by V. Theia
He didn’t know if it was his no nonsense voice or the delivery in which he spoke to her. But she stared him in the eyes and he watched her draw those emotions back in a great shuddering breath. Almost as though she was wishing the fear to stand at her side and not bother her for a while.
“That’s good. Now, let’s get you sorted with something to eat first.” He started walking in the other direction and the girl quickly followed.
And she stayed by his side for hours.
When he fed her.
When he made sure to distract her by teaching her how to play poker.
She became his smaller shadow, to the point he had to physically stand her outside the bathroom while he took a piss in peace.
The boys celebrated the win and didn’t notice the hell he was in by making sure one skinny girl didn’t die in the night from the grief choking her.
He stayed by his bed while she cried with nightmares, he woke her and got her calm again, then he dumped a kitten on her lap and told her to take care of it, it was her responsibility that it didn’t die.
It soothed the girl and for a minute, Lawless could breathe.
She cried telling him about her parents.
“They killed them. Why did they do that?”
“People aren’t nice. The world is a shitty fucking place that will chew you up and spit you out.” He stated in his cold robotic tone, thinking of his own momma and the trailer park kids who had to fend for themselves because the adult in charge was too busy falling into their selfish addictions. “No one takes care of you better than you take care of you, girl, remember that.”
She stroked the kitten’s head and nodded his way, her soulful eyes ripping at his skin. “I will remember.”
She finally got some sleep on his bed. Lawless left her there, needing air to rid that grief from his torso she’d weighed him down with. He bypassed the party, seeing how the boys were decompressing from the night. He stepped out and inhaled the cold air.
A light shining from the garage made his feet move to check it out.
He found Snake pacing inside, with his two hands around the back of his neck, huffing like a dragon.
Knowing how to read people, it was clear to Lawless what he was seeing.
Snake was on edge.
Understandable.
He wasn’t a killer like him and Hawk.
No doubt he had a case of guilt chewing through his brain for what went down.
The air reeked of lust. He wondered why the guy wasn’t inside getting his Johnson attended to by club clingers.
Vibes rolled out of Snake like steam.
He’d caught them a while back but said nothing because the guy didn’t seem to broadcast his business.
Call Lawless a sexual savant, he could always tell the flavor of someone’s proclivities.
And right now, Snake was broadcasting his louder than a satellite signal in space.
“You good?” Lawless inquired, watching the back and forth pacing.
Snake liked to act the clown a lot of the time, few saw the real man beneath his funny mask. Lawless couldn’t fault him, he’d raised his brothers when he was a kid himself. Had it been Lawless, he would have taken to drugs, no jokes.
Murder made the guy unhinged, showing decency through his skin.
Lawless didn’t feel a thing, that’s what separated him from the rest of the boys.
They had consciences, even if they’d done a service to society by offing the Rebels.
Lawless saw it as a job.
He didn’t feel guilty.
He wasn’t roasting in evilness for the violent crimes they’d carried out.
Snake was suffering and that suffering crawled toward Lawless, almost with begging hands outstretched looking for mercy.
He knew Snake as well as he knew the others. They’d had some good talks and laughs over the years. You get to know a fella real quick when you watch him suck the tits of some random chick.
Snake liked to use his dick a lot and Lawless had to wonder why he wasn’t using it right now in the clubhouse. There was plenty of pussy floating around for the taking.
He didn’t answer Lawless’ question. Instead, Snake stopped his pacing, let his head hang off his neck and pierced Law with his eyes. “I saw you; you know.” his voice as pained as his face.
Lawless had to wonder if this kind of work was good for a man like Snake.
“Came up to your cabin, the boys and me, they stayed with the bikes. You weren’t in the house, so I came around back. Heard some noises and I took a look in the lodge window.”
A tickle of humor touched Lawless’ throat wondering how long Snake had kept his secret.
The boys knew how he was.
Lawless didn’t lie.
He wasn’t a closeted … anything.
“Saw some guy strung up and you were hurting him. He was getting off on it.”
He couldn’t put a name to the description, but Lawless had a fair idea what Snake saw.
It wasn’t how Snake was talking about Lawless’ kinky side.
It was the way his friend was breathing.
Deep.
Rough.
Rapid.
Cutting his gaze up and over Lawless.
And then he knew.
He fucking knew.
He got the first twinge in his dick. Ignoring it at first as Snake continued to tell him what he already knew. He’d spied on him and one of the submissive fish that took his fancy.
And the more he talked, the greater his agitation as he started to pace again.
Irrational.
The garage was frigid and puffs of air came from both their mouths.
The bottle hanging from Snake’s hand was half empty and Lawless hooked it up and dumped it on the workbench.
“Come with me,” he insisted, roughly and turned on his boots towards the door.
“Where?”
He didn’t repeat himself, instead he walked away.
Snake followed.
Through the clubhouse, the revelry in full effect.
Probably not for Rider, he was dealing with his own issues. But everyone else was having a grand old time.
Lawless ignored it.
Snake followed down a corridor and he opened a door and pushed the guy inside.
He staggered and stopped himself from falling by putting a hand to the wall. “What the fuck, Law!”
“So, you spied on me, did you?”
“Why didn’t you say that’s what you’re into?”
“We’re not discussing me,” Lawless rasped. “It’s not a secret who I am.”
“You were hurting him.”
Poor Snake, so fucking hidden.
Lawless wasn’t an intentionally cruel guy.
Until he was.
But he didn’t feel the need to fuck around with Snake’s confusion for what he saw or what he was feeling.
The guy was hyped.
Didn’t he realize that?
Lawless didn’t have a decent bone in his bone.
Nor a stop or chill button.
He liked what he liked and never apologized for it to anyone.
He wasn’t a buttoned up closet case. Afraid of being himself.
Fuck the bigoted world. Lawless was who he was without apology.
Everything about the situation was right and also wrong.
The air saturated in a stench he couldn’t help but react to.
Too thick to breathe.
It felt like he’d swallowed an anvil.
Much too authentic for a normal guy to comprehend the clues he was picking up on.
But then, he wasn’t normal, was he?
Lawless cocked his head, assessing.
He did it automatically, it wasn’t a conscious thing.
Maybe it was.
He was always a conundrum, or so he was told.
“He was also getting off on it, if you spied closely.”
His friend’s chest moved in small judders.
<
br /> Snake asking him without words for a fuck.
Oh yeah, he was so fucking sure about that.
The meat was drunk and lapping him up. Almost vibrating out of his too tight skin he’d been hiding inside.
“Yeah, I noticed.” He rumbled and his head fell forward, his eyes lifted.
Lawless’ Johnson hurt again. Thick now behind his fly.
What was he gonna do? He was no saint, he liked the flavor in the air of a sad piece of meat on the burgeoning of a new discovery.
Or maybe he was fucking horny too.
“I want you to do that for me,” Snake announced.
Shocking the fuck out of Lawless.
“Fuck,” he laughed.
The guy seemed tortured speaking it aloud and he rounded the shaved part of his head with his two hands and cursed.
“I don’t have my cattle prod on me.”
Snake snickered and the air became thick again.
Noticeable was the pipe in his jeans.
Turned on meat.
Would he fuck Snake? Sure.
The appeal was there.
The attraction was there.
“Don’t mean that.”
“Not a pain slut then?” He poked his tongue into his cheek and approached unhurried. Watched how Snake stiffened, but it didn’t stop Lawless. If he wanted a fuck, then he was gonna get so much closer.
He backed the guy up, crowding him uncomfortably close. Snake was still breathing hard.
“How many did you get tonight?”
Those eyes in front of him flared. “Fuck.”
“How many?” Lawless pressed with both words and body.
“Three.”
“Say it all.”
“Three. I killed three people.”
“No. You killed three rapists, child molesters, murderers.”
The chest banging up against Law’s was beating briskly with each breath, not getting the air he needed.
“I can’t un-see it, man. It’s there. It’s in my fucking eyes. I killed three people.”
A tick worked Lawless’ jaw.
He didn’t do worry.
He was no fucking humanitarian.
Snake went through the gambit of panic and it was a snap decision to grab him by the throat. The flavor of what Snake needed, crystal fucking clear.
He pushed his head back and made his skull crack on the wall.
Snake let go of a grunt and the air evaporated from his chest.
The pleasure was obvious to see.
Ah, Lawless thought to himself.
“Stop,” he issued. “And take a fucking breath.” He did. “And another.” He listened again.
Snake’s mental breakdown losing its steam.
Their eyes locked.
“I’m gonna give you what you need, but first you’re gonna tell me what the fuck you are, Snake.”
“I don’t…”
“Yes, you fucking do.”
To prove a point he didn’t even know he was about to make, he pressed their two hard bodies together and felt the steel on his own cock.
It was Snake who grunted and Lawless tightened the hand around his thick neck.
“You won’t fucking die if you say it.”
A sharp jab attacked Lawless’ head.
One he rarely received and it was doubt.
The guy needed help. Clearly.
Using sex was 101 for being fucked up. Being hyper-sexual could get a guy in a lot of fucking trouble, mentally wise.
Lawless knew that more than most, he’d fucked his way through Chicago.
But he was a headcase who got off on weird and wonderful things.
Snake was a stand-up guy who went to parent teacher conferences. Probably bake sales, who fucking knew.
“I’m bi-sexual.” Snake rasped like he was confessing to murder.
Oh, wait. He did that too.
What a fucking night for the guy.
“And now you want a fuck from me.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t be catching feelings. Don’t even try.”
“I want a fuck, not a boyfriend, you ass.”
A rush through his Johnson signed their fates. And he pulled condoms out of his pocket, tossing them on a desk at the side of them in the empty room.
Snake’s eyes flared. Hungry fucking bastard.
“Don’t ever ask this of me again, you got it?”
“Fuck,” he hung his head. “Yeah, I got it, I won’t.”
He did. Disobedient bastard, but that was for another time.
Lawless could practically feel how the other body trembled.
He should get him drunk, shove a joint at him, not let him play on his cock.
Snake doubled down, that agonized piece of fucking submissive meat, when he issued in a hoarse timber, “don’t go easy on me, I don’t want to feel. Don’t want to think. Please. Fuck, can’t think.”
Lawless only usually reacted to pain when it was sexual.
This was not only sexual. It was his buddy on the brink of self-destruction, unable to accept the violent side of himself.
Lawless reacted to the despair. “Shut your fucking mouth, meat. From this point on, your will is mine, and if I fancy making you beg, I will.”
Air rushed out of Snake.
It was relief staining his eyes. Like he knew he could let go now.
Heat flooded Lawless’ blood and then blood filled his cock. So heavy.
A filthy, frantic tick sounded in the back of his skull.
A pounding started in his temples.
He should have drank more if he’d known he was initiating a virgin sub to the dick club.
Fucks sake.
Attraction and need were like wet blankets holding him down.
And Snake, that asshole joker and friend of his, had found the fastest way to Lawless’ cock. Desperation.
But like any normal man with blood in his veins, he too caved to the fancies.
Him and his wonder cock probably saved Snake’s life that night.
And did he send Lawless a gift basket to say thanks?
Rude meat.
Hours went by and he left Snake passed out in that back room while he went to shower and then sauntered to his own room.
The girl was still sleeping, holding the kitten.
He fed the other three and let them cuddle with her too.
She’d need all the good she could get when her eyes opened and all her badness flooded her mind again.
He plonked his tired ass in a chair and faced the bed.
Life changed all the time.
A blink.
A breathe.
A clinging body.
A night full of death, pain, fucking and destruction.
Sometimes even Lawless didn’t pick up on the tiny nuances.
Until much, much later.
NINE
“In the mind of a mad man is where revenge is born.” - Lawless
“She has no one.”
Not a guy to eavesdrop, the words from Rider’s old lady drifted over as Lawless worked on a laptop resting on his knees.
A healing kitten snoozing up against his left thigh, a half empty coffee and a plate of pop tart crumbs to his right.
He’d been following a slow-ass breadcrumb trail bouncing across the world through different servers. He was almost caught up with the little cunt who thought he was clever to hide Russian money in an undisclosed location.
The jackoff didn’t know he was up against Lawless.
Eyes burning with fatigue, he was in danger of developing arthritis or some other decrepit affliction because he’d been at it for the last ten hours.
He had prospects fetching him food. And some of the club clingers fell over themselves to do his bidding with whatever else he needed.
Naughty Ellie offered him a blowjob.
He had to turn the girl down because who would concentrate on world espionage when his Johnson was rammed down a throat? Not Lawless.
Now he had those four words rattling around his gray matter.
An onslaught of carnage banged the walls inside his head. And he let his fingers drift from the keyboard, his eyes trained to where Rider held Zara on his lap.
The boys got used to seeing the prez that way with his old lady real quick. Locked at the fucking lips and doing all that moony shit couples in love did.
Lawless didn’t say a word because Rider got butthurt.
But oh, he judged in his head.
A devious man gone soft for a blonde piece no bigger than a pixie was a disaster in waiting if you asked him.
He liked Z-girl; she was showing her mettle around the clubhouse with quite the backbone.
But who in their right mind would sign up for that kind of impotence?
Now the biggest manwhore to ever step foot in the Souls house was falling fast for the bartender.
It was fucking madness on uncut cocaine.
One of these days, the VP would get sick of choking out his dick and make a play for the prez’s sister—he’s watched her for years. Then all hell would let loose
Good thing Lawless had his cabin in the middle of nowhere to bunker down when that shitstorm came into play.
She has no one.
They were talking about that kid.
He didn’t know why his skull felt too tight.
He roamed a hand around his temple where the loudest noise was coming from. Listening to Zara telling Rider how Child Services searched for extensive family in New Mexico. They located a sick elderly uncle who couldn’t take the girl.
“Rider…”
“Icy, you know we can’t.”
“No one in the entire world. She’s so unhappy, I can’t stand it.” Resting her head on Rider’s shoulder, they did that support system thing couples do.
For Lawless, it was like watching one of those Wildlife shows on the Discovery channel.
“What if we…”
“Baby, we’re getting you back into the system again after 3 years of no footprints. I run a MC that’s under suspicion for the Rebels fire. Plus a ton of other crimes the cops have their eyes on us for. Even if I wanted to foster a teen kid, there are a thousand reasons why we can’t.”
The girl sighed. “I know. I hate not being able to do anything for Angela.”
The burn increased. Itchy under his skin, Lawless tossed the laptop aside and picked up the sleeping kitten, putting her on his chest. The thing was no bigger than his palm, constantly hungry. She came awake, scampered up his chest and started pitifully meowing and butting her head on his chin.
