Angel's Halo

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Busy here, Flick!” I tell her.

  “Come on, baby.” My captor says in a husky voice that’s supposed to be sexy. It just turns my stomach. The hand that’s not in my hair moves down and squeezes my ass.

  The sudden growl that fills the room is feral and does something unexpected to my stomach. I know who it had come from even before I turn my head and see him standing in the doorway.

  Silver-blue eyes shoot bolts of lightning at the boy holding me against my will. And yes he was a boy. Every guy in the house was a boy compared to this beast of a man. Just looking at him makes my panties wet, even when my heart cracks in my chest.

  “That’s it, baby. Give me that sexy mouth.”

  I almost forgot about the jock that still had a hold of me. Taking me by surprise, he pulls me flat against his chest and lowers his head before I can stop him.

  “No!” I struggle harder, fighting the guy with everything I have. My nails scratch down his face, and I feel his skin scraping away, leaving long bloody lines on his cheek. He only groans with pleasure. “Feisty. I love feisty.”

  “Motherfucker!” The beast roars and the next thing I know I’m on the floor as the jock is lifted by his hair and thrown against the wall.

  My heart races with a mixture of fear and—yeah, I’ll admit it—lust. Watching Bash get all animalistic like that always makes me hot no matter what. Especially when it’s because of me. I slowly get to my feet, grimacing because my ass aches a little from the fall.

  A thump has me turning to find Bash with the guy pinned against the wall. He’s in the guy’s face whispering something that quickly sobers him up. Frightened eyes turn toward me and I catch the words “Angel’s Halo” and “dead” and “swallow your dick.” The normal threats.

  “Bash.” I touch his arm, feeling his tense muscles rippling with every breath. He’s vibrating with rage, and I know that can be deadly for whomever is on the receiving end of that particular emotion.

  I feel him shudder under my touch. Slowly that face I’ve loved from the time I was old enough to know what love was turns to look at me. Silver-blue eyes darken when his gaze meets mine. My heart aches being this close to him. Touching him makes me hurt in ways that no one will ever understand—myself included. Raising a hand that noticeably trembles, I push his dark hair back from his eyes. “Let him go, Bash.”

  “He touched you,” Bash’s dark voice growls. “Did you want his hands on you?”

  I raise a brow at his accusing tone. “If I say yes will you kill him?” When he tenses even more, I know that the answer was yes. “If I say no, will you kill him?” Even tenser, and I sigh. It’s a no win type of situation, so there’s only one option.

  I push between Bash and the jock, my body against Bash’s big, hard one. All my female needs make me melt feeling him so close. “I’m a big girl, Bash. I can take care of myself. Do you see his face? He will remember me long after I’ve forgotten about him. Now stop being so territorial and let him go.”

  “No.” I can see that he’s starting to come down from his rage high, the feel of my body against his own affecting him as nothing else can. A different kind of tension fills him and I’m rewarded with the pulsing of his hard dick against my stomach. “He touched you.”

  I shrug. “He doesn’t know the rules, Bash. He’s strung out on who knows what. A weak man with a bored life. Let him go.”

  “Jet would have killed him,” He mutters.

  I smile just a little. “Yes. It takes a stronger man than this one to stand up against my brother. You did.” I remember the night that Jet had punished Bash and it makes my stomach roll all over again. My smile disappears. “Does your arm still hurt?”

  “When it rains.” Which it had tonight. Hating the thought of him hurting, I reach out and trace the line on his left forearm—the one that had to be put back together with surgery after Jet finished with him. The scar goes all the way from his wrist to his elbow, and I let my fingers caress the puckered flesh. It’s still pink and angry looking. A year has gone by since he had gotten it.

  “Let him go, Bash.” I whisper, pushing myself against him. “Take me home.”

  Chapter 5

  Raven

  Bash has been a part of my life almost as long as my brothers have. His aunt and uncle lived beside of me my entire life. When Bash’s dad, Marl, died they took him in and raised him as their own; he’s just as much of a son to them as Matt and Tanner. As soon as he was old enough, Bash became a member of Angel’s Halo. Being a biker was like a family trade to most of the guys, and everyone expected Bash to climb the ranks of the MC.

  Marl Reid had been my father’s enforcer, making sure that punishments got dealt with in the proper fashion and all that bullshit. When my dad died and the Originals figured that Angel’s Halo needed a younger generation to take over as president, they handed everything over to Jet. My brother had wanted only one man as his enforcer. Bash was barely twenty-two when he became the new enforcer. No one wanted the punishments when they were being given out by the beast that was Bash Reid, so bikers rarely got into trouble within the club. To this day they are still terrified of Bash. I was sure that if he had been around when Westcliffe had gone rogue, things would have gone a lot differently.

  I was fifteen the first time I knew I wanted Bash. My brothers all thought it was a crush. Even at that tender age I knew I wanted him for keeps, and there was nothing that would keep him from me. So I took my time, let him see how much of a woman I’d become, and waited to make my move.

  At sixteen I let him know that I wanted him. Bash wasn’t like some of the fucktards within Angel’s Halo. He didn’t do jailbait, and that’s exactly what I was. I knew that I needed to mark my territory, so I did.

  He was lying in the hammock in the Reids’ backyard, looking bored and more than a little tired after the run the guys had been on over the weekend. His silver-blue eyes were closed and I took a moment just to soak in the sight of the man I wanted. Hair as black as a raven’s wing fell to his shoulders. The white tank he wore stretched tightly across stone-hard muscles. Veins bulged in his arms, and I wanted to trace every one of them with my tongue nearly as much as I wanted to explore what was beneath those low riding distressed jeans. Even now, when I hated him as much as I loved him, I ached to touch and taste him. The man was an addiction that I was never likely to kick.

  Catching him by surprise, I dropped into the hammock, letting my fingers trail over one of those veins. My fingertips prickled with electricity from just touching him like that, and my breath caught in my throat.

  Bash grunted something under his breath and opened his eyes, startling silver-blue shooting lightning as he watched my fingers caressing over his flesh. “Raven?” My name came out in a rough growl.

  I smiled and looked at him from beneath my lashes. “Seeing if you feel as hard as you look.”

  “Oh yeah?” His dark voice lowered, the sound making me shiver with pleasure. “Am I?”

  “More like velvet covered steel.” I told him honestly, tracing the bulging vein along the inside of his forearm. “Do you always feel this hot? It’s nearly scalding.”

  “You’re going down a dangerous road, Raven.” He caught my hand, stopping my caresses, but didn’t push me away or let me go.

  “I just wanted to let you know that …” My courage faltered for just a second, but then I sucked it up and let him have it. “I want you, Bash. I want to be yours.”

  His eyes widened with a mixture of desire and apprehension. We both knew the rule. No one touches Raven Hannigan. It only bothered me when I thought of Bash being unable to touch me because of that dumbass rule. “You want to be my ol’ lady?”

  “Yeah …” I hated it when the guys called their wives or girlfriends that. “Yeah, that’s what I want to be.”

  In one quick move he was out of the hammock and I was on my feet where he had placed me. I blinked, surprised to find him more than a yard away from me. His eyes were hard, but he couldn’t compl
etely hide the desire I saw burning in those silver-blue depths. “When I decide I want an ol’ lady, it won’t be with someone that chases after me, Raven. It might be a turn-on for some guys, but not me.”

  After humiliating me with those words, he walked off. I stood there broken, my heart aching for months after. I didn’t even look at him, let alone speak to him. No one noticed, of course, because I refused to let anyone know that I was heartbroken over a dickhead like Bash Reid. During that time he went through a new girl every week, breaking me a little more every time I saw him with one of the sheep all over him. Just the thought of him screwing everything with a vagina back then still makes me crazy with jealousy.

  Finally, a few months before I turned eighteen, I forced myself to get over it and move on. I started working at the bar and was nearly done with high school, so I needed to focus on what I was going to do with my life when school ended. My brothers had wanted me to go to college like Felicity, but I wasn’t sure that was the road I wanted to travel. I started taking some bookkeeping classes so I could help out more at the bar. Lord knows that my brothers weren’t all that great at keeping up with our shit anyway. Obviously that’s still true because I spend hours doing the books on Sundays.

  When the Originals found out I was doing a great job with our books at the bar, actually putting us in the black, they hired me to do the books for some of their personal businesses. Some of those businesses are legit, but the majority not so much. But the Originals know that they can trust me with all of their finance secrets. I still spend most Saturdays working for the Originals instead of at the bar, but their business interests have expanded to the point that I now have to take care of it throughout the week as well.

  I happened to be finishing up at Uncle Jack’s bike shop one night when I ran into Bash. The place was so quiet that I assumed everyone else had already left for the evening, and I wasn’t even watching where I was going as I walked out of the makeshift office Uncle Jack had made for me out back. Suddenly, I hit a wall of rock and nearly fell on my ass.

  Strong, hot hands caught my elbows and jerked me back against the wall of muscle. My breath trapped somewhere between my lungs and my throat from surprise and the feeling of having his hands on me. Raising my head, I found those silver-blue eyes glaring down at me.

  I clenched my jaw, hating and loving him all in the same moment. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

  Bash took half a step back, putting some distance between us, but didn’t let go of my elbows. “Are you done for the night?”

  “Yeah, all done.” I pulled free, needing some space before I did something embarrassing like begging him to kiss me. After seeing him practically having sex with a girl at the Originals’ booth two nights before, I wasn’t sure if I even wanted those lips on me.

  “Can you clean this up for me?” he asked as I tried to move around him. That was when I saw the bloody gash on his bare bicep.

  My eyes widened. “What the fuck, Bash!” It was deep and looked like it was caused by a knife. “Who cut you?”

  He lifted his good arm in a half-shrug. “Some posers came into the bar and were causing trouble. They all pulled knives. Luckily I’m the only one that got nicked.”

  “Nicked?” I exclaimed, getting a better look at his wound. “You need stitches!”

  “I figured as much.” He grimaced at the blood still oozing from the cut. “Can you do it?”

  I turned away from him, muttering curses under my breath. I was the one they all went to when they needed a few stitches or something nasty that needed tending too. There were countless times I had sewn up one of my brothers or one of their men. I never had to tend to Bash. Either he had never gotten hurt or he had someone else as a nurse. I wasn’t even sure I could turn my emotions off long enough to take care of his wound.

  “It’s not that bad, Raven.”

  I gritted my teeth and turned back around to face him. “Fine. But I can’t do this here. I need my kit and that’s at home.”

  “Then let’s go.” He followed me home on his hog, and I dreaded what I would have to do the entire drive. I wasn’t faint of heart. The sight of blood had never made me queasy, and I had put needles and thread in plenty of people, yet the mere thought of doing the same to Bash made my hands shake.

  I started boiling water as soon as I walked into the empty house. My brothers were all at the bar taking care of business in one way or another. It was Saturday night and I didn’t expect them to be home until early morning. Bash pulled up a seat at the huge kitchen table, turned it around, and straddled it. I felt his eyes on me as I went around the kitchen gathering all the things I would need.

  Finally I sat down beside of him and started to clean the deep cut on his bicep. “How did the knife even get you? As hard as these damned things are, I expect a knife to just bounce off.”

  A deep, husky chuckle fell from his lips. “I guess I’ll have to start pumping iron more. My muscles seem to have gotten a little flabby lately.”

  I rolled my eyes and cleaned away the last of the dried blood. Now that I could examine the injury, I saw that it wasn’t as bad as I had originally thought, but it still wasn’t pretty. I picked up the Betadine and disinfected the area. Most of the guys I had to do this to would have already been whining. Not Bash. He didn’t even flinch as I got the wound ready to stitch.

  “I’m out of the numbing spray I usually have,” I told him, my voice cracking ever so slightly with regret.

  “I’m fine, Raven.” He sounded more amused at how torn up I was and that pissed me off.

  Gritting my teeth, I lifted the needle from the boiling water I had placed it in and threaded it. As I placed the tip against his skin my fingers started to tremble. I sucked in a deep breath to steady myself. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I made the first stitch.

  He was quiet for the next five minutes as I put ten stitches into his arm and then placed gauze over the cut. With each stitch I was closer and closer to tears, and I stood as soon as I was finished, keeping my eyes on anything but him so he wouldn’t see. I wasn’t a crier. Very little could affect me to the point of tears.

  “Raven …” he growled my name before I could take a step away from him. Strong arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back around to face him. I bit my lip, attempting to keep it from trembling. Long, rough fingers touched my face and wiped at one errant tear as it spilled over onto my cheek. “You should never shed tears for a bastard like me, Raven.”

  I glared down at him through my watery eyes. “Excuse me for having a heart.” I pulled away from him and started cleaning away the mess I had made. “I’m done. You can go do whatever it is that Bash Reid does on Saturday night. I’m sure there are plenty of sheep down at the bar waiting for you.” There always were on Saturday nights, whereas on Fridays they were rarely around. It had something to do with the Originals and Jet handling club business on Fridays, but I couldn’t be sure.

  “What are you going to do tonight?” he asked. Instead of getting up like I had expected, he just sat there watching every move I made.

  I shrugged. “Probably order a pizza and call Flick. I’ve been doing books all day for the Originals and my head is killing me.”

  “Sounds good. I want extra meat on my half.”

  I spun around to face him. Those silver eyes blazing down at me from under long sooty lashes. “What?”

  “Extra meat, Raven. And some hot wings. Extra hot.” He looked relaxed sitting there watching me, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if he hadn’t just shocked me into next week.

  “I don’t believe I asked you to join me.” I wanted my voice to be hard and arctic cold. Instead it came out husky and weak as fuck.

  Bash’s mouth tilted on the right side in a cocky half-grin. “Are you going to tell me no?”

  “I …” I didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to go, didn’t want him to find one of the sheep down at the bar to keep him company tonight, but at the same time I wasn’t sure I could
handle being in the same room with him right now. Not with the house completely empty and my feelings so close to the surface.

  “Get me a beer, baby,” he commanded, and before I knew what I was doing I had gone to the fridge and pulled one out for him.

  Oh fuck no! As soon as I handed it over I put some distance between us. “I’m not a sheep, Bash, any more than I am your ol’ lady. You want a beer, you get it yourself. But don’t expect me to jump at your every command.”

  “I know you aren’t a sheep!” he exploded. “I would kill any man who treated you like one. I just want to spend the evening here with you. Is that too much for you to comprehend, girl?”

  I put my hands on my hips glaring down at him. “You could try asking.”

  His face hardened and his jaw clenched so hard he was going to break a few teeth. Nostrils flared as he sucked in one deep breath after another. I was sure that he’d jump up and leave me standing there, instead he surprised me further. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

  Gaping at the question, I found myself nodding. “Yeah, you can stay.”

  Chapter 6

  Raven

  I blink my eyes, coming back to the present as Bash pulls my Challenger into my driveway and cuts the engine. I hadn’t thought about that night in forever, hadn’t let myself think about any of those nights when Bash would just sit on the couch in my living room eating pizza as we got to know each other on a deeper level.

  If I thought I loved Bash before, then I was mistaken. Every Saturday night I fell a little deeper as he wormed himself into a part of my heart that still refuses to kick him out after everything he’s said and done.

  “You’re thinking pretty hard over there,” Bash says as he turns in the driver seat to face me.

  I shrug. “I’m probably just drunk.” I’m not, but it’s as good an excuse as any. I’m tired and I don’t feel like rehashing the past. I can’t change it any more than he can, so there’s no use in postmortems. I’ve already gotten over him leaving me …