Fear the Beard (The Dixie Warden Rejects MC Book 2)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “Go call your dad.”

  I blinked, then nodded reluctantly.

  “Okay,” I murmured.

  Knowing how to give space when it was needed, I picked up my phone off the table beside the couch, and headed outside to the back porch.

  I bit my lip and punched in my father’s number, but my thoughts were all for the man just inside the doors.

  The man that was even now taking care of my child like she was the most precious piece of spun glass.

  “Hey, baby,” my dad answered after two rings.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, jerking my head to the side.

  He breathed out a harsh breath.

  “I’ve got some bad news.”

  That sounded ominous.

  “Okay,” I licked my lips. “Hit me with it.”

  “I don’t know how else to say this except to just get it out,” he started, hesitating slightly. “Your house…it’s gone.”

  I blinked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Swept away in a flash flood. Took the dog pens, my truck, and all of the things that weren’t either in a building or secured in some way,” he murmured. “Your mom and I already called the insurance company, but since there are so many other people filing their own flooding claims, they’ll likely not get to you for at least another two weeks.”

  My stomach sank.

  “I just paid it off,” I whispered brokenly.

  Everything I’d worked so hard for was now gone.

  “Yeah, baby,” Dad acknowledged. “I’m sorry, honey. But you can stay here with us. All your things are still in boxes that are now in our living room. Other than Tallulah’s crib and your clothes, you didn’t lose everything.”

  I guess that was right.

  But I lost my house.

  I lost all the appliances that I’d just bought…and was still paying off on my credit card.

  And it was likely that I’d lost my job, as well.

  Especially after last night. If my parents were affected, then the store that I worked at for my entire working career was likely going to be shut for repairs, too.

  How the hell was I going to pay off my credit card with no job? How was I going to pay for Tallulah’s daycare? There was no way that my job at the hospital—a measly two shifts that paid me eight dollars an hour, was going to be enough. Especially since I now had to pay for insurance if I wasn’t working at the gas station.

  Oh, God. What a nightmare.

  “Did Mom make it home okay?” I asked softly, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.

  “A guy on a boat brought her home,” Dad’s voice clearly conveyed what he thought about that.

  “She was fine,” I told him, rolling my eyes at the porch roof. “Did she complain at all once she got home?”

  According to my father, Mom was a delicate flower, but she really wasn’t. He believed she deserved to be pampered, though, and he wanted her to quit her job with a ferociousness that was quite comical in the right setting.

  Now, with my house being swept away from flooding, it wasn’t even remotely funny.

  “Was anyone able to get my car?” I asked hopefully.

  Dad had told me he’d call a tow truck this morning, and I’d assumed that was what his call while I was in the shower had been about.

  It wasn’t, and I wished it had been.

  “Yeah, baby,” he confirmed. “It’s dented, but luckily it was high enough off the ground that when it was wedged against the trees, no water was able to get in it, other than the rain water that came in through the open window. Once the water recedes, they’ll be bringing it back home.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “Thank you.”

  Dad hummed in understanding. “It’ll be okay.”

  I knew it would.

  It didn’t help the hurt I was feeling right now, though.

  “Night, Daddy,” I whispered. “Love you to the state line and back.”

  Dad chuckled as he said, “Love you to the state line and back, too.”

  When we’d made our way to Texas after the forest fire that’d taken my brother’s life, apparently my commentary about the sheer size of Texas had been enough to start a new trend that not just me, but my brother and sister had also adopted.

  You could spend an entire day driving in Texas and never leave the state, and it was an observation I’d made, which had slowly morphed over time into a catchphrase in our family to add emphasis onto something.

  I had started it by saying ‘I love you to the state line and back’ to my mother and then my sister had started to use it, too. It caught on, which led all of us using it now.

  After pushing the phone into my pocket, I turned to survey Tommy’s front door.

  I was nervous.

  It was bedtime, and Tallulah, my buffer and excuse for not getting close to Tommy all day, would be in bed and no longer available to be used as an excuse.

  But with nothing else to do, and no more reasons to stay out here, I twisted the knob and headed back inside.

  I found Tommy sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees and face in his hand as he studied the floor.

  He was still upset about the patch.

  I wished I knew what to say to get the happy vibe back that we’d had earlier, but I didn’t know what to say or do to make it better.

  “I have it there so I don’t forget,” he murmured. “I can’t ever forget.”

  I swallowed, and walked further into the room, taking a seat on the couch directly next to Tommy.

  The moment I sat, I found myself wrapped up in a hug so tight that it took my breath away.

  “Forget what?” I asked breathlessly.

  His closeness made me forget my promise not to do this with him again.

  The second the bare skin of his arms met my palms, I dropped my mouth to his for a quick kiss without even realizing that I’d done it.

  The moment my lips lifted from his, his eyes snapped open, pain laced throughout.

  “The patch is a memorial patch,” he murmured lightly. “The president of our MC, Stone, was killed in the line of duty not long ago.”

  The food I’d just eaten started to churn in my belly.

  “Is that…was that the police officer that was killed by that gang member?”

  He nodded.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “That one.”

  I smoothed Tommy’s hair back by running both sets of fingers through it. “He was a good man,” I murmured. “Did you know that he took me to the hospital the day that I went into labor with Tallulah?”

  His mouth quirked.

  “You were the chick that had the kid in his car, weren’t you?”

  I bit my lip.

  “I was,” I confirmed. “He saw my vagina, along with the rest of the general population of Mooresville.”

  He started to chuckle.

  “I didn’t see your vagina,” he pointed out. “And I worked there. You’re just lucky I was at lunch that day, or your vagina would have been branded into my brain…” I slapped my hand over his mouth before he could finish.

  “There are certain things a man should never say to a woman, and that’s one of them,” I told him, pushing on his face a little harder before letting him free.

  His eyes sparkled in mirth, and I would take teasing from him anytime if it kept him from having that haunted, broken look in his eyes.

  It was clearly apparent that the death of his club’s president had hurt him. Affected him on a monumental level that he would likely never fully get over.

  “I was there,” he said, startling me.

  “What?” I asked, not sure I heard him correctly.

  “I was there.”

  I blinked.

  “You were there the day he was shot?” I asked, hoping that I was wrong about what he was trying to say.

  I wasn’t, of course.

  I was always
right.

  And it was as much of a curse as it was a gift.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “I was there…tried to save him.” He shook his head. “He was shot. The bullet went straight through his aorta. He bled out in a matter of seconds.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned forward until my forehead was leaning against his.

  His fingers tightened on my ass, and I found myself picked up and being moved to the bedroom.

  “Tommy…”

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “Just one more time.”

  I leaned back so I could stare into those bluer than blue eyes and melted.

  “Okay,” I whispered. “One more time.”

  The moment my back hit the bed I spread my thighs wide, causing his mouth to kick up at the corner in a small grin.

  “You want me?”

  I stared at him.

  “I’ve wanted you for weeks.”

  His smile was brilliant as he reached a hand over his head, catching the collar of his t-shirt between two fingers and pulling it over his head.

  Why did men look so sexy taking their shirts off?

  Trying to be just as sexy as he was, I did an ab curl that was more of a muffin mush as I tried to execute the same move he’d just done. I failed spectacularly.

  I got my head caught on the collar of the shirt and promptly choked myself. When I tried to grab the hem of my shirt to ease it over my head, I somehow got my hair added to the mix.

  “It helps if you hunch your shoulders some,” Tommy’s laughing, muffled voice came from somewhere above me.

  But since I was still stuck in my t-shirt— how the hell did this even happen? —I couldn’t confirm that.

  His hands went to the shirt and he pulled my arm out, causing the rest of me to pop free as well.

  His smiling face was the first thing I saw, and I kind of liked that my quirkiness was the thing that put it there.

  I didn’t like seeing this man look as sad as he did just a few moments before.

  “I need to work on that before I do it again trying to be all sexy,” I informed him. “Can we just pretend like that didn’t happen?”

  He grinned down at me.

  During the time I was tangled up in my shirt, he’d lost his pants.

  The only thing shielding the object of my current desire from my gaze was a thin piece of fabric—his boxer briefs.

  “I think you need to buy more of those,” I told him, indicating his boxers with a tilt of my head.

  He didn’t look down like I expected him to, he just planted both fists on either side of my hips.

  “Under Armour apparently likes to make underwear that shows off the goods,” he mumbled. “I have a pair of shorts that do much the same. They push everything up and out…it’s kind of like a push-up bra for my cock and balls.”

  My mouth dropped open, and it took me a few moments before what he said made sense. Then, I threw my head back and started laughing.

  “Ahhh,” I giggled. “That’s the best analogy I’ve ever heard.”

  But when I opened my eyes and tilted my head back to his, it was to find him only inches away from my face.

  “I like it when you laugh,” he murmured. “I like looking at your throat as the muscles work. It makes me want to bite right here,” he lifted his finger to drag it along the cord of my neck. “And lick it.”

  “What’s stopping you?” I challenged the large man who was looking at me like I was a piece of meat, and he hadn’t had anything to eat in days.

  His eyes snapped down to mine, and his lips tipped up.

  “Nothing.”

  Then he pressed one large, rough palm to the middle of my chest—his fingers spanning nearly from armpit to armpit—and pushed.

  I fell backwards, my arms going up high over my head, and my breasts bouncing with the movement.

  His eyes took it all in for long seconds before he grinned and started to prowl up the bed between my splayed thighs.

  Once he was over me completely, he dropped only his head to my neck and started to nip.

  Small, teasing flicks of his tongue darting out and firing up my blood.

  But I became complacent, thinking I knew what I was going to get from him, and he took me by surprise by biting down on the cord of my neck.

  I jolted and my hands convulsed, my nails digging deep into the skin of his thighs.

  The bite wasn’t strong enough to break skin, but it was enough to leave small indentations where he’d nipped me and cause rays of pleasure to shoot straight through me to where it mattered most.

  I gasped, my hips involuntarily hitching up to push into him, but I got nowhere.

  The way he was hovering over my body on his hands and knees made it impossible for me to grind my pussy against his cock like I wanted.

  “Tommy,” I growled, then froze at the volume I’d used.

  He read the panic.

  “She’s back in the room across the hall,” he answered my unspoken question. “For now. When we’re done…when I’m done with you…I’ll bring her back in here.”

  My mouth went dry as he lifted up my knees and pushed my thighs impossibly wider.

  “I’m going to make this one that will hold us for a fucking while,” he informed me none too gently. “When you graduate, you’re still going to be feeling me.”

  My breathing was now coming in pants.

  “I don’t want to call this quits. But I also don’t want you to lose anything by staying with me when you’re so close to being finished,” he informed me. “But the day you graduate, just remember that you’re mine. Mine to touch,” he lifted one hand and ran it down the outside of my thigh, circling around my knee before moving it back up to the top of his boxer briefs that I was wearing. “Mine to kiss,” he dropped his mouth to mine, taking it with such an intensity that my whole body nearly burst into flames. “Mine to fuck.”

  His fingers slipped past the waistband of my bottoms, not stopping until his finger filled me completely.

  I inhaled deeply, stealing the breath straight from his lungs.

  “That okay with you?” he asked.

  I nodded, moaning into his mouth.

  “Yes,” I breathed. “Fuck, yes.”

  I would wait for him forever.

  The next couple of months would blow, but I could handle it.

  So could he.

  We were adults. We were human beings with willpower. This would be so easy.

  “I want to fuck you every way imaginable,” he rasped. “I want to fuck you here.” He growled. “I want to fuck you on my bike. In my new house. On the hood of my truck. In the hospital linen closet. Anywhere that you’ll let me.”

  His wet finger came out of my entrance to circle around the bud at the apex of my thighs, and I came.

  Just like that.

  That easily.

  I came right apart, giving him everything I had to give and more.

  I swam up from my orgasm to him pulling the underwear down my thighs.

  The moment my legs were free of the constraint, I rolled up and flipped over onto my hands and knees.

  “Fuck me hard,” I ordered him.

  He growled something unintelligible as he smoothed one rough palm over my ass cheek, letting his fingers tease the crack of my ass as he did.

  I felt the bed move and I turned so my shoulder was pressed down against the mattress but my head was to the side, allowing me to watch as he reached into the night table and produced the condoms I’d picked up off the floor this morning.

  Ripping one off, he tore it open with quick, jerky movements and lined the latex up with the tip of his cock.

  He watched me as I watched him, and I quivered in anticipation.

  “While we’re waiting for you to graduate, you will get tested and so will I. When we find out that we’re clean, you’ll get on birth control, and I’ll be fucking you without this,” he said matter of fact. “I can’t
wait to see what you feel like surrounding my bare cock.”

  Then he lined himself up with my entrance.

  “You’re sure about hard?”

  I nodded, still watching him as best as I could.

  He nodded once, and then slammed inside.

  It took everything I had not to scream.

  He was big, I already knew this. But from this angle, he felt even bigger.

  His hard, powerful thrusts were pushing me across the bed, and it wasn’t long before my head hung over the side.

  Soon I didn’t even have the bed to hold onto, and I just had to take everything he had to give.

  And that’s when I came.

  Hard. Long. And loud.

  ***

  “You awake?” my bedmate rumbled.

  My eyes opened, and I rolled over, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed. “Have you…”

  That’s when I realized that things were a little too wet down there.

  Dread began to sweep through me as I slowly sat up in the bed, my eyes going to the spot where I’d been lying not even a minute before.

  The minute I saw the blood, I wanted to cry.

  It was everywhere.

  On my legs. On his leg. On the bed. On the sheets.

  Jesus! What a nightmare!

  “Oh, God.”

  Tommy followed my gaze, and he closed his eyes before turning his head to study me as I scrambled out of the bed.

  He looked at me, laughter dancing in his eyes, while I tried to decide whether crying was appropriate in this situation.

  Would that make it worse or better?

  “This is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me in my entire life,” I informed him as I tore out of the room and headed for the shower.

  I turned the shower on and jumped in without waiting for it to warm up, completely and utterly mortified.

  But that wasn’t the end of my mortification.

  No, never. If one thing went bad, ten things went bad.

  So there I was, staring at the red tinted water going down the drain when Tommy joined me in the shower.

  I stiffened, turning to look at him with wide, cow like eyes.

  “Your daughter’s still sleeping,” he informed me as if I hadn’t just stained his sheets with my monthly curse. “And I’ll bet if we hurry we’ll have ten minutes or so before she wakes.”