“No, maybe.”
“What kind of damn answer is that? Family, Carly. That is what it is all about and it has nothing to do with the blood that runs in your veins but everything to do with who accepts you unconditionally, no matter what. And if you think you aren’t worthy because of the shit Stone’s pulled, I should kick your ass.” Reed stood and gathered up the dishes and placed them back on the tray. Reed was right again but no way would I admit that to him, hell, he’d never let me live that down even if we lived to be a hundred.
“Yeah, you can try. What makes you think I wouldn’t shoot your ass?” He stood, holding the tray and looked at me. The smirk followed and then he laughed.
Wild Bill who had listened and watched the exchange stood, “Whoever said maturity came with age, never had to deal with you guys. Let’s head to the house, get you settled in a room, Carly. Fucked up shit may be what brought you here but it’s still good to have you back, even if only for a few days.”
“We’ll see if you still feel that way by the time I get ready to leave.” We laughed and headed out the office door.
When we walked into the common room, a few of Haven’s men who were hanging around at the bar yelled for Wild Bill to come over. As we neared, I recognized a few of them, they’d been here before I left and the patches on their cuts showed that a change had occurred by my father’s betrayal. Sami and I were never told what had gone down, only than the club was getting cleaned up.
“Hey, Carly, you remember Hawk, Moose, and Pinch, don’t you?” Wild Bill asked.
“Sure do, Prez. And I see Haven voted in some top quality officers.” I winked at the men as they shook their heads and laughed.
“Damn, I’m taking this tray back to the kitchen. Shit in here is getting deep,” Reed grumbled and walked away.
“Fuckin’ A, Prez, I was told we had a cop in the clubhouse and I had to see for myself because no cop is ever at Haven unless they’re picking up on a warrant.” Hawk was a Prospect when I was ten years old, and at twelve when I first started to notice boys, he was the first true crush I had. He hadn’t changed a whole lot other than the short blond hair cut close to his scalp that showed a slight graying at his temples. Now Hawk wore the patch signifying he was now Haven’s VP, making him the replacement for my dad, Stone.
“But, man, if the cops around here looked like you, I wouldn’t mind getting cuffed.” Moose’s eyes traveled the length of my body. I rolled my eyes at him, tall, dark, and handsome as sin, and I felt not one ounce of a draw to him.
“When did you get out, Moose?” I asked, he’d went to prison before I left Haven, I’d known it had to do with something for the club, but never knew the exact reason. Club business was club business.
“Only did a couple years, no biggie, anything for Haven.” Wild Bill patted his shoulder.
“You boys stay out of trouble. Hawk, text me when the men come back from the run. Taking Carly to the house to get her settled if you need me. If not, see you tomorrow.” The guys nodded, Reed walked up and we left. I mounted my bike and waited for them to do the same and as we pulled out of the lot, my decision to come here felt right for the first time since I left Black Hawk territory. A few days at Haven, getting my head together, could be just what I needed.
Chapter Three
Crusher
The sun was cresting the top of the mountains as I sat on the porch drinking my coffee. Sleeping through the night was a distant luxury I hadn’t had in a while. When I’d come home yesterday, I had showered, eaten dinner, and tried to relax by watching some TV. Nothing worked. The only text I’d gotten was from my dad letting me know they’d arrived home. After I laid down and closed my eyes, a blonde kept popping into my head. Had she made it to Haven? Hell, had she even went to Haven?
At one point I’d tossed and turned so much that I thought about going to the garage to work on one of the bike orders. If the garage didn’t sit behind Speed’s house I would have, but I didn’t want to disturb Sami and Ally.
My phone buzzed, pulling it out of my pocket I looked down to see private caller on the screen, it made like the tenth call in two weeks that came through like that. I clicked the talk button to answer, “Russ” then the same as the last, nothing, followed by the disconnect. Fucking shit was annoying, I was going to have to have Coast see if he could trace it, if nothing else but to get whoever it was to stop fucking ringing me.
After going in and placing the coffee cup in the sink, I headed to the bathroom, off my bedroom, stripping along the way. My face in the mirror had me stopping in front of it and what I saw, I didn’t like. My blue eyes showed the fatigue I felt through my body and the stubble on my face showed the three days’ worth of growth I hadn’t bothered to shave off. The stubble could stay, but another hot shower to help wash the fatigue away was warranted. I noticed lately how Stroker watched me, though he hadn’t said a word to me about it or asked any questions, I knew it was only a matter of time.
I turned the knobs to start the water in the shower while I brushed my teeth waiting for it to heat up. Once the steam began to rise I stepped in to let the water attempt to rejuvenate me. I placed my hands on the wall and bent my head under the water, letting it rain down over my head and slide down my body while I ran over every piece of info we had, which wasn’t much. Hopefully whenever Carly got back we’d get more to add to it. Carly. Damn it, I couldn’t kick her out of my head, at least not as easily as she kicked me out of her bed. I removed one hand from the wall to slide it down my chest, over my abs until I reached my straining cock. Never fucking failed, the thought of her, arguing with her, or just having her glare at me as I passed by gave me a hard-on.
With my hand wrapped around my cock, I closed my eyes and pictured how Carly woke me the morning after we’d spent the night together.
My eyes had opened to see her head bobbing on my cock. The feeling of her tongue as she licked the underside from root to tip, circling her tongue around the head and then working my length back in her mouth until my dick touched the back of her throat. I’d only laid still for a couple swipes before my hand went into her hair and I wrapped it around to control her motions. Her eyes met mine and held as I moved her head up and down on my dick.
“Don’t you dare gag. Breathe through your nose and take it all. That’s it.” My hips bucked as I brought her head down and when I pulled her up, she hollowed her cheeks sucking me hard as my cock slipped from her mouth till just the tip remained. Her tongue swiped the slit and my hips bucked.
“Let me, Russ.” Her voice was husky and her lips swollen as she waited. I released her hair and placed my hands behind my head on the pillow.
“All yours, darlin’,” was all I got out before she engulfed my cock and when she swallowed, taking me further down her throat, my hands moved from behind my head to latch onto the sheets.
She moaned around my cock and with the vibration, I felt the beginning of my orgasm. I tried to pull her off, instead she placed a hand at the base to hold my dick steady as worked me.
“You better be ready to swallow,” I ground out, she sucked hard and I emptied my load down her throat.
“Fuck.” I slapped the wall and my eyes shot open as I stroked myself to the finish. I washed off and got out of the shower, toweled my body off and headed into the bedroom.
In the months since then, every time I thought of that morning it pissed me off more. We’d been fuckin’ awesome together, but when we laid back that morning, her curled into my arms as we talked, it didn’t take long for it all to go to hell. I’d told her that I wanted to see her again, get to know her, spend some time together. I thought she lived in Moorehead, she thought I did. She’d shaken her head and laughed, told me she was a deputy in Shades Valley. I’d laughed too and told her I hadn’t been back but a couple weeks, that I lived outside of Shades Valley out at Black Hawk. I never seen anyone move that quick out of a bed, never. And frankly I should know, not once since I joined the military have I stayed the night with a woman,
Carly had been the first. It didn’t get past me that I hadn’t woken during the night in cold sweats either.
“Damn, was you jacking off in the shower? Thought I was going to have to go grab my wetsuit and save you from drowning.” Flirt was in the corner chair with his feet propped up on the stool in front of it, a smirk on his face.
“Fuck you.” I walked into the closet and then came out tucking my junk in a pair of jeans before zipping.
“Nah, I’m good.” Flirt stood.
“Why is your ass in my bedroom?” I asked, grabbing a t-shirt out of the drawer and pulling it on.
“Stroker wants us over at the clubhouse. Check your phone, he called and you didn’t answer.” Opening his arms wide, “That is why you got me.” I picked the phone off the dresser and sure enough there was the text from Stroker, along with one from Speed.
“The others already head over?”
“Yep, they caught me before I left the house to tell me to stop by here that you hadn’t replied.”
“Let’s go then. Walking or riding over?”
“Walk. I could use the exercise,” Flirt said and walked out of the bedroom. The walk would only take about five minutes.
When we walked into the clubhouse the TV was blaring and the only occupant sat on the couch with her head bent down. I pulled the ponytail hanging off the back of her head as Flirt and I stood behind her.
“What ya doing out here by yourself, Spider?” She glanced over her shoulder away from the phone she had been playing on.
“Watching cartoons. Momma told me not to move till she came back.” I still couldn’t get over having Speed’s eyes looking back at me. Ally looked so much like him, he could have been the one to pop her out if it had been possible.
“Where is your momma, sweetheart?”
“With Daddy in Papa Stroker’s office.” She bent her head back over the phone while I stood there with a smile spreading across my face. I looked at Flirt and he just shrugged. The girl was too cute for her own good and it hadn’t taken her but a few days to wrap even some of the hardest men I’d known around her tiny fingers, to include me.
“Papa Stroker, huh?” Couldn’t wait to hear how that came about.
“Uh huh. All my papas are in there too. ‘Cept Papa Wild Bill, he lives away.” Not once as she answered did she turn back to look at us. Spider was going to be a handful as she grew up, I didn’t envy Speed and Sami or myself for that matter, considering I would be the president of the club when she hit her teens. Damn, didn’t want to go there until I had to. Shaking that thought, I turned toward the office, Flirt right behind me.
“Don’t go anywhere till your momma comes and gets you, okay?” I yelled over my shoulder.
“‘K,” was the reply just as we reached the office. I heard the voices through the door.
“Calm down, Speed. We hung the jacket in the closet when we got his stuff back from the coroner’s office after the accident.” I knocked once and pushed open the office door. The room was full with my friends, the dads, and Sami who was sitting on the couch that sat against the wall with Coast and Jag, the others sat in chairs. My dad, Stroker, stopped talking when Flirt and I entered, causing everyone to turn and look at us.
“You stop answering your phone?” Stroker asked.
“Shower, didn’t hear it,” I answered and walked over to stand by my dad’s desk as Flirt took a chair.
Speed looked ready to combust if the redness showing from his neck up was any indication. I figured he was about five seconds away from total combustion.
“Did you hear anything from her?” I asked.
“She’s at Haven,” all eyes turned toward Sami as soon as the words left her mouth.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“She didn’t call, my dad did. He didn’t go into any detail of what she said when she arrived there. He was just letting me know she was safe.”
“I asked you to call me if you heard from her. I would have liked to have had that information.” Stroker turned at my tone and Speed glared at me.
“It was late, brother. You’re hearing it now,” Speed said.
“Still not understanding why the fuck she would go there by herself. Isn’t that why Wild Bill moved you and her here, to keep you away from the club?” It made no sense to me.
“Seriously, don’t yell at my woman, brother, she’s trying to help with this and Carly is her friend.” If this situation wasn’t serious I would’ve laughed at the fierceness pouring off Speed. The brother was a goner and it hadn’t taken that long either. I didn’t know which way I leaned more: happy that my best friend had a family of his own now or the envy of the peace that showed in his eyes, something I wondered if I would ever experience again after leaving the military.
“Sorry, Sami. I’m just pissed I couldn’t catch up with Carly yesterday and I didn’t mean to yell at you.” She smiled in acknowledgement but it didn’t reach full force, I knew she was worried for her friend.
“Before you got here, we were discussing why Cutter wouldn’t have said anything about Clarice being at Haven and hooked up with the VP there, Wallace Monroe?” Speed looked at me, then at my dad.
“Like I said, we didn’t know about it. We’d heard she went to another club but that was it. We never thought anymore about it until news reached us about her overdose. Which if I had to guess, Cutter just got that paper and headed into town, not bothering to tell us shit before he left.”
“Bullshit, Dad wouldn’t have run out the goddamn house because some piece of shit sent him a paper stating Clarice was whoring it up over at Haven and Cutter should come to town so they could sit down and chat about the whore they had shared.” Yeah, my buddy was wound tight.
“Makes her your half-sister, Speed—” He cut me off before I was finished.
“Like I don’t fucking know, yeah Carly is my half-sister, but that doesn’t answer why Cutter got the fucking note. That fucker from Haven is on the run, has been for close to five years. Who knows what he’s up to. If he was in town, don’t you think he would have stopped in and saw his daughter? Sami swears Haven doesn’t know anything other than he tried to take over Haven. They didn’t know he’d figured out she and Carly were here. What I do question, is why after eighteen fucking years, he decided to drop that shit of Clarice and having something that belonged to Black Hawk. Fucker couldn’t have been talking about Clarice, and if he had been, why fucking wait? Something doesn’t sit right, because if it had been just to rub Dad’s nose in the fact that Clarice was his ol’ lady, the asshole would have done it when Clarice hooked up with him. Now we need to figure out why he felt Cutter was the one to go to. Clarice was dead a couple years by that time, not like she was alive and he expected Cutter to sit down and share stories on a woman they each was screwing. None of the shit makes sense.”
“Like I was saying, she’s your sister, man. And if the prick was in our territory, she didn’t know that. No way she knew anything until today when she came across that damn paper. Her face went pale, and her eyes were huge and tear-filled.” I knew Speed was running every possible scenario through his head with each one ending with the same conclusion—why contact Cutter?
“Yeah, but why run out. I was in the next room. Why not question me, or bitch about the shit? I realize she doesn’t know me but if all this is true, then we share a mother, well, an incubator, ‘cause the bitch was never a mother to me.” Sami got up and walked over to Speed and wrapped her arms around his waist. He took a deep breath and I watched him physically relax in her arms. As I continued to watch them whisper to each other, my resolve to have that became more clear than the target through the scope of my sniper’s rifle ever had. No matter what it took I always hit my target. The situation might be different, the outcome however, would be the same—I’d locked in, now I just needed to hit the mark. Difference—instead of eliminating, I wanted to possess.
“So why we try to piece all this shit together, what are we planning to do? The asshole
is riding in the wind with a couple of his flunkies, who knows where he is, but my gut says Carly shouldn’t be alone.” All eyes turned to me.
“Sami, is Wild Bill going to call when she gets ready to head back here?” Stroker spoke to Sami but his eyes were still watching me. I know he was wondering why I was so interested in finding Sami’s friend.
“Yes, he said he would, Stroker. We haven’t left this town since the day we moved here. The farthest we went was over to Morehead to go to classes at the community college. My dad stressed to us about keeping a low profile, it’s why he came here to visit. He didn’t want us around the mess he was trying to clean up at Haven, nor did he want us near the members until he could clear them as being a threat. He’s still unsure if he has weeded them all out.” I ran my hand over my hair, stopping when I reached the back of my neck to rub it as I listened to Sami answer.
“Okay,” Stroker said and looked around to each of us. No one had breathed a word, they sat quietly and listened. When I wasn’t stressed, I’d think about the fact no one spoke or interrupted. It had to be some kinda fucking record. “We are going to have to wait for Carly to call or show back up. I know some of you aren’t going to like that option,” he paused and looked directly at me, “but deal with it. I will check-in with Sheriff Lance to see if he remembers anything strange going on around town or if any unknown bikers had been spotted in town around the time of Cutter’s accident. Speed, we need verification she’s your half-sister, it will be the first step to finding out what the hell is going on in Black Hawk territory. We’ve gotten too comfortable. Maybe a little too relaxed with what happens in our town.” Stroker held up his hand to stop Speed from interrupting him, “We need to know exactly what we are dealing with. Stone had his sights on Haven, what advantage was he looking to gain by bringing Black Hawk into his shit back then.” Speed nodded his agreement with Stroker. I knew my friend was having his own issues with finding out he still had a blood relative in this world, even if it wasn’t confirmed yet. But I couldn’t stop the uneasy feeling about Carly being on her own.
Crusher Page 3
