Hiding in Plain Sight

by Hornbuckle, J. A.

Somehow at that moment, being dismissed from the only job he'd wanted since he was six years old didn't seem so bad.

  Chapter Thirty

  Brand's mind churned as the bikes made their way back to the clubhouse, Melvin still bound and now hooded with a t-shirt on the back of Dare's ride. If anyone noticed the covering on the bike's passenger, none seemed too disturbed. When he'd joined HMC it was a job, something which spoke to his need for justice and gave him the experience needed to bring down the Milosevics. But Trey's behavior over the last few days had Brand reexamining his previous thoughts and prejudices.

  All of them rode without their cuts, unwilling to be known for their affiliation to the club as they'd disposed of the three dimwits before taking the fourth to their compound.

  Brand was burning with a want for revenge and to mete out justice against the old bantam rooster who made so many lives miserable. First for his Reese, and second for Melvin of the sad eyes. But he knew the list would grow longer when more of the old man's perversions were uncovered.

  Dare drove directly behind the saloon which contained six, one roomed apartments and at the moment, only had two full time residents. After parking their rides, Brand watched as Dare slit the tape on Melvin's wrists before leading him inside one of the middle units.

  He knew how the interior was laid out. A chest, a queen sized bed and a chair. Besides a small bathroom that only included a sink, toilet and shower, there was nothing in the room to give away either the location or who held him. Even if looking out the window, he would see nothing but a nondescript industrial park beyond the chain-link fence of HMC property.

  Dare stood in the doorway and Brand heard him explain that he would bring Mel more clothes and some food later. Beyond Dare's tall form, the other man simply nodded and eased his ass down onto the bed, defeat evident in the set of his shoulders and jaw. The door closed and Dare wove a padlock through the latch.

  "Dead on my feet, brother," Trey said, resting a hand on Brand's shoulder. "Gonna catch some zees."

  "Let's find the women first, grub second," Dare said, glancing at Brand, who nodded.

  He too was tired. It had been a long night filled with adrenaline that had no outlet and now that the hormones had dissipated, he longed to close his eyes for the next week.

  The saloon was empty, although there were noises and smells coming from the kitchen. Dare pushed open the swinging door and Brand heard a female voice exclaim, "That’s amazing!" It was either Lock, Carly or one of the others, he didn't know which.

  "I know, right? My sister- in- law, Vana, showed me how to do it. Perfect cubes with only a few cuts. Isn't it great?" his Reese said. He'd know that sultry voice anywhere, anytime. It was stuck in the depths of his soul, and his heart reacted to just the sound of it. And to hear her talk about Vana, his brother's wife, in such familial terms made the love within him swell to even higher peaks.

  He quickly stepped to where the women stood at the stove and wound his arms around her waist from behind, his lips to her neck. "My Reese," he breathed, closing his eyes at all the emotions filling him.

  "Brand!" she welcomed, twisting and turning until she was fully wrapped around him; lips searching for his, arms wrapped tightly around his neck and legs encircling his waist. He stumbled back in his weariness, only stopping when his ass hit another counter. But never once letting an inch of her go as he attempted to pull her closer than close.

  "Now that's how you tell a girl hello," he heard Lock, Carly or whomever it was drawl.

  "Nope. That's how a real woman greets her man," came Dare's reply. "Take notes, babe."

  *.*.*.*.*

  We shared a meal with Dare and Lock, but we couldn't seem keep our hands off each other. Whether it was a hand hold, a gentle caress or even feeding bits to each other of what was on our plates, Brand and I were in a world all our own.

  I was chalking it up to finally making the decision to stay with a man who was more than any of my dreams, any of the romance book boyfriends I'd had over the years. What my husband's reason for being so affectionate was, I didn't bother to ask. It was enough that he wanted me and let me know of that want with every touch and shared look.

  "We'll be in two," Brand told his club-brother after we'd rinsed our plates and stacked them in the industrial-sized dishwasher. He grabbed my hand, interlacing our fingers. "But tell Trey, I'll be around for the meeting later."

  I waved at Lock as we passed before making our way outside and around the back of the building before Brand opened one of the series of doors that faced the fence. I saw his motorcycle backed into one of the spaces lining the chain link boundary and was confused at where we were going.

  "I'm too tired to go home, and there is a lot to do when we get there," he explained cryptically, moving to the side of the open door so I could enter first. Inside, I saw a minimum of cheap furniture in the neat, clean room. "Shower first?" he suggested with a tired eyelift.

  A shower sounded like heaven and, like him, I began to undress.

  Languid kisses under streams of warm water. Soapy hands that laved and stroked in tender yet exciting caresses. Touching each other in places we'd learned caused the most pleasure, with soft groans and whimpers announcing the delight of our fondling.

  Naked and still slightly damp, he turned down the covers and stretched himself out in the center of the mattress. I felt a spasm within me at all of him on view. Whoever said women weren't visual never saw Brand in all his naked glory.

  "Come love me, wife," he murmured, with heated eyes that only signaled his exhaustion in the circles beneath.

  He pulled me over to straddle him and pointed to a bowl of condoms on the bedside table. I lifted and reached for one, never realizing it put my nipple close to his mouth before the wet capture of my hard peak was felt. Felt all the way down in my moistening core.

  "We need to talk of birth control," he murmured as his lips left my sharp pink tip when I shifted to roll the latex over his thick long length I was now convinced was only for me.

  "Okay to go on the pill?" I asked, bent in concentration on my task of covering him.

  His hips thrusted against my hands as they stroked him. "God, yes!"

  "Yeah, to the pill or to what I'm doing?" I asked, unable to help my smile.

  "Fuck, wife! Both!" Came his fervent bark.

  I shifted back to straddlem and he reached a hand between us, using his thumb to hold his cock upright.

  "Ride me, my bride. Give me that sweet heat that makes me cry out at its tight wetness." His words caused another spasm, another rush of fluid between my legs. I held myself above himm and it must have been too much, just having the beginning of his helmet against me because before I knew it, I was being slowly lowered onto his full, wide hardness. The feel of him holding my waist, filling me completely as our eyes did their own version of an eye-fuck set my insides on fire. At the touch of his heated skin on my swollen clit, I began to move.

  I rode.

  Brand guided.

  And we both cried out our love, in English this time, when our connected bliss hit us.

  *.*.*.*.*

  He dressed as quietly as possible, with one eye trained on his beauty in the bed. Something had been different about their coupling this time. Something he couldn't quite put his finger onm but if he were to give it words he would say 'acceptance'. Before, he'd always felt like she had one foot out the door, ready to flee at a moment's notice. But not today and he didn't know or understand what had caused that change.

  Of course, he'd been so tired it could've only been the result of wishful thinking on his part. Although the sex they'd shared had satisfied him at such a cellular level he'd been absolutely boneless. Something he couldn't ever remember feeling in all his couplings.

  He wrote a note for her, using the blank pad of paper in the desk and one of the pens on offer, advising where he'd gone and asking her to remain in their room. He would make a point of telling one of the other women as well, asking them to check on her
later.

  Brand was almost to the saloon door when his cellphone vibrated.

  It was from Atin. Deschames dead. Stroke. Confirmed. Hallelujah! Brand read. He stopped dead in his tracks. No! This was not how it ended. It was supposed to be complete when the last breaths were choked from the throat Brand gripped as he whispered the why and wherefores of the murder committed by his own hands.

  He raised unseeing eyes up from the screen.

  This changed everything.

  He raced back to the room to tell her but stopped at the door.

  It was done. Deschames was dead and she no longer needed him or his protection from the petty crime lord that had made both her and her family's life miserable.

  If he told her…he swallowed thickly and dropped his forehead to the door, unwilling to complete the thought but it bubbled up anyway.

  If he told her would she leave him?

  He stepped back from the cheap portal and woodenly walked to the saloon, taking his customary position against the bar, mindlessly sipping a beer. The plans for tomorrow's transfer of the Milosevic guns were being reviewed yet again but Brand couldn't concentrate. His mind was on what to do about this latest discovery.

  The meeting was mercifully short and held no real surprises. Brand stayed in his place unwilling to go back to their borrowed room, to face her. He saw Trey and Dare make their way to him.

  "You don't look so good," Dare offered.

  "What's wrong, Brand?" Trey asked, his deeper voice overriding the younger man.

  Brand pulled out his cellphone and pulled up Atin's message before showing the two men.

  After reading, both their eyes went to Brand's face.

  "Guess we can let Mel go now," Dare said, using his belt loops to pull up his jeans.

  "No reason to keep him," Trey agreed, placing his empty beer bottle on the bar. "Did he talk during the ride back?"

  "A bit. Said his dad was a general contractor that crossed Deschames one too many times. Parents bit it in a car accident that left the lawmen scratching their heads." Dare's voice held a thread of vindictiveness that the other men understood. Dare'd lived in Oregon and his parents too had died of suspicious causes after crossing another petty power- hungry man.

  "What'd you make of Mel, Brand?" Trey asked, leaning an elbow on the bar.

  "Smart, scared." Brand's voice was distant even to his own ears. "Loyal."

  "That was my take, too," Dare added. "I'll sponsor. We need to find his kin, though."

  Trey nodded. "Got a place with more than enough room for the three of them. Need to find him a ride and have the Hell Honeys furnish the place." He turned his head to Brand. "You in?"

  Brand hadn't even heard the man speak and wasn't aware he was being asked a question until his shoulder was shoved.

  "What the fuck, Dude?" Dare was full up in his face. "When Trey talks, you listen, all right?"

  "Sorry," Brand offered in a weak voice. He turned to Trey, taking in the narrowed eyes and thin lips. "I have a lot on my mind and did not hear you."

  "Have had enough of this fucking bullshit," Trey mumbled, pulling out a stool and tucking it under his ass. "You're gonna talk, brother. And I want all of it."

  Brand knew he was cornered but also knew he could only tell so much without putting himself and his wife in jeopardy. Keeping with his story of a sister in trouble, he told of finding Reese, of her predicament and all the hows and whys of their marriage. Then he referred to Atin's text message.

  There was quiet as the other two men took in all that Brand had said and all that wasn't said but they'd seen.

  "You're shittin' yourself she's gonna leave," Dare surmised, surprise ringing in his voice at the thought of the large, confident biker afraid.

  Brand could only nod, his eyes on his boots.

  "Swear to god, man. If I'd had me some of what I saw today, I'd be shittin' myself, too." Brand dragged his eyes up to the younger man, finding complete and total honesty in his face. "What she gave you doesn't grow on trees."

  "I asked you before if it was real, and I now I get your answer. It wasn't but now it is, right?" Trey recapped. "Guess you'll find out when you tell her."

  "Yes," Brand agreed, though his heart was at his knees at the thought.

  There was silence as the three men thought about what to do.

  "Okay, here's how it goes. You bring Reese back here, Dare'll bring Mel and I'll round up another Hell Honey to give your girl some support. We'll tell both of them at the same time and kill two birds with one stone," Trey declared with a sly smile. "We'll get Reese involved in getting Melvin and family set up, she'll see you as a knight in shining and all will be good!"

  *.*.*.*.*

  I woke up from a deep, restful sleep naked underneath the worn sheets to the feel of his warm mouth on my neck. Working my skin with gentle tongue strokes and soft nips as he called my name. I'd never been awakened with such sweet heat.

  "Hey, baby," I offered, stretching before reaching for him. He'd started to create a hunger in me and I knew only my Brand could more than fulfill that growing need.

  "You are wanted in the clubhouse," he told me, bringing those sexy greeny-yellow eyes to mine. "Get dressed. Then afterwards, we can go home and play."

  Oh, playtime with Brand in the vast expanse of our bed sounded wonderful. I rolled to the empty side of the mattress looking for my clothes. He dropped them next to me as he went to the door and leaned against it.

  "About last night," I started, shimmying into my underwear and hitching my bra into place. "What happened?"

  "Nothing really," came the droll reply. "Four men who did not know their mouths from a hole in the ground. Quickly reduced to piles of cry-babies who wet themselves when faced with Hellion justice."

  I froze with one leg in my jeans at his words. "You killed them?" I whispered, stricken at the thought of all the blood now covering the hardwood floors I'd so lovingly mopped.

  "No," Brand shot back with an 'are-you-kidding' look. "They threw a rock through one of the dining room windows and Dare duct taped them on the back patio. They have been delivered to the police."

  I sank to the mattress in relief. "That's good. Except about the window."

  "All will be well at our home, draga," he assured me. He hadn't called me that in more than a few days now. Lately it had been 'wife', 'my wife', 'my love' and 'my beauty' which was the one I was especially fond of. The change in endearments scared me.

  "Butch and Mosh were sent to board up the broken window. Outside of that, our home is still as it was," he mumbled as I brushed out my hair.

  He walked me to the door of the saloon which was thankfully empty.

  "Would you like a beverage, my love?" he asked as he took a position behind the bar.

  "Brown soda, low ice," I offered back, admiring the view of my husband making me a drink from behind a bar.

  The door creaked behind me as I took my first sip.

  "Reesie!" came Jilly's call and for the second time in the last twenty-four hours, the little blonde made a teetering bee-line to me for a hug.

  "Jilly," I offered, now knowing the routine and squeezing her back.

  "You look good without all the makeup," she said, her eyes roaming over my clean face. She tilted her head, still studying me, while her voice continued. "Why do you gotta wear all that junk anyway?"

  "Brand's idea," I offered, throwing my husband under the bus with a smile. He did, have the grace to blush at the other woman's chiding look and words.

  "You outta be fuckin' shot. She's too pretty to wear all that shit," Jilly told him, leaning over the bar in emphasis.

  "I agree," he groused. "She is very beautiful, both with and without the makeup."

  "Damn fucking straight," Dare called from the doorway leading in a man who caught and held my eye.

  A man that I knew.

  Someone who used to be one of the guards at Louie's place.

  Without a second thought, I was up and over the bar, climbing it l
ike one of those fake mountain things people do for fun before hiding behind my Brand.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  The words my mind chanted were in complete agreement with the fast beats of my heart.

  "He's one of them, baby," I moaned into Brand's back as I clutched the sides of his t-shirt. "He's one of Louie's guys."

  Brand had twisted, pulling my reluctant body around until he was at my back holding me tightly across my chest.

  "As long as I have breath in my body, no one will ever hurt you again, my Reese," he whispered harshly into my ear. It wasn't that I didn't believe him, but it was…

  "I'm sorry, Reese," I heard the young man, my former guard call from across the floor. "I'm so sorry."

  Wait…what?

  I took in the Deschames employee's disheveled appearance, the silver tape around his shirt sleeves and ankles as well as the rectangle of red skin around his mouth.

  "I tried to protect you but I couldn't," I heard the dark haired guy say sincerely as the biker brought him closer. "When it became impossible, I had to bail. I'm so sorry."

  "Dare, this is my wife, Reese," I heard Brand say from over my head. His formal introduction seemed incongruous in the miasma of my need for escape. "And you, my love, already know Melvin."

  The outside door creaked again and Trey came through, striding quickly and confidently to the five of us at the bar.

  "Great! We're all here," the handsome man who was all biker, said with a hand clap that ended with a palm scrub. "Let's get to it, shall we?"

  Chapter Thirty One

  "Louie dying," he heard her voice start and felt her warm breath against the skin of his chest. "Changes everything."

  Brand didn't answer and he felt her neck stretch as she looked up at him. They'd left only one set of the lights on in their bathroom as they'd played. He could see her face, the light catching on her forehead, her cheekbone and the side of her nose. Her skin glowed a shade that was almost mother of pearl in the dim lighting. It was a face he wanted to see every day for the rest of his life.