by Sophia Gray
Rafe’s expression was filled with more irritation than grief when he turned to look for me, reaching back to take my hand again. He pulled me forward. “This is my girl, Beth.” I supposed I should have been happy that he didn’t refer to me as his old lady—I hated that term. “Beth, this is prez, Gray.”
I tried to let go of his hand to shake Gray’s, but he intensified his hold on me. Gray seemed to notice the little struggle as he scanned where our hands were joined. He dropped his hand to his side and gave Rafe a nod.
“Nice to see you with an old lady finally.” He didn’t speak to me; hell other than the small attempt to accept a greeting, he barely paid me any attention.
I wanted to clarify to him that I was no one’s old or new lady, but Rafe squeezed my hand. A clear indication to keep quiet. It was very clear to me that if I was going to mouth off to Rafe, doing so in front of his club wouldn’t be the wisest place. All his threats about taking his belt to me seemed a little more plausible surrounded by so many large men. Every one of them looked completely in control of the room, and the women at their sides.
“Stephanie show up?” Rafe asked. I’d heard him mention her before, Jason’s wife. I looked around the room, avoiding the open casket placed in the front of it. I hated funerals.
“Not yet. Doubt she will. She won’t’ take my calls and I tried to stop by her house to give her Jason’s pay, but she wouldn’t open the door. Her sister finally came out and took it. She asked if I could just deposit the money for her from now on. Like I’m some errand boy.”
“I’ll handle it,” Rafe said with a tight voice. “I’ll stop by there and get the information and make the deposits each month.”
“If she can’t stomach looking at me, I’m not sure she should profit from the club.” Gray folded his arms over his chest, puffing it out a little.
Rafe wouldn’t be intimidated though. “She’s the president’s widow. She’ll get his pay until she remarries.” I’d heard his low voice, I’d heard it when he was angry, but never did I hear it with such vengeance weaved through it. Gray must have noticed it, too. His eyes widened and he dropped his hands to his sides.
“Of course she will, but some respect would be nice.”
“Has the club found her husband’s murderer yet?” Rafe narrowed his eyes. “And here lies another of our brothers. Has the club started looking into his death yet?” The accusation seemed pretty plain, even to me, and I worried that Rafe was starting something that would make more enemies. I wanted to tug on his arm, to whisper in his ear, but I could feel the eyes on us and knew if I interfered, it would only make things worse. And I didn’t want to turn Rafe’s anger on me.
“Let’s get through the funeral, then we’ll set everything straight. Get the club right again, the way it should be. The way it should have been for a long time.” Gray’s words didn’t sound any less menacing than Rafe’s but they held more warning than I would have expected at a wake.
Rafe didn’t respond, he only nodded and pulled me along to move further into the room. “Rafe, can I stay back here?” I whispered once we were standing in line to make our way up to the casket. The last funeral I had been to was for my mother, and I had no desire to relieve that event in memory or reality.
He looked down at me with heavy concern. “Are you okay?” he asked as we moved further up in line. I took a deep breath and looked around the room. Too many eyes were on me. If I backed out of line, would they take that as an insult?
Deciding they probably would, and after the little conversation Rafe had with Gray, he didn’t need any more attention drawn to him. “Yeah. No, yeah. I’m fine. Never mind.” I swallowed as we stepped up again and were the next to go up.
When we made our way up to the casket I promised myself I wouldn’t look. There was no need to, I hadn’t known the guy. But of course my curiosity got the better of me, and I glanced down at the young man lying peacefully before us. They had dressed him in his leathers, several patches were laid over his chest, as well as other small mementoes probably from his closer friends. Rafe pulled out a patch from his back pocket, a round black felt piece with the club’s emblem sewn into it with Revenge Will be Mine embroidered along the edge. I was beginning to wonder what Rafe would do when he didn’t have so much to avenge. Would he go back to living a normal life? What the hell was normal for a guy like him?
For a split moment, I envisioned seeing Rafe lying in the casket, similar patches thrown about his body and Madison standing to the side crying her little eyes out. My heart sank straight to my toes, and I shook the image from my mind.
I stepped away from the coffin, walking around the few people crowded there and headed for the back of the room. No one seemed to mind my walking away, as they continued their conversations. When I looked back Rafe was only a few steps behind me, but was stopped a few times to talk with people.
“Hey.” A woman stepped next to me as I walked out of the salon and into the hall. “You’re Rafe’s old lady, right? Bess, or Beth?”
“Beth.” I nodded and tried to give a polite smile. The woman didn’t look much older than me. Her hair was dried out from years of bleaching it, and her skin looked like she’d baked in the sun a few too many times.
She gave me a gentle smile and pointed to a couch against the wall. “I’m Sue Ellen. He’ll be stuck talking with those guys for a while. Sit with me while I wait. My guy’s in there now.”
“Oh. You didn’t go in?”
“Nah, these things freak me out.” She tugged her leather skirt down as she sat next to me on the flat cushioned couch. Well, hell. I needed to get Rafe to write down what the rules were for these people. My muscles ached from holding myself so stiff around them, trying not to make the wrong move or make him look silly because of my ignorance.
I noticed she wore a black vest over her navy blue blouse with similar patches to what Rafe had. “Are you in the club, too?”
She laughed and shook her head. “No. Women aren’t allowed in their little boy club. These patches match Silver’s. He’s my husband.”
“So you’re his—”
“Old lady. Yeah.” She nodded and waved at two women who walked past us, giving me an odd look. “Don’t worry about them. The club whores aren’t all that happy Rafe is settling down. I think they all thought they’d be the one to get him to settle down.” She pointed to a red-haired girl wearing a skin tight black denim jacket over her leather dress. “That’s Candy, she’s been trying to get Rafe back in her bed since last summer. But Rafe doesn’t go back to the girls who chase him. Hell, I’m not sure he’s fucked any of them more than once.”
“More than once? But he’s been with all of them?” I shouldn’t have asked. I knew he had to have had plenty of girlfriends before me. The man just oozed sex, and there was no way he knew so much about a woman’s body without having been around one once or twice, but all of them?
“You’ve never been with a biker guy before.” Sue Ellen's smile fell. “It’s different than other kinds of relationships. I mean, I’m sure he’s already asserted the whole I’m the man thing.” She deepened her tone to make her point. “But it’s not just that. Some of them, well most of them, they don’t keep their dicks in their pants that well.”
“Your husband, he sleeps with the girls at the club?” I looked toward a small group of girls she had waved to and suddenly I felt like launching myself at them.
“Oh, fuck no. If one of those tramps gets their hands on him, it will be the last thing ever do. Him, too. No, I put that brick in place when we put down the foundation. I’d let him be lord of the castle, but there was only going to be one lady he took to bed.” She pointed at herself.
“But they aren’t all like that,” I muttered, finding Rafe in the crowd of people talking seriously with another member, and casting nasty glares over at Gray still standing in the doorway. So not only did I have to worry about a stray bullet taking him away from me, I had to compete with the women in his club vying for his a
ttention.
“Hey. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get you worried. Look, Rafe has never claimed anyone as his before. He’s marked you, when he walked in here holding your hand like that, he marked you for everyone to know you were taken. And that’s never happened with him before; he wouldn’t have done that if he was still looking to sink his dick into anything else.” She laid a hand on my shoulder, trying to make me feel better, but it wasn’t going to work.
How could I ignore so many signs pointing in the get the hell away from him direction? “It’s okay. I’m fine.” I shot her a smile.
“Hey, Sue Ellen.” Rafe’s voice pulled me from my stare fest at the three women huddled in the corner of the hallway. They must have heard him, too. They all turned to stare at him.
Sue Ellen stood up from the couch, tugging her skirt down again and gave him a hug. “How you doing, Rafe?”
“Doing fine. I see you met my girl.” He gave me a quizzical look, but I only looked away. I tried not to get angry at him for being such a manwhore but since most of the single women in the room were still staring, and practically drooling on themselves, it was getting harder by the minute.
“Yeah, sweet thing you have here.” Sue Ellen smiled down at me. I tried to grin back and be polite, but the room was suddenly stuffy and I wanted out of there.
“Have you seen Stephanie recently?” He glanced at me again, but focused on her.
“No. I tried to call her a few times, but her mother just tells me she’s sleeping or she’s busy. I knew she didn’t love the club, but I didn’t think she’d cut us out like this. She’s been friends with a bunch of us for a long time.”
“Yeah. I’m going to head over there now, see how she’s doing. I tried to give her space but it’s been long enough, she needs to peek her head back out into the world.”
I listened to Rafe but all I could see were the women still gawking at him and a few of them giving me dirty looks.
“Sounds good. Thanks.” He gestured for me to join him, so I stood up taking my place beside him. I heard more murmuring coming from behind me but tried to ignore it.
Rafe must have heard it, too, because he craned his neck to see where it was coming from. “Let’s go.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze.
“Bye, Sue Ellen, it was nice meeting you.” I managed to get the words out before Rafe dragged me away. She waved at me and smirked at his animal manners. “Stop doing that.” I tried to chastise him quietly, but his grip hardened on my waist and I shut my mouth.
As we made our way down the steps and back toward the parking lot, I heard a few whispered words of “slut” and “ho bag” being uttered. I stopped walking and tried to turn around, but he kept me going, keeping me trapped in his arm. “Ignore them. They are looking to piss you off, don’t let them.”
I glared over my shoulder at the small group of women who had followed us out of the funeral home. “You want me to let them insult me like that?” I hissed at him as he unlocked my door.
“No, I want you to get in the car and let me deal with them.” He pulled the door open and nodded to the seat.
I pursed my lips together hard, fighting not to really lay into him. He probably just wanted to let them know not to worry. He’d be back at the club house soon and they could have all they wanted of him and his cock. Deciding to just ignore him and the tramps, I took my seat and pulled the door closed myself, making sure he saw me glare up at him.
I watched him through the window walking over to the little harem. They were all smiles and hair tossing until he started talking. Then the pouting lips showed up, and the hand on the hips started. When he walked back to the car he looked calm, as though nothing had just transpired.
“Did you tell them you’d be available later tonight?” I snapped at him when he shut his door.
He looked at me with surprise. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t notice or didn’t know what a whore he himself was. “Jealous? I thought you were done with me as soon as you didn’t need me to protect you anymore.”
I didn’t look out my window as we passed the entrance of the funeral home, but I knew those girls were glaring me down. They wanted what I had. “I am,” I said, more to remind myself of my decision than him.
He turned the radio on. “Then don’t worry about what I said to those girls.”
“Fine.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window.
We drove in silence the rest of the way. He turned down a side street that was lit up brightly with street lights. The houses were twice the size of anything on my block, and the lawns were all well maintained. Not a single one had a dirt patch anywhere.
When he pulled into the driveway of a two-story house, I flipped off the radio. “Where are we?”
“Jason’s house. Well, his wife’s house now.” He shifted into park and leaned back in his seat. “I haven’t been here since the funeral.”
Looking at him, I could see the pain he was trying so hard to stuff down inside of him and hide. I reached over the gear shift and took his hand. When he looked at me, I gave a little smile. “I’m jealous of those girls,” I confessed, trying to take his mind off his grief. “Sue Ellen told me you’ve slept with all of them, every one of them.”
“Sue Ellen is a gossip.” His thumb rubbed the inside of my palm. “Silver would bust her ass if he knew she was saying stuff like that.”
“So it’s not true?”
“I didn’t say that. I said she shouldn’t be telling you about it.” Reminding myself I was trying to make him feel better, and not start a fight I took a calming breath. He let go of my hand and rested it on my shoulder. “I’ve never claimed a girl before. I used them for the same thing they used me for. But I claimed you.”
“I won’t let you cheat on me.” I felt tears start to build in my eyes and fought them off best I could. “I don’t share well with others.”
He laughed. “That’s good, because neither do I.” His lips brushed across mine. “But I thought you said you were tossing my ass aside after all this is over.”
I had said that. Not less than twenty minutes ago I said it, but I didn’t mean it. Not anymore. I knew what a risk it was being with him, but I also knew he’d rather die keeping us safe than put us in the front line of fire.
“Isn’t your friend’s wife going to be upset that we just stopped by?” I wasn’t ready to voice what my heart felt.
“Beth.” He waited until my eyes met his before he continued. “When this is over, I’m not walking out. I’m not leaving, and I think you don’t want me to either. I think you’re jealous about those girls because you care more than you want to. You’re afraid I’m going to hurt you, that I’m going to abandon you like that asshole of an ex did.” He framed my face with his hands, his dark eyes staring into my eyes with a fierceness I hadn’t seen from him before. “I will never walk away from you.”
I didn’t know what to say, how to respond. Thankfully, he did. He kissed me.
Chapter Sixteen
RAFE
Sue Ellen would be lucky if she sat down within a few days after Silver dealt with her damn gossiping again. I should have considered myself lucky she only told Beth about the whores. There were plenty of other things I’d done while in the MC that would have sent Beth running if she knew them.
Walking up the pathway to Jason’s front door, I gripped Beth’s hand in mine. Other than a few words after his funeral, Stephanie hadn’t spoken to me at all. We’d never agreed on a lot of things, mostly Jason’s dedication to the club, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care for her like a sister. Jason loved her more than anything, and he would have given up the club for her if she had asked. Her not asking him to leave the club was what made me feel as much respect for her as I did. She knew he loved it, knew he would be lost without it, so she didn’t take him from it, but did keep as far from the club as she herself could.
I couldn’t really fault her for that. Jason had met Stephanie through her younger b
rother, who was a patched member before Jason took the president chair. Unfortunately, Christian was killed in that debacle of a job with Javier. She never stepped foot in the clubhouse again. She remained friends with the girls, but she wouldn’t go to the clubhouse.
I rang the doorbell and shifted my shoulders, straightening my kutte.
“It’ll be okay,” Beth whispered just before the door swung open.
Stephanie stood before us, glaring. Her midnight black hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, exposing her flawlessly pale skin. Dark eyeliner outlined her stark blue eyes that were fixed on me with what I can only describe as a death stare.
“What do you want?” The blank tank top slid up her flat stomach when she folded her arms under her breasts, shoving them further up. Jason had always been a boob man.
“Hey, Steph. I wanted to check with you, see how you were doing.”
