Fractured & Formidable: The Sacred Hearts MC Book V

by Downey, A. J.

  “Okay. That’s too long. Finish up, I’ll take you to dinner,” he said gently. I shook my head.

  “I’m done and I’m going home, I’ll fix something when I get there.”

  He gave me that adorable grin, complete with those boyish dimples and with that damned chipped tooth it made my insides melt, faster than milk chocolate in the double boiler.

  “I’m taking you out. I believe I promised you dinner,” he said and I stared at the ceiling and counted to ten.

  “You promised me dinner last year. It’s been over a year now! And just how do you know I’m not seeing anyone anyways?” I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.

  “Asked your roomies,” he said with a one shouldered shrug.

  I made an incredulous noise. I packed up the chocolates I’d been working on and put everything in its place. Zander leaned a hip against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, gaze following my every movement.

  I hung my apron on its hook by the walk-in and smoothed my mint green sweater into place over my hips. I brought down the sleeves from where I had them rucked back over my elbows and tugged up on my riding boots over my dark jean leggings. Zander watched all of this, his smile slowly fading, his gaze becoming molten, liquid with heat. I gathered my purse and keys from beneath the front counter and snapped off all the lights. We’d long since been closed.

  Zander followed me as I went through all of these motions, watching from a safe distance. I ushered him out the front door and set the alarm before dashing out and locking up. The parking lot was empty except for my little blue Ford Focus and a beautiful cherry red and white muscle car. I stopped in my tracks and stared at it. It was like something out of a magazine. My father would have appreciated it very much. He was an old car guy, though I couldn’t tell you what kind I was looking at without reading where the model was on the back.

  “What do you think? Want to go for a ride?” Zander asked and that sexy as sin grin of his was back.

  “It’s yours?” I asked.

  “Mm hmm, restored her myself,” he buried his hands in his pockets, “So how about a ride Red?” he asked and I shook my head.

  “Not tonight, I’m exhausted.” It was true, my day had thoroughly caught up with me and now that he’d mentioned it I was ravenous! I wanted to go home, eat something and go directly to bed.

  “Okay, Sugar. You win this time,” he said and I blinked. I’d been staring into space. I colored faintly and shivered in the cool night air. I hadn’t worn a jacket this morning. I unlocked my car with the little key fob, my corner lights flashing bright into the night. Zander opened my door before I could get around and reach for it myself. He held it for me. I got into the car and he leaned in, I held myself stiff. He looked me over and smiled.

  “May have won this battle but you haven’t won the war,” he said softly and kissed me again and oh God I liked the feel of his lips on mine. Had missed it so much. I think he knew it too because he pulled back, even though I hadn’t kissed him back, his eyes sparkling.

  “I’m glad you like it when I kiss you,” he remarked as if he’d read my mind.

  I frowned, “Who says I do?”

  He grinned from inches away.

  “You may not kiss me back, but you don’t pull away either,” he murmured and backed out of the door, shutting it firmly on the inarticulate sound of protest that escaped me. I blinked at him and he stood smiling, a few paces away. I realized he wasn’t leaving until I pulled out and was underway and so I started my car. He waved at me in my headlights and grinding my teeth with frustration I pulled out onto the road and made my way home.

  He’d conceded that I’d won tonight so why did I feel like I was on the losing side of things? I sighed. That should be obvious… I wanted him a year ago and I wanted him now, I just wasn’t sure I could trust that he wouldn’t pull a Houdini on me again.

  Chapter 3

  Revelator…

  I’d let her go the night before and thought about our entire exchange. She had been stiff and unyielding in my grasp, but she not once fought me or tried to shove me away. I’d shot a text to Dray telling him to make sure she ate when she got home. He’d shot a text back asking if he looked like her fucking babysitter. Geeky as fucking hell but I’d texted back ‘..I.,’ at him.

  I got a text from Everett about twenty minutes later of a sneaky candid photo of Red at their dining room table, a large salad in front of her, her cute freckled nose buried in an e-reader as she ate. I asked Everett what she was reading and got a text back exclaiming “I don’t fucking know! Why don’t you come over here and ask her? Stalker status much?” Okay yeah, point taken.

  I went home and hit my home gym to clear my head and work off my arousal. She smelled so fucking amazing. Her soft curves yielding against me when I’d held her close. Her body warm and supple and perfect, lips like fucking silk… I’d abandoned the effort pretty quickly and breathless went for an icy shower instead. Not my favorite way to wrap up my evening.

  The next day started with training, then a quick shower followed by a whole lot of time working my ass off at the clubhouse putting in insulation and putting up drywall. I took myself off to my club room and cleaned up and found Ghosty looking as lost in thought as I’d ever fucking seen him, chillin’ at the bar nursing a beer.

  “Ghosty! What you thinking about man?” I asked.

  “The usual. The past, women…” Dude sighed hard.

  “You need to think about something else,” I pulled a bottle of water out from behind the bar, leaning way over to do it.

  “Got a lot on my plate at the moment. Life is at another crossroads,” he said and didn’t sound entirely happy about it.

  “This about Shelly?” I asked.

  “Some of it, some of it’s about me too.”

  “Shit, you’re doing some real deep thinking over here ain’t you?” I cracked the seal on my bottle and downed it, crushing it and recapping and reached for another.

  “Uh yeah.” He nodded.

  “Lay it on me,” I said and grinned.

  “Was gonna take Shelly up into the hills to do something special for her. Take her to see something I know she’ll like,” he said but sounded thoughtful.

  “What that meteor shower thing?” I asked. Happened around here every year but typically it was overcast and hidden, this year it was supposed to be clear.

  “Yeah, but I’m thinking I need to do something on a bit of a grander scale.”

  “Oh yeah? What did you have in mind?” I asked.

  “I have an idea, but I’m going to need some help and maybe a woman’s touch.”

  “You can count me in on the heavy lifting but if it’s a woman’s touch you’re wanting you should try one of them hookers over there.” I gestured with my bottle of water at some of the chicks that hung around the club over in the corner but I was really only half assing it, suggesting it as a joke. They may be easy pussy but for something like Ghost was talking about, he needed someone with class and we both knew who that was.

  “I think I’ll ask Hayden but I’m still going to need your help,” he said. I grinned. Yep, that was the particular female I’d been thinking about too.

  “As long as it doesn’t cut in to my training.” I shrugged and crushed my second bottle of water and wished that it was a beer. No alcohol while training. I could drink plenty after a fight but it was right back to training the next morning, hangover or not.

  “Got a fight coming up?” He asked me.

  “Next month, bottom tier but I should work my way up fast.” I grinned, and it wasn’t entirely friendly.

  “Feel sorry for the poor bastard,” he said and I clapped him on the back, hard, pretty much just to be a dick. We chilled for a bit and shot the shit about some other miscellaneous boring crap before he got up to go.

  “See you around man,” he said and we clasped hands.

  He left and I looked after him for a minute. His mind was worlds away and it showed. I knew the feeling. Mine was pret
ty much on Red constantly now that I’d finally committed to fucking doing something about making her mine. I looked at the clock. They closed up at a regular hour on Saturdays. Red had Sundays and Mondays off. It was getting to be that time and so I heaved myself off the bar stool and straightened my cut, going for the door. Dray fell into step beside me.

  “Going to get Everett?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he nodded.

  “I’m headed that direction too.” He stopped and I stopped with him, he eyed me speculatively.

  “Look, I get why you did what you did back in the beginning there with my girl’s best girl, but did you really have to be a dick about it?” he asked. I frowned.

  “Yeah I fucked that one up big time, didn’t I?” I asked with a heavy sigh.

  “Yah think!?”

  “Dragon called and I got to doin’ what needed doin’ and honestly, that’s no fuckin’ excuse, I forgot all about those damned dinner plans.”

  Dray scowled, “Yeah well she’s a chick and you know how that goes. It hurt her feelings. Mandy ain’t used to dudes takin’ an interest. The way my girl tells it, she was kind of stuck with the stigma of being the preacher’s daughter all through high school. Dudes just took her at face value of being some kind of prude. She didn’t get much action if any, only a few dates here and there and mostly on a kind of Em. She’s shy, which doesn’t help much. So you not showing up, it cut way deep.” I looked at my VP like he grew some kind of second head.

  Red not getting any play was kind of a total fucking foreign concept to me. The girl was fucking gorgeous! I figured she’d be beating dudes off with a stick, which truthfully was part of the reason I steered clear so hard. I figured she deserved better ‘n me by a mile, especially since I didn’t have any time to give her. I just really didn’t want to see her with anyone else. Mostly because I would’ve probably beat the motherfucking brakes off of any dude who tried. I thought I’d been some kind of blessed when she’d steered clear of the club, but hind sight was always fucking 20/20.

  “Fuck me! She steered clear of the club because she didn’t want to see me didn’t she?” I asked. Dray looked at me like I was some kind of moron.

  “You think!?” I scowled and he nodded.

  “Then she just plain got busy with making her chocolates and getting shit straight with the business. She spent forever in the kitchen getting shit right with her grand folk’s recipes; doing the math to do big and bigger batches. We got her moved in and I don’t think she left the house but once or twice in the whole first month, well except for those damned Sunday dinners with her folks.” It was his turn to scowl and it leapt out at me.

  “What’s that look for man?” I asked.

  “Not sure what’s up but she goes to her parents and comes back quiet as a mouse. No smiles, no laughing, as reserved as I ever seen her. Think her pops is real over bearing or something.” He looked troubled like he thought there was more to it than that and I nodded.

  “What’s Irish say?” I asked.

  “That’s just it, Em won’t say anything. She ain’t happy about whatever it is though. I can tell you that much.” I nodded, thinking about it.

  “Think I can get a free pass on Church tonight?” I asked. Dray raised both his eyebrows and looked back towards the club house. He looked me over and looked thoughtful for a minute.

  “Yeah man. I’ll see what I can do. The Pres. is in with Data, hot ‘n heavy. Something’s up, just don’t know what it is yet. I take it whatever you got planned has to do with Mandy?” I nodded.

  “Yeah, I wanna spend time with her.”

  Dray nodded saying, “Typical Saturday night for her is spent with her nose in a book or watching some TV. She’s a real homebody that one. Come by the house. She’s sure to be there.”

  I nodded, a plan formulating.

  “Good deal, be by in an hour or two,” I said. Dray nodded and went for his Trans-Am while I went for my Chevelle.

  If Mandy wouldn’t come out and have dinner with me, I’d bring dinner to her. I wasn’t no master chef by any means but I knew my way around anything meat, and how hard was it to make salad? I headed out towards Dray’s place and stopped in at the market closest to it. I found some real lean steaks and some fancy premade mushroom caps. I bought a bunch of shit for salad, some bottled water and I figured I could deviate just a little and picked up a six pack of my favorite beer.

  I drove out to Dray’s with two grocery bags full of shit sitting shotgun, feeling pretty good about myself. I pulled up to the curb across the street from his place and jogged over the two lanes of asphalt, a bag of groceries in each arm. He opened the front door as I leapt the front steps in two big strides.

  “She just got in the shower. We’re heading out,” he said. I nodded.

  “Good deal, thanks man.” Everett looked at the bags and then to me dubiously.

  “Good luck, Mandy tells you to get out you better get. She calls me and I’m coming back here.” She gave me a baleful look.

  “Not going to preemptively kick my ass out?” I asked and grinned, she shook her head.

  “I told you I wasn’t dissuading you, but I’m not helping you either. What you two do is Mandy’s business until she makes it my business,” Everett said and gave me a pointed look.

  “You hurt her again and it’s my business. Got it?” I nodded.

  “Yes Ma’am!” Dray hooked an arm around his woman’s shoulders and pulled her into his side. They went out the door and I kicked it shut behind them. It took everything that was in me to go to the kitchen and cook, rather than set the shit down and go for the bathroom to join her in there. I think I showed some pretty remarkable restraint.

  I started doing my thing, my heart doing a little leap in my chest when the water shut off. I wanted to see her so damned bad. To make everything up to her. I studiously kept cooking. The steaks were seasoned and the broiler was on. The mushroom caps stuffed with all sorts of good stuff were in there and I was nearly done with the salad when the door opened. I heard her give a gusty sigh.

  I replaced the mushrooms with the steaks and called out, “Hope you aren’t comin’ out here naked. You are and I’m not sure my self-control will take it.”

  I figured it was only fair warning her I was here seeing as I’d snuck up on her last night, which hadn’t exactly gone the way I’d had it mapped out in my head.

  Mandy slowly crept into view in this deep, forest green, silk robe with these golden-orange flame colored leaves around the bottom and edging the sleeves. Her red hair was twisted up into a knot and carefully pinned at the nape of her neck. She was fuckin’ heart stopping.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. She was a whiter shade of pale, freckles standing out and her face was fresh and clean without makeup. Her autumn eyes seemed larger somehow without all that crap around them. Not to say that she did her makeup badly, she did awesome, but I really liked her this way too.

  “You wouldn’t have dinner with me last night,” I said.

  “Where’s Dray and Evy?” she asked.

  “Club.”

  “Did they let you in here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you doing?” she frowned.

  “You already asked me that and the answer is I’m making you dinner.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I really want to make it up to you Red,” I said gently and she softened a bit.

  “Give me a minute to get dressed,” she murmured.

  “No need,” I told her and shrugged, using the back of the knife to scrape the chopped veggies into the salad bowl.

  “I beg your pardon?” she looked affronted and I couldn’t help but chuckle. Man, I sure knew how to put my foot in my mouth when it came to her.

  “You just got home from work and you should stay comfortable,” I gesticulated with the chopping knife, “‘sides, I like this. Looks good on you.” She blushed a deep crimson and with the green robe it suddenly looked like Christmas. I grinned.<
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  “I should probably find something more modest,” she stammered. I set the knife down with a scrape and a clack and leaned both hands against the kitchen counter and stared her down hard.

  “Why?” I asked her.

  “I, um… It’s not proper…” I stopped her stammering by coming around the counter.

  “By whose standards?” I asked.

  “I, uh… societies?” she murmured. I stalked towards her and she backed into the wall.

  “Society in here?” I asked.

  “No…”

  “Then stop fuckin’ worrying about it and relax.”

  “Kind of hard to do when you’re invading my space and intimidating the heck out of me!” she blurted and clapped both hands over her mouth. She looked fuckin’ terrified for a split second and I was just inside arms reach by now. I grasped her gently by the hips and stepped in the rest of the way, looking up the few inches into her lovely eyes which fixated on my mouth. She wouldn’t make eye contact, but that was okay.

  “You want me to kiss you Red?” I asked. She lowered her hands, startled.

  “What? No! Um, why would you ask me that?” She looked a little lost, like her poor mind was a little on overload.

  “You’re staring at my mouth,” I said. Her eyes snapped to mine widening.

  “I’m sorr-!“ she didn’t get to finish. I brought her mouth down to mine and kissed her softly, and this time I think she forgot because it was as sweet as the fucking first time.

  Her lips parted with very little urging and I cradled her against me, my tongue plunging past her teeth into her sweet hot mouth. She gave this little moan, her eyes slipping shut and I went from zero to rock hard in my jeans in point zero three seconds flat. Too soon she came to her senses and jerked back, her lips slightly reddened from my kiss and I smirked.

  “I missed you too, Red.”

  She stepped out from the wall and I gave her some space so she could sink, breathless and a little shaky, into one of the dining room chairs. I smiled to myself and went back to finishing up dinner, checking on the steaks in the oven.

  “You always this heavy handed with everything you do?” she demanded. I looked up from the oven.