Between Brothers: The Sacred Brotherhood Book IV

by A. J. Downey

  “I feel like a teenager,” he confessed and I smiled.

  “Me, too.” I dropped the towel and reached for him and he came willingly, dipping his head to capture my mouth with his own, his warm hands moving over my cooler skin.

  He came with me to the bed, shedding his clothing a piece at a time, making love to me slowly, with care and consideration and it was just what I needed. To know he still loved me, to know that my body was mine and in some ways his, to do with what we please because I chose it to be that way.

  Blue was careful and slow, and for once, I wished he were Cell. Rougher, more demanding; it’s what I craved which was also frightening and confusing after what had just happened to me.

  “What’s wrong?” Blue asked, mid stroke and I knew he would understand, and that I could tell him, so I did. I could trust Blue not to make fun of me, get angry or disgusted with me… he was the most nonjudgmental person I knew and my faith in him was maintained when he pulled out of me and said, “Get on your knees,” in a rough growl I don’t think I’d ever heard come from him.

  I got onto my knees and leaned way down low to the mattress, gripping the sheets in my fists and biting my lower lip, craving him, needing him, and he gave me just what I needed. He lined himself up and slammed into me, bottoming out against my cervix with that sharp, sweet pain.

  “Oh yes, harder!” I begged and he gave me what I wanted. My bedroom echoing with the fervor of our sex, the sharp reports of flesh hitting flesh, the force with which he did it setting a bass tempo of thumping, a deeper sound beneath the sharper slapping.

  God, it wasn’t enough. I wanted it to hurt, I needed it deeper, harder, faster and I whined without words my frustration.

  This was Blue, though. Blue who was far more in tune with the subtle nuances of a person than Cell ever was, and so he knew… he saw it and heard it and delivered, grabbing me by my arms above my elbows and hauling back on them, jerking my back into a bowed arch that was severe but not uncomfortable. Still…

  Oh. My. God.

  He touched places inside of me that I didn’t even know I had. Each long stroke of his body into mine awakening sensations I never even dreamed were possible. My nipples tightened, sparkles invading the edges of my vision, as pleasure flowed through me warm and inviting, raising me up on a cloud of euphoria.

  The fall was amazing.

  I undulated with the crashing waves of my orgasm but that part of me felt far away… my body that is. The part of me that mattered, that undefinable thing that made a person who they were, plummeted as from a great height and kept falling, warm winds whipping past until I fell completely, madly and as deeply in love with Blue as anyone possibly could.

  Anyone who could connect with another person like this, so meaningfully, so deeply, was a treasure that was to be held onto and coveted. I felt myself locked into them. The piece that seemingly fit between them and made them whole because I had both known and understood for a long time, there was no Blue without Duracell and there was no Duracell without Blue. It’s just how they were. It just was what it was and there wasn’t any changing it.

  Duracell coming to my defense, protecting me like he had, sacrificing himself like he had… going to jail, perhaps even worse for me just told me that I was right where I was supposed to be and it killed a part of me that he wasn’t with us right now, that he wasn’t the one giving me the punishing sex that I craved.

  I had entered into this arrangement knowing that I would love Blue and figuring that if anything was going to happen it was that I was simply going to have to put up with, or tolerate Cell in order to be with Blue until something changed.

  I never in a million years expected to collapse into my bed, Blue lying on top of me, inside of me, and miss Cell as keenly as I did now. I never expected to feel this swell of longing and love for the cruder, more violent man… but I did. I choked up hard and felt myself sob with how much I wanted him here with us.

  Blue pushed himself up and touched my back asking me uncertainly, “Hayley, what is it?”

  “I miss him, I want him here with us and I’m so very afraid of what’s going to happen to him… he didn’t do anything wrong. He was just protecting me, and now…”

  Blue gathered me to his chest and made a soothing sound, kissing every bit of me that his lips could reach.

  “I know, my little one… I miss him, too. I’m afraid for him, too, but it’s good this way. Having one of us at least, here to look after you.”

  I nodded, “But who will look after him in that awful place?”

  Blue was silent then and I looked up into his solemn gray eyes; at the worry radiating from them. I realized I’d just voiced his greatest fear and asked helplessly, “What do we do?”

  “The only thing we can do. Wait until morning, get him out as soon as we can. Try not to get too worked up… Cell took care of himself long before I ever showed up, then took care of us both. He’ll be okay for one night. Tomorrow, we can try and take care of him but that’s never really been how he works.”

  “How do you take care of a man who doesn’t want to be taken care of?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  “Make yourself available to meet whatever need he’s got when he gets out of there.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. With his unpredictable nature, that seemed to be a tall order, especially after the savagery I’d seen him show just hours ago.

  “He loves you, as much as he’s capable of it, Hayley,” Blue said and I cuddled into his arms. “He really sucks at showing it, but I swear to you, he does. He would have taken those boys out regardless for their actions but not because it was the right thing to do, more because he loves a good fight. The fact that he took them apart as hard as he did and with that level of heat means he was pissed they touched you.”

  “Will I ever understand him?” I asked.

  “Probably about as much as I do, which isn’t as much as you’d think.”

  “I can pretty much forget ever hearing it from him, can’t I?”

  “What? That he loves you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He held me tighter and said, “Yeah… but that’s what you got me for.”

  It was surprisingly a lot more comforting than I think Blue realized. I needed him and his softness. I needed that reminder that I was loved and Blue made me feel that. I held to him tightly and he eased us down, so that we were more comfortable and for sleep, pulling the blankets and quilts on my bed up over us.

  “I love that you love us,” he murmured against my ear just as I was on that first edge of sleep.

  I loved that, too. I loved that I took the chance, faced down the risk, and dared to love them both… they completed me.

  Chapter 30

  Duracell

  “Man, this is fucking bullshit. He sexually assaults my fuckin’ girl and I’m the one that’s gonna end up locked up for a year?” My lawyer looked at me from across the table and blinked slowly.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me but what you are facing if you take this to trial is a class B felony. First degree assault is serious, Mr. Glenn. Pleading it down to a class D is a gift from god.”

  “It was a motherfucking fork,” I argued.

  “A fork with which you did grievous bodily harm! You could have killed that boy with that fork, and as it is, his hand will never be the same.”

  “Good.”

  My lawyer pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

  “I strongly urge you to accept the deal.”

  “And take a second strike? Fuck no.” I got up from the table.

  “Mr. Glenn! What do you want me to tell the prosecutor?” he called after me.

  “No fuckin’ dice! See him in court!” I called over my shoulder and left the fuckwit’s office.

  It’d been two weeks since what had gone down at Jake’s diner with Hayley and she’d bounced back pretty good. I didn’t regret for one minute what I’d done, but then again, I wasn’t in the business of regret. It was a pret
ty fucking useless emotion when you stopped to think about it. I got on my bike out front of the lawyers office pissed that I’d had to take a day off of work for this shit.

  A long hard ride was calling my fuckin’ name and maybe, just maybe a long hard fuck after would help get rid of my pissed off mood. These fuckin’ charges weren’t going to go away. Not even if I killed the little bastards, so I had to either accept the plea or go to trial. I could think of a couple of ways that could go down. Jake, Hayley, and Blue were definitely on my side, it was the rich little bastard’s butt buddies that were the problem.

  I fired up the Harley and left a line of rubber down the road as I left out of there. I hit the highway at full speed headed back for the club, but even full speed wasn’t enough so I did what I always did when I sought wind therapy; I twisted the throttle that much more.

  I passed any number of cages using the left passing lane until some dipshit started to slow down with me coming up on him. I ducked around him and saw it too late. There wasn’t any stopping it, there wasn’t any slowing down or slamming on the brakes. I knew when my ticket’d been punched and I saw it in that flash of silver as the car turned in front of me.

  I slammed into the passenger side front fender and was airborne, just like that. I resigned myself, and it felt like a fucking millennia before I came down. I’d done a full goddamned flip and landed on my back, skidding along the pavement, my head snapping back and connecting even as I heard shit in my body go snap, crackle, and pop.

  The wind was knocked clean out of me and I stared at the blazing blue sky, the sun bright and suddenly fierce, my sunglasses missing. I lay there, unable to move, trying like hell to drag in a breath, mouth flooded with the taste of copper as tires squealed, and shouting went up.

  I couldn’t turn my head. I wanted to. I wanted to push it back more but my brain bucket against the ground was tipping my chin into my chest. I finally got that fucking breath and shit was bad, shit was real bad. It ground into my lungs, and the fact the pain wasn’t there told me this was it.

  I always wondered if it hurt to die, and I guess I was getting my answer.

  A woman knelt beside me, tears streaming down her face which was white with panic as she cried, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you. Oh my god, I’m so sorry!”

  Sorry wasn’t going to save my ass, but it sure was going to save the courts a gang of money prosecuting it.

  I thought about Blue.

  I thought about Hayley.

  I fucking knew regret then. I knew anger, too, as I fought to breathe, dragging in breath after breath.

  I looked at the woman that’d hit me and I raged on the inside though I doubt she could see it. I could make her feel it though…

  “Should… have looked… twice. I had someone… to… go… home… to…”

  Shock, devastation spread out through her eyes and I smiled. The last thought I had before the world went black was the taste of my little boy Blue’s lips and the silky wet heat of Hayley wrapped around my dick.

  Fuck.

  I would miss them.

  Chapter 31

  Blue

  I stood in the hall at Doc’s hospital, numb. They’d brought Cell here they said. Dragon had gotten the call because it was club doctrine that we all put him as our emergency contact of the emergency feature of our cellphones… because of this… precisely because of this.

  The rest of the club waited in the ER waiting room behind me as I paced up and down the hall. When the doctor came out, pulling that fucking scrub cap off his head like every bad fucking movies rendition of this scenario played out… I knew… I just fucking knew and it broke me.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said addressing the lot of us. I didn’t really hear anything he had to say after that. I was too busy staring at the ceiling while my eyes fucking watered, trying to remember what it was to breathe and I couldn’t.

  The automatic doors wooshed open behind me, and I turned around. Hayley and Mel came through the doors and Hayley stopped, mid-step at the look on my face.

  I stared at her, committing every line and curve, the deep well of her brown eyes glassy with tears and didn’t want to be the one. The one to break it to her, to crush every dream she had of the three of us while every single one I had burned inside me to the motherfucking ground.

  But this was us… and as us, it had to be me.

  I shook my head, once left, once right and I watched her fall. I watched her crumble right in front of my eyes. Her legs going out from under her, the tears spilling down her cheeks as she screamed, the most painful sound I’d ever heard. The echo of what it sounded like as my own heart cracked in two.

  Melody tried to stabilize my little one. Going to her knees beside her, and I knew I should go. That I should be the one… but I couldn’t. I couldn’t hold her up while I was in spiraling out of control all my own. Spinning in a fucking freefall, about to crash and erupt into flames myself.

  I turned so I didn’t have to look and started walking. I had to get away. I needed to regroup. I needed to figure my shit out. I needed to find Duracell and ask him what to do but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t ever be able to, ever again.

  I don’t remember what I did after that. It was impossible to know… All I knew was that I felt sick. Terribly, terribly ill. I shook with it, I rolled off the bed onto my hands and knees so thirsty…

  I turned my head and my vision swam and things vaguely came back to me. The awful look on Hayley’s face. Leaving the hospital. The bar. The bitch I fucked in the back of Sugar’s and the coke I did off her tits… the alcohol.

  A bender from hell… that’s what this is. You’re coming off a bender from hell…

  Still, Cell was gone and he wasn’t coming back. My being in his room didn’t change that. Not a goddamned thing was different. Cell was gone and he wasn’t coming back because there ain’t no coming back… once you’re dead, there ain’t no coming back…

  I screamed my rage and pain to the empty room wordlessly and punched the carpet. It felt good, so I did it again. Knuckles bruising, the rug burning them, I punched the floor again and again and again the pain making me feel alive…

  But Cell wasn’t because he was dead, and there ain’t no coming back… not from that.

  The door opened and Dani stood in it, a glass of water in one hand. She looked down on me, pity clouding her bright blue eyes, dulling their sparkle, and I looked away. I put a bleeding hand out to her in a bid to ward her off and keep her away, but she ignored me.

  She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She knelt next to me and pushed the cool glass against my palm. I suddenly remembered how thirsty I was and sat up, shoving the water into my face, drinking greedily, some of it dripping onto my shirt, but I didn’t care. I threw the glass against the wall and it shattered. Dani jumped and sat back on her heels and I felt bad about that. I felt horrible about that, actually.

  Dani didn’t deserve to be scared. Not of me.

  I put a hand on her shoulder and she wrapped both of her slim hands around my forearm like a hug. I needed a hug… I needed… I needed…

  I keeled over onto my side, my head in her lap and pulled my knees to my chest. I was lost… Cell’s little boy Blue only without Cell there to watch my ass and protect me. I didn’t know what to do. I missed him. I loved him… I didn’t know what to do.

  Dani petted my head and whispered, “Shh, I know… I know… You don’t have to.”

  “I don’t know what to do…” I repeated and only then realized that I kept repeating it like some kind of a mantra.

  “I don’t know what to do… I don’t know what to do… I don’t know what to do…”

  Chapter 32

  Hayley

  I didn’t know what to do.

  For myself or for him… The look of raw pain in his eyes in the hospital corridor told me everything I needed to know and I just folded like his paper creations, only instead of something beautiful, I was left as nothing more than a crump
led sobbing mess on the hospital floor.

  I looked up when Dragon took my hands and helped me to my feet. Blue was gone… just like that… gone. Just like Cell? God, please don’t let it be just like Cell… don’t let me lose them both.

  “I know, ‘salright, chica. We got you.” I stood shaking and nauseous and took the comfort provided to me by the surrounding club members, dying inside like I’d lost an important part of me… and I had. We both had, except I felt like, in that instant, I’d lost them both…

  “I don’t know what to do…” I said mournfully, and Dragon hugged me tight.

  “Ain’t gotta do nothing, honey, that’s what we’re for.”

  I wanted to believe him, and it turned out that he was right… I didn’t have to do anything like plan the funeral, or cook for anyone, or handle any of that stuff. I just had to show up, which I did, and hope against hope that Blue…

  I didn’t see Blue. He didn’t come to me. He didn’t call or answer the phone. He didn’t answer my texts either.

  I knew he was hurting, and I was hurting, too but I needed to tell him. I’d needed to tell them both, but I couldn’t. Not now… but one day stretched into two, then two into four and then it was the wake and I was at the club with all of these people and all I wanted to do was die myself, but I couldn’t.

  Not with the life growing inside of me.

  “Have you seen him?” I asked numbly.

  Melody was sitting on one side of me, and Dani took a seat on the other… She put a hand on my back and rubbed useless circles, her face full of sympathy as I stared at Duracell’s prone form in his casket.

  He looked like he was asleep, and I hated that, because it was all wrong because even in sleep he was tense and his face held that wicked edge of danger and he didn’t look like that lying there… he looked gone… because he was and I would never see him again. I would never feel him again, and I would never tell him that he had a fifty-fifty chance that he was going to be a father and that killed me more than anything.