White hot anger burns through me and I scramble to get out of the truck. As I make my way to the car that hit us, my dad and the prospects surround me. “Nick, take it easy, I don’t think they’re going anywhere,” Dad cautions. Looking through the shattered windshield I see Piper and some guy, probably Shayla’s ex. Both are out and won’t be getting out any time soon as their engine is in the front seat, pinning them both in. Satisfied that they’ll stay put, I go to the passenger side of my truck and try to open the door.
“Fucking open, dammit!” I scream as I pull in an attempt to get to my woman.
“Nick, man, you gotta wait for help,” one of the prospects says.
“She’s fucking bleeding from somewhere,” I rage as I continue yanking at the door. There, did it give a bit? Encouraged, I put everything I’ve got into pulling it open and then realize that my dad and brothers are now beside me adding their weight to the task.
Finally, finally we manage to pry the fucking thing open. Shayla hasn’t woke up and I’m scared of touching her and hurting her worse. I see the glass shining in her hair and realize the blood on her face is probably from that, but she’s also got blood along her side. When I see that the door handle somehow broke and impaled itself into her side, I wince, wondering if we just did more harm than good. “I need a towel or something to help stop the bleeding,” I yell. Within seconds, a t-shirt is handed to me and I glance over to see my dad standing there, shirtless.
I waste no time pressing it into her side and am encouraged when I hear her moan, even though her eyes stay closed. “I’m right here, Shay, I’ve got you, baby,” I say over and over again. “Not gonna leave your side.”
* * *
I lied to her. I had to leave her when they finally wheeled her into emergency surgery. It’s been two hours and I know I’ve worn a hole in the floor. “Fuck, what’s taking so long?” I ask the room.
“Brother, she’s hurt pretty bad, you need to calm the fuck down. Can’t you see you’re stressing your mother out?” Reese questions quietly. “Go sit down and let Bosco take some of that stress from you.” Since he says it like a demand, I comply, but barely.
I realize just how stressed I am when Bosco presses against me, alert. His actions soothe me, and I glance at my dad and ask, “What about the other two?”
“They’ve been treated, were admitted and are under police guard,” he replies. Good. Those two motherfuckers nearly took my world from me.
“They better pray to whatever they believe in that she makes it,” I mutter.
“Got the club attorney already checking into everything that they can be charged with,” Reese states. “Thinking they won’t be seeing sunshine unless it’s through bars for a long, long time.”
I’m about to say something when a female doctor comes through the doors I’ve been watching. “Hopkins family?” she asks. As a unit, we all stand and I notice that my dad is on one side of me and Reese is on the other, with Bosco standing in front of me, pressed against my legs.
“How is she?” I question.
“Well, we lost her once on the table but were able to resuscitate her. We had to do surgery on her to close the damage that was done when whatever hit you impaled her in the side. She had a nick to her small bowel which we’ve repaired, and we had to remove her appendix because we felt it was damaged enough that it wasn’t salvageable. And we had to remove her right ovary. The cut along her hairline has been sutured by an attending plastic surgeon and he doesn’t expect much if any scarring.”
My beautiful woman bore the brunt of the impact and hearing her injuries brings me to my knees. “When…when can I see her? I need to see her, please.” I know I’m almost begging, but I won’t rest until I can touch her, see her and watch her breathe.
“They’re moving her to a room now. She’s going to be sleeping for awhile, maybe you should wait until tomorrow,” the doctor suggests.
“No!” I don’t realize I’ve shouted until Dad’s hand clamps down on my shoulder.
“Nick, calm yourself. You can see her tonight, right, doctor?”
“I’ll see what I can do. You need to rest yourself, young man.”
Don’t they understand? I can’t rest. Not until I see her and tell her I love her.
Shayla
I don’t know where I am, but it’s beautiful. Birds are chirping and the sky is that shade of blue that makes you wanna smile. I can hear water trickling somewhere around me and everything is so vibrant it hurts my eyes. “Child, what are you doing here?”
Looking around, I see my grams coming toward me. “Grams! Oh, I’ve missed you so much! Where am I?”
“You’re in between, child. Come, let me look at you and see how you’ve grown.”
“In between? In between what, Grams?”
“In between living and dying, my sweet girl. But it’s not your time yet, you’ve got years and years before you come back.”
“It hurts, Grams, it hurts so much!”
“I know, Shayla, but you’ve got my great-grandbabies to raise. Time for you to go back to your young man and make sure he knows how you feel. It’s not too soon.”
* * *
“Nick, make it stop,” I moan.
Nothing.
I try again, shouting this time, “Please, make it stop.”
Still nothing.
I can hear voices murmuring but what they’re saying isn’t clear. Soon, I feel blessed coolness running into my arm and I fall into sleep.
Two days later
I can tell it’s early because it’s not too bright, but the light still bothers my eyes when I try to open them. “Nick?” My voice is little more than a rasp, like I’ve been a three-pack-a-day smoker for my entire life.
“I got you, Shay, I’m right here,” he murmurs. “Let me close the blinds some more and get you some water.” I moan in agreement because my throat hurts and I’m so thirsty I can’t stand it.
He eases me up a little, causing me to groan in pain, before he places a straw to my lips. “Little sips, baby,” he cautions when I try to drink more.
“Thirsty, biker man.”
“There’s my girl. Glad you’re coming back to me. To us.” Coming back? From where? What on earth is he talking about and why the hell do I hurt so bad?
“What happened?”
He sits in the chair that he’s pulled next to me and takes my hand in his. “What do you last remember?”
“Driving back to the clubhouse after we went and saw my place.”
“Baby, we were in an accident and you got hurt pretty bad. Impact was on your side of the truck.” At his words, a memory of a car coming at us with Piper and Quentin in it flashes across my mind.
“Nick! It was Quentin driving and Piper was in the car with him!”
“We know, baby. They’ve both been arrested but are hurt badly enough that they’ll be in medical solitary until they go to trial. No bond.”
“Good. Assholes.” My curse has him laughing and I glare at him because they are!
“Trust me, we’ve all called them much worse, but yours is by far the best.”
I remember snippets of a dream with my grams in it. “Nick? I dreamed about my grams, she said it wasn’t my time.”
His eyes close and he sighs. “They lost you once on the table, Shay,” he whispers.
I don’t know what to say when I realize how close I was to dying. I can see how broken he is, and his scruff shows he hasn’t shaved in a few days, at least. “How long?”
“It’s been two days.”
“And how bad?”
“They repaired a hole in your small bowel, had to remove your appendix and also your right ovary, and stitched up your face.”
“My face?” I’m not a prideful woman but hearing that my face has stitches makes me want to cry.
“No scarring according to the plastic surgeon. We got lucky, baby, because the ER doctor handling your care had her brother in town. The brother is a world-renowned plastic surgeon and h
e got attending privileges and did that surgery. It wouldn’t matter to me anyway. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, and I’ve only got eyes for you.”
“Nick, I’ve got something I wanna tell you.”
“Me first. Shay, I wasn’t looking for love or a woman. Hell, I was a live in the moment kind of guy. Running from my past, hiding from my family, not looking for much of a future beyond my club. Then I met you. In you I’ve found solace and strength. You took an unimaginable situation and instead of it breaking you, you found a way to work towards what you wanted. I love you, Shayla. Yesterday, today, tomorrow.”
By now, I’m quietly crying, and he finagles his way onto the bed. “I’ve got you, baby. In this crazy life, I choose you and Meli. I’ll always choose you.”
“Nick, I love you too.” I don’t remember my whole dream when I saw my grams, but I remember that much, her telling me to let him know how I feel.
“May be too soon, but I don’t give a fuck,” he states, taking my left hand in his before he leans in and kisses me. As I lose myself in him, thanking God that I’m still here to have this with him, I feel something sliding onto my finger. Pulling slightly back, I see a gorgeous miner-cut diamond. “Marry me, sweet girl,” he all but demands.
“You asking or telling, biker man?” I tease.
“Both, actually. You don’t have a choice in the matter, you’re my old lady and are gonna be my wife.”
“Then I say yes. I’d love to be your wife.”
21
Shayla
Two months later
“Corrie, I’m gonna kill him,” I mutter.
“Shayla, you know he’s just watching out for you.”
“I get being overprotective. I get being a bossy biker man. But he’s taken it to a whole new level!” Her laughter makes me want to throw something at her, but since we’re cleaning out cages, I refrain. Barely.
“What’s he done now?”
“Do you know he won’t let me walk anywhere? And that he hasn’t touched me since the accident?” Those are my top two complaints.
“Honey, didn’t you pay attention when we told you how these men are? You had something extreme happen and let me tell you, he was a basket case while we waited at the hospital for news. When he heard they lost you on the table, he broke down. Let him have this. You and that sweet girl of yours are his most cherished…hell, what’s the word I want? Not possessions, dammit! I hate when this happens!” I start to giggle at her frustration. Ever since she found out she’s pregnant again, she has pregger brain as she calls it.
“I know what you’re trying to say, but c’mon, no sex?”
“Your surgery was intense, and the doctor said eight to twelve weeks.”
“At the rate we’re going, Amelia will be a high school graduate before he touches me again. And the doctor gave me the all clear at my appointment last week.”
“May need to take the biker by the balls again, girl.” I grin because that’s exactly what I plan to do.
“Can you guys watch Amelia tonight? Time to take matters into my own hands.”
“So glad you’ve come into your biker babe, Shayla. I was worried for a bit when we first met you, but you take shit in stride. And yes, we’ll watch her, although Nick needs to stop giving JJ the evil eye whenever he grabs her hand. They’re babies, for fuck’s sake!”
I start laughing because she’s right. Every single time those two are near one another, they hold hands and jabber in their own secret language. Nick is taking this parenting thing seriously and has already ‘had words’ with Reese about how his son was behaving. “Did you hear him last weekend?”
Now she’s laughing with me as we remember the weekend before Christmas. We had held a club party, with everyone dressing up. Nick had decided that since I never went to prom, I deserved something similar, so the guys had hired a DJ, gotten The Steakhouse to cater the food, and then had Jaycie come in and decorate the clubhouse. Even the kids dressed up, at least for the early part of the night. When Nick saw JJ and Amelia ‘dancing’, he lost his shit and nearly came to blows with Reese, who was too busy acting like a proud peacock to do anything.
“Just because we had to wade through shit to get to our happily-ever-afters doesn’t mean our kids do, does it?” she asks.
“Nope, but don’t let my biker man hear you say that.”
“Say what?” Nick questions, walking into the kennel area.
“Nothing, just girl talk. You gonna take me home now?” He insists on me ‘resting’ every day, even though I feel better than I have in years. I’m finally at a good weight, not malnourished or stressed, and the work at the sanctuary is fulfilling.
“Absolutely. Corrie, Reese said y’all would keep Amelia tonight.” She grins at him and nods. “Good, he’s already got her and her stuff. C’mon, baby, let’s get you home.”
He scoops me up and I wink at her over his shoulder. Maybe he’s on the same page as me!
Nick
I carry her out to our new truck and manage to open her door and get her inside without putting her down. I know she thinks I’m going overboard but I came too close to losing her and still feel the need to hold her close. As I go to buckle her in, she puts a hand on my face. “Love you, Nick. Still right here, not going anywhere.”
She tells me that frequently, probably because nightmares that were abating came back stronger than ever after she got hurt. My therapist has helped a great deal and is one of the reasons that I got Reese to keep Meli for us tonight.
“Nick, by refusing her advances, you’re giving her the impression she’s no longer desirable. I understand how scared you were when she got hurt, but she’s alive and thriving. You need to remind yourself of that fact.”
Then the bastard had told me my homework was to go get my woman and make love to her. Can’t say that my dick didn’t like the task, but I’m not gonna lie, I’m afraid I’ll hurt her even though she told me what the doctor said last week when she went for her last check-up.
“I know, baby. Let’s go home.” The drive to our new place only takes a few minutes. I found what the real estate agent called a ‘modern day farmhouse’ that Shayla fell in love with and with what I had put back, was able to put a sizeable down payment on it. Once I have her inside, I close and lock the door then carry her into our master suite.
And it’s definitely a suite and was a selling factor for both of us, as were the bedrooms at the other end of the house. We’ve even got a second story, so as the kids we have get older, they can move upstairs. Right now, I’m content with everyone being nearby.
“Nick, what are you doing?” she asks as I carry her into our bathroom. I don’t reply, I just sit her down on the toilet and start drawing a bath. “Nick?” she questions again when I toss some of the bath salts she likes to use into the tub then turn to her and begin undressing her.
With every piece of clothing I remove, I pepper the exposed skin with kisses, which has her making those sweet noises I love to hear. Once she’s undressed, I stand her up and pull her close, knowing that the friction from my shirt and jeans is driving her crazy. “Love you, Shay.”
“I love you too. More than you’ll ever know,” she replies. I pull back enough to get undressed and then lead her to the tub and help her in, climbing in behind her. “What’s going on, Nick?”
“I have it on good authority that my woman is feeling a bit…neglected. Figured I would fix that if she was in agreement.” While I’ve been talking, I’ve been running my hands up and down her arms and I don’t miss that her breathing has changed.
“I’m definitely in agreement,” she replies, leaning her head back to kiss my jaw. Wanting more, I angle us so that I can take her lips in a kiss filled with the promise of forever behind it. I pull back slightly and ease her against my chest. I can feel my heart racing and know that as much as she affects me, she’s not immune, because her legs are moving restlessly, and goosebumps cover her arms and chest.
“God,
you’re so fucking gorgeous. How did a man like me get so fucking lucky?”
“I’m the lucky one,” she replies, trailing her hand beneath the water to stroke my thigh. My dick hardens even more, which I didn’t think was possible and I wonder how on earth I’m going to take it slow when it’s been so long. Hell, we haven’t really celebrated being engaged yet, at least not like most newly-engaged couples do! Her casual, “So, what time do we have to get Amelia tomorrow?” lets me know it’s going to be a long night.
“Whenever we get there,” I whisper, kissing behind her ear. “We’ve got all night, baby.”
Wanting to prolong our time in the bath but needing to be with my woman, I make quick work of washing us both and soon have her wrapped in a fluffy towel and in my arms.
I follow her down onto the bed and lean my forehead against hers. “Only good things from now on, Shay,” I promise. “You, me, Meli, our pets – that’s our focus until we decide to expand our family.”
“I’m good with that, baby,” she whispers. Once again, she shocks the hell out of me by saying, “Nick, please make love to me.”
“Your wish is my command, sweet girl.” With that, I move down to take one of her nipples in my mouth as my hand strokes between her thighs. While I want to feast on her, we’ve got plenty of time. Right now, we need that connection. “No clue how long I’ll last.”
“Same. Because someone’s been teasing the hell outta me for weeks now.”
“No more teasing, Shay,” I reply as I slowly enter her. The feel of her bare has me nearly nutting up, but I breathe deeply to move past that sensation. The best thing we did was have her get the implant. She wasn’t happy about the few pounds she claims she gained, but it all went to her tits and delectable ass, so I’ll never complain.
Nick: Black Tuxedos MC Page 14
