Wolf dragged back his chair but didn’t sit. Instead, he stood behind it and raised one large finger.
I patted the shoulder of poor Moon who had taken my chair to the groin and pushed the thing back to the table.
“Lamb, I want a full profile on all of them. Where they’re staying. Where they’re heading. Where they’re shitting. Every detail.”
Lamb nodded, pulling his cell phone from the inside of his leather jacket, his fingers flying over the screen.
“Hunter, work with Pretty on a protection detail for the club, the girls, and our places. You can have first pick of the members doing that duty.”
They shared a look before giving a firm nod.
“Mint, you work with Polo and think which location or person will be targeted next. What will be the best opportunity to draw these fuckers out.”
Another two nods.
“Jax,” Wolf snapped, and I straightened to attention. “Stick to Mint and Roscoe and create a game plan. I want places where the backup can stay out of sight and the easiest ways in and out of that situation in case things don’t go to plan.”
“Yes, Prez.” I nodded.
“And the rest of you.” He turned to face the other brothers: the weekenders, retired members, and even the prospects who weren’t allowed in on church had this been a normal day. “Watch out for yourselves. My primary objective is to keep all of us safe. That’s why I let you in on this, so you know who we’re dealing with. Keep your wits about yourselves and if you see something, let me know. I don’t give a shit if I’m butt-naked or in a coma. Let. Me. Know,” Wolf commanded, finger going to each single one of our affiliates.
“Understood?” Wolf bellowed, and the noise was met with a bellow in return.
“Yes, President!”
“Good,” Wolf growled, and with that, his hand raised the wooden gavel and slammed it down on the wooden block with a loud, resounding bang.
Church over.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ronnie
“Jax…,” I moaned, my fingers gripping into the tight leather of his jacket bunched over the top of his shoulders. I had been in the process of taking the thing off him, wanting to see his design, body and paint together, when he thrust his hips hard up into me.
I had barely been able to keep my arms from holding on as he carried me under the ass, past the threshold of the door, and up the stairs. I’d only just stepped a foot off his bike before he saw how excited I had been clinging to the back of him.
I was thrown from his cock, my pussy throbbing at its emptiness before landing face-first on the bed. I grunted with a mouthful of messed sheets, neither of us having bothered to make it before we’d been rushed to the club.
I couldn’t recall my impression of the club that well as Jax grabbed my hips and, with my head buried into the mattress, thrust into me with a hard, unforgiving force. I cried out, the noise loud enough to have shattered the dusty windows.
He continued to pound into me, unrelenting and unending, again and again and again until I had no more voice left to scream.
“Fuck, babe,” Jax growled, his sweet, hot voice deep in the shell of my ear. Moist lips nibbled on the bottom of my earlobe, and I wanted to push back against him. His long, hot chest kept me facedown in the sheets, his hips stirring an unrelenting force inside of me.
This wasn’t Jax’s alter ego. This wasn’t his dark side. This was just a hot, horny Jax who was needing me as bad as I was needing him. And even though there was no pain, no punishment, and no rewards, the sex was just as demanding and hot and lustful as any other sex we’d had before.
It was raw. It was pure. And, fuck, this boy was showing me he had more tricks than a freaking show pony.
“Jax, wait!” I huffed, feeling my head swirling from the lack of oxygen. My hand reached back, rapping around his stone-hard forearm.
“Ain’t no rest for the wicked, baby,” Jax groaned back. “And by damn, you’re wicked.”
His hips moved harder. It didn’t take long for that overwhelming pleasure to build higher and higher inside of me. I couldn’t even feel his punishing thrusts any longer, just the pleasure it brought, until my voice was mumbling in delirium, my body moving against his until I could finally reach that edge and….
I screamed harder than the sheets could stop as I went tumbling over. The explosion burst from my stomach and wave after wave reached every fingertip and toe.
Jax, a few hard thrusts later, followed me over, his cock pulsing hot and hard in my throbbing pussy as I wrung him dry. He groaned with it, and I could feel him riding out his orgasm as his weight collapsed down on top of my aching back. My muscles moaned at his mass, and my skin reeled at the hot, sweaty feel of him. But I didn’t shove him off; I didn’t have the energy or the will.
“Fuck,” Jax whispered, his long hair brushing against the side of my face.
“Fuck, yeah…,” I turned my head just enough to catch my breath from the fresh air rather than through the sheets.
Jax’s brown eyes and sweat-greased hair met my own tender gaze, as they wandered over my face with that after-sex glaze.
“What?” I was sure my face was like the ripe red tomatoes the neighbors back home won the wholesale competition with every year.
“You look like the Johnson’s tomatoes.” He smirked.
I burst out laughing, though it was more of a wheeze due to my lack of energy.
Jax rolled off me but didn’t leave my side. He peered down with a puzzle look. “What?”
“Nothing,” I chuckled, rolling onto my back and closer into his chest, giving him a light pat on the way. His jacket had disappeared, and I wondered where on the stairs I would find it later.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“Two peas in a pod.” Jax smiled, leaning his nose down to touch mine. He rubbed against it, causing my nose to twitch, and a sneeze begin to brew.
“You a-ah—” I sneezed mid-sentence, covering my nose with my elbow to catch the flying grossness, as Jax let out a happy, sadistic laugh. “You know what that does to me!”
“It’s why I did it.”
Jax just managed to dodge my swing as he dropped off the edge of the bed into a barrel roll, spinning himself out onto his feet with way too much smoothness and ease.
“Ass.”
“But a nice ass.” He turned to give myself a clear view of a very nice ass.
“Is that… a pair of hands?” I propped myself up onto my elbows, squinting my eyes as if I could zoom in on the pair of manly hands that seemed to be holding up both of his rock-hard cheeks. They were grey scaled and seemed to come out of his other tattoos like a parting sea, with light rays and clouds in the background behind it.
“What can I say?” Jax poked his head over his shoulder to flash me what he must have assumed was his panty-dropping smile. “It’s God given.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Whatever, Judas,” I scoffed, finding some strength in my legs to swing them off the edge of the bed and prop myself upright.
“Judas?” Jax tutted, turning to face me with a hand propped on his slim, taut hips. “Don’t you mean, Jesus?”
“Nope,” I popped. “If someone were to offer you a nice pair of tits and a round ass, you’d drop Jesus’ ass right away.”
“Well.” Jax shrugged. “Wouldn’t any normal man?”
“The audacity,” I gasped, mocking my surprise at his answer. He flicked a guilt-free wink my way and even took a nice glance at my ass as I headed to the shower.
“It’s a good thing I like you, Jax.”
“Just like?” Jax moaned, jogging to meet me in the doorway.
“Maybe just a little bit more than like,” I huffed, making it my turn to prop my hands on my hips as he blocked my way into the bathroom.
“This much?” He cocked his head to one side, offering me his two palms spread far apart.
I grabbed his two palms and pulled them together until about they were just a f
ew inches apart. “That much.”
Jax looked at it, and with a shrug, said, “I can deal with that.”
“Good.” I pressed my palm against his chest to move, giving him a push to the side. “Now outta my way.”
“Sorry, sunshine.” He grasped my hand to plant a quick kiss on it. “Gotta love you and leave you, so I’ll be stealing the hot water.”
He jerked back before I could slap him for what he was doing and slammed the door shut with him safely on the inside.
“Bastard!” I hissed. “What am I supposed to do with this shit running down my leg?”
“Keep it in!” he hollered back.
Such a man’s response….
I sighed, reaching for the pile of towels I had taken from the dryer earlier. Neither I nor Jax had bothered to fold them. They were just towels. They weren’t going to see any direct sunlight outside of the house, so it didn’t really matter if there were creases here and there.
Using them to help mop up the side of my leg, I did the best job that I could before going to look for a pair of panties that would stop me dripping all over the floor. What I wanted was a shower. But that had been stolen from me, so the best I could do was sacrifice a pair of panties for now.
My thighs ached as I hobbled me over to the set of drawers in the corner that I had claimed when I first moved in. I pulled open the underwear drawer and shoved aside the empty duffle bag to pull out a pair.
I heard a clunk against the wood and shot the open drawer a mysterious look as I prioritized putting my panties on before peeking my head up and into the drawer. My duffle bag laid on its side, the crumpled fabric stuffed to one side with the side zipper hanging open. I shoved aside a few pairs of socks and bras that had made their way over, looking for the source of the noise. After a minute and a half of looking, I almost assumed it was just one of the zippers hitting the wood until I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the little shimmer of gold poking from the cup of a bra.
My heart dropped.
I’m not sure how long it took for my eyes to focus on it. The thin glimpse that I had spotted had been enough for me to recall what it was. And just that had been enough to have every memory I had spent the last few months pretending to forget come crashing down on my shoulders.
“Shit…,” I whispered under a soft, shuddering breath. I pushed aside the pair of panties covering most of the view, allowing my eyes to set sight on the gold ring cushioned within the fabric. It looked too simple to represent everything I had been through. Such a small, little thing, and yet the sight of it had such a hold on me I wanted to run as far away from it as possible.
My thumb rubbed against my third finger, where a tan line had once been as stark as a full moon at night. It had been a mark that had faded over my year of travel—on the surface—but looking down at the finger that had been bound to that little piece of gold reminded me that a collar was still wrapped around my neck.
I’m not a stray.
I had an owner.
It was only a matter of time before I was found.
I heard a soft pitter-patter beneath my chin, and when I looked down, I saw the wood stained a darker color. My finger reached to smooth over the surface, when a second wet droplet landed on the back of my hand. It wobbled and rolled down my skin before dropping onto the wooden drawer and being absorbed into its surface.
I tasted the salt. The wet tear that caught my lip touched my tongue and it all became apparent. “I’m crying…,” I whispered, my hands reaching up to feel the wetness of my cheeks. “Why…,” I whispered again, picking up the little piece of gold and holding it in my palm. “Why is it… even when I’ve found happiness… I can never escape you?”
I brushed my finger against the heavy gold, my arm wanting to collapse under the weight of it.
I had tried to throw it away tens of hundreds of times, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let myself forget my past. Couldn’t forget the injustice done to me.
Somehow, I knew that the scars wouldn’t be enough to remind me. I knew I would forget about them. Knew I would pretend they didn’t exist.
And I knew when that time came, this would be the one thing to bring me back to reality. The hope and the happiness I found… it was never meant to last. There never should have been a me and Jax. It was just supposed to be for Max, and once she was better, I’d leave and go my own way. Whether I ran or chose to fight, this was a battle I had to do on my own. And what was I doing now?
I was hiding in the house of my first love, pretending that I didn’t have a shadow following me. Pretending that this was what I could have.
Jax was water slipping through my fingers.
Nothing I could do would keep him beside me.
Not if he’d known what I had done.
“Ronnie?”
I jerked, the ring almost falling out of my hand as I shoved it back in the drawer and buried it deep beneath my underwear. I shoved the drawer shut with a slam and wiped away the tears before facing him.
Water dripped from his hair and face, and my eyes traced the droplets falling down his crafted muscles.
Like water….
“Hey, wake up!” Jax’s fingers snapped in front of my eyes.
I whipped my head up at the sound. His puzzled gaze stared me down. “What’s up?” His hand reached forward, capturing my chin in a smooth movement, his thumb following its movement across the breadth of my face. “Were you crying?”
“Crying?” I scoffed, shoving his hand away. “Why would I be crying?”
“Your eyes look a little swollen,” Jax grumbled, his pushed away hand still held in the air. He retracted it back into the cocoon of his chest.
“It’s hot in here. I must just be flushed.” I shrugged, grabbing a handful of clothes and heading into the bathroom. Before he could ask any more questions, I shut the door behind me.
The humid air from Jax’s shower engulfed me, my feet wet against the tiles from his footprints. My eyes, swollen and dry, wept at the moisture as I sank down onto the damp tile floor. Its cool touch bled into my chilled, goose-bumped skin. I pulled my knees closer, my arms wrapping around the bare skin, and dropped my nose between the crack in my legs and sighed.
The weight of what had brought me here in the first place was like a heavy jacket, smothering and overwhelming.
Like a tree can never be rid of its roots, I will never be rid of my past.
“What do I do, Momma?” I whispered into the air and waited.
No reply came.
I sighed once more and leant back against the closed door.
I could hear the soft sounds of Jax’s feet pattering around the bedroom, throwing clothes on the floor, and making a mess.
“Ron.” Jax knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” I jerked up from the door, clambering back to my feet once more.
“Where’s my cut?”
“How the hell should I know?” I grunted, reaching for the handle to pull it open a crack.
A pout poked through the gap, followed by his damp, curled hair and wary brown eyes. “You were the one who ripped it off of me.”
“So?” I shrugged. “It’s not like you were protesting.”
Jax smirked. “I certainly wasn’t.” His deep brown eyes perused the glimpse of my scantily dressed body. “But it would still help if you remembered where you stripped me.”
“You dog,” I grumbled under my breath, before wielding my palm and slapping it against his forehead. I gave a hard shove, and the intruding head was pushed back into its boundaries. “Good luck finding your jacket,” I called before giving the door a nice slam and a flick of the lock.
A loud grumble followed the noise and I couldn’t suppress the smile pulling at my lips.
That heavy weight that sat on my chest wasn’t gone, but that small interaction felt like a part of my burden had lifted. I didn’t feel so claustrophobic and all it took was less than a minute of bickering to free myself.
Such a simple stupid thi
ng….
I shook my head, knowing that it was just that.
Because I hadn’t come here just for that. I didn’t come here just for an escape. As much as I had denied it in the beginning… this is what I had come for. Even if I knew it wasn’t meant to last.
The least I could do was enjoy it for just a little longer.
A breath untied itself from my chest and clouded the small bathroom.
“Time for a shower.” I sighed, reaching for the tap and turning it to hot. I stripped myself bare, and stepped under the warm spray, thankful that there was still hot water le—
I screeched as the ice-cold water pelted against my back. I nearly slipped on my ass as I went scrambling out of the shower and across the floor, only to swing open the door and hear Jax’s engine roar from beyond the window.
I launched myself across the room, butt-naked, shivering, and dripping wet as I threw myself out the opening.
Jax looked up just in time to give me a knowing wink. “Enjoy your shower, babe!”
With that, he gave me a wink, a finger gun, and threw his bike forward down the dirt road without a care in the world. I didn’t give a fuck at that moment if anyone could or would hear me. The roar couldn’t be contained….
“JAX!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jax
“I’ll see you around.” I smirked, leaning down into the convertible car, pressing my lips against the sticky, glossed lips of the girl.
“Sure thing, sugar,” she purred, sending me a wink.
She started her engine and the little, impractical thing surged down the road, bumping at every small rock on the path and into the distance.
I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans, not bothering to see her off and turned toward the house. A heavy sigh sank from my lips as I looked up at the big stone building, complete with its marble columns and elaborate brick work and water fountain. It stuck out like a sore thumb compared the beautiful gold and green fields and the quaint little barn house surrounded by the lush jade evergreens hugging it from behind. I’d preferred that kind of house.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 28
