Bruised MC Bear (Beartooth Brotherhood MC Book 3)

by Bella Love-Wins

  “Oh. Sounds fancy,” she mocked him.

  “Ready to roll?”

  “Just drive, jackass.”

  Axe shrugged one shoulder and muscled the truck out onto the main road. “I’m the jackass who just saved your bacon, doll. The dickhead you actually like.” He briefly glanced over in her direction, turning the rock music station way up. She was fighting the urge to smile over the pound of base in the speakers, and then her hand casually rested on his upper thigh as though she didn’t even notice she had touched him.

  They both ignored the tone of his voice. Or maybe she hadn’t heard it. That low rumbling in his chest was his bear, rattling against his human cage. His beast urged him to touch her, producing a powerful impulse that raised all the small hairs on the back of his neck. Axe hardened his jaw and fought the bone-deep craving. It caused his stomach to churn with a primal longing to claim her right this second and own her for life. He had never felt that for anyone else and to him, it was clear as day what it meant, mainly because he had seen Cole, then Silas, and more recently, Tate all fall hard for their life mates. After that, they could hardly let fifteen minutes go by without making it clear these ladies were their respective property.

  Right now, with her hand on his leg as though he was an extension of her own body, his beast snuffed, grunted, and pawed at his insides, ready to claim her as his.

  “You okay?” she asked, squeezing his thigh for emphasis.

  All the muscles in his leg jolted and bunched tight, and his cock twitched to life behind his fly.

  “Never better,” he grumbled, fighting his beast for control.

  Her fingers tensed almost imperceptibly on his thigh, and without thinking he snatched her fingers up and brought her palm up to his mouth, brushing her soft, sweet skin with his lips.

  “We’re going to my sister’s,” he said with finality.

  “Ohhh, nice. A blood relative,” Angel remarked, unconsciously pulling her hand away, but slowly, as if she was giving him a chance to take it again. This time, he beat back his beast and didn’t take her up on the offer. “I can get all the good gossip.”

  “I have no doubt you’ll win her over, sweetheart, but as for the impression she’ll make on you, well, I just can’t wait for the fireworks.”

  Axe absolutely needed to keep his sister’s location private, no matter what.

  He had pulled a couple of wrong turns that were quick enough to fix without Angel noticing. He still didn’t like the idea of telling her who they were visiting, and although the information settled her down. He had no reason to trust that her silence meant she was satisfied. About two hundred yards from his sister’s place, his instincts proved dead on.

  Angel turned to face him, but said nothing.

  “What?” he barked impatiently, pulling over to put the truck in park right there in the middle of the suburbs.

  “With what happened last night, you should talk to someone.”

  “I’ve been in worse situations.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not talking about the bad guys. I picked up bits and pieces. Those nightmares didn’t sound too cozy, you know?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’m serious, Axe. No one should have to go through that alone.”

  The sick joke was that he had not been alone. Though he might as well have been, with the way he was forced to shield his sister after Social Services took them away from Vincent. Just because Vincent was not family, he and Nancy ended up in foster care. The couple was actually good to them, but that was the problem. They were so nice, and Nancy began to think that subverting her shifter side and keeping it a secret would be easier than letting them down or running away. The age of eighteen was crucial to them as natural born shifters. It was when their animals would first emerge. Axe preferred to run when his time came. Nancy refused to leave, and when she hit eighteen, she carried on like she was one hundred percent human.

  The image of their last foster parents made him shudder, and his awareness returned.

  “That’s the house,” he said, pointing to the end of the street.

  “Cool. What are we waiting for?”

  Cracking his neck, he drove off again, thankful she wasn’t going to push the issue. He didn’t owe her an explanation, except for getting her out of this situation in one piece. “For the sake of peace in my sister’s place and respect for her young children, can we leave the attitude at the door?”

  “Fine. For the children,” she agreed.

  “Thanks.” He stopped on the road beside identical sprawling ranch-style houses with perfect white picket fences.

  She craned her neck left and right to take in the street. “Your sister lives around here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must be excited to see her.”

  That was quite the assumption. Too bad he didn’t feel like correcting her.

  17

  Angel

  Angel felt like a lump of cooling clay in her seat, still reeling from the brush of Axe’s lips across her palm. It was small touch, almost non-existent, yet it seared in her brain as her pulse thrummed beneath every inch of her sensitive skin. Something so light shouldn’t have been as intimate or more meaningful than the handful of encounters that they already shared together, with their clothes off.

  Quotes about solemn passion and powerful flames from romance classics like Jane Eyre twisted through her thoughts as she stared at her empty hands in her lap. Clearly she had spent way too much time reading at the library instead of actually working. And all those idealistic meanderings had ruined her a long time ago, causing her to gravitate to men like Axe all the time. It was obvious to her that except for the fact that he was a shifter, he needed fixing. He was as broken as any other man she’d been attracted too. Which is exactly why she needed to back off.

  She had always been drawn to broken souls, yes with this man, the baggage he carried around was bigger than this truck. Working on him was sure to be a doozy, a project she would never overcome or grow sick of until his pain spilled over and wrecked everything good in her life. Her track record was stellar for picking men who were all kinds of wrong for her. She would be with them, and eventually would try to fix them, and sometimes, she was partially successful. But then a spring would come loose, and she would be frustrated at her failure. The majority of her exes either wound up hating her for trying to make them better or leaving her after their improvement.

  Axe was an utterly gorgeous disaster waiting to happen—or rather, happening right this second—and she had hardly seen the tip of the snowflake resting on the tip of the iceberg that was his unique set of issues. Even his secrets had secrets. The messy shadows waiting in the depths were sure to swallow her whole, spitting her out ragged, exhausted, and alone. Or dead, given the last day’s events.

  She tried to inwardly express a few affirmations.

  Axe is not my problem.

  Axe is not my mission.

  I’m a librarian, not a goddamned missionary.

  The sad reality was that Axe Voltaire was not someone she should ever give her heart to, even if she allowed herself the pleasure of being with him casually. The reason had nothing to do with the fact that he was a bear shifter or from being traumatized as a child. It was not because he was desperately in need of weekly therapy, and not because he was probably the worst of the outlaws in his motorcycle club. It was not because he was completely her type either.

  Nope.

  None of those.

  Angel could not afford to fall for the man because his touch still lingered on her skin long after he let her go, and it rested there even after they pulled up beside his sister’s suburban cookie-cutter dream, and probably after she returned to her life before he had come into it.

  She glanced in his direction as he put the car in park. Maybe he was intentionally avoiding her for the same reason. She followed his gaze, which was glued to the front door, and realized she was dead wrong about that part. The door had opened. A smal
l boy and a taller girl hurtled outside, descended the front porch and ran around in circles on the perfectly manicured front lawn. Their exit from the house was randomly timed, because they began to play, not noticing that she and Axe were watching them from the side of the road.

  Angel’s eyebrows popped up when a woman bustled out of the house in an outfit that looked like something straight out of a Talbot’s catalog. Axe’s sister had the preppy soccer mom thing down pat. How on God’s green earth could that woman be related to the man sitting less than two feet away? He was possibly immersed in organized crime, doing deals with the underbelly of society. And there was his sister. She could have easily been put in a time machine in her ‘as-is’ state and do a walk-on role on Leave it to Beaver. Their paths must have deviated somewhere or another, never to rejoin—until today.

  The woman watched the kids for a moment, and her stare traveled, settling on the bullet-ridden, beat-up eyesore of a pickup truck at her sidewalk. Neighborhood watch in the area was probably firing texts down the emergency call tree of homeowners, or may have already put out a BOLO on the vehicle. Axe’s sister’s lips compressed for a millisecond, and her face slowly stretched into a broad smile that didn’t quite meet her eyes. Still, she didn’t make a move toward them. She stood on the porch with her hands clasped at her middle as if waiting for some kind of direction. Angel remained neutral, waiting for Axe to make the first move. He remained glued to his seat, staring through the windshield.

  Angel poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Go talk to her,” she hissed. “You’re being weird right now.”

  “I’m going,” he said, sounding strangled.

  His fingers clicked his seatbelt buckle and threw the belt off his shoulder. Opening his door, he slid out of the seat and just stood there. Something was not right between these two people. Angel was sure she was missing some crucial piece of the puzzle. They acted more like strangers, like there wasn’t enough history between them. Axe eventually walked across the driveway to meet her, and they embraced in the most awkward, uncomfortable way. It was hard to watch.

  So, things with Axe’s family weren’t simple either.

  Why was she not surprised?

  18

  Axe

  Axe hadn’t thought far enough ahead to the whole hugging part. When Nancy came toward him, he froze. He tried to recover, and ended up patting her on the back as though she were one of the boys. What else was he supposed to do? He was standing in front of his estranged sister, with no buffer, and a mutual grudge the size of a tanker truck. Touching was not part of the reunion he’d envisioned. Holding her made his mind spin and gave him no time to tamp down the hard fact that facing her was almost like facing his nightmare. No, exactly like it.

  “You look good,” Nancy said, giving him a once-over, but the lie was still a lie.

  “Thanks. You look the same.”

  He dug his hands into his pants pocket, gaze flicking around the front yard. God, coming here was a fucking mistake. Possibly the worst one he’d made in a while. His niece and nephew didn’t even recognize him. They laughed and shrieked, playing some weird cross between tag and dodgeball. How could he show up here and threaten these kids’ wellbeing just from his presence, or destroy the perfection Nancy had built for them? After everything they had been through as children, she deserved her delusions. His very presence fucked that all up. She needed her idea of control in the same way he needed his adopted family, the Brotherhood. Both were a form of safety, a coping mechanism. He had rushed headlong into her little bubble without even thinking about the repercussions.

  As usual, he had been a selfish prick.

  Forgetting to take them into account could cost them a lot in this suburban hell that Nancy idolized. She had gravitated toward the lifestyle of their foster parents, wanting nothing to do with the shifter lifestyle. He had run to the Beartooth Brotherhood. Neither of them chose the path of their parents. Sadly, that was probably the only thing they had in common.

  In Nancy’s mind, choosing the life she did probably meant she could have a reasonably sound assurance that nothing bad would ever happen to her—until today, when her asshole of a brother showed up asking for a favor and dragging dirt right up to her pristine front door.

  Except, she had been the one trying to keep their connection alive all these years.

  “I, uh, like what you’ve done with the place,” he told her.

  “It hasn’t changed much. Not since the last time.”

  He kicked a loose stone in the driveway. It probably drove Nancy nuts, but it was easier to do that than make small talk. They both knew why she had agreed to let him come here in the first place—weird ass circumstances. Once the crazy shit was over and Angel was out of danger, everything would go back to normal and in all likelihood, Nancy wouldn’t see or hear from him again for a very, very long time.

  That was their normal.

  She waved at the kids. “Annalee, Asher, come and say hi to your Uncle Alexander.”

  They ran over, each of them taking a side to hug him.

  “Hi, Uncle,” Asher said, staring adoringly up at him.

  “You don’t remember me, do you Uncle Alex?” Annalee asked, slightly more reserved.

  “Are you kidding me? Of course, I do. How have you been doing with your dance classes?”

  Her eyes lit up, and she prattled on, filling him in on all the recitals she had been to, competitions she wanted to win, and more details on ballet and dance techniques than Axe needed to know.

  Nancy sent the kids inside to neaten up their toys. “Do you think your friend will ever get out of the truck?” she asked after they hopped up the porch. “She knows I don’t bite, right?”

  “No, she’s pretty clear that I’m the one who bites.” Saying that to Nancy sounded so creepy that even he winced.

  “I’m beginning to see that. This is what Vincent meant when he said the MC went legit?”

  “Don’t start. We are legit. We set up a company, and we do real private security work. Look, I’ll introduce the two of you.”

  She cocked her head, studying Angel through the windshield. “That’s your job, huh? Do I need to ask if it comes with benefits?”

  “None of your business,” he snorted, turning to open the passenger door, and gave Angel a helpless look. “Come over here and meet Nancy, my sister.”

  For a beat, Angel went pasty white. Was she nervous?

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m great,” Angel insisted, taking his hand to get out.

  He realized where some of her hesitation came from. No shoes, no bra, no panties, wind-blown hair. To him, she was sexy as fuck, but stepping into the burbs like this, especially for a person like Angel, who was normally perfectly put together, must have been her own personal waking nightmare. Still, she held her head high and took the few barefoot steps through the grass until she was face to face with Nancy. Nancy arched a knowing brow in his direction and gazed down at the spot where Axe’s hand was still touching Angel’s upper arm.

  Nancy took a step forward and offered her hand. “Hello. I’m Nancy. So you’re Axe’s current pet project?”

  “I’m Angel.” She took Nancy’s hand and shook it confidently. “It’s good to meet you. I didn’t realize your brother told you anything about me.”

  Axe refused to touch that flaming red flag. Women were going to girl talk, and shit was going to hit the fan, so if he knew what was good for him, being elsewhere was better. He motioned toward the front door with his chin.

  “Help yourself, I have to get something from the garage.”

  That statement was probably as close to a formal invitation as he was going to get, so he let himself into his sister’s sanctuary. Not much had changed in the house itself. Not design-wise. The layout was still clean and modern. Definitely sleek and impersonal, just like Nancy and her husband, who Axe was yet to meet because he and Nancy weren’t on speaking terms when she had sent him the invitation to her wedding.
All the other times Axe had come around—which he could count on one hand—the man was always away on business.

  Axe was overwhelmed by the silence in the house. Nothing was out of place, even the kid’s toys. He walked down the hallway into the kitchen for a glass of water, and by the time he’d taken his first sip, the rattle of the backyard doorknob made him shoot up straight. His hand went to the gun holster at the small of his back. The kids were upstairs. Nancy and Angel were at the front door. So who was edging their way into the house through the back door?

  Axe drew his weapon just as the women stepped into the kitchen behind him. His pointed his gun at on the intruder as he showed himself, ducking past the small door into the kitchen, and juggling keys in his palm. He was a panther shifter.

  “If you want to keep your sorry sack of shit in one piece, I suggest you get the fuck out of this house. Far away from me and mine. Got it? Otherwise, we’ll have to dig a large hole in my sister’s flowerbeds for your bullet-riddled corpse.”

  All his senses went on red alert as he stared more closely at the prick’s face. The man standing in his sister’s kitchen, eyes wide at the gun trained on his forehead, was wearing a panther cut. Which made sense because he was Kade Jackson, the president of the Nevada Chapter of the panthers MC.

  “How the fuck did you find us?” Axe demanded. “Does Kit Reese even know you’re here? He may be the Arizona Chapter Prez, and this may be your territory, but you have some nerve showing up at my sister’s, motherfucker.”

  “Get the fuck back,” the man warned.

  “Alexander, no!” Nancy threw herself in front of his line of fire with both hands outstretched. “Stop it. Both of you. The kids are upstairs!”

  “Get out of the way, Nancy.” Kade said, putting his arm on her shoulder.

  “Don’t fucking touch my sister!” Axe shouted.