“It’s okay.” I offer her my arms, holding her as much for my comfort as for hers.
“Okay?” she says quietly at first, lip quivering. Then she pushes back from me as her volume goes up. “Okay?” she says again. “Does any of this look okay to you, Beau?”
I think she’s about to lose her shit. I’m just waiting for the tears to fall, for her to bolt, when she completely gob smacks me twistin’ in my arms to address the lawn. “I’m not a whore. None of you knows what happened. None of you!” Elise then shifts back to me, Chaos and Tommy. “They ruined your home. Where are we supposed to live now?”
“Only thing worth savin’ already got in my arms, darlin’.”
She turns her gaze up to me. Lookin’ with those big eyes that goes straight to my heart and my dick. I clear my throat.
“We’ll stay at the club. Safer anyway.”
My woman is something else. She nods her head. “This has to stop, Beau. Fight for me.” Biting her bottom lip, Elise fists my shirtsleeves, closes her eyes and swallows. When she opens them again, when she finishes her thought, shit. “Help me to fight, please,” she says. “Help me to be Brimstone, too. A Brimstone Lady.”
I can’t keep the smile, the pride, outta my voice. “You got it, baby girl.” I tug her so close to my chest we could hold a dime between us. You’d think with my home in ruins I’d be more upset. But knowing Elise was with me, no one was harmed. The rest is just things. Replaceable things.
Chaos pats my back. “It’s official. I’m a hundred percent in love with your old lady.”
“The fuck, brother?” I ask teasingly, knowing full well he’s got no idea what I heard in Chicago.
But it don’t matter what I heard in Chicago, what with how Elise answers. “Sorry. I’ve had enough chaos in my love life. I’m content to let him.” She motions to me with her chin. “Show me who’s Boss in that department.” Then she looks me dead in the eyes. “But only in that department.”
She was tested. Her first official day as a Brimstone old lady she was tested, and in my opinion, passed with flying colors.
Duke steps around from the side of the house where he’d been listening. “Didn’t think she had it in her.”
“Know you didn’t. Don’t doubt me or mine again.” My challenge goes out to all of the brothers.
“Never again, brother,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads for his bike. “Let’s roll out, leave the investigating to the professionals.”
“You need anything more from me, Tommy?” I question the man, with Elise still pressed up against me because my arms tightened around her when Duke showed, rather than let her loose.
“Not right now.”
“Can I go, then? I need to get my woman settled. It’s been a long day.”
“Go. I need you, I’ll call. And I’ll have Maryanne stop by tomorrow.”
“Good deal.” I pat his arm. “Let’s go, darlin.’ You and those kind lips.”
“I know, I know. The kind you’d like to see wrapped around your cock. Not you too. Hollister hell, I tell you what.” But she laughs just the same, shaking her head like she don’t know what to do with me. I love knowing I can make her laugh, especially in the face of all this disaster.
As we walk, I pull her behind me and hold her hand to the edge of the drive where we both mount my bike, her arms move to hold me tight again. Helmet on, because I put it there, she presses her cheek against my shoulder blade, kissing me briefly. She kisses the leather, but I feel it all the way through to my core. It was the kind of kiss saying she’s here with me and not just physically. She really is here with me.
After that, Elise keeps to herself the two miles we ride until rolling up to the front of the compound, where we wait while prospects Levi and Blaze open the gates for us.
“Good to see you again, Elise.” Levi’s lips tip up in that way he has, the one which has convinced many a girl to drop her panties for the kid.
“Find your own.” I warn him.
“Just being friendly, Bossman,” he quickly counters.
She slaps my shoulder. “Leave him alone.”
My response is to turn and kiss her full on the lips. Once I know I got her attention, I pull back to lay it out. “Don’t tell me how to deal with my brothers.”
Elise is so damn cute when pissed. Rolling her eyes. Pursing those plump lips. She don’t like what I have to say, that’s on her. Though, she checks that anger pretty quick, takin’ my hand once I’ve parked and offer to help her off my bike.
The atmosphere feels different today from the last time she was here. The pieces ain’t shown yet. Brothers who stayed behind to look after the place in the wake of my house being firebombed, lounge inside the main common room up at the bar or on the sofas watching television. A couple hot mamas, those are the bitches who have been elevated from just a piece of ass, they live here semi-permanently and help take care of the men, but ain’t anyone’s old lady, they mill about doing what they’re here to do—takin’ care of the brothers.
Since Dawna passed, there’s only one other old lady in the higher echelons of the club aside from Elise, and that’s Trisha, Sneak’s wife.
She’s a pretty thing, bombshell blonde, tall and lean but not overly curvy. Not a secret given my old lady, I like curves. But she’s still pretty and as sweet as they come, teaches third grade over at Lafayette Elementary. Recently cut that long, lush hair of hers into a pixie cut. Sneak wasn’t happy about it, that’s why I think she did it, to piss him off. Trish came to the club and found him in close proximity to a piece with that same hair. He wasn’t cheating. The man’s not stupid enough to throw away something so good. She was just a brazen piece and a case of bad timin’. I was there. He already had his hand up to push the bitch away when his woman walked in.
Trish’s blue eyes sparkle when she sees us, not havin’ had the chance to meet Elise before all that shit went down.
“Oh my goodness, you are real.” She squeals, reachin’ out to pull a stiff as a board Elise in for a hug. “I thought you were like a unicorn or Leprechaun, or the product of a bad acid trip.” And then, with my woman pressed up close and personal, she laughs out. “I’m Trisha, by the way. Sneak’s old lady. Wife, actually.” After which the crazy woman releases Elise.
Elise, for her part, rubs at her upper arms. “Have I met Sneak?”
“He was at the house,” I tell her. “You just didn’t see him.”
“Hence the name Sneak?”
“I can already tell, we’re going to be great friends.” Trisha beams at her, and Trisha’s beaming is infectious, spreadin’ to both me and Elise without us havin’ any control over the situation.
Staring back and forth between Trish and me, Elise pulls a conversational one-eighty. “Do you have a grill here?”
“Out back, why?” she asks.
“Oh, because Boss here promised me steaks for dinner, and I am starved. Anyone else hungry?”
Several voices pop up from brothers around the common. “I’m hungry,” and “I could eat.” I didn’t even know they’d been listening.
“Darlin’, why don’t you make a list of what you need from the store? I believe you promised me deep fried onions and creamed spinach.” Then I look to a prospect named Blue, whose truck she’d inadvertently jumped into at the red light yesterday. “You’re goin’ to the store for Elise.”
“You got it, Boss.” He answers without hesitation, fishin’ keys from his pocket.
“I gotta keep my woman happy.”
“Then we all gotta keep your woman happy. Hey Elise.” He winks.
“Yeah but.” I get in his face the same as I did Levi. “Only the ways I tell you to. Got me?”
“Come on, Bossman. You know I’d never go there. I might wanna father children someday. And fuck if you wouldn’t make that shit hurt twice as bad. We know the rules, no fucking with another brother’s old lady.”
“The way you’re salivatin’ thought you might need a refresher.”
/> Elise held her tongue during the whole exchange. That ain’t in her nature, which means I’m in for some shit. She still don’t even acknowledge me when she turns to hand off her list to Blue.
“Thank you, Blue,” she says. “Excuse me for a minute Trisha.” Again, pretendin’ I don’t exist, she retreats to my room, well, our room now. I follow her out of the common and down the dark hallway wonderin’ how long she’ll keep it up.
I flip on the light switch and shut the door securely behind me.
She turns, a hand holdin’ her elbow, rubbin’ her forehead with the other. “Why am I here?”
“What?”
“Why am I here?” She repeats.
Leanin’ back against the door, I cross my arms over my chest and give her a stupidly defiant answer. One I know I’ll pay for. “Because we’re living here for now.”
She shifts on her hip, losing patience. I know by her long, exaggerated sigh. Received and not appreciated. “Yes. But why would you want to live with someone you clearly don’t trust? I thought it was cute, that you were just being funny with Levi. But now I’m just insulted.”
“Not following, darlin’.”
“You’re making me sound like the whore the town accuses me of being. Do you think I’m a whore, Beau?”
“You know I don’t. But the men—”
“Won’t touch me if I don’t want them to or it’s rape. Are your brothers rapists?”
“Fuck no. We don’t hurt women or children.”
“So then you’re assuming I want them to fuck with me, that I am a whore.”
“I’m not gonna win here, am I?”
“What’s to win? Every brother who smiles at me gets the same in your face lecture. You are the only man I want, Beau Hollister. You. But now everyone is just going to look at me like some home-wrecking whore who can’t be trusted. So thanks for that.”
“Shit. Baby girl, I did not mean that. It’s just, you’re mine now. Finally, you’re mine. You chose Logan before, what’s to say you won’t change your mind about me?”
“So then you don’t trust me. I didn’t choose Logan over you. He spoke up first, wooed me while you stood back with your hands in your pockets.” Her face scrunches up, with those damn glassy eyes, like she’s about to cry.
“Calm down.”
“Forget you, Beau. Things changed for us. And you know it. I wanted a life with you. For five years, I couldn’t move past you. Not until I met Mark. And oh, who was Mark? You.” The tremble to her voice at the end guts me, the tears she fights so hard to keep from fallin’ ruins me.
“God, I am an idiot. Come here, baby girl.” When she don’t move I reach out, tugging her to me. “I’m so damn sorry.”
Sometimes I feel like I’m drowning from the weight of how much I feel for Elise, how deep my love goes. The anchor of our past constantly pushin’ my head under relationship waters, to where I’m swimmin’ hard to break through the surface, tryin’ to catch a breath. I don’t know what the hell I’m doin’ here.
Before Elise, I fucked around in high school. But when you’re young and the town considers you a golden god, you dip your dick in as many holes as are wiling. Then Elise showed up in front of the Whippy Dip, and my world changed forever. I knew then if it wasn’t with her, I never wanted a relationship. Even when she chose my dipshit cousin. For the past seven years, I’ve continued to dip my dick in any and every willing hole, biding my time until this precious woman was in my arms. Now here she is, and I’m fuckin’ it up.
The pissed-off expression hasn’t left her face when I bring my mouth to hers. At least she don’t push me away. Soft and easy, she presses those delicate lips against mine. Funny how I can begin to breathe again with my mouth pressed to hers. I don’t push for more. This is her deal. But I won’t deny being fuckin’ ecstatic when she grabs fistfuls of my shirt, runnin’ her tongue over the seam of my lips for me to open to her.
Hell yeah, she does.
From pissed-off to turned on, in a matter of seconds. Dirty. Gritty. Arms and hands. Tongues and teeth. We’re wild and frantic.
Never really cared much for kissin’ with other women. It was just a means to an end. With Elise, I could kiss her for a week straight before my dick ever touched her. Of course, we ain’t waitin’ that long.
She wraps her legs around my waist, takin’ breaths through her nose so she don’t have to leave my mouth. My hands on her ass, keepin’ her propped up, I begin the slow, backward walk to the bed.
As the backs of my knees hit the edge of the mattress, I twist to lay her down.
She breaks off the kiss, pushin’ at my chest. “Wait, wait, wait.”
Now? I could drop my hands and hold her up with just my cock, I’m so hard for her. And she wants to stop? But what choice do I have? “What’s wrong, baby girl?”
“You’ve um—slept with pieces here, right?” she asks through pants.
“What? Yeah.” I snap, not meaning to. Frustration from needing to be inside her makes me an ornery bastard.
“Can we flip the mattress first?”
“Why?”
“Groupie juices,” she answers.
My hands still on her ass, I stop kneading her butt cheeks and cock my head, as I didn’t see that comin’. “What the fuck?”
Groupie juices? I throw my head back and laugh. And I laugh loud. Got-damn I love this woman. “Yeah darlin’, let’s flip the damn mattress so I can be inside you already.”
“Nice to hear romance isn’t dead.” she goads.
“Hey, I can be romantic. Just let me show you after we fuck.”
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?”
“No baby girl, it don’t. Because now that I got you, I plan on keepin’ you.”
15.
Elise
It’s been a week since the bombing attack on Beau’s home. A home which we can’t even consider renovating until the fire marshal and police detectives finish their investigation. There have been some adjustments to living at the compound, such as always having men, pieces and hot mamas underfoot. I want a bowl of fruit loops, but find someone else got to them before me. So we buy more and I hide them, only to discover someone raided my stash.
They’re louder than I’m used to. Party more than I’m used to. And the constant cloud of smoke hovering above our heads in the common from all the cigarettes and other non-tobacco products smoked on a daily basis will probably end up causing me cancer.
Though I relish these quiet moments to myself—they come so rarely since we rolled back into town—I admit, missing waking up next to him this morning. Seems I’ve gotten used to his warm body wrapped lovingly around me, even in sleep. He left for work before I woke. I knew Beau would be gone, he and Duke and Chaos. Some kind of new acquisition. They didn’t really go into it. I understand not wanting to jinx the sale by talking about it until the ink is dry on all the signatures.
As I lay sprawled out on the bed, deciding on whether to get up or stay here for a while longer, my cell begins to ring, making the decision for me. Reaching over to the bedside table where I left the phone plugged into the wall to charge last night, I look at the display. It’s not a number I recognize, though, being local, I answer.
“Hello?” I say into the receiver.
There’s no response at first. Then music. The kind that comes from mobiles parents hang over baby cribs.
So I ask again, “Hello?”
“Hello?” I hear my voice say back to me. It’s a prank. Just a prank.
“Who is this?” I demand.
“Who is this? Who is this? Who is this?” The voice, my voice repeats, but each one goes higher and faster as if someone is playing my words back to me in fast forward. Then in that same high pitched voice I hear, “You shouldn’t go out today.”
Damn Hadley for giving out my number. And damn these townspeople for not letting go. Why can’t they just leave me alone? I pinch the bridge of my nose and hang up. The phone rings back several times before it goes
to voicemail. Stupidly, I listen and I wish I hadn’t. It’s more of that mobile music and my voicemail message on fast forward. Then abruptly a shrieking laugh cuts off the message.
Somehow the attacks on my car or the empty house, as bad as they were, felt tame compared to the violation of some stranger’s prank over the phone. They found me in my bedroom. My sanctuary. Now I have nowhere safe. Nowhere they can’t get to me.
Shaking, I walk out of our bedroom in an almost zombie-like state. Forgetting to tame the bedhead hair. Forgetting that I only wear Beau’s Easyriders tee. Underwear. No pants. No slippers. My feet stick to god knows what on the way into the kitchen.
The kitchen. The innermost room in the compound. Therefore, the safest room in the compound. But not even the smell of coffee cures my woes.
“Jesus, lass. Are you sick?” The voice I’ve never heard before.
I scream and twist to the knife block sitting on the counter, pulling an eight inch butcher knife firmly between both hands.
“Fuck. Calm down.”
Twisting back to the intruder, I swing the knife wildly, narrowly missing his chest as he steps toward me, in an attempt to disarm the feral animal I’ve become.
“It’s okay, you’re okay.” He holds his hands up, not in surrender, but to reiterate his sentiment. “Elise, right? C’mon, lass. Put the knife down.”
I blink and look at my hands holding the knife, then back at the man who inches closer until one of his arms secures mine to my side. He snatches the weapon from my hands and sighs in a ‘crisis averted’ way, and slips it back into the block, before sliding onto a barstool where he picks up a steaming cup of coffee, sipping peacefully, as if I hadn’t just tried to gut him.
With my brain cleared, I look to the man to apologize but the words get lost. He’s, well, he’s buck-ass naked for one. And as much as I’d like to look away, it’s like my eyes won’t obey my command to do so. He’s an amalgam of piercings—both nipples, gauges in his ears, and even down home with a barbell through the head of his penis. And it’s a hell of a penis. It’s such a penis that I know he’s a natural redhead, not by the hair on his head. This guy—walking, breathing sex appeal.
Lady Sings the Blues Page 14
