Brick

by Hope Ford

  Brick

  Exiled Guardians 2

  Hope Ford

  Brick © 2019 by Hope Ford.

  Editor: Kasi Alexander

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover designed by Hope Ford

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Hope Ford

  Visit my website at http://www.authorhopeford.com

  Contents

  1. Brick

  2. Madison

  3. Brick

  4. Madison

  5. Madison

  6. Brick

  7. Brick

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

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  1

  Brick

  She’s standing over a downed man with a baseball bat in her hand. Her chest is heaving from the exertion and I should probably be pissed right now. Hell, I should probably be helping my brothers that are still fighting. But instead, I’m turned on as fuck.

  She has on the waitress uniform for the Back Roads Bar. A pair of black shorts and tight black T-shirt that is knotted at her waist showing off her larger curves. I had noticed her as soon as we walked in and made sure to sit in her section. I’m not the only one that noticed her. Her long blond hair, curvy body and innocent look has my brothers watching her too.

  She walked up to our table. “What can I get you?” Her eyes move around the table, but they keep coming back to me.

  “Are you going to be dancing tonight?” Rider asks her with a grin. He glances over to the stage where a woman is pole dancing.

  “No, I don’t dance, but I’ll get your beers for you.” She smiles at him.

  I growl and don’t even realize I’m doing it until everyone at the table turns to me, including her. I must have been loud if they heard me over the blaring music. I don’t want her smiling at Rider. Hell, I don’t want her to smile at anyone but me. “Give her a break, Rider. We’ll take three beers.”

  She stands there looking at me for a minute and then realizes she’s staring and turns around, rushing back to the bar.

  “Dibs,” I tell Rancher and Rider as I watch her fine ass walk away.

  “Technically, I talked to her first… rules are rules, brother.” Rider claps his hands and rubs them together. He’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to just let him make her one of his one-night stands. Just one look at her tells me there’s something special about her. I watch her across the room and she’s waiting on the bartender to give her the beers. She looks back at our table and I smile at her. Her lips lift on the ends and she looks away quickly.

  I look over at Rider and he’s already lost interest in the waitress and is eyeing the dancers. Rancher is doing something on his phone.

  When I look her way again she’s walking back toward us. She has a nervousness about her but she still smiles at me. Before she approaches the table, her face goes from a smile to fear and her eyes widen. I don’t have time to process what’s happening before Rancher, Rider and I are jerked from our seats.

  I don’t even get a good look at my attackers before they try to take me down from behind. Whoever it is knows us… knows me. There are two men holding me and a third beating me. My body jerks with every punch. I struggle, trying to fight them all off. My brothers are in their own battles and I see the waitress start to walk toward us. “No!” I scream at her and she stops.

  I fight and jerk my arms, but even me, the sergeant of arms of the Exiled Guardians, the strongest fucker of the club, I can’t break free. I jerk my hands trying to free myself, but I can’t, no matter how hard I pull.

  All of a sudden I hear a loud crunch and the man in front of me jerks his head and falls to the ground. Only when he falls do I see that my girl, hell the girl I still don’t know the name of, has a baseball bat over her head, staring at the fallen man. One of the men holding me releases my arm to go toward her and it’s then that I get the upper hand. I take down both men easily, not wasting any time to get over to her.

  “Are you okay?” I ask her and watch as she stares open mouthed at the man face down on the floor, bleeding from his head. It’s then that I see the name on his cut, Fallen Kings, rivals to the Exiled Guardians.

  She doesn’t answer me. She’s staring at the man and I want to explain to her that head wounds bleed more than normal and that he’ll be okay. I’m sure she’s not used to violence, at least not where she gets involved. When she still doesn’t look at me or respond, I throw her over my shoulder and carry her over behind the bar.

  When I put her down, she is still trying to look around me. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  All the people in the bar are watching us. Most bar fights, people jump in. Well, not when two rival clubs are going at it. People tend to stay out of our way.

  Rancher is on the ground, bleeding from his leg. Rider now is fighting two men, the one that pulled him out of his chair and the one that got Rancher.

  I jump in, ready for this to be over, ready to get me and her out of here. I pull one of the men off Rider and punch him, causing him to fall back on the bar and to the ground. I look at her one more time and when I turn around, Rider has taken out the other one and put him on the floor.

  “Rider, help him.” I point over at Rancher, who’s lifting himself off the floor. I go back to her and she seems to have gotten herself together but she’s still looking at the man she hit.

  “Do you have a purse or anything you want to take with you?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head. “What?”

  Putting my hands on her shoulders, I ask her again, “Honey, we probably only have a minute to get out of here before the cops pull in with sirens blaring. Where’s your purse?”

  The bartender sets it on the bar beside her. She grabs it and starts to walk, but stops herself. "Wait, I’m not going anywhere.”

  I shake my head. “What’s your name?”

  “Madison,” she whispers to me huskily.

  “Madison, you just took down a Fallen King. They are not going to forget this. You need to come with me so I can protect you.” I grab her hand and pull her after me.

  “No, I’ll just explain…” she starts.

  But what she doesn’t realize is that there is no explaining when it comes to the Kings. My heart starts racing, not from the exertion, but from thinking about what they’ll do to her if they find her.

  A woman, a friend of hers I’m guessing, in the same uniform walks up to her. “Madison, he’s right. You better go.”

  I don’t wait for her to respond. I lift Madison over my shoulder once again and stride out of the bar with her hanging over me. I expected some kind of fight, but there isn’t one. Maybe it’s finally hit her… she can’t stay here.

  2

  Madison

  When we get outside, he sets me on my feet and puts my purse into a compartment on his bike.

  “What about you?” I ask him as he grabs a helmet, putting it on my head and snapping it under my chin.

  He smirks at me. “I’m fine.”

  He looks over at the other two bikers, nodding his head at them. They look at me, but they don’t seem to question what he’s doing bringing me along. He straddles the bike and holds his hand out to me.

  “I’ve never ridden on a bike before,” I tell him.

  “That’s okay. I’ve never had a woman on the back of my bike before.”

  I feel that him saying that to me is te
lling me something, maybe something profound. I’ve heard about bikers and having women on their bikes. It’s supposed to be special to some of them. I wonder if it’s the case with him. I put my hand in his to help me balance as I throw my leg over the bike. Once I’m settled, he reaches back and grips my thighs, pulling me closer to him. When the front of my body is snug against his back, he hollers back at me, “Lean when I lean.”

  He grabs my hands and pulls them around him, holding them to him until I grip on to his hard abs. He starts the motor, and I squeeze him, trying to get his attention. “Hey, what’s your name?”

  “Brick. Hold on.”

  He pulls out of the parking lot and I grip on to him even tighter.

  When I came into work tonight, I never dreamed this was how my night would go. I thought it would be like every other night. Yes, I’ve seen a bar fight before. But never like the one I saw tonight. And I’ve definitely never jumped into the middle of one.

  But I noticed Brick the second he walked into the door of the Back Roads Bar. Admittedly, he’s hard not to notice. When you have three bikers the size of him and his friends, you sort of take notice. But there was something else. It was almost like I couldn’t look away from him.

  Which is weird for me honestly. I’m not that girl. The one that fawns over a man. Of course, it could be that I haven’t had time to notice one. Not in a while, anyway. Growing up, it was just my mom and me. She worked all the time, but she also made sure I always had everything I needed. I graduated high school and was in my 3rd year of college when my life fell apart. My mother, after a long battle with cancer, passed away. I dropped out of school and came to work at the bar. It was the only well-paying job I could find in this small town.

  So gone was my free-living, happy go lucky life. My boyfriend broke up with me and I pretty much lost touch with all my friends. But I was surviving… at least the best way I knew how.

  I’ve had my head laid against Brick’s back and I finally lift it and look over his shoulder. We’re flying down the empty road, only us and the two other bikes in sight. It doesn’t seem long before we are pulling off onto a gravel road and driving into a facility where a number of bikes are parked outside. We get waved through the gate and as soon as Brick parks, he stands up and helps me off.

  One of the bikers gets off his bike and helps the other. It’s obvious the other man doesn’t want the help, but he’s accepting it anyway, since he seems to be hurt pretty bad. “Brick, man, I’m going to grab my cage and take Rancher to the hospital.”

  “Call Doc, have him come here,” Brick tells him.

  “I’ve tried texting and calling him. No answer,” he responds.

  He walks over to a car and helps the one they call Rancher into the passenger seat. “I’ll let you know,” he hollers to us before getting in and pulling out of the gravel lot.

  I watch them leave and then turn to Brick to find him staring at me. “So, uh, where am I at and can you take me home?”

  “You can’t go home… not until I know you’ll be safe.”

  I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. I hate change and don’t handle it well. I should be more upset about all of this, but a part of me maybe feels better about the excitement of it all. I’ve spent every day this past year working and sleeping. “So where am I at?”

  “The Exiled Guardians’ clubhouse. Or my second home.” His chest puffs out and I can hear the pride in his voice when he says it.

  I wrap my arms around me, hugging myself. “So they were bikers… and you wouldn’t let me stay there. But you brought me to a whole clubhouse of bikers?”

  “Princess, you didn’t beat one of us in the head with a baseball bat.”

  I cringe at his words. He’s right; I did. I still don’t fully understand what made me jump in.

  He’s looking at me as if he’s trying to understand me. I want to tell him, Good luck, I don’t even understand me half the time.

  He cocks his head to the side. “You saved me back there. I owe you.”

  His words should make me feel better, but they only put a pit in my stomach. I’ll admit it, at one time when I was on the back of his bike, I imagined that I was his girlfriend. The fact that he’s helping me because he owes me doesn’t really fit in with the dream I was having.

  “I’ve taken care of myself for a long time, Brick. I’d like to go home… please.”

  “No,” he answers immediately and starts walking toward the door of his clubhouse.

  I grab his shoulder and pull him around to face me. “What do you mean, ‘no’? I want to go home. You’re not my keeper. You’re helping me because you feel like you owe me. Well, you don’t owe me anything. I expunge your debt to me. Anything that happens to me will not be on your head. So please, will you take me home?”

  3

  Brick

  I see the frustration on her face and the way she’s all riled up has me thinking things that I’ve never thought before. I swear at one point, in the middle of the fucking bar fight, I was picturing her pregnant with my babies. And when she was on the back of my bike with her thighs gripping me, well, I wanted to pull over and take her right then. It’s like a punch to the stomach thinking about it. Especially with the life I live. I never thought I would want to settle down. But hell, in this moment with her, even though she’s a little pissed off at me right now, well, I can picture it in my mind and I want it. I want it bad.

  I fist my hands at my sides. If I don’t, I’m going to touch her. And if I touch her, I’m afraid there’s no stopping me then. “I can’t take you back.”

  Most people don’t question me. I say something and they agree. That’s not the case with her. “What do you mean you can’t take me back?”

  I shake my head, and with nostrils flaring, I turn her until her back is pressed against the building. I can hear the steady thump of the party going on inside. There are bikers, my brothers, standing by their bikes talking not too far from us. But I tune all of that out. I press my body against hers and look down at her. How do I tell her I want her? How do I tell her it’s not just for one night, when that’s all I’ve ever known.

  “I can’t take you back, Madison. Physically, I can’t take you back there. I don’t know why… I can’t explain it. All I can tell you is that I can’t let you out of my sight. I can’t risk you getting hurt.”

  She’s looking back at me and her face softens. I still don’t think she completely understands. I don’t think she gets the importance that she’s the only woman that I’ve ever allowed on the back of my bike.

  After we stare back at each other for I don’t know how long and I think that any second I’m going to kiss her, she finally lifts her shoulders in a shrug. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” I question her. That was too easy.

  “I’ll stay tonight. But I have to go to work tomorrow. If I don’t, they’ll give my job to someone else, and I can’t lose my job.” She walks away from me and stands by the door to go into the clubhouse.

  Damn, I wish I could take her to my house. But with the attack, the clubhouse is the safest place for tonight. I walk over to her and wonder if I should warn her about what she’s about to see. I decide not to, and open the door, letting her even further into my life.

  We stop when we walk in. I expect her to gasp, to look outraged, pissed off or even upset that I’ve brought her here. But she’s not. She looks around the room and her gaze doesn’t even slow down when she sees one of the brothers and two of the sweet butts making out in the corner. When she gets around the room, she looks up at me. “I’m not feeling up for a party. Where am I sleeping?”

  I grab her hand and walk her past everyone toward my room. A few of the men holler at me, trying to wave me over, but I just nod at them and keep walking. I spot Smokey, the vice president, and ask him, “Where’s Pres?”

  “He’s in his room. I wouldn’t bother him.” He gives me a look telling me that he’s not alone.

  “Okay. Church. Early in the morni
ng. Get rid of the sweet butts and call everyone in. Have the prospects at the door. Send a few to the hospital to keep an eye on Rider and Rancher, they are there. Rancher’s hurt, but nothing serious,” I tell him.

  He starts to ask me something, but with one look at Madison, he changes his mind and merely nods.

  I hear the music stop before I get to my room.

  I didn’t even introduce Madison to him. I’m glad she didn’t want to hang out, because brothers

  or not, I don’t want to hang in a room with her and them until they understand they are to leave her alone.

  I open the door to my room and usher her in. She looks around the bare walls. “This is where you live? Do all of you live here?”

  I try to look at it through her eyes and I see the bare walls, with nothing personal to be seen anywhere. “When I stay at the club, this is my room. I have a house just down the road.”

  “And you brought me to your club instead of your house.” She hugs herself and looks down at the ground. “Look, Brick, if you have a girlfriend or wife at home waiting on you, I don’t think I need to be staying in your room. Plus, uh, I don’t know what you think about me, but”—she points at the bed—“I’m not sleeping with you.”

  I shake my head. She doesn’t get it, but how can I expect her to? She just met me and honestly, I’m surprising myself here. Any other woman I would have already been balls deep in by the door so as to not dirty up my bed. I would have had her out of my room and back at the party. But that’s not even entered my mind with Madison. Well, I’ve thought about fucking her, that’s no doubt. But I’m trying to figure out how to keep her in my bed instead of out of it.