A Ride or Die Kind of Love

by Chelsea Camaron

  The ride didn’t last nearly as long as I wanted it too and soon we were pulling up to my block. There were only four houses and they were all large, 4000 square foot homes behind tall black gates to keep out strangers. I got off and undid his helmet before I handed it back to him.

  “Thank you,” I said before I reached over to give him a kiss on the cheek.

  Cillian turned toward me at the same time and our lips made contact instead. It was innocent enough but then he thrust his tongue into my mouth and I froze awkwardly. The taste of his saliva and the texture of this foreign thing left me heady and breathless…I didn’t know what to do. My heart raced in my chest and I suddenly felt light-headed and a shortness of breath.

  The butterfly wings beat against my stomach and I felt a warming sensation down there where I’d never felt anything but period cramps before. This was strange, forbidden and new.

  If I didn’t try then I would never know. My tongue moved gently against his and he stopped our kiss immediately before he pulled away.

  What had I done wrong? I thought I was okay at best but maybe I had a few more tricks to learn.

  Cillian’s hands were in my hair and his soft breath was on my cheek as he said, “I can’t do this with you. It’s dangerous—you’re deadly for me. I fear once I fall into your Venus flytrap, I won’t find my way out again. Go home, little girl.”

  His last words stung and I immediately turned away from him. “Thanks for the ride,” I mumbled and ran towards the gates.

  My hands shook so badly, I merely put in the combination for the gate and it opened immediately. I walked through and tried to forget all about Cillian Cox. It was just a dream and nothing would ever happen between us ever again.

  The Present

  “Hello, earth to Gisela. You all right?”

  I looked over at Naomi and realized we’d made it all the way to the Clubhouse. I wore a pair of fitted black skinny jeans, a bright red vicuña sweater and matching four-inch, knee-length high heel boots. My dark hair was down and brushed until it shined while my makeup—though minimal and understated—was flawless.

  Had I been daydreaming about Cillian all this time?

  Fuck, I had to get my head on straight. The man was still married and he wasn’t that innocent young man who’d dropped me off at my parents’ house all those ages ago.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I looked down at my watch and realized it was a quarter to eight o’clock. “The boys aren’t back yet?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t worry so much about them.” Naomi walked to the bar and said something to prospect behind the counter. She returned with a straight whiskey for her and cognac snifter for me.

  I sipped from it reluctantly. “Damn, woman, it’s Courvoisier for fuck’s sake and your presence is starting to warrant some unwanted attention. Drink fast—Bronaugh’s on her way over now.”

  My shot was down my throat immediately and the smoothness settled into a warmth in my stomach, exactly what I needed to face the Queen Bee of the Lucifer’s Saints.

  Like my own mother, she’d barely aged a day and after giving birth to five children, one would have thought it would have left its scars. If she had any, there were none to the visible eye.

  She was quite the beauty with her alabaster skin, amber eyes and shoulder-length, wavy dark hair. She had classic black Irish features though the irony was only one son looked a damn thing like her and that was Kaelan, aka Jaden Cox, the lead guitarist for the uber-famous rock band, Scarlet Fever. Every one of her other kids looked like a mix of both parents though they all had the trademark Cox crystal blue eyes except for Ronan. His violet-blue eyes were inherited from Bronaugh’s mother.

  Still fit and trim, she wore a pair of skinny black jeans and a violet peasant blouse with a pair of matching, five-inch shoe-boots. Her makeup was perfect and the coolness in her eyes was unreadable—I didn’t know whether she was relieved or upset I was here at all.

  “A word, Ms. Jackson?” Bronaugh’s hand fell at the middle of my back and I slowly stood to my feet.

  “Where to?”

  “My office.”

  She directed me through the compound until we reached the restoration department and she guided me to a small office that was neat and clean. There was a Keurig machine in the corner and an ashtray on her desk. She dumped the contents in a trashcan and immediately grabbed her pack of Marlboro Silver cigarettes, selected one and lit it with a Zippo lighter.

  “So, do ya care to share what’s been goin’ on between youse and me oldest son?” Bronaugh had the unfortunate habit of issuing demands like questions even when they weren’t.

  “Not particularly, no.” I watched her as she dragged from her cigarette and allowed the smoke to escape between her open lips.

  “I had Cillian when I was seventeen. Desmond wasn’t around for his birth because he was too busy setting up a life for us in Boston with Brendan and Sean. For two years, it was Cillian and I. I was pregnant again when he was eighteen months old but I lost the baby due to stress related issues. Desmond came home about four months after the incident and knocked me up again, this time with Kaelan. I demanded he take me back to America with him because I couldn’t handle two children on me own.”

  This wasn’t the first time I had heard about the plight of Bronaugh Cox but I acted like it was. She disliked me intensely but it had little to do with me not being Irish and everything to do with our personalities being too much alike. We automatically clashed whether we wanted to or not.

  “Listen, I know where this little conversation is going but frankly, I’m not in the mood.” I paused and opened my own cigarette case where I took out a pre-rolled joint. I lit it with her lighter and dragged deeply. “The only reason why I would show my face around here at all is unless Cillian wanted me to be here.”

  She smiled and murmured something in Gaelic about being a stupid little girl in love. “Do you know why Raymond, Ingrid, Desmond and I got together fourteen years ago and decided to separate youse two from the beginning? You can’t have honestly believed you were the first girl Cillian fooked but you were the first one he got pregnant and he did it on fookin’ purpose.”

  Between her revelation and the chronic, I was in a pretty strange place all of the sudden.

  “No, that was my fault. We were practicing the rhythm method, and had been for at least a couple months. We snuck around for ages yet he wouldn’t touch me until December—”

  “And you were pregnant by January although you two didn’t tell anyone until April. Do you remember that? Conan was born September twenty-third. You do the math.”

  “I remember when my own son was born. I was in Belfast at a home for unwed mothers, it was cold all the time and I had to sneak out just to see Cillian. Why did you send us off together if we wouldn’t be able to be with one another? I needed him more than I’d ever had and he wanted to be with me too.”

  “To teach youse two a lesson. The world is a cruel place.” Bronaugh dragged from her cigarette again. “I never thought my son would have the…issues he did after you left. He was never the same and although he played happy families with Brianna, everyone could see he was uninterested, anxious, upset…you changed something in him and when you two were taken from one another, he tried to lose himself. Apparently, living pissed and hurtin’ people was a better alternative than spending his time thinkin’ about you.”

  “We changed something in each other, Bronaugh. You think after my parents dragged me back here I was footloose and fancy free? I hated he stayed in Belfast and hooked up with that no good cunt. I despise how much time he wasted with her when we could have been together. I don’t like what is bringing us back together now because there is no guarantee I won’t lose him!” I exclaimed before I dragged on my joint.

  “There’s no guarantee of anythin’ in life. Enjoy the time you two have together, make the most of it and hope you can plead it out. Being away from him for eighteen months is nothing in the scheme of your lives. And you still h
ave a great many years ahead of you.”

  I finished my joint and extinguished it in the ashtray. “I suppose you bringing me back here has a point? What do you want from me? Your son’s all grown up and he’s gonna do whatever he wants. Even I can’t control him, Bronaugh—”

  “True, but you can reel him in. He hasn’t been my Cillian since his father and I did what we did. He never forgave us for taking you away from him.”

  I didn’t know what she expected to hear from me. I wasn’t going to absolve her or my parents for what they’d done to us. We might not have made it anyway but it should have been our choice especially after the baby was taken out of the equation.

  It looked like the two of us had come to a draw. She and Dizzy wanted me to confide in them and let them know I could handle Cillian but I didn’t honestly know if that was possible and I certainly wasn’t about to start making promises I couldn’t keep.

  Everything depended on how fucked up he was when he came back. We both knew it but neither of us wanted to actually have it said out loud because that would make it true.

  The noise of bikes interrupted us and we both stood. Bronaugh quickly stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and we both walked to the Clubhouse together. I didn’t realize we were holding hands until we strode in to the main area and everyone looked at us both.

  I stared at my future mother-in-law and she winked at me as Ronan and Cillian walked through the doors.

  Naomi was there by the door and he grabbed her before he swept her in a warm embrace and whispered in her ear.

  Cillian looked around and when he spotted me, I think both our hearts stopped for a beat. His eyes were beautiful but there was also pain behind them and all I wanted to do was kiss him and make it all go away.

  He strolled over and embraced his mother.

  “I was worried as usual but you always seem to prove your father right and me wrong,” she murmured in his ear.

  “Well, you know what Da’s like.” It wasn’t until he took my hands, I realized I was trembling all over.

  He kissed my forehead before he held me in his warm embrace.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  “I love you too, babe.” His large hands cradled my face delicately. “Just know that nothing and no one will ever keep us apart, you got it?”

  I nodded my head and finally allowed myself to shed a few tears and a small smile spread over my lips.

  He was mine and I was his…finally.

  But how long would it take for the other shoe to drop?

  Part Two

  Trials & Tribulations

  Six Months Later

  Chapter Nine

  Cillian

  Cillian climbed on the back of his Harley, and set off from his famous brother’s house in L.A. He hadn’t come to the city of Angels to see Kaz anyway but the missus of the house, a beautiful and wealthy heir to a Norwegian cruise line, helped keep him company.

  Sydney Landvik was a perfectly nice woman and also great in bed but she wasn’t Gisela and that is precisely why he hated these long runs. No matter how hard he tried, he could never stop himself from acting like a fucking douchebag.

  His woman at home was a dream come true.

  Not only had she postponed the trial once the Feds got their asses in gear and charged him with the murder of Riley, she got him granted bail damn near immediately due to the lack of space in prisons. As a good faith gesture, he’d handed over his American, British and Irish passports to the court to prove he wouldn’t be a flight risk and the judge agreed to the $2.5 million dollar bond the Federal government demanded.

  He’d spent almost a week in L.A., and had accomplished everything that needed to be done.

  He checked on the Glendale chapter only to find out both the VP and Prez were full blown coke heads who were getting high on the Club’s supply.

  He had a long chat with his brother Kaelan—aka Jaden—about making a decision where Talia Viaro and his unborn child were concerned.

  Kasper “Kaz” Gillian, his half-brother, had left town for Vegas on a business trip concerning his extremely famous and popular rock band, Scarlet Fever. He’d left Cillian alone with his fiancée, Syd, and one thing had led to another.

  Not only had be fucked her but he’d done it bareback and ate her out too.

  All the while Gisela was stuck in Birch Tree, caring for his children since their mother no longer had any interest. She was also looking after his case along with various others, and waiting patiently for this whole nightmare to be over. It was only then he would be able to divorce Brianna and make a true old lady out of the one woman he loved with all his heart.

  If his fucked up brain could just communicate this information to his dick, everything would be grand.

  Fortunately, the woman he’d decided to be so careless with wasn’t a health risk but it was the principle behind the deception. He’d done things with Sydney he hadn’t done with anyone but Gisela, and it honestly frightened him.

  All these years, he’d blamed Brianna and not having Gisela for the reason why he cheated and couldn’t stay faithful. However, no matter how much he wanted to deny it, he was more like his father than he cared to admit.

  He loved pussy and he also craved variety.

  Not that there was anything wrong with his sex life with Gisela. She could have fucked him more than she did but it was pretty hard to ask a woman with ten-to-twelve hour a day job to lay on her back and spread her legs after a hard day at work. Plus, she was also doing double duty as the primary guardian for his kids too. Although she had help because the Club was one big family, she shouldered the vast majority of the burden on her own.

  Cillian could try to justify away why he did what he did but all that managed to do was remind him of what a world class git he was for doing something incredibly selfish and stupid. Who knew how long he would have to go without sex once he told her? They’d promised no lies or deceit, and that meant he would have to bite the bullet, and tell Gisela the truth. She would figure it out sooner or later anyway and it was best she heard it from him rather than a stranger.

  “You’re fuckin’ stupid, man.” Kink climbed off his Harley and continued to smoke his cigarette.

  The two men had met up at a gas station in Barstow across the street from a Burger King.

  They had a chapter there and Kink’s ex-old lady, Miranda, lived there with their two sons, Braedan, and Killian. Her father was Irish and Sicilian while her mother had been Mexican, black and Japanese. Both their sons were beautiful and somewhat exotic looking with their olive-toned skin and black hair. Braedan’s eyes were aquamarine, just like his old man, while Killian had gorgeous hazel eyes with golden striations.

  “Says the man who let his old lady take his boys to Barstow.” Cillian stood and stretched his back. “Couldn’t you get the bitch to move to Yreka or Mount Shasta? It wouldn’t be this fuckin’ long ass trek across the goddamn desert.”

  “Ha-ha, real funny. What was I supposed to do when her family is here, man?”

  “Keep your fuckin’ family together instead of fuckin’ eighteen year olds, bro.” Cillian slapped him on the back as his face turned lobster-red.

  “That’s why I know what I’m talkin’ about. How do you think I ended up without a family? I wanted to be all about the goddamn truth and where did it land me? My old lady took off and fuckin’ took my boys with her.” Kink chugged the last of his Bud Ice and dragged on his cigarette.

  “You know, Miranda might be willin’ to come back if you weren’t shacked up with Candy or whatever the hell her name is.”

  “It’s Carla and she’s like a fuckin’ birthday cake—everyone’s had a piece of her. She ain’t nobody special.”

  “Then move her the fuck out of your house and get your woman back.” Cillian smiled wryly. “Although you have successfully talked me out of tellin’ Gisela. I don’t want to be sleepin’ in an empty bed.”

  Both men laughed as they enjoyed their cigarettes before the
y flicked them to the asphalt and got back on their bikes. They had a long ride back to Birch Tree, and Cillian wanted to get home to Gisela as soon as possible.

  He slid his helmet on and looked over at Kink. “Let’s roll.”

  “Right on, brother, till the wheels come off.”

  Cillian drove into the driveway shortly before five in the morning. He backed in and turned off his Harley before he closed the garage on the way into the house.

  Brianna was still in town but she lived in a condo in Reno after Cillian gave her a wad of cash and told her to vacate the house.

  Gisela had made sure the place was thoroughly cleaned before she and the kids moved in, and now that she was in charge of their home, the house was always immaculate. He entered the house to the smell of baked cookies. Chocolate chip and oatmeal by the mélange of smells but the place was quiet as a tomb.

  The kids were still sleep and didn’t have to wake for school for another couple of hours. She dropped the kids off and usually went straight to work but lately, she’d been working from home as well because it was easier than making the trek to Lake Tahoe every day.

  Cillian walked up the stairs after he shed his shit-kickers downstairs and headed straight for their bedroom. Gisela had gotten rid of the previous bed he’d shared with Brianna and had a brand new bed set installed along with ultra soft pillow top mattresses. She slept on and he had no wish to wake her up but he desperately needed a shower and a shave.

  He walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him before he started the shower and stripped out of his clothes. They went into the dirty hamper and as he stepped under the warm water, he began to scrub his body of any evidence he’d fucked another woman.

  It didn’t matter he’d taken a shower before he left Kaz’s; his world suddenly seemed so tiny and fragile. He couldn’t lose Gisela because his cock had no conscience even if he did. He braced the walls with strong arms as his palms flattened against the tiles. The water ran down his body, including his hair while his head was bowed.