“Already?”
“Yep! Time flies around this place. Are you having a good first week here?”
Laney glanced around the small office and nodded.
Working at Sexy Sinners wasn’t her idea of a dream job, but it worked. It made her good money, offered good benefits, and now that she was working, she had something to distract her from her own anxieties.
“I’m hungry, you wanna grab lunch?”
Esme nodded her dark head and gestures towards the bar.
“We can eat here if you want.”
Laney has no problem with that, considering she had a mountain of paperwork to finish filing before the week was done. She’d gotten a good head start on it to feel comfortable, but Ox had given her a few tasks that seemed daunting to say the least.
“What sounds good to you?,” Laney asked as they headed towards the bar.
Esme shook her head.
“I’m okay with anything at this point, I haven’t eaten for hours.”
Laney pulled out her phone to see what places would deliver in the area, wondering what she herself was in the mood for.
“Well, well, look who’s working’ the club scene. You fit in here much better,” Laney heard over her shoulder.
To her surprise, Pierce was standing behind her. He wasn’t wearing a cut, but she supposed he wasn’t allowed to at the moment. It didn’t make her feel guilty though, especially not with the way he was glaring at her.
“Can I help you?,” She asked.
He sneered, his teeth bared for only a second before they disappeared.
“I mean, if you’re up for a private dance-”
“She’s not a dancer ass hole, and you know it. Just like you also know that she’s your prez’s girl,” Esme snapped.
“Did I know that? Sounds like news to me,” He growled.
Laney looked between the two and shook her head. Leveling Pierce with a glare of her own, she said, “I don’t know what your problem is, and I honestly don’t care, but my advice would be to leave me alone.”
Pierce seemed to think that was humorous because he started to laugh, his dark brows furrowed, his mouth twisted in confusion.
“I bet you’re the kind of woman who likes missionary, too, huh? Whether it be me or somebody else around here, you’re gonna have to learn your place, bitch. This ain’t a fairytale kingdom,” He hissed.
He moved closer to her, close enough that Laney could feel his body heat. Esme moved to stand, but Laney stopped her.
It was time she stood up for herself, right? She’d let him run his mouth a lot more than she should have, and Axel wouldn’t always be around to fight her battles for her. Sure, she was scared, Pierce was a big guy.
But, he was just a guy.
There wasn’t anything he could do to her that could surprise or hurt her, not after what she’d been through.
Laney tugged on the ends of his t-shirt, sans cut, and smiled wickedly.
“Looks to me like you have to learn your place, big boy. Where’s your cut?”
Pierce didn’t say anything at first, but his chest puffed out like a proud peacock and his nostrils flared. Esme tried to cover her laugh, but she couldn’t, and her laughter inly seemed to make him angrier. Laney cleared her throat as she said, “You’re not a patch anymore, remember? You’re no better than all the tagalongs I see workin’ their asses on that pole over there. I think you fit in much better around here than I do, Pierce.”
He grunted, made an angry whistling sound in the back of his throat before he lunged towards her. Faster than he could blink, Laney reached around the bar and smashed the bigger end of a beer bottle against the counter beside Esme. Esme squeaked in surprise as the beer and glass went flying, but Laney didn’t hesitate to hold it up to his throat.
“Go ahead, baby. Go ahead. I dare you. I’ll slit your throat so fuckin’ fast that you won’t have time to lift those greedy little hands of yours,” She said softly.
If Pierce was surprised then Laney was fucking shocked at her own behavior because the old her would have been too scared to raise her voice. The woman that James had by his side would have been too scared to whisper, not even yell, but this Laney was apparently, a badass.
“You’re gonna regret this, bitch!,” He snapped.
Laney’s mouth lifted in amusement.
“I guarantee you, if you try to put your hands on me again, you’ll regret it.”
Only after he stomped away and slammed the doors wide open, flooding the entire club with sunlight, did Laney realize that everyone was watching her; including Tango and Rebel from across the room.
With trembling fingers, she set the broken bottle down and glanced at Esme.
“Sorry,” She mumbled.
“Hey, don’t apologize! You just got accosted by that ass hole, again, girl! Are you okay? Do you want to call Axel?”
“No! I mean…no, I’m good. I just want to forget it ever happened. The drama isn’t worth it. I want a cigarette and I want a burger,” She joked.
Esme looked like she didn’t really believe her, but she was telling the truth. She didn’t want anyone to give her any more shit or walk on egg shells around her. If they thought she was still a basket case, then oh well, but if they knew she could take care of her own, they’d leave her be. No one wanted to fuck with the crazy chick.
“A burger and a cigarette I can offer you, Laney. You did good.”
Laney looked up to see Tango watching her, his eyes kind.
“Thank you…aren’t you mad? I just disrespected your brother in front a room full of people,” She wondered.
Rebel laughed, a deep gritty sound, and held out a cigarette to her.
“No way, sweetheart. Pierce just dug his own grave. When we tell Axel-,” Laney interrupted them by shaking her head vehemently.
“Please, no! Just let it go. It’s not that big of a deal, and it doesn’t really matter anyways. He’s already gotten a punishment. Just let it go,” She begged.
Rebel and Tango looked at each other skeptically, neither one seeming to agree with her.
“Please. I’m beggin’ ya, please. Just let this one go.”
Finally Tango sighed and nodded.
“Okay, sure. We’ll let this one go, you handled yourself well. But, if there’s one more problem, we’re gonna hand it over to Axel to handle. Okay?”
Laney closed her eyes in relief and smiled shakily at them.
“Thank you, really. I just don’t want any more trouble, okay?”
Rebel studied her.
“I don’t suppose you do. Okay, Laney. We’ll keep this between us. I can’t speak for everyone else here, but neither one of us will say a word.”
Laney felt relief bubble in her belly and suppress her anxiety for a moment.
“How about that burger?”
Chapter 10
“You want to decorate the clubhouse for Christmas? Why?”
Axel shrugged, his wide shoulders stretching the blue material of his t-shirt.
“It’s gonna get chilly soon, and I was thinking maybe this year we could actually celebrate the holiday. I know Ashley would like it,” He said.
Laney understood, she just hadn’t been thinking about the holiday. It hadn’t clicked that Christmas was coming up right around the corner, which she should have known. She’d been staring at the date all week at work, filing paperwork, working with Green to get their numbers for the fiscal year right and recorded properly.
“I forgot, honestly. I just didn’t expect anyone around here to want to celebrate, let alone decorate.”
Axel smiled and leaned in close, his mouth pressing against hers. It was familiar and it still gave her butterflies. She hadn’t let her guard down yet, but he’d told her not to.
“I want to earn it, Laney. Don’t make it easy on me.”
She hadn’t planned on it, but she’d been so busy at work they hadn’t had much time together. She was used to snow and lights and hot chocolate, but in North C
arolina there wouldn’t be much snow or even ‘cold’ weather like she was used to. They could still do lights and hot chocolate, though.
Laney leaned in to kiss him herself, noting the way his smile widened slightly, the surprise that made his dark eyes brighter.
Her lips parted as she sighed, her tongue seeking his, her fingers tangling in the front of his shirt. He was warm and it heated her chilled fingers as they slid beneath his shirt and pressed against his abs. They were hard and flexed under her touch and Laney had no idea what she was doing. They were outside, where anyone could see, and yet she didn’t want to stop. She limited their touching for the most part because a tiny part of her was scared that all he wanted was her body. If that’s all he wanted, he was a damn good actor, but then aren’t all men?
Every time she thought she had him figured out, he proved her wrong.
“I don’t want ya to quit touchin’ me,” He said against her mouth.
Laney’s eyes fluttered open and she watched his do the same.
“Ya never reach for me. I know you’re scared, but it feels so damn good when ya touch me all on your own,” He whispered. His thumbs caressed the hollows of her cheeks and she found herself leaning in to his touch, like she was used to it, like she needed it.
“I need to be better,” She admitted.
He hushed her, kissed her again, leaned her against the brick wall behind them. Near the rear exit of the clubhouse, they were completely obscured now.
“Don’t say that, baby. I know ya got things you’re hidin’. I know ya got a lot of baggage, but you can’t help that.”
“You’re being too easy on me, Axel-”
He shook his head and tucked her hair back behind her ears.
“He hurt you?”
“So bad,” She whispered sadly.
He dipped his head, his mouth pursed.
“Think of a candle, baby. You were the wick and he was the flame. You’re the substance of the candle. He’d have had nothing to burn away if it weren’t for you. Sure, the glow was pretty, but he’d have had nothing to keep his flame flickerin’ if it weren’t for you. That’s what some men don’t understand. He can burn down any wick he wants, but once it’s gone, it’s gone, and nothing will change that.”
Laney swallowed audibly at his beautiful words and shrugged.
“And, what about you?”
He kissed her again, more forcefully this time, as he planted his hands above her head on the wall behind her.
“I’ll give you all the reassurance you need. I’ll give you a lot of things, but I ain’t gonna let a woman like you burn out.”
Well, that’s completely fucking amazing to hear.
Laney lifted onto her tiptoes and slid a hand into the long hair at the nape of his neck, her fingernails scraping against his scalp gently. He softened like melted butter against her, one of his hands wrapping around her waist from behind, pressing her hips against his.
Laney was all wrapped up in the way he smelled, tasted, the way his calloused fingertips roved over the bare skin of her belly, the way his jeans scraped against her bare thighs.
It was one of the warmer days of the week and Laney had decided to wear a sundress with a pretty cardigan Rider had given her for her birthday the previous year.
The dark blue material of the dress crept up between her thighs as she leaned up into Axel’s touch. Her fingertips met his as her own hand lifted his shirt a little higher so she could feel more skin.
It’d been a long time since she felt skin to skin contact, with anyone, with a man; it felt like she was finally alive again.
“You taste like everything I didn’t know I’d been missin’,” She whispered into his mouth.
“I knew what I was missin’, I just didn’t think it existed.”
Laney’s eyes opened slowly only to see that he was watching her, awed, silent.
“You ain’t no candle, baby. You got a fire in you that no man can douse. I hope one day I get to see it in all its glory,” Axel said softly.
Laney felt her lower lip tremble at the truth in his voice, and she wondered why in the world he would want to see her fire.
“Why me?”
Axel smiled tenderly at her, his dark eyes mysterious and yet altogether honest.
“Why not you?”
✽✽✽
“Ashley, what color bulbs should we get?”
Laney held up two clear boxes, both filled with glittery ornaments of assorted colors. Ashley placed one hand on her ample hip and cocked her head to the side, her long red hair flowing down her back.
“Not sure, what kinda look we goin’ for here? Elegant and classy, or what the fuck ever we want?”
Laney wasn’t entirely sure what the difference between the two really was, but she nodded anyways.
“Right. Silver and gold, it is.”
Ashley smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at Laney, her fingers wrapping around one more box of ornaments, this one filled with red bulbs.
“Let’s add a little color, I always did love red.”
Laney laughed at her sense of humor, considering her bright red hair was her most noticeable feature. She looked festive too, with her green sweater and snowflake earrings dangling from her lobes.
“Laney, what are your intentions with my beloved brother?”
The question stopped Laney cold, right in the middle of the isle where the hot chocolate was located. Ashley asked it so casually, too, as she held up a jar of hot fudge to her face.
“Honestly, I don’t have any. I don’t have many expectations.”
Ashley glanced at her as she dropped the hot fudge into the cart.
“You should. My brother doesn’t entertain women, and he certainly doesn’t keep them.”
“I have heard that once or twice,” Laney breathed.
Ashley shrugged, like she couldn’t care less how many times Laney heard it, and she probably didn’t. Axel was her only family outside of the club, so it would make sense that she would question Laney.
“When I first came here, I was bitter as hell about the fact that Ox sent me away. A part of me still is, but now I’m okay. I’m still sad, a part of me still aches, but the rest of me knows that this is where I belong right now. Whether or not that’s with him, I honestly can’t tell you.”
Ashley nodded as she seemed to ponder that.
“Will you tell me what James did?”
Laney rolled her shoulders back to ease the pressure.
“It’s nothing special. It’s actually extremely ordinary, common in fact. There was nothing special about what he did to me, Ashley. It just hurt like a son of a bitch.”
Ashley smiled in a sad way, and it caught Laney’s attention to the fullest.
“What happened to me and Axel, what happened to our family, that was anything but ordinary. But, ya know what I learned, Laney? It doesn’t matter how minuscule you think your trauma is, we’re all affected by our circumstances just the same.”
Laney dropped a box of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows into the cart and smacked her palms against the handle.
“We were married. I got pregnant, he got a girlfriend. I waited years to get pregnant, and he knew I was pregnant before he sought out another woman. One minute we were planning a gender reveal party, and the next he was handing me six hundred dollars to visit Planned Parenthood.”
It hurt, her mouth felt like it was filled with ash, but Laney knew that telling Ashley would help her heal if only a little bit. Ashley’s expression filled with pity and that hurt worse than anything she could have said.
“Don’t. Don’t do that, Ashley. Like you said, you’ve been through worse. I’ll be fine.”
Ashley surprised her when she wrapped her arms around her and squeezed tightly.
“It doesn’t matter how much worse I’ve been through. What happened to you wasn’t lesser by any means. Different, Laney. Not less.”
Laney felt her eyes well up with tears as she hugged Ashley back. It fel
t like she’d ripped off a Band-Aid. Sure, Esme knew. Only Esme knew.
“What happened to your folks?,” Laney heard herself whisper.
“They were murdered by another MC on Christmas Eve. That’s why its kind of a big deal that Axel wants to celebrate this year. Even decorating has been hard for him in the past, but I think you had a little somethin’ to do with him changing his mind. You’ve finally given him something to look forward to…After their murder, we were put into foster care. By the time Axel was eighteen, he was prospecting for the Lone Rangers. By the time I was eighteen, all the men who were involved with the murder were dead,” She explained.
Laney tried to process all of that information, including the immensely sad bit about the timeline, and sighed.
“Axel killed them? All of them?”
Ashley nodded against her shoulder, and the fear that burrowed deep in Laney was poignant. True and wretched and it tainted her for a moment; it made her realize how real the differences between the two of them were.
What if I lose him like that?
Laney hadn’t had the most normal childhood, but hers wasn’t anywhere near as traumatic as theirs had obviously been. She hadn’t been involved in any kind of outlaw MC drama until Rider joined, and even then, it was only what she’d heard about over the phone.
Nothing had ever touched her life personally.
Laney didn’t know how to navigate where her life was headed, and to someone like her, that was terrifying.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Laney admitted.
Ashley pulled away from her, ran her fingers through her hair, smiled sadly again with tears in her eyes.
“I know. That’s why I asked about your intentions. I know a runner when I see one.”
“I’m not a runner.”
“This life is hard. It’s unforgiving. I don’t have a choice at this point, it’s all I know. But, you? Laney, you’ll have to choose this life and be comfortable with the choice. Axel isn’t a selfish person by nature, but in this instance, he isn’t thinking clearly. It isn’t fair to expect you’ll be able to acclimate.”
Laney appreciated what she was saying, but if that was the case, then why did she feel like leaving Axel would be a mistake?
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