by Anne Malcom
“Really? What about if I said I like to dress up like a clown and spank you with a paddle?” I deadpanned.
Brock didn’t laugh. He seemed to be battling with something before he finally decided he looked at me with a wary gaze. “I guess I knew you wouldn’t be content with the bare minimum,” he sighed. “Yeah, the club was indirectly responsible for Jimmy’s death. What else do you wanna know?” He clasped his hands together on the table.
I put my fork down. “Have you killed anyone?”
Brock’s gaze didn’t waver. “Yes.”
I didn’t flinch. I guessed I expected it.
“When I was in the Navy, I killed people in battle, on assignments. I was good at it. It was part of my job. Ironically it’s part of my job here.”
“That’s what you do for the club?” I asked quietly. “You kill people?”
Brock frowned. “It’s not as cut and dry as that, baby. Contrary to popular belief, the everyday life of an MC isn’t walking around shooting people. Well, at least not the Sons. ‘Specially now that we’ve gone legit.”
I had suspected as much; I knew they had been involved in illegal activity and now they seemed to be keeping their noses clean.
“But there’s exceptions. Our version of going clean may not match up with society’s expectation. But we don’t run guns. I suspect your little file said something ‘bout that,” he said.
I nodded.
“Yeah well, that was how it was when I first got in. I didn’t blink an eye, to be honest. I’d grown up with the club,—even though the Navy taught me a lot, I would never question my brothers. And it was the only place I belonged. I knew it ate at Cade, what we did, I knew he wanted to get the club clean the moment he took the gavel. I supported him. He’s my best friend, I’d follow him to the gates of hell.” He met my eyes. “But truthfully, I didn’t give a shit. Whether we went legit or not. Sometimes the shit we had to do didn’t sit right with me, but it was same as in the Navy. Sometimes I did stuff I didn’t agree with. But it was for the greater good. It’s how it is with the club. I believed it was for the good of the MC—I’d live and die for the cut. I didn’t get Cade’s desperation to get clean but I stood by him. I didn’t get it until the day a little spitfire redhead burst into my life.” His gaze didn’t waver from mine. “Then I got it. I got why he’d want to have a life that was free from the filth that sometimes got so deep it was hard to scrub off. How he didn’t want the woman he loved to get any blowback from the club he loved. He wanted the best of both worlds. I got it.”
Wowza.
His face was thoughtful, his expression tinged with melancholy. “Maybe even before that. When Laurie got killed we all wanted retribution. To kill every last one of the motherfuckers that were responsible. Then I got this sick feeling, the feeling that somehow we were responsible. The club’s actions led to a course of events that almost shattered us.” His eyes were far away. “I didn’t understand a love like that until you. And the thought of you copping shit because of the club—” He shuddered. “Stuff of nightmares, babe. Even with all the shit we went through, I went dark. I was pissed at the world, pissed at you, and loved you at the same time.”
I inwardly flinched at this, at my actions causing him pain.
His expression was full of love though. “Through all that I still didn’t want to be a man that you couldn’t respect.”
“I respect you. No matter what,” I whispered.
“Maybe not if you knew what I’ve done,” he said with a hint of vulnerability.
I got up from my chair and walked around to him. He scooted his chair so it faced me and I climbed into his lap. “Whatever you’ve done, I don’t care. I know what kind of man you are. My world’s not black and white. I see grey,” I said softly.
Brock grasped my hips. “My whole fuckin’ world was grey until you came along and set it ablaze.”
I smiled at him. “So the club?” I probed softly.
He got back on track. “We don’t run guns. We’ve got some security shit we do on the side, protection, retrievals, stuff like that. That’s along with the other businesses.”
My eyebrow rose. I knew one of the “other businesses” he owned was a strip club. We had even had a confrontation at said strip club after I had been involved in a catfight with one of the strippers. Wow, that was a white trash statement if I’d ever heard one.
Brock seemed to read my mind. “I didn’t touch her,” he said quietly. “That night, that waitress—I didn’t fuck her. I just wanted to piss you off.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. We weren’t technically together when that happened, but we were sleeping together sporadically. Not that I expected monogamy.
“Retrieval?” I asked, cottoning on to an earlier statement.
“Yeah, since me and Asher and Bull are all ex-Navy we’ve got experience in hostage extraction. We still do a bit of that. High risk or high profile cases that can’t have the police involved, people come to us.” He paused. “That’s how your uncle found us.”
I was silent for a moment, the conversation turning to a subject I had been trying to broach for the past week. “Clark,” I said and Brock’s body tightened. “What’s happening there?”
“Not enough,” he clipped. “He’s a powerful guy. And a fuckin’ dangerous one at that. He’s high on the scumbag food chain. We can’t exactly roll in there and put a bullet in his skull, which was one of my earlier proposals. But we’re working on it.”
“By working on it you mean a plan for his murder?” I clarified.
“He needs to pay,” was Brock’s reply.
“As much as I agree with that statement, maybe he’s not worth it,” I said cautiously.
Brock’s eyes snapped to mine.
“Easy, tiger. I just mean maybe it’s not worth the consequences of A, trying to get close enough to him to commit said murder, and B, the blowback of actually murdering him,” I told him.
Brock let out an angry breath. “You sound like fuckin’ Cade.”
“Well, great minds think alike,” I said. “All I’m saying is maybe your thirst for revenge is clouding your judgment. Am I even at risk anymore?” I asked. I already knew the answer to this. Well, according to my Uncle Garrett, at least. He seemed to think that my father was taking care of it.
“Clark’s given the word that he won’t touch you anymore,” he gritted out. “But that’s the word of a fuckin’ psychopath, babe. And I’m not gonna let the man who hurt you keep on sitting pretty in his fuckin’ mansion,” he snarled.
“Yeah, I know, you’re a big bad biker and you need to send a message to anyone who fucks with you or anyone connected to you,” I stated smartly. “But maybe you’ve got to settle for an alternate. Set a bag of poop on fire on his doorstep and run off.” Brock raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe just burn his whole freakin’ house down. I don’t know, outlaw justice isn’t my strong point. All I know is I’m pretty fond of you and I’m not happy with you putting yourself at risk in order to exact some kind of revenge,” I said softly. My true fear was starting to show. What if something happened to him when he was trying to defend my honor?
Brock read that too. “We’ll sort it out, babe. And nothing will happen to me, okay?”
I nodded vaguely. “Can you please at least promise to try and let this one slide if it becomes too dangerous?” I pleaded, knowing I’d have more of a chance getting him to wear that pink tutu.
The look he gave me said I was right.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The weeks passed by in relative harmony. Brock and I relaxed into the rhythm of being a couple, although not without some kinks along the way.
One was Brock’s insistence we move in together. I wasn’t ready for that.
“We spend every fuckin’ night together anyway,” he argued.
“That’s not the point. I like having my house. My space. It’s too soon for an ‘our’,” I argued right back.
“It’s not too fuckin’
soon—we’ve been together for a fuckin year.” His voice was raised.
“We have not! We’ve been officially together for like a month. Everything before that was a mess. We need time to be a normal couple and move at a normal speed.” My voice was raising too.
“I don’t give a shit about normal!” he shouted. “I give a shit about having my old lady in my house, in my bed, coming home to her every day.”
I raised my eyebrow and put my hand on my hip, my female battle stance. “Oh really? Your house. Your bed. Coming home to me. So you expect me to move into your house, don a Christian Dior New Look dress and hand you a martini at the end of every day?”
Brock’s anger cracked for a moment. “I don’t know who Christian Dior is, I fuckin’ hate martinis and I don’t give a shit who gets home first. I just care that it’s our home.”
“Well, maybe I like my house. Have you thought of that? I like my pool and my kitchen and my closet!”
Brock smirked for a moment. “I don’t get how the kitchen factors into it, babe, since you only use it for booze storage, but fine. If you want to do that I’ll move in here.”
I stilled for a moment. “You’ll move in here?”
“Yep.”
“What about your house?” I asked.
“I’ll sell it,” he shrugged.
“Don’t you like your house?”
“It’s just a place to rest my head, Sparky. It’s four walls full of my shit. As long as I’ve got my bike and I’ve got you I could be living in a straw hut and not be fazed, although I suspect you wouldn’t be happy about that.”
I was silent for a moment. “It’s really fast,” I said quietly.
Brock moved to touch my hips lightly. “It’s not fast. We’ve been waiting for a year and half for this shit to work out right. It has. I don’t want to waste any more time.”
I was dubious about living with a man. I mean, I was a girl. I’d only lived with girls. What if he didn’t put the seat down? Or left his chin whiskers in the sink?
“Okay,” I said quietly. The hands at my hips tightened and he leaned in for a kiss. I placed my hand on his lips. “But you can’t leave the seat up and you have to clean up your chin whiskers,” I ordered.
Brock chuckled and kissed me.
Of course, this peace had been short-lived when he demanded to be in charge of household expenses. When I informed him that we were mortgage free he demanded to pay for everything else. I should have been expecting such an order, considering Gwen’s similar experience with Cade when they moved in together.
“That’s not happening,” I declared firmly.
“Yes, it fuckin’ is,” Brock clipped.
“Look, I know you’ve got this ‘me the man, I take care of my woman’ thing going on, but it’s not going to fly on this. In the bedroom, yes. When I’ve got sore feet and want a footrub, yes. But not this. We can go halves,” I conceded.
Brock’s glare darkened. “Nope. That’s not me, babe. I’ll take care of it all.”
I took a deep calming breath. “Brock, you know—” How did I put this delicately? “You know I come from money. It’s not a problem for me.”
“I don’t give a shit,” he said sharply. “It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got in the bank, I take care of both of us.”
I stared at him. I knew he wouldn’t budge on this. “If you don’t let me win on this I’ll just do even worse things like buy you a ridiculously expensive watch every week,” I said with an evil grin.
Brock glared; he knew I wasn’t bluffing. “Fuck, you irritate me sometimes.”
I smiled sweetly at him. “That’s why you love me.”
He shook his head, pulling me into his arms. “No, I love you in spite of it.”
So that argument was won. I guessed I would pay for it somehow in some way I was yet to see. But now it was the first night of us living together and we decided to throw a party. Well, I decided to throw a party. Things on the club front had been quiet and I had recently just lost my constant chaperone, so I guessed the Clark threat was being dealt with.
I had been slowly getting used to the role of old lady, not a title I was hugely comfortable with, but I was supremely happy with Brock so I guess I’d learn to love it. Evie, the biker queen, had even accepted me into the fold with open arms.
“Glad you two finally got your shit together. But you hurt him again I’ll pull your shiny red hair out.”
So maybe not so open arms, but she had offered me a mimosa after so I guessed my hair was safe for now.
Gwen was ecstatic about the fact we were both old ladies and we spent evenings complaining over cocktails over some of the alpha tendencies of our bikers. Which was what we were doing right now. We were slightly separated from the party; I was bouncing Belle on my lap, Gwen was making the most of having baby free hands and was cradling a cosmo.
“Who would have thought we’d be biker old ladies and you’d have a freakin’ kid?” I asked lightly, looking around at our adopted family who I wouldn’t trade for any of the stuck up Manhattanites I had grown up with. The exceptions were Ry and Alex, who I secretly hoped would patch into the Sons. I expected Alex was the right amount of badass for the leather, but I didn’t think Ry would make the cut.
Gwen’s face turned melancholy for a moment. I knew she was thinking of Ian. “Yeah, it’s funny how life works, isn’t it?” she said quietly.
“You okay?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
She focused her gaze on me, then Belle, then Cade who was staring at her from his biker huddle. He had a sixth sense when it came to Gwen; it was freaky.
“Yeah,” she said finally. “I never thought this would be my life. But I’ve never been so happy either, you know? I miss him though, Ames. I miss him every day.”
I was silent for a bit. “Yeah, me too,” I confessed.
She looked at me. “He wasn’t it for you though, was he? It’s Brock. He’s your soul mate.”
It wasn’t a question.
“No. I loved him. I loved him in a comforting sort of way, the way that he would stay in my heart forever. If I hadn’t met Brock and hadn’t experienced the firestorm that it is to love him, maybe he would’ve been it. But you can’t live your life on what ifs.” I snuggled into Belle, inhaling her sweet little baby smell.
Gwen watched me. “No, you can’t. You’re happy though.”
I nodded, catching Brock’s gaze from across the pool. He had an intense look on his face, watching me holding Belle. Uh uh. He was not getting any ideas.
“Yeah.”
We sat in a comfortable silence.
The party was a success, and we had bundled a drunken Gwen and a sleeping Belle in with Cade as they were the last guests to leave. For once I didn’t over indulge in the alcohol. No, I wasn’t pregnant. I was happy enough to thrive off the atmosphere of being surrounded by love.
Ugh, I was getting sappy as shit and I couldn’t find it in me to care.
I snuggled next to Brock after he had made me a very happy girl. Multiple orgasms happy.
He stroked my shoulder absently and I basked in the moment of domestic coupledom. Well, maybe I basked in the afterglow of freaking amazing sex, but it was basically the same thing.
“You want kids, Sparky?” he asked finally, breaking the silence and with a boom my bubble of happiness burst. I knew that look by the pool would come back and bite me in the ass.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly and his hand stopped stroking. He twisted me so I was lying on top of him and our eyes could meet. He scrutinized me.
“You don’t know?”
“I’m twenty-freaking-five, Brock. I like my life. I like my boobs and I do not want them to sag. I like my clothes and I do not want to have them covered in spit up.”
Brock raised an eyebrow. “You’re seriously saying you don’t want kids because of your tits and your clothes?” His tone was judgmental.
I tried another tactic. “Do you like my vagina, Bro
ck?” I asked.
He was silent for a moment. “Is that a trick question?”
“No, it is not a trick question. I assume you do like my vagina—I’m relatively fond of it too. I am not fond of the idea of a baby hurtling out of it and messing things up,” I told him plainly.
He watched me like he didn’t know what to make of my comment. “So you don’t want kids.” The flat tone of his voice worried me.
“Do you?” I countered.
His hands tightened around my waist. “Fuck yeah, I do.”
The words left hanging were the “with you” part. I ran my fingertips across his chest.
“Can we not just enjoy being us without moving at warp speed like Gwen and Cade? They’re happy and they love Belle, but I don’t want a baby coming along just yet. We can revisit this at a later date, if we don’t murder each other by living in such close proximity. My ovaries aren’t going to shrivel up any time soon, ‘kay?”
I hoped he would be happy to end this conversation. We had just moved in together after two weeks of actually being a normal functioning couple. Talking kids was a little too much for me, especially when I didn’t even know if I wanted them.
Brock was silent for a moment as if contemplating this. He kissed my head lightly and tucked me into his side.
“Okay, babe, I get you. The subject’s shelved.”
I relaxed. Hopefully that was the last I was going to hear on that subject for a few months at least.
The next day I was humming along contentedly while packing groceries in the back of my car, feeling excited at the sheer amount of food in those bags I had deprived myself for years. I wasn’t going to be munching down twenty Big Macs a day or anything, but maybe I wouldn’t avoid pasta like I avoided Ugg boots.
I was distracted thinking about pasta and maybe even cheese, so I didn’t notice someone had approached me.
“You’re looking well, Miss Abrams,” a cultured voice stated politely from behind me.
Oh shit. Not again.
I whirled around to face Clark, my only weapon a jar of pasta sauce. I contemplated how effective throwing it at his head would be. My eyes darted around the quiet parking lot; I supposed I wouldn’t be lucky enough to have a friendly law enforcement officer stroll by. Crap.
