Bayou Devils MC: The Complete Series

by A. M. Myers

  “Yes, well, I’m a lady now.”

  “What a shame,” he whispers, closing the distance between us and pressing his body against mine. “Who are you trying to fool? I want my Kady back. Why don’t you let her out to play for a little bit?”

  I grit my teeth. “Your Kady died seven years ago.”

  “Baby…” he breathes, taking a few steps back as his eyes widen and I grip the door as I move forward, forcing him back over the threshold.

  “I think it’s time for you to go.”

  I almost get the door shut when his hand shoots out, hitting the wood with a deafening crash, preventing me. Jack bolts to his feet, growling louder now, his gaze fixed on the man in front of me.

  “No, Jack.” I turn back to Noah. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll call the police,” I threaten and he smiles, pushing the door open again as he takes a step toward me.

  “No, you won’t. I can’t seem to figure out why yet but I know you don’t want the attention the police would bring.”

  Fuck.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Noah studies me for a second before nodding. “Okay, tell you what… either call the cops or let me in so we can talk.”

  “We have nothing…”

  He raises a hand, cutting me off. “Stop with that shit. We have a hell of a lot to talk about and you know it. I’m getting real tired of these fucking games you’re playing, Kady.”

  “Then, leave.”

  “No.”

  We stare at each other, neither one of us willing to back down and my mind races. Both options are bad but out of the two, calling the cops is the worst. It would bring far more attention to me than simply letting him in to talk. I chew on my lip and he grins.

  “Fine. Come in but I’ve told you, there’s nothing to talk about.”

  He lets out a sardonic laugh as I turn away from him and he follows me into the house. “The bullshit coming out of your mouth is just amazing.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I call over my shoulder and he grips my arm, whipping me around to face him. I gasp as he pushes me up against the wall and presses his body into mine. His cock digs into my hip and I remember how good it feels to have him touching me as I fight back a moan.

  “Enough lying, baby,” he orders softly, dragging the back of his fingers down my cheek. My skin tingles in the wake of his touch and I fight to keep my eyes open. “Tell me what happened to you seven years ago.”

  I shake my head, meeting his gaze. “No.”

  “Yes,” he shoots back, gritting his teeth. I lean up on my tiptoes, letting my lips just barely brush over his before I smile.

  “No.”

  His eyes search mine frantically and slowly heat, sending a shiver down my spine. Before I can say anything else or stop him, his lips crash down on mine. Goose bumps race across my skin and I moan softly as I melt into him. He grips my hips, pulling me closer and for the first time in years, it feels like I’m home. I don’t have to think because my body remembers him like he never left and my heart pounds in my ears as I give over to it.

  Fuck.

  It was stupid to think that I had moved on with my life. In this moment, I know that, for me, there is no getting over Noah LeBlanc.

  He owns me.

  “Kady,” he groans against my lips and it snaps me out of my daze. I press my hands against his chest and shove him back. Stumbling away from me, he meets my gaze as we both gasp for air. My hands shake uncontrollably as I lean back against the wall and release a breath.

  “You need to leave.”

  He shakes his head, looking bewildered as he closes the distance between us again. “Tell me you love me.”

  “No,” I shoot back with a shaky laugh, feeling far less confident than I was a moment ago. He slowly reaches up and cups my cheek.

  “I know you do, Kady. Tell me you love me.”

  I turn away from his touch. “I don’t love you anymore.”

  “Bullshit,” he growls and my gaze flicks back to his. “You and I are destined, baby doll. Written in the fucking stars and that’s the kind of shit that never fucking dies.”

  “It’s been seven years, Noah. You don’t love me anymore. You don’t even know me.”

  He reaches up and cradles my cheek again as a soft smile stretches across his face. “It could be a hundred damn years, Kady, and I’d still love you just as much now as I did the day I got locked up. You own me, baby.” He takes my hand and places it on his chest, over his heart. “You always have and you always will.”

  “Please, stop,” I whisper, tears burning my eyes as he echoes my thoughts. “You can’t say things like that to me.”

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head and grip his t-shirt in my fist as I drop my head, the reason we can’t be together ever again ringing in my head like a beacon. It doesn’t matter how much I love him or that when I’m with him, I’m almost whole again. When he got locked up, things changed forever and there is no way to unring the bell.

  “I can see the pain in your eyes, baby,” he says, forcing my gaze back to his with a finger under my chin. His green eyes beg me for answers. “Tell me what happened while I was locked up.”

  “No,” I force out through clenched teeth as a tear falls down my cheek and I push him away from me. “Stop coming around, stop kissing me, and stop leaving shit on my doorstep. We are over and done, end of story.”

  He frowns. “What did I leave on your doorstep?”

  “The rose last night. Gifts and flowers are not going to win me back so just give it a rest.”

  “Kady,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t leave you any flowers.”

  My head snaps up and my stomach drops. There is a ringing in my ears as I stare at him, my mind racing.

  No…

  He scowls, studying me for a moment before he takes another step toward me. “Kady?”

  “You need to leave now.”

  He shakes his head. “Hell, no. What is going on?”

  “Leave now, Noah. I’m not playing around.” I start shoving him toward the door and Jack stands up from his bed, barking as he inches closer to the two of us.

  “What the fuck, Kady?”

  Ignoring his question, I push him again and he holds his hand up in the air before walking toward the door. He yanks it open and turns back to me. We lock eyes, staring at each other for a moment before he shakes his head and walks out, slamming the door behind him. I go to the window, my heart pounding as I watch him drive away and as soon as he’s gone, I go to the kitchen and grab the shotgun off the table. Once I check that it’s loaded, I sink into my chair and lay it across my lap as my hands tremble. Jack whines, looking up at me for reassurance and I lay my hand on his head in an attempt not to hyperventilate.

  “He found me,” I whisper, staring blankly ahead as my whole world crashes down around me.

  Chapter Eight

  Kady

  The motion sensor goes off, blaring through the cabin and jolting me from sleep. I spring forward in bed with a gasp. My fingers wrap around the shotgun laying on the mattress next to me and I pull it to my chest before throwing the covers back and climbing out of bed. Jack is already pacing in front of the door, growling low as he glances down the hallway, ever my protector. My heart thunders in my chest as I cock the gun and creep toward the window, each second feeling like eternity as I cross the hardwood floors. The alarm cuts off and the silence is even more nerve-racking than the piercing wail of the motion sensor. At the window, I suck in a breath and pull the curtains back just far enough to peek out into the backyard as my heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest. I scan the tree line, searching the darkness for the threat I know is there and when I come up empty, I drop the curtain back in place before pressing my back against the wall and releasing a breath. I clutch the shotgun to my chest as Jack look
s at me from his post at the door.

  “Let’s go,” I whisper, nodding as I push off the wall. He turns away from me and starts heading down the hallway a few feet in front of me, guarding me as we move to inspect the rest of the cabin. The taunting silence is only amplified by the quiet click of Jack’s nails on the floor as we creep into the living room and it fuels my paranoia. God, what if he’s back? The thought sends a cold chill down my spine and brings tears to my eyes but I don’t stop. My grip on the shotgun tightens as I move through the living room to the window, flattening my back against the wall and my stomach churns as I reach over and pull the curtains back. I peek out at the driveway and blow out a breath. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

  A large German Shepherd is standing in the middle of the driveway, his nose to the ground as he walks in what looks like aimless circles. Jack barks and the dog lifts his head, studying the cabin for a minute before he turns and runs back down the driveway. Sighing, I drop the curtain back into place and my entire body sags.

  Jack watches me expectantly and I shake my head as I move away from the window and sit down in the chair by the fireplace. He follows behind me and lays in his bed next to me. To anyone else, he looks at ease and relaxed but he is still just as alert as I am and it makes it impossible to feel safe. As I focus on my breathing in an effort to calm down, each little noise outside the cabin sends me jumping out of my skin and my heart races out of control as I try to breathe through the fear. Images, memories from years ago, come racing back to me and I press my hand over my heart as tears slip down my cheeks. For the last six years, night has always been the hardest to get through. Most days, I can put on a happy face and muddle through but at night, I’m tormented by the darkness and the danger hiding in her shadows. Before Noah returned, I assumed I was getting better at handling that fear but apparently, I was wrong.

  The funny thing is, I used to feel so safe with Noah. All he had to do was wrap his arms around me and all my cares just disappeared because with him standing beside me, no one could reach me. But all that went out the window when he got locked up. Sighing, I push out of the chair and walk to the kitchen before turning around and marching back into the living room. With the gun firmly in my grasp, I pace back and forth through the cabin, remembering a time when my life wasn’t so damn complicated.

  God, things were so easy before Noah was locked up.

  Life was simple.

  I was just a girl working at a little diner, madly in love with the boy I met in sixth grade and planning our future together. My vision was clear and everything I had ever wanted was within my grasp. Things weren’t perfect, what with Noah’s involvement in the club and the drugs, but they were certainly headed in the right direction.

  We had a plan.

  And then Noah was arrested.

  Wiping away my tears, I continue pacing through the cabin and blow out a breath. If he found me, if he knows where I am, then everything I’ve been building for six years is gone. I might as well light a match to this place and run as far and as fast as I can because I’ll never be able to go back. Even as I think that, though, I know I could never do anything to this place. To most people, it’s just a cabin but for me, this is the only home I’ve ever known.

  In the kitchen, I plop down in one of the dining room chairs and wipe away more tears. I was a year old when my mother abandoned me at a fire station and I went into the foster care system. When I was three, I met Hannah at the orphanage where we both lived and she’s one of the only people who has always had my back. In sixth grade, I met Noah and between the two of them, I managed to create my own version of family. After graduation, Noah’s parents didn’t like how serious we were getting and they kicked him out of the house in an attempt to set him straight but it sent him right into the arms of the Bayou Devils MC. The president, Blaze, sold the club as a family but it became pretty clear after he joined that it wasn’t what it seemed. It did bring Bobby into my life, though, and I’ll always be eternally grateful for him.

  Bobby was one of the original members and he became somewhat of a father figure for me while he saw me as the daughter he never had. There isn’t anything in the world he wouldn’t have done for me and I cherish the years I spent with him. This cabin was his and when he died five years back, he left everything he had to me. Of course, he had to put it in Hannah’s name to keep me hidden but it’s something he was happy to do which is why I could never destroy it.

  So I guess faking my death is out of the question.

  I yawn and rub my hand over my face, exhausted, but I know there’s no way in hell I’ll be able to go back to bed at this point. Glancing at my phone on the table, I mutter a curse before scooping it up and dialing Hannah’s number. It’s three in the morning but she won’t care. In fact, she’ll be pissed if she finds out that I’ve been just sitting here for the past thirty minutes freaking out instead of calling her.

  “Hello?” she answers.

  “Hey, Han.”

  “You okay?” In an instant, she’s more alert and I hear the rustling of her sheets through the phone.

  “Kind of. A dog ran into the driveway and set off the motion alarm.”

  She sighs. “How long ago?”

  “I don’t know,” I lie.

  “Is the shotgun in your hand?”

  I glance down at the gun in my hand and sigh. “Yeah.”

  “That’s what I thought. I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  “No,” I blurt, standing up and resuming my pacing. “You don’t have to do that. I just needed someone to talk me down. I’m sorry. It’s stupid.”

  “I’m walking out of the house right now,” she tells me before hanging up and I pull the phone away from my ear, shaking my head. I feel terrible for waking her up and dragging her out of bed in the middle of the night but I’m also so relieved that she’s going to be here with me. Being alone is one of the hardest things for me to cope with after everything I went through and probably one of the main reasons I was talked into adopting Jack so easily. Lord knows how badly I would be losing it right now if he weren’t here to make me feel a little safer.

  Walking back out into the living room, I sit next to the window and peer out into the driveway to wait for Hannah. I readjust the grip on the gun and try to swallow my fear. There’s something about the moonlight that makes my mundane driveway seem ten times creepier than it does in the daylight, though and I will Hannah to drive faster.

  After ten tense minutes, she pulls into the driveway, setting off the alarm again but this time, I breathe a sigh of relief as I stand up and rush to the door, yanking it open. She smiles and grabs her bag out of the back seat before turning to face me.

  “You holding up?”

  I nod. “Sure.”

  “Come on,” she replies, meeting me on the porch. “Let’s go put the gun on the coffee table and try to get some rest before we have to wake up for work.”

  “Thank you,” I tell her as I shut the door behind her and lock it up tight. She sighs as she sets her small duffel bag down on the couch.

  “You never need to thank me, you know that. But, we will be talking about this tomorrow.”

  I roll my eyes as I set the gun down and grab a few blankets from the hope chest in the corner. “Whatever.”

  She lies down on the couch and I cuddle up on the chair next to Jack’s bed, pulling my legs up to my chest as I lay the blanket over me.

  “Night, babe,” she says into the darkness and I quietly blow out a breath, more of my fear slipping away. I know that tomorrow, I’ll have to tell her what’s been going on and figure out what the hell I’m going to do about this mess but for now, all I want to do is sleep and pretend like I’m not totally screwed.

  * * * *

  Scanning the back room of the animal clinic. I make sure everything is in order before flipping off the light and making my way up to the waiting room where Hannah is perched behind the front desk, typing away at the computer. I plop down in the chair next
to her and she spares me a glance.

  “You about ready to go?”

  She nods. “I just need to finish this up. Five minutes, tops.”

  “You’re good,” I tell her, setting my bag down on the counter as Victoria steps out of the closest exam room with our last patient of the evening, a cute little French Bulldog.

  “Give us a call if Buster’s not feeling better in a couple days, okay?” she instructs and Buster’s mom nods. Victoria walks them to the front door and says good-bye before locking up and turning back to us. “Any big plans for the evening, ladies?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I nod. “I’ve got a hot date with a bottle of my favorite wine and my bathtub.”

  “Ooh,” she exclaims, wiggling her eyebrows as she does a little shimmy with her shoulders. We both laugh and she winks as she disappears back into the exam room to clean up.

  “So,” Hannah prompts. “We going to talk about what happened last night?”

  I sigh. I’ve managed to make it through the whole day without her grilling me on my behavior last night. Not that I ever thought I’d get away with not telling her but I was enjoying my reprieve.

  “What is there to talk about? The alarm woke me up in the middle of the night and after that, I was too freaked to go back to sleep. It’s nothing new, Han.”

  “But I thought it was getting better?”

  “It was…”

  She stops typing and turns to me, arching a brow. “But?”

  “But then Noah came back and led him right to me.”

  “What?” she whisper-yells, looking around the office like we’re trading governmental secrets. “How do you know?”

  “He left a rose on my porch the other day.”

  She studies me for a moment, fear in her eyes. The same fear that’s settled deep down in my soul since Noah found me. “Are you sure it was him?”

  “Pretty sure,” I answer with a shrug. “I asked both Mason and Noah and neither one of them left it so unless it was you…”

  “Maybe Noah’s just messing with you.”