I stood up and reached into Dad’s drawer where I knew he had a folder filled with the crime rates from the past thirty years. I dropped the folder on the desk with a thud. “Then, see for yourself. Ever since the Outlaws moved into Black Hills, the crime rate has decreased over time. Yes, there have been spikes, but that’s any town in the country.”
“You’re just trying to justify their actions, so you don’t feel guilty for being a cop who sleeps with a criminal,” Willie’s wife finally spoke, and her words were filled with so much disgust I could practically see it oozing out of her.
“You want to talk about criminals?” I said, coming around the desk, and leaning my ass against the wood. “You couldn’t possibly know what we were doing or discussing unless you were peeping through windows, and if that’s the case, I can have you thrown in jail for breaking the law.”
I stared the woman down, who I assumed was one of Beast’s neighbors, and waited for her to shift uncomfortably in her chair before continuing. “That guy. You might know him as Beast. But go home and search the Internet for his real name, Bentley Harris.”
It was the first thing I did when I got to work. After knowing the whole story, I knew exactly what to look for. It’s not that I didn’t trust that he didn’t tell me everything. I just wanted other accounts from everything he had been through.
“What you will find about Bentley Harris, other than a couple arrests for bar fights, you will find a decorated war hero who received the Medal of Honor from the president of the United States for his actions in the war. You will read about a man who saved the lives of many people and nearly died when his unit’s Humvee went over an IED, and would have if it weren’t for his efforts.”
I shouldn’t have told them, and as the words poured out of me, I wondered what Beast would think about me bringing his past into his present. About letting these people, who he never had any intention of pleasing, know about his horrid past. But, it’s not like I was telling them anything they couldn’t find if they knew the right things to search.
The last time I looked him up, I was too focused on finding the bad that I saw right past the good. It was right in front of me from the very beginning, but back then I realized now, that I was just like the people sitting in front of me. They had already formed their opinions, made up their minds about the Outlaws, and there was nothing I could say or do that would change that.
“Just because he wears leather and rides a motorcycle doesn’t make him a bad person. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I actually have work to do. You can let yourself out.”
I didn’t wait for a response. I honestly didn’t care what any of them had to say. All I cared about was them staying out of my damn business. I headed over to the coffee machine, but Reed blocked my path.
“What are you doing here? You still have a couple days left.”
“Is it true?” he asked, his teeth clenched, his fair skin exploding with varying shades of crimson.
“You should go home, Reed. Take the time. You’re given it for a reason.”
“Is it true?” he growled, but it was more comparable to one of Beauty’s growls, trying to be intimidating, but lacking the necessary edge.
“Is what true?” Dad came up behind us, sticking his nose in our conversation. A conversation I would have preferred he did not hear.
“Your daughter, who is supposed to be upholding the law, is canoodling with one of the Outlaws.”
“Did you just say canoodling?” I asked, unable to help myself. It was almost comical at this point, and I didn’t care if I turned the whole thing into a joke. Because it was, wasn’t it? At this point, it was like a bad sitcom where the town people actually thought they had a say in your life.
“I could have been more vulgar, but I was raised better than that.” I didn’t like the way he looked at me, his eyes filled with judgment.
“Are you insinuating I wasn’t raised right?” I asked, then turned my attention to Dad. “Dad, what do you have to say about that?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Reed quickly backtracked when Dad’s cold stone stare landed on him.
“Then, what did you mean?” Dad asked.
“We’re getting off topic here.” Clearly irritated and losing his nerve, he started talking wildly with his hands.
“Listen to me, and listen to me good,” Dad said, taking a step closer to Reed, and lowering his voice so the rest of the nosy people couldn’t hear our conversation.
“Ryan, is a good cop and, at the end of the day, that is all that matters. She would never put herself in a situation that she didn’t think was safe or legal. Besides, her personal life has nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with her work. You got that?”
Reed laughed manically, running a hand through his hair. “So, you’re okay with this? Okay with the fact that your daughter is fucking some criminal?”
Dad’s fist balled at his side and, luckily, I was able to grab it before it made contact with Reed’s face. “Dad, not the answer.” While he was the one in charge here, hitting Reed could turn into a mess if Reed decided to go over his head, and go to the state government. Not that I thought he would, but still. I needed to get all these assholes on my side, or at least on terms of understanding, and knocking one of them out wasn’t going to help me.
Dad looked down at my hand holding his wrist, his hand balled into a tight fist. He slowly unraveled his fingers, and I released my grip.
“Reed, get the fuck out, and come back when you can control your mouth.” Dad moved until he was right in front of Reed. “Don’t you ever,” he growled with more intensity than I had ever heard in my life from him. “Talk about my daughter like that again.”
With an annoyed wave of his hand, Reed stormed out. Dad went to head to his office and I rested a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks, Dad.”
Dad looked down at my hand and, for the first time in my life, I saw disappointment shining through and aimed at me. “I told you not to get involved with him, or any of them.”
“I know, but he’s not who you think he is.” There was a pleading tone in my voice. Dad knew all of the behind the scenes details of the Outlaws. He knew every bad thing they did, and every good thing they did. He knew the ways they protected the town, but he also knew in order to do so they sometimes had to kill people. But the people they killed were bad people, and maybe that wasn’t okay, but it’s not like they killed innocent people in the streets. “You know me. I wouldn’t…” My words faltered as I searched for a way to make Dad believe that I wasn’t some stupid girl caught up in some fairy tale because I was too weak to resist the charm of a good looking guy.
“Whether he is or he isn’t, what he’s involved in is dangerous.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I know,” he finally said, and I felt like I could breathe again. “I just hope you know what you’re doing.”
I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing. All I knew was that Beast challenged me and infuriated me, but he also made me feel things I never felt before. When I was with him, I wasn’t drowning in a pool of regrets and self-pity. Just being with him, even if we didn’t share a single word, I felt completely content. Something I had never felt before.
So, maybe I had no clue what the hell I was doing, but I wasn’t going to turn my back on him just because the future wasn’t clear, and I couldn’t see past the right now.
My body convulsed as Beast worked me into another intense orgasm. Tiny light bursts exploded behind my eyes, as he continued to thrust into me. His thumb rubbed circles on my clit, and I dug my fingers into his shoulders, as I held on for what felt like a never-ending ride.
When the million sensations bursting and colliding inside me began to slow to a sizzle, I opened my eyes only to be staring into Beast’s dark brown stare.
“You okay, there?” he asked with a hint of a smile on his face.
“Oh, yeah.” My eyes could barely hold open, but I forced them too because being the object of Beast’s attenti
on was the best feeling. I loved the way he looked at me. How the hard glare and stiff scowl softened when our eyes would meet. When we first met, he was so far into the shadows and now I could almost see the light inside of him.
He continued to move in and out of me, causing a slew of aftershocks that had me writhing beneath him. He bent his head, pressing his lips to mine, and making me forget about all the shit that happened earlier today. In Beast’s bed, the only thing that mattered was us and nothing else.
His big hands splayed across my back, and he lifted me until he was on the edge of the bed, and I was straddling him. Our bodies, hot and slick, slid against each other as our lips moved in a similar dance. His fingers grabbed the elastic band holding my hair up, and gently pulled until my hair was free from the restraint. It fell in waves behind me, and he knotted his fingers into the strands.
“Come for me again,” he said, moving his hand down the curve of my side, and stopping right on my center. His thumb once again began to circle my clit, setting off a series of moans. “Come on, darlin’.”
“Only if you come with me,” I said, resting my forehead against his, and running my fingers down the hard lines of his jaw.
He nodded against me, as he grabbed my thighs and rocked me back and forth on his cock. I relaxed my back, taking him even deeper, and cried out when he thrust all the way inside me.
“Look at me,” he demanded through heavy breaths.
I forced my eyes to focus on his as we both rocked against each other, both racing for the edge, ready to explode. The sound of skin smacking skin echoed through the room as we quickened the pace.
“Oh, God!” I cried out. “I’m going to come.”
“Wait for me,” he growled, picking up the speed even more, slamming into me with deep, hard strokes.
I stared into his eyes, trying to hold onto the little control I had left, trying to wait for him. My moans became louder as he pushed me farther and farther to the edge. “I can’t,” I breathed.
“Let go, darlin’,” he said, and it was my undoing. I came hard and fast, my body jerking with the intensity as he fell over the edge with me.
“You’re beautiful when you come,” he said, placing a tender kiss to my nose.
“Only when I come?”
“It’s a different kind of beautiful, knowing that I did that to you. Made you look that way.”
We lay back on the bed and, after he disposed of the condom, he pulled me into the crook of his arms. I rested my head on his chest and looked up at him. “Where does that come from?”
“What are you talking about?”
I realized I started the conversation in my head, and he needed more context. “When you call me darlin’, you suddenly have this accent. I want to say it’s Southern. So, I’m just curious where it comes from.”
“I was a born and bred Texas boy,” he said, in a complete southern accent that was incredibly sexy.
“Really?! You mean to tell me I bedded myself a cowboy?” I imagined Beast in a pair of tight jeans that accentuated his cute ass, and a flannel shirt that pulled tight across his muscles… a cowboy hat and some big belt buckle.
“That cowboy has been dead for a very long time.”
I was learning more and more about Beast every night when we “accidentally” met and went for jogs, and when we spent the rest of our nights in bed together. But there were times like this when it became abundantly clear that there was still so much I didn’t know about him. “Why? Was Texas that bad?”
“Must you always have to start with the questions?”
It was no secret that he didn’t like the game of twenty questions that I tended to always fall into, but, without it, how would I have learned anything about him? If he could just understand that I was interested in him. He fascinated me and, as someone I was growing to care about, I just wanted to know everything there was to know about him. Even if that meant talking about a past he’d rather forget.
“I just want to know about the guy I’m sleeping with. I don’t think that’s asking too much. Do you?” I figured going with the truth was my best bet. Maybe he’d understand that I wasn’t interrogating him. I was just generally interested.
“Texas wasn’t bad. But, after everything that happened, I couldn’t stay.”
“Is that when you dropped the accent?”
“No. I dropped that my first year in the Marines, so people would stop calling me farm boy.”
“Awe, farm boy?” I poked his sides, but it didn’t even faze him. “Isn’t that cute!”
“No.”
I put my fingers up, and held them just shy of connecting. “It is just a little.”
“No.”
“Then we can agree to disagree. So, why didn’t you like them calling you that? You seem like the type that wouldn’t give a shit about what others thought.”
“Back then, I was a little vain.”
“You?” I sat up, looking down at him and laughing. “Now that I find hard to believe.”
“Good because I’m not that guy anymore. You’re right. I don’t give a shit about what others think. But, back then, I felt like I had something to prove, and I didn’t think I’d be taken serious with that nickname. I looked at my accent as a weakness. People could identify me easily just by saying the southern kid. I didn’t want to be able to be picked out of a crowd just because I talked differently than the other guys. Not that I ever was in a situation that made me realize that, but I was thinking ahead. Thinking about any weaknesses that could get me in trouble. I felt like my accent was one of them, so I got rid of it.”
“But it slips back every now and again.”
He nodded. “Not often, but it does.”
“I like it,” I said, placing a kiss to his chest.
“Why?”
“Because it’s part of who you are. You might have left your past behind you, but your past is what shaped you to be the guy you are today and, if you want me to let you in on a little secret…” I glanced at him, his eyebrow arching. “I kind of like who you are.”
He traced circles on my bare back. “I’m a cop’s worse nightmare.”
“Maybe so, but just because I might not agree with everything you do, that doesn’t make me like you any less.”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t.”
“We’ll never be able to be seen together. People will talk. It’ll put your job in jeopardy.”
“Too late for that,” I said, and Beast’s eyes cut to mine. “Had a run in with a few of the townspeople today. Apparently, one of your neighbors saw us together. An old lady, mid-sixties, salt and pepper hair, red glasses.”
“Dammit. I should have been smarter.”
“It would’ve come out eventually. Better sooner than later, right? Besides, I handled it. I think. Reed is a little pissed, but understandably so. He just lost his uncle to a car bomb. Willie’s wife was there, too, and Kent from the jewelry store.”
“That fucking bastard. I can’t stand him.”
“He has a chip on his shoulder, but I hit him with facts. Now, it’s up to him whether he believes them or not.”
His hand stilled on my back and he put it behind his head, looking up at the ceiling like he was lost in thought. Silence spread through the room, except for Beauty, who just started scratching at the door. Normally, he would jump up and let her in but, this time, he just lay there staring up.
“What the fuck are we doing?” he finally asked, running a hand over his face.
“Talking.”
“No, I mean this.” He motioned his hands between us. “I don’t want to let you go, but we haven’t even taken this beyond the bedroom, and you’re already getting harassed.”
“I’m a big girl. I can handle myself, and I hate that I have to keep reminding you of that.”
“I never said you couldn’t.” He raised his voice, and then pushed out of the bed. He went to the door and opened it, letting Beauty into the room. She ran to the side of t
he bed, jumping up and down, but never having enough clearance to make it on the bed. I bent down and picked her up.
Beast paced the length of the room. I didn’t bother saying anything. He was working something out in his head, and I could see the tension in his shoulders, the anger brewing just below the surface. It was better to let him deal with it on his own than to start pushing buttons.
Finally, after a few minutes, he stopped. That dark intense stare pinned me in place. “The club is my life.”
“I know that.”
“I’ll never leave it.”
“I figured as much, and I would never ask you to.”
“Good,” he said, sitting down on the bed. Beauty ran over to him, and flopped on her back beside him. “One of my brothers did, and I wasn’t happy about it. I thought he was a fucking asshole for letting a girl influence him enough to leave the brothers who were there for him, who had protected him. I didn’t understand it. It was what he wanted, though, and I could see it so clearly in his eyes. I didn’t have to understand to know it was important to him. But now…” he turned to me, resting his hand on my cheek and running his thumb across the apple of my cheek. “I get it. I would never leave the club, ever. But, for you, I just might.”
Tears pricked my eyes at his words. His declaration carried more impact than a simple “I love you” ever could. His club, his brothers, the few things he cherished in life… he would possibly leave behind if I asked him too. I would never. I could never take him away from the only life he felt like he belonged in, after everything he had been through. I would never make him choose between a life that accepted him and a life he could have. He had been through enough, and he deserved whatever he chose.
I placed my hand on top of his, lacing my fingers through his much larger ones. “The club is who you are. And, like I said, I like who you are. I wouldn’t want you to change, and I would never ask you to. The only thing I ask of you is to always come home. To never leave me alone in this world because, until I met you, I didn’t realize how alone I actually was. We might be on two opposite ends of the spectrum, but when I’m with you that loneliness, that feeling of never really belonging that sits beneath the surface, disappears. I’m a little broken, I know that, but you are too, and I feel like our broken pieces fit together to make us whole again.”
Beast (A Righteous Outlaws Novel #4) (The Righteous Outlaws) Page 16
