Revolution (The Lone Riders MC Series Book #1)

by Betham, Michelle

  Jesse scuffed the heel of his boot against the skirting board, his eyes on the floor now. ‘I regret so much, Lexi.’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t do that, Jesse, please.’

  He finally looked at her, their eyes meeting. ‘President or not, if he makes you unhappy, I’ll fucking kill him.’

  She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Is that a promise?’

  He smiled, too, laughing. ‘Yeah. You bet your perfect ass it is.’ He pushed a hand through his long dark hair. ‘Jesus, Lex. Are we ever gonna start getting our shit together?’

  ‘Probably not,’ she sighed, pushing herself away from the wall. ‘But I guess that’s what makes this place so much fun, huh?’ She winked at him, and he laughed again.

  ‘Prick tease.’

  ‘You wish, handsome.’

  ‘Always, Lexi. Fucking always.’

  She threw him another smile as she walked backwards towards the chapel, bumping into Shane coming out of it. ‘Oh, Jesus, sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

  ‘Hey, sweetheart, you can bump up against me any time you like.’

  She looked at him. ‘Five minutes back here and you’re already sounding like you’ve never been away.’

  ‘Guess that’s what this place does to someone, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. I guess it is.’

  ‘Everything all right with you?’

  ‘I think so. Just got to have a word with Coby and then…’ She looked down for a second before lifting her head to look at him. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay… well, Coby’s just in there, so… I’ll leave you to it.’

  He started to walk away, but Lexi called him back. ‘Shane!’

  He turned around, throwing her that smile and transporting her back to a time when he’d just been one of the guys that hung around this clubhouse. Before all this shit had kicked off.

  ‘Are you glad to be back?’

  His smile grew wider, and for a brief second Lexi once more allowed the intense pain and crushing guilt to take over. ‘I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else, darlin’.’

  She watched him walk off – from dead man to Vice President in less than two years. Shit! This place was twisted.

  Pushing the chapel door open a little wider she stuck her head inside. Coby was still sitting at the head of the huge wooden table, his hands clasped together on top of it, his head down. He looked deep in thought, his eyes open but staring at nothing in particular. Her big, brave, Scottish soldier.

  ‘Hey. You okay?’

  He looked up at the sound of her voice, pushing his chair back and standing up, walking over to her. ‘Come on.’ He took her hand, leading her down the corridor to the apartment, saying nothing more until he’d closed the door behind them. ‘It’s a bit more private in here.’

  Lexi looked over at the unmade bed, the clothes he’d been wearing yesterday lying in a heap on the floor. ‘How’s it feel to be in charge, President?’

  He looked at her. ‘Strange.’

  ‘You gonna be able to get used to it?’

  ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted. I just wish the circumstances had been different, that’s all. Where’s Ozzie?’

  ‘He’s with Tay. He’s fine.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me? I’m having a party here, Coby.’

  ‘Do you love me, Lexi?’

  She looked at him, at his scarred but handsome face, his eyes heavy and tired. The stress of the last few days was obviously beginning to take its toll. ‘Have you slept much lately?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘You should get some rest. You look shattered.’

  ‘Do you love me, Lexi?’

  She stared at him, her heart beating hard against her ribs. ‘Yes. I love you. But sometimes…’ She threw her head back, breathing out and swallowing hard. ‘Sometimes I really wish I didn’t.’

  ‘You don’t want an easy life, Lexi. You aren’t that kind of girl. And I love you all the more because of that. You’re one crazy fucking bitch, and Jesus, you give me shit I really don’t need. But I can’t do this without you, kid. I can’t. This club, it’s in my blood, it’s who I am and…’ He bowed his head briefly, before looking back up at her. ‘I need it almost as much as I need you, do you understand?’

  ‘I am so tired of people telling me I need to understand… I understand everything, okay? I might not want to… God knows there’ve been times when I wished I could just shut it all down. When I wished I didn’t know what really goes on around here. But I do know, and I understand, I do. I get it. It’s love you, love the club.’

  ‘I don’t know how any of this shit works outside of these confines.’

  ‘You aren’t that weak. You aren’t. You never will be.’

  ‘You were born inside this club, Lexi. Our son was born inside this club, in exactly the same place. And this club, it saved me. Because I was going nowhere, kid. I was just out of the military, lost in a world I knew little about. And then your dad, the Brotherhood, they saved me.’ He looked at her, right into her eyes. ‘I remember walking into that clubhouse as a Prospect back in Newcastle twenty-five years ago. I remember it like it was yesterday.’

  She walked slowly over to him, her eyes never leaving his. ‘So do I.’

  ‘You were just a kid.’

  ‘The day you turned up I was sitting cross-legged on a couch in the corner of the clubhouse. It was the summer holidays, I was just ten years old, and me and Kip were getting our first poker lesson from two of the other Prospects. I whooped all their arses three days later, won forty quid, and was banned from any more of their card games because they claimed they’d created a monster.’

  Coby smiled, every inch of him aching to reach out and touch her.

  ‘So, yeah, I remember the day you turned up at the compound. You didn’t have this.’ She ran her fingertips lightly over his beard. ‘And your hair had no grey in it. You didn’t have that scar… but I was just a kid. You were just another of my dad’s Prospects – the tall one with the Scottish accent, that’s what I used to call you.’

  ‘And I used to call you that cocky kid with way too much attitude. I just had no idea that that cocky kid was my future. That she’d grow up to be beautiful and strong; that she’d still have the attitude but, shit, she fucks like an angel so I can live with that.’

  Lexi moved a little closer, her fingers now gently stroking his cheek. ‘Did you miss me? When my dad sent you here?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Bastard!’ she laughed.

  ‘You were twelve years old when I left Newcastle, Lexi. You were just Charlie’s little girl, the baby tomboy who loved to hang around the garage asking far too many questions. Did you miss me?’

  ‘Like you said, I was twelve years old. More into bikes than boys so, no. Well, maybe just a little bit. I didn’t have a crush on you or anything like that but, you know, you were one of the good ones. I was happy, when they patched you in. So, yeah, okay, I was a tiny bit sad when you left. But I got over it.’ She dropped her hand, sliding it down the back pocket of her denim skirt. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t that long until I saw you again. And I was almost grown up by that time.’

  ‘Almost,’ he whispered. His eyes were burning into hers, holding her there, refusing to let her go until this was done. ‘Did you listen to what we were saying there, Lexi?’

  She cocked her head slightly, moving that little bit closer to him.

  ‘We have so much history, darlin’. You and me. And all of that past, all of it – that has to mean something.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, you’re not gonna start spouting crap about fate, are you? Come on, Coby. You know me better than that.’

  ‘I just don’t want you to walk away from me.’

  ‘I’m not walking away from anything. I didn’t want to walk away from what we had nine years ago, remember? It was other people who made that decision for me. Decisions that meant I had no other option but to leave my home behind, while you stayed. You walked away from me. Yo
u let me go…’

  ‘Baby, I had to. I had to, and you know that. It was the only thing we could do…’

  ‘Why? Because my dad told you it was for the best?’

  Coby said nothing for a few seconds, his eyes lowering to the floor, breaking the stare. ‘It was so complicated back then, Lexi.’

  ‘And things aren’t complicated now? The secrets and the lies, they’re still coming thick and fast, Jesus, I’m having conversations with a man I thought was dead! A man you told me you’d helped kill.’ She could feel an anger building up that she hadn’t wanted to feel, but it was there, twisting her stomach, messing with her head. ‘You told me you’d killed him. You. Why did you do that?’

  Coby shook his head as he looked at her. ‘Charlie thought…’

  ‘Charlie thought shit, Coby! Are you gonna let my dad pull the strings forever? You owe him nothing. Nothing. Okay, so he’s put you in charge here, but that means this is your club now. Yours.’

  ‘Ours.’

  She looked at him, that anger and confusion still burning away inside her. ‘Ours,’ she whispered.

  ‘If you love me, Lexi, then you really have to trust that I am trying to make things better. For everyone. For this club. But especially for you, and Ozzie, because you are my world. You’re my fucking world.’

  ‘As long as that world involves this place.’

  ‘I’m trying to make it better. But I really need Charlie’s help, Lexi. Right now, I need his help. And I know… I know the way we’ve gone about things so far…’ He looked down, running a hand over the back of his neck. ‘What’s gone on, it’s been hard for a lot of people to understand.’ He looked back up at her, their eyes locking once more. ‘But no more, okay?’

  She shook her head, folding her arms. ‘No. You can’t make me promises like that, Coby. You can’t. I’m not some biker groupie who’s just walked in off the street, I know you can’t make me promises like that.’

  ‘Then what the fuck do we do, Lexi? Where the hell do we go from here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly, backing away from him. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘I need you.’

  ‘You don’t need anyone. Not anymore.’

  ‘And neither do you. Not really. But when we’re apart we fuck up, baby. We don’t work. We don’t.’

  She threw her head back, staring at the ceiling. ‘Shit! Sometimes I wish I could just go back to being that twelve year old kid messing about with bikes because this is killing me.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be this way.’

  She moved a little closer to him, her eyes meeting his. ‘Have you ever wished we had a normal life?’

  ‘A couple of times, maybe. But I’d hate it, and so would you. Whatever normal is, we don’t do that.’

  ‘We can’t do that.’

  ‘Stop fighting this, Lexi. Please, darlin’. Stop fighting me, your dad – this club. Because you know, deep down, you’ll never win. You walk away from this, and a piece of you dies. You could’ve walked away years ago, you had that chance. But all you did was run to the Mother Chapter.’

  ‘I went back home.’

  ‘I thought Paradise was your home.’

  ‘Shane had to go to England.’

  ‘You didn’t have to go with him.’

  ‘What’s going on here, Coby? What are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to make you realize where you belong.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘Yes. With me. By my side. My beautiful biker queen. You belong here. And you know that, you’ve always known that. You’re just too bloody stubborn to admit it.’

  ‘When I first came back here you were still backing away from me, still refusing to acknowledge what we had, Jesus, you had to watch another man fuck me before…’ She shook her head. ‘No. Even then, even after that you still couldn’t admit that we had history. So, you standing here, telling me what you’ve just told me about fate and our past meaning something…’

  He reached out and pulled her to him, ignoring her slight protestations, her feeble attempts to push him away. Instead he shut her up with a kiss, his hand fanning out in the small of her back as she melted against him, her hands flat against his chest.

  ‘I hate you so much,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yeah. The feeling’s mutual, kid. But the sex is so much better when you’re mad at me.’

  ‘You think you’re gonna get sex out of this?’

  ‘I know I am,’ he said quietly, his mouth so close to her ear, his breath warm on her neck.

  ‘You sure you can handle me?’ she breathed, already feeling her skin break out in a barrage of goose bumps.

  ‘I’ve handled worse.’

  She closed her eyes as his mouth lowered down on to hers again, his beard rough against her skin; the most beautiful feeling.

  ‘You gonna get naked?’ he whispered, his hand sliding up the back of her t-shirt.

  ‘Oh, so that’s conversation over, is it?’

  ‘I just want you to shut up and open those ridiculously long legs of yours because we’re done now. Neither of us was ever going anywhere, Lexi. We were only ever gonna end up here.’

  ‘You’re so sure of yourself, soldier.’

  ‘Because I know you love the way I fuck you,’ he murmured, his mouth close to her ear again, causing those goose bumps to intensify. ‘I know you do.’

  Lexi couldn’t help a lengthy groan from escaping as she felt his hand slide her skirt down over her thighs. She kicked it away the second it dropped to the floor.

  ‘This is how we deal with everything around here.’ He pulled her t-shirt off over her head, running his hands down over the curve of her waist, his eyes locking on to hers. ‘We fuck, and we forget all the shit because we can deal with it all. Everything, baby, we can deal with it.’

  ‘I still hate you,’ she groaned, unclasping her bra and throwing it aside.

  ‘Like I said, the sex is so much better…’ He lowered his head and briefly covered one of her breasts with his mouth, flicking his tongue over her nipple, ‘… when we hate each other. When you fight against me and pretend you don’t want me in there when I know – I know you do.’

  She didn’t even know how they’d suddenly got here, one step away from sex when she hadn’t yet got her head around just where that conversation had actually left them. But she was naked now, his arm holding her close, the roughness of leather and denim scratching her skin, his beard tickling her neck as he covered it in kisses. She was heading in only one direction here. And that was anywhere he wanted her to go.

  He lifted her up, placing her down on the sideboard, and she spread her legs, watching as he unzipped himself, not even bothering to take his cut off, but in some respects that only turned her on all the more. Her big, brave biker soldier. The man she hated to love. The man who’d broken her heart but she’d never, ever let him see that. She’d never tell him of the nights she’d spent curled up in a ball crying until she made herself ill because she was confused and fighting everything she felt for him. For nine years that had been her life – not knowing what she’d wanted, and knowing all along that she wanted him. For almost nine years her life had made no sense, until now. Until this very second, when she felt him push into her, her legs wrapping around him, her body angling itself to pull him in deeper. Now it all made sense. All the shit and the pain and the lies so sick she hoped they’d never be repeated. It all made sense. Because it had all led her to this moment, with this man.

  She rested her hands palm-down behind her, arching her back a little further, pushing her hips up against him as he thrust harder, now as deep as he could go inside of her, his groans mingling with hers until it all built up into one long, loud cry, him coming first, spilling a torrent of white-hot heat out into her. She could feel it, feel him taking her over, feel him injecting that beautiful poison into her system once more, and as she succumbed to her own climax, letting those burning tingles wash over every inch of her, she pulled her legs
tighter around him, keeping him there, keeping him inside her for as long as she possibly could.

  ‘Still hate me,’ he gasped, his breathing ragged and heavy.

  She looked at him, stroking his hair from his eyes. ‘With a fucking passion.’

  ‘Aye. You really are one crazy bitch.’

  She smiled, running her thumb lightly over his slightly open mouth before kissing him, sucking on his bottom lip before sliding her tongue inside, finally unwrapping her legs from his hips as he eased himself slowly out of her. ‘You better believe it, soldier.’

  There was a knock on the apartment door, and Lexi slid down from the sideboard, quickly pulling her clothes back on.

  ‘Come in,’ Coby said, leaning back and folding his arms.

  Charlie stuck his head around the door, smiling at Lexi as she stood next to Coby. Her skin was all flushed, her chest heaving slightly, and the way Coby was looking at her it was obvious, even to Charlie, what had just gone on. What he could’ve walked in on if he hadn’t knocked. But then, his hearing had always been pretty good.

  ‘Everything okay in here?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Lexi replied, feeling Coby’s hand slip into hers. She turned her head and looked up at him, smiling slightly, her fingers wrapping around his. ‘It’s just fine.’

  Charlie opened the door a little wider. ‘Can I head back to Newcastle now knowing the Paradise chapter has my favourite couple in charge?’

  ‘I’m not in charge, Dad.’

  ‘You are if he says so,’ Charlie said, nudging his head in Coby’s direction. ‘Anyway, the women are always in charge. We just don’t always let them know that.’ He smiled, leaning back against the doorpost, folding his arms, his eyes on Coby. ‘You gonna look after my little girl?’

  ‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’

  ‘And my grandson?’

  ‘I’m gonna make him proud, Charlie.’ Coby looked at Lexi, squeezing her hand. ‘I’m gonna make them both proud.’

  ‘Then that’s all I need to know.’ He looked at Lexi, at her hand holding tightly on to Coby’s. ‘You still resent me, don’t you, kiddo?’