My hands go up and I freeze. I’m not worried about me, but this guy is agitated as hell and if I push, Lo will end up in his crosshairs.
“Take it easy,” he says to me, pointing the barrel at my head before his eyes shift and he turns to Lo. “I’m only here to take what’s mine.”
Lo is trembling. She’s pleading with me through her eyes. She’s afraid for me, but I don’t give a damn what this guy wants. He isn’t getting her.
“She stays here,” I grind out through my locked jaw. “You and me though.” I lower my hands. “We can work this out.”
He’s packing with one hand and holding the gun on me with the other. “There’s nothing to work out with you. Lo has agreed to come back home. Her mother needs her.”
Fuck. My gaze moves from him to Lo. She’s still pleading. Her mouth is moving but nothing is coming out.
“Lo,” I say. “Are you going with this guy?”
She leans forward like she’s reaching for me, then she places one trembling hand over her heart. “I need to, Hawk. He has my mother.” She’s almost in tears again, but she’s holding them back. She’s being strong.
“So this is what you want?”
She sobs before she answers. “Yes.”
I start crossing the room to her. “I’m not accepting that.”
“No.” Lo holds up one hand to stop me. “Please, Hawk. I’ve made my choice. Just go.”
I’m not sure what this jackass has done to my Lo, but the longer I stay, the harder it seems to hit her. I can’t stand by and watch her hurt, but I can’t walk away either. My throat is closing in and I swallow a ball of doubt before I can speak again. “Lo, if he’s holding you against your will.”
She stops me again. She’s up on her feet, and she crosses the room to me. Jackass trains the barrel on us both. “This is what I want, Hawk. Darren isn’t making me say anything I don’t want to.” Her voice cracks and she catches her breath. “I want to go home. Please just understand that.”
A sharpness pierces through my chest at the pain in her eyes. She’s suffering, and I can’t stand that I’m the one bringing it on her. “Fine.” I throw my hands up and wave her off. “If that’s what you want, I’ll leave.”
“Please.” The word is barely more than a whisper to my back.
I turn to Darren. “You can take that gun out of my face now. She’s yours. She doesn't want me anymore.”
He smirks and lowers the weapon. “She was always mine.”
I nod and step through the doorway. My hand is on the doorknob, and I pull it closed behind me.
Through the closing slit, I see Lo. He’s talking to her. He’s telling her to throw her stuff in the bag and get ready to leave. But she isn’t doing what he says. She’s watching me. She’s hoping I didn’t fall for the show she just put on. I wait until she’s near the bed and he’s standing behind the door, digging through her closet, before I turn.
I made a promise to myself once. After losing those I loved one by one, I made a deal with God. The next time the life of a loved one was one the line, he’d better take mine instead. And I meant it.
The second I have the door almost all the way shut, I shove it back open with everything I have. I stand between Lo and the gun, catching Darren off guard.
“Run, Lo,” I yell. It’s not my voice I hear. It’s strangled and harsh.
Lo hesitates. Darren tries to shift to make her his target, but I block him.
Then it happens.
Chapter 9
Lotus
Darren is crazy. I realized that on our third date when he told me he was going to marry me and have my mother and I move in with him.
I knew he was crazier still when he told my the same thing, but she cried and thanked him.
The man standing across the room from me holding a gun to Hawk’s forehead isn’t sane enough to realize he’s about to kill someone. Hawk is strong, and he’s smart. He’s built for battle. On an equal playing field, he’d take Darren down with little effort.
But Darren isn’t playing fair and Hawk’s about to get himself killed.
As soon as I begin to move, Hawk shouts at me to stop. I don’t. This man means more to me than anything. I’m not going to lose him. I step between them and rest my forehead on the barrel of Darren’s gun.
Hawk shakes behind me. I feel his energy running through my body. He’s telling me to stop. He wants me to move. But I can’t. Darren won’t hurt me. He may not know what love really is, but he believes he has that with me.
He won’t risk it.
“I’m coming with you, Darren,” I say. My voice is soft and calm. I don’t know where I’m getting the strength to keep it that way, but I’m thankful for it because Darren’s focusing on me again. “We don’t need him.” I put my hand on the gun. “He doesn’t matter to me.”
Darren’s gaze pulses between Hawk and me. He’s thinking. He is wondering if I’m being honest. Then I see his expression soften, and I know he’s on my side again. “Let’s just go. I can buy new clothes when we get home.”
“Are you sure?” Darren says. He rests the back of his hand on my cheek. He’s still holding the gun but it’s down at his side.
“Yes,” I tell him. “But we have to go now.”
He nods and picks up the one bag we’ve managed to pack.
I turn to Hawk. My voice is pleading. I need him to understand Darren will shoot him. He will aim to kill.
“You have to let me go now.”
Hawk’s eyes are full of emotion. He grinds his jaw and reaches for me, but I step out of the way. He doesn't say anything, just shifts to the left to give us room to pass.
Darren turns me around. He wants me in front of him while he keeps an eye on Hawk. I’m out the door first. Darren’s at my back when fingers grab around my hand and jerk me sideways. I land against Hawk’s solid chest and he slams the door shut, pushing Darren outside. Next, he locks the door and moves us both to the wall with the closet.
A shower of bullets cut through the door, creating small holes of light all the way to the far wall. There is shouting. Then two more shots. Then a knock on the door.
“Smokey?” Hawk yells.
He has me by the arms and is holding on so tightly that I can’t break free. I don’t want to.
“And Scout. Your guy is down. We’ve got him covered.”
My hand flies to my chest. My heart is beating so wildly it hurts.
Hawk spins around and pulls me in, so I have to tilt my head up to see him. He’s sweating and breathing as hard as I am. He wants to say something. I see the need in his eyes. But he doesn’t. His lips crash down on mine and he devours what breath I have left. I moan into his mouth, releasing all the pent-up fear. We stay like that, locked together, for what seems like an eternity before the knocking on the door starts again.
“Hawk, man. You alright in there?”
Our mouths part but Hawk doesn't budge from holding me tight. I don’t mind. I could use the closeness for a while. I don’t want an inch of space between us until I know for sure Darren isn’t a threat anymore.
Without releasing me, Hawk reaches around my shoulder and unlocks the door.
One man, close to Hawk’s height and size, walks in holding Darren’s gun. “You guys alright?” he repeats.
I can’t answer. I’m shaking too much to speak, but Hawk has everything under control.
“Where is he?” he asks.
“Just outside. Scout’s got him.”
I venture an inch out of Hawk’s hold. “Is he okay?” I don’t know why it matters, but I don’t want anyone blamed for Darren’s death but me.
Smokey glances out the door, then smiles. “Let’s just say he’s learned you only point a gun at a war veteran if you plan to kill him.”
Another man steps into the doorway. He’s not as big as Hawk and the other but what he lacks in height, he makes up for in hard, lean muscle. “He’s alive. But after we’re done with him, he won’t be bothering you ever aga
in.”
I take in a deep breath, my first since Darren showed up outside the restaurant, and I turn to Hawk.
He doesn’t say a word. He just scoops me up in his arms like I’m a feather from one of his tattoo birds and he carries me out of the apartment. I don’t know where we are going, but as long as I’m with Hawk, it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m with him, I know I’m safe.
Hawk
I almost lost her. But I didn’t. Lo is safe and cradled into my chest. Her eyes are closed and her hands are strung around my neck. She’s holding on for dear life.
“I’m taking her home,” I shoot over my shoulder. “You guys got this?”
Smokey nods first. “Don’t worry. The cops are already on their way.”
Scout is standing over Darren’s passed out body. There is a trail of blood coming from Darren’s temple, so I can only assume Scout gave him the hilt end of his own weapon.
Normally, the club doesn’t involve the police in our matters, but tonight has been different. I’m taking no chances with this sicko. His days of tormenting women are over.
“I need to check on my mom,” Lo says as she lifts her head off my shoulder.
I smile down at her. “As soon as I get you home. We can even leave first thing in the morning if you want to check on her in person.”
“You’d do that for me?” she asks and my heart about bursts through my chest.
“I’d do anything for you.”
Lo rests her head back on my shoulder and her eyes close again. “You know. For a second there, I wasn’t sure we both were going to make it out of there alive.”
My chest tightens at the thought. I want to ball my fists to release some of the pressure building up inside me, but I can’t without disturbing Lo.
“I thought the same,” I say instead. “And it about killed me.”
Lo rests her hand on my chest and I melt. “You’d be okay without me,” she says.
I stop walking and wait for her to look up at me. “If anything had happened to you, I wouldn't want to keep on living.”
She reaches the hand resting on my chest up to cup my cheek. Her eyes are soft in the darkness, and I can’t tell if the tears in her eyes are emotion driven or exhaustion. “I love you, Hawk,” she says.
She pushes herself up and I meet her halfway until our mouths are locked together again. She’s kissing me as if she hasn't been touched in ages and I’m her only salvation. It’s not until she’s had her fill and she pulls away that I can tell her what’s been burning in my chest since the day she walked into my restaurant.
“Lo, I love you too.”
Epilogue
Lotus
It’s been three months since Darren found me. Once he was put into police custody and charged with kidnapping and two counts of attempted murder, I knew I wouldn’t have to worry about him again. Plus, Hawk and his club members passed along a threat of their own.
If Darren shows his face again anywhere near me, his body parts will be spread out so far it’d take years for the authorities to find them all.
I’ve moved in with Hawk. Camila and Jonus are still rooming together, and the new girl took over my room. She’s also splitting some of my shifts at the restaurant while I attend night classes to become a nurse. I’ve always liked helping people and seeing the need for more mental health services has driven me to want to serve.
It used to be that when I wasn’t at work, I was hiding out in my apartment. Now I barely have time to be alone. When I’m not working or going to school, I’m with Hawk. We spend most of our time together alone, laying around in bed, making love, or telling each other stories from our childhoods.
He’s opening up to me more each day. I finally learned what the tattoos are for. He has one for each brother or sister he lost while in the foster care system, and for each member of his squadron who didn’t make it home. There are close to two dozen of them all together. I can’t imagine the grief of losing that many people, but Hawk is letting me in and I believe it is helping him heal.
As for me, I’m also dealing with my past demons. I’ve started talking with my mother again, at Hawk’s urging, and I’m learning she’s going through her own mental hell. When my father died, she stopped living, and that’s why she struggles so much now.
Tonight, I’m at the clubhouse with Hawk. Tomorrow we’re leaving on a road trip to meet my mother and search out a community where she’d be better looked after. It’s all Hawk’s idea.
I haven’t had much time with him tonight. He’s popular around the club. I’ve spent most of the night sitting at a table with the patched members’ ol’ladies as they grill me on how I finally cracked the guy who wouldn’t open up to anyone.
“It wasn’t hard,” I tell them, before taking up my beer bottle and drowning my throat in beer. Hard is an understatement, but that’s a conversation for Hawk and me in private.
“Well, I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad you did,” Everly says. She’s Gunner’s daughter and married to one of the patched members. Hawk told me gaining her approval was the equivalent of earning a patch for the guys. “Though some of the member’s aren’t too happy about it.”
My ears perk up and I drop my bottle to the table. “Why?” I ask in all my innocent arrogance.
Bree is sitting beside me. She belongs to the president, Bear. “It’s not a bad thing if you ask me. Men with nothing to fight for are far more volatile, and Hawk as a loose cannon isn’t something most of us care to experience again.”
“Was he that bad?” I almost wish I could take the question back as soon as I ask it.
Everly answers. “Bad...is relative. But I do have to agree. The new Hawk is so much better than the old one.”
I don’t say it, but I agree as well. When I think back to all those times we watched each other from opposite sides of the restaurant when we could have been together, it reminds me how stubborn we both are and how we almost let each other slip away.
I won’t take him for granted again. Hawk is watching me from across the club bar again tonight. He’s at a table with the rest of the club’s officers, but his attention is on me. I can’t stop thinking about tonight, like every other night since I moved in. He’ll have those large, rough hands all over me. His mouth will cover every inch of my body. And when we’re in the heat of passion, he’ll pull me up to him and he’ll whisper in my ear that he loves me.
This huge motorcycle club alpha male loves me, and it makes my world complete.
Hawk
Lo doesn’t know it yet, but I have a surprise for her. She thinks we’re just going to visit her mother. It took some convincing to get her to agree to the trip, but once I promised I’d be by her side and back up her decision with her mom, she gave in and let me book a hotel room.
The whole drive up she told me about her childhood. I knew her father passed when she was young, and she raised her mother instead of the other way around. But on this trip, she’s telling me about the good times.
I’d worried about making this trip while she’s still recovering from her run-in with Darren but seeing her smile across the truck cab is priceless.
As we reach the city limits, she starts pointing at different places and telling me about them all. Her school. The parking lot the high schoolers hung out in. The skating rink where she lost her first tooth in a fall. The movie theater where she almost lost something else to a guy named Rick.
I’m watching Lo relive her past and it reminds me of the few good times I had of my own. Over the years I’d forgotten there were any.
We pull up to a blue-and-white apartment building on the edge of a busy main street and Lo points out the windows to what had been her bedroom several months ago. She doesn't know it, but I’ve already called the rental office and cleared her mother’s debt until the end of the year. Hopefully, we’ll be able to find a place closer to us, and Lo can help her mother finally come to grips with losing her father.
“I think I want to go in firs
t,” Lo says, undoing her seat belt and staring up at the apartment window.
I reach over the seat and take her hand in mine. “We’re in this together. You don’t have to face any of this alone.”
Her gaze shifts to me. “I know that. And I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and my mother.” She pauses and I feel her body tense. “I’m just not sure what I’m about to walk into, and I don’t want that to be your first impression of my mother.”
The love she feels is apparent in her frown, and I want nothing more than to wipe it off her face with a kiss. But I don’t. I love Lo, and I want to make things easier for her, but this time I have to take the backseat and follow her lead.
“I understand,” I say and lean over to kiss her cheek.
She puts her hand on the side of my face and holds me close while she closes her eyes and drops her forehead to mine.
“I don’t know what I would have done without you these last few weeks,” she says.
But it’s me who should be thanking her. And I plan to. Every damn day for the rest of my life.
I’ve even put my promise into ink. When Lo pulls away and reaches for the door handle, I stop her. “Before you go in, I have something I want to show you.”
She stalls and turns back to me, her lips parted in surprise. “What is it?” There’s hope in her voice.
I glance down to my shoulder and I pull my shirt sleeve up slowly, revealing the outline of my latest ink.
Lo covers her mouth with her hands and she shouts a happy noise I can’t make out in words, but I understand the meaning. She reaches out one finger and traces it.
“A lotus,” she says.
“It’s not completely visible with a t-shirt on, but when I wear my cuts, everyone will see my Lotus flower and know how much you mean to me.”
She squeals again, and I can’t get enough of it. She leans over and kisses me, then traces the tat again. “I love it, Hawk. It’s perfect.”
Hawk: Tempest Elite MC: Tempest Elite MC Book # 5 Page 7
