by M. N. Forgy
Taking shallow breaths, I sneak in the door but can barely see in front of me it’s so packed.
Lowering my head, I push my feet to move forward. I peer under my lashes every so often, trying not to make eye contact. It’s a place of sex and sin, and I’m sticking out like a sore thumb in my jeans and blue hoodie.
Risking a glance up, some girl in skull pasties and leather chaps hangs off a man clinging to the wall. Stepping past her, she offers me a joint, blowing the smoke right into my face.
“Mmm. I’d like that one,” the man growls, grabbing onto her backside. Quickly, I look down and quicken my pace.
What the hell was I thinking coming in here? My heart is beating so fast I may have a heart attack.
Finally stepping into the main part, a bar comes into view, the blonde from the other night slinging drinks to random people. Jealousy comes to a full rage, and I want to slam her face into that beer bottle littered counter.
It’s like a bar, but everyone knows everyone. And it’s a bunch of bikers.
A circle is formed in the main area, people yelling and cheering. My brows arch curiously. Being only five foot three inches, I squeeze through the circle until I’m up front where the main action is.
My heart stammers, and I can’t breathe. There’s some guy on his knees, his face bleeding profusely. He’s looking up in a daze, as if he’s barely with it. Following his line of sight, I feel everything blur around the outer edges of my vision.
The sounds echo and become fuzzy.
Zeek is bouncing on the heels of his feet, a look of madness etched into his face. His hair is sticking to his sweaty forehead, his head lowered. His dark eyes are sharp and piercing the man before him. His cut and shirt are missing, displaying his chiseled abs, a bloody handprint smeared across his chest.
“Fucking finish him!” someone screams from the back. Machete hands Zeek a blunt. Holding it between his lips, Zeek balls his right fist which glints with brass knuckles. Blood is smeared and spattered all over them.
A throaty sound leaves my mouth and, as if Zeek could hear it above all the chaos, his eyes meet mine. Hard, sharp eyes flash with vulnerability as they hold mine. He looks like a monster, a savage beast ready to strike his prey.
This is the man I’m falling for.
Taking the blunt from his lips, he blows a puff of smoke into the air.
He tosses his hair out of his line of sight, his chest rising rapidly as he pins me with a look I’ll never forget. Then he slams his fist into the side of the guy’s head.
Turning quickly, I shove through the crowd yelling in Zeek’s favor, and I run.
Finally reaching the door, the fresh air hits my lungs like a storm. Taking a moment to calm myself and catch my breath, my upper arm is suddenly gripped.
“I thought that was you.” Following the hand on my arm, I find that Dolly girl. She’s dressed in leather and lace, looking like an expensive hooker.
“I was just leaving.”
“What’s wrong, honey, get a reality check?”
Pulling my arm from her hand, I make my way toward my Jeep.
“You don’t belong here!” she yells, following me. “You’re not our kind.”
Ignoring her, I keep walking. I clearly don’t belong here; that much is obvious. Hearing her say it doesn’t make it any more, or less, true.
“I’m talking to you, bitch!” Suddenly, two hands land on my back and I’m shoved forward. Barely catching myself before I face-plant, I turn around quickly.
“Don’t touch me,” I seethe.
“Or what?” She shoves me again. “You come around Zeek again, I’m going to do way more than shove you.” Just hearing his name leave her mouth makes me lose it.
Fisting my hand, I slam it into her face. When my knuckles make contact with her mouth, a loud crack sounds and she flies backward. Blood instantly pours from her mouth. I never was one to catfight; I get mine in first, and it ends pretty quickly.
“You broke my tooth!” she cries. “Get her! Look what she did!” Her lip is split all to hell, her front tooth jagged.
Looking up at who she’s talking to, I realize at some point during our altercation a small circle formed around us.
“You’re a feisty little spring chicken, aren’t ya?” A man with a long braid and yellow teeth smiles at me, blocking my way. He’s got a big gut on him, his vest outlined in rattlesnake skin.
“Move,” I order. It hits me then—I didn’t even remember to grab my gun. Zeek distracts me from my own common sense.
“Or what? You’ll punch me in my mouth?” His hand whips up, gripping my neck; fear for my life is struck into me.
“You smell…” He inhales a large breath, his nose against my neck. “Fresh.”
Closing my eyes, I will myself not to cry. “I think I might want to take you back home and play with you. And when I’m done, I’ll let the flies have at ya.”
I claw at his hand, tears escaping from my eyes of their own accord. Why did I come here? What the hell was I thinking?
I’m scared, and the urge to cry for Zeek is so overwhelming I open my mouth to act on it. The beefy man’s hands are suddenly ripped from my throat, and I’m flung backwards.
My hoodie tears at the elbows as I scrape along the concrete like a paper plate in the wind. It hurts so damn bad, my injuries from the wreck striking the breath from me.
Looking up to figure out what happened, I can’t see anything. The circle has moved around him and someone else.
Taking the opportunity, I scurry to my feet and run to my Jeep as fast as I can. A distraught sob spills from my mouth as I climb in. Starting the Jeep, I can see over the crowd. Zeek has a gun pointed at the man, and is looking right at me. Those eyes are lifeless, cold, and conveying everything he can’t say.
He’s doing this for me.
He’s protecting me.
Nobody touches me.
Closing my eyes, I start the engine.
Risking a glance at him before leaving, his eyes anchor into my soul and a gunshot rings out.
The man’s skull explodes into a million little pieces of bone, brain, and blood.
ZEEK
Here I was scared that if I told Jillian anything about the man I really am, she’d turn away from me.
I was scared of stepping over the line and telling her anything, in fact.
There’s no escaping that now; she just had a front-row seat to see the wolf I am.
I park in my usual spot and jog around the corner to Jillian’s house. I don’t even knock, just open the door with haste. She’s pacing in the living room, that same cute hoodie on. Her tear-filled eyes find mine, and her bottom lip trembles.
“Why did you kill that guy?”
My chest constricts, and realization hits me like a punch to the face that I want Jillian McAdams to be mine. I want to claim her and protect her without a doubt. When that hang-around put his hands on her, it all came to light real fucking quick. All I saw was red. All I wanted was to end his life, and I did.
If she’s mine, she’s safe. Because I will kill anyone who lays a finger on her. Regardless if they know she’s mine or not… I know.
One of the rules of the club is you don’t mess with another man’s property. I admit, I was worried if she saw me for who I really am, she’d flee in terror. But the skeletons in my closet won’t be a problem because I will own her. Once she’s mine, she can’t escape me.
Slamming the door behind me, I can’t get to her fast enough. Grabbing the sides of her cheeks, I kiss her hard, my lips soaking up her tears. The hurt radiating off her body bores into mine like a drug.
“Why did you kill him?” she cries, those tears making me want to taste them again.
“Because he touched you. I’ll plow a field of dead men before I let any motherfucker in this world lay a finger on you. I did it for you.” I tuck an errant hair behind her ear.
She pushes against my chest, trying to back away from me. Grabbing onto her wrists I stop
her.
“It’s not right, Zeek. You can’t just go around killing people because you can’t control them, because they make you angry.” Her face bunches in a fit of anger as she looks up at me. It’s cute as fuck.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I look back up at her. “If those people are in my club, then they’re at my mercy.”
She closes her eyes, like she can’t bear to hear anymore. Her body trembling.
“I won’t let anyone put their hands on you. You don’t have to agree with it, but it is what it is. I did what I did to prove to you that I’m serious about us, that nobody will stand in my way from having you and protecting you."
Her body relaxes with that, but not by much.
“I can’t believe you killed him.” She whispers, still in shock. It’s not so surprising. In my world, killing another man that put his hands on his lady is a way of telling his woman he loves her.
I just told Jillian I loved her, even if she didn’t realize it.
That thought makes my mouth go dry. The word love… I know I feel it for her, but when you say it out loud it changes shit. “Why did you go there, baby?” I ask, my thumb circling her cheek. When she was at that party a while back, she was out of place; I had my eye on her the whole time. I never would have expected her to show up willingly to my club.
She tries to look away but I tighten my grip on her, not letting her escape.
“I need to know why you would do something so stupid.”
“I didn’t mean to push you.” Her sad brown eyes stare into mine. “I didn’t know I’d…” She trails off.
“This is me. This is my life, Jillian. Someone touches what’s mine, they pay with a bullet. Me not telling you about the club or myself, that’s me, not you. I was raised to keep that shit on lockdown, so it’s going to take some time for me to adjust to that.”
Her hands rise, resting on my leather cut.
“I get that. It’s just going to take me some time to adjust, as well.”
Fingering her hair, I rub my fingers into her scalp.
“Why were you beating that man in the club? You didn’t even look like the same man, Zeek.”
Biting my bottom lip, I push through the urge to avoid her question. “Because my uncle is trying to take over my club. I needed to make a point.” I say the words in a rush, like if I didn’t hurry up and spit them out I may not ever say them.
She nods, not really knowing what the hell I’m talking about. Taking my hands from her face, I wrap them around her and pull her in to me. Scared if I let go she might come to the realization of the fucked-up man I really am. The look on her face when she was in my club, I never want to see it again. She wasn’t scared, she was terrified.
“Don’t be scared of me. I’d never hurt you,” I whisper, resting my chin on top of her head.
She takes a moment to respond, and with every second that goes by, I think about how I will refuse to let her walk away from me.
“You’re insane, and I am scared of you sometimes, but I don’t fear you. Does that make me crazy?”
“Yes.” If she was smart, she’d run far, far away. If she knew how much I needed and wanted her, she’d be very afraid.
I may not hurt her intentionally, but I have no doubt I will hurt her. Look at me, look at her. She deserves a man who has a job with insurance, can take her on vacations, and touch her with a softness I can’t.
But I won’t let her know that. I won’t let her know a man out there is more capable of taking care of her than I am, ‘cause I’ll drop the motherfucker six feet under before that ever happens.
“I want to figure out why you are the way you are, so I can not only understand you more, but understand what it is that draws me to you.” Her arms come up and rub my back. “Ever since the day I met you, I knew there was more to you than everyone let on.”
I may not be able to give her what she deserves, but I can try to give her what she wants—answers.
“One. You get one question,” I mumble into her hair.
She pulls back, her lashes sticking together with wetness.
“Three.”
I tilt my head to the side, puzzled. She’s trying to hustle me. That’s why I want her, why I can’t walk away. Any other bitch wouldn’t have even thrown me out when I wouldn’t give in to their wishes. They’d just accept that I can’t give them anything and bend over the couch for a fucking.
“Two,” I compromise.
She bites her bottom lip, her swollen eyes looking off into the distance. She’s thinking of what to ask. Fuck. I’m in trouble.
FOURTEEN
JILLIAN
I get two questions.
Two.
I want to know why he’s so haunted and scared to have normalcy in his life. I want to know who broke him, and that answer seems to revolve around his family and the club.
“Why is the subject of your family touchy?”
Taking a deep breath, his shoulders rise. “I hurt my family.” His piercing brown irises find mine, flashing with a darkness of hurt. “I killed my father.”
“What?” My stomach falls, and so does my mouth.
He sits on the couch, wringing his hands.
“When my father got taken down, it was like a domino effect. A lot of our men went down, half of them ratting the club out to make deals on their sentence. My uncle told me my father was in the throes of making a deal, taking not only the club down but me, as well. It made sense—hell, everyone was thinking it. He ordered me to take my father out, prove I wasn’t a rat, show my loyalty.”
He looks up at me, his eyes glossy. “So, I killed him.”
I swallow, a little shocked he just told me that. I want to push and ask about his brother, but after this I can’t.
“Say something.”
“Why are you so sad about it? You knew what you were doing, you could have said no.”
“At the time, I thought my uncle was right. But over the years, the manipulation my uncle’s had on my men and club, the lies I’ve caught him in… I’m not so sure anymore.”
His shoulder blades twitch, his biceps flexing. He’s angry, and clearly upset. It makes me want to help him, take the pain away.
“I saw the files of your uncle, and the club. To me, it seems like your uncle is trying to turn your club into some kind of gang, an Italian mafia of some sort. People won’t admit it, but it was suggested that your uncle is already shaking small businesses down in exchange for protection, and that he’s using your men.” Zeek’s eyes widen, telling me he either already knows this, or at least suspected it.
Tearing his gaze from mine, he wrings his hands once again.
“I tried to get my brother Lip to come in, give me someone to trust. We grew up hating one another, but I thought maybe we could set that shit aside. I was wrong. He threw my club in my face, turned his back on me. I fucked up, got in a war with him. We nearly killed each other.”
“Wow.” I shake my head, not sure what to say about his brother. I can see the hurt and abandonment in his eyes. Sure, he’s rough around the edges and goes about shit the wrong way, but he’s like that bully you can’t help but feel sorry for. You know he had it rough, and is acting out the best way he knows how. I palm his cheek affectionately, the scruff abrasive against my soft skin.
Pulling his face from my hands, he takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He looks down, his head hanging. I suck in a deep breath, trying to think of my next question as I sit down beside him. He says he’s terrible at relationships, but has he ever loved a woman? I asked him once, and he never answered me. The thought makes me jealous.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“No.” He doesn’t lift his head, doesn’t even look at me.
“No?”
“I had one serious relationship, but it ended before it ever got to that point. Not that I think it ever would have. She was a bitch.” He raises his head, his eyes finally meeting mine. They hold a sens
e of pain.
“What happened?”
He smirks. “That’s three questions. My turn.”
My heart sinks. I didn’t know he got to ask questions, too.
“Tell me about your parents.” Oh, God! “Were they great? Did you… read books together on Christmas Eve? Were you that picture-perfect family you see on TV?”
Tucking my feet under me, I let out a shallow breath.
“Not really. My father was always working, and my mother was always out trying to help those who were less fortunate. I stayed home and watched Christmas movies. Every day was pretty much similar to that. My father works for the sheriff’s department, but he’s retiring. My mother is one of those women who exercises her rights every chance she gets. She’s always protesting, or something. They were good parents, but very protective. Sometimes, I feel like I lived such a sheltered life, that I never really lived till I met you.”
The corner of his mouth curves into a smirk, and his large palm squeezes my thigh affectionately.
“Okay, you get one more question.”
His face goes serious, his brows pinched together in thought. “Be mine.” His face raises, those dark eyes hard.
My smirk fades, my heart pounding. His? Like an old woman, old lady—whatever they call them in the club?
“Yours how? Like, your girlfriend? Old lady? Wife?” My voice is frantic, and I’m rambling.
He squints. “Just mine.”
“You don’t think this is too fast?” I start trying to count how long we’ve been together. Has it been days? Weeks?
He turns, grabbing my waist and lifting me to where I’m straddling him.
“I’ve lived fast my whole life, Rookie. This is anything but fast. I cooked you breakfast this morning, and I don’t cook anyone breakfast.”
A giggle escapes me. “Was that your courting?” He nods, a big, toothy grin crossing his face. “I thought so.”
My hands rub the scruff on his cheek, the scar on his chin shining against the light.
“What happened here?”
He tilts his head to the side. “I’m pretty sure your questions are up.”
I scowl. “I could guess.”
“You could.”
