“Not in mine.”
“Yours is the same as mine.”
He was definitely deluded. “No.”
“Yes, Stella.”
“You’re fucking crazy.”
A slow smile crossed his face. “Maybe so.”
“That’s nothing to be proud of, Trip.”
“Got a plan, Stella, and you’re a part of that plan.”
“Since when?”
“Since the moment I walked into Crazy Pete’s and found you instead of Pete.”
She stared at him for a long moment. He didn’t look crazy, but he was fucking bat-shit crazy.
She needed to get the hell out of there.
Once again, she’d made a mistake coming out to the farm to talk to him. Not only did Trip need his head examined, so did she.
Because the life she had escaped all those years ago was suddenly beginning to control her all over again.
And she refused to let that happen. Even if he promised things would be different.
Because he hadn’t.
She jerked her chin from his grasp. “Give me my stuff and I’ll get out of here.”
“Will give you the checkbook but not the bills.”
“I don’t want to owe you more than I already do.”
“Baby, that’s one thing you’re not gettin’. You don’t owe me fuckin’ shit. Just need your help makin’ the bar a success. It’ll benefit both of us, as well as the club.”
And that would be fine if he didn’t want anything else. But he did. He outright stated it more than once. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“Not in a position to deal, Stella.”
The fuck she wasn’t. “I’ll stay and manage the bar, consider your suggestions, accept the help of whoever you can find—as long as they’re more help than a hindrance—but that’s all you’re getting from me. Nothing else.”
He sucked at his teeth and scrubbed at his beard.
“Nothing else, Trip,” she repeated more firmly.
“Know that’s not what you really want,” he finally said.
“What you want and what I want are two different things.”
“Doubt that.”
When he took a step closer, she took a step back.
“Gonna prove you wrong.”
The large kitchen suddenly felt way too small. Even with the windows open, the oxygen in the house seemed to be gone. Her surroundings became a vacuum which held her fast. Her heart squeezed as he took another step, closing the gap between them. She scrambled backward and her ass hit the kitchen table, stopping her escape.
“Lookin’ for a strong woman to stand by my side, baby, and that’s you.”
“No.” She wasn’t strong, not anymore. Her strength had been sucked from her, leaving her an empty shell. “I’m not her.”
“Yeah, Stella, that’s you.”
“You think I’m strong but I’m not.” She wasn’t who he thought. She needed him to see that. To look elsewhere. She could not be who he wanted.
“Bullshit.”
“Every fucking day’s a struggle, Trip.”
“And you keep wakin’ up. That right there takes strength.”
Holy shit. He needed to remain a complete asshole and not say stuff like that. Otherwise, he’d easily chip away at the armor she wore to keep him at bay.
But him paying the outstanding bills, telling her he’d have her back, reminding her how strong she used to be...
Giving her the hope she could be that strong again.
Like he was doing with the club, she needed to rise up and grab life by the balls.
“Whatever the fuck it was that drove you to crumble the other night didn’t crush you. Don’t know what the fuck it is or was, but know it wasn’t just the bar. Got your fuckin’ back, Stella, to fight whatever haunts you.”
No. She couldn’t rely on someone else to do it for her.
She needed to do it herself.
She needed to dig deep and pull herself out of the depths of despair. To find the sun behind those dark clouds.
And if the pressure of making the bar successful wasn’t weighing so heavily on her, if she had help with relieving some of that weight, maybe she could do just that. Fill that hollowness inside her with something other than sorrow and regret.
The only solution that was realistic was letting Trip help her and to stop fighting it.
But it scared her. The knowledge he wanted so much more than to just help her.
He wanted all of her. And she wasn’t sure if she could ever give him that.
She was born into a club where the females were put into boxes.
Ol’ ladies, where they became a member’s main bitch. She couldn’t even say the brothers’ one and only, because she’d seen with her own eyes that wasn’t true. Faithfulness was lacking.
Sweet butts, the so-called patch whores, who did whatever wherever with whomever. If one of the brothers wanted head, she dropped to her knees and gave him head. If they wanted to gang bang her, she spread her legs and let them take their turns. Otherwise, if she didn’t do what one of the patched members asked, she was either banned from the club or worse.
The house mouse, usually a female underage or barely of legal age, used to take care of a member’s domestic needs in every way but sexual. But Stella wondered now how many of the teenagers and young women she remembered had been getting used in more ways than was expected.
The backpacks. Usually the occasional hang-arounds. A female hoping to get her claws into one of the patched bikers. Or a female allowed to come along for one of the club runs but she didn’t belong to one biker. She was only a toy for the day.
She was thankful her mother had taken her away not long after Trip cracked her head open. Because if she had stayed...
She might have ended up in one of those boxes.
Now Trip wanted to put her in one. He never said the words ol’ lady and if he wanted her to stand by his side, she had no idea to what extent. An ol’ lady usually had no power within an MC. No females did. Worse, they usually stood behind their man, not next to him.
Women in an MC were nothing but property. And the men did with them what they wanted.
Why women volunteered for that shit, accepted it willingly, she’d never know. Why her mother did? The answer, when she had asked, was her mother loved her father. And she said Pete treated her well. But that didn’t add up since her mother grabbed Stella and escaped Manning Grove during all the turmoil. If her mother loved her father, why would she just leave?
She never got that answer no matter how many times she’d asked it. And Stella’s only guess was to save herself and her daughter from the violence that was sweeping through the club.
Why her father and mother didn’t reconnect later when the dust had settled...
Again, another question that had gone unanswered. And would forever be a mystery.
“Stella.” Trip’s deep voice saying her name brought her back to his kitchen.
And her current situation.
Which was Trip’s long fingers curled around the side of her neck, his thumb pressing under her jaw as he searched her face. She wondered what she’d revealed while she was lost in thought.
Whatever it was had etched concern on his face.
In one way, he could make her life so much easier.
In another, he could make it so much harder.
To get the first, she knew she wouldn’t be able to avoid the second.
Especially when he dropped his head and once again took her mouth in a crushing kiss.
Chapter Nine
He wanted to throw her over the table, pound her from behind like he did at the bar the other night. But then, he also wanted to throw her over his shoulder, carry her upstairs and eat her pussy out until she came all over his face.
He wanted to take her rough and relentlessly but also wanted to be gentle and take his time, discovering and appreciating every inch of her.
He decided he’d do both.
And if he go
t his way, he’d be able to do either one on a regular basis.
The thought of only fucking sweet butts didn’t do it for him. When he was fifteen—hell, even younger—they got him hard and he wanted every single one of them. With how they dressed and how they acted, what teenaged boy with raging hormones didn’t?
Now that he was thirty-five, he couldn’t swallow the idea of fucking any of them.
Not that the club had any right now anyway.
But they’d show up. They always did. They’d do whatever was demanded of them, no matter how perverse, in hopes of being allowed to hang around the club or becoming an ol’ lady. In hopes of securing a coveted spot on the back of a brother’s sled.
It was one thing to bust a nut in a sweet butt, it was another to make her your permanent piece. Nobody wanted to go home to a woman who’d fucked, sucked, and more, all your brothers. No brother wanted a woman like that being the mother of his kids.
Why they thought they’d had a shot? Trip never knew as he watched sweet butt after sweet butt getting bent over and accepting the load from a line of brothers, waiting to give it to her.
He’d watched that and much worse.
At the time, he wasn’t a patched brother, still too young to even prospect, so he couldn’t participate.
Besides that sweet butt being told by the president, his own father, to pop his cherry, Trip wasn’t allowed to touch any of them.
Stella would never be one of those. But she would be his.
And his alone.
He deepened the kiss when she didn’t try to pull away, didn’t make a sound except for a low groan he captured in his mouth. In fact, it was her tongue that invaded his mouth and found his first. Touching, tasting, not tentative at all.
She wasn’t holding back which proved she wanted him, too.
Only he didn’t want this to turn into what happened the other night, where she goaded him into being rough.
There was nothing wrong with rough if that’s what she wanted, it just had to be for the right reasons.
Being punished for something that happened in her past—whatever it was— wasn’t one of them. One of her hands curled around his waist, the other slid up his chest, skimming over one of his nipples before pausing on his throat, then a second later moving up along his jaw, and into his hair. She took a handful and he waited for the sharp pain of her ripping on it to free herself.
But it never happened. Instead, she tugged him forward, bringing him closer until his dick, now hard and throbbing in his jeans pressed into her belly.
She was not soft because she was too thin. She probably couldn’t afford to eat like she should.
He would remedy that, too.
He loved the softness of a woman’s belly, the wide curve of a hip, the heaviness of a breast, the roundness of her ass. Flesh he could grab and hold onto, squeeze and bite.
The ecstasy on Stella’s face when she ate that slice of bacon...
He wanted to see that every morning. He never wanted her to worry about where her next meal was coming from. Never wanted her to have to choose a booze invoice over a grocery bill again.
That shit was going to end immediately.
Without breaking the kiss, he tugged her tank up her belly, shoving her bra up and over her tits until they were free of the restraint. He swore the tips of her nipples were as hard as his dick as he thumbed one and then the other.
The urge to taste them, suck them, bite them became so overwhelming he broke his mouth free and slid his nose down her jaw, her throat and with one hand holding the cotton of both her tank and bra out of the way, he cupped one, pinched the nipple between his finger and then sucked it deep into his mouth.
His teeth scraped the tip as he squeezed her tit hard, her back arching and her breath rushing from her on a cry.
Taking small bites, he worked his way to the other one, sinking his teeth gently into the soft swell first and then sucking the nipple hard.
The fingers from both of her hands were now threaded into his hair, her nails digging into his scalp, not to discourage him, but to encourage him to continue.
He pulled his mouth away just enough to growl, “Shirt off,” before going back to taking one puckered nipple into his mouth then the other.
Her shirt and bra were ripped over her head, leaving his hand free to slide along the waist of her jeans.
He hadn’t seen her completely naked the other night, he only got to see her ass and the back of her thighs. This morning he wanted to see all of her. Every fucking inch.
But before he could thumb the button of her jeans free from its hole, a pounding on the door made him freeze. Stella stiffened, too.
He was going to kill whoever the fuck it was.
He needed to remember that this property would be no longer his own and people would be in and out on a regular basis as well as living on site. Having sex in the kitchen in view of the door probably wasn’t a good idea unless he wanted a possible audience.
He did not.
And he was pretty sure Stella didn’t, either.
He straightened as she held her discarded tank and bra in front of her tits.
With a flushed face, she focused on the door behind him.
He closed his eyes, reined in his fury at being interrupted and turned, but tossed over his shoulder, “Put on the tank, leave off the bra. We’re not done.”
He gave her a few seconds to do just that as he also stared at the large figure on the other side of the door. He was pretty sure his body was blocking the man’s view of Stella until she got herself covered.
Then he strode to the door and yanked it open, ready to rip someone a new asshole.
He rethought that really quick-like when he saw who it was.
He’d been in plenty of fights, and he’d kicked a lot of asses, but he knew his limits.
The club’s new enforcer was one of them.
Plus, it wouldn’t be smart causing bad blood from the get-go when things were just starting to come together.
So, to cool his boiling blood, he sucked a deep breath in through his nose, counted to five and released it. A habit he’d gotten into when trying to control his temper, so his six years inside didn’t turn into life without fucking parole.
“Brother,” he greeted, glad his voice didn’t shake with his dissipating anger.
Judge jerked his chin up in response. “Deacon’s here with his shit.” His green eyes slid past Trip to where Stella was and stuck there. One brow lifted slowly as he looked at Trip for a second before his gaze returned to a quiet Stella. “Hey, Stella.”
“Hey, Judge.” She sounded a bit breathy, which made him bristle, but when she cleared her throat and asked, “Where are the babies?” it was back to normal.
Judge’s expression didn’t change much but enough so Trip knew the man hadn’t missed the change in her voice, either. “In the truck.”
“Give them a scratch for me.”
“Will let ‘em out when we get down to the barn if you wanna give ‘em one yourself. Just stopped in on the way to give Trip a head’s up we’re here.”
Trip was pretty fucking certain that Stella wasn’t going to head down to the barn to give the fucking dogs a scratch.
The only scratches she was going to dole out would be on his back. And he needed Judge to get lost for that to happen. “He can have whatever room he wants.”
“Thinkin’ he wants one of the apartments.”
“Thought you wanted one of ‘em.”
“Yeah, but he wants the other one before it’s claimed.”
“Savin’ the one for—”
“Sig,” Judge finished for him.
“Sig?” he heard behind him.
Judge’s eyes again landed on Stella behind him. “Had the same reaction.” They came back to Trip. “Savin’ an apartment for someone who might not even fuckin’ show up.”
“He’ll show.”
“Got a lot of fuckin’ confidence, brother.”
“He’ll
show,” Trip repeated, hoping he was right.
“If he don’t land behind bars again. He’s like a fuckin’ boomerang when it comes to prison.”
“That’s a good reason for him to come home.”
Judge shook his head. “You didn’t see his sheet.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Was only one piece of the puzzle Deke used to find him.” Judge leaned in closer and lowered his normally booming voice. “Your agg assault with a deadly weapon’s child’s play for him.”
Fuck. Trip needed to tell Stella about the charge he caught and why he did time, but he wanted to be the one to tell her. Not Judge.
“Want a copy of it along with Rook’s.”
Judge nodded. “When you goin’ to see ‘im?”
“When I get a chance but before he gets sprung, in case he thinks about not comin’ straight home.”
“Yeah, smart. He’s another one who gets pinched just by crossin’ the fuckin’ street.” Judge wasn’t joking.
“If I know their weaknesses, we might be able to keep them out.”
“What about your own?”
He locked gazes with Judge. “Got it under control.”
“Yeah, you opened that door ready to tear me a new asshole. Just a warnin’, I already like the one I have, so I’ll do what I gotta do to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“This club needs to be solid, Judge. Fighting amongst ourselves will burn it to the ground again. Not gonna let that happen.”
“Then you’ll keep your shit together.”
Trip gave him a single nod. “No other choice.”
Judge gave him a single nod back. “Yeah. I hear you.”
“You never landed anywhere, at least.”
The monster of a man simply tilted his head and grumbled, “Just never got caught.”
“Guess that’s the key.”
“That’s the fuckin’ key.”
“Speaking of keys. For now, the barn and bunkhouse won’t be locked. But there’s individual locks on all the rooms. The key to your apartment’s up there on the counter. The keys to the rooms downstairs are in each individual room. Like I said, he can pick whichever room he wants since he’s the first one movin’ in.”
“Apartment ready?”
“Just needs another coat of paint. Doin’ that this week.”
Blood & Bones: Trip (Blood Fury MC Book 1) Page 13
