“I was right beside you for most of your life. You were just a blind dumbass.”
“I was.” I nodded in agreement. No point in trying to pretend like I wasn’t anymore. The young, inexperienced dumbass that I was couldn’t tell that the stubborn, foul-mouthed brat beside me would be my perfect woman.
“I shouldn’t be too hard on my past self,” I grumbled, thinking back. “How was I supposed to know you were a diamond in the rough when you were so….”
I howled, flinging my head back and my body jerking away from the devilish woman. My arm throbbed with a hot burn, and I wanted to wrap my hand around it and squeeze away the pain, but that would just rub the disinfecting alcohol in more.
Ronnie glared at me, upside down bottle in hand, without the slightest bit of regret in her eyes. “I faced the devil himself to get you; don’t make me regret it.”
I smiled, watching her grumble as she began searching for paper towels to clean up the puddle on the floor. She turned her back to me, the short length of hair swiping her shoulders as she looked down the top of the empty towel dispenser.
The jerk of her sides vibrated through my hands, her stiff spine going from rigid to relaxed against my chest, the slight thrum of her pulse under the softest graze of my lips over her nape. “Thank you,” I whispered, my breath rolling over her skin. Small goose bumps appeared over the surface, “for being here.” I pressed a gentle kiss on top of them. “And for letting me apologize for being so late. Both for waking up for you, and for us making up.”
“I suppose it’s better late than never.” Ronnie sighed, turning in my arms until I was forced to pull back my head and stare down at her face. Bandages peeked from under her shirt. The beating Jacob had given her left her with three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a cracked collarbone, and dislocated elbow. Her hair had singed all the way up to her shoulders. For what had happened, it could have been worse. But to even see a single hair out of place on her brought forth a heavy weight on my shoulders that I’d never felt before. That I’d never be able to describe. I wouldn’t have known what it was, if I hadn’t seen that same weight on the shoulders of my brothers before. On Hunter’s. On Wolf’s.
“Jax,” Ronnie’s soft, warm palm pressed against the bone of my cheek. “You’re cold.” She frowned, reaching up with her other hand and pressing it against my other cheek. She cupped my face in her small hands, one rough with callouses, the other covered by a squishy burn patch.
“Don’t worry,” I replied, reaching up to brush a short strand that had gotten caught on her lip.
“About what?” Ronnie tilted her head to one side. “If it’s about Jaco—”
“I said don’t worry,” I persisted, my fingers catching her chin. I could see the slightest tension that swelled when his name began to cross her lips, and if I had the power, I would quash those feelings inside of her. I would erase that very name from her mind. And erase everything that came along with it from her memories.
But I didn’t have that kind of power.
“Jax!” Ronnie snapped, the sharp pinch of my cheek making jolt from the depth of my mind.
“Why must you keep hurting me, woman?” I hissed, jerking away from her.
“You stopped listening to me!” she snapped back, stomping her foot on the ground with the bare minimum force she could.
“Why can’t you just kiss me to get my attention like any other woman?”
“Because you may be my sleeping beauty, but you should listen to me even when I’m not kissing you.” Ronnie’s lips grew into a full pout, her hands thrown over her chest.
“How long are you going to keep calling me your princess?” I grumbled, mimicking her stance. It wasn’t that I felt like my masculinity was threatened, but it also wasn’t playing to my ego as much as being her man would be. “Call me your old man like everyone else.”
“I would if he didn’t act like a princess all the time!”
“Okay, okay!” A sweet, high-pitched voice broke through our bickering. I turned to see the parade of women marching their way into the hospital suite. “I think that’s enough.” Anna turned, her hands propped on her hips, eyes daring us to start up again, just to see what would happen.
If I were any normal man, I would be turned on by that gaze, even with my woman right next to me. However, I wasn’t a normal man, and my woman was right next to me. And this was Anna.
“All right, that’s my cue to get out of here then,” I grumbled, reaching for my shirt that had been abandoned on the bed. I taped the fresh gauze pad around my wrists, without causing myself too much pain before I jerked on my shirt.
I grabbed my cut and swung it over my shoulders. I marched my way back over to my woman, who had long since forgotten about me and was fawning over what I could guess was photos of Max from the nearby veterinarian clinic. I had sent the girls over there earlier hoping to give myself a little bit more time with her before they invaded like they no doubt would—and did.
“Woman, I’m leaving,” I announced, pulling my jacket tight around myself, even having the audacity to lower my head for her.
“Okay, bye.” Ronnie flapped a waving hand at me, not breaking her gaze from Anna’s phone.
Anna snickered.
“Woman!” I snapped, the heat of annoyance burning in my chest. I stomped right up toward her until I was pushing into her side. “Kiss your man, goodbye.”
“You can have one later,” Ronnie huffed, cutting her vision to give me a glare for interrupting her fawning over the fat mare. In the three weeks she’d been at the clinic getting treated for the tiniest of burns when the fire had spread to the barn, she had gained several pounds and grown plump in her ass. She had slammed me when I was giving her a damn check a couple days ago when I’d snuck out of the hospital! If I’d had my way, I’d be eating BBQ horse right about now.
“How about I have one now and another one later?” I compromised, reminding myself that Max had saved Ronnie’s life once before, and that Ronnie had been incredibly worried about her. Apparently, she had been mumbling about her and me all the way to the hospital. My brothers had managed to get to the barn before the flames got too good a hold on it and had tried to round up the crazy beast. Half of them ended up accompanying us to the hospital afterward.
“No, later,” Ronnie dismissed me.
Screw being nice.
“Ronnie.”
“Wha—” I slammed my mouth against hers, my tongue delving in as I tasted the unfinished words from her tongue. She gasped into my mouth, but it finished on a moan, as my hand wrapped tight into that short soft bob of hers, making it so much easier to pull her close to me without getting my hand tangled. She’d be keeping her hair like this. I’d make sure of it.
“There,” I gasped, pulling back away from her with the soft moist taste of her kiss on my lips. She panted, her lips swollen, and cheeks flushed red from the excitement. Fuck, it made me want to kick the women out of the room and have my way with her right then and there. But I had a few more weeks until I got the go ahead for that.
But in the meantime….
“See ya’ later, babe.” I winked, turning on my boots, and with a knowing smug and swagger in my hips, slid out the room. I could hear what must have been her cry for me to come back as my name echoed in the halls, followed by a loud bang of something being thrown at the door. My woman sure had a way of showing her longing for me.
“I don’t even want to know what you’re thinking about.” Pretty fell into step alongside me.
“I wasn’t even considering giving you the pleasure.” I smirked, my eyes casting one last look over my shoulder at the hallway of the burn clinic where my girl was resting up before turning my head forward for other business. Business I couldn’t do in front of said girl. “Are the boys outside?”
“Does she know about this double side to you?” Pretty mused, not intending to offend or undermine me but just thoughtful.
I thought back to all the times my switch had flipp
ed, and when I had that belt in my hands, and her ass pointed toward me and….
Oh, that’s a boner coming.
Can’t think about that right now.
Think about dead dogs and kittens. And parents fucking. Yup, that did the trick.
“Brother?” Pretty probed after a minute of walking in silence.
“She knows, brother.” I smirked. “She likes it.”
“Um… good for you? I think?” Pretty chuckled, shrugging off our conversation as we stepped to the exit.
Motorcycles lined up in the bay outside the door. Black leather-clad men, turning their heads toward me with grim, serious faces, and eyes ready for business.
“You good here?” I turned to Pretty clapping his shoulder.
“Don’t worry about me,” he grumbled. “You go take care of what needs to be done.”
I nodded. “Thanks.” I gave him a quick, one-shoulder hug before I headed toward my bike. The engine roared under my touch, the vibrating purr rolling through my bones.
Hunter turned and handed me my weapon, concealed in a holster as I strapped it under my belt.
“Did you give him a good enough run?” I turned to my brother, and with a smirk that would strike cold into even the evilest of men, Hunter smirked.
“If everything went as planned, he should be heading across the border by now.”
“Good, that’ll give us plenty of time to get there first.”
Hunter nodded.
I turned to my president, waiting on his bike, before giving a jerk of my chin, our cue to leave.
“Ready, boys?” Wolf roared over the growl of engines, firing up alongside me until we were the echoing sound of a roaring beast. Wolf turned beside me, kicking up her stand and giving me the nod to pull forward.
And so I did, Pretty waving us off as I took off ahead of the group, my brothers falling in line beside me as were heading back to the place I once called home.
It was true that I didn’t have the power to erase him from her memories.
But it didn’t mean I was powerless.
It was time to pay a little visit back home.
* * *
The door creaked open, light sweeping across the rich, woven rug spread across the wooden floor.
Jacob stepped into the room, running a pale hand through his dark, cropped hair, a slight shadow creeping across the length of his jaw. Looked like someone had a rough journey back.
“Long night, Jacob?”
“Shit!” Jacob bellowed, his back slamming against the door. Brown eyes were dominated by white when his eyes hit me, and his skin turned even paler.
“Jackson… but I t-thought—” Jacob stuttered.
“That I was dead?” I scoffed, leaning back in the comfy black leather chair. “You know, you should have reinforced the fences instead of wasting money on such a nice chair.”
“But the Black Jacks—”
“—are currently sitting in our basement.” I sighed, running a hand through my free hair. It had knotted on the race back here. I really needed to cut it. “The ones that lived, that is.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted those bastards!” Jacob hissed, shuffling toward the wooden cabinet against the side wall. He turned his back to me, for just a moment, his hand sliding down into a small wooden drawer. I hadn’t thought there was another shade of white to his skin, but it appeared the moment I threw the little hand pistol onto his desk. The empty shells pinged off the wood and onto the desk as they spilled from the empty magazine. Their ringing hung in the air as they pitter-pattered onto the hardwood floor.
“Were you looking for this?”
“Jackson, listen to me—”
“I don’t think I will,” I grunted, allowing my feet to drop to the floor. Their heavy thud jolted through Jacob, his body bucking back into the desk behind him, causing some expensive ornament to roll and shatter on the floor. Jacob didn’t look away from me, though, as I lifted myself from his well-oiled chair, not making a single breath of sound as I stood to attention.
I kicked a casing out of my way as I strolled around the desk.
It is about time I got this over and done with.
I could feel the weight of my gun sitting against my spine, pulling on the waistband of my still damp jeans. I had caught the downpour as I had driven over state lines, and even after the hour it took to get to the farm, I hadn’t dried. I’d probably catch a cold at this rate, but, hell, I’d been shot twice now. A cold was nothing.
“Jacob.” I sighed, my feet stopping less than an inch in front of his. The glossed shine of his shoes, clean from even a speck of dirt were an eyesore next to my grimy black riding boots, covered in all kinds of nasty.
“What do you want, Jackson?” Jacob spluttered, his eyes daring to meet mine. They were full of malice and fear, his eyes looking more like pale shit, than any warm brown. “Is it money? The inheritance? The farm?”
“I don’t need such things.” I shrugged, my shoulders making the slight effort to roll back. My hand slid to my hip, and Jacob’s eyes darted down at the movement.
His head tipped forward, and I lunged, my mouth coming close to the side of his face with a force that could crack bones, stopping only millimeters from the extensive flesh of his face he called an ear.
“You listen to me good, Jacob, because I’ll only say this once,” I growled. “I couldn’t give a shit about money, or this fucking farm, or your petty jealousy toward me. I didn’t give a shit, and you shouldn’t have either. You could have run this place into the ground and I wouldn’t have given a fuck.”
I could feel the heat in my stomach bubbling in the distance. Any other man would have felt the rage and have beaten him within an inch of his life, but I wasn’t any other man. I felt my muscles relax, my lips flatten into a single line, and my body grow as calm as a quiet ocean.
“But you hurt her. You did the one thing that I can never forget and will never forgive.”
Jacob’s head tipped up slowly, his eyes coming to meet the silver barrel only an inch from his face, eyes growing impossibly wider in surprise and fear. But it wasn’t until I saw his eyes flinch away from the gun, and his gaze reached my face that I saw the understanding of what was coming next dawn on him.. I wasn’t sure what he saw, but the second he looked, his body began to shake, eyes wide, raised brow, and dropped jaw, all stiff with fear.
“Jackson! P- please don’t do this! Ple—”
“Goodbye, cousin.” I cocked back the hammer.
“JACKSON!”
BANG!
* * *
The stench of urine dripping from his trousers into a puddle on the floor, mixed with the burning smell of gunpowder as Jacob’s body lowered slowly onto the ground, shaking, shivering, sobbing. His figure crumpled into a pile, as his hand clutched his chest, his breathing erratic in relief and fear as I stared at the hole buried into the wall.
I didn’t even bother to look down at the worthless wreck withering in his own piss.
“Consider this a warning, cousin,” I growled, my own heart heaving with punishing pulses of pain through my body, scolding me for having moved my gun. “Letting you live is my punishment for leaving Ronnie to your hands. Not blowing your head off right now, right this second, is the most painful thing for me.”
I felt the heavy, sinking weight of the gun anchored to my arm as it brushed against my thigh, my muscles shaking with the need to raise it just those few inches to his temple, and this time…not miss.
“But,” I added, the words grinding through my clenched teeth. “If you even whisper anything other than thanks to her, for being the only reason you’re alive right now, I will come back for you. And I won’t miss.”
With that, I moved my feet, my limbs as heavy as lead as I headed toward the door, every cell in my body begging to turn back and to destroy him. But it was my pride, and my guilt that held steady. I would not kill him for what he did to me and Ronnie. All I had to do was wait. Wait for him to slip up and—
>
Just like a saving grace, a gift from the gods, I heard the faintest, tiniest little whisper that broke my shackles.
“That stupid little bit—”
BANG!
I didn’t miss.
Epilogue
Ronnie
“So, Mr. Jenkins just handed this place over to you?” Mallory asked as she handed me the small little girl.
“Yeah, it belonged to his brother and his wife, not him. They died over a decade ago,” I answered, reaching out my arms. I took her heavy weight, head resting in the crook of my elbow, butt cupped by my hand. “He couldn’t bear to abandon it, but because it burnt down, he said he has no hold to it anymore. He’s free to flirt with all the women in the retirement park he’s been staying at during his rehabilitation.”
Baby Freya was warm and soft and smelled of baby shampoo. I couldn’t help but stare at the little green eyes staring up at me. Unlike her mother and brother, she was a quiet baby, happy to just stare and watch the world go by. “Hello, baby,” I murmured, bouncing her with a light rhythm. “Aren’t you cute?”
“Who knew Mr. Jenkins was such a dog?” Mallory gasped, her lips twisted in a mused smile at her child, hands reaching to grab a handful of my hair. It was too short for her to get a good hold on the bottom of it, but its teasing wave in the breeze only spurred her on more. This one was determined.
“God, it’s cold,” Anna grumbled, passing over her small baby into the arms of the unexpected Bell. She panicked, dropping her phone to the floor as the huge thing was tossed into her hold.
Anna jumped from the couch, not letting Bell argue as she juggled the big baby and headed over to the window.
“Don’t close it!” I whined. “I’m too hot.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us are on baby-making medicine.” Anna stuck out her tongue, proceeding to close the window despite my protests.
Jax: Black Angels MC, #3 Page 34
