by Lila Rose
“No worries, Stoke,” Josh said and bounded out of the room. I saw Nary quietly follow him. She was smiling so wide I was sure she’d crack her jaw.
“Love.” I turned to look at him. He gave my neck a squeeze as he searched my face and then he asked, “Did you play with yourself last night?”
“Stoke,” I gasped.
He chuckled. “You did and I bet you did it while thinkin’ of me.” I didn’t answer, but he smiled smugly. “Yep, you did.” Another neck squeeze. “And it was good.”
A light punch in his stomach had him laughing. “Love, we’ll go slow. You’re kids are down with me bein’ your old man…but will you be?”
“Uh…can I give you an answer tonight?” I asked as my brain screamed at me to say yes, but my damaged heart was singing “Grenade” by Bruno Mars.
He watched me for a few beats and then grinned. “Sure, love.” He then touched his lips lightly to mine. He went to pull away, but my body wasn’t for that. I reached up, wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. His hands moved to my bottom and forced my hips closer to his, close enough I could feel his hardness.
I’m such a hussy! I asked for a day to think and yet I was kissing the hell out of this man. All that says is I’m a tease. Dammit, who was I kidding anyway? My answer was going to be yes.
“Yes,” I mumbled around his mouth. He stopped kissing me and I let out a disappointed growl.
“What did you just say?” he asked.
“Y-yes?”
His smile was bright. “You’re willing to give this a chance?”
I couldn’t say it. Instead, it seemed my body was making me out to be the hussy, so it nodded my head for me.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get to know one another. You’ll learn to trust me. I would never hurt you or your kid’s intentionally.”
All I could do was pray he was right. I had been through enough heartache in my thirty-five years, but worse, my children had been through enough to last them a lifetime.
Stoke continued, “We’ll leave it—for now—to the same routine. I’ll come by every second or third day for dinner and we’ll see how it goes, yeah?”
Smiling shakily, I agreed, “Yeah.”
“Fuckin’ elated you want to try this with me.”
There was nothing I could say to that. A thank you didn’t seem enough. Declan Stoke was elated to become more of a standard part in my life. I was honoured he picked me. A broken woman, healing slightly every day, who had two children and they had their own daddy issues. But he was willing to take us all on. For that, I was elated.
Instead of saying anything, I showed him. I kissed him with so much enthusiasm I was dizzy. He gripped me tightly to him and groaned against my mouth. I smiled; happy I could even draw a groan out of him. I wanted to hear it again and again.
However, in the kitchen with the kids in the next room wasn’t the time.
“I guess she’s for the idea?” I heard Josh laugh. We pulled back, both panting. With wide eyes, I turned to look at my son, but he wasn’t the only one standing there. Dodge, Stoke’s biker brother, stood beside him with a wide smile upon his face. He also looked like he was fighting his own laugh.
Stoke turned to the bench, away from them, at first I wondered why. Until I remembered a certain firm hardness that had been rubbing against me. He was trying to get himself under control.
“Ah, hi, Dodge.” I gave a small wave his way. His smile went wider, which I ignored, but didn’t stop my face from heating though. “Josh, I, um, are you ready for school?”
Josh cackled with laughter. “Yeah, Mum.” He moved off to the front door.
“You all right, brother, or you need some time?” Dodge taunted.
“I’ll meet you at the car,” Stoke growled low, and that was when Dodge started to laugh. “Just make sure Nary’s in the car ready,” Stoke snapped.
“She’s already out there. Didn’t want to see her mum neckin’. Apparently, it was gross. But I didn’t mind it one bit.”
Next thing I knew, a plastic container flew over my head and hit Dodge in the chest. “Out,” Stoke hissed. Dodge walked off chuckling. Declan wrapped me in his arms again and said, “Wish I could make it tonight, finish what we started here. But I can’t and I guess it’s good in a way because that means going slowly would have been out the window.”
“That’s true.” I smiled.
He groaned, kissed me hard and walked out of the house.
Nary
I was standing at my locker at the end of the day smiling to myself. I’d never seen my mum that happy before. Even if Stoke was another biker, like my dad had been, Josh and I knew he was different. For one, he showed up at the house wanting to spend time with us, and two, he showed he cared.
The smile slipped from my mouth. It was sad to lose Dad, but in a way, I was glad, and I hated myself for that thought.
Josh needed a guy around the house and Stoke was perfect for him. I knew I’d put mum through hell recently. Always talking back, but it was because I thought she didn’t care. She kept us with a man who hated us, who yelled at us every day. In a way, I understood it, or at least I tried to. She didn’t want us to have a broken home. Even if we were all broken already because of the way Dad was.
Josh and I were going to do our best to cause nothing that could take Stoke away from our family.
“Hey, lesbo, had any fingering today?”
I groaned, closed my locker and turned to the person I hated the most. Malcolm French. He was in the same grade as I, year eleven, and he had been an annoying turd since he arrived at our school two years ago.
The only reason he gave me hell was because I said I wouldn’t date him. It wasn’t because he wasn’t good looking. He was. But he was mean to most people. He was rude and everything he said was disgusting. He stood leaning against the opposite wall from my locker. He always found time to go out of his way to taunt and tease me.
“Malcolm, just leave me alone.” I sighed, picked my bag from the floor and started down the hallway.
Shit.
He followed behind me. Usually he waited until there was an audience to play with my mind, but today, the halls were deserted…except for Saxon Black. My eyes always seemed to find him even if it was crowded. He was tall, and in the year above me. He was a bad boy in many ways. Though, I think it had a lot to do with his home life. He looked the part also, charcoal hair, faded jeans with holes in them, black tees with some rock band on them and motorcycle boots. He stood down the hall a bit, with his locker open, but his beautiful green eyes were on Malcolm and me, only they had a look of revulsion within them. That look seemed to be placed on his handsome face a lot when I was around. I never knew why though.
“Stop ignoring me, slut,” Malcolm jeered behind me.
“Maybe if I do it long enough, you’ll just disappear.” I shouldn’t have said it. I knew, for some time now, to keep my mouth shut around Malcolm. But he brought it out in me. Everyone had a right to stick up for themselves. Only when I did it with Malcolm, he hated it and he’d think of a new way to make me pay for it.
“Nary, come on,” Josh called from down the hall.
“Fucking lucky he came, lesbo, one day you will pay and I’ll be the one to deliver it.” Malcolm sneered.
Shrugging his words off, like I always did, I made my way to my brother, averting my eyes from Saxon.
Chapter Ten
Malinda
“Well, hello there, Lindy,” Julian cried as I opened the door. I shook my head. I hadn’t expected Julian—I looked around him—Mattie, Zara, Deanna, Ivy and Clary, until the following day. Yet there they were, standing on the porch.
“Um, sorry, come in. I thought you were the groceries being delivered.” Declan didn’t want me to go to the supermarket so I had to do everything online and get it delivered.
I led them all into the kitchen. “I thought you were all coming tomorrow?” I asked
“We were,” Zara started as she sat down at the table. Matt
ie and Julian opted to sit at on the seats at the bench, while the rest of the ladies and myself, sat around the kitchen table. “But then Julian came up with the idea to annoy Stoke for keeping you to himself, so to speak, so we came a day early.” She smiled.
“He hasn’t actually been keeping me to himself. I only see him every second day.”
“Aw, isn’t that cute? She’s protecting him already,” Julian gushed.
“Cute, yeah, what would be sweeter is if I had a hot chocolate in my hand about now. I was promised treats, dammit,” Deanna whined. Without looking at her, Zara pulled a chocolate bar out of her bag and handed it over. Deanna smiled, unwrapped it quickly and started munching. It was as though Zara had calmed the beast.
“We soon realised, now she’s pregnant, to carry treats in our bags or she gets cranky real quick,” Ivy explained.
I giggled. “I was a sweet tooth when I was pregnant.”
“Lindy, we heard Warden has been calling you Mally, which would you prefer?”
Smiling, I said, “Mally.”
“Done,” he grinned. “Now, as Talon calls us, we muffkateers need to bring you into our fold. When a girl is down—”
“Maybe I should go. I’m sure I still have my man card,” Mattie interrupted.
“Oh, no baby, you stay. You’re here for moral support.” He patted his partner’s knee and continued, “So, when a girl is down, we reach out to one another. When a girl is sick, we reach out. When a girl just needs to rant, we reach out. We even reach out when it’s that time of the month and we need a girls’ night of Chris Hemsworth and chocolate. What I’m saying, darling Mally, is you are now a part of our fold. You need us for anything, you call us and we will be there.”
I’d been with Tank since I was sixteen. I got pregnant at eighteen. I thought he was enough, but I knew I missed something and that something sat in my kitchen before me, reaching out to me, even though they didn’t know me.
It was all too much. I burst into tears. I covered my face with my hands and cried myself silly.
“You made her leak,” Deanna yelled. “Oh, shit, I think I’m gonna leak. Bitches, you made me leak.” Her outrage actually made me feel better. Wiping my eyes, I looked to Deanna to see her throw her chocolate down and rub her eyes.
That was when the back door opened and Dodge came running in, only to come to an abrupt halt and puff out, “I couldn’t stop her. She had my balls in a death grip.”
“Malinda,” Mrs Cliff yelled. “I don’t care if it’s my fault that guy can’t have kids now, he shouldn’t fucking stop me from coming in. Tell him, Malinda, that I can come and go as I please.” She stopped when she spotted everyone and then turned to me and glared. “You’re having a fucking party and you didn’t invite me. Jesus Christ, girl. My heart just shattered. Fuck it, I’m here now. I’m over it. Now, what are we eating?”
That was why I loved Mrs Cliff. She’d beat anyone to a pulp, tell you how it was, and then if something upset her, she’d get over it. Really, she was the crazy, lovable mother I never had.
Julian gasped. “Wow, oh, wow. Hell Mouth, I think we just found your granny.”
Clary and Ivy started giggling when Zara said, “It’s like looking in a mirror.”
But then, what silenced the room was when both Deanna and Mrs Cliff spoke at the same time.
“Fuck off, bitch, I ain’t old and haggy.”
“Fuck off, girl, I ain’t young and slutty.” Mrs Cliff smiled. “I think I’ll like you.”
Deanna rolled her eyes. Still, no one missed the smile playing on her lips. “Yeah, I suppose you could be okay.”
“Fuck this shit,” Dodge growled and then disappeared out the back door.
Mrs Cliff took the quiet moment to walk around and sit at the end of the table. “Now, what are we talking about? Sex?”
Rolling my eyes, I answered, “No.”
“But we should,” came from Deanna. “Have you done the dirty with Stoke?”
My eyes widened.
“Wait,” Julian yelled. “We need coffee and cake for this. Mattie, honey, I brought a cake with us. It’s in the car. Can you go get it while I get the kettle on.”
“Bloody lucky I popped in for this talk.” Mrs Cliff smiled.
“We aren’t talking about sex,” I stated.
Ivy, who was sitting next to me at the table, touched my arm gently and said, “Just go with it. If they don’t hear it from you, then they’ll go to Stoke. Besides, they like to talk about everything.”
“But—”
“However,” Clary began, “we do know to keep it to ourselves.”
“She’s right, Mally. What is said in the posse stays in the posse,” Julian confirmed.
Looking down at the table, I admitted, “I’m not used to this. I haven’t had friends most of my life.”
“It can be overwhelming. Believe me I know,” Clary said. “I was the same; except I had a sister”
Deanna scoffed, “A bitch sister.”
“Yes, that’s true.” She grimaced. “Mally, we each have a story to tell. I was blind in a lot of ways until I met Blue and our posse.” She grinned. “And I know now, that I wouldn’t change it for anything. Deanna can be a bitch and swear like a trooper, but she also has a sweet side and would do anything for you—”
“I do not,” Deanna snapped.
“Ivy may chat a lot, but she means well by it and we love her for it. Zara is the ringleader. She is fiercely protective and can seem a little crazy, but she’s beautifully natured.” She paused and looked to Julian with soft eyes. “And Julian…he is amazing. He’s loyal, funny, gorgeous, calm and he’s the glue that keeps us all together. But what also has us stick, is that we’re all willing to take hold and help each other out. With time, you’ll need it if you’re going to be a part of Stoke’s life. Those biker boys are…”
“Hot-headed, arrogant, possessive, alpha males.” Zara smiled. “I’ve had practise with that one.”
We all laughed.
“You’ll need us to understand them and bitch when they do or say the wrong thing, which will happen a lot,” Clary said.
“Can we get over this sappy shit now and get down to the dirty deets?” Deanna asked.
Mrs Cliff slammed her hand down onto the table and yelled, “I like you. You’re fucking adopted.”
“Aw shit, old lady. Now you’re going to make me leak,” Deanna snapped in response.
“Mrs Cliff, Deanna’s pregnant. She’s highly emotional right now,” Zara offered.
“You got knocked up? I hope it was by a hot guy.”
“Oh, yeah.” Deanna grinned.
“I’d like to meet my new grandson-in-law. Dinner my house tonight.”
“I’m down with that.”
Oh. My.
Poor Griz was walking into Hell on Earth and he didn’t know. I wondered if he’d even heard of her.
The front door opened, in came Mattie, carrying a plastic bag filled with goodies, and Griz stood just inside the open doorway. He glared at his wife.
“Woman,” he barked. “You’ve got an appointment. What in the fuck are you doing here?”
“Don’t you ‘woman’ me,” Deanna snapped and stood from the table with her hands on her hips. “I wasn’t missing out on the hot gossip of how good Stoke is in bed. We can re-schedule.”
“You ain’t missing it. I’m sure your women can fill you in,” he growled low.
“Fine,” she growled back. “Besides, we’re coming back here tonight after we get Swan.”
“What in the fuck for?”
“We’re having dinner at Mrs Cliff’s,” Deanna stated and I swear all colour faded from the big guy’s face. He searched the table and found Mrs Cliff smiling at him.
He rolled his eyes and announced, “We aren’t comin’.”
Uh. Oh.
Mrs Cliff’s smile fell from her face and she glared at Griz. “You will be fucking coming even if I have to come after you and drag you to my house. I don’t take a
liking to many people and I took one to your lady. You, I’m not so sure. But if you want your lady’s adopted nanna in her life, you had bloody better work on winning me over.”
Griz’s eyes snapped to his wife. “Adopted?”
“What can I say? I’m fucking lovable.” She grinned.
I was sure everyone could read the murderous look on Griz’s face. Deanna was going to have to make things up to him and in a big way.
“We’re leavin’,” he snarled.
“Sure thing, babe.” She moved around the table to her man.
“See you tonight,” Mrs Cliff called.
I wasn’t sure, but I think Griz confirmed they’d be there with a lot of rough words and swearing.
“How far along is she?” I asked Zara.
“Just about three months. The wench kept it a secret for two months.”
So she was past the scary stage. I wasn’t sure I could imagine seeing Deanna as a mother. Until Zara next informed me of Swan, Griz’s three year old.
Julian passed out the coffee and cake as Zara informed me of her story. I was shocked she had been through so much, but happy that she had Talon while going through it all.
“Those bikers are hot motherfuckers,” Mrs Cliff announced after Ivy told us all her story. “But now I want to hear how your biker is holding up in the sack?” she asked me.
Blushing, I said, “Um, we haven’t actually slept with each other.”
Ivy and Clary gasped. Julian’s spoon with cake on it clattered to the table. Mattie rolled his eyes and Zara stared at me with wide eyes.
“That can’t be,” Julian said his hand going to his heart. “How long has he been around? Three weeks? I thought for sure he would have made his move.”
“We’ve kissed,” I offered. “But it was only yesterday that I said yes to be…his woman.” The words felt foreign as it passed my lips, but as soon as it hit my ears, an ease and rightness settled over me.
“He’s a good kisser,” Mrs Cliff said and all eyes turned to her. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. It ain’t like I pashed the shit out of him. Though, I wouldn’t mind trying.” I opened my mouth to say something but she got there first. “Kidding, child. However, I have seen them make out and it was H.O.T.” She actually spelled out the words like a dorky teenager, making the heat sitting on my cheeks inflame even more.
