“He might be gone a while.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said.” I wanted to ask him what was going on, why Colt had left with Kelli when he never took her on runs. The MC never took any female on a run, ever. Not even Raven. But I knew my words would just be a waste of breath.
“I’m glad you’re eating,” he said as he moved to sit beside me. He straddled the bench, sitting close enough that I was practically between his legs. Pushing the hair back from my face, he kissed my temple. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I gave him a tight smile. “It’s just been a long day.”
His green gaze trapped mine, refusing to let me look away, but something in his eyes eased my tension a little. “I wish I could have stayed in bed with you earlier, but I needed to help out my brothers. Something came up…” He clenched his jaw as he trailed off, as if biting back the words. I couldn’t help wondering if maybe he had been about to tell me club business. “If it hadn’t been important, I wouldn’t have left you.”
“I know and I understand. I wouldn’t want you to pick me over them no matter what.”
His eyes narrowed. “It wasn’t about picking you over them. You come first with me. Always.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.” I blew out a frustrated sigh. “I just… I understand that you had things that needed your attention.”
“Still love me?”
That had me rolling my eyes. “That’s a stupid question, Raider.”
He rubbed his hand over my ass and pulled me closer, while his other hand angled my legs over his thigh that was under the picnic table. His lips touched the corner of my mouth, making me gasp at the tenderness behind the small kiss. “Tell me you love me,” he murmured close to my ear. “I need to hear you say it again.”
“I love you,” I whispered and felt him jerk.
Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you, Quinn.”
Hearing those words, I pushed down all my insecurities and doubts and leaned into him, letting him hold me.
Eventually, I picked up one of my sandwiches and offered him the second. We ate in silence, with me still practically sitting on his lap. Behind us, the kitchen door opened, and Hawk and Gracie came to sit down at the table with us. Hawk had a plate with four sandwiches on it, but Gracie looked about as green as I felt every morning as she sat beside him.
“I take it Bates is finally gone?” Raider shot at his brother.
“About ten minutes ago,” Hawk said with a nod. “This one wouldn’t take her eyes off him.”
“I was just making sure you guys were protected,” she grumbled, her lips twisting when her boyfriend put a sandwich in her hands. She took a tiny nibble. I could see that she didn’t really want to be eating, but the two brothers were too busy talking to notice.
“Saw Colt leaving earlier. He take Kelli with him?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” Hawk muttered, low and menacingly. It caused the fine hairs on my body to stand up in fear, and I didn’t like it. Something was going on; I could sense it now just as much as I could when Colt had come to say bye. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see, then.”
That got a nod from Raider, who grabbed a sandwich off his brother’s plate.
“I can fix you a plate,” I offered, and he shot me a look that told me to stay where I was even as his hand tightened on my ass.
“I like having you right where you are, sweetheart. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Here, take mine.” Gracie put her barely touched sandwich on my now-empty plate and dusted off her hands.
“Are you still not hungry?” Hawk was watching her closer now.
She shrugged. “I’m good.”
I caught her gaze and lifted a brow, because I could make a guess at what was wrong with her. Maybe the Hannigan clan was going to be getting more than one new addition soon.
Chapter Eleven
COLT
THE CABIN WAS QUIET WHEN I pulled my hog around to the back of it. Kelli, who had fallen asleep against my back halfway through the trip, stirred as I killed the engine and lowered the kickstand. She had fucking fallen asleep. As if she didn’t have a single care in the world. As if she didn’t suspect for a minute why I had brought her with me on this run.
I didn’t know what to think about that. Did she not regret betraying me? Did she have no conscience? Or did she just not have anything to even be concerned about?
I hoped it was the latter one, because I didn’t want to think about what I would have to do if she had betrayed not just me, but my MC.
“Where are we?” she muttered as she tried to hide a yawn.
I kept my eyes on the mountains around us. My family had owned this cabin in the Santa Rosa Range for three generations now. The mountain range was mostly in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, but this cabin was just outside of it. When I realized how badly Kelli might have betrayed me, I knew I had to bring her here. There wasn’t another single person for miles in either direction. No one to hear me screaming at her, no one to hear her cries. No one to witness me burying a body if that was what it came to.
Fuck, I didn’t want it to come to that.
I needed to find out what Kelli had been telling Bubbles and that motherfucking senator. Needed to figure out just how much I had let slip during the months I had been sleeping in the same bed with her.
“This is our old hunting cabin,” I told her as I got off the motorcycle and helped her off before leading the way up the back steps to the second floor. I pulled out my ring of keys and unlocked the door.
Using the light from my phone, I found the breaker box and turned on the power and the well. The lights came on with a soft flicker, and I was glad at least one thing was going right for me today. I still hadn’t had time to think about what had happened earlier in the day. One of my best friends was gone, but I didn’t have the time to mourn him, wouldn’t get to go to the memorial to tell him goodbye or celebrate his and Warden’s lives with my club. Instead, I would have to deal with Kelli and find out just how much she knew, how much she had told my enemies.
“Is there even anything to eat here?” Kelli grumbled as she looked around the room with curious eyes.
The upper floor was completely open, containing both the kitchen and living room, but downstairs there were two bedrooms and a little bathroom that had a postage-stamp shower. There was also the small room where the first generation of Hannigans had cleaned and cut up whatever game they had caught.
There was a drain in the middle of the room so that the game could be hung upside down and the blood could easily flow out of it. The room, no matter how often and thoroughly it was cleaned, always smelled like old blood. When this cabin had belonged to my father, it hadn’t always been used for hunting, and some of that old blood didn’t completely belong to the deer and elk that he and his brothers had killed.
“There should still be some canned food in the pantry.” I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her in close. “Go shower, babe. I’ll find us something to eat and make some coffee.”
Something in her eyes softened, and she gave me a smile with those pouty lips that were just one of her many gorgeous assets that got her good tips at Paradise City. “Thanks, babe.”
I slapped her on the ass and pushed her in the direction of the stairs. As she walked away, I just stood there, watching her leave me. She didn’t seem to care that I had been hurting all day, that I had been stressed and tired and pissed at the entire world. She was like a robot at times, emotionless. When I’d first met her, I’d thought it was just a mask she put on to keep the rest of the world out.
Now I wondered if she was a sociopath.
I heard the water turn on downstairs and then went back down to my hog to get the few provisions I had brought. Coffee was the biggest necessity since I knew the pantry was still well stocked after the last time I’d been up here with some of the brothers. I found a few cans of beef stew in the pantry that still had a few months before it went bad. I put it
on the stove to simmer while I made the coffee.
I was putting our dinner in bowls when Kelli returned, her hair wrapped in a thin white towel and dressed in one of my old shirts. She sat at the beat-up old table, tucking her bare legs up under her and showing me that she was indeed wearing panties. For the first time since I had started fucking her, my dick didn’t even stir at the sight of her sexy little scrap of underwear. I had turned off all my emotions to prepare for what was going to happen next, what I had to do. It would make this easier. I couldn’t let myself soften where she was concerned. Too much was at risk if I fucked this up.
I set her bowl and mug of coffee in front of her before grabbing my own and taking the chair on the other side of the table. She drank her coffee in silence for a few minutes, letting the stew cool a little before daring to eat it. I kept my focus on my meal, refusing to let the events of the day overpower me. I could think about Tanner and Warden later, when I had Kelli under lock and key.
Her phone buzzed, surprising us both. Service out here wasn’t the best. I had put a booster on my phone so I could get texts just in case Quinn or Bash needed me.
I lifted my gaze to find her frowning down at the screen of her phone. “Problems?”
She blinked her eyes a few times, seeming unable to focus on me. “Um, no. Just…” Her speech was starting to slur, and I pushed my half-eaten bowl of stew away. “Jusssh…” She tried again, her brow puckering in confusion. “Jusssh.”
“Just what?” I asked with both brows lifted.
She started to sway in her chair, and she unfolded her legs from under herself clumsily in an attempt to balance herself. Her phone dropped onto the floor at her feet, and she grasped the edges of the table, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Wats wong wit me?” she slurred out.
I lifted my mug of coffee, watching her over the rim of it as I took a slow swallow. “Your coffee was laced with a little concoction my sister invented herself. Just a little will knock a man as big as Spider on his ass for two days. I barely put a pinch in your coffee.”
She jerked to her feet so quickly that her chair tipped over, and she nearly tripped over it as she hastily backed away from the table. “Wut?” she groaned, her hands going to her head as she started to sway.
“Just relax,” I instructed her. “Let it do its job. It won’t kill you.”
“Why?” she cried as she grabbed on to the back of the old couch across the room. Her legs were shaking, her knees about to give out, but the girl was a fighter. “Why?” she cried again.
I shrugged like it was nothing to me. Like she hadn’t stabbed me in the back and pierced my heart with her poison-spiked dagger. Like she hadn’t killed what I was beginning to feel for her. “Why did you meet with Bubbles?” I asked instead.
“Who?” But she was too far gone to hide the guilt that flashed across her face.
“It doesn’t matter,” I assured her. “You’ll tell me eventually.”
Her legs started to give out, and she dropped to her knees painfully hard as her body began to go slack, becoming dead weight. Her eyes began to drift shut, and I slowly got to my feet, taking my time as I crossed the room. She fell onto her face, and I told myself I didn’t care if she was hurt or not. She deserved a little pain for what she’d done to me.
She was completely out by the time I reached her and lifted her into my arms. I carried her downstairs to the master bedroom and laid her on the floor as I prepared the bed. I put sheets on the mattress and then attached the cuffs to each bedpost. When I had everything set, I placed her on the bed and then slapped the cuffs on to each wrist and ankle.
As I looked down at her, I couldn’t help remembering all the times we had played this game before. Kelli liked the rough shit. Got off when I tied her to the bed and made her beg to come. But that wasn’t going to happen this time. This wasn’t a game.
Turning away from the sight of her spread on the bed, so fucking gorgeous it hurt to look at her, I shut the door behind me and walked into the bathroom. I felt dirty and not just from the long ride to Northern Nevada. Kelli made me feel tainted, but I had to turn that shit off. I couldn’t let myself feel all the things that were churning in my gut right then. It would get me nowhere when I needed answers.
I showered and then went back upstairs to clean up the kitchen before parking my ass on the couch and shooting my brother-in-law a text to let him know I had arrived and had everything under control.
Chapter Twelve
Rory
IT WAS LATE BEFORE I could get Matt to come to bed. I could tell he was tired, but he couldn’t keep his eyes shut for more than a few minutes before they snapped open again. Every time, his heart would start pounding under my ear, and I knew he was thinking about his brother.
Sitting up, I put my back against the headboard. “Come here,” I urged and patted my lap for him to lay his head there.
“I’m good, baby. Just come back down here and let me hold you.”
“Please?”
The room was dark except for the soft glow of the new television that was muted. His blue eyes scanned my face for a moment then he blew out a long sigh and placed his head in my lap. I shifted to get more comfortable, then started stroking my fingers through his hair with one hand and massaged the back of his neck with the other.
My mom had done this to me when I was younger and couldn’t sleep. Every time, no matter how crazy the thoughts racing through my head, it would knock me out. Matt resisted at first, trying to keep his shoulders tense as I used my nails to softly scrape over his scalp, but he couldn’t hide the contented sigh as it flew across my bare thighs.
I bent over him, kissing his cheek. “I love you.”
“Love you,” he growled, his eyes heavy.
Leaning back against the headboard again, I continued my stroking and massaging. Ten minutes later, I was rewarded with the sound of him snoring. A sad smile lifted at my lips, but I didn’t stop what I was doing, didn’t move to lie down beside him. For hours I kept it up, and when he jerked awake at one in the morning, I was still at it.
He pulled me down beside him, his strong arms going around me as he buried his face in my chest. I didn’t hear his sobs, but I felt his tears soaking through his T-shirt I had pulled on after my shower earlier. I held him close and started stroking my fingers through his hair again. We didn’t speak, because there were zero words that could help him through what he was feeling. Words were useless when your heart was that beat-up. They held no comfort, and no matter how sincere they might be, they were still empty. I knew what he needed, and that was to feel that someone he loved was still there for him. That I wasn’t going to leave him.
It was a long while before I felt him fall back to sleep. Sleep finally pulled me under sometime around dawn, when I felt Matt finally fall into a more restful sleep.
The next time I opened my eyes, bright sun was shining through the curtains. Matt was still sound asleep, but I could hear people moving around outside the bedroom door. Fighting back a yawn, I untangled myself and reached for Matt’s phone as I started to stand. It was 1:23 in the afternoon. I groaned as I walked into the bathroom to take care of pressing business.
After a quick shower, where I moaned and groaned the entire time because my feet were definitely feeling the pain from running barefoot the day before, I went back into the bedroom and pulled on the clothes I had borrowed from Raven the previous night. I slipped my feet into a pair of flip-flops that Flick had loaned me and then went to see if I could make myself useful.
I left Matt still sleeping as I walked to the kitchen. People weren’t nearly as catatonic as they had been the day before. They all still wore grim, pale faces, but only a few were crying or raging. But that didn’t mean they weren’t still out for blood. I could see in the MC brothers’ eyes that vengeance was top of their list for how they wanted the day to end.
In the kitchen, I found Raven with Flick and Aggie. Lexa was sitting in a chair pulled up to the island beside her mot
her, and Max was in his high chair, both of them eating spaghetti. The three women all looked my way as I came into the room.
“Morning, sweetie,” Aggie greeted with a tiny smile. “How’s our boy doing?”
“He’s been out cold for a few hours now,” I assured her.
“That’s good. Sleep heals all things. Even a broken heart, given enough time.”
“Got any coffee?” I asked hopefully.
Flick reached behind her for a nearly full pot of strong coffee. I found a mug and let her pour me a cup. After adding a few teaspoons of sugar, I took a deep, life-giving swallow and nearly moaned. “This is the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
Flick laughed softly. “It is just one of many tricks I learned while I was working for the Armstrong family. Their friend Jesse has a special recipe that I’ve perfected to my own specifications. His, you would need a spoon to eat. Mine will probably save me from getting stomach cancer, unlike his.”
“Well, it’s perfect, so don’t change anything.” I glanced at Raven. “What can I do to help out today?”
She pressed her lips together for a moment before grimacing. “I think you’re going to be too busy dealing with your rat bastard of a father to want to help me out today, Rory.”
I stiffened at the mention of my father. “I don’t give a flying frig about my father. I’m where I need to be. I made my choice yesterday. Derrick Michaels can take a long walk off a short pier into shark-infested waters for all I care.”
Raven’s lips twitched with amusement for a split second before she grimaced again. “Bates showed up this morning with your father. They tried to come in to get you, but the boys wouldn’t let them past the gate. They didn’t have a warrant, and you’re an adult, so they couldn’t legally force their way onto the property. But he’ll be back, Rory. You know him better than anyone, so you know he won’t give up.”
She was right. My father, the rat bastard that Raven had so aptly called him, was persistent as hell. I knew there was no way he was going to leave me—and the MC by proxy—alone until I at least talked to him. Until I told him to take his threats, and the money he thought he was using to hold me to him, and shove it up his ass. The only reason I hadn’t made my renewed relationship with Matt public outside the MC before now was because I was worried my father would still be able to arrest Matt and throw him in prison.
Angel's Halo: Fallen Angel (Angel's Halo MC Book 6) Page 8
