by Tracey Ward
“He fucked you,” Hyde growls, those three words all he knows today.
I square my shoulders, refusing to bend. “The strength of my honor is not determined by the actions of others, but by the merit of my own being. I gave my word. Come Hell or high water, I’ll keep it. I understand that someone has to be punished for what happened and I’ll gladly take on whatever he has coming to him. But I will not give him up.”
The tension in the room rises violently, an unseen addition to the bodies surrounding the long table. Bear sits at the head of it staring at me. Reading me.
He clears his throat, sitting forward in his seat. “I appreciate your loyalty, son, but from where I’m sitting, it’s in the wrong place. Every man in this room has sworn himself to the club. To the family. No one else matters.”
“And when I’ve sworn myself to the Devil’s Due, I’ll live by the same code,” I assure him fervently. “The Due will be my first priority for the rest of my life.”
Bear chews on that, nodding slowly. “And you’re willing to take this man’s punishment?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Alright. We’ll put it to a vote. All those in favor of—”
“Wait.”
“What now?”
I try to breathe. I try to tell myself this is right, this is what I have to do, but it’s an ugly truth to live with. And it’s only going to get uglier. “I have a confession to make.”
“Another one?”
“It’s my last one. I promise.”
He sits back hard in his seat, rolling his hand in the air to tell me to get on with it.
I look directly at Devo, leaving no doubt in his mind what I’m about to own up to. “I can’t be your brother without telling you the truth about me and Harlow.”
“Oh shit,” Skeeze mutters under his breath.
“I love her. I’ve been in love with her my whole damn life,” I plow forward, pushing past every alarm bell screaming in my skull, begging me to be silent. “And three years ago, I had sex with her. And again last night. And then again this afternoon.”
“Dude,” Raw grunts. “Enough with the timeline.”
“It was wrong,” I admit to Devo. “It was disrespectful to you and I should have waited for her to end it with you before I touched her. I know that and I’m sorry. I really, truly, honestly am sorry for that, man. If I could go back and do it differently, I would. I’d be real with you and come to you and tell you that I want her. That I always have. But, no matter what, I’d still need her. I’d still pursue her. I can’t help that. And If you want to pull a gun on me right now, I’ll eat that bullet because I’d rather die knowing I had her for just one second than spend the rest of my life without her.”
Devo stares at me blankly. By the look of him, I may as well have just told him I took his last M&M; that’s how affected he is. The entire room looks to him, waiting for his reaction, but he never gives it. Instead, we pass into a very uncomfortable silence that drags on so long I start to feel faint from the breath I’m holding tight in my lungs.
Finally, Bear calls the room back to order from its eerie sleep.
“With that on the table,” he says seriously, “we’ll put it to a vote. All those in favor of bringing Strat in as a Prospect and accepting punishment for his relay’s betrayal, say ‘aye’. Those opposed, say ‘nay’.”
Kill raises his fingers into the air without hesitation. “Aye.”
“Aye,” Raw follows.
Hyde glowers at the center of the table, refusing to look at me. “Nay.”
“Nay,” Skeeze agrees. His face is pinched with regret and anger. He’s torn by a loyalty to both me and Devo, but Devo is his family. He’s a brother already. Up against that, I’m just a guy he knows who fucked over his friend. Of course he voted against me.
“Aye,” Bear votes firmly before turning to Devo. “If you vote against him, we’re decided. No tie breakers, no discussion. With the votes as they stand, he’s out if you want him out.”
Devo nods stiffly in understanding. He rises from his seat, coming around the table to stand in front of me. He stops just a few feet away, his eyes intense and dark.
I open my mouth to tell him again how sorry I am that I went behind his back, but he doesn’t want to hear it, and if I’m being real, I don’t really want to say it. I did all the wrong things for all the right reasons and I’ll take whatever punishment I need to take to make it right, but I won’t regret it. I won’t regret Harlow. Not for one second.
The first punch Devo throws is to my stomach. I see it coming but I do nothing to defend myself. I don’t even tense my abs. I let him hit me hard in the diagram; shoving the air from my body and replacing it with white hot pain. I double over around his fist which he pulls away quickly and reconnects with my face. My eye. My mouth. My nose breaks again. The hits are coming too fast to register everything piece by piece. Just as I’m aware of his fist cracking against my jaw, it feels like it’s already exploding against my chest. I see blood fly from my face and splatter onto the table, the floor, but I feel strangely disconnected from it. Like I’m watching a movie, not my own matter.
In brilliantly bright flashes and dismally dark shadows between the hits, I catch glimpses of the other men in the room sitting patiently at the table, watching as Devo beats me to my knees. They don’t make a move to restrain him and I’m grateful for that.
This is my penance. This is what I deserve.
Devo’s last hit is just as hard as his first, but I can feel it when it’s done. There’s a finality to the way he punches me in the face, and I let myself drop onto my back with the blow. I’m bleeding freely onto the floor, half-blind, panting in pain. Devo’s breaths come hard and fast above me. They fall over me in hot waves of agony that roll through my body, alerting me to every bruise and fracture he’s given me.
Devo doesn’t say a word as he turns to leave the room. I watch his boots on the floor out of the corner of my one good eye. They’re dirty. Dusted with blood.
Just as he reaches the door, Bear shouts to him calmly. “I need your vote, D.”
Devo stops, the door open and waiting. I don’t know if he looks at me. I don’t know if he looks at anyone in the room. Probably not, because if I’ve learned anything about the guy it’s that he’s got a vicious left hook and a surprisingly strong lone-wolf mentality. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about what he’s just done. Or what he’s about to do.
“Aye.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Josh
“Take it easy, man,” Raw cautions as I hoist myself up into the truck. “Go slow.”
I cringe as I fold myself in half to sit in the seat. Raw puts his hand on my back to steady me, his palm resting on the large winged skull of The Devil’s Due insignia that’s sewn onto the back of my cut. After Devo left, Kill and Raw helped me stand. They agreed that Devo had dealt me my punishments, for everything. Then Bear brought me my cut, carefully laying it on my shoulders. Skeeze and Hyde, the only men who voted against me, stood behind him watching as he swore me in.
Hyde looked angry. Skeeze was unsure.
Despite the pain and doubt that clouded my induction, it was the proudest moment of my life. Not getting into MIT. Not going to college in the first place. This, becoming the man I was always meant to be.
I’ll remember it forever.
Harlow quickly climbs into the driver’s seat as I pull the seatbelt across my lap. The back is loaded with her bags, her entire world vacated from the club in a matter of hours. It’s a sad sight to see but also a relief. It means things with her and Devo are well and truly over. It means she’s given herself the freedom to love me the way she wants to.
Bear gave Devo the same power over Harlow’s future as he had over mine; he was able to decide if she stayed with the club or was forced to leave. He surprised everyone for the second time today when he voted for her to stay. She’ll keep her job as assistant manager at the bar but she’s not allowed to live there
anymore. It’s a fair deal. Though where she’s going to live is still up in the air. We’re headed to my house now so I can get cleaned up and changed out of my bloodied clothes, but she can’t stay there full time. Her past is too close. We’ll have to figure out something else, and soon.
“I’ll buy you some Vics out of the stock,” Raw offers as he closes the door behind me. He hangs his long arms over the open window frame. “You’re gonna need ‘em, brother.”
With my mouth full of blood and pieces of one of my back teeth, I mumble a monotone, “Thank you.”
“I’ve got Percocet in my bag in the back,” Harlow tells us. “He can have all of them.”
“Where’d you get those?” Raw asks.
“I’ve had them ever since my wisdom teeth came out. I meant to give them to Josh the last time he was beaten to a bloody pulp.”
Harlow is angry. I can hear it in her voice even though it’s hard to see on her face with the swelling and the pain and the darkness closing in. She’s mad at Devo for what he did to me but she hasn’t said a word about it because she knows there’s no point. She’s been with the club for three years. If anyone can understand what just happened and why it had to happen, it’s her.
Doesn’t mean she has to like it.
“Alright, get him cleaned up and back here ASAP,” Raw tells her. “We got a party planned and your boy here is the guest of honor.”
“We’ll be here.”
“Make sure you are or Bear’ll be pissed.” Raw leans back to clap his hands on the frame twice. “Take it easy, man.”
“Yeah,” I mumble thickly.
Harlow drives me home in silence. She doesn’t say a word or miss a beat as she pulls into my driveway just a stone’s throw from her worst nightmare. I want to apologize for making her come here again but I know she doesn’t want to hear it so I don’t bother. I try not to throw more emotion at her than she can handle. It’s a very delicate balance but I’m learning it again. I’m getting to know her as she is now, not who she was three years ago, and as she helps me into my barren house where just yesterday I stored my drugs, where two men died on my living room floor, I think she’s getting to know me too. She’s accepted that I’m not the boy next door anymore. That maybe I never really was.
Once I’m in the shower, my everything starts to ache. I stand under the warmth of the water, letting it wash away my blood in thin, pink rivers that swirl around the drain before disappearing into nothing, but the pain remains. It haunts me in every nerve. With every movement and every breath. The beating I took from Bryan was nothing compared to this, but I’m not going to the hospital again. Despite the fierceness of Devo’s attack, it was calculated. Professional. He didn’t do any damage to my ribs and even though my eye is swollen, it’s not fucked. I’m not going to go blind, not any time soon.
“Josh?” Harlow asks hesitantly, her voice echoing around the small, hot room.
“Yeah,” I grunt in reply.
Her shadow falls over the shower curtain, long and slender. “I brought you a couple of the Percocet and some whiskey.”
“I don’t have any whiskey.”
“You didn’t have any Percocet either.” She pulls the curtain open, not shying away when water rebounds off my body onto hers in a misting spray. Her left hand is closed in a fist. Her right holds a stout glass of amber liquid. “You’re lucky I come prepared.”
I hold out my hand for the pills. She drops them neatly in my wet palm and I put them in my mouth quickly before they can dissolve away, leaving me to my misery.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” she whispers angrily, surprising me.
“I earned it,” I remind her, reaching for the glass of whiskey. “You won’t do shit about it.”
“Oh really? I won’t?”
“Not if you want me to keep my pride.”
Her lips purse together tightly. She’s livid, but she’ll keep her mouth shut. We’ll both take this beating and move on with our lives, accepting it as payback for cheating on Devo. For betraying my brother.
When I’ve drained the glass, she takes it from me to put on the sink behind her. There’s a stack of clothes folded neatly next to the glass.
She reaches for me with a frown, her fingers lightly tracing a bluish oval on my chest. “Any regrets?” she asks faintly.
I put my wet hand over hers, pressing it tightly to my skin. “Not a single one. You?”
“I regret not ending it Devo a day earlier. You wouldn’t be destroyed like this if I had been braver.”
“It’s not your fault. I knew what I was doing. And this wasn’t all about you. I paid the price for Harrison tonight too. If anything, I got off light.”
“Don’t tell them that. They’ll put you through Hell for the fun of it.”
“It’ll be our secret.”
I run my free hand through my wet hair, pushing it off my forehead to see her better. To enjoy the sight of her for the first time as mine. Free and clear, honestly and openly mine. It’s a strange feeling. One I thought I’d never experience but now that I am, I can’t get enough of it. Enough of her. I feast on her with my eyes, savoring the sight of the impossibly strong, kind, fierce woman in front of me.
My woman.
She starts to pull her hand back, but I take hold of it firmly. I keep it in mine, watching the mist from the showerhead land on the downy blond hairs on her arm. Her skin shimmers like light come alive. I can’t get enough of it. I pull her hand farther inside the shower. Up to her elbow. Her shoulder.
She watches me closely as I pull her in. She can see everything, all of me, but she watches my eyes. She breathes slow and steady, her chest rising and falling in that little pink tank top that doesn’t quit cover her stomach. That teases and taunts.
When I pull on her hand again she comes willingly. She steps into the shower with me, fully clothed, drenched in a heartbeat that leaves me breathless. Water cascades down her hair, darkening it. Matting it against her skin that glistens wet and delicious. It runs like a river over her collar bone, across her chest, down into the valley between her breasts. I trace it with my finger, making her shiver in the warm water. Making her chest rise sharply on an inhale as my finger dips between her breasts, chasing that river. She’s not wearing a bra. The water is matting her tank top to her skin, turning it translucent. It hugs the perfect round of her breasts, the flat of her stomach. The peaks of her nipples hardening as my hand dips lower.
Harlow touches my bare hips, her hands like ice against my hot skin. It makes me jump. Makes my dick stand up straight, begging for her attention. She trips her fingers lightly over my hipbone, following the line down to the V over my crotch. The feel of her gets lost in my hair but comes back full force when her palm wraps around my cock; tight and slow. So slow. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. All I can do is feel her, want her, and I think that’s been my life up until now. I haven’t been myself until this moment. Until I had her in my hands.
I take her mouth, swallowing her gasp as I push her back up against the wall. She doesn’t stop stroking me, never missing a beat. Even as I take her tits in my hands, massaging them roughly, she keeps up her rhythm. It’s punishing how slow it is. How calm. It’s at odds with her mouth that’s devouring mine. She takes over, pushing her tongue against mine, licking the roof of my mouth, the back of my teeth. Her breath is short, desperate, and still it’s more composed than mine. I’m a man possessed as I touch her, as I take her. As I lower my head to kiss down her neck to her breasts, pulling a nipple into my mouth through her shirt.
Harlow arches back, a strangled moan escaping her lush lips. I take it as the encouragement it is, tweaking her other nipple hard between my fingers. She mewls, her pace on my dick increasing.
This is it. This is how my girl likes it; rough and raw. Desperate.
I slide my hands up her stomach, under her shirt, pushing it over her head. She releases me to lift her arms, and I take hold of her before she can get her hands on me again. I’m unbuttoni
ng her pants, shoving the wet denim and silky underwear out of my way. I don’t bother getting them down entirely. They’re too wet, too tight, and I’m out of patience.
I spin her around, bracing her hands against the wall. Watching the water fall down her naked back, over her exposed ass. It’s round and perfect, better than her breasts, and I take my time touching it. Caressing her. She moans, thrusting it toward me, into my palms as I run them over its curves. She tenses when I slide my finger between her cheeks, but I move smoothly to her slit. To her heart where it’s hot and waiting for me, wet from so much more than just the shower. My fingers slip inside her easily – one, two, three – making us gasp. Making me so hard I think I’ll pass out.
I breathe deeply, steadying myself as I fuck her with my fingers. She opens her legs as wide as her pants will let her, letting me inside. I move in close to her, nestling my dick against her ass as I reach around to grab her breast. To trail my fingers down her stomach, past her hips, into the heat that’s devouring my other hand. I can feel my fingers moving in and out of her, coming back slick and hot. I use that wetness to swirl around her head, tickling her clit.
“Josh,” she growls, lowering her head. Her hands are white against the wall, clawing at nothing.
“You’re so wet, baby,” I mutter against her skin, biting her shoulder gently.
She shudders, leaning her head back. Giving me her mouth. I take it greedily, licking at her lips. Tasting her cries that rise in her throat as I pick up the pace, fucking her harder. Faster. Her clit is tightening under my fingers. Her lips quivering against mine. She’s close, and I think about giving it to her. I want her to feel good, always, but I need her too much tonight. I took the beating of my life to be with her, and I’m going to know what it’s like to love her. Open and completely.
I pull my fingers free of her, flicking her clit one last time to torment her. She whimpers unhappily at my retreat, but then I’m pulling on her hips, pushing on her shoulders, and she knows what I want.
She doesn’t hesitate to give it to me.
