by James, Marie
It makes my heart deflate, but then I realize that Hound wanted me for me, not the appeal of fucking the boss’ kid.
I smile at Dad. “You don’t have to worry about Hound and me. It was just one of those things. A couple of wild days. It’s over.”
“Good,” Dad says as Mom releases a long whoosh of air.
“I’m going to Jake’s this evening with Ivy and the others.”
He nods. I don’t need permission to go, but his ‘my house-my rules’ still sticks even now at twenty. He wants to know where we are. It’s the least I can do with the plans I have for later tonight.
Chapter 11
Hound
“Hey, man. I’m Hound.” My proffered hand hangs in the air as the younger Cerberus member looks at it in disgust. “Okay.”
I draw out the last word as I turn to grab a cold beer from the fridge.
“Nothing personal,” he mutters. “But you won’t be around long enough for us to spend time getting to know you.”
“That so?” I lean my ass against the counter and tilt my beer to my lips.
“Yeah.” He grabs his own beer out of the fridge. “Plus, there’s no one here that’s going to risk pissing Kincaid off by hanging out with you.”
I know he’s joining all the other guys outside in the garage. They all seem to gravitate in that area.
Word of my fuck up with Gigi has clearly spread from Dallas to New Mexico, and the cold shoulder I’ve gotten from all of the three members who aren’t out on a job is just the way it’s going to be for a while. What they don’t understand is I have staying power and no plans to go anywhere anytime soon. I hope they change their tune when they realize that Kincaid has enough faith in my skills that even after what I’ve done, he’s allowing me to work for him.
Emptying my first beer in one long swallow, I grab another from the fridge and head to my room. The Cerberus clubhouse isn’t super fancy, but it’s efficient. My room has a bed, dresser, and a full bathroom. I couldn’t ask for much more.
I’m in the middle of stripping out of my jeans and t-shirt when my phone chimes. I smile without even thinking about it. Isabella is the one thing that can always bring me out of any funk.
Izzy: What are you doing?
I fold back the covers and climb between the sheets before responding.
Me: Getting ready for bed.
Izzy: You’re such an old man!!
Me: But you love me anyway.
Izzy: With my whole heart.
Me: What are you doing?
I wait and wait for her to respond. A picture precedes her next text. I immediately save the shot of her smiling to my phone. Big green eyes and silky, black hair. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid my eyes on.
Izzy: Heading out with some friends.
I clench my fists knowing the kind of trouble she can get into.
Me: Be safe and have fun.
Izzy: ALWAYS!
I almost tell her how much I miss her. I almost tell her I wish we could be together sooner than I know we can be, but doing that will only drag her current good mood down. I’m a big enough person to shoulder the weight of our separation all on my own.
Instead, I go through my phone, looking at each and every picture she’s texted me and the handful I’ve stolen from her social media profiles. The joy of seeing her pretty smiling face in all the pictures is almost enough to forget about the pain caused by the distance and time that separates us.
***
The safety is off on my Glock before the intruder can even get the bedroom door closed. I presumed this would happen. After being ignored so rudely by the MC members that are here, I’ve waited for their retribution. It wouldn’t come in the form of murder, but I figured a late-night roughing up was in my near future.
What I don’t expect is the hiccup and feminine giggle.
I stash the handgun back under my pillow and watch as Gigi tries to be quiet as she walks across the room. I should tell her to leave, not let her get any closer, but that’s something I don’t have the strength to do. I can’t let anything progress, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t let her get close enough to smell her perfume.
She giggles again when her knees hit the end of the bed. Two soft thumps, presumably her shoes falling off, echo around the sparse room.
The scent of liquor on her breath makes it to my nose long before the soft floral scent of her perfume. That doesn’t hit until a few seconds later, and rather than it being off-putting, the combination is intoxicating. My cock thickens, even further from the realization that she’s brave enough to sneak into my room.
Even though there’s limited light in the room, I can see her bright smile and the dark smudges of her makeup under her eyes. I want nothing more than to fuck her so hard she cries, making it run in streaks down her cheeks.
I wait until she’s halfway up my body before speaking.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Startled, her eyes widen as far as the alcohol will allow, and she gazes around the room as if the voice could’ve come from anywhere else but under her.
She pats around, her eyes clearly not adjusted to the darkness. Her hand slides over my cock, and I growl.
“I’m going to see how far I can take that huge dick of yours down my throat.”
Jesus, that sounds like the best thing in the world right now.
A glutton for punishment, I let her stroke me over the thin sheet. Up and down, with soft grips near the base and the tip, I let her continue until I’m half a second away from making another bad choice.
“Stop,” I hiss and still her hand on my cock. “You know damn well I’d snap that pretty jaw of yours before you even made it halfway down.”
“What a way to go,” she coos. “If you’re worried about hurting me, you can always just hold it straight up so I can bounce up and down on it.”
“You need to go.”
Please don’t go.
“I’m so wet for you,” she says ignoring my orders. “I’ve been thinking about the way you fucked me in that alley.”
What a coincidence, I’ve been thinking of the exact same thing since I turned off the light this evening.
“It’ll still be a tight fit, but I bet I just slide right down.”
I keep my grip on her hand, right over my cock, even when she wiggles her fingers to try to get free. I know she has no intention of leaving, so letting her go is only a ploy so she can touch me somewhere else. God, do I want to let her do just that.
“You need to go,” I repeat.
“I need you.”
“Not gonna happen, Gigi. Now get the fuck out.”
I hate the sound of her swift intake of air, but I release her hand instead of pulling her against my chest, exactly the opposite of what every single instinct in my body is telling me to do.
“You’re an asshole,” she whispers, but she doesn’t say it in a hateful tone. She purrs it like the sultry sex kitten that she is.
Instead of moving further away, she inches closer. Rum, her choice of liquor tonight washes over me. I love the smell, knowing it probably makes her pliable, even more open to anything I’d like to do to her. I hate the smell for the exact same reasons.
“Seriously, Gigi.” I roll out from under her and climb off the bed. “The last fucking thing I need is Kincaid finding out you’ve been in here.”
I flip the light on. Big fucking mistake. Sprawled out on my bed in a tight green dress, Gigi fucking Anderson has her knees bent with her legs open. No. Fucking. Panties. I’m staring at the direct proof of that tight, slick seam she mentioned earlier.
I grip my dick.
She licks her lips.
It’s sloppy, not as sexy as I’m sure she thinks, but her wet mouth has more appeal than this damn job does.
“So,” she slurs. “You think he’ll be mad if he finds out I’m here?”
I narrow my eyes at her, already knowing where she’s going to take this. I remain
silent, waiting for the drunken blackmail.
“You can fuck me, and he can never find out, or you can deny me, and I’ll tell everyone I run into what a great fucking lay you were tonight.”
“Not a chance.”
I grip her by her upper arm and pull her off of my bed. On the way to the door, I scoop up her shoes and press them to her chest until her free hand reaches up to hold them.
“Blackmail doesn’t work for me, beautiful.” I swing open the door, praying someone is there, someone to serve as a witness to me throwing her out. The hall remains empty. “You’ll only be wasting your time if you try to pull this shit again.”
I shove her out of my room and close the door, locking it this time for good measure.
“I hate you,” she seethes from the hallway.
“I hate me, too,” I mutter.
Stripping out of my boxers, I hit the shower. To prove how much I despise what I’ve just done, I clamp my balls in my fist to the point of pain as I say her name and shoot my load down the drain.
Chapter 12
Gigi
Rejected. Again.
Always. Rejected.
I sniffle and straighten my back as I walk out the back door of the clubhouse and into the front door of my parents’ home. I waited until everyone was asleep before sneaking down the sidewalk to Jameson’s room. I couldn’t care less if I wake the three people sleeping in this house now. Indirectly, my father is once again controlling my life. I can’t even choose Jameson if I wanted to. Dad made sure of that.
My tears have dried, and a sense of calm resolve has settled in that gaping hole in my heart that never seems to be filled with anything else but the need to get away. So that’s exactly what I plan to do.
I didn’t unpack my bags when Jaxon brought them up the first day I got back, so too much of the room inside is filled with trinkets and shit I have no use for on the road. It takes a mere fifteen minutes to get them emptied and refilled with necessities.
“You’re leaving already?”
I’m not surprised to find Ivy standing in the hall when I leave my room. Even the tears on her cheeks and the heartbreak in her voice isn’t new.
“I wish I could be more like you,” I confess. I blame the rum still in my system for that slip-up of honesty.
She shakes her head. “You’re fine just the way you are.”
I try to swallow the lump forming in my throat. Saying goodbye to her is always the hardest. You can’t really share a womb with someone and not have a connection so deep it’s unexplainable.
“I wish Mom and Dad felt the same way.”
I put my bags down and wrap her in a hug, holding on just a little longer than the last time I walked away from New Mexico. Something in my gut tells me this time is going to be much different. This time feels like forever.
“You’re not running from Dad this time.” The truth burns my ear, but I ignore it just the same.
“I’ll miss you the most,” I tell her as I pull away and reach for the straps of my two bags.
“You can call and text,” she offers.
“I will,” I lie and walk away.
The cab I called for earlier is idling out front when I make my way around the clubhouse.
The lone Cerberus member standing on the front porch having one last smoke before calling it a night doesn’t even faze me. I know he won’t try to stop me. There’s only one living Cerberus member who ever physically touched me without my father’s permission, and he made sure to make me burn.
“Prez won’t stop looking for you,” he says on a thick puff of smoke.
I ignore him and climb inside of the cab. Just like always, I keep my eyes closed until the bump in the road three miles away. I never look back. I never second guess my decision to leave this place. Well, I never did until tonight.
***
“Hey, sweetie?”
I startle awake, looking right into the soft, tired eyes of the elderly woman that sat beside me on the bus out of Farmington.
“You said you were heading to Phoenix, right?”
I nod, draw in a lung full of air, and stretch my back out.
“We’re only a few miles away,” she informs me and points an arthritic finger toward the window.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime, dear.” She begins humming again with her eyes closed. It’s what lulled me to sleep to begin with a couple of hours ago when she got on at the Tucson stop.
Even though I don’t use my cell phone very often, traveling from Farmington after having tossed it in the trash hasn’t been the most pleasurable. At least with a burner and a pair of headphones, I can ignore the world around me. Traveling and circling back, going out of the way has always been how I traveled.
It’s how I found myself in an all-but-deserted bus station at three in the morning. Unable to buy a phone then, I knew in daylight hours I’d be able to grab one in Phoenix.
When the hiss of the bus’s brakes make their final gasp, I wait for the elderly woman to stand. She manages on her third attempt, and I find myself uncharacteristically worried about her. I help her traverse the steep stairs at the front of the bus and wait for her while the attendants pull her suitcases off.
When she tells me that her son will be there to pick her up in an hour, I forgo my seat on my original bus to catch the one later in the evening.
“Thank you,” she says in the sweetest voice I imagine a grandmother would have, as I pull out her chair and hand her a small ice cream cup.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have an elderly family. My dad’s mom met an awful fate at the hands of my grandfather when he was only a teen. My mom doesn’t have any family to speak of. Ivy and I have had some interaction with grandparent-type figures. Shadow’s parents came around often enough, and her obsession with Griffin always ensured we’d be where he was. Doc and Rose have been very active in our lives as well.
“You didn’t have to miss your bus for me.”
“I have a little shopping to do,” I tell her before filling my mouth with a huge bite of chocolate frozen yogurt.
“Where are you heading again?”
I know she’s just curious, but cautious no matter who we are around is something that Dad drilled into our heads.
If you’re not with family, you’re not entirely safe.
“San Diego,” I lie, a little weirded out and cautious since I never mentioned where I was heading before, just that I needed to grab some things in Phoenix.
“That’s right,” she says with a sugary sweet smile before diving back into her ice cream.
My nerves relax a little when she starts re-telling me the story about her travels and the three grandchildren she’s visiting. It’s the same story she told me when she got on the bus. She speaks of how busy her son is. My heart hurts for this woman. She’s closer to eighty than seventy and shouldn’t be traveling alone, and yet her family couldn’t be bothered to drive two hours to get her.
“The world is heavy,” she says in her soft, weak voice.
“I’m sorry?” I put my ice cream down and look over at her. “I was lost in my own head.”
“You have the weight of the world all around you,” she repeats. “It’s too heavy of a burden to carry yourself.”
I placate her with a smile but keep my mouth shut. In thirty minutes, I won’t have to worry about her rambling. I’ll make sure she’s safe with her family, and I’ll head North-West to Vegas just like I’d planned.
“You’ll carry it on your back until you stop running and give someone the chance to love you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I cajole and stir my spoon through my melting ice cream.
“Mother?”
We both look up to see a middle-aged man walking toward us.
“Oh, Dave,” she says in a near giddy tone. “Meet my new friend Annie. She’s traveling to San Diego.”
“Nice to meet you,” he placates his mother without as much as a nod in my directi
on.
Asshole.
He helps her stand, taking no care to allow her to straighten and be firm in her stance before he releases her and reaches down for the handles on her suitcases. I stand, hand near her back, just in case she’s not as sure-footed as he presumes she is.
“The next time he finds you,” she whispers in my ear. “Stick around long enough that he can prove how much you deserve to be loved.”
I watch, stunned and a little confused at her words, as her son shuffles her away almost faster than she can walk.
It’s minutes after they’ve disappeared through the crowd of people buying tickets that I find myself wanting to yell, to chase her down and inform her that he, if she’s referring to Hound, rejected me just like every guy I got close to did. I wasn’t enough for him to go against my father’s wishes. I can’t imagine him changing his mind.
He’s thirty-four years old, and I’m sure has had more women than he can count. There’s no way he’d ever be interested in me for more than what he already got.
Chapter 13
Hound
“Where the fuck is she?” Kincaid says after opening my door with what I presume is the master key to the building.
“What?” I sit up in bed, trying to scrub the sleep from my eyes. I did nothing but toss and turn all night after I escorted Gigi out of here. How I can feel both regret over it and proud I did the right thing is beyond me.
“Where is Georgia?” he asks again.
“She’s not here.”
“She was here.” He holds up the shoes I handed Gigi before throwing her out of my room. “I found these outside of your door in the hallway.”
“I gave my word to you, Prez. She showed up. She’d been drinking.” I swallow and refuse to tell him that she offered herself to me. I squeeze my eyes closed, a futile attempt to block out the memory of the tightest, pinkest slit I’ve ever had the pleasure of sinking inside of. “I made her leave.”
“What time?” he asks, defeat clear in his tone.
“Two-thirty? Maybe three.” I stand and pull on a pair of jeans. “Think she took off again?”
“She packed her bags,” Shadow says as he steps into my room behind Kincaid. “Misty checked her room.”
