by Debra Kayn
He needed to get out of here, away from Bree or he'd be right back upstairs between her legs. He could protect her from everyone else, but nobody could protect her from him.
It was time. He'd held on to her too long. She was old enough to move on and get her life back.
She needed to work and get out of the house, away from Ronacks if she was ever going to have a chance at finding happiness away from him. He'd let her dependency on him go too long. He already claimed her. She was his.
Fuck. He couldn't let her go. He'd never survive. He needed her.
The door opened behind him. He shoved his hand in his jeans and took out his lighter, found one cigarette left in his pack, and lit the end. What he needed was a long ride, and he'd come back in the morning to an empty house and a better frame of mind.
"I guess tonight is the night for you to go against everything you believe," said Bree behind him.
He exhaled harshly. "Get back in the house."
"I plan to, and then I'll pack a bag, and I'll be out of here. I heard everything you said to the others. You want me gone? I'll leave. It won't be the first time I've been out on my own." Bree paused at the roar of a motorcycle growing closer.
Rod parked beside the long row of motorcycles and took the key out of Battery's bike before heading toward his president. Battery stepped forward, angered at his vice president overstepping his bounds.
"Give me the key," said Battery.
Bree stepped around him and faced Rod. "Thanks for coming so fast when I called. I'm sorry I interrupted your night. He's drinking, and you're the only member of Ronacks who could take his key away from him."
Rod's gaze lifted to Battery. "That right, Prez? Have you had too much to drink?"
"Fuck you." Battery searched for another cigarette and came up empty. "I need to be somewhere."
"Ride with purpose, man," said Rod, hooking his fingers in the front pockets of his tattered jeans.
Battery rocked back on the heels of his boots. The club's pledge thrown in his face, he couldn't tell Rod why he needed out of here. He had a fucking purpose. The biggest God damn purpose of his life.
A purpose he'd had since he joined the club and he'd held to his word and done the best that he could. Until tonight when he'd had sex with Bree and put one more mark in her life that she'd have to overcome.
"I'm gonna go inside, have a beer and a talk with the guys for a bit. Why don't you come with me and have another drink?" asked Rod.
"No." Battery held out his hands. "Give me your smokes and pick up another pack for yourself behind the counter."
Bree stood quietly away from him without saying a word. He lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke. He'd done her a solid and in return ruined her life.
Caught in a buzz, unable to find the energy to take control of his MC or Bree, he stood in the dark and let her cut him down with her silence. If he wasn't looking out for her, she stuck by him and took care of him. He couldn't explain why. She owed him nothing.
"How much did you overhear inside," he muttered, flicking the growing ash off his cigarette.
"Everything." Bree paused, not even breathing. "You've done a lot of great things for me since bringing me to your home, to Ronacks. I've also put up with a lot of shit I never thought I would, because it came from you, Battery. One thing I've held on fast to after accepting the club's lifestyle and I started to love each one of the members as family is the belief that I would never let someone cheat on me."
"We had sex, carny-girl," he mumbled, aching to admit he'd overstepped the line with her.
"Right," she whispered sadly. "Then five minutes later, you kissed someone else and touched her body. Doing that, you stole every good thing that happened up in your room between us tonight. You showed me that sex with me meant nothing to you. And, I see now it only meant something special to me."
"We don’t get some easy, forever kind of relationship, Bree. That's not in our future. I'm not good. You know that," he said. "I made a mistake bringing you home with me, and I thought I'd work it out so that it benefitted you. Now, I'm fixing it because I can't be with you. Tomorrow, you'll be put on the club's work roster with the other wives of the members. It's for your own good. You'll stay here and work. Give it time and pretty soon you'll get it in your head that there is no chance of us being together. Not the way you imagine or deserve." He tossed his smoke on the ground and toed the coal out. "Rod will set you up with hours you can work away from the house. At night, you still have your bedroom and the club. That way you're in when we split up the profits every month and can gain some independence."
Bree turned away from him and walked away.
"Hey," he said, stopping her. "Are you listening to me?"
Without turning around, she said, "Today was my birthday, and it'll be a day I never forget no matter how long I live. I've listened and minded your rules for the last three years. I'm nineteen now, and I'm done listening to you."
"The hell you are."
Bree walked to the door, slipped inside, and left him alone.
Not even the alcohol dulled the pain.
Chapter Eleven
~ The Plan ~
The man sat on the bed in the one-room cabin. Battery stood in front of the window and peered outside through the dirt and grime covering the broken glass, hyper aware and unable to relax.
"You've kept her too long." The knuckles of the man's fists whitened.
Battery looked away and followed a spider walking along the wall with his gaze. "She doesn't want to leave."
"It doesn't matter what she wants," roared the man. "She's a child."
Battery scoffed. "She's nineteen years old. I've had her for three years. Trust me. She's no longer a child."
Thanks to him, she was also no longer a virgin or innocent. He had no idea what would happen now. Bree was hurt and pissed, and he couldn't blame her. He'd brought it on himself, despite trying to keep his hands off her.
The man stood, jittery in his movements. "You need to get rid of her."
Battery shook his head. They'd gone over the choices they had in front of them for the last half an hour. He wasn't going to budge when it came to Bree's safety.
"She's made the club her family," said Battery. "Bree's settled."
"Is she?" The man scoffed. "How much of that is your doing?"
Every single fucking minute of it. He inhaled and clamped his teeth together. No one had a right to judge him. He'd done what needed doing. There was no way he could send her away now. She'd be in a worse position than alone working at some cheap-ass carnival.
"I need to get off the mountain." Battery turned his gaze to the man. "I'll be back in a month."
"I swear to God, you hurt her, and I'll come down off the mountain and kill you," said the man.
"You might have to get in line." Battery stepped up to him, eye to eye. "Neither of us know how this will play out. All I know is she's too important for me to send away. Circumstances changed when she ran away and joined the carnival. Now, I'm responsible for her, and I'm doing the best I fucking can, which isn't easy."
The man rocked back on his heels, shaking his head. Battery's chest tightened. Only he could see the situation clearly, and yet he had no idea if he was making things better or fucking things up more.
Battery lowered his voice. "She's not a child anymore."
His words were for his sake, too. As much as he struggled to see Bree as a woman when the child Bree was fresh in his past, he eased his guilt knowing he waited until she was an adult before putting his cock inside of her. It wasn't easy with the way Bree behaved through her teen years with him, and every day he regretted his influence over her, but he'd acted on his feelings toward a full-grown woman, not a child.
"I need to think." The man hit the heel of his hand against his head.
Battery scoffed and gazed around the lonely cabin. "Lucky for you, you have all the time in the world to figure things out. In the meantime, I need to figure out how to live wi
th myself."
Leaving the man to himself, Battery walked outside and straight to his truck. He had an hour to shake off the visit and appear to live a normal life with a woman he couldn't have, a club that suspected nothing, and regrets chasing him.
Chapter Twelve
~ Bree's twenty-first birthday
Duke and Raelyn flanked each side of Bree in the main level of the house. She held up the bottle of beer and wrinkled her nose. It wasn't the first time she drank alcohol despite Battery's overprotective stance regarding what she could and couldn't do at Ronacks parties. But, it was one more rule that she could scratch off Battery's can-not-do list he apparently kept for her.
She'd snuck sips off every kind of bottle behind the counter in the house without Battery knowing in her rebellion to prove he couldn't dictate her life, and she discovered she hated how alcohol made her feel. Already after two mixed drinks and a half a beer, she felt herself sinking into a funk. Ronacks members drank to feel good and have a good time. Everyone got happy and loose. It figured she'd be the opposite and be the pathetic person in the corner crying over an empty bottle.
"Here." She held the bottle out to Duke. "You can have the rest."
"Hey, wait. It's your birthday." Duke broad hand held his drink and Bree's bottle. "You're supposed to get drunk."
"As great as that sounds, I think I'll skip Battery's initiation into the over twenty-one club." Bree turned to Raelyn. "I'm going outside."
"Do you want me to go with you?" Raelyn set her drink on the scarred up wooden table behind her. The silver bracelets around her friend's wrists tinkled as Raelyn brushed her hands against her hips.
"No." Bree smirked, knowing what she wanted would piss Battery off if he caught her and that made her want one even more. "I'm only going to cool off outside by the pond. I'll be back in a few minutes."
She scooted around LeWorth and his wife, smiled at them when they commented about all her presents she'd opened an hour ago, and slipped out the door. Once outside, she hurried around the corner of the house and squeezed behind the arborvitae that grew in the flowerbed and thrust her hand into the scratchy branches. Her fingers closed around the rectangle box, and she pulled the pack of cigarettes she'd hidden last week while cleaning up after a barbecue and finding someone's forgotten pack.
Removing the lighter she hid inside the box, she lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. The nicotine worked its magic better than alcohol, and she relaxed. Until, she looked at the window in the back of the house and saw the light on.
Battery had disappeared an hour ago as was normal when the club got together to celebrate her birthday, and she had a feeling he was in the spare bedroom with one of the sluts that hung around the club. She walked toward the pond to escape the party and how much the extravagant show of love only made her feel guilty.
She'd worked at the breakfast diner outside of Haugan for almost two years and besides getting in on the money allotted to the club, she was able to keep her tips. It was unfair of her to take advantage of Battery's kindness, even if the order came out of anger. She wasn't a part of the club because she didn't belong to any Ronacks member. She had yet to figure out what a future for her meant.
The way everyone acted toward her, she mostly forgot about the way she came into Battery's life and accepted by the club. Except on her birthday, then everything came back to her, and her happy occasion turned into bitter reminders of how the life she'd wanted had yet to materialize.
She stopped at the edge of the grass and peered out onto the dock.
A dark shadow blocked the end of the walkway. She squinted, and jolted when the end of the cigarette glowing in the night lit up Battery's face. She quickly kneeled and stubbed out her smoke in the damp grass. Her stomach fluttered in excitement knowing he wasn't the person occupying the back room inside the house that the bikers used when they had sex with the women.
She stepped out of her sandals and walked barefoot down the middle of the dock, trying her hardest not to make the floating boards move and alert him. These days, he never allowed her to catch him alone. He was either going off to check on one of the businesses the club ran security on or hanging with the members of the club.
When they were together upstairs at the house, he made sure he kept his distance. Over the last couple of years, she'd even fallen into doing her own thing, because being with him hurt too much. She could see him watching her and the arousal in his gaze, and then he'd storm out of the house as if punishing himself.
Her questions to find out why he wouldn't allow himself to be with her again went unanswered. She stopped behind him. He put any kind of relationship with her out of his mind, but she never gave up on wishing. Every birthday, as if that was her special day because of what happened when she was nineteen years old, she held out hope that he would finally see her as old enough to handle him and everything he'd bring into her life.
He could never understand that age had nothing to do with her ability to be with him. Through her work, she'd met men her age on up to eighty-five years old, and not one of them made her feel aroused, needy, and desperate for attention. Only Battery brought those symptoms out in her and until otherwise or her circumstances changed, she would not give up on making him see that they belonged together.
She quietly stepped forward two steps and put her arms around him from behind. "Thank you for the necklace."
He grunted.
She pulled him until he turned around. "Please talk to me."
"I talk to you all the time," he said, flicking the coal off his cigarette and pocketing the butt.
"No. You look at me. You even touch me when you think I'm not aware of what you're doing, and you talk about everyday things like laundry, dinner, schedules, but you don’t talk with me." She inhaled a big breath, confident enough, and with the help of some alcohol making her brave, she grabbed the hem of her sundress and pulled it off over her head.
"Bree, put your dress back on." He stared down at her bare breasts. "You don’t know what you're doing. You've been drinking."
"Oh, I know exactly what I want." She stepped up to him, the tips of her nipples brushing against his vest. "What do I need to do to prove to you that my feelings about you haven't changed?"
"You've changed," he whispered.
"That's the same lie you gave me two years ago, and I still don't believe you or understand why you'd say such a thing." She placed her hands on his chest and moved them up to his shoulders, stepping closer until her body fully pressed against his. "Kiss me."
"Go back to the house."
"Please," she whispered. "It's my birthday."
He sprawled his hand on her lower back, staring into her eyes. She held her breath, afraid to move in the off-chance that he changed his mind and made a sudden shift to walk away.
Battery pulled her toward him, and she let out a soft gasp of air at the force. He captured her open mouth, and belying the hardness of his body, his firm grip, his gruffness, he softly dipped his tongue into her mouth. Then he retreated, hovering his lips above hers.
His breath came rushed, and her heart beat frantically at his acceptance. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and let it go a second before he dived back in more shocking and urgent. She stretched to her toes and matched him stroke for stroke, desperately trying to hold him, keep him, consume him.
He trailed his hand down the curve of her bare ass and lifted her lower body onto the front of his jeans. His hardness evident against her lower stomach. She moaned in his mouth.
Battery broke the kiss, turned her around until she faced out to the pond and he was at her back. His hand sprawled against her stomach, holding her still, while his other hand wound around her hip and his hand spread her legs.
Her knees wobbled at the invasion of his finger sliding along her slit. Shocked that her wetness covered his hand, she closed her eyes and let her head fall back to his chest. Pressed against his hand, she rocked back and forth as an assault of warmth spread between he
r legs and up into her stomach.
"Is this what you need," he whispered in her ear.
She lifted her arm, reached back, and found his hair. Grabbing a handful to hold herself up, she hummed her answer.
"Fuck, you're tight and wet." He pressed his lips against the side of her forehead.
Her pussy tightened and throbbed. "Batt?"
"What are you doing to me?" he said with a growl. "All grown up."
"Yes," she hissed, rocking faster.
"Kills me. Every day." His finger plunged into her pussy, and his thumb continued to caress her clit. "Can't have you."
"You can," she cried out. "Holy shit, Batt."
Tightly strung, she hovered at the peak of an orgasm, needy and unable to stop. Her sex squeezed his finger, grabbing, holding, never wanting him to stop.
"Take it, carny-girl. Come for both of us," he whispered in her ear. "Let me have this."
She moaned loud as her body constricted at his words, froze, and the instant relief of pleasure flooded every inch inside of her. Her legs tremored, and Battery's hand on her stomach held her up when she could no longer support herself.
He slowed his strokes, letting her down easy. Wrapped in pleasure and ecstasy at him not turning her down, she inhaled a shaky breath, already wanting him again. Needing to give him what he gave her, over and over, until he no longer stayed away.
Battery's body stiffened, and he straightened, forcing her to stand on her feet. She reached behind her and turned, swaying at the rocking of the dock, the rush of conscious thinking.
Battery shook his head and backed away.
"Batt?" She stepped forward. "No..."
"You don't understand." He shoved his hands in his front pockets. "I'm holding you back, Bree."
Everything inside of her hardened. She turned away and grabbed her discarded dress. Jerking the material over her head, she tugged the hem down to cover her body.
The few seconds gave her enough time to contain her anger, and she rounded on him. "You don't get to do this to me."
