by J Bree
Curse my broken soul but it takes everything in me not to curl into him, to take the intimacy he’s clearly offering me. “I understand that, but that man… he offered me sanctuary. I could see the sincerity when he saw the burns on my arms. Could you not let him go, for me? Has he hurt you in some other way?”
He chuckles under his breath, leaning in until I can feel the heat of his body against mine. "Baby girl, no one hurts me. He's a job, nothing more. I got what I needed and we can let him go. He might come back for us someday though, baby girl. His daddy is a big player and if I don’t go after him it could burn us later.“
I nod and chew on my lip, craving his touch and fearing it at the same time. I hate this. I hate what’s been done to me, that I can’t even give him what I want to.
He sees this on my face and backs up.
My temper flares out of nowhere, frustration and pent up anger unleashing on the one person who doesn’t deserve it.
"I don't want to be treated like fucking glass!" I hiss at him, furious that tears start welling up in my eyes again. I'm so angry that I've been so badly broken that I could scream.
He holds his hands up where I can see them but his eyes are fierce as he takes me in. "I'm treating you like you're important to me because you are. I can fucking wait. I can wait for-fucking-ever if I have to because I'm not going to be the next guy to fucking hurt you. I'm going to make sure that I'm it for you for the rest of my fucking life. I'm going to love you and protect you and fucking carve up anyone that tries to get close to you. I'm going to put a baby in your belly and we're going to be so fucking happy together. I'll do anything to make sure you're here and mine, Odie, fucking anything."
The trembling in my arms gets worse and the tears start to fall. "You shouldn't want me. How can you want me like that? I can't be the seductive woman you want, that woman is dead."
He walks over to the fridge and grabs a couple of beers, offering me one and shrugging when I wave him off. I want to break something. I want to find my father and scratch his eyes out, spit on him, break his bones for doing this to me. Training me to be a good girl who obeys his orders and lays there in silence while she’s raped.
That’s not who I want to be!
"Do it. I can see the fire, baby, let it out."
My temper is unbelievable and now I want to claw his eyes out too. I stand up, just barely stopping myself from stamping my foot like a petulant child. "Stop fucking calling me baby! I am not yours. How can I be when I can’t stand the thought of being touched? I will not have sex with you or any other man willingly, I know it! And I cannot sit around in this apartment waiting for you to decide what to do with me. You’ll get bored of playing house with a broken woman. How can you not?“
His eyes flare and burn into my skin with their intensity. "Oh yeah? What else, Odette? Tell me what else will and won't be happening here."
My lip trembles. His voice is pitched low and dark but he doesn’t look angry. He sets the beer down on the coffee table and moves to stand in front of me again. I'm tall for a woman, curvy in the right places, and yet I look tiny compared to him.
"I'm not sitting on a pedestal for you to show off to your friends. I'm not something for you to possess."
He nods at me, one of his shoulders lifting into a half shrug. "Sure. That's all perfectly fine. You wanna hear my list of demands?"
My legs nearly give out on me but by sheer will alone I keep myself upright. I wave my hand dismissively, like this is a reasonable conversation and not a screaming match between a broken woman and the monster that guards her. "Go on."
His lips stretch into a smirk. “You already know what I want. You're not going anywhere without me knowing about it and keeping you safe. This is Mounts Bay, it's not a safe place for anyone, let alone a fucking knock-out like you. You're sleeping in my bed, period. I won't touch you until you beg me to do it and I promise you, Odette, you're going to fucking beg. You're not going to look at any other man. You're going to stay alive and right here in my apartment and you're going to try to find some joy or zen or some shit. You’re going to stop crying over shit that doesn’t matter, you’re going to paint and bake and fucking destroy my apartment for all I care. They're my demands."
I swallow. Everything on his list is exactly what I want, everything he’s giving me and now I crave from him. I desperately want it all and for it to never end but I can’t accept the part where I am some treasured person to him. That’s not the woman I am, not anymore.
I have to warn him away, even if that leaves me with nothing. "I can’t be that person for you. I can't even look at a man without feeling repulsion. Not even… for someone I love like you, mon monstre.“
He leans forward until his nose nearly touches mine. “I don’t see repulsion, baby girl. I see fire and rage and blood and, fuck me, that’s my favorite fucking cocktail; the Molotov kind.”
Chapter Twenty
Illi
I wasn’t lying when I told Odie I wasn't going to hunt Chance down and kill the fucker.
But I also didn’t tell her I was going to find him and make sure he isn’t going to come back here with his MC and set the warehouse on fire while we sleep. I’ve spent weeks torturing him, I highly doubt he’s going to leave here and forget about that.
I’m not letting Odie get hurt by this shit, not ever again.
She’s getting closer to me. Her outburst was a great fucking sign, she’s getting frustrated over this stalemate we’ve reached and she’s getting ready to move on… I could fucking nut over the thought of it, it’s been that fucking long.
Patience is a virtue and I’m fucking paving my way out of hell with that shit.
I call Harbin on my way out for the night, once I’ve triple checked the alarms and made sure Odie has her gun at her side. She was fucking lucky Chance was half dead when he came up and she had time to get to the bedroom to grab it. I helped her pick out a holster and fit it before we went to bed. The sight of her standing in front of her canvas with the gun on her thigh… I’m going to enjoy it in the shower later. Those fucking legs of hers… I need them wrapped around my fucking neck while she rides out a brain-splintering orgasm on my face.
Fuck.
I need to find some focus and I need to find it now.
Harbin picks up and grunts down the line at me like a grumpy fuck. “What’s wrong with you?”
He snorts. “I can feel the war coming, man. I can feel that shit in the air, I’m just trying to figure out which one will start first, you feel me? Your friend-”
“We’re not friends. He’s made that fucking clear.” I cut him off.
He sighs. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all week. Did you hear Grimm’s heading to the Bay to take over? The Boar must be fucking sweating.”
I scoff at him. “Yeah, I was the one who gave the Viper the heads up.”
Harbin laughs. “I heard that intel cost him some fingers. I hope you made the dickhead swallow them.”
Nah, I popped those suckers into a jar. I’m starting a collection for my girl, all the parts of people I take for disrespecting her. I’m going to give her some heads on platters soon.
“Speaking of Grimm, have you seen his kid wandering around the docks? He’s run off on me.”
Harbin groans at me. “Are you for fucking real? Man, it’s bad enough you took him! I can’t believe Roxas didn’t talk you out of that shit.”
I pull the car into the lot at the biker bar, the Choke, on the other side of the docks. It’s less popular which makes it a great place to hang out and not bump into D’Ardo. “He didn’t even try to talk me out of it. Fuck, he gave me the fucking map to find him. I just need to have a chat with Chance, one final talk to make sure he’s leaving this place for good. I’m at the Choke, come get a drink with me.”
He mumbles something down the line to me, grumpy but I take it as an agreement and hang up.
There’s enough guys that drink here on the regular I can hit up about Chance, a few of
them owe me and others who just want to stay on my good side. Growing up in this place and becoming a big player on the board means everyone is quick to spill their guts to you. Even if it’s just to avoid you spilling them for real instead.
The mood in the place is fucking terrible and I move towards the bar to find some whiskey and some familiar faces.
I spend an hour catching up with some old contacts, no one knowing anything worth running out for. I work through the room, only skipping Domnhall O’Cronin because he’s a mouthy, useless dick who would lie just to fuck me over. The kid he’s with looks fucking miserable, all dark hair and moody eyebrows, and I give him a sarcastic salute with my beer bottle.
Finally Roxas and Harbin arrive, motioning me over to the booths in the back.
Not a great sign.
I cut straight to the chase. “Did you find him?”
Harbin gives me a look over the top of his shot glass. “He’s the least of our fucking problems, man.”
Roxas, serious and ignoring the drink in front of him, does a casual look around the room but I see through it. He’s scouting, making sure we’re not being watched. Something’s up. "You need to get away from the Jackal now, man, before he takes you down with him."
I try not to let the irritation show on my face. I’m so fucking over hearing about how insane D’Ardo really is. He’s a fucking poser, someone who was a great friend but lost his head once he made it to the big time.
Harbin nods like he knows exactly what I'm thinking. "I get it, man, but he's doing shady fucking shit and it’s only getting worse. Between him and the Boar, the Bay isn’t going to be the shining Utopia it once was. It’s going to be rubble.”
I drain my glass. "I get it. They’re both fucked and they’re taking us down with them. I have a new plan. I’m taking my girl and the kid, and getting us the fuck out of here. D’Ardo can get the fuck over his little obsession.”
They exchange a look and then Harbin tries again. "Nah, man. You need to listen. He has a fucking bomb, it's big enough to take out the state once it's finished. That guy you picked up for him? He just put it all together. The Chaos Demons want it, that’s why they’re hanging around. The entire city is going to be full of crazies, all of them hard over this impending nuclear war.”
He drains his glass and scrubs a hand over his face. “Do you think the Jackal is crazy enough to detonate the thing? Do you know why he wants it in the first place?”
I nod. “He wants to be the biggest player. That’s all he’s ever wanted, to be the biggest guy in the room. Took a baseball bat to the back of my head when I called him out on his shit.”
I hear a throat clear and look up to see the O’Cronin kid standing by the table. Harbin leans back in his seat, his eyes narrowing. “Are you eavesdropping for your old man, Aodhan? We’re not the types to let that shit go.”
He scoffs at him, completely unrepentant, and I almost laugh at him. Almost, but the conversation at hand doesn’t exactly have me in the best fucking mood.
Aodhan steps a little closer and jerks his head at me, “I heard you asking around about the biker you lost. How much are you paying for the details of where he went?”
Well.
He has my attention. “I’ve got a little green on me. Did Domnhall send you over? I don’t take his word on anything.”
Aodhan scoff. “Good, he’s a fucking thief. I’ve been working on the boats at the docks. I’ve been seeing a lot down there lately.”
I give him a once over, then turn back to Harbin. He pauses for a second and then shrugs. I pull my wallet out and pull out a wad of green. The kid glances over his shoulder and makes sure Domnhall still isn’t watching before he takes it and stashes it away.
Interesting.
“The cut up biker went down to the boats and waited around for the next lot of Demons to show up there. His younger brother was pissed to see him there. Said something about a missing shipment but Colt didn’t back down. He didn’t say you’d taken him.”
Fuck.
Fuck me. “Did you just say Colt? I took Chance Graves.”
Aodhan shakes his head. “You definitely took Colt. Chance is a frequent visitor to the Bay, I could pick him out of a line up blindfolded at this point. He’s a fucking asshole, too big for his biker britches. Colt never comes down, he’s always at Grimm’s beck and call back in Texas.”
I scrub my hand over my face. This just gets worse and worse. “How do you know this much about the Graves?”
Aodhan shrugs. “You know the score man, if you wanna eat in the Bay you learn to see everything and fucking nothing.”
That’s a fair point. He turns to leave and I stop him, curious about this fucking kid who came from nowhere. “What are you going to do with the cash, kid?”
He stares me straight in the eye and I know he’s not lying. “I’m going to feed my Ma and my little sisters because Domnhall doesn’t. You need anything else down at the docks, gimme a call. I see a lot.”
I just fucking might.
I check out the boat docks but there’s nothing there.
I’m definitely going to pay for taking Colt Graves, no question. Bikers have a fucking twisted way of doing things but oldest sons… yeah, Grimm’s coming after me for sure for torturing his future Prez sonny-boy. There’s so much bad juju going around at the moment I might just need to skip town for a few weeks, make sure my girl and I don’t get caught up in any of this bullshit.
I’ve never thrown someone under the bus for my work before but I’m tempted to nark on the Viper for once. I won’t, I have standards and my pride, but fuck him for this shit.
I get back to the apartment and find Odie scrubbing the floor, on her hands and knees and I swear I have a religious experience over the sight of her. Her hair is shining down her back and her ass… my fucking god, I want to slap it while I pound into her from behind.
Right.
Cold shower time. Icy water is what my dick needs right now.
“Hey, baby girl. How was your day?” I call out, prying my eyes away from her and hanging my leather jacket up.
She makes this happy noise in the back of her throat, the one she always makes for me and I’ve started dreaming about how she’ll sound naked in my bed, all soft and sated. “I think I’ve gotten all of the paint out! I’m so relieved, I was worried it would ruin the flooring! The rug is ruined though. We’ll need to replace it, I’m so sorry, mon monstre.”
I literally could not give less of a fuck about the rug. “No sweat, baby. Did you paint me again? I want to see it, just let me grab a shower. I don’t want you seeing me all bloody.”
I’m not bloody but there’s whiskey on my breath and I’ll never fucking forget the feeling of her lurching away from me to puke. That reminds me, I need to chase up the cartel with Roxas. Everytime I see him something else fucking comes up. I need the Bay to settle the fuck down for five minutes so I can start my hunt. I need to right some wrongs for my girl.
I shower quickly and then head back out to the living room to find Odie. I don’t put on a shirt because there’s nothing better than the lusty looks she gives my bare chest. Fuck, it goes straight to my cock and I’ve become a glutton for punishment these days.
She stands there with her back to me, covering the painting from my view with all of those curves of hers. It’s a fucking great distraction but I forget about the painting altogether for a second there. That fucking ass of hers. Fuck me.
“It’s only my second try. It’s not… perfect yet.” She says, chewing on her lip a little. I can’t see her doing it, but I hear it in her voice.
“Baby girl, I don’t know good art from shit art, but if you’ve done it then I’m sure it’s perfect. Those hands of yours wouldn’t do anything less than that.”
She glances over her shoulder at me, her hair falling across her face and I wish I could take a photo of how she looks right then. If I didn’t already know she is it for me… this is the moment. The ocean clear in the window behin
d her, the colorful pots of paint everywhere around her, and my shirt stained from all of her hard work clinging to her body.
Fucking perfect.
She grins a little wider and steps to the side, ducking her head away so she doesn’t see my reaction.
She’s a fucking savant.
The painting is fucking everything. I barely recognize the man staring back at me. The Butcher I see in the mirror stares back at me but he’s different. Fierce but more than that, possessive. Strong and capable. Sexual.
Fuck, this is how she sees me.
“Baby girl, you’re too fucking good for me. I’m going to do everything in my power to be this man for you. I’m going to be this man if it fucking kills me.”
She grins and her face tips up, wrinkling that nose of hers at me. “You are this man, mon monstre. I don’t think I’ve done you justice at all. Come eat with me. I cooked us some food.”
I take her hand and lead her over to the dining table, seating her next to me where I can tuck her under my arm. She hums at me, all fucking happy, and I grab the food to lay out for us both. Over my dead fucking body is she serving me. No, she can take a load off of her feet after cooking for me and let me take care of her for a while.
The food is fucking good.
If I’m not careful I’ll end up putting on a hundred pounds eating with her. She refuses a beer but I pour her a glass of wine and she sips at it delicately. I can always tell when she likes things, the corners of her mouth twitches happily.
“What are you painting tomorrow for me, baby girl?”
She shrugs a little. “I’m trying to do the sunrise but I can’t get it right. The colors… they’re not quite right. I need them to make me weep.”
That sounds fucking awful but I keep my mouth shut about it, digging into the food instead. She laughs at me, the sound contagious until I’m grinning back at her.
“And how was your day, dear? Kill many men?”
The attitude on her, fuck me. “Nah, quiet night. I’m taking some time off soon. We need to get out of here for a while, just until things quieten down a bit.”
