Angel's Halo

by Terri Anne Browning

  My nails slice into his back and he flinches as I reopen a scratch. I feel blood bead against my fingertips. “I’m sorry,” I whisper around a moan.

  Bash grins down at me. “Don’t be. I love how wild you get. Love how you tear up my back. It’s still a little sensitive from the new ink though. Pretty sure you just destroyed Spider’s masterpiece.”

  He has new ink? I want to see, but he moves deeper within me, and I lose all train of thought. I drop my hands from his back and twist my fingers in the sheets on each side of me to keep from tearing his back up any more than I already have.

  My inner muscles start clenching before I even realize that I’m close to release. “No!” I moan. “I don’t want to come yet.”

  “Just let yourself go, baby.” He buries his face between my breasts, kissing and licking the valley. “I’ll make you come again and again, I swear.”

  I’m helpless to stop the first orgasm as it rushes over me, leaving me trembling and clinging to him. My back arches so hard it cracks …

  And then the bedroom door slams against the wall as Spider barges in.

  I scream. Bash roars something I don’t understand as my eyes find a beautiful woman standing beside of Spider, trying to pull her wrist free from his grip.

  She has to be Willa. All the rumors of how beautiful she is are true. Long, dark hair, big eyes as gray as a stormy sky. Small and curvy. Alabaster skin that’s freaking perfect. And she’s been living with Bash for over a year.

  “Get the fuck out!” Bash shouts at Spider.

  Spider ignores him as he turns his gaze to me. I bite my lip. As comfortable as we’d been together, he’s never seen me naked before, even though I’ve seen every inch of him. “Are you okay?”

  “Um …” I let my eyes move to Bash, who’s surprisingly still rock-hard and deep inside of me. “Pretty good.”

  “Did he force you to come home? You can come back to my place if you want.” Spider keeps his gaze on my face, not seeming to notice that I’m naked as the day I was born.

  Bash makes a growling noise that vibrates within my entire body. I stroke a hand down his arm in an attempt to calm him. No way do I want him to kill Spider, but I’m positive he will if Spider doesn’t leave soon. “I’ll keep that in mind …” Bash glares at me and I rolled my eyes. “Don’t start. Just because we’ve fucked doesn’t mean we’re back together.”

  “From the look of his back, it looks like you did more than fuck.” Willa comments, seeming to have given up on getting her wrist free from Spider’s grip. There’s a sly grin on her face as she tilts her head to examine his back. “Wow. That raven is all kinds of shredded.”

  “Shut up, Willa,” Spider snaps without looking at her. “I’ll be downstairs. When you’re ready, we can talk.”

  The door slams behind them and I fall back against the pillows. Above me Bash remains completely still, yet completely hard and deep inside me. “Well, are you going to finish fucking me or can I get up?”

  Bash’s throat works and he sounds almost strangled as the words leave him. “I don’t want to fuck you, Raven. I want to make love to you. I thought that was what we had been doing all night …”

  My heart clenches and I close my eyes to hide from the pain I see shining down at me from those incredible eyes I love so much. “Were we?” I whisper.

  “Yes.” He brushes a soft kiss over my closed eyes. “As much as I love you, how could it be called anything else?”

  “All I have is your word that you love me.” I open my eyes and meet his gaze. “For me actions speak a hell of a lot louder than words, and so far your actions have only told me that you lust for my body. Other than that you could give a fuck about me and my feelings. So in my book we were just fucking.” I pushed against his chest until he rolled off of me.

  “Raven ... What can I do to make you see that I love you?” He demands as I head for the bathroom door across the room. “What do you need from me?”

  I pause with my hand on the bathroom door. What do I need? I’m not even sure I know the answer to that. If I did, I’d have gladly given it to him so he could put us both out of our misery and we could move on. Instead, I’m just as lost to the answer to our problem—okay, so it’s my problem. “I don’t know,” I finally tell him honestly. “I really don’t know, Bash.” I turn to face him. “I want the truth. All of it. Every detail. So far all I’ve gotten is bullshit excuses that don’t even scratch the surface. You had a daughter I didn’t know anything about. It wouldn’t have bothered me nearly as much if you had just told me about her in the beginning. I love you enough to accept her. To want to make her my own. But then I found out about Willa and I … What else don’t I know, Bash? What else are you keeping from me?”

  “Nothing!” He jumps off the bed and crosses over to me in a matter of a few seconds. “Willa is the only thing I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you would react like this. You’re almost irrational when you’re jealous, baby. And believe me, I understand that, because I get homicidal when it comes to you. But there is absolutely nothing else that I have kept from you.”

  I want to believe him, want to accept what he’s saying as the truth, but I can’t. Only time will tell.

  “I need a shower,” I say, my gaze moving to his still hard dick. “Come wash my back?”

  Chapter 18

  Raven

  My legs are still shaking as I step out of the shower a long while later. Bash left me trembling against the shower wall more than ten minutes ago. “I’ll make pancakes,” he promised with one last lingering kiss before he disappeared.

  Somehow I managed to wash during that time, and now I stand in front of the floor-length mirror that’s always been on the back of the bathroom door in what had been my parents’ room. It feels odd being in here when it’s always been off limits growing up. This is my room now, though. Mine and Bash’s.

  The few times I’d come in here as a kid, the bathroom had always been a mess. Now it’s spotless with a new shower door as well as a brand new sink. The bedroom has a new king size bed, compared to the smaller queen that had been the same one my dad shared with my mother. The bedding is new too, red and cream colored, complimenting the new burgundy carpet. Bash must have spent a small fortune getting this room in order for us over the last few days.

  The smell of frying bacon and the sound of a little girl giggling reaches me as I descended the stairs. The sound makes my heart clench, but not entirely in a bad way. Is it wrong that I’m glad her mother is gone? Does it make me a horrible person that I want to take over that job?

  I decide that if it does, I don’t care. I’m a selfish, jealous person. I’m not nice, or necessarily a good person most of the time. I’ll rip a bitch apart with little to no provocation. But I’m going to try hard to be a good mother to Lexa.

  Spider is sitting in the living room, and I stop at the bottom of the stairs to look at him. He’s on the long couch sitting on the edge of the cushion with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He looks kind of sick, and I wonder how bad of a hangover he’s fighting.

  I move to sit on the coffee table in front of him. Carefully, I touch one of his hands and his head jerks up. When he sees me sitting in front of him his whole body relaxes, if only a little. “Are you okay?”

  “Are you okay?” he asks at the same time I did.

  I snort. “Maybe. I don’t know yet. You?”

  He shrugs. “I’m all kinds of fucked up, Raven.” Spider sits back with a sigh, glaring up at the ceiling as if it kicked his puppy. “I just want to go home and sleep for about a year. Maybe this shit will all go away if I do.”

  I remember how tightly he’d been holding Willa’s hand. “She break your heart?” If that bitch had hurt my friend I’ll personally end her!

  “More like I broke both of our hearts,” he mutters, running a hand over his face before standing. “I’ll tell you about it some other time. I’m going to head home and grab a few more hours of sleep before I hav
e to go to work.”

  I stand and follow him to the door, hating the way his shoulders slumped in defeat. Before he steps over the threshold I hug him. “Remember that no matter what, I still love you, Spider. Okay?”

  His arms tighten around me for a second before he steps back and offers me a forced smile. “Love you too, Rave.”

  I wait until he’s on his hog before shutting the door and heading for the kitchen. Colt, Raider, Tanner, and Matt are sitting at my kitchen table with Willa and the cutest little girl I’ve ever seen in my life. I freeze, taking every inch of her in.

  Long, thick hair as dark as her father’s. Those same striking silver-blue eyes. That fucking smile! My breath hitched and I swallowed hard around the lump that was starting to form in my throat. In the blink of an eye my heart became invested in that little girl …

  “There she is!” Tanner greets me with a knowing grin. “Finally get clean, Rave?”

  Normally I would have shot him the finger, but Lexa’s gaze snaps to me as soon as Tanner speaks. I’m trapped in that gaze that’s so much like her daddy’s. My heart literally hurts as I wait for her to size me up as only daughters can when it comes to the women in their daddy’s life, fearing she’ll fine me lacking in some way.

  After nearly a full minute, Lexa’s face relaxes into a smile, and she gives me a shy wave before turning her attention back to the pancake on her plate. I sneak a glance at Bash, who’s watching me closely. There’s a frown wrinkling his forehead but a smile teasing at his lips. “Morning, Raven,” he finally says with a wink.

  “Morning.” It comes out practically as a whisper and I hurry to the table. There are only three seats left, one between Tanner and Raider, one between Willa and Lexa, and one between Lexa and Colt. No way do I want Bash sitting so close to Willa, so that makes my decision marginally easier to make.

  I pull the chair out between the two newest additions to my family and carefully sit down. I’m not going to like Willa Blackstone. I’m not! So I ignore her as I watch Lexa carefully tear a piece of her pancake off with her fork and nibble on it. When I notice that she’s not eating syrup on it, I frown. “Don’t you like syrup?” I ask before I even realize I’m going to speak.

  Lexa’s hair falls back from her beautiful little face and her cheeks fill with pink before she finally shakes her head. “It might have nuts.”

  “Oh …” I whisper.

  “Lexa has a nut allergy,” Willa comments from my left, and I turn my head to find her giving me a small smile. “I hope you don’t like peanut butter, Raven. Because she can’t even touch the stuff.”

  My eyes widen and I turn back to the little girl who looks almost embarrassed. I shake my head. “I never could stand peanut butter,” I tell the three year old, who relaxes immediately. “It gets stuck to the roof of your mouth and it takes forever to get off.”

  “Daddy threw away a whole bunches of stuff when we got here,” Lexa informs me with a quick glance at her father. “And gots all new stuff just for me.”

  “That was very nice of your daddy,” I murmur. “He must love you very much to make sure that all the food is safe for his pretty little girl.”

  Lexa beams at me. “He does!” Then her eyes widen. “You think I’m pretty?”

  “Of course!” I exclaim. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Not Bobby McMillian,” Lexa sighs. “He says I am too ugly to be his friend.”

  “Lexa!” Bash mutters. “I told you that Bobby is too ignorant to even know what being beautiful means. And you don’t have to worry about that little creep ever again. You live here now … Okay?”

  “’Kay, Daddy,” Lexa whispers before taking another nibble of her plain pancake.

  I grin. “Well, it sounds like Bobby just has a crush on you, Lexa. Little boys are always mean to the girls they really like at your age.”

  “Ewwww!” Lexa makes a gagging face causing everyone at the table to laugh. “He’s gross. Bobby doesn’t wash his hands when he uses the bathroom.”

  “What? How disgusting! Good thing your daddy brought you to live here. All the little boys I know always wash their hands after going to the bathroom.”

  I feel Bash’s heat against my back before he leans forward to place a plate of pancakes and bacon in front of me. “I love you,” he whispers against my ear before stepping back.

  Gooseflesh pops up all over my body, and I can’t contain my shiver from his touch. Clearing my throat, I reach for the dish of powdered sugar in front of me. “Thanks.”

  Everyone is mostly quiet around me as I practically inhale half my plate of food. When I realize that someone’s missing I glance at Raider. “Where is Hawk? He doesn’t normally sleep this long so I know he isn’t in bed.”

  “Gracie had a morning class. Apparently one of the creeps from the party is in the same class. She tried to make it sound like it didn’t bother her, but Hawk couldn’t stand it. So he followed her not long after Flick picked her up.” Raider shrugs. “I figure he’s going to stalk her all morning or maybe even sit through her class with her.”

  Colt, Tanner, and Matt snort. “That chick has him all kinds of knotted up,” Colt mutters, taking a swallow of his coffee. “Never knew Hawk to let a little piece of tail get under his skin like that.”

  “Don’t,” I snap at the youngest of my brothers. “Just don’t. Gracie is different. You show her some respect. Hawk has something special, something you’ll be lucky to find. So keep your degrading comments to yourself, Colton Hannigan.”

  “Relax, Rave,” Tanner says, wiping powdered sugar from his lips. “Just because Hawk is suddenly all pussy whipped doesn’t mean you have to cut us all new ones.”

  Bash’s hand slams down on the table so suddenly I jump. Lexa yelps, reaching for my hand and holding on instinctively. “Be careful what you say, cousin. I won’t think twice about ripping you a new one myself if you continue to speak like that in front of my girls.”

  Tanner doesn’t seem to take him seriously. He meets Bash’s gaze head on with a douche bag smile on his face. “Which girls would that be, Bash? Willa and Lexa? Or is Raven tossed in there somewhere?”

  I can actually feel the rage boiling inside of the beast of a man standing behind me, can feel the tension grow so thick I could have cut it with my butter knife. Pushing my plate away, I tug on Lexa’s hand. “Let’s find something to watch on the television in my new room, Lexa. Your daddy bought me a big flat screen and I bet cartoons will look awesome on it.”

  As I stand with Lexa’s hand secured in my own, I brush against Bash’s arm. “Don’t kill him,” I whisper.

  “Turn the television up as high as you can,” he whispers without taking his eyes off the man behind me. Part of me feels bad for Tanner. A bigger part hopes that Bash kicks his ass until he can’t walk. That poor idiot never does know when to keep his big mouth shut.

  When Lexa and I reach the kitchen door, I glance back at Willa. “You like cartoons too?”

  “Nope, but I’m sure they’ll be more entertaining than the blood bath about to ensue down here.”

  Bash

  As soon as I hear the door shut upstairs I count to twenty—plenty of time for Raven to have turned the television on loud enough for Lexa to not hear what’s about to happen. During that time Tanner could have made a run for it. If he had, I wouldn’t have followed, at least not until I know that Raven and Lexa are out of harm’s way.

  Tanner doesn’t run. Despite how nervous I can see he is, he’s manned up and sits there willing to take the punishment I was going to relish dishing out. No one says a word. They know the penalty of interfering. I’m president now. It’s the law in the club. Until right this second, I’m sure that at least one of them had forgotten that little detail, which is why he didn’t stop to think before running his mouth.

  “To answer your question …” The words come out in a pant from the effort it takes to keep still and not break his fucking neck right then and there. “Raven and Lexa. It has always been Raven,
understand? Willa might be under my protection, but don’t mistake that for what’s between me and Raven. You just disrespected not only my daughter but the woman I’m going to marry … Know what that makes you?”

  “Dead?” Tanner shoots back, sounding both cocky and terrified.

  “She asked me not to kill you, cousin. When I’m through with you, you’ll be begging her to let me end you.”

  Chapter 19

  Gracie

  Felicity stops in front of the Science Building and gives me a warm, if tired, smile. Not for the first time I wonder what—or who—broke her so completely. I used to see that same smile on my mom’s face each morning after my dad came home late from work the night before. It had been every morning in the end, and it had hurt to see that smile on my mom’s pretty face.

  It hurts to see that smile on Felicity’s face, too.

  “Do you have a lab today?” she asked, turning off the radio from a button on the steering wheel.

  “I have an independent lab with the professor’s aide who teaches the normal lab. I made a deal with him to give me some extra help and I would help him with his English paper. That’s not until Monday afternoon though.” I’m lucky to have a lab teacher that’s brilliant with Chemistry but dropped his English 102 class because he kept getting poor grades on his papers. Since the beginning of the semester back in January we’ve both done exceptionally well in each subject.

  Felicity actually grins even if it doesn’t quite reach her amazing blue eyes. “What is your major again? Going to be a lawyer and mediate tough deals?”

  I shrug. “It is one of several different career paths I’ve been thinking about.” My father had been a big time corporate lawyer back in Boston. His entire family had been lawyers. My grandparents have always tried to drill it into my head that I should be a lawyer too, follow in the footsteps of my ancestors. Corporate Law is not what I wanted. If I decide on becoming a lawyer, which is the most likely of my options since I transferred to Creswell University this semester. They have an exceptional law program while offering a small school atmosphere. I want to do something like legal aid. Help those that need help the most but can’t afford the higher prices of the crooked lawyers—something I’m sure my father had truly been.