by A. J. Downey
BROTHER
IN ARMS
A.J. Downey
Second Circle Press
Contents
Title Page
Book Summary
Author's Note
Dedication
The Sacred Brotherhood
Publishing Info
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Other books by A.J. Downey
About the Author
Rush had always been the brother that was the most up for adventure. Then Grinder died and he realized that it was time to slow down. Fast-forward by a year and more and his older brother Archer had found Mel. Hell, his own twin was with a woman of his own! Rush is starting to get restless again, which was just perfect. Cue a string of anonymous hook-ups and one night stands. It was enough to feed the restlessness for a while, then an adventure of sorts came a callin’ by way of the VP’s estranged aunt and the President’s sister-in-law.
Her daughter was in need of some kind of white knight, which Rush could care less about, but the white knight routine did come with a pretty big perk. It would mean that he got to go back to a job that had, once upon a time, felt like a calling.
Of course, nothing was ever easy where Rush was concerned, especially when he actually set eyes on the damsel in distress. One, she wasn’t some paper princess, and two, she definitely didn’t want him around. After all, one-night hook-ups were supposed to be just that… one and done.
Author’s Note
Being a spin-off, the events of this trilogy take place after the events of Damaged & Dangerous, The Sacred Hearts MC Book VI. If you have not read the SHMC series, references and events that are talked about in this book may not make sense to you. I highly suggest reading the SHMC series first.
Dedication
To everyone on my beta team, I seriously couldn’t have pulled this one off without you. Thank you so much for your hard work and dedication. This book is a thousand percent better because of you.
The Sacred Brotherhood
1. Brother To Brother
2. Her Brother’s Keeper
3. Brother In Arms
Published 2017 by Second Circle Press
Book design by Lia Rees at Free Your Words
Cover art by Wicked Smart Designs
Text copyright © 2017 AJ Downey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
Rush
“Harder!” she gasped, and I felt a wicked grin curve my lips.
“Yeah? You want it?” I murmured by her ear and she locked her legs around my hips, digging her nails into my ass, pulling my cock deeper.
“I want it,” she affirmed, her breath heavy with the scent of the bourbon she’d drunk.
We were at The Spot and feelin’ fucking fine. I had her luscious ass backed into a corner, in the alcove by the bathrooms. Her short denim skirt riding high, her thin scrap of panties moved aside and my cock buried balls deep inside her.
It was a classless hookup but she’d been all in, giving me eyes from across the bar for the better part of an hour before I’d left Nox and Arch and wandered over. She moved her hand from my ass and dragged my mouth to hers and fuck she tasted amazing; like that bourbon and brown sugar. Some kind of alluring concoction of the liquor she’d been knocking back and her lip gloss, and I couldn’t get enough.
“You like that?” I demanded and she gasped.
“Yeah,” her voice was breathy with passion and her body gripped mine like a glove. I bowed my head and nipped the side of her neck, pounding into her, her long brown hair done in twin braids gave her this hot, sexy, little-miss-innocent look while her eyes; heavy lidded with passion told me just what a little minx she was.
She was far from innocent, and knew just how to fire me up; she laughed softly and I thrust as deep as I could go, turning the light sound into a deep, guttural moan.
“Tell me your name,” I demanded and she smiled a secret little smile.
“No… and don’t you dare stop,” she muttered by my ear and added gasoline to the burn in my blood even more. I fucked this bitch in the back of the bar, where anyone could happen by and see us, and all I could think was how I wanted more. She was both the sun beating down on me and a cool drink of water on the same long hot day, and I was one thirsty son of a bitch.
Chapter 1
Rush
Six weeks later…
“Yeah just about everybody in here is out having relationships and shit and I’m just over here like BRRRRAAAP!” I pantomimed twisting down on a throttle to a bunch of laughter and cracking up in the rest of the club’s taproom. I grinned and turned around on my barstool and picked up my Bloody Mary, trying like hell to recover from the hard partying of the night before.
Reaver laughed and Hayden snuggled happily in his lap, I watched them in the mirror behind the bar and was both seriously glad for them and super jealous at the same time. Reaver stared his woman in the eyes and addressing me said, “You don’t know what you’re missing, man.”
Problem was that I did. I so did, and it was hard as fuck not to know when Dray was smiling across a table at Everett and Trig was running his hand through Sunshine’s hair, dragging her face to his for a long kiss. I rolled my eyes. My time would come eventually, I had to believe that, but at the same time, I wasn’t lookin’ for it anymore. I’d given that shit up, all it did was land me with a bunch of bitches only in it for themselves.
“Ooooh I do, trust me,” I said. “That shit’s a bunch of drama that I just do not need.”
Just as the words died on my lips the front door to the club swung open and a woman, complete with a fuckin’ pantsuit on, walked in like she fuckin’ owned the place. All of us froze and I saw Dray stand up, his chair scraping across the cement floor as he stepped around from the table he was sharing breakfast with Evy at.
The woman looked around in distaste, shook herself, and squared her shoulders more determined than she had a right to be comin’ in here with that kind of attitude.
Dumb fuck citizen, I thought to myself. Of course, this is what we were gonna get leaving the gate open all the damn time like we were. No one saw the need to roll it closed anymore on a kind of there being no imminent threat.
Dragon leaned back in his seat at the table he was sharing with Doc, the Sunday paper spread out over its top, and cocked his jaw, before he could say whatever it was he was going to say, Dray spoke up.
“Aunt Trudy?” He asked, and sounded co
nfused as fuck.
The woman, tugged on her suit jacket and rolled her head on her neck to ease the tension in it. I took the opportunity with her standing there all awkward and shit to give her a more thorough going over. Her graying dark brown hair was in a perfect French twist, not a piece out of place. Her suit screaming expensive, the cream colored blouse she had on with it, complete with pussy bow had the look of silk and her pearl earrings were definitely not fake.
She gave Dray a nod and intoned gravely, “Draven.”
For half a second when she’d stepped through the door I thought she might be one of those jewelry dealer people who’d accidently come here lookin’ for Dani, but Dragon and Dray’s reaction had belayed that real quick. I never expected her to be any kind of familia to my P and VP, and not just because she was white.
“What’re you doing here?” Dray asked, frowning and I don’t think I could really remember a time my VP looked so damn stiff.
“I was actually hoping to speak with José.”
Dragon stood up and she turned, going just about as still as a statue, Dragon cleared his throat and said, “Right here, what brings you walkin’ through my door?”
“Is there someplace we may speak that is a little more…?”
“Nope,” Dray interjected. “Anything you’ve got to say can be said right here or not at all.” Dray’s temper was sparking.
“Dray,” Dragon’s voice held a bit of warning in it… a father chiding his son. It just served to stoke Dray’s fire just that little bit more, and Evy reached out a hand touching his wrist. He jerked back sharply from her touch. Evy’s mouth thinned down into a straight, disapproving line but her eyes held understanding. Dray shot her an apologetic look. Something sure as fuck was going on here, the tension in the room thick enough I wasn’t sure even one of Reave’s knives would cut through it.
“Please, José. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important,” the woman said and the note of pleading in her voice was unmistakable.
Dragon nodded, “This way, we can talk in here.”
Data was either still crashed out or not even here so Dragon led her over to the vacant fishbowl with all its tech and monitors, the black curtains drawn, and slid the sliding glass door closed behind them. The rest of us in the common room exchanged looks.
“Aunt Trudy? Does that mean…?” Reaver looked at Dray whose smoldering look was locked on the curtains blocking our view of Dragon and the woman.
“Yeah, that’s my mom’s sister.”
“I vaguely remember seein’ her once before, I just can’t remember where from,” Trigger said and Dray shrugged, retaking his seat. He reached out a hand across the table, taking up Everett’s.
Dray said, “My mom drew that line in the sand when I was like twelve or thirteen. Haven’t seen or heard from that side of the family right up until mom died. Trudy only showed back up right after it happened; screaming and bitching about how it was all our fault. Fuckin’ monopolized the shit out of my mom’s funeral and then that was the last of her until just now.”
“Ah, shit… that’s why I couldn’t place her. No offense Dray, but I prefer remembering your mamma when she was alive, those funerals passed in a haze of booze and despair; I could hardly remember how to tie my boots.”
“Don’t blame you, Trig; I don’t want to remember it either. I especially don’t want to remember how much harder she made it for me and my dad.”
“What the fuck does she want now?” Reaver mused aloud, staring down the still black curtains of the fishbowl like they were some kind of traitor for hiding Dray’s aunt from our sight.
“Don’t fuckin’ know, and don’t fuckin’ care,” Dray said and Everett squeezed his hand.
For a lot of minutes the only sound in the room was the scrape of knives and forks and the click and clink of glasses and mugs against the worn tabletops. Occasionally, it was the rattle of newspaper as Doc flipped through the pages, peering at the print through his half-moon spectacles. I kept sat at the bar and finished sucking down my Bloody Mary which was a little on the weak side, so more vegetable juice than anything… I guess that counted as breakfast, right?
The sliding door slid open and while I tuned in, I didn’t look, just going off of what I could catch with my peripheral vision. Dragon poked his shaggy head out and called “Dray, get in here, boy; I need you.”
Dray got up, I watched him in the mirror behind the bar. He went into the fishbowl, expression stormy and just in time for Data to come out the archway back towards the rooms. He squinted against the light in the common room and I had to laugh.
“I’ll make you some hair of the dog,” I said and dragged myself around the bar to fix him a remedy.
“Thanks,” he said and hauled himself up onto the barstool next to mine with a groan.
“Help yourself,” I muttered and thrust a chin at the bottle of aspirin on the bar top next to my empty glass. Data grunted and dragged the bottle closer to him, popping the top and chewing four of them. I winced, I couldn’t do it. That shit was nasty.
“Tell me why the fuck we should help her, after all the shit she pulled with mom?” All heads turned toward the fishbowl and Data looked back towards me.
“What the fuck is going on in there?” he asked.
“Tillie’s sister Trudy showed up, apparently she’s lookin’ for help with something,” Trigger said and Data frowned.
“Yeah, good luck with that,” he muttered and reached for the glass I handed him.
“Gatorade would do you better,” Doc said without looking.
“Yeah, that’s next,” Data said after draining half his glass in three long swallows.
Shouting in Spanish emitted from the fishbowl and the slider opened up, the woman stepping out stiffly and more than a little red faced. She slid the door closed behind her and looked up, startled that all eyes in the room were on her. I put my hands on the bar top and leaned on them taking the whole spectacle in.
She squared her shoulders and put on that haughty air of superiority, just as the door slid open behind her. Dragon stopped and she stepped aside lightly to let him out, her pumps clicking smartly as she made the movement. Dragon stepped out and Dray right behind him. Dray looked over everyone in the room, his smoldering look falling on me.
“Rush, help me out. Take a ride with me.”
“You got it,” I said without hesitation, because when the VP of your club asked you to do something and his family was somehow involved, that’s what you did.
We went out front to the line of bikes parked there and each went to our own. Separated by five or six of our brothers’ motorcycles, I asked as we geared the rest of the way up to ride, “Can you fill me in on what the fuck I might be walking into?”
Dray’s aunt slipped out of the club right behind us and drifted to a ghostly grey Jaguar idling nearby, pointing down the driveway ready to leave. “Thank you, Draven,” she murmured as her driver came around to open the back door.
“Don’t thank me yet, Trudy. I said I’d go talk to her and that I’d scope things out, I didn’t promise to get me or mine involved.”
She nodded and I swung a leg over my bike, sticking the key in the ignition. I had my helmet on over a bandana tied tight around my hair which was in need of a cut. I took the time to zip up my jacket and pull another bandana around my face. I didn’t need any added protein of gnashing any bugs in my teeth and there were a lot of them this time of year. Early summer was pretty good for bug activity in farm country.
“We’ll follow you,” Dray called out to the driver who shut his aunt into the car. She settled herself and buckled up.
I was getting the impression there was some kind of deal going on with family in the middle, but I still had no idea what was up.
“You armed?” he asked.
“Always.”
“Good. Someone’s threatening my cousin and her place, we’re going to get the full meal deal. After that, Pops and I will figure out our level of involvement.”<
br />
“Cool,” I fired up my bike and yelled, “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks for the heads up.”
Dray fired up his bike and tying a bandana around his own face called, “Sorry I can’t give you more than that right now.”
“No worries!” I slid my protective eyewear onto my face and Dray waved a signal at the driver of his aunt’s car. The expensive cage pulled smoothly down the gravel drive and headed left out onto the highway. We checked, and finding the coast clear, rode out behind them.
It was warm, the sun beaming down on us and I don’t care what you say, when you’re in that much black leather and the temp is in the seventies, you start sweating like a motherfucker. Air movement didn’t do you a whole lot of good. I unzipped about fifteen minutes into the ride which helped some, but I was still hungover and dehydrated as fuck so by the time we reached the place where Dray’s cousin was supposedly at, I couldn’t care less that it was some kind of horse farm so long as the southern hospitality thing rang true and there was something cold to drink at the end of the long, hot ride.
The Jag pulled up in front of this natural wood clapboard ranch-style house with an attached barn. The barn was smaller than the place’s actual barn which was across the drive from the house and I wondered why in the fuck anyone would want to have a barn attached to the house like that… then it hit me, foals… it would certainly cut down on travel time to and from the main barn.
The wood on the outside of the house and connected barn wasn’t local. I’d been here long enough to recognize that. A rich bright wood with a reddish tint, I’d guess cedar without getting up close to it. It was mighty fine workmanship on the outside of the place, the trim around the doors and windows painted a sage green that kept everything looking earthy and natural to a layman’s eye. It’d look more natural to me if the clapboards were hand hewn rather than machined, but that was a personal preference and machining was faster, easier and more cost effective. Not that it looked like cost effective ever entered these happy bastards’ minds.
