by Nina Levine
I grinned and changed the subject again. Otherwise, this was about to go down a path that would get both of us worked up in ways we didn’t have time to take care. “So who introduced you to your first bike?”
He moved from subject to subject with ease. Something else I liked about him. “The father of one of my schoolmates had a Harley and taught us how to ride. I was seventeen and fucking obsessed with bikes after that. He had his own business fixing bikes and taught us how to fix them and rebuild them.” His eyes lit up as he continued. “There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty and losing your time to a bike. I worked for him for years, learning from him and saving cash so I could buy parts. Built my first bike when I was nineteen.”
“And your second?”
The smile in his eyes couldn’t be mistaken. “Six months after that.”
“How many have you built since then?”
His eyes dulled a little. “Two.” He drank some coffee. “Life got in the way.”
My phone rang, and I pulled it out to see it was Mum calling. And just like that, I was thrown back into real life. My distraction from worry ended.
“Hey, Ma,” I answered.
“Lily! Brynn is awake! Hurry and come back!”
A huge wave of emotion engulfed me and tears streamed down my face. “She is?” I managed to get out in between sobs.
“Yes!”
“I’m on my way.”
King had already stood. “She’s awake?”
I smiled through my tears, an emotional wreck of happiness, relief, and adrenaline. “Yes.”
He took two steps toward me, reached for my hand, and strode out to his bike with me in tow. Within a few minutes, he had us both on the bike and on our way back to the hospital. This was King back in charge, and I couldn’t deny that I liked him like this. After years of me having to take on most of the responsibility for my family, it felt good to have a man help me in this way.
11
King
I eyed the clock as I scrubbed a hand over my face. It was just past 8:00 p.m. and I still had a few loose ends to tie up here before I could check on Lily. After her sister had woken up this morning, I’d stayed at the hospital with her for a couple of hours before she’d kicked me out and told me to get back to work. I fucking appreciated a woman who had the sense to ask for help when she needed it and then the strength to deal with shit on her own later. She’d called me just after six to let me know she was heading home for the night and that I should drop by when I was done with work. That she’d put some dinner away for me in case I was hungry. My gut had tightened at that. It had been years since a woman had put dinner away for me.
“Johnny called,” Axe said, entering the office. “He’s agreed to your terms.”
“Good. Keep on him for that info. We can’t afford to drop the ball on this.”
Axe’s contact in the feds, Johnny, was now Storm’s contact. We’d put him on our payroll in exchange for names of any witnesses the feds had in relation to the case against us. I’d pay those motherfuckers off to keep them quiet, or if warranted, something a little more permanent.
“Also, Zane and Griff have started pulling more surveillance of the area from the day of Jen’s murder like you wanted.” To see if Romano had been bullshitting me about not having a hand in that.
“And Brant?”
“Still looking, but nothing yet. He’s an evasive motherfucker.”
“Yeah.” I narrowed my eyes at my brother. “You look like hell.”
He nodded. “We both do.”
“Justine giving you grief at the moment?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and stretched it. “When isn’t she?”
“Fuck,” I muttered. “That bitch has a lot to fucking answer for, brother.”
“She also has my child in her belly, King, so I can’t just fucking walk away.”
This was an old, recurring argument of ours. Me telling him to leave; him telling me he loved her. Except he was right—he now had his child to consider, and my brother had the same convictions I did, so he would never walk away from that responsibility.
I jerked my chin at the door. “Try to get some sleep tonight. Or find someone to take the edge off.” At his scowl, I said, “Fuck, she screwed around on you and fucking walked out. You don’t owe her any loyalty.”
I knew his stance on this, though. If I considered myself a loyal bastard, Axe was a motherfucking nun when it came to this shit. Women threw themselves at him, fucking begging him to let them suck his dick. Not once had I ever seen him so much as look at them if he was with someone.
“I’ll see you in the morning. And I’ll check in with Johnny first thing. Hurry him along.”
After he’d gone, I thought about Justine. She’d had her claws in my brother for five long years, and just when I’d thought he was finally rid of her, she’d announced her fucking pregnancy. Axe had wanted a child for as long as I could remember, so he’d been over the fucking moon. And then he’d discovered her infidelity. I hadn’t thought I’d ever see my brother lose his shit, because Axe was the guy who held himself together when everyone around him couldn’t. Fuck, if there was an apocalypse, Axe was the one I’d want in my corner. But he had lost it for a while there and had only recently pulled through that.
A text came through, distracting me from my thoughts.
Lily: If you’re coming over, I need milk please.
Me: On my way soon
Lily: Thanks.
I stared at the messages, at the simple and uncomplicated way with which Lily acted. She’d put up a fight when I’d told her we weren’t done, but I’d expected that. I’d anticipated that would continue longer than it did, but something had shifted in her since last night, and she appeared to have let it go. I’d fucking make shit up to her for what I did, but that she didn’t play games or screw me around meant a fuck of a lot.
I left the clubhouse an hour after she’d messaged me about the milk, grabbed some on the way over, and arrived just after she’d had a screaming match with Zara. I knew this because she yanked the front door open with the force of a crazed woman, eyes wild, stepped outside, and dragged me onto the front lawn before producing a cigarette and begging me, “Do you have a lighter on you? Zara may be fucking pregnant, which may mean I’m about to kill some fucking teenage boy who should not have chosen my daughter to mess around with. And I need a fucking smoke to deal with this, which means I will have to kill that little fucker twice, because I’m supposed to be quitting cigarettes, and if he got my kid pregnant, I am most definitely not quitting cigarettes.”
I eyed her, trying like hell not to smile. Lily had a way of lighting my fucking world, just by being her. She didn’t have to do shit for me or work any special magic. All she had to do was look at me or smile at me or go on about the shit she was dealing with, and I felt better than before I saw her.
Pulling out my lighter, I said, “That’s a fuckload of fucks, woman.” It was unlike Lily to swear so much, which only told me how worked up she was over this.
She ripped the lighter from my hand, still crazed as fuck. “Yeah, because they are necessary!” Lighting the smoke, she sucked nicotine deep into her lungs.
“What’s going on with Zara? You know for sure she had sex?”
“No, she won’t confirm it, but I read some texts on her phone from that little shit, and I’m almost completely certain she has.”
Lily was fucking hot when she was worked up like this. I had to work harder than usual to drag my mind from thinking about the shit I wanted to do to her. “Right, so you get through tonight, and then tomorrow you force a pregnancy test on her.”
She pulled a face as she took another drag of her smoke. “You have to wait a little while before those tests will work accurately. God, unless she had sex weeks ago, and I didn’t know. Fuck.”
In an effort to take her mind off her daughter, I said, “How’s Brynn?”
Her shoulders lifted and then dropped as she let out
a long breath, almost like she’d been holding it forever. “She’s confused and not really with it.” She gave me a small smile. “But she’s awake and that’s all that matters.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, because that really was all that fucking mattered.
She reached for the milk after she finished her smoke. “Are you hungry? I put some steak and veges in the oven for you.”
I closed the space between us and grabbed her around the waist. I needed my hands on her. Hell, I needed a lot more than that, but it was what I had to settle for. “I’m fucking starving.”
She stared up at me, aware I wasn’t referring to food. Her eyes flared with the same heat running through me. She surprised me when she said softly, almost hesitantly, “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I tightened my hold on her. “Never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Continuing to watch me with uncertainty, she said, “I’ve only ever dated a handful of guys in my life, and have mostly been with Linc, so I’m not experienced in this whole relationship thing, but I will tell you one thing—I don’t do games. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing, at all, but I am saying, the idea of you walking away again hurts. It hurt the first time you did it, and I don’t wanna go through that again. So if you’re—”
I put my finger to her mouth. “I don’t like games either, and I don’t engage in them. I’m not going anywhere, Lily. And if you ever mention those motherfuckers you dated again, I’ll put you over my fucking knee and spank that out of you.” Bending my head, my lips grazed her ear as I growled, “You’re mine now, and I don’t fucking share.”
Her hands found my face and she took hold of it so she could direct my mouth to hers. Her grip was hard, determined, and when our lips met, she kissed me with an urgency and passion she hadn’t yet. This kiss was hot as hell, and all I wanted to do was rip her clothes off, lay her the fuck down, and slam my dick inside her.
I gave her a minute longer with my lips than I should have before tearing myself away. Jesus, it had been hard enough not having her last night—I had no fucking idea how I’d make it through tonight without getting my fill of her.
“Fuck, woman, don’t kiss me like that when I can’t do anything with it,” I rasped as I took a step away from her.
She watched me, breathless and just as aroused as I was. “Well don’t tell me I’m yours and that you don’t fucking share. That shit is hot and makes me wanna climb you.”
Jesus fuck.
“We need to move this inside,” I muttered as I put my hands to her hips and spun her around.
“You do realise that manhandling me only gets me hotter, right?” she threw over her shoulder as we walked inside.
I ignored that and focused on getting us inside so I could eat my dinner and take my mind off screwing the hell out of her. There was only so much a man could take when he was as hard as I was, and I’d reached my limit. At this point, I was calling on divine fucking intervention, and that was saying something, because like I’d told Lily today, I didn’t believe in that shit.
Robbie came screaming into the kitchen as we entered, irritation plastered across his face. After a quick glance at me, he grumbled, “Mum! Zara won’t get out of the bathroom, and I want to have a shower.”
Lily looked at her son. “She only just hopped in the shower. You need to give her some time.”
His eyes widened. “But I need a shower now!” He’d worked himself up into a state over this and looked like he was about to completely lose his shit.
Lily wrapped her hands around his biceps and bent so she could look him in the eyes. “Baby, take a deep breath.” When he refused and simply stared at her, she said, “Robbie, we’ve talked about this. Being part of a family means we have to make allowances for each other, and learn to compromise and share. Just because you’re ready to have a shower right now, doesn’t mean you can. Sometimes our plans don’t fit with each other’s, so we have to rework them. You understand that, right?”
His lips flattened as he stared at her. He seemed caught in that place where kids know they’re wrong but don’t want to admit it. Finally he nodded. “I do, but I don’t like it.”
I fought back a smile. I liked his style. I also liked her patience with him.
Lily stood and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Yeah, buddy, I get that. There’s a lot of things I don’t like, too, but that’s life and we just have to learn to work with it.”
He grumbled something I couldn’t figure out as he stomped out of the kitchen.
Lily sighed as she watched him go. She then turned to me and said, “You want a beer with your steak?”
“You drink beer?”
“No. I picked some up on the way home. I figured you probably drank it and might want some. I mean, I have no idea if you do or what you’d prefer, but the guy in the shop told me which ones were his bestsellers so I ran with one of them.” She paused for a moment, thinking, before adding, “Mum probably has some whisky in the house if you want that instead.”
Fucking hell, this woman.
I jerked my chin. “I’ll have a beer.”
“You don’t want me to look for some whisky?”
I shook my head. “I’m good with beer.”
Something I said, or my tone, caused her to slow down and hit me with a smile that shot warmth to my gut. “Okay.”
She then busied herself heating my dinner, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and brought it all to the table for me. I sat on my ass and watched her every movement, paying special attention to her ass and legs that were painted with those tight-as-fuck jeans she liked to wear. As hard as I tried, I failed at not allowing my mind to wander back to last night when I’d had my hand in her pants. She hadn’t wanted to admit how much she wanted me. I’d known it wouldn’t take long to break her down though, because it was clear as fucking day that she wanted my hands on her.
“What are you thinking?” she asked as she placed my meal in front of me.
I hooked my arm around her and pulled her onto my lap. She came easily, sliding into place like she was made to be there, arm around my neck, tits pressed against me, smile blazing just for me. Moving my free hand to her throat, I ran my fingers over her collarbone and said, “I was thinking about our fingers deep inside you and about how much I need to taste you again.”
She bit her lip, and fuck if that didn’t hit my veins with a craving I knew wouldn’t be satisfied tonight. “I’ve never been with a man who has a filthy mouth like yours.”
My grip around her neck tightened. “Pretty fucking sure I told you never to mention another man to me again,” I growled, shocked as shit at the possessiveness sitting deep in my gut.
Heat radiated from every inch of her and she brought her mouth close to mine. “It needs to be said that you’re hot when you’re jealous.” As the last word fell from her lips, she kissed me, her tongue tangling with mine in ways that made me think of it on my dick.
Fuck.
Lily had me all worked up to the point I could hardly fucking think straight. Dragging my mouth from hers, I smacked her ass and ordered, “Off. I need a moment without you wiggling that pretty ass of yours all over my dick.”
She raised her brows, her lips twitching with a smile. “If I’m not mistaken, it was you who pulled my ass onto your lap, so stop your whinging and bitching.”
She did as I said, though, and sat next to me, watching me with amusement, and heat, and care all rolled into one. I’d never met a woman like her, and maybe that was half of my attraction to her, but the way she nurtured had a lot to do with it as well. Lily might have been gentle, with a softness I didn’t often see in my world, but she was also solid, and there for those she loved, and that was something that called deeply to me.
I took a swig of beer before asking, “When are you moving back home?”
“Oh God, I’ve hardly thought about that. Soon. The kids need to get back into a routine, and I do too.”
“It’ll be a mess,
Lily. I can organise for the boys to clean it up for you.”
“Linc already cleaned it. Well, he said he did. I haven’t been over yet to inspect.”
“I’ll go over and make sure. Fingerprint dust is a bitch to fucking clean and there may be some shit that needs to be repaired or thrown out, depending on…” I pulled myself up—she didn’t need to hear or think about her sister’s blood splatter. “I’ll check it out and clean up anything that still needs it.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
I eyed her mother who had entered the dining room, and Lily turned to greet her. “Hey, Ma. You okay?”
Hannah sat next to her and threw me a smile before answering her daughter. “I’m just tired, that’s all. I think I might go to bed now.”
Exhaustion lined her face. Hell, it lived and breathed all over her. She was far from the woman I’d met who talked my ear off.
Lily reached out to hug her. “Do you want a sleeping pill or do you think you’ll be okay without one?”
Tears pooled in Hannah’s eyes as she nodded. “Yes, I think I need one, darling.”
Lily jumped up. Glancing at me, she said, “I won’t be long.”
I jerked my chin. “Don’t worry about me.”
She ushered her mother out, speaking soothingly to her as they went, leaving me in silence. I sat and ate the best damn meal I’d eaten since the last time I’d had Lily’s cooking. The peace and quiet in this house was fucking music to my ears. And yet, it wasn’t completely quiet because I could hear the kids arguing over something. But without the tension I was used to being surrounded by daily, this was peaceful. Calm.
I finished my dinner and beer, and had just finished washing the dirty plate and cutlery when Lily walked into the kitchen. She moved next to me, placing her hand on my hip. “Thanks for doing that.”
I didn’t know if it was the need I had for her, or the gratitude I heard in her voice, or the softness in her eyes, or what the fuck it was, but one of those things drove me to reach for her waist, lift her onto the kitchen counter, and crush my lips to hers.
