by Marie James
A flicker of movement draws my eyes to the second floor. They narrow immediately when I see the douche holding up a lighter. I’m close enough to see his lips moving as he scowls at the lighter. Fucker can’t light a damn cand—
The growl from my throat at the realization of what he’s doing rumbles in the empty cab of my truck. My blood heats, thickening in my veins when Molly steps up closer to him. Her mouth is teasing, eyes bright with mischief as she steps closer to him and places her hand over his mouth.
“Please don’t,” the devil in me hisses as she inches even closer.
My eyes dart from the window to the glove box. With quick movements, I hit the latch and pull out the glock, tucking it into the waistband of my jeans just in time to turn and see her pressing her lips to his.
Red.
It’s all I can see.
It’s the color of the only emotion I can manage right now.
The color of his blood when I shoot him between the eyes for touching my fucking girl.
I’m out of the truck and rushing to the front door of the clinic in seconds flat. Just before hitting the front steps, a quick decision carries me around to the back. He has to have another entrance, and even in my anger, I know kicking in the front door of the clinic while it’s still daylight outside is a very bad idea.
Images flash in my head as I stride around the building. Her coy smile. The glint in her eyes as she steps closer.
I stop in my tracks.
She closed the distance between the two of them.
She reached up and kissed him.
The knot in my throat is impossible to swallow.
She’s doing exactly what I urged her to do, exactly what I know in my heart she should do, the one single thing that will kill me if it comes to fruition.
I’m turning and back in my truck before I realize I’ve even moved. The key turns in the ignition, firing the Chevy to life. The gear shift is moved to drive, and it’s as if I’m having an out of body experience because it’s not my hands on the steering wheel or my foot on the gas pedal as I drive away from her. It can’t possibly be. I’d never leave her. I’d never drive away knowing she’s going to seduce him, give him what she’d wanted to give to me, what I turned down in the hallway last week.
Somehow through muscle memory and pure dumb fucking luck, I end up back at the clubhouse. Things don’t seem real until I’m sinking into one of the couches with a drink in my hand and a numbness in my throat that tells me it isn’t my first.
“Hitting it kinda early aren’t you?” TJ’s voice draws my attention, and I look over to find him with his eyes on my hand.
The bottle in my hand seems more appealing than the two fingers worth of whiskey in the other. I throw back the contents of the glass before dropping it heavily on the table in front of me.
“I saw Molly at the vet’s office today.” TJ is looking for an ass beating at the rate he’s going.
Ignoring him, I raise the bottle to my lips, drinking until I can’t breathe.
“She seems to like him, I mean likes working there.”
He’s needling me, trying to get a reaction out of me. The gun still in my waistband heats against my skin, urging me to make him shut the fuck up.
A woman, nothing like Molly, breaks my line of sight and glares in TJ’s direction. “Hey, baby.”
The filthy coo in her voice does nothing for me.
“You’re wasting your time,” TJ says behind her. “Briar doesn’t—”
“Hey, doll,” I slur, patting my lap for her to take a seat.
“Well then.” Surprise marks TJ’s voice as the brunette settles on my lap, but he looks almost angry when I grin over at him.
“I thought he didn’t—” TJ holds his hand up, cutting off Legs’s words before she can finish her sentence.
She’s sitting beside him on the sofa instead of in his lap, or on her knees at his feet like usual. Agitation tightens his shoulders as he glances between his girl, me and his damn phone.
“Can I suck your dick?” The huskiness of the girl’s voice does nothing for me. It’s too harsh, too used to be appealing. It doesn’t have the girlish lilt of Molly’s sweet voice.
The click of a camera catches my attention, but my eyes are slow to turn in the direction of the sound.
“What are you doing?” Glaring at TJ as he holds his phone in my direction, I nearly push the girl off of my lap.
“I’m documenting your return to manhood,” TJ says with a wide, devilish grin.
“I’m next,” Legs says, calling dibs like I’d even consider sticking my dick inside her.
If TJ’s newest plaything goes missing, it will raise suspicions. The new girl on my lap, however— “Hey, doll.” I look up at her, doing my best to ignore the way her sharp fingernails have made their way under the hem of my t-shirt. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“It’s my first time.” She shoots for a seductive purr, but the ease she manages when she offers up the information says she’s anything but a newbie to this game. “Wanna show me a good time?”
I ignore TJ’s snort of indignation. I know he doesn’t believe I’ll go through with it, but he needs to think again. Molly is off giving my gift away, and I’ll be damned if I don’t feed my devil tonight. The alternative isn’t something I want to even consider.
Taking another long swig from the bottle of whiskey, I let my eyes train on her slender neck. The monster inside of me twitches, coming to life slowly from over a decade of dormancy. I can do this. It’d be simple. I urge him to take over, but my cock is flaccid in my jeans. Even the girl grinding on my lap and offering herself up like a prized turkey on Thanksgiving isn’t enough to entice him fully to life.
“Want to fuck out here?” I pull my eyes from her neck to her over-painted face. “Or maybe we can go to your room?”
I take another swig before responding.
“Do you have any family?”
Her head tilts as if she’s confused with the odd question, but the last thing I need is her dad or asshole brother showing up on our doorstep looking for her.
“Only an aunt in Michigan,” she finally answers, smiling when my grin spreads.
“Perfect,” I mutter, letting my eyes drift closed as she wiggles harder on my lap.
Warmth washes over me as the whiskey finally takes hold. The half dozen or so voices around me meld into a single low drone as my mind slowly flashes through the events of the last couple of weeks. My cock thickens at the memory of Molly’s lips in the hallway and grows even more with her angry outburst in her bedroom the following morning. Pain crushes my soul with our conversation and my confession in the park. Witnessing the kiss she shared with someone other than me is the final nail in my coffin.
I might as well belt out my feelings for her to the entire clubhouse. The idea of what she’s doing right now is worse torture than anything Lynch or TJ could rain down on me with my confession. The pain from them would blessedly end eventually. The agony of keeping my mouth shut while she falls in love with another man isn’t something I can endure.
The lure of the woman on my lap entices me one last time, and as my eyes flutter open, I find her looking down at me with her bright red lip pinched between her teeth. She’s become aware of my erection, but even if it’s because of Molly it doesn’t mean I can’t feed my demon’s need with this woman’s body. He’s been woken up, and there’s only one way to lay him back to rest.
Chapter 17
Molly
“I’m sorry.” I turn away from him, rushing to the bathroom to grab my clothes before making it back to his living room and the door that leads back downstairs.
“Molly?” Confusion marks his voice, but he hasn’t moved from the spot I left him a moment ago.
“I can’t do this with you.”
“Okay.” He startles me when his hand reaches over mine before I can grip the doorknob. “Okay.”
He’s calm, not the reaction I expect from a man who ha
s just been rejected.
“Look at me,” he urges, and eventually I manage to turn my eyes up to him. “It’s fine.”
“I didn’t mean to lead you on.” My words rush out, jumbling together. “I hope you find someone to replace me.”
“Replace you?” His head shakes, rejecting the words. “I don’t want to replace you.”
“We can’t—I can’t,” I correct before pausing. “Things will be awkward now.”
“They don’t have to be. I can wait until you’re ready.”
“I can’t,” I repeat. “You shouldn’t wait.”
“Then I won’t,” he agrees even though I feel like he’s only placating me until I calm down. “I don’t want you to quit.”
“There isn’t a chance for us, Owen.”
I leave off the part about being in love with someone else and that the kiss we shared made me feel nothing compared to what I felt kissing Briar. Hurting him serves no purpose, and I’m not normally a mean person, even if I found myself kissing him first.
I wanted to feel something for him. I honestly did, but thinking a second or a third kiss will somehow ignite feelings in me is foolish.
“That’s fine too.” He doesn’t bother to hide the disappointment in his voice, and I’m grateful for his honest emotion. “Just friends, then.”
I don’t cower away when he steps closer and presses a kiss to my forehead. He swallows, the sound audible in the silent room before he steps back.
“Let me walk you to your car. Those bikers from the chasm have been in town more frequently. I don’t want something to happen to you.”
Guilt rushes over me as we descend the stairs and exit through the front door of the clinic. He’s the only one in this equation that needs to worry about those bikers.
“I promise not to let things be weird,” he vows as we reach my car, but there’s hesitation in his voice.
“Okay,” I agree, knowing there’s a very slim chance I’ll ever return.
He pulls me into another hug. “If he doesn’t realize what he’s got, he doesn’t deserve you.”
Tears burn the back of my throat at his declaration, but I don’t give a voice to the pain.
When he releases me, I climb inside my car and leave him standing in the parking lot, doing my best to ignore the pain in his eyes when my headlights flash over his face.
I’m debating returning to the clubhouse to pack and leave for good when I find myself parked at the playground. This place has always been a comfort to me. Even after Briar’s wicked confession days ago, I find myself climbing out of my car and slowly making my way to the middle swing.
I wait, head hung low as I give myself permission to finally let the tears fall. Silently they stream down my face. Even when the sound of footsteps echoes around me, I let them burn down my face. When the footsteps falter, and Briar doesn’t settle into the swing beside me, I lift my head to the darkness around me.
Cold chills settle in my bones even though the summer night is warm. Briar isn’t here, but my senses tell me I’m not alone either. The protective eyes I felt on me days before aren’t the ones looking at me now. As calmly as I can manage without seeming rushed, I stand from the swing and begin walking toward my car. My pace increases the closer I get as I do my best to listen to my surroundings, a nearly impossible task with fear and my blood pounding in my ears. Thankfully, I’m able to get in my car and away from the park without incident, but my heart is still racing, and cold chills are stiffening my spine even as I pull up to the gate.
Slowing at the entrance, I roll down my window. Pete’s smiling face calms my angst only mildly as he leans in to speak with me.
“Hey, Princess. How was work?”
“I—I think someone is following me,” I stammer.
He straightens from my car. “Get inside, Princess. You’re safe here.”
He pulls his radio to his mouth as I roll up my window and drive through the gate. Chains and Hornet are filing out the front door by the time I get out of my car.
“No worries,” Chains says with a quick smile. “You’ll forget about it by the time you get inside.”
I huff at his sureness, opting to walk through the clubhouse, rather than walk around the clubhouse in the dark. The chill I feel down to my bones will take forever to ebb away.
Only I realize how wrong I am when I open the front door and step inside of the clubhouse.
Deception is a funny thing. I question my sanity, wondering if what I felt at the park was of my own making, or if maybe I’m stuck in a nightmare, because there is no way Briar is on the fucking couch with a whore in his lap.
Only it’s his cut, his battered boots, and his favorite pair of jeans under the greedy hands and licking mouth of some girl I’ve never seen before.
The chills from earlier are quickly replaced with seething anger so hot and incendiary the room may catch fire from my will alone. Before I go full Carrie on this place, I look over and find my brother smirking at me.
“Hey, Princess.”
Briar doesn’t even flinch at TJ’s words, and it’s then I realize the man is passed out under the whore’s wandering hands.
I hitch my head in her direction while holding TJ’s glaze. “You aren’t the only one who knows how to handle a knife, big brother, but I won’t be as disciplined or discerning as you.”
His grin grows wider at my warning.
“You can’t ruin the man’s good time,” TJ taunts.
“Oh fuck,” Ronan hisses when he notices me standing in the middle of the living room before turning his attention back to the other woman. “Hey, honey?”
I don’t know if he has a hero complex, or if he doesn’t want to be the one to clean up the blood spill, but Ronan stands and urges the girl off of Briar’s lap. The club VP doesn’t even move when the woman is removed.
“Ronan,” I hiss as he starts to guide the grumbling girl away.
“Eighty-sixed. You got it, Princess.”
“Briar!” I yell, kicking his boot with my own shoe.
He jolts, but his eyes are slow to open. An empty whiskey bottle slides out of his hand and clanks as it hits the floor.
“Baby?” he slurs when he looks up at me.
Heat burns my cheeks with the pet name. Silence is heavy around us, and I know everyone in the room is glad they have front row seats to this. I’d insist they all get the fuck out, but that will only draw even more unwanted attention to us.
“Where did she go?” Briar asks as I reach down for him. “A little help, TJ?”
Chuckling, my brother gets off his ass to help me lift Briar to standing.
“Why were you letting that girl lick all over him?” I glare over Briar’s shoulder as we slowly make it across the room.
“He’s a grown man,” he argues. “I’m not his mother or his warden.”
“He was passed out, shithead.”
“Such a pretty mouth saying such nasty things,” Briar grumbles.
“He wasn’t passed out when they got started.”
Agony takes up residence in the pit of my stomach at his words, but I keep my grip on Briar.
“I was going to kill her instead of you,” Briar slurs as TJ reaches for the bedroom doorknob.
“You drank a little too much to be murdering anyone’s pussy, bro,” TJ grunts as we shift Briar’s weight onto the bed. He stands back, shaking his head as he looks down at his friend. “You coming?”
I shake my head, not pulling my eyes from Briar’s unconscious body.
“Be careful, Princess.” He kisses my forehead and leaves the room.
I stand still just watching him for long moments before I set to work getting his heavy boots unlaced and off of his feet. I should stop there, but I don’t. I roll him on his back and wrangle his cut and shirt from his lifeless body. The t-shirt lands on the floor, but with respect, I hang his cut over the lone chair in front of his small desk on the other side of the room.
Even drunk and asleep, his muscles bun
ch under my fingers as I sweep them over his stomach to the top button of his jeans.
“Jesus, what are you doing?” I mutter as I free that first button.
He wouldn’t want this. If he were awake, he’d grip my hand and shove me away. He’d spew some more bullshit about hurting me or that what I’m doing isn’t allowed no matter how much we both want it. With determination, I pop free the other three buttons of his fly and tug at the jeans, rolling him back and forth until they’re almost past the defined muscles of his ass. His boxers slip, revealing a decadent tan line I’ve never seen before.
The stark contrast of the white flesh compared to the golden skin above it is confusing. He hasn’t taken his shirt off in front of me in years. When does he remove it? Who gets to see the hard-working muscles on his back and the ripple of bumps on his stomach?
Not tempting myself any further, I hitch his boxers back into place before tugging his jeans the rest of the way off. They’re cast aside, joining his t-shirt on the floor.
No longer able to watch him, I climb off the bed and go to his bathroom. With a cup of water from the faucet and some Advil I found in a drawer, I make my way back out to his bedside. He hasn’t moved an inch. I think better of leaving when I turn and reach the door. Rather than pulling the heavy wood open, I flip the lock and turn the light off.
I’m questioning my sanity when I cross the room once more, climb into bed with him, and snuggle into his side.
Chapter 18
Briar
Nighttime is always the worst time. Left alone with my thoughts and the horrors that visit me while I sleep are almost enough to keep me awake. It isn’t Freddy Krueger or flashes from my past that infiltrate my brain in slumber. It isn’t the disgusting and depraved things I’ve done for my club with a smile on my face.
My dreams are filled with fantasies. Sinful and wicked things I want to do with a certain club princess.
