“You need to go hit up a fight at the barn?” Jagger was a few feet away still, but Court heard him nonetheless.
He scrubbed a hand over his face then ran it over the back of his head. Grabbing a chunk of hair that was damp from when he had done a quick clean in the sink, he tugged on it. He probably could use a fight, but first he needed to see Lilly and make sure she got home okay. Court walked over to the treeline and braced a hand on the thick trunk of an evergreen. He closed his eyes again, feeling like he had this whiplash effect going on inside of him. He curled his hands into the tree, felt his nails lengthen into claws as his bear came forth, and heard the pieces of bark fall to his feet. Feeling his blood boil as he saw in his head the images of Lily hurt, he reared his hand back and slammed his fist into the trunk over and over again, and with enough force that the trunk crumbled beneath his fist. Instantly he felt his skin break open and scented his blood mix with the wood that his hand was currently embedded in, but at least he felt a small semblance of relief. The pain felt good. When he pulled his hand away and looked at the trunk, Court saw the destruction he had done. He heard footsteps move up behind him, scented Jagger, and then saw the rag his President held out. Court grabbed it, and wrapped the cloth around his knuckles. “Thanks.”
“Better?”
“A little.” Court turned and looked at his President. “I need to see Lilly.” He didn’t wait for Jagger to say anything, and didn’t stop to say anything to Roan. He wanted his woman, needed to see her and smell her in order to further calm himself. He made his way inside and to the girl that he cared about more than anything else.
****
Roan pulled his car to a stop in front of their mom’s house and cut the engine. Lilly could hear the sound of Court’s Harley right behind them, and she looked at her brother. He didn’t say anything, but the look on his face spoke enough. He was still angry over the situation, and still pained over what had happened to her.
They had stayed at the clubhouse for another hour once Court and Roan had come back to where she was. Right away she had known the guy that had hurt her was dead. There was blood that Roan hadn’t managed to clean completely from his hands and some blood on Court’s neck.
“Let’s wait until morning to tell Mom about all of this, please.” Roan looked over at the house, and all of the lights were off except the kitchen. “I just don’t think she needs to hear this, or see your face when it’s so late.” He sighed, closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them and looked at her there was so much pain she swore it was a living entity.
“Roan, you know she hasn’t gone to bed, especially not when we weren’t home yet.”
He leaned his head back on the seat and closed his eyes once more. She reached her hand out and placed it on his forearm. He didn’t move, but he did sigh heavily, and finally, after several long seconds, turn to look at her.
“I know, but I just hoped she would be asleep. You know how this is going to make her feel. She’s going to freak—and rightly so—but she doesn’t need this shit. Fuck, Lilly, you didn’t need this shit.”
Her face felt sore and swollen, but she knew if she wasn’t on the pain meds the doctor had given her it would be a lot worse.
The sound of Court cutting his engine had her looking behind her and out the back window. He was on the phone, and his deep voice was clear, but his words were muffled.
“I know something happened between you two.”
She looked over at him, but wasn’t surprised. The way Court had acted had been way out of character. Roan might not know about the whole sex in the back of his truck, but she was sure he had wondered how far it had gone. Before she could say something he shook his head.
“Listen, I don’t care one way or another.”
That surprised her.
“I don’t want to know details, but the way he acted when he saw you, and the way he spoke about you, made it pretty clear there were unresolved feelings between the two of you.”
Lilly really didn’t know what to say, because honestly she had never thought Court saw her as anything more than a mistake he had made with his best friend’s little sister.
The silence of Court no longer talking had her looking behind her shoulder again. He climbed off his bike and took his helmet off. She definitely had feelings for him, strong ones like how she had all those years ago, but she honestly didn’t think how he had acted today meant anything other than a girl he had known forever had gotten hurt. Of course she wanted to think otherwise, but she was trying to be realistic, because she didn’t think her heart could take another cold shoulder turned her way by Court She also didn’t know what Roan meant when he had told her that he knew something happened between them because of what Court had said about her. What had he said that would make Roan think that?
A tap on her window had her glancing to her side and seeing Court standing there. He looked so damn good in his t-shirt and cut, but she shouldn’t be thinking anything was attractive in her condition. It wasn’t just a sexual feeling toward him, but this spark of memories she had shared with him when she was younger. They may not have meant anything to Court, and he probably didn’t really remember, but to her they were locked away in her mind forever.
“We’ll talk about this later, Lilly.” Roan reached over and clasped her hand. There was no anger in his voice, and for that she was thankful. There were too many other things that took precedence right now. She nodded and opened her door. Court was right there, his hands on her waist and helping her out.
“I’m fine, really.” She smiled up at him. She really was okay, but then again she wasn’t. The image of the guy on that deserted stretch of road, over her, his heavy weight suffocating her, played through her mind like a broken record. She kept seeing that guy reaching for his belt to undo it, and feeling his hot breath on her. She didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if the bikers hadn’t shown up. It was one of those situations where she would have never thought it would happen to her.
“You’re not, but everything will be okay now, baby.” He shut the door once she was fully standing.
Lilly looked up at him. “Why do you keep calling me things like that?” Now was not the time to really get into this, but then again she didn’t want to act like Court’s behavior was normal. She hadn’t spoken to him in a long time, and then this happened, and it was like he had put some kind of claim on her.
“I have.”
She knitted her brows, well, as well as she could with the swelling. His words confused her. “What?”
“I have claimed you, Lilly, and I shouldn’t have walked away all those years ago.”
He said that too low for anyone else but her to hear, and she was rocked to the core with shock by his words. Was he serious right now? It had been five years, and because she was hurt something had changed in him and he felt like she was his? Lilly was too tired to really analyze it, but it seemed surreal, and she really couldn’t wrap her head around it. Before she could say anything Court was leading her toward the front of the house. Strangely enough Roan didn’t say anything about the way Court had his arm wrapped around her waist, and had her pressed tightly to the side of his body.
They walked up the front step, but the door was opened before they reached it. Her mom stood in the doorway with her robe wrapped around her body tight enough that it looked uncomfortable.
“I tried calling Roan, several times, but no one answered.” She was staring at Roan, but when she looked at Court there was a moment of surprise on her face. “Court?” But that surprise was short-lived when she turned her attention to Lilly. Her mouth opened, her eyes widened, and tears immediately formed. “Oh my God.” Diera had her arms wrapped around Lilly seconds later and was leading her into the house, silently crying. When the door shut and everyone was in the living room, her mother finally spoke again. “What happened?” She went to touch Lilly’s face, but just like her brother had done she curled her fingers into her palm and stopped rig
ht before she made contact.
Lilly didn’t have the strength or energy to retell the story, but fortunately Roan was already speaking and going over it with their mother, though his version was condensed considerably. Lilly knew it was to spare her mother the nightmarish details. The drugs that she was on were slowly starting to wear off, and the throbbing in her face intensified. Her palms were cut up, but the doctor had bandaged those up, as well as her ribs. Fortunately, they were only bruised and not broken.
“I think I want to go to bed.” She interrupted her mother’s crying, feeling horrible that she had to go through this as well as everything else in her life, but right now Lilly just couldn’t think straight. Too much had happened in the last several hours, enough to make her head spin.
It was like her words had made everyone move into action, because all three of them went to help her stand. As much as their affection and love to help her was appreciated, she didn’t want to have them flock toward her like she was this broken person.
“I can do it. Please, stop fussing.” They all took a step back, and she left them in the living room. A shower would have been nice, but she was just too tired and in too much pain. Once in her room with the door shut she sat on the edge of her bed and set her purse down beside her. Reaching inside for the bottle of pain pills, she popped some in her mouth and went for the bottle of water she kept on her nightstand. And then she lay back without removing her shoes or anything else, and let sleep take her away.
Chapter Six
Court sat in the truck with Stinger. They were in the center of town and were waiting for Lucien and his men to make the pass through Steel Corner to their whorehouse. It had been two days since he had killed the man that had hurt Lilly, and forty-eight fucking hours since he had seen the woman that he couldn’t stop thinking about. He wanted to go see Lilly, but he had to watch to make sure Lucien, or whoever was transporting the women that were paid to fuck high-profile men, got through town without incident. But after everything that had gone down he trusted The Brothers of Menace, and knew that Jagger and the other Grizzlies did, too. But tonight wasn’t about making sure the MC didn’t fuck with their town. It was to make sure no one fucked with them. It had just taken that one incident to bring the two MCs together. The Brothers had looked out for Lilly and Roan, hadn’t fucked around when it came to the bastard responsible for fucking her up, and to the Grizzlies that went a long way in assuring they were as tight as two allies could be. When another MC looked out for the people associated with another club, took care of them until they got there, and made sure to help exact vengeance for the ones that were hurt, that meant they were good fucking men, and respected by The Grizzly MC.
“Your girl doing good?”
Court looked over at Stinger and thought about his question. “I guess she’s as good as can be expected given the situation.” Stinger may not have been there because he had been drunker than shit, but every member of the club knew what had gone down, and that Lilly was his. The meeting they had earlier that day had cemented that in stone, and what he had gotten from the members of the club was support and brotherly love. He still hadn’t really talked to her about why he had gone all possessive and proprietary on her, but she was a smart girl. He had also told her that he had claimed her when she had spoken aloud. Whether she knew what that really meant was still left to be seen. It was like a switch had gone off in his body, his bear had taken control, and he had gotten his head out of his ass and realized what was important to him.
“How many times you been to the barn to fight?”
Court looked over at Stinger again, and on instinct touched the cut under his eye that he had gotten just that night. Yeah, it had been two days since he had seen Lilly and killed that fucker that had hurt her, but he had been on this rampage for violence. Since leaving her house he had been to the barn three different times and taken out three different shifters. He felt a lot calmer now that he had a lot of his aggression out, but leave it to his thoughts of Lilly hurt to have him thinking about kicking someone’s ass again. “Enough to help ease my bear and fuck people up.” He looked out the windshield once more. His knuckles were also beat to shit, but he liked the pain, especially when he was in this kind of foul mood.
“I didn’t even know you were serious about anyone. I mean you’ve been fucking club pussy for a long ass time.”
Court looked forward again. “Well, we haven’t really talked in a few years, but we have a history.”
Stinger didn’t say anything, but the sound of an approaching car had them sitting up straighter in the truck and had their senses going on alert. They watched the blacked out van pass through the center of town, and then pulled out behind it. They weren’t trying to be stealthy in following them, because Lucien knew that they were doing it to make sure shit went okay on both ends. Once the van left Steel Corner Court turned the truck around and headed back to the clubhouse. What he wanted to do was see Lilly, but it was late, and the last two times he had tried and gone to see her Roan had said she was sleeping. How much could one person sleep? But he knew she had been hurt pretty badly, was on pain meds, and that she needed all the rest she could get. But he was selfish, wanted to be the one to help her heal, and was getting antsy to see and touch her again. Two days wasn’t long at all, but then again it felt like the longest two days of his life.
He pulled the truck into the clubhouse parking lot and killed the engine. Stinger was already climbing out, and Court debated just heading back to his place.
“You coming in for a drink?” Stinger looked at him.
“I don’t know. I’m not really in the mood.”
Stinger gave him a shocked look. “Not in the mood for a drink? Dude, get your ass out of the truck and come inside. You know all you’re going to do to if you go back home is think about your girl, and all the shit you did or didn’t do.”
The thing with Stinger was he played a part, as they all did to a point. He was there for the club and the members, and although he acted one way on the outside, Court could look in his eyes and see that he wasn’t as easygoing as he tried to play. Maybe it was because of the gunshot Stinger had gotten from that bastard Trick? In the end if Stinger wanted to talk they were there, and as long as he didn’t put the club in jeopardy they kept out of his business. Court hadn’t said anything about what he had or hadn’t done, just that they hadn’t talked in a while, but Stinger had read him well enough.
“Come on. Some bullshitting will do you some good.”
Court ran his hand over the back of his head and sighed. “Yeah, okay.” Because Stinger was right, he would have just gone home and thought about a bunch of depressing shit. He climbed out of the truck and headed inside. There wasn’t some crazy party going on, but there was a hardcore poker game being played. A lot of cursing and banter were being thrown around, a few of the club whores were hanging on the members, and some of the prospects were keeping the guys hydrated with beer and shots.
“Hey, Court and Stinger are here. Party is about to get started,” Drevin yelled out. The blond biker raised his beer, clearly already drunk by the slur in his voice.
“Drevin, shut up, man,” Dallas said with a joint hanging from between his lips. Drevin had been MIA during the whole Lilly incident, and although he had been filled in he either didn’t know how deep all that shit had been—not likely—or he was too drunk to fully realize how he was acting. But Court wasn’t in the mood to correct the asshole on anything, and turned around and headed to the bar. One drink and he would head home. He was tired, couldn’t get Lilly out of his head, and just wanted to crash until shit looked a lot better.
****
Lilly lay on her bed and stared at her ceiling. Her mother’s home was in an older development of town, and the streetlights were in desperate need to being changed. As it was the globes were foggy and the lights a yellowish color, and when the glow came through her bedroom window it made this piss color stain across her walls and ceiling. Her head chose th
at moment to throb, but she just closed her eyes and breathed through the discomfort. She had stopped taking the narcotics, and was now only on ibuprofen. It certainly didn’t have the same pleasant effect the Percocets had, but she could deal with it.
But it wasn’t just the discomfort that was keeping her up. She had also been thinking a lot about Court and everything he had done for her and said. She had spoken to Roan about it, but she hadn’t gone into details with him about what exactly had happened between her and Court years ago. More specifically she hadn’t told him about them having sex, just that they had shared some time together, and then after that summer they hadn’t spoken again. But it didn’t take a genius to realize what had gone down, and Roan was no fool. But he hadn’t pressed her, and she knew he was either waiting until she was fully healed, or he was going to confront Court first. She wasn’t looking forward to either of those scenarios, because surely they couldn’t end well.
She pushed herself up in bed and grabbed her duvet to wrap it around herself. The swelling was significantly less, but the bruising was horrendous. Her job at the coffee shop was put on hold, and class was still up in the air. She was so close to being finished with it, but she just couldn’t even think about going back there just yet, or traveling down that long, isolated strip of road. Just thinking about it had her shaking and wrapping the blanket around her even tighter. Although it was late, she had a feeling Court would be up. He had always been a night owl back in the day, and she didn’t think joining an MC made that change.
Lilly wanted to talk to him and look into his face so much that it startled her. It didn’t matter that so much time had passed between them. When he had looked at her when she was at The Brothers of Menace clubhouse, she had known there was no burying her love for him. She stood and grabbed her phone off the nightstand. For a second all she did was stare at the black screen. He had left his number with her mom the night he had helped her inside, but she hadn’t tried calling it yet. Roan had told her he had stopped by the last couple of days, but each time she had been asleep. It would have been easy for her to call him, but the last forty-right hours she had been trying to wrap her head around everything that had happened, and clearly everything that was happening between her and Court. There was no fear that the man that had hurt her would come back, because although she had asked Roan what had happened to him, her brother had just told her that Court had handled it. The memory of the blood that had coated them, and then the sight of Roan’s knuckles scabbed over told her exactly what had happened.
Nothin' But Trouble Page 6
