Jump: Book 7 in the Vengeance MC series

by Natasha Thomas

  “Torment?” I question raising an eyebrow at her. Smiling at the amusement in my voice, Emily nods. “Fitting, isn’t it? Sometimes when I drive past the sign, I think my dad had a hand in naming the place. He swears he didn’t, but I wouldn’t put it past him. Anyway, dad heard about Scott and I breaking up over the grapevine and did some digging. By the time I got to school on Monday, Scott was sporting a black eye and clutching his ribs. I never did ask dad whether he was the one who hurt Scott because it was obvious he did. There’s only one man I know who wears a ring with a set of horns on it, so the point was moot when I saw an imprint of said horns on either side of Scott’s eye.”

  “Good for your dad,” I grin. “Hmm, yes and no. If you were to ask dad, he'd tell you that he still blames himself for everything that happened afterward. He thinks he was the catalyst for me changing my mind and going on that trip to Tampa, no matter how many times I’ve tried to convince him otherwise.”

  “What’s so bad about getting away for a bit to clear your head? You obviously came home and got back together with your ex so it couldn’t have been all that horrible.”

  The grin dies on Emily’s face as she glances over to look at Sarge. An expression I’ve seen in the mirror a thousand times appears, making me realize there’s a whole lot more to this story.

  “It wasn’t bad, Jump. Actually, it was quite the opposite. It was so good that I didn’t want to come home. If it weren’t for dad and a few of his brothers’ riding all the way down to convince me to come back, I wouldn’t have,” she admits sadly.

  “I’ll preface what comes next by telling you that I wasn’t all that close to the people I was traveling with. Yes, they were friends, just not real friends. Certainly, not the sort of friends who would be sitting beside you in a jail cell or help you bury a body. Let’s just say, seven hundred and eighty miles is a long way to be stuck in a car with people you suddenly find yourself having nothing in common with. Shelby, Cynthia, Jessica, and Mandy were your typical mean girls. Popular, snooty, and royal pains in the asses. Their idea of having a good time was getting drunk on moonshine and opening their legs to any man with a working dick and a fat wallet. Not necessarily in that order.”

  My mouth drops open at Emily’s use of the word dick. “Don’t look so shocked,” she quips.

  “I’ve had a child, Jump. But that aside, I’m still a woman, even though I’m older than the ones you chase, and I like…”

  “Stop. For the love of fuck, do no go there. My ears can’t handle it, and I’ll have to bleach my brain if you start talking about getting yourself some,” I plead. “Fine,” she says begrudgingly. “I see I’ve made my point.”

  Reassuring her she has, I nod fervently. “Loud and clear.” “So, to cut a long car trip short, I was forced to listen to slut one, two, three, and four make plans to hook up with as many men as possible. So much so, I dubbed the whole trip their Florida Fuckfest. It was disgusting really and something I wanted no part in, so we went our separate ways as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the motel they booked. I wasn’t at the time, when he had demanded I take his money, but right then, I was thankful dad was so insistent. Walking ten miles in the Florida humidity wasn’t the best start to my vacation, and I was lucky when I found the small hole in the wall diner when I did, or I would have passed out from heat exhaustion.”

  Emily’s not wrong; the humidity in Florida is no joke. The last run we did down that way was hell on me and my bike. The heat was so intense I honestly thought my tires were going to melt right onto the road. Fuck walking in it. That would have been a bitch.

  “The diner was owned by a lovely lady named Mary who offered to call her son to drive me to the closest motel with a vacancy, which was another twenty miles further south. I was hesitant at accepting her offer, seeing as I didn’t know her son and dad had drilled it into my head not to accept rides from strangers, but when I met him, I knew instantly that he wouldn’t hurt me,” Emily smiles, continuing to stroke Sarge’s hand.

  “He was hard, but his eyes were kind. Everything about him screamed danger, but I found myself wanting to be close to him for no other than beside my instincts telling me he would protect me with his life. He showed up on his bike, and since I had a duffle bag and my purse with me, he drove me to the motel in his mom’s car. We barely spoke when he dropped me off, other than him telling me to be safe, but I remember feeling lost when he drove away. I never thought I’d see him again; he was just a nice man doing something his mother had asked him to help a stranger who found herself stranded. So the next morning as I walked toward the path that led to the beach, he was the last person I expected to see. Sitting on his Hog dressed in jeans and a Tshirt, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. There was just something about him that told me he was going to play an important part in my life, and I was right. And aside from my son, he still is. Does that sound familiar?” She asks, confusing the fuck out of me.

  “Which part?” I return. Leaning forward, Emily scowls at me.

  “Don’t play me for a fool, Jump, and I won’t judge you based on the idiot you’re pretending to be. I may not have played as big a part in your life as Sarge has, but I have eyes and ears, which I’ll have you know, are in perfect working order thank you very much. So I know who and what that man in the corridor earlier means to you, and I know all about the relationship you had with Mia until you fucked it up by doing something stupid for what you thought were the right reasons. The only question I have is, when are you going to stop playing the martyr and go after what’s important to you?”

  “Like you did?” I say snidely. It’s a low blow, but that’s my default nature when I feel cornered. And right now, I definitely feel fucking cornered.

  My past with Austin and my failed relationship with Mia aren’t topics I want to revisit. Ever. Aside from planning to remove the failed from before mine and Mia’s relationship status, my private life isn’t cannon fodder for the club or old ladies. Emily included.

  “I know what you’re doing, and it isn’t going to work young man,” Emily chastises quietly. “I am fully aware of my mistakes, Jump, after all, I’m the one who had to live with them for years. The difference between us is, that when push came to shove, I shoved back. You, on the other hand, allow yourself to be pushed into a corner and then when you find yourself with no way out, you retreat into your head and get stuck there. And that’s what worries me the most; that one day, you’ll be stuck for so long, that you’ll get lost and life will pass you by.”

  “Too late,” I mumble more to myself than Emily.

  “No, it is not,” she rebukes. “It’s never too late. Look at me, Jump. Really look at me.” Doing as she asks, I look at her and notice that although the man she’s been seeing for months is laid up in a hospital bed, her eyes are more alive than I’ve ever seen them.

  Emily has always appeared younger than her years. At sixty-three, Emily could easily pass as being in her midforties. Her hair is still mostly dark brown, and her skin is flawless aside from the laugh lines around her eyes and mouth that have only deepened slightly with age. I don’t know how she stays in shape, but her body is definitely not reminiscent of other sixty-something year old’s that I know. Emily is a Fox, that’s for sure, making Sarge a lucky fucking guy. I can only hope I’m as lucky when my woman is in her sixties.

  Eventually breaking eye contact with her, I concede her point.

  “I see you, Em, and I’m sorry.”

  Emily pats my cheek, still not disconnecting her hand from Sarge’s and accepts my apology wordlessly.

  “Good. Now are you ready to talk?”

  “I’m not sure what you want me to say?” “Again, do not mistake me for one of your brother or their wives, Jump. I am not, nor will I ever be stupid enough to fall for your stall tactics.”

  Feeling thoroughly schooled, I accept defeat. Emily is a worthy adversary, and the game has all of a sudden got real. I don’t particularly want to dredge up history that’
s better left dead and buried, but at this point, it doesn’t look like I have much of a choice.

  “Where do you want me to start?” I huff. “You can leave out your childhood, the drugs, and Cash. I want to hear about the real you, Jump. Not the surface level crap or the mistakes that anyone would have made given the circumstances you found yourself in. It’s the man underneath the guilt and pain I’m interested in, okay?”

  Just as I’m about to open up and bear my soul, something I didn’t think I’d ever feel comfortable enough doing – and as it turns out, this would make it twice in one day – a figure appears in the doorway which steals the breath from my lungs. Not because I’m happy, but because she’s the last person I thought I’d see here tonight.

  “Hi, Jump,” one of my more noteworthy mistakes murmurs sweetly.

  “Meg,” I nod curtly.

  CHAPTEREIGHT ~ Jump ~

  “No,Ididn’t loseyournumberunless deleting itcounts.If that’s the case,then, yes,Idid.”

  –Jump’s conversationwithMeg Meghan Kihara is a force to be reckoned with. She came into my life like a tornado, blowing into town with her best friend, Aislinn, who is now married to my brother Gage. The difference between Aislinn and Meg is that while Aislinn can be a little nuts, Meg is just straight up crazy. However, don’t mistake me calling her crazy to mean she’s insane because Meg is anything but. And she’s not a bad person, just high maintenance, and even higher drama. Both things that I don’t need in my life, now or then.

  There’s a simple explanation for why Meg and I got together back then. Basically, it came down to my inability to say no to having my cock sucked, Meg’s extraordinary kegel muscles, and neither of us being interested in anything more than carefree fucking. Shallow but true.

  Meg’s a beautiful woman with long black hair coupled and almond-shaped brown eyes that give away her Japanese heritage. From the little talking we did in between rounds of kinky as fuck sex, Meg shared that her dad is Asian American, and her mom is half Welsh and half English. But truthfully after that, I stopped listening. I was far more interested in her legs that looked long enough to wrap around my back twice, and her tight, wet pussy that hugged my dick like a vice.

  It wasn’t until Meg left for Paris on an assignment for the firm she works for that I found out anything else about her. Aislinn loved telling everyone what her best friend was up to, and I could hardly excuse myself without looking like I was upset over our fling ending, so naturally I stayed.

  According to Aislinn, she and Meg met when they were paired up to room together at UCLA. While Aislinn majored in photography, Meg graduated with honors with a degree in Architecture, but regardless of how different their college courses were, they bonded over stories of shitty parents and Ramen noodles, and the rest of their friendship is, as they say, history.

  Our sexual interlude, I’ll call it for lack of a better name, started during the lockdown after Diesel, our VP’s murder. Boss decreed that no one was permitted to leave the clubhouse for any reason, and since Meg was indirectly linked to the MC through Gage’s relationship with Aislinn, that meant she wasn’t going anywhere either. Which was both a blessing and a curse, depending on the mood I was in at the time.

  There were a few occasions when I was watching Meg without her knowing it, that I asked myself if she had genuine mental health issues. The woman hated being confined to the clubhouse with a passion – something she made known loudly and often. Add to that her complaints about the lack of Wi-Fi, too many people and not enough alcohol, babies crying at all hours of the day and night, and her inability to go outside for some fresh air, Meg was a pleasure to have around. Well, my pleasure when I was balls deep inside her, that is. My brother’s on the other hand, would call her presence during that time something else altogether.

  That being said, Meg and I had a rocky start. She didn’t like me much, and I found that I got a sick kind of enjoyment from getting her riled up enough that you could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears. Meg was dramatic to begin with, but piss her off enough, and she ratcheted the crazy up to borderline psychotic. I should show some remorse about driving her to the edge of Crazy Town, but I just can’t bring myself to feel bad about it when the results were so spectacular.

  Have you ever fucked a woman that can’t decide what she wants more; to kill you or ride you until you pass out? No? Well, I have, and I can highly recommend you try it some time. The funny thing about Meg’s hatred toward me, though, was what it was concealing. For all the evil looks she gave me, the dozens of times she bit my head off for just daring to share the same air as her, Meg was hot for me. That was her big secret. She didn't want to like me, but nevertheless, she did, and that pissed her off worse than anything I could do or say to her.

  It wasn’t until late one night after I overheard a conversation Meg was having with Aislinn that I made a move on Meg, though. Her confession that she wanted to ride my cock like it was a mechanical bull was enough to push me to take a chance on crazy and hold on for the ride. And for what it’s worth, it was one hell of a ride while it lasted.

  Everyone, including my brothers, thought I wouldn’t take the news of Meg’s departure well. Meg might not have personally told me she was taking off to Paris, but she did leave me a note. Based on what it said, I didn’t bother telling Cash or anyone else about it because I prayed she’d change her mind and forget about me given some distance. But obviously, seeing as Meg’s here my prayers weren’t answered, and I’m left wondering why of all times did she choose now to make her reappearance?

  “I think I’ll give you two a moment alone while I go and get a cup of coffee,” Emily suggests. I can’t think of much worse than being stuck in the same room as the woman who on paper declared her love for me, but I nod at Emily all the same.

  “Can I get either of you anything?”

  “No thanks, Em. Meg won’t be staying long,” I reply, leveling Meg with a withering glare. Not one to be deterred, Meg smiles politely and shakes her head in the negative.

  “Jump’s right. It was a long flight, and I still need to check into my hotel so I won’t be long. I just wanted to come and see Sarge to offer my help if you need it, and have a quick word with Jump.”

  “Well, I’ll go and give you some privacy to do that then. Jump, make sure you call me immediately if anything changes with him,” Emily demands, placing a soft kiss on Sarge’s forehead.

  Albeit briefly, one of the monitors he’s connected to picks up Sarge’s increase in heartbeat as Emily’s lips touch his skin, causing me to grin widely.

  “The man’s out cold, and he’s still getting excited when you’re around. That should tell you something, Em.” “Oh, it tells me something all right,” she says rolling her eyes. “It tells me that he’s still a pervert, even when he’s unconscious.”

  Emily makes sure Sarge is as comfortable as possible, fluffing the pillow behind his head and adjusting his blanket before reluctantly leaving the room.

  However, she doesn’t cross the threshold before reiterating that I’m to call her immediately if he so much as twitches. To which it’s my turn to roll my eyes while simultaneous agreeing I will.

  The door barely clicks shut before I’m asking, “This is the second time I’ve had to ask someone this

  today, so here goes. What the fuck are you doing here, Meg?” “Can’t I pay a visit to an old friend in his time of need?” She replies, flicking her hair back off her shoulder. “I mean, what kind of person would I be if I didn’t at least offer my assistance when someone I know you’re close to has been hurt?”

  “Cut the shit,” I snap. “I read every word of the jacked up letter you left for me, so I know Sarge and Mia being in an accident has nothing the fuck to do with why you’re here.”

  “Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong. That accident and who was in it has everything to do with why I’m here.” “You don’t get to do this now. Not when you couldn’t fuck off fast enough the minute your best friend accepte
d Gage’s proposal. You were bound and determined to get out of Furnace, Meg so spare me the bullshit. There’s no doubt in my mind, that if you hadn’t taken the Paris job, you would’ve found another excuse to bail on Aislinn.”

  “That’s not true, and if you’d actually read my letter, you wouldn’t be accusing me of that shit,” she sneers, showing her true colors.

  Meg isn’t the kind of woman who shies away from conflict. In fact, if I didn’t know better I’d say she thrives on it. She will argue to the bitter end over what anything and everything, regardless of if she’s right or not, and I don’t see this being any different. So, if a fight is what she after, then for the last time, I’ll give her exactly what she wants.

  “Look, it’s been a long fucking day, and I’m tired, Meg, so do me a favor and level with me. You aren’t here because of Sarge; you’re here because you’ve got it in your head that you’re in love with me and that I love you back.”

  “Right on both counts,” she agrees, shrugging her shoulders nonchalantly. I’ve risen from my chair, so when Meg walks over to stand beside me, it’s only then I realize my mistake. With Sarge’s bed on my left, his nightstand behind me, and the wall to my right, Meg has me cornered, and by her expression, that’s what she was planning on; me not being able to escape.

  Trying to put as much distance between us as possible, I lean a hip on Sarge’s bed and cross my arms over my chest. My goal is to make sure I don’t give off any mixed signals because the last thing I want is for her to get the wrong idea about where this conversation is going.

  The only outcome I’ll be happy with is Meg accepting what we had is done and over with, at which time she’ll get her ass back on a plane to wherever it is she flew in from.

  When the silence between us reaches downright uncomfortable, Meg states,

  “Aislinn called me the moment she found out Sarge and Mia had been in an accident. At first, I couldn’t understand a word she said, she was crying so much. When I managed to calm her down, that’s when she told me where they were going and why. Did you know Mia was moving?” Meg asks gleefully. Meg knows the answer to that or she wouldn’t be so fucking smug about breaking the news to me.