Craving Absolution

by Nicole Jacquelyn

  “I’ll get that, you get all your shit,” he said, kissing my head. He ran his hands up my arms and around my neck as he tipped my face to his. “Hurry, Ladybug.”

  We packed in record time, with Cameron helping me put all my toiletries into separate ziplock bags. He grumbled about it, but I think he was glad to have something to do. All of his things were at the club now, mostly clothes that the old ladies had pitched in and bought him. If Tommy was helping with anything, I hadn’t heard about it, and it pissed me off. I liked the fact that Cameron came over to hang out, but was concerned that he felt the need to spend time away from his only surviving family member. Something wasn’t right there.

  It took us about twenty minutes before we were out on the road, Cody leading the way to the club with Cameron and me riding in my car. Gram had been staying with Callie, and apparently Grease was making sure they got to the club too. I hoped that they were there before I was. The entire situation was scary, not only packing and leaving in the middle of the night, but also the fact that I was going to be surrounded by people who didn’t like me. I needed to know my family was safe, and I wanted them with me.

  My hands shook and grew sweaty on the steering wheel as the guy at the gate checked inside my car and trunk with a flashlight. It didn’t even matter that I was the president’s daughter and had Cameron with me, he still checked everywhere. By the time we parked in the grass to the side of the club building, I could feel sweat gathering on my top lip. Really fucking attractive. I’d never been so glad for the tissues I kept in my glove box, even if Cameron was looking at me like I was crazy as I blotted my face.

  I popped my trunk open and took a deep breath before climbing out of the car. I could do this; I just needed to stay near my family and I’d be fine. Piece of cake. Cameron flew out the door as soon as I stood up and disappeared into the darkness, and I almost jumped out of my skin as Cody came up behind me.

  “You’re staying in my room,” he informed me, pulling my suitcase out of the trunk. “I know you’re freaked out, but you’re with me and you’ve got Grease too. No one’s going to mess with you.”

  I nodded, taking a deep breath as we made our way through the tall grass. I could see Brenna and Dragon’s house in the distance, every window lit up, despite the late hour. Their lives had been interrupted too, even though they lived in the compound.

  The thought made me pause. Is this really the life I wanted? Running out of the house in the dark, frantically choosing what I could stand to lose? What if we had kids? I’d have to hustle them out of their beds, scare them.

  Before I realized it, we were walking into a massive room with a bar on one side, and couches and a pool table on the other. A bunch of adults and kids were talking in quiet voices around the room as women laid out sleeping bag after sleeping bag on the floor. I scanned the place, looking for Gram or Callie, and after a few seconds I saw them walking out of what seemed to be a hallway off the back wall.

  “There’s Gram,” I told Cody with a tilt of my head. No one had noticed us yet, and I was afraid if I pointed or looked too closely at the other occupants of the room, someone would realize we’d walked in.

  “Wonder where Gram’s staying tonight?” Cody murmured.

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the room as I kept my chin high and my eyes on his back. I wasn’t going to cower, fuck that, but I refused to see the look on people’s faces when they recognized me.

  “Oh, Farrah! Thank God you’re here,” Gram exclaimed, pulling me into her arms. “All my babies are in one place.”

  “Hey, Gram,” I murmured into her hair. Just the smell of her calmed me down.

  “Where are you sleeping?” Cody asked.

  “Oh, Poet says I can sleep in his bed,” Gram replied, and Cody began to sputter. “Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. He’s sleeping on his daughter’s couch.”

  I laughed a little at the relief on Cody’s face.

  “Hope you cleaned that fucking disaster you call a room, brother,” Grease commented, pulling our attention from Gram to see him standing with one arm around Callie’s shoulders. “Farrah’s gonna leave your ass, you expect her to sleep in it.”

  My nose wrinkled at the thought of Cody having a messy bedroom. I couldn’t imagine it, but my head snapped up to stare at him when he replied.

  “Had April clean the shit while I was gone.” His hand squeezed mine, but I couldn’t read his expression.

  Who the fuck was April?

  Chapter 19

  Farrah

  “I’ve got a bathroom in here, so you won’t have to share,” Cody told me, dropping my bag just inside the door of his room. “It’s not huge, but at least we won’t be crowded into the main room.”

  “How’d you score a room?” I asked, looking around at the bare walls and the plain black comforter on his bed. I’d seen the number of men in the main room, and the number of doorways in the long hallway off the back of the club. That shit didn’t add up.

  “Some of the brothers don’t keep a room here,” he said with a shrug. “That’s why they’re all camping out on the floor. If I didn’t have an old lady, I would have been expected to give up the room, but since I do . . .”

  “Wait, what?” I turned to look at him in horror.

  “What?”

  “You’re talking about me?”

  “Oh, fuck me. Are we really getting into this now?” he asked in irritation. “Of course I’m talking about you. When the fuck would I have time for someone else, and why the fuck would you be in this room if you weren’t mine?”

  I spluttered, trying to find the words to blast him. He was irritated? Fuck that! He was the one who’d promised we weren’t putting labels on shit! We were as good as married in the club’s eyes, and I’d had no fucking idea.

  “Who’s April?” I asked stonily, not willing to give an inch.

  “The bitch that cleans the fucking club. You’re being an idiot.”

  “Fucking fantastic, Cody,” I mumbled, yanking my suitcase farther into the room. Once I’d opened it up and found the makeup case I was looking for, I met his eyes. “You can go.”

  “Why are you being such a bitch?” he asked, reaching behind him to lock the door. Good, at least when I beat the hell out of him, no one could come in to save his ass.

  “You said no labels!”

  “I told you that you didn’t have to label it. I never said shit about claiming you at the club,” he growled back.

  “Semantics!” I argued, my voice even. I didn’t want everyone to hear us fighting, but my tone was scathing. “Echo never—”

  He tackled me onto the bed midsentence, knocking the makeup case across the room. I found myself glaring at his face as he straddled my belly and captured my hands above my head.

  “Echo was a fucking pussy,” he said with a sneer, so close I could feel his breath on my face.

  “Shut up! You didn’t know him!”

  “I’ll say whatever the fuck I want.” He punctuated his vow by squeezing my wrists. “He didn’t take care of you.”

  “Yes, he—”

  “No. He didn’t.”

  “Let me talk!” I screeched, bucking my hips in an unsuccessful attempt to move him.

  “No. I’m talking now,” he said menacingly. “I watched you lose your shit when he died, and I didn’t say shit because I knew you couldn’t handle it.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “But we’re going to get a few things straight, right now. Echo was a fucking pussy who didn’t take care of you. He didn’t say shit when you were fucking wasting away. He didn’t do shit about your parents fucking beating on you and making your life miserable. He was too concerned with his own ass to make sure that yours was safe. He didn’t deserve your tears. The guy deserves to be dead.”

  “No, he doesn’t.” I sobbed, barely able to catch my breath as his words pummeled me. He was relentless, pushing and poking at every memory I had of the first man I’d thought loved me. I slammed my
eyes shut and fought the memory of the day I’d locked myself in my bedroom, calling Echo over and over until Gator had finally broken through the door, my phone and any chance of escape lost.

  “Don’t,” I cried out. “He was good to me. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Listen to me.” He shook me gently. “Look at me!”

  I opened my eyes to meet his, and my stomach dropped.

  “I am in love with you,” he said. “There is not one thing I wouldn’t do for you. I’d kill for you. I’d die for you. No hesitation, no question. Do not ever compare me to Echo again. That man is dead, and he isn’t worth the dirt he’s buried under. Do you understand me?”

  “He wasn’t—”

  “He wasn’t anything, Farrah. He didn’t claim you because he wasn’t worth shit. You were my old lady from the night you pulled into town. I claimed you, even knowing you would be pissed. You know why?”

  I sniffled, my breath hiccupping in my throat. Tears were still rolling down the sides of my face, and I hated him for making me cry in front of him. “No.”

  “Because I would do anything to keep you safe.” He leaned down, pressing my hands into the bed, and kissed me hard. “Even if you hate me for it.”

  His tongue pushed into my mouth, and he let go of my wrists to grip my head. I slapped at his chest even as I kissed him back, my emotions too strong to contain. I wanted him and loved him and hated him as I fought against his words. I was so afraid that what he was saying was the truth.

  Our fight turned to desperation as I tore off his cut and the T-shirt underneath, scratching his back with my nails. He yanked my shirt over my head, and instead of unsnapping my bra, pulled out a knife from his jeans and flicked it up from between my breasts, cutting the bra in half.

  We pushed and pulled and rolled around the bed, at one point almost hitting the floor until Cody caught us, using one arm to push us back up. He bit me and I bit him, our bodies red and sweaty by the time we’d stripped our bottom halves.

  “Brace your hands on the wall,” he ordered as he knelt above me, his chest heaving. Without thought, I followed his direction, placing my hands on the cold concrete above my head.

  “Brace ’em, Ladybug,” he repeated.

  As soon as I’d locked my elbows, he pulled my hips from the bed and slammed inside me. My head flew back, the tendons in my neck straining as I held back my cry. I was still conscious of the people outside his room, but I wouldn’t be for long.

  His fingers dug into my hips, pulling me toward him as he snapped his hips forward again and again, and soon I was moaning with every thrust. Then he let go of one of my hips and ran his fingers down the length of my chest, from my neck to my belly button. He wiped away the sweat that had been beading on my skin, and my entire body clenched as he lifted his fingers to his lips and licked them clean.

  “Tastes good,” he rasped.

  He pounded in again before pulling out with a muffled curse, then flipped one of my legs over the other so I was lying with my bottom half twisted sideways.

  “Keep those arms up,” he reminded me as he pushed the top leg until my thigh was resting against my chest.

  Without any warning, he pushed slowly back inside me. The change in angle and the tight feeling of his entry had me gasping, the sweat on my hands making them slip against the wall. He leaned down so one of his forearms was braced beside me—his fingers wrapped gently around my upraised arm—and rested his chest against my torso, bringing the other hand up to rub up and down my bent leg, keeping it in place.

  “Oh my God.” I groaned, clenching my teeth as he started to move faster.

  He made a noise against my collarbone as he grasped behind my knee and rotated his hips just a fraction. I was so immersed in him—the way he smelled, the taste of his skin, the sound of his voice in my ear—that by the time he let go of my thigh to reach down and pinch my clit, hidden under my drawn-up thigh, I was so close to orgasm I detonated on contact.

  “That’s my girl,” he whispered in my ear. “I take care of you, don’t I?”

  I moaned high in my throat as the orgasm went on and on until finally my body relaxed. As soon as it was finished, his hand slipped away from where we connected and grabbed the opposite arm. Without slowing his thrusts, he turned me fully onto my side. When I was exactly how he wanted me, he leaned down to tenderly kiss my lips, and then used my hair to jerk my face away from him.

  Breathing heavily, he came, biting down on the back of my neck.

  He summarized his point by once again covering Echo’s mark with his own.

  Son of a bitch. I was too tired to argue anymore.

  Chapter 20

  Farrah

  The first few days at the club actually weren’t that bad. People seemed to give me a wide berth, which suited me just fine. I wasn’t there to make friends, and if it had been up to me, I wouldn’t have been there at all. I was pretty small potatoes when it came to club politics, and I doubted anyone would have even connected me to the Aces, but Cody was adamant that it wasn’t safe for me outside the barbed wire fence that surrounded the grounds.

  I didn’t fight him on it. I’d felt like shit when I had to call in to work, but when I’d told the owner that I had a family emergency, he’d been super cool about it. At least I didn’t have to worry about losing my job. I could live with being cooped up with a bunch of people I didn’t know as long as my family was around.

  I spent most of my time hanging outside with Callie, Will, and occasionally Cameron. Gram had found her way into the kitchen and was schooling all the other women on how to feed an army, and Cody was mostly off doing shit for the guys in the club, so I didn’t see them as much.

  After the first day, the adults had realized that it was insane to try to keep the kids locked inside, so they set up some water games and yard toys in the field behind the building. The old ladies were comfortable with each other, and they took shifts slathering the kids in sunscreen and watching them run wild, but none of them ever made their way into our little group.

  I felt bad that I seemed to be alienating Callie from the women she had so much in common with, but it really couldn’t be helped. They didn’t want anything to do with me—my reputation must have preceded me—so even if I’d smiled at them and tried to play nice, they wouldn’t have given us the time of day. We were interlopers, and by the strain on Callie’s face by the end of each day, I knew it was weighing on her.

  By the fifth day of confinement, I made myself cut her loose. I knew that while I was around she wouldn’t make any of the friends that she quite obviously wanted, so instead of following the crowd outside after breakfast, I told her I wanted to spend the day reading in Cody’s room. It was a bit disturbing the way her eyes lit up before she deliberately gave me a disappointed look, but I let it go. I understood, as much as it irritated me.

  If I’d known what I was getting myself into, I would have gladly tagged along with Callie and kept her friendless.

  I’d been in Cody’s room for about an hour when there was a soft knock on the door. Thinking it was Gram or Callie, I climbed off the bed and swung the door open, immediately wishing I could slam it closed again.

  “Hi,” she said nervously, her voice rough and deep. “I’m Vera. Slider’s wife?”

  “Is that a question?” I asked flatly, my asshole persona falling flawlessly into place.

  “No.” She scowled. “I just wasn’t sure if you knew who I was.”

  I looked her over slowly, taking in her slender body covered in a Harley Davidson tank top and low-cut jeans designed for someone half her age. Every life choice she’d made seemed to have made itself known on her features, from her overly tanned skin to the wrinkles around her lips from puckering a million times around a cigarette. Yet, there was still something oddly beautiful about her.

  “Yeah, I know who you are. Can I help you with something?” I was praying to any god that could hear me that someone, anyone, would walk in and interrupt
us.

  “I just wanted to talk to ya for a minute,” she said, stepping into the room without invitation, forcing me to take a step back.

  I stood silently with a polite look of disinterest on my face and fought the panic building in my chest at our proximity as she looked me over. I’d been avoiding her for days, and just my fucking luck, the minute I got comfortable, there she was.

  “You’re so beautiful,” she said softly. “I knew you would be.”

  She reached up to touch me and I flinched away violently, my mind racing. What the hell was she doing?

  “Um . . .”

  “You’ve been giving your dad such a hard fucking time,” she said, gently scolding me with a shake of her head as she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket with shaky hands. “It’s—”

  I cut her off midsentence. “He’s not my dad.”

  “Honey, your birth certificate didn’t lie, and neither do those eyebrows and that chin you’ve got pointed to the sky. Hell, you looked just like him when you were born, though you’ve got the look of your mother now.”

  “What?” I asked in confusion. Was I in the fucking twilight zone? She’d seen me as a baby? I couldn’t grasp what she was trying to say, and my fingers began to tingle.

  Oh shit.

  She looked around the room, almost as if she couldn’t meet my eyes as she started to speak.

  “I was pissed as hell when your dad told me he’d knocked up some club whore. God, I could have shot him with his own damn gun. Ya wanna sit?”

  I shook my head woodenly as I locked my knees. No, I did not want to fucking sit.

  “I’m gonna sit,” she told me with a nod, perching on the side of Cody’s bed. “Story’s a fucked-up one, but I think you need to hear it. Your dad sure as shit will never tell ya, and even though he never says nothin’, I know he worries about ya. He’s always worried about ya.”