fish out of water as Nick reaches down and cleans the needle with a cloth. I watch as he takes Rabbit’s hand and forces him to wrap his fingers around it, making his fingerprints appear as though he shoved the needle in his arm.
We turn and walk out of the trailer, climb into the car, and Nick drives away without a word. I feel relief that he’s dead. No more women will be hurt, no more dreaming that he could ever come back for me—no more.
DICE
I watch her, keeping a pulse on her reaction, on her mood as we make our way back home. She doesn’t speak, but neither do I. Once we pull into the driveway, solemnly we walk into the house.
“He’s dead,” she says, turning to face me. Leaning my back against the closed front door, I nod. “He doesn’t exist anymore.”
“He doesn’t,” I confirm.
She lets out a breath, her eyes watering as she finds my gaze. “I love you, Nick. Thank you for saving me,” she whispers before she launches herself at me. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, her legs around my waist and buries her neck in my face.
“You saved yourself, baby. I just held your hand and had your back,” I state.
She kisses me, I allow her to have control. I’ll always give her whatever she needs, and she needs this right now. She needs me to allow her to take over, to own me. She’s always owned me, this woman, this beautiful fucking woman.
Special Thanks
I want to thank all of my readers, always. You babes are seriously so fantastic. I appreciate every single one of you!!!
I always say a special thank you to my husband. He is simply—amazing.
My mom, she’s always supported wholeheartedly everything I have ever decided to take a leap of faith on, including my writing. Thank you, Banana Boots.
Celia, my friend. Thanks for the laughs, the cupcakes, the brownies, the cruises in the Mustang, and the years together. Now that we’re adults, thanks for the texts, the cocktails and the true friendship we have.
Cassy Roop, thank you so much for always making my covers so downright gorgeous.
Crystal Snyder, thank you for loving all of my stories, and taking the time out not only to read them, but to help me! I appreciate you!
Tammy Cole, thank you so much for being a great friend. I don’t know what I would do without you in life! I appreciate everything you do for me.
Dessure Hutchins, thank you so much for everything to help me and our friendship. I truly appreciate you!
Ellie McLove, thank you for making this book, clean and pretty! You are a badass—always.
Rosa Sharon thank you so much for your attention to detail and proofreading skills. You’re the best!
Inkslinger—Nazarea Thank you so much for always making my releases the best they can be! I appreciate all of your hard work!
Hayley’s Asshole Alphas... BABES. Thank you for always bringing a hot guy to my newsfeed and a smile to my face! You’re the best reader group a girl could have!!!
To all the Blogger babes that have taken a chance on me…
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Twisted with Chaos: A CASH BAR NOVEL Page 28
