JD's Redemption

by Lauren Firminger

  CHAPTER NINE

  JD

  Once I had Ellie in my arms, her body pressed against mine as I held her, I felt like a weight had been lifted off me. It had been a really long time since I had just laid in bed next to a woman and held them while they slept but it felt right with her. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, the sound of her breathing lulling me to sleep. I don’t know how long I had been asleep for, but I felt her move from my arms. I cracked one eye open and saw her heading for the shower. Pulling her pillow to me, I closed my eyes again and laid there for a little while. I must have fallen back asleep though because the next thing I knew, I felt Ellie’s lips pressing against mine and her whispering.

  “I have to go back to work for a bit. You can stay here if you want to, there is plenty of food in the fridge so help yourself. I will be back in a few hours after I check everyone is okay.”

  “Want me to come with you?” I opened my eyes and looked up at her.

  “No, babe, you need sleep. I’ll call Raven if I need anything. You just make sure you are okay for your ride tomorrow. Who knows when you will get proper sleep again.” I nodded and reached for her hand as she went to move from the bed. Pulling her back to me, she fell, with her free hand resting on my chest as she steadied herself. I pressed my lips to her and kissed her softly. She pulled back slowly and I could see by the look on her face, she wanted to climb back into bed.

  “Go, Goddess. I will be here when you get back.” She moved from the bed before she changed her mind and left the room. Curling up onto my side, I pulled her pillow back to me and went back to sleep. It wasn’t long though before I was being woken again, but this time, it was by my phone was ringing. With a groan, I moved to the side of the bed and picked up my jeans. Pulling my phone out, I face planted back into the pillows and answered it.

  “What?”

  “You need to get in here. Now!”

  “In where? Who is this?”

  “I don’t have time for this shit, Sleeping Beauty. Wake the fuck up and get your ass to the agency. Now!” Pulling my phone away, I didn’t recognize the number nor was it saved in my phone. I hung up and called Ellie as I pushed myself up off the bed.

  “Babe? Shouldn’t you be sleeping still?”

  “Want to tell me what’s going on at the Phoenix, Goddess?”

  “Well if you really don’t know by now then we have problems.” I could sense the teasing tone in her voice. “It’s a quite night so I am about to leave Mel in charge and come home. You okay?”

  “I just got a call from someone saying I needed to get down there now. You sure everything is okay?”

  “Yeah, nothing exciting happening, I promise. You can come and check it out if you want to but it would be a waste of time. You need to be sleeping.” Running my hand over my jaw, I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I had been holding.

  “Alright, Goddess, if you say so. See you soon?”

  “I won’t be long.” I said goodbye and hung up the phone. Messaging Cormac, the guy that Corey’s cousin was sending to watch the club while we were gone, I asked him to check in with the club and report back to me. I tossed my phone on the nightstand and laid back down. I was trying not to freak out. If Ellie said it was all good, then I had no reason not to trust her. I was just worried about leaving her behind while we went away. It’s not that she couldn’t take care of herself, growing up with us around her, Ellie knew how to fire a gun better than most people and had a license to carry one. If anything happened though and we weren’t here to cover for that, should she shoot and kill someone, even in defense, the asshole cops in this town would put her away. I had to keep that from happening. I also knew that she would never live with herself if she killed someone. Whereas we didn’t care about that shit. We had done it that many times before, we all knew we were on a one-way trip into hell when we finally met our end. Eh, at least we would be in good company. Laying back in bed, I closed my eyes and waited for either Cormac to answer me or for Ellie to come home, preferably the later.

  Apparently, I was more tired than I thought I was because I was waking up to fingers being brushed lightly down my cheek. Blinking my eyes open, I saw Ellie smiling down at me.

  “Hi, Sleeping Beauty.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to lay on top of me. I had never been so fucking glad to see my girl. “Well, if that’s the welcome I get when I get home, maybe you should come around more often.” She kissed my jaw and laid her head against my shoulder.

  “I’ll be here whenever you want me to be, Goddess.” I pressed my lips against her head before looking down at her as she pretended to think about it.

  “I could handle forever.” Ellie lifted herself up to rest on her elbow. “I love you and I know if you give me the time I asked for, I am going to drive myself crazy over thinking it. I need to stop letting my head rule my heart or I am going to miss out on something amazing. Having said that though, I do want us to take it slowly and not rush into it. I want to date, if you are still willing to do that.” I sat up and rested my back against the headboard.

  “I told you that I wanted to do this right this time. I messed up the last time, but I promise you, I won’t let it happen again. I am going to sweep you off your feet and make you forget everything I have done and the person I have been. You deserve the world and I want to give it to you.” Ellie moved to kneel beside me before straddling my waist. I rested my hands against her ass and pulled her closer to me. Her hands lay against my neck and she looked down at me.

  “Well, Reaper, even the darkness needs the light to shine. Let’s make your world a little brighter so you can give it to me.” She ran her hands up and through my hair, her lips pressing softly against mine as they curled into a smile. Finally, I had everything I could ever want. Now to fix what I had broken.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ellie

  It took some coaxing, but I managed to get JD out of bed and get him to eat something. I knew he shouldn’t be eating this late at night, but he needed food if he was riding out at first light. Once we had eaten, we went back to bed so he could sleep some more. When his alarm went off the next morning, I couldn’t help but smile when he let out a soft groan at the sound and just curled into me more, his face nuzzling into my neck.

  “I don’t want to leave this bed, Goddess.”

  “Aww, but you have to. The boys need your awesome skills out there.”

  “They can manage. You need me here in bed more.” I laughed softly and smacked my hand against his ass.

  “As much as I would love to keep you here, you need to shift your ass, Reaper. Corey will come looking for you if you don’t.” I bit down on my lip as he grumbled some more and squeezed me a little tighter.

  “It will take him a while to figure out where I am.”

  “Not if he rides past and sees your bike out front he won’t.” With a sigh, he pulled back and shifted to look me.

  “Why do you have to think so logically at stupid-o-clock?”

  “As opposed to not thinking period?” I squealed when he started to tickle my sides and pushed him backwards.

  “Fine, I will go!” He moved to hover over me, kissing me quickly before rolling onto the other side of the bed and got up. I rolled onto my side and took in the sight of him standing there mostly naked.

  “There are clean towels in the bathroom if you want a shower.”

  “Want to come and join me?” His mouth curled into a wicked grin as he pushed his boxers down. I shifted and shook my head. We both knew that was a lie but if I went into that shower, he was gonna be later then he already was. My forehead creased in a frown as I noticed something on his side that I hadn’t seen last night. Pulling the covers back, I swung my legs off the bed and moved over him. He was now wearing a confused look as I moved his arm to look at the new ink that he’d added. Gus had done his back with the club’s insignia, but he had added to it and put two crowns. One for a king and one for a queen. Underneath each of those, he had
his mom and dad’s names. Below that was a tiara with the word ‘Goddess’ underneath it. Running my fingers lightly over it, I was mesmerized by it.

  “When did you get that done?” I asked in an almost whisper.

  “A couple of weeks ago.” He placed his fingers under my chin and tipped my head back so that I was looking at him. “You will always be one of the most important people in my life. Together or not, there is a part of me that is yours. It took me so long to come to terms with that. I was afraid of loving someone after Paige. I was so afraid to lose another person I cared about so I did whatever I could to ignore it, but I can’t deny what this is between us.” I moved my hand to rest on his cheek as I stood on my tip toes to kiss him. I pulled back after a few minutes and cleared my throat as I stepped back.

  “You should shower, or you will be late.”

  “You okay?” I nodded.

  “Perfect.” I smiled as I moved toward the door. “I’ll go make you some coffee.”

  “Thank you.” I watched as he moved into the bathroom before heading for the kitchen. Taking down a mug for him, I began to make his coffee while he showered. Pouring myself a glass of juice, I sat at the counter and let myself think over everything. I tried to picture my life without JD or the boys in it and I couldn’t. They had always been a huge part of growing up and even now, I saw most of them every day. They were the only family that I had. I didn’t see my mom or dad anymore. They didn’t agree with the company that I kept or how I made my money, so we cut ties when I was old enough to move out on my own. Since then I had been very self-reliant and didn’t need another person to take care of me. That didn’t stop the boys though and I loved them for that. When JD and I split up the first time, I tried to stay away and even considered moving, but he would draw me back in and despite all the hurt he caused me, I still loved him. I heard a throat clear behind me and jumped out of my skin.

  “Will you quit fucking doing that?! Make some noise, Jesus!” The asshole just laughed at me before moving over to me and wrapping me in his arms.

  “I’m a ninja. I can’t help it!” I rolled my eyes and dug my elbow into his side.

  “Keep it up and you’ll be a dead ninja. Asshole.”

  “You sure you are okay?” He took a drink from the coffee that I’d made him and moved to lean against the counter.

  “Just thinking about what my life would be like without you guys in it.”

  “Pretty damn boring.”

  “I was thinking relaxing but sure, let’s go with boring.”

  “Oh, come on! Admit it, we keep you on your toes. You love us.”

  “Lucky for you that I do!” He rolled his eyes this time. Looking down at his watch, he cursed and finished off his coffee. After putting his mug in the sink, he kissed me goodbye.

  “I’ll be back soon. If you need anything, call Raven.”

  “For the millionth time, I will! Please go, I will be fine.” He held his hands up and left. I stood up and went to the window, watching as he started up his bike. My neighbors were going to love that. Not that I cared though, the amount of times those assholes had woken me up after only just getting to sleep, called for some payback. After he was gone from sight, I went and got back into bed. Pulling the pillow close to me, I curled up under the covers and tried to go back to sleep. I could do this. It was only going to be a few days.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JD

  I was the last to arrive at the clubhouse which was both a good and a bad thing. It meant the ass kicking that I planned to give anyone who was late, I was getting shit for, but I honestly didn’t care. It was so worth being late for. I quickly checked in with Corey and Duke that we were good to go and that they had all been through the training. Confident that they were all ready, I got back on my bike and Corey and I led them onto the state road where we had a minor detour through Blue Diamond and Calico Basin in Red Rock Canyon National Park. From there it was on to the Bruce Woodbury Beltway in Summerlin South and on to Arizona from there. Normally it would take about six hours, but we needed breaks in there if we needed them and we needed to get through the mountains as quickly as we could. We were too exposed and were potentially making ourselves moving targets.

  When we reached Blue Diamond Road, I put my thumb up to Corey. He did the same before checking the guys who all gave us the sign. With a nod to me, we headed in. A large part of me was hoping that we would find the group we were looking for quickly, so we could turn around and come back but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. The reason we had chosen today to leave was because this group of renegade bikers liked to move from their space and make the trek to Arizona and create havoc on the way though. We were going to try and put a stop to that though.

  Face planting on the motel bed in Phoenix, I was so fucking tired from the ride down. We had some issues with one of the bikes coming through Boulder City, so we needed to leave him there to get that checked out until the van caught up with us to put him and the bike inside until we got it back to Ruby to fix. She was going to lose her mind over that one because she had just fixed it after he fucked it the first time. Also warned him that if he wanted to get all the way to take another bike but the idiot decided she didn’t know what she was talking about and ignored her. I was going to let her do the whole told you so song and dance as well as kick his ass into the middle of next week.

  Rolling onto my back, I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket and sent a message to Ellie letting her know we were stopped for the night and were safe. After sending that, I called Raven and checked in with him. When he heard what Adrian had done, I swear I thought he was about to kill himself laughing. Once he managed to compose himself, he told me that everything was fine back home and that he had gone in to check on the Phoenix earlier and it was running like clockwork. We still had Cormac watching though just to be sure. It was then that I was hit with a thought I was surprised that none of us had actually had yet. I went and knocked on Corey’s door while I still had Raven on the phone and put him on loud speaker.

  “Something isn’t sitting right with me. How far away are the closest nomads?” Corey was looking at me like I had lost my mind.

  “Bakersfield, why?”

  “Get them in. I don’t like that we have left and haven’t found anything in any of the places we checked out on the way. We will still come back tomorrow but I think we may have been set up.” Yeah, they were so gonna be thinking that I am crazy but I didn’t care. The nomads had nothing going on right now so why not make them useful.

  “Alright, make the call. You’re Prez.” Corey handed me his phone while he and Raven finished up their conversation and I stepped outside. I dialed Hunter’s number and he answered after two rings.

  “Go for Hunter.”

  “You guys busy?”

  “Not for you, Hawk. What you got for us?”

  “You’re needed in Fernando.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “I’m not sure. We are in Phoenix at the moment after a tip off we got but something isn’t sitting right because we have just ridden through Red Rock and down here but nothing. We are headed back to Fernando tomorrow, but I wanted some back up just in case someone pulls something overnight.”

  “We’ll leave in five.”

  “Thanks, Hunter.” We hung up and I went back into Corey’s room. Handing him back his phone, I sat down on the bed. I hoped to Christ I was wrong, but I wasn’t risking it. When I took mine back from him, I saw a text from Ellie letting me know she was at work but to call her if I needed anything. I couldn’t help but smile at that. I looked up and saw Corey watching me as I replied.

  “You sure about this?”

  “About what?”

  “The set up?”

  “No, but I don’t want to risk it. Too many people we care about could be hurt and I don’t want that after everything we have already gone through. Losing Old Duck was a big hit for the club. We are already down Raven and Chaos while he is on his honeymoon.”

&n
bsp; “Do you think maybe we should keep the nomads close even after we are back? We don’t know what we are looking at, so it couldn’t hurt to have some extra firepower.”

  “That’s a good idea. I will talk to Hunter when we get back. We also need to talk to Irish and make sure our supply is good. The last thing we need is to run out of anything. Pyro needs to get his hands on more shit too if he hasn’t already.”

  “We’ll call a meeting when we get back and sort it all out.” I gave him a nod and stood up.

  “Get some sleep. We are riding out of here early.” I left his room and quickly rounded up the boys who were down at the bar, before heading back to my room. I had a quick shower and climbed into bed. I hated being this on edge.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ellie

  Laying my head against the back of my desk chair, I pressed my fingers to my temples and began to rub them as if it would actually help. It didn’t and I had a feeling, from the way the girls were acting today, it was going to be a long night. I’d had to lock myself in my office for a minute of silence. I had no idea what had gotten into them but they all wanted to complain about something. The frustrating part was that nothing from today was different to any other day. To make matters worse, JD was away so I was worried about him and I had this sinking feeling that I was being watched. I don’t know if it was someone looking out for me because JD had asked them too or if it was going to require me calling in back up, but my office seemed like the best place to be right now.