by Penny Dee
If The Poet isn’t man enough to come to me, I’m coming for him.
The ringing on the other end of the line has my heart beating like a drum, but I’m standing on the precipice staring into the abyss, and I’m done running. I’m going to face the sonofabitch.
The call rings out, and there’s no message bank.
A second call nets the same result.
Damn.
Dropping my cell like it’s a hot stone, I yank the car into gear and tear out of the parking lot and drive furiously back to Jack’s house. I’ll grab the rest of my things and hit the road.
Ten fast minutes later, I plow into Jack’s driveway and come to a screeching halt. Leaping out of the car, I run up the steps and let myself into the house, but once inside the door, I come to a sudden stop.
Is The Poet inside the house?
Is he waiting for me behind a door somewhere?
Fuck.
Being preoccupied with Jack has clouded my better judgment and made me reckless. Hence, me standing in a house where the man who has been stalking me for months, may or may not be waiting.
Buzzing with fear, I run to the kitchen and grab a carving knife from the butcher block on the counter, my hands shaking and my knees like jelly as I walk slowly through the house.
I can’t take much more of this.
The craziness.
The looking over my shoulder.
The anxiety creeping up my spine every time I walk into the house, wondering if he’s going to jump out of the shadows.
I’m done with it.
If he’s here now, then let him show his face. I’m exhausted. I don’t want to keep running. I don’t want to be afraid for one more second.
“I’m here, motherfucker.” The sound of my own voice tears into the quiet. It feigns a bravado I don’t possess as scenes from different slasher movies play out in my mind. The ones where the protagonist walks through the house unaware the killer is right behind her. “What are you waiting for?”
Time stretches out in front of me, the silence loud, the stillness humming with anticipation.
“Come on, you cock-sucking sonofabitch.” The knife shakes in my hand—I’m so ready for this to be over. “Show yourself.”
I move slowly, my ears straining, my instincts alert.
But there is nothing.
No creak of the floorboards behind me.
No sinister voice from the shadows.
No dark figure stepping out from behind a door.
I’m alone.
He isn’t here.
No one is.
Finally, I let go of the breath I’ve been holding since walking into the house, and a flush of foolishness crawls along my skin. Of course, he isn’t here. He doesn’t even know I’m staying here.
When my phone rings, I almost jump out of my skin. It’s the same number I’d rung earlier—the one belonging to the ‘thinking of you’ message.
I answer but say nothing. I wait for him to speak. Or heavy breathe. Or whatever the fuck he wants.
“Um, hello? Is anybody there?” Comes an unsure male voice.
I frown.
Either The Poet sounds like a confused teenager, or this isn’t the person who’s driven me toward insanity for the past four months.
“Who is this?” I ask, my tone curt.
“Um, I’m returning a missed call. I’m Matt, Matt Haner. Who’s this?”
“You sent me a message earlier. It said, thinking of you.”
“What are you talking…” There’s a pause. “Wait. I sent that message to a girl I met last night. Who are you?”
I close my eyes.
Are you kidding me?
Is this simply a wrong goddamn number?
After an awkward conversation with Matt Haner, where we establish he’s texted me by mistake and that the girl he was thinking about had purposely given him the wrong number, I hang up, feeling frustrated and foolish. And bad for poor Matt Haner.
Looking at the knife in my hand, I feel like a paranoid idiot and return it to the butcher’s block, stepping away from it like it’s poison. I lean my elbows on the counter and push my fingers through my hair.
This place is fucking with me. Being here. Being with Jack. It’s making me even crazier.
And that’s saying something.
My mind made up, I grab my clothes from Jack’s room and throw them in my bags and step outside, where I take them to my car. Opening the trunk, I ignore the rumble of the Harley as it pulls in behind me.
The plan was to be long gone by the time he got back to the clubhouse and realized I’d left. I am not usually one to run away from confrontation, I saved that for facing my fears or heartbreaks—but the whole Poet thing has me feeling a weakness I don’t know how to deal with.
I don’t want to see Jack.
“What are you doing, wildflower?” he growls behind me.
I don’t bother to look around. Instead, I shove my bags into the trunk and pray this will be over quickly. But when I say nothing, Jack comes up behind me, engulfing me in his scent and heat as he turns me around to face him. I can’t look at him, won’t look at him, but when he presses two fingers under my chin I have no choice. “Look at me.”
And there it is, that beautiful fucking face that makes my body hum with want.
My gaze meets the burning heat of his. “I’m going home.”
“You are home.” His voice is rough. His eyes dark.
My cheeks warm as images of last night and what we did replay in my mind. I can still taste him on my tongue. Can still feel how deeply he kissed me, almost bruising my lips with his urgency. I can still feel the warmth of his body blanketing mine and the thick hardness of him as he pushed in and out of my body with exquisite perfection. I can still hear my moans and cries of ecstasy as he had delivered one orgasm after another.
Damn him.
His dark brows draw in. “We should talk.”
“About what?”
“About why you’re running away.”
Turning away from him, I close the trunk. “It’s time for me to go.”
I don’t get two feet from him before he calls out, “I get it, I fucked up.” His words stop me, and when I turn around, he takes a step forward. “I freaked out like a fucking moron this morning. You don’t deserve that. But I need you to understand that I’m trying to wrap my fucking head around what’s happening. Eighteen years ago, you were the kid who lived next door who played with my brother. Now—”
“Now, what, Jack?” I ask, unable to keep the rejection out of my voice. “I’m a one-night stand you fucking regret?”
“Regret? Who said anything about—”
“You walked out this morning… your message was loud and clear.”
“I told you not to have that conversation in your head.”
“Hard not to when all I see is your back walking out the damn door.”
“I went for a ride to get my head straight, nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I was trying to put things right in my head before we talked.”
“What exactly do you need to get right in your head? The fact you stuck your dick in me, or the fact you felt like you needed to run.”
Jack shakes his head. “Don’t do that, don’t dimmish it to that.”
“Why not? You did the moment you walked out that door.”
His eyes narrow as he stares into the distance then looks away. “One day you’re the kid in pigtails next door playing with my kid brother—”
“And now?”
His gaze comes back to me as he takes another step closer. He towers over me, his hair rippling in the warm summer breeze, his gaze burning through every wall I had up to protect myself.
“Now, I can’t look at you without wanting to kiss you.” He takes my face in his big hands and claims my mouth fiercely.
I’d like to say I fight him, but I don’t. It’s the rough gravel in his voice, the need in his tone, the warm touch of his hands on me as he ki
sses me like he’s dying, and I am his elixir.
For some reason, a rush of vulnerability surges through me, and I break off the kiss. “Please don’t regret me, Jack.”
His thumb brushes my cheek. “I regret a lot of things in my life, wildflower, but what I’m about to do to you won’t ever be one of them.”
Jack doesn’t give me a chance to reply. Instead, he lifts and throws me over his left shoulder, then carries me inside the house. Kicking the door closed behind him, he takes me to his bedroom and throws me on the bed where he makes love to me slowly. Every touch is purposeful. Every kiss is deep and meaningful. His strong body chasing away the demons in my mind until I’m walking in sunshine again.
When I come, he growls my name and presses his pelvis deeper into me, drawing out the pleasure until I’m a moaning, writhing mess beneath him.
He’s determined to make me forget any of my reservations.
He wants to kiss every morsel of hurt from my body and show me that this is right. This is who we are now.
When he’s sure I’m done, he lets his own climax consume him, and he comes hard, his moans primal and raw as he pumps his release into me and falls heavy onto the bed when he’s done.
Afterward, we lay entwined, our bodies slick with sweat, our breathing slow to even out. He kisses me, and it’s tender and anointing, his lips a rough contrast to the fierce kissing when he’d been inside me.
I lay my head against his warm chest and feel the strong beat of his heart. Right here I am safe, happy, and for the first time in months, I feel the unfamiliar spark of hope.
“Where did you go?”
“For a long ride.” I feel him swallow. “I ended up at Coop’s grave.”
Outside, through the open window, I see a hawk soar in the warm summer afternoon sun.
“Do you go there often?” I ask.
“Not often enough. But when I do, I always leave with a clear head.”
I listen to the sound of his heartbeat, content and happy in his arms.
“I saw the bracelet you left.”
I frown. “What bracelet?”
“The bracelet you left on his grave.”
I sit up. “I didn’t leave him a bracelet. I mean, I was going to, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”
He presses his brows together. “It was the one you were wearing the other day. The one with the little bluestone.”
A cold trickle shivers down my spine. The last time I saw that bracelet, I was taking it off before my shower the morning Jack was shot. I had completely forgotten about it until now.
I fly off the bed and hurry to the bathroom, frantically looking for the bracelet on the basin, but it’s gone, so I run back to the bedroom. “Are you sure?”
“A hundred percent.”
I start to panic.
Alarmed by my reaction, Jack sits up. “Bronte?”
Feeling the color drain from my face, I struggle to swallow the lump of fear in my throat as I think back to this afternoon when I’d walked through the house with the knife in my hand.
Had I been fucking right.
“The Poet doesn’t just know where I am, Jack. He’s been inside the fucking house.”
JACK
“Let him come, I say,” Ares growls.
Ares is always ready to fight. It makes him a perfect sergeant-at-arms.
After establishing The Poet had been inside my home, I called Wyatt, Shooter, Paw, and Ares to meet us at the house.
“Can’t see where he got in. There are no broken windows, no jimmied locks,” Wyatt relays, walking back into the living room. Everyone looks at Bronte. “You sure about the bracelet?”
“If she says she’s sure, then she’s sure,” I say. “How else did the bracelet end up in the cemetery?”
“Perhaps he got a key somehow?” Shooter suggests.
“Possibility…” Wyatt rubs his jaw.
“But how?” I ask. “Only two people have a key… me and Bronte. And our keys are always on us?” I shake my head. “It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Ares says darkly.
“There had to be an opportunity, somewhere, sometime for him to make a copy,” Wyatt says, thinking out loud.
“The only place that could happen is the clubhouse, and you guys have that place locked down tight,” Bronte says.
“We’ll figure this out,” I assure her. “Until then, we’ll stay at the clubhouse where it’s safer.”
When Bronte leaves the room to collect her things, Paw brings up Ghost.
“The body they found outside of Harristown—”
“Let me guess, it wasn’t Ghost.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So, it was just another attempt by Ghost to stop us.”
“Appears so.”
“He’s getting desperate,” Wyatt says.
“What do you think he’ll do when he finds out about TomTom?” Ares asks.
“I think he’ll make his move, but he knows he’s outnumbered.” It’s another good reason to keep Bronte close, I don’t want her getting caught in any crossfire.
“I think you’re right. He’s about out of options.”
While Bronte excuses herself to use the bathroom, Wyatt, Shooter, Paw, and Ares leave to ride back to the clubhouse ahead of us. We won’t be far behind. Bronte will drive her car, and I will follow her on the Harley.
When Bronte appears, I am taken back by how pale she looks.
“You ready?” I ask.
She nods. She’s lost in her own thoughts right now. I watch her gnawing on her bottom lip, so I stop her as she tries to walk past me. “Hey, we’ll work it out.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so fucking frustrated. He keeps turning my life upside down. And now he’s turning yours inside out.”
I cup her face. “I get it. But until then, you’re not leaving my sight. You got it, wildflower.” I kiss her tenderly before opening the front door for her.
“Fine.” She narrows her eyes. “But only if you drop this ridiculous idea about fucking me in your bedroom at the clubhouse.”
I can’t help but smile. “I believe I gave up on that last night… if memory serves. Or have you forgotten?”
Mischief tugs at the corner of her mouth. “Perhaps I need reminding.”
“You telling me it was a forgettable performance?”
“If it earns me a reminder, then yes.” She challenges me with a lift of her eyebrow. “I’ve completely forgotten all about it.”
I lean in, my breath tangling in her hair as I say, “Just for that, when we get back to the clubhouse, I’m going to fuck you so hard in my fuck room you won’t be able to remember your own name when I’m done.”
She smiles, but it’s wicked. “You say that like a threat, but I’ll take it as a promise. And it’s a promise I’ll make sure you keep.”
BRONTE
The days pass quickly. I spend most of them helping Dolly in the bar and Luther in the kitchen. Jack says it’s not necessary, but sitting around doing nothing will send me crazier than a cut snake in the grass, so I pitch in where I can.
Besides, I’ve tended bar in some pretty questionable places, so this bunch of bikers is easy. They’re like my brothers, and their acceptance of me being with Jack is obvious in the way they treat me as one of their own.
Even Shooter has warmed to me. With every conversation we share, I see more of his wariness disappear from his eyes. He’s protective of Jack. Thinks he’s seen enough heartbreak in his life. I can’t help but like him.
To be honest, when Jack told me we were staying at the clubhouse until they catch The Poet, I thought it would be stifling being stuck inside. But it isn’t nearly as bad as I thought because there’s no shortage of interesting things happening around the clubhouse.
Like when I walked in on Ghoul and Merrick with two club girls doing some kind of weird naked conga line—although I could have lived a billion years without seeing that kind of perversion—or the time I accidenta
lly caught Caligula getting a blow job off the beer delivery guy.
Or when Munster’s wife caught him ogling one of the club girls a little too closely and tipped a pitcher of beer over his head before kneeing him in the balls.
And let’s not forget Merrick losing a bet with Shooter and having to walk naked through the clubhouse on ladies’ night—a once-a-month event when the club’s old ladies and girlfriends get to let their hair down at the clubhouse. Not that it was embarrassing for Merrick because he didn’t even try to cover himself when he walked through the clubhouse. He just let that thing sway between his legs as he walked proudly through the crowd of old ladies and club girls.
And let’s just say we could all see why.
The dude was hung.
Like hung.
During my exile, I also get closer to Brandi and Candi. They are sweet and fun to talk to, and whenever they come in to hang out with the guys, they spend time at the bar with me too.
It doesn’t take long for me to fall into an easy routine.
During the day, Dolly keeps me busy in the bar. Then at night, Jack and I disappear into his room, where he sends me to seventh heaven with his big body, his talented tongue, and his magnificent cock.
It’s during this time I make a life-altering decision.
I decide not to return to Nashville. Or to college. I’m staying here in Flintlock with Jack because this is where I belong. With him.
Two nights ago, while lying in his arms, he turned to me, his hair falling in dark waves and spilling over my shoulder. “Stay here with me, wildflower,” he said, entwining his fingers with mine. “Stay here and be mine.”
Looking up into his beautiful face and watching those dimples flicker either side of his mouth, I grin at him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Things take a big turn about a week after moving into the clubhouse when Riley calls me on my lunch break.
“Your troubles are over, babycakes,” she says, and I can hear the excitement in her voice as she yells into the phone.
“What are you talking about?”
“They arrested Officer Johnson.”
“For what?”
“For doing exactly the same thing to another woman that he did to you!”
