Between Brothers: The Sacred Brotherhood Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  After release, Cell and I had wanted to relocate, had to go through hell in a hand basket with the state we’d come from seeing as we had a year of parole left to serve, but we’d been able to make it happen. Still, our old club was in shambles by the time we’d gotten out, most of them dead and when it came to the shambles part of things, so were we. We’d barely survived prison and I do mean barely.

  We’d lucked out that Dragon’s crew had been in dire need of members, and had also been spending a good portion of their time going straight. We needed straight if we wanted to keep out of prison. I sure as fuck never wanted to go back. Cell? He could care less where he ended up, but that was part of why he needed me. To keep him straight out here. To have someone watch his back the way he’d watched mine on the inside.

  I dragged my mind back to the here and now and went to my room in the back outbuilding I liked to call the barracks. I picked out some clean clothes; a pair of worn, but comfortable jeans, some fresh boxers and some clean socks out of the dresser, before I went to the closet and pulled down a clean black tee shirt. It was a little on the faded side, like the light denim of the Levi’s but with no holes. I couldn’t say the same about a lot of my wardrobe, I just couldn’t be bothered with upgrading anything.

  I trekked back down to the bathroom at the end of the hall and went in, dropping my clean clothes and towels on one end of the bench outside the showers. Stripping down quickly and efficiently, I padded across the cold tiles to get the shower started up, waiting for the water to warm up before ducking under the spray.

  God, the heat felt good against sore muscles. I put my hands against the tile wall and let the water beat mercilessly between my shoulder blades, the tightness easing some under the punishing spray that just wasn’t quite enough for me. It never really was. I needed a good massage but didn’t know where to go around here to get one.

  I jumped when the door creaked, and looked back over my shoulder. Cell dropped his shit on the bench next to where mine lay and dropped the towel off from around his waist. Fuck, he was hard, but I wasn’t in the mood. Still, it was Cell, and he typically got what he wanted out of me. It was hard to say no, and the times that I did, he ended up winning me over anyways.

  I thrust my face into the spray, holding my breath, holding it there, until Cell shoved me hard against the wall. He braced an arm across my shoulders and the back of my neck, shoving me forward while his other arm snaked around my waist, hauling back, setting me up so he could fuck me. Adrenaline coursed through me and I resisted, which only made him laugh a little.

  “You know you fighting me only makes me want it more,” he said, and I fucking hated that he was right. It’d come down to this when we’d been in prison, and when we’d gotten out, it’d just sort of kept up. I’d been okay with it, but then again, I’d always been pretty comfortable with what I liked, as in if I liked it, I liked it… I just rolled with it and I liked Cell… but just Cell. I would never let another man do this to me.

  Neither I nor Cell considered ourselves gay. We weren’t, really. Again, it was just something about it being Cell. Any other guy and I don’t think it’d be there for me the attraction, not just the willingness to let a guy fuck me. I liked women, never even considered myself bisexual, or even curious before Cell. Things were just different with Duracell. We’d grown close, tight, two pieces of some bigger whole. Like we were some fractured personality or some shit… I don’t know how to explain it.

  Even though I was a willing participant when it came to sex with Cell, I fought him this time. I wasn’t in the fucking mood, but it was useless, per usual, and the more he held me against the wall, the more he laughed about having the upper hand, the more my resolve to resist diminished. My cock stirred a couple seconds into the struggle and when he did me the courtesy of giving me a reach around, which he didn’t always do, my resolve crumbled completely and I was all in.

  “Hold still, fucker. I’m not out to fuckin’ hurt you,” he declared, but it always hurt at first. He fucked my ass, but he so wouldn’t let me fuck his. Not Cell’s style. I’d brought it up once and he’d grunted and told me to find some pussy or hell, even a chick’s ass for that. It was just Cell’s way.

  He kicked my feet apart and his hand disappeared, I heard him spit in it and he lubed himself up. I braced, relaxed as best I could and hoped he had it in him to go easy this time around. He pressed against my asshole and with a lot of determination worked his way in. I pushed out, and breathed, but it wasn’t pleasant, not at first. I could feel my asshole flex and twitch in protest but when Cell’s dick didn’t go away, my body eventually gave in like I had and let it happen.

  “Fuck, I wish you’d keep the fuckin’ lube handy,” I ground out and Cell laughed.

  “Just shut up and take it.”

  I laughed a little too at his response and groaned, bracing against the wall, letting him fuck my ass. The burning had started to subside, the discomfort of the stretching fading with it until all that was left was the warmth of the friction and stimulation that was hard to describe. He kept one arm braced against my back, shoving me face first into the cool blue tile of the wall and I found my Zen. My own cock was painfully fuckin’ hard but it wasn’t like Cell to do anything about it. Not usually. I was surprised he’d touched my dick the first time. I dropped an arm and wrapped my fingers around myself, pumping my fist up and down my length as Cell beat the fuck out of my prostate.

  “Oh yeah,” he moaned and he was close. I could always fucking hear it in his voice when he was going to come and he always fuckin’ came deep. I braced, and sure enough he shoved in fucking hard and it was the sound the soft “Ughn, ughn, ughn…” that escaped his mouth punctuated with deep breaths bordering on passionate that sent me over the edge.

  Every. Damn. Time.

  I swallowed hard, my own chest heaving, the water slicking down my back as he pulled out. His absence uncomfortable for a minute, where his presence had been at the start.

  He pushed off of me and started up the shower next to mine, thrusting his face into the spray. I straightened up and he shook his head back and forth, making a stupid noise like he was pumped; which he was. I laughed a little, and used the body wash to wash up.

  We showered in silence, just a couple of bros in a locker room after that, and that was honestly just how things were. We fucked, then nothing. No feelings, no pillow talk or girly shit. Cell didn’t do feelings. Ever. We weren’t a couple, more like best friends with benefits. We needed our missing piece… I needed our missing piece if I wanted more, which I did. I wanted a lot more. I craved connection on that soul deep level.

  Even though Cell knew everything there was to know about me and I knew a fair bit about him, it wasn’t like we were open with one another or confidants. It just wasn’t like that. I needed a tenderness that he just couldn’t or wouldn’t provide.

  I finished washing up first and went for my towel, drying off; my ass still a little unhappy but I’d live. He’d been downright gentle compared to some of our other fucks. I got dressed, and he eventually walked out of the shower himself, dragging his towel across his body and eventually up over his hair.

  “Gonna ditch that shit so we can get going?” he asked thrusting his chin at the pile of dirty laundry in my hands.

  I nodded and went for the bathroom door.

  “Cool,” he said at my back.

  I took my dirty clothes and towel back to my room and dumped them in the canvas laundry bag by the door. I pulled on my jacket and cut where I’d left them on the bed and sat on the edge of the king sized mattress in the air conditioned dark of my sanctuary to pull on my motorcycle boots.

  I took the time to thread my belt through the loops and buckle up; shoved my wallet in my back pocket and threaded the leather loop around my belt, snapping it closed. One last check of things, and satisfied, I took up my keys off the dresser and went out, locking up behind me, even though I didn’t think for a minute one of my club brothers would get into my shit
.

  It was just a thing some of us had, locking up our shit. Also helped if the cops ever rolled in, which they had just a few weeks ago. Some shit that Cell and some of the other boys had gone to take care of to help out Dragon’s niece. They’d stormed in here looking for who knew what the fuck but hadn’t found anything. The club’s lawyers were now trying to take the pigs apart in court, filing lawsuits and shit about illegal search and seizure.

  I’d been kept out of it, and Cell? He just plain didn’t give a fuck. It was who he was. Savage, primal, sociopathic… I had to admit it to myself. He just didn’t feel like a normal person, or he had it buried so damn deep it was almost the same thing.

  “Let’s go, man; I’m fuckin’ starving,” he called down the hallway and I made strides to catch up to him as he went out the door, slow walking it up to the track and around to the club’s back door.

  I caught up and we went through the main building and out the front, out to where the bikes were parked. We didn’t pass anyone, which wasn’t surprising. It was almost midnight and a Thursday night; a lot of us were working stiffs and there were fewer and fewer of us actually living at the club anymore.

  We rode out to the diner and went through the door to a pleasant surprise. Hayley was behind the counter, picking up a pair of plates and taking them to a couple of the nightshift guys from around here that were having their lunch. She wasn’t in her typical uniform and I had to say, I liked what I was seeing. She wore a pair of comfortable looking jeans, the kind that women wore with the stretch to them that hugged every curve. Up top she had on a dark gray racerback tank top to beat the heat. A black apron was wound around her lean waist that wasn’t much more than a set of pockets in front.

  “Hey, look who it is!” Duracell cried amicably and I blinked, surprised at the genuine warmth in his tone. Either that or he was faking it incredibly well to seem normal. I wouldn’t put that past him either.

  “Hi, guys, I haven’t seen you in a while, my section is over here tonight.”

  She’d warmed to us a little in the last year, but still, the greeting we got just then had me and Cell exchanging a look. He raised his golden-red eyebrows at me and we went over to an empty table in the section she’d indicated. She came by to drop a couple of menus and to take our drink orders.

  “Nice uniform,” Cell commented dryly as she set down the laminated cards and Hayley tried a smile, she looked a little harried, maybe a little worn around the edges and I studied her face, waiting to see what she’d say.

  “Well, you know, I was already here once today but Shirley, our night waitress called off something like twenty minutes into her shift… I told my dad I’d cover, but I wasn’t going to change, so here I am.” She held out her hands and looked down at her casual appearance.

  “On a date?” Cell asked casually.

  She snorted, a self-deprecating sound if I ever heard one, “Hardly, I was in my studio.”

  “Studio?”

  “Stained glass,” she said softly. “It’s um, sort of a hobby of mine.” She rapidly changed the subject. “Do you know what you want to drink?”

  Cell smiled at me, giving me a wink while Hayley was overly absorbed in her notepad all of a sudden, a light pink flush creeping across her chest, up her neck and settling across the bridge of her nose. She was fucking adorable when she blushed and it made my heart skip out of rhythm when I saw it.

  “Coke,” Cell answered her and she looked up over her pad.

  “What about him?” she asked.

  “Water,” I said and she visibly startled.

  “More than a year you been coming in here and I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk,” she said. I smiled and kind of ducked my head in a half assed nod, shy myself when it came to it. She smiled back at me and it was like color was breathed back into my life.

  “Water it is,” she said softly with a charmed little half smile and went to go get our drinks.

  “Way to go.” Cell said dryly. “Only took you something like what? Eighteen months to stop bein’ a fuckin’ retard and actually open your mouth at her?” He shook his head. “Jesus Christ, Blue. You’re killin’ me.” His smile said he was totally making fun of me and I scowled.

  “Shut up,” I grumbled at him before she could head this way. Duracell just smirked at me and I rolled my eyes. He could be so fucking immature sometimes, but honestly, that could be part of his charm.

  “Right, know what you want to eat?” Hayley tapped her pen against her pad.

  “Give us another minute, baby,” Cell said, but his look was fixed on me.

  “Sure thing.” She breezed away to see to some of the other guys in the place and I picked up a menu to block Cell’s view of me, hiding like a bitch and actually taking my time figuring out what I wanted to put in my face.

  I decided on a burger and fries; it just sounded really good for some reason. Hayley came back and I did my usual point at what I wanted and Cell, shaking his head and laughing, finished ordering it for me how I liked with ranch for my fries. For me, that shit was like the new ketchup. I couldn’t get enough.

  She wrote it all down in her waitressing shorthand like she usually did and took the menus, trailing off to drop them by the register and to put our order in behind the counter. I admired the lean, long line of her body and the perfect curve of her ass in those jeans as she clipped the paper on the carousel on this side and spun it so it faced the kitchen. The night cook plucked it off on his side and squinted, reading it off back to her. They exchanged a nod and he got to work. When I looked back at Cell he had a soft grin plastered to his face, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

  “You finally get up the balls to actually speak to her and the first thing in over a year that you can fuckin’ think to say is your drink order?” Tears were starting to form in the corners of his eyes as he really started to lose his shit and I just sank down in the booth, feelin’ about seven inches tall. Fuck, I hated when he did this to me. It wasn’t easy for me, talking to people. I got tongue-tied real easy and always said the stupidest shit.

  “You’re a dick,” I said softly and shifted in my booth seat.

  “Yeah, and you love it. I do ninety percent of the shit you won’t.” He had me there, he was also in one of his crueler moods where he wouldn’t shut the fuck up and stop making fun of me or reminding me of just how much shit he did for me.

  “What’re you on your period or some shit?” he demanded when I shifted uneasily again.

  I shook my head, scowling darkly while I thought to myself, maybe. I didn’t know what my problem was. I was on edge, that’s for sure. Just every little thing was getting to me right now. I felt agitated, and irritated, my knee bouncing up and down under the table at a rapid pace.

  We sat in silence, waiting on our food when Hayley came back with two plates. She set mine down and that’s when I noticed it. It was a purely reflexive action, my hand flashing out, coming up under her arm, closing on it to cradle it, my other hand taking hers and uncurling it so I could see better what I thought I’d seen.

  A thin, pale, indentation ran from the middle of her palm up the inside of her wrist, anywhere from four to six inches long. I blinked and smoothed over it with my thumb. Looking up at her, even if I could speak, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. She swallowed hard looking scared and I didn’t want to do that to her so I immediately let her go with a soft, “Sorry.”

  She turned on her heel and walked away sharply, but I’d seen it, in her eyes, the darkness there. The same darkness I held in me. I cocked my head to the side and watched her ghost around the diner, her walls rising to the occasion, but there was no judgment here, only curiosity.

  “Put it in your face,” Cell urged and I turned back. He was watching me evenly, that look that said he knew what was up and that I needed to eat. I nodded and picked up a fry, dunking it in my ranch, doing what I was told and putting it in my face, chewing thoughtfully.

  “You eat lunch today?” he
asked and I blinked, and had to think about it. He shook his head, “You have to think about it, the answer is ‘no’. You’ve gotta eat, man. You can’t be forgetting that shit.”

  I let him lecture me. It was one of the ways I knew that he fuckin’ cared. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t say anything about it; but on this, he was right. If I forgot to eat, I tended to get the kind of hungry that gave me a harder time keeping certain demons in check. It wasn’t considered very ‘tough’ of a biker to have anxiety, but that was a bullshit citizen stereotype and they didn’t know me.

  The truth was, I had plenty to be anxious about; prison hadn’t helped any on that front, either. While I thrived on structure, that was only half the story on the inside. Sure, your meal times, when you worked, when you slept, where you went, when you showered – all of it was structured, but you also didn’t know who you were gonna piss off lookin’ at them funny, even if you weren’t looking at them at all. You never knew when the next assault from that rival crew or gang was going to come. You never knew who was gonna try and make you their bitch next… There were a lot of variables you didn’t know and those were the ones that were important. Constantly looking over your shoulder, when you got out? It was a practice you kept on with.

  It was easier, being here, with the chapter we were with now. It wasn’t just me and Cell against the world anymore. We had a family, men who were with us and who would legit watch our back. That helped, but it wasn’t the end all of be all’s. Plus it had been Cell and me against the world for so long we had a tendency to forget it wasn’t just all us all the time and that the club would be there to back us up if we needed it.

  “Hey, you listening to me, motherfucker?” Cell demanded and I looked up. I held up a hand flat and waffled it back and forth in that way that said ‘kind of, sort of.’ Cell shook his head, “I wouldn’t ride your ass about this shit if it wasn’t important,” he said and I softened a little. It was probably the closest thing I would ever hear out of him that even remotely resembled ‘I care about you’ and it just plain had to be enough. I had to take what I could get where he was concerned.