Finding Charity: Red Devils M.C.

by Michelle Woods

  It was six hours later when Tick crawled into bed with Charity. He’d taken a shower and shaved. They’d found that rat bastards sister. She’d been beaten pretty badly and Doc thought she might have been raped, but she was safe now. He pulled Charity close breathing her in. He was damned glad she was here. He’d been half crazy all fucking day. First when she’d been trapped in that cellar, and again when he’d had to leave her right after it happened.

  He had gotten her and Max, who’d cried while he clung to Charity, settled here then he’d headed out to meet Bone and the boys to find Mark’s sister. Charity had been right. Nobody deserved what that girl had likely gone through in the last few months. Holding her now he inhaled her sweet scent pulling her close.

  He knew that he loved her now. He just had to figure out how to tell her. After what he’d said to her about Vivi he didn’t know how he was going to convince her that she meant more to him than Vivi. He felt bad even thinking that, but it was true. He knew that he loved her more than he’d ever loved Vivi. He wanted to be upset about that, but he wasn’t. Now getting her to believe him was going to be a damned nightmare. She’d think he was saying it to keep her, and that wasn’t the case. He’d denied his feelings because he didn’t want to risk his heart again. The accident yesterday had brought the truth out. He wasn’t going to be able to stand not telling her how he felt. He loved her.

  He’d checked on Max to find him sound asleep on his bed, the puppy clutched under his arm. He’d watched the boy for a long time. He was glad that Max was safe, and he wondered how long he’d clung to Charity crying. He wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t told him that they were okay, and for him to go help the club. He’d left, even though he hadn’t wanted to. After watching Max sleep for another moment he’d come in and taken a shower.

  Then he’d climbed into this bed with his woman. With his arms aching to hold her. He now kissed her neck, his mouth caressing her skin. His hands sliding down to her ass, pulling her to him. Felling her wet heat against his leg, which had slipped between her legs.

  “Tick…” She whispered.

  “It better be.” Tick grumbled. Before he started kissing her, his tongue taking over her sweet mouth. He devoured her lips, grateful that she was still alive. That she was still here with him. There wasn’t much talking for the next hour as he assured himself that she was okay.

  Chapter 19

  Charity stood in the kitchen. This morning she’d been awakened again by Tick’s kisses. He’d made slow passionate love to her. She knew he likely thought it was just sex, but she thought of it as making love. She loved him after all. She wanted to believe that this could work between them, but in that cellar she’d had a lot of time to think. She didn’t want to always be second best to Max and Tick. Yet she knew she always would be. It nearly broke her heart.

  She leaned over the cake batter. Max was over playing with Connor and Alex, who’d just gotten back with his parents, at Maria’s. She’d walked him over an hour ago. She’d been working on making a cake for tonight’s bon fire. She needed to quit feeling sorry for herself, she thought grimly. It wasn’t like she going to leave him, so she needed to suck it up and quit whining about her circumstances.

  A little while later, she was still mulling it over when Tick came in. She was holding a spoon and turned when the door opened.

  “I wanted to talk about us. We are different than Vivi and I were.” Tick started, his words almost crushing her heart. She knew that she’d agreed to this, but fuck. She turned quickly back to the sink.

  “That’s true.” She said brightly, maybe too brightly, picking up a plate to wash. She was trying to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. Damn it. Did the man have to tell her again that she wasn’t Vivi? That to him and Max she’d never be anything but a substitute to them. That they’d never love her as much as they’d loved Vivi. She already knew, and she didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Charity…” Tick began again.

  “No, I don’t want to discuss this, Tick. I know, okay. I know.” A tear slid silently down her cheek, falling from her tightly clenched eyes.

  “No, you will listen to what I need to tell you, baby girl.” Tick growled, moving to stand behind her. His hands on her hips, holding her in place when she would have moved away.

  Charity knew that she could not stand here and listen to this speech. She just couldn’t bear it. Please, she thought silently, desperately. Please don’t make her listen again to how much he’d loved Vivi, and that he would never love her at all.

  “Charity, Vivi was like a comet. She burst into my life when I was a little broken. From that moment on I was clinging to her tail trying to hold on. I loved her.” He said, quietly.

  Charity felt his lips sliding across her neck. She wanted to jerk away to scream at him to stop telling her how much he’d loved Vivi. She’d stayed silent. The tears slid down her face. She clutched the plate she was supposed to be washing so tightly that she was afraid it would break. Tick must have thought this too. He pried the plate from her nerveless fingers. She let him set it in the sink, she leaned further into the counter trying to get some space between them.

  “Look at me, Charity. I don’t want to have this conversation with your back.” He tried to turn her in his arms, but she refused.

  “I need to get these dishes finished, and then I have to icing the cake. So I can head over to the main house to help Maria.” Charity said, even though it was a lie. She wasn’t supposed to go over for at least another two hours.

  He would see her tears and she didn’t want to burden him with her pain it wasn’t his fault that she wasn’t handling this relationship as well as she’d thought she could. He’d been straight with her from the very beginning. She’d agreed. He’d told her point blank that Vivi was it for him, and she’d wanted to believe that she could handle this. Only she was discovering that she wasn’t able to. It was likely the fact that she loved the man beyond reason.

  “You’re not going anywhere until we talk, Charity. Listen to me, baby.” Tick finally managed to turn her in his arms. Charity winced, she knew that tears were still pouring from her clenched eyes. Tick’s hand cupped her face, and his lips kissed the tears from her face.

  Tick’s lips moved over the tears that were breaking him. These were his fault, and he should be beaten for each one that fell. He’d done this. His calloused words had caused these tears, and the words had been fear. Fear that he was more wrapped up in Charity than he ever had been with Vivi. He couldn’t face that. Vivi had been wild, and he’d never really understood her. Not like he did Charity.

  “Baby…” He almost moaned, his heart aching with her pain. His arms wrapped around her. They stood that way for a long moment. Finally, she allowed her arms to wrap around him, clinging to him. He almost sighed in relief.

  “You have to know that as much as I loved her,” She stiffened in his arms her mind protesting listening to more about him loving Vivi. Didn’t the man know that he was ripping her apart talking about Vivi?

  He continued, “She still didn’t fit me. Not really.” Tick tighten his arms not allowing her to put any space between them. “She never fit. Not like you do.”

  Charity stopped trying to get away. Her whole world seemed to stop, and she held her breath. Had he just told her she fit him better than Vivi? She couldn’t breathe as she waited for his to say something else. She tightened her arms around his waist.

  “I knew when I first found her that she was the very opposite of me. She was always ready for anything, and she never wanted to stay in one place for too long. She was the life of the party. I was content in one place, and I could sit back and watch her. Don’t think I thought poorly of her, I didn’t. She wasn’t the type to steal anyone’s spot light. She just wanted to be a part of the world. Always on the move. But she wasn’t cruel or selfish. She was giving and kind.” Tick felt her stiffen again when he’d started talking, but she was listening. That was a start.

  “I knew h
er. She was a friend.” Charity admitted. Wanting to ask him about the way she fit him better. She needed him to tell her something that would repair the broken pieces of her heart. Not that she knew that it would be anything like what she wanted to hear him say. It might be enough to give her a semblance of peace.

  “I see. I didn’t realize that you knew her that well.” Tick hadn’t been aware that they were friends, but knowing Vivi it didn’t surprise him. She’d always made friends easily unlike him.

  “I did. It was mostly from before she met you. It was before I left Devils Falls. She met you when you came over that year I left. That year that you worked for Trick.” Charity explained.

  “Ah, well then you know that Vivi was always wild. That never went away. It was just who she was, and I was lucky enough to cling to her while she pulled me along for the ride. We had six good years before she left. With you here now, it’s different.” Tick paused leaning forward to kiss her lips. She didn’t refuse his kiss, but she wanted to. She wanted to rant, to scream, to demand that he never talk about her again. But she couldn’t. She’d walked into this relationship with her eyes open and she wasn’t going to act like a victim now.

  “It’s different because you fit me, baby girl. Every piece of me fits with you. You challenge me when I need it, and you calm me when I’ve never really been calm. I think of you every minute of every day. Thinking of you makes me hard. We just fit, baby girl. Like no one has ever fit me. No one but you.” He was looking down at her.

  She couldn’t breathe as she tried to understand what he was trying to tell her. He was telling her that he was better with her than with Vivi. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but she’d take it. She’d fucking take it, and be happy. Because she loved him so much that leaving him wasn’t even an option. Like Vivi was it for him, he was it for her. He was the love of her life. She knew that. It was why she’d agreed to wear his patch.

  “Do you understand what I am telling you, baby girl?” Tick asked, pulling back to look at her.

  “Yes.” She whispered.

  “Charity, I don’t think you do. You wouldn’t still be looking at me like that if you did.” He leaned forward kissing her lightly.

  “How am I looking at you?” she asked, staring up at him when he pulled away, leaving her breathless and slightly achy.

  “Like you still want to cry.” Tick sighed.

  “Sorry.” She whispered. Looking away.

  “Stop,” he said when she tried to pull back from him. “Baby, you have no reason to apologize.”

  “I do. I told you that I could handle this, Tick. I promised you no drama. Yet here I am, a fucking mess. I didn’t mean for my heart to get involved, but it did.” She told him.

  “I did.” He grumbled, a small self decrypted grin on his face.

  “You did what?” She asked, confused.

  “I meant for your heart to get involved. I even work hard to make it happen.” Tick said.

  “What?” Charity asked looking adorably confused. His poor baby. She had no idea what he’d done to her did she.

  “If I had your heart. If it was mine then I didn’t have to worry about anyone taking you away from me. With your heart mine. I knew you’d never be anyone else’s. I just didn’t understand why I wanted that so badly until yesterday.” Tick told her, laughing, causing an angry spark of understanding in her eyes. Her eyes narrowed on him. Ah, there was his fiery girl.

  “Wait, you did this to me on purpose. You made me fall in love with you, didn’t you?”

  “Guilty as charged, baby girl.” He said his lips taking hers in a kiss that left her breathless. His hands slid to her hips pulling her into him. She felt the hard press of his dick against her.

  “That is not fair!” She exclaimed, glaring at him.

  “I know, but you were trying to run off with that yahoo. I didn’t want that. I didn’t like it. Not one damned bit.” He confessed. His eyes narrowed as he talked about her date with Travis.

  “I suppose you mean Travis. The man you embarrassed me to make your point with.” That alone should have told her how ruthless the man could be.

  “Yeah that mother fucker wasn’t getting my woman.” Tick almost yelled. Anger lighting in his eyes.

  “That was when you decided to patch me. When you said that Vivi was it for you.” She felt her heart clenching.

  “Yeah, I know, and I wish I’d never said that to you, baby girl.”

  “Why not? It’s the truth.” Charity told herself as much as she did him. Her chest clenched when he spoke again.

  “No, baby. It’s not. I lied. I lied to you about Vivi because I was lying to myself. After Vivi died I never wanted to be that vulnerable ever again. To feel the pain I felt when I lost her. Yesterday, when you were in that cellar and I didn’t know if you were alive. I realized that it didn’t matter if I denied the truth. You’re mine. You always have been from the moment you lit my balls on fire with that stun gun.” He told her his eyes on her face, gauging her reaction.

  She laughed, as he’d intended. “Still going on about that, you big baby. I apologized by kissing it better, didn’t I?”

  He smiled, remembering her hot mouth covering his cock. Yeah, she’d made it feel better. “You did. I love you, Charity.”

  “You…you love me?” Charity thought that she must be dreaming because there was no way that Tick had just told her he loved her.

  “Oh, yeah. I love you. More than I ever thought was possible. When Vivi died I was angry and a little lost, but I was able to come back from it. To be the father Max needed, the friend that Ratchet wanted back, and the man the club relied on. But I realized yesterday that if you died I wouldn’t come back from losing you. You’d take every piece of me with you. There wouldn’t be anything left to put back into me.”

  “Tick…I-I don’t know what to say.” She told him, shocked.

  He laughed, hugging her. His arms still around her. “Say you love me, damn it.” He mock growled.

  “I need to hear it every day. I’ve been jealous of anyone you’ve said that to. When you told Bone yesterday I almost went for my gun. Hell, I’m even jealous when you say it to Max. I’ve known for a while that’s how you felt about me, but you never say it.”

  She stared at him, stunned.

  Chapter 20

  “I love you, Tick.” She finally said. His heart exploded in happiness at the sound. A smile broke across his face and he knew that it was the one a man wore that made him look like a dumbass, but he didn’t give a fuck.

  Charity saw the smile that spread across Tick’s face, it was so wide she was breathless. He had really wanted to hear that she loved him she realized.

  “I love you too, baby girl.” He whispered leaning into her. Pressing her into the counter, his mouth taking hers. Her hands moved to bury in his hair as his mouth devoured hers.

  She moaned, feeling his erection pressing into her belly. He cupped her ass lifting her to the edge of the counter. Her ass landing on the wet counter, she wrapped her legs around him needing him closer. She moaned when his hand slid under her shirt caressing her breast. He pulled her shirt down revealing the bare breast that his hand had already found.

  “Naughty, baby girl.” He whispered as his mouth caressing her breast his fingers plucking at the other nipple. She mewled and his member pressing into her wet heat. His hand slid under the edge of her shorts. Suddenly they heard the door bang into the wall. He slid her off the counter to hide her nudity.

  Max’s small voice made him groan. “Geez…not this again.” The boy complained. Having found them like this on more than one occasion. Tick groaned in pain. His hands moving to cover the treasures that he’d revealed only moments before. Damned kid was always interrupting them.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be over at the barn with Ratchet, Connor, and Alex?” Tick asked kissing her forehead. She stood, staring over his shoulder with wide eyes trained on the kitchen door. Tick got a sinking suspicion that Max wasn’t alone in the doorw
ay. It was confirmed a moment later when a grim voice spoke.

  “He was. Until I brought him over here with me. Mind telling me what the fuck you’re doing with your hands all over my fucking sister.” Trick growled from the doorway. Making Charity pale slightly.

  “Shit,” She said, trying to scramble away from him. He refused to allow her to move away.

  “Well, seeing as she’s my property. What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” Tick asked, casually. Hearing Charity whimper, he brushed his fingers over her face reassuringly.

  “You fucking patched my sister?” Trick demanded, angrily.

  “Yep.” Tick allowed her to move this time, but when she stepped in front of him to move towards her brother. He caught her around the waist settling her back against him. He caressed her neck possessively. He felt her shiver and smiled.

  “The fuck you say? You can’t patch my fucking sister, asshole.” Trick slammed his fist against the door. Moving past Max into the kitchen.

  “I didn’t leave my sister here for you to molest asshole. You need a mother for that hoodlum you call a kid you find somebody besides+ my fucking sister. She wants the fairytale dickhead, and she deserves it. What she doesn’t deserve is someone using her to fill in because he lost his woman and doesn’t give a fuck who it is as long as she’s wet.” Halfway through that little speech Tick had moved. His fist landed in Trick’s face stopping the man’s tirade. Trick stumbled back into the door, holding his jaw.

  “Watch your fucking mouth. I did not patch her for Max.” He told the other man.

  Charity moved then, stepping between them, preventing them from hitting each other again. She took Max’s hand. “Let’s go see what Ratchet and the boys are up to while Daddy and Uncle Trick work this out. Max.” She began to usher the boy out the door. Before she’d reached the end of the porch, she looked back glaring at him. “You mess up my kitchen Tick, and there will be hell to pay. Trick you’re still an ass.”