“You just a young bitch,” Digger went on, shifting in his seat and stretching his long legs out. “Feel me? Reckless, too. You have the makins of a real sexy bitch. A dude hit your pussy two, three times, you’ll find your sexy and you gonna be one bad bitch.”
Having been around these men for the past few days inured her to their unique phrases. She should’ve been insulted or embarrassed or both. She wasn’t either.
Digger rested his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Outlaw got sisters so he try to do right by bitches. I think he know if he fuck you, he gonna say ba-bye to any other pussy. A man gotta come to terms with just seeing one pussy the rest of his life. Know what I’m saying?”
Sorta. Kinda. Still… “That isn’t true. Christopher already has a girlfriend, anyway.”
Zoann frowned. “He does?”
Mortician folded his arms and threw her a mocking look. “Says who?”
Digger laughed so loud Meggie glanced around, waiting for security to arrive and escort them out. “Where the bitch at?”
Meggie pulled her attention away from Rack’s silent scrutiny of the entire scene. She still didn’t trust him, although she needed to take more care in her accusations, especially now, when she wouldn’t have Christopher around to prevent Rack from harming her.
“Well, Megs, who is she?”
She nodded her head in the direction of Ellen and Kiera. “Kiera,” she answered.
Ellen bristled. “You think?” she called sharply.
Meggie glared at the annoying woman.
Johnnie grabbed Meggie around the waist. “Slow down, hellcat. And, Ellen, keep the fuck quiet.”
“Meggie, that’s the stupidest fucking idea I done ever heard cross your lips,” Digger snorted. “Them bitches don’t belong to him. Kiera might give him pussy but she get dick from whoever else is willing to put it on her.” He winked. “Most recently, me.”
Ellen laughed while Kiera made a sound of distress as jealousy burned through Meggie.
Digger wasn’t finished. “He not bringing no loose pussy home to Miz Patricia, his momma,” he clarified at Meggie’s silent question. “You, on the other hand, yeah. He’ll bring you home and show you off. Mark my words. Not going to happen, though, if you skulk off like a frightened bitch.”
Resting her fingers on Johnnie’s forearm and leaning back against his chest, Meggie pondered Digger’s words, unsure if she had the nerve to stay after Christopher’s conversation. On the other hand, where else did she have to go? And, even after identifying Christopher as a certifiable madman, she wanted him. She wanted to feel as special as she had when he’d given her her birthday gifts and brought her the cupcakes. Though she hadn’t wanted the boots since Kiera had the same pair, she had them on because she had no other shoes to wear. He’d at least thought about that. She wanted to snuggle into his side like she did whenever he decided to sleep next to her in his bed.
“She must feel good in your fucking arms, John Boy,” Mortician said, scratching his jaw. His dreads tied back made the diamond studs he wore in his ears more noticeable. “Your arm been pressing against her tit for fifteen minutes now.”
Without a word, Johnnie released her. His dancing gaze summoned the evil eye from her. He winked. She blushed.
Sitting down, she drew her knees to her chest, resting her head on them. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by listening to Digger instead of heeding the words Christopher had spoken.
Meggie sighed. Only time would tell.
CHRISTOPHER OPENED HIS EYES, A steady beep resounding in his head. Pain careened along his nerve endings and an antiseptic smell gathered in his nostrils.
He wondered at the time. Kiera’s head lulled as she sat in a chair next to his bed, her dark hair curtaining her features. The harsh taste of the various medicines filled his dry mouth and he groaned.
Kiera jolted up and blinked, glancing around as if she needed to get her bearings.
Finally, she turned to him and a huge smile curved her mouth. “Hey, baby.”
As much as he liked Kiera, he didn’t want her with him right now. “Yo.”
She jumped to her feet and hugged him. “I been so worried about you.” Her hands skimmed over his body, bypassing his wounded shoulder and traveling down his stomach. “I thought I’d never hear your voice again. Taste your dick again.”
What the fuck? He’d gotten shot up and this bitch was worrying about tasting his dick?
He gazed around the room, searching for Megan and knowing he wouldn’t find her since he’d sent her away. It disappointed him she’d listened to him now.
Fuck it. He’d sent Megan away for her own good. In the big picture, Kiera was a sweet girl, just the type of chick he deserved and wanted. Sweet but not innocent. Tough but not vicious.
He tried to imagine Kiera pregnant for him, but the thought didn’t jive, refused to form completely.
She covered his mouth with hers, spearing her tongue against his. Christopher turned his head away, not really feeling Kiera at the moment.
“Whatcha doin’ here?”
She reached over and thumbed his lips. “I been here all night. Everybody else left.”
“How long I been here?” One of the questions he’d meant to ask Megan before he’d been a dickhead and sent her away. The nurse had come in, not long after Megan left, and told him he’d been there five and a half days.
What? “What the fuck you mean? A week?” he’d demanded.
“Just what I said,” the nurse-bitch had said with a frown. “Five and a half days. Almost a week.”
Since Christopher didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping this time around, he wanted to find out.
“You’ve been here six days,” Kiera said now.
He’d only been out a half day, this time. Still…he wasn’t doing his club duties.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. There wasn’t no motherfucking way—
Fuck! He shoved the covers aside, intending to stand and find his clothes. Check himself the fuck out. Bullshit like a week-long hospital stay was just the shit Rack needed to assume control of the club.
“What are you doing?” Kiera cried, jumping back.
“Gettin’ the fuck outta here. I ain’t believin’ this shit.”
“You were shot–”
“I was fuckin’ wounded. A flesh fuckin’ wound.”
“You lost a lot of blood and slipped into unconsciousness on the way here.”
“How the fuck I end up unconscious for almost a goddamn week?”
She shrugged, the import of his absence escaping her. Of course it would. What the fuck did she know any-fucking-way?
Monitors were beeping, the cuff of the blood pressure machine inflating. Numbers were blinking in red. He felt dizzier than a motherfucker, but so-fucking-what?
The door crashed open and several nurses rushed in. “Mr. Caldwell! You have to return to bed.”
“No,” he gritted. “I gotta get to my fuckin’ club.”
“Christopher! Christopher, please settle down.”
As two male nurses lunged at him to wrestle him back onto the bed, he glared at Kiera. “How the fuck I got in this fuckin’ place any goddamn way?”
“That girl.”
Megan, she meant. He slapped away the hand of one of the grasping nurses.
“Listen to me,” she said urgently, turning a blind eye to Christopher’s struggles. “Rack is your Judas. He’s feeding information to Snake. I’m sure. Just like I know you been thinking.”
“Don’t fuckin’ try to figure me out, Kiera,” he snapped, elbowing the persistent fucks.
“I saw him and that girl talking. I think she helped him.”
That startled Christopher so much, he stilled, giving the two fuckers a chance to subdue him.
“No fuckin’ way! Megan ain’t doin’ shit like that.”
“Think about it,” Kiera went on. “Her appearance out of nowhere. And she’s Boss’s daughter. She just happened to show up right around
the first anniversary of his death. She’s innocent, huh? Then why don’t she question nothing about our lifestyle? She just took to it like a duck to fucking water.”
Every cell in Christopher’s body rebelled at the idea of Megan working with Rack, and, possibly, Snake. But, fuck him, Kiera had a point. Megan hadn’t been born into this shit. Yet…yet, she’d just went with the flow.
“Calm down, baby,” Kiera cooed.
Christopher would’ve responded but one of those nurse bitches pumped something into his IV. He only hoped he didn’t get a fucking concussion when he hit the fucking floor. His last conscious thought was Kiera’s yelp of pain and the blurry vision of her flailing arms.
Well, fuck.
The next time Christopher awakened, the room was dark and quiet. The opened curtains revealed the night. He couldn’t see anything else, though. His head pounded and his mouth tasted as if his tongue was made of cotton. He covered his face with both hands and cursed. He needed to get the fuck out of here.
Yeah, you fucking genius, that shit already established.
Christopher scowled at the random thought. How long he’d been out this time? Another fucking week?
“Christopher?” a soft voice said, startling him.
Megan. What was it with this girl? Why the fuck couldn’t she fucking leave? Why the fuck did he want her to stay? Megan was the wildcard. Boss’s daughter, who’d arrived just a few days before Snake’s attempted takedown. The shit Kiera said made a lot of sense.
He glared at Megan. “Get the fuck outta here, you fuckin’ bitch. You set me the fuck up.”
Her gentle look vanished and her mouth fell open. “What?” she screeched, high color blooming in her cheeks. “Set you up? Like I worked with those men to have you killed?”
He nodded.
“Jerk!” she yelled. “If I’d set you up, I would’ve finished you when I found you all shot up. And I wouldn’t have brought you to the hospital!”
The sudden glare of the light directly behind his bed made him blink. Once his eyes adjusted, he noticed her standing as still as a statue, to his right. He reached his arm out and pulled her next to his bed. Her hair clipped up, she wore the clothes he’d bought her for her birthday. She looked tired and sad and alone. And young. So fucking young, he wondered if she had permission to be in the room with him. Of course, she did. He knew she did.
“You show up outta the fuckin’ blue and–”
“It wasn’t out of the blue, Christopher,” she murmured, his given name the sweetest sound he’d ever heard coming from her lips.
His head pounded in confusion and he wanted to be alone, not have those blue eyes appeal to him like a beacon to his dark soul. “Don’t fuckin’ call me by my name.”
A frown creased her brow. “W-why? Is there a warrant out for your arrest?”
Christopher rolled his eyes and snorted. Was she for real? “I been laid up in this motherfucker for how long? Under my real goddamn name? If there was a warrant out, chances high, somebody woulda been clued in ‘bout my whereabouts.”
“You’ve been here six days.”
“Six fuckin’ days too long.”
“No, it isn’t. Rack is looking after things.”
Christopher just bet he was.
“I had no choice but to bring you here. You were dying.”
“And? You don’t fuckin’ know me. Perhaps, I wanted to fuckin’ die.”
She stared at him and Christopher braced himself for some inane bullshit. Words like, ‘of course you don’t want to die’ and ‘you don’t really mean that’. The fuck he didn’t.
“I understand. Recently, I’ve wanted to die, too.”
That statement shouldn’t have shocked the shit out of him. She was gorgeous, well-spoken, and brave. She had everything to live for. At this very moment, she should be out with some little preppy fuck, talking about college and careers. She shouldn’t be stuck in this fucking hospital room with him. As if she had any other choice. She had a step fuckhead who had to be taken care of and a dead father whose protection she needed.
“Yeah? Why?”
She shrugged. “I’ve never been away from my mother for more than a day or two. And—and I’ve never been on my own.”
As much as Christopher wanted to punk out and go the bitch ass route by pointing the finger at Megan, he couldn’t. A made-up argument might get her away from him but it would put her right back in danger. No, the shooting at the clubhouse had been brewing long before Megan arrived.
“I had to leave,” she stressed. “For the reasons you guessed.”
She swallowed, frowned, looked away. Swallowed again, looking anywhere but at him, Christopher noted, admiration for her grit rolling in him.
“My stepfather. His groping had amped up from holding my hand against him. Um, his groin. To pinching my…my nipples and trying to…”
Her voice trailed off and she hunched her shoulders, but humiliation haunted her eyes and tightened her mouth.
“Tryin’ to rape you?” he finished for her, his voice neutral.
“Um, I-I suppose it would’ve ended up that way. He l-liked to put his hand in…in my panties.”
Remorse hit hard. Boss had been destroying himself, the club, and his son. Of course, Snake was born destroyed, missing the gene that gave him compassion.
Christopher might’ve fucking went from one woman to the next. And, yeah, he might not have been a fucking gentlemen to bitches all the time, but he’d never killed one for the hell of it to get his rocks off. And he certainly didn’t snort and shoot up the fucking merchandise. Payoffs to the cops had become more and more exorbitant because Boss was fucking up right and left. So Christopher began quietly lobbying the brothers to do an intervention. As the Vice President, he wanted a coup. Overthrow Boss until the dude got his shit together. Let him detox. Get all the killing out of him. Make him be the man Christopher remembered and admired.
He hated Boss for making him have to choose between their lives. He hated Boss for turning a blind eye to his son’s actions, a stone cold fucking killer. He hated Boss for turning weak and strung out.
Christopher knew the man had adored his daughter. Or had before his brain became fried. And, yet, Megan knew none of that. She believed her father could’ve protected her. In the last eighteen months of his life, he hadn’t been able to protect a club full of grown ass men. Not only that, in those last months, he hadn’t once mentioned his little girl. How fucking pathetic.
“I didn’t set you up.”
Her fingers slid through his hair and she stared at him. All Christopher saw was innocence and longing. Yeah, she hungered for him, but her desire for him overrode the baseness of pure lust. Something had to stop this freight train of disaster, careening at Mach 2 towards Christopher’s bed. He grabbed her face between his hands. “If you’re fuckin’ lyin’ to me…”
“I’m not. I swear.”
He believed her. Christopher knew how bitches tripped. Kiera could deal with him fucking Ellen, but, apparently, she didn’t like the thought of him being with Megan.
If he lived as long as Methuselah, he’d never understand bitches. Especially the one who currently faced him down, more fearless of him than some men.
Fuck, did it really matter to him whether or not Megan knew Christopher killed her pops? If he wanted her gone, really wanted her gone, confessing to his murder would send her the fuck away. But which way would she go? To the police? Back home, even though she was terrified of Thomas Nicholls?
He sidled a glance at her and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “What you plannin’ on doin’ ‘bout the shootin’?”
Her throat worked. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yeah, you fuckin’ do.”
She shook her head, met his gaze. “Nothing,” she whispered. “Val explained things to me. How it works.” She licked her lips. “With law enforcement and the Death Dwellers.”
His nostrils flared and he searched her face for any signs she was ha
ving second thoughts about not speaking up.
“It don’t bother you?” he questioned. “Men died.”
She looked away from him and shifted her weight. “This is…was Daddy’s club. If he…he r-ran it…if he t-took care of…k-killed men who in-invaded his t-turf,” she managed through sniffles.
“Megan,” Christopher crooned.
She drew in a deep breath and he allowed her a moment to compose herself.
“This was his life, Christopher. Whether I like it or not. I’d never betray him.”
He nodded and smiled at her. A small smile ghosted across her lips.
“Where you been livin’ since you ran away? Before I took you back to the clubhouse.”
“By the creek.”
“In other words, you fuckin’ homeless.” Something he already knew.
“You can say that,” she mumbled.
Fuck. Whether he liked it or not, he’d just acquired a very beautiful, very sumptuous, eighteen-year-old to look after.
CHRISTOPHER “OUTLAW” CALDWELL WAS THE most ornery, insufferable man Meggie had ever met. Any minute she expected some law enforcement agency to storm the Death Dwellers’ compound to arrest Christopher for intimidation and intent to do bodily harm to someone. Namely, his physician. He’d left the man no choice but to release him. Or else. Meggie didn’t like the ominous tone of the ‘or else’ and neither had the doctor. Five days after he’d awakened and an hour after issuing the ultimatum, Christopher was on his way back to the clubhouse, refusing to let Meggie drive his souped-up pickup, even though she’d driven him to the hospital in it.
He’d stopped at a drugstore and loaded up on magazines, novels, and puzzle books. Meggie wasn’t sure what they’d been for. However, the moment they arrived at the club, he’d grabbed the bag, ushered her out of the truck, then dragged her to his room. Once there, he’d shoved everything at her, told her “stay put”, and disappeared.
She liked crosswords and magazines but she didn’t like to have that as her only entertainment. And, not enough of them existed in the world to take her thoughts off Christopher’s sculpted body or the need to have him touching her.
She hadn’t seen him since and it was early evening. Her concern for Christopher made everything else insignificant. She knew he had club business—whatever that meant—but he was still recovering from gunshots and blood loss.
Death Dwellers Motorcycle Club:: Fifteen Bad Boy Biker Books Page 13
