Winston: Savage Kings MC - South Carolina

by Hart, Lane

  She ducks her head, fisting my leather cut and pressing her face into my chest. Then I feel her tears soaking into my shirt as she whispers, “I love you too. Just…please don’t hurt me.”

  “Never again,” I promise her when I place a kiss on the top of her head.

  And that’s a promise I plan to keep for the rest of my life, no matter what it takes.

  Chapter Twenty

  Zoe

  Last night was emotionally exhausting. Winston and I were both so tired we fell asleep in his recliner until the sun came up. I think a small part of me was avoiding his bed because of what happened the last time I was in it. Maybe I thought that if we slept in his bed again, it would jinx us and everything would go to hell.

  Even though I’m nervous about his bedroom, this morning, when Winston groaned as he tried to stretch his leg, I knew he needed to go lay down and get comfortable. I helped him limp to his room, then joined him in bed, both of us naked. But when he tried to get me to climb on top of him, I refused, scared I would hurt him.

  “You’re not gonna hurt me,” Winston assures me.

  “I know I’m not, because I’m not going to fuck you again until your leg stops bleeding.”

  “Fine,” he says with a heavy exhale and a grin as he pulls me closer to his side.

  “So, what’s the plan for the day?” I ask, running my fingertips up and down his abs with a sense of déjà vu, worried about what happens next for us.

  “I guess we should talk to our parents, tell them they can go back home and that we’re together, right?” Winston asks.

  “Right,” I agree with a smile.

  “And you’re moving back home?”

  “That would make the most sense, I think.”

  “Good. Fuck,” he says with a sigh. Reaching for my hand, he lifts my knuckles to his lips and places a kiss on them, but doesn’t let go. “That’s all I want…you here with me.”

  “But you would prefer if I stopped taking topless photos too?” I tease him.

  He chuckles. “That would be the icing on the cake, yeah.”

  “Then, I guess we’ll see,” I say, not making any promises just yet.

  “And I’ll try and keep an open mind,” Winston agrees. “You ready to face the firing squad?”

  “It’s not going to be that bad. I told you my dad wasn’t even very surprised.”

  “That doesn’t mean he approves,” he mutters. “Either way, I want to get this conversation out of the way. Don’t want Martin thinking I ran off yesterday just because I thought he might shoot me.”

  “No, someone else did that!” I huff. “You have to be careful. I can’t lose you, now that I’m here with you, and happy.”

  “Don’t worry, baby. I’m not going anywhere,” he assures me with another kiss on my knuckles. “Now, go get that roll of gauze for me. If you’ll help me wrap my leg up, I’ll take an Aleve or something and we’ll go see our parents.”

  * * *

  There’s a Harley parked with the other cars when we pull up to the safe house around lunchtime, but it’s not Verek sitting on the porch steps. Instead, it’s a big man with reddish-blond curls.

  As we approach, he gives us a jerk of his chin in greeting. Winston takes my hand, interlacing our fingers before he says, “Roman, this is my girlfriend, Zoe. Zoe, meet Roman, the president of the Savage Kings of Myrtle Beach.”

  “Hi,” I say, grinning ear to ear because it’s the first time he’s introduced me as something other than this stepsister.

  “Nice to meet you, Zoe,” Roman says with his own grin, getting to his feet just as Charlotte and Tessa come through the open front door with their bags. Roman holds out his arm and Charlotte slips into his side. “And I believe you met my fiancée, Charlotte, last night.”

  “Fiancée?” Winston asks with a whistle. “So, you two finally made it official?”

  “Yeah, we did, last night,” Roman replies as he smiles down at her. “Life’s too short to not spend it with the one you love.”

  “Amen, brother,” Winston agrees, giving my hand a squeeze.

  “And now that you’re back, I’m going to get the girls home and finally get some sleep,” Roman explains. “I think your parents are almost ready to head out.”

  “Thanks,” Winston says. “But before you go, did you get anything out of Joey last night?”

  Roman removes his arm from around Charlotte, then glances at her and Zoe. “I don’t really like talking about this stuff with the ladies around, but I’m too tired to go sneaking off right now,” Roman says as he seems to deflate with a heavy sigh.

  “That bad, huh?” Winston says in commiseration. “I’m not looking forward to having a shift with Joey, especially if my partner is Verek.”

  “Nah, it’s not that,” Roman says. “Conrad got him talking with some ‘creative persuasion.’ We got some names out of him, but now I’ve got a dilemma. Verek wants to kill Joey outright, and he’s even asking if Tessa can be there!”

  “I don’t know how I feel about that,” Winston grumbles.

  “That’s not the biggest issue. I don’t trust torture, man, and I don’t trust this Joey character. He could say anything, just to get us to lay off of him for a little while. We’re going to have to follow up on whatever leads he provides to verify the information before we can get rid of him.”

  “That’s going to take some time, and we’re going to have to keep up with the little fucker in the meantime,” Winston observes.

  “Exactly,” Roman says. “I don’t want to have to keep an eye on this little shit every hour of every day, and I don’t want to have to struggle to keep his ass alive any longer than necessary. It’s a risk, but it’s one we’re going to have to eat for now.”

  “At least the boathouse isn’t too far out of the way…” Winston starts, before Tessa appears at the front door.

  “Winston, your parents are all packed up and ready to go,” she says. “Oops, sorry to interrupt,” she adds as she sees the men’s bleak expressions.

  “No worries,” Roman tells her. “We’re ready to go.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Zoe,” Charlotte says, giving me a quick hug, before she walks back toward the car.

  “Same,” Tessa says with a wave before the two women get into a car, and Roman climbs onto his motorcycle. With a wave, he wheels his bike around and leads the two women away.

  “Dad, Mom? You ready to go home?” Winston asks, taking my hand and pulling me up the steps behind him and into the house.

  “Just a second!” Deb calls from the back, leaving us in the living room alone with my dad.

  “Morning,” he says, glancing down at our clasped hands.

  “I think you and I should probably have a talk,” Winston tells him.

  “Nothing to talk about, son,” my dad replies. “At least not when it comes to Zoe.” Smiling at me, he adds, “She’s a grown woman and has been for a long time. I can’t tell her who she should be with. But if I could, and she would actually listen, I would be rooting for you, Winston.”

  “You would?” Winston asks in surprise.

  “Of course.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Why not?” my dad responds. “Are you going to try your best to make her happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep her safe?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Be good to her?”

  “Always,” Winston tells him.

  “Then that’s all I can ask for,” my dad says. “You’re a good man, Winston. Even if you had feelings for Zoe when you two were teenagers, you kept it to yourself and did the right thing.”

  “Aside from the night before Zoe left for Paris,” Debra interjects cheerfully, joining us in the living room.

  “How did you know about that?” Winston asks her, as surprised as I am.

  “Know about what?” Martin asks, looking between us all. “Wait. What the hell happened the night before she left?”

  “Ah, nothing,”
Deb says, giving us a wink. “I’m sure I was mistaken, right?”

  “Right,” I agree, while Winston just shakes his head.

  “Let’s go home, shall we?” he suggests.

  “Great idea, honey,” Deb says. “The four of us have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Epilogue

  Winston

  Six months later…

  “Jesus, I can’t fucking believe that Roman tied the knot and Winston’s having a kid,” Cannon says as Leo lines up a row of shot glasses to pour us all one out. “It’s been a crazy ass year.”

  “We’re two lucky bastards,” Roman says, as we both pick up a glass and clink them together. “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” I toss the liquor down my throat, then search the crowd at the clubhouse to find my woman. Zoe’s lounging on one of the leather sofas with her hands clasped on top of her growing bump, laughing while talking to the girls. She looks happy, as she usually does lately, which makes me so ecstatic, I can’t stop smiling.

  “Pussy whipped motherfuckers,” Marcus grumbles. “And I still can’t believe you got your sister pregnant!”

  “Stepsister,” I correct him. “And I would do it again too.”

  “How come you’re not freaking out about being a daddy?” Leo asks from behind the bar.

  “Because I wanted a kid. Not to mention that knocking Zoe up means she can’t leave me again or do any more nude shoots.”

  Conrad chuckles. “Looks like it worked.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m a fucking genius,” I brag. “I waited ten years to be with her. There’s no way I’m letting her go again. And the best part about her being pregnant? She’s horny all the time and no rubbers are needed. I slide right in, anywhere, anytime.”

  “TMI, man.” Roman shakes his head. “But, um, I do need to go find my wife and see if she needs any help getting out of her dress,” he says, to which we all cheer him on.

  * * *

  Zoe

  “So, how have you been feeling?” Tessa asks, as the girls sit around, gossiping at Roman and Charlotte’s wedding reception. They had just tied the knot in a quick ceremony at the magistrate’s office. And while I’ve tried to keep quiet and not talk about the baby on Charlotte’s day, I get the feeling Tessa needs to talk about something, anything, else.

  “I’ve been feeling great,” I tell her. “Baby girl has started kicking hard enough for Winston to feel it, which is so amazing!”

  “He’s a proud daddy already,” Charlotte says. “Roman says all he talks about is you and the baby.”

  “Yeah, he’s sweet,” I tell them as I lock eyes with my man across the clubhouse and give him a smile. “And I still let him think he knocked me up on purpose so I would stick around.”

  “He didn’t?” Tessa asks.

  “God, no. I wasn’t going anywhere,” I explain. “And I knew I was already pregnant when he started ‘forgetting condoms’ when we would fool around in the garage. So, I just waited a few weeks to tell him, to let him think it was all his fault when really, he got me pregnant weeks before. You remember the night the Kings went on their mission? My beautiful, sexy man has no clue how due dates work.”

  “And how have your parents been with everything?” Charlotte asks. “They taking it well?”

  “They’re both excited and can’t wait to have a grandbaby. Although, they do want us to start planning our wedding ASAP, since it’s taboo enough that my stepbrother knocked me up,” I joke, just as Roman and Winston start over.

  Coming up behind me on the sofa, Winston leans over and gives my belly a rub. “How are my girls doing?” He’s been so sweet and attentive these past few months, waiting on me hand and foot every second of the day, making sure I’m comfortable. I wouldn’t trade our life together for anything.

  “Couldn’t be better,” I assure him. Tilting my head, I give him a kiss on his lips, which he returns with a slip of his tongue that has my libido going from cool as a cucumber to overheating in a matter of seconds.

  “Are you sure about that?” Winston asks with a knowing smirk. Leaning down to my ear, he places a kiss against it and then whispers, “I bet I could make you feel even better.”

  “You always do,” I tell him honestly. “Which is why I love you.”

  The End

  Coming Soon from Lane Hart and D.B. West

  Thank you so much for reading Winston!

  The South Carolina Savage Kings MC will finally get justice for Tessa in Verek’s book!

  Order your copy now!

  Synopsis for Verek

  Verek Rhodes is playboy royalty in South Carolina. As a member of the Savage Kings MC and the manager of a nightclub, women were easy come, easy go in his life, until he met Tessa.

  Tessa Singleton was getting ready to marry the man of her dreams before her entire world came crashing down. She’s spent the past few months in therapy, trying to heal her emotional wounds.

  The one ray of light in her bleak world is Verek. Being with the easygoing biker keeps Tessa distracted from the darkness.

  Her fiancé Paul, on the other hand, doesn’t have a clue how broken she is and probably never will since Tessa can’t find the courage to open up to him.

  Eventually, Tessa will have to face her past and make a decision about who she wants to be with. Will she choose the man she once loved or the one who saved her from her nightmares?

  Order your copy of Verek now!

  Also by Lane Hart and D.B. West

  Malcolm, the first book in the Dirty Aces series, is FREE to read with Kindle Unlimited: https://mybook.to/DirtyAcesMalcolm

  ~ Synopsis for Malcolm ~

  Covered from head to toe in tattoos and leather, Malcolm Hyde was born to be a ruthless outlaw.

  As the president of the Dirty Aces MC, Malcolm is known for being cold and calculating. One bad decision – getting into business with the wrong person – is all it takes to bring down the entire MC. It’s happened before to his predecessor, which is why Malcolm refuses to let it happen again on his watch. He doesn’t trust anyone except for the few men who wear the same ace of spades patch on their back.

  And that’s exactly why he doesn’t ever take his eyes off of me – the new girl. I never intended to make an enemy out of Malcolm or the MC when I was sent to steal everything I could from them.

  After Malcolm finds out what I’ve been doing, he’s furious and shows no mercy until I spill all of my secrets, ones that could very well end my life. That’s when he makes me a surprising offer – he’s willing to take care of all of my problems, and the only thing he’s asking for in return is for me to completely surrender myself to him.

  Spending two weeks in bed with a bad boy biker sounds more like a reward than a punishment.

  There’s just one little catch – once he claims my body, there’s no guarantee he won’t steal my heart too.

  Start reading now: https://mybook.to/DirtyAcesMalcolm

  About The Authors

  New York Times bestselling author Lane Hart and husband D.B. West were both born and raised in North Carolina. They still live in the south with their two daughters and enjoy spending the summers on the beach and watching football in the fall.

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