Connected in Pain

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Connected in Pain Page 8

by Ryan Michele


  My hand went to the woman’s head as my balls drew up and hot come expelled from my cock. The hair didn’t feel right between my fingers though, and when I looked back down, Carley was sitting there eyes on me and licking my cock clean. Pulling my hand away, it felt as though it was covered in acid.

  Never had this been a problem before. Never had I had any other feelings during head except to get off and do it hard. This time felt different, not right. It wasn’t the woman looking up at me who I wanted to be there. It wasn’t her face filled with want who needed to be on her knees in front of me that I craved.

  It weakened the intensity of the orgasm to something that wasn’t even worth my time, and what man would ever say that shit? A guy came. It felt good. Done. Normally. This time it felt unsatisfying to say the least.

  I pulled away from her scooting my chair with me, standing up and zipping my pants. Carley looked up at me expectantly wanting to get hers too, but that wasn’t going to happen. She wasn’t the one I wanted to sink into. It didn’t even appeal to me one bit.

  “Thanks.”

  Disappointment flooded her face, but I didn’t give a fuck. She did her job here at the club, and in return the Rebellions give her a safe haven place to stay. It worked, and she’d need to get the fuck over it.

  Leaving her on the floor, I made my way to the TV room where my dad was sitting in one of the recliners. I slapped him on the shoulder. “Hey. How are ya?”

  He looked up at me, his face showing his age and experience. His skin had turned leathery over the years—all that time out in the sun on his bike riding. The gray goatee and hair helped that along as well. Years he’d been the president of the club, but about four years ago he decided it was time to call it quits and he started grooming me for the position. A year later I took over and hadn’t ever looked back. I’d been a member of the club since I was eighteen. There was nothing else I wanted to do but be part of this club. Even before that, I grew up here. Learned here. This was home.

  My father had been my rock my entire life and still was to this day. If ever a man deserved respect, it was him.

  “Good, son. Thought I’d come see the game.” His head nodded to the television as I plopped into the seat next to him. My father would always be a member of the Ravage MC, but he’d pulled back in the past couple of years because his health hadn’t been the greatest.

  “I’d have come in earlier if I’d have known you were here.”

  His hand clasped my forearm giving it a small shake. “You’re a busy man. Believe me, I understand.”

  He would and was probably the only person I could talk to about all the shit on my shoulders. It wasn’t the time for it.

  “Talk to me.” The order came out just as such to my father. Loved the old man, but he went to the doctor yesterday and didn’t call me. Not that I expected him to, the stubborn old man. He was one of the very few on this planet that I wouldn’t shoot in the head for not following orders.

  The man was as headstrong as they came and took zero shit, which he passed on to me. Times like these though, I could strangle him.

  “The treatment is working.”

  This shocked the shit out of me so much I grabbed the remote, turned off the television, and got in my dad’s space. “Really?”

  His smile was forced, not giving me a good feeling. “Yes, son. Really.” My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer two years ago and had been going through chemo and radiation. Both not getting all the cells out. There was an experimental drug that the doctors said would be good for him. I pushed him to do it. He did, eventually.

  “So it’s killing the bad cells and your body is producing good ones?”

  His eyes were warm as he looked at me. This time the smile was genuine, and I felt the knot in my chest subside. “Yes. Things are going well.”

  “Is Kara taking you to all your appointments on time?”

  His smile widened. “Oh, Kara is taking care of your old man just fine.”

  I sat back in the chair and grabbed the remote. The little tingles in the back of my neck told me something was off. My father wouldn’t lie to me unless it was something big, and that something would be that the medicine didn’t work and he was trying to save me from knowing this information. But he looked me in the eye, so for now I believed him. He knew I’d be pissed as hell if he lied.

  “You need more help, old man? Got lots of women who’d love to give ya a hand.”

  He chuckled. “Back in the day I’d say fuck yeah. Now, I can barely keep up with this one.”

  “Right.” I had no doubt my father was doing just fine there. He’d always been a wild one.

  I held up the remote about to turn the television back on, but his words halted me. “Your mother came by the house the other day.”

  My mother. Right. That was not the word I would use for her.

  “Oh really? She need money?”

  Dad’s tone turned somber. One thing I knew was that he loved my mother, even being the flighty bitch that she was, he loved her. He’d wanted her from the moment he saw her, and she gave in for awhile. But like everything else, she picked up and took off. A free spirit I was told over and over again. Bullshit. She just didn’t want any responsibilities.

  She’d come by every now and then, but never stayed too long. My kids met her a couple of times, but she was just a stranger to them. Fuck, she was a stranger to me. Never had her more than a few days here and there during my entire childhood.

  “Yeah.” He huffed out a breath. “Said the spirit was telling her to go to North Carolina for a while and needed help gettin’ there. Since I don’t want her ass here near you or my grandkids, I gave it to her, and she blew out as fast as she came in.”

  “Shouldn’t give that woman money, Dad. She’s a waste of space.”

  His head turned to me, brow raised. “You have every right to feel that way, but she did love you with everything inside of her.”

  “Yeah, when I was born. After that… she flew.”

  My father raised me on his own with the help of the club since I was born. Mom would come and go a few days here and there until Dad put an end to it, meeting her at other places as not to hurt me as I got older and started asking questions. Hell, I didn’t care to remember any of that shit.

  I had one parent, and he was in the seat next to me. The only one who mattered.

  “Yeah. It’s better this way.”

  “Dad, I’m serious. Don’t give her anymore money. She has a problem she can come to me about it. She doesn’t need to be bothering you.”

  Honestly, I’d love it if the bitch came to me so I could tell her to piss off. My father would want to coddle her like every other time. True, he didn’t want the woman around me or my kids, but he still loved her to this day. He never denied it, but I’d never asked either.

  He said nothing so I prompted, “Dad?”

  “Yeah. I hear you.”

  Blowing out a heavy sigh, I let it drop and asked, “You goin’ to Greer’s game tomorrow night?”

  “You know I don’t miss a single game. Is my girl gonna be there?”

  I clicked on the television back to the game. “Doubtful. Jenny doesn’t let her out much. Greer says he needs to talk to me about something, though. Hell if I know what it’s about. He didn’t say, but he sounded worried.”

  “He doesn’t have some girl knocked up, does he?”

  A chuckle escaped. “Great minds think alike, old man. I said the same shit to him, but he gets me and knows I’ll beat his ass if he ends up being a dad in high school.”

  “Don’t want him following the path his dad did, huh?”

  “Fuck no. Love my boy, but having him while Sophia and I were in high school kicked both of our asses.”

  He looked over. “Yeah, it did. But you pulled your shit together and now have a very strong independent kid on your hands.”

  “Yeah. He’s good.”

  On the screen the Crimson Tide ran in for a thirty-seven-yard tou
chdown. Fuck yeah!

  “Now your girl…”

  He let that hang in the air clogging up the space around us and taking the excitement of the touchdown out of my head. Van’s mother was a piece of shit junkie who had repeatedly told me she was pulling her head out of her ass, would get clean, and get rid of that jackass she’d been letting stay at the house. It hadn’t happened yet.

  I’d give anything for Sophia to be Van’s mother. Sophia had her shit going on and her head screwed on straight.

  Jenny did not and was a pain in my ass. She stayed away, for the most part.

  Greer though, he wasn’t going to go through the same shit I had. That kid had better not tell me he’s gonna be a daddy. Wasn’t that the thing about life? Each generation wanting the next to do better than the one before. If I could scare the shit out of my boy, I would do it in a heartbeat.

  “What?” I prompted him.

  “Need to get a tighter rein on that mother.”

  I turned to him away from the television. “What’d you hear?”

  Dad shook his head. “Jenny.”

  If the man could be any more vague, it would be a miracle. There was so much goin’ on with that bitch. I didn’t have to wait long though, because he continued. “That dickhead is still in her house and from talk, he’s not goin’ anywhere.”

  “Fuck.” The bitch promised me that she’d have my ten-year-old little girl out of that damn house and away from her fuckwad of a boyfriend. “Guess it’s time I make him go and put her ass in rehab myself.”

  Dad nodded. “Yep. Either that or you take Van out of there.”

  “Don’t you think she should be with her mother and do all that girl shit?” I asked, really wanting to know this answer. His opinion and thoughts were very important to me, and I sucked them in down to my bones. Van being with her mother was questionable because the parent role was reversed in that home. I fucking hated it.

  “Not if she’s in a house with a dick like Stan and Jenny stays.”

  “That’s the club’s fuckin’ house she lives in.”

  He put his beer to his lips and took a pull. “Know that, son. What’re you gonna do about it?”

  “Piss the bitch off more.”

  “Exactly. Van can hang out with your old man. Know you’re busy.”

  “Thanks. Anything else I need to know from your fucked up wisdom bank?”

  He chuckled.

  “Can we stop talkin’ about this shit and watch the game?”

  “Yeah.”

  That was what we did. Our heartfelt conversation over, we watched the red blow the other team out of the water.

  Roll Tide, Rebellion, Alabama life.

  8

  Crow

  “Nothin’,” Phoenix called out after breaking open the safe upstairs in the hall closet. What was the point of a safe if you didn’t even keep your kids’ birth certificates or social security cards in them? I never understood that. Seemed stupid to me. Not that the information would help us any. Just common sense.

  Lemon was on the computer seeing what he could find, while Wrong Way, Tex, Hornet, Rooster and Brewer were scoping out the house.

  The prospect called twenty minutes ago stating the woman packed up her kids in the minivan and left. It took us ten to get here. The woman really needed a new security system. The one she had was shit and got popped in less than a minute.

  Thumbing through the papers in the filing cabinet, the woman had a serious spending habit and kept every fucking credit card bill, all filed exactly in order. On the Visa charge, there was a spot for Barry that listed everything he bought or went using the card.

  Pulling them from the confines it showed that yes, in fact, he stopped using that card about four months ago. Therefore, looking at the later ones became a priority trying to find out if there was a pattern.

  Grabbing my phone, I snapped pictures of all the charges going back a year, intent on giving them to Wrong Way to decipher because nothing stood out like a sore thumb at first glance.

  “Picture!” Hornet called out as I made my way into the living room where he stood, a picture off the wall and a safe behind it.

  Phoenix came grabbing his tools and getting to work. Fifteen seconds later, it was popped open. Inside was cash. A lot of cash. Stacks of hundreds each bound into five thousand increments. There had to be ninety grand in there.

  Other than that, there was nothing. Why would she have this much cash? The bigger question was did she know she had this much cash or was this all her husband?

  It left me with more questions than answers.

  “Take it. We’ll see who it belongs to. If it’s the wife, she’ll file a report. If it’s him, we’ll know he’s around.”

  Hornet nodded and pulled out the bills.

  We could always use more cash.

  The stadium was packed to capacity, and it was standing room only. It didn’t matter to me because no one was stupid enough to sit in our section. We’d donated a fuck load of money to this school and it came with some perks. Prized seats at the fifty-yard line. Not that even if we didn’t give money, we wouldn’t sit where the fuck we wanted.

  High school seemed so damn long ago and here I was with a junior in it. Had him when I was way too fuckin’ young, but he was one of the best things that happened to me. Fucking loved my kids.

  Not what they did sometimes, but kids were kids and all that shit.

  Entering the stands, Sophia, Greer’s mom, sat in our section on the very first row of bleachers where she sat at every single game. She smiled as we walked up to her.

  “Hey,” I said, wrapping my hand around her head, pulling it to me and kissing the top of her hair as she then smiled up at me.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  That smile of hers was what pulled me to her back in high school. Hell, pulled everyone. One look and I was hooked. Add in her chestnut hair, blue eyes, and curvaceous body, she was a knockout. Still was even after all these years. Sophia took care of herself in every way, still as beautiful as ever.

  Our relationship didn’t survive after we graduated. We held our shit together for Greer, but Sophia needed a different man than who I was. She wanted the man who was going to settle down at eighteen, get a steady job, and be there for dinner every night at five pm.

  She knew that mold didn’t fit me, but thought she could change me, making me into who she wanted and needed.

  Even at eighteen, I knew what I wanted and where my life was going to take me. I’d told her repeatedly, but it wasn’t what she envisioned in her life. She didn’t want to be part of a motorcycle club or anything that went along with it.

  We’d argue all the damn time about it, her thinking one day I’d change my mind and me knowing it wasn’t going to happen. My kid was important to me and I’d been a staple in his life every day. Sophia and I together though, was a recipe for disaster.

  She was a damn good woman then and now. Between us we worked hard to make our lives flow together these past sixteen years. Our relationship changed to friends instead of lovers. It didn’t happen overnight and we both had a temper so times on occasion, were bad.

  Now though, we worked as a team. She respected my life, and I respected hers.

  Sophia had been married once, but now divorced. She had a daughter named Lucia, who was around ten and spent the weekends with her father. He was a dick. I had zero use for him and was happy when she got shot of him three years ago.

  I took my seat behind her as my brothers gathered around taking their spots on the hard bleachers. My father pulled up the rear, leaned down and kissed Sophia on the cheek before moving up to sit.

  He had a very soft spot for Sophia. Hell, I did too. Good women tend to get those from men like us.

  Setting a hand on her shoulder, I leaned down to her ear. “Greer’s comin’ to my place after. You good with that?”

  She turned, her face very close to mine, those plump lips I remembered all too well red and wet. “Yeah. He told me. I’m having
a quiet night in after this. Lucia is with her father.”

  Sophia was a damn good mom to both of her kids. Loved them with everything she had inside of her and would give them the world. She was very active in their school and knew everything going on.

  “Nice. You hangin’ in there? Need anything?” I asked, knowing that she had money. One, because I sent it to her every month and two, she had a great job at the local insurance company. Not to mention, her dick of an ex-husband had to pay her child support and alimony; my attorney at the time made sure of it. Sophia and I were long over, but I’d always take care of her.

  Her head shook. “We’re good.” Sweet. Too damn sweet to be mixed up with the likes of me, but part of my family all the same. I hoped one day she would find herself a good man who did right by her.

  “You call me, you need anything.” She nodded as the game started, focusing all the attention around us to the boys on the field.

  Ravage had a shit ton going on, but I told my boy I’d be here, so I was.

  Fourth quarter, the Panthers were up by three and needed to make a touchdown to seal the deal. The play set into motion, the ball flying in the sky directly into my boy’s arms in the end zone. The crowd around us went wired, slamming their feet on the metal bleachers and screaming at the top of their lungs. The colors red and white twirled in the air from the cloths the cheerleaders sold and made a mint.

  Greer had a wide smile on his face as his teammates slapped his helmet in congratulations. The entire Panthers’ side was on a high of excitement. Here in Alabama we took all football as serious as they come. None of that pussy shit. Hardcore down and out, football was as sacred as church. Our church that was. Panthers and Roll Tide all day every day.

  Two men caught my attention walking in front of the gate on our side of the field, and everyone else around us because they were yelling very stupidly that the Panthers sucked ass. The once rowdy crowd now turned into a silent one. The men’s steps were sloppy telling me they had one too many. And people said I was a dick for what I did. At least I’d never show up to my kid’s game drunk off my ass making a damn scene like these fuckers.

 

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