Soft footsteps behind them announced that Tia was back. Kate shut her mouth. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from asking any more questions. Jack was right. Tia didn’t need to get scared. He was just trying to protect his wife. Protect them both.
Tia let out a gasp of shock when she glanced down and noticed the blood on her husband’s hands. “Oh shit. Holy shit. That’s it. I’m calling for an ambulance.”
“No!” Jack and Kate both exclaimed at the same time.
Tia looked at them and her lips parted in shock. She glanced between them, her eyes sweeping over Jack’s face first, then Kate’s. She slowly shook her head and held out the bottle of whiskey, followed by a needle and black thread.
Kate let Jack handle the whiskey and she took the damn crafting supplies. “You any good at sewing?” she asked as Jack went about trying to disinfect the wound.
“Fuck no,” he grumbled. “Does it look like I’m into making pot holders and quilts?” He let out a low grunt as he hefted the big man off the floor and checked the other side of his back. “I could tell it was clean through from looking at the front. He was shot from behind, probably while he was trying to get away.”
Kate’s eyes widened. “How can you tell?”
“The wound. Different sizes. The entrance is usually smaller, cleaner. The exit is larger and messier.”
“I don’t even want to know how you know that.” Kate shook her head. “I have a feeling it’s not from a quick online search.” She took a deep breath and regretted it instantly when the sharp metallic tang of blood filtered into her lungs. She had to swallow hard to keep bile from rising up into her throat. “Do you think we can actually do this? Sew him up and not have his shoulder fester and fall off?”
“Shoulders don’t fall off,” Tia moaned. “What if he gets blood poisoning or sepsis and dies?” She stalked back and forth in small steps, ringing her hands in front of her.
“I’m not trying to scare you, love,” Jack muttered under his breath as he glanced at his wife. “But the bullet wound is the least of our worries. We’ll patch him up and that’s as much as we can do. He might be bleeding out on the inside. I have no way of knowing what his organs are doing. He’s lucky that bullet missed his lungs and heart.”
“Oh god, oh god…” Tia gripped her hands harder, so hard that her fingers turned white. “What do you mean? We have to get him to the hospital.”
Jack slowly shook his head. “No. We can’t do that?”
“Why?” Tia challenged, on the verge of hysteria.
“Because.” Jack’s mouth set in a hard line and the murderous glint that shone underneath the worry and fear in his eyes stunned Kate. Clearly it shocked her sister as well. “Whoever is looking for him will find him there and that will be the end of it. My club was probably one of the rosiest fucking clubs out there. It wasn’t really a club at all. Just a bloody gang with a bunch of thugs who were dumb as fucking door nails for the most part and even they hunted men down who tried to leave. This is probably much, much worse.” He stared pointedly at Kate. “Now. Ready to sew him up?”
Chapter 2
CREED
Creed was conscious for far longer than he let on. He drifted in and out of the blackness, the pressure in his skull a maddening ache that wouldn’t let him fully open his eyes. He could hear things though, voices, he thought, through the muffled jammed up, foggy, barbed wire sharp pain in his head.
At first he’d been frantic. His body wouldn’t listen to his commands to get up and fight. To keep fighting for his life. He knew he was in danger He hadn’t made it. Hadn’t made it somewhere safe.
He realized, after the first few minutes of panic swept through him, that he was wrong. He’d made it after all. He recognized Jack’s voice, the voice that had once belonged to a man who was almost a real brother to him, and he relaxed and gave himself back up to the blackness.
When he came to again, he knew he wasn’t dead. The searing pain in his body was too white hot for him to have shucked off the old mortal coil. Unless he was in hell. Which was a definite possibility, because he sure hadn’t done anything that could be termed even close to good with his time on earth and it felt like flames were licking up his skin.
He realized, after a few moments of lying still, listening to the silence around him, trying to gather enough strength to force the concrete lids of his eyes open, that the burning was coming from somewhere right above his heart. It wasn’t flames. It wasn’t the devil sticking him with a pitchfork. Just his body. His shoulder. Where I was shot.
His present might be a hazy black blue, but the memories were vivid. Allegra, daughter of their president, the girl who had a crush on him for years, threw herself at him. He rejected her, not because he didn’t think she was beautiful, but he knew what it meant for one of them to lay a hand on their president’s daughter. He’d wind up with his dick cut off. If he was lucky. If he wasn’t, he’d still lose his dick, but he’d be too dead to care about that.
He’d tried to explain to her, but there wasn’t any reasoning with an eighteen-year-old girl. She’d gone straight to her father and told Jim that he’d raped her. Fucking raped her. Him. Who had never laid a hand on a woman in violence or disrespect.
Rather than bothering with any sort of due diligence, which would have included checking to see if his daughter had indeed been defiled or was just lying like the spoiled brat she was, Jim lost what little marbles he had left. He’d gone for Creed and when he’d tried to run, they’d caught him. Beat him in the middle of the damn road. It was a miracle the guys Jim gathered could even see straight, given that the shit hit the fan right after a hard night of booze and blow.
Which was probably what saved his life.
He wasn’t some rookie who couldn’t hold his own. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken on four guys and it sure as shit wasn’t the first time he’d been shot. He took his fair share of blows, but he’d been able to get back on his bike and get away.
Jim shot him in the shoulder as he escaped. Which was lucky. Because Creed knew for a fact the guy had been aiming for his head.
Jim didn’t often miss. He had some really bad blow to thank for that. Or maybe it was meth or some over the counter opioid shit, maybe the whiskey, maybe the two hookers Jim was up with until he passed out in a drug induced coma. How his daughter even woke the guy was a motherfucking mystery.
Creed could think of only one place to go. He’d kept tabs over the years on his old mates. His original brothers. There was only one close. Jack Stevens. A hell of a made-up name, but the guy was still the same guy who had once been the closest thing to family Creed ever knew.
He’d ditched his bike as far away as he thought he could. Holding one hand over the leaking wound, he’d dragged his sorry ass up to the front door.
And it figured that just as he was about to ring the damn bell like a nice guy who had been invited over for a game of basement poker or a sweet Sunday dinner, he’d passed the fuck out on their doorstep. He clearly remembered hitting the concrete steps. With his face. He didn’t remember much after that.
Creed tried once again to unglue eyes that had never felt so heavy in his life. It felt like someone had taken a damn baseball bat to his head then continued on with the rest of him for good measure. He’d handed out as good as he gave. Even blew out Wrench’s knee and put a bullet in Shady’s foot. Fucking assholes. Butch was just lucky that he’d been knocked out with a single punch or he might have eaten a bullet too.
Creed had never killed anyone before, but he should have made an exception for Jim. Instead of shooting the good ol’ prez in the thigh, he should have aimed a little higher. Gut. Heart. Head. Any one of those would have been acceptable.
They’d be coming. Guys that were little more than thugs, guys that would carry out any of Jim’s crazy fucking orders for another hit of whatever shit they were strung out on. Guys that wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Creed knew he had to get the hell out
of there. If he could just open his uncooperative son of a bitch eyes.
Women’s voices floated around him and he knew he’d endangered whoever they were just by being there. He tried to get his body to cooperate, to function, to just do one fucking thing, but it wouldn’t. He was betrayed by his own fucking pussy ass self.
He needed to get out of there. Get to his bike and get away…
On a sharp inhale, Creed summoned what little strength he had left. Finally one lid cracked. An inch. He gazed through an unfocused haze, likely brought on by blood and swelling, at a white wall in front of him. He wished he could turn his head. He tried. It was no use. The barbed wire in his head stabbed into his brain in all directions and if he could have, he would have screamed.
Suddenly he realized that his mouth was bone dry. So dry. Like he’d sucked on sand for a year straight. Like he hadn’t had a sip of water in his entire cursed life. He tried to get his tongue between his blistered lips to moisten them, but he couldn’t. They cracked an inch and a pathetic whimper, like that of a wounded animal or a damn baby, came out of him.
There was a rustle to his right and then, blissfully, something cool and wet against his lips. A trickle of water hit his tongue, which felt ten sizes too big for his mouth, and he nearly wept at the feel of it.
He tried again, to open his eyes and as if by magic, both lids popped open. He stared through the blurry haze at the white wall in front of him. He gathered that he was in a bed, probably in Jack’s spare room. It took all his energy to turn his head to the side. Sharp, white hot pain assaulted him in every possible nerve ending, with the movement.
Jesus, it hurts to be shot. It hurt worse than to be on the receiving end of a bloody beat down by goons who fucking meant business. He’d been shot before. That horrible tearing of flesh and muscle, the liquid fire that spread out from there, the rush of blood, the horrible weakness that followed and the endless pain. He wouldn’t forget any of that anytime soon.
Something leaned into view. He blinked a few times, slowly, shocked that he was able to even do that. That something was someone.
Blue eyes. Eyes like sapphires, like the bluest, cloudless sky, eyes the color of a tropical sea, swam before him. The rest of a face that looked like it belonged to some kind of unearthly being, swept into view. Dark hair. A cascade of it. Flawless porcelain skin. Dainty features, sharp cheekbones, immaculate brows, thick eyelashes, a tiny straight nose, lush red lips, a dainty angular jawline- her beauty was so astounding, so ethereal, it took away what little breath he could force in his lungs.
“Jesus,” he rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper rasping over a rusted metal pipe.
“Oh! Oh my god, you’re actually awake.” The woman’s lush red lips opened in surprise. Her sweet pink tongue darted out to moisten them and what do you know, Creed wasn’t dead after all.
His dick jumped to life under the covers. It stood up so straight and hard that he realized he was naked under the sheets. Why? Why the fuck would that respond when the rest of me won’t follow any commands? I can barely open my eyes, but my dick gets hard just looking at her lips? Come. Fucking. On.
“Are you-” he ground out. He licked his lips and tried again. “An- you- I know this- ain’t…” he gasped for air and when he inhaled sharply, it fucking hurt. It hurt to expand and contract his lungs. It hurt just about everywhere, but his chest was a mess of molten, fiery pain. “Heaven, but…”
The woman laughed and her sound was like water trickling from one of those fountains that people thought sounded relaxing. The kind placed in waiting rooms and in spas and shit like that. He’d always wanted one as a kid. Obviously he’d never had one. His junkie excuse for a mother couldn’t even provide essentials like food or a roof over their heads. Fountains- hell, fountains were for normal kids with normal lives. Kids who ate regular meals and didn’t find their mom passed out with a needle in her arm. Normal kids didn’t see the parent who was supposed to love and protect them, whore herself out for another hit. Always one more fucking hit.
“I’m no angel. And this isn’t heaven.” Something soft and warm swept across his brow.
Creed groaned when he realized that it was her hand. The woman, she’d touched him. She’d touched him and lord, that brief contact made his body ache in a way that hunger, hangovers, fists, boots and bullets couldn’t.
“Jack…” he hated that he was so weak, that it hurt to even produce a word, that his tongue felt like it was tied in knots.
The woman nodded. “It’s okay. He and my sister both work during the day. He called in sick for the first four days, but after that, he needed to go. I’m just here on vacation. Well, what was supposed to be vacation. I haven’t got away in a looooonnnngggg time. And let me tell you, this is definitely more exciting than Mexico, which was where I was going to go. You know, do the whole beach vacay thing. But I live in Florida, so I didn’t really see the point of going somewhere warm, when it’s always warm and I missed Ti, so I came here. Oh my goodness. Okay. I’m rambling on and you have no idea who I am or what’s going on. Right. Okay. Sorry.” She sucked in a deep breath and two bright pink spots appeared on her cheeks.
Creed wished he had the energy to force a smile. His lips, which he realized were swollen and puffy, likely wouldn’t take kindly to the movement. He wished he could, just for her. Not because he smiled. Ever. Not because he’d ever really paid attention to women. Not because- well- not because of anything. He just wanted to fucking smile. For her.
For the angel in front of him who was drop dead gorgeous. He realized that she must belong to someone. Jack? The thought tore him up inside. The rage he felt was instant, so violent that his whole body heated with it.
What the hell is going on here? Must have taken a few too many blows to the motherfucking head. Never in his life, which wasn’t that brief since he’d somehow managed to live to see the ripe old age of thirty-five, had he ever felt anything close to what he’d just experienced.
He didn’t even know this woman, but her beauty was a real head fuck in itself. And he’d just set eyes on her face. Blurry eyes. Eyes that could barely focus or see. Definitely too many punches. Probably have brain damage.
The woman smiled at him, softly, prettily, and he nearly groaned again. It was lucky that the sound trapped somewhere in his burning lungs and aching body and didn’t escape his battered mouth.
“Okay. So- here’s the thing. I get that you’re probably not a good guy. You’re obviously involved in something shady. Which is why I actually have a loaded gun beside me. Jack has instructed me only to use it if necessary. He says you’re old friends, but he hasn’t seen hair nor hide- no that doesn’t make sense. Okay, so I’m no good with words. I- I’ve gone over this a few times in my head actually, since this morning when I- little old me who was supposed to be on vacation, got stuck watching your sorry shot up, beaten down ass. Jack doesn’t know shit about you. Doesn’t know why you’re here or if you’re dangerous. He knows you need to get the fuck better so you can get the hell out and leave us alone.
“While you’re here, you’re a danger to us all. So don’t try anything stupid. Don’t lay a finger on me or even make a move. I won’t kill you, but I will shoot your dick off. Believe me. Jack took turns taking me and Tia to the range, making sure we knew how to shoot the gun. So don’t try it. Because in those few hours, I got real good and at point blank range, I won’t miss. So unless you want to walk around as a eunuch for the rest of your life, don’t try anything. I don’t like that you’re here, endangering the lives of my sister and her husband. I don’t live here, but if trouble comes along before I leave, you’re a dead man. Jack will kill you himself. Or you’ll bleed the fuck out from your missing dick.”
Even though it hurt, Creed cracked a smile. He paid for it when pain radiated out from his mouth and the metallic taste of blood trickled in as he bust up all the cracks that were probably half healed. A horrible, garbled, sound that half passed for a laugh came out of him.
> The woman’s gorgeous blue eyes narrowed.
He wasn’t much for vows. Didn’t even like taking them when he was sworn into Jim’s club, but hell… he’d take a vow for her.
He realized that she wasn’t Jack’s. She said she was visiting, mentioned someone else, a sister. It finally clicked into his battered, bruised brain.
Fuck the danger. Fuck the fact he’d been beat half to death and shot for good measure. Right then, with her eyes blazing and her lips parted and the filthy threats about his cock spilling from her mouth, he knew he’d do anything to make that woman his.
Chapter 3
KATE
It was damn well unnerving how the no-good piece of shit laying in her sister’s spare bed was looking at her. His eyes, dark, though the pupils were ringed with red and the white were frighteningly bloodshot, stared at her like he could see right through her. He had the nerve to laugh at her! Laugh! Like she was a goddamn joke.
“Don’t. Don’t do that,” she hissed. “I’m serious.”
“I- know you’re serious.” The guy’s voice seemed to be getting stronger. His words picked up steam with every passing moment. He still looked frail enough, and she hoped like hell that didn’t change until Jack got home. After that, the damn convict or whatever he was, could get better real fast and hurry up and get the hell out of the house and stop putting all their lives at risk.
“I know you’re trouble.” She didn’t bother keeping the bitterness or anger out of her voice. “Jack knows it. He says you’re going to have a whole army out looking for you. Likely. Unless you killed them all. And if you did, then you’re even worse.”
“Creed,” he sputtered. “I have a name.”
“Yeah, Jack told us that’s what you used to call yourself. A stupid, club name that wasn’t your real name at all.” She waited for a response, but none was forthcoming.
Creed blinked hard at her, as though he was trying to focus. “Four days?” he eventually croaked. His eyes locked on her face in an unnerving sort of way.
Lonely Rider - The Box Set: A Motorcycle Club Romance - The Complete Series Page 29
