Brother to Brother: The Sacred Brotherhood Book I

by A. J. Downey

  “Oh my god,” Mandy said, tears in her eyes and pulled me into a fierce hug. I hugged her back and tried not to get teary eyed myself.

  “No one, not a single fucking person stood up for you? I mean, where were your parents? Your mom?” Revelator asked.

  “My parents were furious about me getting pregnant out of wedlock, let alone pregnant by a dirty criminal biker.” I held up my hands, before anyone could chastise me and said, “Their words, not mine.”

  Archer made a disgusted noise and came to sit down on the floor at my feet, resting his back against my chair. He put my hand on his shoulder, but not before kissing my fingertips. It was a gesture that both comforted me, and lent me strength. I saw it for precisely what it was, a silent promise that nothing like that would ever happen to me again. That he wouldn’t let it.

  “You straight got robbed,” Red-Thirteen said and pulled Dani close into his side.

  “Man, I wish I knew who was who, that story totally makes a trip to Arizona worth my while. Put some fear into those heartless bastards,” Reaver said.

  “You’re not leaving me again,” Hayden said and Reaver gave her a sad sort of smile.

  “I promised, and I keep my promises, but if ever there were a band of happy bastards…” he said, letting his words trail off.

  “I don’t disagree,” Hayden murmured, “You’re still not leaving me.” Reaver smiled and leaned down from where he sat on the back of her chair and kissed his wife.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Doll,” he said with a sort of solemn reverence and my heart ached a little for them, and their story. Hayden was still having such a hard time with what had happened, but she and Reaver were totally committed and were making it work. Sort of like Archer and me, but with far more drama involved.

  The conversation turned to other things after a long, quiet, reflective and introspective lull. Archer threaded his fingers through mine where my hand rested over the warm leather of his jacket and cut and I sighed with some contentment.

  I hadn’t told my story fully before, and I couldn’t say why now, of all the times, it had felt right to do so, but it had and I felt almost cleansed for it. I had had one or two lessons with my camera since the return from my honeymoon at a local photography studio. Just some of the basics, a free class given by a photographer by the name of Antonio Franco.

  I couldn’t wait to get into the classes that had been paid for at the art school, but they didn’t start until fall. This was still summer break, it being only August. Still, I had my camera with me, Nox having gone out to my car to get it for me when I’d forgotten it in all of the excitement.

  I took pictures in the waiting room. Candid shots for Ghost of his brothers and of the ol’ ladies for Shelly. At one point, Aaron came out into the waiting room as pale as a ghost.

  “How’s it going?” everyone asked looking up expectantly.

  “Oh, man. I don’t know how you ladies do it! She is in so much pain.”

  “They give her an epidural?” Mandy asked.

  “They’re doing it now, which is why I’m out here, I can’t stand needles.”

  Rev laughed, “You can’t stand needles when your ol’ man is a tattoo artist? You picked great there, fruitcake!”

  Aaron laughed nervously, “Tattoo needles are fine, big fucking needles as long as my finger going into sensitive areas that could paralyze you for life? Not so much.”

  Several of the guys were laughing at Aaron, Archer among them, chuckling lightly. Even I had to smile and laugh as I snapped away, capturing his discomfort. Shelly would love it.

  “Okay, they should be done. They say a few more hours yet. She’s dilated but not enough. No crowning or whatever. I don’t have the first clue about anything they’re talking about.”

  “Go on, don’t come back until there’s a baby!” Duracell cried and a rowdy cheer went up throughout the group. I snapped a picture of Trigger cradling Ashton adoringly in his lap.

  A few more hours dragged into almost eight or nine more before Shelly gave birth. We were all notified by Ghost coming out in his green hospital gown covering his tee shirt, cut, and jeans, paper booties on his feet and a surgical cap over his hair. He whipped off the cap and cried, “It’s a girl!” and the waiting room erupted into rowdy cheers and applause.

  I took pictures of him handing out cigars and the guys hugging and congratulating him before Everett piped up over them all and said, “What’s the stats!?”

  “Seven pounds and nine ounces; twenty and a half inches long with all her fingers and toes and her mama’s gorgeous eyes and a full head of her daddy’s hair!” he declared proudly and more cheering and applause went up.

  I smiled and thus began the long procession of visitors, my camera earning me a VIP pass to the front of the line so I could take pictures of everyone getting to meet Harmony Rose Pauley for the first time. Shelly looked beautiful, all glowy and exhausted but just beautiful. Reaver was the first one she wanted to see.

  I took all of the pictures, as Reaver bent over mother and child and kissed Shelly’s forehead, “You did so fuckin’ good, Baby Cuz,” he said, tears in his blue eyes, a match for Shelly’s.

  “Thanks, Big Cuz,” she murmured and looked down at her beautiful baby girl. I was surprised to find that I held no bitterness or jealousy in my heart, just a pure shining happiness for her happiness.

  Archer was one of the last to come visit and I had to smile as I took photos of him meeting the tiny baby, her little fingers curling around one of his thick ones as she dozed in her mother’s arms.

  The look of sheer longing on his face spoke to just how much he wanted this for himself, and it made me want more than anything to give it to him. Enough so, that I vowed to throw away the birth control pills I had secretly been taking as soon as I got to them. I hadn’t been ready for another child. I guess I’d just needed the assurance that if I were to get pregnant again, that I would be protected, and the next time it wouldn’t be anything like the horrific experience of before. I had that assurance, I had it in spades, and I couldn’t help but promise with my smile when Archer looked at me over the baby’s head, that our turn would be coming soon, just as soon as I could get pregnant.

  I was ready now.

  Chapter 28

  Archer

  “I got him,” I whispered and laid our son in his crib. Noah hadn’t gotten any real sleep or naps in the hospital while we’d waited on Shelly to give birth. I was amazed at how good he’d behaved, too. As long as he’d had someone or something to play with or food, he’d done okay. He’d racked out a few times on either me or Mel, but for the most part he’d been awake, thriving on the thrum of excitement that’d been coursing through all of us since Everett had reached out with word that it’d started.

  I still thought it was cool that Doc had been allowed to bring Shelly and Ghost’s child into the world. I mean, he was the hospital’s emergency doc, not a baby doc. I guess he’d delivered plenty of babies in his time in the emergency room though, so the hospital had allowed it. I was kind of looking forward to a day when he delivered mine and Mel’s first child, but right now, something apparently needed sorting because Mel was looking down at Noah with an almost guilty expression on her face.

  Her true blue eyes glassy with unshed tears, she turned to look up at me and murmured, “I have something to tell you.”

  “Uh-oh,” I uttered quietly, drawing her into my arms, “Nothing good ever came of a conversation that started that way.” I was trying to be a goof, to inject some levity into the situation, pretty sure that I had a good idea of what it was she was gonna say but the expression on her face almost full on crumbled. I kicked myself, and figured I should just stick to being a solid bastard, that humor had never been, and would never be, my strong suit.

  I tried something else instead, having been paying more and more attention to the guys with women, trying to learn how to best handle these kinds of things, even going so far as to ask ‘em questions on occasion.

/>   I asked her, “If I promise not to be mad about whatever it is, would that help?”

  She nodded, her mouth drawing down and her eyes squinting up as she tried not to cry and I pulled her lightly into my arms, wrapping them around her and thinking to myself just how much I hated to see her cry…

  “Shh; it’s okay baby, whatever it is, we’ll get through it. I promised, didn’t I?”

  “Promised what?” she asked with that heartbreaking warble to her voice.

  “For better or worse, in sickness and in health, all of it… I promised and I ain’t going back on that promise. I swore it, I swear it, and I mean it. Now how can I fix it?”

  Melody sniffed and motioned towards the bedroom and I nodded. It wouldn’t do to wake our little man up, so I struck out in that direction with my wife carefully tucked into my side. Once in the bedroom I sat down with her beside me.

  “I haven’t exactly been holding up my end of the bargain,” she said miserably and I raised one eyebrow, pretty damn sure I knew exactly what it was she was talking about now.

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve been keeping on my birth control,” she said miserably and I nodded carefully.

  “I think I kind of knew that,” I murmured, “I think I understand why, too. After that story, who would wanna get pregnant again?”

  “You’re not mad?” she asked, voice tremulous and I pulled her tight against me again and kissed the top of her head, choosing my words carefully.

  I sighed, “Not mad at you, Baby. Disappointed, maybe, but I don’t think I’m disappointed with you either. I think I’m more pissed or disappointed at me.”

  “Why?”

  “For makin’ you feel like you can’t be open with me for one. For two; that you had to go through something like that all alone… I can’t even imagine what that was like.”

  “I wanted to come clean, say I was sorry. After today, I think I’m ready now.”

  I nodded carefully, “That’s good Baby, but I’m realizing now that it was pretty unreasonable for me to just expect you to carry a child into this world when you weren’t ready. I never realized how much of a commitment that was, or how much of a toll it took on your body until I saw Shelly today.”

  She looked at me and smiled faintly, almost carefully, “Who are you and what have you done with Archer?” she asked and I laughed lightly.

  “Guess I’m just a man who finally gets it,” I said, caressing the side of her face, drinking in the sight of her.

  “Gets what?” she whispered, and it was like she’d stopped breathing for a second. I knew the feeling pretty well.

  “What real love is; what it’s supposed to be.”

  She nodded carefully, never breaking eye contact with me. I leaned forward and pressed my lips against hers and her eyes drifted shut. It was something else to feel the tension drain from her shoulders as she almost melted into me. I thought to myself it was high time I made this woman feel appreciated for everything she did, and being the man that I was, I really only knew one way to express myself and that was physically. I broke the kiss and said, “Let me make love to you.”

  Her eyes flicked open and she nodded very carefully, watching me as predator watches prey. I started at the front of her short sleeved blouse, plucking buttons free, carefully and lightly while she breathed shallowly, watching me; waiting to see what I would do. After every button popped, I bent and placed a kiss against the newest bit of exposed flesh.

  Her bra was one of those front clasp deals, so I undid that, and pushed the whole mess of fabric back off her shoulders. I was right there, so I took a nipple into my mouth, biting gently, Mel’s body jerking towards me, fitting more of her breast in my mouth, her breath leaving her in a shuddering sigh, her fingers finding the pony tail holder Dani had made me to remember Grind. With deft fingers, Mel pulled it out of my hair, gripping it so it wouldn’t pull. As I lavished her chest with attention, my hands found the real prize of the globes of her ass, giving them a squeeze, before I was forced to put one arm around her back to hold her to me.

  I didn’t remember doing it, but I was on my knees at the side of the bed, drowning in Melody, and her sweet smell of those flowers from our wedding. I watched her daub the perfume, a gift from one of the girls, behind her ear every morning and I think I was beginning to understand why. It did my heart good to know that she wanted to remember our wedding day. That it was, for her, a happier memory than it wasn’t.

  It renewed my vigor in kissing down her body, her fingers threaded through my hair and holding it back so she could watch me. I hooked fingers into the waistband of her denim shorts and slid them around to her front so I could work the button free and the zipper down. She kicked off her shoes for me and arched her hips so I could take the material down her legs, sweeping her panties off right along with them.

  I pressed her back to the bed, palming one of her breasts, and braced her knees open with my shoulders. I licked her pussy, sweet and musky with her arousal and let my tongue play against her clit. She arched and moaned softly and I smiled against her body, sliding one finger inside her, teasing around until I got the same response from her from my attentions to her inside.

  She gasped out this beautiful little pleading moan that took the shape of my name and let me say, the struggle was real to not just get my cock out and in her. I wanted her so fuckin’ bad, but this wasn’t about me. It was about her, and she needed this. Needed my reassurance that I wasn’t pissed at her, which how could I be? I’d let Dom and even Grind pollute my head with a bunch of garbage for far too long where women were concerned. What Melody had said on our honeymoon, about breaking cycles, and the chains of our upbringings, let’s just say it applied to more than just my childhood with coked out parents and more time spent in the system than anywhere else.

  I kissed her pussy lightly, drawing on her lips, sucking at her clit like my life depended on it, but honestly, I just wanted to get her through her first orgasm so that I could play a whole other way that had everything to do with making her melt, and relax. I’d had to ask Blue what the fuck was with all the weird shit in the box he’d sent along on our honeymoon and he’d laughed at me, but he’d told me today, in the waiting room in his weird, quiet way and now I couldn’t wait to try it out on her. See what reactions I could get.

  I could tell she was getting close, her body arching provocatively, her voice a breathy gasping plea. She had this adorable habit of when she was getting ready to come of saying ‘higher’ as if she were being launched into the sky. I knew the feeling, but I thought it was cute as hell that she said it, probably without being aware she said it, instead of something way more traditional like, ‘almost’ or ‘so close’ or even ‘yes’.

  “Oh god, Archer, higher! Just a little bit higher!”

  She cried out and crashed to the bed, her body shuddering, and I sat back, pleased with myself, wiping a hand over my mouth while I fucked the shit out of her with my fingers. She grabbed my wrist, to get me to stop, crying out, “Mm-mm! Mm-mm!” completely unable to form coherent words.

  Jackpot! That’d been a good one. I slipped the box out from under the bed and opened it up, pulling out a length of black silk while she lay panting.

  “Middle of the bed, Baby. I want you face down,” she groaned and complied and I used the silk to tie her wrists together above her head, securing her to the wrought iron headboard.

  “Archer, what are you doing?” she asked and I soothed her.

  “Shh, you trust me, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let me do this for you, please?”

  “O-okay.”

  She trembled slightly and I slipped the satin sleep mask out of its spot and put it over her eyes. She sucked in a breath, but didn’t protest or say anything. I admired the line of her body, laid out in my bed, and slipped the claws onto my fingertips, doing what Blue had suggested, and taking up a scrap of velvet in my other hand.

  I lightly traced a line with my four fingertip
s down the length of her back. She pushed her body into the mattress, faint pink lines raising on her pale skin, a wash of gooseflesh radiating out from the marks. I glided the velvet over her flesh in the wake of the sharp sensation and watched her shudder… oh yeah. This was going to be fun.

  For the better part of an hour I played with Melody, using sensation as a means to excite, torment, and soothe her until she was limp, relaxed, and just about putty in my hands. Soft things, sharp things, prickly things, cold things, warm things, the touch of my calloused fingers, the prick of the spikey wheel thing, the glide of silk, the catch of velvet; all of it coming together to titillate and inflame her senses until she was wet and ready, begging me to be inside her.

  I took my time, slipping out of my clothes and laying kisses all over her body before laying myself over the top of her. I quested for a moment or two for her opening, and only when I was sure I had it, did I slip inside her, between her thighs. She was incredibly warm and close and taking her this way was tighter than any other way I’d taken her to this point.

  I took my time loving her, probably way later into the night than either one of us should have been up, given that it was Sunday night leaking into Monday morning, but I didn’t care. It would be worth it to be tired the next morning.

  I cradled Melody close in my arms and made love to her until we were both exhausted. It was needed, it was wonderful; it most definitely brought us closer… Best weekend ever.

  Chapter 29

  Melody

  “Yay!” I laughed with Noah and he giggled and we both clapped. It was moving day and we were picking up Noah’s toys and packing them away in yet another cardboard box. The door to the apartment was open as Archer and the rest of the guys were coming and going, fixing things around the dingy one bedroom apartment and loading out furniture, so when a shadow fell over the door, I didn’t think anything of it.